It appeared at first that the ethics of evolution, when interpreted empirically, might be easily reconciled with the older theory of hedonism, by identifying life with pleasure—holding that the highest or most evolved life is that which contains most pleasure, and that increase of pleasure is therefore the end of conduct. In this way the end of evolutionism would be reduced to the end of utilitarianism. Some utilitarians, on the other hand, sought to get rid of the difficulties of their calculus, by the assumption that the greatest pleasure would be found by following the direction of evolution. But, around both points of view, and the correspondence they assumed to exist between pleasure and evolution, special difficulties were seen to gather. Any hedonistic theory might be met by the assertion that life is essentially a painful experience, and pleasure unattainable; and although the grounds on which this assertion was made seemed to be distinctly erroneous, and hedonism did not appear to be an impossible theory of conduct, yet a similar objection told with greater force against the combination of evolutionism and hedonism. For it holds the double position that the end is to promote life, and that life is to be promoted by adding to pleasure; or else, that the end is pleasure, but that pleasure is to be got by following evolution. It postulates, therefore, that the progress of life tends, and tends even in a proportionate degree, to the increase of pleasure. Yet we could obtain no proof that this progress does, as a matter of fact, increase pleasure in any regular way. On the contrary, the facts of experience seemed to show that life and pleasure do not advance proportionately, nor even always concomitantly. But a still more important and fundamental objection to the hedonistic form of evolutionism was deduced from the nature of pleasure itself; for it can be modified indefinitely, and always follows in the wake of function. Thus the sole intelligible account we can give of what conduct will bring the greatest pleasure is, that it is the conduct which calls forth the greatest amount of successful energising, that which employs the greatest number and the strongest of the human faculties. Hence, instead of being able to measure life by pleasure, we were driven to interpret pleasure in terms of life.

And perhaps at first sight it seemed that the theory of evolution could lead us beyond the pleasure-basis of older Naturalism. But, when the matter was examined more closely, without departing from the empirical point of view, it was found that the notions put forward were unsatisfactory, that they did not represent the progressive nature of the course of evolution, and that their apparent force fell away before logical analysis. It became evident, in the first place, that no appropriate end of human conduct could be derived from the nature of evolution in general. It is true that adaptation to environment is necessary for life; but to put forward such adaptation as the end for action, is to set up a practical goal which corresponds but ill with the facts from which it professes to be taken, making the theory which is supposed to account for progress establish no end by pursuit of which progress becomes possible for human action. Further than this, it neglects a factor in evolution as necessary to it as is adaptation to environment—the element, namely, of variation. A theory which took the latter as well as the former of these factors into account seemed, in the next place, to be given by those general characteristics which are said to mark all progress—increase of definiteness, coherence, and heterogeneity. But from these, again, it was found impossible to elicit a coherent and consistent rule for determining right and wrong in conduct, or a definite end for action: they were too abstract and mechanical to suit the living organism of human conduct; and we were thus driven back on the more general statement that "life" or the "increase of life" is the end after which we should strive. In inquiring into the meaning which could be given to this end, without interpreting it as pleasure, it was found, after tracing it through various forms of expression, that it reduced itself to making a man's strongest and most persistent impulses both standard and end. And this proved to be not only an uncertain and shifting guide for conduct, but an imperfect representation of what was to be expected from a progressive, because evolutionist, ethics. For these persistent impulses could only be regarded as the survival of past activities, and consequently, contained no ideal beyond that of continuing in the old paths, and re-treading an already well-beaten course. Just as from the external end of adaptation to environment, so from this internal or subjective principle, no ideal for progress, nor any definite end of action, could be obtained.

It would appear, therefore, that the theory of evolution—however great its achievements in the realm of natural science—is almost resultless in ethics. It only remains now to inquire whether this want of competency to determine practical ends may not be due to the superficiality of the ordinary empirical interpretation of evolution, which has hitherto been adhered to.

CHAPTER IX.
ON THE BASIS OF ETHICS.

