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Books bp Josiah Ropee.
THE CONCEPTION OF IMMORTALITY. Being
the Ingersoll] Lecture for 1899. 16mo, gilt top, $1.00.
THE SPIRIT OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 8vo,
gilt top, $2.0.
THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
samo, gilt top, $3.00,
CALIFORNIA. In American Commonwealth: Se
vies. With Map. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25, wef. Post-
age t3 cents.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
Boston AND Naw Yorx
BELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY
ACRITNACE OF THE RASES OF COXDUCT
AXD OF FalTn:
POSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN: COMPANY
be Kioernde Pris Cambridge
Copyright, 1985,
Br JOSIAI! ROYOR.
All rights reserved
Te
fAp Heraced Fria,
GEORGE BUCHANAN COALE,
OF BALTIBIORSE,
1 NENCATE THE BOGE,
EX EARNEST AKD GRATEFT. BROWS KTR
OF BIS RIXNKESS, OF WIR COURSE,
asd OF RT WaDOR.
PREFAOE,
=e Qeseem,
Tita boak aketchea the basia of a ayatem af phi.
losophy, while applying the prineiplea of this ayatem
to religions problema, The form and order of the
treatment depend an the nature of these latter prob-
lema themselvea, and are not aueh aa a ayatem
ef philowphy, expounded salely for its own sake,
would be free ta take. Tho religioua problema have
been chosen for the preaent atudy because they firnt
drove the author to philosophy, and because they, of
all human interests, deserve our beat effarta and our
utmost loyalty.
A large portion of thia disoussion seeka to appeal
both to the apecial atudent af philosophy and ta
the general reader. A considerable part, again, can
with the very beat af fortune hope to interest the
apevial atudent af philosophy, but oannet hope for
wore, The Preface muat therefore tell what aort af
appeal ia made to each af the two classes af readers,
fo begin with the general reader, whe may have
the curiosity to glanvo at thia philosephie essay, the
vi PREFAOE.
author must forthwith confess that while on tho one
hand ho desires to trouble nobody with fruitless and
blank negations, and while hin aim in therefore on
the whole a positive aim, yet on the other hand, as
he has no prosent connection with any visible relig-
Jous body, and no sort of desire for any such conned:
tion, ho cannot be oxpected to write an apology for
a popular creed. This confession is made frankly,
but not for the anke of provoking a quarrel, and
with all due reverence for the faith of other men,
If the fox who had lost his tall was foolish to be
proud of his loss, he would have been yet more fool-
inh to hide it by wearing a false tail, stolon maybap
from a dead fox. Tho full application of the moral
of the fable to the present cane in moreover willingly
accepted. Not as the fox invited his friends to
imitate his loss, would tho present writer alm to
make other mon lose their faiths, Rather ia it his
alm not to arouse fruitless quarrela, but to come to
aoine poaseful undorstanding with his fellows touch-
ing tho ultimate meaning and value and foundation
of this noteworthy oustom, no widely prevalent
among us, the custom of having a religion, If the
author ends by stating for hia own purt a religions
doctrina, it will yat be sean upon reading the sume
that a man could hold that and much more too; #o
that what is hore said is rather proposed as a basin
PREFACE. wii
four a conceivable if very far off reconciliation, than
as an argument to dissuade those who may think
that they can go further than the anther, from
proving in a philosophical fashion whatever they
ean prove, Such people may manage to interpret
many of the negations that ocour in these pages as
direoted against an inadequate farm, or imperfect
understanding, of their more elaborate creed. If
they ean do aa, no ane will be more heartily de-
lighted than the author, although he may not agree
with them.
is to the relation of this book to what is called
vacdern doubt, it is a relation neither of blind obe-
dience nor of unsympathetic rejection. The doo-
trine of philosophic idealism here propounded is not
what in these days is popularly called Agnosticism.
Yet doubting everything is ance for all a necessary
element in the organism af philosophio reflection.
What is here dwelt upan over and over again is,
however, the consideration that the doubts of our
time are not to be apologetically “refuted,” in the
aki fashioned sense, but that taken just aa they are,
fully and cordially received, they are upon analysia
found to cantain and imply a positive and important
religious ereed, bearing both upon conduct and upan
reality. Not to have once thoroughly aceepted as
necessary the great philosophie doubts and problems
vill PREV AGK,
of our day, is simply not to have philosophizad aa «
arise cof thin mgges, — Sheat ter reves sacerergrhenl threes clentatite
without in tines coming to find the gumitive truth
that fa ccrteesaled i90 threstts, Son tor tient theestes som thes inne
rowent favorite of fortunes ins fairy tale alwayn wt
firnt tronte hin maggie gift, It in mnnething conten
and dingy, and he Jays it carslewmly away in hie
Ginpty hese, fosling poorer thts esverr, Ibu wes 5
heatdle it rightly, and the fairy gift fille your treatin
figured tunne with « wealth of gems and gold, and
aprenule for you 6 wondeenis banquet. To the author
asa cscrtsses thes faruecy thet tenlesrn devtabet sry bos seoteees
wich fairy wift wm thin, Atul tres werk Likes to sug.
gent to mine rouler what may pomibly prove the
Phaghit feambeicors cf tamteagy thes tabintine,
The general reader, if very “ lanevolent,” may he
abies to endure the “ Hirst Book” of the proment
vesheasnees ine ite eorthvesty 5 borat ine thes Pemsrnad ewsle ”
Hoes will Giavel renessche thse fe ssvcstanit, entily fore the ataulent
wWhures interemte wares levdeleally technioal, Senne warn
Fragen sures gelvecss Ste hess Gaswt, tor bred ye thes prectverral resuler
ina wheigrprltige. Bbut pwertiag it snmy be well for hin
prarynanes ter confines bimmelf at ones tn thin Book IL,
sah Vessumt, sagoerte tics firwt wevseslitage, tor thes Falleswitiy praa
sraggerm, vasarireshy sine Cchasagetere VIEL, tor thes beateewl aecterry
vestsisurtens sated Chics fie, sated thies Vensst socecticrsim cof thee
whingrtecr 5 Str Chay 1X, tor thus intrenductery ra
PREFACE. ix
marka, and Seotiona I, II., IT, and V.; in Chapter
X.,, to the intruduetory remarka, and Seotiona I, ID,
and 1V.; in Chapter AI, to the introductory re
marka, and the coneluding section only; and then
he may try the whole of Chapter XII. Thua he
will not be troubled by the technival atatement of
the proof of our dovtrine, and he will see the trend
of our thought, which may at least amuse him, If
he ia then atill curious, he may take hia own riaks
and look farther.
The atudent of philosophy will find in thia volume
a dovtrine that undertakes to be in certain aignif-
ivant reapoota independent and original, but that,
without ceasing to be the author's own ayatem,
frankly belongs to the wide realm of Poat-Kantian
Idealiam, Of vourae no truo lover af philosophy
venturea, when he calla a dovtrine hia own, to pre-
tend to more than the very moderate degree af rel-
ative originality that the aubject in our day permita;
and of courae the author for hia own part feela very
deeply how much what he haa to affer ia the prad-
wot af what he haa happened to read and remember
about philosophy and ita hiatory, Moat of all he
feola his debt to Kant; then he knowa how much he
has gained from Michte, from the modern Neo-NKan-
tians in Germany, and from the revivera of idealiau
iu recent years in England and Ameriva To Hegel
x PREFACE.
also he has of course a decided debt to acknowl-
edge.
There are in recent philosophical history two
Hegels: one the uncompromising idealist, with his
general and fruitful insistence upon the great fun-
damental truths of idealism ; the other the technical
Hegel of the “ Logik,’ whose dialectic method seems
destined to remain, not a philosophy, but the idea
of a philosophy. With this latter Hegel the author
feels a great deal of discontent; to the other Hegel,
whose insight, as we know, was by no means inde-
pendent of that of Fichte and other contemporaries,
but who was certainly the most many-sided and crit-
ical of the leaders of the one great common idealistic
movement of the early part of the century, — to him
we all owe a great debt indeed. It is, however, a
mistake to neglect the other idealists just for the
sake of glorifying him. And it is an intolerable
blunder to go on repeating what we may have
learned from him in the awkward and whimsical
speech of the wondrous and crabbed master. If
Hegel taught anything, then what he taught can be
conveyed in an utterly non-Hegelian vocabulary, or
else Hegel is but a king of the rags and tatters of a
flimsy terminology, and no king of thought at all.
It is therefore absolutely the duty of a man who
nowadays supposes that he has any truth from He.
PREFACE. zi
gel to propound, to atate it in an entirely fresh and
individual fom. Of Hegelian language repeated to
va in place af Hegelian thought, we have had by
thia time a alekening aurfelt, Let ua therefore
thank men who, like the late lamented Professor
Gireen, have at last been free to speak thelr own
thoughts very much in thelr own way: and let ua be
glad too that the number of so-called Hegeliana of
nimilar independence ia dally growing greater. The
author, however, cannot call himself an Hegelian,
much as he owea to Hegel,
Farther eapecial acknowledgmenta the author
wanta to make to Profeasor Willam James, to Mr
Shadwerth Hodguen, te Profesor Otte Pfleiderer,
to Profemor Hana Vaihinger, te Profesor Otto
Lichmann, to Profewor duliva Bergmann, to Pree
foawor Christoph Siywart, and to Mr. Arthur Bal
four, for the valuable helpa dn thowght that, un
known to them, he, aa a reader of thelr works, has
felt, and that he now recognises aa dlatinetly affeot-
tng thin book, To Profesor Willlam James once
more dn particular, and alae to Profewer Gearge
Pahuer, the author ewea numerous eral anggeations
that have intluenced him more than he new can ex
actly oatinate er fully eanfeas And then there
remain two thinkera to name, men very different
from each other, but both for the author very valu
xii PREFACE.
able. Of these one was among the first of the Ger-
man thinkers in the chance order of the author's
early reading, the other was deeply influential both
by his spoken words and by his writings; the former
is that brilliant and stimulating master of contra
dictions, Schopenhauer, the other is the now de
parted Lotze, whose lectures the author will never
forget nor disregard, although what is here taught
is remote enough from most of Lotze’s system.
In outer form this work may be considered by the
philosophic student as a sort of roughly sketched
amd very incomplete Phenomenology of the relig-
ious consciousness, first on its moral, and then on
ite theoretical, side. The parte of the argument that
the author supposes to contain most relative origi-
nality will be found in Book I, Chapters VL and
VIL, and in Book IL, Chapter XL On these chap-
ters all else hinges.
The discussion of the Problem of Evil, as it ap.
pears in Chapter XIL, is, as the author has seen only
since that chapter was in type, very closely parallel
to part of the discussion of the same question in the
new secoml edition of Pfleiderer’s “ Keligionsphilos-
ophie.” Yet, as the thoughts of this new edition of
Phleiderer’s argument were indicated in his first edi-
tion, although not so clearly expremed, the author
elaims little originality here, save in the form of
PREFACE. xiii
presentation, in the illustrations used, and in the
reference of the whole to the arguments of Chapter
XI. This last matter seems to him, of itself indeed,
quite important.
The work as it here appears is an outgrowth of
several separate lines of study. The questions of
the present Chapter XI. were first attempted by the
author in a thesis for the Dovtor’s degree of the
Johns Hopkins University in 1878. The argument
has sinve been essentially altered. Several frag-
ments that are here used as organic parts of the
whole book have appeared separately, in various de-
grees of incompleteness, in the “ Journal of Specu-
lative Philosophy,” in “Mind,” and elsewhere. The
present form of the book has grown out of lectures
on religious questions to the students of Harvard
College ; but only a small portion of the manuscript
of these lectures has entered into the structure of
the book, which, for its own part, tries to be no
patchwork, but a single united, if incomplete, study
of its chosen problem.
Camariper, Mass., Janwary 11, 1985.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
On
CHAPTER I.
[nrropectrron ; Reutuaron as A Moran Cops ann as
A THBORY.. coerce eens eee eneneneess
I. The Turee Klomenta of HRoliggion sc cceecceeecces
II. Relation of Religion and Philosophy. occ. see eees
IIl, The Kesentiala of Religions Doctrine. ..... weees
IV. The Place of Skeptician in Religious Philosophy.
BOOK I,
THE SEARCH FOR A NORAD IDEAL
— ==
CHAPTER II.
Tre Generar, Erimcar PROBLEM... cc cc ccc cccccceces
I. The Priority of Ideala in Religious Philosophy...
II, The Fundamental Difficulty about all Ideala...++-
CHAPTER ITIL
Tite Warrark oF tre Moran [npara..... ccc acess
The Difticulty about the Ideal as it arrears in
Creek ‘Thought eee nee ances eee eeeeeneness
If, The same Difficulty in Christian Morwa.. wunenee
IIT. Summary of the Diftioulty thu far..c. cece. .
IV. The Dittioulty as iNuatrnted by the Doctrine of Con-
BOTONOE ac ccccvees cen senceseeseeneaenseeens ee
V. General Summary and Skeptical Result.........
aed
°
race
ce kh K =
17
19
xvi
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
ern’ CHAPTER IV.
paca
Auranuism AND Eqorsm ix Certain Recent Drsovs-
BIONS..... coe c seer eceees crececesccccseese GL
I. Illustration of Certain Doctrines about the Nature
of Altruism.......0.. cece cece eoccccssecee 63
II. Is Altruism Disguised Selfishness ?.. wees OD
III. Inquiry as to the real Difference between ‘Altru-
ism and Solflshnoss.........seeerececceres 66
IV. If Genuino Altruism cannot now be Disguised Soll-
ishnoss, can Evolution oxplain the Relations of
the two? ...csseceeseeens ance eeceeneees «. «Th
VY. Schopenhauor’s Effort to define Altruism in Terms
of tho Emotion of Pity.......cc.seeues oeeee 85
VI. Further Explanation of Schopenhauor’s View... 89
VII. Tho Selfishness and Cruclty that often are the Re-
ult of Pity... . ccc cece cece cee e erences .- 04
VIII. Tho Cruelty of tho Happy, and tho Selfishness as-
sociated with active Sympathy........ ee eeeee 100
IX. Rejection of Pity as the Basis for a Distinction of
Altruism aad Egoism. Nogative Result of the
Chaptor......cccccseccscccsccccscccscccecs LOM
CHAPTER V.
ETiicAL SKEPTICISM AND ErnrcaAn Prasimism........ 107
I. Tho Skeptical Motive in Pessimism........... -. 108
II. The Skeptical Motive in the Romantic Pessimism
of Modorn Pootry..........ceccsceesececes 110
ITI. Ethical Skepticism in Mr. Balfour's Statement of
its Positions....... ce cceccccccccccccseseee Lae
CHAPTER VI. .
THe MORAL INSIGHT... ......ccccececesesecceecscees 131
I. The Meaning of Ethical Skepticism, and the Ideal
consequontly involved in it. ......e.ee. sooeee 131
II. Answers to Objections ..........06- covccoeces 141
III. Application to tho Problem of Altruism. ceoveee 146
W. Altrunsen as Temsapbtt. -. .. 2. eee ee
VL The Real Conflict of the Separate Ideals, and the
Natare of the Moral Insight. ................ P|
CHAPTER VIL
Tee Oncaxmarvow or Lae. .... 2... 2.02... cee eee i171
L. The Demes of the First Cinss...... 2... 2.2.22. 173
IL. The Denes of the Second Cinss, im relation to He-
GOMES... ence cece ences 183
TTL The Worth of the Indivadwal.... .. 2.0.22... 195
IV. ‘Thee Phases of Individeoliam. ...... 2... 2.0.22. 201
W. The Universal Will as aiming at Orgenizetme.
Detimataom of the Ideal. ...-.... 2.0.0 .00 0008. 31
WL Passage to the Sundy of Reality... ............. 218
BOOK IL
THE SEARCH FOR A RELIGHOUS TRUTH.
——
CHAPTER VIIL
Tee Woerp or Docsr...... 2... 2... ee cece ee eens 227
L The Femdamental Difficalty comcermng the Exter-
IL The Popalar Seteatifie Comeept of the World and
the Reliyaous Imsiynificamce of the Law of Evo-
emlupes of thane Theorbes. .... 2. 6.500268 ee ee 22
IV. Moan and th Problem of Evil. ............- 24
V. Dealistie Thetem im th World of the Powers, its
Metaphrsical and Rebyoces Diffiralnes....... 1
xviii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
ragn
in the World of the Powers...........00...- 283
VIII. The World of the Powers as in itself Necessarily
a World of Doubt...........0c00 corcosces 206
CHAPTER IX.
Postulates in the Notion of the External World.. 299
Psychological Analysis of the Postulates of Com-
mon Life. Beliefs in Relation to the Will.... 305
The Postulates of Science Defined. The Religious
Use of the Postulates. Transition toa Higher
Point of View......c0.scccccccsscscvccscee a24
< 38s
sophical Idealism...........0.ceeceeeeeeees 333
Il. Idealism as an Hypothesis founded on Postulates.
A Modification of the Berkeleyan Hypothesis
III. Explanation and J ustification of this Hypothesis,
aa Simple and Fair. Subordination of the Pos-
tulate of Causation to other Postulates. Criti-
cism of the Notion of “Possible Experience”.. 354
IV. Difficulty as to the Nature of Error, and Traasi-
tion to Absolute Idealism. Religious Conse-
quences anticipated.......2+..scccccuccccece 370
CHAPTER XI.
Tue PossrBiniry OF ERROR .......2..ccecccece socee 384
I. Sketch of the History of the Investigation...... 386
IL The Doctrine of the Total Relativity of Truth
Od Exror...cccccccccvcccccvcccccsesesesce GU
TABLE OF CONTENTS. xix
mee
III. The Problem of the Nature of Error stated..... 396
IV. Psychological Aspect of the Problem........... 408
V. The Problem in Case of Errors about one’s Fel-
low-Beings .. 2... cece cece eee eeeees 406
VI. The Problem in Case of Errors about Matters of
Exxperiemoe. 2... ccc ccc cece cc cee cee eaes 417 Y
VII. Sammary and Solution of the Problem......... 20
VILL. Answer to the Objection that views Error as .
barely Possible... cc ccc cc ecw wenn £36
IX. Absolute Idealism as the Result of the Chapter.. 431
CHAPTER AIL
Tae Reywigrre INSIGHT... cee ce eens 436
I. General Survey and Religious Aspect of Philo-
sophival Idealism as stated in the previous Chap-
II. The Doctrine of the Absolute Thought as Perfect 441
—~HII. The Problem of Evil. oo... 6c. ccc cee cece nes 449
IV. The World of the Postulates and the External
World omee more. .... ccc cc cnes weenesccees 460
V. The Conception of Moral Progress. ............ 464
VI. Practical Bearings of the Doctrine. ............ 468
EPULOQUE 2. cc cee ccc cee s cece sece cece ceccccceces 405
> —, . “4,
. .
o¢ |
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION 3 RELIGION AS A MORAL CODR AND
AS A THEORY.
Auch benweill' ich, dass dia glaubest,
Waa av rechter Glaube heist,
Glaubet wohl nicht an Gott den Vater,
An dea Sohn und heil'gen Geile
Hewe.
INTENDING in the following pages to aketch cortain
philosophic opinions that seem to him to have a
religious bearing, the author must begin by atating
what he understanda to be the nature of religion,
and how he conceives philosophy to be related to
religion,
Wo speak conmonly of religious feelings and of
religious beliefs; but we tind difficulty in agreving
about what makes either beliefs or feelings religious.
A feeling is not religious merely because it is strong,
nor yet beeause it is also morally valuable, nor yet
because it is elevated, If the strength and the
moral value of a feeling made it religious, patriot-
ism would be religion. If elevation of feeling were
-onough, all higher artistic emotion would be relige
tous, Bat such views would seem to most persons
very inadequat. As for belief. it is not religious
merely because it is a belief in the supernatural.
Not merely is superstition aa such very different from
i
3 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PRILOSOPRY.
religion, but even a belief in God aa the higheat of
beings need not be a religious belief. If La Place
had needed what he called “ that hypothesis,” the
Deity, when introduced into his celestial mechaniea,
would have been but a mathematical symbol, or a
formula like Taylor's theorem, — no true object of
religious veneration. On the other hand, Spinosa’s
impersonal Substance, or the Nirvana of the Bud.
dhiata, or any one of many like notions, may have,
vithor as doctrines about the world or as idvala of
human conduct, immense religious value. Very
much that we assoviate with religion is therefore
non-essential to religion, Yet religion is something
unique in human bebief and emotion, and must not
be dissolved into any lower or more commonplace
elements. What then is religion ?
I.
So much at all eventa seomsa sure about religion.
; Tt has to do with action. It is imposible without
| Some appearance of moral purpose, A totally im-
moral religion may exist; but it is like a totally un-
seaworthy ship at sea, or like a rotten bank, or like
a wildcat mine. It deceives ita followers, It pre-
tends to guide them into morality of some sort. If
it ia blind or wicked, not its error makes it religious,
but the faith of its followers in its worth. A relig-
ion may teach the men of one tribe to torture and
kill men of another tribe. But even auch a religion
would pretend to teach right conduct. Religion,
however, gives us more than a moral code. A moral
INTRODUCTION. 8
code alone, with its “ Thou shalt,” would be no more
religious than ia the civil vode. A religion adds some-
thing to the moral ovde. And what it adds is, first,
enthusiasm. Somehow it makes the faithful regard |
the moral law with devotion, reverence, love. By |
history, by parable, by myth, by ceremony, by song,
by whatever means you will, the religion gives to the
mere code life and warmth. A religion not only
commands the faithful, but gives them something
that they are glad to live for, and if need be to die
for
But not yet have we mentioned the element of re-
ligion that makes it espevially interesting to a stu-
dent of theoretival philosophy. So far as we have
gone, ethical philosophy would criticise the codes of
various religions, while theoretical philosophy would
have no part in the work. But, in fact, religion al-
ways adds another element. Not only does religion
teach devotion to a moral code, but the means that
it uses to this end include a more or less complete
theory of things. Religion saya not merely do and |
feel, but also believe. A religion tella us about the |
things that it declares to exist, and most especially it
tells us about their relations to the moral code and
to the religious feeling. There may be a religion
without a supernatural, but there cannot be a relig-
ion without a theoretical element, without a state-
ment of some supposed matter of fact, as part of
the religious doctrine.
These three elements, then, go to constitute any
religion. A religion must teach some moral code,
must in some way inspire a strong feeling of devo-
4 THR RELIGIOUS ABPROT OF PITILOSOPHY,
tion to that code, and in ne coing must show some
thing in the nature of things that answorn to the onde
or that serves to reinforce the fooling, A religion
In theroforn practical, emotional, and theorstioal ; it
teaches un to do, to fool, and to bellave, and it teaches
the bellof as a means to ite touching of the actlon
and of the feeling.
Il.
Wo may now seo how philosophy is related to ree
ligion. Philosophy is not direetly gonosrned with
fooling, but both actlon and belief are dirant objects
| of philosophical eritielam, And on the other hand,
In so far as philosophy suggests ganoral rules for
conduct, or discussion the theories about the world,
philosophy must have a religious aspoot. Religion
invites the aerutiny of philosophy, and philosophy
may not neglest the problema of religion. Kant's
fundamental problema: What do / know? and
What ought 1 to do? are of religious interest no
lows than of philosophic Intereunt, Thay ask hew
the highest thonght of iman stands related to his
highewt nende, and what in things answers to our
hont ideals, Surely no one ought to fear mach quem
tons, nor ought any philosophic student to henitate
to siggent in anawer to thom whatever after die
reflection he honestly can stiggent, poor and tenta-
tive though it may be. In fact there in no defense
for ono an ainoere thinker If, undertaking to pay at
tention to philosophy as mich, he willfully or thenyght-
lonsly negleota such probleme on the ground that he
has no time for them. Surely ho has timo to bo not
INTRODUCTION. 6
merely a student of philosophy, but also a man, and
these things are among the essentials of humanity, —
which the non-philosophic treat in their way, and
which philosophic students must treat in theirs.
When, however, we say that the thinker must
study and revere these questions, we must not fancy
that because of their importance he may prejudge
them. Assumptions, postulates, a priori demands,
these indeed are in all thinking, and no thinker is
without such. But prejudice, i. ¢. foregone conclu-
sions in questionable matters, deliberate unwilling-
ness to let the light shine upon our beliefs, all this
is foreign to true thought. Thinking is for us just
the clarifying of our minds, and because clearness is
necessary to the unity of thought, necessary to lessen
the strife of sects and the bitterness of doubt. neces-
sary to save our minds from hopeless, everlasting
wandering, therefore to resist the clarifying process,
even while we undertake it, is to sin against what is
best in us, and is also to sin against humanity. De
liberately insincere, dishonest thinking is downright
blasphemy. And eo, if we take any interest in these
things, our duty is plain. Here are questions of tre.
mendous importance to us and to the world. We
are sluggards or cowards if, pretending to be philo-
sophic students and genuine seekers of truth, we do
not attempt to do something with these questions.
We are worse than cowards if, attempting to con-
sider them, we do so otherwise than reverently, fear
lesaly, and honestly.
6 THE RELAGH IB ABVKEE OF VHILASOVHY,
LE
The religions dhenghe of cnr tite baw remedied
prowitierny Mies sveriane Mie naralety of wll mericnin think:
evn, wed thee detects, cof timeny wher Mem fier meePiendH,
W se saree tier, certabaceh with awhiiet wee Vecsapsneced Poco eneT
tatbrecie s aye wieneh fev corporeal, Muecde Meneiime, ber prPerves
what, thay Hucld Piawh wwitheneh povewsl, fer werrhe enh one
dre wmbvsebicne Vey ener ewe effete. Mak we hanew
Hert, yet whe Rewen coe conning Faith will take, Wea
sates Heh, eck magerececel cevecne wbmrnid Alas Medel cof egraccuhicon
Mhisat owes wheal grt ter ersvend yee whic wa begin wey
wopcecities vechigeertam deegriny. Wecnle mapped very ¥m-
Pherhbee Ninditan coe saacgeectchn tr Finechen de tlie weeded nam having
we wecligedentin vaden. Pha venrdedy oof ies mip geicmbianin
mrhierave Alva aiange radetiacinns Ort White cgrtscerhderte Mish, grecergrlec breve
be witd when tay table of veligienn. Ole man weeks
fer wenshiigy Natnend Vaaw, ov wven Nats in gene
weal. Arsertbuce fitwlin Messremssity te Vos bebe tebected ebijecect
of vedigiins verscrntien. Ved auther pravely inate
tbr, tia Cashes mde wtehiation Wie religion lenginge,
er i de wentectbeitig ter bac pelnden in ecaprreaming
agteccediern, cevion TF yen Kani give mH mnewer, We
white cles wertevectbedenge 10 wee ornely fieed eel wheat i6 ha thes
was crnegetel, fer wacecle. Ariel thee Perpeganinge ecerailecr biotin
prineyy based yy om ne Abed any, devin If wdied Fellerwe wlureld
howe whic y dermcthiccctive. Kerr wee bine tefedd ter give &
Mectisdtiorn Uiind whinll sxgrrinn, set merely whik
Borscbeb brick cre te Cetbecadicc ene te Cernatiod ene ate Mecgedinn
wrens bry Vide vecligetene, Vek whink mil seeds severy where
pvetehs Voy peclighon, § Dlwey all wast vuligion tor Metine
INTRODUCTION. T
for them their duty, to give them the heart to do it,
and to point out to them auch things in the real
world aa shall help them to be steadfast in their de-
votion to duty. When people pray that they may
be made happy, they still deaire to learn what they
are to do in order to become happy. When aainta
af any erved look up to their Gud as their only guod,
they are seeking for guidance in the nght way.
The savages of whom we hear 30 much nowadays
have indeed low forma of religion, but these relig.
jona of theirs atill require them to do something, and
tell them why it is worth while to do this, and make
them more or less enthusiastiv in doing it, Among
ourselves, the poor and the lonely, the desolate and
the afflicted, when they demand religious comfort,
want something that shall tell them what to do with
life, and how to take up once more the bunlens of
their bruken existence. And the religious philose-|
phera muat aubmit to the sane test that humanity:
everywhere proposes to its religions, If ane triva
to regulate our diet by his theories, he must have
the one object, whatever his theory, since he wants
to tell us what is healthful for us. If he tella ua to
eat nothing but anow, that is his fault. The true
object of the theory of diet remains the same. And
go if men have expreased all sorts of one-aided, dis.
heartening, inadequate views of religion, that does
not make the object af religious theory less catholic,
Jess comprehensive, less detinitely hnman. A man
who propounds a religious system must have a moral
code, an emotional life, and some theory of things te
offer us. With lesa we cannot be content. He need
8 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPRY.
not, indeed, know or pretend to know very much
about our wonderful world, but he must know some-
thing, and that something must be of definite value.
To state the whole otherwise. Purely theoretic
philosophy tries to find out what it can about the
real world. When it makes this effort, it has to be
perfectly indifferent to consequences. It may not
shudder or murmur if it comes upon unspeakably
dreadful truths. If it finds nothing in the world but
evil, it must still accept the truth, and must calmly
state it without praise and without condemnation.
Theoretic philosophy knows no passion save the pas-
sion for truth, has no fear save the fear of error,
cherishes no hope save the hope of theoretic success,
But religious philosophy has other objects in addi-
tion to these. Religious philosophy is indeed neither
the foe nor the mistress of theoretic philosophy. Re-
ligious philosophy dare not be in opposition to the
truths that theory may have established. But over
and above these truths it seeks something else. It
secks to know their value. It comes to the world
with other interests, in addition to the purely theo-
‘retic ones. It wants to know what in the world is
j worthy of worship as the good. It seeks not merely
|the truth, but the inspiring truth. It defines for it-
self goodness, moral worth, and then it asks, What
in this world ia worth anything ? Tts demands in
this regard are boundless. It will be content only
with the best it can find. Having formulated for
itself its ideal of worth, it asks at the outset: Js
there then, anywhere in the universe, any real thing
of Infinite Worth? Té this cannot be found, then
INTRODUCTION. 9
and then only will religious philosophy be content:
with lees. Then it will still ask: What in this world
te worth most? It cannot make realities, but it is
determined to judge them. It cannot be content
with blind faith, and demands the actual truth as
much as theoretic philosophy demands it; but relig-
tous philosophy treats this truth only as the material
for its ideal judgments. I¢ seeks the ideal among
the realities.
Upon each a quest ax this, we ask the reader to ao-
company us in the following pages. We have not
space to be exhaustive, nor in fact to offer much
more than suggestions: but we want the suggestions
wo be explicit. and we hope that they may stimulate
wome reader, and may perhaps help him in complet-
ing his own trains of thought.
IV.
People come to such questions as these with cer
tain prejudices about the method and spirit of in-
quiry : and all their work may be hampered by theee
prejudices. Let ua say yet a little more of what we
think as to thie matter. There are two extremes to
fear in religious philosophy : indifference that arises
from a dogmatic disposition to deny, and tunidity
that arises from an excessive show of reverence for
the objects of religious faith. Both of theee extreme
monds have their defective methods in dealing with
religious philosophy. The overckeptical man looka
with impatience an all lengthy discussions of these
topics. There can be nothing in it all, he says:
10 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
nothing but what Hume, in an eloquent passage,
called sophistry and delusion. Why spend time to
puzzle over these insoluble mysteries? Hence his
method is: swift work, clear statement of known
difficulties, keen ridicule of hasty assumptions, and
then a burning of the old deserted Moscow of the-
ology, and a bewildering flight into the inaccessible
wintry wastes, where no army of religious philoso-
phers shall follow him. Now for our part we want
to be as skeptical as anybody ; and we personally al-
ways admire the freedom of motion that pure skepti-
cism gives. Our trouble with it all, however, is that,
after we have enjoyed the freedom and the frosty air
of pure philosophic skepticism for a while, we find
ourselves unexpectedly in the midst of philosophic
truth that needs closer examination. The short and
easy agnostic method is not enough. You must sup-
plement skepticism by philosophy; and when you
do so, you find yourself forced to accept, not indeed
the old theology of your childhood, but something
that satisfies, oddly enough, certain religious long-
ings, that, as skeptic, you had carefully tried to for-
get. Then you find yourself with what you may
have to call a religious doctrine; and then you may
have to state it as we are here going to do, not in an
easy or fascinating way, such as the pure skeptic can
so well follow, but at all events with someapproach to
& serious and sustained effort to consider hard ques-
tions from many sides. The skeptical method is not
only a good, but also a necessary beginning of relig-
‘ious philosophy. But we are bound to go deeper
, than mere superficial agnosticism. If, however, any
INTRODUCTION, 1]
reader is already aure that we cannot go deeper, and
that modern popular agnoaticiam has exhausted all
that ean be said on religious queationa, then we bid
him an immediate and joyous farewell, If we had
not something to say in thia book that seems to us
both foreign to the popular modern agnostic range
of divcuaaion, and deeper than the inaight of popular
modern akepticiam, we should aay nothing, The un-
dertaking of thia beok ia net to wrangle in the old
way over the well-known ordinary debates of to-day,
but te turn the flank of the common popular thought
an thee topiva altogether, by guing back to a type
of philosophic investigation, that is nowadaya fe
miliar Indeed to a certain achool of apevialiata, but
forgotten by the general public. In thia type of ine
veatigation, we have furthermore something to offer
that veoma to ua no mere repetition of the views of
other thinkers, but an effort to make at leaat one lit
tle atep in advance of the thoughta that the great
maatera of philosophy have given te ua Yet we
know indeed that the range of any useful indepen-
dent thought in philosophy must be, in cave of any
one individual, very narrow,
The other mood and ita method remain, It ia the
moal of excessive reverence, It waster capital let
tera on all the pronouns and adjectives that have to
do with the objects of religious faith; but it fears to
do these abjecta the honor to get clear ideas about
them. Now we reapect thia mood when it appeara in
men who do well their life-work, who need their re
ligious faith for their work, and who do not feel any
calling as truth-seckers, No man hae any business
12 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOROPHY,
to net up hie vocation as the higheut one; and the
man for whom truth io useful in bis actual life-work
ae an inepiration, reveulad to him ouly in facling, bw
welanme to hin faclings, ia worthy of all regard from
thine whowe vountion in philonaphy, asad shall net bw
tormented by our spacuietions, He iw oureful and
troubled about many things; the world neds him,
and philimephy dows not, We only lay clatn to our
awn rights, aud do not want to interfera with his,
Our right to clear thought, we must inelet pon,
For looked at philosophically, aud apart fren the ned
auuery initations of the hard worker, all thin dumb
reverance, thin vague use of vague name, haw ite see
vous dangers, You are reverent, we may way to the
man who regards philosaphic eriticlun uae dangerous
trifling with wtupendaus truths; you are reverent,
ut what da you reverenes? Have « care low what
you raverciin shall tara ont to be your own vague
and confused notions, and not the real diving Truth
at all, ‘Tule hed lewt your object of worship be only
your own Mittle pet infinite, that io mublime to you
maainaly beemuse it ie yours, and that isin truth abvnut
ae diving wid infinite we your hat, Kur thie in the
danger that beats thew: vague aad lofty sentimenta,
Unretlectad upon, ancritielusd, dumbly experienced,
dumlly dremded, thaws, your ralighous objects, nay
fecones iere feelings, mera visceral sensations of
yours, that you have on Sunday mornings, or when
you pray, Of cures, if you are a worker, you
mony actually realize thewe vague idews, in wc far ue
they inepive you to work, If they de, they shall be
judged by thely fruits, Otherwine, do not trum tao
INTRODUCTION, 13
confidently their religious value. You, individually
regarded, are but a masa of thought and feeling.
What is only yours and in you, is not divine at all. |
Unless you lift it up into the light of thought and
examine it often, how do you know into what your
cherished religious ideal may not have rotted in the
darkness of your emotions? Ounce in a while, there
does come to a man some terrible revelation of him-
wolf in a great sorrow. Then in the tumult of an-
guish he looks for his religious faith to clothe his
nakedness aguinst the tempest; and he finds per
haps some moth-caten old garment that profits him
nothing, so that his soul miserably perishes in the
frost of doubt. Such a man has expected Ciod to
come to his help in every time of need; but the
only god he haa actually and conecioualy had, has
been his own little contemptible, private notion and
dim feeling of a god, which he haa never dared fairly
to look at. Any reapectable wooden idol would have
done him better service: for then a man could know
where and what his idol is. Such ia only too apt
to be the real state of the man who regards it as
profanity to think clearly and sensibly on religious
topics.
We claim, then, the right to criticise ax fearlemly,
as thoroughly, and as akeptically as may be, the
foundations of conduct and faith, For what we crit-
icise are, at the outect, our own notions, which we
want to have conform to the truth, if ao be that there
is any truth, Aa for doubt on religious questions,
that is for a truth-ncoker not only a privilege but a
duty ; and, as we shall experience all through this
14 THE RELIGQIOUN AAPEOT OF PHILONOMIY,
aticly, dowht has a ourlous and vory valuable place
in philosophy. Philosophio truth, as such, comes to
we first under the form of doubt: and wo never can
be very near it in our search unless, for a longer or
shorter time, wo have come to doapalr of it alte
yithor, First, then, the dospalr of a thorough-golng
doubt, and thon tho discovery that this doubt con-
tains in ite bosom the trath that wo are sworn to
discover, however wo can, — thin is the typical philo-
sophic oxperioncs, May the momory of thin sugges
tion support the failing pationcs of the kindly dis
pone reader through some of the longer and more
woarinnno atrotehos of dry akeptioal analysis ovor
which wo must try to journoy togethor. Whatever
may bo tho truth, it must lie boyond those desorts.
BOOK I.
THE SEARCH FOR A MORAL IDEAL
CHAPTER I.
THE GENERAL ETHICAL PROBLEM.
“Certain spirita, by permission, ascended fram hell, and aaid to ma
“You have written a great deal fram the Loni, write something ale
froma us.” I replied, ‘What shall I write?’ They aaid, ‘Write that
every spirit, whether he be goad or evil, is in his own delight, — the
good in the delight of his guad, and the evil in the delight of dis evil’
TI asked them, ‘ What may vour delight be ?* They aaid that it waa the
@elight of committing adultery, stealing, defrauding, and lying. . ..
I said, ‘Thea you are like the unclean beasts.’ .. . They answered,
“If we are, we are’? — Swrngnanorea, Divas Providence.
“(There 's nothing, either good or bad, but thinking makes it “|
Banlet.
Wrrta which of the two cansiderations mentioned
in our introduction shall a religious philosophy be-
gin? Of its two chief considerations, the moral code,
and the relation of this code to reality, which is the
one that properly stands first in order? We have
already indicated our opinion. The philosophy of |
religion is distinguished from theoretio philosophy
precisely by its relation to an ideal. If possible,
therefore, it should early be clear as to what ideal
it has. The ideal ought, if possible, to be studied
first, since it is this ideal that is to give character to
our whole quest among the realities. And so the
first part of religious philosophy is properly the dis.
oussion of ethical problems.
|
18 THE RELIGIOUS ASPEOT OF PHILOSOPHY.
I.
The theoretic philosopher might interpose just
here, and insist that as one can be moral only in a
real world, the philosopher has a theoretical right
and duty to point out, first of all, wherein consists
the reality of the world and whereon is based our
_ assurance of this reality. Yet this strictly logical
order we must decline, in the present discussion, to
follow. Our interest is, first of all, with the ideal
in its relation to human life. So much of the world
lof commonplace reality as we have to assume in any
and every discussion of the ideal, we accept in this
first book wholly without theoretical question. For
such questions, in their relation to religious philoso-
phy, the proper placo will come later. But at the
outset we will suppose a moral agent in the presence
of this concrete world of human life in which we all
believe ourselves to exist. Beyond the bright circle
of these commonplace human relations, all shall for
the present remain dark to this moral agent. Lis
origin, his destiny, his whole relation to nature and
to God, if there be a God, he shall not at the outset
know. But he shall be conceived as knowing that
he is alive in the midst of a multitude of living fel-
lows. With them he is to have and to define and
to develop certain moral relations. For his life, or
for human life in general, he is to form his ideal.
Then later, after forming and striving to realize this
ideal of his, he is to come to the real physical world,
and to ask of it how it stands related to these, his
moral needs. In the answer to this question he is
THE GENERAL ETHICAL PROBLEM. 19
to find, if at all, the completion of his religious phi-
losophy. When he comes to this seoand stage, which
our second book is to treat, he may find himself
obliged to analyze afresh and akeptically the adive
theoretio notions that he has possessed cancerning na-
ture, and 30 even concerning his own fellow-men. But
for his analysis itself he will have a fresher courage,
because he will have filled himself with the love af
an ideal, whose realization he will be hoping same-
how to find all through all the tedious wanderings
of his theoretic atudy. If the order of his whole
thoaght is thus not the order af the truth itself, still
his little inconsequence in beginning his religious
philosophy with assumptions that he proves only
after he has yone some distance in his investigation,
may be a useful concession both to his own human
weakness and to the needs of his practical nature.
With the search for the ideal, then, we begin, ex-
preesly assuming, in this part of the first boak, with-
out proof, as much of the world of daily hfe as may
be necessary to a study af the moral law in its ap-
plication to this daily life. Yet, with this explana-
tion, we are anly at the beginning of the troubles
that arise in examining the relation between the
basis of ethics and the real world. These troubles
form a great part af the obscurity of moral doo-
trine.
II.
In treating of ethical doctrine, it is common to
avoid by all sorts of devives the main and most diff
oult problem of all. Men like to fill half a volume
$0 HH NALAGHOIN. ASPET OF PHILONOFHY,
with « deseriplion of die “sored sentiments,” oF
with a patie y 026 of thes“ snernad principle in tied,” ov
in theas days capeoialy, with « pront deal of tabhe
hwo mnvagen AtT aber the ¢ evelidion of the meri
were.” bhaving enenpied se many pagew in enter:
taining digeemiona, when they seme, if they ever do
denis, te thie contend problen, Hanely, tie HatHte of
weed dietinetiona senaidesed purely aw aneh, meh
writen bueves tty tire te dey snertes dan to append te
this center meetin orf weaddeen, and shen ter pane ott bo
dertemerprienecen: Tt aeclilenn cwecnien ter thet that © Ae.
mer ipsticins ert thes * reread Paectiltiem ” tn thie Hien OF te
Ghriat, ent se belatety oof snverpnl weed ievenenernnd nertiertin and
prraestneec sem they faeves ceri tipy mney tren iM tte
enlace et eovesdeetienn, fe tev teres 4 neta philemephy,”
He thes preerper merae,; Heat ta 4 demription of thie celtic
ayes ert of this prewliete of any senmtey oF uf the world
wy tee cnplenation et ths Aifferenun letweet Geri:
Meet mlveney atid inadlyoney.
Wes tere enter slendl es etiligedd, Mevwervern, toy entee
Baevedheced eepvieeies, tev sedine feoetvovitde wt the Hewet of the
prresbieren oot ie pbeilermenp hited ettiis. What ta the road
tedstres eof tlede Vetienecdiente vetoes ey anil weeng 7
Wht torethy ta there tn thle Atetinetion 7 te tia
ditethe relatives ter pmetierbay celibate, ov indlepnend
ent theveet ! What ileal of lite remlte’ ‘Phews
thitege wo wart fey kerry s ated we dey sek wae te
aperreel evvem tieetes treeroe: ODeseey aves wheel be ebdigedd ter Ay
de deveslecw aed, Meaverdgrtterive ert Alias reverted ebattece of tiie
dre tvaet, eerste, AND tevectetanl aetrtiece teeroy drtepeed, tm connly
Pet wey Faew som aes Pivet, meee what beypiecnd fewriip Mey
reiey hieves tpt one problen: We shall have to da
WHE GEXERAL EVWICAL FPROSLEM. A |
gexube a peed dizal, bat that work will have only ks
yretper saberdeaie place.
ites uattere heme t. cerselves by comsademay forth.
with samme axpects of an oid and often meriacted
questiiem, aasnely, the wery questaom before referred
tem albontt the proper relation of ome's manral ideal to
tie reality that le may have recogmined.
We are t form a moral sdeal apart, as we Inve
saad, feemn amy theers of the physacal emiverse out-
wie of mem. Bat is ths practxable? Is mot every
anevall theery dependent m trath om a theory of
this? Is at possible for es to make for oarselwes
qur ideal, sad only afterwards to so to the real world
and to see if our Sdeal as realaed? Nust mot rather
eur ndleal bbe fosmded. wa the very matere ef the anne,
e@n wint we know, or think we know. about the
werd? Is met them this whole endertalag of enmrs
a blender? Is a rathomal moral dsminectoom possable
sawe throeagh a knowledce of the facts about the
world? Cam the ideal say to the world: ~ I demand
tihast them shombdst be like sme?” Must mot the deal
watther buanbliy say: ~ Thess and thes it i& im troth,
and therefore I am what I am?”
Thee watare of moral tdeak and detimetiien &
Ppainiy imvelwed jast bere. We most Joak cleelr
ait thee qeestioms: for to answer them aright & to
amswer thhe fumdamental questiems of all ethical ph
Te understand them nore justi: the mature of this
dfiiralitx, bet ws comader mare dhasely the twe poss-
ble amaeers to the foreroiar qe. Let ws off
99 TH HKLIGIOUN ANPKGT OF PHILGNOPHY,
ain whe faninte in aplte of all upon galing to the
veel wesrlel, tar (aed there {11 mene way the sole tente
for file foal Uatinetionn between good and evil, an
ethieal venling. Lach a on the other listed call hdin
why wertslel wertteliow clenecntimtartes [fhe canteled mente
Halevssd som tees Govvees corse cotaly tnerreal Velond, without tn any
wines snncslalengg Mt clesqnestred caqrurte golaymbenl renbity, a ancoreel
Nelestalint, — Paest tam teste Pests tees tooves qoraetden cldmesemm, dt
hele cpgrnling ways, thie quemtion ab lenis, feeb 08
Deester tlesle viewwn liededly mtedeel ened corggieed, lent the
vew of the extreme ethienl renlintns “Clo to vende
ity, | tlesy may, * corned tar wlirshervers reality yore trestsel tas
eonmider, Then derive your notion of duty, Mas
rality mnt tot te dalle do the ade, dnt on a nell
foundation of uataral faet Your moral doctelie
anaey Laseves tao cesgresasel tagorrte call tia yore crane Mee cnt
Alnrit the ianivernes.” = On the other hand we have
the felontintdes doctrines " Marality,” may tlie stipes
porter of thin view, “dn for the Meat ai ideal, ire
weseal ity corner Nestasvam tilees eresleatdernon tat ares ter bees reel geal
Hoy Alves Sefessel, Voeat cvvsnnnncat Voy canny meseereclebange (Manel thee
delestal ftweslf, — Wreatey vesteddtiy cotnes cane Vesteran toes trveseetio 4
flac Maecl cof rachderte Am cate Peles, Iinleqesnclent of all rent:
Htay mtevies tees Voeueres com otesnacces of crue chistes of thin Madd,
A Weesnnvestbeessim chested Zrestees, mer tees arsenal cartamedatin:
anes contended sannel tantamebs clesfy Adve Feoresesin cof tatatnates Loy cstanes
dbicsy sestdes lies Vletl ferrevese nageslonm, TF thie youl
Vves aenvcatdeatoacaboles, tlarat vnvesbecse It tnee Lem tlie geod. Uf
Ubaes es dmtesent, eweordel wvesres thie werent werrlel dingelanbile,
Hts wvertalel aneats hoes jeasstd tered Loy ties tnnesres Fraceh liek Tt wen
dibaes estad wereld, — Vehestade aentieat, bres srestaddnesel fin mee Fear tam
we att renting thet, bit what ean he rondined sect
THE GENERAL ETHICAL PROBLEM. 38
not therefore turn out to be the ideal. The judg. |
ments: This is, and, This is good, are once for all
different; and they have to be reached by widely dif-
ferent methods of investigation.” — Such are the two
opposing views. We cannot yet repeat in detail the
arguments for each, but we can suggest a few of
them.
“ See,” says the supporter of the first view, * how
abeurd it is to evolve moral theories out of one’s
inner consciousness. What happens to such theories?
Either nature favors them, and then they survive in
the struggle for life, or they are unequal to the tasks
of the real world, and then their supporters gu mad,
or die. But in the first case they are merely such
theories as could have been much better reached by
@ process, not of guessing at truth, but of study-
ing nature's laws. In the second case, the result is
enough for common sense people. The moral theory
that is destined to die out for want of supporters can
hardly triumph over more useful opinions. If we
want a moral theory, we must therefore consider what
kind of action, what rule of life, wins in the battle
of existence, and tends most to outlive its rivals.
That rule is the ane destined to become universal.”
The maintainers of the second view are ready with
their anawer. *“ What sort of morality is this?” they
aay. ‘Is this the morality of the martyrs? Is this
an ideal that can satiafy ua? The preservation of
traly valuable life may indeed be an end in iteelf,
and therefore an action that tends, on the whole, to
destroy rather than to save such life may be bad from
any point of view; but the moral thinker is not, on
é
% THK RELIGIOUS ASPKOT OF PHILOSOPHY,
that aceount, bound to choose a axle that will make
ite believers survive, The believers are not all whe
are affected by olimlionss to the code, ail it may be
the belisver'n place to be sacrificnl, either beesuse
hin life in worth lows than hin idenl, or becuse the
anbellevers may sotnchow be bettered through his
death. And, in general, what would be the conse:
quenes of the conmstent following out of the prin-
giple that the true youl is conformity to reulity 7
Amine that, for instances, a nan in society is to rege
tilate his setlonw solely aecording to the demands
that sndety ans ronal power inaken upon him, in view
of brim gobs inn thre mencial organo, and that morality
thus exprosmen sitnply the requirements that the in
dividual must moet if he in to romain « sucsonsful
inember of this social orgeninn, Then, to got your
moral cnle, you ave to examines the facts of sensed
life. You are to see, for example, what each man
miniet nowadays do if he in te be tolerable to his
fellows, Yen will find something of thin sorts 16
will net do for him to kill his fellows, or to steal
frerits thiestes, coe enpestily ter lrmlt then, Ft will bee tatt-
preditable fer him to he enaught in chenting then, oF
in lying ta them, Tle will do well to help thein aa
far ae hin ineane allow, and so to got & reputation
for kind-heartednens and public spirit, an well ae for
werlet integrity, Kor such, at lenat in our sonlaty,
are noing of the requisite or tuneful kinds of adjust
inenit to oir environment, On these in founded our
trerral conte, if it in to be founded on reality alone,
Hut these requirements ars net equally geod in
all societies, Onew « power to kill vortain kinds of
THE GEXERAL ETHICAL PRORLEM. B
poople was a pecessary condition to happy soctal hfe.
A reputtatamm for fearkessmess, for prowess. for mil-
tary stall. for a certain kind of canning, for perfect
wilimegmess to take your weaker enemy 5 property :
all thos was a part of the mecessary adjastment to
ene s euviromment. Was all this then for that soct-
ey trae morality? If morality were the body of
rakes goverming seocessial adjastment to the social
eavirummmemt, then morality would be rekative te the
eaviramment, wed would vary with it, So even now
such wales wary with ome's soczal position. Mimi:
ters of rehgioe are considered to be best adjusted to
the emviromment if they are outwardly meek. save
sive amd meraidess. A poet or artist is best adyastad
mf ee iene a reputation for very ideal and umpersomal
aims, amd Ihe can then even afford to heave bis debts
weeyend : bat a basiness man most be very oancrete
im bekavior, xeverely definite in bis dealings with bis
fellows. And so runs the world away. Find wer
plore. and farm it cleverly. for that 1s the whok
daty of man.
“Sach would be say our adealists, “the come
qmeeces of looking simply wo reality for a defnmmm
af the mmoral onde. There woald no bomger be a dil-
skal tm the art of ving is what sarcives Im ths
weorkd = and if it is survival. or tendener to sorvival
that distinewishes a trae from a false moral code.
Ghee emiwersal chevermess as a moral code wonld om
the whole tend to survive, with tts adherents.”
96 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY,
But a realistic opponent is not thus silenced.
“Such caricatures,” ho insists, “do not fairly repre-
sent my doctrine.” Ho, too, has an ideal but it is
wholly dependent on reality. What he means by
conformity to reality as the foundation of a moral
cole is properly expressed by the more thoughtful
advocates of the doctrine of evolution. Adjust
ment to one’s real surroundings is always,” they say,
‘“one very important clement in morality. But
there are higher and lower forma of adjustment.
Cannibals, or conquerors, or bad politicians, may be
sufficiontly adjusted to their environment to be mo-
montarily successful; but true philanthropists and
truly groat atatesmon are better than thoy, since the
statesmen and philanthropists have a higher form of
adjustment than have the others, and are thus higher
in the scale of progress, Thoro is in tho world a
constant evolution of higher out of lower forms of
life. This applica also to society, And on this fact
of evolution depends the true morality. The ideal
morality is that form of adjustment of the social
man to his environment towards which society in ite
progrons forever tonds.” How then shall we define
our moral code? =“ Why, ones more,” says the evo-
lutionist, “by the facts. Do not make your code
first and then judge the world. You will do well
to accept the universe even if you did not make it.
But examine tho world to soe in what way it is tend-
ing. Then conform yourself to that tendency ; try
to hasten tho realization of the coming ideal porfeo-
tion. Progress does not depend on you, but you will
do well to assist progress. So, by experience, we
THE GEXERAL ETHICAL PROBLEM. 37
are to find the direction in which soviety is moving,
we are to discover the gual toward which this move-
ment tends, and this object of life, once formulated,
is to give us our moral code.”
Again, however, the idealist objects. This, he
admits, is a view higher, no doubt, than the preced-
ing ; but is it a clear and cunsistent view? Will it
bear criticium ?) In one respect, as appears to him,
% fails badly. However certain and valuable the
facts about evolution may be, the theory that founds
morality wholly upon these facts of evolution is de-
feetive, because it confuses the notion of evulution
with the notiun of progress, the conception of growth
im complexity and definiteness with the conception
ef growth in moral worth. The two leas are not
weceseanily identical. Yet their klentity is assumed
im this theory. How does it follow that the state
toward which a physical progress, namely, evulution,
tends, must be the state that is to meet with moral
approval? = This is net to be proved unless you have
already done the very thing that the doctrine of evo-
bation wishes tov teach you to do, that is, unless you
have already formed a moral code, and that inde.
pendently of what you know of the facts of natural
evolutwn. Why is the last state in an evulution
better than the former states? Surely not because
4 w the last stage, surely not because it is physically
more complex, more definite, or even more perma-
went; but solely because it corresponds to some
heal that we independently form. Why should my
ideal necessarily correspond with reality? Why
should what I approve turn out to be that which ex-
28 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
ists? And why, if any correspondence is to exist,
should that particular bit of reality that comes at the
end of a physical process called evolution be just
the one bit that is to answer my ideal demands? It
will be very satisfactory if such correspondence be-
tween the real and the ideal is found to result; but
how can I know beforehand that it must result ?
Evolution and progress: what do the terms re-
spectively mean ? Evolution, we learn, is an increase
in the complexity, definiteness, individuality and
organic connection of phenomena. But progress is
‘any series of changes that meets with the constantly
increasing approval of somebody. The growth of a
tree or of a thistle is an evolution. The climbing of
a hill for some purpose may throughout be a prog-
ress. Evolution may or may not meet with the ap-
proval of anybody; and a pessimist might fully
accept some proposed law of evolution. But untless
there is some approval from some source, we have
no progress. How thoughtless then it is, our idealist ~
insists, to confound such different notions. But is
a case of evolution ever a process of degeneration ?
Certainly. You want to eat asparagus before it is
full grown. Hence every moment of its evolution
after a certain point is for you distinctly a degenera-
tion. You want the potatoes in your cellar to keep
fresh. If. they sprout, a process of evolution has be-
gun, but every moment of it is for you the reverse
of progress. The egg that begins to incubate is in
full course of evolution; but what if it is wanted
for market? Might not the evolution of the whole
world conceivably be for the moral consciousness
THR GENERAL ETHICAL PROBLEM. 39
what such cases of evulution are for the purposes of
ordinary life?
“Bat,” the realist may say, “in fact the world
does grow better. The course of evalution is an the
whale a progress.” * Be it so,” the idealist answers,
“but how can we know it? Only by first setting
up our moral ideal, and then comparing the facts
with this ideal, If we know what we mean by bet-
ter, we can judge whether the world is growing
better. But we may not pretend to determine what
ts better by simply observing how the world grows,
Growth and improvement are not identival ideas.
Qne may grow while growing ever worse.”
And thus a moral vade, acourding to our idealist,
does not, as a code, depend on physical facts; tells
us nothing of what does exist, but tells us solely
what ought to exist. If the ideal either does exist,
or some day will exist, so much the better; but
through all the changes of fate the terrible ought
remains, and judges fearlessly the world, whether it
be good or whether it be evil. But here the realist,
to whom the moral code that is not built on natural
fact is just a dream, interposes what shall just here
be his final objection. * Be it su.” he says, * judge
after your heart's desire; but remember this, that
some other idealist beside you will be judging the
world in his own way, after what will seem to you
the folly of his heart, and his judgment and yours
will differ, as the dreams of any two dreamers must
differ. Did Plato's ideal agree with Paul's? or did
Byron judge the world after the same fashion as
Wordsworth? Even ao in the present day the
BO FH RELAIS ASHEAT OF FHILASOPHY,
Menle wae Hele ware, aadawy ebpugles, mich He Ne
WH wa peed He tadtiene wlunde of CDenien'e here
fer cavey Hi in ede eboney enews fk vonity will
movies tus cine whit Maw wines far all euch danda.
Hi when yon fevanke Hus cond world you have nw
bnwin fot, foe yee Mende bak individend caprice,
mi every Mention will tw hie wn menace Of abl
Advi vase, aNd soe eclovadiec pecmentnens wk head”
Boa thik, Nery cana Aline Mew ita, nares 1 Oddy, IF ob
gob, Voy thee Pansch of Aetan wrescececonm Joy cabal iabiig neh
en ervien na elie be Independent of hie wn ceprien,
Widderrel, Nacdoege pea blab tue.
Wie bere fat te eooteal ing, Aemohed ce Higtyh avon
pork af ie ld Naettlew cover wpm. Efe abel we
Mawes between thew? Aline! ie Aecteinny te the
Where babwer of teenie wo renwd Metoie. We beve
neh yok amen Manqly ervrighe Tinley Hcle ppwoedtden.
Hcy nnmy bots de onecwided. Pha tenth nemy die in
fhe niles, HB ew yok, es faves any wigd for Ara:
wine. “Eide ee tedeenee in Me eleiee of iMaende
acare epee Att jn Heal evade | we eat
wevabann ds bay Chase sabayeativnny Mand sae boenaded idend ja jnat
wae whit: Kak bvew while wane Mie Keendly
ninedial wd y 1 accree fey anys oP Melos in enech
WA witch Med widely Vacecwae Fw Hh penhizedd.”
Thi de tan neh Whe eying, | Might te rigtt.!
AA Shottle ayes whirl sceopenas bay sae weg) ecanyedecderitntecnn
Oe WDebw wide: 5 Reoe OF ade det peedeae pide, Oly wyatt
al soporte HRT, IF Neda devel, wel ewbes wei:
once HHA pring spt: And in Hite wiee Mery
Wb be tie dari: Adetdeetdern aot ald between cide. wend
weenie: “Phun: wean tin fied wy fee ody nae meriden:
THE GENERAL ETHICAL PROBLEM. 31
tal distinetion. This ideal or that is the highest be.
cause somebody chances to choose it for his, or be-
ease the physical work! chances to realize it. This
B a perfectly empty distinction.
Bat dificulmes must not discourage us so early in
the day. The world has talked of these matters be
fore. Let us turn to the history of some of the spee-
lations about the heal. They may suggest some-
thing to us.
CHAM PIER TL
FHE WAHFARE OF THE MORAL EDEALA,
Siem, HER Fined thee BHesdy Covad itantf,
BA toves wall Penrdac, waeed emeereibeles dietea Metad-
tenrvoid, Muly rile
Flaw aquiptta thine palace mbinsiden tie,
‘Eve agrcdba we tetede Etre abeaetoeed beetle tie —
Hees vesapsnrdy F pacednord oof trop denoaced trees:
B bnsere veer anecdote mbes rtetinenieds WHE.
Hyaeun, Manfred,
We are yet without an ideal, aud aa we cone
Henver ta cur task, ite diffiiailties inurenae, We have
ehessiecribveced tabeaves thee venarkalile poomition in whieh
avery tinal ideslist Nils linmelf, Ele says that
his moral doctrine is ta he mere than a mere bit of
nALEAL istry, Tle wants to ned out what ought
tar bass, exvesta UF tliat waded cnagelit ter be do net, Yet when
ne man sys ter his Phy ideal is thus dnt thy
perennial siglo, thy private way of looking at
things,” be dees nek want to nanent. Tle wante te
replys ° My ideal in the trie one, Ne other rational
Hilasial in qarsedbobec,”” — Yack ter der thai dae secesteas tar sneered
eyeesadan weateves ecm ecrained cuaqaquvit Ine resadity, — Pfes tocsesnnin tes
reseqisdnes serties wttbitdhy based spe Fate, Fle rntish
peannerw lacie: fined fede dled da the world of truth, ex-
pernial ter his cowie qredvate somedanioness, ble asst
bes able to ony s "La, here bo the ideal! dle sunt
THE WARFARE OF THE WORAL IDEALS. 33
he able to show it to us. so that we shall see it to be
more than his whim. But thus be is in danger of
forsaking his idealism. His pusition so far has there-
fore seemed to us an uncertain one. We have fels
the furve of his needs: but we have not been able to
see as yet just how they are to be satstied. The
sscisfuction of them would in fact be a complete
ethical doctrine. And the foundamon of suck a doc-
trime is just what we here are seeking.
Ik ts Mecumbent upon us yet further to show how
the search for a moral ideal bas in the past been
hindered by the weight of this doubé about the exaet
relamon of the real and the weal. The controversy
that the last chapter cunsidered Is a controversy end-
lessly repeated in the blustery of moral doctrines.
Bverywhere we find a moral ileal maintained by some
devoted idealist as the one perfectly obvious aim for
human Ife. Everywhere there stands over against
this teal some eritie who says: - The choice of this
am for bfe ts an aceident. I reject this boastful
weal For where in reality is found the firm basis
ef fact on which the ideal ts founded?” Then poe~
ably the ndealist. relaxing the rigor of his wlealism,
poms out In the external world some real or myth-
ial support fur his ideal And thereupon either his
erties reject the creed about the external world thus
effered tu them. or they deny the moral force ef the
supposed realities. or. again, themselves assuuling an
idealists attitude, they reproach the idealist with his
unworthy desertion of bis own hivh faith, in that be
has wreided to realistic demands and has founded
the latkty OugAé on the paltry Js. And thus the com
3
84 THK RELIGIOUM ASPKOT OF THILOBOPHY,
troversy continues, Often it meme to us that the
wtrigcecles mnunt dns endlows, At all wvente wo must
here look at some of ite plumes,
[,
In the days of the Sophists, Greok thought had
retushienl ite flrnt promt orm of ethios) wkeptioinmn, Phbs
whesprticinin wan directed ayitint the ideale of popular
morality, “Thay ars not solf-ovident and necomary
Felestalnn,”” sealed isa mtslowtecssens thes Moplinta, “Thay are
conventions, They aro privates judgments.” The
poplar ides ware of sour popularly defended
sagcoatsamt mtsecly mmmescilton boy thes sanes cof thus rthonal sree
Ligghsors, © Dba pects arneacdes threes Uintdnastionn,” ft be
respond, Mis georde ares lols to enforces thom 5 there
fore, fonr the gods,”
Sccprtlednsn hacd two asinwesrn ter tiie clesfesnms. ‘The
one answer was slinplss “ Who knows whether there
nas any goide, or wheat thes gocle, If thoy oxiet, may
Choos toda "The other auswor wae more subtle,
Hoesessasames it sressnd Dy csxporeenemesed fan mleespotbessal gousines ao new
form of moral idealinn, Tt in best promervedd to us
fae su flases rvamnngces bee this meeond book of Plates Ree
prrabobics, — VDesees thus yet nen, Clancon and Adel
tistitim, confine (hat certain sophintie objections ta
thes reslity of mort) distinetionn are deoply posallig to
thressranes] vesm, —'Sbaasy samba oveersetasn tay limecsanm thoes enesetcase
ion scatanes msscshy Psambotcons som tas vectnscoves tlaesmes cleotsbotn,
They sii ig thes doubts in substances as followns
Crs that thes pronde sores of irvenintidoles snsigehet, sossl
that they are dinpomed to onforns some moral law,
THE WARFARE OF THE MORAL IDEALS. $5
still does that fact give any true distinction between
good and evil as sach? For whoever urges us to do |
night merely to get the favor of the gods. urges us
in reality just to do what is prudent. Such doctrines
make justice not desirable in itself, but desirable
solely for what it brings in its train. And thus there
would be no difference between good and evil as such,
bat only between what brings reward and what
brings punishment. ~ Therefore, O Socrates,” they
in effect say, * do thou defend for us justice in itself,
and show us what it is worth in itself, and how it is
different from injustice. But pat us not off with
stories about reward and punishment.” Such is a
brief sammary of their two speeches.
No better could either the need or the difficulty
of the task of moral idealism be set forth than in
these eloquent statements. How does Plato lay the
ghosts that he has thus raised? How does he give
an independent foundation to the ideal of justice ?
He surely felt how hard a problem he was under
taking. He has, im fact. attempted several answers
to it. Bat the main answer. given in the Repub-
he itself is insufficient, though noble. This answer
is, in effect, that the properly balanced, fully and
harmoniously developed soul, absorbed in the con-
templation of eternal truth, cannot possibly desire
Injustice ; that only the tyrannical soul. in which
the desires have the upper hand, where nothing is
secure, whose life is like the life of an Ul-governed
or even anarchic community, tumultuous, wretched,
helpless before passion. only such a soul can desire
injustice. Injustice, then, means desire for discord,
86 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PITILOSOPHY.
it moans the victory of the desires over the reason,
it in inconsintent with tho life of the soul that in
given to blessed contemplation of the ctornal ideas.
or such blend woul ite blessednens in, in the fine
phim that Spinoze long afterwards created, not the
roward of virtua, but virtue itself; so that such a
soul will not do the right as a mouns by which it
may procure the blessed contemplation of the eter-
rsel, Jot, Instn onpeaged in this blessed vontempla-
tion, it is theroby enabled to do right,
But to the wicked soul of the unjust man Plato
mamniigly his no inducement to offer in order to per.
mule it to bescome just, save the oloquent statement
of the pains that accompany injustios, the picture of
the warfare of desires, the proof of the wretched in-
atvbility snd of the possibly sternal miscry in which
the tyrannion) soul must live, And thus Plato him-
aelf would be inne far open to the objection that his
Cnneon and Adeimanton had made to all previous
mornintn, namely, that they never gave a reason
Why justics in itself was to be chosen, but always
mile justion desirable hy reason of the rewards that
result from it. For Plato's view, as for that of less
Jclewed ssorslints, thes unjust ins should sak to be
come just beenise, until he doos become just, he will
be wretched. Can no other basis for the virtie of
Justion bw found sive this one? Tf none ean be
fornansel meeves thin, thet whetesver sy mond oxinte thiaet
profers the tumult of desire, with average success in
injustios, to the solemn pone of the contemplation
of ideal good apart from the stisfration of sensdats
dosiron, for that soul Plato's argumont will be worth
TRE WARFARE OF THE MORAL IDEALS. 87
less. Such a tyrannical man will delight to remain
a tyrant, and that will be the end of life for him.
The sugyestiveness, the deeper significance of this
Platonic doctrine, we do not deny. But, as it stands,
the doctrine is not complete nor consistent. For
Plato himself has given us as the support for his
ideal, a fact, or a supposed fact, of human nature,
A moral skeptic will deal with it as Glaucen and
Adeimantos had dealt with the popular morality.
The supposed fact, they will say, may be doubted,
Perhaps some tyrant will actually feel happier than
some struggling and aspiring soul far higher up in
the heavens. But, leaving that doubt aside, there is
the other objection, The ideal jastice has come to
be founded on a bare physical fact, namely, on the
constitution of the soul which might, for all we can
see, have been different.
Important as he is in concrete ethical questions,
Aristotle does nothing of importance to remove this
fundamental difficulty, sinee his position as to this
matter is too near to Plato's, Sali less do the Epi-
cureans, for whom in fact. just this diftculty does not
exist. Plainly they declare that they merely state
physical facts. Generosity, fdelity to friends, and
other idealistic activities they indeed regard as the
part of the wise man, but the end of all is very
frankly declared to be his selfish advantage. As
Cicero expresses their views! Crm solitado. et
vita sine amivis insidiarum et metus plena sit, ratio
ipsa monet amicitias compara, quibus pars con
1 De Fin, 1. 20, 68. Quoted in Zeller’s Madsos. d. Grieeken, Th
& Absh. I. (Sd ed.) p. 460.
~~
88 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
firmatur animus et a spe pariendarum voluptatum
sejungi non potest.”
The Stoics have a new thought to offer, one that
would have been as revolutionary as Christianity it-
self, if they could but have grasped and taught ite
full meaning. But that was for them impossible.
Their new thought, which gave foundation to their
moral ideals, was the thought of the perfect equality
of all men in the presence of the universal Reason,
to which all alike ought to conform, Everyone, they
said, ought to be rational; everyone ought to try to
extend the empire of reason. If one’s neighbor is
rational being, one can and must try to realize the
ational in him almost as much as in one’s own self.
{ence one’s duty to do good to men, This duty, to
be sure, commonly did not for the Stoics extend to
the point of very great practical self-sacrifice, But
at any rate they gave a new foundation for justice.
One works not only to conform one’s self to the
. ideal, but also to realize the ideal here in this world
in others as well as in himself. The ideal Reason
can be realized in yonder man through my efforts,
much as, through my acts, it can be realized in me.
All men are in so far brothers, members of one fam.
ily, children of one Father, and so all alike objects
of moral effort for every one of their number!
1 For a collection of the passages illustrative of this doctrine,
seo the quotations in Zeller’s Philos. d. Criechen, Th. 8, Abth. IL
p 285, agy. (Bd ed.). Marcus Aurelius is prominent in the Ifs¢.
Epictetus is responsible for the deduction of human brotherhood .
from the common fatherhood of God. Seneca has frequent expron
sions of almilar thoughts. Yet for all that the wise man in to be
independent and separate. In his respect for humanity, he is no¢
to lose himself.
THE WARFARE OF THE NORAL IDEALS. 39
IL.
This thoaght was indeed a deep one. and if the
Seotes gave but an imperfect practical realization of
& to the world, they prepared thereby the way for
the reception of the higher thought of Jesus, when
that thought appeared. We may therefore more
readily sugyest the skeptical criticism of the Stoical
thoaght by first looking at the well known comple-
tion of the notion of God's fatherhood in the doo-
trime of Jesus.
Jesas founded his morality in his theology, yet he
did mot make moral distinctions dependent on the
were fact of divine reward or vengeance. An act
ts for him wrong, net becanse outside the kingdom
of heaven there is weeping and gnashing of teeth ;
rather should we say that because the act is opposed
te the very nature of the relation of sonship to God,
as Jesus conceives this relation, therefore the doers
of sach acts cannot be in the kingdem of heaven, all
Whose citizens are sons of dre Ning. And outside
the kingdom there is darkness and weeping, simply
because outside ts outside, Therefore. if Jesus gives
ws a theological view of the nature af morality, he
does not make morality dependent on the bare des-
pote will af God, but en a peculiar and necessary
relation between God and his creatures. So long
as God is what be is and thev remain his crea-
tares, so long must this relation continee, Jesus in
fact. as we know, gives us a higher and universal
form of the morally ef the prophets Ther had
wad, Jahveh has saved his people, has chosen them
dl) THE RELIGIOUS ASMROT OF PHILOSOPHY,
from all the earth, bias fed them with bia henunty,
has trented them as hia well beloved vineyard, tas
taken the nation as it were tao wife. Adnul ae, if the
people offend against the law of rightenianoss that
in written in their hearts and known theongh the
words of prophecy, they are guilty net alone of dan.
gerois revolt againal irresistible might, bat alse of
notnething far worse, namely, of the basest inpgrati-
fide. Their sit is intend of incall the earth. She
heathen forsake not their wretehodl peda, that are
yeh no pols, and shall Esrael tern against the will
of ite living, almighty lover? ‘The waste vine-
yard, the anfaithful wife, there are the typos of the
iniquity of the poople, Their sin ia a miserabte
alate of utter corruption. Whit the very honate ale,
to know the masters that food them, Isrel forgeta,
whese master is not only the toker of all things,
reat, rabies thee levine ayers of his ebemon tations.
This annetion for morality, not the might we tmiueh
as the fender lave of God, is hy Jess extended in
ronge nnd doepened in tnenning. Fvery man stands
before Glad as belaved sen. UP tie wraendors, thes
fther wold fain seed him as the shepherd wend
best sheep: weld fain, like the prodigal's father,
fall open bis neck and bisa hin, if he will batt re
trons wertkel fate Food! sacl clothe bin with: the beasts
evened tert ferrgeot Peters semi abl heise its And thes
fathers orainoand senehine are far jrock oad oon
just. Deeper and tenderer ia this thought thon the
prophetio idea, hoes the relation is ne politiont
one, hth a clase personal one. Po he cantons of ib
Ines, aeeerding te Jess, bo wish ta live in second.
THE WARFARE OF THE MORAL IDEALS. 41
ance with it, so as to return to the Father love fur
love. Hence, in knowing this relatun, one has the
hivhest sanction for all good acts. The ulumate
motive that Jesus gives to men for duing nght is
therefore the wish two be in harmeny with Gud's
Jove. So the Father in his holiness wills for each of
ws, and so each san, cunseious of the love af the
Fasher, also desires, as sovn as he is aware of the
Fashber's will. One cannot know of this infinite love
Without wishing to be in univn with it. = Even with-
out knowing of the love, the very consciousness of
the wretchedness of the lonely, separate life of selfish
Wiekedness must lead one te want to forsake the
hasks and find the Father, even if he should be bat
the angry Father. Much more then if one has
found the Father, has found him caring for the spar
rows, and for the hiies, and for the least and the
worst of his chikdren, must one, thus knowing the
Father, desire to submit to him. One is lost in the
ocean of divine love. Separate existence there is no
mere. One is anxious to lose his life. to hate all
seliish joys, to sell all that one has to be despised
and rejected of all the world. if so be that thereby
ome can cume into accunl with the universal life of
Grads lore, in which everything of lesser worth dis-
appears.
Daty to one’s neighbor is but a corullarv to all
this. In the first place one’s neighbor is ne longer
a mere fact of experience. a rival, a helper. an
enemy: but he is, instead of all this, a child of God.
Every other aspect of his life is lost in this one. As
child then he represents the Father. The highest
42 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
messenger of God will say in God’s name at the last:
Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these my
brethren, ye did it unto me. And so each brother
is the ambassador of God. When Job had spoken
of his duty towards the lowly, he had given the sano-
tion for it in the thought: Did not one fushion us f
Jesus gives a higher sanction: Does not one Father
love you all? In the presence of the Father the
children are to lose their separateness. They are to
feel the oneness of their life. There is no longer
any rival or enemy, any master or slave, any debtor
or creditor here, for all are in infinite debt to the
Infinite One, and all in his sight brethren.
The Stoics had conceived of a common Father.
But they regarded him as an impersonal, all-pervad-
ing Reason. The thought of Jesus gave to his idea
of the fatherhood of God a warmth and life unknown
to any previous thought. And in this warmth and
life he intended the idea of Duty to grow. The -high-
est principle of the doctrine is: Act as one receiv-
ing and trying to return an Infinite Love. To
thy neighbor act as it befits one so beloved to act
towards his brother in love. And thus is Duty
explained.
For our present skeptical inquiries this doctrine of
Jesus in its original form is no longer enough. For
one thing, Jesus himself did not intend it asa philos-
_ophy, but always expresses it as an insight. And in
our time this insight is clouded by many doubts that
cannot be lightly brushed away. This idea of God
aan Father, — it is exactly the idea that our philos-
ophy finds most difficulty, nowadays, in establishing,
THE WARFARE OF THE MORAL IDEALS. 48
For many im all the future history of our race this
ndea will be harder to establish than will be the
moral doctrine that was deduced by Jesus from it.
For many who with steadfast faith accept the doc
trine of God's fatherhood. their ultimate reasun will
rather be that, first accepting the morality of Jesus,
they find it most natural to accept therewith what
they understand tv be his theology. His moral doc’
trine will be to them the insight, the theology will
be taken on trust. Many others will accept indeed
the morality. bat be unable to accept the theology.
In ethical faith they will be Christians. in theology
Agnosties. <And therefore. to the philosephic sta-
dent, who must prove all things. and hold fast only
what he finds sure, it is impossible tu take the the
ology of Jesus on simple faith, and not profitable to
postpone the discussion of the moral problems until
he first shall have established a theology. Morality
is for us the starting-point of our inquiry. Theol
ogy comes later, if at all. And. as we shall presently
see, the theology. if aceepted, would not satisfy all
the questions of the ethical inquirer.
Yet if the doctrine of Jesus does not belong
among the purely idealistic theories of duty, since it
gives duty the fact of (vod’s fatherhood as its foun-
dation. it has one aspect that would make the revapit-
ulation of it necessary even in the course of a study
of parely ideal ethies. For. while this doctrine
founds duty ultmately on the consetousness that
God is a Father, and so on a belief in a physical or
metaphysical truth, still the immediate ground of
the idea of duty to one’s neivhber is the conseiouy
44 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
ness in each man that his neighbor is his brother.
In the teachings of Jesus this latter insight follows
from the sense of common sonship that Jesus wants
to give to men. But, apart from the theology, the be-
lief in the brotherhood of men, in case it can be made
clear and definite, may have just the relation to the
idea of duty that Jesus, in his theological ethics,
wished the idea of the common sonship to have.
But it is our present purpose to see how doubt
follows the track of the moral idealists. And to
carry out even here this purpose, it is very important
to note that however much the morality of Jesus
seems to rest upon his theology, and did, for him, rest
upon that theology, for us that basis would be of it-
self insufficient, even if we could unhesitatingly ac-
cept the theology. For the skeptical question might
arise in the inquiries of the philosopher, to whom all
questions are allowed, Why is it evident that one
ought to return the Father’s love? Granting the
fact of this love, how does it establish the ideal ?
And this question, easy as seems the answer of it
to a believer, is just the question that the “ almost
persuaded ” of all times have been disposed to ask.
Any particular individual may believe in the theol-
ogy of Jesus, and yet fail to feel the force of the
moral doctrine. Why does this love constrain me ?
he may say. In fact the church has always found
it necessary to construct for itself a process, or even
a series of processes, through which the unbeliever
must go, in order to reach the point of development
where he could begin to feel the constraining force
of the divine love. It has been recognized as a fact
THE WARFARE OF THE MORAL IDEALS. 45
that the unregenerate could believe and even trem-
ble and yet remain unregenerate. The saving faith
was sven to be not identical with the mere belief in
God as Father. For the saving faith, divine grace’
was necessary, adding to the unregenerate recogni-
tion of the bare truth the devotion af the loving
child of God. And therefore the churvh has never
been content with the doctrine af Jesus in its unde-
veloped simplicity.
But if all this is so, then for us the morality of
Jesus, considered as morality, is founded, not an the
thealogical theary alone, but also on a peculiar insight
that each man is to have into the duty of returning
the divine love. That the divine love is real. gives a
basis for all duty in case and only in case one first
_ sees that it is one's duty to return the divine love.
And wherein is this insight as such any clearer than
the direct insight into the duty of leving one's neigh-
bor? Ifa man leves not his brother whom he has
seen, how shall he love God wham he has not seen ?
Is not the duty of gratitude first evident, if at all, in
man's relations tu his fellows? Is not love given first
as a duty to ane’s companions, and only secondarily
as a duty to God. and then only in case one believes
in God? In other words, are we not here, as in the
diseussion with the realist at the outset, led to the
tiew that not a physical doctrine, ner vet even the
sublimest metaphysical doctrine, as such, but only an
ethical doctrine, can be at the hase of a system af
ethies? The dovtrine that God loves us is a foun-
dation for duty only by virtue of the recognition of
ene yet more fundamental moral principle, the doo-
46 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
tring that unearned love ought to be gratefully re-
turned, And for this principle thoology as such
gives no foundation, But on the other hand, upon
what should the ideal principle itaelf be founded 7
Why is unearned love to be gratefully returned? Is
this pringiple founded ones more on some doctrine
of the constitution of human nature? The same ob-
jection would again appoar, A physioal fact is no
ideal, So, thon, this inwight Is just an insight, the
macoptancey of sn ideal wholly for its own sake? But
then returns the old objection, What is such an
unfounded idea but the individual caprias of some.
body? Last the faithful be nevor so dogoted ; still
there are the unroygenorats, who are somehow to be
convinced of a truth that thay do not recognize, And
how are they convinond, if at all? Not by showing
them the facts, which they have alrouly known with- |
out conviction; but by arousing In them a now feol-
ing, namely, gratitude, Thus the Christian ideal
wnonin to have for ite sole theorstionl foundation the
physica! fret that man often fools gratitude. [tin true
that no one can necise Joss of oxpronly giving this
or any other theorstien) foundation to his doctrine.
Ho ww necosmarily wholly frow from the theoratioal
nin its hin dealings with the poople. But for un now
the point in the theorstienl point, Tf the foundation
of Christian ethios as popularly understood be not
thes plrysicsl fact of the Mathers love, then in it not
just the physien! fret of the Frequent oxintancs of
ersecitaacles 2 Acsvel im csitduee of tienes se mitinfiuactory fous
dation for an othicn! theory as much? Nay, if Chiine
tian othion by the highest from the practions point of
THE WARFARK OF THE MORAL IDEALS. 47
view, xtill must we not dig much deeper to find the
theoretical foundation on which this glorious atruo-
ture reste?
Til.
We have been seeking to illustrate our funda-
mental difficulty in ethics, — one that ix too fre
quently concealed by rhetorical devices, The un-
certainty here illustrated resulta from the ditticulty
of giving any reason for the choice of a moral ideal.
Single acta are judged by the ideal: but who shall
fudge the judge himeelf? Seme one. aa Plato, or
wme Stoic, or Jena, gives usa moral ideal. If we
are of his followers, the personal intluence of the
Master ia enough. Then wo aay: “1 take thia to be
my guide,” and our moral doctrine ia founded. But
if we are not of the faithful. then we aak for proof,
The doctrine saya: “ Behald the perfect Life, or the
eternal Ideas, or the oourne of Nature, or the will af
Gad. or the love of the Father. To look on those
realities in to understand our ideal, Hf you remem.
ber those trutha, vou will hesitate not to do aa we
vay.” But atill the doubter may be unwilling to
wubanit. He may say to Plato: “ The tyrant is easy
w find who will laugh at you when you talk of the
peace of philosophic contemplation, who will inaixt
that his life of conflict and of danger ia fuller and
eweeter in ite lurid contragta and in ite contasion af
wenauous bling, than are all your pale, atupid jor of
blank contemplation. And if the tyrant asaya an,
who aball decide againat him? Haas not many a
man turned with eagerness from the dull life of the
48 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
thinker, once for a while endured, to the richer joys
and sorrows of the man of the world? Have not
such men actually held the pleasures of life, however
dearly bought, to be better than the superhuman
calm of your philosophic ideal?” Even #0 to the
Stwic, the objector may say: “ Grranted that your
eternal Reason does pervade all things and is our
common Father, why should that cause me, who am
one of his creatures, to do otherwise than I like?
Who can escape from his presence? Even if I live
irrationally, am I not still part of the Universal
Reason? The bare fact that there is an Eternal
Wisdom does not make clear to me that I must
needs be very wise. My destiny may be the destiny
of a being made solely to enjoy himself.” And, to
the Christian doctrine, the skeptic may oppose the
objection that if the truth does not at once spiritu-
ally convert all who know it, the proof is still lacking
that the Christian Ideal actually appeals to all pos-
sible natures. “If I feel not the love of God,” the
objector will say, “ how prove to me that I ought to
feel it?” Or, as human nature so often questions:
“Why must I be loving and unselfish ? ”
Now, the simple, practical way of dealing with all
such objectors is to anathematize them at once. Of
course, from the point of view of any assumed ideal,
the anathema may be well founded. “ If you do not
as I command,” 80 says any moral ideal, “JT con-
demn you as an evil-doer.” “ Ie that believeth not
shall be damned.” But anathemas are not argu-
ments. To resort to them is to give up theoretic
ethics. We who are considering, not whom we shall
TRE WARFARE OF TRE MORAL IDEALS. 49
practically condemn, but what we can say in favor
of any moral theory, must be unwilling to be put off
with mere oratorical persuasion, or to mistake prac.
tical adhesion for theoretical conviction, We want!
a code that shall seem not only admirable, but, if ao |
it may be, demonstrable.
Such objections, then, blocking the path of our
iWealist, what is he to do with them? Is there any
direction in which he van successfully seek a foun-
dation for his ideals ?
We have, indeed, much seeking yet to do ere we
ean find the right direction. For, in the next place,
we shall have to show how just such objections as
we have applied to other ethical doctrines will apply
to all those doctrines that put the basis of morals in
the often-used mass of instincts called Consvience.
Canseience undoubtedly expresses the results of civ-
ihad ancestry and training. It no doubt must al-
Ways prove an indispensable aid in making practical
moral decisions ; but if it be used to give a theo-
retical basis to ethiva, one can say of it what has
been already aaid of other realities. Its universal
and uniform presence among men can be doubted,
and its value where it is present can be called in
question whenever it is employed to give a basis for
ethica; since as a mere physical fact of the constitu-
tion of human nature, consvience is not vet an ideal,
nor an obvious foundation for an ideal. Both of
these objections have been frequently urged. Let
us venture to repeat the old story.
4
:
|
60 THR RELIGIOUS ASPEOT OF PHILOSOPHY,
iV,
fistinets in general aro useful, not becuse they
are infallible, imuch lows beesiune they are rational
(for they are neither), but beanie they work qulskly
atl sre lew capricious than are our lows habitual
dinipitlaen, aid we, inn commun life, ave our stilatitutes
for ronson, Put, in theory, no set is good merely
Peenine the lnvtinet called sonselencs approves of
its not doen conselonss in any man always hinting
tively approve of yum sete, Therefore connelense
In, for thes prspene of founding an ethical theory, as
tinclews aa if it were a inere flotion, It gives no
foundation for moral dintinetlons,
To he sure, wo must be anderstond aa referring
here net to the moral conselousnens of man in ite
highest rational manifostations s for that thera in a
ratlonal sid wollfoumled mearal oonmedousnenms we
ourselves desire ta show, ‘The connlenees that we
criticise Ia conmdence naan inetine When people
meng CDvsat wer sageel ser do tdes ehgelet, Voevesasames thes lanstenlinte
declaration of consdences shows it to be the eight,
thresy geecsnecrally resect tliat ser neal neo de deh beesessatine
Hh feeds elyit. «Anil when teralists found thele eth
dessul cleseebodsves cane cennsurbecrioees, they are fa rent danger
of making thelr whales ayrpend tr tere feeling, Put
sich mere feeling eon only give te problenias 1b cnt
suerts werk ves prrcababesens, "Ter iMiamtatatos boy ee teerteabsles crams
Whitt Vhatler, in analyaliy thes lata of connnedeneses,
itt hin Dlosertation of the Nature of Virties,”” eonnen
tageenty tDeee Frncct Abosat, Vrectsesvesecnneres, eve thes effort ts bite
eronne thie general hieaprpl ices, Is, fore ene exrettion perp
THE WARFARE OF THE MORAL IDEALS. §1
ular conscience, only a part of virtue, not in any sort
the whole of it, he really discovers nothing poaitive
about the nature of virtue, but only gives us a very
interesting problem about the nature of virtue. If
benevolence were the sole basis of virtue, then, says
Batler, for our cooscience treachery and violence
would be “no otherwise vicious than as foreseen
likely to produce an overbalance of misery to society.”
Therefore, he continues, ‘if in any case a man could
procure to himself as great advantage by an act of
_ Injustice as the whole foreseen inconvenience likely to
be brought upon others by it would amount to, such
a piece of injustice would not be faulty or vicious at
al.” Even so, it would not be wrong, he points
out, to take A's property away and give it to B, if
B's happiness i in getting it overbalanced A’s incon-
venience and vexation in losing it. But since con-
science disapproves of such actions, therefore, con-
tinves Butler, “the fact appears to be that we are
constituted so as to condemn falsehood, unprovoked
Violence, injustice, and to approve of benevolence to
some preferably to others, abstracted from all con-
sideration, which conduct is likely to produce an
overbalance of happiness or misery.” Were God's
“moral character merely that of benevolence, yet
ours is not so.” <All this now shows how full of
problems our uncriticised conscience is. It is the
starting-point, not the guide, of moral controversies.
