Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/332

THE FINAL AIM OF MORAL ACTION. 331 haps still more difficult to grasp is the truth of the ethical generalisation that the essence of virtue is the purpose, and the essence of duty the obligation, to increase universal happiness as far as is in one's power. But besides the high degree of rationalisation, an equally high degree of moral development must be reached before the notion of universal happiness can furnish the desired stimulus to the will ; the merely sympathetic impulse naturally limits itself to one or a few individuals, so that universal happiness would appeal only to a highly rationalised and moralised sympathy. The love of all men, simply as human beings, is psychologically the latest developed of all the motives to right action. An aim which appeals directly to it is therefore hardly a practi- cable one. In these respects either right activity itself or the immediate satisfaction of doing right would be more practi- cable. For to form correct moral judgments as to individual actions and to repeat these actions often is all that is neces- sary in order to do right for its own sake, and to distinguish the peculiar emotion which attends the consciousness of doing right is all that is required in order to make the inner satis- faction the aim. Either of these aims would require very little power of abstraction and generalisation in order to take hold of the imagination and awaken the impulse to act. Also in the development of the moral feelings the direct love of right and the desire for self-respect precede universal sympathy. Again, the general welfare is ill-adapted to become the final aim of conduct, because its full realisation is so dis- tantly removed in time. An immediate increase of happi- ness cannot be made the moral aim, since the immediate effect of right action is often a general increase of pain. Restraint implies pain, and duty demands of us often a discipline and restraint of others as well as of ourselves. " Universal happiness " can mean only the happiness which will pervade society when perfect righteousness has tri- umphed, together with whatever happiness the advance toward moral victory may admit of. Nothing else can properly be understood under universal happiness. Certainly the mere fragment of desirable consciousness which the advance toward moral victory may admit of could not deserve that name. Therefore to aim at universal happiness would be the same as aiming at the final triumph of justice and joy on earth. Those who especially have advocated as the essence of virtue and duty the tendency in character and conduct to bring about this triumph still have not set it up as the final aim. They have set up right activity itself, or