Class _LilLa^_ Book . o &<\~ Copyright^ . T COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT THE VALUE & DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE THE VALUE & DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE AS SHOWN IN THE STRIVING AND SUFFERING OF THE INDIVIDUAL BY CHARLES GRAY SHAW RICHARD G. BADGER THE GORHAM PRESS BOSTON COPYRIGHT 1911 BY RICHARD G. BADGER All Rights Reserved THE GORHAM PRESS, BOSTON, U. S. A. ©CLA2837.01 TO RUDOLF EUCKEN As a humble tribute to a great thinker and sincere appre- ciation of a faithful friend this volume is inscribed PREFACE This book has been written with the conviction that a radical change is taking place in our conception of human ideals and activities. Traditional theories and conventional morals seem to give a most inadequate view of man's inner life, while they are equally inefficient in accounting for his strivings in the world. For this reason, it becomes necessary to assume a new view of humanity, to ask, as if for the first time, what is man for? Such a question is taken up in the following work, which seeks to determine the apparent goal of human activity, and does not assume, with hedonist or intuitionist, that life in its totality may be expressed at once in terms of desire or duty. Was man meant for happi- ness? That question is rather artless, is it not? Then, was man meant for virtue? Yes, but what is virtue, and who is man? With the problem of life as such in mind, this book aims to elaborate a system of major morality, based upon the totality of our human striving. In the pursuit of such a problem, major ethics deems it proper to isolate the ego in his individuality, and to examine his strivings after selfhood. Is it too much to hope that this view of ethics, this estimate of the moral life, may be of aid to one who is anxious to com- prehend the meaning of humanity, in order that he may find his own place in the vast world? At any rate, this is the purpose of major morality. On the academic side, it must be stated that the material contained in the following pages has already served a prac- tical purpose among students of philosophy in New York 6 PREFACE University, where the lectures on ethics have followed the plan laid down in the table of contents. In publishing this work, I am happy in having the privilege of dedicating it to my former teacher, Professor Rudolf Eucken, whose phil- osophy is becoming such a factor in American thought to-day. At the same time, I regret that, in pondering upon these ethical problems, I have had before me no work on ethics from the pen of this master, and I can only express the hope that the near future may witness the publication of his theory of conduct. To my colleague, Professor Robert MacDougall, I am indebted for assistance in correcting the proofs, and I take this opportunity to praise him for his patience and to thank him for his aid. My wife assumed the more trying task of reading the manuscript and helped me make it pre- sentable. C. G. S. University Heights. CONTENTS PART ONE: THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE Page I THE STRIVING OF HUMANITY WITH NATURE 19 1. The ambiguous position of humanity. The 19 development of a goal. The deduction of moral life. 2. The striving of humanity with nature. 24 a — Speculative striving. Separation of thought 24 from the world. Affirmation of an inner realm. b — The aesthetic impulse of humanity. Affirm- 27 ation of human freedom. Conflict of art with nature. c — The religious affirmation of the soul. Asser- 30 tion of the self. Negation of the world. d — The ethical activity of humanity. The 32 struggle for humanity. Ethics as philosophy of life. II THE CONTINUITY OF HUMAN STRIVING 36 1. The category of development. The historical 36 in ethics. 2. The ethical moment in history. Ceaseless 37 striving after humanity. 3. The historical view of ethics. The internal 40 in history. The temporal element in progress. 4. The stages of human history. Naturistic, 43 characteristic, humanistic periods. The three Gunas of Sankhyan philosophy. Plato's tri- partite Republic. Valentinus' triple order of men. The historical schemes of Vico and Schiller. 5. Phases of the moral life. Hedonism, rigorism, 48 humanism. Ethics of the third order. Ill THE WORLD OF HUMANITY 52 I. Human striving and historical progress. Hu- 52 manity the goal of man's efforts. The positing of a human world-over. 8 CONTENTS Page 2. The world of humanity in theory. 55 a — The world of thought. Aryan intellect- 56 ualism. b — The ethical world-order. Semitic pragma- 58 tism. 3. Positive view of the world of humanity. 60 a — The world of culture. World-significance 60 of beauty. Art and the world-life. b — The world of worship. The spontaneity of 62 religion. Life in the religious world-order. 4. The world-life in human consciousness. Direct 65 evidence of the world-life. a — Humanity and the individual. The person- 66 al problem. The nature of selfhood. Human search for the soul. b — The world of persons in human conscious- 70 ness. Essential relation of self to self. Phil- osophical and poetical views. Subtle bond between persons. PART TWO: THE NATURISTIC VIEW OF LIFE I THE LIFE OF HUMANITY IN SENSE 79 1. The first stage of mankind. The idea of 79 progress. 2. The origin of moral life. The striving of 81 man. The progress from nature to spirit. 3. The possibility of moral progress. Evidence 84 of ethical development. Interest, virtue, value. 4. The entrance of idealism. Experience and 87 the ideal. Spirit in the midst of sense. The necessity of naturism. II THE FEELING OF HUMANITY IN PLEASURE AND DESIRE 92 1. Life according to pleasure-pain. Life as en- 92 joyment. Quality and quantity of feeling. 2. The hedonic calculus. The perceptual anal- 96 ogy. Difficulty with attention and memory. 3. The hedonic law. Change from enjoyment 99 to benefit. CONTENTS 9 Page 4. Life according to desire. Desire more 102 elemental than pleasure. Life activistic, not hedonic. Desire and pleasure. 5. Desire and human striving. Self-realization 104 more than pleasure. The craving for power. Naturism more than hedonism. Ill THE NATURISTIC VIEW OF THE SELF AND HU- MANITY 108 1. Human Selfhood. 1 08 a — Selfhood in sense. Selfhood as self-love. The no self and individuation. Weakness of selfhood in sense. b — The will to selfhood. The solitaire and the 114 superman. Self-love and self-will. 2. Human worldhood. 1 18 a — The utilitarian adjustment. The greatest 118 happiness. Universal benevolence. b— The social organization of conduct. The 121 social organism. Conciliation of egoism and altruism. c — Egoism and Socialism. Altruist and sym- 124 pathist. IV THE TRANSMUTATION OF NATURISM AND MORAL- ISM 129 1. The problem of moralism. Morality as per- 129 fected virtue. Morality as heteronomy. 2. The conflict over virtue. Antipathy to the 132 moralistic view. Absorption of virtue in utility. 3. Heteronomy and humanity. Relation of the 135 moral to the human. 4. The relativity of the good. The case of speci- 136 fie virtues. The symbolic nature of benevolence. V NATURISM AS EUDAEMONISM I4I 1. The form of happiness as immediacy. Animal- 141 ity and humanity. Hellenic happiness. Classic contemplation. 2. Happiness as possession of the good. Posses- 145 sion versus pursuit. The secondary ideal of activity. io CONTENTS Page 3. The "work of contemplation." Aristole's 148 ideal. Bacon's argument. 4. The content of happiness in activity. The 152 value of knowledge. Skeptical attitude of the modern. Labor as anodyne. "Cultivating the garden." Will and intellect. 5. Naturistic optimism. Literary utilitarianism. 156 Life and labor. VI — RESULT OF NATURISM THE VALUE OF LIFE. ... l6o 1. The range of naturism. Passive and active 160 forms of the doctrine. 2. The worth of life. The claim of life upon 162 humanity. 3. The striving of humanity beyond nature. 165 Organization of life in civilization. The affirm- ation of humanity in culture. The trans-natural vocation of man. 4. The inness of human feeling. Judgments of 168 feeling. 5. The entrance of pessimism. Hedonism's 169 optimistic weakness. Inability of nature to satisfy human striving. 6. The meaning of human feeling. The inner 172 life. Problem of human sensitivity. Man's am- biguous position in the worldwhole. 7. The sense of human striving. Persistence of 175 desire and human positing. The mystery of activity. Man both creature and character. PART THREE: CHARACTERISTIC ETHICS I THE LIFE OF HUMANITY IN WILL l8l 1. Forms of the doctrine. Intuitionism and 181 rigorism. 2. The place of characteristic ethics. Relation to 182 second period of human history. Academic value of rationalism. 3. The transition from nature to character. 186 Variations of virtue limited. Similar transition CONTENTS ii Page from sensation \o idea. Unity of humanity amidst changes. Dual form of characteristic ethics. 4. Characteristic ethics as intuitionism. Develop- 189 ment of the intuition. II CHARACTERISTIC ETHICS AND CONSCIENCE 191 1. The moral sense and pleasure. Terminology 7 191 of conscience. Psychology of conscience as a sense. 2. The humanity of conscience. Value of origins. 195 The evolutionary view. Relation of conscience to social environment. 3. The outer conflict of the ego with humanity. 199 Dramatic possibilities of the sentiment. Good and bad conscience. 4. The inner conflict between sentiment and 203 passion. Durability of human sentiment. 5. Resentment and remorse. How humanity in 204 man triumphs. Intellectual limits of conscience. 6. Conscience and non-resentment. The anticipa- 206 tion of remorse. 7. The possibility of malevolence. Humanistic 209 ground of non-resentment. Ill CHARACTERISTIC ETHICS AND RECTITUDE 212 1. Moral life in reason. Transition from senti- 212 ment to judgment. The norm of rectitude. 2. Rectitude as autonomy. Antipathy to inclina- 215 tion and consequence. How ethical judgments are possible. 3. The problem of ethical judgment. Judgment 218 and identity. Qualification of copula and pre- dicate. 4. Real rectitude and human interest. Possibility 220 of disinterestedness. 5. Humanity as the ideal. Real rectitude and 222 universal interest. Transition from rectitude to duty. IV HUMAN STRIVING AS FREEDOM 227 I. The place of freedom in the world. Freedom 227 and law. 12 CONTENTS Page 2. The punctual view of freedom. Arguments 228 from consciousness and compunction. The totality of human freedom. 3. Evidences of creative freedom. Testimony of 232 art and science. Results from religion and morality. 4. The unity of freedom and fate. Man and the 235 "free moral agent." How man transcends free- will. V THE ETHICAL DEMANDS OF HUMANITY 239 1. The demand as individual duty. Duty as 240 moral law. Metaphysical nature of duty. 2. The self-contradiction of individual will. The 243 question concerning the quality of conation. Effect upon morality. 3. Obligation as human responsibility. The inner 246 nature of duty. Duty and human destiny. Hu- man responsibility. VI THE LIFE OF RIGORISM 25 1 1. The ideal of renunciation. Its religious signi- 251 ficance. Rigorism and eudaemonism. 2. Life as sinful. World-despair. Nihilistic 253 ideals. Moralism and pessimism. 3. The idealization of pain. Renunciatory ideal 258 in modern poetry. Attack upon the depress- ing ideal. Criticism of doubt and repentance. 4. The passion for morality. Effect upon the 262 aesthetical. 5. The hatred of life. Belief in pain. Conscious- 265 ness of death. Antipathy to culture. VII THE EFFECT OF CHARACTERISTIC ETHICS THE DIGNITY OF MAN 270 1. Intuitionism and life. Artificial view of con- 271 science and rectitude. Weakness of freedom and duty. No ground for renunciation. 2. Special problems of characteristic Ethics. 275 a — Conscience as conflict with humanity. In- 276 dividual compunction. b — The fallacy of rectitude and its humanistic 277 correction. The content of rectitude. CONTENTS 13 Page c — The world* of freedom and free-will. Free- 278 dom within humanity. d — Imperative duty as human striving. Com- 279 mon ground of duty and desire. 3. Escape from rigorism through human dignity. 281 General view of life in rigorism. Intellectual dignity of man. Dignity a substitute for duty. PART FOUR: HUMANISTIC ETHICS I MAJOR AND MINOR MORALITY 287 1. The Life of Humanity in Spirit 287 2. Humanity as a system. Total view of the life- 289 problem. Non-ethical views of life. The fail- ure to find humanity. Life not beyond dispute. 3. The minor nature of hedonism and intuition- 293 ism. Lost sense of inner unity. Eccentric ethics. Adherence to naturism. Pettiness of minor morality. Table of major and minor morals. 4. The pragmatic repudation of reason. Deca- 300 dent morality. Contempt for the intellect. An- aesthetic effect of activism. 5. The morality of maxims. Maxims and activ- 303 ity. Ideals of the intellect. Distrust of art. 6. The categories of major morality. Place of 306 value and dignity. Contrast with good-virtue, rectitude-duty. II THE CATEGORY OF VALUE 309 1. The actuality of value. Value and the good. 309 Lack of activism. Value and modern ideals. Want of moral goal. 2. The conceptual nature of value — value and 312 progress. Reconciliation of idealism and activism. Romantic nature of modern ethics. Place of value in human striving. How value is found. Value and progress. 3. Value as an intuition. Reconciliation of sense 317 and reason. Intuitive nature of humanity. Com- parison with aesthetics. 4. The source of the value- judgment. Value in- 319 ternal. Value and feeling. i 4 CONTENTS Page 5. Value, pleasure and desire. Advantage of 321 pleasure as a determinant. Limitation of pleas- ure. Value and desire. Limitation of empiri- cal desire. Value and desirability. The ideali- zation of desire. Ill VALUE AS AN ETHICAL SANCTION 327 I. The ground of moral judgment. Virtue not 327 without worth. The ground and goal of moral endeavor. I. The sense of moral action. The category of 329 absolute value. Moral values established through humanity. 3. Value as basis of moral belief. Treatment of 332 moral skepticism. Value and moral decadence. Relation of value to right and wrong. 4. The world of values. Ontological nature of 335 value. The permanent values of humanity. Eternal justice and eternal values. 5. The world of values as moral goal. Ground 338 of human existence and action. The transval- uation of values. IV HUMAN DIGNITY AS ETHICAL CATEGORY 34I 1. The dignity of the inner life. Man as a 341 world. His world-life. 2. The dignity of action. Action and inaction. 343 Yogi worklessness. The will's limitations. 3. Activity as creative. The creative phase of 346 human striving. The totality of action. Deed- act and Vollthat. 4. Completeness of action in self-consciousness. 349 Action as intelligent. World-work. Work as introactivity. 5. The intellectual dignity of humanity. Intel- 352 lect and supreme humanity. Contrast between thinking and acting. The pragmatic view of life. Action inferior to thought. Unity of will and intellect in consciousness. Intellectual na- ture of human striving. 6. Culture and conduct. Culture and human 357 CONTENTS 15 Page work. Strivmg after self-knowledge. Limits of voluntarism. Pragmatism and the inner life. V THE DIGNITY OF SELFHOOD 361 1. The striving for human selfhood. The ego and 362 humanity. The right path to personality. In- sufficiency of egoism and altruism. 2. Contemplative egoism. Selfhood and culture. 365 Hedonic and humanistic egoism. 3. The ego and his individuality. Recent attempts 368 at egoism. Intellectual self-assertion. The striving after inner life. 4. The sense of human worldhood. The intel- 374 lectual view of humanity. Humanity and the world as a whole.. Humanity and history. 5. Solidarity and pessimism. Self-sacrifice. Pessi- 377 mism and compassion. VI THE TRIUMPH OF HUMANITY IN MAJOR MORAL- ITY 380 1. Human triumph in consciousness — The value 381 of life. Man as valuing organism. Happiness and reality. Reconciliation of optimism and pessimism. 2. The triumph over immediacy. From pleasure 383 to desire. Utility and eudaemonia. Human values remote. Fallacy of activism. 3. Human triumph in conduct — The dignity of 386 man. Conduct as reaction upon the world. Moral pessimism. The subordination of sense. The significance of conscience and rectitude. Dignity of human freedom and duty. Value of the renunciatory ideal. 4. The triumph over renunciation. Attitude of 391 man toward the world. Opposition to renun- ciation. Essential value of renunciation. 5. The dignity of acquiescence. Unity of value 394 and dignity. Sublime quality of renunciation. The life-impulse and death-instinct. The real human problem — to will self and the world. Unity of selfhood and worldhood. The reality of human triumph. PART ONE THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE THE VALUE & DIGNITY OF I^UMAN LIFE i THE STRIVING OF HUMANITY WITH NATURE The problem of our human life appears in the am- biguous position that man occupies in the world-whole; its solution comes about by the inner striving of humanity with outer nature. Humanity stands midway between na- ture and spirit, receiving from the lower order the will with which he lives, from the higher the ideal toward which he strives. Human striving whether in thought or action is provoked by this paradoxical position occupied by man who sees that he cannot remain in the world of sense, while he is not ready for life in the world of spirit. All knowledge must finally adjust itself to the claims of experience and understanding and all action conduct itself in view of na- tural desire and rational duty; for while man may belong to the realm of spirit, his speculative and practical problems must be solved in view of his origin in the natural order of sensation. As man strives to realize his inherent selfhood and worldhood, he must inquire continually concerning his place in the universe and the problem that his life presents. From all that humanity seems to feel and all that it has at- tempted in the past, it seems as though man were destined to posit his spiritual nature in speculative contrast and prac- tical opposition to the world that all but envelops him. I THE AMBIGUOUS POSITION OF HUMANITY In a certain sense there is nothing extraordinary in the problems of culture and conduct as these have disturbed the human spirit since the inception of conscious spiritual life among the Hindoos and Hebrews. All questions con- cerning the means of knowledge and the motives for action are conditioned by the ambiguity of our human attitude, and 19 20 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE where now the sensational and then the rational claims man, the problem arising is due to no other fact than the partici- pation of a natural creature in an order of life above him. In no other way than as a conflict between matter and mind, of the sensuous and the spiritual, could human life as such arise and develop. For the animal the world is all sense, so that his life contains nothing problematic; for the angel all is spirit, so that cherubim and seraphim are free from philosophic responsibility. But man's midway position as well as the mixture of sense and spirit in his consciousness make it needful for him to inquire concerning his place in the world-whole and to posit his inner life in contrast to his outer existence. Only as this self-affirmation is taken up by man can humanity appear in the universe. The self-positing of humanity is no mere academic affair, involving the cool elaboration of judgments, nor is it an instinctive matter which comes about naturally in the course of human life. It is a complete deed on the part of man involving ceaseless striving, just as it is accomplished, not immediately, but gradually in the historial progress of the human spirit. Individual effort and universal struggle on the part of nations seem thus to have no other meaning than the inner affirmation of a humanity which arises in the world of time and space. Humanity, viewed either indivi- dually or socially, is no primitive possession of mankind, but an achievement brought about by characteristic human acti- vity. Being both within and without the world of nature, humanity is called upon to originate something characterized by both the phenomenal and the real, the sensuous and the spiritual. Such is the problem of life as it appears in thought and action, as it is organized in the abstract doc- trines of logic and ethics, in the concrete disciplines of art and religion. Life Cannot be avoided, for while humanity may postpone some af its problems, it is impossible for man's spiritual nature to remain submerged in the various forms of faunal existence. In the light of man's position in the world of nature and spirit, the problem of human philosophy appears in firm outline. Philosophy aims to deduce the ground of the world, and the goal of human life; it is guided by an en- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 21 during logical principle which here aims at discovering the validity of things, there is bent upon considering their value in the presence of an ethical ideal. Ethics may spring from logic, where human morality in aligning the ideal appeals to metaphysics to authorize its action; or logic may have an ethical motif in and behind it, as though man's quest of reali- ty were guided by an assumption that what ought to be is. In the beginning is the thought, or the deed; particular philosophies must present their respective claims for intellect or will. But the fact remains that man in the realm of nature and reason cannot accept off-hand the world of ex- perience, whether it consist of those outer phenomena which make up the natural order, or such inner ones as go to show the existence of a subjective and spiritual one. Humanity is not found either within or without, but must be posited by man in the negation of nature and the affirmation of spirit ; in this way the world of immediacy, whether physical or psychical, is set aside for the one world of humanity. For a thorough consideration of the ethical problems, wherein neither moral casuistry nor ethical culture shall ob- scure the august nature of the question, something ontologi- cal must be premised, postulated, and continually implied. Man is to be regarded, not in his individuality, but in his totality; not as a phenomenon, but as a person: not as an inhabitant of nature, but as a citizen in the civitas humanita- tis. Thus understood, human life will be real; hence the need of metaphysical methods by way of consideration. If the good is not a category, like substance, or value a category like causality, there exist judgments of good and judgments of value which participate in reason as securely as do those logical judgments of reality and relation. These moral re- lations and these ethical judgments may not adapt them- selves to reality in the form of noumena, but their being belongs to some transphenomenal order, and in the totality of all that exists there is a place for them in the world of humanity. Now to consider moral life in particular, we must survey human life in general. No consistent ethical theory can be carried out, un- less the manifest destiny of man serves as the background of the particular view which is held. For this reason, one 22 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE cannot be a perfect hedonist unless he shows that humanity is hedonistic, too. If man's position in the world-whole is a naturistic one, and his end seems to consist in cultivating something of immediate moment, then it is probable that the course of feelings, which are so influential with men and ani- mals alike, was meant to occupy his attention altogether. Under naturistic auspices, the end of life may be called happiness. Yet suppose that man was not called unto a concrete life, and was never destined to realize his animality as the goal of his being? Rationalism, too, has its claims, and accordingly it surveys man sub specie boni, just as it postulates the belief that man was meant for reason and should submit to the domination of an abstract ideal. Both of these views have been entertained, and that with no little zeal on the part of their respective advocates. Yet it is rare than an ethical theory sets out upon the devious path of moral philosophy with a just conception of what man, its subject, was meant to do. For this reason, commandments to seek pleasure or to follow virtue are not necessarily sanctioned by the obvious plan of humanity. Ethical theories have made no mistake in the choice or treatment of certain leading functions in human nature; they have failed only in presenting these in their integrity, just as they have omitted to show how these motives for action bear upon the whole problem of life. At times we are hedonists, at times intuitionists, but we are ever human- ists in our action. We seek a form of realization and pur- sue a course of activity which shall be hedonic or rigoristic, as the circumstances may be, but within the sphere of these activities is found a central impulse by which man seeks to assert himself. Can the goal of life be other than the per- fection of the species, or the achievement of humanity? On the metaphysical side, it is vain to suppose that by activity man can become other than human: hence an ethical theory which advises animality or suggests that man should adapt himself to some angelic order is wanting in logical penetra- tion. If humanity is not an ethical category, like good-vir- tue, right-duty, it is an original positing of man without which no particular moral theory can be comprehended. Just as ethics must inquire concerning the total plan VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 23 of life, so it must also raise the question whether man is in any wise realizing this. % Ethics never proposes a new pro- blem, not does it lay upon man any extra burden; so that when we see what humanity is and long has been doing, we shall see likewise, from our ethical point of view T , what man himself should do. Humanity has not waited for ethics to deduce principles of pure morality or to enjoin abstract commandments; its call to work was long since found in it- self and in positing its own being, humanity began to do in general what a philosophic science like ethics now attempts in particular. Morality need never urge man to "act," for the surplus of humanity within him will keep him in constant activity. When ethics takes up its task of classifying human ideals and fortifying human motives, it finds humanity, not in a dormant state as though waiting for some ethical im- petus, but ceaselessly engaged in achieving its peculiar des- tiny. For this reason, an ethical theory cannot make head- way unless it take cognizance of man's inherent operations within himself and upon an all-surrounding world of na- ture. Man is unwilling to "accept the universe" or to "take life for granted." By him the world of immediacy in both physical and psychical forms is disallowed. Human impulses to pass from the immediate to the ultimate assume both a logical and an ethical form; for the intellect as well as the will is interested in the plan which proposes to realize hu- manity, and this cannot be done without spiritual effort. Man posits his humanity when he thinks correctly as when he acts wisely: and whether intellect or will be superior when mutually compared, the fact remains that both cogni- tion and conation are forms of activity which spring from man who sends forth these impulses, not merely for the sake of knowing or doing, but for the sake of human realization. Pure cognition and pure moralization may be spoken of as subjects of thought, but in such abstract entities, living hu- manity does not participate. Speculation and practice out- do themselves in the service of man: one constructs an ideal order of thought, the other an ideal realm of values which spring from the human efforts after contemplation and con- quest. And where nature forms the starting-point and 24 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE makes up the context of these two activities, their form and purpose appear in the world of humanity. 2 THE STRIVING OF HUMANITY WITH NATURE The problem of life, however, consists in something more than the recognition of man's peculiar place in the uni- verse; it involves suitable reaction on his part, for nature not only affords a contrast of spirit, but presents an oppo- sition which must be overcome. Phenomena must be or- ganized according to the laws of the mind, while outer in- citements must be reduced to genuine motives. Man's po- sition immediately involves a problem engaging all the char- acteristic forms of spiritual activity; and the several forms of human philosophy seem to have no other purpose than the establishment of a spiritual order as the goal of human exist- ence. Thought and action do not arise of themselves or for their own sake; sentiments of taste and worship are de- veloped for something more than the satisfying of the aes- thetic and religious in man. All of these forms of culture, as they produced knowledge and virtue, beauty and faith, arise at the behest of a self-positing humanity. A — The Speculative Striving of Humanity Knowledge as such springs from the human under- standing, just as it is a function put forth by an ever-striving humanity. While it is vain for man to attempt a com- plete solution of life's problem, which will leave no mystery behind it, his human limitations do not forbid his asserting that knowledge is a part of his vocation, just as it is a phase of the general plan of the world. Even nature, which falls short of humanity, appears anxious to be com- prehended as well as obeyed, for the perfection of the hu- man brain seems to be a discernible object in the world of natural forms and natural forces. Human cognition is a thorough-going affair which, when sufficiently estimated, re- veals the proportions of a limitless spiritual life. To ac- quire interesting facts about the external world, and to learn thereby of its laws and relations, is no more the destiny of VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 25 reason that the perfection of an inward discipline which shall bespeak untold possibilities of mere knowledge. Far better is it to assume, in the light of what cognition has accomplished, that knowledge consists in such exercise of inner powers and the discovery of outer forms that the thinker finds his place in the total universe. Inner process- es and outer principles do not exist for themselves or for the sake of mere cognition ; they combine to assist man in the demonstration of his humanity in knowledge. Into nature we are put, not merely to labor or to enjoy, but to learn; without active intelligence man cannot be man. Now knowledge enables man to overcome nature, be- cause his thought supplies him with evidence of another world, the intelligible one. Knowledge is more than cog- nition; the criterion of certainty is more than outer clearness or inner synthetic consistency. This is because the general bearing of knowledge concerns man's work and man's pro- blem in the world of work. Knowledge is made up of ele- ments drawn from sense and deduced from the understand- ing, and the problem of knowledge is highly concerned with outer facts and inner necessities. In view of this dual phase of our human cognition, can we be blind to the fact that our whole being is situated in the midst of a confused na- ture — humanity, which gives to life its problem and pro- gram? These two realms, which while distinct in quality are yet capable of reconcilation, envelop man and to realize himself he must reduce them to rational forms of thought, with here the claims of sense, and there those of reason. The cognitive motive in the view de mundi sensibilis et in- telligibilis cannot remain hidden; it is humanity asserting it- self in an intellectual way, as if man were saying, give me understanding and I shall live. Knowledge convinces man that his immediate environment is not final, and constructs for him a trans-natural world of concepts, the counterpart of the first world of percepts. By knowledge man is ex- alted, and the cognitive process emancipates him from na- ture which it reproduces in mental fashion ; meanwhile posi- tive and negative forms of judgment afford a sure means of asserting spirit and negating nature in the world of hu- manity. Where this process is carried to the extremes of 26 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE sophistry and skepticism and it is pointed out that know- ledge is impossible, since the inner thought does not cor- respond to the outer thing, the independence of intellection is none the less apparent, for man seems possessed of a life of reason which suffers nothing by being separated from the world of reality. It is in such an intellectual mood that philosophy calls man the measure of all things in their being or not-being. The humanistic element in cognition further appears in those distinctions which, as suggested by the conflict between being and thinking, tend to relegate man to himself in the one world of knowledge. Man's intellectual conflict with nature is carried on by means of an abiding contrast between understanding and experience, wherein all the spontaneity of human cognition is pitted against the given order of ex perience. Human knowledge has ever felt the competition between inner and outer, in the dualism between the world of ideas and the world of things, as in the modern diremp- tion of thought and sensation. At heart, this problem is only a phase of the total human question which asks how and in how far is man to be related to nature; and the human endeavor to know is only an element in the com- plete plan by means of which humanity seeks to extricate itself from the world, in order that it may pursue an inde- pendent mode of being. The metaphysical side of this distinction appears in the separation of mind and body, each with its peculiar attributes or qualities, which make impossi- ble the identification of the mental and corporeal. Human- ity profits by this ontological separation of man from the corporeal world in which his body participates, and the life of spirit is furthered by the consciousness of an in- dependent mind which carries on its own process of thought. From this point of view, mentality is the very life of man. While the logical form of human activity may seem to have no special bearing upon the ethical life of man, how- ever much it may minister to his being in general, it is worth while noting how seriousness of ethical consideration has usually been accompanied by profundity of logical analy- sis. In this way, the course of human thinking associates itself with the conduct of life. Socrates cannot quite perfect VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 27 his ethical maxim without a logical preliminary which, according to the testimony of Aristotle (Meta. 1. 6; xn. 4), gave philosophy the concept, in the form of a universal definition in morals. The moral origin of Augustine ceases not until it has penetrated to the depths of the soul in search of inner experience and will. With Kant the human connection between thinking and doing reveals itself in the form of a two-fold critique which implies that the category of causal connection is not distinction from the categorical imperative of freedom. Kant thus arrives at ethics by a logical tour de force, and hesitates to assume the moral pro- blem until he has found some sufficient task for the endless striving of the human will. Now the moral burden is by no means a light one ; it is both logical and ethical, since the whole weight of reality rests upon the practical reason. Speculation shows how insufficient is the understanding to penetrate the veil of phenomena, and it is only by means of a translogical method that man comes abreast of the real order. Perverse as this method may be, Kant, with these representatives of ancient and mediaeval life, does not fail to show how the question of the deed concerns that of the thought. Over both will and intellect is the overarching humanity which, while not independent of them, is superior to them. Thought may sometimes depend upon experience, sometimes upon understanding, but always upon man him- self, the thinking person; humanity is greater than thought. B — The Aesthetic Impulse of Humanity Upon the artistic side of his nature, man reveals the same striving for humanity, only here its ardent, humanic qualities show more convincingly how man himself has en- tered into the problem of his own being, which is not left to the abstractions of either logical law or ethical precept. Man's world must be in keeping with his character, hence he cannot remain upon the plane of nature, absorbed in sen- suous intuition, and occupied with objects of immediate moment. He must be human, and the call to humanity is one which is caught up by aesthetics as well as by logic of the human understanding. In that play of spirit which art 28 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE ever indulges in, there is manifest the motive to excel na- ture and perfect her forms. As the scientific significance of phenomena begins to appear when the facts of nature are reduced to law, so their artistic import is disclosed when the creative spirit of humanity reduces them to order, wherein tones are put into a scale and colors into a scheme of harmony. Nature is seen in the landscape, while hu- manity appears symbolically in the human form. Mean- while the treatment of nature is now more, now less, intre- pid than in the case of cognition, where sensible effects in nature are reduced to convenient mental abstractions, service- able for thought yet never free from snare. In all art a metaphysical murmur may be heard. Art begins with the sensuous forms of the natural order and, to whatever abyss of human contemplation these may be sunk when observed by a form-genius like Angelo or a tone-genius like Beethoven, they return to the world of experience in appro- priate perceptible forms; for where science is abstract art is intuitive and perceptible. In the midst of aesthetic intuition, which plays so ef- fectively with the forms of nature, the dominant human quality of art must suffer no concealment. Man it is who, dissatisfied with mere nature, however glorious the infinite order of sensible forms may be, retreats to the very depths of his humanity only to return with visions of a new heaven and a new earth. Like logic, with its categories, art exists for the sake of man whose child she is, whose image she bears; she arises from no imitation of nature, but springs spontaneously from a self-emancipating humanity. It is the inner essence and non-utilitarian character of art which re- veal anew the human source of beauty; nature herself is innocent of this impulse on the part of man to assert himself as human, and she lends her properties of time and color, of form and light, without knowing how man will transform them into an art which is truly human. So far as aesthetics is concerned, the fate of humanity consists in surmounting nature in the interest of a unified spiritual life. Like the source of art, the world-order of beauty is to be found in humanity. The usual order of perception and action, which are made necessary by man's participation VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 29 in the world of nature, does not forbid forms of extranatural thought and deed whfch are constantly revealed in artistic creation. As a result, two possible realms are disclosed to human existence: the world of nature and the order of culture. Man needs somewhat more than a habitat which cannot contain or affect his spiritual nature; he must have more than environment, and thus he creates the world of culture as his sovereign domain of spiritual life. Hence it becomes more than merely suggestive that man, while in nature, is destined to strive for humanity as the obvious goal of his activity. This does not make it impossible to raise the questions, whether man was meant for culture and whether he is justified in pursuing a remote object in a natural life like his which is so replete with objects of im- mediate moment ; but the fact remains that man has attempt- ed the life of culture, and counsels to return to nature and maxims which magnify immediacy cannot ignore the fact that man is bent upon an independent and internal humanity. The subtle conflict of art with nature is more likely to convince one of the ceaseless striving of humanity to exist, when it is noted how naturistic is the form of that art which seeks the redemption of man. Art does not imitate nature, but repeats her lesson in a more appropriate fashion; art does not exist that it may exert a moral in- fluence, because ethics should take care of itself; it exists for the sake of humanity. Thus we may depart from the metaphysico-moral view of antique criticism, which knew only the norms of imitation and utility, and as moderns, see how our humanity, which needs no outer percepts or inner utilities, puts forth art as a means of self-realization and proof of human superiority. Perhaps man, in his philoso- phy, his art, his religion, is self-illusioned, and in his mental blindness persists in self-stupefaction through culture, but the obvious plan of history leads man away from nature toward a self-existent humanity, and the data which serve for an ethical theory of man are drawn necessarily from a transphenomenal realm of being wherein knowledge takes the place of impression and art plays the part of nature. 30 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE C — The Religious Affirmation of the Soul. Further insight into the life-problem, which so stands in need of systematization, is afforded by the striving con- sciousness of man within the precinct of religion. Here, the departure from nature is more abrupt while the approach to humanity is more intimate than in the case of either logic or aesthetics. Knowledge gives laws to natural pheno- mena and is content to reveal its supremacy in an implied and passive manner; for knowledge has nothing creative about it. This element appears in art, which is not satisfied with purely critical efforts, but seeks to produce something new. Yet in all its work, aesthetics does not bring out that seriousness which ever accompanies the determined efforts that man makes toward self-emancipation. Of all these moods, religion is the most affirmative and seems to stand out in sublime isolation among the attempts at human self-expression. Where man manifests a definite concern for the one problem of his being, and longs to witness the transmutation of immediate nature into ultimate humanity, he will find in religion an ally without superior in the world of culture. The method which religion employs renders it a fit interpreter of humanity as well as a faithful agent of its destiny; it is the polemical one in which all the forces of spirit are evoked for the sake of emancipating man. Re- ligion can hardly help negating the world and man's life in nature. The Tao reduces all being and doing to nothing; Vedanta recognizes naught but the Self; Christianity finds in the world-whole no values at all when compared with the personal principle in man. Yet the factor that religion should emphasize is not the denial of nature, which is so scientifically exact and aesthetically fit, but the affirmation of humanity which is destined to out-top the universe and exist in and for itself. It is in behalf of the soul that religion comes forth, and while the same striving for humanity appears in the categories of cognition and the intuitions of aesthetics, the religious affirmation of humanity does not rest until it has disclosed the idea of God, wherein it reposes. Reli- gious consciousness thus makes it impossible to believe that VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 31 nature can contain the being of man or satisfy his ideals, and the central impulse on the part of the soul, by which it seeks to posit itself is reinforced by this particular form of human culture. Human cognition and human art, which, as concept and idea, transcend the world of time and space, unite with human worship in revealing the one world of humanity within man. While religion sustains the same general relation to the world and humanity as appears in logic and aesthetics, it accentuates the peculiar problem of life by emphasizing the personal principle in man. In a certain sense, thought goes on and taste simply expresses itself; indeed, judgments of truth and beauty are most nearly perfect when they are impersonal. Religion finds its center in the ego which is the most satisfactory conception of the soul. As a result, it is the soul which confronts the universe and maintains its personal quality so supremely that the Upanishads make the world equivalent to the soul, while in the Gospels, the whole of nature is somewhat inferior to the personal ego. Under such treatment, the general principle of human- ity receives a more acute form since it is identified with that inner, personal consciousness which each may feel for himself. In this exalted frame of mind, the seer finds him- self in the world-whole "The Infinite indeed is below, above, behind, before, right and left — it is indeed all this. Now follows the explanation of the Infinite as the I: I am below, I am above, I am behind, before, right and left — I am all this." (Khandogya-Upanishad, vn. 25). Not only does the personal principle, in the perfected religions of spirit, afford a clear contrast between nature and humanity, but it also indicates a sufficient reason for the individual's striving toward that human goal. Every form of human religion which comes to the point whence it can discern the presence of humanity in the world of nature, invests the soul with a peculiar value. This being done, it is no longer necessary to make metaphysical distinc- tions between the being of the world and the essence of man, but the intrinsic quality of humanity appears as soon as the soul receives proper valuation. The ontological status of the soul need not be conceived in a manner radically 32 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE different from the rest of the world, but the moral value of the person and his spiritual vocation in the world of humani- ty must receive recognition in any system which attempts to treat man as such. In religion, man is considered as pos- sessed of a quality so singular and incomparable that no quantification of external being can balance the intrinsic value of the soul. D — The Ethical Activity of Humanity. From this excursus into three distinct fields of culture, it becomes more and more convincing that man is not satisfied with the given order of reality. His world must be of an order native to his own being, for which reason he departs from nature and, by means of culture, seeks to penetrate the world of spirit. How august is the spectacle of man awakened to the possibilities of his humanity. A creature of nature, and possessing the usual qualities of thinghood, he develops to a degree of enlightenment which persuades him he is superior to the order which has produced him. His idealism spoils the universe; his art perfects nature; his religion excludes the world from the sphere of value. The naturistic in man can never account for these vigorous negations, and it is only when we relegate man to the genuine order of his being that we are able to account for him. As a problem, life consists in adjusting man to the world of virtue, of which relation nature and humanity, or the world of things and the world of persons, are placed at proper poles. From the history of human culture, philo- sophic, artistic, religious, we see how determined man is to posit his humanity; for in the striving toward this goal he has aroused all his human faculties for the purpose of a concentrated deed. When the human calling of man is appreciated, it will appear that the moral incentive is not the only one which influences his activity ; indeed, virtue is not the leading motive in the struggle for humanity. It is needless to command man to act; while he lives he will be active in a life which goes on of itself. The ethical phase of human existence and the moral adjustment of man to humanity, VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 33 while not at all inferior to the logical, aesthetical, and religious correlations, must not be made equivalent to human life as such nor comparable to the pursuit of its perfection. One need not wish to limit the sphere of ethics to declare how subordinate to the totality of life is the abstract moral commandment. The view of life which we moderns have entertained has been thrown off its centre by an artificial moralism which dominated the central impulse toward hu- man self-affirmation. In the real presence of life, ethical theory retreats to the background, while victorious humanity posits itself in all the rich manifold of its content. Man was made for humanity, and morality was made for man. Like the other three phases of human striving, the ethical assumes its proper place when it it related to the unitary deed of mankind in his constant struggle for humani- ty. In this central stream are found the mingling of real and ideal, of nature and reason, of deed and thought, and in the midst of all is that great world-movement which consists in adjusting an animal to a higher and spiritual order of life. From the view-point of the one life-problem, it appears that action is capable of other than purely ethical forms of discussion, although the moral side of life is so imminent and the argument for it so convincing that the view of life which is usually entertained is the ethical one. Man will set reason at naught and become agnostic, but will he defy conscience and become unethical? There is a natural prejudice in favor of the moral side of human striv- ing, and as long as our discussion of the ethical does not commit the fallacy of accident, this preference for the moral may be indulged. Over the other phases of human culture, ethics has a certain advantage and, if we are to name the genus from the leading species, it is best to choose the moral as the typical phase of human striving. Cognition, while it has about it no more abstractness than is found in the formal view of the ethical, has a constant bearing upon outer nature of which it is knowledge and theory. Ethics, which is normative and critical to a degree which places it side by side with logic, differs from this philosophic science by sustaining and abiding references to man to whom it dictates laws of conscience as logic gives to nature laws of causality. 34 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE Of the other two phases of spiritual life, which affiliate in their participation in humanity, aesthetics is too sprightly in its methods to become a rival of logic, while religion is such an interested spectator in the plan of life that it cannot offer the cool presentation of the problem which ethics essays to furnish. Life is not ethics, but the philosophy of life is capable of the most consistent presentation when it is surveyed in the light of moral categories. Humanity is the major premise in an argument where ethics is the minor. It is the ethical conciousness of man which makes it possible for him to survey his nature and consider his destiny in philosophic fashion. This is not to be understood as though it meant that man can use ethics to solve problems which are logical, aesthetical, or religious; for in this respect ethics is no route royale. Plato surveys beauty and Kant truth from the standpoint of the good, and their aesthetics and logic are in so far imperfect. The application of the good is to life in general, not to some other discipline which possesses a method of its own. Hence it is best to adjust ethical science to the goal of life itself; morality may never give us truth, or beauty, or worship, but it may reveal human destiny and for this reason it is to be pursued as a fruitful form of philosophic study. Theoretical ethics and practical morality are now in a condition where they need readjustment to the central question of life itself. For the accomplishment of this task there must be elaborated a view which shall appreciate the reality of life and the formality of ethics. Like logical laws in themselves indispensable, moral maxims are ever critical and normative; they make possible the function of reflection, but something by way of content must be furnished by humanity itself. Rationality and morality have done nothing positive for the emancipation of man from nature: one has kept watch over the world, the other over man in the constant adjustment of these two phases of reality to each other. But the constructive work of humanity has been done in an artistic and religious fashion. Living and think- ing are the foci of humanity, not mere existence or mere consciousness as these arise in nature. Where ethics and VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 35 logic elaborate characteristic judgments they lack the crea- tive power peculiar to religion and art which antedate them in time and excel them in influence. With only a general reference to morality and rationality, our human institutions arise as free contributary acts on the part of nature burdened as it is by an excess of conscious life. This excess is human- ity. II THE CONTINUITY OF HUMAN STRIVING I — THE CATEGORY OF DEVELOPMENT The first moment in the life of our humanity is found in an impulse toward spiritual self-assertion; the final one ap- pears in the organization of man into a world of humanity. In order to unite these widely separated elements of a philosophy of life, it becomes necessary to assume a mean principle which shall look upon human striving in its con- tinuity while it makes possible the construction of an order of human life. This uniting principle is found in history, the very vehicle of humanity. In order to adjust our human striving on the one hand and the fixed order oi humanity on the other to one and the same principle of history, it becomes necessary to view such history as both changing and con- tinuous, a condition of spiritual life wholly in keeping with the general nature of consciousness. Thus considered, his- tory includes ideas no more paradoxical than the general lite of man as a spiritual creature : they are those of progress and permanence, and in their ultimate imprint, they effect a re- conciliation of the temporal and eternal in the life of man- kind. Through this progressive change and permanent con- tinuity man's self-positing may be systematized. When we seek to relegate ethics to history, we must qualify our claims to avoid the false idea suggested by the term "history of ethics", for no such thing exists. As logic is but the abstract method according to which we arrange our outer impressions, so ethics is only an ideal way of construct- ing our inner feelings and impulses, and neither the logical nor the ethical in humanity assumes the positive and progres- sive form recognizable in art and religion. Implicit in all activity, the ethical does not find expression in the shape of institution, but ever remains as a formal view of human con- 36 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 37 duct which is carried on according to more vital principles. To state this essential truth of the abstract nature of ethics, one may further assert that the moral in man's will, like the logical in his understanding, has nothing phenomenal about it, and it is only in connection with the phenomenal that history can enter in. Yet our present consideration involves the whole question of life, and we are using the ethical method of consideration because it makes possible the cat- egories of value and dignity; and this human life has had a history which ethics can employ in arranging its theories according to a plan. Then the general principle of human striving objectified in art and religion may be reviewed from the analytical standpoints of logic and ethics. 2 — THE ETHICAL MOMENT IN HISTORY While human history is indicative of a force which ever carries man forward, it further fulfills its office by conserv- ing the past in memory, so that the progress of man is never wholly free from the rudimentary forms of his earth-life. As a creature of the natural order, man is destined to affirm himself as spiritual, a performance making human living and thinking a unique combination of the low and the high. Man never becomes wholly denaturized, nor does his life consist in a decisive affirmation of one phase of life and the negation of another. For this reason, it is unwise to con- trast sense and spirit in man as though they were upon the same level; by their very nature they adjust themselves, not horizontally, but vertically in accordance with the progress of man from nature to reason. The love of pleasure and the love of virtue may have their place in one and the same human heart, but their position is not of the same ethical dignity. Hedonism is native to man and the argument against it is not a sweeping affirmation or negation, but a critical exposition pointing out the degree of sufficiency in- herent in the view. Hedonism is naturism in an immediate form of consciousness; but life consists of the culture of something remote. Alas! how hesitant is the spirit of humanity to reveal itself. Sufficient is it for us to know that we were destined, 38 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE not for nature, but for culture and the eternally human. The mystery of the soul is as great as the mystery of the world: they are the same, and we are as far from knowing what to do as we are from knowing what to think. To follow the real in the form of immediate desire is natural and objectively necessary, but who will believe that, having done this, we have done all? To pursue the rational in the form of duty is apparently safe, but it is not an intelligent way of living, nor does it account for many a performance in art, religion, and the social world that man is called upon to undertake. No great amount of light is cast upon the problem of life by the past, for we know as little of what man has done as of what he should do. But if the idea of continuity is valid, man has been asserting his humanity in contrast to an otherwise enveloping natural order. In the midst of this universal striving for both being and consciousness, humanity has preserved its unity and has not been betrayed by history. From the beginning, it has been the history of humanity as such, and whether upon a low plane or a high one, man has ever been man. Hedonically viewed, man seeks himself in the pursuit of pleasure; from the rigoristic standpoint, he asserts himself by means of duty ; while in humanism he is afforded a more consistent mode of self-expression. On the historical side, these three forms of soul-life represent so many stages in the development of humanity. Where there was naturism, man sought him- self in the guise of a nature-moralist who found his being circumscribed by pleasure-pain; upon the plane of ration- alism a sterner type of self appeared in the form of a doer of duty; and thus between these two phases of human being, man himself, rather than his sensations or his ideas, was con- stantly made the subject of his own activity. As long as there have been feelings, thoughts, and intuitions, there have been unconscious hedonists, rationalists, and humanists, and historical development in the world of culture produces its most characteristic effects in bringing instincts into conscious- ness. , History when viewed from within involves somewhat more than origin and progress; there is the spirit of an eter- nal humanity which ever broods over this continuous effort VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 39 to be, just as there is made possible a participation in the one humanity of the worldj In action the individual stands alone, separated from past and future by his own epoch; in thought he is united with the wholeness of humanity where no temporal distinctions are valid. Hence the com- mandment of Schleiermacher : Wirkt auf die Einzelnen, aber mit euer Betrachtung hebt Euch auf den Flugeln der Reli- gion hoher zu der unendlichen ungetheilten Menscheit. (Reden Uber Religion, n. s. 90.) When thus regarded, history contains no longer the demons of origin and develop- ment which have ever disturbed our modern rationalists in morality. Verily, we know that the moral began and in continuous fashion grew into a gradual perfection; and now we know that its history, instead of being a hindrance, was an aid to its purpose. There was history in religion and history in art, and thus the complete history of mankind can only point out how virtue and conscience gradually dawned upon the sensitive mind of a spontaneous nature-being which was in process of perfection. Our ideals are saved by virtue of that continuity which invests all human progress: it is the one humanity which everywhere asserts itself against the entirety of the objective order. In this world of humanity, the individual naturally participates. For where else could he be found? When the oneness of humanity and the integrity of the individual are assured, the plan of history facilitates the purpose of the moral reason. Man is destined for morality; but this same man is an animal, and the ideas of virtue and duty will dawn upon him gradually. He has the capacity, and, since the goal of his human striving is so remote from his im- mediate condition, continuous efforts with approximations to perfection must enter in as stages of preparation for man in his human education. History thus becomes the adjunct of humanity, and the chasm between nature and spirit is bridged by the plan of human progress. It is the historical view of humanity which invests the individual with his proper uni- versality, and the continuity of human progress is an order of things without parallel in the universe. Where the prin- cipium individuations tends to isolate the individual and thus reduce his spirithood to thinghood, and where mere 40 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE evolution would obliterate personality altogether, the history of humanity acts ascvKafcirav for it adjusts the indivi- dual to his human realm in a manner which does violence to neither the particularity of the one nor the uni- versality of the other. For man, the history of humanity assumes the form of one personal present, in which indi- viduals among men, and single periods in history sustain an essential relation to the permanent goal of humanity. 3 — THE HISTORICAL VIEW OF ETHICS In the midst of this general plan of human history, the position of ethics is not the same as that of either rights or religion. These forms of culture and civilization represent, not merely human instincts, but social institutions which assume perceptible forms in architecture with its court and temple, in literature with its statute and precept. Ethics accompanies these developments and ever exercises a critical function upon them, but in itself, it sustains a derivative relation to human progress, which goes on in some other than an intellectual fashion. Much the same may be said of logic whose judgments are concomitant with the develop- ment of humanity, without sustaining any influential rela- tion to living mankind. While the development of religion and rights has been manifold in form and rich in content, the evolution of ethics and logic has been like the growth of the mulberry tree, which after lying dormant for a long period, puts forth its buds spontaneously. In the antique period, speculation produced the concept and judgment; modern philosophy has witnessed the distinction of empirical and rational forms of knowledge. At the same time, ethics discovered an ancient good-virtue and a modern right-duty. If we add to these concepts an ancient feeling of eudaemonic and a modern sense of conscience, we shall have reviewed the history of our morality, around which various theories have ranged. The history of ethics is well nigh contradictory in termi- nology, and the only sense with which it may be invested is a schematic one, whose reality ever depends upon the absorb- ing history of humanity. Man is destined to pass through VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 41 certain stages of development in the progress toward his humanity, and this plan of advancement and his own evolu- tion will consist in something more than doing certain deeds and undergoing certain experiences: it will involve a change of view, with respect to both himself and the world. And this change of view, which is as truly human as the con- tinuity of doing and suffering, involves the abstract sciences of logic and ethics. The canons of speculation and the norms of conduct have a place in the continuity of human striving, but it is incomparable with the solid position of human rights and religion which make up the bulk of actual living and guide mankind, not by ideals of validity of thought or value of action, but by external authority and tradition. Reason and conscience relate to humanity, not only occasionally, but in a negative fashion, where the theological traditions of the race are opposed by pure specu- lation, and legal standards are offset by ideal maxims of morality. Therefore, it may be said, the form of logic-ethics is that of ratio essendi and ratio cognoscendi, while that of religion-rights is ratio agendi and ratio fiendi. Where humanity has had a history, there ethical science has undergone change; new categories of thinking and new ideals of striving have entered as the invariable accom- paniments of man's positive progress. The passivity of the east differs from that of the west; antique formalism with its classic finish is not the same as modern dynamism which is accompanied by romantic striving. Ethics exhibits a major history in outline, but not a minor history in detail. "Fixed" stars move, although not in planetary fashion, and the grand development of humanity makes room, at rare intervals, for some sort of ethical and logical mutation. History has not yet adjusted its considerations to the ideality of time and space; its methods involve paradox as soon as they are applied to the evolution of the human spirit. Our own employment of history, to introduce moral ideals in a systematic fashion, needs only to concern the continuity of humanity in the midst of its several attempts at self-reali- zation. If history emphasizes the circumstantial, it can only end in a view of ethical relativity which sacrifices all ideal worth in human activity. But if it uses continuity as its 42 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE ground, and keeps before it the implicit goal of all human self-positing, it can survey man upon the original plane of naturistic self-assertion and in the midst of temporarily hedonic impulses the central impulse will still stand out. Nature may not be relied upon but man in nature may be trusted with his human dignity. When history is idealized and removed from the pheno- menal order of time and place, its adaptability to spiritual life will appear and assume a convincing form. Only hu- manity knows history; only humanity progresses. And it is. the inwardness and unity of spiritual life which render to humanity the means of progress. Time is not the only, nor the essential, element in progress; it is but the sign of that real and inner change which makes reality what it is. The same sun passes over a tribe of nature-peoples and a society of men who are tending toward civilization, but the lapse of a thousand years, or less, will find the one group in the same condition of savagery, while the other has undergone those changes which are incident upon culture. Time-pass- age has been accompanied by real change in the one and by no progress in the other, and the essence of history now appears to reside in something other than time. In the employment of the same temporal element, one age will advance in science and morals while another will stagnate. Shall we say that this is because time is now more, now less, lenient with humanity? or shall we seek the cause within and find in the spontaneous life of the soirit a force which is put forth in a quasi-temporal way in the endeavor on the part of humanity to posit itself? History appears as an eternal order in which all forms and degrees of humanity participate, and the successive attempts which man makes in his progress toward human perfection find their unity in the common world of humanity and history. It is evident that history has laid hold of man and under its influence he is urged forward whence he knows not. The half-inscrutable purpose of the world has not remained aloof from consciousness, although no systema- tic view of human striving has appeared. Perhaps it is the will of humanity which invests man and infuses the sense of striving within him, without informing him as to VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 43 the purpose of his life. Were we intended to employ our human time in sheer nature fashion? Or, again, are we wise in attempting a life according to reason in the frigid zone of abstraction? Are we justified in attempting a transmundane form of existence in the world of culture, the world of worship, the world of humanity? To these questions history has given some general answers by pointing out how man has departed from nature for the purpose of discovering and developing his inner humanity, although this world-movement was not completed in primitive times nor has it ever been universal in days of perfected culture. In different ages, individuals and groups of individuals have advanced beyond both nature and society in their pursuit of the self-sufficient goal of life, so that history rises before us as a pyramidal edifice narrowing as it ascends. Nevertheless, the sense of our human life, though dawning gradually through the haze of our nature-life, has ever been an object of interest and now it seems impossible for man to escape from humanity. 4 — THE STAGES OF HUMAN HISTORY In addition to the general plan of historical continuity, uniting man's inner striving with the outer organization of this in a world of humanity, there appear certain marked stages of development, according to which humanity assumes something more than one simple form. If the ethical life abides in all history, special ethical methods should appear in these definite stages of human development; for the fluid nature of humanity does not fail to crystallize in a charac- teristic manner, so that the enlightened moralist may behold the problem of life to-day in the plan that humanity has chosen for its development. The historical present, when analyzed, becomes a cross-section of all human life, and the past becomes a parable unfolding to us the depths of our own moral being. To assume full cognizance of the human spirit in its progress is to run Hegel's risk, but this romantic philosophy of history is not the only one that has found some- thing dialectical in humanity, nor is his three-fold scheme of arrangement something solitary in the history of human 44 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE speculation. The number three has no special sanctity, and the method of contradiction is not ever convincing; but the analysis of humanity may reveal triple types which can be elaborated without the magic of the Hegelian dialectic. But since our object is to use history only to corroborate the general plan of a three-fold humanistic system, we are not likely to be ensnared in the net prepared in our very sight. Our object is to observe the results of human history; the process is another consideration; and since the connection between ethics and history is so slender, we need only glance at what the latter suggests. The perfected philosophy of the Indo-Graeco-Germans does not fail to apprise us that our humanity advances from nature to spirit by the inter- vention of a rational mean thus giving us three types of humanity. In themselves these may be called (i) The Naturisticj (2) The Characteristic, (3) The Humanistic, corresponding to the ethical theories of hedonism, intuition- ism, and humanism. Though the great World-Spirit seems hesitant to reveal itself to the sons of men, something like a plan appears in the past achievements of the human race, and while we cannot assume that the Infinite Being adopted the methods of Trans- cendentalism, the general outline of a three-fold form of development may be made out. Man is passing from his origin in nature to his goal in the world of spirit ; meanwhile he is developing truly human character. Thus appear three forms of life. In the first, man lives the life of nature and knows only the guidance of fate; in the second, his civiliza- tion and culture determine him to life, by means of law; finally, he attains to freedom in the inner kingdom of humanity. Nature no longer contains him, for he has come into his own inner life. When ethics reviews the field of history thus divided, it is able to see how its views of hedon j ism, intuitionism, and humanism have their origin in the three types of life unconsciously assumed by man in his pro- cession on high. It is to be expected that the consciousness of humanity in man should be accompanied by a presentiment of this general scheme. About the earliest attempt to effect a classification of men was made by Kapila in his Sankhya philosophy. Where VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 45 the Vedanta identifies man with the world through the one, objective Self, the Sankhya approaches this gradually by in- terposing grades of perfection which result in certain classes of men possessing three qualities or "Gunas." These act like cords binding man down to certain stages of being. The lowest is Tamas Guna of sense; the next highest, Rajas Guna of will; the highest, Sattva Guna of thought. (Cf. Aphorism 61.) Thus appear three kinds of knowledges: good knowledge which, coming from Sattva Guna, enables one to behold the one entity in all things; passionate know- ledge due to Rajas Guna and making one perceive only difference in the manifold; and dark knowledge of Tamas Guna which adheres to one single object as though it were the whole. As knowledge, so also action; good action is devoid of attachment, passionate action is egoistic, dark action is all delusion. Further appear three grades of in- telligence in action, where Sattva Guna shows just what should be done, while Rajas Guna affords no correct view of piety, which latter is ever misunderstood by the man of Tamas Guna. Finally, the three Gunas produce three kinds of happiness. The highest kind of happiness comes not immediately, but demands patient repetition, while at first as unwholesome as poison, it ends in that nectar which proceeds from the clear knowledge of self. Passionate hap- piness is sensuous and of sudden origin, and while at first it is like nectar, it finally turns to poison. The happiness of Tamas Guna deludes the self at both the beginning and end of its course. Before Plato had perfected a political system based upon a three-fold view of man and nature, Aeschylus discovered the steps the gods had taken in declaring their law unto men. First appeared the prophetess primeval; then Themis, or rectitude, who finally gave place to Phoebus, the god of spiritual knowledge (Eumenides, 1-9.) Plato's system un- ifies physics and politics upon the basis of a triple scheme of division. In the lowest order are found body, soul, mind, — o-to/ua, ^vxo, vovs whose human counterparts appear as appetite, desire, reason, — €7ri'0v/AaTiKov, dvfioihes, AoyicmKov. Upon this foundation, the philosopher erects an ethico- political system whose virtues of temperances, courage, wis- 46 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE dom, — po7rovs. The three orders of men will be seen to corre- spond to the Gunas of Kapila and the classes of Plato. From the Deity emanate a series of eons as so many mani- festations of His abysmal being participating in the one Being according to different grades of spiritual perfection: pneumatical, psychical, hylical. Hence arise three kinds of men and three classes of people. The vXikol being the lowest in grade are not distinguishable from the material world, and thus it is impossible for them to attain to any degree of purity or blessedness. The if/vo-iKot while superior to the hy- lical men, are not of themselves immortal nor are they able to comprehend celestial affairs; knowledge and eternal life are possible for them only as they assume the powers and virtues of the pneumatic men. The irvev/jLariKOL possess germs of divine life and reflect the glory of God in the world of created things. Upon this psychological basis, Valentinus seeks to outline a philosophy of history in which Pagans as- sume the lowest position of hylical men, Jews the next rank of the psychical, while the highest order of the irvevjjua.Ti.KoC is reserved for those who, redeemed from the flesh and the low, have become Christians. A similar conception of mankind appears in Vico Scienza Nuova where the triple order of mankind is put upon a more consistent historical basis. Surveying the "ensemble de la societe!' as Michelet's translation expresses it, Vico notes three periods in the development of humanity, as well as three characteristic groups of rights and governments. The prim- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 47 itive man possessed neither the idea of humanity nor the in- stinct to promote it, and In his civilization and culture he was hardly removed from nature. His temperament was poetical, while his philosophy was of a theological order, hence his idea of rights involved the notion of privilege and his government was theocratic. Second in order comes the heroic age whose idea of rights was interpreted in terms of force whence was erected an aristocratic form of govern- ment, and in civilization, law, and language, mankind was heroic. The culmination of human progress is attained when the moral nature succeeds the poetic and sensuous orders, and government, no longer theocratic or aristocratic, becomes democratic, while law and language become humanized. Schiller's conception of human history resembles the schemes of Valentinus and Vico, while his view of the soul reminds one of Kapila and Plato. He conceives of man as being made up of the extremes of sense and reason, de- pending upon his real being in the world and his ideal char- acter in ethics. Between these extremes plays the art-instinct upon which is based the aesthetical education of mankind. In his progress toward perfection, man passes through a sensuous, an aesthetical, and an ethical period, his develop- ment being furthered by the medium of art as it unites the material period at the beginning with the moral one at the end. For this office, art is specially fitted, since it possesses a sensuous quality while not wanting in spiritual signifi- cance, and promotes a form of pleasure not wholly alien to man's ethical interest. With this general conception of progress, Schiller endeavors to classify various forms of humanity, but does not seem to preserve the consistency of his aesthetic system. In the essay on "Grace and Dignity" he seems to place humanity above the perfection of sense in grace and the realization of reason through dignity, while the "Letters on the Aesthetical Education of Mankind," tends to change the order, so that the art of humanity as- sumes the second place while man's moral perfection takes the highest position. Yet the poet-philosopher realizes that there is a vast gulf between the ideal essence of humanity and its realization in life, just as he considers history to be the means of bringing about the unity of the human spirit. 48 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE In our own age, this triple scheme reappears in Ibsen's Emperor and Galilean, where the "Third Empire" of the future takes the place of spiritual Christianity, just as the latter supplanted sensuous Paganism. 5 PHASES OF THE MORAL LIFE All the systems of speculation examined above agree in their classification of men; the modern ones put this upon a historical basis whereby they show how man has passed from a condition of nature-life through a period of conflict to a spiritual goal in the world of humanity. The one humanity in its fusion of sense and spirit thus exhibits three stages of progress: a preliminary one, where it simply rests in the lap of nature; a perfect one where it reposes in the world of spirit; between these a long and restless age of conflict finds man seeking to adjust himself to the lower and higher orders within him. But in the process of humanizing man the ideal is not so far removed from experience that it cannot be an object of inquiry or of practical endeavor, and the Indo-Graeco-Germanic orders of spiritual development occasionally reveal this. Thus Kapila postulates Sattva- Guna as the finest human quality while Plato puts his philo- sophers at the head of the ideal Republic. Valentinus sees history culminating in the production of pneumatic men, while Vico and Schiller outline history in such a way that the age of humanity crowns all spiritual development. So far as the actual development of humanity is concerned the three stages involved seem to include (i) an indefinite age of naturisntj (2) a period of moralism making up most of the actual history of man, and (3) an age of humanism be- longing almost wholly to the future. The philosophy of ethics has unconsciously followed such a plan in outlining its ideals; at any rate it has emphasized the first and second forms of conduct and has further suggested a reconciliation in the form of a common view of life. The systematic determination with which man asserts his humanity makes the traditional study of ethics seem in- efficient; it assumes too much and attempts too little in the way of a philosophy of life. From significant glimpses into VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 49 his history, man seems intent upon asserting his spiritual humanity over against his natural animality, and the length of the process, marked as* this is by successive endeavors and gradual approximations to the ideal, indicates how central and absorbing the problem of humanity is to mankind. Just as the end of human life cannot be seen by the primitive man, so its ideals cannot be realized by him. A cumulative movement thus becomes necessary and having turned away from nature, man must similarly oppose the nature-like type of culture which has constituted the second stage of his evolution, As blind force and unthinking sense must give way before the ideas of law and understanding, so, finally, must these be supplanted by the notion of freedom and spirit- ual culture. The savage is not man, nor yet the indivi- dualist of an age characterized by national ideals; both must abandon the field to the humanist who sees the unity of man- kind, and aims at the community of culture. Modernism, whose current decadence is so lamentable, does not fail to reveal the significance of the tripartite scheme. Our naturalism, which unites the data of sense with the elements of desire to form the ideal of immediate existence, is not wholly unlike the primitive stage of man- kind, represented by Tamas-Guna and hylical men of orien- tal thought, or the more loftly estimates of naive and poetical peoples, suggested by Vico and Schiller. Rationalism and rigorism become the second stage, which in the eastern mind was characterized by passion and activity of life, while with Plato and Vico it assumed an heroic form. The third theory is the prototype of an age hardly yet realized; hence we cannot use the definite terms of Sattva-Guna, the "philo- sophoi", which ?ppeared so clearly to Kapila and Plato, but must follow our moderns and outline in general an era of humanity, in which life-values are set in a new light, and the end of human existence more adequately represented. Here the particular method is the ethical one, which repro- duces the three-fold scheme in the order of a Hedonism, a Rigorism, and a Humanism. These terms indicate a clearer form and a richer content than our particular ethical theories bring out; they stand for types of life which pervade the individual and guide the race 50 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE in its development. There is something hedonic in all men and the desire for happiness in the sense of immediate pleas- ure is as natural as breathing. Hedonism has an equally secure place in the race, and at the primitive period of man's existence external interests were so imminent that utility masked all the other functions of the human spirit. Rigorism connects itself with a perod of social history where individual nations impress upon their citizens the character of an im- perative principle. Our "intuitions" are the survival of an imperious age, which began and ended in authority. Obliga- tion, law, duty, autonomy are the fibrous elements of an historic type, rationalistic and rigorous in every detail. The humanic ideal belongs to the morality of the future. Itself a synthesis of natural hedonism and stern voluntarism, it preserves the vital elements of human conduct in the midst of worthy ideals. As the race abandons blind nature, and withdraws also from a regime of "blood and iron," which regards man as a "political animal," it approaches a human- istic ideal, the consciousness of which finds its way into the minds of the representative thinkers of modernism, just as some inkling of it was felt by Sanskrit and Grecian philo- sophers, at the culmination of their respective epochs. Kapila's derivation of a third order of life was realized by Gautama, whose humanitarian system is not without relation to Sankhya; Plato's highest type of men was reflected by the Stoics, the original humanists of Europe. In modern times, traditional moralism, such as has grown up in England, between the physico-political systems of Hobbes and Spencer, has screened from the contemplative spirit the totality of life wherein the meaning of human existence is to be found; nevertheless there have been ex- ceptional moments, when isolated thinkers have risen above the petty quarrels of the schools, instances of this superiority being found in Shaftsbury and Adam Smith. With a few such exceptions, the modern ethical writer has been a mere theorist, who has been adroit in the use of casuistical device, but weak in the employment of philosophical principle. Not life according to theory, but theory according to life — such is the only safe method of procedure. Let culture and human- ity transcend our modern scholasticism! Before this hope VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 51 can be realized, it is not out of place to conclude this intro- ductory division with the observation that there is nothing extraordinary in the three-fold view of human nature, which will be pursued. Not only practical philosophy, but specu- lative thinking also, makes headway by distinguishing be- tween sense and understanding, between empirical and ra- tionalistic modes of thinking; and where the philosophic program culminates is in the adoption of a third principle, like that of reason, which surmounts the realm of under- standing as the latter transcends the world of sense. The possibility of a third type of thinking and living is here to be investigated in connection with a philosophy of life. Ill THE WORLD OF HUMANITY I — HUMAN STRIVING AND HISTORICAL PROGRESS The individual impulse toward self-assertion and the social instinct for the self-positing of humanity have only one end in view; it consists in postulating and perfecting a world of humanity. This world is an inner ont. As the world of nature is known by its forms and revealed through its development, so the world of humanity appears in indivi- duals and is carried out in human history. If the world is not a man, humanity is a world-order, and it is the cosmic quality in man which enables him to comprehend the totality of the world in its forms and values. Nature is nothing to nature, but she is everything to man who seeks her as the correlate of his own being: where she has universality he has inness, and the union of the two brings about the human world as an order. Humanity cannot exist apart from in- dividuals, nor can individuals exist apart from humanity. Man's participation in the human order is dependent upon the unity of spiritual life which hovers over all persons but settles upon the few. "They that are awake," said Heracli- tus, "have one world in common — era kcu kolvov koct^ov — but every one of those who sleep turns aside unto a world of his own." (95.) And it is the common world of awakened human beings which establishes the one order of humanity. With the animal, as with the nature-man, no such world-life is possible in either action or consciousness; but where cul- ture enters in man emerges from the night of his isolation and enters upon his humanity. At the outset, man seems farther removed from systema- tic life than the lower orders of being, since he is marked by individuality, which makes his general humanity less ap- parent than the animality of the beast, where the type is the 52 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 53 salient principle. For this reason, it becomes necessary to evince the concept ma$, the idea of whose being has so long been taken for granted; only as we understand our subject may we assume to dictate concerning his conduct. Was man made for desire, for duty, or for some other ideal of life? These questions lie on the table until we begin to understand man's destiny in the world of nature-spirit. Man's mind humanizes him: culture and civilization, which are the inner and outer forms of life according to humanity, show how man is bent upon genuine conduct and in the light of human penchant, we must judge of those moral systems which survey him hedonically or as a duty-doing animal. Man makes his environment in the mental act of conceiving it ; he sets for himself a goal of his own elaboration and never feels constrained to achieve the ideals of mere nature or sheer reason. That which appears to be the least of his activities and the object of his consciousness is a real order of human existence — the world of humanity. As human self -positing is directed toward human world- hood, so the progress of living humanity has no other end. Humanism in both action and reflection reveals the con- trast between nature and culture, between the immediate interest and the remote one. Humanity is the denouement of this positing and this progress, and upon the three stages of human history it becomes ever a clearer idea and a stronger motive. In man the struggle to live does not end with, life nor confine itself to natural forces. There is one grand affirmation of being which Schopenhauer may style "die Bejahung des Willens zum Leben" while Eucken calls it "Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt." Man strives after humanity as the beast struggles for animality. Pessim- ism may regard the affirmation of humanity as a mistake, but the mischief has been done and if man cannot make a suc- cess of spiritual life, he has already made a failure of his original animal existence and cannot return to nature; hence progress is inevitable. The usual setting of man is found in nature, and the prejudice against humanity is deep-seated. We seek the source of man in sense or in reason, but not in himself. Our standard is ever an outward one which has not advanced be- 54 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE yond the Stoical life according to nature; only in recent times has the life according to humanity begun to receive recognition. When the historical view of man magnifies his individuality to something like worldhood, the contrast between outer naturistic facts and inner humanistic ideals becomes as clear in idea as it is intense in will. Man is determined to become human, and no goal in positive sense or negative reason can delay his activities. Partial ethical systems, which do not relegate man to the world of humani- ty, do not see that he is not content with mere obedience, but is bent upon the positing of a world-order peculiar to his human nature. The possibility of this realm in human experience has been questioned by the mind which has usually been guided by the critical disciplines of logic and ethics and not by the creative forms of culture which are yielded by art and religion. In these positive performances of the human spirit, history is justified of her children and the affirmation of man's intrinsic nature cannot be hidden in the world o£ art and ,the world of worship. In idea, man is coming abreast of that humanity which already exists in will, and he is now ready to reduce to con- templation that which has been the object of conquest. The old rationalism, which made man in its own image, never gave his life a human content; while the newer naturalism, which sought to breed a race of instinct-serving animals, failed to invest him with the form of humanity. Mean- while, the new age emerges from such pseudo-modernism and exercises the belief that man is now himself, and at one with his humanity. Rationalistic duty has come in for repu- diation; naturalistic desire has met renunciation, as man sets out for the world of his humanity. Life is too vast for such boundaries; too victorious for such half-hearted, half-human ideals. Modern morals have revolved upon such poor pivots that the most obvious thing about man — his humanity — seems obscure and unsafe. The world of humanity appears dramatic and we cannot quite give up our faith in the simple- hearted "free moral agent," who had to choose between abstract duty and concrete desire, between a mere character- less "self" and an equally non-human "other." The com- plexity of life and the richness of its content demand the VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 55 idea of actor rather than agent, and in the failure of the naturistic ideals of experience and understanding, the world of humanism appears as man's true philosophic place. Metaphysically constituted and morally constrained, man is still a human being. Civilization and culture have emanci- pated him from nature, and in the consciousness of free and final humanity, ethics feels the need of new methods and new categories. The airless landscape, which found its perspective in line alone, is giving way to the aerial world of living contemplation; and the draughtmanship which re- lied upon hard outline is superseded by chromatic composi- tion which assembles its objects synthetically. Idealism is not lost when art seeks nature, because now she seeks it in a form consonant with human perception; and an ethical view which looks for life rather than line, for color and not mere form, is not far from a spiritual view of man as human. Modern misoneism is fading, and our scorn of humanity passes with it. Nothing but world-life will satis- fy the aroused spirit of humanity, and in the light of this impulse, which passes from selfhood to worldhood, must the history of culture be considered. Both the critical and con- structive forms of human intellectual activity are instructive at this juncture, and when we perceive what thought has already done, we see that the kingdom of humanity is at hand. On the critical, logico-ethical side, human thought and action have elaborated, in idea, a realm peculiar to man, his cognition and conation; while, in a positive fashion, the function of the aesthetico-religious has been to construct such an order in human consciousness. Beneath and behind both is the one world of humanity. 