Conscience approves benevolence, and it also ap-
proves the repression of benevolence in cases where
Justice, distributive or retributive, seems to the pop-
ular mind to be opposed to benevolence. And when
62 THE RELAGININ ANPRAT Of PHILAKOPHY,
rniees seecresatiant, them to wes racses jrsmtdens inn all ite forrne
tar Voernvesoeodeceneses, thoes sesatrcend ccortmecderteces tn lmmatiofiont,
Hote ibvaticrs 16 sgrprrerven, trot benstrine roteibnution may
adisensatesdy ineecressumes Vesagrprinsermm, bret boensmcenes verted ioes.
there mececotom eon tar it. Arnel if thee timterrnd commen
is oagciadan sagrpressalecel ter, sorrel in tate bawt leverage tor seclinit
thrdat bvestvesverdestacses im, af tere soll, vermlly thes briggh mat enue,
anil gritinhenett cnly 0 ment, then thin sgrpoul ta
Minply % netting of cemmeioncs agains itelf, ‘Ihe
perilar cmimiences in, an att inwtinet, enews for all
confirm and aneortain abantt thes teres relations of
jrstion satel banevelenee, Tb in timslenn tar make thie
drvatinnet, tar cher whist, thes nsatoresd comlitione that made
it mesvesr grrecgempenl 11 tar cle, tented y, tar trimkees to mymtenn
of trenin, A thitsheor Vike Urathee, with bile merit
raeswn sored cMecgrty of inemigelet., checfesreles thes clade of com
mechecrieces intily Ary stiabyncm which bering beonnes tr tm
thst erie certimecienoe ine inyetesry, and thet ite tamer.
thertum sabvertet sald thees cDevecgresat, ectbrteesal cgrecstbertion Veesesertrin
inner toehen ce certfiined) na acnrte nm we cremmcgttomtione It,
Ate tnvetituct ta, tie whieret, Vikeos anny ether habit, Yon
crite Peat, dormer we farniline Might of wtaten ner lenge M0
gion thes tier think orbit yere feet, wre dering, — Mecfleet
tageens gerne ericeninng, saneed tere ehiserceen tas erties yore wheal
stsrenbde:, Kiveere mer certemesiepiees tm se perfectly conficlent
ginices sum Nerney sa gerne soak it eer gobribersengebiicnl eqrtentiertin,
The obijortiona here itn queation biege been we
Preegrenthy virgeed that it in biaedly werrth while for
becomes ov boey cvsary Peed threste Ferree tas dovedl cone them very
Dertige, A tes eopeertagghy Serr this grresaesnet gree grermes tar ell
whist, 010 thes arieersal sbeongetics Freee thes tines of thes
Serphiinte hiaves dtamimterd taper, timmnely, that the oon
THE WARFARE OF THE MORAL IDEALS. 53
sehenees of various men, nations and races, are con-
ficting in their judgments of acts. This objection,
worthless when urged against a well-founded theory
ef the moral consciousness, is fatal to any theory that
make: morality dependent upon a particular emo-
tional or intellectual “ constitution ” of human nature,
that declares morality to be known by men through
ene faculty or “sense of a peculiar character. If
there are many conswiences, each claiming rank as
the trae consience, and all contleting, then the
choice among these can only be made an the ground
ef something else than a conscience.
The caprices of moral instinet are not exhausted
when one has enumerated, as nowadays men often
da, as many practives as ane can find approved
er demanded by the conwiences of filthy savages.
Among civilized men, ves, in our own hearts, each
of us can find namberiess contheting and capricious
etimates of actions, and it has only a psychological
laterest to stady them in detail, or to try to reduce
them to any semblance of principle. Such con
ectemce as we have about commen matters is too eas-
ly quieted : and, as a mere feeling, the conscience
that can be called moral is not readily distinguish-
able in this, or in any other respect. from a mere
sense of propriety, from a reverence for castem, or
from the fear of committing an offense against eti-
qoeette. That certain blunders hurt us mere than
oar lesser crimes, and that our remorse for them ts
ike our remorse for venial immorality. only more
Intense, is nowadays a matter of frequent remark.
You ride using another man’s season-ticket, or you
h4 THE HELIGIOUN ANPHIT OF PHILONOPHY,
doll sa whites lie, cor myrtle ate titabedidl werd, ancl cents
petdestsetes, VF te Vittdes tamed tar mndede Adidties, never witeen,
Pak yous bow ty the weeigs tant le dhe atrest, oF you
Hiaproniies word, oF you tip over a gland of wae
dese, wudned Advesen yorts sapeovnednes eabocated erin avucaetecennend tags
all day long, yer, from dine to tine for weeka,
Mosely con dangoertlad acl daelependent judge da thie
forling of what you ought to have dene Shall
estdaden des Fertile cnr fectinig, wlitede taday in aed toe
aeeew dn eth jester tae coven /
Nhe tealiional anawer of the dvountes of cote
pasdesrences, wleesty tlvemes Patter tres taegceel segctdtint then, dm
well khiowi, ‘They aay, variota lene cligiiflert seestteal
destuleneden anity ah Glinsess Dees tadetacbeens feet connsedestictes |
Hrnt tlees sornd setae dn cond wel (eatwertdiy sebwitde:
pti fll thew miatakes, Mame, of love of
praise, of sone of proprdahy mny pan theninel ven off
ae etvsnsesesdesegenes 5 Voeed, flees precencndese: — ccestenedensees, when
you Nad iis iafalliite, Wut we may still rejein
tated, UF Alves DUM esta tay des oF tides anvntances, tves evennassencqacesincces
wits. bes very ante the anne an what we ane lisdat
Ho spe, Far dh thes qiestion enn ative whether a
pevesan Vanngecbenes Van ances, ovladecdy PE tanbecs dao Does cseanamecdesaneces,
wee y dex tees verdes cof Alves Veofia DD Dsbes cunnisecdesne ce tert,
Alaesn tld eqeaeseat dense cctgranieat. Voce alesesdedesl Voy eagopested tae
evennaserdestaeces Mtawsl ly ednees thes very qorddenn tien dad
CONF two fingralaes, Detde preeteteling tar repreneiit ai
pietfespaanes, wlhaderly dee Obes prennsedanes cccotscresdesinees | Adil
aqttescod Terticy cof tdndes sseaets aeesiats Lees tygopoestatesel fer sentiies
Wve Dace: ta-DDonanesnd Aboesty tDoes ssernatdicct dangs inanpovedeaes testis
peshvestn, VA wdNL sical, Does esroennagede tan togpoly cevesey A tothge:
wines’ tiboliine test tar tlie wane longe Atqoeliem, and ta
THE WARFARE OF TAK WORAL IDEALS 55
say: This impulse is not of to-day nor of yestentay,
amd ne man can tell whence it came, therefore it is
the vaice af infallilde conscience. For, fine as that
vaving is, when applied to a genuiue eternal truth,
the test is not a sufficient ane for us in our weakness
tw apply tv the impulses that we find in our poor
selves. For we soon forget whence came our preju-
dices and even our bad habits, and we can fancy that
to be of immemorial antiquity which has becuu to
be in our own parish, and within the memory of the
old men. <A child bern in one of our far western
settlements grows up amid a community that is a
few vears alder than himself. and net as ald as his
ehdest brother, Yet he shall lek upon all these
nekety, wooden houses, and halfsgraded_ streets, full
of rubbish, as the outcome af an immense past: he
shal] hear of the setdlement af the town as he hears
of ancient history, and he shall reverence the aldest
deserted, weatherbeaten, rotting loecabin af the
hace. with it< mud chimney crumbling to dust, quite
aa much as a modern Athenian child may reverence
the ruins of the Parthenon. A Gime when all thes
things were not. shall be bevond his conception.
Even ao, if moral truth be eternal, we vet dare net
undertake to judge what it is by merely examining
earselves ty ace what customs or tastes or maral
Jedenrents feel to our preeent selves as if chev must
have been eternal, Such absolute validity ane might
possibly feel as belonging to his mother’s way of mak-
ing plune-padding. Suow, to use a comparison of
Aristadle’s, is as white after one dav as if: it had
been lying untouched and unmelted for a thousand
56 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPRY,
years. And high judicial authority lately expressed
the opinion, «@ propos of a change in standard time,
that usage may alter itself in a day as well asin a
contury, and be as authoritative in ono case as in the
other. Nothing feels older than a well-cstablished
custom, however recent it may be.
Conscience then cannot be recognized as infallible
morely through the tost of antiquity as judged by
our feeling. Conscience furthermore, or emotions
that pretend to the authority of conscionos, may be
found counseling or approving contradictory ways
of action. Therefore conscience is no sufficient
moral guide.
But even if all this were waived, if conscience
were in actual agreement among all mon, and if
there were no diffloulty in distinguishing tho voice
of conscience from the voice of passion, or from
other prejudices or sentiments, it would remain true
that no ultimate theory of the difference between
right and wrong could be founded on the assertions
of any instinet. Why an individual should obey his
consciences unless he wishes to do so, cannot be made
elear by conscionce itself alone. Nor can the neocon
sity and real truth of a distinetion be mado clear by
the assertions of a faculty that, however dignified it
may be, appears in the individual aaa porsonal omo-
tion, a prejudice or choice, determined by an im-
pulao inchim., von if other people actually havo
this sane impulse, that does not make thoir common
projudice necessary or rational, Conscionce, if nie
voraal, would still be only a physical fact. If there
are actually no differences among various consciences,
THE WARFARE OF THE MORAL IDEALS. §7
it is still impossible to see why there might not be.
And the pussibility is as fatal to the authority of bare
conscience as the reality would be. In conscience
alone, without some higher rational test, there is no
ground evident wherefore its decisions might not
have been other than they are. But what the mor
alist wants is such a distinction between night and
wrong as does net depend upon any mere acellent of
reality, eren upon the acoidental existence of a moral
sense. He wants to find the eternal ethical truth. '
We insist then that one of the first questions of the |
moralist must be, why conscience in any given case |
is riykt. Or, to put the case otherwise, ethical doo-
trine must tell us why, if the devil's consvience ap-
proves of the devil’s acts, as it well may do, the
devil’s conscience is nevertheless in the wrong.
The discussion has, we imagine, after all, a practi-
eal importance in a way not always sufficiently re-
membered. In the name of conscience many crimes
have been done. In the name of conscience men
comlemn whatever tends towards true moral prog-
tees, 90 long as this new element is opposed to popu-
lar prejudice. In the name of consvience they kill
the prophets, and stone every one that is sent unto
them. In the name of conscience wars are waged,
whole tribes are destroyed, whole peoples are op-
pressed. If conscience is the great practical guide
in common life, canscience is also, in many great
erises, the enemy of the new light. I¢ is the sensi-
tive and penetrating eye of the heart, but it is often
blind before the coming day, even because it has
been so useful to us in finding our way in the night.
hs tHE HELIAIR ASPIRE Oe PHILAROPHY:
He ertigehits tes tres te ccevtrererertnpliccces et trevtiede thet there
sates cep taetty birrtem wy Teens fli teeertiel pecemertt ttittits eiet
seieles thee reeermaed dreetineet, where the Kerver et the sight
riceat, wileriects thes verities Of conrmedenices, ‘Phe enerpes date
pepirtis weedy treertttonets: ates, thes treeepes Leese tel thes tte
titheeen thet pserpler vet, mrecte tieeres sere sapyt ter intithee, tis
rirbe tttmmsey 1h is thiel the eneepiliet abertild die
tervece meetin eoiterieete whrepebry ter Moediles whee Imtinet
tale. «Atel thin criterion caatinesh be Ctrnmntetis it
welt, We ttest seek yet deeper.
v.
Cree epitieienn of conetdente ta tnly ander exec
gibt ef thes treet bend beeferpes seprplied ter the eeitiedenn of
thee vrecepatl teleats, Verte eevakee ae Aietitietierte brectoveeete
rig Teh sareel weernige, verte pede ter thede Mimtateetieety the dig.
tity of a principle, yee Medleee mpeedal rental jade
erent Weeepet pera, Pheeh theete mertteey erie sales verte Pere
erry ertitelations bere the pretneiple, beyernel yeti Crete
bgrmiet, Verte thresocoregutete atseske fev probate sete rel ti reesetes
eesmnerte Pere vertee Faith. Aneel ertee celtareettes benatrtt
whl i6 ih beth sere Peet metoenal ter yertie “heres
stnedl ber greeter tehesed jeelgerneets 2 Piet aeeehe deal wate
tral Patta were jrist what gee wsttebeed bee severed, ¥en
brand sree thee, srre ilesel everest, beecves erred y arte teledl Pevttte
Antic. Atl recy yen aty thet the idenlly eigtet
Chedrege Meeprereds cere Oded a nnattrene, ern thes teksten tf
the vetrigepand Hemant. ce tne the naaeertienna of Corp
atime, Rary theres whiert gee will, brave gent erties
whit, gtrrt Teeterled Pave geet ened evicheret thts
necwmmiby of yenee ideal! FF, per darpnaailile, yee
WHE WARFARE OF THE WORAL IDEALS. 359
All Father chanced his mind, and came to hate bis
children. or if, per impossziale, the Devil trramphed,
ar the eternal Ideas melted away hke snow, ar the
universal Reasva became insane or the Conscieness
ef all men crew oorrapt, would that alter the ideal
fer waa”? If the moral weal assumes its desired
postion as jade of all thines, then what matters
it te the ideal if evil is trmmphant in the world?
“Fiend, I defy thee with a calm, fixed mind.” the
ideahst will sav. after the manner af Shellev's Pro-
methens, and that however much the mal world
way threaten him. Therefore how oan the ds pre
determine the Qugit to be? Bat if the Ought ta
be be independent af the Ja how does discassion
abot the power of God. or bis goodness, about the
wniversality of conscience, ar its inner strencth as &
foeling, affect cur Judement of the ideal distinchion
between nicht and wrong °
Ths we are thrown hack and forth between the
eenfiictine demands of crincism. ~ Give us a moral
spstem that is no capmee of thine.” sav the emnes
ef ome sort, That wems reasonable. Therefore we
afiire, ~ This system of ours is founded on a rock of
eternal trath.” namely. on God's will or on the intur
Gea of universal consdenca, or on same ke faet of
the world. But thereupon ather entices say to us:
* Wherein do wou differ from those who sav that
might is richt, or that soqess determines the ncht
wr that whatever exists ancht to exist?) For after
all you sav. something that is oncht te he. merely
boomnse it is.” And always still other critics are
60 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPRY.
present, to doubt whether we are right about God
or conscience as physical facts. Such critics very
plausibly say, “ Why found moral truth, which ought
to be so secure and clear, on physical or metaphys-
ical doctrines that are so often doubted and so hard
to establish ?”
Such is the general difficulty illustrated in the
warfare of the moral ideals. They want some high-
eat judge to decide among them. If they seck this
judge in tho real world, they seem to endanger their
idealism. If they seck their judge among them-
selves, the warfare begins afresh. For what one of
them can be tho sole judge, when they are all judges
one of another?
CHAPTER IV.
ALTRUIGM AND RGOISM IN CERTAIN RECENT DIP
CUBSIONB.,
Fat if the light thas ia in thee be darknem, how great la that dark-
nem!
Nort even yet have we exhausted the perplexities
involved in this fundamental difficulty of moral
theory. Some one may say: “ Let the ideals in
general take care of themselves. We are concerned
in this world with individual and convrvte duties.
These at least are plain.” But these also involve
questiens concerning the ideal. Let us see then how
the aamw difficulty that has beset the more general
moral doctrines, returns to plague us in case of the
theoretical treatment of one of these plain duties.
Our discussion will here gain in definiteness what it
losea in generality. Let us choos a conerete moral
question, namely, the problem of the true ground of
the moral distinctions and other moral relations be-
tween what people nowadays like to call altruiam
and what they like to call eguiam.
Upon what, then, if upon anything, is founded the
moral prevept: Zhou shult love thy ncighbor as thy-
sdf? Or ia there any foundation for it at all? To
be quite familiar in discussing this problem, let us
take it as it appeara in revent discussion. The
62 THE BELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY,
answers of come recent moralists will illustrate for
us afresh the great problem of ethics. We shall find
two classes of efforts made to sulve the difficulty, On
the one hand muralists appear whose tendency is
mainly, although not always quite wholly realistic,
They eay that, assuming the selfish aim as from the
beginning self-evident, the unselfish aim soon appears
as necessary concomitant and assistant of the self-
ish aim, Such writers, from Hobbes to the present
day, have insisted upon unselfishness as a more or
less refined selfishness, the product of enlightenment,
To this view one opposes very naturally the objec
tion that real unselfishness is thus in fact rendered
impossible, The moral ideal resulting is therefore,
whether right or wrong in itself, at all events at wer
with other well-known ideals. And hence the exple-
nation satisties nobody, Qne still lacks a judge to
end the warfare,
On the other hand, however, more jdealistie mor-
alists have tried ty make unselfishness dependent on
some impulse, such as pity or sympathy, whose dic
tates shall be perfectly definite and self-evident, and
yet not, like the supposed dictates of conscience,
either altract or mysterious. But to such a foun-
dation one opposes very naturally again the objec-
tion that all such judgments of feeling are caprly
cious, that pity and sympathy are confused and
deceitful feelings, wholly unfit to give moral insight,
and that no ideal can be founded on the shifting sand
of such realities.
The results of euch criticisins will once more be
skeptical, but the skepticisn on which we are here
@
ALTRUISM AND EGOISN. 63
insisting is so necessary a foundation for ethics, that
we make no apology for dwelling upon it yet farther,
devoting to the apecial problems anggested by these
recent discusaions of selfishness and unselfishness a
separate chapter.
I.
Ta a collection of Servian popular tales may be
found one that runs somewhat as follows: Once there
lived two brothers, of whom the elder was very in-
cautious and wasteful, but always lucky, ao that in
spite of himself he grew constantly richer, while the
younger, although very industrious and careful, was
invariably unfortunate, ao that at laat he lost every
thing, and had to wander out into the wide world to
beg. The poor wretch, after much suffering, resolved
to go to no leas a person than Fate himself, and to
inquire wherefore he had been thus tormented. Long
and dreadful wildernesses were passed, and finally
the wanderer reached the gloomy house, Now visit
ors at Fate's dwelling dare not begin to speak when
they come, but muat wait until Fate shall address
them, and meanwhile must humbly do after Fate
whatever he does, So the wanderer had to live in
the house for several days, silent, and buaily imitat-
ing Fate's behavior, He found that Fate lives not
alwaya in the aame way, but on some days enjoys
a golden bed, with a rich banquet and untold heaps
of treasure acattered about: on some days again is
surrounded with silver, and eats dainty but some.
what plainer food; on some days has brazen and
copper wealth only, with coarse food; and on some
64 THR RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY,
days, penniless and ragged, sleeps on tho floor, digs
the ground, and gnaws a crust. Hach night he is
anked by @ supernatural voice: “How shall those
live who have this day been born?” Fate always
roplion: ‘Aw I havo fared this day, so may they
fare.”
This our beggar found the secret of his own mis
fortunes ; for he had been born on a day of poverty.
But when at last Fate broke the silence, the vinitor
begged him to tell whether there could be any way
whereby he might ossape from the consequences of
his unlucky birth, “Twill tell thee,” aaid Fate.
“Got thoo home again, and ask thy brother to let
theo adopt his little daughter. For she was born on
one of the golden days, Adopting her, thou shalt
thenceforth all whatever thou receivest her own,
But nover call anything thine, And so shalt thou
be rich.” The beggar joyfully left Fate's dreary
house, with ita wad round of days, and went back to
the world of labor and hope. There, by following the
wlvice that he had reesived, he became in fact very
woulthy ; sineo all that he undertook prospered. But
the wealth was hin adopted daughtor's, Kor always
he called his gains hora, One day he grew however
very woury of thin, and anid to himwelf: These flelds
and flooka and houses and treasures are not really
hers. Tn teuth P have earned them, They are mine.”
No sooner had he spoken the fatal words than light-
ning fell from heaven and began to burn his grain:
flolds, and the floods rose to drown his flocks, Soe
that torror-atricken the wreteh foll on his face and
oried: “ Nay, nay, O Hato, I spoke no truth; they
ALTRUISM AND EGOISM. 65
are not mine, but hera, hers alone.” And thereupon
flame and flood vanished, and the man dwelt thence-
forth in peave and plenty.
Il.
The really deep thought that imperfectly expresses
iteelf in this little Servian tale may suggest many
sorts of reflections, Just new we shall busy our
selves with anly one of the questions that are brought
to mind by the stury. Many who nowadays have
mauch to say about what they call altruism, actually
explain all altruiam aaa kind af seltizh evasion of
the consequences af cruder seltishnesa, so that at
battem they really counsel men much as Fate coun
seled the wanderer. They aay in effeot: «To make
thyvelf happy, do vertain things called duties to thy
neighbor. That we call altruism, Thou shalt have
thy reward, For what is more useful to a man than
aman? If therefore thou dost well to him, thou
shalt make him in many ways of great servive to
thee. And ao, to get happiness for thyself, see that
thou be not openly merely a aveker of thy happi-
nes: but call that which thou seekest his happiness,
Calling it his will help te make it thine. Re aeltish
by casting aside grosser selfishness, Live for the
others as the means af living for thyself. ln co-
operation ia safety. Act therefore as a good mem.
ber of the cammunity, and thou shalt prosper. But
wach action requires altruism. Aa the man gave his
wealth to his adopted daughter, so that he might
own it himself and outwit his destiny, so muat thou
8
66 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
make thy interests into the interests of society, and
by so doing be true to thyself.” But now such al-
truism, as one at once sees, has no right to parade
itself as genuine altruism at all, and if it be the end
of conduct, there is no moral conduct distinct from
cleverness. But if this be true, it is at least incum-
bent upon the moralist to explain why the popular
ideal of unselfishness is thus so very far wrong.
More or less disguised, the doctrine here generally
stated appears in modern discussion since Hobbes.
Let us follow it into some of its hiding- places, and
to that end let us distinguish selfishness and unself-
ishness as ideals or ends of conduct, from selfishness
" and unselfishness as means, accidentally useful to
get an end.
ITI.
Altruism is the name of a tendency. Of what
tendency? Is it the result or the intent that makes
a deed altruistic? Was our hero an altruist when
he gave to his adopted daughter the name and the
enjoyment of a possessor of wealth? Or would he
have needed in addition to all this a particular dis-
position of mind ere he could be called an altruist ?
We need not dispute about mere names as such.
Let everybody apply the name Altruism as he will ;
but possibly we shall do well to recall to the reader’s
mind what ought nowadays to be the merest com-
monplace of ethics, namely, that we cannot regard
any quality as moral or the reverse, in so far as the
expression of it is an external accident, with which
the man himself and his deliberate aim have nothing
ALTRUISM AXD BGOISM. 67
to do. Ethical judgments deal with purposes. On
any theory of right and wrong the man himself, not
the accident of fortune, determines the moral char
acter of his act; and this view must be held equally
whether one believes the man's will to be free or to
be buand. Hence the unforeseen or unintended out-
come, or any other accidental accompaniment of my
act, does not make me egvistic or altruistic in case
egoism and altruism are to be qualities that have
any moral character at all. If my property is acci-
dentally destroyed by fire, and if the loss causes great
damage to my creditors or to people dependent on
me, the loss makes me no less or more an altruist,
although I can no longer do good as before. If my
purely selfish plan chances to do others good, I am
no less an eguist, although I have made my fellows
happy. In short, he who means anything, and does
what he can to realize his intention, must be judged
according to his intent. Circumstances control the
outcome, and they make of the chance discoverer of
the first bit of gold in a California mill- race a
greater altruist, to judge solely by consequences,
than a hero would be who sacrificed himself in a good
cause, and lost the battle. But no moral system
could make genuine saintliness out of the deed of
the man who by chance has found what the world
needed. And to take one more example, the power
die stets das Bise will. und stcts das Gute schafit,
ts not altruistic in the moral sense, however vast its
creations may become.
All this we maintain, because, if you are morally
eriticising a disposition, you must study what it 1s,
68 THE RELIGIOUS ASPEOT OF PHILOSOPHY.
not what are its accidental surroundings. Moral
distinctions must apply to aims as such. Unless
you are judging men exactly as you judge the north
wind or the value of rain, not as consciously good or
bad, but as mere forces that happen to produce such
and such results under such and such conditions,
you must study, not first the accidental circum-
atances, but the men. And in fact all moralists,
however much they may condemn the weighing of
mere motives, however much they desire to take juat
the consequences into account, as Bentham did, are
nevertheless forved to separate in their moral judg-
ments accidental from expected consequences. We
maintain that this abstraction of a disposition from
its accidental expressions must be rigidly carried
out in order to get a moral doctrine of any sig:
nificance. Let others study natural forces, We
here are studying men, and are considering what
ideal of a man we can form. Whatever the acci-
dents of the outer world give him in the way of
means, we want to know his real intent, and to judge
that. But if the intont of the man does alone make
him altruistic or the reverse, then what, for example,
is the position, in othical controversy, of any system
that declares altruism to be morally good because the
individual needa the social order to aaniat him, and
muat therefore in all prudence try to further the 80-
cial ends as a means to the furthering of his own?
Does such a system say anything whatever about
altruism as such? Does it not make enlightened
egoisgm the one rulo of life? And if this is what is
meant, why not say so plainly? If the intent of the
ALTRUISM AND HGOISM. 69
act makes it altruistic or the reverse, then a man
who helps his friend, or his neighbor, or society, and
who is honest, and kind, and public-spirited solely be
cause he wants to get protection and help in return,
is no altruist, but is as eguistic as a Judas or as a
Thomassen, He is only clearerheaded than they
were, On the other hand, if by any possibility any
one makes the good of others his sule end, and with
this as end takes care of his own health, or devel-
eps his mental powers, or amasses wealth, but all
merely for the sake of being able to benefit others,
then is such a man not eguietic, even while working
for himeolf, but altruistic throughout For such a
man by hypothesis aims, not at his own personal
good, but solely at the good of others.
All this is consequent upon the general doctrine
that the distinction between altruiem and eguism, as
moral qualities, must depend on no external acci-
dent, but on the personal deed of the man himeelf,
For, to make special mention of what many forget,
the means that you take to get any end are for you
merely physical accidents. If things were other
wise, you would with the same intent do other things
to get what you eck, Not what you have to do in
getting your ends, but what you actually aimed at, is
morally significant. Hence the altruian of conse
quences as such is morally insignificant, and the al-
truism of intent is alone morally signifeant. But
yet this obvious and svomingly very commonplace
distinction is, by the views that we are combating,
wholly loat sight of in its further application to hu
wan life We may hear in modern controversy,
70 THE RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILOSOPRY.
for instance, of a “conflict between altruiam and
ezoinmn,” such as the one that Mr. Spencer discusses
in hin * Data of Ethios,” and we may draw near to
learn how the conflict gous, We shall possibly find
the question put thus: If a man in trying to be
altruintic wore so far to forget himaelf as to injure
hin health, or to become so weak an to have no
healthy children; if he were to be careless of his
property, to let hia mind go untrained, or to narrow
hin own life too much, why then his own objects
would be defeated, ha would be unable to help any-
body, he might do harm, and he could be no genuine
altruint. Therefore altruinm must not oppone ego-
inm too much, else altruinm will defeat itself. On
the other hand, we hear, if egoinm in extravagant, it
will in its turn fail to get its own groat ond, self-nat-
infaction, For it in useful to one to have hin fellow.
members in the social organism well-contented, eaffi-
cient, and moral, One must try to make them so,
that he himaelf may enjoy the frnita of their happl-
nea, Ilo pays more taxon, and also higher prices
for what he buys, if the community asa whole is
not contented and happy, av well av healthy and
moral Enlightened velflahnes therefore means for
him publie spirit, His neighbor's diseases are apt
to infoet hin own family ; henoe, if enlightened, he
will do what he conveniently can to leap hia neigh.
hor well, Hin neighbor's pence of mind tends to
make hinown mind peaceful, henes he will help hin
neighbor out of trouble, Otherwine he would have
to live in anxiety, lonelinew, weakness, and danger,
His life would be hard, and probably hin death would
ALTRUISM AND EGOISM. Ti
be early. So egoism must not be too extravagant.
Altruism is ~ equally imperative.” Thus, perhaps,
we should hear the so-called “ cunflict ~ discussed.
If sach views were urged, what should we say about
them ? We should have to say that they touch in
Ro wise at all the true moral distinction and warfare
between selfishness and altruism. They show only
that, whatever the opposition in aim, the two princi
ples have after all, in this world of limitation, to
wse very much the same means. Surely it is no
mew thing to learn that in warfare both parties have
to burn the same quality of gunpowder, and that
even the cats when they fight all have to scratch
with claws that are very much alike. Do such re-
marks explain or tend to diminish or to end the con-
fiets in question ?
How insignificant is this way of studying the con-
fet of egoism and altruism, we shall see if we take
yet other illustrations. In the sense of the fore-
going comparison of egoism and altruism, even a
pirate, in his treatment of merchant vessels, would
have to be moderately altruistic ; namely, he had
better not try to do harm to a merchant vessel that
3s too well armed for his force to overcome it. On
the contrary, his egoism will in this case counsel him
unselfishly to let it prosper in its own way. Nay,
he may even try to speed it on its course, if it ap-
pears disposed to change roles and to attack him.
He may say that in just this case he thinks that this
merchantman ought to have peace, and to be pre-
served from mjury. The other alternative would
st here increase his own bill for repairs, or might
73 THK RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY,
tnake hin own existence low happy, or might even
being him to the gallows, The happiness of the
arew of the merchantinan is therefore just now an
object of concern for him, an porhaps furtherlag bis
own. So he may be willing to compromise the dif.
flotalty, evens Af fe whotdel cont bili to large sui to por
mule the belligerent captain of the armed morchant-
man to let him alone, Thus he might even add
qiite a fortune to what the merchantinan'’s captain
and orow alrewly have of good things, and this
would surely be very marked altrulam. This ago
jam and altrudan inay oppose each other, and this,
by eareful calowlation, thelr opposing olalne may be
balanced! Or yet ayadin, suppose that a robber
tnewta ine dn the highway, and egolatioally dameands
iny purse. Tf now PT should manage to dinnem him,
to prosont a pistol to hin head, and to ask him to
maompany mea to the nearast, town, avidently the
latins of altrulan would for that man have # consld-
arably stronger omplasds than they had the moment
before, Ele would now be willing not merely to
lives snl det Hive din pete for the presents he would
not merely be delighted to recognive my rlghta of
property and to leave ime free to enjoy them; but he
woth undoubtedly be glad to inoronse my happlaens
by giving me anything of value that he might have
about him, or any information of value to me that I
might desira, If by such mentns he could gat ine to
lot hin yo free. A great altralat would my robber
now be, however great hin egolain just before,
Now do such discumdons of the elalins of egolam
and altralen moan anything for the moralist? But
ALYEUISN AND HOUSE. T3
if samebediy tells ws off the slkorumm thet leeds a mom
tr adiveuste yood dirsaimaze lest ihe ieomeliif amy hnawe
a fiver. aff tthe alorumam thant pays ome s diedbes to the
sulle end that ome may vet fmrthher eredit. aif the sabb-
Time unselfisiimess: that make: a mam civil evem ta
oe nivel, bermmse enwiltity im then days bt a sacl
pequimennant, — wirst nawe lll these wemdhrems wortmes
tie din im censtitoatin the mpowal wale: of slicrumam as
a diypesitiiom. more thm irawe the wirtmes just ollbes
trated? We have two diisposttmams im ms: ome order
im mk te rexypect our meibbor as sn. i> kabor om
ins elolif become he exists amd mands help: the
ether damamdime that we regard him as a mmere im
stromentt far our personal pleesmre. Only the dis-
Pesiives: as sodh come the morsist. Surely m
tee gam att. mot now we com vet cur ams so Jom att
Ibsatt a we comme ourselves to the gemera] pretmzi-
Plies. Appihad morality may have ommch to say off
meen Bat off promerples. thos balsmrcime of mame
ean tell us metho. 9 “The meas are the phewsaesl aa
enfients. uation more. Wrst we want ti» Kom os
Wihztiher even 2s am aim os morally the worthnest
am. er Wikethber altrrumm @ a morally better amm
Amé we ask mot wet bow. (7 ames aim & egnisin:. fe
eum mest sorcessially be selfish. bet ole aietier
em: s ameurit to be seit. ami in iow tor. To tell
uss thet oi we are semble ami seltich we shall awond
hantne tao moc tronbl: wrth var fellows. 0 met te tell
Us thet @nmr ams omit fy be slerunsime. beet orl thet
sensnble selfish) mem are mot foods To tell ms cht
we ave wise and slirwet we shall avon! wasting
14 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
our own powers profitlessly, and shall try to preserve
our own health, and to cultivate our own wits in use-
ful ways, all this is to tell us that unselfish wise men
are not fanatics. It may be useful to say this, but
it is not useful to the discussion of fundamental
moral doctrines. We want to know, for the first,
not how successfully to be altruistic, or selfish, but
why the effort to be altruistic or to be selfish is mor.
ally right or wrong.
IV.
If now such comparisons of the claims of altru-
ism and egoism throw no light on the fundamental
moral questions, what shall we say of the chance that
the ‘ conflict” may be explained or diminished by
any proof that the evolution of our race will tend in
time to diminish, or even to extinguish, the opposi-
tion? If some one shows us that by and by the most
selfish being in the social order will find it his own
bliss to give as much bliss as he can to everybody
else, so that mon shall all be even as the people at a
successful party, getting pleasure as freely as they
give it, and giving it because they get it: and if
such predictions seem to anybody to help us to know
what duty is, then what can we say in reply, save to
wonder at the insight that sees the connection be-
tween all these facts and our present duty? If a
society ever does grow up in which there are no
moral conflicts, nothing but a tedious cooing of bliss
from everybody, then in that society there will be
no moral questions asked. But none the less we
ask such. If the people of that day no longer dis-
ALTRUISM AND EGOISM. 75
tinguiah egoiam from altruiam, they may all be
bleed : but what is that to un? We ask, What
ought we todo? We learn in answer that the peo-
ple of the future will feel no need to aak that ques
tion. We desire that duty be defined. We lam
in anawer that if men ever get perfect, the sense af
obligation will vaniah, so that nobody will question:
What ia duty? at all. Thia may be magnitivent, but
it ia not ethics.
For what do we really learn by hearing about the
society of the future? Only that, in the time com-
ing, there will be such and such freedom from moral
problema? J)v we then also learn that we ought
to do ovr best to bring about that reign of peace?
Not at all, for we are sure that we ahall never live
to ave that day ; and we cannot know why we should
work for it so long aa we are still in doubt about the
value of seltishnesa, Do we learn that we ought to
conform aa nearly aa is possible to the rules that will
govern men in that ideal state? But how then do
we learn that? Ia it becawse the coming form of
conduct will be the “ highest form of adjustment of
ects to ends,” aa the modern apuatles of evolution
teach that it will be” Nay, though we do acvept
most confklently all that these apostles teach about
the future, aince surely they must know about it, we
still miss anything of moral signitivance in these
physical facta. For why is this coming state the
highest ? Dooa any one aay: Reese it will come
at the end of the physical process of evolution?
Nay then, if every more advanved state is to be more
acceptable, by such reaavning the sprouting potato
76 THE NRA ANPRAIT G8 PHILMOPHY,
ve tbees Anessa eset frags exgege oversalel wnleseye nes rescore: mesertrte
sabales tbrsave tlnes Prresmbe grevtintes coe tees Preble ogee, Si yheat,
ne Jal, ot se meal complea, oF BYE fe minh ptt
mvrridy esesntiert, bres Von tevestarndeege Vabestetdectel ithe Cees snr
ally Nighent trek wes woes lectinreal fore tim, We enaghe
tar werrke fee thes vesbistatierte oof that far-off tate, Hf at
wal D, brace, Drese-sanacnes wos meecen Dt tan bres, aovet, sevesrerdy thoes Inet
ben gotshank oof tlasnes, Vovet, salers seactasly tlees brent, soteed tint
eve mcvaines crtbecses rectneeote tleaee tad goleymdecsd crt, — Bheb
crnncees reserves Ubreste, whey ba it beset, 7 Anl why «night we
far try tar eessbivg 1670 Mecaune in that auhe, eneny
dnclinihual will he hajplent 2 Unit then wer west ta
lavscow whist. oes tivow sores tas eben, sated oes meses thoak thedw
Fratsvres Vovngogrbsncsorm will bres sale gorresmasnnt, Perm tam tenneetteadtes
tuboles, UE wes wesees die test, mtsedecs over oobecotalel bes feagnpry,
N50 96 dm taert, sot 00D golisien tesa, Voy tery deage tar sogogreestecsh
bt, wes ombvialh tvero foes sensebe binge crtarmesd vecm tesny loeagepebeste
Atul obey eobscrralel oes cles srrvytdebenge satsaestfinds 7
Viverbatdene tleestn, tem te teesees porerageuct, tliecrwe te
Digg dat, vvne Alves recinl caseel Pravebsaroneseetiond tvnestarsdonge orf cleaty,
Vf wes Uesncow whist wes fares tar tory tar cle, Cheeses eves conte
jo gces wlrectDease: ves cvragebets tan bees ye cote tan edenebese esyealie
bicses sas te teeuatis tar biset esd, Dhak terbene es benerw
ctor aahy ertbeecr orice, theecres foe secatbedonge die thoes tesestes
gboyerdecsal Pret, cof ccvedsataneee tMesal Veet lecatese wv bests dn tests
Uy biggies soe Veswese, bechtace one were, Why mbunald
Fowesrh fer fatssres sagen, if it in tet wleetaly cqeaites
grlesien, sagotarts Prerses tasny betecowlealyres oof ecverditden, Cet |
cntigelit tar cles wheel, Fo ccate just tw for sy bererthor
beerees 7
After sll, Inerwerver, ih dee aeertducr aapned of evabe
Hem spe which nowadays mont atrena in fell in
ALTRUISM AND EGOISM. TT
ethics. It is said that, the future aside, evolution
has made us what we now are, and, in particular, has
formed our society, and us for society. Hence not
only is our welfare in fact best served by a wise al-
truism, but this fact is plain to us in our very organ-
ization and instincts. Therefore while throughout
our aim is our happiness, our nature has been so or-
ganized by generations of social evolution as to make
pretty certain that our happiness is already depen-
dent on our good character as social beings. There-
fore the doctrine of evolution shows that selfishness
must itself become even in our day altruistic if it
would be successful.
Is this aspect of evolution any more ethical than
the other? That is, does it show us, not the means,
bat the moral End? We must deny that it does. To
be sure, if we never actually felt any conflict between
egoism and altruism as dispositions, then indeed for
us just that ethical problem would not exist. But
we do feel a conflict. And since for us our selfish-
ness 13 not altruistic in aim, it is quite useless to trv
to make the warring impulses one by declaring that
a perfectly enlightened selfishness, even in our own
society, would be altruistic, not indeed in aim, but in
consequences. For, in the first place, that would
actually be a false statement for our present social
condition ; since it is still quite possible for a clever
selfish man to live very comfortably. by somehow
legally wronging and oppressing others. And, in the
second place, if the statement were true, it would be
ethically worthless. For if good treatment of others
is uniformly the behavior that is, selfishly viewed, the
1% THE RELIGIOUS ASPET OF PHILOSOPHY,
mort alvantageena, the man whe sete trpen thet prin
ciples in still seltizh, sent alteration at all, ated he hae
nen seven’ fore hitnzelt the conflict between the twe
principles, save bry utterly disregarding the principle
A altrniam. 1f altenisin wore the only gene,
then altenizin ef itn wereld be yennlness still, what
ever the selfish eomacqnences, If altrnisin needs to
bes Tienitesd in any way bry selfiahnens, then the lmit-
sabicrne sevcezt tall bees anisatterr of saben, rust of meeridlental
reenlt. Altrnizin as s means te selfish onde wendld
herweverr bes mr wir at all, bnet emily sn seccidental
tend, FF cireninztances varied, i¢ world bus cust
neida, while the selfish sim itech? revisited conimtent,
J... Mill, follerwing ethers, tried to distingrish
the meistine Ffeenn the intent of an set. Aceending to
this distinction, © selfish set weld be altruistic by
intent, Ht there was init the deliberate prurpeme te rake
atrinebenly biagrtry, berwever selfish the metina of the
sect, Ser it verniled bee slteniann ter be deliberately and
neMebly jrnst. Viet this distinetiom, herwever naefeal
frre series prurperes, in ferr ome perp werthlen,
She qnestion ja: What in the set helenge te the
rian, seh what is this port of the act worth? Now
whiateverr belongs mest tar the nectere, bt ter the condi.
tiema nner which he works, is tnerally insignifi-
tant. Ker it is what we have called the physical
serident of his snerenindings. Pat intent, apart
fren mating, seeans ter be frat onch «physical seab
Ment: ferr intent, apart frenn mudive, trust relate, tert
ter the real mien se creh, bt omby ter the means, A
prise sins ter bes colfiah, Bf rene he lives where his
nelfinhnenn requires bit ty feed and clithe his enemy,
ALTRUISM AND EFQOISM. 79
ho will, if enlightened, do so, and deliberately too,
And ho will show in the act just as much and just as
little charity aa he would have shown had he lived
where selfishness was best served by killing his
enemy, and had he killed him. The intent, apart
from the motive of the man, ean have reference anly
to the means by which he seeks to get his ultimate
aim. And such intent relates to accidental matters,
If by a physical acvident the seltish man grows up
where you must speak politely to your antagonist,
and treat him with great show af respect, then the
selfish man will deliberately, and with conscious in-
tent, do so; and if he grows up where you challenge
your antagonist to a duel, he will possibly try that
way of getting rid af an enemy: and if he lives
among the cannibals, the seltish man, no more or
leas aeltish than in the other cases, anly by training
more brutal in tastes, will torture and eat his antage
onist, And if the doctrine af evalution shows that
ene of these forms af “ adaptation © is mare eamplete
than another, ar proves to us that we persanally shall
be most prudent in adopting ane only of the possible
courses, all thia can in ne wise tell us what aim in
conduct is morally best, but only what means most
exhaustively accomplish the seltish purposes af a
civilized man. So intent is morally valuable anly
ia connection with motive.
It is hardly worth while to dwell lenger an the
curious devices by which certain defenders af the
application of the hypothesis af evalution ta ques
tions of fundamental ethies have tried to establish
that the truths of evulution teach us that we ought
80 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
to do right. The whole undertaking resembles that
of a man who should try to show us that the truth
of tho law of gravitation clearly indicates that we
all ought to sit down. What is evident or doubtful
apart from the law of evolution, cannot, in this field,
be proved or disproved by the law. Shall we say:
“ Do good to thy neighbor to-day, because evolution
tends to bring into existence a race of future beings
who will do good?” To say this is to say something
utterly irrelevant. What do we care about remote
posterity, unless we already care about our neigh-
bors as they are? Or shall we say: “ Do good to
thy neighbor because evolution has made thee a
social being, whose instincts lead thee to desire thy
neighbor’s good?” To say this is to say what is
only very imperfectly true. One’s instincts often
lead him to take much selfish delight in thwarting
his neighbor. If it were true universally and
strictly, it would not show us why to do right, nor
yet what is right. For it is not obviously a funda-
mental ethical doctrine that we ought to follow an
instinct as such, And if we follow an instinct be
cause wo find it pleasing, our aim is still not to do
any right save what pleases us personally. And the
whole wisdom of the doctrine of evolution would be
reduced to the assurance that we ought to do as we
like, with due regard to prudence, Shall we then
say: * Do good, because the social order that has
evolved is too strong for thee, and will hurt thee
unless thou subimittest to it?” Still one has the
selfish motive infisted upon, and morality is still
only prudence. And the doctrine will still have to
ALTRUISM AND RGOISM. 81
admit that whenever one can outwit society pru-
dently, and can gain for himeclf his selfish aims by
anti-social but for him in this case safe means, then
and there the selfish man may do this anti-social
thing if he likes, the doctrine, with all ita good mo-
tives, being unable to show why not. For it will not
do to resort to some such subterfuge as this, and to
say: “A man’s advantage depends upon the pros
perity of the whole. But anti-social acta ultimately
tend to weaken society. Hence they ultimately tend
to diminish the prosperity of the whole, and there-
Sore tend to harm the selfish individual.” All this
is irrelevant, in case the social consequences cannot
return upon the seltish individual's head during his
lifetime. The wasteful owners of great foresta in
our western mountains, the great and oppressive
capitalists that crush rivals and outwit the public,
the successful speculators, the national leadera whoee
possession of the biggest battalions enables them to
demand of weaker neighbors unjust sacrifices, all
these may listen in acorn to talk about their proaper-
ity as dependent upon that of sovicty, their enemies
and victima included. “ We eat the fruit.” they can
say. “To be sure we consume it by eating, and we
like to waste it so long as we ourselves profit by the
waste, and we could neither cat it nor waste it if
there were no fruit; but there is enough to last us
and our children for our lifetimes. After us the
eccial famine, but for others, not for us.” The now
famous reply ascribed to one of our great railroad
kings when, some time since, he was asked about the
“accommodation of the public” by a certain train,
¢
§2 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
well illustrates our point. “ Damn the public,” said
the great servant and master of the traveling world.
If he really did not say that, very likely there are
those who would have meant it. And may the evo-
lutionist condemn them solely on his own grounds?
Or finally, shall the doctrine retreat behind an
ancient maxim, and state itself thus: “ Evolution
shows us what are the ultimate tendencies of acts;
but no act onght to be committed which belongs to
a class of acts whose general tendency is bad”?
Would not this be a lamentable surrender of the
whole position? Yet such a surrender is found in
one or two passages of the book that is nowadays
supposed best to represent the doctrine that we have
been criticising in the foregoing, namely, in Mr. Spen-
cer’s * Data of Ethics.” The physical facts of evo-
lution are to give us our ideal. How? By telling
us what in the long run, for the world at large, pro-
duces happiness. But if my individual happiness in
the concrete case is hindered by what happens to be
known to help in the long run towards the produc-
tion of general happiness, how shall the general rule
be applicable to my case? Mr. Spencer replies, in
effect, that the concrete consequences for individuals
must not be judged, but only the general tendency
of the act. Happiness is the ultimate end; but in
practice the “ general conditions of happiness” must
be the proximate end. But how is this clear? If I
know in a given case what will make me happy, and
if the means to my happiness are not the general
ones at all, but, in this concrete case, something con-
flicting therewith, why should I not do as I please?
ALTRTISM AND POOESML 83
Beosmse, Mr. Spencer says, the concrete cane must
be tested by the pemeral law of Evolution. Bat ance
more, why? The only answer is the prinaple, which
Mr. Spemoer scemetimes tacitiy assumes, acmetimess
wery gradmimerly acknowledges, sometimes seems to
clame as his pecaliar property, namely, the well-
known Kantian principle, that sothing should be
deme anheok ane cold mot wish to eee dome waiccraally,
er that the rude of the single act ought to be a rule
edegted to serre as an universal rule for all ra-
fomal deimger. Bat if this maxim is essential to the
feumdatim of a mora] system. then how poor the
pretense that the law of evolution gives os any
fwandsnem for ethics at all The facts af evolution
stumd there, mere dead realines, whally without
walne as mmora]l guides. until the individual assumes
kis owe moral principle. namely. bis ideal determi-
mation to doe nothing that a person comsidering the
ender of the world as a whole and desiring univerzal
happmmess wenld condemn. from the point of New af
the pemeral tendencies af acts. Grant that prine-
wie. aed wou have an ideal aim for action. Then
a kmowledce of the course of evalaman will be ase
fel, Jost as a knowladce of astronomy is asefal to a
navigator, Rot astronamy does not tel] ax why we
gre to sail om the water. but only how to find oar way.
With Kant’s principle assumed. we already have at-
tamed, apart froen any phvsical doctrine of evolution,
the esnemtizals of an ethical doctrime to start with:
and we peed no doctrine of evolution to found this
etineal doctrine. bot need it only to tell us the means
Bast tf we have not already this Kantian prinaple,
H4 THK RELIGIOUN AKPROT OF PITILOKOPHY.
then It in hard Indeml to son what the doctrine of
evelution oan do to help unto yet it Mr. Spencer
momen to forget that a doctrine of Moans ly not a
dowtring of Mads,
In sum thon, either the fundamental moral dis
tinatlons are clear apart from the physieal fact of
evolution, or the physioal fact cannot iWlustrate for
in the distinetions that wo de not provioudy knew,
If there ina rend moral confliet botwoon ogolun and
aliruiain, then this confflet must concern the aime of
thane two dispositions, not the acollental outeome
that we reach, nor the more or low variable means
that we cmploy in following the dispositions, And
any offort to reconcile the two tandences by showing
that through evolution, or othorwlae, it has become
necomry for nn altruistic aim to he reached by
neotningly welfind menus, or for a selfish purpose to
Ins rd by soomligly altrulatic devices, — any such
Offort has ne signifiennen for othion, Ef the question
wore: “Shall wo buy mutton or beef at the market
to-day 7" It would surely bea strange answor to the
qiontion, or “ reconciliation of the altornatives, if
one replied, Bat whichever you do you must go
over the same roul to pot to the market.” How
then aro we helped by knowlag that, in our soolety,
altacsslnna casael enggerdosana, threvees wer mea Vebtterly coprprcamesel
tnornl adie, have very often to hide their aontliata
wider a une of very much the same outward show of
motal conformity.
There In dindend no doubt that all) the knowledge
wes snnsey gerd sabocrtals tdaey Fracsten cof coveodeatderny will bresdyo tam
to Judge of the ineans by which wa oas ronliae the
ALTRUISM AND EGOISM. 85
moral ideals that we independently form. But the
ideals themselves we apply to the course of evolution
as tests of its worth, or hold as aims to be realized
through knowledge of nature. We do not get them
from studying the course of nature as a mere pro-
eess. There is no doubt of the reality and of the
vast importance of the physical fact of evolution.
Its ethical importance, however, has been, we hold,
misanderstvod. Evulution is for ethics a doctrine
wot of ends, but of the means that we can use. In
fact, there is an applied ethic of evolution, but no
fendamental ethival doctrine based upon evolution.
Those who investizate evolution are doing much to
farther the realization of ethical ideals, but they
eannot make or tind for us our ethical ideals. They
show us where lies the path to an already desired
goal. For them to try to define the gual merely by
means of their physical discoveries, is a great mis-
take. It can lead only te such labored efforts as we
have here been criticising, efforts to prove sume
seach opinivn as that altruism is a form of seltish-
ness, or that selfishness is the only possible altruism.
Whether we are just in fancying that these latter
efforts are really identical with the actual efforts of
any recent evolutionists, the reader must judge for
himself. Altruism we must, at all events, justify in
another way.
Vv.
Bat now let us turn from those who define unself-
ishness as a useful means tu a selfish end, and let us
consider the effort to make pure unselfishness a self
46 THE RELIGIOUB ASPECT OF PHILOBOPHY,
evident goal of conduct, by founding unselfishness
on the direct revelation of the emotion of Pity.
Here, as before, wo shall meet with the skeptical
eriticium that the mere physical fact of the existence
of certain conditions is no proof of the validity of an
ideal moral demand. Just us the physical fact thas
a clever self-secker must pretend to be unselfish, and
must outwardly produce effects that benefit others,
in no foundation for a genuinely unselfinh ideal,
just wo the presence of a pitiful impulse, a mere fact
of human nature, be no foundation for an idea) rule
of conduct. The fealing is capricious, just as the
social conditions that render public spirit and gen-
erosity the best selfish policy ary capricious, As
the selfish man would bebave with open selfishness
in case he were where unselfishness in outward oon-
duct no longer was worth to him the trouble, even so
the pitiful man would, merely as pitiful, be cruelly
welfinh if cruel selfishness, instead of generous deeds,
could satinfy his impulse, In facet, he often in erue
ally selfish ; and if sympathy were always unselfish,
atill, us a feeling, it is a mere accidental fact of hu-
man nature, So again, the effort to found a moral
ideal on a natural fact will fail, But let us look
closer,
Schopenhauer js the best modern representative of
the view that Pity or sympathetic emotion is the
foundation of right conduct. In pity he finds the
only unselfish principle in man, and he insists thas
pity is w tendency not reducible to any other more
welfinh emotion of our nature, Tle finds it necessary
tw refute us an error the oft repeated opinion tut!
b Grundlaye der Mural, p. 21) (3d ed ).
ALTRUISM AND BGOISM. 87
“pity springs from a momentary illusion of imagi-
nation, so that we first put ourselves in the sufferer's
place, and now, in imagination, fancy that we suffer
Ais pangs in owr person.” This, replies Schopen-
haver, is a blunder. ‘It remains tuo us all the time
elkear and immediately vertain, that Ae is the suf-
ferer, not we > and it is in his person, not in ours,
that we feel the pain. and are troubled. We suffer
with him, so in him ; we feel his pain as his, and do
wot fancy that it is ours: yes, the happier our own
state is, and the more the consciousness of it con-
trasts in consequence with the situation of our neigh-
bor, a0 much the more sensitive are we to pity.”
And of this wondrous feeling no complete psychalog-
oal explanation can be given; the true explanation,
thinks Schopenhauer, must be metaphysical. In
pity a man cumes to a sense of the real oneness in
essence of himeelf and his neighber.
This pity is, therefore, for Schopenhauer, the only
moral motive, first. because it is the only non-egois-
tie motive, and secondly, because it is the expression
of a higher insight. The first character of pity is
illustrated by Schopenhauer i in an ingenious passage,
by means of a comparison of pity and other motives
as exhibited in a supposed concrete instance. We
shall find it well to quote the most of the passage in
fall : —
“J will take at pleasure a case as an example to furnish
for this investigation an erperimentum cracis. To make
the matter the hander for me, I will take no case of char
Ry. but an injustice. and one. too. af the most tlagrant
sert. Suppose two young people, Caius and Titus, both
88 THE RELIGIOUS ASIROT OF PIIILOSOPHY.
passionately in love, and ouch with a different maiden
Lot cach one find in his way a rival, to whom external clr
cumstances have given a vory decklod advantage. Both
whl) biever ssimcde tps thede tines to put onch his own rival
aut of the world; and both shall he secure against any
discovery, or even suspicion, But when each for himself
sete about the preparations for the murder, both of them,
after some inner conflict, shall give up the attempt. They
whall render account to us, plainly and truthfully, of why
they have thus decided. Now what account Caius shall
render, the reader shall decide as he plone, Lat Calus be
proventad by religious seriuplen, by the will of God, by the
future punishment, by the coming judgment, or by anys
thing of that wort, Or let hin [with Kant] say: 69 re
Alocted that the maxin of my procedure tn this case would
not have bean fit to merve an nn universal rule for all pon
witaler rreuthersnsal Voesisagem, doves: FP ndrcotilel haves umad my rival an
ronnie cated rot cot thee rere tare as Mad be himeelf.’ Or
Jot him way with Fishte: ‘Mvery human Ife in Moans or
Inatrument for the renization of the Moral Laws there.
fore FT csssnot, withent berisigy bad ferent to the moral law,
destroy one who in destined to contributes to that end,’
Or lot him any, after Wollaston: (To have consbdered that
thie dood would We the oxpromsion of an untrue proponte
thon.’ Or let diss my, after Pitehenons § The moral
merrier, Whane merimiations, like thon of every otter menme,
dares mort, Faaetdacer tar Doe ce golicinscnd, Taam eetecrsesisesel ine to
refrain.’ Or lot hin any, after Acdun Smith: ‘0 foresaw
thaset sony clever, GFL chick it, woudl rouse no wymputhy with
me oin the spectator of the wet.’ Or, after Cheistian
Wolff: § 0 reseoynived that fF whould thereby libido my
own growth towards porfection without helplig the growth
Of watybocdy elec.” Or lat hile any, after Spincnn: § Som
dnt nihil utiliua homtnes ; arya, hominem intertmers nol!
ALTRUISM AND BSGOISM. 89
In ehort, let him say what he will. But Titus, whose ac
count of himeelf I reserve for my choice. let him say:
‘When I began to prepare. and eo for the moment was
buey no longer with my passion, but with my rival, then
it became for the firet time quite clear to me what now
was really to be hie fate. But just here pity and compar
ion overcame me. I grieved for him: my heart would
mot be put down: I could not do it.’ I ask now every
honest and unprejudiced reader. which of the two is the
better man? To which of the two would he rather in-
trust his fate? Which of them was restrained by the
purer motive? Where, therefore, lies the principle of
moral action ?"!
What shall we say of this foundation for altra-
iam 2 Are pity and unselfishness thus shown to be,
for the purposes of ethics, identical? Schopenhau-
er's suggestion acems attractive, but from the outeet
doubtful. Let us examine it more carefully.
VIL
This Pity is, at all events, for the first just an im-
pulse, no more; ao at least. as we learn, it appears
in the unreflective man.? “ Nature,” Schopenhauer
telle us, has “ planted in the human heart that won-
drour disposition through which the sorrows of one
are felt by the other. and from which comes the voice
that, according to the emergency, calls to one * Spare,’
te another, ‘ Help. and calle urgently and with au-
thority. Surely there was to be expected from the
aid thus originating more for the prosperity of all
1 Grundiage der Moral, p. 21.
© Grundiage der Moral, p. 245.
90 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOGOPHT,
than could have been expected from « strict maxim
of duty, general, aletract, and deduced from certain
rational considerations and logical combinations of
ideas. For from the latter source one might the less
expect success, becwuse the mass of men must re-
main what they always have been, rude men, unable,
by reason of their inevitable bodily tasks, to get
time ty cultivate their minds, and therefore, being
rude men, wust find general principles aad abstract
truths unintelligible, so that only the conerete has
meaning for them. But for the arousing of this
pity, which we have shown to be the only source of
unselfish actions, and sy the true busis of morality,
one needs no sabetract, but only perceptive knowl
edge (hedurf es keiner abstrukten, enulern wor dep
anechuuenhen Jinkenntnies), only the mere under-
standing of the concrete case, to which pity at onee
lays claim, without further reflective mediation.”
And, t) make his view clearer, Schopenbauer fur-
ther appeals to passages quoted by bim with ap-
proval from Wousseau:! “ J) est done bien certain,
que Ja pitié ext un sentiment naturel, qui, modérant
dans chague individu Vamour de soi-méme, concourt
&® Iu conservation mutuelle de toute Vespece....
C'est, en un mot, duns ce sentiment natured plut6t,
gue dune les argumens eubtile, quail faut chercher la
cumee he la réyuygnance ye Eprivameruit tut homme
amu fuire.” Vity, then, is no alwtract principle,
but « tendency to do so and so in a concrete case,
For the natural and unlearned nan it is @ mere
sentiment, a feeling with his fellow, no more.
1 |lacwure our Vorigine de Vinkgulité.” Quoted in the Gruad-
lage der Morul, y. 247.
ALTRUISM AND EGOISM. 91
Bat then does this sentiment exhaust for Schopen-
haner the whole meaning of pity? In no wise. Not
for this sole reason is pity the whole basis of morality,
namely, because it is the only non-eguistic impulse in
ws; but besides this reason, there is the second rea-
son used by Schopenhauer to give special dignity to
pity. This other reason is in fact the deeper basis
for bim of pity as the principle of conduct. Pity is
aamely a revelation in concrete form of a great fun-
damental truth, the one above referred ta, the great
fact uf the ultimate and metaphysical Oneness of all
sentient beings. Because pity reveals this, therefore
has this sentiment an authority, a depth and a sig-
mificance that a sentiment, merely as sach, could
never have.
About this aspect of the matter, Schopenhauer in-
wracts us more than once in his writings. <A few
qactations from one discussion will serve for present
illustration.
“ The difference between my own and another's person
eeerns for experience an absolute difference. The differ-
ence of space that separates me from my neighbor, sep-
aretes me also from his joy and pain. Bat on the other
hand. it must still be remarked. that the knowledge that we
have of ourselves is no complete and clear knowledge.”?
. » « “ Whereon is founded all variety and all multiplicity
ef beings? On space and time; throagh these alone is va-
wety or maltiplicity possible, since what is aay can only
be conceived as coexistent or as successive. Because the
many hike things are called tadicidtials, I therefore call
wpace and time, as making possible the existence of a md
2 Gruendiage der Mora, p. 267.
92 §$ THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
titude of individuals, the principium individuationtis.” !
... “If anything is undoubtedly true in the explanations
that Kant’s wonderful insight has given to the world, then
surely it is the Transcendental /athetics.” ... “ Ae-
cording to this doctrine, space and time . . . belong only
to the phenomena. .. . But if the world in itself knows
not space or time, then of necessity the world in iteelf
knows nothing of mudtitude.” .. . ‘ Hence only one iden-
tical Being manifests iteelf in all the numberless phenom-
ena of this world of sense. And conversely, what appears
as a multitude, in space or in time, is not # real thing in it-
self, but only a phenomenon.” .. . ‘Consequently that
view is not false that abolishes the distinction between
Nelf and Not-self; rather is the opposed view the false
one.” ... ‘ But the former is the view that we have found
as the real basis of the phenomenon of pity, 90 that in fact
pity is the expression of it. ‘This view then is the meta-
physical basis of ethics, and consists in this: that one in-
dividual directly recognizes in another his own very self,
his own true essence.” *
These passages from Schopenhauer are, as one sees,
interesting not only because they defend the emotion
of pity as the foundation of morals, but also because
they offer an interesting suggestion of an aspect of
the matter not before noticed in our study. Like
so many of Schopenhauer's suggestions, this one is
neither wholly original, nor very complete in itself.
But it is so expressed as to attract attention; it is
helpful to us by its very incompleteness. It is stim-
ulating, although it proves nothing. This modern
Buddhism brings to our minds the query (which goes
1 Grundlage, p. 267. * Grundlage, p. 370.
ALTRUISM AND BGOISM. 93
beyond the present scope of this chapter), whether
the altruistic motives, whatever they are, might not
somehow be made of evident and general validity as
ethival principles, ¢f we cold show that in the mo-
ment of pity or in some other altruistic moment
there is expressed the nascent discovery of an Jile-
ston, namely, the Illusion of Selfishness. That is
what Schopenhauer supposed himself to have found
out. In pity he found an unselfish impulse. But this
unselfish impulse was, for the first, just an impulse,
a sentiment, beloved of Rousseau, remote from the
abstract principles that the philosophers had been
weking. Here was unseltishness, but still seeming
to need reflective development and deeper founda-
tion, Schopenhauer thought that he had found such
a deeper basis for pity when he suggested that it was
an imperfect metaphysical insight. In effect one
might sum up his views thus: In deeper truth, he
says, you and I are one Being, namely, the One great
Reing, the Absolute Will, which works in us both.
Bat because we both perceive in time and space,
therefore you and I seem tu ourselves to be different
and perhaps warring individuals, like the two halves
of a divided worm, Only the sentiment of pity sees
through the temporal veil of illusion, and so seeing,
in its own intuitive, unreflective way, it whispers to
ua that the pain of each is in truth the other's pain,
And when we really feel thus, we forget the illusion
of sense, and act as if we were one. So acting we fol:
low the higher insight, and when metaphysic comes,
it will justify us in our view. Such, in our own
words, are Schopenhauer's ideas.
04 THE RELIGIOUN ANPRKOT OF PHILOSOPHY.
We are atill not concerned for Achopenhaner's
inetapliynle, which, (lod knows, wast rotten enetaygh
th for a wine nan to go down to the wee in, Huet
in hie charnester an keeper of beautiful oturlonitien,
Mesturgretitistiee mbicown tm itr hin Hterery menor, thed
doe NraadEt cots thats chery Devtrel, srueary vestry tamesfeal threriagehiten 4
andl we need net follow him out onte the great deep
tat poeresieestnte «Seat over tnertes with Instant thin mtsggpcem-
thon that he adde to hin theory of pity, Tn thet mtg
omtlon worth anything 7 In pity in fact a detention
of an Manton? And deen thin Whiston constitute the
Noemie cof melfindinene 7 | Peselingon that mtaggention will
he needed inn fatire chapter, Mesnwhile, how.
aver, wo have at present to do only with pliy aa @
ners emotion, Muraly If pity does dimuver for ta
matty Mleamberts Ate mer tlmdarvesnn, thresty it aust beer oo prtettierte.
lar form of pity to which thin funetlon belongs Hor
mich of pity aleply WMlantenten thin Wludon We
csgernnntrt thvesy cles Urestdere: thin flewt ter Uietdngrtah the
welfinds from the alteuiaths forme of whit we pope.
larly Inehiade tnder the one name Pity, or, tose the
inure general word, Aympathy, We shall have to go
‘over old and commonplace ground, but we need to 4
for the iladon of selfinhinenm, to be detected, needa
tants tar bes WDDismtentend,
Vil.
Whon one soon hin nelghber in pain, dons one of
mennnitiy ccraries tay kenerw that poadis an anid, to enling
ite tee nature anit in in his neighbor? Or downy
one often fall inte an ilasion about that pain, regard
ALTECISM AXD EGORSI. %
ing: it os semnehow mot guite real’ Schopenkaser
wal reply: ‘The heartless mxam, who bess mo compe
sam, fells into a sort of tbestom abowt his meighbor.
Bie thimis snore or hess clearly thas that paim of his
meager 's ts a sort of warval paim mot as Living as
waulld fe bis owm pair. Beet the pitiful suman. the
qnlly quite wmeelifish exam. — he perceives the reality
ef his metythbors satfertag. He kmows that that is
ne Photos saffertume. bet evem sack pain as hos own
wari, fe.
We want to test this bea it a practxal war, So
we say: Let ws padre of this svanpathy by its finaits”
Ane we mn fact certain two be led tw woeltish acts
if im alll cases we obey the divcates of swmpathy ?
Selupemikseer thinks that be bas secured altruism
Tm tne pitr. ome feels the patie. mot as bis own, best
ax tthe otters pair. To follow the dictates of this
sempatihy world of meeestty bead. ome murkt say,
tem tie effort umeeliishly to refteve the other. Bas
thm des mot this depend very srach upon the war
im which pity cones to be an object of rethevtinon for
tthe mum that feels it? Piny ts offer off teself am i
dammninane tmpulie. thst may be capable of very
Wertans nierpretatoo by the subsequent rethevtoon
of the prtifial mint One onay through pity come to
netfect thet this feeling stamds for a real pain ux the
ether unm amd mky at accordingly : or ome Bay
hawe wery different retkeetiuns Ome may fal to
realize the otters puin a3 sav. amd ony be drtven
beck wpem himself. For most people the fitst re
fectiem that follows upom strung pity ib Bo uneliish
06 THE RELIGIOUS ASPEOT OF PHILOGOPHY.
one at all. It is very simply the precept: “ Get rid
of the pain that your neighbor causes you to feel.”
Sympathy with pain may make you tremble, grow
faint, feel choked, weep; and all these sudden emo-
tions are followed perhaps by long-enduring melan-
choly. All this causes you to forget tho reality of
the other’s pain. This personal trouble of yours,
felt in stronger cases in your body as a physical dis-
turbance, as something unnerving, prostrating, over-
whelming, turns your reflection upon yourself, and
you are very apt to ask: What am I todo to bo free
from it? So to ask is already to begin to forget
your neighbor. The pain that his pain caused has
simply become your pain. You are, even through
your pity, bound fast in an illusion. For there are
three ways of removing this pain, and of satisfying
for you the sympathy that caused it. Ono way, and
often a very hard one, puzzling to follow, full of re-
sponsibility and of blunders, would be taken if you
did your best, perseveringly and calmly, to get your
neighbor out of his trouble, That would doubtless
take a long time, you would never be adequately
thanked for your trouble, and you might very easily
blunder and do hariwn instead of good to him, thus
causing in the ond yet more sympathetic pain for
you, coupled this time with remorse. The second
way is to get used to tho sight of pain, so that you
no longer feel any sympathetic suffering. Tho third
way is generally the casiest of all, That is to go
away from the place, and forget all about the sad
business as soon as possible, That is the way that
most sensitive people take in dealing with mont of
ALTRUISN AND EGOISM. 97
the saffering that they meet. The first way gives
you the most of hard work to do. The secand way,
by dalling your sensibilities, makes vou less alive to
the pleasures that are to be gained in the company
of happy men. The stern man, who has seen 90
much suffering as to be indifferent to it. may be less
alive to the bliss of sympathy that gentler natures
come to know, in refined and peaceful soviety. By
far the most inviting way is the thind. It prevents
you from growing callous, cold. and harsh. It leaves
you sensitive, appreciative, tender - hearted, freshly
svmpathetic, an admirable and humane being. But
it also saves you from the pangs that to refined na-
tares must be the most atrocious, the pangs of con-
templating a world of sorrow which vour best effarts
ean bat very imperfectly help. People with a deli-
cate sense af the beautiful surely cannot endure to
go about seeing all sorts of filthy and ugly miseries,
and if they can endure it, will they not be much
happier, as well as more refined, more delicate in
taste, much higher in the scale of beautiful cultiva-
Gon, if they do not try to endure it, but keep them-
selves well surrounded bv happy and ennobling com-
panions? For the sight of pain is apt to make
you coarse: it might degrade vou even to the level
of the peevish sufferer himself. Does a refined soul
desire that?) No one is a duller. a less stimulating,
a less ennobling companion, than the average man
when he is suffering atrwicusly. Pain brings out
his native bratishness| He is abject. he curses. he
behaves perhaps like a wild beast. Or he lies nvute
and helpless, showing no interest in what you do for
7
98 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
him, hating you possibly, just because you are the
nearest creature to him. His gratitude is apt to be
a myth. So long as he yet suffers, he does not ap-
preciate what you are doing for him, for why should
he thank you while you make him no better? And
if you can cure him, what then? Nobody can re-
member very clearly a very sharp pain once over.
Hence he will underrate your services. You can
much better appreciate your moderate trouble in
helping him than he can afterwards appreciate the
very great and agonizing trouble from which you
saved him. One forgets in part one’s greatest an-
guish, one’s most dangerous diseases. The worst
troubles are not favorable to clear memory. Above
all, however, his memory will be weak for what you
did in his case. He will shock you afterwards by
having failed to notice that you took any serious
trouble in his behalf at all. But, if he was sick and
you nursed him, he will remember very well how
you harassed him as you nursed him. He will re-
member a creaking door or an ill-cooked steak, when
he forgets your cups of cold water, your sleepless
nights, your toil to secure silence when he needed it,
your patience when he complained, your sacrifice of
all other present aims in life on his account. All
that he will forget, not because he is a bad man, but
because he is an ordinary creature whom pain de-
based and corrupted, so that he became hardly a fit
™ companion for an elevated and refined soul like
yours. Heisonly human. If you were an average
man yourself, you would treat your friends that
_ aided you in your worst suffering after much the
_ ALTRUISM AND EGOISM. 99
same fashion. It is well if the sufferer and his
helper do not begin a quarrel that will last a life-
tmae. all becaase of the meddiesume self-sacrifice of
the officwous helper. For to the wretched any help
is apt to seem officious, because no help is imme
Gately and unconditionally successful.
So then. if vou are tenderhearted, does tender
heartedness dictate all this waste of sympathy?
Piainly not. Tender-heartedness need not say: My
neighbor must bey relieved. Tender-heartedness, as
a personal affection of yours, says only: Sutig/y me.
And vou can satisfy this affection if you forget aboat
all those degraded wretwhes that are doomed tw suf.
fer. and assoviate with these blessed ones whose in-
mocent joy shall make your tender heart glad of its
e@wn tenderness =Let us rejvice with these that do
rejoice, and those that weep. ler them take care of
themselves in everlasting oblivien. Such is the die
tate of tender-hearted selfishness : and our present
point is the not at all novel thought. © often elab-
erated in George Eliot's nevels the thought that,
the tenderer the heart, the more exclusively seltish
becomes this dictate of tenderheartednes. Verr
sensitive people. who cannot overcume their sens
tiveness, are perforce seliish in this world of pain.
They must forget that there is suffering. Their
paty makes them cruel. They cannot bear the sight
of suffering: they must shut the door upon it. If
he is a Dives, such a man must first of all insist that
the police shall prevent people like Lazarus, covered
with swres, from lying in plain sight at the gate.
Sach men must treat pain as in ther days of
100 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
plumbing, we treat filth, Wo get the plumber and
the carpenter to hide it so well that oven our civ-
lized nostrils shall not be offended, That we eall
modern improvement in honse-building. Even so
we get the police to hide suffering from ua; and,
when that help fails, or is inapplicable, we appeal
to the natural sense of decency in the sufferers, and
demand, on the ground of common courtesy, that
they shall not intrude their miseries upon us Thus
we cultivate a tender sympathy for the most delicate
emotions of the human heart, as we never could do
if wo lot suffering, as our forefathers used to let filth,
lie about in plain sight. IZynore anothor’s suffering,
and then it practically becomes non-existent. So
says welfishnoss.
VIII.
If wo ourselves are very happy, our lack of will-
ingnoss to consider suffering may become greater and
greater as wo get happier. Nobody is colder in
shutting out the thought of misery than a joyous
man ina joyous company. “Tf there be anywhere
any wretched people (which we doubt) let them keep
well away from this place.” That in the voice of
the spirit of overflowing sympathetic joy, as Schiller
60 finely expresses it in the hymn an die Mreude:—
°
“He who, proving, hath discovered,
Whit it lan friend to own,
O’or whom women's love hath hovered,
Foot hilin heres hin bilws tonke known :
You, Sf but one living belong,
On the carth in hie to-day, ~—
ALTECISM AND EGOS. 101
Ami wis oer ha known such, deeimg,
Let bim weep ‘is crie! away.” ~
*Joy.” says the enthusiastic vouns Schiller in
tins rhapsody, Joy was bestuwed on the worm.”
* AIL beings drink joy as Mother Nasure’s breast.”
Dedzhtful gemerosity of the happy man’ But what
Gp the crushed worms think about it’ =~ Whoso bith
@ froemi.” —bat whst of the poor wretches in the
shims of grest cities. beaten. starved. imprisoned,
cheated, and cheutin. starved and imprisoned sysin,
a thewah their Lifetimes’? How many soals do
these poor Eshmaelites call their own’? But of whom
Stns the poytul oan chink. of whom does be or can be
thmk? Of these’? Nov it is the tendency of seltish
joy w build up tts own pretty world of faunev. Every-
my in thst world. trom cherud tw woru, bas jov's
sympathy. bet woly in w) far as it t ala jovoas
Seid umwhdungen Miticnen! dieser Kuss er
gancen Wet.” Bat in tact Jieser Awse ts intended
only for the happy world. whieh in the ilusivon, besa-
tifal. bat wee eruelof toe inmewently joveus man,
seems to be the whole workh Much coal will sach
knwes do to the Mildionen that zroan and erithe °
Joy iwnores them. cacao believe shem real
Sach then are some of the dictates of svmputhy,
© Wan Jur cone Wore? pel-paem
ines Younes Freamd on sein,
Wee a2 ices Wr) errand
Wiseae wiaea J wi ain!
Ja, — wee sae ie cei Naud
Saaoqegas af fam Sriearand!
Cod wee 3 ale cetvan:, ier seule,
Weinemi sco sus diesem Bum.
102 THE RELIGIOUS ASPEOT OF PHILOSOPHY.
which often bear to our conduct such relation as, in
a waying of Emorson’s, the dosire to go to Boston
bears to the posible ways of getting there. “ When
I want to get to Boston,” says in substance Emerson,
“FT do not swim the Charlos River, but prefer cross
ing the bridge.” Emerson's saying was intended to
illustrate his own proferonce for reading translations
of foreign authors rather than the originals. It
doon illustrate very well the preference that we all
have for the shortest way out of our snympathetio
troubles. To help your suffering neighbor is hard
wwitnming, perhaps amid ioo-blocks; to go on and
find elsewhere morry company in to take the bridge
direct to Boston, Sympathy lewls therefore often
to the ignoring of another man’s state as real, And
this is the vory Husion of Solfinhnenss itself,
Pity may then turn to selfish hatred of the night
of suffering. It in hardly necessary to dwell at length
upon the disheartening reverse aspect of the picture,
namely, on the fact that, when pity does not lead us
to dread the suffering of others, it may lead we to
take such credit for our very power to sympathize
with pain, that we come to feo) an actual delight in
the oxintones of the events that moan suffering to
others, Our hearts may so swell with prido at our
own importance as pitiful persons, that we may even
long to have somobody of our acquaintance in trou.
ble, so that wo oan go and pose, in the presence of
the nufferers, as humane commontators on the occur.
rence, as heroic endurers of sorrows that wo do not
rowlly share. Thin is the seoond stage of wolfinh pity.
It is even more enduring and inourable than the
ALTRUISM AND Evo, 103
frat. The dread of tho aight of pain may be made
w pas away by enough of inevitable exporionor,
Rut the seltiah love of the aftive of comforter grows
with the aense of our peraanal impertancs, and with
the number af times when we are called upon to os-
erviay our powers, There are poople who are always
fretful and diwonsalate unlesa they know of some-
badly who very badly needs consoling. Then they
are calm and happy, for they are sur that they are
admirable aa comforters, they fool themselves the
ventre of an admiring neighborhoad, they are plying
their neble avovation in a yeaceful fashion, Thia
type ia aurely no very uncommon one. Such people
are apt to be intolerable companions for vou unless
you have a broken log, or a fever, or a reat boreave-
ment. Then they did vou interesting, because you
are wretched. ‘They nurse you like sainty; they
spoak cunfurtably to you like angels. “Phey hate to
give the little comfort that can be yiven from day
te day ty thase who are enduring the onlinary ver:
ations of healthy and prosaio life, “They rjaive to
flad some one overwholwed with woe. The happy
man ia to them a worthless follow. Ligh tempera-
ture ix needed to seften their hoarta, “They would
be miseralle in Paradise, at the sight of se mich
tedivta contentinent; but they would loap for joy if
they could but hear of a lost soul to whom a dryep of
water vould be oarried. ‘To them the mast blessed
trath uf Seripeune is found in the passage: For
the poor ye have always with you.” Yea, blessed
ar the mereiful, for they shall never lack work.
They shall be like the aoulptar, delighting in the
104 = THE BHLIGIOUS ASPROT OF FHILONOPHY,
rotgh bloke of marhle that contain his beloved
wteahien, «Heo thet the world will detbtlew have ale
wey goletity crf Dolenen,
hens are tb the viulygarly milevelont, Yet thusy
winthd he dimcnnolate altogethor If evil were to
canner, ‘They veggard anilnery tm theesder mgreccdeal grecapss
esarhiy 5 feestseses tbeesy wvertalel bees vestry tentecste climeagryrerdoetescd
tay Irestare threat P¥earvcldmes fetal coronene cxgctadts, teed threat terfme
sity Haul Voesets talortinhed, Ard we are nponking now,
nit of the profemional enthiumiann that mush make
Abies gobnynbecdiny Sentessresmtesel 19 tbeer cVimessamesm tliat bees wttadle
Leow, Dreads cof thes qriates lebigehats fen godt thant cldtdeagetadm bien
cortiadn cnprofenstonal people whose Ives would he
tabrsnconts vatdese ly estragety cof wll Jory wesres theese anesdgchibarem
tert, mtabojeech tay mecedertin cseednniition, Murely ib in tert
thin wort of pity that overcenen the Uuslen of selfs
Lwlarnesmm, §—Udeabdaese: cloves tieche golty well (lustrate thet
i hranderts,
{X,
Ph ytragetetliy tlresrs, cam cate ccrrsertdenn, in net alway alten
Inte, boat frequently very welfiah, ft doen net alwaye
overthrow, Init often strctpttenm, welfintinenn, And
ao deceitful an emotion cannot be tented with the
dffles of givinge mnenal unigelit. finn faran glty ever
Never Lteverd ves Cheer lestesect dente of sane EM ianterte of med fhalitnenn,
we mnny have oacelon to apenk of it hereafter, Her
Catt tatah eles, Plechiergoecerlinticce’n thengelit wtill lookin ate
traehives, Brat if wes whew golly witty resfesrestscces tert ts
Vramdgelit bouts tr ecanertdenn, Tf we smbe whrestivece a pelvets meg
wan wtisetiial beeniimes it wan pitiful, then we of
talrenaly mtsmwvese thet, ioe ney fear om titel finbitiene estetathe
ALTRUISM AND EGOISM. 105
tutes morality, the pitiful character of an act does
mot insure its unselfishness, and henee not its morality.
Sehopenhaver’s own typical example, quoted above,
is indeed interesting, but not conclusive as w this
question. “TI pitied him.” says the lover who has
refrained from slaying his rival. = Had he not re
sembled my father as he slept, I had done it.” savs
Lady Macbeth. Possibly Lady Macbeth’s pity was
good in itself, but not quite sufficient in quantity.
Bat her words remind us of what the lover might do,
if only pity stood in the way of the murder that he
desired to commit. He might get somebody else to
take care of the whole business. preparations and all,
amd so save his own tender emotions. In fact, how-
ever, Schopenhauer’s younz lover has something
more than a mere emvtivn of pity in him.
But so far as we have considered sympathy, we
have had but another illustration of the ditteulry
with which we are dealing. Even if symparhy were
always unselfish, never capricious, perfectly clear in
its dictates, there would remain the other objection.
Symparhy is a mere fact of a man’s emotional nature.
To an unsympathetic man, how shall vou demonstrate
the ideals thar vou found upen the feeling of sympa
thy? And so one returns to the old ditheulty, You
have an ideal whereby vou desire to Judge the world.
Bat this ideal you found in its turn on the fact thas
somebody has a certain sort of emotion. Any one
who has not this emotion you declare to be an in-
competent Jud. And so vour last foundanon for
the ideal is something whose worth ts to be demon-
strated solely by the fact that It exists.
106 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
Thus in this and in the last chapter, in general
and in particular discussions, we have found the one
problem recurring. The ideal is to have an ideal
foundation, yet we seem always to give it a founda-
tion in some reality. And if we then look about us,
we always find sume skeptic saying, either that he
does not feel sure of the existence of any such
reality, or that he doubts whether it means what we
say that it means, or, again, that in any case there are
other people, who have found other realities, and
whose moral principles, founded on these other real-
ities, are in deadly opposition to ours. The idealist
of our preliminary discussion on the methods of eth-
ical inquiry has so far met with numerous misfor-
tunes. Ile has continually been enticed over to a
sort of realistic position, and then just the same
arguments that he used against the realist are used
against hun. If, however, true to himself, he as-
saults the realism of the modern descendants of
Hobbes with the arguunent that all their physical
hypotheses are worthless without ideals, then he
hears the challenge to show an ideal that is not
his whim, and that is not founded on a physical doe-
trine. There seems no refuge for him as yet but to
turn skeptic himself.
CHAPTER V.
ETHICAL SKEPTICISM AND ETHICAL PESSIMISM.
Long ie the night to him who is awake ; long isa mile to him whe
ie tired : long is life to the foolish who do not know the true law. —
DuamMarabDa.
To turn skeptic himself, we said, seemed the only
way open before our idealist. If only he had placed
bis standard a little lower! If only he had not
insieted on getting his ideal by ideal methods!
Then he might have remained safe in some one of
the positions that he temporarily assumed. But al-
ways he drove himself out of them. Some stupen-
dous external reality. some beantiful mental state,
would suggest itself to him, and he would say: * La,
here is the ideal that 1 seek.” But forthwith his
own doubt would arise, accusing him of faithlessness.
“ Whar hast thou found save that this or that hap-
pens to exist? the doubt would say, and our ideal-
ist would be constrained to answer, * Not because it
exists, but because I have freely chosen it for my
guide, is it the Ideal” And then would come the
repeated accusation that caprice is the sole ground
for the choice of this ideal. Skepticism. then, total
ekepticism as to the foundation of ethics, seems to
be the result that threatens us. We must face this
skepticism and consider its outcome.
108 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
I.
It is in fact in such skepticism as this that one
finds the real power and meaning of most genuine
modern Pessimism, Not so much in the hopeless-
ness of our efforts to reach our ideals once chosen as
in our perpetual hesitation or unsteadiness in the
choice of ideals, we most frequently find the deepest
ground for pessimistic despair. Choose an ideal,
and you have at least your part to play in the world.
The game may seem worth the trouble; for far off
as may be what you seck, there is the delight and
the earnestness of free self-surrender to a great aim.
But pessimism is almost inevitable if you have been
long trying to find an ideal to which you can devote
yourself, and if you have failed in your quest.
. Therefore those advocates of pessimism are most
formidable who dwell less upon the ills of life, as
bare facts, and more upon the aimlesaness of life.
Von Hartmann, therefore, to whom pessimism is
more the supposed result of a process of summation,
and thus is a belief that the sum of pains in life
overbalances the sum of pleasures, produces little
effect upon us by his balance-sheet. But Schopen-
hauer, who dwelt not only upon the balance-sheet,
but still more upon the fundamental fact that life is
restless and aimless, — he is nearer to success in his
pessimistic efforts. It is hore that one finds also
the true strength of Schopenhauer's model, the
Buddhistie despair of life. Choose your aim in life,
says in effect Buddhism, let it be wife or child,
wealth or fame or power, and still your aim is only
ETHSCAL SKEPTICISM AND ETHICAL Pessnmsm. 109
ene among many. Jost in the eternal strife, at war
with all the rest, and never able te prove its mght to
supremacy in the world. From bie to life you pass,
now a Brahman. now a kins. now a worm. now a
tiger, now a beggar. now in bell) now among the
demmoms of the air: vour aims alter everlastingly
with each new birth. and nowhere do vou find hfe
aevthing but a succession of aims. no ane af which
3s Imtrinsially more significant than the others
The wordd of aims is a world af strife. and no hfe
has any real significance. No desire is of any es-
sential worth, Therefore. seeing al) this, give up
dese. Have it as your one aim to have no aim
Sach is the outoome of the insicht int the eternal
warfare af aims) The Baddhist parables try to
make plain this insimnificance of Lfe both by dwell
Zar om the fact that men must finally fail to cet their
ames, and by insisting that. if men temporarily soc
esed, their condition is ne less insignificant than It 3s
when they fail. The failure is used to show a man
mot 80 much the difficulty of getting his aim in this
tad world. as the worthlessmess of his aim. The
gnnoess when It comes is embittered for the snacess-
fol man by reminding him that all desire is tran-
Ment, and that what he now Joves will come to seem
hateful to him. In tech cases the lesson. whether of
the sanmess or of the failure. in noi thar the order of
thmps is diabolical. and then fom an enemy of mam
kind. but that the desires themselves are bopeiessiv
eanfused and worthless Ii Badchism dwelt only
om the hopelesmess of onr eZors to get the good
things that we want. the doctrine would result in a
110 «= THE RELAGIOUS ASPKOT OF PHILOKOPHY,
srt of Promethonn deflanss of the phywioal world,
our powerful and cruel enemy, Hut Hraddhion in
winte tigers it that we knew tt what ara the geol
thingn that we pretend t want. Our dewiron helig
ignorant, atu etillemly changeable, wo have tu right
tes herpes for mene, Phe tread of their storion in
rh wy prrestemt mpenitint thes ghiynieml evile abyrst tim, bert
6 general cnuletination of the vein sline that are
itt 1M,
‘The wares sinnlemmnenn of life in the subject of
lament in inneh of ene modern romantia poetry,
Bfesves im, fare thoes seseclisnseshoeoy vertrassertles pont, the gront
evil rf ern imterteces, thet wes beter tert what in gon,
Hfecves im the pront clinngaweintinent of life, that we
hinves ty esbrjeuct in life, Were in the rent failure,
that we omit mule up one minds to undertake
anything, Were in the werent engine, that we
reeves sertbadenge tes Fill, © Arnel than thes gthilemd wheegti-
eshte that bimm wer fier brecwest cree prath in the greenest
iteventiemtions bunsurtnen, wheter we dwell tapes it wand
fully rentize ite monning, an ethiont pomiinion, We
whl threes iMeawtrmtes tefrembs erae gorcblestn if we cent:
wiclecr brerw thin chiftteralty crf thes eshuerices of tote iclenl
hian afFecsten! thes mesrch of cortain among one modern
vinnnntis poste fer whet they wend oull the ideul
esteurtiert,
if,
OF all thes stsbijecte of reflection in rmantic poatry,
terties Ain eeserees farreiliter thieete thes equiemtionn of thes mene
Stage satel werrthe eof brearsety lifes om te wholes, ‘Shes fiews
and natural snewer of the modern puet to tin ques
RTWICAL QKRFTIOIM AND Erittcal peaamiam, LIL
tien la well known, Haman life moana for him the
emotional aide af life. ‘The highoat gan, whon
found, must be an emotional guod. ‘The remantia
poot, criticising life, oust aim to mako clear what
kind of cmotional condition in the mont astiafactory
ene. Tn this view we have ne mere truiam, Many
ferwa of Hodonian would oppone the doctrine that
in the intonser emotions van be found the ideal
wiatou of eolaviotianesa, ‘The votninen senae of men
af the workd sees in the more moderate pleasures of
polite leisure, in the attainment of practionl knowl-
edge, in a atevmasfal profeaional or businesan carver,
the suureos of permancnt natiafaction. Several
wohuula of Btieiont philowaphy reyrnrided tranquillity
as punatitutings the eanenen of a bleased life. but te
all thia the apirit of modern poctry wan from the
ontaoct violently opposed. Tranquillity, onee oex-
changed fur aterm anil atrors, in hot again reparded
aa the goal, Active emotion, intense in quality, un-
Venitedl in yitantity, in what the pocta of the revelt-
lan devine, One need only tnettiot Worther,”
“The Robbers «The Revolt of Talsi’’ " Mlan-
fred," Fauet,” to mupyest what ia meant by this
apirit af tho revolutionary povtry.
Life, then, ean be of worth only ino ae far aa it is
full af the desirable forme af pootio emotion, Hut
la auch fullnone of lifes porible * de the view that
makea it the ideal a tenable view 7 Aluat not the
Conaintont following of than view lead ultimately to
peoninaiaa " "Phe anawer te this problor in the hie-
tory af the whole comantio movement. lero mint
suffieo a aketoh of anime of the principal remulta af
the movermont.
119 0 THE HELIN ASPRITT OF PHILONOPHY,
NI 'tees mtd crf tesenbereee Nites, threes, frm swwsbeerttol nerten)-
Hrilitey,, cqeadeshecstaeel Lesmires, arertemenl thoes priummterte Pere Frets.
