Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/72

Rh view, still must we not dig much deeper to find the theoretical foundation on which this glorious structure rests?

We have been seeking to illustrate our fundamental difficulty in ethics, — one that is too frequently concealed by rhetorical devices. The uncertainty here illustrated results from the difficulty of giving any reason for the choice of a moral ideal. Single acts are judged by the ideal; but who shall judge the judge himself? Some one, as Plato, or some Stoic, or Jesus, gives us a moral ideal. If we are of his followers, the personal influence of the Master is enough. Then we say: “I take this to be my guide,” and our moral doctrine is founded. But if we are not of the faithful, then we ask for proof. The doctrine says: “Behold the perfect Life, or the eternal Ideas, or the course of Nature, or the will of God, or the love of the Father. To look on those realities is to understand our ideal. If you remember those truths, you will hesitate not to do as we say.” But still the doubter may be unwilling to submit. He may say to Plato: “The tyrant is easy to find who will laugh at you when you talk of the peace of philosophic contemplation, who will insist that his life of conflict and of danger is fuller and sweeter in its lurid contrasts and in its ecstasies of sensuous bliss, than are all your pale, stupid joys of blank contemplation. And if the tyrant says so, who shall decide against him? Has not many a man turned with eagerness from the dull life of the