Above all ideals stands humanity. If our efforts on behalf of any ideal conflict irreconcilably with any part of the aggregate of interests and energies which constitute human consciousness, we have no right to sacrifice the latter to the former. We must not destroy art, culture, and enjoyment for the sake of religion or of freedom; nor freedom or religion for the sake of art and culture.

This view brings us again to the notion of the summum bonum, not as a summum genus under which all other bona stand; but as a cycle of bona, which are partly independent, in so far as they cannot be adequately expressed in terms of each other.

§ 8. God.

Some Christian writers advance the theory that God is the ultimate end of all rational conduct. But life for God and desire of Him seem to be metaphorical expressions. We can live in obedience to the divine commands with desire to please Him, and earnestly hoping to participate in the life of higher blessedness which He has promised. We cannot possibly make Him an end in the same way as we can Fame, Pleasure, or Perfection.

Modern theologians would probably attach only a metaphorical meaning to such expressions as the "non aliam [mercedem] nisi te, Domine," of St. Thomas Aquinas.

With the majority of Christians and even of theologians, the one supreme good is described, not as the possession of God, but as the enjoyment of the "exceeding great rewards He has prepared for them that love Him." This view is of course really hedonistic.

There is need to determine the fundamental notions of ethics without having recourse to theological ideas. If duty and ethics are to exist for those who do not accept monotheism, we must not base our morality on a system which they have never heard of, or do not believe. The very assertion that it is our duty to seek for God implies the antecedent determination of the idea of duty. And the ascription to Him of ethical attributes implies that a meaning attaches to these independently of theological beliefs.

§ 9. Good as essentially relative.

It is perhaps best to allow that good is an essentially relative term. This is obviously so, if, as Socrates held,1 good denotes always what is useful as a means. Even if we accept the view put forward in § 1 of this chapter, we must regard Good as relative. The judgment that "this is good," is the intellectual expression of a desire. Now such a desire always starts from a definite set of circumstances; what is

1

See Xenophon, "Memorabilia," II. viii.; cf. Gizycki and Coit, p. 6.

desirable is desirable only under conditions. There is no absolutely desirable thing.

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Nothing is good I see without respect," says Portia ("Merchant of Venice," v. 1), meaning without relation.1

Again, we can never come to the end of desire, as long as consciousness exists. No matter what is attained desire still remains, and with it the judgment that something (else) is good. We can never say, "This is the final good on which all the rest depend; if we have this we have all." Such an assertion is as unmeaning as the statement that here, or here, is the boundary of space. Space has only meaning for us as far as it is limited, but every bound implies a further space beyond it. So too with cause. An absolute first cause, and an absolute final cause are both unmeaning to us as philosophers. It is only from the point of view of theology that absolute meaning can be attached to any category of thought.

We may, perhaps, seem to come near finding an absolute good in the cycle of ends of highest rank ($6), the system of supreme human interests. But we cannot say that the particular goods in this cycle gain their desirability from each other, or from the cycle as a whole. We can only say that a man's good lies in the attainment of a number of different ends, some of which are in partial antagonism, but none of which can be reasonably omitted by the normally constituted

1 Compare Hamlet's, "There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so" (ii. 2).

man as an an object of interest and effort. This complete attainment is ex hypothesi impossible, since they are not entirely consistent. And thus good still remains, though in a different sense, a relative term.

§ 1. Right.

CHAPTER III.

RIGHT, OBLIGATION, DUTY.

THE term Right, which has played in the history of English ethics a still more important part than the term Good, although not borrowed from Law, at any rate when used as an adjective, yet implies what may be called a jural view of morality. It suggests that the propositions of ethics are not so much judgments as rules with which we must comply. It implies a definite standard, which can be approximated to but not transcended. In the recognition of conduct as right we have a positive notion which, in the strict sense of the term, is incapable of degrees, while we can call it good in various degrees. Right does not admit of comparison in the same way as good. It is, however, worth while to notice, that conduct which is not right is not necessarily wrong, any more than conduct which is not good is bad. It is simply not right. But when we deal with the other end of the scale the difference comes in; your conduct cannot be more than right, it may be more than good, viz., the best.

This difference implies that the standard of right is