THE IDEAL OF GOODNESS. 1 23 



can save it from condemnation. On the contrary, 

 it would be an arrangement worthy of the most 

 fiendish ingenuity to combine progressive growth 

 in goodness with progressive growth in misery. 

 But there is no necessity to anticipate this, seeing 

 that the ideal of goodness is as unmeaning and 

 impossible as that of happiness. And for the same 

 reasons. 



Just as happiness depended on the propor^tion 

 between desires and their fulfilment, so goodness 

 depends on the pi^oportion between the moral 

 standard and moral conduct. If our standard be 

 high, and our conduct fall far short of it, we shall 

 feel more wicked than if our standard and our 

 conduct be alike low, and the latter approximate 

 more closely to the former. Virtue depends on 

 adaptation to the moral environment, on relation to 

 the moral ideal. And as before, both the environ- 

 ment and the ideal are capable of growing, and of 

 growing more rapidly than the individual's adapt- 

 ation to them. Thus it may be that the more we 

 do, the more is given us to do ; the more duties we 

 fulfil, the more fresh duties are laid upon us ; the 

 further we advance, the further we are from our 

 end. 



The result, then, of the moral judgment will 

 depend on the proportion between aim and achieve- 

 ment. If moral theory develops more rapidly than 

 moral practice, if the refinement of our sense of sin 

 outstrips the refinement of our morals, there is 

 nothing improbable or impossible in the prospect 

 that the heirs of a long course of moral improve- 

 ment may be the most wicked of men, utter scoun- 

 drels as judged by their own moral standard. 



And there is some reason to think that this 



