Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/196




 * Die wahre Freiheit ist als Sittlichkeit dies, dass der Wille nicht subjektive, d. i. eigensüchtige, sondern allgemeinen Inhalt zu seinen Zwecken hat. —, Encyclopädie.

we have been saved from our ethical skepticism even in and through the very act of thinking it out. Here, as elsewhere in philosophy, the truth is to be reached, neither by dreading nor by discountenancing the doubt, but by accepting, experiencing, and absorbing the doubt, until, as an element in our thought, it becomes also an element in an higher truth. We do not say, therefore, to commend our moral principle, as it has just been propounded, that it is immediately acceptable to all healthy consciences, or that it is a pious, or a respectable, or a popularly recognized principle. We say only this: Doubt rationally about moral doctrines, and your doubt itself, if real, thorough-going, all-embracing, merciless, will involve this very principle of ours. We find the principle by means of the universal doubt, and it is this method of procedure that distinguishes the foregoing discussion of the basis of morals from many of those that have previously been concerned with this problem. To point out that the average man, or the reputed saint, or the inspired