The conflict is in us. The two wills here represented are our will. And for this reason, and for this only, can we feel the skeptical indecision. Had we the will to choose the one end alone, we should unhesi¬ tatingly choose it, and should not see enough of the opposing win to be skeptics. Had we only the will that chooses the opposing end, we should feel equally indifferent to the first. Had we neither will at all in mind, did we realize neither one of the opposing ends, we should be feeling no hesitation between them. Our doubt arises from the fact that momen¬ tarily and provisionally we are in the attitude of assuming both. Our indifference is not the indiffer¬ ence of ignorance, but of knowledge; not of failure to understand either end, but of readiness to realize both ends. Hence it follows that moral skepticism is itself the result of an act, namely, of the act by which we seek to realize in ourselves opposing aims at the same time. This observation is of the great¬ est importance to us, and we must dwell upon it. It shows us that above all our skepticism is the su¬ preme End that makes the skepticism itself possible.
The ethical aims themselves are all of them the expression of somebody’s will. Their conflict is the conflict of wills. Doubt about them depends upon the realization of their existence and of their oppo¬ sition. Therefore this doubt depends for its very existence on the conditions of this realization. We have tried to state what the conditions are. To realize opposing ends so completely that one feels a genuine doubt which of them to accept, implies, we say, the simultaneous provisional acceptance of both. And this may be shown in a more popular psycholog¬ ical way, as well as in a more general philosophical way. We take the psychological way first.
How can I know that there is anywhere a will, W, that chooses for itself some end, E? Really to know this implies something more than mere outer obser¬ vation of the facts. One must repeat in one’s own mind more or less rapidly or imperfectly this will, W, that one conceives to exist in somebody else. And this need of repetition is a well-known psycho¬ logical truth, very easily illustrated by all sorts of commonplace facts. Let us refer to some of these.
To think of a bodily act is to perform the act, or at least mentally to initiate the performance of the act. According to Professor Bain’s now generally accepted principle, the memory or the conception of an act is physiologically connected with the fainter excitation of just the same nerve-tracts as would be more intensely excited in the real performance of the act. Therefore it is true that to think of yawn¬ ing is to initiate a yawn, to think of walking is to initiate steps; and, in case of any excitable person, or in case of any momentary predisposition to per¬ form the act, the conception may immediately be¬ come the act, because the nascent excitation involved in the conception of the act may at once pass over into the completer excitation, and the ideal deed may become a visible fact. Thus the excited man, if not checked by company, may at once talk aloud to himself, his thoughts becoming words. If very much excited, he may mutter to himself even in the presence of company. He is much more apt to do this if he thinks not only of the words themselves, but of the act of speaking them, namely, if he im¬ agines himself talking to somebody, and emphatic¬ ally bringing his thoughts home to that other. In a weak state of body, this tendency to repeat an act whenever one conceives it may become quite dis¬ tressing. To think of vomiting may mean to vomit.
Or again, to think of laughter or of tears may in such a case make one laugh or cry. Hence the wea man may dislike to begin laughing, because he knows that, other exciting causes apart, the mere memory that he has laughed may keep him laughing afresh long after the sense of the ridiculous has passed away, so that to begin laughing may mean total exhaustion before he can stop.
Imitation rests at least in part upon this tendency. An act is performed, we witness it, we see or know how it is done, we conceive the effort that would lead to the performance of it, and forthwith this con¬ ception becomes the performance. We imitate the gesture of the actor or of the story-teller before us, and we feel an inner imitation of many acts, even though we suppress the outward signs. In general, for us to realize an act means that we shall do it, either in outward fact, or through a nascent perform¬ ance that is not outwardly visible. Much of the recently so-called “mind-reading,” more accurately named by some psychologists “ muscle - reading,” rests upon this foundation. For the conception of acts that are not outwardly performed is often indi¬ cated by slight motions or tensions of arm or of fin¬ gers, or of the whole body, and the muscle-reader, getting some close contact with his subject, amuses a company by interpreting these unseen, but readily felt signs of the thoughts of his subject. Very deeply do such facts enter into the structure of our mental life.
