All this is mere neglect of whatever ideals do not at once fit into one’s own ideal. Such neglect is un¬ worthy of an ethical inquirer. Yet it has been fre¬ quently committed in recent times, and it is com¬ mitted whenever a man endeavors or pretends, as Professor Clifford also very skillfully endeavored and pretended, to found ethical science wholly upon the basis and by the methods of natural 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 steam-engine to the boat. But first we must lay the keel, and we must get the boat ready for the engine, the ideal ready for the science that is to apply it. All such attempts as those that put the “ scientific basis ” first, lamely strive to conceal their helplessness behind a show of appealing to the “ facts of human nature and of the social structure, as science discovers them.” But these facts reveal a confused warfare of aims among men, no one aim being actually chosen by the whole of men. And then the “ scientific moralist ” tries to show by all sorts of devices that all men really have the same aim. But he cannot show that, because it is not true. What aim is common to the whole life of any one of us? Much less then is any aim common to all men.
168 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY But this mistake is not specially modern. Not only the modern scientific moralists have been guilty of it, but moral preachers of all schools since Soc¬ rates have been prone to insist on occasion, for pur¬ poses of persuasion, that somehow or other all evil conduct arises from mere ignorance of what one wants. This view is a mistake. One may want anything, and may know it very well. There is 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 comment is, that he will stop desiring it by and by. You can seldom get any ultimate analysis of the motive of such a desire.
But we do not found our moral system on any such analysis. We do not say even that it is phys¬ ically 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 follows: — 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 world.
2. An absolute moral insight, which we can con¬ ceive, but which we never fully attain ourselves, would realize the true inner nature of all the con¬ flicting wills in the world.
3. The moral insight involves from its very na¬ ture, for those who have it, the will to harmonize, so far as may be possible, the conflicting wills that there are in the world, and that are realized* at the moment of insight.
THE MORAL INSIGHT 4. If the moral insight be concerned directly with two conflicting wills, my neighbor’s and my own, then this insight involves the will to act as if my neighbor and myself were one being that possessed at once the aims of both of us.
5. If the moral insight be concerned with con¬ flicting general aims, such as could express them¬ selves in systems of conduct, then the moral insight involves the will to act, so far as may be, as if one included in one’s own being the life of all those whose conflicting aims one realizes.
6. Absolute moral insight would involve the will to act henceforth with strict regard to the total of the consequences of one’s act for all the moments and aims that are to be affected by this act.
7. The moral insight stands in all its forms op¬ posed to ethical dogmatism, which accepts one sepa¬ rate end only. The insight arises from the con¬ sciousness that this one aim is not the only one that is actual. Imperfectly and blindly ethical dogma¬ tism also realizes this truth, and so hates or even anathematizes the opposing aims. But the hatred is imperfect realization. The moral insight there¬ fore says to those who possess the dogmatic spirit: “ In so far as you seek a reason for the faith that is in you, you can find none short of the assumption of my position.” The moral insight says to itself, “ I ought not to return to the dogmatic point of view.” So the moral insight insists upon giving itself the rule, “ Dogmatism is wrong.”
8. The only alternatives to the moral insight are: (a) ethical dogmatism, which once for all gives up 170 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY the effort to get any basis for ethics save its own ir¬ 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 aspect 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 Die wahre Freiheit ist als Sittlichkeit dies, dass der Wille nicht sub- jektive, d. i. eigensiichtige, sondern allgemeinen Inhalt zu seinen Zwecken hat. — Hegel, Encyclopadie.
Unexpectedly we have been saved from our eth¬ ical skepticism even in and through the very act of thinking it out. Here, as elsewhere in philosophy, the truth is to be reached, neither by dreading nor by discountenancing the doubt, but by accepting, expe¬ riencing, and absorbing the doubt, until, as an ele¬ ment in our thought, it becomes also an element in an higher truth. We do not say, therefore, to com¬ mend our moral principle, as it has just been pro¬ pounded, that it is immediately acceptable to all healthy consciences, or that it is a pious, or a respect¬ able, or a popularly recognized principle. We say only this: Doubt rationally about moral doctrines, and your doubt itself, if real, thorough-going, all-em¬ bracing, merciless, will involve this very principle of ours. We find the principle by means of the univer¬ sal doubt, and it is this method of procedure that distinguishes the foregoing discussion of the basis of morals from many of those that have previously been concerned with this problem. To point out 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 const 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 com THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE 173 flicting wills before thee, act out the resulting uni¬ 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 applications of our moral prin¬ ciple.