2 — THE WORLD OF HUMANITY IN THEORY Both thought and action are guided by reason, hence this reflective form of human striving will assume a somewhat abstract character. Nevertheless, since man is more than his mind, his rationality will appear in its proper light as something inferior to his humanity, and around the borders of logic and ethics extends the widening circle of spiritual life. In logic, the validity of thought must be determined 56 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE according to a human norm; in ethics, the value of ideals waits for man to render his decision. From both we learn how all human activity is under the sway of that central im- pulse to exist which makes humanity what it is. I The World of Thought. Reason is a superior means which man employs in the assertion of his humanity, but it is ever a means, never an end. In the order of discovery, man may say, "I think, therefore I exist;" but in reality the order is reversed; "I exist, therefore I think." Speculative thought arises within man as something indigenous to his humanity and not as an extra product forced upon him from without, and for this reason, we must abandon the notion that thinking has a special reference to nature as object and see that it belongs to humanity as subject. The problem of life is so inclusive that it cannot be solved apart from mental activity, and the rise of knowledge is a sign that man recog- nizes his human vocation in the universe. In the midst of this intellectual work, which is included in the total deed of humanity, there is something more than a cognitive impulse ; thought has a creative function and assists humanity in con- structing a characteristic world-order, distinct from the world of nature. Human thinking has ever entertained the thought that man is not quite hemmed in by material objects or confined to the world of percepts. In response to this call to humanity, thought has constructed an order of being, too rare perhaps for human existence were it the sole environ- ment of men, but symptomatic of that life-in-itself that be- longs to humanity. The life of contemplation, which has claims to value in comparison with the life of conquest or the life of enjoyment, makes necessary the existence of a mental realm in which humanity may realize its calling. The major history of culture cannot conceal the fact that man has thought and acted as though there were a world of con- templation in which his spirit might dwell. Religion, philosophy and science have elaborated a cosmos of intellect as man's true possession. Aryan intellectualism has ever been nourished by the hope of finding the mental world of humanity. The Veda put forth its plea in the form of a Selfhood which was con- ceived of in independence of the outer world of sensations VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 57 and the inner order of immediate, personal impressions. When the devotee is cftunseled to seek the Self, it is not for the sake of any mere personal self-consciousness, but in order that man may attain to humanity and find his Self in Brah- man. This Self, in which the contemplative soul partici- pates, is one and infinite. A second step toward the intellec- tual human order was taken by Greek philosophy, where Parmenides began a search for pure Being as coriv efoa whence Plato could invest the same ontology with the mental significance of iSea. Since the passing of classic specu- lation, the history of philosophy has looked to antiquity for the perfection of "a world of ideas," although it has not felt at liberty to relate this notion to that one progressive mental life which is the life of humanity itself. Modern intellec- tualism has not been blessed with that unity which pervaded the oriental sense of Selfhood or the classic conception of mental worldhood ; it has been divided against itself. Never- theless, humanity has not relinquished its demand for a cognitive realm for man, nor has our modernism, with its theory of knowledge, failed to respond. We have learned to look for knowledge for knowledge's sake, and since this ideal of pure cognition is directed away from nature, it is one approach nearer to man. As Hindoos and Greeks intellectualized humanity, so the Germans have performed the same service in recent times. The romantic idealism which followed close upon the Kritik reveals this mental freedom in a perfect degree, but even the more reputable and critical philosophy of Kant and Schopen- hauer carries out the same idea. These realistic philoso- phers contrast reason with both sense and will, and in spite of the competition involved, idealism reduces space and time, substance and causality to the mental order alone. The truth of a mental world for humanity is even nearer realiza- tion to-day than it was in the naive assumptions of the Indo- Grecians, and though we know more about nature, we know more about mind, while above both forms of these phenomenal orders arches the one intellectual life of man. The modern limitation of the intellect is an advantage to humanity which has itself set the boundaries of its own intellectual activity. To feel the significance of all our 58 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE skepticism it is necessary to observe how mental limitation has not been impressed upon man from without as something alien to his nature, but inwardly as something allied with the genuine nature of humanity. We know that religion is not all, that art is not everything; we must realize that knowledge too is subordinate to imperial humanity. Man is the way, the truth, the life. Voluntarism, if it has not dis- lodged intellectualism, has shown that man possesses some- thing more than mentality, and if we are called upon to admit that the will is superior to the intellect, we may com- plete the proposition by saying, man is superior to will. It is the world of genuine humanity which encircles the world as idea, and man's progress toward human selfhood has simply made use of several stages of Aryan intellectualism. 2 The Ethical World-Order. The critical conception of a human world-order which has shown itself in pure cognition is not wanting in a second aspect where the world appears in the form of pure conation. Like logic, ethics cannot accomplish its purpose without an appeal to the on- tological; hitherto, our speculative and practical forms of philosophy have not assumed human responsibility, but have satisfied themselves with an outer systematic completeness. Morality belongs to man, and the final appeal is not to con- science, but to humanity itself, in whose behalf the sense of approval and disapproval operates. Morality is a means to the one end of all human striving; it serves man only as it is capable of world-significance. The immediate pleasure of the Cyrenaics and the isolated virtue of the Cynics are in- capable of ruling man, who has cosmic elements in his nature, and all systems which have exerted sway over human- ity have had something endless about them. Human life according to pleasure can never be so cramped, and human life according to virtue can never be so crabbed that some sense of the totality of things will not dawn upon the mind and invigorate the will. Man cannot seek refuge from humanity in these crannies of life-philosophy; he was des- tined to attain to full human being. A strong Semitic tendency has led man to postulate an ethically good, where the Aryan instinct persuaded him to premise a logically true. The world-character of the good VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 59 docs not seem to be as evident as the cosmic conception of ideas as reals; nevertheless the practical belief in the supre- macy and permanence bf righteousness can have no other meaning. Israel had no such philosophy as India developed, but it was possessed of an enduring moral belief which has accomplished as much in the actual life of humanity. In- deed, is not Hebraism as strong to-day as Hellenism? The world of forms, which envelops human thinking, is no more august than the world of values, which encompasses the human will. In this way, it comes about that there is an ontology of doing as well as of thinking; for there are metaphysical elements in ethics as well as in logic. Such has been the appreciation of Semitism to modern philosophy, and the enduring instinct to obey has assumed an appro- priate cosmic form. The result has been the elaboration of a moral world-order, self-constituted and self-contained. Ethics has been made more than a critical norm ; it has taken on content and reality. In this way, the good has been treated as real in the midst of its ideal form. Not only the general problem of the good inclines philo- sophy to invest its categories with cosmic significance, but special ethical problems seem incapable of presentation, much less solution, upon any other basis than that of a spiritual order of humanity. As an example of this, we may cite the case of moral consciousness in man, in whose mind it assumes the form of a not-thou, whence proceed all moral command- ments. Man may have demeaned himself slavishly toward the moral ideal, and submitted to conscience and duty with- out asking why; but that only shows how he has endowed the ethical with worldhood, while failing to invest himself with selfhood. The modern man's knowledge has seemed too great for his understanding, his duty too vast for his will. Moral sense has been a world-consciousness, in which the idea of the good received a real content. Upon the eudaemonistic side, the result has been the same; the will in its ever-increasing demands has created a world-order of well-being in the form of universal happiness. This stands out in the mind, not merely as a possibility which the in- dividual may realize, but as an actuality toward which, so ran the optimistic argument, mankind was ever tending. 60 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE Man has sought either to satisfy the world or to have the world satisfy him; here it has been a duty-debt which he owed the universe, there it has been a desire which he would have that universe satisfy. It has been a Semitic pragmatism which sees no purpose in the world but a practical one; it relates to the contemplative world-order only upon the quantitative side of universality. But, in the midst of this remote epic existence, man has within him a lyrical life, which makes possible a more vital view of his humanity. 3 — POSITIVE VIEW OF THE WORLD OF HUMANITY From the foregoing, it will be seen, how our thought strives to fortify the idea that man's genuine life is lived in a realm which is not materialistic, but humanistic. This conviction was clarified by a view of human thought and action, whose bases appeared to consist in something universal and necessary. Neither outer facts nor inner percepts can account for human knowledge; neither outer incentives nor inner motives can explain human action. To premise humanity is to postulate the world in which it is realized. This august truth is not unnoticed in art and religion, which may lack somewhat of the penetrating metaphysical exact- ness of logic and ethics, but which atone for this weakness in form by a richness of positive content whereby the reality of the human world-order becomes more credible. Both art and religion possess perceptible forms which make up a world of beauty and world of worship; and clothed upon with these intuitions, culture takes its place in contrast to nature. I The World of Culture, In both the ancient form of objective beauty and the modern principle of subjective taste, the reality of the aesthetical has ever made its presence felt. The source of beauty is within man who possesses a sensitivity which is alive to something more than the mere concrete in nature and the abstract in mind. Of this aesthe- tic consciousness the form is intuition, the content feeling. Thus viewed, beauty is a purely human trait which finds in nature the symbol of this sense, or the material which art must perfect. In connection with this inner source, beauty VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 61 has a world-significance, inasmuch as it has no end and applies universally to .human minds. Aesthetics has the same range as logic and is wanting in no sense of the univer- sal and necessary; at the same time it shows its humanistic superiority over nature by its freedom from the logical labor which the understanding employs to secure sufficient ideas. With this inner range and supremacy, art has attempted to signalize man's victory over the world of sensible forms, and the elaboration of the fine arts reveals human competi- tion with nature. However unconscious the genial work of art may have been, the manifest motive is found in the desire to surround man with objects in harmony with his humanity. Indeed, the genius of humanity, which can never remain con- tent with nature, has exerted itself to establish a realm wherein man's spiritual nature might develop. Art is a world-order and one fitted for humanity alone. The world of knowledge belongs to the mind; the world of conduct is the product of the will; the world of beauty is a unique product of man's nature in its totality. All true artists live positive ones as art and religion. These four disciplines in the world of eternal humanity wherein all striving and suffering are intelligible. As the enlightened men in Plato's myth of the cave (Repub. Bk. vn) are bewildered first by going into the light and then by returning to the darkness, so he who sees humanity in contrast with nature finds it diffi- cult to think and act according to routine. Where the artistic view of man seems fraught with a certain vagueness, which renders the cosmic conception of beauty invalid, the historical phase of culture rehabilitates the waning power of art and secures man anew in his own human realm. The heated present is bound up in immediate interests with local and temporary significance, and the em- pirical man of the day must ask, What shall we eat and drink? Wherewithal shall we be clothed and housed? The cool past has a different meaning. In the history of culture, we do not seek the memorials of these utilities of time and space, but inquire into the place of the permanent in the life of a former nation. What is Hellenism but poetry, philosophy and plastic? And what can history de- sire to contemplate but these phases of man's world-life, 62 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE where, by means of remote pursuits, he sought to emanci- pate himself from the snare of sense and the sting of mortal- ity. All genuine history concerns those strivings which are still dominant in mankind, and the unity of human, spiritual life can hardly be denied when the culture of the present, mutatis mutandis, affiliates with the culture of the past to form a total, timeless humanity. Apart from the worldhood of humanity, the progress of culture remains opaque to all analysis. There has been growth, not mere crystal-like accretion; and this inner prog- ress of mankind toward humanity would have been impossible without that unifying principle of spiritual life which re- lates man to an order of his own. When surveyed from the conventional standpoint, humanity appears to consist of a happy generalization which, in nominalistic fashion, extends its nature over individuals and particular groups of persons; but the Platonic idea, which is here involved, stands for the perfect in character, as well as for the permanent in form; and when humanity is adjusted to the universe, it assumes the place of an attracting goal, which draws man away from individuality to selfhood and world-life. When, under the inspiration of art, man emancipates himself from the sensuous and immediate in nature, he must have some other realm in which he may live and realize himself. Nature has no place for perfection of his selfhood; hence it is by means of a natural and unconscious tendency that he acts as though an order of humanity actually existed. It is the world of humanity without which the origin of art cannot be ex- plained or its ground justified. 2 The World of Worship. Religion is quite at home in that world of humanity toward which these other phases of culture incessantly strive. When reason abandons the concrete for the abstract, when conscience aligns a form of conduct distinct from impulse and habit, when art creates an ideal object of interest, which is independent of particu- lar percepts and private pleasure, religion obeys the same humanizing instinct and instructs man to affirm his spiritual nature in contrast to the world about him. And of all these forms of human self-assertion, religion is the most complete in its breach with nature, just as it is accompanied VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 63 by the most fruitful ontological results. It is fitting, there- fore, that our examination of the particular phases of the inner world of humanity should conclude with the world of worship. Like art, religion possesses an inner nature which awakens spontaneously to the demands of a self-positing humanity. No outer facts evoke it, no external needs arouse it, but in freedom it puts forth its native powers. And like art, religion expresses itself in a manner comparable to the per- ceptible forms of nature ; that is, in a positive manner in the institutions of art and of worship. The sense of these positive phases of human contemplation is interpretable only as we assume the existence of a world-life in man. Such religious performances as are noted in the sacred books of the world would be impossible if it were not for the on- tological nature of man, for it is only the world of humanity within which can comprehend and evaluate the world of nature without. Only as the eye is sunlike in form, if not in nature, can it perceive the sun. With his disposition to value his experiences, man begins to feel somewhat of the dignity belonging to his human nature, just as he appreciates the strategic position which he occupies in the total world- order. Under the instruction of religion, man finds it im- possible to dwell in the world of nature, and yet it seems unadvisable to aspire to an order of abstract ideas. Man thus finds it necessary to relate his being to an appropriate realm where his nature receives just treatment and his work due appreciation. The history of positive religion is not wanting in evidence of a world of worship, which is not only implied, but direct- ly affirmed by characteristic universal religions. One needs only to consult the Upanishads and the New Testament to learn this important lesson. In the one, it is an intellectual- istic teaching wholly in keeping with the mental practice of the Aryan: in the other, it is more ethical, which would be expected in connection with Semitism. The Vedantist styles the world of worship, "The City of Brahman," which contains the fulfillment of all desires for selfhood as well as all possibilities of worldhood. (Khandogya Upan. vin.) To the enlightened mind, this religious world-order con- 64 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE tains all that there is of truth and blessedness; the Brahman City of Selfhood is an ideal to which the devotee is sur- rendered. The same holy abandon pervaded the mind of the original Christian, who exalted the moral soul as the Brahman had the contemplative self. By means of strident contrast between the world and the spirit, the New Testa- ment places the soul in a human realm which it calls the Kingdom of God. There it is that the soul finds the realiza- tion of a value whose counterpart can never be afforded by nature, and it is by means of slaying the immediate self in nature that man attains to the final self in the Kingdom. Here again is a perfect synthesis of human selfhood and world-hood. Of all the forms of culture, religion is the most daring in its pursuit of the world-life. This is consummated by post- ulating the unity of finite and infinite. Such a reconciliation is impossible where man is left in his natural individuation and is not endowed with human selfhood; it is the world- life in him which creates a desire for God and further effects a communion between them. Religion magnifies man when it seeks his redemption, and under its auspices the world of humanity assumes a form more steadfast than that contri- buted by man's contact with art. Man is taught to seek the kingdom of humanity within him; his progress is ever away from externality toward the inwardness of his inherent hu- manity, which lies concealed beneath animality and rational- ity. To perfect such a program, the religious system which advocates the culture of Self or the redemption of the soul must provide a suitable realm for the spiritual activity in- volved in such a humanistic movement. The Bhagavad-Gita (vi. 5-6) declares, "He shall by Self, lift up himself, nor let himself sink; for a man's self has no friend but Self, no foe but Self. The Self is friend to that self that has by self conquered self; but self will be a very foe warring against him who possesses not his self." And having centered man in the Self, it encircles him in an order of being which is one with his own nature. So likewise the New Testament, which would persuade man to abandon narrow egoism in nature for genuine selfhood in the world of humanity. "He that findeth his soul — 6 ev/owv rrjv if/vx^v shall lose it: he that VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 65 loseth his soul — 6 cwroAeVa? ryv tyvxqv shall find it." ( Mt. x. 39). Such transmutations of life are impossible apart from some second realm in which the emancipated self may dwell. 4 — THE WORLD-LIFE IN HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS The complete plan of life, which involves the affirma- tion of the soul and constant progress toward humanity, has shown somewhat of its influence in the ground of such theoretical forms of culture as logic and ethics, in such positive ones as art and religion. These four disciplines afford indirect evidence of a genuine human order, in which all validity and value, all beauty and worship, inhere. Now it remains to be asked, whether this same world-life, which is premised by the general program of life and postulated by particular forms of reflection and action, ever comes to the surface of individual consciousness to exert any discernible sway. Does man feel that he dwells in the world of human- ity ? Does he ever make this world the object of his activity ? According to the methods of traditional ethics, these queries will sound empty, inasmuch as the empirical self, which has instincts and intuitions, and is furnished with maxims about happiness and virtue, knows nothing of its place in the world of humanity or of the values and dignities which accrue therefrom. The genius of humanity must disclose itself and induce man to make the world his aim. According to Schopen- hauer's explanation of genius, the favored individual pos- sesses more knowledge than is required for the service of the will-to-live, and this excess of cognition in him becomes "a clear mirror of the inner nature of the world." (Welt ah Wille u. Vorstellung § 36.) This surplus of mental power appears in an artist like Michel Angelo, who, according to Millet, felt himself to be "overburdened with life." (Smith Barbizon Days, p. 42.) Those who are not engrossed in sense or ensnared in reason are conscious of the totality of the world-order, and upon them, as upon the heads of cary atids, rests the whole world of humanity. Apart from a sense of man's position in the universe and his place in the 66 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE plan of humanity, no ethical problem can be justly presented; for it is absurd to dictate maxims to man when you have not shown him what humanity expects him to do. All desire, all duties, all values repose in the one effort on the part of spiritual humanity to assert itself as something unified in the complete order of being. To adjust man to his human- ity, our theory must consider the problem in the light of the ego and of society. I Humanity and the Individual. While humanity and personality are inseparable ideas, all attempts to construe man's life in terms of universality are confronted by the principle of individuation. The ego asserts itself first; and then arises a whole world of persons standing in need of both individual and universal treatment. Antiquity develop- ed the unity of the world at the expense of the individual; modernity perfects the individual but cannot exert the same unifying influence over the world. Among our moderns, Leibnitz cannot reduce his many monads to a single system, while Fichte's individual ego is produced at the expense of the world. A reconsideration of the personal problem may reveal the fact that the distinction between selfhood and worldhood is not as great as the realm of phenomena would seem to indicate, and one and the same humanity may exist in both the individual and the universe. It may appear that the content of humanity is found in the social order, the form in the individual one; and it must become manifest that, while both ego and alter are involved in the world- order of human life, the human relation does not consist in any such principle as is commonly involved in the problem of egoism and altruism. Traditional ethics has considered only the phenomenal forms of ego and society, and it has mistaken the empirical for the real. On the individualistic side, the empirical ego is not the self and cannot be brought into the discussion until some- thing like selfhood is appreciated. How naive has man been in assuming that immediate experience could give him the principle of self, and how absurd his contrast between that tiny individuality and the outstanding universe ! Apart from a sincere view of selfhood the problem of individual and universal cannot be presented, much less solved. Some- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 67 thing world-like in man is needed to confront the universe. The struggle for selfhodd has not failed of recognition in the history of humanity. The Veda offers the idea of self- hood as its most characteristic contribution to human culture. Beginning with the tenth mandala of the Rig-Veda which exalts Brahman as the One organized in the Upanishads, which regard that One as the Self, and completed in Vedan- ta which relates the Self to the Not-Self, Aryan thought has not failed to show how far removed from common ex- perience is the saving selfhood of humanity. Practical Semitic thought as expressed in the New Testament, so views the soul that it out- values the universe, and further organizes human efforts so that man, by abandoning his false selfhood in nature, may rise to true personality in the world of spirit. Even the Sophists felt the importance of this principle when they made man the measure of being and not-being; while, in modern times, Descrates' rationalism puts physical and psychological investigation upon the same plane. Man is as near universality as individuality; and in the act of attaining to selfhood he achieves worldhood. One need not adopt an Aryan identification of man with nature, or a Semitic superiority of God over the universe in order, to place the self in representative relations to the world; and whatever be the attitude of critical thought to these religious formulations of the self-problem, it must never be forgotten that without some spiritual program the idea of self, which is not given in experience, cannot be evinced. The self which aspires to worldhood is not the isolated, unqualified ego who is set off by individuation from his fellows, as well as from nature. He is a participant in the continuity of human striving, and this adapts him to that one world of humanity toward which mankind is approximating. Every individual thus contains the totality of the human order and, when he is related to history, he is not more than one remove from the realm of selfhood which embraces man, as nature includes perceptible things. Difficult as may be the undertaking which seeks to adjust man to some other than a natural order, and paradoxical as some of the posi- tions assumed must appear, the philosophic claims inherent in the idea of the worldhood of man are not as great as 68 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE those involved in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Indeed, it would seem as though no just pretension to im- mortality could be made as long as the soul is left apart from an appropriate realm of world-life in mere individua- tion. So great is the task which humanity has before it in the positing of selfhood that continuity is demanded to fur- nish the individual and his age with the means of approxi- mating to the goal of human striving. No one person, no one stage in human progress can accomplish the object of man's universal work; hence a gradual movement in which individuals and particular ages participate is demanded by man in the accomplishment of his single life-labor. Now this continuity of human activity implies a connection among the individuals who constitute it, and this connection is only another name for the world of humanity. Our apology for human individuation must be accom- panied by an argument in favor of human history, for both the ego and the individual age of history are one remove from the world of all human being. From the usual stand- point, they appear in a merely empirical way and hence pro- duce the paradox of the totality of things given in the form of individuality and according to the historical relation. Never- theless, humanity is not holden from the intelligible ego of the individual or the essential history of the race. How shall the history of these individuals be conceived ? First of all, it must not be assumed that history exists as a matter of course, nor that its content is made up of contingent events. A metaphysical view becomes imperative when the reality of history is sought. When our proud conception of a human world-order is constrasted with human history as given in experience, we feel forbidden to assert that this phenomenal order of contingencies possesses world-signifi- cance. Our conception of the continuity of human striving, however, lends to history the category of relation, and, in spite of all that is local and arbitrary in the record of human action and consciousness, something world-like seems to in- vest our human progress. Where history raises man above mere individuation, and relates him to past and future and the full order of progress, the world itself performs a similar service for history and gives it metaphysical status. The VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 69 office of history is to mediate between the one and the all, and thus to set man in» symbolic relation to the universe. Where an isolated thinker or actor cannot achieve world- hood in himself, he, by relating himself in representative fashion to his day, comes into a form of being which is con- ceived sine die. The philosopher is not altogether Greek or German, the poet is not wholly Italian or Anglican : he is in possession of a rich world-life in humanity. Among the metaphysical forces which are active in the world of persons, there appear deeper springs of action than are catalogued in the traditional work on moral philosophy. Here is a vigorous affirmation of personality which can spring from no other source than the desire to come abreast of the human order; there is a sense of suffering which can be explained only as we regard it as some form of world- sorrow. In Sudermann's "Frau Sorge" this search for soul- life is drawn v/ith fidelity and penetrating analysis, and the fairy tale appended to the work reveals the motive implicit in the earlier pages. When the hero inquires of his mother, "Where is my soul ?", she asks the stars for it, but they find him too low ; the flowers on the heath, but they call him too ugly; the birds of the air, who think him too sad; the tall trees, who look upon him as too humble; the clever serpents, who consider him too stupid. The hero must free himself, and the author can find no device for his emancipation but in the committing of crime. By such an exceptional and violent method he breaks away from an enslaving moral system and becomes himself. The same consciousness of one's possession of a human soul appears in forms of suffering as well. He who can comprehend grief feels it magnified many diameters. With- in his soul it produces a peculiar delirium in which the dis- tinction between person and person is obliterated, and in his anguish he fancies that all share his suffering and are ready to run to his relief. Such sorrow creates a certain craving for sympathy and the sufferer looks with confidence for legions of angels to come to his aid. He cannot believe that he is isolated in his individuality and in his grief he sinks into the common world of human suffering. It is the acute sense of one's own humanity which begets self-commisera- 7 o VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE tion and makes the individual wonder why he is so sad, just as it is omnipresent humanity which gives man his in- dividuality. Hence, whatever may be the dialectical solu- tion of the problem of individual and universal, the fact remains that only in the human order does the individual possess a self, and the struggle to realize selfhood results in the human attainment of worldhood. Nature, which screens the world of humanity from reason, likewise tends to pre- vent the development of individuality. When, therefore, man becomes himself as self, he begins to participate in the one world of humanity. 2 The World of Persons in Human Consciousness. In his social capacity, as one among many in a world of human spirits, the individual does not fail to receive further informa- tion from that human order which invests him with its own life. However individualized humanity may be, the content of its life appears in a plural rather than a singular fashion. In this way, the importance of the individual receives new re- cognition when it is surveyed in the light of the alter or non-ego who, in this objective capacity, becomes representa- tive of the total world of humanity. Between these separate souls yawns the abyss of humanity, whereby we are warned that no conventional treatment of egoism-altruism can adapt itself to the statement and solution of the problem. Human individuals are adapted to one another only as they are adjusted to the universe; and instead of the social adjustment of person to person, which resembles the physical relation of atom to atom, human individuals are made up in human fashion according to personal and temperamental variations and are related to one another in dramatic fashion. This historic view of humanity is not convincing, nevertheless it serves to set at nought the purely economic view which has so long held sway in ethical calculation. With pathetic earnestness our conventional systems have sought to relate self to self, and ego to alter, by a casuistical play upon prudence and benevolence. Man is expected to find his humanity in self-love, to express it in altruistic affection. How far removed from such twofold philan- thropy is the world of humanity! How degrading is the view which, in its exaltation of sympathy, leaves man upon VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 71 the plane of animality with no suggestion of his human culture ! Such sympathy can never penetrate to the recesses of self -existence and adjast itself to the infinite needs of the other person; and as an impulse on the part of the natural man it ignores the fact that all souls are in the same human world, where they have the same destiny and are confronted by the same problems; hence the bestowal of some immediate benefit does not measure up to the merits of the situation. He who would do something of worth to mankind must premise in the world of persons that same human vocation which is active in him in this very altruistic deed. The alter is not the conventional character, the moral lay-figure of utilitarian ethics, but a characteristic person who has his own place in the one world of humanity. For this reason, the ambitious altruist is constantly thwarted when he en- deavors to contribute something to the unified life of another soul. The only argument in favor of benevolence is the pessimistic one, which, instead of seeking to discover the true world of humanity and its proper values, merely en- deavors to repair the actual and untoward condition of things with the hope of making empirical life endurable. In this guise, benevolence cannot be condemned, although one may question the right to raise natural sympathy to the rank of moral category. The human relation has its place in genuine philosophy. One need read only Plato and Aristotle to discover that. Plato's idealism finds its source in the erotic which makes the dialectic possible. By means of Eros, the soul of man is stirred to longing for the ideal which is suggested by the sensible forms of things, and it is under the inspiration of this same principle that human society is made possible. In Plato, therefore, the erotic leads man to knowledge of the Idea and unites him with his fellows in an ideal Republic. Aristotle treats the human relation in the same fundamental fashion when he introduces friendship into the Nicomachean ethics, because he believes that the topic is allied with virtue just as the "good man" and the "friend" are terms not at all dissimilar (Bk. vm. Ch. 1), and friendship and justice are considered to have the same subject-matter (lb. Ch. ix ). The Aristotlelian conception of friendship is 72 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE such that it cannot be based upon pleasure or utility; but depends upon a mental participation in the Good (Ch. 5). Both of these elder masters emphasize the importance of the bond between soul and soul and decline to discuss it upon any other than a noumenal basis. Poetry as well as philosophy gives evidence of this metaphysical basis upon which human souls exist and in- teract, and the subject of human intercourse becomes drama- tic as well as dialectical. Whatever the final solution of the drama as a problem may be, and whether with Hegel we style it a typical adjustment of finite spirit to the Absolute or, with Schopenhauer, look upon it as the relation of indi- vidual will to the universal Will to Live ( We It ah Wille u. Vorstellung § 51), it cannot be overlooked that the play re- presents the individual's relation to the world of humanity, wherein the lyrical subject seeks to adapt himself to the epic situation. The drama cannot perfect itself upon any narrow basis of prudence-benevolence, but must sink deeper and evoke the characteristic impulses of the human soul. No theory of self-love will account for the acts of the lyrical subject who, in the spirit of freedom or overcome by fate, seeks to realize personal ambition, surmount difficulties, and assert himself as a character. On the other hand, mere benevolence or the want of it can never account for malice and envy, jealousy and anger and all the varied passions of which the dramatist avails himself. Which, then, is human- ity; the practical, economic subject who knows but two senti- ments: egoism and altruism, or the characteristic person who eludes such prosaic classification and exhibits a rich manifold of human impulses in the complications of human life? If there be something histrionic in the humanity of man, must not our ethical systems enrich their classification of human impulses and admit of something more than the instincts of private and public benevolence? Humanity is to nature as the sea is to the land — detached, free, and profound; no philosophy of life can measure man unless it surveys him sui generis. The attitude of man toward his humanity has made it possible ror poetry to introduce intents unknown to the pure- ly physical view of mankind. In his human capacity, man VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 73 shows himself to be allied with a separate and sea-like order of things, whereby new values enter into the problem of life. So aesthetical is his nature that he becomes the subject of ideal impulses and ideal feelings; with such the drama ever deals in its perpetual play of the unreal. Thus viewed, the human subject shows his tendency to act with extra-spon- taneity, to feel with hyper-sensitivity; such is his attitude toward himself in the world of humanity and the fact of ideal suffering and ideal action is a direct evidence that such an independent order exists. Were naturism the total of man's life there would be no place for these unreal forms of activity and passivity. "The beast," says Schiller, "can only desire to relieve himself from pain; only man can resolve to suffer" {Ueber Anmut und Wurde; Ueber Wiirde), and in a more fundamental fashion Schopenhauer has pointed out how suffering is essential to man because of the advancement of his knowledge; thus he says, "In proportion as knowledge at- tains to distinctness, as consciousness ascends, pain also in- creases, and accordingly reaches its highest grade in man ; who the more clearly he knows and the more intelligent he is, the more he suffers; the man of genius suffers most of all." (Welt ah Wille u. Vorstellung, § 56.) The sublime treatment of the self in the world of human- ity is brought about by the subordination of nature to cul- ture, of body to mind, whereby passion changes into senti- ment and man contemplates his humanity instead of calculating his physical pleasures and pains. With a highly developed nervous system man pursues pleasure, not merely for the sake of bodily satisfaction, but in order to have sheer mental enjoyment. We need not accept the philosophy of the Veda to see that, as a man's self has no friend but Self, no foe but Self, so only in his humanity is man capable of either pleasure or pain. The Epicurean creates ideal pleas- ures for the sake of ideal enjoyment, while the ascetic in- flicts pain upon himself for the sake of an unnecessary form of suffering. Extra indulgence which yearns for ideal excite- ment, and extra suffering which longs for unreal sources of pain, reveal man in his arbitrary humanity as the subject of sentimental joy and sorrow. While, by such practices, man mistakes his human vocation, and offers a 74 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE new example of the principle corruptio optimi pessima, he does not fail to exhibit a victorious humanity, which wounds itself by such morbid practices in the realm of pleasure-pain ; so far as the individual is concerned, man seems bent upon attaining to consciousness of himself in the world of human- ity, which accounts for the ideality of the suffering. With the aesthetic treatment of the self goes the rela- tion of soul to soul in the human and histrionic order. To stolid philosophy, which clings to a naturistic egoism and altruism, the peculiar rapport of persons seems suggestive of the morbid. Just as the religious ideal of non-resent- ment, as proclaimed by Taoism and the Krishna-cult of the Bhagavad-Gita, by Buddhism, the Book of Proverbs and Christianity, discloses a new order of life beyond the gaze of the unenlightened, so dramatic poetry reveals courses of action unheard of in the social order of human life. Here humanity rules with poetic justice. Common sense cannot account for the character of Iago, where humanity appears in total perversion; nor can it explain the sorrows of Anti- gone in the midst of her inner conflicts. Calderon's "Life a Dream" can be read only as the exquisite nature of man is the object of our attention. Among moderns, Ibsen has in- troduced purely human motives to show, if possible, how and why people act as they do. In "The Master Builder" and *Hedda Gabler," the aim of the heroines is to sway a human soul and mould its destiny; here in an unconscious manner which tends toward the good, there in a conscious fashion as it is directed toward the bad. The common destruction of the heroes involved is brought about in ways which are directly opposed. Wagner's romantic opera habitually employs this tendency toward soul-swaying in the particular form of man's salvation by a member of the same human order, in which man is redeemed by sacrifice. Hence the Ring des Nibelungen leads humanity from cave to mountain and the sky, in the form of dwarfs, giants and gods where at the conclusion Brunnhilde all but redeems Siegfried. In view of such examples, ethics finds it neces* sary to employ some motive more ruling than sympathy if humanity is to be explained. Such motives and traits characterize those who find their VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 75 place in the inner world of persons where they live ac- cording to individuality rather than conventionality. Our modern ethical philosophy has not contemplated man as such while it has viewed his human world in mere outline; but just as our artists are developing a perspective that is not only linear, but aerial and chromatic, our moralists would better revise their theories to account for the characteristic in human nature. We must appreciate dignity in Raphael's art but not overlook the vitality of Velasquez. Man may not live to himself, but he does live to his humaniy and being suffused with human atmosphere, he must be surveyed in an impressionistic manner. Our views of humanity have gone from rationality to utility without concerning themselves about genuine human interests. Man desires neither the abstract nor the concrete; his humanity inclines him toward the intuitive. For this reason, we must not look for the realization of life in conduct apart from its idealization in theory, for every one feels that he is not only doing a work but playing a part, so that all humanity has a touch of the histrionic in it. Men were meant to be men, not monks or merchants, and the theory that enjoins mere duties and utilities overlooks the warm humanity of man. Our own ethical theory must seek to account for man as well as for the partial and prejudiced views of his nature; as a result there will appear three characteristic views of life in the world. By means of his spiritual self-assertion, the continuity of his striving, and the approximation to his human order, man has developed certain types of conduct. First in order comes a period of naturistic being, where reason is submerged in sense and spirituality prevented by animality. Then follows an order of being in which reason and spirit become independent and turn against the world whose external nature seems so alien to the internal needs of the soul. Where the first view of life upholds immediacy and sense, the second emphasizes remoteness and rationality. Finally, man settles down to the inner realization of his humanity, and gives up the idea that he can be wholly animal or wholly spiritual. Then, as if for the first time, he sees the meaning of his inner selfhood and outer world- hood, and thereby learns what to expect of both himself 76 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE and nature. Traces of these earlier forms of life still cling to him, however, and he finds it imperative to participate in the life of sense as well as the life of reason. These phases of human life that accrue from the progress of human- ity toward self-realization may be styled, (i) Naturistic, (2) Characteristic, (3) Humanistic. From the Sankhya philo- sophy to Schiller, these types have been recognized, and it requires only careful adjustment of them to the inner essence and outer realization of life to place the problem of humanity in a proper light. PART TWO THE NATURISTIC VIEW OF LIFE I THE LIFE OF HUMANITY IN SENSE I — THE FIRST STAGE OF MANKIND The general consideration of human life, which has been laid down as the groundwork of this ethical theory, provides for an original type of living in the form of naturism. What was then a course of conduct on the part of the primitive man is now a form of consciousness in the mind of the man of culture. No sensible person could ever imagine that the life of man could be conducted in disregard of naturistic interest, and with the Gentiles we must inquire concerning our food and drink, our clothing and shelter. Yet he who is alive to the essential naturism of our human existence is called upon further to recognize how relative is this con- sideration; nature is a part of man's life, but only a part. That which produced man constantly fosters the genius of humanity within him, for it is by means of this enveloping medium that his science arranges phenomena according to a human, or mental, plan; while art selects and adjusts them in accordance with the principles of taste. From the example of this scientiflco-aesthetic deed, it is plain that man, who clings to his environment, is determined to transform it in accordance with human principles of judgment, and while man is ever naturistic, he is none the less humanistic. The full history of mankind makes provision for this early pre- paratory stage of spiritual life. The Tamas-Guna or gloomy quality of matter in the Sankhya and the hylical order of Gnosticism, Plato's group of artisans and Vice's stage of nature-peoples are classic examples of this begin- ning. The adjustment of humanity to nature, which should be of obvious import, requires considerable discussion, inas- much as our minor moral theories have never surveyed hu- 79 80 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE man life in its totality. Both hedonism and intuitionism are wanting in genuine philosophic spirit, since one has failed to look forward to consider the goal of human existence, while the other has similarly refused to survey its ground in the world of nature. As a problem, life must be surveyed both a fronte and a tergo. Nature may well be left to itself for the best and the worst that can be said about it is that it is only primitive in form and influential in character. To relate nature to life, thought must regard it as fundamental but not final, for a period in human existence which knows neither culture within nor civilization without, while it is indispensable in human life, is not the sum total of human striving. There is thus a genuine view of naturistic ethics which looks upon pleasure as something preparatory, and a spurious one which so dignifies simple feeling that it uses all its powers to negate it for the sake of abstract virtue. Na- ture is neither the friend nor the foe of humanity, which is related to it in a fashion temporary and incidental. To ap- preciate nature in human life, we must survey the origin and development of morality. Apart from the totality of human existence, this double question admits of no satis- factory discussion. Hedonism loses sight of ethical per- manence and fails to deduce any moral category; rigorism is blind to moral progress and cannot invest life with any content. The view of life as humanistic has in mind such a vast plan for humanity that the rise, development, and cul- mination of the ethical is capable of easy adjustment to the problem of progress. The idea of progress is by no means an ordinary one and seems to stand in need of a justification of its own. Where Aristotle worked with the assumption that culture was complete so that no advancement was necessary, the Stoics suggested the idea of progress with their term irtpiKvirri Leibnitz uses the word Forttrieb, the eighteenth century pro- duces Fortschritt and Fortgangj terms which are associated with Tetens and Herder respectively (Eucken, Gesch. d. philos. Terminol, S. 136, 169). If, in opposition to the rationalistic view, we can accustom ourselves to the idea that morality arose as something which had not existed before ; and if we can look upon that origin as a genuine humanism, and VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 81 not a masked hedonism, we shall have accomplished enough to place the ethical problem in a proper light. Morality has had a beginning; it arose in accordance with a demand on the part of humanity which was already striving with na- ture. Whether morality was introduced by religion or not, it has not always been in the world, but arose when man began to reflect upon the different values which the inner and the outer represented to him. 2 — THE ORIGIN OF MORAL LIFE Two hindrances obstruct the pathway back to the source of man's moral being. One is a scientific difficulty due to want of satisfactory data concerning the subject itself; the other is a sentimental one which involves the in- vestigator who hesitates to disclose the root of moral activi- ty. This antipathy to psycho-genesis is a modern mood which stands in need of patient treatment. Thus the origins of art and religion, of science and morality, are not the most welcome ideas in idealistic philosophy, for deep and miry seems the pit whence they are dug. We will examine the ground in human thought, but not the origin in human consciousness, for we have a prejudice against social evolution which is comparable to the antipathy to poli- tical history for which the Enlightenment was unfortunately so famous. Yet the origin was there and it demands re- cognition. Apart from any particular theory of morality and its origin, we may assume that the ethical life has not been without a career, which has been marked by progress from lower to higher, or from nature to spirit. It is not so much the history of actual morality, which cannot be viewed in the same light as the obvious history of law, religion, and art, but the successive estimates that man has placed upon his life, that affords us material for discussion. When the actual world of humanity changes from sheer naturism to an artificial civilization, when art, law, and worship ascend from the primitive to the perfect, it is to be expected that man's sentiments will vary accordingly. Ethical thought must be seized in a dynamic fashion, inasmuch as the life of 82 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE man obeys some law of change; and to ignore the progres- sive moment in human life is to ignore life itself. To return to nature is a genial suggestion, which does not fail to in- dicate that man has long since left his immediate life behind him; but more in the spirit of progressive nature is it to proclaim, "Let us advance to our humanity." Man is evidently bent upon asserting his humanity, for he aspires to be a person, not a thing, and nature does not furnish him with instincts of selfhood, nor does it provide him with a fit situation for the display of his human activi- ties. Even the man of nature will be a person, which is at least one remove from animality. Locomotion distinguishes animal from plant; self-assertion separates man from the brute. Nevertheless, it is only a false and negative asser- tion of individuality which obtains upon the plane of nature, and its value for the emancipation of an earth-bound human- ity is merely suggestive, inasmuch as it indicates a purpose and a power unconceived and misapplied. It is the destiny of man to strive, and no space-filling, time-occupying, force-exerting ideal of the physical may apply to him. Upon the naturistic level, this conative at- titude of the individual appears in the forms of "will to live," "struggle for existence," "being one's self." With plant and animal, man shares these primal impulses, but humanity means more than vitality. Man struggles for something more than the self-preservation of his existence; his will soars above the stage of mere living, and the develop- ment of a world of culture demonstrates the fact that life and existence upon earth are not sufficient for the human spirit. The struggle is for spiritual life, not mere being; the will-to-live does not end with the fact of life but ascends to the higher form of the will-to-well-being, to beauty, to knowledge. Earth-born is not earth-bound, and a creature of nature need not hesitate to approach the domain of spirit. When this vitalistic conception of man is entertained, it is not so difficult to account for the origin and growth of morality. If the good were a concept established by ab- stract thinking, it would describe a circle excluding the ac- tivities of the primitive man; then it would be well nigh impossible to interpret his raw self-assertion as a moral VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 83 impulse. Where we do not assume the static point of view, but claim that morality stands for a progressive condition, naturism may stand for primitive morality, indeed as the very beginning of ethical doing. To obtain the benefits of naturism, philosophy must esteem the primitive state sound and deficient only in range. Any other view such as that of Kant, who looks upon natural affection as though it were "pathological," will find it diffi- cult to explain how mankind has made its progress. It is quite true that progress is a novelty, even in modern philo- sophy and where it was unknown in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it is not adequately valued in the nine- teenth and twentieth. Nevertheless, progress is a category which possesses the understanding of man, and the idea of human moral development is one that cannot be escaped. We shrink from the idea of development in morality, because it suggests, not the progressive, but the regressive. Goodness must stand alone in ethical isolation, exhibiting no likeness to things in the earth; such is the usual scruple of the moralist who follows traditional intuitionism. Yet in the parallel cases of beauty and truth, we are not so sus- picious of nature. Granted that aesthetical theory is finally able to postulate an ideal of beauty which, in all its univer- sality and necessity shall be free from the particular in nature and from the partial or interested in man; yet that intuition of beauty were impossible if man could not feel pleasure. Knowledge even more than art may insist upon pure principles of self-evident and all-sufficient truth, yet such knowledge traces back to something given in sensation. It is thus expected that feeling should originate beauty and taste, that sensation should end in thought and knowledge; why then should we hesitate to lay bare the root of good- ness? "Duty," exclaims Kant, "what origin is there worthy of thee, and where is to be found the root of thy noble descent?" Yet this same Kant did not hesitate to relate truth to the forms of sense, and beauty to the principles of feeling. 84 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 3 THE POSSIBILITY OF MORAL PROGRESS In the current condition of ethical theory, it seems im- possible to survey the progressive plan of humanity in a satisfactory manner. By its very nature, hedonism is pledged to the relative in morals, inasmuch as it reverses the virtue, not for its own sake, but by reason of its eudaemonic tend- ency. Hence, when the conditions of existence change, the estimate of virtue varies accordingly. Intuitionism is similar- ly surrendered to a metaphysical view, but one the very reverse of hedonic relativism; the theory which regards vir- tue as final looks upon its form as fixed in immutability. That which was an academic quarrel within the systems of Hobbes and Cudworth-Clarke, is still a form of dispute between evolutionists and rationalists. With neither view can one sympathize altogether, since each has something eccentric about it. When the central motive of humanity is made the point of departure, moral progress as such as- sumes its proper place and presents no such crabbed question as now disturbs our attempts to. measure man's work in the world. Neither change nor changelessness is convincing in moral matters, which view the value of human experiences, and when the plan of humanity is made the standard of moral judgment, and man's immediate motives are judged in the light of what humanity is attempting to do, ethical progress in both deed and consciousness will be an aid rather than hindrance to the theory of life. By means of progress man realizes himself as human, and were it not for this plan, which is peculiar to humanity, all visible reality would have remained upon the plane of mere nature. Having found humanity to be continuous in its striving toward realization, the particular view of the ethical life can do no better than adopt the progressive plan in describing virtues and aligning values. However deferential toward virtue one may be, he cannot close his eyes to the struggle which man has undergone to perfect it ; and bright as it may appear to-day, in an age of conscious culture and alert civilization, it arose as no day-spring unanticipated in the preliminary efforts of primitive man. Those who system- atize a nation's morals do not originate new ideals but simply VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 85 restate traditions in a philosophical form which gives them apparent self-sufficiency. * Such was the work of Confucius among the Chinese, Vyasa among the Hindoos, Zoroaster among Iranians in the east, Hebrew prophets and Grecian philosophers who so influenced subsequent thought in the west. Among the ancient Chinese, for example, Laotze ar- ranges the various orders of life in suggestive succession; hence the Tao-Teh-King (Ch. 18-19), reviewing the ideals of a primitive and paradisical age, points to the "decay of manners," and adds a counsel to "return to the unadulter- ated influence." In keeping with this, the practical is set at variance with the perfect, when (Part 11. Chapter 38) the Teh is constrasted with the Tao. "Thus it was when the Tao was lost, its attributes appeared ; when its attributes were lost, benevolence appeared; when benevolence was lost, righteousness appeared; and when righteousness was lost, the proprieties appeared." In the midst of this melancholy descent, we may observe three stages which above all others are like those of our own plan of history, namely: righteous- ness, benevolence, and the ideal, or Tao. If we reverse this plan and make other changes to render the whole scheme consonant with our western methods, we may receive a suggestion in keeping with our own surmise concerning the fortunes of the life-ideal. The desire for life and happiness becomes a desire for virtue ; the pursuit of virtue is based upon the value of the ethical life. Naturism is changed into rationalism, while rationalism mellows into humanism, which preserves the content of the first period and the form of the second. This is the inner truth con- tained in the Gunas of Kapila, the classes of Plato, the three sorts of Gnostic men, the sensuous, heroic and human ages of mankind outlined by Vico. Nature is the beginning, human- ity the end of mankind, while reason is the means employed in effecting the transmutation. The immediacy which marked the primitive condition of the human race precludes the thought that mankind began its career under the banner of an idealistic system of moral- ity. For Socrates and Kant, each with memorials of a great age of civilization behind him, it is not difficult to lay down autonomous rules of rational, ethical conduct; but the man 86 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE who has just begun to assume the human burden must make a simpler initiative. Ideal activity and spiritual culture are not primitive, and the man who has not yet attained to them must live such a life as his environment makes possible. The guide of life is stern necessity which has not yet as- sumed the force of a conscience or moral imperative, fit to govern the whole world. It is only an advanced stage of human culture which conceives of the soul as a unity and the world in its totality, and why should we look to naturism for the principles of intuitional ethics ? We cannot say with Hobbes that, in the state of nature, nothing is either com- manded or forbidden, although we may assume that the primitive commandment involved no autonomous sanction for conduct. Primitive conduct was instinctive, not intuitive; that is, it was in accordance with the needs of sense, not in harmony with the ideals of reason. Let it be granted that there is a difficulty encountered when our thought seeks to pass from utility to virtue, but this same hesitation is felt when a sen- sation is to become an idea. Indeed, all idealism, which seeks to transfigure the facts of experience that they may detach themselves from the world of sense, is obliged to surmount this hindrance ; and the question concerning the growth of the ethical ideal is only an acute form of the common human predicament. In the particular case of the ethical, some relief may be found in the thought that man, the subject for whose sake moral laws were originally instituted, himself is and was then conceived of as possessing an intrinsic value, and although only his animal nature was served by the crude ethical virtue, he was thereby enabled to realize himself as human and spiritual. Even in the rare atmosphere of Christianity, the duties of feeding and clothing are not dis- regarded, but are rather put upon the highest plane of saint- hood. In this way a purely natural good, which with a lower animal would serve only a physical purpose, is raised to ethical significance; and with virtues like justice and bene- volence, the realization of the moral values involved can be expressed only in terms of immediate physical benefit. Man is necessarily human. The skeptical Xenophanes urged that had the horse, lion and ox hands, they would fashion images VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 87 of their deities in their own likenesses ; while the witty Aesop makes the lion suggest tjiat had he been the sculptor, he would have made the statue represent the lion conquering Hercules. Nevertheless, the eternally human is inevitable and as long as man is adjusted to nature and spirit as the poles of his being, his humanism will never mislead or wound him. 4— THE ENTRANCE OF IDEALISM Meanwhile, in the midst of an experience which has not yet become empirical, the primitive man shows himself cap- able of idealistic aims. His is an age when myth and poem find that expression which can come only from contact with nature; to return to it later times must renounce their ac- quired knowledge and resume a forgotten naturism if they are to be artistic. The crass satisfactions after which the Gentiles sought, show how an age far advanced beyond its nature-condition cannot accustom itself to a higher life, while the ideal desires of primitive peoples show how serene- ly children of earth may anticipate the dawn of a spiritual age. Humanism at its height cannot forego the desire to rehabilitate nature, and the farther man is removed from his animality, the more perfect is his approach to the spirit of the world. Such a consciousness as this led Schiller, in his essay on "Naive and Sentimental Poetry," to assert, "The antique poet was nature; the modern merely seeks her." The uncultivated man continually reveals the possibility, but only the possibility, of a non-empirical life. Poetry precedes prose; religion comes before science, and myth be- fore history. Love of ceremony, desire for play, which mark the career of the nature-man, reveal the same impulse to raise his being above his surroundings; and the beginnings of art and religion inaugurate the procession toward the life human. Therefore, to consider the man of nature a coarse utilitarian, is to ignore the testimony of both beauty and worship, just as it is to invest the naive mind with a con- tent which could only arise in an age of science and industry like our own. The poetical temperament of the uncultured man, as well as his superstitious nature, made possible the transition 88 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE to a higher form of mental and moral life. Sense, which surrounds man, does not wholly envelop his being, and in the midst of naturism there is still the possibility of abstract consideration; though not yet himself, man has risen above the limits of mere hedonism. Psychologically viewed, the mind manifests a conflict between sensation and ideation, so that the primitive man cannot fail to distinguish between the immediate external impression and its inner counter- part. Between their merits he may then decide. The in- fluence of dreams, the whole range of spiritism in nature- peoples, show how impossible it is for purely empirical con- siderations to fetter the growing mind. Nature cannot con- tain man, even when he is little better than an earth-born creature; in his very weakness, he is able to transcend his immediacy, just as his instincts allow him to rise above animality. In the long process of humanizing man, the constant element is life, whose value is realized in appropriate ways upon the several stages of mankind's development. The man of nature can perceive the good and bad effects of acts which at a more advanced period will be called virtue and vice, but he will do so without relating these to the total issue of human life. But as society becomes more and more complex and its essence more internal, the immediate in- terest in conduct becomes subordinate to the ultimate pur- pose of mankind's existence. A practical utility, which con- nects itself with man's immediate life cannot stand for the life-ideal, inasmuch as man is destined to detach himself from nature and elaborate a form of conduct peculiar to himself. Hedonism can never be humanism. Yet the same argument which is directed against an earth-bound good in the form of pleasure may be turned against rigorism, which insists upon an isolated ideal in the form of self-styled virtue, to be followed for its own sake. The dangerous element involved herein consists in not reckoning with man, who is necessitated to live his life in a human way. Rigorism re- jects the idea of origin, and protests against a time-serving utilirianism ; and rigorism is unwilling to consider the goal of life and urge the good because of its value for humanity. Its autonomy is so misleading that the teleological import of VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 89 life is lost, and discredit is thrown upon the love of virtue. When the theory learns from naturism to hold fast to the life- interest, and accepts from rationalism the suggestion that such an interest must never be an immediate one, the way is prepared for a view which shall reconcile these extremes, and end a time-honored conflict. As for nature, her function is best understood in the light of possibility rather than necessity, as promise rather than performance. The earthly life of man is neither to be praised nor blamed, but made use of for a higher purpose; when this is done a new life begins for man — incipit vita nova. The excess or overflow of nature is humanity. Matter is less than the physical universe; reality is greater than the cosmos; hence the possibility of cosmology and on- tology. In the larger world there is room for both physical and ethical views of mankind. Mere naturism may be led to say, "We are creatures of earth, after all;" the spirit in man rejoins, "But something akin to the sea and the sky." And it is this restless, upward-striving tendency which leads us to express the conviction that man has an ethical destiny. Humanity can never be wholly hedonic; the very fact that the pleasure is man's pleasure, that the pain is man's pain changes a merely psychic experience into something whose value is estimated in terms of a world-life. Upon the basis of such simple feeling, humanity judges conduct and sets a total estimate upon the world of life in optimistic or pessimistic theory. Further, the human feeling constantly passes over from the bodily form of passion to the mental form of sentiment, and man is persuaded to pursue aesthetic feelings which have only an ideational existence. Humanity is safe in the hands of primitive man who is no more sub- merged by utilitarianism than is the man of the present with his mechanical science and industrial ideals. Dreams and fancies, myths and traditions, however crude they may be, reveal the fact that as poetry is primitive, so the early man is ideational in his mental life. When humanity is called upon to arise in nature it is permitted to pass on to some- thing more in keeping with its spiritual nature. It is the implicit humanity in man which makes him trustworthy even when upon the naturistic level, and for S>o VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE this reason we are enabled to adopt a consistent attitude toward the primitive form of moral life. Were ethics re- duced to a sharp either — or, and the terms of the disjunction included hedonism and rigorism, we should find ourselves in the usual predicament of the moralist who must decide against either his body or his mind. But the plan which humanity has arranged for mankind suffers us to regard naturism as something temporary, although by means of this contact with the world man acquires certain interests which never abandon him. The scientific order which phenomena follow, and the aesthetic interpretation of which they are capable, reveal the relative value of the natural order, and no ethical theory which aims to explain man and to justify his ideals can afford to treat nature cavalierly. This does not mean that man is to subordinate himself to an order of being which cannot contain him, or to subsume his nature to a phase of reality so ill-equipped with the marks necessary to define him. Nature, which, in connection with the body, gives man feeling and consciousness, is through with man when in the exercise of judgment he elaborates forms for his thought and values for his life. Pure cognition and culture are not attributes of the material organization with which nature prepares humanity for life. In itself, the naturistic system of ethics is used to explain how living morality began, just as it is further advanced as an ideal for life to-day. Thus viewed, it is supposed to satis- fy the intellect, which has a certain curiosity about the course which humanity has pursued, as also to content his striving will. In the first instance it succeeds in depicting the program of primitive life, for its obvious principles are finely adapted to the needs and aims experienced by nature-peoples ; but beyond this point of view of reminiscence, its powers hardly extend, since the man of inner culture and artificial civilization has so departed from nature as to make its ideals invalid. True it is that naturistic elements will ever sur- vive, since man's change of interest does not effect any change of metaphysical position, and, forever shut in by temporo-spatial limits, humanity will not cease to enjoy and to display a certain trait of earth-life. It is only when philosophy attempts to transform the scaffolding into the VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 91 structure that criticism points out the peril of the view enter- tained; then it appears that nature is not culture, that hedonism is not humanism. The inherent claims of naturistic ethics cannot be dis- patched briefly, and even the most thorough-going form of criticism cannot hope to withdraw man from nature. Two general forms of theorizing have ever characterized man's reaction upon his experience, and in two distinct moods he has inquired concerning the value of his life in nature. The first of these consists of a hedonism, which is engrossed with the content of naturistic life as this is given in the feelings of pleasure and pain; the second reveals a eudaemonism, which is centered upon the form of man's original life as this is found in immediacy of contact with nature, and real- ized in a course of natural activity. Where one tries to re- present human happiness as consisting in the passive recep- tion of pleasure, the other attempts to explain this by an appeal to the active pursuit of natural interests. The two are united by a common faith in the natural order, as well as by a single fear of departing from the domain of im- mediate interest, and in general they counsel man to forego the ideal while he strives to content and to perfect himself in the world of given forms. II THE FEELING OF HUMANITY IN PLEASURE AND DESIRE For the preliminary form of the naturistic doctrine of life no better term can be found than that of hedonism, which expresses the sense of man's immediate life in the world. While the term is not the most inclusive one, it keeps before our minds the fact that such a naturistic content is definable in terms of pleasure-pain only. At the same time, the program of the school cannot long continue upon this limited basis, and further conceptions enter to qualify the source of moral life in nature, as also to extend its sway. As nature cannot quite contain overflowing humanity, so hedonism fails to account for the operations of human nature, even when upon the lowest plane of activity. The first conflict which engages the attention of the hedonist is one which concerns the very source of the principle, for it appears at the outset that passive feeling cannot account for active humanity, whose nature is more consistently ex- pressed in terms of desire. The adoption of such an active principle carries hedonism forward with unexpected strength and rapidity, so that the hedonic subject is soon found striv- ing for human selfhood and worldhood. The division of interest involved in this conflict raises man above mere nature, for the claims of ego and alter have to be settled in a higher court than naturism can institute. Hence results an appeal to an ethical principle as such, and the conflict with altruism involves the admission of a moralism. Such is the course of the hedonic argument. I — LIFE ACCORDING TO PLEASURE-PAIN The attempt to account for human conduct as the pur- suit of pleasure is the ideal which lies at the heart of pure 92 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 93 hedonism. To realize this it avails itself of a mental process which stands out in arrfazing prominence among a host of other conscious concerns, and in the beginning the hedonic theory succeeds in carrying off the human soul. In the totality of human consciousness, the strategic position oc- cupied by pleasure is comparable only to the analogous place of the quality of sweetness among sensations. In all prob- ability, there is some explanation for the fact that the sensa- tion of sweetness interests us more than such qualities as sourness, saltiness, redness, blueness, etc.; for there is no inherent reason why such an ordinary sensation should in- vade our sensational consciousness and extend its sway over into the domain of affection, so that to be sweet is an ex- pression almost equivalent to being pleasant. This is like- wise the extraordinary condition of things present in the feeling of pleasure, which seems to mean more to us than either clear cognition or vigorous volition. In the face of pleasure man can never be quite himself, for his interests are warped in the direction of the absorbing hedonic pro- cess. Hedonism assumes that pleasure is real in itself and realizable in experience, so that the moral subject has only to choose what is fit and the feliciflc ideal will be attained. Without consulting humanity as to its proposed treat- ment of man, the theory is conceived in naivete and soon ends in hopeless dogmatism; therefore, it becomes difficult to present the question which inquires whether man is actually seeking pleasure, or whether his life in humanity consists of happiness. Sensations of sweetness and feelings of pleasure are liable to throw the introspective apparatus off its center, with the result of producing bad psychology and worse ethics ; and we may wonder whether, after all, we shall find the genuine sense of humanity lurking behind these excessively interesting experiences. We identify a man by his profes- sion, although the public often measures him according to his pastimes; so in the hedonic atmosphere, we shall try to discover how man conducts his total life, however difficult it may be to pursue such ephemeral objects as human pleas- ures. What at the outset seems so obvious as the pleasures of men soon becomes a baffling probelm. We hardly recognize 94 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE the genuine man in his holiday attire. Man is striving with nature in order to realize himself as a human being, while he is constantly undergoing suffering with the result of ap- preciating humanity. How shall we follow the particular activities of his character when he assumes the role of a hedonic hero who seeks self-realization in passing pleasure and immediate happiness? Hedonistic psychology is not sufficient unto these demands, and it fails to account for man as a mere pleasure-seeker, who really acts with a secret motive; for in his search for happiness he cannot hide the freedom of his feelings or that larger liberty which is pos- sessed by the human spirit. It is man who seeks enjoyment — Vhomme s'amuse. The hedonic theory has claimed hap- piness for man without inquiring whether man can contain it; nor has it waited to investigate the eudaemonistic ques- tion concerning the nature of happiness. Both humanity and happiness are ideas which need to be clarified. When the hedonic argument is carefully stated, its lead- ing principles probably cannot be denied validity, however subordinate to the general trend of life they may be. It is customary to advance the contrary theory of rigorism as the cure for hedonism, although it is not necessary to run this risk of failure to correct a theory so insufficient as a repre- sentative of naturism. Naive naturalism is forever opposed to a rationalism which employs the hedonic "calculus" and the utilitarian "demonstration." From the standpoint of nature, it will appear that pleas- ure is not the organic impulse in human nature. Yet in this way has historical hedonism committed itself. "Nature," said Bentham, "has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure." (Prin. of Morals and Legislation, Ch. I .) Before him, Hume had pledged humanity to hedonism by saying: "The chief spring or actuating principle of the human mind is pleasure or pain ; and when these sensations are removed, both from our thought and feeling, we are, in a great measure, incapable of passion or action, of desire or volition." (Treatise of Human Nature, m. 3, I.) This is not true, as history and experience show: nature has not abdicated in favor of feeling; human nature has not resigned at the request of VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 95 some of its subordinates. In urging its claims, hedonism argues in the same circle, which is to ensnare rigorism. We are not happy, because we are pleased; we do not perform duty, because we ought. Such flat hedonism can make no headway in discoursing upon human nature, for it considers man apart from the animating principle of his human life. In the ceaseless struggle for humanity and the deathless interests which are involved therein, the prominence of pleasure constitutes a serious question. Parallel to the mystery of pain, whereby we wonder why we are ever called upon to suffer, is the mystery of pleasure which falsely persuades man that the total interest of his life consists in avoiding pain and in enjoying pleasure. On this subject, man is inflicted with hyperaesthesia, and it is only because subjective feeling is magnified far beyond the range of either cognition or activity that a hedonic view of life is able to present a plausible argument. True it is that man can pursue pain as a desir- able end, but the majority of mankind are convinced that pleasure possesses an intrinstic value, and it is with difficulty that such an optimistic illusion is dispelled. Man is so con- stituted that the process of feeling is the invariable concomitant of action, and the prominence which pleasure and pain occupy leads man to regard them as magisterial. Life cannot go on without feeling, nor can it go on without breathing. But the end of life consists in neither affection nor respiration. Upon strictly hedonistic grounds, the quality of feeling cannot be affirmed in distinction from quantity, and it is elsewhere that relief must be sought. The calculating per- son who balances pleasure with pleasure, and pain with pain, has only a quantitative hedonometer, and qualitative analysis involves further considerations. These appear when feeling is freed from will and intellect and regarded as an affair of taste or preference; also, when the totality of human life is weighed against the entirety of nature, and man adapted to his human vocation. The hedonic man, who seeks to weigh earth-bound joys against one another, is vastly different from the human man who, in all the freedom of feeling, affirms his being in independence of his habitat. Mill was right in 96 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE affirming the possibility of a qualitative hedonism, but his utilitarian system does not enable him to see the fruition of this hope, and to all intents no advance was made beyond usual hedonism. The qualitative view depends for its con- ception upon a qualitative distinction between humanity and nature, and this advance is one which the hedonist is not prepared to make. Pleasure — pain, not feeling itself, has been the funda- mental tone of the hedonic scheme. Feeling alone, even when viewed in a more penetrating light, is lacking in force and direction; it is essentially passive and unintelligent. To sway man for good or bad, feeling stands in need of idea, toward which the subject may urge himself; otherwise he is blind in his conduct, and cannot attain either to hedonism or moralism. The want of an hedonic goal is appreciated by the second and third types of naturism: utilitarianism and social evolution, one of which proposes the ideal of "greatest happiness," the other that of "most perfect health." Both confess the resultlessness of a pure hedonism, which cannot escape from its own subjectivism; both indicate how necessary it is for man to depart from his native immediacy and assert some kind of humanity, whether of a political or social nature. Yet all three forms of naturism are blind to the fact that man's human life advances by stages, of which that of nature is but preparatory; oblivious also of the thought that the emancipation of the human spirit is effected by some mightier and centrifugal impulse than the desire for pleasure. Such is the anti-climax to which hedonism leads. 2 — THE HEDONIC CALCULUS In the midst of this general assumption that, in his hu- manity, man is purely hedonic, there appears a particular method which enables him to perfect himself as a creature destined for happiness. Wanting in the early forms of hedonism and abandoned by the latter ones, there is found in Bentham's school a special hedonic calculus, which seeks to determine right and wrong, not immediately upon the basis of either intuition or instinct, but upon the basis of a mathe- matical method, quite in keeping with the quantitative form VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 97 of the hedonic doctrine. Bentham analyzed pleasure in such a way as to bring out some seven attributes — intensity, dura- tion, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity, extent — .upon the basis of which the hedonic subject was supposed to sum up the tendencies of the act under question and, by striking a balance, decide upon its moral merit. (Principles of Morals, Ch. iv ). But a man of living instincts is no more likely to determine his conduct by repeating, "Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure — Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure," than the man of clear perception is to guide his mind to truth by repeating, "Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferioque prioris; Cesare, Camestres, Festino Baroko, secundae" The sound naturism of man, which unites him with the genuine order of things, and makes it possible for him to participate in the program of his own nature, renders the calculus of feeling useless. Man in his striving and suffering cannot make use of such artificial calculations. The familiar rebuttal of such a mechanical summation of pleasures consists of the application of those mental func- tions which usually carry on mental syntheses, but which for some inscrutable reason are inactive within the felicific field. And thus it comes about that where a mechanical summa- tion of things is possible upon a natural basis where one deals, for example, with coins, books, and the like, it has no place in a psychic realm of liquid experiences. In the elaboration of a concept, the necessary elements are identified by means of abstraction and then united through generaliza- tion. Behind the logical process of abstraction stands at- tention, while memory makes possible the act of generaliza- tion ; and percepts easily lend themselves to this dual method of analysis and synthesis peculiar to the organization of sense into reason. The attempt to react upon the feelings of pleasure and pain with the aim of producing a general feeling of happiness comparable to the synthesis of sensations, in the concept, ends in failure; not, however, because psychical combinations are impossible in themselves, but because at- tention and memory, wherein the hope of these syntheses lies, are not applicable to the affectional process of conscious- 98 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE ness. Hedonic self-realization seems doomed to defeat in the first encounter, inasmuch as the instantaneous and static forms of pleasure permit of nothing cumulative. To abstract the pleasurable feeling from a mass of conscious ex- periences so that it shall exist by itself in a peculiar mental isolation is beyond the power of attention, and probably for the reason that this process is itself a mental interest which cannot be turned upon itself. It was in the perception of some such truth that the ancients developed the proverb of the "Sweet elbow," which represented the tantalizing quality of that pleasure which, in its close association with the mind of man, could not be made the object of external apprehension. Plato discourses upon it in connection with his famous erotic and says that "the 'Sweet elbow' of which the proverb speaks, is really derived from the long and diffi- cult arm of the Nile." (Phaedrus, 257.) Desire for pleasure is like the hunger and thirst of Tantalus whose lips cannot quite touch the waters, whose hand just fails to grasp the clusters of over-hanging fruit. Mental activity, which exerts itself in conation and cognition, is not alert enough to seize pleasure, and the attempt to realize such an evanescent quality is a mere grasping after water. In the same provoking fashion the mental function of memory reveals its unwillingness to reproduce feeling, for when we seek to recall pleasure we recollect only the fact of having experienced it, which now by way of contrast may cause a certain sense of pain as we realize that the pleasure is gone. Sensations are memorized and reappear as ideas, or mental images of external impressions; impulses return to consciousness in ideo-motor forms which enable us to repeat our acts and thus gradually perfect them, as in cases of feats of skill ; but feelings remain aloof from the mind and when they occur again they appear in new and original form, Affection is not capable of that synthetic process which, in the case of cognition, produces class-terms, whether in a real or conceptual form. The place of pleasure is solitary, and it is because of its peculiar behaviour that some have ever regarded it as a mere absence of painful feeling; its place can never be anything but peripheral, for it is removed from VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 99 the central processes of knowing and doing. Hence, a philo- sophic view of happiness, such as springs from the eudaemon- istic theory of life, mates no attempt to employ pleasure, which would seem to be so akin to the subject, but concerns itself wholly with the claims of intellect and will. More- over, the burden of life is not to be expressed in terms of unpleasantness, and the enthusiasm for the world, which marks the career of the victorious personality, consists in no feeling of pleasure. He who succeeds is beyond both pain and pleasure, and a hedonic estimate of life is too half- hearted for a genuine humanity, whose emotions are infra- painful and jw^rtf-pleasant. The mystery of pleasure, which persuades man that, as the sweet sensation is apparently preferable to others whose status is really the same, his humanity should realize itself in hedonism, has thus warped man's estimate of life and led him to elevate to the highest station a form of consciousness which is no primus inter pares, but merely one among many other psychic elements. There is nothing extraordinary about pleasure. Why, then, should hedonic philosophy think to subsume all human striving under that particular head, and thus represent the endless affirmation of man's spiritual na- ture as a mere craving for immediate enjoyment? There is material for a pessimistic philosophy in the recognition that feeling is so irrational, whereby pleasure so often affiliates itself and identifies its subject with forms of activity which are vicious and absurd. Where will and intellect follow the general analogy of the real world, and make possible a voluntaristic and intellectualistic view, feeling is subjective and arbitrary, and does not readily lend itself to the obvious plan of humanity. 3 THE HEDONIC LAW As the general sense of human welfare, which was naively expressed in mere pleasure — pain, was quickened by an attempted hedonic calculus, so it was practically refuted by the application of the hedonic law. Aristotle was not unmindful of the fact that feeling has significance as well as mere feltness, for he said, "To feel pleasure or pain signifies to experience an activity in a mean function of the sense- ioo VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE organ relative to good or bad." (Psy. Bk. in, Ch. vn.) In modern times, the utilitarian school indicated a deliberate departure from the mechanical computation of pleasures and pains, and the ideal of utility, while not non-hedonic, was one remove from the immediate experience of felicific feel- ing. Utilitarianism thus sought to lay down laws for the promotion of general happiness, and its psychology, which investigates hedonistic habits and pleasure-associations, tacit- ly admits that pleasure is not to be had for the asking. To admit the paradox of pleasure would threaten the utilitarian formulation of the happiness problem, but the school no longer trusted in attention and memory as direct methods of realizing and summarizing pleasure; for it entrusted its argument to the more general processes of association and habit. The change in terminology is likewise significant, for instead of particular pleasure with its array of clearly defined attributes, we hear of "happiness" and "utility." Pleasure still exists in the mind of the hedonist, but its character is that of an after-image. The fate of pleasure and pain in the hands of the evolu- tionist is more decisive and, for a time, it seemed as though such a serious and pessimistic view of life would end all hedonistic speculations. In some ways, the evolutionist is more vigorous an opponent of sheer hedonism than the rigor- ist himself, inasmuch as the latter looks upon pleasure as a worthy foe, and does not think it beneath his dignity to com- bat it. Naturistic evolution represents pleasure and the ideal, not as though they were upon the same level, but in such a way that pleasure is looked upon as something pre- paratory; the scheme is a vertical rather than a horizontal one. Pleasure is not rebutted, but simply relegated to an inferior position; happiness is neither praised nor blamed, but set aside in favor of something hygienic. Human feel- ing is subordinated to human condition, and pleasure-pain becomes purely symptomatic. Nineteenth century thought has not failed to note the infinite seriousness of life, and the moralist is no longer inclined to consider human welfare in terms of mere pleasure. In the present state of human ex- istence, it is sufficient simply to be; to be happy is another consideration. VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 101 Spencer's withdrawal from traditional hedonism, how- ever, is not complete, for in raising the optimistico-pessimistic question, which he likewise fails to discuss, he affirms that "life is good or bad, according as it does, or does not, bring a surplus of agreeable feeling." Good is good because it aids life, always assuming, which the evolutionist can hardly do with justice, that life brings more happiness than misery, while virtue consists in promoting "happiness-producing con- duct." Now there is nothing in Spencer's nnVinal concep- tion of conduct which demands this hedonic element. Spencer's more consistent view entertains the notion that pleasure-giving acts are those which are life-producing, while pain-giving ones are life-decreasing. This hedonic law, may be unsatisfactory in itself, but has the effect of relegating psychological hedonism to a secondary position; life is too vast to subordinate itself to pleasure, but it can make use of that feeling in realizing itself in the organism. "Every pleasure increases vitality; every pain decreases vitality. Every pleasure raises the tide of life; every pain lowers the tide of life." It is plain that "life" here receives only biological consideration, and the human vocation in the achievement of ethical destiny is ignored. The hedonic law habitually ignores the effect of stimulants and narcotics in producing pleasure and decreasing life, just as it fails to observe that the entrance of destructive germs, like those of typhus in drinking-water, may prove insipid but deadly. Probably no evolution which may take place in the nervous system will ever make man sensitive to such influences. How far the argument from pleasure as symptomatic may lead ultimately, it has advanced sufficiently to supersede pleasure as the goal of life. Stephen's new ideal of hygiene illustrates this, and its critical value may be appreciated, while its constructive significance is ignored. Instead of the political aggregate, Stephen introduces the ideal of social organism; in place of happiness, the ideal of health. As a result, the utilitarian maxim, "Produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number," is changed to, "Promote the health of the social organism." Still another point of critical value, when one is taking leave of utilitarianism is Stephen's pre- ference for a kind of organic morality over what he calls io2 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE "instantaneous morality." This is a genuine appeal to sys- tem as well as a recognition that a philosophy of life is logically prior to a science of ethics, which hurriedly seeks moral truth in the phenomenal order of things. 