ON THE BASIS OF ETHICS.
The peculiarity of the conclusion we have reached is, that the theory
which is used to explain the nature of progress, seems unable to give
any canon or end for conduct which points out the way for progressive
advance. The view of human nature became unsatisfactory just at the
critical point--when we attempted to get at a knowledge of its end
or final cause, which would give unity and purpose to action. To say
that the end is increase of life or function appeared a merely formal
notion unless we defined life as pleasure, while pleasure itself
was found to be unintelligible except as performance of function.
This uncertainty seems to indicate a certain superficiality in the
ordinary empirical way of looking at evolution.[270]
[Sidenote: 1. Principles involved in the theory of evolution.]
The principles involved in the theory of evolution are, in brief,
as follows. In the first place, it shows that there is a tendency,
brought about by natural selection, for organisms to harmonise with
or become adapted to their environment--a tendency, that is to
say, towards unity of organism and environment, and, in so far as
external conditions are uniform, towards a general unity of life.
In the second place, the theory implies variation in organisms,
produced either by the unequal incidence of external forces, or by
the spontaneous action of the organism, or by both causes combined.
The mere increase in the number of living organisms leads to a
modification of the conditions of life by which new variations are
encouraged. And this tendency to variation in organisms--not merely
the diversity of external environment--is perpetually complicating
the conditions which the former tendency, that towards unity, helps
to bring into harmony. It thus happens that there is, in the third
place, a continual process of readjustment and oscillation between
the tendency towards unity and that towards variety, which, through
opposition and conciliation, produces continuity in nature. Each
newly formed unity between organism and environment is broken by a
new variation of the organism or of the environment, which further
complicates the problem to be solved by the unifying process, and
gives scope for a more intricate and more comprehensive readjustment.
Unity, Variety, and Continuity are thus the three principles implied
in the theory of evolution.[271]
[Sidenote: 2. Unsuccessful application of these principles to ethics;]
It is from these principles that the attempt has been made to show
the ethical bearing of evolution. The first of them, Unity, is
represented in the theory that would make adaptation to environment
the end of conduct; and the second is represented ethically in
the doctrine suggested by Mr Spencer, that the degree of morality
depends on the degree of complexity in act and motive. But both of
these views are obviously one-sided, even from the point of view of
empirical evolution. Taken together, the principles on which they
depend make up that law of continuous and progressive advance which
may be regarded as expressing the essential characteristic of the
theory. And from this more general and accurate expression of it,
we might have expected to have been able to elicit the contribution
which evolution has to make to the determination of the ethical end.
But after examining the various forms which it may take, we have
been unable to obtain from it a principle of action.
[Sidenote: (_a_) the principles being treated as derived from
experience,]
In inquiring into the reason which has made the theory of evolution
seemingly so barren in its ethical consequences, the first point
which requires attention is that the characteristics of Unity,
Variety, and Continuity are treated by it not as principles involved
in development, but as theories inferred from, or superinduced upon,
the facts of development. We are led by facts to suppose certain
hypothetical laws--namely, that organisms tend to harmony with their
environment, but that there are certain causes promoting variation,
and, consequently, that the history of all life is that of a
continuous process towards more comprehensive uniformities, passing
always into more intricate variations. Additional facts are compared
with these hypothetical causes, and, by their ability to explain such
facts, the hypotheses are raised to the position of laws of nature,
and are confidently applied to account for new phenomena of the same
kind. But when we pass beyond facts lying immediately on the plane
of those from which our laws have been gathered, it is to follow an
insufficient analogy if we interpret them by theories only shown to
belong to the former order. And this becomes still more obvious when
the change is not merely to a different order of facts, but to a
different way of looking at facts, as is the case in the transition
from the point of view of knowledge to that of action.
