4 HUMANISM i 



And the worst of it all is that this whole treatment of 

 ethics follows logically and legitimately from the general 

 method of philosophising which conducts to the meta 

 physical assumption of the Absolute. 



Fortunately, however, there appears to be a natural 

 tendency when the consequences of a point of view have 

 been stated without reserve, and become plain to the 

 meanest intelligence, to turn round and try something 

 fresh. By becoming openly immoralist, metaphysic has 

 created a demand for its moral reformation. And so, 

 quite recently, there has become noticeable a movement 

 in a diametrically opposite direction, which repudiates the 

 assumptions and reverses the conclusions of the meta 

 physical criticism of ethics which we have been considering. 

 Instead of regarding contemplation of the Absolute as 

 the highest form of human activity, it sets it aside as 

 trivial and unmeaning, and puts purposeful action above 

 purposeless speculation. Instead of supposing that Action 

 is one thing and Thought something alien and other, and 

 that there is not, therefore, any reason to anticipate that 

 the pure contemplations of the latter will in any way 

 relate to or sanction the principles which guide the 

 former, it treats Thought as a mode of conduct, as an 

 integral part of active life. Instead of regarding practical 

 results as irrelevant, it makes Practical Value an essential 

 determinant of theoretic truth. And so far from admitting 

 the claim to independence of an irresponsible intelligence, 

 it regards knowledge as derivative from conduct and as 

 involving distinctively moral qualities and responsibilities in 

 a perfectly definite and traceable way. In short, instead 

 of being reduced to the nothingness of an illusion, Con 

 duct is reinstated as the all-controlling influence in every 

 department of life. 



Now, I cannot but believe that all effective ethical 

 effort ultimately needs a definite basis of assumptions 

 concerning the nature of life as a whole, and it is because 



flippant and prolix exposition of the same doctrine in Mr. A. E. Taylor s 

 Problem of Conduct. To Mr. Taylor the real problem of Conduct would appear 

 to be why any one should continue to hanker after so manifest an absurdity as a 

 rule of conduct, 



