In view of these considerations, then, we may pronounce legitimate and hopeful the moral individualism of the time. It implies the recognition that there is a genuine ground for moral action, which may be brought home to any individual mind that will deal honestly and directly with the facts of life. Morality is not a useful fiction which must be protected against inquisitiveness and cherished in ignorance and servility; it is a body of compelling truth that will convince wherever there is a capacity to observe and reason. It requires no higher sanction than the individual, because the individual is society's organ of truth; because only in the individual mind is society open to rational conviction.
Latitudinarianism and tolerance in this sense bespeak a confidence in morality's ability to justify itself. At the same time they represent a protest against replacing the intrinsic truth of morality by the arbitrary standards of authority {39} and convention. Now, while there is little need in the present day of protecting individual judgment against encroachments of authority, there can be no doubt of the great need of protecting it against the more insidious encroachments of convention. This is peculiarly an age of publicity. The forces of suggestion and imitation operate on a scale unparalleled in the history of society. Standards and types readily acquire an almost irresistible prestige, simply through becoming established as models. And the sanction of opinion may be gained for almost any formula, from a fashion in hats to an article in theology. Convention can no longer be accounted conservative. It sanctions promiscuously usages as venerable as civilization itself, and as transient as the fad of the hour. Democratic institutions and universal educational privileges have bred a social mass intelligent and responsive enough to be modish, but lacking in discrimination and criticism.
The tyranny of opinion, the fear of being different, has long since been recognized as a serious hinderance to the development which political freedom and economic opportunity ought properly to stimulate. But the moral blindness to which it gives rise has never, I think, been sufficiently emphasized. We require of business men only that measure of honesty that we {40} conventionally expect in that type of occupation. A politician is proverbially tricky and self-seeking. The artistic temperament would scarcely be recognized if it did not manifest itself in weakness and excess. It is as unreasonable to expect either tunefulness or humor in a musical comedy as to expect a statement of fact in an advertisement. In short, where any human activity is conventionalized, standards are arbitrarily fixed; and critical discernment grows dull if it does not altogether atrophy. It simply does not occur to the great majority of men that any activity should be judged otherwise than by comparing it with the stereotyped average of the day. This is, to be sure, only that blindness of the common mind which Socrates and Plato observed in their day, but it is now aggravated through the greater massiveness and conductivity of modern society.
These considerations will serve both to introduce and to justify my present undertaking. I assume that duty is not an arbitrary mandate which the individual must obey blindly or from motives of fear; but the conviction of moral truth, the enlightened recognition of the good.[6] Hence I wish to demonstrate morality to an individual reflective mind, open to the facts of life and to conviction of truth. I shall expound morality out of no book but experience, "that universal and publick Manuscript, that lies {41} expans'd unto the Eyes of all." To refer morality to custom, to conscience in the sense of individual prepossession or institutional authority, even if these be interpreted as the oracles of God, is to justify the suspicion that it is groundless and arbitrary, at best a matter of loyalty or good form. I shall present morality as a set of principles as inherent in conduct, as unmistakably valid there, as is gravitation in the heavens. I shall hope to make it appear that the saving grace of morality is directly operative in life; needing no proof from any adventitious source, because it provesitselfunder observation.
I shall address myself to an individual protagonist whom I shall designate in the second person; and whom I shall suppose to exhibit that yielding reluctance which is the mark of a mind that for very love of truth will not too readily assent.
As I am to prove morality to you, I accept the burden of proof; but you are not on that account totally without responsibility in the matter. As you must not stop your ears, or close your bodily eyes, so you must not shut the eye of the mind, or harden your heart. Were you to adopt such an attitude I should be compelled to set argument aside, and resort to such practical measures as might shock or entice you into reasonableness. Or, I might abandon you as incorrigible. It is {42} clear that I can as little show reasons to a man who will not think them with me, as I can show the road to one who will not look where I point it out. A very large amount of moral exhortation consists in the attempt to overcome apathy and inattention. Such exhortation cannot in the nature of the case be logical, because the subject's logical organ is not as yet functioning. I doubt if there is any discussion of moral matters in common life in which this form of appeal is not present in a measure sufficient to obscure the merits of the question at issue. I desire for present purposes to eliminate as far as possible all conflict and prejudices, and thus to dispense with zeal and eloquence. I shall assume, therefore, that you propose to be reasonable concerning this moral affair. By this I mean simply that you shall directly observe the facts of life, report candidly on these facts, and fully accept the implications of any judgment to which you may commit yourself. I may phrase your pledge of reasonableness thus: "Show what is right, and that it is right, and I will accept it. I mean my action to be good, and ask only to have the good demonstrated to me, that I may intelligently adopt it."
{43}
It is commonly believed that whereas the logic ofprudenceis unimpeachable, there is a hiatus between this level of morality and those above. To drink one's self to death is a species of folly that the poorest intelligence can understand; but the folly in meanness, injustice, or impiety is a harder matter. Believing as I do that the folly is equally demonstrable in all of these cases, I propose not to accept your ready assent in the simpler case until its grounds have been made as clear and definite as possible. I feel convinced that prudence is not so simple a matter as appears; in fact that it involves the whole ethical dialectic.
I find you, let us say, eating an apple with evident relish; and I ask you why. If you are candid, and free from pedantry, you will doubtless reply that it is because you like to. In this particular connection I can conceive no profounder utterance. But we may obtain a phraseology that will suit our theoretical purposes more conveniently and serve better to fix the matter in our minds. Your eating of the apple is a process that tends within certain limits to continue and restore itself, to supply the actions and objects necessary to its own maintenance. I have proposed that we call such a process aninterest. In that it is a part of that very complex physical and {44} moral thing called "you," it isyourinterest, and it also has, of course, its special subject-matter, in this case the eating of an apple. It involves specific movements of body, and makes a specific requisition on the environment. Now, still confining ourselves strictly to this interest, we shall doubtless agree to call any phase of it in which it is fulfilled, in which its exercise is fostered and unimpeded,good. And we shall doubtless agree to attach the same term, although perhaps in a less direct sense, to that part of the environment which it requires, in this case the apple, and to the subsidiary actions which mediate it, such as the grasping of the apple, or the biting and mastication of it. I mean only that these modes or factors of the interest arein some sense good; qualifications and limitations may be adjudicated later.
In this case, which so far as I can see is the simplest possible case of the sort of value that enters into life, the value is supplied by a specific type of process which we may call an interest, and it is supplied thereby absolutely, fundamentally. It makes both this apple and your eating of it good that you shouldlike to eat it. If you could explain every action as you explain this action, when it is thus isolated, there would be no moral problem.
