CHAPTER III. 



ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. 



1. THE conclusions of psychology, of physiology, of the 

 science of society and of the natural history of man as 

 given by Darwin, place the whole subject of conduct, and 

 particularly of moral conduct vast and complicated 

 as it is in a new and more intelligible light ; and they 

 will serve to place all future systems of ethics that duly 

 regard them on a more comprehensive and stable basis 

 than any former systems. 



After the revival, two centuries ago, of independent 

 ethical speculation, which had been suspended for the 

 previous sixteen centuries, all our English moralists, 

 following the example of Hobbes, the initiator of the 

 ethical Renaissance Locke, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, 

 Butler, Hume, Adam Smith, Bentham 7 with the natural 

 instinct for facts as opposed to theories, which has ever 

 since distinguished the English as compared with Con- 

 tinental thinkers, disregarding the current theological and 

 metaphysical dogmas respecting the nature of man and 

 his soul, endeavoured to anchor their moral systems on 

 the solid foundation of human nature as it really is. 

 Each one tried to base his system upon some principle 

 which he thought the most fundamental and permanent, 

 upon some fact which he thought the most central and 