[Sidenote: not as depending on a principle implied in experience;]
But there is another way in which the principles of Unity,
Variety, and Continuity may be regarded. Instead of being simply
generalisations gathered from experience and depending upon it,
they may be founded on a principle which is itself the basis of the
possibility of experience. Of course, no one would think of denying
that it is to the accumulated mass of experienced facts that these
laws owe their prominence in modern scientific opinion, and their
acceptance by the judgment of the best scientists. But the process by
which a man has been led to lay hold of such principles is one thing;
their logical position in relation to experience quite another. Our
definite recognition of the laws may very well be the result of
experience, at the same time that the principle of Continuity is
presupposed in our having experience at all. As long as we kept to
the ground from which we started, and did not attempt to get beyond
the categories of causality and reciprocity, our progress might
seem to be easy enough. Although their logical relations may be
misconceived, the laws are, of course, actually there, in experience:
their application to the successive phenomena of nature remains the
same, and may be duly apprehended. The extension of facts into laws
is explained by the scientific imagination, and we do not stay to
inquire into the conditions on which the scientific imagination
works and has applicability to experience. But, when we try to
pass from efficient cause to the notion of purpose or of morality,
we find ourselves driven back on the fundamental constitution of
knowledge, and see that it is only through the unifying and relating
action of a self-conscious subject that knowledge is possible or
things exist for us at all. And this is the reason why we are able
to say that the Unity or Continuity of nature is a principle or law
of experience.[272] Were that principle not involved in knowledge,
there would be no world of nature for us at all. The empirical
interpretation of evolution, which has been hitherto adopted, has
made the negative side of this truth sufficiently evident: it has
shown that we cannot, on empirical ground, reach the end or purpose
of human nature. The question thus arises, whether what may be called
the "metaphysical" or "transcendental" interpretation of evolution
can show the reason of this defect and suggest a remedy.
[Sidenote: (_b_) no logical transition being effected from efficient
to final cause.]
The insufficiency of the empirical way of looking at things is seen
most clearly when we attempt to make the transition just referred
to, and determine an end for conduct. It seems often to be thought
that, in pointing out the tendency of affairs, we are, at the same
time, prescribing the end towards which human endeavour ought to
be directed. Now, it is very difficult to say how far an empirical
method enables us to anticipate tendencies of this kind at all. Even
from the historical point of view the conditioning circumstances are
so complicated that it is by no means easy to predict the result of
their combination. It is argued, however, by Schäffle,[273] that we
are at least able to see as far as the next stage in the series of
historical progress, and this is thought to lead to the conclusion
that we should make this next stage of development our end: further
than it we cannot see, and therefore need not provide. If, then, we
have no ultimate end for conduct, at least we need never be without
a proximate end--and one which is always changing with the course of
events. Instead, therefore, of saying that we should take no thought
for the morrow, the contention would seem to be that we should live
for the morrow but take no thought for the day after. But here the
altered point of view is scarcely concealed. From the discussion of
efficient causes we proceed all at once to decide upon ends or final
causes. We have shown (let it be granted) that, taking account of
the present position and mode of action of the forces we are able to
examine, they will modify the present state of affairs in a certain
known manner. To-day we are in state A; to-morrow we shall be in, or
well on the way towards, state Ab; therefore, runs the conclusion,
implied or expressed, we ought to make Ab our end. But this is more
than a fallacy due to the confusion of the two meanings of "end." The
conclusion to which it leads is inconsistent with, or at least shows
the one-sidedness of, the premisses from which it was drawn. For, if
Ab is really the next term in the series of historical progress, our
making it our end can neither help nor hinder its realisation. If, on
the other hand, there is really a meaning in our making the world-end
our own, then we cannot bring that end, the realisation of which is
conceived as still in the future, under the category of efficient
causality, and say with confidence that it is the next stage in the
course of events.
[Sidenote: 3. Difference between causality and teleology.]
The idea does not work itself out in the same way as an efficient
cause works in the processes of nature. We might indeed
speak--perhaps with some intelligible meaning--of the tendency of
evolution becoming conscious in man, and then working towards its own
realisation as a fixed idea. So far as the simpler representations
are concerned, this mode of action has been clearly illustrated
in Mr Bain's writings; and the characteristic is not limited to
the less complex kinds of mental objects. The idea is, in its own
nature, a force tending both to exist in consciousness and to realise
itself through the motor energies.[274] Consciousness of an end is
a motive to action. Thus the notion of final cause includes that of
efficient cause; but the two are not convertible. The idea of an end,
being conceived by reason, cannot be described simply as a tendency
become conscious. It has passed into the region in which various
conceptions are, or may be, competing against one another, and the
resultant is decided on upon grounds which may be called subjective
since they proceed from conscious determination. However the laws of
this conscious determination may be expressed, they are not to be
identified with the natural sequence of events as it may be conceived
to exist independently of the individual consciousness. What seems
the tendency of things may be altered or modified upon some ground
of preference by the conscious subject. In passing therefore to the
working out of a rational or mental idea--such as is implied in the
conception of an end--we can no longer fully represent our notions by
means of the determined temporal succession called causality.
