VALUES AND FINAL CAUSES 77 



self -repression, to take two examples, when pushed beyond 

 a certain degree of relative strength, destroy the equilibrium 

 of interests on which the health of the organism, individual 

 or social, depends, and finally bring about its extinction. 

 The optimum is relative, not to the extreme strength of the 

 impulse itself, but to the actual strength of the other impulses 

 with which it may be brought into conflict. The impulse 

 must be strong enough to maintain itself, but not so strong 

 as to suppress opposition. 



The second class of values is when two differing impulses 

 are compared as wholes, and without reference to degrees 

 of strength. Impulses are usually grouped as intellectual, 

 religious, ethical, aesthetic, and prudential, and if the word 

 moral is restricted, as for clearness it should be, to the 

 reactions of the conscience on the apprehension of other 

 impulses, there are many more, such as the love of power 

 or of wealth, self-assertion, and self -repression, hunger for 

 applause, or for personal excellence, each and all for their 

 own sakes. 



Every one will allow that some of these impulses are 

 regarded as higher or of greater value than others, but it is 

 probable that no two men would arrange them in exactly 

 the same order of merit. Valuation is a branch, and a very 

 important branch, of belief, and, like beliefs generally, 

 depends in the first place on the total constitution or needs 

 of the individual, and, in the second, on the ruling tendencies 

 of the social organism. Some men and some periods will 

 exalt religion, others the conscience, and others the intellect 

 to the first place. How completely subordinate is the part 

 which is played by the intellect in the construction of schemes 

 of value, may be gathered from the wide differences of opinion 

 which prevail among philosophers of equal, or nearly equal, 

 intellectual eminence. If Kant was moved with ever- 

 increasing admiration and awe at the contemplation of the 

 moral law, while Mr. Spencer found his highest ideal in a life 

 of innocent pleasure, it was not because one differed from 

 the other in intellectual capacity. The reason must be 

 sought in their whole character as modified to their sur- 



