380 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



67. 



Can there 

 be an inde- 

 pendent 

 morality '? 



cally represented by Kant's work. It had, indeed, been 

 started already by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, but it 

 had found its answer here in a reversion to common- 

 sense and not in any deeper investigation. How 

 much such an investigation was required can be seen if 

 we, for instance, look somewhat more closely at the 

 passage just quoted from Huxley's contribution to the 

 ' Symposium.' He there maintains his unproved con- 

 viction that morality is strong enough to hold its own. 

 As to this, the question may be asked. Does he mean by 

 morality simply the sense of obligation to some rule of 

 conduct, or does he mean by it a special, and if so, what 

 rule ? He further, at least, indicates that some dogma 

 or highest truth may be required whereby and whereon 

 to settle the definition of morality or of the Good, and 

 he desires that this be proved ; but he does not stop to 

 indicate what kind of proof would be satisfactory to 

 him. 



It is needless after what we have learned in the present 

 and former chapters of this history to remind the reader 

 that these are some of the questions which have been dis- 

 cussed at great length by continental, especially German, 

 philosophers during the nineteenth century. The neces- 

 sity to discuss them did not seem to be recognised in 

 this country till quite two generations later, for reasons, 

 which I have repeatedly indicated. Notably the practi- 

 cally most important of these questions, the ethical 

 problem, — as I showed in the foregoing chapter, — 

 received quite a new start and interest through Henry 

 Sidgwick's ' Methods of Ethics,' the first edition of 

 which appeared three years before the ' Symposium,' 



