The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 22, August, 1859: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
Religion
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 22, August, 1859: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
But it is the last chapter which best shows the power of the author and
the pure and generous spirit with which the whole book is filled. Here
she shows why the Moral Law should be obeyed; and dividing the advocates
of Happiness as a motive into three classes, Euthumists, Public
Eudaimonists, and Private Eudaimonists, she refutes them all and
establishes her simple scheme, which she states in these words:--
"The law itself, the Eternal Right, for right's own sake, that alone
must be our motive, the spring of our resolution, the ground of our
obedience. Deep from our inmost souls comes forth the mandate, the bare
and simple law claiming the command of our whole existence merely by its
proper right, and disdaining alike to menace or to bribe."
The terms _Euthumism_ and _Eudaimonism_ are, perhaps, peculiar to this
essay, and may need some explanation. The Euthumist is one who assumes
moral pleasure as a sufficient reason why virtue should be sought; the
Eudaimonist believes we should be virtuous for the sake of affectional,
intellectual, and sensual pleasure; if he means the pleasure of all
mankind, he is a Public Eudaimonist; but if he means the pleasure of the
individual, he is a Private Eudaimonist. Democritus is reckoned the
first among Euthumists; and in England this school has been represented,
among others, by Henry More and Cumberland, by Sharrock, [Footnote:
Sharrock is a name unfamiliar to most readers. His [Greek: Hypothesis
aethikae] published in 1660, contains the first clear statement of
Euthumism made by any Englishman. See p.223.] Hutcheson, and Shaftesbury.
Paley thrust himself among Public Eudaimonists, and our author well
exposes his grovelling morals, aiming to produce the "greatest happiness
of the greatest number," a system which has too long been taught among
the students of our colleges and high schools. But he properly belongs
to the Private Eudaimonists; for this interpreter of ethics to the
ingenuous youth of England and America says, "Virtue is the doing good
to mankind in obedience to the will of God, _and for the sake of
everlasting happiness_. According to which definition, the good of
mankind is the subject, the will of God the rule, _and everlasting
happiness the motive of virtue_."
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