[127] Compare my article in the International Journal of Ethics, No. I. p. 60.
The reason why conflict can arise between civilisation and welfare lies in the restiveness and restlessness of the aspirations of civilisation. It is the same with it as with that spontaneous, involuntary impulse to movement that leads to the use of forces and of the members merely because sufficient energy is present, without their use being guided by the consideration of a more valuable end, so that the results are accidental. The effort that goes with civilisation may lead in part to over-exertion, to an overstraining of forces; in part (in the case of extreme differentiation) to a one-sided direction of effort; and partly to isolation, to the fragmentary elimination of individual activities. In the single individual certain faculties are fostered (in the one intelligence, in the other physical power for work) at the cost of other faculties; the harmony, the capacity of feeling oneself as totality and unity is lacking. By such one-sidedness the individual becomes of value only as a wheel in a great machine: he serves merely as a means, not as an end. And such a one-sided individual development is connected with a one-sided social development. The suppression of certain features of the nature of the individual goes hand in hand with the suppression of single estates and classes of society. If we identify civilisation and ethics, without qualification, and regard progress as a safer criterion than welfare, we should overlook the fact that there exists also a social question. The social question is an ethical question and at the same time a question of the correction of civilisation,—both by means of the principle of welfare. Would it be right that the products of material and ideal civilisation should only fall to the share of a small minority, while all the rest should not be able to participate therein? This would clash completely with the ideal of society that flows from the principle of welfare. For the greatest welfare is present when every single individual so develops himself in an independent manner that just by this independent development of his own he assists others to a similar development from their point of view. Then does there exist a harmonious society of independent personalities. The idea of such a society is the highest ethical idea that flows from the principle of welfare. Every individual is then a little world for himself and yet stands in the most intimate reciprocal connection with the great world of which he is a part. The individual serves the race and the race serves the individual. Every position of isolation, every inequality in the distribution of possessions and of employments must be founded in the demands of the various circumstances and problems of life, and the faculties and impulses of each individual shall be developed as fully and richly as is compatible with the conditions of life of the whole race.
6) It follows from the considerations presented, that it is by no means always easy to apply the principle of welfare in individual cases. The particular relations of the affairs in question can be so complicated that we are not able to take a broad survey of them and foresee the results of our interference. We cannot deduce a priori from the principle of welfare any system of particular acts, any determinate order of society, any civilisation. Its value (like that of the principle of causality in the theoretical field) is to present and to formulate problems, and to serve as a guide to their treatment. It is regulative, not constructive. It presumes the immediate involuntary life of the individual and of society, and its function does not begin until the conscious discussion and treatment occurs of the value on the one hand of that which has thus been developed, and on the other of the manner in which the development shall be conducted in the future. All ethics thus acquires an historical character. We never—either in our own individuality or in society—commence from the very beginning, but are always obliged to start with a definite foundation and to work our way further under the guidance of the principles and ideals that spring from our nature.
III.
1) In the previous remarks I have essayed a discussion of the principle of welfare which may perhaps make clearer what was not so distinct in my former expositions ("Ethik," Chapters III and VII). The difficulty always occurs in the enunciation of a principle, that a direct demonstration of its validity cannot be given. Of so much greater significance is it then if an indirect proof can be adduced by showing that the very ones who contest it are themselves forced to employ it and actually to employ it without being aware of it.
I maintain now that Dr. Paul Carus in his book "The Ethical Problem," in which he combats the principle of welfare, has not been able to avoid giving such an indirect confirmation of the validity of this principle. Before attempting to show this in detail I shall make a few remarks concerning the criticism of my "Ethics" which Dr. Carus wrote in the first number of The Monist, and which in an abbreviated form is also embodied in the treatise above mentioned.
Dr. Carus thinks that I have practically surrendered the principle of welfare when I define welfare to consist in activity. His words are:
"If welfare is to be interpreted as activity, work, development; if this kind of active welfare is the greatest good, whatever admixture of pain and whatever absence of pleasurable feeling it may have; if the greatest amount of a state of continuous pleasurable feeling is not welfare in an ethical sense, what becomes of the utilitarian definition of welfare as pleasurable feeling? If, however, welfare is 'the state of a continuous pleasurable feeling,' how can we declare that the life of a pessimistic philosopher is preferable to that of a joyful fool?"
To this I answer, that if it could be proved that increasing pain followed necessarily on all advancement of civilisation (without this pain being compensated for, as Clara's philosophy demanded, by new and proportionately greater feelings of pleasure), in that case it would be impossible to combine civilisation and welfare. But only a pessimistic dogmatism—which is just as current in the atmosphere of to-day as optimistic dogmatism—could assert this. What experience teaches us is this, that we find ourselves amid a development, in a line of tendencies the final results of which we cannot foresee but which hitherto have evoked at many points new forces and have thereby opened new sources of satisfaction. Everything that arouses our greatest and most permanent pleasurable feeling has arisen within this development. This justifies our courage and our hope in behalf of further progress, although conflict and pain will as we may foresee not be wanting, and although the way leads through many deserts. Experience alone can show how far we shall be able to get. I agree with Dr. Carus that "this world of ours is not a world suited to the taste of a pleasure-seeker," if we understand by pleasure passive sensual enjoyment, an enjoyment which is not united with the rest and nourishment with which not only an immediate pleasurable feeling is connected but whereby power is also gathered for continued endeavor. If so many pleasure-seekers go through life without having their eyes opened to its true significance and purpose, this fact is precisely one of the things that clash with the principle of welfare, for the latter claims all faculties and powers, and demands that they that sleep be awakened,—that is if they really possess useful faculties. For perhaps the "joyful fool" cannot accomplish more than he does. Wherefore then disturb him, if his pleasure harms neither himself nor others and if his awakening will only lead to unrest and pain for himself and perhaps also for others? I pointed out the fact in my "Ethics,"[128] that we can determine by the principle of welfare alone in what cases we are to destroy a state of equilibrium or shatter an illusion.
[128] Danish edition, p. 94. German edition, p. 109.