ness, but is its necessary implication. If morality exist, in the manner already contended, then so does God. The being of the one can as unquestionably be proved as that of the other cannot. But to prove God by any method is like proving the sun by light. He alone is sufficient to prove himself. He is doing so continually in the life of man; and every good deed, every kind word, is additional testimony that one day the proof will be extended in a fuller revelation. The idea of a personal God is embedded in any evolution theory of ethics. For such a theory involves the conception that "life is not for itself but for an ethical purpose which is to be realised by life and in life." The value of living depends on an active interest in this purpose. The purpose itself is rendered possible, made obligatory, and finally guaranteed by a self-conscious Personality, through, in, and for whom it exists. On no other basis can an ethical theory of development be built. The Unconscious of Hartmann is not only an ethical absurdity as sketched, it is also a rational impossibility. Starting from it, he necessarily evades the whole point of ethical inquiry. For the question is, not into what place in the world does morality fit, but what is morality. To refer it to the Unconscious is to refer it to nothing. Nay, it is to foreclose the only method whereby Hartmann himself could explain the teleology of which he makes so much. To say that it comes from nothing and goes through misery back to nothing, is to suppress the fact, tacitly assumed, of its absolute value, which, after all, is just what a moral philosopher has to explain fully. Pessimism, as an ethical system, very properly tries to account for the ideal or goal towards which man's life ever tends. But to show, no matter with what apparatus of proof, that the expected resolution of contradiction or healing of pain lies in the total annihilation of personality, is neither to account for the fact that mind ever sets an ideal before it, nor to alter the circumstance that the moral world ever circles round such an ideal. It seems, then, that any moral theory which recognises the principle of development-and, for the sake of argument, we have sketched such a theory-must be optimistic. It primarily has relation to an end, to a progress towards that end, and to an immanent cause fulfilling itself in these. Nor does Hartmann fail to see this. The peculiarity of his position is, that he seeks to gain all the optimistic advantages of evolution, and at the same time to fit them into a pessimistic ethical scheme. In order to do this he has, of course, to rid himself of the optimism implied in evolution. This he accomplishes by including “ethical optimism" in a socalled wider plan. Seeing that an immanent cause is traceable in the universe, it follows that the best pessimistic life is sought by the moral man. So far so good. But the assumption of Pessimism is that deficiency and suffering are identical. He who strives to attain an ideal recognises his imperfection by comparison with it, and hence the advance in self-improvement. On the contrary, he who experiences suffering simply tries to get away from it. Here lies the rift in Hartmann's argument. Defect and suffering are not necessarily identical. The one implies a positive, the other a negative, future. Consequently, on the pessimistic theory, moralisation, even taken as a whole, is not an all-inclusive process. It is only a means to something outside of it self. The end for which it is presumed to work is nothingness. But, according to the principle of development adopted by Hartmann, morality can be explained only by reference to itself. It already includes the end for which it exists. So that, in ridding himself of the indisputable optimism of ethics, Hartmann practically eliminates morality altogether. At all events, the question which he professes to answer does not concern the nature of morality. It has relation rather to a preconceived assumption, and to the deductions to be drawn therefrom. If life be more painful than pleasurable, is it better to live or to die? Hartmann abolishes the optimism of ethics by conveniently altering the scope of his inquiry. He replies, It is better to die; and, with this in mind, tries to show how morality may be subordinated to the desired end. All this, in its turn, implies that human life can be appraised in terms of pleasure and pain. If some one will tell me how my pleasure in drinking a glass of good port is to be balanced against the pain of my neighbour, who has just been bereft of a dearly loved mother, then there may be some reason for considering the pessimist assumption. Till then it may be prudently concluded, both that the assumption is valueless, and that pessimism can never be answered from the standpoint of sensationalism. The cumulative action of morality, having for chiefest illustration the influence of Jesus, is a standing fact which neither Pessimism nor Eudæmonism can compass. The real sacrifice of the whole man to what heart and head recognise as the good character can neither be surmounted by Pessimism nor grounded on Hedonism. Far rather, personal devotion to the perfecting of a society, which includes self, transcends the painful half-truth of Pessimism and the derogatory untruth of Sensationalism. For, the destruction of sin is to be accomplished neither by the cessation of pain nor by the positive satisfaction of sense, but by that active purifying of heart which, be theories what they may, constitutes man's single means of communion with God. |