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204 BERNARD BOSANQUET I alternatives ; but a criterion other than the essence is just a concomitant circumstance ; and to attend to concomitant circumstances instead of the essence, where the alternatives have to be constructed out of. a continuous mass of experi- ence, is a pretty sure road to fallacy. Ideas become fruitful, say in law or politics or science, just in proportion to the precision with which essentials as opposed to concomitants are retained before the mind. 1 Moral action is a very strong case of this principle. It is a very serious matter, indeed, for the mind to be pre-occupied throughout its practical deliberations with ideas which are not of the essence of what it really aims to achieve. It seems likely that such considerations must obtain a weight in the moral disposition to which their nature gives them no real claim. (b) We should note the admission that to some extent we can see what conduct embodies the Supreme Good least imperfectly (sect. 102). In the later argument (sect. 105) this is, I think, hardly admitted to the same extent. And it might be asked in general how we can judge the fitness of our criterion if the lower degrees of perfection which it is to indicate are in themselves unknowable. But I suppose the answer would be that we presume its appropriateness on abstract grounds (sect. 125). ii. It is important to bear in mind that any criterion must be individual in application, though the ultimate- principle which it involves may be capable of being stated in the abstract. Thus when it is said, " Every moral judg- ment claims to be objective and demands assent from all men " "if A asserts that to be right which B asserts to be wrong, one of them must be in error," these are merely the ideal logical postulates which apply to all science or rational judgment as such. They do not mean, and must not be- taken to imply, either that right and wrong, in any one's conduct, can, in fact, be readily judged by outsiders, or that right and wrong can be in detail the same for A and B,. as long as A is a different person from B or in a different position. The application of a criterion to actual moral conduct must always be of the same nature as the applica- tion of scientific principles to the solution of a highly individualised problem. Such a solution is " universal," be- cause it brings to bear the spirit and content of a highly organised system upon a single point ; but it is not " general " in the current sense of the word. The criterion, therefore, as applied, must be a concrete system, according 1 Green, Prolegomena, sect. 308.