GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

. 264
we believe to be right, or what we know to be wrong.
And, admittedly, on particular occasions we often do do
what we know to be wrong. The Latin :
tag already quoted
ETHICS
" . . . Video meliora proboque
Deteriora sequor . . . .
(I see the better course and approve it, but I follow the
worse), enshrines a mournful and only too familiar truth.
Yet a perfect being would, presumably, always follow the
better course; so, presumably, would we, if we were always
to follow our natural inclination to pursue the Good.
Why, then, on some particular occasion, do we not pursue
it? Prima facie for one or other of two reasons. The first
is that our vision of the Good may be clouded by some
obscuring factor. Thus, if we are in a towering rage, we
do things that in our calmer moments we should, and
subsequently do, recognize to be harmful to others and to
ourselves; things which, as we say, we subsequently regret,
The second reason is that our will to follow the Good
may be undermined by some particularly seductive
temptation. For example, the general approval of honest)
which expresses itself in a resolute refusal to abstain frorr
forging a cheque when one has the chance, may be overborne
on a particular occasion by one's need for mone)
with which to dazzle a desired woman.
Now these clouding and undermining elements, ofwhicl
I have instanced two, are precisely those whose presena
in our general make-up is due to the factors of whici
the sciences take account. It is because of my heredity
it may be said, that I am prone to fall into such biindinj
to be la:
rages. It is because of my training that I am apt
about money matters; because of my physiological consti
tution that I am subject to overmastering sexual desire
for women who attract me.
Now the question to which our discussion of fireedon
must address itself is whether it is ever possible for me t
win free from the influence of these factors, whether the
"