Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/166

Rh behold, made practical, brought down from its lonesome height, my Ideal very simply means the Will to direct my acts towards the attainment of universal Harmony. It requires me to act with this my insight always before me. It requires me to consider all the conflicting aims that will be affected by each one of my acts, and to dispose my act with reference to them all. It sets up this new moral principle before me, a principle perfectly catholic, and above all that skepticism which we have felt with regard to the special moral aims. This Principle is: So act as thou wouldst will to act if all the consequences of thy act for all the aims that are anywhere to be affected by this act, could be realized by thee now and in this one indivisible moment. Or more briefly put: Act always in the light of the completest insight into all the aims that thy act is to affect. This rule is no capricious one, chosen for some individual reason, but an universal maxim, since its choice depends on the general realization of all the conflicting aims of the world of life. And thus we have after all found, in the very heart of our skepticism itself, a moral doctrine. In the midst of the warfare of individual wills, we have caught sight of an Universal Will.

“But no,” some one will say: “All this is still mere caprice. Has it not in fact fallen already a prey to the same skepticism that pursued other moral aims? For first, you have tried to found it on a physical fact, namely, on the fact that only by a given