ic moral universe {214} for which the ethical philosopher
asks is fully possible only in a world where there is a divine thinker
with all-enveloping demands. If such a thinker existed, his way of
subordinating the demands to one another would be the finally valid
casuistic scale; his claims would be the most appealing; his ideal
universe would be the most inclusive realizable whole. If he now
exist, then actualized in his thought already must be that ethical
philosophy which we seek as the pattern which our own must evermore
approach.[3] In the interests of our own ideal of systematically
unified moral truth, therefore, we, as would-be philosophers, must
postulate a divine thinker, and pray for the victory of the religious
cause. Meanwhile, exactly what the thought of the infinite thinker may
be is hidden from us even were we sure of his existence; so that our
postulation of him after all serves only to let loose in us the
strenuous mood. But this is what it does in all men, even those who
have no interest in philosophy. The ethical philosopher, therefore,
whenever he ventures to say which course of action is the best, is on
no essentially different level from the common man. "See, I have set
before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; therefore,
choose life that thou and thy seed may live,"--when this challenge
comes to us, it is simply our total character and personal genius that
are on trial; and if we invoke any so-called philosophy, our choice and
use of that also are but revelations of our personal aptitude or
incapacity for moral life. From this unsparing practical ordeal no
professor's lectures and no array of books {215} can save us. The
solving word, for the learned and the unlearned man alike, lies in the
last resort in the dumb willingnesses and unwillingnesses of their
interior characters, and nowhere else. It is not in heaven, neither is
it beyond the sea; but the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth
and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.

[1] An Address to the Yale Philosophical Club, published in the
International Journal of Ethics, April, 1891.

[2] The Principles of Psychology, New York, H. Holt & Co, 1890.

[3] All this is set forth with great freshness and force in the work of
my colleague, Professor Josiah Royce: "The Religious Aspect of
Philosophy." Boston, 1885.

{216}

GREAT MEN AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT.[1]

A remarkable parallel, which I think has nev