weight may or may not be good, and may or may not be known. Similarly, that which is psychica. may or may not be physical, moral, or rational: and that which is moral or rational may or may not be physical and psychical. There is, then, an indeterminism in the universe, a mere coincidenc of principles, in that it contains physical, psychical, moral, logical orders, without being in all respects either a physical, a psychical, a moral, or a logical necessity.13 Reality or experience itself is neutral in the sense of being exclusively predetermined by no one of the several systems it contains. But the different systems of experience retain their specific and proper natures, without the compromise which is involved in all attempts to extend some one until it shall embrace them all. If such a universe seems inconceivably desultory and chaotic, one may always remind one's self by directly consulting experience that it is not only found immediately and unreflectively, but returned to and lived in after every theoretical excursion. § 214. But what implications for life would be 13 It is not, of course, denied that there may be other orders, such as, e. g., an æsthetic order; or that there may be definite relations between these orders, such as, e. g., the psycho-physical relation. contained in such a philosophy? Even if it be theoretically clarifying, through being hospitable Moral Impli- to all differences and adequate to the cations of such multifarious demands of experience, is a Pluralistic it not on that very account morally dreary and stultifying? Is not its refusal to establish the universe upon moral foundations destructive both of the validity of goodness, and of the incentive to its attainment? Certainly not—if the validity of goodness be determined by criteria of worth, and if the incentive to goodness be the possibility of making that which merely exists, or is necessary, also good. This philosophy does not, it is true, define the good, but it makes ethics autonomous, thus distinguishing the good which it defines, and saving it from compromise with matter-of-fact, and logical or mechanical necessity. The criticism of life is founded upon an independent basis, and affords justification of a selective and exclusive moral idealism. Just because it is not required that the good shall be held accountable for whatever is real, the ideal can be kept pure and intrinsically worthy. The analogy of logic is most illuminating. If it be insisted that whatever exists is logically necessary, logical necessity must be made to embrace that from which it is distinguished by definitio such as contradiction, mere empirical existence. and error. The consequence is a logical cha which has in truth forfeited the name of logic Similarly a goodness defined to make possible the deduction from it of moral evil or moral indiffer ence loses the very distinguishing properties of goodness. The consequence is an ethical neutrality which invalidates the moral will. A metaphysical neutrality, on the other hand, although denying that reality as such is predestined to morality-and thus affording no possibility of an ethical absolutism-becomes the true ground for an ethical purism. The Incentive § 215. But, secondly, there can be no lack of incentive to goodness in a universe which, though not all-good, is in no respect incapable to Goodness. of becoming good. That which is mechanically or logically necessary, and that which is psychically present, may be good. And what can the realization of goodness mean if not that what is natural and necessary, actual and real, shall be also good. The world is not good, will not be good, merely through being what it is, but is or shall be made good through the accession of goodness. It is this belief that the real is not H cessarily, but may be, good; that the ideal is ot necessarily, but may be, realized; which has spired every faith in action. Philosophically it 5 only a question of permitting such faith to be incere, or condemning it as shallow. If the world e made good through good-will, then the faith of noral action is rational; but if the world be good because whatever is must be good, then moral action is a tread-mill, and its attendant and animating faith only self-deception. Moral endeavor is the elevation of physical and psychical existence to the level of goodness. "Relate the inheritance to life, convert the tradition into a servant of character, draw upon the history for support in the struggles of the spirit, declare a war of extermination against the total evil of the world; and then raise new armies and organize into fighting force every belief available in the faith that has descended to you." 99 14 Evil is here a practical, not a theoretical, problem. It is not to be solved by thinking it good, for to think it good is to deaden the very nerve of action; but by destroying it and replacing it with good. 14 8216. The justification of faith is in the prom Quoted from George A. Gordon: The New Epoch for Faith, p. 27. ise of reality. For what, after all, woul be the meaning of a faith which declares that all thing The Justifica- good, bad, and indifferent, are everlas tion of Faith. ingly and necessarily what they areeven if it were concluded on philosophical ground to call that ultimate necessity good. Faith has interests; faith is faith in goodness or beauty. Then what more just and potent cause of despair than the thought that the ideal must be held a countable for error, ugliness, and evil, or for the indifferent necessities of nature? 15 Are ideals to be prized the less, or believed in the less, when there is no ground for their impeachment? How much more hopeful for what is worth the hoping that nature should discern ideals and take some steps toward realizing them, than that ideals should have created nature such as it is! How much better a report can we give of nature for its ideals, than of the ideals for their handiwork, if it be nature! Emerson writes: "Suffice it for the joy of the universe that we have not arrived at a wall, but at interminable oceans. Our life seems not present so much as prospective; not for the affairs on which it is wasted, but as a hint of this vast-flowing vigor. Most of life seems to be mere ad 15 Cf. James: The Will to Believe, essay on The Dilemma of Determinism, passim. |