Mr. Galton, investigating word-associations, found in many cases that the idea immediately aroused by a word was a sort of dramatic reproduction of the act expressed by the word. This dramatic reproduction consisted, at least in part, in the feeling of effort in those muscles that would be concerned in performing the act itself. If the momentary association first aroused by the sudden and unexpected sight of the word involves this dramatic imitation of the act named, how much more would the thought involve the dramatic repetition of the act, if one were to dwell upon the nature of this act, and were fully to realize its nature in his own mind. So much then for psy¬ chological illustration of the view that we are here advancing. If two opposing fashions of action are present to our minds, and if mentally we are trying to realize them both, then mentally we are seeking to reproduce them both. Our skeptical hesitation between them expresses our effort to attain mentally both these ends at once. For what we have said about bodily acts will apply equally well to what we usually call mental acts, and even to general resolu¬ tions, all of which have a physical side, and are apt to be symbolized by some bodily gesture that we mentally or outwardly repeat when we think of the act or of the resolution in question.
But all this is not a bare accident of the psycholog¬ ical structure of our minds; it is a philosophical ne¬ cessity. What represents a Will but a Will? Who would know what it is to have an end unless he act¬ ually had ends himself? Who can realize a given aim save by somehow repeating it in himself? And so it is rationally and universally necessary that one shall realize the end of a moral system by reproduc¬ ing in himself the will that accepts this end. But, on the other hand, in so far forth as he reproduces this will alone, he cannot refrain from accepting the end. In so far forth as he reproduces this will, it is his will. And the end is his end. Therefore our skepticism itself was a hesitation, resulting from the % % realization of several opposing ends, and from a si¬ multaneous reproduction of the wills that aimed at them. Therefore, as we see, absolute ethical skepti¬ cism would not really be total absence of moral aim, but would rather be the neutrality that would result from a provisional acceptance of all the conflicting aims in the world of action. Absolute ethical skepti¬ cism, if it were actually possible without self-destruc¬ tion, would still presuppose an end, namely, the effort to harmonize in one moment all the conflicting aims in the world of life. It would not be what it had supposed itself to be. Absolute skepticism would thus be founded on absolute benevolence. Its own aim would be harmony and unity of conduct. But just for that reason is absolute skepticism self -destructive.
Possibly this result may be somewhat unexpected. But did not the very pessimism of our last chapter illustrate it? Why this pessimism? This despair of life, what was it but the sense of the hopelessness of our task? What made the task seem hopeless? And what was the task? The task was the forma¬ tion of an harmonious ideal of life. This task seemed hopeless, because we felt that the actual ideals of life among men are in deadly conflict. Our pessimism was after all not what it seemed to us to be. It was not the bare renunciation of all aims; it was the effort to satisfy them all, embittered by the sense that they were in seemingly hopeless con¬ flict. Even our pessimism had its ideal. Without its ideal it would have experienced no despair. The conflict of aims would have meant no evil. The pes¬ simistic despair was the natural outcome of our skepticism, solely because our skepticism was itself a real¬ ization of the aims with which men live, and of the warfare of these aims.
From the world of dead facts, we had said, you can get no ethical doctrine. Physical truth never gives moral doctrine. Therefore the world of facts seemed to stand on one side, and the world of moral aims seemed to stand on the other, no logical connec¬ tion being discoverable between them. This was our theoretical objection to the ethical doctrines that we examined. Separate as they were from the world of facts, they seemed to dwell alone, ungrounded and conflicting acts of caprice. Yet for them to pass over to the world of facts was to lose their ethical character. But now we seek to overcome our diffi¬ culty by considering, not the world of physical facts themselves, but the world of ends. And this world we consider, not now in detail, but as a whole.
What highest end is suggested, we ask, to him who realizes for himself this whole world of ends? The very end, we answer, that, as first dimly seen, forced upon us our skeptical pessimism. Whoso realizes an end, his, for the time being, is that end. And since it is his end, he mentally wills to realize it in ideal perfection. But whoso realizes the various conflicting aims in the world, his are all these aims at the mo¬ ment of insight, when, so far as in him lies, he real¬ izes them, and mentally desires their success. In pro¬ portion as his realization is or can be catholic and genuine, his will becomes, for the time, these con¬ flicting wills. In him is now the warfare. He feels in his own person the bitterness of the universal strife. And therefore it is that, in the first moment of his new insight, the pessimism comes to him. “This warfare cannot be ended,” he despairingly says. But has he thus uttered the final word? For he has not yet added the reflection that we are here insisting upon. Let him say: “ Then I too have an end, far-off and unattainable though it seems, and so my will is not aimless. I desire to realize these aims all at once. Therefore I desire their harmony. This is the one good that comes up before my fancy as above all the various conflicting individual goods of the various separate aims. This Higher Good would be attained in a world where the conflict ceased. That would be the Ideal World, where all possible aims were pursued in absolute harmony.”
