3. Augustine's Influence

In the Church of the second century also, the expected kingdom of God was looked upon as the Highest Good. It was a result of the Hellenization of Christianity when an increasing influence was exerted, from Clement of Rome (Ad Corinthios,

xxxvi. 2) to Clement of Alexandria (Strom., VI., xii.), by the formula "the most perfect good is knowledge, which is to be chosen for its.own sake," without reference to anything else as in the quotation from Aristotle above. This knowledge (in the high sense given to the word gnosis, denoting a knowledge of the mysteries of God), since it has God for its highest, object, in a sense deifies man, and makes him immortal. Augustine's influence was epoch-makingforthe development of the idea here discussed. He removed it a considerable distance from the moralism, intellectualism, naturalism of the ancients, and returned to the Scriptural paths. In union with Paul, he departs most widely from moralistic naturalism. The ancient morality was capable of the religious interpretation that the natural powers were gifts of God; but Christian ethics presupposes new, supernatural powers, derived from the new creation by God's grace. The ancient -philosopher expected, for perfect happiness, to become what he already was by nature, through the energetic cultivation of the higher or spiritual part of his being, in itself good and making it dominate the lower or sensual part. Augustine taught that man can become something quite other than he is by nature, through correspondence to the divine. purpose. The period of Augustine's influence extends practically down to Schleierma,cher. Even Kant's conception of the Highest Good is not really a new one. In the %ritik der praktischen Vernunft (Riga, 1788), he treats of two different elements of the Highest Good-virtue conceived as an incessant progression toward perfect happiness, he calls the highest (supremum) good; but it is not yet the perfect and complete (consummatum) good, since to become this it requires a happiness proportioned to it, which is the second element of the Highest Good. The ultimate end of the universe is to be sought not in the happiness of rational beings, but in the Highest Good, which adds the condition of its accordance with the laws of virtue,

4. Schleiermacher's View

After Augustine Schleiermacher's teaching marks the next stage in the development. In his two treatises Ueber den Begrif dea hiichsten Guts (1827, 18301, the term denotes the sum of the products of moral activity, in so far as this activity still includes them in itself and continues to develop them. The total result of the operations of reason in the world through the human organization is the Highest Good-a perfect and complete whole, expressed in the terms " golden age," " per petual peace," " community of language," " king dom of heaven." In this organism of results, vir tue, their cause, is included as the powerful life of reason in the individuals. Schleiermacher's epoch making character in regard to this question con sists in his introduction into the concept of the

Highest Good of two new elements, the dominion of man over the earth and the blessings of civilization.

The place where alone, if God is all in all, the absolute ultimate end exists is God's own personal spirit, that of his Son, and those of the angels and saints. The life of God and the "eternal life" of his perfect children is the highest reality which exists for its own sake and renders the question of a purpose absurd. But what is life? In the Scrip tural conception of the life of God causation, ac tivity, incessant energy predominates among its constituent factors. In the eternal life of spirits that are like him, causation of religious acts in relation to him and of social acts in relation to the world of blessed spirits is a sinulaxly dominant fac tor. With this energy sensations of happiness are so inseparably connected that they can not be differentiated, as accidental consequences, from it as the end. To separate happiness as a subjective accident from the moral end is something only to be attempted by objectivism, which designates objective spiritual results, valuable in and for them selves, as the end. It calls them "good" because the object of life is their attainment, and disap proves of the ordinary meaning of the word "good," something which has the power to produce happiness in the individual consciousness. In opposition to this view, the Christian doctrine uses the term

"Highest Good" in the old eudemonistic sense, and maintains that the happiness produced in the blessed spirits by their perfect acts of causation is necessarily included in the absolute ultimate end.

Even when we call God himself the "objective

Highest Good," we do so only in distinction from the subjective eudaimonia (happiness) which he causes. And God is not a "good" in the abstract, but the Highest Good to himself, to the Son, and to the world. So far Schleiermacher is correct when he says in' his Christliche Ethik: " The assertion that God is the Highest Good is not altogether justifiable, four a thing is only classed among our goods '- when we have or possess it; but if we say that the possession of God or union with God is the

Highest Good, no objection can be raised." This possession is not an inactive possession. achleier macher insists that it, is an essential property of what we call a "good" to arouse a living activity,

and that an inactive condition, no matter bow richly endowed, does not come under this head; and

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the same is true also of "goods" not produced by human activity, of God and his dominion, in relation to the religious and social activities of the spirits, in which they are "blessed" (James i. 25). Now, the Christian faith knows of no capacity to produce these activities except through the Savior; and Sehleiermacher says, "accordingly the redemption through Christ is itself the Highest Good," thus including in the term the element of the gift of grace. It is easy enough to avoid any identification of this with the real end.