Merten, Mimttrrdrend cll tesaditiertin, — Alvrver wll, thes theese
Leogetecsel telesinden oof Vite bemves botserte, Ferm tees pertinttties grvet,
Dimbaae bret, grere legen mbrtstdesronl, Fim lelgebrent geewwl tevttet
hen meesvage fut dae Bede erwver meritl. W brtat, tee theese coerttmesegecestecses 7
Mpa, tof ccorttrsses, te mestames oof segshertslid devlecgsestsdortecses,
Netty mpriettead greiedes, Thee jery ef Preend eteterticnn tn
esegeainboul Noy fever cleshgehetn ents extertty, Mhees morlt-wvertabrigy orf
greeter geeseedtom fm mnongessmmenl bry tow ferenin ef cemnesit,
Pibracdbesy, ronjerdesdonge tne bide mtoenngette, weiting Mt No.
severity cf Atheerdienes,"” saree chesPecesebdtnge, tee soll deeneensesties
eh evil, mabealtesey sereel Aneececet., tm sa geen ecncaterples oof tee
traprresmaderts of thrin agrielt, Paavatar’n mexurtett of thes
seostneees orf geocneivam be sennertbeese itemtaareees s “Aw thes aprpie
witierten rf seregcocdn cles anert certeaes, botets sores preesmestet, Aer tert
gets sewing, Friel res peerties, om Oheoy mteibecs Ahtes dentserenecemt
sraerecrev, iteMtesesrecses Voy these dereeeneretaality thes teeeereted
dae eesestn, osatedahe sated geet, tall deaf taccrseces, betewes Vchedeed
throcrer moveceed, wberelelesrinng sernl tesem ef terre, mend cnt
dibues ccernatatectusatecces grtales jery, wer thes enpncpntiern ef esteiten,
Dvesincseibees procerdoans sem geote will, remnnees it Feeeitf eal rerun crf
meredl, Peaitbe, Prergees, Uevver, Whee crenbecter need, Altes teteloensett-
sable, Aibecs devtersitonb eles, thoes cliaivess, . thant ta prornsitin,
"Tim deompricsetacrte, rosvedsataene, theset teeny bees feebt, bret teerb
WiNMeed tre owlroal ; ‘tin wrt abnrve met, Ite way dn thes
way tf thie Nigehetending. || Woe eatened, cqnertes to benethe
griart crf Abide ebrsegencnly, wheepecien thee weed tse een eetierne
saredl thoes aenettcatel sealecedesaticnne cof Abees yenange mete bert
Cderethees, ee three yesnen fread becferres sernd after 17D, 165
Hajges a Obinrmeteriatie mm preemie,
Sead Afr prcmmn yrs wt errtesty wrnnetoe beryl hy ty Ketmeatoin'e (eaoh
Her Hoarhan. Nettaneallitoratie, it. 1v., py. 5, Of the Oth oft,
ETHICAL SKEPTICISM AND ETHICAL PESSINISM. J18
This pride leads directly to the effort to build up
a wholly new set of ideals. The panenve af the
stateuman, of the student of science, uf the business
man, 3 unknown to these furveful young men.
Ther must make a world of their own, and in a day
ton At the same time they are without any definite
faith. In fact, definite faith would endanger for
them the freshness of their emotions They fear any
ereed bat one self-made. And they can more easily
tear down than build up. One of the most interest-
cag of the young veniuses of the age af the German
romantic development! is the early lest Nevalis
(Friedrich von Hanlenbers), a representative, lke
Shelley after him, of the emotional or remantic po-
etry in its pristine innecenee. A truly neble seul,
Joined w a weak body, oppressed by many troubles,
wnahle to grow to full manly spiricual stature, he
shows us the beauty and imperfeetion of the emotiunal
Movement in cluse union. He writes pages of vague
phikwephy, which afterwanis impressed the veung
Carivle as an embodiment of a sense of the deep
mystery of life. You tind delight m= wandering
through the tlowery labvriuths of such speculation ;
vou learn much by the way, but ven come nowhere.
Only this is clear: the voung poet persists that the
world must in some way conform to the emodienal
meeds of man. And he persists, m4, that a harme-
mous wctheme of lite can be formed on a purely m-
mantic plan, and only on such a plan. He actually
The age in quessiom exienis fem Uo se rt No anecial
effort is Sere made to follow chrenclorical orler. Our purse is
wo ete Ulustrasions, not to give a listory
3
114 THR RELIGION ANPROT OF PHITONOPHY,
explains ne reality and completes tie seheme of life,
Ile hints, at length, that the Catholle ohtirch in the
het expremmden of the teeds of tnan, With thin 0-
watinfactory suggestion, the little oarear of wander.
eee eared inn lemth. «Mut in whet could it have ended
Daeacl Lifes csertatdanteesel
Perhaps in what wan called by the close frend of
Novalis, Keledrioh Behlegel, the romantio jrony.
This in the text stage in the growth, or, if yet like,
in the deny of the romantic apielt, Kanertiot In ener
giide and cur youl, thut what ia emotion? Rome.
tladnnge cstocutngeestal sles sonnel boy nsetirres Unecertimintent, — Knech
ainetion sete up a cladin te All the whole of life. Kor
eseacsty tes conve, tees estaranert, prevestdes mertel feed willinnge ta
die, Yot each in driven away by ite follower, ‘The
feet of them that shall bese it out are before the
door even while the triumphant emetion In reigning
ever the heart within. Miullnenn of mth life sett
ficklenenn, Novelia, apentt the death of his betrothed,
mile a aort of divinity of the departed, and dated
new era from the day of her death, Elin diary waa
for a while full of spiritual exercines, mipggented by
hin affliction. Ele ronclved to follow her to the grave
in one your, Within thin year he waa betrothed
anew, Ff mech in Newalia, what will he « lewser
apirit’? Conecioun of thin inevitable decay of enh
emotion, Meledrioh Bellagel miggents that one steel
make « virtie of necemity, and declare that the
higher life commlate in a sort of enthiuniastio flekle
nem, 'Ehies geestudeam erntamt oveannlese Likees oo brtcrnnenedteg- tied
in the garden of divine ometions. And he mest he
sonmelonin and proud of his wanderings, Activity,
KIMRCAL SEEPTICISW AND ETHICAL Pass. 115
er rather amity, @ his hichest perfection. The
more mameroes bis emotions, the nobler the man.
The fickler the man. the more numerous bs em
mess is the romante irony, which consists in reveiy-
ing each eew enthusiasm with a merry pride. “T was
moc the first, amd will owe be the la, We see
through it, even while we submit tw ti. We are
more than it 3. and will survive it. Long Lve King
Lixpertence. who showers upon us new feelings °
Se saach for an Ingenious and thoroughly detesta-
bbe wiew of bie. in which there is for an earnest man
merest. This irony. whas its it bus the laughter of
@amnom: over the miserable weakness of human chan
acter? The emotiun was tw be cer gol. It turms
emt to be a wretched fetich, and we know it as suck.
“Kwas mime. tis bis and has been slave w tho
ques = Ig ts gone. though we crusted in it. It was
eur stay, and if has towed away like water. This
1% mot fallmess, but bollowmessy, of Lite. And bow
shell the romantic trooy supply the vawaney? = =Thus
meny 3 but the word of Mephistopheles about the
wom of Geretcben: Sie ise die ersce wivht. Not the
fest chanze of emotion is this present ome: noe the
fest breaking up of the fountains of the grean deep
withrm us: but whas misery in thas shought: Then
there t nothing sure. coching siznifeant. In our
owe hearts were we wo tod Lite. amd there & ne true
Ife there : only riasas with nothing beneath them:
erly emiless acd meaniugiess charge.
The conseivusness of cbts result is present in am
ether form of the romance spits. The coaseqguence
116 THE RELIGIOUS ASPEROT OF PHILOSOPRY.
is what Hegel, in the Phdnomenologie des Geistes,
described under the name of Das Unglickliche
Bewusstaein, and what is more familiarly known to
us as the Byronic frame of mind. The very strength
of the previous emotion renders this consciousness
of the hollowness of emotion the more insupport-
able: —
“When the lamp In shattered
Tho light In the duat Hes dead.”
Tho brighter the lamp, the deeper the darkness that
follows ita breaking. -
The romantic despair thus described took many
forms in the poetry of the early part of the century.
To describe them all were to go far beyond our lim-
ite. A fow forms suggest themselves. | If we are
condemned to fleeting emotions, we are atill not de-
prived of the hope that some day we may by chance
find an abiding emotion. Thus, then, we find many
poeta living in a wholly problematic state of mind,
expecting the god atronger than they, who, coming,
shall rule over them. Such aman is the dramatist
and writer of tales, Heinrich von Kleist. “It can
be,” writes this pout to a friend, December, 1806,
“it can be no evil spirit that rules the world, only a
apirit not understood.” In such a tone of restless
search for the ideal of action, Kleist remains through-
out his life. No poet of the romantic school had a
keener love of life-problems purely as problems.
Each of hia works is the statement of a question,
In so far Kleist resembles that more recent repre
sentative of the problematic school of poetry, Ar-
thur Hugh Clough. Kleist answored his own quee-
ETRICAL SKEPTICNWM AND Eftttcal pressive. 117
thans at last by suivide. Others have other ways of
Heeing misery. Lindwig Teck, after running through
the whale round of romantic questions, rids himself
wf his demons by turning his attention to other lit-
erery Wark, and leta most of the old nomantic ideals
ahewe, oor playfully writes amusing steries about
thems. Priedrivh Sohlogel finally escapes from him-
wif by means of a acholarly coil and Catholic faith.
Hukderlin takes refuge ina mad house. Shelley
mavagea to endure his brief life, by dint of childlike
suluniasiveticss Co his emotions, joined with curnest
hope for vet better Chings. | Seluller had jotned with
(iethe toa seavh for perfection ins the ancient
Cireck world. “There are many fashions of quieting
the restlessness that belonged to the time, vet what
ene af them really answers the problems of the r-
mantic spirit’ Phere as sall the great question:
How may mankind hve the harnnemens emononal
life, when men are driven for their ideals back upon
themselves, when Craditienal faith i removed, when
the age is full of wretchedness and of Dia serv ans,
When the very strength of poede emeton nnphes
that it is transient and changeable © The conscious
failure to answer this quesQien is more er less de:
chided pesstnitsin.
Could matera poetry free itself from chat retlestive
fendenes in which we have found is most prominent
characterise, Che pessimisi could disappear with
the criticism of Efe. But chts is impossible. Onn
partief our bycte poetes, seme of one comedy and of
eur satins, and Che aest of ope best tinefeenth cet:
tury pootic work ts a tnere of leas conscious: struggle
The Ana seryttett of Pyros greeny tan toe ver)
preset eel perients, tre oanttevestrtatl art the eco thine
ETHICAL SKEPTHWISN AND ETHICAL Pessnasy. 119
© Manfred.” ~ Cain,” and ~ Don Juan,” represents an
imbependent phase of the romantic movement, whose
fanlts are as instructive as it beauties This pe
riod of Byron's poetry is of course but very roaghly
deseribed by the word enitical. vet that word is at
amy rate suggestive. A sensitive man, and vet he
roae, strong In spirit. bat without fixed ideals af hie,
a rebel by nature whe yet finds ne greater soul to
lead him. no faithful band to follow him im any deti-
mite effort for mankind, Byron is a modern hkeness
ef him that in the legend afterwards became St.
Christopher. Only Byron seeks the strongest with-
ewt findmy him, learns to despise the devil, and never
weeets the devil's master. Worn out with the search,
the poet tings himself down in the woods of doube
and dreams ~Don Juan.” We look in vain for
the might adjective with which tw qualify this poem:
% is so full of strength, w lavish of splendid re
sources, and yet in sum so disappointing. It has no
trae ending. and never could have had one. It isa
mountain stream, plunging dewn dreadful chasms.
smeging through grand forests. and losing itself mm a
Ifeless gray alkali desert. Here is romantic self-
eriticism pushed to its farthest consequences. Here
8 the self-confession of an hervie soul that has made
too high demands on life. and that has found in its
ewn experience and in the world nothing worthy of
true hervism. We feel the magnitade of the blun
der, we despise (with the anther, as must be noticed.
mot in oppesition to him) the miserable petty round
of detestable experiences — intrigues, amours, din-
ners —in brief, the vulgarity to which human life
t
120) «THY MRLIGIOUS ASPMOT OF PHILOSOPIY,
in rewdiceed 5 Dut the tengedy in averywhere to be
resecl Dostoveccrs thes issn, trot is whet in abd. ‘Phe.
romantics mpirit: ban moult iss vids for thes metinfiac
tory amotionnl atate, and for the worthy ded to par.
form, aud now ronta, scornful and yot torrificd, In
izzy contemplation of the confused and meaning
lon nase of sensations into which the world las re
wolved ituelf, © Ther in nothing there to fear or
hope,” thin spirit san to way,
6
“When iSlahop Berkelay sald there wan ne matter,
And proved it, ‘twee ne nattor what he sald,”
Or again: —
“OPo tesor motto het’ re ft decides
Bo sabsertabel Noes gelosch ter besscow tint whabeds bo toedeng 5
"Dia tries wer apesetslates both far and wide,
And dacin, becnuse we acc, wo are cll scaing,
Harr ssny poart, EV crsbiot conn secsithiecr abcde,
Wrath 8 reeves toate wbeherm Foor cotseres agg reresttng.,
Bor mie, |} mcornetiinen thisk thee life in death,
Mather than life, wm seave affable of lremel,”
Tn * Manfred" the same spirit smoke another, and
not quite so succemful, a form of expression, The
only peace that can come to this world-weary spirit,
Manfred oxprennen at the sight of a quiet sunset,
The only freslom from eternal solf-axamination be
found in an ocessional glances ab peaceful nature.
$e will suck Imat,
Beat Gt fen well ter Pemver nrecowas bt threrteghs bat mew ;
Ke Vatbe conaorggened sony Gbrereagebotee witth me sees w mertaeie,
And I within my tablete would note duwn
"Shae Cheever be meds oo feseabiiag.”
The farnous Jast words of Manfred, —
“Old man, ‘tle nut mo dieule ty die,” —
]
EVIL SEEFTUOISMN AND ETSICAL Prssomss. 12771
aomime ss ther do after alt Mancredi's Wit LERSIO
UA et Gs peo. esse abe Soa resenaen of
dissin ta brawe all posicae wredumentess Src, wilt
amg Ghar tine sale of feeiimer witli. in al las scren in.
thunk: but for & momeni. Ge Cece Seams Lf ide
mebelitves Viram 9 Horees f:r Gees, Soe oat
Tr ta diy, ferioe the pessicac Tagore te. ace Tait
Tint presen. the bere a0 Ges Tesuras KOO aD Dome C63
SGPTUUE SHRUTI Of EMOTE eDseiake dat Reba STS
@e iL tine fepterol ontverse Sere aoe tereucier = —
“ Dhunt dist Tat WMG ne. ke eM LU IG WL Te
T ara que Quem ars fire. ter am ur ger —
BG waa Fw SAH Ee a WL ce
SEy pert teraciur ’
This is pessomise: Ghar cversuce Sect | The oct
GM OL seit Ta TICLE ust 1s GE eters
tum to: atid atest be as Suk Te dae Tuk
Gs pure Workd if 2A IS TESST? foo | See
Im wal md i. Mactnnd ammuics MIG IT aes
tum. even thease Se ong mgs it ite mew of
duuch. Doimr wirk if sce ok tN Ge. ibs
WHIM We Be THVESEDLT item Sing wl ite at
dathamee can Tung Lea RTE, WAY mrt
wae ibid 28 Qa uke Ute Guctatec | is mee
ti wortty =e wee we te fend. meq in eeadoe.
bus ciweee ! [Ls mg the vical stage ite dieu aniv-
Tov. wg tte dew Secor) This scnpesciec Sad
been 6 ite semua 36 22 the revecarge 32 Marte,
the Faces of Ureaie.
Praise of aie Sosa yard if Urreaite’s 7 Fans 7 is
WOWMLETS Fapercoccs. LWCCGeSs Gite work SS
122s THE RELIGIOUS AsPROT OF PHILOSOPHY,
terrae! tort ser in the life of man. Knteavagant on.
conmiam of “ Keeat,” sich se that wherewith Her-
mann Grito has marred, se with « ahivwian's he
rangi, the wenelusiom of hie otherwine tront inetene-
tive “ Leetures om Goethe,” seeme aa ont of place ae
applause in a cathedral, The poem ie grand and
profound, heenuse the life probleme it ao trethtally
portrays are grand and prefennd; in form, if you
except digresmiinn, it in sublimely simple and unas
suming. Ite inperfections are ne open to view ua is
ite grandeur. ‘The doctrine of the poem may be thes
briefly eipgested. Here inn work! wherein nature,
the expreasim of divine intelligence, in perfect ;
wherein tan, by the same divine windet, is left in
darkness and cmfnsiem. The angele, who simply
contemplate nature's perfection, are the “true sone
of God.” Bet they do nothing. They only seo and
thith. Mart is to set. By his setion he ia freely to
srente mich perfection an alreuly paawively eninte itt
natore, That ia, his life ta te become an hartnotions
while. The postulate of the Lend in that thie in
porsible. Mephistopheles holds the oppenite opition,
The qnestion ia te be solved bry the enne of Fact
Faust in 6 man in whem are combined all the
strength and weakness of the romantio spirit, No
eacellencs he deems of worth ao long ae any en
tellenes in beyond his grasp. Therefore bie de
pair nt the sight of the great world of life. Se
wtnnll 0 part of it is his. Ble knews that he oun
* C4. the enpiniem of M. Eten. Scherer aa gneted inn Me. Matthew
Arneid‘n eamy, A French Uritic on Coethe, ie the Mized Kescye, wp
#91.
never grow great enough to grasp the whole, or any
fimite part of the whole. ‘et there remains the
hopeless desire for this wholeness. Nothing but the
imfinite can be satisfying. Hence the despair of the
early scenes of the first part. Like Byron's Man-
fred, Faust seeks death; but Faust is kept from it
by no fear of worse things beyond, only by an acci-
dental reawakening of old childish emotions. He
thereafter feels that he has no business with life, and
is a creature of accident. He is clearly conscious
ealy of a longing for a full experience. But this ex-
perience he conceives as mainly a passive one. He
does not wish as yet to do anything, only to get
everything.' Bat at the same time with this desire
for a tempest of thew feelings, Faust has the con-
yasness that there never can be a satisfactory feel-
ing. Mephistopheles. stating the case of the con-
tented man of the world, assures him that the time
Will come for enjoying good things in peace. Faust
indignantly replies that pleasure can never deceive
lam, the tolerable moment never come. In makng
this very assertion, however, and in concloding his
pact with Mephistopheles upon the basis of this asser-
tion, Faust rises above his first position, and assumes
anewone. The satisfactory pleasure can never be
given to him, and why? Because he will always
remsain active. Satisfaction would mean repose, re-
pose would mean death. Life is actinty. The
meaning of the pact is of course that. for good or
1 CE the lencthr discussion of this point in Friedrich Vicher,
Geathe’s Foust, New Batrén ser Arink des Geboits, especially p
998 and p 300. “ Er (Faust) weiss aise fir jetat mur von der Lust.”
124 tH RRIAGIS AGREE OF PHIAROFHY,
tere cova, all tees cca dateriece: orf i tente in werk, and hed
ree totes de ever whelly Het ate beige ae the pened of
nesticrttegsliadivereret, eeteetitiw bein, Ehek if werbhe tw this eae
aestsicts orf Lite, Where waetdetinesticnny devtdirt bas Revtetned tierh tty
fececlirgem bret dre daedda. “Phe wereld dm penal if wes eset
tiseless 16 aes, tier crtdaecp an ians, “Phas pyrevivbecnes eof Miateat te
shrecnecterbic thie: Miatervecsy ev tne: prefect hela of metivity.
W ithe tleie irewigetet thee perder pyieit fram steer
yer itaecdt, Flees ccamtorveces orf evieemtetiodene tn thie des:
write fore Frall necmn of prcveonial experience. “The cmmcnie
Ot thie teow wpyieith de thes emperticem fe acoenplion
wernt tring. (Phe dittepeniece ta viet: Mistint, fellewieg
Avda tadooy taste decnecy, rerbeebet, bows faced ter sane evdomectanes tert d Pag
Hifics crf corse deca sec tsitecoitiviec. VNie pyemmdenieie Chere ttt
tis keely aecetime be da in jrcamieviad y tight give wey
brestenpes teteegteearbivrnn dni baeperies clevertiente tev webs gRewE
cond. — Bievtem tedm favkees ple) Wee bere tony welll the
gtiewet, ‘Phe while: prone ja indeed a eonfliod bac
frveety ties trae herelecticciew try Mistead, bret thee fibwt, the
Aewive fer temtiteld paenive ea perierncem, in vatil the
Hiaawt, eccacrytote tv ite setcecernnel reel, preeeleninnt. — Mietet
de native, bet bie activity ie teminly we Gentine pete
wiih tof neo ce preptereee, — Kiven at tee end bie ie net
dette: seme etree teeter ders medive ¢ hile werk ie done by
pases: 5 sated tees secctertengliadvtnert tere whierme stale bi
fe Wt Newt willing ter any, Mhia ia the highest moment,
de ete anihiel pattern, tot we veatity. bn the real world
hits wichted nectern'y were ta treevees Rend: Ane titi thes
werbeatierty vf thes preerilect ie nek telly given, Genueh
Mies gweht, while ergpautdop it, tee cern tere eee
erry Cbtiee renee ptt, “Phe sevelation bad free:
HiWhe Ha lifeidenle pean ometion and hereie a6
ETHICAL SEEPTRUSM AND ETHICAL Pessimism. 125
tazm. The two cannot wholly be harmanized. The
bichast forms of activity imply self-sacrifice, drudg-
eI. rouune, coal- headed calculation. The hishest
farens af emotion, pursued by themselves, intaxicate
and enervate. It is the purpose of Grethe to lead
as bero throagh the various Stages af emotianal life,
for the sake of making him prefer in the end a made
a action wo all forms of simple emotion. The result
35 to he a man above the deadness af ordinary work-
adav realism, vet as devoted to tuil as the stupidest
waist. There is to be a free surrender of a full
self to the servive of some hich end. Nothing is
lacking to the conquest aver pessimism, except the
eioar statement af thar for which the converted
Faust is to work. The mal af setiviny once found,
the problem will be solved. and the devil's wager
Sexe. Bart the dim allegorical suggestions of the sae
amd part will not suffice to give us the account af
what is wantad. Faust is ta work for human pro
press, and progress means the existence of a whale
matzon af hani-laboring, fearless men whe fight for
ever for their freedom. To have been the father of
seach a people is the hishesr blessalness. Groad, in-
dread, we sav: but to have wrought bv the devil's
aad. throach magic and oppression. is this the hich
es? Is this the tvpe of the best activity? And is the
great problem after all really solved?) For whaz is
the ultamate vood of the eternal warfare with namre
3a which mankind are thus left? Faust leaves be
‘md him a nation of toilers whose business 11 will
be tw build dikes to keep the sea ont A worthy
ead of romantic hones truly: That Guethe him-
126 THE RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILOSOPHY.
self ia not wholly content therewith is proven by the
epilogue in heaven, which means, if it means any:
thing, that the highest end of human activity ie
something very fine, but altogether inexpressible, in:
visible, inconceivable, indefinite, a thing of ether
and dreams. One longa in this last scene for the
presence of Mephistopheles, who surely has as much
right there aa in the prologue, and who would be
sure to any, in his terse and sinewy fashion, just the
right and the last word about the whole business.
\ The incompleteness of “ Faust ” is the incomplete.
ee of modern thought. The poet is silent about
he final problem, because modern thought is still
toiling away on the definition of the highest human
sustivity.
Thus we have found that our moral problem is
shared by others than the moral philosophers. Al-
most at random we have taken a few suggestive
Iustrations of this same moral problem as it ap-
Pears to the poeta. Had we made use of the poeta
of the present day, we could have illustrated still
other aspects of the question. ‘The restless dramatic
geniua of Browning, for instance, always giving ua
glimpses of new ideals that men of atrange fashions
have or may have, unweariedly warns us not to pre-
tand to narrow the possible objects of life down to
one, however sacred we may think that one to be.
Jife, thus viewed, seems a grand everlasting war-
fure of ideals, among which peace ia impossible.
And with this insight into the actual and seemingly
recongilable warfare of human aims, ethical doc
trine inuat begin. The outlook is gloomy, but the
problem must be faced.
ETMCAL SKEPTICISM AND ETHICAL Pessamseé. 197
Ul.
Sach are same of the motives that give genuine
meaning to modern pessiminn. This instability of
all wWeals is the greatest danger to which idealism
can be subject. And the problem is not ove of mere
theory, nor yet even of poetic emotion alone. The
problem is one of daily life. We choose same fash-
ion of life in the morning, and we reject it before
might. Our devotional moments demand that all
life shall be devotional ; our merry moments that all
ife shall be merry : our heroic moments that all life
shall be lived in defiance of some chosen enemy,
Bat we are false to all these our ideals, even while
we pretend to have them. And the mosé dishear
teming aspect of the whole matter lies in the fact
that we cannot prove even our faithlessness to be un-
worthy, unless we can bring ourselves steadfastly to
accept some ileal by which our faithlessness itself
can be judged. And this weuld imply that we were
no longer faithless.
We have thus reached the rect of moral skepti-
eam. «The worst that moral skeptics can say is that
all choice of ideals is an accidental caprica, that
ideals have no basis but this caprice, and that a
moral code depends for its successful propagation
wholly on the persuasive personal foree of the man
that happens to have it and t teach it.
For the first, then, we provisionally accept this
akeptical view. We shall regant the moral ideals in
this light. We shall sek no impossible proof for
any of them. Bat we shall try to see whither the
theptical view itself leads us
198 9 PH RELAOHS ASPROT (ne PHILOSOPHY,
If wm ltrs ner fee a final and perfectly cola.
bleeclod statement of this mntreal skopticinm, # state-
trent that shell lot ces sem cotree Reve all ite trrentring, rts
fereenlaticm, andl its scene, the preseirt seth knows
tf intr bother dx preenntern crf it there the trie thet is ert
tained ite the apponlix te Me. Artheee Brelfere’s
€ Prefers tt Pbrileeserphie Preett,” | render the tiths
© Phe Len of a Philosphy of Kthios.” Moe. Bak
ferree tres shrevwer res bry the broke tn Creation that be
has a very eset effion tne pbrtlemenphie Ainertanitrn,
andl we Gan tmby thet bien fore bevitg teradle print.
tive advance tn othion easier, bry his oleae statornrdmt
Gf the diffierdities that in the pist have beeeedd the
Way.
“Seiontitie jerelgeronts nnd othical inde rretrts dea,”
anys Me. Balfere, “with asentially different srb-
ject. nnttors.” Scientific preenpenitions state “ frets
tre events, real te hyperthetiont.” Mathical prenpensi-
tits ltr tet“ annenttnée an ovent,” nee gat Ad they
toll atry “feet ef the external oe internal world.”
Fithion! writers tetr ebten ctrmator the ° peyehtlopy
Of thee indliviclteal brelebieng the: trerbal law.” ert tris
is ner matter Pere ottrios, bret trly Pere prey etrerbeep ited
aeionee, fn fate, if n prreerptenttien setrtrerretesting bby.
ligation pocgripe preted at all, ome torn of that prod
thetst always bi nw pretepensitiom arintrnsing Chligatitn,
Whith itselh pregreiees mer preerteh.”” <P hte is tty sortie
ior bry whrieh mmm othicnl preerpeesttice Grn bt aved vad
Frereey st atiertifice tre metaphysical preeeptentticnr, te atry
Cererrbrirentiertr crf mrecbs.” <P bre eertgein crf sete tebtieate
Cthital belief can never sepply a ronseete for bolieving
t fomrdon, MatMittan & Covrpany, 1979.
ETHICAL SKEPTICISM AND FrRTCAL Pesaitsw. 129
% Suce the origin of this belief. as of any other
mental phenomenon, is a matter to be dealt with by
aetence > and my thesis is that (negatively speaking)
agentifice trath alone cannot serve as a foundation
for a moral system: ar (to put it: positively), if we
have a moral system at all. there must be contained
m it expheidy or implicitddy, at least ane ethical
Proposition, af which no proaf can be given ar re
The reader may ask: Is all this the loftiest ideal
tema, ar is it simply philasophie skepticism about the
basis af ethics? We may leave the reader to ex-
amine for himself Mr. Ralfour'’s very ingenious dis
easton, but ane ar two very obvious and simple
gomaaguendces may be quoted fram the rest af the os.
way. and these will serve well enough to show here
the drift af the diseussion.
“An ethical proposinion is ane that preseribes an
a@ttGen with reference to an end.” Every such prop
oxitton “ belongs to a svstam.” * The fundamental
proposition of every such system skates an end, which
the peraan who receives that sustem reganis as final
—as chosen for itself alone” * When two such
svstems canflict, their rival claims ean only be de.
cided by a judgment or proposition net containad in
either of them. which shall assert which of these re
spective fundamental * ends” shall have proendence.”
“If revenee against a particular Individual is for
wre an ondn-itself, a proposidien which prescribes
Shooting him from behind a hadge may be one af the
dependent propositions belonging te that particnlar
system.” * Though under the name ethical are in-
’
180) THM RVLIGIONIN ASPROT OF FHILONOFIY,
chaded net only moral, tut also nonmoral and im-
sural nyntetnn, thes dintinetisonn regarded fren thes
cristabshes bretwesesn theme subvlivinionn ares must enmmtial,
sotucl Fasaves ancy grbablesmesgsbaes isengort.”” — Foescche thrests in thes
wheeegrthessal cnnstessonness cof thin vesry blealintio: promition fret
which we cturneclven started, Thun vieswed, the meral
world mseasin emmntionly chaertic. Keach esul, 1f chiomen,
line ite own way of marnhaling mete wm gonnd andl brad,
Syst crtees orl casinest ontablion iteclf theuretically
over aygnlint another, Thy warfare among thom ia
poreccthenl, brut in seet rathonslly tos bons fs yecd cor enced,
Kuch wayn, In sees in thes truth adamt right sas
wrong, Jamths Way.” Sut for ons another they
have, nt aryuimetite, but aoathemnas, They give no
prot, only semertion and condemnation, It is the
cscrnatestagolaticrns cof thin echisacrm threat basen seaggegeomtenl tes tas
thisat prlesamibeles ard yo drelfil ponmieniom of which
muoxlern thenght has had so much to say, and of
which this chapter has tried ty give sume notion.
CHAPTER VIL
TITR MORAL INaIGHT
Love fa like understanding, that grows Drake,
Ceaaitgt ot taaty (ratha,
MHL Y, Hp dive,
Ws have needed to dwell on our ethioal akepth
elam, to experionve the real ateongth of fae doubts,
tn order that we ahould be able to get new and bet
ter mothada of construction for our owe dovtring,
Deep aa ta the truth that lies at the baaia of many
ethiveal doctrtnes now either doubted or abandoned,
one thing: alwaye xcoma defeetive about their faahton
of building, ‘Thin one dofoot hae ade ta queation
thelr worth aa theorlea, And our theoretical doubt,
aa we dwelt upon it, has bevome practloal, We
have weon how thin ethioal akoptichan leada ta the
qloomioat: posimian. Doth the akeptician and the
posaimian we ninat meet fairly and foarlowdy, And
we thiueb aak Chom how even they themaelves aie
posible,
l.
Our akeptioal oritiehan af ethival dheorien has
been xo far olthor internal ov external, We have
enttielwed each doetrine in ttelf, questioning cither
its conalatenoy or ite tuner camplotencoass ar clae wo
182 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PIIILOSOPHY.
have criticised it with reference to other doctrines.
In the first caso our criticism led to no general
akopticism, and had importance only in the special
case, But the other kind of criticism was of more
importance, and took another turn. We said to
the doctrine: “ Perfect as your systom may be in
itself, your assumption of your highest end always
finds over against ituelf an equally stubborn assump-
tion of an exactly opposing end. And you have no
proof to offer for your rejection of that end. You
simply insiat upon calling it a diabolical ond; you
hurl at it your anathoma, Now we, who have
wanted proof, not more enthusiasm, we, who stand
critically before your doctrine, and view it from
without, and dosire to know why we are to accept
it, we feol a skeptical indifference about your end,
as soon as wo compare it with the opposing ond,
and as soon as comparing, we find the difference be-
tween them to bo one that rests, not on demonstra-
ble truth, but on a mere kind of caprice. Practi-
cally we may agree with you in choosing, as men
of action, your aim. Our personal caprice may
agree with yours. But theoretically we cannot jus
tify this aim. Wo find, in all that you say, no ob-
jective moral truth, but only somebody's capricious
resolution, And even if we chance to accept your
resolution, who knows when wo shall change our
minds, and begin acting in some new way, so that
what we now call good shall be called evil? In
brief, if there is to be possible anything more than
moral preaching, if there is to be anything worthy
of the name of demonstrated moral doctrine, then
THE MORAL INSIGRT. 183
all yoor discussion must lead t sumething net de
peadent on the bare choice af individual moral
agents. But in truth what you give us is just the
feet of vour choice. And hence it is that we are
Whaat does this our skepticism mean? Unreflee.
tive, selfatistied skepticism always means mental
@eath: bat in self-critival skepticism, observant af
trelf as af evervthing else, moves the very hite-hload
of philosophy. And of this the whale of the present
Book will try te be an ilustradion. dust here, there
fore, we want tw be as watehtul af our skepticism as
we were af the systems whos theoretical weakness
ed us hither. What is the sense of this theoretical
skepticism af our present: atdtude 7 On our reply
all else turns And our reply is: This skepticism
expreses an indifference that we feel when we cun-
template two opposing aims in such a way as me.
mentarily tw share them both. For the moment we
realiaee equally these warring aims Thev are ours,
The conflict is in. us The oo wills here represented
are our will, And for this reason, and for this only.
ean we feel the skepucal indovision. Had we the
will to chowse the ane end alone, we should unhesi-
taunely chouse it, and should not we enough af the
opposing will to be skeptics, Had we only the will
that chouwes the opposing end, we should feel equally
indifferent to the tis, Had we neither will at all
in mind, did we realise neither one of the opposing
ends. we should be feeling no hesitaden between
them. Our doubt arises from the fact thar momen-
tarily and provisionally we are in the attitude of as-
184 THE RELIGIOUS AAIKOT OF PHILONOPIHY,
sunning beth, Our Indifference is not the indiffer-
enon of ignorance, but of knowludlge; not of failure
to understand either ond, but of rendinons to realize
both onde, Hones it follows that moral skepticinns
in Staolf the result of an act, namely, of the aot by
which wo sok to ronlize in ourselves opposing alsin
at the same tine, This observation is of the great
ont Importancs to us, and we must dwell upon it. It
shows us that above all our skeptic is the su-
prresnsacy Ural Chase rersalccrn tlre wbecsprtiosinens Ltoeslf pocommiboles,
The ethical aims themselves aro all of them the
oxprosion of someledy's will, Their confliot in the
conflict of wills, Doubt about ther cepenede upon
the realization of their oxistenes and of tholr app
nition, Thorefere this doubt depends for ite very
oxintenca on the conditions of this renlization, Wo
have tried to state what the condition are. Ty
realize opposing onde ao completly that one fools a
genuine doubt whieh of them to apt, linplion, we
way, the simultanseus provisional acanptance of beth,
And this may be shown inn more popular payoholag-
ionl way, ae woll asin na more general philosophical
way, Ws take the paychologionl way firnt.
How enn f know that thers is anywhere a will, W,
thant csbacrcomesm Foor itwolf wesne ond, 17 Renlly to know
thahen Nesngodbese sconsnestlabeage anvcores thins aries cotater obonest.
vation of the freta, One must repent fir one's own
mind more or lows rapidly or lmperfoetly this will,
W, that ona corcelven to cxint dn mcsnesbendy oslac,
And thin nowd of reopotition isa woll-known paychie
logionl truth, very oasily ilustrnted by all sorta of
commonplace fasts, Let us refer to some of these.
THE MORAL INSIGHT. 135
To think of a badily act is w perform the act, or
at beast mentally to initiate the perfurmanc af the
at. According w Professor Rain's now generally
accepted principle, the memory or the canceptian af
aa act is physialancally connected with the fainter
enctaten of just the sune nerve-tracts as would be
Mmore intensely excited in the real performance af
the act. Therefore it is true that tw think af vawn-
mg ts to initiate a yawn, te think af walking is to
mmitkate steps: and, in case of any excitable person,
er in case af any momentary predispositian fw per
form the act. the conception may immediately be.
came the act, hecanse the nascent excitatian involved
im the concepdan of the ach may af ance pass over
mato the completer excitation, and the ideal deed
waay become a visible fact. Thus the exvitad man,
if net checked by company, may at ance tuk aloud
t himeelf. his theachts bwwuing wenis If very
mech excited, he may mater to himself even in the
presence of company. He is much more apr to deo
this if he thinks now onl of the wands themselves,
bat af the act of speaking them, nameiy, if he we
agines himself talking tf somebody, and emphane
ally bringing his thevchts hame to that other. ln
a weak state of Daiv. this tendeney fo repeat an act
Whenever one conceives it may beoame quite dis
tresang, To chink ef voiding may moan te vount
Or again, to shink of langhter ar af tears may in
gach a case make one laagh or ery. Hence the woak
man may didike tw beotn lanching, leans he
Knows thas other exciting catises apart, the mere
Memary thar he has laushed may keep him laagh
186 THE RELIGIOUS ASPEOT OF PHILOSOPHY.
ing afresh long after the sense of the ridiculous has
passed away, so that to begin laughing may mean
total exhaustion before he can stop.
Imitation rests at least in part upon this tendency.
An act is performed, we witness it, we see or know
how it is done, we conceive the effort that would
lead to the performance of it, and forthwith this con-
ception becomes the performance. We imitate the
gesture of the actor or of the story-teller before us,
and we feel an inner imitation of many acts, even
though we suppress the outward signs. In general,
for us to realize an act means that we shall do it,
either in outward fact, or through a nascent perform-
ance that is not outwardly visible. Much of the
recently so-called ‘“ mind-reading,” more accurately
named by some psychologists “ muscle - reading,”
rests upon this foundation. For the conception of
acts that are not outwardly performed is often indi-
cated by slight motions or tensions of arm or of fin-
gers, or of the whole body, and the muscle-reader,
getting some close contact with his subject, amuses a
company by interpreting these unseen, but readily felt
signs of the thoughts of his subject. Very deeply do
such facts enter into the structure of our mental life.
Mr. Galton, investigating word-associations, found in
many cases that the idea immediately aroused by a
word was a sort of dramatic reproduction of the act
expressed by the word. This dramatic reproduction
consisted, at least in part, in the feeling of effort in
those muscles that would be concerned in performing
the act itself. If tho momentary association first
aroused by the sudden and unexpected sight of the
THE MORAL INSIGRT. 187
word involves thia dramatic imitation of the act
named, how much mere would the thought invelve
the dramatic repetition of the act, if ane were to dwell
upon the nature of this act, and were fully tu realize
ita nature In his own mind, So much then fer pay-
chological illustration of the view that we are here
advaneing, If two opposing fashions af action are
present to our minds, and if mentally we are trying
to realize them both, then mentally we are woking
tw repreduce them both, Our skeptical hesitation
between them expresses our effort to attain montally
bath these onda at anes. For what we have said
about bodily avts will apply equally well tu what we
wenally call mental acts, and even to general resale
tions, allaf which have a physical side, and are apt
w be aymbolizved by same badily gesture that we
mentally ar outwanily repeat when we think af the
act or af the resalution in question,
Rot all this is net a bare acvident af the psywhalos
wal structure af our minds ; it is a philosophical ne-
cemaity. What represents a Will bat a Will?) Whe
weld know what it is to have an end unless he act-
wally had ends himself? Whe van malise a given
alm aave by somehow repeating it in himself? And
wit ia rationally and universally necessary that ane
shall realise the end of a moral system by repradue-
ing in himself the will that acvepts this end. But,
en the other hand, in so far forth as he repraluces
this will alone, he cannot refrain frau avvepting the
ead. Tn ao far forth as he reproduces this will, it is
hia wilh And the end is his ond. Therefore our
skepticiam itself was a hesitation, resulting from the
18H THe RELIGIONS ANPEOT OF PHILAHOPHY,
fonlivation of aeveral appawing onda, nal frat w ab
sitedbeatien ten veegrrvnlivectiens ct tes willy tind mined at
thsi: ‘Mhespesterves, wm wes mete, wlmediites etliieal mleeppli-
eshontes wertslel teat, vec dly bos tartisl abaweniees of terval sie,
rah wvertaled weatbicse foes flies tveseetrendity tliat wertlel remult
from 0 previnkininl neceptanes of all the confiding
sehevin bie Chees were led cof metic: Alomiliates etliieal mbeeppti:
cabvinia, HF AL wvesves mecttsmed dy parsmmd doles witdecntet esd tel ecatoeies:
fivate, werdlel hdl prremtapypernes ane enn, wnnnedy, Hie effete
day Vesewteeerneiinns tne eottes tesertveestet MEE Adis eeonntlieddeng deen
tee thee: wvesebed cof Wifes: 16 wertbel test bie what 16 badd
woeegrprrnecel DheaecE tes bas: A bomesd tates becsprtiecdonnne wereled thet
bs Fevsersebeced evne sabomerdeates Nvespresweslenees, = Sa soins tim
sh he heemeony anh unity uf Kanlued: Wut jamb
fore thie wetaert da abineatistes mbeprtivdone melt dewteuetive,
Perwmilidy tede reameells sriny bes mentee had sehen peetedd
Boat died teerh Mies very: prevmidene of entte lewd ehingrher
i vatrndes 167 Why thin peandinien ? ‘Thin denpair
tof Nites, whvieh wien 16 brat dlves mneetisies cof tiltes brerpaeslesianincre
oh enaw tienle 1 Woihests tttsades this tesmle mesentie beergyelerin 4
Ail whit wie thes taal” ‘Phas tank wae thie ferrin
tiene it ate hestreminia Meal of life: Thin task
mececnenell Verguslecern, beset: wes felt think tis netted
Hlectabe eof Hikes spveertegye teens tates die enelly confi. Oar
precrdiniane wite after ll inert whit it meemedd te te te
Nae; A wwsen teerh Abies Potemes wesveseneecdigticots eof andl denen 5
it wite tlie eftereh ter ondiaty tien all, enbithered by
ties mecvemes Alia thasy were: die mcenndiply benpelenn ere
Hiv: Meveste arn qotemmedovedenee fend ites debe. Withers
dten dlected 14 wwertebed Hip yec ese pesedenecead sive deapde, “Thus
cernebhtech erk sadeeen overnabel Deserves treederet tee cyl. Pee pee:
widerdaties elemgrindh ove ies sonedoepael erteleerine of Une whey:
THE MORAL INSIGHT. 189
ticism, solely because our skepticism was iteelf a real-
ization of the aima with which men live. and of the
warfare of these aims.
From the world of dead facta, we had said, you
ean get no ethical doctrine. Physica] truth never
gives moral doctrine. Therefore the world of facts
esemed to stand on one side, and the world of moral
aims seemed to stand on the other, no logical connec.
tion being discoverable between them. This waa our
theoretical objection to the cthical doctrines that we
examined. Scparate as they were from the world
of facta, they seemed to dwell alone, ungrounded and
conflicting acta of caprice. Yet for them to pass
over to the world of facts was to lose their cthical
character. But now we seek to overcome our diffi-
ealty by considering, not the world of physical facta
themselves, but the world of ends. And this world
we consider, not now in detail, but as a whole.
What highest end is suggested, we ask, to him who
realizes for himself this whole world of ends? The
very end, we answer, that. as first dimly seen, forced
upon us our skeptical pessimism. Wohhoso realizes an
end, hia, for the time being, is that end. And since
it in hie ond, he mentally wills to realize it in ideal
perfection. But whose ralizes the varions conflicting
aims in the world, his are all these aims at the mo
ment of insight, when, so far as in him lies, he real-
ines them, and mentally desires their success. In pro.
portion as his rvalization is or can be catholic and
genuine, his will becomes, for the time, these con-
ficting wills. In him is now the warfare. He feels
im his own person the bitterness of the universal
140 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
strife. And therefore it is that, in the first moment
of his new insight, the pessimism comes to him.
‘This warfare cannot be ended,” he despairingly
says. But has he thus uttered the final word? For
he has not yet added the reflection that we are here
insisting upon. Let him say: “ Then I too have an
end, far-off and unattainable though it seems, and
so my will is not aimless. I desire to realize these
aims all at once. Therefore I desire their harmony.
This is the one good that comes up before my fancy
as above all the various conflicting individual goods
of the various separate aims. This Higher Good
would be attained in a world where the conflict
ceased. That would be the Ideal World, where all
possible aims were pursued in absolute harmony.”
Barren at first sight this reflection may appear.
It may have been unexpected, but we shall certainly
be disposed at first to call it fruitless. For here are
the aims, and they do conflict. In the actual world
there is ceaseless warfare. Only the wager of bat-
tle can decide among the opposing ethical faiths.
But now, if some idealist comes who says that his
insight gives him the higher ideal of Harmony, then
one may reply that his ideal is, in its confessed na-
ture, a mere fantasy of his benevolent imagination.
Such harmony never can be realized, unless indeed
some day, by the aid of bigger battalions, some one
of the ideals overcomes all the rest. Yet is our
idealist so lightly to be answered? Can he not at
once reply: ‘ My Ideal is thus defined, and fantastic
though it be, far-off though it seems, it is still an
ideal towards which I can direct my efforts. For
THE MORAL INSIGHT. 142
behold, made practical, brought down from its lone-
some height, my Ideal very simply means the Will
to direct my acts fowards the attainment of univer-
sal Harmony. It requires me to act with this my in-
aight always before me. It requires me to consider
all the conflicting aims that will be affected bv each
ene of my acts, and to dispose my act with reference
to them all. It sets up this new moral principle be-
fore me, a principle perfectly catholic, and above all
that skepticism which we have felt with regard to
the special moral aims. This Principle is: So act
as thou wouldst will to act if all the consequences of
thy act _for all the aims that are anywhere to be af-
Jected by this act. could be realized by thee now and
ta this one indivisible moment. Or more briefly pat :
Act always in the light of the completest insight
info all the aims that thy act ts to affect. This
rale is no capricious one, chosen for some individual
reason, but an universal maxim. since its choice de-
pends on the genera] realization of all the conflicting
aims of the world of life. And thus we have after
all found, in the verv heart of our skepticism itself,
a moral doctrine. In the midst of the warfare of in-
dividual wills, we have caught sight of an Universal
Will
IL
“Bat no.” some one will sav: “All this is still
mere caprice. Has it not in fact fallen already a
prey to the same skepticism that pursued other moral
aims? For first, you have tried to found it on a phys-
teal fact, namely, on the fact that only by a given
142s THE NELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY,
effort of will one thinking being can realize the will
of another. Hut does this tell me that I ought thus
to renlize the conflicting wills that are in the world 7
And if I do not, what significance han thin physical
fact for me? But, on the other hand, physical facts
snide; is net your doctrine just your capricious deter.
mination to respest the conflicting sim that exist in
the world 7”
This objection, if made, would be founded on s
thiminderstanding of what wo have dissovered, We
have dinuvered sntmnething that hae = value for us
qtite independently of ite importance ae % ners phys.
feal fact. Wo set out to find © distinetion between
right and wrong, Onr difficuity always wan that,
nines this distinction involves the scmceptance of s
highont sim asthe standard of judgment, and since
there are numerous simn pomille, we always were
confuned try the fact that among these manifold sims
there wae found no ground of cheics, Kor to show
any renson why we have chosen in « given way be-
tween two of thene sims, is to have « third sim thet
includes one sil excludes the other, And the cheies
of this third aim seemed again just as accidental as
the first choices would have been without this third
sim to justify it. Thus oir original thenght of sn
sim, a6 the foundation of an ethical doctrine, had
heen shattered before our syos inte © spray of nepa-
rate posible or actual aims, and we saw no way of
collecting this spray aysin into nnity, [f that was
the resean for our skepticiam, then of cones any-
thing more that we may say about ethics tmiust pre
suppons & hearer who can fool such skepticion, x6
TRE WORAL ENVIGRT. 148
wast provisionally. The physical fact that be can
wderstarl the patrre of our doubs is inateed: prresayp
posed exe we can go further, but that is no objectiom
to or progress. The physical face that we have an
intelligent bearer must always be presupposed by
we Ld ome cannot feel the doubs. then be cannes
unmdextake any ethical inquiry, We only say to
biva: “ If you doubs about the seveptance of a moral
aim, this that we have potated out te vou is the real
reason for your doubé 1f now vou understand vour
Goubs, then you are actually iu the state that we have
deseribal above. Your doubs has in fact a general
eharacter, ly means a provisional moral shepticigna,
found on an inaghs inte the couttics of attas
This insight means skeptivian because, amd only be
Caras, Yor are at the mozent af tusigtt voursell pos
sessel of the contheting alts vourself ab war with
Yourself, and therefore umdevided. This spray of
alwas into which vour tins: pure Kew of a moral ann
as suwh has been scattered, this confiusat aunt bln:
ag clout of purposes, represents for vou your own
woral position. Divided tx vourselt) dismuttied, con
fused, vou float cloud-like and tractive, weking matey
of aim and tieding nome. Bag if vou reflects on all
this, vou see thas iu trash vou ovcupy the posifon
that we have above desertted. You really have
seit a hivhest alte, You seek unity. You destre the
warfare te was. You have an ifeal AM thts ts
to be sur a phistecal fact, dependert or Vout tae
ture as voliuttary being: bag ists woe walnable fest
for thar reason alone, bas for the reason shag tt dts
covering this fact, you have discovered what you
144 THR RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILOSOPHY,
were soaking for, You have found that you are in
pomsamion of an ideal, You oannot gat away from
that ideal save by repeating the very proces that
haa brought you to it. Your moral insight In at-
talned, and the foundation of your dootring is ne
longer a particular ain that is acsapted by a mere
eaprica of one individual, but it in the necamnry aim
that arises in the mind of any one who actually real-
ison the warfare of the particular alms, It te the
ideal of ideals, It in the absolute ideal that arkeen
for you out of the consideration of the separate
ideals, Mach of them was rolative to tha mood of
the man who happened to choone ft; thin Ideal fs
relative only to the dusight that comprehands the
whole moral world, Unable as we mon are fully to
realize punt the aetual nature of every single alm in
the world of lifa, still we are able fully to realize cer
tain conflicting alms; and, realizing thin oonfllet, we
ean form for ourselves the notion of that absolute
realization that means, as we have seen, first the
skeptical despair of our last chapter, and then, by a
deapar reflection, the ideal that wa have just set
forth above, Thus we no longer are oapriclously de-
aiding upon the worth of physloal facts as such,
Woe are posing a necessary judgment upon ideals as
idonls,
And we have tried to show that thin our resulting
{deal is not a barren one, At first sight It seamen Ko,
At firat aight one saya: “This harmony ia a aelf.
eontradictory dream.” But no, not self-contradietory
in the dream; for, if we cannot perfeatly realize thi
new idval, if absolute harmony te unattalnable, one
THE MORAL INSIGHT. 145
ean still walk in the light of the ideal. One can say:
«~T will act as if all these conflicting aims were mine.
I will respect them all. | will act in the light that
has brought me my weral insight. And to that end
I will act at each moment as one would act who
saw himself about to suffer in his own person and
at ane time all the consequences af his act for all
the aims that are to be affected by what he does”
But now the ideal becomes practical, now it ceases
to be barren. It is no longer the mere wish that
was at the heart of ourskepticism, a wish gloomy, in-
active, terrified at the warfare that is in the work.
Te is a cool determination. It savs: * This disease
of conflicting aims cannot now be cured, but it shall
be dealt with. These aims are as my own. = I| will
deal with them as such. I will work for their har
moay.” If ane doubts this ideal, then he doubts
the very foundation of ethical doubt itelf. Bat this
ts not all that our absolute ideal accomplishes. Not
merely for the mament of insight dees this eal give
an aim; bat it extends itself to the other maments
af life. It savs: * The highest good would be realia-
able only in case not merely the aim af this moment
of insight itself, but the aims of all the canthecting
wills in the world, were brought inte conformity to
this insight. The highest good would be attainable
if all the cuntlicting wills realized fully one another.
For then, not abandoning each its own aim, each
would have added thereta, through insight, the aims
of the others. And all the world af individuals
woald act as one Being, having a single Universal
Will. Harmony would in fact be attained.” There
1
146 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY,
fore our ideal has another precept to give us, 6
inays: * Act in wuch wine as to extend this moral in-
wight to others,” IJlere is « definite practical alm,
and it justifies usin maying to wll the conflicting
wills: * You should respect one another.” For so in
fact they all would do if they had the moral insight.
And to have it, as we now se, is the prerequisite
to the attainment of the highest: good, namely, this
ideal Harmony that we sek at the moment of moral
ineight,
UU.
We fear that such general discussion of what we
have called the moral insight may seem, at first sight,
too abstract to be real, We hasten to a more con-
crete study of this insight. Jeaving those more ab-
atract wise that bave been used as the foundation of
moral systems, let us study our moral insight as It
applies to the special aime that come into conflict
When a man js dealing with his neighbor, Let us
new how just the considerations that we have applied
to the conflict of ethical aims in general apply db
rectly to the conflict between selfishness and unself-
ishness, which we so Jong snd sw vainly considered
in the Jawt chapter, This warfare of selfishness and
unselfishness iy indeed not the deepest of moral
problems, and to solve the problem here involved in
not, as some have supposed, to define forthwith the
Highest Good, Yet we shall do well to fix our minds
for the time on this special problem,
Why bs selfishnens casier to me than unselfishness 7
Because it iv easier for me to realize my own future,
THE MORAL INSIGHT. 147
and my own desire about it, than to realize the desires
of my neighbor. My will is the datwm ; his the dimly-
gonoeived, remote fact. Hence it seems to me obrious
thas his will must be w me less significant than my
own. Therefore he and J are often in deadly war
fare, just because [ realize his will not in its inner
matare, but as a foreign power, and because he deals
even so with me. We stand over against each
other hke two moral svstems, condemning and fight-
Ing each the other. Now, however, there often ap-
pear disinterested moralists, whe try to patch up our
differences. We have seen how and whr they have
90 often failed. They tell me that my neighbor and
I shall give each other much more selfish delight if
we stop fichting and begin codperanng. But that
Wie advice in no way touches the root af the diff-
ealty between us. If we did codperate for this rea-
som. we should still be two foreign powers, virtually
Giscordant. And whenever it happened thar either
of us coald do better by oppressing or by crushing
the other than by continuing to codperate with him,
be not anly would do a. bat, so far as we have seen,
maust do sx. Anether moralist hopes that if we
keep an coiperating long enough, we may evolve
into parely unselfish beings sume day. The hope is
@ pious ane, but gives us no sufficient reasan whr we
ought to coiperate unselfishly now, when im fact we
are selfish. Yet another moralist asks us to reflect
om the nature of our emotions af pity and sympathy
for each other. We reply that these feelings are in-
determinate in character, and may lead us to do any-
thing or nothing for each other. So all these mor
‘
148 THK RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
alints lonve my neighbor and me just where we were.
If it is to our personal slvantage to fight, we shall
do so; otherwise we may by chances remain for a
while in practical harmony; but, throughout, our
moral aims will remain what they were, selfish and
conflicting.
Forsaking these unsatisfactory attempts to found
a moral doctrine concerning one’s duty to one’s
neighbor, let us try to do what Schopenhauer so
haltingly sugyentl, namely, to seo what moral in-
sight us moral insight, and not as pity or as far-
sighted egoinn, tells us about the moral relations of
selfishness and unselfishness. If aman not merely
pitien but knows his neighbor's will, what moral
ideal dows he get? Wo affirm that insight into the
reality of the neighbor's will, insight that considers
hin will as it is in itself, and that aeeordingly repeats
it in us, gives us a position above the struggle of
self and neighbor, and Jets us seo the higher ideal of
Harmony, whose precept ins Actas a heing would act
who included thy will and thy neighbor's will in the
unity of one life, and who hud therefore to suffer
the consequences for the aima of both that will fol-
linn from the act of either, Thin insight is not the
mere emotion of pity nor yet sympathy, but some-
thing different from those, namely, something that
involves the realization, and therefore the reproduc.
tion in us, of the opposing will of the neighbor, This
insight therefore deprives onch will in its separate-
ness of ites absolute signifiesance, and commands that
wo should act with an equal reference to both, I¢
says not merely, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,”
7
THE MORAL INSIGHT. 149
bat, “Tn so far as in thee lies, act as if thon wert
at once thy neighbor and thysdf{ “ Treat these too
lives as one life.”
We must try to show how this insight leads to this
reaulg. We must try so to bring home the insight
to the reader that he shall in his person aceomplish
the act of which we speak. and so come to acvopt
the ideal upon which we are insisting, [Cis in him-
self that he is to experience this ideal. or else he
will not be able or willing to accept it We ean
only suggest the way. And so we shall try forthwith
to suggest what is the nature of that common imper
fect realization of our neighbor's life which does not
lead to the moral insight. and then to dwell upon
this insight itself.
IV.
The common sense. imperfeet recognition of our
neighbor implies rather walvation of the external
aspect of his being, as that part of him whieh affoots
ws, than realization of his inver and peculiar world
af personal experience. Let us show this by example.
First, take my realization of the people when LT eom-
monly meet but do not personally very well know,
e ge the conduetor on the railway train when |
travel, He is for me just the being who takes my
ticket, the official to whom 1] can appeal for certain
advice or help if TE need it That chis conductor has
an inner life. like mine, this Lam apt never to realize
atall, He has to excite my pity or some other spe-
cial human interest in me ere T shall even begin ta
try to think of him as really like me. On the whole,
160 THE R¥LIGIOUS ASI'ECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
he is for me reulized as an automaton. But still fre-
quontly Ido realize him in another way, but how ?
J note very likely that he in courteous or surly, and
] like or dinlike him aveordingly. Now courtesy and
discourtesy are qualities that belong not to automata
at all, Hones I must somehow recognize him in this
cue as conscious, But what aspect of his conscious
now do | consider? Not the inner aspect of it as
such, but still the outer aspoct of his conscioun life,
ana powor affecting mo; that is what I consider, Ie
treats mea no and no, and he does this deliberately ;
therefore | judge him, But what I realize is his doe
liburate act, as something important to me, It sel-
dom occurs to me to realize fully how he feels; but
f can mach more easily come to note how he is dis
posed, The disposition is his state viewed as a power
affecting me.
Now let one look over the range of hin bare ac-
quaintanceship, lot him leave out his friends, and the
people in whom he takes a special personal interest ;
let him regard for the first the rest of his world of
fellow-men: his butcher, his grocer, the policeman
that patrols his street, the nowsboy, the servant in
his kitchen, his business rivals whom he occasionally
talks to, the mon whose political speoches he has
heard or read, and for whom he has voted, with some
notion of their personal charactars, — and then all
the rest of the outside world, the Turks or the In-
diuns, the men of historic fame, Napoleon, Cicero,
Camar, the imaginary people in fictions that have
excited little of bis stronger emotional interest: how
dvew he conceive of all these poople? Are they not
THE MORAL INSIGHT. 151
one and all to him ideal or real ways of behavior
towards himself or other people, outwardly effective
hemes. rather than roalized masses of genuine inner
hfe, of aentiment, of love. or of felt desire? Does he
uct naturally think of each of them rather as a way
ef catward action than as a way of inner volition ?
His batcher, his newshoy, his aervant, — are they not
for him industrious or lary, honest or deceitful, polite
or ancivil, useful or useless people, rather than self-
eonacions people? Is any one of these alive for him
m the fal] sense, — sentient, emotional. and other
wane like himself: as perhaps his own son, or his
own mother or wife seoms to him to be? Is it not
rather the kind of behavior of these heings towanis
him which he malizes? Is it not rather in general
their being for him, not for themselves that he oon-
@ders in all his ordinary life, even when he aalls
them conscions ? And this being for him is what he
ealls their dispositions. They are all good fellows
or had fellows, cood-humored or saly, hateful or ad-
mirahle. They may appear even sublime or ideal
beings, as a Casar might to a student of history.
Yet their inner life need not therefore be malized.
They remain powers, ways af acting. dispositions,
wonderful examples of energy. They are still seen
from without, Not their inner, voalinional nature is
realimad, but their manner of ontwanl activity : not
what they are for themselves, but what they are for
others.
Such then is our natural malization of our fellows
even when we call them conscions The imperfect
realization in question extends even to the case of
162 THK KELIGIOUR ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
Closer affection, Lear renlian in his daughters, or
thisskee that bus rectalizen, cornly thus dinpromsitionn that they
expres, Heal effort to enter into the inner life of
thucir ersscrticonin in ferrccigen tor bai sbssagoles sazsed insapoecricoas
mnind, Even when J delight in assthucr’s love, J as
atill apt to realize rather the disgemition than the
inner and more personal emotional life that is the
cause of this way of behavior, The act is what I
want,’ thes veriea, this look, the gift, or the other as-
surance Of an energy in harmony with my will The
ordinary emotion of gratitude is another very good
Uusmtrations of thee issperfeat rewlization of our necigh-
borer thasat sacceccrssnpocasaiec ccveens thse poleainsent verbo) rene
agnition of their conscious existe, As J write
thucnes words, my heart in just now going out in sad-
miration aml resect, not to way affeution, to 4 msn
whi J but imperfectly know. J feel a desire to
do him a favor, if it were powible, Why? Do J
reflect on his true nature and sss ae a being like
myself? DoT feel our connimon weakness, our cam-
sricote Lessaggisagens 7 SA saves J binge eoed thus illusion of self-
indincwn that separates us? No, —IF grieve and am
sasbisesnscl tar ccconsfecmm it, — thin becinngg in ter see alsncomt
ae wholly external as my plumber, not muuch better
realinal than my walking-stick, J am dwelling not
on his own inner life at all. In my mind's eye J
wins just hin outer form, Yet he has written me a
grauful and pleasing letter, expreming his interest
in some of my plans, and his desire to help me, J
arn selfishly leligghted to fired such help, J have an
BSA yive all iy ines fron Areanland
Vor w tench of her hand on my cheek,’
THE MORAL INSIGHT. 168
inatinctive feeling that it demands compensation. I
feel an animal delight in being in friendly company.
My gratitude is here no moral emotion at all,
The emotion of ayinpathy does indeed often tend
to make me realize the other and more completely
internal aapect of my neighbor's reality: but: sym-
pathy does this in the halting and uncertain way de-
ecribed in a previous chapter, And at all events,
whatever aympathy leads to, it is not by itself the
ineght. And so, to sum up our prosent way of
etudving the illusions of selfishness, we find by these
examples that by nature our neighbor's conscious
life ix realized for us rather as an active agoney that
affecta our fortunes, than as an inner experience, or
as itis in itself, namely, asa Will: and hence it is
that we are disposed to treat it with coldness, rather
than to respect ita true nature. Resistance, con-
quest, emplovment of this agvney, seem to us ax
omatic aims of prudence : unseltish respect for its
inner accompanying experionces: seems tous a hand
if not a meaningless task. Such is the nature and
ground of the illusion of selfishness,
If now our activity of realization were contined to
the range of common-sense emotions, there would be
ho escape from all this, Tt is our critical reflection
that appears on the seone, saving: * QO) common
wnee, what thou hast malized cannot be all We
must resclve to recognize more, else will our reso-
lutions never lose theiy invonsisteney and darkness,
Be honest, O common sense, Ts not thy neighbor
after all just a dead fact of nature, an automaton
with certain peculiar energies?" And common
164 9 THY BKIAGIONS ASPKOT OF PIILOSOFHY,
sone annworn: No, for in he not mont amuredly »
conscious sygent, whine action I reuline?” © Dont
thens then keeow that he wills, aud not realize what
thin will moans for hin, namely, that he exporienoos
167°° Nes,” sanmowertn escotsstricrty mestiner, © if dies will ne
[ do, he must experion as Todo.” © Kenlize it
then, and ses what thew then wilt cleo with him.’
And common sen must, wo affirm, so renlicing,
simply reply, * Aw he is renal, he in ae mush an ob-
joct for my effort as I myself am, in cane 1 oan af-
foot him, Ours in one life.” This commun sense
stint wees, if it fully realizes tho neighbor, And if
it roulizen hin astivity, an it always ies metic fantsdeon
don, then it must enne to roaliag hin experiences,
sarul my ter ronlizn hit fully, neo noon anit umlertakes
tes cantnplestes thes inexnnpleste net by which it haw bee
gun ty renlizn his will, This wompletion may be
haatenesd bry pity, ce tsy bos bsinslerend bey the werk
sens that prity afters involve ¢ tnt wheste it exsnem, it
mist tn an net of clone insight, made jrmible by
thes rational sutures of our mental life. Whatever
Hea crvar Ghreragghit in chests int prurt, wes sores romuly either
tay sabssarsclessy whusbly, cre tar Heskwke saltengcesthress, ssc weserts so
wes ressalizes Chiat wes Iisever boven cloing it in part. Our
resolution ty rengnive an existences cannot remain
confused or solf-cmtinulictory when we cone to Pre
alizn where the confusion and selfcomtrudiotion le,
An! sewe simply ennnot give ug roccgenining our
sussigelal nor, wes sesuint oof sicsecesmmity resmesl vey, whiesgs wer sew
thin ineonnistesney of our natural renlization, to real
ize hits wholly.
uuch in enue restleetives acount of the proce that, in
THE WORAL INSIGHT. 155
some form, mast come to every ome under the proper
the real knowledve of duty to others. The process
m ome that any chiki can and dves, amler proper
gunisnce. occasionally accoumpbsh. It is the process
by which we all are seeustooed to try to teach humane
bebsavior in concrete casen «= We try to get people to
reabze what they are duing when they injure others.
Bat to distinguish this process from the mere tender
emutiwn of sympathy, with all its dhastens, is what
muralist: have net carefully enoazk dome. Our ex-
Beal proves. tu distinguish it from s) y as
gach, and to set it up befure the vates of ethival du
trine as the vreat producer of insivht.
Bat when we say that to ths insivht commun
sense must come, under the given cunditivns, we do
met mean tv say: “Seu the wan, once having attained
Iasivht, mast act thenceforth.” The reabzatien of
ome’s neivhbor, in the full sense of the word res
zation. is indeed the resvlativn to treat him as uf he
were real. that is, to treat bim unselfishly. Bat this
resolution expresses and belongs tu the moment of
mizht. Passion may cloud the tmsight in the very
mext moment. It alwavs does cloud the insivht after
mo very long time. I[t ts as umposstble fur us to
avoil the dlusien of selfishness in oar daily Lives as
te escape seeing throagh the dlusien at the moment
of insight. We see the realty of our neighbor, that
KK we determine to treat him as we deo ourselves.
Bat then we vo back tu daily activo, and we feel the
beat of bereditary passions, and we straightway for
1h6 THK RELICIOUS ANPKOT OF PITILONOPHY,
govt, whatet, wer fataver mevesnn, Cee saevhggbalocar brewsenem cals
menarend, Des dm cannes ancres vn forelyn power, Ble bn
saneeseal, Wes carrer eagetaden cbevdracbed canned msesbtthe, § — SIady
canta l ert, geereoe core ctael whll peer coe am long om wer Nive
walters Cheer anscasesncees cof toners, © Miecorasersnten cof Vasmiyhit, with
thede acompunyliagy ronolutionn; long strotohen of
dolianben ssl nelfinhions ‘That ie our life,
V,
To behiag hone thin view in yet another way to the
renee, wor unk Vili tor connor vary onrefially jut
Whit congress bersserer Jace Free whee bier tebe tar revelling hile
sacal gcbabocoes Han Claes Frabl sscornnser Ctarat, wee foeaver Seambuten! sagoenns,
Neat prbty com osacse dn whaest, wer cleondees tbin to fowl, Kor
whether on ie polty lagen too work fi hin aa self:
Foobaly sorrel Vollendly sam wes Seaver ferssracd thot St cofterns
Naveen werr'le, wOdUL ancnts tbacr cranacatdennn, Voeat Btes esconnescregtacrtnerem,
mtn fa the mont favernhle aan give as what we
wevesle, ADL Claes ferrssam cof mysergoatay torres anncorer Iennprtabaesn,
Tt fu thie Veombehit tor whieh thoy belie im that las
sneosiel vida, And again, the reonlixation of aur
sacshpeDa acon’ cvnehmtersacsen bm suerte cot call ther cllnenoverry that
Ines An snncoerer cose Levan sancefiad tor som poremernilly, AUD that
wertslel cuneate orster tar mechtfadasveenn, Ten cnn cntiendy lif.
Fevrevsne, woay wer seasset, rood izes Und comdoctarsacces, Uf wer ater tas
Deer avverably cabtirrsadt.der, Woostat, tlocsan Su connse snerdgehatoroe 7
W os Harel tlaest. coat Voy taerersatbenge Vadoan den theertalet Jrant
na wedlo onurecdven, What art thou? ‘how art now
Jurmts cx gorrcerseraet ootentor, witla Stim com goeverberancrerm, tlacotagelatas,
anil cleabron, USiat what in thy fitiare Self? Slinply
futuro staten, future experiences, future theaghite
TEE WORAL OMSVEHIT. 3st
aare Jrostallesad dec thre as carta wo come, amd cask im
game meal relatiem te thy presemt Set. What them
ns tie megeter” = He nae sa Ona at staan wl es.
JRomamoaes, thamets. amd aGecres post as meal as them
watt. Ina uname bot vet wo desk present we thy expert
enne in them is thy fume Sei He x met that
fFene what freems er smikes at thee. althanch ote
tdham thimbeat eff him .as omic thet. He a meat the
aomm thet sordbes: er dedymds thee met the weice what
apes ti thas met thet machine that cre whee
wiht them dascest when them mowest @ woh the
@iier wf memes. To he sre. them Gost ofem think
eff hon wes if the wore that arkumatom “maar Thal an
qmars thar whem them speeded to i. | Ret na thre
mmancibbwr 3s was actnl ask amore. as thee art. | Jost
aes thw fammre 2 ml thench pid pw thine ne tht
mencibher 3s meal thom hs themchis mews ar the
Ghamertes, Din then hater the’ Art theo snr
wiknst it mpaam " [nn 8 for thee the Tere went
af digs whol wmcedt jewaerd bom Whar we pow
ask eff the Bo mo KiMtmmi. D> cosh af po. po
treme weatness of scuepechy. bet a onbm, udaar
Tnsnrtin.
Ban ome save: * AG ths have 1 Some fom mr
wentth wp. Sarwiv | bow amd atwars hace the. mr
mecitwr to te Tak ani n> sanomakm Sams I
Ieawe flaamed bk remeand, haw lem amore aa Lb il
Woll awe resndeet iz ask srompadibt. haere ees. 22
enoad tw is minim al mex Ste. Amica i haw
mememmad seciss. Nav. hai cmt sa the moment
When than hada zt act Reward: him s or sa, thes
168 TH RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
wert ti longer anick to renlize him. Then it was
that thy passion mace tim fer thee = whadew, Nhe
certsllent net herve his, secneine there didet forget whi
he was, ‘Then didet believe in him enough to four
Feiten, ter hrsstes heion, ter fight with him, to revenge thy-
elf upon him, to anes hie wit ae thy tool, bat not
etunigh to trent him ae real, even nm thet thynelf art
real. Nhe neon ty thas w little lene living than then,
bhi life: io cline, it. im carl, it im % grade fire henidle thy
erwin Wrning dewiren, Ble io 6 symbol of pamvion to
thet, atl ineperlartly, coldly, with deal sanent, with-
ent full meaning te thy werden, thes dont inulewd say,
when sakes, that the symbol stands for something
ronl, se vend am thyself, Peat what theme words monn,
- hawt thers realized it, an, threnygh nelfioh feeling,
thers emt roulize thy equally oxternal fatare Self 7
1f bis in rod ike thee, then in his life ae brights
light, ae warm # fires, ter hin, ae thine to thes; hie
will in am fell of stengyling desiren, of hard probletan,
tA fatedul detinicnn: his pains are am hatefal, his
frys ne doar, Take: whatever then lnverwent of demire
seruel orf shrivinigy, ef berarreitig Nerves sored of levees hatred,
renlinn ae fully an thers cutie what that menne, snl
then with clear certainty add: Nuch an that in for
writ, ty tn it for him, nithing lean, V4 then dow that,
can hes retrain te thee what he has been, % prictire, %
plaything, % comely, or a tragedy, in brief mere
Sherw? Wehined sil that wherw then hawt inelowd
dimly felt that there in smething, Know that
trath theremnghly, Pheri hewt regarded hin thennngtet,
his fesling, ae sanehew different in sort from thine,
Thurs ham mids % A pits in hit to net like © proce
THE MORAL INSTANT 149
m ure, but something far easier to bear.” Thou hast
made of him a ghost, as the imprudent man makes
of his future self a ghost Even when thou hast
feared his acorn, his hate, his contemps thou hast
wot fully nunde him for thee as real as thyself. His
laughter at thee has made thy face feel hot his
frowns and clenched tists have cowed thee, his sneers
have made thy throat feel choked. But) that was
only the social instivet in thee. Twas not a full
wense of his reality. Even so the litde baby amiles
back at one that stuiles at it, but not because it
realizes the approving jov af the other, only because
it by inatinet enjove a suiiling face: and even ao the
baby is frightened at harsh spoceh, but not becanse
it realiews the other's anger. Sa dimly and bv in-
etinet, thou has lived with chy neighbor, and hast
Kavown him not being bind. Thou hast even de
sited his pain. but chen hast not fully walized the
pain thac thou gavest. Te has been to thee. neg
Pain in itself. bue the sight of Is submission, of his
tears, or af his pale terror Of thy uewhbor thou
hast made a thing, no Self at all.
When then hast loval, hast pitied. at hast never.
ened thy neighbor, then du fecling has possibly
mised for a moment the veil of Wusionw, Phen dheu
hast known what he truly is, a Self like chy prescut
Self. But dh selfish feeling is too string far thee.
Thon hast forgtion seon again what thou hadst seen,
amd hast made even af Chi belowal ane only the instru.
ment of thy own pleasnne, Even eat af chy power
to pity thou hast made an obient of thy vainglory,
Thy reverence has Guued again te pride, Thou hast
100 «= ‘THK NELIGIOUN ANPROT OF PHILONOFHY,
mawsespotend the Wisden once more, No wonder that in
thai elise tesveven three fleulewmt, med inlinenn the only rule of
nny moaning for thy condnet. ‘Thou forgettent that
without realisation of thy future and an yet unre
mest, evversn mesdfhmbancomm tovessstom sucrtbodnngg. = “Whose feorggert-
tent that if thet pavent thy porenent thetght ever mo
er thier tasmks cof reveldndaagy thay trevdgclabooe'n Lifes, mesdflabarsesn
would seo ne more plain to thee than the love of
thy soedgclslor.
DVeaves cleotsey three with thin Glunion that thy Self
dm call fry oll, «© Ssntanitdees teller hee te more about thy
fastonres Melt thats Tt tendd tases aloont thy sedghibeorn,
Ddevnleer, loved dtr thee by yonerntionn of wtriggyle for
exintence, cmphanison the expectation of thy own
fenlily future, the love for thy own lavlily welfare,
cassel tustuccrn thay Docscly'm Differ mecevare tabersses tems, Et aden.
poly tery tar berncow thoes Geeetle, Whee tersaths in that all thin
world of lfc absent thes inns cond as then art. All
cartinctentin Lifes In connedotin in ite own monsure, Pain
in patin, joy in joy, everywhere oven asin thee, The
somite cof thy Asmdgelat will bres dnvenvitestoles, Mhres i leanherts
vaniobing, they ylorloin prronpeet epenn hefora thy
vinken, eed the oneness of thin Hfe avery when,
the equal reality of all ite momenta, thew wilt te
realy tar treveats 1 all witde theer rrevversresnncces Claret gorrtaclersneres
wottld have thea show to thy own little bit of fiutare
life, What prions in ite narrow renpentability
curtetimesteul, Cheon wilt bee cenuly ta cleo inivernally, An
the prideont man, seoing the reality of his fitters
mesh, isnesviteatoly worthem fare ity men tlves cosndgelatersseal sian,
wesdige the renlity of all ccnmedotn Ufo, renbiniig that
ib in no vhidow, Iut fant, at ono and inevitably de
THE MORAL INSIGHT. 161
‘yes. of only for that one moment of might,
enter into the servive of the whole of it.
Seo the illusion of seltishness vanishes for thy
present thoovht (ales: not for thy future condaret,
© ehild of passon:), when thea bokest at what
selfisheess has so long hidden from thee. Thou seest
mow the universal fe as 4 whole. just as real as thou
art. Mientiesl in joy and sorrow. The contixt of
seltishness and unselfishness vanishes. Selfishness is
bet a bslf realization of the truth expressed In un-
selfishness. Selfishness says: J shall exist. User
seliishmess says: The Other Life is as My Life.
To resize anothers pain 35 pain bs to cease to desire
ik im itself. Hatred is diusion. Cowardly sympe-
thy. that hides its bead for fear of realizing the neiyh-
bors pain. rs imston. But unseltishness is the reak
mation of fe. Unselfishmess leads thee oat of the
masts of blind self-aderation, and shows thee. in all
the bfe of nature about thee. the one ommipresent,
ecomsetous stragvie for the getting of the desired. In
all the songs of the forest birds: in all the ertes of
the wounded and dying. strugyling in the captor’s
power : in the boundless sea. where the myriads of
watercreatures strive and die ; amid all the cvuntless
hordes of savage men: in the hearts of all the guod
amd loving : in the dull. throbbing hearts of all prts-
emers and captives: in all sickness and sorrow: in
ali exultation and hope: in sll our devoton: in all
oar knowledze. — everywhere from the lowest to the
mobdlest creamures and experiences on cur earth, the
game constivas, burning, willful Life ts found. end-
lessly manifold as the forms of the Lving creatares,
it
162 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
unquenchable as the fires of the sun, real as these im-
pulses that even now throb in thy own little selfish
heart. Lift up thy eyes, behold that life, and then
turn away and forget it as thou canst; but if thou
hast known that, thou hast begun to know thy duty.
VI.
But this unity that the moral insight has found
for us in life must not be falsely interpreted.
Rightly interpreted, the moral insight will solve for
us many very difficult problems; but we must not
imagine that it shows us all this individual life as
in any mystical sense already actually in the har
mony that wo seck. Not because these aims are al-
ready in thomselves one, but because we, as moral
seors, unite in one moment of insight the realization
of all these aims, for that reason alone is this life
one for us. It in in this sense alone that the moral
insight gives us a solution of the problem of egoism
and altruism, as well as a foundation for a general
doctrine of the Highest Good. The moral insight
does not enable us to say: These beings have always
actually but blindly sought what was in itself the
Highest Good. We can only say: Each one has
sought in his blindness only what was to him desir-
able. And not, save by the realization of the con-
flict of dosire, can the truly highest good be oon-
coived. The moral insight discovers harmony not
as already implied in the nature of these blind, con-
flictin, wills, but as an ideal to be attained by hard
work,
THE WORAL INSIGHT. 163
We point this out in order to show that we do not
fall into the hackneved error af thoce moralists who
wasist that they merely tell men what ane thing it is
that men have all been blindly seeking. Sach mor
alists often say: ~ Our system is but an expression
af the tendency that was always there. latent in
seem. It tells them in plain words what ther al
wars wanted, and then x tells them bow to get this
end.” This specons pretense af so many moral svs-
tens we have imphcitly condemned im the previcus
part of car dissonrse, It constitutes in many cases
that appeal to the phvsical facts which we have set
amde as always useless and often ungrounded If
eme looks the pretense fairly in the face. how fiat
and stale it anems: Yonder vast wealth of canflict-
img alms among men. hase and noble. devilish and
divine, — what moralist has been able to sum all of
them up in any formula. save in the wholly ahstract
formula that we have above referred ta. namely.
that al) these beings seck what seems to them desir
able. How presomptocnos to sav to them: ~ In fact
you al] desire this that |] formulate in my text-book
ef morals” In fact ther do not. And it is absurd
@ watch the tornines apd twistings of language by
winch 3 moralst toes to make ont that they da
For instance. Jet the moralist be J. S. Mill. and Jet
bum declare. as be does. that happiness is the one
goal af all men. If happiness inclodes the attain-
ment of anv possible chiect of anvhadv’s desin. then
indeed the theory is a troism. But with this truism,
of acurse. Do sort of progress would have been made
im ethics, §=Mil) must tell us something aboot what
164 THE KIAASINIG ASPET OF VISIANOVHY,
wrt of hiagrlnemn Uuere ure, ned alent what sorte
anagelit tor Nome mersgghet sent oof wll, Shes ayn, ae wes
Ia rrsrvw, thasah thrsrves saves bebegtrece ” sasud * Serwer ”” golem
aves, msl Chiat Veigghucr poleramssrenm ensydit tr bee wnaght
aa goveehervecnrsce: ty Uhiss eAbsecvn, thass prlermamtayes oof thee brtel-
assrh, of seerrnesremity, enhs:,, itimhonsl of ties nesinins plone
raven, = Whiwt cuss bees the pred Vbant bingrrissonm
wan thse secd wes weeves tr leomrss, Veesemssncs ab) sessty tase
tessabD y mercsle 14, Pdr Wome thoes * brigghuey '” bamegrprioneonin in
thes pom, vsabtrey times sa Lerwesr Sorvin, berw ches wey bemess
thisel? Phearmssnes toons adwaye ehunmes it” Inlud they
thes tush, Ber Mill baum ter whift ths poonsims wo little
Shuey cher neh abl of there metuadly woud i, lst dy
wesislsl mele it iF aeey Iesuew it, Ment of than are ig-
survent oh what tuey wenskd jrrizn ink, nusnely, of
tums “higher” plemnirom, Sout here aygnin Mis
pisses se Aimbscmartecriisnge Fash, Mart sass, 19 they every
Vrve “Nigher” plomeuron nh all, uve Gnd loving
thrscass reserves Fare a wheiles ise thats Khem) cenethrssniuann of
ysristhe thisane Vatecr bir the porcrmmades Aislb trem of esis ley
life, Men why haves kewrwn ths “higher” bagi
news hy then Aclilwrutely turn sway fren it, Thin
jn a veyilar Fit of Vife, well baurwts, ned often Ia
porecavtcca§, §— BSarw heron Chain mggrens with Mill's ewtoins 7
Albian! 1 Arve neh wpgrinee, madd cody Ney werrthibenn des
vhaczmmy omens Nees carts) Frere biissmedh thee Suet, Shs
poergober wheso corsfery Ahass Wrigehucrr besssrw thes berweer wail pee
fort it, eae gueargler why ecrrjery Us berwor dar wr
leovrw fh thee Nrihucr, ov, MY thucy aver knew it, hey
bosaver Ferryerthen it, cor TE Uucy bomver such egesites Georyethon
the Wider, tury aver * Lowt omgmaity for i.” An if
wh) thrin cxrull tush jeawk oy plasswiloly bes meakel fren they
THE MORAL INSTGRT. 165
sxe of the “lower ™ pleasures. Just as if it were
met constantly sald from that side in every good
dmmbing-song, with a result precisely opposed to
Mills. In fact Mill is driven in this controversy
with imaginary opponents to the worst subterfage
possible for so skilled a thinker. when he at het
ways that the pleasure which seems the higher of twa
Pleasures to the “ most of those who have experi
enced both™ is actually the higher. For thus, to
keep up the show of merely interpreting to men their
actoal will, Mill has to appeal to the opinion of the
majority, has to use a purely practical hahit af de
Eiberative assemblies for the purpose af deciding a
qeesten of thearv. and then has most absunily to
@eclare that a man’s experience about his own
pleasure is worth nothing as a test af its valve un-
less the majority of his fellows agree with him in
ats jadement.
In fact all this is benevolent trifling. Men declare
at ame time ane pleasure to be * highest.” that is,
most. desirable, and at another Ume they declare an-
ether pleasure to be the only desirable one. Differ.
ent men persist In having different aims. To de
fine their duty by telling them that they all have
eme aim is wrong, Frem the point af view af the
Woral insight all this straggling hfe becomes one :
bat that is not becanse it as Vet ceases to struggle,
bat becanse the being possasend of the moral insight
fomes to realize it all at oace, For him it is one,
because he identifes himself with the strusghng
aims. He accks their harmony, and mast de ao if
be have the insicht. But they are not in harmony
166 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
as yet at all; else would he have no work to do.
Let him then not deceive himself. The conflict itself
is real and not illusory. The illusion lies in the fact
that no one of the fighters realizes the inner life of
the others. But to overcome that illusion in any
soul is not to show that all the fighters have been
desiring the same thing.
J.8. Mill is by no means our only case of the ef-
fort to convince people that they always have had
one object of search, which the moralist has but to
name in order to bring peace on the earth. Ben-
tham undertook the same task, and showed in his
blunt way as much skill in subterfuge as he ever ac-
cused his opponents of showing, while he tried to
make out that all men always have been Bentham-
ites, to whom pleasure was the only good. Mr.
Spencer in his turn tries to define the Good so that
it shall agree not only with the popular usage of the
word good, but also with the Spencerian notion of
what constitutes the Good. If anywhere a usage of
the word appears that does not agree with the Spen-
cerian usage, Mr. Spencer insists, sometimes, that,
Jf cross-questioned, the man who so uses it would
have to come over to the Spencerian usage, and
sometimes that the usage in question is a survival
in culture of a savage notion, or that it is in some
other way insignificant. Thus the proof of Mr.
Spencer’s view about the nature of the ideal be-
comes so simple and easy that when, a little further
on, it is necessary to recognize the existence of pes
simists, Mr. Spencer finds no difficulty in regarding
it as perfectly plain that a man can become a pes-
THE MORAL INSIGHT. 167
aimist only in caso he believes that the Spencerian
ideal of the Givod is unattainable. Thus axioms are
manufactured whenever we need them.
All this is mere neglect of whatever ideals do not
at once tit Into one's own ideal, Such neglect is un-
worthy of an ethical inquirer, Yet it has been fre-
quently committed in revent times, and it is com
mitted whenever a man endeavors or pretends, as
Professor Clitford also very skillfully endeavored
and pretended, to found ethical science wholly upon
the basis and by the methods of uatural science.
Such attempts are like the efforts of a man trying to
build a steamboat, who should first drop the steam-
engine into the water, and then seek to build the
boat up about the engine so as to float it and be
driven by it. For natural science will indeed give
us the engine of our applied ethics, as indispensa-
ble as the steamengine to the boat. But first we
must lay the kvel, and we must get the boat ready
for the engine, the ideal ready for the science that
ia to apply it. All such attempts as those that put
the “ avientitio basis" tirst, lamely strive te conceal
their helplessness behind a show of appealing to the
* facta of human nature and of the social structure,
as sience discovers them.” But these facts reveal
a confused warfare of aims among men, no one alu
being actually chosen by the whole of men. And
then the “ svientitic moralist " tries to show by all
sorts of devices that all meu really have the sane
aim. But he cannot shew that, because it is not
true. What aim is common to the whole life of any .
one of us? Much less then is any alm common te
all men.
168 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
But this mistake in not specially modern. Not
only the modern scientific moralists have been guilty
of it, buf moral preachers of all schools since Soc-
rates have been prone to insist on oocasion, for pur-
poses of persuasion, that somehow or other all evil
conduct arises from mere ignorance of what one
wants, This view in a mistake, One may want
anything, and may know it very well. There in no
known limit to the caprice and to the instability of
the human will, If you find anybody desiring any-
thing, the only tolerably sure and fairly universal
gomment is, that he will stop desiring it by and by.
You can seldom got any ultimate analysis of the
motive of such a desire.
But we do not found our moral system on any
auch analysis. We do not say even that it is phys-
joully possible for any of us to get and to keep the
moral insight long together. What we affirm can
once more briefly be summed up as followa: —
1. Moral insight, whenever, however, to whomso-
ever it comes, consists in the realization of the true
inner nature of certain conflicting wills that are ac-
tual in the workd,
2. An absolute moral insight, which we can con-
evive, but which we never fully attain ourselves,
would realize the true inner nature of all the con-
flicting wills in the world.
8, The moral insight involves from ita very na-
ture, for those who have it, the will to harmonize,
n far ans may be possible, the conflicting wills that
there are in the world, and that are realized at the
moment of insight.
THE MORAL INSIGIT. 169
4. Uf the moral inaight be canverned dirvetly with
two vontlicting willa, my neighbor's and my owe,
then chia insight invelyvea the will to avt aa if my
neighbor and myself were ene being Chat possessed
atanee the adma af both af us,
& Uf the moral inaight be converned with can.
thicting: yreneral alma, aneh as could: osxpuess Chon:
aelvua in ayateme af conduet, then che moral insishe
invalvea the will ta avt, ao far as may be, as if one
iweluded in one’s own being the life af all those
Whaae contlioting aiima ane realises,
G, Abaalute moral insight would invalve dhe will
tu act heneeforth with atviet remand to the fatal af
the vataequonees of one’s aot far all the moments
and aime that are Co be affooted by thin at,
T The moral tusight: stands ins all its forma op.
posed to othical dogmatian, whieh avcopts ane sepa.
rate etd andy. Pho iuaight: arises from the von,
aviouianoas Chat this one ata is uot the enty ane chat
is aetual, linperfeotly and blindly othiow dagues
than ala realises this (ruth, and so hates ar even
anathomatioos the opposing alma But the hatiwd
ta imperfeet rwalication. Phe tmaral insight there
fare avya to thase who possess cho dognutio spirit:
“Ta ao far as vou seok a reason for the faith that is
ie you, you van dnd none shart of the assuuption af
my position” Tho moral insight: save to itself, "|
oyrht net to return te dhe dagmatie point of view.”
