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Nor need the perfectionist abandon his perfectionism in view of any such
consideration. He who measures perfection by the degree of activity
exercised in action, may admit that the coming man will be more perfect
than it is possible for any man to be now; but that need not prevent him
from holding that it is man's present duty to aim at the only perfection
possible to him, he being what he is. Similar reasoning will apply to any
other conception of perfection likely to be adopted, consciously or
unconsciously, by any adherent of the school in question.

As for the self-realizationist, a very little reflection seems sufficient
to reveal that the maxim that it is man's duty to become all that it is
in him to become is in no wise refuted by the claim that man may, in the
indefinitely distant future, become much more than many people have
supposed or now suppose.

(5) There remains the doctrine of the Rational Social Will as furnishing
the norm of conduct. I have tried to show that this doctrine must rest
upon broad views of man and of man's environment. It is the very essence
of the rational will to take broad views, to consider the past, the
present, and the future. Surely the adherent of this school may let the
evolutionist work in peace, may thank him for any helpful suggestions he
has to offer, and may develop his own doctrine with little cause for
uneasiness at the thought that information given him may refute his
fundamental principle.

However, it is not out of place for him to point out, if revolutionary
measures of any sort are suggested by this or that evolutionist, that
ethics is a discipline which is concerned with what men have to do, here
and now. It must take into consideration what is advisable and feasible.
Utopian schemes which break violently with the actual order of things and
the normal development of human societies may be suggested by
evolutionists, as they have been suggested by men who were not
evolutionists at all. They are not to be taken much more seriously in the
one case than in the other.

133. THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL EVOLUTIONISTS.--Such considerations seem to
make it evident that the acceptance of the doctrine of evolution should
have no other influence upon us as moralists than that of making us take
broad views of man and of his environment. It still remains to find a
norm of conduct, and evolutionists, like other men, may develop ethical
systems which are not identical. It is worth while here to touch very
briefly upon the suggestions of one or two individual evolutionists.
Those who speak of the ethics of evolution are very apt to have such in
mind.

Thus, Darwin, whose study of the lower animals led him to believe that
the social instincts have been developed for the general good rather than
for the general happiness of the species, defines the "good" as "the
rearing of the greatest number of individuals in full vigor and health,
with all their faculties perfect, under the conditions to which they have
been subjected." The "greatest happiness principle" he regards as an
important secondary guide to conduct, while making social instinct and
sympathy primary guides. [Footnote: _The Descent of Man_, chapter
iv, concluding remarks. ]

Spencer maintains that the evolution of conduct becomes the highest
possible when the conduct "simultaneously achieves the greatest totality
of life in self, in offspring, and in fellow-men." "The conduct called
good," he writes, "rises to the conduct conceived as best, when it
fulfills all three classes of ends at the same time." But life he does
not regard as necessarily a good. He judges it to be good or bad
"according as it has or has not a surplus of agreeable feeling." Hence,
"conduct is good or bad according as its total effects are pleasurable or
painful." [Footnote: _The Data of Ethics,_ chapter in, Sec Sec 8 and 10.
]

To be sure, Spencer criticises the utilitarians, and thinks little of the
Benthamic calculus of pleasures. He believes that we should substitute
for it something more scientific, a study of the processes of life. In
his earlier writings he appears to be largely in accord with the
intuitionists in judging of conduct, regarding intuitions as having their
origin in the experiences of the race. Nor does he ever seem inclined to
break with intuitionism completely. But, as we have seen above (Sec 108),
there appears to be nothing to prevent a utilitarian from being an
intuitionist of some sort, as well.

Stephen, in his clear and beautifully written work on morals, also
accepts the general happiness as the ultimate end of reasonable conduct;
and he, too, criticizes the current utilitarianism. He writes: "This, as
it seems to me, represents the real difference between the utilitarian
and the evolutionist criterion. The one lays down as a criterion the
happiness, the other the health of society." [Footnote: _The Science of
Ethics_, London, 1882, chapter ix, 12.] By which, of course, he does
not mean merely physical health, but such a condition of vigor and
efficiency as carries with it a promise of continued existence and well-
being in the future.

It is not necessary to multiply instances. It can readily be seen that
all three of the writers cited are utilitarians, and the last two are
what have been characterized as hedonistic utilitarians. That they
suggest this or that means of best attaining to the desired goal does not
put them outside of a school which embraces men of many shades of
opinion.

