The Nature of Goodness by Palmer, George Herbert, 1842-1933

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References On The Double Aspect Of Goodness Ii Misconceptions Of Goodness I

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Vii References On Misconceptions Of Goodness Iii Self-consciousness I

References On Self-consciousness Iv Self-direction I

Xii References On Self-development Vi Self-sacrifice I

Xiii References On Self-sacrifice Vii Nature And Spirit I

References On Nature And Spirit Vii The Three Stages Of Goodness I

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Viii References On The Three Stages Of Goodness

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Such, then, is the vast conception with which we have been dealing. Goodness, to be personal, must express perpetual self-development. All the moral aims of life may be summed up in the single word, "self- realization." Could I fully realize myself, I should have fulfilled all righteousness, and this view is sanctioned by the Great Teacher when he asks, "What shall a man give in exchange for his life?"--his life, his soul, his self. If any one fully believed this, and lived as if all his desires were fulfilled so long as he had opportunities of self-development, he might be said to have insured himself against every catastrophe. Little could harm him. Whatever occurred, instead of exclaiming, "How calamitous!" he would simply ask, "What fresh opportunities do these strange circumstances present for enlarged living? Let me add this new discipline to what I had before. Seeking as I am to become expanded into the infinite, this experience discloses a new avenue thither. All things work together for good to them that love the Lord."

REFERENCES ON SELF-DEVELOPMENT

Bradley's Ethical Studies, essay vi.

Green's Prolegomena of Ethics, bk. iii. ch. ii.

Alexander's Moral Order and Progress, bk. iii. ch. iv.

Muirhead's Elements of Ethics, bk. iii. ch. iii.

Mackenzie's Manual of Ethics, pt. i. ch. vii.

Dewey in Philos. Journal, Dec., 1893.

VI

SELF-SACRIFICE

I

The view of human goodness presented in the preceding chapter is one which is at present finding remarkably wide acceptance. Philosophers are often reproached with an indisposition to agree, and naturally where inquiry is active diversity will obtain. But to-day there appears a strange unanimity as regards the ultimate formula of ethics. The empirical schools state this as the highest form of the struggle for existence; the idealistic, as self-realization. The two are the same so far as they both regard morality as having to do with the development of life in persons. These curious beings, both also acknowledge, can never rest till they attain a completeness now incalculable.

Of course there is abundant diversity in the application of such formulae. In interpreting them we come upon problems no less urgent and tangled than those which vexed our fathers. Who and what is a person? How far is he detachable from nature? How far from his fellow men? Is his individuality an illusion, and each of us only an imperfect phase of a single universal being, so that in strictness we must own that there is none good but one, that is God? These and kindred questions naturally oppress the thought of our time. Yet all are but so many attempts to push the formula of self-realization into entire clearness. The considerable agreement in ethical formulae everywhere noticeable shows that at least so much advance has been made: morality has ceased to be primarily repressive, and is now regarded as the amplest exhibit of human nature, free from every external precept, however sacred. Man is the measure of the moral universe, and the development of himself his single duty.