find permanent satisfaction. As we grow older, we get crusted over with habits, and go on, with little misgiving, within the universe to which we have grown accustomed. But if the universe is an imperfect one, we are not without occasional pricks of conscience— ie. we sometimes become aware of a higher universe within which we ought to be living.

"Just when we are safest, there's a sunset-touch,

A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death,

A chorus-ending from Euripides

And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears,

As old and new at once as nature's self,
To rap and knock and enter in our soul." 1

On such occasions we begin to feel that even in the life that we ordinarily live we are not ourselves. There is a want of permanence in our habitual universe, just as there is in those into which we find ourselves occasionally drifted by passion and impulse. Just as we do not feel satisfied in these, but escape from them as rapidly as we can, and declare that we were not ourselves when we were in them; so we become conscious at times that even in our habitual lives there is something unsatisfying, and if it were not for the frost of custom we would make our escape from these also, and declare that in them also we are not ourselves. Where, then, is the universe within which we should find an abiding satisfaction? What is the true self?

The true self is what is perhaps best described as the rational self. It is the universe that we occupy in our moments of deepest wisdom and insight. To say fully) what the content of this universe is, would no doubt, as Green points out, be impossible. The content of 1 Browning-Bishop Blougram's Apology. Prolegomena to Ethics, § 288, p. 310.

the universe of rational insight is as wide as the universe of actual fact. To live completely in that universe would be to understand completely the world in which we live and our relations to it, and to act constantly in the light of that understanding. This we cannot hope to do. All that we can do is to endeavour to promote this understanding more and more in ourselves and others, and to act more and more in a way that is consistent with the promotion of this understanding. So to live is to be truly ourselves.1

§ 13. THE REAL MEANING OF SELF-CONSISTENCY.-From this point of view we are better able to appreciate the real significance of the Kantian principle, that the supreme law of morals is to be self-consistent. This law, as we pointed out, seemed to supply us with a mere form without matter. It is not so, however, if we interpret the statement to mean not merely that we are to be self-consistent, but that we are to be consistent with the self-i. e. with the true self. For this principle has a content, though the content is not altogether easy to discover. Kant's error, we may say, consisted in this, that he understood the term Reason in a purely abstract way. He opposed it to all the particular content of our desires; whereas, in reality, reason is relative to the whole world which it interprets. The universe of rational insight is the universe in which the whole world-including all our desires-appears in its true relations. To occupy the point of view of reason,

1 For some criticisms on the idea of self-realization, see the valuable article by Mr. A. E. Taylor in the International Journal of Ethics, Vol. VI., no. 3. Mr. Taylor's objections do not seem, however, to bear upon the theory as explained above and as developed in the following Book.

therefore, is not to withdraw from all our desires, and occupy the point of view of mere formal self-consistency; it is rather to place all our desires in their right relations to one another. The universe of rational insight is a universe into which they can in which they all find their true places. defined as "matter in the wrong place": so moral evil may be said to consist simply in the misplacement of desire. The meaning of this will, it is hoped, become somewhat clearer as we proceed.

all enter, and Dirt has been

§ 14. THE REAL MEANING OF HAPPINESS.-Just as we are now better able to appreciate the significance of the categorical imperative of self-consistency, so we ought now to be able to understand more fully the true significance of the principle of happiness. The error in the conception of happiness, as formerly interpreted, lay in its being thought of simply as the gratification of each single desire, or of the greatest possible sum of desires. We now see that the end is to be found rather in the systematisation of desire. Now happiness, in the true sense of the word, as distinguished from transient pleasures, consists just in the consciousness of the realisation of such a systematic content. It is the form of feeling which accompanies the harmonious adjustment of the various elements in our lives within an ideal unity. Happiness, therefore, in this sense, though not, properly speaking, the end at which we aim, is an inseparable and essential element in its attainment.1

§ 15. TRANSITION TO APPLIED ETHICS.-We have now 1 It is in this sense, as Spinoza says, that "happiness [beatitudo] is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself,"-i. e., it is an essential aspect in the attainment of the right point of view.

seen, in a general way, what the nature of the moral ideal is, and how the various imperfect conceptions of this ideal find their place within what seems to be the true one. We now see, in short, at least in some degree, what is the true significance of the ethical ought. We see that, if it is to be described as an "imperative" at all, it is at least not to be thought of, as it is apt at first to be, as a command imposed upon us from with

It is rather to be regarded as the voice of the true self within us, passing judgment upon the self as it appears in its incomplete development. Conscience, from this point of view, may be said to be simply the sense that we are not ourselves; and the voice of duty is the voice that says, "To thine own self be true."

But statements of this sort are still apt to seem rather empty and unmeaning, unless we can bring them into some sort of relationship to the concrete content of life. Accordingly, what we have now to do is to consider the way in which the concrete moral life may be interpreted in the light of the general principle which has now been laid down. This, of course, can only be done in such a book as this, in the most cursory and superficial fashion. But some indication of the kind of way in which it would have to be done in a more comprehensive work, may at least be found suggestive and helpful. Before we proceed to this, however, it is necessary to consider the exact sense in which ethical principles are capable of application to the content of the practical life. This is the subject of the following chapter.

CHAPTER VI.

THE AUTHORITY OF THE MORAL STANDARD.

§ 1. THE GENERAL PROBLEM OF AUTHORITY.-In considering the nature of the moral standard, we have had to deal incidentally with the character of the authority which according to different theories is claimed for it. But it seems desirable now to add something on this particular point. As the moral standard is one that claims the absolute devotion of the human will, it is evident that its authority must be recognized as supreme and unquestionable; and we have accordingly already felt ourselves to be justified in criticizing certain views of the moral standard on the ground that they provided no adequate motive for obedience to the principles that are involved in it. This defect appears, for instance, in the view which rests moral obligation on the law of God; since the mere might of a supreme being could not be accepted as a sufficient ground for voluntary obedience. The same defect appears, in a somewhat different form, in the theory that appeals simply to the process of evolution; since it is of the very essence of the moral life to oppose itself, if necessary, to the natural tendencies of things. The consideration of such objections, however, leads us to inquire more definitely what is the nature of the authority on which moral principles must be based.

.