Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/335

334 s. COIT : universal happiness be the ultimate aim of conduct, three hypotheses must be assumed, which have no other foundation than the need of having an aim which is unconditionally attainable. First, it must be assumed that somehow or other universal happiness will triumph in the world, and secondly, that the human race is immortal. And thirdly, as a ground of justification for these two hypotheses, it must be assumed that history and human existence are under the control of an intelligent moral author of nature. These are exactly Kant's premisses and conclusions in his Kritik der Urtheils- kraft. He admits the possibility of a man's doing right, like Spinoza, with no belief in God and no expectation of any advantage to himself in this or another world, but argues that such a man would be forced to assume the existence of a moral author of the world, in order to have a conception of the possibility of the moral end which is set him. But the need of a thing, even though it be a need arising out of our moral nature, is not a scientific foundation for the belief that the need will be gratified. Nor is it morally justifiable to believe for practical purposes what wo have not scientific grounds for believing. Accordingly, if for moral inspiration it be necessary to assume the final triumph of righteousness and bliss on earth, ethics ceases to be a science, and the imperative nature of the moral law becomes a just object oi practical scepticism. A practical philosophy of life which men feel to be without scientific foundation, has and ought to have as little influence upon their conduct as a view of the physical world has, which they see to be unscientific. It is therefore no merely theoretical interest which demands the construction of a moral view of life, concerning which scepticism would be impossible. Faith is the very life of moral activity and moral activity the chief promoter of universal happiness. Therefore this one reason alone, namely, that an extra-experimental faith would be required in order to give the needed stimulus to moral effort, is of itself sufficient to condemn the adoption of universal happi- ness as the final aim of conduct. Now if either right activity itself or the satisfaction of the sense of duty be made the final aim of conduct, at least a consistent moral view of life could be constructed without resorting to the unscientific hypothesis of the final and endless triumph of either iiictf- vidual or social righteousness. Let us then consider these two ends. The satisfaction of the sense of duty, that is, the satisfac- tion that comes from the consciousness of doing right, or, as we prefer to call it, the inner moral sanction, must not be