Page:Philosophical Review Volume 29.djvu/364

350 In so doing we shall all do well. For while the ideals of ethical theory can forecast the individual's deliverance from his peril and uncertainty, they cannot determine its time or manner of accomplishment. They can recall for him something of the happiness and energy of life which he has lost. By holding his thoughts upon himself, they can bring him to see that for the regaining of this lost and hoped-for quality of life there must be a changed relation on his part toward the obvious pressing elements of his moral environment. But instead of the ideals, these elements themselves must, in their own right and in a sense from without, be the effective agents in suggesting the details of the change. Ideals, instead of solving his problem, help him to restrain his spontaneous fears, attractions and aversions, and turn his attention with interest toward the sources from which he must gather the material out of which his final purpose will be fashioned. Towards these sources he will hold himself in a * humility ' which ethical theory can only construe as an amiable or an ignoble human weakness. He will himself another day be likely to repudiate or forget the service they have rendered him.

At least provisionally, then, let us enumerate these sources of possible guidance for the individual under three main heads, viz.: the authorities, institutional and otherwise, which the individual acknowledges; his own private impulsions and desires; and the appeals, whether actually spoken or imputed to others by himself, which other living beings make to him.

I wish now, in conclusion, to suggest a number of principles by which, as I believe, men do, in practice, assess the probable weight and credit which should be accorded to these guides in conduct. That these principles are none of them new and unfamiliar is surely no reason for denying them a preliminary place and a part to play in the method of ethics. On the contrary, their really universal use in the thoughtful ordering of our personal conduct and our opinions upon social questions would argue the desirability of bringing them together and defining the place in an organized ethical method that they must fill. In the