OlncttcU llttiocraita ffiihrarg 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 IS9I 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BJ1011 .R26 1920 
 
 Ethics and natural law : a reconstructiv 
 
 olln 
 
 3 1924 028 960 321 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028960321 
 
Other Books by the Same Author 
 
 "A Life in Song," "Ballads of the Revolution and Other 
 Poems," "Modem Fishers of Men," "The Orator's Manual," 
 "The Speaker," in part, "The Writer," in part, "Art in 
 Theory," "The Representative Significance of Form," 
 "Poetry as a Representative Art," "Painting, Sculpture, and 
 Architecture as Representative Arts," "The Genesis of Art- 
 Form," "Rhythm and Harmony in Music and Poetry, 
 together virith Music as a Representative Art," "Proportion 
 and Harmony of Line and Color in Painting, Sculpture, and 
 Architecture," "The Aztec God and Other Dramas," "The 
 Psychology of Inspiration," "The Essentials of iEsthetics," 
 "Fundamentals in Education, Art, and Civics," "Sugges- 
 tions for the Spiritual Life," "Dante and Collected Verse," 
 "The Mountains about WiUiamstown," etc. 
 
Ethics and Natural Law 
 
 A Reconstructive Review of Moral Philosophy 
 Applied to the Rational Art of Living; 
 
 By 
 
 George Lansing Raymond, L.HJ). 
 
 Professor of Oratory in Williams CoUege, 1874-1881} of Oratory and 
 
 ^thetic Criticism, Princeton University, 1880-1893; of i^hetics, 
 
 Princeton University, (893-1905; of j^thetics, George ^^astiingtoa 
 
 University, I905-I912. 
 
 «^ 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 New York London 
 
 ^be "Knicl^etbocftet press 
 1920 
 
Copyright, 1920 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE LANSING RAYMOND 
 
 ttbe 'Rnfclietbocftec ptces, mew ffiotft 
 
To THE Memory of 
 MARK HOPKINS 
 
 TEACHER OF MENTAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN WILLIAMS COLLEGE 
 1 830-1 887 
 
 The American Socrates who, probing the resources of thought in the 
 minds of his pupils, guided them of themselves, as it were, to discover, 
 put together, and complete conceptions as nearly harmonious as possi- 
 ble concerning the power and purpose of Ufe in all its relations to them- 
 selves, their fellows, their country, and their God; with treasured 
 recollections of processes of thinking illustrated by him for nine hours 
 a week during an entire College year, while all whom he instructed 
 were alert with interest, and many were frequently thrilled as rarely by 
 the cumulative effects of any other form of eloquence, this excursion 
 into the field of applied ethics which this great educator had made 
 peculiarly his own is gratefully 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE principles of ethics have been discussed in many 
 comprehensive volumes. A new discussion cannot 
 be attempted without causing the intelligent reader 
 to ask why it is needed. Without referring to other reasons, 
 a sufficient answer to this may be found in the fact that 
 the war just closing has directed attention, as, perhaps, noth- 
 ing before ever has, to the influence upon public sentiment 
 and private character of certain ethical theories; and, in 
 connection with this, to the importance of making, if pos- 
 sible, a more careful study than has hitherto been attempted 
 of the practical effects of all such theories. It has come to 
 be recognized more universally than up to this time has 
 been the case, that none of these can be supposed to have 
 merely a speculative or philosophic value. A reconstruc- 
 tive review of them, therefore, in accordance with this con- 
 ception of their influence seems necessarily suggested, if not 
 demanded. 
 
 To recall the facts with reference to the origin and 
 development of the conception, the reader needs merely to 
 be reminded that there has been no charitable way of ex- 
 plaining the alarming innovations in warfare and government 
 which have been adopted in Germany and Russia except by 
 attributing them less to the inherent nature of their inhabi- 
 tants than to false opinions inculcated among them for 
 many years through educational training and popular litera- 
 ture. Through only such agencies could whole communities 
 have been induced to believe that the state is the source of 
 moral authority, and that, in case of conflict between it and 
 individual opinion and conscience, the latter must invariably 
 be made to yield, even if this involve such clear violations 
 of the principles of individual moral sense as are manifested 
 in the worst results of warfare. 
 
 In Germany, the extent to which the theory that a man's 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 first duty is to obey the dictates of someone at the head of 
 the state, or of some ofl&cial representing him, had been 
 accepted by even the most intelligent people was_ shown 
 early in the war by ninety-three of its_ foremost university 
 professors who signed a statement with reference to the 
 causes of the conflict, and to the methods of conducting it 
 in Belgium which few, if any of them, could have had op- 
 portunity to verify, and which, subsequently, was proved to 
 be false. How could men with previous high reputations as 
 historians and teachers of ethics have been induced to ex- 
 hibit themselves as victims of one of the worst efiEects of 
 national tyranny? How could they have been made to 
 convict themselves of being either willing to swear to what 
 was false, or afraid to keep silence ? The only reason which 
 can be conceived for this is that the evil spirit of which, to 
 use the language of Scripture, they were temporarily pos- 
 sessed, was in some way connected with a false ethical 
 theory with reference to the relation of the state to its 
 own people and to those of other nationalities. 
 
 As for the Russians, their acceptance of a similar theory 
 was manifested by what happeiied when the Czar who was 
 at the head of their church as well as state was removed. 
 After the people had lost him, many of them seem to have 
 lost everything that had the slightest influence in the direc- 
 tion of morality. Apparently, in some communities almost 
 every man who owned a gun and nothing else went shooting 
 for his neighbor and his neighbor's property; or, if, now and 
 then, he did consider the rights of others, these were those 
 alone of his own class, working for whom he could have the 
 gratification of feeling that he was really working for him- 
 self. Toward persons of other classes, he manifested still 
 less courtesy, consideration, helpfulness, sympathy, to say 
 nothing about truthfulness, justice, rationality, self-denial, 
 and self-control, than had the official autocrat whom the 
 revolution had removed. 
 
 How much better, the reader is probably now inclined 
 to exclaim, are the conceptions and characteristics of the 
 people of our own country ! But are they so much better ? 
 Or do we merely imagine that they are so because the facts 
 with reference to them have been more or less concealed? 
 Let us recall how close is the connection, in these days, be- 
 tween other countries and our own; and how inevitably any 
 thought originated in one of them is communicated to all. 
 
PREFACE Vil 
 
 President R. B. Hayes once, in referring to a fortunate dip- 
 lomatic escape, aptly quoted to the author the well-known 
 saying that "a merciful Providence seems to take care of 
 children, drunken people, and the United States." A few 
 years ago, many of our keenest thinkers feared that we were 
 drifting toward a national moral collapse not exactly the 
 same in form but as threatening in disastrous eflfects as that 
 which has overtaken some of the peoples of Europe. Now, 
 at last, many think that they have reason to hope that this 
 danger may be averted because of the lessons taught through 
 what has been experienced in this war. 
 
 The fundamental causes of the conditions revealed by it 
 so far as they are moral, which are the only ones that con- 
 cern us at present, are all connected with a single conception, 
 which, in a general way, may be termed materialistic. To 
 perceive what is meant by this term, let us analyze it a 
 little. As we do so, we shall find three of its constituent 
 elements particularly prominent. The first traces the 
 source of morality to that which is external to the man, not 
 internal. This explains why the conception identifies it 
 with the decrees of the rulers or other officials of the state. 
 It is because these are the representatives of the state's 
 external organization. The second attributes promotion 
 of morality to exercise of physical rather than psychical 
 force. This explains why the conception is associated with 
 the effects of militarism. The third associates the object 
 of morality with bodily or practical, not mental or ideal 
 betterment. This explains why the test of its efficiency is 
 supposed to be afforded by an increase in a nation's or an 
 individual's financial, commercial, or landed possessions. 
 
 Thus analyzed, it is easy to perceive that every phase 
 of the general conception is at variance with certain funda- 
 mental principles that underlie our own country's institu- 
 tions. According to these principles, moral actions, as 
 proved by the fact that they are not attributable to a lower 
 animal, are traceable to a man's individual rationality — 
 to what is within himself; or to conform this statement to 
 the title of this book — to what he has been made to be 
 through the operation of natural law. For this reason too 
 such actions are legitimately influenced by only one thing, 
 — not physical force but psychical truth ; and for this reason, 
 too, they result not in an increase of material bodily posses- 
 sions but in ability to subordinate all possessions to the 
 
VUl PREFACE 
 
 control and purposes of the higher intelligent nature. So 
 far, therefore, as moral conditions can be judged by the 
 theory of which they are expressions.it would seem that we 
 have reason to claim superiority for our own country. But 
 do all our country's people accepy the theories that have 
 been stated, and conform their actions to them? 
 
 A professor in a prominent American theological semi- 
 nary was removed from his position a year or two ago because 
 of his expression of views supposed to indicate loyalty, not 
 to our own nation, but to nations with which ours was at 
 war. Long before the war, however, the same professor, 
 in the presence of the author, had defended the sabotage 
 methods of the English suffragettes — in other words, the 
 obtaining of a political and legislative end through the use 
 of physical force. Is it too much to say that, in defending 
 this method, he had already manifested disloyalty of feeling 
 toward the principles at the basis of our institutions? No 
 matter how desirable a change in laws may be, no reform, 
 in a republic like ours, can begin to be as desirable as faith 
 in human reason, and in truth as the chief and, usually, 
 the only appropriate agency to be used in causing the reform. 
 Truth is evidently never so regarded when there is resort 
 to methods of controlling opinion or action that are not in 
 their nature psychical. In cases of riot, rebellion, or war, 
 physical force must sometimes be resisted by physical force. 
 But otherwise brickbats, bludgeons, bonfires, bullets, or 
 even ballots, if the latter be aimed at intimidating and sup- 
 pressing the rational promptings of the mind on the part of 
 voters or legislators, are not needed ; but only a change in the 
 opinions of individual citizens. These vote for the law- 
 makers, and, therefore, more or less control the law-makers' 
 actions. As a rule, men's opinions are appropriately altered 
 partly by personal experience and association with others, 
 and partly by arguments presented in books, magazines, 
 newspapers, or public addresses. After this effect has been 
 produced, a similar effect will also be produced upon the 
 legislators for whom the majority vote. Moreover, because 
 conforming to the opinions of people in general, laws so 
 occasioned will be obeyed without need of any great effort 
 to enforce them. This is one reason why the constitution 
 of the United States prescribes certain subjects concerning 
 which laws can be passed by only the Congress at Washing- 
 ton; and certain other subjects concerning which laws can 
 
PREFACE IX 
 
 be passed by only the State legislatures. In a country as 
 large as ours, those living in one section often demand laws 
 of which those living in another section have no need, and 
 frequently disapprove. Certain occurrences illustrating 
 both the advantages and the disadvantages of this con- 
 stitutional provision are mentioned in Chapter XXI of the 
 present volume. 
 
 Of course, one who acknowledges the principles just stated 
 and accepts truth as the sole or main weapon through which 
 to attain political results, must, with it, often exercise pa- 
 tience, content to wait until his adversaries have had time 
 to think and reconstruct their conceptions. But this is 
 something that the most elementary forms of courtesy and 
 respect for others and for their opinions ought of themselves 
 to incline him to do. Much more should he do this in a 
 country whose whole form of government is based upon faith 
 in human nature and in the workings of the human mind. 
 An American ought to be in sufficient sympathy with this 
 faith to believe that all that is necessary in order to induce 
 the majority of people to think and to act in accordance with 
 right is a persistent presentation to them of the facts of 
 a case and of inferences legitimately derived from them. 
 When success has crowned effort thus pursued, its effects 
 are well-nigh certain to prove comprehensive and perma- 
 nent. Nothing is so difficult to reverse as public sentiment 
 that is a result of ample instruction and deliberate reflection. 
 
 Disbelief in the effectiveness of these two latter agencies 
 is largely owing in our country, as in Germany, to the attribu- 
 ting of such moral influence as can thwart and end vice and 
 crime to the enactments of the state. It is for this reason 
 that many with the highest intentions have welcomed any 
 methods, no matter how contrary to the spirit or even to the 
 letter of our form of government, through which, as they 
 have supposed, their wishes as expressed in their votes can 
 be immediately transmuted into legal statutes. The error 
 of their conception consists not in its ascribing a certain 
 degree of influence to the action of the state, but in ascrib- 
 ing to it predominant and exclusive influence. Impersonal 
 public enactments have nothing in themselves alone that 
 can prove corrective of personal character. It is only the 
 influence and example of other persons, mainly in the family, 
 the school, the business, and the church, but sometimes also 
 in the state, that is capable, as a rule, of inspiring to higher 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 and nobler effort. Few more debasing conditions could be 
 found than in more than one State in our country in which 
 a law is supposed to have been framed so as entirely to 
 abolish them. See note on page 285 of this volume. 
 
 The failure of such laws to do what is expected of them is 
 owing in part, as has been intimated, to the attributing 
 of morality to material influences, but it is owing a,lso to a 
 false conception with reference to the aims of morality, and 
 therefore to the end toward which these laws should be 
 directed. Apparently, large numbers of people suppose them 
 intended to influence merely the material conditions and 
 environments of those for whose benefit they are enacted. 
 This opinion seems to be quite general among those who 
 emphasize the socialistic side of work among the masses. 
 It may be ascribed to some even of those engaged in that 
 kindly, humane, and self-denying form of service that is 
 termed settlement-work — the settlement of educated, re- 
 fined men and women in a slum neighborhood of a city with 
 the object of associating with the families surrounding them, 
 and, through example and instruction, stimulating and 
 leading them to more intelligent, industrious, clean, refined, 
 and enjoyable modes of life. There is no doubt that some, 
 even of these workers, have directed their attention too 
 exclusively to bodily and material betterment, and, in 
 doing so, have forgotten the mental and the spiritual. Some 
 of them have gone so far — one or two occasionally in prac- 
 tice, but more in theory — as virtually to emancipate them- 
 selves and their closest followers from what they consider 
 mere conventionalities of society and church; but which 
 are really the best methods yet discovered through which 
 physical conditions can be made to have a molding influ- 
 ence upon psychical possibilities. The purely socialistic 
 conception of all forms of benevolent work is too apt to put 
 the cart before the horse; to assign supreme importance to 
 that which is merely the husk, the form, the appearance of 
 morality ; and to overlook or, at least, underrate that which 
 constitutes its kernel, its spirit, its essence of life. 
 
 The most unfortunate result of this view is that, to those 
 who accept it, the whole object of life — that which explains 
 it — remains unperceived and therefore unsought. As a 
 fact, it is impossible to emancipate a human being from the 
 restraints of material surroundings. All his efforts to do 
 this, or any other person's efforts to do it for him, can 
 
PREFACE XI 
 
 merely, even when most successful, change the form in 
 which these restraints are manifested. As a fact, too, he 
 ought not to be emancipated from them. He needs them. 
 He must have them. Otherwise his higher nature cannot be 
 developed as it should be. It becomes him, therefore, in 
 any country in which the restraints have been proved to be 
 less irksome than in others, to be profoundly thankful that 
 this is so; to guard sacredly such rights as he already pos- 
 sesses, and to welcome changes in the methods of society 
 or state so far only as it can be made clear that they will 
 further the facility with which the individual can give ex- 
 pression, in word or deed, to those promptings within him 
 which, for reasons to be unfolded in this volume are always, 
 at one and the same time, the most in accordance with his 
 own highest desires and with the greatest good of others. 
 
 Enough has been said in this preface to suggest to those 
 interested in the subject why it is that the author has 
 thought it desirable to re-examine the philosophical bases of 
 ethics, together with some of their more important prac- 
 tical applications. Notwithstanding the very valuable work 
 that has been done in this department, circimistances have 
 changed, and additional discussion seems to be needed. This 
 is especially true as applied to certain theories that have only 
 recently attracted particular attention. But it is also true of 
 others that have been discussed for years but are beginning 
 now to be viewed in new relations. Take institutionism, for 
 instance, which is exemplified in the German conception of 
 morality as determined by the state. This conception is 
 too narrow. It leaves out that which is determined, and 
 ought to be determined, by other conditions, especially by 
 those that concern the individual. Or take such theories 
 as have been termed intuitional, emotional, instinctive, teleo- 
 logical, utilitarian, hedonistic, or such aims of ethical action 
 as have been associated with altruism, universal welfare, 
 the greatest happiness of the greatest number, benevolence, 
 sympathy, love or the highest form of self-realization. A man 
 might aim at what he might consider the most important of 
 these, and yet scarcely attain that which would make him 
 a useful enough citizen to keep him out of a poor-house. 
 There seem to be in them all more or less evidences of a 
 lack of thorough analysis. Of course, the same accusation 
 is likely to be made against any theory, and, therefore, 
 against that presented in this voliune. At the present time. 
 
Xll PREFACE 
 
 it is most likely to be made by those who have become inter- 
 ested in the results of the study of physiological psychology. 
 These certainly have something to do with the conditions 
 underlying ethics. Why, therefore, has this subject not 
 been more fully discussed in these pages? There are two 
 reasons. The first is the present indeterminate character of 
 these results. This is acknowledged even by those who think 
 themselves justified, as all do not, in arguing that conditions 
 have been considerably changed since Professor William 
 James (1842-1910) of Harvard University said, in the 
 epilogue of his Psychology that the results give us only "a 
 string of raw facts, a little gossip, and . . . a strong pre- 
 judice that we have states of mind, but not a single law in 
 the sense in which physics show us laws." The other 
 reason is that, according to the theory presented in this book, 
 the features that are Sstinctive of ethics do not begin to 
 exert their influence until after those distinctive of psycho- 
 physics have, so to speak, been ended. The latter have to 
 do with the methods through which certain physical ele- 
 ments and instrumentalities of thinking are derived and 
 combined into psychical results. Ethics has to do with the 
 effects of certain completed psychical results after they have 
 assumed the form of definite tendencies and conceptions. 
 Even then, moreover, according to the theory that this 
 book has been written to emphasize, the ethical results are 
 not connected with the psycho-physical processes by way of 
 derivation from them or development through them, but 
 by way of antagonism and counteraction. This is a con- 
 dition not disputed but admitted by such forerunners of 
 physiological psychology as Darwin, Spencer, and Huxley 
 (see pages 98, 99). None of them deny an ethical inter- 
 ference attributable to an a priori influence. Huxley, for 
 instance, says in his essay on "Evolution and Ethics" that 
 "thepracticeof that which is ethically best . . . involves 
 a course of conduct which, in all respects , is opposed to that ' ' 
 — meaning evidently the survival of the fittest — "which leads 
 to success in the cosmic struggle for existence." Yet what 
 evolutionist has ever propounded a theory that can fully 
 account for this condition? Is it not justifiable to say that, 
 as applied to ethics, a theory thus defective indicates a lack 
 of thorough analysis? 
 
 Perhaps it may not be out of place to add here that the 
 analogies between ethical results in character and those of 
 
PREFACE Xlll 
 
 harmony in aesthetics which are brought out near the close 
 of the more theoretic part of this discussion were suggested 
 by an expression of some anonymous journalist describing 
 in 1876 the author's father, B. W. Raymond (i 801-1883) 
 who was a prominent merchant and mayor of Chicago. 
 "Thewholeaspect,"it was said, "is that of harmony . . . 
 of character." The conception developed from this sug- 
 gestion is that the ethical, wherever manifested, begins in 
 the individual — in the inner and conscious harmony pro- 
 duced by desires having their source in his mind, when they 
 are balancing and, if need be, subordinating but not sup- 
 pressing desires having their source in his body ; and that it is 
 to this internal experience in the individual that we must 
 trace all such external relations as can be rightly termed 
 harmonious, whether manifested between one or more 
 individuals, or between collections of individuals, as in 
 nations. 
 
 In connection with this conception, the most important 
 moral agency is proved philosophically to be that which 
 almost all people who are not philosophers have in all ages 
 believed it to be — namely, conscience. Whether restraining 
 from evil or impelling to good, all the functions of this are 
 shown to be comprehended in a consciousness of conflict 
 between the body's desire and the mind's desire. As in- 
 dicated by an examination of the natural action of each of 
 these desires, it is shown that the former necessarily seeks 
 satisfaction in obtaining that which gratifies oneself alone, 
 no two persons, for instance, being able to eat or to drink 
 exactly the same thing. On the contrary, the latter desire 
 necessarily seeks satisfaction in obtaining that which, at 
 the same time, can be gratifying to another. Whatever 
 ministers to the mental nature, as is suggested even by the 
 anatomy of the brain, comes through the eyes and ears, 
 and that which is apprehended through these need never 
 be the exclusive possession of one person. Scenery, music, 
 poetry, argument, truth can all be enjoyed to the full by 
 one who is sharing them with others. Naturally, therefore, 
 the body's desire tends toward the irrational , the animal, and 
 the selfish and the mind's desire toward the rational, the 
 humane, and the non-selfish. In itself, however, neither of 
 the two is necessarily moral or immoral. The gratification 
 of both is needed for the continuance of human life. That 
 which connects them with morality is the impossibility 
 
Xiv PREFACE 
 
 occasionally of gratifying desires of each kind at one and the 
 same time. Then the two conflict. One becomes aware 
 of this fact through conscience. Its function is to direct 
 thought to a condition of discord not harmony within one's 
 own nature; and, in some instances, it continues to do this 
 until the man has recognized, that, in the case presented for 
 his consideration, bodily desire should be made to accord 
 and harmonize with mental desire — a result that can be 
 attained through any agencies or methods connected with 
 the mind that are capable of giving it an influence sufficient 
 to accomplish this purpose. 
 
 The trend of thought thus indicated might be supposed 
 by some readers to be incomplete, because, after applying 
 the principles unfolded to the relations of the individual 
 to family, school, society, industry, bargaining, employ- 
 ment, and government, no mention is made of religion. 
 But this is in accordance with a deliberate intention. Dr. 
 
 S. S. Laws (1824 ), formerly President of the University 
 
 of Missouri, used to make a distinction between ethics and 
 religion, to the effect that the former has to do with duties 
 that grow out of relations which the moral agent sustains to 
 other finite agents; and the latter to those that he sustains 
 to God; or to put it differently, that the former has to do 
 with conduct as related to present life on earth, and the latter 
 as related to future life beyond the earth. According to 
 either statement, a consideration of religion is not necessary 
 to the completion of a discussion upon ethics alone. For 
 other reasons, too, it seems wise to omit any reference to 
 forms of religion in this volume. Only by such a course 
 does it seem possible to enable it to accomplish all the 
 purposes for which it was designed. Among the country- 
 men of the author who must constitute his constituency are 
 Catholics, Protestants of many different sects, Christian 
 Scientists, Spiritualists, Theosophists, Hebrews, Mormons, 
 Mohammedans, Buddhists, Confucianists, and the adher- 
 ents of many other forms of religion. The time may come 
 when what is written here may be needed as an aid to in- 
 struction among the young. No textbook should contain 
 material tending to undermine the religious beliefs of any 
 families represented by pupils in either public or private 
 schools or colleges. The time also may come when the 
 book may be needed on account of the influence which it 
 seems fitted to exert upon mature minds. It is exceedingly 
 
PREFACE XV 
 
 important in a great country like ours to have the people 
 accept, as applied to family, school, society, business, and 
 government, a single standard or like standards of morals. 
 But how can adherents of different religions or forms of 
 religion be expected to accept these standards unless it be 
 made clear to them that, in doing so, they are not accepting 
 a single religion, or form of religion? And how can this 
 be made clear to them? How else, if an author have argued 
 for universal acceptance of his standards, than by his own 
 action in setting an example of not applying them to reli- 
 gion, but leaving the adherents of each religion free to make 
 their applications for themselves? 
 
 It would be a mistake to suppose, however, that a book 
 which, for the reasons just mentioned, avoids religious con- 
 troversy cannot have an effect upon religious life, and upon 
 all forms of it, whether considered in their relations to 
 theory, or to practice. Just as a man's moral nature is 
 based and conditioned upon his mental nature — the na- 
 ture that differentiates him from the brute — so his religious 
 natvire is based and conditioned upon his moral nature. In 
 the degree in which he has right ideas with reference to 
 morality, he will have right ideas with reference to that 
 which is fundamental in religion. Take, for instance, the 
 conception, in this book, of desire as lying at the basis of all 
 thought and action; or of higher desire as often struggling 
 against lower desire; or of the necessity in case of conflict 
 of not allowing this latter desire to outweigh the former; 
 or of the peace of conscience that attends the harmony 
 produced when this result is obtained; or of the mental 
 ideal that inspires toward the realization of this harmony; 
 or of the spiritual life that is reached and possessed by him 
 who experiences this realization — is it possible to avoid 
 perceiving that all these prepare a man for the acceptance of 
 religious conceptions? What could be more religious than 
 the complete recognition of the obligation resting upon the 
 only being in the world distinctively characterized by the 
 possession of mind never to allow influences having their 
 sources in this to be outweighed by those having their 
 sources merely in the body? If a man, when the tempta- 
 tions and troubles incident to physical conditions assail his 
 higher natiure, treat them as the successful mariner does the 
 winds and waves upon an ocean, he may make them all 
 instrumental in furthering his own progress. But, if he 
 
XVI PREFACE 
 
 act otherwise, if he do nothing to resist and master them, 
 he will make no progress and probably will be overwhelmed 
 and lost; or if his life be not lost, it will be devoid of expe- 
 riences that would have made it much better worth the liv- 
 ing. The ocean never appears so grand and beautiful, so 
 exhilarating and enjoyable, as it does to the mariner who is 
 conscious of holding in subjection all the elements of a storm 
 and of using them to speed his vessel upon its course. _ And 
 so with the spirit of man when confronted by material ob- 
 stacles. One never appreciates the grandeur and beauty of 
 the physical world as he does when he is inspired by a reali- 
 zation of the importance and dignity of his own destiny in 
 view of the number and magnitude of the forces that are at 
 work on every side of him, and which it is his privilege to 
 master, and, having done so, to turn into that which shall 
 contribute toward his own psychical advancement. 
 
 The ancient astrologers, accepting what they considered 
 to be the testimony of their own consciousness, adopted the 
 theory that every man is at the center of the universe. 
 They found it impossible not to conceive this to be the case, 
 — not to conceive of the universe as extending as far below 
 them as above them, as far to one side of them as to the 
 other side. Therefore they concluded that a man's mind 
 which constituted his psychical self was influenced not only 
 by his own body which constituted his physical self, but by 
 everything in the world with which this body could be 
 physically connected, even by that which is in the heavens 
 above the world — ^in other words, that his whole character 
 and career were influenced by everything in the physical 
 universe of which he conceived of himself as the center. 
 This ancient astronomer, whatever may be thought of the 
 details of his theory, had, certainly, a general conception 
 that was suggestive and sublime. Just as every wheel 
 whirling in a flour mill exerts an influence upon every gran- 
 tile of the product that the mill turns out, so, as he conceived, 
 does everything that moves about one's individual life, 
 not only in a man's physical body, but, beyond the limits 
 of this, everything in the world, everything below, above, and 
 about the world, all the planets in their courses, have an 
 influence in shaping the destiny of even the least of the liv- 
 ing creatures that this mighty revolving machinery of crea- 
 tion is bringing to perfection. According to this theory, 
 which does not differ essentially from that of this volume, 
 
PREFACE XVU 
 
 every man is connected with everything ; and yet everything 
 can affect him as it should in so far only as it is made by him 
 to 'serve his mental and spiritual requirements. But to 
 serve these, there is not a valley too wide, a mountain too 
 high, a star too bright, nor a universe too vast. There is a 
 sense in which all these are but partial factors of the environ- 
 ment, the investiture, the embodiment of his single human 
 soul. An ethical system that is capable of including in its 
 outlook a conception like this ought to be thought broad 
 enough not to exclude from its range any consideration 
 needed in order to render it complete. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface ........ v 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Human Experience Started and Developed from 
 Desires i 
 
 Purpose and Method of this Essay — Man, an Embodiment of 
 Desire — This Desire Has Two Sources, One in the Body, the 
 Other in the Mind — In Both Cases the Object of the Desire 
 Seems to be to Attain Unity between Two Persons — This 
 Object not Fulfilled through the Means by which it is most 
 Naturally Sought — The Ends as Well as Sources of the 
 Desire of the Body and of the Mind Differ — Perception, 
 Sensation, and Instinct Logically Precede the Practical 
 Appeal of Desire to Consciousness — Meaning of Desire — 
 Human Desire not the Same as Animal Appetite — Whait 
 is Meant by Desires of the Body and of the Mind — The 
 Relation that Desire Bears to Thought, and to Feeling or 
 Emotion — Feeling or Emotion does not Become Desire until 
 Becoming Active, instead of Passive — Consciousness Testi- 
 fies that Thought as well as Feeling may Influence Desire — 
 The Same Fact Revealed by Observing the Normal Action 
 of the Will — And by the Testimony of Conscience — Reason 
 for Begiiming this Discussion by a Consideration of Desires 
 — Where Desires of Body and of Mind Meet in Conscious- 
 ness is the Best Place in which to Study that Relationship 
 between Body and Mind Needed for a Knowledge of Ethics 
 — Science Confirms the Conception that Desires are at the 
 Basis of Human Action — Connection between Physical 
 Organs and Psychical Experience — ^Automatic and Cerebro- 
 spinal Nerves — The Influence of the Former Precedes that 
 of the Lratter — Reason for Assodating not only Lower but 
 Higher Desires with the Automatic Nervous System. 
 
PAGE 
 
 xx contents 
 
 chapter ii 
 
 Desires of Body and of Mind Often Antagonistic 
 AND not Necessarily Developed from one 
 Another i^ 
 
 Desires of the Body and of the Mind — Superior Claims, when 
 they Differ, of the Latter Desires— Testimony of Science as 
 to Different Nerve-Sources of Each Form of Desire — The 
 Sources in Different Parts of the Brain — Desires of the Body 
 are Accompanied by Consciousness of One's own Physical 
 and Personal Individuality, Tending to Self-indulgence; 
 Desires of the Mind by a Consciousness of Things External 
 to One, Tending to Gratification in the Non-Selfish — De- 
 sires of the Body End in Physical Sensation; those of the 
 Mind in that which Develops Rationality — ^And, as Con- 
 trasted with the BrutaS, the Humane — Simimary of the 
 Differences between the Causes and Effects of Desires of the 
 Body and of the Mind — Are both Forms of Desire Developed 
 from the Same or a Similar Source? — How Desires of the 
 Body Develop — Why they Develop in this Way — Fear and 
 Hate Occasioned by Limits Assigned to Bodily Indulgence — 
 How Desires of the Mind Develop — Causing Consciousness 
 of Sympathy, Confidence, and Consideraition toward 
 Others, and High Attainments of Manhood — Yet Bodily 
 Desire is also Needed for full Development of Character — 
 The Two Forms of Desire must be Attributed to Two Dif- 
 ferent Sources — Attributing them thus Seems to Violate 
 Philosophical Unity of Conception — Reference to an 
 /Esthetic Principle' — ^Analogy between Esthetics and Ethics 
 — The Connection between a Mental Cause and a Material 
 Effect in w^sthetics — And in Ethics — Human Intelligence 
 Forms the Connection — This Conception Obviates an Ob- 
 jection to Evolutionism as Materialistic, and Accords with a 
 Law of Nature — Manifest in Every Department of Nature's 
 Activities. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The Processes of Human Intelligence as In- 
 fluenced BY Desires of the Body and of the 
 Mind .... 
 
 35 
 
 Subject of the Present Chapter — Animal and Human Traits — 
 
CONTENTS XXI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Methods of Conceiving of the Influence upon Men of Lower 
 and of Higher Desire — Tabulation of Processes of Intelli- 
 gence as Developed in Connection with each Form of Desire 
 — Explanations — Mental Desires are more Influenced by 
 Thinking than Are Bodily Desires — Possible, but not Actual, 
 Separation between the Psychical Results of Desires of the 
 Body and of the Mind — Dominance of the Latter through 
 Influencing the Will — Desire as Affecting the WiU — As 
 Affecting Lessons Derived from Observation and Experience 
 — From Information — Higher Desires aside from Know- 
 ledge Influential in Restraining from Vice — Lessons from 
 the Reasoning Faculties as Influenced by Conditions of De- 
 sire — Recent Public Applications of this Principle — Imag- 
 ination as Influenced by Conditions of Desire, as in Ideals — 
 Ideals as Results of Imagination — The Possession of Ideals 
 Differ^tiates the Mental, Rational, Non-Selfish, and Hu- 
 mane from the Bodily, Physical, Selfish, and Brutal Nature 
 — ^The Character of the Ideal Depends upon the Contents of 
 the Mind — Man can Live in a World of Ideails — This the 
 Culminating Effect of Thinking as Influenced by Higher 
 Desire — Why Ideals are Hampered by Material Conditions 
 — ^Why Certain Suggestions from this Fact may be Consoling 
 and Inspiring. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Man's Consciousness of Conflict Between De- 
 sires of the Body and of the Mind. -51 
 
 Recapitulation — Consciousness of Conflict between Desires 
 sometimes Slight — When not so, the Opposition is between 
 the Desires of the Body and of the Mind — This Fact is often 
 Overlooked; but is Fundamental — The Fact Accepted by 
 Many Writers who have not Recognized its Full Import — 
 The Consciousness of Conflict between Desires of the Body 
 and of the Mind Necessitates Feelings of Unrest, Discom- 
 fort, etc. — Also of Obligation to Put an End to Them — ^And 
 to Use all the Mental Powers in Determining and Directing 
 the Methods of Ending them — Nature Prompts every Man 
 because he is a Man to Subordinate the Bodily to the Men- 
 tal — In the Consciousness of a Conflict that should be 
 Ended thus we Become Aware of what is Termed Conscience. 
 
xxii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ancient and Medieval Ethical Theories . . 60 
 
 Bearing upon our Subject of the History of Ethical Theories- 
 Chief Differences between these Concern the Source and 
 End of Obligation— Earliest Moral Conceptions Based upon 
 a Sense of One's Relations to Others. Institutionism vs. 
 Individualism— Use and Meaning of the Word Conscience 
 in Greece and Rome— Its Use at the Present Time — Intu- 
 ition vs. Instinct — Promptings of both Attributed to Di- 
 vinity — Other Moral Theories, Essentially the same in 
 Ancient and in Modern Times. Reason for this — Con- 
 temporaneous Appearance in Greece of those Ascribing the 
 Source of Morality to Thinking and to Feeling; to Reason 
 and to Experiences of Pleasure and Pain — Criticisms of both 
 Theories— Greek Philosophers who Combined both— The 
 Functional School, with Suggestions of Teleological and 
 Utilitarian Methods — Eudaimonism — The Cynic and Stoic 
 Schools — The Sophist, Cyrenaic, and Epicurean Schools — 
 Roman Stoics and Epicureans — Early Christian Ethical 
 Theories — The Mystics. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Modern Ethical Theories: Institutionism, Em- 
 piricism, AND Rational, Emotive, and Percep- 
 tive Intuitionism 77 
 
 Lord Bacon's Inductive Philosophy — Institutionism of Hobbes — 
 Empiricism of Locke and his Followers — Rational and 
 Innate Recognition of Right and Wrong — Critical Phi- 
 losophy of Kant — His Distinction between the Noumenal 
 and the Phenomenal — Distinction between Kant's Intuitive 
 Theory and the Innate Theory of the English Rational 
 School — Connection between the View of Kant and that of 
 Leibnitz and Schopenhauer — ^Analogy that which Connects 
 Mind and Matter — Practical Recognition of this Fact by 
 People who are not Philosophers, and its Results — Connec- 
 tion between the Theories of Kant and the Idealism of 
 Hegel — Connection between Kant's Theories and the De- 
 mands of Practical Morality — Connection between Hegel's 
 Idealism and the Expression of the Ideal of Individuals — 
 Outward Government Control Substituted by Hegel for 
 Inward Self-control — Nietzsche's Emphasis upon Forceful 
 
CONTENTS xxiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Control, and its Effects upon Public Morals — Institutionism 
 Cannot Meet all the Requirements of Morality — Recent 
 Acceptance by Modem Writers of Institutional Principles — 
 Influence of Kant upon Later Rational Intuitionism — The 
 Voice of God in Man — Moral-sense or Emotional Intuition- 
 ism of Shaftesbtary — Perceptional Intuitionism of Butler — 
 Influence on Modem Thought of Shaftesbury and Butler. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Modern Ethical Theories Continued: Teleo- 
 LOGiCAL, Utilitarian, Evolutionary, and Self- 
 realization Theories ..... 94 
 
 Teleological Theory — Association with it of the Functional 
 Theory, or Fitness — Connection between Fitness and Re- 
 sults of Experience — Hedonism and Eudaimonism of Bent- 
 ham — Utilitarianism — Its Accord with Pragmatism and 
 Common Sense — Evolutionism and Energism — Intuitions 
 and Instincts as Results of Experience and Inheritance — 
 As a priori Natural Impulses — What Evolutionism Leaves 
 Unsolved — The Self-Realization Theory versus Evolution- 
 ary Materialism — A Recognition of the Importance of Non- 
 selfish as Contrasted with Selfish Motives — Modern De- 
 velopment of the Spiritual Ideal in Self-Realization — This 
 Conception not new, but widely Accepted only in our 
 Time — Parallelism between it, and the Acceptance by 
 Pragmatism of the Ideal as the True — High Moral Intent of 
 this Conception; but not Philosophically Derived — Nor 
 Practically Satisfactory. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Morality Attributed to Thinking, Feeling, or 
 Both, Whether Through Intuition, Instinct, 
 Reasoning, or Observing . .104 
 
 Summary of our Review of Ethical Theories — The Attributing 
 of Right Conduct to Thinking, through Intuition or Reason- 
 ing — How this Fails to Accord with the Testimony of Con- 
 sciousness — Moral Influence of Thinking alone upon Prac- 
 tical Results — Upon Philosophic Theory — The Attributing 
 of Right Conduct to Feeling whether Resulting from Instinct 
 
xxiv CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 or Experience — ^Arguments for and against this Conception 
 — Its Influence upon Practical Results — Upon Philosophic 
 Theory— The Attributing of Right Conduct to Thinking 
 and Feeling in Combination — The Necessary Conditions 
 underlying this Conception. 
 
 chapter ix 
 
 Conscience, a Consciousness of Conflict Be- 
 tween Desires of the Body and of the Mind . Ill 
 
 Thinking and Feeling are Both United in Human Desire — 
 How Desires of the Mind can be Made to Seem Authori- 
 tative — The Facts Fit the Ordinary Conception of the 
 Meaning of Conscience — The Function Assigned to Con- 
 science here Is not Unimportant — Can this Conception of 
 it Include aU the Requirements of Conscience? — Conscience 
 Is Primarily Felt Within — Never Experienced Except in 
 Connection with a Conflict between Higher and Lower De- 
 sires — Even the Perversions of Conscience Show this — This 
 Conception of Conscience Follows Logically upon Modem 
 Theories Concerning the Subject — The Conception can be 
 Reconciled with other Functions of Conscience — Conscience 
 as Related to the Choice of an End toward which Obligation 
 Inclines — Many Ethical Theories not Sufficiently Compre- 
 hensive and Fundamental — Mental Control as an Agency 
 in the Stimulating of Mental Activity — In the Developing 
 of Intelligence — In the Recognizing of Spiritual Com- 
 munality — Summary of the View of Conscience here Pre- 
 sented — The Importance of Using all the Possibilities of 
 Mind to Prevent, in Case of Conflict with BodUy Influences, 
 its Being Outweighed by them — Difference between the 
 Conception of Conscience Presented in these Pages and 
 other Somewhat Similar Conceptions. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Desires of the Mind Should not Suppress, but 
 Subordinate, Desires of the Body . . .123 
 
 The Difficulty of Understanding or Applying the Principles Un- 
 folded in the Preceding Chapters — Two Possible Methods of 
 Doing this — The Method of Suppressing Physical Desires, 
 
CONTENTS XXV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 or Asceticism — Asceticism Wrong in Theory — Gratifying 
 Physical Desire is Right — Asceticism Detrimental in Prac- 
 tice — Unnecessary as a Preventive of Evil — Illustrations — 
 Easy Solutions of Moral Problems not the most Satisfactory 
 — Modem Efforts to Create Right Opinions on this Sub- 
 ject — Bodily Desire should be Kept Subordinate — Impor- 
 tance of Mental Desire — But not to be Indulged to the 
 Exclusion of Bodily Desire — The Greek Conception of 
 Moderation — Neither Bodily nor Mental Desire Expressive 
 of all of Nature's Demands — When these Demands are not 
 Fulfilled, any Desire may Become Overreaching — Over- 
 reaching Desires Tend to Irrationality and Selfishness — 
 Even though Primarily Mental — In Beings both Bodily and 
 Mental, the Desire of the One Needs to be Balanced against 
 that of the Other — Balance as an Agency in Keeping Up- 
 right — Complexity of the Problem of Morality — The Prob- 
 lem Solved by Mental Action that is both Immediate and 
 Deliberative — Adaptation to this Purpose of the Principle 
 Underlying what is Termed Ethical Harmony. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Analogies Between Harmony in .^Esthetics and 
 IN Ethics 141 
 
 The Term Harmony is often Applied to Moral Conditions — 
 Similarity of the Influences Tending to .^Esthetic and to 
 Ethical Harmony — Explanation of Arrangements Producing 
 iEsthetic Harmony — ^Art-Composition, Beauty, and Moral 
 Character all Connected with Subordinating the Bodily or 
 Material to the Mental or Rational — This Produces, First, 
 an Effect of Order — Other Effects thus Produced — Other 
 Analogies — Embodiment of Ideals — Harmony is Produced 
 by Arrangement, not Suppression — It Affects Sensation 
 aside from the Understanding — Can be Recognized by 
 Ordinary Human Intelligence — By Natural Inference — 
 Studying the Subject Increases Ability to Apply it — Its 
 Principles Applicable to Courses of Action as well as to 
 Specific Acts — Effects of Ethical Harmony between Desires, 
 as of .^Esthetic Harmony between Methods, Produced by 
 Influences Essentially Non-selfish — The Results of Ethical 
 Harmony Conform to every Requirement of Sociology and 
 Religion as well as of Rationality. 
 
XXVI CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Desires of the Mind and of the Body as In- 
 fluenced BY Observation, Experience, and 
 Information -155 
 
 Recapitulation — Practical Applications of our Subject to be 
 Considered First in their General Relations to aU Actions — 
 Effort Needed in Order to Strengthen the Desires of the 
 Mind— That which Appeals to the Mind as Desirable— It is 
 Ascertained through Observation, Experiment, and Informa- 
 tion — Observation as Influencing Imitation — Training Im- 
 parted by Environment — Through Effects of which One 
 is not Conscious — Influence of Suggestion — Strongest when 
 its Results Appear Desirable in Themselves or so because 
 Presented by One Personally Admired — Need of Caution in 
 Choosing Associations — Opportunities for Influence Need 
 to be Appropriated — Mistakes of Asceticism — Puritanism — 
 Its Fundamental Conception — That which is Desirable as 
 Ascertained through Experiment — Actions Tend to Repeat 
 Themselves — Especially Actions Involving Morality — 
 Guilt Determined by Quality not Quantity of Action — Mold- 
 ing Character by Causing Repetitions of Actions — Not Suc- 
 cessful when Undesirable Acts are Repeated — That which is 
 Desirable as Ascertained through Information — The Most 
 Intelligent not the Most Moral — Moral Eflfects Depend 
 upon the Influence Exerted upon Desire — And upon the 
 Unconscious as well as Conscious Mind — What Determines 
 the Moral Effects of Information — Mistakes of Modem 
 Methods of Imparting Information; Newspapers — Novels, 
 Plays, and Moving Pictures — Moral Studies in Schools — 
 Influences to Inspire Higher Desire Should Accompany 
 the Moral Effects of Information — Mistakes of Modem 
 Methods of Imparting Information; Newspapers — Novels, 
 Plays, and Moving Pictures — Moral Studies in Schools — 
 Influences to Inspire Higher Desire Should Accompany 
 Information. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Keeping the Mind's Desires Uppermost in Court- 
 ship AND Marriage 
 
 The Family has Bodily and Mental Relations to the Development 
 of Character — The Bodily should not be Emphasized Un- 
 
 172 
 
CONTENTS XXVll 
 
 PACE 
 
 duly, though Public Sentiment against Marrying Physical 
 Degenerates is Healthful — Mental Requirements should 
 also be Regarded, and Anticipated in Education — Court- 
 ship, Friendship, and Love — The Qualities Attracting those 
 who Fall in Love — Risks Attending Merely Bodily or 
 Merely Mental Attraction — Methods of Avoiding these 
 Risks — ^Effects of Sentimentality, as in Novels, etc., as 
 Contrasted with RationaUty, Especially as Exerted by 
 Parents — The Cure for Unsatisfactory Marriage — Injurious 
 Representations of much Modern Literature — Evils 
 Wrought by Forbidding all Divorce — Good Accomplished 
 by Resisting Tendencies to it, in Order to Balance the 
 Bodily by the Mental. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Keeping the Mind's Desires Uppermost in Family 
 Training 182 
 
 The Training of the Child the Chief Work of the Family- 
 Necessity of Influencing the Child's Desires through Love 
 for Him — Through Hope for Him — Through Faith in Him — 
 Children Associate Mystery with the Prompting of Con- 
 science — Importance of Developing their Tendencies to 
 Reverence and Aspiration — Devotion, and Religious Sug- 
 gestion in Family Life — Cultivation among the Children 
 of Respect, Obedience, and a Sense of Duty — Other Traits, 
 the Beginnings of which can be Cultivated in Childhood — 
 The Chief Aim should be the Cultivation of Mental Desires 
 which Chastisement alone Cannot Accomplish — Self-control 
 should be Developed — Traits Connected with Truthfulness 
 that Need Particular Emphasis in Childhood — Traits Con- 
 nected with Purity — Importance of Parents' Gaining and 
 Keeping their Children's Confidence — The Effects of this 
 upon both Morals and Manners. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Keeping the Mind's Desires Uppermost in School 
 Training 194 
 
 Education Means more than an Effect Produced upon the Under- 
 standing — The School should Impart, if not Religious In- 
 struction, at Least a Religious Spirit — Use of Placards 
 Enjoining Morality — Schools should. Strengthen Mental 
 
XXVUl CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 and Thoughtful Tendencies — Instruction should be Adapted 
 to both Bodily and Mental Requirements — Differences in 
 the Methods of Appealing to Each Requirement — ^A Mistake 
 to Suppose Mental Desire Influenced only through Bodily 
 Desire — ^Educational Methods Injured by this Supposition — 
 Study should be Made not Easy but Interesting — Two Ways 
 of Doing this — Necessity of the Student's having Love for 
 his Work — Drill Made Pleasant — Class-room Competition — 
 Literary and Athletic Competitions — Athletics Sometimes 
 Overrated — Large Schools and the Graded System — Co- 
 education — Social, Scholarly, and Ethical Effects of the 
 System — Yoimg People Need Instruction by those of their 
 Own Sex. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Keeping the Mind's Desires Uppermost in the 
 General Relations of Society . . . 206 
 
 Self-Control Needed by Members of Society; not Control of 
 Other People — Mistakes with Reference to these Subjects — 
 The Mature Require Different Treatment from the Im- 
 mature — Too Strait-laced People Lacking in Moral In- 
 fluence — Good Influence of Some Parents because not 
 Strait-laced — To Act Morally, Mature Minds sometimes 
 Need to Act Independently — Reverence, Respect, Obe- 
 dience, Humility — Exerting Public Influence on the Side 
 of the Mental — Importance of Community Influence upon 
 Farm Life — Public Spirit — Frankness and Truthfulness — 
 Cases in which these may Work Harm — Problems of the 
 Kind Solved by Balancing Mind against Body — Why this 
 Method Does no Harm — Promises — Contracts — Purity, 
 Cleanliness, Decency, and Chastity — Reasons for these — 
 Chastity Common, and Honored among Men, though for 
 Business Reasons Less Emphasized than Integrity — Chas- 
 tity among Women— Moral Obligations Rest upon All — 
 Virtue its Own Reward. 
 
 chapter xvii 
 
 Keeping the Mind's Desires Uppermost in Social 
 Customs AND Habits 218 
 
 Matters of Habit and Manner not mentally Unimportant — 
 
CONTENTS XXIX 
 
 Mental Influence Exerted over Bodily Appetite — Selection 
 of Pood — Cooking and Seasoning Food — The Use of those 
 Stimulants that are Injurious only to Self — Tobacco — 
 Stimulants Injurious also to Other People, like Intoxicating 
 Drinks and Opiates — Restricting their Use through Circu- 
 lation of Information Concerning their Effects — Regulating 
 their Use by Law — Prohibiting it altogether — Objections 
 Made to Prohibition — Those with the Same Moral Aims 
 do not always Agree with Reference to the Means of Attain- 
 ing them — Law Applied by Using Bodily Force can never 
 Exert any but Indirect Influence upon Mental Results — 
 However wisely Framed, Law can never be Substituted for 
 Mental Self-control. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Keeping the Mind's Desires Uppermost in Social 
 Surroundings and Pleasures . . . 226 
 
 Clothing — An Agency for Mental Expression — Application of 
 this Principle to Forms of Work and Art — Under-dressing 
 in Society — Over-dressing — Bodily or Mental Desires as 
 Shown in Ostentatious Residences — Money Wisely Spent to 
 Gratify Public-spirited Mental Desire — Bodily vs. Mental 
 Desire, as Shown in Feasting — In Dancing — In Card-play- 
 ing; why Gambling and Betting are Wrong — Evil Effects 
 Connected with them and Other Pastimes — Forms of Enjoy- 
 ment in which One is Entertained by Others — Morality and 
 Art — The Kind of Art that One should Patronize — Frivolous 
 and Superficial Art — Every Part of the Human Form can 
 Become a Vehicle for Mental Expression — Different Effects 
 of the Actual Human Form and of its Representations in 
 Art — This Difference Overlooked — Disregard of Proprieties 
 in Moving Pictures and Theatricals — Disregard and Dis- 
 tortion of Truth for Artistic Effects in Dramas and Novels. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Keeping the Mind's Desires Uppermost in Com- 
 mercial Relations Between Buyers and 
 Sellers 241 
 
 Importance of Business — Of Developing the Traits of Character 
 Needed for Success in it — How Property may be Acquired — 
 
XXX CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Money as a Medium of Exchange — The Object of Business 
 Is to Exchange what One Has for what Another Has — Can 
 be Conducted in Fulfillment of Lower or of Higher Desire — 
 Civilization the Result of the Latter, Giving Men Confi- 
 dence in One Another — Honesty Proved the Best Policy by 
 People who Have Actually been Honest — Riches not usually 
 the Result of Extortion but of Diligence, Sel£-Denial, and 
 Saving — Examples — Successful Men usually Keep the 
 Bodily Oatweighed by the Mental — Lack of Success often 
 Due to Outside Circumstances — Often Due to Men's Own 
 Unacknowledged Deficiencies — The highly Rational and 
 Humane Man Studies and Gives in Exchange what Others 
 Need and Want — Large Services of this Kind Justly Re- 
 ceive Large Recompense — Injurious Lack of Stimulus to 
 EflEort where this Principle is not Practiced or Accepted — 
 Duty of the Individual to Subordinate his Own Interests to 
 those of the Community. 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Keeping the Mind's Desires Uppermost in In- 
 dustrial Relations Between Employers and 
 Employees ....... 252 
 
 Mental Desire as Manifested in Relations between Employers and 
 Employees — Once the Former Used, and the Latter Obeyed 
 Force alone, as if each Possessed only a Physical Nature — 
 Both can best Further One Another's Ijiterests by Acting 
 out the Promptings of the Mental Nature — Former and 
 Present Relations between Employers and Employees — 
 Right Relations between the two Fundamentally Connected 
 with that which Determines Moral Character — Both Parties 
 Ignore this Pact— When they Perceive and Act upon it, the 
 Labor Problem will be Solved— Demands of Labor in 
 Ehgland— Cannot Accomplish All that is Required — In- 
 dustrial Liberty as Applied to our Own Country — DiflEerent 
 Conceptions of it— Why the Granting of it is Opposed — 
 How it might be Granted— And Increase Industrial Effi- 
 ciency—Would be better Done by Contract than by Gov- 
 ernment Action— Other Mental Methods that can be Used 
 by Employers— Same Principles Applied to Employees — 
 The Importance of Enjoying One's Work— The Cheerful 
 and Interested Worker is the One who Receives Promotion — 
 
CONTENTS xxxi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Labor Agitator Urging the Use of Force is often the 
 Laborers' Worst Enemy — Mental Influence, not Physical 
 Force, the Means of Securing Permanently Beneficial Re- 
 sults. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 Keeping the Mind's Desires Uppermost in Forms 
 OF Government: Autocracy AND Democracy . 267 
 
 Citizenship Implies a Possession of Mentality — The Individual 
 not usually Responsible for the Form of Government by 
 which he is Ruled — Professional Revolutionists — When 
 Revolution is Justified — Political Restlessness of the Present 
 Age — All Beneficial Progress in Government Methods has 
 Gradually Subordinated Physical to Mental Influence — 
 Any Form of Government may be so Administered as to 
 Further the Physical rather than the Mental — Different 
 ways of Classifying Forms of Government: a Monarchy 
 and a Republic — Autocracy and Democracy — Democracy in 
 Great Britain — The United States is a Constitutional and 
 Representative Democracy — Justice and Liberty as Secured 
 through Constitutional Limitations — Through Represen- 
 tative Limitations — Danger of our Losing Faith in these 
 Limitations — ^As Applied to the Constitutional System — 
 As Applied to the Representative System — Nominating 
 Candidates in a Primary Election — Framing and Enacting 
 Laws by Popular Vote — Cure for Ills of Democracy is not 
 More Democracy: Experience of Athens and Rome — The 
 Theory of the Divine Right of Kings Paralleled by that of 
 the Divine Right of the Majority — Kings and Majorities not 
 Infallible — Government Right to Limit Suffrage — Object of 
 Suffrage is to Protect the Rights of the Individual Citizen — 
 These Rights sometimes also need Protection from Ignorant 
 Voters who, as Voters, are also Rulers — Methods of Securing 
 this Protection — These Methods as Applied to Questions 
 needing Expert Decision — Service Suffrage — Suffrage not 
 the Best Corrective for all Moral Abuses — Failure of Un- 
 limited Manhood Suffrage as Applied to the American 
 Emancipated Slaves — Mental Reform does not always 
 Need Physical Assistance — False Methods of Some Re- 
 formers — History of the Emancipation of the American 
 Slaves — Patronage as Related to Republican Government. 
 
xxxii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Keeping the Mind's Desires Uppermost in the 
 Framing and Administering of Government 
 Laws 292 
 
 Laws Promote Morality when they Prevent Individuals from 
 Interfering with Others' Mental or Rational Development — 
 Liberty as Applied to Religion — To Education — To Social 
 and Political Position — To Business Conditions and Sur- 
 roundings — Tendency toward Government Interference as 
 Illustrated from Experience of Railways — Results of Gov- 
 ernment Oversight and Ownership — Reliance upon Physical 
 not Rational Influence — Arbitration, and Methods of Evad- 
 ing its Intended Effects — Physical rather than Rational 
 Influence Dominant in Making Regulations with Reference 
 to Hours of Labor — To Wages — To Allowing Sons to Fol- 
 low their Fathers' Trade, or any Trade in which they Need 
 to Experiment — Laws Interfering with both Laborers and 
 Leaders in Industry — Laws against Combination and in 
 Favor of Competition — Self-seeking Results in Business 
 Cannot be Corrected by Laws Changing Physical Conditions 
 — Influence of Capitalists in Favor of Democracy in Govern- 
 ment — Efforts of Capitalists for the Welfare of their Employ- 
 ees — For Agricultural Laborers — Such Capitalists are Needed 
 and should be Honored — False Views of Human Equality Fail 
 to Recognize this Fact — Equality Desirable because it Brings 
 Happiness — and this is often Mental — Logical Results of 
 False Views as Embodied in Socialism and Anarchism — 
 The Threatened Decay of Democracy in our Own Times — 
 It is sometimes Wisest for One to Accept' the Existing Con- 
 ditions of Life, and Make the Best of Them. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 Keeping the Mind's Desires Uppermost in Stim- 
 ulation BY the Government of Individual 
 Initiative and Leadership .... 315 
 
 The Duty of Government to Afford Men Opportunities to Give 
 Expression to the Desires of the Mind — Application of this 
 Principle to Levying Taxes — Developing Enterprise — 
 Granting of Patents, Copjrrights, and Franchises — To 
 Rights Obtained by Purchase or Inheritance — Physical and 
 
CONTENTS xxxiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mental Desires for One's Heirs — Contributions to Art, 
 Science, and Life by the Inheritors of a Small Competence — 
 Demoralizing Effects upon a Country of Thinkers who Work 
 only for Pay — Menace to Public Welfare of those Inheriting 
 Great Wealth — The Law against Entail — Concerning the 
 Principle Underlying a Graded Inheritance Tax — Good 
 Government Secures for Each Individual Liberty to Think 
 and to Act without Undue Interference — To Governments 
 of this Kind, most Modem Progress is Attributable — Also 
 Moral, as well as Mental Development — Different Lessons 
 Drawn from Certain Occurrences Connected with the Recent 
 War — Democracy as a Remedy for the Causes of the War — 
 A League or External Organization of Democratic Nations 
 to enforce Peace — A Practical Ethical Reference that can 
 Fit either the Possibility or the Impossibility of Realizing, 
 at Present, the Ideals Underlying such Methods — Con- 
 clusion 
 
 Index 331 
 
Ethics and Natural Law 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HUMAN EXPERIENCE STARTED AND DEVELOPED FROM DESIRES 
 
 Purpose and Method of this Essay — Man, an Embodiment of Desire — 
 This Desire has Two Sources, One in the Body, the Other in the 
 Mind — In Both Cases the Object of the Desire Seems to be to Attain 
 Unity between Two Persons — This Object not Fulfilled through the 
 Means by which it is most Naturally Sought — The Ends as Well as 
 Sources of the Desire of the Body and of the Mind Differ — Per- 
 ception, Sensation, and Instinct Logically Precede the Practical Ap- 
 peal of Desire to Consciousness — Meaning of Desire — Human De- 
 sire not the Same as Animal Appetite — ^What is Meant by Desires 
 of the Body and of the Mind — The Relation that Desire Bears to 
 Thought, and to Feeling or Emotion — Feeling or Emotion does not 
 Become Desire until Becoming Active, instead of Passive — Con- 
 sciousness Testifies that Thought as well as Feeling may Influence 
 Desire — The Same Fact Revealed by Observing the Normal Action 
 of the WiU — ^And by the Testimony of Conscience — Reason for 
 Beginning this Discussion by a Consideration of Desires — ^Where 
 Desires of Body and of Mind Meet in Consciousness is the Best 
 Place in which to Study that Relationship between Body and 
 Mind Needed for a Knowledge of Ethics— Science Confirms the 
 Conception that Desires are at the Basis of Human Action — Con- 
 nection between Physical Organs and Psychical Experience — ^Auto- 
 matic and Cerebro-Spinal Nerves — The Influence of the Former 
 Precedes that of the Latter — Reason for Associating not only Lower 
 but Higher Desires with the Automatic Nervous System. 
 
 WHEN studying man, it is natural to start where his 
 history begins. Of this beginning, revelation, 
 tradition, legend, and history have tried to in- 
 form us. They may have given us truth; but we can be 
 certain that it is this, so far only as, in some way, we have 
 
2 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 discovered it for ourselves. The fact that a wise man pays 
 heed to voices calUng from an unseen distance, does not 
 relieve him, when following the path that leads to it, from 
 using his own intelligence. He feels that information im- 
 parted by others can never be as trustworthy as knowledge 
 obtained by himself. A similar conception, too, influences 
 his attitude toward what he learns subsequently. He can- 
 not admit that any mental process can develop knowledge 
 from that which does not start with it. He would consider 
 a tower built upon quicksand as firmly based as thought in- 
 ferred from mere hearsay. In this essay, an endeavor will 
 be made to ground what is said upon personal, and, in this 
 sense, actual knowledge; — in other words, to show, if pos- 
 sible, that a system of ethics can be constructed upon what 
 may be claimed to be a strictly rational basis. 
 
 Personally or actually, none of us know anything about 
 the beginning of human life, in so far as by this we mean 
 the origin of mankind. At best, we can do no more than 
 draw inferences with reference to the subject. But we all 
 know a good deal about the origin of a man. He is a result 
 of that tendency in human nature which causes a man and 
 a woman to mate and this tendency is owing to that which, 
 in both of them, may be termed desire. Man is a living 
 embodiment of this desire. If we can find out exactly what 
 the desire is — what are its constituent elements — we may do 
 something in the direction of solving the questions with 
 reference to what a man is, and what, in this world, is, or 
 should be, expected of him. 
 
 The desire has, apparently, two sources. In part, the 
 body occasions it. Its rudiments, at least, are in the 
 lower animals among whom it performs the important func- 
 tion of promoting the continuance of life in successive gen- 
 erations. But the desire is traceable in part also to the 
 mind. Even among the lower animals, among birds and 
 not frequently, among insects, the gratification of it is 
 preceded and accompanied by a sort of courtship that sug- 
 gests more or less exercise of as much mental potentiality 
 as they may be supposed to possess. Among human beings 
 these mental influences are still more in evidence; and few 
 thinkers deny that, in importance, they outrank the bodily. 
 All men, it is asserted, are mentally conscious that, when 
 they are entirely separated from their fellows, they are not 
 fulfilling all the demands of their nature; and, it is said that 
 
DESIRES OF THE BODY AND THE MIND 3 
 
 this consciousness alone is sufficient to cause them to seek 
 to form such unions with others as, in accordance with 
 their physical constitutions and the customs of society, are 
 afforded in marriage. 
 
 From the beginning of courtship to the consummation of 
 marriage, the one underlying motive, according to some, is 
 this desire on the part of one individual to come into union 
 with another individual. For what other reason, it is asked, 
 do two people that are, as men say, in love, touch hands, 
 caress, clasp, and kiss one another? For what else do they 
 try to unburden their minds so completely that, apparently, 
 nothing but the hoUowness left behind can afford a reason- 
 able excuse for the emptiness of their phraseology? What 
 are they endeavoring to do but to get nearer together, so 
 that, if possible, they may become conscious of being at one? 
 And what possible result could, at the time, seem to them 
 more inspiring to anticipation than the achievement of this 
 purpose? 
 
 Now let us notice a somewhat unexpected anomaly. 
 This is the fact that this desire for union is never fulfilled by 
 means of the agency through which, apparently, nature first 
 prompts one to seek it. Mental union, whether we consider 
 this to be that of thought or of intention does not necessarily 
 restilt from bodily union such as is brought about by mar- 
 riage. This usually leads merely to fresh exemplifications 
 of disunion; i. e., to the conception and birth of more in- 
 dividuals conscious of separation from their fellows. Just 
 when the most influential desire of which, perhaps, a man is 
 ever conscious is upon the threshold of realization, nature, 
 as if to trick and cheat him, checks that which might insure 
 a full consummation of his wish, and drives him back to 
 conditions that have been changed in only one regard. The 
 desire of one individual life for union with another individual 
 life has been transferred to one more human being, who, at 
 some future day, may, in his turn, transfer it to another, 
 and, through his offspring, perhaps, may continue to trans- 
 fer it to many millions of descendants. 
 
 The desire, therefore, of which a man may be said to be 
 a living embodiment apparently springs from two different 
 sources — ^from the body and from the mind; and that which 
 issues from each of these sources tends toward a different 
 result. The desire of the body which, as will be shown on 
 page 20, involves or develops what might be termed the 
 
4 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 physical, the animal, the egoistic or the material tends to- 
 ward that which accompanies a consciousness of separation 
 between individuals; and the desire of the mind, which word 
 will be used in this book in the sense indicated by the 
 Greek word vou?, and, as will be shown on page 20, involves 
 or develops what might be termed the rational, the humane, 
 the altruistic, and the spiritual, tends toward that which ac- 
 companies a consciousness of union between them. Because 
 the use of the word mind necessitates, now and then the 
 use also of the adjective mental, and because the applica- 
 tion of this adjective is sometimes, as stated in The Standard 
 Dictionary, "popularly but improperly limited to the in- 
 tellect" as distinguished from the emotions and will, it may 
 be important here in order to avoid misunderstanding, to 
 direct attention to the fact that hereafter in this volume 
 the words mind and mental will be used exactly as author- 
 ized by that pubhcation. The word mind will indicate 
 "the entire psychical being,— that which thinks, feels, and 
 wills"; and the word mental will indicate anything "per- 
 taining to mind, including intellect, feeling, and will, or the 
 entire rational nature." The differences just explained 
 between the desires of the body and those of the mind will 
 enable us to understand why it is that those whose thoughts 
 dwell upon suggestions from the body which itself is physical 
 and material, are always estimating the value of what they 
 term progress by some physical increase in the constituents 
 of property, personal, communal, or national ; whereas those 
 influenced mainly by suggestions from the mind which 
 itself is incorporeal, psychical, and spiritual, manifest fre- 
 quently what is considered an inexcusable disregard of any 
 element of progress of the kind termed physical. To the 
 latter class the highest conception of human advancement 
 seems to be that which shall bring mind and spirit into unity 
 with one person, as in love or friendship ; or with many, as in 
 association and fellowship; or with all men as in altruistic 
 efforts; or with God as in religion. 
 
 Before proceeding further in the direct line of oiur thought, 
 it seems best to turn aside for a moment, and explain why 
 this treatise has been begun by directing attention to human 
 desires. _ This is not because these are supposed to furnish 
 to consciousness the earliest testimony to the fact of one's 
 existence. Before experiencing a desire, one, of course, 
 must have been made aware by perception of a difference 
 
LOWER AND HIGHER DESIRES 5 
 
 between himself and something else; by sensation, or physi- 
 cal feeling, of a difference between pleasure and pain ; and by 
 instinct of a method in accordance with which the mind can 
 increase the pleasure and avoid the pain, through appre- 
 hending the drift before comprehending the details of think- 
 ing. But these are elements of experience that are discover- 
 able only by analysis. In that which first brings them before 
 consciousness, they are combined together, and, not only so, 
 but are often developed into the later and more intelli- 
 gible forms which they assume after they have passed into 
 the region of clear thought, emotional sentiment, and per- 
 sonal inclination. Before reaching this region, too, the ele- 
 mentary experiences that have been mentioned have an 
 important bearing upon action in general . Especially is this 
 true with reference to instinct. Indeed, one could say 
 that it is never wise for a man to ignore the guidance of 
 instinct, except in cases in which it is clearly the result of 
 promptings of the body as contrasted with the mind. Per- 
 ception, sensation, and instinct, however, have nothing to 
 do with moral action until their influence is revealed in 
 connection with the desires. This fact justifies beginning 
 this treatise with a consideration of these latter. 
 
 A few words further may be in place in order to show why 
 the influences of body or of mind that we have been consid- 
 ering can be properly designated by the term desire; as 
 well as to explain the meaning intended to be attached to 
 this term when it is employed hereafter. By desire is 
 meant a tendency to activity that is inherent in the man in 
 the sense of being started from within him. The tendency 
 may be drawn toward particular forms of activity by ex- 
 ternal objects or circumstances; but these do not create it. 
 They would have no influence upon it, were it not already 
 in existence. No babe would accept nourishment unless 
 previously feeling an impulse to take it. It needs to be 
 said, too, that this word desire has not been selected in 
 ignorance of the distinction sometimes drawn between it 
 and what many philosophers term an impulse of bodily 
 appetite, and sometimes also drawn between it and the 
 results of yearning or aspiration associated with the exer- 
 cise of the mind. But ordinary language sufficiently differ- 
 entiates between these extremes by terming the former 
 lower desire, and the latter higher desire. We could iMt 
 say, except when speaking metaphorically, that a man had 
 
6 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 an appetite for fellowship, or a yearning or an aspiration for 
 food. Yet, in both cases, it woiild be appropriate to use 
 the word desire. In a place where, as in the present discus- 
 sion, a generic term is needed, it seems allowable to usethis 
 one which, without any change in its accepted meanings, 
 may be made to serve the purpose. 
 
 It is important to recognize, also, that lower desire in a 
 man does not mean exactly the same as appetite, nor higher 
 desire exactly the same as yearning or aspiration. It is 
 conceivable that an animal should have appetite without 
 aspiration, or that an angel should have aspiration with- 
 out appetite. But such a condition is not conceivable in 
 a man. His material or bodily nature is so connected, in 
 every part of it, with his mental nature that whatever is 
 experienced by the one is almost necessarily experienced 
 by the other. He cannot be conscious of an animal feeling 
 without being conscious also of a human thought ; and it is 
 the two together that make a man's desire — his very lowest 
 desire — different in the reach of its possibilities from animal 
 impulse. When we say that a man indulging to excess in 
 lust or passion is a brute, we are not condemning the brute, 
 nor the animal nature that a man shares with the brute. 
 We are condemning the mental natm-e which we all feel 
 that, in a man, should act in conjunction with the animal 
 nature. 
 
 This fact with reference to the double relationship of de- 
 sires, both to body and to mind — a relationship suggested 
 by what was said on page 2 has a noteworthy bearing (^see 
 page 1 9) on the whole subject before us. Everybody speaks 
 of desires that are bodily or physical, and of those that are 
 mental or rational, and the same phraseology will be adopted 
 in the discussions of this book. But let it be understood 
 here, once for all, that these terms are not meant to indicate 
 a quality that is exclusive. The very adjectives used might 
 of themselves indicate this. A musical comedy is not all 
 music, nor a comical situation all comedy. It is justifiable 
 to apply the same principle to the words bodily and mental. 
 In the human constitution, body and mind are so closely 
 connected that one cannot invariably separate that which 
 has its source in the one from that which has its source in the 
 other. Even if he could, the difference between the influ- 
 ences of the two seems to be determined not so much by 
 their constituent elements as by the proportionments and 
 
THOUGHT AND FEELING IN DESIRE 7 
 
 adjustments of these elements — by the primality or domin- 
 ance of the one or the other of them. Human desire involves 
 thought — ^and, therefore, the exercising of conscious mental- 
 ity. But in bodily desire, for reasons to be given on page 20, 
 the source and end of gratification are in the bodily nature; 
 and in mental desire, they are in the mental nature. In 
 other words, one might say that, in bodily desire, the thought 
 of which one is conscious is subordinated to physical feeling 
 which it attends and serves, whereas, in mental desire, 
 this feeling is subordinated to psychical thought which it 
 attends and serves. A man's bodily desire is never exer- 
 cised without some intellection; nor his mental desire with- 
 out some sensation. The reader needs to bear these facts in 
 mind. Otherwise he may make the mistake of supposing 
 that, hereafter, in this book, desires of the body as contrasted 
 with those of the mind may indicate merely the difference 
 between the sentient and the intellectual. The distinction 
 between the two cannot be indicated thus. It is more 
 nearly allied to that which is meant when, in referring 
 either to real things or to ideal thoughts and the emotions 
 accompanying them, we contrast the material with the 
 spiritual, the distinction between which will be found 
 indicated on pages 38 and 39. 
 
 Are we then to look upon desire as something that always 
 includes thought ? Not so, perhaps, if the subject be con- 
 sidered merely philosophically. For purposes of analysis, 
 we can separate thought in desire from the feeling in it. But, 
 practically, they seem inseparable; because it is the thought 
 in consciousness — i. e., the effect of the desire upon the 
 thought — ^that reveals to the mind the fact that the desire is 
 present. As Sir William Hamilton (i 788-1 844) says in his 
 eleventh Lecture on Metaphysics, "Let the mental phe- 
 nomena be distributed under the three heads of phenomena 
 of cognition, or the faculties of knowledge; phenomena of 
 feeling, or the capacities of pleasure and pain; and phe- 
 nomena of desiring and willing, or the powers of conation. 
 The order of these is determined by their relative consecu- 
 tion. Feeling and appetency suppose knowledge. The 
 cognitive faculties, therefore, stand first. But as will and 
 desire and aversion, suppose a knowledge of the pleasurable 
 and painful, the feelings will stand second, as intermediate 
 between the two. " It will be noticed that this statement 
 accords perfectly with the conception of desire expressed in 
 
8 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 the preceding paragraph — i. e., of desire as being a result of 
 the exercise of thought and feeling in combination. To 
 accommodate the statements made on page 6 of this vol- 
 ume, to those of Hamilton, it would be necessary merely to 
 supplement them by saying that when, in a desire, the 
 thought is more influential than the feeling, the desire as a 
 whole gives expression to the mind and when the feeling is 
 the more influential, the desire as a whole gives expression 
 to the body. 
 
 It is important to notice, too, that the feeling, or, if not 
 traceable to the body but to the mind, the emotion in- 
 volved in desire is not merely passive in character, but ac- 
 tive. In a passive way, a man may feel that fresh spring 
 water is cooling to his tongue, or may have an emotion 
 awakened by hearing a church bell, and yet experience no 
 desire either to receive or to reject the one, or to hear or not 
 to hear the other. Human desire is a thoughtful feeling that 
 is connected with a consciousness of being impelled to action. 
 The Germans trace this impelling to bestrebungs Vermogen 
 (strife-power) ; the French to ilan vital (vital push) ; and 
 it seems to be the same as that recognized in the modem 
 theory of some of oiu- scientists and philosophers which is 
 termed energism (see page 57). This theory was devised in 
 order to account for the working out of the results of evolu- 
 tion; and it may be defined as a tendency causing every- 
 thing that has life to push outward and onward in lines that 
 develop its own possibilities. It seems to be because of the 
 recognition of this activity in connection with desire that 
 the latter is so frequently considered, as by Sir William 
 Ha,milton in the passage just quoted, a function of the will. 
 It is apparently considered so even by those who do not al- 
 ways include thought as a preceding condition or a constitu- 
 ent of desire. For instance. Professor Wilhelm M. Wundt 
 (1832- ), of Leipsic University, in Chapter I., Section i of 
 his Principles of Morality, as translated by M. F. Washburn, 
 says that "Everyact of will presupposes a feeling with a 
 definite and peculiar tone; it is so closely bound up with this 
 feeling that, apart from it, the act of will has no reality at 
 all, " and again in Section 3, "feelings and impulses are not 
 processes different in kind from will, but elements of volun- 
 tary activity itself and separable from it only by abstrac- 
 tion. ' ' And then he goes on to say that ' ' we should always 
 yield to the first feeling or impulse actuating us, were it not 
 
INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY 9 
 
 counteracted by another which overcomes the first because 
 it is stronger." 
 
