Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/694

 678 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

individual consciousness. Even if a system of ethics maintains the social point of view, the point of view of society, or species, as the foundation on which it builds in valuing human acts and institutions, it cannot forget that society and species consist of individuals, and that the welfare of society or species is the welfare of these indi- viduals. Only in the consciousness of individuals can the value of life be experienced. The concepts of society and of species do not, therefore, lose their importance in ethics. The importance of these concepts is similar to the importance of the conception of potential energy in physics. They can note conditions and possibilities for the unfolding of human life which are vaster and more comprehensive than the horizon of any individual forms and germs of life by which many generations can profit. They contain the heredity of the past, organized results of the experiences of former generations and at the same time dispositions and possibilities for the future. They are that which persists and continues, in opposition to the shifting interests of single individuals, groups, and generations. These potential values can be actualized only when they are appro- priated and worked out by particular individuals.

Not all ethical theories give this point of view its full right. For Hegel the main point was what he called " the ethical substance," which works itself out in the different forms and stages of society, most typically in the state. In comparison with this social substance, the existence of the single individual is indifferent. The perfection of the individuals, for Hegel, is to live and breathe in the great whole of society ; but for Hegel the essential in the ethical world is some- thing which transcends the consciousness of any single individual. Though Wilhelm Wundt accentuates the importance of individual will more than Hegel, a similar view is found in his ethics. For Wundt " the total will," die Gcsammt-Wille, which manifests itself in the existence of society is the mightiest of all facts. It is imperish- able, and it is always right. The single individuals are perishable ; with all their endeavor and all their capacity for happiness, they are only drops in the ocean !

Such theories overvalue potentiality at the expense of actuality. It is true that actuality always lives on potentiality, and that indi- viduals live and work in virtue of social conditions. But that potentiality exists is known only from the fact that it can be trans- formed into actuality, and on this depends its value. The value of what Hegel calls " social substance," what Wundt calls " total will,"