4 — LIFE ACCORDING TO DESIRE Thus far, our attempt to explain the consciousness and conduct of man while still upon the plane of nature, has done little else than evoke a certain confused sense of human- ity in the form of unorganized pleasure-pain. Man has been viewed mechanically as though he belonged to some other than a human order; indeed, the very naturism which besets him has failed of explanation. To account for human feelings and motive, our phsychological analysis must pene- trate beneath the surface of pleasure and survey man in action as this is brought about by desire. For it is desire which naturizes and then hedonizes man, not pleasure. De- sire is the nervous system of hedonism; pleasure belongs to the sympathetic one. The two must be subjected to some convincing form of distinction, a need which tradi- tional hedonism has not recognized. Nature assumes a great responsibility when she undertakes to perfect any species, and how much greater is this burden when man is the object of her concern. Can such responsibility be discharged by means of pleasure-pain? This seems unlikely; hence we turn to desire as something more organic than superficial feeling, according to whose psycho- logy man is attracted by pleasure and repelled by pain. Such an account of humanity is entirely incomplete and represents only the exterior of its being. Assuming the realization of the hedonic ideal, who would choose to live in the atmos- phere of perfect pleasure without the instructive influence of pain? Nature never taught man hedonism, for she has laid down a plan wherein pain is more prominent and more important than pleasure. Desire is a form of human experience which includes both pleasure and pain and does not fail to add a volitional quality. Where pure conation cannot be described, except by employing the language of either sensation or affection, VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 103 whereby we speak of a "sense of striving" or a "feeling of effort," its want of quality may be made up by the aid of desire. This psychic compound stands for a fusion of feel- ing and will. For this reason we are forbidden to regard desire as pleasure and aversion as pain, for desire draws a circle about all feeling, over which it exercises an active lordship. Thus in both range and activity does desire differ from feeling. A glance at human conduct will reveal this, and will result in interpolating pleasure and pains as means. Desire arises as a sense of want which looks forward to a time when pleasure shall come or pain depart ; in this way, it acts as a motive which directs man toward pleasure and away from pain, and exists in a psychological moment when feeling is not yet present. By its very nature, feeling is something to be suffered or experienced in a passive manner, while desire is active and is the cause of man's movement in one direction or another. Not only does desire reveal its motor-capacity and thus anticipate pleasure, but it possesses a certain ideational form which extends it beyond the borders of feeling in the farther direction. Feeling exists for its feltness; desire arises for the sake of some more or less remote goal, and thus we speak of a desire for something. Hence, as its volitional function makes it prior to pleasure, so its ideational form exceeds this feeling on the posterior side. The hedonic life is a life according to desire. In the larger history of psychology, this necessary dis- tinction between desire and pleasure has not received any too much recognition. Nevertheless we have the classic example of an ancient Aristotle as well as the instructive error of a modern Mill. The ancient writer all but affirms that we could live without pleasure, but not without activity; for, according to some such assumption, lie claims that "there are many things about which we should be diligent, even though they brought no pleasure." (Eth. Nicom. Bk. x, Ch. 2.) Aristotle was a thorough eudaemonist ; hence any decisions against pleasure which he may hand down are of special weight as coming from one who assumed no rigorous attitude toward life. He removes pleasure from the causal category by distinguishing it from all forms of motion. In itself, pleasure is complete in the present where it is experienced 104 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE instanter, while movement is marked both by duration and a certain end to be accomplished. "It is plain then, that pleasure and movement must be different from one another, and that pleasure belongs to the class of things whole and complete." (lb. Ch. 3.) When Aristotle discusses pleas- ure in contrast with energy, he adjusts these disparate func- tions by declaring that "pleasure does not come into being without energy, while pleasure perfects every energy." (lb. Ch. 4.) Full justice is done to pleasure, when it is pointed out that men do not really grasp at pleasure, but at life which, however, is perfected, though not produced, by pleas- ure. In the interests of utilitarianism, Mill found it con- venient to take up the same question, but with no such psychological success as accompanied the course of Aristotle's eudaemonism. The modern utilitarian starts out with the idea that the desire for happiness is the leading motive in human life, and is thus unable to comprehend how any other end could be the goal of humanity. Man is so constituted that he can desire only happiness, and to conclude that he can desire anything which is not pleasant, is a "physical and metaphysical impossibility." (Utilitarianism, Ch. iv.) The larger statement of this hedonic circle is as follows: "desiring a thing and finding it pleasant, aversion to it and thinking of it as painful, are phenomena entirely inseparable, or rather two parts of the same phenomenon ; in strictness of language, two different modes of naming the same psychological fact." (lb.) Nature, however, does not seem to be so devoted to hedonism, for in her plan of activity and the acquisition of knowledge on the part of her creatures, who are supposed both to serve and to recognize her, pain is no insignificant factor, and one which organic beings are not prepared to avoid. Therefore, to make immediate pleasure our watch- word is to change the plan of the universe as now understood in human experience. 5 — DESIRE AND HUMAN STRIVING In its common operations, desire is singularly oblivious of pleasure in both quantitative and qualitative forms, con- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 105 tent as it is to liberate the energy of human volition and to attain to something external by way of object. Persistence of life, not pursuit of pleasure, love of power, not desire for happiness, are the significant marks of mankind. Grecian and Germanic ideals, far removed from Anglo-American commercialism, are nearer the heart of living, acting human- ity. There is no hysteria in the mind of Ibsen's Ella Ren- theim when in the play which bears his name, she reproaches John Gabriel Borkman for having killed the lovelife with- in her by saying, "You have cheated me out of a mother's joy and happiness in life — and of a mother's sorrows and tears as well. And perhaps this is the heaviest part of the loss to me." (Act 11.) Self-realization looks upon pleas- ure and pain indifferently, and in the face of life, whose metaphysical realities and moral responsibilities must be met, there is no time to sit down and calculate the sum of pleasure, or estimate the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Pleasure or pain, happiness or misery, life must be carried on, man be himself, and humanity rise above na- ture. The centrifugal desire for life never waits for he- donistic estimates to be made. Man is human, not hedonic; he must have life, not pleasure; his progress is made, not inch wise, but by cataclysm. To come into contact with life, not merely to taste its possible pleasures, is the only real and justifiable aim of a nervous, warm-blooded animal of the human type. Apart from any claims of the ideal, which is ever superior to the hedonic life, the exigencies of naturism itself, when it de- mands a strong and healthy animalism, render the hedonis- tic scheme quite superfluous. Let us live and persist in liv- ing; if pleasure come we will welcome it; if it come not, life can proceed notwithstanding. Naturism should pray for deliverance from its friends; for, the realization of the preliminary, the fundamental form of human existence de- pends upon the elimination of an artificial utilitarian pro- gram. For this reason, it need no longer be claimed that hedonism is not ideal and worthy; it is sufficient to feel that it is not real or reliable, and he who would find himself in nature, and live out his life in animalism must seek some other than a hedonic guide. 106 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE The supremacy of desire appears as soon as living human- ity seeks to realize itself, and no trustworthy picture of life could be portrayed hedonically. In the approach to life which Rembrandt and Velasquez represent, there is no sense of hedonic calculus, however much of desire and human striv- ing may enter into the scene and reflect themselves in the liv- ing countenances of the figures. Holbein returned to humanity without adapting any hedonic standards, and even the earth-life of man, as shown recently in Millet's genre work, finds nature without making hedonistic calculations. Ibsen's dramatis personae carry on their conflict with the world and society wholly oblivious of utilitarianism, while Wagner's heroes and heroines seek redemption from life without having computed its pleasures and pains. Schop- enhauer arrives at pessimism by observing the nature of the will and its actual fate in the world and the dreary conclu- sion to which his judgments lead is due to no pleasure-pain conflict. Nietzsche's "blond beast" or "Superman" craves, not pleasure, but power, and looks to nature to supply him with egoism rather than hedonism. Psychological hedonism, which was as great an error as the ethical schools have ever committed, is far removed from its own subject, namely, man as such, apart from any ra- tionalistic consideration. We need not comment upon the manifest unworthiness of the hedonic ideal, for that would be to judge it in the light of its competitor, Intuitionism ; we need only judge in accordance with its own standard, and say that it fails to present the case of man as either human or natural. An earth-born creature seeks his destined hu- manity, and this he will realize in either a higher or a lower sense. Naturism must feel that it is cheated out of its in- heritance, when all the activity of man is made to consist in a pursuit of pleasure. If man were the hedonic instead of the human animal, his life would not reveal that central- izing intensity, that perpetual search after human realization which has made him what he is. Having ruled British ethical thinking since the days of Hobbes, psychological hedonism is at the end of its reign. A genuine naturism must take its place, and when the stage- like and preparatory nature of this view, which pervades VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 107 thinking as well as living, is appreciated, both theory and life will be the gainers. A nearer approach to the heart of humanity is found in the voluntaristic view of the soul. To regard man conatively, as one who instinctively reacts upon his experience, strives with nature, and aims at the realiza- tion of what he is, is nearer the great human truth than that conception which takes experience as it is with the aim of combining ideas and feelings in the form of hedonistic aims and motives — a most unstable compound indeed. By virtue of its unified character, will is strikingly adapted to the ex- pression of unified humanity, and it is the will-life which makes man what he is. With the function of desire at our command, we need no longer resort to a mechanical hedonism to account for human progress ; man's culture and civilization result from the spontaneous activity of a restless will, not from the calculations of primitive utilitarians. By means of the psychology of desire, we are able to revise our estimate of mankind, so that we are no longer confronted by examples of self -enjoyment, but by endless instances of human self-realization. Hedonism, as such, can never account for the totality of man's being or for that ceaseless activity which has fashioned art and formulated religious faith, and in the presence of human history, it is absurd to prescribe the greatest happiness of the greatest number as the maxim for mankind. The ruling passion is for life as such, without regard to its pleasantness or pain- fulness. The man of humanity looks upon pleasure as either the concomitant of human energy or as an extra product contributed by nature in all her resourcefulness. So patent is the life-impulse that man needs no promissory pleasure to urge him on, and in the world of naturism the position of pleasure is only eccentric. It is desire which constitutes man, and a critical view of naturistic ethics can only regard him as the desiring animal to whose consciousness the purpose of life gradually reveals itself. Ill THE NATURISTIC VIEW OF THE SELF AND HUMANITY I — HUMAN SELFHOOD When the inner sense and outward striving of humanity have found their place in the naturistic system, it becomes necessary to inquire to what extent these afferent and efferent characteristics are individual, to what degree social in their application. Therefore, when we endeavor to derive from life the values peculiar to humanity, we are brought face to face with the norms of egoism and altruism. Our belief is that ethics aims at the perfection of humanity. Now arises the question, whether this is to be brought about by the high- est individual intensity, or the greatest social extensity, which amounts to inquiring whether humanity is best expressed by the self or society. The usual discussion of the problem as- sumes that altruism is right, needing only ethical corrobora- tion, while egoism is wrong, so that we must indicate its fallacy. This ethical assumption carries with it the psycholo- gical presupposition that the self-assertive tendency is so strong that it needs to be curbed, while social instincts are so weak that they deserve moral furtherance. Pure human- ism, however, does not entertain such prejudices, but leads us to see that genuine self-realization may be a motive alto- gether too weak in mankind, while the conformity of con- vention may have become a human habit too overpowering. From this standpoint then, it seems as though the claims of the inner self needed to be upheld in opposition to mere conventions which may smother individuality. Hence, our argument concerning egoism must be an argument for and not against the self. To defend this kind of egoistic doctrine, one must base his claims upon selfhood, which in a metaphysical sense shall 108 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 109 be real, while, morally viewed, it is dignified. Then the egoistic argument will assume a new form. The usual view of egoism is faulty on the metaphysical side, inasmuch as it does not secure any tenable idea of selfhood. One cannot uphold a doctrine of egohood where the view of self is that of blind solipsism, and the ego of the traditional theory has been nothing more than an isolated and unqualified "self." This ipsesistic view is to be opposed, not only on grounds of altruism, but for the sake of egoism itself, for no doctrine of selfhood can be based upon the pure punctual ego who is a self in name only. As an ideal, this private person does not represent humanity at all, but gives the impression of a solitaire. Thus it comes about that the common or naturis- tic notion of the ego is to be criticised, not because it is a dangerous moral doctrine, for such it is not, but because it offers a misleading metaphysics. In addition to securing a more tenable view of the self, our ethics must further observe that the conflict which the ego in its selfhood is carrying on consists, not in a conflict with other egos who make up solid society, but with some- thing alien to its humanistic nature, namely: the world. For this reason, the true egoistic problem is this, "Shall I assert myself in opposition to the world-whole, or shall I submit to it?" This general question concerns every ego, whether viewed individually or socially. Where altruism is ad- vanced as an argument it is not because egoism is wrong, for the refutation of egoism depends upon a view of life far more profound than the metaphysics of altruism will admit. When we sum up all the issues of life for the sake of find- ing out wherein our human dignity consists, we shall weigh the ego with the world to see which has the greater claim upon the will. Meanwhile, it is sufficient to inquire how far naturism can supply us with a principle of selfhood, and since nature is far removed from spiritual life, selfhood is prob- ably remote from self -enjoyment. Nevertheless, when we cast out self-love, we must not cast out the self with it, for selfhood is a condition without which humanity cannot be realized. In our altruistic haste to organize humanity according to a social ideal, we over- look the importance of the ego, so that we have as the no VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE natural result a de-individualized community marked by mediocrity. But given the ego as the starting-point and assuming the ego as the goal of our moral striving, we do not find it impossible to relate him to the social order sur- rounding him; for the individual is capable of a social in- terpretation, while with solidarity as the ideal the ego is lost in the mass. Of the two, the self is a better representa- tive of humanity than society, while the realization of human- ity through activity depends upon the self-assertion of the individual according to an ideal, rather than upon the self- suppression of the ego for altruistic purposes. It is im- possible to effect the logical subordination of the individual to society, but on the other hand, the conditions of ideal humanity are satisfied when society is subsumed under the individual. To the individual one looks for content and character, for that inner life without which humanity can- not come to realization and, with all its importance the social element is to be subordinated to the ideal of selfhood. To effect this idea of introactive selfhood, our ethics must be careful to avoid the snares of petty ipsesism, and we must bear in mind that selfhood, instead of being given in nature, is acquired by man within and through himself. For this reason, we shall have to break with the traditional conception of the ego as formulated according to the ideal of self-love, inasmuch as the self-loving ego is not strong enough to bear the responsibility of selfhood. Neverthe- less, nature puts into our hands more perfect weapons of egoism than those of sense; from her we receive the prin- ciple of individuation and the power to will the self. This principle of individuation we leave already discussed; hence it remains for us to contrast the ideals of egoism, repre- sented by the expressions, "Selfhood in Sense" and "The Will to Selfhood." I — SELFHOOD IN SENSE The problem of inner selfhood is not clearly presented upon the hedonic basis, for just as the "hedonic calculus" fails to unite the given feelings of pleasure, so it is equally unsatisfactory in revealing a genuine ego in and behind the VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE in pleasurable impressions. Hedonic egoism, however, may be expressed, not only as *the tendency to group pleasures into a sum of happiness, but to organize desires for the sake of self-gratification. This more activistic view of the self comes nearer the goal of egoism, for the ego is more like itself in exercising personal energies than it is in receiving impressions as they come from the external order of things. In his desires, man begins to be himself, and when a system like Buddhism warns its disciple that the attainment of Nirvana depends upon the removal of desire, we begin to realize the importance of this element in the ideal of self- realization. The desire for selfhood thus seems to possess metaphysical significance, and our intimation of an inner life seems to come, as it were hedonically, from the demand which desire makes upon the world of persons as also upon the world of things. Apart from this immediate form of self-assertion, there seems to be no path to selfhood and inner humanity, so that we must realize the ethical value of a tendency on the part of the ego to assert itself in its desires. These desires are personal so that the "I" includes the "mine", and while the tendency is as yet selfish it is none the less selflike, deserving some degree of commendation. An ethical system based upon the ego is as great a problem as a metaphysical one based upon the self; both represent necessary tendencies in practi- cal and speculative philosophy, while both must be defended against their own solipsism. Egoism is a doctrine so profound that hedonism seems incapable of realizing it. Were we left to the rigoristic view of life, the ego would never appear, inasmuch as all the ideals of the rationalistic view are impersonal just as they tend to destroy the self. Our hope of selfhood seems to lie in the hands of the naturistic thinker, and we must exercise care when we observe the elements which he contributes to the individualistic ideal. Selfhood should be a duty and as such the rigorist should advance it; thus far it has been re- garded as a privilege granted by nature and not wholly opposed by society. But do hedonic privileges afford any- thing more than immediate self-realization which does not reach the recesses of selfhood ? Can man find his self in his ii2 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE feelings? Doubtful as the hedonic egoism may be, the fact remains that, in our modern ethics, the hedonist has been the one to play the part of the egoist, although there is no real reason why the rigorist could not have sufficient "reasonable self-love" of the Butlerian type to assert his duty as his own. But the weight of duty was so oppressive that the ego could scarcely breathe under it, hence it is not the rigorist who finds the self, although the uncompromising "Brand" is as much of a superman as the sensuous "Peer Gynt." Hedonism reveals the desirability of selfhood, while the rigoristic view so depresses man that he despairs of himself. Yet the perfection of egohood is more than naturism can accomplish. Self-love is a tendency far removed from the essential nature of self-assertion; it gives selfishness with- out a self and does not show the individual how he may dis- tinguish himself from the mass wherein self-love is the common tendency. Private happiness in distinction from public benefit is another indication of this blind attempt to realize inner selfhood. Hedonism cannot tell what it means to be one's self, for by means of self-enjoyment one shuts his soul up within the self, while he fails to withdraw it from the solidarity of the social order. Selfhood in sense is thus a dubious product which we can hardly accept as a substitute for the individualistic ideal, and while the sense- life of man admits of individuation, it does not show how this ego is to receive content and character. On the prac- tical side, self-love is so shallow that it cannot really float the soul-self in which the true egoist rejoices. Caesar, Michel Angelo, and Bonaparte can hardly be accounted for upon the basis of the hedonic summation of pleasures in its form of self-love, and the vigorous individual everywhere seeks something more thrilling than this Bohemian notion of self-enjoyment. The need of the egoistic theory is to be found in a more radical idea of the ego who is of more importance than either egoist or altruist realizes. Hobbes looked upon egoism as something inevitable and proceeded to work out his theory of social life upon the basis of compact, in which in spite of apparent altruism the ego is interested in himself alone. His VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 113 inner consciousness of compassion is none the less a form of self-commiseration forbidding all truly altruistic interpreta- tion (cf. Human Nature Ch. iv 10.) Butler's defence of the ego is startling. "If it be said," he urges, "that there are persons in the world who are without natural affection toward their fellow-creatures, there are likewise instances of persons without the common natural affection to them- selves. . . . Men as often contradict that part of their nature which respects self as they contradict that part of it which respects society." (Sermons. 1). On this ground of the lack of egoism, he contends for "cool" or "reasonable" self-love. Butler's plea for the self was a religious one, and just as Hobbes had shown how man ever has an eye to his social safety, Butler bases his egoism on the theological tend- ency to look out for the salvation of one's own soul. Schopenhauer's treatment of the ego, when added to the political and theological views already noted, shows how deep- seated is the self-instinct. Schopenhauer's voluntaristic idealism treats the punctual ego as an illusion. Owing to the principle of individuation, the one will-to-live appears phenomenally in the manifold of egos, who are separated from one another by time and space. As each one represents the whole world to his own mind, so he desires the whole world for himself, whence arises the solipsistic illusion lead- ing the ego to consider the world as his world. Hence the individual is "ready to annihilate the world in order simply to preserve his own self, this drop in the ocean, a bit longer." {Welt als Wille u. Vors. § 61). This egoistic world-desire carries with it the further illusion of the ego as world- ground, whereby "every one looks upon his own death as the end of the world, while he accepts the death of an ac- quaintance as a rather unimportant matter." (lb.) These views of the self tend further to convince us that egoism real- ly involves more than a sense of private happiness, while the affair of being one's self consists in a real life-conquest marked by something more than felicitous experiences. Selfhood is an achievement, and few there be who suc- ceed in attaining to individuality. The typical hedonic egoist is ably caricatured by Ibsen in "Peer Gynt," just as Brand had realized the ideal of a moralistic ego. The watch- ii4 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE word of the Gyntish ego is, "Man, be thyself," but the en- deavor to erect selfhood upon the basis of sense ends in fatal self-sufficiency rather than self-affirmation. Peer Gynt is thus no better than a naturistic "hill-troll" who is ever illusioned by his sense of self-sufficiency, for where among men they say, "Man, be thyself," among the hill-trolls it is said, "Troll, to thyself be enough." (Act n Sc. vi.) This illusion of self-sufficiency deceives the hero into elaborating the "Gyntish Self" as "Human Life's Emperor" (Act iv Sc. ix), so that his condition is not wholly unlike that of the Cairo maniac shut up, as it were, in the "Barrel of Self." (Act iv Sc. m). The pleasure-loving and world-roving hero thus fails to develop selfhood except as the negative of a personal portrait, and containing but the raw material of personality he is fit only to be recast in the ladle of the Button Moulder. (Act v Sc. vii). The ego of sense can never assume a heroic form, indeed, he is not even dangerous, but there is another way of securing self- hood according to which one seeks to obey Nietzsche's in- junction, "Be hard." The rigorous Superman thus steels his forehead against compunction and compassion ; he approaches selfhood through the will. 2 — THE WILL TO SELFHOOD In the self, humanity shows its ability to transcend the natural order where individuality is unknown, except as a formal principle of individuation. But the self is not to be had for the asking and, as we have seen, the attempt to erect selfhood upon the basis of sense is a failure, inasmuch as human emotions are not sufficiently rigid to overcome the downward influence of nature and solidarity. For this reason, the egoist appeals to the will hoping to find in self- willing the rigidity necessary to overcome the gravity of mere existence. This phase of egoism is only suggested by the softer form of self -gratification, so that in measuring our current egoism it were well to ignore the older type of self- hood in sense for the sake of the more advanced doctrine of the will to selfhood. Just as the sweet sensation and the pleasurable feeling represent exaggerated forms of conscious VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 115 interest, so self-love assumes a prominence far beyond its ability to justify, and for the sake of individualism one must seek to discover a more teViable view of the self. The injunction, "Be hard!" reacts upon both hedonism and intuitionism, for as we shall see, the hedonic view of life elaborates an ideal of benevolence while the intuitional view opposes the ego by means of conscience. It is on this account that the voluntaristic ego must fortify himself against? both compassion and compunction, for these sentiments unite in a sense of sympathy destructive of all self-assertion. The ego may not be able to assert himself to the end, but in the struggle for selfhood, he must be ready to abandon the Garden of Epicurus and engage in an egoistic enterprise more ambitious. The historic egoists are not slaves to self- love but masters of power, and their will is not the will to enjoy but the will to create. Only such a voluntaristic view can account for Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon in politics, or Phidias, Angelo and Beethoven in art. Pleasure never creates personality and no amount of self -enjoyment can pro- duce self-assertion. The emptiness of egoism as ordinarily understood is one with the shallowness of hedonism, and even when one is not pledged to the ideal he must avoid the snare set by a tradi- tional form of philosophy making life to consist of a sum of pleasurable feelings of which "self" is the shining center. Such schemes as those of pure hedonism and pure egoism are sure indications that the essence of life is not contained in immediacy, or its realization in the yielding nature of feeling. Even in his purely natural capacity as a creature living in independence of ideals and duties, man has some sense of the integral character of his being, so that he must settle with his striving nature by adapting a harder view of life and the self. The hedonic solitaire is too cavalier-like and being devoid of personality he is without prominence in the world of persons. Such a naturistic solitaire presents a problem needing more sufficient statement rather than solution, while the ego is to be revised rather than repudiated. The "self" of sense is no ethical factor whether for good or bad, and in order to come abreast of the egoistic problem, our thought must advance beyond the idea of the British ego who loves n6 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE himself to the Continental type of individual who wills him- self. The genuine problem of selfhood reveals the fact that the creature of "self-love" is but a sub-ego, or individuating consciousness which has come up from nature without feel- ing the internal effects of civilization and culture; for this rudimentary ego, Hobbes and English ethics up to Sidgwick is responsible. If the ego does exist psychologically, he is not worthy of ethical consideration, for he is a source of no moral difficulty. Hedonic egoism has taken the ego for granted, while altruism has feared that, let alone, he would immediately fall into selfhood. But selfhood does not exist as something given, and still less is it a fixed condition into which the soul may fall ; hence hedonism assumes too much and proves too little in the way of individualism. To be himself, man must will himself. Selfhood is an inward creation, not an outward fact; it must be achieved, not simply accepted. Left alone, the ego merely drifts with the natural stream of tendency, his nature becoming soft and impersonal instead of being edged with individualism. To achieve selfhood, the ego must make the ego an object, and instead of accepting selfhood as a matter of necessity, as Hobbes suggested, the ego must follow the freedom of the Fichtean Ich which posits itself. The elaboration of selfhood in will was the work of the nineteenth century, and was not independent of Napoleon. From Stendhal, Nietzsche seems to have learned of the Superman, but Stendhal who served under Bonaparte, could advance only the ideal of a vicious hero, like Julian Sorel in "Red and Black." Stirner's Einzige was calculated to live without beliefs and ideals, but was he anything more than the solitaire of sense? Ibsen's company of egos know only one law, "Be thyself!" Brand attempts it in the realm of spirit, Peer Gynt in the world of sense, while Emperor Julian seeks to will himself. Nora, who had been anti- cipated by Villier's Elizabeth in "The Revolt," asserts her- self in defiance of the social order, while Hilda urges "The Master Builder" to seek selfhood by scaling the tower he has built. The hesitancy of Ibsen is matched by the in- herent weakness of Nietzsche and Wagner who create types VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 117 strikingly contrasted with their own natures; while Niet- zsche's Superman is above, all sympathy, Wagner's Siegfried is beyond fear, and yet it is only by vehement assertions on the part of their respective authors that they are enabled to secure their selfhood. Sudermann has added several signifi- cant portraits to the gallery of egoists, and while the influence of Ibsen, Wagner and Nietzsche is not wanting they bear the original stamp of selfhood. Paul, in "Dame Care," reveals the want of a self-asserting soul; Regina, in "The Cat's Bridge," preserves her savage selfhood untainted by any social or ethical hindrances; Beata, in the "Joy of Living," cares naught for the "conscience of the race," for she has her own individuality. In these examples of feminism and egoism one observes the striving towards aesthetic personal- ity, and the only pity is that the ego-movement involves so much of the abnormal as to suggest megalomania. Russian and French writers, like Turgenieff and Maurice Barres advance their egoism more humbly. Meanwhile no one shows us the degree with which egoism is compatible with socialism. The chief view of this secondary form of selfhood is that it repudiates the soft ego of sense by showing how the in- dividual must strive and suffer in the achievement of self- hood. Egoism is not too strong but too weak, as both But- ler and Ibsen point out, hence the first work to be per- formed by the ego is a self-centred one. Voluntaristic egoism changes the character of the problem from a petty quarrel between egoist and altruist to a vast conflict between the individual and the world, and henceforth the ethical subject is not to ask, "Shall I love myself?" but, "Shall I be myself?" The opponent of the ego is not another ego or a world full of these, but the world itself. To adapt one's self to the world, whether in opposing it or in submitting to it, one must become an individual. We do not claim that the end of life consists in individuality, or that the highest form of reality is to be found in selfhood; but we do insist that whatever is to be done must be done through the in- dividual, and if the highest form of life consists in renuncia- tion it is the renunciation of the self by the self. Only as the ego wills his being, can he will his not-being. n8 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 2 HUMAN WORLDHOOD Where hedonic egoism fails to make any substantial progress toward human selfhood, the burden of correction which altruism assumes is not likely to weigh heavily in a philosophy of life which is pledged to the totality of things. If egoism is not bad enough to be wrong, altruism is not good enough to be right, and if self-love is so superficial, the love of others by that self will be of no great moral moment. Nevertheless, if we penetrate beneath the surface, we may find in this controversy the source of a more important dis- tinction than that of egoism and altruism; it is the conflict between the naturistic and characteristic forms of human life. Before this service can be appreciated, it must be shown how nearly hedonic altruism approaches the borders of human worldhood. The progress of democratic ideals and social sentiments has made altruism so forcible that the need of ethical thought to-day is felt upon the egoistic side which stands in need of defense; and one of the problems which our ethics must assume is the defense of self-realiza- tion as a condition without which humanity can never reach its goal. Where egoism has been thwarted by altruism, it must now be defended against an adversary no more worthy. The true ethical contrast is not that of self and society, but of one's own selfhood and worldhood. a — THE UTILITARIAN ADJUSTMENT Hedonic altruism differs from hedonic egoism in degree, but not in kind. Both are forms of a common quantita- tive hedonism which, as in Bentham's system, simply adds extent to the other attributes of feeling. Altruism thus ex- pands pleasure upon the social plane, but does not change the ego into a multiple personality. With utilitarianism, altruism assumes the form of a proof; with social evolution it is a premise. The utilitarian school has exhibited mar- velous zeal in the defeat of egoism and the defense of altruism, and has spared no pains in making claims for and admissions against its ideal to reduce it to cogency. But, in both individual and race, the endeavor to sum up feelings to VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 119 produce a general happiness seems forever hopeless. If the hedonic calculus fails to evoke the greatest happiness in the individual, the utilitarian plan seems doomed to fail when it seeks to demonstrate the "greatest happiness of the great- est number," an expression used by Hutcheson in 1725 (Inquiry, Sec. ill § vm). Where the system cannot find the happiness of the ego in his isolation, it is not likely to succeed when dealing with a plurality of similar egos, whose hedonism is their only humanity and who have no sense of personality except that which is given in immediate pleasure. Mill's conflict with egoism, as also his defeat at the hands of his adversary, have passed into history and need be reviewed only for the sake of showing how impossible is the solution of the life-problem upon a basis purely hedonis- tic. The language of the monograph on "Utilitarianism" is unmistakable. "No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good; that each person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons." This is not only a mechanical summation of which humanity is incapable, but an example of the well-recognized fallacy of composition, which a logician like Mill could easily have recognized. And in the midst of this, the ego in his self-love is not affected, his selfishness not corrected ; indeed, he might argue "The more pleasure I acquire, so much more will there be to contribute toward the general fund." Even Hobbes believed in a restricted egoism for the sake of social compactness, but Mill's scheme allows full freedom to the individual, and instead of advancing toward solidarity, his utilitarianism retreats from it. The exaggerated claims of this older doctrine of univer- sal happiness are supplemented by a rationalistic form of hedonism, which seeks to increase the cogency of its proof by reducing the claims of its premises. Sidgwick rational- izes benevolence and abandons the hope of proving its valid- ity, according to the inductive method of Mill. Benevo- lence, like justice and prudence, assumes the form of an iao VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE ideal entertained rather than a rule to be followed empirical- ly, and Sidgwick, as he turns away from Mill's "proof," is guilty of his own inconsistency, for he looks upon benevolence as an "intuition." He expresses himself by saying, "There being no actual desire for the general happiness, the proposi- tion that general happiness is desirable cannot be in this way established : so that there is a gap in the expressed argu- ment which can only be filled in by some such proposition as the intuition of Rational Benevolence" (Methods of Ethics, Bk. m, Ch. xm). Thus was the rational utili- tarian driven from his own school by the specter of hedonic egoism. Like Mill, Sidgwick greatly overestimated the im- portance of hedonistic self-love in the statement of the problem, and underestimated the influence of sympathy in the solution. Crude hedonism, which has never deduced the principle of selfhood, presents a half-hearted egoism which is balanced by the sympathetic element in human nature. How absurd is the spectacle of these serious utilitarians fleeing from such a half-real enemy as egoism! Both warn their readers and their critics against that superficiality which takes mere impression for intuition, but do they escape from this very snare? Mill recommends "practicised self- consciousness," but such does not save him from fallacious reasoning; Sidgwick is keen enough to shut out nearly all intuitions save that of benevolence, but fails to discover the common root of sympathy in mankind. The perception of this would have spared his academic pride, which must have been wounded by the adoption of such an alien principle as the "intuition of benevolence." Why struggle to prove al- truism? Why assume that the love of self is self-evident? To realize how thoroughly man is pervaded by sociability, how hemmed in he is by an out-lying humanity, would be to save utilitarianism from the stigmata of false logic and bad psychology. Man is human, hence he is social : man is also individual, hence he cannot flee from his egoistic shadow. Neither element is to be eliminated, but both are to be ad- justed to an order of being in which they may participate. VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 121 b — THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF CONDUCT 1 The evolutionary view of life sinks one degree deeper into the phenomenal, and thus reveals a third stage in the progress of hedonism, which, having passed through the pleasurable and the utilitarian, now takes refuge in the ideal of preservation. Apart from any particular point which this theory may prove, it must commend itself to him who would have mankind surveyed in systematic fashion; and while we need express no undue faith in a scheme of pheno- menological import only, we can only be refreshed by observ- ing how the totality of human life, reflected by hedonist and utilitarian, is now recognized. The theory cannot conceal the belief that the secret of nature, as an evolving order of phenomena, contains the key to the problem of humanity which is supposed to continue this development. In carrying out this idea, Spencer expands the concept of conduct from alert conscious choosing on the part of man, to "the aggre- gate of the inter-dependent acts of the organism." (Data of Ethics, §2.) Evolutionary ethics manifests a plan wholly unknown in the realm of hedonic utilitarianism; as a result of this, ethics becomes constructive, not merely critical, and morality is made, not ideal only, but real. Spencer effects this in a conscious, deliberate fashion when, after having criticised other systems because they ignored the "causal connections" of conduct (lb. § 22 a), he develops characteristic views of the subject — physical, biological, psychological, sociological. Such are the stages of conduct from the physical to the political. The result is system, naturistic system; but it is only after urging the idea of conduct to extremes that the synthetic philosopher may accomplish his result. Particularly in the "physical view of conduct," which finds its beginnings in most rudimentary forms of life, does this doubtful exten- sion of the concept appear; nor is it absent from the "psychological view," which marks the development from mere life-feeling, on the part of the organism, to re-repre- sentative feelings, appreciated by the human subject in his relations with society. Even a glance at the system will suggest that such terms as "conduct," "life," "goodness," 122 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE etc., must be revised to adapt themselves to the particular system of naturistic evolution. In itself, it constitutes a forceful statement of the claims inherent in the social world- order, and instead of being a mere check to egoism or a proof of altruism, it represents the whole human system, of which, however, it gives but the shell. The organic view of conduct which presides over Spencer's discussion shows how far removed from any claim to immediate happiness is the system of evolutionary ethics. With Stephen, this same largesse appears, but in the form of a philosophic argument which the school would hardly care to meet. Stephen places the organic concept of society in a philosophic recess which he had previously created by means of a positivistic criticism, which strives to rid itself of all philosophical implications by a "postponement of meta- physical problems." (Sci. of Eth. Ch. I. § I.) As scientic geometry proceeds confidently without discovering the ulti- mate nature of spatial ity, and as physics elaborates the laws of nature without deciding concerning the ultimate nature of reality, so may ethics discuss the science of conduct without settling the question of the ultimate nature of morality. This "postponement," however, is not observed for any great length of time, but only till the advocate of a naturistic sys- tem has had time to eliminate ontological views which do not command his assent. In a more or less perfect way, naturism, as a system of mankind, and not a mere principle of insight, assumes shape in Stephen's theory. The boldness of it reminds one of Plato's construction of the ideal State, while its blindness to the implicit opposition of experience resembles the scholastic realism which elaborated the ideal of a Catholic Church. Spencer's ontological realism is consecrated to the notion of a "social organism." In advancing the claims of this concept, Stephen criticised the utilitarian school because it had treated society as an "aggregate" rather than an "organism." This latter expression is used deliberately and repeatedly as the basis for indicating the fundamental principle whence all moral relations are derived. Every individual being is but a part of a system, which itself relates to another system, and so on indefinitely; while the connection with the enveloping VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 123 realm is made known to the constituents by means of a special consciousness, or incorporate feeling." Thus is the church spoken of as "she" while a corporation is said to possess a "soul." (Sci. of Eth. Ch. m, § iv). The social organism is made up of "social tissue," and as physiological tissue is made up of cells, so social tissue is made up of men. This organic conception of society subtends the moral order in such a way that the supreme ethical commandment changes from a "Do this" to a "Be this" (Sci. of Eth. Ch. iv., § 16), while the criterion of goodness changes from happiness to health, by virtue of which there arises in place of "instantaneous morality" another of a tendential nature (lb. Ch. ix). Conduct, which even Spencer looks upon collectively as the aggregate of the interdependent acts of the organism, becomes more thoroughly functional in its application to the social organism. In this vaporous atmosphere of social evolution, which contrasts so strikingly with the airless scheme of utilitarian- ism, it is more difficult to distinguish the individual than it is to relate him to his fellow. As hedonism, by its emphasis upon instantaneous pleasure with its accompanying personal form, was ever inclined toward egoism, the evolutionary mode, which is so surrendered to the species, exhibits an excessively altruistic tendency that threatens to submerge the isolated ego. The evolutionist whose thought is centered upon life and its preservation cannot afford to divide the field and thus take sides with either party. He realizes that life must have an egoistic form, and an altruistic content. Such a view is implied in Stephen's conception of a socially organic "tissue" made up of living "cells," while Spencer speaks more intimately of the ego and society (cf. Data of Ethics, Chs. XI, xii ). Society needs the self, as the self needs society, and the most acceptable view of their intersection consists in their common participation in the one and impersonal system of social order. As Spencer significantly admits in his "conciliation of egoism and altruism (lb. Ch. xiv), this balance of interest between the two is now being worked out upon the basis of a purely "relative ethics" which, as we should say, is confined to the phenomenal order of empirical egos who may be 124 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE treated singly or socially. Nevertheless, with that vista which habitually opens to the gaze of the evolutionist, he is im- pressed with the promise of a future form of "absolute ethics" which finds the "ultimate man" in an atmosphere untainted by either egoism or altruism (lb. Ch. xv). The "concilia- tion," therefore, is no solution, and the problem still remains for those who find the idealistic interpretation of nature and man, not a hindrance to consistent thinking, but a help which is ever available to serious and consistent thought. In such a spirit, we raise the question, what is society? Hedonism dis- cussed it in terms of the individual ; utilitarianism resolved it into an aggregate; evolutionism raised it to the rank of an organism. Yet the conditions of human conduct cannot be fully met until a further step is taken, and society is regarded as only the phenomenal form of the world of humanity. Hedonism cannot account for human worldhood, since it neglects the perfecting influence of culture and does not avail itself of the unifying power of human history. In its his- toric form, it takes its place with the material system of Tamas Guna and the somatic system of Platonic philo- sophy ; its heroes are the hylical men of Gnosticism who have not advanced beyond the age of sense as indicated by Vico and Schiller. Of the hedonists, Spencer alone seems to penetrate the heavy veil of naturism; his "ultimate man" promises to follow "an ideal code of conduct formulating the behaviour of the completely adapted men in the completely evolved society" (Data of Eth. § 104). All hedonism is half- hearted, and in slavish fear of the ideal, it clings to the man of nature; in so doing, it likewise fulfills the satirical counsel of the hyperborean who said: "Kennel the eagle ; — and let loose On empyrean flights the goose." C — EGOISM AND SOCIALISM The social organization of conduct only half realizes, while utilitarianism wholly ignores, the sense of sympathy pervading humanity. After Shaftesbury, Hume, and Smith had corrected the egoistic psychology of Hobbes, it would VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE i*5 seem as though the utilitarian benevolence were uncalled for. Humanism is sympathism and the progress of civilization more and more shows how interdependent are the sons of men, while the advancement of culture discloses the common world of destiny in which these humans must dwell. There- fore all attempts to prove altruism, whether through reason or by intuition, are as vain as they are unnecessary in a warm human world-order where selfhood is the exception. On the social side where this sympathy is taken for granted, the result is to create an ideal of concrete solidarity, and the "physical view" of conduct from which Spencer sets out is indicative of the mechanical collectivism postulated by the social aim. Meanwhile the egoism which Spencer carries over into the realm of absolute ethics suggests that socialism is not a movement wholly altruistic, for the incentive is a selfish one prompted by the realization of man's industrial servitude. As a result the usual treatise on socialism is largely a defense of egoism, while the advancement of an egoistic ideal involves socialism. Does not Stirner's Einzige like Hobbes' "Leviathian", assume the proportions of a social ego? From such physical views of humanity we are able to ac- quire at least one significant notion — the inevitable tendency on the part of the individual to live for others. The common view of altruism makes it a virtue when it is a necessity at times grievous, and living for another is not merely a self- chosen course of fond conduct, but a necessary social burden. Militarism meant fighting for others in the persons of cap- tains and kings; industrialism means toiling for others called merchants and financiers ; hence with sword and spear it was warfare for others and with ploughshare and pruning-hook it is still a forced altruism. With feudalism, African slavery and industrial servitude it was nothing but living for others, but was it noble in the performance or beautiful in the ap- pearance ? We know that such physical altruism is ever con- temptible, and our only reason for adhering to it in practice and praising it in idea is because we feel it to be unavoidable and fear the emancipation of the individual. Both egoism and socialism, which betray a strange affiinity for each other, declare that the individual should not live 126 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE for others, but for himself, for while we are busy furthering altruism we are forging new chains of convention and con- servatism. Those who have at heart the interests of the individual are none the less interested in the social environ- ment which he is to have, so that our modern humanistic literature, in Stirner and Nietzsche, Wagner and Ibsen, Turgenieff and Tolstoi, Bernard Shaw and Anatole France, presents a poetical fusion of egoism and socialism. These tendencies combine to neutralize the present impersonal sys- tem of life incident upon commercialism. A genuine view of human life cannot afford to rest its cause with the physical and forced altruism of the utilitarian system, for when mankind was destined to live in the free air of humanity, it is sure to rebel against the subterranean life of Niebelungen dwarfs however enchanting the music of the iorgt-motif may be. Nevertheless, the individual cannot abide by his mere egoism, for man is no more fitted to be a solitaire than he is adapted to solidarity. His ultimate attitude toward the world we cannot determine as long as we survey him upon the purely naturistic level, although we are in a posi- tion to affirm that the enlightened ego, raised above selfhood in sense or selfhood in will, can realize his own inherent humanity only as he entertains universal ideas and adopts universal aims. On the other hand, to advance socialism without individualism is to bury man alive. American altruism, represented by our system of philanthropy, is a curious mixture of blind egoism and equally blind benevo- lence to which we owe much of our educational and eleemosynary work. But all of this is at the expense of the individual who finds it more than difficult to realize himself in our modern system of mechanical living. The social order is not sufficiently yielding for the individual who suffers for his non-conformity and uncon- ventionally, and the condition of things to-day, when Spencer offers the "conciliation" of egoism and altruism for the promotion of peace, is not wholly different from that of the Enlightenment when Hobbes suggested "contract" as the remedy for a state of war. During the three centuries, humanity, or the inner life of this physical society, has not been brought to the light and men are still recommended VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 127 to adopt some external form of social adjustment. When we realize how humanity as a whole must struggle to exist in its conflict with nature, we are in a condition where we feel the importance of the social order. Our attitude, therefore, assumed in behalf of the individual, is that of pessimism and sympathy in an order of being which involves both striving and suffering, and this removes us forever from the optimistic altruism of conventional morality. In the face of the world-whole and under the control of time, the ego cannot live unto himself alone, although this fatal con- dition of things on the "planet of hunger" is no excuse for industrial altruism, where egoism ignores the real self while society is ignorant of the resources contained in spiritual humanity. Altruria, could we discover it, would be a lowland with arid deserts, for the leveling effect of the social ideal would forbid variation of scene and mountain peaks of prominence. Humanity is superior to society, and the self-positing of hu- manity means more than the ethical organization of an altruistic state. The subtle bond between self and self is far different from the rough chain of socialism and soli- darity. To recognize humanity in another person, the sympathetic individual must penetrate beneath altruism which reveals only the phenomenal view of the world of persons. The de-individualized order of society is not the condition presented by living humanity in either its history or acquired present, and the altruistic situation is wanting in the prominent features of reality. Altruism does not reveal the unity of human life, for it innocently asks us to participate in the social order when by our very nature we can do nothing else. The individual, when in his indivi- duality, has his place in humanity so that the primary need of life, when regarded from the social standpoint, consists in the recognition and evaluation of the surrounding, under- lying order of humanity as such. The inherent claims of humanity are not to be satisfied by any system of compact or through organized benevolence. We have repudiated the solitary ego who was formerly re- garded as party to this contract, and now we must conceive of society in such a way that it may make room for the 128 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE individual in his world of selfhood. At the same time, a truly social view of mankind must recognize the fact that humanity is not wholly detached from nature, but it is so under the dominion of sense that its striving for inner realization is ever hindered, and the resulting condition of humanity is a pathetic one. In the condition of "absolute ethics," one might do away with the social order and with self-sacrifice, but being a spirit in a sensuous order, the con- dition of man is relative indeed. Upon this basis, our philo- sophy can postulate sympathy as a necessary element in an order of humanity whose perfection is so far from com- plete that suffering and error are ever entering in. One is not called upon to play the part of an English utilitarian in a political order made by man, as it were, but he is ex- pected to assume the attitude of a Russian sympathist in the consciounsess that humanity itself must be cared for by those who constitute it. Optimistic altruism is as vain and empty as naive egoism, for the self exists in a human order whose condition is pessimistic, and the attitude to be sus- tained by him who lives his life as human is the sym- pathistic one. The pessimism here involved, however, is only the serious condition of humanity striving away from the immediate toward the unknown and remote condition of things which it sets up as a goal. When egoism and altruism are discussed upon the naturistic plane of self-love and benevolence, there can be no more complete reconciliation than that of compromise. The course of humanity is actually a zig-zag one where con- duct goes from ego to alter and alter to ego. But, as the concluding part of this work will show, the striving for self- hood and worldhood, or the endeavor to secure the inness and universality of human life, will place man in a posi- tion where he need no longer be anxious about the claims of a "self" and "society" whose metaphysical status is that of phenomenality, while their moral significance is far re- moved from the conditions of human dignity. Ego-altruism is far below the plane of humanism. IV THE TRANSMUTATION OF NATURISM AND MORALISM I — THE PROBLEM OF MORALISM The free development of man upon the plane of naturism received its first check in the conflict betwen ego and alter, or the isolated individual and an inclusive humanity. This provoked the problem of altruism. In close connection with this ethical readjustment of man to the world appears an- other consideration: the moralistic one. Man in his purely naturistic capacity ignores and injures his fellows so that his egoism presents a significant problem; at the same time his egoistic acts conflict with the ideal essence of humanity as this invests all individuals. As a result the transition to altruism involves also a transmutation of natural impulses into an order of moralism. The alter is thus something more than another ego; he represents the ideal world of humanity, and upon him the active ego practices his virtues and his vices. In this way there comes about a transmuta- tion of naturistic and moralistic principles in man wherein the form of ethics becomes virtue while its content is ac- quired from nature as feelings; as a result the life of man in sense receives character, while ideals, instead of being empty and rationalistic, find a content in actual humanity. The moralistic view of man in his empirical character must now be adjusted to the claims of hedonism and in- tuitionism, and while these schools have usually held aloof in the determinations of humanity, it is not impossible to find some common ground occupied by them. Morality cannot be something arbitrary and as soon as one attempts to characterize it he finds he must have recourse to the naturistic side of human life. Thus the ideal form of life cannot be discussed apart from its actual content. Both 129 130 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE views of man unite in postulating a life-interest; they differ only when they come to relate this to man, for where he- donism construes this interest as something immediate and concrete, intuitionism makes it ultimate and abstract. And both assume an order of humanity in and about the indivi- dual, although the naturistic view of man sees only his individuality, while the characteristic one assumes his human totality. Between these opposed views appears the idea of virtue in its human form. Just as taste stands for a purely human attitude of judgment toward the feelings that one may experience, so virtue, instead of being abstract, involves the same human element of judgment directed toward man's activities. Apart from human interest whether surveyed in actuality or ideality, virtue seems incapable of determination. The moral ideal that inspires men and the moral law that rules their wills can have no significance until they have been related to the world of persons. Life may sink below it in connection with the animalistic, just as it may con- ceivably rise above it into something angelic, but genuine moral thinking takes its rise in the temperate zone of living humanity. Can the moral law be determined impersonally? Even the categorical imperative, counselling man to create by his conduct a universal law, suggests that that law applies to living human subjects. How can there be a determina- tion of moral law apart from the inner strivings of hu- manity? Creatures of sense are below it, creatures of spirit are above it; in itself, virtue is man's alone, in the same way that beauty is his. This humanistic determination of virtue does not forbid the elaboration of a pure ethical ideal; it only involves a living conception of conduct and a purpose for moral striving. It gives a genuine notion of intuition, for it involves a synthesis of outer sense with inner reason in a morality of ideal interest. Man does not abandon nature to live in an order of pure reason; he trans- forms the sensuous elements of his immediate environment into so many ideals. But where the root of morality is found deep down in nature, its flower buds in the higher air of spirit, and the transmutation of pleasure into virtue yields virtue as such. Ethical science has not always been careful to VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 131 identify its subject matter, and at times has had under dis- cussion a mixture of organic and inorganic moral elements. For this reason, opposed schools of ethics have been able to carry on fairly consistent discussions of the same general problem, because they have viewed it in different fields, one discovering a series of utilities, the other an order of virtues. In isolation, each view is false to living humanity, which is beyond such extremes of concrete and abstract; but in a synthesis of them we may find a just conception of human virtue. Both utilitarians and intuitionists agree that ethics should discuss the perfected virtues of civilization rather than the primitive feelings of savagery; they differ only in the way that they approach these virtues, for where one school looks upon them as acquired by man, the other re- gards them as native to him. In Anglo-American ethics this realm of virtue is made up of "commonsense morality." From the point of view that we have been assuming, there is no difficulty in asserting that the creative spirit of man can transmute simple affairs of sense into ideals of reason. Pleasure is thus changed into beauty, sensation into knowl- edge, and why should not impulse become moral intuition? Intuitional ethics usually stigmatizes the utilitarian view of morality heteronomous, whereby it seems to indicate that it is interested in the form of conduct rather than its' con- tent. Heteronomy is none the less morality and one may criticise it only when it is represented as the final phase of the moral life. The unfolding of humanity leads the indivi- dual from egoism to altruism, just as it now involves the passage from hedonism to heteronomy, a change from mere feeling to moral law. Where the moral subject first recog- nizes the alter as having definite ethical claims, he finally sees in him the essence of moral ideal now viewed heterono- mously. Indeed unless we place the alter in the ideal position of the heteronomous principle, we can give no sufficient reason why the ego should ever defer to him. One man is the same as another metaphysically, but from the moral standpoint the alter assumes an extra importance inasmuch as he symbolizes the whole world of humanity. From the larger standpoint of human life as a form of spiritual striv- ing, both altruistic and heteronomous ethics stand in the 132 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE same position of counterpart to the ego who would other- wise be isolated from humanity. In itself, altruism has an educative value, since it prepares the individual for virtue in itself, by first leading him to respect virtue as the moral claim of another who is qualitatively like, but quantitatively distinct from, himself. 2 — THE CONFLICT OVER VIRTUE Heteronomy advances beyond hedonism, and its develop- ment as an ethical theory was brought about only after a struggle within the ranks of the school of naturistic ethics. The school, therefore, has won a victory over itself and has learned a lesson that the intuitionist could not have taught it. Hobbes based modern hedonic ethics upon the principles of both egoism and relativism, but did not succeed in ad- vancing these to altruism and moralism. In the civilized condition of man as opposed to his warlike state of nature, we do observe some regard for society and the moral law, but its basis is only an egoistic and relative one. Hume was equally determined to relate moral sentiments to human instincts which he, in contrast to Hobbes, interprets sym- pathetically rather than selfishly. To base morality upon morality is fallacious; as Hume notes this, he adds, "An action must be virtuous before we can have a regard to its virtue," and then seeks to establish as "an undoubted maxim, that no action can be virtuous or morally good, unless there be in human nature some motive to produce it, distinct from the sense of its morality." (Treatise of Human Nature, m, 2, i). This is a calm statement of heteronomy which anticipates Kant's contrary argument by nearly half a cen- tury. From the hedonic standpoint, it may be regarded as an admission that pleasure alone cannot express the form of human conduct which, in one way or another, necessitates the regard for abstract virtue. The sincerity of this plea for a heteronomous view of the moral life was threatened by the heedless utterances of Mandeville and the pedantic conclusions of Bentham. Like his master, Hobbes, Mandeville finds nothing original in virtue ; but unlike the serious-minded philosopher who sought VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 133 to explain the mechanics of society in a fashion which should be trustworthy, the author of the "Fable of the Bees" (cf. 2nd ed.) misapplies the logic of the "Leviathan" and thus falsely concludes that the regard for virtue, which no hedonist can lay down as a principle, was not even a method, but only a device on the part of artful rulers. "It is evident that the first rudiments of morality, broached by skillful politicians, to render men useful to each other as well as tractable, were chiefly contrived that the ambitious might reap the more benefit from and govern vast numbers of them with the greatest ease and security." Bentham's view of virtue is consistent with the flat hedonism laid down in the "Principles of Morals," but it violates some of the principles which human nature itself elaborates. The "Deonotology" brings hedonism to a climax by eliminating the regard for virtue altogether. "The talisman of arrogance, indolence, and ignorance is to be found in a single word, an authoritative imposture which in these pages it will be frequently neces- sary to unveil. It is the word 'ought' — If the use of the word be permissable, it ought to be banished from the vo- cabulary of morals." Deontology, 1834, PP» 3 I_ 3 2 -) Thus does the later thinker vitiate the argument of Hume, as Mandeville had negated Hobbes. Utilitarianism reveals more of a desire to adjust itself to living, characteristic humanity than to be consistent with the hedonic ideal ; and thus it seeks to assume a representative relation toward virtue as such. In so doing it involves the results of human history without adopting its process, and recognizes a change from mere hedonism to sheer moralism without assigning a sufficient reason for such a departure. The formulation of utilitarianism, whose principles were appreciated by these three opponents of moralism, found the school anxious to conciliate with an outwardly perfected morality which the elder thinkers had flouted. Mill pre- sumed that "the desire for virtue was not as universal, but as authentic a fact, as the desire for happiness." (Utilitarianism, Ch. iv.) How do the two stand related? By means of the association of ideas. Virtue, originally nothing in itself, becomes a means to happiness, and then is cherished for its own sake, just as money is first derived for what it will buy, 134 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE but afterwards becomes an object in itself. And thus it comes about that things in themselves indifferent, but asso- ciated with others which concern the satisfaction of our desires, finally become objects in themselves; and so it was with virtue. Originally it was not desirable, but since it was associated with conduciveness to pleasure and protec- tion from pain, it became a good in itself; its heteronomy changing to autonomy (lb.). Virtue thus equals a for- gotten utility. In seeking to perfect such a program, Mill confines his activities to the individual and relies wholly upon the principle of association, and it is not strange that his argument is not convincing. Nevertheless, a genuine problem is proposed, and apparently for the first time in the history of ethics it is appreciated that morality is a metaphysical subject whose nature is not to be taken for granted but stands in need of theoretical explanation. What Mill needed for the solution of his problem was a historical principle which should enlarge the field of action many diameters; at the same time, he stood in need of a total plan of life, rather than a limited method of practical ethics. Viewed in the light of humanity's self-emancipation from nature, the passage from the sub-moral to the moral is cap- able of explanation. In its modified form, the utilitarian doctrine of Sidgwick is valuable chiefly in indicating the inability of the school to solve its own problems. Like Mill, Sidgwick was under pressure while treating the egoistic question, and found it as necessary to desert his own school as Mill had to abandon all forms of consistency ; and in the second problem which his school assumed, the treatment of moralism, at the hands of Sidgwick, is only of a suggestive nature. This latest form of utilitarianism cannot rest content with the static view which, with Bentham, submerges moralism under hedonism, nor with the dynamic formulation of the problem which made virtue the outgrowth of utility. Sidgwick takes as his point of departure the heteronomy of Hume, and urges that moralism may be unconsciously utilitarian and of a hedonistic influence. Unwilling to separate hedonism from moralism and unable to connect them by any substantial bond, he suggests that the two realms are united, not so VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 135 much by a process of association, as by means of "complex coincidence" (Methods qf Eth. Bk. iv, Ch. in.) At the same time, this method does not assume that the naturistic and the characteristic are identical, for in the crysallized morality of humanity experience, Sidgwick finds only a "felicific tendency." (lb.) Such is the slender connection between the real and the ideal in hedonism. 3 — HETERONOMY AND HUMANITY The entrance of moralism into the realm of naturism means little to the rationalistic thinker who rejoices in the burning, shining light of perfected morality and systematized ethics, but he who wishes to survey the slow process by which humanity has urged itself through nature toward self-perfec- tion can only be gratified in witnessing this new departure of hedonism. Viewed naturally from below, it tends to invest virtue with living significance and indicates an ad- vance in morality comparable to the postulate of altruism. The reluctance with which pure hedonism makes these admissions, in contrast as it is with the anxiety of utilitarian- ism to explain and adopt both altruism and moralism, shows with what an effort humanity seeks to release itself from nature. Thus is the spell of nature broken and, in his progress toward humanity, man makes consistent use of the newly acquired otherness of altruism and hedonism. All morality is relative to humanity, and ethics is but a means, though an indispensable one, by which it is realized. Em- pirical relativism makes virtue subordinate to happiness; idealistic relativism reduces both the moral and the hedonic to the claims of perfect humanity. Both hedonism and rigorism fail to survey man comprehensively, and the result of their one-sidedness is this conflict between egoism and altruism, autonomy and heteronomy. Happiness, instead of assuming a modest place in the whole life of humanity, is made the central issue, for where one view considers it everything the other regards it as nothing. The immediate side of man's nature deserves recognition, and it cannot be overlooked that, as humanity was once wholly hedonic, this trait will ever survive in the total striving for human i 3 6 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE selfhood and worldhood. It is happiness which is relative, not morality; the absolute is spiritual humanity. Virtues vary in no arbitrary fashion, but according to the continuous plan of human striving, which brings about the organization of certain types of moral excellence. In this manner, it comes about that, when man is upon the plane of nature, his ideals are not purely naturistic, and while his atmosphere is that of sense, he is not wholly he- donic. Individual prudence and benevolence toward. society are not the only norms which decorate the theory of eudae- monism; temperance and courage, which were among the cardinal virtues, are involved in a view of life which has at heart the material interest of individual and race. Hu- manity does not disdain to dwell with those who, in a primitive age live close to nature, or with them that in our advanced civilization are the people of the pavement. Paint- ing, which, shows how humanity is studying itself, is not pledged to such examples of rafinnement as are found in court and drawing-room; peasants and beggars have their place in the studio; and, perhaps, when art would show how inevitable is the hold of nature upon man, and yet how victorious is humanity over its material fate, it has no better medium than that of genre painting. Philosophy can do no less and in the spirit of a sympathetic humanism it may find indelible traces of developing spiritual life through these crude mediums. 4 — THE RELATIVITY OF THE GOOD By reason of the presence of these hedonic virtues, the argument for relativism is made more plausible than in the case of other moral ideals like veracity and honesty. One should be temperate and courageous, not for the sake of these virtues as such, or by reason of any special moral sense, but because the prudent and brave courses of conduct are ne- cessary to human welfare in both the one and the many. Such is the hedonic argument which modern ethics has re- duced to a consistent heteronomy. When other virtues, which belong to a higher plane of human striving, are sub- jected to analysis, it becomes difficult to argue in a heter- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 137 onomous and hedonic fashion, inasmuch as these moral and mental ideals seem to have a value in themselves. Thus veracity may have its utilitarian place in the world, since society needs truth for its intercourse, yet truth is so vast and impersonal that one feels compelled to urge it for its own sake. Honesty plays the part of an economic utility and yet we feel safer when we raise it above the market and make of it an ideal excellence to be pursued for its own value. Where benevolence can never be purely autonomous, justice can never be thoroughly heteronomous. The only constant is endless humanity with its spiritual life. Heteronomy is less than humanism ; pleasure is inferior to personality. To understand man who experiences these pleasures and pains, his being must be surveyed sub specie humani. Then it will appear that desire, as a psychic combination of will and affection, is magnified many dia- meters by virtue of the fact that it is man's desire, put forth for the purpose of human realization, while pleasure is surcharged with potency by reason of its reception into a human soul. Human spontaneity thus transmutes desire into an extra-psychical force, while human sensitivity acts as an alembic to transform pleasure into a more than a natural product. Relativity now seems to stand on the side of hedonism rather than of intuitionism ; for pleasure, instead of being a constant, assumes the form of a variable which has its basis in the permanency of human existence. As it has been shown from our examination of the hedonic in man, pleasure consists in some form of activity. Here, it needs only be pointed out that the assertion of humanity within man is the real force which is active upon the plane of nature and in the atmosphere of hedonism; no artificial utilitarianism of the present can obscure this obvious teaching of history. With primitive man, the hedonic is to be ex- pected, and since man can never be wholly independent of nature, his life will ever bear an ineradicable trace of eudaemonism. Through the enveloping medium of the world of hu- manity, hedonic benefits receive an unwonted character. In response to benevolence, the ego is not presenting pleasure to the alter, but in the half-conscious sense of a single and i 3 8 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE indivisible humanity, one soul furthers the advancement of another. The presenting of gifts among friends and acts of charity in connection with the ill-favored have a symbolic significance and appeal to the totality of man's being. Be- nevolence becomes a virtue, not only because of certain empirical needs of individuals, but by reason of intelligible values which reside in human souls as such. He who thus aids another, advances humanity in its progress toward self- hood, and no matter how definitely perceptible and imme- diately practical that service may be, hedonism can never circumscribe it. Here is another reason for ascribing rela- tivity to happiness rather than to virtue, for surely an animal function like enjoyment cannot remain the same in the whole range of life where the fineness and complexity of the nervous system exhibits such marked degrees of difference. Man's pleasure is man's pleasure; his humanity affects his mind as well as his body. Upon direct analysis, the problem of moralism seems to be too complicated for this simple statement of the asso- ciationist, too profound for the bland solution of the utilitarian. We may grant that there is some connection between hedonism and moralism, for if that be wanting we shall have no ostensible method by which to relate the primi- tive period of naturism to the more advanced ideals of characteristic ethics. To find the place where heteronomy becomes autonomy, the point where the co-efficient of moral expansion changes sign, is beyond the possibilities of the associational school. The first error consists in the state- ment, according to which the "moral" life exists and exerts itself in a purely heteronomous or hedonic manner, for it is almost impossible to conceive of men as living in such an instinctive fashion as though his existence were purely "entomological", as Balzac would express it. Then, the finished argument which derives or demonstrates disinter- ested autonomous conduct proves too much, for our human ideal is not the abstract rectitude of rationalism, but a living sense of worth. Thus we are not called upon to pass in review the transition from concrete hedonism to abstract moralism, both of which conditions are alien to humanity, but have only to account for the fact that man has learned VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 139 to place an ideal value upon conduct. Nietzche's criticism* of the English psychologists, to whom, as he admits, we are indebted for the only theory we have of the origin of the concept "good", tends to set the problem of moralism in the reverse order. This seems to be due to the fact that in Nietzsche's mind the term "good" does not apply to the unselfish act, but on the contrary it connotes something egoistic. Hence he protests that the idea of goodness was not invented by those to whom goodness was shown, but on the contrary it was a characterization which the high-minded applied to themselves to indicate their power and nobility. It was a decision handed down from an aristocratic source, not a custom which grew up upon a democratic soil. (Genealogy of Morals, I. S. 2). The primitive man in the person of the Aryan, the Greek, the original German accustomed himself to believe in his own superiority, while he taught the weaker ones whom he subjugated to consider themselves bad, because of their weakness. The philological explanation of "good" and "bad" which Nietzsche gives is so faulty that its suggestive- ness is well nigh lost to view, but on the philosophical side he shows his strength in subsuming all moral truth under the category of value. At the same time he constantly re- minds us that within the heart of humanity great changes can take place whereby the moral ideal may undergo trans- valuation. From our point of view, which reveals to us the spiritual order within which humanity exists and works, we have nothing to fear from the transmutation of naturism into moralism. Humanity itself contains the explanation of morality and, as we shall when we come to examine the concepts of characteristic ethics, conscience and rectitude, freedom and duty are to be resolved into so many states of inner humanity. As human norms they cannot be deduced from nature nor reduced to reason, but must be considered as the structure which humanity assumes in its striving after self-realization. For this reason, mere pleasure in its he- donic form is as far removed from the moral ideal as sheer, unrelated virtue, and where morality in order to exist must set up some relation to the world, its connection with man i 4 o VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE must be consonant with his inner nature. Hence what we have been calling heteronomy is only the general truth of humanism in morality. V NATURISM AS EUDAEMONISM The claims of naturistic ethics have not been thoroughly satisfied by a hedonic theory which, in seeking to explain the striving of man toward humanity, has advanced from pleasure to utility, from utility to the preservation of the species. In all this, hedonism has not waited to ask what man is for, nor has its zeal for happiness allowed it to inquire wherein his well-being consists. Not consistent with itself, hedonism has been similarly unable to relate its norms to the world of nature which it aspires to represent. For this reason of insufficiency another view of man's life in the world of time and space is made necessary, and eudaemonism assumes the burden of proof at the place where hedonism lays it down. Eudaemonism seeks to justify the naturism of human existence by raising, first of all, the question of immediacy , whereby it seeks to show that man was not meant to depart from nature for the sake of dwelling in a deri- vative world of culture. This concerns the form of human happiness, whose content is discussed in a manner unknown to hedonism; happiness is found to consist in some form of activity. Thus in a dual manner, eudaemonism discusses the problem of life and aims to show how man, in the immediacy of his nature-life is supposed to realize and con- tent himself with activity. Because it is so thorough, the eudaemonistic argument is far more serious than the he- donic one ; if it be correct, man's conflict with nature for the sake of a pure humanity is unnecessary, if not in vain. I THE FORM OF HAPPINESS AS IMMEDIACY The spirit of eudaemonism is that of contemplation, in the course of which it seeks mere contact with nature, and does not consent to submit to its material interests. In its 141 i 4 2 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE enthusiasm for nature, hedonism was not in a condition to approach its idol in an acceptable fashion, and it failed to do justice either to itself or to its subject. True naturism is still to be sought by means of a method which does not calculate pleasures and pains, or reduce natural benefits to principles of utility and preservation. Man is still unac- counted for, while nature is not yet possessed. For this rea- son, the eudaemonistic method becomes necessary in the ad- justment of man to the universe, and it seems to present a more promising plan, inasmuch as it looks upon nature, not hedonically, but aesthetically, as though it were the shadow of humanity. It appears, then, that man is hardly capable of a concrete life, for his sensations ascend to ideas and his passions pass into sentiments. Man in his humanity is so over-naturized that he cannot be held down to the plan of utilitarianism, and in the presence of his victorious self- assertion the stolid maxims of this calculating school are ill- adapted to the genius of humanity. To be free and to feel free from the plodding pleasures of a concrete experience is an impulse which redeems man from hedonic fate, for he is too active a creature to rest content with the passive re- ception of pleasure, and too much a lover of power to exhaust his energies in the quest of happiness as such. There is in him an unconscious and involuntary form of aspiration that habitually draws him away from the concreteness of animal existence, and while this may be only a negative idealism, which, in the case of art, delights in the unrealities of drama and romance, it is sufficient to show that a given form of existence, with an accompanying quality of pleasure, is not enough for a humanistic creature whose destiny lies beyond the borders of the phenomenal world-order. To content a developed form of existence whose mental life is vast enough to view nature in its totality, is beyond the power of the sense-world. Man is not so much hedonic as he is humanistic, and in the quest of life he cares not so much for pleasure as for the thrill of existence which contact with the world affords. In this search for consciousness of humanity, pain will do as well as pleasure, just as life is represented by tragedy as well as by comedy, if not better. Just as the hedonic law VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 143 points out how pleasure and pain are relative to the de- mands of life, whertin one indicates benefit and the other harm, so the general principle of humanity, which postulates man as striving onward from nature to culture, reveals how incidental are these simple feelings in the general program of life. The hedonic in man can never be denied, nor should one care to ignore it, but it can be asserted that the total interest of life is greater than any search for happiness, just as the positing of humanity is not due to any felicific in- clination or utilitarian consequence. The animal has pleas- ure-pain; man alone has happiness, because only he has world-position and destiny. And it is the fate of man to transcend happiness for the sake of achieving humanity; with the beast there is no escape from the hedonic law of the organism ; with man there is always the possibility of choosing whether he will ally himself with the feeling or not. Thus he may refuse happiness and resolve to suffer, as many a noble soul has done; and it is only the possibility of unified, unlimited humanity in the individual that creates such a spectacle. Hence it is not the quivering of the flesh, but the thrill of the spirit that characterizes human enjoyment. That form of contemplation which kept the gods calm and suffered not the graces to be ruffled, partook of a cer- tain naivete due to innocence of any internal conflict. Pleasure and pain they felt without weighing their hedonic values, while desire failed to draw them away from the mean. Modern eudaemonism seeks immediacy in a pathetic spirit as if it were a lost art, and, indeed, one may be astonished at such a movement as Hellenism which worked out a certain philosophy of life without appealing to duty or indulging in doubt. A modern like Winckelmann feels his estrangement from nature when he beholds the memorials of classicism, while Schiller returns to Pagan poetry as to a lost paradise. To most moderns the path to immediate eudaemonism is blocked by certain spiritual scruples, which persuade us that we must rend ourselves in doubt before we can believe, and suffer the pangs of repentance before we can become upright. We seek after a second world without having appreciated the first one, and now we are wondering whether the remote future will commend our Gothic striving i 4 4 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE and romantic suffering. Will the "music of the future" find the world of spirit in Wagner's world of tone, and admit that a superman like Siegfried stands in need of salvation? Have we not been too lyrical in our pessimism as we recalled how Schopenhauer loved to play the flute? In the adjust- ment of our spiritual needs to objective facts, our philosophy of life has been like a canvas by Delacroix, which endeavored to find in the lines and colors of nature little more than a picture of human emotion. Our romanticism has led us away from nature and its eudaemonistic life. Hellenism was forever delivered from that sense of striv- ing which pervades our morals and makes us keen to consci- ence and alive to duty. With its aristocratic ideals, it never sought the greatest happiness of the greatest number, but pursued the perfection of the superior man whose culture has come down to us. In the form of an objective eudae- monism, the sense of the immediate acted as ground and motive for classicism, which was as far removed from hedonic calculus as from rigoristic compunction. If the utilitarian method is obvious, and human intuitions are intuitive, it is remarkable that the Greeks were so wanting in the per- ception of a moral sense or the claims of benevolence. Pleasure had not been put in a precarious position by sub- jecting it to analysis, hence what in modern thought has resulted in hedonism was then naive and eudaemonistic, qualities which are destined to cling to human nature every- where. Stoics and Epicureans, who endeavored to reduce life to particular methods, produced an inverted eudae- monism in the form of ataraxy-apathy. In a metaphysical fashion, ancient ethics was fitted for eudaemonism by reason of the fact that it ever postulated an objective good rather than a subjective duty. To such a conception the whole dialectic of Plato was consecrated, and the idea of the good became the highest knowledge (Repub. 