We may now safely open the door to the objections that have been pressing for admission. {45} The first to appear is an old friend among philosophers; but one whose reputation so far exceeds its merits that it must be submitted to vigilant examination. It is objected (I am sure that you have long wanted to say this) that your repast isgood for you, good from your point of view, but not on that accountreally good. These are the terms with which it is customary to confound any serious judgment of truth; and they acquire a peculiar force here because we seem to have invited their application. We have agreed that your action is good in that it suits your interest, and thus seem to have defined its goodness as relative to you. Now, if we are to avoid a confusion of mind that would terminate our investigation here and now, we must bring to light a latent ambiguity.
We have, it is true, discovered goodness to be a phase of a process called "interest," which is qualified further, through the use of a personal pronoun. The nature of goodness, in other words, is such as to involve certain specificrelations, here involving a person or subject. Goodness is not peculiar in this respect; for there are very few things in this world that do not involve specific relations. This is the case, for example, with planets, levers, and brothers. There is no planet without its sun, no lever without its fulcrum, no brother who is not somebody's brother.
{46}
But the relationship in the case of goodness is supposed to be a more serious matter; sufficiently serious to discredit the meaning of goodness, or make all judgments concerning goodness merely expressions of bias. The supposition is due to the confusion of a relativity in thesubject-matterof the judgment, with a relativity of the judgment itself to the individual that gives utterance to it. Thus the judgment, "You like apples," deals with your interest and the objects relating to it; but the judgment itself is not therefore biassed. It is no more an expression of your opinion than it is of mine; it is a formulation of what occurs in the field of experience open to all observers. A judgmentconcerningonly you, is utterly different from a judgmentrepresentingonly you. The latter, if there were such a thing, would be ungrounded, and would justify the sceptic's suspicions. The confusion is possible here simply because the subject-matter of the judgment in question is itself a judgment. It could scarcely arise in the parallel cases. The lever cannot be defined except in relation to its fulcrum. This may be loosely generalized and made to read: judgments concerning a lever are relative to a fulcrum. It might even be said that a lever is a lever only from the point of view of its own fulcrum. But the most unscrupulous quibbler would scarcely offer this as evidence against {47} the objective validity of our knowledge of levers. Your brother is necessarily related to you; but the proposition defining the relationship is not on that account relative, that is, peculiarly yours or any one else's. Fraternity is a complex involving a personal connection, but is none the less entirely objective. And precisely the same thing is true of goodness. To observe it adequately one must bring into view that complex object called an interest, which may be yours or his or mine; but it will be brought none the less into our common view, and observed as any other object may be observed. Because goodness is inherent in a process involving instincts, desires, or persons, it is not one whit less valid or objective than it would be if it involved the sun or the first law of motion.
Let us now turn to a much more fruitful objection. Suppose it be objected that your action, though good when thus artificially isolated, will in the concrete case have to be considered more broadly before any final judgment can be pronounced on it. To this objection I fully assent. It implies that although we have fully defined a hypothetical case of goodness, we have so far simplified the conditions as to make our conclusions inadequate to moral experience. Accepting this qualification, it is now in order to complicate the situation; but retaining our analysis {48} of the elementary process, and employing terms in the meaning derived therefrom.
Let us suppose that the apple which you enjoy eating, is my apple, and that I delight in keeping it for my own uses. Such being the case, we fall to wrangling over it, and your appetite is like to go unappeased. I now have evidence to show you that your act of violent appropriation does not conduce to your interest. This is simply an experimental and empirical fact. I am in a position to show you that the character of your action is other than you supposed, that you were under a misapprehension as to its goodness. It leads not to the enjoyable activity which interests you, but to a series of bodily exertions and a state of unfulfilled longing in which you have no interest at all. Indeed your action is a hinderance to your interest; in other words, is bad.
But I proceed to point out to you the further fact that, if you will buy the apple and thus conciliate me, you may get rid of my interference and proceed with your activity. Your purchase is now justified in precisely the same manner as your original seizure of the object. If you are asked why you do it, you may still reply, "Because I like apples."
Now, it would accord with the customary use of terms to call such action on your partprudence; and prudence is commonly regarded as a virtue {49} or moral principle. But in prudence the meaning of morality is as yet only partially realized; it is morality upon a relatively low level. Hence it is desirable to avoid reading too much into it.
On the one hand, prudence does involve the checking of one interest in consequence of the presence of another. You have noted my interest, acknowledged it as having its own claims, and made room for it. Therein your action differs signally from your dealings with your mechanical environment. And it is this contact and adjustment of interests, this practical recognition of the fact that the success of one interest requires that other interests be respected, and dealt with in a special manner appropriate to them as interests, that marks the procedure as moral. On the other hand, while you have acknowledged my interest, you have notadoptedit. You have concerned yourself with my love of property only in so far as it affected your fondness for apples. In order to appeal to you I have had to appeal to this, as yet your only interest. The moral value of your action lies wholly in its conduciveness to this interest, because it is controlled wholly by it. You are as yet only a complex acting consistently in such wise as to continue an eating of apples. This formula is entirely sufficient as a summary of your conduct, even after you have learned to respect my property. And therein lies {50} itsmerelyprudential character. In prudence thus strictly and abstractly regarded, there is no preference, no subordination of motives. Action is controlled by an exclusive and insistent desire, which limits itself only with a view to effectiveness.
It would appear, then, that if I am to justify those types of action which are regarded as more completely moral,I must persuade you to adopt interests that at any given instant do not move you. I must persuade you to forego your present inclination for the sake of another; to judge between interests, and prefer that which on grounds that you cannot reasonably deny is the more valid. In other words, I must define a logical transition from prudence topreference, ormoral purpose.
Let us suppose that, in spite of your liking, apples do not "agree with" you. It is, for example, pertinent to remark that if you eat the apple to-day you cannot go to the play to-morrow. Our parley proceeds as follows:
"Just now I am eating apples. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
"But you acknowledge your fondness for the theatre."
"Yes, but that doesn't interest me now."
"Nevertheless you recognize the interest in {51} play-going as a real one, dormant to-day, temporarily eclipsed by another interest, but certain to revive to-morrow?"
"I do."
"And you admit that, apart from the chance of your death in the meantime, a chance so small as to be negligible, an interest to-morrow is as real as an interest to-day?"
"Yes."
"Now, recognizing these two interests, and keeping them firmly in view, observe the consequences of your action if you persist in eating the apple, and pronounce judgment upon it."
"It would seem to be both good and bad; good in its conduciveness to the satisfaction of my present appetite, bad in its preventing my enjoyment of the play."
In your last reply you have fairly stated the problem. You are not permitted to escape the dilemma by simply neglecting the facts, for this would be contrary to the original agreement binding you to be and remain open-minded. And you are now as concerned as I to solve the problem by defining a reorganization of the situation that would permit of an action unequivocally good, that is altogether conducive to the fulfilment of interest.
