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 THE DOCTRINE OF THE SUMMTM BONUM. 381 was a man of rather solitary habits in practical mattera not very closely in touch or sympathy with his fellow-citizens. Notwithstanding this seclusion, or, perhaps, because of it, he was an ardent practical reformer, violently, and on tho whole justly, discontented with the legal and political insti- tutions of his native country. And in the task of planning and advocating he brought a keenly logical and sceptical intellect to bear, impatient of everything that looked like unwarranted assumption, and eager to bring everything to the test of objective measurement. A man with this type of mind would have many difficulties about a moral-sense doctrine of ethics. He would question the very existence of a moral sense, insomuch as he could discern no agreement among its various so-called pronouncements. He would point out that it offered no criterion for practical reform, indeed was cited in defence of every abuse by the party of obstruction ; so that for these practical purposes resort was necessary to an objective, definitely ascertainable standard, like that of pleasure and pain. These are powerful objections to the moral-sense doctrine. They can only be met by insisting on a fact which Bentham in his seclusion was ill fitted to appreciate, namely, that there is a substantial unity of principle in men's moral judgments enough to justify one form of the doctrine which he rejected. 22. Thirdly we must take account of a yet subtler influence, one which does not come into play till that stage of philosophical development when the "ideal scepticism," as Eeid calls it, appears upon the scene. According to the subjective idealist argument a man is shut up within his circle of impressions and ideas ; and, as Hume explains to us, can never get out of it into the objective world save by an assumption more or less illegitimate. Now this is totally irreconcilable with that unselfish appreciation of excellence which I have suggested to be the essence of morality. If we suppose an almost inconceivable case and imagine a sub- jective idealist who made devotion to his own perfections the guiding principle of his life, that devotion would be something quite different from the moral devotion of ordin- ary men. Morality is a principle of objectification ; to act morally is to declare a belief in one kind of non-subjective existence. I admit that every variety of the moral-sense theory is not equally irreconcilable with subjective idealism. We can imagine a subjective idealist who believes he has a moral sense which tells him which are better and which are worse among his subjective motives. But then the em-