[Sidenote: These notions unconnected by empiricism,]
Thus the empirical standpoint leaves the case incomplete. A man
might quite reasonably ask why he should adopt as maxims of conduct
the laws seen to operate in nature. The end, in this way, is not
made to follow from the natural function of man. It is simply a mode
in which the events of the world occur; and we must, therefore,
give a reason why it should be adopted as his end by the individual
agent. To him there may be no sufficient grounds of inducement to
become "a self-conscious agent in the evolution of the universe."
From the purely evolutionist point of view, no definite attempt has
been made to solve the difficulty. It seems really to go no deeper
than Dr Johnson's reply to Boswell, when the latter plagued him to
give a reason for action: "'Sir,' said he, in an animated tone, 'it
is driving on the system of life.'"[275] When any further answer is
attempted now to the question, it appears to be on hedonistic grounds.
[Sidenote: even with the assistance of hedonism.]
But it is not certain that the next stage of development will bring
more pleasure along with it than the present. Enough has already been
said of the difficulties and uncertainties which surround any attempt
to interpret evolution as tending constantly to increased pleasure.
It may be thought, however, that, if neither optimism nor pessimism
is the conclusion to which we are led, the modified doctrine of what
is called Meliorism may be accepted. And this theory--which holds
that the world is improving, that the balance of good over evil, or
that of pleasure over pain, is on the increase--might seem to form
a convenient support to the present doctrine. For it may appear to
follow from it that, if the next stage in the world-process--that
towards which evolution is tending--is known, then we should make
it our end to accelerate this stage, as it will be one which brings
with it a better state of affairs than the present. But not even the
most enthusiastic "meliorist" has tried to show anything more than
that his doctrine holds true in general, and that, although progress
has many receding waves, the tide of human happiness is rising. But
we cannot tell how great these receding waves may be; nor may we
say that our action can have no power to check them. It follows,
therefore, that, in judging of any special and temporary movement
of events (and it is not pretended that our anticipatory knowledge
of the future can extend far), we cannot assume that the second
stage will be better than the first, or that voluntary modification
of it--if that be possible--might not improve both the immediate
result and its later consequences. It becomes necessary, therefore,
to compare the value of the two by the directly pleasurable effects
they may be expected to have, so that we are driven back to test the
course of evolution by reference to some other principle. The further
we go in examining an empirical theory, the clearer does it become
that it can make no nearer approach to the discovery of an ethical
end, than to point out what courses of action are likely to be the
pleasantest, or what tendencies to action the strongest: while this
can only be done within certain limits. The doctrine of evolution
itself, when added to empirical morality, only widens our view of the
old landscape--does not enable us to pass from "is" to "ought," or
from efficient to final cause, any more than the telescope can point
beyond the sphere of spatial quantity.
[Sidenote: New point of view introduced by teleology]
We are endeavouring to get at the idea or end of human nature in an
impossible way when we attempt to reach it on purely empirical lines,
and think that, if we work long enough on them, we are sure to come
to it. In the same way it was formerly thought by physiologists that,
if we thoroughly examined the brain with microscope and scalpel, we
should come upon the seat of the soul at last, while psychologists
were fain to believe that, in addition to all our presentations
of objects, we had also a presentation of the subject or thinking
being. The mistake of both was in imagining that the soul was a thing
amongst other things, or a presentation amongst other presentations,
instead of the subject and condition of there being either things or
thoughts at all. Of a similar character is the attempt to get at an
end or final cause without leaving the point of view of efficient
causality. Were it successful, it would reduce final cause to
mechanism. To look upon man or upon nature as manifesting an end
implies an idea or notion of the object as a whole, over and above
the mutual determination of its various parts, and thus necessitates
the contemplation of it "as though an understanding contained the
ground of the unity of the multiplicity of its empirical laws."[276]
It is the attempt to get at an external purpose for objects of
experience that has made teleology be looked upon askance by men of
science. A conception of this kind went far to vitiate physics in
the middle ages, till it was, with justice, strictly excluded from
the scientific interpretation of nature by the leaders of modern
philosophy.[277] But teleology does not stand or fall with this
external form of it, which takes its illustrations from the products
of the factory, not from the manifestations of life,[278] and which
is really only mechanism misunderstood.