505), while as an ideal it was to be realized in the best- ordered state (lb. 462). The good is likewise associated with both knowledge and happiness, and in such a manner that there is both wisdom in the life of pleasure and pleasure in the life of wisdom (Philebus, 20). So compact is the classic conception of the ideal in life that it is not divided VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 145 against itself, even when marked by the lower principle of utility, which plays its part as a criterion in the ideal state, whereby it is concluded that the most beneficial marriages are the most holy (Repub. 457-458). It is the same principle that leads Plato to discourse so bitterly against the artists, who deal, not in reality, but in imitation, whereby the painter is judged to be inferior to the carpenter (lb. 597). With such favorable recommendations, the life of eudae- monia could not fail to impress classicism which reduced it to an optimistic type of conduct. In the unity of classic realism, antiquity never found it necessary to create a good that already existed in itself, or to strive after virtues which appeared naturally as attributes of the single good that pervaded the universe. The good was finished product and virtue a likely tendency ; and, in the case of an all-embracing cosmos, man could only acquiesce in the genial bent of nature. 2 HAPPINESS AS POSSESSION OF THE GOOD In contrast with this unified and naturistic view of the macrocosm, which had instilled into the heart of the ancient a perfect eudaemonia knowing neither doubt nor repentance, arose the modern culture-conflict which set man in opposi- tion to nature and in conflict with himself. Not only happi- ness itself, but the approach to it became a burning question for both intellect and will. In the midst of this problem, which was quite foreign to the purely hedonic composition of happiness out of individual pleasures, appeared certain traits of human nature which must be reckoned with; hence arose pairs of leading questions: Does happiness consist in the possession of the desired object, or the mere pursuit of it? This question involved the whole difference betwen classic paganism and Christian romanticism. Is happiness to be found in contemplation by the intellect, or in conquest by the will? As antiquity had laid its emphasis upon the contem- plative possession of the world according to the good, so modernity assumed the other point of view and decided in favor of active pursuit as the only safe means to happiness. The whole setting of the problem was further marked by a view of life according to immediacy or with respect to 146 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE remoteness. Hence the subject of eudaemonia had to ask himself whether his well-being consisted in the intellectual contemplation of the world of immediacy, or the volitional conquest of the world of remoteness. While Hellenism had set the standard of genuine eudae- monism, the modern was not disposed to abandon the quest of what seemed to be a lost art; although he used his own methods in investigating the question before him. At times he has been a classicist, at times a romanticist, and again a pure naturist. This condition of human consciousness showed itself early in the nineteenth century in the art of David, Delacroix and the Barbizon School. Where the classic landscape was intellectual and seemed bent upon repre- senting the ideal forms of nature and humanity, the ro- mantic scene was suggestive of the irrational will which per- verted the natural order and made the landscape reflect the emotions of humanity. The Barbizon artists revealed the fact that, apart from tradition, man in his humanity may contemplate nature in all its immediacy; and the atmosphere of that art which was established by Millet, Corot, and Rousseau was one of the grand totality which envelops both, nature and humanity. In such a genuine return to nature as appeared on the edge of Fontainebleau forest, the world of humanity appeared raised above conflict and free from all distraction, while the sanity of our own age appeared in forms both charming and convincing. While the two general types of eudaemonia are easily established in the abstract, the liquid composition of hu- manity in general and the contingent qualities of the in- dividual render it difficult to adjust the leading thinkers to the clear divisions. At the outset, one must appreciate the great difference between Aristotle and Bacon, although when we attempt to indicate this, likeness will appear as strikingly as contrast. We should expect the ancient to perfect his view of eudaemonia in terms of contemplation, but this he does not do without introducing an element of energism ; and we want the modern to fulfill the promises of his anti-Aristotelianism and abandon the ideal of contem- plation for that of conquest; but, as we shall see, his ideal of life and learning is sometimes expressed in perfect Aris- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 147 totclian terminology. Since it was Bacon who pointed out that, with respect to actual progress, we are the true ancients, it is permissible for him to involve certain elements of the so-called antiquity in his own speculations. With here an Athenian age of culture, and there an Italian Renaissance behind the thinker, it is not extraordinary that the methods of reflection should cross and indicate more than one point of likeness. Yet it needs the influence of more than one modern to counterbalance the activity of this fortunate Pagan. In connection with Aristotle's finished view of human happiness which was implicit in classicism, we may note the peculiar conditions of culture which furthered such a method of idealizing life. Coming after the age of Pericles with its perfections in culture and civilization, both Plato and Aris- totle seem possessed of the complacent feeling that they are living in a finished world toward which their own duty is merely one of ordering and comprehending. Such a con- viction shows itself in Plato's theory of the state and Aristotle's view of art, wherein what had been done in Sparta and Athens was the counterpart of what was thought by these philosophers. The limitations of such a reductive method appears later in the particular case of Aristotle, who with all his genuine interest in nature is not to be shaken from his classic conviction that reality has been reached, even though Alexander opens new fields of research in the study of nature. To Aristotle, the dead Pericles was more than the living Alexander. The retrospective habit of Greek speculation precluded any such principle of dis- covery as Bacon, an opponent of Aristotelianism, advocated in modern times. Modern naturism with, first, a new physical world and, then, a new biological one before it, resorted to the creative will rather than the contemplative intellect and, confronted by no hope of possession, it con- secrated its energies to pursuit and discovery. Yet this intellectual activity has never been sufficient to carry man beyond nature. We may conquer nature by obeying her in the study of science, but we are again con- quered by the application of science to industry. Science contains no suggestion of the emancipation to be found in 148 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE art, and in a modern age where our physical and political theories tend to liberate the individual from nature and society, the spectacle of a whole man who lives his life in his own way has been a subject of wonder among poets from Schiller to Sudermann. The ancient who looked upon the human microcosm as a part of nature and regarded "man as by nature a political animal" — endowed man with more unity and completeness than does the advanced thought of the present. For this reason, the. antique ideal of imme- diacy toward nature makes its appeal to Shakespeare who invests the romantic with sufficient realism to permit its com- parison with the antique standard. It is for just this element of Aristotelianism that Tolstoi has recently criticised Shake- speare, as one who upheld healthy activity and the golden mean; or an ideal of "action at all costs, the absence of all ideals, moderation in everything, the conservation of the forms of life once established, and the end justifying the means." (On Shakespeare, Pt. vi). Thus is it possible to perceive in moderns like Shakespeare and Goethe the idealization of immediacy and a life of self-limiting activity; the greatness of the genius here displayed consisted in con- tracting the infinite into convenient proportions and in re- storing remote interests to the domain of immediate life. The world is changed to a stage and the longer drama of humanity is so condensed that it resembles Hamlet's play within the play. 3 — the "work of contemplation" In checking the hasty arguments of hedonism we have already had to employ the careful psychology of Aristotle (cf. supra p. 99) ; we must now survey his own theory in a more constructive fashion as expressing the ideals of eudae- monia. It might appear that one who belonged to such a pleasure-seeking and life-loving race would avail himself of such arguments as hedonism is likely to offer to its devo- tees; but Aristotle abstains from any coarse contact with the world of sense. As Plato had made it plain that he did not wish his ideal man confounded with the system (Philebus, 21), so Aristotle refuses to regard ethics in any VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 149 anti-hedonic fashion, inasmuch as moral virtue concerns it- self with pleasure and pain — irepl rjSovas kv(rei, but Secret, does not mean that the world of nature contains the material of the virtues or the form of the good. Common-sense morality stands for that which is established, and assumes the form of something conventional; for which reason it does not become the in- tuitionist as much as the hedonist to assume any intimate relations with the natural order, which is a hedonic one. The strength of characteristic ethics lies in an established morality which is styled the ethics of common-sense, al- though such terminology may be misleading; and inasmuch as characteristic ethics arises as something derivative, when humanity detaches itself from the natural order of im- mediacy in time and space, it is not wholly consistent in its advocate to look upon it as something eternal and immu- table. Intuitions are traditions which by being deep-seated easily pass as symbols of eternal verities, but history has wit- nessed their rise while its special periods have experienced appropriate changes in the estimates set upon virtue, as the change from classicism to Christianity shows. 1 86 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 3 THE TRANSITION FROM NATURE TO CHARACTER From the history of humanity, it is evident that the life of immediate interest is not sufficient to content the activities of a striving creature like man. To experience pleasure, satisfy desire, and cultivate the garden of imme- diacy is not enough to satisfy man as such; hence arise re- mote aims and a course of conduct which involves ideal ac- tivities. It involves no rigoristic considerations to see that man creates new duties and assumes new tasks when con- fronted by the human world of culture and civilization. These two forms of expression contain the essence of a humanity which is now beyond desire and happiness in their impulsive and immediate forms. In his culture, man assumes the metaphysical responsibility of the race, and decides that it is a derivative life of art and science which he proposes to follow and enjoy. In his civilization he takes upon him a moral burden, for he proposes to live according to virtue instead of pleasure, and thus creates great ethical and reli- gious standards. With this development of man's mental and social life, it is not expected that he shall continue to measure the meaning of his existence in terms of animalistic interest; for his pleasures have become associated with his culture-interests and his desires can be fulfilled only as civil- ization perfects itself. It needs no metaphysical reflection to show that the Greeks took pleasure in and desired culture just as the Romans had similar ambitions in the direction of civilization. Human history, which is concerned with cus- tom, is a perpetual argument in favor of characteristic morality; and whether virtue contains a reminiscence of pleasure or not, it now has a meaning of its own. Much of the antipathy toward the idea of transmutation in morality has been due to the tendency to make the change consist of something external rather than internal, while the range of the development has been greatly exaggerated. All moral change is something like that which Leslie Stephen has styled "secular variation", a happy application of the term indicated in his table of contents, but not incorporated in the text (Sci. of Eth. Ch. iv § 14). In reality, moral transmutation is not akin to naturistic evolution, but is VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 187 rather a transmutation of experience in human consciousness and kept well within »the borders of humanity. It is in- conceivable that ethical judgments should ever be the same for all peoples in all periods of human history. Humanity produces its ideals gradually in connection with a long pro- cess of self-realization, and we should not expect to find the cardinal virtues among savages. On the other hand, if it be claimed that the idea of change is untenable in moral discussions, it must be remembered that the same idea has always been difficult in metaphysical discussions, so that the situation in the intuitional school is by no means extraor- dinary, much less does it warrant any special privileges to the advocate of fixed morality. There is something suggestive in the immutable ethical concepts of an ancient Euclid and a modern Cudworth, but their static moralism has not guided European philosophy in its characteristic ethics. The substantial bond between the first period and the second is found in the continuity of human striving, which embraces the naturistic desire for happiness as well as the characteristic demand for perfection. Hence the community of ethical theories is to be found in the unity of human life, and we are under no more obligation to explain the problem of ethical progress than to explain the evolution of human history which we accept as a fact and philosophize accord- ingly. What characteristic ethics needs is to see that morality has developed without and within, a truth that finds a secure place in the unity of human striving. Pro- gress in ethical consciousness does not imply that vice has become virtue, but simply indicates that human values have risen from the lower realm of sense to the higher one of idea. Hence it is the inwardness of ethical progress which proposes the problem and promises its solution. Sensation is trans- ferred into ideation, perception into conception, and by what process? It is memory which reproduces the external impression as an internal image in a mind which by its func- tion of attention is adapted to noticing the community in the two forms of cognition. Memory and attention serve, like- wise, in changing percepts into concepts, whereby the con- crete is represented by the abstract. Now the attentive activity of the mind employs memory in connection with the 1 88 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE transition from naturistic to characteristic morality. Cogni- tion preserves its unity in the midst of sensation and idea, percept and concept, and the ethical consciousness of mankind is as successful in the historical change from outer to inner interest. In the midst of his particular moral codes, man is still human, and his principle of desire, active upon the plane of nature, is animated by the motive of self-realization as a creature, while later his ideal of duty assumes the same significance, inasmuch as man now strives after self-realiza- tion as a character. The Spartan will be brave, the Athenian wise, the Roman just; humanity thus realizes itself in the manifold, while the various virtues unite in the human spirit which evokes them. Honesty cannot be without some refer- ence to the economic order, veracity is a virtue in connection with its social significance, while justice and benevolence arise as they are demanded by progressive, perfecting hu- manity which is the center about which these relative prin- ciples revolve. Man maintains his humanity in the midst of change, and the same striving for realization appears in connection with the incentives of sensation and the motives of ideation, in the age of nature and the age of culture. The contrast between hedonism and intuitionism, therefore, is no complete one which excludes community, for these constitute a parallelism of humanity which itself has not received adequate recognition. Man is superior to desire and duty, and will not follow concrete pleasure or abstract duty; he is in the world to achieve his humanity, and thus these other principles act only eccentrically upon him. The characteristic theory of morality is expressed directly in intuitionism, indirectly in rigorism. In the first instance we have a theory of life so far as its ethical ideals are con- cerned; in the second, there appears an attitude towards life as something which must be lived as well as surveyed in thought. Our examination of these principles will exhibit more than one point of contrast with the naturistic school, while it will serve to bring out the underlying principle of humanity. Like every other philosophical scheme, character- istic ethics must reveal a consistency with its own principles, as well as adaptability to the general plan manifest in our VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 189 human striving, and it will be approved to the degree of perfection with which *it meets this double demand. 4 CHARACTERISTIC ETHICS AS INTUITIONISM Just as the complementary term hedonism is so partial and exclusive as to indicate but a phase of naturistic ethics, so "intuitionism" must be accepted as a word which merely symbolizes the preliminary form of characteristic ethics. The unfolding of this second form will be seen to follow the analogy of the first one, in that an abrupt departure will be made from passive intuitionism to the active principle of duty, as was the case with hedonism which showed how necessary it was to find the secret of immediate activity in desire. Under the head of intuitionism, therefore, we must include two forms of characteristic morality; one centers in conscience which is finally expressed as a judgment of life, the other in freedom, which generates the law of duty. Be- fore this dual problem of characteristic ethics may be dis- cussed, the fuller meaning of intuition must be subjected to examination. Here it will be found that the theory in ques- tion reveals as much opposition to the idea of development in morality as favor to its supremacy in human life. The "intuition", which implies nothing in the way of excellence, is invented to offset any explanation of ethical ideals, and to yield immediate certainty and complete conviction. The psychology of intuition, which has received satis- factory treatment in aesthetics, has not been as successful in the field of ethics, and the possibilities which this form of knowledge presents have been overlooked in the interests of a very doubtful element called "common-sense." In modern philosophy, Spinoza, Richard Price, and Kant have called attention to the emphatic position which intuition occupies midway between sense and reason. The Ethics of Spinoza departs from its rationalism sufficiently to entertain the possibility of a third kind of knowledge which he calls scientia intuitiva, the discussion of which is carried on in the fifth part of the work (Props, xxv-xxxvm), wherein it is shown that intuition arises as the highest endeavor of the mind (xxv), where it promotes the highest kind of 190 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE acquiescence (xxvn), and represents reality under the form of eternity (xxxi). Price uses the English term "intuition" and develops it under the opposing influences of Locke's empiricism and Cudworth's rationalism. Kant's complete view of Anschauung developed in the Kritik, finds a place in his theory of beauty, and the treatment of the problem in the "Transcendental Aesthetic" indicates how close is the connection between the critical and aesthetical forms of his system. Where one deduces time and space, as forms of knowledge derived neither from sense nor un- derstanding, the other develops taste and beauty as forms of sense which are universal, although without concepts. Kant's ethical system makes no provision for such a method of treat- ment, and it is only by accommodation that we may call it intuitionism. Its point of departure is not the understand- ing, but the will, while its influence is rigoristic rather than intuitional. Genuine intuitionism, whose principles were indicated in three forms of modern philosophy, has enjoyed no affilia- tion with the minor moral theory which bears the name. This school has exhibited intuition as a noli me tangere, and in its endeavor to place moral truth beyond dispute, it has placed it beyond reason. The result of such a method has been to produce fixed ideas, whereby conscience has under- gone petrifaction and duty has shown rigor mortis. No de- scriptive psychology was permitted to explain this esoteric faculty; no theory of knowledge was suffered to approach the oracle. Meanwhile, mental interest has been baffled, and the matter is made more than usually provoking because the problem whose solution is so important to man, does not seem to be so abysmal after all; for the mind which can discuss the forms of outer sense, like space and time, seems able to carry on its discussion within where are found the internal senses of beauty and conscience. Life is not all ethics, ethics is not all conscience; and it is only the minor morality which puts the moral sense in the supreme position. In the presence of living, growing humanity, ethics must break the silence, come out of its seclusion and seek to come abreast of the world. II CHARACTERISTIC ETHICS AND CONSCIENCE I— THE MORAL SENSE AND PLEASURE However different in content and value, both pleasure and conscience, which make possible the two forms of mor- ality called hedonism and intuitionism, must be treated as though they were organic to human nature in the form of sense. Their place is found in immediacy and it is by virtue of their felt quality that they dominate the mind. Both are concerned with individual interest, so that egoism may arise in connection with either one or the other; Butler puts conscience and self-love upon the same plane. The progress of hedonism was such as to suggest the necessity of some- thing more than pleasure, and at the risk of inconsistency, the school made room for another sense than that of pleasure in the form of altruism and that of moralism. Even the ego feels constrained to recognize the other ego, and cannot blind his eyes to the fact that imperceptible influences, in the form of detached ethical ideals, are working upon him. Of the two contrasted senses, neither one of which is final, however incontrovertible its testimony may be, pleasure relates man to the world of nature, conscience connects him with the world of humanity. Just as pleasure, which has such an inordinate influence within our minds, seems explicable only when we survey it as the point whose nature concentrates her influence over us, so conscience, with its extra-intensity, appears to be the vulnerable spot which the individual pre- sents toward humanity. Conscience further contrasts with the sense of pleasure upon the active as well as the passive side. As a sense, pleasure lends itself to activity and the exercises of power; it draws the individual out in the world of sense. Conscience usually acts in a negative manner and restrains the individual's powers, so that he who would succeed must not be too conscientious. 191 192 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE So careful is intuitionism with its terminology that a survey of the rise and development of "conscience" cannot fail to clarify the principles of the theory. For the most part, Grecian ethics succeeded in aligning the ideals of life without the aid of this factor, and it was not until the de- cline of ancient speculation and the commingling of Greek with Roman philosophy that conscience appeared. In itself, conscience is an ideal of decadent morality. According to Stobaeus (p. 192, 21), the term occurs in Periander and Bios. Diodorous (iv. 657) uses it to indicate consciousness as a whole. In speaking of the powers of kings with their equipment to reprove and punish, Epictetus says, "but to a Cynic, instead of arms and guards, it is conscience (awelSos) which gives this power." (Bk. m. Ch. xxi). Here is involved more psychological penetration, inasmuch as con- science is seen to imply compunction. The same inward- ness characterizes Cicero, who further elucidates the effect of remorse. "The guilty therefore must pay the penalty and bear the punishment; not so much those punishments inflicted by courts of justice, but of conscience, while the furies pursue and torment them, not with burning torches, but with remorse of Conscience." (Laws 1, 14). Con- science was never more than an eccentric element in the ethics of Stoicism, while in modern ethics its position is not the highest one among ethical categories. With all its security in human nature, conscience is not a category but a sentiment. The treatment of conscience from the beginning of modern ethics has been in the form of a sense, so that hedonists have not hesitated to employ it or rigorists to reject it as a final arbiter. Shaftesbury, who classifies human impulses as (1) natural public affections; (2) natural private affections; (3) unnatural affections (In- quiry, Bk. 11. pt. 1, § 3), finds it feasible to add a moral sense which he styles a "displeasing consciousness" and "re- ligious conscience.' , (lb. Bk. 11. pt. 2, § 1). Butler, who adopts this fourfold division of human nature and applies it to the interests of the intuitional school, raises conscience to a commanding position but does not fail to put reasonable self-love upon the same level, which is possible for him inasmuch as he believes that both dictate what is in accord- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 193 ance with nature. In the treatment of the moral sense, he and Shaftesbury are practically agreed. The same leveling tendency appears with* Hume and Kant, who show more academic division than Butler and Shaftesbury. Hume's heteronomy and hedonism do not forbid his assertion that moral distinctions come from a "moral sense" (Treatise, Bk. in. pt. 1, Sec. 11). Kant rejects the notion that the fundamental moral principle can reside in feeling, and con- temptuously observes that a "supposed special sense" is ap- pealed to only by those who cannot think, but can only feel. (Meta. d. Sitten, s. 75). This sense, like that of self-love, is false since it fails to rest upon reason which furnishes man with the principles of morality (lb. s. 152) ; conscience, however, is a judicial function whose source is in reason alone (lb. s. 230). Kant's departure from con- science is a special sense to conscience as reason is but the counterpart of Hume's abandonment of reason for the sake of this more natural moral principle ; both show how natural it is to regard conscience as a sentiment. The progress of hedonism and intuitionism reveals the same subordination of conscience to the field of sense. T. H. Green ascribes to it the general function of arousing moral aspiration, and does not regard it as the arbiter of moral values, (Prolegomena, § 306), just as he admits that, where a man cannot be too good, he can be too conscientious, (lb. § 297). As an advanced intuitionist, he is as little inclined to deify conscience as the enlightened Sidgwick was to exalt happiness. Where one regards conscience as influential, the other believes virtue to have a "felicific ten- dency" (Methods of Eth. Bk. iy, Ch. hi, § 1). Parallel to this patronizing view of conscience on the part of Green is Leslie Stephen's adoption of the principle as a part of his naturalistic creed. (Science of Ethics, Ch. vm) ; indeed, this advocate of the "social organism" goes so far as to regard conscience as a "judgment of the whole character" (lb. p. 316), and yet relegates it to naturistic consciousness by making it to consist very largely of a sense of shame, (lb. Ch. vm, § 2). If these thinkers are at all typical they illustrate that tendency on the part of our opposed theories to fuse, as they 194 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE suggest that their agreement upon the subject of conscience is due to the fact that conscience is a sense, not a rational judgment. Hence, hedonists may rise to its level without endangering their naturistic views, because intuitionism has placed it in such a low position. That conscience is a sense, rather than a dictum of reason, seems to be implied further in the plea for conscience as something intuitive. Now, of all our mental concerns, those of reason are least likely to be intuitive, since these are based upon concepts which are formed by generalization, judgments trained according to law, and inferences drawn from rule; while the products of sense in their simplicity and immediacy are more inclined toward the intuitive phase of consciousness. Here it may be asked how the idea of conscience adapts itself to the notion of intuition which is current in aesthetics. At first sight, it seems as though the latter claimed all the honor of this style of thinking, just as it bore the respon- sibility of it, but further reflection tends to show how ethics participates with aesthetics in this tertiary form of human knowledge. Do we have an emotion to explain or a judg- ment to justify? It would seem then as though conscience were best understood as a sense known to consciousness as an immediate feeling; from this, judgments may be elabo- rated just as they are in aesthetics, where a sense of ideal feeling enables the mind to pronounce judgment upon the beauty of an object. Apart from an appreciation of man's position in the world-whole of humanity, conscience will ever be an unknowable irritation. Its form is that of extra- sensitivity, and when its function is said to consist in approval and disapproval, its nature is seen to be somewhat akin to that of feeling with its qualities of pleasure and pain. To the intuitionist, who isolates conscience from the rest of consciousness, and assumes to find in its dictates something unwonted and authoritative, it must seem strange to find that his magisterial faculty can use only the language of pleasure-pain, when it turns "good" conscience and "bad" conscience into a pleasant approval or an unpleasant disap- proval. These emotions are symptoms of our human con- dition; they arise, not for their own sake, but for the sake of the one humanity in and about the individual. VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 195 2 — THE HUMANITY OF CONSCIENCE The conception 01 man that has guided us thus far in our examination of human conduct puts us in a position where, with intellectual consistency and ethical security, we may look upon human conscience as having the form of sense, whose significance is explicable, not in itself alone, but in connection with the enveloping world of humanity. The traditional view of conscience betrays a lack of fore- shortening which spoils the effect of the picture; a normal feature of man's moral life has been thrust forward in viola- tion of all perspective, and the retouching that the theory must undergo should occasion neither surprise nor sadness. Again and again we are called upon to see how man is seeking to emancipate himself from his native immediacy and effect the wholeness of his humanity, and hence we do not feel inclined to turn away from such an interpretation of life and admit that all consists in conscience. A theory of life based upon conscience could never account for that spontaneity of human effort which, in the midst of art and science, culture and civilization, preserves its spiritual unity. Conscience is as necessary to man as feeling, but approval and disapproval are no more the sovereign masters of human life than pleasure and pain. The advocate of conscience, who felt that to explain was to explain away, does not care to participate in life, for the first move on the part of the intuitionist was to render conscience inacessible. All this lay in the thought of an indisputable intuition, beyond both sense and understanding, while it involved a peculiar charm incident upon the air of mystery which enveloped the subject. As King Melch- izedek was "without father or mother, beginning or end of days", so the royalty of conscience was made to depend upon the alleged fact that conscience had never had a history. Further, the case of conscience is like that of Descartes' theory of the seat of the soul, which he found in the pineal gland, where he located the res cogitans, for the reason that the function of that innocent cerebral body would otherwise remain unknown. An important observer would be likely to declare that the important item in the argument con- 196 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE cerning the moral sense was not the source, but the sanction of conscience ; that it was not a colorless psychological ques- tion, but an acute ethical problem. Nevertheless, the ques- tion was raised and while intuitionism has lost, impartial ethical theory has gained, by the discussion. Between the historic careers of these two ideas a distinct parallel is to be noted. Christianity and Stoicism together produce the principles of life in humanity in the form of the "Kingdom of God" and "world-citizenship" or cosmopoli- tanism. Such a development of concepts had the effect of quickening man's consciousness of his position in the world of humanity and did not fail to connect itself with the inner principle of conscience. With a plastic like Plato's Republic, there is no room for the contrast between individual and humanity, and hence no place for conscience; although the peculiar position of justice, which has no root in the three- fold division of the world or man and finds no appropriate class to administer it in the state, suggests the want of some such principle in idealistic ethical system. Where there is a sense of free humanity there is conscience ; where the ethical becomes universal it also assumes an internal form. Just as Plato's politics does not emancipate humanity and let it realize its inner life, so Aristotle's aesthetics of moderation does not admit of sufficient energy to provide a range for human activity. Hence both universal and inner ideals are wanting. Adam Smith was about the first to consider the ethical possibilities involved in the human relations between man and society, and his view, as expressed in his "Theory of Moral Sentiments", published exactly a century before Dar*- win's "Origin of Species", or in 1759, must be regarded as extraordinary, especially when it is remembered that his leading principle was the simple feeling of sympathy. Ac- cording to the theory, sympathy is something natural and shows itself in the instinctive fashion in which we exchange places with the sufferer (Pt. 1. Sect. 1. Ch. 1). Such sympathy is likewise mutual, so that by means of immediate feeling one can estimate the contents of another's mind, and thus by loving and resenting one can judge of love and resentment in another. (lb. Ch. 11). But such sympathy, VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 197 which forms the bond between souls, is limited, and for some reason we cannqt always respond to the feeling which the other person exhibits as his own. He who, in the excess of emotion longs for our sympathy, "must flatten the sharp- ness of its natural tone in order to reduce it to harmony and concord with the emotions of those who are about him" (lb. Ch. m-iv). Now that which limits sympathy is a sense of propriety. When Smith speaks of the kinds of action, which in individuals tend to arouse sympathy or to prevent it, he introduces the higher notion of merit. Pro- priety arises from a direct sympathy with its feelings and motives of the person who acts; merit is occasioned by an indirect sympathy with the gratitude or resentment of the person who is acted upon. (Pt. 11. Sect. 1. Ch. v). Where, under the influence of sympathy — natural, mutual, limited, — propriety leads to merit, merit also leads to duty. In this climax of the moral theory, the author changes from sym- pathy with the other to sympathy with the self, wherein he finds it possible to divide the ego into two persons, one who judges and the other who is judged, and it is the "impartial spectator" within the breast which at last finds itself in the place of conscience. This judicial function consists of sympathy with self, which produces self-approval (Pt. in. Ch. 1) ; not only does the conscience of sympathy hold the position of authority (lb. Ch. in.), but it lays down rules which are the "commands and laws of the Deity" (lb. Ch. v). Darwin does not advance as far as Adam Smith in urging the divine character of the moral law, yet he speaks of con- science as equivalent to "that short but imperious word ought", although his own interpretation seems to imply merely the "consciousness of the existence of a persistent instinct" (Descent of Man, Ch. hi). With his well- marked social instincts, a mental ability to reproduce images of past acts and their consequences, the gift of language which makes possible the expression of popular opinion, as also the principle of habit as a guide for conduct, man ac- quires a moral sense whose basis is sociability. The supre- macy of the social instincts is found in their survival over the purely selfish ones, and upon this princiole of persistence 198 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE the whole theory of moral sense seems to hinge. In man, this supreme social instinct is able to overcome the selfish one, because it is more definitely present in the mind by way of reflection ; for we are unable to recall the feeling of hunger or even the sense of self-preservation, however strong these instincts may be, while our position in the social order keeps before the mind distinct ideas of sociability. When memory compares the faint impressions of previous hunger, or other personal instinct which has been gratified, with the ever- present idea of sympathy, he feels as though he, in his selfishness, has suffered a weak instinct to conquer a strong one which will occasion a sense of retribution within him. ( Ib -> Schopenhauer stands midway between Smith and Darwin in time (1819), and transcends both of them in the con- sistency of his theory of conscience. From his philosophical point of view, the contrast between the individual and the universal in the Will-to-Live is the difference between the phenomenal and real order of things in the world, so that the ego is not separated from the life of others, except in ap- pearance; for it is the one will-to-live which appears in them all, so that he who does wrong is not wholly different from him who suffers that wrong. Only a veil of illusion separates him who inflicts pain from him who endures it; and when this curtain is penetrated man becomes the victim of his own misdeed in the form of remorse. The "secret "presentiment" that one is not really separated from the one will-to-live contains the secret of conscience, which informs man that in vicious action he is really turning his weapon upon himself and must suffer at his own hands {Welt ah Wille u. Vorstellung, § 65). Where Schopenhauer's treat- ment of the problem is wanting in psychological elements, whose place is taken by mythological ones, it is marked by a sense of that unity which pervades humanity expressed as this is in the form of eternal justice (§63). At the same time he is able to explain away the idea of a fixed egohood by regarding the principle of individuation as illusory. There is something about the sensitivity of human nature that makes such views of conscience plausible if not con- vincing. Where conscience itself as an intuition gives no VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 199 explanation of its peculiar sway over man, it is not out of place to suggest that instincts like sympathy and sociability have some bearing upon the question of approval and dis- approval, and when the dialectic of Schopenhauer introduces the ego in its individuality and the world in its unity, we feel that the spirit of the theory is worthy and needs only to be related to our consciousness to be acceptable. These views are well-meaning and will not be confused with the morbid sentiments of a Mandeville or a Nietzsche. "Bad consci- ence" is something more than that suggestion of inferiority which Nietzsche's notion of "slave morality" would in- sinuate, while "good conscience" has about it a sense of healthy human approval which no "master morality" can justify. Nevertheless, without some broad rationale of conscience, the isolated and almost arbitrary character of that inner sense is likely to arouse suspicion in the mind of the remorseful man who feels that he suffers unduly, and the social explanation of the sense seems fraught with a strange sense of liberation from the ideal. Our own age reveals the spectacle of a populace which had been dominated by an artificial conception of conscience, but now begins to dream of liberty from convention and a desire to re-cast its popular definitions of virtue and vice. To feel the serious- ness of this crisis, one need only turn the pages of our decadent dramatists to feel somewhat of the same longing for life as such apart from the conventions of conscience. Now the remedy for this unhappy condition of humanity is to be found in a more temperate view of conscience which need not be expected to assume the whole burden of human striv- ing. And then, with this just limitation of a perfectly natural sense, there may come a healthy explanation of it in connection with one humanity which evokes it in the indivi- dual's heart. 3 — THE OUTER CONFLICT OF THE EGO WITH HUMANITY Butler could do nothing with conscience and self-love because he saw in man only the ego and the world of nature in which man lives. To be in harmony with nature was thus to realize both the ego and his conscience, but the 200 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE "magisterial faculty" was still wanting in explanation. It is humanity, however, and not nature which is best adapted to account for this occult factor. The mystery of con- science is as great as, but no greater than, the mystery of pleasure; both are concerned with man's position in the human, natural order of being. Conscience is not a purely subjective principle possessed by man in his individuality, nor a wholly objective one which belongs to the race. It is a sentiment which arises when the individual, whose humanity should lead him to rise above the natural order, somehow turns against the world of humanity within him. The empirical view of conscience, which substitutes emotions like shame or sympathy for the fixed, objective order of human being, does not advance beyond the position this occupies at the beginning; for instead of explaining con- science as a philosophical problem, it gives some suggestions concerning its reaction upon the individual. With the em- pirical explanation at hand, conscience still remains a mys- tery, although the key to this has been suggested in con- nection with the order to which man belongs. Nature has determined to have man realize the immediate purpose of his being, and has thus given him an abnormal sense of pleasure and pain; humanity has been equally anxious to have man fulfill the ultimate demands of his existence, and has thus endowed him with a surplus of sensitivity to ap- proval and disapproval, whereby conscience has secured a firm hold upon her human subject. The exaggerated influence of conscience upon man makes possible the dramatic possibilities of the sentiment, and among the other fundamental emotions which lend them- selves to the poet, the sense of compunction and remorse is by no means secondary. Yet it is the Christian, and not the classic poet who is permitted to avail himself of this senti- ment, since it was first in Christianity that the individual was set in conscious relation to the surrounding order of humanity. Yet why should conscience adapt itself to the technical demands of the drama? The answer to this is to be found in the fact that conscience concerns the individual's relation to the rest of the human order. When, therefore, the drama attempts to solve its problem, which consists in ad- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 201 justing the lyrical subject to the epic situation, it finds that its human character is, strangely sensitive to a feeling of ap- proval and disapproval which arises within man when he acts in agreement or disagreement with the demands of the human order about him. Hence excessive emotion and ex- traordinary action may be produced by involving this ethical form of emotionalism. Conscience realizes the intuitive ideal inasmuch as it assumes a universal form in the midst of common elements of experience. How strange it is that, when the intuitionist seeks to display the attributes of this marvellous faculty, he can only adopt the hedonic language of pleasure and pain and speak of a "sense of approval and disapproval"! Why should conscience express its supreme dictates in such secular language when it is supposed to stand alone in a sacerdotal position ? Only by an appeal to sense may the essence of conscience be expressed, and it is here that the emptiness of intuitionism appears in its most painful form. But, at the same time, conscience turns ap- proval and disapproval into something more than mere pleasure and pain. These make possible judgments whose universal and necessary forms raise conscience to the level of a spiritual rather than a sensuous principle, because they show that conscience is not calculated to arouse mere emo- tion, but to suggest ethical judgments of good and bad, and long after an individual has ceased to feel the sway of con- science as a source of feeling, he remains under the dominion of certain moral notions from which there may seem to be no escape. In the inevitable conflict between the ego and the world of persons, the peculiar play of inner forces reveals some- what of the operation of conscience, which does not act independently but avails itself of other mental processes. The individual, whose pleasure is his own, who must live his own life, and who is thus encased in a natural form of egohood, treats his own interests in an intense fashion which assumes the active and personal form of passion. So vigorous is the impulse to assert self, so immediate the interest of self, and so obvious the validity of self as an idea, that it would seem impossible for conscience to dislodge the ego from its entrenched position. Our egohood is the most 202 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE evident thing in the world. We have no criterion of truth or reality but a subjective one, no sense of values except the immediate form of appreciation which is found in the self. Thus, in thinking and acting, man is at the mercy of self- hood, and nothing but another and stronger form of self- hood will drive him from this position. Why the individual should be so sensitive to conscience, why his personal will should bend before a sentiment, is so mysterious that the intuitionist has long felt secure in his position of invincible ignorance. Conscience is consciousness of humanity. "Good con- science" is a sense of harmony with the ideal of humanity as entertained by the ego in its life among persons. "Bad conscience" is due to a conflict between the acts and desires of the individual and the ideal demands of the human order. Thus, in a certain sense, conscience is consistency. The intuitionist's hesitation to accept any explanation of con- science has about it something more than the innate rever- ence for mystery, for the particular form of the explanatory theory usually involves a departure from the ideal, inasmuch as the outstanding social order, which is supposed to evoke the peculiar sense of ethical responsibility, is surveyed em- pirically as something not wholly distinct from nature. Conscience, however, is not mere conventionalism, but de- pends upon a harmony between the ethical subject, as he is known to himself in inner experience, and the ideal order of humanity which is above both its social and individual forms. A given condition of society could never evoke in the individual the enduring influence of conscience; indeed, a fixed yet growing order of things is the effect, not the cause, of the world of conscience. Naturistic ethics is anxious to relate its subject to some kind of an order, hence it speaks of a compact-theory by which it seeks to account for man's responsibility to an external system. Opponents of the notion of social contract emphasize the inherent and ra- tional validity of conscience, but none the less do they postu- late an order of things which can only be regarded as the world of conscience. VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 203 4 THE INNER CONFLICT BETWEEN SENTIMENT AND PAS- SION In the history of ethics, it was the idea of humanity which, in Christianity and Stoicism, made possible a sense of conscience. Modern thought realized this in theory when it considered the ego apart from society and saw how influential was the sense of human sympathy. Yet this contrast between two conflicting views of the human order is not a purely external one which may be surveyed ob- jectively; it is real and internal and is capable of consistent psychological expression. The appeal of self to man is direct and vigorous coming through the will; the influence of society is indirect and correspondingly weak in the form of intellectualism which it assumes. Such a distinction in- volves the contrast between sentiment and passion. In man, the conflict between ego and world is thus an internal one in which the individual is represented by passion, society by sentiment. These two moments of human emotion may be distinguished by observing that passion is made up of feeling and will, where sentiment combines feeling and idea. In the vigorous form which human life assumes in the midst of the rude forces of nature, where the struggle to live in- volves constant action on the part of the ego, it would seem as though altruistic sentiments were destined to be ignored by the individual in his personal life. But nature has guarded the interests of the species, while humanity has made it necessary for man to consider more than his private interests. Where egoistic passion is marked by intensity, social sentiment is enduring, and however strong the im- mediate action of the will may be, the mind is able to subdue it by means of the attribute of duration. At this time, we do not raise the question whether natural will or rational reflection is destined to rule the world of persons, but simply point to the case of conscience as evidence of the supremacy of intellect in the form of social sentiment. Owing to the peculiar steadfastness of reason, the fierce attacks of egoistic passion are withstood by the prevailing sentiment of a world of persons. He who would inflict his selfish purposes upon mankind must break through 2o 4 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE the confines of the world of humanity, as this is indelibly written upon his own mind. That which produced the individual and gave his life its significance is not likely to leave him to his own devices, nor will it set him adrift in his individuality without advising him as to the order to which he belongs. Hence, man cannot live without considering his human environment, the consciousness of which is ever ready to arise in stinging contrast to the petty plans which the narrow-minded individual is seeking to carry out. Man's impulses come and go upon occasion, but his place in society is a steadfast one, the consciousness of which is ever deepen- ing. Memory retains a vast array of ideas which lead the individual to recall the order to which he belongs, as well as the way in which moral cause and effect have been active in the past; but this same function of recollection does not serve him so well when he seeks to review the advantages of pleasures as he experienced them. In the memory of man the human ideal is secure because sentiments are retained and reproduced in a way that passions are not. 5 RESENTMENT AND REMORSE As a special example of this conflict between the ego and the world of humanity, we may take the case of anger or resentment. In the passionate combination of feeling and will, the emotion of anger blinds the individual to the reality and claim of the human order as represented by him who is the object of his spite, while its intensity leads him to exhibit his wrath in the form of stinging blow or in- sulting word. This fierce attack upon one's own social senti- ment involves a warfare between an intense personal feeling and a weak, yet enduring, social instinct, with the result that the severer passion soon exhausts itself, leaving the field of consciousness to the sentiment which contains the image of all humanity. There enters in remorse in the form of a wounded social sentiment, and the individual is stung by the contrast between his vicious self and the human order which he has sought to injure. Apparently no other explanation can be found for that mysterious and subtle sense of compunction which arises as a contrast and conflict VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 205 between ego and humanity. Conscience weakens the will because it represents the rich and varied interests of society, before which the pett^ purposes of the individual seem vain indeed. What holds good in the case of anger, is valid also for all wrong-doing which relates only to the man in his attitude toward the world. Only humanity can do wrong or be wronged, and he who experiences wrong in either an active or passive fashion finds it identified with the inner sense of his humanity. Only in humanity can pain and pleasure have any ethical significance, and how vain is it for the hedonic naturist, with his feeble equipment of feeling and desire, to seek to explain the gigantic con- sciousness of wrong which has ever made its impression upon poetry and religion. He who witnesses the display of anger in another is grieved at the thought that an in- dividual can so turn against humanity, even though the spectator is not personally injured by the attack. Even he who is the offended party is able to feel something more than an immediate personal grievance in the form of a remote sense of a wounded nature, common to both par- ties, which the quarrel involves. Our enemies injure hu- manity through us and we are thus led to feel a double sorrow incident upon the individual and universal wrong which we are suffering. The sentiment that conquers man is that which involves this worldhood, and the speculative power by which the mind represents the world of natural forms now exercises its office anew in bringing before the consciousness of the in- dividual the human world of values. This very difference in quantity, between universality in the human order and particularity in the individual, is sufficient to arouse con- science by contrasting the august plan of the kingdom of humanity with the trifling gratifications desired by the isolated individual. Constituted as man is with social capa- city, a sense of shame, sentiment, and imagination, it is no easy task for him to confine himself in the case of egohood and live out his own life in its littleness. His peace of mind demands that he shall lose himself in the total order about him, and acts of unselfishness often have no other motive than the desire on the part of the ego to lose sight 206 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE of himself for the time being. The implicit sublimity of the encompassing human order reveals itself to the individual in forms of extensity and power, whereby he is led to see how insignificant he is in the world of humanity. Egoism is possible only in a system which excludes con- sideration of any universal order for man, while the realization of a spiritual domain afflicts the ego with a self-hatred which can be relieved only by an impersonal participation in the full order of human life. In the midst of this experience which, in spite of its sublime setting, is common in human life, it will be found that conscience plays its part instinctively with a minimum of intelligence. He who has once appreciated the warm humanity of approval and disapproval, and realizes with what general forms of expression the surrounding world of humanity appeals to man, will never plague himself with casuistical doubts concerning the infallibility of conscience. Our knowledge of the natural world depends upon sense- perception and in spite of sense-deception we know nature; our knowledge of the human order depends upon conscience, yet we know humanity through an imperfect sense of right and wrong. An infallible conscience which ever dictates what is right and wrong is a chimera, and he who would take a simple human sense and try to reduce it to mathe- matical exactness is far from the spirit of the inner life. But conscience gains rather than loses when, instead of imitating the exact prismatic nature of the world of outer forms, it participates in the human world of values. 6 CONSCIENCE AND NON-RESENTMENT With the recognition of conscience as the direct con- sciousness of humanity, there has arisen another principle whose ethical essence consists in the same human element; it is the religious ideal of non-resentment. Inasmuch as both spring from an acute sense of humanity, it is advan- tageous to indicate their mutual relation as they participate in a common world of human life and imply ideal obliga- tions and occasion ideal pains. Man's superiority to nature comes out clearly in this double sense of humanity, which VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 207 appears in the presence of spiritual remorse and the absence of natural resentment ; t were life purely natural and humanity only hedonic there would be no explanation for these ideal standards. The presence of such principles reassures the moralist, and convinces him that the ideals of immediacy are not the only ones in a mind whose calculations involve considerations so remote from nature as to lie within a purely human realm where they receive a human value. The fact of conscience and of non-resentment is evidence that such a realm exists, and only consistent treatment of these human ideals is required to reduce such an order to consistency. The victory of humanity over the ego, which society achieves through conscience, appears in the religious principle of non-resentment. Here the individual is lifted out of his egohood into the pure and impersonal realm of humanity, whose value is set up as supreme in the world of activity. Viewed from within, non-resentment is the anticipation of remorse, and is influential only in a mind whose human sensibilities have been quickened in such a way that the subject is able to evacuate the sense of remorse which must follow if he give way to wrong or resentment. As an ideal, it represents the climax of humanity in the consciousness of man who is enabled to see the human order in its unity, and thus is led to realize that resentment is wrong in itself, because it must ever be expressed toward a human creature. It involves truly human values and tolerates no expediency which would do wrong that good might? come. Non- resentment is also the perfection of conscience, whose com- mon office it is to approve of right and disapprove of wrong, but which now is raised above the pettiness of such conflicts and is allowed to suffuse the whole being of the human subject. In this manner, the ideal of non-resentment in- volves a reversal of the usual order of conscience, where the aggressor feels remorse for the injury inflicted upon his fellow; for non-resentment acts vicariously as the conscience of the other man who is strangely wanting in compunction. Where one's own evil deed causes sorrow in both the doer and sufferer, inasmuch as conscience repeats the pain in the heart of him who has done wrong, the pleasure which the 208 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE conscienceless man takes in injuring another is well nigh reflected in the other who resolves to feel no pain in the midst of his ill-treatment, and refuses to suffer the wrong which would naturally entail resentment. Such is the irony of humanity that, in one case, it expresses a malicious pleasure in the pain which another feels, and then reverses the process in the form of another unnatural feeling and almost takes pleasure in contemplating the pain that another inflicts upon one. In spite of the paradoxical condition which is involved in this reversal of natural pain and pleasure, it is a matter of common experience that, with a sensible person, who, through religion or reflection, has found his place in the world, there is less pain in the mind of him who suffers pain than in that of him who inflicts it. Hence the con- clusion that it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. The peculiar idealism which ever envelops the problem of remorse toward self and resentment toward another ap- pears in the form of detached or disinterested vices. These unhappy tendencies, which led Butler (Sermons, Preface) to class them as the lowest of passions because of their disinterested nature, are recognizable in the form of malice and envy. Where much emphasis is placed upon the ideal in virtue, it is well to consider the ideal in vice; that is, an evil quality in the subject which sets him at variance with another even when no advantage accrues to the individual. And in such cases of disinterested vice, the freedom of humanity from nature and the claim of immediate advan- tage appear in a form which is as convincing as it is dis- tressing to contemplate. Now malice arises where one takes pleasure in another's pain, envy where he feels pain at another's pleasure. Such unnatural feelings, which minister as little to egoism as to altruism, reveal man in contrast to his humanity, where he fails to assume a proper relation to the world which contains him. In his inability or unwillingness to assume universal interests which would unify him with the world of humanity, he feels these passions which are all too human and wholly unknown in nature. Man's very maliciousness thus identifies his being with a higher order, and the unnaturalness of his vice indicates how the opposite virtues of sympathy and non- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 209 resentment relate him to a human order of being. 7 — THE POSSIBILITY OF MALEVOLENCE The unique quality of humanity appears in vice as well as virtue, therefore, and the place of conscience is seen more clearly when the axe is laid to the root of human bitterness. Only man is malicious; only man is capable of vice; for the sub-human forms of life permit no unity and universality, which make the moral life of man what it is. Corruptio optimi pessima — hence human hatred expresses the lowest depth of sin. For this reason, the exaggerated activity of conscience need cause no surprise, and when one sees how the demands of humanity are such as to forbid all vicious egoism, he will accept the function of conscience as a necessary but inferior phase of the ethical life. The restraint of nature must anticipate the positive development of humanity, and it is conscience which weakens one part of man that another may grow strong. In the literature of non-resentment, no systematic theory of the ideal is outlined, and it seems to be by sheer religious insight that the seer is led to mark the presence of the principle. The general presumption seems to be that if man is aware of his presence in an extra-natural order, whatever the particular nature of that order may be, lie will tend to view his life in another light, will assume new standards and perform new duties. Taoism presents a nihilistic system of things and counsels non-requital of injury as something which involves the acme of inaction. Hence, when it is said, "It is the way of Tao to requite injury with kindness" (Tao Teh King, Ch. lxiii), it is also pointed out that Tao, which involves a negative conception of being, implies inaction as the ideal of life. The Bhagavad-Gita follows a similar line of argument and praises the disciple who, in a complete indifference which knows no desire or dismay, joy or fear, love or hate, renounces the hatred of enemies (Ch. xn). Buddhism and the Wisdom literature of the Old Testament proceed inward to a psychological principle and observe the effect of non-resentment upon him who would naturally expect requital of injury done. Thus 210 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE the Dhamma-Pada declares, "Hatred ceases not by hatred, but hatred ceases only by love" (Ch. i), while the Book of Proverbs counsels the seeker after wisdom to feed the enemy and heap coals of fire upon his head, as if to change his attitude of malevolence. Finally, the New Testament dis- cusses the same ideals of love in place of hate and non- resistance in place of revenge as though they were organic to the Kingdom of God, for they are surveyed in a universal light and are not sanctioned according to any practical principle of law. In distinction from ethics, religion possesses a positive form expressed in a social institution like the church, just as it allies itself with a metaphysical order of being. When this metaphysical method is applied to life, it results in creating an ideal realm of benevolence which does not fail to assert itself as motive in the mind of the disciple, who feels that he owes allegiance to an ideal order of things wherein utility and other practical consequence are of no avail. Considered in ethical fashion, it is man's inherent relation to the world of humanity which involves him in the extra-natural obliga- tions and renders him subject to a law which is beyond wis- dom and justice. By means of mere reform man could accomplish the practical result of remorse and repentance, just as the practical desire to keep the peace might lead one to refrain from retaliation, but the sense of humanity, which habitually idealizes itself and views its relations as thoroughly self-contained, does not rest content with any temporary ad- justment of person to person, but so invades the mind of the ethical subject that he cannot rest until he has placed him- self in right relations with the order of his own being. To know that one has incurred no enemity from without and to feel none within is the ideal human desire which seeks to render the individual at one with humanity. No harm can come from a sense of conscience which insures one against all resentment from others and from himself, just as nothing but satisfaction results from a sense of pleasure which is devoted to securing benefit from nature. But where pleasure becomes a positive end and leads man to will it for itself, and where conscience is similarly drawn away from its position, in humanity, only defeat can ensue VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 211 for him who has thus given himself up to morbid pleasure and pain. Both natural pleasure and the pain of com- punction weaken the will and retard the process of human striving whose purpose is the realization of man, and he who grasps at immediate pleasure or, on the other hand, is re- strained by the pain of remorse has failed to appreciate the value of that serene humanity which should possess his soul. Humanity has determined that man should strive, and what- ever interferes with this impulse to assert one's selfhood and worldhood is to be condemned. Can there be any doubt that Bohemianism, as known in the old world and the new, has softened the moral fibre of the will, or that British Puritanism, in its Anglo-American forms has been similarly forbidding to the progress of genuine humanity ? Conscience has ever been eccentric; for which reason the mind with naturistic tendencies felt free to relegate it to a lower place in his table of motives, while the plodding moralist has suffered his being to lose its poise. The remedy for this critical situation is to be found in a view which requires of conscience a mere sense of what is in accordance with an ever-striving humanity. Ill CHARACTERISTIC ETHICS AND RECTITUDE I MORAL LIFE IN REASON The tendency of sensation to pass over into idea and the reproduction of mental life in the form of memory make possible a form of moral life in idea. When we recall how hard it was for the hedonist to account for human action upon the basis of pleasure, it will be seen that a view of life according to the imperceptible involves no excess of idealism. The human mind is not at all devoted to the life of immediacy, and the inevitable tendency to reflect inclines man to a life removed from direct contact with the world; moreover, the principle of symbolism enters to make a certain definite course of conduct stand for various forms of human effort, so that life according to the general ideal of virtue is no more remarkable metaphysically than life according to a general experience of pleasure. In the midst of this, asso- ciation enters in to bind a certain feeling to a convenient form of representation in idea, and the cardinal qualities of tem- perance, courage, benevolence, and justice are only so many nuclei about which cluster rich forms of conduct in the manifold. Since man is in nature and is destined to remain her creature, in some sense of that term, it is to be expected that feelings should arise and become factors in his existence ; hence hedonism expresses some degree of that humanism which invests mankind. In the same way, it is no matter of surprise that a detached being like man should introduce ideas of his own, and having created them should live ac- cording to them. Among such ideas are beauty, knowledge and virtue, or the right. In the case of these ethical ideals, we find that we do not come upon them suddenly, but with a valuable form of preparation incident upon conscience, whose place in 212 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 213 humanity is almost beyond dispute. To make the transition from pleasure to virtue would be abrupt and the way there- unto would be forbidding indeed; but as pleasure finds its significance in a world of nature, so conscience reverts to a world of humanity whence comes also a sense of right and wrong, unknown in the natural order where nothing is for- bidden or permitted. For this reason the idea of right must be discussed in connection with conscience and not in com- petition with pleasure, the mind of man which interprets his remorse and condemns his resentment may now be expected to express itself more directly in the form of a doctrine of right. The ideal of right forms the counterpart of conscience whose nature is found in inner sense. Conscience does not tell us of anything beyond itself, but in a general way arouses man to a sense of his humanity, whereby he is enabled to form clear ideas of right and wrong. Where conscience is composed of feeling plus idea in the form of sentiment, the right unites idea with idea to form judgment; the analogy to this is found in the psychology of cognition, where sensa- tion becomes ideation. To account for the intelligence of moral relations, philosophy has appealed to the understanding with the aim of showing how readily the data of conscious- ness fall into the forms of the intellect. Such an ambition is represented most characteristically by Socrates, who con- tends that virtue can be conceived and communicated accord- ing to definition, as also by Kant who leads his categories from the field of defeat in speculative reason to the field of victory in practical reason. With these two heroes of the moral world-order, there may be observed a common disdain of speculative problems which leads to an excessive regard for practical ones, as if one could say, Virtue have I loved, but truth have I hated. But for all this enthusiasm over sheer morality, the fact remains that judgments of right stand in need of the justification required by judgments of reality. For this reason, man cannot discuss his ethical problems in any spirit of moral seclusion, but must come out into the living world of persons and survey his cherished ideals in the midst of warm instincts and natural tendencies. The principle of continuity, which carries man onward from 214 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE an original naivete, to a full humanity, affords insight into the connection between the immediate and ultimate, and shows how interest in pleasure develops into an interest in virtue. If man has actually passed from nature to culture, from barbarity to civilization, there have been inner changes in view and in sentiment which have accompanied these outer transformations in occupation and motive, whereby virtue has arisen contemporary with the unfolding of humanity as a form of consciousness. In nature the expedient takes the place of the right, and conditional morality must wait until there is opportunity before absolute right and wrong can be made the objects of desire and aversion. At the same time, in an age of civilization, it is fruitless to seek a reduction of virtues to primitive utilities, and the perfected state of man is as devoted to the right as the primitive condition was given up to necessity. Two general views of rectitude be- came possible; one the product of a rationalism which seeks to account for ethics by appealing to reason; the other the natural outcome of human consciousness in its search after ideals. These contrasted views of rectitude are quite in keeping with the two methods of treating conscience. Where the older view surveyed conscience in an airless landscape as a clearly outlined intuition, the newer view finds it draped in the atmosphere of humanity where its form is seen as sense. So the ideal of rectitude appears dogmatically in the form of autonomy; or more critically as a human but disinterested regard for what is noble and meritorious. Where autono- mous ethics exalts an analytical judgment of the form, "Virtue is virtue," the more humanistic view aims at synthetic judgment and asserts, "Virtue is something human." When we have seen how fruitless is the attempt to establish autonomous judgments which forbid all human interest, we shall be able to appreciate how great is the problem of ethical judgment in general, and shall then find opportunity to develop the rich synthetic judgment of rectitude that arises naturally in the inner development of human con- sciousness. For apart from the several methods of autonomy and intuitionism, it is still possible to deduce rectitude as also to find a place for virtue. VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 215 2 — RECTITUDE AS AUTONOMY Where conscience assumes the form of sentiment, recti- tude appears as a judgment. Ancient ethics asserted its faith in man's ability to pursue the path of conduct in something more than an instinctive way of elaborating the ideal of virtue, while modern ethics has expressed a similar faith in the norm of rectitude. Hence in the usual fashion of mor- ality, one may say, "Courage is a virtue," and "Honesty is right;" but the attempt to detach these from human experi- ence and render them self-evident propositions involves in- surmountable contradiction. Both autonomous rectitude and isolated conscience are far removed from the spirit of humanity, and however inclusive they seem to be it is safe to assume that they are not only concentric with that humanity but circumscribed by it. As with rectitude so also with virtue whose force is practically the same. The predicate, right, is so conceived as to include virtue as the subject, so that the judgment becomes an identical one. Judgments of right are thus given up to an analytical form whose practical worth is open to serious question, although it must be conceded that this phase of ethics deserves the credit for having established the possibility of an ethical function of judgment. In Greek philosophy, the development of ethical judgment became a problem as soon as Socrates made possible the con- cept, in the form of ethical definition. This question was taken up by the Megarian School where Euclid united the ethical ideal of Socrates with the metaphysical doctrine of Parmenides. The good thus becomes the one true being, however various may be the names applied to it, and any attempt to describe it must be in terms of identity. It was this notion which led Stilpo to throw doubt upon the possi- bility of judgment, and he inclines toward sophistry as Euclid did toward the Eleatic doctrine. So perfect is the unity of being that every statement of relation assumes the form of an identical proposition which forbids all progress in knowl- edge, (cf. Windleband, Hist, of Anc. Philos. § 27.) Such a view witnessed a practical culmination in the nihilistic ideal of a7rd$eia. Among the Germans, Kant has not 216 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE failed to rehabilitate the Socratic ideal with certain com- plexities incident upon his own moralic method. Kant saw that there was a humanity which had value and dignity, just as there was a morality that was amenable to right and duty (cf. Meta. d. Sitten, S. 65), and it was only the lack of freedom which prevented him from giving his judgments of right more content than his notion of autonomy would allow. This logic advances to the synthetical ideal of judgment, while his ethics halts upon the field of the analytical, and habitually reveals an inclination to cast out all warmth of life even to moral feeling itself as something heteronomous and spurious (Meta. d. Sitten, S. 71-72). From the usual standpoint of autonomy, which is that of rationalism, it seems impossible to invest virtue with any cardinal content, so that the defender of this form of faith is forced to uphold a doctrine of life without reality, just as the cramped position of the hedonist led him to a life without ideality. Autonomy is wanting in content because it has no worthy resources of which it may avail itself in attributing significance to morality. For this reason, it contents itself with negations directed against the hedonic and utilitarian, and thus opposes morality which springs from inclination and leads to the calculation of consequences. To act from inclination would put a pathological motive in place of a moral one, even though the act were one of benevolence, while to be guided by the idea of well-being would produce legality instead of morality, even in case of an act of justice (Meta. d. bitten, s. 255-257). The only consistent plan, which appears to him who believes that life consists of either desire or duty, involves the autonomous ideal, whereby one must base virtue upon virtue and follow right for right's sake. Before Kant, Samuel Clarke had involved himself in a similar paradox, escape from which was found in a mild form of eudaemonia wherein both rigorists abandon their perpendicular positions for a larger view of life which in- volves the postulates of Deity and immortality. Clarke was supreme in the dogmatism that declared moral relations to be as demonstrable as mathematical ones, and in the form of an identical proposition he made virtue equal virtue as certainly as twice two equals four. It is absurd to reason VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 217 otherwise, and one can no more logically identify virtue with pleasure than he can make twice two equal five. Such is the abstract path which Clarke pursued until he came abreast of human life; then he summed up the situation with all the pathos of moral doubt coupled with ethical earnestness, expressed in the following words: "Thus far is clear 'Tis certain indeed that virtue and vice are eternally and necessarily different, and that one truly deserves to be chosen for its own sake and the other ought by all means to be avoided, though a man were sure for his own particular neither to gain nor to lose anything by the practice of either . . . but the case does not stand thus . . . The practice of virtue is accompanied with great temptations and allurements of pleasure and profit . . . And this alters the question and destroys the practice of that which appears so reasonable in the whole speculation, and intro- duces the necessity of rewards and punishments." (Natural Religion, 1, 7). The hopelessness of such autonomy need not cloud the mind with doubts concerning the possibility of ethical judg- ment in general, which involves a question vastly more momentous than the pedantic issues of intuitionism. Is ethical judgment possible? Such is the question that is to be debated in this part of our study, which indulges the intellectualistic side of morality to the greatest possible ex- treme. Only a certain moral one-sidedness in Kant could have made him so skeptical of the function of judgment in logic and so credulous of its value in ethics, for in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft he does all in his power to obstruct the path of judgment, while in the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft he betrays a strange weakness for autonomous ethical propositions; just as in the metaphysical work he seeks by all means to cast out the premises of soul, world, and world-soul, while in the moralistic one he suffers no sense of logical contradiction to forbid his rein- statement of the postulates of God, freedom, and immorality. In the first Kritik, Kant's ideal of judgment is the synthetic one, according to the great interrogative, "Wie sind synthetische Urtheile a priori moglich" (S. 19). In the second Kritik he falls back upon the analytical proposition 218 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE and asserts, virtue is virtue. In such a confusion of methods, what was needed was a recognition that all judgment is inherently difficult, so that both logic and ethics must first justify the general connection of concepts before any par- ticular forms may be discussed. 3 THE PROBLEM OF ETHICAL JUDGMENT In the beginning, with Socrates, the principle of definition was an ethico-logical one, fit for a discussion of both the good and true ; hence we should expect the moralist to interest himself in the possibilities of concept and judgment. The elaboration of the concept, which is a process involving abstraction and generalization, brings about a fusion of an idea and its marks, as man with bi-pedality, gold with yellowness, and animal with locomotion. But further ex- amination reveals a certain looseness of connection between the concept and its marks which can hardly exist with a thing and its qualities. Hence arises the question, How does a concept inhere in its marks? In firm analytic fashion, or in a more fluid synthetic form? The Socratic Megarians, like Euclid and Stilpo, opposed any separation of thing into qualities, or of concept into marks, and our modern meta- physics with Spinoza and Kant, reveals a hesitancy to relate a substance to its attributes or a thing-in-itself to sensible phenomena. Moreover, there is something in the very nature of logical law to prevent any form of judgment which seeks to pass beyond the principle of identity. This fundamental logical principle helps the concept to connect thing with quality, or substance with attribute, but hinders any attempt to separate them into a judgment of relation. Monism is the enemy of all judgment. If man is man, how can he be bi-pedality; if gold is gold, how can it be yellow; if animal is animal, how can we call it locomotion? Is the subject the predicate, does it possess the predicate, or in some manner inhere in it? The prin- cipium identiatis, which in logic identifies a thing with itself and in ethics makes virtue equal virtue, seems to prescribe any judgment of relation between subject and predicate, so that identity in thought and autonomy in life seem to follow VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 219 as necessary consequences. The way to synthesis, which Kant affected to find in his intuitions of time and space, as in the categories of substance and casuality, was such as to limit itself to the world of appearance only, where the law of identity s itself devoted to reality, no longer threatened. He who would effect genuine judgments will find, however, that this law which aids the concept is of value also in per- fecting the judgment, for it allows a limited form of synthesis which yields definite knowledge. We do not care to assert that gold has yellowness in general, for the peculiar luster of the metal is not like the tint of the flower, just as the sweetness of the apple is not like that of the orange, or the virtue of man like that of the angel. There must be some sort of qualification if the quality is to be de- scribed, (cf. hotze, Grundzuge d. Logik, § 30). The second law of thought now appears to continue the work of identifying concepts, and where we cannot immedi- ately connect two different ideas, we still find it possible to set up some relation between them. The law in question relates to causality as the first one related to substance; it is the principium rationis sujjicientis. According to such a principle of sufficient reason, we may take a series of pro- positions concerning gold and assert them in accordance with these two principles of identity and relation. Gold is yellow in the light, fusible in the fire, soluble in aqua regia, valuable in the market. Thus we justify the copula and satisfy the law of identity by adding a sufficient reason for our judgment concerning a certain idea. In the same spirit we now limit the predicate in such a way as to conform to the subject. Our own language does not indulge us in these forms of taste and discrimination, but in another mode of speech we may find the desired limitation of the predicate. Thus where we say, Man is beautiful, woman is beautiful, the French language limits the predicate according to the peculiar attri- butes of the sexes, and in a keener sense of perception affirms, I'homme, il est beau; la femme, elle est belle, so that the demands of logic and aesthetics are met at once. From the ethical point of view, where we would not have the autono- mous principle of identity deny our right to make certain useful assertions concerning virtue, we are permitted to de- 220 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE clare, Virtue is beautiful in humanity, serviceable in nature, valuable in society, and praiseworthy in religion, wherein we have a series of synthetic judgments more advantageous to our science than the monotonous, Virtue is virtue, which may seem sublime in the abysmal character of its unpersonal utterances, but does not serve the living interests of humanity. 4 — REAL RECTITUDE AND HUMAN INTEREST The foregoing discussion of moral rectitude has tended to show how ethical judgments are valid even when they do not confine themselves to purely identical propositions; hence the loss of autonomy in particular is not the loss of the judging function in general. In place of a valueless autonomy, we may substitute certain synthetic forms of judgment which indicate the sense of worth that the mind attaches to forms of conduct apart from any immediate ad- vantage which may accrue therefrom. Where logical judg- ments are so formed that they have a necessity and univer- sality independent of experience, ethical propositions are made prior to pleasure, and the revised form of the doctrine of right involves only the possibility of disinterestedness in attitude and action. If man is not supposed to be autono- mous, he is called upon to be human, and if he need not inhibit all sense of inclination in the pursuit of virtue he is expected to be distinterested. Is man capable of detached conduct or must he ever calculate consequence and live in the lower level of experience and pleasure? This is the supreme question and unless it receive satisfactory answer, it is vain to premise any ethical value to our human striving. If the hedonic argument were more compact, and the pursuit of pleasure were destined to yield permanent advan- tage, or if the eudaemonistic ideal of limited activity were likely to content man, there would be less hope of establishing the ideal of disingenuousness which contains the hope of humanity. Characteristic morality, in its advance beyond the empirical wiles of nature, may be invested with a content which still distinguishes the judgment from the empty rationalism of autonomy, and where the ideal keeps free from the taint of immediacy, it may assert the humanity of VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 221 man as the ground of all ethical, as well as other forms of judgment. Thus Kant, felt secure in his illicit eudaemonism because he relegated the ethical well-being of man to the trans-phenomenal world, while Clarke still hoped to continue his rationalistic argument in his abrupt transition from the here to the hereafter. In the midst of this there is oppor- tunity for real contention, and we may pause before sincerely asking ourselves whether man, whose life assumes a pheno- menal and individual form, is capable of making universal and necessary humanity his aim, which alone can invest his being with dignity. To pursue such an inquiry, one must lay less stress upon the severer forms of logical law and pay more heed to the yielding judgments of the aesthetic con- sciousness, where may be found permanent pleasure and universal perception. If man were meant to live according to nature, he would have no understanding; if his life were to be guided by reason, he would have no organs of sense. But man has both sense and understanding, and his life consists in ad- justing their respective claims in both action and reflection. The human mind is not so given up to sense that it cannot entertain ideas, or so lacking in originality that it is unable to connect these in forms of judgment. Speculation thus becomes possible, and, while man seems to be hemmed in by time and space and inclosed in his individuality, he evinces the ability to view the world in its totality. This is by virtue of the implicit humanity of the ego which makes possible the perception of outer universality, because it is possessed of a corresponding inner unity. Humanity thus becomes an object of consciousness and it is only as the individual abandons the petty egoism of opinion and rises to the univer- sality of judgment that knowledge becomes possible. Such intellectual disinterestedness reveals itself in science, in art, in philosophy, and since man has produced these speculative forms of his humanity we need not question his ability to consider humanity as such. It is the survival of sense that leads ethics to wonder whether man can rise above hedonism, but the triumph of reason in the judgments of physical, aesthetical and dialectical science is likewise the triumph of humanity over egoistic interests. 222 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE The human combination of sense and spirit which seems to threaten pure cognition, reappears in a practical fashion in the kingdom of motivation, whence one is led to inquire whether man can make humanity an object of action as well as of thought. Human culture leaves no doubt that this high endeavor has ever characterized man, and just as he has long since surrendered to the ideal in contemplation, so he has repeated the performance in the field of conquest. One need only glance at art to behold the free contribution which man has made to humanity, for without natural or social constraint he has perfected the most excellent things his mind could conceive. The fine arts are so many evi- dences of human consecration to an ideal, and as long as interest in such unrealities abide, nothing may be feared for the security of a detached humanity. Religion likewise involves this same inclination for humanity and, apart from the assumption that man can will that which does not profit him, the acts of religionists can never be analyzed. The Vedic anxiety to discover the Self, where alone one may abide in security, and the Christian culture of the Soul are sufficient evidence of the disinterested behaviour of man. One need not long to demonstrate the validity of autonomous judgments which can only say, Virtue is virtue, for in the aesthetic-religious consciousness he has living examples of judgments which declare, Life is spiritual and humanity is of value. The genuine aim of the characteristic moralist should be, not to demonstrate man's power to follow the abstract in thought or action, but his ability and willingness to consider the universal interest of humanity. 