ife, it is not
apathetic, but sympathetic. Its span is widened, while its incentive
is not divided but multiplied.

Nor does it follow that when duty is interpreted as enlightenment, life
must lose its romantic flavor and cease to require the old
high-spirited virtues. It is this very linking of life to life, this
abandonment of one's self to the prodigious of the whole, that provides
the true object of reverence, and permits the sense of mystery to
remain even after the light has come. Although the way of morality is
evident and well-proved in direction, being plain to whomever will look
at life with a fair and commanding eye, achievement is difficult, the
great victories hard won, and the certain prospect bounded by a near
horizon. Even though life be rationalized, it will none the less call
for intrepid faith; for what Maeterlinck calls "the heroic,
cloud-tipped, indefatigable energy of our conscience." [14]

{72}

CHAPTER III

THE ORDER OF VIRTUE

I

We have thus far dealt with the general content of morality, and with
its logical grounds. Morality is only life where life is organized and
confident, the struggle for mere existence being replaced with the
prospect of a progressive and limitless attainment. The good is
fulfilled desire; the moral good the fulfilment of a universal economy,
embracing all desires, actual and possible, and providing for them as
liberally as their mutual relations permit. The moral good is simply
the greatest possible good, where good in the broad generic sense means
any object of interest whatsoever, anything proved worth the seeking
from the fact that some unit of life actually seeks it. Whatever is
prized is on that account precious.

The logic of morality rests on this objective relation between interest
and value. The maximum good has the greatest weight, its claims are
entitled to priority, because it surpasses any limited good in
incentive and promise of fulfilment. Duty in this logical sense is
simply to {73} control of particular actions by a full recognition of
their consequences.

In the present chapter the attention is shifted from the whole to the
parts of morality. I am not one of those who stake much on the
casuistical application of ethical principles. Every particular action
virtually involves considerations of enormous complexity; and the
individual must be mainly guided by general rules of conduct or
virtues, which are proved by the cumulat