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

444
ETHICS
restraint of the satisfaction of impulse, and justice or
regard for the claims of others. But it was, they affirmed,
the same Good that was manifested in all of these, the
nature of its manifestation being dictated by the circumstances.
Thus the circumstance of war evolved a manifestation
of the Good in the form of courage; the problem of
the satisfaction of desire evoked its manifestation in the
form of temperance or restraint; the claims made upon
us by others in that of justice, while wisdom or insight
into the nature of the circumstances which confront us
is. called for in all the chances and changes of life. But
just as it is the same whiteness which appears in snow
and cream, so it is the same moral virtue which appears
in all the "virtues". And if we proceed to ask why a man
has one virtue and not another, why one man, for example,
is brave but cruel, and another kind but cowardly, the
answer is because the medium in which the value, moral
virtue, is manifested, namely, human character and disposition,
varies from individual to individual. The factors
which determine these variations between one human
personality and another are heredity, environment, training
and, we may add, innate personal differences between
of doth is
man and man. To invoke a simile, if a piece
placed in front of a light, the light will shine through
here more clearly, there less clearly, as the texture of
the doth varies from place to place, and the places
of greatest and least intensity of illumination will be
different from those in a broadly similar piece of doth
because of innate differences of texture between the two
pieces.
The Boundary between Ethics and Theology. It is, I
think, dear that the line of argument which I have been
following admits, nay, more,
If, whenever I perceive common qualities,
I deduce a
universal which is manifested in the particulars that
it demands an extension.
exhibit the qualities, postulating a universal whiteness to
account for the common quality which is exhibited by all