The peculiarity of the conclusion we have reached is, that the theory which is used to explain the nature of progress, seems unable to give any canon or end for conduct which points out the way for progressive advance. The view of human nature became unsatisfactory just at the critical point—when we attempted to get at a knowledge of its end or final cause, which would give unity and purpose to action. To say that the end is increase of life or function appeared a merely formal notion unless we defined life as pleasure, while pleasure itself was found to be unintelligible except as performance of function. This uncertainty seems to indicate a certain superficiality in the ordinary empirical way of looking at evolution.[270]

The principles involved in the theory of evolution are, in brief, as follows. In the first place, it shows that there is a tendency, brought about by natural selection, for organisms to harmonise with or become adapted to their environment—a tendency, that is to say, towards unity of organism and environment, and, in so far as external conditions are uniform, towards a general unity of life. In the second place, the theory implies variation in organisms, produced either by the unequal incidence of external forces, or by the spontaneous action of the organism, or by both causes combined. The mere increase in the number of living organisms leads to a modification of the conditions of life by which new variations are encouraged. And this tendency to variation in organisms—not merely the diversity of external environment—is perpetually complicating the conditions which the former tendency, that towards unity, helps to bring into harmony. It thus happens that there is, in the third place, a continual process of readjustment and oscillation between the tendency towards unity and that towards variety, which, through opposition and conciliation, produces continuity in nature. Each newly formed unity between organism and environment is broken by a new variation of the organism or of the environment, which further complicates the problem to be solved by the unifying process, and gives scope for a more intricate and more comprehensive readjustment. Unity, Variety, and Continuity are thus the three principles implied in the theory of evolution.[271]

It is from these principles that the attempt has been made to show the ethical bearing of evolution. The first of them, Unity, is represented in the theory that would make adaptation to environment the end of conduct; and the second is represented ethically in the doctrine suggested by Mr Spencer, that the degree of morality depends on the degree of complexity in act and motive. But both of these views are obviously one-sided, even from the point of view of empirical evolution. Taken together, the principles on which they depend make up that law of continuous and progressive advance which may be regarded as expressing the essential characteristic of the theory. And from this more general and accurate expression of it, we might have expected to have been able to elicit the contribution which evolution has to make to the determination of the ethical end. But after examining the various forms which it may take, we have been unable to obtain from it a principle of action.

In inquiring into the reason which has made the theory of evolution seemingly so barren in its ethical consequences, the first point which requires attention is that the characteristics of Unity, Variety, and Continuity are treated by it not as principles involved in development, but as theories inferred from, or superinduced upon, the facts of development. We are led by facts to suppose certain hypothetical laws—namely, that organisms tend to harmony with their environment, but that there are certain causes promoting variation, and, consequently, that the history of all life is that of a continuous process towards more comprehensive uniformities, passing always into more intricate variations. Additional facts are compared with these hypothetical causes, and, by their ability to explain such facts, the hypotheses are raised to the position of laws of nature, and are confidently applied to account for new phenomena of the same kind. But when we pass beyond facts lying immediately on the plane of those from which our laws have been gathered, it is to follow an insufficient analogy if we interpret them by theories only shown to belong to the former order. And this becomes still more obvious when the change is not merely to a different order of facts, but to a different way of looking at facts, as is the case in the transition from the point of view of knowledge to that of action.

But there is another way in which the principles of Unity, Variety, and Continuity may be regarded. Instead of being simply generalisations gathered from experience and depending upon it, they may be founded on a principle which is itself the basis of the possibility of experience. Of course, no one would think of denying that it is to the accumulated mass of experienced facts that these laws owe their prominence in modern scientific opinion, and their acceptance by the judgment of the best scientists. But the process by which a man has been led to lay hold of such principles is one thing; their logical position in relation to experience quite another. Our definite recognition of the laws may very well be the result of experience, at the same time that the principle of Continuity is presupposed in our having experience at all. As long as we kept to the ground from which we started, and did not attempt to get beyond the categories of causality and reciprocity, our progress might seem to be easy enough. Although their logical relations may be misconceived, the laws are, of course, actually there, in experience: their application to the successive phenomena of nature remains the same, and may be duly apprehended. The extension of facts into laws is explained by the scientific imagination, and we do not stay to inquire into the conditions on which the scientific imagination works and has applicability to experience. But, when we try to pass from efficient cause to the notion of purpose or of morality, we find ourselves driven back on the fundamental constitution of knowledge, and see that it is only through the unifying and relating action of a self-conscious subject that knowledge is possible or things exist for us at all. And this is the reason why we are able to say that the Unity or Continuity of nature is a principle or law of experience.[272] Were that principle not involved in knowledge, there would be no world of nature for us at all. The empirical interpretation of evolution, which has been hitherto adopted, has made the negative side of this truth sufficiently evident: it has shown that we cannot, on empirical ground, reach the end or purpose of human nature. The question thus arises, whether what may be called the "metaphysical" or "transcendental" interpretation of evolution can show the reason of this defect and suggest a remedy.