So the moral insight insists upon piviag itself the
rile, * Dogmatians is wrong,”
8. ‘The only alternatives (a the moral insight ave;
(et) ethioal dognatian, whieh onee for all pivea up
170 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
the effort to get any basis for ethics save its own in
rational caprice ; and (6) ethical skepticism, which,
as we have seen, is only a preliminary form of the
moral insight, and passes over into the latter upon
reflection.
9. There is no other distinction between right and
wrong save what the dogmatic systems on the one
hand give as their capricious determinations, and
what the moral insight on the other hand shows as
the expression of what it involves.
Our conclusion so far is therefore this: Remain
blind if you will; we have no means of preventing
you. But if you want to know the whole ethical
truth, you can find it only in the moral insight. All
else is caprice. To get the moral insight, you must
indeed have the will to get the truth as between the
conflicting claims of two or more doctrines. This
will being given, the moral insight is the necessary
outcome even of skepticism itself.
Yet now, after all our argument and enthusiasm,
the reader must know that what we have so far por-
trayed is only the most elementary azpect of the
moral insight. The unity that we have insisted upon
is so far an empty unity, a negative freedom from
conflict. To show the real worth of this whole view,
we must pass from the beggarly elements of duty to
more advanced conceptions. The moral insight must
be so developed as to tell us about the Organization
of Life. The empty unity must be filled with con
tent. We must discuss more in concreto what men
possessed of the moral insight will do.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE.
Dike webve Frethedt a ab) Sittlichhedt ding, dave der Wille nicht sdk
Fettive, Gd. ik. cigemsaeatign somdern allgewedren ledalt aa wie
Dewken det. — Hews, Emeyedgude
UNEXPECTEDLY we have been saved from our eth
eal skepticism even in and through the very act af
thinking it out, Here. as elsewhere in philosophy,
the truth is to be reached, neither by dreading nor by
@iseountenancing the doubs, but by accepting, expe
Fencing, and absorbing the doubt, until, as an ele
meat in our thought, it becomes also an element in
an higher truth, «We do not aay, therefore, fe cup
mend our moral principle, as it: has just been pro-
pounded, that it is immediately acceptable tf all
healthy conseienees, or that it is a pious, or a respeet:
able, or a popularly recognized principle. We say
ealy this: Doubt rationally about mural doctrines,
and your doubs itself, if real, thorough guing, allenr
bracing, merviless, will invalve this very principle af
ears, We tind the principle by means of the univer
gal doubt. and it is this method of procedure that
distinguishes the foreguing discussion of the basis af
morals fran many of those that have previously been
concerned with this problem. ‘To paint ous that the
average man, or the reputed saint, or the inspired
172 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
prophet, or the great poet, or the reader himself,
whenever he is enthusiastic has or has had a given
ideal, is not to justify this ideal. Yet of such a na-
ture are the justifications that most moralists have
given for their ideals. If we have gained our re-
sult by any better method, that was because we were
free to doubt all those pretended defenses of the
good. We have found the nature of the absolute
and universal will, by rigidly questioning the signifi-
cance of all the individual wills.
But our ideal must be made to do work in the
world. It must accomplish something, by solving
for us a few concrete moral problems, such as actu-
ally trouble men. Even the present discussion must
consider some of these consequences of our general
principle; for religious philosophy, in seeking an
ideal for life, does not want a barren abstraction,
but such an ideal as can also be our guide. What
does our principle tell a man to do?
The principle, as is plain, may be viewed in two
ways. If by moral insight we mean what the last
chapter defined, namely, insight into the fact of the
existence of other conscious wills besides our own,
coupled with full rational appreciation of this truth,
then our principle may be viewed as saying to each
' of us: Get and keep the moral insight as an expe
rience, and do all that thou canst to extend among
men this experience. On the other hand, the prin-
ciple may be equally well viewed as saying: Act
out in each case what the moral insight bids thee
do ; that is, as before explained, Having made thy-
self, in so far as thou art able, one with all the cow
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 173
Jlicting wills before thee, act out the resulting ani-
versal will as it then arises in thee. Two classes of
human duties are thus defined, one formal and pro-
visional, the other permanent. We must explain in
some measure each of them, in order that we may
show the practical applivations of our moral prin-
ciple.
I,
The firet class of ditties comprises those that have
most especially todo with the moral education of our
race, We are and must long remain, excvedingly
imperfect and blind creatures, Tf there is possible
any state of humanity in which all shall be ready to
act in accordance with the moral insight, that state
must be, morally speaking, better than any other.
Therefore the first demand that the moral insight
makes of usa so soon as we got it iv: So det as to
increase the number of those who possess the insight.
Herve, of course, is a prevept of a very formal char
acter, and plainly provisional in its nature, Tt is as
if one were to be among blind men, himself blind,
and were by some magical act. say by accidentally
washing in a miraculous fountain, to gut at one stroke
and for the frat time the power of sight, in all its
maturity and perfection, Such an one would per
haps say: * How noble is this new sense! But to
what end shall Touse it? For the frst TP must use
it to bring these other men to the fountain, to wash
their eyes, that they may miraculously learn ins one
instant to seo this glorious world.” But some one
might object: “In this way, if the only uae to be
374 «= - THK RELAGIOUS ABPEOT OF PHILOQNOPHY.
made of a man’s sight isto extend the power of dght
ty others, of whet use is the power itaelf’? ‘The sole
win of secing cannot be ty cause others ty see. Klee
what good would result ty any one, if all followed
your precept 1” The unewer would ine plain:
“When all or de nowt of us gel the power, then
jaded we can use 6 for other ends. ut because it
je the bowl of powers for all Ghese other ends, there-
fore Ue best provisions) use ) make of it is, not to
spond inuch Gine upon these ends, but t spend time
upon extending the possession of the power. When
his is done, then first will begin the real use of the
power for ite own wake.” Asin this case of the sup-
posed wwiraculous wquiremcnt of & new sense in all
ie wuudurity of power wt one stroke, wo it iw in come
of Che much more gradual acquirement of the mora
insight. ‘To be sure, the ultimate win of life cannot
be merely the extension of the power wy realize the
willy that wae ative about us, but must at just be
found by dotiving the course of wction thet best bas
muonives thems willy. Idut, provisionally, we bave »
task before us Uoet iv ously defined, because elomwen-
tary. Harmony cannot be even partinlly attained,
the best human wetivily cannot be even imperfectly
developed, until w very great number of men have
thin, the very first, mow elementary requisite of con-
minus morality, namely, the power ty wee the facty of
Lumen life as they wre. So long as a en is bound
up in his individual will, he may be juwtinetively up-
Fight, be canna be conseigualy and with clear intent
righteous. Sy long therefore as this is true of bin,
lwo will Le dependent on traditions that are often per
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 1%
BicteeRs, Om conscience that is often bratal prejudices,
en faith that is often bigotry, on emotion that bs the
bbindest of all guides; and if be dues good or if be
dees evil, the power responsible for his deeds will
mot be a truly moral impube. To gain the morl
eads of humanity, the indispensable prerequisite &
therefore the moral insight in its nerely formal as-
pect, asan human power and as an expertence af life.
When a good many more men have reached the pos
session of this power, then more of life will be taken
ep with concrete duties, Until that time comes, the
great aim must be this formal and provisinal one :
te prodace in mem the rma: rood, and so to pre
pare the way for the further knowledge of the high-
et good, Lf we pat the matter otherwise we may
say: The moral insight, insisting upon the need af
dhe harmony of all human wills. shows us that, wiud-
ever the highest Ruwman good meng Be ae quam ong
@ttwin if togetiior, For if ganiimes Aarneony, Thre
berhest goad then is pet te be gor by any one of us
or by any clique of us separamly. Either the hich
est quad is for humanity unattainable, or the human-
bty af the future must cet ita cmawre, Therefore’
the semse of communtiy, the power to work together,
with clear insicht inte eur mass for so working.
ts the firs need of humanity. Not what goad thing
men mar hereafter come face, bat how ther shail
attain the unlvy sense whereby they can ever ged fo
see the good, is the creat present heman comm,
Starting with chis duty, we can now examine
what rub of Efe this duty will give us| Aten the
moral iasigii amu mem, wed te thy oan Wifes
17 THE BERISION ARPKAT OV FHIAMOFHY,
Ahab im bss Srreet, scornevtnvianssdaerecneh, "Shas bb recesh, serrtanee-
aginecnrsces bw Abed, wor vecgierebecst, Abuse Howth Auhy of smn in
thoas grvrecmasrol, abeuy srsenensarh Noes achtdeace bon gyscl fatagogrionscin
ibnvomeedf, oor, ine visew oof Aihw povcemcerel, whales of bivnnsn
Ni fes, tar srniabees sbdvace prscarqeles omgrpry, AND Ahead base sy
Havshasecsd Vote ine oosonanes snrsctomisnes vesguibvead tor cher, bot wot,
Hoe Ahase povresmesnnd, whaatas orf thc werr'lsl, ams sare ccnusl, brat, werlscl y
ams te assctetom bay sane ecousd. — “DUahm sa add ssvecneten ios tesrt, thes
Ay for contecanenh, bak for worl 5 mned joy be now
a prrepney pau of bana bike ehiathy in wr fae om it
fasanebnn tay pourecmecyyes, ban Dnnscvestunns, Orv ban Ferber Abus moval
Fowigbih — VNecvee wos Ianyer Mise prveemasiol pormstdonel wealie
Aisrn wnigegecmbaced Fore ald Abuse sgressiobisrnis aborieh tbe right
saresd wrernngs oof wor-aeeabbecsd Vrscabsrrvinnns. UU sabsrnimnn in thus
gre bie of cane danger feat sansberntmnlbing of Uues moval
Dawid, becanseverdceat Iuscsloninns mporinge Fron tus in
wigcdobe WNoieh sovecny Vibeve dar Nove Sasagopry. — VRastad id ongy Weim, tbres
buchisevecr Ju univernel ducloninn mayes Make men
happy a fir an thin canal. Mut dhein per avedgrles of
Hsacsaranimnay bos mnnvesdy snr, Whose Vonvterscalsatas trvadde Foor thibe
prencah Mine, whitever may or may wd turn out ta
Nose Wass avsnmnss han Featanvec, Meee tn Veabooor tao inaevsenmee bagel
osc waney Fern Abies poveenasnnt anvecen Veo Vieerennee Uae incrval
Vb nvsh anecovss oof snvecny.— arnnnes warren oof Uasaqoyebonecom bacrnal bay
prrsabece vim Vabinnd, sam Vie jee Fisset Nrccen nbowi de for-
mer ehngder, Uilewn om exynerbenan yory bb
Dacrdy thee vesbit ey oof bees econ thio, of wills ine Mein world,
Woe srvrvd dredged, dis saga ban Porvmsebes: bei. Via cant
Abs srerab Vande bl beeen pormetien dy wnsb veered, Us
bigeboeist. pronod Foor Asananihy omni be pede VIere-
fore WH fins of hingpinens Mint hinder ratducr ian
July Ase msrnd insight wre cvil, mad we ought to dy
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. li
what we can to vet rid of them out af the work.
Ard all expericnees, however painful, that certainly
tend to the Increase of the power af moral insicht.
are goal for men: and if we se neo other expert
eaces mor suitable for this purpose, we ought to do
what we can te Inenwse among men the namber
and the definiteness of these pains.
Yet af course it will at once appear, when we ex-
amine human emotional experienwes in the light of
what we know af men, thar there is a decided Hmit
to the morally educative power of painful exper?
ences, and that, on the other hand, very many ploas
@al experiences are useful to the moral insight either
by directly adding in or by preparing a man te at
tain it, In oonsidering this branch of the subject
we at last mach the point where a scientife psv-
Obalagy can give us a creat deal of hel We re
jectad the soxcallal * sclontitic hasis ” for morals he
@ause it founds the cao 07 7 Ae upon braml physical
facts. Now, however, we can tam fo science to help
ws in our present task, becanse, having definal our
oaght to be we are doaling with apphed ethies and
are asking how this moral insight is to be attaimead,
Pevehoalogy must tell us what it can as to this mat
ter, And here such SAgEEST tans as those in) Mr,
Spemeer’s * Dara af Fhies " are indeed a useful) aid
f applied moral doctrine. We reiat what the no
on thar Mr. Speneer or any Eke taacher has even
caught a climpse of the fundamental ethical problem,
Mr, Speneer seems to te ! fa the most chilaike igto
rane that there is any such prviiera at acl Bet we
are glad to find that Mr. Spencer ance having very
12
178 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPRY.
illogically accepted a partially correct fundamental.
notion about the ideal of life, does suggest a good
deal about this problem of applied ethics with which
we are now dealing. LHe does tell us some very sen-
sible things about the attainment of this ideal.
Among these sensible suggestions is the insistence
upon the value of pleasure as an indication of the
increase of healthy life in the man who has the pleas-
uro; and the further insistence upon the thought
that, since pleasure thus indicates in some wise
health and efficiency, and since efficiency is an indis-
pensable prerequisite to sound practical morality,
there must always be a certain moral presumption
in favor of happiness, and in favor of whatever tends
to increase happiness. Properly understood and
limited, this dovtrine of Mr. Spencer's is an obvious
and useful consequence from what we know of psy-
chology. Mr. Spencer dwells on it at tedious and
wholly unnecessary length, but ho is surely justified
when he protests, against the ascotica, that their
ideal man must be in general a puny, inefficient, and
perhaps wholly burdensome man, whose ill - health
may make him, at last, hopelessly selfish. This we
know on good acientifio grounds, and it is well to
have said the thing plainly in an cthical treatise.
But what is the result? Is happiness the only
aim of life because the permanently unhappy man is
apt to bea poor diseased creature, useless, or even
dangerous? No; the consequence of all this is that
the first moral aim must be to make a man efficient
in possessing and extending the moral insight. Ef-
ficiency for moral ends is still our proximate goal.
THE OBGANIZATION OF LIFE. 179
Happiness is, at least for the present, only a subordi-
nate means. Therefore we say: By all means make |
men happy, vo far as their happiness tends to give
them and to preserve in them moral insight. True
it is, as seientitiv psychology shows us, that a wan,
in order to be as good as possible, must generally be
possessed of respectable health, of what he thinks a
good place in the world, of friends, and of numerous
pleasures. Ile must digest well, he must eujey the
esteem of his fellows, he must be strong, and he must
be frequently amused. All this is true, and is in
fact a commonplace. When an ascetio denies this,
he maintains a pernicious heresy, that tends to de-
atroy moral insight by depriving men of the phys
ical power to get it. But these facts must not be
misinterpreted. Whatever might be true of a society
in which woral insight had been attained, nothing is
plainer than that happiness at the present time can-
not be regarded from our point of view as more
than a means to the present jrreat end. Lf we try
to amuse our neighbors, to relieve their woes, to tm-
prove their worldly estate, wo must do so not as if
this were the ond of the present life, but as workers
in a very vast drama of human life, whose faroff
Purpose must govern every detail, The pood Sa-
maritan must aay to himself, as he helps the poor
wreteh by the wayside: * In so far aa EP realiae only
this man’s need, my purpose is indeed simply to ne
Reve him. But my purpose must be higher than that.
This man is not alone, but one of a multitude. My
highest aim in helping him is not to make him indi:
vidually happy, but to inorease by this, as by all my
180 «= THR HRLIGIOUA AMPROT OF PITILONOFITY,
acta, the harmony of mankind, Not alone that he
may by and by yo away and enjoy hiimaelf do PE help
Habana trcow, Voeate Lrerecratamer Loy veo cherkeage Po breagees thircngeh
Didone too Uencerenssnes ratnconnge sree teeoteed frondgehit. Theses
fore, notwithatandlag Sehopenbeaner's clllente, Mlehtes
wre right ti mmydoge that wer congeht tar treat the Inelb
Vidual man not chiefly asian didividual, but as an
fnatrumont for extending and serving the moral law.
BSercrvarones co corticlnn Kind of bapplnens moans affleloney,
and efiidoney morality, therefore and therefore alone
have we the right and duty, fo thin porement peonestn
thorn, tro Dealocoee eons tlafs eSencd cof boeagogolenevnn,
Kegunlly, therefore, it becomes our cluty to labor
to Increnne palin, whenever pris in the hewt mena of
fontorlng the moral inaight. ‘“Theraforn, bie this prem
ent day, it cannot he our duty to labor to Henbnalsh
pain in the workd, alinply as pain. Ayaln we mist
appeal to paychology to guide us aright. The palin
that fronts sercoread Veondgeht, salthoeosagche Dartteved fer seat
ber and Intensity, are numerous, and still linpor
feurtly clefined, Tt werk ber a sineful tank to ately
more ti cletadl than paychologints have yot dona, the
inotalizing power of palin. Thin in a task for the
payeholency of thes fitire, Tn general, of conten, we
ceany sey threat tdacs eranigces cof seeds godsin hream beets tse
coneagecerreaterel toy rumcertiei, — Pbacdily godnn, If severe, in
geernnestrrelly Voevastenlvsiange, ext Deseamt, feor sracont goercngoles, carsel
thes teveotad Srombgelit. dn bon At cody Seo mer fas am thie ponent
exporter of ledily ponise helps ts tee ketsow thes lg
silflerances of the sufferlay of others, not by giving
tis that blind emotion of sympathy before crltielned,
but by giving us the ness to form o cool abstract
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 181
estimate of the value of ths evil of physical pain.
For thas we can realize the strength of the will that
seeks to esxape it. and can act with due respect to
this will, Bat nature generally etves a emoazh ex-
perence of pain two farntsh excellent maternal for the
calculations meeded. Therefore. bodily pais. save
as punishments, are seldom useful instraments for
our great parpose. Not thas cam self be duly mar
tied.
Ik ws different with certam mental pam. All
those that tend to make the individual feel bis own
meeessary limitations, and thereby to approach the
realization of the great work! of Efe about him. are
mevessary ertis, His will mast be overwhelmed. that
the Universal Will may have plee to establish it-
self im him. Therefore. without comilering whether
we are thereby imereasine or diminishime the som
ef boman msery. we all of us umbesitatingty set
about the work of contending with blind self-com
fidence amd selfshoorptiom wherever it may appear.
Therefore it s right that we ridicule all pretentioas
meedocrtty that 6 uncensehous of its stapadities
Therefore. in fact. it ts right that we shoukd eritiese
waspartngty all pretenders, however mock ther may
be pained by our criticism. Therefore it is well that
we should feel mot a selfish but a righteous jor when-
ever pride has 3 fall. whenever the man who thinks
that be ts something diseovers of a truth that be is
mothe. Therefore. ale do we pat down excessive
forwardness and vanity in growing children. although
go to do hurts their sensitive vounr seltishmess very
keenly. In all sack ways we mast ask and we mast
183 = THK RELIGIOUM ASPKROT OF PHILOSOPHY,
show no mercy, save when these keen pains of
wounded! vanity are wo given an to inflame and In-
orense thin vanity itwolf, All healthy, truthful oritl
ha of Individual Minttations ina duty, oven If it Ina
promot torture to the Individual arlidoled, Mor this
Kanchi vicbonmd dos Loddaacl Gar cotdaese: Lifer bocressatanes lies be wengopreel
up in himeelf, ff by showlag hla hin dandgnifloanes
you oan open tiie eyes, you are bound to do so, even
though you make bhin werithe to neo hie worthlow.
noms, Mor what wo here defend da not that Ul-tatured
oritiolan when only alia in to gratify the miserable
wolf of the erltie, but the arlticiun whose odo in
turned in oarnent agalint avery form of self-untinfis
theo Claret, Dalsaclesam Lnamhgchat, — Foest ou sanann boee nerd f-muetdne
fled when he in at rent, after dinner, or ia merry
qxomnpoarny, Tt de mw amessademe mrrel covers oo vancsftal carnitine
mont, But when he is at work dolag good he ought
tay Vrsates ocr famitdafercsthcors, whalers labeacerm the snoral fn
alight, which oxalta hin will above the untverwal will,
which taken the halfalona task for the whole task,
and altogether glorifies the vanity of vagition, If
now iy orltie rides me of moh solf-satinfaation, he
any fart mes Koonly, bot he dn iny bewt felomd, My
life may often he miserable fy consequence, hut then
Daman instrument, whose purpose it into attain, te
fimter, to extend, and to employ the moral lnalght.
My misery ina drop, evil ne doubt ta Staalf Calnoe
any poor Httle will must weithe and atrapgle when It
noon Ite own vanity and the hopeslemnons of ita sepa
rate watinfrctlons), but a rolative good, alin through
Nt neneuy cottesden tao Claes anacoreed Veomigeht, ALL mish poration
sunt Les cloalt with In the mune way. Honve the
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 183
wilitarian principle of benevolent hedonium, even if
right in its application to the faroff future, has bat
Kittle direct practical application te a life that must
today be Judged by such standards as thea.
il.
Rat haa the principle of hedonian any truth even
dm its application te a work where all had attained
the woral insight as an experience? If we com
alder the higher human activities, whose worth is nat
merely provisional, but permanent, the activities that
wren will carry on when they have freed themselves
froan selfish strife, is the aggregate happiness as such
the gual af the action of this unselfish swlety ?
There are existent already among wen activities
that belong te spheres where selfish strife is, rele
tively speaking, suppreseal, These activities are
forechadowings af the life af the possible futare ha
waanity that may come to possess the moral imaght
Art, aeience, philosophy, are the types aff such life.
These activities form sall but a suall part af the
aggregate work of men, aad so ie must long be: yee,
though subontinated in extent to the pressing moral
weeds of an impertest state, these activities are ab
realy anwng the highest in our lives, Phat now, are
they valuable because of the aggregate happiness
that they causes, or for sane other reas? Te judge
of this we must study the definition af the seoumd
Waore permanent class of human duties.
Suppose then that the first and provisional ain af
bawan conduct had been attained, aad that all men
184 THE BELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
possessed the moral insight, what would this insight
then lead them todo? Here the hedonist will expect
to have his revenge for our previous neglect of his
advice. ‘ My precepts have been set aside so far,”
he may say, “as having no immediate application to
the moral needs of the moment. To get this merely
fornial condition of harmony among men, the moral
man has been advised to subordinate all direct efforts
towards making people happy, to the end of making
them first possess what you have called the moral
mood. But now at last, in the supposed case, the
great end has been attained, and men are formally
moral. Now surely they have nothing to do but to
be as happy as possible. So at last my plan will be
vindicated, and the ideal man will come to be a
seeker of ideal pleasures.”
The hedonist is too sanguine. His ideas of the
highest state may have their value, but they are in-
definite in at least one respect. When he says that
he wants all his ideal men, in the ideal state, to be
happy together, he never tells us what he means by
the individual man at all, nor what inner relation
that individual’s happiness is to have to the happi-
ness of other men. All men, in the ideal state, are
to be harmonious and happy together: this the he-
donist tells us; but he does not see how many dif-
ficulties are involved in the definition of this ideal
state. Ile plainly means and says that in this ideal
state the good of the whole society is to be an aggre-
gate of a great number of individual happy states,
which the various men of the blessed society are to
feel. He assumes then that in the ideal state each
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 185
man would be able to say: “I, separately regarded,
am happy, and so are all my fellows.” Now pose-
sibly the very notion of an ideal state, in which the
separate selves are as such happy, and in which
the blessedness of the whole is an aggregate of the
blessedness of the separate individuals, is a contra
dietory notion. At all events it is a netion whose
meaning and validity every hedaunist coully and ua-
questioningly assumes. Yet it is an assumption that
we must examine with care.
If a wan sets before himself and his fellows the
goal of individual happiness, as the hedonist wants
him to do in the suppused ideal state, can he con-
eeivably attain that gual? The hedonist supposes
that the only moral limitation te the pursuit of per
sonal happiness is the moral requirement of altre-
ism, acconiing to which ne one ought to seek his
own pleasure at the cost of a greater misery to an-
other. In the ideal state, as all would be in the
moral mood, and all disposed to help one another,
and to get happiness only together, this one limite
tien would be removed. Then, thinks the hedonist,
the highest law would be: (Wet the most Auppiness,
wl of you. This happiness the hedonist conceives as
an agyregate of states that would exist in the various
separate individuals. Se each individual will strive
after his own joey, but in such wise as to hinder the
joy of nobody else. But we oppose to this the ques-
tien: Is there not some other limitation than this to
individual search for happiness? Is not the ideal
of individual happiness as such an impossible ideal,
mot because the individuals in the imperfect state
186 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
lack harmony, but because, even in the supposed har
monious state, there would be an inner hindrance to
the pursuit of this ideal by any individual? Would
not the moral insight detect the hindrance, and so re-
ject this ideal? There are at least some very famil-
lar reasons for thinking this to be the case. These
reasons do not of themselves prove, but they certainly
suggest, that the notion of a progressive individual
happiness has in it some strange contradiction.
First, then, we have the old empirical truth that
individual happiness is never very nearly approached
by any one, so long as he is thinking about it. The
happy man ought to be able to say, “I am happy.”
He can much more easily say, “ I was happy; ” for
present reflection upon happiness interferes in most
cases with happiness. So here is an inner difficulty,
very well known, in the way of making individual
happiness the goal of life. We have no desire to
dwell here upon this difficulty, which has so often
been discussed. We do not exaggerate its impor-
tance. We consider it only the first suggestion that
the hedonistic ideal of life has some inner contradic-
tion in its very nature, so that there is some deeper
conflict here going on than that between selfishness
and altruism.
In the second place, we notice that, if anybody
tries to sketch for us the ideal state of human life
as the hedonist conceives it, we are struck with a
sense of the tameness and insignificance of the whole
picture. The result is strange. Here we have been
making peace and harmony among men the proxt-
mate goal of life, yet when this harmony has to be
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 187
conceived in hedonistic fashion, when the hedonist
gives us his picture of a peaceful society, where, in
the midst of universal good humor, his ideal, the hap-
piness of everybody concerned, is steadfastly pursued,
we find ourselves disappointed and contemptuous.
That harmless company of jolly good fellows is un-
speakably dull. One listens to the account of their
happiness as one might listen to the laughter and
merry voices of some evening club of jovial strangers,
who had been dining at the hotel in which one hap-
pened himself to be eating a late and frugal supper,
in sobriety and weariness. Those unknown crea-
tures whose chatter in the next room the traveler
dimly hears at such a time, —a confused babble of
stupid noises ; how insignificant their joys seem to
him! Who cares whether that really wretched set
of animals yonder, with their full stomachs and their
misty brains, think themselves happy or not? To be
sure, among them the harmony seems in some sort
to have been momentarily realized. One would no
doubt seem to enjoy it all just as well as they, if he
were one of them. But one is viewing it at a dis-
tance, from outside; and so looking at it he possibly
sees that a mass of individual happiness is not just
the ideal of ideals after all.
Just such, however, is the feeling that comes to one
in considering Mr. Spencer's description of his ideal
society. And similar feelings have been awakened
in many reflective people when they have considered
traditional notions of heaven, and have tried tu esti-
mate the value of the life of individual bliss therein
pictured. Professor William James has recently so
188 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
well stated these objections in a few brilliant sen-
tences, that we cannot do better than to quote from
his recent article on “ The Dilemma of Determin-
ism”; } —
“Every one must at some time have wondered at that
strange paradox of our moral nature, that, though the
pursuit of outward good is the breath of its nostrils, the
attainment of outward good would seem to be its suffoca-
tion and death. Why does the painting of any paradise
or Utopia, in heaven or on earth, awaken such yawnings
for Nirvana and escape? The white-robed, harp-playing
heaven of our Sabbath-schools, and the ladylike tea-table
elysium represented in Mr. Spencer’s ‘ Data of Ethics,’ as
the final consummation of progress, are exactly on a par
in this respect, —lubberlands, pure and simple, one and
all. We look upon them from this delicious mess of in-
sanities and realities, strivings and deadnesses, hopes and
fears, and agonies and exultations, which form our pres-
ent state; and tedium vite is the only sentiment they
awaken in our breasts. To our crepuscular natures, born
for the conflict, the Rembrandtesque moral chiaroscuro,
the shifting struggle of the sunbeam in the gloom, such
pictures of light upon light are vacuous and expression-
less, and neither to be enjoyed nor understood. If this
be the whole fruit of the victory, we say; if the genera-
tions of mankind suffered and laid down their lives; if
prophets confessed and martyrs sang in the fire, and all
the sacred tears were shed for no other end than that a
race of creatures of such unexampled insipidity should suc-
ceed, and protract in secula sceculorum their contented
and inoffensive lives, — why, at such a rate, better lose
than win the battle, or at all events better ring down the
curtain before the last act of the play, so that a business
1 Unitarian Review for September, 1884.
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 189
that began so importantly may be saved from so singw-
larly flat a winding-up.”
Now not anly does all this seem true in such cases,
bat we have similar feelings about even so ideal a
picture of happy future life as is Shellev's, in the last
act of the ~ Prometheus.” There are indeed many
deeper elements in that noble ideal of Shellev's, for
he distinctly says that his true ideal is * Man — Oh!
mot men ©; or. as he again expresses it : —
* One undivided socal of manr a soul
Whowe nature is its own divine contra,
Where all things dow to all, as rivers to the xa.”
And when he says this, he gets far bevond mere he
donism. But yet there are other elements in his
account that are not w satisfactory, and that are
decidedly hedonistic. Their expression is indeed
perfect. Surely if the noblest hedonism could ever
succeed with us threugh the noblest af statements,
such an advocate as Shelley would convince us. But
when the poet glorifies mere individual pleasure, as
he does in part of his picture, our clearest reflection
is that, after all. the end af the tragedy is petty when
compared with the beginning.
For consider what a world it is in which we begin
the poem. At first glance it is a gloomy and terri
ble world of brutal wrong. But seen the picture
grows brighter, even while the wrong is depicted.
There is the glorious figure of the suffering Titan,
there is the sweetness of the tender love that watehes
him: and above the tyrant himeif one feels that
there is somehow a heavenly might, that does not
suffer him to do his worst. The world in which
190 «THY RELIGIOUS ASPKOT OF FIIILOSOPHY.
thene things live is not intolerable. But then come
the spirits that sing to Prometheus, in his anguinh,
of immortal dewls done on the earth, of great
thenghts and lofty puswions, All theses are born of
the conflict, and have their being in the midst of the
terrors of the tyrant’s dominion, I¢ is indeed no
perfect world, thin; and one neods sino higher
light, such as Prometheus has, to propheny that the
gowd will ver triumph 5 but one neon forthwith that
fron thes porfoct world, if it ever comen, thene grout
atrivings for gon, thin sublime devotion and love
and hervian, must not wholly vanish. Thorne things
must net bes tail amides like old garments whenever
Promathous wine and is free; their spirit must be
preserved as an elonunt in the higher life of the
future. If they are worth anything, their true na-
ture must be eternal.
Amd as for the real worth of this world in which
the evil is so far triumphant —woe learn something
of that from Demoyorgon, This mysterious being
haw indewl no very definite religious philosophy to
Offer, Hoe mosts plain questions with vague san-
awern, whens Ania and Panthos catechise him; and
one fools it to be well for his reputation as # pro-
foun tomchesr that his questions aro neither men
nor Socratic inquires, Tut still what he tells of the
doep truth that in“ imagelons,” in onough to make
118 fess) that even this world of hurrorn in net withernst
0 dlivisus significnsun, Jove reignn, brut, whatever the
Vinibsles werrdsl ssuty bos, thes tristh of thing is a world of
hrergots sasscl lever, whesres thes real God is somehow abuve
all asl through all, o Spirit of Kternal Goodness
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 191
To have found this out in the midst of all the evil
is surely not to have found life wholly vain.
But then what happens? By the accident that,
according to Shelley, rules the world, the revolution
is accomplished, and Zeus is hurled headlong into the
abyss. What glorious life shall now begin? When
the deep and magnificent truth that was felt to be be-
neath all the horror of the tyrant’s reign, comes out
into full light, what tongue shall be able to sing the
glories of that beatific vision? We listen eagerly —
and we are disappointed. Prometheus arises grandly
from his bed of torture, and then —he forthwith
bethinks himself of a very pretty cave, where one
might be content to rest a long time in the refined
company of agreeable women. There one will lie,
and wreathe flowers, and tell tales, and sing songs,
and laugh and weep: and the hours will fly swiftly
by. And then what will become of the rest of the
world? Oh, this world simply becomes a theatre of
like individual enjoyments. Everybody to his cave
and his flowers and his agreeable companions, And
that will then be all. No organization: just good
fellowship and fragmentary amusements.
No that cannot be all, Shelley felt as much,
and added the last act of the play. There we are
to have depicted grandly and vaguely the life of or
ganized love, The world shall be all alive, and the
universal life shall join in the hyinn of praise. All
the powers of reality shall feel the new impulse of
perfect harmony, and what shall spring from their
union shall be some higher kind of existence, in
which there is no longer to be any talk of thine and
192 THE KRLIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
mine; but the “one undivided seul of many « soul,”
“wheres all things flow to all, aw rivers to the sen,”
shall enter upon a life of transcendent significance,
upon a tank of eternal duration, and of a meaning
tow high for us poor mortals of this present world
well to comprehend. But this is no longer pure
hedonism, although the verses heresbuuts are so full
of the joyous outhursts and of the anticipations of
rapture. In fine, the outcome in no perfect and har-
Mmonious comenption at all. We find the joy of the
free! and loving, yet till separate selves, and the
higher life of the all-pervading universal spirit, both
alike glorified; and we never get from the poet any
cClearnen alinut their actual relation. Is the world
blessed just because the tyrant no longer interferes
with cach man’s flower-wreathing and other amuse-
ments” Or is the sole sources of bliss the disposl-
tion of everyludly to give everybuly else everything?
Or in the real source of the perfection this: that
thene souls, no longer oppresmeal by hatred, have a¢
last nne to feel not only their freedom, but also
some higher sim of universal life? Shelley hints,
but dom not consistently make us feel, what his real
result is, There was in fact always about Shelley
that childish innocence of benevolent hope, to which
the only evil seemed to be the hatred of men for one
another, and the highest youl the outhurst of uni-
versal kindliness, Now that is the beginning of
moral insight, but cannot be all of it. As if the he-
nevolencs would not turn out to be utter emptiness,
unlems there is something beyond it! As if there
ewuld be any value in this unity of life, unless there
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 198
ia something to be done by the one life after it ia
united! As if the moral insight must not reveal
aome deeper truth than van be seen in its first mo-
ments |
One expecta what we are coming to. In discuss.
ing this problem of Shelley's we are reaching the
sense that the moral insight must be yet further
completed, or else it will be all in vain. The moral
insight says to us all: tet as one being. We must
come to that point; but we must also go beyond,
We must ask: What is this one being to do, after :
the insight has made all the individuals af one will?
And we already begin to see, in opposition to hedan-
iam, that it cannot be the end of this universal will
simply to make of us so and so many new separate
individuals once more. The mass of tedivusly happy
aelyea seems insipid to our comman sense, Just be-
cause wo all dimly feel the truth that we must now
come to understand better, namely, that the aniven
sal will of the moral insight must aim at the de
struction of all which separates us into a heap of
different selves, and at the attainment of some higher:
/ positive organic aim. The “one undivided seul”
we are bound to make our ideal. And the ideal of
that soul vannot be the separate happiness of you
and of me, ner the negative fact of our freedom
from hatred, but must be something above us all,
and yet very positive.
Had we deduced our principle in any other way
than the one we chose, we should be unable to take
this, our present nevessary step forwarda, The feel-
ing of aympathy, for instance, is converned with the
48
$94 THE RELIGIOUS ASPKOT OF PHILOSOPRY,
jndividual object of our sympathy. ‘To sympathize
with all men in to wish everybody happy, ouch ufter
his own fashion. Isut we rejected that anutional
wyinpathy as euch, Woe welds Thu facts of life show
usa confiict of wille, Vo reulive thin conflict is to
woe that no will in more justitad in ite soperatensns
than in any other, Thin reoulisation is wthical slap.
ticinn, » necomry stage on the way the true
moral jusight, ‘The ethieal doubt mune and is the
reulivation of thy conflict, Wut thin realization
eas, as wo new on reflection, w real will in us thes
unites thens reulinad wills iu one, and demands thu
wd of their contict, Thin is our reulization of an
Univerwd Will, The rewt of our ductrina must be
the development of the nature of the universal will,
This will fret mys to ouch of the individual wills:
“Rubmit thyself to me.” Or otherwise put, lot
wach will be wo acted out ae if by Ons Being who
canned in himuelf wl) the other wills, Senew the
univers will must demand, not the indofinitely con-
eahyed or diinby and sentimentally dewirad sepurute
wudinfaction of everybody, but an organie union of
life ; such wn union ae thin our world would try to
make of itaelf if it were already in emplrienl fact
what the universal will demunds St ty be, namely,
one Belf, This one Belf, however, could ny longer
will ty cut itaelf up again Into the separate empir-
jew) selves, any more than it could in any narrow,
priggios fashion set iteelf up for a new spockuen of
a lofty individual, to be obeyed as an arbitrary laws
giver, Jt would demand al) the wealth of life thas
the separate selvew now have; wad ull the unity thas
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 195
any one individual now seeks for himself. It would
aim at the fullest and mast organized life conceiv-
able. And this its aim would become no longer
merely a nezauve seeking for harmony, but a posi-
tive aim. demanding the perfect Organization of
Life.
OL
Bat the postalare of all hedonism. utilitarian or
other. this postulate of the absolute worth of indi-
vidual sansfacnien. finds its practical refutation for
every growing character in vet another form. Everv-
body has ted to realize the ideal of individualism,
this ideal of a happy or satisfied self. either for him-
self or for some loved ane: and everrbady finds. if
be tres the thing lene enengh. what a bollow and
worthless business it all is. If there is. or is possible
anywhere. a really satistied self. it certainly has no
place in anv fleshly bady: and the reasen is net
alone what disappointed people call the ~ disacree
able order of things in this wicked world” but the
Inner contradictions of this negen ef a perfected ha-
man self. Let us remind curselves of same of these
contradicnens.
Hedonism has neo meaning. unless the sansfied ha-
man self is lomeally possible. The ileal of beden-
ism. with all its vagueness. has at least one essential
element. in that it demands the satisfaction of he
man selves by the free supply of all that they destre
for themselves. Hedonism therefore must and dees
assert that what a man desires is his own content-
ment; so that. if you could. pbvsically speaking,
196 THE RELIGIOUS ASPKOT OF PHILOSOPHY.
give him all that he asks for himself, you would have
reached the goul for him. But now, if all this ina
delusion, if in fast a man does not really want his
own watinfaction alone, but doo actually want some.
thing more, that in not his individual satisfaction, and
that in not to be attained through his satisfaction,
then the hedonistic ideal doos not express the truth
of life. And thin paradoxical oxperionce we all get,
soonur or later, We find that our little nulf does
doxire something that, if gained, would be not its
own satisfaction at all, but its own destruction in ite
separate life an thin self. So the aim of life cannot
bo ultimately hedonistic. For, if possessed of the
moral insight, wo cannot will that each self should
get the greatest posible aggregate of separate natie
factions, when in truth no one of tho selves seeks
merely an aggregate of self-satinfrstions as much, but
when enh doos seok something olie that is unattaln-
able in the form of separate self-nnutinfaction,
But possibly a reader may incredulously demand
whore the proof is of thin self-contradictory dasire
that all the selves are declared to have, The proof
lies in the general fact that to be fully consaious of
one's own individual life as such in to be consaious
of a dintronting limitation, This limitation avery one
very shrewdly notices for the first in other people.
The knowledge of it expresses ituelf in personal erit-
fcinm. = Ono firat puts the matter very nafvely thus,
that, whoroas the rule of life for one's own person Sn
dimply to got all the sntisfaction that one oan, the
appearance of anybody elas who pretends to be gon.
tout with Aimsolf munt be the signal not for admire
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 197
tion at the sight of his success, but for a good deal
of contempt. One sees at once that he is a person
of serious limitations. One sees and feels perfections
that the other has not. One despises then the other
man’s complacency, because it is so plainly founded
in illusion, “If he could only see hinself as others
see him,” one says, “he could not be self-satistied.”
Criticism thus seems to indicate why he ought to be
discontented, and why he would, if he knew more,
feel a contempt for himself. All such criticism is
really an abandonment of the hedonistic principle.
If an individual ought to be dissatistied, although he
is actually satistied, and if he ought to be dissatistied
merely because he has not some perfection that ex-
ists in somebody else. then the doctrine that a self
reaches its cual in so far as it reaches inner content
ment is given wy No benevolent hedonist has any
business to criticise a happy man who is harming
nobody by his happiness. He is at the gual, or ap-
proximately sa Let him alone. To do otherwise,
by criticising hin, is a crime.
Rat no: every ove feels that the true gual is not
attained for this man. And this feeling, though in
itself as feeling it proves nothing, is the first sug
gestion to many af some deeper truth, This truth,
however, enters like iron into his soul, when some.
body else ably and justly and severely criticises him
in his turn, Here. for example, T have been for a
time content with myself, and have been saving to
my soul: * Soul, take thy ease” and here comes one
who says to me, very justly, * Thou fool” and points
out some great lack in my conduct, or in my charac
108 FH RELAIS ASKEAF OF PHILASOFHY,
tse, cn i ny Kavawledge, Awl now | have « wtrnage
eaperlcnes of contlicting paesione. ‘Pie eritie hind
essnddcoucel dave: sa, useage gosttiee, Wace duagom Fo faates hada feor it 5
Pit, bbaecea, wihveste Po gaee eovany saved Abedveke Ale detder cover,
Beets Ahiiah Ho tae dues Faach, bes do eighe: Plde perent bine
talents clevece saectisnlly eaten fore uc, and perbinpe TP ena
beh vestoteawes TRS cre Pecan dak crabfece Frente penae of
the bins eerie nied Jaen hetore, aad tere:
fever angry. EP tlhe crities dial aod oluewed ae ta
myself, Fo cbierialel Veawes fecget tlre blige. Mat it ie in
Wien wasn bee Abidaake oof vetaseiidinge tee teak Trmencenee, fl
si Vivedeced in wretch and a foods and thew whall £
wocnjus Hyeclt © Alas fur any deck qilensure i wane
fastvaqabiad dung dney Fianeacdacel gacefecestieane |
Bint nase < osannitort Pine Fiaech restarrae tar Rhiad ie HAPRRER,
ail tar ie Pliosfid illusion af any one wert one
nuns 0 Surely Pan if Eda bey adile, Pe flatter
Hayoclt tar ectagines Rhee HTB. tar tidh of fide jenlonsy and
of Vide Vlindnicans enrely thie will brig ae dened fa
bey igeaveensaaieces agesioe dn ine, Dhes will dae feegratten,
nel F ccesnetastiteced Phat sans Hirt, BY ethigditcned
wel vecrilta Frenne tide lie. Pls clectecot is rend, aed f
ease ik. Wonk any igenernsctoes mike it lewg real 7
Per Vite Mids sbecfecot aad tar etiffecr fram it is had
estertigede s Vat with Iuereee die Pew contecpilate the
whites orf geordvage rete Peavecvece with Aide defect, bat still
duraveraiek of ik anid eos tod cufhecring Fron it. My old
Fea msancacpreces etsaciany decsaddy goiniteal, Ga seactancad dy aedede seamed
ter Mey perecoenh pang of chagrin, tak | previonely
enigebik tar Waves Fed thee ohiagerinn, weed yeh hed ih met,
Envecaabele: when Fb oreHeet due, anid all that weltioh
wrnplaccnay, | really wie 4 fal te while tine, and
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 199
appeared so to discerning people. and vet knew it
not. And therefore now, through all the pang af
the discovery. runs the feeling that 1 would not if I
could, na, not for any dehght of complacency, return
to that state of hollow. delicious, detestable igno-
rance. It was a fool's paradise: but | have eacaped
from it. I know my nakedness, and I prefer the fruit
of the tree of knowledge. with bitter exile, ta the
whole of the delights of that wretched place. It is
a contradictory state. this, My knowledge is torture
to my foolish, sensitive self: vet while | writhe with
the vainest of pangs, I despise utterly the thought
of escaping it by lusion, or by forgetfulness, or by
anv means save the actual removal or conquest af
the defect. And this 1] feel even when the defect is
seen to be utterly irremoevable without the destruc
tion of myself. Detter go on despising myself. and
feeling the contempt of others, than return to the
delights of foolishness: or. if the pain of knowing
what I am is insupportable. then it) were better
te die. than to live in despicable icnerance. Oh,
wretched man that Iam! Who shall deliver me ?
Is all this mere emetion®? or is it insight? In
fact it is a growing, though still imperfect insight.
a form of the moral insight. The pangs of this
wounded self-love are themselves in trath alse van-
itv. hke the complacent self-love that they mourn:
but only through the cateway of this pain can mast
people get berond these vanines of individualism.
For this wounded self-love, that refuses te be conr
forted by anv deliberate return to its ald illusions,
is, as Adam Smith long since pointed out, an emo-
200 $$ THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
tional expression of the result of putting ourselves
at the point of view of our critics. We see our
limitations as they see them. Our will conforms
itself, therefore, to their contemptuous will concern-
ing us, because we realize the existence of that will.
In recognizing and sharing their contempt, we there-
fore realize in part the universal will that must con-
demn all individual limitations as such. We prac-
tically experience the truth that a perfectly fair judge
of us all would not be satisfied merely with our indi-
vidual contentments as such, but would also demand
the destruction of all our individual limitations. We
thus get practically far beyond hedonism. We see
that as we are weak and wretched in the eyes of one
another, we should all be far more so in the eyes of
a god Our ideal of life must then be the notion of
a life where no one being could fairly criticise any
other at all. But such a life would be no longer a
life of separate individuals, each limited to his petty
sphere of work. It would be a life in which self was
lost in a higher unity of all the conscious selves.
Singular may appear this conception even now,
after all that we have said; but it is a practical con-
ception in our every-day human life. That we criti-
cise the limitations of others, and desire them to sac-
rifice their pleasures for the sake of removing these
limitations, may be regarded at first as our cruel ca-
price, if you will so regard it. But when the edge
of the sword is turned against us, when we, feeling
the ditterness of criticism and seeing our limitations,
long to be beyond them, hate ourselves for them, and
yet refuse to escape from the pain of all this by
TRE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 201
forgetfulness of the defect, we pasa from capricious
criticiam to something higher. We accept with ag.
eny the point of view of the one whe atanda outaide
of us. And, ao doing, we pass in effect to the accep.
tance of the domanda of the universal will, If there
were a will that included in one conscioumess all our
eoparate wills, it could not will our individual de.
fevta aa wuch. It would be absolute critic, aa well
aa absolute harmoniser, of all of us It would tear
down these individual barriers of our petty lives,
as the vorporation of a great city may tear down
wretehed ald rookeries, It would demand that we
be one in spirit, and that our aneness be perfeet.
But if we experience thie universal will, we experi.
ence that hedoniam, who life-blood is the insistence
upon individual atates aa such, cannot be upheld by
the moral insight, cither now, or at any future stage
of our human life on this earth, We peresive too
that we all have a deep desire for selfleatruction, in
eo far aa we recognise that our selflave meana ab-
senve of perfeotion.
IV.
We have seen in general the moral outcome of in-
dividualiam. Lot us atudy some of ite forms and for
tunes more in detail, lndividualiam, viewed as the
tendeney to hold that the ideal of life is the separate
happy man, is itself very naturally the normal ten-
deney of unretlecting atrong natures, to whor happi-
ness has boon ina fair human measure alrvady given.
Children and child-like men, full of vigor, are inne:
vently seltiah; or, whon they act unselfishly, their
902 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
whole ideal is the making of others like themselves,
They fall into a notion about life that the author
not long since heard well-expressed by a cheerful
young friend, a former fellow-student, who, having
early plunged into a busy life, has already won both
influence and property. This man, full of the enthu-
' siasm of first success, was talking over his life with
the writer, and fell to defining his opinions on vari-
ous subjects, such as young men like to discuss. At
last he was asked about the view of life that he had
already formed in his little experience. Ile was
quick, honest, and definite in his answer, as he al-
ways has been. “ My notion of a good life is,” he
said, “ that you ought to help your friends and whack
your enemies.” The notion was older than the
speaker remembered ; for Socratic dialogues on the
Just, with their ingenious Sophists making bold as-
sertions, form no part of his present stock of sub-
jects for contemplation. But what was interesting
in the fresh and frank manner of the speech was
the clearness of the conviction that a world of suc-
cessful and friendly selves, whose enemies chanced
to be all recently “ whacked,” would be at the goal
of bliss. Such indeed is and must be the individ-
ualism of the successful and unreflecting man, by
whom all the world is classified as being either his
or not his, as to a cow all is either cow feed or not
cow feed. A man in this position has never yet
known the burden of Faust’s soul when he says,
Cursed be what as possession charms us. If such
& man gets any moral insight, it will be on this stage
imperfect. He will seek only to multiply himself
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 203
im the forms of other men. These he will call his
friends. That in which he does not recognize him
self, he will = whack.”
Bat most men cannet keep this form of the ill
ston of individualian, They pass most af their lives
in the midst of disappointment. The self cannot get
its objects The ideal independence is hampered.
The stubborn world asserts iwelf against us We
feel the littleness af our powers and af our plans
The broken and despairing self has tw wek refuge
elsewhere, And so individualism mest commanly
assumes another shapes la inner selfdevelopment
we seek what the world refuses us in euter self-realt
mation, Theughts at least are free. Our emotions
are our ewn, The world does net understand them ;
bat the world is cold: and anappreciative. Let us
be within ourselves what we cannot get in the outer
work, Let us be inwandly complete, even if we are
eutwanily failures Then we shall eatwit: the cruel
world, and produce the successful self) in: spite of
misfortunes.
The reader need net be reminded of what vast
development individualism has undergene tn this di
reetion, Literature is full of accounts of struggles
for inwanl self-realizadion, made by men whose outer
growth is impeded. The Hamlets and the Fausts
of poetry, the saints and the selfeonsetous marty
of great religions mevementsy are familiar examples,
We have already in a former chapter studied the out-
come of this romande individualism in a few cases,
There is no dime to dwell here afresh at any length
en sv familiar a theme, but for the present we may
~
204 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
point out that all illustrations of the tendency fall
into two classes, representing respectively the senti-
mental and the heroic individualism. These are the
forms of that Nobler Selfishness which benevolent
hedonism defends. They are efforts to find the con-
tented and perfected self. Their failure is the fail-
ure of individualism, and therewith of hedonism.
As for the sentimental individualism, we have seen
already how unstable are its criteria of perfection,
how full of fickleness is its life. The sentimental self
admits that the world cannot understand it, and will
not receive it; but it insists that this neglect comes
because the world does not appreciate the strength
and beauty of the inner emotional life. The ideal,
then, is devotion to a culture of the beautiful soul,
and to a separation of this soul from all other life.
Let other souls be saved in like fashion. One does
not object to their salvation; but one insists that
pach saved soul dwells apart in its own sensitive feel-
Inge, in the world of higher artistic pleasures. Now
in fact such lives may be not uninteresting to the
moralist ; but no moralist can be really content with
their ideal. Its best direct refutation is after all a
sense of humor strong enough to let the sensitive and
beautiful soul see once in a while how comical is its
demure pursuit of these subjective phantoms. This
miserable life of deep inward excitements and long-
ings, how absurd it seems to any critic who, standing
outside, sees that there is nothing more than froth
and illusion and hypocrisy in it. Heine’s anecdote
of the monkey boiling his own tail so as to get an
inward sense of the nature and worth of the art of
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 205
cookery, is what first comes to mind when we see
such a man as this subjective idealist of the eamo-
tions, You have only to get him to laugh heartily
ones of twice, and his Philistine narrowness can no
longer content him. “ Why is just my feeling worth
eo much?” be will say. And then he will wake up
to observe that hia ideal was all a bad dream: and
that an experience haa no more or lesa worth because
it happens in connection with the decomposition of
his particular brain-atuff. Faust discovered that, as
we have acen: and eo in time will any other sensible
man, The real reason after all why Mephistophe-
lee could not got Faust’s eoul was that Faust: could
understand the Mephistophelean wit, which was
throughout destructive of individualian, The sen-
timentalist who has no humor ia ance for all given
over to the devil, and need sign ne contract. He
etares into every mirror that he pasees, and, cursing
the luck that makes him move so fast in this work,
he murmurs incessantly, Verwesle doch, di bist so
ehva, And ao in the presence of the moral insight
he ia forthwith and eternally dammed, unless some
miracle af grace ehall save him. It is noteworthy
that ane or two of our recent and youngest novelists
in this country have gained a certain reputation by
ecntimental stories of collegiate and post-graduate
life that precively illustrate this aimplesninded but
abominable spirit, May these voung authors repent
while there is time, if indeed ther can repent.
Les dangerous 0) genuine morality, and far
higher in the wale of worth is the Titanic form of
individualiam, the form that baa given birth to such
UM TATE, RNASE ASI ETE OM PIIAAPHY,
taprommions ne thes Keerlseting No of “Aart Monee
trim.” Ths nites of Merennethusia ah contd springs to
anise Vigem obese wes thetike of this view of Vile. Mere
sash bucciame iy te Pealdy bess rergorecsessntsatives of Uitouniann,
thst Ahesees ime ones bastter way of chisrseterizing ite
wheels mgrteit. bbesare toe coll Gt thes Perey of Mrenne:
Absastsm, Wess Sineasseh cof sal seecorsad Neecrecceterne, satel this Isat.
Stes overe ll will sect, prrsseet, yer enstevsrd freedom, anal
yere waes thes bed Mereenena of tbiet inverter Difes of belecsmaad
esaentrbiertvs, «Yorn secagriaes Hh ite ertbusta s gerts tas bhiseh,
thes severed insight essed, sapeereges wach my for of
ra Gioeby mee prser satires any yeoe tor ine thee, Vath theres im
satettbre Seren of se lE de cederpernent. Yara satiate bas
parsceectbeannge. Why seta bees teenie, Verssoboly thas isbessel
im te weer ll ch camiengesnis sed yea, Mak fined theske poe.
Reachterne ine thee Veeebaspoeerabenace cf suction. VM rennesthectes
grsaves bbnics belated se possecerdison ersegebiasiss bey resent of tbees
Fass f, thesat bees basal sy Zocuns tay defy, Vt thes ssusses ileal,
itt $e seetrees siete lacese be: ben an rac eny, i bbe sebeied cof snsany
ss cqustect, sosbtece Of Fact nisin, hie bins Uitte binprpineaa,
brat seovseche grid sareed ccrrecrgey, vebies ass booty beeey sored bens
baaesabtday be bees woceatisnsecstosh, whee bentrns Little of poetry,
bees Bese puter brecter ed thite teseerees of Meets the sna, boat
Wher kenverws whit ih ta ta held his an in the fight
ovithy thes overedel, Chiis renter yer canned prot dean:
oes cesapere, Vittles Pear thas daprbtntentes fiethers There ia
tate jasd gees sabres beteas esnees Chen oor his conan he
43 pete esnteed. s beet bees be eh, decteh tere ssbensesbele fe Very,
Shas beecRertagem tae thes pss od Nobile | be belie cea ine
thus eregne| Of esteceretel ovsen Stars fags sai teat, hater ome
tr Nien evil, Nes cespeeeta anthers he winba bee ley
germ bee bois wvsny, Moat fies thitsnkes thi thie bee at eevee
THE CLGANTZATION OF LIFE. De
Get ee eoold do worl te « make otber mem brave
Te bommself 9 This bemeiv. acaive. indamitatk self
Boe tihimiks the odes arpe of perfeetam Por bim the
mporal Emachi dees pat gs terond the approval af
wtih Tnfe as this, infetiniteis mutipled
Tn os alwars & delrht te fallow this Tinanism
Tite wartomss sige Rodubosm as we know. 8 a re
Tnraem whodly feamded om seli-dezish amd hh cooks
enter wifexsimam Ani ve. bw a sracce freak
wif mural dialeeties. iz is Bodtzism ths: has mien
ws some Cd the best expressdzms cf the Tinazae ind-
Widimaiem Ins Rodctiss betty 2 the Soma Nb
ita“ ome may find sorb an vecttars as ibe foc
imypr.— ome of the foesg cf ibe iwetessooms cf the
Thoms - —
* Bisvimr hoi ade the rai acaieet a fetiticn and ue
Tmtime aor od thems et po cet wish tue a wc. Toh hese
for emp: : Jeo bon wander acme Che & rhoeore ron
+ En boo who bes icvemeere wit stems atevsons
mem nd ttem the suit whe fuosws akeveane = evesad-
emimr tbe misery iui car cubes it RSet. eG cet We
Ger wleme Eke a 2oipvern
+ Hie wibo thes ecemtuadsc tbs Sruemds and metdece
tall uma J:ses be irs ih. Lari a Temened
mimd= seme was dances i: imamisi sy ko ate warez
alime Ihe a rocserss..
+ Just asa dance asc eearee. WT Tis Prams ect
qfied im emch ener. sock is the care co has wok tree,
ami wate: bart Bhe the sheeq nf ute tacit meg tot
tp amrvtihime. Lett ome wacelet ce Lok: Thltee zk
+ Asp east mete! is ite dices oes feeeto ad Tura
2 Wiese Whitien’s Sere luis a we bok Tak. qust wp 8
=
208 THY NYLIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILOSOPHY.
tire, a7 let the wise man, considering only his own will,
warler alone like s rhinueerus, . . .
oo. * Diseemtented sre some sscotion, also some
honsshuldern, dwelling in houses; let one, caring little
about other people'’n children, wander alone like a rhinve-
ren,
“If one sequires » clever companion, an sssuciate right-
eous and wine, let him, overcnming all dangers, wander
about with him ylad and thoughtful,
“If one does not sequire & clever eumpanion, an sane-
tlate rightovus snd wine, then asa king sbundening his
conguered kingdotn, lot him wander alone like » rhinoe-
CHM oe
oo“ Kooing bright golden bracelets, well-wrought by
the geldumnith, striking against each other when there are
two on one arm, let one watler alone like « rhinoesros.
“ Thas, if 1 juin myself with anther, I shall swear or
seok! ; considering thin danger in future, let one wander
alone like « rhinwesrm. . . .
aoe Beth cold and heut, hanger and thirst, wind and
a burning san, and yulflios and snakes, — having over-
cones all thens things, lot one wander alone like « rhinoe-
orem,
“As the elephant, the strony, the spotted, the large,
after lonving the herd walks at plonanre in the furest, even
#0 let one wander alone like a rhineerm,. . .
* Net adorning himeel!, net looking ont for sport, amuse
ment, snl the delight of the pleasure in the worlds om
the cmtrary, being lath of » life of droming, spouking
the truth, let one wander alone like © rhinseeros, ..
12s" Thin in w tie, in this there is little happiness,
little enjoyment, but mere of prin, this iso fiehhook, so
having unlerstennl, lot w thenyhtful tnan wander alone
like « rhinuceron.
THE OBGANIZATION OF LIFE. 209
“ Having torn the ties, having broken the net as a fish
in the water, being ike a fire not returning to the burnt
place. let one wander alone hike a rhinoceros. . . .
. . “ Not abandoning seclusion and meditation, always
in the existences, let one wander alone hke the rhinoo
eros.
~ Wishing for the destruction of desire, being careful,
no fool, learned, strennous, considerate, restrained, ener
getic, let one wander alone like a rhinoceros.
~ Like a lion not trembling at noises, hke the wind not
caught in a net. like a lotas not stained by water, let one
wander alone lke a rhinoceros.
~ As a lion strong by his teeth, after overcoming all an-
imals, wanders victorious as the king of the animals. and
haunts distant dwelling-places, even s0 let one wander
alone like a rhinoceros.”
- - - “ They caltivate the society of others, and serve
them for the sake of advantage: frends without a motive
are now difficult to get, men know their own profit and
are impure; therefore let one wander alone like a rhinoc-
eros.
When one contemplates the ideal of the heroic in-
dividualism in this its purest form, ragged, empty of
sensuous comforts, vet noble and inspiring im all bat
the hichest degree. one feels how hard the decision
as to its worth will be, unless the moral insight gives
very definitely and authoritatively its ruling in the
mnatter. But fortunately, in trying to judge of even
so splendid a caprice as this, we are not left to our
individual opinion. The will of the Titan as to the
world of life is simply, by hypothesis, not the univer-
sal will. The one being that included in his life all
4
910 = THE NELIGIOTE ANPEOT OF PITILOMOPHY,
aut petty lives, how mint he vegearel thle med f-mesebe dingy
Joneliness of dlaposition 7? What ia this heroic Hfe
Init an overtlow from the groat stroam of universal
Jifes, oo poesl, tdiret, Vette tao dtaedf lay reste seebontel rig
flow, slowly drlew away in ite shallow atagnancy,
aditdl At Veeco med-poddle ? And as for the
proof of this, what becomes of your hero if you take
hidins tat ide wereld, satsel feseves dedi tar didtnmed fl Whe a ehh
noeeron 2 Then indeed he soon sithe te the level of
a peeviel: antioal, Els adedeadle eharreter ie whist
it in by renaon of dia contileta with bide fellows, andl
by reason of the reapect that he excites in others
Phtangs tsalbedsnge caloeoret Vaden, evetames xelersdedenge bidin, de tot
event Hplit, with Inde, dynes bdin utterly 5 and with
there external supports nee lide inner hevaisn vaninh,
Ile endete we here, die fact, otily deesene he in int ots
geretalee vesdatdente tar thes world abet didi. Pile hosted
hanelinens ie on dlusdlon, Contd not Mephistopheles
ataver Vide Venragele frevtes taney?
Bat thes Titan is often preoaperly the here not only
af aeomedy, but alan of & tragedy 4 and a tragedy,
aa we know, always dlacovers ta tte the gloomy wortle
lenses of this individaal Nfs ae anced. Mortal tan,
anes Ironght to posenn the moral doalght, fide ta
dewtiny tot ine bedtmedt, boat die thes Wifes abet bilan, oF
int the delonl life of Gail. And the tragedy expronses
one way of getting tile damdg ht.
fi shert, just wheat the Meresy of Prometheus tas
norte to be the perfort, namely, the complete and all
slileel development of Life, just Haat enn ledeng only
to the peneral, not to the individual Hfe, Hetes
Titanian always wonteadiote itnelf, tt anys that J,
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. Zi
the narrow, limited self, who am dependent for every
quality of my hfe on constant living intercourse with
wther people. must became perfect. Independent,
practically infinite. But to ask this is to ask that I
destroy myself. and my Titanisa with me. Unquiet
is and must be the hfe that seeks perfection m any
group af selves And so the teal cannot here be
found.
Vv.
Sanewhat hastily, as our limits have required, we
have pursued the definigen af our ideal through the
imperfect forms af individualism. And now what
must it be that the moral insight. with is Universal
Will, demands of the possible future moral humanity,
net as the negauive task af preparing the way for
goodness, but as the positive ideal task af the cam
munity in which the moral insight is attained? This
demand is: Organize ad Life Aud this means:
Find work for the life of che coming moral human:
itv which shall be so cunprehensive and detinite that
each moment of every man’s life in that perfect
state, however rich and manifold men's lives may
then be, can be and will be spent in the accomplish
ment of that one highest impersonal work, If such
work is found and accopral, the gual af human prow
ress will be mm so far reached. There will then be
harmony, the negative expression of the moral in-
sight : and there will be work, and organisation af
werk, And chis work will be no more the work af
90 and so many separate men, but it will be the work
uf man as man. And the separate nien will not
212 ##THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
know or care whether they separately are happy;
for they shall have no longer individual wills, but
the Universal Will shall work in and through them,
as the one will of two lovers finds itself in the united
life of these twain, so that neither of them asks, as
lover, whether this is his perfection or the other’s
that he experiences. For their love makes them
one. In such wise we must figure to ourselves the
ideal state of humanity. And anything short of
that we are required by the moral insight to alter in
the direction of that end.
| The reader may ask, What work can be found
| that can thus realize the universal will? It is not
, for us to know the whole nature of that work. We
set before us the ideal task to discover such forms
of activity as shall tend to organize life. The com-
plete organization we cannot now foresee. But we
can foresee in what general direction that human
activity will tend, if it is ever discovered. For we
have certain human activities that do now already
tend to the impersonal organization of the life of
those engaged in them. Such activities are found
in the work of art, in the pursuit of truth, and in a
genuine public spirit. Beauty, Knowledge, and the
State, are three ideal objects that do actually claim
from those who serve them harmony, freedom from
selfishness, and a wholly impersonal devotion. Both
in art and in the service of the state, the weakness
of human nature makes men too often put personal
ambition before the true service of their chosen
ideal, The faultiness of all such individualism is,
however, generally recognized. The dignity and se-
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 218
verely impersonal relationships and language of offi-
cial life are intended to express the sense that no in-
dividual has as such the right to recognition at the
moment when he exercises an official function. He
hves at the time wholly in his office. The state is
Just then everything. Even so all higher criticism
professes to disregard the personal pleasure of the
artist, and the personal whim of the critic. The
production and the criticism of Art are no amuse-
ments of two individuals. § They are work done
in the service of the one mistress, the divine art it-
self. But still, notwithstanding the recognition of
this ideal devotion to one’s country or to one’s art,
our typical politician and our typical ambitious an
tast show us that these activities still but imperfectly
overcome individualism, or lead men to the higher
plane of moral life. Better success in organizing life
one finds, when one passes to the activity of truth-
seeking, especially in fields where human thought
is best master of itself, and best conscious of its
powers. When one considers the work of a company
of svientific specialists, — how each one lives for his
science, and how, when the specialty is advanced
and well organized. no one in official expressions
of his purely scientific purposes dares either to give
himself airs of importance as an individual, or to
show any benevulence or favoritism or fear in con-
sidering and testing the work of anybody else; when
one sees how impersonal is this idea of the scientific
life, how no self of them all is supposed to have a
theught about his science because it pleases him,
but solely because it is true,— when one consid
Q14 TH BKIGIOUN ART Of PHILAOKOFHY,
ae ld tale, cones mess Falntly wheat the felewl redatden
of snssesaba dined wossdel bees, VF tees Velestl works for all sen
wesses Fasssssd, — TVabes cbesvertescd meshesrstdties mprbidt, dn Ite f
only an felon) even to-day s and all sorta of pornonal
pavcrtd ver WAST Nentesrfesres tay intord ftw purlty, Dut
Vesares, sat sald esversatin, corres weseam cUlardy Van tu cocvnseswester dete
whsssveces wheat, tdues corgslsitdons of Ufs ty york bere
crttnes,
Now suppones a world ti whieh men hal maine one
canned cf ceased vit baeat, cnnbteasd mconnnesticow call tdsee lies.
eit, wtalv binge cof cose cnsetaives, — eesmtdaertder, meecbead, theese
vestbestal, — Phangogocomes teal doa tics goseneadt of tile ened all
dbacs yrestdeyr, ooes im Ds salasam cof Vashi vbeleadn fnacd bese fore
gotten, Siappons that men wad no loners OT have
won tila geoonl hiding for mynelf ancl any felony,”
but only, Tbe poml in attadnedd,” ne mati by
Who, Paagoprones that thas all lifes was ongantvnd in
wel bvvestgele thie metivily, wo tit te rome ap
wiil by cleowir tar rent, ater wand leek, onerednend saved
+ puransarsese) Lab ssestassects, annests Vaden Fesldeowes, landbectel witty tdrcsae,
Vivessl cussed goleasnnnessl wihtde theesron, Vostlt bebe edtdem, wean
dered over thes coonnd, searohed the hewvenn with
Vibes Casbecmccengoerisy arbbesel Van Vad Veabovorreataortesm, essseage bode
crvagens, wirsotas Labs gocresnnny Veovessd sesnl cbbeud, ald fee the
wervied of thin one pron work, and knew bie Wife
dntly som tlaes savesiens tas meserves Closets cones ested, leet weal
Abucs Vehessad cof tvs sencrreal Tavabpelits doe ettocdivel, Whe
wecoelel cof Vifes wveonadel Joes sus cones WALL, woorkelange Checnaeh
a sane San odd, ssesesbedange (dees coords oof ser conte frdbvddial,
sardine ck for stay wtanpiel sessed sesestasebiaglesan ** apeyrese
geradas "cof Deb vdelsated wstastasy, Vooek prosthtdinge what am bie
wigclats Ht, clestarsasscln, (dees tabomeodistes Uaslty of Dafa, ‘Shen
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 215
indeed we shonld have reached the ideal: and this
heing the ideal all is good that helps us in the di-
racion thereof, and al] is evil that drives us im the
The imperfection and the relative jostificatiom im
its place of benevolent hadanism are thus Imdicated.
The moral inacht beme attamed by al] men as an
expenenoe. this Inacht oonld not will for individuals
sach painfo] expenences as wonld decrade the snf-
ferers below the level of the nacht itself. hack to
the strnrcles and the ilesions of indinduahsm. It
would he the busmess of men then as now, to remove
nseless pain out of the world. nat however for any
ether reason than that pai imphes separanan af
the sofferer from the oanscionsness of oniversal Life.
and conseqnent disharmanr of his will in rs relation
to other wills. Pain that sprmes from selfish disap-
pomtments we must often temporary meraase. that
we mav laad a man ont of himself. Rat for the
rest, the moral insicht rejects pain. thench only he
canse it maans disharmony af the wills that are m
the world.
Thus we have oompleted the expresnan of our cem-
eral jdaal. We must add a few onncrete precepts
that this jdaal has to cive ns ammoerning the oonduct
of onr daily hfe. Piainhy. if soch a penal as this is
what we aim at from afar. the acts of aor hres must
be inffmenced by 2 | What relation herween me and
mv netchbor todar does this moral law establish ?
Thon and 1, neichbor, have in this world no mehts
as individnuala We are instroments. The insicht
that herins in me when | find thee. must so further
] | afr :
916 §# THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
I find not only thee, but also Life Universal. In-
asmuch as I do anything for thee, I do it also to
the life universal; but, even so, it is only because
I serve the life universal that I dare serve thee.
Thy happiness, however near and dear thou art to
me, is but a drop in this vast ocean of life. And
we must be ready to sacrifice ourselves to the W hole.
But while we live together, and while we may with-
out sin enjoy each other’s presence, how shall we treat
each other? As mere masses of happy or miserable
states? As selves to be made separately perfect!
No, that cannot be. We must live united with each
other and the world. Therefore must we do our
part to find work vast enough to bring us all in so
far as may be into unity, without cramping the tal-
ent of any of us. Each then is to do his work, but
so as to unite with the work of others. How may
we accomplish this? By seeking to develop every
form of life that does bring men into such oneness.
Our vocation, whatever it be, must not end simply
in increasing what people call the aggregate happi-
ness of mankind, but in giving human life more
interconnection, closer relationship. Therefore we
must serve as we can art, science, truth, the state,
not as if these were machines for giving people pleas-
ant feelings, but because they make men more united.
When we urge or seek independence of character,
we must do so only because such independence is a
temporary means, whose ultimate aim is harmony and
unity of all men on a higher plane. In all this we
must keep before us very often the high ideal that
we are trying to approach. And when we judge of
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 217
a goad action we must aay, not that this was good be- ,
vane it made some one happy, but that it was good
lowaune it tonded directly or remotely to realize the
Uoiversal Will,
And av, however much mere harmony may be our
aim, we muat be ready very often temporarily tu fight
with disorganizing and scparating tendencies, forves,
erimen, When we fight we must do se for the sake
af conquering a peace in the name of the Highest.
And ao we muat fight resolutely, fearlessly, mervei-
learly. For we care not how many stubbornly disor
ganiaing apirita are crushed on the way. The One
Will must conquer, But on the other side we must
be very careful of every soul, and of every tendency
that may, without destruction, be moulded into the
wervice of the Univeral Will) The moral insight
desires that no hair fall from the head af any living
creature «annecesaarily, “The one alm is stern to its
ateadfast cnemies, but it is innitely mganiful af all
the single aims, however they may seem waywand,
that can at last find themselves subdued and yet
raliged in its presence, and so conformed ty its will,
All these rivulets of purpose, however tiny, all these
strong floods af passion, however angry, it desires 60
gather into the surging tides of its infinite ocean,
that nothing may be lost that consents to enter. ts
unity is no abstraction. The One Will is not a one-
sided will, Tt desires the realisation af all possible
lif however rich, strong, antent, courageous, mani-
fold such life may be. if only this life can enter into
that highest unity. All that has will is sacred to it,
save in so far as any Will refuses to join with the
918 THE MELIGIOUS ASPEOT OF PIILOSOPIY,
others in the song and shout of the Sons of God.
Its warfare in never intolorance, ite demand for suly-
mission i4 never tyranny, ites senne of the excellence
of ith own unity in never arrogance; for its warfare
in aimed at the intolerance of the separate selves,
itn yoke in the yoke of complete organic freedom,
ith pride in in the perfect development of all life.
When wo sorve it, wo must sternly cut off all that
life in ourselves or in othors that cannot ultimately
conform to the universal will; but we have nothing
but love for every form of sentient oxistence that can
in any measure express thin Will.
VI.
We have done for the present with the ideal, and
must turn to reality. Our religious conseiousness
wants support for usin our poor efforts to’ do right.
Is this real world that we have so niively assumed
thus far, in any wise concerned to holp us in realizing
ideals, or to support un by any form of approval in
our search for the right? Wo munt face thin prob-
lem coolly and skeptically, if wo want any result.
Wo must not fear the thunders of any angry dog-
matic thinker, nor the pain that such researches must
ean us if they are usuecomful, It is something
very precious that we seck, and we must run great
rinks, if nood be, to get it.
Let ius begin to define a little better what this is
that wo neck, By a support for moral acts in outer
renlity, we do not mean merely or mainly a power
that will reward goodness. The moral insight cares
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 219
not for individual rewards. Only the good intention
is truly moral. Good acts done for pay are selfish
acts. So the outer support that we want in our mo-
rality is not reward as such. We want to know that,
when we try tu do right, we are not alone; that there
is something outaide of us that harmonizes with our
own moral efforts by being itself in sume way moral.
This something may be a person or a tendency. Let
us exemplify what we mean by some familiar cases.
Job seeks, in his conseiousness of moral integrity,
for outer support in the midst of his sufferings.
Now whatever he may think about rewards, they are
not only rewands that he seeks. He wants a vindi-
cator, a righteous, all-knowing judge, to arise, that
ean bear witness how upright he has been; such a
Vindivator he wants to see face to face, that he may
call upon him as a beholder of what has actually
happened. “Oh that I knew where I might find
him, that I might cume even to his seat. I would
order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with
arguments. I would knew the words which he
would answer me, and understand what he would
tay unto me... . There the righteous might dis-
pute with him ; so should I be delivered forever from
my judge. Behold 1 go forward, but he is not there ;
and backward, but I cannot perveive him: On the
left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold
him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I
cannot see him: But he knoweth the way that I
take: when he hath tried me I shall come forth as
gold.”
So again in the great parable of the judgment day,
220 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, the moral
force of the story is not expressed by the rewards
and punishments described, any more than in Elijah’s
vision on Horeb,—the Lord was in the thunder and
in the fire. But the moral force of the scene lies in
the concluding words that the judge is made to speak
to the multitudes of just and unjust. “ Inasmuch as
ye did it unto the least of these, ye did it unto me.”
That is, if we may paraphrase the words of the judge:
“J,” he says, “represent all beings. Their good is
mine. If they are hungry or naked or sick or im-
prisoned, so am I. We are brethren; ours is all
one universal life. That I sit in this seat, arbiter
of heaven and hell, makes me no other than the rep-
resentative of universal life. Such reverence as ye
now bear to me is due, and always was due, to the
least of these my brethren.” The infinite sacredness
of all conscious life, that is the sense of the story ;
the rest is the scenic accompaniment, which, whether
literally or symbolically true, has no direct moral
significance. Now the knowledge such as Job sought,
the knowledge that there is in the universe some con-
sciousness that sees and knows all reality, including
ourselves, for which therefore all the good and evil
of our lives is plain fact, — this knowledge would be
a religious support to the moral consciousness. The
knowledge that there is a being that is no respecter
of persons, that considers all lives as equal, and that
estimates our acts according to their true value, —
this would be a genuine support to the religious need
in us, quite apart from all notions about reward
and punishment. A thinking being, a seer of all
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 221
good and evil, is thus desired. This thinking being
would sal have religious significance, even if it had
wo other attributes than these, Should we find it
necessary to regard this being as without affection,
sympathy, or even power to act, as without willing.
mess to avenge wrongdoing, if we had to deprive it
af everything else that is human save knowledge ;
let this be a passionless and perfect knowledge,
an absolutely fair judgment of our moral actions,
and there would sull be in the world something of
religious value. It is not affirmed that we ought
to rest content with such a conception as this, but
at all events this conception would not be valueless.
Kren so again, the conception of some natural ter
dency in the workd that, being “a power not our
selves.” “ makes for righteousness.” this conception,
as Mr. Marsthew Arnold has so well shown us, would
have a religious value. Something of this kind then,
more or less definite and full of life, is what we wek.
What indication is there that such search is not
hopeless? For the author's part, he professes to be
quite willing to accept any result of research, how.
ever cloomy or skepuical, to which he is led by gen. ¢
wine devotion to the interests of human thought as
thought. But he insists that as nraral beings we
should make clear te ourselves what are the Inter.
ests af thought, and that we should see whether ther
do lead us to results that are not whally skeptical,
nor altogether cloomy. There is no reason for clip.
Pug our own wings for fear lest we should escape
from our own coups and fy over the palings into
eur own garden, Let us get all the sadisfaction froma
202 ~=s« THE «RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
philosophy that we can. In truth we shall never get
too much.
But, for the rest, the reader must be reminded of
one thing that was said in the opening chapter about
the magnitude and boldness of the demands that re-
ligious philosophy makes in coming to the study of
the world. We said that we will be satisfied only
with the very best that we can get. We want to
find some reality that our ideal aims can lead us to
regard as of Infinite Worth. If we cannot find that,
then the best possible aspect of reality must be
chosen instead. We will not be satisfied with little,
if we can got much. Our religious demands are
boundless. We will not falsify the truth; nor yet
will we dread any disaster to our ideal aims, how-
ever great the disappointment that would result from
failure. But, while pursuing the truth with rever-
ence, we will not withdraw our demands until we see
that we can get no certain success in them.
Wo innist, therefore, that the religiously valuable
reality in the world shall be, if #0 we can find it, a
Supreme Reality, no mere chance outcome of special
circumstances, but an ultimate aspect of things.
Furthermore, the special form that our ideal has
taken demands another character in our object of
religious satisfaction. It must be such as to support
the realization of our particular ideal. If a power,
it must aim at the unity of our lives; if in some
other way approved as the deepest truth of things, it
must show us how our ideal cither can be realized
by us, or else is already realized at the heart of this
truth.
THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE. 333
Such ia the work of our second book. We ap-
proach it not aa if wo expected any myatical revels
tion, but aolely aa having for our one desire to find
out what a scnaible man ought reasonably to think of
the world whervin he finds himeelf,
CHAPTER VIIL
THE WORLD OF DOUBT.
WHEs we torn from our world of ideals to the
world actaally about us, our position & mot ak once
a happy posmon. Thee meal that we have agreed
upon, in =) far as they are our own, do not make the
workd and mesns Very naturally. then, we ako
For if we want a relizivns doctrine that im thes days
ean stand a im good stead, we must fear notching,
and reost ron the risk of all the disasters of thought.
The warfare of fabs 35 so angry and anetent, that
we must be content if. with our best efforts. we get
anything out of at all As millbons of brams must
twal, doubtless, for centartes befure any amount of
ideal agreement among men & attained or even ap-
proximated, we mast be content if we do very little
amd work very bard. We ean be talerably ceram
thas. in a workd where nearly all & dark very moch
of ow bhor will be wasted. Bot thn bs nstural
There ts the delight of activity im trath-seeking ; bat
when, at the outset, you compare your hopes and
you may reach. the comparkem cannot seem other
we than melancholy. Throegh the failures of mil-
926 = THE BELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY,
lions of devoted servants, the humanity of the future
may powibly (we do not, at least at this point in our
wtady, kasow that it will certainly) bre bed to a gral
auc, This far-off diving event to which, for all
we know, our fragment of creation may be muaving,
but which at any rate we regard with longing aud
delight, constitutes the moral alin of our philowaplis
whudies, It ie gonad ty wtrive,
Jn the present chapter, therefore, we shall devote
ourselyes for the most part to negative eriticion of
eertain views that are or may be held about the real
world.
5,
That skepticium in studying reality is to some ex-
fant useful, most people will admit, Dut not every
fons will follow us wt once bute the thorough-going
and uncompromising skepticinn that wa shall have
ty present in the following as the very basis of our
powitive doctrine, It is surprising how easily the
philosophic need ie satisfied fn the minds of mout
persons, even in the minds of many professed philo-
wophic students, A few yery wnnplacent questions,
remlily if unintelligibly answered, put to rest the
whole devire that such people feel to crow-examine
reawon. In fact they seem to hold that a certain
Uerespect would be shown by questioning reason
any more sharply; and so thelr philomophy ia like
Congressional jnvestigation of the doings of « politi-
chan, conducted by his fellow-partieans, Wut we feel,
in writing this book, that such a philosophy, whowe
only business it into * whitewash” renaon, ie wa ie
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 229
sult to reason. Reason's investiyations of its own na-
of effect ; nor does reason seek, like a demagugue, to
get a popular “ vindication,” bat solely to reach the
deepest possible insight into its own absolute truth.
Hence we refuse utterly to have the following re
garded as in any narrower sense an “apology ™ for
any religious truth, since the defensive or apologetic |
attitade in presence of religious problems ts once for’
all an insult te genuine religion. If there is truth |
absolute, we desire to know the same, and if we ever
get a glimpse of it, doubtless it will need very hide
apology from us. But meanwhile we propese to|
doubt fearlessly and thoroughly. If our hits pre
vent here the proper exhaustive search for all the
actual difficulties of the views that we present, still
we want to have, and as far as may be to show, the
spint of honest, determined. conscientious skept-
esm. A clerical friend of the auther’s impressed
him very much in early vouth by the wands: * God
hkes to have us doubt his existence, if we do so sin-
eerely and earnestly.” These words are almost a
truism: they surely ought to be a truism. Yet they
have been forgutten in many a controversy. Sarely
if Gud exists, he knows at least as much about phi
Josophy as any of us do: he has at least as much ap-
preciation for a philosophic problem as we can have.
And if his own existence presents a fine philusophie
problem, he delights therein at least as much as we
dea. And he then does not like to we that problem
half-heartedly handled by dmid. whining, trembling
men, who constantly apologize to Gud because the
280 «THR RRLIGIOUA ABPEOT OF PHILOSOPHY.
existence of cortain fools called atheists forces them
to present in very pious language cortain traditional
proofs of hin oxistnes. No, surely not in this spirit
would « rational God, if he exists, have us approach
the question, Hut with at least as much coolness and
clearness of heal as we try to have when we til over
a problem in mathomation; with at least as merciless
an analysis of all that is obscure and doubtful and
contradictory in our own confused ideas as we should
use in studying selenes; with at least an much eager.
ness in finding out the weuknewm and the uncertainty
of mon's wavering and illtrained judgments an we
should bring to the examination of an important
commercial investinont,— with at least so much of
caution, of diligence, and of doubt we should ap-
proach the rational study of the Highest. Kor what
can insult God more than carslon blundering? It
fy shameful that men should sver have treated this
matter an if it wore the aim of religious philosophy
to have «a store-houne of formulates traditional an-
swore rouly wherewith to silence cortain troublesome
poople called doubters, In those matters the truly
philosophic doubt is no external opinion of this or
that wayward pomon; this truly philosophic doubt
fn of the very onnences of our thought, It le not to
be “answered "or “sileneasd” by so and so much
apologetics plouling, The doubt is inherent in the
aubject-mnattor aa we must in the Inyinning regard
thier marries, Thain clenabt, bo ter ber sccssqrted an it cotnes,
sural thresta ter bees clesvesdergoesed inn all ite filles and in all
itw inntenmity, Mor the truth of the matter tn con
eeuled in that daubt, we the fire in concealed in the
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 231
stony coal. You can no more reject the doubt and
keep the innermost truth, than you can toss away the
coal and hope to retain its fire. Zhia doubt is the
inaight partially attained.
Such must be our spirit. And now, to apply it
at once to the problems before us, where shall wo be-
gin our search for « religious truth? We are to find,;
if possible, some element in Reality that shall have
religious significance. But how shall wo do this un-
less wo have made clear to ourselves in what sense
we know Reality at all? It would seem that our re-
ligious philosophy must begin with the problem of all
theoretical philosophy : What can be our knowledge
of this world, and whereon can this knowledge be
founded ? |
A dark and dianal topic, one may say. But re-
member, here and here only can our beloved trens-
ure be found buried. Either there ia no religious
philosophy possible, or it is here; and here we must
delve for it. Nor let one be too much terrified at
once by the forbidding axpect of the question. It is
indeed no caay one; yet to anawer it is but to know
the real meaning of our own thoughta. This truth
that we scck is not in the heavens, nor in the depths 5
it is nigh ua, even in our hearta. Only inattention
can be hiding it from ua. Let us look closer.
This real world that popular thonght declares to
exist outside of ux —we have so far taken it on
trust. But now, what right have we so to take it?
What do we mean by it?) When we say that we
can know it, do we not mean that it is in some way
bound to conform to some of our thoughts? Or, if
O82 THM RELIGIONS ASVEAT OF PHILAKOFHY,
yes will prt the inatter in the reverse orler, and
Will wmy, with morerrssitage ssrcwlemty, that cnr thenight ia
wy enmimbitratonl sam tes haves so ccocrtaity Vilcortvenm tr reveal.
ity, der yon remlly make the matter clearer? The
srywterionin cunfermity betoveen nay thenaght ssl
what in ne themght of ours remains, and we have ts
make clout «nr senuiratin of that, Thin semranee
Stwvosht, 14 wes geost it, wwertalel moresten tor bees ina Sram Cher mmere
prmition wn in thes camferinity of whish it in tes semere
tin, taal mgemizn wersslel bos erratatsles oof the external real
wesrlsl, snl ine conse thenagghst, Yor thin ammerancses lw to
tel) tam sarmesethinge aburit that external world, namely,
Sta cumfermnity to certain of our thinychte, What
can we thin kivrw abunit any external objet wt all 7
Shes Aifticulty in une ob one, One wolation of it,
$f wes seek sssry, snrtamt Mestesrassitus thes whales of cnr re
Jigghsrnan thunight, Tat un noe at all events where the
Aiftiosalty urinen, and why, Whusther er ne there in
gurl tiles srry scodesticns, the difficulty plainly New in
certains camnessiveul redaticmn bectween tas wand the world,
AAV thess coresersecrts trrectenghrysbeml satel reslighsin ancterinen
Hargeden Voy mecttdenge mo thiteolecce erverr sageuitint ann external
wereld, which fos cheseDsavenl inrclesgoestscbectst of hin themaght,
tassel whoivcly brim Saemnagehet im theres reveqrsivenl or gernmgs aniel
lerverw, §— 'Thrins wsagrprmel vesationn of werbeferest, mand csbejenst
selves aevesteagsbay mises Hho wecessenlengely Stameabestibes grrcbolestnim,
Sivin thrinslecce, whrrnes theersagehet fn cornes Fucct, wheiler that
wereld erat Chesres be snrthuse fot, berw mts be learn by
whist teabesem poleases Ste aie Oherragetot, thet bm, fen thoes conse
th tbresmes Lever mtagrgoracssl crabitierm, ovbiset sects core Ste thes
rb beacer oof ASrcemes ecantit.deres, somenedy, ine thes wereld 7 Cereus
fore all, thin ronrvelenin roslation of prretutallinhed hue
NS a a
THE WOELD OF DOUBT. 333
mony between these supposed separate entities de-
mands philosophic deduction. The relation, to be
sure, may be itself a metaphysical figment. We
hold that it is. We shall trv to show hereafter the
baselessness of this notion of a work! of external
fact on one side, in the barren isolation of its tran-
seendental reality, with an equally lonesome thinker
on the other side, sumehow magically bound to fol-
low after the facts of that workd. We hold, to put
it in plain language. that neither the external world
ner the individual thinker has any swed reality as
traditional pepular behefs, together with most met-
aphysical schools, have desired us to assume. But,
for the first, we cannot yet undertake to trouble the
reader with this our philosophic speculation. That
will come in its good time, we hope not toe unintel-
hgibly, and it will have its place in var religious
We begin, however, with the popular metaphys-
feal concept, of a separate external workd, and of a
thinker bound somehow te repeat the facts af it in
his theaght. We ask. with popular metaphysics:
How can we be sure that he does this? And from
metaphysical systems, both popular and unpopular,
we get an amazing jargon of answers.
The mest popular answer, after all, is a threat. a
threat repeated endlessly in all sorts of apologetie
bouks, but still a mere base, abject, wholly unphilo-
sophical threat. It is said to us that we must be-
heve our human thinker tv be capable of thinking
correctly the facts of this supposed external work,
because, if he does not, the result will be disastrous
984 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHIS.OSOPHY.
\to the whole common sense conception of the world.
If this thinker does not somehow magically repro-
duce external facts in his private mind, then is our
faith vain, and we are all very miserable. It is as-
tonishing how this, the most helpless abandonment
of all philosophic thought, is constantly reiterated
by certain of those who pretend to be philosophers.