[Sidenote: necessary in considering life,]
The conception of an end is forced upon us in considering life,
because then it is necessary to take account of the being as
organised, and therefore as a whole. In the investigation of nature,
on the other hand, things may be apprehended without relation to
the conception of the whole; and teleology, therefore, seems to be
unnecessary. The notion of purpose, it is often said, is essential
to biology, but out of place in physical science. But when we
look on the world as a whole, the notion of end or purpose is
introduced, and the functions of its various parts conceived from a
new point of view. And the end of an organism can only be partially
understood, when that organism is conceived as a whole apart from
its environment. It is only a partial manifestation or example of
the more perfect reality in which things are to be regarded as not
merely conditioned and conditioning, but as revelations of purpose.
But, although the notion of purpose cannot be dispensed with in
considering organic nature, the teleological notions we form of
living things are imperfect and "abstract." Thus the organism is
often, more or less explicitly, judged by its utility for some human
purpose. In these cases the end is clearly an external and dependent
one. And, when the adaptation of its parts is spoken of in relation
to its type or perfect form, a conception is involved over and above
what can be inferred from the nature of the organism in itself. The
notion of the end depends upon a rational ideal, which passes beyond
the causal interrelation of parts to the conception of the organism
as a whole, whose function is necessarily related to its environment.
[Sidenote: and life directly known only as self-conscious.]
Our knowledge of the ends of the lower animals is really much more
imperfect than our knowledge of the human end. For the only life
we really know is self-conscious life, and that we are unable to
attribute to them. We know their life only by conjecture, our
knowledge of it being but an abstraction from our own consciousness.
The ethical, as Trendelenburg puts it,[279] is the higher stage of
the process, a lower stage of which is the organic. The purpose,
which is conceived as blind or unconscious in nature, becomes
conscious and voluntary in man. But our notion of the former
is simply an abstraction from the free and conscious purpose
which characterises our own activity. The conception of life is
only known to us as--is only--an element or moment in our own
self-consciousness. And life which is not self-conscious can only
be judged in relation to the self-consciousness which contains in
itself the explanation both of life and of nature. The germ of truth
in the old mechanical teleology may perhaps be seen in this way. For
it had right on its side in so far as it referred everything to the
self-consciousness manifested in man; it was mistaken only in so far
as it made things relative to his needs and desires. The teleological
anthropomorphism which judges all things according to their
correspondence with human purposes, must be transcended, equally
with the speculative anthropomorphism which frames the unseen world
in the likeness of the phenomena of our present experience. But to
attempt to escape from what is sometimes called anthropomorphism--the
reference of the nature and purpose of things to self-consciousness,
as expressive of the ultimate reality--is to attempt to escape from
thought itself, and makes one's thinking from the beginning void and
contradictory.
[Sidenote: 4. Reference to self-consciousness implied in evolution,]
Now this reference to self has been omitted in our consideration
of empirical evolution. We have taken the purely objective ground
of science, and we have admitted what science has told us of how
all sorts of things came to be,--how man appeared on the earth,
gradually adapted himself to his surroundings and modified them--how
sentiments expanded, customs grew, and one institution developed
out of another. But science shows us all this only as an external
process of events in space and time--a process in which the
preceding determines each succeeding state, and all parts are united
together. It does not show us the process from the inside. And, in
the end, it can do no more than point towards, without reaching,
the comprehensive idea of a whole, by reference to which idea all
the members of the whole are determined, in such a way that it is
insufficient to look upon one as causing another, and with the others
making up the aggregate; since each member only exists for the sake
of the whole, and the idea of the whole precedes the parts which
constitute it.[280] The teleological conception thus necessarily
leads us beyond the ordinary categories of science, by which all
things are conceived as connected causally in space and time. But the
scientific theories that we have been discussing do not recognise
this altered point of view; and, without giving any justification
for the change of standpoint, lay down the moral law that we ought
to aim at the realisation of something which can only be described
as a mental conception or idea. Here a double change in point of
view is involved. We are no longer considering a process going on
outside us, in which the reference to self may be fairly ignored, but
we put ourselves in relation to this external order: and we do so,
not merely as cognitive, but as active--as the potential source of
actions which we say "ought" to be performed by us.
[Sidenote: (_a_) made clear in the attempt to trace the genesis of
self-consciousness.]
