Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/109

 ETHICS FROM A PURELY PRACTICAL STANDPOINT. 9S consist not in a succession of agreeable feelings valued in proportion to their total amount irrespective of their source but in a certain quality of life. These contentions justify the moralist in appealing on the one hand to a larger or social self against the narrower and unsocial, and on the other hand to a higher life as against a lower. If asked to define what he means by the social self and the higher life the Idealist will have his work cut out for him. If the answer he elaborates is a little vague who can blame him ? Aristotle warns us against expecting the same kind of exactitude in Ethics as w& have in Mathematics. So does Mrs. Bain. And if there is any part of Ethics in which want of accuracy is more excusable than in another it is in sketching the outlines of the moral ideal. But all this only means that the acquirements of an ethical priesthood (in the necessity of which it is interesting to notice that Mrs. Bain along with Mr. Spencer and the Positivists believes) must go deeper than a mere familiarity with the formulae of primitive Utilitarianism and a turn for the arithmetic of pleasure. They must include among other things at least some sympathy with the best ideals of human character and some insight into the general trend of social progress. J. H. MUIRHEAD.