This difficulty cannot be avoided
in a metaphysical theory of morality. And it does not stand alone.
Green's own dialectics were directed against the Sensationalist and
Hedonist theories which used to be regarded as typical of English
thought; and on them they acted as a powerful solvent. His own views
of the spiritual nature of man and its relation to the eternal
self-consciousness were worked out with the confidence and enthusiasm
of a reformer rather than with the caution of a critic. But criticism
has followed, and not only from the representatives of opposed
schools. Writers whose intellectual affinities are on the whole the
same as his have let their dialectic play around his fundamental
conceptions with a result very different from that which he
contemplated. Mr Bradley, like Green, has faith in an eternal Reality,
which might be called spiritual, inasmuch as it is not material; like
Green, he looks upon man's moral activity as an appearance--what Green
calls a reproduction--of this eternal reality. But under this general
agreement there lies a world of difference. He refuses, by the use of
the term self-consciousness, to liken his Absolute to the personality
of man, and he brings out the consequence, which in Green is more or
less concealed, that the evil equally with the good in man and in the
world are appearances of the Absolute.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87