The insufficiency of the empirical way of looking at things is seen most clearly when we attempt to make the transition just referred to, and determine an end for conduct. It seems often to be thought that, in pointing out the tendency of affairs, we are, at the same time, prescribing the end towards which human endeavour ought to be directed. Now, it is very difficult to say how far an empirical method enables us to anticipate tendencies of this kind at all. Even from the historical point of view the conditioning circumstances are so complicated that it is by no means easy to predict the result of their combination. It is argued, however, by Schäffle,[273] that we are at least able to see as far as the next stage in the series of historical progress, and this is thought to lead to the conclusion that we should make this next stage of development our end: further than it we cannot see, and therefore need not provide. If, then, we have no ultimate end for conduct, at least we need never be without a proximate end—and one which is always changing with the course of events. Instead, therefore, of saying that we should take no thought for the morrow, the contention would seem to be that we should live for the morrow but take no thought for the day after. But here the altered point of view is scarcely concealed. From the discussion of efficient causes we proceed all at once to decide upon ends or final causes. We have shown (let it be granted) that, taking account of the present position and mode of action of the forces we are able to examine, they will modify the present state of affairs in a certain known manner. To-day we are in state A; to-morrow we shall be in, or well on the way towards, state Ab; therefore, runs the conclusion, implied or expressed, we ought to make Ab our end. But this is more than a fallacy due to the confusion of the two meanings of "end." The conclusion to which it leads is inconsistent with, or at least shows the one-sidedness of, the premisses from which it was drawn. For, if Ab is really the next term in the series of historical progress, our making it our end can neither help nor hinder its realisation. If, on the other hand, there is really a meaning in our making the world-end our own, then we cannot bring that end, the realisation of which is conceived as still in the future, under the category of efficient causality, and say with confidence that it is the next stage in the course of events.

The idea does not work itself out in the same way as an efficient cause works in the processes of nature. We might indeed speak—perhaps with some intelligible meaning—of the tendency of evolution becoming conscious in man, and then working towards its own realisation as a fixed idea. So far as the simpler representations are concerned, this mode of action has been clearly illustrated in Mr Bain's writings; and the characteristic is not limited to the less complex kinds of mental objects. The idea is, in its own nature, a force tending both to exist in consciousness and to realise itself through the motor energies.[274] Consciousness of an end is a motive to action. Thus the notion of final cause includes that of efficient cause; but the two are not convertible. The idea of an end, being conceived by reason, cannot be described simply as a tendency become conscious. It has passed into the region in which various conceptions are, or may be, competing against one another, and the resultant is decided on upon grounds which may be called subjective since they proceed from conscious determination. However the laws of this conscious determination may be expressed, they are not to be identified with the natural sequence of events as it may be conceived to exist independently of the individual consciousness. What seems the tendency of things may be altered or modified upon some ground of preference by the conscious subject. In passing therefore to the working out of a rational or mental idea—such as is implied in the conception of an end—we can no longer fully represent our notions by means of the determined temporal succession called causality.

Thus the empirical standpoint leaves the case incomplete. A man might quite reasonably ask why he should adopt as maxims of conduct the laws seen to operate in nature. The end, in this way, is not made to follow from the natural function of man. It is simply a mode in which the events of the world occur; and we must, therefore, give a reason why it should be adopted as his end by the individual agent. To him there may be no sufficient grounds of inducement to become "a self-conscious agent in the evolution of the universe." From the purely evolutionist point of view, no definite attempt has been made to solve the difficulty. It seems really to go no deeper than Dr Johnson's reply to Boswell, when the latter plagued him to give a reason for action: "'Sir,' said he, in an animated tone, 'it is driving on the system of life.'"[275] When any further answer is attempted now to the question, it appears to be on hedonistic grounds.