Can a threat scare us from philosophy? To geta
sure foundation for our religion, we begin by asking
how a man can really know the external world at
all. We get as reply the threat that, unless we ad-
mit the knowledge of the external world, we must
be in eternal doubt, and therefore wretched. To
doubt this knowledge, we are told, would be to
doubt all that makes life worth living. But it is
Just because we want to find a sure basis for what
makes life worth living that we begin with this
doubt. We are determined to get at the root of
this matter, however bitter may be the evil that will
befall us if our skepticism does not succeed in get-
ting past this guarded gateway of philosophy. We
persist in asking, all threats to the contrary notwith-
standing, just how and why and in what sense the
external world can be known to us, if indeed this
conception itself of an external world is justly
formed at all.
Yet we grant that the full force and need and
bitterness of our problem may not be plain to the
reader, unless he has first undertaken to examine
with us at some length the philosophic character
and consequences of this popular metaphysical con-
veption of the external world. To get him to share
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 235
well our doubt, we must first provisionally accept
this notion of popular metaphysics itself. We must
waive for the moment our difficulty, that it may re-
our to us with greater importance by and by. Let
the reader once come to see that this popular notion
of an external world is an utterly vague conception,
capable of numberleas forma, and religiously unsat-
isfavtory in all of them, and then we shall expect
him to feel the force of the deeper philosophic prob-
lems involved. This present chapter will therefore
proceed directly to an examination of the popular
notions about the external world. We shall exam-
ine them, namely, to find whether they offer any
religious aspect. We shall find that they do not
offer any such aspect in any satiafactory sense.
That the good is supreme in the external world as
popularly conceived, nobody can establish. This
supposed external world is once for all a World of
Doubt, and in it there is no abiding place. When
the reader has come to feel with us this truth, then
he will be ready to look deeper into the matter.
Then some other more genuinely philosophic con-
ception of Reality will have its place. Hence in
the rest of this chapter we shall be accepting pro-
visionally notiona that we are hereafter to reject,
and assuming ‘much on trust that is at best very
doubtful. We shall show that, even so aided, the
popular notions about the religious aspect of thia
world cannot bear critiviam. Thia visible world of
popular faith will lose its worth for us. We shall
have to look elsewhere.
The religious significance once removed from the
286 THR RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILOSOPHY,
popular realistic philosophy, with ita crudely mete
physical notion of things, we shall be ready to Heten
to skepticiam about the foundations of this notion |
and we shall be ready for some new conception.
This new conception will Indead not falalfy the true
moral monning of that Innocent faith In a real world
upon which we have so far depended {n our research,
The popular notion of an external world, practioally
useful for inmany purposes, and mfficient for many
aclontifie ands, will be refuted and rejected in ita
contrullctions and in ite absurditles, but the soul of
truth that in in it will be absorbed into a higher
conception both of the eternal Reality and of our
relation thereto, Our seeming lows will become our
gain. That bad dream, the dead and worthless
World of Doubt In which mast of our modern teach-
ers remain «tuck fast, will be transformed for ws,
Woe shall seo that the truth of §¢ lea higher World,
of glorious religious significance.
Bo for the first wo turn to that supposed world of
popular mataphysions, to text ite ratlglous value, It fs
concalved naa world existent in space and time, and
awn world of real things which act and Interact, For
convenience sake, we shall in the following use the
word Power to moan any one of these things, or any
group of them, that in thin external world may be
supposad to prodiuse affects upon any other thing or
group of things, However thos Powers get thelr af.
floloney, the religious significanos of the supposad ax.
ternal world, If it has any, must He in the supremaay
of the CGiood in thin world of the Powers, One mast
thon view this external world historically as a mass
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 237
of Powers, which work together in harmony or in
discord, and which give you Products. The religious
ideals must find satisfaction here, if at all, im con-
templating the goodness of these powers and of their
works. If the rehgiour ideals here fail, there will
be the other aspect open. Regarded im a truly phil-
osophical way, and in its eternal nature, the world,
as we shall hereafter come to see, cannot be supposed
to be either a power or a heap of powers. For pow-
ers have their being only in time, and only m rela-
tion to one another. If then all fails when we con-
sider this external world of powers, this figment of
popular metaphysies, the eternal nature of realty m
some deeper view of that nature may still be found
of infinite value to us. In fact we shall find the
search for a religious truth, among the powers of this
popularly conceived external world, very dishearten-
inv. The jargon of their contending voices will noé
unite into any rehgious harmony. We shall find
these powers hke the thunder and the fire. The still
small voice is not in them. We shall be driven to
some other aspect of the world. We shall approach
that aspect in ways that imply no disrespect to those
who have been sv long scientifically studying the
history and forces of the assumed external world.
Their results, with the practical consequences in daily
hfe, and with all that Agnosticism about the nature
and parposes of the powers of this visible world
which such men nowadays feel bound to proclaim,
we shall on the whole accept. We too shall be Ag-
ties, namely, as to the powers that rule the visible
world. But we shall find a very different way, un-
L4dalOlas
t (
288 THR RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
trodden hy scientific research, and yet, we hope, not
a way of mere dreams, not a way into a world of
fancy, but a way that leads us to a point whence we
get a glimpse into that other aspect of things. This
way Modern Idealism since Kant has been busy in
finding and clearing. [low wearisome sume of the
exploring expeditions have been, we well know. Our
search alnxo may end in a wilderness; but we fancy
ourselves to have found an open path that to some
readers will seem at least in part new. And some
of the prospects on that road may not be wholly dis-
heartening, even to the most exacting religious
secker. But all this is anticipation. First then:
‘The World as a theatre for the display of power,
| physical or metaphysical. This is the World of
Doubt.
IL
Let us begin our study of the powers that work to-
gether in the supposed external reality, by accepting
for a moment, without criticism, the notion of this
supposed external world from which sctentifie eape-
rience sets out. Let us say: there it is, an objective
world of moving matter, subject to certain laws. All
the powers are but manifestations or forms of mat-
ter in motion. VPlancts revolve, comets come and go,
tides swell and fall, clouds rise and rivers flow to the
sea, lightning flashes, volcanoes are active, living be-
ings are born, live, and die, all exemplifying certain
universal principles, that are discovervble by experi-
ence, that are capable of being used to predict the
future, and that are related to one anther in suck a
THE WORLD OF DOUAT. 239
way aa to ahow ua a vast connected whale, the nat
wral universe, Thia matter however ba dead; these
lawa ave ultimate given truth We did not make
them, eannat see why juat they and none other were
from the beginning: we mat acvept them aa they
are, The whole world ta a vaat machina A mind
powerful enough might be poaessed of the knew
edge that La Place, and, in our own generation, Prof,
Du Bola Reymond, have ao finely deseribed aa the
atentitie ideal, Sueh a mind might have an univer
val formula, in ita powieadion, a key to the myatertea
of the anoceadon af phenomena. Sueh a being could
then, walng thia formula, caleulate all eventa, aa as
tranamera now predict celipsea, At every inatant
multitudes of alr pulaationa quiver about wa These,
tn all thelr forma, aur mind poaeaaed af thin univer.
aal formula, would have been able to predict agea
agro, juat aa certainly aa you now can predict that the
aun will rise teamarrew morning, All ia predeter
mined: the glitter of every lee cryatal on your frasen
windewepanea on a winter morning, the quiver of
every muaele in the death agony af the flah that you
pull out of a mountaliatream, the falling af every
yellow leaf in the autumn weoda, — each af those
eventa could have been foreseen, mathematically cab
eulated, and fully deavribed, by ane able to wae the
universal formula, and poaemed, myriads af wana
wr, of an exact knowledge af the poadtiona of the
atana af the original nebula fram whieh our great
utellar ayatem condensed, Such da the natural warld,
What religiona aapect can thia vast machine pow
waa? What room iv there for a higher clement te
far:
11 rr |
drat, ef
G40 so THK RELIGIONUN ANPEOT OF PHILONONTY,
foes Faatereoeboncsend Minter Chile rasan of clewl mathemationl
facta’? ‘She anawarof nome roprancutativen of sab
ane in our day ie well known tou. Whatever alae
Hn clevsabotfral, many mncesbe tenestn, threvser wtesscle fant ther perent
law of progres, Kivolutlon in the physiol world
Drevesernsncrm secstngcel poreogcrevon Fee thier world eof traran Hie.
Sheer weorlel, sssvcdere thaes Veathrscsnncses cof call Chimes fraor-reeacte.
Inge lawn, In catenlly growling forever better, ‘Then
natural law agro with morality, ‘Thus there tea re
Nylon nnpenst to the mechanionl laws of the snlverne,
Fast in connor ones more the law of propre,
Wo spoke of It ina previous chaptor, Mere it did
sires bess tam, Mor wes weetstenl tar cygrene topen thie tae
tire of inorality, We were treat beslpewd towered nth
maggrevesstnertit, boy thes Aerscowlevelgces tbat threes fe tte thie
world & physlonl evolution, Mor wo sould not tall
what cnght to be, sneroly by ccnmbelorlige what is.
Wo bial flest, to agren tpon a moral law, before we
cartel clevsheles whether evolution Ie actully prregeren,
But now, prrhiagen, we cnn tke cane of the law of
cvverdeat denny tar eabel canner Uaneqsadery Vantar thes weed dgelersam semprenest
af rendity, Moe now, bnevdige clotined wheat thier geod
Jong wos snniny comtdannstes whether thes world In perowleagye ter
wierd) thes proc, And if the world In morally pore
ggrevmmbarge, (Daren cannes peovessat cloverssecnel cof thoes revi gclestam eveotee
ibecslertmnnee de Fal filleel, Phen there ie a power net
ourselves that works for rlyhteoumem, Or dn this
retelly thes ceormmecguenes: of the law of evolutlon ?
Ther Newt nmwerr dn that Uf thee in any tencenay
wut, wernle Van Abner woredel thaeats tom tdennes peeaom conn aencrter sanuel
ances Daesh yom srvceen Lan thecker ootertageyeles taowearele snetality,
thin tesnedenay dn dnsleed, an far ae it you, what we
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. $41
want to find. And if such a tendency is found, as :
we are told, in evolution, the result is in just so
far encouraging. Although the external world still
often hinders moral growth, yet, we are told, as evo-
lution reaches higher and higher stages, the world
comes to harmonize more and more with man’s moral
growth. This also seems to be what we seek. In
tame morality will become a natural prodact of early
childhood. Men will be born with characters that
we now seek in yain to develop by a life-time of la-
bor. Natural evolution, then, does help moral prog4
ress, and the world is more moral to-day than even
before. This then is to be the religious aspect of
the outer world. Does it contain enough of the trath
of things to content us?
We are far from doubting the scientific worth of
the natural laws that have been discovered of late
years, and that have made so clear to us the great
truth of far-reaching physical evolution. But let us
reflect before we accept these facts as furnishing any
deeply important contribution to our present prob-
lem. We thoroughly believe in evolution; but we
must take, in these matters, a very high position.
If the world of powers apart from man is to have a
religious aspect, then this aspect must belong to this
world as a whole. A minor power for good 1s not |
enough. It will not suffice to find that one bit of
reality fights for our moral needs while another bit
of reality fights against them, unless we can in some
way harmonize these conflicting aspects, or unless —
we can show that they that be with us are not only
more important or significant than they that be
16
a ae ei
49. 0' #7 ; . - oF i
f iF ea. / ‘ re “4 A - ’ gt HAA
de Maw,
!
’ } wr m4 St ww
242 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
against us, but are really the deepest truth of things.
Else we shall be left face to face with a gloomy world
of conflict, where the good and bad are mingled in
hopeless confusion. If such a world is the fact, we
must accept that fact; but we cannot then say that
we have made sure of an answer to our religious
neods. Now suppose that in examining the world
we found two tendencies at work, equally fundamen-
tal, equally active, fairly balanced in power, produc-
ing in the long run equally permanent, equally tran-
sient results, but always in deadly antagonism to each
other, the one making for moral goodness, the other
for moral evil. Suppose that the world appeared as
the theatre and the result of this struggle of the good
and of the evil principles, could we say that we had
found in these facts a religious aspect of reality?
We should hardly answer in the affirmative. So
gas we must fix our minds on this struggle of
equally balanced powers, we could not find the world
a religiously encouraging vision. Wo should either
have to regard the world in some other and higher
aspect, or we should have to give up regarding it as
religiously interesting. An answer to our moral
needs that is drowned by a hubbub of opposing
noises can be no harmonious song. Now we affirm
that #0 long as you look upon the world as a growth
in time, as a product of natural forces, as an histor-
ical development, you can never make it certain, or
even probable, that this world is not such a scene of
endless warfare. Ilence the progress that you may
observe can never overbalance the probability that
this progress is a transient and insignificant fact, in
TRE WORLD OF DOTRT. MS
the midst af a chaos of confused tendencies. There-
fore progress an this plauet for a few thowands or
millions of years indicates nothing about any true
harmony between nature and morality.
Let ws call attention to one aspect, wellknown,
yet often neglvoted in recent diseumtons af a fow
familiar facts. Modern wienee Bb jwitly sure of
physical evolution, but & Ro less wre that evalu.
tien on this planet & a process that began at a
pertal distant by a finite and in fact by a not very
gteat tine from the present moment. That our
Planet was a nebulous mas at a date al Rust some
where between twenty millions and one hundred nil
ions of years acu, we have all heant, and we have
ako had explained to us sane of the proofs af this
fact. Our planet is still imperfecely couked. At a
comparatively recent period in the histary af this
stellar universe, this litle point af it was a spheroid
af glowing vapor, fre which the moon had not ved
been separated, The preaent heas of the earth is an
imlicanion af its youth Furthenmear, what our
Manet is to hecouwe In Qaw, the monn ivelf telb usa,
having conled, by reason af itz small size, more rap
Rily than we have done. Cold and dead, waterless,
Vapariess, thas litde furrowed mass af rock dew
ately rolls through its slow days, looking with pase
siwlees stare at our stormy, anlent earth, full af we
tien and of suffering, What thas mass is, our earth
shall become, And progress here will cease with
the thles, Al these are the commonplaces af pop
ular seiemee. « Proeress then, as we know it hera B
a fact of transient algnifianee Physical nature
944 tHE RELIG ASPROT OF PHILASOPHY,
perinits preapreen eather that renee it ecenmupy,
Por pemn tm ate triecdeletet cof a coptaadte theepernsl prrevcenny
hited of epracntle in the bistery of the emi pation
of the energy of ne particilar tans of tatters, and
thie, in at fae aa we yet hererw, 6 prreserih oattretie
jteat dee ene nnedgteberefinnl, 0 beeael iter it the news of
tes tetivernes, New thene are the trenitliar taete whose
fedsntinge we wath tv etitersees je ant often repgleated
Mapyert.
Bhat, cree mteye, Al tide bie been anttiedpated bene
Aveta ef times, It to teally antale tr delet pon
wile things. Mere at leaet here, at fenet. terw, the
wereld dees restive ente tnetal teeta by slerwing ti
preegereas, ofa tert this all that we noel? May we
trl, be centetort with the few millenia of youre of
pererwthe that. remade ter cnte tae beferre thes ecpth
geeerwa coll) de it teeth feerdiale tar bewshe deter fatearity
mer etepdentishy 7 Wheat. nnetetdera 4 whether cline carttien
galt in fareff ages /
Pit, we still deste: We desire, vainly ot juatly,
get ardently, thet thes wereld shall atsower ter nee
nverhal needa reer bey seedelenst, tert by thee winy, tert fre
i Hleee, brett Preven dhe crores tratrere aed forever, Tf we
ean nee that preaent preegeeens Ta ate ledieatdene of thie
rattiire of the viniverse, that the present ism ayesha
ar a apeelinen of eternity, we abiall be content. Tet
If thie ta ted ne, TP prreserh preegerens de aeete fer beef
Hiere Aecddent, ar eddy tne the sheen of atenin, Chet
prreaerh gpreegereas ism pleat Fact ter certetesenplatey
fret tet a fred of any deep sigeifeanee, Stil we
Rhee be ery lenge dee tlre clserhertess Fee stegrpreret steed finned
hinge nvestes, = Mere teeterre will say tr enol of any tf
THE WORLD OF DOCBT. 245
give support to thy moral meeds so long as the tem-
perature of thy earth crust & high emoazk t prevent
thy oceams from being absorbed, so long as the ra-
dant hest of the sam given oat In saiiveent quan-
tines to keep thee warm. When the next stave is
reached, I propose to freese and to dry thy fair
home and all thy moral meeds, watil there shall be
muthing foaed om thy planet lovelter than the ruined
exags of thy bills as they gimeoer im the let red
rays of a torpad sun. What bs thy progres to me?”
Soawe then where our resi difficulty hes. The as-
pect of the facts that we mow mean ib thn. = It
mot because progress is to emiure on this plaset for
a short or for a long ume, bat decunse the world in.
which this progress is so to end. seems. thus re-
garded, whally idifferent to progress, — this 3s the
gipomy aspect. Today, even while progress & so
swift and sure, at this moment, we are Living ma
workd for which, as sienee displays tt to us this
progress ts as mmuditferent and unessenttal as the
feeting hoes of an evapurating suapbubble. Is the
paysical fact of progress, thus regarded, a moral
help to us?
Yet men turn away from these plam and often-
mentwoed facts to all sorts of fantaste dream: of a
gouming golden sage. They make of future homanity
a saintly people, ving in devutiwn, or & merry pew
pie. slways dancing to waltaes yet umirvamt of, or 4
scientific people, calculating by sume barber algebra
the relative povitions and motions of the molecules
in the rocks on the other side of the moon. Every
dream of progress is to be resitaed in that blessed
246s THY RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILOSOPHY.
time, and we are invited to praise « nature that
could producs all this blewuudlnens by pure physical
law. Now we must indeed wish well for the men of
the year a. ». 1,000,000, but we van receive no re-
ligious support from the knowlelye that if all goes
right and if the sun keepe well at work, the men of
that time will be better than we are. Kor still the
world asa whole gives no support to our real moral
newls, for only by a happy secident will this blessed.
ness be posible, Or, in short, two tendencies are
sein befors us in the world, one working for evo-
lution, for concentration of energy in living beings,
Yor ineresmes of their powers, for progres; the other
or dissipation of energy, for death, for the destruc.
ion of all that is valuable on our earth. We learn
hat the latter tendency has triumphed quite near
, on the moon, We hear that it is certain in
time to trinmph on the earth, and that the other ten-
dency in to be only of transiont superiority, We
know that ite prosent predominance here is, phys
jeally speaking, a happy accident, which « cosmical
catastrophe might at any moment bring to an end.
And now we are asked to ses in this combination of
frctn a religions seaport. For the writer's part, he
refuses to regard it as anything but an interesting
atudy in physion, We delights in it as mdlones, but
it has nothing to do with religion, Yet some people
talk of a Kelivion of Mvolution,
But no doubt believers in universal progress are
realy with hypothenen that shall show how signifi.
cant a feet progren rently in, A world that has
progrenmel so many millions of years doubtless has
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 217
resources of which we know nothing. There are all
the stars with their vast stores of energy. Possibly
they are infinite in number. Progres ceasing just
here may flash out in renewed brilhancy elsewhere.
Whe knows what is in store for the future, when
the present seemingly chaotic arrangement of the
stars gives way to vastly higher organized systems
of interacting bodies, in whose lght life shall floor
ish eternally ?
Well, all this we can all fancy as well as our
scientific neighbors, Nobody would call soch dreams
selentific, but they are logically possible dreams,
and they are very beautiful. But they have one
terrible negative conskleration against them. This
progress is either cunceived as having gune on
through infinite past time, or else it has no genuine
signiticance for the true nature of the universe. A
world that has now grown, now devayed, that has
sometimes progressed, sometimes become worse, is a
world in which progress is an accident, not an essen-
tial feature. Bat now, if progress has gune on
through intinite time, it has so gone on as to make
possible, after all this infinite time, just the misery
and imperfection that we see about us. Let us re-
member that fact. This poor life of ours is in the
supposed vase the outcome of infinite ages of growth.
That mast be our hypothesis, if we are to cling to
progress as an essential truth about the workl. Very
well then, all our temptations, all oar weakness, our
Inisery, our ignorance — the infinite past ages have
ended in fashioning them. ur diseases, our fears,
and our sins —are they perfect? If not, then what
948 THY BKLIGIOUR ABPKOT OF PHILOSOPHY,
in the meaning of endless progres toward perfec.
tion’? = Vor we are an outcome of thin infinite prog.
rows, = Another infinity of progrewm is not certain
then to remove such Imperfections, Ilere in prog:
rows put to the sisnple tent. Jw it the removal of
evil? Then can infinite program, as fasts show us,
paw by with evil yet unremoved, And if progran
ie not the removal of avil, then what means prog.
row? dw not the temporary removal of evil more
probably a mere occaslonal event in the hbetory of
the world ?
Jt ie wurprining that we aver think of talking
about universal progrem as an ommential fact of the
popularly conceived external world, Uf mcotbbrag cere
tain oan be made out about ft, till the world ava
Whole seems, as far as we can judge by the above
conmiderations, wo indifferent to progres, that it be
marvelous to behold the religious comfort that, in
their shallow optimistic faith, so many asnbables pao
ple take, while they wax fervent over the thought of
progress, Lets have clear ideas about the matter,
What is in the trua nature of rewlity in as eternal
aa rentity itwelf, ‘Then progress to elther an unes
sential, insipnifiesnt aspect of renlity, or It be eter
nal, UF progress bis been eternal, then ebther the
world was in the beginning infinitely bad, or eles
jnfinite progress has been unable to remove from the
world the finite quantity of evil that was always ta
it, Kor here in the emplrien) world ts evil now- Sf
Judeed there is any empirical world at al) -— plenty
of evil unremovedd,
$f you found a man shoveling sand on the sew
shore, and wheeling it away to make an embank-
ment, and if you began to admire his industry, seo-
ing how considerable a mass of sand he had wheeled
away. and how little remained in the sand-hill on
which he was working, you might still check your
self to ask him: “ How long, O friend, hast thou
been at work?” And if he answered that he had
been wheeling away there from all eternity, and
was in fact an essential featare of the universe, you
would not only inwardly marvel at his mendacity,
bat you woukd be moved to say: “So be it, O fend,
bat thou must then have been from all eternity an in-
finitely lazy fellow.” Might we not venture to suspect
the same of our law of universal physical progress?
Bat ket us already hint by anticipation one far
ther thought. Why is not any parely histoncal ew
of the work! open t the same objection? If the his-
tory began by some arbitrary act of will at some
time not very long since, then this history, viewed
by itself apart from the creative act. may be intelli-
gible enough in its inner unity and significance, al-
thoagh an arbitrary act of will can be no true exph-
nation. But the whole physical world cannot be
regarded af ance as a complete, self-existent whole,
with an eternity of past hfe. and as. in its deepest
truth, an historical process of any sort. For it is of
the essence of an intelligible histoneal process to
have, hke a tragedy in Aristutle’s famous account of
tragedy. a beginning, a middle, and an end. An in-
finite series of sucuessive acts cannot be one organie
historical process. Either this everlasting series of
facts has no significance at all, or else it mast have
pn ne a Pn fad thyy
QE THK BELAGIOUS ASPET OF PINLARONHY,
Sisal commectstially thes scare: wignificnieas all the way
salertage, her, 10 thees werrlel tm seafisnites ins tisse, 16 cosane
rut, wn se Whysles have, wtrictly npeaking, any history.
Three Meorgcemt combina wteorry in thes vent thrilling of
thas echrersags weceshe Dicom recsesshiam, sam Wes sores yeiverts ter ttt
dlecrwteaswl, so cemeleamisrts at wernt: titne, Usain sans
iasfitsites evssstinnnead story, with thes pour leovern eter.
nally weeping asd quarreling, sod yons will nes what
sts infinite biaterrisal pores in thes world wenld
pesessasy, A wershel of cumsrnes Ans an eternal recqoectition
CA thes searsase thine, sues wtoory at all, OF thes world, ro-
gerereles) ise titnes, catstrt me whusles hissves any potstines
brimterery sah sal, it i thascts besogchemm tes bens ist thes
werrlsl'n brimtssry, sam Mintisuct Frese thes werrldl’n siature,
fesr sasvytboisoge of Lessscbsasssectateal resbiggisrtsm mig reiMecsanseces,
Aru wer we: sores thererwes braske ter cnr starting pesint.
Thin splesulid camuacptions of wecietun:, thin world of
tarsal tacrrsat shes sesscecbasarsiscad saw, ies whetechs sal) theisagen that
asagrgreste sores prreslectecrininusl Fronn all eternity, this
srsathcresatioe) sesuchines, bias a real bintery ter mere
thesass three schsbrisnge sarssl Morwitsye westatisherm wershel biaves
frian day to day any bistery, agrart Frens thee fact
thrsat, threcy crtnecn: Niel suerte ecbobs canned fMesw sot all, Meter.
nally resgoesatens rhythenn, or cosmecleme new cannti-
sentient of elestsucnte, clash of atenna, ceiver of ether
weavers, srecechisarsiecsal cchisassgeece Aesrecvecr 5 Nast rus eternal
grrengrenis, tes Eebatsrrtocsnl wectiets tor the: whusles, --— that
seccin thus sumeaghion of thes physical world as a
Wharkes tes which we: sees Ariven, Ut in wtrietly sath
ccrsesahsecsel, a polrysiesally insted igitsle, exsuagtion, bout
wheat resDigehertia wigersfiecsasices besa it 7 Veet wesley im thes
tnuarphion that we tiuat have of any etsmal phyt
heal prrincemn,
Pad
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 251
We have gone through this thorny path of prob.
lems, because we want already to indicate one thing
as the result of it all, namely, that not what the
present world has come from, not what it is becom.
ing, not what it will be by and by, but what it eter. ,
nally is, must furnish us with the deepest religious |
aspect of reality. <All else is subordinate. We do
not care so much te know what stary anybody has
to tell us about what has happened in the world, as
to know what of moral worth always is in the world, |
so that whatever has happened or will happen may *
possess a religious signitioanee dependent an its rela-
tion to this reality. That which changes not, wherein
is no variableness, neither shadew af turning, that
must give us the real religions truth upen which all
else will depend. A particular event in the world’
may have a religious signitivance, but that signifi. .
cance will depend on the relation of this event to
eternal truth. And the eternal truth is what we
want to know.
Therefore our search will become somewhat nar
rowed, whenever at least we grow fully convinced of
this truth. The * power that makes for righteous
ness” will becume a conception of doubtful religious
value. <An eternal power, that with all its past
eternity uf work vannot yet quite vindicate right-
eousness 2 Perhaps we shall have to find the relig.
ious aspect of things elsewhere. But let us leave, at!
all events, the world of pure science.
As we do a0 same objector may interpose the as-
rertion that we have generalized too hastily in speak-
ing of the insignificance of the historical aspect of
Qh2 ‘TH RELIGIOUS ASPRKOT OF PHILOSOPHY.
things; for, after all, we have been talking of nat-
ural science. Let us turn then to the more philo-
sophical theories of the powers that are at work in
this supposed external world of metaphysios, There
are philosophical theories that try to show us of what
hidden reality this mechanical world of ours is the
more appearance, or phenomenal symbol, Let us
swe if any of them can givo a religious interpretation
to the powors that rule the world.
17h . re
TIL.
We yams, then, from the scientific to the more
metaphysical view of the world, What can we hope
from realistic metaphysics? Let us first consider
the value of that philosophic view nowadays moss
frequently hold, namely, what in genoral is culled
Monin We hear nowulays, with almost wearl-
some repetition, of Matter and Spirit, of Force and
Intelligence, of Motion and Sensation, as being op-
posite aspects, or faces, or manifestations, of one ul-
timate Koality, until we wonder whether clear think-
ing is not in danger of lowing itself altogether in
the contemplation of a more empty form of words,
From whispers and low mutterings with bated breath
about the inserutable mystery of the ultimate unity
of Boing, one turns with satisfaction to efforts to-
wards some intelligible secount of the sense in which
all things oan be regarded as manifestations of one
Powor or actual Existent. Yot in truth even those
éfforta, in wo far an they consider the world of the
Vowors, havo thus far failed to satisfy the demands
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 2538
of criticism. Where they are clearly stated they are
inadequate. Where they resort to figures of speech
and tell us about the two sides of the shield, or the
convexity and concavity of the same curve, as illus-
trations of the ultimate oneness of nature amid the
various manifestations of experience, there these ef-
forts merely sink back into the primitive incoherency
so dear to all pre-Kantian metaphysics. The same
curve 18, Indeed, convex and concave; but matter
and spirit are simply not the two faces of a curve,
and the relevant circumstance on which this meta-
phor tarns will never be clear to us until we learn,
quite literally, wholly apart from fables about shields,
just how, in what sense, and by what evidence, mat-
ter and mind are known to be of like substance. :
And that we must do, ere this hypothesis can have |
for us a religious value. The failure of dogmatic |
Monism, if it should take place, ought, indeed, not
to throw us over into the arms of an equally dog-
matic Dualism; but we must refuse to accept the
monistic hypothesis until it has been freed from all
trace of mysticism. We shall here follow the plan
announced at the outset of the chapter, and confine
our attention to the realistic Monism, that regards
the events in the external world as the results of the
action of the one Power. A very different form of
monism we shall ourselves hereafter maintain. Bat
just now we deal in negations.
Let us begin with the attempts that have been
made to interpret the results of modern physical sci-
ence in a monistic sense, by regarding the ultimate
physical or chemical units as endowed with some
264 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
form of actual or potential consciousness. Orgaw
isms of the highest sort are combinations of atoms.
The whole is the sum of its parts. Why may not
the mental possessions of these highest organisms
be the sum of the indefinitely small mental powers
of the atoms? An atom in motion may be a thought,
or, if that bo saying far too much of #0 simple a
thing, an atom in motion may be, or may be endowed
with, an infinitesimal consciousness. Billions of
atoms in interaction may have as their resultant quite
a respectable little consciousness. Sufficiently com-
plex groups of these atoms of Mind-Stuff (to use
Professor Clifford’s ingenious terminology) might
produce a great man. One shudders to think of the
base uses to which the noble mind-stuff of Shake-
speare might return; but the theory tries to be an
expression of natural phenomena, not merely an ws-
thetic creation, and must not pause before such con-
sequences. And, if it be the truth, might it not
somehow, no matter in what way, be made of relig-
ious value? Or otherwise, if true, might it not end
our vain search for @ religion ?
Such is an outline that will suggest to the initiated
thoughts common to several modern theories of be-
ing. Are these theories in a fair way to satisfy crit-
ical needs’? The writer is not satisfied that they
are. Time does not permit any lengthy discussion
of the matter hore, but let us remind ourselves of the
considerations that will most rendily occur to any
one that is disposed for a moment to accept one of
these modern forms of monism., Even if they prom
ised us the religions aspect that we seek, we could
not accept them. As it is, we need not fear them,
be regarded as an aggre-
gate of elementary facts, such as sensations or as
atoms of pleasure and pam? If soa, what aggregate
of sensations forms a jadgment, sach as, “ This man
is my father?” Evidently here is indeed an aggre-
gate of sensations represented, but also something
more. What is this more? A product, it may be
said, formed through association from mnumerable
past experiences. Granted for the moment; bat the
question is not as to the origi of this consciousness,
bat as to its analysis) This judgment, whereby a
present sensation 13 regarded as in definite relation
to real past experiences, as a symbol, not merely of
actual sensations now remembered, not merely of fu-
ture sensations not yet expenenced, but of a realty
wholly outside of the individual consciousness, this
fact of acknowledgimg something not directly pre-
sented as nevertheless real —is this act possibly to
be regarded as a mere aggregate of elementary men-
tal states? Surely, at best, the act can be so re-
garded only in the sense in which a word is an ae
gregate of letters. For and in the one simple mo-
mentary consciousness, all these elements exist as
an aggregate, bat as an aggregate formed into one
whole. as the matter of a single act. But in them-
selves. without the very act of unity in which they
are one, these elements would be merely an aggre-
gate, or, m Mr. Gurmey's apt words! “a rope of
sand.” Our mental life then, as a union of Innum-
erable elements into the one Self of any moment, Is
more than an aggregate, and can never be explained
as an aggrevate of elementary atoms of sensanon.
t Mind for April, 1881, article, “ Mouism.”
V6 = THE RELAGIOUN ABPKOT OV PHILAMOFVHY,
Nor may we sey Chat thy uldiwute stinie states of
sonclousnens may be, we it were, chomlonly united
inty w whole thet je more than wo agyregele. Phys
ion) atone in wpa, If endowed with suftluiently
numerous wtinitios, muy unite into whet wholes you
wil); ut « nutes fact in wm mnontal fact, and ny
more, An ulGnate iudependent unit of sonselous
hows, conmived after the analogy of w sensation, oun
have ty anothor Jike unit only one of throw relathons 5
it nowy cowxint with this othur unit, or it ney pre
wade op follow itin Gane. ‘Thwre be i othwr relation
pouitle, Aftinity, or wtrecton, or appromeh of one
pain or plossure, of one sention of pressure or of
mation ty mother, in a momuinglen jingle of words,
wilons, Indesd, euch a exprommion by uusd ty naa
Ayuratively uy relations that in and for a compare
Sug, sontrasting, uniting, woud separadng wetive con,
nelousuns, bwy ideome wre pile ty bow, ‘Sus, thon,
this atomic moninn Uidnge us ne newer Ue bufore
ty the relation between dhe date of conseiousnann mead
the facta of physical nabure, Kor Use rent, how mame
chunten) seluues can be sutistled ty royurd ite wade
ul polute us nothing but independently existing
fragmenta of injnd, who whole being be Intunuatve 5
Juow, out of Kum intensive unite, space-reladions sry
be constructed ut wl) then questions we may
for the proment neyleet, Atambe monion, « synth
wis, or, rater, w jumble of physivloyien) paychology
with doctrines that me Incompatible with may sl
espa’ whiuatavey, liue never munwored Uyomes usntionn,
saad hepa themn prever wid.
Sut lot us not boy over bay, ‘Seve uve other
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 27
forms of monism now extant. The purely material-
istic monism, for which the hard and extended atoms
of naive realism are already and in themselves po-
tentially mind, the old-fashioned materialism of days
ahke undreamed af, may indeed be neglected.
That doctrine needed not critical philosophy, of more
than a very undeveloped sort, to do away with it
oace for all. Modern monism knows af supposed
atoms that are in their ultimate nature psychical ;
and af supposed psychical forces or agents that, when
seen fram withoat, behave much hke extended atoms.
Bat the ald fragment af matter that, being no more
than what every blacksmith knows as matter, was
yet to be with all its impenetrability and its inertia
a@ piece of the soul, has been banished from the talk
of serious philosophers. There remain, then, the
numerous effurts that see in the work! the expression
of psychical powers as such, not mere mind-staff
atoms, bat organized wholes, related in nature to
what we know by internal experience as mind, yet
higher or lower, subtler ar mightier, wiser or more
foolish, than the human intelligence. These views
may be divided into two classes: those that we in
nature the manifestations af a logical or intelligent
power, and these that se in it the manifestations of
an alegical or blind, though still psvehical power.
Each of these classes again may be subdivided ac-
cording as the power Is cancelved as caunscious ar as
ancanscieus in its working. How do thes antulog-
wal efforts stand related to critical thoaght ?
First let us consider logical monism. Since he
- enna
258 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
man intelligence is itself an activity, a working to-
wards an end, and since the logical monist thinks
the external universe after the analogy of the human
reason, the constant tendency is for him to conceive
the world as a process whereby his World Spirit
makes actual what was potential. Modern science,
in fact, when viewed speculatively, though it does not
confirm, yet lends itself easily to such efforts, and
we cun always, if we choose, imagine the evolution
of the organic kingdom as possibly the process of
self -manifestation of one eternal rational Power.
Only in this way we are very far from a satisfactory
ontology. A world, the work or the child of the uni-
versal reason, developing in time, how can any re-
flective mind be content with this account of things ?
The universal reason surely means something by its
process, surely lacks something when it seeks for
higher forms. Now, on a lower stage the universal
reason has not yet what it seeks, on the higher stage
it attains what it had not. Whence or how does it
obtain this something? What hindered the possible
from being forthwith actual at the outset? If there
was any hindrance, was this of the same nature with
the universal reason, or was it other? If other,
then we are plunged into a Dualism, and the good
and evil principles appear once more. But if there
was no external hindrance, no illogical evil principle
in existence, then the universal reason has irration-
ally gone without the possible perfection that it
might possess, until, after great labor, it has made
actual what it never ought to have lacked. The in.
finite Logos thus becomes no more than the “ child
THE WORLD OF DOTRY. 259
playing with babbles™ af the old philosopher.
Kversthing about the process of evolution becames
intelhwible and fall of purpose — except the fart
that there should be any process at all where ail was
in, and of, and for the universal reason at the outset.
as a cat with a moase, letting it ron away a few
aeans In time, that it might be canght ance mare in a
Hitle chase, involving the history of some millions of
workds of life. Is this a worthy canceptian ? = Nay,
a3 it mot a self-contradictory ane? Evolution and
creative Reason—are they compatible? Yes, in-
deed, when the evolutian is ended, the haurly-barly
done. the battle lost and wan: bat meanwhile — ?
In short, either evolution is a necessity. ane af the
twelve labors of this Hereales-Absalate. or elae it is
irrational. In the one case the Absolute must be
canceived as in bonds. in the ather case the Locus
maast be conceived as bhindemnng. Both ooncepuens
are rank nonsense. This kind of Montsm will not
saiasiy critical demands.
And then there is the objectian, stated by Scho-
penhaner, and br we know not how many before
him, and that we have already insisted upon. namely,
that every histanecal conception of the work as a
whole, every attempt to look upon Beings as a ra-
Gonal prowess In time. as a perpetual evelanan from
a lower to a hicher. is beset bv the difficahry that
after an infinite time the infinite process 3s still in
a very early stage. Infinitely progressing, always
growing better. and vet reaching after all this eter.
uity of work only the incoherent, troubloas, blad
260 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
imperfection that we feel in ourselves, and that we
see in every dung-heap and sick-room and gevern-
ment on the earth, in every scattered mass of nebu-
lous matter, in every train of meteor-fragments in
the heavens — what is this but progress without a
goal, blind toil? The world would be, one might
think, after an infinity of growth, intensively infi-
nite at every point of its extent. We mortals see
no one point in the physical universe where one
viewing things as we in this chapter have chosen to
do, namely, from outside, might lay his hand and
say: Here the ideal is attained.
Yet we should be very far from dreaming of ac-
vepting the opposing dogmatic theorem, the antith-
esis of this sublime Antinomy, namely, “The world —
is the product of an irrational force. The One is
blind.” Schopenhauer undertook the defense of
this antithesis, and, in bad logic, as we all know, he
somewhat surpassed even that arch blunderer, the
universal Will of his own system. This Will, after
all, desired a good deal of trouble, and got his wish.
But Schopenhauer desired a consistent statement,
and, with all his admirable ingenuity and learning,
he produced a statement whose inconsistencies have
been exposed too often to need much more discus-
sion. No; to the defenders of the alogical hypoth-
esis, as a dogmatic doctrine, it has not yet been
given to make out more than the purely negative
case that we have stated above. Dogmatic panlo-
gism can be assaulted, with much show of success.
The opposite doctrine has not yet been dogmatically
maintained without even worse confusion.
THE WORLD OF DOUAT. 961
Panlogiam and Alogiam are diffioult enough in
themaelvesa, but how much worse becomes their can-
dition when, aa in the * Philosophy of the Unoon-
wioua,” of Von Hartmann, either one of them, or a
hybrid of the two, ia burdened with yet another hy-
potheaia, namely, that the One Being ia unconacioua,
and yet in nature payohical, Founding himeelf on
certain phyaiological facta, very doubtfully inter
preted, an a monatroua perversion of the mathemat-
ieal theory of probabilities, an an ingenioua view af
the history of philosophy, on a like ingenious criti-
eiam of Kant, Von Hartmann haa expounded an on-
talogival doctrine of which, after all, serious thought
ean make nothing, Thia uncanaious being, exiat
ent not for itself, for it ia canavioua of nothing, ner
fur others, because all else ia a part of it (and, for
the veat, nobudy ever thought of it before Von Hart
mann), ahall be the maker and uphalder of the unt
verse, Surely all thia ia a philosophy of round
aquares, and ia not to be taken very serioudy,
Of course the previous critiviam ia absurdly inad-
equate to the magnitude af the problema invelved,
and ia intended only aa the mereat aketeh, dogmat-
ieally atated, of oritival objectiona to certain ontalo-
gies, Seoming irreverence, in’ thia haaty atyle of
doing battle, muat be pantoned. Only against im-
perfect metaphyaio aa auch do we war Critical
philosophy halda no theoretical opinion aacred, jut
aa it reanta ne earnest: practical faith as other than
word, The queation is here not yet what we are
to believe, but what we can in arrument maintain,
and what our method af search ought te be. Abeo
|
:
O82 = THK RELIGIOUS ABPROT OF IHILOSOITY,
lute and Infinite, Daycon and not Lagos, Mind-Mtuff
and Spirit -- what are they all for crithenl polrlleon
poly, loved, dev three flame golacser, srnererer Uclevsam, corscverothortin
of reanon, to be morcllondy analysed without regard
Fores cvconamavegtncsnacsoen 7
One way remalin whereby thin realiatics tmetiarn
crate EUNL dacageey tao vercths wy ntlnfrustany aterternent of the
workd-prollom, Stzpeone that, one for all, the hiv
torlonl form of wtaternont Ie alsancdened, while the se
thet of the Henson asa power In retained, This may
bes clone in oithor of two ways, Tho universal rennet
ararey Ver corrneesd vend sam aeseanedfeomtdony Atmelf in thine, but
acre daa ta mevecdeons cof covertntes threat cares cansdtend cam thier pomrte
of wdagle proce, The workd-life may be conceal ved
not ana miagle hintory, lit nun an otarnally repented
product of the One renin, a procen ever ronowod
namin AN flidnhed, an dnfinites nerion of prowling and
denying worlds = worlds that are like the loaven
of the forent, that spring and wither through an eter
nity of changlay sennons, The rationality of the
world proces ie thin waved for our thonght by the
Lay goertdacsoles tare. eroctmote in aneat Dilees oo Decdeatand traverder,
woarrleredenge Aarcotagehe thes abpht of tiene, meekly for
we esl fronted i zeatdeone that, dn anesvera senaccdaewl, boat, eeatteere,
Videos tbves tate Chaat. cored cliny Voegghaoe sefeembs bode coll
tends, vovferdedengye cam ty pedeant den thes frollince of bide at
tralseul porwer, Whenever reycrarcde the workd an it now
In aw plainly no muffledent exporonnion of Inflidtes ra
tharansel poerwerr, Am ret Vibecaty tar erascrergot Clam bay prerttacwnde g
Donate Vues osname, poreszorazres tea setveweess tDncames cof Inde colrjereete
ane too who ronson mein perfection, and ta when
the world of nenne will not appear an just at prenene
more porfest than the world of Cundida'a oxpert-
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 263
ences. For every one but the blind optimist there
is difficulty in regarding this wind-swept battle-field
of human action as obviously and altogether a drama
of unhindered infinite reason, to be repeated with
unwearying tautalogy through an unending future.
Thus, then, we are tossed back and forth between
the possibilities suggested by our hypothesis. “ The
word is the manifestation of infinite reason 5”
good, then, but how? * Zhe world ts a rational
growth from lower to higher How, then, is this
possible if the infinite reason rules all and desires
the higher? Was it not always at the gual? So,
then: “ The world is not one process merely, but
an eternal repetition of the drama of infinite reason,
which, as infinite, is thas always active and always
at the goal” But this hypothesis is seemingly over
thrown by the appearance of the least imperfection
or irrationality in nature. The first starving fam-
ly. or ainged moth, or broken truth, or wasted: ef-
fort, or wounded bind, is an indictment of the uni-
versal reason, that, always at the gual, has wrought
this irrational wrong. The other possible hypothe-
sis loaves us, after all, in the sume quandary. Time
may be a mere “mirage” For the eternal One
there ix, then, ne process: only fact. This notion
of a timeless Being is, no doubt, very well worth
study. But, then, the eternal One is thus always at
the gual, just as in the other case The One, we
should think, cannot be infinite and rational and yet
productive af the least trace af wrong, absurdity,
error, faleehood. Again our Monism fails. For,
after all, the world has been viewed by us only from
without; and so remains dark.
@"€
wy ££ rte ut ef ty wel
ny ie ra 2 Sa hs
2964 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
IV.
Our monism fails, namely, to establish itself on
any ground of experience. Absolute refutation is
indeed not yet thus attained, for the defender of
the hypothesis of an infinite reason always has at
his disposal the suggestions of the ancient theodicy,
modified to suit his needs. He can say: “The par.
tial evil is, somehow, we cannot see how, universal
good.” Or, again, “ Evil results from the free-will
of moral agents, who have to suffer for their own
chosen sins.” The latter answer, a very plausible one
in its own sphere, is for the general problem insig-
| nificant. That there is free-will we do not dispute,
and that free-will, if it exists, is a cause of much
mischief is undoubted. Yet if the universe is so
made that the free-will of the slave-driver, or of the
murderer, or of the seducer, or of the conqueror,
works untold ill to innocent victims, then the fault
of the suffering of the victims rests not wholly with
the evil-doer, but partly with the order of the world,
| which has given him so much power, such a wide
, freedom to do the mischief that he desires. The
, world in which such things happen must justify its
. religiously inspiring nature in some other way.
‘ The other answer, that partial evil is universal.
good, we have to regard as a much deeper answer, '
shallow as have been the uses often made of it in the
past. But if it is to be a valid answer, it must take
a particular form. The words are usually spoken
too glibly. Their meaning, if they are to have any,
we must very carefully consider, ere we can dare to
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 265
accept them. Only from a higher point of view
shall we in fact be able to apply them. In the
world of the Powers they find no resting-place.
How can a partial evil be an universal ggood ?
Only in certain cases, The notion plainly is that
the evil in the external world of popular thought
is, as known to us, only a part af the whale, and
the whale, it is said, may be in character opposed to
the part. This must indeed be the case, if the world
as a whole is to be the work of an Infinite Reason.
For if so, the evil must be, not merely a bad lesser
part that is overbalanced by the guodness of the
larger half af the world, but non-existent, save as a_
separate aspect af reality, so that it would vanish
if we knew more about the truth. This is what the
saying asserts : not that evil is overbalanced by guod
(for that would leave the irrational still real), but
that evil is only a deceitful appearance, whose true
nature, if seen in its entirety, would turn out to be
good. One could not say of a rotting apple, however
small the rotten spot as yet is, that the partial rot-
tenness is the universal soundness af the apple. If.
I have but one slight disorder in but ane af my
organs, still you cannot say that my partial disorder
must be universal health. The ald optimists did not
mean anything so contradictory as that. They meant
that there is no real evil at all; that what seems to
me to be evil, say tuothaches, and broken househalda, |
and pestilences, and treasons, and wars, all that to-
gether is but a grand illusion of my partial view,
As one looking over the surface af a statue with a
wieruscope, and finding nothing but a stony surface,
266 THK RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PITIOSOPITY.
might.any, how ugly / but on neoing the whole ata
glance would know ite beauty; aven so one seeing
the world by bits fancion it evil, but would know it
to be good if he saw it asa whole. And the seem-
ing but unreal vil of the parts may be necessary in
order that the real whole should be good, Suoh fa
the position of our optimists. Thin is the Platonio-
Augustinian doctrine of the anreality of evil.
Tho logical pomibility of all this wo do not for the
firat vithor dispute or affirm. But wo are dealing
with a world of diffleultion, and we oan only point
out the antacedent diffleulty of thin theory. If the
world of oxporionce simply lacked hore and there ine
torent, or ponitive algna of rational perfection, then
one might wall compare it to the statue, that seen
only pieoomeal, and through a microscope applied
to ite surface, would wholly lack the beauty that ap-
pears when all in viewed at once, Thon one might
any, with gront plausibility, that if porcaptible har.
mony in wimply lacking to our partial view, the groas
whole may still be a grand harmony. But the
trouble liew in the seemingly positive character of
evil, Not simple lnok of harmony, but horrible die
vord, ia here. Low the tortures of the wounded on
a fluld of battle oan anyhow onter into a whole in
which, an soon by an absolute judge, there ia actually
no traw of avil at all, thin in what we cannot under-
wtand. Tt seca very improbable, Only absolute
proof will aatianfy un And of course, as haa been
lnclicntadl, by nome of our examples above, it in not
the quantity of any ovil (if an avil bo a quantity at
wll), but the cuality of it, that makes us urge it in
TRE WORLD OF pouaT. 267
opposition to the claims of reason to be the ruler of
all things. <Any evil will do, if it seema to be a real
and positive evil. For then it seema positively at
war with reason.
Actually, however, theodicies and kindred efforta,
whether moniatio or not, in trying to vindicate the
rational in the world have seldom consistently main-
tained this high and alippery ground of the theary
af Plato and of St. Augustine. Far from declaring
that all physical evil is and must be apparent, the
popular theadivies have aften consented to accept
the reality of this positive evil, and to minimize its
significance by certain well-worn, and, for the pur
poses of this argument, contemptible devives. They
have pointed out that tho evil in the world, though
a reality separate from the good, exists as a means to
good. Or, again, they have said that evil is neces.
sary as something outside of the good, setting it off
by way of contrast. Both devices, if applied to a
world in which good and evil are conceived as sepa-
rate entities, are unworthy of philosophio thinkers.
For consider the firat device. “ Evil is a reality,
not an illusion, but it ia a means to good. There-
fore in the world as a whale, good triumphs. There-
fore reason, which desires the good, ia the One:
Ruler.” But first, to mention a lesser objection,
the basis in experience for thia view ia surely very
narrow. Much evil exista whose use aa a means we
cannot even faintly conceive. But grant thia point.
Then the real evil ia a means to a separate and ox-.
ternal good end. But if the end was good, why waa |
it not got without the evil means? Only two answers |
968 = THE RELIGIOUS ASPKGT OF FHIAROFHY,
muses presen Doles far Clade, fie estamos this evil ies meprrate from
hess peoseed, — NGitdese hes Oltes Mtesunens wae dedven to
daelecs just, Gdeie wary, sarael eartalel takes tra own ex gustnive
cannes 5 Cat tats Odanes Vdessasiente, sesrte Veecbange Iortated tr thd
renal, wAhll sasdobtoveedly ccbesomes tar tales ft frawtetad of
better, Put either answer is fatal, Waa the One
NRevsumerta sanssedobes tar der Desttee 7 Phen it de not thas only
power at work, ‘lus Monian fille, Thies Henan
we botatl, Piet bees whee Vehicle thes strong mn be
wtaerrageese Ghaseee dacs, EE, ecowervere, theese (dines eshisames hide
weny reetdoesee thacate oy bestest, theese thoes Canes cheeses esvil five
btes cowan mtebees, —E'Jucy cUilesteansase bn Atseevitebales,
Vo exemplify s Uf pain ie an evil, and if the evil
at thes pride cone you by a dnt, or cut, ov beraise
os framblttend oy may irae three oll-wines satire tnakom your
hein mestacsbtdves tar tees esneed thisat yorte sry doer heeded fn
bavesqrhiage St wholes; then the obvicis answer in, that
Af avsahinves fo sell-wiees onal all-powerful snd hensvolent
tavwiesels yorts, It wee test Nandan to fd a way of
Hecsesqoage verter whebey din pressed whale, witht entail
Faage sageone yoote thes tartare of thin prensut Injury, If
oa sneseashabanes tlasah wes anasalees rrsatm procrly, wes sees nit line
gress tao Valesnines cotsemesl veo, bin estes wes cares mires tint
wes basaves closes cone very beset with it, Tat the ima
shad aseses cof sab wees sesetanses snetimt ach eve whtde clevstertiese
dives Fahestdertn, sateberwes sallewlees eosatosnes bratasticdes clesmtartegse
Alves frdetdene, Whee msetnes restnsrle agoplles ta all the
aslenegaestoh syresecesdoesm sabsertate ties eaditives value of enue
waesr dane, VF aasetaaves cccntabel tssalecs tas preerfoast witht
wsatesedege, sane AE waahfesrdange dy snert, dmesdf see comggrenedes
park of our porfeetion, but only an external mein
Usrete, then it was nature's rational busing to de
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 269
velop us differently. But if nature could not perfec
our characters save through this imperfect means,
then nature's means were limited. Nature was not
all-powerful. Reason had some irrational power be
yond it that it could not conquer, Even so we can
not vet run certain engines without smoke. When
Wwe are more civilized, we shall abolish smoke, be
cause we shall get more power over the processes of
combustion. At present, by this hypothesis, nature
can only make characters perfect through suffering,
this smoke of the engine of life. So much the worse
for nature. unless indeed, in some unknown way,
suffering is really uo true evil at all, but itself a
perfection that, if seen from above, would become
plainly universal good. And does that as yet look
probable ?
Even worse is the other device often suggested |
for explaining evil. * Evil is a reality, but it is use. |
ful as a foil to good. The two separate facts, good |
and evil, set each other off. By its contrast, evil
increases the importance of good.” When this re-
mark is made about us personally with our limite
tions of body and circumstance, with our relativity
of feeling and of attention, the remark has some
psychological interest. Made to justify the supposed
universal reason, the remark is childish. Always,
indeed, it is possible that evil as a separate entity
may be made out to be an illusion: and that good
and evil have some higher unity that imvolves the
perfection of the world. But if evil is real, and. sep-
arate from goodness, then the talk about explaining
it as a useful contrast is of no worth in the present
270 THY RRLIGIOUS ASPECT OV PHILOROPRY.
| argument, For we ask: Could not the One create
: a perfect good save by making good more attractive
‘aw wot off againet the foil evil? Shall we sey that
Reason could do better than to depend upon this
contrast’? Than why the evil? Jf, however, the
One Reason could not do better, but had to use the
contrast, than the One was lows powerful in ite da-
vices than ts the maker of a concert - programme,
who has no nesd to introduce Into his concert any
waw-filing or tin-trumpeting or pot-scraping to set off
tha beauty of his songs and symphonies, But asa
fast of experience, ie mont vil seomingly even thus
useful’? Aro the sick needed to make the healthy
joyous? Was Judas necessary in order. that Jesus
should show himeslf wholly good? ‘Tradition, in
thin latter case, says you, and adds the mystical
apesch about the need that the offense should come,
But what enlightened man nowadays will have {t
that, supposing good and evil to be separate facta,
there can be logically possible nothing thoroughly
good, in case some of this evil were removed? Could
not Jesus have been what he was without Judas?
One doubts here the fact of the necessity of the evil,
aven in our own Jittle lives; and one is indignant
at the trifling that supposes so weak a device as
mere extarnal contrast to be the sole device at the
disposal of the One Reason, Yot thin weak hypoth-
asia of good and evil as externally contrasting sepa-
rate entities Is, aftar all, provokingly near in form
to what we shall hold to be the true solution of the
great problem. But that solution tu till far away
from us and from this world of sense. =e
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 271
Thus far, then, monism seems, if not am impos-
sible, still a decidedly doubtful, view of the world.
Its value as furnishing religious support seems small.
We cannot yet by experience prove that the rational
power is supreme in the world ; and we fail te make
clear to ourselves a priori how it should be supreme.
seem to be through the still doubtful doctrine of the
unreality of Evil And that way seems very dark.
Vv.
in which the wise of so many ages have found so
much support, the doctrine of a Father, separate
from the world of created finite beings. who directs
with supreme truthfulness all human acts. The re-
ligious valve of this doctrine. an one side at least,
nobody can possibly question. The Father. as Jesus
conceives him. has in a very high sense the charac-
ter that we desire to find in reality. To be sure,
there is the other side. This God of the dualistic
View is seemingtiy limited. As a Father pitieth his
children, so this God pitieth. But this pity seems to
be the love of ane who vet cannot or will not save
us from al] our evil. -And if the evil is a reality,
and is meant to work for our good. still there is the
unanswerable objection that if the Father is not
bound by an irrational power beyond him. he need .
not have put us into so evil a state. but might have
wrought us our good in some less painful anddan- |
_ ws
ak & “7 .
milf 3.
f
O72 «= THY RELIQIOUR ABPROT OF PRILOROPITY.
—gorous way. Tn feet, the only plausible explanation
of rent vil, in com there is separate ovil in the
world, an explanation which shall yet be consistent
with the Mathers power and goodnans, In tha pre
jViouwsly mantionad oxplanation, that, If belnge ware
arantad, ns wo are, free, thay must noodle be alae
free to choose the evil, But this explanation only
nerves to axplain the evil that haw directly resulted
from freo choloa, that dircetly affeota those who
muule the choles, and that wan distinetly forossan
by them when they chow it, No othar avil dn justl
fable as ne vowult of freo-will 5 all other avil sone
absolutely nystarions, when viewed with referanes
to God's goodnons 5 and vary littl of the evil that
we oxparienea tn this world in tha direct result of
the daliberate choles of those who suffer it, It dn
| hardly nesowary to Wlustrate these frets, which, ike
fhe mont of the pronont chapter, belong to the bent
known and mont frequently misropresntad of the
mittorn of human controversy, The poor of groans
—edtles, the men who inherdt Joathaome dseanes, the
naturally work of will, the inane, the sufferarn bn
saidants, the soldiamw Jed to slaughter, the slaves,
the down-trodden penauite and Jaborers of the world ;
all these, whone Gls ams simply ineonaelvable tn
might, have no imore brought all thinon thamaalves
of thair own froowill, than have the healthy nnd
happy, the helen of woth, the over-joyous, earned
for thomnalvens the good fortune to which thay are
born, A immn enn do much with and for himself ;
but the best port of him, and commonly of hin anv
ronmont, is determingd by birth, And for mont of
, 4 a} cho tA
'
bo. . mofo ate eel. a
/
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 2s
that “ with which the face of man is blackened.” the
power ts thus responsible which ve free-will of man
bas made. This evil must either be an organie ele-
ment in a real higher perfect unity of the work, or
else free-will is no explanation or justification for its
existence. .
Bat really. the intelligent reader needs, when we
get to this most familiar part of our discussion, no
very lengthy repetition of the old story, His mind
is doubtless made up already, and be will desire only
a brief reminder of the chief points that have toe do
with this question and with these questions most
nearly related thereta.
If, then, the doctrine of Gad's Fatherhood i to
be religteasly useful to us. we must wake up our
minds whether the Father that we sek is to be the
omnipotent Ruler of things. or only a limited Power,
or again, something else that & net power. In the
bast mentioned case, he belongs to that aspect af the
workd which we just now purposely exclude from
consideration. Tf the Father is a Power, then we
all know the old but eternally fresh dilemma about
bis nature. He ws either infinite or limited. If he
ts infinite, we find arising all the difficalties just ay
gested in our consideration of the hypothesis of an
Infinite Reason. and one other difficulty, wor. if
anything. than ther all. That difficalty we shall
wention sown again, But if. om the other hand. the
Father is to be conceived as a limited power, if we
are to accept some sort of modern Mantcheantam,
then ve @ priori disproof of the posubility of the
hypothesis can be offered: since, @ priori, any finite
)
e
r
by i “
rf
es !
i
7 Oe eee eee tee
274 «= THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF FIILOSOPHY,
power you please is « pomibility; but our great
trouble will then lie inthe fact that only experience
oan onteblish such an hypothewis, which by ite very
nature neods a posteriori proof. And experience,
as sumined ap in science, has in fact simply no need
of that hypothesis, Hence wo shall be left salto.
gether in doubt, at leant while wo study the World
ae Power,
tush in the argument in ite mont yoneral state-
ment, Now as ty the pointe in grouter detail, The
grout difficulty musutional above an lying in the way
Of the hypothonin of an infinite creative power is»
difficulty in thes comenption of croution itself, Cres
yo 4 tion, for the popular conception, certainly involves
pe
producing « thing of sine kind by a crentive act,
the thing produced existing forthwith outside of the
creator, Tu give up this seperation of crestor aud
prendre in ter bewurnes pranthesiatic. And with mania
we are not hers comesrned. Iut now the idew of
an infinite creative Power outaide of his products
involves mors than one difficulty, Wo shall not
well ity thes old difficulty that this infinite Power
werlsl beware: finite an wm an theres wan in oxintence
marisesthsisage enntwisles oof it, Wes shall proceed at nun
to a sre fruittal and serious difieulty, which wo
firsel ins this fact that the concept of producing an ex-
ternal thing tamolnes, of nemennity, « relation to a
Lunn, bine both grader unl grroduct, whieh do
berininen the corulitionn unuler which there con be
a grroduch ab all, hes erontive power must then
work under conulitions, however tnagionl stl mynte-
rious ite acto inay be. And working under condb
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 23
thoms, it mast be finite. No device for minimizing
the meaning of this separation of creative power and
ereated thing will really eseape the difficulty resalt-
of supposed creation. It may be summed up once
more in the statement that any creative power in act,
Fast a3 moch needs explanation in some higher hw
and power as does the thing created itself, so that
whatever creates a product external to itself becomes
thereby as truly dependent a power a: we carselves
are. Let we ify.
~ Let there be light,” shall represent a creative
act. If the bybt that resalts is simply a fact im God,
then our difficulty is avoided, but the very concep-
thom of a power cresting anything external to itelf
i abandoned. Then one becomes frankly pantheis-
te, and identifies all things with the creative power.
Bet if the ght is net the crestive act, bat sepa-
rate from it, then you have an inmsurmoontable diff-
ewlty im the concepdwn. For the power that makes
the Aut ts not iteelf the created thing. bat, as it were,
this power finds the product as a result of the fut.
God saying, Fiat (ur, finds that this act, this word,
or whatever process it symbolizes as actually happen-
bag in the divime mind, ws followed by the external
appearance of something, namely, byht. Now as
erestor of Lyebt, God not yet conceived as the
erestor of those conditions under which just ths
fat couki be followed by jast these consequences
Bat the external sacvess of the fiut presupposes ex-
ternal conditions under which the fiut can savcvead.
Jest as when I say, ~ let there be Lyht,” and pro-
G76 FHE RELAGIOUS ASHE OF PHIABOPHY,
dives it by iny own flat plies the neceumnry jhrywend
asta, svete vy Aves ecarizaceshveced GDerity fan thee ecernvecerd veced
esas, Uurigh nealing wo other mene save bie Art,
Hrsnes yet, vecezslerel Mase, carved Visas Peonvenl bbe flies mfti-
shecrat, eanaeies oof bakes cow tecrrasal echaangees Frenne lirlediecmm bas
Hight, — Bbaah frsents suet nrv yy erececasanes ban saneabedvage Uigelit, sessed
explanation bry tus lawe of ai external world, mw
Csenb'cs eonpscacacrney tae vnnsabeiangs Hh sabessy roscserdes ccm glannedierie, ti
Acs axpaevee Abasaey ocevnvscech vocal, sabtdsernagels Vela tnvennin MPG Mtepye
grersecdl Asn ein ares Voccesep acer ccrrnvagalece tlinne tninne have to
Nec, BAe enn ds pr Woy ide coreeption ina world of
Taw cwtecrread tor Viboveesdt, Mees law of ide world heli
pesscdy sas weseqiad ves Mish, fae sreedece tay prrendiues light am ma
eon lacrnaad Fiasch beas wlll perforin wo ceortndn wet, thes flat,
Phacces Vnoves exccarsaves Valave evsnecececane, S1y Aves mayne nme,
wnler jut Musas conulitiones, Phe flit inny itwelf be
whisleverr prvemacns yond Will,
NSyat, boar Mbescan obisd Aeccens connmbitdcrne meine’? I hew
hes it Casals C bead fos sadeles to rakes ligt, we an oxiabonde
external tr diinecll? The external conuliione on
WHiiecds Vike porecuecnt, avec Mepnnule ming ideal have
Prcesra gcd nn ccrecdscsl Voy Vidrnmecdt, Mvecey ove annae ered
tusrw gorseed dy aensabees esertnnes Dengeecrateriees pencaslamailenin, Mri
gnarled of tachepharnscs aad whit elt yore will, a AM
day Naas wadabes far Vieate tm wbissbes Vrrsidedbaage Voy thes Seenporadines
grrenbraccacal Soy corns yer y wbnngalee Heck, 6. (4 Wy spending
Aves wwerviden, * Vat, Mvscves Does Vetl,”? spend inet mertines yore:
gesarecel aenccrsadorsasves, Uitte wee noes bred veal fan jimh
Abas evsagvace UDG acoab duces. Ay Aves nissan’ veered inaolend bet
wenbl jragly se comferriity ter laa of nndaire prrecaul:
Hage Wis prresecrnl, pwomece tor nies light, bey thes werd of
his nnith, even wu, if Gal's sreative power haw pre
THE WORLD OF DOTTY. 4 'E |
waonsly erestiad the eomditioms ef the gueeess of this
bons resent fiat, thhe sume qmesinoms woulld arise about
those comditnoms, and soom ad infimitim. Alwaxs
even the unfimmte sores of acts would imply, att every
step off the remem, God working upom a mame ex-
temmal wo himnselif amd so God as a fimite power, sb-
ect to the Rawes ticet Det Reme work.
Bat then unay we mot herempom accept the doctrime
of God's imfimiy. amd say thet this imfimime power is
ndemtacel with ms prodimcts” Sirall we mot be pamtha
Ets of the oldfesinomed sort. amd wet keep the don
trie of Grads Fatherhood? The anemnpe ts hope
hess, Amd the ditfiiembmes im the way off the reliziows
ese of the pomtibensme iwqpotihenes ihawe already been
eomaderad. Furthermore, many theme thimkers
howe felt the force of am old set of arrommemts that.
me this eoumtry amd resemily. Professor Borwem:. im bs
© Mecaphvsnss” kes more them ome set forth at
Renerth. mamely. the thomcht that. if God eam be as
Crestor idemmeal with his other erestiioms, he cammot
asa Power well be ademmecal with os. who feel cor
selwes ta be alla emantiive powers. amd mot mnere forms
er acts im any other power, Bar of we are sears
fron Gud. them im this class of exses hos ereamom off
ws imvolwes sll the dtfienlmes befiome pommted cuatt.
When he made ms bt icf was snnessfol berond
bomself. The anwess meds a pretxistemt bow. wer. if
you will 2 preéxiswmt power autmade of humm. to ex-
plsim it : post exactly as any power to power ony homd
or to wink my eve Implbes 2 whole caiverse of bem
eunade of me in order to crve mv wll sms thos poe
thom of amtbamty. Merely assume im your thonrht
21% THK RELIGION ASVEAST OF PRIAMOVHY,
thm cirsecepticnn, nesnoly, « iurwor thet acto nid on
eontorr tated govenlisect veowslthtng Freres it mest s mend wh crise
yon nowl w higher parwer seul « higher Jaw, external
ty the few gwower, toy ocmgolades hurw the fiw sorwer,
wbhsage Sse jest ein way, cursbl mesdelesves jumt thin axter
wel veomsl, Vhestssus wither (Send csremton sunthing anter:
smal ter Vrisrameshf, cor colnen, inn eovenabinag, bres werrlen sstuloy
thes Iawe that grvemeagrwrnes so parwor brigghssr these Seles
wel f, sessed esuteorsil tor bebsvomeslf, Sea thes beviahewt ferrin s
Auta that produce external changes imply adjumn-
sae of ins tr etude, Ths wrontion of external
thsisagees Su wnssche mans meet, «US solernm sate westory bn ihecnstiooal
withe thee porewb each taal t, bese sestw Alsccvecferves be wal jones
ter thes eater) esnulitioon oof ssbjuwterent, 4, 4.) be
pustao bs Hosites,
Certain tinkere wre meutmterineul to mayne ties
they bam Cond Wy hinving obmessre siul ned f-sumtre-
Abeterry ihemn wbaret bite, Vhectuus thay avoid all of
than forverggehingg MiMecssbtieom Voy omblinng thes sremtivn wet
w inysery, New thers wre miysterion nul inyuterion,
Wes her susst, Nasser busow tarescen gerovw, msor why thes plasesta
tAucy thes law of wrevitesion, Sut we meres mares tind
try her, Oden hess srhbacey Samal, wes cher srt benerw ber
pig raser eon voy Noes verssnsl s Voth wes Ioagepoesn bor thin ome
tay proeresch yes tinh mguinvem cmsnet bas ronal, New if
werasecsdnnhy tesddn sores thank Obed in te reise wegramve, navel
sajrprinaln fas snes tr caninislecy vecverveently whuctbusy grechy
sab Merwe ssves tay sesmccrt, fae viecw of tees serywhecry of Chel’
Vrockiage, Wind Obed in sud. wm resid myn, my anewer bn
vecvy pollen, J miay st erteses Whiteh 16 anreimt bas wm Irveevecr-
gers bar edd Ciowd sabmsared sepeed meclf eatenictory in bin
wioknses sam ta onedl aise sassy tbaleegs eles imsvecslitadiles 5
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 279
and that I, for my part, hesitate not to declare very
frankly that though I know very little about God, I
am sure that he is no round square. Now even 90,
an absurd and self-contradictory account of the act
of creation must not be allowed to escape us by
pleading that creation is a mystery, and that nobody
can see Aow God makes things. For, mysterious as
creation may be, we can be sure that if creation is of
such a nature as to involve an external power and an
external law, outside of God's creative power itself,
then God is himself not infinite. And we can be
equally sure that unless God as creator is identical
with his products, the idea of a creative act does in-
volve just such a power preceding the act and out-
side of Gud himself. The device then by which 90
many thinkers seek to escape from this well-known
and ancient net of dialectics, seems for us necessarily
unsuccessful. There are mysteries that we have rev-
erently to accept, and before long we ourselves shall
find such, and we shall be glad to bow before them.
Bat if creation is indeed such a mystery, at all events
a self-contradiction about creation is not such a mys-
tery.
VI.
We have dwelt at length on one of the alterna.
tives of Theism. Disheartened, and without any en-
thusiasm, we turn to the other. Must we after all
remain content in our religion without any assur
ance of the supremacy of the good? Must we be can
tent with this halting half Theism of the empirical
Design-Argument? If we must be, we must be. But
280 THK RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PITILOSOPHY,
what if that too should fail un? Lot us at least try
it. Thin unsatisfactory view says: “ Whit powers
there may be in the world wo oan never wholly know.
Lbyt wo think that thore is evidence that they that
be for the moral law are inore than they that be
agninat it. Anil this ovidenes in given us by the etm,
pirioally discerned marks of benevolent design about
us in the world.” This view, whatever its relig-
ions worth, in at all events capable only of empirical
proof, and pretends only to such a rank, And it ts
in discussing thin hypothesis, in the dim light of the
weary centurion of disput about it, that one comes
at Inet fully to fool the bitterness of the doubt that,
like 0 tormenting disense, aasails and otornally must
aassil one who tries to be content with this dreary vis-
ible world in which wo have heen so far vainly sook-
ing for comfort. Wrangle upon wrangle, conseloss
balancing of probabilition thin way and that, opinions
and ridicule and abuse forever, and no result: such
in thin empirical teleology that seoks a world-manu
frcturer, and cannot discover him. Let us take up
the minoralls Inininow just whore we happen to
fired it.
There is no doubt about this, that the doctrine of
evolution has rendered the popular empirioal proof
of a special designing power mach harder than we
timed to siappons. And whon wo pass to this aspect
of our question, we must confess at ones that we have
nothing to way which ean be new to any reuler of
mnodern discussion. This ompirien! teleology will al-
ways remain a doubtful subject for human inquiry,
Any dogmatic disproof of intelligent finite powers
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 231
or daemons abeve us must be regarded as impossi
ble. The only question to be here solved is the
possibility of purely inductive proof of the existence
of such higher intelligent agencies. And here, as
we hold, just the ancient difficulties as to the proof
of any empirical teleological theory survive, and are,
in spite of all that recent writers have done, rather
Increased by our knowledge of the facts af evolution.
Especially does evolution make the empirical hypoth-
esis of the existence of any finite and guad daemonie
power, intelligently and morally working in the
world, continually mere and more obscure. For
first, as to the intelligence of the higher powers, what
the theory of evolution has done for us in this re-
spect is simply to make us feel that we know nog,
and cannot yet even guess, how much what we en-
pirically call bare mechanism can do to simulate the
effects of what, in an equally empirical and blind
way, men call intelligence. Therefore no empirical
design-argument has longer anywhere nearly the
same amount of persuasive power that it ance seemed
to have. The matter stands thus: An empirieal de-
siemargument might very plausibly reason that, if I
find a child's Moevks arranged to make a house or to
spell words, [can assume that some designing human
hand has so placed them. But the inductive forve
of the argument rests an my previous knowledge
that nothing is so apt te put blocks in that order,
in this present visible work, as just a designing
human hand. But if I discovered certain physical
conditions that did very frequently work, and that
did often so arrange blocks, then I should no longer
oo
282 TH RELIGIOUS AS’P'ROT OF PHILOSOPHY.
consider the given arrangement good proof of human
design. Even so, until 1 see that natural selection
can simulate the designing power of human beings,
T may be dispomsxl to regard a given case of appar-
ent design in nature as a fair inductive proof of
some great carpenter or watch-maker working there.
But the induction, never overwhelining, becomes very
weak whon I learn that there are so-called physical
conditions such as we or chance can produce, which,
however, do nevertheless result in things that my eye
would have called full of design. For then I am led
to few) as if I could pass no judgment at all upon
concrete canon, Yet only by concrete cases can an
empirical hypothesis be proved. Therefore unless a
pebble proves disign an eye does not prove design.
But design, we hear, is not incompatible with evo-
lution, Of course not. And if thers is a designer,
| whe works through evolution, then indeed he shows
wonderful foresight and mastery. But the question
is, not what is compatible with evolution, but what
can be proven from bare experience. And what the
modern man hus very justly come to seo in that mere
exporienmas must leave him in utter doubt about
what powers, intelligent or not intelligent, are the
sources Of all our experience, Wo can find laws;
but they take us only a short way. And the more
we know about nature, the less inclined we feel to
dogmatize on the busis of mere experiences about
What powers are behind the scenes, They may be
intelligent, and they may be what we cull in this
world of sonse mechanical, But an finite powers,
given in expericncs, we men know them solely by
THE WORLD OF DOURT. 288
their effecta. And their effecta are very remote
hinta of their real nature. It is really painful to
read the elaborate waatea of effort made in our day
to prove that aome theolagival dogma about some
power beyond experience ia not refuted by expe-
rience, «Aa if auch proof made anybody's creed
either more or leaa doubtful. A really well-founded
Theiam would not be, in thia tedious way, eternally
on the defenaive.
But there ia the other aspect of the matter. An _
intelligent power, were it admitted, would not need ta
be moral, If there ia deaign, ia the designer demon: |
strably good? Let ua pasa over to that queation.
VU.
If evolution haa done anything for ua, it haa
tended to increase our aense of the myatery af the
world of experience, and therefore the philosoph-
feally minded religious atudent ia in truth, for yet
thia other reaaon, weary of all thia empirival Theiam,
namely, because he deapaira af fading out, by auch
an empirical process, anything about the actual pun
poaea of any cleaigner, even if there be a deaigner.
To atudy Engliah literature in the rubbiah heaps af
a book-binder'sa wark-ahop, would seen to a wise man
a much more hopeful undertaking than to seek any
ane notion of the real plan en whieh this world ia
wade fram a merely empirical study af our little
fragment af nature, Scienve ia right in abandoning
auch undertakings whally and for all ita now prob.
ablo future work. Religion must tind the religious
284 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
aspect of roality in a totally different diroction. The
higher the realities that wo study, the harder the
task. The heavens declare very many things not
wholly clear to us; but the earth and man declare,
as natural facts, very many more and more confusing
things. Only a poetical abstraction can show us any
one plan of religious value in the world of sense,
any one declaration of anybody’s glory therein. An
equally strong opposing interest would find just as
good evidence for what it sought if it should hold
anothor view of what is designed. Nature is, so re-
garded, a confused hum of voices. ‘ Nature,” says
one voico, “is meant to provide bountifully for the
wants of sentient life.” Therefore,” says another
voice, “all the weak, the sick, the old, must starve,
and all tho carnivorous destroy their neighbors.”
“ Naturo aims at the evolution of the highest type of
life,” says the first voice. ‘ Thorefore,” it is replied,
“sho bountifully provides swanns of parasites of all
sorts to feed on highor life.” ‘ Nature desires or-
der and unity,” says the voice from the heavens.
* Thorefore sho makes meteors and comets,” replies
the echoing voice, — And if now the Fiend appears,
and suggests, as the only satisfactory dosign-hypoth-
esis, something of this sort, how could experience
answer him ? — “ Nature,” he says, ‘is designed by
a being who delights in manifold activity of all sorts,
in variety of organization throughout the world, in
the fine contrasts of the numberless forms of sentient
life, and in whatever means vigor. He likes to see
many living creatures, and ho likes to see them fight.
He likes the sight of suffering, as well as of joy ;
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 235
hecause both nrean variety of action. He delights fa
the triumphs of the vietors, in the groans af the com
qrered, in the sportiveness af young animals, in the
writhing of a peor beast that dies in tartare, in the
insidious struggle fer existence that the Aletozoe
carry on, in the hepeless sighs that men send up te
him in their woe, and in the Heal raptates: and
agunies of saints artists, and lovers. All these things
he likes, because they are just so many forms of ex.
istence. He wants plenty of life and vigor to cur
template. as a boy wants att soapauds to make
pretty bubbles for his pleasure as he Hes idle. This
being is doubtless finite Clike his brother, the Sete-
bos af the inhnitalle monologue that Browning has
put into Caliban’s mouth). Bat just now he reigns
hereabouts, even as Caliban’s Setebus reigned in the
island, Aud his designs are so ebvioudy shown in
natury, that anybody ought to believe in him whe
simply looks at the facts af experience.”
OF this horrible doctrine we apprehend that ex
perience as such affers ne dispreof, For all that
selene can say, we might be in the hands af just
auch a demon, Hence it behooves religions students
tw evase looking for the living Ged among the dead
facts of physical wience, and tu betake themselves
to their own proper feld, Science aimply leaves all
such hypotheses utterly doubtful Our litde carner
af the world may have become what it is in any ane
af nuuberloss physically definable ways Aud, if
designed, ita humediate purpose may be any ane of
nuuberless purpases, [tts not probable that expe
rience can tell us much about that matter, Seleuce
Gath tH, MMLAEIN ANDRAS C1 WHIIAIIPHY,
im veswy wiggdet inn mgrpreetadinngy tar en pcos with wholly
MifPesvestoh sadacem, semeanreshy, Fore Wbes mtabees rf tanscbeswobeaneed iregg
hess Naw crt tbees mesegeacsereces crf gybeesteernecestim, Os (lees etedd
Aint, over tertay bre sabsles tar borer whiek thes weerll plan,
Iurwesvert At sremy bres Peewteceal, tlertom wetaindly weotley tom
dhagstaboles of secwurtngslimbiienge jrssh tecw aed beecves bee trae
cccrascevestes ieceliengen with tliingem, Anud if mechestsess, bite
Marhenge sald thei, bosom tae tretaless cscs ttnlen prrrmtislndim, wield far
sadcdstsgrh, Meesees erty Piadtds, Ahessee mrecche Posi tde, tberrvagte ih vecectdes
Hrasbececed to sNesacgrosp Perversedativers, im vat Nestaand, tnerk ibeorobivaed
Witdy ties prrscmnersagetierte Mbeiat, cereelesetateligs rch mbengly
ar gorwetneliates, brut tar grrcoves Votsyereel clertabety prvectectidn ts
Mimeurvece witle cacetanderty, Poernn brnres cm gssmlenrns, Chie
dibaes were led svntebecse’m goliatom ther tagereces withe sntse syleetem,
Afttese sll, mrche ccoveged vical WIeecdmtee im sommnasendenge ite
peta ecoeh, meted sescrmet, echisesecctacedaties Pernere whet it mprpmnen
site Lervageesee sam ou peostetizees Snvvecmtigemtare, Vrteh goemtsn nm thes
Meakecrrsdiaait'n sebdarnaresy , Vdabeccer groeselessat, recBoegees Vested ancl thee
wanhecey oof Mecbriadoc, saneed Decprrsernidn teted, ertbeece gotsergsles wheel
sarmersintves tees Deevelecns oof recone, mated eobtdesce wbesrw 16 ter bow
coco taadiily Prades, rm exlnes saccececge, 1h Pert thes mtahees tf greece:
grblutiy.
Vitt.
Wee trsrrread Ar thes magne catecrnnl World of
SY erwecem, sored wes betaoes Perret Ih ertbeece Meaneby, tre esbats
gehveses be Mnrbe Hndd North faad segetccchiee. “This Serwern
aensey avebertcad Ves merereesbeecny tof thee eigeheccert, everride. — Met
Ade tie, totes DE es seccaengeh, vareereccost dere dnagely Whats wttgrgrt ened]
dsabasprried overt del, bees ovece the eof Dh HDD mtscorem Merrabetteal,
aed trecre es sate Wbees Vertageesn ore whined y Whee seetetdece, "Thee
price lind evil rnsy bos vetdvectmal peenwl 5 bruh we cml tn
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 287
in this external world see how, nor could we find
proof of the fact. What a Power causes, that the
power seems responsible for. And so the Powers
that cause the inestimable might of evil in the world
seem of very doubtful religious worth.
We have already suggested in outline why this
doubtful result was to be expected. These Powers
were assumed to exist apart from our thought, in
time and space, and to work in time. They have,
as workers in time, no certain and eternal signifi-
cance. <A single Infinite Power is, properly speak-
ing, a misnomer. If a power produces something
that is external to itself, then the very idea of such
an occurrence implies another power, separate from
the first, and therefore limiting it. If however the
power is identical with its own products, then the
name power no longer properly belongs to it. For,
as we shall see when we come to speak of the world
in its other aspect, namely, as eternal, the conceptions
of power and product, of cause and effect, and of
all like existences, are found to be only subordinate
to the highest conception of the world as Thought.
For the Eternal Thought are all these powers ; but
in themselves they belong to the flux of things.
Each one of them says, ot ia me, when you ask it
for the significance of the world as a whole. Each
power says: “I work here along with the others.
I fight, I strive, I conquer, I obey, I seek my ends
as Ican. But beyond me are the conditions that
limit me.” And these conditions are the other
powers. The world of powers is the world of the
children of the dragon's teeth. Their struggles are
288 THE RELIGIOUS ASPEOT OF PHILOSOPHY.
endless. The only religion that they can teach is the
religion of endurance and of courage. Or one may
compare them to the warriors in king Atli’s house.
Only the all-secing Eternal Thought can possibly
discover their significance. Of themselves they are
just the fighters in the blood and dust of the ban-
queting hall.
All this we just now affirm without full proof.
But our provious discussion has been one long illus-
_ tration of it. You find or think you find in the
world a religiously valuable power or tendency at
work, But at once there stands beside it its sworn
fou. Is it Evolution that you have found? There
stands beside it Dissolution. Is it the tender care of
a fatherly nature for the very sparrows? Then ap-
pears beside it the cruelty and deceit of nature. Is
it the beauty of the world that suggests a power-
loving beauty? Nay, but the rottenness and tho
horror of natural disease and decay assert as boldly
the workings of a power that hates beauty. Are
all these seeming powers just mere phantoms, whose
truth is in the laws of pliysics? Then the world is
a vast wreck of colliding molecules. Are these pow-
ors real tendencies? Thon their fight is seemingly
endless. The world of the powers is indeed full of
physical law, because and only because its facts are
found, by means of thought that has a deeper foun-
dation, to be cases of certain general rules. But
for our religious purpose, this world of the powers
geoms & chaos.
“ But,” says some one, “all this is no disproof of
the existence of a real but to us not perfectly clear
THE WORLD OF DOUBT. 289
harmony of all the powers. This is simply absence
of proof.” Yes; but if proof is what we want, and
if every single power sends us beyond itself for the
interpretation of the meaning of the whole, we can-
not hope @ grasp that meaning so lony as we avoid
studying the world in its eternal aspect. The pow-
ers themselves make and unmake. We understand
them not. They remind us of the night-svene of
Faust : —
Faust. Was webea die dort am dea Rabenstein !
Mephistepheies, Weiss nicht was sie kochea und schaiita.
Faust, Schweben aaf, schweben ab, neigen sich, beagea sich.
Meplistephacs. Eine Hexenkans.
Feust. Sie streven und weiben.
Mephistophaes. Vorbei! Vorbei!
And if we will hear the wisdom of Mephistopheles
about all this, he has elsewhere given his view, which,
as an opinion about the world of powers by ane af
the more authoritative powers in it, is worthy af
as much respect as any other suggestion from an
equally limited being : —
* Was soll uns dann das ewige Schaffen !
Geschaffenes za nichts hinwerraraffen !
“The ist's varbei !* Was ist daran ra keen !
Bs ist so gat ala wares nicht pewesen.
Cad treit sch doch im Kreis als wenn es wire,
Teh liebte mir dafar das Ewin Leer”
Amd possibly it would be hard for us to be sure of
much more meaning in this world of powers as such,
than Mephistopheles has found.
For us, we turn, not with despair. but with hope, .
elsewhere. We go to sek the Eternal, not in ex-
perience, but in the thought that thinks experience. |
~ n
Re. ae a0 ay wo Cf rr a ee re pee
Suet ; tat eof ts . . . »
~at.: , ee
O10) THK RKLIGIOUR ANPKGT OF FHIAMOPHY,
Cdr haope in tert Lome bewnine we have found in the
tassnporral wo world of denuht, Our song in ablinply
ths Afanl-hy gen world, Tm yolny home," of
tibacs ves A ggharsam suadsasdes oof voll mggem, ‘Whee trvaly vel i gglenan
calesnancasaten oof Clessdmnns maven suse Tasarts Voy thes clemtonsctdon
Of temlitisr aboot Ceshetdes wrgienta, St in only an
camnansngilen orf mbaredlsow thesoragclat, whresae cobtbverr theer clesmtrvadte
Ghves sor Alves cscrtsnobarnscctl ves Daisvbecerm Vassagehones Cheat, thoes brat
ter An sheseshabesel Af Adeee worrlsd cof Abeer grorwesrn bn jaacl gesel
Han snnnes winy cov Sen sannertdacar, Sead dgchsrts bn tame Sessbenqrersuel
cana Gof DD Glavat ous Mirrivam fe Danedengoesnnsberst oof Cheer searthe
wil,
CHAPTER IX.
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES.
Das bestiedize Wetzea der MNemer kt haagweilig, wenn maa Nib
wa whneiden vorbat.— Loran, Methyl.
Whats se ke as rwth Bb
False ta thee ?
Baowxrre.
Ir the reader has become thoroaghly weary of the
world of doubt, we are only glad of the fact. Armed
with a genuine philosophy, a man may indeed go
beck to that world, and find in it an expression of
ideal truth in empirical form. We hope to have
such a riyht ourselves in time: bat, without a well
thought out philosophy, a man venturing into the
world of empirical facts to find there any rehgious
significance actually discovers himself to be in a nest
of hornets : and he deserves as much. We destred
to bring the reader to feel this with us; els our
own prudent flight from that world to another might
seem to him unnecessary. Now we are ready to
come nearer to our former question, What right
has any one to assume that empirical external world
at all as having any absolute truth? =~ thou that.
hast troubled us.” we may say. “what art thea at
bottam more than our own assumption?” What
raght has that external world to be the sole remon
> 7 of
eran . a. . . . . . awa
s
ah ae ~ ~
f
"so w~ oe?
802 THR RELIGIOUS ASPEAIP OF PHILOSOPHY,
where we could seek the relighine truth, when per
ahuanes te external world, as we naw it, in not
wy hritds ot all 2 Pach as cclader onus more ane step,
Pesvehsaness the velighouady jnapielag venlity fe fi mone
higher world, Uf we ave only sheptienl enangh, pose
asbasasnsces wes wbasald Sisal tdasat Wesabity, ‘Wbecren, darcberead,
the old samunption of an external world of emplee
foal fude may remain a part of our future thought,
Dut it will yet a new sens, and copy a new place,
Thus firet anewer tint avenues to thie our question
alent te meaning of the external world that hes
80 far troubled ua, fo thias Phe sesumuenl world be
ne fixed datum, to which we are beuad to sulnnit ab
A hazards, but a postulate, which je mule to wat
afy certain familiar human needa, 1f this pAvtulate
‘fe foul to have no religions signifieanss, we may
Aupplenent the doubt thus arising by remembering
that, wes whi pooatislsatead cues layer thes eight te proline
Inte agin, Our religiously sativfactory truth may
be venhed, not by hypotlewn about powers in the
enpirionl world, but by a deeper faith in something
that is eternal, and bebiad or above the world of tha
enh Neots,
1 This view vives usa new world, the world of tha
Powtulates, We canna, be content to remain in thie
‘workd, but we must pase through i on aur way Np
wards, Vat ue hone St dewerilad,
f,
The world of Doult haw jpresed before us, a huge
nes of inexplicable facts, Here and there we find
THE WORLD OF TRE PosTULATSS 293
a connection : we hope that we shall soon find mare
connection ; but sall the vast plan. if indeed there
be a plan, we search for in vain. Bat now, strangely
enough, all this doubt affects in no wise the willing
trustfulness af our devotion to the Interests, not only
of common life. but also of science. The doubt con-
fuses us only when we talk of religion. That the
work! as a whole is dark. nobody admits more cheer.
fully than does the modern scientific man, even when
he looks to his science for all his relimous consola-
tion. For he weks no consolation save what the
phenomena as such furnish. But his philosphical
doubt about the ulamate foundation of science 3s
mo check to his scientific ambition. He believes in
gchence just as ardently as if he did nat in the very
first breath of cach new philoaophical dispute de.
elare that the real workd is unknowable. His faith
in the nrethads af his specialty is as firm as his in-
difference to all extra - scientific speculanon. His
work is in fact done with a kind of instineaive con
fidence in himself and his fellows. The instinct is
wo doubt highly trained, but it remains an instinct.
and a delightful one it is to him. The untrained
instinets of the unscientific man must indeed be cnt-
tcised and altered in many respects ere ther can
serve the purposes af science : but after all the crit-
iciems and alterations, the instinct remains with al-
wost all men an instinct, — useful, pleasing. ves In-
dispensable : but its philoaophical justification few
people care to know, while its self-confidence everv
eckentifie essay. or lecture. or instructor will attest.
