be, regulated. In regard to matters of fact, the concurrent observation and experience of all other men produce an assurance which approaches to knowledge. Concerning matters of opinion or speculation, analogy is the only help we have, and it is from that alone we draw all our grounds of probability. After making some striking remarks on analogy Locke concludes: "This sort of probabili ty, which is the best conduct of rational experiments, and the rise of hypotheses, has also its use and influence; and a wary reasoning from analogy leads us often into the discovery of truths and useful productions which would otherwise lie concealed." (IV. Chs. 14. 15. 16.) As knowledge, or certainty, is to be had only by visible and certain truth, so error is not a fault of our knowledge, but a mistake of our judgment, giving assent to that which is not true. "There is but probability grounded upon experience or analological reasoning, but no certain knowledge, or demonstration."1)

But if assent be grounded on probability, how come men to give their assent contrary to probability, and hold so great a variety of opinions? The reasons may be reduced to these four; "want of proofs, want of ability to use them, want of will to use them, and wrong measures of probability". These wants and wrong measures have no foundation or justification in man's rational nature. "Every man", says Locke, "carries about him a touchstone if he will make use of it, to distinguish substantial gold from superficial glittering, truth from appearances. And indeed, this touchstone, which is natural reason, is spoiled and lost only by assumed prejudices, overweening presumption, and narrowing our minds." (C. U. Sect. III.) The reason, as an ethical faculty, is neither the moral law nor the lawgiver, but simply the faculty which discovers, grasps, and interprets a law. In the following chapter of our essay, we shall see first, an effort on the part of Locke to state the ethics of natural law; secondly, an attempt to bring ethics into the sphere

1) King, Life of Locke. p. 122.

of knowledge or certainty by a mathematical method, and thirdly, the admission of a transcendental factor to complete the demands of an universal morality. In all this, the reason alone is concerned. Here we need only call attention to the fact that Locke does not allow a special faculty set apart to the particular department of ethical knowledge. As he rejected innate ideas, so he rejects that doctrine of conscience which, in modern moral philosophy is the representative of innate ideas. Locke's whole aim is, to bring all the departments of faith and knowledge within the sphere of reason. When Locke defines conscience as "our own opinion of the moral rectitude or pravity of our Own actions", he is identifying conscience with judgment, making it a part of the practical reason, and to this position he holds throughout. "Conscience" he says, "is the judge, not the law. It is not the law of nature, but judging by that which is taken to be the law, and which acquits or condemns." (Marginalia pp. 38. 40.) Conscience may be used in two senses, first, as standing for judgment passed upon conduct proposed, or accomplished, approving or condemning, as the case may be. This assumes a law, according to which the judgment takes place. This law is grasped by reason, mediately or immediately. That conscience sits in judgment upon our actions, and judges according to a law, Locke most earnestly maintains. Secondly, conscience may be regarded as standing for a law written in the mind, independent of reason, and antecedent to all experience, not only accusing and acquitting, but informing and directing conduct by its own independent authority. Thus it becomes lawgiver, law, and judge. As such, it must be a permanent and an unalterable element in character. This form of doctrine Locke repudiates. Thus he expresses himself; "Natural powers may be improved by exercise, and afterwards weakened by neglect, and so, all the knowledge got by the exercise of those powers. But innate ideas, or propositions imprinted on the mind, I do not see how they can be improved or effaced." (Marginalia. 43. 44) What

Locke could not see, is that which is maintained by the consistent defenders of innate ideas. Professor Calderwood, says of conscience, "From its nature it follows that conscience cannot be educated. Education, whether in the sense of instruction or training, is impossible."1) He who maintains the doctrine of innate ideas which Locke assailed, must also in strict consistency, maintain the autocratic and independent nature of conscience, which he also assailed. They stand on exactly the same basis. Professor Calderwood is the only present day philosopher, so far as we know, who sqarely accepts Locke's challenge, and maintains, against him, innate ideas and a moral sense independent of the reason, and incapable either of development or of degeneration. Here the difference between these two theories is