The assumption involved in the former change is that made by
comparative or evolutionist psychology, when it attempts to play the
part of a theory of knowledge. The development of impressions and
ideas is made to pass upwards to more complicated stages, till it
reaches the point at which the individual, conceived as determined
by external forces and reacting upon them, becomes conscious
of itself as a subject of knowledge and source of action. This
transition from the category of causality to self-consciousness is,
in some systems--that of Mr Spencer, for example--either concealed
or held to with no firm grasp. Throughout his objective treatment
of psychology, it would seem that Mr Spencer is evolving mind or
self-consciousness out of the process in which simple relations of
matter and motion form the lowest stage, and reflex action is that
which approaches most nearly to having mental characteristics. And,
from this objective point of view, he speaks of his philosophy as
an interpretation of "the detailed phenomena of life, mind, and
society, in terms of matter, motion, and force."[281] But when he
discusses the subjective side, he admits that it is entirely unique
and _sui generis_,[282] and adopts what is known as the "two aspects"
theory--the theory that mind cannot be accounted for as derived from
matter, any more than matter can be accounted for as derived from
mind, but that they are both phases of one ultimate and unknown
reality.[283] This admission involves a practical acknowledgment
that it is impossible to arrive at consciousness or at subjectivity
by a process of natural development. We must, it affirms, postulate
two aspects or phases of existence, or two lines of development,
connected probably in their ultimate reality, but, as known to us,
distinct from one another, and without mutual influence.
[Sidenote: Reference to self-consciousness,]
The doctrine that a reference to self-consciousness is implied in
experience, may perhaps be made clearer by considering a criticism
to which it has recently been subjected by an able psychological
writer. Professor W. James writes as follows:--
"The doctrine of the post-Kantians, that all knowledge
is also self-knowledge, seems to flow from this
confusion [between the psychologist's standpoint
and the standpoint of the feeling upon which he is
supposed to be making his report]. Empirically, of
course, an awareness of self accompanies most of
our thinking. But that it should be needed to make
that thinking 'objective' is quite another matter.
'Green-after-red-and-other-than-it' is an absolutely
complete object of thought, ideally considered, and
needs no added element. The fallacy seems to arise
from some such reflection as this, that since the
feeling _is_ what it feels itself to be, so it must
feel itself to be what it _is_--namely, related to each
of its objects. That the last _is_ covers much more
ground than the first, the philosopher here does not
notice. The first _is_ signifies only the feeling's
inward quality; the last _is_ covers all possible facts
_about_ the feeling,--relational facts, which can only
be known from outside points of view, like that of the
philosopher himself."[284]
[Sidenote: though not itself a part of experience,]
[Sidenote: logically implied by experience.]
Now it seems to me that the real confusion here is between the
point of view of experience, and the point of view of reflection
on experience, and that it is not the "post-Kantians" who confuse
the two points of view. The "post-Kantians"--by whom Professor
James means T. H. Green and the writers commonly associated with
him--habitually occupy the latter standpoint. They do not hold
that "all knowledge is also self-knowledge," in the sense that
"an awareness of self accompanies most [or all] of our thinking."
When we have this empirical "awareness of self," our object is
the more or less distinct contents of perception, &c., which make
up the empirical ego. But this knowledge of the empirical ego,
equally with knowledge of external nature, implies logically the
action of self-consciousness. When we reflect upon experience, one
constant element is seen to be implied in it--the reference to a
subject of knowledge and feeling. Certainly "post-Kantians" do not
imagine--as Professor James seems himself to imagine and to think
they do--that a feeling feels itself, or an object knows itself.
"Green-after-red-and-other-than-it" is for them, as for him, if not
"an absolutely complete object of thought," yet relatively complete.
It may be apprehended alone as a part of experience. But reflection
on experience shows that it, like any other object of thought,
depends upon a knowing subject. The "post-Kantians" do not assert
that knowing an object involves for the individual knower actual
consciousness of what his knowledge implies, any more than they would
say that the "plain man" is already a metaphysician. But they hold
that reflection on experience shows that self-reference, or reference
to a subject, is a logical condition of there being experience
at all. So far from confusing the two standpoints, they require
carefully to emphasise their difference, lest the actual content of a
state of consciousness in the individual man be held to be equivalent
to the grounds or conditions of that state of consciousness.
The reason why there is even an apparent plausibility in the
attempt to get at a natural development of self-consciousness, is
that the reference to self is, from the outset, implicitly, but
logically, assumed in tracing the sequence of events which forms
the subject-matter of the theory of evolution, while the course of
development does nothing more than render its implication explicit.