5 HUMANITY AS THE IDEAL In addition to placing the detached interest of humanity in the stead of the autonomous judgments of rationalistic ethics, our system calls upon us to recognize the positive elements which appear in the synthetic judgments of custom. These objectifications of the ever-striving human spirit are not so imperfect but that they can at least suggest the ideals of humanity. One should not be too cavalier-like with natural phenomena, which are the subject-matter of science VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 223 and art; nor should he uphold a characteristic ethical system which tends to f flout the testimony given by cardinal virtues and spiritual ideals. Neglect of humanity has caused modern morality to deliver the virtues over to either a relativistic philosophy, like Hobbes' and Mandeville's which completely eviscerated them, or to a rationalistic one wherein they were immediately petrified in the form of "intuitions." Virtues are not hedonic utilities or intuitive norms but human values. Courage and justice, benevolence and wisdom do not arise because of any mere demand on the part of society, or because of their disciplinary value of character, but they appear according to the constraint of humanity which seeks to express its sense of worth and dignity. This second and, as we believe, superior view of human rectitude has not lacked recognition in modern ethics, while antiquity thought of inculcating no other ideal. Even Kant, the arch autonomist, seems to have been possessed of an inkling of this truth, for he kept referring to humanity and its moral dignity, and this very notion may have been strengthened by his knowledge of Hutcheson's "Inquiry Concerning Moral Good and Evil". Hutcheson's reply to Mandeville, with whom also Kant was familiar, involved a superior conception of moral sense, just as it carried out a fine argument for disinterested morality; all it required to reduce it to a system was the principle of value and a metaphysics of humanity. The aim of Hutcheson was to defend an original sense of virtue antecedent to all interest, and his arguments led him to a position expressive of the most consistent form of intuitionism. He contended for neither abstract rectitude nor concrete feeling, but allied himself with a view of virtue as something independent of private interest, but at one with the well-being of humanity. This is finely expressed by saying "Whence this secret chain between each person and mankind? How is my interest connected with the most distant parts of it? And yet I must admire actions which are beneficial to them, and love the author whence this love, compassion, indignation, and hatred toward even feigned characters, in the most distant ages and nations according as they appear kind, faithful, 224 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE and compassionate or of opposite dispositions, toward their imaginary contemporaries? If there is no moral sense, which makes rational actions appear beautiful, or deformed ; if all approbation be from the interest of the approver, 'What's Hecuba to us, or we to Hecuba' ?" Hutcheson's theory depends upon a "sense of moral good in humanity" which pleases us without any sense of advantage (Inquiry, Sect. i). This attitude, anticipating the aesthetic ideals of Kant, is assumed as something in keeping with the usual practices of mankind, and represents an appreciation of humanity with no superior among the English moralists of the 1 8th century. Hutcheson's argument becomes all the more plausible when, instead of seeking to divest the moral sense of all feeling of pleasure, he turns that feeling into something universal and intellectual and accounts for private gratification as "concomitant pleasure" (Inquiry, Sect. II. vm ). This seems to be the most defensible view of intuitionism and rectitude that the school has to offer; its basis is found in humanity rather than in reason. Man is represented neither as having nor as wanting private interest, and the conflict between egoism and altruism, autonomy and heteronomy is lost sight of in the general contention that humanity has its own inner life and makes itself an end both real and worthy. No longer need we wonder whether man can lend himself to altruism or autonomy, for now we are involved in the larger question whether humanity has sufficient power to accomplish its vocations or enough value to content the strivings of man's spirit. If man is not destined to enjoy the happiness of his humanity, but must strive with himself as well as with nature, he is permitted to know that in the consciousness of his own spiritual nature is the ideal of rectitude to be found. He is not advised by his conscience to surrender to any impersonal law of autonomy, calculated to destroy all love of life, knowledge and beauty, but the humanity that lends its essence to the moral sense reappears and con- strains man to select an aim which, while allied with his own nature, shall not be phenomenal and individual, but real and universal. Here appears in the particular form of VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 225 motive that general principle of humanity which, as an impulse in the individual, tendency in the race, and order in the world, served as the premises of this view of man's morality. And whatever the most convincing categories of ethics may turn out to be, the supreme reality of the moral life consists in an ever-living humanity whose realization is the only justifiable and likely aim of ethical striving. Our examination of characteristic morality has shown how necessary it is to keep within the shadow of such an idea. Conscience makes its appeal to us because it speaks the inti- mate language of our own being, while rectitude appeals to our minds by reason of its connection with the totality of our human nature. Having observed how conscience and rectitude assume their proportions in the one all-inclusive humanity, we are ready to make the transition to the second form of char- acteristic ethics based upon the will rather than the intellect, and changing the view from norms to be recognized to duties to be fulfiled. Here the usual treatment of the ethical problem betrays a peculiar lapse of logic not com- monly noticed. By what intellectual right do we effect the transition from rectitude to obligation, or from accepting a point of view to performing a task? Kant asserts the autonomy of rectitude and the categorical nature of duty without showing how one leads to the other. Before him, Price had raised this very question and had sought to pass from the certainty of judgments of rectitude to the obliga- tion of moral duties. "From the account given of obliga- tion, it follows that rectitude is a law as well as a rule to us; that it not only directs but binds all as far as it is perceived." (Review, Chap, vi.) But this only states the difficulty without solving it, and the philosophic interests of unity demand that we find the same function operative in both the judgment of rectitude and the law of obligation. This function must be capable of assuming an active as well as a passive form, while it must be broad enough to include both forms of characteristic ethics. For such a purpose there seems to be only one principle: namely, humanity. In it are found conscience and rectitude in their intellectual forms, as well as freedom 226 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE and duty in their volitional capacity. And not only upon the metaphysical side, but in connection with moral interest may we note this; for it is humanity which puts forth the ideal of rectitude and the motive of duty not for the sake of these principles, but for the sake of indwelling human consciousness which uses these as modes of expression and forms of realization. The continuity of human striving, having identified the man of sense with the man of reason, now reappears to reconcile the contrary forms of morality as rectitude and morality as duty. It is the same human creature who is first passive in his judgments and then active in his motives. IV HUMAN STRIVING AS FREEDOM I THE PLACE OF FREEDOM IN THE WORLD Like many another problem in the ethical striving of humanity, — the paradox of pleasure, the conflict between immediate and remote well-being, remorse and non-resent- ment, autonomous and disinterested virtue — the question concerning human freedom involves again the idea of man's ambiguous position in the universe. The inherent conflict between naturistic and humanistic forces thus re- appears upon a new field to create a new and particular form of an old and general problem. Hence the com- petitive claims of freedom and determinism need cause no surprise in connection with a method of thought which seeks everywhere to account for individual ethical problems upon the basis of a universal striving of humanity toward realization. With nature as his origin and her forms of life still adhering to him, could man be expected to conduct himself according to sheer liberty? With a human destiny, which has led him out of nature into spiritual life in its characteristic forms of consciousness and conduct, can this same human subject be accounted for according to causa- tion? Man's very humanity is proof of his freedom, his history is the unfolding of his freedom, the goal of all his striving is no point in nature, but an object set by the reasonable will itself. In this way, freedom finds a secure position in the striving life of man, and it is only when we set out with a fixed and finished conception of humanity that liberty causes philosophic difficulty. The principle of freedom prepares the way for duty as conscience expanded into rectitude, all four principles pro- ceeding from the one humanity with its inner life and out- ward striving. Thus related to the whole moral life of 227 228 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE man, freedom appears as no extra premise or postulate brought in from without to further the moral conquest carried on by humanity, but assumes the form of something implicit in the full striving of man. If there can be found no substitute for the traditional idea of free-will, it will be necessary to invest the old principle with a new content, as also to adopt some new line of approach to it. The elder view provoked a dualism, inasmuch as it set liberty and law at variance with each other; the new and humanistic method asserts a monistic tendency and seeks to reconcile the unhappy contrast between freedom and fate. Genuine human liberty does not consist in any supposed ability to defeat nature in its law of casuality, but involves the power to depart from nature in the interests of a higher human life. Hence if freedom arouses in nature the apprehension that casuality sometimes provokes in ethical consciousness, the great World-Spirit could not complain that liberty in man was an attempt to destroy her laws, but could only feel chagrin that her highest creature should leave her to vow allegiance to a superior order of being. For man has shown this very tendency to abandon the immediate order for the sake of carrying on a form of life in another realm, and the question of freedom is not one of mere possibility, but of reality, inasmuch as man has been carrying on the work of liberty for an indefinite length of time. Human freedom is not a special problem encountered only on the steep road of dialectics, but is the usual situation in the world of humanity. There is nothing extraordinary about the prob- lem, that should distinguish it from the question of con- science or rectitude; but it is something to be expected in connection with that striving toward selfhood which gives man's life its meaning. 2 THE PUNCTUAL VIEW OF FREEDOM The traditional view of freedom has put the problem of liberty and determinism in the position of a sharp either — or; to have both seems impossible. The ambiguous posi- tion of man in the universe, however, does not suffer fate and freedom to rest upon the same metaphysical level, but VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 229 adjusts them vertically as successive stages of the one active principle of the world. Physical force can hardly be regarded as friendly to the human will, but why should we interpret the unconscious activity of nature as though it were inimical to our liberty? It is nearer the truth to survey nature as though she were quite indifferent to the purposes of humanity, and it is a false romanticism which imagines that nature frowns or smiles upon our freedom. The metaphysical place of causality is beneath that of free- dom as all nature is inferior to humanity, and the picture of the deterministic problem which presents a conflict upon a level field is far removed from the exigencies of the case which demand that we shall recognize the subordination of the lower to the higher as the free fate of humanity. Mere naturistic ethics, which looks to immediate pleasure as the end of life, and sheer characteristic morality which knows only the restraint of conscience, produce this false horizon- talism in the question of freedom, and a system which finds man striving to ascend from nature can only survey this question vertically, where the lower lends to the higher and the world of sense prepares the way for the world of spirit. Man in his freedom is not expected to fight against man in his fate, but his problem consists in adapting the forms and forces of nature to the sovereign end of his life. Such a conception of the problem, where an ever-striving humanity ascends above the confines of nature, renders un- necessary the conventional arguments for and against the equilibrium of motives. It is usual to insist upon freedom as something evidenced by immediate consciousness before the act and a sense of compunction after it, provided it has been of an unethical character. Before acting, the subject feels free to choose for good and bad; after acting, his sense of approval or disapproval advises him that he could have done otherwise ; hence the moral victory or defeat. In oppo- sition to this, determinism maintains a principle of physical causality, which can brook no interference, as well as an historical principle of custom whereby events "shape them- selves" and things become what they are. With this heavy armor, determinism seeks to defend itself against its liber- tarian adversary, who is so far removed from his antagonist 230 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE that the light darts of inner consciousness never reach their mark. No such conflict takes place, except upon the pages of libertarian and deterministic literature, for the free human being has no more desire to dethrone causality than a crea- ture possessed of locomotion has to uproot the earth beneath it. While humanity assumes a fluid form indicative of inner freedom, it is not to be wondered at that the forms of nature and the facts of history should appear as if crystallized. But the total universe is vast enough and suffi- ciently rich in content to include, not only fluidity and solidity, but also freedom and fate. The punctual view of freedom is insufficient to account for human activity or to satisfy its ethical needs; hence it becomes necessary to extend it in such a way as to identify it with the recognized principle of human emancipation from nature. In such a way a systematic view of liberty appears and a genuine human being takes the place of the "free moral agent." The older view of freedom presents an unequal conflict between the punctual liberty of the isolated individual and a whole world of physical force; while now we are led to see that the contrast is between the lower order of nature with its law and the higher one of humanity with its liberty. Kant, who was so strangely concerned for a fixed freedom which should surrender man to the categorical imperative, still saw how reason could reconcile phenomenal causality with intelligible freedom, a view which Schopen- hauer all but reduced to a consistent form of voluntaristic monism. Indeed, Schopenhauer's system so related the will to the world that he was able to declare that the will is not only free but almighty — "der Wille ist nicht nur frei, son- de™ soaar alhnachtig (Welt ah Wille u. V orstellung , § 53). Now, this systematic liberty of humanity as an inner world- whole must be substituted for the solitary freedom of the individual. Medieval freedom with its indifference to nature must be abandoned, and along with it departs the whole casuistical scheme of argument for and against punctual liberty. Man's whole inner life, and not merely his alleged freedom is called in question, and ethical philosophy must assume a new task and develop new methods. The career of ethical VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 231 thought in Europe witnessed a change from the naive will- less morals of antiquity and the sharp punctual freedom of Augustine. It is surprising to us moderns how antiquity succeeded in acquiring its ideals without the use of any special principle of freedom, but that is because we assume no full and systematic view of human activity. Two forms of freedom now confront each other: (1) A formal freedom which works broadly in the interests of the su- perior man: (2) A dynamic freedom reducing the whole ambiguous position of man in the universe to an immediate choice. The first one made possible a complete freedom for man, not only in his moral activity, but also in art and science; the second was concerned for ethics alone and sought to prove only enough liberty to enable man to perform his duty. When, therefore, the moral life is so recon- structed that it includes the total perfection of man in his spiritual superiority, the need of an incisive liberty of in- stantaneous choice seems to pass away. Man possesses freedom in cognition as well as in cona- tion and a glance at the usual conduct of the mind may serve to enlighten the idea of liberty. Sensation, upon which we depend for our source of knowledge, does not so limit man that he has no higher form of mental life, for the mind transforms this into a free idea. Such freedom is no ar- bitrary product of consciousness, but a mental image in- harmony with nature and yet satisfactory to the mind. It suggests to us that man in his freedom is not supposed to destroy causality for the time being, but to use its materials and transform them into a characteristic human product, whereby law is turned into liberty just as sensation yields to ideation. As a human vehicle the intellect, therefore, seems capable of carrying the responsibility of our spiritual life in a way by no means inferior to the powers of the will. In the mastery of active cognition antique philosophy realizes a principle of freedom not unlike the modern free- dom of the will. The creative intellect never suffers man to submit to the mere registering of impressions and the reaction upon incitements, but leads him to conceive of ideal elements and to desire ideal stimuli. If we assume the complete sway of the category of causality, whose validity was so questioned 232 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE by Kant and Hume, and thus survey man as determined to follow the strongest or most obvious motive, how we may ac- count the progress of his humanity ? Where man is conceived of in a physical sense, the mere fact that he possesses auto- matic functions is sufficient to indicate a certain degree of de- terminism. Man must breathe, his heart must beat, veins and arteries must act in accordance with the set plan of nature. But man as a valuing organism is not content with mere metabolism, for he sees in his life benefits in which he would participate, as also elements which he would turn into genuine human products. His freedom shows itself in his native ability to humanize the immediate data of the natural order. 3 — EVIDENCES OF CREATIVE FREEDOM Among man's earliest attempts to establish his human freedom appears his art which is closely connected with the course of nature, inasmuch as it ever assumes a perceptible form. Nevertheless, the free moment of aesthetics does not fail to appear in the creative deed of the artist, as also in the detached form of delight which man experiences when he surveys the unrealities of the fine arts. Under the auspices of determinism, stone, plant and animal would find sufficient opportunity for realization; but natural law does not provide for civilization and culture, which arise only as free human reason organizes the forms of outer and inner life. What humanity needs is something more than causality and something less than, or different from, the liberum arbitrium indifferentiae; it is a spiritual freedom which makes possible the creative work of man as shown in living art. The solid forms of the artistic, like architecture and sculpture, show how man can recast the mechanical and organic principles of nature into structures and forms whose significance appeals to man alone. More idealistic products of beauty appear in painting and poetry whose connection with the real world is established through the slender means of a single sense like vision or hearing. Man's ability to abandon the solidity of matter and repose in these repre- sentative forms of what exists in nature and what happens VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 233 in history, is additional proof of his spiritual superiority to the world which caused him — proof of his human freedom. In the same manner, tHe fugitive forms of music which, as an art, possess the single dimension of time fortifies our belief that in the world of percepts man's artistic genius reveals the inner freedom of his humanity. To this same end, science adds evidence concerning the freedom of man in idea, and the very philosophy of nature, which seeks to subsume all events under the form of causality, testifies to the triumph of the human understand- ing over the material order under its sway. Only an emancipated mind could attribute law to physical pheno- mena, and the development of the world of knowledge and of the world of nature betrays the advance of humanity from sensation to ideation. Such freedom in idea is in no sense a combat between a physical force here and a psychical one there, for mind answers no challenge from inferior matter. The whole question concerns itself with man's ability to formulate ideas in such a way as to construct an independent order of knowledge, and the traditional conflict between forces and motives does not contain the merits of the case. Man is not wholly free, but his history reveals a progress toward freedom, and sufficient has been accom- plished in ancient aesthetics and modern science to lead one to believe that man will triumph over nature, whose sway ends with the animalistic and immediate in the human species, leaving creative reason to enjoy its own liberty. The intellectual evidence of freedom in art and science, as these have grown up in ancient and modern life, is furthered by a similar sense of superiority in ethics and reli- gion in the forms of pagan virtue and Christian faith. Man's ethical life, like his science, contains only a sugges- tion of the physical order, for we may act for the sake of discipline and think for the sake of mere culture. Our discussion of characteristic ethics as rectitude has shown that, where the absurdities of autonomy are forgotten, man may pursue the path of a disinterested human endeavor and thus disengage his being from the rest of the natural order, and plant him in his humanity. This is nothing else than the classic idea of virtue and the Christian conception of 234 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE right, whose undisputed place in human history show how a natural creature may yet set up ideal aims and live as in the light. So artistic is man that he cannot be contented with the satisfaction of immediate well-being; his imagina- tion demands recognition, and in the midst of primitive customs the idealized hero does not suffer from want of recognition. Achievement in human affairs, even if it be in such trivial matters as athletic supremacy, or excellence in intellectual attainment, as with playwright and actor, indicates the readiness with which humanity abandons prac- tical considerations and indulges itself in splendid un- realities. Virtues may thus become forms of play, and health of body with Spartans flowers in cardinal courage, as health of mind among Athenians puts forth wisdom. The ancient with the limited range of classic virtue achieved freedom with an ease unknown in Christendom, where a certain passion for piety led man to repudiate the physical order so that free character might flourish. This virtue reveals the power of freedom. The practical testimony as to the ideal freedom, humanity reaches its climax in religion. As science and conduct sustain some connection with the world, inasmuch as it is useful to think and to act in accordance with nature, so art and religion are more cavalier-like in their treatment of natural forms which they transform in the intensity of their idealiza- tion. Like ethics, religion is possessed of an earnest spirit which suffers not its human subject to repose in the world of time and space, but inspires him to secure something permanent in the form of an absolute spiritual life. That man is religious who in the integrity of his inner nature adjusts himself to the unity of the world. No such attitude on the part of man, no such act of his will could be con- ceived were man not possessed of ideal freedom. Like art, religion accomplishes its results in connection with objects of sense; for while beauty and worship are more refined than knowledge and virtue, they are so constructed that they can participate in the innocent forms of sense. The quality of freedom involved in human worship is thus richer than the emancipation of the spirit in science and ethics where a discreet form of freedom prevails. VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 235 As these familiar forms of human culture thus testify, man is capable of ideal activity in affairs of speculation and practice. This is his proper freedom in humanity, which is in no wise comparable with the disputable freedom of nature. The quality of the morale involved determines the quantity of freedom which a system requires, and where one feels called upon to be autonomous he must be supplied with unlimited freedom whose reality is scarcely provable. Give man some other than a rationalistic problem, and set before him no abstract goal, but perfect humanity, and no arbitrary liberty is made necessary; or, pause to inquire concerning man's genuine task in life and the ideal freedom which naturally arises in the progress of humanity suffices man. Human striving contains an implicit liberty and just as Kant made freedom depend upon the moral calling to duty, in which obligation implied ability and the "ought" the "can", so it is possible to subsume the freedom of the will under the striving of humanity. The World of Humanity, whose forms of science and art, ethics and worship, reveal the in- dependence of man's spiritual nature is only the larger ex- pression of this formal freedom which, in culture, appears as architectonic. 4 THE UNITY OF FREEDOM AND FATE Proof of human freedom is not to be sought in the world of nature, but in the world of humanity, wherein man is permitted to act as man. If in this realm man shows no ability to create, then one may retreat to the category of causality and seek such satisfaction as deter- minism may offer. But the history of man is the history of freedom in the conception of ideal motives as well as in the creation of ideal interests. Neither hedonism nor intuitionism can account for the spontaneity of man's con- sciousness, much less can they with their ideals of desire and duty content the striving of a creature who feels capable of selfhood and worldhood. Both views overlook the fact that man is creative, and that instead of contending with nature for the sake of some supposed aequilibrium arbitrii, man aspires to develop an independent order of being in 236 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE which his humanity may thrive. Where ethics has not discovered the peculiar realm of spiritual life to which its ideals belong, it has exhausted its moral earnestness in op- posing one of the most valuable ideas of the human under- standing, — that of causality. Freedom, however, cannot come in as causality departs, and he who would adjust himself to human experience must have sufficient insight to survey freedom and law at once. Punctual freedom is wanting in both validity and value. Genuine freedom is no such function as that which hedonism and rigorism deny and affirm so ineffectually; it consists of the entire superior- ity of culture over nature and invests the major morality with its intrinsic character. Conventional theories have not touched freedom at all; determinism and libertarianism have unearthed a struggle which may go on in the animal mind and in man's too, where his life is one of animalism, but genuine freedom, as felt by the superior man, is an idea removed from these moral disputants. The question is not whether Sophocles was free in his eating and drinking, but whether, as is manifestly the case, he possessed sufficient superiority to produce an immortal drama. It is not whether heredity was active in Shakespeare's case, but whether he possessed artistic genius. The genius, who has realized himself as a human being, demonstrates the possibility of this higher freedom in his peculiar mingling of liberty and constraint. As individual, who may arbitrarily choose in favor of classicism, romanticism, or realism, he combines this free choice with a certain general genius which makes him a painter in spite of himself, so that his work is the unique product of conscious selection among methods and uncon- scious constraint as to art itself. In all worthy work, man's individuality naturally associates itself with natural law to effect something beyond nature in either her individual or general forms. This is a freedom which links itself to man's moral calling and makes possible the achievement of his ethical vocation. Nature abhors freedom, but she is no more friendly to culture; she disowns the "free moral agent", but the life of the human spirit is equally alien to her. Ethics need only VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 237 decide which view of liberty is the more desirable, the formal freedom of human striving or the dynamic freedom of the punctual will. *The latter places man in an eccentric position and marvels when he displays any human poise or puts forth any initiative. But this dynamic view of arbitrary will has never met the question of life in its totality. When the centrifugal force of human striving is made the measure of human action, it will appear that man and his moral life have no need of the dynamic form of freedom which just acts without reason or purpose. Striving is the proper substitute for liberty, and the arguments for and against a volitional equilibrium are ineffectual where the total issue of life is the question which is raised. In the escape from freedom lies the emancipation of humanistic ethics, and genuine humanity which seeks to preserve its self-respect owes no more allegiance to a duty which drives than to a desire which leads. Man is neither free nor fated, but he has over him a human vocation which inspires him to com- bine law and liberty with the result of achieving a full, free humanity. Such humanity is the living synthesis of fate and free- dom, for man in his capacity of both creature and character is responsible to both forms of constraint. Religion reveals this in its mysterious fusion of Divine regnancy^ and human responsibility. Yet when man by freedom realizes himself as a human being, he also satisfies the demands of a Being similarly inclined toward virtue. Humanity thus witnesses a cooperation of Infinite and finite wherein man freely participates in the larger order of righteousness in and around him. All humanity is the product of free fate, of individual and universal, of liberty and law; and when the position of man is appreciated and his problem properly stated, there will be no occasion to puzzle over a casuistical curiosity which now deserves to be forever forgotten. A full conception of humanity cannot be elaborated upon the basis of more liberty, but must involve something beyond man's personality and beneath the surface of his conscious- ness; hence the "free moral agent" must be surveyed as a character of free-fate whose influence ends not with his moral will but extends over to his intellect. 238 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE The inner life of man has not failed to take notice of these ever interweaving processes, yet it is only as we depart from the idea of punctual liberty of the ego and adapt our ethics to the free striving of humanity that we are able to account for these strange syntheses. In the human mind the mingling of liberty with law assumes the form of inner and outer modes of being. Hereby man, situated so uniquely in the universe, is permitted to preserve his ethical self- respect amid the dull laws of the physical world and the vagaries of the individual; and he maintains his character as a self-propelled human being detached from the world and delivered from mere temperament. How blind has libertarianism been to the fact that freedom means emanci- pation from the immediacy of both physical and psychical orders, or from the phenomenal world of things and persons. Beyond these unorganized forms of the world lies the freedom of inner humanity. No longer will mechanical motives, called either law or liberty and situated external to the genuine nature of man, suffice to account for that synthesis of freedom and fate that the conscious and un- conscious life of humanity makes possible. Something more systematic is demanded and the free moral agency of the individual must give way before the genius of humanity within man. Thereby inner consciousness is united with outer constraint so that man may perform a genuine act of humanity. THE ETHICAL DEMANDS OF HUMANITY Humanity arises within man as the very essence of his being, but it is none the less elicited from without. Hence it comes about that man's humanity makes certain demands upon him, and these he interprets as obligations. Such is man's position in the world that he may make demands upon nature whence he expects happiness, or in reverse order may feel it his duty to render something to the world. Hence if we ask, "What shall we receive?" we are hedonistic; if we say, "What must we give?" our morals are characteristic. Duty is a debt to be paid, not to nature or society, but to the one world of humanity. To nature we owe nothing and she has not the capacity to receive our free-will offerings; but to humanity we owe everything since it is for humanity that we were destined. This condition of affairs, however, does not suffer man to indulge in any undue complacency, for such is the seriousness of life and the uncertainty of its outcome that something like moral toil is made necessary to him who acquits himself of his humanity. Man must take his place in the endless course of human striving, and how- ever glorious life may be, it does not leave us without a sense of responsibility. The rationalistic view of life is such as to cause man to doubt his abilities, and the yoke of a categorical imperative imposes a burden which is not easy or light ; hence we do not wonder that Kant fled to the shades of the eternal cypresses when he sought the fulfillment of his ideal. Sheer con- science, with its self-styled dictates, need not expect man to obey; mere morality with its arbitrary demands has no real claim upon man. Nevertheless, the destiny of man is such as to imply responsibility, and when we recall how our humanity calls upon us to strive that we may assert our spiritual character, we can understand how it is that man 239 240 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE should interpret this demand as a duty. There are two distinct ways in which this demand may be understood, just as there are two forms of human freedom. The demand which humanity makes upon us may assume the immediate form of individual duty, which is the counterpart of char- acteristic morality as rectitude ; or it may be viewed more inclusively as a sense of responsibility comparable to that sense of disinterestedness which revealed humanity's attitude toward the right. Duty indicates the attitude of man toward some law of reason; human responsibility relates man to the inner world of humanity with its august claims upon our activities. I THE DEMAND AS INDIVIDUAL DUTY Prominent among the questions which associate them- selves with duty arises the problem concerning the source of the impulse. It seems obvious that man should have desires, but it is not so clear why he responds to an imperceptible and remote interest called duty. The conception of man which has guided our discussion thus far has been a conative one and the ideal has been that of the man striving. Yet this ideal has not presented itself explicitly, but in connection with the minor functions of human nature. Thus the sense of striving, which everywhere invests humanity, assumed a direct form in desire, as also in the conquest of immediacy which is supposed to lead to happiness. Why should it not reappear in sterner semblance as an ideal of duty where direct contact with reason takes the place of the immediacy of nature in desire? Both of these ideals overlook the fact that man is not related to one hemisphere of life alone, and in defiance of the implicit unity of spiritual life in sense and reason, naturistic and characteristic ethics assume that man can live first without duties and then without desires. So complete is the plan of human striving and so resourceful the character of our humanity that there is no need to take refuge in either of these eccentrics of morality. The ethics of duty has made progress in the world, be- cause it has symbolized man's impulse to attain to pure humanity. In the sublime instance of Kant, the office of duty VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 241 was magnified by the abrupt departure from both sense and reason indicated in the whole critical system; for the orig- inator of the categorical imperative had already relinquished his claim upon the speculative view of the world before he set himself at variance with the practical appreciation of life according to inclination. Only duty was left, and its ideal exactments were urged with a fury born of despair. We need not Kant to tell us that we cannot live without duty, but the full imperative of humanity informs us that we cannot live without desire. In the dual order of sense and reason, whose reconciliation has not yet appeared, it is expected that man should respond to the sense of fitness which firmly binds him to the inner world without releasing him from the claims of the outer one, so that desire is as imperative as duty. Kant recognizes some such general truth when he postulates a certain Inter esse which is possessed by the practical reason (Krit. d. prac. Vernunjt, SS. 260-262), just as at a later period he introduces a higher and disin- terested consideration of humanity in the form of an asthe- tical judgment which transcends the interests of both sense and reason, of pleasure and of virtue (Kirt. d. Urtheil- skraft.) Characteristic ethics which here assumes the form of duty, is recognized in connection with moral law. Whether this can be harmonized with the sense of freedom lying at the heart of this method of morality depends upon how the ideas of liberty and law are understood. As the argument stands in the records of intuitionism, there is a sharp con- tradiction in a theory of will which now is looked upon as free and then is bound by obligation to an ethical law; and the advocate of free-will has not seen that his argu- ment for liberty must be carried on in opposition to law in general, and not physical law in particular. In itself, law stands for universality in form and necessity in operation, whereby it combines the Law of Identity, which asserts, Whatever is, is, with the law of Sufficient Reason, asserting, Whatever happens has a cause. Metaphysics adapts these fundamental logical principia and constructs them in an ontological scheme, with substance as its center, as well as a cosmological one, having causality as its basis. Nature, 242 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE with its forms of space and time, matter and motion, adapts itself to such a category of law, realizing it in static and dynamic forms. Where the moral world-order is surveyed from this standpoint, the interpretation of duty as law is by no means clear; for where the steadfast forms of nature lend them- selves to the logical laws of identity and sufficient reason, the strivings of the human will are so inclined to the individual and arbitrary that the imposition of law upon a free being seems hopeless at the start and fruitless at the outcome. While ethics may approximate to the general requisite of law and thus elaborate maxims which shall possess universality of form and necessity of content, it can never aspire to present any principles of will to compare with the intellectual principles known to logic. The at- tempt to accomplish this can scarcely advance beyond the barren rationalism of Cudworth and Clarke, or the formalism of Butler's view of conscience and Kant's categorical im- perative. Such a difficulty is due to the fact that the will, having a different nature from that of the intellect, is not expected to pursue the same methods of conduct, so that the ideal of a uniform and compelling principle, which must command the assent of the mind, is not directly applicable to such an inner principle as the will. Characteristic ethics stands in need of restatement, after which can follow the reconstruction necessary to relate duty to the imperative de- mands of humanity. Such reconstruction involves a clear recognition of the half-real nature of duty. Unlike the antique notion of the good, duty indicates no finished product which man should imitate as his ideal, but it consists of something which de- pends upon the will of man for its realization. Nevertheless, duty is not conceived of as wholly unreal, in which case it could not be construed as something universally binding, but possesses a metaphysical status wholly different from that of substance, cause, space or time. In a certain suggestive sense, the modern ideal of duty is in the same peculiar position between thought and thing as was the ancient notion of virtue when Socrates redeemed it from Sophistry and reduced it to general definition, without carrying it forward VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 243 to the ontological place of Plato's realism. Duty has a conceptual form, so that it is neither real nor unreal. When such duty is appropriated by man it assumes certain repre- sentative forms adaptable to will and intellect. Accord- ingly, it is said, Duty is that which man ought to do, as it is further claimed, Duty is that which ought to be. The idea of "that which ought to be" involves a moral ontology whose demands are far beyond the powers of rationalistic comprehension; for it is no simple task to unite the intellec- tualism of Plato's ideal of the good with Kant's volun- taristic maxim of duty. In the history of modern ethics, the law of duty has been formal in the intellect and in- fluential with the will, but it has not assumed the sure position which the ideal of law suggests. 2 — THE SELF-CONTRADICTION OF INDIVIDUAL WILL The problem of duty assumes a more hopeless form when the mysterious character of the will comes under our scrutiny. This problem may be introduced conveniently in connection with the simple function of judgment, without which we cannot indicate the principles of necessity and universality involved in the notion of law. With the in- tellect, the function of judgment plays a part so convincing that no dispute can arise, except as to particular forms like the analytical and synthetical. In discussing the nature of rectitude, we took the opportunity to indicate how logical law guides us in elaborating the connection between subject and predicate. The function appears with the process of feeling, whereby we develop judgments of taste which repre- sent the beauty of certain forms of nature or creations of art. Fluid as is its form and subjective as is its character, human feeling possesses sufficient stability to assume a propositional form, and just as we say, "The rose is red", so we may add, "The rose is beautiful." With the will, the case does not stand thus, for there are no judgments of will, nor can there be any. Both intellect and affection trace back to conscious processes with definable qualities, like the sensation of color or the feeling of pleasure, and for this reason ideas may be related to appropriate char- 244 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE acteristics in the conventional form of judgment. The will, however, presents no such dualism of thing and quality, and hence does not permit us to relate two forms of one and the same mental product, and the very expression, "Judgment of will," indicates nothing which the mind can conceive. As a product of consciousness, the will requires special treatment and a review of this may serve to reveal the source of our present difficulty with regard to duty and its problematic form. The introspective method of psy- chology seems incapable of objectifying any quality of cona- tion, however directly it may reveal the attributes of cogni- tion and affection. So intimately is the will related to our inner consciousness that it seems impossible to detach it and survey its content as something independent of the self. Human conation is of the essence of human striving and no analysis of mind can draw lines of demarcation between them. This singular condition of consciousness appears in sharp outline when we resort to certain characteristic state- ments concerning our introspective data, where it appears that conation is indescribable. The conscious subject may speak of simple cognition as a sensation of color or tone, of immediate affection as a feeling of pleasure or pain, but the conative elements of impulse or striving cannot be reduced to such expressive phrases. One can only borrow forms of cognition and affection and thus speak of a "sense of striving" or a "feeling of effort," but no original statement of volition seems to be forthcoming, and this simplicity on the part of the will seems to forbid all judgment. There is conation, but there are no judgments of will, and he who would dictate duty to man and outline maxims for his conduct must not fail to realize the mysterious character of our inner striving. Now the will is the wheel on which intuitionism is broken, and no system of ethics can hope to be volitional until it revises its notion about human liberty and abandons the punctual, private freedom of the individual. Humanity, in the fullness of its ceaseless striving, surges into these separate crevices and makes the old problem of law-liberty a fallacy of double question. The peculiar net-work in which the conventional ideal VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 245 of duty involves itself appears further when we ask, By whom is duty impose*}? To this question only two possible answers seem at all conceivable, and inasmuch as nature knows nothing of ideal obligation, duty is imposed either by man or God, that is, by some form of spiritual life. No matter which side of the argument we espouse, we are sure to involve some degree of contradiction; and where duty reduces us to a sharp either-or, we suspect that its dictates are not essential to the central striving of humanity. Sup- pose that duty is imposed by the will of man in the spirit of autonomy and freedom; then the sovereignty of the God- head loses some of its significance, inasmuch as the Deity is not regarded as the author of the moral law. On the other hand, consider the consequence when duty is imposed by the Deity and sanctioned by His will; then the supremacy of the ethical ideal is threatened and the elevation of the Godhead involves the degradation of duty. Scholasticism witnessed such a conflict in the controversy between Thomas and Scotus, while Protestantism rehabilitated it in the war between Calvin and Arminius. He who accepts the tradi- tional statement of the problem feels strangely called upon to choose between Deity and duty, which can be done only at the cost of spiritual unity. This dilemma is a most unhappy one and sadly recalls the controversy between determinism and free-will. Never- theless, the ideal of human striving, which elevated our thought above the diremption of fate and freedom, may now serve to lift us to that unity of inner life which should appear in the midst of the demands that our hu- manity makes upon us. From this standpoint, it will appear that man is not urged forward by competitive forces called fate and freedom, nor is he under the sway of two ideals styled Deity and duty, but one and the same humanity appeals to him in the corresponding forms of inner and outer life. Just as conscience is not an occult principle arising from the abyss of our ignorance, but consists rather of our own humanity acting in the form of outer restraint, so duty is not the dictate of any individual will of man or God, but is made up rather of that rational sense of deten- tion which our spiritual life exercises upon us. The same 246 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE principle of human striving which animates the individual ego and the whole of humanity has at heart the perfection of man by his emancipation from nature. In this consists both our fate and our freedom, and for this our human worldhood and selfhood came into existence. There is no extra-duty which we impose upon our wills, or which the Deity imposes upon us; there is only one enormous demand which humanity makes upon us when it invests us with spiritual life and informs us with conscience and freedom. Such a unifying conception of spiritual life conserves the interests of idealistic ethics as well as the religious notion of the Absolute. Of what advantage would it be to develop a conception of morals which, in defiance of both human and divine sentiments, should lead to duty for the sake of mere duty, or Deity for the sake of Deity? Autonomy in ethics and monotheism in religion are not advanced by any such formalism, and it is far more valuable to work from within the wall of living humanity whence the demands of the ideal in both a human and a divine form may be presented. To secure the valuable results of imperative morality, it be- comes necessary to change the center of discussion from the individual will to the universal sense of striving, and when once the limitations of private volition are contrasted with the broad plan of human activity the need for such an alteration in view will become apparent. The spirit of characteristic ethics may be preserved in the midst of external changes; humanity will suffer no loss when the law of duty gives place to a genuine sense of human responsibility. 3 OBLIGATION AS HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY To reconstruct the characteristic ideal of duty it has been necessary to eliminate the idea of liberty as something punctual and private, to make place for a recognition of human striving. But this made it necessary for us to recast the principle of law binding the individual down to some arbitrary form of commandment, and humanity is in no mood for this style of treatment. Freedom is an empty benefit, while duty is an imposition. Nevertheless, it need not be VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 247 supposed that all sense of obligation is lost, and the emanci- pated moral subject of to-day must not presume that life is all privilege wherein he receives from the universe without being called upon to give of himself to the world of hu- manity. Man still has his obligations and without them he could be neither happy nor perfect; when these duties are interpreted in the light of human responsibilities and not as categorical laws, the influence of the human imperative will not be lost. Therefore we may review the leading points of duty and observe how easily they transfer their allegiance from the realm of rationalistic law to that of human obliga- tion. Certain formal notions of duty submit themselves for consideration at the open court of humanity; first among these is the ideal of inness which characterizes human obliga- tion. The intuitional method has insisted upon this criterion of the moral ideal, and the value of its contention can in no wise be gainsaid. From this standpoint, the demands of humanity are conceived of as coming from within in the form of spiritual impulses which have no connection with animal instincts. The rationalistic school can only re- gard them as dictates of reason, but their intellectual char- acter seems to acquire little more than a negative quality in its several determinations. There is something man ought to do. But what is that something which is so supreme in human life? The intuitionist can regard it in a formal fashion only and define it in terms of itself as duty, or that which ought to be done. At the same time, he attempts to characterize it negatively as something which does not please or profit the doer of it. While such a cramped notion of human responsibility may maintain the inner independence of obligation, it indicates no path of progress from the striving individual to the goal of his life. Indeed, characteristic ethics, as will appear when the whole system is reviewed, has no idea of teleology and thus cannot instruct man in the purpose of his incessant striving. The just demands of the striving human spirit may be determined in the light of human destiny, which involves the rise and progress of humanity as well as its culmination in an independent order of being. This notion could better 248 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE be expressed by the term Bestimmung, which is only half translated by the term vocation; its philosophical value is great enough to include the inner and outer forms of human striving, which are set at variance with each other by the terms fate and freedom. So long as an alien world of nature is thought to encompass man, anything like outer constraint could only be looked upon as inimical to the purpose of human freedom; hence arose the acrimonious contrast be- tween law and liberty, where the "free moral agent" felt constrained to hate the one and love the other. But now it appears that owing to his amphibolous position in the uni- verse, man is not wholly under the sway of physical law nor does his humanity demand sharp rational freedom. Man has rather destiny, vocation, and a calling to humanity, or that happy sense of constraint expressed by the German term Bestimmung. For the sake of private freedom or some liberum arbitrium indifferentiae would man forego the bless- ings of his human vocation? To achieve his duty will he relinquish his destiny, and exchange his humanity for free moral agency? Human responsibility finds man in the actual human order, not in nature or reason alone, and in this living field of striving he is swayed by free fate or human destiny. For this reason, he is not called upon to obey the laws of either nature or reason, but it is expected of him that he will accept human responsibility. Such responsibility consists in assum- ing an appropriate attitude toward the world, whose image must be reflected by the mind, just as its activity is to be perfected by the human will. These phases of human re- sponsibility appear in both culture and conduct. In order to live as a human being man must exercise a due amount of intelligence as he surveys the world about him, and even in his primitive condition he secures a certain amount of valuable information upon which science is destined to be built. And just as man, who is not natural enough to live an animal life of mere sensation, has his knowledge, so he begins to develop conduct in a life which is so detached from the order of nature as to render necessary something more than instinct. In this two-fold fashion, man is re- quired to assume a sort of metaphysical and moral responsi- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 249 bility due to his original observations of the outer and inner forms of nature. Art and religion are freer forms of human creation and demand different methods of explanation, while they, like logic and ethics, serve to indicate the superiority of humanity over nature. The ideals of humanity, which thus express themselves in culture of the mind and conduct of life, can be expressed only as we depart from immediate individualized duty and consider man in the light of one enormous human respon- sibility. This he assumes by knowledge and action, and in the progress of his spiritual life he develops a world of his own whence special ethical systems are led to speak of a life according to nature, or conduct according to reason when the possibility of such ideals is found in the sense of human responsibility, which would not suffer man to remain in the domain of immediacy. In the midst of his human striving, man is under the dominion of law and duty, and instead of acting so that the maxim of his conduct might become uni- versal law, he has created a moral world-order peculiar to the genius of his humanity, the product of both conduct and culture. This has been a happy burden to the true child of humanity who has no other thought than the perfection of his implicit spiritual life. In this mood of eternal cheerful- ness, these aspiring human subjects have been what St. James was fond of calling doers of the word or active egos who were not content with mere action or consciousness, but strove for some rational deed which should stand for the creative work of humanity. In his contemplative conquest, man has enjoyed the freedom of his fate, while he has found in his humanity a yoke which is easy and a burden that is light. By assuming the responsibility of life both in thought and action, man evinces a definite form of spontaneity which carries him onward out of the confines of immediate tem- poral, special existence. This is not done without risk, and the positing of an independent order of being beyond nature leads man into an atmosphere of life the very opposite of the easy optimism that characterized the final view of naturism in the ideal of eudaemonia. Human responsibility invites conflict and since man occupies an amphibolous position in 250 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE the world his departure from nature is calculated to lead him into doubt and moral despair. Culture and ideal con- duct are not always the good angels of our life, since they create needs which experience cannot satisfy, as well as ideals which seem likely to remain unrealized. In his at- tempt to accomplish the demands of his inner nature, man can think of no other method than that of denial, and just as the climax of naturistic ethics found him applying the principle of moderation, characteristic morality ends in renunciation. If man cannot assert his spiritual character in the midst of nature he can negate his being in the world of sense, and thus prepare the way, so he imagines, for the life of spirit. Such an attempt assumes the form of rigorism whose interests are those of humanity, however inappro- priate its methods may be. VI THE LIFE OF RIGORISM As the completion of Naturistic Ethics witnessed the rise of eudaemonism, so Characteristic Ethics is destined to end in rigorism. Where, as in the case of the former, pleasure and desire, utility and well-being, lead man to postulate the ultimate ideal of free activity in the world of immediacy, the contrary ideals of conscience and rectitude, freedom and duty urge him to strive after a form of sheer morality which neutralizes all human interests. Both views seek to apprehend life as a whole, and where one ends in moderation the other cultimates in renunciation, while the joyous pursuit of the immediate gives way to a grim realiza- tion of the remote and ultimate. Where both views ob- serve the unity of life, they are not ignorant of man's position in the universe or of his relation to his humanity. I — THE IDEAL OF RENUNCIATION In striking contrast to the genial ideal of eudaemonism, characteristic ethics upholds a harsh rigorism of renunciation. Eudaemonism was a theory expressing the belief that life cannot be wholly receptive, but demands a certain degree of reaction on the part of humanity. But eudaemonism availed itself of purely aesthetical resources which were expected to yield permanent and impersonal pleasure. Where activity was involved it never implied striving, and its general char- acter was that of artistic play. The value of ideal activity, as suggested by both ancient and modern thinkers, consists in the appropriate form of occupation which fills out the pro- portions of man's life, thus preventing ennui. Man's superiority to hedonic naturism is shown by the fact that he craves ideal pleasures in response to which the world of art has been created. Eudaemonism is thus a phase of aesthe- 251 252 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE ticfsm, for in the quest of contemplation man is also seeking peace or ataraxy. But the rigorist believes that ideal activity is not suffi- cient to achieve the victory of spirit over sense, and in seed- ing some more regorous means it appeals to religion where its rival had turned toward art. The fundamental principle here involved is that of spiritual striving, but in practical experience the doctrine amounts to a radical activism accord- ing to whose tenets life is made to equal labor. The moral commandment thus becomes a commandment to act, the result of which is moralism. "Look at Hellenism, the Italian Renaissance, or French culture," they say; "were men better moralists because they were superior artists"? Forgetting that at times when men are most thoroughly surrendered to morality, they are not intellectually alive to the meaning of life and the essence of the world, the moralistic view of life has insisted that strict activity is paramount. Labor has been commended because it tends to subdue men, while the exciting effects of artistic activity have been condemned as unsafe. Let man be kept at work and he will be out of danger for the time being, while the fatigue resulting from his efforts will tend to cripple his powers for vicious pleasure. Eudaemonism may not aim at the spiritual, but it does try to elevate man above nature; rigorism seeks to reduce his sensuous existence to a minimum. Both estimates of man agree that life should not be submerged in nature, but where eudaemonism counsels man to touch sense lightly by the way of mere suggestion, rigorism insists that he abandon it altogether and accept virtue as such. Eudaemonism seizes the mind of man in a moment of classic contemplation and leads him to blend spirit and sense in such a way that virtue shall seem natural and beautiful. Rigorism is not without artistic merit, but its worth consists, not in beauty, but in sublimity, and its method is the romantic rather than the classic. The spectacle of a living and dying rigorist has something artistic about it, for he stands fixed like Donatello's St. George or enters paradise through Ghibertfs bronze doors. Again, eudaemonism is optimistic in its culti- vation of the garden of immediacy, for it assumes that nature VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 253 contains man and that his endeavors can be accomplished and accounted for upon the basis of what is given. Rigorism is pessimistic and calls, upon man to renounce the "world" in which he lives and the flesh that envelops him, and where the naturistic ideal expects man to accept life, the character- istic one demands that he reject it. 2 — LIFE AS SINFUL The traditional view of our humanity as shared by both schools overlooks the fact that man is both able and willing to renounce, not only happiness, but life itself. They assume that man is by nature a creature of eudaemonia and that he can only strive to be happy; the only difference in their methods is found in the fact that one allows man to be happy directly, while the other insists that he shall first deserve happiness. But man as human can will against, as well as for, himself and the world enveloping him, and his desire so constitutes him that pain as well as pleasure may be an object of interest and a point toward which he strives. Hence renunciation is as possible a path of conduct as moderation, and no excess of fanaticism is needed to cause man to turn against nature and strive for nothing as such. The bland hedonic notion prevailing in both schools of ethics is invalidated by the manifest tendency on the part of man to deny himself, and where nature uses both life and death in the perfection of its creatures, man learns to die that he may live. Thus it comes about that man learns to accept the death-idea, based as this is on an instinct as strong, though not as clear, as the desire for life, and in the midst of this consciousness it becomes possible for rare souls who are raised above the struggle for life to have a peculiar sentiment of death, a condition at times paralleled by the vehement passion for destruction aroused by the unhappy circumstances of a turbulent existence. Contemplating the shade as well as the light of life, man does not hesitate to abandon the unintelligible heights of joy and descend to the "valley of vision." He is not only willing but anxious to suffer, and while not hard-hearted he is not wholly above cruelty. Duty has made him a 254 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE Danteist. The impulse toward renunciation appears in the awful sentiment that life itself is sinful. The inner history of our humanity is not wanting in such nihilistic ideals. Among the Chinese the wisdom of Laotsze inculcates "doing noth- ing" as a means of attaining to the negative Tao, which "does nothing in its regular course for the sake of doing it, and so there is nothing which it does not do." (Tao Teh King, Pt. ii, Ch. 37) ; a consistent nihilism further in- dicated by the metaphorical characters "Dumb Inaction" and "Do-Nothing" (Writings of Kwang Sze, Bk. xxn Pt. 11 Sect, xv ). A more active form of negation ap- pears in the Bhagavad-Gita which treats life as the result of sin and seeks to inculcate such a Yoga discipline as to do away with one's sense of individuality and the desire for personal action. The ideal man behaves like the tortoise who withdraws from the world and retires to his inner being. This notion which makes man distrustful of exist- ence, is even more fatal to his sense of selfhood. It inflicts upon him the consciousness that he himself ought not to be, because in his very personality there is something wrong, so that he is of no value in the world. It was in this spirit that Schopenhauer's contention for the universal will-to-live set him in opposition to the egoistic will-to-live, as indeed to the principle of individuation, and led him to select from Calderon's "Life is a Dream" the dictum declaring that man's greatest crime consists in being born (Welt ah Wille u. Vors. §63). The world in its totality seems to be no place of individuals and, as we shall see in Part Four, the harsh effects of renunciatory morals can be offset only by adopting an idea of selfhood which shall be consistent with the totality of the world. The existent self with its natural desires cannot assert its being in contrast with the world-whole, so that the ideal of renunciation does not have difficulty in persuading man that his is an evil life. Rigorism thus becomes, as it were, a reality, wherein negation and pain have a constructive significance, while selfhood is re- pudiated as something fundamentally bad. As Pascal put it, le mo'i est ha'issable (PenseeSj Sect. vn. 75, Hachette,) and as will appear at the close of this work the ethics of VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 255 selfhood ascends only as the ethics of renunciation descends. Yet it is not the ego as ego which feels the criminality of his existence, but the ego as subject of desire. In Bud- dhism, the root of alf evil is found in desire whose removal is supposed to bring about salvation. Among the several attitudes which man may sustain toward the world, there is that of expressing desire for it in its sensuousness and immediacy, for by his very nature man desires life in the world. This life-desire, which renunciation seeks to neutralize, contains something beyond itself as a process of experience, for in it is found an inherent sense of value. Indeed, as we shall see in Part Four, the most adequate psychology of value seems to consist in the desirable. When, therefore, renunciation attacks desire, it directs its forces against the very citadel of life, and brings about man's redemption upon the basis of his destruction. This is the method indicated by Buddhism in connection with the "Noble Truth" as expressed in "Wheel of the Law", or, as Rhy Davids translates it, "Kingdom of Righteousness." It contains the truth concerning the fact and cause of suffer- ing, as also the removal of it by means of religious exercise. When the "Book of the Great Decease" tells how the Blessed One rejected life, it notes (§ 10) how he broke out into a hymn of exultation: "His sum of life the sage renounced, The cause of life immeasurable or small; With inward joy and calm, he broke, Like coat of mail his life's own cause." The form of Nirvana attained is of the living nature of Arahatship, experienced when both desire and indivi- duality are practically extinguished by a combination of contemplation and asceticism. This living Nirvana was perhaps in Schopenhauer's mind when he contended for negation of the will-to-live and against suicide as a means, which in his mind would defeat that moralistic end {Welt ah Wille u. Vors. § 69). While the practical Semitic tendency in Christianity forbids the treatment of the problem upon such a cosmic basis, it became possible for that religion to separate man from his world and reduce his life to an inner conflict. 256 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE Love and hate undergo peculiar transformations whereby the individual is exhorted to abandon the world in which he lives and to love others rather than himself. The natural desire to be one's self in one's world is the ambi- tion most remote from him who accepts the principles of the Kingdom of God. This practical attitude toward the world is in harmony with the speculative principles of belief and doubt. Like the Buddhist, the Christian must doubt in order to believe; that is, he turns away from the per- ceptible in order to accept the imperceptible in the form of spiritual life. And thus the general truth of the inner life is established upon the ruins of sense and selfhood. Our modern situation is profoundly affected by these religious compunctions, and we have become so impressed with the value of renunciation that we are ready to cast out of life, not only sense, but reason itself. This was attempted by Kant in his peculiar passion for morality. Kant's ethics was erected upon the ruins of metaphysics, a process which made the will seem wiser than the intel- lect. Morality was called upon to play a double part, for it was first a doctrine of Sollen and then a theory of Sein, according to which the world of reality was built upon virtue. In this moral blindness, Kant abandoned culture for conduct whereby he showed himself strong and critical in his treatment of truth and beauty, but weak and fearful in his attitude toward ethics and right. His was a half- work, marked everywhere by temperament and a Semitic regard for conduct according to rule. Kant knew logic and succeeded in viewing it critically, but he did not know life, and his attempt to subsume humanity under the cate- gorical imperative was disastrous. The way in which he pitted the practical against the speculative and urged the will to throttle the intellect under the academic banner of "primacy of practical reason" is too well known to need comment, too melancholy to desire emphasis, and we can only regret that our great modern did not have the courage to view conscience as he viewed causality. For why should the causal category be limited to experience while the categorical imperative was granted the freedom of the ideal, with the effect of promoting a weak phenomenalism VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 257 in metaphysics and a strong but cramped rationalism in morality? For all that can be said against a metaphysical thing-in-itself may just as well be urged against a moralistic duty-in-itself, and he* who, like Kant, admits that the in- tellect ends in a Logik des Scheins can only conclude that the will is threatened with an Ethik des Scheins. As for Kant, he did not see that to divest will of reason and re- invest it with duty was to reduce his ethics to absurdity through the removal of it from human life and its ethical demands; and when he says, "Oh, duty! there is nothing charming about thee." (Crit. Prac. Reason, P. 215) he might also have said "and nothing true, either." No longer does he believe in life. Schopenhauer made the will renounce sense where Kant had turned it against reason, and thereby restored rigorism to its proper place in human life. At the same time, his pessimistic view of nature and man fitted him for the posi- tion of ascetic priest, while his systematic view of aesthetics and ethics suffer him to arrange eudaemonism and rigorism as stages in the achievement of a life-ideal. Accepting Kant's general view of beauty, Schopenhauer elaborates and intensifies it by making aesthetics serve the interest of man in quieting the will-to-live. He who is raised to the height of artistic conetmplation sees the world as one and feels himself a will-less subject cleansed temporarily of desire and its stain. But not all are able to produce the beautiful, and at best the lofty moment of pure contemplation is transitory, so that resort to sterner means must be had and the ideal of contemplation gives way before that of renunciation (cf. Welt als Wille u. Vorstellung, § 60). Not all of us can be artists, but we can all be moralists, and where art quiets and cleanses the will-to-live, the ethics of rigorism destroys it altogether by leading man to denial and negation. Schopenhauer's argument in favor of renun- ciation commands the assent of Tolstoi and the dissent of Nietzsche in a strange mingling of optimism and pessi- mism. Both have at heart the interests of nihilism, and while their theories of life from the standpoint of practical realization are opposed, they uphold one and the same form of theoretical negation. Only a decadent age could yield 258 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE such an example of blood-fusion between opposed forms of life, and thus our own age involves itself in the paradox of affirmonego as it attempts to decide between the respective claims of nature and spirit. 3. THE IDEALIZATION OF PAIN Certain features of the present show how our opera and drama are wrestling with such problems. Nowhere may this be observed more clearly than in the case of Wagner. His resort to renunciation is shown in the two parts of the Niebelungen Ring which develop the characters of the law- defying, optimistic Siegfried, and the ever-weakening, pessimistic Wotan. Even though the tetralogy contains this double motive, both the Siegfried-drama and the Wotan-drama are involved in renunciation. And the ideal of an all-conquering, all-pervading love which causes Sieg- fried and Brunnhilde to repudiate law, finally consumes them in a fire of expiation. The farewell to the world, uttered by Brunnhilde is only the song before the twilight of the gods and heroes. Renunciation has taken hold upon them, so that both Siegfried and Wotan are reduced to the same level. This is the common end of the characters who earlier in the drama stood for the contraries of optimism and pessimism, of hope and fear. Light is shed upon the moral problem of the Ring when it is observed that Wagner, having surveyed the whole ethical field, was content to rest in resignation. In one of his letters to Roeckel, dated August 23, 1856, he expressed his belief in renunciation as* the highest ethical category, saying, "Kannst du Dir eine moralische Handlung anders vorstellen als unter dem Begriffe der Entsagung?" Even his victorious art could not save him from this defeat whose terms of capitulation are expressed in the music and poetry of Parsival. Such is the Wagnerian conception of life. As the Ring indicates the decline of German naturism and the twilight of the fair gods and heroes before the night of Christian renunciation, so Ibsen's "Emperor and Galilean" repeats the story of the downfall witnessed in Grecian naturism when the Emperor gave way to the VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 259 Galilean and the worship of Apollo was forgotten in the praise of Jesus. The result is another triumph of rigorism, although the Emperor Julian attempts to urge the age on toward a third empire, 1 wherein the empire of the spirit, having swallowed up the empire of sense, itself succumbs to the realm of the Emperor — God, who comes into being as the 'man who wills himself" (Act 111. Sc. iv). But just as the Emperor Julian cries out, "The third empire is at hand" (Act v. Sc. 11), he is pierced by the "Roman's spear from Golgotha," and dies exclaiming, "Thou hast conquered, Galilean" (lb. Sc. in). The victory of the Galilean over both northern and southern gods is the vic- tory of the negative over the positive, of pain over pleasure, of spirit over sense. In Ibsen's "Rosmersholm", where, in the full freedom of an emancipated woman, Rebecca West asserts her independence and goes to work at a social re- form that never hesitates in its desire to accomplish valued ends, the heroine finally falls a victim of what she calls the "Rosmersholm view of life." Thus her outlook is clouded and her strength exhausted in the presence of the renuncia- tory ideal, and at last she herself succumbs to the "Rosmer view of duty and expiration" (Act iv). Wagner and Ibsen do not present a unitary argument in favor of renun- ciation, for with Wagner the ravens of renunciation do not appear in the sky until the hero has made a full test of the contrary ideal of self-realization. The same is true of Ibsen, who presents the positive and negative ideals side by side, or effects a transmutation from one to the other, as when the egoistic Peer Gynt, looking into the question of selfhood, learns that "to be one's self is to slay one's self" (Act v. Sc. ix). The whole range of Russian literature with its in- dwelling "black-earth force", as Turgenieff styles it, as also with its frigid nihilism and snow-bound ideals, affords a promising field for negativistic views of human welfare. Russian supermen who seek to live their own individual lives are proscribed by the very air they breathe. Thus in "On the Eve", Shubin complains of the Russian land. "There is no one, as yet, among us; there are no men, look where you will. All are either small fry, or squabblers, 260 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE petty Hamlets, cannibals, either underground gloom and thicket, or bullies, empty triflers, and drum sticks." To which Ivan Ivanovitch replies, "They will come? O thou soil! thou black-earth force! thou hast said: They will come" (xxx). Tolstoi exalts a more spiritual ideal of resignation wherein man acquires his renunciation as his fundamental desire, at the same time he infuses his ideal with the sentiments of compassion and non-resentment. Gorky's intuition of life unites harshness with tenderness, but its most emphatic teaching is that humanity is adapted to and prepared for suffering. Thus in "The Night Refuge," Luka, the pilgrim says, "Every one endures life in his own way" (Act n). The attack upon his ideal of depression, as indeed the repudiation of all resignation, centers in Nietzsche, although he was not without predecessors, such as Stendhal and Stir- ner, nor without followers. Nietzsche's bitter antagonism breaks out upon every side of his own weakened nature, but seems to find its foci in the "will-to-power" and the "super- man." With a nature personally impaired, as was Wagner's, he, however, refuses to submit to the renuncia- tory ideal, and carries on his warfare until darkness over- takes him. His maxim is the antipode of Pascal's le moi est haissable, to which by contrast he gives special prom- inence, while he does not fail to renounce Geulincx's ideal of self-despection — despectio sui. The Third Essay in the Genealogy of Morals (tr. Hausemann), rejects all forms of asceticism and incites an attack upon all moral cruelties, as Nietzsche considers them. The result consists in show- ing how real is rigorism, and with what difficulty it is to be replaced by a happier ideal. The current repudiation of this ideal involves an at- tack upon the retroactive methods peculiar to the indivi- dual's reaction upon himself and his world. Man's attack upon himself is carried on in the name of repentance where- in he repudiates himself through metanoia and in his penance* refuses to sympathize with his former self. Sudermann carries on an attack upon this ideal when in Es War, Leo the hero, having broken two commandments of the Deca- logue, struggles against repentence and constantly fortifies VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 261 himself by saying, "Nichts bereue; immer besser machen." The tendency of Sudermann's view of humanity is to make rigorism look more or less illusory and as an act unneces- sary. In characteristic ethics, where remorse of conscience, non-resentment of evil, and denial of self have a firm place, no one need inquire concerning the appropriateness of repentance wherein spiritual life strives to gain complete sway over the individual's life by unmaking his past for him. For rigorism, repentance is healthful, and when the claims of duty are to be met, some such revolution must take place in the life of man. But all this depends upon what we are expected to be and to do, and the validity of repentance depends upon the value of rigorism. The path which the twentieth century is opening does not seem to lead to Damascus. The other phase of renunciation is doubt, from which rigorism can provide no means of escape. All doubt is due to man's odd position in the world where he can ally him- self with neither nature nor reason, but can only lose himself in a perplexity which follows when he sees how far re- moved from experience are the ideals of his spirit. Our 19th century agnosticism was probably inspired by the hope of finding peace in the renunciation of all fundamental knowledge; for what can be more despairing than a sense of spiritual life which is beyond our powers of comprehen- sion ? A paganism which was beyond belief and doubt can give more happiness than Christendom, with its internal conflicts, can afford; but can the older view of life advance man toward his human perfection? And are we not justi- fied in neglecting the early attempts at disciplining man which Hellenism made, when we see how much greater was the humanity of Him who was touched with the an- cient anguish of the earth. Better the inner diremption of doubt than a misleading naivete, we say, and yet we have the presentiment that man's spiritual unity should not be torn asunder by the conflicting claims of sense and spirit, of experience and human hope. Neither repentance nor doubt is presented in any close connection with the august plan of life that humanity has arranged for man, and we must wait until a third and more unified view of life is 262 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE entertained before we can decide concerning the respective claims of "moderation" and "renunciation." The decadent drama shows that our age is not wanting in responsiveness to sentiment, as it moulds its ideal according to the lines of a woman's forehead, while it views the world through her hair. We must regret, however, that poetry presents the ideal of renunciation in suggestive and unhappy con- nection with sensuality, as in the instance of "John the Baptist" and "Salome" ; wherein rigorism and animalism are so strangely blended. The desire to deny self and renounce life is ineradicable, and while few become Buddhist Bhik- shus or Christian monks, all men are capable of negation. In his sensuous capacity man is by no means sure of him- self, so that his anxiety for spiritual safety leads him to turn away from the world of sense; and thus he shows that the love and hatred of pleasure coexist in the same human breast according to a law not unknown in the tragedy of the eudaemonistic Greeks — the law of Zeus that "pain is gain." 4. — THE PASSION FOR MORALITY Like pleasure, virtue represents one of our human in- terests, being connected with our destiny. This, coupled with the fact that desire may direct our will toward either pleasure or pain, makes possible a veritable passion for morality extending all the way from the love of virtue in its beauty to fanaticism and paranoia. Our modern moral- ists are strangely concerned for virtue as though in its sup- posed weakness it could not take care of itself. The utili- tarian seeks to account for it by associating it with pleasure while the intuitionist feels the unhappy contrast between rectitude and advantage. But humanity rises above such explanations and schemes, for it is possessed of a will which is ready to set up either a positive goal in pleasure or a negative one in pain. When, therefore, the rigorist leaves the will to its own volitions he need not worry lest introspec- tion disclose a sub-conscious trend of hedonism making the will respond to pleasure alone, because our activities run ahead of our judgments and the will stands in need of VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 263 restraint rather than hedonic reinforcement. The modern is coming into being as the "man who wills himself," so that a sane philosophy of voluntarism which shall place the will where it belongs is one of our greatest needs in an age of blind progress and rash pragmatism. Man is not too moral, but his morality is spurious; he is not too willful, but is possessed of an inferior quality of volition; hence the forces of reason should seek to turn freedom from its empirical to an intelligible form, accord- ing to which man may act as a human character who is conscious of his position in the world and his problem in life. Our current philosophical systems reveal their blind- ness when in an age of activism they keep urging industrial and social progress which goes on at an extraordinary rate at the expense of the inner life. The contrary ideal, that of passivism is needed to check the morality of passion by the morality of sentiment, whose essence is found in thought as well as deed. Whether contemplation be the ultimate ideal or not, some degree of intellectual restraint is needed to-day to bring man to himself as human. Why strive to attain to an ideal when that ideal is not defined in thought? We need not indulge in the paradox that man is over- moralized, but we may assert without fear of error that our morality has advanced at the expense of our intelligence, in accordance with the mistaken and anti-Socratic notion that all men know what is right and need only moral impulsion to make them perform it. But this view makes conscience do more than the moral sense of humanity is supposed to perform. Certainly one may be too scrupulous and lose his moral resolution; he may become sanctimonious and thus suffer his good to be evil spoken of, and in addition to mor- bid conscience and fanatical faith, one may be moralized to the extreme of becoming demoralized. At any rate, the instinct is not so weak that it needs nursing from ethical theory, for it may become so strong in its Stoicism, so bitter in its Cynicism that it must be fostered by art. Both, con- science and the categorical imperative will take care of themselves, and if the "good men" of America to-day are able to use Puritan morality in the building up of fortunes magnificent beyond our power to conceive, we stand in 264 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE need of a new system of moral values with less moral earnestness about them. The possibility of a purely moral attitude is never called into question by those who know the utmost capabilities of human nature. Man may stand in perfect moral isolation, either silencing his other faculties for the time or eradicat- ing them altogether; in this striking position he is ready to will his own extinction. Something in the will leads our humanity to seek pain with all the zest of pleasure's pur- suit, and commandments to renounce and deny, to hate and slay the self have always flourished in the human heart. For this reason, moralists are able to deduce a categorical imperative or a denial of the will-to-live, and man, whose instinct for spiritual death is as strong as his love of sensuous life, is more than ready to obey. We need not raise the foolish question of numbers and thus inquire whether those who love life or those who hate life are in the majority; the fact remains that man can repudiate himself, for which purpose he has at his command a will as strong as death. This is the inner truth of Yoga philosophy which makes use of that reserve of volition which is at the command of him who through discipline and denial will set himself aside. Once liberated within the soul, the life-destroying instinct can scarcely be checked in its effort to annihilate all interests, for it carries man as far toward negation as natural passion urges him toward assertion of his animal nature. The student of morals may observe this in his own experience, or he may examine it as it is reflected in some sincere study of humanity, like Balzac's Human Comedy. There, among studies of other forms of obsession in connection with avarice, lust, or revenge, the reader finds striking examples of moral- istic mania exhibited by such characters as Pere Goriot, Eugenie Grandet, Benassis the Country Doctor, Marguerite Claes. Our passions are at war with our sentiments as well as our senses, and the advance of ethics is often the retreat of aesthetics. Through the restraining power of conscience individuals are often hindered from performing beautiful deeds, and in the fear lest one cannot entertain pleasure without passion we cast out joy and beauty altogether. VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 265 Hence arises the contrast between eudaemonism and rigorism, where ethical sentiment is in conflict with moral passion. Systems that counsel man to redeem himself by denial are most plausible when the*y attack nature, least so when they proceed to invalidate culture. But the psychologic fact remains that man has power to lay down his life, for the death-instinct is not much weaker than the life-instinct and the will that affirms can also deny. For the most part, the nihilism of renunciation directs its weapons against natural instinct and seeks to supplant animality by spirituality. Such is the usual course of religion with its inimical atti- tude toward the "flesh" and the "world", and the extreme methods sometimes recommended by Buddhism and Christ- ianity are intelligible in the light of the vicious sensuality which makes the instinctive life of man more degrading even than animalism. Man was not destined to ascend from the domain of flora to spiritual life without passing through the stage of faunal existence, and our most pro- found systems of life make careful provision for this phase of man's being. Where the renunciatory ideal turns its attention to art and culture, and thus seeks to set aside symbolic forms of naturalism, as also the gentle approxima- tions to spirituality which are commonly found in aesthetes, it involves the plan of life in a most serious con- flict and sets ideal at variance with ideal. One cannot say "Virtue have I loved and beauty have I hated," unless these terms indicate only a difference of degree in affec- tion. Vice we are willing to forego, for we find nothing of value in these unnatural forms of human passion; but renunciation must be so construed and so limited that it may make room for culture and aesthetic enjoyment. At this juncture we are confronted by the conflict between cul- ture and conduct, but we cannot survey these ideals clearly until we have traced man's source in the world toward a final, or humanistic, view of life. 5 THE HATRED OF LIFE Our previous examination of self-love as a practical notion was intended to show how difficult it is for the in- 266 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE dividual to realize or even to find himself in the pursuit of personal pleasure. The form of selfhood whch is involved in such a scheme is so weak and unworthy that it cannot rule consciousness or guide man to any tenable position in the world of humanity. Hence we do not call egoism bad, but look upon it as empty. Since human selfhood is in no wise bound up with self-love, it becomes possible to culti- vate the ego by means of a practice totally different, or that of self-hatred: and in the larger world of individuals we meet one who loves his life, 6 ^tXwv rrjv xpvxqv avrov, and another who hates it, 6 //.tow ttjv \pvyrjv avrov. Indeed, in the blind clinging to life man reveals an attitude which mingles self-love and self-hatred, for in both pleasure and pain he longs to find the self which enjoys and surfers. The very impulse which leads man to seek happiness may turn against him and persuade him to trust misery, and a Hellenic love of life may change to a Hebraic fear of exist- ence. It is a hasty psychology that turns the stream of consciousness in the direction of pleasure alone, and an equally heedless form of ethics which assumes that man is naturally inclined toward happiness. Pessimism is a positive condition of things based upon the reality of pain, and he who inclines toward self-hatred and has no real aversion to sorrow assumes an attitude of confidence in misery as though it were better calculated to teach him reality. The appreciation of this sinister tend- ing should prevent the hedonist from dogmatizing about pleasure and happiness, just as it ought to warn the rigorist against inculcating the life-destroying ideals of law and sacrifice. Man's capacity for pain has not received its due ethical estimate, and how blind has been the method of rigorism in its desire to have man suffer! While this may sound ironical, can it be denied that where one ethical school has upheld a morality of pleasure the other has defended a morality of pain? Conscience lives in remorse, rectitude ignores human desire, duty tends to destroy life itself. There can be no doubt that rigorism distrusts hap- piness and believes that the ideal can be found in the prac- tice of pain, and the love of virtue has not failed to instill the hatred of pleasure. It may seem paradoxical to speak VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 267 of man as one who makes neither pleasure nor pain his object, but so detached from experience is the inner sense of human existence that, instead of having pleasure and pain as his masters, man* keeps them as the servants of his humanity. He weighs and values them and chooses eudaemonism or rigorism according to the optimism or pessimism of his view. In view of the pessimistic atmosphere that envelops life, it is unwise to counsel man to expect happiness as such; and it is none the less unnecessary to urge him to renuncia- tion. Man, when under the influence of spirit, has a cer- tain appetite for pain, and is possessed with the notion that sorrow has the power of ennobling; at the same time he feels that pain finds him in a position where he has nothing to lose and everything to gain. One may condemn such a method of conduct for its cowardice, and may look upon the ascetic as one who gives up the problem of life altogether simply because he cannot solve it. Here the eudaemonist may make claim to some superiority when, like the ancient Aristippus, he contends that the man who enters into pleasure and demonstrates his lordship over it is wiser and more ethical than the Cynic who will not trust himself to enjoy life. Nevertheless the issues of life are so great that serious systems of ethics and religion are unwilling to trifle with the minor elements of existence, but sink at once into the very midst of human life where they seek some safe path of moral realization or religious redemption. Pain seems to be more trustworthy because it has a certain touch of reality about it, while happiness is always superficial. More material for a philosophy of renunciation is forth- coming in the melancholy fact of death. Why emphasize the joy of living, or center one's activity in culture when the passage of a few decades will bring the lordly man down to the dust again? Renunciation leads man to rise above mere existence and survey his human career as a combina- tion of life and death, whereby the recipient of this somber view instills a certain amount of death into his very life. Early Christiantity was so possessed of the spirit of renun- ciation that it well-nigh interchanged these ideas and found life in death and death in life. Just as the ideal of modera- 268 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE tion is due to a perception of harmony between the sensuous and spiritual in us, whereby aesthetic judgment and artistic creation become possible, so renunciation arises in a religious mood of consciousness wherein the individual feels con- strained to remove every possible trace of sense for fear of the stain which it may occasion. How vain it seems to speak of eudaemonia when the flesh which feels the pleasure will soon seek corruption? And why should a theory of life be sugered to delude mortals into the expectation of happiness when humanity is ever subject to the destiny of death? Renunciation anticipates death and practices death by leading man to deny himself and negate the will-to-live; by so doing it brings man to a consciousness of his human reality and in the discipline of death teaches him how to live. Eudaemonism strives after Euthanasia, and hence it was that Montaigne wished that death might find him busy in the garden. But, from the standpoint of death, re- nunciation seems to indicate a more consistent path, for it makes the coming of death a matter of no surprise. The death of a eudaemonist is not the sublime spectacle of the death suffered by one who has renounced life already, and it is no matter of chance that religion has embraced the renunciatory ideal. Human striving for spiritual life as instilled by religious belief cannot compromise with sense in the world of immediacy, but insists upon sheer spirit even where the practical demands of life seem to necessitate something more immediate and fruitful. In spite of its contrast to eudaemonism, rigorism is no less antipathetic to the culture of the human spirit. This is due to the fact that the demand for virtue tends to forbid self-realization, for he who feels that he must renounce his life fears to realize it in either sense or intellect. Rigorism stands for restraint, and in the subordination of man to morality there is no opportunity for the individual to attain to selfhood; the will also is taught to exercise its functions in a negative fashion as though man should retreat from nature instead of overcoming her by knowledge and taste, by virtue and worship. Knowledge is subordinated to the ethical will, art is employed as a moral discipline, while religion has no other office than furthering the demands VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 269 of virtue. Altogether, the life of culture is set aside for the sake of obligation, and with the best of intentions trie aims of humanity are constantly thwarted. Like eudaemo- nism, rigorism represents a living element in human nature, a trait reappearing in the race from time to time in greater or less degree. When it is subordinated to the constant striving of humanity toward its own goal, and is further viewed as a means to an end, it may find an acceptable place in a just view of human life. Hence, when finally we come to the major morality of Humanism, we shall find it im- possible to postulate a triumph of humanity over its ideals both of moderation and renunciation; and in this condition of victorious humanity selfhood will find its proper place. VII THE EFFECT OF CHARACTERISTIC ETHICS— THE DIGNITY OF MAN As naturism with all the ramification of its paths finally led to a sense of value which man receives from the world, so characteristic ethics evinces the dignity of man in his capacity of a moral character distinct from nature. It does not follow from this that the categories of value and dignity are fully elaborated by this view of life according to nature and reason respectively, but the general sense of life as worth while and worthy seems to follow from the arguments employed by these traditional schools of ethics. When man responds to conscience and rectitude, when he is alive to freedom and duty, he shows how dignified his life may become, for he now perfects his life in reason as his feeling of value leads him to perfect his life in sense. And just as pleasure and desire, utility and eudaemonia were in an in- clusive notion of value, so the four concepts of characteris- tic ethics are to be subsumed under the category of human dignity. The restraint of sense in conscience and the res- ponse of reason in duty are deciduous and thus lead to an ideal beyond their borders in the form of a unified life in the complete order of humanity. In adition to this general result of characteristic morality certain special elements are noteworthy. The service of idealistic ethics has already been recognized in our introduc- tion to this second view of the life-problem, and the review of characteristic morality, as it now lies before us, serves to fortify the impression that this method was the only one which could evince the independent nature of ethics and reveal the worth of common morality. Again we can be thankful that we were not left to the ideal-less principle of naturism, with its mere sensitivity to pleasure and its desire for immediate well-being, and praise is due to in- 270 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 271 tuitionism because it has revealed the possibility of an im- perceptible principle unknown to the eudaemonist in his world of immediacy. The service of intuitionism in ethics is very like that of rationalism in Baumgarten's aesthetics, where our modern science of beauty was emancipated from tradition and established in a systematic way unknown even to classicism and the Renaissance. Characteristic ethics has had a similar effect upon moral consciousness and no matter how far we depart from its ideals we cannot deny that its formal value is beyond dispute, for there is nothing indefinite about conscience and rectitude, duty and obliga- tion. The plan of characteristic morality revealed a two-fold form consisting of ( 1 ) an intellectualistic sense of conscience and rectitude, and (2) a volitional principle of freedom and duty. As we received these doctrines they seemed to be unintelligible in themselves and filled with paradox, until we surveyed them as indications of the single striving prin- ciple of humanity in its progress from nature to spirit. Then it appears that man's moral sensitivity and spontaneity are not false, but genuine, although it does not follow from this that they indicate the final element in human life. Our human striving is disclosed first of all in pleasure, and is seen again upon a higher plane as a desire for self-approval ; thus both the paradox of pleasure and the problem of con- science are involved in man's striving with self, where first nature and then reason is uppermost. Among our impulses the same principle of striving asserts itself and where it first assumes the form of desire actuated from within by the spontaneous volitions of consciousness, it reappears as the detent of duty which turns against nature instead of striv- ing toward it. A final glance at the roots of characteristic ethics will show how conscience and rectitude, freedom and duty, are animated by one central principle of human self- assertion. I— INTUITIONISM AND LIFE Presented in their usual form as ideals of characteris- tic morality, the principles of intuitionism represent but half-truths, whose completeness is to be fcund in a view 272 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE of life which does not depend upon the inner diremption of humanity, but postulates the unity of spiritual life. Characteristic ethics has more interest in morality than in humanity, and it perfects its science at the expense of life. The case of conscience shows how intuitionism is willing to destroy the unity of mind for the sake of demonstrating its point concerning an inviolable sense of right and wrong. All other phases of man's consciousness are left to them- selves and are even debased in order that the sanctity of conscience may appear in clearer outline. Unfortunately for the intuitional prejudice, conscience is not permitted to enjoy such mental seclusion, but must take its place among the other semi-infallible elements of consciousness. A proper and more defensible view of conscience abandons the notion of ex cathedra utterances made by this favorite faculty of Protestantism, and relegates our human sense of approval and disapproval to the general course of mental judgments concerning truth, beauty, reality and value. In- deed, the true authority of conscience consists, not in some unnatural voice coming from an unwonted quarter, but in the general tenor of our total consciousness as this invests us with selfhood and informs us of our human worldhood in the realm of persons. The artificial view of human rectitude comes in for its share of criticism and must undergo the same correction. An autonomous judgment of right may safe-guard the in- terests of characteristic morality, but it does so at the ex- pense of logical consistency. Our own examination of autonomy was carried on with the hope of finding some ac- ceptable form of ethical judgment, for we believed that humanity cannot content itself with the mere felt approval and disapproval of an inner sense. But the narrowness of intuitionism, forbidding as it does any idea of human in- terest, renders the ethical judgment fallacious, since it con- sists in a circular form of argument. There are judgments of rectitude but they do not assume the analytical form of "right is right", but avoid the circle and assume a synthetic character by regarding the judgment humanistically as a relation between man and his ideals. Intuitionism does not happen to fall into this fallacy, but its very principles VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 273 are such as to make it unavoidable, and the bad psychology of an isolated conscience adds to it a bad logic of the vicious circle. Escape from this will be found in a living judg- ment of virtue according to the norms of actual life in humanity. On its volitional side, characteristic ethics was unable to defend freedom, just as it found no consistent way to apply the ideal of liberty to life. Intuitionism could not refrain from taunting the preliminary system of naturistic ethics by contending that causality was rendered where freedom was en evidence. Thus it set man's will against his understanding, and made him doubt causality in order to believe freedom. A more temperate view seeks to establish something more than the punctual freedom of the individual, with its provoking attempts to pierce the fabric of outer causality, for it finds living liberty as the construc- tive principle in a world of humanity above that of nature. Such freedom is worth seeking in theory and in life, for it adapts itself to the ideal of morals that humanity is incul- cating. Intuitional liberty is not used fairly in the ethical system that seeks to deduce it, since it is at once turned into law where the yoke of nature becomes the yoke of nature- like reason. No greater burden than that of freedom has the human mind known; antique fate and modern deter- minism have been kind in comparison with the law of liberty which rigorously demands renunciation, and tries to crush all interest out of life for the sake of a nameless and pur- poseless law. Upon such a basis, intuitionism erected the ideal of duty as far removed from humanity as its counterpart, freedom. As a result there appeared a paradox insurmountable upon a rationalistic basis. If duty indicates the supreme consider- ation in human life, it should connect itself with some living interest, but according to characteristic ethics man must perform duty because it is duty, and his satisfaction consists in knowing that he has done the act for the sake of duty. We need not deny that in many instances, when the way from some immediate act to the total purpose of life does not appear, the practical man of action must pur- sue the path of duty as such, with the hope that it will trace 274 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE its way through the labyrinth of life to its destined goal. The sense of our existence is not recognized in our average life, but only in isolated crises, and hence the intuitionist has been able to defend an imperative principle of action because our human striving must go on even when its pur- pose is not clear. Indeed, even to-day the real sense of living is neither clearly conceived nor faithfully presented to our wills, and yet life must proceed. Yet such an appeal is directed toward our ignorance and the animality of our history, when a faithful philosophy of life should aspire toward knowledge and the humanity of man, and conduct the moral argument according to the analogy of some goal. If duty is so imperative it must be because the issues of life are so urgent, but duty as developed in intuitionism can never tell us of anything beyond itself, and its devotee feels that he should participate in the values of that life for which he makes such sacrifices. The principle of renunciation is made upon a similar basis and is similarly unable to assume control over human life. In a certain sense the kipd of renunciation called for by rigorism is not genuine, since the rationalistic principles of the school leave nothing to be renounced. Having re- pudiated desire, so that it could not be made a consideration in human existence, regorism cannot justly urge the renun- ciation of something that does not exist. Of this paradox our modern Puritanism is guilty when it starts out in systematic opposition to sense and taste and then calls for self-denial from a self without sufficient content to make the denial genuine or valuable. What can be renounced after one has done his duty or obeyed the categorical im- perative? What can the rigorist renounce, when, clad in camel's hair cloak and feeding upon locusts and wild honey, he stands alone in the desert? If it be valid, renunciation must have some appreciable content for its exercise. The thoroughgoing formalism of characteristic ethics may now be recognized as the cause of these dilemmas. On the intellectual side, the origin of conscience and the ground of rectitude are without explanation, in characteristic ethics, which, from the volitional standpoint, has no justification for freedom or duty. Yet when these principles are related VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 275 to the unitary sense of human striving they become intelligi- ble and influential. There is a human reason for conscience, just as there is a ground for rectitude, while freedom and duty have a place in $he life that ascends from nature to spirit. In the same way, there is room for renunciation in such a course of life, although it does not follow that man should renounce himself altogether for the sake of an abstraction. Hence another glance at the principles of in- tuitionism will show how simple they seem when surveyed in the light of man's whole life. The ideals of right because of right, duty for the sake of duty, are empty and mislead- ing, just as mere renunciation is an unreasonable demand. When our living humanity asserts its claims, it will be time enough for such severe methods. 2. SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF CHARACTERISTIC ETHICS In addition to the artificial form of characteristic ethics there arise certain special problems in connection with its categories of rectitude and duty, as these have behind them the mental functions of conscience and freedom. Intui- tionism has had the good fortune to put ethical science in the proper light and has been equally happy in detaching its ideas from the confused mass of moral experiences. But with statement its work has practically ceased and the solu- tion of the problems proposed is to be sought elsewhere. Our examination of intuitional ideals and maxims kept showing how inevitable are the obstructions rising in the path of a purely formal system, just as it pointed out the way to a natural view of life whose point of departure was man's position in the world of sense-spirit, whose motive consisted in his free striving after selfhood. Then con- science began to reveal its source and rectitude its ground, while freedom showed how humanity emancipated itself from nature to undertake the responsibilities of spiritual life in the form of duty. Thus viewed, the problems of charac- teristic ethics become less and less opaque. 276 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE a CONSCIENCE AS CONFLICT WITH HUMANITY The tragic way in which the individual, who blindly feels that he is all of humanity, is opposed by the totality of human striving, was discussed when we looked at the first phase of characteristic morality. Here it remains only to be pointed out how the idea of humanity conditions this internal conflict. Cleared of its habitual mystery, the com- punction of conscience seems to arise when the naturistic individual wilfully opposes the interests of the human world — whole, and in the total sense of human striving this common ill of human life is none other than the naturistic conflict of ego and the social non-ego. When is the remorse of conscience more keen, more characteristic than when the blind ego opposes his petty interest to the well-being of the world of humanity? Man, whether we survey him in the light of either naturistic or characteristic ethics, can do nothing but help or hinder humanity, and his virtue or his vice comes for the same primitive treatment at the bar of a conscience which, in its fidelity to humanity, is partial to no minor school of morals. To represent conscience as the voice of something alien to humanity is eccentric and misleading. The inner sense of compunction is secluded from every explanation save that of a wounded selfhood, for that which injured the person wronged grieves also the self. Human restraint, which suffers one not to feel anger unjustly, is evidently securing man against the reaction of his humanity upon himself; just as it inhibits resentment, even when this may be just, that all forms of hatred may be removed from the soul. To the individual who sees in the self nothing but an ego, conscience can only assume the guise of mystery and make its appeal as an alien authority; but when the sense of selfhood is more fully realized, the feeling of ap- proval and disapproval is touched with human warmth and assumes a personal form, so that he who has been the ag- pressor feels grieved with himself, now that his humanity is contrasted with his egoism. Let it not be suggested that conscientiousness, in its desire to relieve the individual from any possible remorse that may arise, is thus only another VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 277 form of selfishness; for the "self" here involved is the world-self of the human order, or the intelligible ego, whose interests are not petty and personal, but universal in their significance. Only by being alive to remorse and fearful of resentment may one attain to the inner worldhood of his life and realize himself as human. But the theory which makes conscience an arbitrary dictator, who inflicts punish- ment as a warning against future offenses, is as far removed from the humanity of conscience as is the hedonist who looks for freedom from pain without asking how pain is likely arise. b THE FALLACY OF RECTITUDE AND ITS HUMANISTIC CORRECTION From its own standpoint, characteristic morality cannot present the problem of rectitude in any other than a para- doxical form. This unhappy condition of affairs is involved in the very idea of autonomy with its circular form of argumentation, while the moral judgment expressed is never anything but an analytical one. Rectitude thus dwells in a hopeless moral seclusion whence it cannot issue and take its place in the actual life of pleasure, pain and desire; it transfixes humanity upon a relentless ideal and becomes a fixation-point in the consciousness of the living, striving individual. Right is right, but while nothing less, it is nothing more. But man is man, and he keeps his humanity in the midst of his ideals. Now the human heart never put forth the principle of autonomy with its doubtful metaphysical value and narrowness of logical range. Hu- manity can and does make humanity an end, but this is not equivalent to saying that right is right because it is right; man can set up virtue and aim at it so perfectly that we are able to see how necessary to him are his ideals; but in so doing he surrenders himself to a principle of spiritual life and not to an analytical judgment. Hesitant as was characteristic morality to invest the right with any appreciable contents, the fact remains that this view of life tended to inculcate the disinterested in man. In pursuit of his intuitions, he was led to forego narrow 278 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE egoism and consider the beauty of the ideal. The claims of humanism did not fail to voice themselves even in the attenuated form of idealism, for he who had learned to revere the ideal because of its non-naturistic content, could be taught to love the law when its humanistic value was pointed out. When it appears that the will of the world is such that we shall learn to abandon material interests for spiritual ones, we see why we were so sensitive to con- science, so responsive to duty, so rapt in our contemplation of the ethically "right." Rectitude does not consist of a mere rule whose counterpart might be found in some mechanical law, but it contains the rule in the natural way that the manifold of natural phenomena represent a tew general principles. Or, to vary the illustration, rectitude indicates a law not unlike those of aethetics whose intui- tions combine a universal form wiith a living content. Neither nature nor art makes use of abstractions, and ethics can come near to the life of humanity if it seeks the uni- versal and disinterested in human life. Where the aca- demic interests of theory are lost sight of, it can be seen that living individuals who are bent on conduct cleave to virtue because of its inherent worth, and their "autonomy" is only the lofty appreciation of what is noble. Such rectitude is beyond the reach of characteristic ethics, for it carries one over into the precinct of humanity. C THE WORLD OF FREEDOM AND FREE WILL Freedom is no special prerogative belonging to some particular activity of consciousness, but is the very essence of all human striving. When, therefore, a system of ethics seeks to demonstrate some supposed sense of liberty apart from the total activity of the soul, it prejudices the case against freedom and further weakens its arguments by assuming that such freedom exists for the sake of rigorism, but does not exist on behalf of hedonism. Genuine free- dom, however, concerns itself with something more than a duty-doing will; it is active in connection with desire and belongs indeed to the fullness of human positing. We need not assume the broad view of Schopenhauer, when he re- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 279 duces all forms of activity to the will in the world, to see that volition is as vast as humanity. Our point of view, therefore, leaves us midway between Kant and Schopen- hauer, inasmuch as we advance beyond the narrow rationalism of the one and yet do not proceed to the vague naturism of the other; hereby, we are able to make freedom humanis- tic and can express the inner meaning of the world of hu- manity by styling its inner activities the world of freedom. Only in humanity does such a freedom become manifest to consciousness, for only in humanity is this freedom found. From the ambiguous position that man occupies between two world-orders it follows that neither determinism nor libertarianism can be true. Determinism seeks to sur- render man to the realm of physical causality and thus treat him in the light of thinghood rather than spirithood. Lib- ertarianism reverses this process and where its antagonist seeks to submerge man . in nature, it endeavors to lift him out of sense into the airless order of pure reason. Now man is neither animal nor angel, but human; his world is neither nature nor spirit, but the atmospheric realm of humanity. Hence human freedom is a genuine product of human striving independent of physical causality and the supposed equilibrium of rational forces in consciousness. Determinism need not seek to forbid man's entrance into pure reason since his humanity does not lead him there; libertarianism need not fear that man may sink into mere sense, for his human vocation prevents such a disaster. Freedom exists and needs only to be perfected by man him- self in his strategic position in the one world which to him now looks like two alien orders of matter and mind, of sense and spirit, of nature and culture. d IMPERATIVE DUTY AS HUMAN STRIVING There is something sepulchral in the hollow voice of duty crying, "Thou shalt!" No ethical theory can abide* by such, an impersonal utterance which calls upon man to surrender all to the ideal without indicating any response on the part of the world. To demand that man shall yield all, and to promise him nothing in return is a paradox the 28o VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE parallel of the hedonic are, where man pursues an ever- eluding pleasure. Now the apparent significance of duty, which does not reveal itself so long as the rationalistic side of life is under scrutiny, is found to consist in the total order of human existence wherein the ideal of perfect hu- manity is uppermost. It is from the abyss of humanity that the voice of duty comes, and when man has once found his center and is conscious of the purpose of his life, the veil is done away with in humanity and the imperative character of the good appears as none other than the endless striving of humanity with nature. It is this universal im- pulse which invades the private heart where in its isolation it appears as a nameless obligation. Humanity is deter- mined to assert itself and there is needed no better proof of this than the consciousness of duty. Only by such an ap- peal to the universal will of humanity are we able to ac- count for the strength and the durability of the moral pas- sion. Where man seems to set up nothing as the goal of his endeavor, and where in practice he carries on renunciation, as one who hates his life, he is really submitting to and furthering the plan which humanity has set for his realiza- tion. In the blindness with which duty asserts itself, we have an example parallel to that of desire which continues to hold man to nature even when the impossibility of hedonism has been pointed out. Still he hopes, still he strives, all because, whether as desire or duty, the one longing for humanity lures him on to something he has not yet achieved. In the presence of this overwhelming ten- dency to be human, as it shows itself in knowledge and action, in culture and civilization, hedonic and rigoristic passions are lost to view, and the validity and force which they do have is due to their participation in the ceaseless stream of life. Where in the spirit of optimism, desire deludes man with the idea that nature can satisfy his striv- ing, duty makes use of a pessimistic principle and, by counsel- ling man to renounce all inclination, all desire for conse- quence, persuades him to follow abstract duty as though that alone were safe. With the interests of spiritual humanity so threatened by naturistic tendencies, there is a certain VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 281 cogency in the rigoristic argument which urges man to yield to the ideal, even though the theory does not invest this with any content. When humanism appears, it finds the ground of naturism already broken, and where man has learned to obey law because it is law, and to follow duty because it is duty, he can further be taught to strive for a perfect humanity whose content is constantly enriching itself as history advances. 3 — ESCAPE FROM RIGORISM THROUGH HUMAN DIGNITY Like eudaemonism, rigorism is indicative of the general view of the theory that proposes it. One seeks to relate man as such to the world of nature, where the other en- deavors to adopt him to the ideal. Particular views of pleasure and conscience, desire and duty, are lost sight of in these more philosophical adjustments of man to the approved order of his being. For this reason, the question is one of sufficiency rather than of demonstration. Eudaemonism does not succeed in restoring man to his unity with nature, while rigorism fails to raise him to the ideal of spirit. The principle of renuncio overlooks the genuine humanity of mankind, for its ideals were not to be revealed to flesh and blood, but to some imaginary kind of men who do not de- sire to know or to feel. Where our own view of life keeps calling to our attention the constant striving of humanity to reach some half-guessed goal, we find it impossible to believe that this effort could be kept up under the auspices of a rigorism which negates everything but the barren law of obligation, and thus leaves no place for human interests and human methods. We are called upon to live and to be human, before we are called upon to obey the rationalistic law of duty. Life is destined to triumph over its ideals, so that hu- manity rises above renunciation and asserts itself positively. Rigorism cannot be justly criticised from the eudaemonistic standpoint because its ideals are not likely to yield happiness to men, for they were not expected to do this. Where the critical view is not some particular theory, but the life of man itself, it becomes possible to remove renunciation from 282 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE the supreme position of judge by saying that its judgments are not in accordance with humanity and that its principles carried out consistently would only defeat the ends of human existence. Rigorism assumes that it is opposing nature for the sake of the ideal, but in reality it is directed against culture, so that one of the most critical problems that will soon arise in our view of humanistic ethics will be that of conduct versus culture, wherein our Semitic prin- ciple of conscience arises to rebuke our Aryan joy of in- tellectual life and its perfection. One need only to recall the deep-seated antipathy toward the human understanding that the categorical imperative displayed, to see how blindly the human mind may renounce, not only sense, but also reason, and then having closed the path from knowledge to reality seek another, leading from what ought to be to what is. We must renounce truth in order to secure goodness, or as the truth-hating words of Kant expressed it, "I had to destroy knowledge in order to make room for faith." (Critique of Pure Reason, Pref. 2nd. ed.) Such an attack upon intellectual life gives one courage to repudiate his renunciation and continue to rely upon a mind which may have its root in sense, where man's own life begins, but grows into intellect which participates in the world of spirit. There are some things we cannot renounce, and if we yield our immediate interests of sense we will keep our ultimate interests of reason. Meanwhile, knowledge re- fuses to be destroyed. Whatever man does or suffers must be in keeping with his human dignity as a human being, so that ethics seems to stand in need of some substitute for renunciation. This cannot be found until the conditions of human dignity have been laid down in a manner consonant with man's ethical program. Characteristic ethics has given us a starting- point, and we must begin where that theory ends. The full problem of human life, however, is not to be discussed under the head of dignity alone, for naturistic ethics has been equally successful in deducing a moral category, that of value. For this reason, humanistic ethics will be seen to have two poles in the value and dignity of human life. In order to save our sense of human responsibility, we VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 283 must find some substitute for the categorical imperative. Our age is characterized by an inner freedom which toler- ates no artificial restraints from laws which seem all too human, so that he whc^ would rescue responsibility must rescue it from "duty." Not only Nora in "A Doll's House" has her fling at duty, but the exaltee everywhere is looking toward the "higher law." This Anatole France's Therese says, "Yes, morality, duty, I know. But how hard to dis- cover what is duty. I assure you that for three quarters of my time I do not know where duty lies. It is like the hedgehog that belonged to our English governess at Join- ville; we used to spend the whole evening looking for it under the furniture ; and when we found it, it was time to go to bed." (The Red Lily, tr. Stephens, II). PART FOUR HUMANISTIC ETHICS I MAJOR AND MINOR MORALITY I THE LIFE OF HUMANITY IN SPIRIT The general proposition that has guided our discussion of man's career in the world asserts that life consists in the ceaseless striving of spiritual humanity with material nature, as also in the creation of an independent order of being. The origin, development and culmination of this striving were surveyed in the first part of this work, when we were seeking to portray the problems of life. From this uni- versal view of humanity we were forced to turn aside to examine into the claims of naturism, with its principle of immediate feeling, and of characteristic ethics, with its ideal of an ultimate rectitude demanding the renunciation of life in the world of sense. We have seen what these two theories accomplish for a philosophy of life, and have noted wherein they failed to lead man to the goal of his existence. At the same time we have tried to show how the pursuit of pleasure and the desire for happiness, as well as the con- straint of conscience and the free renunciation of life itself, present phenomena so self-contradictory that neither naturis- tic nor characteristic ethics can account for them, so that we must resort to a larger conception of man's human prob- lem in order to see how inevitable are such things as the paradox of pleasure and the aimlessness of desire, the mystery of conscience and the contradiction of duty. These common enemies of our traditional ethical views, as well as others like egoism and altruism, freedom and fate, autonomy and heteronomy, have been subsumed, we hope, under the general proposition that humanity strives onward toward self-realization. Finally, the idea of human life as such is to have a hearing; and humanity, no longer as a standard for judging 287 288 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE other views, but as a system, may now be surveyed for its own sake. Part Four of our work thus begins where Part One concluded, while the criticism of conventional systems as taken up in Part Two and Part Three has only rein- forced our conviction that humanity in itself, apart from pleasure and rectitude, or desire and duty, contains a life that is worthy of thinking and living. In carrying on such an examination of human striving, we do not assume that man will live without desires or duties, nor do we seek in any other way to set aside those general notions of the posi- tive and negative forms of life suggested by the two theories; we desire only that ethics abandon these eccen- tric positions and seek the center of life in humanity itself, leaving the principles of eudaemonia and renunciation to find subordinate positions. Such an attempt to systematize our humanity is no simple task to be accomplished in a word or two; new moral categories must be found to contain the idea of a living, striving humanity which can no longer be subsumed under a plastic good or a dynamic duty; new ideals must be created to guide the activities of the emanci- pated human spirit which no longer surrenders to virtue and conscience; and everywhere the heritage of former systems must be adjusted to the needs of a new ethical age. In pursuing such investigations, we shall be guided by our original point of view, according to which the human creature proceeded to withdraw from external nature and elaborate an inner life of character in the world of human- ity. To realize this ideal, our ethical system must survey humanity in the inness and totality of its nature; then the proper categories as well as sufficient methods will appear. The ethical systems that have been under scrutiny have not surveyed man in accordance with his position in the universe ; hedonism has put him in nature, intuitionism has taken him from it abruptly, while his exact condition is one of a pass- ing through or leaving behind him the natural order whence his existence was derived; hence the human coloring in life. VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 289 2 HUMANITY AS A SYSTEM Our view of man's moral life has sought to survey the ethical problem in its totality, although it has not failed to observe how particular ethical systems tend to formulate and characterize the question of life. In this way arises a two-fold view of conduct, one phase of which exhibits a major morality whose premises are found in the universal conditions of life, and a minor morality content to arrange the details of conduct for the time. Major morality in- volves the position that man occupies in the world as a whole and assumes to know something about the sense of living; it does not isolate man and seek to order his conduct as to so many acts here and there, but surveys him in his proper setting of humanity with the aim of interpreting his ethical vocation. As a result it tends to express the inner nature of man and the totality of his existence, while the moral conception of being, instead of being something ex- ceptional, appears in natural adjustment to the rest of his spiritual functions. In other words, major morality re- fuses to assume an eccentric position in man and proceeds at once to the center of his being; ethics then becomes a phase of man's life but not the whole of it, and humanity rises above its ideal. The unsystematic view of humanity that made man con- sist of either feeling or will resulted in the production of a minor morality. In itself, such a plan may have its place in the life of a creature who asks, "What ought I to do?", but this point of personal interest in the moral order does not justify the philosopher in assuming that his practical rule of action should become the constructive maxim of the whole universe. Minor morality proceeds in ignorance of the nature of action and assumes that the "free moral agent" can perform a deed with his will alone. Already we have seen how pleasure fails to account for the activities of man and the same may be said of abstract virtue. Man needs more than conduct to achieve his humanity and the moralis- tic view of life is in no wise calculated to evince man's self- hood and worldhood. For this reason, major morality finds it necessary to depart from the morality of doing duty and 290 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE satisfying desire, for a form of life which springs from the center of man's nature and expands over the totality of his being. What is wanting in the minor morality is a systematic treatment of the life-problem; this found and furthered, we realize that the world is aiming to produce, not moralists, but men. According to the plan which has guided the in- troductory and critical parts of this work, life receives its meaning as well as its momentum from the world in which man finds himself, while the moral life is a means, or form of conduct, involved in the perfection of humanity. Where minor morality fails is in its inability to recognize its own position, as something secondary and preparatory to life-in- itself, as a means and not an end. Life exists for life's sake ; morality is called into being for the purpose of further- ing human existence. Moralistic thinking and living dwindles and fails, because they refuse to participate in the one world-movement of man from nature to humanity; be- cause they find no logical place in the history of human cul- ture. The larger ethics, however, is never ignorant of or inimical to the total problem of life, and it is with appro- priate language that Plato, Spinoza and Schopenhauer des- cribe the supremacy of the moral ideal. They do not take morality for granted, but derive it from the totality of the ontological order. The ethical is a part of man's life but not the all-engross- ing consideration; with it other methods of life may well be compared, to it none can be subordinated. Rights is below the moral plane as religion is above it, while politics and arts are similarly adjustable to the ethical zone of human consciousness. There is a form of living which is infra-moral where man dwells in nature, and there is an- other stage of being where man is supra-moral in the art and religion of his humanity. These victorious forms of culture give us leave to live, and, freed from the labor of desire and the drudgery of duty, we begin to breathe our proper atmosphere. As art delivers man from the thral- dom of sense and turns pleasure from passion into sentiment, so religion transforms conscience and its sting into holy, equanimity and suffers man to be himself. Man thus VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 291 triumphs over the outer conditions of his being where sense- percepts furnish so many given points of departure, just as he rises above the fixed ideas of the inner conditions where alien obligations are Md upon him. Minor morality sees only one form of life, and to the ethical it seeks to subordi- nate all taste, all truth, all worship. Minor morality has ever made the ethical life too simple. Man has ever been labeled "free moral agent"; he has been taught to "know himself" and to ask "What ought I to do?" Conscience has become fixed idea, rectitude frozen custom, and duty the one thing needful. Both moral hemispheres have been mapped out according to this simple view of man. Hedonism has been as insistent upon its calculus as the intuitionist his conscience; failing to observe the possibilities of the individual in egoism, it has ever called benevolence right and self-realization wrong. Humanity and indivi- duality, art and religion, have been lost to this simplified statement of minor morality, and where the absolutism of the one found something immutable in rectitude, the rela- tivism of the other was none the less devoted to the acquired piety of long practiced virtues. The failure was the failure to survey man in his humanistic atmosphere; the result was felt when minor ethics found no way to account for progress and re-valuation. As a system it looked upon men as dwarfs and could neither explain their motives nor satisfy their desires. This common failure to find humanity is shown in the ideal which we can imagine the theorists to have elaborated. The "good" man hedonic has sought the largest sum of pleasures or the greatest good of the greatest number; or in the spirit of benevolence, he has surrendered private pleasure that another hedonist might have the enjoyment of it. What is the result? Certainly nothing heroic, nothing which can put the "good" man in the system of major morality. Sup- pose we consider the "good" man rigoristic, who has been so hedonically "bad" as to spurn pleasure and to pursue duty at the cost of happiness. His character is cramped, because it makes no room for culture; this "good" man is stupid in his severities, just as he is wanting in a sense of humanity and life's values. The usual method with ancient 292 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE Stoic and modern Protestant tends to make "bad" preferable to "good", for the latter quality lacks all suggestion of the heroic and histrionic. The stage could make no use of the man of desire or the man of duty, because the drama, which consists in relating the individual to some pregnant situa- tion, could never arouse enthusiasm over the entrance of the egoist into the social order, or the conflict between the rigorist and life according to nature. The predominance of the nature-ideal over the culture- ideal reveals a painful indifference to the one life problem. Hedonist and rigorist either despair of life or regard it non est disputandum, so busy are they with the manifold that they overlook the unity of life, and are easily lost among the details of a hedonic calcalus, or an array of virtuous virtues. Imagine the thinker pondering upon the problem? What is a man supposed to do? Can he receive light from a theory which tells him how to conserve his pleasure, or how to promote his virtue? Minor morality has ever been guilty of postponing the central issue for subordinate ques- tions, and its particular theories cannot stand for humanity. Spencer begins by accusing all other views of ignoring the "causal connection" between ethics and life, and ends by turning from "relative" to "absolute" morality, but his actual discussion of the ethical problem does not become such fine premise and postulate, for the evolutionist is over- come by naturistic hedonism which fails to locate humanity. Neither desire nor duty is final in human life; both are means to an end which is the culture of humanity. Let it not be protested that, as an ideal, duty is so remote, so ultimate, that man can never attain to it, much less exceed its demands, for the same may be said of desire, which is positive and concrete, where duty is negative and abstract. Man never performs his duty ; man never realizes his desires ; the argument under the category of the unattainable therefore is invalid. Humanity is beyond desire and duty; neverthe- less, it is so germane to man that it will be satisfying to him and be realized by him in a way unknown to naturistic aim and rationalistic duty. Man was not made for pleasure, else he had been only a creature of feeling; he was not made for duty, for then he were only a will ; but he was made for VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 293 humanity which in its unity is beyond the comflict of desire and duty. The realization of humanity is the unum neces- sarium for man, who will ever be confronted with duty undone and desire unrealized. "Man is only completely man", said Schiller, — not when he indulges sense or obeys conscience but — "when he plays (Letters of Aesthetic Education). And by this amiable remark he seeks to point out the path to a perfect humanity which in its aesthetic unity is beyond both sense and understanding. Man is only man when he attains to the inner unity of his humanity; that is when the conflict between desire and duty, ego and alter, has subsided. It was the perception of this truth as a re- ligious principle that led Schleiermacher to look for certain prophetic mediators between mere man and infinite human- ity — Mittler zwischen dem eingeschrankten Menschen und der unendlichen Menscheit. (Reden uber Religion, I. S. 10). Man is only man when his art and worship disclose 1 the harmony of the world without and the endlessness of the same world within his soul, and it is the holy office of artists and religionists to arouse within human conscious- ness a sense of destiny which is lost to the minor moralist with his maxims. When this higher view of ethics is held, we shall cease to wonder whether art has or has not a moral function, for instead of measuring the free creations of genius according to the minor principles of desire and duty, we shall find for them a secure place in the major morality of a striving humanity. 3 THE MINOR NATURE OF HEDONISM AND INTUITIONISM When the moral life is surveyed from an independent standpoint, it tends to show how the extremes of the schools meet after long and petty disagreement. As far back as the antique decadence, Stoic and Epicurean, like Herod and Pilate, made friends in the midst of their enmities and agreed upon a nihilistic life-ideal of ataraxy. Our own decadence has taught us similar lessons, and to-day our in- tuitionsts are ready for a mild form of hedonism in the guise of eudaemonism, while the utilitarian realizes that conscience and "common-sense morality" may sustain some relation to 294 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE the life of man. The apparent superiority of characteristic ethics may be attributed to the fact that it has ever been contrasted with the hedonic conception of life and not with life itself, and when once the august significance of inner humanity dawns upon the mind, the petty ideals of character- istic morality are lost sight of. Rigorism is not life, but rigor mortis, and according to the moral pedantry of its ad- vocates it is required to die dans les formes. It is an un- natural theory, and while it may seem superior to hedonism, the source of man's genuine moral life is found in the latter. Both hedonic and intuitional schools betray a lack of unity in their attempted adjustments of man to the world, which fact is probably due to their failure to view man in the light of his humanity. Hedonism, which is excessively naturistic, makes human desire strong but leaves conscience weak and ineffectual. Intuitionism has done much for the moral law, but its artificial rationalism has weakened man in strengthening duty. The disciple of rigorism is a creature of fear, he suffers from "bad conscience", and is incapable of adjusting himself to the world. Neither view of life is satisfactory, for neither considers the intrinsic quality of humanity. An excess of naturistc desire makes man heavy and dull, and the continued enjoyment of pleas- ure unfits him for the vocation of man in the world. On the other hand, the surplus of rationalistic duty paralyzes man's human efforts, since he despairs of ever obeying con- science or satisfying duty ; thus the yoke of obligation hinders his creative powers in the world of humanity. Morality is overdone in action but falls short in insight and consistency. The whole sense of living is ignored, and the creative nature of humanity is set aside for the sake of minor considerations called happiness and duty. Minor ethics, represented by our conventional theories, fails to relate man to the world, for it does not see that the problems of politics are not in- dependent of those of physics, or the idea of humanity in- different to that of nature. Hedonism, abandons man to nature as though he were only an animal; rigorism removes him from it altogether as though he were more than human. But man with his ever-enlarging humanity is destined for something different from a naturism or a rationalism, and a VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 295 sense of his importance compels philosophy to abandon the narrow forms of minor morality for the human possibilities of a major morality. The essence of the larger morale con- sists in asserting the unity of man's spiritual nature as well as the totality of the human world-order. Minor ethics relates separate human faculties to isolated facts of either nature or reason. The explanation of the failure attending both hedonism and intuitionism is thus to be found in the eccentric position which they occupy in their view of life. They never place themselves in a position to appreciate the integrity of human existence, but content themselves by viewing conscience a e r faculty of the soul, and pleasure as a phase of life; mean- while life itself waits for just evaluation as to its character and world-significance. The best that either hedonism or rigorism can do is to explain isolated acts of the general run of mankind, where the individual is confronted by con- dition and not theory. Men do seek pleasures, men do per- form duties, but do such obvious statements of every-day facts throw a far-reaching light on the problem of life? The meaning of life appears most clearly in the exceptional and gifted individual, who is raised above the necessities of desire and duty, and is enabled in the full freedom of human- ity to perform a genuine deed. In the light of these sign- ificant performances, the major form of morality assumes a justly august form. What perfection of hedonism or rigor- ismcan explain the dialectical activity of Plato, the martial operations of Caesar, the piety of St. Francis, the genius of Raphael, the philosophical poetics of Goethe? Not one of these sons of men did his duty or gratified his desires; the several acts which they performed were above virtue and happiness. This aristocratic view of mankind may possibly be as fruitful as the vigorous democracy which seeks morality either in a primitive social contract, or in the greatest happi- ness of the greatest number. Such a morality is of the minor sort, for it consists only of restraint, while major morality premises the self-affirmation of the soul as the one thing needful and valuable. In addition to this false centrism, our theories have ever clung to an unworthy and unintelligible naturism. The 296 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE genuine life of man is a culture-condition acquired in the assertion of humanism. It was not only Hobbes who saw morality arise in connection with the status naturalis; practi- cally all hedonism deals with raw feelings of pleasure and pain, which under sufficient treatment flower in the beauti- ful and the sublime. The rigorist, in his perpetual hatred of pleasure, has been similarly dull to the possibilities of culture and has relegated duty to the service of a blind and uncouth will. Now, it is the culture-life, not the nature- life, which makes man, and morality should legislate for him a fronte rather than a tergo, that his superior nature, or his humanity, may be kept before the mind. Minor morality, as expressed by particular theories, has thus failed to conceive of the unity which exists in the life of culture. Naturalism and rationalism have been unwilling to approach reality; in ethics, they remain where Kant placed them: i. e., in the very midst of the phenomenal order. In their unfliching naturism, both systems have ignored the life of culture and in so far have fallen short of the ideal of humanity. The ancient who did not distinguish between individual and society was similarly naive in the presence of the difference between nature and culture. Our problem, however, is not the problem of plastic virtue or a formal good. Early in modern ethics the conflict between egoism and altruism was met, and how the problem is to find ultimate solution remains to be seen; this, however, is certain: that Hobbist egoism cannot express the moral situa- tion which necessarily includes the social factor. A second step remains to be taken: ethics must advance beyond na- ture, as it superseded the ego with society and is now in the midst of a prosaic socio-economic system. The claims of culture are equal to those of society; in fact, they are the same, since both relate to an overarching humanity. But the condition of ethics to-day, where naturism still holds the field, is as far from the ideal of humanity as it was in the days of Hobbes, who was no more biased in his doctrine of self-love than we are in our naturism. Thus far, the search for humanity, which has led thought away from a narrow egoism, has done little more than pro- duce a social ideal, which is either a political aggregate or VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 297 a social organism. The inness of social life is as much in need of a prophet as was the soul before Augustine dis- covered the interior sense of mankind. True, we have Schiller who may stand in just this prophetic relation to the human world-order. He it was who showed us how* humanity consists, not of outer circumstance, but of inner conditions, and taught us to look for unity in men instead of diversity. Yet Schiller cannot overcome the moralistic prejudice implanted in him by Kant, for although in the essay on "Grace and Dignity" he places humanity above hedonic perfection of sense and rigoristic perfection of reason, his "Letters on Aesthetical Education" treat beauty as the play between sense and reason, and make art the most efficient means of turning a sensationalist into a moral- ist. Finally, it must be admitted that while both schools have developed only the minor ethics, they have culminated in characteristic forms of life-philosophy, that is, of major morality. This appears in the hedonic philosophy of eudae- monism and the intuitionist ideal of rigorism. From these we learn to ask whether life has value and man dignity, because our attention is called to the question concerning man's position in the universe and the total significance of his life. Hence, where hedonism is minor, eudaemonism is major, and where intuitionism is of the lower order, rigorism assumes a position in the higher one. In other words, when a thinker discusses the "arithmetic of pleasure" he is a minor moralist; but when he asks whether man should have im- mediate or remote interests he becomes a major moralist. As to intuitionism, if the philosopher is anxious to know whether conscience can err, his is a minor position; when he would inquire whether man should affirm or deny himseli in the world, he suddenly assumes the role of major moral prophet. In one case he discusses mere conduct of the punc- tual will, in the other he views the moral vocation of the free human spirit. The following table will serve to show how this classification affects our ethical thinkers: 298 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE Major Moralists Plato, whose ethics is based upon a system of physics and poli- tics. Aristotle; his ideal of moderation is a part of his philosophical energism. Hobbes; like Plato, he finds ethics in the physico-political. Spinoza; unrelated to the modern controversy, he creates a major morale. Shaf tsbury ; whose com- monplace views are related to a system of life. Hume; his theory of "custom" unites the speculative and the practical. Schopenhauer; he follows with the consistency the Will-to-live. Spencer, who does not miss the "causal con- nection" of conduct. Nietzsche, who while mentally blind was able to see "beyond good and evil." Minor Moralists Socrates, who repudiates the physical for the ethical. The Stoics, who rush unprepared to mere conduct. The Epicureans, who do the same from an- other view-point. Cudworth-Clarke : their antipathy to Hobbes warps their views. Butler, whose noble sys- tem of self-love and conscience just misses systematization. Price, a mere "intuition- ist." Hutcheson: his humanis- tic standard suggests major morality. Adam Smith; his quest of the origin blinds him to the ground of morality. Kant; like Socrates he surrenders his ideal of knowledge to the moralistic. Intuitionist and Hedon- ist; eager to defend doctrines they fail to survey the moral life of humanity. Both hedonism and intuitionism break through their trad- itional borders when they lead naturistic and characteristic ethics to the major forms of eudaemonism and rigorism. Major morality does not seek to set either of these views at VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 299 naught, nor does it pit one against the other; it strives to arrange them in the order of lower and higher, according to which one becomes an introductory, the other an inter- mediate, form of humanistic ethics. To reach full human- ity, ethics must increase the quantity of these staid views and thus raise them from the petty prudential and legalistic notions of life to a view consonant with the world of in- terior existence. The contrast between the major and minor formulations of the life-doctrine appears in a new form, when one catalogues side by side such maxims as may be conceived as serving in the larger and lesser aspects of hu- man conduct. Both the hedonic and intuitional theories of ethics will be found to fall into the class of minor morals while the contrary ideals of self-assertion and self-abnegation repose among the major maxims. Major Morals Do what thou wilst — Fay ce que vouldras. (Rabelais.) Will thyself. Slay thyself — Sterbe und werde. ( Goethe. ) Live for the ideal. Be thyself. Postulate life. Work the works of con- templation. Do nothing. (Taoism.) Assert, or deny, the Will- to-Live. (Schopen- hauer. ) Renounce. Will the Will-to-Sufier. ( Neitzsche. ) • Minor Morals. Do thy duty. Live for others. Seek pleasure. Live according to law. Seek the greatest happi- ness of the greatest number. Always choose the right. Promote the health of the social organism. ( Steph- en.) Act, act, act. Be good. Obey. Be good and be happy. 300 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE Major Morals Minor Morals Acquiesce, and will the Act as if the maxim of world as a whole. thy action were to be- come by thy will a un- iversal law of nature. (Kant.) The major maxims incite man to work from within as in a world of humanity, his merit consisting in the ability to improvise rather than to follow the score of another. Minor morals are ever social in their rapport, and they call upon man to live in an afferent rather than an efferent fashion for something other, whether a person or an impersonal norm. 4. THE PRAGMATIC REPUDIATION OF REASON In general, the causes of minor morality and its resulting ills are to be found in its constant repudiation of reason. Now that the dread of rationalism is past, and we are far removed from the dogmatism of the Enlightenment, it is fitting to note how irrational the moral life of man has be- come. Our aim in tendering this criticism is not to exalt the understanding to any unnatural position, but to allow the precious intellect of man to indicate for him his position in the world and his problem in life. Thus we invoke reason, not for the sake of reason, which would be like the erroneous maxim of virtue for virtue's sake, but because reason is identified with the inner nature of humanity, so that any repudiation of intelligence is also a repudiation of man himself. Minor morality has assumed that man possesses immediately all that is necessary for worthy and satisfactory action, so that insight is made unnecessary. Is not pleasure an immediate sense and conscience an intuition? Why need we assume that the purpose of our action is open to discussion? This extraordinary condition of affairs stands in need of thorough correction ; pleasure and pain, ap- proval and disapproval are suggestive and influential forms of sense, but not ground for action, and our examination of hedonism and intuitionism has shown how feeling and con- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 301 science can only point to something beyond themselves, which is the indwelling life of humanity. But this inner life does not assume the form of immediate intelligibility, and minor morality is* a serious fault when it teaches us that the whole meaning of life and action appears at once in forms of sense. It is this anti-intellectualism that has culminated in de- cadent morality and nihilism, and we are learning what folly it was to allow Hume and Kant to exalt conduct at the expense of culture. Even before the appearance of these moral masters, modern morality began a course of ex- periments which in England have resulted in no philosophy of life, but a series of "Methods" (Sidgwick), "Data* (Spencer), "Types" (Martineau), "Science" (Stephen), to, which list must be added the "Prolegomena" of Green. The sense of life is lost to these writers who find some phase of the moral life and seek at. once to raise it into the scaffolding of a system. They shun reason, Green no less than Stephen, and see in life nothing but a course of conduct made up of individual acts whose intelligible character is ever wanting. The modern no longer relates his thought to the central problem, but adapts and cramps it to meet the exigencies of his school or to score a "victory" for its particular tenets, such as autonomy versus heteronomy, and egoism versus altruism. He plays his part as intuitionist or hedonist and never thinks to inquire, What is action? What is the ap- parent purpose of life ? Unity is lost in the manifold, reality in appearance. This unintelligent view of life has witnessed the exaltation of the will with the result that a theory of labor has threatened the humanity of man. Man has been reduced to mechanism. Where the 18th century said "Man is a machine", the 19th reduced the theory to practice and suffered labor to dehumanize the individual. Paganism with its exaltation of knowledge, and Scholasticism with its abstractions were better calculated to evince the sense of humanity than this contemptible modern system which has surrendered man to his will and his will to the life of labor. We are finding that labor does not consist in cultivating the garden of Eden but in toiling amid thorn and thistle by the sweat of the brow. Now, such a conduct of life is closely 302 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE connected with the unreasoning conduct of minor morality where virtue has become an excuse for ignorance. The usual contemptus intellects is set aside by major morality in the re-iteration of man's total nature. Voluntas superior est intellectu — such has been the rash assumption of the minor moralist, who, like the ever-vacillating Peer Gynt, is ready to accept the Boyg's counsel and "Go round about." Nevertheless, life cannot be avoided and the man of the future must face his own intellect without shame or fear. Inwardly viewed, man expresses a perpetual Wunsch zur Wahrheit and this has been met with defeat and disap- pointment. The will-to-know has not been wholly absent from the action of sense of the movement of the will, and the life-force which produced the Tamas-guna of feeling and the Rajas-guna of will is no less ready to bring man to the third estate where he will exercise and enjoy the Sattva- guna of insight. Classic contemplation, which was never wholly free from sense, never perfectly and romantic con- quest, which never really had an object, must yield to a hitherto unknown and hence nameless third system where ancient scientia and modern potentia unite in the active contemplation of the world in its totality. Exercise of the will has made man dull to the claims of reality, for so long as he was energetic his fatigue acted as a narcotic and man was content not to know. It is from this "deadly doing" that the major morality seeks to free man, and the resulting emancipation may be thoroughly ap- preciated in a country like our own where a debauchery of action has made us stupid toward the possibilities of a con- templative life. We have cultivated the garden, but have not found the tree of knowledge; we have willed the homo faciens who now rules the earth, which needs not only the worker but the thinker, the homo sapiens who shall con- template it. Where do we find faith in reason's triumph over sense, which is fundamental to major morality? Most eminently in Schopenhauer where it is least to be expected. Our objection to this practical view of things is a psycho- logical scruple in view of the will's inability to contain and to express humanity. Intellect, not will, is what distinguishes man from the brute, is what at last separates man from the VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 303 world of nature; so that he who contemplates and thus obtains a clear mirror of the universe in both nature and humanity is the one who has found the purpose of his life, while he who simply «acts and entertains only such a quantity and such a form of knowledge as shall further action, has but a dim comprehension of the essence of his being in its moral vocation. Hence the pragmatic hero is only a fine specimen of animality whose intellectual powers, not raised to the rank of pure cognition, serve only to quicken his in- stincts into smoother and surer forms of action. He is only another variation of the "blond-beast" whose "blue- eyedness" makes him keen in the realization that knowledge is pleasure and power, but not value and dignity; every step taken in the direction of pragmatism is a step away from genius which lies beyond life, that in its remote position it may more perfectly reproduce it. Action can never be the final consideration in an existence like man's where an inner life ever awaits redemption through thought and contempla- tion; for action is only a means to an end and we perform deeds to demonstrate truth, and turn all our activities into experiment. Let nature with its infinite powers do the work, let man so weak in will but vast in mind do the think- ing: then the purpose of the world-whole in naturistic and humanistic forms shall be accomplished. Certain it is that there is no safety for man in relinquishing his hold upon the intellectual in the blind manner of a pragmatic philosophy. 5. THE MORALITY OF MAXIMS Both forms of minor morality seek to approach the "free moral agent" by means of maxims. When we turn away from maxims to ideals, we are not repudiating conscience and rectitude but are simply protecting major morality from all forms of partial conduct. The hedonist as well as the intuitionist has presumed to legislate for man, and the same imperative of conduct appears first in a hypothetical and then in a categorical form; here it is urged for the sake of con- sequences, there in view of ethics itself. To act for the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or so that the maxim of one's conduct may be fit to become universal law, 304 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE is to be a moral agent but not a man, and nothing but prac- tical expediency can account for the development of such maxims. Life, when thus interpreted, and its chords struck in a minor key, becomes a system of labor, not for the sake of an ideal which naturally attracts, but in obedience to a maxim without purpose. Such morality of the maxim is also forbidding and acts almost altogether in a negative fashion; certain it is that it cannot account for man and his human progress. When one seeks to exchange maxims for ideals it may be seen that he is introducing the cavalier into his system of major morality. Now this is true in a limited sense only, and yet we have no desire to uphold the smug hero of minor morality who cannot act with rules. Take the whole evolu- tionary system and see what little inspiration it brings to the man who himself desires to live nobly and victoriously. Some explanation of barbarism in ethics may be forthcoming from such systems, or some attempted justification of the manufactured hero of an industrial age like ours; but evolu- tionary ethics is no more ideal than a financial company which systematically goes bond for the honesty of some would-be clerk. The moralist seeks to legislate for others who are like Plato's workers and warriors, but he refuses to be bound by his own rules, inasmuch as they have no such merit as the wisdom-virtues of Plato's philosophers. No wonder that Nietzsche sees in traditional ethics nothing but "slave morality" whose goodness is weakness. An ethical system should thus convert its author first, as Buddha became his own disciple and Kant lived the categorical imperative. But the hedonist transcends hedonism as the intuitionist often rises above conscience. If the thinker cannot live his own theory, he has been giving, not a justification of morality, but an explanation only. The idea of cavalier-ethics with its morality minus maxims should have only a spiritual interpretation. Of course, one cannot help thinking of Nietzsche's "blond beast", yet this ideal of violence is the very opposite of the cavalier who represents the refining influence of humanity instead of vulgar physical self-assertion. Nietzsche's original tribute to Apollo as the ideal of contemplation is more in accord VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 305 with the cavalier of major morality than the willful charac- ter later idealized in the form of Dionysius. Indeed, it is not at all impossible to elaborate the character of the cavalier- moralist so that he sfeall be Christian rather than pagan, an ideal of romantic rather than of classic culture. One could style him Petrach or Tasso, Schiller or Corot,according as he sought him in the earlier or later Renaissance, and could find in him the genial triumph of reason over sense. Maxim- morality makes man prudential and worldly-wise and in the most unimaginative fashion he peruses the mechanical rules of a petrified social system ; to him it means life without in-, spiration or coloring in a world which gives him no informa- tion concerning his ethical place or moral problem. The mental blindness of minor morality appears again in our distrust of human feeling; hence beauty has suffered at the hands of truth. In the instance of aesthetics, it can be shown how both antique and modern reasoners distrusted the graces so rigorously that ho consistent doctrine of beauty was tolerated. The ancient who lived and wrought in the at- mosphere of sweetness and light, could not comprehend the supreme value of his work. As the age of Plato comes the age of Pericles goes, and art gives way before aesthetics. But alas! the metaphysical and moral prejudice was so great that the speculative could only regard art as vibrating between the poles of imitation and utility; hence it was that the metaphysical Heraclitus said, "Homer ought to be whipped", while the moralistic Plato condemns, not only the ancient bard, but all forms of poetic and dramatic enter- tainment. For such an attitude the argument is that these things are unreal and unnecessary. Aristotle seems more tolerant than his predecessors, but his theory of art is overwrought with moralistic intentions. Art, like the drama, exists that it may exercise the function of kath- arsisj by means of which the representation of such passions as fear and anger tends to cleanse the soul of them, through an artistic process which is itself pleasant. Even Plotinus, who was ashamed of his body and would not indulge the thought of his corporeality by celebrating his birthday, saw how symbolic and aesthetic art could be, and it was he who originated the argument which led to "Pleasure without in- ?4 306 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE terest" and "Uart pour Vart." Our moderns have been lacking in straightforwardness in their attitude toward the fine arts. Winckelmann and Lessing shun responsibility in their return to classicism; Burke and Baumgarten institute psychological aesthetics and perhaps may be excused for failing to place the beautiful upon a sufficient foundation. Kant and Schopenhauer re- veal the moralistic warping which hampered Plato and Aris- totle. It is the feeling of " disinterested pleasure", or it is "will-less contemplation" which Kant and Schopenhauer ad- vance in the interests of art, but their inner motive seems to be rigoristic. Art is to stupify man; aesthetics become anaesthetics. Both of these writers abandon the artistic ideal for the moralistic one. Kant uses aesthetics as the culmination of ethics and sees in the beautiful only another way of restraining man ; Schopenhauer advances the aestheti- cal first as preparation for the severities of the moral life, for where one has learned to contemplate apart from willing, he can be taught to negate the will-to-live entirely. Both distrust life and employ beauty, not in the form of culture, but as restraint; meanwhile they tend to classify aesthetics as a practical, when it is probably a speculative, discipline Schiller's emancipation was never complete, for his theory of aesthetical education was so conceived as to require first a sensuous, then an artistic, and finally an ethical period in human history. But here beauty is swallowed up in virtue, as pleasure was absorbed in beauty, and the unity of life is broken upon the wheel of moralism. 6. THE CATEGORIES OF MAJOR MORALITY The minor morality of the schools could not exclude that major sense of living peculiar to humanity as an inner totality. Hence, where hedonism rose to eudaemonism, and intuitionism deepened into rigorism, the minor forms of ethics proposed the question whether life has value and man dignity. Now value and dignity are the categories which seem to explain all the ideals of humanity in its position mid- way between nature and spirit. What man receives from nature in the way of pleasure and desire, utility and well- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 307 being, convinces him that life has value; while the way that he reacts upon nature according to conscience and rectitude, freedom and duty, reveals the inner dignity of his moral nature. Under the auspices of naturistic and characteristic ethics, these two forms of moral thinking were considered only indirectly and by way of implication; for the course of the argument showed how man transcends both pleasure and happiness in his search for value, just as his submission to rectitude and duty was undergone for the sake of his in- herent dignity. With humanism these categories appear to be independent of pleasure and pain, approval and disap- proval. In the midst of the inadequacies of minor morality there persisted a sense of humanity, making possible the develop- ment of a major view in keeping with the nature and needs of our spiritual life. To avail ourselves of this valuable result we must react upon, our inner experience and resolve humanity into appropriate categories; only in this way can genuine ethics be made possible. Every characteristic age will have its moral categories according to which its ideals and strivings will find philosophic expression. In its history, ethics seems to have made use of some four categories to acr count for its sentiments. With its plastic methods and formalistic views, antiquity perfected the categories of the good and virtue. Modernity, saturated with physical ideas and dynamic norms, has expressed its view of life in terms of mathematical rectitude and energistic duty. These con- cern the essential form of the moral life whose content was expressed by naturism according to the general principle of pleasure, desire, sympathy, benevolence and the like, called good and virtuous, right and dutiful, as the ethical argument seemed to demand. Or stated in terms of modern theories alone, naturism tended to emphasize well-being in the form of the good, while characteristic ethics, having no faith in a fixed and finished theory of this sort, resorted to duty. Where one theory sought to receive, the other aspired to give. From the standpoint of a full humanity, it seems necessary to employ categories which are neither so naively attached to the world of immediacy nor drawn out of it so abruptly as these opposed methods seem to imply. Three 3 o8 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE categories may be found in value and dignity, which are at- tributes of our humanity and products of its incessant striv- ing. Value is something internal, thus fulfilling the idea of inness, and offering analogy to the categories of good and rectitude ; while dignity arises in response to the totality .of human life and takes its place beside virtue and duty. Our historical sympathies are such that we feel disinclined to de- part abruptly from these other ideals that have served man so faithfully thus far; yet no conservatism should forbid the introduction of new ideals fitted to express and explain the sense of human striving in the world. The consideration of humanity in the light of these two categories will determine the method and secure it against insufficiency at the same time the acquired notions of ethical philosophy will come in for reconstruction. First in order, the category of value must be set off in clear outline, which can be done only by viewing it as a psychological fact, like pleasure, as well as an ethical ideal, like rectitude. From this sense of inherent value attaching to the human soul will follow the ideal of life's dignity in a world of human values. Man is no longer the creature of desire or the child of duty ; he is the man of dignity whose life is to be lived inwardly in the light of its worth, outwardly as the expression of human- ity. The study of human values should relieve our philoso- phy of those inner paradoxes that beset the schemes of nature and character, just as the study of man in his dignity may be expected to relieve us from casuistry as the unity of ethical striving is contemplated. To feel the full force of these categories something more than the conventional significance attaching to their names must be appreciated ; value indicates the whole inner nature of man surveyed ethically, while dignity expresses the peculiar humanity of his character. When he feels the influence of the ethical ideal it is as a sense of value and when he assumes an appropriate attitude toward it he receives the mark of moral dignity. II THE CATEGORY OF VALUE I. THE ACTUALITY OF VALUE To raise value to the rank of the categorical thinking some dialectical labor must be expended to show how the mind, in its search for fundamentals in humanity, may repose in the idea of something valuable just as well as in that of something good or right. All our thinking upon the pheno- mena of nature seems incomplete until we have secured such mental principles as reality and causality whose metaphysical strength is such as to identify them with the ground of the world. The mind takes notice of color and tone, of matter and motion, but it cannot rest until something more remote and enduring is found. As with nature, so with humanity; inner experience presents many an interesting quality of mind, as pleasure and pain, desire and aversion, but the essence of our inner being seems to reside in some sense of the good or value, wherein the goal of all life may be found. Where categories are universal and necessary, they must also appeal to the mind by giving a sense of satisfaction unknown among the other elements of our experience. The idea of value seems able to do this because it has a range extending beyond mere feeling, as also a depth which suffers it to remain in the mind when by abstraction other principles have been removed. To speak of the reality of the world is suffi- cient to satisfy metaphysics, and to discuss the worth of life should be enough for morality. Since the philosophic standing of value seems to be such as to justify its categorical treatment, we may begin to make this attempt by contrasting the idea of worth with the ancient notion of good and the modern idea of duty. These two comparisons may best be carried on simultaneously, inasmuch as the idea of value seems to participate in both the static 309 3 io VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE principle of a complete good and the dynamic one of con- tinuous duty, just as it stands midway between objective virtue and subjective rectitude. Both of these views fail to point out the value of life and the sense of human striv- ing, and where one presents a superb picture of the ethical order and the other reveals the superiority of man's moral nature, neither shows how the individual may enter the world to which he belongs. The ancient notion of good was aesthetical where the modern idea of duty is dynamical, and the difference between the two is the inner sense of the contrast between art and science. Where the first school saw no reason to conceal its artistic view of life, the second one imitates science and exalts the mathematical order o* Tightness as well as the mechanical law of something bind- ing. Our modern intuitions of rectitude and laws of duty are subordinated to physical science ; the iron has entered our soul. In the midst of these plastic and mechanical notions humanity with its worth is lost sight of, and the call of man to realize the value of his life is ignored. The ancient idea of the good was pursued with the feeling that man was at one with the world as also with himself, so that there prevailed physical and political unity between nature and humanity. Plato's ideal Republic, with its characteristic division running through cosmos and microcosmos, and organizing the virtues and the classes of men, shows how perfect the conviction of this harmony could be. All that was needed was a certain amount of insight and a moderate degree of activity to effect the immediate realiza- tion of the good in the realm of immanent moral reality. The good exists in the world while virtue is implicit in man ; thus reasoned the ancient in his Hellenic calm which, with Stoicism, deepened into resignation. No sense of compunc- tion or feeling of doubt disturbed the mind of the ancient in his ideal possession of the good; no hint of obligation nor suggestion of struggle to attain to virtue daunted his moral ambition. The eudaemonism of antiquity was carried on in the same easy spirit that had identified man with virtue ; and now it was suggested that virtue and happiness were one The good was looked upon as a category capable of contain- ing in undisturbed unity our modern principles of desire VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 311 and duty. Such a view of life may easily be seen to indulge too heartily in optimism, for the world is not likely to yield such satisfaction as the ideal, of eudaemonia promises, nor is man so prepared for life that he will surrender to the ideal with- out a struggle. A modern would further criticise life ac- cording to the good as somewhat wanting in heroism, inas- much as the classic moralist attempted nothing extraordinary in the way of ethical striving, and never sank deep enough into the abyss of his human consciousness to feel the bitter- ness that may be found in man's being. Life must be con- ceived of according to unity, and the very category of value, now being introduced into the view of human life has no other purpose than that of reconciling the manifold of human impulses to the central striving of his inner nature; but the classic conception of the good makes the world too fixed and life too finished for the realization of any such inner harmony. The good was likewise too intellectual to explain man in his striving or to content him in the active pursuit of his goal in the remote world of humanity. Al- ready we have seen how the ancient eudaemonism of Aris- totle refused to surrender the ideal that man was in posses- sion of the good, just as it ever limited human activity to the energy of contemplation. Now the question concerning the worth of life is too profound to suffer the thought that man without conquest may participate in the supreme good of all human being. On the other hand, the regulative principle of value is of service in correcting the opposite error indulged by the restless moralism of modern times. Where ancient ethics was wanting in beginning, modern morality has no idea oV the end that belongs to our striving after being. Conscience and rectitude, freedom and duty, are ethical ideals calculated to make man eternally restless, and the spirit which put them forth is no less active in sundering man from the world and setting him at variance with his humanity. Conscience robs him of his peace of mind, and the right appeals to him as something to be wrought out only after infinite struggle; freedom separates him from nature and puts him in bondage to the categorical imperative. Happiness is removed from 3 i2 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE any immediate consideration by a rigoristic system that looks upon desire as something unethical; where final blessedness is brought into the calculation it is rendered so remote that man finds no real way of participating in its benefits. Vast problems must be solved by man in the conflict between freedom and fate; heavy burdens are laid upon him in pur- suit of his duty. Goodness no longer consists in being, but in doing, or as the opening sentence of Kant's "Metaphysic of Morals" expressed it, "Nothing can be possibly conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a good will," Where ancient ethics with its fixed notion of the good was lacking in moral energy, the modern system reveals a painful want of goal. Conscience makes us sensitive and calls forth an excess of moral power for either negation or affirmation. Rectitude acts as an ideal to keep our minds bent upon the moral purpose of our lives. Freedom and duty are even more powerful in influencing the striving activities of the ethical subject. Yet our modern ethics can- not tell us what all this is for. The only apparent aim in ethics seems to consist in setting all our faculties in motion, that they may function perfectly and urge man to act ac- cording to the right method. But in all this, right is only an attitude and duty an initiative. What such conduct needs is a sense of its own service in human life, but the one- sidedness of intuitionism has made this impossible; and even if it had been permitted to invest moral life with some con- tent, the opposing theory of hedonism would have had no suitable suggestion to make. Our ethical philosophy has been resultless, and where the ancient perceived no real ethical problem, modern thought has been all problem and no solution. 2 — THE CONCEPTUAL NATURE OF VALUE — VALUE AND PROGRESS The principle of value, as a moral category, seems to make up for the deficiencies of both these views. Our moderns have made ethical ideals to consist in something inner and individual, and thereby sacrificed the antique VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 313 principles of the permanent and universal; they fled to a realm of subjectivity, which made ethical principles lose all practical significance. Now the category of value seems to contain both of the essentials of these two periods combined in such a manner that nothing really necessary is lost. On the objective side, value represents something which indi- cates a possibility if not an actuality, like the good; at the same time it has an inner character, like the modern ideal of rectitude. To indicate how a half-real principle may also stand out as an ethical norm dependent upon the will for its existence, we may speak of value as a realization rather than a given reality, like substance, quality, or quantity. Apart from the energizing will, value is nothing, yet when the will works according to the ethical ideal, instead of merely functioning according to rectitude, it creates something which theieby becomes real; namely, a principle of worth. Where ancient thought partook of realism, modern morality has ever been nominalistic, with ideals that stood for names or thoughts. The nature of value is best undertsood in the conceptual philosophy of Aristotle and Abelard, for it com- bines the universal good with the individual act of rectitude according to a principle of worth. Thus we may speak of the value of life as something both real and ideal, while neither the good nor duty is capable of assuming such an ontological form. The conceptual nature of value appears again when the classic spirit of complacency is contrasted with the romantic striving of our modern life. Ancient life according to the good found expression in more than one form of culture, but each conveyed the same lesson: man is at home in the world and at one with himself. The physical view of man was such as to advance the conviction that the elements of the world repeated themselves in the constitution, when Prota- goras was able to make man the measure of all things in their being and not-being, while Plato found in the cosmos the body-soul-mind division that immediately reappeared in the appetite-desire-reason elements of the microcosmos. With this physical form of unity there came also the feeling that man was one with his political environment, whereby Plato's classes of men correspond to the divisions of nature and 3H VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE humanity. In all this, the metaphysical and metapolitical independence of man was not entertained and no profound sense of striving was evoked within him. Art likewise caught the spirit of complacency; indeed, it may have been the plastic intuitions of Hellenism which persuaded the ancient to accept the universe and take life as he found it. Hellenic calm is proverbial and we need only glance back- ward at these monuments of epic and plastic art to notice the contrast between their composure and our own restless- ness. Their ethics also reveals this same spirit as modera- tion and resignation, and even the Stoical sense of duty aroused just enough activity to bring man to ataraxy. Modern romantic ethics lives in no such fixed world of being or finished life of art; its life is a perpetual crusade for the ideal, while its activities forever arise within the self-conscious soul. The only palpable aim is styled happi- ness or perfection and yet neither hedonist nor intuitionist can tell us wherein the essence of these ideals is to be found. Life is made disciplinary, not creative; or, in a word, its values are never employed to stimulate moral action or direct its course. Our voluntarism is as far from the moral ideal as was ancient intellectualism, and our romantic striving for we know not what leads nowhere. The prime need in such a condition of affairs is a sense of worth which accompanies an action from beginning to end. We cannot assume that the good exists as intuited by the intellectual reason, nor dare we assert that its being depends upon the will of man; we are nearer the heart of the matter when we act as though there were a possible value which could be realized by conscientious effort on the part of the moral subject. This value initiates action as effectually as any sense of duty, for it appeals to the ethical interest of man; at the same time it stands out as prominently as the good in the capacity of the goal of our moral striving. With such an interest as inheres in this worth of our life we have therefore an ideal capable of presiding over the totality of our ethical striving. The philosophy of eudaemonism, as discussed in PART THREE, brings us face to face with this very contrast between two views of the end of life. With a common faith in immediacy ancient and modern thought found it necessary to VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 315 follow distinct methods of treating this, inasmuch as one found man's well-being to consist in the possession of the desired object, while the other emphasized only the pursuit of it. Value, which is both re^al and ideal, immediate and ultimate in human life, reconciles these extremes of classicism and roman- ticism, by surveying the end of life as something neither under nor yet beyond our control. We may have it and yet must strive after it ; in itself it exists but in no such seclusion that it may not be possessed by man. Where one concep- tion makes happiness to consist in mere having, the other looks upon it as sheer seeking, the valuational view con- siders the end of our being to consist in seeking what may be possessed, in searching for what may be found. The Trouvere, or finder, thus represents a phase of culture un- known in either antiquity or modernity, while he indicates the fact that man's well-being consists in a constant search for something realizable. Such a metaphysical condition of things is explicable only in the light of a humanity which is somewhere between nature and spirit in its progress toward self-realization. To man in his humanity the good cannot be attributed in any sincere fashion, for that would raise him to the rank of Deity. Nevertheless, this same idea of a perfect condition both in conduct and enjoyment cannot be separated from him, but must be related to his being as an inevitable tend- ency. The conditions of human realization however, are not met by the contrary theory that finds our well-being and perfection to consist in mere striving according to some law of duty, for this would account for only one phase of humanity. In nature and yet be} r ond its borders, man is also in a world of spirit that is also above him ; his metaphy- sical position is thus an ambiguous one so that neither an ideal of a fixed good nor that of an indeterminate duty can satisfy the conditions of his nature. For this reason, we survey humanity from the standpoint of value and regard this idea as indicative of a good that settles upon man gradually as his spirit advances toward its goal; and among the categories of morality only the principle of value seems to possess the ontogenetic character that is necessary in any consistent view of onward striving and inward living. 