 A statement hke this, unless its terms be very clearly 
 defined, is apt to be misleading. This particular statement 
 seems, at first thought, to be at variance with the testi- 
 mony of consciousness. Every man is aware within himself 
 of instances in which a logical presentation of thought by 
 another, or merely a recalling by oneself of facts or argu- 
 ments appealing to rationality or imagination, has counter- 
 acted the influence of feeling, no matter how strong it may 
 have been. If instead of using the term feeling, one use the 
 term desire, saying that the will acts in accordance with 
 the stronger desire, he is nearer the truth, because, as has 
 been shown, the conception of desire includes a conception 
 of the influence of thought as well as of feeling. Every 
 man sometimes finds himself of his own will, perform- 
 ing a very repulsive duty that does not fulfill, nor prom- 
 ise to fulfill, any influence of which he is conscious, 
 except a mental conclusion, resulting from sheer reason- 
 ing. This is a fact which it does not seem philosophical 
 to disregard. 
 
 Moreover, when one turns to the will itself, there are 
 additional reasons for this view. In former times — and 
 notwithstanding certain present tendencies to ignore this 
 classification it seems wise to continue to emphasize it — ^the 
 main functions ordinarily ascribed to will were choice and 
 volition. The first has to do with the selecting from among 
 others of some general end to be sought. The second has 
 to do with the selecting from among others of different par- 
 ticular means to be used for the attainment of this end. 
 Both these functions are as nearly connected with reasoning 
 and judging as they are with feeling and emotion. If so, 
 there is no warrant for holding that the latter are connected 
 with choice or volition in any sense that is not true of the 
 former. 
 
 This conception of the inevitableness of the influence of 
 feeling or emotion upon the action of the will is at variance 
 not only with the testimony of consciousness, but of that 
 which men term conscience. If the action of the will be 
 wholly determined by feelings, and these be determined, as 
 many hold, by a man's nature or environment, then nature 
 or environment and not the man himself is responsible for 
 the right or wrong of his actions. No man feels that this 
 
10 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 is wholly true. However strong a temptation may seem, 
 most men have a conception that, if they could not resist 
 its coming, they could have avoided it by_ flying away 
 when they received the first intimation of its approach. 
 They cannot rid themselves of a feeling that it is to their 
 own discredit when they do wrong; and to their own credit 
 when they do right. Of course, some of the conditions of 
 life are determined for us — the body, brain, and tempera- 
 ment that we inherit, the family, race, society, nation, 
 religion, or age into which we have been born with the 
 associations, customs, and laws by which we find ourselves 
 surrounded. These are conditions which necessarily suggest 
 to all thinking people an overpowering influence of fate or 
 destiny, and to religious people an overruling Providence, 
 — what they term a result of divine decree. ' Nevertheless 
 every man feels that, although his life is limited by condi- 
 tions like these, and many others too subtle to describe or 
 even detect, his own will, acting inside of these limitations, 
 has a degree of freedom which makes him responsible for 
 certain things that he does. He is like a boy shut up by his 
 parents in a house on a rainy day. He is not responsible for 
 what goes on outside the house — in the garden or stable. 
 But he is responsible for what goes on inside the house. 
 
 ' In connection with this thought it is difficult to avoid mentioning 
 one extremely anomalous fact. It is this, — that every suggestion that 
 human life is entirely subject to fate or destiny, as in theories not only of 
 phrenology, palmistry, and astrology but in the theologies of almost all 
 religions, — that every such suggestion is derived from an observation of 
 conditions and laws of the external world which, in themselves, are 
 material and physical in their natvu-e; and that, on the contrary every 
 suggestion that, within certain limits, a hiunan will can act freely and 
 thus to an extent control one's own destiny, is derived from a conscious- 
 ness of conditions and laws of the internal mind that are spiritual and 
 psychical in their nature. Yet the majority of religious writers have 
 attributed the former influence, which is distinctly material and physical, 
 to God, terming it the result of Divine Sovereignty, and, at the same 
 time, attributed the latter influence, which is distinctively spiritual and 
 psychical to man, terming it the result of human agency. Is it strange 
 that those taught these two conceptions should so often substitute a 
 deceptive and hypocritical observance of external courtesies, customs, 
 and conventions for morality, and of external professions, rites, and cere- 
 monies for religion? No wonder that the prophet of Nazareth and his 
 followers should have felt constrained to declare God to be "a spirit" 
 (John 4 : 24) exercising the functions of his kingdom not outside the mind 
 but "within" it (Luke 17: 21) through an influence "strengthened with 
 might by his spirit in the inner man " (Ephesians 3:16)! 
 
DESIRE AT THE BASIS OF HUMAN ACTION II 
 
 There he must be quiet, gentlemanly, and decent. So with- 
 in the limits assigned him, every man feels a degree of 
 responsibility. This feeling must have a cause, though it 
 may not be possible for us to determine exactly what this is. 
 It may be a second desire exerting a direct counteracting 
 influence upon the first desire; or it may be a thought exert- 
 ing an indirect influence through a second desire that it 
 occasions. Either of these conditions, too, may result from 
 a man's own action or from the action of other people. 
 These people may be present with him and speaking to 
 him ; or they may be distant from him and merely conveying 
 impressions to him, as is held by those who believe in tele- 
 pathy or in other psychical influences exerted by the living, 
 the dead, or the Deity. Philosophically considered, all these 
 theories are admissible in a sense not true of theories that 
 practically ignore or deny the testimony of consciousness 
 with reference to responsibility. The only conception 
 absolutely consistent with every condition seems to be one 
 recognizing, back of all the material or mental mechanism of 
 human life, an impelling agency connected with personal 
 desire, and which, within certain limits, is able in some way 
 to exert a controlling and directing influence upon every 
 personal action. 
 
 Now we come upon the most important of the reasons for 
 beginning the discussions of this volume with a considera- 
 tion of human desires as these have just been defined. Be- 
 fore mentioning this, however, the reader perhaps should be 
 reminded that, though thinking, feeling, and desiring may 
 follow one another logically in the order of sequence in- 
 dicated in the quotation from Hamilton on page 7, they ' 
 may not manifest themselves in this order to one's con- 
 sciousness. In other words, while it is philosophical to 
 suppose that no human being could experience human de- 
 sire unless he were first capable of thinking and feeling; it is 
 nevertheless equally philosophical to suppose that he may 
 not become conscious of these latter until he has been made 
 aware of them through the desire experienced as a result of 
 their combined action. Indeed without experience of this de- 
 sire, which it will be recalled that Hamilton makes a function 
 of the will, a man, perhaps, would have no consciousness 
 at all so far as consciousness involves a sense of per- 
 sonality ;i.e.,a. sense of a personal will capable of being used 
 for a personal purpose. A babe, for instance, would never 
 
12 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 think about drinking or reach out his hand for a cup if he 
 had not begun by feeling the impulse awakened by thirst. 
 So with innumerable thoughts and actions connected with 
 other subjects. Some rudiment of desire gives rise to them. 
 Later in life, when the desire and the thought or feeling oc- 
 casioned by the object desired have been many times as- 
 sociated, the consciousness of the one does not necessarily 
 precede that of the other. A man who is asked to drink by 
 no means always desires to quench thirst before he accepts, 
 nor does he always, before desiring to fight another, wait 
 until after he has had time to hear an insult, and to think 
 about it. The most that can be affirmed is that the thought, 
 emotion, and desire are apt to manifest themselves in con- 
 nection. But an analysis of the conditions in childhood, as 
 well as in mature life, seems to render it philosophical to 
 ascribe to desires a primary influence in making all the action 
 of the mind expressive of the personal character of the one 
 who experiences them. 
 
 If this be so, it will be recognized at once that ethics, which 
 has to do with the methods of making thought, feeling, and 
 practice expressive of the right kind of character, must be- 
 gin with a consideration of the methods of influencing the 
 desires. It is only when agencies of appeal come into con- 
 tact with these that the effect produced upon opinion, 
 inclination, and conduct can be expected to be thoroughly 
 satisfactory, in the sense of being in accord with that which 
 is most fundamentally right in principle and application. 
 
 This conclusion, developed from an examination of the 
 factsof consciousness through what may be termed a meta- 
 physical method, will be found to be confirmed when we turn 
 to consider the light thrown upon the same subject by the 
 facts revealed through the methods adopted when studying 
 the physical sciences. Very lately, Dr. George Howard 
 Parker (1864- ), Professor of Zoology at Harvard, in a 
 paper published in Volume XLVI. of the New Series of 
 Science has asserted "that we have reason to believe that 
 muscular activity preceded nervous origins," that "our 
 own sensations are not our most fundamental and primitive 
 nervous processes; but behind these and of much more 
 ancient lineage are our impulses to action, our wishes, our 
 desires, and the whole vague body of nervous states that 
 drive us to do things. These are the most ancient and deep- 
 ly seated of our nervous propensities, and immeasurably 
 
SYMPATHETIC AND CEREBROSPINAL NERVES 13 
 
 antedate in the point of origin our sensations with all that 
 supergrowth that constitutes the fabric of our mental 
 life." 
 
 As most of us are aware, the significance of this testimony 
 is connected with the recognition of the fact that all a man's 
 psychical experience, so far as concerns his consciousness in 
 this world, depends upon the physical life that is in his body; 
 and that any particular phase of this consciousness, such 
 as is manifested in the exercise of desire, depends upon the 
 existence and action within him of the physical organs fitted 
 to promote it. In other words, if we find that the physical 
 organs needed in order to convey a consciousness of desires 
 are the earliest of those that are developed in the body, then 
 we have one reason, at least, for arguing that it is with some 
 beginnings of these desires that a man's conscious life begins. 
 
 Bearing this thought in mind, let us now notice further 
 that all anatomists agree in tracing the activities of life in the 
 human body to two systems of nerves — one formerly termed 
 the great sympathetic system, but more recently, through 
 the influence of Dr. Langley of Cambridge, the automatic 
 nervous system; and the other termed the cerebro-spinal 
 system. The former is chiefly located and performs its 
 chief functions in the trunk of the body, and carries on, 
 without voluntary action on the part of the man, such opera- 
 tions as are essential to his keeping alive, like the beating of 
 the heart, the circulation of the blood, the processes of di- 
 gestion, and the movements of the lungs so far as these latter 
 are involuntary. In other words, this sympathetic or auto- 
 matic system carries on the functions of that which may be 
 termed basic in animal life. In this life, the system is al- 
 ways found. Indeed, traces of something analogous to it, 
 are said to be found even among the vegetables. The cere- 
 bro-spinal system of nerves, on the other hand, is chiefly 
 located and performs its chief function in or from the brain 
 and the spine; and is the source of all voluntary muscular 
 or mental action. This system differs from the automatic 
 in being much more largely and fully developed in man 
 than in the lower animals; and, for this reason alone, as 
 well as for others that need not be mentioned, anatomists 
 attribute to its action most of his distinctively intellectual 
 qualities. 
 
 From these facts, it is evident that the first experiences 
 of a child accompany the action of the automatic nervous 
 
14 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 system, a system which he shares with the lower animals 
 and the effects of which he experiences in the same involun- 
 tary way as they do. He breathes, and digests, not only, but 
 he drinks automatically, and, in connection with the latter, 
 develops desire. If he did not develop this, the automatic 
 system would soon have little to digest. It is a ques- 
 tion of course whether one ever becomes conscious of the 
 promptings traceable to this system except as its nerves 
 come into contact with some of the ramifications of the 
 cerebro-spinal nerves. But even if this contact be neces- 
 sary, the automatic system must be regarded as the primary, 
 notwithstanding its being only the indirect, source of the 
 influence communicated. 
 
 The question may naturally arise now whether the con- 
 sciousness of higher or mental as well as of lower or bodily 
 desire may rightly be associated with the action of the au- 
 tomatic as well as of the cerebro-spinal nervous system. 
 Among others who have tried to answer this question is Dr. 
 Richard Maurice Bucke (1837- ), Superintendent of the 
 Asylum for the Insane at London, Ontario, Canada. In 
 Chapter III. of a book entitled The Moral Nature of Man, 
 in speaking of the higher emotions which, in a different way 
 from that indicated in this volume, he associates with the 
 moral nature, he shows, among other things, that these 
 are ordinarily felt to manifest themselves in the trunk, 
 and thus in that part of the body where anatomy finds 
 the chief nerves of the automatic system; that these 
 higher emotions are often accompanied by tears, perspira- 
 tion, dryness of the throat, and other phenomena that in- 
 volve an action of the glands, which anatomy has found to 
 be under almost exclusive control of this system ; that higher 
 emotive expression, as in thrills, chills, laughter, and sobs, 
 is rhythmical, which is particularly the case with action 
 attributable to these nerves, as in the circulation of the 
 blood and in the movements of the digestive organs and the 
 lungs; and also that this system manifests a larger propor- 
 tionate development in the physical frames of women than 
 in the frames of men, and that the same is the case with the 
 emotive development. Facts like these, in connection with 
 others which all anatomists acknowledge, need merely to 
 be observed and stated to have it recognized that when it is 
 said that desires constitute the earliest experiences of a 
 man's consciousness, and as such lie at the basis of all his 
 
SYMPATHETIC AND CEREBROSPINAL NERVES 15 
 
 subsequent developments as a human being, there is no 
 reason why the term desires as thus used should not include 
 those that appeal to consciousness as higher or mental as 
 well as those that appeal to it as lower or bodily. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 DESIRES OF BODY AND MIND OFTEN ANTAGONISTIC AND 
 NOT NECESSARILY DEVELOPED FROM ONE ANOTHER 
 
 Desires of the Body and of the Mind — Superior Claims, when the Dif- 
 fer, of the Latter Desires — Testimony of Science as to Different 
 Nerve-Sources of Each Form of Desire — The Sources in Different 
 Parts of the Brain — Desires of the Body are Accompanied by Con- 
 sciousness of One's own Physical and Personal Individuality, Tend- 
 ing to Self-indulgence; Desires of the Mind by a Consciousness of 
 Things External to One, Tending to Gratification in the Non- 
 Selfish — Desires of the Body End in Physical Sensation; those of 
 the Mind in that which Develops RationaUty — ^And, as Contrasted 
 with the Brutal, the Humane — Summary of the Differences be- 
 tween the Causes and Effects of Desires of the Body and of the 
 Mind — Are both Forms of Desire Developed from the Same or a 
 Similiar Source? — How Desires of the Body Develop — ^Why they 
 Develop in this Way — Fear and Hate Occasioned by Limits As- 
 signed to Bodily Indulgence — How Desires of the Mind Develop 
 — Causing Consciousness of Sympathy, Confidence, and Con- 
 sideration towards Others, and High Attainments of Manhood — 
 Yet Bodily Desire is also Needed for full Development of Character 
 — The Two Forms of Desire must be Attributed to Two Different 
 Sources — ^Attributing them thus Seems to Violate Philosophical 
 Unity of Conception — Reference to an ^Esthetic Principle — Analogy 
 between Esthetics and Ethics — The Connection between a Mental 
 Cause and a Material Effect in ^Esthetics — And in Ethics — Human 
 Intelligence Forms the Connection — This Conception Obviates an 
 Objection to Evolution as Materialistic, and Accords with a Law of 
 Nature — Manifest in Every Department of Nature's Activities. 
 
 LET US notice another important fact with reference 
 to these different desires and the activities to which 
 they lead. This is the fact that, at times, they are 
 not only different but decidedly antagonistic, so much so 
 as to be mutually exclusive of one another. They cannot, 
 all of them, be fulfilled at one and the same time. This is 
 true of any two desires that are essentially different; but it 
 is especially true when one desire is of the body and another 
 
 I6 
 
DESIRES OFTEN ANTAGONISTIC 17 
 
 of the mind. We give an instance indicating such antagon- 
 ism. It has to do, too, with those desires which have been 
 said to be fundamental to the very existence of human life. 
 It will be perceived also that this instance illustrates con- 
 ditions which, in general outlines, have been repeated in- 
 numerable times in the history of the race. The author 
 was once toldby a friend that, when quite young, foolish, 
 and rash, having not yet acquired sufficient self-control to 
 manifest even common sense and decency, he fell desper- 
 ately in love with a girl, as she, apparently, did with him. 
 They were alone together one day. "Will you let me do 
 anything to you that I want to do ?" he blurted out. "Yes, ' ' 
 she answered; "but I have always felt such a contempt for 
 girls that let a fellow do that." This answer, as he ex- 
 pressed it, cooled him oflE immediately, and for all time, so 
 far as concerned his committing another similar offence. 
 Could he make a girl for whom he cared anything at all feel 
 a contempt for herself? This, for him, was impossible. 
 
 What had rendered it impossible? The majority of 
 people would probably say his conscience. But conscience 
 is an agency that has a cause for its action, and one object 
 of this discussion is to find out, if possible, what, in a given 
 case, like this, is its cause? Just now, we are trying to 
 ascertain the condition in consciousness — ^the emotion and 
 thought preceding, or, at least, accompanying the action 
 that men attribute to conscience. Why did the young 
 fellow pause to ask for the girl's consent? Was it not be- 
 cause of an influence that was distinctively mental.traceable, 
 primarily, to psychical thought ; and not bodily in the sense 
 of being traceable primarily to physical feeling? And why 
 did his companion answer as she did ? Was it not because of 
 exactly the same reason ? He desired unity of thought with 
 his companion; and she desired unity of thought not only 
 with him but with others of her companions who, at the 
 time, were suggested to her. The consciousness in a case 
 like this, of desires, or of phases of the same desire within 
 one so different as to be antagonistic, is an experience com- 
 mon to all up to the time when frequent disregard of the 
 condition has made them perverts. It is a consciousness 
 that causes the majority of people — not the minority, as 
 members of the minority are apt to suppose — to accept, 
 as a matter of course, the ordinary customs and conven- 
 tionalities of society. They do not themselves expect to 
 
l8 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 act in all things exactly as they please, nor — except, possibly, 
 in Russia — have they any admiration or even respect for 
 others who do act thus. 
 
 Now that we have noticed reasons for believing that the 
 desires for union which precede the birth of offspring in- 
 clude experiences that are both of the body and of the mind, 
 and in such a sense as to be often antagonistic ; and reasons 
 for believing also that the same is true with reference to 
 similar forms of desire that develop later in the life of the 
 individual, let us, as when considering the influence of de- 
 sires in general, turn once more to the testimony afEorded 
 through more or less scientific investigations. Years ago, 
 Francis Joseph Gall (1758-1828), a native of Baden but a 
 resident of Paris, was able, as a result of studying the con- 
 tour of the head and skull, to convince many of the sub- 
 stantial truth of what, since his time, has been termed 
 phrenology. One conclusion of his theory was that mental 
 and moral traits, as completely as bodily traits, are trace- 
 able to nerve-action taking place in different parts of the 
 brain. Of late years, the same conclusion has been reached 
 by a more thorough study of the effects upon different 
 parts of it of accident and disease, as well as by dissecting 
 it after death. In certain details, the resiolts of phrenology 
 and of anatomy and modern science differ; but even this 
 fact furnishes no sufi&cient argument against the general 
 conclusions of either. It is perfectly conceivable that the 
 circumference of the range of any department of nerve ac- 
 tivity, which circumference alone is considered in making a 
 phrenological decision, should manifest itself, in some cases, 
 in a place on the surface of the brain remote from that in 
 which anatomy locates a nerve-center. The important 
 matter is that, according to the testimony of all such 
 branches of inquiry, physical and mental traits are trace- 
 able to different spheres or sources of brain-activity. For in- 
 stance, referring to this subject, Dr. W. H. Howell (i860- ), 
 of Johns Hopkins University, in Chapter X. of his Text 
 Book of Physiology, quotes at length certain statements made 
 by way of suggestion in the "Gehirn und Seele" of the 
 German, Dr. Paul Flechsig. In discussing the association- 
 areas of the brain which, according to this latter writer, are 
 "the portions of the cortex in which the higher and more 
 complex mental activities are mediated — the true organs of 
 thought," and "the greater relative development of" 
 
ANATOMY OF THE BRAIN 19 
 
 which "areas is one of the factors distinguishing human 
 brains from those of lower animals," Dr. Flechsig speaks, 
 among others, of two subdivisions — the only ones relevant 
 to the subject which we are now considering. " Basing his 
 views, " says Dr. Howell, "upon the nature of the associa- 
 tive tracts connecting those with the same centers, he sug- 
 gests that " one of the areas "is concerned particularly with 
 the organization of the experiences founded upon visual 
 and auditory sensations, and shows special development in 
 cases of talents such as those of the musical which rest upon 
 these experiences. The" other "area being in closer con- 
 nection with the bodUy sense-area may possibly be es- 
 pecially concerned with the organization of experiences based 
 upon bodily appetites and desires. In this part of the 
 brain possibly arises the conception of individuality, the 
 idea of the self as distinguished from the external world, and 
 in alterations or defective development of this portion of the 
 brain may lie possibly the physical explanation of mental and 
 moral degeneracy. This general idea is borne out in measure 
 by histological studies of the brains of those who are mentally 
 deficient (amentia) or mentally deranged (dementia)." 
 
 These quotations would, manifestly, be very insufficient 
 if meant to impart anything like accurate or complete ana- 
 tomical information. But for the one purpose for which 
 they have been introduced here, they may be considered 
 adequate. This purpose is to direct attention to the testi- 
 mony — and it could be abundantly confirmed from other 
 sources — that they furnish concerning the existence of 
 certain separations in the thought-apparatus of the brain 
 between nerves that are vehicles of that which is bodily, 
 because conveyers of activity connected with the organs of 
 touch, taste, and smell, and other nerves that are vehicles 
 of that which is mental, since they convey activity con- 
 nected with the organs of sight and hearing. Whether one 
 suppose that the sensations of which he is conscious when 
 he experiences desire have their origin in these nerves them- 
 selves; or that they have their origin in a form of conscious 
 life beneath them and beyond them, of which life the nerves 
 are merely instrumental agents, the legitimate inference is 
 the same and inevitable, namely, that the two phases of 
 desire, one of the body and the other of the mind, are started 
 into activity by influences coming from different directions 
 and having different tendencies. 
 
20 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 As related to both directions and tendencies, it is worth 
 while to notice that Dr. Flechsig, in the passages just quoted, 
 associates with the experiences based upon the bodily ap- 
 petites the origin, in the brain, of the "conception of in- 
 dividuality, the idea of self as distinguished from the external 
 world. " This remark of his is suggestive of broader gener- 
 alizations than are thus indicated. Notice, first, that, 
 judged by the effect upon consciousness, the desires of the 
 body — ^those that operate through the organs of touch, taste, 
 and smell — are all exercised for the sake of experiencing the 
 pleasure that they bring to the organs of sensation and to 
 the physical body possessing these organs. Exactly the 
 opposite is true of the desires of the mind. Science has dis- 
 covered that there is more or less organic sensation con- 
 nected with seeing and hearing. But no one has ever been 
 directly conscious of this fact. He is conscious merely of 
 something external to himself which through the agency of 
 eye or ear, is brought to his attention. Notice, too, that 
 the desires of the body operating through the organs of 
 touch, taste, and smell can never be fulfilled except so far as 
 a man brings into his own physical form, or into contact with 
 it, the external object for which he craves. To enjoy this 
 object at all in the way in which he desires, he must eat, 
 drink, clutch, fondle, or inhale it. In all cases, where such 
 possession is practicable, he cannot be satisfied except when 
 he himself and he alone has full possession of the object. 
 No one can eat or drink exactly the same thing that an- 
 other IS eating or drinking. This fact makes these lower 
 desires not only bodily and physical, but causes them 
 necessarily to involve more or less of selfish indulgence 
 which, in case of excess, may become brutal. The opposite 
 is true of the desires of the mind awakened through the 
 agency of an organ of sight or hearing. These can very 
 often — indeed almost always — be indulged to the full 
 without _ the slightest necessity for selfish possession or 
 appropriation. One man's seeing or hearing need seldom 
 prevent others from seeing or hearing exactly the same 
 thing. Many thousands, at the same moment, may 
 enjoy equally the same mountain scenery and the same 
 symphony. Indeed their delight is enhanced by the 
 knowledge that other persons are sharing it. These higher 
 desires, therefore, are not only mental, but, instead of 
 being necessarily individual and selfish, they are, from 
 
BODILY VS. MENTAL DESIRES 21 
 
 the very nature of their influence and effects, social and 
 altruistic. 
 
 Notice, once more, that, while it is possible for the effects 
 conveyed through the organs of touch, taste, and smell to be 
 discontinued after producing no more than a physical sen- 
 sation, it is not possible for the effects conveyed through the 
 eyes and ears to do this. In this latter case, every effect, 
 no matter how slight, is in itself a process of thought or 
 emotion. Every process of thought or emotion is necessar- 
 ily followed by others suggested by it ; and all the processes 
 together develop and constitute for a man that mental con- 
 dition which causes us to term him rational. The rational, 
 therefore, as well as the mental and the non-selfish, is de- 
 veloped through the agency of that which influences the 
 mind through the eyes and ears. It is by means of that 
 which he has derived through these that a man acquires the 
 ability to formulate his desires into thinking, or at least 
 into definiteness and accuracy of thinking. No one could 
 distinguish between different thoughts unless he could ex- 
 press them in different words. These words he either hears 
 from others or originates for himself. When he hears the 
 words, he usually receives them in the form of sounds. 
 When he originates them, he usually derives suggestions for 
 them from the forms of sight. For instance, he takes, at 
 times, a sound that signifies one thing that can be seen and 
 makes it apply to another thing that cannot be seen, but 
 which appears to him to involve an effect that is similar in 
 principle. Thus he uses the words, bright, clear, and cloudy, 
 not only to refer to the atmosphere and water through which 
 bodies may be trying to move, but to mind and brain 
 through which half formulated conceptions may be trying 
 to move. At other times, he takes two or three sounds, 
 each of which signifies a different object or conception and 
 puts them together. This method causes the sounds to 
 represent or picture an object or conception that is com- 
 pounded in idea, like understanding or uprightness, or is con- 
 tinuous in relation, like words that follow one another in a 
 sentence. The ears and eyes therefore, furnish a man with 
 that which enables him to construct language; language en- 
 ables him to make those distinctions which are essential in 
 order to think clearly; and, wherever there is clear-thinking, 
 there is also rationality. 
 
 It follows as a corollary from this that these organs of 
 
22 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 sight and hearing which minister to the desires of the mind 
 as distinguished from those of the body are the sources of 
 the possibihties of all the forms of rational development 
 which we are accustomed to associate with distinctively 
 human advancement — of all the possibilities, for instance, 
 of art, philosophy, science, or religion. Every one of these 
 is due to a further unfolding of the principle underlying 
 language. Art, for instance, emphasizes and extends in 
 music and poetry, the manner in which language uses 
 sounds, and in painting, sculpture, and architecture, the 
 manner in which it uses sights. Philosophy emphasizes and 
 explains the methods through which sounds or sights act 
 upon one another as they do ; science emphasizes and investi- 
 gates the matter which constitutes the substance of that 
 which is heard or seen; and religion emphasizes and relates 
 to action the supposed origin and destination of this. Fin- 
 ally, the whole result and tendency of thinking, when ra- 
 tionally and not physically influenced, is to seek and accept 
 as reasonable and true not such perceptions as are peculiar 
 to some individual — merely, perhaps, because they accord 
 with his wishes or interests — ^but those that seem to be re- 
 cognizable universally and necessarily, and thus seem to be 
 not merely relatively true but absolutely so, at least as 
 nearly so as a being of limited intelligence can surmise. 
 All of us when we speak of reason and truth mean to refer 
 to something that may be supposed to exist independently 
 of, or aside from, our own or anyone else's personal opinion 
 or judgment. It is in this ability to formulate thought 
 through the use of the sights and sounds of nature, and to 
 build them into language, conceptions, theories, and ideals 
 that a human being differs from a brute; and the very non- 
 selfish rationality that causes a man to recognize that truth 
 is something that is shared by others and is derived from 
 others as well as from oneself naturally tends to awaken a 
 sense of dependence upon them, confidence in them, and 
 sympathy for them such as is expressed in what is ordinar- 
 ily termed the himiane as contrasted with the brutal. 
 
 To sum up what has been said, we have found reasons for 
 tracing the nerves conveying a consciousness of lower bodily 
 desires to a different nerve-center in the brain from that 
 to which can be traced the nerves conveying a consciousness 
 of higher mental desires; and we have found reasons for 
 associating logically the former desires with that which is 
 
DESIRES OF THE MIND AND OF THE BODY 23 
 
 bodily, selfish, physical, and brutal ; and the latter desires 
 with that which is mental, non-selfish, rational, and humane. 
 
 If this be so, the natural inference would be that the two 
 forms of desire — those of the body and those of the mind — 
 are essentially different, and can be related in consciousness 
 only or mainly by way of counteraction. But there are 
 many to whom this conception is not acceptable. It seems 
 to them far more philosophical — indeed the only view that 
 is philosophical at all — to suppose that, while apparently 
 different, both forms of desire are merely phases indicative 
 of different stages of a method of influence which, in origin 
 and essence, are not dissimilar. This conception usu^ly 
 manifests itself in the statement or implication that all the 
 effects usually attributed to the psychical or mental are 
 developments of that which first manifests itself in the 
 physical and material. A tendency of modern thought in 
 this direction will be considered in what is said of evolution- 
 ism in Chapter VII. But certain aspects of the tendency it 
 seems important to consider in this place. Let us ask then, 
 for a moment, whether it is philosophically necessary to 
 connect in the way in which some of these thinkers have 
 done the physical with the psychical. 
 
 In answering this question, it is best, perhaps, to begin by 
 assuring the reader that, so far as a negative reply is given, 
 it is not intended to deny that many of the possibilities of 
 the mental nature are traceable to the influence of lower 
 bodily desire. Every thinker admits that such is the case. 
 In a man, body and mind are inseparable. Whenever the 
 body works, the mind works. Whenever there is a physical 
 desire, there is also, with the physical feeling that occasions 
 it, a psychical thought that accompanies the feeling; and 
 therefore any sort of a desire may be associated with thought. 
 But, according to what has been said, the mere existence of 
 thought as a constituent of a desire, does not make the 
 desire itself bodily or mental. To be either of these the 
 bodily or the mental quality, if it do not begin it, must, 
 at least, predominate in it . A desire and the thought neces- 
 sarily associated with it are of the body in case they are 
 started, dominated, or directed toward their end by sensa- 
 tions within oneself experienced in the organs of appetite 
 like those of touch, taste, or smell. A desire and the thought 
 necessarily associated with it are of the mind in case they 
 are started, dominated, or directed toward their end by 
 
24 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 surroundings outside of oneself experienced, so far as con- 
 sciousness is aware, through, but not in, the organs of ap- 
 prehension like those of hearing and seeing. With this 
 understanding of the conditions with which we are to deal, 
 let us try to ascertain so far as possible the phases and quali- 
 ties of experience, which, as a man passes from childhood 
 to manhood, each of these two classes of desire that we 
 have been considering is likely to develop in him. 
 
 As applied to bodily desire, probably no one would deny 
 that, in strict accordance with what has been said of the 
 tendency leading to a man's birth, his first impulse seems to 
 be to form, so far as possible, a bodily or physical union 
 between himself and that which seems outside of himself. 
 His first indications of individual activity are usually mani- 
 fested by putting into his mouth everything that he can get 
 hold of. He is satisfying his appetite, and older people 
 know that this is necessary in order to sustain and de- 
 velop his physical life. But the child knows nothing of 
 this necessity. All that he is conscious of is a desire to 
 appropriate from another physical form that which he can 
 bring into union with his own. When he gets older, he 
 uses his hands for the same ptu-pose. He grabs at every- 
 thing that he can touch. Then later, urged on by a similar 
 motive, he uses all his limbs reinforced by every possible 
 exercise of voice, eyes, and ears. During most of his child- 
 hood, most of his sources of energy seem to be fulfilling 
 mainly a desire to seize upon everything about him in order 
 to possess and use it exclusively for himself. 
 
 It IS not strange that this should be the case. Whatever 
 physical possibility may have led to his origin, this would 
 never have taken place unless it had been sought through 
 bodily means. It is only natural, therefore, that the earliest 
 effprtsof his life should be in the same direction. A human 
 being is not a brute, but, when he is born, he enters into an 
 existence^ for which brutes alone seem thoroughly fitted. 
 His first impulse, more universal in youth than in age, is to 
 satisfy every longing, no matter what may be its character, 
 through physical means. As contrasted with himself, the 
 world appears large. What can he do better than to grasp 
 with his hands for some of the large things about him? Of 
 course, even while doing this, he necessarily begins to think 
 about the object to be obtained, and the methods through 
 which thought and will combined can obtain it ; and, whether 
 
LOWER DESIRES AND CHARACTER 25 
 
 he succeed or fail in the effort that he makes, it is inevitable 
 that this should involve a great deal of reflection, intro- 
 spection, ingenuity, and intellectual endeavor of all kinds 
 in order to thwart and overcome hindrance and opposition. 
 Undoubtedly these experiences develop his thinking powers. 
 But in what direction? Never, apparently, in such a 
 direction as to make his desire predominantly mental. If 
 not influenced in some other way than by the physical 
 and selfish desires that first actuate him, these remain pre- 
 dominantly bodily. It was physical force that appeared 
 first to hinder and oppose his desires; and it is this that 
 seems to train all his subsequent development. This may 
 seem to be the case at first because some things are so far 
 away that his own physical limbs are not strong enough to 
 carry him to them or because, when he gets to them, some 
 one stronger physically than himself pushes him away from 
 them or snatches them from him. But always what 
 opposes him from without seems to be some exertion of 
 physical force; and, as he grows older, he is apt to become 
 more and more conscious of this fact. He wants play- 
 things; but is kept from them by larger people to whom 
 they seem to belong. He wants to play; but surrounding 
 him are those who are older and who make him study or 
 work. When thwarted he wants to fight with his fists, or 
 to denounce with his tongue, but about him are plenty of 
 others to defeat him in the one case, and to silence him in the 
 other. In short, when he wishes to appropriate what he 
 desires from the objects and opportunities on every side of 
 him, he finds himself prevented more than by an3rthing else 
 by bodily force, or, if not by actually exerted force, by 
 threatened force. 
 
 The only result of this, and of this alone, so far as it 
 succeeds in suppressing the expression as well as the ful- 
 fillment of his desires, is fear; and so far as fear alone exerts 
 a permanent influence upon his emotive condition it excites 
 him to hate. The effect of fear and hate upon his char- 
 acter, as he grows older, is not to extinguish his bodily 
 desire; but to cause him to gratify it by subterfuge, by lying, 
 cheating, stealing, seducing, and, possibly, murdering, in all 
 of which he is aware that he is running the risk of having 
 others, alone, or acting together, in fulfillment of arrange- 
 ments that they have made for the purpose, detect, outwit, 
 arrest, imprison, or execute him. The arrangements thus 
 
26 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 made are usually expressed inlaws; and the feelings of those 
 against whose actions these laws are directed are almost 
 invariably hostile. Yet many suppose that law is the only 
 sufficient remedy either for crime or for any other public 
 evil, whether it be financial, social, industrial or political. 
 Men suppose this because they expect the state to compel 
 obedience to law through the use of force. Too often, how- 
 ever, they forget that force is in danger of inciting men 
 against whom it is exerted to hostility, rebellion and re- 
 volution, and, in such cases if individual selfishness or class 
 interest have been manifested in the exercise of the force, 
 the same is likely to be manifested in the methods used in 
 resisting it. Even, too, though this resistance prove unsuc- 
 cessful so far as concerns outward results, it may, never- 
 theless, as shown in the cases of many fanatical agitators, 
 develop such thoughts and feelings and, ultimately, such 
 characteristics in those who have been made the subjects 
 of force as to render it virtually impossible for them to 
 believe that human beings can be effectively influenced in 
 any way that is distinctively nonselfish, reasonable, humane 
 or altruistic. In the opinion of such agitators, nothing can 
 be set right except through the application of force. The 
 effect of mere external restraint is the same in our age, as it 
 was when the Apostle Paul declared that law alone cannot 
 make men righteous, because, so conditioned, ' 'law worketh 
 wrath" (Rom. 4: 15). 
 
 Now let us consider the influences exerted primarily 
 through desires that are of the mind. These, as has been 
 said, are awakened through the agency of the eyes and ears, 
 not because of conscious bodily sensations excited in these 
 organs but because of surrounding sights and sounds of 
 which these organs convey intelligence. Everybody must 
 have noticed that the lower desires in almost their earliest 
 manifestations, may be antagonized by the higher. That 
 babe is exceedingly young whose animal appetites cannot 
 be counteracted and sometimes entirely overcome by the 
 mother's appeal through the ears by a lullaby or through the 
 eyes by twirling some glittering object. In such a case 
 certainly that which appeals through the ear or eye caimot 
 be said to be any development of that which appeals through 
 the stomach. As a child grows older other appeals to his 
 higher nature can keep him from touching, tasting, handling, 
 and using what he should not; and can cause him to work 
 
HIGHER DESIRES AND CHARACTER 27 
 
 and study rather than to loaf and play. Later in life, 
 others than parents can incline him not only to refrain from 
 interfering with the rights of his fellows but, through self- 
 denial and self-sacrifice of his own interests, to help them to 
 attain what they wish or need. 
 
 A person thus influenced is conscious not of physical 
 force from without controlling him in such ways as to 
 awaken fear and hate; but of psychical influences arousing 
 mental desires within him through the presence of others 
 in whom he has faith and for whom he exercises such 
 thoughts and manifests such actions as faith and it alone is 
 fitted to engender. His conception of human nature will 
 cause him to treat his fellows with confidence and consider- 
 ateness, while endeavoring to enlighten, emancipate, help, 
 advance them, and lead them to conduct in which all the 
 tendencies are in the direction of truthfulness, honesty, and 
 the elevation and preservation of life. A man must exper- 
 ience the influence of these higher desires, some of which 
 are diametrically antagonistic to the lower ones, before it is 
 possible for him to develop the best of which he is capable. 
 This statement is true as applied not only to life in the 
 present world but to the possibilities of life in a world 
 beyond this. There are truths of which the mind is in- 
 tuitively conscious, truths that are axiomatic, that do not 
 need to be argued. Among these are the conceptions: that 
 bodily things occupy space; that no two things doing this 
 can, at one time, occupy the same space, and that, there- 
 fore, they cannot merge into complete unity, or be one in 
 physique ; that they must always remain two. This is what 
 is true of the bodily or physical. On the contrary, with the 
 mental or thoughtful it is just the opposite. It does not 
 occupy space, and cannot be subject to its conditions. 
 There is nothing apparently to prevent thought-life from an 
 occasional experience, at least, of psychical unity. Indeed, 
 it is not uncommon for men to cite supposed instances of 
 this, — instances in which two different persons have been 
 supposed to have had but one thought, feeling, or purpose; 
 or, perhaps, millions of them to have been animated by a 
 single spirit. In accordance with this conception, it is logical 
 to surmise that the desire for union to which, as argued on 
 page 3, human life on earth owes its origin, is a foreshadow- 
 ing and promise of a condition that is certain to be realized 
 wherever there is nothing bodily or material to interfere 
 
28 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 with the fulfillment of desires that are purely those of mind 
 and spirit. 
 
 Nevertheless a little further thought will convince us that 
 the results even of these higher desires and of them alone 
 will, in this world at least, no more satisfy that earliest, and 
 fundamental human desire of one individual life for union 
 with another individual life than will the restilts of the lower 
 desires. Caressing and rocking a babe, pointing to objects 
 or colors, and talking or singing to him may stay his appetite 
 for a time, but it cannot do so long; nor even keep him alive; 
 and though, as a child grows older, his own faith and love 
 exercised toward others may lead him to work for them, 
 and study, and deny and sacrifice himself, there is not one 
 of us but would have serious doubts with reference to the 
 prospects for usefulness in life of a son who should mani- 
 fest such traits and such alone. Without strong appetites, 
 often indulged, we should have no reason to anticipate 
 health for himself, or even existence for his children. With- 
 out the desires associated with appetite for the possession 
 and use of other material things surrounding him, to be 
 gained by much reflection, planning, ingenuity, and industry 
 we should have no reason to anticipate from any amount 
 of self-denial and self-sacrifice on his part, even enough of 
 acquisition and infiuence to keep him out of a poor house 
 where to support him would be a burden to the community, 
 or out of a peon gang, where, perhaps, the very conditions 
 of his existence would be a curse to himself and everybody 
 about him. If the tendencies traceable to lower desire 
 alone might make of him a niggard, miser, dunce, or degen- 
 erate, those traceable to higher desire alone might make 
 him a spendthrift, pauper, dupe, and in all ways generally 
 incompetent; and the former of these are scarcely further 
 removed from the traits of the ideal man than are the 
 latter. 
 
 It seems, therefore, that, in order to account for all that a 
 man should be or should become, we need to trace his 
 possibilities of activity not to any one source of influence, 
 but to two different and often antagonistic sources, — one 
 within himself affording satisfaction in the sensation experi- 
 enced in his bodily organs and necessitating his exclusive 
 possession of the outward object occasioning the desire; and 
 the other outside himself affording satisfaction by means 
 of things apparently apprehended aside from any conscious 
 
TWO SOURCES OF DESIRE 29 
 
 sensation experienced in his bodily organs or any exclusive 
 possession of the sight or sound occasioning the desire. 
 
 To this conception of the existence of two sources of 
 desire, and of an antagonism, at times, between them, the 
 only logical objection is the seemingly well-grounded and 
 very generally accepted opinion that a philosophical solu- 
 tion of any problem is successful in the degree in which it 
 can include all the different phenomena associated with a 
 subject, group them under one method of classification, and 
 connect them with the operation of a single principle of 
 universal applicability. It is felt that such a solution does 
 not characterize a theory that divides the activities possible 
 to the htiman being into two classes, different in origin and 
 antagonistic in results. It is more philosophical, we are 
 told, to accept as a hypothesis, even though it may not yet 
 be a proved fact, the conception that all a man's activities, 
 however psychical or mental, are developed from the physi- 
 cal and material. Especially does this conclusion commend 
 itself to the thinkers of our own day on account of its sup- 
 posed conformity to the evolutionary theory. But in 
 Chapter VII. of this volvmie it is shown that some foremost 
 advocates of this theory do not deem it necessary to accept 
 this conclusion. They acknowledge that, while the general 
 method of development may apply equally to the material 
 and the mental, there is no scientific proof of such a connec- 
 tion between the two as exists in nature between cause and 
 effect, or source and result; that the most to be said is that 
 there is a correspondence or correlation between the two, — 
 in other words, that their various phases develop according 
 to similar methods, but on different yet parallel planes. 
 
 Years ago, in the Introduction to the Second Edition of 
 Art in Theory, the author, after drawing attention to -the 
 fact that science deals with the facts and laws of physical 
 nature, and religion with those of psychical nature, had 
 occasion to say: — {Art in Theory, pages xxxix, xl) that 
 " the mind is never strictly within the realm of science when 
 arriving at conclusions otherwise than through methods 
 dealing with material relationships. Nothing is scienti- 
 fically true, unless it can be shown to be fulfilled in fact; 
 i. e., in conditions and results perceptible in ascertainable 
 phenomena. The moment that thought transcends the 
 sphere possible to knowledge, it gets out of the sphere of 
 science. But, when it gets out of this, what sphere, so long 
 
30 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 as it continues to advance rationally, does it enter? What 
 sphere but that of religion? And think how large a part of 
 human experience — experience which is not a result of what 
 can strictly be termed knowledge — ^is contained in this 
 sphere! Where but in it can we find the impulses of con- 
 science, the dictates of duty, the cravings for sympathy, the 
 aspirations for excellence, the pursuit of ideals, the sense of 
 unworthiness, the desire for holiness, the feeling of depend- 
 ence upon a higher power, and all these together, exercised 
 in that which causes men to walk by faith, and not by 
 knowledge? The sphere certainly exists. Granting the 
 fact, let us ask what it is that can connect with this sphere 
 of faith the sphere of knowledge? Has any method yet 
 been found of conducting thought from the material to the 
 spiritual according to any process strictly scientific? Most 
 certainly not. There comes a place where there is a great 
 gulf fixed between the two. Now notice that the one who 
 leads the conceptions of men across this gulf must, like the 
 great Master, never speak to them without a parable, — i. e., 
 a parallel, an analogy, a correspondence, a comparison. 
 Did you ever think of the fact that, scientifically interpreted, 
 it is not true that God is a father, or Christ an elder brother 
 of Christians, or the latter children of Abraham? These 
 are merely forms taken from earthly relationships, in order 
 to image spiritual relationships, which, except in imagin- 
 ation, could not in any way become conceivable. This 
 method of conceiving of conditions, which may be great 
 realities in the mental, ideal, spiritual realm, through the 
 representation of them in material form, is one of the very 
 first conditions of a religious conception. But what is the 
 method? It is the artistic method. Without using it in 
 part, at least, science stops at the brink of the material with 
 no means of going farther, and religion begins at the briiik 
 of the spiritual with no means of finding any other starting- 
 point. Art differs from both science and religion in finding 
 its aim in sentiment instead of knowledge, as in the one, and 
 of conduct, as in the other. But notice, in addition, what an 
 aid to religion is the artistic habit of looking upon every 
 form in this material world as full of analogies and cor- 
 respondences, inspiring conceptions and ideals spiritual in 
 their nature, which need only the impulse of conscience 
 to direct them into the manifestation of the spiritual in 
 conduct." 
 
MIND AND MATTER CONNECTED ANALOGICALLY 31 
 
 This last sentence will suggest why the principle explained 
 in this quotation is applicable, but in a general rather than 
 specific way, to ethics as well as to aesthetics. An ethical 
 effect equally with an aesthetic is due to the combined influ- 
 ence of the material and the mental. The chief distinguish- 
 able difference is that in art the mind works in connection 
 with matter in order to produce a result to be represented 
 to others; and in morals the mind works in connection with 
 matter in order to produce a result to be realized in oneself. 
 In fulfilling the method of aesthetics, a sculptor, to accord 
 with his conceptions, models a statue. In fulfilling the 
 method of ethics, a man models himself. Just as aesthetics 
 has to do with the art of right designing and producing, 
 ethics has to do with what may appropriately be termed 
 the art of right living and doing, and just as aesthetics re- 
 sults in representative art, ethics might be said to result in 
 presentative art, — at least in the sense indicated by the 
 Apostle Paul when, in Romans 12 : i, he says "I beseech you 
 that ye present your bodies holy and acceptable unto God, 
 which is your reasonable service." 
 
 This principle, applicable to both aesthetics and ethics, 
 has been pointed out in order to enable the reader to under- 
 stand why certain relations between cause and effect which 
 seem to be universal when all the factors to which they are 
 applied are material, as in science, or even, sometimes, 
 when they are all mental as in religion, do not exist at all 
 when some of the factors — ^the causes, for instance — are 
 bodily or material, and some of the factors — ^the effects, for 
 instance — are mental or thoughtful. To illustrate what is 
 meant by saying this, notice that no real, or logically or- 
 ganic relationship — but only an ideal, imagined or analogical 
 relationship — exists between a pleasant thought and a 
 smiling face, or a sad mood and a bent body; between a 
 doubtful thought and a rising inflection, or any angry feel- 
 ing and a husky tone; between playing a game and using 
 the word pastime, or between being honest and using the 
 word upright; between thinking of protection and throwing 
 the palm of the hand up or out, or between thinking of con- 
 centrating thought, and pointing^ with the finger; and yet 
 the relationship between the two in each case is apparently 
 as close as it would be if they were organically connected. 
 Moreover, this fact hardly needs explanation. In the 
 actions of the least instructed as, for instance, in pointing 
 
32 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 with the finger, the right mode of expression usually follows 
 the thought or feeling that is experienced. So we might 
 multiply indefinitely a man's mental activities and fit them 
 to any outline, color, tone, or combination of these that is 
 possible to music, poetry, painting, sculpture, or archi- 
 tecture. The principle will be found to be exemplified in all 
 properly conceived and thoroughly executed artistic work, 
 yet in hardly a single case does the mental result manifest 
 the slightest organic connection with the bodily agency 
 apparently occasioning it, or occasioned by it. There is no 
 proof that the result is an effect of any thing more than 
 association, suggestion, or imagination. 
 
 The reader has probably anticipated the application of 
 what has been said to the subject immediately before us. 
 Just as there is no actual organic connection between the 
 bodily or material and the mental or thoughtful in aesthe- 
 tics, so, as we have a right to infer, there is none in ethics. 
 If material things do not, in a strict sense, develop into 
 mental thoughts in the one department, why should they do 
 so in the other ?_ The practical results, as we have found, 
 may be as effective as if they did so; but we have no philo- 
 sophical right to affirm that they do so, unless we can prove 
 it. What it is that connects the two, we do not know. We 
 might say with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716) in 
 his New Essays on the Human Understanding that between 
 the bodily or physical and the mental or psychical there is 
 a "pre-established harmony," — a creative provision or 
 prevision, so to speak, in accordance with which, when the 
 one acts as if it were a cause, the other acts as if it were a 
 result. But this theory merely presents a hypothesis. It 
 may or may not be true. It cannot be accepted as a fact. 
 All that can be accepted as a fact is this, that in some way 
 human intelligence is made to form a connecting link 
 between influences some of which are bodily and some 
 mental; in other words that the consciousness of man is 
 influenced on opposite sides — or, better perhaps, from be- 
 low and from above or from the inside and from the out- 
 side first by one tendency and then by the other. 
 
 By making individual conscious intelligence the connect- 
 ing link between the two opposing influences, one is able to 
 obviate the most important practical objection to extreme 
 evolutionism. The objection is that the ascribing of mental 
 activities of any kind to results of physical development 
 
CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL FORCE 33 
 
 fulfilling natural law, tends to relieve the individual of 
 any feeling of personal responsibility for his own actions or 
 their results. But, besides answering this objection, a theory 
 that enables one to make the man himself, or — what is the 
 same — ^his own conscious intelligence the connecting link 
 between agencies that arouse opposing desires also enables 
 one to group, in just as true a sense as can the evolutionist, 
 all the different phenomena associated with the subject under 
 one method of classification, and connect them with the opera- 
 tion of a single principle of universal applicability. As a 
 fact, they are very greatly mistaken who suppose it to be 
 unphilosophical to hold that a hiunan being is so constituted 
 as to be under the sway of forces influencing his conscious 
 desires from two antagonistic directions, — one from within 
 and the other from without. This fact — if it be a fact — 
 does not differentiate him from other related objects sur- 
 rounding him; or cause his condition to be out of accordance 
 with a law pervading all the universe, and apparently 
 applicable to everything in it. 
 
 If we turn to any department of science this statement 
 will be found verified. The astronomer, for instance, re- 
 cognizes in the movements of every star in the universe, 
 whether a planet, a sun, or a comet, a force that he terms 
 centripetal, and also another entirely antagonistic force that 
 he terms centrifugal. The first tends to draw everything 
 inward to the center of its own body or orbit ; the second tends 
 to drive it outward away from its own body or orbit . Or if we 
 turn to the botanist, we shall find that he too recognizes in 
 every tree or shrub a force that holds every element of growth 
 in it to its own trunk and root and another force, antago- 
 nistic to this, that pushes it outward toward air and sun- 
 shine, and especially in the case of parasites, toward other 
 growing plants surrounding it. Even in objects apparently 
 so minute as to be incapable of any divisions in either force 
 or substance, science has found that, wherever there is life, 
 the only possible way of getting it, or continuing to possess 
 it is through the pressure of vibrations that force the ele- 
 ments composing it first one way and then the other way. 
 Such conditions are acknowledged by scientists to exist. 
 What then ? — ^The conditions are identical with those to which 
 we have found human intelligence to be subjected. There- 
 fore the conclusions that have been reached in these pages 
 do not exclude it from classification with other phenomena 
 
34 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 of nature, or from the application of a principle causing all 
 nature to illustrate unity of design. The scientist will 
 tell us that centripetal and centrifugal forces are both 
 essential in order to fulfill the one principle, or method, 
 underlying what may be termed the life of the universe. 
 The agriculturist will tell us that inside and outside agencies 
 of growth are both essential in order to fulfill the one 
 principle or method of growth exemplified in the life of the 
 plant. The electrician will tell us that vibration is essential 
 in order to fulfill the one principle or method that proves 
 the existence of life in the atom. Now when a man detects 
 in his own nature certain desires or different promptings 
 of the same desire awakened by and for himself; and certain 
 others, at times antagonistic, awakened by and for others, 
 he has not removed his own experience from the operation of 
 a law apparently pervading all existence; and_ if in this 
 law philosophy can find a basis of unity notwithstanding 
 apparently antagonistic forces, why should it not be able to 
 find the same principle exemplified in human experience? 
 Why, in the circumstances should not antagonistic prompt- 
 ings of desires at the basis of one's nature be exactly what 
 we should have reason to expect? That we should expect 
 to find them, and to find what is and should be the bearing 
 of this fact upon every man's conduct and character it will 
 be the endeavor of future chapters of this book to unfold.* 
 
 * This attributing of individual development of any kind to influences 
 exerted from opposite directions seems needed in order to make phil- 
 osophically acceptable, because showing its universal applicability, a 
 theory now beginning to be widely adopted, and thus stated in Arthur 
 Mitchell's translation of Chapter II. of Henri Bergson's Creative Evolu- 
 tion: "The cardinal error (the italics are Bergson's, which irom Aristotle 
 onward has vitiated most of the philosophies of nature is to see in vegetable, 
 instinctive and rational life three sticcessive degrees of development of one 
 and the same tendency, whereas they are three different directions of an 
 activity that has split up as it grew. The difference between them is not 
 a diflference of intensity, nor generally of degree, but of kind." Of the 
 differences between plant and animal, he says: "Everywhere we find 
 them mingled; it is the proportion that differs." Of those between 
 animal and man, he says: "Prom the fact that instinct is always more 
 or less intelligent, it has been concluded that instinct and intelligence 
 are things of the same kind, that there is only a difference of complexity 
 or perfection. . . . Inreality, they accompany each other only because 
 they are complementary, and they are complementary only because 
 they are different, what is instinctive in instinct being opposite to what 
 is intelligent in intelligence." See also page 99. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE PROCESSES OF HUMAN INTELLIGENCE AS INFLUENCED BY 
 DESIRES OF THE BODY AND OF THE MIND 
 
 Subject of the Present Chapter — Animal and Human Traits — Methods 
 of Conceiving of the Influence upon Men of Lower and of Higher 
 Desire — Tabulation of Processes of Intelligence as Developed in 
 Connection with each Form of Desire — Explanations — Mental De- 
 sires are more Influenced by Thinking than are Bodily Desires — 
 Possible, but not Actual, Separation between the Psychical Results 
 of Desires of the Body and of the Mind — Dominance of the Latter 
 through Influencing the Will — Desire as Affecting the Will — As 
 Affecting Lessons Derived from Observation and Experience — 
 From Information — Higher Desires aside from Knowledge In- 
 fluential in Restraining from Vice — Lessons from the Reasoning 
 Faculties as Influenced by Conditions of Desire — Recent Pubhc 
 Applications of that Principle — Imagination as Influenced by Con- 
 ditions of Desire, as in Ideals — Ideals as Results of Imagination 
 — The Possession of Ideals Differentiates the Mental, Rational, 
 Non-Selfish, and Humane from the Bodily, Physical, Selfish, and 
 Brutal Nature — The Character of the Ideal Depends upon the 
 Contents of the Mind — Man can Live in a World of Ideals — This 
 the Culminating Effect of Thinking as Influenced by Higher Desire. 
 — ^Why Ideals are Hampered by Material Conditions — Why Cer- 
 tain Suggestions from this Fact may be Consoling and Inspiring. 
 
 IN order to anticipate objections to our general argument 
 that, otherwise, might be suggested and need to be 
 answered, it seems necessary to develop more fully 
 than has yet been done the relationship between the char- 
 acter of each of the two classes of desire that have been men- 
 tioned, — those of the body and of the mind; and also to 
 examine the character of the whole form of intelligent ac- 
 tivity at the basis of which each of these respective classes 
 of desire may be supposed to be especially operative. 
 
 We are all acquainted with a distinction frequently made, 
 but with no attempt at philosophic accuracy, between a 
 man — and it includes a description of his thinking as well as 
 feeling — ^who is animal in nature, and one who is human. 
 
 35 
 
36 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 Whether the two conditions thus indicated are essentially 
 different, or whether, as argued by some, the latter with all 
 its results is merely a higher development of the former, the 
 two are at least dissimilar, and the dissimilarity ought to be 
 capable of being indicated so that it can be_ recognized. A 
 frequent conception is that a purely animal being has 
 instinct, which some physicists ascribe to the transmission 
 of acquired habits; and a human being has intelligence; but 
 most thinkers are not satisfied with this statement. C. S. 
 Meyers, for instance, in Vol. III. of the British Journal of 
 Psychology says that to distinguish instinct from intelli- 
 gence involves "a purely artificial abstraction." Men, 
 too, have more or less instinct, and animals have more or 
 less intelligence. If the statement were that animals are 
 predominatingly governed by instinct and men are, or may 
 be, predominatingly governed by intelligence, there would 
 be less objection to it. The conception would then corre- 
 spond to the distinction made on pages 6 and 7. It was said 
 there, that, in bodily desire, the source and end of grati- 
 fication are in the bodily nature, and that in mental desire, 
 they are in the mental nature : in other words, that, in bodily 
 desire, the thought of which one is conscious is subordinated 
 to physical feeling which it attends and serves; whereas, in 
 mental desire, this feeling is subordinated to psychical 
 thought which it attends and serves. This is a distinction 
 that can be easily understood and verified. In training a 
 dog or a horse, one appeals to certain powers of perception, 
 memory, association, attention, and obedience which pre- 
 suppose some exercise of thought; but he does it through 
 appealing, first of all, to physical feeling. He threatens or 
 whips the animal, or bribes him with sugar or food. Some- 
 times the same is done in training children; but the older — 
 the more human and less animal they become — ^the more 
 feasible is it to appeal first to their mental nature, — ^to 
 reason with them, to arouse their ambition, to stimulate 
 their imagination, to conjure up their ideals. None of these 
 methods of appeal would have any effect upon an animal. 
 It is therefore logical to conclude that the nature which is 
 started into activity by the desires peculiar to itself, includes 
 feeling, thinking, and willing. When a man fulfills bodily 
 desires his feelings, thoughts, and actions are all character- 
 ized by a bodily quality; and when he fulfills mental desires, 
 by a mental quality. 
 
HUMAN AND ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 37 
 
 Perhaps the best way to conceive of the difference between 
 these two qualities is to consider the organism that produces 
 thought as an instrument, and to regard desire as the force 
 which operates through it. We all know how results in the 
 same brain differ when a man drinks water or wine, breathes 
 fresh air or laughing gas. In an analogous way, human 
 consciousness may appear to involve a different nature when 
 the force that impells it comes through physical appetite and 
 continues to have a physical tendency, and when this force 
 comes through rational excitation and continues to have a ra- 
 tional tendency. As Professor Rudolph Eucken (1846- ) 
 of the University of Jena reminds us in Chapter I. of his 
 Life of the Spirit as translated by F. L. Pogson, "Aristotle 
 declared that the difference between man and the animals 
 was that the latter cannot go beyond individual impressions 
 and individual stimulations, while man, in virtue of his 
 power of thought, can form universals, and let his actions be 
 determined by them. " When this is done, his processes of in- 
 tellection are as nearly conformed as possible to what might 
 be termed, as distinguished from methods of individual 
 thinking, the methods of universal thinking, or, as Kant 
 put it, the laws of "pure reason, " being developed from a 
 search for truth and right irrespective of any relationship to 
 one's private interests, or, to phrase it differently, to the in- 
 terests of one person considered as separated from others, 
 because living in a separated physical body. In the same 
 case, his action is as nearly conformed as possible to what we 
 might term the laws of universal activity as distinguished 
 from individual, being developed from a recognition of the 
 claims or conditions of conception and conduct that are 
 absolute and unvariable, and cannot be waived because of 
 opinions or aims biased by one's own bodily or personal 
 desire for self-indulgence or self -advancement. 
 
 On page 38, an attempt has been made to tabulate the 
 two differently developed tendencies of feeling, thought, 
 and action in accordance with these conceptions. Under 
 the column headed Lower Desire are grouped the psychical 
 results that can be attributed in some cases to animals, and, 
 in all cases, to men so far as one considers only their animal 
 tendencies. (See pages 21-26.) Under the colimin headed 
 Higher Desire are grouped the results that can be attributed 
 to men alone. The author is aware that this tabulation is 
 incomplete and unsatisfactory. But to make it anything 
 
38 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 else would require much more time and space than is at his 
 disposal. He hopes, therefore, that, even as it is, it may 
 serve the suggestive purpose for which only it is intended. 
 
 A Man's Processes of Intelligence 
 As Revealed to Consciousness in Connection with the 
 
 Lower Desire of the Body or Higher Desire of the Mind 
 which, in its nature, is which, in its nature, is 
 
 Physical, Selfish, Egoistic, Thoughtful, Non-Selfish, Al- 
 
 Inconsiderate, Brutal, and truistic. Reasonable, Humane, 
 
 Material and Spiritual 
 
 Become, when Affected through the Senses 
 
 Source — Feeling Emotion 
 
 Nature — Sensation Sensitiveness 
 
 Result — ^Appetite Aspiration 
 
 Through the Will 
 
 Source — Impulse Motive 
 
 Nature — Conation Choice 
 
 Result — ^Action Purpose 
 
 Through the Cognitive Faculties 
 
 If, in their Receiving Powers, 
 Source — Occurrence Recurrence 
 
 Nature — Perception Observation 
 
 Result — Impression Suggestion 
 
 If, in their Retaining Powers, 
 Source — Memory Remembrance 
 
 Nature — Reminiscence Recollection 
 
 Result — Association Comparison 
 
 If, in their Collecting Powers, 
 Source — Instinct Intuition 
 
 Nature — Repetition Classification 
 
 Result — Habit Method 
 
 If, in their Constructing Powers, 
 Source — Differentiation Analysis 
 
 Nature — Arrangement Logical Sequence 
 
 Result — Combination Rational Judgment 
 
 If, in their Formulating Powers, 
 Source — Imitation Imagination 
 
 Nature — Reproduction Representation 
 
 Result — ^Reality Ideality 
 
THINKING DETERMINED BY DESIRING 39 
 
 It is not necessary here to enter into any explanation, or 
 defense of the terms used or of the places assigned them in 
 these lists. Perhaps, however, it ought to be said that these 
 places do not represent any sequence in the order of time in 
 which a man necessarily recognizes the different activities 
 indicated. As a rule, the senses may be said to appeal to his 
 consciousness first, followed by some slight effect upon the 
 will before involving any very distinct action of the cognitive 
 faculties. But the whole mind is a unit; and, so far as con- 
 cerns that which is recognized by consciousness, the earliest 
 impression may be occasionally conveyed by imagination, 
 or ideality. 
 
 The one important fact intended to be brought out in this 
 tabulation is that there is a difference at every analogous 
 stage of mental manifestation between activities developed 
 in connection with the desires of the body and those con- 
 nected with the desires of the mind. The reader will 
 notice that in all cases the main difference between the two 
 is caused by the greater influence of thought in connection 
 with the latter. It is because of the thinking that has been 
 added to it that feeling becomes emotion; sensation sensitive- 
 ness; impulse, motive; conation, choice; action, purpose; 
 perception, observation; impression, suggestion, and so on. 
 It must be borne in mind, however, that the psychical 
 results indicated in both columns are experienced by all 
 human beings. The only difference between them is that, 
 in some men, dominance is given to the results developed 
 in association with lower desires, and in other men to the 
 results associated with higher desires. In case of conflict be- 
 tween the two, the men who gratify bodily desire are usually 
 termed immoral. Those who subordinate this to mental 
 desire are termed moral; and those who go further than 
 this, and wholly suppress bodily desire, are by some termed 
 spiritual. As generally used, however, this latter word 
 merely indicates a tendency. No one living in a world 
 where he needs a body, can be completely spiritual. Nor, 
 as will be shown hereafter, is it right that he should be so. 
 The term is conventionally applied merely by courtesy to 
 certain persons who apparently approach the condition 
 indicated by it. 
 
 The two contrasting columns will show also that each 
 includes mention of all the three functions needed in order 
 to render a mind complete, namely, feeling, willing, and 
 
40 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 thinking. Therefore, though, the bodily trend of intelli- 
 gence and its mental trend are never separated in a man, it 
 is conceivable that they might be separated. But the 
 only thing that actually happens is that, as a rule, one of the 
 two trends is more or less subordinated to the other. If 
 the mental be subordinated to the bodily, the reader will 
 recognize, even from what has been said already, and still 
 more from what will be said hereafter, that there may be, 
 philosophically considered, a need for something like that 
 which religious people occasionally express by using the 
 term conversion, — a need, that is, for turning the activities 
 of the mind as it were upside down, so that, instead of hav- 
 ing the bodily desires and their efEects uppermost, the men- 
 tal shall be uppermost. 
 
 Let us notice, now, how this conversion, or change in the 
 trend of activities from bodily to mental, can be brought 
 about. We shall find that, in all cases, it must start with a 
 change in desires. For instance, to follow a line of thought 
 suggested by the arrangements of the tabulation on page 38, 
 it is natural, because morality is ordinarily manifested in 
 action due to an exercise of will, to think and say that a 
 man who is easily tempted to the wrong has a weak will; 
 and the implication is that he needs, more than anything 
 else, to have it strengthened. Many suppose, therefore, 
 that the most important ethical and religious efforts are 
 those directed toward influencing people, especially the 
 young, to determine, once for all time, to lead, as applied to 
 conduct in general and to certain courses in particular, an 
 upright, or what for some means the same thing, a religious 
 life. In a community in which there is a tendency to 
 drunkenness, or to other forms of wrong doing, the services 
 of a temperance-lecturer or a religious exhorter are fre- 
 quently secured with the hope that his appeals will persuade 
 those inclined to the evil to become inclined to the good. 
 Not one word can be justly said against these theories, or 
 the methods to which they lead — except where they are 
 supposed to be based upon a complete view of the whole 
 subject. But sometimes they are based upon a partial 
 view, and, therefore, are expressions of what is only partly 
 true. A right choice of a course of life is of tremendous 
 importance, and men may be persuaded to it by an exhorter. 
 But notice that the very fact that he is trying to persuade, 
 indicates that he recognizes that the will — everything that 
 
CONVERSION 41 
 
 concerns its motive, choice, or purpose — can be influenced 
 best indirectly, through influencing, first of all, the higher 
 emotions and desires that lie back of it and determine 
 its action. Could there be a right choice, or any agency 
 that could be persuaded to make this, were it not for the 
 existence in men of such deciding factors to which the 
 persuader can address his appeal? 
 
 As has been said, these higher desires are a part of every 
 man's inherited nature. We all must acknowledge too, that 
 like other things in his nature, they can be greatly strength- 
 ened by environment and education. An exhorter in a 
 community that had been prepared to agree with his pre- 
 mises by previous instruction and public sentiment might 
 have thousands of converts whereas, in a different com- 
 munity, he would have, perhaps, not one. Those who 
 overlook this fact, and, for any reason, fail to exert their 
 influence so as to stimulate and strengthen the higher 
 desires, are neglecting the one thing that is primary, and, 
 therefore, the most important of all. There are religious 
 people, for instance, who act, and sometimes talk, as if they 
 believed that the only influence which they need to exert 
 upon their children or friends is to lead them to some church 
 where a revivalist can convert them; and yet whatever 
 effect the revivalist may have upon them will depend upon 
 previous effects that have been exerted upon their desires. 
 And these effects have usually been determined by the 
 example and precept of those with whom his hearers have 
 associated in their homes, their schools, or their business. 
 That this statement is true, may be confirmed by noticing 
 that, while of those who attain to high excellence and use- 
 fulness, some were conscious in the past of a definite change 
 in purpose accompanied by a choice to lead a right life; and 
 some were conscious of no such experience, all were con- 
 scious of higher desires sufficiently strong to give a right 
 direction to lower desires. In cases like this, it is the ele- 
 ment that can be proved to be present universally which must 
 be considered primary and most important. The necessary 
 inference that must be drawn is that in acting in accordance 
 with what is right, a man is sometimes conscious of control- 
 ling impulse by judgment, volition by choice, and action by 
 purpose; and, sometimes he is not conscious of this. He 
 seems to himself to perform a large number of the actions 
 which would generally be considered right with no concep- 
 
42 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 tion of the possibility on his part of doing anything else. In 
 all cases, however, whether he be conscious of the action of 
 will or not, he is conscious of the influence of higher desires. 
 An analogous statement can be made with reference to the 
 influence exerted in connection with processes of thinking 
 such as are tabulated on page 38 under the general heading 
 of the Cognitive Faculties. For instance, men have learned 
 a great deal with reference to the right conduct of life from 
 noticing what the external world has presented to their 
 perception and observation. But could mere perception 
 or observation influence to any great extent a man whose 
 deeper nature had not also been affected by it ? Is mere ex- 
 perience in all cases sufficient? Does it always teach men 
 what they need to know ? Or does the lesson that it imparts 
 depend upon something in the man himself which enables 
 him to receive it in such a way that he can make use of it? 
 An attempt to answer questions like these will convince us 
 that experience, no matter how extensive, can afford little 
 benefit to those who are thoroughly uninterested and there- 
 fore listless. Upon these it usually has no more effect than 
 the shifting films of a moving picture which one forgets the 
 moment he ceases to be face to face with it. It is only after 
 a man's desires have been brought into exercise, after he has 
 been led to think much about certain courses of action and the 
 objects to be obtained by them, and to plan and to strive 
 for these objects, that he is prepared, after either suc- 
 cess or failure, to take to heart, as we say, and thus really 
 to learn the lesson that experience is fitted to teach. With 
 reference to such lessons, the same principle applies in ethics 
 as in assthetics. Experience gained by hearing good music, 
 seeing good pictures, feeling their effects and having their 
 methods of composition and production explained may 
 prove of great advantage to a musician or a painter; but 
 they cannot prove this until after assthetic desires within 
 him have been powerful and persistent through many 
 months or years, and have thus given him practical knowl- 
 edge and more or less personal mastery of his art. So in 
 ethics. We cannot know or do all that we should with 
 reference to any subject, unless we properly estimate experi- 
 ence. But we must be careful not to overestimate it. We 
 must not assign it the wrong place. We must relate it, as 
 nature does, to the higher desires, and make it subordinate 
 to them. 
 
LEARNING FROM INFORMATION 43 
 
 The same is true of that which calls for an exercise of what 
 in the tabulation are teraaed the retaining powers, — ^like 
 memory and recollection. Very little knowledge, either of 
 books or of our neighbors' lives ought to convince us that 
 some of the worst characters that the world has seen have 
 -been the most accurately and fully acquainted with the his- 
 tory and probable consequences of wrong doing. It is a great 
 mistake to suppose that a mere lack of instruction is the 
 chief reason for a lack of virtue. No one could have made 
 the Mephistopheles of Goethe's Faust less devilish by mak- 
 ing him better informed. Indeed, moral character is often 
 influenced for good when the conditions for a successful 
 appeal to knowledge in any form are not fulfilled; when the 
 one so influenced receives no adequate information or 
 explanation for the course which he feels that he should 
 pursue. On the other hand, no matter how fully these 
 conditions of information may be fulfilled, the results will 
 influence conduct only so far as, through their instrtunen- 
 tality, they may be made to reach and influence also the 
 desires. For instance, we all believe that a boy should be 
 told that he should not steal, and should have the reasons 
 for this explained to his understanding. But not infre- 
 quently boys who have never been definitely taught this, 
 will refrain from stealing, and separate themselves from the 
 company of those who do steal, merely because of a vague 
 inexpressible desire to act as seems worthy of themselves 
 and of the approbation of others. One might say that they 
 were too sensitive rather than sensible to trespass upon the 
 rights and possessions of their fellows. So with vices. 
 Many men will tell us that, up to the time when they were 
 twenty-one years of age, though, perhaps, with ample 
 opportunities and examples tending to lead them to go 
 astray, and with no adequate knowledge of the dangers and 
 diseases that such a course would involve, the simple desire 
 to keep themselves clean and worthy rendered certain 
 forms of indulgence on their part as impossible as taking a 
 bath in a gutter. A young man starting out upon an 
 engineering expedition over a western mountain was told 
 that, in case he were bitten by a rattlesnake, the first thing 
 to do was to drink enough whiskey to make himself drunk. 
 He replied that he would rather risk the consequences of 
 the bite than of the whiskey. This man may have needed 
 additional medical education, though not for the purpose of 
 
44 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 implanting a sense of obligation, but of supplementing and 
 developing its methods of expression after it had beei 
 implanted by higher desire. 
 
 Most men, as they look back upon their boyhood, recog- 
 nize that nothing except the influence of higher desire kept 
 themselves and many of their companions from going astray. 
 The author can recall that once when, from a boarding school 
 that he attended, a boy was expelled for immorality, the 
 teachers explained the nature and consequences of his of- 
 fense. But, before hearing the explanation which, appar- 
 ently, contained information new to the boys, the contempt 
 with which their higher desires had greeted _ suggestions 
 made to their lower desires had already ostracized the cul- 
 prit so that he had had practically no companions. One who 
 has read fiction of a certain class must have noticed that 
 the fall into vice, which too frequently makes up the larger 
 part of the story, usually follows an excursion to which 
 venturesome feet have been allured by a tempter cloaked 
 in the garments of virtue. The novelist seems to have 
 recognized that the victim, to appear enough of a hero 
 to awaken sympathetic interest, must be represented as 
 being influenced by a higher as well as by a lower desire. 
 He must appear to be the subject of a romantic affection, of 
 a spirit of chivalry, inspired by contact with innocence and 
 moved to protect the unfortunate. A similar conception 
 influences many when thinking of their own acts. Few, 
 until they have become, if not habituated, at least accus- 
 tomed to some form of iniquity, will not feel more or less 
 restrained from it by a higher desire; and even a convict in 
 prison, whose guilt has been proved and is acknowledged, 
 will usually argue that he has done no more than other 
 people would have done, if only they had had the same 
 opportunity, or the same ingenuity, as himself. In ef- 
 fect, this is the same as to maintain that he is as sus- 
 ceptible to the influence of higher desire as is anyone else. 
 