clearly defined. But when we come to the authority of conscience, Locke takes the highest grounds. The laws about which conscience is conversant are to be obeyed before any human laws. 2) The doctrine of conscience, which will be further noticed in considering Natural Law, is the basis of his entire argument against the union of Church and State, and against persecution, while the uniform voice of conscience respecting fundamental moral principles is the foundation of his doctrine of civil society. Neither Clarke, Butler, nor Shaftesbury, although they speak in large sentences of moral sense or conscience, have given it a higher place and a more authoritative voice in ethics. What Locke maintains, is, that concience does not act without ratiocination, that conscience is the judge, not the law; that conscience does not create distinctions of good and evil, but simply judges by a rule: and that it is to be confounded neither with practical principles, nor with the law of nature. (Marginalia. 35-43.)

1) Handbook of Moral Philosophy, 14th Ed. p. 69.

2) Works II. 340. 341. 406. 407.

Chapter III.

The Foundations of Ethics.

I. Requisites for a foundation of ethics. By his psychology Locke commits himself to a purely rational morality which involves a rational theology. To ascertain in what sense morality involves theology, in Locke's view, will reveal the foundations of his ethical system. We have seen that Locke founds all certainty on intuition, on those "propositions that nobody has any doubt about", and that he makes the practical reason the ethical faculty; the faculty which must be employed in establishing an ethical basis. We have also seen that the fundamental certainty of intuition is the knowledge of our own existence, and that the fundamental certainty of the demonstrative reason is the knowledge of the existence of God. These two certainties seem to Locke a sufficient starting point for his ethical speculations, and in these two points his ethical speculations center.

Locke holds that the demands of a constructive morality are for a known or supposed lawmaker, a known law and its sanction. "What duty is cannot be understood without a law, nor a law be known or supposed without a lawmaker, or without reward or punishment." (I. 3; 12.) To establish morality upon its proper basis, we must first prove a law, which always supposes a lawmaker. This sovereign lawmaker, who has set rules and bounds to the actions of men, is God their Maker. (Lord King. Life of Locke. 313.) But as any system of morality that involves the notion of God takes its coloring from its conception of God, we must enquire into the nature of this fundamental certainty in Locke's ethical system.

II. The existence and concept of God. The existence of God belongs to demonstrative knowledge, because some

Curtis, Locke's Ethical Philosophy.

4

who never use their reason, or never turn their thoughts this way, deny His existence. Yet "it is as certain that there is a God as that the opposite angles made by the intersection of two straight lines are equal, . . . . the knowledge of God is the most natural discovery of the human reason." (I. 4; 16. 17.) Locke, with his friend Newton, makes use of the teleological argument, and finds in the✔ structure of the eye "sufficient to convince us of an Allwise Contriver". (Gov. I. 53.) But the proof which he emphasizes most is the psychological. He objects to the proof offered by Descartes, on the ground that "by it senseless matter might be the first Eternal Being and cause of all things, as well as an immaterial intelligent spirit; this, joined to his shutting out the consideration of final causes from his philosophy, and his laboring to invalidate all proofs of a God but his own, does unavoidably draw upon him some suspicion."1) This dogmatism was quite foreign to Locke's view of the rules of philosophizing. (IV. 10. 7.) Descartes "deduces his proof of a God from the idea of God which we have in us". Locke takes the position; "Real existence can be proved only by real existence; our own existence is real; it is the highest certainty, from whence, therefore, may be drawn, by a train of ideas, the surest and most incontestable proofs of the existence of a God." First, is the intuitive certainty one has of his own personal existence, that he exists, that he is something. Secondly, man knows by an intuitive certainty, that bare nothing can no more produce any real being than it can be equal to two right angles, hence it is clear that from eternity there has been something. Thirdly, it is evident, that what had its being and beginning from

1) Lord King. Life of Locke. 314-316. The relations of Locke and Descartes have recently excited attention in Germany. See Dr. Sommer, Locke's Verhältniss zu Descartes. 1887. Dr. Geil, Ueber die Abh. Locke's von Descartes, 1887. Bruno Erdmann, Descartes, und Locke, Archiv für Gottesidee bei Locke Gesch. d. Philos. Bd. II. 99-122. Dr. Geil, Die und dessen Gottesbeweis, Archiv für Gesch. d. Philos. Bd. III. 579-596. 1890.