I.
I.
The first class of duties comprises those that have most especially to do with the moral education of our race. We are, and must long remain, exceedingly imperfect and blind creatures. If 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 us so soon as we get it is: So act as to increase the number of those who possess the insight. Here, of course, is a precept of a very formal char¬ acter, and plainly provisional in its nature. It 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 get at one stroke and for the first 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 I use it? For the first I must use it to bring these other men to the fountain, to wash their eyes, that they may miraculously learn in one instant to see this glorious world.” But some one might object: “ In this way, if the only use to be 174 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY made of a man’s sight is to extend the power of sight to others, of what use is the power itself? The sole aim of seeing cannot be tp cause others to see. Else what good would result to any one, if all followed your precept?” The answer would be plain: “ When all or the most of us get the power, then indeed we can use it for other ends. But because it is the best of powers for all these other ends, there¬ fore the best provisional use to make of it is, not to spend much time upon these ends, but to spend time upon extending the possession of the power. When this is done, then first will begin the real use of the power for its own sake.” As in this case of the sup¬ posed miraculous acquirement of a new sense in all its maturity of power at one stroke, so it is in case of the much more gradual acquirement of the moral insight. To be sure, the ultimate aim of life cannot be merely the extension of the power to realize the wills that are active about us, but must at last be found by defining the course of action that best har¬ monizes these wills. But, provisionally, we have a task before us that is easily defined, because elemen¬ tary. Harmony cannot be even partially attained, the best human activity cannot be even imperfectly developed, until a very great number of men have this, the very first, most elementary requisite of con¬ scious morality, namely, the power to see the facts of human life as they are. So long as a man is bound up in his individual will, he may be instinctively up¬ right, he cannot be consciously and. with clear intent righteous. So long therefore as this is true of him, he will be dependent on traditions that are often per- THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE nicious, on conscience that is often brutal prejudice, on faith that is often bigotry, on emotion that is the blindest of all guides; and if he does good or if he does evil, the power responsible for his deeds will not be a truly moral impulse. To gain the moral ends of humanity, the indispensable prerequisite is therefore the moral insight in its merely formal as¬ pect, as an human power and as an experience of life. When a good many more men have reached the pos¬ session of this power, then more of life will be taken up with concrete duties. Until that time comes, the great aim must be this formal and provisional one: to produce in men the moral mood, and so to pre¬ pare the way for the further knowledge of the high¬ est good. If we put the matter otherwise we may say: The moral insight, insisting upon the need of the harmony of all human wills, shows us that, what¬ ever the highest human good may be, we can only attain it together, for it involves harmony. The highest good then is not to be got by any one of us or by any clique of us separately. Either the high¬ est good is for humanity unattainable, or the human¬ ity of the future must get it in common. Therefore the sense of community, the power to work together, with clear insight into our reasons for so working, is the first need of humanity. Not what good thing men may hereafter come to see, but how they shall attain the only sense whereby they can ever get to see the good, is the great present human concern.
Starting with this duty, we can now examine what rule of life this duty will give us. Extend the moral insight among men, and in thy own life: 176 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY this is the first commandment. The direct conse¬ quence is that, so regarded, the first duty of man in the present day cannot be either to get happiness himself, or, in view of this present state of human life, to make other people happy. All that he may indeed be in some measure required to do, but not, in the present state of the world, as an end, but solely as a means to an end. This at all events is not the day for contentment, but for work; and joy is now a proper part of human life chiefly in so far as it tends to preserve, to increase, or to foster the moral insight. Here we have the present practical solu¬ tion suggested for all the questions about the right and wrong of so-called hedonism. Hedonism is the product of an imperfect understanding of the moral insight. Benevolent hedonism springs from the in¬ sight that men like to be happy. Realizing this, the believer in universal hedonism says: Make men happy so far as thou canst. But this principle of hedonism is surely not the immediate truth for this present time, whatever may or may not turn out to be the case in future. For to labor to increase happi¬ ness may for the present mean to increase the moral blindness of men. Some sorts of happiness tend to make us blind, as has in fact been shown in a for¬ mer chapter. Unless a man experiences very bit¬ terly the reality of the conflict of wills in this world, the moral insight is apt to forsake him. But until the moral insight becomes practically universal, the highest good for humanity cannot be got. There¬ fore all forms of happiness that hinder rather' than help the moral insight are evil, and we ought to do THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE 177 what we can to get rid of them out of the world. And all experiences, however painful, that certainly tend to the increase of the power of moral insight, are good for men; and if we see no other experi¬ ences more suitable for this purpose, we ought to do what we can to increase among men the number and the definiteness of these pains.
