0 R I G I N A L S I N , N A T U RA L LA W , A N D P0 L I T I C S
221
passage from
Human Nature and Conduct
may suffice to bring out
the point:
In Aristotle this conception of an end which exhamts all realization and
excludes all potentiality appears as a definition of the highest excellence.
It of necessity excludes all want and struggle and all dependencies. It
is neither practical nor social. Nothing is left but a self-revolving, self–
sufficing thought engaged in contemplating its own sufficiency. Some
forms of Oriental morals have united this logic with a profounder
psychology, and have seen that the final terminus on this road is
Nirvana, an obliteration of all thought and desire. In medieval science,
the ideal reappeared as a definition of heavenly bliss accessible only to
a redeemed immortal soul. Herbert Spencer is far enough away from
Aristotle, medieval Christianity and Buddhism; but the idea reemerges
in his conception of a goal of evolution in which adaptation of organism
to environment is complete and final. In popular thought, the conception
lies in the vague thought of a remote state of attainment in which we
shall be beyond 'temptation,' and in which virtue by its own inertia
will persist as a triumphant consummation. Even Kant who begins with
a complete scorn for happiness ends with an "ideal" of the eternal and
undisturbed union of virtue and joy, though in his case nothing but
a symbolic approximation is admitted to be feasible.
t must be said in Niebuhr's behalf that there is an awful lot
in Dewey's writing which suggests that the way to a better society
is
easy. For it is true that Dewey in his later writings tended to
identify the intelligent solution of a social problem as one that dis–
penses with the use of force, .and therefore seemed to imply that it
was never desirable to apply force.
If
Niebuhr criticizes Dewey on
this count, I can understand Niebuhr, but I reject another aspect
of Niebuhr's attack on Dewey's attitude toward intelligence. Once we
distinguish between the relatively specific conclusion that all political
problems can be solved without the appeal t.o force, and the more
general philosophical thesis that no conclusion about the ways of
achieving
certai~
ends should be arrived at except by the use of
intelligence or scientific method, we see a far more profound issue
between Dewey and Niebuhr. In other words, if one identifies the
use of intelligence with the use of absolutely peaceful methods, one
is accepting a dubious thesis within political technology itself, but if
gne
identifi~s
the use of
intelli~ence
with the
us~
of what is commonly