 Perhaps the largest ntimber of those who fail to recognize 
 the primary influence upon action of desire attribute right 
 conduct to some one or more of the combined developments 
 of intelligence as tabulated on page 38 under the headings 
 of the collecting and constructing powers. To such think- 
 ers, that course seems right which, by some intellectual 
 process, can be proved to be reasonable. This is the con- 
 ception which lies at the basis of the majority of such ethical 
 
DESIRE OUTWEIGHING REASONING 45 
 
 theories as the teleological, utilitarian, hedonic, and eudai- 
 monistic, which will be discussed on pages 72, 73, 94-97 and 
 1 17-122. Concerning all of them, it can be said that they 
 contain a partial truth of great value; but not the whole 
 truth; and this fact alone, even if that which they ignore 
 did not deserve primality would render these theories, at 
 least in part, erroneous. Few who have tried to reform 
 an idler, spendthrift, liar, cheat, thief, gambler, glutton, 
 drunkard, or rake can have failed to recognize how few 
 practical results follow upon explanations, warnings, or 
 arguments addressed to his mere reasoning faculties. The 
 appeal to these, even when presented with the most irrefut- 
 able logic, seems often to have absolutely no effect upon 
 either his conceptions or conduct. Many a man has been 
 told and convinced by his physician that smoking tobacco 
 or drinking whiskey is impairing his health, but this does not 
 prevent his desiring to do it, and so strongly too as actually 
 to continue to do it. This certainly would not be the case 
 if to understand, to infer, or to conclude were the same thing 
 as to desire. While it is true, that results of reasoning 
 and the conclusions reached by them have an influence, 
 and an important influence upon conduct, it is not true that 
 such is the case invariably. When it is not the case it is 
 because there is still lacking some influence capable of mak- 
 ing the right course seem desirable, — ^in other words capable 
 of making an appeal to the desires, — an appeal, that is, 
 to the S3niipathetic action of the emotional nature as well 
 as to mere intelligence. Does not this explain why it is so 
 widely recognized that the most effective method of bring- 
 ing into the right path those who have strayed from it is 
 through an influence of personality exerted either in private 
 or public conduct, conversation, or address. 
 
 Is not this the reason underlying the movements that, 
 of late years, have found expression in the "social settle- 
 ment" and the "institutional church?" And, to make a 
 broader and deeper application of the same suggestion, is it 
 not the reason underlying the fact that all reforms, whether 
 political, social, or religious, in the degree in which their 
 influence upon communities has been thorough, widespread, 
 and permanent, have been associated with some prominent 
 person. Now and then too, this person, as has been sup- 
 posed in the cases of Confucius and Socrates, may have had 
 less to do with the actual shaping of the reform than some 
 
46 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 of his followers like Mencius and Plato, yet to the world 
 he has seemed to embody and represent it; and this has 
 added greatly to its earliest and its latest popularity. 
 Many more to-day are Buddhists, Mohammedans, or Chris- 
 tians because of what they know or think that they know 
 about the founder of one of these systems, than because 
 of any knowledge of the principles actuating him, or any 
 serious endeavor to follow in his footsteps. 
 
 The relation between desire and the last of the cognitive 
 faculties which are tabulated on page 38 still remains to be 
 considered. This is what has been termed the formulating 
 power and, as related to conduct, it seems to be the most 
 important of all of them. It is the faculty that enables the 
 mind to present to itself in a clearly apprehensible form the 
 constructed results of its own thinking. The form is 
 the final effect of psychical processes — though it sometimes 
 immediately accompanies them — such as are represented in 
 the previous lists in the tabulation. In the degree in which 
 this effect is more vaguely or more definitely conceived, we 
 term the ideas that produce it general or specific. But not as 
 mere ideas do they exert the most influence upon conduct. 
 They do this when the ideas become what are termed ideals. 
 When do they become these? It is when, in connection 
 with ideas, another influence operates. This influence is 
 defined by the suffix al which means pertaining to. An 
 ideal is something pertaining to an idea. And what is this 
 something? What can it be but the underlying energy or 
 tendency in the mind that animates the idea, and which, as 
 has been said before, reveals itself to consciousness as a 
 desire? An ideal is a desire that has pushed through the 
 different possibilities in the region of ideas till finally it has 
 embodied itself in one or more of them. So we see that 
 the same principle which renders the influence of desires 
 necessary before the mind is fitted to avail itself of the 
 ethical teachings of experience, information, or reason- 
 ing, applies still more forcibly to the effects of ideals. 
 Indeed, these effects seem so important to some that, as 
 will be noticed in a quotation in' a footnote on page 67, 
 Professor Josiah Royce (1865-1916) identifies them with 
 the effects of conscience; and very nearly the same is 
 done by Professor Warner Fite (1867- ) of Princeton 
 University when, in his Introductory Study of Ethics, he 
 associates the attaining of the end of obligation to the 
 
IDEALS 47 
 
 maintaining in the pursuit of the ideal, a "maximum of 
 sustained progress." 
 
 _ The ideas_ expressed in ideals differ in the de^ees of dis- 
 tinctness with which through the representative faculty 
 they are made to appeal to consciousness. Sometimes only 
 a vague impression is produced; sometimes a vivid picture. 
 In either case, the result can be attributed to the imagin- 
 ation. This is the source of any influence that, in any de- 
 gree, tends to collect within the outlines of an apprehensible 
 image — by which is meant a form — ^thoughts that, otherwise, 
 could not be clearly conceived. When a young man says 
 that he has an ideal of what a professional, married, or 
 religious life should be, he may, or he may not be thinking 
 of a picture representing to his conception certain phases 
 of this life. But, in each case, he is exercising his imagin- 
 ation; and, almost invariably in connection with the unrep- 
 resentable conditions of this, pictures of it are emerging into 
 his consciousness. The substance of these pictures, whether 
 composed of sights or sounds is always taken from the 
 physical world about him. For this reason, some confound 
 the work of imagination with that of imitation, such as 
 characterizes the antics of an ape or the tones of a parrot. 
 But the object of imitation is attained when it reproduces 
 reality. Imagination does more than this. It presents 
 reality that it may represent ideality, selecting and arrang- 
 ing effects of nature which can be seen and heard in such ways 
 that the thoughts and feelings which men naturally associ- 
 ate with these effects shall, by means of them, be com- 
 municated to the mind, either of oneself or of others. This 
 difference between the work of imitation and of imagination 
 is important. It distinguishes the conception not only of the 
 aim of small art from that of great art; but of the results of 
 lower animal intelligence from those of human intelligence. 
 The thought-life of the lower animal, so far as he possesses 
 any of it, and the thought-life of the man, so far as he is 
 merely like a lower animal, is started into activity and 
 developed from that which appeals to him through coming 
 into contact with his bodily senses. On the contrary, the 
 thought-life of the human being, though influenced to some 
 extent through the bodily senses, as is that of the lower 
 animal, is also influenced by thought which is started into 
 activity and developed from that which appeals from the 
 distinctive region of the mind or of "pure reason" as Kant 
 
48 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 put it. All the results of information and thinking have an 
 influence upon his intelligent life; but the clearest and most 
 decisive influence is exerted by what have been termed 
 ideals. We cannot conceive of a lower animal as living in a 
 world of ideals; nor of a man, rightly constituted and mani- 
 festing his best possibilities, as not doing so. 
 
 Every human being, merely because he has a mind as 
 well as a body, has an ideal of some kind just as he has 
 higher desires. His ideal, however — ^and this is an import- 
 ant fact to bear in mind — must be framed out of the ideas 
 that he possesses. An "inner light" can do no more than 
 reveal — though it can often too very differently color — the 
 contents of that within the mind upon which it shines. For 
 this reason, even though one's desires be very high, the ideals 
 to which they actuate him may be very low because of his 
 ignorance or lack of mental training. In addition to this, 
 though his ideal itself may be high, his lower desires, as in 
 the cases of many drunkards, gamblers, and rakes, may so 
 overbalance the influence of what is higher as not to allow it 
 expression. 
 
 But whether his ideal be low or high, the culmination of 
 that which separates him from the lower animal is found in 
 the fact that, through all the possibilities in which the spirit 
 within him is expressed, he can live, and always lives in part, 
 and sometimes lives almost wholly, in a world of imagin- 
 ation. This fact is evinced in connection with about every- 
 thing that he thinks or does. A large part of the normal 
 child's experience — and the largest part of all that he thor- 
 oughly enjoys — is made up of what he imagines that he 
 might be and do, if he were an older person, or, at least, 
 were not himself. In earlier times than ours, before the 
 days of toys, most of the objects with which he played were 
 merely symbols, not, in any sense, accurate imitations of 
 that which they represented to his mind. But, for all this, 
 he probably enjoyed them none the less. Indeed, as it is, he 
 frequently uses toys to represent something else than that 
 which they resemble; and when playing with them, or 
 bounding along the street, or himmiing in rhythm to his own 
 movements, it is often impossible to infer from anything 
 that we see in him or hear from him what it is that is occupy- 
 ing his imagination. The same is true of a man, — of any 
 man who is really doing efficient work. It is not what he 
 sees, either in his home or business that chiefly inspires 
 
IDEALITY 49 
 
 his actions; but the vision filling his imagination, — ^the 
 picture before him of what might be, should be, and, as he 
 feels, can be. No matter whether he be master or servant, 
 builder or helper, promoter or producer, the true measure 
 of the success for which he may hope is, for hitn, determined 
 less by the real result of the present than by the ideal pos- 
 sibility of the future. His worthiest share toward the up- 
 building of his race is contributed in the exact degree in 
 which he dreams himself to be less a citizen of the actual 
 city that he sees than of the "New Jerusalem coming down 
 from God out of heaven." (Rev. 21:2). 
 
 Since the time of Plato, the influence upon conduct of 
 ideas, including that of the ideal, has been very generally 
 admitted. Few would take exception to the assotiation 
 with the action of conscience, by Professor J. Mark Baldwin 
 (1861- )inPart III., Chapter XIV. oihis Handbook of Psy- 
 chology of " moral quality, moral authority, and moral ideal." 
 At the same time, more could be made of this latter than has 
 been made. It is really the culminating — almost the con- 
 summating — effect in the mind of all the processes of think- 
 ing started into action by desire, — the final concrete result 
 of the mind's possibilities of intellection, — ^the shining goal, 
 as it were, upon which every one of its reasoning efforts are 
 focussed. The author once was leading a small boy toward 
 shelter from a violent electric storm that was beginning. 
 The boy begged to be allowed to stay out of doors, because, 
 as he said, he wanted to be where, when the lightning 
 flashed, he could look up and see heaven. What the boy 
 imagined that he saw outwardly, every man, at times, 
 imagines that he sees inwardly; and, as in the case of the 
 boy, it is more likely than not to be perceived through and 
 above the rifting clouds of a surrounding storm. That 
 which starts mental activity causing one to look upward is 
 the higher desire in him which, for the time being, at least, 
 has gained a mastery over lower desire. That which stands 
 between the senses and the object of desire is an accumu- 
 lation within his mind of certain inheritances, tendencies, 
 associations, traditions, reflections, inferences, speculations, 
 or judgments, all involved in intellection, and often serving 
 merely to becloud and obscure the mental outlook. But 
 just as the flash and glow of light from the sky can organize 
 that which threatens darkness into the grandeur of the 
 storm and the glory of the sunset, so often can the inward 
 
50 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 light reflected from the goal of aspiration turn that which 
 has caused obscurity and confusion in the mind into visions 
 of the highest beauty and inspiration. 
 
 Perhaps this chapter should not close without a suggestion 
 with reference to one reason, at least, why, in the present 
 world, notwithstanding the ideals of our higher nature and 
 our consciousness of the far greater importance that Should 
 be attached to them than to the influences coming from our 
 lower nature, nevertheless all the time we are subject, more 
 or less, to these latter. Why, in this life, is the mental 
 always hampered by the bodily? The only logical explana- 
 tion is that, for some reason, the presence of the bodily is 
 necessary for mental development. What soil and seed are 
 to flower and fragrance, matter and flesh seem to be to mind 
 and thought. The bodily man, apparently, is the mold in 
 which the mental man is shaped. It is conceivable that if 
 a dog had the articulating organs and the hands of a human 
 being, he might be able to formulate thought, discriminate 
 difference, use language and produce objects of workmanship 
 almost as successfully as if human. At any rate, we know 
 that the man himsefi could not do these things unless he 
 had a body and a brain physically formed as they are. 
 
 These facts need only to be recognized in order to suggest 
 a conception of life and its possibilities inconceivably con- 
 soling and inspiring. It is consoling because it explains in 
 the same way as does the theory of development, but still 
 more clearly than that, the reason for the disappointments 
 and disasters with which every life is at times afflicted. 
 Very often it is only through the disciplinary experience 
 imparted through these that one who would advance to 
 high achievement can learn what to do and what not to do. 
 The sooner he recognizes this fact, the better will he be able 
 to bear his troubles and the more Ijenefit will he derive from 
 them. But the conception is inspiring too. As intimated 
 before, it gives a rational ground for entertaining a hope 
 that, at some time, in some way, in part if not in whole, 
 mental desires shall be fulfilled, and one's ideals realized. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 man's consciousness of conflict between desires of 
 
 THE body and of THE MIND 
 
 Recapitulation — Consciousness of Conflict between Desires sometimes 
 Slight — When not so, the Opposition Is between the Desires of the 
 Body and of the Mind — This Fact Is often Overlooked; but Is 
 Fundamental — the Fact Accepted by Many Writers who have not 
 Recognized its Full Import — The Consciousness of Conflict be- 
 tween Desires of the Body and of the Mind Necessitates Peelings 
 of Unrest, Discomfort, etc. — Also of Obligation to Put an End to 
 Them — ^And, to Use all the Mental Powers in Determining and 
 Directing the Methods of Ending them — Nature Prompts every 
 Man because he Is a Man to Subordinate the Bodily to the Mental 
 — In the Consciousness of a Conflict that should be Ended thus 
 we Become Aware of what is Termed Conscience. 
 
 IN the preceding chapters, it has been shown that a child 
 inherits from his parents certain propensities which are 
 partly of the body and partly of the mind; and that, 
 corresponding to this, the earliest manifestations of per- 
 sonal consciousness on his own part are furnished through 
 expressions of desires of the same differing character. They 
 first cause him to wish for food for which he feels a bodily 
 appetite; but, almost simultaneously, he gives evidence of 
 a wish for that which shall reach his mind through his eyes 
 and ears, as when his mother diverts his attention from the 
 cravings of hunger by twirling a glittering object or singing 
 a lullaby. We are justified in thinking, therefore, that his 
 earliest consciousness is a consciousness of desires, which in 
 their appeal to him have in them the possibility of manifest- 
 ing qualities that are antagonistic to one another; and, be- 
 sides this, that, as he goes on to maturity, at the basis of 
 almost every thought or volition he becomes more clearly 
 aware of this possibility. So long as heliveson earth, and 
 possesses any consciousness whatever, it is impossible for 
 
 51 
 
52 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 him to escape from a consciousness of desires within him 
 that at times, may be in conflict. 
 
 Very often, this conflict may be so slight that one hardly 
 recognizes its existence, as, for instance, when he is asked 
 whether he wjU drink coffee or chocolate. But even this 
 question may awaken in him a consciousness of opposing 
 influences. In view of some nervous disorder, his physician 
 may have advised him against the use of the one but not of 
 the other. In this case, the conflict may reveal itself as no 
 longer occasioned by a difference between two desires of the 
 body, but between a bodily desire and a desire of the 
 mind to be controlled by one's own reason, in view of the 
 opinions of another whose judgment he respects. Or let 
 one be deciding between reading a certain novel or a poem. 
 If both courses appeal to him as the fulfillment merely of a 
 desire of the mind, the difference between the two will prob- 
 ably appear to him to be slight; but if persons who have a 
 right to exercise authority over him have forbidden him to 
 read fiction but not poetry, or have presented arguments 
 that appeal to him as reasonable against reading this 
 partictdar fiction, then the conflict may reveal itself as no 
 longer occasioned by a difference between two desires of the 
 mind. One of the desires — because it is so selfishly self- 
 opinionated as to involve disobedience to those in authority, 
 and is, possibly, so self-indulgent as to involve expectation of 
 participating through imagination in the wrong doing sup- 
 posed to be portrayed in the book — may be, according to 
 the explanation given on pages 19-23, alrnost entirely of the 
 body, while the other desire, according to the same ex- 
 planation, may be of the mind. 
 
 Of course, even in the former case, more or less desire of 
 the mind may be present. The mere fact that one wishes to 
 read at all is a sufficient proof of this. But, as said on page 
 8, desires are often mixed in character, and this to such an 
 extent that it may be extremely difficult to distinguish the 
 different elements of which they are compounded. The 
 only thing that can be done with any approach to certainty, 
 is to recognize that, in a given case, a desire is predominantly 
 of the body or predominantly of the mind. It is extremely 
 important, however, to observe that, wherever there is a 
 perfectly clear consciousness of moral conflict, the opposing 
 desires are traceable entirely or mainly to the former on the 
 one side and to the latter on the other. 
 
HIGHER AND LOWER DESIRES 53 
 
 It is important to notice also that the contests between 
 these different classes of desires are not to be rated as if they 
 were of the same character as contests between desires of the 
 same class. A man, for instance, who has lost his savings 
 through unwise investments may say that he has done 
 wrong; but no one would accuse him of having done morally 
 wrong, unless, at the time when he decided upon the specu- 
 lations that have ended disastrously, he subordinated higher 
 desire, like that inclining him to enterprise, to lower de- 
 sire like that inclining him to greed This fact that, when- 
 ever a man is aware of a contrast between what is morally 
 right and what is morally wrong, it is because of a con- 
 sciousness of conflict within him between higher and lower 
 desires, or between the results of these desires as de- 
 veloped in processes of thinking, is important because by 
 many it is either overlooked entirely or so largely ignored 
 as not to be assigned its due significance. For instance, 
 James . Martineau (i 805-1 900) in his Types of Ethical 
 Theory, Psychological Ethics, Book I., Chapter I., starting 
 out with what conforms in principle at least to the influence 
 attributed in this volimie to desire, says that, in deciding 
 upon moral conduct, "What we judge is always the inner 
 spring of our actions," and he confirms the general agree- 
 ment of writers upon ethics with reference to this fact by 
 quotations from Herbert Spencer, Leslie Stephen, F. H. 
 Bradley, T. H. Green, and James Mill. After this he goes 
 on to say, in Chapter IV., that "Each separate verdict of 
 right and wrong pronounces some one impulse (or spring of 
 action) to be of higher worth than a competitor. . . Each 
 must come in turn to have its relative value determined in 
 comparison with the rest." All this is true; but when he 
 adds that "by collecting this series of decisions into a system 
 we must find ourselves in possession of a table of moral 
 obligation, graduated according to the inner excellence of 
 our several tendencies," and attempts to tabulate these 
 according to "their ascending order and worth, " he reaches 
 a result that few find satisfactory. One reason for this is 
 owing to the fact that he has not drawn any preliminary 
 distinction between lower and higher tendencies based 
 upon a difference between those that are partly or wholly of 
 the body and partly or wholly of the mind. His lowest, 
 for instance, includes censoriousness which, is partly of the 
 mind, his third the appetites, which are wholly of the body, 
 
54 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 and his eleventh and twelfth, which is within one of the 
 highest, include the affections, parental, social, and com- 
 passionate, which are partly of the body. A far more 
 acceptable statement of the partial truth in Martineau's 
 conception, because expressed in less specific terms and 
 confined to that which is indisputable, is that of Professor J. 
 MarkBaldwin(i86i- ) formerly of Princeton University in 
 Part III., Chapter IX., Sec. 7 of his Handbook of Psychology. 
 " The determination of conduct in the concrete," he says, 
 "as morally imperative takes place by a reaction of con- 
 sciousness upon a group of alternatives in such a way that 
 these alternatives are arranged in a scale of value with refer- 
 ence to the moral ideal and to one another ; the highest value 
 being approved as rationally right and the other disap- 
 proved as rationally wrong." But acknowledging, as one 
 must, that this is true does not involve his rejecting the 
 theory that the "highest value . . approved as ration- 
 ally right" may be so approved because one action mani- 
 fests to a greater degree than another the influence of mind 
 as contrasted with that of the body. To trace any number 
 of differing results of higher or lower value to one underlying 
 differentiation between two sources of desire is merely to get 
 nearer to that which is logically necessitated in order to ex- 
 plain the conditions. 
 
 That this is so seems to have been recognized — ^how could 
 it fail of recognition? — over and over again by writers upon 
 ethics; but for some strange reason it has been recognized 
 only incidentally and indirectly, with no comprehensive 
 appreciation of its superlative importance. Notwithstand- 
 ing the fact that these writers have directed attention to 
 the bodily or physical and the mental or rational, together 
 with their respective results, each has selected something 
 else than the antagonism between these as the basis of his 
 ethical system. Notice, in the quotations at the bottom 
 of the page the way in which what is right and what is 
 wrong in a man's conduct is referred to the opposing prompt- 
 ings of these two classes of desire.* In order to direct 
 
 » Years ago, Plato (430-350 B. c.) in his Phaedo, 24 and 32, reported 
 Socrates (468-399 b. c.) as saying: "Does not the philosopher above 
 all men evidently free his soul as much as he can from communion with 
 the body? . . . what is purification but the separations of the soul or the 
 mind from the body. " The same general thought has been continued 
 through all the ages and has been expressed by most of the scientists and 
 
CONFLICT BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 55 
 
 attention to that which the quotations illustrate, the author 
 has inserted in the text an occasional word or phrase in- 
 closed in parentheses indicating his own interpretations. 
 
 From this conflict between body and mind which ap- 
 parently few deny, however disinclined to concede its due 
 importance, three inferences seem inevitable. The first is 
 that the consciousness of the conflict necessitates a con- 
 sciousness also of unrest, annoyance, discomfort, and, in 
 aggravated cases, of positive distress. Few cries can be 
 more tragic in effect than are expressed in the words "What 
 shall I do? What shall I do?" which are sometimes heard 
 coming from a soul that has been made the battlefield of 
 such a conflict. 
 
 The second inference is that this consciousness of conflict 
 within necessitates a consciousness also that something 
 ought to be done to cause the conflict to cease. In other 
 
 philosophers of our own day. Professor A. P. Pedbody (1811-1895) o^ 
 Harvard University, in his fourth Lecture on Moral Philosophy says, "A 
 personisreaUzingthehighestgood when the so-calledlower (bodily orphy- 
 sical) forces are subordinated to the highest (mental or) spiritual forces. " 
 Professor T. H. Huxley (1825-1895) in his essay on Evolution and Ethics, 
 says that "The practice of that which is ethically (mentally or spiritu- 
 ally) best. . . . involves a course of conduct which, in all respects is 
 opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic (bodily or physical) 
 struggle for existence. " Professor Frederick Paulsen (1846-1908) of the 
 University of Berlin, says in the Introduction to Book II. of his System 
 of Ethics translated by Professor Frank Thilly, "The rational (mental) 
 will governed by an ideal subjects the lower forms of will, impulse and 
 desire, which ?xist even in man as natural (bodily or physical) pre- 
 dispositions to constant criticism and a process of selection. This 
 criticism we call conscience." Professor T. H. Green (i 836-1 882) of 
 Oxford University, says, in Book III., Chapter III., Section 16 of his 
 Prolegomena of Ethics that "the individual conscience (in man) is 
 reason (mind) in him as informed by the work of reason without him in 
 the structure and controlling sentiments of society. The basis of that 
 structure, the source of these sentiments, can only be a self -objectifying 
 spirit; a spirit through the action of which beings such as we are, en- 
 dowed with certain animal (bodily) susceptibilities and affected by cer- 
 tain natural sympathies become capable of striving after some (mental) 
 bettering or fulfillment of themselves which they conceive as an absolute 
 good, and in which they include a like betterment or fulfillment of 
 others." Pfo/eMO>'Ife»rji5»(igwJcA(i 838-1901) of Cambridge University 
 says in Book I. Chapter III. of his Methods of Ethics, "The conflict of 
 practical (mental) reason with (bodily) desire remains an indisputable 
 fact in our conscious experience." Professor J. T. Bixby (1843- ) 
 of Meadville Theological Seminary, says, in Part II., Chapter III., of 
 TheEthics of Evolution that the end of a man's morality is "the develop- 
 ment of his spiritual (mental and rational) personality to the fullest, 
 
56 E THICS AND NAT URAL LA W 
 
 words, a man is made conscious of what may be termed, in 
 its graver developments at least, an obligation to bring an 
 end to the condition within him, — an obligation of greater 
 or less seriousness according to the greater or less serious- 
 ness of the issues that appear to be at stake. "Obligation " 
 says Professor Frank Thilly (1865- ) of Cornell Uni- 
 versity) in Chapter III., Sec. 3 of his Introduction to Ethics 
 "is not a special category or form of the reason; it is a prin- 
 ciple fact which is never found in consciousness apart from 
 other mental states." That this sense of obligation must 
 accompany the consciousness of conflict seems to be self- 
 evident. When one becomes aware of even a slight irrita- 
 tion on merely the surface of the body, he pays attention to 
 it not only, but he feels soon that he must begin to do 
 something in order to prevent it, or to end it; that he must 
 scratch it, or use a salve upon it. It would be out of analogy 
 for him not to feel similarly with reference to an irritation 
 experienced amid the far more sensitive conditions of the 
 inner mind. 
 
 noblest, and highest life possible." Professor Rudolph Eucken (1846- ) 
 of the University of Jena, in Chapter II. of Ethics and Modern Thought, 
 translated by Margaret Sezdewitz, speaks of the "Spiritual (mental) 
 force that exalts us above the animal (bodily) world. " "Morality " he 
 tells us "elevates the fact that all the variety of work is dominated by 
 strife for a spiritual self. " T.D. Stork (1854- ) in his Hints toward 
 a Theory of Ethics, says "There you have ethics in a sentence. . 
 It is the eternal conflict of the right of (mental) duty and the desire of 
 bodily appetite. " Professor Henri Bergson (1859- ) of the College 
 of France expresses, in Chapter III., pages 268-9, of Creative Evolution 
 trans, by Dr. Arthur Mitchell, an almost identical conception when he 
 says that "philosophy introduces us into the spiritual Ufe, and it shows 
 us at the same time, the relation of the life of the spirit (and mind) to 
 that of the body. " "A philosophy of intuition will be a negation of 
 science, will be sooner or later swept away by science, if it does not re- 
 solve to see that life of the body just where it really is, on the road that 
 leads to the life of the spirit. ' ' Professor James Seth ( 1 860-) of Edinburgh 
 University says in Chapter III., Section 13 of A Study of Ethical Prin- 
 ciples, "The demand is for such a perfect mastery of the impulsive 
 and sentient or natural (bodily) self, that in it the true self which is 
 fundamentally rational is realized, — that it may be the rational or 
 human, and not the merely sentient and animal, that lives." Professor 
 Charles G. Shaw (1871 — ) of the New York University in Part II., 
 Chapter I., Section 2 of The Value and Dignity of Life, says "It is the 
 destiny of man to strive. . . . The struggle is for spiritual life. A 
 creature of (animal) nature, need not hesitate to approach the psychical 
 domain of spirit." L. S. Thornton says, in Chapter V. of Part II. of an 
 English Prize Essay upon Conduct and the Supernatural, "The natural 
 
ENERGISM 57 
 
 The third inference is that he must use his mental powers 
 in determining and directing the methods that shall end the 
 conflict. This is so because the very consciousness that 
 makes him aware of the conflict is itself a function of the 
 mind. If he possessed merely a body, there would be no 
 such consciousness. It is his mind that occasions it, and 
 to this he must look for the influence that shall end it. 
 Indeed, there seems to be in nature as a whole, irrespective 
 of any connection with morality, a tendency causing a man 
 in such circumstances as have been indicated to fulfill the 
 requirements of mental desire. The modern theory termed 
 energism, mentioned on page 8, involves a recognition of 
 this tendency. Energism, according to Professor Frederick 
 Paulsen (i 846-1 908), one of its aA-vocates {System of Ethics, 
 Book II., Chapter II., as translated by Frank Thilly), holds 
 to the existence in the mind of " inherent energies directed 
 toward definite concrete activities." So far as forms 
 
 and the spiritual. In these lie the two centers of gravity from which 
 opposing types of conduct proceed." Professor H. W. Wright (1878- 
 
 ) of Lake Forest College says in Chapter VI. of his Self Realization, an 
 0«</tMeo/£ifo'cj, "Man is primarily a being . . . of the animal species. 
 As a self or person he is a (mental) spiritual being. " 
 
 These opinions expressed by philosophers will be found to be confirmed 
 by innumerable others who have written with merely a literary or re- 
 Ugious purpose. The novelist Honor^ de Balzac (1798-1850) for in- 
 stance, giving expression, in his Jealousies of a Country Town, to the 
 results of his own keen powers of observation, says of one of his charac- 
 ters, Victorian, "An indefinable flaw, often seen in young men, led him 
 to will one thing and to do another In spite of an active mind, which 
 showed itself in unexpected ways, the (bodily) senses had but to assert 
 themselves, and the darkened brain seemed to exist no longer. He 
 might have astonished wise men, he was capable of setting fools agape. 
 His (lower) desires like a sudden squall of weather overclouded all the 
 clear and lucid spaces of his brain in a moment, and, then, after the 
 dissipations that he could not resist, he sank utterly exhausted in body, 
 heart, and mind, into a collapsed condition bordering upon imbecility. " 
 The Apostle Paul again says in Rom. 7 : 22-25, of his own experience, 
 " I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another 
 law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me 
 into captivity, to the law of sin which is in my (bodily) members. With 
 the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh (the body) 
 the law of sin. Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from 
 the body of this death?" The answer to this question, of course, is 
 that deliverance must come through some influence, that, in some way — 
 a way that will be discussed in following chapters of this book — shall 
 harmonize, and, in cases where this is necessary, subordinate that which 
 is of the body to that which is of the mind. 
 
58 E THICS AND NAT URAL LA W 
 
 developed according to the processes of nature have in 
 them a force that pushes them outward and onward 
 along the line of their own possibilities, they necessarily 
 give prominence and emphasis to characteristics that 
 distinguish them from other products or sets of products. 
 This fact is especially noticeable wherever the differen- 
 tiating features are such as indicate membership in a higher 
 class than that to which a product but for them might 
 be assigned. We are accustomed, for instance, to rank 
 human beings higher than animals, animals higher than 
 vegetables, and vegetables higher than minerals. In each 
 of these departments of life, nature seems to be prompt- 
 ing its members with as much persistence, apparently, as 
 if they were consciously struggling to give evidence of their 
 superiority, to keep pushing to the front the traits that dis- 
 tinguish them from the members of a department lower than 
 their own. Among the vegetables, leaves, flowers and fruit 
 are pushed to the front; and so among the animals, are legs, 
 wings, arms, and other means of locomotion. As agencies 
 of locomotion too, those that are emphasized are always the 
 ones that are supposed to exhibit a higher range of ability. 
 If a creature can crawl, he crawls; if he can also walk, he 
 chiefly walks; if he can also fly, and fly well, he chiefly flies; 
 if he can make a noise with his mouth, he lets his presence 
 be known by making it, and chiefly produces the kind of 
 sound peculiar to those of his own class. He wheezes, 
 growls, barks, chirps, sings, or talks. The reader will recall 
 what Burns says of the order of nature's development in 
 one of these directions: 
 
 Her 'prentice han' she try'd on man 
 And then she made the lasses, O! 
 
 — There's Nought but Care. 
 
 And is it not a fact that the lasses talk more than the 
 lads? 
 
 It is in strict fulfillment of this tendency in nature that 
 every man, in a case where he can perceive clearly that one 
 desire is wholly or mainly of the body, and another of the 
 mind, and that he cannot gratify both at one and the same 
 time, feels under obligation to exert, if necessary, all the 
 energy of which his personal will is capable in order to draw 
 from the resources of mentality within him the strength 
 that shall enable it to counteract the influence opposed to 
 
SENSE OF CONFLICT AND CONSCIENCE 59 
 
 it. He recognizes almost as instinctively as he does the 
 inclination to walk on two feet rather than on feet and hands 
 that this is the only course which accords with his character 
 as a man, as the sole being in the world with highly devel- 
 oped mental possibilities. He knows, without listening to 
 argimient, that it is not in accordance with his nature or the 
 end for which it was intended that he should yield to the 
 promptings of passion, greed, and appetite rather than to 
 those of thoughtfulness, unselfishness, and aspiration. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive on what grounds anyone can 
 deny these statements, but, if they be accepted, notice the 
 inference. It is this — that with the very earliest manifesta- 
 tions of consciousness, the human being begins to be con- 
 scious of conflict between the promptings of the desires of 
 the body and of the mind; and not only so, but conscious 
 also that the conflict ought to be made to cease, and that 
 this end must be attained by some agency that can ad- 
 just the expressional requirements of the former to those of 
 the latter. If these statements be true, then in the con- 
 sciousness of the human being, merely because he is con- 
 stituted as he is, we can find that which philosophers, 
 choosing their phraseology with more wisdom than they 
 themselves have always recognized, have termed conscience. 
 It seems as if every function of this, and every limitation of 
 it — its failure at times to guide aright because of a man's 
 being left to fulfill its indications according to his own judg- 
 ment — ought to be capable of being explained in accordance 
 with such a conception. If thus explainable, if conscience, 
 with its associated sense of obligation to seek, as an end, that 
 which shall conform the requirements of the body to those of 
 the mind, be no more than an inevitable perception of 
 consciousness whenever attention is called to conflicting 
 promptings between bodily and mental desires, then what 
 an accumulation of philosophical debris can the recognition 
 of these facts brush aside from the pathway of the student 
 of ethics! He will find no need of having that which in- 
 clines to morality or results from it attributed either to a 
 special organ or function of the mind, or to a special or 
 combined activity of organs never devoted to other and 
 different purposes. He will find his investigations con- 
 fronted not by theories but by conditions with which every 
 one is familiar, because made aware of them, in almost the 
 first act of testimony on the part of his own consciousness. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL ETHICAL THEORIES 
 
 Bearing upon our Subject of the History of Ethical Theories — Chief 
 Differences between these Concern the Source and End of Obliga- 
 tion — Earliest Moral Conceptions Based upon a Sense of One's 
 Relations to Others. Institutionism vs. Individualism — ^Use and 
 Meaning of the Word Conscience in Greece and Rome — Its Use 
 at the Present Time — Intuition vs. Instinct — Promptings of both 
 Attributed to Divinity — Other Moral Theories, Essentially the 
 same in Ancient and in Modem Times. Reason for this — Con- 
 temporaneous Appearance in Greece of those Ascribing the Source 
 of Morality to Thinking and to Peeling; to Reason and to Experi- 
 ences of Pleasure and Pain — Criticisms of both Theories — Greek 
 Philosophers who Combined both — ^The Functional School, with 
 Suggestions of Teleological and Utilitarian Methods — Eudaimon- 
 ism — The Cynic and Stoic Schools — ^The Sophist, Cyrenaic, 
 and Epicurean Schools — Roman Stoics and Epicureans — Early 
 Christian Ethical Theories — The Mystics. 
 
 THE statement made at the end of the preceding chapter 
 needs no better confinnation than that afforded by 
 the history of ethical theories. This will reveal that 
 there are only a few of these that differ radically; that the 
 same differences manifest themselves in every age, and do 
 this in very nearly the same order; and that many of them 
 would not manifest themselves at all, did their advocates go 
 into the subject deep enough to discover that which is un- 
 mistakably fundamental in it, and treat this with sufficient 
 comprehensiveness to avoid excluding those features con- 
 sidered fundamental by others. These are the reasons for 
 directing attention to the following brief review of the more 
 important of these theories. 
 
 The review will show that the chief differences between 
 them have been occasioned by disputes with reference to 
 two questions — one having to do with the source of obliga- 
 tion, and the other with the end toward which conformity 
 
 60 
 
EARLY ETHICAL THEORIES 6l 
 
 to obligation should be directed. In fact it might almost 
 be said that past ethical "controversies" as well as those "of 
 our own times," as declared by Professor W. R. Sorley 
 
 ( 1 855 ) of Cambridge University, near the opening of his 
 
 Recent Tendencies in Ethics, have been "limited to the ques- 
 tion of the origin of moral ideas, " vfhich involves that of the 
 source of obligation, "and the question of the criterion of 
 moral value," which involves that of the end which action 
 is aimed to accomplish. After a little, we shall find that 
 these two questions are much more closely connected than, at 
 first, one might suppose. Before considering this, however, 
 it is important to notice the answers that have been given 
 to them in the past. Let us turn, first, to the opinions held 
 by the ancient and medieval writers. 
 
 A sense of obligation usually impresses itself upon a 
 child's mind at the same time as a sense of his relations to 
 his fellows. He finds that he cannot have or do what he 
 wishes because others wish the same; therefore he must 
 yield his wishes to theirs, or suffer for it. He is conscious of 
 this especially when others have authority over him, as in the 
 case of a parent or a teacher. The same is true in the early 
 ages of a race. Obligation is associated with men's con- 
 ceptions of their relations to one another in general, and to 
 those in particular who exercise authority in family or state. 
 It is in strict accordance with this fact that we find 
 the early moral philosopher of China, Confucius (552-479, 
 B. c.) who had much more to say than would be expected 
 in a philosopher of his times about "Self-development" 
 and "Reciprocity," as in the Maxim in Analects, Book IV., 
 Chapter XXIII., "What you do not want done to yourself 
 do not do to others," nevertheless emphasizing in a way 
 to suggest at least primary importance, obedience to parents, 
 and reverence for ancestors. The Greek Pythagoras, too, 
 (about 570 B. c.) is chiefly remembered because of his 
 insisting upon the importance of harmony that should exist 
 between oneself and the conditions, including both persons 
 and things, that he finds surrounding him. 
 
 The conception of morality as derived from our relations 
 to others, especially to others having more or less authority 
 over us, lies at the basis of what is termed institutionism. 
 This finds the source of morality in the customs of the 
 society or the laws of the government with which one is con- 
 nected. Both in China and Greece, however, there was 
 
62 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 first developed an exceedingly provincial and mild formof 
 institutionism. It was almost entirely limited to the in- 
 fluence of families and small neighborhoods. Even to-day 
 in China there is very little of what could be termed na- 
 tional feeling; and an ancient Greek was much more loyal 
 to Athens or Sparta than to Greece as a whole. This 
 limiting of the effects of institutionism appears to ha,ve 
 had much to do with the extraordinary results that civili- 
 zation attained among the inhabitants of both countries as 
 well as of Rome in her earlier period. Their institutionism 
 was not such as to suppress with the united opinion and 
 force of overwhelming numbers of people the exercise of 
 individual initiative. Wherever this has been done to 
 such an extent that the individual has been discouraged 
 from giving expression to the results of his own thinking 
 and feeling, there has been lacking one ot the most indis- 
 pensable agencies needed in order to maintain personal and 
 private purity and integrity, as well as to correct public 
 abuses, introduce civic reforms, and insure general welfare. 
 Very naturally, certain persons have always recognized 
 these facts and directed attention to them. As applied to 
 morals they did so at an early period both among the 
 Greeks and Romans by introducing the word conscience 
 — a word that, apparently has always been intended to 
 attribute a sense of obligation, in part at least, to a man's 
 individual consciousness. 
 
 For many years, the word was employed with the same 
 lack of endeavor to define it philosophically that we find in 
 the talk and literature of our own country. The Greek 
 term used for the conception, suvefSiQffie, was compounded 
 from (j6v meaning with and elSov a derivative from a word 
 meaning to perceive; and its popular use is indicated in such 
 a passage as that in Romans 2:15, "Those having not the 
 law are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the 
 law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing 
 witness and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else 
 excusing one another." The Latin word was conscientia 
 from con meaning with and scire meaning to know. 
 
 In both languages, therefore, and, according to its etjmiol- 
 ogy in our own language, the word means to perceive with 
 or to know with. Some scholars add the word others as if it 
 meant to know with others, or as a matter of common 
 knowledge, — ^very much the same idea that we ourselves now 
 
CONSCIENCE 63 
 
 express by our word consciousness. Sir William Hamilton, 
 ( 1 788-1 844), however, in the eleventh of his Lectures on 
 Metaphysics, directs attention to the fact that this was only 
 a later meaning of the Greek word, and that quite early 
 among the Romans, as with the French of our own day, it 
 meant both conscience and consciousness. 
 
 Seneca (3 b. c.-6s a. d.) for instance in Chapter V. of his 
 Anger translated by Sir Roger L'Estrange, says that "the 
 greatest punishment of an injury is the conscience of having 
 done it." We might suppose that the word here meant 
 merely consciousness were it not for the clause immediately 
 following, "and no one suffers more than he that is turned 
 over to the pain of repentance" ; and shortly after he speaks 
 of doing something "not in any transport of passion, but in 
 honor and conscience." 
 
 This popular use of the term has continued to the present 
 time, though philosophers have differed widely when they 
 have tried to explain its meaning. A few associate it en- 
 tirely with such conceptions of what is obligatory as can be 
 derived from experience of that which is demanded by the 
 state or society of which one finds himself a member, ^, *, 
 but the vast majority associate it with such knowledge of 
 what is obligatory as is derived from a man's own conscious- 
 ness. 5- '5. Some assign the word indifferently to any or to 
 
 3 Conscience ascribed to conceptions and habits acquired as the result 
 of the influence upon experience of institutions: "Conscience is an 
 ideal resemblance to public authority growing up in the individual mind, 
 and working to the same end." — ;Chapter "X-Y., Emotions and Will, Pro- 
 fessor Alexander Bain (1810-1877) of Aberdeen University. "The fre- 
 quent practice of abstaining from punishable acts generates the most 
 important of all our active states, the aversion to whatever is forbidden 
 in this form. Such aversion is conscience in its most general type." — 
 Book IV., Chapter X., Mental Science, Idem. 
 
 ■1 Conscience ascribed to conceptions and habits acquired as the result 
 of the influence upon experience of one's relations to society: "It is 
 from the fundamental imity of life, and the normal relations of men in 
 society that our duties flow." — The Ethics of Evolution, Chapter II., 
 Professor J. T. Bixby (1843- ) of Meadville Theological Seminary 
 "The moral law is based on the promptings of the social impulse, the 
 requirements of the associative life." — Section 7, Chapter XXVIII., 
 Function, Feeling, and Conduct, Dr. Frederick Meakin. "The higher 
 virtues are founded on the social instincts, and relate to the welfare of 
 others." — Descent of Man, IV., Chas. Darwin (i8o9-i882') 
 
 s Conscience ascribed to the combined result of all the mental or 
 psychical faculties when acting with reference to a moral end: "That 
 principle by which we survey and either approve or disapprove oiur 
 
64 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 all processes of the mind that have to do with determining 
 right or wrong'; some to processes of thinking only *, '; 
 some to processes of feeling only *, '°, ''; and some to pro- 
 cesses of both thinking and feeling », ", '3. Some limit its 
 effect to action ^^ and some trace its origin in all cases to the 
 direct influence of divinity.''' Few hold to a theory that 
 is absolutely inconsistent with that presented in this vol- 
 ume. '' But not many of them positively suggest it. 
 
 heart, temper, and actions. You cannot form a notion of this faculty 
 conscience without taking in judgment, direction, superintendence. — 
 Sermons on Human Nature, II. — Bishop Joseph Butler (1692-1752). 
 "The whole moral consciousness of man in view of his own action and 
 as related to moral law. " — Law of Love and Love as a Law, Part I., 
 Division VIII. — President Mark Hopkins (1802-1887), Williams Collie. 
 " The single act of conscience may be a feeling, an emotion, an impulse, or 
 a judgment, and as for conscience in the sense of a faculty distinct from 
 the particular acts of the human mind, there is no such thing. The 
 concept in its broad sense is merely a generaUzation from all these par- 
 ticular facts. " — Principles of Morality, Part I., Professor Wm. M. Wundt 
 (1832- ) of Leipsic University; translated by M. F. Washburn. "Con- 
 science is a name for the consciousness of moral distinctions and of 
 the obligation to respect them." — Elements of Ethics, Chapter VI., 
 Professor J. H. Hyslop (1854- ) Columbia University. "Not only 
 the end sought, but the manner of seeking it, affects the nature of Moral- 
 ity." — Idem, Chapter VIII. " The moral judgments taken together are 
 referred to a power called conscience." — Psychology, Page 344, Professor 
 John Dewey (1859- ), Columbia University. "Conscience is in- 
 telligence dealing with a subject-matter." — Outline of a Critical Theory 
 of Ethics, Part III., Chapter I., Idem. 
 
 'Conscience ascribed to reason considered mainly as a reasoning 
 faculty: "Conscience, I therefore define to be the opinion of evidence." 
 — Human Nature, Chapter V., Section 8, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). 
 "Nothing else but our own opinion or judgment of the moral rectitude 
 or depravity of our own actions." — Essay on the Understanding,Bodk I., 
 Chapter III., Section 8; John Locke (1632-1704). "Conscience is 
 reason discovering universal truth, having the authority of sovereign 
 moral law and affording the basis for personal obligations. Conscience 
 is thus seen to be a cognition or intellectual power, not a form of feeling, 
 nor a combination of feelings." — Handbook of Moral Philosophy, Chap- 
 ter IV.; Professor Henry Calderwood (1830-1897) Edinburgh University. 
 ' 'Every man is consciously bound to do that and that only which the ra- 
 tional spirit that has been given him sees in its own rationality to be due 
 to reason."— i4 System of Moral Science, Introduction Chapter III.; 
 Pres. L. P. Hickok (1798-1887), Union College. "Conscience is pure 
 reason discovering moral la.v/."— Elements of Ethics, Prolegomena I.; 
 Professor N. K. Davis (1830-1910), University of Virginia. 
 
 7 Conscience ascribed to the intuitive action of the reasoning faculties, 
 — the theory usually termed that of rational intuition: "Conscience is 
 original, and no additamentum to our person. . . . Every man has, 
 
CONSCIENCE 65 
 
 Opinionis divided, too, as to how far it should designate 
 merely involuntary and spontaneous processes like those 
 of rational^ emotional' or perceptional' intuition or instinct" 
 or include also reflective and deductive processes like those 
 of intellectual reasoning and calculation* or of emotional 
 experience *, '', and sympathy. The majority seem to 
 think that the involuntary processes are more closely con- 
 nected with the sense of obligation, and therefore with 
 
 as a moral being, a conscience . . . which does, in all circumstances hold 
 before him his law of duty in order to absolve or condemn him. ' ' — XII. , 
 B, of the Metaphysics of Ethics; Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) , translated 
 byJ.W.Semple. William Jevons, Jr. (i794-i873)inBookI., Chapter I., 
 of his Systematic Morality says that Samuel Clarke, Richard Price, James 
 Beatie, and Dugald Stewart ascribe the origin of Moral Sentiments to 
 "the self-evident dictates of untaught reason." 
 
 ' Conscience ascribed to the intuitive action of the reasoning facul- 
 ties as influenced by emotion, — the theory usually termed that of emo- 
 tional intuition: "A natural and immediate determination to approve 
 certain affections and actions consequent on them, or a natural sense of 
 immediate excellence in them, not to be referred to any other quality 
 perceivable by our sense or by reasoning. " — System of Moral Philosophy, 
 Volume I., Book I., Chapter IV. ; F. Hutcheson (1694-1747). " To have 
 the reflection in his mind of any unjust action or behavior which he knows 
 to be naturally odious or ill deserving is conscience. " — Inquiry (Part II., 
 Section 1 ; Lord Shaftesbury (1671-1713). "Conscience is a mental ex- 
 ercise by which we feel certain actions to be right, and certain wrong." 
 He speaks also of "high consistency of character . leading a man 
 "tp feel his way through these requirements, and to recognize the su- 
 preme authority of conscience over his whole moral system." — The 
 Philosophy of Moral Feeling,Fa,TtllI.\ Professor John Abercrombie (1780- 
 1844), Glasgow University. "Conscience, a 'feeling of approval.'" — 
 LXXII. Lectures on Philosophy of the Human Mind, Professor Thomas 
 Brown (1778-1820), Edinburgh University. 
 
 9 Conscience ascribed to the intuitive action of the reasoning facul- 
 ties as influenced by perception, as of circumstances or occasions, — the 
 theory usually termed that of perceptional intuition: "Conscience is 
 the critical perception we have of the relative authority of our several 
 principles of action. . . Conscience feels a difference of worth, be- 
 tween one propensity and another." — Types of Ethical Theory, Book I., 
 Chapter I.; Dr. James Martineau (1805- 1900). "The mind discrimi- 
 nates between acts as right or wrong in very much the same way as that 
 in which it discriminates between objects as black or white, by immediate 
 and what may not unfitly be termed intuitive perception." — Fourth 
 Lecture on Moral Philosophy, Prof. S. P. Peabody (1811-1893), Harvard 
 University. 
 
 "1 Conscience ascribed to instinct, — a feeling in which the psychical 
 tendency, emerging, as it were, from the physical, begins to influence 
 the trend though not yet the conscious processes of thinking or reason- 
 ing: " To do right is to act in accordance with instinct which prompts us 
 
66 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 conscience, than are the deductive processes, all of which 
 appear to them to have more to do with the end toward 
 which obligation prompts than with its source. In the 
 same person, however, as we shall find presently, the two — 
 the end and the source — are usually essentially similar, so 
 far as concerns their rational or emotional quality. Ra- 
 tional intuition, for instance, as applied to the source of 
 obligation is associated in the mind of Kant (see page 80) 
 
 to do in accordance with nature. . . . All that which I feel to be good 
 is good. All that which I feel to be wrong is wrong. The best of 
 all casuists is conscience." — Ethics of Nature or Custom; Works of 
 J. J. Rousseau (1712-1778), Vol. IV., page 58; edited by V. D. 
 Musset-Pathay. "The essential trait in the moral consciousness 
 is the control of some feeling or feelings by some other feeling or 
 feeUngs." — Data of Ethics, Chapter VII., Section 44; Herbert Spencer 
 (1830-1903). 
 
 "Conscience ascribed to conceptions and habits acquired as the 
 result of the influence upon experience of the feelings of pleasure and 
 pain: "Nature has placed mankind under the guidance of two sover- 
 eign masters; Pain and Pleasure. It is for them to point out what we 
 ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. " — Dentology, VoL 
 I., page 137; Jeremy Bentham (1748-1838). 
 
 ' ' Conscience ascribed to both reason and feeling : ' ' We consider our 
 acts external and internal, with reference to a moral standard of right 
 and wrong. We recognize them as virtuous or vicious. The faculty or 
 habit of doing this is conscience . . . it is established by such a cul- 
 ture of our reason as enables us to frame or to accept rules which are in 
 agreement with the supreme law and by the agreement of our moral 
 sentiments with such rules." — Volume I., Chapter XIV., Elements 
 of Morality; Professor William Whewell (1794-1866), Cambridge 
 University. "Conscience denotes all that intelligence and feeling 
 of which a man is conscious in an act of duty." — Science of Duty, 
 Chapter II.; Professor H. N. Day (1808-1890), Yale University. 
 "Conscience is the intuitive faculty of moral judgment with the char- 
 acteristic feeling that accompanies its exercise" — Elements of Ethics, 
 Book II., Chapter II. ; Professor J. H. Muirhead (1855- ), University 
 of Birmingham. See also Book I., Chapter V., Sec. 5. of The Theory of 
 Good and Evil; Dr. Hastings Rashdall (1858- ), Canon of Hereford. 
 
 '3 Conscience ascribed mainly to practical questions involving 
 action : " The proper function of conscience is not to discern the differ- 
 ence between right and wrong in the abstract, but to apply the abstract 
 law of right to concrete cases, and to discern what it demands in the vary- 
 ing exigencies of daily life." — An Introduction to Ethics; Professor J. C. 
 Murray (1836-1917), McGill University. "Conscience is that act of 
 the mind by which we apply to a particular case . . . the general rules 
 prescribed by moral law," Chapter I., Section 10, Elements of Morals; 
 Professor Paul Janet (1823-1899) of the Sorbonne, translated by C. R. 
 Corson. 
 
INTUITION AND INSTINCT 67 
 
 with the conception of a reasonable end that is rationally 
 chosen for attainment, and emotional intuition in the mind 
 of Shaftesbury (see page 91) with the conception of an emo- 
 tional end — that of benevolence. So in the cases of all 
 men, the source and end are so generally connected in kind 
 that in what is to be said hereafter it will not always be 
 thought necessary, even if it were feasible, to mention the 
 views of individual writers with reference to both. 
 
 There is also a difference to which the attention of the 
 
 •■• Conscience as the Voice of God in the soul: "Conscience must be 
 regarded as a subjective principle implanted in the reason of man, calling 
 for an account of every action before God." — ^Apotome, Chapter III., 
 Section 13 of Elementology 0/ Ethics; Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), 
 translated by J. W. Semple. " The secret presentment that one is not 
 really separated from the one Will-to-Live contains the secret of con- 
 science." — The Worldas Will and Idea, Section 65; Arthur Schopenhauer 
 (1788-1850). "Conscience is the representation of the supreme per- 
 sonality." — The Principles and Practices of Morality. Division IV., 
 Chapter III.; Pres. E. G. Robinson (1815-1894) of Brown University. 
 "Conscience implies a personal moral governor. . . . It is the voice 
 of a personal law-giver." — The Beginnings of Ethics, Chapter XI., Sec- 
 tion 106; President Carroll Cutler (1829-1894) of Western Reserve Col- 
 lege. " The faculty of conscience in man postulates the existence of 
 God as the necessary ground of its moral affirmations." — Institutes of 
 Moral Philosophy, Chapter V. ; Dr. L. B. Teffl (1833- ). 
 
 'Sin different ways the authors of the following approximate the 
 conception presented in this volume, to the effect that conscience is 
 the consciousness of conflict between desires of the body and of the 
 mind. " The rational will governed by an ideal subjects the lower forms 
 of will, impulse, and desire which persist in man as natural (physical) 
 predispositions to constant criticism and a process of selection. This 
 criticism we term conscience." — A System of Ethics; Introduction to 
 Book II., Professor Frederick Paulsen (1846-1908) translated by F. 
 Thilly. " This feeling of the ought (conflict) is not to be identified with 
 any other content of human consciousness. . . The feeling is 
 primary, essential, unique; the judgments as to what one ought to do 
 are the results of environment, education, and reflection." — Philosophy 
 of Conduct, Chapter V.; Professor G. T. Ladd (1842- ) Yale Uni- 
 versity. " Conscience, that (mental) ideal of life which constitutes your 
 moral personality." "The ideal that makes me this rational self, the 
 very ideal that makes and inspires me." — Philosophy of Loyalty, Chap- 
 ter IV., by Professor Josiah Royce^ (1855-1917), Harvard University. 
 "Conscience is not a purely subjective principle possessed by man in hiis 
 individuality, nor a wholly objective one that belongs to the race . . 
 Conscience is a sentiment which arises when the individual whose (men- 
 tal) humanity should lead him to rise above the natural (physical) order 
 somehow turns against the world of humanity within him." — The Value 
 and Dignity of Human Life, Part II., Chapter II., Section 3; Professor 
 C. G. Shaw (1871- ), New York University. 
 
68 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 reader should be called between an intuition ', ', ', and an 
 instinct." An intuition, whether started into activity by 
 the rational or the emotional nature, is, in itself considered, 
 a strictly rational and thinking, though at the same time, 
 an instantaneous process, like the recognition that a whole 
 is greater than any of its parts. In this way, Kant thought 
 that a mind could instantly recognize, in certain cases, that 
 a right act is better than a wrong act. But an instinct is 
 supposed to guide an animal or a man not through think- 
 ing but in the place of thinking — by producing, as one might 
 say, the effects of thinking and yet not revealing the under- 
 lying process or even the fact of thinking so as to make the 
 agent of it conscious of it. The effect of instinct is expe- 
 rienced not in thinking but in feeling. As J. J. Rousseau 
 (1712-1778) says in Vol. IV., page 58, of his Works edited by 
 V. D. Musset-Pathay, "To do right is to act in accordance 
 with instinct which prompts us to do in accordance with 
 nature. . . . All that which I feel to be good is good. 
 All that which I feel to be wrong is wrong. " It is such a 
 conception of the effect of instinct that causes Professor 
 T. V. Moore (1877- ) of the American Catholic University 
 to say in his Historical Introduction to Ethics that the ethics 
 of the Greek Stoics was the ethics of instinct. 
 
 What is meant in this statement will be better understood 
 when it is recalled that the ancients made no sharp distinc- 
 tion between instinct and intuition; and that this fact com- 
 bined with their pantheistic conception of nature led them 
 to assign to the prompting of either of the two, as well as to 
 the rational results of this prompting, the authority of 
 divinity. Cicero (106-43 B. c), for instance, referring in 
 Book I. of the Tusculum Disputations as translated by W. L. 
 Collins, to the precept of Apollo as quoted by Socrates ad- 
 vising every one to "know himself " adds " To know the soul 
 unless it had been divine would not have been a precept of 
 such excellent wisdom as to be attributed to a god. " And 
 Marcus Aurelius (120-180 A. D.) in Book IV., of his Medita- 
 tions as translated by Jeremy Collier, speaks of a man of 
 probity "keeping pure the divinity within him and obeying 
 it as a god, " and in Book III., "There is nothing more valu- 
 able than the divinity implanted within you, and this is 
 master of appetites . . . has detached itself from the 
 senses, as Socrates used to say, and shows itself submissive 
 to the government of the gods, and helpful and benevolent 
 
ANCIENT AND MODERN ETHICS SIMILAR 69 
 
 to mankind." These conceptions with reference to the 
 divineness of the source of obligation, though not the pan- 
 theistic phase of them, were adopted later by the early 
 Christian writers, and have continued to our own day (see 
 footnote^ "•) ; and in the form of the distinctions between 
 the_ spiritual or mental and the material or the bodily 
 indicated in the note beginning on page 54 have been es- 
 sential constituents of a large number of the more import- 
 ant of recent ethical theories. 
 
 Now let us turn back for a little and notice the way in 
 which other ethical questions were treated in the ancient 
 theories. Here some of us may be surprised, at first, to 
 find indicated still more plainly than in the case of con- 
 science, thatthe conceptions of thinkers preceding the age 
 of scientific investigation were practically the same as are 
 those of men able to avail themselves of its most recent 
 results. But, on second thought, we shall probably be re- 
 minded that this fact is not out of analogy with that which 
 happens frequently. It is not unusual for scholarly and 
 logical discussion to reach the same conclusions as those of 
 a mind exercising only ordinary observation and common 
 sense. There is an aspect, however, in which this fact does 
 not disprove but rather serves to prove the wisdom of the 
 scholarly and logical method. To be of practical value, 
 truth should be made useful to all. But to become this, 
 it should be made easy for all to recognize. Nor does the 
 fact that nature fulfills the requirement in the case of any 
 one truth, release the mind from the responsibility of ex- 
 pending thought upon it. A principle may seem very 
 simple in its elementary stages and yet become very com- 
 plex when traced, as must be done by philosophy, to that 
 into which it develops. 
 
 An illustration of the parallelism of thought between an- 
 cient and modem writers upon ethics is afforded by an 
 examination of the systems of the earliest of the Greek 
 philosophers who based their ethical conceptions upon 
 the testimony of one's own inward consciousness rather 
 than upon what could be learned from customs and institu- 
 tions which members of the community acting collectively 
 had established- 
 
 As has been already intimated, these systems were sug- 
 gested by the failure of institutionism to give full credit to 
 the effect upon morals of individual initiative. There are 
 
70 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 two sources of this initiative — one in the rational nature 
 and the other in the emotional. It was natural, therefore, 
 that each of these sources should have had its advocates. 
 It would hardly be expected, however, that in Greece the 
 earliest advocates of each should have been so contempora- 
 neous that history now assigns the same date for the birth 
 and death of both of them (450-370 B.C.). Of the two, 
 Heracleitus attributed right conduct primarily to the guid- 
 ance of reason, and Democritus to the guidance of sensation 
 or feeling which, as he thought, was constantly teaching 
 men what they should do or avoid doing by giving them ex- 
 periences of pleasure or pain, a child, for instance, by re- 
 ceiving a kiss or candy when obedient, or a scratch or bum 
 when teasing a cat or caressing a red-hot iron. Both theo- 
 ries, as most ofusknow, are still advocated to-day, sometimes 
 as strenuously as if they had just been originated. Both, 
 too, have much to commend them; yet both must be de- 
 clared unsatisfactory when presented as if comprehensive 
 of all the influences underlying right action. It is true that 
 when a man's conduct is controlled by reason, it is not con- 
 trolled by animal appetite; and, in this regard, is moral. 
 But there are other constituents of morality which are re- 
 sults of the emotional nature. So with the theory that as- 
 cribes morality to the effects of experiencing pleasure and 
 pain. It is a theory too limited in its applications to explain 
 all that needs explaining. Yet it has been supposed to meet 
 the demands not only of ethics but of aesthetics. Not merely 
 the good and the wise but the beautiful and the artistic have 
 each been supposed to be determined by the degree in which 
 it fulfills the requirements of pleasure.^* Many recent 
 books unfolding this conception have been warmly welcomed 
 as valuable contributions to modern scientific thought. Yet 
 the very name now given to the theory, namely hedonism, 
 from the Greek word iqoovti^ meaning pleasure, reveals its an- 
 tiquity; and a very little study of the motives actuating men 
 ought to show one why it has never been universally accep- 
 
 "Wundt, Physiologische Psychologie.^iti edition; Ward, art. Psychol- 
 ogy in Encyclopedia Britannica, Qlh edition: Lotze, Outlines of /Esthetics; 
 Marshall, arts, on " The Field of iSsthetics Psychologically Qjnsidered ' ' 
 in Mind, 1892; Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Volume 11., chapterson 
 "Pleasure and Pain" and "Emotions of Relation." This author, how- 
 ever, in his fuller treatises. Social and Ethical Interpretations and Genetic 
 Logic, Vol. III., Interest and Art, subordinates the hedonic to the ideal. 
 
MORALITY ATTRIBUTED TO FEELING 71 
 
 ted. Many people cannot avoid the conviction that, from 
 its very beginning, morality is due, to some extent at 
 least, to that which originates in the individual reason, or, 
 in other words, in the mental nature. Pleasure and pain 
 in the sense, too, in which they are used in the hedonic 
 theory, are bodily. How can they alone, unless some influ- 
 ence from the mental nature cooperate at least with them, 
 enable the latter to hold the bodily in subordination? Yet 
 this is the condition, as large numbers believe, necessary to 
 morality. When we get to the foundation of hedonism, 
 we find its deficiency based, as is the case with many other 
 theories, upon a supposed but not proved organic connec- 
 tion between the bodily and the mental. It is true that 
 what brings pleasure will cause beauty so far as by beauty 
 is meant that which harmonizes with the requirements of 
 the bodily organs affected by melody, as in hearing, or by 
 outline and color, as in seeing; and will cause right so far as 
 by right is meant that which will secure the comfort and 
 safety of the physical body. But beauty involves more 
 than this, and so does right. Beauty must embody an 
 ideal; and, although this may harmonize, and, in the highest 
 art, must harmonize with the highest pleasure, it is not it- 
 self a direct result of aiming for pleasure, and for this alone. 
 No one could realize his highest aesthetic ideal while seeking 
 merely for his own or another's pleasure and for nothing else. 
 So with the right. It must conform to obligation; and al- 
 though the performance of this may and must harmonize 
 with the highest pleasure, it is not itself the direct result of 
 seeking for pleasure. No one would look merely in the 
 direction of this, in order to find the pathway of duty. 
 One often finds the latter in self-denial and self-sacrifice; 
 in the most repulsive form of work and the most terrifying 
 form of war. Even when this is not the case, even when 
 what he does brings him pleasure, this fact affords no proof 
 that pleasure is that for which he was aiming. Pleasure is 
 a subjective result, a result experienced only within oneself; 
 and we never can, nor do aim for a subjective result directly. 
 We aim for it indirectly through some objective or external 
 instrumentality which we suppose or hope that the sub- 
 jective result will necessarily accompany. We may aim, 
 for instance, for wealth, influence, or fame, because we 
 suppose that it will be accompanied by pleasure. But if we 
 do so, we shall soon find that the thing for which we are 
 
72 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 aiming directly is that which is really absorbing ottr interest; 
 that it is this for which we are really working, and frequently 
 would continue to work, even though we knew that to ob- 
 tain it would cause us more pain than pleasure. 
 
 Considerations, more or less like these, could not fail to 
 appeal to some of the philosophers who followed Heracleitus 
 or Democritus. They usually discussed the theories of 
 both, siding with one or the other, and endeavoring, if pos- 
 sible, to find a more fundamental principle inclusive of the 
 truth in each. For instance Plato (430-350 B.C.) makes 
 Socrates (468-399 B.C.) whose teaching he represented, say, 
 in Sec. 141 of the Philebus, "that the good and pleasant 
 partake of a different nature, and that intellect (i. e., the 
 mental) partakes of a share of good more than pleastye 
 does." On the other hand, Aristotle (384-332 B.C.) in 
 Chapter X. of his Ethics says that, "pleasure is not per se, 
 an evil, because the grounds on which it may be considered 
 to be so, belong to those only of a grosser corporeal (or 
 bodily) kind and not to the purer enjoyments of the ruling 
 part of man's nature, the intellect" (i. e., the mental). 
 So, Plato could argue that the source of virtue is in thoughts 
 or ideas, whether exercised intuitively or reflectively; and 
 Aristotle could argue that the source is in feelings as of 
 pleasure or of pain, whether experienced in sensation or in 
 psychologic activities occasioned by them. 
 
 The chief contribution to Ethics, however, on the part 
 of these three greatest of the Greek philosophers was the 
 test which they began to apply, and which in no age since 
 their time has ceased to be applied by some, in order to de- 
 termine the right or wrong of an action. In Book III., 8, 
 of Xenophon's Memorabilia, as translated by J. S. Watson, 
 we find Socrates declaring that "a thing is good or beauti- 
 ful when it fulfills its purpose or function. " This concep- 
 tion is repeated frequently in the writings of all three of 
 these men, for which reason they are sometimes classed as 
 the functional philosophers. In connection with this they 
 may be said to have introduced into ethics the principle 
 that underlies the modern teleological and utilitarian meth- 
 ods (see page 97), — the methods of determining the moral- 
 ity of an action lay the right or useful end for which it is 
 aimed. These are important methods, very often the only 
 rational ones that could be chosen through which to fulfiU 
 a sense of obligation. But it is well to bear in mind that 
 
GREEK SCHOOLS OF ETHICS 73 
 
 they cannot, of themselves, create this sense. The Greeks, 
 as we have noticed, recognized this fact in the use of the 
 term conscience. So do the ordinary people of our own 
 times. But some of our philosophers apparently do not, 
 because unable to explain what conscience is when acting 
 as it does. They seem, unconsciously to themselves, to 
 desire to attribute it to some other department of the mind 
 the operations of which they can explain. At any rate, for 
 some reason, they have discussed much more fully the end 
 of obligation than its source; and very seldom recognize 
 how closely the two are connected. 
 
 With reference to the general character of the end that 
 should be sought when fulfilling the requirements of moral- 
 ity Aristotle, through sharing in the functional conception 
 of Socrates and Plato, differed from them. The reason for 
 this difference is indicated in the passage from his Ethics 
 just quoted. Aristotle, however, did not accept hedonism. 
 In Book X. , Section 7 of the same work he drew a distinction 
 between that which is indicated by the word i^Soviq and the 
 word luSaittovfa meaning, as variously interpreted, welfare, 
 prosperity, or blessedness. The theory of those agreeing 
 with this general conclusion is termed eudaimonism. Some 
 of the modem advocates of this theory are mentioned on 
 page 93. 
 
 Both before and after the time of Socrates, Plato, and 
 Aristotle, we find many who accepted only the rational 
 theory previously taught by Heracleitus or the hedonic 
 theory taught by Democritus. Among the followers of the 
 former we find those of the Cynic School of Antisthenes 
 (444-371 B.C.) and Diogenes (342-270 b.c.) who, to exalt the 
 influence of the reason became ascetic, rejecting all forms 
 of pleasure; and those of the Stoic School founded by Zeno 
 (342-270 B.C.) and ably continued by Chrysippus (about 
 206 B.C.) The adherents of this school were enjoined not 
 to pursue pleasure nor avoid pain, but, in all circumstances, 
 to be rational and dutiful, and indifferent to personal 
 consideration in the way either of indulgence for self or 
 sympathy for others. Through organizing societies and 
 sending lecturers into all the important towns and cities of 
 Greece and Rome, the Stoics propagated belief in their form 
 of morality on a scale comparable to that of the missionary 
 work of our modern churches. 
 
 One reason for this we may surmise when we are made 10 
 
74 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 apprehend the motives to which they appealed. "To live 
 according to nature," says Cyrus R. Edmonds in a note 
 to his translation of the first of the Paradoxes of Cicero 
 (106-43 B.c.)i "was the basis of their ethical system; but 
 by this it was not meant that a man should follow his own 
 particular nature; he must make his life conformable to the 
 nature of the whole of things ■ ; • ■ To know what is our 
 relation to the whole of things, is to know what we ought to 
 be and do." As the Roman Stoic Marcus Aurelius (121- 
 180 A.D.), in Book III. of his Meditations, as translated by 
 Jeremy Collier, says, " Let your soul work in harmony with 
 the universal intelligence, as your breath does with the air," 
 and again in Book X., "Rational nature admits of nothing 
 but what is serviceable to the rest of mankind." Notice 
 how similar this is to the ground taken by T. H. Green in 
 his Prolegomena of Ethics, as quoted on page 99. 
 
 Emphasizing, on the other hand, the influence of what 
 can be learned of right conduct from pleasure and pain, 
 contemporaneous with Democritus, were (450-400 B.C.), the 
 Sophists, Protagoras, and Gorgias; then, the Cyrenaic School 
 of Aristippus (455-356 B.C.); and, later, the School of 
 Epicurus (341-270 B.C.). All of these ascribed the good to 
 that which brings personal pleasure rather than pain, not 
 necessarily through gratifying the appetites but through 
 conduct which, all things considered, can bring one the 
 greatest happiness. There was truth in this theory that 
 needed to be emphasized; but the overemphasis given to it 
 led at times to false views and unsatisfactory results. 
 
 The Stoic philosophy, making much as it did of absti- 
 nence, rationality, and obedience to duty, seems to have 
 been particularly fitted to be accepted by the Roman mind. 
 It was taught by Cicero (106-43 B.C.), but its most strenu- 
 ous advocates were Seneca (3 B.C.-65 a.d.) , Epictetus (about 
 45-103 A.D.), and Marcus Aurelius (120-180 a.d.). Very 
 naturally, perhaps, too, in reaction against Stoicism, large 
 mmibers of the Romans also turned to Epicureanism, and 
 to this in its very worst form, a form suggested by the 
 atomistic theory of the world's origin propounded by De- 
 mocritus. This, especially as elaborated by the Latin poet 
 Lucretius (94-55 B.C.) in his very widely read poem De 
 Rerum Natura, seemed to dispose effectually of any necessity 
 for gods or their superintendence over human affairs, and 
 to allow men to live without fear according to the precept, 
 
EARLY CHRISTIAN ETHICS 75 
 
 " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die, " (i Cor. 15:32). 
 Several years later Plutarch (about 48-120 A.D.), Plotinus 
 (205-270 A.D.), and Porphyry {about 233-306), none of 
 whom were Christians, developed in succession different 
 stages of what seems to have been a combination of the 
 emphasis given to rational influence by the Stoics and to 
 emotional influence given by the Epicureans. Plutarch 
 directed attention to the struggles experienced in the soul 
 between good and evil ; Plotinus, in his neo-Platonism, added 
 to the ideal conceived by Plato the conception of transcend- 
 ing all thoughts through emotion and indulging in what 
 he termed divine ecstasy; and Porphjnry added to this con- 
 ception the ascetic theory that to attain the desired end all 
 the bodily appetites should be suppressed. 
 
 The earliest ethical theories of Christianity, as indicated 
 in the writings of Augustine (354-430) and Ambrose (about 
 340-'397).seem to have included conceptions derived from a 
 consideration both of reason and of emotion, at the same 
 time ascribing, at least, co-ordinate authority to the state- 
 ments of the Scriptures and the requirements of the Church. 
 After a time, these latter came to be more strongly em- 
 phasized. The theory of institutionism which in Greece and 
 Rome when these were republics had exerted little influence 
 came to be almost universally accepted, and for a thousand 
 years the moral principles of the majority of the people of 
 Europe came to be those that were traceable to what may be 
 termed ecclesiastical institutionism. Anselm (1033-1109) 
 emphasized the same; but also the effects on the individual 
 of divine grace; Abelard (1079-1 142) maintained the need of 
 good intention and disinterestedness; and Thomas Aquinas 
 (1225-1274) the importance of seeking an end insuring 
 happiness or blessedness which, following Aristotle, in 
 BookX., Chapter VII., of his Ethics, he distinguished from 
 pleasure, dwelling too upon the dignity of human nature 
 and the rational order in the universe; while Duns Scotus 
 (1266-1308) associated right conduct with reasonableness 
 which, in a free being, would conform, as he said, to the 
 will of a reasonable God. According to W. E. H. Lecky 
 (1838-1903) in Chapter I., page 17, of his History of 
 European Morals, Duns Scotus and William Occam, his 
 immediate successor, held that we have no innate knowl- 
 edge of right and wrong, but that God reveals it to us in 
 the Scriptures. 
 
