OF THE GOOD. 183 



eighteenth century. Its collapse was followed by a tem- 

 porary destruction of the other institution, the existing 

 order of the State and Society, during the Kevolution* 

 Thus the two powers which hold human beings together, 

 the common faith and the social order, had for a moment 

 disappeared ; human society had become disintegrated 

 or atomised. 



Now, we may look upon the ethical problem as the 

 endeavour to get beyond the individual Self, beyond the 

 human being as the atom or unit of humanity, to arrive 

 at an aspect deeper and broader than that afforded by 

 the study of the Self alone and its selfish interests. 

 There are two ways of getting out of the Self, of tran- 

 scending or enlarging it. 



The first is the attempt made by German idealism, 

 to look upon the individual Self as rooted in a deeper, 

 a universal Self; this may be variously conceived as the 

 Natural, Moral, or Divine Order, with a more or less 

 clearly defined intellectual or spiritual centre. This 

 view suggested itself under the still surviving influence 

 of the traditional religious doctrine of the Church, 

 which it desired to understand, to make more living 

 and active. 



But where, as in France, this friendly feeling towards 

 the traditional faith had been destroyed, another way 

 had to be found out of the narrowness of the individual 

 mind with its purely selfish interests. This was found 32 . 

 by the revolutionary thinkers in France, in the historical seif. 8 c 

 phenomenon of human society, widened to the idea of 

 mankind or humanity. 



Expressed in different words, the first movement 



