Shaftesburys Ethical Principle of Adaptation to Universal Harmony

languages than the English are not familiar. Besides, there is not at present in any language a presentation of the subject after the manner to be pursued here. An appreciation of Shaftesbury must be determined by a comparison of his ethical teaching with that of Hobbes. This is not the usual course. As a rule presentations and discussions of our author take him in and by himself with only incidental reference to Hobbes. This manner of treatment is acceptable if our aim is the expression of a judgment from our standpoint. And yet even this is open to serious objection. It is unfair to judge a writer of the beginning of the eighteenth century by the more advanced standard and culture of the commencement of the twentieth century. We must estimate an author in his historical setting, and more particularly with reference to some standard of his time. Such a criterion in ethical teaching in Shaftesbury's day was furnished by Hobbes from whom subsequent Englfsh ethical speculation took its rise. Shaftesbury's ethical system is diametrically opposed to that of Hobbes, but does not profess any such intention. We have no reason to believe that he intended a refutation of Hobbes. He refers to him several times by implication as when in his discussion, "Concerning Virtue or Merit" (I. 281), he mentions "a known way of reasoning on self- interest," according to which that which is of a social kind in us should of right be abolished. Here, as Robertson, the editor of the Ch...