It seems, then, that man possesses two kinds of knowledge: he knows to
some extent what is, and to some extent he knows what ought to be. And
both kinds of knowledge are equally valid. He judges that a thing is,
and he judges also that a thing ought to be. Both judgments are equally
true, but apparently both are not equally final, for if man judges that
what is, ought not to be, he is impelled to alter what is, so that in
the end the thing that ought to be is also the thing that is. The
judgment of what ought to be, the ideal, is thus proved, or rather made,
to be the finally correct one. On the other hand, if man is defeated in
his attempts to adjust the things that are to his judgment of what they
ought to be, he does not acquiesce in his defeat; he refuses to accept
the result as final; the end of the matter is not there; things are not
what he strove to make them, but they ought to be. What is has nothing
to do with what ought to be. But what ought to be may make a good deal
of difference to what is.
The ethical process, in its conflict with the cosmic process, may not in
the end prove victorious; but that makes no difference to the fact that
it ought to be victorious. It is this deep-seated conviction which made
Mr. Huxley say that we must declare war to the last against cosmic
nature, the headquarters of the enemy of ethical nature. The victory of
the enemy may be certain, but it will none the less be wrong; it may be
permanent, but as long as it lasts it will be wrong. If matter and
motion are eternal and indestructible, morality is equally everlasting
and immutable. Unless this is so, unless the triumph of the cosmic
process is wrong, once and always, why are we called upon to endure
sorrow and pain and suffering rather than submit to it? Our judgment
that it is wrong is as independent of time as is our judgment that
particles of matter gravitate towards one another. We have no reason for
believing that the latter will continue to be true for a longer time
than the former. Indeed, if matter and motion, having achieved their
victory over the ethical process, were then and there to be annihilated,
their victory would continue to be wrong, though they had ceased to be.
Right may triumph or wrong may triumph, but right is right and wrong is
wrong for evermore. It is vain to tell us in the same breath that we
must stake our all upon our moral judgments and that our moral judgments
are not to be relied on. Every impeachment of their validity is an
invitation to us to give up the struggle against the enemy of ethical
nature. And if we are really resolved to fight the good fight and quit
ourselves like men, we thereby affirm that our moral judgments are at
least as valid as our judgments on matters of fact, and that, if our
knowledge of what is is true objectively, our knowledge of what ought to
be has in it at least an equal element of objective truth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account