But it is not certain that the next stage of development will bring more pleasure along with it than the present. Enough has already been said of the difficulties and uncertainties which surround any attempt to interpret evolution as tending constantly to increased pleasure. It may be thought, however, that, if neither optimism nor pessimism is the conclusion to which we are led, the modified doctrine of what is called Meliorism may be accepted. And this theory—which holds that the world is improving, that the balance of good over evil, or that of pleasure over pain, is on the increase—might seem to form a convenient support to the present doctrine. For it may appear to follow from it that, if the next stage in the world-process—that towards which evolution is tending—is known, then we should make it our end to accelerate this stage, as it will be one which brings with it a better state of affairs than the present. But not even the most enthusiastic "meliorist" has tried to show anything more than that his doctrine holds true in general, and that, although progress has many receding waves, the tide of human happiness is rising. But we cannot tell how great these receding waves may be; nor may we say that our action can have no power to check them. It follows, therefore, that, in judging of any special and temporary movement of events (and it is not pretended that our anticipatory knowledge of the future can extend far), we cannot assume that the second stage will be better than the first, or that voluntary modification of it—if that be possible—might not improve both the immediate result and its later consequences. It becomes necessary, therefore, to compare the value of the two by the directly pleasurable effects they may be expected to have, so that we are driven back to test the course of evolution by reference to some other principle. The further we go in examining an empirical theory, the clearer does it become that it can make no nearer approach to the discovery of an ethical end, than to point out what courses of action are likely to be the pleasantest, or what tendencies to action the strongest: while this can only be done within certain limits. The doctrine of evolution itself, when added to empirical morality, only widens our view of the old landscape—does not enable us to pass from "is" to "ought," or from efficient to final cause, any more than the telescope can point beyond the sphere of spatial quantity.

We are endeavouring to get at the idea or end of human nature in an impossible way when we attempt to reach it on purely empirical lines, and think that, if we work long enough on them, we are sure to come to it. In the same way it was formerly thought by physiologists that, if we thoroughly examined the brain with microscope and scalpel, we should come upon the seat of the soul at last, while psychologists were fain to believe that, in addition to all our presentations of objects, we had also a presentation of the subject or thinking being. The mistake of both was in imagining that the soul was a thing amongst other things, or a presentation amongst other presentations, instead of the subject and condition of there being either things or thoughts at all. Of a similar character is the attempt to get at an end or final cause without leaving the point of view of efficient causality. Were it successful, it would reduce final cause to mechanism. To look upon man or upon nature as manifesting an end implies an idea or notion of the object as a whole, over and above the mutual determination of its various parts, and thus necessitates the contemplation of it "as though an understanding contained the ground of the unity of the multiplicity of its empirical laws."[276] It is the attempt to get at an external purpose for objects of experience that has made teleology be looked upon askance by men of science. A conception of this kind went far to vitiate physics in the middle ages, till it was, with justice, strictly excluded from the scientific interpretation of nature by the leaders of modern philosophy.[277] But teleology does not stand or fall with this external form of it, which takes its illustrations from the products of the factory, not from the manifestations of life,[278] and which is really only mechanism misunderstood.

The conception of an end is forced upon us in considering life, because then it is necessary to take account of the being as organised, and therefore as a whole. In the investigation of nature, on the other hand, things may be apprehended without relation to the conception of the whole; and teleology, therefore, seems to be unnecessary. The notion of purpose, it is often said, is essential to biology, but out of place in physical science. But when we look on the world as a whole, the notion of end or purpose is introduced, and the functions of its various parts conceived from a new point of view. And the end of an organism can only be partially understood, when that organism is conceived as a whole apart from its environment. It is only a partial manifestation or example of the more perfect reality in which things are to be regarded as not merely conditioned and conditioning, but as revelations of purpose. But, although the notion of purpose cannot be dispensed with in considering organic nature, the teleological notions we form of living things are imperfect and "abstract." Thus the organism is often, more or less explicitly, judged by its utility for some human purpose. In these cases the end is clearly an external and dependent one. And, when the adaptation of its parts is spoken of in relation to its type or perfect form, a conception is involved over and above what can be inferred from the nature of the organism in itself. The notion of the end depends upon a rational ideal, which passes beyond the causal interrelation of parts to the conception of the organism as a whole, whose function is necessarily related to its environment.

