Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/52

 MORAL OBLIGATION. 41 the three stages represented, say, by Bentham, Bain and Spencer. Each begins by determining the right or end and subordinates to this what should have been the postulate. The result, of course, is that morality coalesces with prudence. The three stages are marked by the aspect which obligation comes to assume. Bentham expels it, Bain admits it in an external way by handing it over to the police, and Spencer absorbs it by identifying it with exist- ence. No other conclusion than this was possible : what ought to be, is, and that not more as a philosophical reality than in every the most contingent action. If there is a science of ethical practice at all, obligation cannot be subordinated to the end but the end must be subordinated to obligation. And so we repeat our question What are the necessary characteristics of the ethical end in view of the postulate of morality as such ? They are, that it be at once subjective and objective and equally valid and harmonious in both respects. It must be subjective, that is, it must present some interest to my desire before I could recognise it as a law to me. It must be objective, that is, it must present some interest external to my individual desires as such before I can recognise it as a law at all. An obligation is jusfc the principle which ex- presses the equal validity of the same law as subjective and objective. The end must be subjective but not indivi- dualistic, and objective but not external. With this criterion of ends determined by the necessary postulate of Ethics, let us inquire how far it is satisfied by the ordinary ideals of moral systems. It is apparent how the history of Hedonism has throughout its progressive career endeavoured to realise it. Beginning from the So- phistical position of unlimited subjectivity, which is to Ethics what Pyrrhonism is to Metaphysics, i.e., what neither can answer in any other way than by neglect, Hedonism has sought to find some end which should be at once of equal subjective and objective validity. But, though it has passed from a formula of pure egoism to a formula of pure altruism, it has failed to find an end which shall preserve equally the rights of the subject and the rights of the object : and this, just because it has always been forced by its presupposition to occupy only one of the two standpoints, and has consequently been unable to do justice to the other, since of themselves they manifest no inherent connexion with each other. Not that this dilemma has not been seen. Every system of Utilitarianism has been an attempt to overcome it and nothing else. But it cannot be