Barren at first sight this reflection may appear. It may have been unexpected, but we shall certainly be disposed at first to call it fruitless. For here are the aims, and they do conflict. In the actual world there is ceaseless warfare. Only the wager of bat¬ tle can decide among the opposing ethical faiths. But now, if some idealist comes who says that his insight gives him the higher ideal of Harmony, then one may reply that his ideal is, in its confessed na¬ ture, a mere fantasy of his benevolent imagination. Such harmony never can be realized, unless indeed some day, by the aid of bigger battalions, some one of the ideals overcomes all the rest. Yet is our idealist so lightly to be answered? Can he not at once reply: “My Ideal is thus defined, and fantastic though it be, far-off though it seems, it is still an ideal towards which I can direct my efforts. For behold, made practical, brought down from its lone¬ some height, my Ideal very simply means the Will to direct my acts towards the attainment of univer¬ sal Harmony. It requires me to act with this my in¬ sight always before me. It requires me to consider all the conflicting aims that will be affected by each one of my acts, and to dispose my act with reference to them all. It sets up this new moral principle be¬ fore me, a principle perfectly catholic, and above all that skepticism which we have felt with regard to the special moral aims. This Principle is: So act as thou wouldst will to act if all the consequences of thy act for all the aims that are anywhere to be af¬ fected by this act, could be realized by thee now and in this one indivisible moment. Or more briefly put: Act always in the light of the completest insight into all the aims that thy act is to affect. This rule is no capricious one, chosen for some individual reason, but an universal maxim, since its choice de¬ pends on the general realization of all the conflicting aims of the world of life. And thus we have after all found, in the very heart of our skepticism itself, a moral doctrine. In the midst of the warfare of in¬ dividual wills, we have caught sight of an Universal Win.
II.
Win.
II.
“ But no,” some one will say: “ All this is still mere caprice. Has it not in fact fallen already a prey to the same skepticism that pursued other moral aims? For first, you have tried to found it on a phys¬ ical fact, namely, on the fact that only by a given effort of will one thinking being can realize the will of another. But does this tell me that I ought thus to realize the conflicting wills that are in the world? And if 1 do not, what significance has this physical fact for me? But, on the other hand, physical facts aside, is not your doctrine just your capricious deter¬ mination to respect the conflicting aims that exist in the world? ” This objection, if made, would be founded on a misunderstanding of what we have discovered. We have discovered something that has a value for us quite independently of its importance as a mere phys¬ ical fact. We set out to find a distinction between right and wrong. Our difficulty always was that, since this distinction involves the acceptance of a highest aim as the standard of judgment, and since there are numerous aims possible, we always were confused by the fact that among these manifold aims there was found no ground of choice. For to show any reason why we have chosen in a given way be¬ tween two of these aims, is to have a third aim that includes one and excludes the other. And the choice of this third aim seemed again just as accidental as the first choice would have been without this third aim to justify it. Thus our original thought of an aim, as the foundation of an ethical doctrine, had been shattered before our eyes into a spray of sepa¬ rate possible or actual aims, and we saw no way of collecting this spray again into unity. If that was the reason for our skepticism, then of course any¬ thing more that we may say about ethics must pre¬ suppose a hearer who can feel such skepticism, at least provisionally. The physical fact that he can understand the nature of our doubt is indeed presup¬ posed ere we can go further, but that is no objection to our progress. The physical fact that we have an intelligent hearer must always be presupposed by us. If one cannot feel the doubt, then he cannot undertake any ethical inquiry. We only say to him: “ If you doubt about the acceptance of a moral aim, this that we have pointed out to you is the real reason for your doubt. If now you understand your doubt, then you are actually in the state that we have described above. Your doubt has in fact a general character. It means a provisional moral skepticism, founded on an insight into the conflict of aims.