Our knowledge of the ends of the lower animals is really much more imperfect than our knowledge of the human end. For the only life we really know is self-conscious life, and that we are unable to attribute to them. We know their life only by conjecture, our knowledge of it being but an abstraction from our own consciousness. The ethical, as Trendelenburg puts it,[279] is the higher stage of the process, a lower stage of which is the organic. The purpose, which is conceived as blind or unconscious in nature, becomes conscious and voluntary in man. But our notion of the former is simply an abstraction from the free and conscious purpose which characterises our own activity. The conception of life is only known to us as—is only—an element or moment in our own self-consciousness. And life which is not self-conscious can only be judged in relation to the self-consciousness which contains in itself the explanation both of life and of nature. The germ of truth in the old mechanical teleology may perhaps be seen in this way. For it had right on its side in so far as it referred everything to the self-consciousness manifested in man; it was mistaken only in so far as it made things relative to his needs and desires. The teleological anthropomorphism which judges all things according to their correspondence with human purposes, must be transcended, equally with the speculative anthropomorphism which frames the unseen world in the likeness of the phenomena of our present experience. But to attempt to escape from what is sometimes called anthropomorphism—the reference of the nature and purpose of things to self-consciousness, as expressive of the ultimate reality—is to attempt to escape from thought itself, and makes one's thinking from the beginning void and contradictory.

Now this reference to self has been omitted in our consideration of empirical evolution. We have taken the purely objective ground of science, and we have admitted what science has told us of how all sorts of things came to be,—how man appeared on the earth, gradually adapted himself to his surroundings and modified them—how sentiments expanded, customs grew, and one institution developed out of another. But science shows us all this only as an external process of events in space and time—a process in which the preceding determines each succeeding state, and all parts are united together. It does not show us the process from the inside. And, in the end, it can do no more than point towards, without reaching, the comprehensive idea of a whole, by reference to which idea all the members of the whole are determined, in such a way that it is insufficient to look upon one as causing another, and with the others making up the aggregate; since each member only exists for the sake of the whole, and the idea of the whole precedes the parts which constitute it.[280] The teleological conception thus necessarily leads us beyond the ordinary categories of science, by which all things are conceived as connected causally in space and time. But the scientific theories that we have been discussing do not recognise this altered point of view; and, without giving any justification for the change of standpoint, lay down the moral law that we ought to aim at the realisation of something which can only be described as a mental conception or idea. Here a double change in point of view is involved. We are no longer considering a process going on outside us, in which the reference to self may be fairly ignored, but we put ourselves in relation to this external order: and we do so, not merely as cognitive, but as active—as the potential source of actions which we say "ought" to be performed by us.

The assumption involved in the former change is that made by comparative or evolutionist psychology, when it attempts to play the part of a theory of knowledge. The development of impressions and ideas is made to pass upwards to more complicated stages, till it reaches the point at which the individual, conceived as determined by external forces and reacting upon them, becomes conscious of itself as a subject of knowledge and source of action. This transition from the category of causality to self-consciousness is, in some systems—that of Mr Spencer, for example—either concealed or held to with no firm grasp. Throughout his objective treatment of psychology, it would seem that Mr Spencer is evolving mind or self-consciousness out of the process in which simple relations of matter and motion form the lowest stage, and reflex action is that which approaches most nearly to having mental characteristics. And, from this objective point of view, he speaks of his philosophy as an interpretation of "the detailed phenomena of life, mind, and society, in terms of matter, motion, and force."[281] But when he discusses the subjective side, he admits that it is entirely unique and sui generis,[282] and adopts what is known as the "two aspects" theory—the theory that mind cannot be accounted for as derived from matter, any more than matter can be accounted for as derived from mind, but that they are both phases of one ultimate and unknown reality.[283] This admission involves a practical acknowledgment that it is impossible to arrive at consciousness or at subjectivity by a process of natural development. We must, it affirms, postulate two aspects or phases of existence, or two lines of development, connected probably in their ultimate reality, but, as known to us, distinct from one another, and without mutual influence.

The doctrine that a reference to self-consciousness is implied in experience, may perhaps be made clearer by considering a criticism to which it has recently been subjected by an able psychological writer. Professor W. James writes as follows:—

"The doctrine of the post-Kantians, that all knowledge is also self-knowledge, seems to flow from this confusion [between the psychologist's standpoint and the standpoint of the feeling upon which he is supposed to be making his report]. Empirically, of course, an awareness of self accompanies most of our thinking. But that it should be needed to make that thinking 'objective' is quite another matter. 'Green-after-red-and-other-than-it' is an absolutely complete object of thought, ideally considered, and needs no added element. The fallacy seems to arise from some such reflection as this, that since the feeling is what it feels itself to be, so it must feel itself to be what it is—namely, related to each of its objects. That the last is covers much more ground than the first, the philosopher here does not notice. The first is signifies only the feeling's inward quality; the last is covers all possible facts about the feeling,—relational facts, which can only be known from outside points of view, like that of the philosopher himself."[284]