Why now is it that. trusting as we all do this ster
204 9 THR RELIGIOUS ANI KOT OF PHILGSOPIHY,
tif ls Inatinat, wo all fool it hard to give « like trum
tao thes rebielotn Inatinat, whone mont oneal tendeney
In to have some sort of falth fn the goodnann of
things? Why in tt that the doubtfulness and the
aontrullotions of the real world seen to everybody
ty throw a cloud upon religion, even when it is not
supernatural religion, but to have no slgerdflennee
whatever for the liane of welens? Thin sclantifie
notion of a world of law, all of whose facta could
eonaslvably be predletad by one formula, why does
thet resela dy our indnds untonched by the doubts
OF thes mbecprthesel goliilomcpshecrn, whiiles thes snsne sleeps.
tein at ones neon to remove from ius that trast in
the moral poodnam of things whieh religion has
tiled to ontablind fn our hearts? Shall the world
be dndifforsnt to one sot of our ideals, and not to
anether? Shall the moral value of things be dark,
arsed seco, sole thresher veelises for thes gouarpremen of meshes ?
W bay dos thes corner cherestardnes socr Ui fPesresnnt, fron ther other 7
You sre placed ina world of confusion, and you tm
weeset, Chase, ben Dt sabtdennsutes corned evtaserracal sasetarses 16 arnwerrn
your moral neds, That seme prominptious, You
Abel not mbes that world. Tow do you know whether
It ences for your moral ideale? Very wall then, be
Fraprertial, You sre placed doa world of confuston,
aanel yorts summesert, Gist, 1h sessmoerrn yortar Sentesd Levetansal
sievsidm, sestsesdy, Chiat it ds se work of order, whine
Firastion ccevnadel ees vreselssccesel tar meotenes rovtbeotssel setae Seatest lige.
Doles snanitiy, «Wohrset Vrtarsdsvesmm trsaves yeos tas cleo that? Tn
rere ccsussem yorta arsenemecessnel esxcqeesedesmens, = Neattares pelvenn
you in experlsnees partial ovil that you ont in all
cases porcsive ta be univers good, Nature aleg
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. 295
gives you in experience partial chaos that you can-
not in all cases perceive to be universal order. But
unwaveringly you insist that nature is orderly, that
the chaos is an illusion; and still you do not feel
ready to insist that the partial evil is universal guod.
Why is this so? Is the ethical side of reality less
important than the other? Or is it the very im-
portance of the religious aspect of things that m
us more ready to doubt the truth of this aspect?
Such questions occur to us as suggesting a possi-'
ble way out of our difficulties. It is not exactly our
desired way, but is it not possibly a good way? Sci-
ence, namely, uses a certain kind of faith, whenever |
such faith is practically necessary. This scientific |
faith is indeed no faith in particular uninvestigated
facts, but it is a faith in general methods and prince
ples. The creed of science knows of no dogmas
about unexperienced single facts, as such: but it does
know of dogmas about the general form of the laws
that must be assumed to govern all experience. Now
why may not religion be reduced to certain essential
general and fundamental moral demands, that wo
must make in the presence of reality? Woy are not
these a legitimate, ves, a morally necessary object of
faith? Why, as the scientific man postulates a the |
oretical rationality in the world, may not we postu
late a moral rationality in the world? These ques- |
tions stand in our path. Might not the answer to
them transform our barren doubts into something
less disheartening ?
We see what all this supposed religious faith
would mean. It would not be a faith in any partic
_
. @ . s "8 acvA@. >
O08 THK RELIGIOUS ASPEOT OV PHILQKOPHY,
ular facta of experience that might have for us per
wocotneel ly co merDSimds vistas, wirerthiern yoresator ov lens, 16
wortilel bres, Uber ther merbentiiies falth, wholly general, J6
wertded cLersrosgicl that ther world) in bt cnthrety sbeconulel
Does reyearclend am din manne higher wenn morally ra
thorn), Et worsdel says “Ther veal workd sunt be, wheat-
ever ite true nature, at lent ae high io the sonal
mole ansny libghont idole of poodle, Ihave woo
ryht to much wo falth? Jat os cautiously consbler
bhiin grout,
DSuat sat, connere wee snnrant cHoatdanggiabnhe ther prapreomend rea
Viggheosam Feathe Foreony what wer obscoabe) cull sorcerer blbanal
Faaltde, — V3binned feebthe Son what wes connot comteatoldnds ba
Asncbescreh Dorseclssriobbobes, — Bdsat Chacsnn, bos thaceares spent capacotdaces
Uehaneh cof Foaltde, three Uebored thot Users camercd San Dade ported.
theal plillonophy? ‘To this may we not now turn?
Porhape the world of the powers, apprencbend fie thes
usual way, Jn dark, but the world for the prnctlonl
rressansenny anneny Ves coprcervesel Gan cunnertduers weary, Krsat ooeabel, in
affert s Mesely canned menede meager rendition, of res
i Nylous sbynifiennes, cannot be theoretloally proven 5
but we enn nee why we ought to postulate thelr ax.
i Sotanen, that in, we ean nee why me aught to act an
Uf they erlated, Behind the voll of mens, we must
i pontulate that there is nn boteliiyible world, io whieh
wl) Jos Voearnancosny, susncl bev whrdeds tdecy bolyghreomt, grcrencd in
renlivead,” May we not also try with Kant to de
thin? |
Wo whall fn any cone find thls effort, an offort
tat tame been no often minds aloes Kant, a subject
well worth our wtiudy aod enroful examination, In
truth it in not by itnlf watinfuotory 5 but wo shall
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. 27
eee that it enters ax one moment into the higher
view that we shall hereafter reach. So, in our own
way, we shall now try to answer the question sug
gested to us by Kant's method. Doves not then the:
religious aspect af the world lie in the fact that, do-
apite the contradictions of the wurld af sense, we
may, and indeed, morally speaking, must postulate,
that the Evernal, of which this world is the mere
show, is in ieelf absolutely righteous? We shall
not be able to answer this question with a simple
affirmative : but still, postulates must enter in some
Wise into every moment of our lives, and must there-
fore have some value in religion.
IL
In the last chapter we sought for a demonstration
of religious truth, and feund none. But perhaps it
Was not demunstration that we should have sought.
Possibly religion may be content & rest on posta-
lates.
A postulate is a mental way of behavior. In
far it is like all other thought. Io general, w be
lieve that a thing exists is to act as if it existed,
But the act may be forced upon ane, oF it may be
freely chosen. One cannot fail te act upon the prin-
ciple that 2 + 2 = 4, a soon as he perewives it. Rut
one may voluntarily determine to act in a given way,
not being rationally forced so te da, and well know-
ing the risk. In such cass ane voluntarily takes
to himself the form af belief called a pustulan.
Thus, apart from any philoayphic theory, we all pus-
298 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
tulate a certain kind of uniformity in nature. We
do so, whenever we reflect upon the matter, volun-
tarily. For we then say that surprises are always
possible, and that any law may have exceptions, but
that we must act as if we knew certain laws to have
no possible exceptions. Postulates, however, are not
blind faith. Postulates are voluntary assumptions
of a risk, for the sake of a higher end. Passive faith
dares not face doubt. The postulate faces doubt,
and says: “So long as thou canst not make thyself
an absolute and cortain negative, I propose to act as
if thou wert worthless, although I do well see thy
force.” Blind faith is emotion, and often cowardly
emotion. The postulate is deliberate and courageous
volition. Blind faith says: “I dare not question.”
The postulate says: “I dare be responsible for as-
suming.” Examples of both are very common.
Blind faith the fond parent has, who says of his
wicked son: “ I know that he must be good, hence
I will not suspect him, nor train him; I will not
watch him, nor warn others against him.” A pos-
tulate the wise parent makes, who sends his full-
grown #on boldly out into the world, with the best
attainable safeguards, saying: “It is useless to keep
him longer in leading-strings, or to protect him from
the world. It is now his place to fight his own bat-
tles, since I have done what I could to got him ready.
I postulate that he will win the fight; I treat him,
and must treat him, as if he were sure to win, al-
thongh I well know the risks.” Tho sea-captain
beginning his voyage postulates that he can get
through. The general postulates that he will be
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. 299
victorious, The Prime Minister of a country poste-
lates that he can do his country better service than
could the Opposition. We all postulate that our
lives are worth the trouble. Yet we all know per
fectly well that many just sach postulates must in
the natare of things be blunders. But they imply
not blind faith, bat active faith. With blind faith
litle good is done in the workd : without active faith,
expressed in postalates, very little practical good
can be done from day to day. Blind faith is the
estrich behind the bush. The postalate stands out
Tike the hon against the hunters. The wise shall hve
by postulates.
IIT.
Bat how is this postulating activity actually re-
lated to oar knowledge af ralitv? Much mare
clesely than one might suppose. Verr much of our
thoaght naturally rests upon a hind faith, or upon
what many take to be a Nind faith: but this, when
we reflect upon it with due attention to the affice it
fills. ts transformed before our eves into practically
anavoidahle postulates, Such are the assumptions
apon which our science rests in forming its Weal af
an “universal formula.” There may indeed be some
deeper basis for these postulates af science, Bat
waost men know nothing of this basis. And aq, when
we accepted in our last chapter these postulates, we
had to admit that they are a kind of faith. If we
then nevertheless objected to certain religions doe
trines that they rest on insufficient evidence, we did
this because they ect themelves up as dogmas
er wir
i/
800 THK RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
With further consideration, we might come to accept
some one of them again in the form, not of a demon-
wtrable dogma, but of a practically unavoidable pos-
tulate, uncertain of course, but taken and to be taken
on rink ; just as every one of us goes through the
world taking all sorts of rinks day by day. Any-
thing not contradictory may be a possible object of
postulates; although, again, overy postulate in to be
anmnumed only after careful criticism, and only be-
cause we cannot do better
To do justios then to the propor office of portu
lates in our religious theory, we must sooner or later
consider in what casos they naturally arise, what is
the propor oxtont of their use, what is the basin upon
which they can be made, in any special case, to rest;
and, flnally, whether, in view of all thin, we can give
them any important place in our religious doctrine,
Wo confess at once that we want something much
better than a postulate an the basis of our religion,
in case wo can got it. If postulates are to have any
part in our religion, we want them to be justified by
nome ultimate religious cortainty that is more than
nu postulates. Wo shall investigate all that in time.
Wo shall seo what we shall soo. Meanwhile, what
| in the work of postulates in the actual daily lifo of
| amen thergpght 7
Popular belief about an external world is for the
first an active assumption or acknowlodgmont of
somothing more than the data of consciousness,
What is directly given in our minds is not external,
AN direct data aro intornal facts; and in the strict
ost sense all data are direct. Suppose a merely paw
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES, 301
sive acceptance of what is in consciousness, and you
have no belief in an external world. An addition to
the data of consciousness, a more or less clearly vol-
untary reaction, is Invulved in your idea of external
reality. The trath of this principle appears when
your belief in any particular object is called in ques-
tion. You hold that you see yonder a snowy moun-
tain. Your companion insists that beyond the wide
misty valley there is to be sen only a gray cloud.
You reassert your belief. and in the reassertion feel
more definitely than at first the active addition of
your own belief to the meagre data of sense. The
addition existed, however, in your first assertion.
Or again, one man is trying, perchance in sport, to
make another doubt the existenve of material ob-
yoots. * There is no external matter,” says the first.
“There are but these states of consciousness in our
minds. Nothing beyond them corresponds to them.”
The second, maintaining the position of the man of
commion sense, returts sharply : * Doubdess [ cannot
rofute altogether your tinespun arguments: but they
are nevertheless nonsense. For I persist in believing
in this world of sense. I live in it, T work for it, my
fellows believe in it, our hearts are bound up in it
our success depends upon our faith, Only dreamers
doubt it. Tam not a dreamer, Here is a stone:
T hit it. Here is a previpive; I fear and shun it.
My strongest conviction is concerned with the exist
ence of this work of sensa Do your worst: [ant
not afraid of tlk.” Thus then by every device af
the active spirit, by reminding himself of his must
eberished interests, of his affections and hatreds, by
802 THE RRLIGIOUR ARPEOT OF PHILOSOPHY,
arousing hie social sentiments, by bodily acta, the
practical man preserves himself from fantastionl apes
ulation, When better-trained thinkers call the belief
in an external reality “a natural conviction, to be ra.
tained until we are compelled to abandon it,” or “a
convenient working hypothesis, to be received on the
testimony of consciousness, testimony assumed to be
trustworthy until the opposite ie proven,” what are
these but similar practionl considerations, appeals to
the will? Concerning data of immediate conscious
news such remarke would be wholly out of place,
That J seo a certain color at this moment ie nots
“convenient working hypothesis,” Is conselousness
maraly a “ presumably trustworthy witnew” when it
tentifies to the pangs of toothache? Nobody eould
balances evidence as to the reality of hie sensation
quad sensation when conslousnass is filled with the
sound of a strest-organ, Bound, color, pang, these
are data, not merely things believed in, But the
external world —that ts actively aevepted aa being
eyinholizad or Indicated by the present conscious
ness, HOt as being given in thé present conselousness,
In short, the popular aasertion of an external
world, belng an assertion of something beyond tha
dita of conselousnesds, must begin in an aetivity of
judgment that does more than merely reduce present
data to order, Such an assertion must be an aetive
construction of nonadata, We do not recelve in our
senses, but we posit through our judgment, whatever
external world there may for us be. If thera te
really a deeper basis for this postulate of ours, still,
ait the outwst, itis just a postulate,
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. 303
All theories, all hypotheses as to the external
world, ought to face this fact of thought. If the his-
tory of popular speculation an these topics could be
written, how much of cowardice and shuffling would
be found in the behavior of the natural mind before
the question: ~ How dost thoa know of an external
reality? Instead of simply and plainly answer
ing : ~ I mean by the external world in the first place
something that I accept or demand, that I posit,
postulate, actively constrnct on the basis of sense-
data,” the natural man gives us all kinds of vague
compromise answers: “I believe in the external re-
ality with a reasonable degree of confidence; the
experience of mankind renders the existence of ex-
ternal reality ever more and more probable: the
Creator cannot have intended to deceive us: it is un-
natural to doubt as to external reality: anly young
people and fantastic persons doubt the existence of
the external world : no man in his senses doubts the
external reality of the world: science would be im-
possihle were there no external world: morality is
undermined by doubts as to the external world; the
immovable confidence that we all have in the prn-
ciple of causality implies the fixity of our belief in
an external cause af our sensations.” Where shall
these endless turnings and twistings have an end?
The hahits of the law-courts as condensed into ~ rules
of evidence.” the traditional rules of debate, the
fashion of appealing to the * guod sense ~ of honor
‘able gentlemen opposite, the motives af shame and
fear, the dread of being called * fantastical.” Philis-
time desire to think with the majonty, Philistine
B04 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF FHILOROFHY,
terror of all revolutionary suggestions, the fright or
the anger of a man at fading somes metaphywlelen
ery Saag tar cyrseswtlern what mesetea tar bees thes feonandations
capone whaleste cornea’ boreal whrvrabingg clerposrecde, --all three
Nesmmery taetdvere saves myrqoertalend tor, ened thee cones ultiinnte
murtive fe naglaul, The wltinnte motive with the
man of every-day life in thes will to have an enter
nal world, Whatever conselousnoms contain, ronan
WANE grecvmbonts Lan mpurnatastsseramby scllbige thes thastaghat s
© Ubiat Gbacseres wDasadl Voce marseagetdadaagy Dosysrtned thibw.” The
external venlity sa meh Ca, oy, ties wpe beyond the
Favtlicwt ater, many opeacces reot mecsemnbliles, evens whatever
in tort wh any inoment given In m far no it ie viewed
from that moment, in particular avery pawt event) te
never a detain, We conetruct but do not receive
the external rendity, ‘She lnmeovalle wertalaty " bn
not wish «deal praive certainty ae that with whieh
wes vedesdves ss gual ce sn ecleatoles whan, Shas pore
Hine newness of na external world in the xed da
termination to sinke one, now mol beneeforth,
Die thes geererral poogradar camecptionn of reality we
Mosel thers thas Newh ees of powtulaten, We lave am yet
Hey justificntion for them, But even thus we get ng
dashes giatatas Veleet oof thuscde vines ead of tele nner, Wa
tiioh Laake ab thes facta of everyday mental life w Ht
es snares cleanly, Moe theres is a curliin tondenay
af many br miele Uiewe: postulates appenr something
esheses Dasenn whatat, thucy saree, Cf Len Unecy saver Seoterrprrestend
ny Uf tbecy were no postulates at all, but data of
pacnaees, CDE taen, cagesabon, Ubeecde martiver osaterres fw bape
parcel in yet another way, aud they appear aw blind
gonad ves feahtle, Misch fue frat they snviwt agopnner If we
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. $05
reflect upon their mere content, and not upon the
processes by which we get them. Bat if we inter
pret them rightly, we shall see that they ought to be
regarded as beliefs, taken for the first on risk, and
because the risk ts worth taking.
Iv.
Sometimes we hear men asserting that their be-
liefs are independent of their will. Sach a man
will express himself m some such way as the follow-
~I try to conquer prejadice: but having done
this, [ can do no more. My belief. whatever it is,
forms itself in me. [ look on. My will has noth-
ing to do with the matter. I[ can will to walk or
eat: bat I cannot will to believe. I might as well
will that my blood shoald circulate.”
But is this expression a fair one? Does sacha
man really remain passive in the struggle that goes
on within him? We think not. These bebefs in
sach a man have resulted. we hold, from a sort af
strarvle between him and the surrounding work.
The world has tried sometimes to check his thoaght,
and to confine it to one channel: anmetimes to con-
fuse his thought. and to scatter it into spray before
the quick, heavy blows of innumerable, disconnected
sense apparitions. Bat the man, if he is a man of
energy, has controlled the current of his thoaght.
He has foaght hard, now for freedom from oppres-
sive narrowness of thoacht. now for wholeness and
unity of thought: and perhaps be has in so far com
BOG THE RELIGIONS ASPET OF PHILAKOPHY,
agussev) um ty bee th tinater of wn rianly aed sneny-
wishess mywterese orf shevctrinns, Woe thitshe belete romgunsmible
for Unin myntotn 5 nnd wes build et any sash sen
anager bar sasbensit, thes rongurnibsility,
‘Bsa hash y Vorlethy Chas semtesres of thes prem involved
fsa mb mscshe sommes will bos Senqerrtnnt for cnr whole
Aswhaite, Wes wheadd meee thusreclry bearw seatscshs enter thre
avy 6h thus world seta itaedf tend tor fall sander the
Hrscmsl cof thus gravely grometioml, Wes whl) synrraciuto
abacs thus Nisvitatisonn of crrdinury Uunighet, aed the
paseecd | seh wsrssess Weigehuece she) wheasshared ter vemmsrtsss tam Frere
thiss graves musbipeutivity of incre gwotsilatem, Asul wo
whand) bos cxrtetribvrationg Vey thus way tr 0 cumbia of tp
phere est aterm, thees cgenesmbderte oh thes sivornlity of lnliaf,
Kvery onus resungnizven tint wt lena one sure abe
ward lerurwhewlyes equctule Ineyely tapers one OWR
sietttal muchivity, Kasrwing in nuh sieve: pan ree
waepndorn ih Susctens ore od truths, Lomrning be nnd solely
sate Wade oh thes sevectvrry, Thus rms inl withunset ree
Wecetisrns cartasseitn theism So snectcory in juwhhy carte
graven tor 2 prvi, maul sight yet surve jawtly bo
canipraves| tor thus myoriges oA Neanlet’n figures 4 34 ie
bist meynseying yin, nul, sgomye, yon wheall bow dey
mgesaian.”” Nev berssswlhealyses, tects, witherst sschives heme
gritaaditiy ise Shoes vevisesl thesnk vesachverm thes beresrwloulyges,
Shut, am mower em wes vesungriizas bn snecttad Viker sin cnney
gwrwery tar nenlify ney rurwlesl yes bry temsin of ier we
wets vity, frat wy meen Mer add ther oolsl eonngmerlonin of
thoes vsbswsl far a wow Sasbslech, ay mo whuecert, oof pragner, crv ta
tAbucr Vike; jrtacen) vee wtsbijearte uf jrnprremeberts, bsomes Foor ta
theciy muecseing, Mecrtssd Vifes tesunnem for us, in view
Oh Wasrmes Varden, 0 Siedl of canimtant mtivity, ‘Thee ony
monest processes of knowledge acquire a new sipuiii-
cance.
Two kinds of activity are concerned in the attain-' -
meat of knowledge. One kind consists m simply .
receiving impressions from without, sach as sensa-
tions, or, on a higher plane, statements of truth; the
other consists in modifying and in organizing these
impressions. The receptive activity is partly a phys-
teal activity, since the one who receives information
mwast use his eyes and ears, must keep awake, mast
at times move about; and this receptive activity 1s
also partly made up of the mechanical processes of
the mecmory. Association by contiguity, or earning
by rote, is in the main a reveptive process, though
this process of reception requires some active effort
om the part of the receiver. Committing words and
semtemnes to memory is often hard labor, as we all
ef us learned when we first were tortured with il
wrought seorraphies and grammars, ar with merc-
Jess Latin declensions and oonjazations. Bat af the
whole of this receptive activity we shall make no
ime. keeping your mind im a submissive attitade,
edge, but has no reactive effert. does not modify the
form or the matter of your knewledze. Senandls,
however, knowledce is determined for each of us
by bis own reaction upon what he nweives: and
this saoand mentioned Kind of mental activity. that
which forms our topic at present. oansists in a mod
808 THE RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PITILOSOPHY.
flontion as woll as in an organisation of what wo have
rocolved from without. All processes of ronsoning,
and so all original dincoverion in solonce and in phi
lonophy, all spooulations, theories, doginas, controvete
slew, and not only those complex procesos, but, as
wo shall aes, oven slinple judgments, commonplace
bellofs, momentary asta of attention, Invelve sugh
Independent reaction upon the material furnished to
ws from without. The nature of this reaction we
are further to oxamine,
Lot ous condor simpler forms of knowledge,
PhestunesLonnporesmmieotin cvcrnmtecnitly miagggcernt tar tim theatagghite
in frst, wo have fow thoughts that are not either Lin
mnelliately sigyoatecd by suse -linprosions, ot else
mintalned in thelr course by a continuous stroam of
wititable sennedinprossions, ‘lo carry on oven a tral
of abstriant rensoniiyg, sotae-linpromions either prem
ont or repented secon necemary aa supports. But
when sense-lmpromions come to us, what transform
then date thought 7
The answor in, Meat of all, attention, an sotive
mental proce, "Thos xcnaelnpronion in itaelf not
yet knowledge. Ao senaolinpromdon to which we
give no attention slips through conslounnens as &
man's hand through water, Nothiag grasps and ree
tidinn dt. Paltitdes effet, dn goracluced by it. Tt ds wate
known, You eannot even toll what it iss Kor to
know what such an tnnotdesed Imnproadon te world
he tor pay attention ta dt. But let as now consider
none fanilian exmnaples of the working of attention,
A simple dnatines will being home to as how the
houndarion of our consuiousnions are crowded with um
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. 309
known mapressnons — unknown, becamse not sttended
to: bat yet im some imexphcable way a part of oar
comscomsness. smce an effort of aiteminom serves to
bem them. amy ome of them, cheariy into mental
wesnom. At thes mmstamt you are booking at some
thm. Now. withoat movie your eves try. br
merely aitemdins to your vinxal Dmpressoms te say
wheat as mow un the field of visom. and where ts the
boundary lime of the field of visom. The exper
weeat ts a bite hand. became oor eves. condensed
exabodimments as ther are of tireless carosnity. are al-
ways restless, amd rebel when wou try to bold them
fast. Bat eomquer them for am imstant. and watch
the resalt, As your attemtom roams aboot the arti
Geetally fixed vismal field. vom will at first, imdeed. be
comfased br the vacmemess of all butt the cemtre : Dest
eoom wou will fimd. to wour surprise. that there are
more different umpresssoms mm the theld tham vou at
first cam distimzunsh One after ameter. many va-
Whos impressions will appear, But moe: wou can
keep vour atwmmon fixed om only a portmem of the
field at a tmme. The rest of the field ms always los
ma adm hare You most be receivime Impressoms
alll the time ffrom all] points ef the field. Bat alll of
these. except the few no which wou par athemman.
meariv or quite disappear im the dim thockets what
seem to surround the lite forest-chaarime made by
our athentive qamachoasmess, A ke experment can
be tried with the semee of bearime. whem wo are im
a hrze room fall of peop who are taliime all areond
You im many independent sroaps A mass of sound
@ummes to your ear. Comsciamsmess interferes to make
810 = THK RELIGIOUN AKPKOT OF PITILOSOPRY,
you plok out one or another of the serlen of sounds,
an wait which in tndead made pombble by the natural
analytlo tondongy of the human auditory sense, but
Which does not take place without a notlooable effort
of attontilon, When you are lowrning a foreign lan
guage, and are fora while mach among those who
wponk It, there comes a thine when your oar and
nia are woll enough tralned to follow and under
wtand ordinary sponkers with only a Uttle affort of
attention; but yot, at thin stage, you are able, by
dlinply withdrawing your attention a mere trifle, to
lot very common phrawn rian through your sense
without your wndoritanding them one whit, You
oan this, by a aight change of attontion, convert
the fornign language from a jargon Into a famillar
wpawoh, and back apni Into a jargon, juntas, ln the
fixed vinual flold, you oan make yourself soa an ob
Joot protty plainly, or lone it altogether, by ooaslag
to give attention,
All then Instances, which could ho indefinitely
multiplied, prove, fest, that what we call attention
mocdiflon the knowledge that wo at any moment got |
andl necondly, that thin modi fontion, through atten
tion, may take plan without any ohange in the line
proisions that at any moment come from wlthout.
The tlrat atagge inv gotta knowledge from bare sane.
Lnpromions in therefore the modifloation of son hy
attention oa proce belonging wholly to the stb
Jootive sidey doe. to our own minds
But what in uttention ? nnd how doo tt modlfy
donmtion ? Apparently, attention in the provions
dnatancon haw bean maroly a power to Inoroase or te
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. $11
diminish the intensity of impressions. But is this
all that attention does? No: there are many cases
in which attention directly affects the quality, at
Jeast of our complex impressions, This direct modi-
fication is commonly attended by some alteration of
our emotional state. It is a familiar fact, that in
Listening to a series af regular and even beats, such
as the strokes af an engine, or af a pendulum, or the
teking of a watvh, wo have a tendency to modify
the impressions by introducing into their series the
more elaborate regularity of rhythm. In paying at-
tention to them, we increase, at our pleasure, the in-
tensity of overy third or fourth beat as heard, and
90 make a rhythm, or series of measures, out of the
actually monotonous impressions, Now attention,
which here first acts by modifying the intensity of
impressions, soon produces the effect af qualitatively
raodifying our total impressien of the whale series,
If I have taken the fancy to listen to the even
strokes in quadruple time, intensifying by my own
act every fourth stroke, the character af the series is
changed fer me. The impressions are less monoto-
nous, and they arouse new associations, They seem
to be cansed by some foree that rhythmically in-
creases and decreases. Perhaps a melody, or some
phrase of a few wounds, arises in my mind, and per
sists in assuwiating itself with the strakes. Probably
some vague feeling, as af rhythmic motion through
the air, or of pleasure or of displeasure in the pres-
egce of some rhythmically moving living being, is
awakened. Qualitatively, my consciousness Is thus
altered through my attention. I seem to be expert
B12 «FH RELIGION ASFRAT OF PHILOSOPHY,
ecneshiage mmrtesectbidinge tint, ww ate clijeetive renlity, T de
terh exe getcelesnees, — Marves wthviing Nnnunnen thin qualie
taetives saltesrmbiony orf ecngusrlecnens Miverigeh mtterttierit,
ite ccs erie Verdin fewer watechien oof iffecrent band, a
me weatecde satel sa eclencle, send detects fer asthe wt cries Wb
tlves imtsstees of in few ined, Newt, pcrhape, aepping
ines ear ty navel centioien, Were, by attention,
yin take oF fey ta ninke & connganind rhythin,
mse Arim effort, wbtern oo prwnd betel tes terteal linyrrete
wherts thet yet clestives Frente thes mend, FF the two
nevies are wtih Hiatt alinple sinll multiple of the
fitecrval of erties piven yint te wien monll mnitiple of
dees ertheest’n interval, yer ean centnbrites tes te series
Hieber rtses ebiythion, mad Alec theres in mn finmnedinte
Hiseqovecnsierte nm if Ales bees pecrlon weeres venlly bat the
carnegie Ahecbeinige orf srttes netizens of mend, Dat if the
pies heces Will vasrh tagereces, Abeeses im sare ended mestenes orf mentite
tbadnege weertge, te listagrpnritsbesd efferet, tar cannibitig,
feritaccal,, precelisagm, with leniency tor bineten ene of the
pots heses, te tam tor ttetabess 1h fagereces with thes ether, Ane
(rb deece tacts wheres tattecntion altecre tie onlity of total
dneegressersierton, teed tere anecrecdy thes intennity of any
grsrt, mgrpasers dee casttain poyeludleplonl lalurratery en:
gece devnestutas, sesoecribiced bry Worrell ite bebe Playwteder
ghee Seyeberlengio.” Mere, tere thes mikes of deter:
dasheadenge tees seachaniad tanaees taabecses Wry sate seek oof webbectebiortt,
fate tabvcese yest im Aer tretebecs tage tcbecesheies migetiel fm mentee ae
byes Nneertnee suing of te crtelte innprreonien, while
Abies Dnesprrccmdorny ited ty qreewbiceel bry tte maletanit wb &
fA vnaes comet y sectecrresi nea). Wha mertareces orf thes feeapengme
pederny iy tbees einegedeage cof ta bell, thes Meals of ane electetie
npierh, ie msinething of thes hind agreed upon at the
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. $13
eatset. Teo distinguish from one another the various
causes of the delay of the signal, the cunditiuns af
experiment are vanously meditied. In one set af
experiments, the observer dues not knew beforehand
whether he is te experience a flash af heht, or a
sound, or same sensation of touch. nor hew intense
the sensation will be, ner when it will come; bat he
knows that he is to be on the loukout for one of the
three kinds of sensation. He waits. with attention
all aroused. In this case, it always takes him longer
to sivnal than if he knew beforehand the kind and
the strencth of the coming sensativn. Moreover, bis
attention now makes him uneasy: the coming sen-
sation is expected, with signs of excitement, and 3&8
often received with a start. Here the feeling of ef-
fort that accompanies attention affects by its strength
the character of the impression reveived. Morevrer,
ia many of these experiments there appear phenom.
ena that show that attention alters our perception
of tame, not merely as to lenyth. but also as to se
qeence ; so that under circumstances, an impression
that really precedes another can appear in consciows-
Bess as succeeding it. Yet more: attention some.
times serves te combine two sets af simultaneous im-
pressions, and to make them seem as if proceeding
from one souree.
Se much for the influence of attention alone. But
what ts attention? We reply. evidently an active
process. When impressions are moditied by atten-
tion, they are actively mrodittad, And if vou ask
about the nature of this active process, the reply is.
ateention, in its most elementary forms, is the same
fe, a aia
814 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPRY.
activity that ina more developed shape we commonly
call will, We attend to one thing rather than to
another, because we will to do #0, and our will is
here the elementary impulse to know. Our attention
loads us at times into error, But this error is merely
an acoompaniment, the result of our will activity.
We want to intensify an imprenion, to bring it
within the sphere of knowledge. But in carrying
out our impulse, we do more than we meant. We not
only bring something into clearvr consoloumness that
was before out of clear consciousness, but we quali
tatively modify thin thing in attending to it. I want
to observe a sorien of boats, and in observing it, I
make one beat in three or four seem heavier than the
others, or I aven alter the apparent length of one ine
turval in three or four, by making it sean longer
than the othera. I observe a serion of visual im-
promiona, and at the samo time a series of auditory
impressions; if there ina certain agreement between
them, | irresistibly unite these two serion by my aot
of attention into one series, and refor them to a com.
mon onde, And so in the other onsen, Attention
noon to defent, in part, its own object. Bringing
something into the fleld of knowledge seams to be
a modifying, if not a transforming, proconn,
Wo all know how this sumo law works on a higher
plane. Giving our whole attention fora time to a
partioular subject seoma necessary for the growth of
our knowledge, Yot such attention, if long kept up,
alwaya modifies our power to know, affeota our whole
montal condition, and thua injures our power to ap-
prociaty the relations between the subject of our
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. $156
study and the other things in the world. Constant
attention to ane thing narrows our minds, until we
fail to see the very thing we are looking at. Our
lives are thus really passed in a constant flitting
from one more ar less partial and distorted view of
things to anvther, from this one-sided judgment to
that. Change the book you are reading, and your
whole notion of the universe suffers same momentary
change also. Think this week in the fashion of
Carlyle, attending to things as he brings them to
your attention, and human life — in fact, the whale
workd of being as you thought of it last week, when
you were fullowing some other guide — becames mo-
mentarily clouded. This truth seems out of relation
to that. Your change of attention qualitatively alters
your apprehension of truth. Attending now even to
the same things, you view them in new lights. The
alteration of mental attitude becomes confusing to
yourself. But refuse to make any such changes, set-
tle down steadfastly to sume one way of regarding
all things, and your world becomes yet more misty.
You see only a few things, and those in such a bad
light that you are in danger of utter darkness. Fre-
quent change of mental view (we of course do not
mean constant change of creed or of occupation, but
only frequent alteration of the direetion of our
thought) is essential to mental health. Yet this
alteration implies at least some temporary ¢ in
our knowing powers, and so some change in our ap-
preciation of truth.
Refure going on to speak of the effect of our own
activity upon our knowledge, when attention is com-
816 THK RELIGIOUS ABPEOT OF PHILOSOPRY.
bined with active recognition of impressions, we
want to formulate the law that governs the sction
of attention upon sonse-lmprenions apart from reo
ognition, ‘This law seems pretty well established by
experience, and in, ut all events, quite simple, Tt is
thin: Any wet of attention tonds, first, to strengthen
the particular set of impressions to which it is at the
moment mlapted ; and secondly, to modify thowe ime
premions in buch a way as shall nuke the total im-
pression derived from them all as simple an impres
dion as possible, ‘Theno two statements could be
reduced to one, thus: Attention constantly tends
to make our consciousness nore definite and lew
complex ; that in, less confused and more united,
More definite, less confused attention tends to make
consciousness; since, out of many vague impressions,
attention fixes upon one or a few, and helps them
to crowd out the others, Less complex and more
united or integrated attention makes the impressions
attended to; as when, for the indefinite multiplicity
of the successive even beats of a wateh or of an en-
gine, attention substitutes the simpler form of a rin
ing wand Salling rhythm of more and less emphatic
beats, or ws when two parallel series of impressions
wre reduced to one, by combination. Tf impressions
wre Ko complex and so imperative in their demands
ni to impede yrontly the simplifying and clarifying
efforts of attontion, the result is a disagreeable feel-
ing of confusion, that may increase to violent pain.
This Jaw, that our consciousness constantly tends
ty the minimum of complexity and to the maximum
of definitenom, ix of great importance for all pur
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. 317
knowledge. Here we have a limitation that cannot
be overleaped. Whatever we come to know, what-
ever opinions we come @ hold, our attention it is
that makes all our knowing and all our believing
possible: and the lawa followed by this, our own ac.
tivity of attention will thus determine what we are
to know and what we are to believe. If things have
more than a certain complexity. not only will our
limited powers of attention forbid ua to unravel this
complexity, but we shall strongly desire to believe
the things actually much simpler than they are. For
our thoughts about them will have a constant ten-
dency to become as simple and definite aa possible.
Put a man into a porfect chaos of phenomena, sights,
aounds, fochings : and if the man continued to oxint,
and to bv rational at all. hie attention would doubt.
less acon find for him a wav t make up mune kind
of rhythmic regularity, which he would impute to the
things about him, se ae to imagine that he had die
covered some law af sequence in this mad new world.
And thus, in every caso where we fancy ourrel ves
eure of a nimple law of Nature, we must remember
that a good deal of the fancied ainplicity may be due
in the given case not to Nature, but to the ineruli-
cable prejudice of our own minda in favor of regular
ity and simplicity. All our thought: ie determined,
in great measure, by this law of least offort. as it is
found exemplified in our activity of attention.
Rut attention ie net the only influence that goes
to traneform acnseimpreasions into knowledge. At-
tention never worke alone, but alwaye in company
with the active procesa of recognizing the present
$18 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
asin some way familiar, and of constrooting in the
present ideas of what is not present. At these two
other active processes we must very briefly glance,
Recognition is involved in all knowledge. Hesny-
nition does not always moan s definite memory of
partionlar past experience that resembles s present
one. On the contrary, recognition ia frequently
only « sense of familiarity with something new pres
ent, conpled with s more or less distinet applying of
seine predicate to this present thing. 1 recognize »
herse, & landacape, 2 star, = friend, a pieoe of music,
a book, when I feel mere or less familiar with the
impression of the object in question, and when, at
the same time, I predicate more or less distinetly
something of it. This, 1 say, is my friend, or the
north star, or Webster's Dictionary, or Smith's
here. Or, perhaps, in recengnizing, I recognize, not
merely the whole object, but one of ita qualition,
om of ita relation to other things. Then I say, thie
ia large or small, good or bad, equal or anequal to
another thing, and soon. In all there canes, recog:
nition involyesa lively renetion of my mind upon ex-
ternal impressions. Recognition is not found apart
fronn attention, theongh attention may exist more oF
kiss connpletely withont recognition. Reoognition
completes what attention begins. The sttentive
man wants to know, the revognizing man knows, or
thinks that he knows. Hecoynition implies sceom-
panying attention. Attention withont recognition
iinplies wonder, enriosity, perplexity, perhaps terror,
Hut what is the law of this provess of recognition ?
Dues the provess affect the impressions themeclves
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. $19
that are the basis of the recognition? The answer
is: Very distinctly, recognition does affect the im-
pressions. The activity involved in recognition al
ters the data of sense, and that in almost every case.
Two of the ways in which this alteration occurs
are these: (1.) In recognizing, we complete present
data by remembered past data, and so seem to expe
rience more than is actually given t our senses,
Thus, then, in reading, we read over misprints (even
against our own will), thinking that we see words
when we do not see them, or when we see only parts
of them. Again: in listening to an indistinct
speaker we often supply what is lacking in the sounds
he makes, and seem to hear whale words when we
really hear but fragments of wonls. Or, merely
whistling a few notes, we recall to ourselves, and
seem to have present, the camplex instrumental har
mony of some music that we have heard played.
Or, in dim twilight, we imagine the form of a man,
and seem te sve it plainly in detail, when, in fact a
mass of shrubbery, or a coat on a chair, is the one
source of our impressions, In all these cases, the
activity of recognition alters the data of sense, by
adding to them, by filling out the sketch made by
them. (2.) However, even the qualities af senseim.-
pressions are altered accanding to the way in which
we recognize their objects. The colors of a landscape
are dimmer, and less signiticant as colors, so long
as we recognize the objects in the landscape. Louk
ander your arm, with head inverted, and the calors
flash out with unwonted brilliancy. For when you
80 look, you lose sight of the objects as such, and
820 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
give your attention solely to the colors. Mistake a
few brown leaves in some dark corner of a garden
for some little animal, and the leaves take on for the
moment the distinctive familiar color of the animal ;
and when you discover your blunder, you can catch
the colors in the very act of fading into their dull,
dry-leaf insignificance. Many facts of this sort are
recorded by psychologists and by artists, and can be
observed by any of us if we choose. To separate a
sensation froin its modifications that are produced
by recognition is not a little difficult.
Now, in both these kinds of alteration a law is
observed, very similar to the one previously noted.
The alterations of the data of sense in the moment of
recognition are alterations in the direction of simplic-
ity and definiteness of consciousness. The present
is axsitnilated to the past; the new is made to seem
as familiar as possible. This reaction of the mind
upon new impressions is easily seen in our thoughts
and words in the first moment of great surprise or
fright. When Macbeth turns from his door to the
table, and sees the ghost of Banquo in his chair, his
first words are not the “ Avaunt, and quit my
sight!” wherewith he greets the second appearance
of the ghost, nor yet even the “ Which of you have
done this?” that he utters as soon as he recovers
himself. No: his first conscious reaction, in pres-
ence of the horrible impression, is a quiet remark,
“ The tuble’s full.” And when they tell him that
there is a place reserved, he persists with a
“Where?” In this scene, Shakespeare's instinct
is perfectly accurate. Our effort always is to make
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. 821
the new as familiar as possible, even when this new
is inconceivably strange. It takes us some time to
realize, as we say, a great change of any sort. Reo-
ognition, however, is yet further modified by the in-
terest with which we at any moment attend to thingy.
But when we speak of interest, we are led to the
third kind of active modification by which our minds
determine for us what we know. |
At every moment we are not merely receiving, at-
tending, and recognizing, but we are constructing.
Out of what from moment to moment comes to us,
we are building up our ideas of past and future, and
of the world of reality. Mere dead impressions are
given. We turn them by our own act into symbols
of a real universe. We thus constantly react upon
what is given, and not only modify it, but even give
it whatever significance it comes to possess. Now
this reaction takes a multitude of forms, and cannot
be fully discussed without far more than our present
space. But we can name one or two prominent
modes of reaction of mind upon sense-data in this
province of mental life.
1. Definite memory is possible only through pres-
ent active construction from the data of feeling.
Nothing can come to ua certifying for itself that it
formed a part of our previous experience. When
we know a thing asx past, we actively project our
idea of it into a conceived past time. Without this
active interference of our own minds, everything
would be but a present, and there would be no time
for us, only fleeting life from moment to moment.
2. Definite belief in external reality is possible
21
822 = THE RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILOSOPHY,
only thremgh this active addition of something of
one own to the impressions that are actually given
to ns. No external reality is given to us in the mere
senae-inrpressions. What in outside of us cannot be
at the same time within us. But ont of what is in
ts, we cometrnet an ides of an external world. To
be sure this belief needs higher justification, like all
other beliefs. But at the outast it is jast an setiv-
ity of cmes.
%. All abstract ideas, all general truths, all know)-
edge of necomary laws, all seceptance of doctrines,
begin in like fashion, through an active proses com
ing from within. Change the fashions of our men-
tal activity, and nobody can tell how radioally you
wold change our whole conception of the universe.
4. All this active comstrnetion from sense-impres-
siims exproses cortain fundamental interests that
one human spirit takes in reality. We want to have
na oworld of nm partionlar character; and so, from
RenM-iInpreNsiCnn, we are comstantly trying to beild
ap such aworld. We are prejudice! in favor of
regularity, necossity, and simplicity in the world ;
and so we continually manipulates the data of senne
for the nuke of bailding up a notion of # regular,
nwwossary, and simple universe. And so, thongh it
is true that our knowledge of the world is deter-
mined by what is yiven to cur menos, it is equally
trues that our idea of the world is determined qnite
am much bry one own active combination, completion,
anticipation f sense experiences, Thos all knowing
iM, in a vary deep senns, noting ; it is, in fact, remet-
ing ar creation. ‘The mont insignificant knowledge
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. 823
is in some sense an original product of the man who
knows. In it is expressed his disposition, his power
of attention, his skill in recognition, his interest in
reality, his creative might. Exact knowledge is, in
fact, best illustrated by cases where we ourselves
make what we know. So only is mathematical
knowledge possible; mathematical ideas are all prod-
ucts of a constructive imagination. And so it is in
all other thought-life. Mentally produce, and thou
shalt know thy product. But we must remember,
for what we produce we are in some sense morally
responsible; and thus, in discussing the nature of
knowledge, we are trespassing on the bordenland of
ethics.
To sum up all in a few words: Plainly, since ac-
tive inner processes are forever modifying and build-
ing our ideas ; since our interest in what we wish to
find does so much to determine what we do find ;
since we could not if we would reduce ourselves to
mere registering machines, but remain always build-
ers of our own little worlds, — it becomes us to can-
sider well, and to choose the spirit in which we shall
examine our experience. Every one is certain to be
prejudiced, simply because he does not merely re-
ceive experience, but himself acts, himself makes ex-
perience. One great question for every truth-seeker
is: In what sense, to what degree, with what motive,
for what end, may I and should I be prejudiced ?
Most of us get our prejudices wholly from the fash-
ions of other men. This is cowardly. We are re-
aponsible for our own creed, and must make it by
our own hard work. Therefore, the deepest and
—~—.
824 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
most important of all questions is the one, “ For
whut art thou ut work?” It is useless to reply, « J
wm merely noting dawn what I find in the world.
Lam not responsible for the facts.” The answer isa,
“A mere note-book thou art not, but a man. These
are never simply notes; thy thoughts are always
transformed reality, never mere copies of reality.
For thy transforming activity, as well as for thy
skill in copying, thou art answerable.”
V.
Jt is not then that postulates occur here and
there in our thoughts, but that, without postulates,
both practical life and the commonest results of the-
ory, from the simplest impressions to the most valu-
' able beliefs, would be for most if not all of us ut
' terly impossible ; this it is which makes active faith
60 prominent a subject for philosophical considera-
tion. An imperfect reflection makes that appear as
blind faith which ought to appear as postulate. In-
stead of saying that he takes all these things on
risk, and because they are worth the risk, the natu-
ra] man is persuaded by such imperfect reflection to
say that he trusts very ardently that he is running
no risk at all. Or ayain: the natural man is moved
to fear any examination into the bases of his thought,
because he does not wish to discover that there is
any risk there. And so we live dishonestly with
our thoughts. Where there is a deeper basis, that
involves more than mere risk, let us find it if we can,
But where we have nothing better than active faith,
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. $25
let us discover the fact, and see clearly just why it
is worth while to act in this way.
To speak more particularly of the postulates of
developed science. The ancient discussions about
the basis of physical knowledge of all sorts have
had at least this as outcome, that it is useless to pre-
tend to make science of any sort do without assump-
tions, and equally useless to undertake the demon-
stration of these assumptions by experience alone.
No one has ever succeeded in accomplishing such a
thing, and the only difference among thinkers about
these assumptions is that some think it worth while
to seek a transogndental basis for them all, while
others insist that a transcendental basis is as impos-
sible as a purely experimental basis is inadequate,
and that in consequence we can only use the form of
threat and say: Unless you make these assumptions,
the spirit of science is not in you. As for the exact
form that in more elaborate scientific work ought
to be taken by these postulates, opinion differs very
much, but an approximation to their sense may be
attempted very briefly as follows.
In addition to those postulates that. as we have
seen, accompany and condition all thinking alike,
science may be considered as making a more special
assumption. This assumption has been well defined
by Professor Avenarius, in his well-known essay on
“Die Philosophie als Denken der Welt Gemiiss dem
Princip des kleinsten Kraftmasses.” He regards it
as an outcome of the general law of parsimony that
governs all mental work. The world of phenomena
is conceived at any stage in the simplest form, and
826 = THE RELAGIONIS ASPKOT OF PHILAKOrHY,
the roulity that we sept in for us at any time the
Mtrrplent description of the phenemens ae known to
ws, To put thin view in our own way, wo might
nay that the world in msiontifieslly viewed ne nm pst
festly united whole, which would, if fally known,
fully satinfy our highest mental desire for continuity
aiul perfect regularity of conception. Therefore it
ia that the “universal formula” of the lant chapter
fe 6 comuuytion that exprenen the scientific ideal.
With laws perfection, harmony, andl anity of thenght
alant the world, ntenes will never rest content ao
Leng wa shes comtinnem to be netones, But for thin
very rennin silences pomtilaten that thin perfect order
rant be slrouly ronlized in the world. It in net
inerely that thin order in the practically tinattainahle
bt still necenary idenl fer onr reasons but wo
fram pontalate that this order in alronly present in
things, far off as our thought is from it, This pow
telate given life ty onr melentifie thenght. Withent
ft one search for wn order that need not exist in
tneatinglom play.
This postulated order, however, if found, world
mean for un relative sinplicity amd economy of com-
ception. ‘The infinite masa of phenamens would be
camusived aa one whole, The maximnm of wealth
of fate world he grasped with the tinimemn of men
tal effort, We pomtnulate after thin fashion that the
world loves parsiineny, even as we do,
To iMustrate bry the cans of one aciencs, A great
trosustese cf rrveechisesnictel mectestiees ham eadled it thes science
which given the sitplost pemsible description of the
mitions in the world, Tf we acoept thin accent of
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. S27
mechanics, we are at once puzzled by the fact that
the forces at work in the world, and that all of them
predict coming facts. Bat forces form no part of
the experience or of the mere description of motion.
And the future is not yet given to be described.
How then does all this agree with the definition in
question? Very well indeed. For those who as-
same forces to explain given motions, always assume
Jast those forces that will directly explain, not any
description at random of the motions given in expe-
Mence, but the simplest possible description. Any
lute. we can assume at pleasure any point in the
world as the ongi or pomt of reference that shall
be regarded as at rest, and so we can get an infinite
number of descriptions of any given motions We
can make any object in the world move at any de-
sired speed or m any desired direction, simply by
altering the origin to which we shall choose to refer
its motion in oar deseription thereof. But all these
possible descriptions are not equally useful for the
purposes of the science. Some one of them is the
simplest for all the motians of the system in ques-
tion ; and this we regard as best expressing the ac-
tual natural truth in the matter. The assumption
ef just such forces as would explain this simplest
system of motions as described, satisfies wu. We
say, these forees are the real ones at work. Bat
still we know that the forces assumed only express
m another form the fact that the deseriptian in ques-
tion is the simplest. Is this, however, really all that
$28 THER RELIGIOUS ASPEOT OF PHILOSOPHY.
the science does with the given motions? No, one
thing more the science assumes, namely, that if the
| system of motions in question is not subject to any
external influence, it will remain fundamentally and
_ in deepest truth the same in future, that is: Zhe
simplest description of the given motions in a sys-
tem of bodies that ts wholly independent of the ac-
tion of bodies without the system, this description
és permanent for all states of the system. This
assumption is needed before mechanical science can
venture on any prediction, or beyond mere descrip-
| tion of past and present motions, This is the pos-
\ tulate of the uniformity of nature in its mechanical
‘shape.! The complete present description of the
world would reveal the whole future of the world.
What, however, does this postulate of uniformity
express for our thought? What is the philosoph-
ieal outcome of it? It expresses for our thought the
demand that nature shall answer our highest intel-
lectual needs, namely, the need for simplicity and
absolute unity of conception. Mechanical science
can no more do without this assumption than can
any other science.
The ground that we have here very briefly passed
over is known to all readers of modern controversy.
We can only add our conviction that, as far as it
goes, the foregoing view is a perfectly fair one.
Whether or no there be any deeper basis for this
* Professor Clifford, in his esaay on Theories of the Physical
Forces, in his Lectures and Essays, vol. i., p. 109 sqq., has under-
taken to reduce this postulate to the general one of Continuity
The philosophical outcome would be the same.
TRE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. 329
postulate, it is sure that science makes the postulate,
and does not give any deeper basis for it, For nat
ural science it is a faith.
Now this faith, not blind faith but postulate, not
basely submitted to merely because we must submit
to it, but boldly assumed because we think it worth
the risk, wherein does it differ from what our funda
mental religious faith would be if we made of that
also noe mere dogmatic creed, but a general assump.
tien, no mere passive trust, but an active postulate ?
Beneath all the beliefs that we could not demon-
atrate in our last chapter, lay the determination not
ao much to preve one castiren aysten of dogmas,
as to find same clement of reality that should have
an intinite worth, The world should be at least as
high as our highest conception of goodness. And
to this end the partial evil should be in’ deepest
reality universal good, even though our huperfect
eyes could never show to us how this vould be, -
could never seo through the illusion to the “image.
Jess truth " beneath. Therefore, although we vainly
aught among the Powers of the world for proof of
all this, may we not still hope to appreach the
Eternal Reality with these postulates, and tu ay:
“Though thou revealest to us nothing, yet we be-
lieve thee good, And we do so because this faith of
ours is a worthy one” Posdbly then our Religion
will be just the highest form af our conduct itself,
pur determination to make the warld good for our:
eolves, whatever baseness experience shows us in it
Then wo can say: dust as avience is undaunted by
the vision of the world of confusion, eo shall our re
880 THE RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILOSOPHY.
ligious faith be undaunted by the vision of the evil
of the world. We shall war against thin ovil in the
trust that the highest reality is not against us, but
with us, just aa we try to comprehend the world with
the faith that the highest reality is in conformity
lwith our private reason, In both cases wo take tho
risk, but we take the risk because it in worth taking,
because to take it is the highest form of autivity.
As the faith of science helps to make life rational,
‘go tho religious faith helps to make life in the high-
eat sense moral, by insisting that the ideal labors of
; our moral life are undortaken not alone, but in har.
mony with the world as known to the Infinite.
To make the parallel a little clearer, wo may say
that science postulates the truth of the description
of the world that, among all the possible doscrip-
tions, at once includes the given phenomena and at-
tains the preatost simplicity; while religion assumes
the truth of the description of the world that, with-
out falsifying the given facts, arouses the highest
moral intorest and satisfies the highest moral needs.
All thin has often been said, but it has not always
been cloarly enough joined with the practical sug-
goxtion that if one gives up one of these two faiths,
he ought consistently to give up the other. If one
is woary of the religious postulates, let him by all
means throw them aside, But if he doos this, why
does he not throw aside the scientific postulates, and
give up insisting upon it that the world is and must
be rational? You, lot him be thorough-going, and,
sincs the very perception of the walla of his room
contains postulates, let him throw away all those
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES. 331
too, and dwell in the chaos of sensations
unfriended. There is no reason why he should uot
do this unless he aes a deeper foundation for his
postulates. We have no more dogmas to urge here,
Let one abandon all mere postulates if he has not
the courage to make them, but then let one vansist-
ently give them all up. The religious postulates
are not indeed particular creeds, One may abandon
creeds of many sorts, and yet keep the fundamental
postulate, But if he abandons the fundamental poe .
tulate of religion, namely, that universal goodness
is somehow at the heart of things, then he ought
consistently to coase from the fundamental poste
late of svience, namely, that universal, ordenloving
reason is somehow the truth of things. And to do
both is to lack the courage of rational and of moral
life.
Such is the way of the postulatea. And yet we
desire to find, if we can, a more excellent way.
These postulates must be contirmed if possible, and
then subordinated to higher result. It was the
skeptical work af the last chapter to turn attention
away from false or incanclusive methods af estab-
lishing religious faith, There we saw how much
muat seem, acoarding to all the ardinary apologetic
methods, thearetically doubtful. In this chapter we:
have seen how postulates, thearetically uncertain, |
but practically worth the risk, are at the foundatian
of our whole lives, Hereatter we shall seek to dig
beneath these foundations to that other sort of theo
retical certainty whervef we have made mention. If
we get it, then all our work will have been worth
882 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
while. Our skeptician will have saved us from an-
tiqguated methods, aad from worn-out dogmas. Our
faith will have been purified by being reduced wo
certain sunple postulates that are not Wentical with
the traditional creeds, although those creeds tried to
express them. And both our skepticiam and our
faith will then finally become elements of a broader
Religious Insight.
The dead external reality, into whow darkness we
had to peer in vain for light, has indeed transformed
itwelf? tis no more merely dead, or merely exter
nal. [tis ours and for us. It was a world of doubt
in the last chapter, just because we made it dewd
and external. Now that we have wen how it was
the expression of postulates, it wens to have become
plastic and ideal, Yet what it has gained in plas
ticity, it has lost in authority. After all, is not this
business of postulating into the void a dangerous
one? Js it not a hollow and empty activity this, if
we really refleet upon it? Courage indeed we must
have; but is religion no more than courage? Nay 3
we must have if possible some eternal Truth, that
is not our postulate, to rest upon, Can we not get
Bome such comfort? And may there not be some
higher relation of our lives to that truth, — such a
relation that the truth shall be neither the arbitrary
product of our subjective postulates, nor a dewl ex-
ternal reality such as was the world of doubt? We
are bound still to search,
CHAPTER X.
IDRALIRM,
Bic ror Sher elparde deat hear 42 a ether dyer the Ged
ARTIETUCLR, concerning the devtrine of Xenrphanes.
STILL we are wecking the Eternal, Postulates
about it we must indeed make, or else we shall do
nothing. But can we not go beyond the mere postu
lates? Is there no other rad open to the heart of
things?) Tn fact many other wave have been sue
gested, The religiously interesting efforts towanls
& sugyestion af such ways have been the special work
of philosophical Idealism in the past. Let us then
we to what results philosophical Idealian offers to
lead us.
1.
\ “The world of dead facts is an illusion. The|
trath of it is a spiritual life.” That is what philo-
sophical idealism says. This spiritual life may be
defined in many ways. Bat the multitude af the
ways of detining it do not altogether obscure the
sense of the doctrine, Plato and St. Augustine and
Berkeley and Fichte and Uegel give us very various
accounts of the spiritual life that is to be at the
neart of things, but they agree about the general
thought. As to the proof of the dovtrine, very many
aulatiiabid.
884 THR RRIIGIOUR ARPROT OF FHILOROPRY,
writers have presented thin idealiom asa wort of prod
weet cof yrrsotbond fasrtamy, sorrsd bsnver tdrervesboey breslyreud tp
bedng it inte dinrepute, We profane no wich entdiu-
dawn, Jf we are to give any foundation for our
prwtaaliateam bay serstnaim cof are Leleadbntbes cbaveshedaves, thresta
this firnulation aunt be ne mare postle fancy, but
weal -frmsnvesl pobaibsomergolates csocstarbanes, selales tar wtasnl cslt
loin, andl to watinfy very unemotional alin, as wall
ne the highsr moral alm thomwclven, Tat if islet.
fan in to ronelve vigil thearatdon) toute, we miay whill,
In view of our prement Uneamndon aad fe meals, be
halpesd on our way more direstly if we frst consider
vary generally and beletly what llowdinn svnld do
for wn lf it ware emtalliohed, Musrenfler golng on to
ther thrswarestienad cconmislereatdone cf Siw cleabuon,
That the Hternal is a world of apiritianl Wfe in
What, thus Welenlinta of the puat have meadatadiel, ancl
the religious forme of thelr dowteina Iny net wo mish
In the lawight that wae thus offers eonesrning the
Hates of the powers Chat are in the world, aw in an
drtdiecy Srambghit, Daum besvea Aahesalbatbes laotadives acl ite
nites haw been waldo oompreheulal, even by
thes ideselinta Uusnmelven, ‘She world, marely viewed
aK heap of warrlng Powers, wannol be a world of
wplvitual life, Uf thes vow) world te neverthelown a
were lal cof saaseshe sagobebtaaeal Wifes, St arssamts bree mer Doccorsnsanes,
besyencl wal above the Powern, there in thin higher
wpleitieal Vabfes tbat Vaedisdew Weer asl watehen over
| Abvesnen sas Abies yresertantere waited thus tengerly, —w Ufa
Jan whatesdy taeey Vives sunsl asrsoves sassel Vatrves tdeceder dresden,
The charuders tna tragedy dla not constitutes ae WHE
rhage puowerrm, bas these mespotarrates euSternisns, the mignlle |
IDEALISM. 335
cance of the tragedy. The spectator, the overseeing
thought, for which and in which these fancied pow-
ers contend, this it ts that gives them unity and sy.
nifance, Even 390 the highest_spiritaal life life that!.
| che idealist finds in the world is mot to be a power:
{among other powers, but a thourht for which exists |
i>. Hence the deepest assertiun of Mealion | r(
i mot that above all the evil powers in the workd —.
Ghat doce mot so much cneabe ao voustisate cham that |
they are, and 90 inchade them all.
How all this ts to be more fally explained, and
how it is to be justified, if at all, by Mealism, we
There we found a work! of contending elementary
forees, AL BC, ete. As contending powers they
must needs appear finite. If one was good. another
was or might be evil) And as we had to deal only
With the warring elements, the thoaght that partial
evil may, after all, be universal good seemed not
very Nlausible, and quite indemonstrabke. The word
being the collection of the powers that are in it, the
good and evil of the whole seemed to be the sum of
the separate good and evil elements. Bat now we
have a thought that may make possible the existence
of aniversal goodness. If the tragedy as a whole is
good, although its elements are evil, 90 like the tray: |
ene,
SA THE RELAGUHIS ASPET OF PHIUASOPHY,
ally may the world be univerenlly good if the angle
evil oof vebitiy, Vikess Chase wingeles prarte of thus bengenly,
saves echeatssasniteg ae ty Whasaden Ahad, comdates Fare tay tad h -tasces-
dng, wblinaluwive Spirit, jn when woe add hinge, asl
Wherace sradnares sas Windle: de pod. “Sian, en, if we
demand yooh wees jel Ari Wes partial evil je univerund
ged hen bass bdinscdiead ves sdil, wee enn wlrewAy, from
tyes sitet, A, Lena, Fasuey bbw 16 ay wr de. ‘Sus AIL
Mufolding may te god even although of necewiby
eve are elenonte in hie world of infinite ex periensue
ink, separadaly eonwlered, may be ovis. Bo ident
dann offern na ihe Misendiey anarh Miwd Ue world eantainn
rp lin of wend purwern, cp bhiad Mie erendi ves porwer,
when iL manele te devilinb rower, Ail) snennt well 5
bat Wie Maendiey of idealion wigpeade a way in which |
vil may he, after all, wo partial view of an wll-om-
Pvmesbiage prowl pssn,
Vhecnraces thay innperrtanses, far one prea dasneon,
of an effort ty trond calmly maul ariticnlly the nowin
Aewtvine of phrilemsrprbiies isdendionn, Ueove ud, lama, in
wine mgecendicne Of a lamas thal, wee pamy, in bide,
wane: Wa vine nurve inere jordsladen, mil nny Found
wm ywrsitives veligionin Masry. Mav the pordnbaden are
Sosbecesd, jn Alecervnel yew, nar ononigh. Wa wan, f°
pormibilec, > got Vrecyened then, Uungh we wre rewdly ty
wae accra firmd iF wer ome day er bnstdacr. York
we wre ADI farrued ty begin one meet of idemdindin
Aspertriaiss wilde pucrtdabvage Voters tAaaae portal adscn.
a a a ee |
IDEALISM. 837
IL
The imperfection of the author's private under
- standing of deeper truth has forced him to come to
idealism in the first instance by a very straight and
easy path, that most deeper idealists would deride.
After he had by that road reached the definite con-
ception of one form of idealism, he found a further
thought by which this klealiam seemed to be tran>-
formed into a doctrine of greater philosophical and
religious significance. At the same time, the proof
of the doctrine first seemed to him to become clear
and all-embracing. Now a reader carve little for
the cuntents of an author's note-book, or for a his-
tory of his opinions; but sometimes the exposition
of a view is a little helped by presenting it in sue-
cessive parts that follow in their order somewhat
the line of the author's own development. Hence
the prevent chapter shall sugyest philosophic ideal
iam as a mere hypothesis, that still only tries to ex-
press our fundamental postulates. Then we shall
go on to see what deeper foundation for it we can
find. And furthermore, our tirst sugyestion of ideal-
ism shall be a purely theoretical conception, not
assumed to satisfy directly an ethical postulate, but
merely to express theoretical postulates about the
world. Then we shall be able to see what religious
dovtrine can be built upon this foundation. This
way commends itself as avoiding the greatest dan-
ger of idealism, namely, fantastic speculation with
noble purposes, but with merely poetical methods.
Our present method shall be coldly theoretical, how
2 ae
“eh re 2 oe » vv
AL vim 7
888 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
ever deeply our religious philosophy is concerned in
the outcome.
For the first then we shall suppose our whole task
to be the suggestion of a plausible, 7. e. of a simple, :
adequate, and consistent hypothesis about the nature
of external reality. Hereafter we shall consider
more critically the foundation of such hypotheses.
Provisionally, then, we shall suppose that, by a per-
fect theory of knowledge, the following result has
been reached : Human beings are able to form ideas
that correspond in some way with a real world, out-
side of themselves. That is, the sequence of human
ideas corresponds to sequences of external events, or
to relations of coexistence among external things.
The necessary or uniform connections of human
ideas correspond to regular or to universal connec-
tions among external things. Or, in the brief form
of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s phraseology, to each nec-
essary relation a: 6 in human consciousness there
corresponds a relation A: B in the external world.
Suppose, then, that all this has been established. No
one will admit more readily than the writer that this
supposition is at this point merely tentative. Our
theory of knowledge is yet to be completed, and be-
tween its conception and its realization there are still
wide oceans of doubt. We shall, in fact, deal with
the problems of this theory in the next chapter. But
for the moment suppose admitted what scientific
thought generally takes for granted, namely, the cor-
respondence of inner and outer relations in such
wise that the former are naturally copies of the lat-
ter. And, on this foundation, suppose that we in-
)
IDEALISM. $39
tend to consider what hypothesis as to the nature of
the related terms A and B in the external world is,
on the whole, the most plausible.
For the sake of avoiding controversy we may for
the moment leave out of account two old }
We cannot really escape either, and both will sternly
confront us before we get in at the door of the tem-
ple of certainty. Bat here at the outect we are
playing with hypotheses, and may be absolved from
the responsibility of securing ourselves beforehand
from all possible attacks. The first is the question
of the idealists: How can any reality be conceived
unless as unplying or inclading states of conscious-
ness? For the mament we will waive this part of
the Berkeleyan contention altogether ; for we are not
yet concerned to prove by metaphysical analysis the
universal coincidence of consciousness and reality.
We wish merely a plausible hypothesis to be ad-
vanced as to the nature of what more popular thought
means by reality. The second question that at the
outset we avoid is the ane cancernihg the ground
of the assumed agreement between the external and
the internal orders of facts. Whether this ground
hes in a causal determination of our consciousness by
the external world. or in a preéstablished harmony
of both. matters not. We first take our stand, then,
upon the facts admitted by popular belief. Here are
feelings, sequences of feelings, thoughts, trains of
thought, systems of scientific belief: all internal
facts. Beyond the consciousness of these internal
facts stretches (so we now assume, and only assume)
another world of facts, in which something corre
840 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
sponds to each one of these feelings, some order of
facts to each sequence of feeling, some system of
facts and of laws to each properly constituted system
of beliefs. The external order of the world beyond
corresponds to the order of this internal world of
our consciousness, but is not this order. A plausi-
ble hypothesis is required as to the nature of this
corresponding external order.
Let us examine Berkeley’s familiar hypothesis,
which, as a mere hypothesis, we can examine apart
from any study of Berkeley’s philosophical argu-
ments for his idealism. According to Berkeley there
exist conscious beings, more or less like ourselves, of
whom the head and father is God. Now external to
all beings besides God there is a real world. This
real world is made up of the eternal system of God’s
thoughts.
“© When I deny sensible things an existence out of the
mind, I do not mean my mind in particular, but all minds.
Now it is plain they have an existence exterior to my
mind, since I find them by experience to be independent
of it. There is some other mind wherein they exist, dur-
ing the intervals between the times of my perceiving
them; as likewise they did before my birth, and would
do after my supposed annihilation. And as the same is
true with regard to all other finite created spirits, it nec-
essarily follows, there is an Omnipresent Eternal Mind,
which knows and comprehends all things, and exhibits
them to our view in such a manner, and according to such
rules as he himself hath ordained, and are by us termed
the lawe of nature.” }
1 Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, T1.
C@Ernst tec esd oa cy Ve
IDEALISM. 841
This so familiar hypothesis of Berkeley is in part
founded upon a thought that for the present we have
agreed to neglect, é. ¢. upon the notion of the exter
nal world as the catse of our internal impressions,
Not being caused by myself, my ideas, reasons Berke-
ley, must have an external cause. And the only
intelligible cause is an active spirit. Yet for our
present purpose this thought is not important. We
are not asking about the cause of our conscious
states, but about the way in which we can most plau-
sibly conceive of an external world corresponding to
these states. The correspondence is assumed. Into
its ground, be it preéstablished harmony or physical
influence, we do not just now inquire. Our only
criteria of plausibility, if causal explanation is
dropped, are therefore adequacy, simplicity, and con-
sistency. Is Berkeley's hypothesis consistent with
itself. and is it the simplest hypothesis possible ?
Stripped of non-essential features, the hypothesis is
that there corresponds to our consciousness another
higher and farther-reaching consciousness, containing
all that is abiding in our consciousness, and much
more besides, This consciousness is in form and
matter a rational spirit, having definite purposes in
the creation and education of the various finite spir
its. ‘These purposes require for their accomplishment
that our conscious states should within certain limits
agree with this higher cousciousness, — should corre-
spond to it in form and toa certain extent. This corre
spondence constitutes what we mean by truth. There
is no external world but this other consciousness,
-To Berkeley, as we know, the essential part of
X S . . arr Ae yes Sheees.t
‘
.f og .
a aes haw ~ ah aha
vy, " -e ecoor’ a. nis een ta CK ts *
—m~e
—
842 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
this doctrine was the teleological part. That God’s
thoughts and our correspondence thereto result from
and express God’s purposes in creating the world,
this was for Berkeley the main point to be proven.
But if the teleological element of the doctrine be for
this first left out of account, there is another part
that we just now wish to hold fast. Our thought
is true by reason of its correspondence to the facts
of an actual consciousness, external to our own:
this hypothesis has an interest apart from its origin
and from its original use. Why in philosophy should
we be afraid of doctrines because they have an as-
sociation with some dreaded theological dogma, or
with some enthusiastic and over-confident system of
the past? About the nature of the external world
we have at the outset nothing but hypotheses. Be-
fore we test them in any very exact way, we may
with safety try to understand them. Perhaps what
seemed the wildest of them all may turn out to be
the very best. Because a certain hypothesis was
put forward rather as a demonstrable and eternal
truth than as a hypothesis, shall we reject it without
further examination? Perhaps it may in fact turn
out to be part of the eternal truth.
The hypothesis now before us is Berkeley’s with
the teleological element omitted, along with the
causal. Ilow this external consciousness comes to
affect us, and why it takes just such forms as it does,
we say not. This we ask: What is this supposed
external consciousness? Llow does it correspond to
‘our own? We shall not call the supposed conscious-
ness by question-begging names. It is not for us
IDEALISM. 343
just now either absolute or divine. It is simply con-
aciousness, and external, The hypothesis is that
truth consists in some kind of correspondence be
tween our thought and this outer reality. What
kind of correspondence ?
Two conscious beings can have corresponding
states of consciousness, without having like states.
The notes of a melody could have corresponding to
them the variations in intensity of some source of
light. The light-flashes or beats would
to the notes af music by having the like rhythm ;
yet there would be no resembkance iu the content.
Correspondence may be yet more obacured. The
dashes on a piece of paper that has passed under the
point of a telegraphic pen, the series of characters
printed from the press in a dosen languages, the
sounds af the voice af a reader, the eries af signals
flashed from shore to a distant veseel, all these dis.
similar series of events might correspond exactly and
throughout, if it were their purpose to convey in va-
rious ways the same meaning. In order, then, that
my consciousness should correspond to some other
consciousness, external to mine, it is only nececary
that for cach event or fact in my consciousness there
should exist same event or fact in the other con
sciousness, and that some relation existing among
MY conscious states should be like ar parallel to the
relation existing among the conwious states extemal
to mine. The more numerous the point af reser
ance between the two aries of states, the closer
the correspondence, But correspondence in the ab-
etract implies only some one definite and permanent
resemblance found throughout the two series.
844 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
Such being the nature of correspondence in gen-
eral, let us consider our hypothesis more in detail.
Suppose the clock yonder has some such reality as
this hypothesis supposes. There is the clock, with
its pendulum beating. For me now that clock is a
combination of sensations, joined with a belief in
certain possible sensations. For one in the same
room with me, the clock has a like existence. But
suppose that the clock has, apart from my conscious-
ness, apart from the consciousness of any other hu-
man being or animal, an existence for some other, as
yet undefined, consciousness. Suppose that for this
consciousness the clock in its whole present condi-
tion exists, not at all as a “ possibility of sensations,”
but solely and in all its parts as a present group of
sensible facts, standing in definite relations. Sup-
pose that the sensible facts that constitute this clock
as it is given to this hypothetical consciousness are
in quality unlike the sensations that for me consti-
tute the clock; but that in their relations, in their
number, in their grouping, in their differences from
one another, these sensible facts as they are for the
hypothetical consciousness agree with the sensations
and with the “ possibilities of sensation” that for
me constitute the clock. Suppose that the clock as
it is in the hypothetical consciousness endures for
a considerable time, and is called the real clock.
Then when I shut my eyes or go away or die, there
exists stil] the real clock, i. e. the clock in the hy-
pothetical consciousness. Though all my fellows die,
there is still the rea] clock, independent of our con-
sciousness. The clock may for a time go on rum
IDEALISM. 345
ning ; that is, in the hypothetical consciousness there
may be a rhythm of sensible events, corresponding
to what for me, were I present, would be the rhythm
of the pendulum -beats and the movement of the
hands.
Now suppose this hypothetical consciousness ex-
tended, so that it contains facts corresponding to my
ideas of the ether-vibrations that fall upon or that
are reflected from the face of this clock. Suppose
that it further contains facts corresponding to each
of my ideas of the relative position of this clock and
of other objects. Suppose at last that the hypothet-
teal consciousness is extended to all the facts of what
I call my universe of actual and of possible sensa-
tian. Suppose that each possible or actual experi-
ence of each moment in my life or in the hfe of any
other animal is represented by sume actual momen-
tarily present fact in the hypothetical consciousness.
Then consider the hypothetical consciousness at any
moment, and see what it will contain. Every mate-
rial atom, every wave of ether, every point of space,
every configuration of material bodies, every possible
geometrical relation, will be represented in the hype-
thetival canawiousness by some definite fact. The
relations af these facts will be in nature and in cam-
plexity similar to the relatiens among the facts of
my actual or possible sensations On the other
hand, the limits of my possible cansiousness at any
moment will be determined by the actual cansvious-
ness af this supposed universal Knowing One. What
it actually knows, I conceivably might new knew,
If it is conswious of a certain series of facts, then I
8405 THK RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILOBOFITY,
might be conslous, wore [now on the other «ide
of the moon, of living creatures there. [f the hypo-
thotionl consalousnoss contains another aot of fasta,
thon T might be unable to find such living boings
wore I there, And so with all facts of possible ox-
porlonce,
Wo can onsily soo how, under this supposition,
conformity to the supposed universal consciousness
Will become on iny part a goal of offort. Knowledge
of possible oxporionoes is useful tome, But all pos
Niblo oxporionces are or will be actual in the hypo-
thation! consciousness, Tf Tam standing nowr a con-
colod pitfall, or am in danger of a blow, or iu dan
gorof doath from poison, that fact, translated Inte
ultiinate torma, monns, wo may suppon, that in the
Universal consciousness there is now the knowledge
of certain relative positions and motlons of atoms,
The sequence of states in the universal consolounnons
must be supposed to he a regular sequonen, subject
to fixed Jaw. But sequences dows not now oapoclally
concern un; since wo aponk only of the nature of
thin oxtornal consciounnoss, Tt in onongh, thorefore,
fo point out that thin supposed universal knowing
conmoiounnon, thin Not-Ourselves,” has, under the
conditions atated, all the oasential charnetoriation of
wren work! Ttin beyond an; it in indepondont of
wn; ith frota have a certain correspondence to our
xonantionn, Under the aupponition that by nature
jwe tend to be in ayrooment with thin connoiousians,
broggrenn it ties lofinitenonn and extent of one aggre.
‘anent with it may be both posible and pretionlly
Aefal. This agrooment would constitute truth
IDEALISM. S17
No other real workdd meed be sepposed bebred or
shove this comacousness. Rejection of an old theory
amd ameptamce of a mew. as when the Copernican
docormme replaces the Ptobemeac, will mean the
growth of a belaef dhkat the mew system of ideas cor
matter. bat with the saqaence of states mn the univer
sal comsmcesmess. The aniversal comsmoeses: it-
self will be mo ilmsary coamacvesmess, It will mot
need a further comactonsmess to support m= It will
need no dead matter oumade of it. Our mature beads
ws ta look up te it as wo our meadel Icaelf is the
patzern. looking ap to po ather model. The parpose
trammehed thoacht. For as there i a mde rane
of actxal semsaiaom. m the midst of a vast anean of
possible semsamom. For the universal oomacomsmess
there are at any moment aniy acmmal data We ae
the elack-face : amd far as ube inside af the clack is
possible sensation omiy. Fir the sappasad comaoens-
mess the mode will be as moch present as the out-
ade. For as colors and adars smemest passible aee-
saiboms, which acsence Interprets as bemer im the est
amalvsas the possible semsatbans knows a5 ahosns. pe.
thems. vebacmmes. dastamass. For the umiversal com
Rebomsmess, these aems. smotoms, welactpes. and di
tamees. ar the ultimane facts te which these motos
correspomd. are nat passible bat actual data. There
mead te then. im the bast amalysis. ne dead unewn-
AORS ahams. mar wet mmoamacams tthe atam-aqmbs.
sirsving. ihe. loving. unitims: thers naed be im
the bast analysis only a comectouspess of facts come
wwe . a VE
Cava e242 @ean nfs,
848 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
sponding to what we mean by motion, velocity, ex-
tension, distance, impenetrability. Corresponding
to the relation a: 6 in our consciousness there will
then be the oxternal fact A: B, whereof so much is
supposed to be known: first, that the relation a: 5
is somewhat like the relation A: B; secondly, that
the terms A and B, whatever their particular char
acter, aro facts for a consciousness, and nothing
but facts for a consciousness. And the hypothetical
consciousness for which these facts aro all present,
together with their manifold relations, this we may
call a World-Consciousness, An illusion in my
consciousness will moan a failure to correspond with
the world-consciousness, <A truth for my conscivus-
ness will be a relation a: b that corresponds with
some relation A: B in the world-consciousness.
But for the world-consciousness itself there will be
no question of its own truth or falsity. It will be
for and in itself. It will not have to create a real
2} world ; it will be a real world. It will not have a
| Nature as its own Otherness, over against itself.
| It will be in its own facts and in their sequence a
nature. As to the individual intelligences, its rela-
tion to them is so far viewed as one of independence.
Whether hereafter wo shall be foreed to modify our
view or not, so far we trent the individual intelli-
gences as separate from the world consciousness.
They aro neither its “ omanations” nor its “ modes.”
But their whole business and purpose will be to carry
out and to make full and definite that correspondence
with this universal consciousness upon which their
existence and their peace dopend. A certain lack
IDEALISM. 849
of correspondence with the universal consciousness
en the part of any animal's ideas will be followed
by the cessation of that particular grouping of facts
in the universal consciousness that is known to us
as this animal's body. With the dissolution of this
animal's body will cease his consviousness, his chance
of disagreeing in his states with the states of the
universal consciousness, and therefore his lack of
correspondence, An ultimate law of sequence, with
which, as with all causal connection, we have here
nothing to de, thus binds the individual beings to
the World-Conseiousness. The whole universe ex-
hibits the phenomenon, first, of one great conscious
ness, embracing an infinitude of geometrical, phys
joal, chemical, physielagical facts: and, secondly, of a
vast multitude of individual conscious beings, whose
number and serts we shall never be able tu tell, whose
destiny, however, demands af all of them a more ar
less imperfect likeness between their states and the
relations thereof on the one band, and the facts of
the universal consciousness an the other hand. The
universal consciousness, be it noted, is 90 called thus
far as including in its ken all ultimate mathematical
and physical facta. Of its natuge beyond this we
pretend to suppose nothing, And we have not sup.
posed it tv include the individual conscious beings.
Our hypothesis is not yet pantheistic. ner theistic,
We simply suppose a * Not-Ourselves ” that i
cludes all natural knowledge. This is the External,
Reality.
We have omitted, moreover, all reference to the
teceolugival clement that is generally introduced into
AYA Aire AOR te FHILAOFHY,
try Uecerry ot te Werrldl Spirit. Seo tur, ine fe, ener
W lA Cirtraetensetices ja th whit jaune men Wy %
Well Spirit. A Byirit, * wemrving tes living vote
an Visit,” one Wel Comacienuneon in nhs for ne
wots hing elecmecribeeced In abet senbeity, it tesscvedy Newel cm,
38 Vewsher teh ite sows wtiakecn, 1) Usome sores wtp te
bs sabbergzectteece the erwin, piven Prertte tite higher mertevenn,
Beh tam ter Mbeccde ceeeconients cre thache werethy, Ul bee
geivetsinege ere Abecte etl, owes bine end aeAbing, Sbie
Clenszetrnziess betes Use eteahes, Nek ones banves wntpywomedl
Bhesere tes yet, br bom sabtaecneslece) Aoy tue ecrreiene th plea
sane top th ponte, Vey ter seenlif ying remetion of will,
Pia ceneeinisnee jen a Crethen, it le Beer,
An Sere thee inalivicheateh earneina Necinge, 1b den net
seasabees erp sareteviabes, thecies Noy sere scnacpeiane of purer,
Whey, cn the cenhenry, nee tinle wud vena me:
care Mitte tam Abycres wapize cor Mizsgrpecter in Miia setivecrmed
Cartest Mriixtitee, Heer tecdes peorniges tt Mites Ubiseh, see reepriecs
wetted ite ene seertal tunnghh, wee endl ongania
living Nwolinn, with teenies, nvAvniz, ebrietirin, fane
ficriex — “S Yesssete gereene gon prime, saneed with Urey Uae indivi
nel crneirienees Uh veperictesd with emech, Pix
prove tle sand Meet ix sitngly te Iw of cx potcp lect, MH
aieniate. sot jeer plienbde serquenen Sat Uh enh
yep) comacumzness Uf nbn, fe whieh each of
that xe. gereceegen Oh pbeyzienl Peete cedsteal Abok pecnendtin,
Sin tAbees weds. Kewede seasiennd Voy ix recprpcomscttacl
d00 Chee sani vecrail bene lneateer, we eeishe enby tn ty
fine te Ih de pecgrrtcmmnyhadh Abetcvecdes, eve ix beneomn ber thes
prrscncon re tre bee tebbeccy satedttenda, “Ube sneha visdeasad tevieael
Abaiok eccotcar bat withe Dida Vwoby Frsem Moras ting tite pegre conecte
hook) vex hee thas vated vervneed certenecheremtacen. Ft pasctie bey
IDEALISM. $51
exist and be real for itself. With the group of facts
in the universal consciousness to which, as we say,
corresponds our idea of the body, the independent
group of facts called the animal's mind lives and
dies, The universal consciousness and the individual |
tminds make up together the sum total of reality.
So far and so far only do we as yet go. The sequel |
will show whether we can rest content with this.
Continuing to mention the consequences of our
hypothesis, we see that the well-known questions 9
often asked of idealists are no longer puzzling when
we accept such an idea as the foregoing. Such
questions are: What existed before there was any
conscious life on the planet? In what sense was
there light or heat, matter or motion, before there
Were eyes to see, tactile organs to feel, animal intel-
ligence to understand these external facts? The
question of Kant too about the aubjectivity of space
would seem to have been answered. Before there
were conscious beings on this planct, this planet ex- \
isted only in and for the universal consciousness,
In that consciousness were facts corresponding to all
the phenomena, er possibilities of experience, that
geologival science may declare to have really existed
at such a time. When the earth became filled with’
life. there appeared in the universal consciousness
the data known as oryanisma, And at the same
time, beside the universal canaciouaness, sunnchow
related to it, there arose individual conacious beings, |
whose states were more or lesa imperfect copies of
the universal consciousness in certain of its facts.
Even 90, empty space is now existent beyund the
e
\ a
852 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.-
borders of finite observation only as a group of
states in the world-vonsciousness. Space is subjeo-
tive, belonging to the states of the universal con-
sciousness; and yet to us objective, since in think-
ing it we merely conform ourselves to the universal
consciousness. But the consequences of our hypoth-
esis are numberless. Enough has been said of them
for the present purpose.
Wild and airy indeed! But why so? The ordi-
nary uncritical Atomisin is a worse hypothesis, be-
cause wo nevor got from it the least notion of how
this otornally existent matter may look and feel when
nobody sees or feels it. The mystical “one sub-
stance with two faces ” is worse, because that is no
hypothesis, only a heap of words. Schopenhauer’s
“Wille” is worse, because it is only a metaphor.
The hypothesis that ascribes to the atoms independ-
ent life and volition is no more adequate than our
hypothesis, and much loss simple. The old-fashioned
pantheistic Welt-Goist ” of Schelling, and of the
romantic philosophy generally, is more poetical than
our hypothosis, but that Welt-Geist is a Power; and
no one ever comes to understand how this One Spirit,
who after all is represented as a sort of big half-con-
acious Daomon, a gigantic worker, is related to the
many individual minds. They are parts of him, or
olde apart from him, In the ono case their confidence
' that they really oxist as powers and are not “things
in his dream,” is unfounded ; in the other case his
all-embracing unity is dostroyed. In our hypothesis
nothing is as yot wonderful but the one miracle of the
series of orderly conscious states, following through
all tiwe accanting to fixed laws. Beyond that all
is clear, “That there should be a consciousmess com
taining Meas of all matertal relations & wo harder
to believe than it is to believe iv the ordinary unin-
telligtble work of atoms. That beside this con!
achousress, and ia fixed relation to its facts. there
should oxtst a great aumber of different series of
conachots states, each gertes being called an indived-
wal, this is wo harder to believe Ghan are the ondi-
nary facts of nervous phystokgy. le reality this
hypothesis gives us a simple expression, easily intel
ligible, for all the facts and laws of phywos of ner
vous phrstalagr, and of comscioumess, Take as a
final case, Professor Chifford’s well-inown example of
the man looking at the candka lu the workd-com-
achoustvess Urere is the croup of states G0". 6.
That is the real candhe Tu the workdconsctowsmess
there ts also the group of states AAA... That
ts the “cerebral image” of the candle a phrsiclae
wal fact. Finally. according to the hws of reality,
the existence in the worktoonactousness of the facts
Rw WLR... gromped as they are has coexistent
with it the growp of Meas C in the man's mind.
This croup C corresponds mare or bess completely to
the group ce")... as that group exists berand
the man's mind, in the workboonsctonstess, The
group C is the man’s Alea of the candk. Such is
oar hypothesis ina natshell, We ange for the mo-
ment only this in its favor: that it ix sample intelli
gible, plaasible, After all. it is bat an br pothesss.
We must now follow it anal we shall find it, by vir
tee of ome mvmentons consideration, saddenly trams
2
854 THK RELIGIOUS ASPKOT OF PHILOSOPHY.
formod from an hypothosis into a theory, and from
a doctrine of an eternal normal thought into a doo.
trine of an all-ombracing Spirit.
Wi.
In sovoral respects our hypothosis noods oxplana-
tion before it oan woll ploase a philosophic student,
This oxplanation will noxt loud us into a decidedly
tochnion! discussion, and this a ronder not spocially
aceustomed to philosophic discussions, if such a
rouler wo yot have, will do woll to omit. Wo must
in faot, in the present section, more particularly sot
forth the motives that have determined us to try just
thin hypothonin about Roality.
Kirst, thon, wo are concerned to show why wo have
left out of view the causal clomont that popular
thought makes so prominont in’ its conception of
Reality, For popular thought, the world isa Power
that causes our poreoptions, But wo, both here and
in our subsoquent religious discussion, shall copsidor
ithe eternal not as Power, but as Thought. Why is
‘thin? Wo shall here try to explain, still regarding
the real world meroly as somothing postulated to
moot the inner needs of our thought, Lot us ask,
without ax yet going beyond this point of view, what
in the doapost motive of our purely theoretic postu.
Jaton about reality 7 Init not to have something that
correaponda to our ideas, wand wo given them truth ?
Therefore in not the postulate that reality corre.
sponds to our idons, deopor than the postulate that a
real world causes our ideas? And wo is not the
IDEALISM. $55
causal postulate in fact but a subordinate form in
our theory of the world? To exemplify. Whea I
say that my thought demands some cause, C. for a
sensation, «does not my thought even here actually
demand something prior to the principle of causa-
tien, and deeper than that? Does not my thoaght
here demand that my idea ¢ of cause in general, and
my idea r of the causal relation R between C and s,
shall a prior! somehow correspond to the truth of
things? Can I conceive of a real caus save by vir-
toe of a postalate that my conception of a real cause
is hike the real canse itself? Therefore, when men
that our sensations need a cause, and that this cause
must be external to us.” do they say mare than this:
“We know (or postalate) that to one of our Heas,
namely, the idea of a necessary causal relation, there
corresponds a reality external to the dea?” For
sarely I do not know the validity of my idea of a
causal relanon merely an the ground that I know
that this idea af causal relanon must itself have
been caused by the real existence af causal relations
In the world. Sach an attempt to justify my idea
would mean endless regress. The deeper notion
that we have of the world is therefore founded an
the insight or on the puostalate that there must be,
net merely a sufficient cause for our thoucht. bat a
sufficient counterpart thereto.