This insight means skepticism because, and only be¬ cause, you are at the moment of insight yourself pos¬ sessed of the conflicting aims, yourself at war with yourself, and therefore undecided. This spray of aims into which your first pure idea of a moral aim as such has been scattered, this confused and blind¬ ing cloud of purposes, represents for you your own moral position. Divided in yourself, disunited, con¬ fused, you float cloud-like and inactive, seeking unity of aim and finding none. But if you reflect on all this, you see that in truth you occupy the position that we have above described. You really have still a highest aim. You seek unity. You desire the warfare to cease. You have an ideal. All this is, to be sure, a physical fact, dependent on your na¬ ture as voluntary being; but it is not valuable just for that reason alone, but for the reason that, in dis¬ covering this fact, you have discovered what you \ were seeking for. You have found that you are in possession of an ideal. You cannot get away from that ideal save by repeating the very process that has brought you to it. Your moral insight is at¬ tained, and the foundation of your doctrine is no longer a particular aim that is accepted by a mere caprice of one individual, but it is the necessary aim that arises in the mind of any one who actually real¬ izes the warfare of the particular aims. It is the ideal of ideals. It is the absolute ideal that arises for you out of the consideration of the separate ideals. Each of them was relative to the mood of the man who happened to choose it; this Ideal is relative only to the insight that comprehends the whole moral world. Unable as we men are fully to realize just the actual nature of every single aim in the world of life, still we are able fully to realize cer¬ tain conflicting aims; and, realizing this conflict, we can form for ourselves the notion of that absolute realization that means, as we have seen, first the skeptical despair of our last chapter, and then, by a deeper reflection, the ideal that we have just set forth above. Thus we no longer are capriciously de¬ ciding upon the worth of physical facts as such. W e are passing a necessary judgment upon ideals as ideals.
And we have tried to show that this our resulting ideal is not a barren one. At first sight it seems so. At first sight one says: “ This harmony is a selfcontradictory dream.” But no, not self -contradictory is the dream; for, if we cannot perfectly realize this new ideal, if absolute harmony is unattainable, one can still walk in the light of the ideal. One can say: “ I will act as if all these conflicting aims were mine. I will respect them all. I will act in the light that has brought me my moral insight. And to that end I will act at each moment as one would act who saw himself about to suffer in his own person and at one time all the consequences of his act for all the aims that are to be affected by what he does.” But now the ideal becomes practical, now it ceases to be barren. It is no longer the mere wish that was at the heart of our skepticism, a wish gloomy, in¬ active, terrified at the warfare that is in the world. It is a cool determination. It says: “ This disease of conflicting aims cannot now be cured, but it shall be dealt with. These aims are as my own. I will deal with them as such. I will work for their har¬ mony.” If one doubts this ideal, then he doubts the very foundation of ethical doubt itself. But this is not all that our absolute ideal accomplishes. Not merely for the moment of insight does this ideal give an aim; but it extends itself to the other moments of life. It says: “ The highest good would be realiz¬ able only in case not merely the aim of this moment of insight itself, but the aims of all the conflicting wills in the world, were brought into conformity to this insight. The highest good would be attainable if all the conflicting wills realized fully one another.
For then, not abandoning each its own aim, each would have added thereto, through insight, the aims of the others. And all the world of individuals would act as one Being, having a single Universal Will. Harmony would in fact be attained.” Therefore our ideal has another precept to give us. It says: “ Act in such wise as to extend this moral in¬ sight to others.” Here is a definite practical aim, and it justifies us in saying to all the conflicting wills: “You should respect one another.” For so in fact they all would do if they had the moral insight. And to have it, as we now see, is the prerequisite to the attainment of the highest good, namely, this ideal Harmony that we seek at the moment of moral insight.
III.
We fear that such general discussion of what we have called the moral insight may seem, at first sight, too abstract to be real. We hasten to a more con¬ crete study of this insight. Leaving those more ab¬ stract aims that have been used as the foundation of moral systems, let us study our moral insight as it applies to the special aims that come into conflict when a man is dealing with his neighbor. Let us see how just the considerations that we have applied to the conflict of ethical aims in general apply di¬ rectly to the conflict, between selfishness and unself¬ ishness, which we so long and so vainly considered in the last chapter. This warfare of selfishness and unselfishness is indeed not the deepest of moral problems, and to solve the problem here involved is not, as some have supposed, to define forthwith the Highest Good. Yet we shall do well to fix our minds for the time on this special problem.