Now it seems to me that the real confusion here is between the point of view of experience, and the point of view of reflection on experience, and that it is not the "post-Kantians" who confuse the two points of view. The "post-Kantians"—by whom Professor James means T. H. Green and the writers commonly associated with him—habitually occupy the latter standpoint. |though not itself a part of experience,| They do not hold that "all knowledge is also self-knowledge," in the sense that "an awareness of self accompanies most [or all] of our thinking." When we have this empirical "awareness of self," our object is the more or less distinct contents of perception, &c., which make up the empirical ego. But this knowledge of the empirical ego, equally with knowledge of external nature, |logically implied by experience.| implies logically the action of self-consciousness. When we reflect upon experience, one constant element is seen to be implied in it—the reference to a subject of knowledge and feeling. Certainly "post-Kantians" do not imagine—as Professor James seems himself to imagine and to think they do—that a feeling feels itself, or an object knows itself. "Green-after-red-and-other-than-it" is for them, as for him, if not "an absolutely complete object of thought," yet relatively complete. It may be apprehended alone as a part of experience. But reflection on experience shows that it, like any other object of thought, depends upon a knowing subject. The "post-Kantians" do not assert that knowing an object involves for the individual knower actual consciousness of what his knowledge implies, any more than they would say that the "plain man" is already a metaphysician. But they hold that reflection on experience shows that self-reference, or reference to a subject, is a logical condition of there being experience at all. So far from confusing the two standpoints, they require carefully to emphasise their difference, lest the actual content of a state of consciousness in the individual man be held to be equivalent to the grounds or conditions of that state of consciousness.

The reason why there is even an apparent plausibility in the attempt to get at a natural development of self-consciousness, is that the reference to self is, from the outset, implicitly, but logically, assumed in tracing the sequence of events which forms the subject-matter of the theory of evolution, while the course of development does nothing more than render its implication explicit. Self-consciousness is not something that exists apart from the world of known and knowable objects, any more than it is itself a special department of this world of objects distinguishable from, and determined by, its surroundings. It is, on the contrary, the supreme condition of the world of objects having any existence whatever. It is only through objects being brought into relation with the identical and permanent subject of knowledge, that there is unity in nature, or, in other words, that there is a known world of nature or experience at all. The evolution of mind or self-consciousness out of experience is, therefore, not merely to be rejected as a problem too intricate for psychological analysis. It is a mistake to think that it is a possible problem at all; for it attempts to make experience account for and originate the principles on which its own possibility depends.

But it is the second change in point of view which needs special emphasis here—the change from the point of view of science to that of morality. Taken in its bare form, this is perhaps little more than a confusion of thought. The fact of things being of a certain constitution, and of their progress tending in a certain direction, cannot of itself supply a law for the exercise of our activity. But the view is associated with a theory of the nature of human action which seeks to bring it into the strict line of natural development. Just as empirical psychology attempted to treat self-consciousness as a stage in the evolution of experience or knowledge, so the empirical theory of morality, aided by the doctrine of evolution, tries to show how the action which is called moral has been developed out of purely physical or reflex action. But this theory of the development of moral action is really open to the same objection as that which was urged against the theory which evolves self-consciousness from the unconscious. The objection to the latter was, that experience, itself constituted by consciousness, is made to produce the condition of its own possibility; and a similar confusion is involved in attempting to develop moral action out of merely physical or reflex action. The only case of true psychical or conscious action is that in which there is a conscious determination of end and means; and action of this kind implies the same relation to self-consciousness as that by which knowledge is constituted. The relation is, however, manifested in a different way: it is not an apprehension of the manifold of impression into the unity of consciousness, but the externalisation of self-consciousness in realising a conceived end or idea. Now, in so far as physical and psychical facts are phenomena of experience—and they have no other existence, at least none that can have any intelligible meaning given to it—they presuppose self-consciousness; for it is only in relation to it that experience is possible. That is to say, their existence logically implies a reference to a subject whose active externalising manifestation is the determination of means and end which constitutes moral (as distinguished from merely natural) action. So far, therefore, from our being able to trace the development of moral action from the simpler phenomena of natural action, we find that these, in their most rudimentary form, by virtue of their being phenomena of experience, imply and receive their reality from the self-consciousness which is the differentiating quality both of knowledge and of moral action.

