poetic dreams and anticipations of better modes of existence. The danger, in such dreams and anticipations, is that they are apt to represent only a partial and abstract phase in the development of life, and to involve some loss of hold upon its concrete content. In this sense, there is some truth in the saying that the world as a whole is wiser than its wisest men. The fresh intuitions of the prophets, who are as strangers and pilgrims on the earth, require to be reinterpreted in the light of the practical good sense of those who are at home on it. The prophetic seer is sometimes apt to be blinded by his own light, so that the rest of the world seems to him darkness. Hence the melancholy which Carlyle regarded as at the basis is embodied in conduct: the ordinary man tries to avoid only what is obviously wrong; the best of men does not always make us aware that he is striving after what is right. We do not see people growing into the resemblance of what they admire; it is much if we can see them growing into the unlikeness of that which they condemn. But the dominant influence of life lies ever in the unrealized. While all that we discern is the negative aspect of a man's ideal, that ideal itself lives by admiration which never clothes itself in word or deed. In seeing what he avoids we judge only the least important part of his standard; it is that which he never strives to realize in his own person which makes him what he is. The average, secular man of to-day is a different being because Christendom has hallowed the precept to give the cloak to him who asks the coat; it would be easier to argue that this claim for what most would call an impossible virtue has been injurious than that it has been impotent. Christianity has moulded character where we should vainly seek to discern that it has influenced conduct. Not the criminal code, but the counsel of perfection shows us what a nation is becoming; and he who casts on any sét of duties the shadow of the second best, so far as he is successful, does more to influence the moral ideal than he who succeeds in passing a new law." These suggestive, and even profound remarks are taken from Miss Wedgwood's work on The Moral Ideal (p. 373). The italics are mine.

of all true insight-the pessimism and despair which cloud the consciousness, so long as it sees only the imperfection and incompleteness of all actual achievement in the moral life, in contrast with the partial Pisgah-sight of something better to be attained; and does not yet perceive, what is often the deeper truth, that the germs of the better are already at work in the partly good, and may even be contained in what presents itself at first as simply bad.

The recognition, however, of this moral faith, this presence of the consciousness of an unattained and even unformulated ideal, leads us at once into the region of poetry and religion, which in a manner transcend morality. The consideration of these would carry us beyond our present subject; but we may conclude with a chapter on the relationship between Ethics and Metaphysics, in which the place of religion will be incidentally referred to.1

1 The whole subject of the present chapter is most admirably treated in Muirhead's Elements of Ethics, Book V.

CONCLUDING CHAPTER.

ETHICS AND METAPHYSICS.

§ 1. GENERAL REMARKS.--It must be evident to the discerning reader that, in what has gone before, we have occasionally been skating on rather thin ice. The ultimate questions to which we have been led have not received any quite satisfactory solution. We have perhaps seen the insufficiency of all other theories of Ethics more fully than we have seen the sufficiency of that which we have been led to adopt. The truth is that the theory of Ethics which seems most satisfactory has a metaphysical basis, and without the consideration of that basis there can be no thorough understanding of it. If we could have satisfied ourselves with a Hedonistic theory, a psychological basis might perhaps have sufficed. On the other hand, if one of the current evolution theories could be accepted, we might look for our basis in the study of biology. But if we rest our view of Ethics on the idea of the development of the ideal self or of the rational universe, the significance of this cannot be made fully apparent without a metaphysical examination of the nature of the self; nor can its validity be established except by a discussion of the reality of the rational universe. Some further examination of this point seems now to be demanded.

§ 2. VALIDITY OF THE IDEAL.-The general result of

our inquiry may be summed up as follows. We have seen that the moral consciousness presents itself first of all in the form of law, a supreme command or categorical imperative imposed on the will of the individual. Hence, when reflection begins on the nature of morality, the first theory which presents itself is one that conceives of it as an absolute law of Duty. But this breaks down, because, as we have seen, when this idea is carefully analyzed, it is found to yield no content. The next form in which the idea of morality presents itself is that of the Good; and this is naturally thought of at first simply as that which satisfies desire, i. e. as the pleasant. But the pleasant is formless, just as the law of Duty is empty; and we are thus led to look for a more adequate conception of the Good. This is found in the idea of the complete realization of the essential nature of mankind. But in order to understand this, it is necessary to study the nature of mankind in its concrete development. Accordingly, we have been led to notice, in a brief and summary fashion, the ways in which the realization of humanity may be regarded as accomplishing itself through the various institutions of social life, through the duties and virtues which grow up in connection with these, through the growth of the inner life of the individual, and through the progressive development of human history. Through these various activities mankind may be seen to be gradually attaining to that complete rationality which can only be reached through the complete grasping of the world of experience, and bringing it into intelligible relationship to ourselves. This process cannot be seen to complete itself within the actual moral life of mankind; and the ideal involved in the

moral life is consequently unfulfilled. Life remains at the best incomplete-a noble work, it may be, but a torso. Now this incompleteness in the concrete realization of the moral ideal brings with it the further defect that the validity of the moral ideal is not fully made apparent in the course of its concrete realization. If mankind could be supposed actually to attain that complete development of human faculty, that complete bringing of the world into intelligible and harmonious relationship to the human consciousness, at which we may be said to aim, the result would no doubt be seen to be so satisfying in itself that it would be impossible to question the validity of the ideal as an object of human effort. But this complete justification is not possible so long as the process is not fully worked out. Now it is this insufficiency in the moral life that leads us to the point of view of religion; and perhaps some consideration of the latter may enable us to see more clearly the nature of the ultimate problem which is involved in the moral consciousness.

§ 3. MORALITY AND RELIGION.-Matthew Arnold, as is well known, defined religion as "morality touched with emotion." "This," remarks Mr. Muirhead,1 "does not carry us far. Emotion is not a distinctive mark of religious conduct. All conduct. is touched with emotion, otherwise it would not be conduct at all." This criticism is perhaps not entirely fair. All conduct is in a sense touched with emotion-i. e. it involves an element of feeling. So does all conscious life. But this need not prevent us from distinguishing between emotional and unemotional acts and states. In ordinary life the element of feeling is to all intents 1 Elements of Ethics, p. 180.

Eth.