These two quotations suffice to stamp Green's ethical position. At the same time Green was a man of deep moral insight, and so his pages are full of truths about self-denial and devotion which are totally inconsistent with the framework of his theory.
§12. But moral idealism, expressing itself with varying degrees of clearness in its various forms, holds fast to the truth that moral action is in its essence an unselfish appreciation of what is excellent. This faculty of unselfish appreciation, which in active conduct becomes devotion, is not the rare endowment of generous natures, but is common to all rational creatures. It is no sentimentality but the soberest analysis which convinces us that admiration, love, devotion, enthusiasm, all forms of one faculty, are the forces which sustain and animate the fabric of human society. The same principle in other forms is the animating spirit of art, knowledge and religion.
§13. Purely negative criticism is always more or less unintelligible because it does not disclose its standpoint. In addition, it is always odious ; because, to the human mind, a theory is a kind of habitation or shelter from intellectual nakedness. We justly dislike any one who pulls down the theory we live in without suggesting another. So I have felt compelled while criticising a false interpretation of morals to indicate however slightly what seems a better one. I will now specify the objections to eudæmonism in their natural order.
§14. The first and foremost is that it contradicts self-observation, which is the supreme arbiter in all questions of mental and moral science. If the reader, reviewing his inner personal experience with adequate psychologic insight, can testify that when he feels most decidedly moral his attitude is most decidedly self-regarding, then we have no more to say so far as he is concerned. If his experience is normal the world will agree with him and disagree with us; if abnormal, he is a deviation from the general human type, and can merely be an object of curiosity.
§15. The second objection is that eudæmonism in any form will not work in practice. To the coarser forms of hedonism we need not give a moment's attention. But take any form of Self-Love, however rational and refined, and try to live according to it and the outcome will still be revolting. A man guided by that maxim is one who thinks about his dear self all the time he is acting; and to think always about self, to guide all by self, is to dry up morality at its root. It is no answer to quote John Mill's observation that the