From this it follows that, although, empirically, the change from the point of view of science to that of morality is a transition to a different order of facts, yet the passage may be possible transcendentally through self-consciousness. |(a) as making possible the transition from knowledge to morality;| For in self-consciousness we reach the element of identity between knowledge and action. It is, therefore, of importance to understand the nature of this self-conscious activity in relation to knowledge and to action. If the fundamental characteristic of knowledge is the bringing into relation to consciousness, then all conscious action has this characteristic; for it determines self towards some particular line of activity—that is to say, towards an object or end which is thereby related to consciousness. Action therefore, we may say, is knowledge. And in the same way, on the other hand, since the relating to consciousness which constitutes knowledge can only be regarded as originated by the subject, it follows, conversely, that knowledge is action.[285] "We act," says Spinoza, "only in so far as we know or understand." Action is but one aspect or manifestation of that which, in another aspect or manifestation, is knowledge. But the aspect of self-consciousness we call knowledge and that we call action are different from one another. In the former the relating to consciousness in the definite forms of thought and perception is the prominent thing. In the latter it is the realising energy of the self-conscious subject. The ordinary distinction between knowledge and action is therefore correct, if not pushed to the extent of making an absolute separation between them: in the former we idealise the real, in the latter we realise the ideal. But they are at one in this, that both involve self-conscious activity.

The self-consciousness which in one relation is knowledge, in another action, is thus the fundamental fact of human nature; and on it, therefore, the ethical end must be based, if that end can be disclosed by the nature of man, and is to express what is most fundamental in his nature. Now, as knowledge finds its completion when all things are connected with one another and the subject in a definite system of relations, the end of completed self-conscious activity cannot be different. In their final perfection, as in their fundamental nature, the two are at one. As Kant puts it,[286] the speculative and the practical reason are reconciled in the notion of end. However virtue may differ from knowledge in the processes of ordinary experience, the distinction only belongs to their finite realisation. An intuitive understanding, or understanding which, in knowing, creates the objects of knowledge, is the highest conception of reason. Yet the very notion of a finite self implies that neither such knowledge nor such activity belongs to it. In knowledge and action, as properties of the ultimate self-consciousness, human beings only participate. It is only by means of the laborious methods of observation and inference that they approach the intuition of all things as a unity in which perfect knowledge consists; and, in the same way, it is only by the gradual volitional adaptation of means to end that they are able, in some measure, to contribute to the realisation of self-consciousness in the world.

An end can only be made our own when conceived as necessary for realising or completing our idea of self. Conscious volition only follows a conceived want, or recognition that the self as imagined—the ideal self—is not realised in the actual self. The action is towards a fuller working out of the idea of self; and the end may therefore, in all cases of conscious action, be said to be self-realisation, though the nature of this end differs according to each man's conception of self. This may be expressed, as Green expresses it, by saying that "self-satisfaction is the form of every object willed; but ... it is on the specific difference of the objects willed under the general form of self-satisfaction that the quality of the will must depend."[287] It appears to me, however, that this statement requires to be guarded by an explanation. The self-satisfaction sought must not be looked upon as a feeling,—for if it is, it can only be interpreted psychologically as pleasure—but as simply conscious self-realisation. And this self-realisation is the objective consciousness of an attained end, which is accompanied by, but is not the same as, the feeling of pleasure. Self-realisation is the end, not the pleasurable feeling which follows it; self-satisfaction, not the "pleasure of self-satisfaction." In this way, the common experience "that the objects with which we seek to satisfy ourselves do not turn out capable of satisfying us,"[288] might be expressed by saying that the method adopted for the realisation of self is often found in its result to lead to incomplete, or even to illusory, self-realisation.

The question thus arises, What is the true self that is to be realised, and what is meant by the realisation of it? The will that wills itself is as bare a notion in ethics, as the thought that thinks itself is in metaphysics. The "good will," which Kant rightly held to be the only ultimate good, never altogether escaped this formality in Kant's own treatment of it. His idea of humanity as a realm of ends was limited by his formal conception of the function of reason, though it suggests the way by which the mere tautology of will may be transcended. It is of the essence of a finite will that its end is different from the realisation of the end. But the rationality of the will implies that it must aim at nothing less than the harmonious articulation of its whole activity in the unity of self-consciousness.