Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/170

Rh can still walk in the light of the ideal. One can say: “I will act as if all these conflicting aims were mine. I will respect them all. I will act in the light that has brought me my moral insight. And to that end I will act at each moment as one would act who saw himself about to suffer in his own person and at one time all the consequences of his act for all the aims that are to be affected by what he does.” But now the ideal becomes practical, now it ceases to be barren. It is no longer the mere wish that was at the heart of our skepticism, a wish gloomy, inactive, terrified at the warfare that is in the world. It is a cool determination. It says: “This disease of conflicting aims cannot now be cured, but it shall be dealt with. These aims are as my own. I will deal with them as such. I will work for their harmony.” If one doubts this ideal, then he doubts the very foundation of ethical doubt itself. But this is not all that our absolute ideal accomplishes. Not merely for the moment of insight does this ideal give an aim; but it extends itself to the other moments of life. It says: “The highest good would be realizable only in case not merely the aim of this moment of insight itself, but the aims of all the conflicting wills in the world, were brought into conformity to this insight. The highest good would be attainable if all the conflicting wills realized fully one another. For then, not abandoning each its own aim, each would have added thereto, through insight, the aims of the others. And all the world of individuals would act as one Being, having a single Universal Will. Harmony would in fact be attained.”