Enough has already been said to show that the goodness of action must be determined with reference to nothing less than the totality of all affected interests. For this highest principle I have reserved the honored term, good-will. Neither you nor I can reasonably decline to consider the bearing of our actions on any interest whatsoever. Right conduct, since it is inconsistent with the least ruthlessness, must inevitably in the end assume the form of humanity and piety.

I know that it is not customary to suppose that devotion to the service of mankind is rational; it is taken to be gratuitous, if not quixotic. But once let it be granted that goodness accrues to action in proportion to its fruitfulness, it follows that that action is most blessed that is dedicated without reservation to the general life. There is only one course which can recommend itself to that fair and open mind to which I conceive myself to be addressing this appeal: namely, so to act in fulfilment of the interest in hand, as either to promote or make room for all other interests.

And this is true not only of such interests as may be assumed to exist, as constitute one's present neighborhood, near and remote; it is also true of interests that are as yet only potentialities, defined by the capacity of living things {68} to grow. If it be unreasonable to neglect the bearing of one's action on interests which one happens not to be familiar with, it is unreasonable to neglect its bearing on interests not yet asserted, wherever there is a presumption that such may come to be. In other words, one's moral account cannot be made up without a provision for entries that have yet to be made. Such a provision will take the form of a purpose to grow, an ardent spirit of liberality, an eagerness for novelty. Good-will builds better than it knows; it is open toward the future; committed to a task which requires foresight and also faith. But such devotion, with all its extravagance, with its very reverence for what is not known but must nevertheless be accounted best, is only, after all, the part of fearless good sense. If anything be good, and if it be reasonable to pursue it, then is the maximum of that thing the best, and the pursuit of it wholly reasonable.

It may even be said that thrift is only a lesser form of piety, and piety the whole of thrift. For, first and last, goodness lies in the saving and increase of life. The justification of any act lies in its being provident; in its yield of immediate fulfilment and its generous allowance for the other interest, the remote interest, and the interest that is as yet only surmised. The good will is the will to participate productively, permissively, {69} and formally in the total undertaking of life. Only when this intention controls one's decisions can one act without fear of one's own critical reflection.