HEDONISM AMONG IDEALISTS. 305 in application to life is the most practical and important safeguard against self-deception in moral choices. The separation of the moral resolve and the intellectual judg- ment on which Mr. McTaggart founds his objection, rules out this use of a moral criterion, because it supposes that the determination to do right being first and independently made, the chooser is henceforward an unbiassed reasoner in the application of a criterion. But this seems to ignore the whole nature of a moral choice, which is essentially the maintenance of effective insight against blinding influences. In short, then, even if, what has yet to be discussed, the criterion of perfection could give little or no guidance in absolutely bona fide perplexities between courses of conduct with a moral bearing, the fact that it is a safeguard in cases where the perplexity pretends to be but is not absolutely bond fide is enough to make it cover by far the most important part of the range in which Ethics can be asked for guidance. In all intricate matters of conduct, e.g. in law or politics, where varying and important emergencies press upon us, to keep the right principle and not the wrong one before the attention is of the very first practical importance. It makes constantly the whole difference between good and bad work. It may be admitted that if the proposed criterion only con- tained, as the author contends, such a rule as Do what you really think right, it could not be fertile of detail ; though preoccupation even with such a rule is of much more decisive importance in life than might be supposed, because distraction of attention is one of the great instruments of self-deception. But the question, what it contains, is now to be discussed. (b) In bond fide moral difficulties, the author argues, pre- occupation with the idea of perfection can give no guidance. For the supreme good, as we learn its nature from Meta- physic, cannot be realised perfectly by any action in a world of matter, time and space. Nor can we determine by com- parison which of alternative ends, or which division of resources between competing purposes, will realise it least imperfectly. For, in the supreme good, choice is precluded. No element of perfection is wanting and each is there to the full. But choice is the essence of our position. 1 In all ends, which we can conceive as moral ends, there is some good ; complete good in none. Our question is which good to select and which to sacrifice, and how to compromise be- 1 Mr. Taylor has put the same point very effectively in The Problem of Conduct, but I have not the reference. 20
