THE RANDALL FAMILY 229
to fight its way, despite the shrieks of the frightened or the scoffs of the incredulous, to the deep rational yet cos- mical foundations of the ethical ideal. If that ideal is not founded objectively in the permanent real constitution of this universe, wholly independent of man, his works and his ways and his opinions, it must vanish like every other superstition ; but, if it is, then the discovery of its objective foundation is the very highest work for which human reason exists.
Randall thus stands equally for the Sovereignty of Ethics and the Sovereignty of Reason : it needs but to apply Reason to Ethics, and to discern the rational foun- dation of the ethical ideal in the constitution of the real universe, in order to make these two sovereignties melt into one in the Cosmical-Rational Ethics of the future. This task is that of Scientific Theism ; it ought to be done ; it can be done and it will be done, all imbecile agnosticisms and illogical idealisms and unscientific ma- terialisms to the contrary notwithstanding. But this is not the place to dwell on the subject further. Enough to say now that, though not in the least a systematic thinker, Randall's essential aim is that of all science and all genuinely scientific ethics, and makes him, in my own opinion at least, the ethical pioneer of his generation, its Poet of the Moral Life. What Matthew Arnold says in the preface to his Wordsworth is profoundly true : " A poetry of revolt against moral ideas is a poetry of revolt against life ; a poetry of indifference towards moral ideas is a poetry of indifference towards lifey Only he who knows that conduct is not three-fourths merely, but the whole of life, will fully appreciate Randall. As a " fanatic for justice," as a prophet who declares the seat of justice to be the throne of the universe, as a seer who proclaims
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