Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/612

596 the theory, is a general conception which is so true to reality that it lends itself easily and almost inevitably to more specific and concrete statement, the moment circumstances demand such particularization. So far as the theory is 'false,' so far, that is, as it is not a statement, however general, of the facts of the case, so far, instead of lending itself to more specific statement, instead of fertilizing itself whenever occasion requires, it resists such specification and stands aloof as a bare generality. It neither renders individual experiences luminous, nor is fructified by them, gathering something from them which makes its own statement of reality somewhat more definite and thus more ready for use another time.

Now let us return to our moral case. The same law holds here. Ethical theory must be a general statement of the reality involved in every moral situation. It must be action stated in its more generic terms, terms so generic that every individual action will fall within the outlines it sets forth. If the theory agrees with these requirements, then we have for use in any special case a tool for analyzing that case; a method for attacking and reducing it, for laying it open so that the action called for in order to meet, to satisfy it, may readily appear. The theory must not, on one hand, stand aloof from the special thing to be done, saying, "What have I to do with thee? Thou art empirical and I am the metaphysics of conduct," nor must it, on the other hand, attempt to lay down fixed rules in advance exhausting all possible cases. It must wait upon the instruction that every new case, because of its individuality, its uniqueness, carries with it; but it must also bring to this special case such knowledge of the reality of all action, such knowledge of the end and process involved in all deeds, that it translates naturally into the concrete terms of this special case. If, for example, I object to the categorical imperative of Kant, or the pleasure of the Hedonist, that it does not assist practice, I do not mean that it does not prescribe a rigid body of fixed rules telling just what to do in every contingency of action; I mean that the theory so far comes short as a statement of the character of all moral action that it does not lend itself to uncovering, to getting at