2 HUMANISM i 



trampled on by all superior persons ? Shall it equate 

 it with the whole or value it as nought ? Philosophers 

 have, of course, considered the matter, though not perhaps 

 with as great success, or as carefully as they ought. 

 And so the relations of the theory to the practice of life, 

 of cognition to action, of the theoretical to the practical 

 reason, form a difficult and complicated chapter in the 

 history of thought. 1 From that history one fact, however, 

 stands out clearly, viz. that the claims on both sides are 

 so large and so insistent that it is hardly possible to 

 compromise between them. The philosopher is not on 

 the whole a lover of compromise, despite the solicitations 

 of his lower nature. He will not, like the ordinary 

 man of sense, subscribe to a plausible platitude like, e.g. 

 Matthew Arnold s famous dictum that Conduct is three- 

 fourths of Life. Matthew Arnold was not a philosopher, 

 and the very precision of his formula arouses scientific 

 suspicions. But anyhow the philosopher s imperious 

 logic does not deal in quarters : it is prone to argue aut 

 Ccesar aut nullus ; if Conduct be not the whole life, it is 

 naught. Which therefore shall it be ? Shall Conduct be 

 the substance of the All, or the vision of a dream ? 



Now, it would seem at first that latterly the second 

 alternative seems to have grown philosophically almost 

 inevitable. For, under the auspices of the Hegelizing 

 idealists, Philosophy has uplifted herself once more to 

 a metaphysical contemplation of the Absolute, of the 

 unique Whole in which all things are included and 

 transcended. Now whether this conception has any 

 value for metaphysics is a moot point, on which I have 

 elsewhere expressed a decided opinion ; ~ but there can 

 hardly be a pretence of denying that it is the death of 

 morals. For the ideal of the Absolute Whole cannot 

 be rendered compatible with the antithetical valuations 

 which form the vital atmosphere of human agents. They 

 are partial appreciations, which vanish from the stand 

 point of the Whole. Without the distinctions of Good 



1 Cp. the essay on Use/ess Knowledge for its treatment by Plato and 

 Aristotle. 2 Riddles of the Sphinx, ch. x. 



