Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/58

Rh be able to show it to us, so that we shall see it to be more than his whim. But thus he is in danger of forsaking his idealism. His position so far has therefore seemed to us an uncertain one. We have felt the force of his needs; but we have not been able to see as yet just how they are to be satisfied. The satisfaction of them would in fact be a complete ethical doctrine. And the foundation of such a doctrine is just what we here are seeking.

It is incumbent upon us yet further to show how the search for a moral ideal has in the past been hindered by the weight of this doubt about the exact relation of the real and the ideal. The controversy that the last chapter considered is a controversy endlessly repeated in the history of moral doctrines. Everywhere we find a moral ideal maintained by some devoted idealist as the one perfectly obvious aim for human life. Everywhere there stands over against this ideal some critic who says: “The choice of this aim for life is an accident. I reject this boastful ideal. For where in reality is found the firm basis of fact on which the ideal is founded?” Then possibly the idealist, relaxing the rigor of his idealism, points out in the external world some real or mythical support for his ideal. And thereupon either his critics reject the creed about the external world thus offered to them, or they deny the moral force of the supposed realities, or, again, themselves assuming an idealistic attitude, they reproach the idealist with his unworthy desertion of his own high faith, in that he has yielded to realistic demands, and has founded the lofty Ought on the paltry Is. And thus the