A Manual of Moral Philosophy
Designed For
Colleges and High Schools.
By
Andrew P. Peabody, D.D., LL.D.
Plummer Professor of Christian Morals in Harvard University.
New York and Chicago:
A. S. Barnes And Company
1873
CONTENTS
Preface. Chapter 1. Action. Chapter II. The Springs Of Action. Section I. The Appetites. Section II. The Desires. Section III. The Affections. Chapter III. The Governing Principles Of Action. Chapter IV. The Right. Chapter V. Means And Sources Of Knowledge As To Right And Wrong. Section I. Conscience. Section II. Sources Of Knowledge. 1. Observation, Experience, And Tradition. Section III. Sources Of Knowledge. 2. Law. Section IV. Sources Of Knowledge. 3. Christianity. Chapter VI. Rights And Obligations. Chapter VII. Motive, Passion, And Habit. Chapter VIII. Virtues, And The Virtues. Chapter IX. Prudence; Or Duties To One's Self. Section I. Self-Preservation. Section II. The Attainment Of Knowledge. Section III. Self-Control. Section IV. Moral Self-Culture. Chapter X. Justice; Or, Duties To One's Fellow-Beings. Section I. Duties To God. Section II. Duties Of The Family. Section III. Veracity. Section IV. Honesty. Section V. Beneficence. Chapter XI. Fortitude; Or Duties With Reference To Unavoidable Evils And Sufferings. Section I. Patience. Section II. Submission. Section III. Courage. Chapter XII. Order; Or Duties As To Objects Under One's Own Control. Section I. Time. Section II. Place. Section III. Measure. Section IV. Manners. Section V. Government. Chapter XIII. Casuistry. Chapter XIV. Ancient History Of Moral Philosophy. Chapter XV. Modern History Of Moral Philosophy. Index. Footnotes
PREFACE.
This book has been prepared, particularly, for the use of the Freshman Class in Harvard College. The author has, at the same time, desired to meet the need, felt in our high schools, of a manual of Moral Science fitted for the more advanced classes.
In the preparation of this treatise, the author has been at no pains to avoid saying what others had said before. Yet the book is original, so far as such a book can be or ought to be original. The author has directly copied nothing except Dugald Stewart's classification of the Desires. But as his reading for several years has been principally in the department of ethics, it is highly probable that much of what he supposes to be his own thought may have been derived from other minds. Of course, there is no small part of the contents of a work of this kind, which is the common property of writers, and must in some form reappear in every elementary manual.
Should this work be favorably received, the author hopes to prepare, for higher college-classes, a textbook, embracing a more detailed and thorough discussion of the questions at issue among the different schools--past and present--of ethical science.
Table of contents (by pages)
- 1: A Manual of Moral Philosophy by Andrew P. Peabody
- 2: If the horrible enormities imputed to Nero were utterly bad
- 3: We always yield to the strongest motive
- 4: Omnipotence cannot do what is intrinsically impossible
- 5: C If God's foreknowledge is entire
- 6: The craving for repose and that for muscular action
- 7: A period when the presence of strangers is unwelcome
- 8: And among those who are the least timid
- 9: His neighbor would fain surpass
- 10: The benevolent affections are Love
- 11: Must ever be the worthy object of supreme reverence
- 12: The malevolent affections are Anger
- 13: To which human cognizance does not reach
- 14: We perceive then that expediency
- 15: Thus fitness or unfitness may be affirmed
- 16: But had by mistake given him a healing potion
- 17: And therefore unfit for body and mind
- 18: Incapable of minute discrimination
- 19: And therefore are unfit for human use
- 20: Filial piety and parental love
- 21: There are crimes worse than murder
- 22: Law is progressive in every civilized community
- 23: The brotherhood of the whole human race
- 24: But its precepts are all negative
- 25: Obligations correspond to rights
- 26: Rights appertaining to the person
- 27: Even in a war of unprovoked aggression
- 28: The age of mature discretion varies very widely
- 29: The freedom of the individual is rightfully restrained
- 30: Assessments can be more equitably made
- 31: Exterior motives are of a secondary order
- 32: Are incapable of being perverted to evil
- 33: Its discontinuance threatens still greater wretchedness
- 34: Words that denote a state or property
- 35: The atheist cannot escape or disown them
- 36: Piety is independent of virtue
- 37: Are objects on which my volitions take effect
- 38: If it does not enfeeble the mind
- 39: Self preservation is endangered by poverty
- 40: All reference to expediency and right
- 41: Already puts the outward life in peril
- 42: Would have been tempted to go to Rugby
- 43: Yet we virtually recognize a broader meaning of the word
- 44: Not in themselves of any intrinsic obligation
- 45: But of mutual esteem and confidence
- 46: Spontaneous falsehood betokens insanity
- 47: There may be an infinitesimal wrong
- 48: While the promisee supposed it lawful
- 49: Promissory oaths are of equally little worth
- 50: Its ground is intrinsic fitness
- 51: Almost necessitates dishonesty
- 52: Is closely contiguous to dishonesty
- 53: The contingencies which sagacity can foresee
- 54: But beneficence must be actual
- 55: Which would elude private charity
- 56: There is another scriptural precept
- 57: Even in the writings of the later Stoics
- 58: But the submission may be querulous and repining
- 59: Submission is not merely a passive
- 60: And deem it unworthy to succumb
- 61: In themselves morally indifferent
- 62: Rigid punctuality is an imperative duty
- 63: To a symmetry which all can understand
- 64: Abstinence from all forms of luxury and recreation
- 65: Temperance is better than abstinence
- 66: In one's demeanor and conduct toward others
- 67: Are always liable to speedy repeal
- 68: And resigned their power to functionaries lawfully elected
- 69: And if its administration violates private rights
- 70: Direct acts of beneficence are obviously incumbent on all
- 71: And to sacrifice prudence to beneficence
- 72: Make him fittingly the foremost object of our charity
- 73: The Peripatetics derived their philosophy from Aristotle
- 74: Epicurus specifies two kinds of pleasure
- 75: According to the Stoic philosophy
- 76: That Pyrrhonism is a synonyme for Scepticism
- 77: 1675 1729 followed Cudworth in the same line of thought
- 78: Benevolence constitutes virtue
- 79: 1747 1832 is Paley minus Christianity
- 80: Malebranche ascribes to the Supreme Being
- 81: Grounded in the belief that right and wrong are immutable
- 82: An insufficient rule of conduct
- 83: 16Sceptical school of philosophy
- 84: But in common usage it is synonymous with pity
- 85: As to modes of sabbatical observance
- 86: Patience comes from the present participle
- 87: That which is done ob aliquid