To understand what would constitute a solution of this moral problem it is important to observe, {52} in the first place, that an actionwholly conducive to both interestswould take precedence of an action which fulfilled the one but sacrificed the other. Were it possible for you to eat the apple now and go to the play to-morrow, your rational course would be to allow your present impulse free play. You would thus be alive to the total situation; your action would in reality be regulated by both interests, or rather by a larger interest embracing and providing for both. An action thus controlled would have a more adequate justification than an action conceived with reference to the one interest exclusively, and merely happening to be favorable to the other interest also. Or suppose that, by substituting a different species of apple for the one first selected, you could avoid disagreeable consequences, and without loss of immediate gratification. In this case you would have corrected your original action and adopted a course that proved itself better, because conducive to the fulfilment of to-morrow's interest as well as to-day's.
We have thus arrived at a very important conception, that of a higher interest possessing a certain priority in its claims. The higher interest as I have defined it is simply the greater interest, and greater in the sense that it exceeds a narrower interest through embracing it and adding to it. Your interest in the fulfilment of {53} to-day's interestandto-morrow's, is demonstrably greater than your interest in the fulfilment of either exclusively, because it provides for each and more. In this perfectly definite sense your preference may be justified.
Let us now apply this principle of preference to the more complex case in which there is no available action which will fulfil both interests. Suppose that you cannot both eat apples to-day and go to the play to-morrow. How is one to define a good action in the premises? In the first place the good act originally conceived in terms of the free play of the present impulse is proved to be illusory. There is no good act until your interests are reorganized. In other words, the higher interest, which is entitled to preference, requires some modification of the participating interests. But the higher interest owes its title to its liberality or comprehensiveness. Hence it must representthe maximum fulfilment of both interests which the conditions allow. Such a controlling interest may require you altogether to forego the present indulgence, or it may merely require that it be severely limited. In any case, the controlling interest willrepresentboth interests, modified, postponed, or suppressed, as is necessary for their maximum joint fulfilment. The higher interest which thus replaces the original interest, and which is entitled to do so only {54} because it incorporates them, I propose to callmoral purpose.
There are two highly important principles which we have been brought to recognize through this analysis of preference, and it will be worth our while briefly to resume them.
In the first place, no interest is entitled to your exclusive regard merely because it happens at any given time to be moving you. I shall call this the principle of the objective validity of interests. I mean simply that an interest is none the less an interest because it does not coincide with an individual's momentary inclination. In reminding you of an interest overlooked, I have not sought to justify it by subsuming it under your present interest. I have not tried to prove that it is to your interest as an epicure that you should go to the play. I have simply pointed out the other interest, and allowed it to stand on its merits. In ethical theories of a certain type, and in much impromptu moralizing, it is assumed that there is no legitimate appeal except in behalf of interests that are at the instant already alive. This is as absurd as to suppose that in order to bring you to the truth in any purely theoretical matter, I must confine myself to evidence that you already recognize. In both cases your individual experience at any given time may be narrow and limited owing to causes that are in the highest {55} degree arbitrary. It may be advisable that I should solicit your attention by connecting what I have to offer with what is already familiar to you; but this is a psychological expedient. My appeal is logically supported by objects, by principles, by data which are in no wise dependent for their claims on their connection with your present stock in trade.
Chesterton refers to one who "had that rational and deliberate preference which will always to the end trouble the peace of the world, the rational and deliberate preference for a short life and a merry one." [7] I cannot regard such hedonistic opportunism as other than wantonness or wilful carelessness. It may be deliberate in the sense of being consciously persisted in, but I cannot find any rationality in it. It arises naturally enough through the greater vividness of the interests that are already adopted and proved; but all prejudices arise from such accidents, and they are none the less on that account absolutely antagonistic to the rational attitude—that willingness that things should be for me even as they are.
In the second place, it has appeared that there is no demonstrable priority of one simple interest over another differing only qualitatively from it. I propose to call this the principle ofthe quantitative basis of preference. I know that the term quantity has an ugly sound in this context. {56} But I believe that this is due simply to a false abstraction. Two good books are not better than one because two is better than one, but because in two of a given unit of goodness there is more of goodness than in one. Two is more than one, but not more good, unless that which is counted is itself good. Nor is two longer or heavier than one, unless the units numbered happen to be those of length or weight. To prefer two interests to one does not imply that one is a lover of quantity, but a lover of good; of that which if it be and remain good, the more the better.
At any rate it seems to me a matter of simple candor to admit that "more" is a term implying quantity, whether it be "more room," "more weight," "more goodness," or "more beauty." It seems to me to be equally evident that "more" implies commensurable magnitude; and that commensurability implies the existence of a common unit in the terms compared. Two inches are more than one inch in that they include one inch and also another like unit. Now in moral matters the unit of value is the fulfilment of the simple interest; and in consequence I see no way of demonstrating that one such simple interest is more good than another, as I see no way of demonstrating that one inch is longer than another. But I do see that if I can carry a simple interest over into a compound one, and there both {57} retain it and add to it, I shall have more—more by what I add. Such comparison is never a simple matter, perhaps in any concrete case never wholly conclusive. But I can conceive no more important and more clarifying declaration of principle. It means that any rational decision as to the precedence of social ideals, or as to historical progress from good to better, must be based on width of representation and weight of incentive.
If what I have said thus far has proved convincing to you, this may be owing to the fact that you have not been called upon to adopt any interest beyond what are conventionally regarded as your own. In moral matters it is customary to attach a certain finality to personal pronouns. But there are no terms in common use which have so rough and loose a meaning, which cover so equivocal and confused an experience; albeit the necessity and frequency of their use has made them standard currency and polished them into a sort of deceptive smoothness to the touch. There is no term so altogether handy as the term "I," nor is there any so embarrassed when called on to show its credentials in the shape of clear and verifiable experience. If, then, you stand uponyourinterests I shall not be convinced, for I shall {58} not know what you mean. There is no sense in which you are a finished and demonstrable fact. My dealings with you, and this is peculiarly true of my rational dealings with you, cannot be tested byyouin any absolute or fixed sense, simply because they maymakeyou, as they may make me.
Let us return to our test case. You are the epicure, and I am the proprietor; you seize my apple, and I protest. But now I no longer appeal to you merely as one who enjoys eating apples, and warn you that you are selecting the wrong means of attaining that end. I simply inform you that the apple is my property, and that I desire to retain it. I appeal to you to respect my wishes, at least to the extent of non-interference. If you reply that this is no interest that you acknowledge, then I am in a position to inform you. For on no ground can you attach finality to the set of interests which at any given time you choose to acknowledge. If I may remind you of a forgotten interest, I may inform you of a new interest. In the one case, you acknowledge that there is such an interest in that you anticipate its revival, and realize that its mere absence is no proof of its non-existence. You recognize it as having its roots in your organism, and its opportunity for exercise in certain definable and predictable circumstances. This is what you mean when you acknowledge thatyou will desireto go to the play {59} to-morrow. But the evidence of the existence of still another interest, in this case mine, is no less convincing. Like your own latent interest, it does not at the instant move you. But it has the specific character of an interest, and its place in the existent world through its relation to my organism. Recognizing it as an interest, you cannot in the given case fail to observe that it qualifies your action as good or bad, through being affected by it. If your action fulfils your interest and thwarts mine, it is again mixed, both good and bad. In order to define the good act in the premises it is necessary, as in the previous case, to define a purpose which shall embrace both interests and regulate action with a view to their joint fulfilment.
