Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/510

490 But, according to the universal teaching of all schools of materialism, the true criterion of the value of an action is its pleasurable tendency. Show that it is not conducive to human gratification, and it ceases to be virtuous. Let materialism efface from the world the old spiritual dogmas on which ethics have hitherto rested, and the somber picture of the great poet of the last century will assuredly be realized:

"Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires And, unawares, Morality expires: Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine, Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine."

It may be said that consequences are the scarecrows of fools; that things are what they are, and that it is our wisdom to see them as they are; that their consequences will be what they will be, and can in no way alter the facts of which they are the outcome. This is true enough, but it is not the whole truth. Consequences assuredly do deserve our attention. "Exitus acta probat" is a faithful saying, and with it accords that utterance of a diviner wisdom, "By their fruits ye shall know them." A reductio ad absurdum is a good logical process. Why? Because man consists in reason. And so the fact, if fact it be, as I believe, that the doctrines of materialism issue in unreason, in that "universal darkness" of which Pope prophesied, raises a strong presumption against them. If they are true, the last word of philosophy is spoken in the verse of Baudelaire, "Resigne-toi, mon ame, dors ton sommeil de brute." But to tell me that this is the conclusion of the whole matter, is in flat contradiction to my deepest and most assured certitudes. Certain to me is the reasonableness of the universe. It is cosmos, not chaos. Be its final cause immeasurably distant from our knowledge, yet every part of the process through which it moves is found, when examined, to be intelligible. "Nothing is that errs from law." There are mysteries, indeed, and locked doors, everywhere. As Hegel saw, every convex is concave, and every concave convex. But this is not contradiction nor unreason. Certain also to me is the supremacy of duty. Whatever is doubtful, of this I am ineffably sure, that right I must do, whatever the result; that on the side of right I must be, whether it triumph or not. And as certain to me is the sacredness of love. I do not speak of those amours de chair at which we have glanced with the French novelist, but of that passion for the ideal, which is the light of life:

"Luce intellettual, piena d'amore, Amor di vero ben pien di letizia, Letizia che trascende ogni dolore."

But that which in my heart is love, in my conscience justice, in my intellect reason, is one and the same thing; it is the primary truth of which my whole moral being is full; and any doctrine which contradicts it is condemned already, even if it were, apparently, as well established, as materialism is, manifestly, ill established. For, in