Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/208

Rh utilitarian principle of benevolent hedonism, even if right in its application to the far-off future, has but little direct practical application to a life that must to-day be judged by such standards as these.

But has the principle of hedonism any truth even in its application to a world where all had attained the moral insight as an experience? If we consider the higher human activities, whose worth is not merely provisional, but permanent, the activities that men will carry on when they have freed themselves from selfish strife, is the aggregate happiness as such the goal of the action of this unselfish society?

There are existent already among men activities that belong to spheres where selfish strife is, relatively speaking, suppressed. These activities are foreshadowings of the life of the possible future humanity that may come to possess the moral insight. Art, science, philosophy, are the types of such life. These activities form still but a small part of the aggregate work of men, aud so it must long be; jet, though subordinated in extent to the pressing moral needs of an imperfect state, these activities are already among the highest in our lives. But now, are they valuable because of the aggregate happiness that they cause, or for some other reason? To judge of this we must study the definition of the second, more permanent class of human duties.

Suppose then that the first and provisional aim of human conduct had beeji attained, and that all men