Etherization

(Med.) The administration of ether by inhalation, as an anesthetic. E'therize, v. α. Τo convert into ether; to stupefy with ether. Eth'ic, or ETHICAL, a . [Fr. éthique ; Lat. ethic us ; Gr. ethikos, from ethos , custom, usage, manners, habits.] Relating to manners or morals; treating of morality; delivering precepts of morality. Eth'ically, adv . According to the doctrines of morality. Eth'ies, n. sing. or pl. [Fr. éthique ; Gr. ethic a , from ethos.] The science which treats of the laws of voluntary action, and thus seeks to determine the nature and extent of moral duty. This branch of knowledge has been divided by modern writers into two parts, the one comprehending the theory of moral science, and the other its practical doctrines. On the former side, the first part investigates that principle of our constitution by which we are led to form the notion of moral distinctions; and on the latter side it inquires into the proper object of moral approbation. In other words, this science endeavors to give an answer to the question, - Is it by the same faculty that perceives the existence of truth and falsehood in other departments of knowledge, or by a peculiar power of moral perception, which is pleased with one set of qualities and displeased with another, on which the peculiar obligation of moral conduct is founded? What is the common quality or qualities, in short, belonging to all the different forms of virtue? Is it benevolence is it sympathy-is it a rational self-love? Thus the scope of the one question is to ascertain the origin of our moral ideas; that of the other to refer the various moral phenomena to their most simple and general laws. Again, the practical doctrines of morality comprehend the rules formed to direct human conduct, and the best means of compa ing this general end. These two questions, when properly treated, seem to exhaust the entire theory of morals. Ethics, then, is a word which shall be employed in the succeeding article as altogether synonymous with moral philosophy. One of its best and latest German expounders observes: "The best name for this science is Ethic, or doctrine of morals, as is clear from the relation of this word to the three fundamental conceptions of morals - law or duty, virtue, and chief good." E. , or morals, has properly to do with action rather than with thought; and hence the name of the active powers that Reid and Stuart have employed in their works to designate this field of inquiry; not that action belongs exclusively to morals and not also to the intellectual faculties; but that it belongs more obtrusively and overtly to this department than it does to the other. Action in general is twofold: it is either instinctive and constitutional, as hunger, thirst, and the love of sex; or it is voluntary and designed, as when men pursue a course of ambition, or spend a long life in the endeavor to master some department of knowledge. Of those two lines of action, one is nece ary, compulsory, and absolute while it lasts; while the other is contingent, voluntary, and relative. I may resist the strong urgings of ambition or of glory; but I cannot resist the demands of hunger. It is at the choice of Napoleon whether he leave Elba or not, although it is quite nece ary that he should have his breakfast on that inauspicious morning. It thus appears, that while the one cla of actions is nece ary to our existence, the other is by no means nece ary; and many persons would be all the happier to resist those urgent longings which besiege their wills and often carry them captive. Another consequence follows from this consideration, which it is all-important to note on the present occasion - that it depends altogether on whether the will of man be consciously free, as to whether his acts can carry with them any moral responsibility. If a stone accidentally falls on my head, and materially injures me, I do not blame the stone, I simply lay the charge on my own evil fortune. If I am bitten severely by my neighbor's dog, I may pronounce the dog dangerous to the lieges, I cannot hold him guilty of a ault. But if I am knocked down and robbed by a ruffian in the next lane, I shall use all my endeavor to have him brought before the magistrate, and punished; for unle he be an imbecile or a madman, he cannot set up a plea of moral incompetence, which everybody would urge in favor of the previous cases. Nor am I responsible for an act performed by me while I was under moral or physical compulsion; for by being so con of their peculiar rigor against peculiar offences and crimes often committed with but little moral cogitation, and with but little moral guilt. For how often are men's pa ions strong where their moral perception is not of the highest! And when malevolent emotions become heated, do they not blind men's minds to every other consideration but what this wicked pa ion points them to? Then the history of the growth and formation of human character is nearly a terra incognita , and such should always be taken into account in anything approaching a perfect code of moral, or even of criminal law. Whatever is calculated to shake or to confirm the will in its moral endeavors, is calculated to shake or to confirm the comparative perfection of the moral character. With the view, accordingly, of ascertaining and of cla ifying the various sources of our activity, various ethical inquirers have analyzed our various propensities into nearly the following principles: 1. There are our appetites of hunger, thirst, and sex, which take their rise from the body, and which ally us with the brutes. To those natural appetites belong the acquired ones: such as the liking for tobacco and other narcotics, and for intoxicating drinks. All stimulants are of this cla . 2. There are the desires , which may be conveniently distributed into the desire for knowledge (curiosity), the desire of society, the desire of esteem, the desire of power (ambition), the desire of superiority (emulation). Then there are the acquired desires, or, as Dr. Hutch in son termed them, "secondary desires:" such as the desire for wealth, for dre , for equipage, for retinue, and for furniture, which are all readily explainable on the principle of a ociation. 