76 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 Added to the institutionists who emphasized a rational 
 end in morality, there were always living those inclined to 
 mysticism. This was primarily emotional, and often also 
 ascetic. It seems to have been introduced into Christianity 
 by Johannes Scotus Erigena (about 810-877) through the 
 influence of the Neo-Platonism of Porphs^ry, and was sub- 
 sequently developed by Hugo of St. Victor (1077-1141), 
 Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), Bonaventura (1221- 
 1274), Eckhart (about i26o-i327),andTauler (1301-1361). 
 These mystics all believed in a state of ecstasy where one 
 could , spiritually , commune with God. Unfortunately many 
 thought this the only requirement of morality; in looking 
 inward and upward, they sometimes forgot to look outward 
 and downward, their fellow creatures about and below 
 them receiving little or no attention. Their morality, un- 
 consciously to themselves, expressed itself in gratifying per- 
 sonal exhilaration. This, however, was not true of all of them. 
 Many were illogical enough to live for other ends than the 
 only one that they emphasized; and all of them, by giving 
 consideration to emotion, even though, at times, too exclu- 
 sively, prepared the world, when the occasion came, to recog- 
 nize the claims of sympathy and humanity as could not 
 have been the case had not these mystics accustomed large 
 numbers to discredit theories and dogmas originated 
 exclusively for and in the intellect. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 MODERN ETHICAL THEORIES: INSTITUTIONISM, EMPIRICISM, 
 AND RATIONAL, EMOTIVE, AND PERCEPTIVE INTUITIONISM 
 
 Lord Bacon's Inductive Philosophy — Institutionism of Hobbes — 
 Empiricism of Locke and his Followers — Rational and Innate 
 Recognition of Right and Wrong — Critical Philosophy of Kant — 
 His Distinction between the Noumenal and the Phenomenal — 
 Distinction between Kant's Intuitive Theory and the Innate 
 Theory of the English Rational School — Connection between the 
 View of Kant and that of Leibnitz and Schopenhauer — Interchange 
 of Effects between Mind and Matter — Practical Recognition of this 
 Fact by People who are not Philosophers, and its Results — Con- 
 nection between the Theories of Kant and the Idealism of Hegel — 
 Connection between Kant's Theories and the Demands of Practical 
 Morality — Connection between Hegel's Idealism and the Expres- 
 sion of the Ideal of Individuals — Outward Government Control Sub- 
 stituted by Hegel for Inward Self-control — Nietzsche's Emphasis 
 upon Forceful Control, and its Effects upon Public Morals — Insti- 
 tutionism Cannot Meet all the Requirements of Moralitjr — Partial 
 Acceptance by Modem Writers of Institutional Principles — In- 
 fluence of Kant upon Later Rational Intuitionism — The Voice of 
 God in Man — Moral-sense or Emotional Intuitionism of Shaftes- 
 bury — Perceptional Intuitionism of Butler — Influence on Modem 
 Thought of Shaftesbury and Butler. 
 
 MANY of the tenets of mysticism were traceable to 
 imagination or sentiment rather than to any well 
 reasoned out or even intelligent motive. A re- 
 action against them was sure to come. It appeared at the 
 opening of the period that we may assign to the modern 
 writers upon ethics; and the first noteworthy name that we 
 find here is that of Lord FrancisBacon (1561-1626), author 
 of the Novum Organum. He is credited with being the 
 earliest to insist upon the necessity, in all successful philo- 
 sophic work, of what is termed the inductive method, — a 
 method in accordance with which the mind refuses to accept 
 information or conclusions with reference to facts or con- 
 
 77 
 
78 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 ditions until after a thorough examination by oneself has 
 confirmed their credibility. Ethics was a subject that, for 
 centuries, Christian writers had treated as a department of 
 religion; and religion they had based not upon induction but 
 upon revelation. Bacon, however, did not hesitate to apply 
 his theory even to this subject. His chief propositions with 
 reference to it were that what is good is to be judged by its 
 utility; that what is right is to be judged by its being bene- 
 ficial; and that what is beneficial for society is to be judged 
 by what is beneficial for the individual. 
 
 The fundamental principle underlying Bacon's method 
 has been accepted by most writers upon ethics as, indeed, 
 upon all phases of philosophy ever since his time. 
 
 Apparently, an almost immediate effect was produced 
 upon Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) of Holland, who, in his 
 great work on national and international law, entitled 
 De Jure Belli et Pacts, revised, with new applications, the 
 conception of the ancient Stoics attributing morality to 
 that which is prompted and developed by nature. Very 
 nearly associated with this conception is one attributing 
 the same to laws and customs naturally made by men and 
 applied to one another; and, just as we found this phase of 
 the conception to be among the earliest to appear in China 
 and Greece, so we find it among the earliest to appear in 
 England. Bacon himself had emphasized individualism. 
 Nevertheless, there is a connection between what can be 
 learned from a rational consideration of individual experi- 
 ence and what can be learned from that which men have 
 formulated in the regulations which in state and society 
 they have made for the guidance of their fellows. This 
 connection was recognized by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), 
 author of Human Nature, De Corpore Politico, and Leviathan, 
 or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesi- 
 astical and Civil. He traced the authority of moral obli- 
 gation to the enactments not of ecclesiastical law as did 
 the medieval church, but of civil law. He did so on the 
 ground that this law is devised to promote — and he seemed 
 to suggest that it need not be followed unless it does pro- 
 mote — one's own personal welfare. 
 
 The theory in accordance with which the mind is sup- 
 posed to derive its conceptions, or contents, as one might 
 say, from its experience of conditions in the material world 
 surrounding it — a theory for these reasons termed, vari- 
 
HOBBES AND LOCKE 79 
 
 ously, experimentaUsm, materialism, empiricism, from a 
 Greek word meaning a result of experience, and sensational- 
 ism, meaning a result derived through the testimony of the 
 senses — this theory, which both Bacon and Hobbes had 
 accepted, was greatly reinforced shortly after by the Essay 
 on the Human Understanding of John Locke (1632-1704), as 
 well as by the works of his chief followers, — David Hartley 
 (1705-1757), author of Observations on Man and The Mech- 
 anismofthe Human Mind; and Joseph Priestley (1753-1804), 
 author of Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind, Disquisitions 
 Relative to Matter and Spirit, and the Doctrine of Philosophic 
 Necessity Explained. In connection with an acceptance of 
 the "moral sense" theory (see page 91) which these writers 
 did not hold, certain materialistic tendencies of empiricism 
 were extended by David Hume (1711-1776) in his Treatise 
 on Human Nature into a system of skepticism, as it was 
 termed, causing him to affirm that the mind can not logi- 
 cally accept upon testimony any statement with reference 
 to an occurrence — ^like a miracle, for instance — of a kind of 
 which it has not had personal experience. 
 
 Meantime, in England, just as in Greece (see page 69) 
 philosophers arose who could not accept the theory that 
 the mind is dependent for its conceptions, especially those 
 concerning right and wrong, upon what can be learned 
 from the material world outside itself. These writers went 
 to the opposite extreme. They maintained that, far from 
 being derived from experience, the apprehension of right 
 and wrong is an innate function of reason. They seem to 
 have held the same sort of belief in conscience, together 
 with its representation of the authority of divinity, as had 
 been the case with some of the Greeks and with most, 
 perhaps, of the early Christians. On the continent, this 
 belief had seldom been seriously disputed. Philosophers 
 like Descartes (1596-1650) in his Meditations and Spinosa 
 (1632-1677) in his Ethica had differed from others mainly in 
 showing a tendency to confine the work of conscience to the 
 punishing of those who had already transgressed. As will 
 be shown on page 1 14, this was in accordance with a very 
 important truth; but the subject needed further analysis. 
 Some of the very titles of the books written to confute the 
 early English empiricism indicate the general trend of the 
 arguments presented in them. Ralph Cudworth (1638- 
 171 5) wrote on The Eternal and Immutable Morality; 
 
8o ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 Thomas Tennyson (J636-1715) on The Creed of Hobbes 
 Examined; Samuel Clarke (i 675-1 729) on The Unchangeable 
 Obligations of Natural Religion; William WoUaston (1660- 
 1724) on The Religion of Nature Delineated, treating the sub- 
 ject very much as did the Stoics (pages 68 and 74) ; Richard 
 Price (1723-1791) on A Review of the Principal Questions of 
 Morals; and Professor Dugald Stewart (1753-1828), appar- 
 ently the last of those not influenced by Kant, on The Out- 
 lines of Moral Philosophy. 
 
 Immanuel Kant (i 724-1 804) began his philosophic in- 
 quiries by recognizing that there must be some truth in 
 both the innate conception of the source of obligation and 
 the empirical; and he believed that the tendencies to skepti- 
 cism in the latter could be remedied by accepting the truth 
 that is in the former. In order to determine what this truth 
 is in each case he began, very rightly, by examining the 
 veracity of the testimony furnished by each. In doing this, 
 however, his interest in philosophic analysis seems to have 
 carried him too far. Instead of contenting himself with the 
 easily demonstrated fact that both inward consciousness 
 and outward experience must be treated as if contributing 
 something to the general ethical result, he attempted to 
 investigate and discover the sources and methods under- 
 lying the contributions of each. This attempt of his ex- 
 plains the use of the term Critique in the titles of his three 
 principal philosophic works, — The Critique of Pure Reason, 
 The Critique of Practical Reason, and The Critique of Judg- 
 ment. The first of these books treats of the relation to 
 mental and moral philosophy of that which, in most regards, 
 corresponds to what. in this essay has been termed the 
 mental, but which he terms noumenal (from the Greek word 
 vou?, meaning mind) the essentially rational by which he 
 designates that which pertains to pure reason, or, as dis- 
 tinguished from the apparent, the actical, or, as the Germans 
 express it, the thing in itself. The second book treats of 
 the relation to philosophy of that which corresponds in 
 general to what has here been termed the bodily, but which 
 he terms the phenomenal, the apparent, and means by this 
 to indicate the essentially physical or material. 
 
 In the first of these volumes, he endeavored, from a 
 purely rational viewpoint, to unfold, among other things, 
 the ethical truth with reference to right and wrong, includ- 
 ing conceptions of God, of the soul and its continued exist- 
 
KANT VS. CAMBRIDGE SCHOOL 8l 
 
 ence. According to him, intuitions of reason direct all men 
 toward the same decisions, and, therefore, indicate to them, 
 and can be taken by them to indicate, that which is con- 
 sidered right by all their fellows. This conception he ex- 
 pressed in language which has had not a little influence 
 toward causing a very wide acceptance of his whole ethical 
 system. His language was that every man should act so 
 that the "maxim of his will" can always hold good as "a 
 principle of universal legislation." Unfortunately, how- 
 ever, Kant himself introduced an element of doubt into 
 the trustworthiness of this rule of life by arguing elsewhere 
 that all conceptions derived from the noumenal can be con- 
 sidered true only subjectively, as a matter of speculation 
 in the realm of ideas; that we can have no objective cer- 
 tainty of any truth not obtained, or at least confirmed, 
 phenomenally, through the senses, as a matter of obser- 
 vation. It is through an application of these theories that 
 he endeavored to bring into his philosophic system that 
 which should pay due regard to the truth emphasized in the 
 innate theory of the source of obligation, on the one hand, 
 and in the empirical theory, on the other. 
 
 The difference between the conceptions of Kant and 
 those of the English rational or, as sometimes termed, Cam- 
 bridge school just mentioned is much greater than on first 
 thought, might be supposed. The "rational intuitionism," 
 as it is called, of Kant, with its "categorical imperative" 
 enjoining duty — because, apparently, of the distinction 
 that he drew between pure reason and reason as influ- 
 enced by practical considerations — assigned morality to the 
 motive as distinguished from the methods or effects of action. 
 The English rational school associated what it considered 
 the innate recognition of right with every phase of conduct, 
 just as closely as one ordinarily associates instinct with 
 every movement of an animal and intuition with every act 
 of mind. For instance. President Noah Porter (1811- 
 1892) of Yale University, whose general views might be 
 associated with those of intuitionism, in Chapter VIII. of 
 his Elements oj Moral Science, declared, in exact opposition 
 to Kant, that "moral qualities and relations are limited to 
 the person, and his personal vocations, and cannot be 
 affirmed of his motives or reasons." 
 
 The conception that noumenal and phenomenal thinking 
 may be non-cooperative apparently came to Kant while con- 
 
82 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 sidering the same general subject that Leibnitz had endeav- 
 ored to clarify through his theory with reference to "pre- 
 established harmony" (seepage32). It is strange that neither 
 of these philosophers should have recognized — what has been 
 maintained throughout this essay, and what no thorough stu- 
 dent of assthetics can fail to recognize — ^that there is one place 
 in which that which pertains to the noumenal, or, as one 
 might say, the mental or spiritual and that which pertains 
 to the phenomenal, or, as one might say, the bodily or 
 material can be brought into touch with each other so as to 
 act conjointly. This place is in the conscious intelligence 
 either of the Creative Source of all life which originally 
 brought them together, or of the created mind exercising a 
 derived function producing an analogous effect. This is a 
 view that seems to have suggested itself to Arthur Schopen- 
 hauer (1788-1860) author of The World as Will and Idea. 
 In a criticism of Kant's philosophy in the second volume of 
 that work, as translated by R. D. Haldane, he points out 
 that "a perception is a mere sensation, and only by an 
 application of the understanding does our intellect change 
 this mere sensation into an idea." 
 
 The truth seems to be that, in this case, we are dealing 
 with effects in which it is impossible for consciousness to 
 separate the bodily, especially as manifested in instinct, 
 from the mental, especially as manifested in intuition. The 
 only indisputable inference to be drawn from the effect 
 upon each other of the bodily and the mental when acting 
 together seems to be an application of the general principle 
 of correspondence first clearly brought out in the philosophy 
 of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) and best explained in 
 his Divine Love and Divine Wisdom. His conception — ^to 
 illustrate it in a manner conformable to our present pur- 
 pose — seems to have been that there is a correspondence 
 readily recognized by consciousness between, say, an exter- 
 nal and physical movement like the pointing of a finger and 
 an internal and a psychical conception like that of particu- 
 larizing or discriminating; or, again, between a falling 
 inflection of voice produced by the bodily organism and a 
 decisive, conclusive mental intention. This correspond- 
 ence, which is often perceived and put into use by children 
 too young to understand explanations, is at the base of all 
 language, either of gesture or voice; in fact of every form 
 of art, or of any kind of himian expression or communi- 
 
KANT'S SEPARATION OF THEORY AND PRACTICE 83 
 
 cation. It is the result of an imaginative or image-making 
 principle in accordance with which innumerable outward 
 effects presented to eye or ear and inward effects presented 
 to the mind are brought together in consciousness in such 
 ways as to appear practically identical, — the one contribut- 
 ing the form or symbol, and the other the matter or sub- 
 stance of the thought. The application of the principle 
 might, indeed, be said to be a foremost way in which human 
 beings can manifest the creative trait of the divine source of 
 all life from which they are derived. To recognize in prac- 
 tice, and to use as a constant habit, this principle of cor- 
 respondence, is so natural to human nature that it may be 
 considered essential to a possession of it. One is no more 
 necessitated to separate in consciousness the psychical or 
 internal — ^the noumenal, as Kant would term it — from the 
 physical, the external, or the phenomenal, than to separate 
 soul from body. 
 
 That this is so seems not to have been recognized by 
 Kant; but it is practically recognized by the vast majority 
 of people who are not philosophers. They draw no dis- 
 tinction between theoretical and practical morality; between 
 thinking right and acting right. They do not believe that a 
 man in a church on Sunday can be theoretically or senti- 
 mentally all that he should be, and yet, during the rest of 
 the week, be practically the business swindler that he 
 should not be. They believe that one's inward sentiments, 
 if they could be ascertained, would accord with the testi- 
 mony of his outward conduct. Still more, when they come 
 to think of it, do they believe that his desires must accord 
 with this. Conduct, as we shall notice hereafter, is moral in 
 the degree in which, when necessary, the mental tendency 
 in it has subordinated the bodily tendency. But desires 
 are the source of conduct. The same condition, therefore, 
 must exist among them. In other words, it is among the 
 desires that the contest between the bodily and the mental, 
 in which the former is subordinated to the latter, must take 
 place and be decided. This is a general fact which, without 
 explaining it through the use of the same terms, is very com- 
 monly acknowledged. The religious sect of the Quakers, 
 for instance, when they speak of being guided by their 
 Inward Light mean being guided by higher desire; and by 
 this, they frequently mean, too, desire when prompting them 
 in a certain Section as a result of an inward victory over 
 
84 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 lower desire when striving to incline them in another direc- 
 tion. Kant, however, though he did not, because he could 
 not, deny this inward conflict, did not insist upon the neces- 
 sity for it; and in the emphasis that he gave to the distinc- 
 tion between pure reason and practical reason he could not 
 avoid the suggestion that it was a contest in which very 
 frequently higher desire would not be especially blame- 
 worthy if it were not successful. 
 
 Two results, important for us to consider, seem to have 
 followed upon the theories of Kant. G. W. F. Hegel (1770- 
 1 83 1 ) , recognizing the importance of the noumenal in the sense 
 of the spiritual, emphasized it still more than did his pre- 
 decessor — so much so, in fact, that he reduced the phenom- 
 enal, the apparent, or the physical, to theoretic nonentity, 
 resolving all existence into the development or materializing 
 of ideas. Why, he seems to have asked, should it appear 
 philosophical to adjust the operation of pure reason to that 
 of practical reason; why should we not suppose that every- 
 thing ought to be, in the last analysis, a method of giving 
 expression to pure or absolute reason, — to ideas? This 
 conception led to the formulation of the philosophical sys- 
 tem termed German idealism. 
 
 The other result of Kant's philosophy was more strictly 
 ethical. It was a supposed justifiable separation of specu- 
 lative from practical morality, as in the case, just mentioned, 
 of a merchant apparently thinking in accordance with the 
 principles of right when at church on Sunday, but acting 
 in an opposite way when in his shop during the other days 
 of the week; or — as illustrated in the late war — of a mili- 
 tary officer being honorable, truthful, and humane when 
 stationed in a village of his own country, but exactly the 
 opposite when stationed in a village of an enemy's country. 
 To think that different circumstances, as in these instances, 
 can alter the morality of an act is perfectly logical in case it 
 is held that, in order to meet the emergencies of experience, a 
 moral decision can be changed after it leaves the mind; but 
 it is illogical in case it is recognized that questions in dispute 
 between lower and higher desire ought to be settled before 
 they leave the mind. It is one thing to determine within 
 oneself the right principle upon which one shall act, leaving 
 open to be decided subsequently merely the methods through 
 which to apply the principle; and another thing to delay 
 the choice of a principle to a time when circumstances can 
 
KANT AND HEGEL 85 
 
 prove which of several principles promises to be the most 
 expedient. Kant himself would have recognized this differ- 
 ence, but too many of those influenced by his philosophy 
 failed to do so. They believed, or thought that they be- 
 lieved, in pure reason, and the categorical imperative; 
 but many of them drew no distinction between the feeling 
 of instinct and the judgment of intuition; and even when 
 they did, they failed to recognize that nothing in either can 
 indicate moral efficiency except as it is a result of mental 
 desire that already within the mind has subordinated 
 bodily desire to its own expressional purposes. The innere 
 5te'wiwe, or the "inward voice, "of which we hear so much in 
 literature traceable to German influence from the time of 
 Goethe to that of Ibsen, is frequently a conception consist- 
 ent with a thorough lack of recognition of the necessity or 
 importance of any such inward subordination. This innere 
 Stimme, traceable often to what is acknowledged to be 
 impractical, may refer to instinctive or intuitive prompt- 
 ings that are either high-minded and wise, or are inexcusably 
 whimful and passionate. '^ This fact explains why so many 
 German novels and plays inculcate lessons directed chiefly 
 toward inducing people to quit or smash whatever is un- 
 pleasant or distasteful, especially in one's domestic sur- 
 roundings, rather than first to attempt that change in 
 one's own spirit which actual life usually proves to be the 
 most feasible as well as the most modest and kindly. At 
 any rate, whatever may be the result of this attempt, it is 
 only when one is prepared to meet the conditions of the 
 world in a right spirit that he can expect them to appeal to 
 him as in themselves right. 
 
 Now let us return to Hegel. As has been said, he exalted 
 the noumenal in the sense of the mental, the spiritual, and 
 the ideal still more than did Kant, resolving all things into 
 the development or materializing of ideas. The necessary 
 
 '' Notice the following confirmation of this statement written by a 
 German. Professor Kuno Francke of Harvard University in an article 
 iathe Atlantic Monthly,iot Octoher, I9i4,said: " In contradiction to this 
 fundamental American trait of seU-possession I designate the passion 
 for self-surrender as perhaps the most significant expression of national 
 German character. . . . He loves to surrender to feeUngs, to hysterias 
 of all sorts; he loves to merge himself in vague and formless imaginings, 
 in extravagant and reckless experience, in what he likes to call living 
 himself out. ... No one is more prone to forget his better self in this 
 so-called living himself out than the German." 
 
86 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 inference was that it becomes every person to give expres- 
 sion to his own ideas, and to his own innere Stimme "inner 
 voice." But different persons have different ideas. There 
 must be something to limit different methods of expressing 
 these, or there will be no peace in the world. The sect of 
 Quakers, who were mentioned a moment ago, and those like 
 them, would say that this peace could and should be pre- 
 served by doing everything possible to cause each individual 
 to recognize in his own consciousness the presence of both 
 bodily and mental desire, and to be careful to make all out- 
 ward expression conform to the dominance of the latter. 
 In other words, these people would say that the true method 
 in which to control the world in such a way as to secure 
 peace among men is to train each one to exercise self- 
 control and to do this by keeping the mental, which is 
 always non-selfish as well as rational, uppermost. 
 
 But Hegel did not think this. He seems to have been so 
 influenced by Kant's theory as to conceive that nothing 
 could keep the peace of htmianity except force, exerted from 
 the outside. "As for the ethical," he says, in Part III., Sec. 
 156, of his Philosophy oj the Right, as translated by S. W. 
 Dyde, "there are only two possible views. Either we start 
 from the substantial social system, or we proceed atomically 
 and work up from a basis of individuality. This latter 
 method is void . . . since naind is not something individual, 
 but the unity of individual and universal," — a statement 
 showing his recognition of the non-selfish origin of that which 
 influences the mental or rational nature (see page 20). But 
 Hegel's method of using this recognition caused him to iden- 
 tify all moral obligations with those prescribed in the family, 
 society, and state. The latter, he says, in Sec. 258, " is the 
 march of God in the world, its ground or cause is the power 
 of reason realizing itself in will." Man is to " do nothing 
 except what is presented, expressed, and recognized in his 
 established relations." Thus the same thinker who in his 
 mental philosophy represented an extreme form of idealism 
 represented in his moral philosophy an equally extreme form 
 of materialism, indisputably associated with institutionism 
 and militarism, in this way making more plausible the 
 theoretic separation between the speculative and the prac- 
 tical that was suggested by Kant. 
 
 After the time of Hegel, the most important of the Ger- 
 man contributions to ethics seems to have been made 
 
FROM WUNDT TO NIETZSCHE 87 
 
 by Prof essor Wilhelm Max Wundt (1832- ) of Leipsic 
 Univerity. He was the first in that country, in fact in any 
 country, to attempt, in accordance with the laboratory 
 methods of physiological psychology, an application to all 
 philosophic problems of the theory of evolution. However, 
 his insistence upon the ethnic origin of moral principles, 
 especially developed in connection with the customs of 
 society, did not necessitate any fundamental change in the 
 theories of those who had accepted the narrower con- 
 ceptions of Hegel, attributing such principles to the in- 
 fluence of the state. Following Wundt, came writers of a 
 more individualistic tendency, especially Frederick Paul- 
 sen (i 846-1 908) of the University of Berlin and Rudolph 
 Eucken (1846- ) of the University of Jena. Quotations 
 from the System of Ethics by the former and from Ethics 
 and Modern Thought by the latter will be found in other 
 places in this volume. The influence of those writers, how- 
 ever, upon the popular thought of their country seems to 
 have been very slight compared to that of Frederick 
 Nietzsche (1844-1900). This man was an eccentric, 
 and, occasionally brilliant, essayist who, in books like 
 those termed Will to Power, Twilight, Ecce Homo, and 
 Dawn of Day, gave expression, but always in an in- 
 complete, unsystematic way, to philosophical conceptions. 
 Apparently he was an opponent of Hegel; but, in some 
 regards, seems to have been his logical successor. In a 
 world where right is determined by the state, Nietzsche 
 pointed out that the agency needed in order to promote 
 the influence of right is force; and, added to this, he said 
 that those who embody and exhibit force thereby make 
 themselves supermen; also that their standards are, and 
 should be, different from those of other people who, as 
 contrasted with them, are slaves; that as slaves, it is well 
 enough for them to practice obedience, humility, gentleness, 
 consideration, humaneness, and other feminine traits; but 
 that from obligation to manifest these, the superman is 
 absolved. It was asserted, too, that there were races of 
 supermen; and that of these, the German race stood fore- 
 most. To manifest force by being dictatorial in family, 
 school, and business; by maintaining universal military 
 discipline in his own country; and by destroying, in strange 
 contrast to the racial " gemiithlichkeit" (geniality) in 
 which he once justly prided himself, the peace of neigh- 
 
88 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 boring countries, — this the German was taught to con- 
 sider his duty and destiny. "To despoil your neighbors," 
 Nietzsche said, "is to deprive them of the means of injuring 
 you." " Love peace as a means to new wars, and the short 
 peace better than the long." So contrary to all the primary 
 promptings of rational and humane non-selfishness were 
 such doctrines, and, as regards details of presentation, so 
 inaccurate, preposterous, ill-balanced, illogical, and contra- 
 dictory, that sensible people outside of Germany usually 
 considered him insane, and this not only during the last 
 years of his life, when it was necessary to keep him under 
 surveillance, but during the whole of his literary career. 
 Some of his countrymen, however, seem to have taken him 
 seriously. The results, combined with the influences al- 
 ready mentioned, were appalling. Those in the country 
 not intellectually convinced of the rightness of institution- 
 ism were, at least, silenced through the influence of public 
 sentiment due often to surreptitious military suasion; and 
 the whole world outside of Germany was led to think that, 
 perhaps, her best contribution to human progress had been 
 the proof afforded by her that the highest developments of 
 education, learning, diligence, and efficiency, if not accom- 
 panied by ethical development based upon true principles, 
 may fail to exert the kind of influence most essential to the 
 betterment of individual character; and that even a state 
 religious organization may be so dominated by false moral 
 conceptions as to lessen greatly any general faith in the 
 efiicacy of the methods of influencing men, which it was 
 the primary object of the founder of che religion to intro- 
 duce into the world. 
 
 Of course, as has been said before, there is some truth in 
 institutionism. Customs and laws are outward and formal 
 expressions of the inward wishes of certain, at least, of those 
 by whom one is surrounded; and to do that which these 
 wish, when thus expressed, seems, at first thought, to be the 
 same as to be influenced by mental non-selfish consider- 
 ation for one's fellows. But it is not the same. When a 
 man gives expression to his wishes through the agency of 
 physical force, and expects others to conform to them 
 because of his exertion of this force, he is using a form of 
 influence that is not mental. The effect of national mili- 
 tarism, for instance, is distinctly different from that of indi- 
 vidual altruism. This is the reason why institutionism 
 
INSTITUTIONISM 89 
 
 like socialism, which also advocates the exertion over men of 
 moral control through external force organized by the 
 state to do this work, is not sufficient to meet the require- 
 ments of morality (see pages 285-291). The control of a 
 man by others outside of himself can never take the place 
 of his own inward self-control. 
 
 Nevertheless this view of morality as due to social or 
 institutional environment has been revived lately in France, 
 mainly through the writings of two professors in the Uni- 
 versity of Paris, — Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) in Element- 
 ary Forms of the Religious Life, translated by J. W. Swan; 
 and Lucian L^vy-Bruhl (1857- ) in Ethics and Moral 
 Science, translated by E. Lee. See footnotes ' and ^, page 63. 
 
 Of a less extreme form of this view in which obligation 
 is attributed in merely a partial way to our relations to our 
 fellows, we find many instances as in The Elements of Moral 
 Science of President Francis Wayland (1776-1855). For 
 reasons that will be stated in Chapter VII., there can be no 
 objection to emphasizing this source of moral authority ex- 
 cept when it is done in such a way as to exclude the con- 
 sideration due to other sources of equal importance. 
 
 The influence of Kant in the direction either of extreme 
 idealism or of institutionism was, apparently on his part, 
 unintentional; but he was the source of other influences 
 entirely difEerent which he did intend. Any just estimate 
 of his work must give him credit for these. His distinction, 
 for instance, between the nomnenal and the phenomenal, 
 even to those who did not accept all his inferences, and 
 notwithstanding his conception of rational intuition, had the 
 result of ascribing right conduct more unmistakably than 
 had yet been done to the action of the whole rational nature, 
 rather than to naere innate action that possibly at least, as 
 in instinct, might be supposed to operate independently of 
 reasoning; and his emphasis of the authority of the cate- 
 gorical imperative furnished not only a phrase but a formu- 
 lated thought that has seldom been absent from any ethical 
 controversy since his time. Among modern writers who, 
 without accepting his philosophy in full, seem to have been 
 greatly influenced by these two features of it may be men- 
 tioned Prof. Paul Janet (i 823-1 899) of the Sorbonne, author 
 of The Elements of Morals. Prof. Henry Calderwood 
 (1830-1899) of Edinburgh University, author of a Hand- 
 booh of Moral Philosophy; President L. P. Hickok (1798- 
 
go ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 1888) of Union College, author of A System of Moral Science; 
 Prof. Joseph Haven (1816-1874) of Amherst College, 
 author of Moral Philosophy ; Prof. N. K. Davis (i 830-1910) 
 of the University of Virginia, author of The Elements of 
 Ethics; Prof. E. J. Hamilton (1834-1919) of the University of 
 the State of Washington, author of The Moral Law; and 
 President John Bascom (1827-1911) of the University of 
 Wisconsin, author of Ethics. 
 
 Another conception made to appear philosophical through 
 the advocacy of Kant is the associating of the promptings of 
 conscience as the source of the right motives upon which he 
 laid extreme stress, with the direct influence of divinity 
 (see footnote '"•, on page 67). His view upon this subject 
 was not unlike that of Bishop Joseph Butler (1692-1752) 
 who, in the third of his sermons on Human Nature, referred 
 to conscience as "the voice of God in man." This expres- 
 sion is true enough, if those who hear it recognize that it is 
 used in a symbolic or literary sense ; but it is hardly suscepti- 
 ble of proof if accepted as a philosophic proposition, or safe 
 for guidance if supposed to be a literal statement. If there 
 be a Creator, He must have created conscience or, at least, 
 the conditions that occasion its action, and have intended 
 by it to indicate what a man should do. But neither experi- 
 ence nor argument can prove that this indication is of the 
 nature of dictation such as is ordinarily associated with that 
 which we hear through what we term the "voice." The 
 effect of conscience is frequently more like that of sugges- 
 tion which leaves the mind free to decide upon its own 
 methods of action according to the promptings of its own 
 judgment. There is danger that, if we tell people that con- 
 science is the voice of God, some of them — as has been proved 
 in the case of millions of fanatics — will begin to think it an 
 infallible monitor which relieves them of the necessity of 
 expending any further thought upon a subject; and any 
 endeavor whatever to enlighten such people is apparently 
 predoomed to failure. Nevertheless many lines could be 
 filled with quotations from ethical writers who seem to be 
 using this phrase as if in it the word voice could be inter- 
 preted literally. It would be unfair however to insert these 
 quotations in this place. Many, if not the great majority, 
 of these authors mean little more than is expressed by the 
 quaker, Jonathan Dymond (1796-1828), when, in adc&tion 
 to opposing, in Chapter VI. of his Principles of Ethics, the 
 
CONSCIENCE AS THE VOICE OF GOD 9I 
 
 view just presented, he says that "the right is the will of 
 God as expressed in various ways." Inasmuch as the dic- 
 tates of conscience in difEerent men often differ, it cannot 
 safely be assumed that the right is expressed through it, 
 either unequivocally or solely. 
 
 Through his presentations of the subject, Kant, as has 
 been said, reinforced with more definiteness than had existed 
 before, the rational theory with reference to the origin of the 
 sense of obligation that had been held in England by such 
 writers as Cudworth, Clarke, and Wollaston (see page 80). 
 All these had traced morality to the action of the inward 
 mind rather than to anything that could be learned from 
 outward experience. But the action of the mind to which 
 they referred had been that of the cognitive faculties alone. 
 Long before the time of Kant, Arthur Ashley Cooper, Lord 
 Shaftesbury (1671-1731) had pointed out that a man could 
 be influenced morally through his emotions also. In his 
 Inquiry Concerning Virtue and Merit and The Moralist he 
 showed that, in connection with every prompting to duty, 
 one is conscious of a feeling attributable to a moral sense or 
 faculty. In taking this ground, he was ably seconded by 
 Francis Hutcheson (1694-1747) ; who, in his Inquiry into the 
 Origin of our Ideas of Beauty and Morality, maintained that, 
 in addition to the five external senses, we possess certain 
 internal senses introducing us to aesthetics and to ethics in a 
 way similar to that in which we become acquainted with 
 metaphysical axioms. Lord Shaftesbury's conception which 
 since the time of Hutcheson has been termed the moral-sense 
 theory, and termed also, to distinguish it from the rational 
 intuitionism of Kant, the emotional intuitional theory, was 
 subsequently accepted, in general, by Adam Smith (1723- 
 1790) who, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, emphasized 
 the influence upon right conduct of one's having sympathy 
 with others; and by David Hume (1711-1776) in his Treatise 
 on Human Nature. The same theory is usually represented 
 as underlying the ethical systems of continental writers like 
 Herbart, Rousseau, and Brentano. 
 
 Bishop Joseph Butler (1692-1752), in his Sermons on 
 Human Nature, as weU as in his iaraans Analogy of Religion, 
 broadened this theory, assigning one's moral guidance less 
 to a special sense than to a general mental result partly 
 intellectual as well as emotional. This theory, together 
 with that of other writers like Martineau, Lecky, and Pea- 
 
92 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 body, is usually termed that of perceptional intuition. 
 (See footnote s, page 64; also footnote ", page 66.) To 
 Butler, conscience, without being especially analyzed, 
 seemed a source of moral approbation and disapprobation, a 
 great regulative force governing, restraining, and directing 
 all the affections or passions. His general conceptions 
 have had great influence in molding opinion in modern 
 times, mainly, probably, because of their tendency to har- 
 monize practically the results of intuition, whether rational 
 or emotional, with those of experience, however derived or 
 developed. This fact became evident in the writings of 
 Theodore Jouffroy (i 796-1 842), the chief of the followers of 
 Victor Cousin (i 792-1 867) , founder of what has been termed 
 the French Eclectic School of Philosophy, intended to recon- 
 cile idealism, like that of Berkeley and some of the Germans, 
 with materialism, like that of Hobbes and Locke. Jouffroy, 
 in an introduction to a French translation of Dugald Stew- 
 art's (1753-1828) Moral Philosophy pleaded for the equal 
 claims of the facts of consciousness and of experience, both 
 being related, as he showed later in his Lecturers on Moral 
 Philosophy, to his general proposition — ^not entirely unlike 
 that of the ancient Stoics (see page 74) — that right is con- 
 formity to order as manifested in nature, a conception 
 suggesting that of Nicholas Malebranche (1638-1715) and 
 involving in some regards the same general principle as is 
 expressed by Butler in his Analogy of Religion. 
 
 Undoubtedly both Shaftesbury and Butler were directed 
 toward their ethical theories by the precepts of their form of 
 religion, and also by a perception of the non-selfish tend- 
 ency of all mental promptings; and a similar statement 
 might be made of many of their followers. At the same 
 time, philosophically considered, it is proper to attribute to 
 the combined influence of these two men the recognition, 
 among large numbers of more recent writers upon ethics, 
 of the emotional in addition to the rational influences at the 
 basis of morality. For instance, in the Essays on the Intel- 
 lecttuil Faculties and the Active Powers, by Prof. Thomas Reid 
 (1710-1795), the Elements of Morality, by Prof. William 
 Whewell (1794-1868), and The Divine and Moral Govern- 
 ment, by President James McCosh (1811-1894), the con- 
 ceptions of all of whom are allied in most other regards to 
 those of rational intuitionism, we find the source of obligation 
 attributed in part to feeling, i. e., to "moral sense" — ^in the 
 
THE EMOTIONAL BASIS OF MORALITY 93 
 
 case of Whewell to "sentiment." Many other writers we 
 find, like Shaftesbury himself in his Inquiry, terming the end 
 toward which effort should be directed benevolence, as in 
 The Science of Duty, by Prof. H. N. Day (1808-1890), the 
 Theory of Morals, by R. Hildreth (i 807-1865), the Moral 
 Philosophy, of President J. H. Fairchild (1817-1902), and 
 the Theory of Good and Evil, by Canon Hastings Rashdall 
 ( 1 858-), though the latter by no means accepts Shaftesbury's 
 conception of moral sense. Sometimes we find used the 
 terms, sympathy, love, or love of being, as in the Theory of 
 Moral Sentiment, by Adam Smith (1725-1790), The 
 Nature of Virtue, by Jonathan Edwards (i 703-1 758), The 
 Law of Love and Love as a Law, by President Mark Hopkins 
 ( 1 802-1 887), and Problems in Ethics, by Prof. J. S. 
 Kedney (1819-1911). Even the exceptional views of Mrs. 
 P. E. Fitzgerald, in her Rational Ideal of Morality, whose 
 whole discussion seems to be based upon a spiritualizing of 
 the sexual relations, might be placed in the same category. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 MODERN ETHICAL THEORIES CONTINUED : TELEOLOGICAL, UTIL- 
 ITARIAN, EVOLUTIONARY, AND SELF-REALIZATION THEORIES 
 
 Teleological Theory — Association with it of the Functional Theory, or 
 Fitness — Connection between Fitness and Results of Experience — 
 Hedonism and Eudaimonism of Bentham — UtiUtarianism — Its 
 Accord with Pragmatism and Common Sense — Evolutionism and 
 Energism — Intuitions and Instincts as Results of Experience and 
 Inheritance — ^As a priori Natural Impulses — ^What Evolutionism 
 Leaves- Unsolved. — The Self -Realization Theory versus Evolu- 
 tionary Materialism — ^A Recognition of the Importance of Non- 
 selfish as Contrasted with Selfish Motives — Modem Development of 
 the Spiritual Ideal in Self -Realization — This Conception not new, 
 but widely Accepted only in our Time — Parallelism between it, and 
 the Acceptance by Pragmatism of the Ideal as the True — High 
 Moral Intent of this Conception ; but not philosophically Derived — 
 Nor practically Satisfactory. 
 
 MOST of the writers mentioned near the close of the 
 preceding chapter could be classed as accepting 
 not only the conception of benevolence as the end 
 of moral effort, but at the same time also the teleological 
 theory, this latter being the theory in accordance with 
 which the choice of some moral end is essential to the deter- 
 mining of a moral act. In the degree, however, in which 
 the sympathetic seems to a writer to have a less powerful 
 tendency toward morality than does the rational, the end 
 sought, instead of being termed benevolence, is likely to be 
 described in such terms as the common good, welfare, and, 
 with a suggestion of the conception of self-realization, to be 
 mentioned on page lOO, the perfect development of life, or per- 
 fection. One or more of these ends we find emphasized in 
 The Elements of Ethics, by Professor N. K. Davis (1830-), 
 A System of Ethics, by Professor Frederick Paulsen (1846- 
 1908), The Theory of Morals, by Professor Paul Janet 
 (1823-1899), The Manual of Ethics, by Professor J. S. 
 
 94 
 
FITNESS 95 
 
 Mackenzie (i860-), The Elements of Ethics, by Professor 
 J. H. Muirhead (1855-), and A Study of Ethical Principles, 
 by Professor James Seth (i860-). 
 
 There is always a tendency wherever moral results are 
 traced to intellectual processes other than those of intuition, 
 to include among them such as are derivable from obser- 
 vation and experience. This leads to a conception of the 
 end of moral action that suggests at once the functional 
 theory of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle mentioned on page 
 72 . One term used to express this conception is fitness, — the 
 fitness of an action for the circumstances, the occasion, or 
 the object in view. We find the term among other places in 
 The Elements of Moral Science, by President Francis Way- 
 land ( 1 796-1 865), and in the Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 
 by Professor A. P. Peabody (1811-1893). It appears even 
 as early and notwithstanding its association there with 
 the innate theory of conscience, as in The Unchangeable Ob- 
 ligations of Natural Religion of Samuel Clarke (1675-1729). 
 
 Fitness cannot be ascribed to any action that is not con- 
 sidered in relation to external surroundings, and to their 
 influence upon it. For this reason, there is only one step — 
 though sometimes it is a long step — between this conception 
 and that which associates mental results, even though 
 distinctively moral, with the influences of material and 
 physical circumstances. Owing in part to this fact, but 
 more to the natural reaction which is apt to manifest itself 
 whenever in theory morality seems to be made too exclus- 
 ively a matter of reasoning, we find very soon after the 
 period of Cudworth and his followers mentioned on page 79 a 
 revival of Greek hedonism tracing morality to the results of 
 pleasure and pain experienced in the physical body (see 
 page 70) ; and, at almost the same time, of eudaimonism, 
 which may be said to trace it to the results of the same 
 experienced in the mental nature (see page 73). 
 
 Both these theories were advocated at different times by 
 Jeremy Bentham (i 748-1 838), author of an Introduction to 
 the Principles of Morals and Legislation (see footnote ", 
 on page 66). He maintained that moral conceptions result 
 from what man has learned from experiencing pleasure and 
 pain. In one regard, this theory involved ascribing obliga- 
 tions to an intellectual source, — to processes of induction 
 and inference ; but in another regard, to a sensational source, 
 — to agreeable or disagreeable feelings. The theory, there- 
 
96 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 fore, traced obligation to both rational and emotional 
 influences^ But of these all were the results of experience. 
 In a later book, Bentham, evidently desirous of not ignoring 
 the conception of mental non-selfishness, developed what is 
 termed the "greatest happiness theory," — the theory that 
 the morally right is the obtaining of the greatest happiness 
 for the greatest number. In his Dentology, too, he began to 
 indicate further distrust in the absolutely satisfactory char- 
 acter of his earlier conceptions by using in place of Happiness 
 as a motive to action, the term utility. Archdeacon Wil- 
 liam Paley (i 743-1 805), following the lead of Bentham, 
 maintained in his Elements of Moral and Political Philosophy 
 that, "Virtue is the doing good to mankind in obedience to 
 the will of God for the sake of eternal happiness." He is 
 usually represented as attributing obligation to self-interest; 
 which, to him, of course, would mean enlightened self- 
 interest. 
 
 The general theory of Bentham was adopted and very 
 ably defended, as well as amplified, by James Mill (1773- 
 1836) in his Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, 
 by Alexander Bain (1810-1877) in his Mental and Moral 
 Philosophy, and by John Stuart Mill(i8o6-i879) in his Utili- 
 tarianism, — a term which, as applied to ethics. Mill claims, 
 in his autobiography, to have originated. 
 
 Henry Sidgwick too (1838-1900), in his Methods of Ethics, 
 after arguing in favor of the intuitional theory as applied 
 to the action of conscience, says, in Book III. , Chapter XIV. : 
 "The intuitional method, rigorously applied, 3delds as the 
 final result the doctrine of pure Universalistic Hedonism, — 
 which it is convenient to denote by the single word, Utili- 
 tarianism." Comte's Positive Philosophy ends similarly. 
 
 In this theory there is, of course, much to commend. 
 Like the teleological it can be traced back to, if not through, 
 the functional criterion of the three greatest Greek ph3o- 
 sophers (see page 72) ; and of all theories it is the one most 
 logically deducible from that most modern of philosophical 
 methods which we find in pragmatism. If, as this latter 
 system maintains, we can judge of the truth in any depart- 
 ment by that which it can do, or, as in the case of any ideal, 
 by that which it is worth to the one who adopts it, the 
 criterion of utility can certainly be applied to morals. 
 Moreover, it conforms to the requirements of idealists, not 
 only, but of those who have merely common sense. To 
 
UTILITARIANISM 97 
 
 quote from Chap. XIII., Sec. 2, of the Ethics of (John) 
 Dewey (1859-) and (J. H.) Tufts (1862-), "the positive 
 truth for which Bentham and Mill stand is that the moral 
 quality of any impulse or active tendency can be told only 
 by observing the sort of consequences to which it leads in 
 action"; and this conception, so far as it goes, is true; but 
 there are also other conceptions not necessarily included in it 
 that are equally true. 
 
 The teleological, hedonian, eudaimonian, and utilitarian 
 theories have all been greatly strengthened of late years by 
 the influence of modem evolutionism. The logical ten- 
 dency of this theory, as most of us will recognize, is to 
 ascribe ethical, as well as other forms of mental develop- 
 ment, to the operation of the same laws to which the theory 
 attributes the more intelligent characteristics of insects, 
 birds, and beasts, — in other words to the results of ex- 
 perience. The conception, which is almost identical with 
 that of Locke, is that men, whether considering their own 
 actions or the actions of others with whom they have 
 friendly or hostile relations, learn what to do or what not 
 to do by noticing the pleasure or pain that seems to accom- 
 pany certain cotu^ses of action. Most evolutionists would 
 probably agree with Herbert Spencer (1830-1903), who, 
 in Chapter III. of hisZ>ato of Ethics, declares the "ultimate 
 moral aim a desirable state of feeling called by whatever 
 name — gratification, enjosonent, happiness." 
 
 With reference to the origin of the sense of obligation 
 which prompts effort to attain this end, however, evolu- 
 tionary writers show less agreement. {See their definitions 
 of conscience. Footnotes ■• and ", pages 63 and 65.) Prob- 
 ably the most popular view among them is the view suggested 
 by the large number of instincts that seem to be derived 
 from inheritance, — like one, for instance, which prompts a 
 dog that has always lived in a house to make the motions 
 with his nose of covering with sand a bone that he wants to 
 keep. Some therefore attribute all instincts and, because 
 resembling instincts, all intuitions in a man to results of 
 the same kind, — ^results that are owing to one's own pre- 
 vious actions or to those of his forebears. It is argued that 
 these actions have cultivated habits of body or of mind 
 of which ordinarily no one is conscious; but that, when 
 they are needed, it is they, and therefore methods originally 
 acquired by experience that reveal themselves in what men 
 
98 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 term instinct and intuition. This conclusion is supposed to 
 accord with statements like one made by Charles Darwin 
 (1809-1882) in Chapter IV. of his Descent of Man. The state- 
 ment, by the way, is not without suggestion of the concep- 
 tion with reference to the moral import of the consciousness 
 of conflicting desires that has been presented in this volume. 
 Darwin says, "A struggle may often be observed in animals 
 between the different instincts, or between an instinct and 
 some habitual disposition, as when a dog makes after a 
 hare, is rebuked, pauses, hesitates, pauses again, or returns 
 ashamed to his master." In this struggle between an ac- 
 quired habit of will and an original natural impulse Dar- 
 win recognizes the beginnings of conscience. 
 
 It is important to notice, however, that Darwin does not 
 deny that, in connection with the development of conscience, 
 there is an original natural impulse. In Chapter III. of 
 the same book he speaks of " A short and imperious ought," 
 and the "consciousness of the existence of a persistent 
 instinct." Indeed, not only Darwin but about all his 
 more prominent followers have acknowledged the existence 
 of this. Professor Frank Thilly (i 865-) of Cornell University, 
 in Chapter II., Section 4, of his Introduction to Ethics, says 
 that "Spencer concedes the presence of an a #non element, 
 and denies that conscience is merely an acquisition of individf 
 ual experience." "According to Spencer, the essential trait 
 in the moral consciousness is the control of some feeling or 
 feelings by some other feeling or feelings." These are "not 
 of supernatural origin, but of natural origin." "With this 
 theory," he adds, "the views of M. Guyan, Leslie Stephen, 
 B. Carrieri, H. Hoflding, G. von Gizycke, R. von Shering, 
 W. Wundt, T. Paulsen, S. Alexander, Hugo Munsterberg, 
 Paul R^e, Georg Simmil, and A. Sutherland practically 
 agree." 
 
 Not a few of them too, like Darwin and Spencer, would 
 go further than this, and agree with the statement of their 
 sympathetic critic. Professor T. H. Huxley, in his essay on 
 Evolution and Ethics, that "The practice of that which is 
 ethically best . . . involves a course of conduct which, in 
 all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in 
 the cosmic struggle for existence." It will be noticed that, 
 according to this acknowledgement, the principle exempli- 
 fied in the evolutionary theory may be applied differently 
 to physical and to psychical development. Why is this so ? 
 
SPIRITUAL THEORY OF ETHICS 99 
 
 The answer (see J. M. Baldwin's Darwin and the Humani- 
 ties, Chap. III.) is that "there are stages of transition 
 between . . . the physical fitness required for" the in-- 
 dividual "and the social fitness required for" the group. 
 "The group, for its struggle, requires organization" and 
 ' ' utility for the group presupposes self-control and altruism. ' ' 
 This view, by separating social requirements from inner 
 individual causes seems to introduce an illogical change 
 into methods of evolution. The theory on pages 32-34 
 avoids this change by associating human mental desires 
 with animal a priori impulses (page 98) whose psychical 
 beginnings antagonize effects of the physical principle of 
 "the survival of the fittest." 
 
 This latter principle, if supposed to indicate the re- 
 lations that should exist between man and man, would 
 justify savagery and warfare. The recognition of this fact 
 has probably had not a little influence in causing the popu- 
 larity in recent years of what may be termed the self-realiza- 
 tion theory. This theory is related by way of reaction to the 
 evolutionary in a way and degree parallel to that in which 
 Platonism, Stoicism, neo-Platonism, and Christian Mysti- 
 cism were related to the various forms of hedonism or 
 Epicureanism which they followed. The theory recognises 
 clearly that tiie methods applicable to material or bodily 
 conditions are not applicable to conduct; that the greatest 
 physical or material success in every sense may be attained 
 when a man is brutal, tyrannical, and inconsiderate; but 
 that spiritual success, which is necessary when conduct is 
 involved, can never be attained except when one is the 
 opposite; that the unselfish conceptions and the broad out- 
 look necessary to the attainment of the highest morality 
 can never he the outgrowth of that alone which is merely 
 the selfish narrowness characteristic of an influence essen- 
 tially physical. 
 
 The most important of the books that have been written 
 as a result of this conception is the Prolegomena of Ethics, 
 by Professor T. H. Green (i 836-1 883) of Oxford Univer- 
 sity. This author distinguishes clearly between that which 
 works in the bodily and in the mental. He says, in Book II. 
 A., "The one divine mind gradually reproduces itself in the 
 human soul. In virtue of this principle in him, man has 
 definite capabilities, the realization of which . . . forms his 
 true good. They are not realized, however, ... in any 
 
lOO ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 life that has been, or is; . . . yet . . . the idea of lus 
 having such capabilities ... is a moving influence in 
 him. ... As his true good is or would be their complete 
 realization, so his goodness is proportionate to his habitual 
 responsiveness to the idea." This conception of self- 
 realization i.e., of making real the ideal of the better or 
 spiritual self — has taken a strong hold among many of the 
 more modem students of ethics. As expressed by F. H. 
 Bradley (1846- ) in Essay II. of his Ethical Studies, "In 
 morality, the existence of my mere private self as such is 
 something which ought not to be. . . . Realize yourself 
 as the self-conscious member of an infinite whole by realiz- 
 ing that whole in yourself." 
 
 This general thought thus expressed is not entirely new. 
 Like so many other important ideas apparently originated in 
 our own time, it was at least suggested by the great philos- 
 ophers of ancient Greece. According to Xenophon in his 
 Memorabilia, III., 8, Socrates declared self-knowledge to be 
 the good end for which man should strive, and in Book X., 
 Chapter VII., of the Ethics of Aristotle we are told that "the 
 supreme good is not pleasure nor honor nor wealth but happi- 
 ness and independence which consists in the exercise of rea- 
 son or self-sufficiency." In our own times, the effect of 
 this conception upon ethical thought has been very great. 
 It finds expression in many different treatises which in 
 other regards are by no means similar; for instance, in the 
 Methods of Ethics by Professor Henry Sidgwick (1838- 
 1900) of Oxford; the Manual of Ethics by Professor J. S. 
 Mackenzie (i860- ) of the College of South Wales; the 
 Elements of Ethics by Professor J. H. Muirhead (1855- ) 
 of Birmingham University; A Study of Ethical Principles 
 by Professor James Seth (i860- ) of Edinburgh Univer- 
 sity; the Introduction to Ethics by Professor Frank Thilly 
 (1865- ) of Cornell University; The Philosophy of Conduct 
 by Professor S . A. Martin ( 1 853- ) of Lafayette College ; and 
 Self-Realization, an Outline of Ethics by Professor H. W. 
 Wright (1878- ) of Lake Forest College. 
 
 Even modem pragmatism, notwithstanding its logical 
 acceptance of utilitarianism which was mentioned on page 
 96, has not escaped endeavors to conform the term "seB- 
 realization" to its requirements. To quote from Professor 
 W. R. B. Gibson (1869- ) of Melbourne University in 
 Lecture VIII. of his Philosophical Introduction to Ethics, 
 
SELF-REALIZATION THEORY OF ETHICS lOI 
 
 "This is the central conviction of pragmatism . . . that 
 nothing is real to us except in so far as we realize it. . . . 
 The concretest and most fundamental expression of self- 
 consciottSness is the postulate. ... A postulate is an 
 idea that has matured its motor-factors, an idea in the 
 attitude of self-realization of working itself out. In this 
 sense it seems to me almost if not quite identical with the 
 motive in Green's use of the term as a self-appropriated 
 motive, the motive with which the self has identified itself." 
 This postulate is " an end or ideal of action accepted by the 
 iridividual's practical consciousness as a right of its own 
 moral nature, transmuted into a moral imperative. The 
 demand for perfection is . . . for that which can harmon- 
 ize the whole of life, and stand all tests." 
 
 Few can fail to recognize the high moral intent of the 
 conception of life and of the aim of the individual in life 
 that is brought out in The Prolegomena of Ethics. But to 
 this conception considered as a complete statement of the 
 whole of a man's duty, there are three philosophical objec- 
 tions. One has to do with itslogical premise and the others 
 with its practical results. The premise is not grounded upon 
 a proved fact, but upon a supposition, or, at most, a deduc- 
 tion. That there is One Spirit pervading and animating 
 every human agency of intelligence is the testimony of faith 
 and, as many think, of revelation; and a religious sect, like 
 that termed Christian Science, may be justified in accepting 
 the testimony as a suggestion or confirmation of its system 
 of doctrine. But a philosophical system should start with 
 facts that can be known, and facts with reference to the 
 mind cannot become known except by searching for them, 
 in part at least, in consciousness. The existence of one 
 spirit influencing all in the way indicated in the Prolegomena 
 may be inferred from the facts of consciousness; but it is not 
 itself discoverable there. 
 
 Again, two practical results of this conception are not 
 satiflactory. The first of these results will become evident 
 upon noticing again the quotation from Professor Green 
 on page 99. In referring to the definite capabilities, the 
 realization of which forms "a man's true good," he says, 
 "they are not realized in any life that has been or is." Here 
 is a chance for the same separation between theoretic and 
 practical ethics as is attributed on pages 80-84 of this vol- 
 ume to the moral philosophy of Kant. The truth seems to be 
 
102 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 that aman can possess no ideal that will greatly benefit him, if 
 at the same time, he believes in his heart that it is impos- 
 sible for him to realize it. This is the case even though he 
 may believe it possible to realize it in a future spiritual 
 state of existence, though not in the present. Ideas cause 
 immediate action in the degree of their seeming to be 
 immediately attainable. The moment that this statement 
 is accepted, it leads on to the second reason why the 
 practical results of the conception are unsatisfactory. They 
 are so because the ideal presented by it to the mind is not 
 inclusive of all a man's obligations ; and, therefore, even when 
 explained as meaning the realization not of the lower but 
 of the higher self, it manifests a tendency in the direction 
 of more or less narrowness of vision. It is simply not true 
 that every duty of a human being clothed in a physical 
 body with physical surroundings can be fulfilled by regard- 
 ing solely his relations to the spiritual life of which man is a 
 part and partner; and much less by regarding solely his 
 relation to this spiritual life as embodied in his fellow men. 
 This general subject is discussed in Chapter X. of the present 
 volume. Here it is sufficient to remind the reader that, 
 while a Stoic like Marcus Aurelius in Book VIII. of his 
 Meditations, could say "work in harmony with the universal 
 intelligence as your breath does with the air," he, or, at 
 least, great numbers of his fellow Stoics, could deem it not 
 logically inconsistent with so sublime a sentiment to culti- 
 vate indifference to human suffering and disregard of human 
 necessities. The same has been true of others holding a 
 similar theory as manifested in asceticism, mysticism, and 
 other allied conceptions. So long as a man lives in a world 
 partly physical as well as mental, he must be under certain 
 obligations to his body; to the opinions which he forms with 
 reference to his bodily surroundings and the rights that 
 accrue to him in view of them. So long, too, as he possesses 
 individuality, it is incumbent upon him to regard, in some 
 degree, and not to neglect wholly, even for the purpose of 
 serving others, this body of his and these opinions and rights. 
 His principle of action should be to love his neighbor not 
 better than himself but as himself. Lev. 19:18. Of course, 
 all this is practically acknowledged by the most of those 
 who think that they accept the theory of the Prolegomena; 
 but the question under discussion now is not what they 
 practically acknowledge but what is the legitimate logical 
 
SELF-REALIZATION THEORY OF ETHICS IO3 
 
 conclusion to be drawn from their theory. Only when this 
 question has been answered, can one feel assured that the 
 theory itself has been treated in a way that is philosophically 
 satisfactory. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MORALITY ATTRIBUTED TO THINKING, FEELING, OR BOTH, 
 
 WHETHER THROUGH INTUITION, INSTINCT, REASONING, 
 
 OR OBSERVING 
 
 Summary of our Review of Ethical Theories — The Attributing of Right 
 Conduct to Thinking, through Intuition or Reasoning — How this 
 Fails to Accord with the Testimony of Consciousness — Moral 
 Influence of Thinking alone upon Practical Results — Upon Philo- 
 sophic Theory — The Attributing of Right Conduct to Feeling 
 whether Resulting from Instinct or Experience — Arguments for and 
 against this Conception — Its Influence upon Practical Results — 
 Upon Philosophic Theory — The Attributing of Right Conduct to 
 Thinking and Peeling in Combination — The Necessary Conditions 
 underlying this Conception. 
 
 OUR brief review of the principal ethical theories has 
 shown us that their advocates have not failed, 
 either singly or collectively, to emphasize most of 
 the important facts with reference to their subject. Their 
 failures, so far as this word may be justly used, have been 
 owing to errors in determining the proportionate amount 
 of consideration that should be given to these facts, — in de- 
 termining which of them should be treated as ftmdamental, 
 which as of slight importance, and which should be entirely 
 ignored. The theories have been shown to dififer, first of 
 ^1, in this, — that some of them, like institutionism when 
 broadly interpreted, attribute the primary source of obli- 
 gation and usually too the end toward which its fulfillment 
 should be directed, to what may be said to come from outside 
 the man i.e., to what he has observed in his surroundings, 
 as in the manners and customs of society and in the laws 
 of government; and that some attribute the same to what 
 may be said to come from within the man i.e., to his own 
 thoughts and to what, in a popular sense may be termed his 
 feelings. This distinction applies, of course, merely to in- 
 
 104 
 
MORALITY ATTRIBUTED TO THINKING 105 
 
 fluences supposed to be primary. It could not apply to those 
 acknowledged to be secondary. It needs to be noticed also 
 that of those who attribute the primary source or end of ob- 
 ligation, or both of these, to what may be said to come from 
 within the man, some ascribe it to his thinking, some to his 
 feeUng and some to the combined effects of both of these. 
 
 We have already, on pages 62 and 86-89, considered the re- 
 sults of extreme and exclusive institutionism. It will not be 
 necessary, therefore, to mention these results again except 
 incidentally. But with reference to the practical workings 
 of the other theories — those that associate obligation with 
 what is supposed to originate within the man — it seems im- 
 portant here that something more should be said. Let us 
 notice, first, the theories that attribute moral influences to 
 his thinking. These theories range all the way from those of 
 extreme intuitionists to those of extreme empiricists. The 
 intuitionists hold either that the right and wrong in certain 
 cases, like those of theft and cruelty, are recognized by reason 
 intuitively, and in such a way that among all men its judg- 
 ments are virtually the same; or else they hold that right 
 and wrong are determined by using intuition in the same 
 way in which it is used in other cases; i. e., when associated 
 with the action of the other reasoning powers. The em- 
 piricists ascribe a knowledge of right and wrong to what 
 one can apprehend or argue to be for his own good, either 
 because of his individual experience of the pleasurable or 
 painful results of his own actions, or because of what he 
 has learned of these results — from the sayings or doings, 
 including the enacted laws, of others. 
 
 Concerning the theories of all, whether intuitionists or 
 empiricists, who ascribe ethical influences to mere think- 
 ing, the first fact to be observed is that their conception of 
 doing right does not accord with that of which many men 
 seem to be conscious, and of which they prefer to think that 
 other men are conscious. Apparently, few can be com- 
 pletely satisfied with themselves when they are consciously 
 disregarding feeling, and acting solely from motives of 
 rationality, prudence, or calculation. Is it a fact that we 
 give expression to these latter, and to these alone, when in 
 the presence of those for whom we have affection or even 
 high regard? Do we admire others whom we suppose to be 
 always under the influence of such motives? Do we believe 
 that such motives alone can do all for ourselves or for others 
 
Io6 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 that is necessary in order that one should invariably do 
 right ? Does one exaggerate when he says that probably no 
 people are more thoroughly disliked, if not despised, by a 
 larger number of their fellows than those who convey the 
 impression of doing everything as a result not of feeling but 
 of intellectual insight or calculation ? Even though they may 
 do right, do not many of their fellows seem to think that this 
 is done in a wrong way ? People miss from such action that 
 which could give it vitality, — that which seems necessary in 
 order to make it represent the whole life of the man. How 
 can such action represent this, they ask, if feeling be a part 
 of life, and there be no evidence in what one says or does 
 of the influence within him of those most powerful feelings 
 which men term conscientiousness, sympathy, and love? 
 Of course men differ greatly with reference to the quality 
 and objects of the rational action which, according to them, 
 determine obligation. But whether they attribute it to the 
 work of intuitive reason, aimed for the most rational ends, 
 or to the result of worldly experience directed to the attain- 
 ment of personal advantage, the limitations suggested by 
 any theory that excludes the influence of the feelings seem 
 indisputable. 
 
 So far as a man acts upon the principle of doing only, or 
 even mainly, that which appears rational, he never will do 
 a large number of things which most people believe that 
 every true man ought to do. Why, if running no risk of 
 being discovered, should he refrain from lying, or cheating, 
 or stealing when, by doing so, he can benefit not only himself 
 but his family, his friends, his church, his nation? Why, if 
 it may threaten harm to his influence or personality, should 
 he help through controversy or conflict, the poor, the de- 
 spised, the wronged, the oppressed, the beaten? Why 
 should he sacrifice his reputation, his comfort, or his life, in 
 order to proclaim an unpopular truth, advocate a persecuted 
 cause, or die for a country? Why not keep his mouth shut, 
 turn traitor to his convictions, and run away to another 
 country? There is but one answer. It is because he is a 
 man true to himself, recognizing how essential is that part 
 of himself which gives him the feelings that men ascribe to 
 conscientiousness, humanitarianism, and public spirit. It 
 may not seem rational to become a martyr for a cause 
 or a nation, but he feels that it is right; and there is 
 nothing possible to merely the reasoning or calculating 
 
MORALITY ATTRIBUTED TO THINKING 107 
 
 powers of intellect alone that could account for such 
 feelings. 
 
 These practical conclusions with reference to the subject 
 are confirmed when we come to consider its theoretic as- 
 pects. Philosophically, it is difficult to conceive how any- 
 one can suppose that a mere recognition, either as a result 
 of instinctive perception or of reflective argument, that 
 certain actions are wise or right can account for the 
 sense or prompting of obligation. As Professor Frederick 
 Paulsen says in Book II., Chapter V. of his System of Ethics, 
 as translated by Frank Thilly, "The impulses are the weights 
 so to speak, which keep the clockwork of life in motion; the 
 reason cannot take their place It has no motive force of 
 its own" — a statement, that, as will be seen, accords exactly 
 with what was said on pages 36 to 50 of the present 
 volume with reference to the fact that desires — which 
 involve feelings — ^underlie all our mental processes. In- 
 tuition and reasoning have a great deal to do with right 
 action. But neither of the two is that which starts it, or 
 gives it an end to attain. When a man has a prompting of 
 conscience, the first thing that he experiences is a feeling. 
 When he is incited to betterment, the first thing that 
 touches his intellect comes through a sentiment or ideal ; and 
 both are widely acknowledged to be the results of thought 
 when influenced by emotion. Of the reasoning or calcu- 
 lation through which, subsequently, that which influences 
 him is developed into particular acts of conduct, he becomes 
 conscious later. 
 
 Let us turn then to feeling — still using this word in its 
 broad and popular sense — and observe how far the source 
 and results of the sense of obligation can be attributed 
 solely or mainly to it. As in the case of those who attribute 
 these to thinking, the advocates of this theory are numerous 
 and are distributed both among those who emphasize the 
 influence of instinct or intuition, and those who are empiri- 
 cists. The followers of Shaftesbury, for instance, who, as 
 was said on page 91 made feeling the basis of the "moral 
 sense" theory, are usually termed emotional intuitionists; 
 and the study of the influences of pleasure and pain upon 
 ethical development on the part of many modern evolution- 
 ists is a result of tracing obligation to emotion or feeling, 
 even though this is done through an empirical method. 
 
 On first thought, the attributing of the sense of ob- 
 
I08 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 ligation to feeling seems to conform to the ordinary con- 
 ceptions of the ordinary man much more closely than do the 
 theories attributing it to reason. Every child, and almost 
 every grown person, speaks of recognizing right and wrong 
 by conscience, and when he says conscience he is referring 
 to what is experienced within him as a feeling. One is 
 often asked, therefore, by what authority philosophy can 
 deny a condition of which almost everyone seems conscious. 
 The opponents of the theory say that it is because the feel- 
 ing is always accompanied by thought. Yes, says the other, 
 and so is every feeling. An inflammation of the little finger, 
 which calls attention to itself, is accompanied by thought; 
 lonesomeness and grief are accompanied by thought; yet 
 these facts do not render it impossible to separate the feel- 
 ing from the thought. But the feeling of conscience, says 
 his opponent, is authoritative; it must include something 
 more than feeling in order to convey a sens'e of obligation. 
 Every feeling of itself alone^ answers the other, conveys a 
 sense of obligation. If we disobey the promptings of taste, 
 and fail to masticate our food, we cannot digest it. If we 
 disobey the promptings of hunger and thirst, and fail to 
 swallow, we cannot live. The attributing of the sense of 
 obligation to a feeling in consciousness seems therefore to 
 have a certain justification. But when one comes to con- 
 sider the practical re'sults of ascribing it to this, either exclu- 
 sively or sometimes primarily, he finds reason to doubt the 
 theory. Many who admit that, at times, they do things 
 impulsively without calculation of the consequences, and 
 that these things turn out to be right, are not sure that they 
 were right because impulsive, or that they might not have 
 been wrong. Many too who have had much experience in 
 the world have noticed in themselves and in others influ- 
 ences that affect the mind through observation, association, 
 habit, custom, knowledge of facts or of human nature in 
 such ways as to modify results connected not only with 
 their own applications of these promptings, but with the 
 very nature of the promptings themselves. For instance, 
 many boys in Kansas would intuitively feel it wrong to 
 drink a glass of beer. Is it possible to conceive of a boy in 
 Bavaria who should feel the same? An American could 
 not conscientiously sink a passenger ship full of women and 
 children. A Prussian could. Anyone who admits these 
 to be facts must agree thus far with the theorists who 
 
MORALITY ATTRIBUTED TO FEELING 109 
 
 ascribe the sense of obligation in part to thinking, or to experi- 
 encing the effects of thinking, as distinguished from feeling. 
 A still stronger argument in favor of this latter view is 
 presented by the practical results that follow reliance upon 
 feeling alone as the criterion of right action. The most 
 common excuse for inconsiderateness. unkindness, mean- 
 ness, oppression, extortion, persecution, and massacre is 
 that the perpetrators of it were sincere, by which is meant 
 conscientious, — a word that has no relation to the subject 
 except so far as the one using it holds to the theory that 
 right is right, aside from all instruction or argument that 
 can develop the thinking powers directly or the intuitive 
 powers indirectly. It is because the savage is following his 
 instinctive or emotional promptings with reference to what 
 is right or wrong that he cheats or eats his enemies, and 
 multiplies or murders his wives. It is because some of the 
 Turks of to-day, as did some Christians of the fifteenth 
 century, trust solely in their emotional promptings respect- 
 ing conduct, that they are exterminating by fire and sword 
 those who differ from them in matters of mere information, 
 understanding, or association. It is because so many people 
 surrounding us believe in a sort of combination of a temper- 
 amental and a categorical imperative revealed through 
 feeling in such ways as to make the motive, irrespec- 
 tive of consequences, determine the ethical quality, that, 
 following the example of others, they are oppressive to their 
 employees, dishonest to their customers, cruel to their 
 children, snobbish to their neighbors, and, possibly in most 
 of the relations of life, are promoters of that which is evil 
 instead of good, and yet are little more doubtful about the 
 righteousness of their actions than they would be if they 
 were exceptionally considerate, just, kindly, democratic, 
 and public-spirited. The reason for this, of course, is that 
 the promptings of the feeHng which is supposed to be con- 
 science are not always, when considered in themselves alone, 
 truthful and wise. For instance, a friend of the author had a 
 romantic attachment for a woman whom, for good reasons, 
 he did not marry. Years after, when she had married 
 another, and he himself had married not very happily, he 
 lived near her home. He told the author once that when- 
 ever he met her, a feeling which only thinking enabled 
 him to distinguish from conscience constantly impelled him 
 to tell her what it seemed to him that she had a right to 
 
no ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 know, — namely, that she was the only woman whom he had 
 ever really loved, or could love. And, yet, if, in the cir- 
 sumstances, he had told her this, hardly any right-minded 
 man would not have felt justified in considering him a dis- 
 honorable sneak. 
 
 The theoretical as distinguished from the practical objec- 
 tions to assigning the sense of obligation to feeHng alone are 
 just as strong as those assigning it to thinking alone. Man 
 is a thinking being, and it is as such that anything that is to 
 influence him as a man should influence him. His feelings 
 would be of no use to him whatever unless, in some way, 
 they were connected with his thinking. 
 
 This statement brings us to what is to be said of the third 
 class of ethical theorists — those who assign the source and 
 end of the sense of obligation to the combined effects of 
 thinking and feeling. The first suggestion here is of practi- 
 cal obstacles to the application of the theory. It does not 
 seem fitted to prescribe the limits of the influence of thought 
 upon the one side or of feeling upon the other. As a result 
 there is no certainty that those who accept this view will 
 avoid the dangers attributable to either of the other theories. 
 Besides this, that tendency in the human mind to resolve all 
 possible conceptions into some single one that shall make a 
 unity of complexity, seems to be instinctively opposed to 
 giving approximately equal recognition to two sources of 
 influence. On account of this tendency, there are few 
 writers upon ethics, no matter how strenuously they may 
 claim to ascribe due consideration to the effects of both 
 thought and feeling, and to be misrepresented by those 
 affirming that they do not so ascribe them who have failed 
 to be classed as adherents of some theory, like that of 
 "utilitarianism" or of "moral sense," which they them- 
 selves did not intend to accept. 
 
 What is needed, therefore, in order to satisfy the demands 
 in ethics of both theory and practice is that the effects of 
 obligation shall be traced both to thought and to feeling, 
 but to each of these when acting in such a non-exclusive 
 way as to prevent either of them from being more in- 
 fluential proportionately than it should be. This, as will 
 be perceived at once, would ascribe obligation to a union 
 of thought and feeling, and yet a union of such a character 
 that the influence of neither would be exercised in any way 
 except conjointly with that of the other. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 CONSCIENCE, A CONSCIOUSNESS OF CONFLICT BETWEEN 
 DESIRES OF THE BODY AND OF THE MIND 
 
 Thinking and Feeling Are Both United in Human Desire — How Desires 
 of the Mind can be Made to Seem Authoritative— The Facts Fit 
 the Ordinary Conception of the Meaning of Conscience— The Func- 
 tion Assigned to Conscience here Is not Unimportant — Can this 
 Conception of it include all the Requirements of Conscience? — 
 Conscience is Primarily Felt within — Never Experienced except in 
 Connection with a Conflict between Higher and Lower Desires — 
 Even the Perversions of Conscience Show this — This Conception of 
 Conscience Follows Logically upon Modem Theories Concerning the 
 Subject — The Conception can be Reconciled with other Functions 
 of Conscience — Conscience as Related to the Choice of an End 
 toward which Obligation Inclines — Many Ethical Theories not Suf- 
 ficiently Comprehensive and Fundamental — Mental Control as an 
 Agency in the Stimulating of Mental Activity — In the Developing 
 of Intelligence — In the Recognizing of Spiritual Communality — 
 Summary of the View of Conscience here Presented — The Impor- 
 tance of Using all the Possibilities of Mind to Prevent, in Case of 
 Conflict with Bodily Influences, its Being Outweighed by them — 
 Difference between the Conception of Conscience Presented in 
 these Pages and other Somewhat Similar Conceptions. 
 
