Page:Philosophical Review Volume 29.djvu/539

No. 6.] chance has shouldered with an enterprise which it then seems cowardly to desert, or who is conscious in himself of powers to meet some crisis for which no one else seems to have the ability or the will—such an one may find it his duty to sacrifice those ends which he really is eager for, and endure, in his vocation, the exactions of an uncongenial taskmaster. One might fairly be asked to test such an instance very carefully, and first make sure he is not under the influence of the romantic illusion. It is not always that the facts bear out this assumption of a man's indispensableness; and it may very well be false pride, or an unacknowledged hankering after all for the perquisites of his position, which prevents him from finding a substitute, and turning to ways that attract him. Still in principle the thing does exist. And where it exists, it will seem to reverse at times the relative rank of duty and inclination, and substitute considerations of purely objective value for the more personal appeal of this or that particular form of good; though I still contend that normally this impersonal calculation is subordinate to the ends chosen for us by our constitution. The ideal of 'living one's own life' is not, then, one to be accepted uncritically; it needs limitations and qualifications. But since, to set the limits, we need the help of principles not yet fully determined, I shall postpone any further remarks to a later point. All I am concerned at present to maintain is, that in general the good life is not an abstraction, but the life that satisfies some individual man; and he therefore can expect no real guidance till he sees the relevancy to the problem of the personal leadings that alone give 'satisfaction' a meaning. And accordingly the attempt to meet the problem of duty by an objective and impersonal calculation of the good, is bound to be a failure.

If, therefore, we are to discover principles that will help in assigning actual content to the good life, it must be in connection with a scrutiny of human nature itself, on the side of its concrete springs of action. Here interests of various kinds exist which constitute my being; can we lay down generally how they must be utilized?

The first and most obvious possibility is one that has already