We can easily illustrat this view by considering
the nature of oar thoncht about past ume. The
Jadsment ar assertion that there has actually been
a@ series of past events, is not a judgment of causal-
8566 9 THM MELIGIOUR ASPROT OF FIILONOPHY.
ity, J bulleve ina past an T bolleve in a future, not
tu watinfy my faith bn tho principle of causality, but
toy wuthnfy sry tesnsbesresy tor pormtulate or Inubesfinites
thasres-mtsreseasn, Vikces Ann sosataseres tas sery goreomesnst meacscsesnmberts
of iinnusliately given wtaton, 1 believe in wm reul
tharess, sort gorrissssarily tam thoes cssesames Donat tom thes cxrtantasr-
part of my notion of tims. How othorwins shall I
form thus dow of 0 cts wt all, unlows | have alrouly
aantsienl thes reality of tins? A caus Sor my be
Vissf iss thus pommt Jo tor bos cornusivend, if at all, only as
alrisuly a prt fact, ‘Thos comsption that it in to cre
gates So su ccrtselithcons cof ites cowsn combmtassscces, sasnlaswm Sascbesescd
cnses basen saclosnittend what wes winks aclaittend, tht, laow-
covery this ccsames seaey bs whthe thes Voesdlesf fsa samy conse prant
fast, thos beshiof in pat rowity ae wach be prior to our
Rreadicsf thaset cosas porresmesat mtcates Iasues Voeserta csssasneel oy thus
punt. Wut the wanes priority of thus bodlef fe some
sageresestanestal Vostwesesss try bles torud thus external ronlity,
fn feorasrcl iss al) clegnartinsnte of thought, A susterial
Csegtanss CF seny cox yreseheciness Im sa cosasames btn qrmcs, = Sbut,,
Havweeverr J cssassnes boy ths Sales oof wpotucns, sry prresmestat. boise
Vief in thes reality of spruns preunden any particular
Vosdiceh fae su sessatacrisel crests for sy pourtictabser mestonsetioons,
ssn vrecnscbecem tbess Veattacer boesdiesf pormiboles, Mhues ccanausp
thon of ronlity furninhead bry thes sesaroh for causes bn
this alwityn miabsorclinsetes ter thoes casncasption of reslity
Surnintusl by our fleet, postulates, Thin firwt ponte
Dsates im, thrsat conser Selecsem basnves sscotnsestbaiange basyeoned these
ad like them, Ro at enh moment of my life |
promtislsetas so pret, sunel Futssres of sny own, likes my prresme
ant conncionsnem, but external thereta, So my se
chal cxssimeciertamsneonm, ny Oviggisssed ussresflinstives testelenay
to work with and for other beings, implies the pos-
takate of the external existence of my fellow-mea,
like myself and lke my ideas of them. So to the
present Intuition of the space In the retinal field or
at my finger tps I join the postalate of an infinitely
extended not perceived space, lke the perceived
space, and hke my spaceadeas.
The external reality conceived by us is therefore,
30 far as we have yet seen, conceived throagh a spon-
taneous reaction of the receiving consciousness In
presence of the sensedata received. The forms of
this reaction it was the purpose of the Critical Phi-
losophy to define. The task set by Kant has not yet
been accomphshed. But the fact of some reaction
seems established. And the general law af the proce
ess seems to be that the external reality is conceived
after the pattern of the present data, with such mod-
ification as is necessary to bring the conception into
harmony with already established habits of thought,
and with the conceived results of previous experience.
The aim of the whale process seems to be to reach
as complete and united a conception of reality as is
possible, a conception wherein the greatest fullness
of data shall be combined with the greatest simple
ity af conception. The effort af consciousness seems
to be to combine the greatest richness of content
with the createst definiteness of organization.
This character of our activity in farming our ne-
tion of reality implies the subordination af the can
sal postulate to other motives. In the scientitic field
the postulate of causality is predominant, because
there the notion of a world of causal sequences In
$568 THR RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILOAOPRAY.
time and in space has heen already built up, and
what romaine inv to fill out the ploture by discovering
the particular sequences, But if 1 try to baniwh al-
together from my notion of external reality the ides
that it in an adequate counterpart of my subjective
atates of consciousness, what will remain? Simply
the notion of an utterly unknowable external cause
of my sensations, Of thin nothing will be sald, but
that it fs, Selene, experience, serious reflection
about reality, will utterly conse, | shall have re-
maining « kind of Distigured Hoalism, where the
real will be as unknowable, aa unreal as possible,
But reintroduce the omitted postulate, admit that
reality is conosived as the counterpart of my con-
aclousnoss, and then the principle of causality can
be fruitfully applied. Thon Indeed experience may
lewl us to conceive the oxternal reality as unlike
this or that suggestive sensation, unlike this or that
provisional ides, But wo shall be lod to new concep
tions, and shall be able to make definite progress, Ko
long an wo postulate some sort of lilesnoss between
Arasnesr sonnel costae’,
In brief, an counality moans uniform sequence, the
tuxeptines of any causal relation as real invelven
a conception of the uniform sequen that is to be
accaptil, When finally naecssptedd, the sequence in
quontion in conceived as a real fact, wholly or peur
tially external to present conseiousness, but like our
prosont iden of ital, Crsmnl sequence cannot there
fore bo placid flewt, san giving un se totally undefined
notion of an oxtarnnal ronity ; but second, as oti
bling us to develop in detail the iduw that reality is
IDEALISM. 859
like our own states of consciousness. Of course to
prove by sense experience that the external reality
is like our states of consciousness, this we can never
accomplish. But from the outset we have seen that
verification through experience is in this field impos- :
sible. The whole of this sensuous reality, past, pres-
ent, future, all that is outside of what one now sees
and feels, all space, time, matter, motion, life beyond
this immediate experience, — all that is so far only
a postulated experience, and therefore never a da-
tum, never in detail veritiable for sense. Since we
believe in this external reality, if experience suggests
with sufficient force the idea that some causal se-
quence is real, our postulate that such suggestions
have their counterpart in an external world leads us
to regard the conceived causal sequence as an exter
nally real fact. Not however do we first conceive of
the external reality as cause, and then in the second
place only find it to be or not to be the counterpart
of present consciousness. All our thinking is based
on the postulate that the external reality is a coun-
terpart and not merely a cause. If with time, we
drop mythological conceptions of external reality,
we do so only because, in the presence of a larger
and fuller experience, we no longer find ald concep-
tions, founded largely on lower forms of emotion and
on narrower experience, adequate to our notion of
the external counterpart of consciousness. For de-
mons and entities we substitute atoms and ethereal
media, not because we abanden the position that ex-
ternal reality resembles our ideas, but because wider
experience is found to be best reduced to unity by
860 #$THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
the latter, not by the former ideas. The atoms and
the media are themselves only provisional notions,
since more experience may be better reduced to unity,
for all we yet know, by some other ideas. But
throughout remains the postulate : external reality is
somewhat like our ideas of its nature.
We have been betrayed by the doctrine that we
have combated into forms of speech that do not ade-
quately express the Critical notion of reality. We
hasten to complete our conception by adding the
omitted elements. External reality is like our con-
ceptions of it; so much, we have seen, is universally
postulated (postulated, be it noticed, not directly ex-
perienced, not forced upon us from without). But
the kind of likeness still remains to be defined. Can
the external reality be conceived as being, although
in nature like our conscious states, yet in no neces-
sary relation to consciousness, as being neither a con-
sciousness nor for a consciousness? The answer is
the whole struggle of idealistic thought, the whole
progress of philosophical analysis in modern times.
One cannot go over the field again and again for-
ever. Tho state of the controversy can be roughly
stated thus: When the notion of external reality
is based solely upon the application of the notion of
causality, all degrees of likeness or unlikeness be-
tween thought and things are assumed, according to
the tastes of individual thinkers. External reality
is once for all .absolved from the condition of being
intelligible, and becomes capable of being anything
you please, a dead atom, an electric fluid, a ghost, a
devil, an Unknowable. But if the subordinate char
INBALISN. 861
acter of this postulate of causality is ance under
xtoad, the conception of reality is altered. What is
real must be net only vaguely correspondent to an
ill-defined postulate, but in a definite relation of like-
hess to my present consciousness, That this is the
actual postulate of human thought is shown by those
aystems themselves that ignore the postulate of like-
ness, and has been illustrated in the foreguing. But
what forms does this postulated likeness take? For
the first, the postulated likeness between my. idea
and the external reality may be a likeness between
my present consvious state and a past or future state
of my own, or between this present state and the
consvious state of another being, The whole social
consciousness implies the postulate of a likeness be-
tween my ideas and an actual consciousness external
to mine, fashioned in my own Image. But the aeo-
ond generally revognized form in which the postu
late of the likeness of internal and external appears
is the form acvording to which | postulate that a
present idea of my own is not like one of my own
past or future states, not like any actual past or
future state in another being of my own kind, but
like a possible experience. That our ideas can ade-
quately express possibilities of sensation that are
actually never realized, either in ourselves or in any
other known creature, this is a familiar postulate of
natural science. The laws of nature are generally,
as is admitted by all, what Lewes called * ideal con-
structions,” expressing experiences for us never real-
lavd, but permanently possible, And so extended is
tho use of the vunvept of possible experience, that, as
$62 THE TLELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
we know, Mill in one of his most interesting chap-
ters gave “ permanent possibility of sensation” as
an adequate definition of matter.
Now the position of modern phenomenism is, that
by these two postulates, or forms of the one postu-
late of Likeness, the whole notion of external reality
is exhausted.
The external world means, according to this posi-
tion, the possible and actual present, past, and fut-
ure content of consciousness for all beings. And
this result of modern phenomenism we regard, thus
far, as the most acceptable postulate about the world.
Either as postulate or as demonstrable theory the
position is maintained by all the modern idealists.
You can find it, for example, stated in Fichte’s “ Bes-
timmung des Menschen” and other shorter philo-
sophic essays (less succesgfully, we think, though
much more at length, in the two larger expositions
of the “ Wissenschaftslehre), in the Hegelian “ Phi-
nomenologie,” in Schopenhauer’s “ Welt als Wille
und Vorstellung,” in Ferrier’s “ Institutes of Meta-
physic,” in J. S. Mill’s “ Examination of Hamilton,”
in Mr. Shadworth Hodgson’s “ Time and Space”
and “Philosophy of Reflection,” in M. Renouvier’s
“ Logique Générale,” in lesser books innumerable,
for example, in Professor Baumann’s “ Philosophie
als Orientirung iiber die Welt” (in the first chapter),
in Professor Schuppe’s “ Erkenntnisstheoretische
Logik,” in Professor Bergmann’s “ Reine Logik.”
Not of course that all this multitude of thinkers, dif-
ferent in method, in ability, in aim, in everything
but in the fact that they are post-Kantian idealists,
IDRALISM. 363
would accept the foreguing statement as a fairly
complete account of their doctrines. Some af them
would laugh at the simplicity of our terms. Bat, we
choose to mention so confused a list to show how, in
the midst of the greatest variations, they all agree
about one fundamental truth, namely, that thought,
when it inquires into its own meaning, can never
Test satisfied with any idea of external reality that
makes such reality other than a datum af conscious
hess, and so material for thought. Senawalism and
the nrost tranwendent « prion! speculation agree in
coming at last to fice in coascless unrest from every
support for an external reality that may som to
offer itself beyond the bounds of consciousness, This
phenonrenism of post-Nantian speculation we accept,
as at all events the simplest and least contradictory
postulate. .
So much, then, for ane mative af our hypothesis
about the world-conscioures. Reality appears as
the object either of an actual or of a posible con-
eciowmness, Rut there remains in this definition
of the postulate still one obsoure point What is
meant by possible consciousness? What can there
be for conscioustess beyond the grand total of all
wetual past and future states of consciousness in all
beings? For what purpose and by what right shall
we buikd a workd of posuibility above or beside the
work! af actual experience? This question seems
too little appreciated and too much evaded by most
thinkers. When Mill called matter a * permanent
possibility of sensation.” he left room open for the
puaaling question: But what is this creature called
BAA THE ARLAGIOUIN ARPROT OF PHITAROFHY.
we prmnitrility 7 In it mn nected foot’? “Shen whet
sactvetel fre” OF tect, nesteral, then in being © mere
pemaibility matter ia noteexintent |
Thin scholastic character of the almtract non
nmmibility wae remarked and criticinel by Mra.
finer Max Miiller in an article in" Mind,” O91!
Wes bread rest fived inn tent weiteen or thin mtabrjent lewn
asholaatic or better defined terme for naming the
wternes naprenet, of the pomtilate of external reslity, Un
frst, if wes migrpemes that one sarveya the whole range
Of sustained comncionimnenn, promt, prrenent, and fatrre, andl
prmtrlaten ne frete that are tert fore tondl in cnmcdonin
nena, it in iMod ta nee what will be the meaning
of any slded “possible reality.” Possible, for the
flrat, in anything that one wonesiven, in ac far te one
curisiven it tet all, FP cenall pumaibly have wingen ancl
fe ler tail, an hendeedd ayer, andl we menntain of gold,
All that im grmmmible, trot in whist, serie? fie this
mestines, thet, Fol aetanlly immagine imnynelf im premmene
Hoge tbvesmes thetrogem, — “* Mrnngrty poommidrilitien,”” ore “ feneteg-
draticrrim tom cries world,” see facta of ccrtmederimtien itt
mtr Fear ferris tam threcy sores dernegeinneel 4 sarel they braves te
Other cxistenes. The world of trath in not enriched
ry three prcmmibrilinion, whemes whole exinteriues in in
thie mestaral cemecionin ides of thee, Pat tert ite thle
18 47, TE thereferte Mill and hia follecware tnaginn that by
Asfining Matter na the proettianott pemalldlity of aenantion, and Mind
AE Lhe prrpranntel prtemaitdlity tf Pnedinngy, thay breve pagrerved the Af
flerlty td Kate's Ling an sich, thay nee mistaken — Chele fanmtddl.
Hy tf aatantien, Hf preepmely Analy sed, moana things tp anbatantne
Whieh wan baectnn thjeote tf aonantion.” bettannce Mittlor's tants
la nth th that wa entre whelly aeoagt » bie critieintn «fd tha word
perenitAlitcy Va Vergrtet tent.
IDEALISM. $65
sense is matter to be a “permanent possihility of
sensation.” The icebergs in the polar seas are to be
real, not in so far as I now imagine them, but in so
far as there exists or holds good the law, that were
I present I should see them, were I to touch them I
would be determined im certain ways beyond the
control of my will. The pages of that closed book,
the bones inside the body of that cat, my own brain,
the molecales of the oxygen that I am breathing, all
these, in so far as they are not now actually in my
consciousness, are to be still real as “ possible expe-
riences.” But what kind of unreal reality is this
potential actuality ?
If we inquire into the motive that leads us to
postulate these possible experiences, we shall find it
to be the familar and universal wish to apply the
postulate of uniformity to our confused actual ex-
perience. Our actual experience is not always gow
erned by obvieus laws of regular sequence. ‘Bat in
postulating consciousness beyond our own immediate
data, we are led. by our known prejudice in favor of
unity and simplicity, to postulate that the real suc-
cessions of facts are uniform, whatever may be the
case with the fragments of reality that fal] within
our individual experience. I see an apple fall. and
no more than that. Bat I postalsate that if I could
have had experience of all the facts, I should have
observed a series of material changes in the twig on
which the apple hung. that would have sufficed to
restore the broken uniformity and continuity of my
experiences. In this way it is that, as remarked
866 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
above, the conception of causal sequence does not
create, but organizes and perfects, our notion of ex-
ternal reality. There is something beyond our expe-
rience, namely, another experience; that is the first
postulate. Experiences form an uniform and regular
whole of laws of nequence. That is the other postu-
late, suburdinate to the first. This postulate helps
to form for us our idea of the material world beyond
individual consciousness; an idea that science ac-
cepts for its uniformity, without inquiring further
into its uature, while a more critical reflection de-
¢clares that the facts axsumed as existent beyond the
range of individual conscious beings are “ possible
experiences,”
This assumption of “ pomible experiences,” an as-
sumption made to satisfy the postulate of uniform-
ity, was expressed, in our hypothesis of a world-
consciousness, by the supposition of an universal
actual experience, Why? We answer, because
the asmuned “possible experiences” themselves, by
ideally filling up the gaps of actual experience, are
intended to lead us to the conception of one uniform
abmolute experiences, Thins absolute experience, to
which all facts would exhibit themselves in their
connection as uniformly subject to fixed law, is
conceived as“ ponsible.” But once again, what does
that mean? Jn the meaning only the empty tautol-
ogy that if all the yaps and irregularities of indi-
vidual experience were got rid of by means of con-
necting Jinks and additional experiences, these gaps
amd irregularities would disappear? Is the mean-
ing only this, that if there were an absolute expe-
IDEALISM. 867
rience of an absolutely regular series of facts, this
experienos would be absolute and uniform? Or
again, is it enough to say that any possible experi-
ence, an iceberg in the polar sea, my brain, the in-
side of yonder book, exists for me only as “ my rep-
resentation? Of course, | know of it only what I
conceive of it, yet I postulate that it has some real-
ity beyond my representation. This postulate is for
us in this preliminary discussion a fact, of which we
want to know, not the justification (for we still seek
none higher than the fact itself of the postulate),
but the meaning. I know of my fellow only what
I conceive of him. Yet I postulate that my oon
ception of him is like him, whereas I do not postu-
late that my conception of a dragun is like any real
animal. Just so I postulate that my conception of
the “ possible experience” called an atom, or the
North Pole, is valid beyond my experionce, and be.
yond the actual experience of any known animal.
But I do not postulate that my conception of tho
possibility that future men might have wings and
tails is like any future reality whatever, or in any
way valid beyond my conception.
Here, then, is our dilemma. Matter as a mere
possibility of experience is more than any animal's
known actual experience. And yvt this matter is to
be real for consciousness, Nor is it to be real for
consciousness simply in so far as the possible expe-
rience is represented or conceived. The reality con-
sists not merely in the representation in present cone
eciousness of a possible experience, but in the added
postulate that this conception is valid beyond the
868 THE RELIGIOUS ASPKOT OF PHILOSOPILY,
present consciousness, Low is this postulate to be
satinflod unloss by assuming an actual world-con-
aciotisnons / |
Lot us sum up tho conditions to which wo have
hore subjectod our theory of reality. Kxternal roal-
ity was to bo postulated, not given; oxistent for us
because wo willed it to be. ‘To a portion of our con-
goloun states wo asoribed a validity beyond the pros
ont. ‘This aseription of validity was to constitute
our whole knowledge of the oxternal world ; for ox-
ample, our belief in our own past and future states,
in our neighbor's oxistence, and in the existence of
spice, Of matter, and of motion, Such an oxtornal
reality wan always conceived as mory or loss come
pletely the counterpart of our idoa of it, and hence,
as in nature, like the facts of our consciousness.
Tho idea that we at any moment form of the real-
ity beyond ourselves was the expression of the effort
to reducs to unity the prosont sonsedata and the
present conception of our own past oxporionce, This
reduction to unity took place in certain forms, This
wo concsived the external reality as in space and in
timo, and, in the second place, as in enusal relation
to ourselves, The conesption of eausal relations
thus projected into the oxtornal reality becomes,
when completed, the conception of a completely
united and uniform whole of fasts. We conceived
the oxtornal roaity as subject to fixed laws of so
ones, cortainly oxistent, oven though, in our lim:
ito oxportonce, they bo undiseoverable, As subject
to much Jaws the external renlity was a whole, pow
wsning organio unity. But tho external reality was
IDEALISM, 369
also conceived as being real for comscioemess and
real only for consctousmess. The external reality,
as the object of an absolute expertemos, to which ali
facts are known, and for which all facts are sabject
to universal kaw. Bat there thas has arisen an ob-
scarity in our theory of reality. The mal is to be
popalarly thought as existent in our fellow-beings.
And vet the postalated reality is to be an onganiec
whole, containing sertes af facts that to these beings
are known only as possible, not as actaal, expersences.
We are then im dis position. To complete oar
theory, we “ want a hera™” Not. to be sare. a Doan
Juan, bat a hypothetical sabject of the ~* possible
expersences.” This hypothemcal sabject we have pos-
talated oaly as a hypothesis. That is, its existence
is Bot vet seen to be a necessary resalt even of the
postalate that there is an external reality. One can
form other hypotheses. Bat this hypothess has the
advantace of being simple and adequate. Moreover,
t ascame a conscisumess for which the “possible _
~ are present facts, Is to do mo more than
eee umn to need : whereas any other hypoth-
esis (Berkeley's thealozical hypothesis, for example,
im its original form) seems to assume more than
ts so far demanded by oar theoretical conceptian
of reality, For the sake then of expressing one as
pect af oar fundamental postalate, we suggest what
of ovarse we have not vet proven, that all the con-
ceived ~ possible experionces ™ are actual in a Con-
acpommmens of Sek we 0 Sr anepece Bene
ret. pee KET w *.
a
Fie!
eM,
Hoste: m a. --
870 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
that it knows these experiences, or knows facts corre-
sponding in number and in other relations to these
experiences. Thus our idealistic doctrine in this its
first form is explained and defended.
IV.
But all this hypothesis needs the deeper confirma-
tion that we are here seeking for our philosophic
doctrines. How is any such idealism to be estab-
lished? And then, if established, how is this notion
of a passionless eternal thought to be transformed
into anything that can have a religious value? What
we have advanced as hypothesis, expressing the pos-
tulates of popular thought, is to receive such ad-
ditions and such foundation as shall fit it to rank
as a reasonable philosophic theory of reality. So
far it has been a wish of ours, and we have not even
shown that it is a pious wish. Can we make of this
All-Knower a religiously interesting Spirit? And
what shall we do with his still vague relation to the
single conscious lives that are to get truth by agree-
ing with him? If he is not in deepest truth a power
that makes them, then so far there is a strange, dark,
inexplicable necessity, determining somehow their
harmony with him. Plainly, though we find it best
to approach our doctrine by this road, we have not
yet reached the heart of the mystery.
There is one haunting thought that now must be
permitted to come for a time out of its hiding-
place and to confront us. It says: “ All this postu-
lating how vain and worthless, this hope for a proof
IDEALISM. 871
of your doctrine how absurd, when your very hy-
pothesis shuts up your human thought as it were in
acage. As yuu state the relation of the Universal
Consviousness in which exists the physical world,
and the individual consciousness of the particular
thinker, you make indeed the truth of this individ-
ual thought dependent on its agreement with that
all-seeing thought, but as you so far utterly separate
the individual thought from the allveeing thought,
you make impossible any sort of transition from one
to the other. This individual can never go out of
himself, to meet that Infinite thought, and to see if
he agrees with it. You put the model allembracing
thought M in a relation to the poor human thought
A, in which no transfer of thought really takes place,
but still you give to A the command that it shall
copy M. Then you postulate that which is by your
hypothesis unknowable, namely, that this correspond-
ence has been attained, and this empty postulate you
call a philosophy. After all, say what you will of
the beanty and nobility and courage of postulates,
all this seems a rather wearisome business. For
the postulates appear the vainest of all things when
viewed in the light of the very theory that they are
to establish.”
This objection is a common-sense one, and formid-
able. But, like all philosophic skepticism, rightly
understood it will be our best friend. Possibly, in-
deed, we shall have to complete somehow our notion
of the relation of the individual minds to the all-em-
bracing mind; but meanwhile let us take the objec
tion in its worst form. What does it lead to when
\
|
B72 FHM RELAGSIONS ASPECT OV PHILASOFHY,
emarrlead tor ftw Fullont extent? 16 lemede tor abolite
ilecsgrtheshnten, St mtsyns “ Decrbeagem theects, after all, thie
Hesletherem cf corse Aedbviedeaal thiotaght tres wich that
thasves Sn ganmiboles for un te feranlation whatever for
aney prrmteslaten, ‘Whuasy sores toll ite thes ale, Mverything
Ho chentahet heal, Wee srry bees fen esrrar everywhere, Core
tadestiy borat thes verted werrlel beesyerteel bw sasmttedenatile,”
At thaies prsbaeh theesen wes torres Fiucces tor Frucces with thas utter
Bruit thuwsretbectel wheegrtledann, What shall we de with
167%) Whay, jit whist wes dial with esthilesal wheegrtichann
in an arlicr chapter, We inant recelve it in w
Firiestubly mprhvit, rsd sersamt Aived coat ovbeat 16 sreestesm snd
sammissssesn, = BG will, bes fasct, tretenforrin thin farall ox-
tesriseal werrlsl oof thes poammtilaten bite w tras world of
Pyiritunl bAfe,
(Danes thabeage thabes wbessgrtbechnnss Seeagel berm, —— cries thing wes
wineajiles sam peesteesreally tor cxmestagnes tocrtloes serene this Mme
wareaget destin oof conne theese, St dangelbem thest we eos bes
din errire lirut an eaternal world, Pbesvetove even
thiol eswtrrernenes whescgrtdeshmess susevaserewn thite Ahere: dn os hi ffere
ane hetunvemn true dnl filne abihernente cabins nthe,
Sbest, anscow whist im isavesd veel bee weay henge Gbeeat mo mtelectesssnt
Ls echtbasser tarsus ove Seales 7 We safthertas, tar clesmny, tos clestabst,
ald Sango y sy wessal sbi barectberts bstwersts treaths meal error
sabh tbasveses tbeesny Savwerd ves fan eccrtsnnsnerty tbees smmseaten get deris
that, tbreseres in sosaeche oo bamtdenectterns, § — “WViat, whlch bn bene
work veh sabilecs Nortbe fos tbses tesathe sated fan thes falwity of
He wtaatestrscetel, teatical. Atesccdf bree cvecertendady tarasse, sored ccsensesert
Does sha rahrhasel, — iat, white fen thabes semmonsssagetdorte Heeagobbaed bn
three verry temmecert torts Aisa to wheatecrsecnt abn moe external
were del bey cor antey dee feabees 7 This Anequlery wes snsant
saisahecs If wes torres tos sasselesrmternel citar cower wheeytlolnnn,
IDEALISY. 373
If we begin this inquiry, we are met at once by a
very vexatious paradox. There seems to be an as-
pect in which all sincere jodgments are troe. Let
us remember the fable of the knights and the shield.
Each aceused the other of lying. To each the oth-
er's account seemed deliberate falsehood. Yet each
spoke the truth. Only neither expressed himself
fally. Each should have said, “ The shield as it ap-
pears from my side is gulden ™ or “is silver.” Bat
each left out the qualification. Each said the shield,
simply. And hence the battle.
Bat this commonplace about the knights and the
shield begins to worry us, when we reflect upon it,
by becoming altogether too general in scope. Do
we, in fact, ever make sincere assertions about things
save as they appear tous? If I say, “ Sagar is pleas-
ant to the taste.” and my neighbor says, “ Sagar 3b
hateful to the taste,” is this a conflict af veracity ?
May we not both of us be sincere and trathful in
what we say? And are colorblind men lying when
they say that there is no difference in color between
strawberries and the leaves of the strawberry plant
when seen in certain hghts? Bat why is it not just
so with all the rest of the things that people say?
If you are sincere in what you say, are you not al-
ways in your awertions simply relating hew your
ideas appear to you and are grouped? If you say
that nothing happens without a cause, do you not
mean that what you conceive by the ward cuwse is
conceived by you as in connection with every event
that you now have in mind? If you say that a
straight line is the shortest distance between tace
874 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
points, do you not mean that what you now conceive
under the name straight line agrees with what you
now mean by shortest distance? Very well then,
how can there be any direct opposition between two
sincere statements? Your neighbor says that Dar-
winiam is absurd. You say that Darwinism is true.
Where now is in fact the controversy? He says
that he has two ideas in mind; namely, an idea of
what he chooses to call Darwinism, and an idea of
what he chooses to call absurdity. He says that
these two ideas agree, just as the knight said that
his shield (i. e. the shield as seen by him) was silver.
You say that your idea of Darwinism agrees with
your idea of truth, as the other knight said that the
shield as seen by him was golden. Why fight about
it? Thus all statements appear to be narratives of
what goes on in our own minds. If they are sincere,
if we mean them, who shall doubt that they are all
true? Can any of us make assertions that are more
than clear accounts of how we put our own ideas
together? Why may not the thief before the judge
sincerely say: “O judge, my idea of what I call
chicken-stealing agrees with my idea of what I call
virtue” And the judge may truthfully reply: “O
rascal, my idea of what I call your chicken-stealing
agrees with my idea of what I call detestable petty
larceny.” Are these two opinions really opposed, so
that one is true, the other erroneous? Are these
not rather different aspects of the universe? What
is truth, moral or physical? Is not every investiga-
tion, every argument, every story, every anticipation,
every axiom, every delusion, every creed, every de
IDEALISM. STS
nial, just a mere expression of a present union of
ideas in somebody? Where do two assertions meet
on common ground, so that one can be really trae,
the other really false? Have different jodgments,
in different minds or made at different times, any
real common object at all? If they have not, how
can there be any trath or falsity at all?
This paradox is wild enough if you look at it
fairly. And yet many thinkers actually have main-
tamed it under vanous disguises as the doctrine of
what ts called the Total Relativity of Truth. Hav-
ing himself passed through and long tried to hold
and to rationalize this doctrine of Relativity, the
author has seme nght to say something in opposition
to it. What he has to say can be very briefly pat.
In its paradoxical form as above stated, the doctrine
may be made planuble. and 3s a suggestive paradox,
bat it is certainly meaningless. If there is no real
distinetion between truth and error, then the state-
ment that there is such a difference ts not really false,
but only swemiagly fale. And then ia truth there
is the distinction once more. Try as you will, you
come not bevond the fatal cirele. If it ts wrong to
say that there is Absolute Trath. then the statement
that there is absolute truth 8s itself fake. Is 1 how-
ever fake only relatively, or bs it fale absolutely?
If it is fake only relatively. then it is rot fake abso-
lntely. Hence the statement that it is fake abso-
lately is itself fale. Bat false absolutely. or fake
relatively? And thas you mast at lst come to some
statement that is absolutely fake or absolutely true,
er else the infinite regress into which you are driven
876 = THY RELIGIOUS ASPKOT OF PHILONOPIY.
makes the very distinetion betwoon absolute and rel
ative truth lowe all ite moaning, and your doctrine of
total Helutivity will also lose moaning. No almo-
lute truth oxista,” — oun you say thin if you want to?
At least you munt ald, “No absolute truth oxiets
wane thin truth itaclf, that no absolute truth eniata.”
Otherwise your statement has no monde. But if you
adinit thin truth, then there in in fact an absolute
distination betwoon truth and orror,
And whon wo hore talk of an “ absolute” dintine
tion betwoon truth and error, we mean morely o
“rol” distinetion betwoon truth and error, And
thin rol dintinetion the florcest partinan of relativ.
ity wdmite ; for doo he not after all argue for rela
tivity againnt “abmolutinta,” holding that he in really
right, and they really wrong,
Yet, sure though wo feel of the distinotion, the
parulox and ite plausibility romain, How have
difforent judgmonts, mule at different times, any
real common object at all? If thoy have none,
then whore in the postulated distinetion of truth and
error? What shall wo do with our paradox? In
whit sone oan privates opinion of one man bea
gonuine error? ‘Phare mant be such a thing as real
genuine error, or olay even our very akoptiocinm fails
te» Jrsuver thoes Destemt, mestines, sacl we fall back into the
utterly irrational chaos of not being able with truth
to say whothor we doubt that we aro doubting, But
yot how whall wo oxplain the posibility of error?
Kor hore in an unique and fundamental postulate.
The next chapter shill be devoted toa more apootal
and dutailod study of this problem. But alroudly
IDEALISM. STtT
we shall venture to suggest our solution. It is one
that needs possibly some little consideration, and the
reader will pardon us if we already state it, although
we shall repeat it in another form hereafter. In
fact, it is a critical matter for our whole discussion.
Here, in fact, will be the point where we shall pass
from idealism as a bare hypothesis, expressing pos-
tulates, to idealism as a philosophic doctrine, rest-
ing upon the deepest possible foundation, namely,
on the very difference between truth and error itself,
Our logical problem will become for us a treasure-
house af ideal truth. But just now we make only a
sugyestian, to which aa yet we can compel no agree-
ment.
When one says even the perfectly commonplace
thing that not all assertions are equally true, that is,
that not all of them agree with the objects with which
they mean to agree, he really makes an assumption
upon which all thinking, all controversy, all the
postulates that we previoualy studied, all science, all
morality depend; and, as we maintain, this assump-
tion is: Zhut the agreement or the disagreement
ef his judgments with their intended objects exists
gad Aus meaning for an actual thought, a com
sciousness, to which both these related terms are \
present, namely, both the judgment and the odject®
wherewith it is to agree. So that, if my thought
has objects outside af it with which it can agree or
disagree, those objects and that agreement can have
meaning, can be possible, anly if there is a thought
that includes both my thought and the object where-
with my thought is to agreo. This inclusive thought
87% = THK RELAGIOUS ASPHOT OF FIILAMOPHY.
ment be related to my thenght and ite objects, as
my thenight in relator te the varios prrtiol thenischte
that it inelisdem ard redicom to unity in any one of
my onnplex amertions, Kor only by some woh
unity an thin oan thin highsr thought compare my
judgment with ite object, and sw cmatitnte the
Polation that in implied in the truth or in the error
of my thnght. Ho, in the commonplace sammpe
tion that « ataterment of ining can agrees or oan fail
tor agro with ite real objet, when thin object is
whally «ntaide my thenight, iss thin ammnungption, with-
ont which you van mnke no rational statement, ia
curtitealsonl isragliccithy thes mamssnprticn that all reality,
apiritual aml material, in prennt in ite trun nature
to an all-canbrncing, intelligent thought, of which
ining is simply ome subordinates part or element,
In truth, a0 wo whiall cennes tor noe, roynrcledd in itealf,
my mind oan be comesrned only with ite own iden,
Sat in thes view of all mercmdlenl wubijective idoulinn.
Hut if my sind oan be comesrned only with ite own
ileum, thes winearity and truth are identionl, truth
sash oserrese will ws sabibees Asngurmmitiles, What I talk
sabwrest, will bos siny islessom 5 theesie cobsjencte will bn them
mech vesm cotbrese Sbessam cf arvitecs, saneel sesestesrings emily theme
Lslessam wheste J ressalecs smmesrticrtin, | csasinest Fil tor smb
carrreut, aumsrtisnin shunt thems, the objects that I
monn, Fut thus controversy, program townrdn
trosth, filtres tor yet, truth, mri, refutation, yon,
estitrt, Stmoslf, will all cesnmes tr have any moaning
Whiatwnsver, Fut if my thought in related to &
higher theniyht, ever sm thes parte of one of my
thunghte are rolatwl to the while thought, then
IDEALISM. 879
wrath and error, as objective truth and objective
error, are possible, since my thought and its object,
both as I think this object and as it 1s, are together
in the universal thought, of which they form ele-
ments, and in which they hive and move and have
their bemg. As my thoughts have a unity more or
less complete in themselves, so all thoughts and ob-
jects must be postulated as in unity in that thought |
for which is the whole universe. As I can say to |
myself with solely subjective truth, Zhis line that
I mentally picture is in truth shorter for me than
that, and to say otherwise is to speak falsely > even
go my statement, All straight lines are in all cases
shortest lines between their extremities, is trae ob-
jectively, and its contradictory false only in case
both the world of possible straight lines and my
thoughts about this world are known to a higher
thought, are in fact members of a higher thought,
which, comparing what [ cannot compare, making
a synthesis of what is to me separate, unifying what
is for me diverse, finds my thought really true or
false.
This is the barest outlme of a proof by which, in
the next chapter, we shall try to reach the position
which some call absolute or objective idealism. We
shall find this theory as just set forth a necessary
assumption, which we shall make because we want
to think clearly, and because we find nothing else
that even suggests an answer to the critical questions
that trouble us as to the nature of thought. We
shall not substitute this conception of reality for the
scientific conception. On the contrary, this concep
ne
880 = THK RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PIILOSOPHY,
tlon will merely undertake, presupposing the selene
tifla aplelt, to Inolude the sclentifie conception of
the world In one that will, aaa whole, batter satlefy
the neadle of thin selentifia aplelt ttaelf. Our theory
will ylve us ne a griord moount of facta of expe
renee, but athaory of that which makes experience,
awa whole, powdbla, ‘This theory, which we offer as
the one rational awount of the natura of truth, ts
the dotelne that the world deta and for a thought,
All-anbracigy, all-knowlng, universal, for which are
all relations and all tenth, a thought that estimates
perfectly our laperfeat and halting thoughts,
thought ja whieh and for which ara we all, No
other view, as we shall affirm, offer any chance of
a philosophy, nor any hope of even a rational sole
entitle notlon of tliagw,
The rouler may be Impatient to sea, In detall, the
argument by which wa undertake to establish such a
thenly as the foregoing, Of that argument he shall
get onough In another chapter, But we ase him te
walt yet a moment, while we hint te hin the aonwe.
quences, for our rellylous theory, that will flow from
our hypothe when wa have got lé more certalnly
Ja ovr anda,
The ambiguous relation of the consaloun individ
Wialnto the undversal thought In the forsgolug flewt
wtsotarnsncrant, cof cougar Uelenaddmaa, WHlh Vocr cleseleledl fas the
mend Of thele inehuslon, an clomente, dn the wunlversal
thought, Mey will Indead not become “tinge ta
the deean of any other pomon thin thonmelven,
hut thele whole reality, just oxnotly an dt In da them,
Wil be found to be but a fragment of a higher
there is any objective truth m moral conceptions,
this truth is eternally known t this all-embracing
thoaght. If there be moral or immoral acts, they
are forever known and jadged in and by this all-
embracing conscious thought. And thus we shall
have found Job's longed -far, perfect, all-knowing
jadce. ~ He knoweth the way that I take.” Here
is an absolute estimate, objectively present in the
workd, an estimate of all your good and evil deeds.
You are a part of the universal fe. Your thoughts
are parts af the whole. Your acts form an element
in the universe that the great Judge knows. All af
you then is known and jastly estimated by the ab-
solute thoaght that embraces all posable truth, and
for whom are al] relations, present. past. and future
of all possible beings, acts, and thoughts in all places.
If there be any virtue, this virtue is known to the
infinite thought of the universe. If there be any
Vice, that vice is estimated, in all its infinite hase.
mess, by the infinite cansciousness. Inasmuch as ve
do good unto the least of these. ye do it with the
aniversal consciousness as onlooker: your work 5b
al] accomplished in the presence of the Absolute.
With this troth before us, we shall be ready to
eave unsolved oar problems about this or that
Power, about this or that future state, about the
682 THE RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILOSOPRY.
fallen angels, or about the historical justification of
God’s ways. The world of Divine Life will be in
deepest truth not a Power at all, but the Infinite
Knowing One, for whom are all the powers, but who
is above them all, beyond them all, —no striving
good principle that cannot get realized in a wicked
world, but an absolute Judge that perfectly estimates
the world. In the contemplation of this truth we
may find a religious comfort.
And then, by all this, we shall make tho postu-
lates of our previous chapter appear in a new light,
The postulates, we said, express the conditions
under which we are determined to do our work,
They are expressions of the spirit of courageous
devotion to the highest. They find and can find no
perfoct verification in experience. They dwell in
part on the unseen. But they do not resist verifi-
cation, if any can be offered from a higher source,
But this, our new doctrine, if we truly get to it,
will offer them their higher verification. Their
office will not thereby be vacated or abolished.
They will forever remain the maxims of our work.
But they will no longer be just leaps in the dark.
We shall soo that when science assumes rationality,
and religion assumes goodness, as at the hoart of
things, they have neither of them acted vainly, We
shall thon have reason to go on assuming both, and
to regulate our lives accordingly. Faith of somo
sort will continue to bo our meat and drink ; but it
will bo faith with a philosophical foundation,
The reuler will pardon us for having detained
him so long in tho study of idealism as a bare postu
Keto. whem we have a unere senioes doctrime bebind.
The taveterate prejudices and sninenderstandings to
which sdealstae dheortes fall prev. fernish car excese
for trving to reconcile carselves te an impertect foren
ef idealism as a mere postalate, before going on to
set forth an absobete idsaliom as a demonstrable
theory.
CHAPTER XI.
THE POSSIBILITY OF ERROR.
on ne sort dignement la philosophic qu'avec le mame feu qu’on sent
yer une inaltresse. — Roussxau, Nouvelle leldise.
We have before us our theorem, and an outline
of its proof. We are here to expand this argument.
We have some notion of the magnitude of the is-
sues that are at stake. Wo had found ourselves
baffled in our search for a certainty by numerous
difficulties. We had found only one way remaining
so far quite clear. That was tho way of postulat-
ing what the moral consciousness seems to demand
about the world beyond experience. For many
thinkers since Kant, that way has seemed in fact
the only one. They live in a world of action,
* Doubt,” they say, clouds all theory. One must
act as if the world were the supporter of our moral
demands. One must have faith, One must make
the grand effort, one must risk all for the sake of
the great prize. If the world is against us, still we
will not admit the fact until we are crushed. If the
cold reality cares naught for our moral efforts, so be
it when we come to know the fact, but meanwhile
we will act as if legions of angels were ready to sup-
port our demand for whatever not our selfish inter-
est, but tho great interest of tho Good, requires.”
THE POSSIRILITY OF BRROR. $85
Such is the view of the men whee religion 3s foanded
upon a Postakate,
We, toa, felt chat such faith Bb reign We
were Willing te accept it, if nothing better could be
found. But we were not content with it. Life has
ts unherote days, when mere postulates fail us. At
such times we grow weary of toiling, evil seems ac
tually triumphant, and, worse than all. the sense
that there really ib any perfect: coadness yet unat-
tained, that there ix any worth or reason in our
fight for goodness, seems to desert wa. And then it
will indeed be well if we can get for ourselves some-
thing more and better than mere postulates, If we
eannat, we shall not wek to hide the fact. Better
eternal despondency than a deliberate le about our
deepest thoughts and their meaning. If we are not
honest, at least in our philosophy, then are we whally
base, To trv once nwre is not dishonest.
So we did make the effort, and. in the het chap-
ter, we sketched a result that seemed nearly within
our mach, An unexpected result this, became it
springs from the very heart of skepticism itll.
We doubted to the last extremity, We ket everr
thing gu, and then all of a sudden we seomed to find
that we coukld net hese ane priceless treasure, trv as
we woukd, Our wiklest doubt assumed this, namely,
that error ik possible, And so our wildest doubt ar
sumed the actial existence af these conditions that
make error possibka The conditions that determine
the logical possibility of error must themselves Se
whale tratA, that was the treasure that remained
to us amid all our doubts. And how rich that trem
%
886 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
ure is, we dimly saw in the last discussion. That
dim insight we must now try to make clearer. Per.
haps our previous discussion has shown us that the
effort is worth making.
Yet of one thing the reader shall be warned. The
path that we travel is hereabouts very thorny and
stony. It is a path of difficult philosophical inves-
tigation. Nobody ought to follow it who does not
desire to. We hope that the reader will skip the
whole of this chapter unless he wants to find even
more of dullness than the rest of this sleepy book
has discovered to him. For us, too, the arid way
would seem hard, were it not for the precious prise
at the end of it.
I
The story of the following investigation shall first
be very briefly told. The author had long sought, es-
pecially in the discussions of Kant’s “ Kritik,” and
in the books of the post-Kantians, for help in see-
ing the ultimate principles that lie at the basis of
knowledge. He had found the old and well-known
troubles. Exporience of itself can give no certainty
about general principles. We must therefore, said
Kant, bring our own principles with us to experi-
ence. We know then of causation, because causa-
tion is a fundamental principle of our thought,
whereby we set our experience to rights. And s0
long as we think, wo shall think into experience the
connection of cause and effect, which otherwise would
not be there. But hereupon the questions arose that
havo so often been asked of Kant and the Kantians
THE POSSIRILITY OF ERROR. S387
Why jast these principles and no others? “That
is Inexpheable.” replies Kant. Very well, then,
See Oe EP PR Sing © expenence ose
batrary principles of ours. Suppose we choose to
stop thinking of experience as causally connectad.
What den? ~ Bat you cannot stop.” says Kant,
“Your thoaght, being what it is, must follow this
one fashion forever.” Nay, we reply, how knowest
thoa that, Master? Why may not our thought ret
a new fashion some day? And then what is now
@ meoessary principle, for example, that every event
has a cause, would become unnecessary ar even non-
aenswal. Do we then know a priont that our ¢
priori principles must always remain such? If 30,
how come we by this new knowledge ?
So Kant leaves us still uncertain aboat any fan-
damental principles upon which a sure knowledge
of the world can be founded.
Let us, then, examine a little deeper. Are there
any certain judgments possible at all? If one is
skeptical in a thoroagh-going way. as the author
triad to be, be is apt to reach, throagh an effort to
revise Kant's View, a positian something hke the fol-
lowing, —a provisional position of course, bat one
that resalts from the effort to acwept nothing with-
out critacism : “ Kant’s result is that our judcments!
about the real world are foanded on an uniun af
thought and sense, thought giving the appearance of
mocessity bo our judement, sense giving the material.
The necessity af any judgment amounts then anly to
what may be summed up in the words: So thc pres
ent union of thought and sense makes things ap
H88 THE RELIGIOUN ANPROT OF PIHILONOIHY,
peer. UF altho thoiyght or metnes relterend Ito cheated
tar, trith wold alter, Elen every nlacere jraclge
ment dn freed true for the imoment ia which it is
iiule, but not necemmarily trae for other momenta,
Wounly pontulate that it is true for other momenta’
And so," ta continue thin view, “Tt in only by
means of postulates that our thought oven seamn to
have any unity from moment to moment. We live
dn the prenent, TF our thought has other truth or
fulnity than this, we do not know ft Past and ft
ture extant not for this present. They are only pane
tulatad, Save an powtulated, they have no presen
senenne ndings,
W hon he held and expressed this view, the author
In free to acliodt that he was not always oleae whether
he ought to endl it the dostelne of the relativity of
truth aon not. Et sdhit beaver everteled te almurdities
af total relativity by taking form as a dovteine that
thes prronent motets judgment in really trad or
filme, for ty rend pant nicl futire, bat that we, bedag
Hinited to proneit iomenta, oan never compare of
Jerclpernsevantin wihtly rrestulitiy tar Caacl whrestdaee conse judge
giiccrits sees dasey or fale. Dut althengeh thin detest.
pretation ds ponntile, thin view often did oxpronn it
wolf for the nathor ws the doctrine of the total rela.
tivity of truth. The latter dootelie to de mute has
no ronal moaning, but the author usd with many
Obhoen (a foney Ghat it baud,
To apply the view to the case of caused relations,
Wo continually postulate,” the author used ta
polat out, wo demand, without bela able to prove
it, that nature ia future shall be uniform.” Sa,
TRE POSSIBILITY OF ERROR, 389
varrying out this thought, the author used to say:
~ lu fact future nature is not given to us, juat as the
past is not given to ua Sense«data and thought
unite at every instant afresh to form a new judgment
and a new postulate. Only in the present haa any
judgment evident validity. And our postulate af
causal relation is juat a way of looking at thia world
of vanveived past and future data. Such postulates
avoid being absurd efforta to regulate independent
favts of sense, becanae, and only because, we have in
experience no camplete aeries of facta af sense at all,
only from mameut to moment aingle facta, about
which we make aingle judgmenta, All the reat we
must postulate ar else do without them.” Thus ane
reaches a akepticiam aa nearly complete aa is poa-
alhle te any ane with earnest activity af thought in
him, From mament te mament one can be sure af
each moment, All else is postulate.
From the deptha of this imperfectly defined akep-
tivian, which aeemed to him preovisianally the only
view he could adopt, the author eavaped anly by aak-
ing the ene question mere: “ If everything beyand
the present is doubtful, then how ean even that doubt
be possihle?" With this question that bare relativ
ity af the present moment is given up What are
the conditions that make doubt logically intelligihle ?
These conditions really tranavend the present mo-
ment. Plainly doubt implies that the statement|
doubted may be false. So here we have at least ane!
aupposed: general truth, namely, * All but the im-|
mediate content af the present mament’s judgment,
being doubtful, we may be in error about it.” But.
890 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
what then is an error? This becomes at once a
problem of exciting interest. Attacking it, the au-
thor was led through the wilderness of the following
argument.
IL.
Yet before we undertake this special examination
of the nature of error, the reader must pardon us
for adding yet another explanatory word. The diffi-
culty of the whole discussion will lie in the fact that
we shall be studying the possibility of the plainest
and most familiar of commonplaces. Common sense
hates to do such things, because common sense thinks
that the whole matter is sure from the outset. Com-
mon sense is willing to ask whether God existe, but
unwilling to inquire how it is possible that there can
exist an error about anything. But foreseeing that
soinething is to follow from all this, we must beg
sommon sense to be patient. We have not the
shadow of doubt ourselves about the possibility of
«ror. That is the steadfast rock on which we build.
\Gur inquiry, ultra-skeptical as it may at moments
seem, is into the question: //ow is the error possi-
hle? Or, in other words: What is an error? Now
there can be little doubt that common sense is not
rvady with any general answer to such a question.
Error is a word with many senses. By error we
often mean just a statement that arouses our antipa-
thy. Yet we all admit upon reflection, that our an-
tipathy can neither make nor be used to define real
error, Adam Sinith declares, with common sense on
his side, in his “ Theory of the Moral Sentiments,” !
1 Part L, sect. L, chap. lii., near the beginning.
that: ~ To approve or disapprove of the opinions of
vtbers ks acknowledcad, by everybody, to mean Bo
moore than to observe their agreement or disagree
ment with oar own.” Yet po one woahl accept asa
definition of error the statement that: Error is eng
opinion that I persomadlg dio mot like. Exeor bas
thus 3 very pugaling character. For commoa wane
will readily admit that if a statement bs erronevas,
it must appear errumeoas to every “ right mund ~ that
is in possession of the facts. Heace the perwaal
taste of one man is not envmch to define it. Lhe
there might be as mxany sorts of error as there are
minds, ft is only the “ night mind ~ whose perwmal
taste shall decide what is an error in any partecalar
cane. Bat what then is a normal mind? Who is the
right-minded jadze? There seems to be danger that
common sense shall ran at this point int an infinite
reeress. Tsay: Thad opinion is um error, What
do I mean’? Do I mean that I de not ke that
opinwa? Nav. [ mean more. [mean that J onghs
not bs lie ne te aope i. Why vagtt Love? Be
cums the ately riphtmimdied pers woeld met,
seeing the given Eaces. bold that opinion about them.
Bat who ts the ideally rigbt-minded person? Well,
CORO sae may answer. fy is oy alee person,
the muphinrenaied mas es Toner him. Bat why
ts muy bieah the trae adel! = Becuase I like it ? —
Vig, beans, 03 the ideal pada, hast kind of” mind
soouid seem, the iden, Bat who is the aleal padee ?
Ani s common sinse is driven from point te point,
enable to yet to anything definite.
So mach, then, t show im general thet common
892 §§ THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
sense does not know what an error is, and needs
more light upon the subject. Let common sense not
disturb us, then, in our further search, by the con-
stant and indignant protest that error must some-
how exist, and that doubt on that subject is nonsense.
Nobody has any doubts on that subject. We ask
only how error exists and how it can exist.
For the rest, what follows is not any effort to
demonstrate in fair and orderly array, from any one
principle or axiom, what must be the nature of er-
ror, but to use every and any device that may offer
itself, general analysis, special example, comparison
and contrast of cases, — anything that shall lead us
to the insight into what an error is and implies.
For at last, immediate insight must decide.
We shall study our problem thus. We shall
take either some accepted definition of error, or
some special class of cases, and we shall ask: How
is error in that case, or in accordance with that defi-
nition, possible? Since error plainly is possible in
some way, we shall have only to inquire: What are
the logical conditions that make it possible? We
shall take up the ordinary suppositions that com-
mon sense seems to make about what here deter-
mines the possibility of error. We shall show that
these suppositions are inadequate. Then the result
will be that, on the ordinary suppositions, error
would be impossible. But that result would be
absurd, if these were the only possible suppositions.
Hence the ordinary suppositions must somehow be
supplemented. When, therefore, we seem to say in
the following that error is impossible, we shall mean
only, impossible. under the ordinary suppositions of
common sense. What supplement we need to these
suppesitions, our argument will show us In sum
we shall find the state of the cas to be th: Com-
mon sense regards an asvertion as true or as false
apart from any other assertion or thought, and solely
in reference to its own object. For common sen
each judgment, as a separate creation, stands out
alone, looking at its object, and trying to agree with
it. If it suceeeds, we have truth. If the judgment
fails, we have error. Bat, ax we shall find, this view
of common sense is unintelligible. A judgment can-
not have an object and fail to agree therewith, un-
less this judgment is part of an organism of thought.
Alone, as a separate fact, a judgment has no intell-
gible object beyond itelf. And therefore the pre-
suppositions of commen sense must be supplemented
or else abandoned. Eidther then there is no error,
or else judgments are true or fal oaly in reference|
to a higher inclusive thought, which they presuppose, ,
and which must, in the last analysix, be awumed as
Infinite and albinelusive. ‘This result we shall reach -
by no mystical insight, by no revelation, nor yet by
ANY mere postulate such as we used in former dis-
cussions, but by a simple, dry analysis of the mean-
ing of our own thought.
The most formidable opponent of our argument
will be. after all, however, net common sense, bat
that theught mentioned in the last chapter, — the
theaght that may try to content itself with some-
what plausible jargon, and te say that: * Zhere is
no real difference between truth and error at ell,
$04 THE RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILOSOPHY.
only kind of oprinion or comsenaun of men about
a conventional distinction betneen what they choone
ty call truth and what they choose to call error”
This view, as the author has confemed, he once tried
to hold, Still thin mosninglow doctrine of relativ-
ity is not the mame an the view that contents itself
with the postulates before discussed, That view
might take, and for the author at one time did take,
the powsible and intelligible form thus oxpromible s
6 Truth and error, thugh really distinguishable,
are for us distinguished only through our port
luton, inno fur an relates to past aul future time”
Sich views, while not denying that there in real
truth, donpiir of the sttainability for us of more than
momentary truth. But the doctrine of Total Hela-
tivity, thin view above expronmed, differs from gen
tine skepticinn, It tries to put oven wkepticiamn to
reat, bry declaring the opinion, that there ta error, to
bes ites! f an error, This is not moroly a moderate
expromion of human limitations, Imt jargon, and
therefore formidable, hecauses jargon in always unan-
awernhle, When the fameon Cretan declared all
atatemente mule by Crotans to be in all canon lien,
hin declaration was hard to refute, became it wae
sch hemnent- seeming nonsenne. Kiven so with the
statement that declires the very existences of error
to be an erronemuly believed fancy. No consenmn
of men can make an error erroneous, We can only
find of commit an error, not crests it. When we
cannimit an error, we say what wan an error already.
Jf our skeptical view in previcus chapters sesmed to
regard truth and error as mere objects of our poste
THE POSSIRILITY OF ERROR. $95
lates, that was only because, to our skepticism, the
real truth, the real error, about any real past and
future, seemed beyond our reach, a0 that we had
to content ourselves with postulates. But that real
error exists is absolutely indubitable.
This being the case, it is evident that even the
most thorough-going skepticism ts full of assump-
tions, If I say, « There may be no money in that
purse yonder.” I assume the existence of the parse
yonder in order to make just that particular doubt
possible. Of course, however, just that doubt may
be rendered meaningless by the discovery af the
actual non-existence of that particular parse. If
there is no purse yonder, then it is nonsensical either
to affirm or to deny that it contains money. And
so if the parse of which I speak is an hallucination
of mine, then the doubt about whether, as an actr-
ally existent purse, it has money in it, is deprived
of sense. My ral error in that case would he in
supposing the purse itself to exist. If, however, I
ahandon the first doubt, and go on to doubt the real
existence of the purse, I equally assume a room, or
some other environment, ar at all events the universe,
as existent, in order to give sense to my question
whether the purse has any being in this enviroament
or in this universe. But if I go yet further, and
doubt whether there is any universe at all outside of
my thought, what does my doubt yet mean? If it
is to be a doubt with any mal sense, it must be a
doubt still with an object before it. It acems then
to imply an assumed order of being, in which there
are at loast two elements, my lonely thought about
896 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
an universe, and an empty environment of this
thought, in which there is, in fact, no universe.
But this empty environment, whose nature is such
that my thought does wrong to suppose it to be an
universe, what is that? Surely if the doubt is to
have meaning, this idea needs further examination.
The absolute skepticism is thus full of assumptions.
The first European thinker who seems to have
discussed our present problem was Plato, in a too-
much-neglected passage of the “ Thextetus,” 1 where
Socrates, replying to the second definition of knowl-
dge given by Thewxtetus, namely, knowledge is
True Opinion, answers that his great difficulty has
ten been to see how any opinion can possibly be
alse. The conclusion reached by Plato is no very
definite one, but the discussion is deeply suggestive.
And we cannot do better here than to pray that the
shade of the mighty Greek may deign to save us
now in our distress, and to show us the true nature
of error.
III.
Logicians are agreed that single ideas, thoughts
viewed apart from judgments, are neither true nor
false. Only a judgment can be false. And if a
reasoning process is said to be false, the real error
lies still in an actual or suppressed assertion. A
fallacy is a false assertion that a certain conclusion
follows from certain premises. Error is therefore
generally defined as a judgment that does not agree
with its object. In the erroneous judgment, sub-
|
1 Plato, Th., p. 187 sqq.
TRE POSSIBILITY OF ERROR. 897
ject and predivate are a0 combined aa, in the object,
the corresponding elements are not combined. And
thus the judgment comes to be false. Now, in this
definition, nothing is doubtful or obscure aave the
ane thing, namely, the assumed relation between the
judgment and its object. The definition asaumes as
quite clear that a judgment has an object, wherewith
it can agree or not agren, And what is meant by
tho agreement would not be obscure, if we could see
what is meant by the object, and by the possession of
this object implied in the pronoun its. What then
is meant by és abject? The difficulties invelved in
this phrase begin to appear aa soon as you look
eloser, First then the object af the assertion ia as
auch supposed to be neither the subject nor the pred-
ivato thereof. It is external tu the judgment. — It
has a nature of its own, Furthermorn, not all jude
ments have the same object, so that objevta are very
numerous, But fram the intinity af real or af pos
sible abjeota the Judgment samehow picks out its
ewn, Thus then for a judgment to have an object,
there must be something about the judgment that
shows what ane af the external objects that are be-
yand itself this judgment does pick out aa its own,
But this something that gives the judgment its al-
ject can only be the intention wherewith the judy
mont is avoampanied, A judgment haa as object
only what it intends to have aa object. It haa to
conform only tu that to which it wants to canforn,
Bat the easenee af an intention is the knowledge af
What one intends, One can, for instance, intend a
cleed or any af its consequenees only in ao far aa he
898 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
foresees them. I cannot be said to intend the acci-
dental or the remote or even the immediate conse-
quences of anything that I do, unless I foresaw that
they would follow; and this is true however much
the lawyers and judges may find it practically neces-
sary to hold me responsible for these consequences.
Even so we all find it practically useful to regard
one of our fellows as in error in case his assertions,
as we understand them, seem to us to lead to conse-
quences that we do not approve. But our criticisms
of his opinions, just like legal judgments of his acte,
are not intended to be exact. Common sense will
admit that, unless a man is thinking of the object of
which [ suppose him to be thinking, he makes no
real error by merely failing to agree with the object
that I have in mind. If the knights in the fable
judge each other to be wrong, that is because each
knight takes the other’s shield to be identical with
the shield as he himself has it in mind. In fact
neither of them is in error, unless his assertion is
false for tho shield as he intended to make it his
object.
So then judgments err only by disagreeing with
their intended objects, and they can intend an object
‘only in so far forth as this object is known to the
thought that makes the judgment. Such, it would
seom, is the consequence of the common-sense view.
But in this case a judgment can be in error only
if it is knowingly in error. That also, as it seems,
follows from the common-sense suppositions. Or, if
wo will have it in syllogistic form : —
Everything intended is something known. The
THE POSSIBILITY OF ERROR. 899
object even of an crroneous judgment is intended.
-. The object even of an error is something known.
Or: Ouly what is known can be erred about.
Nor can we yet be content with what common sense
will at once reply, namely, that our syllogism uses
known ambiguously, and that the object of an erro-
neous judgment is known enough to constitute it the
object, and not enough to prevent the error about it.
This must no doubt be the fact, but it is not of iteelf
clear; on the contrary, just here is the problem. As
common sense conceives the matter, the object of a
judgment is not as such the whole outaide world of
common sense, with all its intimate interdependence
of facts, with all its unity in the midst of diversity.
On the contrary, the object of any judgment is just
that portion of the then conceived world, just that
fragment, that aspect, that element of a supposed
reality, which is seized upon for the purposes of just
this judgment. Only such a momentarily grasped
fragment of the truth can possibly be present in any
one moment of thought as the object of a single as-
sertion, Now it is hand to say how within this arbi-
trarily chosen fragment iteelf there can still be room
for the partial knowledge that is sufficient to give to
the judgment its object. but insufficient to aecure to
the judgment its accuracy, If [aim at a mark with
my gun, I can fail to hit it, because choosing and
hitting a mark are totally distinct acta. But, in the
judgment, choosing and knowing the object seem in-
separable, No doubt somehow our difficulty is solu-
ble, but we are here trying tirst to show that it is a
difficulty.
400 ‘THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
To illustrate here by a familiar case, when we
speak of things that are sulely matters of personal
preference, such as the pleasure of a sleigh-ride, the
taste of olives, or the comfort of a given room, and
when we only try to tell how these things appear to
us, then plainly our judgments, if sincere, cannot be
in error. As these things are to us, so they are.
We are their measure. To doubt our truthfulness
in these cases is to doubt after the fashion of the
student who wondered whether the star that the as-
tronomers call Uranus may not be sumething else
after all, and not really Uranus. Surely science does
not progress very far or run into great danger of
error #0 long as it employs itself in discovering such
occult mysteries as the names of the stars. But our
present question is, How do judgments that can be
and that are erroneous differ in nature from these
that cannot be erroneous? If astronomers would be
equally right in case they should agree to call Ura-
nus Humpty Dumpty, why are not all judgments
equally favored? Since the judgment chooses its
own object, and has it only in so far as it chooses it,
how can it be in that partial relation to its object
which is implied in the supposition of an erroneous
assertion /
Yet again, to illustrate the difficulty in another
aspect, we can note that not only is error impossible
about the perfectly well-known, but that error is
equally impossible, save in the form of direct self-
contradiction, about what is absolutely unknown.
Spite of the religious awe of some people in pres
ence of the Unknowable, it is safe to say, somewhat
TRE POSSIRILITY OF ERROR. 401
irreverently, that about a really Unknowable. nobody
could make any sincere and self-consistent assertiona
that could be errora, For self-consistent assertions
about the Unknowahle would af necessity be mean-
inglesa, And being meaningless, they could not well
be false. For inatance, ane could indeed not aay
that the Unknowahble cantemplates war with France,
ar makes sunapots, ar will be the next Presidential
candidate, because that would be contradicting ane’a
self. Forif the Unknowahle did any of these things,
it would no longer be the Unknowahle, but would
become either the known or the diacoverahle. But
avaid such aelf -cantradiction, and you cannot err
about the Unknowahle, For the Unknowable is sim-
ply our old friend dbracadabra, a word that has no
meaning, and by hypothesis never can get any. So
if T aay that the Unknowahle dines in vacuo with
the chimera, or is Humpty Dumpty, I talk nensense,
and am therefare unable to make a mistake, Nan-
aonee is error anly when it invalves self-cantradiction,
Avoid that, and nonsense cannet hander, having no
abject outside of itself with which it must agree.
But all this illustrates from the other side our diffi-
culty, Is not the object af a judgment, in so far aa
it is unknown to that judgment, like the Uuknewa-
bles for that judgment? To be in error about the
application of a aymbol, you must havea symbol that
symbolises something. But in se far as the thing
aymbalized is net known through the symbol, how
is it symbolised by that symbal? 1s it net, like the
Unknewahle, ance for all out af the thought, se that
one cannot just then be thinking about it at all, and
*
402 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
so cannot, in this thought at least, be making blun-
ders about it? But inso far as the thing symbolized
is, through the symbol, in one’s thought, why is it
not known, and #o correctly judged? All this in-
volves that old question of the nature of symbols.
They are to mean for us more than we know that
they mean. How can that be? No doubt all that
is really possible, but how?
IV.
We follow our difficulty into another department
‘Let us attempt a sort of provisional psychologica )
description of a judgment as a state of mind. So
regarded, a judgment is simply a fact that occurs ia
somebody's thought. If we try to describe it as an
occurrence, without asking whence it came, we shall
perhaps find in it three elements, — elements which
are in some fashion described in Ueberweg’s well-
known definition of a judgment as the “ Conscious-
ness about the objective validity of a subjective
union of ideas.” Our interpretation of them shall bo
‘this: The elements are: The Szulyect, with the ac-
| companying shade of curiosity about it; the J?red-
geate, with the accompanying sense of ita worth in
| satisfying a part of our curiosity about the subjevt ;
- and the Sense of Dependence, whereby we feel the
value of this act to lie, not in itself, but in its agree-
ment with a vaguely felt Beyond, that stands out
there as Object.
Now this analysis of the elements of a judgt,ont is
no explanation of our difficulties ; and in {-ct for
THE POSSIRILITY OF KRROR. 408
the moment only embarrasses ua more. But the na-
ture of the difficulty may came home to ua somewhat
more clearly, if we try to fallow the thread of thia
analyaia a little further. Even if it ia a very imper.
fect account, it may serve to lead ua up to the true
inaight that we aeek into the nature of error. Let
ua make the analyaia a little more detailed.
In ita typioal form then, the judgment aaa mental
atate aeema to ua to begin with a relatively incam-
ete or unatable or diaconnected maaa of conacioua-
neaa, which we have called the Subject, aa it firat be-
gina to be present to ua. Thia aubject-idea ia at-
tended by some degree of effort, namely, of atten-
tion, whose tendency ia to complete thia incomplete
aubject by bringing it into oloaer connection with
more familiar mental life. Thia more familiar life ia
represented by the predivate-idea, If the effort ia
anocesaful, the anbject haa new elomenta united to it,
aaanmea in conaciouanesa a definiteneaa, a coherency
with other atatea, a familiarity, which it lacked at the
outaet of the act of judgment; and thia coherency it
geta through ita union with the predicate. All thia
ia accompanied further by what ane for ahort may
call a aense of dependence, The judgment feela it-
aalf not alone, but loaka to a somewhat indefinite ob-
ject aa the model after whivh the preaent union of
ileaa ia to be fashioned. And in thia way we ex-
plain how the judgment ia, in thoae worda of Ueber
Wog'a detinition, © the conacionanesa about the abjeo-
tive validity of a aubjective union of ideaa,”
Now aa a mere completion of aubject-idea through
the addition of a predivate-idea, the judgment ia ainy
404 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
ply a mental phenomenon, having interest only to
the person that experiences it, and to a psychologist.
But as true or as false the judgment must be viewed
in respect to the indefinite object of what we have
called the sense of dependence, whereby the judg-
ment is accompanied. Seldom in any ordinary judg-
ment does this object become perfectly full and
clear; for to make it so would often require many,
perhaps an infinite, series of judgments. Yet, for the
one judgment, the object, whether full and clear or
not, exists as object only in so far forth as the sense
of dependence has defined it. And the judgment is
true or false only with reference to this undefined ob-
ject. The intention to agree with the object is con-
tainod in the sense of dependence upon the object,
and remains for this judgment incomplete, like the
object itself. Somewhat vaguely this single act in-
tonds to agreo with this vague object.
Such being the case, how can the judgment, as
thus described, fairly be called false? As mere pay-
chological combination of ideas it is neither true nor
falne, As accompanied by the senso of dependence
upon an object, it would be false if it disagreed with
its imporfoctly defined object. But, aa described,
the only object that the judgment has is this imper-
fectly defined one, With this, in so far as it is for
the moment defined, the judgment must needs agree.
Tn wo far as it is not defined, it is however not object
for this judgmont at all, but for some other one.
What the imperfect sense of dependence would fur
ther imply if it existed in a complete instead of in
an incomplete state, nobody can tell, any more than
ome cam tell what towns would grow ap br a given
ram-pool, if mt were mo pool, bet arrest bike. The
object of a samghe fadyenent. bene what it is. mamely,
a vaguely defimed object. present to this yedcenent, is
yest wheat wt is for this jedruneatt, and the jedcunent
seems omoe for all to be tree, im ouse it Es sincere.
Soame ome mxay here af omoe answer that we mar
bect: nm this descriptzen the close imisendependeace of
wartoms Fadeunenits. Thowyitt. some ome may say. ts
am organic waity. Separated from all else bet its
cammet be erromeoms. Only in the onganic unity of
a somes of padeunents. havime a common object, is
the error of ome of them possible. We reply that
alll thrs will term oat to be jest oor resakt. Bat the
esnal sappesitinom at the omtset is that amy jodcuent
has bv itself its ewe object, so that thereby alone,
apart from other Pademments. it stands or Falls Amd
thes fer we have tried to show that this matnral sap-
position feads es unto difficality, We cammet see
how a single sapcere jpedcenent shoald possbly fall
tho aemee with its owm Ghanem object. Bast emoagh of
our problem im gemeral, We mast comnder certain
classes of errors more im detail. Let us see how, mm
these spacial classes af canes, we shall sncaoeed im ver
livime the matural presappositiom of commen semne,
as wot wholly presemt te mind and which assumes
that a jodement can have an object that is vet only
partially present to mind, In chaosinge the classes off
cases, we shall first follow commem sense as to ther
definmmom. We shall tabe jest the acomptions of
400 = TH NRLIGIOUIN ANPRIT OF PHILONOPHY,
Atily lites, mtscl mbesadl mbecrwy theists they fered sm ttter diff
milty, We are tet for the Ment bane ter expleadte
why theme saniiptionn are mae, ‘Mat cette
meicimes tretehec threats dm eteentegele,
Mit let the render remembers The whole vali of
ate aegiinent Hen int ite parfout generality, flew.
ever mich we dwell on particles claaes of ertern,
we corres tetetdalinge Pere thes greeneel tliat jem theme erecta
ate Inexplicatle, beat only for the fact thet they iL
ltntrate how, withett mete entirely new hypertdenia,
Abaolitely all error heetiem linponsitle. ‘Tile on
that clawn of Jrdginente mney he ote ite which all the
jilgmenta are relative, bet the total relativity of
enti Gheertegelots Heregoliesm sate Vtscsertengreesheestemd isles eatndl conetete
Aittiry atate of things, Atty hypothesia about error
that msken Uriel relativity the only adtnianitle view,
itinh therefore give place te mene tow hyperthenia,
Atl ote hiateationns in the following are intended
tay vlrerw that jeemt whit cenimtdtiiton the diMeulty in
penpet if theme Ilemtrationa, taken the oxletencs of
any error inexplicable witht ame new hypethesta,
Vv.
‘The Glass of eevcem iat we aliell Newt take meettin,
fer certemnen Aotiae, eonninete etenegh, fh in the clan
htewi aa errors abet otte nedgeliber'a mttten of andted,
Jet um then, for aegement's aake, vane without
preel that one nedelbere do exiat. Mor we wre tre
here coneerned to neawer Bolipalan, bet merely to
Gaeriplify the diMelton abet the natare of spect,
Hf cue neighhors did not exist, then the nature of
THE POSSIRILITT OF ERDOR. 40T
the error that woukl he im saying that they do exit
weoakl present abmest exactly the same diffcalties.
We prefer, however, to begin with the common-sense
assumption about ourselves and our pmeighbers as
separate individual, aad te ask how exror can then
arte im jadging of our neighbors’ minds.
In the first place thea: Who & my pewhbor?
Sarely, on the assumptions that we all make, and
that we pxade all through the ethical part of oar dis-
cassie, he is Bo one of my thoughts. nor is any part
of him ever aay pagt of my thought. He is net my
object, bat. in Professor Chifford’s phrase, am ~ ejeet.”
wholly outside of my ideas. He is no “ thing in my
dream.” just as I am not in his dream,
Yet I make jodgments about him. and he makes
them about we And whea I make jodyments about
him, I do so by having in my thought sume set of my
own ikieas that. although net himself. do yet, as I
say, represent him. A hind of dammy, a symbol, a
graven imace of my own thought’s creation, a phar-
tom of mine, stands there im me as the represente-
tive of his mind: and all I say about my meizhbor's
inner hife refers directly to this representative. The
Seottish philosaphy bas had much to sar to the workd
about what it calls direct or presentative, as opposed
to representative, knowlbedge of objects. Fat surely
the most obstinate Seodtash philosopher that ever ate
oatmeal cannot hold so tenaciously by his naional
doctrine as to say that T have, according to common
sense, anything bat a representative knowkadge of
my neighbor's thoughts and feelings. That is the
enly sort of knowledge that common seas will re
408 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
gard as possible to me, if s0 much as that is possible.
But how I can know about this outside being is not
now our concern. We notice only that our difficulty
about error comes back to us in a new form. For
how can I err about my neighbor, since, for this com-
mon-sense view, he is not even partly in my thoughts ?
How can I intend that as the object of my thought
which never can be object for me at all?
But not everybody will at once feel the force of
this question. We must be more explicit. Let us
take the now so familiar suggestign of our great hu-
morist about the six people that take part in every
conversation between two persons. If John and
Thomas are talking together, then the rea] John and
Thomas, their respective ideas of themselves, and
their ideas of each other, are all parties to the con*
versation. Let us consider four of these persons,
namely, the real John, the real Thomas, John as
Thomas conceives him, and Thomas as John con-
ceives him. When John judges, of whom does he
think? Plainly of that which can be an object to
his thoughts, namely, of Ais Thomas. About whom
then can he err? About his Thomas? No, for he
knows him too well. His conception of Thomas is
his conception, and what he asserts it to be, that it
is for him. About the real Thomas? No, for it
should seem, according to common sense, that he has
nothing to do with the real Thomas i in his thought,
since that Thomas never becomes any part of his
thought at all. “ But,” says one, “there must be
some fallacy here, since we are sure that John can
err about the real Thomas.” Indeed he can, say
THE POSSIBILITY OF ERROR. 409
we; but ours ia not this fallacy, Common senae has
made it, Common aense haa aald: “ Thomaa never
ia in John’s thought, and yet John can blunder
about Thomas.” How ahall we unravel the knot ?
One way auggesta itelf. Mayhap we have been
tuo narrow in our definition of edject, Common
wnae surely inaiata that objects are outaide of our
thought. If, then, F have a judgment, and another |
boing aeea both my judgment and some outaide ob-
ject that waa not in my thought, and seen how that
thought ia unlike the abject in some critical reapect, |
this being could say that my asertion Waa an error,
So then with John and Thomas, (7 TRomeas could
know John's thoughts about Aim, then Thomaa could
pomibly see John's error, That is what is meant
by the error in John’s thought.
Rut mere disagreement of a thought with any nue
dom abject door not make the thoaght errmneoua,
The judgment muat diaagree with ifs chosen ubjoot \
Tf John never haa Thomas in thought at all, how
ean John choow the real Thomas aa hia object? Tf
I judge about a penhalder that ia in thia room, and
if the next ron ia in all reapocta like thik, aave for
a penhalder in it, with which my assertion does not
agree, who, louking at that penholder in that other
root, can aay that my judgment ia falze? For |
meant not Cat penhulder when FE apoke. but: this
one, | knew perhaps nothing about that one, had
it not in mind, and so could not err about it, Even
mm, suppose that outaide af John there ia a real
Thomas, aimilar, aa it happens to John’a ideal
Thonwa, but lacking some thought or affection that
410 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
John attributes to his ideal Thomas. Does that
make John’s notion an error? No, for he spoke and
could speak only of jis ideal Thomas. The real
Thomas was the other room, that he knew not of,
the other side of the shield, that he never could con-
ceive. Tis Thomas was his phantom Thomas. This
phantom it is that he judges and thinks about, and
his thoughts may have their own consistency or in-
consistency, But with the real other person they
have nothing to do. The real other is not his ob-
ject, and how can be err about what is not object
for him?
Absurd, indeed, some one will reply to us. John
and Thomas have to deal with representative phan-
toms of each other, to be sure; but that only makes
each more apt to err about the real other. And the
test that they can err is s very simple one. Suppose
a spectator, a third person, to whom John and
Thomas were both somehow directly present, so that
he as it were included both of them. Then John’s
judgment of his phantom Thomas would be by this
spectator at ones compared with the real Thomas,
and even so would Thomas's judgment of John be
treated. If now John’s phantom Thomas agreed
with the real Thomas, then John’s ideas would be
declared in so far truthful ; otherwise they would be
erroneous, And this explains what is meant by
John’s power to err about Thomas.
The explanation is fair enough for its own pur-
pone, and we shall need it again before long. But
just now we cannot be content with it. For what
we want to know is not what the judgment of s
THE POSSIBILITY OF ERROR. 4ii
third thinker would be in case these two were some-
how not independent beings at all, but things in
this third being’s thought. For we have started out
with the supposition of common sense that John
and Thomas are not dreams or thoughts of some
higher third being, bat that they are independent
beimgs by themselves. Our supposition may have
to be given up hereafter, bat for the present we
want to hold fast to it. And so John’s jodgment,
which we had supposed to be about the independ-
ently existing Thomas, has now turned out to be
only a judgment about John’s idea of Thomas. Bat
Jodgments are false only in case they disagree with
their intended objects. What. however, is the ob-
ject of John’s jodgment when he thinks about
Thomas? Not the real Thomas. who could not pas-
sibly be an object in another man’s thoughts. John’s
cere, and if fully conscious of what he means by
Thomas, fail to agree in his statements with his own
John and Thomas are independent entities, each of
which cannot possibly enter in real person into the
thoughts of the other. Each may be somehow rep-
resented in the other's thoughts by a phantom. and
only this phantom can be intended by the other
when he judges about the first. For unless one talks
nonsense, it should seem as if one could mean only
what one has in mind.
Thus, like the characters in a certain Bab ballad,
real John. real Thomas, the people in this simple
tale, are total strangers to each other. You might
412 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
aa woll ask a blind man to make trae or false judge
monts about tho real effects of certaln combinations
of colors, as to nal either John or Thomas, doflned
an common sonme defines them, to make any judge
monts about enoh other, Common sone will aasort
that @ blind man can learn and repeat verbally cor-
rect statements about color, or verbally fale state.
ments about color, but, according to the common.
sense view, in no case oan ho err about color-ldeas
ax such, which are nover present to him. You will
bo quite reuly to say that a dog can make mistakes
about tho odors of the niumberlow tracks on the
highway, You will assure us, however, that you
cannot make mistakes about them because these
odors do not exist for you. Agvording to the oom-
mon-sonse view, a mnathomatiolan can make blunders
in demonstrating the proportions of equations, A
Bushman cannot, for ho can have no idons correspond.
ing to equations, But how thon ean John or Thomas
make orrors about each other, when neither is more
present to the other than in color to the blind man,
the odor of the tracks on the highway to the dog's
maator, or the iden of an equation to a Bushinan?
Hore common senso forsaken is, assuring us thas
there is auch error, but refusing to define it.
Tho inconsistency involved in all this: common
konne view, nd the consquondes of the inconsistency,
will apponr yet better with yot further Mustration,
A dreain in filas in so far as it contains the Judgmont
that such and such things oxiat apart from us; but
at lonst inno far nas wo moroly asert in our dreams
about the objucts an we concelve them, wo make true
THE POSSIBILITY OF EZSOR. 413
sssertioms. Bint i: mot our actual iife of assertness
aboot acral felow-beimes mock hie a dream to
which there showld happem to correspomd some real
aoeme or event im the workd? Sach correspondence
would mot make the dream really “tree” por vet
false, It would be a coumcidemce, remarkable for an
eatsnde olbserwer. best mome the hess would the dreamer
bet about the thimgs im bis dream Bat & mot our
sepponed Thomas a. amd omly so im the thot of
Johm as be would be if Joba charmed to dream of
a Thoomss that was. to am extermal spectator. hie the
real ome? Is mot then the phantwon Thoszss. John's
ealy direct object. actually 3 thimg im Joba's thowzt?
Is them the independent Thomas an object for Jobe
im any seme”
Yet agai. Let us suppose that two mem are shat
wp. each ra a chased room: by humelf. and for bs
whole life: amd let ws suppose that br a Lamterm com-
trivance each of them is able at tumes to prodiace om
the wall of the others room a serine of pactmres
Bat metther of them eam ever know what pactares he
prodimces ie the others room. and meither cam know
amvthing of the others rooms. as sach bet only of
the pocrares, Let the two resmam forever im ths re-
Esmom. 9 Orme of them. A. sees om bis wall pactnmres,
which resemble more or less what be has sea im bos
own room af other times. Yet he pereeives these to
be only paetures. aed be supposes thes to represent
What goes om un amother roomn, whodh be eomeeares 33
bike bis own. He i interested, be examumes the phe.
nomecea, be predacts their fatere changes, he passes
414 = FHKE RKLIGIOUS ASPKOT OF PHILOSOPHY,
judgment upon them, Ho may, if you Ihe to con
tines the hypeothenin, fil sone way of affecting
thesia, bry babssnelf sustiig inn me way mnysterionim ta bibsne
self no as to produes changes in 1's aestual room,
which again affect the ploturen that the road 13 pro
dis in A's room, Thus A might hold what he
wold oall communication with his phantom roan,
Keven mo, DB liven with pleturen before him that are
produc from A's room. Now one more supposl
thon, namely, that A and 1 have absolutely no other
menin of commiuniontion, that beth sare whut up alte
ggcstbaesee sesmel salwerye beaver loess, that neither haw any
ahjeets before him but his own thoughts and the
Changi plete on the wall of hin room, In this
assumes Whiset, cLifFestestnecss cles 16 snakes whether or tu the
pletrarem fen Alm renotin sases scstesedly Heer Cher things
thisat, cccrsabel oes messy fee D3'w ron 7 WOE that sake
A'n judyinonte either tei or fialus? Wven if A,
necting boy snes Chit bes bisamelf ensinot snelermtandd,
In able to control the pletares on hie wall by some
sltesmstion diate tanemmclounly produce in 15's
roo sil iw pletiuren, till A oannot be wild to have
any knowledge of the ronl 1 aad hin room ab all,
And, for thes same ronaan, A catinot tne tnintakes
tbacriat, thoes sessed rent of U5, feo bees will mervese coves
tbadrade cof Abaca, essed sreoconse, fee WHT, Vileos oo ane ft ow
Nvessusea, CUsbaede sesnod beer saboles tor thodrale condy of ther prise
tasvem cote tide well, | And what hie refers them to an
crnatanbeles cesnsanees, Vacs cLeacees rocrt srneeseny boy Cai csstsanes Chie renal
BS saneed Vobes sessed srcnersen, Cone bees Vasa snesveser cDeresssnesed oof thay
rend 1, bat onby of ties pletion of bile own fate
pretation of them, bls can thoresfors make no falee
THE FOSSIRILITY OF ERROR. 415
padeueents aloet B's rocea, any more then a Basken
ean make fale yedrenents about the mitegral cabcales.
If to our present world there doe: correspond a
qecomd workd somewhere off za space.a world exactly
Ike dhis, where jost the saune events at every unten
make about var workd are mot acteally tree or fale
with reference to tikat workd. for we scan this workd,
mot that ome. whee we pedve. Why are act Joba's
"Dhownas and the real Thoms related hke this workd
and tikat secomd world im dixtamt space? Why are
mot both The the rebatiom of A's comecaved phantom
roum and Bs real roo”? Nothing of evther real
Foun is ever present to the other. Each prmomer
ean wake tree of fake pedemeots if at all then,
only about the poctores om bis wall: but mother
Teas evem the saerestiion that could bead him tw moke
a bhunder shout the others real room, of whack he
kes and can have mot the farses odea.
Ome reasom why we fail two we at ome this fact
hes in the comstamtt temdemry to rezard the matter
froma the peoomt of waew of a third person, mead of
froma the pount of whew that we still imphiculy atirib-
wie w A amd B theamselwes. If A coohd vet commde
ef hts room ome and ae Bs room. them he weld
say: ~ My pactare was a good oma” or the reverse.
Bat. in the supposed case. he mot omly mever sees B's
roorn, but he mever sees anvthimg bot his owm pee
tares. mewer vets oat of fos room at all for amy per-
pese. Hemee. bis sole objets of aasertom bee his
poctares, he 2s iImmocemt af amy power to err about
Bs room as it 35 im iteelf, even as the mon bere bind
416 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
is innocent of any power to err about the relations
of colors.
Now this relation of A and B, as they were sup-
posed to dwell in their perpetual imprisonment, is
essentially like the relation that we previously pos-
tulated between two independent subjects. If I can-
not have you in my thought at all, but only a picture
produced by you, I am in respect to you like A con-
fined to the pictures produced from B’s room. How-
ever much I may fancy that I am talking of you, I
am really talking about my idea of you, which for
me can have no relation whatever to the real you.
And so John and Thomas remain shut up in their
prisons. Each thinks of his phantom of the other.
Only a third person, who included them both, who
in fact treated them as, in the Faust-Epilogue, the
Pater Seruphicus treats the selige Knaben (Er
nimmt sie in sich, says the stage direction) — only
such an inclusive thought could compare the phan-
toms with the real, and only in him, not in them-
selves, would John and Thomas have any ideas of
each other at all, true or false.
This result is foreign to our every-day thought, be-
cause this every-day thought really makes innocent
use of two contradictory views of the relations of
conscious beings. Qn the one hand we regard them
as utterly remote from one another, as what Pro-
fessor Clifford called ejects; and then we speak of
them as if the thoughts of one could as such become
thoughts of the other, or even as if one of them
could as an independent being still become object
in the thought of the other. No wonder that, with
THE POSSIBILITY OF ERROR. 417
such contradictory assumptions as to the nature cof
our relations to our neighbors we find it very easy
to make absurd statements about the meaning of
error, The contradiction of common sense has in
fact just here much to do with the othioal UWuaon
that we called the illudon of selfishness, To clear
up thin point will be useful to us, therefore, in more
ways than one,
VI.
Disappointed once more in our efforts to under;
xtand how error ia possible, we turn to another class
of cases, which Ho in a direction where, at least for
thie once, all will eurely be plain. Errore about
matters of fact or experlence are certainly clear
enotyh in nature, And as thin clase of errora ts!
practioally moat important, the aubtlotion of our pre
vious investigation may be dhankwed with Ight heart
bo noon as we have gotten rid of the few little quee-
tions that will now beset ua It ie to be noted that
all errors about materlal objects, about the laws
of nature, about history, and about the future, are
alike orrora about our actual or posible experiences,
We expect or postulate an experience that at the
given time, or andor the given conditions, turna out
to be other than it waa postulated or expected to be.
Now alinee our experiences not now present are objeo-
tive facta, and capable of clear detinition, it would
room clear that error concerning them ia an cally
comprohonaible thingy,
But alaa! again we are dheappointed. That er
yore in matters of experience are commen enough bs
w
418 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
inf@ubitable, but equally evident becomes the diffi-
culty of defining what they are and how they are
possible. Take the case of error about an expected
future. What do we mean by u future time? How
do we identify a particular time? Both these ques-
tions plunge us into the sea of problems about the
nature of time itself. When I say, Zhus and so
will it be ut such and such a future moment, I pos
tulate certain realities not now given to my con-
sciousness. And singular realities they are. For
they have now no existence at all. Yet I postulate
that I can err about them. This their non-existence
is a peculiar kind of non-existence, and requires me
to make just such and such affirmations about it.
If I fail to correspond to the true nature of this
non-existent reality, I make an error; and it is pos
tulated not merely that my present statement will
in that case hereafter turn out false or become false,
but also that it is now false, is at this moment an
error, even though the reality with which it is to
agree is centuries off in the future. But this is not
all tho difficulty. I postulate also that an error in
prediction can be discovered when the time comes
by the failure of the prediction to verify itself. I
postulate then that I can look back and say: Thus
and thus I predicted about this moment, and thus
and thus it has come to pass, and this event con-
trudicts that expectation. But can | in fact ever
accomplish this comparison at all? And is the com-
parison very easily intelligible? For when the event
comes to pass, the expectation no longer exists. The
two thoughts, namely, expectation and actual expe
THE POSSIRILITY OF ERROR. 419
rience, are separate thoughts, far apart in time.
How ean I bring them tugether to compare them, 20
as to see if they have the same object? 1 will not
do to appeal t memory for the purpose; for the
samme question would recur about the memory in its
relation to the original theught. How can a past
thought, being past, be compared to a present thought
tu awe whether they stand related? The past thought
lived in itvelf, had its own leas af what it thea
called future, and its own interpretation § thervof.
How ean you show, or intelligently affirm, that the
eanception which the past expectation had af its
future moment is av klentival with the canception
which this present thought has of this present mo-
ment, as to make these two conceived moments ane
and the same? Here in short we have supposed two
different hleas, ane af an expected future, the other
of an experienced present, and we have supposed
the two ideas to be widely separated in time, and by
hypothesis they are net together in ane canseiousness
at all. Now how can ane say that in fact they relate
tv the same moment at all? How is it intelligible
tw say that they de? How, in tine, can a not-given
future be a real object af any theught; and hew,
when it ts oace the object thereaf, can any subse.
quent moment be identified with this object ?
