But was the idyllic life not an accidental thing,
due to a fortuitous combination of circumstances,
rather than to man’s intelligent control of
a larger environment? Civilization of some sort
seems inevitable. Have we any other guarantee
that we can make it, in the long run, rational, than
a many-sided development of man’s capacities?
And must we not exercise a broad faith in the value
of enlightenment, increase of knowledge, farsightedness,
the cultivation of complex emotions, even at the risk
of some waste of effort and some suffering to certain
individuals?
Perhaps this is as good a place as any to say a word
about the significance of the terms “higher”
and “lower,” when used in a moral sense.
We have seen that John Stuart Mill made much of the
distinction in his utilitarianism. Bentham appears
to sin against the enlightened moral judgment in holding
that, quantities of pleasure being the same, “push-pin
is as good as poetry.”
When we realize that the worth of things may be determined
from the standpoint of the Rational Social Will, we
can easily understand that some occupations and their
accompanying pleasures should be rated higher than
others, however satisfactory the latter may seem to
certain individuals. It is not unreasonable to
rate the pleasure of scientific discovery as higher
than the pleasure of swallowing an oyster; and that,
without following Bentham in falling back upon a quantitative
standard, or following Mill in maintaining that pleasures,
as pleasures, differ in kind. [Footnote: See
chapter xxv, Sec 107.]
THE MORAL LAW AND MORAL IDEALS
143. DUTIES AND VIRTUES.—We saw, at
the very beginning of this volume [Footnote:
Chapter i, Sec 2.] that a single moral law, so abstractly
stated as to cover the whole sphere of conduct, must
be something so vague and indeterminate as to be practically
useless as a guide to action. The admonition,
“do right,” does not mean anything in particular
to the man who is not already well instructed as to
what, in detail, constitutes right action. Nor
do we make ourselves more intelligible, when we say
to him “be good.”
It seems to mean something more when we say “act
justly” or “be just”; “speak
the truth,” or “be truthful.”
And the more we particularize, the more we help the
individual confronted with concrete problems—the
only problems with which life actually confronts us.
This is as it should be. Duties and virtues are
expressions of the Rational Social Will, and that
will is a mere abstraction except as it is incorporated,
with a wealth of detail, in human societies. It
would be hard for the small boy to classify, under
any ten commandments, the innumerable company of the
“don’ts” which he hears from his
mother during the course of a week. He can leave
such work to the moralist. But he is receiving
an education in the moral law, as an expression of
the social will, through the whole seven days.