Why is selfishness easier to me than unselfishness? Because it is easier for me to realize my own future, and my own desire about it, than to realize the desires of my neighbor. My will is the datum; his the dimlyconceived, remote fact. Hence it seems to me obvious that his will must be to me less significant than my own. Therefore he and I are often in deadly war¬ fare, just because 1 realize his will not in its inner nature, but as a foreign power, and because he deals even so with me. We stand over against each other like two moral systems, condemning and fight¬ ing each the other. Now, however, there often ap¬ pear disinterested moralists, who try to patch up our differences. We have seen how and why they have so often failed. They tell me that my neighbor and I shall give each other much more selfish delight if we stop fighting and begin cooperating. But that wise advice in no way touches the root of the diffi¬ culty between us. If we did cooperate for this rea¬ son, we should still be two foreign powers, virtually discordant. And whenever it happened that either of us could do better by oppressing or by crushing the other than by continuing to cooperate with him, he not only would do so, but, so far as we have seen, must do so. Another moralist hopes that if we keep on cooperating long enough, we may evolve into purely unselfish beings some day. The hope is a pious one, but gives us no sufficient reason why we ought to cooperate unselfishly now, when in fact we are selfish. Yet another moralist asks us to reflect on the nature of our emotions of pity and sympathy for each other. We reply that these feelings are in¬ determinate in character, and may lead us to do any¬ thin <r or nothing for each other. So all these moralists leave my neighbor and me just where we were.
If it is to our personal advantage to fight, we shall do so; otherwise we may by chance remain for a while in practical harmony; but, throughout, our moral aims will remain what they were, selfish and conflicting.
Forsaking these unsatisfactory attempts to found a moral doctrine concerning one’s duty to one’s neighbor, let us try to do what Schopenhauer so haltingly suggested, namely, to see what moral in¬ sight as moral insight, and not as pity or as far¬ sighted egoism, tells us about the moral relations of selfishness and unselfishness. If a man not merely pities but knows his neighbor’s will, what moral ideal does he get? We affirm that insight into the reality of the neighbor’s will, insight that considers his will as it is in itself, and that accordingly repeats it in us, gives us a position above the struggle of self and neighbor, and lets us see the higher ideal of Harmony, whose precept is: Adas a being would ad who included thy will and thy neighbor's will in the unity of one life, and who had therefore to suffer the consequences for the aims of both that will fol¬ low from the ad of either. This insight is not the mere emotion of pity nor yet sympathy, but some¬ thing different from these, namely, something that involves the realization, and therefore the reproduc¬ tion in us, of the opposing will of the neighbor. This insight therefore deprives each will in its separate¬ ness of its absolute significance, and commands that we should act with an equal reference to both.’ It says not merely, “ Love thy neighbor as thyself,” but, “ In so far as in thee lies, act as if thou wert at once thy neighbor and thyself I “ Treat these two lives as one life.”
W e must try to show how this insight leads to this result. We must try so to bring home the insight to the reader that he shall in his person accomplish the act of which we speak, and so come to accept the ideal upon which we are insisting. It is in him¬ self that he is to experience this ideal, or else he will not be able or willing to accept it. We can only suggest the way. And so we shall try forthwith to suggest what is the nature of that common imper¬ fect realization of our neighbor’s life which does not lead to the moral insight, and then to dwell upon this insight itself.
IV.
IV.
The common sense, imperfect recognition of our neighbor implies rather realization of the external aspect of his being, as that part of him which affects us, than realization of his inner and peculiar world of personal experience. Let us show this by example. First, take my realization of the people whom I com¬ monly meet but do not personally very well know, e. g. the conductor on the railway train when I travel. He is for me just the being who takes my ticket, the official to whom I can appeal for certain advice or help if I need it. That this conductor has an inner life, like mine, this I am apt never to realize at all. He has to excite my pity or some other spe¬ cial human interest in me ere I shall even begin to try to think of him as really like me. On the whole, * he is for me realized as an automaton. But still fre¬ quently I do realize him in another way, but how?