Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/325

II. THE FINAL AIM OF MOEAL ACTION. By STANTON COIT, Ph.D. ALL questions of morals resolve themselves practically into these two : What ought to be my final aim in life ? and "Vhat ought I to do to attain that end? Logically con- sidered, the adoption of the true end of life is only one of the many acts which a man ought to do ; so that these two questions resolve themselves into one : How ought I to live ? or, scientifically expressed, What is the universal distin- guishing characteristic of right action ? And yet ends of action in general are so controlling over the affections and appetites, that to adopt the true final aim may be regarded as the one duty of life, and to find out that end the one problem of ethics. For if a man pursues the true end of life, " it will follow," as Bacon says, " that he shall mould himself into all virtue at once. ... In obtaining virtue by habit, while a man practiseth temperance, he doth not profit much to fortitude nor the like ; but while he dedicateth and applieth himself to good ends, look ! what virtue soever the pursuit and passage towards those ends doth commend unto him, he is invested of a precedent disposition to con- form himself thereunto." And one can say of society quite as well as of the individual man that the pursuit of ends commends the proper means and invests of a precedent dis- position thereunto. It is accordingly because of this psycho- logical and social law that the determination of the final moral end of life becomes the main problem of ethics. To be sure, there is, as we have said, the broader question as to the universal criterion of right action. But this criterion has no significance except in its application. And it is not sufficient to apply it here and there, in isolated cases, to this or that act, under these or those special circumstances. It must be applied to the one creative act of conduct, the adop- tion of a final aim in life. In this way, and only in this way, shall we find the formative principle of conduct for the indi- vidual and the state ; and in finding that we shall have attained what hitherto has been lacking in ethics a sys- tematising principle. One might say that the universal criterion determines the circumference, but the final aim locates the centre of moral conduct, and that both are necessary to complete the geometry of righteousness.