It is customary to argue this principle of impartiality, according to which the merely personal consideration is declared to be irrelevant to the determination of moral value, by a critique ofegoism. Thereductio ad absurdumof egoism has recently been formulated by G. E. Moore in as thorough and conclusive a manner as could be desired.[8] That writer analyzes egoism into a series of propositions all of which are equivocal, false, or, so far as true, non-egoistic in their meaning. I shall reduce Moore's propositions to two, and modify them to suit my own conception of goodness.
{60}
As an egoist you may, in the first place, affirm thatthere are no interests but yours. This proposition, however, is manifestly false. Accept any definition of an interest or desire that you will, and I can find indefinitely many cases answering your definition and falling outside the class of those which you claim as your own. None of these, if it conforms fully to your definition, is any the less an interest or desire than the one that happens to be moving you at the instant. There would be as good ground for saying that your brother was the only brother, or your book the only book. Even if you abate the rigor of the proposition, you cannot escape its essential falsity. If you affirm that there are no interests but the interests ofeach, or thateachman's interests are the only interests, you flatly contradict yourself. If you affirm that your interests are of superior importance, that they are exceptional, peculiar, entitled to pre-eminence—this is virtually equivalent to your original proposition. The respect in which your interests seem different from all others either enters into your definition of interest, in which case it becomes general; or it is some adventitious circumstance that does not belong to your interests as such, some accident of proximity which may have psychological or instrumental importance, but cannot rightly affect your judgment of good. For goodness lies in {61} the objective bearing of your action on such things as interests; precisely as the diagonal is a line connecting the vertices of opposite angles in a square, independently of all circumstances that do not affect the generic character of the square.
In the second place, you may affirm thatfor you there are no interests but your own. But this is an equivocal proposition. It may mean thatin your opinionthere are none, in which case you admit the probable falsity of your judgment through contrasting it with the consensus of opinion; through attributing it to your narrowness and false perspective. Your offering it as your opinion gives the proposition at best a tentative form; the question of its truth remains to be adjudicated. I need only present other interests answering your description of an interest to prove you mistaken. And if you were to generalize your proposition and say that each man thinks his own interests the only interests, you would be doubly wrong, in that the generalization would be unwarranted, and the opinion imputed to each man false.
Or, your claim that for you there are no interests but your own, might be taken to mean that in some sense you must confine your endeavors to the fulfilment of your own interests. Otherwise, you may argue, the practical situation would {62} reach a dead-lock, a state of hopeless confusion in which each individual neglected his own proper affairs for the sake of those he had neither the means nor the competence to serve. Now this is indisputably true, but it is not egoism. The judgment that each individual must labor where he may do so most effectively, that he must assume not only a general responsibility for all interests affected by his action, but also a special responsibility for those with whose direct execution he is charged, is an impartial judgment. It expresses a broad and intelligent view of the total situation. In the fable of the fox and the grapes, the action of the fox is due to the folly of a too fluent attention. Similarly, he who lets go his present hold of the web of interests simply because his eye happens to alight on another vantage-point, is as much the blind slave of novelty as the self-centred man is of familiarity. In both cases the fault is one of narrowness of range, of arbitrary exclusion.
Egoists, then, are guilty of a kind of stupid provinciality. They are like those closet-philosophers whom Locke describes.
The truth is, they canton out to themselves a little Goshen in the intellectual world, where light shines and as they conclude, day blesses them; but the rest of that vast expansum they give up to night and darkness, and so avoid coming near it. They have a pretty traffic with known correspondents, in some little {63} creek; within that they confine themselves, and are dexterous managers enough of the wares and products of that corner with which they content themselves, but will not venture out into the great ocean of knowledge, to survey the riches that nature hath stored other parts with, no less genuine, no less solid, no less useful than what has fallen to their lot, in the admired plenty and sufficiency of their own little spot, which to them contains whatsoever is good in the universe.[9]
The impartial or judicial estimate of value is properly recognized as essential to the meaning ofjustice. I do not here refer to justice in the more narrow and familiar sense. Retributive justice, or justice in any of its special legal aspects, is a political rather than an ethical matter.[10] But political justice must be based on ethical justice. And to the definition of this fundamental principle some contribution has now been made. There is a parody of justice, a justice of condescension, that the principles already defined do discredit. For it has sometimes been thought that justice required only a deliberate estimate of interests by those best qualified to judge, as though the settlement of moral issues were a matter of connoisseurship. The viciousness of this conception lies in the fact that qualitatively regarded there is no superiority or inferiority among interests. The relish of caviare is no better, no worse, than the relish of bread. Preference among interests must be based on their difference {64} of representation, or their difference of compatibility. A wide and safe interest is better than a narrow and mischievous interest, better for its liberality. It follows that no interest can be condemned except upon grounds that recognize its claims, and aim so far as possible to provide for it among the rest. No interest can rationally be rejected as having no value, but only as involving too great a cost.
But though these considerations are sufficient to expose moral snobbery, they do not fully define justice. For justice imputes a certain inviolability to the claims of that unit of life which we term loosely a human, personal, moral, free, or rational being. There is some sense in which you are a finality; making it improper for me simply to dispose of you, even if it be my sincere intention to promote thereby the well-being of humanity. You are not merely one interest among the rest, to be counted, adjusted, or suppressed by some court of moral appraisement. I think I may safely assume that there is to-day an established conscience supporting Kant's dictum, "So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only." [11]
Let me state briefly what appears to me to be the proper basis of this judgment. I have said that I am not entitled simply to suppress your {65} action as may be approved by my own judgment. Now, did I propose to do so, what justification should I offer? I should present, no doubt, the facts in the case. I should show you the incompatibility of your presently adopted course with the general good. But let us suppose that you defend your action on the same grounds. In that case your endorsement of your action has precisely the same formal justification as my condemnation of it. Our equality lies in the fact that we are both claiming candidly to represent the truth. In the last analysis our equality is based on the identity of the objective content to which we appeal. As witnesses of a specific truth within the range of both, the meanest mortal alive and the omniscient intelligence are equal; and simply because the identical truth is as valid in the mouth of one as in the mouth of the other. Where it is a matter of disagreement between you and me, our equality lies in the fact that neither can do more than appeal to the object. Neither has any authority; thereisno authority in matters of truth, but only evidence. The only rational solution of disagreement is agreement; that is, the coalescence of opinions in the common object to which they refer and toward which they converge. The method of approximating agreement is discussion; which is the attempt of each of two knowers to avail himself of all the organs {66} and instruments of knowledge possessed by the other. Discussion involves mutual respect, in which each party acknowledges the finality of the other as a vehicle of truth. This, I believe, is that moral equality, that dignity and ultimate responsibility attaching to all rational beings alike, without which justice cannot be fulfilled.
