Page:Philosophical Review Volume 11.djvu/80

64 service coincide," but he is more interested in emphazing the position that full and entire harmony between self-completion and self-surrender is impossible on any theory whatsoever. Hence "morality is inevitably a matter of compromise between conflicting tendencies" (p. 277). The conclusions reached in the fourth chapter, regarding the types of virtue, are reexamined, retailed anew in a slightly different form, and thus reenforced by the investigation of "moral ideals and moral progress," which occupies the fifth chapter. Before passing to other points of the treatment, special attention should be called to Mr. Taylor's admirable insistence upon the view "that human development needs for its complete interpretation the ancient principle of conscious teleology as well as the principle of unconscious evolution" (p. 232), and also to his fine remarks, directed against "the extravagant opinion that nothing is morally blameworthy except failure," for the purpose of vindicating "the moral sentiments of the unsophisticated by showing that it is morally better to fail in some purposes than to succeed in others" (p. 254). Mr. Taylor endeavors to anticipate the criticisms by which "Hegelian egoists of the school of Green" and also "evolutionary altruists," like Spencer, may attempt to refute the views advanced regarding the duality of the types, ideals, and progress of morality. Such evolutionary views of ethics as Spencer's rest upon a confusion of 'evolution' and 'progress,' the identification of which is due to a misconception of biological development and adaptation. One might point out, however, that an evolutionary moralist could maintain that, whether the development of human society be due to 'unconscious evolution' or to 'conscious teleology,' nevertheless, increased socialization necessarily tends towards the reconciliation of egoistic and altruistic conduct. Such a rejoinder, however, Mr. Taylor believes is refuted by a recital of the facts. With advancing civilization the two lines become increasingly divergent.—In regard to the former set of objectors mentioned, who argue that the author's views "are vitiated by the unphilosophical abstraction from one another of the individual and his environment," the thinker of Hegelian type may justly reply that Mr. Taylor labors under a misconception, clearly indicated from the very phrase "metaphysical egoists" which he uses to describe the position. The Hegelian insists upon a synthesis, but not upon an absolute identification. A synthesis of differences—even of opposites—does not imply, it is needless to remark, that all differences are annulled, or that one of two opposites must be resolved into the other. It is an 'abstract identity' that Mr. Taylor has been seeking, and because he fails