GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

l8o ETHICS
temperature melt, given the same conditions, it always melts
at the same temperature, one example in the physical world
thus behaving conformably with the behaviour of another
like example. It is, therefore, Clarke pointed out, a char-
acteristic of things to behave lawfully. Mathematics, in
fact, applies to them. Similarly in the moral sphere; some
things, he maintained, are conformable with, or are fitted
to, our will in a way in which others are not This does
not mean simply that some things obey our wills and others
thwart them. What it does mean is that some things are
such as our wills naturally prescribe to us; they are, in
other words, such as we ought to do. These actions which
our will naturally prescribes to us possess what Clarke
called a certain fitness, and this fitness God has given to
them in just the same way as He has given laws to
nature. The laws of nature are immutable; so is moral
fitness, whereby certain kind* of action are conformable
with our wills. Now it is by means of the moral sense that
we recognize in regard to actions that they are conformable
and such as it is fitting for us to will.
II. BUTLER
Butler's Psychology. Statements such as those of
Hutcheson and Clarke are, so far as concerns their form
of presentation, little better than dogmatisms. Such and
such, these philosophers say, is the case; and, broadly
speaking, they leave it at that It is possible that they are
right; it is also possible that, as I hinted in the last chapter,
j udgments to the effect that so and so is ultimately valuable,
or -that so and so ought to be done, cannot in the long run
be defended, Nevertheless, there is considerably more to
be said from the objective intuitionist point of view than
has so far been suggested. For a more developed statement
I turn to Bishop Butler (1692-1752).
Butler's avowed" object is to make an inventory ofthe con*
tents of the human mind. His point of view is in part
ethical; he not only tells us what the various elements