 IS it possible to find thought and feeling of the nature 
 described at the close of the preceding chapter, — 
 thought that is authoritative, yet not in such a way as 
 to interfere with the authority of feeling; and feeling that is 
 authoritative, yet not in such a way as to interfere with the 
 authority of thinking? Yes, they can be found — very 
 simply and naturally too — merely by observing the logical 
 development of the condition of mind already described 
 as being presented to a man in his first moments of con- 
 sciousness. On pages 5 and 6 it was said that this made 
 him aware of the impulses that are the beginnings of desires, 
 and that these, even if manifested in mere appetite differ 
 
 III 
 
112 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 from what we term appetite in a lower animal because, in- 
 asmuch as a man is a thinking being, we cannot conceive of 
 him, as we can of the latter as having an appetite wholly sep- 
 arated from thinking. A desire is therefore a combination 
 of the effects of both thought and feeling, — the very condi- 
 tion that has been shown to be needed in order to meet 
 the first of the requirements indicated on page no. The 
 second of the requirements was that thought and feeling 
 should be so combined as to render it inconceivable that 
 either should be exercised in any other way than by these 
 two when acting conjointly. This requirement would be 
 met because the only factors contributing to the result 
 would be desires; and every desire, as we have found, is a 
 combination of thought and feeling. 
 
 But how, it may be asked, could any combination of the 
 two, as represented in a desire, be made to seem authori- 
 tative? The answer is that, according to what has been 
 said already on page 59, the very first consciousness that 
 a man has is of desires, and, very soon too, of these not alone 
 but of these in conflict. Anyone conscious of conflict — to 
 repeat, because of its importance, what was said on page 56 
 must be conscious of inward unrest, disturbance, disorder; 
 and conscious, therefore, that the conflict ought to be made 
 to cease. A feeling that anything ought to be done involves 
 some feeling of obligation. But, in this case, the feeling is 
 enhanced, owing to the fact that the conflict is between 
 bodily desires, which a man possesses in common with the 
 lower animals, and mental desires, which are pecxiliarly 
 human. To the latter, therefore, according to a law of 
 nature (see page 58), he feels particularly obligated to give 
 expression. 
 
 In this case the facts seem to fit exactly the requirements 
 that most of us associate with conscience, — something that 
 arouses an individual sense of obligation, and, with it, 
 because it demands attention, awakens our rational powers, 
 acting sometimes intuitively and sometimes reflectively; 
 and may awaken also, because directing attention to an 
 outside end obtained as a result of experiment and experi- 
 ence, our empirical powers. In a way, too, this something, 
 that we have termed a sense of conflict that needs to be 
 ended, is imperative; and yet it is not necessarily dictatorial. 
 It does not always indicate exactly what a man should do, — 
 the form of action through which he should manifest his 
 
DESIRE COMBINES THOUGHT AND FEELING II3 
 
 sense of obligation. This is left to be determined by cir- 
 cumstances, — by the results of his own individual thinking 
 and observing. Whether, in considering conscience, one 
 regard its primary or its secondary effects, — the feeling and 
 thought that are combined constituents of the desires, or 
 the subsequent feelings and thoughts into which these 
 desires develop, — the presiimptive inference seems to be 
 inevitable. It is this, — that what we term conscience is 
 attributable to a consciousness that the desires of the body 
 and of the mind are in conflict. 
 
 But someone may ask: Can everything that men mean to 
 designate when they use the term conscience be traced 
 primarily to a simple experience like that of a consciousness 
 of conflict between two different classes of desire? Before 
 answering this question, it may be best, perhaps, to remind 
 the reader that the experience to which reference is here 
 made is by no means simple in the sense of having to do 
 with agencies insignificant in their sources or effects. It 
 would be difficult, if not impossible, to find anything in 
 human life more important than this conflict between im- 
 pulses that come from the body and from the mind; and if 
 conscience did no more than call attention to the existence 
 of the conflict, the almost superlative rank of the function 
 thus exercised could not be disputed. Even though one 
 did not have the testimony of consciousness in proof of the 
 fact, he might feel sure that a matter of such grave moment 
 would be emphasized by nature in such a way that it 
 would be impossible to overlook it. 
 
 It may be asked again whether this conception of con- 
 science is sufficient to cover all the requirements of the sub- 
 ject. Under conscience must we not include everything 
 that impresses us with a sense of obligation; and under this, 
 if influenced by intelligence, must we not include a choice of 
 the end toward which effort is directed, as well as of the 
 means which, at almost every stage of progress, become 
 themselves subordinate ends that must be chosen in order 
 to secure the attainment of the principal end? 
 
 The reader will recognize that these three questions refer 
 to two different subjects, — the same which, on page 61 were 
 stated to be the two about which there has been the most 
 divergence in ethical opinion. One question concerns the 
 source of obligation, and the other two the end toward 
 which conformity to it is directed. In answering the 
 
114 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 questions, therefore, it will be well to separate them. First, 
 then, does this conception of conscience cover all the 
 requirements of it considered as the source of the sense of 
 obligation? 
 
 It certainly does. In the first place, it would be difficult 
 to find anyone who, when mentioning particularly his 
 conscience, is not in his own mind referring to an agency 
 that he feels within him, — an agency that he is justified in 
 ascribing to the sphere of desire, inasmuch as the feeling, 
 though it may be stronger, appears to be exactly the same 
 in kind as that which he experiences in the case of any desire 
 or aversion. If he did not feel this agency, he might 
 speak of some other form of obligation ; but he would seldom 
 speak of conscience. As it is, a very small child recognizes 
 the agency, and knows what is meant when his attention 
 is directed to it. It is not philosophical to ignore a fact 
 which accords with the testimony of the consciousness of 
 almost everyone who understands exactly what that is to 
 which the term conscience, thus used, is intended to refer. 
 
 In the same place, this agency of that which is thus 
 termed conscience is never experienced except when there is 
 a consciousness of conflict between a higher and a lower 
 desire, — higher and lower respectively meaning, in the sense 
 explained on page 6, a more nearly or entirely mental and a 
 more nearly or entirely bodily desire. If one could con- 
 ceive of a person who never, in any circumstances, had 
 had experience of any but the highest desire, he could 
 conceive of one unable to understand what conscience is. 
 A man, all whose tendencies prompt him to honesty, and 
 who, therefore, is never conscious of those prompting him 
 otherwise, is seldom, so far as regards experience with refer- 
 ence to this subject, conscious that he has a conscience. A 
 man, who on the whole wishes to be upright, yet whose 
 desires are constantly prompting him to dishonesty, seldom 
 fails to feel what he calls his conscience. If he obey it, he 
 frequently deserves great credit for resisting his lower tend- 
 encies; but he needs to be careful, in such circumstances, not 
 to pride himself too much upon his achievement. It may be 
 that nothing, except considerations like those of the danger 
 of being detected, prevents him from theft. A boy who finds 
 a bicycle in front of his father's house and, without asking 
 any questions, begins to ride it, will be more and more 
 conscious of his conscience the farther he gets away, because, 
 
PERVERSIONS OF CONSCIENCE II5 
 
 while he desires to ride, he also desires not to trespass on the 
 possessions or the rights of others. But if, while riding it, 
 he happen to learn that it was left in front of the house as 
 a present to himself, he at once becomes free from any 
 consciousness of conscience because free from any con- 
 sciousness of conflict between desires. 
 
 Even the perversions of conscience bear analogous testi- 
 mony. These perversions are traceable sometimes to weak- 
 ness of intellect or of will, and, sometimes, to wickedness. 
 In the former case, when a man is conscious of this conflict 
 between desires, he may fail to end it by coming to a deci- 
 sion in favor of one or the other. He may treat the conflict 
 as if it were not something to which, as a practical man, he 
 ought to attend. He is in danger, therefore, of allowing the 
 condition to continue until, little by little, he becomes what 
 people term morbidly conscientious, even, sometimes, insane. 
 Every time two desires, however unimportant, conflict, he 
 associates the feeling that he experiences with that which he 
 has felt when considering a question concerning right and 
 wrong; and the weakly weighed conclusions that he reaches 
 tend little toward correct views of either. When per- 
 versions of conscience are due to wickedness, the man per- 
 sistently disregards the conflict of which, at an earlier 
 stage, he was forced to be conscious. As a consequence, 
 after a time, little by little, he becomes accustomed to dis- 
 regard it, and when this has become a habit, the sense of 
 conflict becomes so deadened within him that it exerts 
 no influence. He gratifies the first desire that comes to 
 him, no matter what may be its source or character. He 
 may cheat, steal, or even murder with no more compunction 
 of conscience than if he were giving milk to a newborn calf. 
 This deadening of conscience, as it is called, is sometimes 
 ascribed, by those who hold to the theory that it is a cate- 
 gorical imperative in the sense of being the voice of God in 
 the soul, to a supernatural and arbitrary punishment for 
 continued sin. It may be and probably is a punishment ; but 
 the theory that is now advocated does not make it either 
 supernatural or arbitrary, but merely a natural result such 
 as is common to all functions either of body or mind when 
 they are not kept in constant service. A bedridden man 
 loses the ability to walk. A constantly domineered slave 
 loses the ability to think for himself. ' A man who has, for 
 years, allowed the conflict between desires within him to 
 
Il6 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 have no efiEect upon him may do right on account of the 
 presence or espionage of others whom he fears to displease or 
 antagonize; but he is in danger of getting into a condition in 
 which he will not do right whenever certain that he is alone 
 — in other words, of his own initiative. In this condition he 
 will seldom be what is termed a man of honor. 
 
 An endeavor has been made to show that conscience is a 
 consciousness in the sphere of desire; and that it is a con- 
 sciousness of conflict there, because, when the conflict 
 ceases, the consciousness no longer exists. Now, let us 
 notice, in the third place, that this conception of conscience 
 follows logically upon the results of the most modern think- 
 ing with reference to the subject. A proof of this may be 
 found in all the quotations in the note beginning on page 54. 
 They all show that their writers recognize, but without 
 carrying their recognition to its logical conclusion, the con- 
 nection between conscience, or the sense of obligation, and 
 the struggle between the bodily and the mental. So with 
 the term self-realization. As explained on page 1 00, self, in 
 this term, means the mental or rational as contrasted with 
 the bodily or physical self. Notice, too, the view, more or 
 less representative, of that of many evolutionists, which is 
 quoted on page 98, from Darwin's Descent of Man. Here, 
 too, the struggle suggested is between the bodily and the 
 impulse from which the mental is supposed to evolve. 
 
 Now, having considered desires in conflict as the source of 
 the sense of obligation, let us, in accordance with what was 
 proposed on page 113, consider them as related to the end 
 toward which conformity to obligation should be directed. 
 The first thought suggested here is the impossibility of 
 separating the quality of a desire from that of the end 
 toward which it is directed. A desire is a desire for some- 
 thing. If it be right, in the circumstances, for one to 
 have this, then the desire for it is right; otherwise it is not. 
 In connection with this thought there is another suggested 
 by the particular subject with which we are now dealing. 
 The theory of this treatise is that mental influence is exerted 
 through activity manifested in the entire range of mental 
 possibility, this being begun, but merely begun, in the mental 
 desire of which we become conscious in conscience; This 
 desire, of itself, because it is a desire, involves in embryo, 
 according to what was said on page 6, both feeling and 
 thought, and because it is mental, it involves, according to 
 
CONSCIENCE AND ACTIVITY II7 
 
 what was said on page 20, feeling and thought that are both 
 rational and non-selfish. Therefore the end to which the 
 desire prompts must involve the same. Moreover, as, 
 according to what was said on page 12, desire is the primary 
 influence of which the mind is conscious, every other form of 
 activity of which it becomes aware must be considered 
 secondary. 
 
 The fact that this is so seems to have been vaguely, 
 though by no means clearly, recognized very often. It 
 apparently explains why so many find unsatisfactory the 
 ascribing of the source of obligation to the results of certain 
 single phases of mentality such. as are represented in the 
 teleological, utilitarian, or hedonic theories, or even in the 
 institutional or intuitional theories, as well as the ascribing 
 of the end toward which the fulfillment of obligation should 
 be directed to the attaining of certain single objects, like 
 personal advantage, the greatest happiness for the greatest 
 number, universal welfare, love, benevolence, perfection, or 
 self-realization. Not one of these theories seems to their 
 opposers to be based upon a conception that is sufficiently 
 fundamental. Some of them might be said to represent no 
 more than a secondary mental result developed from a pri- 
 mary mental desire. Unless the influence of the latter were 
 present, there might be an appearance of morality, but the 
 spirit needed in order to give it actual life would be absent. 
 
 In order to show clearly the truth of this statement, let us 
 notice the effect of subordinating, when necessary, bodily 
 desire to mental desire upon each of the three main methods 
 through which a man naturally gives expression to such 
 tendencies as are actuating him. These methods are those 
 of activity dominated by the will, of intellection dominated 
 by the cognitive faculties, and of emotion dominated by 
 what may be termed community-feeling. 
 
 As applied to activity, everybody admits that, as stated 
 on page 197, this is necessitated often in order to fulfill 
 mental desire, whereas it is not necessary in order to fulfill 
 bodily desire. A man can do wrong and remain indolent ; but 
 to do right, as a rule, necessitates more or less hard work. 
 Mental desire demands exceptional activity. Of itself, it can 
 arouse the energism (see page 57) that is needed in order 
 to obtain working results from other departments of the 
 mental nature. As indicated already on page 107, these 
 results cannot be ascribed to any sources that are connected 
 
Il8 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 with mere cognition. However greatly they might develop 
 one's understanding, sentiment, or judgment, they could not 
 prompt to action unless impelled by desire, nor to mental 
 action unless impelled by mental desire. And if mental 
 desire be needed, where could it reveal itself more clearly 
 than, just where it is making the most effort to subordinate 
 bodily desire; i. e., in what has been termed conscience? 
 Prompted to activity by this, intuition, or any other form of 
 intellection, may exert great influence upon moral character, 
 but it seems to be an error to consider this influence any 
 other than secondary. Without the struggle of mental 
 desire revealed in conscience, it might, and probably would, 
 be merely passive, not in any sense active. 
 
 As applied to intellection, it is difficult to conceive of 
 anj^hing that could so stimulate development in this as the 
 consciousness of the conflict that is constantly going on 
 between that which is lower and higher in one's nature, a,nd 
 the serious consequences in conception and conduct, both 
 to oneself and to others, in case the conflict is not brought 
 to a right termination. It is only necessary to recall that 
 the mental includes all in the rational nature that can be 
 distinguished from the animal nature, in order to recognize 
 that it includes every result not only of rational intui- 
 tion but of all other rational processes, whether influenced 
 chiefly by hedonic, eudaimonistic, teleological, or utilitarian 
 considerations. The conception of conscience which has 
 been presented here, although apparently depriving it of an 
 authority which it is questionable whether any thorough 
 examination can prove it to have, greatly enhances one's 
 estimate of the importance and extent of its influence 
 upon the whole structure of character. In this regard, 
 the conception is much the same as that of the writers 
 quoted in footnote ', page 63. Conscience is not something 
 that has to do with a part of a man. It influences the 
 whole of him. It is not like a limb that can be ampu- 
 tated, and yet leave the rest of the body as sound as ever. 
 One would suppose, to hear some people talk, that human 
 nature is a creation with dissipation below and religion 
 above, and morality half way between the two, like a plant 
 in a garden with dung about its roots and hot air about its 
 fruit; or, better, because of a lack of life, like the image in 
 Nebuchadnezzar's dream, with feet of clay and head of gold. 
 The truth is, however, that the desire of the mind which is 
 
CONSCIENCE AND COMMUNITY-FEELING II9 
 
 the cause of morality lies at the basis of everything that is 
 right in rational action. Morality is that for the produc- 
 tion of which, so far as one can judge by a study of a 
 man's nature — even without borrowing testimony from that 
 which is termed revelation — his whole human constitution is 
 designed, and therefore, as we may suppose, created. Ac- 
 cordingly, the thinker who tells us, with great assump- 
 tion of being able to distinguish between things different, 
 that either philosophy, science, or art has nothing to do 
 with morality, shows that he has a false conception of 
 it; or else has so little knowledge of the workings of the 
 htmian organism that anything that he may have to say 
 upon the subject is of very little importance. Unless the 
 leaders in these respective branches were, above all things, 
 conscientious in their investigations and explanations of 
 truth, or fact, or beauty, it would be impossible for the 
 world to make any progress worth while. No department 
 in any kind of endeavor can enlist a traitor more dangerous 
 to its interests than is an unconscientious workman. 
 
 As applied to community-feeling, by which term, as used 
 here, is* meant the psychical union — the unity of emotion, 
 thought, and purpose between one person and another or 
 others, the effect upon morality of subordinating bodily to 
 mental desire is still more marked than when applied to 
 activity and intellection. As brought out on page 20, bodily 
 desires, as a rule, seek the indulgence of bodily sensations, 
 and necessitate for this the exclusive possession of the object 
 of desire. It is impossible for one to eat or drink exactly 
 the same entity that another is eating or drinking. On the 
 contrary, mental desires perform their functions in the per- 
 ceptive organs of the brain that obtain what they wish not 
 from their own sensations but from what these sensations 
 are instrumental in enabling one to see or hear. Nor does 
 the fulfilling of these desires necessitate one' s own possession 
 of the object of sight or hearing. Very often, as when listen- 
 ing to a concert or observing a sunset, anyone else may 
 enjoy it to the full at the same time with oneself. These 
 conditions give a man a realization of the worth of things 
 that do not belong to himself, or if they be his own, a reali- 
 zation of the pleasure of sharing them with others. It will 
 be recognized, therefore, that the conception of conscience 
 in this book as that which gives one a consciousness of a 
 conflict between bodily and mental or rational desire, which 
 
I20 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 conflict can be satisfactorily ended so far only as the former 
 is made to harmonize with the requirements of the jitter, 
 necessarily involves, in certain circumstances, the con- 
 ception of the subordination of that which pertains merely 
 to self to that which pertains to another, or to others than 
 self. This is the truth underlying all those theories of ethics 
 that are based upon one's relation to his fellows. It per- 
 vades institutionism because customs and laws of society such 
 as are embodied in institutions are merely formal expres- 
 sions of the opinions and wishes of one's neighbors in his 
 own country or in other countries. The same conception 
 underlies those systems also in which the end of morality 
 is represented to be the expression of love, benevolence, 
 universal welfare, or that which obtains the greatest good for 
 the greatest number. The conception is equally evident 
 among those who emphasize in morality what is termed 
 spirituality — as in many of the quotations in the note begun 
 on page 54 and, in the peculiar form of it, expressed by T. H. 
 Green, which is criticised on page loi . There is an important 
 truth brought out in all these theories — but it is not the 
 whole truth, and for this reason considered practically, 
 each is deficient. Exclusive institutionism, because of its 
 tendency to extreme conservatism, may prevent the effects 
 of initiative and independence. Exclusive altruism, because 
 of its tendency to yield all to others, may prevent the effects 
 of personality and leadership; and exclusive spirituality, 
 because of its tendency to mysticism and asceticism, may pre- 
 vent the effects of social reformation and civic betterment. 
 For the same reason, the theories fail, when considered 
 philosophically. Each of them emphasizes exclusively only 
 a part of that which should be emphasized as a whole; 
 and which, if emphasized thus, would necessarily in- 
 volve the part. On pages 20-22 it is shown that what is 
 termed the mental or rational necessarily includes all that 
 nonselfish and nonegoistic consideration of others and of 
 their opinions, wishes, and welfare which constitutes the dis- 
 tinguishing characteristic of these theories. Of them, as of 
 those that emphasize particularly the need of activity and 
 intellection in one who would conform to the requirements 
 of morality, it may be said that they add nothing to that 
 which may be included in the conception that has been pre- 
 sented in this volume. Moreover, when, in Chapters XIII. 
 to XXIII., we come to consider the practical bearings of this 
 
HOW CONSCIENCE INFLUENCES THE MIND 121 
 
 conception upon the conduct of life as manifested in court- 
 ship, marriage, the family, school, society, business, indus- 
 try, and various forms and methods of government, we 
 shall find the differences between right and wrong sug- 
 gested in each case with a logical inevitableness which, as 
 the author believes, cannot be paralleled by the results 
 attained through an application of any of these other 
 theories. 
 
 To sum up in a few sentences that which has been unfolded 
 in the present chapter, it has been shown that the primary 
 source of obligation is conscience; and that conscience is a 
 mental consciousness making one aware, sometimes very 
 gently and sometimes very emphatically, that bodily desire 
 is interfering with, or — to use the phraseology already 
 employed — ^is in coiiflict with mental desire, and preventing 
 its fulfillment. This mental consciousness can not but have 
 an effect upon mental action, and the primary end to be 
 attained by this action is to cause this inward interference 
 or conflict to cease. Such a result follows when mental 
 desire is reinforced by mental action of any kind to such an 
 extent as to keep bodily desire subordinated to it. This 
 conclusion follows in accordance with what has been said, 
 not only in this chapter but in Chapter III., namely, that 
 mental desire underlies and may involve every possibility 
 of the mental nature, whether volitional, intellectual, or 
 emotional. The result, therefore, of the sense of obligation 
 of which one becomes aware in conscience, influences the 
 mind not primarily but ultimately in exact analogy with the 
 way in which any other experience may influence it, whether 
 coming from joy or sorrow, natural cause or accident, fire, 
 flood, or war. A man will do morally right, however far 
 from the absolute right his own ignorance or inexperience 
 may lead him, in the exact degree in which his own mind, as 
 a whole, working in accordance with all or any of its own 
 possibilities, succeeds, in case of conflict with bodily tenden- 
 cies, in outweighing them through the influence of that 
 which is naturally and necessarily associated with its own 
 higher tendencies. 
 
 Certain of the readers of this volume may consider this 
 theory identical with that of intuitionism or emotionalism, 
 or, at least, of emotional intuitionism, or moral sense (see 
 page 91) ; But this the author cannot concede. It seems to 
 him that the theory presented in this volume differs from 
 
122 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 these theories and from any of the others mentioned in this 
 Chapter in at least one characteristic. This is its endeavor 
 to explain all moral activities — though not the decisions — 
 of the mind, whether exercised by way of instinct, intuition, 
 reasoning observation or calculation, by tracing them to a 
 single conditioning source that is easily perceived and is 
 constantly operative. According to what has been said, 
 morality cannot be occasioned or developed by thinking 
 alone, nor by feeling alone. It needs the cooperation, in 
 every slightest detail, of these two processes of mind when 
 acting conjointly. This condition, however partly acknowl- 
 edged, is not recognized as indispensable in any theories 
 based exclusively upon the efiEects of institutions, fitness, 
 reason, intuition, or instinct, whether, acting according to 
 teleological, utilitarian, eudaimonian, or hedonic methods; 
 but it evidently cannot fail to exert a practical influence 
 wherever morality is attributed to efiEects wrought among 
 the desires. This is the case because every desire arises 
 from a combination of thought and feeling (see pages 6, 7, 8, 
 37, and 38); and all desires, taken together, underlie every 
 possible development of either of these two factors of men- 
 tal activity (see Chapter III.). 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 DESIRES OF THE MIND SHOULD NOT SUPPRESS, BUT SUB- 
 ORDINATE, DESIRES OF THE BODY 
 
 The Difficulty of Understanding or Applying the Principles Unfolded in 
 the Preceding Chapters — Two Possible Methods of Doing this — 
 The Method of Suppressing Physical Desires, or Asceticism — 
 Asceticism Wrong in Theory —Gratifying Physical Desire is Right — 
 Asceticism Detrimental in Practice — Unnecessary as a Preventive 
 of Evil — Illustrations — Easy Solutions of Moral Problems not the 
 most Satisfactory — Modem Efforts to Create Right Opinions on 
 this Subject — Bodily Desire should be Kept Subordinate — Impor- 
 tance of MentalDesire — But not to be Indulged to the Exclusion of 
 Bodily Desire — The Greek Conception of Moderation — Neither 
 Bodily nor Mental Desire Expressive of all of Nature's Demands. 
 — When these Demands are not Fulfilled, any Desire may Become 
 Overreaching — Overreaching Desires Tend to Irrationality and 
 Selfishness — Even though Primarily Mental — In Beings both 
 Bodily and Mental, the Desire of the One Needs to be Balanced 
 against that of the Other — Balance as an Agency in Keeping Up- 
 right — Complexity of the Problem of Morality — The Problem 
 Solved by Mental Action that is both Immediate and Dehbera- 
 tive — Adaptation to this Purpose of the Principle Underlying 
 what is Termed Ethical Harmony. 
 
 IT has been shown in the preceding chapters, that all of 
 the activities of the mind in willing and thinking begin 
 in the desires, and partake of the quality, whether 
 bodily or mental, of the desire with which they start; and 
 also that nature by making man the only being in the world 
 with a high mental development, seems to have indicated 
 that, in cases where these two classes of desires in him come 
 into conflict, the bodily needs in some way to be subordi- 
 nated to the mental. On first consideration, it might be 
 thought a simple thing for one to bring about this result. 
 But it is not. The bodily is often so blended in conscious- 
 ness with the mental that one's understanding has difficulty 
 in distinguishing between the two; and, even when they can 
 
 123 
 
124 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 be differentiated very clearly, he cannot always apply to a 
 complicated condition a principle that can be readily applied 
 to an elementary one. Because we experience no hesitation 
 in attributing to the body the feeling caused by a blow on 
 the head or an ache in the stomach, it does not follow that 
 we can decide just as readily to what we should attribute 
 the feeling caused by a slap on the cheek or a pang in the 
 heart: and, of course, there are thousands of cases involving 
 double relationships the unravelling of which would be 
 almost a thousand times more perplexing than of these. 
 The conditions therefore evidently demand further con- 
 sideration than has yet been given them. Let us continue 
 the subject in our present chapter. 
 
 What we wish to ascertain is the method through which 
 when it is necessary to subordinate the bodily to the mental, 
 this result can be produced; — not only, too, in simple but 
 in complicated cases. Every one will probably recognize 
 without argument that there can be only two ways of accom- 
 plishing such a result, — either one of the two desires or sets 
 of desires that are in conflict must be suppressed while the 
 other is allowed expression; or the two by some means must 
 both be allowed expression but in such ways as to be made 
 to work together. 
 
 Let us begin by noticing the former method; and, first, as 
 applied to bodily desires. These are traceable, as we have 
 found, to the lower part of a man's nature, and are mani- 
 fested in results involving physical indulgence and more 
 or less thoughtlessness or selfishness. It is only natural, 
 therefore, that many should hold the theory that the best 
 thing to be done with them is to suppress them. Not only 
 individuals, but whole communities in certain places and 
 ages have adopted this theory and tried to carry it into 
 practice. The theory underlies every system of asceticism. 
 There are thousands in India to-day who are called "holy" 
 not only by themselves but by others because they go 
 around without clothing or food except as they can beg 
 these from their neighbors. All through Europe during the 
 Middle Ages there were thousands, perhaps hundreds of 
 thousands, of Christian monks and nuns who were given 
 to fasting and to scourging themselves; and who were 
 almost as much of a nuisance and burden to the community 
 as are these holy men of India. Even in cases where 
 asceticism has not been adopted in whole, it has beet 
 
ASCETICISM 125 
 
 adopted in part, as by the Greek and Roman Stoics, the 
 medieval celebates and the Renaissance Puritans. In 
 many of our churches to-day there are people who have a 
 subtle feeling, which they cannot explain, but of which they 
 apparently cannot rid themselves, that any gratification of 
 bodily desire is wrong. 
 
 But is this true? Is the belief justified by the conditions 
 that we find in the world? It certainly is not. Every 
 sane interpretation of these conditions proves that the 
 physical desires were not meant to be suppressed. They 
 were meant to be gratified. Otherwise, the lessons that we 
 can derive from our own nature were intended to be men- 
 dacious. Other reasons, too, point in the same direction. 
 It is because men gratify their desires to eat and drink and 
 propagate, that they have health and strength and off- 
 spring; nor, when these desires have passed from primary 
 to secondary conditions, when the elementary consciousnes 
 of self may have developed into a tendency at least to 
 selfishness, are they meant to be wholly suppressed. A cer- 
 tain degree of self-love is necessary if one would do or be 
 anything in the world that is of high value. Without it a 
 man will have little of that ambition, enterprise, and dili- 
 gence that enable one to arrive at the head of the workshop, 
 warehouse, courthouse, statehouse, college, or church; and 
 few would cause their friends to feel gratitude or pride in 
 view of their achievements or careers. Business, society, 
 education, philanthropy, religion, and government need 
 leaders and where would be the leaders without those 
 possessed of personality strong enough to push them to 
 the front? When the Great Master of Nazareth de- 
 nounced the scribes, pharisees, and hypocrites of Judea, and 
 scourged the money changers and drove them out of the 
 temple, he showed himself to have been swayed by desire 
 physical enough to express itself forcibly through both 
 language and limb. (Jno. 2; 13-16.) 
 
 We may conclude, therefore, that the gratification of 
 bodily desire is not in itself wrong. But we can go further 
 than this. We can say that it is often right, because it can 
 be used as an agency to increase the strength and extend 
 the influence of mental desire. To think otherwise would 
 involve disregarding some of the clearest teachings of experi- 
 ence. The mental and the bodily are not brought together 
 in a man without some purpose. The way in which the 
 
126 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 fonner seems to be disciplined and developed by constant 
 contact with the latter affords for some the strongest possi- 
 ble argument in favor of a personal rational existence in a 
 life beyond the present. How can a man logically believe 
 in his right to separate the influence of the two unless he 
 believes in his right to commit suicide ? He might as wisely 
 slaughter a pair of useful horses because they needed con- 
 stantly to be controlled as, for a similar reason, to suppress 
 his far more useful bodily desires. 
 
 If this be true, it is no wonder that extreme asceticism 
 has always been joined to methods of thought and action 
 that have been detrimental to the community in which it 
 has been found. It has always been accompanied by a 
 great distrust in the inherent instincts of human nature; 
 and a disposition to oppose even the innocent tendencies of 
 these with extreme violence which has been a fruitful source 
 of cruelty and persecution. Even where opposition has 
 stopped short of these, the theory underlying asceticism has, 
 of itself, caused a great deal of depression and distress, 
 especially among the young. Some of them, if honest, have 
 been driven into skepticism or infidelity, and some, if dis- 
 honest, into pretense or hypocracy. Such results have 
 been occasioned by their recognizing that it is impossible for 
 them to live up to the standards prescribed by the com- 
 munity or by the church in which they find themselves. 
 They want to eat, drink, and be merry in a great many 
 different ways which someone declares to be wrong. These 
 may be wrong. A great many things in the worid are so; 
 but then again the particular phases of these that such 
 people desire may be right, and may seem wrong merely 
 because the standard by which they are judged was never 
 warranted by nature or meant to be attained by a natural 
 man. 
 
 The most remarkable thing about asceticism is that, 
 with all the discomfort that it brings to those who practice 
 it, and with all the evils that accompany its effects upon 
 others, it can be so easily proved to be unnecessary. Bodily 
 indulgence can be subordinated without suppressing bodily 
 desires; and, perhaps, more readily than if attempts be made 
 to suppress these. There have been innumerable cases 
 illustrating this fact. For instance, take the changes that 
 have been wrought in customs of society that once almost 
 necessitated very gross forms of gluttony and drunkenness. 
 
BODILY MAY INCREASE MENTAL GRATIFICATION 127 
 
 In the early ages of all nations — as among savages of our 
 own time — whoever went to a feast was expected to treat 
 himself very much as does a hibernating beartr3nng to take 
 in at one time enough to last him for a whole winter. The 
 man stuffed himself with food and got drunk to his utmost 
 possibility. Even in England, three hundred years ago, 
 one could not everywhere prove himself an appreciative 
 guest unless he came prepared to spend the last of the night 
 on the floor under the table. Why is it not so in our own 
 time? What has changed these old customs? One influ- 
 ence certainly — and many would consider it the most 
 important — has been the discovery made by people that, in 
 connection with bodily desires, mental desires can also 
 be indulged; and, besides this, that the latter, if associated 
 with the former but, at the same time, given priority, can 
 afford a degree even of physical gratification far more com- 
 plete and satisfactory, as well as more worthy of manhood. 
 These mental desires lead to what is termed good taste 
 manifested both in the seasoning of the food and in its 
 aesthetic setting, as shown in the linen, the porcelain, the 
 silver, the service, the flowers, the company, the dressing, 
 the gentlemen, the ladies. In a modern banquet, the appeal 
 through the eye and ear, to the mental nature, while it joins 
 with the appeal to the mere bodily nature, so overbalances 
 the latter that hardly one person out of a score would have 
 it suggested to him to think — much less to say — that he 
 was in the presence only of "food" or "feeders." Of 
 course, the glutton or the drunkard sometimes makes his 
 appearance amid such surroundings; but few fail to recog- 
 nize that he is out of place there. Of course, too, there are 
 tendencies to luxury and to other forms of self -indulgence in 
 modern banquets that need to be corrected through a more 
 extensive development of the influence of higher desire. 
 But the difference between them and the orgies of the 
 savage is sufficiently well marked to illustrate the principle 
 involved. 
 
 The same could be illustrated, too, from many improve- 
 ments that have taken place in other social directions. It 
 is to higher desires which have not suppressed but have 
 subordinated lower desires that we owe almost all the condi- 
 tions which we term, by way of distinction, those of civili- 
 zation, — not only the polite but the kindly courtesies of 
 ordinary intercourse, the agreeable cleanliness and the 
 
128 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 attractive surroundings of homes and schools, the public 
 games, concerts, pageants, and other entertainments that 
 afford recreation to exhausted energy, the literary and social 
 gatherings, and the institutions of marriage, and of the 
 church so far as the latter appropriates the influence of 
 beauty in ritual, music, or architecture. Not one of these 
 results would have been possible if, in the Middle Ages, the 
 world had been led to accept and to try to realize the ideal 
 of the ascetic monk with his empty stomach, his starved 
 face, his foul clothing, or his unwashed body. 
 
 It seems a simple and easy solution of moral problems to 
 say, in case an action tends to the wrong, " Suppress it alto- 
 gether." But a solution may not be satisfactory for the 
 very reason that it is simple and easy. Many a problem in 
 geometry could be solved by drawing a line across a figure, 
 as guided by the eye alone. But, if so solved, the object of 
 presenting the problem would not be attained. So with 
 moral problems. To suppress all actions tending to the 
 wrong, would involve suppressing about all that there is in 
 one's entire bodily nature. What bodily desire is there 
 that, when indulged in to excess, does not necessitate doing 
 wrong? There is also another and a stronger objection to 
 this method, — ^it would suppress about the best agency that 
 it is possible to employ for the development of the mental 
 nature. And to secure the development of this is, if any- 
 thing, the primary object of human existence. If all men 
 could learn to act rationally and humanely — ^in other words, 
 mentally — in view of every emergency, the end of existence 
 would probably be obtained. But how could men ever 
 learn this, in a world from which every opportunity for 
 exercising and strengthening the power of mental control 
 were eliminated? The elements of all our nature, bodily as 
 well as mental, are means to ends; and in order to attain 
 these ends, we need to feel the presence and influence of 
 every one of the means. Why do so many of the followers 
 of the Great Master of Galilee fail to recognize that, aside 
 from circumstances attending the conditions of his age, 
 there may have been a profound reason founded on the 
 requirements of human nature, why he came, as he said, 
 "eating and drinking" (Luke 7: 34) and, when he "went 
 about doing good" (Acts 10: 38), so associated himself 
 with all classes of people, in all their occupations and recre- 
 ations, that it was possible for some to term him "a man 
 
MODERN SECULARIZING OF RELIGION 1 29 
 
 gluttonous and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and 
 sinners? " (Matt. 11:19). How better could he have em- 
 phasized that which was the most important of the les- 
 sons that he had come to teach, namely, — ^that the quality 
 of life on earth is determined not necessarily by particular 
 actions, but by the general spirit actuating them; by one's 
 being in the world, and yet not being of the world (John 17 : 
 14-16); by his using and enjoying the use of his bodily 
 nature, and yet never forgetting that it is always to be con- 
 sidered an agency through which primarily to express the 
 desires and designs of the mental nature? 
 
 It is because of an endeavor to counteract mistaken, and 
 what are recognized to be injurious effects of wrong con- 
 ceptions with reference to this subject that we owe what 
 appears to be the most prevalent tendency among the moral 
 and religious reformers of our own times. It started with 
 what was formerly termed "muscular Christianity," empha- 
 sizing the religious effect of having a vigorous body; and it 
 has been continued in movements like those of the Salvation 
 Army and Volunteers, reinforced by revivalists in almost 
 every sect who have presented the most solemn appeals for 
 betterment with a levity of phraseology and a lack of dignity 
 in bearing which, a few years ago, would, in themselves, 
 have been considered almost sure proofs of immorality 
 to say nothing of irreligion. To-day, in our country, this 
 conception has been changed. Without being able to for- 
 mulate a reason for their thought, the majority of good 
 people seem to have come to recognize that giving full 
 cre<£t to the mental, whether considered as the mindful or 
 the soulful, does not necessitate doing discredit to the 
 bodily; that geniality of spirit can, perhaps, be satis- 
 factorily expressed in a silent smile, yet giving vent to a loud 
 laugh that shakes the ribs, is no sin; that there may be an 
 incongruity between our conception of a minister and of a 
 mountebank, yet where it is necessary to emphasize the 
 importance of having a cheerful spirit, even the latter may 
 have his uses ; that a man is not necessarily any farther from 
 the kingdom than from the creation of God, because he may 
 happen to be watching the antics of a monkey. A more 
 sane and intellectual endeavor to counteract the emphasiz- 
 ing of the mental by the suppression of the bodily is mani- 
 fested in organizations like the Young Men's or Women's 
 Christian or Hebrew Associations, the Knights of Columbus, 
 
130 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 and various other societies which, as if to advertise their 
 emancipation from exclusive spirituality, are officered by 
 laymen rather than by clergymen. To recognize that 
 the conflict between bodily and mental desire can be made 
 to cease, without undtdy suppressing either, is to find a 
 sound philosophical basis for the general conception that 
 underlies all these movements and organizations. They are 
 intended to remind people of the fact that in the conduct of 
 life, the bodily as well as the mental has a part to play that 
 must not be disregarded. 
 
 But while giving heed to this bodily tendency of desire, 
 it is important not to place it above the mental. Many 
 seem inclined to do this. There are families in which the 
 selfishness of the small boy is welcomed as, of itself, a har- 
 binger' of success in life; and there are many more families in 
 which the selfishness of a parent manifested in unsym- 
 pathetic dictatorial meanness is hailed as a guarantee 
 that he is giving the kind of discipline fitted to train his 
 children to right habits of submission and obedience to 
 authority. It is the methods partaking of selfishness that, 
 perhaps, more frequently than others, are taken to be 
 indicative of worldly wisdom. Very often, in effect, though, 
 of course, not in unequivocal language, one seems to be 
 asked why a man should not practice deception with refer- 
 ence to his own achievements or position, if, by doing so, 
 he can enhance his influence ? It is said that the results of his 
 doing this are good even upon people who discover that he 
 has misrepresented; that it trains them not to be dupes. 
 It is asked why a man should not cheat, if, by doing so, he 
 can make more money in his business? It is said that, in 
 this way, he can train even those whom he defrauds to be 
 financially cautious. It is asked why he should not deal 
 harshly with his employees, and refuse to give them a living 
 wage, if, by doing this, he can add to his own profits? It is 
 said that, in this way, he trains men to efficiency and econ- 
 omy. It is asked why he should not profess to believe what 
 he does not believe, and become a member of a popular 
 church, if, by doing so, he can make himself popular? It is 
 said that in this way he will do good by casting all his 
 influence upon what most people suppose to be the right 
 side. It is asked why he should not refuse to acknowledge 
 acquaintance with the poor or uninfluential, if, by doing so, 
 he can convey the impression that he himself associates 
 
THE MENTAL NOT TO BE SOUGHT EXCLUSIVELY I3I 
 
 exclusively with the rich and the powerful? It is said that 
 in this way he can exalt the social standing of his wife and 
 daughters, and increase the attention given them. So one 
 could continue and mention an almost innumerable num- 
 ber of wrong things that are not usually treated as wrong, 
 in ordinary intercourse, business, employment, or church 
 fellowship. Why are they not treated as wrong? — Because 
 so many people have become accustomed to see some neigh- 
 bor fulfilling the promptings of desires that are egoistic, 
 deceptive, dishonest, stingy, hypocritical, mean, and, in 
 short, unconscionably selfi^ that no one's manifestation of 
 these traits awakens in them sufficient surprise to lead 
 them to endeavor to oppose him, even though their own 
 consciences would render it virtually impossible for them 
 to follow his example. 
 
 As for mental desires, probably no right-minded, not to 
 say sane man, would seriously argue that, when they conflict 
 with bodily desire, they should be suppressed. From the 
 beginning to the end of life almost everyone is aware that he 
 is in need of making a mental use of the information and 
 suggestions that come to him through the eye and ear. And 
 when one considers not the primary but the secondary 
 effects of influences exerted upon the mental nature, as 
 exhibited in every form of unselfish devotion to the welfare 
 of another, the need that humanity has of them becomes, if 
 anything, still more apparent. The world would never 
 have become more than half civilized, had it not been for 
 the self-denying labors wholly divorced from even the sug- 
 gestion of working for personal advantage manifested by 
 scientific investigators, indefatigable physicians, poorly paid 
 theologians, and enthusiastic artists and musicians without 
 number so engaged in the pursuit of truth, philanthropy, or 
 beauty as to ignore not only indulgence in bodily appetite 
 or comfort but even in the most ordinary joys of companion- 
 ship and appreciation. We can scarcely conceive of any- 
 thing that would more threaten all that is of real value in life 
 than a theory that would tend to suppress these higher 
 desires. 
 
 At the same time, just as in the case of the bodily, the 
 mental desires must not be the only ones to be indulged. 
 Nothing is more detrimental to body or soul than the 
 influence, either upon oneself or others, of an intellect so 
 absorbed in what are believed to be higher pursuits, as to 
 
132 E THICS AND NAT URAL LA W 
 
 forget that one himself or others about him need to be pro- 
 vided with bodily comfort such as is furnished by food, 
 clothing, and shelter. The slatternly slip-shod household of 
 the impecunious scholar, the self-conscious affrighted looks 
 of the flock of the unsympathetic puritan parent, the odor 
 of sanctity literally surrounding the ascetics who make 
 it a rule never to be tempted into the bodily self-indul- 
 gence involved in cleaning oneself or his raiment, are not 
 conducive of the highest attainments of either ethics or 
 civilization. 
 
 We may conclude, therefore, that the right method of 
 ending the conflict between bodily and mental desire does 
 not involve the suppressing of either. What then does it 
 involve? How can the proposed end be attained? The 
 ancient Greeks used to emphasize the ethical importance of 
 regulating conduct by what they termed "moderation." 
 This, it was thought, if applied to such indulgences as have 
 here been attributed to the promptings of bodily desire, would 
 prevent excess; and that excess alone involved immorality. 
 None of this, it was pointed out, was manifested in moder- 
 ate drinking of wine or feasting at a banquet. Only in 
 cases of immoderate indulgence, when a man showed himself 
 to be a drunkard or a glutton, could he be termed immoral. 
 This principle of moderation was rational and satisfactory, 
 so far as it went ; but a moment's thought will reveal that it 
 was not sufficiently fundamental. It could apply to such 
 indulgences only as were not in themselves wrong, but 
 could become wrong on account of methods adopted in 
 giving expression to them. Eating, for instance, is not 
 wrong in itself, but it may become wrong when it is over- 
 done. The same, however, cannot be said of many other 
 actions, like those involving falsehood, theft, and certain 
 forms of vice. It would not end the evil of a man's ways to 
 make him merely a moderate liar, thief, or adulterer. But 
 if we say that, when tempted to do the contrary, a man should 
 keep the mental and rational uppermost, we announce a 
 principle that can be applied to all cases. It applies to 
 drunkenness and gluttony because these make a man too 
 senseless or stupid to exercise mentality either of thought 
 or feeling; and it applies to falsehood, theft, and vice be- 
 cause these are, in all cases, opposed to such forms of 
 mentality as are influenced by truth that is universal, and 
 tend toward action that is nonselfish. 
 
WHY MEN HAVE DIFFERING DESIRES 133 
 
 It seemed well to mention this ancient Greek conception 
 because it might naturally suggest itself here to some reader 
 acquainted with the subject. But what has been said has 
 not answered the question asked at the opening of the last 
 paragraph. It has not explained how the end of keeping 
 the mental uppermost, when this seems necessary, can be 
 attained. At most it has shown merely that it cannot 
 invariably be attained by moderation. But this statement 
 is negative. Let us try to find something positive. The 
 condition presented is that of two conflicting agencies; and 
 the question to be solved is how can the two be made to act 
 together in harmony. Before trying to answer this ques- 
 tion, let us examine more carefully than has been done the 
 influence, as related to the general effect, of each of the 
 agencies in circumstances in which only one of them is act- 
 ing. In such a case all will acknowledge that neither class of 
 desires, whether bodily or mental, is expressive of more than 
 a part of that which a man's nature demands. Neither can 
 represent fully both his physical and his rational needs, and 
 so long as he possesses both a body and a mind, the needs of 
 neither can be rightly neglected. The fulfillment of only 
 one desire, or one class of desires, can never bring that which 
 can satisfy his whole being. This is true as applied to 
 one's consciousness either of pleasure received or of duty 
 performed. By neglecting a part of that over which his per- 
 sonality has been given control, he has both missed an 
 opportunity for enjoyment and has committed what re- 
 ligious people term a "sin of omission." As manifested 
 in such a case, too, this latter seems certain to involve 
 also a "sin of commission." It seems to be a law of 
 human life that one who starts Out to fulfill the desire 
 of no more than a single part of his complex nature, 
 will continue to seek for the satisfaction that he has 
 failed to get, not by turning to another desire, but by 
 continuing to indulge, and so to overindulge, the one 
 that has already proved itself unable to do that which 
 was expected of it. 
 
 This over-indulgence is characteristic of a large number 
 of men. Apparently, however, it is never characteristic 
 of the lower animals. It is difficult to induce a dog or a 
 horse to eat or to drink after he has once appeased his hun- 
 ger or thirst. Only a man, after he has had enough, still 
 tries to take in more. In order to enable him to do this, he 
 
134 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 tickles and irritates, and often permanently diseases his 
 organs. He spices and sugars his food, and becomes a 
 glutton; he brews and distills his beverage, and becomes a 
 drunkard; he abuses and wastes his powers of generation 
 and becomes an imbecile; he smokes and dopes narcotics 
 and opiates, and becomes a dullard; he violates the laws of 
 labor, rest, or recreation, and becomes a thief , a vagabond, or 
 a gambler. Ralph Waldo Emerson speaks of men having 
 oversouls. There is no doubt about their often having 
 over — or perhaps what might better be termed overreaching 
 — desires ; and it is safe to say that whenever one is allowing 
 these to determine his course, he is doing what the majority 
 of people consider to be clearly wrong. Men dispute about 
 the right or wrong of many actions, but when it comes to 
 gluttony, drunkenness, debauchery, theft, vagabondage, 
 and fraud, they cease to dispute. With reference to the 
 nature of these, they are in substantial agreement. 
 
 Nor is the influence of overreaching desires manifested 
 in merely the primary form of self-indulgence which is 
 experienced in appetite. It is manifested in the secondary 
 forms of irrationality and selfishess. Of the seven capital 
 sins, selected for special mention by the old Catholic theo- 
 logians, only one could be considered merely bodily. This 
 was gluttony. The others — excessive pride, luxury, wrath, 
 idleness, avarice, and envy — ^were as much allied to mere 
 irrational selfishness as to appetite. It is right enough for 
 a man to have sufiHcient consciousness of self, with its various 
 demands, and possibilities, to make him prudent, diligent, 
 economical, enterprising, ambitious, and pushing, but his 
 whole attitude of mind becomes wrong when the desires 
 underlying these become overreaching. Then they make 
 him cowardly, crafty, miserly, scheming, treacherous, and 
 mean in other ways too numerous to mention. 
 
 Mental desire, too, may become overreaching, making 
 its own the bodily methods of activity normally fitted 
 to serve only bodily desire. In this case, mental desire 
 may become abnormally and immorally subordinated 
 to bodily tendencies. No man more dangerous to the 
 welfare of society exists than the scientist, philosopher, 
 or artist, whether painter, poet, dramatist, or novelist, 
 who has indulged so selfishly in what might be termed 
 the pure wine of thought as to become intoxicated 
 by it in such a sense as to remain numb to every 
 
OVERREACHING DESIRES 135 
 
 other consideration. And nothing is more common among 
 men, and wrong, than to excuse one of this sort, some- 
 times for following self-exploiting and impractical theories 
 so far as to advocate principles underlying economic 
 and political changes likely to disorganize and destroy 
 conditions necessary to the peace and prosperity of the 
 community; and sometimes for ignoring such merely bodily, 
 in the sense of material, matters as paying one's debts, 
 providing food and shelter for those dependent on one, 
 avoiding excessive attentions to other men's wives, or, under 
 the excuse of manifesting the eccentricities of genius, dis- 
 regarding those conventionalities of society that are essen- 
 tial, if for nothing else, to avoid setting a demoralizing 
 example. Even in religion, in a direction in which one 
 might suppose that no desires could be overreaching, we find 
 the same tendency. All of us know some — and in certain 
 periods of history they have included many — religious people 
 in whom the desire to pray, to attend church, and to par- 
 take of the sacraments has been so overreaching as to crowd 
 out every other conception of spiritual obligation. Louis 
 the Fourteenth of France, at the very time when he was 
 living what could be termed a grossly immoral life, was 
 attending three religious services, including one mass, 
 every morning of the week. It is remarkable how many 
 people who seem to have an almost fanatical desire to have 
 somebody preach to them, absolve them from sin, or, 
 through supposed spiritual agency, cure them of disease, are 
 wholly indifferent to a large numlDer of things for the cor- 
 rection of which, and for little else, a philosophical mind is 
 apt to think that religion has value. Even some of those 
 who tell us that, through reading the Scriptures, medita- 
 tion, prayer, and other such means, they have reached a 
 higher life of religious ecstasy full of comfort and conso- 
 lation to themselves, now and then show such utter disre- 
 gard not only of the material wishes and welfare, but of the 
 spiritual development and uplift, of those surrounding them, 
 that the only way in which the man most willing to ac- 
 knowledge their piety could truthftdly designate them 
 would be to term them "spiritual misers." Human desires, 
 as we have found, have a constant tendency to be over- 
 reaching, to crave satisfaction beyond that for which they 
 are intended. 
 What has been said will reveal to us the cause of this. It 
 
136 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 is owing to a lack of comprehensive conscientiousness, or 
 consciousness of that which is due to every factor of human 
 possibility. The very condition that has been noticed so 
 frequently in these pages as existing in a man's nature — a 
 condition in which bodily and mental desires are both in 
 constant operation — necessitates a comprehensive outlook. 
 Otherwise, when two desires, or sets of desires, are in con- 
 flict, both cannot receive attention. When they do receive 
 this, the principle in accordance with which both influence 
 the mind is that of balance or counterbalance. All of us are 
 more or less acquainted with the effects of this principle and 
 have been accustomed to hear it attributed to the results of 
 intelligent action. Few of us can think of higher praise 
 that can be given to a man's judgment than to term him 
 "well balanced" or "level headed." These terms recog- 
 nize the importance of one's being influenced, whether 
 morally or not, from more than one side. They are never 
 applied to a man accustomed to allow his passions, his 
 impulses, or his whims to upset him; never to one who ex- 
 hibits petulance, precipitance, or sentimentality, or is a 
 slave to prejudice, fanaticism, or bigotry. 
 
 In ethics, inasmuch as the primary source of conduct, 
 either right or wrong, is in the desires, it is among these 
 that we must first look for the factors that balance one 
 another. If a boy, because he has a sympathetic nature, 
 join a gang, and engage with its members in drinking, 
 gambling, or stealing, what he most needs is to be led to 
 associate with others who do differently, and will lead him 
 to desire to do differently. If a man, because he has an 
 intellectual nature, live alone among his books, ignoring 
 every prompting to unselfish sympathy and helpfulness for 
 others, what he needs most is to be drawn into society 
 where, perhaps, he may begin to desire friends and, possibly, 
 a family of his own. Recall, too, that always included with 
 the desire are all the possibilities of feeling or thinking, into 
 which the desire may develop. This means that, if a man 
 desire bodily indulgence, then bodily selfishness or irration- 
 ality may characterize any of his brain's activities, i.e., of 
 his inferences, plans, imaginings, or choices ; and one of these 
 may be counterbalanced not only by a mental desire, but 
 by some inference, plan, imagining, or choice into which men- 
 tal desire has developed. A man whose bodily indolence 
 or intemperance has brought privation and shame to his 
 
BALANCE AS A MENTAL CHARACTERISTIC 137 
 
 family and friends may be entirely reformed, therefore, by 
 argument and facts appealing not directly to his mental 
 desires, but to some intellectual or emotional development 
 of them, — in other words, by an endeavor either to quicken 
 his perception of mental truth in the abstract, to outline 
 mental ideals for his imagination, or to impress upon him a 
 recognition of mental responsibility to and for others. 
 
 Balance will be recognized to be not an end itself, but a 
 means used for the purpose of attaining an end, — a method 
 through which the will accomplishes the purpose of mental 
 desire. It is through balance applied to his physical frame 
 that a man, in walking, keeps his head uppermost and his 
 form erect. Sometimes the balancing factors are very simi- 
 lar in appearance and importance. This is the case with a 
 man's two arms or two legs that balance when he is walking. 
 But, even when doing this, he is applying the principle of 
 balance to his head and shoulders which differ greatly from 
 the lower limbs whose effects these counteract; and this 
 possibility of balance between things dissimilar is still more 
 evident when one is dancing on a tight rope or exhibiting 
 agility in athletics. The rule is that the more apparently 
 unlike the balancing factors are, the more skill does it 
 require to manage them successfully. Skill, as most of us 
 know, is always the result of a thoughtful exercise of will- 
 power. The reader will recognize that this is also what 
 is needed in order to secure morality. Just as a man, by 
 applying the principle of balance, can cause his body to 
 stand straight and to keep his head uppermost, so, by 
 applying an analogous principle to his moral nature, he can 
 maintain his uprightness and make all its possibilities sub- 
 ordinate to that which is mental. 
 
 Now comes an important practical question. It is this, 
 — ^how can this result be accomplished? When one con- 
 siders the innumerable activities, all involving minute 
 differences in the aims and ends of emotions, thoughts, and 
 deeds, between which, in case morality is to be manifested 
 in the whole character, mutual counteraction is needful, the 
 problem seems too complex to render it feasible or possible 
 to carry out the principle just explained. How, in every 
 one of, perhaps, a hundred cases, can a man find time — 
 to say no more — ^to judge of the moral quality of one course 
 of action, or, as is often necessary, of two counterbalancing 
 courses ? And, after he has made a choice between the two, 
 
138 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 what shall be said of the feasibility not of adopting one and 
 rejecting the other, which would be a comparatively easy 
 thing to do — a thing done by every ignorant fanatic or fren- , 
 zied mob that the world ever saw — but of adopting both, yet 
 keeping the expression of the one in all cases where it will 
 rightly adjust itself to the other? At first thought it seems 
 as if the requirements of the situation would demand the 
 calculating powers of an Archimedes and the wisdom of a 
 Solomon. Indeed, it is not difficult to find able books in 
 which the practical solution of such problems is declared 
 impossible. "Altruism and egoism," says Prof. A. E. Tay- 
 ler (1869-), of St. Andrews University, in Chapter IV. of 
 The Problem of Conduct, "are divergent developments from 
 the common psychological root of primitive ethical senti- 
 ment." The reader will notice that, in making this state- 
 ment, the writer has not recognized, as has been done in this 
 book, that the egoistic develops from lower, not higher 
 desire; and that many daily acts of conscience involve the 
 subordination of the promptings of the former to those 
 of the latter. Had he recognized this, his conclusions that 
 follow might have been less pessimistic. He goes on to say, 
 "Both developments are alike unavoidable, and each is 
 ultimately irreconcilable with the other. Neither egoism 
 nor altruism can be made the sole basis of moral theory 
 without mutilation of the facts." This latter is exactly what 
 has been maintained in this book; and it will suggest to the 
 reader why a theory such as the book presents seems to be 
 needed. The author of the Problem of Conduct goes on to 
 say, "Nor can any higher category be discovered by the aid 
 of which their rival aims may be finally adjusted." The 
 answer to a statement like this is that their claims can 
 be adjusted by the action of personal will influenced by 
 rational desire and doing its best to increase the strength of 
 rational desire which, naturally, and, in those well trained, 
 inevitably, whenever it conflicts with bodily desire, appeals 
 to consciousness as the more important of the two. 
 
 Now let us return to that from which this criticism 
 diverted us, — the difficulty of coming to right conclusions 
 where great complexity characterizes the motives and ends 
 appealing to one. Of course, the important matter here is 
 to simplify things as much as possible; and, as a rule, the 
 best way of doing this is to get down deep enough into a 
 subject to come into contact, if possible, with that which 
 
IMMEDIATE AND DELIBERATIVE MENTAL ACTIVITY I39 
 
 underlies all its influences and determines all its applications. 
 Even when dealing with merely the intellectual relationships 
 of a subject, this course is frequently almost essential. One 
 of the best of the books on elocution, consulted by the 
 author, when he was preparing his Orator's Manual, con- 
 tained almost a score of different rules for determining the 
 use of the upward as distinguished from the downward in- 
 flection. _ Of course, such a number of rules could be of 
 no practical availability to a pupil who had to decide upon 
 an inflection the moment that he came upon it in rapid read- 
 ing. What was needed was a single principle underlying each 
 and all of the rules, which principle could be recognized and 
 applied immediately as a result of his first thought, though, 
 at the same time, capable of being examined, explained, and 
 made more lucid, as a result of a process of thinking. 
 It was the recognition on the part of the Master of Galilee 
 of this need, and his ability to state such principles, as in 
 "Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you," 
 "It is more blessed to give than to receive," "Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbor as thyself," and "He that is faithful in 
 that which is least, is faithful also in much, " that gave him 
 his place not only as a great spiritual but a great intellectual 
 leader. As suggested through these quotations, this method 
 of imparting truth is especially effective when one is called 
 upon to influence not merely another's opinions but his 
 conduct. When a question of morals presents itself for 
 immediate solution, a man often has no time to argue with 
 reference to the consequences. However true the ' ' teleolog- 
 ical," the "utilitarian," the " eudaimonian, " the "greatest 
 happiness," or other theories may be, they fail in such 
 circumstances to meet the emergency. They are not, as we 
 say, practical. They involve too much delay. Let us 
 turn then, some may say, to the instinctive or the intuitive 
 theory, — ^to something presupposing immediate action. But 
 this again would not meet the conditions. An ethical 
 system must include a consideration not only of that which 
 can prompt to right in an emergency but can prove what 
 is right in an argument. The short statements just quoted 
 were fitted not only for immediate recognition, but they 
 have furnished texts for millions of extended discourses. 
 This is the same as to say that such statements were fitted 
 to appeal to the action of the mind preceding the processes 
 of reasoning, and also to its action accompanying and fol- 
 
I40 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 lowing these processes. The same must be true of the 
 successful appeal to the mind of any ethical influences. 
 
 Now let us notice how perfectly both these requirements, 
 as applied to conflicting desires within the mind, can be 
 fulfilled by using th e method which, when applied analogously 
 in material relationships, is termed balance. What is it that 
 causes a man to balance the different muscles and limbs of 
 his physical body suSiciently to enable him to stand straight 
 and walk? How, as a child, did he learn to do this? — -In- 
 stinctively, not so? Nobody explained the processes to 
 him. Without, as we say, imderstanding what he did, he 
 felt his way to the results. But, when he grew older, and 
 wanted to carry this method of balance to what we may 
 term artistic perfection, what did he do? He experimented 
 by himself, and learned from others. He became an expert, 
 not as a result of instinctive or spontaneous feeling alone, 
 but of processes also of observing, reasoning and, in short, 
 thinking. 
 
 Can this analogy between learning to balance factors 
 that are physical and to balance one factor that is physical 
 by another that is psychical hold good when we come to ex- 
 amine more minute and complex developments of our 
 subject? An answer to this question will be given in the 
 chapter following. In it an endeavor will be made to show 
 that, in contrast to the consciousness of conflict between 
 higher and lower desires which has been attributed to what 
 is termed conscience, it is natural and logical that a man 
 should, at times, experience a consciousness also of an 
 absence of conflict. This consciousness, analogous to the 
 undisturbable poise of an athlete when all the conflicting 
 sources of energy in his body are in perfect balance, will be 
 attributed to what will be termed ethical harmony; and the 
 correspondence between the method exemplified in it and 
 in aesthetic harmony will be indicated, as well as the reasons 
 why, in each department, the results, in view of the under- 
 lying requirements, can be considered natural and logical. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 ANALOGIES BETWEEN HARMONY IN iESTHETICS AND 
 IN ETHICS 
 
 The Term Harmony is often Applied to Moral Conditions — Sim- 
 ilarity of the Influences Tending to Esthetic and to Ethical 
 Harmony — Explanation of Arrangements Producing iEsthetic Har- 
 mony — Art Composition, Beauty, and Moral Character all Con- 
 nected with Subordinating the Bodily or Material to the Mental or 
 Rational — This Produces, First, an Effect of Order — Other Effects 
 thus Produced — Other Analogies — Embodiment of Ideals — Har- 
 mony is Produced by Arrangement, not Suppression — It Affects 
 Sensation aside from the Understanding — Can be Recognized by 
 Ordinary Human Intelligence — By Natural Inference — Studying 
 the Subject Increases Ability to Apply it — Its Principles AppUcable 
 to Courses of Action as well as to Specific Acts — Effects of Ethical 
 Harmony between Desires, as of Esthetic Harmony between 
 Methods, Produced by Influences Essentially Non-selfish — The 
 Results of Ethical Harmony Conform to every Requirement of 
 Sociology and Religion as well as of Rationality. 
 
 THAT there is a close analogy between aesthetic har- 
 mony and the condition of the mind in which higher 
 and lower desires have been made to work in unison, 
 is a conception that has been frequently expressed by 
 writers upon ethics. Plato, for instance, suggests it in the 
 Fourth Book of The Republic, where he speaks of the tem- 
 perate man "in whom the lower and higher souls are in 
 harmony." George Combe (1788-1858) of Edinburgh 
 University, in Section i, of his Moral Philosophy, says: "I 
 consider the virtue of an action to consist in its being in 
 harmony with the dictates of all the faculties acting in 
 harmony and duly enlightened." Professor John Aber- 
 crombie (1780-1844) in Part III., Sec. 2, of The Philosophy 
 of Moral Feeling, refers to "the harmony or principle of 
 arrangement which various classes of emotion ought to bear 
 
 141 
 
142 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 toward one another," and, most clearly and satisfactorily 
 of all, Professor Frank Thilly (1865-) in Chapter IX. of his 
 Introduction to Ethics declares that "the end is the develop- 
 ment of body and mind in harmony with each other, the 
 unfolding of all powers and capacities of the soul, cognitive, 
 emotional, and volitional, in adaptation to both physical 
 and psychical requirements." Let us, in this chapter, con- 
 sider a little more fully than seems yet to have been done 
 some of the philosophical and practical bearings of this 
 conception. 
 
 Harmony is a term usually applied to certain effects 
 of arrangement. This arrangement is sometimes found 
 in nature, — occasionally in sounds, but more often in 
 sights, as in the groupings of outlines or colors in flowers, 
 trees, valleys, or mountains; or, as in the symmetrical 
 proportions or balance of features in the frames or faces 
 of men or animals. As a rule, however, harmony is not an 
 effect produced by nature but by man, who rearranges that 
 which he hears or sees in accordance with principles which 
 he has developed and formulated in what is termed art. Art 
 is a distinctly human product, — a result of human as distin- 
 guished from animal intelligence. To say this is the same, 
 according to what has been hitherto unfolded in this volume, 
 as to say that art is a result of the thoughtful action that dis- 
 tinguishes a man from an animal. It is this action, rearrang- 
 ing physical or bodily appearances — i.e., the sights and 
 sounds of nature — that changes their effects of confusion 
 and discord into those of order and harmony. An exactly 
 similar influence of the thoughtful upon the bodily occasions 
 morality. This is an effect produced by the non-physical 
 in mind upon one's own physical body (including his brain), 
 or upon both the mental and the physical combined that 
 exist in the bodies (including the brains) of others. See p. 4. 
 
 In the author's Genesis of Art-Form there is a chart which 
 will be found reproduced on page 143. This chart was 
 originally prepared that it might show the ways in which the 
 earliest conceptions of the mind, intent upon expressing a 
 thought in an external sound or sight taken from physical 
 nature, pass through successive stages until they have 
 manifested every phase of artistic embodiment, ending in 
 what is termed harmony of tone and color. Of course, all 
 the chart's applications to art-composition cannot be under- 
 stood by the reader unless he has made a special study 
 
5" 3 
 
 FACTORS OF ESTHETIC HARMONY I43 
 
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 Z 
 
144 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 of it; but the general principles involved are very easily 
 grasped. 
 
 The chart will show us that art-composition begins with 
 an effort'' to continue the life and influence of a thought, 
 which, when started in the mind, is unseen and unheard, 
 by expressing it in a visible or audible material form. All 
 expression on the part of a human being — even that which 
 represents what is moral in conduct — ^is an effort in a 
 similar direction. This effort begins, as indicated in the 
 chart with the mind, and has to do throughout with the 
 effects of the mind upon matter. What the mind wants to 
 do is to give outward expressions in sounds or sights of such 
 a nature that its thought will appear clear and intelligible 
 to others owing to its singleness and simplicity; important 
 and convincing to them owing to its insistence and reitera- 
 tion; and, in case it be artistic, attractive and beautiful to 
 them owing to the form with which imagination and imita- 
 tion can cause it to be represented and embodied. The 
 first aim of the mind, as indicated in the chart, is to find 
 some one thing in material nature representing one thought, 
 — a stone, for instance, representing hardness, or, contrasted 
 
 »' The difficulty in accomplishing the object of the efiEort, so far as this 
 is expended upon art, arises from the fact that the laws and conditions 
 controUing the associations and sequences of thoughts in the mind are 
 diflferent from those controlling the associations and sequences of things 
 in external nature. Because one thought — if we can imagine one thought 
 as existing by itself — can be represented adequately and easily by one 
 thing — i.e., by one word, act, or object — it will not do to infer that the 
 same can be said of many associated and consecutive thoughts. In 
 external nature, things are often side by side or follow one another, while 
 yet only one of them bears any relation to the thought that is in the 
 mind. This is one reason why an effect of variety is universally attrib- 
 uted to nature. If a relationship of thought between adjacent or 
 consecutive sounds or sights could always be perceived, variety would 
 not be so much in evidence. As it is, nature seems characterized by it; 
 and the thinker, whether he wish to understand and explain it as a 
 scientist, or to imitate and use it for the purposes of expression as a 
 painter or a musician, recognizes in it more or less confusion and dis- 
 order. He recognizes, too, that, as in the case of a disorderly writing 
 desk or room, the remedy is to sort the different objects, and, putting 
 together things that are alike, arrange them so that they shall have an 
 orderly effect. A painter may mentally put together living creatures 
 that are alike, and term them birds or beasts, doves or dogs. A musi- 
 cian may put together sounds of the same pitch, and term them A or B, 
 or Do or Re, and so on. Prom the beginnings of order thus produced by 
 an exercise of comparison, art goes on to develop the methods mentioned 
 in the chart. 
 
FACTORS OF MSTHETIC HARMONY 145 
 
 with it, a sponge representing softness. Then, to express 
 the thought without the possibility of misrepresentation, 
 the mind needs to illustrate it by getting together more 
 things like stones or sponges. In other words, the first aim 
 of the mind, in accomplishing its work of expression, is to 
 find certain things in nature that, as indicated in the chart, 
 produce unity of efEect. If these things can be found, then 
 one mind can make another mind understand what is meant 
 by hardness or softness. Unfortunately, however, the first 
 characteristic of matter that confronts the mind is — not 
 unity — but variety. Notice the indication of this fact in 
 the chart, and also that, from this point onward, the chart 
 represents every advance toward harmony as being made 
 by way of the principle underlying balance, though in the 
 chart itself, this word, in a technical sense, is not used be- 
 fore we come to the fourth line. For instance, it is by 
 bringing together unity and variety, and striking, as we 
 say, a balance between them, that we get the idea of com- 
 plexity. In the same way, order and confusion together 
 suggest counteraction; comparison and contrast, complement; 
 and principality and subordination, as in the head pitted 
 against the legs of a man dancing on a tight rope, suggest, 
 as indicated on page 137 balance, and this, as in the case of 
 a house or of a church with doors, windows, tower, or dome 
 symmetrically arranged, suggests organic form. Finally, 
 when we come to giving like effects to unlike sounds and 
 shapes by putting them into like measures of time or space, 
 we get rhythm and proportion, together with those results of 
 coalescing vibrations in which science has discovered the 
 underlying causes of harmony of tone and color. 
 
 These methods, although, in the chart, applied to art- 
 composition alone, are allied to those through which mental 
 processes of thought and emotion are represented through 
 any material forms; and they are identical with those 
 needed in order to produce effects of beauty.'* Harmony 
 characterizes the cause, and beauty the effect, of conditions 
 that are the same. Neither realizes its full possibilities 
 except where there is a combination of a mentalor rational 
 ideal with a bodily or physical form of expression. What 
 
 '» See Chap. I. of the Author's Genesis of Art-Form; Chap. XII. of his 
 Art in Theory; Chaps. XIV.-XVIII. of his Essentials of Esthetics, and 
 ahnost the whole of Rhythm and Harmony in Poetry and Music, and 
 Proportion and Harmony of Line and Color. 
 
146 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 beauty is to human art, moral character is to human life. 
 This conception is at the basis of the grouping together, of 
 which we often hear, of "the beautiful and the good," in- 
 deed of The True, the Beautiful, and the Good, to quote the 
 title of one of the books of Victor Cousin (1792-1867). In 
 a broad way, all these may be said to be connected with the 
 conception of harmony. In nature, a man sometimes finds 
 objects to copy that are beautiful in themselves. In this 
 case, as in what are termed symmetrical proportions in the 
 human form, or regular features in the face, it is because, as 
 a result of growth, they fulfill the requirements of harmony. 
 But a large part of the work of the artist lies in arrang- 
 ing features, like outlines, tones, and colors that do not 
 appear beautiful in nature, so that, by making them fulfill 
 the requirements of harmony, they shall appear beautiful 
 in art. Why are we not justified in applying the same 
 principles to character? Some characters — and they are 
 those that men are most likely to term beautiful — are 
 naturally harmonious. Others have to be made so by moral 
 culture. 
 
 The chart indicates that the primary endeavor in securing 
 harmony, so far as it is applicable to the bodily factors, is 
 order. It is not necessary to do more than point out that 
 the same fact is true in ethics. No moral statement has 
 been more universally accepted than the declaration of the 
 Apostle Paul, in l Cor. 10; 23, that "All things are lawful for 
 me, but all things are not expedient," — in other words, that 
 any deed may be right if done when and where it should be 
 done; that anything is in order if only it be kept in its own 
 place. The same soil represented in a painting, if it be on a 
 child's face, may make him seem ugly and disgusting, but if 
 it be under his feet, it may make him seem beautiful and 
 attractive. 
 
 The other methods mentioned in the chart are, many of 
 them, technical, and are not applicable except in the con- 
 nection in which they are there used. This would naturally be 
 the case with terms prepared for only an aesthetic discussion. 
 No one can glance at them, however, without recognizing 
 that many of them refer to traits as desirable in human 
 character as in human art, — ^terms, for instance, like princi- 
 pality, subordination, balance, congruity, comprehensive- 
 ness, symmetry, and progress. 
 
 Other facts also that are true of aesthetic harmony reveal 
 
MSTHETICAL HARMONY 147 
 
 the parallelism between it and what is demanded in ethics. 
 In both departments every development follows upon the 
 expression of a single mental conception in a single bodily 
 or physical form. In art, for instance, the conception of 
 interrogation is represented in an upward movement of the 
 voice; that of opposition, in a clinched fist; that of support, 
 in a curved arch. In conduct, the conception of meanness 
 may be represented in an insulting phrase, or that of 
 haughtiness in an averted glance or an upturned chin. In 
 both departments, again, the course of the development does 
 not cease until it has been applied to factors innumerable in 
 number and well-nigh infinitely complicated. Harmony of 
 tone or color, for instance, results from putting together, 
 in accordance with the same principles manifested in all the 
 other methods, such sounds and sights as are produced by 
 like numbers or multiples of like numbers of vibrations. 
 These vibrations are so minute that hundreds and even 
 trillions of them may follow one another in a single second. 
 The computation of them is beyond the possibility of dis- 
 covery by ordinary observation. Only science has been 
 able to accomplish the task. Probably, everybody will be 
 ready to acknowledge that the same principle is illustrated 
 in ethics. Character, to be all that it should be, must be 
 able to stand the test not only of a few single actions the 
 right and wrong of which are clearly evident to superficial 
 observation, but of continued and habitual action, involv- 
 ing a consideration of small details almost as minute and 
 complicated as those entering into the effects of art. 
 