Justice, then, embraces these two ideas. In the first place, in estimating the goodness or evil of action, merely personal or party connections must not be admitted in evidence. In the second place, the deliberate judgment of any rationally minded individual is entitled to respect as a source of truth. Conflict must in the last analysis be overcome by the congruence of impartial minds. Hence the justification of reciprocal respect among persons who think honestly; and of a public forum to which all shall have access, and where business shall be transacted under the vigilant eye of him who is most concerned. A candid mind is the last court of jurisdiction. So long as the procedure of society is questioned or resented by one honest conscience, it is lacking in complete verification, and its findings are open to doubt.
{67}
Enough has already been said to show that the goodness of action must be determined with reference to nothing less than the totality of all affected interests. For this highest principle I have reserved the honored term,good-will. Neither you nor I can reasonably decline to consider the bearing of our actions on any interest whatsoever. Right conduct, since it is inconsistent with the least ruthlessness, must inevitably in the end assume the form of humanity and piety.
I know that it is not customary to suppose that devotion to the service of mankind is rational; it is taken to be gratuitous, if not quixotic. But once let it be granted that goodness accrues to action in proportion to its fruitfulness, it follows that that action is most blessed that is dedicated without reservation to the general life. There is only one course which can recommend itself to that fair and open mind to which I conceive myself to be addressing this appeal: namely, so to act in fulfilment of the interest in hand, as either to promote or make room for all other interests.
And this is true not only of such interests as may be assumed to exist, as constitute one's present neighborhood, near and remote; it is also true of interests that are as yet only potentialities, defined by the capacity of living things {68} to grow. If it be unreasonable to neglect the bearing of one's action on interests which one happens not to be familiar with, it is unreasonable to neglect its bearing on interests not yet asserted, wherever there is a presumption that such may come to be. In other words, one's moral account cannot be made up without a provision for entries that have yet to be made. Such a provision will take the form of a purpose to grow, an ardent spirit of liberality, an eagerness for novelty. Good-will builds better than it knows; it is open toward the future; committed to a task which requires foresight and also faith. But such devotion, with all its extravagance, with its very reverence for what is not known but must nevertheless be accounted best, is only, after all, the part of fearless good sense. If anything be good, and if it be reasonable to pursue it, then is the maximum of that thing thebest, and the pursuit of itwhollyreasonable.
It may even be said that thrift is only a lesser form of piety, and piety the whole of thrift. For, first and last, goodness lies in the saving and increase of life. The justification of any act lies in its being provident; in its yield of immediate fulfilment and its generous allowance for the other interest, the remote interest, and the interest that is as yet only surmised. The good will is the will to participate productively, permissively, {69} and formally in the total undertaking of life. Only when this intention controls one's decisions can one act without fear of one's own critical reflection.
Let me add a word concerning the part played by the imagination in enforcing the logic of morality. An enlightened conscience, or a rational conviction of duty, will consist essentially in the viewing of life with a certain remove from its local incidents. In conduct, as in all matters where validity or truth is concerned, the critical consciousness must disengage itself and view the course of things in its due proportions, allowing one's dearest interests to lie where they lie among the rest. I have read so admirable a representation of the moral function of the logical imagination in a recent paper by H. G. Lord, that I beg leave to quote it here in full:
As between one's self and another "the image of an impartial outsider who acts as our judge" is none other than this rational insight into the relation existing between two who are cognitively to each other just this and not anything else. It is the vision of the actual reciprocity of the two. From this comes the Golden Rule in its various forms: "Love thy neighbor as thyself," "Do unto others as ye would be done by," "Put yourself in his place." But, furthermore, even this simpler justice necessitates the power not only to "see yourself as others see {70} you," but even more adequately, and as we say more justly, to put yourself where you belong in a system of many, in which you not only count for one and no more than one, but in which you count for just that sort of one, fulfilling just that sort of function which your place in the rationally conceived system involves or necessitates. And this gives us a form of justice much more profound and complex than that of the Golden Rule, and requiring constructive imagination and rational insight of the very highest order. And with this insight goes necessarily an inevitableness, an inexorableness, and, as we say metaphorically, an imperativeness, which no amount of twisting and intellectual thimble-rigging can avoid. The logic of the system cannot be avoided any more than a step in a mathematical demonstration. . . . So long as it stands, its parts, elements, or members areplaced, and there is set over each of them the imperative of the system in which they are members.[12]
It has sometimes been thought that a fair view of life will inhibit action through discrediting party zeal. John Davidson describes what he calls "the apathy of intelligence."
To be strong to the end, it is necessary to shut many windows, to be deaf on either side of the head at will, to fetter the mind. . . . The perfect intelligence cannot fight, cannot compete. Intelligence, fully awake, is doomed to understand, and can no more take part in the disputes of men than in the disputes of other male creatures.[13]
Now it is true that intelligence inhibits wantonness; for intelligence, fully awake, knows how unreasonable it is that one who loves life should {71} destroy it. But because intelligence affirms the motive of each combatant, it must move action to the saving of both. Where intelligence is directed to the inner impulse of life, it is not apathetic, but sympathetic. Its span is widened, while its incentive is not divided but multiplied.
Nor does it follow that when duty is interpreted as enlightenment, life must lose its romantic flavor and cease to require the old high-spirited virtues. It is this very linking of life to life, this abandonment of one's self to the prodigious of the whole, that provides the true object of reverence, and permits the sense of mystery to remain even after the light has come. Although the way of morality is evident and well-proved in direction, being plain to whomever will look at life with a fair and commanding eye, achievement is difficult, the great victories hard won, and the certain prospect bounded by a near horizon. Even though life be rationalized, it will none the less call for intrepid faith; for what Maeterlinck calls "the heroic, cloud-tipped, indefatigable energy of our conscience." [14]
{72}
We have thus far dealt with the general content of morality, and with its logical grounds. Morality is only life where life is organized and confident, the struggle for mere existence being replaced with the prospect of a progressive and limitless attainment. The good is fulfilled desire; the moral good the fulfilment of a universal economy, embracing all desires, actual and possible, and providing for them as liberally as their mutual relations permit. The moral good is simply the greatest possible good, where good in the broad generic sense means any object of interest whatsoever, anything proved worth the seeking from the fact that some unit of life actually seeks it. Whatever is prized is on that account precious.
