ethics,—but the habit of doing things, not because they interesting to do, but because they are needed to raise the total of good in the universe, is pretty certain to lead to priggishness and an undue sense of the importance of oneself and one's efforts; while the unwillingness to rest satisfied with cultivating one's own garden is apt also to make us too ready to interfere with other people who may want to cultivate theirs. It is at least arguable that the best way of increasing the sum of good in the world is to fix it so that nobody, not myself even, shall be able to bother seriously his neighbors, and then go off and leave each man to the task for which, as we judge from the satisfaction he takes in it, nature has designed him. I ought indeed, under penalty of being adjudged small and petty in my aims, and of growing myself dissatisfied with them, to be assured at the start that they offer some contribution to the general stock of good outside myself. A rational and objectively minded being can hardly be content with a life which does not take its significant place in the larger scheme of things. But having justified myself, I shall commonly do better to take this largely for granted in the future, and occupy myself with the things like to do, rather than indulge in quantitative calculations about the social importance of my efforts;[1] I shall find a sufficient field for positive and intentional contributions in particular if I make it a rule to keep my eyes open for chances to do an incidental kindness to the individuals with whom I happen to have personal dealings.
A personal ideal, then, is far more closely and immediately bound down to interest and desire than the Summum Bonum. On the positive and inclusive side, this last is, as I have said, primarily intellectual in its nature. The concept of totality is quantitative, and therefore a concept of reason ; so also the notior of harmony is rational, and the process of determining how this harmony can be secured represents a rational problem. But
- ↑ To find a life which shall possess weight and significance through its contribution to the larger life of the world, and so escape self-condemnation on the ground of triviality, while at the same time, by being my end, and appealing to my natural likings, it gains motivation and vividness of interest, would seem to be about as far as we can go in setting forth the ideal in general terms.
