II

We have already had occasion to remark that no moral value attaches to the successes and failures of the isolated or simple interest. Thus it is customary not to apply judgments of approval or condemnation to the vicissitudes of animal life. So wholesale a generalization is undoubtedly false; but at any rate it is based on the supposition that the motive in animal life is always simple. And similarly, whenever human action is regarded only with reference to the impulse it immediately serves, it is judged to be successful or futile, but never right or wrong. These properties are reserved for such action as is controlled, or is capable of being controlled, with reference both to an immediate and also an ulterior interest. But since the difference between goodness in the wider generic sense and goodness in the moral sense is one of complexity, it is proper and illuminating to bring them into one orderly progression.

The root-value, then, of which all the higher moral values are compounded, is the fulfilment or satisfaction of the particular interest. This fundamental value is conditioned by a form of organization, which I propose in a restricted sense to term intelligence. I mean the capacity which every living interest must possess to util

ize the environment, to turn it to its own advantage. This is the distinguishing and essential capacity of life in every form. A plant can continue to exist, and a sculptor can model a statue, only through being so organized as to be able to assimilate what the environment offers. Whether it be called tropism or technique, it is all one. Intelligence in this sense may be said to be the elementary virtue, conditioning success on every plane of activity.

In using such terms as "satisfaction" and "success" interchangeably with so irreproachable a term as "fulfilment," I may, until my meaning is wholly clear, seem to degrade morality. But the tone of disparagement in these first two terms is due to their having acquired certain arbitrary associations. It is supposed that to be satisfied is to be complacent, and that to be successful is to be hard and worldly. Now, a narrow satisfaction and a blind success are morally evil; but satisfaction and success may be taken up into a life that is wholly wise and devoted. They will, in fact, constitute the real body of value in any practical enterprise, from the least to the greatest.

The absence of intelligence, which I shall term incapacity, is the one absolutely fatal defect from which life may suffer. Incapacity embraces maladaptation, dulness, feebleness, sick

ness, and death. Like its opposite it does not enter into the moral account except in so far as it affects a group of interests, through being prejudicial to an individual's efficiency or a community's welfare; but it will impair and annul attainment upon any plane. The fault of incapacity attaches not only to life that is rudimentary or defective, but also to the mechanical processes which have not been assimilated to any interest and thus lie outside the realm of value. capacity in this sense is that metaphysical evil of which philosophers speak. It testifies to the fact that the cosmos is only partially subject to judgments either of good or of evil; that value has a genesis and a history within an environment that is at best plastic and progressively submissive.

In

In terms of intelligence and incapacity, the basal excellence and the basal fault, it is possible to define that whole affair of which morality is the constructive phase: the attempt of life to establish itself in the midst of primordial lifelessness, to avert dissolution and death, and to extend and amplify itself to the uttermost.

Within the economy of the simple interest there is no possibility of formalism, since there is no subordination of interest to anything higher than itself. But we meet here with materialism in its purest form. Overindulgence is the fault

which attaches to the exclusive insistence of the isolated interest on itself; when it grows headstrong, and is like to defeat itself through being blindly preoccupied.

The evil of overindulgence arises from two natural causes. In the first place an interest is essentially self-perpetuating; in spite of periodic moments of satiety, an interest fulfilled is renewed and accelerated. Just in so far as it is clearly distinguished it possesses an impetus of its own, by which it tends to excess, until corrected by the protest of some other interest which it infringes. Overindulgence is most common where such consequences are delayed or obscured by artificial means; hence its prevalence among those who can afford for a time to dissipate their strength, or have some means of replenishing it. And imprudence is common where the penalty is insidious. The corruption entailed by gluttony, inebriety, and incontinence may be slow and doubtful, or apparently remitted in moments of recovery; but if one indulge himself in foolhardiness or violence, he is like to be repaid on the spot. Hence the latter forms of imprudence are more rare. To avoid imprudence, it is necessary to discount that aspect which the interest wears within the period of its immediate fulfilment, and thus avoid the necessity of repeating the hard and wasteful lesson of experience. This