Page:Philosophical Review Volume 13.djvu/672

658 with knowledge of the right, that it is only by the manifestation of this trait that such knowledge can be acquired. The knowledge of the material good and the disposition to act rightly are by no means wholly separable factors in conduct. To a certain extent the future event is ever hidden from us, and no peculiar goodness of heart can enable a man to choose the fortunate means to each desired end. But to a very large extent the material rightness of conduct depends upon the agent's recognition of the concrete social relations which envelop him; and the essential condition of such recognition is his previous willingness to act upon such insight as he has possessed. For, I repeat, it is exactly by this means that the force of these relations has become generally recognized, and that they have accordingly become inherent in the very constitution of society. There are things which a man ought to know; the ignorance of which, though it may be moral justification for a particular act considered by itself, is none the less convincing evidence of his general worthlessness.

This relation between knowledge and disposition is, moreover, a reciprocal one. Not only is knowledge of the right only to be developed by right conduct, but such knowledge is itself an element in the disposition which issues in right conduct,—a logical circle, which, in this day of the world, should dismay no one. Will and intellect are no longer regarded as separately explicable functions. It is not an accident to knowledge that it issues in practice; it is essentially practical. True, the development of knowledge and of virtue may be conveniently distinguished, and it is quite permissible to say that such a one is better, though not wiser, than another. But we must recognize that the ideal which is lived up to is, in its very content, a different ideal from the same 'ideal' when it is comparatively ineffectual. The latter lacks the minor premises that bind the vague universal with the definite particular instances,—premises, it is true, which are themselves no unfeeling intellections, but appreciations of the worth of things, while they are quite as far from being abstractly affective, devoid of logical intention. The very motive of sympathy, through whose agency the individual