The logic of morality rests on this objective relation between interest and value. The maximum good has the greatest weight, its claims are entitled to priority, because it surpasses any limited good in incentive and promise of fulfilment. Duty in this logical sense is simply to {73} control of particular actions by a full recognition of their consequences.
In the present chapter the attention is shifted from the whole to the parts of morality. I am not one of those who stake much on the casuistical application of ethical principles. Every particular action virtually involves considerations of enormous complexity; and the individual must be mainly guided by general rules of conduct or virtues, which are proved by the cumulative experience of the race. Life itself is the only adequate experiment in living. Virtues are properly verified only in the history of society, in the development of institutions, and in the evidences of progress in civilization at large. I shall confine myself, then, to such verified virtues, and seek to show their relation to morality as a whole.[1]
Virtues vary in generality according to the degree to which they refer to special circumstance; and, since there is no limit to the variety of circumstance, there is, strictly speaking, no final and comprehensive order of virtues. The term may be applied with equal propriety to types of action as universal as justice and as particular as conjugal fidelity. We shall find it necessary to confine ourselves to the more general and fundamental virtues.
I have adopted a method of classification to which I attach no absolute importance, but which {74} will, I trust, serve to amplify and illuminate the fundamental conceptions which I have already formulated. I shall aim, in the first place, to make explicit a distinction which has hitherto been obscured. I refer to the difference between thematerialand theformalaspects of morality. On the one hand, action is always engaged in the fulfilment of an immediate interest; this constitutes its material goodness. On the other hand, every moral action is limited or regulated by the provision which it makes for ulterior interests; this constitutes its formal goodness. Let me make this difference more clear.
A particular action is invariably connected with a particular interest; and in so far as it is successful it will thus be directly fruitful of fulfilment. And it matters not how broad a purpose constitutes its ultimate motive; for purposes can be served only through a variety of activities, each of which will have its proximate interest and its own continuous yield of satisfaction. Life pays as it goes, even though it goes to the length of serving humanity at large, and the larger enterprises owe their very justification to this additive and cumulative principle.
But if action is to be moral it must always look beyond the present satisfaction. It must submit to such checks as are necessary for the realization of a greater good. Indeed, action is not wholly {75} good until it is controlled with reference to the fulfilment of the totality of interests.
It follows, then, that every action may be judged in two respects: first, in respect of its immediate return of fulfilment; second, in respect of its bearing on all residual interests. Every good action will be both profitable and safe; both self-sustaining and also serviceable to the whole.
The necessity of determining the relative weight which is to be given to these two considerations accounts for the peculiar delicacy of the art of life, since it makes almost inevitable either the one or the other of two opposite errors of exaggeration. Theundue assertion of the present-interestconstitutes materialism, in the moral sense. Materialism is a forfeiture of greater good through preoccupation with nearer good. It appears in an individual's neglect of his fellow's interest, in his too easy satisfaction with good already attained, in short-sighted policy on any scale. Formalism, on the other hand, signifies theimprovident exaggeration of ulterior motives. It is due to a misapprehension concerning the relation between higher and lower interests. I have sought to make it clear that higher interests owe their eminence, not to any intrinsic quality of their own, but to the fact that they save and promote lower interests. Formalism is the {76} rejection of lower interests in the name of some good that without these interests is nothing.
The conflict between the material and formal motives in life is present in every moral crisis, and qualifies the meaning of every moral idea. It may even provoke a social revolution, as in the case of the Puritan revolution in England. The Puritan is still the symbol of moral rigor and sobriety, as the Cavalier is the symbol of the love of life. The full meaning of morality tends constantly to be confused through identifying it exclusively with the one or the other of these motives. Thus morality has come, on the whole, to be associated with constraint and discipline, in both a favorable and a disparaging sense. This has led to its being rejected as a falsification of life by those who insist that every good thing is free and fair and pleasant. And, even among those who recognize the vital necessity of discipline, morality is so narrowed to that component, that it commonly suggests only those scruples and inhibitions which destroy the spontaneity and whole-heartedness of every activity.
That morality should tend to be identified with its formal rather than its material aspect is not strange; for it is the formal motive which is critical and corrective, substituting a conscious reconstruction of interests for their initial movement. It is this fact which gives to duty that {77} sense of compulsion which is so invariably associated with it. Duty is opposed to the line of least resistance, whenever life is dominated by any motive short of the absolute good-will. Thus among the Greeks,dikêis opposed tobia.[2] This means simply that because the principles of social organization are not as yet thoroughly assimilated, their adoption requires attention and effort. And a similar opposition may appear at either a higher or lower level, between the momentary impulse and the law of prudence, or between the habit of worldliness and the law of piety.
In connection with this broad difference between the material and formal aspects of life, it is interesting to observe a certain difference of leniency in the popular judgment. Materialism is more heartily condemned, because he who is guilty of it is not alive to the general good. He is morally unregenerate. Formalism, on the other hand, is good-hearted or well-intentioned. He who is guilty of it may be ridiculed as unpractical, or pitied for his misguided zeal; but society rarely offers to chastise him. For he has submitted to discipline, and if he is not the friend of man, it is not because of any profit that he has reserved for himself.
In the arrangement which follows I shall use this difference between the material and formal {78} aspects of morality to supplement the main principle of classification, which is that difference of level or range, of which I have already made some use in the previous chapter, and which I shall now define more precisely. In morality life is so organized as to provide for interests as liberally and comprehensively as possible. But the principles through which such organization is effected will differ in the degree to which they accomplish that end. Hence it is possible to define several economies or stages of organization which are successively more complete. Thesimple interest, first, is the isolated interest, pursued regardlessly of other interests; in other words, not as yet brought under the form of morality. Thereciprocity of interests, represents that rudimentary form of morality in which interests enter only into an external relation, through which they secure an exchange of benefits without abandoning their independence. In theincorporation of interests, elementary interests are unified through a purpose which subordinates and regulates them. Thefraternity of interests, is that organization in which the rational or personal unit of interest is recognized as final, and respected wherever it is met. But there must also be some last economy, in which provision is formally made for any interest whatsoever that may assert itself. This is the realm of {79} good-will, or, as I shall call it for the sake of symmetry, theuniversal system of interests. I shall so construe these economies as to make the broader or more inclusive comprehend the narrower.
