VII

THE THREE STAGES OF GOODNESS

I


Such is the mighty argument conducted through several centuries in
behalf of nature against spirit as a director of conduct. I have
stated it at length both because of its own importance and because it
is in seeming conflict with the results of my early chapters. But
those results stand fast. They were reached with care. To reject them
would be to obliterate all distinction between persons and things.
Self-consciousness is the indisputable prerogative of persons. Only so
far as we possess it and apply it in action do we rise above the
impersonal world around. And even if we admit the contention in behalf
of nature as substantially sound, we are not obliged to accept it as
complete. It may be that neither nature nor spirit can be dispensed
with in the supply of human needs. Each may have its characteristic
office; for though in the last chapter I have been setting forth the
superiorities of natural guidance, in spiritual guidance there are
advantages too, advantages of an even more fundamental kind. Let us
see what they are.

They may be summarily stated in a single sentence: consciousness alone
gives fresh initiative. Disturbing as the influence of consciousness
confessedly is, on its employment depends every possibility of
progress. Natural action is regular, constant, conformed to a pattern.
In the natural world event follows event in a fixed order, Under the
same conditions the same result appears an indefinite number of times.