Nor need the perfectionist abandon his perfectionism in view of any such
consideration. He who measures perfection by the degree of activity
exercised in action, may admit that the coming man will be more perfect
than it is possible for any man to be now; but that need not prevent him
from holding that it is man's present duty to aim at the only perfection
possible to him, he being what he is. Similar reasoning will apply to any
other conception of perfection likely to be adopted, consciously or
unconsciously, by any adherent of the school in question.
As for the self-realizationist, a very little reflection seems sufficient
to reveal that the maxim that it is man's duty to become all that it is
in him to become is in no wise refuted by the claim that man may, in the
indefinitely distant future, become much more than many people have
supposed or now suppose.
(5) There remains the doctrine of the Rational Social Will as furnishing
the norm of conduct. I have tried to show that this doctrine must rest
upon broad views of man and of man's environment.
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