Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/171

146 our ideal has another precept to give us. It says: “Act in such wise as to extend this moral insight to others.” Here is a definite practical aim, and it justifies us in saying to all the conflicting wills: “You should respect one another.” For so in fact they all would do if they had the moral insight. And to have it, as we now see, is the prerequisite to the attainment of the highest good, namely, this ideal Harmony that we seek at the moment of moral insight.

We fear that such general discussion of what we have called the moral insight may seem, at first sight, too abstract to be real. We hasten to a more concrete study of this insight. Leaving those more abstract aims that have been used as the foundation of moral systems, let us study our moral insight as it applies to the special aims that come into conflict when a man is dealing with his neighbor. Let us see how just the considerations that we have applied to the conflict of ethical aims in general apply directly to the conflict between selfishness and unselfishness, which we so long and so vainly considered in the last chapter. This warfare of selfishness and unselfishness is indeed not the deepest of moral problems, and to solve the problem here involved is not, as some have supposed, to define forthwith the Highest Good. Yet we shall do well to fix our minds for the time on this special problem.

Why is selfishness easier to me than unselfishness? Because it is easier for me to realize my own future,