Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/391

THK HOCTRINK OF THF. SCMMFM BONUM. H77 best way to gain happiness is never to think ahout it. What you think of is your maxim. If you never think about happi- ness your maxim ceases to be egoistic. Mill's observation is a golden truth, but it gives away the basis of his ethics. 16. Nor shall we find anything more workable in the self-realisation doctrine, a subtle form of eudsemonism which tries to persuade itself that it belongs to another class by quarrelling with its own relations. There is no doubt that the self-realisers belong scientifically to the same type as the utilitarians against whom they fulminate. Both found themselves upon a maxim of egoism. For to explain virtue as self-realisation can only mean that it should be each man's aim to build up an excellent character for himself. This seems to be the import of such formulae as " Be a person " and " Realise the rational self ". But sometimes we hear it said when this interpretation is advanced, "You must remember that the truest self-realisation is often self-sacrifice ". This is either a truism or a contra- diction of the plainest deliverance of self -observation. If it only means that one's character is improved by a certain amount of self-denial, nobody will care to dispute it. It is false if it means that in making sacrifices we aim at improving our characters. Has the soldier any such thought when he faces the cannon ? The mental attitude of the self-realiser is quite different from that of the self-sacrificer. To take an example from history, no one can seriously maintain that the same spirit animated the calm self-cultivation of a Goethe, aloof from turmoil, and the devotion of his contemporaries who risked everything to deliver Germany from the French. Thus, if self-realisation means anything more than a vague resolve to be good, it means the cult of character, what Goethe called raising the pyramid of one's existence as high as one possibly can. But this will never work in practice. We have not the space here to detail the reasons why. 1 It must suffice to say that if men really set the per- fection of their characters above the performance of their duties, the work of the world would be brought to a stand- still and society would dissolve into its elements which would be suicidal for the self-realisers. If any one thinks the maxim practicable let him try the experiment in his own person and he will find himself sinking into such an abyss of ] trigger}' and pedantry that he will be glad to struggle back again, if the importunities or execrations of his friends have allowed him to get very far. But, after all, there is no 'They are given in the fnternntitinal Journal of Kthicn for April, 1898, in an article called " Self-Realisation as a Working Moral Principle".