316 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE The foregoing dialetic of value so interprets the category that the static of the good unites with the dynamic in duty to form a principle of ethical becoming. Upon this basis we may strengthen the claims of value still further by pointing out how this category makes it possible to preserve the moral ideal in the midst of progress: indeed, instead of saying that the ethical norm is valid in spite of apparent progress, we may assert that it obtains by means of progress. For what is to be true of humanity as such must participate in the progress that constitutes the essence of the human order. In both art and religion, this ideal of an ever-unfolding value assumes a definite and positive form. Upon the three different stages of his existence man may be said to possess characteristic goods or to pursue appropriate duties, but be- hind these forms of the moral ideal seems to lurk a deeper sense which expresses itself in these other two forms: hence it seems more consistent to view the development of man's inner world by regarding it in the light of an increasing sense of worth as man's self-realization goes on. When this general principle of progress is applied to the terms of systematic ethics the varieties of the moral norm are so few that the idea of change involves no inherent con- tradiction. Man as we know him belongs to nature and spirit, hence we find in his consciousness a commingling of desire and duty, in which may be recognized, however, the same attempt at human self-affirmation and the realization of spiritual life. Even when man is upon the low plane of nature-life his pursuit of the concrete in feeling is none the less an attempt to realize value, while upon the highest known plane of civilization the abstract ideals of life have no other explanation. It is the same ideal of human value that man seeks first in sense, then in reason, first in pleasure, then in virtue. For the pleasure of man is not as the pleas- ure of an animal nor his virtue that of an angel. Hence the whole plan of moral life presenting varieties of the moral ideal is only a consistent scheme of values exhibited by the one humanity as it passes through the stages of nature, law and freedom. Where pure hedonism needs no principle of progress, where intuitionism can admit none, humanism can express itself in no other way. VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 317 3 — VALUE AS AN INTUITION So important is this formal determination of the essence of value that it is worth while to consider it further, as the reconciliation of sense and reason so far as these are ap- propriated by the striving will of humanity. This phase of the contrast is of special significance, too, since our discus- sion of naturistic and characteristic ethics was carried on by constrasting the functions of sensuous feeling and rational will. The category of value is broad enough in form as sufficiently rich in content to include these opposing forms of human existence. Because man belongs to humanity and not wholly to the world of spirit, it is impossible to detach him altogether from the world of immediate existence, and survey his life as though it had no interest. At the same time, a hedonic view despairs of accounting for the definite striv- ing for the ideal manifest in man as soon as his civilization and culture begin to draw him out of nature; for man re- veals a capacity for disinterestedness appearing in his sense of impersonal rectitude. In the midst of this dilemma, where sense-interest and virtuous disregard for well-being seem about to reduce all moral reasoning to perpetual para- dox, there appears the category of value with the effect of reconciling opposites by relating them to common principles beneath their contrary forms. Suppose that, in his naturis- tic capacity, man does seek pleasure. It is not for the sake of its merely felt quality, but because of its interest for him, or the value that it seems to promise. Or, look upon him characteristically, and observe the striving after virtue. Here again man is persuaded that his ideal possesses an inherent worth, which he strives to attain to and realize in his life. Humanity is the valuing system of the universe, and its history is the history of values. Sense alone cannot contain man or control his activities: reason alone with its painful want of content is similarly ineffectual ; but an inherent idea of worth that can express itself in both sense and intellect seems best calculated to express the inner life of man and the peculiar way in which this comes forth into the world of sense, where it interprets nature according to the rational methods of science, and seeks to perfect it by means of art. 318 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE Let it not be thought that the term humanity stands for a mere generalization like plant and animal, for it indicates something unique. For man there is only one problem, only one fact — humanity, its culture and inward realization; in human life the central problem is the problem of values. The whole history of humanity is the unfolding of values marked here and there by critical transvaluations. The peculiar nature of humanity further appears in the fact that it cannot be objectified by reason after the manner of either nature or spirit, and while it is the most obvious fact to man, he is unable to survey it abstractly inasmuch as it can- not be detached from him. The principle of intuition so significant in aesthetics now allies itself with the idea of value, while the latter reacts upon this extraordinary form of knowledge with the effect of giving it additional weight. Human intuitions reveal a clear consciousness of man's place in the total world-order by turning away from both sense and reason in their ex- tremes of concrete and abstract and finding a safe mean between them. The concept stands out as the first product of the understanding due to abstraction and generalization; its valuable marks consist in its necessity and universality. The percept springs from sense and, with its advantage of immediacy, it possesses the limitation of particularity and contingency. Midway between these higher and lower ex- tremes of the human understanding is intuition with a form both conceptual and perceptible. Intuitions like space and time, beauty and value, contain the universal and necessary, but in a perceptible and individual form, having none of the limitations of abstraction and generalization here, or of particularity and contingency there. Thus a definite form- ula in algebra or a particular proposition in geometry, as well as an individual statue or a single act of virtue, contain a universal and necessary truth in the immediate form of perceptibility. By virtue of this class of ideas, which are independent of sense alone or understanding alone, but de- pendent upon both of them in combination, we possess mathematical and aesthetical truth, and in the intuition the ethical form of judgment may also be found. Hence the foundation of moral truth cannot be discovered in sense or VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 319 in reason, but in a humanity that strangely combines the two in every characteristic thought and deed. 4 THE SOURCE OF THE VALUE- JUDGMENT The category of value, however, is capable of something more than dialectical discussion, for its central position in the life of humanity furnishes it with a manifold of conscious elements. To understand the essence of value, that it may be placed beside the good and parallel with duty as a moral finality, it becomes necessary to subject it to psychological scrutiny both as to its form and content, and first in order of notice comes the fact that value is something internal and humanistic, not external and naturistic. In making what may appear to be such a dubious assertion we do not mean that value is without objective reference, but simply declare that it belongs to man as human and objectifies itself in some other than the natural order, namely, the world of values as we shall finally consider it. To penetrate to the inward meaning of the value- judgment it becomes necessary to abandon the idea that value is a quality inhering in things, as though gold or bread, a book or a pen, had any value in itself, and content ourselves with the thought that it is our humanity that evaluates things. A few instances taken from other mental fields will serve to introduce the psychological point of the internal nature of worth. Sensation with its immediate dependence upon physical stimulus is possessed of subjective quality and intensity, so that no matter how close may be the psycholo- gical connection between visual sensation and the light, au- ditory sensation and sound, the qualities appearing consist of color and tone whose existence is purely mental. In a similar fashion we may argue for the inward essence of beauty as disinterested human pleasure. Such aesthetic taste may well direct itself back toward nature to admire its forms and qualities or may seek satisfaction in some human creation; but the sense of beauty lies neither in the land- scape nor in the statue, but in the mind of the beholder. A third instance appears in the case of utility, and while we may speak of things as though they were useful, the essence 320 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE of utility is found in human consciousness. Such an article as a hammer is useful only to a being fitted with a hand; a fine surgical instrument has utility only for a person with special skill, and a book of useful information sustains such a character only to a person able to appreciate it. Hence we cannot speak of utility as the fixed quality of any thing, but must regard it as something internal and relative. Similar forms of expression must be found to contain the principle of value as this is no less subjective than beauty, utility or sensation. Even where the principle of value reaches its lowest and most practical form in economics the same internal view is possible. In its most general charac- ter, value expresses our human sense of need in its contrast to the mere actuality of the world, and there is a sense in which all philosophy consists in relating these inner wants to outer facts. The inward nature of value is found in human feeling, surveyed in the broadest sense as something susceptible to judgment and capable of being expressed in desire. It was in this general and aesthetic sense that Her- bart discussed the idea as something connected with preference or rejection and yet not a matter of feeling; although this rather contradictory condition may be explained by saying that Herbart's intellectualism led him to regard no element but that of representation as final. At a later period, Lotze took a similar view, so far as the internal nature of value is concerned, but allied himself with hedonism by claiming that value and lack of value could never in themselves be attributed to things since both existed in the form of pleas- ure and pain in a sensitive subject. "Es giebt gar keinen Wert oder Unwert, der an sich einem Dinge zukommen konnte; beide existieren bloss in Gestalt von Lust und Un- just, die ein gefuhlsfahiger Geist erfahrt (Grundziige der praktischen Philosophic, §7). In a more determined fashion- Ehrenfels has expressed the inner nature of value by assert- ing that we do not desire things because they have value; but they have value because we desire them. "Nicht des- wegen begehren wir die Dinge, weil wir jene mystische, un- fassbare Essenz 'Wert' in ihnen erkennen, Sondern deswegen sprechen wir den Dingen 'Wert* zu weil wir sie begehren" (Sys. d. Werttheorie, 1. Bd. S. 1.) VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 321 5 — VALUE, PLEASURE AND DESIRE The most natural determinant of worth appears in the form of pleasure, an4 although we have relegated hedonism to an inferior position in the ethical striving of humanity, we find it expedient to review the case of pleasure in order to see wherein it may relate to the idea of value whose con- tent is now being sought. Value is internal and thus finds a place in human feeling where pleasure itself dwells; but from this natural condition of psychological phenomena it does not follow that pleasure and value are the same. There is a natural connection between our sense of worth and our feelings of pleasure and pain, inasmuch as both indicate our human interest, and while we do not see fit to identify these processes, we cannot deny that feeling, even in its immediate hedonic sense, may symbolize the general sense of value which we have raised to the rank of ethical category. At this point, the element of pleasure must be analyzed not only for its own sake, but because it is regarded as a rival of desire in the psychological determination of worth. One need not argue long to show how feeling presents a certain aspect of value, so that the only question concerns its sufficiency as a determination of worth. In addition to the quality of feeling, which arises organically in connection with such physiological functions as respiration and circula- tion of the blood, there is the inner appreciation of the feel- ing as something significant for man. Theoretical philosophy may relate man to the world according to the principles of knowledge and reality, but human life demands something more than actuality ; hence arises a practical philosophy which takes the facts of pleasure and pain and applies them in such a way as to secure a view of life and conduct. Our simple sensations furnish us with the materials of knowledge, al- though it is a long way from the mere reception of stimuli to the elaboration of judgments; so our simple feelings, in- stead of sinking into mere animal or even vegetable functions, rise, detaching themselves from their sources, and lead us to assume an attitude toward our life in the world. The essential element in this pleasurable determination of value lies in the principle of judgment based upon feeling. 322 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE Meinong's "Psychologisch-Ethische Untersuchungen zur W 'erth-Theorie'' ', 1894, finds the essence of value to con- sist in pleasure so formulated in the judgment that one attributes ^alue to an object when its existence causes pleas- ure, its non-existence pain. Negatively considered, one finds lack of value (Unwert) to arise as a judgment when the existence of the object causes pain, its non-existence pleasure (S 5-8). This he narrows down quite empirically by declaring that the object to be valued must exist." Man kann in diesen Sinne sagen : fur die Wertgejuhle ist es wesent- lichj dass sie Existenz-Gefiihle sing" (S. 5). Reischle, whose interest is the theological rather than the economic one, finds value to consist in something pleasurable, but believes that the object may be ideal as well as real while the subject is found in the entire ego, rather than in some function of consciousness. Value is defined as "die Eigens- chaft eines Gegenstandes, durch sein Dasein meinern fuhlend- wollenden Ich direckt oder indireckt Befriedigung zu gewahren (W erturtheile und Glaubensurtheile, S. 43). The definition of value in terms of pleasure has all the advantages of immediacy and definiteness and thus a diffi- cult psychological problem seems capable of easy solution. Yet the history of hedonism has made us suspicious of such a form of calculation, and where pleasure fails to account for the conduct of life it is not likely to satisfy the conditions of a value-theory. Nevertheless, we may indulge the thought that value has something about it for the sake of realizing that to a human consciousness feeling consists of something more than a felt quality, for the reason that it appeals to a special form of life. Just as the phenomena of nature have a formal significance for man with his science and art, so the phenomena of consciousness must be subjected to human interpretation if their ultimate nature is to be known. Reason assumes an attitude toward the world of sense and turns it into a system of natural forms, while it surveys the inner world of feeling with the effect of ordering it according to a judgment of worth. Just as the hedonic law seeks to descend to the sub-conscious and turn pleasure into bodily benefit and pain into bodily harm, so the law of value calls upon us to raise these qualities from mere feeling VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 323 to the plane of knowledge and judgment. Feeling thus constitutes the raw material of value and while we cannot say the pleasurable is the worthy, any more than we could assert that color and tone are knowledge, we cannot deny that apart from feeling value is nothing. In itself, pleasure is limited by the temporal and passive in such a way as to forbid its attaining to the full stature of value. Pleasure is instantaneous and its evanescent form does not seem to have the stability of a value- judgment which exists out of time as a permanent attitude of man toward his life in the world. Pleasure also comes in as the result of an activity promoted by the value of the object sought, and if we had to wait for pleasure to determine our values, we should have no means of determining our at- titude toward our inner experience, no way of arousing activity toward the realization of our desires. Reischle's idea of Gesammt-ich Befriedigung escapes purely hedonic difficulty of a temporary pleasure as the value determinant; but does not fulfill our expectations of an active principle in harmony with the striving nature of humanity. Not only the weakness of pleasure as something passive occurring only now and then in consciousness inclines us toward desire, but the latter seems more fully to accord with our inner human striving. When, therefore, we seek to represent man's attempt to raise himself above nature for the sake of human realization, we find that our philosophy is furthered by a theory of value, according to which the humanity of man becomes a question of his worth. Man strives not on account of some metaphysical ideal of being, but for the sake of attaining the value that by right of human- ity belongs to him. The ontological fact expressed by say- ing, "I think, therefore I am/' is capable of an ethical in- terpretation whereby the individual reasons, "I feel, there- fore I have worth." Humanity is at once theoretical and practical, real and ideal; its being and character are express- ible also in terms of value, and if, for the sake of argument, we assume that self-consciousness could consist of the mere thought of self apart from the feeling of self, it is inconceiv- able that the being of man as human could be established. To be man consists in something more than making a dis- 324 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE tinction between self and not-self; it involves a contrast between the worth of the soul and the non-worth of the world. Desire is a form of human striving directed toward value. In determining the general nature of worth, we found desire to be a consistent way of indicating how internal and human our sense of value really is; for the value of a thing seems to consist in its desirability. In contrast to Meinong, Ehrenfels makes value to consist in desire, and sees in it a relation between subject and object, rather than a character- istic or function of the object itself. (Sys. d. Werttheorie, S. 2i ). The contrast between pleasure and desire reveals the fact that, where one relates itself to the present, the other is allied with the future; and so marked is the competition between them that, where desire is active, pleasure is want- ing, but as pleasure comes in desire departs. We desire what we do not have ; we no longer desire when once we are in possession of our object. To overcome this difficulty, Krueger has modified the idea of desire so that it stands for desire in the larger sense of a "relatively constant desire" — Wertvoll ist fur mich nur, was ich relativ konstant begehre (Des Absolut Wertvollen S. 33). According to this am- plification, one could value an object without actually desir- ing it for the time being by seeing how it corresponds to his relatively constant desire. The secret of value seems to be found in desire whose inner nature is made up of both feeling and will. What- ever be the exact nature of the impulse toward reality, whether will-to-live or struggle for existence, it is evident that by means of its career in nature the human species has acquired a desire to live according to the nature of its own type, whereby we are entitled to speak of a specific human striving. At heart, this striving is desire and the unknown tendency urging onward both nature and humanity reflects itself in man's conscious striving after self-realization. Human values are human desires surveyed in the light of the con- stant impulse toward the inner perfection of humanity, and while it is misleading to adopt a simple formula which says, "The value of a thing is its desirability", it is active feeling that perfects our sense of worth and inspires man in his VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 325 attempts at the assertion of his selfhood in opposition to nature. Nevertheless, empirical desire in its given form cannot fully express the nature of value, and where Krueger in his search for absolute worth found it necessary to ad- vance beyond Ehrenfels, we must take still another step and consider value in an idealized form. The valuable is the desirable; such seems to be the con- dition of the question when the essential nature of humanity is related to the goal it ever seeks. This position is not the same as that expressed by saying, A thing has value because we desire it; or, The value of an object is determined by the relatively constant desire for it ; but consists in saying. Value is idealized desire. We cannot run the risk of logical fallacy by saying, Value indicates what we ought to desire, for by means of the concept of value we seek to determine the nature of obligation. Humanity has no place for an uncondi- tioned ought yet it evinces the tendency to idealize its desires in such a way as to make them the basis of the moral life. When, therefore, we say that value indicates desirability, we do not assert that the empirical ego actually surrenders himself to such an ideal, but simply claim that reason recognizes the presence of a desire of desires, sought by man in independence of a law of duty. When the Hebrew psalmist says, The judgments of Jehovah are more to be desired than gold, he does not mean that mere desire or mere duty inclines man toward such ideals, but suggests that when man is himself, he naturally chooses these ethical prin- ciples as elements of his own nature. While duty as well as desire may seem to be a determinant of worth, it is because the man of sense-experience does not lend himself to ideal tasks without some sort of struggle whose severity is often confused with moral merit. The man of common experience does not know the life of values and cannot see in virtue that which is to be de- sired. Suppose our "free moral agent" were the ideal man, or the "man of the future" ; would he not choose the highest in life as something native to him? For ourselves, we must live according to idealized desires, or value- judgments, which are only partly verified by experience, and yet we may real- ize that life has the possibility of nobility unknown in the 326 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE morals of desire or duty. Value is thus a human attribute given to man in view of his moral vocation, and while a critical pessimism forbids that we should survey man as at all ideal, still we are enabled to see the meaning of his ethical life as one of values whose essence is the desire of the ideal- ized man. Such a psychological determination of the con- tent of value seems to be in keeping with the conceptual idea of its form as something both immediate and ultimate. An ethical theory which seeks to account for the inner life of humanity, while it aims also to point out the apparent destiny of man, has no need to pursue such psychological analysis any further. Value has a real place in consciousness, so that we need not construct an ideal arbitrarily as has been done with the intuitional idea of rectitude ; we need only carry to its just conclusion the principle of desire that makes man what he is. To be worthy, a theory of value must gratify something more than psychological curiosity about the origin of judg- ments of worth. Hence the proper order for such a theory to follow, consists in a forward movement calculated to align an ideal value rather than a backward one hemmed in by man's immediate life in nature and societv. Our object has been to investigate the ever-perfecting values of the world of culture rather than the primitive ones of the world of nature In this way, we may question the value of our values, and seek to distinguish permanent worth from temporary marginal utility. Ethics should seek the unity of value as this is gradually being perfected by the development of humanity. Such unity exists even where we are unable to express it in convincing language; philoso- phy cannot decide the ultimate nature of substance or good- ness, but there is only one reality and only one value. For itself, the category of value seems to satisfy the conditions of an ethical theory, because it harmonizes the real and ideal, feeling and will, while it leaves the unity of the spirit un- disturbed by a conflict between theoretical and practical. Ill VALUE AS ETHICAL SANCTION I THE GROUND OF MORAL JUDGMENT The conceptual form of value and its psychological posi- tion in desire encourage us to believe that we have found something indeed categorical whose nature may be compared with the good and duty. Our aim has been to work back from the active principle of duty to the passive idea of the good by means of the conceptual notion of worth. In the unity of these contrary principles we hope to find an ethical ideal for the future. The case of the good is no longer imminent, so that the corrective function of value applies more directly to the modern notion of duty, where revision is sadly needed. Our modern age has not really repudiated duty, but it has shown a hesitancy to obey a command whose purpose is not and cannot be made known. Both the source and outcome of action are excluded by the theory of obliga- tion; man ought to obey, that is enough. Nevertheless, this nameless duty, connected with no natural spring of action and conducive to no result in conduct, does not seem to ex- press the highest in humanity and we feel justified in turning to the category of value to see how far it expresses the sense of our ethical striving. With special reference to conscience, we may note again how human is this sense of approval-disapproval. If con- science depends upon a sense of agreement or disagreement with the human order, we may assume further that this rela- tion consists of no mere theoretical adjustment of individual to humanity, but a practical sense of worth according to which right and wrong may be determined. Conscience dictates values as these arise in the realization of humanity, and apart from a feeling of worth the ideas of approval and disapproval have no content. So far as the progress of 327 328 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE ethics is concerned, the sense of approval has received only hedonic treatment as though it were a form of pleasure, while its significance as a relation between man and his humanity is better understood as a sense of value. These values that conscience defends assume the form of standards whose violation causes remorse; they represent the desires of hu- manity which when thwarted redound upon the offender in the form of pain. If man did not offend a sense of value and thereby cause harm, his sense of compunction could have no significance. An approach to the category of value may now be made by still another criticism of characteristic ethics. This system surveys morality as such apart from any other human interest, and by so doing realizes the ideals of autonomy, duty and the like. But such a formal triumph is not brought about without cost, for we observe that it makes morality appear to be without worth. Let us return to the usual questions of conventional morality. "What is right? That which is right. Why should we perform duty? Because it is duty." The argument is convincing, as the case is com- plete, and had we only the law of identity to guide us, nothing more could be said, for right is right as surely as duty is duty. But just as all science seeks synthetic judg- ments capable of enlarging our knowledge of nature and enriching its content, so genuine ethics seeks to account for humanity as its life is conducting itself, and man is not called upon to repudiate desire simply because a certain theory of ethics cannot include that in its system. Rigorism is of negative value only; it convinces us that our life is not realized in nature, but does not proceed to show us how its end is found in humanity. It convinces us that virtue exists, but does not show that it has worth. The formal aim of the theory of value when considered in strict connection with ethics is found in the function of judgment. Thus furnished, we may say, "Virtue has value; duty should be done because of its worth ', but unless this sense of value obtains, the obligation to fulfill the obligation does not hold. Owing to the limitation of our knowledge, we cannot always indicate precisely what the moral outcome of an act may be, but we can rest assured that if it be VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 329 absolutely obligatory it is because it possesses absolute worth. It is inconceivable that a duty should be binding when it does not indicate any inherent value. With temperance and courage, the virtues involved express at once the values im- plied. With benevolence and justice, we find that the human values inherent in society make these virtues real. And with veracity and honesty, however intuitive and indisputable they seem, the same reasoning holds good; for these virtues do not represent a relationless attitude on the part of the moral subject, but a condition of humanity so marked by social and economic relations that these forms of fidelity are praised for their inherent worth. Could they be virtuous, if they were worthless? Where the idea of value supplies the ground of rectitude, so it also gives a reason for moral endeavor. From the standpoint of the isolated deed, the conventional theory of duty may act as a satisfactory guide, and with ethics in the lesser sense of the term, indicating a study of mere action, it may keep its accustomed place. But as a philosophy of life which surveys the totality of inner consciousness, as well as the continuity of human striving, the theory of duty has little to offer; for obligation can never account for the com- plete performance of humanity in its striving after self- realization. The ethics of duty has no sympathy for human- ity and in its cynicism sees no reason why the soul should seek nourishment from beauty and joy. At the same time it distrusts man and suggests that were duty withdrawn the will would forever go astray in its striving. For these and other reasons it seems to follow that one who surrenders to duty must also abandon his humanity, and he who makes rectitude the guide of his life can never realize himself as a human spirit. The morality peculiar to the school of charac- teristic ethics is ever the morality of negation, and in its destructive course it tends to crush all ideals and interests. It makes man subordinate to ethics when ethics is only one of the products of his human spontaneity. 2 — THE SENSE OF MORAL ACTION The theory of valueless duty loses in logical consistency 330 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE as it gains in moral force. If man is called upon to sur- render himself to the categorical imperative, he should have some idea why this sacrifice is to be made, but duty as ordinarily conceived is unintelligible. We ought; that is the whole of the matter. An ethical philosophy of life cannot tolerate such a paradox, but demands that moral action shall sustain some relation to human striving; hence where life is conceived of as having a purpose, morality can only be viewed as though it conduced to that same end. The theory of life as duty makes no provision for the results of moral en- deavor, just as it fails to supply a ground for our ethical judgments. Right is right because it has value; duty must be done because it promotes worth — such is the standpoint our view of humanity and its values allows us to assume; but the traditional theory of duty fears to use such hypothe- tical imperatives and prefers to leave rectitude groundless and duty resultless. At the same time, man is suspected of un- due interest in the origin and outcome of his duties when he demurs against sheer duty, yet it cannot be denied that he has an intellectual right to know why he must so act, especial- ly when conduct costs so much in the way of self-denial. Value is the absolute good to which other ethical prin- ciples must relate themselves; into it all sense of human pleasure falls, while from it all feeling of duty springs. It is in this sense that Krueger, in "Der Be griff des absolut W ertvollen" , makes the absolute ought to consist in absolute worth. "Von absoluten Sollen oder unbedingter Pflicht darf die wissenschaftliche Ethik nur Reden im Sinne eines absolut W ertvollen, wo absolut nicht anders bedeutet, als, unbedingt fur jedes wertende Bewusstsein" (S. 60). The "good" that remains in moral isolation so that it does not touch the inner life of man is good in name alone, and when we seek content for it we can find this only in a sense of value, or man's appreciation of his life in the world. Simi- larly the duty that absorbs all of man's activities without promising to advance him toward the goal of his life, indeed, without being able to promote his human interests, is equally empty, and only an artificial system of moralizing can put man in such a paradoxical position. To see worth in obliga- tion, and to make the moral law a law of values is to relieve VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 331 a troubled situation. The determination of value through desire has the ad- vantage of effecting the transition to the ideal of obligation. Already, in our attempt to correct the notion of an abstract duty's binding us without regard to our position in the world, we turned to the idea of humanity as a natural deter- minant of obligation; for without any categorical impera- tive, we feel obliged to choose certain jnoral goods and that in a manner quite different from mere logical conviction or aesthetical preference. That which is calculated to con- strain us in such matters is the inherent sense of worth at- taching to an idea, and when that feeling of worth has about it the dynamic element of desire, the meaning of obligation becomes clearer. It is easier to speak of duty as having value than of value as possessing duty; in other words, value is the predicate that includes the subject, since the latter in- dicates something more extensive than the former. Where there is no value there can be no duty, for the imperative calling upon us to choose something indifferent could not exist as a moral ideal. Hence, we may say that, though things have value because we desire them, they should be done because they have value. Moral values thus established by humanity in its progress toward realization are not to be confused with utilities. The difference between value and utility may be seen by con- trasting the empirical condition of society as something given, and the ideal condition of humanity as conceived by the mind. Virtues may serve as practical utilities for a society in some particular condition of civilization, as courage for the Spartan, wisdom for the Athenian, justice for the Roman; but from the standpoint of inner humanity these same ideals stand out as inherent values. The architecture of the Part- henon had utility for the religion of the Athenians in their day, but it also has value for all mankind. In establishing the value of our experiences we do not seek to show that they are useless, but want only to point out how value serves the ethical interests of man and furthers his self-realization in a way that utility, with its place in immediate advantage, does not. Utilities are confined to the naturistic wants of man as these assume economic forms; values have a humanis- 332 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE tic significance and supply the foundation for the ethical life of man. Values may be realized through utilities, but they are not bounded by them and relate to them only in the sense that both concern the interest of man in his ambiguous position in the universe. 3 VALUE AS BASIS OF MORAL BELIEF The valuational determination of morality is advantageous further in offsetting ethical skepticism. Where the ethical is based upon the naturistic principle of desire or the charac- teristic principle of duty, it is likely to fall short of man's moral expectations, inasmuch as desire gives too little and duty asks too much. When morality is not subordinated to the totality of life it may mislead man and make him doubt the wisdom of obeying the moral law; for which reason it becomes all the more urgent to establish the worth of our moral striving. Poetry is always effective when it subsumes a human creature beneath some impersonal law and then, by a process of action and suffering, shows how to break down under the strain of the ideal. Either he has expected immediate eudaemonistic benefits or he has had such faith in himself as to imagine his morality could keep him abreast of life. The drama of Job as well as the dramas of Ibsen point to this despair over the resultlessness of the ideal as one of the abysses into which the soul may fall without knowing how to extricate himself. Ethical nihilism is founded upon just such doubt concerning nature and humanity in their relation to the moral ideal. Upon eudaemonistic principles, Job finds no safe way to determine the value of righteousness. Prosperity leads his tempter to ask, "Does Job fear God for naught?" (I. 9), and when he is brought low without and within and is con- fronted by faith and righteousness divested of all advantage, the Temanite assails even these and asks, "Can a man be profitable unto God? Is it pleasure to the Almighty that thou art righteous?" (xxn 2-3). Whatever may be the assignable outcome of this Hebrew drama it will appear that the hero gains in insight and gradually learns to find the worth of righteousness in something substantial. Ibsen VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 333 hardly escapes from nihilism in his moral satire, "Brand", and in the social dramas of his later period, yet he does not fail to point out how dangerous is a groundless ethics which insists upon duty withput assigning any reason for its per- formance. "Brand" involves its author in a moral skepti- cism incident upon the fearful consequences of an uncom- promising "All or Naught." In more direct fashion Mrs. Alving, with the "Ghosts" of "dead ideas" and "lifeless beliefs" about her, turns upon her moralistic Pastor Manders by saying, "When you forced me under the yoke of what you call duty and obligation; when you lauded as right and proper what my whole soul revolted against as something loathsome; it was then that I began to look into the seams of your doctrines. I wanted only to pick at a single knot; but when I had got that undone, the whole thing ravelled out. And then I understood that it was all machine-sewn" (Act. 11). With more personal reference to Ibsen himself the "Wild Duck" represents the author's self-contempt in the person of Gregers Werle who went about presenting the "claim of the ideal" while suffering from an "acute at- tack of integrity" (Act 111). Later dramas like "Ros- mersholm" seem to reassert faith in the ideal, but they, as in this case, point out how the "Rosmer view of life en- nobles, but kills all happiness" (Act iv) ; while "The Master Builder" represents the hero as wanting in the "robust conscience" of a Viking (Act 11). It is true that these dramas do not lead us to a secure ideal, but they are of value in warning ethical writers against an absolute ethics of the unconditioned. Man should be taught that the pur- suit of the good, while it may not yield a full amount of immediate happiness, is not necessarily a resultless drudgery according to an alien law; and in the midst of moral success and failure there is still an abiding sense of moral worth. On the other hand, the valuational view of ethics tends to reveal the meaning of wrong as well as rectitude. Hedon- ism can call it pain, and rigorism speak of it as disobedience, but the essential nature of badness is capable of more thorough determination. Man cannot harm the universe, that is, the world of individual things or individual persons; but he can wrong humanity and its sense of values. It is 334 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE » not the body or the mind that is wronged by the aggressor's insult or act of violence, but man's inherent sense of value as this appears in the totality of his consciousness. Upon any other determination, the sense of suffering wrong or doing wrong seems to have no significance, and where the worth of human life is not considered, both right and wrong seem blind and purposeless. He who trespasses upon the rights of another is moved by the idea of some value that his bad act will bring him, while the person threatened by the wrong feels that he is about to sustain some loss of value belonging to him. The suffering of a certain amount of pain or the knowledge that an abstract commandment was being broken could never account for our feelings when we are wronged, for the suffering has a deeper source in the valuing consciousness of our very life. From the standpoint of the wrong-doer the evil act creates an illusion whereby vices like greed or lust, revenge or violence in general seem to advance the interests of the malicious ego. But the wisdom of life constantly warns man that such a hope is fruitless, inasmuch as all evil-doing is in vain. Thus the vanity of wrong seems to follow as the negative consequence of the value of rectitude, so that he who follows virtue can never lose anything valuable, just as he who follows vice can never thereby be the gainer. In such a double fashion does the category of value afford a sanction for ethics, in that it supplies a ground for moral action. Pleasure may act as a motive for virtuous action, but it can never supply a sufficient reason for the same; the sense of duty may be invoked but its lack of purposes only points out the need of a further principle in ethical action and judg- ment. Value-vanity as a moral standard set up by humanity carries us beyond both pleasure and duty and appeals to the very sense of our life in the universe. From it we learn how virtue advances the supreme human interest of man while vice tends to hinder his progress toward the goal of his striving. When one observes how humanity ever urges itself onward toward realization, he sees how valuable it is to lend his will to the general ethical tendency as this in- volves all his interests, and how vain it is to seek satisfac- tion in any other way. Where happiness enters in to color VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 335 the life of the value-seeking subject, it appeals to him as an evidence that he has found the one ethical reality, and in this august form of judgment the felecific element is totally sub- merged. * 4 THE WORLD OF VALUES The final considerations incident upon our view of value as ethical sanction lead us to inquire in what way the cate- gory of value expresses reality; indeed, such a question has been implied in the whole course of the discussion. Value we regarded as a category not inferior to the ancient "good" and modern "duty", and an examination of its inner nature showed us how conceptual was its being. The psychological view of value as the desirable could not exclude a certain element of idealism whereby actual desire was transformed into something worthy, while the ethical estimate of the principle became unintelligible upon any other basis than that of a realm of real values. Few of our ethical ideals are capable of such cosmic construction, and we feel that neither thought nor language bears us out when we attempt to speak of a "world of pleasures" and a "world of utilities", or a "world of virtues" and a "world of duties." In spite of the difficulties that obstruct the path to philosophic world- hood, the principle of value seems able to detach itself from the immediate consciousness of man and assume a position in the ethical world-order, and the many questions provoked by this view only serve to increase our confidence in the category of value. To effect the ontological construction of the value-prin- ciple, our thought must advance from the ideal of inness, which has enabled us to isolate value in consciousness and place it in the realm of ethics, to the totality of value in the world of humanity. To be worthy it must be the one and all; that is, it must be inner and universal. In the instances of Plato and Fichte we find forms of a moral world-order produced under the influences of classicism and romanticism respectively; one speaks of a "world of ideas", not only metaphysically permanent, but morally perfect, while the other lays his emphasis upon an "ethical world-order'' of striving egos. They agree that in the midst of external 336 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE phenomena there is a realm of moral reality, not unlike tiie world of values now under consideration. Reality is a de- mand put forth by the consciousness of humanity in its striv- ing toward perfection; for unless our values stand for reali- ties they cannot be binding upon us. Fortunately, we are not called upon to create the world of values either by in- tellectual positing or volitional action. The world of hu- manity enveloping us is the world of values, and needs only further recognition to make possible its interpretation in terms of worth. The world of humanity came into clear relief when we discussed the ultimate nature of conscience with its sense of remorse and warning against resentment, feelings whose meaning seems inexplicable upon any other than an ontologi- cal basis. Without re-stating the propositions that outlined our thought then, we may simply suggest that the contrast between personal values set up by the individual in some moment of private interest are so submerged by the enduring values of the human order that man cannot escape from a sense of compunction. He who attacks this human order tfoon becomes aware that it envelops him without and per- vades him within so that his whole life is characterized by it, and the pangs of remorse as well as the impulse away from resentment reveal its inherent power. The world of human- ity, however, would not so affect man unless at the same time it was a world of values, whose security was being threatened by the craft or violence of the individual; hence the complete explanation of conscience involves something more than a metaphysical world of forms whose influence over man would be naught in an ethical sense. The human coloring that is found in the order of humanity is due, there- fore, to the fact that this world is a world of the good and beautiful as well as of the real and true. Therefore he who chooses the path of rectitude is inwardly inspired by the idea that he can sustain no real loss by his conduct. This leads us to the idea of eternal justice implicit in con- science and non-resentment, in rectitude and duty. Indeed, the notion of justice seems to inhere in the deeper principle of a single order of human life in which right and wrong shall receive recognition and reward; for assuming the unity VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 337 of humanity we may assert that virtue and vice react upon the doer of good and bad deed and effect the compensatory results which justice seeks to promote. Some sense of identi- ty in the midst of the world of individual persons seems inseparately connected with the idea of rendering to each what is due. Such a recognition of eternal justice appears in Vedanta with its idea of a single Self inhabiting the uni- verse, of Platonism which cannot relate the virtue of justice to any form of the cosmos or any class of men, and in Christ- ianity with its fundamental principle of the Kingdom of God. From the standpoint here assumed, it seems as though this inner order were only a world of permanent values as- serting itself in connection with the special virtue of justice, as this is naturally adapted to convey the intrinsic worth of the human realm. By means of eternal justice manifest in the human order, we are able to postulate a conservation of values in the uni- verse of persons. And hereby the vicious individual, who vainly thinks to gain at the expense of another, experiences an equivalent amount of loss in the form of ideal, if not real, suffering, although he himself may not understand the inner meaning of his unhappy condition. At the same time, the man of virtue, who fears that the adherence to the ideal may cause him to suffer loss in a world of seflish purposes, is made to feel that in spite of apparent injustice his position is secure, inasmuch as value is real and the attempt to pro- mote it cannot really come to naught. Both are hemmed in by humanity; both are subject to the principle of value as this is kept up in the midst of change in the world of ap- pearance. It is upon such a basis that ethics may counsel man to seek virtue and shun vice; not because these will immediately reappear and reward him in forms of pleasure and pain, but because in the world of human reality value is so conserved that virtue can never lose and vice never gain. All blind transgression on the part of the malicious person is carried on in defiance of this universal law, so that the very vehemence of vice seems to be occasioned by the in- stinctive desire to overcome the detention, of reflective reason. On the other hand, moral skepticism with its longing to see the realization of justice in the world of things and persons 338 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE has at heart the belief that value should be conserved amid all the mutations incident upon individual action, a belief which thwarts itself through an innocence that looks for such realization immediately in the phenomenal order. Trad- itional views of morality, like hedonism and intuitionism, fail to account for ethical faith, since one tries to relate all ethics to experience where the other contents himself with a negative view in default of a proper ground for moral striving. * 5 THE WORLD OF VALUES AS MORAL GOAL In the world of values the human soul receives proper in- terpretation as something which by virtue of its selfhood has the value of worldhood, a truth which unites Vedanta and Christianity. Hereby man learns to know himself, that is to value himself not personally, but as a member of the supreme order of human beings. This position in the world of values invests his life with a new meaning by pointing out his ethical destiny in the universe. Naturistic ethics never recognizes the moral vocation of man, but sees in him a creature looking for immediate well-being in the percept- ible world ; characteristic ethics knows that man has a spirit- ual calling but itself is powerless to define this. In the idea of value we find an explanation of both the being and activity of man in his human consciousness, and are able to indicate the sense of living and striving. The valuational principle also aligns a goal for man in his human order. Conduct is a path in which desire is limited where duty is limitless, so that man strives beyond the one while he can never reach the other. The worth of life, however, is a principle which adapts itself to every moral act just as in- timately as does pleasure ; indeed, value is more faithful than happiness in its treatment of virtue so that its practical signi- ficance cannot easily be overestimated. From the idealistic standpoint, value like rectitude rises above the actual per- formance of morality and acts as a norm beyond the im- mediate power of the will. Hence man fulfills and yet does not fulfill the demands of the moral law, in the form of an ever-realizing principle of living worth wherein the idea both accompanies and transcends the work of the will. VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 339 The world of values enveloping and transcending the in- dividual is a just metaphysico-moral ideal which further makes possible the element of ethical progress of humanity. Hence the "transvaluafron of values", which is now such an agitating question, is a moral process wholly in keeping with the striving of humanity, as this continuously advances toward completeness. To inaugurate the advancement of man from nature to culture, from animality to humanity, was to set in motion the transvaluing process that to-day is assuming such an acute form. The forms of morality that we have employed here to indicate the stages of human striving are only so many changes in the valuing attitude of the human spirit, as it first reposes in nature and then resorts to charac- ter. Finally, the attaining to humanism, where value is prized for value's sake, is only another form of inner trans- valuation. For this reason we are able to assert that trans- valuation, however untenable in a world of concrete pleasures or abstract virtues, is an essential part of a world of human values as this constantly expands while it enriches its moral content. Our very conception of the world of humanity as a world of values permits us to speak of these values as progressing and perfecting themselves in such a way as to bring about a unified transvaluation of all values. Only as our system of values assumes the form of world- hood are we able to explain and justify the obvious fact of moral change, wherein, if the good does not become the bad, it tends to pass away and assume another form. The prin- ciple of value is not embarrassed by these changes that enter in, since, by the unity and totality of its inherent worldhood, it makes possible a manifold of ethical phenomena based upon a single category of worth, as well as a continuous system of transmutation safe-guarded by the sense of a permanent value in the midst of all changes. Pleasure and virtue are at- tached to either sense or reason, but the conceptual and in- tuitive essence of value makes it possible for this principle to have permanence in the midst of change, and to be real metaphysically while it is desirable ethically. In the mani- fold of ethical experience, where moral consciousness assumes an indefinite number of forms included under the head of pleasure, utility, approval, rectitude, duty, and the like, there 340 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE is a single value represented by these partial principles and reappearing in their several forms, so that the moral subject seeks the value of pleasure, utility, approving conscience and duty. Having found the sense of his moral striving to con- sist in value as an object of possession as well as pursuit, man resigns himself to the world of values as the only environ- ment able to contain and content his spiritual nature. IV HUMAN DIGNITY AS ETHICAL CATEGORY I THE DIGNITY OF THE INNER LIFE To find a place for dignity in the moral life of man it is not necessary to compare it with value for the sake of show- ing which is the superior. But this contrast was one which Kant could not refrain from making as will appear from the following: "Whatever has a value can be replaced by something else which is equivalent; whatever, on the other hand, is above all value, and therefore admits of no equiva- lent, has a dignity" (Meta. d. Sitten, S. 64). For the furthering of this notion of dignity, as well as for emphasiz- ing the humanism of Kant, we may recall the famous practi- cal imperative which rises far above the purposeless categori- cal imperative of the autonomous system. "So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of another in every case as an end and never as a means only" (Meta. d. Sitten, S. 57). Had Kant's ethics not ignored teleology but had rather realized the possibilities of this human imperative it would have emphasized the importance of his mission and raised his "Critique of Practical Reason" to the level of the "Critique of Pure Reason." The ontological dignity of man manifests itself in the supreme fact of his inner life, whereby we are able to as- sert, "Man is a world." Minor ethical theories do not grant him such worldhood but subsume him under some law whether of utility or moral interest. So thoroughly saturated are we with moralism that we do not remember that man produced the ethical just as we overlook the fact that he is superior to his moral maxims. If man be wholly under the law his dignity is lost and instead of being a whole he is only a part. We cannot wholly moralize man since his being and culture involve other than purely ethical consider - 341 342 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE ations, as science and art, religion and politics. The ordi- nary view of man violates his dignity and makes him a mere moralist, who lives his life and has his culture only by courtesy of the categorical imperative. The proper view of man surveys him according to his human dignity, whereby his inner humanity transcends all particular phases of being; whether in the realm of conduct or culture. Hence ethics must take its place by the side of other forms of human activity, as these all lie beneath man himself in the supremacy of his spiritual nature. Man owes nothing to the world that he should seek to realize himself in the performance of duty; and the world owes naught to man, as though the majestic universe existed for the sake of satisfying human desire; but man has an inner dignity which raises him above the phenomenal world of things and persons and in this superior order he is expected to realize his genuine being. This may be called either Sattva-Guna or humanity, and the true dignity of man's soul consists in realizing himself as a being of inner rather than of outer life. This view of the inner dignity of man takes the place of the rationalistic conception of Schiller in the essay on "Grace and Dignity", where grace is the perfection of sense and dignity the perfection of reason. Schiller seems to postulate a third form of spiritual life above dignity, as dignity is above grace; this appears as humanity or the harmonious perfection of the spirit. Nevertheless, the category of dignity is without a superior in expressing the inner character of our humanity, and as long as we secure the internal quality of dignity we need not resort to reason as its specific determi- nant which in Schiller's case made it seem as though dignity were not sufficient to contain the genuine essence of human life. Human dignity assumes another metaphysical form when the universality of man's life receives recognition. Both in idea and in act man has sought to relate his being to the world-whole. The Mahavakya of Vedanta which recasts the world in the form of Self, and the value-injunction of Christianity when it weighs the Soul against the world are august indications of man's universality. For this reason, thought and action must assume an unwonted largesse if VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 343 man is to act in a thoroughly human capacity, if he is to be man as such. Of those who follow the general principles of ethics and love virtue for its own sake, as of those who are inwardly influenced by beauty and piety, it may be said that they are leading the universal life of human dignity, whose meaning is not perfectly clear to them, although its intrinsic value is recognized. They afford sufficient evidence of man's world-life even though they evince it in a negative fashion and in the spirit of unconsciousness, for they are seeking the ultimate and are content only with such experiences as have an inward verification. Man can make the world of human- ity in himself and in others an end toward which he strives with the one impulse of his life. 2 THE DIGNITY OF ACTION The minor character of traditional ethics shows itself in connection with the question of action. Where action is given in experience, and man is viewed as though he could not exercise his will, it seems necessary only to order that action according to some particular principle like pleasure or rectitude. But this naive view of life fails to ask the question, What is action? Just as it takes the world as it finds it, and assumes life as a matter of course, so it here ac- cepts action without question. Major morality growing out of a unified view of life is guilty of no such neglect; it finds it necessary to ask, Why should man act? What is the true nature of his action? Our western world has ever assumed action as something necessary to man, but its point of view has been the naturistic one, which has made action no more important than animal locomotion. The Orient has been almost as ready to decide in favor of inaction as expressive of the highest wisdom, and we can no longer assume that ceaseless striving, whether in classic moderation or with romantic earnestness, is the only method of living. Too long have we taken action for granted and innocently as- sumed that only the life of labor was possible for man, while a far different idea has obtained in the east; where passivity has been the rule, activity the exception. Hence he who in a spirit of wisdom seeks happiness and human realization, 344 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE strives to attain self-less inaction ; such is the spirit of Chinese conservatism. Taoistic nihilism yields the following com- ment from the writings of Kwang-sze: "I consider doing nothing to be the great enjoyment, while ordinary people consider it to be a great evil. Hence it is said, Perfect en- joyment is to be without enjoyment; the highest praise is to be without praise." (Bk. xvm). This word of wisdom is but the logical outcome of the Chinese conception of heaven- earth. Accordingly, it is said, "Heaven does nothing, and thence comes its serenity; earth does nothing and thence comes its rest. By the union of the two inactivities, all things are produced. All things in their variety grow from this inaction. Hence it is said, Heaven and earth do noth- ing, and yet there is nothing that they do not do. But what man is there that can attain to this inaction." (lb.) In the mind of the Taoist, the Tao stands for reality; ac- cordingly it is asked, How does one know the Tao, and how may he rest in it ? The reply is thoroughly inhilistic. "To exercise no thought and anxious consideration is the first step toward knowing the Tao; to dwell nowhere and to do noth- ing is the first step toward resting in the Tao; to start from nowhere and pursue no path is the first step toward making the Tao your own — He who practices the Tao, daily diminishes his doing — The perfect man is said to do nothing and the greatest sage to originate nothing, such language showing that they look to heaven and earth as their model." (Bk. xxn ). Oriental inaction appears again in the ideals of the Yoga and Sankhya philosophy as portrayed in the Bhagavad-Gita. The Sankhya school exalts a rule of knowledge and seeks to relieve the devotee of works by a process of sheer inaction (akarma). The Yoga school is based upon a rule of work, and finds in activity the field of its practical scheme of works. Hence the Yoga upholds an ideal of worklessness (naishkarmya) which is realized in both a positive and prac- tical manner. (Ch. in). Further consideration (Ch. v) of the problem leads the author to declare that, in spite of the apparent differences between the Sankhya system of know- ledge and the Yoga program of action, their doctrine of works is practically the same. Hence Krishna declares ( Ch. V. I ) , VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 345 "Casting off of works and rule of works both lead to bliss; but of these the rule of works (Yoga) is higher than casting off works (Sankhya)." The superiority of Yoga is further indicated when the Deity affirms, "He who is doing works lays his works on Brahman and puts away attachment is not defiled, as the lotus-leaf is unsullied by the water." (Ch. v. 10). Action is the cure of action, "for without undertaking works no man may come to worklessness" (Ch. III. 4). The key to this paradox seems to reveal itself in connection with the supreme Self in whose presence all work is set at naught. "But for the man whose delight is in Self, who is contented with Self, and is glad of Self, there is naught for which he should work." (Ch. ill. 17). Where this work is based upon the ego rather than the Self, it loses its merit and man fails to be released from toil. To those who seek relief from particular works, Krishma proffers this advice: "Casting of all thy works upon me with thy mind on the One over Self, be thou without craving and without thought of a mine, and put away thy fever and fight." (Ch. m. 30). The essence of this doctrine of work seems to lie in the thought of a perfect deed performed by the soul in its total- ity, rather than some act of immediate moment in which the empirical ego engages. "He who beholds in work no work, and in no-work work, is the man of understanding among mortals — Free from attachment to fruit of works, everlast- ingly contented, unconfined, even though he be engaged in work he does not work at all" (Ch. iv. 18, 20). The man of Yoga thus renounces all personal desire, relinquishes all longing for the fruit of action and reduces all works to one vast spiritual deed-act. In the New Testament the plain doctrine of faith and works contains a similar truth and exhibits the same longing for freedom from prescribed acts that the soul may perform one full deed. One has only to recall Christ's criticism of those Pharisaical men of good work, and of those who sought to obtain eternal life by deeds, as well as St. Paul's violent attack upon the works of the law, to realize how impotent were common forms of activity in contrast with the supreme inner and mental deed of the believing soul. The feeble will is unable to acquire the supreme thing in life which is 346 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE accepted fully in the innocence of faith, even at the risk of antinomianism. 3 — ACTIVITY AS CREATIVE Why should man act? The answer to this question in- volves no physical principles of force or phychical elements of stumuli, which could only explain why man does act; it concerns the essence of spiritual life itself and the trend of human destiny. From the standpoint of mere action no answer can be given; for the inner inclination and the outer result are only the externals of that creative deed which man is called upon to perform. Mere doing will not avail ; and right for right's sake is as empty as right for pleasure's sake is blind. Minor morality may explain certain details of human action, but it cannot justify the never-ceasing ten- dency on the part of the soul to affirm itself, as though its life were possessed of a value in itself. The mystery of being is no less and no greater than the mystery of acting, for both are the same in inscrutability. Peer Gynt's Boyg- Sphnix answers the riddle of being by saying, "I am myself", but the riddle of action is left unsolved in the command. "Go round about" (Act n. sc. vn. cf. iv. xn; v, iv). From the abyss of nihilism the escape seems to lie in some newer and fuller conception of action, as also in some other categories than those of good-virtue, right-duty. The human deed must be made more creative as it is in both rights and religion, which to ethics may have seemed to be legalistic and superstitious. Perhaps the essence of ethics is such as to forbid the positive effects of these companion forms of culture which express themselves in court and temple, but morality must abandon the abstractness, the aristocracy which has so long vitiated its efforts toward the good. This may be done by recognizing the major morality with its world of values. The creative phase of our human striving is wholly in accord with the ideal of value. Man's moral calling con- sists in something more than affirmation of self by desire and negation of self through duty; it involves the creation of something worthy in the world of humanity. Hence the VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 347 moral commandment is no longer, "Do this" or "Be this", but "Create this," which is the spiritual self. Values can- not be made artificially as Hobbes assumed virtues were made by compact; these varies are created by culture, which ex- presses the striving of man toward humanity. In distinc- tion from, nay in opposition to, pagan culture, Christianity created values wholly new in the history of mankind. Now man is learning to strive after that wholeness which the an- cient possessed in immediacy. With antiquity it was an outer immediacy of form which accounts for the marvelous achievements in plastic; with modernity it is destined to become an inner immediacy, of self-existence revealed, per- haps, in the art of music. Major morality seeks to set man at one with himself, at one with the world, and it is for this unity of his total being that man as human should strive. Where such spiritual striving animates human creative endeavor, it is carried on for its own sake as though with- out it man could not become himself. We must not take action for granted as though man could not refrain from movement ; but we must exalt action to a proper place among the categories. It is this larger form of activity which man is to assume if he is to become noble; meanwhile, we must appreciate the largesse of the life-problem and refrain from turning morality into casuistry. Causal doing and substan- tial being are categories which hardly contain the totality of human effort. Action is to be determined in the light of human destiny not in connection with some immediate need or duty. The unconscious striving after totality in human action has produced more than one characteristic life-ideal. Plato- nic and Aristotelian men, who either participate in the Good or cooperate in the energy which is directed toward Virtue, are troubled about no such romantic striving after whole- ness of action. Our modern moralists strive after unity when they have set the soul at variance with itself. But- ler's division of human nature yields two leading motives which seem to work in perpetual, mutual conflict; they are self-love and conscience. Yet Butler's manipulation of them is so adroit as to bring him to this conclusion: "Conscience and self-love, if we understand our true happiness always 348 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE lead us the same way." (Serm. in) and that which, as a metaphysical principle, brings about the unity of opposites is the pagan idea of nature whence they spring and toward which they incline by virtue of the maxim of life according to nature. Kant does not manifest such unity in his doctrine, yet he reveals even a greater need of it when his categorical imperative insists upon unified duty, while the hypothetical imperative consults inclination as the source and consequence as the outcome of action. (Meta. of Morals p. 37 st. seq.) Now, the totality of the deed Kant seeks to express apodicti- cally, as though pleasure and utility would mar man's moral perfection, and the energy with which he contends for the awful imperative is really a modern attempt to regain the lost unity of the soul. The contrast between the rigors of our modernity and the graces of classicism appears most distressingly, when we note with what smoothness and in what happy connection Aristotle avoids pleasure and utility in his easy conquest of virtue; for it is not in the study of duty, but friendship that the master of an elder age asserted the totality of man's life. (Eth. Nicom. Bk. vii-viii). Such a yearning for a fullness of the moral life and a synthetic form of ethical judgment passes over into the nineteenth century, whence it descends to us. In Fichte's reduction of all thinking and being to the primary impulse of self-activity, the wholeness of the human deed appears as a deed-act, — Thathandlung {Wissenschaftslehre § 1). Unfortunately, Fichte's rigorism does not permit him to un- fold this principle in an ethical form after the manner of a humanistic morale; nevertheless, the wholeness of human doing is expressed as a unum necessarium. Schopenhauer's major morality delivers him from the usual snares of both rigorism and hedonism, but the unity of human doing is tainted perhaps by a pessimistic and nihilistic ethics. Yet this morality of negation reveals its integral character when it adjusts the individual will to the totality of will in the world; and where art calls upon man, as a will-less subject, to contemplate the world-whole (Welt ah Wille, § 38), ethics imposes upon him the task of overcoming the world by negation of the will-to-live (§ 60). Thus he who con- templates aesthetically and renounces ethically has evinced VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 349 the unity of his being, just as he has expressed the totality of his doing. The same striving for completeness of conduct appears in Spencer, who thereby raises his standpoint above that of evolutionary naturism. Conduct, so he urges, must be judged according to its causal connection with life (Data of Ethics, Ch. iv), and from this point of view egoism and altruism may be reconciled, inasmuch as they participate in the totality of life, which, now viewed in a relative fashion, is destined to become the subject of absolute ethics (Ch. xv ). More recently, Eucken has sought to set man at one with his spiritual life in his Die Einheit des Geisteslebens, (1888) and Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt, (1896). His ideal of action is in the form of Vollthat, or Wesensthat, which is a complete deed performed by the Soul as such, in independence of outer forms of inner faculties {Einheit, S. 433). The destiny of human striving involves something more than either formalism or dynamism ; human- ity participates in W esensbildung , which has no analogy in either the 2esthetical views of the ancients or the physical conceptions of the moderns (Kampf S. 126, et seq; cf. S. 39i). 4 — COMPLETENESS OF ACTION IN SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS Having seen how problematic is the essential nature of action, we are now in a position to judge concerning the rela- tive completeness of a human deed. This is to be found in the intellectual nature of man, or in the degree of conscious- ness with which the act is performed as well as the intelligible purpose held out before the will. There is no need of ini- tiating action in a creature like man, who is destined to strive in the realization of his humanity, but we are required to scan our conduct for the sake of seeing wherein its signi- ficance lies. Upon so doing it appears that man acts for the sake of thought; we do things in order to know things. Yet in both thinking and doing man shows himself to be more than his intellect or his will. The dignity of action is not calculated to exalt an un- warranted intellectualism, yet it decrees that action shall possess intelligence. Thus it is not so much the freedom of 350 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE the will, which as an expression is redundant and paradoxi- cal, but the intelligence of the will for which ethics should contend. It is scientia which supplies potentia, and will, instead of being something in excess of causality, is of an entirely different order, being intelligent. Such is the notion implicit in the intelligible Freiheit of Kant-Schopen- hauer. The causal category and the conservation of energy are not violated, for what is added to the total performance is something of a purely intelligible nature; and a recogni- tion of unity in the midst of the cognitive, conative manifold puts human freedom beyond the domain of dispute. Aris- totelian energy of the soul according to virtue encounters no difficulties inherent in the categorical imperative. With all the attacks which philosophy makes upon truth, it is seldom that its critical weapons are turned against the good. Yet the skepticism which invades the intellect is likely to advance to the borders of will, for that which blinds the eyes may also paralyze the activities. Philosophy does avow its independence of the moral in the instances of both religion and art; one need read only Schleiermacher and Schiller to learn this. Art liberated itself from morality when aesthetics became an independent science: religion as- serted its freedom when it was placed in its proper field. Does it follow that culture is vicious because these fair and devout forms of spiritual life have serenely refused to suc- cumb to any absurd moralizing? Love and beauty, not works and laws, prevail in the realm where spiritual life is all grace and truth; and the humanity of man arises only as it surmounts the moral barrier. We are thus led to inquire concerning the value of the good and the worth of duty, ideals which can no longer be taken for granted. The achievement of one's inherent humanity is not by means of desire which is privative, or through duty which is negative. A complete and positive method of life is found only in conjuction with a third order of being which culti- vates man as such, or man in his human valuation. Hedonic self-realization is a vain attempt which confuses egoism with personality, only to end in the obliteration of the very in- dividual whose selfdom was so ardently sought. Rigoristic self-positing has a similar end in its domain; duty effaces VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 351 self just as it thwarts humanity. Man is man in only a nega- tive sense; his humanity has not been attained in the zeal of his doing. We wonder whether we shall ever become human beings, and look with* despair upon the plans laid down by morality. Suppose we do realize the golden rule of utili- tarianism ? Shall we then find ourselves in the shining pres- ence of the world of humanity? Suppose we do obey that categorical imperative for whose fulfillment its author de- manded the eternal life of an immortal soul; shall we be human even then? The unity of man can never be attained by gratifying desires, however wisely, or by performing duties, however well; nor can it be found in the deeper moods when one through eudaemonism accepts the universe in its immediacy, or by renunciation repudiates it altogether. To posit man as human requires a central assertion on the part of the soul in its unity, for which reason our ideal of human dignity suffers us. not to surrender our inward being to the eccentric influence of naturistic desire or rationalistic duty. From within outward toward the world-whole, man must act if he he is to achieve humanity. Such a conception of world-work is not idle when the actual realization of life gives way before its inner idealization, for the history of humanity has shown how man may engage in cosmic toil. This is the sense of life indicated in Goethe's poem when the Spirit tells Faust of her work at the loom of time as she weaves the garments of God. The question concerning action not only involves the dignity of man but his sense of values, and in deciding the nature of a deed we must consider the inherent worth of life. The value of action is found in the totality of the deed per- formed, as well as the inner source whence it proceeds. What commonly passes as action differs from the deed of dignity inasmuch as it springs from something immediate as desire or duty, and aims at something external in the way of result. He who works because he has temporary inclina- tion or feels immediate moral constraint may not be said to act as the wise man of humanistic ethics. His act is tainted by interest, whether naturistic or characteristc, and he is far from that condition of things which the Bhagavad-Gita calls "the worklessness of works." In some such form of inner 352 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE and universal activity we may hope to discover the nature of action; certainly we may assume that the traditional view of volitional activity is far removed from the ideal of human work. Our human calling involves a form of work different from instinctive activity put forth unconsciously except so far as its immediate purpose is concerned, and the dignified work of man raises him above the maxims of "greatest hap- piness" and "imperative duty", just as Plato's philosophers were raised above the workers and warriors of the Republic. To follow desire and to perform duty are common forms of activity; genuine work is rare. We may distinguish between the minor and major forms of action by applying a simple yet convincing test; that of the intellect. To call upon man to act is trite and unneces- sary ; but to bid him think about his action that it may become unified is ever necessary in a world of ordinary toil. It is this element of cognition that invests the expression "intel- ligible freedom" with a meaning unnoticed by Kant and Schopenhauer in their voluntarism ; man will be free, but his freedom can never possess the intelligible quality necessary to every dignified act. Such a factor of intelligence was im- plied when we discussed the systematic freedom of man. To act in perfect freedom is to act in perfect intelligence accord- ing to the ideal of intro-activity, and while we would be chary of intellectualism we do not hesitate to declare that the dignity of action cannot exist unless the deed be an in- telligible one. 5 — THE INTELLECTUAL DIGNITY OF HUMANITY However vague our inquiry concerning action and its necessity may have been, the outcome is manifest; man acts for the sake of something intellectual so that his work as- sumes the form of intro-activity. Only the intellect of man is able to measure the meaning of life which otherwise would be a dream. Our human dignity forbids us to exalt the un- thinking man of action whose life finds its sense in deed, and calls upon us to postulate the superior man who lives an inner life, wherein action is only incidental and experimental. Only such a view could fulfill the ideals of a tertiary form VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 353 of human life recognized as Sattva-Guna, as the "pneumati- cal men" or the humans of our modern systems. Only such an intelligible view of man can explain the continuity of human striving that culminates in a world of inner human- ity. Indeed, the original impulse on the part of humanity to assert itself in abiding contrast to nature must be inter- preted, not in a will that merely carries on the work of the natural order, but in an intellect that reproduces this in an intelligible form. The conflict between faciens and cogitans, which so rends the soul of the modern, is usually ascribed to the supposed weakness of the mind to conceive and not to the will's power to create. Why should doing be better and more satisfac- tory than thinking? What natural preference exists in favor of the motorium when contrasted with the sensoriumf In psychological circles, something has been done toward achieving unity of mind when consciousness is habitually con- ceived of in connection with activity; yet the result of this healthy tendency is usually accepted by voluntarism, which seeks to defend itself against an equally partial intellectual- ism, and is not credited to the unity of consciousness which ever keeps up a balance between its opposed functions. The history of humanity reveals the psychic distinction among men, and our value-judgments must proceed accordingly. Among the Greeks, who found an agreeable mean between conquest and contemplation, appeared contrasted types in the persons of Xenophon and Socrates, who advocate the deed and the thought respectively. Alexander finds something companionable in Aristotle and world-conquest affiliates with world-contemplation. Caesar's conquests are parallel with Cicero's culture and in modern times Napoleon and Hegel survey each other with mutual contempt. The question concerning the ultimate ideal is more ethical than metaphysical, and instead of looking to the ac- curacy of our psychology only we should consider also the adequacy of our ethics; so that by adjusting will and in- tellect in consciousness we may proceed to evaluate them in the field of moral ideals. Our sub-moral thought to-day flees to voluntarism in psychology and activism in life, as if man were of purely motor construction. It may have some 354 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE sense of the consistency that accompanied the life-sense of antiquity, but it is more inclined to exalt the heedless dyna- mics of an era urged on by a blind striving, as if a live dog were better than a dead lion. Where we surrender our- selves to the ideal of activism we know not whither it may lead us. Schopenhauer was better informed and his advice to seek relief from servitude of the will-to-live is significant and involves the confession that will can neither contain man's being nor content his ethical nature. The activities of the present age, bringing about stupendous developments in the world of material economics, offer painful contrast to the weak and hesitating spirit of spiritual ethics which is content with traditional notions while powerless to formulate new ideals. It shows that the Master Builder "cannot climb as high as he builds." How contemptible we make our spiritual life when we speak of Pragmatism, seeming thus to rejoice in our mental blindness! What is it in our moderns that makes them refuse to account for anything in the world ? Is it the ideal of the cavalier reappearing in the garb of decadence, or the sordid contempt of a sensualized age? Apart from the question whether intellect or will is to crown the life of man, there can be no doubt that our present need consists in an ethical movement calculated to raise the intellect to something like the level of the will, and to achieve in thought what has been done in blind action. Since Kant we have been undergoing a revolution in keeping with which the will has sought, not only to free itself from intelligence, but to usurp the supreme place of reason. Such voluntarism produces, not life, but motion. The true picture of humanity portrays "still life" with its calm, its eternity. From the foregoing it will appear that thought and ac- tion are not to be subjected to such a contrast that one shall remove in favor of the other; for we cannot live without thinking or without acting. The more acceptable order of arrangement is found in connection with a vertical line where will assumes a place beneath intellect for which it prepares the way. By means of action, working in both negative and positive fashion, man becomes intellectualized, and when the inner meaning of his being is considered he sees how in- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 355 complete his life would be without a contemplative view of it in its totality. Will works in an interrupted manner, building up life part by part, but never doing a complete deed able to express the whole substance of our human being; mind exerts a vast synthetic influence whereby it brings to a unity all the scattered elements of our life in one judg- ment. Therefore, action leads to thought, and thought to being. There is knowledge in the midst of activity, know- ledge of the will-to-live; and there is activity in the midst of thought, the energy of contemplation. Such an ontogenetic adjustment seems to be in accord with the individual's life. This begins voluntaristically and for a while exhibits only animal functions; but the development of humanity in the person is coincident with the dawning of consciousness and the preparatory move- ments of the will are computed in the perfected activities of the intellect. The source of man's life in will only sug- gests its outcome in intelligence, but the development of the inner life gradually reveals the change from instinct to in- tuition as the life-work of contemplation goes on within. Such is also the natural history of the race. Coming fresh from nature, man's earliest form of life is marked by acitivity which only gradually makes way for contemplation. This is the product of leisure. Even nature in her material forms has something more than a practical interest for man who finds the world to be, not a mere field of work, but a subject of reflection. If voluntarism were truly representative of man, we should have no art or science and our life would be all deed and conduct carried on without assignable purpose. Still another consideration must be made if the genuine purport of human striving is to be comprehended. This is not to introduce a third element into the controversy, but to allow a principle common to will and intellect to bring about a more complete harmony between them. Such a principle appears in consciousness. Only in the consciousness of his place in the universe, only in the inner consciousness of humanity can man realize himself. Let will be the begin- ning and intellect the end, and at last let all action be swallowed up in thought, man becomes human by means of his consciousness. A plant realizes itself in its organic form, 356 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE an animal in dynamic movement accompanied by sufficient consciousness to direct it; but man passes beyond vegetation and organization to assume a spiritual character in the uni- verse. This he does through thought-consciousness; or by means of such inner realization as is able to unite his lower life of action with his higher life of thought. "In the begin- ning was the deed," at the end is the thought, but over all is consciousness, as the inner meaning of humanity. Where will realizes itself is in the domain of intro-activity whose essence is essentially contemplative. From the standpoint of humanity only such a conclusion seems warranted; for humanity is not an objective realm filled with material things upon which the will may exert its energies, but a subjective one where the activities of the mind may be fully realized within the domain where they arise. Humanity is not a perceptible order like flora or fauna, but a consciousness whose practical expression assumes an ideal form barely conserved in any given condition of civilization or culture. Within this realm of human values, man's life is to be realized, and while nature claims his voli- tions, humanity seeks its realization within his conscious- ness. Since man is destined to become human, by means of an inner realization that is independent of natural forms and forces, it must appear that such a goal is to be found in his inner consciousness rather than in some external fact known to reason or some objective deed carried on by the will. It is in form what Augustine called sensus interioris hominis (De civ. Dei, lib. xi. cap. 27) ; the ancients called it reason where moderns style it consciousness. It is simply life, although that term has an endless meaning when con- sidered from within according to consciousness. This does not lead us away from activity as a guiding principle, nor have we any desire to abandon the idea of striving that has aided us in interpreting lesser forms of the moral life. We desire only to point out, that human striving toward consciousness is not such as to terminate in a con- dition of things, wherein will triumphs over intelligence ac- cording to an alleged supremacy of practical reason, but an order of development according to which human activity turns from nature to spirit, from outer to inner, from multi- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 357 plicity to unity. Such a condition of mind is not something immediate, but results only after striving with both nature and man himself. Where man does employ his will for the purpose of work it is ftot to lose himself either in his toil or its object, but to test his powers in their application to the forces of the order whence he come, and the ideal man is not so much like the ignorant laborer who cannot rise above his work, as he is like the scientist who touches the world lightly at certain strategic points for mere purpose of ex- periment. Such is the ideal of activity in nature. 