Self-consciousness is not something that exists apart from the
world of known and knowable objects, any more than it is itself a
special department of this world of objects distinguishable from, and
determined by, its surroundings. It is, on the contrary, the supreme
condition of the world of objects having any existence whatever.
It is only through objects being brought into relation with the
identical and permanent subject of knowledge, that there is unity in
nature, or, in other words, that there is a known world of nature or
experience at all. The evolution of mind or self-consciousness out of
experience is, therefore, not merely to be rejected as a problem too
intricate for psychological analysis. It is a mistake to think that
it is a possible problem at all; for it attempts to make experience
account for and originate the principles on which its own possibility
depends.
[Sidenote: (_b_) made clear in the attempt to trace morality from
reflex action.]
But it is the second change in point of view which needs special
emphasis here--the change from the point of view of science to
that of morality. Taken in its bare form, this is perhaps little
more than a confusion of thought. The fact of things being of a
certain constitution, and of their progress tending in a certain
direction, cannot of itself supply a law for the exercise of our
activity. But the view is associated with a theory of the nature
of human action which seeks to bring it into the strict line of
natural development. Just as empirical psychology attempted to
treat self-consciousness as a stage in the evolution of experience
or knowledge, so the empirical theory of morality, aided by the
doctrine of evolution, tries to show how the action which is called
moral has been developed out of purely physical or reflex action.
But this theory of the development of moral action is really open to
the same objection as that which was urged against the theory which
evolves self-consciousness from the unconscious. The objection to the
latter was, that experience, itself constituted by consciousness, is
made to produce the condition of its own possibility; and a similar
confusion is involved in attempting to develop moral action out of
merely physical or reflex action. The only case of true psychical or
conscious action is that in which there is a conscious determination
of end and means; and action of this kind implies the same relation
to self-consciousness as that by which knowledge is constituted.
The relation is, however, manifested in a different way: it is not
an apprehension of the manifold of impression into the unity of
consciousness, but the externalisation of self-consciousness in
realising a conceived end or idea. Now, in so far as physical and
psychical facts are phenomena of experience--and they have no other
existence, at least none that can have any intelligible meaning given
to it--they presuppose self-consciousness; for it is only in relation
to it that experience is possible. That is to say, their existence
logically implies a reference to a subject whose active externalising
manifestation is the determination of means and end which constitutes
moral (as distinguished from merely natural) action. So far,
therefore, from our being able to trace the development of moral
action from the simpler phenomena of natural action, we find that
these, in their most rudimentary form, by virtue of their being
phenomena of experience, imply and receive their reality from the
self-consciousness which is the differentiating quality both of
knowledge and of moral action.
[Sidenote: 5. The unity of self-consciousness:]
[Sidenote: (_a_) as making possible the transition from knowledge to
morality;]
From this it follows that, although, empirically, the change
from the point of view of science to that of morality is a
transition to a different order of facts, yet the passage may
be possible transcendentally through self-consciousness. For in
self-consciousness we reach the element of identity between knowledge
and action. It is, therefore, of importance to understand the
nature of this self-conscious activity in relation to knowledge
and to action. If the fundamental characteristic of knowledge is
the bringing into relation to consciousness, then all conscious
action has this characteristic; for it determines self towards some
particular line of activity--that is to say, towards an object or end
which is thereby related to consciousness. Action therefore, we may
say, is knowledge. And in the same way, on the other hand, since the
relating to consciousness which constitutes knowledge can only be
regarded as originated by the subject, it follows, conversely, that
knowledge is action.[285] "We act," says Spinoza, "only in so far as
we know or understand." Action is but one aspect or manifestation of
that which, in another aspect or manifestation, is knowledge. But
the aspect of self-consciousness we call knowledge and that we call
action are different from one another. In the former the relating
to consciousness in the definite forms of thought and perception is
the prominent thing. In the latter it is the realising energy of the
self-conscious subject. The ordinary distinction between knowledge
and action is therefore correct, if not pushed to the extent of
making an absolute separation between them: in the former we idealise
the real, in the latter we realise the ideal. But they are at one in
this, that both involve self-conscious activity.