CHAPTER XXVIII

PESSIMISM

134. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE PESSIMIST.--With philosophy in general this
volume has little to do; but as pessimism is not the doctrine of normal
men generally, but is apt to be identified in our minds with the
teachings of certain of its leading exponents, it may be well to give, in
briefest outline, the type of reasonings upon which the pessimist may
take his stand.

Schopenhauer held that the one World-Will, which manifests itself in all
nature, inorganic and organic, and is identical with the will of which
each man is conscious in himself, is a "will to live." When the World-
Will becomes conscious, as it does in man, the will to live is
consciously asserted. But the will to live is essentially blind and
unreasoning, or it would not do anything so stupid as to will life of any
sort. He writes:

"Only a blind will, no seeing will, could place itself in the position in
which we behold ourselves. A seeing will would rather have soon made the
calculation that the business did not cover the cost; for such a mighty
effort and struggle, with the straining of all the powers, under constant
care, anxiety and want, and with the inevitable destruction of every
individual life, finds no compensation in the ephemeral existence itself,
which is so obtained, and which passes into nothing in our hands."
[Footnote: _The World as Will and Idea_, translated by HALDANE and
KEMP, London, 1896. _On the Vanity and Suffering of Life_. Volume
III, p. 390.]

The basis of all will, says Schopenhauer, is need, deficiency, and,
hence, pain. He dwells at length upon the misery of life, and the
desirability of a release from life. The refuge of suicide at once
suggests itself, but is rejected by Schopenhauer on the ground that the
destruction of the individual cannot prevent the One Will from
manifesting itself in other individuals. Curiously enough he appears to
approve of suicide by starvation, as indicating a renunciation of the
will to live. But his general recommendation is asceticism, renunciation
of the striving for pleasure, the voluntary acceptance of pain. Through
this the Will is to be taught to apprehend its own nature, and, thus, to
deny itself. How a general asceticism on our part will rob the one
universal Will, revealed in the mineral, vegetable and animal worlds, of
its nature, and still its strivings, the great pessimist does not
indicate.

At this point, von Hartmann, who may fairly be called Schopenhauer's
pupil, takes up the tale. He suggests that it is conceivable that a
universal negation of the will may be obtained, if the preponderating
part of the actual World-Will should come to be contained in the
conscious minds that resolve to will no more. This he thinks may
neutralize the whole, and put an end to existence, which is unavoidably
an evil, and implies a preponderance of pain. [Footnote: _Philosophy of
the Unconscious_, "Metaphysic of the Unconscious," chapter xiv.]

135. COMMENT ON THE ETHICS OF PESSIMISM.--On the metaphysics of the
pessimists I shall make no comment save that there appears to be here
sufficient vagueness to satisfy the most poetical of minds. But the
following points in the ethics of pessimism should be noted:

(1) Pleasure and pain are made the measure of the desirability or
undesirability of existence.

(2) It is assumed that pleasure and pain are measurable; and that they
may be quantitatively balanced against one another in such a way that
this or that mixture of them may be declared by an enlightened man to be,
on the whole, desirable or the reverse.

(3) It is claimed that the balance must necessarily incline to the side
of pain, and hence, that life is not worth living.

(4) It follows from all this that it is our duty to aim, not necessarily
directly, but in some manner, at least, at the destruction of life
everywhere.

(5) I beg the reader to observe that the above doctrine rests upon
assumptions which seem to be made without due consideration. Thus:

(a) It is by no means to be assumed without question that pleasure and
pain alone are the measure of the desirable. They are not the only things
actually desired; and, if we assert that they alone are desirable, we
fall back upon a dubious intuition.

(6) The quantitative relations of pleasures and pains are legitimate
subjects of dispute, as we have seen in earlier chapters in this volume.
When is one pleasure twice as great as another? How can we know that
three pleasures counterbalance a pain? Is it by the mere fact that we
_will_ as we do, in a given instance? Then how prove that we will as
we do, because of the equivalence of the pleasure to the pain?

(c) Who shall decide for us whether life is--not desired, it is
admittedly that, as a rule,--but, also, _desirable_?

