Ethics: Origin and Development - Peter Kropotkin

selves, in others, and in the world. Abstract meditation, solitary thought, in the end weaken the vital forces." (II, ii, 148.)

This is, according to Guyau, what was to take the place of sanction, which the defenders of Christian morality sought in religion and in the promise of the happier life after death. First of all, we find within ourselves the approval of the moral act, because our moral feeling, the feeling of fraternity, has been developing in man from the remotest times through social life and through observation of nature. Then man finds similar approval in the semi-conscious inclinations, habits, and instincts, which, though still not clear, are deeply ingrained in the nature of man as a social being. The whole human race has been brought up nder these influences for thou-sands and thousands of years, and if there are at times periods in the life of mankind when all these best qualities seem to be forgotten, after a certain time humanity begins again to strive for them. And when we seek the origin of these feelings, we find that they are implanted in man even deeper than his consciousness.

Then, in order to explain the power of the moral element in man, Guyau analyzed to what an extent the ability for self-sacrifice is developed in him, and showed how largely a desire for risk and struggle is inherent in human beings, not only in the minds of leaders, but also in the concerns of everyday life.

These passages constitute some of the best pages in his essay.

Generally speaking, it is safe to say that in his treatise on the bases of morality without obligation and without the sanction of religion, Guyau expressed the modern interpretation of morality and of its problems in the form it was taking in the minds of edu-cated men towards the beginning of the twentieth century.

It is clear from what has been said that Guyau did not intend to unfold all the bases of morality, but merely aimed to prove that morality, for its realization and development, has no need of the conception of obligation, or, in general, of any confirmation from without.

The very fact that man seeks to bring intensity into his life, i. e., to make it varied-if only he feels within himself the power to live such a life,-this very fact becomes in the interpretation of Guyau a mighty appeal to live just such a life. On the other hand man is urged along the same path by the desire and the joy of risk and of concrete struggle, and also by the joy of risk in thinking, (metaphysical risk, as Guyau called it). In other words, man is urged in the same direction by the pleasure which he feels as he advances toward the hypothetical in his thoughts, his life, his action, i.e., toward that which is only conceived by us as possible.