 Again, harmony in art is a result not only of grouping 
 together small details but of combining them so that they 
 shall produce unity of effect: so that, taken together, they 
 shall appear consistent parts of the embodiment of a single 
 important ideal. This is true as applied not only to a 
 painting or statue, but to a building or a musical composi- 
 tion. What the artist has to do is, first of all, in his own 
 mind to conceive of an ideal characterized by beauty suf- 
 ficient to excite his emotions, and then he has to work hard 
 in order to make every feature of his product a harmonious 
 part of this embodiment. In the same way, a moral man's 
 good ideals and emotions usually antidate his good deeds. 
 Whenever we recognize that this is the case, and that his 
 controlling desires are predominantly those of the mind, we 
 are accustomed to judge and to say that the one who is gov- 
 
148 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 erned by them is a " good man. ' ' But sometimes we cannot 
 say of even such a man that his thoughts are wise, or his 
 deeds commendable. Why not ? — Because we perceive, and 
 have to acknowledge, a detrimental influence that has been 
 exerted upon them by the intellect and will through which, 
 before being outwardly expressed, they have been obliged to 
 pass. The fact that this influence has been exerted does not 
 show that, in our conception of conscience, we should include 
 the consideration of the actions of both intellect and will, as 
 suggested in the definitions in footnote 5 page 63. If any- 
 thing, it shows the contrary. Men who go astray merely be- 
 cause of what are clearly perceived to be defects of intellect or 
 will are never held accountable either by themselves or by 
 others for what are supposed to be violations of the laws of 
 conscience. We may be indignant with a physician or sur- 
 geon who makes a wrong diagnosis or incision, and kills his 
 patient. But we never think of sending him to a reforma- 
 tory to be converted, or to a gallows to be hung. We recog- 
 nize that he is not a moral delinquent, that probably he is 
 not to be blamed for anything more serious than ignorance, 
 stupidity, or lack of skill. Such considerations should con- 
 vince us that we should not confound conscience, which 
 awakens in a man a sense of obligation and a prompting 
 toward the right in general, with intellect and will, which, in 
 special cases, enable him to direct this prompting wisely 
 and efficiently. At the same time we should never forget 
 that all departments — if we may so term them — of the mind 
 are closely connected. What characterizes inward con- 
 science very soon comes to characterize outward conduct. 
 That which is mental in desire cannot dominate the bodily 
 in such a way as to produce a consciousness of inward har- 
 mony, without exerting great influence upon intellection 
 and volition. This is the theory in accordance with which 
 the thoughts presented in this volume have been thus 
 far, and are hereafter to be, unfolded. Whether a man be 
 judged by some single action, or by a course of action con- 
 tinued through a long interval of time, the test through 
 which to determine his moral character is this : that his body's 
 desires have been harmonized with his mind's desires through 
 being subordinated to the latter's expressional requirements. 
 As was explained on pages 4 and 20-22, by the word mind, as 
 used in this book, is meant the source not merely of the cog- 
 nitional as distinguished from the sensational, but also of 
 
ESTHETIC AND ETHICAL HARMONY I49 
 
 the rationally non-selfish, the humane, the altruistic, and 
 the spiritual, as distinguished from the thoughtlessly self- 
 indulgent, brutal, egoistic, and material, all of which latter 
 are considered developments of the bodily and the physical. 
 
 In many other important regards the results of aesthetic 
 harmony and of what may be termed ethical harmony are 
 analogous. Notice that, as applied in any department, 
 harmony indicates the ending of conditions occasioning 
 conflict through using other means than suppressing a 
 contesting source of activity. There is a great difference 
 between the results of harmony and those of triumph, vic- 
 tory, or conquest. These latter involve mastery on the 
 part of one of the contending parties or factors and the 
 overthrow or enslavement of the other. After this effect 
 has been produced, there may be a cessation of conflict, but 
 there never can be thoroughly satisfactory or enduring peace. 
 This, when worth having, can result only from some arrange- 
 ment, adjustment, or assimilation that recognizes the rights 
 of all the contending parties, and does proportionately equal 
 justice to each of them. Where this result is reached, we 
 are accustomed to say that the factors that have been in 
 conflict have been harmonized. But, as brought out in 
 Chapter IX., this is exactly what is done when the differences 
 between desires of the body and of the mind have been 
 adjusted ethically. 
 
 Notice, too, that, ethical, like aesthetic effects, are ex- 
 perienced, in large measure, at least, in the sensitive and 
 emotional nature, before they make a distinct appeal to the 
 rational understanding. The art-lover judges and works 
 as guided by feeling and sentiment long before he proceeds, 
 through methods of thought, to ascertain whether effects 
 of tone or color fulfill aesthetic requirements as these have 
 been systemized by science. Of course, the reasons for 
 many — perhaps for all — of these requirements may be ascer- 
 tained and explained; and a study of the subject may greatly 
 increase an artist's ability to conform to them. But before 
 and aside from any exercise of mere understanding, the 
 ears and eyes must be able to recognize their results; and, 
 were one deaf or blind and were he, for this reason, to fail 
 to experience the sensation of harmony, no explanation 
 could furnish a substitute for it. According to what has 
 been said, exactly the same principle applies to ethics. The 
 desires in conflict which occasion the disorder that needs 
 
I50 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 to be alleviated themselves involve feelings; and it is of 
 them, and of the necessity of doing something to put an end 
 to the discomfort that they occasion, that a man is first 
 conscious; and if harmony results, it is amid his desires that 
 he first experiences its influence. 
 
 Notice, again, that, as in aesthetic harmony, that which 
 may be termed ethical can be experienced by anyone who 
 possesses only ordinary human intelligence. It is not a 
 perquisite of "the wise and prudent" alone, as seems to be 
 the case with some of the results in consciousness seemingly 
 required by certain phases of the teleological and utilitarian 
 theories. Harmony or discord in music can berecognized 
 when produced upon an instrument of six strings, like a 
 guitar; or of eighty or more, like a piano. So with har- 
 mony or discord in moral results. The fully cultivated 
 man of many talents, able to respond to that which comes 
 from many sources of information, may give a more in- 
 telligent and' complete expression to the feeling awak- 
 ened by conscience, because able with more efEectiveness 
 to apply it to more subjects; but the feeling in itself alone 
 may be no more clearly recognized by him than by the most 
 uneducated child or inexperienced savage. This is a fact 
 which, as applied to ethics, needs, especially in our times, to 
 be strongly emphasized. The present influence of science 
 and the predominating appeal to intellect have directed the 
 attention of people, not too largely perhaps, but certainly too 
 exclusively, to the importance of imparting, to the young 
 and ignorant, information and explanation. In their way 
 these may greatly strengthen and develop one's character. 
 But, as already intimated in another place, to suppose that 
 they are absolutely essential to elementary morality is to 
 make a grave mistake. Before receiving instruction, even 
 when a child, one often recognizes from mere feeling that 
 his own nature is out of harmony, and not only this, but the 
 reason for it. Is it some nervous bodily temper that over- 
 comes him? In the humiliation that he experiences, he 
 himself appears often to be able to recognize that what 
 he needs is to be more thoughtful; i.e., to fulfill the mental 
 requirements within him. Is it a bodily craving for food, 
 or for exercise, which causes excesses of appetite or of play, 
 and, when one grows older, turns him into a drunkard, a 
 gambler, a defaulter, a debauchee, a degenerate? In the 
 pain and shame that he experiences, he, too, seems to 
 
MSTHETIC AND ETHICAL HARMONY ISI 
 
 recognize that what he needs is to be made more thoughtful, 
 to get into a condition, and to continue in it, where his rea- 
 son and judgment can act clearly and authoritatively, — in 
 other words, where he can fulfill mental requirements, and, 
 by so doing, make a man and not a beast of himself. Or, 
 again, is he overcome by an impulse to possess and to use for 
 his own exclusive benefit that which in the material world 
 environs the physical body? Is he tempted to obtain 
 comfort, honor, position, property, control, and immunity 
 from the opposition of those surrounding him, and, therefore, 
 to ignore, discredit, deceive, defraud, oppress, oppose, or 
 kill his fellows? He himself, aside from what he can hear or 
 learn from others, cannot fail often to feel that, in doing 
 these things, he is not exercising thought with reference to 
 his own interests or those of his neighbors, — ^in other words 
 again, is not fulfilling the mind's requirements. In fact, 
 there is hardly anything connected with the conditions 
 or activities of a human being which does not naturally and 
 logically suggest the necessity for the dominance of mind 
 and the subordination of the body. This is true as ap- 
 plied even to that which is represented through the mere 
 appearance of his human form. His head is uppermost, 
 and in it are the eyes and ears that most directly minister to 
 the higher nature. Next in importance in serving the same 
 nature, and immediately below it, is the breast, the seat of 
 the heart and lungs, and, connected with it, the arms and 
 hands. Lower down are the distinctly bodily or physical 
 organs of digestion and propagation and, lowest of all, the 
 legs and feet, whose chief function seems to be to carry 
 eyes, ears, mouth, and hands to places where they can be 
 made to do that which the mind demands. 
 
 Another fact with reference to aesthetic harmony that is 
 paralleled by that which is true of ethical harmony, is that, 
 while it can be enjoyed and to a limited extent produced 
 by one who has not made a special study of the subject, 
 nevertheless such study can greatly increase acknowledge 
 of the principles underlying the subject and ability to_ ap- 
 ply them in practice. It was said on page 142 that artistic 
 harmony is a product of a man as distinguished from a 
 lower animal — a distinctive product, in other words, of the 
 human mind. This implies that in addition to the feeling 
 which, as has been said, recognizes, as it were, instinctively 
 the presence or absence of harmony, its completed results, 
 
152 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 such as are manifested in the works of the great composers, 
 always involve, in connection with feeling, other thoughtful 
 activities of which the mind is capable. The principles of 
 musical harmony have been studied already for more than 
 twenty-five centimes; and even yet its possibilities have not 
 all been developed. The same is true of the principles of 
 morality. It has been argued in this volvune that the_ influ- 
 ence upon them of desire, and, therefore, of the_ feeling or 
 emotion in desire is primary and universal ; but it has also 
 been reiterated many times that in every desire the 
 thinking mind cooperates with this feeling or emotion. 
 Both these conceptions can be held at one and the same time 
 without either belittling the importance of that which is 
 derived from feeling or exaggerating the importance of 
 that which is derived from intellection. If we had no people 
 prompted by feeling, or by natural instinct, as we say, 
 to become musical or moral, we should have none who would 
 become so through culture; and there would be no high 
 achievements in either of the two directions. 
 
 It is important to bear in mind, too, that these desires of 
 the mind, as has already been intimated, are needed to 
 counteract not merely some single cases of wrong doing 
 to which one is suddenly and unexpectedly impelled, but to 
 counteract complicated courses of action with which these 
 sudden acts are necessarily connected, and of which they 
 might be said to be expected developments. This fact, too, 
 seems to be indicated in the experiences of the very young. 
 Those periods of depression and melancholy through which 
 large numbers pass just at the time when they are leaving 
 childhood and entering upon early manhood and woman- 
 hood are not caused, as a rule, by a conflict of desires 
 occasioned by some single temptation. They are caused by 
 the general condition of conflict now, for the first time, 
 plainly recognized as within themselves, as existing between 
 their own personal higher and lower desires. Up to this 
 time in life, the normal child has been guided by his parents 
 and teachers. Their influence upon him has been sufficient, 
 if not to subordinate for him his lower desires, at least to rid 
 him, in part, of the feeling that he himself should be respon- 
 sible for subordinating them. When he recognizes that this 
 responsibility is thrust upon himself alone, he not infre- 
 quently goes through an expenence like that represented by 
 the story in the New Testament of Jesus when tempted in 
 
HARMONY WITHIN ONE'S OWN SPIRIT 153 
 
 the wilderness by the devil (See Matt, iv., 1-9), and the only- 
 satisfactory way, often, of putting an end to such experi- 
 ences is to make a deliberate choice, indefinite often as 
 applied to particular actions, yet very definite as applied to 
 general conduct, that all life hereafter shall be based upon 
 the principle of subordinating, so far as seems necessary, the 
 bodily to the mental, the irrational to the reasonable, the 
 material to the spiritual. This is a principle influencing, as 
 we have found, first the desires themselves, and, subse- 
 quently, as a rule, all the psychical activities through which 
 they can find expression. The principle may not come to 
 be fulfilled until after years of indecision and consequent 
 mental disturbance and unhappiness. But sometimes 
 the result may follow almost immediately, and when the 
 relationship between lower and higher desire is once deter- 
 mined, many keen observers hold to the opinion that it is 
 likely to be determined then and there for all time. 
 
 Finally, it is well to emphasize here once more the fact 
 that the influence of aesthetic harmony is always non-selfish 
 (see page 20). Works of music, poetry, painting, sculpture, 
 or architecture may be purchased or stolen and kept where 
 others cannot see or hear them; but there is no reason in 
 nature why this should be the case. Millions of people may 
 derive their fill of delight or inspiration from them without 
 lessening in the least that which could be imparted to only 
 one of their number. It is the same with the effects of what 
 has here been termed ethical harmony as produced between 
 conflicting tendencies in character. The man whose bodily 
 nature has been adjusted to the requirements of his higher 
 mental and rational nature brings profit and pleasure not 
 only to himself but to all by whom he is surrounded. They 
 enjoy life with him no less than he enjoys his own life. 
 This is the fundamental truth underlying the injunction, 
 often repeated by writers like Goethe and Emerson, urging 
 upon individuals the duty above all things of self-culture. 
 The injunction may be interpreted to mean a culture of 
 selfishness; but never by one whose conception of that 
 which should dominate is the higher and better self, and 
 whose conception of culture is that which is imparted to the 
 bodily by the rational. 
 
 To a man who has this conception, harmony within one's 
 own spirit will be recognized to be only a prelude necessarily 
 followed by harmony between different spirits. As the 
 
154 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 thoughts and emotions of the mind are developed from that 
 which is communicated through the eyes and ears (see 
 page 20) , nothing external to the man can be excluded from 
 the mind's range of that which is fitted to influence higher 
 desires. Every surrounding object attaches him to the 
 universe outside of him of which he seems a part; while, at 
 the same time, he seems a partner with every living being 
 that inhabits it. From the theory here presented, all that 
 is true in the systems that emphasize the obligations arising 
 from one's relations to others and from the sense of national 
 or Universal brotherhood follows as a corollary. The 
 theory does not lessen one's conception of the duty of 
 striving for the welfare of his fellows; but, in connection 
 with this, it emphasizes two other conceptions that some 
 of the merely altruistic systems are inclined to ignore. 
 Because the mental includes the rational, it emphasizes 
 the intellectual as well as the spiritual; and, because where 
 necessary the mental subordinates the bodily in personal 
 character, it emphasizes the benefit imparted by morality to 
 the individual himself as well as by himself to others of his 
 community. There is, however, and should be noticed, 
 an exceptional condition to which the principles just stated 
 do not apply. It is illustrated in cases of emergency, as 
 in warfare, which seem to call for complete self-sacrifice, — 
 cases in which a hero not only imperils but surrenders his 
 own life in order to save that of another. What seems to 
 be true of such cases is that they transcend the fulfillment 
 of merely moral obligation. They conform to religious 
 prompting. They prove that the agent, whatever he may 
 say of his own beliefs, down deep in his soul, possibly 
 unconsciously to himself, has an overmastering faith in the 
 existence of a life after death. Fortunately, however, 
 Providence demands this form of self-sacrifice only rarely. 
 As a nde, what most men most often need is the discipline 
 that comes from their remaining in the world. Otherwise, 
 they would not be in it. Conversely, too, what the world 
 about them most often needs is the rational mode of life to 
 which their own everyday example is fitted to incite their 
 fellows. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 DESIRES OF THE MIND AND OF THE BODY AS INFLUENCED BY 
 OBSERVATION, EXPERIENCE, AND INFORMATION 
 
 Recapitulation — Practical Applications of our Subject to be Considered 
 First in their General Relations to all Actions — Effort Needed in 
 Order to Strengthen the Desires of the Mind — That which Appeals 
 to the Mind as Desirable — It is Ascertained through Observation, 
 Experiment, and Information — Observation as Influencing Imita- 
 tion — Training Imparted by Environment — Through Effects of 
 which One is not Conscious — Influence of Suggestion — Strongest 
 when its Results Appear Desirable in Themselves or so because 
 . Presented by One Personally Admired — Need of Caution in Choos- 
 ing Associations — Opportunities for Influence Need to be Appro- 
 priated — Mistakes of Asceticism — Puritanism — Its Fundamental 
 Conception — That which is Desirable as Ascertained through Ex- 
 periment-i-Actions Tend to Repeat Themselves — Especially Ac- 
 tions Involving Morality^-Guilt Determined by Quality not 
 Quantity of Action — Molding Character by Causing Repetitions 
 of Actions — Not Successful when Undesirable Acts are Repeated — 
 That which is Desirable as Ascertained through Information — 
 The Most Intelligent not the Most Moral — Moral Effects Depend 
 upon the Influence Exerted upon Desire — and upon the Uncon- 
 scious as well as Conscious Mind — ^What Determines the Moral 
 Effects of Information — Mistakes of Modem Methods of Imparting 
 Information: Newspapers — Novels, Plays, and Moving Pictures — 
 Moral Studies in Schools — Influences to Inspire Higher Desire 
 Should Accompany Information. 
 
 THE logical inference from the line of thought unfolded 
 thus far in this volume is that moral character is 
 determined primarily by the character of the desires 
 that underlie and animate conduct. Some of these desires 
 are largely or entirely of the body and some are largely or 
 entirely of the mind; and the two classes of desire are often 
 antagonistic, causing a man to be conscious, as in what is 
 termed conscience, of a conflict between them. This con- 
 flict, before the mind can experience that peace which it 
 
 155 
 
156 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 naturally craves, needs to be made to cease; and it has been 
 shown that this result can be best attained not through the 
 suppression of either class of desires, but, by bringing about 
 a condition in which both classes can work together in har- 
 mony. It has been shown, too, that harmony is a result 
 achieved in the degree in which desires are exercised in 
 such ways that, when two conflict, the one that is more 
 largely of the mind outweighs by its influence and keeps in 
 subordination the one that is more largely of the body. 
 
 Having reached this theoretical conclusion, we are pre- 
 pared now to discuss the more practical applications of our 
 subject. In the present chapter these will be considered in 
 their general relations to all actions; and in subsequent 
 chapters in their special relations to particular actions. 
 Under each head also, in fulfillment of the trend of thought on 
 page 154, and of the method hitherto adopted in this volume, 
 inferences will be drawn with reference to conduct as exer- 
 cised both toward oneself, or in behalf of one's own interests, 
 and toward others, or in behalf of their interests. 
 
 In accordance with this plan, our first thought is most 
 naturally suggested by the emphasis that has been placed 
 upon the influence of desires in general. If these, in the 
 degree in which they incline toward the right or wrong, 
 determine, as brought out in Chapter III., the right or wrong 
 trend of a man's whole nature, then the most important 
 general contribution that he can make toward the practical 
 fulfillment of moral obligation is to cultivate what in the 
 preceding chapters has been termed a harmonious condi- 
 tion of desires in himself and in others over whom he may 
 be able to exert influence. Moreover, if this harmonious con- 
 dition result, as indicated in Chapter XI., from the degree 
 in which, whenever different classes of desires are in conflict, 
 those that are bodily are kept in subordination to those that 
 are mental, then, in so far as this is not the case, an effort is 
 needed in order to develop and strengthen the latter desires. 
 
 It is only uttering a truism to say that all desires, whether 
 bodily or mental, are directed toward the attainment of cer- 
 tain ends because these appeal to consciousness as desirable. 
 They may appear to be thus directed, either because they are 
 supposed to bring a passive form of satisfaction, as when 
 something is felt to be fltting or appropriate (see page 95), 
 or an active form of enjoyment. In the former case there 
 might be only a mild experience of contentment; and in the 
 
OBSERVATION 157 
 
 latter there might be a wild exuberance of delight. Some, 
 in certain circumstances, would prefer the former to the 
 latter; but nothing that could not find a place for itself 
 between these two extremes could ever, by any possibility, 
 appear desirable. To be able to do this, it must give promise 
 of affording satisfaction or enjoyment; and, if it awaken a 
 desire in conflict with another, which should be subordi- 
 nated, as is the condition where the mental and the bodily 
 are in antagonism, then that which appeals to the former 
 of these should give promise of more satisfaction or enjoy- 
 ment than does the latter. This truth is the one that is 
 supposed to justify the "greatest happiness" theory. But 
 the word happiness is not sufficiently comprehensive in its 
 meaning. Satisfaction indicates what is broader. It may 
 exist, as in cases of self-denial and self-sacrifice, where there 
 is very little that could be termed happiness. 
 
 Now let us consider the methods through which the mind 
 comes to recognize what it is that is desirable, — what it is 
 that, when one is choosing, gives promise of more or less 
 satisfaction or enjoyment. In answer, we shall find three 
 such methods that are in constant use and are particularly 
 prominent. These are observation, experience, and infor- 
 mation, — that which a man notices in others, that which he 
 derives from his own experiments, and that which he obtains 
 from hearsay. 
 
 Observation antidates all other mental response to the 
 influence of the outside world. It is necessarily so with 
 children, but it is naturally so, too, with grown people. No 
 other fact can account for the similarity in customs, cos- 
 tumes, sentiments, opinions, tastes, and judgments that 
 characterize all the members of the same communities. 
 This similarity is manifested often even among those who 
 do not seem to derive personal satisfaction from the courses 
 adopted, nor approve of them intellectually. It is appar- 
 ently extremely difficult to prevent large numbers of people 
 from imitating those about them, no matter how many argu- 
 ments against doing this might be drawn from their own 
 experience or from information imparted by others. Boys 
 in America, for instance, because they observe that large 
 numbers of men think smoking desirable, learn to smoke 
 themselves, notwithstanding the nausea that accompanies 
 their earliest experiments in this direction, and the universal 
 testimony of teachers and physicians that in youth tobacco 
 
158 E THICS AND NAT URAL LA W 
 
 weakens the brain and, both in youth and in age, the heart. 
 A few years ago, young women in America squeezed their 
 waists and in China their feet, notwithstanding their own 
 experience of great discomfort in the one case, and of great 
 agony in the other, and the testimony of other people to 
 inform them with reference to future disease or cripplement 
 awaiting such practices. 
 
 Perhaps the majority of the results of thinking and acting 
 that become what is termed conventional are trained into 
 men by imitation of that which they observe — a fact which 
 one should bear in mind whether he be considering his ac- 
 tions as related to his own development or to that of others. 
 Nor must it be supposed that it is the young or the weak- 
 minded alone who are thus influenced. The author met 
 James Russell Lowell shortly after his return to America, 
 subsequent to his Ambassadorship to England. He was at 
 that time over seventy years of age. Yet during the few 
 years in which he had lived abroad, he had acquired not 
 only a decided English accent, but a rolling of the r that 
 might justifiably be ascribed to an English "brogue." An- 
 other example: There is no one in America to whom greater 
 power of originality and initiative could be rightly attrib- 
 uted than to the late Theodore Roosevelt. When he was 
 about thirty years of age he told the author that he had 
 made up his mind not to live any longer on his Western 
 ranch. His reason was that he had found that the surround- 
 ings there had a tendency to unfit a man for conditions in 
 the East, where he thought that, on the whole, his own work 
 ought to be done. Of course, he was referring to only men- 
 tal surroundings. But if a man of his strength of character 
 could refer to these in such language, how much more reason 
 would an ordinary man have to refer in like manner to moral 
 surroundings ! 
 
 Every child and every person, too, in mature life should 
 be taught to bear in mind constantly the importance of 
 placing and keeping oneself, so far as possible, in an environ- 
 ment tending to strengthen and increase the efficiency of 
 his own highest desires. All of us — sometimes even when 
 very young — are aware that certain places and persons, 
 certain forms of recreation and occupation, are likely of 
 themselves to have upon the one who chooses them an up- 
 lifting moral effect, and that certain others are likely to 
 have the opposite. Few, however, fully realize the impor- 
 
INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT 1 59 
 
 tance of treating the choice, when it is made, with sufficient 
 seriousness. As in solving every other problem of life, so 
 here, foresight, which is the chief characteristic of wisdom in 
 any line, is by no means universal. What, in the beginning, 
 may be an expression of nothing more than incautious 
 curiosity or non-calculating self-confidence may lead in the 
 end to moral ruin. 
 
 It seems particularly important to direct attention to this 
 fact because the effects of observation are usually exerted 
 through processes of thought of which the mind that they 
 influence is not conscious. A man like Theodore Roosevelt 
 might recognize the results of their processes in new tastes, 
 aims, or habits that he found forming themselves within 
 him; and a man like James Russell Lowell, if his attention 
 were called to his accent, might recognize the results of 
 association with Englishmen. But a person would show as 
 little knowledge of human nature in general as of the natures 
 of these men in particular, who could accuse either of them 
 of acquiring results like these through conscious imitation. 
 This fact is pointed out because of its illustrating an ex- 
 tremely important truth. It is this, — that the effects of 
 environment, of the conditions in life and of the character 
 of the persons by whom one is surrounded, are more often 
 than not exerted upon the mind's unconscious rather than 
 conscious processes of thought. What is meant by the un- 
 conscious processes, philosophers of every school have ex- 
 plained. A somewhat extended discussion of them will be 
 found in the Author's Psychology of Inspiration, Chapters 
 III. to VI., inclusive. Here it is sufficient to say that, in dis- 
 tinction from such contents of the mind as are floating, so 
 to speak, on the surface of the stream of thought, and are. 
 therefore, recognized by consciousness, these unconscious 
 processes are the constituent elements of the deeper currents 
 constantly flowing on beneath the surface. That they are 
 there, and constantly there, is evinced by the phenomena in 
 natural sleep of somnambulism and of other forms of dream- 
 ing, as well as by the results of hypnotism and allied occult 
 methods which are artificially induced. Besides this, 
 largely through their influence upon the associations of 
 ideas, these unconscious forces are recognized as powerful 
 factors in determining the courses and conceptions of reverie, 
 the picturings of imagination, the surmisals of speculation, 
 and the conclusions of reasoning. 
 
l6o ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 It has been found throughl experiments in hypnotism that 
 the most effective influence upon these processes — ^the in- 
 fluence that can best impel their general tendency toward 
 the attainment of particular objects — is exerted not directly 
 by way of information or argument, but indirectly by way 
 of suggestion. A hypnotizer, for instance, after he has 
 put to sleep the conscious powers of a man and is tr3ring 
 to awaken to action his unconscious powers, does not as- 
 sume the attitude of an instructor or a reasoner. He 
 merely calls to the attention of his patients a certain 
 place, person, object, or project, after which, starting with 
 this as a source of suggestion, their minds continue to 
 develop thoughts concerning it until they receive another 
 suggestion. 
 
 What a mind derives from observation seems to come to 
 it in the same way as does that which follows the suggestion 
 of a hypnotizer — in other words, indirectly and without any 
 conscious guidance on the part of the one who experiences 
 the thought. As in the cases just mentioned of President 
 Roosevelt and Ambassador Lowell, nothing has been know- 
 ingly, much less intentionally, acquired. Nevertheless, this 
 much must be said in addition, — ^that observation seldom, if 
 ever, leads to imitation except of outward manner, and this 
 for the purpose of burlesque, unless, for some reason, that 
 which is imitated has been made to appear desirable to the 
 one who imitates it. All of us have known of persons who 
 have lived for years in what to them was an undesirable 
 environment without apparently acquiring any of the traits 
 that they disliked. The author can recall an American 
 family of boys brought up in London, and having the ex- 
 perience of associating with fellow students in institutions of 
 the rank of Rugby School and Cambridge University, who, 
 when they came home, had no accent that particularly dis- 
 tinguished them from their American associates. Possibly 
 a reason for this might be surmised from the fact that, when 
 they wanted to amuse their American friends who visited 
 them in London, they would assume an exaggerated cock- 
 ney drawl and say : " Now let's talk English." Is it not pos- 
 sible that the peculiarities of English pronunciation which 
 Mr. Lowell had encountered in the drawing-room had been 
 unconsciously imitated by him because they had seemed to 
 him desirable, whereas those which had been encountered 
 by these youngsters, largely probably, in the kitchen and on 
 
INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT l6l 
 
 the street, had not been unconsciously imitated because they 
 had not seemed desirable? 
 
 This, however, is merely theoretic. One must not make 
 too much of it. And yet a shrewd use of suggestions is the 
 most prominent of the characteristics that distinguish a 
 man who is sagacious. Whether or not this particular sug- 
 gestion furnishes additional testimony to the subject now 
 under consideration, the evidence from other sources seems 
 overwhelming that unconscious imitation is practiced by the 
 observer in the degree in which that which is observed ap- 
 pears desirable. It may appear thus either because, as 
 already intimated, it seems to afford interest or enjoyment 
 to the person who is the source of it, or because this person, 
 as one who is loved and respected, affords interest and enjoy- 
 ment, and because his actions, being a part of him, seem to 
 be equally desirable with himself. 
 
 These facts carry with them their own lesson of caution 
 with reference to the influences by which one allows himself 
 to be surrounded, and with reference to the exercise of fore- 
 sight in selecting the friends, businesses, pleasures, and 
 associations in general that will be most likely to awaken 
 and thus strengthen and develop higher rather than lower 
 desires. Fortunately, the range of persons and purposes to 
 which this method of selection can be applied is well-nigh 
 infinite. As brought out in Chapter X., it is less the instru- 
 mentality used than the methods of using it that determines 
 right or wrong. It would be difficult to find anything in the 
 world, spiritual, mental, or material, that could not in some 
 way contribute to moral requirements. The home, the 
 school, the shop, the factory, the farm, the library, the art 
 museum, the courthouse, the statehouse, the church and, 
 in fact, all the avenues of civilization that lead into or 
 through any of these are crowded with associations and 
 opportunities that appeal to higher as contrasted with lower 
 desire. But, as indicated on page 197, the lower or bodily 
 desires are the earliest to manifest their presence, and few 
 can turn from them to serve the higher or mental without 
 an expenditure of effort. 
 
 What has been said should be borne in mind in one's 
 treatment both of himself and of others. To attain moral 
 excellence, a man must exert himself, and to enable others 
 to attain it, he must present it to them in such ways as to 
 induce them to exert themselves. As the exertion that is 
 
l62 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 required results from the effort of mental desire to keep 
 bodily desire in subordination, that which ought to be done 
 needs to be presented to oneself or represented to others as 
 mentally desirable not only, but also as more desirable than 
 if it, or something else, were merely bodily desirable. To 
 others it can be made to appear thus, as has been said al- 
 ready, either because of the pleasure that it seems to give 
 the people who experience it ; or because of the character of 
 these people which is so attractive in itself as to make every- 
 thing attractive that is in any way connected with them. 
 A boy is more likely to imitate a habit of a teacher whom he 
 admires than of one whom he does not admire. 
 
 The moment that this is said, many of us will have sug- 
 gested the mistakes of the ascetic puritanism of our coun- 
 try's earlier history. This system produced some results 
 that were of great value. From its sense of responsibility to 
 man, and of accountability to God, few could fail to receive 
 important lessons with reference to both the dangers and 
 the dignity of human life. Exceptional conscientiousness 
 and efficiency became characteristic of many of those whose 
 education and training were attributable to the system. 
 But, for all that, there were always a number among those 
 influenced by it to whom it did more harm than good. 
 These were made up of various classes, but all of them 
 agreed in this, — that they were conscious — some only mildly 
 and some very wildly — of a lower as well as a higher nature, 
 both of which they thought should be included in any rightly 
 comprehensive consideration of life. Some of those who 
 rebelled against the prevailing conception expressed their 
 feelings in words, and were doomed to be deemed by their 
 fellows eccentric or heretical. Many more, awed into silence 
 and apparent submission by an unsympathetic, self-opin- 
 ionated and occasionally inconsiderate and cruel public 
 sentiment, concealed their convictions and became deceitful 
 and hypocritical, while others still, because they found them- 
 selves out of sympathy with, perhaps, no more than the 
 superficial phases of the beliefs about them, came to iden- 
 tify these with the whole underlying system of religion, and, 
 after a time, began to dislike and oppose this also. An evi- 
 dence of the frequency of this attitude was afforded by the 
 saying, as if it were generally true, which was by no means 
 the case, that "ministers' sons," — i.e., the sons of those 
 typically puritan — "turn out badly." 
 
PURITANISM 163 
 
 The great mistake of the Puritans arose from their not 
 recognizing the obligation on their part to make a right 
 course of life, or themselves as representatives of it, seem 
 attractive. An endeavor to do this they would have con- 
 sidered not only frivolous but demoralizing. Because they 
 perceived, as all thinkers do, what has already been acknowl- 
 edged in this volume, — ^that bodily desires are the foremost 
 to exert their influence and the easiest to fulfill, they seem 
 to have argued that the desires of the mind are in all regards 
 the opposite, and that, therefore, one who is to be trained 
 to follow their promptings on all occasions must be habit- 
 uated in his youth to do what at first appears as undesirable 
 and as difficult as possible. This explains the family dis- 
 cipline where children were not allowed to talk, or to play, 
 or even, at times, to occupy seats in the presence of their 
 elders. It explains the school drill intentionally made monot- 
 onous where all the pupils had to stand up and toe a line or 
 sit straight on benches made unnecessarily uncomfortable. 
 It explains the religious life with its technical catechisms, 
 cant phrases, and long church services only slightly relieved 
 by anything resembling music, in a building full of frost- 
 laden breath and unheated in even the coldest weather. It 
 explains, too, why almost every effort that was put forth to 
 lead men toward the right was conducted by those thinking 
 it their duty to make their faces look as sour and stern as 
 human muscles could permit. What was there in conditions 
 like these that could appeal to mental or rational desire and 
 strengthen it so as to enable it to subordinate bodily desire? 
 The truth is that the Puritans did not recognize some of the 
 most imperative requirements of human nature. A mini- 
 mum of this recognition would have speedily turned all the 
 serious energy of their nature, for which our age so justly 
 honors them, into wellsprings of joy flowing forth to a life 
 about them, filled with the flowering and fruitage of beauty 
 and goodness. 
 
 The second of the ways in which, on page 157, it was said 
 that a man comes to apprehend what is desirable was 
 through experience as derived from experiment, — ^in other 
 words, through saying and doing what one has observed 
 that others say and do. 
 
 Few facts are more universally recognized than that any 
 action, right or wrong, tends to repeat itself. Men usually 
 do again what they have once done. Not so often, but quite 
 
l64 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 frequently, they also refrain from attempting what they 
 have never tried. These tendencies are all the more apt to 
 be manifested when that which they have done has given 
 them pleasure and satisfaction, or when, for any reason, 
 that which they have not done, even though it may promise 
 some degree of these, threatens to bring with it also some 
 degree of pain and peril. 
 
 Such statements apply especially to actions that have to 
 do with morality. One who has never indulged in falsehood, 
 drunkenness, theft, or other like practices, finds it com- 
 paratively easy not to do so. Merely a suggestion given by 
 his own judgment, or conscience, or what he knows to be the 
 opinions of others, is enough to keep him from conduct of 
 which he feels that good morals would not approve. Even 
 if this do not keep him from it, the result is usually due to the 
 persuasions of his comrades, rather than to the promptings 
 of his own desires. These conditions, however, are often 
 very suddenly changed after a single indulgence in any form 
 of vice or crime. So far as concerns this form, the repetition 
 of it becomes exceedingly easy. For one thing, the person 
 committing the deed has learned from experience that the 
 desire which prompted his wrong action is one that this 
 action could gratify — not as fully as he had expected, but, 
 at least in part. Moreover, he has usually learned that the 
 risk that he feared to run is not as great as he had supposed, 
 and this because he finds that the danger is more or less 
 remote. The same is true of most of the dangers connected 
 with wrongdoing. The results are not at once apparent. 
 To the firmest believers in hell, there is, at least, one consola- 
 tion. It always seems a long way off. So with retribution 
 in this world. As a rule, a lie is not immediately detected; 
 what is stolen is not at once missed; an intoxicated man can 
 get to bed quite a number of times without being found out. 
 All the conditions are just what they would be if some 
 demon had arranged a trap in such a way as gradually to 
 entice one where his ultimate destruction would not be 
 readily foreseen. 
 
 Besides this — and it is a very important factor in the 
 situation — guilt is a matter determined by quality and not 
 quantity. A man who has unmistakably done a little wrong 
 feels instinctively that others will be apt to class him with 
 those who have done some great wrong. He feels that he 
 has crossed a border line separating the good from the bad; 
 
E VIL EXPERIENCE CA USES E VIL 1 65 
 
 and is apt to act upon the supposition that he will incur no 
 additional risk if he keep on in the same direction. At least, 
 this conception, and the suggestions connected with it, are so 
 impressed upon his mind that his ability to resist any strong 
 temptation to repeat this form of wrongdoing is immensely 
 weakened. These are facts that a very slight knowledge of 
 the history of vice and crime can amply illustrate. It is 
 not strange, therefore, that many young people, and un- 
 doubtedly the vast majority of them, and an equal propor- 
 tion of older ones intent upon influencing others for good, 
 hold the theory, and carry it out in practice that, 
 
 The time to stop sinning 
 Is ere its beginning. 
 
 To this theory, more than to any other cause, many are 
 accustomed to attribute all the integrity, trustworthiness, 
 and morality which subsequently have made their careers 
 a success. We all believe in reformation; but we all know 
 that anything that has been patched up is never quite as 
 satisfactory as if it had never needed repair. Wild oats 
 cannot be sown without a waste of time and a dissipation of 
 energy, and, to say nothing of the danger of reaping a 
 harmful harvest, life is too short for the waste, and too much 
 in need of effort, for men to afford to throw away the energy. 
 It is no wonder, in view of these facts, that many a person 
 who considers himself to have charge of the moral as well as 
 the mental development of others should become interested 
 in devising means to mold their conduct, so that, in spite 
 of their own bodily tendencies, they shall have experience 
 of the good, and, after having had it, shall desire it, and 
 continue to practice it. This conception is at the basis of 
 many of the methods prevalent in families, schools, and 
 churches. "Train up a child," said Solomon (Prov. xxii, 
 6), "in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will 
 not depart from it." There certainly is much truth in this. 
 But what is meant by "the way " in which "he should go?" 
 Many a boy, most scrupulously trained to go through with 
 all the external forms that are supposed to express what 
 is most pure in the family, upright in the state, and re- 
 ligious in the church, has departed so far from what these 
 forms are intended and supposed to represent as to become 
 notoriously immoral, dishonest, and depraved. 
 
I66 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 In such cases, what was there in the training that was 
 lacking? The reader will anticipate the answer that best 
 accords with what has already been said in this volume. 
 The kind of life which this person was, in his youth, forced 
 to live did not commend itself to him as desirable. No 
 matter how much else may be accomplished, all is in vain 
 unless the training has been successful in producing this 
 latter effect. The child is to be taught to be clean, neat, 
 gentle, kindly, pohte, cautious, industrious, studious, obe- 
 dient, truthful, honest, humble, reverent, and to manifest 
 other traits of a similar kind. But he needs to be trained, 
 not merely to be or to do certain right things, but to wish to 
 be or to do them, and to take satisfaction in what he is or 
 does. The result cannot be obtained merely through making 
 the pupil repeat prescribed actions. Such a course by itself 
 alone frequently has the opposite effect. Many a boy runs 
 away from home, plays truant at school, and even to the end 
 of his life refuses to go into a religious service — ^because of the 
 conscientious and scrupulous efforts that others have put 
 forth when he was young to mold his character in accord- 
 ance, not with what his own better self can be led to desire, 
 but in accordance merely with what they themselves desire. 
 Even when he accepts the routine to which he has been 
 trained, he may do this as a matter merely of form, leading 
 him to become a hypocrite in whatever family, society, or 
 sect he may find himself. No results having any permanent 
 effect upon conduct are obtainable unless they have been so 
 directed as to develop and strengthen mental desires. Of 
 course, to influence these desires is no easy matter. It re- 
 quires a degree of thoughtfulness, ingenuity, and imagination 
 apparently beyond the possibility of large numbers of the 
 parents, teachers, or preachers who undertake it. But the 
 main reason why most of them fail is because they fail to 
 apprehend its requirements. Of course, not apprehending 
 these, they cannot be expected to fulfill them. 
 
 Before passing on to consider the chief ways of fulfilling 
 them, let us notice a concluding subject already promised 
 for this chapter, — that is, the third of the ways in which, 
 on page 157 it was said that the mind comes to apprehend 
 what is desirable, namely, through hearsay or through re- 
 ceiving information imparted by others. No one can doubt 
 that any desire, especially a higher desire, can be greatly 
 strengthened by being shown to accord with the discoveries 
 
LEARNING FROM INFORMATION 1 67 
 
 and promptings of intelligence. What is intelligence for, 
 except to act as a guide to action, — of which moral action is 
 merely one important department ? No wonder that a man's 
 conduct should be supposed to be determined largely by his 
 general education and his special information. 
 
 This is a subject that does not need to be argued. But, 
 in connection with it, one should always bear in mind that 
 information designed to affect moral character must be so 
 imparted as to influence mental desire, and so received as to 
 develop it. The most intelligent are by no means, for this 
 reason, the most moral. The best informed by no means 
 lead the best regulated lives. Who have a more accurate 
 knowledge of the evils resulting from an excessive use of 
 alcohol or narcotics than have physicians? Yet statistics 
 show that these belong to the very class most given to such 
 excesses. Everyone who reads even a few books ought to 
 know that some of the worse characters mentioned in history 
 have been among those most fully informed with reference 
 to right and wrong, and most thoroughly fitted to argue out 
 the consequences of each; and that some of the best charac- 
 ters have received only a minimum of either instruction or 
 mental training. They have become what they were, so 
 far as one can make out, not so much because of what they 
 have been informed as of what they have observed and ex- 
 perienced while associating with good people whose ex- 
 amples they have followed. More than this, it may be 
 said that very often the influence of these people for good 
 has been in proportion to their lack of knowledge, or of con- 
 fidence in the effects of mere learning or logic. The writer 
 has known intimately three large families every member of 
 which has passed through life with an unimpeachable moral 
 record. Yet. in all these families, the apparent lack, when 
 the children were young, of instruction imparted merely as 
 instruction, was severely criticized by the parents of certain 
 other families, half of whose members, when they grew up, 
 became a disgrace to them. This is no argument against 
 instruction; but it is the strongest kind of an argument 
 against supposing that this is all the influence, or the main 
 i^uence, that needs to be exerted. 
 
 When we consider that the important matter is that the 
 instruction, whether imparted by information or argument, 
 should be of such a nature as to influence desire, it is re- 
 markable how few of the methods used now in our homes 
 
I68 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 and schools are directed specifically to the attaining of this 
 end. It seems to be supposed by many that a statement or 
 picture once lodged in the mind stays still like a package 
 put on a shelf in a closet, never changing form, and never 
 having any different effect or significance than before it was 
 placed there. They would be more nearly right if they 
 supposed the mind to be like an overflowing caldron filled 
 with seething material into which all things entering fall, to 
 be caught up by the mass and borne about and away in the 
 current of its own tendency. The tendency has been shown in 
 Chapter III. to be determined predominantly sometimes by 
 bodily, and sometimes by mental desire. Because, therefore, 
 of what desires are in themselves, and also because they can 
 be influenced by more than one agency, it is illogical to 
 assign to information as large, not to say as exclusive, a 
 degree of influence, as is sometimes attributed to it. 
 
 This fact needs particularly to be called to the attention 
 of those whose conception of the influence of information is 
 confined to that which affects merely the conscious as dis- 
 tinguished from the unconscious mind as described on 
 pages 159 and 1 60. If there were no unconscious processes of 
 thought determining the tendencies and associations of ideas 
 that have an effect not merely on speculative imaginings, 
 but on logical inferences, then one could always know before- 
 hand how the mind would be affected by information. In 
 that case, if a man were told, and believed it to be true, that 
 to do something would bring on a particular form of disease, 
 he would not do it. In that case, if he were told, and be- 
 lieved it to be true, that to do something else would cure 
 a disease that he had, he would do it. But this is not the 
 way in which human beings act. Within their minds are 
 drifts of thought, controlled subconsciously by all sorts of 
 desires; and these manifest a constant tendency to emerge 
 into consciousness with sufficient strength to overwhelm 
 everything — no matter how wise — that may be opposed to 
 them. 
 
 Where information is imparted, therefore, it may or may 
 not have the good effect which it is intended to produce. 
 Its having this effect depends upon two things, — upon the 
 strength and tendency of right desires in the mind that re- 
 ceives the information; and upon the ability of those who 
 impart it to connect it with influences that shall awaken 
 and energize these right desires. It is sometimes supposed 
 
INFORMATION THAT INCREASES VICE 1 69 
 
 that to keep one informed of the character and results of 
 vice and crime, will necessarily cause him to refrain from 
 indulging in them. But no matter what may have been the 
 purpose of giving such information, it will not benefit the 
 hearer unless it has aroused in him desires antagonistic to 
 the courses described. Otherwise, the information with 
 the inferences and suggestions associated with it, may be 
 developed in connection with the promptings of lower 
 desires. 
 
 Having said this much, it is hardly necessary to point out 
 to any one capable of drawing logical deductions the appall- 
 ing mistakes that are made in some modern methods of im- 
 parting information, instruction, and even entertainment. 
 Few newspapers fail occasionally to contain graphic repre- 
 sentations to the imagination of the details of crime. Many 
 have been committed by the young, and have not infre- 
 quently been suggested to them by what they have read of 
 the crimes of others. Large numbers of offenses result from 
 acting outwardly what has been acted inwardly over and 
 over again in imagination, excited by suggestions derived 
 from what has been read. It is a well-established fact that 
 many a story about a bandit, burglar, or suicide, notwith- 
 standing the dangers and horrors described, far from deter- 
 ring certain people from a like experience, cause them to seek 
 to imitate it. The example seems to produce a fatal fascina- 
 tion like that of the charm of a snake upon its victim. Those 
 responsible for government who know so little about the 
 workings of the human mind as not to prohibit by law the 
 publication of these details, can scarcely be too strongly 
 condemned. But someone may ask: "Would you interfere 
 with the liberty of the press ? " Certainly, just as one would 
 with the liberty of an individual — a drunkard, a crimi- 
 nal, a maniac — in case he has become a menace to the 
 community. 
 
 The same principle applies to making public the details 
 of vice — though this is done less in newspapers than in 
 novels, plays, and moving pictures. But would you inter- 
 fere, someone asks, with the delineation of any phases of life, 
 whether good or bad? Are not all these necessary in or- 
 der to meet artistic requirements? Should we restrict and 
 cripple art? Any one who talks in this way, and does so 
 supposing that what he says furnishes an argument against 
 any legitimate conclusion from the line of thought that is 
 
170 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 here being presented, either knows little about art or cares 
 little about morals. If he knew much about art, he would 
 know that, at its best, it is not merely an imitation of nature, 
 but an embodiment, through the use of the forms of nature, 
 of an ideal; and that an ideal is a mental result, always at- 
 tained through manifesting, in some way, the supremacy of 
 the mental over the bodily. If he cared about morals, he 
 would care for subjects necessarily suggestive of conceptions, 
 and representative of conduct, of a high mental quality. 
 As things are in our country to-day, it would be feasible for 
 a maliciously disposed neighbor to ruin a young person just 
 approaching maturity merely by lending him evilly selected 
 novels and taking him to evilly selected theaters and picture 
 shows. 
 
 In no way could character be more debased, except, per- 
 haps, by having him study a textbook on sex hygiene in a 
 public school. Not that any person should be kept in igno- 
 rance of what he ought to know, but that the lessons upon a 
 subject such as this should be made as brief, and studied as 
 little and seldom, as possible. Twenty minutes spent, once a 
 term, by one in whom a pupil has confidence, in briefly tell- 
 ing facts, and a short visit, once or twice in a lifetime, to a 
 hospital museum would give all the information needed by 
 the ordinary young person with reference to the subject. 
 There is no need of making an intimate acquaintance of a 
 smallpox patient in order to learn to avoid catching his dis- 
 ease. The same is true with reference to more dangerous 
 diseases. There are certain subjects concerning which the 
 less that is said, or thought, or suggested, the better; and 
 in any case, the surest remedy for the evils attendant upon 
 them, is not to be obtained through the understanding. 
 
 There is such a thing as being too well informed. What is 
 needed is something that shall set into operation a higher 
 desire. Unless this be done, all the animating possibilities 
 of thought may act there as fertilizing agencies act upon a 
 seed and develop a crop of inconceivable troubles. It is 
 true that a concentration of attention upon threatened con- 
 sequences may repel or frighten from indulgence certain 
 persons of certain temperaments. But in many it will be 
 more likely to awaken false conceptions of human nature, 
 disheartening views of their own share in it, morbid curiosity 
 with reference to the taste of the forbidden fruit described, 
 and delusive confidence in the efficacy of preventives or of 
 
INFORMATION THAT INCREASES VICE 171 
 
 cures prescribed after infection. Not one, if influenced 
 through the understanding alone, will be inspired to those 
 exalted and purifying desires which alone can assure safety 
 not only to body but to soul. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 KEEPING THE MIND'S DESIRES UPPERMOST IN COURTSHIP 
 AND MARRIAGE 
 
 The Family has Bodily and Mental Relations to the Development of 
 Character — The Bodily should not be Emphasized Unduly, though 
 Public Sentiment against Marrying Physical Degenerates is 
 Healthful — Mental Requirements should also be Regarded, and 
 Anticipated in Education — Courtship, Friendship, and Love — 
 The Qualities Attracting those who Fall in Love — ^Risks Attaiding 
 Merely Bodily or Merely Mental Attraction — Methods of Avoid- 
 ing these Risks — Eflfects of Sentimentality, as in Novels, etc., as 
 Contrasted with Rationality, Especially as Exerted by Parents — 
 The Cure for Unsatisfactory Marriage — Injurious Representations 
 of much Modem Literature — Evils Wrought by Forbidding all 
 Divorce — Good Accomplished by Resisting Tendencies to it, in 
 Order to Balance the Bodily by the Mental. 
 
 IN accordance with the plan indicated on page 156, we 
 shall now consider the practical applications of our 
 subject, not, as in the preceding chapter, in their gen- 
 eral relations to all actions, but in their special relations to 
 particular actions. In doing this it is natural to begin with 
 those primary and intimate relations of life that are found 
 in the family. The family, consisting of father, mother, and 
 child, constitutes the earliest form of human organization; 
 and it always has been, and, despite efforts, especially at 
 the present day, to minimize its prominence, it always will 
 continue to be, the most important. The object of the 
 family is the bodily and mental development of the child. 
 What the child finally becomes is determined partly by 
 that which he inherits physically at birth, and partly by 
 that which surrounds and influences him psychically during 
 his childhood. This is not to say that with his physical 
 nature he may not inherit also certain psychical traits; or 
 that with his psychical nature he may not acquire from en- 
 vironment certain physical traits. It is merely to say that 
 
 172 
 
INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY 1 73 
 
 the primary source of influence in heredity is physical and 
 in environment is psychical. 
 
 The reason why attention is directed to this fact here is 
 because of the tendency in our times to emphasize unduly — 
 and sometimes even exclusively — the influence of heredity. 
 Eugenic requirements — i.e., requirements determined by the 
 physical health or condition of those about to marry — are, 
 of course, extremely important. So far as feasible, the laws 
 of the State should prevent the union of those afilicted with 
 diseases of body or rnind, such as are known to be inheritable, 
 or with those infections following indulgence in vice, which, 
 though apparently cured, leave impurity in the blood liable 
 to be communicated to one's offspring, and to develop in 
 these into idiocy, blindness, and other forms of inflrmity. 
 With reference to the risks incurred by marriage in such 
 cases, because their beginnings can be easily concealed, 
 young people ought to be fully informed; nor is any worthy 
 purpose served by the modem novel or moving picture that 
 represents a drunkard-hero or a harlot-heroine as marrying 
 a high-minded girl or a pure-minded man, and the couple liv- 
 ing happily ever afterward. Quite often the laws of nature 
 prevent such people from living happily; and only unreflect- 
 ing sentimentality could fail to recognize why nature, in pre- 
 venting their happiness, is acting, on the whole, humanely 
 and wisely. It is emphasizing for the young, as might be 
 possible in no other way, the extreme importance of fulfill- 
 ing always the requirements of higher as contrasted with 
 lower desire. 
 
 But, as said before, what the child becomes is determined 
 not only by what he inherits physically, but by what, in the 
 earliest years after birth, surrounds him and influences him 
 psychically. The contribution to moral character of the 
 latter, too, is fully as important as the former. The human 
 mind is never so susceptible to influence; so quick to learn 
 the lessons or to acquire the habits, that others can impart, 
 as during its first fifteen years of earthly life. The most that 
 follows subsequently is little more than a process, able to 
 finish and perfect, but not to change, the general tendency. 
 A clear inference from this fact is that, before marriage, 
 those who may become parents, especially the mother who 
 must necessarily be brought into the most continuous and 
 intimate relations with the child, need more or less prepara- 
 tion for the work. The traits essential for success in this 
 
174 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 are love for human nature, hope for it, and faith in it. But 
 where can our young people acquire these, or begin to ac- 
 quire them? Certainly not in such families or churches as 
 are permeated by an influence that can appropriately be 
 termed exclusive or aristocratic; or in such schools or col- 
 leges as are dominated by class spirit, fraternity or sorority 
 snobbishness, or a general atmosphere of hazing, even if the 
 latter assume no meaner form than ostentatiously avoiding 
 or insulting an acquaintance, or walking by on a dry path 
 from which others have been shoved into slush and mud. 
 Think of these things as a training for parenthood! As if 
 one could not be loyal to one's own family, church, society, 
 or class and still manifest the traits of a gentleman or a 
 lady ! As if the mental desire prompting to a revelation of 
 the spirit of sympathy and service should ever be subordi- 
 nated to a purely bodily desire to elbow another into dis- 
 credit or discomfort in order to make a public display of 
 one's own egoistic narrowness and selfishness! Of course, 
 such things as have been mentioned involve comparatively 
 slight deviations from the right, but, like little straws that 
 show the direction of the wind, little offenses show the ten- 
 dencies of the spirit, — tendencies, too, that, if they be not 
 checked, may develop into offenses almost infinitely great. 
 After young people have left school — and, very frequently 
 too, before this — they are supposed to have reached the 
 period of courtship. At this time they are apt to become 
 conscious of being called upon to solve a very perplexing 
 question, — perplexing, because it is necessarily complicated. 
 Courtship is introductory to marriage; and marriage, as 
 indicated on page 3, is the result of a desire on the part of 
 one individual for union with another, a desire that may be 
 bodily or mental, or both; and when both, either the bodily 
 or the mental tendency may dominate. The desire when 
 wholly bodily is universally recognized to be more or less 
 lacking in that which should characterize a rational being. 
 The desire that is wholly mental leads to what is termed 
 friendship; and the psychical unity — the agreement in 
 thought, emotion, and action between two minds brought 
 together in this relationship — ^is often as nearly perfect as 
 anything in this world can be. The desire that is partly 
 bodily and partly mental, — partly owing, that is, to in- 
 herited and temperamental traits and tendencies, and partly 
 to psychical qualities and acquirements — ^is that which 
 
PRECAUTIONS BEFORE MARRYING 175 
 
 leads to what is usually described as "falling in love." In 
 this condition, if, in the desire, the bodily dominate, it is a 
 lower form of love than if the mental dominate — slower, not 
 merely theoretically, as a matter of philosophic estimation, 
 but practically, as a matter of personal experience. Were it 
 otherwise, it would be impossible for those who have lived 
 for years in circumstances where mental desire alone could 
 be fully satisfied — with invalid marriage partners, perhaps, 
 or, especially in youth, with intimates of their own sex — 
 to attribute to these years a happiness as nearly complete as 
 seems possible in any earthly relationship, and to speak of 
 them, notwithstanding subsequent marriage experience, as 
 affording the only conception that they have ever attained 
 of the possibilities of true love. 
 
 In case the two who "fall in love" be of different sexes, 
 there can scarcely fail to be, as society is now constituted, 
 a suggestion of marriage; and marriage, considered either as 
 a civil or a religious contract, renders it important for those 
 who plan for it to be able to determine what are the qualities 
 in another that attract them, and whether these are qualities 
 that are likely to attract them permanently. Here is the 
 source of the perplexity that has been mentioned. People 
 often misrepresent themselves to those with whom they 
 become comparatively intimate. They may do this con- 
 sciously, rouging their cheeks, dyeing their hair, living on 
 borrowed money, and pretending an interest and enthusiasm 
 in subjects for which they care nothing; or unconsciously, 
 influenced by a subtle wish to conciliate or please others, 
 because they are weak or vain, or only too genial or yielding 
 in disposition. Even when there is no misrepresentation on 
 the part of either of two persons thus interested in each 
 other, both may often experience great difficulty in dissect- 
 ing the actions of their own minds, and in arriving at any 
 intelligent conclusion with reference to what it is that really 
 constitutes that which they term their love. 
 
 Is it bodily alone, or mental alone, or is it both? and, if so, 
 which of the two is uppermost? One is fascinated, perhaps, 
 by the expressions of a face, or by the movements of a form; 
 and this is as it should be. But are mere externals like these 
 the only things that attract him? A snake fascinates, and 
 how is a man in love to know that the feeling which he has 
 is of any higher quality than that of the snake's victim? 
 Even if it be recognized that the effect of the fascinating 
 
176 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 influence is distinctly stimulating to mental activity, so, it 
 may be said, is the effect, sometimes, of tea, opium, or whis- 
 ky, and the main effect of each is undoubtedly bodily. 
 On the other hand, suppose that one find himself in com- 
 plete agreement with the thoughts or emotions of another, 
 is psychical agreement — the fulfilment of mental desire — 
 all that is needed in order to secure an ideal marriage? 
 Those who have attended boarding schools that are apt to 
 tumble together boys, at least, so that they have experience 
 of many different room mates and bedfellows, know that 
 there are some good friends who are not bodily attractive, 
 and, on the contrary, that there are some not particularly 
 good friends who are so. What if a man after marriage 
 should discover that his wife belonged to one of these classes? 
 For a constant companion, it would not be ideal to have her 
 belong to either. The condition, moreover, would be one 
 that could seldom be cured, because nothing can change 
 one's bodily or mental temperament. An eminent lawyer 
 over seventy years of age once told the author that not one 
 day had gone by since he had graduated from college in 
 which he had failed to write a letter, or, at least, some part 
 of a letter, to his old college room mate. A man particu- 
 larly fitted by temperament and character, one would think, 
 for loyal devotedness in married life! And yet — though not 
 one word from him ever justified the inference — his club 
 mates used to say that he never seemed to be thoroughly 
 enjoying his life except when his wife was in Europe sepa- 
 rated from him by the whole width of the ocean. 
 
 Many a young fellow, in spite of many temptations, has 
 been kept in the path of virtue under the feeling that he 
 was in honor bound to bring to his future wife a record as 
 unsullied as he expected from her. Providence certainly 
 seems to be unnecessarily adverse when dooming such a 
 man as this to spend a miserable existence with some misfit 
 mate. In view of such cases, what ought to be done ? Some 
 have advised trial marriage that could be given up after a 
 few months. But, for obvious reasons, this plan does not 
 seem feasible. Marriage that could be annulled informally 
 would lose much of its dignity and importance; and people 
 would become less rather than more cautious before engag- 
 ing in it. Besides this, a crowd of discarded brides and 
 bridegrooms contributing tales and traits that had been 
 collected as a result of promiscuous experiences of this sort 
 
PRECAUTIONS BEFORE MARRYING 177 
 
 would not improve any of the conditions of society. Pos- 
 sibly, as the years go by, there may come to be some arrange- 
 ment supervised by the families of the engaged parties 
 which, while preventing the consummation of marriage, 
 shall afford a satisfactory test of the advisibility of more 
 intimate and permanent relations; but, at present, no such 
 treatment of the problem is in sight. The best that can be 
 done seems to be to try to impress upon the mind of every 
 young person the fact that there is no menace to one's 
 future happiness so great as is afforded by enforced compan- 
 ionship with one of another sex who is not both bodily and 
 mentally congenial. For this reason alone, most couples, 
 at the time when marriage is suggested, ought to have sense 
 enough to delay it until, by mutual understanding, they 
 have made an honest and thorough endeavor with the ut- 
 most candor to reveal to one another the exact truth with 
 reference to their inmost feelings, characteristics, opinions, 
 and purposes. 
 
 Nevertheless, in most of our talks with the young in 
 family and society, as well as in our novels, poems, plays, 
 and moving pictures, the consummation of bliss in life is 
 represented as being attained by engagement and marriage, 
 both of which are begun and ended under the guidance of 
 absolutely irrational fancy and whim, without the slight- 
 est exercise of wisdom or judgment. Exactly the opposite 
 ought to be the case. Instead of acting like a moth about a 
 flame, and hastening to hover around the object of attracr 
 tion, and join oneself to it regardless of the safety of the 
 experiment, a man ought to act like an intelligent being, 
 and examine the character of the flame before he lets it burn 
 him. He ought to learn all that he can about his charmer's 
 associates, family, attainments, pursuits, and amusements; 
 and, in case these prove unsatisfactory, he ought to avoid, 
 so far as he can, any possibility of intimacy. Few can 
 control desires after time has been given them in which 
 to grow strong; but most of us can do so if we resist the 
 beginnings of them. Even if we fail to do this, it is simply 
 a matter of ordinary prudence to hesitate and investigate 
 before making a proposition of marriage. In connection 
 with this subject there are arguments — ^but they would not 
 be convincing to people of our land — in favor of having the 
 parents of the parties influence the selection of the bride or 
 bridegroom. Seldom, at least, should they be left wholly 
 
178 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 unconsulted. Unless abnormally heartless, they are natu- 
 rally their child's best friends; and the family is unfortunate 
 indeed in which some of its different members do not con- 
 fide their heart secrets to one another. The writer has 
 known of more than one large and interesting household in 
 which a considerable part of the business of the parents, at 
 one period, consisted in traveling about the country to hunt 
 up the personal and family histories of those who had pro- 
 posed to enter it through marria;ge. The importance of 
 efforts of this kind will not seem exaggerated here by any 
 one acquainted with society gossip, newspaper items, or the 
 records of police courts. 
 
 But if, in spite of all precautions, married life prove un- 
 satisfactory, what then? Shall the parties who have been 
 married in accordance with ecclesiastical or civil law be 
 divorced in accordance with the same? To this question 
 different churches and states in our own and in other coun- 
 tries have given different answers. Some have allowed 
 divorce at the request of only one of the parties, and for 
 only a single case of disagreement between them. Others 
 have allowed it in no case except where it can be proved 
 that the marriage vow has been broken; and even then, 
 freedom to marry again has been denied both parties. As 
 usual, the wise course seems to lie between the two extremes. 
 Few things could be more injurious in their influence upon a 
 community, more destructive of good in the minds of the 
 children of the families concerned, or more unexemplary in 
 the personal character of a father or mother than for one 
 of them to obtain a divorce, because of some transient dis- 
 agreement or dissatisfaction, and, on the same day, perhaps, 
 as has sometimes happened in our country, to marry 
 another for whom this one has taken what may soon prove 
 to be an equally transient fancy. Every argument in favor 
 of easy divorce, or — what is virtually the same thing — 
 "free love," as it is called, as well as every case in which this 
 argument influences official action, emphasizes and makes 
 more general the false conception that the supreme achieve- 
 ment of life is to recognize and gratify lower rather than 
 higher desire. 
 
 Unfortunately, as applied not only to marriage, but, in 
 connection with this, to many other interests, this false con- 
 ception, at present, is quite general. Think of the popular 
 novels and dramas of the day, and the works of Ibsen, 
 
DIVORCE 179 
 
 Sudermann, Hauptmann, and others, upon which so much 
 of all modern literature is modeled. (See also page 185). 
 What is the lesson that is taught in most of them? This, — 
 that, if circumstances in life do not agree with one's bodily 
 or physical comfort, as determined by his personal tempera- 
 ment or self-centered preference, then he should "kick or 
 kill" somebody. With such teachings received and followed; 
 it is easy to explain a certain weakened moral effect dis- 
 coverable in our own times not only in family relations, but 
 in many others. These teachings have more to do than 
 many of us suspect not only with the number of modem 
 divorces, but with the flirtatious vanities that precede them, 
 including the guzzling, the tippling, the gossiping, the 
 dressing and the undressing, the indecency of the dancing, 
 the vulgarity of the language, the emptying of places in 
 which serious problems of life are discussed, and the crowd- 
 ing of those that exploit the frivolous and the flippant. 
 The same influence could be shown, too, to have had not a 
 little to do with the self-seeking, the injustice, the cruelty, 
 and the beastliness of some of the warfare begun in 1914. 
 ' ' Kick or kill' ' which is the teaching of the literature of which 
 we have been speaking, is just the opposite of the teaching 
 of the mental, rational, and spiritual nature. This enjoins 
 consideration always, and sometimes service for others, at 
 the expense, too, of frequent self-denial, and not a little self- 
 sacrifice. Why should intelligent men, who should have 
 vision enough to forsee the results of their own influence, 
 join in an endeavor to lessen belief in those higher ideals of 
 what life can do and be, the fulfillment of which alone 
 can bring satisfaction to the individual or happiness to the 
 community? Why is it, when the devil wants to incarnate 
 himself, that he should so often find particularly favorable 
 conditions among the possibilities of genius? And genius is 
 capable of doing the world so much good! 
 
 The view with reference to divorce that presents the other 
 extreme of opinion is as objectionable as the one just men- 
 tioned; and, strange as it may appear, it is objectionable 
 for the same reason. Think for a moment what is, and must 
 be, the theory underlying a law that forbids divorce either 
 altogether, or for any other reason than adultery. This 
 theory must be that marriage is a union merely physi- 
 cal in its origin and nature and capable of being rightly 
 annulled for only a physical or bodily reason. In this aspect 
 
I80 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 of the subject, psychical or mental considerations may be 
 entirely ignored. Yet for one intent upon keeping the 
 balance between bodily and mental tendencies and, in case 
 of need, subordinating the former to the latter, it is possible, 
 in view of the highest interests of the children of a family or 
 of other relatives, or, perhaps, of the offender, that even 
 adultery may not appear to warrant divorce; while, in view 
 of the same considerations, other offenses having nothing to 
 do with adultery may appear to warrant it. Man was not 
 made for marriage, but marriage for man. Any arrange- 
 ments in life that can be unmistakably shown to interfere 
 with the happiness, the prosperity, the profit, or the pros- 
 pects of any individual ought to be made subject to legal 
 redress. This fact does not excuse legislation allowing 
 every irresponsible married malcontent to have his own 
 way and thus satisfy his whim or fancy, irrespective of 
 duty to himself or to others; but it does excuse and justify 
 legislation allowing divorce for psychical as well as physical 
 grievances. It is the right and duty of the public, to say 
 nothing about the family of the sufferer, to prevent a 
 woman or man from becoming a victim of one whose vice, 
 criminality, or cruelty can be clearly proved. There would 
 be less difficulty than now seems to be the case, in main- 
 taining, in thought and practice, the mean between divorce 
 made too easy and made too difficult, if the wisdom could 
 be recognized of always deciding such questions according 
 to the principle of subordinating, when the two conflict, 
 bodily to mental requirements. 
 
 Meantime the thousands and millions of those whose 
 wedded life has been not positively distressful, but only 
 negatively unsatisfactory, should take consolation in the 
 thought that these conditions have merely proved marriage 
 to be on a par with almost everj^hing else in this world. 
 Moreover, a slight acquaintance with the history of human 
 achievement would teach them that nothing perhaps — 
 because nothing can stir one more deeply — ^is better fitted 
 to develop what is fundamental in one's mental and spirit- 
 ual nature than the experience that is termed — whether in 
 or out of wedlock — "disappointment in love." Besides 
 this, nothing is better established than the fact that many 
 who are not congenial in early married life, after a few years, 
 if they pursue the path of duty, settle down into a sort of 
 brotherly and sisterly relation, where each experiences 
 
UNHAPPY MARRIED LIFE l8l 
 
 both the development due to early disappointment and also 
 the respect due to long continuance in well-doing. One 
 thing in the world is sure, — ^that nothing is gained, and 
 sometimes everything worth while is lost, by following the 
 tendencies of merely lower or physical temper and tempera- 
 ment, and ignoring that which prompts to the conscious 
 and often conscientious control exercised by higher mental 
 and spiritual desire. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 KEEPING THE MIND'S DESIRES UPPERMOST IN FAMILY 
 TRAINING 
 
 The Training of the Child the Chief Work of the Family — Necessity of 
 Influencing the Child's Desires through Love for Him — Through 
 Hope for Him — Through Faith in Him — Children Associate Mys- 
 tery with the Prompting of Conscience — Importance of Developing 
 their Tendencies to Reverence and Aspiration — Devotion, and 
 Religious Suggestion in Family Life — Cultivation among the 
 Children of Respect, Obedience, and a Sense of Duty — Other Traits, 
 the Beginnings of which can be Cultivated in Childhood — The Chief 
 Aim should be the Cultivation of Mental Desires which Chastise- 
 ment alone Cannot Accomplish — Self-control should be Developed 
 — Traits Connected with Truthfulness that Need Particular Em- 
 phasis in Childhood — Traits Connected with Purity — Importance 
 of Parents' Gaining and Keeping their Children's Confidence — The 
 Effects of this upon both Morals and Manners. 
 
 THE same balancing and, in case of need, subordinating 
 of bodily desire in conformity to the expressional 
 requirements of mental desire, the influence of which 
 upon the development of conditions in courtship and mar- 
 riage has been considered in the preceding chapter, is aLso 
 demanded in the training of children. Owing to the rela- 
 tions in this between parents and their offspring, it is ordi- 
 narily represented, as in what is said of Love to Man, in 
 Chapters II. and VII. in Part II. of the Elements of Moral 
 Science, of Francis Wayland (1798-1865), that the parents, 
 up to the time when the child becomes of age, are under 
 obligation to support him, and to give him physical, intel- 
 lectual, and moral training. Moreover, because responsible 
 for his actions, they have a right to control him and them, 
 and to receive his earnings. It is represented also that the 
 child is under obligation to manifest obedience, reverence, 
 and affection, and to support his parents in their old age. 
 But how can these results be brought about in a way to 
 
 182 
 
FAMILY TRAINING 183 
 
 prove satisfactory to both parties? Evidently only through 
 some agency that can influence the parents on the one 
 hand and the children on the other through first influencing 
 higher desire. Without this, parents may support, educate, 
 and live upon the earnings of their children in an incon- 
 siderate and cruel way; and, if so, the children will never 
 feel under obligation to treat a father or mother in any 
 different way from that in which they themselves have 
 been treated. 
 
 This is merely to reiterate the general conception already 
 expressed many times in these pages. Everyone must be 
 inclined to the right through being influenced first to a right 
 desire. This is especially true in the case of children. They 
 are less susceptible than are grown people to influence 
 exerted through the understanding alone. For this reason 
 it is essential that the discipline of the family should give 
 particular expression to the three methods of influence 
 briefly mentioned in the preceding chapter, namely, love, 
 hope, and faith — ^love for the child as he is, hope for what he 
 may become, and faith in his own emotional promptings and 
 intellectual tendencies as agencies fitted to develop what he 
 is into what he should be. 
 
 These three are so important in dealing not only with 
 children but with all people, that a few words with reference 
 to each will not be out of place here. One of the commonest 
 of human traits, implanted, probably, as an extension from 
 the body to the mind of the impulse of self-preservation, is 
 a sense of responsibility for the guardianship of what may 
 be termed one's own personality. By this term is meant 
 not his moral character but that result of bodily and mental 
 temperament, traits, and tendencies which is peculiar to 
 himself, and which gives a certain individuality of effect 
 to all his acts, moral or immoral. Some years ago, after the 
 Civil War in our country, the author, on many occasions, 
 succeeded in getting former slaves to admit that before they 
 were emancipated, the necessities of life — food, clothing, and 
 lodging — ^had been easier for them to obtain than subse- 
 quently; but not one of them would say that he would be 
 willing to be a slave again. They all preferred to keep their 
 poverty rather than to lore the right to give free expression 
 to their personality. A similar feeling seems to actuate 
 everybody. In consequence of it, we all, more or less un- 
 consciously, divide the people about us into two classes, — 
 
I84 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 those who have the same feeling as ourselves about our own 
 personality, and those who have a different feeling. The 
 former of these we Uke and sometimes love. To the latter 
 we are always indifferent, and sometimes feel hostile. Those 
 whom we like invariably pay deference to our methods or 
 manners of thinking, feeling, or acting. Those whom we love 
 go further than this. They admire our methods and 
 manners, and not infrequently imitate them. We have all 
 seen children and older people whose peculiarities of ex- 
 pression in face, movement, voice, and sentiment made them 
 exceedingly disagreeable to ourselves; and yet these, appar- 
 ently, were the very characteristics that made them appear 
 attractive and even fascinating to someone who was re- 
 lated to them, perhaps as parent, husband, wife, or sweet- 
 heart. This result was as it should be. We ourselves did 
 not need to love these people; nor did they need to love us. 
 But if we had been a relative — a parent especially — it 
 would have been different; and if our love for them had not 
 come naturally, we should have been remiss if we had not 
 tried to cultivate and express it. Think of the young people 
 who live in almost perpetual misery because they are not 
 conscious that anyone in their own home loves them, — i.e., 
 thoroughly admires and appreciates them for what they are! 
 Notice that this misery is the result of non-selfish mental 
 desire, yearning for an assurance that one has been of some 
 use, help, comfort, or satisfaction to a fellow human being; 
 and what can be meaner or more Satanic, if it can be 
 avoided, than to greet the growing germs of goodness in such 
 a character not with the genial influences of a warm and 
 loving heart but with the chilling and deadening effects of 
 constant faultfinding and correction? A parent who has 
 not sufficient sense, not to say sensitiveness to the good, to 
 welcome with manifest delight every indication of a desire 
 for love on the part of a child deserves from him in old age 
 nothing better than disappointment and desertion. 
 
 This suggests the second method of parental iiiuence of 
 which mention was made on page 183, namely, hope. Noth- 
 ing can prove more effective in developing moral character 
 than this. Whatever may be said of parents, it is a question 
 whether anyone should be employed as a teacher, or licensed 
 as a preacher, whose optimism does not overbalance his 
 pessimism. As for the systems of instruction, either in 
 churches or schools, that are based upon a pessimistic con- 
 
HAVING HOPE FOR A CHILD 1 85 
 
 caption of human nature and its requirements, it would be 
 difficult to find terms in which to describe them that would 
 be adequately derogatory. How can anyone suppose that 
 higher desires, that must manifest themselves to conscious- 
 ness and operate, if at all, inside the mind, can ever owe their 
 origin or continued presence to ans^thing merely outside the 
 mind, like technical instruction drilled into one by a tutor, 
 or critical espionage practiced by a chaperon! Yet concep- 
 tions like these are being constantly adopted, and by people 
 undoubtedly sincere and religious. One might suppose their 
 theory to be that a man comes into the world like a mere 
 mass of matter to be molded entirely, as matter is, by that 
 which is external. Of course, this theory contains the sug- 
 gestion of a partial truth. Notwithstanding hopes that 
 animate the mind from within, it often needs assistance and 
 direction from without. The other part of the truth, how- 
 ever, is equally important. This is that every human being 
 is an offspring of intelligent life, and that an offspring, like 
 a river through which flow the waters that were once in its 
 source, always manifests the quality and tendency of that 
 from which it springs. So far as this source is divine, in man 
 himself we must find a revelation of divinity. And if we do, 
 and in the degree in which we do, must we not, and should 
 we not, find in him that which can fulfill the highest possi- 
 bilities of hope? 
 
