W. E. SORLET, ON THE ETHICS OF NATURALISM. 265 realised in the actual self. The action is towards a fuller work- ing out of the idea of self ; and the end may therefore, in all cases of conscious action, be said to be self-realisation." This end " must not be looked upon as a feeling for, if it is, it can only be interpreted psychologically as pleasure but as simply conscious self-realisation ". It is the idea of a progressive self-realisation that makes the notion of evolution intelligible. Is there any escape here from Mr. Spencer's proposition quoted above ? To decide this, we have only to ask how self-realisation, if it has no subjective accompaniment of feeling which is regarded as preferable to other feelings, can be itself an object of pre- ference. It may be said that this feeling exists indeed, but is not part of the end. On the principles of Mr. Sorley's philosophy, however, this exclusion of feeling from a state of which it is the inseparable accompaniment seems to be an illegitimate " abstrac- tion ". Of course there is a meaning in the practical direction to think of self-realisation rather than of the feeling that accom- panies it (or is part of it) ; but, because this is a useful practical direction, it does not follow that a certain type of feeling is not ultimately the test of self-realisation, or even (as some hedonists have held) that this feeling is to be excluded as much as possible from conscious thought. Mr. Sorley's theory has no more power than the theories of evolutionists to evade the hedonistic test. And by the applica- tion of this test to every theory in turn we obtain proof of the necessarily hedonistic character of all determinations of the end of conduct. For the rest, the formula of " self-realisation " may be admitted to be better than most of the alternative formulae. It is in some respects superior to " altruism " ; for, if this points more directly to the social character of the ethical end, " self- realisation " has the merit of insisting more on the worth of the individual life. And, unless the individual life has a worth of its own, service to the community can of course have none. This is sometimes forgotten in modern exhortations to altruism. Per- haps, however, justice is not quite done to the evolutionist formulae, such as " adaptation". Eolph, for example, whose work on ethics was reviewed in MIND, Vol. x., 281, and who is referred to more than once by Mr. Sorley, makes it clear that ethical adaptation for man must consist in adaptation to the social and not merely to the inorganic environment. The formula of " increase of life," which Mr. Sorley finds less inadequate than " adaptation " and " complexity," is certainly rather general, and even vague, till it is interpreted ; but then so also is the Hegelian formula. How are we to decide, for example, whether self-realisation shall be in the practical or the aesthetic or the theoretical life ? The formula can obviously be applied with equal validity to all three. Is it then rightly described as an ethical formula ? Or is it not rather a formula of "the art of life " in general, which in- 18