Yet of course it will at once appear, when we ex¬ amine human emotional experiences in the light of what we know of men, that there is a decided limit to the morally educative power of painful experi¬ ences, and that, on the other hand, very many pleas¬ ant experiences are useful to the moral insight, either by directly aiding it, or by preparing a man to at¬ tain it. In considering this branch of the subject, we at last reach the point where a scientific psy¬ chology can give us a great deal of help. We re¬ jected the so-called “ scientific basis ” for morals be¬ cause it founds the ought to be upon brutal physical facts. Now, however, we can turn to science to help us in our present task, because, having defined our ought to be, we are dealing with applied ethics, and are asking how this moral insight is to be attained. Psychology must tell us what it can as to this mat¬ ter. And here such suggestions as those in Mr. Spencer’s “ Data of Ethics ” are indeed a useful aid to applied moral doctrine. We reject wholly the no¬ tion that Mr. Spencer or any like teacher has even caught a glimpse of the fundamental ethical problem. Mr. Spencer seems to be in the most childlike igno¬ rance that there is any such problem at all. But we are glad to find that Mr. Spencer once having very 178 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY 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. He 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¬ ure; 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 doctrine 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 he is surely justified when he protests, against the ascetics, 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 scientific grounds, and it is well to have said the thing plainly in an ethical treatise.
But what is the result? Is happiness the only aim of life because the permanently unhappy man is apt to be a 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 ORGANIZATION OF LIFE Happiness is, at least for the present, only a subordi¬ nate means. Therefore we say: By all means make men happy, so far as their happiness tends to give them and to preserve in them moral insight. True it is, as scientific psychology shows us, that a man, 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. He must digest well, he must enjoy 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 ascetic denies this, he maintains a pernicious heresy, that tends to de¬ stroy 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 moral 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 great end. If we try to amuse our neighbors, to relieve their woes, to im¬ prove their worldly estate, we must do so not as if this were the end of the present life, but as workers in a very vast drama of human life, whose far-off purpose must govern every detail. The good Sa¬ maritan must say to himself, as he helps the poor wretch by the wayside i 44 In so far as I realize only this man’s need, my purpose is indeed simply to re¬ lieve 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 increase by this, as by all my 180 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY \ acts, the harmony of mankind. Not alone that he may by and by go away and enjoy himself do I help him now, but because by so doing I hope through him to increase among men moral insight.” There¬ fore, notwithstanding Schopenhauer’s ridicule, Fichte was right in saying that we ought to treat the indi¬ vidual man not chiefly as an individual, but as an instrument for extending and serving the moral law. Because a certain kind of happiness means efficiency, and efficiency morality, therefore and therefore alone have we the right and duty, in this present genera¬ tion, to labor for this kind of happiness.
Equally, therefore, it becomes our duty to labor to increase pain, whenever pain is the best means of fostering the moral insight. Therefore, in this pres¬ ent day, it cannot be our duty to labor to diminish pain in the world, simply as pain. Again we must appeal to psychology to guide us aright. The pains that foster moral insight, although limited in num¬ ber and intensity, are numerous, and still imper¬ fectly defined. It would be a useful task to study more in detail than psychologists have yet done, the moralizing power of pain. This is a task for the psychology of the future. In general, of course, we can say that the range of such pains has been much exaggerated by ascetics. Bodily pain, if severe, is generally brutalizing, at least for most people, and the moral insight is in it only in so far as the past experience of bodily pain helps us to know the sig¬ nificance of the suffering of others, not by giving us that blind emotion of sympathy before criticised, but by giving us the means to form a cool abstract THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE 181