Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/201

176 this is the first commandment. The direct consequence is that, so regarded, the first duty of man in the present day cannot be either to get happiness himself, or, in view of this present state of human life, to make other people happy. All that he may indeed be in some measure required to do, but not, in the present state of the world, as an end, but solely as a means to an end. This at all events is not the day for contentment, but for work; and joy is now a proper part of human life chiefly in so far as it tends to preserve, to increase, or to foster the moral insight. Here we have the present practical solution suggested for all the questions about the right and wrong of so-called hedonism. Hedonism is the product of an imperfect understanding of the moral insight. Benevolent hedonism springs from the insight that men like to be happy. Realizing this, the believer in universal hedonism says: Make men happy so far as thou canst. But this principle of hedonism is surely not the immediate truth for this present time, whatever may or may not turn out to be the case in future. For to labor to increase happiness may for the present mean to increase the moral blindness of men Some sorts of happiness tend to make us blind, as has in fact been shown in a former chapter. Unless a man experiences very bitterly the reality of the conflict of wills in this world, the moral insight is apt to forsake him. But until the moral insight becomes practically universal, the highest good for humanity cannot be got. Therefore all forms of happiness that hinder rather than help the moral insight are evil, and we ought to do