6 CULTURE AND CONDUCT In our search after the completeness of action that con- stitutes human dignity we encounter the problem of culture and conduct, wherein the respective values of intellectual and volitional activities are set forth. Any inquiry concern- ing the end of life, whether in thinking or in acting, must assume that the inferior forms of truth and virtue have been understood by the man who would realize his humanity, so that all we need to examine is the nature of the crowning work which characterizes the superior side of man's life. Thus we admit that as man must have some degree of know- ledge so he must also possess a certain amount of virtue, for life in the most ordinary sense of that term demands that our humanity shall exercise the mind according to truth and the will according to goodness. The minor conception of our being, therefore, seems ludicrous when it seeks to legislate and give us moral maxims calculated to promote the activities of thinking and doing when man will of himself pursue these as a matter of instinct within and necessity without. Nature beckons with an iron hand, and man must have some com- prehension of her course and some sense of obedience to her laws if he is to survive as a mere creature only ; so that we are not called upon to choose between wisdom and virtue whose presence are assumed in man, but between the culminating forms of life in either contemplation or conquest. Man as such has a life-work to perform, and our belief that man is by nature a creature who must strive after his realization leads us to inquire wherein that realization con- 358 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE sists. Aristotle's immortal comment upon our human acti- vities finds a suggestive place at this juncture. "Are we to suppose, that while carpenter and cobbler have certain works and courses of action, man as man has none, but is left by nature without a work?" (Eth. Nic. I. v). Our human work of dignity, wherein the totality of life is involved, can be no instinctive duty-doing, desire-fulfillng work of car- penters and cobblers, but an inner and universal form of activity which alone makes man a human being; and in the attempt to indicate the meaning of our existence as also to show wherein man is most likely to be successful, we turn away from the will except in so far as its contents is intelr lectual in the human work of contemplation. Such an ideal proposed and yet repudiated by eudaemonism is here resumed and in conscious departure from immediacy and in deliberate abandonment of mere work, we cast our vote in favor of the culture of humanity rather than the cultivation of the garden, for the former satisfies where the latter only stupe- fies. Another reason for believing in culture as the goal of humanity is the persistent attempt on the part of the world to understand its being; nature denaturizes itself in pro- ducing the human brain. By means of this cerebral device the secret of nature is exploded; for the human under- standing reacts upon nature, declares matter to be unreal and reconstructs the world according to a mental plan of logical law and metaphysical category. After all, it was a human hand which carved the face of the Sphinx and man holds the key to the mystery of the world which were no problem but for him. Things exist for the sake of knowledge and man was born not only to do and to suffer, but to study and to know. The constant pursuit of knowl- edge either as a means of happiness (Aristotle) or as a way to power (Bacon), the intrinsic satisfaction which knowledge brings, convinces us that the homo sapiens is a favorite child of humanity which cannot exist without him. Human life shows how man was put into the world to work, whether in Eden to cultivate the garden, or in the world to till the soil ; but the voluntaristic life-ideal is usually urged when the intellectualistic one seems to fail and the VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 359 life of labor cannot be the highest ideal for a creature who can accomplish more with his intellect than with his will. That man was meant for knowledge is confessed by the greatest of voluntasists — Schopenhauer. This radical thinker really gives us more than he promises in his WilU zum Leben, and perhaps that is because he saw how man was not satisfied with the acquisition and persistence of life. The will aims at something more than life just as it seeks to produce something more than the man of nature. Ac- cordingly, the content of the term 'life' is filled out with intellectual elements; where the will-to-live is denied the will-to-know is left undisturbed. By means of knowledge man is led to contemplate the world as artist while ultimate- ly he renounces it as moralist ; the triumph is the triumph of reason by which the will in its blindness is first quieted and then extinguished: thus the outer forces of nature and the inner volitions of man unite to evoke human reason that the world may be understood and life rationalized, and man as- sumes his place in the universe of nature and humanity only by accepting the responsibilities of the intellect. The action of the will, however necessary to human life it may be, seems to carry out the plan of nature in making and keep- ing man a creature; it is the intellect that unifies his being and adjusts him to his spiritual center in the world-whole of nature-humanity. Man himself may be in nature as a link in the chain of beings, and if it were not for reason he would never know his humanity and the problem of life; but the day-spring of intellection reveals the position man is destined to occupy and the function he is to perform, and he who becomes aware of his spiritual vocation trusts less to the will and more to the intellect, as "he who practices the Tao daily diminishes his doing." Only through the contempla- tive work of mind can man achieve dignity. Voluntarism can give only the shell of human life whose kernel is found in reflective consciousness. The will indeed does have some genetic significance in determining the general bent of human life, for man's earliest forms of mentality concern themselves with simple movements having at heart the preservation of the individual. At the same time, the will bears some relation to the purpose of life, in that man 3 6o VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE constantly sets before his mind some practical goal necessary to the work of life. But these arguments only concern the naturistic or characteristic forms of man's being, for they do not take into consideration the ideal aspect of his being or the totality of his life. We do possess volition, but that is not to say it possesses us; and the will is our servant rather than our master. Therefore, of the two functions of our being, the conduct of the will and the culture of the reason, we may assume that the purpose of life, while it towers above both of these in all the supremacy of inner and universal spiritual life, is expressed in terms of culture rather than by means of conduct. All attempts at activism or pragmatism are sure to ignore the universality of Man's spirit and the ultimate purpose of his being. The pragmatic view of man ignores human dignity for it reduces man to nature and thus envolves a reversion to type. With all the vile insinuations of Nietzsche there is something more heroic in the "blond beast" of Aryanism than in the moralistic, Semitic beast of burden who is in- different to the intellectual value of humanity and encour- ages reason to turn against itself. Pragmatism calls upon man to live without ideals and in our present condition of activistic excess it is crafty enough to appeal to the prejudices of an unsuspecting public. The paganism of Aristotle's ideal of "great-mindedness" — which adorns the whole moral life of man, stands out in marked contrast to such Semitism as tends to envelop our present-day philosophy. Still more annoying does this form of philosophy become when it seeks to make the maxims of the human will the motto of the universe and looks for the premises of thought in the postulates of action. Our universe is a thought-universe, our life a life of culture. The appeal to a voluntaristic metaphysics and a pragmatic morality only veils the con- fession that our age cannot stand the light of thought and self-consciousness. We abandon the stately intellectualism of Apollo for the activism of Dionysus, not realizing that the god of passion was hardly one remove from sensuality. So our activism in both theory and practice binds us again to earth when all humanity cries out for deliverance from sense that it may strive toward inner self-hood. Let many run to and fro, but let knowledge be increased in the land. V THE DIGNITY OF SELFHOOD Just as the characteristic view of life with its norms of rectitude and duty triumphed over the naturistic principles of pleasure and utility, so our humanistic ideals of value and dignity must rise above all these standards of minor morality and treat man in his totality. Our treatment of these other principles has shown how implicit is humanity as such in every stage of our being's progress. The paradox of pleas- ure and the essence of desire, the search after utility and eudaemonia are only so many imperfect forms of our human striving while the psychology of conscience and the ethics of rectitude, the origin of freedom and the ground of duty, are inexplicable except as expressions of a self-perfecting spirit of humanity. Thus is humanity justified of her children, who should not seek to assume the highest place, as though pleasure or conscience could rule man, but should rather admit the origin and submit to the authority of the spirit in and behind them. For humanity itself, it becomes necessary to assert superiority over both nature and man, and thus rise above the world of single things and the world of in- dividual persons. In ethics there arises the problem of in- dividualism in both ego and alter, and this must be adjusted to humanity as a system. Our ideals of value and dignity now aid us in determin- ing the status of the individual, especially after the culmina- tion of the discussion upon our human dignity has led us to see how man comes to himself in cognition rather than in conation, whereby we are now able to intellectualize in- dividuals and attribute to them their proper humanity. This should place the problem of egoism and altruism in a new light and make it possible to grant to each its rights by granting these to neither; that is, in its isolation from the human order enveloping it. The problem of ego-alter has 361 362 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE always been taken up by naturistic hedonism and practically never by characteristic intuitionism, and that because the one was aware of the moral content in desire while the other saw only the form in duty. But by what right should naturism, which knows the principle of indivi- duation instead of genuine personality, usurp the office of individualism and seek thus to define ego and alter and re- late them to each other? Our criticism of both egoism and altruism taken up in PART TWO of this work was intended to show how futile is the attempt to construct the ego upon a hedonic basis where self-assertion is the meaningless ani- malism of the "Gyntish self"; and where rigorism de- sensualizes man humanism re-spiritualizes him and makes genuine personality possible. He who has Tamas-guna has no real ego ; he who finds Sattva-guna comes to self -conscious- ness only to use this for a higher purpose. I — THE STRIVING FOR HUMAN SELFHOOD Through the ego, humanity strives to realize the inness of spiritual life, since consciousness cannot complete its work until it has achieved a unity in personal existence. For this reason, egoism in some form is a necessary phase of human life, and maxims counselling the destruction of selfhood through self-denial and self-effacement seek to take away the inner sense of man's being and are of value only when striving for selfhood sinks downward to the world of nature. The man of humanity should be more and not less of a person; he should be more and more centripetal in his act- ivity. Encouraged by Butler's example, we feel justified in saying that genuine self-love is so weak that it stands in need of internal furtherance on the part of the ego who should see that his human calling demands the development of a personality in the deeper sense of that term. Between ego and humanity there is so close a connection that it deserves direct recognition. When we turn to dis- cuss man's sense of human worldhood in the social order, it will be time enough to speak of man in his sympathetic capa- city as altruist: here we must recognize man in his superior character as person and human aristocrat. Is humanity ad- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 363 vanced by the genius or by the mass ? Is the sense of human- ity created by the beautiful soul who appears at rare inter- vals or by the average man whom we have ever with us? However we may hesitate to exalt the egoistic in man, we cannot deny that humanity is not to be evinced apart from some form and degree of egoism, for without the individual humanity is empty. It is only by means of self-consciousness that the inness of humanity can find expression, just as it is only by the self-positing of the ego that humanity is able to strive for selfhood. On what basis can man be himself? On what founda- tion raise the structure of human selfhood? Hedonism pro- poses an "ego" filled with self-love as the most obvious form of private being; intuitionism offers the "free moral agent 1 ' who surrenders his interests to his scruples and in seeking to efface the coarse egohood of nature abandons all hope of finding the principle of his inner life. Selfhood is a human affair and where man is allied with, first, a naturistic, and then a rationalistic form of existence, he has no chance to display his genuine self. One should strive after selfhood, not make it something to be seized through sense as though personality consisted in pleasure; he should make it some- thing positive, however, and not imagine that it could come to him through the conscientious denial of human values. The organization of our inner life through selfhood involves both elements of sense and spirit whereby man makes him- self out of the materials nature affords him. Such, a self is a genuine ego whose character is not empirical but intelligi- ble, not outward assertion but inward affirmation. The path to personality has ever been obstructed by the minor systems of egoism and altruism. Both seek to exalt the empirical person who is viewed first from within as ego, without as alter ; as a result the dignity of man as an intelligi- ble person is violated and the hope of achieving selfhood is lost. This condition of affairs produces a false disjunction and when man is placed between egoism and altruism he can- not make a satisfactory choice of character in terms of self- love or self-sacrifice. The dignity of humanity must be established in some other way than the empirical one pro- posed by the hedonistic school, for one cannot love himself 364 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE or deny himself unless there be some genuine selfhood as the basis of operations. To evince the self in mankind it be- comes necessary to effect a greater contrast than that between ego and alter ; spirit must be set off against matter, humanity against nature and personality delivered from the fetters of conventionality. This is the only consistent meaning that attaches to the morality of genius whereby artistic souls, who are raised above nature find ethical recognition. Man was meant to be superior and he who can demonstrate the calling of humanity is of more value than a whole race of altruists who only continue the common work of the world without imparting any spiritual significance. The genius teaches us that man was meant for humanity, for genius is passion for humanity and deserves to be fostered by a moral system which has at heart the total interests of human life. The dignity of humanity thus demands something more than egoism and altruism; it raises man above a life accord- ing to nature and a life according to reason, to a life in humanity. Here a full personality, conscious of its position in the world, alive to the problem of its life, transcends all the pettiness of ego and alter and seeks humanity as its goal. Man's supreme concern is neither for the self or the not- self but for humanity as such, and the great commandment is not, Love thyself, or, Love the not-self, but, Cultivate humanity. The alter-ego will receive his share of considera- tion at the hands of the self-realizing ego, for one cannot fulfill his mission in a world of humanity without persons; but the alter will lose his private characteristics and stand for humanity, as the model reveals the characteristics of the human form; and he who loves another and furthers his interests is devoting himself to the intelligible ego who re- presents the universal, rather than to the empirical ego who stands only for the individual. By serving a few characteris- tic souls in a symbolic fashion man fulfills his duty toward humanity without sinking into either egoism or altruism: In the dialectic of Fichte this symbolic relation between one person and another assumes the systematic form of Ich and Nicht-Ich where, from the physical point of view the exter- nal world is only a non-ego. Yet it is only by accomodation that the individual person assumes the role of the Ich whose VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 365 essence is that of the objective Self. By parity of reasoning the alter may become representative of the whole Nicht-Ich as he does in the ethics of Fichte, as shown in the Rechtshpil- osophie. Hence the ego plays the part of the Ich, the alter that of the Nicht-Ich, just as the character of Cain is deter- mined altogether by his attitude toward Abel, that of Judas by his treatment of Jesus. In a genuine moral relation the ordinary relations of person to person give way to a decisive conflict between one phase of humanity and another. Let it not be thought that, with all its warmth of hu- manitarian interest, Christianity counsels altruism as such. The love of the world-neighbor and the special duty toward the needy are made a part of this practical system of spirit- ual life, but the idea of redemption so towers above these details that the altruistic is lost sight of. Christianity finds no abiding difficulty in the egoistic problem, because as a form of spiritual religion it seeks to discover the individual value of the soul and has no interest in the alter-ego when he is surveyed in a purely naturistic way. Some such idea must have inspired Butler to postulate "reasonable self-love" as a principle of ethics about on the same level as conscience. But behind the lofty method of the Gospel lies the thought that the empirical world of persons, like the phenomenal world of things, is not the world of loves and values, so that no amount of altruism can atone for want of spiritual in- sight and purpose. Practical benevolence is only the sign of the abiding love of spirit, which ever turns from <£iA.€g> to dAcwrao) and raises man above ego and alter in a central and consuming love of the All, or what Schleiermacher called "sense and taste for the Infinite" {Redenuber die Religion, II). 2 CONTEMPLATIVE EGOISM The striving for selfhood is an internal movement in which the individual seeks to adjust himself as person to the human world-order. Having seen how just and necessary is a certain kind of egoism we must further inquire how man can best attain to selfhood, and thus acquire human dignity. Our conception of man's dignity decides this for us and we are thus led to assume that it is through intellect rather 366 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE than through will that man becomes himself and attains to selfhood, so that his egoism is the egoism of contemplation, not that of conquest. The ego of action cannot bear the burden of selfhood, and the ontological dignity of man makes necessary an ego capable of self-consciousness and self-affirmation in the form of spiritual life. The intellect furnishes apparently the only secure means of realizing per- sonality and when, in response to Kant's injunction we seek to treat the humanity of both ego and alter as an end, we turn to man's mental life as the only possible condition of such an achievement. Because of his dignity, man must be a person, and both dignity and personality are found in intellectualism and the work of contemplation. Could the ego be looked upon as a finished product existing in his own world, our contention for selfhood would be unnecessary and improper; then we were cultivating selfishness indeed. Genuine egoism, however, needs further- ance, inasmuch as man in his impirical capacity has not at- tained to the stature of selfhood. How this achievement is to come about involves major rather than minor ethics. Right here we must observe that, since humanity has habit- ually accepted substitutes for self, our common condition is one of sub-egoism, so that we stand in need of strong moral motives urging us to fill out the proportions of our personal nature. And this can be done only by a deliberate striving after selfhood as something to be desired rather than dreaded. Religion teaches man to be "innocently solicitious for self", as Hutcheson (Inquiry, Sect. in. vi) put it, just as religion is itself a form of striving after personal existence as a soul. Culture has the same motive and while not a mere culte du moij in the sense of Maurice Barres, it is no impersonal ideal. Experience shows how deeply mankind stands in need of the free, creative personality, who works as he lives, from within. Such an ideal is the crystalization of human striving after selfhood. The naturistic attempt at selfhood was seen to be a fail- ure, inasmuch as it was based upon sense in the vain attempt to rear personality upon the foundation of pleasure. Thus it detached a solitaire, but could not develop a spirit; it cele- brated the dance of Dionysius, but did not worship Apollo. VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 367 Nevertheless, naturism deserves credit for having inaugu- rated egoism with its suggestion that the person as such is of value and worthy of consideration in thought, and since man's life and man's world are apprehended through his own ego the doctrine of self-love is to be blamed for its bluntness and superficiality only. Since man is destined for full humanity, egoism is of worth in showing how inherent in the human order is the unit of personality. Yet there is a more ac- ceptable form of the doctrine consisting in intellect rather than sense ; it is the contemplative form of selfhood in which humanity realizes itself with the highest degree of perfec- tion. The striving of humanity to attain realization is for- ever balked unless the individual be allowed to represent the world in his thought and react upon it according to his will. All genuine culture thus aims to emancipate the individual that the mystery of the world and the enigma of life may be presented directly to a self-conscious subject of con- templation. This thinking ego is worthy of more considera- tion and capable of more development than the feeling ego, which seeks to receive the world directly as to content with- out attempting to analyze it according to form. Humanistic egoism reduces hedonic egoism to a mere shadow, for in its intellectual form it involves the metaphy- sical in man. Just as the Christian Soul is weighed against the value of the world-whole, so the Vedantist Self is sub- stituted for the entire universe, and in their combined forms of Semitic and Aryan culture they present a perfect view of human selfhood. Vedanta looks upon the world as though it were pervaded by the Self, and that so perfectly that all reality becomes mental and the "That" becomes a "Thou", the "Tat" a "Tvam", in the great text, "Tat tvam asi." There are no separate individual things, but a supreme Self alone exists; there are no isolated persons but one indwelling Self. He who would know nature and humanity must view it through the Self in which all phenomena, physical and psychical, are centered. By such metaphysical means human- ity appears in the crystallized form of selfhood, and the striving after self-realization, instead of being egoistic, be- comes humanistic, for it urges the individual to achieve his inherent humanity in the Apollonian sense. 368 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE The objective ego upon whose basis personality is to be erected makes possible the selfhood of spirit in contrast to the selfhood of sense; hereby man learns to distinguish him- self from the natural order about him as well as from the inner order of phenomena. As Heraclitus sought diligently to find himself, so Socrates, in contrast to the Sophistical Protagoras, tried to put selfhood upon the basis of know- ledge. To the hedonist these speculative attempts at egoism come as a surprise since the hedonist can conceive of the personality of man as a mere matter of private interest. Upon the basis of the Christian "Soul", Augustine sought a principle of inner experience in the self-consciousness and self-existence of the individual (Beata vita, 7; Solil. II, 1), while Descartes repeats the argument for selfhood in the well-known cogitOj ego sum. Belief in the self as a specula- tive principle was furthered by Fichte's self-positing "Ich" whose essence consists in striving in opposition to the world. Such dialectics prepare the way for a genuine view of self- hood and indicate that the hedonic self of sense furnishes no basis for human personality. The new ego is no creature of sense but a character of reason; emancipated from nature he asserts his human dignity by affirming himself as person. 3 THE EGO AND HIS INDIVIDUALITY Just as the hedonic ego cannot maintain his character as individual in contrast with nature, so he fails to distinguish himself from the mass of men about him: hence some other' than a theory of selfhood in self-love becomes necessary if man is to rise above both natural and social orders. The dignity of man depends upon individualism, but such a prin- ciple must be put upon a sufficient basis. The old ego of immediate rather than remote self-assertion, of sense rather than reason, cannot endure in the midst of criticism, and to be a person, to have a soul, to live according to major moral- ity, demands a superior form of selfhood. Schopenhauer was right in pointing out the fallacy of an egoism based upon the principle of individuation which deludes man into the belief that he is distinct from the rest of the world ( Welt als Wille u Vorstellung, § 61); but his counsel to repudiate VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 369 this phenomenal self without a further attempt at person- ality is on a par with his renunciation of the will-to-live so far as all life is concerned. Man must live; his life must be human ; his humanity depends upon his selfhood. Human dignity means distinction and upon no false basis of self- destroying altruism is man expected to cast off his very soul. The naturistic commandment to seek the greatest happiness of the greatest number, and the characteristic injunction to act so that the maxim of one's conduct may become universal law, are inimical to selfhood, and for this reason, if for no other, we turn away from the minor morality of maxims to the major morality of values. No hero, no artist, no saint could realize himself with such restrictions, with ideals which are those of barbarism. Current attempts to attain selfhood are well-meaning but one-sided and have only a critical value in indicating how un-individualized is our society. The retreat from convention is carried on well enough, but the reconstruction of the self is weak and indefinite. If Stirner's individual ("Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum" , 1844) was first in the field, Nietsche's "blond beast" now reigns supreme as the egoist, who takes up the case of the noble Aryan in contrast with the slavish Semite, and carries on his paganism at the expense of Christianity. The Nietzschian "bete blanc" is opposed to both forms of minor morality as he sets aside both conscience and sympathy in the endeavor to be his own heroic self. Wagner has used his poetical and musical genius to isolate the personality of Siegfried, the fearless, who never suffers from any self-suggestion of weakness. Ibsen's Emperor Julian has many of the egoist's features, and at the same time he awaits the arrival of the "right man" who comes into being as the "man who wills himself." Such characters do not argue for self-love or against the love of others; they simply contend for humanity in the dignity of individualism. The true problem of self as well as the chief anxiety to be felt concerning it, involves the petty egoism which is more opposed to major egoism than it is to altruism. The ego of dignity is not found in a "barrel of self", or in an "ivory tower"; he is not contented with mere "Eigenthum" nor does he strive to be a superman. 370 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE His selfhood cannot come to him through mere pleasure, still less likely is it to be found along the path of vice. Julien Sorel, in Stendhal's "Red and Black," and Raskolnikoff, in Dostoievsky's "Crime and Punishment" reduce to absurdity the egoism of Napoleon when, by means of vice and crime, they endeavor to assert the self. These are false attempts to secure ego gnosis just as they are weak forms of major self-assertion. Genuine egoism exalts individuality above conventionality and looks to the person to dignify the inner nature of hu- manity. Regard for immediate welfare in the natural order vitiates the argument for both egoism and altruism, and makes it necessary to seek human selfhood upon some higher plane. At this point, we may resume the question concern- ing the demand that life makes upon us. Can man be him- self upon the basis of sense? Every individual who is con- scious of his position in the world and is anxious to realize his selfhood discovers that neither positive sense nor negative reason contains the possibility of a personal inner life which must be, not simply discovered in fact, but elaborated in deed. Man must posit himself as a person whose being is independent of nature, as an individual whose character is distinct from society. All attempts to reduce the individual to external systems of law and convention succeed at the expense of both personality and humanity. Yet the in- dividual succeeds in his quest of personality only when he abandons the desire to reach out in opposition to his natural and social environment, and strives to transcend the limits of these in some genial work of human conquest. The conditions of the highest possible selfhood seem to be removed from the will and allied with the intellect, so that the possibility of human dignity is at the same time the ground of human personality. The "man who wills himself" is not the genuine self; the man who knows him- self is a much better example of selfhood. The voluntarism of Fichte and Schopenhauer fails to furnish us with the materials of self-existence and where Fichte's self-asserting "Ich JJ falls short of human standards, Schopenhauer's will- to-live destroys the individual altogether. Indeed, our egoism is scarcely distinguishable from Hobbes' Leviathan, who is VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 371 selfish and tyrannical; and resembles the primitive Cyclops, who was a life and a law unto himself. Such a personality is conceived of in the spirit of giantism as an excess of natural force which elsewhere had gone to make up rocks and trees, the genuine selfhood consists, not of force, but of freedom; his character is not conative, but cognitive ; he comes into be- ing as the man who knows. Only by intelligence can man be distinguished from either the world of things or the world of persons, for while nature and society have more power than the individual they have less free intelligence. Cogito, ergo sum — such are the means and end of human self-asser- tion. The will can only raise some shaggy, mountain-like personality whose genius is due to a freak of nature; in- tellect erects a Gothic-like edifice whose upward-striving is guided by intelligence. The ego of dignity is therefore the man of culture, rather than the man of nature; through him humanity is realized. For what are the claims of the social order? Chiefly those of necessity and actuality; society exists be- cause it must exist. And what are the claims of self ? They are those of the ideal, and through the order of individuality humanity comes to itself in selfhood. Only the individual can unify the world of persons, of him alone it can be said — That art thou! The man who knows has a right to be; his personality stands out in fair proportions, removed from the jealous regard of society. But the man who wills him- self is only one of the mass suddenly elevated to lofty sta- tion, as though genius could express itself through the will. Such an ego is the man of humanity, the homo sapiens whose right to exist as person is founded upon intellectual justice; only in an inner mentality can he be himself, hence con- templative egoism is the only acceptable form of individual- ized humanity. At the same time, this doctrine is put forth for the sake of universal humanity rather than for particular personality; for selfhood is not so much a private privilege as it is a general responsibility. Has not the whole human order been furthered by the selfhood of Plato and Caesar and Raphael ? Could we ask that these world-persons should be altruistic and devote their genius to social service ? Their greatness was an egoistic greatness, their calling an indivi- 372 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE dual one, yet in all their individuality they exhibited human- ity as their characteristic. These intellectuals may not be the most serviceable of human individuals, but they are the most significant, since they show how the one humanity triumphs over inner egos and outer alters in the dignity of man as such. Such a striving for selfhood may not adapt itself to the needs of an altruistic theory, but it does not fail to satisfy the conditions of the one humanity, inasmuch as one's genuine selfhood consists in the achieving of his human- ity. We need not resort to the realism of William of Champeaux to appreciate the fact that in a Socrates, human- itas may exist totaliter, while it appears individualiter. A complete person who knows the self has passed beyond the atomic individualism of both ego and alter. The striving after selfhood is to be understood, there- fore, as a genuine impulse on the part of inner humanity whose ideals are realized according to individuality rather than solidarity. But this does not involve selfishness, since geniune individuality tends to distinguish man from nature rather than to separate him from society. Nor does in- dividuality confine man to a narrow field, for the striving after the universal in the self is sufficient to occupy the mental and moral powers of the most active moralist. To realize one's own inherent humanity is to attain to moral dignity, and with the achievement of selfhood as counseled by Vedan- ta and the Fichtean philosophy is the end of human existence. With a richly furnished and ever increasing inner life, one need not follow the score set by society, but may improvise as prompted by his own personality. The history of ethics is well nigh wanting in an apology for egoism, or even in a clear statement of the meaning of selfhood, and the termi- nology of the doctrine is a confusion of expressions like "egoist" and "solipsist", "self-love" and "selfishness", "super- man" and "individual." The true dignity of selfhood is not neutralized by the fact that society is a necessary factor in the development of individuality. Goethe's "Tasso" represents the conflict between the claims of the speculative self and the practical social order. The objective tendency was upon the sub- jective one, so that when the introspective Tasso meets VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 373 Antonio, the man of affairs, he confesses that he has been awakened from his poetic dreams and now feels himself to be a double personality indeed. (Tasso, 760-766). From his rival, Tasso learns that one does not find himself within himself, but out in life among men. "Inwendig lernt kein Mensch sein Innerstes Erkennen; denn er misst nach eignem Mass Sich bald zu klein und leider oft zu gross. Der Mensch erkennt sich nur im Menschen, nur Das Leben lehret Jedem was er sei." (Tasso, 1239-1243). The veritable solution of the life-problem consists in ad- justing the possibilities of interior life to the facts of exterior existence. Failing to do this, the individual remains caged within his egoism knowing reality only as a world of inner life. But the exodus to the outer order is even more peril- ous for one's personality, which may be so diffused by the extent of the world or so moulded by its fixed forms that the glory of selfhood soon departs. Hence, when we survey life as it is found in experience, we are constrained to em- phasize the individual rather than society whose claims of solidarity, conformity, obligation and the like have been sufficiently stated in modern times. It is the poetical ego, not the practical non-ego, that needs our moral furtherance in an industrial order which strives to reduce the self to a servant. As a spectacle the ego in his striving after selfhood is only a beautiful one in poetry and our recent literature has not suffered from the story of these supermen — Faust, Brand, Peer Gynt, Siegfried, Hauptmann's Heinrich the Bell- Founder. The Vedic picture of the falcon-soul which, after having roamed about the air, finally folds its wings in the nest of Self, and the modern spectacle of a cultured ego climbing the ivory tower of his selfhood, are not want- ing in a certain sense of thrill. The self is not to be re- pudiated but revised and, detached from both nature and naturistic solidarity, it is to be asserted in terms of culture and humanity. There is a self and the Self, and our human dignity will not suffer when man seeks to expand the minor 374 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE ego into the proportions of the major personality. Human- ity is not to be realized quantitatively by the mass, but puali- tatively by the individual. The will then assumes a higher form than the will-to-live, which is the spinal chord of society; it becomes a will to individuality, or striving for selfhood. 4 THE SENSE OF HUMAN WORLDHOOD It is only the ego of sense who stands out in contrast to the world of humanity ; the contemplative self finds his being in his inherent humanity and is content to express his in- dividuality in mirror-like representation of the whole order of human beings. The self is to be prized and cultivated, not because it can be satisfied in sense, but because it can represent the world in which, man finds himself. Now the other man is only an alter-ego and if the egoism of nature cannot stand upon the basis of immediacy, the inverted egoism called altruism can be no more successful in the cultivation of sense. He who has found his self in the world of human- ity is not expected to surrender that possession for the benefit of others whose life is still upon the plane of animal- ity. For this reason, we do not seek to pass over from egoism to altruism, but aspire to transcend the distinction between them by postulating one humanity appearing in both forms of inner and outer personal life. This can be done by the work of contemplation wherein both ego and alter assume the office of manifesting the character of humanity. Souls exist, not simply for service in the world of sensation or volition; they may also assume the form of a spectacle so that in contemplating them we learn to believe in the destiny of mankind. But there is no dignity in the mass, except as it is reflected by the individual which it contains. Dignity is found only in the Self or the Soul, in Apollo or in the modern Individual. Just as selfhood was shown to be both capable and worthy of an intellectualistic view, so the social element in man makes possible a cultural view of life. The uses to which human society has been put by speculators anxious to prove a point have something curious about them, in that VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 375 they suggest that the world of persons is no mere natural order, like that of flora and fauna, but a realm of something metapolitical. Plato's politics, based upon a tripartite scheme in both nature #nd man, uses society for speculative purposes, and constructs the state as a work of art; at the same time, it suggests that the diversity of forms in nature reflects its image in the several classes of men. Leibnitz's "Monadology", with its principle of continuity, arranges its spiritual atoms in a long series of beings, whose many grades of consciousness mirror the world in all its aspects. The social and spiritual conclusion is now easily drawn : the human order with its manifold of souls represents the world in a manner more complete than could be done by the ego in his isolation. Thus, though each individual, by virtue of his participation in the unity of social life, is able to intuit the world by means of the human reason as such, the organization of culture is due to a social, and not merely an individual effort on the part of mankind, and the "human understanding" is the understanding of humanity. The vastness of nature, from which man is constantly seeking to emancipate himself and organize his humanity, demands cooperation on the part of the sons of men. Human individuals are not merely the workers and warriors who produce practical results in the world of civilization; they serve also as philosophers and priests who furnish specula- tive evidence of a world of culture. Phidias finds in human bodies the typical human form; Socrates elucidates from the social mind an open opinion whose ground is reason. In the same artistic fashion, humanity serves as the model for the poet, whose epic cannot be completed according to the principium individuationis, but needs masses of men; on the canvas of a Rembrandt it reveals the intimate side of the world of persons. Humanity is thus somewhat more than a mass of men struggling for existence or promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number; it is a spectacle which never fails to catch the attention of the idealist, whether Plato in politics or Shakespeare in poetry. Indeed, we can forgive the absurdities which the "Republic" in- troduces, when we observe how these human animals lend themselves to a great ideal; just as we can overlook the 376 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE careless histrionism of the poet who is bent not so much upon the utility of man as his dramatic possibilities. In his human capacity, man has somewhat more to do than labor; he must reveal the entirety of the world. This consideration becomes more apparent when humanity is sur- veyed upon the side of its historical development. As we have seen, man's ascent from nature is not an abrupt de- parture, which leaves no trace of the natural behind it; rather is it a gradual movement masked by definite historical stages, the first of which appears in naturism. This program could not be carried out did we not assume a social basis for mankind, upon which progress is made according to the principles of historical development. Man alone has his- tory. The achievement of history is due to man's constant participation in his humanity. Upon the basis of individual- ism this progress could not be understood, could not be carried on at all; because the several stages through which man is to pass must be worked out in generations and among nations. Progress is only through society, which furnishes the causa efficiens of human movement. Civilization perfects itself by passing through characteristic stages ; culture comes to consciousness by de- grees. These approximations toward humanity, which make up the one history of mankind, are conceivable only upon a non-individualistic basis. They constitute an altruism in no wise comparable to the materialistic grouping of men in the mass of alters for purposes of social work. When we ignore the world of humanity, we find it hopeless to adjust the individual to society, where the ego is asked to be altruistic toward the alter while the alter thus becomes egoistic toward the ego. The alter-ego has some more essential part to play than that accorded him under the auspices of altruism. He confronts the ego as a non- ego and supplies him with evidence of the externally human order, as also with an estimate of its worth. For this reason, ethics gains by regarding humanity in a dramatic fashion wherein the individual's problem of life is like that of the protagonist. The psychology of the drama reveals the lyrical subject seeking entrance into the epic situation, or the individual with his temperamental limitations en- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 377 deavoring to adjust himself to the world of persons. Comedy and tragedy follow upon his efforts to attain human stand- ing as he acts and suffers. Much the same is the individual's relation to the world of, alter — egos who are like him except that they are objective to his personal being. In the midst of it all, the individual in his humanity towers above the mass, and while the epic and social side of humanity is as important as the lyrical and egoistic, the dramatic person who reconciles both solidarity and the solitaire is the true sub- ject of moral dignity. Meanwhile, we cannot be drawn from our selfhood by any pretended altruism, or a view which in the timidity of its expression substitutes for the "I" a "We." The "We", however, has neither ontological force or ethical dignity, for it ever involves a shifting of the metaphysical and moral responsibility. 5 — SOLIDARITY AND PESSIMISM The despair of altruism is the factor of self-sacrifice which enters in to cause a loss of value on the part of the ego. Minor morality accepts this fact as a necessary evil, and tries to console itself with the thought that the ego in his native selfishness is better off for the sacrifice that he makes. Or it attempts a reconcilation of the two tendencies and tries to find such a course of conduct as satisfies the con- ditions of both phases of man's life. Yet where we depart from the empirical order of minor morality, and find the value and dignity of life to consist in something contempla- tive, altruism enters into the life of the ego without involv- ing any loss of interest. Whatever be the particular method of life between ego and alter, it must appear that humanity lies deeper than this or that person and the dignity of human- ity is of more value than the interest of the individual. Hence any theory of altruism must postulate an order of spiritual life containing the ego and alter and it is for the sake of the whole that the act of unselfishness is performed. The individual must seek his benefit by means of his parti- cipation in the world order. Humanism is advanced by individualism as well as by socialism; at the same time, the ego loses nothing by his 378 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE contact with the order of humanity. Where this watch- word is sounded is in connection with some utilitarian scheme, which aims to advance a quantitative, objective and massive humanity. There is, however, another humanity which exalts the spiritual unity of mankind and thus as- pires in a qualitative and subjective fashion to cultivate the individual. Humanity is calculated to make for the ad- vancement of the individual who is not called upon to sacri- fice himself for the sake of others whose existence has no more raison d'etre than his own. Just as the cause of hu- manity is furthered by the progress of the individual, so the latter gains in personalism by virtue of the idea of the species. Humanity is attained in a full individualism which is so free from narrowness as to forbid no parallel development on the part of the alter. The history of culture furnishes many an example of a happy grouping of individuals for the attainment of a seemingly personal end. Witness the Renaissance in Florence with its plurality of genius as also the coterie gathered at the skirts of Fontainebleau forest in our nineteenth century Renaissance. No better argument than the aesthetical one is needed to show how the realiza- tion of individual humanity is not preventive of a social program to the same end. Genuine culture involves no competition, because it aims at a spiritual order which is one and all for mankind, just as religious faith in mankind aspires to commune with the Supreme God. Our petty egoistic-altruistic conflict is all due to a misinterpretation of life as though it consisted in an objective and limited happiness whose conditions were so confined as to arouse selffishness and prescribe self-sacrifice. The dignity of hu- manity demands something more profound than minor egoism and altruism; it upholds the principle of one eternal human- ity in which all individuals participate. The argument in favor of altruism is not of a final and categorical nature, but is temporary and pessimistic. For the time being, under the present and painful conditions of the social order, sympathy must be forthcoming from the ego. Long ago we passed beyond the staid British doctrine of "Benevolence" and may now be said to survey society in a pessimistic manner according to the ideals of Russian com- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 379 passion. The older "altruistis" have been superseded by the "sympathists" and Russian literature makes its appeal to tenderness in Dostoieffsky, Turgenieff, Tolstoi, and Gorky. Social Christianity and the Buddhism of Schopen- hauer and Wagner keep us aware of the possibilities and actualities of human suffering. Yet these tendencies are not anti-individualistic in their character, for as a matter of fact they contend against the destruction of the individual. Our modern Marxian socialism, far from being an altruistic movement, is only organized egoism, and around both the solitarity and solidarity of mankind we may draw the circle of major selfhood. Supreme individualists may be supreme sympathists, as is the case with Buddha and Christ, and the most selfish man may be one who is wanting in personality. From our standpoint, according to which humanity strives toward the spiritual and struggles against the natural, the individual is the last word in the universe, so that man's true moral dignity cannot be maintained unless his indivi- duality be granted him. VI THE TRIUMPH OF HUMANITY IN MAJOR MORALITY Finally, it remains to be asked whether humanity is destined to detach itself from nature and assert itself as a spiritual form of existence. Will man remain a creature or become a character? Is his life to obey sense, or will it respond to reason? Our moderns have been so anxious to include humanity in some system of their own that they have not stopped to inquire which way man himself was destined to go. If his life be a life of reason, sense cannot detain him no matter how consistent the hedonic argument may seem; and if he is fated to linger in nature the call of conscience and duty can be only an irritation. In dealing with man in his inner totality, the two schools have con- cluded, the one by counseling moderation and immediacy, the other renunciation and remoteness of interest, while Schopenhauer has applied these two ideals aesthetically and ethically to bring about the triumph of reason over will. This takes place in man when he learns to deny within him the world as will-to-live. The only question is, does such a method or such a combination of methods bring about a genuine victory? Does man win the battle or simply quit the field? It would seem as though moderation merely proposed a truce while renunciation involved retreat from the scene of conflict. Our conception of humanity has represented man in an ambiguous position and has further conceived of him as a striving creature who is not at home in nature nor content with his animality. For this all-inclusive reason we must conclude by postulating the triumph of spirit over sense as the tendency without which our human activities cannot be comprehended. If man were not in a spiritual atmosphere at all, but were wholly enclosed within the domain of im- 380 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 381 mediacy, it were not so easy to conclude in favor of victor- ious humanity; but the half-natural, half-spiritual condition of man, coupled with the activity of intellection that makes him react upon the* world of experience, renders the idea of spiritual supremacy plausible. Only in a humanistic system seeking the value and dignity of life is such a positon tenable ; the eudaemonistic view of man confines him to nature while the rigoristic ideal artificially withdraws him from the world of sense, so that in neither case does man have an opportunity to contrast the two orders of life and evaluate their respective interests. Humanism admits the presence of nature and eudaemonism in man while it does not deny the possibility of spiritual life also, hence it alone is capable of carrying on the conflict between a lower and a higher order of life in man's soul. Having observed how extra- sensitive is man so that pleasure and desire, immediacy and activity, do not content him, and having noted the extra- spontaneity that arises in the constraints of conscience as well as the urgings of duty, we are ready to assert that man is destined to triumph over both nature and himself. In doing this, man must perceive value in the world and pro- mote dignity in his life. I HUMAN TRIUMPH IN CONSCIOUSNESS — THE VALUE OF LIFE Only in man do we find an arrangement of values, and if, as Nietzsche said, "Man is the valuing animal as such", we may learn that his contact with nature, where the vast content of reality is revealed to him, impresses him with the value of it all as well as the sense of his striving. We can- not assume an extra-human standpoint and lay down a major premise to the effect that whatever fulfills certain unknown ideal conditions has value, for we are more or less closely attached to the world itself and our reality is given to us through the receptive will rather than by some de- monstration of the intellect. But from what man has been and has done in his history, we feel safe in assuming that he has been realizing the worth of existence whose phases of value are as apparent as its forms of being. If man finds 382 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE no value in his world-life, how can we explain the elabora- tion of inner culture and outer civilization? If he was destined to remain a prey of passion rather than a subject of sentiment, how can we explain the origin and develop- ment of his science and art, his ethics and religion? The progress of these free forms of spiritual life attest to the fact that existence has not been in vain. Man has been unable to live without ideals, just as he has found it impossi- ble to exist without ideal excitement. His activities have aimed at a remote, an ultimate interest, and while he has often deluded himself into accepting fictitious values, the general sense of worth has ever prevailed. The standard assumed cannot be the hedonic one alone, for both eudaemonism and the theory of value have some- thing to say concerning the fate of man on earth. Man's destiny is determined, not simply by what he does, but by what he suffers; hence we inquire concerning the outcome of life by asking whether man can endure under the conditions life imposes upon him. In this way happiness becomes, not merely a general satisfaction, but a test of reality and value, and when man becomes happy, he demonstrates the con- quering humanity within him. Serious souls whose suffering makes them wise do not complain merely of the personal pain that life inflicts, but are wounded by the thought that man was never destined to be happy, so that humanity is a failure. Such pessimism, while having its root in the in- dividual, assumes a cosmic form when humanistic ethics begins to chide nature for her blindness and imperfection. To him who believes in humanity, however, escape is not im- possible, for pessimism is a philosophic argument standing in need of defense against a victorious humanity. Humanity is neither wholly speculative nor purely practical; its nature appears first in will then in intellect. As a result, there is more than one way of approach to the garden of human life. When, therefore, we observe how optimism has some claim upon man's attention, we may adjust the two views by allowing the mind to accept the critical suggestions of pessimism, whose interest in the ideal has urged it to castigate experience, while the will in its practical and unreflective fashion can best realize its possi- VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 383 bilities under the auspices of optimism. In other words, life may look melancholy, but we human beings can act in optimistic opposition to the given circumstances. Specula- tive pessimism, as it* weighs ideal and real only to conclude against the world of nature, can combine with the practical optimism of action. This division of life's labor further suggests that one may be pessimistic toward the finished past and optimistic toward the plastic future as it confronts the will. Some such adjustment becomes necessary when we consider how both views of life have an air of tenability, while the optimist makes pessimistic admissions as to fact where the pessimist constantly assumes optimistic ideals. Such a paradoxical condition of things is wholly explicable in the light of our humanity, made up as this is of a mixture of nature and spirit. 2 — THE TRIUMPH OVER IMMEDIACY The commingling of optimism and pessimism in man's conquest of humanity appears in the forms of hedonism. In the world of sense man has carried on his conflict with pleas- ure and achieved his own victory, whence we learn how the consciousness of humanity triumphs over its immediate sti- muli. The discovery of that paradox whereby pleasure does not wholly please man, and the perception of the fruit- lessness which ever accompanies the grasping after fluid feelings, lead man to seek his human satisfaction elsewhere. Shall the paradox of pleasure be regarded as defeat or vic- tory for humanity? As argument for pessimism or opti- mism? Whichever way the emphasis may be moved, it remains as a fact that man's triumph over nature appears in his very dissatisfaction over what nature affords ; hedonism shows conclusively that it was not meant to explain striving humanity whose efforts are directed toward some other than a sensuous goal. The lower discontent is the higher satis- faction, the failure of sense the success of spirit; hence the paradox of pleasure is the paradox of humanity. If man was not destined to remain in nature, if he is not supposed to be content with his animality, hedonic dissatisfaction can only argue in favor of some higher and more truly human 384 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE view. Since history is progressive and not regressive, it is impossible to return to nature as Rousseau advised, and human consciousness having been pagan in the past cannot now return to the condition of naivete recommended by Schiller. The man of the future must be of the future and not of the past. The hedonic rejection of pleasure, involuntary as it was, led to the recognition of desire as the more original source of human activity. By means of desire man is led away from actual experience as given in the present to the ideal as outlined in the future. Where mere feeling affords a negative means of showing how man fails to find realiza- tion in the naturistic world of sense, desire testifies in a positive fashion by leading man from the externally given to the inwardly conceived, and where pleasure is a posteriori, desire is a priori. It was for such a reason that we sought the essence of value in active desire rather than in passive pleasure, for in a form of consciousness arising within and leading its subject beyond the borders of experience is found the essence of humanity. Man is the creature of desire and the triumph of humanity over nature appears again in the creative form which consciousness assumes when man enter- tains ideal forms of mind in connection with desire. Man is confronted by another than the question, "What ought I to do?" He asks also, "What may I desire?" If, there- fore, within the world of time and space his desires urge him beyond and above these limitations, we assume that, in so far, he has demonstrated the victorious quality of his human- ity. The endlessness of desire reveals humanity transcend- ing nature. In the ideas of utility and eudaemonia appear the coun- terparts of pleasure and desire, and where the original prin- ciples of hedonism were positive, the later ones are negative and reunuciatory. Since man's desire to attain to something beyond nature seems fruitless, he will console himself with the culture of immediacy which in Bacon's system consisted in ruling the powers of nature by the might of knowledge. With this early modern thinker who was at heart an em- piricist, such a form of culture was deemed sufficient. With Voltaire and Goethe, who had higher ideals of knowledge, VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 385 the cultivation of the garden was a resort to be adopted when the impossibility of pure cognition had been demon- strated. For this reason, eudaemonism becomes a philoso- phy of renunciation; 1 as if to say, ''We would know, but since we cannot, we will work; we have sought happiness in the understanding but finding it not, we seek peace through the will." In the conflict between nature and spirit, eudaemonism must be regarded as a sort of truce; it does not lead man to pleasure, but relieves him of pain: it con- ceives of an ideal life, but it is not an ideal for man. The ideals of immediacy and activity are not sufficient to establish the worth of life. To posit immediacy as the true realm of human activity is to indulge in bad metaphysics, for, even in his purely sensuous capacity, man has not wholly failed to see some- what of the world's real significance. This view may not indeed be sun-clear, but man was meant to survey the world rather opaquely through the atmosphere of immediacy, and it is by means of this ability to penetrate the phenomenal that he has secured his principles of beauty and truth. Science, which has surrendered to immediacy, does not fail to apprehend nature in its totality, while art postulates a world-order wherein the confused mass of sense lends itself to a harmonious plan. Eudaemonism has been viewing the world as a system supposed to produce pleasure, but the defeat of such a hedonology does not force philosophy to quit the field of human values. Life is more for instruction than entertainment, and the genuine triumph of humanity con- sists in the victory of reason over the sense-world of im- mediacy. Human values are the values of culture, and these make necessary some recognition of the inwardness of spirit as well as the remoteness of the object which it contemplates. The ideal of immediacy, whether in the ancient Garden of Epi- curus or the modern jardin of Voltaire, thwarts humanity in its attempt at realization and leads man to inquire, as poor Stendhal used to put it, "Is this all?" Our human world was not given to us by nature in the form of im- mediacy, but has been willed by humanity in its "energy of contemplation." Consciousness is not a mere accompaniment 386 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE of our human life, but the essence of it; for it makes man what he is, by giving him, as it were, mind-stuff out of which his activities create a world of cognition. Man can- not receive immediacy as such, for he can hold fast to things only as he proves, or intuits, them. Still less can man be made happy by any gifts that nature may bestow, and with such satisfaction, or rather stupefaction, as may come from activity in the immediate order of things, we fail to find the things that are needful: personality, freedom both physical and political, the will-to-acquiesce. These are creations of the human spirit, not mere crystallizations from without. Activism is an anodyne. Here we have the other weak- ness of eudaemonism, which with its immediateness and ener- gism, fails to settle with the will as will, confining its atten- tion to the spinal chord. As a result, eudaemonism is first purely agerent and then merely egerent, and in neither case does it find its centre in volition. We cannot wholly re- ceive ; we cannot simply act ; we must create. Here activism is found wanting, for it provides for only an endless series of efforts directed toward no real goal, and does not dis- cover the free creativeness in the human will. Work is not a sincere form of striving, but an occupation by means of which empty time is filled and ennui postponed. Activity has its place in a system of human striving, and this place is a real one. Eudaemonism, however, merely uses activity as an anaesthetic, where a straightforward view of human work would lead to some objective goal. The result is such as to make men appear as amateur humans, rather than as real persons, and their life is more practice than perform- ance. The values with which life is potential are to be secured by something more creative than Aristotelian and Voltairian activism, and the deed must be a factum noume- non of spiritual selfhood. 3 HUMAN TRIUMPH IN CONDUCT THE DIGNITY OF MAN Our human ability to receive the significance of nature, in fitting forms of consciousness is but half of the problem, whose counterpart consists in reacting upon nature, with appropriate methods of conduct. Man must contemplate VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 387 the world with worthy feelings, he must carry on the con- quest of life with dignified motives. At this point our truly human conception of man seems to aid us in avoiding the paradoxes involved in* the two minor forms of ethics, accord- ing to which man is supposed to live either without ideals or to strive without hope of their realization. The humanistic system of life does not allow nature so to submerge man that he cannot rise above the conditions of animality, nor does it admit that our human ideals are so derived from an alien realm of reason that their attainment is forever beyond flesh and blood. Our sensations and our ideas, our immediate feel- ings and our ultimate values, are all our own and it is just to suppose that the intellect which aligns the ideal is not blind to the possibilities of the will that is to achieve it; for so unified are the functions of the mind that ideas take cognizance of volitions and in both active and passive forms does the soul express one and the same nature. Just as our belief in the value of life was clouded by a eudaemonistic form of pessimism, so our claims for human dignity are confronted by a moralistic phase of despair. Where man is supposed to attain to a rational good he seems, according to Kant, to be a prey to the "radically bad" and a critical system, which calls upon the understanding to give laws to nature as the will makes maxims for humanity, ends in religious pathos. Nevertheless, Kant's explanation of the bad provides a way of escape, although he did not avail himself of it. Badness is not found in reason alone, for such a condition of perversity would make man's character demoniacal; nor is it confined to mere sense whose debasing influence would be bestial. Man, however, is human in his sins and his badness appears in the tendency to put sense above reason instead of subordinating the lower to the higher. Now, our own conception of humanity, that strange mixture of sense and spirit, makes it possible for us to give a similar setting to the life of man in its goodness and bad- ness, for we have observed how ambiguous is the position occupied by man in the universe. At the same time, the dynamic principle of striving leads us to postulate a condi- tion of things in which sense shall be overcome by spirit, the triumph of humanity in conduct. Man's moral supre- 388 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE macy thus seems to consist, not in the elimination of sense according to the maxim of renunciation, but in a subordina- tion of the low to a low place and an exaltation of the high to a lofty position. The "good man" is still human and his condition is one of life rather than death. Both eudae- monism and rigorism give sense undue prominence, the one positively, the other negatively. Humanism refuses to con- sider the sensuous as in any way convincing and puts the purpose of life upon a plane where sense appears in a purely symbolic way. The view of life that surveys man as such reveals a condition of being where immediacy yields to ulti- macy, passion to sentiment, the creature to the character. The active realization of humanity is consistent with a condition of things in which some measure of sense still survives, and man can attain to humanity in the midst of his actual existence. Eudaemonism fails to do justice to the ideal aspect of humanity and had man taken counsel of its exponents the spiritual achievements of the race could never have been brought about. In its own way, rigorism is also alien to the needs of humanity, for its adherents seem more interested in negating sense than in affirming spirit; it is a sad fact that the traditional way of approaching spirit- ual life is through denial alone. The triumph of humanity does not consist in either moderation or renunciation; it is found in a positive affirmation of the spiritual as the superior part of man. What is expected of man is not merely temper- ance in handling things of sense, or asceticism in rejecting them, but dignity, whose nature consists in developing the inner totality of a form of life not destined to remain in the mere objective individualism of nature. If we recall how characteristic ethics sought to view its ideals, first as sharply outlined against the air, and then suf- fused with the atmosphere of humanity, we may observe in what way humanity triumphs over its duties as well as its de- sires. Man conducts himeslf with dignity even though he does not shrink from the cranes of conscience or the ravens of re- nunciation. Nevertheless, conscience, as a human function guarding the interests of human beings, constitutes a force- ful argument in favor of man's moral supremacy over nature. To the lower order of sensation he is bound by the ties of VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 389 pleasure and pain, but is none the less amenable to the higher order of humanity with its interests of approval and disapproval. Just as the deeper meaning of conscience is found in humanity, so *its value seems to consist in evincing the inherent dignity of man whose rights are guarded by the stern master of compunction. Approval and disap- proval are superior to simple pleasure and pain, just as hu- manity is superior to nature and in this elevation of man through his morality, the dignity of human life appears in clear outline. The treatment of human rectitude has no other signifi- cance, and while its autonomous form is as hopeless as the infallibility of conscience, its human significance is no less con- vincing. Rectitude is an ideal having at heart the interest of humanity, that is, humanity comme il faut. Instead of regarding humanity as a mere concept including all indivi- duals, we should further consider it as an ideal of perfect spiritual life on earth; it is not only logical in its form but ethical in its content. This notion of humanity is advanced consistently by our conception of rectitude as a disinterested regard for virtue. When man is raised to the point of view where he can look upon humanity as possessing value, he has begun to appreciate the dignity of human life, and while the judgment of right may be concerned with many a detail of moral conduct, it cannot conceal the totality of the ethical, nor the dignity involved within it. The active side of characteristic ethics is no less indica- tive of human triumph over immediacy as the instances of freedom and duty clearly show. In these cases, as with con- science and rectitude, it becomes necessary to humanize our ideals in order to evince the proper dignity of man; for a rationalistic scheme, making man inferior to moral obligation, tends only to degrade his being and discourage his efforts toward affirming selfhood. Freedom has been seen to con- sist in something natural rather than in some extraordinary form of activity and now the genuine motive behind human liberty appears more clearly. The earlier treatment of freedom with the Schoolman was suffused with a theological argument urged in favor of human destiny, for it seemed impossible to provide for a rational scheme of redemption for 390 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE man unless lie were conceived of as free. The modern En- lightenment culminating in Kant sought to put freedom upon a moral basis and contended that man must be free if he is to perform his duty. But the constructive view of freedom, whereby man creates in the world of thought and action, now appears in the interest of human dignity and the triumph of man over nature is made possible by the inherent freedom of the human spirit. The category of duty has the same significance for the achievement of human dignity, for it consists in an abiding sense of responsibility arising in connection with man's consciousness of the order that upholds and envelops him. With his place in the spirit- ual world of human life brought to his realization, man can hardly escape from the ideal of duty; the result is dignity. Finally, the sharp decision that leads man to renounce the world and to hate his life therein asserts most forcefully the superiority of man over nature. Both the battle lost and the battle won are equally terrible, and renunciation defeats humanity while seeking to deliver it. Nevertheless, the ideals of rigorism have about them something convincing where the spiritual supremacy of man is involved. Again, raise the standard of dignity and the spectable of the ascetic becomes thrilling. We see what man can accomplish, and we learn to believe in humanity in general by noting what it does in particular. Men who crave stigmata and make the vow of silence were never meant to be human guides, yet they do not fail to instruct us in the fine art of spiritual life; they live apart from the world of average life, and while they may not align for man his duty, they indicate for him his. dignity. Just as the artistic genius with his capacity for ideal pleasure reveals unto us the mystery of beauty, so the religious prophet reveals human sublimity in the possibility of ideal pain. These military and martyr- like ideals are always inspiring, though not always convinc- ing. With these various forms of human character before us, we can hardly deny that man is destined to triumph over his situation in nature, as well as his narrow egoism of im- mediate feeling. He achieves dignity in his character as he also finds value through his consciousness. His art and VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 391 science transform the perceptual display of nature into an order of beauty and truth, while his ethics and religion react upon immediate impulses in such a way that they are changed into forms of ideal activity, whose goal is no material consideration at all. While a eudaemonistic form of pessi- mism may forbid man to call his life in the world of time and space a satisfactory one, so that his belief in life's values may be threatened, there arises a corresponding form of optimism which exalts man by considering him capable of restraint in his desire and renunciation of life with its tangle of pleasure and pain. In general, the possibilities of man seem about equal to the satisfactions of nature, so that the argument for human dignity is as cogent as the contention in favor of the worth of life. To demonstrate the dignity of man it is not necessary to resort to objective history where human deeds are recounted to the merit or demerit of the human subject; we need only to inquire whether, in the light of what humanity has been, man can set his attention upon an ideal aim and pursue that which has only remote interest. Is man capable of idealism? Upon such a ques- tion seems to depend the whole issue of human dignity. Does this idealism involve the surrender of selfhood? 4 — THE TRIUMPH OVER RENUNCIATION Here we seem to have the climax of all moral thinking expressed as it is by inquiring, should man realize himself in his humanity, or should he renounce himself as individual? Both naturistic and characteristic ethics converge, as they also conflict, one tendency urging man toward individual being, the other toward social not-being. Hence arise the questions , "What ought I to do with the world? Shall I receive it, or repudiate it? Shall I regard it in love or in hate?" Egoistic eudaemonism invites us to lay hold of life while it passes by us, the doctrine of renunciation warns us to let it slip through the fingers, to cast the pearl back into the deep, the gold into the mine. This is the doctrine of renunciation clearly recognizable in Buddhism and Christian- ity, discernible anew in Schopenhauer's negation, Wagner's renunciation, Tolstoi's crucifixion, and Huysmans' "Road to 392 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE Damascus." The atmosphere of this retroaction is that of pessimism and self-pity, and while it witnesses to the glory of our victorious humanity, it tends to deprive it of its vic- tory, for man must conquer both nature and fate, and re- nunciation consists in a bitter surrender to the universe. In striking contrast to this burning out of sense by those whose faces are ablaze with spirit, is the wild revolution against life carried on by our modern egoists. These assert the individual and refuse to be submerged in the social scheme of solidarity; they counsel man to be the master, not the slave of his ideals; they urge him to live life and love the world, with all their possibilities of knowledge, of pleas- ure, of power. In the midst of the storm, one sees the cyni- cal countenances of Ibsen and Strindberg, while he hears the imprecations of Nietzsche and the milder protests of Haupt- mann and Sudermann. Ever since the days of Napoleon, French writers, from Stendhal to Anatole France, have urged the individual to arraign society and the world, and the ideal of renunciation has been left for ancient Jews and modern Russians. It is metaphysically impossible and morally repug- nant for man to surrender himself to purely activistic ethics, which like a turbid stream, would carry him away from his egoistic moorings. There was a time when an ethical doctrine could be proved simply by saying, "Benevolence", or "Duty," but these watch-words sound faint in the ear of those who are themselves crying, "Be thyself," "Live thy life." It now comes to light that renunciation was the foundation upon which minor ethics reared its great moralistic struc- tures of hedonism and rigorism, and the affirmation of the ego now tends to shake these buildings to their foundations. Nevertheless, there is an implicit truth and residuary value in the ideal of renunciation, as even victorious human- ity must admit. Certainly we cannot receive the world in a heedless and uncritical spirit, without seeking some sort of spiritual reaction upon it; for to remain passive is to leave life upon the level of plant and animal. And if the world is not to be renounced, it must be handled in a masterful fashion by the man of knowledge, of art, of worship, and of conduct. The ego cannot consist of the simple solitaire, who is mentally blind to the totality of the world about him, VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 3 93 so that neither the petty egoism of the hedonist nor the genial individuality of the eudaemonistic worker in the garden will suffice for life. Hence, when we refuse to suffer for the sake of duty and repudiate the altruistic destruction of the individual, we cannot deny that the totality of our life de- mands the recognition of both selfhood and worldhood in humanity, We know that man can choose pleasure or pain, being or not-being, for the natural order which produced him uses death as well as life to execute its sovereign ends, so that man is furnished, not only with an impulse to live, but an instinct to die. The whole history of man shows a darkened sky above and a black earth beneath, while art and religion enter in to calm and console him. As a result, the possibilities of renunciation can not be questioned, and all that is needed is a philosophy capable of guiding this subtle instinct of repudiation. What ought man to do with his world, himself, his life in the world? Should man renounce his claims to self- hood, or realize them? In opposition to blind renunciation, we may assert that man has the right to selfhood, if to nothing else; that is, he may live in self, if not for self. Toward the world, his attitude need not be one of renuncia- tion, but a "mental acquiescence," as Spinoza (Ethics, Pt. v. Props, xxvii, xxxvm) called it. Man as individual may accept the universe in its totality, and in so doing he will find that his dignity is increased and not diminished by an act of acquiescence which is mental, and whose interior character consists in recognizing the world rather than in surrendering to it in an unintelligent fashion. It is toward this higher level, where acquiescence in the whole and affirm- ation in the individual meet, that the ethics of the present should strive. This ideal is in accordance with the funda- mental notion of man, laid down in Part One, where we saw humanity striving with nature in order to secure a world-order of its own; and what was premised there of man in his culture is here corroborated by the ethical elabor- ation of value and dignity as moral categories. 394 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 5 — THE DIGNITY OF ACQUIESCENCE In major ethics, there is only an apparent contradiction between value and dignity, for in the very act of receiving from the world man is also reacting upon it. When he yields to the ethical, he feels instinctively that he is suffering so much loss in the way of value, and it is only the belief in the victorious nature of his moral dignity that reconciles him to the good. In the celebration of this victory, he is permitted to participate under a sky where no clouds of re- nunciation are seen. For in the major sense of life, the value of humanity itself, as well as the value felt by human- ity as such, in no small degree consists in the dignified re- action upon the given order of the universe; or as one of Gorky's characters puts it, "A man is of value in proportion to his resistance to the power of life" (Foma Gordyeefr, tr. Hapgood, x, p. 301). From this point of view, according to which renunciation is absorbed in human dignity, man is led to realize that he loses no genuine value from his allegi- ance to the ethical, for major morality is not unlike art and religion in indicating the resultfulness of human striving. Such a view is not by any means a Semitic one, but consists as well with our Aryan pride of humanity, which forbids that morality should exploit mankind. Man's life being an alteration, a combination, of striving from within and suffer- ing from without, it is not expected that one function should wholly yield to the other. For this reason, we cannot coun- sel a man to cease striving, according to the ideal of self- assertion, and to suffer according to the ideal of self-sur- render, but must advise him to be himself in the major sense of human dignity. That he is not called upon to re- nounce. Man can will his own negation, for there is passion for non-existence which is as real, althought not as ordinary, as the struggle for existence. He who wills to be can also will not to be. Yet even under the weight of such a view of life man may still be himself in all the dignity of his humanity. Buddhism, which tends to inculcate a nihilistic ideal, is none the less insistent upon selfhood, for its very notion of redemption is that of self-salvation according to the ideals of the "four-fold truth" and the "eight-fold path." VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 395 Hence when one's pessimism tends to rob him of life's very essence, he may still cling to selfhood in all its inner dignity. When he plays the Entsagungsmotiv it is his own music and it sounds pleasant to* his ears. Nowhere within the realm of minor morality do we discover the plan of a victorious moral campaign, for it is either sense or reason that triumphs, not humanity itself. Every one who really lives his life, however, is anxious to avoid both the snares of the flesh and the toils of the law, so that he wonders whether he cannot find some course of ideal conduct which shall enable him to obtain the victory over these foes of the inner life. This mingling of the high and the low, unknown to Wagner in the "Ring!' is realized by him in the ideal love of Tristan and Isolde. The fated yet happy pair learn of a love which knows how to rise above the self-seeking erotic affection of Siegfried and Brunn- hilde, while it does not call upon them to renounce their holy passion. In the midst of their resignation, they find solace in sympathy, and the eternal night into which they sink brings love as well as death. Earthly joy alone cannot satisfy the striving human spirit, while sharp renunciation is no less likely to stifle the hope of humanity ; thus it be- comes necessary to postulate an ideal acquiescence in the world-order of humanity, whereby man may still triumph if only in his universal capacity. But while man is ever on the brink of spiritual negation, his inner nature guided by a death-instinct as well as by a life-impulse, he is led to believe that his own individual existence is not an evil. To man in his full humanity, major morality says, "Live thy life/' "Love thy world/' and the whole of the inward striving of humanity finally con- centrates in the individual as the one who catches the mean- ing of humanity and carries out its plan. Both art and religion take on new power, for it appears that their concern is not with a minor moralism, which ever seeks to weaken the will or anaesthetize the soul, but rather with a major ethical life, wherein the individual's self-affirmation is qualified and restricted only by an infinite humanity in which there is room for a full play of egoistic fancy. When human existence is thus viewed, the triumph of humanity is in no 396 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE wise improbable, while human dignity is attainable without the depreciation of genuine human values. No just concep- tion of the spiritual world-order can forbid human self-ex- pression, and the victory of humanity need not spell defeat for the individual. So far as man's triumph in conduct is concerned, much depends upon our conception of what he was originally ex- pected to do. Naturistic ethics claims that man was meant to enjoy his humanity in both self and society; characteristic intuitionism believes he was meant to perfect his humanity in reason. Now, experience shows that man has not made a success of either the animality of sense or the spirituality of reason ; he is still human and stands midway between two alien orders of life. Our estimate of his moral dignity is to be made accordingly. We cannot praise man if he ignore ultimate reason for the sake of nature; we cannot hope to find him perfecting the spirit in defiance of sense. His proper attitude consists in adjusting the claims of one to the other in a form of life wherein sense occupies the lower, spirit the higher position, and it is just this vertical and progressive order of things that enables us to view man as he is in his transition from nature to spirit. Hence we consider whether he has attained to moral dignity, not by asking whether he has eliminated the sensuous, which claim would result in hypo- crisy as the attempt led to defeat, but whether he has found it possible to subordinate the sensuous to the spiritual. Ethics here seems at one with metaphysics, for as man by mental acquiescence seems to apprehend the very reality of the world as a whole, so he thereby attains to the summit of his own moral striving. In the act of acquiescence, how- ever, man is not inactive so that one must transcend the Spinozistic ideal, if he would represent the climax of our human struggle for selfhood and worldhood. The essential element in the ego's activity now assumes a form more signi- ficant than that of a striving for selfhood, as in the "man who wills himself," for by means of this acquired, intellec- tual selfhood the individual asserts his worldhood and exercises his free activity in willing the world. To will the world is an act whereby the individual uses his own self- hood for the purpose of attaining worldhood, while as an VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 397 act of self-realization it is at the same time an acknowledg- ment of the world-order in its totality. Ethics thus reveals its need of metaphysics, for the highest act of the soul stands in need of an ontoiogical principle; that is, a world which it can will. No ethical system but the major morality of selfhood can represent the unity of the practical and the speculative. Such a conclusion is in harmony with the philosophical principles laid down in PART ONE, where we saw how hu- manity had inaugurated a historical system of living ontology, beginning with speculative and practical forms of striving and ending in a world of humanity recognizable in know- ledge and art, religion and ethics. We did not find it neces- sary to demonstrate any special principle of reality, inasmuch as these phases of the inner life make us aware of the pres- ence of a world-order implicit in our thinking and acting. To this idea ethics returns when it seeks to postulate the supreme act of the individual, whose will in its freedom exercises no caprice incident upon mere individuality, but culminates its striving in a supreme act of willing the world as a world of humanity. This unity of selfhood and world- hood might be advanced also as a reconciliation of freedom and fate, but our system has nowhere made use of a stark principle of free-will, nor has it encountered a fixed element of law. On the contrary, our human striving for selfhood culminates in a striving for worldhood, so that the common distinction of freedom and fate does not set the self in op- position to the world, inasmuch as the most characteristic act of selfhood consists in willing its worldhood. In this metaphysical condition of free fate, man finds himself placed in a position where self-realization and self- surrender are no longer in opposition. Self-realization is seen to imply a form of selfhood which needs something more than positive sense or negative reason to bring about its achievement. The striving for selfhood assumes a cosmic character, wherein one's individuality involves a kind of universality, and like a man of genius he becomes a world- person, or genuine Ego. This condition of things within the soul makes the act of acquiescence something quite dif- ferent from a mere self-surrender as that which causes pain and entails loss. Renunciation is realization, and selfhood 398 VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE worldhood. It is the triumph of humanity in a major system of life, wherein the ideal in man and the real in the world meet upon a common plane, and self-realization be- comes an act of metaphysical significance. This is the true metaphysics of morals, the unity of sein and sollen. The question of man's moral triumph finds expression directly in terms of our present system. Man is in nature, but apparently he is of spirit, a condition of consciousness recognizable as humanity. Now arises the question whether man is destined to accomplish what he has conceived to be his ethical vocation; namely, the assertion of his inner being in contrast to outer nature. Will the history of humanity re- veal the victory of nature over spirit or of spirit over nature ? Both eudaemonism and rigorism refuse to entertain this problem, for where eudaemonism ignores the ultimate in spirit for the immediate in sense, rigorism refuses to consider man in his obviously sensuous nature. Humanism alone is capable of raising the question of human triumph over nature. Among those who take this point of view, there is difference of opinion concerning the outcome of human striving, but it is not comparable to the party-quarrel between the two traditional schools. Schopenhauer and Wagner assume that reason is destined to conquer will, that spirit will triumph over sense; Ibsen and Sudermann, on the con- trary, seem inclined to postulate a victory for nature over reason (cf. Axelrod, Hermann Sundermann, Eine Studie, 1907). But this statement of the case seems to indicate a con- tinuance of the error that nature negates spirit, and that reason should annihilate sense. Our view of humanity calls for no such either-or; we survey man with sense below and spirit above him, not with one to the right and the other to the left, and where a strictly ethical and logical view of reason may find it impossible to consider such a mingling of concrete and abstract, a religious and aesthetical view of humanity can proceed in no other way. Both worship and art apprehend man in his totality, wherein spirit and sense, conscious and unconscious, intellect and will, are strangely mingled to form humanity. Man is not the clear-cut moral agent whose ethical nature was so sharply outlined by the VALUE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE 399 dogmatic thinkers of the rigoristic school, nor his world the transparent landscape formerly used as a background for the staid scenes of human life; on the contrary, living hu- manity is found in an atmospheric world whose warmth and moisture change the appearance of the free moral agent into a real human subject. Thus situated, man may not be able to satisfy desire or willing to perform his duty; but in the totality of his inner life, he finds value just as his striving leads him to achieve human dignity. INDEX Abelard, 313. Aeschylus, 45. Alexander, 115, 150, 151, 353. Angelo, 28, 65, 112, 115. Aquinas, 245. Aristippus, 267. Aristotle, 27, 71, 80, 99, 103, 104, 146-149. 151, I5 2 , 159, 168 181, 196, 298, 305, 313, 347. 348, 353, 358, 360. Arminius, 245. Aryans, The, 56, 58, 64, 67, 139, 282, 367, 394. ■ Augustine, St., 156, 231, 297, 356, 368. Bacon, 146, 147, 150-154, 159, 358, 384. Balza, 138, 264. Barbizon School, 146, 378. Barres, Maurice, 117, 366. Baumgarten, 271, 306. Beethoven, 28, 115. Bentham, 94, 97, 118, 132-134, 170. Bhagavad Gita, The, 64, 74, 152, 209, 254, 344, 351. Bios, 192. Bonaparte, Napoleon, 112, 115, 353, 37o, 392 • Brahman, 57, 63, 64, 67. Browning, 171. Buddha, Gautama, 50, 74, m, 161, 209, 255, 256, 262, 263,379, 391- Burke, 149, 306. Butler, 112, 113, 117, 192, 193, 208, 242, 298, 347, 362. Caesar, 112, 115, 151, 295, 353, 372. Calderon, 74, 254. Calvin, 245. Champeaux, William of, 372. Christianity, 30, 64, 74, 86, 156- 158, 161, 185, 196, 200, 203, 222, 233, 234, 255, 256, 261, 265, 267, 337, 338, 342, 347, 365, 367, 379, 391. Cicero, 151, 192, 353. Clarke, Samuel, 84, 216, 217, 221, 242 298. Confucius, 85. Corot, 146, 169, 305. Cudworth, 84, 185, 187, 190, 242, 298. Cynics, The, Cynicism, 58, 185, 263, 267. Cyrenaics, 58, 170. Dante, Danteist, 174, 175, 254. Darwin, 196-198. David, J. L., 146. Davids, Rhys, 255. Delacroix, 144, 146. Descartes, 67. Dhamma Pada, The, 210. Diodorus, 192. Dominicans, The, 156. Donatello, 252. Dbstoieffsky, 370, 379. Ehrenfels, 320, 324, 325. Eleatics, The, 215. Enlightenment, The, 81, 150, 153, 174, 300, 390. Epicurus, Epicurean, 73, 115, 144, 294, 298, 385. Eucken, 53, 349. Euclid, 215, 218. Fichte, 66, 116, 177, 184, 335, 348, 364, 368, 370, 372. France, Anatole, 126, 283, 392. Fiancis, St., 295. Franciscan, 156. Geulincx, 260. 401 402 INDEX Ghiberti, 252. Gnosticism, 46, 79, 124. Goethe, 148, 154, 155, 158, 159, 169, 174, 175. 2 95, 299, 35i, 372, 373> 384- Gorky, 260, 394. Gospels, The, 260. Greek Philosophy, 57, 85, 215. Green, T. H., 193, 301. Gunas (Tamas, Rajas, Sattva) The, 45, 46, 48, 49, 79, 85, 124, 182, 302, 342, 353- Hauptmann, 373, 392. Hegel, 43, 44, 72, 353. Hegesias, 170. Hellenism, 61, 143, 146, 150 156, 252, 261, 266, 310, 314. Heraclitus, 50, 205, 368. Herbart, 320. Herder, 80. Hobbes, 50, 84, 106, 113 116, 119, 124-126, 132, 133, 170, 223, 296-298, 347, 370. Holbein, 106. Homer, 305. Hume, 94, 124, 132-134- *93, 232, 298, 301. Hutcheson, 119, 223, 224, 298, 366. Huysmans, 391. Ibsen, 48, 74, 105, 112-114, 116, 117, 159, 258, 259, 302, 333. 346, 354, 367, 369, 373, 392, 398. James, St., 249. Job, 332. Kant, 27, 34, 57, 83, 85, 132, 154, 156, 158, 168, 169, 173, 174, 189, 190, 193, 213, 215-219, 221, 223- 225, 230, 232, 235, 239- 243, 256, 257, 279, 282, 296-298, 300, 301, 306, 312, 341, 348, 350, 352, 354, 366, 387, 390. Kapila, 44, 46-50, 182. Kingdom of God, 64, 196, 210, 256, 337- Krueger, 324, 325, 330. Kwang-Tze, 254, 344. Laotze, 85, 254. Leibnitz, 66, 80, 375. Lessing, 149, 306. Locke, 190. Lotze, 219, 320. Mandeville, 132, 133, 199, 223. Martineau, 301. Marx, 379. Megarian School, 215. Meinong, 322, 324. Mendelssohn, 168. Michelet, 46. Mill, 95, 103, 104, 119, 120, 133, 134. Millet, 65, 106, 169. Montaigne, 153, 158, 268. New Testament, The, 63, 64 67,210,345. Nietzsche, 106, 114, 116, 117, 126, 139, 199, 257, 260, 298, 299, 304, 360, 369, 392. Nirvana, III, 255. Novalis, 155, 158. Old Testament, The, 209. Parmenides, 57, 215. Pascal, 254, 260. Paul, St., 345. Periander, 192. Pericles, 147, 305. Petrarch, 305. Phidias, 115, 375. Plato, 34, 45-50, 57, 61, 62, 71, 79, 85, 98, 122, 124, 144, 145, 118, 166, 182, 184, 196, 243, 290, 295, 298, 304, 310, 313, 335, 337, 347, 352, 372, 375- Plotinus, 305. Pragmatism, 60, 354, 360. Price, 189, 190, 225, 298. Protagoras, 368. Protestantism, 245, 272, 292. Proverbs, Book of, 74, 210. Puritanism, 211, 274. INDEX 403 Rabelais, 299. Raphael, 75, 295, 372. Reischle, 323. Rembrandt, 106, 375. t Renaissance, The, 147, 150, 153, 252, 271, 378. Romanticism, 195. Rousseau, 152, 166, 177. Rousseau, Theodore, 146. Sankhya, The, 44, 45, 50, 76, 79, 150, 162, 344, 345. Schiller, 47, 48, 49, 73, 76, 87, 124, 143, 148, 150, 154, 158, 169, 182, 293, 297, 305 , 342, 384- Schlegel, Friedrich, 155. Schleiermacher, 29, 168, 173, 293, 365- Scholasticism, 245, 389. Schopenhauer, 53, 57, 65, 72, 73, 113, 144, 158, 164, 171, 198, 199, 230, 254, 255, 257, 278, 279, 290, 298, 299, 302, 306, 348, 350, 352, 354. 359, 368, 370, 391, 398. Scotus, 156, 245. Semitic, The, 58, 59, 60, 63, 67, 282, 367, 394. Shaftesbury, 50, 124, 192, 193, 298. Shakespeare, 148, 156, 164, 174, 175, 236, 375. Shaw, Bernard, 126. Sidgwick, 116, 119, 120, 134, 135, 193, 301. Smith, Adam, 50, 124, 196, 197, 298. Socrates, 26, 85, 151, 185, 213, 215, 216, 218, 242, 263, 298, 353, 368, 372, 375- Sophists, The, 67. Spencer, 50, 101, 121, 123-126, 170, 292, 298, 349. Spinoza, 168, 189, 218, 290, 298, 393, 396. Stendhal, 116, 260, 370, 385 392. Stephen, 101, 122, 123, 186, 196, 299, 301. Stilpo, 192. Stirner, 116, 125, 126, 260, 369. Stobaeus, 192. Stoics, 50, 80, 144, 185, 192, 196, 203, 263, 292, 294, 298, 310, 314. Strindberg, 392. Sudermann, 69, 117, 148, 260, 261, 392, 398. Sulzer, 169. Tantalus, 98, 171. Tao and Taoism, 30, 74, 85, 209, 254, 299, 344. Tasso, 305. Tetens, 80, 168. Tolstoi, 126, 148, 257, 391. Turgenieff, 117, 126, 259. Upanishads, The, 31, 63. Valentinus, 46, 47, 182. Veda, The, 56, 67, 73, 222. Vedanta, 30, 45, 63, 67, 337, 338, 342, 367- Velasquez, 75, 106. Vico ; 46-49, 79, 85, 124, 182. Vielliers de L'Isle Adam, 116. Voltaire, 154, 159, 177, 384, 385. Vyasa, 85. Wagner, 74, 116, 117, 126, 144, 175, 258, 259, 369, 373, 39i, 395, 398. Winckelmann, 143, 306. Xenophanes, 86. Xenophen, 151, 353. Yoga, The, 152, 254, 264, 344, 345- Zoroaster, 85. MAR 27 19H Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 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