A similar movement of thought has introduced a like modification into the Rationalistic theory. According to older doctrines, the individual reason is mysteriously charged with certain _à priori_ principles which are to us laws of knowledge and of action; whereas the form of Rationalism which is now in the ascendant resembles the theory of natural evolution in this, that as the latter finds the race more real than the individual, and the individual to exist only in the race, so the former looks upon the individual reason as but a finite manifestation of the universal reason, and attempts to show the principles or constitutive elements of this universal reason or consciousness in their logical or necessary connection--leaving open to empirical investigation the way in which they have gradually disclosed themselves in the individual human subject, and in the expression of the collective life of the race. Thus, as Natural Ethics is divided into an individualistic and an historical view, a similar distinction might be made in Rational Ethics, though in this case it would be more difficult to follow out the distinction in detail; and many ethical systems cannot be said to have kept consistently either to one side of it or to the other. In the following discussion I shall investigate the ethical theory which is founded on the basis of Naturalism--working out and criticising in somewhat greater detail that form of the theory which, from the agreement it lays claim to with the results of modern science, plays so important a part in contemporary philosophical thought. FOOTNOTES: [1] Werke, ed. Hartenstein (1867), iii. 532. [2] Cf. Kant, Werke, iv. 237. [3] Sermons, v., towards the end. [4] Essay on the Passions and Affections, p. iv. [5] W. H. Rolph, Biologische Probleme, zugleich als Versuch zur Entwicklung einer rationellen Ethik, 2d ed., p. 21. [6] Not to mention Kant, the consistent opponent of every eudæmonistic principle, or the doctrines of a political idealist such as Mazzini (see Life and Writings (1867), iv. 223), reference may be made to a writer like W. K. Clifford, who looks from the scientific point of view, and yet holds that "happiness is not to be desired for its own sake."--Lectures and Essays (1879), ii. 121, 173. [7] "Auch dieser Begriff [Glückseligkeit] ist an sich ein bloss formaler, der jede beliebige materiale Bestimmung zulässt."--Zeller, Ueber Begriff und Begründung der sittlichen Gesetze (1883), p. 23. [8] Methods of Ethics, book i. chap. i. § 5, 3d ed., p. 11. [9] "The rule, 'Let every one care for me,' is quite as simple, and, in a logical point of view, defines conduct as consistently and reasonably as the rule, 'Love your neighbour as yourself.'"--Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics (1882), p. 73. [10] Methods of Ethics, I. i. 3, p. 6.