i THE ETHICAL BASIS OF METAPHYSICS 3 



appreciations, which vanish from the standpoint of the 

 Whole. Without the distinctions of Good and Evil, 

 Right and Wrong, Pleasure and Pain, Self and others, 

 Then and Now, Progress and Decay, human life would 

 be dissolved into the phantom flow of an unmean 

 ing mirage. But in the Absolute the moral distinctions 

 must, like all others, be swallowed up and disappear. 

 The All is raised above all ethical valuation and moral 

 criticism : it is beyond Good and Evil ; it is timelessly 

 perfect, and therefore incapable of improvement. It 

 transcends all our antitheses, because it includes them. 

 And so to the metaphysician it seems an easy task to 

 compose the perfection of the whole out of the imperfec 

 tions of its parts : he has merely to declare that the point 

 of view of human action, that of ethics, is not and cannot 

 be final. It is an illusion which has grown transparent 

 to the sage. So, in proportion as his insight into absolute 

 reality grows clearer, his interest in ethics wanes. 



It must be confessed, moreover, that metaphysicians 

 no longer shrink from this avowal. The typical leader 

 of this philosophic fashion, Mr. F. H. Bradley, never 

 attempts to conceal his contempt for ethical considera 

 tions, nor omits a sneer at the pretensions of practice to 

 be heard in the High Court of Metaphysics. &quot; Make the 

 moral point of view absolute,&quot; he cries, 1 &quot; and then realize 

 your position. You have become not merely irrational, 

 but you have also broken with every considerable 

 religion.&quot; 



And this is how he dismisses the appeal to practice, 2 

 &quot; But if so, what, I may be asked, is the result in practice ? 

 That I reply at once is not my business &quot; ; it is merely 

 a &quot;hurtful 3 prejudice&quot; if &quot;irrelevant appeals to practical 

 results are allowed to make themselves heard.&quot; 



Altogether nothing could be more pulverizing to 

 ethical aspiration than chapter xxv. of Mr. Bradley s 

 Appearance and Reality? 



1 Appearance and Reality , pp. 500-1. 2 Ibid. p. 450. 



3 But does not this &quot;hurtful&quot; reaffirm the ethical valuation. which Mr. Bradley 

 is trying to exclude ? 



4 That such is the ethical purport of this philosophic teaching is confirmed by 



