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barren and unfair polemic. For a is always partly good, ß never quite
good. Ignore the corresponding propositions, that ß is also good, and a
also imperfect, and we have an admirable argument for anything. For
this purpose the words  true and  higher are useful. Thus the oppo-
nent of marriage, if confronted with the goodness of order, may reply
that the true, or the higher, order is freedom. But then the supporter of
marriage may enter on the same sophistry, by representing that the true,
Studies in Hegelian Cosmology/91
or the higher, freedom is order. Both propositions are quite true. In the
supreme good, order and freedom are so transcended, that they are com-
patible indeed, identical. It is true that the perfect forms of each are
identical, and that the perfect form of either would always include and
surpass the other s imperfect form. The sophistry lies in making this the
ground for preferring the imperfect form of the one to the imperfect
form of the other. When we consider how short and simple such a device
is, as compared with a laborious empirical calculation of consequences,
and that it can be applied on any side of any dispute, we may expect that
it will in the future furnish as convenient a shelter for prejudices and
indolence as innate moral ideas, or the healthy instincts of the human
mind.
108. Another class of difficulties occurs in which the ends are not in
themselves incompatible, but in which the inadequacy of the means ren-
ders it necessary to sacrifice one at any rate partially. We have con-
tinually to divide our energy, our time, and our money, between several
objects, each of which has admittedly a claim to some, and which could
absorb between them, with good results, more than the total amount we
have to divide. Ethical problems arise here to which the answers must
be quantitative, and I fail to see what hope there is of settling them by
means of the idea of the supreme good.
A man with some leisure may admit and will generally be wise if
he does that he should devote some of it to work of public utility, and
some to direct self-improvement. But how much to each? He could very
probably use all his leisure for either purpose with good results. At any
rate, he will in the great majority of cases often find an hour which
he could use for either. Which shall he sacrifice? Shall he attend a com-
mittee meeting, or spend the evening studying metaphysics? These diffi-
culties come to all of us. The contemplation of the supreme good will
tell us, it may be granted, that both metaphysics and social work have
an element of good in them. But our contemplation cannot tell us which
to prefer to the other, for the supreme good chooses neither, but, tran-
scending both, enjoys both in their full perfection simultaneously, which
is just what, in the present imperfect state of things, we cannot do. And
it is no good telling us to neglect neither, or to make a division of our
time. For a division cannot be made in the abstract. We must make it at
a particular point, and assign the marginal hour of which we have been
speaking either to philanthropy or to metaphysics.
The distribution of wealth presents us continually with similar ques-
92/John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart
tions. A man with a thousand a year would probably feel that he ought
to give something to relieve distress, and also to give his children a
better education than the average child gets at present. But this abstract
conviction will not divide his income for him. Shall he send his sons to
a second-rate school, and pension his old nurse, or shall he send them to
a first-rate school, and let her go to the workhouse? Problems like these
are the real ethical difficulties of life, and they are not to be solved by
generalities nor even by contemplating the idea of the supreme good,
in which there are neither school-bills nor workhouses, and whose per-
fections are in consequence irrelevant to the situation.
109. It may be said that it is not within the province of ethics to deal
with individual cases such as this. And in one sense this is true. A sys-
tem of ethics is not bound to lay down beforehand the precise action a
man ought to take in every conceivable contingency. This would, to
begin with, be impossible, owing to the number of possible contingen-
cies. And, even if possible, it would be undesirable. In applying rules to
a given set of circumstances we require not so much philosophical in-
sight as common sense and special knowledge of those circumstances.
The philosopher is not likely, perhaps, to have more common sense than
the man whose action is being considered. And the latter is much more
likely to understand his own circumstances for himself than the philoso-
pher is to understand them for him. The particular problems of conduct,
therefore, are best solved at the place and time when they actually oc-
cur. But it is, none the less, the duty of ethics to provide the general
principles upon which any doubtful point of conduct ought to be settled.
It would plainly be absurd to assert that any one distribution of our time
and wealth among good objects would be as good as any other distribu-
tion. It would he still more absurd to assert that a man who desired to
act rightly would not care whether he made the best possible distribu- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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