"I think we must admit without proof," writes Professor Janet, [Footnote: The Theory of Morals, Book I, chapter iii, English translation, New York, 1883, p. 48.] a brilliant apostle of the doctrine of perfection, "that things are good, even independently of the pleasure which they give us, in themselves and by themselves, because of their intrinsic excellence. If anyone were to demand that I should prove that thought is worth more than digestion, a tree more than a heap of stones, liberty than slavery, maternal love than luxury, I could only reply by asking him to demonstrate that the whole is greater than one of its parts. No sensible person denies that, in passing from the mineral kingdom to the vegetable kingdom, from this to the animal kingdom, from the animal to man, from the savage to the enlightened citizen of a free country, Nature has made a continual advance; that is to say, at each step has gained in excellence and perfection." One is naturally impelled to ask from what point of view things so disparate as the mineral, the plant, the brute, man, thought and digestion, liberty and slavery, can be compared with one another at all, and referred to any sort of a series. What is, in its essence, this excellence or perfection of which we have more shining evidence as we go up in the scale? Janet identifies it with intensity of being, with activity. The greater the activity, the greater the perfection. To the identification of perfection and activity we may hesitate to assent. It does not seem clear that there is greater activity manifested in a snail than in a burning house, in maternal love than in furious hate, in quiet thought than in passion. Yet it seems significant that judgments of worth do not appear out of place in comparing such things. 121. PERFECTIONISM AND INTUITIONISM.--Taking into consideration all that is said above, it seems not unreasonable to conclude: (1) That in speaking of the perfection of any creature we very often judge it only by the standard set by its own type. We regard it as a good specimen of its kind. (2) But when we use perfection in a wider sense, we judge different types after the standard furnished by the distinctively human. (3) And we take as our standard of the human the "pattern" man held in view by those who urge us to follow nature. But why should this pattern man be assumed to be better or worthier than a man of a different sort? He who finds in him a greater exhibition of activity may with equal justice address to himself the question: Why is activity, in itself, of value? The one question, like the other, looks for its answer in the dictum of some intuition. What may be said for, and what against, intuitions, we have already considered. [Footnote: See chapter xxiii] III. SELF-REALIZATION