In such service of the absolute is found the highest expression of self-sacrifice, of social service, of self-realization. The doctrine that though union with a reason and righteousness not exclusively our own each of us may hourly be renewed is the very heart of ethics.
XIII
I have attempted to cut out a clear path through an ethical jungle overgrown with the exuberance of human life. I have not succeeded, and it is probably impossible to succeed. In the subject itself there is paradox. Conflicting elements enter into the very constitution of a person. To trace them even imperfectly one must be patient of refinements, accessible to qualifications, and ever ready to admit the opposite of what has been laboriously established. We all desire through study to win a swift simplicity. But nature abhors simplicity: she complicates; she forces those who would know to take pains, to proceed cautiously, and to feel their way along from point to point. This I have tried to do; and I believe that the inquiry, though intricate, primarily scientific, and only partially successful, need not altogether lack practical consequence. Our age is bewildered between heroism and greed. To each it is drawn more powerfully than any age preceding. Neither of the two does it quite comprehend. If we can render the nobler somewhat more intelligible, we may increase the confidence of those who now, half-ashamed, follow its glorious but blindly compulsive call.
REFERENCES ON SELF-SACRIFICE
Spencer's Principles of Ethics, pt. i. ch. xi., xii.
Bradley's Appearance and Reality, p. 414-429.
Paulsen's Ethics, bk. ii. ch. 6.
Wundt's Facts of the Moral Life, ch. iii., Section 4 (g).
Sidgwick's Methods, concluding chapter.
Kidd's Social Evolution, ch. 5.