scribe a good deal, but that work will have only its proper subordinate place.
As for the main problem itself, we can best bring its nature home to ourselves by considering forthwith some aspects of an old and often neglected question, namely, the very question before referred to about the proper relation of one’s moral ideal to the reality that he may have recognized.
We are to form a moral ideal apart, as we have said, from any theory of the physical universe outside of man. But is this practicable? Is not every moral theory dependent in truth on a theory of things? Is it possible for us to make for ourselves our ideal, and only afterwards to go to the real world and to see if our ideal is realized? Must not rather our ideal be founded, in the very nature of the case, on what we know, or think we know, about the world? Is not then this whole undertaking of ours a blunder? Is a rational moral distinction possible save through a knowledge of the facts about the world? Can the ideal say to the world: “I demand that thou shouldst be like me?” Must not the ideal rather humbly say: “Thus and thus it is in truth, and therefore I am what I am?”
The nature of moral ideals and distinctions is plainly involved just here. We must look closely at these questions; for to answer them aright is to answer the fundamental questions of all ethical philosophy.
To understand then more justly the nature of this difficulty, let us consider more closely the two possible answers to the foregoing questions. Let us call
