Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Theories of the Obligation of Citizen to State
In the beginning of the book, Royce calls attention to the great perplexity of the present age in regard to its moral ideals and its standards of duty. Morality can not be a mere external restraint upon the individual. True morality is identical with the individual's own inmost desire, the real purpose of his life, as Opposed to what merely seems to him at some particular moment to be his purpose. But I can never hnd out what my own will is by merely brooding over my natural desires, or by follow ing my momentary caprices. From moment to mo ment, if you consider me apart from my training, I am a col lection of impulses. There is no one desire that is always present to me. (p. 27) Without such a unifying purpose one may exist as a psychological specimen, but not as a true per sonality. This personal problem of unifying life and giving it significance, of answering the question: For what do I live? Can be solved only by the establishment of loyalty to some cause. The man who is heartily loyal to a great cause has found the purpose of his life his deep and abiding will, in the desire to further this cause. Loyalty 1 tends to unify life, to give it centre, fixity, stability. (p. 22)
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