Page:Philosophical Review Volume 25.djvu/170

158 of resentment in the man who dissents from my judgment, or his failure to take stock intellectually of the whole relevant situation. In so far as the latter is the case, I reinforce my own judgment by thinking that he also will come round to it when he enlarges his survey; in the former case I simply say, again, that my attitude is the more truly human one, and has the future on its side.

There is a third form of repugnance which I seem to be able to distinguish from both of these. It is more peculiarly an intellectual emotion, and might be called the dislike of, or contempt for, that which is petty and unworthy of human powers. That we should be able to make judgments about relative importance, is easy to understand; indeed, this is just the quantitative judgment which I was speaking of previously. What I am at present calling attention to is the possibility that this may lend itself also to a judgment of qualitative difference, by the addition, to the mere judgment of more or less, of an active feeling of dislike toward the idea of the quantitatively inferior. As a matter of fact, I think that this frequently cooperates with other repugnances, and sometimes acts alone, to produce a judgment of moral quality. It is indeed a very unsafe feeling to follow blindly, since it so readily allies itself with our natural inclination to be snobs. But the feeling of contempt for the narrow and petty is in itself surely not incapable of justification. So a part of the objection to sensualism is, doubtless, a recognition of the insignificant character of its objects of ambition, in view of all the many interesting things that might be done in the world; the result does not look big enough to justify intellectually our practical claim for its supreme importance. So of self absorption in any form; when we consider it impartially, in a cool moment, then, in addition to the indignation to which some of its effects on other people may give rise, there is also a feeling of its trivialness as an end; what is the sense of my being wrought up about my private concerns in a universe which contains so many other things that dwarf them. Here is where I should be inclined to place Professor Sidgwick's principles. The intellectual judgment that the greater is more than the less, especially