May the man who denies it rest his assertion upon such general
considerations as that satisfaction presupposes desire, and that desire
implies a lack, and, hence, pain? The famous author of "Utopia" pointed
out long ago that the pains of hunger begin before the pleasure of
eating, and only die when it does. Shall we, then, regard a hearty
appetite as a curse, to be mitigated but not wholly neutralized by a
series of good dinners?

To be sure, the pessimists do not depend wholly upon such general
arguments, but point out in great detail that there is much suffering in
the world, and that the fulfillment of desire, when it is attained, often
results in disillusionment. But the fact remains that life, such as it
is, is desired by men and other creatures generally; desired not as an
exception, and under a misapprehension, but, as a rule, even by the
enlightened and the far-seeing.

Is not the desirable what is desired by the rational will? We have seen
that the rational social will does not aim at the suppression of desires
generally, but only at the suppression of such desires as interfere with
broader satisfactions. Viewed from this stand-point, the pessimist's
"denial of the will to live" appears as an expression of the accidental
or irrational will. It is not an expression of the nature of man, but of
the nature of the pessimist.

(6) It is, perhaps, worth while to point out that there is nothing to
prevent a given pessimist from being an intuitionist, an egoist, a
utilitarian (of a sort), or an adherent of one of the other schools above
discussed. He may assume intuitively that life is undesirable; in view of
its undesirability he may act, either taking himself alone into
consideration, or including his neighbor; he may invoke the doctrine of
evolution; he may even, if he chooses, call it self-realization to
annihilate himself, for he may argue that a will that comes to clear
consciousness must see that it must be its own undoing. It is hardly
necessary to point out, however, that the pessimist, as such, should not
be in any wise confounded with the moralists discussed in the five
chapters preceding.

CHAPTER XXIX

KANT, HEGEL AND NIETZSCHE

136. KANT.---It is impossible, in any brief compass, to treat of the many
individual moralists, some of them men of genius and well worthy of our
study, who offer us ethical systems characterized by differences of more
or less importance. When we refer a man to this or that school and do no
more, we say comparatively little about him, as has become evident in the
preceding chapters. As we have seen, it has been necessary to class
together those who differ rather widely in many of their opinions. Here,
I shall devote a few pages to three men only, partly because of their
prominence, and partly because it is instructive to call attention to the
contrast between them in their fundamental positions. I shall begin with
Kant.

Kant held that the human reason issues "categorial imperatives," that is
to say, unconditional commands to act in certain ways. The motive for
moral action must not be the desire for pleasure, but solely the desire
to do right.

He makes his fundamental rule abstract and formal: "So act that you could
wish your maxim to be universal law." As no man could wish to be himself
neglected when in distress, this law compels him to be benevolent, and a
new form of the fundamental rule is developed: "Treat humanity, in
yourself or any other, as an end always, and never as a means." [Footnote:
_Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals_, Sec 2.]

Now Kant, although he maintains that it is not a man's duty to seek his
own happiness--a thing which natural inclination would prompt him to do--
by no means overlooks happiness altogether. He thinks that virtue and
happiness together constitute the whole and perfect good desired by
rational beings. The attainment of this good must be the supreme end of a
will morally determined. [Footnote: _Dialectic of the Pure Practical
Reason_, chapter ii.] We are morally bound to strive to be virtuous
ourselves and to make others happy.

Still, each man's happiness means much to him; and Kant, convinced that
virtue _ought_ to be rewarded with happiness, holds that our world
is a moral world, where God will reward the virtuous. If we do not assume
such a world, he claims, moral laws are reduced to idle dreams.
[Footnote: Ibid.]

Such utterances as the last may well lead the utilitarian to question
whether Kant was quite whole-hearted in his doctrine of the unconditional
commands of the practical reason of man. They appear to be not
independent of all consideration of human happiness.

I shall not ask whether Kant was consistent. Great men, like lesser men,
seldom are. But, in order that the contrast between his doctrine and
those of the two writers whom I shall next discuss may be brought out
clearly, I shall ask that the following points be kept well in mind:

(1) Kant was an out-and-out intuitionist. He goes directly to the
practical reason of man for an enunciation of the moral law.

(2) Moral rules of lesser generality, such as those touching benevolence,
justice and veracity, he traces to the practical reason, making them
independent of all considerations of expediency. Thus he defends the body
of moral truth accepted by so many of his fellow-moralists.

