To the Greek it would
have been foolishness, fanaticism. We want not only good will, but
wisdom, sympathy, skill, common sense. Also we want health, love, wives
and children, friends, and congenial work. All of these things are
part of the worth of life. What would it profit us if we lost all these
and had only our good will! [Footnote: A reduction ad absurdum of the
Kantian view may be found in Cardinal Newman's statement of the
Catholic Christian view. "The Church holds that it were better for
sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fall, and for all
the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremist
agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will
not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should
tell one willful untruth, though it harmed no one, or steal one poor
farthing without excuse." (Anglican Difficulties, p. 190.)] The
valuation that ignores all natural goods but one is unreal, inhuman,
fanatical; it leads when unchecked to the emasculated life of the
anaemic mediaeval saint or anchorite. Kant's eloquent eulogy of good
will appeals to one of our noblest impulses; but that impulse is as
much in need of justification to the reason as any other, and it is
only one of a number of equally healthy and justifiable natural
preferences. Good will, the desire to do right, is perhaps, on the
whole, IN THE EMERGENCY, a safer guide to trust than warm-blooded
impulse or reasoned calculation.
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