3. Then there are the affections , or those active principles whose direct and ultimate object is the communication of pleasure or of pain to any of our fellow-creatures. These are distinguished, according to their tendency, into benevolent and malevolent affections. To the former cla belong the parental and the filial emotions those of kindred, love, friendship, patriotism, universal benevolence, pity, gratitude, . It is to be remarked, regarding those affections, that this cla ification is simply offered from its convenience, not from its being exhaustive. There is one peculiarity observable with respect to these emotions, that, accompanied as they all are with exquisite pleasure, they have, neverthele , nothing selfish in their origin. This has been fully demonstrated by many writers. It is a remark of Bishop Butler, that the final cause of so much agree able emotion connected with the exercise of benevolence is, in all likelihood, meant to induce us to cultivate with peculiar care a cla of our active principles so immediately subservient to the happine of human society. Our malevolent pa ions, or affections, are usually distributed into hatred, jealousy, envy, revenge, and some kinds of resentment. As the former cla of affections are always accompanied with pleasant emotions, so the malevolent ones are invariably attended by disagreeable ones. It is obvious from this, that the latter are only to be used with a great degree of caution, and on no occasion in greater intensity than the urgent nece ities of the case demand. They are like those poisonous cures that are sometimes administered to us to restore our frames to their accustomed health. If the prescribed dose be overstepped, the chances are that we must atone for our rashne with our lives. Such would be the constitution of man, were no inheritance of reason or of conscience to fall to his share. Reason, however, renders the nature of man altogether different from what it would otherwise be. It is by this faculty, in its multifarious forms, that man is capable of availing himself fully of his past experience in avoiding those temporary pleasures that he knows will be succeeded by a corresponding suffering, and in submitting to those le er ills of life which he knows will ultimately minister to a greater acce ion of good. In a word, he can form that more enlarged and liberal idea of happine with which every cultivated man is acquainted, and he can deliberate about the best means of attaining to this wished for goal. It is impo ible to pronounce the word happine in the hearing of any man without at the same time enkindling in his mind various ideas, more or le attainable, of an exceedingly desirable object. 4. Self love , accordingly, or that species of desire which longs for personal happine as an end in itself, is a rational principle of our nature, altogether legitimate and praiseworthy when kept in its own place. The pursuit of one's interest in an enlightened way is perfectly lawful as an ethical end; it only becomes unlawful when, by its exce , it shuts out that e entially higher principle which men have variously termed the moral faculty, the moral sense, the conscience. Self-interest, or self-love, differs from selfishne , which always indicates a peculiarly low and vulgar state of character, which is only content with the perpetual gratification of a morbid sensuality. This enlightened regard to our own interest was, by many of the ancient philosophers, regarded as the whole of virtue, and they thought they had accomplished the duties of sages when they had laid down rules, of more or le particularity, for the attainment of this "supreme good," this summum bonum. Nor is it to be wondered at, that they placed the whole of virtue in this prudential self-regard; for the two principles-that of self interest and of the moral faculty-lead to nearly the same course of action in practical life. That the principles are not identical - on the contrary are radically and abidingly distinct, may be established from a variety of considerations. It is from experience that we learn the connection of virtue and happine ; and hence virtue, the cause, must certainly precede the existence of self-love, as the effect. In all languages, the words employed to denote the ideas of duty and interest are distinct. The to kalon and the kathekon of the Greeks, and the honestum and utile of the Latins, expre exactly what we mean when we speak of duty and of interest. A similar conclusion likewise finds countenance in the early period at which our moral judgments make their appearance, it being always a considerable while before it is po ible that we should be capable of forming the general notion of our own happine . To escape the force of some of the foregoing arguments, it has been alleged that this notion of right and wrong, as a separate existence in human nature, was first of all discovered by philosophers and politicians, and the influence of education has effected the rest on the growing mind of the race. Now education is no doubt a powerful instrument; but there is no example on record that can be pointed out to illustrate the case of a new creation being implanted in men's minds by means of this potent organ of culture. No doubt sufficient allowance must be made for the different circumstances of mankind in different periods of society, and for the diversity of their speculative opinions, as well as for the different moral significance of the same action, performed under different systems of external behavior. But while education may, and does, in this way modify in important respects the moral sentiments of mankind, as well as their opinions regarding the beautiful and the sublime, we would be far from maintaining that it can effect such wonders as to create our notions of right and wrong, or our æsthetical ideas. The science of E. gives rise to an infinite number of inquiries, the principal of which are considered under BEAUTY, CONSCIENCE, FREEDOM, NECESSITY, REVELATION, VIRTUE, . See also the heads of the several systems of philosophy.