Page:Philosophical Review Volume 25.djvu/167

No. 2.] easily be reduced to quantitative ones. Take the former illustration: if we set out to compare the life of sense enjoyment with the life of speculative thought in the narrower sense, which is the higher? In quantitative terms,—terms, say, of 'fulness of life,'—the advantage is at least not so obviously now on the side of intellect; if the life of the sensualist is narrow, so also, in other directions, is that of the scholar. And I am not certain that by everybody the latter ideal would be really approved in comparison. If then, as seems to be the case in spite of the quantitative uncertainty, the commoner judgment would still be that the scholar represents the higher qualities, we might be led to look for something other than 'fulness of life' to account for this. But now take a different case, and compare the life of the intellect with that of simple goodness. It clearly is true, again, that intelligent goodness is judged better by everybody than mere good feeling and good intentions; but is the man of mere intellect, who also is selfish and unfeeling, judged higher than the simple-minded man with a good heart? I cannot feel at all sure that there would be any approach to unanimity here, or even that a given man will be entirely clear about it in his own mind. But if we talk in quantitative terms, there will not be very much doubt perhaps that the former is in some real sense the 'bigger' man.

Now this suggests another formula that might be advanced, perhaps an addition to, perhaps only a correction of the previous one. It might be said that 'better' is equivalent to a thing's cosmic significance,—the part it plays, and the extent of its influence on the affairs of the world. This represents an actual and more or less useful form of judgment. We do rank men by their 'bigness.' When we are comparing men in the same general line of life, it is possible to do this with approximate accuracy. One man is a greater poet, a greater thinker, a greater general than another; he has, that is, a greater ability in a given direction, the ability being tested by results actual or possible. When it comes to comparing men in different lines, judgment is decidedly more tentative. Which was the greater man, Napoleon or Beethoven, Kant or Gladstone?—it is not obvious that the