truth for its own sake, still what stings him into effort is the sense
that in truth only can he find the means of satisfying and realizing
himself. Beneath all man's activities, as their very spring and source,
there lies some dim conception of an end to be attained. This is his
moral consciousness, which no neglect will utterly suppress. All human
effort, the effort to know like every other, conceals within it a
reference to some good, conceived at the time as supreme and complete;
and this, in turn, contains a theory both of man's self and of the
universe on which he must impress his image. Every man must have his
philosophy of life, simply because he must act; though, in many cases,
that philosophy may be latent and unconscious, or, at least, not a
definite object of reflection. The most elementary question directed at
his moral consciousness will at once elicit the universal element. We
cannot ask whether an action be right or wrong without awakening all the
echoes of metaphysics. As there is no object on the earth's surface
whose equilibrium is not fixed by its relation to the earth's centre, so
the most elementary moral judgment, the simplest choice, the most
irrational vagaries of a will calling itself free and revelling in its
supposed lawlessness, are dominated by the conception of a universal
good. Everything that a man does is an attempt to articulate his view of
this good, with a particular content. Hence, man as a moral agent is
always the centre of his own horizon, and stands right beneath the
zenith. Little as he may be aware of it, his relation between himself
and his supreme good is direct. And he orders his whole world from his
point of view, just as he regards East and West as meeting at the spot
on which he stands. Whether he will or not, he cannot but regard the
universe of men and objects as the instrument of his purposes. He
extracts all its interest and meaning from himself. His own shadow falls
upon it all. If he is selfish, that is, if he interprets the self that
is in him as vulturous, then the whole outer world and his fellow-men