The criteria themselves may be excellent; but they
are not got out of the mere record: they are brought by us to its
contemplation. To this special question I can find no answer in Green.
He is indeed aware that there is a difficulty; or rather he admits
that something has been "taken for granted." He has assumed that
there is "some best state of being for man"; that this best state is
eternally present to a divine consciousness; and further, that this
"eternal mind" is reproducing itself as the self of man.[3] On this
supposition only, he says, can our moral activity be explained; and
he holds that the supposition can be justified metaphysically and has
been so justified by himself in the earlier part of his treatise.
[Footnote 1: Prolegomena to Ethics, sec. 172, p. 180.]
[Footnote 2: Prolegomena, sec. 172, p. 180.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid., secs. 173, 174, p. 181.]
Now I am willing to admit that Green showed a correct instinct in
examining the nature of man before entering upon his properly ethical
enquiry. One must know what man is before one can say what his
'good' or his duty is; and it is only because man's nature cannot be
accounted for as a merely natural or animal product that the way is
open for an idealist ethics such as Green's. But perhaps Green laid
too much stress on the problem of historical causation.
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