(3) His "practical reason" speaks directly to the individual. Kant looked
within, not without. We may call him an ethical individualist. Socrates,
when on trial for his life, listened for the voice of the divinity within
him. He needed no other.

137. HEGEL.--In strongest contrast to the individualism of Kant stands
the doctrine of Hegel. To the latter, duty consists in the realization of
the free reasonable will--but this will is identical in all individuals,
[Footnote: _The Philosophy of Right_, Sec 209] and its realization
reveals itself in the customs, laws and institutions of the state. From
this point of view the individual is an accidental thing; the ethical
order revealed in society is permanent, and has absolute authority. It is
true, however, that it is not something foreign to the individual; he is
conscious of it as his own being. In duty he finds his liberation.
[Footnote: _Ibid_., Sec Sec 145-149]

But what is a man's duty? "What a man ought to do," says Hegel,
[Footnote: _Ibid_., Sec 150] "what duties he should fulfill in order
to be virtuous, is in an ethical community easy to say--the man has only
to do what is presented, expressed and recognized in the established
relations in which he finds himself."

In other words, he ought to do just what his community prescribes! This
seems, taken quite literally, a startling doctrine.

It would be a wrong to Hegel to take him quite literally, for he
elsewhere [Footnote: _Ibid_., Introduction.] makes it plain that he
by no means approves of all the laws and customs that have obtained in
various societies. Still, he exalts the law of the state and regards any
opposition to it on the authority of private conviction as "stupendous
presumption." [Footnote: Op. _cit_., Sec 138.] This is a serious
rebuke to the reformer. The individual must, according to Hegel, look for
the moral law outside of himself--of himself as an individual, at least.
He must find it in the State.

138. NIETZSCHE.--Again a startling contrast: after Hegel, Nietzsche--the
voice of one crying in the wilderness, exquisitely, passionately, but
scarcely with articulate scientific utterance. A prophet of revolt and
emancipation; a cave-dweller, who would flee organized society and the
refinements of civilization; the rabid individualist, to whom the
community is the "herd," and common notions of right and wrong are
absurdities to be visited with scorn and denunciation. He makes a strong
appeal to young men, even after the years during which the carrying of
one's own latch-key is a source of elation. He appeals also to those
perennially young persons who never attain to the stature which befits
those who are to take a responsible share in the organized efforts of
communities of men.

With Nietzsche the man, his suffering life, and the melancholy eclipse of
his brilliant intellect, ethics as science is little concerned. In
Nietzsche the marvellous literary artist it can have no interest. These
things are the affair of literature and biography.

Here we are concerned only with his contribution to ethics. Just what
that has been it is more difficult to determine than would be the case in
a writer more systematic and scientific. But he makes it very clear that
he repudiates the morals which have been accepted heretofore by moralists
and communities of men generally.

He confesses himself an "immoralist." He despises man as he is, and hails
the "Superman," a creature inspired by the "will to have power" and free
from all moral prejudices, including that of sympathy with the weak and
the helpless.

"Full is the world of the superfluous," he sings in his famous dithyramb,
[Footnote: _Thus Spake Zarathustra, I, xi_. It is a pity to read
NIETZSCHE in any translation. His diction is exquisite. But those who can
only read him in English may be referred to the translations of his works
edited by LEVY. New York, 1911.] "marred is life by the many-too-
many."... "Many too many are born; for the superfluous ones was the State
devised."..."There, where the State ceaseth--there only commenceth the
man who is not superfluous."

Man, says Nietzsche, should regard himself as a "bridge" over which he
can pass to something higher. [Footnote: _Ibid._, Prologue, and I,
IV, XI, _et passim_.] Upon the fact that the Superman may have the
same reason for regarding himself as a "bridge" as the most commonplace
of mortals, and may begin anew with loathing and self-contempt, he does
not dwell. Yet, as long as progress is possible, man may always be
regarded as a "bridge." The reader of Nietzsche is tempted to believe
that hatred and contempt must always be the predominant emotions in the
mind of the "superior" man. Darwin, who knew much more about man and
nature than did our passionate poet, was still able to regard man as "the
crown and glory of the universe." Not so, Nietzsche.

