life. It may follow upon our first protest against some irksome restraint or it may arise out of hesitancy regarding some plausible new suggestion. In the perspective of the individual's effort in situations such as these, his regrets, ambitions, generosities and self-distrusts come first and for him explain his quest. They name the terms in which the doctrine or the course of action he finally embraces will have its meaning made plain to him. But between his first seeking and his final acceptance of the conviction or purpose at which he arrives, a long period of uncertainty may intervene. Throughout this interval suggestions of conduct from many sources will press upon him, meeting with prompt welcome or with equally prompt repugnance and aversion. These immediate responses of his nature he must govern as best he may in his lack of a sure foreknowledge of what he seeks. In his uncertainty and need, we must remember, there are available only such wisdom and idealism as the individual, with all his unreasoned likes and dislikes and all his limitations of experience, can muster for the occasion.[1]
II.
The fashioners of ethical theory, however, have another point of view and outlook. Zealous for the prompt acceptance and widest influence of their teachings, they are prone to expound them in the style and spirit of attained conviction. To the prophet and his loyal disciples the new doctrine is a vision of light, or an intuition of Pure Reason or a system of severely rational deductions from Natural Law. If a learner accepts, it is therefore
- ↑ Neither a full classification nor an analysis of the primary moral experiences is here offered. We are not now concerned with psychological details nor with the metaphysical implications of pluralism or of systematic absolutism which a careful analysis of these experiences might indicate. The practical questions would in any event remain: Whence is the individual to gain knowledge as to what possibilities there are for him, in the way of conduct, that may help him towards an acceptable new type or level of relationship with his fellows? and How is he fairly to estimate the probable eventual acceptability of such new suggestions in his lack of prior personal acquaintance with them or perhaps his present one-sided bias toward or away from them? And these inescapable practical questions in the moral situation are pieces of evidence for metaphysics as significant as any other of its outstanding features.
