[22] The writer regrets that the work of the Italian, Benedetto Croce, _Philosophy of the Practical, Economic and Ethic_ (Part II. of _Philosophy of the Spirit_), came to his knowledge too late to permit a consideration of its ethical teaching in this volume. Croce is a thinker of great originality, of whom we are likely to hear much in the future, and whose philosophy will have to be reckoned with. Though independent of others, his view of life has affinities with that of Hegel. He maintains the doctrine of development of opposites, but avoids Hegel's insistence upon the concept of nature as a mode of reality opposed to the spirit. Spirit is reality, the whole reality, and therefore the universal. It has two activities, theoretic and practical. With the theoretic man understands the universe; with the practical he changes it. The Will is the man, and freedom is finding himself in the Whole. [23] _Hibbert Journal_, April 1912. [24] _Evol. Creat._, p. 161. [25] _Idem_, p. 146. [26] _Idem_, p. 165. [27] _Hibbert Journal_. [28] Browning. [29] _Die Geistigen Stroemunyen der Gegenwart_, p. 10. [30] Cf. _Problem of Life_. [31] Cf. _Life's Basis and Life's Ideal_. [32] Hermann, _Bergson und Eucken_, p. 103. [33] _The Problem of Life_, p. 152. [34] Cf. von Huegel, _Hibbert Journal_, April 1912. {127} CHAPTER VIII THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL The highest good is not uniformly described in the New Testament, and modern ethical teachers have not always been in agreement as to the chief end of life. While some have found in the teaching of Jesus the idea of social redemption alone, and have seen in Christ nothing more than a political reformer, others have contended that the Gospel is solely a message of personal salvation. An impartial study shows that both views are one-sided. On the one hand, no conception of the life of Jesus can be more misleading than that which represents Him as a political revolutionist. But, on the other hand, it would be a distinct narrowing of His teaching to assume that it was confined to the aspirations of the individual soul. His care was indeed primarily for the person. His emphasis was put upon the worth of the individual. And it is not too much to say that the uniqueness of Jesus' teaching lay in the discovery of the value of the soul. There was in His ministry a new appreciation of the possibilities of neglected lives, and a hitherto unknown yearning to share their confidence. It would be a mistake, however, to represent Christ's regard for the individual as excluding all consideration of social relations. The kingdom of God, as we shall see, had a social and corporate meaning for our Lord. And if the qualifications for its entrance were personal, its duties were social. The universalism of Jesus' teaching implied that the soul had a value not for itself alone, but also for others. The assertion, therefore, that the individual has a value cannot mean that he has a value in isolation.