[Sidenote: (_b_) as determining the character of the ethical end,]
The self-consciousness which in one relation is knowledge, in
another action, is thus the fundamental fact of human nature; and
on it, therefore, the ethical end must be based, if that end can
be disclosed by the nature of man, and is to express what is most
fundamental in his nature. Now, as knowledge finds its completion
when all things are connected with one another and the subject in a
definite system of relations, the end of completed self-conscious
activity cannot be different. In their final perfection, as in their
fundamental nature, the two are at one. As Kant puts it,[286] the
speculative and the practical reason are reconciled in the notion of
end. However virtue may differ from knowledge in the processes of
ordinary experience, the distinction only belongs to their finite
realisation. An intuitive understanding, or understanding which, in
knowing, creates the objects of knowledge, is the highest conception
of reason. Yet the very notion of a finite self implies that neither
such knowledge nor such activity belongs to it. In knowledge and
action, as properties of the ultimate self-consciousness, human
beings only participate. It is only by means of the laborious methods
of observation and inference that they approach the intuition of all
things as a unity in which perfect knowledge consists; and, in the
same way, it is only by the gradual volitional adaptation of means
to end that they are able, in some measure, to contribute to the
realisation of self-consciousness in the world.
[Sidenote: as self-realisation,]
An end can only be made our own when conceived as necessary for
realising or completing our idea of self. Conscious volition
only follows a conceived want, or recognition that the self as
imagined--the ideal self--is not realised in the actual self. The
action is towards a fuller working out of the idea of self; and the
end may therefore, in all cases of conscious action, be said to be
self-realisation, though the nature of this end differs according
to each man's conception of self. This may be expressed, as Green
expresses it, by saying that "self-satisfaction is the form of
every object willed; but ... it is on the specific difference of
the objects willed under the general form of self-satisfaction
that the quality of the will must depend."[287] It appears to
me, however, that this statement requires to be guarded by an
explanation. The self-satisfaction sought must not be looked upon as
a feeling,--for if it is, it can only be interpreted psychologically
as pleasure--but as simply conscious self-realisation. And this
self-realisation is the objective consciousness of an attained
end, which is accompanied by, but is not the same as, the feeling
of pleasure. Self-realisation is the end, not the pleasurable
feeling which follows it; self-satisfaction, not the "pleasure of
self-satisfaction." In this way, the common experience "that the
objects with which we seek to satisfy ourselves do not turn out
capable of satisfying us,"[288] might be expressed by saying that
the method adopted for the realisation of self is often found in its
result to lead to incomplete, or even to illusory, self-realisation.
The question thus arises, What is the true self that is to be
realised, and what is meant by the realisation of it? The will that
wills itself is as bare a notion in ethics, as the thought that
thinks itself is in metaphysics. The "good will," which Kant rightly
held to be the only ultimate good, never altogether escaped this
formality in Kant's own treatment of it. His idea of humanity as a
realm of ends was limited by his formal conception of the function
of reason, though it suggests the way by which the mere tautology
of will may be transcended. It is of the essence of a finite will
that its end is different from the realisation of the end. But the
rationality of the will implies that it must aim at nothing less
than the harmonious articulation of its whole activity in the unity
of self-consciousness.
[Sidenote: but as transcending egoism;]
It has been argued above that both knowledge and morality are
expressions of self-conscious activity: in it these different
manifestations find an element of fundamental identity. But it may be
maintained, further, that this "unity of self-consciousness" is not
merely the unity of the different states of an individual, but that
it is an element which transcends the difference by which concrete
individuals are distinguished from one another. If this view can be
carried out, it seems to lead us to attribute to other men something
more than a "similar consciousness"[289] to our own, and to make us
look on all self-conscious beings as sharing in, or manifesting,
in various imperfect ways, one identical self-consciousness. From
this point of view, self-realisation would be established as no mere
individual end. The first law of morality would be not the "natural"
impulse for each to take care of himself in the struggle for life,
but, on the contrary, the sublation of that distinction between the
particular ego and other individuals which would admit of the one
using the others as mere means to his own advancement. His true end
is the same as theirs: the realisation of the self-consciousness
in which both partake--its realisation, that is to say, not in
one individual only, but wherever it is manifested.[290] This is
the rationale of what the empirical theory of evolution tries to
establish by pointing to the growing harmony in feeling and interest
between the individual and society. What evolution really shows is
the gradual manifestation in actual volition of the identity of
nature in all men.[291] I do not say that this fundamental identity
of nature does away with all conflict between self-realisation in
one's self and in others; but it does much, if it establishes the
principle that the realisation of one's own nature involves the
realisation of that of others. As Schäffle says, "the moral law is
the direction of the will to the genuinely human as humanity;" and
"this is a transcendental element embedded in the hearts of all
men--though in its basis only, for it is developed and ripened in the
course of history."[292] And the more fully self-consciousness is
realised, the clearer does it become that its complete realisation
implies that "kingdom of ends" spoken of by Kant, in which all
self-conscious beings are at once subjects and sovereign.
