is no stronger support to moral endeavour than
the conviction that the moral life is a realisation of the divine
purpose, that in all goodness the spirit of God is manifest, that the
good man is the servant of God or even His fellow-worker. By whatever
metaphor this may be expressed--and Green's statement that the divine
self--consciousness 'reproduces' itself in human morality is also
a metaphor--it betrays the assurance that moral achievement is
permanent, and that (in spite of all apparent failures) goodness will
prevail. He who fights for the good may be confident of victory.

This is the practical value of the conception; but in order that it
may have this practical value, the distinction of good from evil
must be first of all made clear. Green's appeal to an eternal
self-consciousness does nothing of itself to elucidate this
distinction. Tendencies to exalt selfish interest over common welfare,
and to prefer sensual to what are called higher gratifications, enter
into the nature of man, and have fashioned his history. Green does
not even ask the question whether these also are not to be considered
manifestations or 'reproductions' of the eternal self-consciousness.
But his metaphysical view does not exclude them; and if they are
included, morality disappears for lack of any criterion between good
and evil. If good is to be discriminated from evil, it must be by some
other means than by describing the whole conscious activity of man as
a reproduction of the divine. Instead of doing anything to solve the
problem of the meaning of goodness, Green simply brings forward a new
difficulty--that of understanding how the temporal process in which
human morality is developed can be related to a reality which is
defined as out of time or eternal. This difficulty cannot be avoided
in a metaphysical theory of morality. And it does not stand alone.
Green's own dialectics were directed against the Sensationalist and
Hedonist theories which used to be regarded as typical of English
thought; and on them they acted as a powerful solvent. His own views
of the spiritual nature of man and its relation to the eternal
self-consciousness were worked out with the confidence and enthusiasm
of a reformer rather than with the caution of a critic. But criticism
has followed, and not only from the representatives of opposed
schools. Writers whose intellectual affinities are on the whole the
same as his have let their dialectic play around his