Now each of these economies possesses its characteristic principle of organization, or typical mode of action; and this enables us to define five prime virtues:intelligence, prudence, purpose, justice,andgood-will. From each of these virtues there accrues to life a characteristic benefit: from intelligence,satisfaction; from prudence,health; from purpose,achievement; from justice,rational intercourse; and from good-will,religion. The absence of these virtues defines a group of negative vices:incapacity, imprudence, aimlessness, injustice,andirreverence. Finally, applying the distinction between formalism and materialism, we obtain two further series of vices; for, with two exceptions, it is possible in each economy either to exaggerate the principle of organization, and thus neglect the constituent interests which it is intended to organize; or to exaggerate the good attained, and thus neglect the wider spheres beyond. There will thus be a formalistic series of errors:asceticism, sentimentalism, anarchism, mysticism; and a materialistic series:overindulgence, sordidness, bigotryoregoism, worldliness. Since materialism is in each case due to the lack of the next higher {80} principle of organization, there is no real difference between the materialism of one economy and the negative vice of the next. But I have thought it worth while to retain both series, because they represent a difference of emphasis which it is customary to make. Thus there is no real difference between overindulgence and imprudence; but one refers to the excess, and the other to the deficiency, in an activity which is excessive in its fulfilment of a present interest, and deficient in its regard for ulterior interests.
I have thought it best for the purpose of clear presentation to tabulate these virtues and vices; and it proves convenient, also, to adopt a fixed nomenclature. It is unfortunate that the terms must be drawn from common speech; for it is impossible that the meaning assigned to them in the course of a methodical analysis like the present, should exactly coincide with that which they have acquired in their looser application to daily life. But I shall endeavor always to make plain the sense in which I use them; and, thus guarded, they will serve to mark out a series of special topics which it is important briefly to review.
{81}
Simple Intelli- Satis- Incapacity ——— Over-Interest gence faction indulgence
Recipro- Prudence Health Imprudence Ascet- Sordidnesscity of icismInterests
Incorpor- Purpose Achieve- Aimless- Sentiment- Bigotryation of ment ness alism EgoismInterests
Fraternity Justice Rational Injustice Anarchism Worldlinessof Inter-Interests course
Universal Good-Will Religion Irreverence Mysticism ———System ofInterests
{82}
We have already had occasion to remark that no moral value attaches to the successes and failures of the isolated orsimple interest. Thus it is customary not to apply judgments of approval or condemnation to the vicissitudes of animal life. So wholesale a generalization is undoubtedly false; but at any rate it is based on the supposition that the motive in animal life is always simple. And similarly, whenever human action is regarded only with reference to the impulse it immediately serves, it is judged to be successful or futile, but never right or wrong. These properties are reserved for such action as is controlled, or is capable of being controlled, with reference both to an immediate and also an ulterior interest. But since the difference between goodness in the wider generic sense and goodness in the moral sense is one of complexity, it is proper and illuminating to bring them into one orderly progression.
Theroot-value, then, of which all the higher moral values are compounded, is the fulfilment or satisfaction of the particular interest. This fundamental value is conditioned by a form of organization, which I propose in a restricted sense to term intelligence. I mean the capacity which every living interest must possess to {83} utilize the environment, to turn it to its own advantage. This is the distinguishing and essential capacity of life in every form. A plant can continue to exist, and a sculptor can model a statue, only through being so organized as to be able to assimilate what the environment offers. Whether it be called tropism or technique, it is all one. Intelligence in this sense may be said to be the elementary virtue, conditioning success on every plane of activity.
In using such terms as "satisfaction" and "success" interchangeably with so irreproachable a term as "fulfilment," I may, until my meaning is wholly clear, seem to degrade morality. But the tone of disparagement in these first two terms is due to their having acquired certain arbitrary associations. It is supposed that to be satisfied is to be complacent, and that to be successful is to be hard and worldly. Now, a narrow satisfaction and a blind success are morally evil; but satisfaction and success may be taken up into a life that is wholly wise and devoted. They will, in fact, constitute the real body of value in any practical enterprise, from the least to the greatest.
The absence of intelligence, which I shall termincapacity, is the one absolutely fatal defect from which life may suffer. Incapacity embraces maladaptation, dulness, feebleness, {84} sickness, and death. Like its opposite it does not enter into the moral account except in so far as it affects a group of interests, through being prejudicial to an individual's efficiency or a community's welfare; but it will impair and annul attainment upon any plane. The fault of incapacity attaches not only to life that is rudimentary or defective, but also to the mechanical processes which have not been assimilated to any interest and thus lie outside the realm of value. Incapacity in this sense is that metaphysical evil of which philosophers speak. It testifies to the fact that the cosmos is only partially subject to judgments either of good or of evil; that value has a genesis and a history within an environment that is at best plastic and progressively submissive.
In terms of intelligence and incapacity, the basal excellence and the basal fault, it is possible to define that whole affair of which morality is the constructive phase: the attempt of life to establish itself in the midst of primordial lifelessness, to avert dissolution and death, and to extend and amplify itself to the uttermost.
Within the economy of the simple interest there is no possibility of formalism, since there is no subordination of interest to anything higher than itself. But we meet here with materialism in its purest form.Overindulgenceis the fault {85} which attaches to the exclusive insistence of the isolated interest on itself; when it grows head-strong, and is like to defeat itself through being blindly preoccupied.
The evil of overindulgence arises from two natural causes. In the first place an interest is essentially self-perpetuating; in spite of periodic moments of satiety, an interest fulfilled is renewed and accelerated. Just in so far as it is clearly distinguished it possesses an impetus of its own, by which it tends to excess, until corrected by the protest of some other interest which it infringes. Overindulgence is most common where such consequences are delayed or obscured by artificial means; hence its prevalence among those who can afford for a time to dissipate their strength, or have some means of replenishing it. And imprudence is common where the penalty is insidious. The corruption entailed by gluttony, inebriety, and incontinence may be slow and doubtful, or apparently remitted in moments of recovery; but if one indulge himself in foolhardiness or violence, he is like to be repaid on the spot. Hence the latter forms of imprudence are more rare. To avoid imprudence, it is necessary to discount that aspect which the interest wears within the period of its immediate fulfilment, and thus avoid the necessity of repeating the hard and wasteful lesson of experience. This {86} truth, which is the first principle of all practical wisdom, has been graphically represented in Jeremy Taylor'sRules and Exercises of Holy Living:
Look upon pleasures not upon that side that is next the sun, or where they look beauteously, that is, as they come towards you to be enjoyed; for then they paint and smile, and dress themselves up in tinsel and glass gems and counterfeit imagery; but when thou hast rifled and discomposed them with enjoying their false beauties, and that they begin to go off, then behold them in their nakedness and weariness. See what a sigh and sorrow, what naked and unhandsome proportions and a filthy carcass they discover; and the next time they counterfeit, remember what you have already discovered, and be no more abused.[3]
There is a second source of overindulgence, in the ever-increasing complexity of the moral economy. The more numerous the interests; the more difficult the task of attending to their connections and managing their adjustment. Not only is the need of prudence never outgrown; it steadily acquires both a greater urgency and a greater difficulty.
