Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/197

172 prophet, or the great poet, or the reader himself, whenever he is enthusiastic has or has had a given ideal, is not to justify this ideal. Yet of such a nature are the justifications that most moralists have given for their ideals. If we have gained our result by any better method, that was because we were free to doubt all those pretended defenses of the good. We have found the nature of the absolute and universal will, by rigidly questioning the significance of all the individual wills.

But our ideal must be made to do work in the world. It must accomplish something, by solving for us a few concrete moral problems, such as actually trouble men. Even the present discussion must consider some of these consequences of our general principle; for religious philosophy, in seeking an ideal for life, does not want a barren abstraction, but such an ideal as can also be our guide. What does our principle tell a man to do?

The principle, as is plain, may be viewed in two ways. If by moral insight we mean what the last chapter defijied, namely, insight into the fact of the existence of other conscious wills besides our own, coupled with full rational appreciation of this truth, then our principle may be viewed as saying to each of us: Get and keep the moral insight as an experience, and do all that thou canst to extend among men this experience. On the other hand, the principle may be equally well viewed as saying: Act out in each case what the moral insight bids thee do; that is, as before explained, Having made thyself, in so far as thou art able, one with all the