"[2]
[Footnote 1: Green, Introduction to Hume's Treatise (1874), ii. 71.]
[Footnote 2: Bradley, Appearance and Reality, p. 411.]
The most notable recent systems of philosophy, idealist as well as
naturalist, are thus presented to us, almost confessedly, as void of
application to conduct. This result, and foresight of this result,
have led to a widespread suspicion of any attempt at ethical
construction which is based upon a theory of reality. In consequence,
recourse is sometimes had to a purely empirical treatment of morality
such as that indicated at the close of the second lecture. Such an
account, however, can never rise from the description of conduct to
setting up an ideal for life. And accordingly some thinkers have
remained convinced of the necessity of ideals for the moral life,
although unable to find an adequate ground for these ideals in their
system of reality.
This attitude was adopted by F.A. Lange, who, at the close of his
History of Materialism, declared that there was need for an Ideal of
Worth to supplement the deficiencies of the facts of being. "One thing
is certain," he said, "that man needs to supplement reality by an
Ideal World of his own creation, and that in such creations the
highest and noblest functions of his mind co-operate. But must this
free act of the mind bear ever and ever again the deceptive form of
demonstrative science? If it does so, materialism will always reappear
and destroy the over-bold speculations.
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