[Sidenote: (_c_) as showing that the realisation of the end must be
progressive.]
Further, self-realisation in both its aspects--as individual and as
social--is necessarily progressive. It is only at the highest stage
of its development that nature becomes the organ of intelligence and
morality.[293] And, just as knowledge expresses itself through the
forms of space and time, and, therefore, by gradual colligations of
facts, so the conscious determination of activity is manifested in
the world in an order of consecutive acts, and is therefore subject,
in its manifestation, to the laws of temporal succession. It is the
part of a system of metaphysics--at any rate, it does not belong to
the present inquiry--to show how reason manifests itself in space
and time, and how, through the rationality of this manifestation,
everything in space is and acts only in relation to its environment,
and through it, to the rest of the world, and how each event in time
is the result of preceding events, and determines those which follow
it. What it thus shows the necessity of is the process of evolution;
and it is because this process is determined by reason that the world
is the object of knowledge and the sphere of moral action. Evolution
is thus not the foundation of morality, but the manifestation of the
principle on which it depends. Morality cannot be explained by means
of its own development, without reference to the self-consciousness
which makes that development possible. However valuable may be the
information we get from experience as to the gradual evolution of
conduct, its nature and end can only be explained by a principle that
transcends experience.
THE END.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
FOOTNOTES:
[270] The empirical interpretation of evolution is that adopted by
the majority of evolutionists, but is not essential to the truth of
the theory. A protest against it is entered by Mr Wallace, though in
the somewhat crude form of postulating supernatural interference for
the production of certain classes of phenomena (cf. Contributions to
the Theory of Natural Selection, p. 359), at the same time that his
conception of nature does not seem to differ otherwise from that of
Häckel.
[271] The reference in the above to Kant, Werke, iii. 438 ff., is
obvious; but it is nevertheless a true account of the principles
involved in the theory of evolution.
[272] Cf. Stirling, Secret of Hegel, ii. 615: "One grand system,
unity of type, all this must be postulated from the very constitution
of human reason; but from the very constitution of experience as
well, it can never be realised in experience."
[273] Bau und Leben des socialen Körpers, ii. 68.
[274] Cf. Fouillée, Critique des systèmes de morale contemporains, p.
13 ff.
[275] Boswell's Life of Johnson, chap. liv.
[276] Kant, Werke, v. 187 (Kr. d. Urt., Einl. iv.)
[277] Descartes, Princ. phil., iii. 3, i. 28; Bacon, De augm., iii.
5, Novum organum, ii. 2.
[278] Cf. Kant, Werke, v. 387 (Kr. d. Urt., § 65).
[279] Historische Beiträge zur Philosophie, iii. 165.
[280] Cf. Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik, iii. 228.
[281] First Principles, § 194, p. 556.
[282] Principles of Psychology, § 56, i. 140.
[283] Ibid., §§ 272, 273, i. 624 ff.
[284] Mind, ix. 21.
[285] From "action" in this its ultimate meaning as equivalent to
origination by the subject, it is necessary to distinguish "action"
as a phenomenon in the external world. The latter is one of the
modes in which the relation of objects is known to us, the former a
characteristic of knowing. The active nature of knowledge is worked
out in an interesting way in Professor S. S. Laurie's 'Metaphysica
nova et vetusta,' by "Scotus Novanticus" (1884).
[286] Werke, iii. 538; cf. Adamson, Philosophy of Kant, p. 138.
[287] Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 161.
[288] Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 165.
[289] Sidgwick, "Green's Ethics," Mind, ix. 180.
[290] This is implied in Hegel's well-known imperative, "Be a person
and respect others as persons."--Phil. d. Rechts, p. 73.
[291] Thus Höffding maintains that "the highest ethical idea" is "the
idea of the human race as a realm of personalities."--Grundlage der
humanen Ethik (aus dem dänischen), p. 74.
[292] Bau und Leben des socialen Körpers, i. 173.
[293] Cf. H. Siebeck, Philosophische Monatshefte, xx. 340.
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