Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/344

 THE FINAL AIM OF MOEAL ACTION. 343 been taught, men who have consecrated themselves to a right life have interpreted both this consecration and its sequences upon their own intellect, emotions and will, from a theological point of view. They have turned their atten- tion more to the transcendental cause of their experiences than to the experiences themselves. They have regarded these as too sacred for scientific examination, or as in their nature inscrutable. The consequence is that the deepest moral experience of mankind during the last eighteen hundred years has not received just scientific investigation. To be sure, the testimony of Christians concerning their religious experience has not been critical ; still, it is of price- less value to ethical science, and in return ethical science would become of priceless value to religion. For the latter is in need of a scientific basis, and ethics could furnish it with such in those sequences of moral consciousness which are the empirical correlative of its theological dogmas. And, on the other hand, ethics would find in the truths of sub- jective religious experience the spirit which should animate its rules. But a more subjective turn of thought is needed, not only on the part of scientific moralists, but also on the part of society at large ; for the scientist here must use the observations of as many men as possible to supplement the results of his own innor experience. No doubt it is possible for men to become too introspective, just as it is possible to carry anything else to extremes ; but that degree of introspection which a subjective final aim would induce would not be excessive. And if to make the inner moral sanction the centre of attention or the sole interest through- out life would predispose one too strongly to a subjective turn of mind, that is a very different thing from making it the final aim. There is no practical reason why, nor is it psychologically possible that, any final aim soever should remain the centre of attention to us. The boy who has an appointed lesson to get will fail to finish his task if he keeps all the time thinking about finishing. Yet, on the other hand, the boy who loses himself in the details of his work is also in danger of not finishing. It is necessary to the accomplishment of any end that the attention be turned from it to the means of accomplishing it, and yet not turned so wholly away that the end drop entirely out of sight. It would be, on the one hand, a confusion of thought or of words to say that an object was the end of a certain ac- tion and at the same time to admit that it was not consciously striven after ; for end means something consciously aimed at. But on the other hand it does not follow, because the