A present theught and a past thought are in fact
a parate, even as were John and Thomas. Each
une means the object that it thinks. How can they
have a common object? Are they not ance for all
titterent thoughts, each with its ewn intent? But
im onler to reader intelligible the existence of error
—— =
421) THE RELIGIOUN ANPKOT OF PITILONOVITY,
about matters of fact, wo must make the unintalliyt
ble asmniimption, so it world sees, thet thems two ifs
ferent thoughts have the same intent, and are but
one, And sush is the diffloulty that wo flad in our
sovond great dliuas of canon.
VIL,
Bo much for the problem, both in general and in
going particular lastances, But now may not the
role inalet, after all, that there aun be in this wine
no errors whatever? Contradiatory as it seams, have
wo not, after all, put our judgimonts into a position
Whore oncupe for ts in finpostble? If every judg.
mont Is thus by its nature bound up ina closed ofr
ole of thought, with no outlook, oan any one dome
afterwards and give it an external object? Porhaps,
thon, there inn way out of our difflaulty by frankly
waylige that our thoughtw may be nelther truths nor
errors bayond themselves, but just ossurronces, with
awimonning wholly subjective,
Wo dloalies the rauler to try to realize this view of
total relativity ons more in the form in which, with
tbl Atos Vsabacsrernnts svlowtarelitlow, 40 sserw cscrtsiem locke to us
for the lant thie, Tt anys, Mvery judgment, A da
Bln fast dow agrees and oan agrees only with its
own object, whlete Im prement, frantic wher lt in meade,
With no oxternal obfeet ann it ygroe or fall to agra,
Jt stands alone, with Ite own obfeat, Tt law nelther
truth norerror beyond Itwelf, Tt fulfils wld fie later
therm, aad dn tri, df It nyereene with what wes gorenend
to It when It was thought. Only tn thin sense in
thore any truth or falsity possible for our thought.”
THE POSSIBILITY OF ERROR. 431
But once more, this inviting way out of the diff-
eulty needs only to be tried to reveal its own contra-
dictions. The thought that says, * No judgment is
true beyond itself,” is that thought true beyond it-
self or not? If it is true beyond itself, then we have
the possibility of other truth than the merely subjeo-
tive or relative truth. If it is false, then equally we
have objective falsity. If it is neither true nor false,
then the doctrine of relativity has not been affirmed
at allasa truth. One sets up an idea of a world of
separate, disorganized thoughts, and then says, ‘* Each
of them deals only with its own object, and they have
no unity that could make them true or false.” But
still this world that one thus sets up must be the
true world. Else is there no meaning in the doo-
trine of relativity. Twist as one will, one gets not
out of the whirlpool of thought. Error must be real,
and yet, as common sense arranges these judgments
and their relations to one another, error cannot be
real. There is so far no escape.
The perfectly general character of the argument
must be understood. One might escape it if it ap-
plied to any one class of errors only. Then one
would say: “In fact, the class of cases in question
may be cases that exclude the possibility of both
truth and error.” But no, that cannot be urged
against us, for our argument applies equally to all
possible errora, In short, either no error at all is
possible, or else there must be possible an infinite
mass of error. For the possibilities of thought being
infinite, either all thought is excluded once for all
from the possibility of error, or else to every possi-
|
i
|
|
|
|
422 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
ble truth there can be opposed an infinite mass of
error. All this infinite mass is at stake upon the
issue of our investigation. Total relativity, or else
an infinite possibility of truth and error; that is
the alternative before us. And total relativity of
thought involves self-contradiction.
Every way. but one has been tried to lead us out
of our difficulty. Shall we now give up the whole
matter, and say that error plainly exists, but baffles
definition’? This way may please most people, but
the critical philosophy knows of no unanswerable
problem affecting the work of thought in itself con-
sidered. Here we need only patience and reflection,
and we are sure to be some day rewarded. And in-
deed our solution is not far off, but very nigh us.
We have indicated it all along. To explain how
one could be in error about his neighbor’s thoughts,
we suggested the case where John and Thomas
should be present to a third thinker whose thought
should include them both. We objected to this sug-
gestion that thus the natural presupposition that John
and Thomas are separate self-existent beings would
be contradicted. But on this natural presupposition
neither of these two subjects could become object to
the other at all, and error would here be impossible.
Suppose then that we drop the natural presuppo-
sition, and say that John and Thomas are both actu-
ally present to and included in a third and higher
thought. To explain the possibility of error about
' matters of fact seemed hard, because of the natural
postulate that time is a pure succession of separate
moments, so that the future is now as future non-ex-
TAR POSSIBILITY OF ERROR, 433
latent, and so that judgments about the future lack
real objecta, capable of identification. Let ua then
drop this natural postulate, and declare time once
for all present in all ita momenta to an universal
all-inclusive thought. And to aum up, let us over
come all our difficulties by declaring that all the
many Beyondsa, which alngle signifleant judgments
qwem vaguely and separately to postulate, are pres-
ont an fully realized intended objecta to the unity
ef an all-inclusive, absolutely elear, universal, and
conwious thought, of which all judgments, true or
falww, are but fragmenta, the whole being at once
Absolute Truth and Absolute Knowledge. Then all
our puasles will disappear at a atroke, and error will
be possible, because any one flnite thought, viewed
in relation to its own intent, may or may not be seen
by thia higher thought aa anccesaful and adequate in
this intent,
How thia absolute thought ia to be related to in
dividual thoughta, we can in general very aimply de-
fine, When one aya: “ This color now before me
ia red, and to any that it ia blue would be to make a
blunder,” one representa an ineluding consciousness,
One includes in one's prosent thought three distinct
elementa, and has them present in the unity of a sin-
gle moment of insight. These elements are, firat, |
the pereeption of red; secondly, the reflective judg
mont whoee object in this perception, and whose |
agreement with the object constitutes ita own truth; |
and, thirdly, the erroneous reflection, Thia ia blue,
Which ix in the mune thought compared with the per
ception and rejected aa crror, New, viewed aa sep-
of , |
gave
lhe ,
yee
424 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
arate acts of thought, apart from the unity of an in-
cluding thought, these three elements would give rise
to the same puzzles that we have been considering.
It is their presence in a higher and inclusive thought
that makes their relations plain. Even so we must
conceive the relation of John’s thought to the united
total of thought that includes him and Thomas.
Real John and his phantom Thomas, real Thomas
and his phantom John, are all present as elements in
the including consciousness, which completes the in-
complete intentions of both the individuals, con-
stitutes their true relations, and gives the thought
of each about the other whatever of truth or of
error it possesses. In short, error becomes possible
as one moment or element in a higher truth, that
is, in a consciousness that makes the error a part of
itself, while recognizing it as error.
So far then we propose this as a possible solution
for our puzzles. But now we may insist upon it as
the only possible solution. Lither there is no such
thing as error, which statement is a flat self-contra-
diction, or else there is un infinite unity of conscious
thought to which is present all possible truth. For
suppose that there is error. Then there must be an
infinite mass of error possible. If error is possible
at all, then as many errors are possible as you please,
bince, to every truth, an indefinite mass of error may
be opposed. Nor is this mere possibility enough.
An error is possible for us when we are able to make
a false judgment. But in order that the judgment
should be false when made, it must have been false
before it was made. An error is possible only when
THE POSSIBILITY OF EXROR. 45
the jadgment in winch the error & to be expresmed
always was false. Enxror, if posible, = then eter
mally actoal. Each error so possible implies a jade
ment whose intended object & beyond itzelf, and &
also the object of the corresponding tree jodement.
Bat two jodgments cannot have the same object save
as they are both present to ome thought. For as
have previously seen in detail. So that every error
Imaphes a thought that incindes it and the corre
spomdimg truth im the unity of one thought with the
object of both of them. Only as present to an m-
eluding thought are they either true or fake. Thus
then we are driven to assume an infintte thought.
Jedeing truth amd error. Bat that ths mmifinite
thoaght must ako be a rational uontty, not a mere
aggregate of truths, = evident from the fact that
error ts possible not only as to objects, bat as to the
relations of objects, so that all the possthle relations
of all the objets In space, in time, or m the workd
of the barely possthie, muust also be present to the
allinelading thoaght. And to know all relations at
once ts to know them im absolute rational unrtty, as
What, then. i an error? <An error, we reply, 5 .
an Incomplete thought, that to a hivher thought,
which inchades it and its intended object, is known
as having failed m the purpose that it more or less
clearly had. and that 3s fully realized im this ivher
thought. And without suck higher inclusive thought, |
am assertion has no external object, and is no error. |
I
ps
426 THK RELIGIOUS ASIPKOT OF ILILOKOPHY.
VUL
If our argument wore « Platonic dialogus, there
would be horsabeuts an interruption from some im-
patient Thrasymachus or Callicles or Polus, who
would have hoon watching us, threatening and mut-
tering, during all of the latter part of our discussion,
At last, porhapy, ourrpivas lavriv ome Onpliv, he
wold spring upon us, and would say: “ Why, you
honsenme-mongers, have you nut bethought you of
the saltsrnative that represents the reality in this
question of yours’? Namely, an orror is an error,
neither to the thought that thinks ft, nor of necessity
to any highor inclusive thought, but only to & poss
ble critical thought that should undertake afterwards
to wonnpare it with ite object. An error is a thought
auch that if a critical thought did come and compare
it with ita object, it wuld be nun to bes falno, And
it has an object for such a critical thought. ‘This
critics! thought need not be real and actually include
it, but may bes only a possible judge of its truth.
Bernas your Infinites all-knower is no reality, only «
Logics! possibility ; and your insight smounte to this,
that if all were known to an al-knower, ho would
judlye wrror to bes imintaken, And so error in what
he would peresive to be error, What dos all that
amount to but worthlow tautology 7”
This argument of our Thrasymachus is the only
outwardly plausible objection that we fear to the
forvyoing snnsalynin, beens it in the only objection
that fully expresses the oldl-cntablished view of com-
non sense about such problems, Though common
THE POSSIBILITY OF ERROR, 427
sonse never formulates our present difficulty, com-
mon senae atill dimly feela that to some posible
(not actual) judge of truth, appeal is made when
we aay that a thing fs false not merely for us, but
in very truth. And thin possible judge of common
wena wo have now unhealtatingly declared to be an
Infinite Actuality, absolutely necessary to constitute
the relation of truth and error, Without it there
ts for our view no truth or error conceivable. The
wonla, This is true, or Thin ta falec, moan nothing,
we declare, unless there is the lncluaive thought for
which the truth ia true, the falachood falea No
barely possible judge, who eveld aco the error if he
were there, will do for ua He muat be there, this
judge, to conatitute the error, Without him nothing
but total subjectivity would be powdhle: and thought
would then become purely a pathological phenome
Hon, an occurrence without truthfulness or falalty,
an occurrence that would interest anybody if it
could be observed; but that, unfortunately, being
only a momentary phantom, could not be observed
at all from without, but must be dimly felt from
within, Our thought needs the Infinite Thought in
onler that it may get, through thia Infinite judge,
the privilege of being ao much aa even an error
Thia, it will be avid, fa but reaasertion, But how
do we maintain thia view againat our Thraaymachua?
Our anawer da only a repetition of things that we
have already had to aay, in Che argument for what
we here reamert. Tf the judgment oxiated alone, |
without the incluatve thought to judge it then, aa it
existed alone, it either had an object, or had none,
ee
428 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
But if it had none, it was no error. If it had one,
then either it knew what its object actually was, or it
did not know what its object was, or it partially knew
and partially did not know what its object actually
was. In the first case the judgment must have been
an identical one, like the judgment A pain is a pain.
Such a judgment knows its own object, therefore can-
not fail to agree with it, and cannot be an error. If
the judgment knew not its own object at all, then it
had no meaning, and so could not have failed to agree
with the object that it had not. If, however, this
separate judgment knew its object enough to intend
just that object, but not enough to insure agreement
with it, all our difficulties return. The possible
judge cannot give the judgment its complete object
until he becomes its actual judge. Yet as fair judge
he must then give it the object that it already had
without him. Meanwhile, however, the judgment re-
mains in the unintelligible attitude previously stud-
ied at length. It is somehow possessed of just the
object it intends, but yet does not know in reality
what it does intend, else it would avoid error. Its
object, in so far as unknown to it, is no object for
it; and yet only in so far as the object is thus un-
known can it be erred about. What helps in all
this the barely possible judge? The actual judge
must be there; and for him the incomplete intention
must be complete. He knows what is really this
judgment’s object, for he knows what is imperfectly
meant in it. He knows the dream, and the inter-
pretation thereof. IIe knows both the goal and the
way thither. But all this is, to the separate judgment
as such, a mystery.
THE POSSIBILITY OF ERROR. 439
In fact, the separate judgments, waiting for the
possible judge to test them, are like a foolish man
wandering in a wood, who is asked whether he has
lost his way. “I may have lost it,” he answers.
“ But whither are you going?” “That I cannot
tell?” “Have you no goal?” “I may have, but
I have no notion what it is.” “What then do you
mean by saying that you may have lost the way to
this place that you are not seeking? For you seem
to be seeking no place; how then can you have lost
the way thither?” “I mean that some possible
other man, who was wise enough to find whither I
am trying to go, might possibly, in his wisdom, also
perceive that I am not on the way to that place. So
I may be going away from my chosen gual, although
IT am unaware what gual it is that I have chosen.”
Such a demented man as this would fairly repre-
sent the meaningless claim of the separate judgment,
either to truthfulness, or to the chance of errar.
In short, though the partial thought may be, as
such, unconscious of its own alm, it can be so uncon-
acious only in case it is cantained in a total thought
as one moment thereof,
It will be seen that wherever we have dealt in the
previous argument with the possibility of error as a
mere possibility, we have had to use the result af the
previous chapter concerning the nature of possibil-
ity itself. The idea af the barely possible, in which
there is no actuality, is an empty idea. If anything
is possible, then, when we say sa, we postulate same-
thing as actually existent in arder to canstitute this
possibility. The conditions of possible error must |
480 «= THK RERLIGIOUA AAPROT OF PITILONOPIHY,
he actual, Bare possibility is blank nothingness, If
the nature of error nooosarily and with perfect gon
orality demands cortain conditions, thon thom oon.
ditions are as cternal as the orroneousnoss of error
itaelf in otornal, And thus the inclushve thought,
which constitutes the error, must be postulated as
oxintent.
So, finally, lot one try to affirm that tho Infinite
content of the all-incliuding mind dows not oxint, and
that the foregoing idealism isa more illusion of ours,
Ho will find that he fs involved in a circle from
which there is no osoape, For let him return to the
ponition of total relativity and so mys The Infl
nite thenught is unreal for me, and hones you are
wrong.” But thon also he adinite that wo are right,
for in affirming this infinite wo affirm, secording to
this doctring of total relativity Itself, something thas
fn fit ns trie ae it seore to us to be tris, Mh ope
posing argument is this at onch moment of ite prog.
rons involved in a contruliction, Or again, let him
jnwint that our doctrine is not only relatively, but
really files. Thon however he will fail to show us
whit thin resl fiulwity is, Lee fost dies snye whet all our
previous oxuminntion shows to monn, this, namely,
“that nan infinite thought doo oxint, and dows oxpe-
Hones the truth, and compares our thought with the
truth, anc thon observes this thought of ours to be
Fialncs, thas, in, Ht climecovesem thaset itmesdf in tucoss-asx intact.
Whoover likes this ronult may hold it if he onan.
THE POSSIBILITY OF ERROR. 431
IX.
Now that our argument is completed as an inves-
tigation, let us review it in another way. We started |
from the fact of Error. That there is error is in- |
dubitable. What is, however, an error? The sub- |
stance of our whole reasoning about the nature of
error amounted to the result that in and of itself
alone, no single judgment is or can be an error
Only as actually included in a higher thought, that ‘
gives to the first its completed object, and compares |
it therewith, is the first thought an error. It re-
mains otherwise a mere mental fragment, a torso, a
piece of drift-wood, neither true nor false, objectless,
no complete act af thought at all. But the higher
thought must inchide the opposed truth, to which
the error is compared in that higher theught. The
higher thought is the whole truth, af which the error
is by itself an incomplete fragment.
Now, a3 we saw with this as a starting-point, there
is no stoppingplace short of an Infinite Thought.
The possibilities af error are infinite. Infinite then
must be the inclusive thought. Here is this stick, |
this brickhat, this snow-flake: there is an infinite
mass of error possible about any one of them, and
notice, not merely possible is it, but actual. All the
infinite series of blunders that you could make about
them not only would be hhunders, but in very truth
now are blunders, though you personally could never.
eenunit them all. You cannot in fact make a trath ©
or a falsehood by your thought. You ouly fad ane |
From all eternity that truth was true, that falsehood '
482 THE RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILOSOFIY.
falne. Vory well then, that infinite thought muat
nomohow have hed all that in it from the beyinning.
If aman doubte it, lot him answor our previous dif-
ficultion, Lat him show us how he can make an
error save through the prosonce of an actual inclu-
sive thought for which tho orror always was orror
and nover became such at all. If he can do that,
let him try. We should willingly accept tho romult
if he could show it to us, But he cannot. We
have rambled over thos barren hills alrouly too
long. Save for Thought there is no truth, no error,
Save for inclusive Thought, there is no truth, no
error, in separate thoughts. Beparate thoughts as
auch cannot then know or have the distinction be-
twoon their own truth and their own falsity in them-
selves, and apart from the inclusive thought. There
ia thon nothing of truth or of error to be found in
the world of separate thoughts aa auch, All tho
thoughts are therefore in the last analysin actually
true or falas, only for the all-including Thought, the
Infinite.
We could have reached the same result had wo
mst out from the problem, What in Truth? We
chose not to do so becuse our skepticinm had the
placid answor ready: “No matter what truth is, for
vory likely thors is little or no truth at all to be had,
Why trouble one's mind to define what a fairy or a
brownie in?” “Vory woll, thon,” we seid to our
akepticiom, “if that in thy play, wo know a move that
thou thinkest not of. We will not ask theo of truth,
if thou thinkost there is none, Wo will ask thee of
error, whorcin thou revelost.” And our skepticism
THE POSSIBILITY OF ERROR. 433
very cheerfully, if somewhat imeoherently, answers,
that, “if there be httle or no truth here below, there
is at least any amount of error, which as skeptics we
have all been detecting ever since we first went to
sehool.” “ We thank thee for that word, ob friend,
bat now, what is an error?™ Blessed be Socrates
for that question. Upon that rock philosophy can,
if it wants, build we know not yet how much.
It is enough for the moment to sum up the truth
that we have found. It is this: ~ All reality must
be present to the Unity of the Infinite’ Thought.”
There is no chance of eseape. For all reality is re-
ality because true jadyments can be made about it.
And all reality, for the same reason, can be the ob
Jeet of false yadyments. Therefore, since the fake
and the true judgments are all true or false as pres-
ent to the infinite thought, along with their objects,
no reality can eswape. You and I and all of us, all
good, all evil, all truth. all falsehood, all things ae
tual and pussible, exist as they exist, and are known
for what they are, in and to the absolute theaghit ;
are therefore all jaded as to their real character at
this everlasting throne of yadement.
This we have found to be true, because we tried
to doubt everythmg. We shall tv we in
the coming chapter the rehgivus value of the concep-
tion. We ean however at once see this in it: The
Infinite Thoaght must. knowing all truth, melade akko
a knowledge of all wills. and of their contiet. For
him all this conthet. and all the other facts of the
weral work, take place. He then must know the
eateome of the cuntlict, that Moral Insight of our
ws
494 THR RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILOSOPHY.
firat hook, In him then we have the Judge of out
ideals, and the Judge of our conduct. He must know
the exact value of the Good Will, which for him, —
like all other possible truth, must be an aotually re-
alixed Kaot. And so we cannot pause with a siinply
theoretical idesliom. Our doctrine in practical tou,
We have found not only an infinite Seer of physical
frota, but an infinite Heer of the Good aa well as of
the Kvil, fle knows what we have and what we
lack. In looking for goodness we are in no wise
looking for what the real world does not contain.
Thin, we say, we have found as a truth, because
we tried to doubt everything, We have taken the
wings of the morning, and we have fled; but be-
hold, we are in the midat of the Spirit. Truly the
wotds that some people have thought so fantaatic
ought henceforth to be put in the text-books aa vom-
monplaces of logics! analysia:
“They recket ill that leave mea ont;
When ma they fly, Lam the wings,
Pam the dothter and the dotht.” —
) Mverything finite we can doubt, but not the Infinite.
That eludes even our skepticism, The world-tnild-
era, atl the theodicies that were to justify them, we
could well doubt. The apologetic devices wearied
ws. All the ontologies of the realistic schools were
just pictores, that we could acoept or reject as we
ghose hy means of postulates. We tried to escape
them all, We forsook all those gods that were yet
no gods; bat here we have found something that
abides, and waxes not old, something in which there
is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. No
THE POSSIBILITY OF ERROR. 485
power it is to be resisted, no plan-maker to be foiled
by fallen angels, nothing finite, nothing striving,
seeking, losing, altering, growing weary; the All-
Enfolder it ia, and we know its name. Not Heart,
nor Love, though these also are in it and of it;
Thought it is, and all things are for Thought, and in
it we live and move.
CHAPTER XII.
THE BELIGIOUS INSIGHT,
If thou betake thyself to the ever-living and abiding Truth, the de
sertion or death of a friend shall uot meke thee sad.— /mitation of
Chrid,
Cum contra sapiens, quatenus ut talig coneideratus, vin animo ma-
vetur, aed oui et Dei et rerun aeterna quadam necessitate conscina,
nupquam esse desinit, wed semper vera animi acquiescentia potitur. —
Brinoza, Ethica,
Ws are in a new world of Divine Life, The dark
world of the powers has passed away from our
thought, Ilere is the Eternal, for which all these
powers exist, in which they dwell. Here we are in
the presence of the Ideal Judge who knows all Good
and Evil. From the other side the world a6 we ap-
proached it had seemed so restless, so disheartening,
wo deaf. The world of our postulates was a brighter
one only because we determined to make it so. But
there was something lonesome in the thought that
the postulates got, as answer from the real world,
only their own echy, and not always that. Their
world was rather their own creation than an exter-
nal something that gave them independent support.
Sometimes there seemed to be nothing solid that
could echo back anything at all, Now we seem to
look upon a truth that satisfies indeed no selfish
longings of ours, no whims of theological tradition,
THE RELIGIOUS INSIGHT. 487
no demands of our personal narrow lives. We shall
not learn in this way who is first in the kingdom of
heaven, nor how the dead are raised, nor any answer
to any other special demand of any set of men. We
earn, however, this at least: AU truth is known to
One Thought, and that Infinite. What does that
imply? Let us see.
L
Our argument is somewhat near to the thought |
that partially satisfied St. Augustine when he found
it in his Plato. That there should be a truth at all
implies, we have seen, that there should be an Infi-
nite Truth, known to an Infinite Thought; ar, in
other words, that all is for thought. and without
thoaght is nothing that is. We also area part of
this infinite thought. We know not vet more of the
dature of this thought, save that it must be eternal,
all-embracing, and One. What then shall we be
able further to say abuuat it?
To answer would be ta expound a system af phi-
lamphy. But we must limit ourselves here to the
necessary. And sa. for the first, we shall try to
point out what this ideal and infinite life af thoaght
that we have found as the eternal truth of things |
carrot be expected to accomplish for the purposes
of our religion, and then to cansider what we may
~evertheless dare to hope from it.
It cannot be expected to furnish us an a priori
knowledge of any fact of experience, af any particn-;
lar law of nature, of the destiny of any ane finite be. ;
ing. All that remains just as dark as it was before.
434 THE RELIGIOUS ABPKF OF PHILOMOPHY,
Wa nalthar rajolos in thin ronult, nor lament 6, Noe
Dooly wher wrssdenn fate thier lead world may axpeos
ty fined Wt ordered for bin Individual ulvantage 5 nov
need the try to Mel there good Inventinanta for his
savonnery, — 'NIacs Vafinnites clam not walt for hin Sadivide
ual approved; although morally wpoakiug he may do
wall to yet the approval of the Infinite. Whe Inf
nites wan not elesteal to offies by his vote, and he
may net fpenel it for disregard of bin lumble poe
tiilonn for good things, nor threaten ib with wane of
cnninilalenies eens 1 loon not menue paanayge for hie
peivecies billy, Tino far am too wey thie in to condemn
this Vdesud, we sibewiiatingly dow, Iut thon, an we
waw Ji cour etdlend dimuon, the moral lusight ja not
wo mnths concerned with private bills, aw with oortaln
grentar mation, Of the moral Janight wante relige
Lown mappoart, powibly thier failures of all theme per
ronal concern of our, to find any hint of response
from the Almolute, may vot render linpomtble the
est Dadeeead sannebesetaabedaagen of Alves Doves wplelt, Sf am be
A vbclessade wer sovtimt beeen Woes deeslful words from the
mpledt of smtures Lda yledehat hem Calet don de
hegre(fat, nicht mie yp A ib de pomnible that with »
Vidyghaser Snombgg lot, Ueobedenge sapwory Ulodw wternes wpleit fe ite
eternal ancl Into nadie, we may yor some with
Fil) vena wh Vent tor ways Mrdhner Celut, lu gabat
ml, gahat mle allen, wmernn deh bat, Vor there are
Mesnrntanesdn sonnel cbecnrecazcdn, Misssn, tom Larvese, cbessnssasteln mustse
cea din Dever, rand diss women of the world may thwart
aban 5 tam Cerddesy, Does chesprasnedn fer Nabssomesdt provmsorad See
mortality, and the cours of the world may oere
naught for bin dadividual Ife; as berowved, as
TRE RELIGIOUS INSIGHT. 489
mourner over his dead, he may demand for his loved
ones also this immortality, and the course of the
world may leave the fate of all his loved ones mys-
terious forever: as lover of mankind, he may de.
mand an infinite future of blessed progress for his
race, and the law of the dissipation of energy may
give him the only discoverable physical answer to
his demand ; as just man, he may ery aloud that evil
shall cease from amang men, and the wicked may
still langh in triumph unpunished. And yet for all
this he may find some higher compensation. Agnos-
tie as he will remain about all the powers of this
world, about the outcome of all finite processas, he
will take comfort in the assurance that an Infinite
Reason is above all and through all, embracing
evervthing, judging everything, infallible, perfect.
To this Thought he may look up, saying: * Thoa
All-Knowing One seest us, what we are, and how we
strive. Thou knowest our frame, and rememberest
that we are as dust. [a thy perfection is our Ideal.
That thou art. is enough for our moral comfort.
That thou knowest our evil and our good, that gives
WS our support in our httle striving for the guad.
Not worthless would we be in thy sight; not af the
vile, the hase, the devilish party in the warfare of
this world. Thoa that judgest shalt say that we,
even in our poor individual lives are better than
naught. Thou shalt know that in our weakness and
blindness, in our pain and sorrow, in our little days,
In our dark world, ignorant as to the future, con-
fused with many doubts, beset with endless tempts
tions, full of dread, of hesitation, of sloth, we yet
440 = THK RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILONOPHY,
nought, such as we were, to be in our own fashion
like thea; to know the truth as thon knowenst it, to
he full of higher Hfe av thow art full, to he above
worifo an thou art above it, to he of one Spirit as
| thou art One, to be perfect aa thon art perfost. ‘This
| thou shalt see in us, and thin record shall be eternal,
Hike our knowledge, In thee what wo vaguely alm
ty woncalve In oleae Hyht. In thee the pene that we
wtrive to Mia is exporlendad. And when we try to de
right, we know that thou sent beth our striving and
our siecennen and our fallures, And herela we have
manfort. We perish, but thou endurest, Ours ds
not thy eternity, But in thy eternity we would be
ramemberal, not an rebele ayalint the good, bit as
down of the goods not as blots on the fase of this
part of thy Infinite reality, but ax healthy leaven that
flourished fora tlie on the branches of the eternal
tree of fe, and that have fallen, though not Inte
foryetfulnew, For to thee nothing in forgotten.
This thought, of the Jidge that never ceases to
think of un and of all (hinges, never changes, never
ninimtaatecen, Manel Clit: lercown ther Chal sdsapoly brereseatine
| that, Chened In cana eleanent of the Prath —- perhage this
| conse meuwteader cam wher all edmer fallen, Neotdedaage bout thin
may be certadin gs dat thin, if ithe net all that seme
grerergaler Snsuver mertagelit., snncey toe ee beedyo tar sem, Phadn Hes
Jiglon may have ne aiedh hot Httle Meem on tte altars
nae wer at Meet loner fog dt then dt in a very old
abjection tothe stam to nay that they bake ws ne
Novel, and only glitter up theve dn the dark to be
Jookedl at Yet even the stars are worth something
14) 11M,
tH Ocean of als Sed.
‘ ‘ * £ -~ ot ° f
Prt. AS awnen Ce ae lan af —~% @ 6 on 4. wot, .
THE BELIGZOUS DSSIGEr. asl
i.
Bat if we leave these limitations of our view, and
pass to its positive relmous valee, our first sense is
ome of joy and freedoea to find that car lng sought .:“
deal of a perfect unity of life is here attamed. Let
ws book away for a moment from oar finite existence,
with its doubts and its problems, to the conception
of that infinite hfe. In that life ts all trath, fally
present tn the unity of one eternal moment. The
world ts no mass of separate facts. stack one to an-
other in an external way, bat, for the infinite, each
fact ts what it is only by reason of its place In the
tafinite unity. The workd of life is then what we
desired it to be, an organic total: and the indived-
wal selves are drops in this ocean of the absolute
trath.
the homan tasks that we sketched im car ethical
discussion find their piace m the objective workd.
Now, and in fact for the first me, we can see what
we were really trying to accomplish throagh car
tdeal. We were trying in a practical way to real-
ize what we now permeive to be the falimess af the
life of God. So that the one highest activity, in.
which all haman activites were to jom. i known to
|S Dow as the prograssine realization by men of the
eternal life of an Injinite Smrit. So whereas we
formeriy had to say to men: Devote vourselves to
art. to aclenoe, to the state. ar to any Like work that
does tend to organize your lives into one life. we
may now sabstitate one absolute expressva for all
on MOL» de 26 2, ek CB Ma re rer
.
cy oe
Thas then, seen im the hehbt of this car resalt,
442 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
those accidental expressions, and may say: Devote
yourselves to losing your lives in the divine life.
For all these special aims that we have mentioned
are but means of accomplishing the knowledge of
the fullness of the truth. And Truth is God.
Now this precept is no barren abstraction. It
means to take hold of every act of life, however
humble and simple. ‘“ Where art thou, O man?”
our ideal says tous. “Art thou not in God? To
whom dost thou speak? With whom dost thou walk?
What life is this in whose midst thou livest ? What
are all these things that thou seemest to touch?
Whose is all this beauty that thou enjoyest in art,
this unity that thou seekest to produce in thy state,
this truth that thou pursuest in thy thought? All
this is in God and of God. Thou hast never seen,
or heard, or touched, or handled, or loved anything
but God. Know this truth, and thy life must be
transformed to thee in all its significance. Serve
the whole God, not the irrationally separate part
that thy delusions have made thee suppose to be an
independent thing. Live out thy life.in its full
meaning ; for behold, it is God’s life.”
So, as it seems, the best that we could have wished
from the purely moral side is attained. The Di-
vine Thought it is that actually accomplishes what
we imperfectly sought to attain, when we defined
for ourselves Duty. In the Divine Thought is per-
fectly and finally realized the Moral Insight and the
Universal Will of our ethical discussion. And this
‘insight and will are not realized as by some Power,
| that then should set about to accomplish their ful-
|
THE RELIGIOUS INSIGHT. 443
fillment externally. But in the infinite, where all i
eternally complete, the insight is both present an
fulfilled ; the universal will gets what it
There is no lack there, nor hesitation, nor striving,
nor doubt, nor weariness ; but all is eternally per.
fect triumph.
Now this, though it sounds mystical enough to ~
our untrained common sense, is no mere poetry of ..-
thought. It is the direct philosophical outcome of
what we have found by a purely logical process.
The driest thought, the simplest fragment of ration-
ality, involves this absolute, infinite, and perfect
thought. <And this it involves because it involves
the possibility of error, and because, as separate from
the infinite, this possibility of error in a single thought
becomes unintelligible and contradictory. We did
all that we could to escape this conclusion. We
wandered in the thickets of confusion and contra-
diction, until there was no chance of finding there a
further pathway. And then we turned to see, and
behold, God was in this place, though we had known
it not. The genuine God that we thus found was no
incomplete, struggling God, whom we might pity in
his contlict with evil, but the alkembracing thought,
in which the truth is eternally finished. And this
God it 1s that we now see as the complete realization
of our own ideal, as of all worthy ideals.
For consider if you will this element in our con-
ception of this Thought. Can this infinite know it-
self as imperfect, or as not possessing some object
that it knows to be good? This is impossible, and
doubly so. Not only does the conception of an In-
fu</
444 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
finite, in which and for which are all things, wholly
exclude the possibility of any good thing beyond
the Infinite itself, but also in still another way does |
the same truth appoar. For if you suppose that this
infinite thought desires some perfection G, that it
has not, thon either it is right in supposing this per.
fection to be truly desirable, or it is wrong. In
vithor case the previous argument of Chapter XI.
shows un that the truth or tho falsity of this judg-
mont of desire about G must oxist as known truth
or falsity for a higher thought, which, including tho
thought that desires, and itself actually having this
desired good thing, compares the dusired objoct with
the conception of the thought that desires it, and
judges of them both. Above tho dosire, then, must
in overy caso oxist the satinfaction of the desire in a
higher thought. So that for the Infinite there can
be no unsatisfied desire, Unnatisfled desire exists
only in the finite beings, not in the inclusive Infinite.
The world then, as a whole, is and must be ab-
solutely good, since the infinite thought must know
what is desirable, and knowing it, must have presont
in itself the true objects of desire. The existence
of any amount of pain or of other evil, of crime or
of basoness in the world as wo see it, is, thus viewed,
no evidence against the absolute goodnons of things,
rather a guaranty thereof, For all evil viewed ex.
tornally in just an ovidence to us finite beings that
there exists something desirable, which wo have not,
and which we just now cannot get. Howover stub
born this ovil is for us, that has naught to do with
the perfection of the Infinite. For the inflnite did
THE RELIGIOUS OOSIGET. 445
not make this evil, bat the evil, together with the
sraking of i, which indeed was also in its separete- ,
mess evil, — all this ts a phenomencn for the Infewe
thoaght, which, m keowing this evil, merely knows
the absolete destrablenmess of that which it also pos-
sesses, mamely, the absobately sued.
We have used bere an argument that ooald not be
wed im our stady of the “ Werld of Doabt.” Whea
we there thought evil to be possible for the workd as
one, and would do so believing that state to be better
this desired state to be better. or would be oaly hope
30% Who trely knows the valne of a state save the
ome that possesses it? Kaowledge ts of the present.
ter state, unless rt were already acteal for hme. Bat
ia that case be world inchede mot only the present
could mot be ome of disountent. So the other alter
mative remains. Oar sapposed being woakd oaly
hope the desired state to be better thaa what was
real already for hrm. Bat woald his hape be a tree
ane? If sa, then it aoald only be trae in case this
perfectton is already realived im a hicher thoacht.
For the Infinite then the qnestion, “Is there aay
thine better than what exists? ~ must be nonsense.
For him the actual and the possible fall tacether in
ene truth ; and this one trath canact be el
446 THK RELIGIOUS ASPKOT OF PHILOSOPHY,
On another side, our conception gives us religious
support, The imperfestion of the purely moral view
lay in part in the fact that there was an inner ineum-
pleteness about the very definition of our ideal, as
well ase doubt about ite attalnability, This inner
incompleteness must however be removed in and for
the Infinite Mind. In dealing with the work of life,
we cane toe point where wo sald, thus far we oan
soo our way, but beyond that our ideal romaine in-
complete, We must have faith, no we iinplied, that
if wo attained eo much of the ideal soclal condl-
thon, the way from that polut onward would become
dloar, But now we seo why the way would of neces
sity become clear to one whose knowlalge of Ife
were browl enough and deep enough, For in the
Infinite that Includes all life, that reste above all
finites wtrife in the absolute attalnment of the ideal,
there oan be no Ineompletanons, no torso of an ideal,
bat a porfost knowlealgs of what is most oxcellent,
Those filnt foreshudowings of ws parfoot life that art
and selene and social work show to us, must be for
the Infinite no falut foreshadowlngs, bit absolute
certainty and porfoct cloarnew, Hones by our ree
Hgious doctrine we got not merely the assurance that
wich Selende am wo have sre resized for the Tnfiatte
Krista, Dossttesse Cesaga tad, wes geort corse lew fiall sommesrearscses
that our Inoomplete bowls have an actual completion
Aw Mdewls, For wo this got our fewt full aaurance
tara tbneseres Soe btn thes Vnlgchrcrmt mesrames susny clerfleadtos Scleval
wet. all, — Vesmmbarinen, om wer beaver weseors, branprlbesn esbtdiess
eshte sbout what thes idleul mtate is, or unavoldable
Jack of that tate, Armd the Infinite oan be no Pow
witsint inn olthiar senna,
THE RELIGIOUS INSIGHT. 447
The religious comfort that a man can get from
contemplating all this truth is indeed very different
from the consolation of the separate individual as
such that many peuple want their religion to give
them. And this very fact furnishes us a good test
of moral aincerity. The religious comfort that we
find is no comfort save to the truly religious spirit in
us. It says to us: “ You that have declared your
willingness to serve moral ideals because they are
such, does this help you to know, not of a goodly
place where you personally and individually shall
hive without tears forever as a reward for your ser
vices, but of an eternal Judge that respects in no
whit your person, before whom and in whom you are
quite open and perfectly known, who now and for
all eternity sees your good and your evil, and esti-
mates you with absolute justive? This blaze of in-
finite light in which you stand, does it cheer you?
If it does, then you are glad to learn that above all
your atrugyles there is the eternal Victory, amid all
your doubts there is the eternal Insight, and that
your highest triumph, your highest conception, is
just an atom of the intinite truth that all the time is
there. But if all this is true of you, then you do love
the ideal for its own sake. Then it is not your tn-
umph that you seek, but the triumph of the Highest.
And so it is that you rejuice to learn how this that is
best in the world net only will triumph, but always
has triumphed, since, as you now learn, for God the
highest guod is thus a matter of direct experience.”
The writer remembers well, how some years since,
while all this doctrine seemed to him shrouded in
al
ee
yw A,
448 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PITILOMOPHY.
doubt, ho hoard a very thoughtful and plous friend
mealntaln that the groutest vomfort to be got from
bollof in Cod is the sense that however much the |
world tnay misjudge us, however mugh even our best
‘and closest friends may misunderstand us, there 4s
lone porfost all-knowing Thought that comprehends
hus far Lotter than wo comprehend ourselves, Good
mann In, in that thorpht, ontimeated at itv full worth,
Nothing in hidden from the Judge. And what we
hro, Ho knowoth [It altogether, The present view
noone to the author to moet the conditions that his
frlond here had daimdnd, Thoban aaa dovtrine that
thers In wa big power that fights and beats down
other powors In the servies of the good, Ia open to all
the objections before aiggentod, This warrlor, why
dows ho not win? Thin slayor of evil things, this
binder of Satan, who boasts that all things will yot
bo put under his foot, has he not had all eternity
In which to put all things andor hin fot, and has
he done It yat? He may be Indend good, but some
how disaster asomn to puma him, Rellglous eom-
fort In contemplating hin you oan have If you bee
linve do him, but alwaye you fool that this comfort ds
whidowed by the old doubt: In he after all what we
witnt hin to be, the vietorlous ruler of the world 7
But if we leave the eternally doubtful contemplation
of the work asin heap of powers, and come to the
dlocper trath of the world as Thought, then these
Howlin nant clinappone,
Yot to show that this Ie true, wo meat dwell upon
Howlin Little Dongeer, sued anniant COMPILE OnE prams
view of the solution of the problem of evil with the
views condemned in Chap, VIII.
THE RELIGIOUS INSIGHT. 449
Ot.
So far we have come in joyful contemplation of
the Divine Truth. But now is there not a serpent
in this Eden also? We have been talking of the in-
finite goodness : but after all, what shall we still say
of that finite “ partial evil” of life? We seem to
have somehow proved a priori that it must be “ uni-
versal good.” For, as we have said, in the Infinite
Life of our ideal there can be no imperfection. This,
we have said, is the demonstration that we missed
all through our study of the world of the Powers.
Since we approached that world from without, and
never felt the pulse of its heart's blood, we had noth-
ing but doubt after doubt when we contemplated the
evil that seemed to be in it. Our efforts t explain
evil seemed hollow and worthless. There might be
some deeper truth involved in these efforts: but we
knew it not. Well, are we right in declaring that we
have altogether overcome our difficulty now? Ap-
parently we are as far as ever from seeing dow the
partial evil can be the universal good: we only
show, from the conception of the infinite itself, that
the partial evil must be the universal good. Gad
must see how; and we know this because we know
of God. More than this we wem to be unable to
Bat will this do? Have we not forgotten ane ter
rible consequence af our doctrine? The partial evil
is universal good, is it? There is no evil? All
apparent imperfectian is an illusion of our partial
view? So then where is the chance to be in a Sree
2»
450 ‘THK KELIGIOUS ASPELOT OF PHILONOFHY,
wy aul of cur non choles better thin we otherwtes
dn truth slurs be? %n not the arm that in raised
ty atrike diwn wickednem paralyzed by the very
theonight that wan to give it divine strength? ‘This
ovil that I fight here in thin finite world in « dela
won, Ho then, why fight 7 If 1 do good works,
the world in infinitely good and perfect, If I seem
ty do evil works, the world ia in truth no worne,
Soering gent in tut better than seoming evil, for if
Ht were, then the sesming evil werd te 0 rend defect
inn Chonl, inn whine life in everything, If 1 have never
loved aught bet Gol, oven no 1 have never hated
staple beet Chol, It in all alike, Cod doen not need
juat me. Or rather | inny my, in wy far nn he needs
ms tr connplete hin infinite truth, he already has ine
frenn all eternity, | have nothing to do with the
brisitienn, wave to emtomplate in dinay indolence the
whirling minty manmen of necting evil, aml to sey
with t srrt of animes reverence that they look very
{11 srl expneqties ter ane, bret that of conse God neem
threngh them clearly enerigh srnehew, The tint is
in trath crystalline water, atl he hae wo qnigk
westines 8 fy Nek beyond the drops an ennily an if they
i wesres ins thes calin unity of « surnmtain lake, And
mr, ny religion in simply & cmtermnplation of God's
winelernes, brat crthese wine srr idles srrntinetrent,
Hey wey thes tenn wher neem only thin miportiesal
view of ne dostrings, In ne far an, standing one
tne initaides of mane evil thing, we mys “ That
thrinnge yernulese Ione bead, brit Chord tetint noes it to be
gen,” wes her itlesead rectrister itnlelont, andl ontr rolig-
iim sitnply moans & surt of stertoal indifferense tu the
THE RELIGIOUS INSIGHT. 451
apparent distinction of good and evil. This is in
fact the proper practical attitude of even the most
earnest man in the presence of evil that he cannot
understand and cannot affect. In such matters we
must indeed be content with the passive knowledge.
Death and the unaruklable pains of life, the down-
fall of cherished plans, all the cruelty of fate, we
must learn to look at as things to us opaque, but to
God, who knows them fully, somehow clear and ra-
tional. So regarding them, we must aim to get to
the stage of staical indifference about them. They. _
are to us the accidents of existence. We have no, _
business to murmur about them, since we see that +. >:
God, experiencing them, sumehow must experience =<:
them as elements in an absolutely perfect life. For|. .
God we regard not as the mysterious power who! |
made them, and who then may have been limited to} -
the use of imperfect means, but as the absolute
thought that knows them: so that, however inexpli- .
cable they must now be to us, they are in themselves |
nothing that Gud vainly wishes to have otherwise,
bat they are organically joined with the rest of the
glorious Whole.
Such is indeed the only present word for us finite
minds about many of the shadows of seeming evil
that we have to behold in the work of the appar
ently external facts. Such however is aod the last
word for us about the only evil that has any imme-
diate moral siyniticance, namely, the evil that we see,
mot as an external, shadowy mist, but as a present
fact, experienced in ux Here it is that the objeetor
just mentioned seems really formbable to ux But
452 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
just here it is that we find the answer to him. For
in the world of our own acts we have a wondrous ex-
perience. We realize evil, we fight it, and, at the —
same time, we realize our fragment of the perfect
divine lifo in the moment itself of struggling with
the evil. And in this wondrous experience lies the
whole solution of the ancient problem of the existence
of moral evil. For instance, I find in myself a self-
ish impulse, trying to destroy the moral insight.
i Now of this evil impulse I do not say, looking at it
‘objectively : “It is somehow a part of the universal
good;” but, in the moment of moral action I make
‘it, even in the very moment of its sinfulness, a part
\of my good consciousness, in overcoming it. The
‘moral insight condemns the evil that it experiences ;
and in condemning and conquering this evil it forms
land is, together with the evil, the organic total that
constitutes the good will. Only through this inner
victory over the evil that is experienced as a con-
quered tendency does the good will have its being.
Now since the perfect life of God must have the ab-
solutely good will, therefore it also must be conscious
of such a victory. Thus the solution of our diffi-
culty begins to appear. And thus wo reap a new
religious fruit from our ethical doctrine, to whose
main principles we must once more here refer the
realer,
When I experience the victory of the moral in-
sight over the bad will, I experience in one indivis-
ible moment both the partial evil of the selfish im-
pulse (which in itself as a separate fact would be
wholly bad) and the universal good of the moral
THE RELIGIOUS INSTORT. 453
vietory, which has its existence only in the over
whelming of the evil. So, in the good act, I experi-
ence the good as my evil lost in goodness, as a rebel-
lion against the good conquered in the moment of its
birth, as a peace that arises in the midst of this tri-
umphant conflict, as a satisfaction that lives in this
restless activity of inner warfare. This child of inner
strife is the good, and the only moral good, we know.
What I here have present in me when I do a good
act is an element of Grd’s life. J here directly en
pertence haw the partial moral evil ts universal
good ; for so it is a relatively universal good in me
when, overcoming myself, I choose the universal
will, The bad impulse is still in me, but is defeated,
In the choice against evil is the very life of goodness,
which would be a pale, stupid abstraction otherwise,
Even oo, to take another view, in the overcoming of
our separateness as individuals hes, as we saw in the
previous book, our sense of the worth of the univer
sal life. And what we here experience in the single
moment of time, and in the narrowness of our finite
lives, God must experience, and eternally. In our
Single good acts we have thus the specimen of the
eternal realisation of goodness.
Bat now how simple becomes the answer to that
terrible suggestion of a moment since! How simple
also the solution of the problem of evil! +“ If T want
to do evil, I cannot.” said the objector: “ for God
the perfect one includes me with the rest. and so
cannot in his perfection be hurt by me. Let me do
what I will, my act can only seem bad, and cannot
be bad. All evil is illusion, hence there is no moral
difference in action possible.”
454 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
“ Right indeed,” we answer, “but also wrong, be-
cause half the truth. The half kills, the whole gives
life. Why canst thou not do any absolute evil? Be-
cause thy evil intent, which, in ite separateness,
would be unmixed evil, thy selfish will, thy struggle
against the moral insight, this evil will of thine is no
lonesome fact in the world, but is an element in the
organic life of God. Jn him thy evil impulse forms
part of a total good will, us the evil impulse of the
good man forms un element in his realization of
goodness. In (tod thy separateness is destroyed,
and with it thy sin as evil. For good will in the in-
finite is what the good man finds the good will to be
in himself, namely, the organic total whose truth is
the discovery of the evil, Therefore is God's life
perfect, because it includes not only the knowledge
of thy finite wicked will, but the insight into its truth
as a moment in the real universal will.
If then thou wert good, thou wouldst be good by
including the evil impulse in a realization of its
| evil, and in an acceptance of the higher insight. If
| thou art evil, then in thyself, as separate being, thou
| art condemned, and just because thy separate evil
| is condemned, therefore is the total life of God, that
| includes thee with thy condemnation and with the
| triumph over thee, good.
This is the ground for the solution of the problem.
To go more into detail: Evil is for us of two classes:
the external seeming evil, such as death, pain, or
weakness of charactor; and internal evil, namely the
bad will itself. Because we know so little, there
fore we can never tell whether those externally seen
THE RELIGIOUS INSIGHT. 455
seeming evils are blessings in disguise, or expressions
of some wicked diabolical will-power at work about.
us. Somehow then, we never know exactly how,
these seeming great evils must be in God universal
good. But with regard to the only evil that we know
as an inward experience, and so as a certain reality,
namely, the Evil Will, we know both the existence of
that, and its true relation to universal goodness, be-
cause and only because we experience both of them
first through the moral insight, and then in the good
act. Goodness having its very life in the insight
and in its exercise, has as its elements the evil im-
pulse and its correction. The evil will as such may
either be conquered in our personal experience, and
then we are ourselves good; or it may be conquered
not in our thought considered as a separate thought,
bat in the total thought to which ours is 80 related,
as our single evil and good thoughts are related to
the whole of us. The wicked man is no example of
God's delight in wickedness, just as the evil impulse
that is an element in the good man’s goodness, and
a very real element too, is no proof that the good
man delights in evil. As the evil impulse is to the
good man, so is the evil will of the wicked man to
the life of God, in which he is an element. And
just because the evil will is the only evil that we are
sure of, this explanation is enough.
Thus the distinction between good and evil re-
mains as clear as ever. Our difficulty about the
matter is removed, not by any barren external the-
odicy, such as were the forms of guess-work that we
eriticised in a previous chapter, but by a plain refleo-
456 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
tion on the moral experience itself. Goodness asa
moral experience is for us the overcoming of experi-
enced evil; and in the eternal life of God the reali-
zation of goodness must have the same sort of or-
ganic relation to evil as it has in us. Goodness is
not mere innocence, but realized insight. To the
wicked man we say: God is good because in think-
ing thee he damns thy evil impulse and overwhelms
it in a higher thought of which thou art apart. And
in so far as thy will is truly evil, thou art in God
just as the evil is in the good man; thou art known
only to be condemned and overcome. That is thy
blessed mission; and this mission of evil such as
thine is indeed an eternal one. So that both things
are true. The world is wholly good, and thou, such
as thou individually art, mayest be damnably evil if
so thou desirest.
We do not say then that evil must exist to set the
good off by way of external contrast. That view we
long since justly rejected. We say only that the
jevil will is a conquered element in the good will, and
is aa such necessary to goodness. Our conception of
the absolute unity of God’s life, and that conception
alone, enables us to apply this thought here. No
form of dualistic Theism has any chance to apply
this, the only satisfactory theodicy. If God were
conceived as external to his creatures, as a power
that made them beyond himself, the hopeless prob-
lems and the unworthy subterfuges of the older the-
odicies would come back to torment us. As it is,
the solution of the problem of evil is given us in the
directest and yet in the most unexpected way.
THE RELIGIOUS INSIGHT. 457
Let us compare this solution with others. Evil,
said one thought, before expounded, is an illusion of
the partial view, as the shapelessness of the frag-
ment of a statue is no disproof of the real beauty of
the whole. We replied in a previous chapter to this
notion, by saying that evil seems 90 positive an ele-
ment in the world as to make very hard this concep-
tion of the partial evil as good universally in the
zsthetic sense in which shapelessness of parts may
coexist with a total beauty of the statue. For the
fragment of the statue is merely an indifferent bit of
stone without character. But the evil in the world
seems in positive crying opposition to all goodness.
ret now, in the moral experience, we have found a
wholly different relation of evil part to guod whole.
My guod act is good just because af the evil that
exists in it as conquered element. Without the evil
moment actual in it, the total act could be at best
innocent, not good. It is good by reasan of its
structure. That structure includes the evil will, but
80 includes it that the whale act is good. Even so,
as we declare, God's life includes, in the organic
total of ane conscious eternal instant. all life, and
so all goodness and evil. To say that God is never.
theless perfectly good is to say, not that God is
innocent, knowing of no evil whatever, and includ-
ing none; but that he so includes the evil will in
the structure af his good will, as the goad man, in
one indivisible moment, includes his evil will in his
good will; and that God is guod only because he
does so.
Again, to pass to another explanation, it has been
458 TH RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
said that evil exists in the world as # means to good-
ness. We objected to this that it puts the evil and
the good first in separate beings, in separate acte or
moments, and then makes the attainment of the good
result dependent on the prior attainment of the sep-
arate and independently present evil. Now all that
explanation could only explain and justify the acts
of a finite Power, which, not yet possessing # given
good thing, seeks it through the mediation of some
evil. In no wise can this explanation apply to God
as infinite. Ie is no finite Power, nor does he make
or get things external to himself. Hence he cannot
be said to use means for the attainment of ends.
But our explanation does not make evil a means to
get the separate ond, goodness. We say that the con-
nection is one of organic part with organic whole;
that goodness has its life only in the instant of the
discovery and inner overcoming of the evil will; and
| that thorsfore any life is good in which the evil will
‘is present only as overcome, and so as lost in the
| good will, We appeal to the moral experience to il
lustrate how, when we do good, the evil will is pres
ent as a real fact in us, which yet does not make us
asa whole bad, but just because it is present as an
overcome element, is, even for that very reason, nec-
emary to make us good, And we go on to say that
even so in God the evil will of all who sin is pres-
ent, @ real fact in the Divine Life, no illusion in so
far as one neon that it exists in God and nowhere
else, but for that very reason an clement, and @ nec-
essary clement, in the total goodness of the Univer.
sal Will, which, realized in God, is related to the
TRE RELIGIOUS INSIGHT. 459
wills of the sinners as the wills of the good men are
related to their evil impulses.
The explanation that evil is needed to contrast
With goodness has already been mentioned. .
Rvil thereforg as a supposed real fact, separate
from goodness, and a totally independent entity, is
and must be an illusion. The objections to this |
View that we previously ugged in Chapter VITT. were
all applicable to the world of powers, which we
Viewed and had t view externally, Curd!'s Life,
Viewed internally, as philosophy must view it, is not
subject to these critiviams, And the noral experi
ence has tanght us how we are to explain the exist
ence of the only partial evil that we clearly know to
be even a partial evil, namely, the evil will, The ex:
planation is that the gved act has ite existence and
life tn the transcending of expertenced present evil.
This evil must not be an external evil, bevond the
geood will, but must be experienced in the eume indb
visible moment in which it is tranwended. That
this wondrous anion is possible, we simply find as
fact in the moral experience. No genuine moral good-
ness is possible save in the midst of such inner war
farn The absence of the evil impulse leaves naught
but innocence or instinet, morally insipid: and calor
less, Goodness is this onganian of straggling ele
ments, Now, as we declare, in the infinite and united
thought of Gad this unity of goodness is eternally
Present. God's life is this intinite rest, sof apart
From dud in the endless strife, as in substance Here
olitus so well and originally taught.
460 #$THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
IV.
Tho problem of tho oxistenoe of evil thus treated
as our limits allow, wo must return to a study of the
visible world. That wo formerly refused to find re-
ligious comfort in that world, depended upon our
previous manner of approaching it. It was, so
approached, the world of doubt; but now it may
prove no longer disheartening, so that we may be
ablo to got in it a concrete hold of useful truth. We
must briefly skotch the process of return. Our Infi-
nite, once known, is known not as an abstraction,
but as an immediately actual object of knowledge.
His thon is this visible world ; and, knowing the
fact, we return cheerfully and courageously among
the facts that before scemed dead externalities, to
find his truth inthom. For our genoral belief in the
inflnite rationality of things is uscloss to supersede
any jot or tittle of oaroful sciontific study of the com-
mon world of experionce, Bo this aspect of the mat-
tor well understood. Some older forms of idealism
have looked coldly on experience, Ours does not.
To us, if you want to realize your ideal you must
know the moans, you must study applied othios as
woll as the ideal itself; and only from acionce, from
hard, dry, careful collection and collaboration of
facts, from cautious genoralizations, from endless exe
periments, observations, calculations, oan mankind
hope to learn the moans of realizing their ideals,
Yet more, only from exact science can you get the
best concreto examples of that unity of conception,
that mastery of complex details, that exhaustive per
v
THE RELIGIOUS INSIGHT. 461
fection of insight, that we must attribute in an infi-
nitely complete form to our all-embracing Ideal
Thought, now that we have got it before us as our
Ideal. That all facts and relations of facts should
appear in one moment of insight to the all-knowing
thought is our postulate, and, as we have shown, it is
no mere postulate, but a necessary and absolute prin-
ciple of philosophy. We must go tv exact science to
find illustrations of how all this can be in particular
eases realized. As the equation of a curve expresses
in one thought al] the properties of the curve, as the
law of a physical process inclodes all the cases of
that process under any of the supposed conditions,
as a function of a variable may be the sum of a long
series of quantities, each one of which is a derived
function of the first multiplied by a particular coeffi-
cient, so that the one function is the united expres
mon of the numerous separate functions: even in
such wise must the Infinite thought comprebend in
some supreme highest unity all the facts and rela-
tions of facts that are in the world of truth. For
us then the hizhest achievements of science are the
dim shadow of the perfection of the infinite thought.
And to science, accordingly, we must gu, net for the
invention, but for the intellectual illustration of our
ideal. And science we must treat as absolute mis-
tress of her own domain. Of the world as a whole,
of the eternal as such, of intinite past time, of the
inner truth of things, science pretends to tell and
ean tell nothing. Nor dves science invent, nor yet
ean she prove, her own postulates, as we previoasly
defined them. Bat in the application of her posto-
462 THK WELIQIOUS ABPROT OF PHILOSOPHY,
lates to the facta, in the dimurvery of partionlar laws,
sciences ia almighty. To donht her capacity as high-
est, jrelge in this field is Magrant center of cont,
Science is just the Infinite Thought as far ae it ie
et bry us realized in the facts of natare, A priorl
we can realize nothing short finite facta, save that
they mast be capihle of eational comprehenson,
We knerw that the Infinite thinks them, and this ie
all that we know shout them, What they are, ox
perience mest tell cs.
Hach then are some of the restrictions itnposed
apen one theonght. We must now comsiler more
carefully how we mnet treat the scientific postulates
that were one only comfort in stelying reality before
we reached cnr present insight.
When we postulated that the world mest in the
host senne satisfy one fundamental intellectual needs,
we sas what is necesssry for sectence, brit whee
science iHaelf does not satistactrrily explain, Have
we now reached any foundation for this theoretical
postulate” We have in fact reached one, The pow
tilate of seienes amenints to this, that the res! con
nections ameng facts mst be sich as would he re
tionally connprehensible if they were known, Pret
we have found in fact that all fasts not only mest
he rationally comprehensible, tnt are rationally conn
prohendel, in and by the one Divine Mind. The
postulates of science expresans therefore in pert ard
#9 A nere assHnption, what we now knew ae & whole,
and as a resilt of demonstration. The unity of the
Divine Thought implies that all facts, if we knew
them well enirugh, would appear rationally interde-
THE RELIGIOUS INSIGRT. 463
pendent, reducible to unity, a total of realities ox-
pressible as one truth, Just as in the ane concept af
the nature of number is implied all the intinite series
of properties that a complete Theory af Numbers
would develop, so in the one concept af the universe,
Which constitutes the Divine Mind, all the facts of
all possible experience are comprehended and are ree
duced to perfect unity, There must be then in fact a
waiversal formula, What this formula is we de not
ave, and just because we do uot see it, we have to
ook here and there in experience for any traces af
the unity and rational connection af facts. Near can
we ever be sure that a connection sunmised by us is
the really rational convection af things A law dis
eovered by us is only our attempt to imitate the Db
vine Thought. Our attempt may in a given case
fail: our induction may be mistaken. Rat the
foundation of our inductive processes is the thought
that, since the real world is a perfectly rational and
waited body of truth, that hypothesis which reduces
to relatively rational unity the greatest number af
facts is more apt to represent the truth af things
than any hypothesis of less scope, and of less rational
signifivancs, Just beeause this natural dualian with
which we set out is a blunder, just because in fact
the world is not rent in twain by eur arbitrary dis.
tinetion af object and subject, but is in deepest truth
one wnited world, a single thought; therefore it is
that when we consider those facts which we have
from moment to moment to regand as external, we
ean be assured that there is a certain and not an
arbitrary basis for our views about them. The vis
464 TH RELIGIOUA ABPKOT OF PHILOSOPHY,
ible world hesomes ayaln hard reality, which wa ox.
perianve and try to comprehend, just beanuse wa
know that in itwalf thin world in ones for all compre.
henclecl,
Prastloally then, io cdowllag with tha world of oun
orate fasta, wo sunt be rendintie, Tb bn our duty, for
humanity's wake, to whiudy and to ballove bn thin ax.
ternal world, to have faith In the grout postulates of
Goro manne, bo ume all the things of the world,
But the base of thin faith eommon sea oan never
find. And wa have found it in the Absolute,
V,
ave we than dincovercd that something of intl
nite religious worth of which we went fo quemt? Or
anny wer meey tliat cme Dife bm ben verdon bon oncels a weordel ?
Truly our religious Jonglay has met with a genuine
renponae, Dut it wie nok much a renponne He Wwe AG
Newt axpeetl, nor such aa mont wyatens mppene to
dewiya, Personal nemls and hopes apart, mont sean
wlio tials: mymtenin to watdefy ther boapermonal religlors
longing, seck to prove that the world aa a whole
progromen towards yoolnem, so that, in the pranat
conmmmation of this prayrens, ovil shall certalaly
sanred Mansel ly cUbowsngogoecer, Deruvdoagy ter were sum fevsveacsent,
wd Jnadpld as dn the days of Mien, Now wa have
found wa thought that makes this concept of progres
not only wholly Janpplieable to the world of the tne
Havbtes Lifes, boat whreably essoprecrtbevconns, Df, sus wes Pavesdetened
‘ahove, mori yoodness Is not the absence, but the ore
‘yuna wtabocreehbaseatderns, cof three covdl whl, btw cvewthercow be
THE RELIGIOUS INSIGHT. 465
the good will, in which it is still actually present
as subdued, then, whenever the world contains any
moral goodness, it alsa, and for that very reason,
contains, in its organic unity, moral evil. The
world is morally good in spite of the evil will, and
yet because of the evil will, since, as every moral ex-
perience shows us, the good will is just this trium-
phant rest in strife above the evil will. Therefore
we have no sympathy with those who expect the fu-
tare “salvation ” of the world as a whole in time
through any all-pervading process. The only de-;
struction of moral evil that ever takes place or can.
take place is the transendence af the evil will by.
the good will in the very moment of the life of the’
evil will, If moral evil were to be, as the older
systems aften expect, absolutely destroyed, and the
world 90 freed therefrom that the evil will was totally
forgotten, then what remained would be no moral
good any more, anly the laziness of an infinitely ver
cant life. Not indeed to set off the good by any ex-
ternal contrast, but to constitute a moment in the ar
ganie unity of the good act. is this evil in the world.
And the whole vast trouble about understanding its
Presence arises because we usually separate it from
the very unity with goodness in which we find it
whenever we cansciously do right ourselves. Then
When so separated, as we separated it in a former
chapter, moral evil, viewed as an external opaque
fact. is inexplicable, disheartening. horrible. Only
when we do right ourselves do we practically get the
solution of the problem, Only the moral man knows
how and why evil exists. For in him the evil will
x
466 THE RELIGIOUS ASPHOT OF PHILOSOPHY.
is an esxontial element of his goodness. Tho conflicts
of morality are and must be eternal.
Our present explanation of evil in the world is,
wo have seen, the only one that can both give us
the absolute religious comfort, and save us from the
terrible moral paralysis involved in destroying, for
the Infinite, the distinction between good and evil.
The moral experience itself contains tho miracle of
this solution in the simplest and clearest shape.
And it rolieves us of any need to long for an abso-
lute penco, For in it the distinction of good and
ovil is tho sharpest, the significance of the strife is
tho most vivid, at the very instant when, in the strife,
tho ovil will, present and real still, is yet conquered
by the good will, and so lost in the universal good-
ness of the total good act. Tho distinction of good
will and evil will becomes thus the greatest possible ;
and yet only through the reality of this distinction in
ithe unity of the moral life is goodness present and
Itriumphant. Progross in this world as a wholo is
i therefore simply not necded. The good is eternally
‘gained even in and through the ovil. How far the
‘actual process of evolution may in our part of the
universe oxtend is a mattor for ompirical science.
But our own ideal of human life as a “ progres
sive realization of the good,” — what of that? The
answer i4 obvious, The good will that is in us as a
temporal fact, not being yot fully realized or trium-
phant in us aa we are in ourselves aa mere finite bee
ings, must aim at complete expression of itself in
time and in’ us, and through us in those whom wo
seom to influence. For only in so seeking to per-
THE RELIGIOUS INSIGHT. 467
fect us in whom it exteta, fa this wood will in us good
at all, In eo far as we, viewed abstractly, in our
eeparatenens from God, are good, we then do indeed
try to realise that Ife of God in which we are all
the time an clement. For us thia te progres. This
progress ia the form taken temporarily in ua by the
gow will, But for God thin te no real progres,
Therefore ta it indeed true that the moral insight in
ve mitet lead ua to ai aé progrens in guodness, just
wa, on the other aide, the rational clement di ua leads
uatoain at progres in knowledge. But, meanwhile,
our moral progres and our radenal progress, mere
minor facta happening at a moment of time, are but
inaignitvant elomenta in the infinite life in which, as
w whole, there is and can be neo progress, but only
wn tufinite variety of the fornia of the good will and
of the higher knowledge.
And ao conaciousnem haa given ua in concrete
form solutions of our two deepext philosophic prob
loma The possibility of error. necesaitating an ine
cluaive thowrht, ia illuatrated for ua by our own con.
actous thought, which can include true and falae ele
neonta in the unity of one clear and true thouzht at
any moneont, And the posability and neveuity of
moral evil, demanding a real diatinetion between
god and evil, a hateful opposition that econ at tent
right fatal to our religious need for the aupremacy
of goodnera in the united world, fa illustrated for us
in a way that eolven this whole trouble, namely, in
the unity of the conscious moral act. There at the
one moment are goad and evil, warring, dinplacable, |
yet united in the present momentary triumph of the
468 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
good will. A world in which this strife, this vic.
tory, this absolute rest above the real strife and in
' the midst of the real strife, is the supreme fact, is
_ the perfect world that religion needs. It is a world
| of the true Life of God.
VI.
And our insight appeals not only to our general
religious needs. It comes with its truth home to the
individual man. It demands that we consider what
our individual life is really worth when it is lived in
the presence of this Infinite Judge. O man, what
is this thy daily life! Thou livest for the applause
or in fear of the blame of thy neighbors. An unkind
word cuts thee to the quick. A little public favor,
or the approving word of a friend, is worth half thy
soul to thee. And all the while thou knowest not
that One infinitely greater than multitudes of neigh-
bors is here, not above thee only, nor afar in the
heavens, but pervading thy every thought. And that
all-pervading Thought judges thee as these neigh-
bors never can. Myriads of their blunders about
thee are as nothing to an atom of this infinite Truth.
That rain-drop yonder in the sunshine is not more
filled with the light, than are all the most hidden re-
ceases of thy heart filled with that Infinite Presence.
No one of us is more famous than his neighbor; for
no one is known save by God, and to him all alike
are known. To be sure, to know this is the same
as understanding rightly, that thou art in truth what
thou art. All truth is truth because it is known by
THE RELIGIOUS INSIGHT. 469
a conscious Thought: therefore whatsoever thou art,
whether it is consviously or unoonavioualy existent in
thee, is known to the all-seeing Universal Conscious-
ness, But commonplace as this avema to the philos-
opher, is it not more than a mere commonplace to
thee, if thou lovest genuine righteousness? For is it
not something to feel that thy life ia, all of it, in
God and fur God? No one else knows thee, Alone
thou wandereat in a dead world, save for thia Pres-
ence. These other men, how can they know thee?
They love thee or acorn thee or hate thee, but nane
of them love or scorn or hate thee for what thou art.
Whatever they hold of thee, it is an acvident. If
they knew more of thee, doubtlesa they would think
otherwise of thee. Do they love thee? Then they
know thee not well enough, nor do they ave thy
meanness and thy vileness, thy seltishneas and thy
Jealousy and thy malive. If they saw thease, aurely
they would hate thee. But do they hate thee?
Then thou callest them unjust. Doubdtlesa they are
ao. Same chance word af thine, a careless look or
geature, an acvident of fortune, a trifling faut, these
they have remembered ; and therefore do they hate
thee. If they know better things of thee, perhaps
they would love thee.
Thus contradictory ia thy life with them. And yet
thon must labor that the wood may triumph near
thee by thy effort. Now in all this work who ahall
be thy true friend?) Whose approval shall encour
age theo? Thy neighbor's? Nay, but it is thy duty
always to anapect thy neighbor's opinion af thee
Heo ia a corrupt judge, or at best an ignorant judge.
Ji
470 THE RELIGIOUS ASPKOT OF PHILOSOPHY.
Ho xeon not thy heart. Ho in a rexpecter of persona
Ilo in too often a bundle of whims, [f he also pro-
fonnon to bo trying to sorve rightoousnons, it in thy
duty to have reuly faith in his good intent, if. thas
bo posible for thee; but by all moans doubt his
wisdom about thee, and thine about him. If he
prrinen thoo for thy righteousness, Histon not willingly
to hin praino, It will dowsive thee. Ho will most
praine theo when thow inwardly art not righteous.
If he blames theo for evil, let it warn thee; for if
he is not right now, he doubtless soon will be. But
take it not too much to heart. Ho in ignorant of
theo, Hoe talks of thoo as ho might talk of the othor
aide of the moon, unlowm indeed he talks of theo just
taiman in gonoral, and not as to thy particular acta,
Trust him not in all those things, Realize his needs
ta thou canst, strive to aid himiin boing righteous,
Wwe him as an instrument for the extension of good.
nean; but trust not his judgment of thee. Who
thon ix, aa the true judge of thy worth, thy only por.
fot. friend ?
Tho Divino Thought. Thoro is the opinion of
theo to whieh thon canst look up. To be sure it is
rovonlod to thee only in thy consciousness of what
rightoousnoens ia and of what truth is, Nowhere cla
hast thou a guide that can do more for thee than to
holp to quicken thy insight. But, then, thy relig-
fous comfort in to be, not that the moral law ia thin.
dered down from mountain. tops an if some vant
townewrior wore talking, but that when thou seokont
to do right, the Inflnite all-seoing One knows and
approves thes, Lf thou lovest rightoousnoss for its
Aaa | . , ty _ fa v6
fer {
THE RELIGIOCS INSIGHT. 471
own sake, then this will comfort thee. If not, if
thou seekest sugar-plums, seek them not in the home
of the Infinite. Go among thy fellow-men and be a
successful hypocrite and charlatan, and thou shalt
have gaping and wonderment and sagar- plums
Herein then hes the invitation of the Infinite to
us, that it is, and that it knows us. No deeper sance-
tion is there for true nghteousness than this Imowl-
edge that one is serving the Ewrnal. Yet when wo
say all this. are we simply doing that which we spoke
of in the opening chapter of this work? Are wo
bat offermg snow to appease the relimious hunger?
Is this doctrine too cold. too abstract. too faroff?
Cold and abstract and far-off is indeed the proof of
it. But that was philawphy. That was not the re.
hgious aspect of our doctrine, but anly the prepara-
tion for showing the rehgious aspect of philoaphy.
Is the doctrine itelf. however, ance gained, sw re-
mote from the natural religiwus emotion? What
does a man want when he looks to the world for re
ligious support? Does he want such applause as
blind crowds give men, such flattery as designing
people shower upon them, such svmpathy as even the
cherished bat prejudiced Jove of ane’s nearest frends
pours out for him? Nay, if he seeks merely this,
is he quite unseltishly righteous? Can he not get
all that if he wants it. wholly apart from rehgien?
And if he looks for rewanl, can he not get that also
otherwise? But what his true devotion to the moral
law ardently desires is rot to be alone. Approval
for what really deserves approval he needs, approval
472 THE RELIGIOUS ASPKOT OF PHILOSOPHY.
from one who truly knows him. Well, our doctrine
says that he gots it. Just as deep, as full, as rich,
as truo approval as expresses the full worth of his
act, —this ho has for all oternity from the Infinite.
To feed upon that truth is to eat something better
than snow, but as pure as the driven snow. To love
that truth is to love God.
Wo spoke in the former book of the boundless
magnitude of human life as it impresses itself upon
one who first gains tho moral insight. To many
this first devotion to human life soems itself enough
for a religion. But then ono goos beyond this point,
and says that human life has, after all, very much
that is baso and petty in it. Hero in not the ideal.
* Would that there were a higher life! To that we
would devote ourselves, We will serve humanity,
but how can wo worship it?” Such is the thought
of many an ardent soul that seeks no personal re-
wards in serving tho good, but that doos seok some
great Roality that shall surely be worthy of service.
To such, our religious insight points out this highor
rowlity. You that have been willing to devote your
nolvos to humanity, hero is a Life gronter in infinite
degree than humanity. And now is it not a help to
know that truly to sorve humanity is just tho same
ax to serve this Inflnito? For whatover had seemed
dishoartoning in the basoness and weakness of man
loses ite discouraging darknoss now that all is trans
figured in this Infinite light.
Let us thon be encouraged in our work by this
grout Truth, But lot us not spend too much time
in merely contemplating this Truth. We, whose
TEE REWINIOS Nee. 3
Eres are te he lived tm teal, — it is met gaad Ghat we
shemla broad ewor even an inate Theat. Ror ta
er finite niinds ¥t willl seen Iheceme peti wnless we
wealiae it ohietiiy thremgh ear acts. Let ws then yea
wbowt ome besimess. For ever man has besimess
wind desire, tach as they aire.
As we tora away then for the time froma eat een
templation. we lave owe bast word vet as te these
practical comeageemcss of ear view. TT the reader
follows ws at all ie eur argument. we want hiva ale
te fellow us ate the practical appheavin of 1 te
is, we eave said, the chief prosent dhaty of waa Base ve
wety. All else & preparation for this work, or eke
tS ab anticipation of Ube higher stave wheat we
ever grow wp to that bevel. we shall have oar farther
work ta do im the hight of the nayht ieelf, But
this chief present workt of ours this extension of the
moral insight. is best furthered bi dewettion te ear
individual vocations coupled with strict lexalite te
the relations upom which societt is forded, ‘The
work thus set before us demands the sacrifice of
many Aleal emotional expertences to the sercice of
the Highest, Our comfort however tm tt alll ment be
that the Highest & there above ws forget It as we
war. If the reader accepts all thik, then with ws
he has the assurance that, whatever becomes off the
whd creeds in the present religious orton, the founda
trons af genuitrely religtows Bath are sure.
Wherever we must parse again in oar werk for
reRgtos support, and whenever we are wer oat
with the Jargon of the schools we can rest once
Wr
ay]
AT4 TH MMLAGIOUN ANPROT OF PHILONOPHY.
more for a (ine In this contemplation of the Mtornal
Truth, Je breve plangltur, Vat not wo in it in
Chal's life, Our probleme may be hard, but there
ll in melvewl, Ota Uvew may bes poe snd contempt
Abolesy Vonnt tbacvrres cll fn weseltde cand fallow of worth.
Our offorts may often prove valu, but there nanghe
oxinta that in vanity, Mor the fiperfestion of the
Herhtes In boat thes fesggnent of the Infinite Whale
Whore there Inne tries finporfoction, Init not a Hee
Higghoons tar fool thin? And we shall then tur from
auGh a contemplation once agiin as we do now, to
escake withy Frrecsbocsee cseotarsagces tut Clade ocranac berm, teomdrnge
won of human Vfe aboutus Thin in not itwelf the
Diving, bat over It all God's whide aro blowing,
And to our eyes it in bounllem, Lat us go down
Hratan thud geresnts ene conned tall, fonrlag no storin, but
meserba Sage tan fionel thacrrren Cressemsarens that shell bees cscoplom,
however fubat, of that whilelt ian Metsrnal,
EPILOGUE.
Yer some reader, 9 whom, as to the author, phil
oxophi¢ questions are directly matters of vooation,
may possibly Hnger, To him are due one ar two
Statements mar, bo set at rest certain af his doubts
about our meaning, Perhaps he will ask the very
natural, yes, after all not very fruitfal, question,
“ }s the foregoing theory af things Thetsm or Pan-
theism? Has it been your parpos to defend the
essential portions of the older Theistic doctrines, or
to alter them in favor of some newer faith?” This
question expresacs a difficulty that some plain peaple
must feel when they read, not merely this book, bat
also many recent discussions. There are writers who
have undertaken to defend Theism, and who have ac
tually in all sincerity argued for the newessity af the
Universal Thoncht. The plain people have reason
to aaspect anch af trving to substitute for the * Ged
ef our Fathers ~ something claa to be called by the
same name. and ao to he pasacd aff for the same
thing. We therefor answer very plainly that we
desire to do nothing af the sort. If in the foregaing
we have on oqasion used the word God, no reader
is obhiced to suppose that onr idaa acres with bn
idea, for we have fully explained what our idea
moans. We mpoat: As my thought at any time,
and however engaged, combines several fragmentary
476 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
thoughts into the unity of one conscious moment, so,
we affirm, does the Universal Thought combine the
thoughts of all of us into an absolute unity of
thought, together with all the objects and all the
thoughts about these objects that are, or have been,
or will be, or can be, in the Universe. This Uni-
versal Thought is what we have ventured, for the
sake of convenience, to call God. It is not the God
of very much of the traditional theology. It is the
God of the idealistic tradition from Plato down-
wards. Our proof for it is wholly different from
| those baseless figments of the apologetic books, the
design -argument, and the general argument from
causality. Since Kant, those arguments must be
abandoned by all critical philosophers, and we have
‘indicated something of their weakness. They have
_ been aptly compared to medieval artillery on a
.modern battle-field. We accept the comparison.
‘Kant gave to modern philosophy new instruments,
and these it is our duty to apply as we can to the
old questions that the whole history of thought has
been trying to understand. Our special proof for
the existence of an Universal Thought has been
based, in the foregoing, upon an analysis of the na-
ture of truth and error as necessary conceptions. We
;do not regard the Universal Thought as in any com-
‘monly recognized sense a Creator. A creator would
‘be finite, and his existence would have to be learned
from experience. The Universal Thought is infinite,
and its existence is proved independently of experi-
ence. For the rest, we have insisted that experience
furnishes no evidence of single creative powers that
|
EPILOGUE. 407
are at once unlimited and geod. We have however
shown how all the Powers that be exist as necessary
facts in the Infinite Thoaght, and how. apart from
this thought, nothing is that is. Such is oar coacep-
ton. It is no new one in philowphy. We have tried
With no small labor, and after tedioas doubting, to
uake it our own, We have independently given
our own reasons for it. And we bave asserted that
here is an object of infinite religious worth.
And now we must add that we are quite indiffer
ent whether anybody calls all this Theism or Pan-
theism. It differs from the commoner traditivnal
forms of both Both usually consider Ged as a
Power, and either eave him off on one side to push
things occasionally, or to set them guing at the out-
set, or else Mentify him with his products. The for
mer way of conceiving God is never more than half-
philesophic. The hatter way is apt to degenerate
inte wholly poetical rhapsodies. We take neither
of these wars. For us Causation is a very subord
nate idea in philosophy. It expresses only one form
of the rational unity of things. and that an imper
fect form. The workd of the Powers is not yet an
universe, Thought mast be truer than Power, com-
prehending all the Powers. and much more besides,
in its infinite unity, Ged as Power weukl be neth-
ing, oF finite. Cod as Theaght can be and is all in
all. And if this is philosophy, traditional Theism
can do what it wishes to de about the maliter.
In short, the present doctrine is the doctrine that
in the beginning was the Word. and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. So far, said St.
478 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
Augustine, Plato had gone. So far we have gone.
Beyond that, said St. Augustine, the truth was not
revealed to human wisdom, but only to humble faith.
Beyond that, with the rational consequences that we
have been able to draw from it in the foregoing, we
are frankly agnostic. If any man knows more about
the Powers in the world than science has found out
by patient examination of the facts, let him rejoice
in his knowledge. We are not in possession of such
knowledge. We believe in the Conservation of the
physical forces, in the Law of Evolution as it is at
present and for a limited past time found to express
the facts of nature, and in the fact of the Dissipation
of Energy. All this we believe as the scientifically
probable view, and we do so on the authority of cer-
tain students of physical science, who, having exam-
ined the facts, seem to agree upon so much as capa-
ble of popular exposition. We believe in such other
results of science as are known to us. But beyond
this nothing as to the Powers in the world is clear to
us. We know nothing about individual immortal-
ity, nothing about any endless future progress of our
species, nothing about the certainty that what men
call from without goodness must empirically triumph
just here in this little world about us. All that is
dark. We know only that the highest Truth is al-
ready attained from all eternity in the Infinite
Thought, and that in and for that Thought the vic-
tory that overcometh the world is once for all won.
‘Whatever happens to our poor selves, we know that
.the Whole is perfect. And this knowledge gives
‘us peace. We know that our moral Vindicator liv-
EMLOGUE. 479
eth, and that in his sight all the good that we do is
not Labor lost
Yet the purpose of these chapters is not to give
at any point a mere negation, even when we speak
of the tradigonal theokagr. We do not want to ex
agyerate our quarrel with anybody. If thinkers whe
accept some traditional form of theology fad truth
or help in our doctring we shall be ghad. After’ >.
all. the religious interest wants, not so much this of... .
that view about some nian's special creed, but a...
foundation for the faith that somehow righteowaress
is in deepest truth triumphant in the work, If there |
is to proof, then, as we cai in Chapter EX. we must
resort te the Postulates. If we can get proof, vo
much the better.
Thus, however, we have suggested to ourselves am
other question, These Postulates af Chapter ING
what has become of them now? Are they wholly
lest in our insight? No indeed. They remain just
what they were, rational forms of our activity, not
perfect in their rationality, but constantly vahable
to us in our work. «The scientific postulates are not
superseded, bat rather only strengthened. by the
insight into the ultimate rationality of things, They
become now the assurance that there must be a re
tional solution to every scientific problem, and that
the simplest salution, being the nost rational, is dhe
mast probable in case it is actually adequate to all
the fact. Just as before, it remains tre af uw
finite beings that our finite external work is at each
instant the product of our activity, working with the
postulates, upon the material of our sensations, And
480 TH RELIGIOUS ASPROT OF PHILOMOFHY,
that activity remains as before the proper object of a
pracorea] jesslgereversst. Cnaly secrw wer meres thieat theer bebyhieomt
ferrin oof cour mcstivitiy tn Libecsdy ter bees Cheer conser sracant escrta-
forming to the truth, What retaion tras of the
weclenititioo prmtilaten, renin tries of thes ralighous
postulates, ‘They are net waperneded, Kor what they
ean willl do for us te to inaiet that our iden of the In-
finite shall not remain cold, barren alternation,
but, that we whall mppesal te ce experiences for avi
dene of what in truly highent and Int, and that we
whall thet ways ° The highent ceneaptionn that I pat
from exporlenae of what goolnonn and beauty are,
thes srerbolermt, Wifes that Fo ccsans Sasveegebines, thie csconeaplestont
Loberrsacrel assem thieat FP ocstasy think of, all thane things are
best fader msagepcemnteotn cof so truth that in infinitely ra.
alisend in the Diving, that knows all truth Whate
covers pusefeseetlsons thesres fw mragepcemtenl inv thame things,
that, Vhes aerssmt frably berscow sasael esxgoesebessisns,”” — “Thesrete
ervey thes resdiglerten promtislaten cnet eacennpany Us Overy.
Wheeseres, ressebebeage tall conse esx prserlestasces sepoprene tar Un AA ED
esveser-Lirevule Desmncote csertoccesenabinge thes snbiel of CGied,
‘W'hoss yocrmtaateatorn, tbecrrs, wes restestos, wits thes Srrnhgehe,
Wee saboarslerns, lasswesverr, thes tamer cof thuesnes promtiilatens
tes lessrscormterates Fisrtluse npusedal article of faith as
to supernatural power ar aventa of any sort We
Desseow cof sser tasbesacsles msnves thes Desttesites Idinnelf, And
wen wes esaves sieo Sestestesmt See seusssy cof thes fornim of progr
saben Selecta inses, Wer porcoves tlasat thie wearlel fo tees becoreses
cf so Syrbedtoacal Uaifes, senmeny peeved prevergoles baseves boeseses sane
pares csearsevereronctel tao poveoves Clesat esssertandon gobsestscatnvestin whieh
wes wecces alacrtal vam seres San sassel cof theesteamest ver direct evil
Heston of the aplritual nature of things, To such
EPILOGUE. 481
persons a Spint that is pot constantly produciag
noteworthy effects, and 2:0 geting himself into the
newspapers, would seem unreal. Therefore, to such
persons Religious Idealism depends for its life and
warmth upon the vividness and the impressiveness
of these phenomenal indications of ,the action of the
great Spirit. Sach persons, if they have given up
traditional superstitions, stl] find ther delight in
dwelling on the mystery of “ vital force,” on the oo-
carrence of all sorts of wonderfal things, on the the-
ares of occult powers, or of ethereal essences. To
them one of the best evidences of the spintaal na-
tare of things ts the inability of the bologtt to
tell us under what conditions life could be prodaced
from dead matter. The mysterious natare of ner
vous action, the inflwence of the mind upon the
body, and, above all, the occurrence of certain
strange emotional expertences In us, sach as the vis-
fons af mystics, these are to them the main prvof
that the work is divine and is full of spirimaal life.
We do not sympathize with this method of idealism. |
We respect its good intentions, bat we are unwilling
te look upon it as ranonally signifmant. For us it
makes absolutely no difference in oar faith aboat
the ulamate spiritaal nature of things, whether the
workd that we see makes our hair stand on end or
not, or whether the bialagists ever come to succeed
in making living matter or not. That we can make
a fire, does not prove the world less divine, Nor
woald the trath of things be less spiritual, if we
could also manufacture not oaly protophaan, bat
whole whales or Shakespeares in oar bboratories.
31
462 THK RELIGIOUN ABPROT OF PIILOMOMTY,
If we would do so, waterlalion as a philosophical
dostelne would remain just as abeird as it now be,
Chevrntabsnes Meleseeionis, Vikees thre foreggolig, Im utterly entre
lows whether this or that particular murpelnliag thing
eegnpoessers ttn thee gohrersnnnenial world, wines it ones for
all knows that the Whole in diving, an eternal stare
prime, Th moka no confirmation from the laborabe-
tens but only for Wusteatlons of ratlonality 4 net
for its own pare dows it venture to diotate to the
wprevsdal woorlecrm fin meen whit they whall find. 16
in nent forreenl tar bey Nati to contain some ooctilt
AygHay, Kone VaiE ethereal GNM, OF None tyne
rhevtan ened wootselecotan vied doles Veesdiige, whicmes grremennnee
whaeal) Noes su prassuneanty tay ther geragodange cotbenalece this
thaesser con inten tote Veleusl, ADL thin snenllsant ddenlinnn
our view rejecte as unworthy of any clear: headed
thirker, Ih meayn, Davok at the facts an they are,
Pitas y tdeesare sam erm precedernnces pelvew then, Mnew thei
Hoa tresber sucabecsel cvcotsnersconagobiees verity, Tat benncow tale
thrvt thier Valeval Goivienes Dates clwestly fav tlrests sannel
thareosagelacoset, Cheesder wheeodes Voeotarsel Devan restaden.”
Fin V¥beatan’n § Veanransesnadelen,” thes young Sonraten
conform that he sametimes hevdtate ta way that
theses in sar Pilon for everythitiag, even for anad, ie
bes sresdonelecsel oor (dade fester that men sony angel at hii,
Des fs taobel thot tool ala in rational, Wve so we
niint fear nobody's hanghter do sieh a matin, We
ritent, wees Ces Divine everywhere, And therefore we
sesnivnt ancot, Veer greadonge salocrtats feabtdabessaly Dercbedinge Fore martes
Aledo tliat whiall Ins wondrous onough to forse un to
way" Pfere in Chad”
EPILOGUE. 488
And now, last of all, as the writer bids farewell
to this single lingering fellow-student, he cannot re
frain from suggesting to so patient a friend one lit-
tle thought more concerning the proof that has been
given for the doctrine of theese later pages of our
discussion, “ Possibly it is all false,” the fellow-
student may say. “ This fair picture of a Truth that
is also Croudnessa, may be but another illusion.” Be
it so, dear friend, if we have said nothing to con-
vince thee. Perchance all this our later angument
is illusion, Only remember: If it is Error, then,
as we have shown thee, it is Error because and only
because the Infinite knows it to be auch, Apart
from that knowledge, our thought would be no error.
At least, then, the Infinite knows what we have at-
tributed to it. If it rejects our ideal, then doubtless
there ix something imperfect, not about the Infinite,
but about our Ideal. And w at woret we are like |
achild who has come to the palace of the King on
the day of his wedding, bearing ruses as a gift to
Krave the feast For the child, waiting innocently
to ave whether the King will uot appear and praise
the welcome flowers, grows at last weary with watch-
ing all day and with Listening to harsh words outaide
the palace gate, amid the jostling crowd. And se
in the evening it falls fast asleep beneath the great
dark walls, unsen and forgotten; and the wither
ing roses by and by fall from ite lap, and are acat-
tered by the wind into the dusty highway, there to
be trodden under foot and destroyed. Yet all that
happens only because there are infinitely fairer
464 THE NKLIGIOUN ARPROT OF PHILONOPIY,
tremmiuren withit the palace than the Ugnorant obille
could bring, The King knows of this, yeu, and of
ten thousand other proffered glfte of loyal mtubjente,
Hut he needs them not. Rather are all things from
vternity his own,