 The third method of parental influence mentioned on 
 page 183 was faith. The natural result of having love for a 
 child, or other human being, on account of what he is, is 
 hope for him on account of what he may become. Faith is 
 an exalted accompaniment of this hope. Indeed, more 
 closely than either love or hope, faith is connected with a 
 recognition' of the influence upon mind of higher desires. It 
 is because we think of that to which these higher desires, as 
 represented in conscience, have the power to lead a man, 
 that we trust in him. So also should we trust in the 
 child of our love and our expectation. Not that we sup- 
 pose that conscience will always lead him to the absolutely 
 right, — only that it will point him in the right direction, 
 and set in operation forces in his mind that will all serve 
 the same purpose. Conscience is to every man what a 
 compass is to a mariner. It guides him, but it also necessi- 
 tates on his part calculation, — often, too, in connection with 
 a chart that represents what has been experienced by others. 
 
I86 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 The faith in our fellow men, of which we are speaking, 
 whether they be grown people or children, is faith in all 
 their processes of mind taken together because these are de- 
 veloped from the underlying mental desires that may, and 
 in the majority of cases, do control men. As applied to 
 grown people, the conception of influencing them through 
 having faith in them is one of the most important contribu- 
 tions to practical philosophy that is attributable to modem 
 literature. As applied to children, the same conception has 
 wrought the noteworthy changes in educational methods 
 exemplified in the kindergarten, the Montessori system, and 
 various other courses of instruction in the secondary as well 
 as primary schools of our country. These changes have led, 
 in some cases, to extravagant and exclusive applications of 
 the principle involved. But it contains one important truth ; 
 and the time is coming when not only in the family and the 
 school, but in all the relations of society, business, church, 
 and state, even in courts of justice and prisons, it will be 
 recognized. No greater influence can be exerted upon a 
 human being, especially when trying to incline him to the 
 right, than to convey to him the conviction that one has 
 faith in his higher desires. It is for these within himself that 
 he himself, without often confessing it, has the highest re- 
 gard and reverence. Those who recognize this fact, and 
 that every man's own sense of obligation prompts him to 
 loyalty to these desires, cannot fail to reveal to him that 
 he is in the presence of those who have genuine fellow- 
 feeling for him. The manifestation of this is certain to 
 exert upon him what is, perhaps, the strongest of all possible 
 personal influences, — ^that of a sympathetic and appreciative 
 friend. A very young child, utterly unable to explain his 
 reasons, cannot avoid feeling that faith so expressed proves, 
 as nothing else can, the love and the hope that have been 
 centered upon him. 
 
 For the reason that the earliest appeal of conscience to 
 the mind is experienced in the form of a feeling rather than 
 of a clearly understood conception (see Chapter IX.), there 
 is always associated with it more or less mystery. Even 
 those who do not term it, or acknowledge that they deem 
 it " the voice of God in the soul, " can hardly avoid treating 
 it as if it were this. Justice Henry B . Brown, of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, in a letter to the author wrote 
 once: " I regard conscience as our safest religious guide, al- 
 
HAVING FAITH IN A CHILD 1 87 
 
 though it sometimes leads two persons to different conclu- 
 sions ;_ and that our main efforts should be to educate the 
 conscience to the distinguishment between right and wrong, 
 and to the adoption of the one and the avoidance of the 
 other. " In this opinion, probably, the majority of thought- 
 ful men would concur. But if, in the minds of grown people, 
 the action of conscience be associated with both authority 
 and mystery, much more must this be the case in the mind 
 of a child who is still less able to understand the sources of 
 his conceptions. In him especially, that which is authori- 
 tative and also mysterious necessarily awakens a certain 
 degree of reverence. In this reverence, which the child 
 naturally feels, or, with slight suggestions, can be made to 
 feel, we have the beginnings of an important element of 
 character. Without it as the basis of mental action per- 
 haps no one, however scrupulously he may be trained 
 through precept and practice, can ever become truly re- 
 ligious, or even — what is more to the point here — funda- 
 mentally moral. Whatever a child reveres, he can be easily 
 inclined to obey; and when that which he obeys is, for rea- 
 sons that have been given, the mental and spiritual, then 
 there is nothing that is ordinarily- considered right which he 
 will not be prepared to recognize for what it is. 
 ^ So important is reverance as an element of character 
 that one cannot refrain from expressing regret because of 
 the many families in which no suggestions are ever made to 
 the children with the object of cultivating it. To make such 
 suggestions it is not essential that parents should teach the 
 tenets of any religious organization, or even belong to one. 
 All that is necessary is that children should be aided in 
 giving expression to mental desire which it is natural for 
 them to express. Nothing possessing life, if wholly sup- 
 pressed, can continue to live. But sometimes, if merely given 
 vent, it may not only live but grow. So with the higher 
 aspirations of a child. It may be as unkind as it is unwise 
 to afford them no outlet. 
 
 The little evening or morning prayer taught by the 
 mother, one or two verses read before the children at break- 
 fast, or sometime during the day, by the father, from some 
 book recognized to have mental or moral authority, together 
 with a sentence or two uttered by the reader, expressive of a 
 prayerful desire for protection and guidance — are these too 
 much to expect from those who, by bringing children into 
 
I88 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 the world, have made themselves responsible for the moral 
 conduct of these children in after life? It is true that the 
 reaction in our country against the old-fashioned custom 
 of having family prayers was not wholly unjustified. The 
 complete chapters from the Scriptures that used to be read, 
 each member of the family spelling out a verse or two as 
 the whole went round and round the circle; the comments 
 of the father upon the meaning of the chapter, employing 
 either his own thoughts or those expressed in some com- 
 mentary from which he quoted; the hymns that were sung, 
 and the comprehensive prayers reminding one occasionally 
 of those described in Matt, vi; i, as coming from persons 
 thinking ' 'that they shall be heard for their much speaking, ' ' — 
 all these sometimes made the effect of the whole too much 
 like that of a religious service, and service of any kind does 
 not naturally appeal — as it has been said here that all suc- 
 cessful mental influence should appeal — to the desires of a 
 child. Besides this, the service was long; and it is not 
 natural for a child to give long attention to anything. 
 Moreover, the general effect was not devotional. The 
 method used made the Scripttire seem a reading lesson, and 
 the commentary a lecture. Even the prayer did not repre- 
 sent any form employed by grown people when most in 
 need of spiritual guidance and help. When perplexity and 
 temptation come to them, they do not, as a rule, stop all 
 business, fall on their kiiees, and utter a rhetorical invoca- 
 tion. Very often the most heartfelt and comprehensive 
 prayer is too deep in the soul to find expression in sound, 
 and too brief to be uttered in a single complete sentence. 
 It must be admitted, of course, that all instruction must 
 usually be imparted through form; but one should not over- 
 look the fact that the essential part of that which is obtain- 
 able through the form is never in the form. The reverence 
 which has just been said to be fundamental to morality is 
 the substance of reverence, not the outward appearance of 
 it. 
 
 There are many other traits very generally accepted as 
 being essential to moral character, the cultivation of which 
 — of course, merely in the tendencies leading to them — 
 can be begun in childhood. Our dictionaries have defined 
 most of them satisfactorily; and they need not be discussed 
 here except so far as to indicate their relationship to sub- 
 ordinating, in case of need, the bodily to the mental. A 
 
TRAITS TO BE CULTIVATED 189 
 
 man may do this latter, when considering his actions as 
 connected either with others or with himself. If connected 
 with others, he may be influenced mentally either by their 
 personality through his sympathies, or by their pronounce- 
 ments through his rationality. If connected with himself, 
 the consciousness of personality is so largely of bodily origin 
 and tendency (see page 20) that he is seldom influenced 
 mentally except by his own intelligence through his ration- 
 ality. We may say, therefore, that he is mentally influenced 
 either by the personality or pronouncements of others, or 
 by his own intelligence. This statement most people will 
 recognize to be applicable to traits that even the very young 
 have learned to associate with the promptings of higher 
 desire. That which is first recognized in these traits is 
 usually vague and general, but nevertheless fundamental 
 in character and capable of being illustrated so as not to be 
 vague by associating them with traits connected with each 
 of the sources of influence just mentioned. For instance, 
 the vague feeling of reverence becomes, when associated 
 with another's personality, respect; with another's pro- 
 nouncement, obedience; and with one's own intelligence, 
 duty. Other specific traits may be similarly connected with 
 other conceptions in themselves vague and general. 
 
 To indicate some of these in the order in which they seem 
 most likely to appeal to the intelligence of children, trans- 
 parency of character may be connected with frankness, 
 truthfulness, and trustworthiness; purity with cleanliness, 
 decency, and chastity; patience with long-suffering, forbear- 
 ance, and good nature; justice with fair play, impartiality, 
 and magnanimity; generosity with humaneness, gratitude, 
 and benevolence; honesty with fair dealing, candor, and pro- 
 bity ; manliness with dignity, firmness, and courage ; diligence 
 with self-reliance, thrift, and efficiency; temperance with 
 moderation, propriety, and abstemiousness; modesty with 
 courtesy, considerateness, and humility ; loyalty with fidelity, 
 patriotism, and honor; chivalry with appreciation, responsi- 
 bility, and helpfulness; and self-abnegation with self-denial, 
 self-sacrifice, and altruism. Of course, to say that the mani- 
 festation of these traits involves the subordination of the 
 bodily to the mental is virtually the same as to say that 
 the manifestation of the opposite traits involves the sub- 
 ordination of the mental to the bodily. It would be difficult 
 to find a better reason than this for stating that the follow- 
 
I90 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 ing, arranged somewhat illogically so as to ma,ke them 
 correspond to their opposites in the list just given, are 
 morally wrong: irreverence, disrespect, disobedience, 
 neglect of duty, secretiveness, deceit, lying, guile, impurity, 
 foulness, obscenity, sensuality, anger, rashness, revenge, 
 cruelty, injustice, foul play, rapacity, meanness, extortion, 
 cheating, fraud, theft, sneaking, shirking, poltroonery, 
 cowardice, laziness, irresponsibility, extravagance, depend- 
 ency, dissipation, drunkenness, gluttony, doping, self-con- 
 ceit, jealousy, envy, snobbishness, trickery, espionage, 
 treachery, hypocrisy, detraction, . slander, slur, abuse, self- 
 ishness, self-indulgence, self-seeking, and in general all 
 active malevolence. 
 
 Any person who will bear in mind that the difference 
 between manifesting such traits as are indicated in the 
 former of these lists and avoiding such as are indicated in 
 the latter lies in the dominance given in the one to mental 
 or thoughtful desire and in the other to bodily or physical 
 desire will be careful to apply, at least, one important in- 
 ference to the training of the child. This is that he needs< 
 above all things, to have his own mental or thoughtful desires 
 and designs strengthened and broadened so that these of 
 themselves shall control his actions whether directed toward 
 his own possibilities or toward those of others. When one 
 clearly perceives that this is the end in view, he cannot fail 
 to recognize that it can never be obtained through influence 
 that is merely bodily, like the whippings that were supposed 
 to be particularly effective in the days when almost every- 
 body used to quote the saying, "Spare the rod and spoil the 
 child." Whipping may sometimes be necessary, but if so, 
 it is chiefly so as an agency to call attention to a subject. 
 It is effective for good in only the degree in which it in- 
 fluences the thinking or mental nature. It is true that, as 
 applied to the young or the mature, threats of what will be 
 done in this world or the next, systems of espionage, prying 
 into hidden resorts, scourgings, imprisonments, or execu- 
 tions may awaken in the criminally inclined a certain 
 amount of superstitious reverence, apparent respect, out- 
 ward obedience, and assumed or pretended traits resembling 
 those mentioned on page 189; but no influences so exerted, 
 can have any but the most indirect effect upon the moral 
 character of the minds subjected to them. 
 
 What is needed in the child is a desire to manifest thoughtful 
 
FRANKNESS AND TRUTHFULNESS 19I 
 
 traits so strong as of themselves to overbalance his opposite 
 tendencies. It has been shown that reverence can be culti- 
 vated through developing the suggestions derived from the 
 experiences of conscience. Respect and even immediate and 
 implicit obedience can be cultivated by kindness, awakening 
 the confidence of the child, together with explanations re- 
 vealing the superior knowledge of the parent, and the dan- 
 gers that may follow the slightest act done contrary to or- 
 ders or without having received accurate information with 
 reference to conditions, as in trying to touch a red-hot poker, 
 or to take a step on a broken bridge. 
 
 Not all of the other traits mentioned on page 189 need to 
 be particularly called to the attention of children. But some 
 of them do. Frankness, truthfulntess, and trustworthiness, 
 for instance, lie at the basis of all successful developments 
 of a child's moral nature. This is because parents or guard- 
 ians are not in a situation to give intelligent instruction to 
 one whose deeds, thoughts, or feelings are kept concealed 
 from them. There is nothing more important in farnily 
 relationships than unshaken belief on the part of its younger 
 members in the sympathy, consideration, and justice of its 
 older ones. In the degree in which this confidence is lacking, 
 and always when there is fear of scolding or punishment, 
 the child's first impulse is to be insincere, secretive, and 
 deceitful. If he act upon this impulse only a few times, he is 
 in danger of forming a habit in the same direction, the evil 
 consequences of which can scarcely be exaggerated. One who 
 has formed this habit must depend for information concern- 
 ing scores of subjects which he needs to understand upon 
 that which can be learned from young people as ignorant as 
 himself, or from older people who have little interest in his 
 welfare, and sometimes a decided interest in the opposite. 
 The result cannot fail to be, in many cases, disastrous. The 
 only certainty of safety, or, at least, the best certainty of it, 
 lies in the maintenance of confidential relations between the 
 young and those who are their natural protectors. 
 
 Consider, for instance, the influence of such relations 
 upon the cultivation, among those who are just passing out 
 of the condition of childliood, of the traits that on page 189 
 immediately follow sincerity, frankness, and truthfulness, 
 namely, purity, cleanliness, decency, and chastity (see page 
 214). Boys and girls, when quite young, can be made to 
 understand the importance even of the last two of these, 
 
IQ2 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 as well as what follows upon a disregard of them, such 
 as social discredit and disgrace, the loss of mental vigor, the 
 contracting of diseases, and the character and consequences 
 of these. Better than all this they can be made to under- 
 stand the difference between the body and the mind, and 
 the necessity of keeping the former in such a condition as to 
 be able always to fulfill the uses and purposes of the latter. 
 It is probable, too, that from no application of moral re- 
 quirements can they learn these so clearly as from those 
 connected with indulgence in physical vice. Nor, after 
 they have once been made to understand what are the 
 results of this, will it be difficult to inspire in them a desire 
 to exert the self-denial and self-control that they will now 
 recognize to be the primary conditions of success in an 
 endeavor to become worthy of their mental possibilities. 
 Once awaken in them this desire, and, as a rule, their whole 
 moral nature will be given a right trend. 
 
 It is for these reasons that confidence established early in 
 life between father and son, and mother and daughter, is so 
 essential. If it do not exist, such traits as those that we are 
 now considering cannot always be mentioned, when it is 
 necessary, without concealment or embarrassment that will 
 prevent their being discussed, as they should be, freely and 
 fully. When there is complete confidence in a parent and 
 in his judgment, such a discussion will usually be followed 
 by a justifiable fear, on the part of the young, of the conse- 
 quences of vice, and a wholesome disgust for those who 
 incite to it. In connection with these, too, there will be 
 impressed upon the mind a needed lesson with reference to 
 the necessity in all circumstances of upholding one's right 
 to maintain his self-respect, and never allowing a fondling 
 fop or flirt to take the least liberty with his personality. 
 Moreover, when a lesson like this is not sufficient, when a 
 temptation comes of a nature that cannot be foreseen, confi- 
 dence in the judgment of a parent may be a sure guarantee 
 of safety. Thousands of young people have been kept from 
 threatened danger not because of any clear perception or 
 understanding of it, but because of a desire not to do any- 
 thing, in the absence of their parents, which might not meet 
 with their approval if present. A similar comment could be 
 made to have a broader application. Few people could go 
 far astray if they would always refrain from doing secretly 
 what they would not like to have known publicly. 
 
MORALS AND MANNERS 193 
 
 Special mention is not necessary here of the other traits 
 in the list on page 189. They can all be taught in the same 
 way, — by making constant appeals to thought and feeling 
 of a character fitted to develop mental tendencies. Even 
 such apparently superficial accomplishments as are termed 
 good manners can be cultivated in such ways as to indicate 
 the connection between them and higher desires. A child 
 can be habituated to use phrases like ' ' if you please, " " thank 
 you, " and "beg your pardon," and to keep his clothes and 
 boots mended and brushed; and his hands, face, teeth, and 
 body clean, because those actions show a proper regard and 
 respect for that which is best both in himself and in others. 
 He can easily be made to perceive that it is not right for 
 him to be so lazy and selfish as to be disagreeable to those to 
 whom he might give pleasure. Thus many methods of life 
 to which a child can easily be trained, though not always 
 moral in themselves, may tend to morality, and greatly 
 promote it. Through precept and example he may gradu- 
 ally have cultivated in him habits of mental self-control that, 
 whenever necessary, shall subordinate everything bodily 
 about him or in him to rational and non-selfish purposes. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 KEEPING THE MIND'S DESIRES UPPERMOST IN SCHOOL 
 TRAINING 
 
 Education Means more than an Effect Produced upon the Understand- 
 ing — The School should Impart, if not Religious Instruction, at 
 Least a Religious Spirit — Use of Placards Enjoining Morality — 
 Schools should Strengthen Mental and Thoughtful Tendencies — 
 Instruction should be Adapted to both Bodily and Mental Re- 
 quirements — Differences in the Methods of Appealing to Each 
 Requirement — A Mistake to Suppose Mental £)esire Influenced 
 only through Bodily Desire — Educational Methods Injured by 
 this Supposition — Study should be Made not Easy but Interesting 
 — Two Ways of Doing this — Necessity of theStudent's having Love 
 for his Work — Drill Made Pleasant — Class-room Competition — 
 Literary and Athletic Competitions — Athletics Sometimes Over- 
 rated — Large Schools and the Graded System — Co-education — 
 Social, Scholarly, and Ethical Effects of the System — Young People 
 Need Instruction by those of their Own Sex. 
 
 WHEN the child begins to outgrow the preliminary 
 training of the family, he is usually sent to school, 
 in order, as is said, to be educated. Education, as 
 most of us know, is a word composed of two Latin ones, 
 namely, e, ineaidng from or out of, and ducere, to draw. The 
 word meanp more, therefore, than an effect exerted upon the 
 understanding alone. It means a drawing of the intellectual 
 out of its unintellectual surroundings: the freeing of the 
 mind from any undue material influences, — as applied to 
 moral conditions, the attaining of all kinds of mental and 
 rational development notwithstanding bodily and physical 
 environment. 
 
 With this interpretation of the object of education, we 
 can recognize, first of all, and for the same reason as when 
 considering the family on page 187, the appropriateness of 
 associating, in connection with the instruction given in 
 school, college, or university, that which shall cultivate a 
 
 194 
 
RELIGION IN SCHOOLS 195 
 
 sense of reverence and of obligation toward the sources of 
 both mental and spiritual authority. These effects can be 
 produced without trespassing upon anything outside the 
 boundary of merely natural religion. They need not include 
 instruction in any particular code of ecclesiastical belief. 
 In our free schools, especially, but in our private schools, 
 also, there are children of people differing in their religion; 
 and leaving to these the dogmatic details of spiritual guid- 
 ance is a simple matter of courtesy and duty. At the same 
 time it would be perfectly feasible to collect for school pur- 
 poses short devotional rituals and hymns, to which no parent 
 could reasonably object, the use of which would greatly 
 stimulate and strengthen the child's naturally religious 
 spirit; and, no matter what the form of his family religion, 
 would tend to make his own expressions of it more spiritual 
 than they would be if the school made no recognition of 
 spiritual obligations. 
 
 As applied to religion, there may be some readers inclined 
 to question the feasibility or effectiveness of the course just 
 suggested. But as applied to the accepted principles of 
 morality, no one can doubt that there ought to be some 
 method of bringing these to the frequent attention of school 
 children. In certain cases this might be done by teachers, 
 but many of the only subjects taught by them cannot natu- 
 rally be associated with morality. Many of the teachers, 
 too, have not sufficient personal influence to make their 
 moral opinion seriously regarded, and the instructors even 
 in a large school would not probably, all of them together, be 
 likely to mention all the subjects demanding attention. 
 The most authoritative, frequent, and complete moral 
 influence could, perhaps, be exerted by hanging on the walls 
 of the schoolroom large cards on which were printed, in type 
 that could be easily read and understood, certain univer- 
 sally accepted rules for personal conduct. To avoid anything 
 like a suggestion of propaganda, even a mention of the 
 sources from which these were taken might be omitted. 
 Of course, among them would always be parts, at least, of 
 the Ten Commandments, and the Golden Rule. But the 
 number of other sayings that might be thus treated is almost 
 innumerable, e.g.: 
 
 " Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil 
 men. Avoid it, pass by it, turn from it, and pass away. . . . Even a 
 
196 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whethw it 
 be right. . . . A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches." 
 
 "Withhold not good from them to whom it is due when it is in the 
 power of thine hand to do it. . . . Say not to thy neighbor. Go and 
 come again, and to-morrow I will give thee, when thou hast it by thee. 
 . . . Devise not evil against thy neighbor. . . . Strive not with a man 
 without cause, if he have done thee no harm." 
 
 "Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy 
 holy hill? He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness, and 
 speaketh the truth in his heart, he that backbiteth not with his tongue, 
 nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach against his 
 neighbor; in whose eyes a vile person is condemned; he that sweareth 
 to his own hurt and changeth not. " 
 
 Or Dr. Edward Everett Hale's 
 
 "Look up and not down, 
 Look forward and not back. 
 Look out and not in, 
 Lend'ahand." 
 
 Scores of times every day some of the children would read 
 of subjects thus brought to their attention, and many times 
 a teacher would use one of them as a text for a school talk. 
 Is it possible to suppose that young people, thus made 
 familiar with the first principles of morality, could ever 
 grow to maturity in ignorance of them, or without some 
 definite impression with reference to their importance ? One 
 cannot avoid suggesting that some enterprising printer 
 might make considerable money for himself and do much 
 good to others by preparing and distributing ornamental 
 cards of this character. 
 
 Even when we turn from considering the relation of 
 schools to religion or morality, and take up that which ap- 
 pears to some to be their only, and to all of us, their more 
 direct object, namely, the development of the understanding, 
 it is interesting to notice how much of their work suggests 
 the same conception of the importance of procuring unity 
 of action between the bodily and the mental nature that has 
 been emphasized so often in this volume. This work is ap- 
 parently confined almost entirely to two objects, — the 
 getting of knowledge into the memory so that it shall be 
 retained there, and the getting of the same out of the 
 memory so that it can be used at the right times and places. 
 The first of these objects usually requires not a little drilling 
 of a character largely bodily or physical. The order of the 
 
TWO AIMS IN TEACHING 197 
 
 letters of the alphabet and their sounds when combined, the 
 spelling and the meaning of words, the parts of speech, 
 the conjugation of verbs in one's own and other languages, 
 the multiplication and addition tables of mathematics, and 
 geographical and historical names, — all are mainly learned 
 and facility in using them acquired as the result of repetition, 
 which is a physical process. The second of the objects, 
 designed to accustom the pupil to ' recall, at the right 
 times and places, what he has learned, is mainly attained 
 through questionings which cause him to associate things 
 and thoughts as a result of a psychical or mental process. 
 In the school, therefore, bodily and mental training go 
 together, and most people would admit that the latter, 
 for which the former — ^the repetition of sounds — ^is merely 
 preparatory, is the more important of the two. 
 
 There is a misunderstanding with reference to a difference 
 between the nature of bodily and mental desires that some- 
 times leads to educational mistakes. The reader will recall 
 that on page 7 it was said that all desires involve a com- 
 bination of feeling and thought ; but that, in bodily desire, 
 this thought is subordinated to the feeling which it attends 
 and serves, and in mental desire, the feeling is subordinated 
 to thought which it attends and serves. As a result of 
 this difference, it is evident that influences exerted upon 
 bodily desire, which is attributable, primarily, to physical 
 feeling, as in hunger, thirst, lust, or passion, must be more 
 or less direct and immediate; while influence exerted upon 
 mental desire, which is attributable, primarily, to thought, 
 as in yearning, aspiration, speculation, or imagination, must 
 be more or less indirect and mediate. The nature of Ijodily 
 desire is such that it can be experienced in its full force at 
 its beginning. The nature of mental desire, on the contrary, 
 is such that it accumulates force as a result of a continuance 
 of thinking, as in observation, comparison, reflection, and 
 reasoning. One may become conscious of bodily desire, 
 and drift into indulgence of it, without any exertion of his 
 own. If he wish to drink champagne, he can do so and 
 can get drunk without the slightest consciousness of effort. 
 But not so with mental desire. When, notwithstanding a 
 liking for champagne, one wishes to keep sober, to maintain 
 his mental balance, — in other words, his mental control over 
 his bodily nature, — ^he can do it in no other way than as a 
 result of an endeavor, and sometimes of a struggle. 
 
198 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 It must be borne in mind, however, that this mental 
 control, though in it feeling is secondary and thinking pri- 
 mary, is just as truly a result of desire as is bodily control. 
 This is not always recognized. No mistake is more common 
 among parents, educators, reformers, and even ecclesiastics 
 than that of supposing — often with no realization of its 
 logical consequences — that all forms of desire have the 
 nature of those that are started and developed,^ — as de- 
 scribed on pages 24 to 26, from the bodily or physical side of 
 one's being. Therefore, when it is argued that intellectual, 
 moral, or religious deficiencies should be corrected, so far 
 as possible, by influencing men through their desires, this 
 statement, because supposed to refer to only bodily desires, 
 may occasion a method of action likely to prove injtuious. 
 
 Take the emphasis given by modern education upon the 
 importance of watching the movements and choices of the 
 child in order to discover his own inborn tendencies and 
 aptitudes, and to direct his training so as to enable him to 
 make the most of them. There is no gainsaying the wisdom 
 of this course, or the advance in educational methods attrib- 
 utable to it ; and yet it may lead to disastrous results, if the 
 methods be applied merely to physical or bodily tendencies 
 and aptitudes and not to psychical or mental. It might be 
 supposed that this latter would not be done. What could 
 be more senseless and wrong, in case one had committed to 
 him the guidance of a musical genius, than to allow his 
 physical or bodily indolence to keep him from engaging in 
 the drill and hard work needed in order to develop his gift? 
 Yet something resembling this is often done by those who 
 have charge of the young. A great deal of the instruction 
 imparted to-day in the family, the kindergarten, the school, 
 and even the college and university, is based upon the con- 
 ception that success in teaching may be determined by the 
 degree in which pupils' are made to enjoy it because it is con- 
 formed to their bodily desires, by which is meant to their 
 temperamental as distinguished from their mental inclina- 
 tions. That which is taught is not presented in ways to 
 awaken mental desires, because it is recognized that the 
 fulfillment of these cannot be attained along the line of least 
 resistance. Because the mental necessitates effort, the 
 teacher seems to fear that the fact may be revealed to his 
 pupils, and this fear deprives them not infrequently of the 
 only form of instruction fitted to enable them to develop 
 
TEACHING'S APPEAL TO DESIRE 199 
 
 their aptitudes in such ways as to realize their highest possi- 
 bilities. The author once undertook before some university 
 professors to prove that, by a judicious use of the elective 
 system, one could get a Bachelor of Arts degree from what 
 was then considered the first university of the country as a 
 result of doing less intellectual disciplinary work than would 
 have been required by a female seminary of the previous 
 generation. 
 
 And yet the slightest thought ought to enable one to 
 recognize that no play even, to say nothing of employment, 
 is rendered less desirable by the mere fact of its necessitating 
 effort — ^though, of course, such effort should not be excessive. 
 Where it is excessive, it introduces another principle. Some 
 of the most popular games among our small boys are those 
 in which they struggle the hardest; and what among grown 
 people could involve more exertion than baseball, football, 
 or tennis? The problem in education is to make study not 
 easy but interesting. 
 
 This is usually done in two ways. The first way — a way 
 in which the teacher is often greatly aided by the family and 
 community, if moderately intelligent — ^is by picturing for 
 the imagination of the pupil the completed future results 
 which study is designed to obtain for him. The second way 
 — a way in which, because of the ignorance of the require- 
 ments of culture, the teacher in our own country is often 
 very little aided, if not actually opposed — is by picturing 
 for the imagination the important but minute details that 
 need to be mastered before any great achievement can 
 become a possibility. Every teacher needs to bear in mind 
 that no ordinary man, and, least of all, perhaps, no genius, 
 can do all for which his aptitudes fit him, except as a result 
 of mental desire that prompts him to choose the highest end 
 possible to his own ability and to devote himself to the best 
 possible means of attaining this end. 
 
 All successful scholars, or artists, whether mathemati- 
 cians, lawyers, philosophers, poets, painters, or musicians, 
 will bear witness to the fact that, at some time in their 
 lives, and usually because guided and inspired by some 
 efficient teacher, they came to have a distinctly mental 
 desire that was the supreme object of ambition, and to have 
 also an absorbing interest in the practice and drill neededin 
 order to attain it. This is the kind of desire which the in- 
 structor ought to seek to find and awaken in his pupils, and 
 
200 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 the kind of desire to which he should strive to conform his 
 methods. It is because, in some way, something has awak- 
 ened love for work, especially work adapted for peculiar 
 aptitudes, that many an awkward gawk with a repellent 
 voice has become a graceful and charming orator; many a 
 slow writer with apparently no gift of expression has be- 
 come a voluminous and widely read author; many a play- 
 ground butt, whose opinion was never seriously considered 
 by his comrades, has become a powerful political leader; and 
 many an inferior reciter in the class room, a great scholar. 
 No one can be a preeminently successful instructor unless he 
 believes thoroughly in two possibilities, — ^that of the exist- 
 ence of mental desire even in minds where it seems most 
 dormant ; and that of the almost unlimited development that 
 can be imparted to such minds through educational training. 
 Unfortunately, thousands of teachers really believe in 
 neither of these. How much the world suffers in con- 
 sequence it would be impossible to ascertain or even to 
 conceive. 
 
 The pupil's mental interest in even the bodily or physical 
 drill mentioned a moment ago may be increased by having 
 the object of the drill explained to him. But there are other 
 ways of connecting a mental with a physical effect. When 
 the writer was young, geography was taught by having the 
 class sing the names of places in chorus, while the places 
 themselves were pointed out by the teacher, or, later, by 
 pupils, on a large map hung upon a wall. Sometimes, es- 
 pecially with small children, the mere rhythm of sound or 
 gesture, which is made to accompany repetition, introduces 
 a psychical or mental in the sense of an orderly and calcu- 
 lated form of interest. Best of all, for this purpose, however, 
 is an occasional interruption of the monotony of repetition 
 by questions applying what has been learned, like: "How 
 much is seven times seven?" "How do you say in Latin: 
 'I have loved,' ' I should be loved,'" etc. ? 
 
 At such times the spirit of competition among those who 
 hold up their hands to be allowed to give answers causes the 
 whole performance to have all the mental interest of a game. 
 Of late years there has been a tendency to discredit every 
 form of competition in scholarship, to abolish the marking 
 system, the giving of prizes, the declaiming of speeches, or 
 the reading of essays, in fact, of anything giving prominence 
 to individual attainment. To abolish these would undoubt- 
 
1 COMPETITION IN SCHOOL LIFE 20I 
 
 edly prevent a few cases in which selfishness and self-esteem 
 are developed. , But, in many cases, it would also prevent a 
 development of the mental desire needed in order to over- 
 come the indolent tendencies of lower bodily desire. As 
 a fact, very few of those rendered eager to learn by healthful 
 competition are influenced by selfish purposes or to obtain a 
 mean advantage. The most of them are trying to do what 
 they consider worthy of their better selves, — ^to show that 
 they appreciate the advantages given them, and to please 
 and honor their parents or guardians. The world cannot 
 afford to lessen fair and sportsmanlike competition either in 
 the school or in after life; and this for the reason that it is 
 one of the most successful of all agencies through which to 
 effect the sources of mental desire. Of course, there is a 
 chance, too, of its also affecting the sources of physical or 
 bodily desire; that it will make men self-seeking, deceitful, 
 dishonest, overreaching, and characteristically mean. But 
 this is a risk that confronts every man at every stage of his 
 existence, from birth to death. There is no more reason 
 why, because of this risk, one should seek to put an end to 
 competition in work than to do the same in play. If he were 
 successful in doing it in either, then, inasmuch as the most 
 of life that is at all desirable is made up of either work or 
 play, he might apparently succeed merely in making life 
 appear desirable in nothing. 
 
 The principle just stated applies equally to the encourage- 
 ment, among the students themselves, of literary, debating, 
 social, fraternal, and religious societies, intended to develop 
 other traits representing other needed characteristics or 
 tendencies. The late war, too, demonstrated, more clearly 
 than had been realized before, the practical benefits deriv- 
 able from the training that precedes, the skill that furthers, 
 and the fair play that accompanies the intercollegiate 
 athletic competitions. All these, though emphasizing physi- 
 cal and bodily aptitudes, necessitate mental control exer- 
 cised in connection with them. Many a student, because 
 of being on "the team," has learned to put self-denial and 
 reason first, and appetite and impulse second. When in 
 training, he often cannot smoke, much less eat or drink, 
 what he wants; and, when in practice, he cannot make, in 
 violation of the rules, a single move toward what seems al- 
 most certain to promise for himself individual prominence. 
 
 All these effects are distinctly mental. Nevertheless, the 
 
202 E THICS AND NAT URAL LA W 
 
 predominant aim of the athlete is bodily, and, in an institu- 
 tion of learning, it is an anomaly, in times of peace, that he 
 should rank higher — it is not said as high — in the opinion 
 of students and professors, as is sometimes the case, than 
 does one who is proportionately successful in achieving an 
 aim that is purely mental. All rules have exceptions, and, 
 fortunately, in our times, conditions requisite for war are 
 exceptional. But in ordinary times one could say that the 
 college student who really considers athletics more impor- 
 tant than thought-culture has an outlook upon life that is not 
 right side up. Unless converted from his view, he is in 
 danger of being obliged to support himself to the end of his 
 days on his hands, with his head downward, and his face 
 looking backward. The highest success is never reached by 
 those who seriously aim at anything involving the assigning 
 of inferior rank to the psychical or mental. 
 
 Other educational influences in our country seem some- 
 times to involve this. Recall, for instance, the methods in 
 which our free-school system has been developed from the 
 little country schoolhouse of our forefathers. Some of us are 
 inclined to feel exultant in view of our very large educational 
 buildings, and of the crowds of children that attend them. 
 But, very often, these furnish merely one more illustration 
 of the stupid tendency of the ordinary mind to confound 
 that which is physically big with that which is psychically 
 great. Many of these schools are inefficient for the very 
 reasons that make us proud of them. If they had not 
 been accommodated to the physical increase of population 
 and the physical apparatus supposed to be needed for the 
 purposes of education, the psychical result might have been 
 better. If the small schoolhouse had remained the ideal 
 even in large cities, the parents of each neighborhood could 
 have continued to know with whom their children were 
 meeting, and to exercise needed oversight over their asso- 
 ciations; and the teachers could have had some personal 
 acquaintance with families, and adapted their instruction to 
 individual requirements. As it is, the children are in almost 
 as much danger of learning what they should not from one 
 another as of learning what they should from their teachers. 
 The enormous quantity of educational results that have 
 been turned out, too, has, in many cases, diminished their 
 quality. Until quite recently, and, in some places, even yet, 
 the machinery of the graded system, by being applied in the 
 
COEDUCATION 203 
 
 same way to all, has forced dull pupils forward before they 
 were prepared to advance intelligently, making them essen- 
 tially superficial, and held the bright ones back, making 
 them listless and indolent because of not having enough 
 work to keep them busy. 
 
 The wisdom of educating boys and girls in the same 
 schools and classes, too, is questionable. It may do well 
 enough in small towns where parents can be on the watch 
 and know the character of their children's associates ; or in 
 colleges and universities where all the pupils are sufficiently 
 mature to take care of themselves and of one another. But, 
 even in these, it is a question whether the constant associa- 
 tion between the sexes does not tend to lessen the cultiva- 
 tion in both of psychical and non-selfish traits. Some insist 
 upon it that, in such circumstances, the boys become less 
 gallant and gentlemanly, and the girls less modest and lady- 
 like ; that the former do not yield, as they would to compara- 
 tive strangers, the best seats, or pick up the handkerchiefs, 
 books, or chalk that have been dropped on the floor; and 
 that the latter learn not to expect these attentions, but 
 to push forward and help themselves. As all approach 
 maturity, too, at an age when the bodily tendencies are 
 particularly strong, and the mental the opposite, it certainly 
 does seem as if all associations and surroundings should be 
 so chosen and directed as to strengthen the latter; — as if 
 the attention of the pupil whether at work or at play, should 
 be concentrated, if possible, upon that which is fitted 
 to influence and develop distinctly mental and rational' 
 tendencies. 
 
 Certain indirect effects of that of which we are speaking 
 also deserve notice. Few wise mothers care to have their 
 daughters know about either the thoughts or actions of the 
 ordinary immature street boy. A policeman of the author's 
 district in Los Angeles — in a statement subsequently justi- 
 fied by an investigation by the Young Men's Christian 
 Association and by a chairman of a regularly appointed 
 physician's investigation committee — told him that, while 
 he sent his son through the high school and university, the 
 conditions were such that it was impossible for him to allow 
 his daughters to finish their courses even in the high school, 
 and he could not afford to send them to a private school. 
 What can be thought of the wisdom or justice of a method 
 of free education that renders it impossible for scrupulous 
 
204 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 parents to accept its provisions? Even the mere inevitable 
 competition in scholarship, if between girls and boys, is not 
 desirable. It tends to make the former study too stren- 
 uously and the latter — strange as it may appear, because 
 girls naturally recite better than boys of the same age — 
 study too slightingly. The ranking records of too many co- 
 educational schools show two or three boys, too bright to 
 be kept lower down, side by side with several girls in the 
 highest group, while following these, with a few boys scat- 
 tered among them, are most of the girls; and, finally, in the 
 lowest group of all, with scarcely a girl among them, is the 
 great body of the boys. If you ask the boys the reason of 
 this, you find that many of them hold to the opinion that 
 only girls and "sissy" boys care about scholarship. The 
 truth is that boys, even those most influenced in other cir- 
 cumstances by the spirit of competition, will seldom com- 
 pete with girls. A few will not because of a spirit of gallantry, 
 but more because of a boyhood esprit de corps. The same 
 conception influences them to neglect literary work, as in 
 the debating societies, and to join "gangs" intent upon 
 doing what girls cannot do, — a feeling that sometimes finds 
 a healthful outlet in athletics, but sometimes, also — es- 
 pecially in large cities — in groups given to crime, and vice . It 
 is not too much to say that many of those doing these 
 things would have done exactly the opposite, had they 
 studied where they would have been brought into competi- 
 tion with boys alone, and where brainy boys would have 
 been fully respected for their intellectual leadership and 
 thus rendered able to exert upon their fellows the influence 
 needed to remind them of mental requirements. A con<- 
 siderable experience as a sort of Father Confessor of grad- 
 uates of preparatory schools has led the author to the 
 opinion that school sentiment controlled by the best ele- 
 ment usually prevents organizations for crime and vice in 
 large schools attended by boys alone; but not so often in 
 schools attended by both sexes. 
 
 Another injurious effect of the latter schools is due to the 
 limited number of teachers of one's own sex under whom a 
 pupil sometimes studies. There are many things connected 
 with quite a variety of subjects which the pupil should 
 know, but which, in sucH circumstances, the teacher cannot 
 always and sometimes should not tell him. There are other 
 things of which any teacher ought to tell him, but which, 
 
COEDUCATION 205 
 
 nevertheless, can have more satisfactory effects if told to 
 boys by a man, or to girls by a woman. As applied to boys, 
 for instance, this is true not only of actions like smoking, 
 drinking, betting at cards, pool, and ball games, and prowling 
 around the streets at night. It is true with reference to 
 what might be thought very minor matters. That which a 
 woman considers a praiseworthy result of caution, discre- 
 tion, and tact, a boy, especially if discussing the subject with 
 other boys, is likely to attribute to a lack of courage, honor, 
 and truthfulness; and there is danger, if he try to follow her 
 advice, that he may become, as has many a "mother's 
 darling," a sneak, a tattletale, or a hypocrite. Even the 
 purely intellectual training needed by a boy, with his greater 
 tendency to reject formulation and learn of his own initia- 
 tive through his own experiments, seems to necessitate a 
 different form of teaching from that which is successful with 
 girls. Indeed, there are many branches in which boys and 
 girls appear to respond differently to the same methods 
 of instruction. Let us hope that those who have charge 
 of educational interests in various parts of the country will 
 consider carefully the arguments in favor of and against the 
 system prevailing in their community, and will have inde- 
 pendence of character sufficient to cause them to dare to 
 deviate from the paths already chosen, or even to retrace 
 the steps already taken, in case this course clearly reveals 
 itself to them as the wisest. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 KEEPING THE MIND'S DESIRES UPPERMOST IN THE GENERAL 
 RELATIONS OF SOCIETY 
 
 Self-Control Needed by Members of Society; not Control of Other 
 People — Mistakes with Reference to these Subjects — The Mature 
 Require Different Treatment from the Immature — Too Straight- 
 laced People Lacking in Moral Influence — Good Influence of 
 Some Parents because not Strait-laced — To Act Morally, Ma- 
 ture Minds sometimes Need to Act Independently — Reverence, 
 Respect, Obedience, Humility — Exerting Public Influence on the 
 Side of the Mental — Importance of Community Influence upon 
 Farm Life — Public Spirit — Frankness and Truthfulness — Cases in 
 which these may Work Harm — Problems of the Kind Solved by 
 Balancing Mind against Body — Why this Method Does no Harm — 
 Promises — Contracts — Purity, Cleanliness, Decency, and Chastity 
 — Reasons for these — Chastity Common, and Honored among 
 Men, though for Business Reasons Less Emphasized than Integ- 
 rity — Chastity among Women — Moral Obligations Rest upon All 
 — Virtue its Own Reward. 
 
 AFTER one has passed beyond the instruction and dis- 
 cipline of the family and the school, he becomes a 
 member of what is termed society. The chief differ- 
 ence between his experience now and that which has pre- 
 ceded it is that he is no longer subject to the oversight of 
 "tutors and governors." He is expected to take care of 
 himself, and to become conscious that in order to go right, 
 he must exercise self-control. These are facts that are ex- 
 tremely significant. In them is to be found the most im- 
 portant of the differences between youth and maturity. 
 Yet many fail to recognize this. They seem to suppose that 
 because another who has had authority has taken charge 
 of them when children, he can continue throughout their 
 lives to do the same. They think, therefore, that they 
 themselves are not responsible for the results of their own 
 conduct. The blame for this, if there be any, they get into 
 the habit of shifting upon some other member of their family 
 
 306 
 
TAKING CARE OP OTHER PEOPLE 207 
 
 or upon some official of their state or church. This is the 
 case quite frequently with those brought up where there is 
 a great deal of supervision as was formerly the case in an- 
 cient feudalism or hi'?rarchy. Others seem to suppose that, 
 because grown people are responsible for the conduct of the 
 child, they are responsible for that of everybody; and, 
 forthwith, as soon as they themselves are grown, they begin 
 to act upon this theory. They get into the habit of assuming 
 responsibility for everything, some, apparently — especially 
 those whose tendencies are puritanic — spending the main 
 energy of life in dictating courses to be pursued by their 
 neighbors. 
 
 Such people usually do almost as much harm as good. 
 No one can be expected to attain to the highest manhood 
 unless he recognizes that he must hold himself responsible 
 for the results of his own actions; or to attain to the highest 
 helpfulness to others unless he recognizes that, as a rule, 
 he must leave them free to act out their own unhampered 
 convictions. Many grown people as well as children are 
 nursed into inefficiency by accepting the domination of 
 strong-willed associates; and many more are provoked into 
 effective rebellion against attempted domination. In the 
 latter case, they feel, without always apprehending exactly 
 why, that they have a right to liberty of action; and, if this 
 be denied them, that they are being treated unjustly. For 
 this reason, dissipation of all sorts seems sometimes only a 
 natural reaction against excessive prohibitions of compara- 
 tively innocent beginnings of it. People who greet such 
 beginnings with scoldings and punishments may have good 
 intentions; but they do not adopt wise methods. They are 
 trying to secure psychical or mental results through merely 
 physical or bodily agency; and to do this is seldom possible. 
 It is well enough to keep a boy who has not acquired suffi- 
 cient knowledge to recognize falsehood — or sufficient logical 
 training to weigh evidence — ^from certain actions, like reading 
 immoral books or hearing skeptical lectures; or, while in- 
 tellect and will are too weak to withstand and repel harmful 
 suggestions, from associating with vicious companions. 
 But, merely in order to do one's duty to a community, a 
 mature mind needs sometimes to be acquainted with fal- 
 lacious arguments and with the conditions of vicious life. 
 Otherwise, a man may not be able to answer the former, or 
 to reform the latter. 
 
208 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 It is because these facts are not recognized that very 
 often people who are what are termed strait-laced — people 
 always apparently solicitous to fulfill literally the smallest 
 details of action that others have prescribed — have little 
 moral influence. Usually their hearts are not at fault. 
 They are not insincere, as is sometimes represented. Their 
 heads are at fault. They are basing morality upon a false 
 theory, a theory so false that its erroneous nature can be 
 recognized even by one not sufficiently thoughtftd to be 
 able to explain why he thinks it so. They are attributing 
 moral obligation not to the psychical or mental; not to 
 anything of which one becomes conscious through an effect 
 produced first of all upon the mind; but to the physical or 
 bodily — in other words, to an influence that would not be 
 felt at all, were it not for the physical presence of others who 
 seem to be exercising authority beside one or over one. 
 
 It occasionally happens that fathers and mothers, who 
 indulge their own bodily desires, as in smoking and drinking, 
 are more successful in training their sons and daughters to 
 moral self-control than are those who are more strict with 
 themselves and their families. This is possibly because 
 such parents manifest more sympathy with their children, 
 and so draw them nearer to themselves, and, by doing this 
 exert a greater influence; but it is more likely to be because 
 their mode of life emphasizes, as mere abstemiousness could 
 not, the principle brought out in Chapter X., that the ideal 
 of morality is realized less through the suppression of 
 bodily desires than, whenever necessary, through their sub- 
 ordination. 
 
 Enough has been said to indicate the different aspects 
 in which questions of morality may appeal to the immature 
 and to the mature. The latter, as has been said, prefer to 
 answer these questions as a result of their own thinking 
 and feeling; or, so far as influenced by another, as a result 
 of his appealing to their own mentality. For this reason, 
 though the germs of all the principles of right living exist, 
 and should be cultivated, in one who is still under the care 
 of the family or the school, it is only later that they need 
 to be explained in their more fundamental and comprehen- 
 sive relationships. In accordance with this conception, 
 let us now glance again at certain forms of action ahready 
 considered, and also at certain additional ones that it has 
 not seemed in place to consider previous to this. 
 
REVERENCE, HUMILITY, AND PUBLIC SPIRIT 209 
 
 The reverence for that which is mental or spiritual, 
 respect for one's elders, and obedience to those in authority, 
 which were mentioned in Chapter XIV. as traits that should 
 be developed in a child, need to be retained in part by one 
 in mature life. They cause a man to have humility in view 
 of that which he cannot know, deference for the opinions of 
 experts, and scrupulousness in carrying out the directions 
 of those who have a right to give orders. And in no way, 
 perhaps, better than through these traits could one reveal 
 high intelligence and a character in which the mental is 
 dominant. _ Contrary traits invariably show superficiality 
 of conception, a limited outlook and a foredoomed futility 
 of endeavor. Depth of thought is always awed by the 
 mystery of the unseen forces above and about one. Breadth 
 of view always recognizes the fruits that can be gathered 
 from the wide experience of others; and efficiency avails 
 itself of the machinery of custom and law which have been 
 devised as a result of centuries of thought, and are operating 
 to safeguard and prosper, not one man, but vast communi- 
 ties of men. There are times when individuals are justified 
 in disregarding institutions that have become customary, 
 legal, traditional, and sacred; but this is generally because 
 the methods through which they happen at the time to be 
 expressed, need to be reformed. It is seldom because the 
 spirit or principle that is at the basis of them needs to be 
 abolished. On the contrary, it usually needs to be repre- 
 sented, and therefore to be possessed, more fully. 
 
 In connection with this thought, one cannot avoid the 
 suggestion of the importance of exerting such influence as 
 one may have on the side of such agencies as, on the whole, 
 are calculated to stimulate and strengthen other people's 
 thoughtful desires. This is the reason why many a man is a 
 staunch supporter of religious institutions, notwithstanding 
 much, perhaps, in their forms and creeds that appear to him 
 unsatisfactory. He recognizes that their predominating 
 influence is intellectually and spiritually uplifting, and by 
 his example he aims to draw the attention of his family and 
 neighbors to the fact. For the same reason, he refrains 
 from business and rests from labor on one day of the week. 
 For the same, too, he associates himself with those who 
 carry on activities intended in any way to benefit the com- 
 munity. He becomes not only a patron but an active par- 
 ticipant of work intended to improve the condition of those 
 
 14 
 
210 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 who have been unfortunate, whether because ignorant, 
 incompetent, ill, or vicious. There are hundreds of ways in 
 which society can enable him to join with others in holding 
 out a helping hand to those who need it; and he shows him- 
 self to be extremely unwise, and possessed of a very narrow 
 outlook upon his possibilities, if he fail to avail himself of his 
 opportunities in these regards. An important fact that he 
 should learn early in life is that a man can become interested 
 in almost anything upon which he is willing to begin to ex- 
 pend labor; and if this labor be of a character particularly 
 fitted to excite and develop in himself and others mental 
 desire, he cannot afford in justice to his own nature, to let 
 the occasion escape him. 
 
 Very recently the author has been reading an account of 
 the youthful experiences of a boy brought up on an Ameri- 
 can farm of the Middle West; and the dreariness, the 
 drudgery, the lonesomeness, the lack of interest in anything 
 broader than itself, or stimulus to anything better, rendered 
 the whole account pitiful in the extreme. Yet thousands of 
 people belonging to the generation just passing away can 
 recall conditions upon farms in the Eastern States — say in 
 central New York — where life, though not devoid of labori- 
 ous phases, was lightened by conditions of intercourse and 
 enjoyment that not only made them delightful to remember 
 but so contributed to the development of intelligence and 
 refinement that the boys and girls of the farms could pass 
 and did pass with scarcely any intervening experience into 
 some of the most prominent business, political, and social 
 positions of the country. That which chiefly contributed 
 to this result was the intense community life of the neighbor- 
 hood. In those days, this was usually connected with 
 church life, but it was not confined to this. There were 
 weekly singing schools, sewing and reading societies, ly- 
 ceums, discussions, lectures, plays, sleighing parties, festi- 
 vals — all sorts of methods designed to bring people together, 
 and succeeding in doing so. In the Western farm life de- 
 scribed in the book of which mention has been made, there 
 had been no realization of the importance of community 
 influence. Each incoming farmer had apparently bought 
 as much land as he could, and placed his house in the center 
 of it where he was removed as far as possible from any 
 neighbor. If, instead of this, each newcomer had selected 
 for his dwelling some corner of his property where his family 
 
FRANKNESS AND TRUTHFULNESS 211 
 
 could be near other people, and had extended to other 
 methods of life the feeling prompting this action, the whole 
 nature of the stirroundings might have been made more 
 livable because more mental in the sense of rational and 
 htamane. 
 
 Think what it means for a member of society to become 
 chiefly interested in devising methods of increasing the 
 prosperity and happiness of those surrounding him, as con- 
 trasted with methods of increasing opporturlities merely for 
 himself ! Think of the difference in moral character between 
 the person who devotes his life to the former pursuit, and 
 the one who devotes it to the latter! Nothing is more en- 
 couraging in the history of our country than its various 
 social associations that have been directly designed to give 
 expression and development to mental promptings. These 
 associations do not, and need not, always have a distinctly 
 moral aim; but reading, literary, musical, or dramatic clubs 
 are mental in tendency, and, for this reason, even by the 
 most pleasure-seeking, ought to be recognized as important 
 alternatives, even if not substitutes for such methods of 
 enjoyment as involve merely bodily indulgence. 
 
 Frankness, truthfulness, and sincerity also, that were 
 mentioned in Chapter XIV., are traits whose importance is 
 not diminished after the period of childhood. A man who is 
 trying to give dominance to the mental will not hide his 
 feelings and intuitions, or facts concerning which he has 
 information, behind the mask of his bodily nature unless 
 he has the best of reasons for it. If he do it because he fears 
 that others may not agree with his opinions or accept his 
 information, and so may not continue to be influenced by 
 him, he is in danger, owing to his efforts to preserve their 
 respect, of surrendering his own self-respect. If he do it 
 because he has reason to fear opposition, ostracism, or 
 persecution, he is in danger of proving himself a moral 
 coward. If he do it, not because of any fear, but in order 
 to gain the undeserved confidence of others, and, through 
 flattery or fraud, obtain their admiration or help, then he 
 has so completely subordinated the mental to the physical 
 that he deserves all the opprobrium that is meant to be 
 conveyed when one calls another a hypocrite or a sycophant. 
 
 But the question arises; Must one always be frank? Must 
 he always tell the truth? Must he tell it to those whom it 
 might injure? Would it be right for one to be instrumental 
 
212 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 in any way in injuring others? Must one tell the truth to 
 those who have no right to know it; or to those who, if told 
 it, might use it for the purpose of harming themselves or 
 others? Would it be right for one to be instrumental in 
 bringing about this result? Suppose that an invalid be so 
 ill that bad news coming to him suddenly might imperil his 
 life, and the news arrive that his best friend has just been 
 killed; suppose that a wife with half a dozen dependent 
 children be asked by a hated husband, when drunk and in a 
 violent temper, whether she loves him; suppose that a 
 brother who is a spy condenined to be shot be hiding in his 
 home, and his mother or sister be asked whether or not he is 
 inside it; suppose the father of a family, trying to obtain a 
 living for them, be questioned with reference to his methods 
 of investing, buying, or selling by one who is known to be 
 crafty and unscrupulous, intent only on taking an unfair 
 advantage of whatever knowledge he may gain, — ^in cir- 
 cumstances like these, is the one questioned under obliga- 
 tion to be frank and truthful? 
 
 Some people find it difficult to answer such questions. 
 Could not a part of the difficulty be removed by applying 
 to them the principle that has been unfolded in this volume, 
 — by taking the ground that a man in no circumstances 
 should disregard the promptings of his mental or psychical 
 nature ? If he were to ask himself which course of the two 
 wotdd be the more thoughtful, rational, kindly, and unself- 
 ish, is there much doubt what would be his answer? But 
 even in this case, he might hesitate. His very hesitation, 
 however, would necessitate mental action, and, therefore, 
 whatever were his decision, would tend to direct it aright. 
 As Young says in the "Night-Thoughts," 
 
 Who does the best his circumstance allows 
 Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more. 
 
 At any rate, it is not likely that a question thus treated 
 would cultivate in a man, as is sometimes supposed, a 
 tendency to believe in using a wrong means in order to 
 attain a right end. There has been no suggestion here in- 
 volving the use of a wrong means. Thoughtfulness, ration- 
 ality, kindliness, and unselfishness are not wrong but right. 
 Men who are scrupulously careful to carry out the prompt- 
 ings of these will be among the last to keep from a knowledge 
 
KEEPING PROMISES 213 
 
 of the truth those who ought to know it, whether in the 
 home, the school, the shop, the office, the courthouse, the 
 hospital, or the church. The suppression of the truth that 
 from_ time immemorial has enabled the officials of nations 
 and institutions to keep large masses of people over whom 
 they have had control uneducated, ignorant, stupid, and 
 superstitious doss not need for its prevention a conception 
 of the truth which insists upon its being expressed in all 
 circumstances regardless of evil consequences. The result 
 that is most important can be best attained by estimating 
 the requirements of truthfulness, as of every other trait 
 contributing to moral rectitude, by the degree in which it 
 succeeds in helping to outweigh the bodily, in the sense of 
 the physical, the egoistic, and the selfish, by the mental, in 
 the sense of the rational, the humane, and the non-selfish. 
 
 In connection with any discussion of trustworthiness, a 
 suggestion necessarily arises with reference to the keeping 
 of a promise. This is the expression of an intention that has 
 awakened expectation and action on the part of another. 
 In case the promise be not fulfilled, the one to whom it has 
 been given may sufEer not only disappointment but, if the 
 matter be important, serious disaster. To prevent such 
 results, many a high-minded man has kept his word at the 
 expense of sacrificing not only all his property but his life; 
 and, among honorable people, an habitual promise-breaker 
 is usually considered as almost typically inconsiderate, 
 selfish, and untrustworthy. There are some cases, however,in 
 which it is usually conceded that promises can be considered 
 as not binding. These are cases in which the fulfilment of 
 them is impossible; unlawful; immoral; based upon condi- 
 tions subsequently proved not to exist; or not voluntarily 
 given for the purpose of awakening expectation or action 
 in those personally interested in the matter to which the 
 promises refer. 
 
 A promise, when put into the form of a written agreement 
 between two parties, each of whom engages to do certain 
 things upon certain conditions, is termed a contract. The 
 general principles underlying its fulfillment are the same as 
 those underlying an ordinary promise; but as the contract 
 is a legal document, the interpretation of its requirements 
 and fulfillments, in cases of dispute between the contracting 
 parties, is subject to determination by some court of justice. 
 
 The traits following transparency, frankness, truthfulness, 
 
214 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 and trustworthiness, as mentioned on page 189 are purity, 
 cleanliness, decency, and chastity; and none can reveal 
 quite as clearly as these do the results of subordinating the 
 bodily to the mental. Purity is a word used to designate 
 the quality of one's feeling and thinking when his higher 
 spiritual desire is least vitiated by an admixture with lower 
 physical desire. Cleanliness indicates a subjective con- 
 dition of mind or body that is characterized by purity. 
 Decency is determined by the objective expression in word 
 or deed of a condition of cleanliness; and chastity depends 
 upon the application of all the three other traits to relations 
 between the sexes. In the degree in which higher desire — 
 the desire for that which is in accordance with a rational 
 regard for the best interests of the individual and of the 
 community — is uppermost in one's nature, chastity pro- 
 motes continence and prevents intercourse not legalized 
 by marriage. If a man were an animal only, and 
 not a human being, he would not feel obligated to manifest 
 these traits. They are all developments of a desire to do 
 nothing unworthy of one possessing a mind by which he 
 ought to be controlled. It is largely the consciousness 
 of possessing this mind, and of not having used it as he 
 should, that accounts for the sense of shame that almost 
 invariably comes to those who have not been able to conceal 
 from the general public the fact of their own unchastity. 
 It is quite common for Japanese men to veil their faces 
 when they visit haunts of vice; and we all know of the social 
 stigma that is sometimes unjustly as well as uncharitably 
 attached to a woman who is merely suspected of a fall from 
 virtue. Perhaps, the same conception of that which be- 
 comes one who possesses a mind which should be enthroned 
 over all action accounts for the ceremonies that apparently 
 in all countries and among all races, however uncivilized, 
 accompany marriage. It seems as if we must ascribe these 
 ceremonies very largely to a desire to emphasize the psychi- 
 cal as contrasted with the physical side of marriage; as if 
 they were needed to satisfy a certain demand in the minds 
 of the participants to have the world recognize their acknow- 
 ledgment of their allegiance to higher desire. If this 
 surmisal be justified, then as long as human nature as at 
 present constituted lasts, what is termed "free love" will 
 probably be discredited, and those who practice it be more 
 or less disesteemed. 
 
CHASTITY 215 
 
 Those acquainted with life in prisons and the sentiments 
 prevailing in them agree in saying that, as a rule, a criminal 
 believes that the only difference between himself and men 
 outside the prison lies in the fact that these have had no such 
 opportunity as he has had to commit the crime for which he 
 has been punished; or else that they have committed it, and 
 have never been found out. This principle applies to chas- 
 tity. The unchaste think all others are the same. But the 
 customs and laws of all races and nations prove this concep- 
 tion to be untrue. It is untrue even as applied to men as 
 distinguished from women. It is men almost invariably 
 who have set the examples for these customs and drafted 
 the laws concerning them. It is true that men do not avoid 
 other men known to have violated the principles of chastity 
 as they do those known to have violated the principles of 
 financial honesty. But this is owing to the requirements of 
 business. One cannot well refuse to trade with others 
 because they are unchaste; but he can and should refuse to 
 trust them and should warn his neighbor against doing so, 
 in case they are dishonest. There are other ways, however, 
 equally emphatic in which men express their estimate of 
 one who is unchaste. Think of the many adulterers who 
 have been shot by fathers, brothers, or husbands ! Any- 
 one, too, acquainted with the blackballing of nominees for 
 membership in any first-class college fraternity or city 
 club will bear testimony that the feeling of disapprobation 
 underl3nng this shooting is by no means confined to those 
 who have a personal grievance. Some years ago, the mana- 
 gers of one of the most distinctly aristocratic men's clubs 
 of the country informed a member that he would be ex- 
 pelled if he did not instantly withdraw a card of invitation 
 to accept the hospitality of the club that he had sent to a 
 certain foreign duke, against whom there had been no 
 charge except the one that we are now considering. The 
 duke, moreover, had already been accepted and feted by 
 the ladies of the city, and, some months later, took back to 
 his own home one of the wealthiest of them as his bride. 
 
 It is true, however, that chastity is usually considered 
 more indispensable to good character in a woman than in a 
 man. There are reasons for this opinion. If a wife be un- 
 chaste, her husband can never be sure that he is the real 
 father of her children. She offends not only against the law 
 of right, but against his fatherhood rights in particular. 
 
216 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 No consequence quite commensurate with this follows upon 
 a similar offense on the part of a man. But even though this 
 be the case, and even though a man believe — as most men 
 do — that he is more susceptible to temptation in this direc- 
 tion than is a woman, these facts furnish no excuse for his 
 own indulgence. The more difficult a duty may be, the 
 more strength of character does it indicate and develop in 
 the one who fulfills it. Another thing is also true. The more 
 weak his character, the less can he afford to violate the 
 law in accordance with which the bodily should be kept 
 from outweighing the mental. 
 
 This subject can never be rightly discussed without recog- 
 nizing that, as applied to it, and with a meaning different 
 from that which is sometimes assigned, it is true that " virtue 
 is its own reward." The joy and satisfaction that accom- 
 pany most of the triumphs and achievements of life are 
 lessened by a disturbing sense of the presence within one of 
 more or less of the selfishness of pride and exultation. But 
 there is nothing of these in the grateful feeling that one 
 experiences who can look back upon no victim that has 
 fallen and been deserted in his pathway, except that lower 
 nature within himself which deserved defeat and over 
 which he had a right to be a victor. The consciousness of 
 having, by his own efforts, obtained peace for his own spirit, 
 and of being at peace with his fellows is inestimably precious, 
 whether one consider its effects upon his mind when at rest 
 or in action. In order to experience all the enjoyment 
 possible to life and all the inspiration that it can impart, one 
 must have and continue to have an attitude of mind in 
 which he can avail himself to the full of its mental as well 
 as its bodily effects. Only the mental , developed, as we have 
 found, by influences that come from without and above, is 
 able to surround and surmount physical conditions with the 
 ideal and imaginative charms that are essential to fit them to 
 become things of beauty. Only moisture and sunshine which 
 are not of its own evolvement can make the bush that grew 
 into a mere thorny product of the soil burst into flower and 
 fragrance. Few of those, therefore, who have formed habits 
 of indulging in vice do not live in a world deprived of some of 
 its charm and beauty. They are always more or less in the 
 condition of the drunkard who cannot see wine sparkling 
 in a glass without feeling an approaching daze of insanity, 
 or drink it without a dread of stumbling into insensibility. 
 
CHASTITY 217 
 
 It sometimes seems as if all nature were a mighty instrument 
 of tyranny from which the only possibility of escape is 
 afforded by constant mental activity; that, in no other way 
 except by exerting this, can one escape from servitude to 
 laws that bring a man under the influence of pain and decay 
 if they do not deprive him wholly of that consciousness of 
 spiritual freedom which alone can insure perfect happiness. 
 If one wish to have his life resemble a heaven rather than a 
 hell, the first thing for him to do is to learn to treasure his 
 physical body so far only as it may be considered a palace 
 or a temple in which to enthrone, and, as it were, enshrine, 
 his higher nature, — in other words, as an honored or sacred 
 dwelling place, every part of which should be kept clean and 
 pure because only thus can it always be prepared for high 
 and holy uses. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 KEEPING THE MIND'S DESIRES UPPERMOST IN SOCIAL CUSTOMS 
 AND HABITS 
 
 Matters of Habit and Manner not mentally Unimportant — Mental 
 Influence Exerted over Bodily Appetite — Selection of Food — 
 Cooking and Seasoning Food— The Use of those Stimulants that 
 are Injurious only to Self — Tobacco — Stimulants Injurious also to 
 Other People, like Intoxicating Drinks and Opiates — Restricting 
 their Use through Circulation of Information concerning their 
 Effects — Regulating their Use by Law — Prohibiting it altogether — 
 Objections Made to Prohibition — Those with the Same Moral Aims 
 do not always Agree with Reference to the Means of Attaining 
 them — Law Applied by Using Bodily Force can never Exert any 
 but Indirect Influence upon Mental Results — However wisely 
 Framed, Law can never be Substituted for Mental Self-control. 
 
 ON page 193 in referring to the virtues that can be culti- 
 vated in children, a connection was suggested 
 between a thoughtful desire to be kind to others, and 
 a desire to make one's self agreeable to them, as shown in 
 keeping one's clothes and boots mended and brushed, and 
 one's hands, face, teeth, and body clean. Many people who 
 recognize the importance of these matters in children seem 
 to forget that they are of equal importance in themselves. 
 They seem to look upon grown people as they do upon 
 grown plants, — as things not needing any longer to have 
 water wasted on them. Just at the time when the Christian 
 church with all the civilization surrounding it was preparing 
 to plunge into the depths of the Dark Ages, one of its councils 
 passed a canon prohibiting women from washing themselves 
 for fear that they would make themselves too attractive 
 physically. It was one way of trying to fulfill the ascetic 
 conceptions mentioned on pages 124-128. But, as argued in 
 subsequent pages, these conceptions were wrong. It is this 
 fact that excuses the present chapter. It has to do with 
 matters that many people suppose to be not in the least 
 
 218 
 
SELECTING FOOD 219 
 
 degree related to morality. But they are related to this, if, 
 for nothing else, for the very good reason that the body is 
 the servant of the mind, and that anything that can make a 
 servant more healthy and strong increases the efficiency of 
 his service. 
 
 This fact suggests that the first way of obtaining bodily 
 health and strength is through obtaining the right quantity 
 and quality of food; and that the most natural way in which 
 to do this is to follow the guidance of appetite. Notice, 
 however, that, in order to be moral, a man must follow this 
 guidance rationally; i.e. in a way dominated by mental con- 
 siderations. Only in the degree in which he does this, will 
 his appetite lead neither to overindulgence, as in gluttony; 
 nor to underindulgence, as in famishment. 
 
 To consider a few directions in which the influence of 
 mind is needed in order to overbalance that of mere appetite, 
 take the question with reference to the different kinds of 
 food that one can select. Not many of these are fitted for 
 the use of everybody. Most of them are digestible for some 
 but indigestible for others. Millions suffer from dyspepsia 
 and die early because they themselves or others who pro- 
 vide food for them have never learned that such common 
 staples as fresh bread, boiled potatoes, roast pork, uncooked 
 fruit, and sweetened deserts are, for many people, little less 
 innocuous than slow poison. No one, if he can avoid it, 
 should be instrumental in foisting upon the community a 
 bodily or mental invalid. One of the first duties, therefore, 
 of every parent or guardian is to discover for his prot6g^, 
 and of every grown person to discover for himself, what he 
 can or cannot digest; and then to regulate all bodily indul- 
 gence to accord with this mental knowledge. _ As self-control 
 exercised because of mental requirements lies at the basis 
 of all morality, it is needless to argue that this elementary 
 control of appetite may become an important factor in cul- 
 tivating a moral habit of mind. Nor is there any doubt that 
 the cultivation of it may be begun in extreme youth. 
 
 Until the children of the author were over ten years of 
 age, they never could be induced to eat candy except after 
 obtaining permission from their mother. This was no result 
 of physical punishment but merely of explanation designed 
 to train them through mental understanding. It is because 
 of unchecked self-indulgence in such things that boys and girls 
 sometimes begin careers that end in gluttony and dissipation. 
 
220 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 But food needs not only to be properly selected. It needs 
 also to be properly cooked and seasoned. A fellow professor 
 once asked the author if he had ever taken a meal at the 
 house of one of our colleagues. "No," was answered. 
 "Don't then, " said the other, "or you'll die soon, as he will. 
 His wife doesn't know how to cook," and the professor to 
 whom he referred did die within a year and of a stomach 
 trouble. When what is to be eaten is well cooked and sea- 
 soned, the one partaking of it can hardly avoid keeping it 
 in his mouth long enough to masticate and salivate it; and 
 to do these is essential to successful digestion. The Catholic 
 Church is justified in calling gluttony a deadly ?in; but its 
 being this is no excuse for maJsing meals unappetizing. It 
 seems to be a well proved fact that mental vitality, and to 
 some extent sanity, depends upon bodily vitality. Up to a 
 certain point, therefore, — the point where the physical is 
 allowed to dominate — the "better a man lives," as people 
 say, physically, the better will he live psychically. 
 
 In connection with appetite, one must consider the use of 
 stimulants. Of these, there are two classes, — those in which 
 one's excessive indulgence proves injurious to himself alone, 
 as in the cases of tea, coffee, and tobacco; and those in which 
 it proves injurious both to himself and to others, sometimes 
 threatening and destroying property and life, as in the cases 
 of beer, wine, distilled liquors, and various opiates. It is 
 evident that the same methods cannot be applied to remedy 
 the evils of both classes. When a man injures himself, he 
 himself must usually apply the remedy. What he most 
 needs, then, is to recognize and practice in his own person 
 the principle of subordinating the bodily to the mental. 
 So far as his experience or the investigations of others lead 
 him to suppose that tea, coffee, or tobacco makes his mind 
 work more clearly and his body more vigorously, or, at least, 
 not less so, he is justified in using them; otherwise not. 
 
 Of course, freedom in doing this, as in doing other things, 
 should be more or less restricted in the case of minors. To 
 them tea and coffee, but especially tobacco, may prove very 
 injurious. The Hon. Charles B. Hubbell, when President 
 of the Board of Education of New York City, founded among 
 the boys an Anti-Cigarette League. This was because of 
 his discovery that hundreds of them, previously exception- 
 ally bright and forward in their studies, became dull and 
 backward after beginning to smoke, — especially if they used 
 
TOBACCO 221 
 
 cigarettes which more than pipes or cigars incline the user 
 to draw the smoke into the lungs. In confirmation of the 
 same fact the Hon. Willis L. Moore, when head of the 
 United States Weather Bureau, told the author that, of 
 the hundreds of boys employed mainly as messengers in its 
 various ofiices throughout the country, those that had to be 
 dismissed because of inattention, forgetfulness, and general 
 inefficiency seemed to be invariably "cigarette fiends." 
 Whatever may be the result of smoking after one has grown 
 to maturity, its effects in rendering stale and tough the 
 fresh sensibilities of the brains of the half-grown are about as 
 indisputable as the effects of the same process when turning 
 fresh pork into ham. Parents and guardians would do well to 
 use every means in order to induce those under their charge 
 to refrain from the habit until older. Pledging boys to do 
 this is quite common with men even though they them- 
 selves smoke. Women who smoke often encourage the 
 young of both sexes to smoke with them. This fact prob- 
 ably explains why to some a lady's cigarette always sug- 
 gests moral irresponsibility and leakage. Some time ago 
 the author was quoting to a leading physician in a large city, 
 as an illustration of extravagance in statement, the remark 
 of another, that a "woman who smokes will do anything," 
 meaning anything bad. "I believe it myself," he said. It 
 is not necessary to join in this belief in order to recognize 
 that, by smoking, a woman does not always add to the 
 charm of her companionship. The same is true occasionally 
 of a man. It is strange how, at times, this habit tends to 
 deaden one's sense of obligation to make himself agreeable, 
 — to say nothing about being useful. Yet everybody prob- 
 ably knows not only women but men who can scarcely 
 endure without nausea the presence of one smoking; or, even 
 after he has ceased, the odor that often clings to his breath, 
 clothing, and other surroundings. 
 
