Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/359

 ABSTRACT AND PRACTICAL ETHICS 345

which sets before us as worthy ends ideas which are really practical in the sense that they are in harmony with the moral aspirations of mankind at large, and must sooner or later be realized in the actual relations of human society. How are we to describe such ideas in terms of the distinction already drawn ? Are they abstract or are they concrete ? If the kind we called abstract are the kind that are really practical, then the man who wishes to be practical will do well to suspect the gifts of the ethical society. If, on the other hand, I can succeed in showing that to be practical we must be concrete, I shall have established a pre- sumption in favor of their utility. Let us see.

II.

There is undoubtedly a common prejudice that the ideas that can be realized in practice must be of the kind I have called abstract. We cannot drive six abreast through Temple Bar and we cannot get everything that we wish. We must cut our coat according to our cloth and the cloth is never enough for the pat- tern we should like to cut. It is in the nature of things that we should be content with partial success. Practice is made up of compromises, and blessed is the man who does not expect too much.

Now compromise is a large subject and I do not propose to enter on it here. It is sufficient to point out that it is one thing to accept the conditions under which our ideal of what is best must be realized, it is another to give up the hope of ever realizing it and settling down contentedly to live from hand to mouth. The former is compromise in one sense. The Greeks would have called it practical wisdom. The latter is compromise in another. Modern politicians call it opportunism. The admission that in practical policy we must go a step at a time is therefore in no wise inconsistent with the contention that no noble and lasting work was ever done except under the inspiration of some distant and for the present unrealizable idea. And such an ideal, if the work is to be really noble and lasting, must be of the kind for which I am contending : it must be a concrete ideal taking in all the