around us, and these particular interests fall roughly into three main classes, connected respectively with our material environment, with our fellow-men and the social groups of which they and we are members, and with the spiritual realities of art, philosophy, and religion. In the first place, the material world is one great field in which our interests can be achieved, and this is so because the world is for us a system of opportunities. "One profound characteristic," says Dr. Bosanquet, "runs through the whole. And that is, that the world does not let us alone; it drives us from pillar to post, and the very chapter of accidents, as we call it, confronts us with an extraordinary mixture of opportunity and suffering, which is itself opportunity."[1] In relation to this material world our primary interest is, therefore, to take advantage of the opportunities it offers, or, as I shall put it, to master our environment. Only we must remember that we can do this, as Bacon told us long ago, not by defying, but by obeying nature.
The second class of interests are those which centre in the world of owe fellow-men. They belong to us as social beings. If the world of nature is a world of opportunities, the world of man is a world of co-operation. It is only as members of society that we can achieve any interests worthy of the name. As members of society we make our own the interests of our fellow-men, so that our life becomes in part identical with theirs. We see this most clearly in our ethical experience. "Only a revived social consciousness," says Edw. Caird, "…
- ↑ Individuality and Value, p. 27.