If incapacity may be said to be the metaphysical evil, the taint of the cosmos at large, overindulgence may be said to be the original sin, the taint of life itself. It is life's offence against itself, the denial of greater life for the sake of the little in hand. It is the perennial failure of the {87} individual interest to unite itself with that universal enterprise of which it is the microcosmic image.
The simplestmoraleconomy is that in which two or more interests arereciprocally adjustedwithout being subordinated. The principle of organization which defines such an economy isprudence. Prudence becomes necessary at the moment when interests come into such contact with one another as provokes retaliation. Thus, for example, interests react on one another through being embodied in the same physical organism. Each bodily activity depends on the well-being of co-ordinate functions, and if its exercise be so immoderate as to injure these, it undermines itself.Moderationgains for special interests the support of a general bodily health.
But bodily health is not the only medium of interdependence among the interests of a single individual. His interests must draw not only upon a common source of vitality, but also upon a common stock of material resources. The limitation of interests that follows from this fact is frugality orthrift, the practical working of the principle that present waste is future lack, and that, therefore, to save now is to spend hereafter. Thrift involves also a special emphasis on {88} livelihood, since this is a source of supply for all particular interests.
The social relation makes interests externally interdependent in a great variety of ways. Interests must inhabit one space, exploit one physical environment, and employ a common mode of communication. If any interest so acts as unduly to divert one of these mediums to its own uses, it must suffer retaliation from the other interests that likewise depend on that medium. It is prudent to give even one's rival half the road, and to divide the spoils with him. There is a politic form ofhonesty; andveracitymay be conceived only as a kind of caution. Thus Menander says: "It is always best to speak the truth in all circumstances. This is a precept which contributes most to safety of life." [4]Tactis only a more refined method of avoiding the antagonism of interests that operate within the same field of social intercourse.
The economy of prudence has its own characteristic value. Indeed, if this were not so there would be no possibility of that form of baseness known as beingmerelyprudent. There is a prudential equilibrium; a condition of smooth and harmonious adjustment, within the personal life or the community. I propose that this equilibrium be termedhealth. In that admirable idealization of renaissance morality, Castiglione's {89}Book of the Courtier, the author refers to the immediate reward of self-control that comes both from inner harmony and the approbation of one's fellows. To instil goodness into the mind, "to teach continence, fortitude, justice, temperance," Castiglione would give his prince "a taste of how much sweetness is hidden by the little bitterness that at first sight appears to him, who withstands vice; which is always hurtful and displeasing, and accompanied by infamy and blame, just as virtue is profitable, blithe, and full of praise." [5]
Socially, the healthful equilibrium corresponds to that "peace" which Hobbes praised above all things;[6] and which is all that is asked for by those who wish to be let alone in order that they may pursue their own affairs. Although such peace may be ignominious, it need not be so; and a sense of security and reciprocal adjustment must remain among the surviving values, whatever higher achievements be added to it. But the inherent value of health is most clearly defined by a nice equilibration of activities within the medium of the individual organism. I borrow the following description of health in this sense from a recent book by H. G. Wells:
The balance as between asceticism and sensuality comes in, it seems to me, if we remember that to drink well one must not have drunken for some time, {90} that to see well one's eye must be clear, that to make love well one must be fit and gracious and sweet and disciplined from top to toe, that the finest sense of all—the joyous sense of bodily well-being—comes only with exercises and restraints and fine living.[7]
The temperance praised by the Greeks is of like quality, with a further reference to the reasonableness which it fosters. A prudence which is mastered, which has become a spontaneity, delivers reason from bondage, and makes the whole of life easily conformable to it. Thus Castiglione, who is so often reminiscent of Plato and Aristotle, draws a contrast between continence, as the "conquest" of prudence, and temperance as its "beneficent rule."
Thus this virtue does not compel the mind, but infusing it by very gentle means with a vehement belief that inclines it to righteousness, renders it calm and full of rest, in all things equal and well measured, and disposed on every side by a certain self-accord which adorns it with a tranquillity so serene that it is never ruffled, and becomes in all things very obedient to reason and ready to turn its every act thereto and to follow wherever reason may wish to lead it, without the least unwillingness.[8]
Such is that prudence which, though rich in its own right, is nevertheless subordinate to greater good.
It is proper to regard prudence as inferior in principle to purpose and good-will, or even as ignoble when confirmed in its narrowness. It {91} denotes an organization of life in which as yet no interest has risen above the rest; it bespeaks the common populace of interests, disciplined, but not moved to any eminent achievement. The fact that the validity of the principle of prudence is so readily granted is significant of this. Prudence requires no interest to be other than itself, but meets it on its own ground. There is no elevation of motive.
But prudence is the first and most instructive lesson in morality. It has a peculiar impressiveness, not only because it is so promptly and unmistakably verified, but because it is so close to life. Its meaning is unlikely to be obscured through being abstracted from the real interests whose saving is the proof of its virtue. Furthermore, although prudence is not the highest principle in life, it is a mistake to suppose that it is therefore unnecessary in the highest spheres of life. There is a problem of prudence that underlies every practical problem whatsoever. If interests are to be organized they must be not only subordinated but also co-ordinated, that is, adjusted within every medium in which they meet. Without moderation, caution, self-control, thrift, and tact there is no serving man or God. As life increases in complexity it is easy to forget these basal precepts. Nature has provided a model, both simple and fundamental, in physical health. {92} "The body," says Burke, "is wiser in its own plain way, and attends its own business more directly than the mind with all its boasted subtilty." [9]
The prudential organization of life furnishes the first type offormalism. Prudence requires that the interest shall be limited in order that it may not antagonize other interests and thus indirectly defeat itself. Discipline is justified, in other words, by its fruits. But discipline involves an initial moment of negation, in which the movement of the interest is resisted. It must be checked, and its headway overcome, if it is to be redirected. The exaggeration of this moment of negation, or a steady persistence in it, isasceticism. Its fault lies in its emptiness, in its destruction or perversion of that which it was designed only to protect against itself.
Asceticism appears most frequently as a subordinate motive in some general condemnation of the world on religious grounds, and must receive further consideration in that connection. Its proper meaning as a purely prudential formalism is best exhibited in the Greek Cynics. These philosophers were moved to mortify the flesh, and to deny their social interests, by extreme caution. They discovered that the safest method of adjustment was simplification. If one permits one's self no desires, one need not suffer {93} from their conflict, nor need one treat with the desires of others. Now this would be a very perfect solution of the problem of adjustment, if only there were something left to adjust. If a Cynic can attain to a state of renunciation in which he wants nothing, he will be sure of having what he wants; only, unfortunately, it will be nothing. Epictetus has thus represented the Cynic's boast:
Look at me, who am without a city, without a house, without possessions, without a slave; I sleep on the ground; I have no wife, no children, no praetorium, but only the earth and heavens, and one poor cloak. And what do I want? am I not without sorrow? Am I not without fear? Am I not free?