Page:Philosophical Review Volume 4.djvu/97

81 different worth, and the important question is through which of these can the highest self be realized; and it would seem that some other standard was necessary for the determination of this point. However, the author tells us what he means by Self-realization. It "means that the several changing desires, instead of being allowed to pursue their several ways, and to seek each its own good or satisfaction, are so correlated and organized that each becomes instrumental to the fuller and truer life of the rational human self" (p. 206). That is to say, we realize ourselves when our impulses are organized, some subordinated as lower to others which are higher. Very good; but how is that organization effected? on what principle? No doubt, if effected, we shall realize our highest selves by heeding the comparative worths of our various impulses; but the question remains, which Professor Seth regards as the fundamental question in Ethics, namely, How these moral distinctions have been made. Self-realization follows upon their observance; but it is not that "single criterion which shall yield all such distinctions." What Professor Seth practically does is this: he accepts the intuitional theory and adds the remark that the virtuous man realizes his highest Self—even in suffering for the good. Self-realization is not an explanatory principle of morality; it is a supplementary faith that when we are moral we reach our truest selves, nay, that when called in the name of goodness to lose our lives we actually find our lives. But of course this does not tell us anything about the ground of moral distinctions, much less reveal a unitary ground of them all. You cannot get behind the deliverances of the moral consciousness and explain them by something outside. And when Professor Seth goes on to illustrate from philosophy and literature—and the latter illustrations make delightful reading—the theory of Self-realization, it is suggestive to find that the first name is that of the father of modern Intuitionism—Butler.

I have examined but little more than half the volume. In Part II., moral life is discussed from the point of view of the individual and of society,—the virtues in the former sphere being Temperance and Culture, and in the latter Justice and Benevolence. Here the author is seen at his best; his fine moral spirit and insight have free play, unhampered by the demands of speculation and careless about exhaustive analyses. He does not take up all the virtues; several in fact are omitted; nor does he "run down," in the manner of Professor Sidgwick, Justice, Benevolence, or any other portion of the chase; yet he sheds new light upon the nature and relations of the