Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/267

266 CRITICAL NOTICES : eludes both ethical and other ends? And in applying it to practical life, how are we to determine what is man's true mode of practical realisation of the self ? The answer given by Mr. Sorley is, of course, that since the individual man is an organic part of society his true self-realisa- tion in conduct must be social. Now it is exactly here that the theory of evolution becomes applicable to ethics. The social application of the Hegelian formula is really determined, not by a dialectical process, but by a more or less complete doctrine of historical evolution. Similarly the hedonism of the utilitarian school was conditioned by a social doctrine, according to which man, if, as critics point out, he is still regarded as an " isolated individual," is at the same time brought into relation with others by sympathy. What the disciples of Mr. Spencer are entitled to claim is that the theory of evolution in its full sense, as he has comprehended it, is capable of giving still more definite guidance to the formulae, by themselves too vague, of " greatest happiness" or " self-realisation ". " Self-realisation " has, no doubt, one advantage over " happi- ness " as a statement of the nature of the highest good. It excludes from the sphere of ethics those incidental pleasures that have nothing to do with the attainment oi ideal ends. These pleasures, which are the true object of the " hedonical calculus," really belong to an outlying portion of " the art of life". This is what Clifford seems to have in view in the passages referred to by Mr. Sorley in a note on p. 6. Clifford argues that "happiness" (regarded as a sum of pleasures) does not concern ethics except in so far as it makes men better citizens. But, if happiness of the kind referred to has no strictly ethical value, it does not fol- low that it has none at all. For the rest, Clifford's position is not really inconsistent with the view that happiness of a certain kind is part of the ideal end. This happiness may perhaps be dis- tinguished from isolated pleasures as being the accompaniment of an activity of the whole personality, and not merely of some partial stimulation. There is a distinction of this kind in Spinoza. The evolution-theory of ethics, Mr. Sorley remarks in one place, oscillates " from the theory which looks upon the ,/ti/nnitni /in/nnn as pleasure to that which finds it in activity " (pp. 199-200). This last view is especially that of Clifford, as developed, for ex- ample, in his article on "Cosmic Emotion " (l.<><-f>ir<'* tt>? /JW//x). But, as has been seen, Clifford's ethical doctrine is not in itself anti-hedonistic, any more than the theory that makes self- realisation the end. With the doctrine of self-realisation it has much in common. The idea of a social and individual activity of man put forth in opposition to the forces that tend to make him mechanically adapted to his environment an activity from within by which he becomes " more organic " may indeed be claimed as a justification, on the ground of " empirical evolution," of the really distinctive idea of the " rationalistic " school. And