Those who have read little in ethics are inclined to attribute to
Nietzsche a greater measure of originality than he can reasonably claim.
More than two milleniums before him, Plato conceived an ideal Republic in
which moral laws, as commonly accepted, were to be set aside. Marriage
was to be done away with; births were to be scientifically regulated;
children were to be taken from their mothers; sickly infants were to be
destroyed. In Sparta the committee of the elders did not permit the
promptings of sympathy and the cries of wounded maternal love to
influence the decision touching the life or death of the new-born.

Here was an attempt at bridge-building, but it was conceived as a
scientific matter, to be taken in hand by the State, and for the good of
the State. But Nietzsche would destroy the State. His Superman appears as
individualistic as a "rogue" elephant, a few passages to the contrary
notwithstanding. Are we to regard him as a mere lawless egoist, or as
something more? We are left in the dark. [Footnote: See the volume,
_Beyond Good and Evil,_ "What is Noble?" Sec 265.] But we note that
Nietzsche disagrees with most moralists, in that he refuses to regard
Caesar Borgia as a morbid growth. [Footnote: _Ibid., The Natural
History of Morals,_ Sec 197. DOSTOIEVSKY'S genius has portrayed for us
an admirable Superman in the person of the Russian convict Orloff. See
his _House of the Dead_, chapter v.]

The Superman has always been with us, in somewhat varying types. From
Alexander the Great to Napoleon, and before and after, he adorns the
pages of history. Attila, among others, may enter his claim to
consideration. It remains for the serious student of ethics to estimate
scientifically his value as an ethical ideal, and to judge how far this
type of character may profitably be taken as a pattern. Nietzsche stands
at the farthest possible remove from Hegel. Does he, as an individualist,
stand within hail of Kant? It scarcely seems so. When we examine Kant's
"practical reason," in other words, the moral law as it revealed itself
to Kant, we find that it had taken up into itself the moral development
of the ages preceding. Kant's practical reason, his conscience, to speak
plain English, was not the practical reason of, for example, Aristotle.
The latter could speak of a slave as an "animated tool," and could
believe there were men intended by nature for slavery. Kant could not. In
theory an individualist, the Sage of Konigsberg stands, in reality, not
far from Hegel. He does not break with the past. But Nietzsche is revolt
incarnate.

PART VIII

THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL WILL

CHAPTER XXX

ASPECTS OF THE ETHICS OF REASON

139. THE DOCTRINE SUPPORTED BY THE OTHER SCHOOLS.--- I urge the more
confidently the Ethics of Reason, or the Ethics of the Rational Social
Will, because there is so little in it that is really new. It only makes
articulate what we all know already, and strives to get rid of certain
exaggerations into which many men who reason, and who reason well, have
unwittingly fallen.

The fundamentals of the doctrine have been exhibited in Parts V and VI of
this volume, and the exaggerations alluded to have been treated in Part
VII. Hence, I may speak very briefly in indicating how the Ethics of
Reason finds a many-sided support in schools which appear, on the
surface, to be in the opposition.

It is evident, to begin with, that the Ethics of the Social Will cannot
dispense with Moral Intuitions, but must regard them as indispensable;
as, indeed, the very foundation of the moral life. That the individual
may, and if he is properly equipped for the task, ought, to examine
critically his own moral intuitions and those of the community in which
he finds himself, and should, with becoming modesty and hesitation, now
and then suggest an innovation, means no more than that he and the
community are not dead, but are living, and that progress is a
possibility, at least.

As for the Egoist, unless he is an absurd extremist, we must admit that
he says much that is worth listening to. Was not Bentham quite right in
maintaining that if all A's interests were committed to B, and all B's to
A, the world would get on very badly? A charity that begins at the planet
Mars would arrive nowhere. The Ethics of Reason has room for a very
careful consideration of the interests of the self. But it may object to
the position that the moral mathematician may regard as the only
important number the number One.

With the Utilitarian our doctrine need have, as we have seen, no quarrel.
Did not that learned, enlightened, and most fair-minded of utilitarians,
Sidgwick, ultimately resolve the happiness which men seek into anything
which may be the object of the mind in willing? Did not a critical
utilitarianism resolve itself into the doctrine of the Rational Social
Will? Why take less critical utilitarians as the only exponents of the
school? Besides, is there any reason why the social will should be blind
to the fact that men generally do desire to gain pleasure and to avoid
pain? It is only the exaggeration of this truth that we need to combat.

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