Page:Ethical Theory of Hegel (1921).djvu/56

 there must be egoistic pleasure somewhere before there can be the altruistic pleasure caused by sympathy with it. Obviously, therefore, each must be egoistic in due amount, even if only with the view of giving others the possibility of being altruistic. So far from the sum of happiness being made greater if all make general happiness the exclusive end, the sum disappears entirely.’ Spencer sees clearly enough that in a reciprocal system the nature of each term forbids that the other terms with which it co-operates should be self-contained, and also that the other terms are not this one but are definitely other than it. His point is that in the system of altruistic pleasures each individual has no substantial satisfaction and depends for his pleasures on others who have none of their own to give.

Now, how is this difficulty to be surmounted? Any solution is to be rejected which simply drops out an element and falls back on some conception already shown in the dialectic to be imperfect. We must find some conception which will retain all that this one has in it, and yet avoid its defect. This is, in brief, what Hegel does. He brings us to see that in a reciprocal system we have something which is inherently more than a set of mutually determining parts. The paradox which troubles us rests on an assumption, viz. that we have to begin from the point of view of an isolated individual. It is quite true, for example, that if we have to understand the moral ideal by beginning with the pleasure of a private individual and working over from that to the others, the whole conception is self-contradictory. For in stating that the pleasure of the individual comes only from that of others we have robbed the individual of a substantiality which cannot be restored to him from others which are in a like case. The step we have to take is to recognize that there is more present than one term and others, there is the whole. We have assumed the substantial unity running through the terms, but we have not thought of taking it as the main feature and proper starting-point. We have tried to enter the system at the side, as it were, and we failed; we may now try to enter into the spirit of the system as a whole and recognize that it is the true individual.

Before proceeding, we may gather together the main points