In one passage of the book cited above Guyau makes the doubting remark: "Who can tell us whether Morality is not ... at one and the same time a beautiful and useful art? Perhaps it bewitches us and deceives us." Let us assume that it is an illusion. That would not detract from its value for mankind. Is not all our knowledge of the world, is not our whole view of Nature an illusion? We are made conscious of the universe by its qualities, and these qualities are conferred on it by our senses. But all knowledge that we derive from our senses is an illusion. For the senses do not convey reality to us, but the modifications which the influence of reality produces in our sense organs. The universe has neither sound nor colour nor scent. But we perceive it as sounding, coloured and scented. These qualities we attribute to reality are illusions of our senses, but these illusions make up all the beauty of the world which without them would be dumb, blind and without charm for us.
Life for us is an unspeakably oppressive riddle. Has it an aim, and, if so, what? We do not know. All thought only leads to the conclusion: life is its own aim and end, we live for life's sake. And this conclusion is no solution of the problem. Then Morality appears, and not only makes life easier and possible, but even shows us an aim, if not for universal, at least for individual life. That aim is the humanization of the animal, the spiritualization of man, the exaltation and enrichment of the individual by means of sympathy, neighbourly kindness, a sense of joint responsibility, and the subjection of Instinct to Reason which, as far as we know, is the noblest product of Nature. It is possible that Morality, which hides the eerie unintelligibility of life from us, is an illusion. Blessed be the illusion which makes life worth living.
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End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Morals and the Evolution of Man, by Max Simon Nordau