100 



In British ethical history, there have been two main lines 

 of contention as to the origin of those things valued as funda- 

 mental for ethics, namely, that maintained by the Intellec- 

 tualists, otherwise known as Intuitionists; and that maintained 

 by the earlier and later Utilitarians, partly allied to the Moral 

 Sense school. The facts themselves have been very little in 

 question: that justice, veracity, benevolence, etc., possess a 

 supreme value, no moralist of either school has denied. The 

 question, however, has been as to the origin and nature of 

 these virtues. We purpose, therefore, to trace, briefly, the 

 development of these two lines of thought. 



II. HISTORICAL SURVEY. 



"The main stream of English ethics, so far as it flows in- 

 dependently of revelational theology, begins with Hobbes and 

 the replies that Hobbes provoked." 1 



Following from the many changes consequent upon the 

 Reformation, political relations had been greatly disturbed. 

 Questions dealing with the subject of international relations 

 were in the air. In England the civil war had disturbed men's 

 minds in a marked degree on the whole problem of government, 

 and the individual's relation to it. "In the resulting chaotic 

 condition of public law, several writers both Catholic and 

 Protestant attempted to supply the void of regulative 

 principles by developing that conception of the Law of Nature 

 which the Schoolmen had formed, partly by tradition from 

 Cicero through Augustine, and partly from the recently re- 

 vived study of Roman Jurisprudence." According to Grotius 2 

 and contemporary writers, Natural Law was considered to 

 be a part of Divine Law, and was essentially inherent in the 

 nature of man. Such Natural Law, therefore, is as unalterable, 

 even by God himself, as the truths of mathematics. 



1. HOBBES. 



There had developed at this time the conception of a ' state 

 of nature', partly social, but scarcely political, in which, in 

 primitive times, individuals or single families had lived 

 peaceably side by side under none other than 'natural' laws. 

 But this involved the whole question of the origin and de- 

 velopment of moral and civil laws and produced a critical con- 

 troversy. It was at such a time, when the fundamental bases 



Sidgwick, "History of Ethics", 5th ed., Macmillan & Co., 

 p. 158. 

 2 1583-1645. 