 Now let us consider the class of stimulants that prove 
 injurious to others as well as to oneself. These sometimes 
 necessitate more than self-control exercised by the in- 
 dividual tempted to indulge in them. Any course of action 
 that may endanger the life and property of people in gene- 
 ral justifies the exercise of control by one's associates in the 
 community. This control may be expressed in either an 
 informal or a formal way. In an informal way, men may 
 seek to influence public sentiment and private practice by 
 
222 E THICS AND NAT URAL LA W 
 
 refraining — and sometimes signing pledges to refrain — from 
 using these stimulants, either when by themselves in their 
 own homes, or when acting as hosts or guests to others. No 
 one can fail to recognize the high purpose of those who pur- 
 sue this course. The example of such people, however, will 
 not be very effective unless they are careful to abstain 
 from a censorious and apparently self-righteous attitude of 
 mind toward a neighbor who fails to think or to act exactly 
 as they themselves do. The neighbor may have been accus- 
 tomed to use such stimulants, especially beer and wine, 
 from childhood. He may argue that all the wrong connected 
 with their use is in getting intoxicated, to which he himself 
 is as much opposed as are the total abstainers. Not a few, 
 too, honestly believe that these agencies are essential to 
 preserve their health, absolutely necessary if they are to 
 avoid chronic dyspepsia. It is evident that what people with 
 such opinions, especially the latter, need is more th9,n precept 
 or even example. They need proof, and to know the facts 
 on which it is based. 
 
 Fortunately of late years this has been recognized, and, 
 as a result of investigation, there has come to be a growing 
 conviction on the part of medical men that the corrective 
 for indigestion is to be found more in a change of food and 
 its preparation than in chemical changes wrought in it after 
 reaching the stomach; and that alcohol, even though at 
 times medicinally beneficial, cannot be used habitually 
 without causing more or less of that "auto-intoxication" 
 which precedes disease in some one or more of the bodily 
 organs. As the best guarantee of morality in connection 
 with any form of physical indulgence is the exercise over it 
 of mental control, so, as a safeguard against the evils of this 
 indulgence, there can be no doubt of the wisdom of the wide 
 circulation among all classes of these carefully derived 
 scientific conclusons. 
 
 Mental explanations and arguments, however, are not 
 always of themselves sufficient to accomplish results such 
 as, in this case, seem necessary. An appetite for intoxicants 
 is often purely bodily and physical, and, at least when it 
 leads to intoxication and violence, it needs to be counter- 
 acted by physical force. Where property and life are threat- 
 ened, no one can deny the right and duty of the community 
 to put an end to the danger through the enactment and 
 enforcement of law. In many kinds of business, as on rail- 
 
LIMITING THE SALE OF INTOXICANTS 223 
 
 ways and in machine shops, where employees need, at all 
 times, to have complete control of their mental facilities, 
 these laws are frequently made by corporations. No men 
 are employed by them who are known to indulge in a stimu- 
 lant while at work, and, in many cases, to make sure that 
 they will not do it then, they are forbidden to indulge in 
 one when not at work. In almost all civilized states, too, 
 we find laws intended to regulate overindulgence in this 
 form of appetite. In some cases these are directed mainly 
 against what is sold. Saloon traffic in liquors stronger than 
 light wines or beers is forbidden, the adulteration of either 
 such liquors or of stronger ones is made punishable; or the 
 sale of any intoxicants to minors or drunkards is prevented 
 — occasionally, as in Europe, by issuing licenses allowing 
 those who have proved that they will not abuse the privilege 
 to purchase whatever they choose. In other cases the laws 
 are directed against the places in which the traffic is carried 
 on. Sometimes the number of these is limited, or sometimes 
 intoxicants are permitted to be sold only in a hotel or res- 
 taurant where food must be purchased at the same time 
 with them. Sometimes dealers in them are obliged to obtain 
 government licenses for which a high price is charged, with 
 the double purpose of raising a large government revenue 
 and of causing those who obtain them to assist in the 
 detection and punishment of such as attempt to sell without 
 them. In these and other ways, efforts have been made in 
 almost every age and country to regulate the use of intoxi- 
 cants so that the community shall not suffer from them. _ 
 
 But there are large numbers who are not satisfied with 
 provisions made merely to regulate this evil. They say 
 that all manufacture or sale of any intoxicants should be 
 prohibited: and there is no doubt that, if laws could be 
 framed and enforced in accordance with their demands, the 
 remedy would be sufficient; that alcoholic drunkenness in 
 the country would be entirely abolished. 
 
 This statement cannot well be denied; and because such is 
 the case, a constitutional amendment providing for its 
 abolishment has recently been passed in the United States 
 Congress. There are many, however, whom this action has 
 not converted to a belief in prohibition. They think that 
 no such remedy, however carefully framed, can be success- 
 fully appUed. They freely admit that it may accomplish 
 the desired results in small communities in which people 
 
224 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 in general approve of it, but they argue that it must be 
 ineffective in large and mixed communities where there 
 are many who have all their lives been accustomed to use 
 alcohol, or who sympathize with those who wish to use it, 
 or who favor indulgence, if moderate, and therefore consider 
 such laws an unjust infringement upon personal liberty. It is 
 argued that in a community containing many of this charac- 
 ter there must be numbers of policemen, lawyers, judges, 
 and jurymen who cannot be expected to be very alert in fer- 
 reting out and punishing violations of a la.w disapproved by 
 many of their friends who, either by their votes or recom- 
 mendations, have aided them in the past and might aid them 
 in the future. In a republic, it is said, a law is executed in 
 the degree in which it represents public sentiment ; and, when 
 it does not, there is danger of cultivating among certain 
 classes a disregard and discredit of all legal enactments; of 
 encouraging an illicit production of imitated liquors, fraudu- 
 lently concocted from noxious chemicals, with the result of 
 lessening the number of moderate drinkers, but at the risk 
 of increasing the harm done to those who become such. 
 (See footnote "', page 285.) 
 
 It will be noticed that the difference between the advo- 
 cates of prohibition and of regulation, as applied to this 
 evil, does not necessarily involve a difference in moral con- 
 ception. Both may equally desire to keep the mental 
 uppermost. Where they differ is in the method through 
 which, as each argues, this result can be best attained. To- 
 gether the two furnish a striking illustration of the way in 
 which conscience, aroused to action by the consciousness of 
 conflict between the mental and the bodily, starts and con- 
 tinues to impel the energies of the mind in the right general 
 direction; but leaves the methods — the various steps to be 
 taken while moving in this direction — to be determined, 
 as must everything that is done by a free rational being, by 
 the particular decisions of individual reasoning. 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, that this impelling 
 energy of mental desire ever ceases to operate, even when the 
 mental nature seems to be concerned only with the rational 
 selection of methods. Here, as in every similar case, but 
 more clearly than in most of them, one needs constantly to 
 bear in mind that the moral effect of whatever measures 
 are adopted depends entirely upon their influence upon 
 mental desire. If either prohibition or regulation attain a 
 
PROHIBITION VS. REGULATION 225 
 
 moral result, it must do so because of this form of influence. 
 Prohibition, by making traffic in alcoholic beverages secret 
 if not impossible, can, at least, keep it out of the sight of the 
 young and others, and, therefore, from being an object of 
 temptation to them; and, by making the traffic illegitimate, 
 it can influence the thoughts and opinions of men so that 
 they shall be opposed to this form of indulgence. Regula- 
 tion, too, by making it illegal to sell to drunkards and minors, 
 may produce a similar mental effect. But it must always be 
 borne in mind that all methods of influencing morality by 
 civil law are drafted primarily to affect bodily or physical 
 conditions. If there be opposition to the laws they must be 
 carried out through the exertion of physical force; and this, 
 of itself alone, operating as it does only because of exciting 
 fear of detection and punishment, can produce only a physi- 
 cal effect. Too many parents imagine their son to be safe 
 from immorality because they have merely voted to abolish 
 some external phase of temptation. But there are other 
 forms of vice in which he may indulge still more for the 
 very reason that this is denied him. Nor is there any certain 
 guaranty that he will not indulge in this vice as soon as he 
 gets where he can evade that which prevents it. Indeed, 
 there are those who argue that conditions in which the young 
 are constantly tempted to use alcohol, yet are constantly 
 prompted to resist the temptation because of their own de- 
 ductions from the effects exhibited in the drunkards by 
 whom they are surrounded, are actually favorable rather 
 than the reverse to the cultivation as applied to this evil of 
 moral self-control. 
 
 It is never justifiable, however, for men to permit wrong, 
 if this can be avoided, on the ground that good may come of 
 it. This much, however, the statements that have been 
 made ought to impress upon our minds, namely, the futility 
 of expecting mere external law, administered through physi- 
 cal force, to accomplish moral results. These can be wrought 
 by nothing except individual mental self-control. Laws 
 against the use of -alcohol, opium, cocaine, or like drugs are 
 justifiable as a means of preventing the destruction of 
 property and life. But let us not suppose that, except in- 
 directly, they can have any great influence in preventing 
 the destruction of individual character. 
 
 IS 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 KEEPING THE MIND's DESIRES UPPERMOST IN SOCIAL SUR- 
 ROUNDINGS AND PLEASURES 
 
 Clothing — ^An Agency for Mental Expression — Application of this 
 Principle to Forms of Work and Art — Under-dressing in Society — 
 Over-dressing — Bodily or Mental Desires as Shown in Ostentatious 
 Residences — Money Wisely Spent to Gratify Public-spirited Men- 
 tal Desire — Bodily vs. Mental Desire, as Shown in Feasting — In 
 Dancing — In Card-playing; why Gambling and Betting are Wrong 
 — Evil Effects Connected with them and Other Pastimes — Forms 
 of Enjoyment in which One is Entertained by Others — Morality and 
 Art — The Kind of Art that One should Patronize — Frivolous and 
 Superficial Art — Every Part of the Human Form can Become a Ve- 
 hicle for Mental Expression — Different Effects of the Actual Human 
 Form and of its Representations in Art — This Difference Over- 
 looked — Disregard of Proprieties in Moving Pictures and Theatri- 
 cals — Disregard and Distortion of Truth for Artistic Effects in 
 Dramas and Novels. 
 
 AFTER food and drink, the next thing that usually 
 demands a man's attention is clothing. The pri- 
 maryobjectofthisis to cover parts of the body which, 
 if exposed, would become uncomfortably, perhaps danger- 
 ously, cold. In covering these parts, it is usually customary 
 to leave uncovered, even at the expense of suffering from 
 cold, the face and hands. This is because these are the chief 
 agencies through which a man sees, hears, and obtains his 
 thoughts, and also communicates them to others in speech 
 and gesture, or carries them out in his deeds. In other 
 words, these are the chief agencies of his mental nature. 
 If they were kept entirely hidden by clothing, he could not 
 use them for mental expression. 
 
 These facts with reference to keeping covered or un- 
 covered certain parts of the body, and the reasons for the 
 facts, seem to be instinctively recognized by most people. 
 When they meet a man, they judge of his thoughts, feelings, 
 
 22$ 
 
CLOTHING 227 
 
 and character by first looking at his face, and then at his 
 hands, and what he does with them. Clothing that reveals 
 them, therefore, and conceals everything else, may be said 
 to emphasize the mental or psychical nature. Clothing 
 that does the opposite, causing an unnecessary exposure of 
 parts usually kept hidden, emphasizes the bodily or physical 
 nature. 
 
 Of course, this effect will not be produced in case the 
 person is engaged in some form of work or recreation in 
 which there is reason for the exposure. No one objects to 
 limited clothing when one is stoking an engine or taking a 
 bath in the ocean. To say no more, a reason itself is mental, 
 and sufficiently so usually to render any effect into which it 
 enters something more than physical. Because art, too, is 
 usually associated with that which is mental in source and 
 effect, a similar principle sometimes applies to it. (See 
 page 236.) 
 
 There is an undue emphasis in the direction opposite to 
 that of the mental that is sometimes forced upon one's 
 attention through immodesty in personal clothing. It 
 might be termed undress, but, with the strange perversity 
 sometimes manifested in the words that people use, it is 
 more likely than not to be exhibited in what they term full 
 dress. Because it shows itself in an entirely unnecessary 
 and therefore intentional exposure, or suggestion, of parts 
 of the body that, as a rule, are kept concealed, such empha- 
 sizing furnishes a very clear illustration of subordinating 
 the mental to the physical. Many women especially seem 
 to be unaware that their method of dressing fails to manifest 
 proper regard for the mentality of themselves, of their hus- 
 bands, or of others who are obliged, perhaps, to associate 
 with them. And many men fail to feel flattered by a sug- 
 gestion made in public that their characters are such that 
 they may be expected to be fascinated — to be led, perhaps, 
 to "fall in love" — through an appeal made mainly to their 
 physical nature. They are conscious in their conscience 
 that this ought not to be. Some of them, therefore, often 
 remember to the end of their lives the bored disgust with 
 which, at some time, they have been obhged to pose as the 
 delighted victim of such a mode of attack. Perhaps they 
 can remember, too, how they envied, all the while, that other 
 man, sitting near by, tete-d-iete with some modestly dressed, 
 but, for this very reason, mentally fascinating woman, every 
 
228 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 look in whose thoughtful face indicated that she was recog- 
 nizing in her companion, and endeavoring to meet as a 
 comrade, one who seemed to have a mind and soul. It is 
 worth noticing with what unanimity artists in their can- 
 vases and spiritists in their conjurations, when they repre- 
 sent messengers from the psychic or spirit state, depict 
 these, with exception of hands and face, as robed, — ^usually 
 in white, the least emphatic of colors. This fact is a proof 
 of what to most people is the mental or psychical ideal in 
 clothing. Even the church choir boys in their white sur- 
 plices appear to some of the worshipers to be veritable 
 cherubs, though if it were not for their vestments, they 
 might seem to the same worshipers very ordinary and un- 
 attractive. The transformation wrought in them by dress, 
 with the suggestions accompanying it, might be attained 
 through the same agency by many of their elders. It is too 
 bad that ignorance of human nature and its mental demands 
 prevents so many of the latter from availing themselves of 
 their opportunities. 
 
 The pirinciple under consideration may apply not only to 
 underdressing but to overdressing. This causes dominance 
 to be assigned not to the physical human body but to physi- 
 cal surroundings. Either condition subordinates the mental, 
 showing distrust of its efficiency either in oneself or in 
 others. No one can have much faith in her own or in her 
 associates' possession of intelligence who thinks that she 
 must recommend it to them by hiding her mind behind a 
 mass, and sometimes a mess, of silk, satin, velvet, or 
 jewelry. It would be difficult in any way to exhibit more 
 infidelity to that which is highest in a man's nature. And 
 when to excess in dressing is added paint on the face and 
 perfume everywhere, it does not need the underlying sug- 
 gestion that there are defects to be covered by the one, or 
 disinfected by the other, to reveal the agent's wholly false 
 conception of all that is noblest and best in human influence. 
 In mercy to their kind, people who indulge in such practices 
 ought to assume a virtue if they have it not, and treat men 
 as if crediting them with some of the elementary traits of 
 manhood, even if in doubt of their having any of those of 
 morality. 
 
 A man's residence is merely an extension of the sur- 
 roundings to which he begins to give attention when he 
 starts out to dress. For this reason his home may indicate 
 
OSTENTATIOUS RESIDENCES 229 
 
 the dominance in him either of bodily or, physical or else of 
 mental or rational desire. The former desire leads to a con- 
 struction intended to call attention to one's physical re- 
 sources, and, through this, to extend his physical influence 
 and prominence in the community, causing his house to be, 
 if possible, more costly, luxurious, magnificent, and showy 
 than are any of those of his neighbors. Mental or rational 
 desire leads to exactly the opposite, — to a construction 
 erected in accordance with strictly reasonable, artistic, and 
 public-spirited conceptions: to a house that is convenient 
 rather than costly, comfortable rather than luxurious, and 
 instead of being magnificent and showy, no more ornate 
 than is fitted to blend well with the general effects that 
 make one's neighbors' houses attractive and beautiful. Of 
 course, in judging the style and surroundings in which a 
 man lives, one should always bear in mind the different 
 conceptions that people have derived from the different 
 ways in which they have been brought up. What seems 
 only a commodious cottage to some may seem a palace to 
 others. It ought to be said, too, that a part of the reason 
 why it seems what it does to these latter may be owing to 
 wholly unworthy feelings of envy and jealousy. But for 
 such feelings, they might derive great personal gratification 
 from the house not only because enabling them to claim it 
 as a civic asset adding to the charm and importance of their 
 own neighborhood, but because enabling them also to enjoy 
 and develop their aesthetic natures when looking at the 
 lawns and gardens surrounding the house, and, possibly, 
 at the works of art inside of it, to say nothing of availing 
 themselves of the hospitality of its owners, which a right 
 attitude of mind on their part might gain for them. 
 
 It has to be acknowledged, however, that sometimes those 
 in the palatial residence are merely planning, through its 
 agency, to gain for themselves a physically dominant posi- 
 tion in society. When such is the case, some members of the 
 family are almost certain to do this at the expense of be- 
 coming out of sympathy with the community. Sortie of 
 them, in deference to what they choose to consider due to 
 their own superiority, may acquire a habit of cutting the 
 acquaintance of the poor, even if among their former inti- 
 mate friends, and near relatives. In this way, antagonism 
 is apt to be cultivated between different classes of society, 
 lessening whatever tendencies any class may feel to give 
 
230 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 expression to the mental traits of geniality and humanity. 
 The large house often exerts a bad influence, too, through 
 causing neighbors who cannot afford the expense to desire 
 one equally costly; and this, if erected, may saddle them 
 with a debt that ultimately causes them to lose the most, 
 perhaps, of what they possess; or to visit this result upon 
 their children. If there be many of these, no one of them 
 can continue to live in the style to which he became habit- 
 uated in his youth ; and the main part of what he inherits 
 in life may be merely disappointment and discontent. 
 
 If one have been so situated as to acquire, or to inherit, 
 a large fortune, there are plenty of ways in which he can 
 spend it so as to gratify a great deal more than mere bodily 
 or physical desire. Why should one confine his sense of 
 possession, to speak only of this, to that which is behind the 
 door of his own house, or the gate of his own yard? Why 
 should he not include very much more of that which can be 
 found in his own town or county? He often could and 
 would do this, if he had made others, in any way, recipients 
 of his benefactions. One cannot contribute to the happiness, 
 the education, the elevation of other people without begin- 
 ning to take a personal interest in them, and the larger 
 the number that are thus benefited, the larger will be the 
 number of his interests. Why should he be willing to limit 
 these to the narrow vision and selfish possibilities of a beast 
 in a cave, when broad outlook and unselfish activity might 
 give him a sense of fellowship not only with multitudes of 
 men but with God? Instead of erecting one palace for him- 
 self and his family, he might build many cottages for work- 
 ing people equipped with every convenience. Instead of 
 laying out a little front yard for himself, he might provide 
 large playgrounds and parks for all his townspeople; or he 
 might build and equip art galleries, libraries, schools, col- 
 leges, asylums, hospitals, and churches. There are no ends 
 of ways in which he might spend millions without involving 
 even a suggestion of the evils that follow upon household 
 extravagance, moneyed aristocracy, and social ostracism. 
 
 Now let us consider the pleasures or recreations in which 
 people, after they have built their houses, usually indulge. 
 First of all, in feasting, — perfectly legitimate so far as it 
 does not lead to such things as wastefulness, gormandizing, 
 and intemperance. What does or does not involve these 
 must be left to the good judgment of each host and guest. 
 
BANQUETING 231 
 
 But it is always important to get behind the viewpoint of 
 the savage sufBciently to bear in mind that one's object, 
 when tendering a feast, may be not physical but mental; 
 not to fill a greedy stomach, but to give expression to a 
 generous spirit. This conception undoubtedly lies behind 
 a custom attributed to Clemenceau, that "grand old man," 
 the premier of France at the time of the recent war. It is 
 said that owing mainly to his age, he usually takes his own 
 food with him when invited out to dinner, — a fact illus- 
 trated in an overheard question which he addressed to a 
 waiter, — ' ' Where are my noodles ? " A few years ago there 
 were in Washington two eminent men, approaching old age, 
 who were widely entertained at dinner parties. One was re- 
 ported to have gone to ninety-six of these in one hundred 
 nights, eating heartily at each, and then he died. The other 
 went to almost as many, but those who sat near him observed 
 that he ate very little. He was always talking; he made of 
 the whole a psychical performance; and, when the season 
 was over, he was, apparently, in better health than when it 
 opened. So in the case of social teas and receptions, and all 
 other agencies that tend to physical excess and fatigue. In 
 the degree in which each can be made mental, it can be made 
 endurable and, in the best meaning of the term, enjoyable. 
 
 Next, perhaps, among the entertainments furnished in 
 the home, is dancing. This is a natural expression of health- 
 ful and buoyant vitality and joy, made artistic by accom- 
 paniments of melody and rhythm. How anyone can think 
 that in itself this form of amusement is wrong, is inconceiv- 
 able, unless he have a theory in accordance with which he 
 considers everything wrong that is pleasurable, artistic, or 
 beautiful. But this remark does not apply to all forms of 
 dancing. It applies to such forms only as do not allow 
 the bodily to subordinate the mental. The old-fashioned 
 Sailors' Hornpipe, Highland Fling, and Double Shuffle ap- 
 peared to be pleasurable modes of natural expression con- 
 formed to the requirements of art. So with the Reel, the 
 Quadrille, the Lancers, and the Morris Dances. The one 
 chief impression conveyed by all of these was predominant- 
 ly mental. Every bodily movement necessitated by them 
 seemed interesting mainly because of the overflow of exube- 
 rant individual activity rendering it characteristic of per- 
 sonal thought and feeling. Unfortunately, the same cannot 
 be said of much of our modern dancing. It would be diffi- 
 
232 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 cult to devise an5rthing more essentially vulgar and vile than 
 some of the performances associated or allied with what are 
 termed the ' ' tango ' ' or the ' ' hug. ' ' Only degenerates cotild 
 originate them, and, once made fashionable, only those 
 incapable of forming independent moral judgments could 
 perpetuate them, — they so violate the first principles of 
 propriety. How people can tolerate in a couple, when danc- 
 ing, attitudes and movements that would insure their imme- 
 diate expulsion from the room, if they were sitting, is simply 
 inconceivable. In former times, young people were taught 
 how to keep apart when dancing. Now many dancing schools 
 teach them how to cling together. The result sometimes 
 goes altogether beyond a mere tendency to vice. A father, 
 who, fortunately, lives on terms of intimacy with his son, 
 described to the author once the loathing for himself that 
 the boy expressed one night when he came home from a 
 high-school ball. Another boy of the same age, referring to 
 this experience, simply said, "That is what it is for." And 
 yet many society women encourage this sort of thing, not 
 only in hotels and clubs but in their own homes! How 
 thankful we ought to be that there are left in the world a 
 few school-boys, and, as indicated in the note at the bot- 
 tom of this page,^° politicians and military men who can 
 give us a higher mental ideal ! 
 
 Next to dancing, as a method of social entertainment, 
 comes, perhaps, card playing. The innocent form of this, 
 just a!s in the case of dancing, is where the mental, in the 
 sense of the rational motive, is uppermost, where the par- 
 ticular thing done is merely an agency of relaxation and 
 sociability used to bring about a greater union of thought 
 and feeling. But when the game is treated seriously and 
 played for its own sake, and with wagers that, if forfeited, 
 involve real loss, then we have the beginning of the vice of 
 gambling. A professor of ethics of thirty years* standing 
 
 =» "Newpprt, R. I., March 9, 1918. — War measures in Newport have 
 spread to dancing: by an order of the board of aldermen to protect the 
 men in uniform from influences not promoting the life of a sailor or a 
 seaman. Conspicuously posted in the hall where society dances were 
 the following directions in big letters: 'No ragging. No shivers. No 
 mugging (cheek to cheek). Daylight zone between partners. The 
 man's guiding arm should be extended laterally. The man's supporting 
 arm should be placed midway up his partner's back. The girl's left 
 arm should be placed on her partner's shoulder, and not clasped about 
 his ueck.'" — Washington Post. 
 
GAMBLING 233 
 
 told the author once that he did "not know exactly why 
 gambling is wrong, — ^why a man, if he wants to play with 
 what he himself owns, has not a right to do so; that, of 
 course, one could say that he sets a bad example and tempts 
 people to play who cannot afford it " ; but " suppose that he 
 never plays with such people?" The answer to a question 
 like this which accords with the theory of this book must 
 be begun with the statement that a man should never put 
 himself under physical conditions over which his mind or his 
 rational nature can exercise no control. 
 
 To gamble or to bet is to do wrong for the same reason as 
 to get drunk, to yield to passion, or, except when some ex- 
 traordinary emergency demands it, to allow oneself to be 
 hypnotized. A man should never let any influence clearly 
 outweigh the thoughtful and rational. He is doing this when, 
 in a practical matter, involving gain or loss to himself, he 
 ceases to exercise his own psychical reason and judgment, 
 and permits the result to be determined by the operation 
 of the merely physical forces by which he is surrounded. 
 All the evils that follow upon gambling are traceable to this 
 primary surrender of mental control. To it is owing the 
 discredit that gambling throws upon human labor, which is 
 the only legitimate way in which a man can ordinarily 
 obtain money; upon reasonable purchase, which is the only 
 legitimate way in which money can ordinarily be expended; 
 and upon sensible economy and saving, which are the only 
 ordinary means of assuring permanent support for oneself 
 and family. A gambler plays with his piece of silver like a 
 monkey. He does not use it like an intelligent being made 
 for calculation and foresight. It is for this reason that, 
 after a while, he frequently finds that he has fitted himself 
 for nothing better than to bring shame or poverty upon his 
 friends and family or to commit theft or suicide. There is no 
 possibility of making a computation of all the irrational, 
 selfish and inhumane consequences that may result after 
 one has surrendered the form of control over his own destiny 
 which it is his privilege and duty as the possessor of a mind 
 to exercise. 
 
 One of the worst features of the vice is found in its asso- 
 ciations. Almost invariably the forms of it connected with 
 card playing and pool playing are accompanied by frequent 
 draughts of strong drink which tend to create a drunkard's 
 habit. The same is true in connection with betting at 
 
234 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 a horse show or automobile race. The latter, drawing 
 together, as it does, thousands of spectators^ intent often 
 upon being thrilled by the anticipated possibility of the 
 maiming or killing of some driver tempted to risk his life 
 for the sake of money spent usually to increase the reputa- 
 tion of some mercenary manufacturer, is one of the most 
 demoralizing entertainments that the world has ever known, 
 — only a few stages behind the degree of debasement that 
 led to the gladiatorial shows of ancient Rome. It should be 
 prohibited by law. Nothing can be worse than a deliberate 
 attempt to brutalize the instincts of a community by bribing 
 in such a way as to lure toward death certain of the mistaken 
 though often most enterprising and skillful of its members. 
 
 In most of the forms of enjoyment that have been men- 
 tioned a man entertains himself. There are other forms 
 equally important in which he is entertained by others, — 
 in which his own will is not active but passive. He feels and 
 thinks in connection with what someone else presents to his 
 eyes or ears. This introduces us to the sphere of art. But 
 it was shown on page 22 that it is the thinking, feeling mind 
 that is influenced through the eyes and ears. The thought- 
 ful, therefore, must always be an element in the effects 
 of art. Other considerations, too, show this to be the case. 
 Why do we never attribute art to an animal? It is because 
 of the absence in him of the higher mental nature. What- 
 ever art we may study, its expressional possibility seem'? 
 its primary and determining characteristic. That this is so 
 has been brought out in what is said on page 142 of the 
 present volume. It is also brought out in all the author's 
 volumes on comparative aesthetics. 
 
 Because this is the case, the reader will recognize that the 
 fundamental principle of morality is as important to success 
 in art as in any other department. Those therefore who 
 intend to praise an artist, as some do, when they term him 
 conscientious, are amply justified. To be conscientious, as 
 we have found, is to keep the bodily or physical from out- 
 weighing the mental; and this is something that every artist 
 is called upon to do in connection with every line, color, 
 tone, or word that he uses. He chooses and arranges each so 
 as to represent such thoughts, emotions, and purposes as 
 seem to him to be suggested by, because expressed through, 
 the physical forms — together with what seem to be the 
 laws controlling them — that he perceives in the world 
 
THE MENTAL AND MORAL IN ART 235 
 
 surrounding him. The aim of the artist, therefore, though 
 he himself may not always be able to explain it, or even to 
 recognize it fully, is to interpret, at the same time that he 
 represents, in accordance with what seem to be the require- 
 ments_ df truth, that which is revealed to him in external 
 material nature, including, of course, htmian nature. 
 
 The principle thus stated, has an important bearing in 
 this connection, because it indicates the kind of art that a 
 man of right purpose should endeavor, so far as feasible, to 
 produce or to patronize. This art should not be a mere 
 imitation of what is presented in nature; nor should it be a 
 mere expression of thought or emotion founded on an im- 
 pression received from nature, irrespective of the form in 
 which it has been presented there. Imitation does not be- 
 come art except in the degree in which it shows the psychi- 
 cal eflEects that have been produced upon the mind by what 
 has been seen or heard; and a representative expression of 
 an impression does not become art except in the degree in 
 which it shows that the mental suggestions that have been 
 received are due to sights and sounds that actual experience 
 can prove to be observable in nature. 
 
 The culttu:al influences that thoughtful people attribute 
 to art, and which cause them to prize it, are owing solely to 
 its fulfillment of these two conditions thus stated. The 
 results that are merely those of imitation, expression, or 
 impression may at times produce effects that are interest- 
 ing, suggestive, or curious, but they can never produce the 
 finest quality of art. This requires the exertion of a man's 
 finest possibilities of perception and reflection. The product 
 embodying less than these is always comparatively frivolous 
 and superficial, of no essential value, however elaborately 
 praised by people whose opinion partakes of the same flip- 
 pant quality. There is so much in art, when earnestly and 
 honestly pursued, to increase one's knowledge, to broaden 
 one's sympathies, to stimulate one's imagination, to de- 
 velop one's ideality, and to bring one's spirit into unity 
 with the creative life and purpose behind the forms and 
 forces about him, that it is difiScult to exercise as much 
 charity as one ought to possess toward the mistaken fad- 
 dists who seem constantly doing all that lies in their power 
 to degrade and demoralize an agency fitted, at its best, to be 
 so generally beneficial. 
 
 "This language is justified. Near the beginning of the 
 
236 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 present chapter it was pointed out that mental emphasis 
 is given to the human form by a method of personal cloth- 
 ing that leaves uncovered only the face and the hands. It 
 was not said, however, that these were the only parts of the 
 form through which thought and emotion can be expressed. 
 In the author's Orator's Manual, pages 125 to 151, and in 
 Chapters VII. to X., of his Painting, Sculpture, and Architec- 
 ture as Representative Ar:s, it is shown that mental life and 
 meaning pervade every form and movement of the physical 
 bod}'. At the time when the author was giving attention to 
 this subject, he could frequently obtain important informa- 
 tion by noticing the pose, walk, and gestures of those so far 
 away from him that the expressions of mere faces and 
 fingers could hardly be distinguished. The policeman who 
 gave the clew that led to the discovery of those who blew 
 up the printing house of the Los Angeles Times in 191 1 , told 
 the author that his whole theory which was taken to justify 
 a search over all the country for the men described by him 
 who were subsequently proved to be the criminals was 
 derived from seeing, on the morning preceding the disaster, 
 two entire strangers to him cross a street that was fully a 
 mile away from the Times building. 
 
 For the reason that has been given, every part of the 
 human form may be of mental interest, and therefore of 
 mental value. This fact justifies in art a degree of exposure 
 of the whole form that in a living person would be inexcus- 
 able. The marble or bronze of a statue, for instance, almost 
 entirely eliminates the physical effect. This elimination is 
 less marked in a painting because of the presence in it of the 
 colors of life; but in all constructed products, the mental 
 effect of the skill exhibited in the portrayal makes the whole 
 result far less physical in its influence than it would be 
 otherwise; and, frequently, as in the highest works of art, 
 the mental intention of the whole is too distinctly repre- 
 sented to make any other inference from it logical. There is 
 a thoroughly artistic reason, however, why an artist who 
 wishes to exert an enduring influence upon all should try to 
 select such arrangements of the forms at his disposal as to 
 render any other than a mental inference not only illogical 
 but impossible. 
 
 There is a closer connection between morality and what 
 has thus been mentioned with reference to art than one 
 might naturally suppose. Because some statues represent 
 
IMMODEST EXHIBITIONS 237 
 
 unclothed human forms, what is to be said of those who 
 seriously argue that this condition is one of the essentials 
 that renders them works of art ? and who maintain that any 
 person getting himself into the same condition, or encourag- 
 ing the action of one who does it, is furthering the interests 
 of art ? Yet, in our country there are women dancers who 
 are advertised as cultivating artistic taste merely because 
 they appear in public clad only in transparent gauze, and 
 spend the time at their disposal in an apparent endeavor, 
 often with slight manifestations of skill, to jump out even of 
 the little that is on them.^' There are worse forms in our 
 country of the same tendency; and, so far as statistics are 
 available, few women's clubs, supposed to be intent upon 
 securing the uplift of their sex, have made any protest 
 against them, though this has often been done by policemen, 
 presumably because of having no appreciation of art ! The 
 forms of entertainment to which referente is made are those 
 furnished by certain actresses for moving pictures. These 
 consent to be photographed without a stitch of clothing on 
 them and sometimes in the presence of hundreds of specta- 
 tors; and then to have the resulting picture witnessed by 
 millions more (see footnote ^', page 285). This exhibition, 
 which necessarily makes such an appeal to most of the 
 spectators that the physical entirely subordinates the men- 
 tal, is represented as justified because it is art! And art, 
 we are told, can never be immoral ! But any man of com- 
 mon experience, not to say sense, ought to know that an 
 influence that cannot fail to shock many people, and at the 
 same time blunt their mental sense of modesty, is injuring a 
 very delicate constituent of the aesthetic nature; and that 
 injury to it involves injury to other constituents equally 
 delicate; and not infrequently may involve also the loss of 
 some of the most exquisite as well as elevating experiences 
 of which one can be conscious. 
 
 Of course, the same principle that applies to the moving 
 picture applies also to the theater and opera. No contrasts 
 could be greater than those afforded by the physical effects 
 thrust into prominence through an intentionally suggestive 
 
 21 "New York, March 13, 1918. — Mayor Hylan, in a letter to Police 
 Commissioner Enright to-day, expresses amazement that a nude dancer 
 was permitted in the Metropolitan Opera House. After the dance 
 .... said: 'According to pure art, as shown by its statuary, mostly 
 of the dance, there is nothing lewd about the nude.'" — Washington Post. 
 
238 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 lack of attire augmented by the vulgar movements and 
 language and even — in an artistic sense — ^music of some of 
 our public performances, and the mental effects produced 
 sometimes by the same companies of actors, but entirely 
 different because of studied propriety in costumes, artistic 
 conceptions of beauty, tasteful arrangements of color and 
 pose, carefully executed results of individual and concerted 
 skill, and conscientiously composed music. There is abso- 
 lutely no common standard in accordance with which one 
 can compare the efforts of mercenary managers or actors to 
 conform to what they suppose to be the depraved desires of 
 men, and the efforts of those who contribute to the healthful 
 enjoyment derivable from operas like those of Gilbert and 
 Sullivan and from many other higher forms of comedy, 
 pantomime, and pageant. One who seeks to keep the bodily 
 subordinated to the mental will always try to manifest 
 his disapproval of any vulgarity that befouls innocent fun. 
 There are few meaner men than those who pander to vice; 
 who are willing to make money by poisoning the wells 
 of public pleasure, by communicating moral disease and 
 death to him who comes to them for recreation. But next 
 to these in meanness is the one who knowingly patronizes 
 the person or the place where this sort of work is carried on. 
 In the higher forms of the drama, whether comedy or 
 tragedy, as also in the novel and the poem, the chief depar- 
 ture from mental req\iirements is usually manifested in a 
 disregard of truth. Historically considered, this latter is 
 always the source of whatever mental interest one has in the 
 actions and experiences of those surrounding him. It is 
 these mainly that prompt his powers of observation and 
 imagination to produce such results as we find in story- 
 telling and play writing. One might suppose, therefore, 
 that all novelists and dramatists would try to have their 
 works continue to manifest a logical development of the 
 purpose to which they owe their origin. But writers must 
 draw largely upon their imagination for the details both of 
 their methods of presentation and of their plots; and, while 
 doing this, it is difficult for them to resist the temptation 
 to sacrifice that which they have found to be true in life to 
 that which they suppose will be effective when presented in 
 art. If they yield to the temptation, we find them trying 
 to attract and hold attention through portrayals of extra- 
 ordinary and, now and then, impossible actions and events, 
 
DRAMAS AND NOVELS 239 
 
 chosen in hopes that they may appear startling and exciting. 
 Their whole object sometimes comes to be the producing of 
 a sensation. A sensation is an effect excited in the nerves ; 
 and, as the nerves are a part of the bodily nature, plays or 
 novels intended only or mainly to affect them may, for that 
 reason alone, be said to appeal particularly to this nature. 
 But there is another and a better reason for ascribing to 
 them this form of influence. This is because it is so clearly 
 devoid of any traces of a rational and non-selfish desire to 
 increase the reader's knowledge of the true conditions of 
 human existence and of what is demanded in order to de- 
 velop its best possibilities. The highest success is some- 
 times represented as attained, if not promoted, through 
 courses of conduct which, if pursued in actual life, would 
 ruin a person's reputation and career. Before giving any 
 other evidences of repentence or reformation, the worst con- 
 ceivable characters are represented as unexpectedly mani- 
 festing almost every conceivable virtue. Undoubtedly 
 changes in character do take place; but in real life there are 
 mental and moral reasons for them; and to make a study of 
 these reasons is one of the most important and interesting 
 of the services rendered to the world by art when true to 
 life. A writer of novels or plays who does not recognize this 
 fact may cast his influence, even though not intending it, 
 on the side of immorality. What else can result where 
 wealth is represented as if it were attained, as a rule, through 
 dishonesty; or marriage through unchastity; or where an- 
 tagonism to parents is represented as justified, because 
 they object to having their son go into partnership with a 
 defaulter, or marry a harlot ? Forgiveness is undoubtedly a 
 duty; and the world needs to have this fact emphasized. 
 We should all deal kindly with the fallen; but never at the 
 expense of forming intimacies or partnerships involving 
 one's accepting for himself or others standards of life lower 
 than the level on which his own ideals have been moving. 
 It is poor policy to make one's own bed in a gutter in order 
 to coax others to get out of it. Almost the first requisite 
 for one who would save the fallen is to preserve his own 
 standing. Otherwise, he will not be in a position to lift 
 them up. Neither will he be in a position where others 
 like himself will recognize the good that he is trying to do, 
 and come to his assistance. Those in need of reformation 
 cannot always obtain it without receiving help both from 
 
240 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 the individual at their side and from the community. In- 
 dividual methods will suggest themselves to the considerate 
 and kindly as opportunities open. Public methods may be 
 furthered by exerting one's influence in the enactment of laws 
 like those, for instance, suggested by Judge B. B. Lindsay, 
 of Colorado, — ^laws transferring certain cases of moral delin- 
 quence to chancery jvirisdiction, treating the perpetrators of 
 them as wards of the commonwealth, and receiving and ex- 
 amining in secrecy all evidence with reference to them. It 
 is only right that, so far as possible, methods of this charac- 
 ter should protect at least the young from ruinous publicity, 
 insure, if personal injury have been received, the care of 
 the sufferer at the expense of the aggressor, and, if pos- 
 sible, rectify all wrongdoing in such ways as to avoid social 
 scandal and ostracism, and afford a remedy complete and 
 permanent. But all this is very different from the exploit- 
 ing of such cases, as if grievous wrongs against society 
 could be committed without occasioning shame to their 
 perpetrators ; or as if there were no need, before being re- 
 stored again to the confidence of the community, of their 
 manifesting what John the Baptist, in Matt, iii., 8, termed 
 "fruits meet for repentance." 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 KEEPING THE MIND'S DESIRES UPPERMOST IN COMMERCIAL 
 RELATIONS BETWEEN BUYERS AND SELLERS 
 
 Importance of Business — Of Developing the Traits of Character Needed 
 for Success in it — How Property may be Acquired — Money as a 
 Medium of Exchange — The Object of Business is to Exchange what 
 One Has for what Another Has — Can be Conducted in Fulfillment 
 of Lower or of Higher Desire — Civilization the Result of the Latter, 
 Giving Men Confidence in One Another — Honesty Proved the 
 Best Policy by People who have Actually been Honest — Riches not 
 usually the Result of Extortion but of Diligence, Self-Denial, and 
 Saving — Examples — Successful Men usually Keep the Bodily Out- 
 weighed by the Mental — Lack of Success often Due to Outside 
 Circumstances — Often Due to Men's Own Unacknowledged De- 
 ficiencies — The highly Rational and Humane Man Studies and 
 Gives in Exchange what Others Need and Want — Large Services 
 of this Kind Justly Receive Large Recompense — Injurious Lack of 
 Stimulus to Effort where this Principle is not Practiced or Accepted 
 — -Duty of the Individual to Subordinate his Own Interests to those 
 of the Coramunity. 
 
 AFTER leaving school, most people not only become 
 members of society, but usually engage in what, in a 
 broad sense, may be termed business. The majority 
 do this in order to obtain a livelihood, and all would be wise 
 to do it though for nothing else than to obtain an interest 
 in life. Business, in some form, necessarily engages a large 
 part of every man's attention. By means of it, he himself, 
 or someone else upon whom he is dependent, is obliged to 
 obtain his food, clothing, lodging, and almost all his necessi- 
 ties. Not only a babe but a grown person could scarcely 
 continue to live, were not some of his fellows constantly 
 working for him in farm or factory, or transporting the 
 products of each to market or shop in which he can purchase 
 them. He does this by exchanging what he himself pro- 
 duces, or possesses, for what others produce or possess. 
 Every form of material success for the individual or the 
 
 1 6 241 
 
242 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 community depends so largely upon the methods in which 
 these exchanges are conducted that the moral considera- 
 tions having especially to do with them, like sincerity, frank- 
 ness, truthfulness, fairness, justice, and honesty, need to be 
 scrupulously regarded and particularly emphasized. It is re- 
 markable how soon the slightest deviation from their re- 
 quirements excites distrust in the minds of others, and how 
 the slightest regard for them, as in the case of an employee 
 who never fails to return to his employer a stray penny 
 picked up on a floor, causes confidence. Possession of that 
 to which one is rightly entitled has so much to do with his 
 ability to provide for the comfort and prosperity of himself 
 and of those dependent on him, that he cannot, without 
 almost criminal neglect, disregard any tendency to deprive 
 him wrongly of any part of it. 
 
 The wrong methods of depriving one of what he owns 
 can be best understood after recalling for a moment the 
 right methods of obtaining it. According to Francis Way- 
 land, where he treats of the Love of Man, in Part II. , Chapter 
 III., of his Elements of Moral Science, "property may be 
 orginally acquired like unoccupied land and the wild life 
 inhabiting it." This statement, which was virtually ac- 
 cepted by all at the time when it was made, would be 
 modified by certain later economists, especially Herbert 
 Spencer {Social Statics, Chapter IX., ed. 1850) and Henry 
 George {Progress and Poverty, Book VII., Chapter I., ed. 
 1879). They say that unoccupied land belongs to society 
 (or the government), and that the private possession of land 
 which is essential to production must be secured under 
 conditions protecting society's original right to it. Way- 
 land goes on to say that property may also "be acquired by 
 labor, or by exchange, by gift, by will, or by inheritance under 
 law. But, in all cases of transfer of ownership, the consent 
 of the original owner, either expressed or interpreted by so- 
 iety , is necessary to render the transfer morally right. And, 
 lastly, although the individual may not have acquired a 
 valid title to property, yet mere possession is a sufficient bar 
 to molestation, unless some claimant can prefer a better 
 title." 
 
 According to the same author, the right of property may 
 be violated by taking it "without knowledge of the owner, or 
 theft," or "by consent violently obtained, or robbery"; or, 
 "by consent fraudulently obtained, or cheating," as by the 
 
MAKING MONEY 243 
 
 false pretenses of a beggar, or of a deceptive bargainer. The 
 same principles are applicable in cases of lending property, 
 as in cases of total transfer. The underlying requirement is 
 that there should be no deception or default on the part 
 either of the owner or the borrower. The property must be 
 capable of producing what is represented by the one, and 
 must be used only for the purposes represented, for the time 
 specified, and upon the conditions indicated by the other. 
 To quote again from what is said of the Rights of Property, 
 in Chapter III., Section IV., of the same book. " If I hire a 
 farm, I am entitled, without an additional charge for rent, 
 to all the advantages arising from the rise in the price of 
 wheat, or from my own skill in agriculture. But if a vein of 
 coal be discovered on the farm, I have no right to the benefit 
 of working it, for I did not hire the farm for this purpose." 
 It is mainly to the conduct of the dishonest bargainer 
 that the attention of an ordinary business man needs to be 
 directed. One is always liable to have dealings with some 
 member of this class, and not infrequently to be tempted 
 himself to join it. This is because most people, when they 
 think of business, think mainly or entirely of "making 
 money, " i.e., of increasing the amount of it that they them- 
 selves possess. They overlook the fact that, primarily, 
 business is an exchange of what one himself produces or 
 possesses for what another produces or possesses. Money — 
 and that alone — is merely a means through which such ex- 
 changes can be conveniently effected. For instance, a 
 farmer who wanted a watch could not easily take a carload 
 of wheat around with him, when he went shopping, and 
 leave it on a watchmaker's counter. What he does, there- 
 fore, is to make the exchange indirectly. It is in order to 
 do this that civilized people have come to use a piece of coin 
 cast from gold, silver, copper, or nickel; or a slip of paper 
 printed as a bank note or check. This coin or paper answers 
 the purpose of a certificate, stating, in the case of the farmer, 
 for instance, how much his grain was worth to those 
 who actually received it. It is as a matter of convenience 
 mainly that the farmer uses this certificate in the form of a 
 coin or bank note and exchanges it for the watch. Of course, 
 everybody knows that the paper of the bank note has no 
 intrinsic value. It is the promise printed upon it to pay a 
 certain amount upon its presentation at a bank which indi- 
 cates that it represents this amount of value. To some, but to 
 
244 E THICS AND NAT URAL LA W 
 
 a far less, extent the same is true of coin. It is the govern- 
 ment impress upon copper, nickel, and sometimes even upon 
 silver and gold that determines definitely what it is to be 
 considered worth when used as a medium of exchange. 
 
 Of course, these facts are not new. But it seems worth 
 while to recall them here in order to remind the reader that, 
 primarily, the object of buying and selling is not, as some 
 suppose, to increase the amount of the money that one 
 possesses; but to make feasible and convenient such ex- 
 changes of products between different persons as are needed 
 in order to secure their welfare, and often, indeed, to insure 
 their lives. These exchanges are innumerable in number, 
 and, in making them, every man virtually hires an innumer- 
 able number of workers whom he pays for their services. 
 Moreover, as he is supposed to return an equivalent for 
 what he gets, he himself is virtually hired and paid for his 
 services by an equal number with whom, if he do not share 
 his products, he at least shares his possessions that are the 
 products of someone else. The moment that we recognize 
 these conditions, we ought to recognize that the money that 
 passes between people when anything is purchased or sold 
 is, in the first place, a token or representation of an exchange 
 of products, and, in the second place, a payment for the 
 services or labor of the one through whose instrumentality 
 the products are obtained or the exchange effected. 
 
 With this conception of the object of business, we can 
 understand why and how it can be conducted in fulfillment 
 of either lower or higher desires, i.e., in an immoral or a 
 moral way. The man actuated by lower desire may work 
 solely for the purpose of what is termed "making money." 
 In other words, because the conditions of life are such that 
 one is obliged to exchange what he himself possesses for other 
 things that others possess, he may wrongly avail himself of 
 the opportunity, and in a spirit of selfish devotion to his own 
 greed and a desire to increase his bodily or physical posses- 
 sions, he may, in every trade that he makes, for himself or 
 others, try to outwit the person with or for whom he bar- 
 gains, and thus get the better of him, and receive in exchange 
 or wage that for which he has not given a fair equivalent. 
 For instance, he may exaggerate the difficulty or expense of 
 purchasing that which he is selling, demanding more for it 
 than the market price at which he is aware that others are 
 selling it; or he may misrepresent its character, term that 
 
BUSINESS HONESTY 245 
 
 pure wool which he knows to be mainly cotton, or a part of a 
 farm, meadow land, when it is really a marsh. Of course, 
 business conducted according to such methods necessarily 
 involves an almost constant manifestation of not only nega- 
 tive insincerity, unfrankness, and deceit but also of positive 
 untruthfulness, injustice, and unkindness; together with the 
 violation of many other of the moral traits mentioned on 
 page 189. Yet there are thousands of persons who both 
 practice and commend such methods. "Business is busi- 
 ness, " we are told, and by this is meant that it is a depart- 
 ment of activity to which the ordinary laws of morality or 
 religion cannot be made to apply. But, as business concerns 
 the largest part of the interest and occupation of almost 
 every man, we might as well say that, to the majority of 
 men, these laws are matters of only minor interest. 
 
 Fortunately, however, this is not true. To most men 
 they are matters of the very greatest interest. If it were 
 not so, they would not have developed the conditions of 
 trade — to say nothing of civilization — that exist at the 
 present time. These are the results of men's accepting the 
 representations, the statements, and the promises that are 
 made to them. In other words, they are the results of men's 
 having confidence in one another. They would not have 
 this confidence, were there not good reasons for it. They 
 have it because the majority of men, even in business, are 
 honest. It is fair to conclude, too, that they are honest 
 because actuated by principle, because conscience causes 
 them to recognize that it is their duty not to allow desires 
 prompting them to seek their own selfish bodily advantage 
 to outweigh those that prompt them to give expression to 
 humane unselfish mentality. 
 
 Of course, honesty may be actuated also by policy. But 
 no one could have discovered it to be the best policy before 
 many had begun to practice it; and the beginning of this 
 practice, as of everything else that is right, must be attrib- 
 uted to higher desire." There is no objection, however, to 
 
 =' An illustration of this statement is afforded in the experience of 
 the Elgin National Watch Company, organized in 1864 with the father 
 of the author, B. W. Raymond of Chicago, as its first President. As 
 soon as this company began to earn a reasonable percentage on its 
 capital, and before there were any demands for such action on the 
 part of-purchasers, the selling price of the watches was reduced. This 
 course was continued year after year with the result, each time, of 
 
246 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 using the argttments derivable from policy to confirm the 
 promptings traceable to principle. Undoubtedly the man 
 who is sincere, frank, truthful, just, kind, and honest will, 
 in the end, be more successful in business than will the one 
 who is the opposite. Men can be cheated once or twice by 
 the same person, but not a large number of times. After 
 that, in case they have found out the truth — and they usu- 
 ally do find it out — they will trade with others. It will be 
 observed, therefore, that, as a rule, the profits that are made 
 by a sharp and deceitful bargainer, though, now and then, 
 disproportionately large, are not continuous nor cumulative, 
 and seldom result in what would be called even a moderate 
 fortune. The great merchants and bankers of every country 
 are, most of them, scrupulously honest, as much so in giving 
 the last penny of interest due from them to others as in 
 teaching what some of them claim to be a needed lesson in 
 integrity, by exacting the same when it is due from others to 
 themselves. 
 
 Nor do most of the men who become rich practice ex- 
 tortion. Comparatively few of them do so. Some have 
 inherited money which has given them a start in life. 
 
 largely increasing the sales, and correspondingly decreasing the cost 
 of each product of the larger output. The method pursued proved to 
 be the best policy; but that it was this could never have been found 
 out by the stockholders, had they been influenced by irrational greed 
 for material gain rather than by a rational desire to conform their 
 actions to the psychological workings of the human mind and spirit. 
 As a fact, the first promoters of this enterprise were pubUc spirited 
 in doing business, interested in developing the possibihties of Ameri- 
 can inventive genius, in supplying clean and attractive work for 
 aesthetically inclined employees, especially women, and in bringing 
 watches down to a low enough price to enable almost everybody to 
 own one. In fulfillment of analogous purposes, the company, years 
 before the general agitation for the reforms, adopted the eight hour 
 working day with a half-holiday on Saturday, built and conducted 
 for the use of the workers the best hotel in Elgin with reading, library, 
 music, dancing, and smoking rooms, and an adjoining gymnasium with 
 facilities for playing tennis and golf; instituted free medical, nursing, 
 and hospital emergency service; augumented by fifty per cent, the 
 sums paid by employees for the establishment of Aid, Mortuary, and 
 Pension Funds; and have lately organized an Advisory Council of 
 Workmen. Is it strange that, in such a company, there should be 
 among the employees large numbers of high school graduates, and not 
 a few college graduates? The author knows of, at least, one of these 
 who went from a by no means commanding position in this establish- 
 ment to an important professorship in the East. 
 
SERVING AND SAVING 247 
 
 Possibly this money may have been obtained in the past 
 through extortion; but the very fact that it has been in- 
 herited shows that its present possessor, at least, did not so 
 obtain it. The majority of the rich in our country, especially 
 of the very rich, have been poor boys who have begun their 
 careers with scarcely a penny to call their own. How did 
 they get more? By practicing fraud and deceit? Not so 
 often in this way as by manifesting, under all conditions 
 of temptation, truthfulness and honesty. If they had not 
 done this latter, they seldom would have been promoted to 
 a higher position than their first one. This implies that 
 from the very start they began to exercise that rational 
 mentality that lies at the basis of all true success in life. 
 They revealed an interest in their work, showing that they 
 were putting their minds into it. Because this was the case, 
 they were observant too. They noticed what was needed 
 as well as what was enjoined, and, very soon, someone 
 recognized that they had a power of initiative that would 
 prove beneficial if transferred to a larger and broader field. 
 Meantime, even when receiving a small salary, they had 
 learned that the only money that a man can be said to 
 possess — as when one speaks of what he is worth — is that 
 which he has saved, or which a father or someone else has 
 saved for him. So they began at once, in order to increase 
 their possessions even by a very little, to deny themselves 
 certain indulgences, as in smoking, feasting, riding, and sight- 
 seeing. It requires only one dollar a week deposited in a 
 savings bank, giving 4 per cent, compound interest, to bring 
 one at the end of twenty years sixteen hundred and twelve 
 dollars; and only five dollars a week to bring him, at the 
 end of the same period, eight thousand dollars. Whatever 
 one may save thus, and whatever it may bring, the fact that 
 a man has saved, at least a little, is often the one thing that 
 enables him to avail himself of a great opportunity when it 
 is offered to him. 
 
 The author once knew a cash boy in a drygoods store 
 whose widowed mother had no means of support except 
 himself. He became an expert salesman in its wholesale 
 department ; and a new firm, backed by abundant capital, 
 offered him either a salary of five thousand dollars a year 
 or, notwithstanding his own lack of capital, a partnership 
 with a certain share in the profits, in case there were any. 
 The first question asked by a successful merchant whom 
 
248 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 the young salesman consulted was this: "Have you saved 
 enough money to support your mother for a year or two, in 
 case the profits of the firm are nothing?" The young man 
 said that he had. "Then take the partnership," was the 
 advice. The young man did this, and at the end of the first 
 year reported several thousand dollars as his share of the 
 profits. He added this to the capital of the firm, and in 
 about twenty years more, almost before he had reached 
 middle life, he had retired from business with over a million 
 dollars. 
 
 Thousands of instances of a very similar kind could 
 be cited. They all prove, contrary to the opinion that is 
 often expressed, that even business, allied as it is, in many 
 of its features, to that which is material and physical, may 
 be controlled, just as is the case with everything else in this 
 world, by the mental and rational. As a rule, no man can 
 attain business success through physical indulgence, in- 
 dolence, shiftlessness, thoughtlessness, or indifference to the 
 permanent welfare either of himself or of others. He must, 
 at every stage of his progress, manifest thoughtful self- 
 denial, industry, carefulness, foresight; and both the spirit 
 and ability always and everywhere to be helpful, if not in- 
 dispensable, to his fellows. 
 
 Of course, it is not true that everyone who manifests some 
 of these traits, or all of them together, will be successful. 
 This is a world in which misjudgment, accident, sickness, 
 fraud, fire, flood, and countless other agencies are con- 
 stantly thwarting, in the most unexpected ways, the results 
 of the keenest foresight, the wisest calculation and the most 
 cautious management. But if one cannot predict business 
 success with certainty to those who manifest such qualities, 
 he can, at least, do the opposite. He can predict a lack of 
 success to those who do not manifest them. 
 
 The number of such people in the world — people who fail 
 to fulfill one or more, if not all, of these requirements — is, 
 unfortunately, very great. Like most of us, too, they are 
 seldom able to see their own defects, or to appreciate the 
 excellences of those who differ from them. They think 
 that they themselves have as good a right to success as any- 
 one ; and that, if another have attained it, and they have not, 
 he has in some way been given, or has taken, an unfair 
 advantage. It is with them mainly that the opinion is 
 originated and fostered which attributes the acquisition of 
 
LARGE BUSINESS PROFITS 249 
 
 wealth to mere luck, or, if to anything else, to unworthy 
 qualities which are added to this, like deceit and dishonesty. 
 Such conceptions, applied without discrimination, are not in 
 accordance with facts, and often do great harm to those who 
 are influenced by them. They prevent people from per- 
 ceiving or imitating certain psychical qualities that all men 
 need. Too often the unscrupulous politician, aided by the 
 demagogic editor, so poisons public sentiment that a man 
 is discredited for the very reason that ought to make him 
 lauded; and his opinion and advice are rejected simply 
 because his achievements have proved him to be wise. 
 
 To show what is meant, let us go back, for a moment, to 
 first principles. On page 241 it was said that the most ap- 
 parent object of business is to enable men to exchange with 
 one another their products or possessions. If this be so, the 
 successful business man must be the one who does the most 
 to facilitate such exchanges; who finds out, through investi- 
 gation or surmisal, what people desire; and then, availing 
 himself of the possibilities of husbandry, mantifacture, or 
 transportation, carries this to them, and receives from them 
 in exchange, and carries to other people what they, in turn, 
 desire. He thus confers a needed favor upon each party 
 that shares in the exchange; and he deserves, because he has 
 earned, the percentage which, as a rule, they are glad to 
 give him as a commission for enabling them to make their 
 exchanges. When a man, owing to his methods of truth- 
 fulness, honesty, industry, alertness, self-denial, saving, or 
 foresight in deciding upon investments, has gained a few 
 thousand dollars, then he is often in a position where his 
 investigations and surmisals with reference to what people 
 desire will enable him, through acting as a medium of 
 exchange between them, to gain very much more. 
 
 Men who do not think may suppose it to be as clear as an 
 axiom that he has no right to receive as exceptional an 
 amount as he does for his services. This is true in some 
 cases. But it is not true in all cases. It should be remem- 
 bered that great undertakings involve great risks, and need 
 a large margin of profit to replace possible losses. Besides 
 this, the benefit derived from the initiative, the invention 
 and the industry of such men is often large, and deserves a 
 large reward; and this not only that they may be compen- 
 sated for their own labors, but that others like them may 
 be stimulated to attempt achievements of a similar charac- 
 
250 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 ter. Just in the degree in which a community lessens the 
 possibility of a man's receiving great honors or emoluments 
 for great public services, it lessens the probability of de- 
 riving these from younger men, who in time, shall take' 
 his place. The people of Australia are said to have suc- 
 ceeded better than those of our country in reducing the 
 possibility of one's acquiring more possessions and promi- 
 nence than falls to the common lot. But it is also said that 
 the most evident way in which that country differs from 
 ours is in the comparatively small number of the young who 
 attend high schools and colleges. Why should they attend 
 these? Why should anyone try to fit himself for a higher 
 position in a country in which the laws are so formed — if, 
 indeed, this be true — as to lessen the number of such posi- 
 tions, and, if possible, to prevent the attainment even of 
 these? Where untrained and unskilled men, owing to an 
 influence exerted through a majority vote, can do just as 
 well in life as can those who are the opposite, what induce- 
 ment is there for a young person to spend time, money, and 
 energy in obtaining schooling and experience? And yet the 
 business of a country should be conducted in ways con- 
 forming to the results of information and intelligence. To 
 accomplish this end, schooling and experience on the part 
 of some are necessary; and, in order to make them realize 
 this fact, it seems necessary to cause them to anticipate 
 larger salaries than they would earn had they not taken the 
 trouble to study hard in order to fit themselves for the 
 larger service demanded. 
 
 What people sometimes forget, but should always bear 
 in mind, is that the education which the young are thus 
 stimulated to receive benefits not only themselves but the 
 entire community. Our national government educates 
 certain young men at the West Point Military Academy, 
 not in order to enable them in the future to take social and 
 public rank as majors, colonels, and generals, though this 
 is an incidental result, but in order that the nation, in case 
 of war, may have men of sufficient military intelligence 
 to prevent it from being destroyed. The same principle 
 is applicable in commercial and industrial relations; and 
 it is only uttering a platitude to say that all connected 
 with these, just as citizens connected with a country that 
 needs to be defended, should recognize the fact. They 
 should not judge of conditions solely as they affect their 
 
PLEASURE IN ANOTHER'S SUCCESS 251 
 
 own selfish and personal wishes but as related to the body 
 of society with which they are associated. It is not too 
 much to expect of them, if, in any regard, they can detect 
 more evidences of education, experience, or efficiency in 
 another man than in themselves, that they should feel grati- 
 fied rather than humiliated when this other man rises to a 
 position of greater influence and emolument than their own. 
 They ought to recognize that, on the whole, this is as it 
 should be. Their attitude of mind should be the same as 
 was that of a friend of the author toward work in the late 
 war. He was a student in a military school, and enlisted 
 as a private on the day that he was twenty-one, refusing to 
 let his father use the influence which possibly might have 
 been exerted so as to get him commissioned as an officer. 
 He said that he did not want to be an officer unless he could 
 prove practically that he ought to be one. This is an ex- 
 ample of not allowing bodily and self-seeking considerations 
 to outweigh those that are mental and altruistic. Think 
 what a contrast it presents to that of too many others 
 whom we are obliged to meet in this world! How large is 
 the nimiber of those otherwise fitted to be leaders, perhaps, 
 toward all that is best in life, who seem hardly able to utter 
 a sentence without revealing so many evidences of under- 
 lying desire to attain their own physical advancement, to- 
 gether with such suggestions of personal envy, jealousy, 
 and greed, that it is well-nigh impossible to refrain from a 
 certain feeling of contempt for them, so completely do their 
 whole characters seem to be dominated by that which is 
 prompted by their lowest and most selfish desires! Indeed, 
 not seldom the high places which others are seen to reach 
 so affect a man of this character that, to judge from his 
 own words and deeds, he would be willing, instead of fol- 
 lowing their examples and climbing the stairways that they 
 have built for his use, to pull down the whole structure of 
 civilization with every result of science or art attained by 
 the great thinkers and toilers of the past, under the de- 
 luded supposition that his mind created to be inspired by 
 the highest desires could be satisfied when, without taking 
 one step to lift himself upward, he could stand upon the 
 fallen towers and turrets because, forspoth, they had all 
 been levelled to the common dirt in which ne and his kind 
 prefer to grovel. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 KEEPING THE MIND's DESIRES UPPERMOST IN INDUSTRIAL 
 RELATIONS BETWEEN EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES 
 
 Mental Desire as Manifested in Relations between Employers and 
 Employees — Once the Former Used, and the Latter Obeyed, Force 
 alone, as if each Possessed only a Physical Nature — Both can best 
 Further One Another's Interests by Acting out the Promptings of 
 the Mental Nature — Former and Present Relations between 
 Employers and Employees — Right Relations between the two 
 Fundamentally Connected with that which Determines Moral 
 Character — Both Parties Ignore this Fact — When they Perceive 
 and Act upon it, the Labor Problem will be Solved — Demands of 
 Labor in England — Cannot Accomplish All that is Required — 
 Industrial Liberty as Applied to our Own Country — Different Con- 
 ceptions of it — Why the Granting of it is Opposed — How it might 
 be Granted — And Increase Industrial Efficiency — Would be better 
 Done by Contract than by Government Action — Other Mental 
 Methods that can be Used by Employers— Same Principles Applied 
 to Employees — The Importance of Enjoying One's Work — The 
 Cheerful and Interested Worker is the One who Receives Promo- 
 tion — The Labor Agitator Urging the Use of Force is often the 
 Laborers' Worst Enemy — Mental Influence, not Physical Force, the 
 Means of Securing Permanently Beneficial Results. 
 
 THOSE who are engaged in business always belong, 
 as related to one another, to one of two classes, or 
 both; they are either employers or employees, or 
 else, as frequently happens, others are working for them at 
 the same time that they are working for others. Is there 
 any principle of conduct, which, if carried out, can make 
 both employers and employees act in business relations 
 truthfully, honestly, fairly, and justly? Why not? Why 
 cannot this end be accomplished by the principle that has 
 been applied in this volume in connection with every other 
 moral obligation? What more is required than that both 
 should give expression to mental desires, — that these latter 
 
 252 
 
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES 253 
 
 should never be allowed to be outweighed by any merely bod- 
 ily or physical considerations? 
 
 The need of following this course will become apparent 
 when we consider the history of the relations, as gradually 
 developed in periods preceding our own, between employers 
 and employees. Before the time of civilization — and the 
 same is true in our own time wherever there is little or none 
 of it — the employer, like a giant with pygmies or a master 
 with slaves, usually compelled his helpers to carry out his 
 orders by exerting or causing to be exerted the most strenu- 
 ous kind of physical force. Even as late as when the Suez 
 Canal was dug, the contractors, with the sanction and help 
 of the government, would arbitrarily draft gangs of men and 
 put them under overseers who with whips would drive them 
 miles from home, make them work from dawn to dark and 
 keep them at it for as many months or years as seemed 
 necessary. As a perfectly natural result of this method, 
 antagonism arose, and has always been continued between 
 employers and employees. But, because there was once 
 antagonism, is no reason for continuing it, in case the condi- 
 tions have been, or can be, changed. What is it that can 
 most effectively change these? What but a change in the 
 method that started them? This method was the treating 
 of human beings as if they were mere brutes, as if they were 
 possessed of only a physical nature, incapable therefore of 
 being influenced by any appeal except to it. 
 
 In order to change the conditions, it is evident that the 
 treatment of employees should begin to be that fitted for 
 men possessed of minds. Very little thought, too, will re- 
 veal why, for other reasons, this should be the case. What 
 is it, for instance, that, in order to obtain the best results, 
 the successful employer most needs in the persons whom he 
 employs? It is not mere physical force such as he could ob- 
 tain from animals or machines. This might give him help 
 at certain times. But it could not begin to give him the 
 help needed at other times, or that at most times can be 
 afforded by those capable of thinking, feeling, and willing. 
 The wage that he pays would obtain for him little service of 
 real value, if it did not include what could be contributed by 
 these; and the proof that he recognizes this to be a fact is 
 shown by the readiness with which he gives the largest wages 
 to those who have manifested the most intelligence, loyalty, 
 eagerness, and persistence in carrying out his instructions. 
 
254 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 On the other hand, the employee wants and needs the same 
 characteristics in his employers. He wishes to serve men 
 with mental natures, — not embodiments of brute force who 
 treat him with no more consideration than if he were a mere 
 spoke in the wheel of a big unthinking machine. The proof 
 that they have this feeling is shown by the way in which 
 many laborers shirk work when they can, go on a strike, as 
 it is called, when they dare, and spend most of their lives in 
 a state of chronic antagonism to those by whom they are 
 employed. It is contrary to reason to suppose that this could 
 be the case to such an extent as it is, were the latter, in every 
 regard, kind, honest, fair, and just. In the circumstances, 
 what seems to be most needed, therefore, whether we con- 
 sider the employer or the employee, is a character that is 
 rendered moral through keeping the physical in all cases 
 subordinate to the psychical, not allowing bodily con- 
 siderations to outweigh those that are mental. 
 
 This is something which in innumerable cases, in almost 
 all ages of the world, certain persons have scrupulously 
 tried to do. For centuries, preceding our modern industrial 
 period, it was customary for a young man to enter some shop 
 as an apprentice. Here his relationship to the manager was 
 often as satisfactory as that of an adopted son. He was 
 kindly treated and carefully trained. If he did his duty, he 
 could look forward to becoming a master workman or even 
 a partner in the business, or to conducting a business of his 
 own. But of late years these conditions have been changed. 
 The small shop with its few workmen, living together almost 
 as one family, has been superseded by the enormous es- 
 tablishment with thousands of workmen. It is impossible 
 for those in authority, either as owners, who frequently live 
 at a distance, or as managers, to know personally any but a 
 very few of the operatives. Frequently there are absolutely 
 no channels of mental communication between employers 
 and employees. To the former, the latter represent merely 
 so much bodily force that can be applied to physical 
 production. Very naturally the employees who recognize 
 this condition do not like it. They want to be regarded 
 and treated like human beings who have a mental nature. 
 
 It follows from what has been said that the methods of 
 securing the right relationships between employers and 
 employees are closely connected, indeed fundamentally 
 connected, with those which determine moral character. 
 
DEALINGS WITH LABORERS 255 
 
 The questions involved in these relationships can be rightly 
 solved so far alone as each of the interested parties is ac- 
 tuated by higher mental, non-selfish, rational, and humane 
 desire. 
 
 Very singularly, however, both parties usually refrain 
 from emphasizing this fact. The officials of corporations 
 that have done the most to provide for the safety, comfort, 
 and prosperity of their operatives are usually the very last 
 to attribute their action to higher moral motives. As a rule, 
 they say that it is due to exercising practical common sense 
 in their efforts to secure content and efficiency among their 
 workmen. On the other hand, the leaders of the operatives 
 seldom base their demands for improvements upon their 
 wish to obtain higher moral treatment. They usually speak 
 only of justice. These facts are due to traits in human na- 
 ttire that none of us can fail to admire. They show how 
 many people there are who are too modest to boast of having 
 higher moral ideals than have their fellows ; and how many 
 feel that their fellows will appreciate action that is repre- 
 sented to be mainly a manifestation of the underlying 
 principles of common sense and ordinary justice. 
 
 At the same time the fact that the non-selfish and hu- 
 mane are not emphasized is apt to lead both employers and 
 employees to overlook or disregard their real importance in 
 producing the general result. Both classes are in danger of 
 coming to think that they are dealing, not with anything 
 which, in origin, is traceable to higher desire, but with 
 demands connected almost exclusively with lower desire. 
 What other effect can be suggested when agitators go around, 
 as lately one prominent man has done, urging that labor be 
 put "into the saddle," or, as another (prominent man on the 
 opposite side has done, demanding that labor be put " into 
 its place"? Such conceptions and exhortations, with the 
 actions to which they logically tend might attain a physical 
 result but could not possibly attain a moral result. For 
 the latter, the world needs to have all classes together put 
 "into the harness," where each shall "lend a hand" and 
 serve rather than drive his neighbor. When that which is 
 the moral problem has been solved in this way, there will be 
 little trouble with laboring men. Otherwise, they might 
 receive the largest possible minimum wage for the fewest 
 possible hours' work sufficient to keep the industry going, 
 and still be discontented. On the contrary, if treated with 
 
256 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 kindness and courtesy, they might accept, with cheerful- 
 ness, as do many of our household servants, as low wages 
 for as many hours' work as would be necessary to enable 
 their employers to remain in the employing class. There 
 are quite a number of industrial centers in our own country 
 whose conditions can verify this statement. But in them 
 the rich have never forgotten the promptings of their higher 
 desires sufficiently to become ostentatious and snobbish, 
 nor the poor sufficiently to become pretentious and fawning. 
 The employers still remember that many of themselves once 
 did the same kind of work as is now done by the least im- 
 portant of their employees; and in school and church and 
 social gathering an effort is put forth to make everyone feel 
 that he is treated with such kindness and courtesy as is due 
 to his mere human personality. 
 
 It must be confessed that these conditions do not exist 
 in many places in our country; and, undoubtedly, in fewer 
 places in Europe. But they might exist everywhere; and 
 in only the degree in which they do exist can all the social 
 conditions of industry become wholly satisfactory. For 
 instance, attention has recently been called to the demands 
 of the Labor party of England. They are stated to be (o) 
 The universal enforcement of the Minimum Wage Law; {b) 
 The Democratic Control of Industry, i. e., control by the 
 operatives; (c) The Revolution in National Finance, *. e., 
 the taxing of only the wealthy; {d) The Surplus Wealth for 
 the Common Good, i. e., the confiscation of the possessions 
 of the nobility. 
 
 There is no need here of considering these demands in 
 detail, though the efiEects of one or two of them will be 
 mentioned hereafter. It is sufficient to notice in this place 
 that only one of the demands could be granted without in- 
 volving action which those against whom it was directed 
 would consider unjust, and would not permit unless com- 
 pelled to do so through the use of threatened or applied 
 force. Moreover, this force would be resisted. It would 
 be resisted not only by the wealthy and aristocratic, but 
 by others who would say that, according to the testimony 
 of history, an application of the principle underlying such 
 methods of disposing of property would imperil the ownings 
 of every man in England who had saved enough money to 
 have possessions; and, in fact, would imperil the whole 
 structure of what is termed civilization, because this is 
 
INDUSTRIAL LIBERTY 257 
 
 founded upon the individual's right to possess property, and 
 the obligation of the government to render this possession 
 secure. At any rate, it is evident that the character of 
 these demands and the methods needed in order to get 
 them carried out would augment rather than lessen the ten- 
 dency to try to secure and to continue to maintain human 
 betterment through the agency of physical force. It is 
 true that, in some cases, they might ultimately lead to 
 desirable ."esults. But even though in industrial centers 
 this might be the case, the remedy would be too narrow in 
 its applications to apply to all the conditions needing at- 
 tention, like domestic and mercantile conditions, together 
 with the results of laziness, unthrift, drunkenness, vice, and 
 crime, as, for instance, in East London. It certainly is 
 true that reforms brought about through force exerted by 
 a single class in the community for the purpose of subject- 
 ing to its own interests the interests of all other classes, is 
 not the right way in which to promote the universal preva- 
 lence of a spirit that is non-selfish, rational, and humane. 
 
 In our own country the demands of labor, while, in some 
 directions parallel to those of the English workers, are less 
 revolutionary. Among native Americans they usually are 
 associated with extending the democratic principles of our 
 government into what is termed Industrial Liberty. Let 
 us examine, for a little, what this term implies, and find out, 
 so far as we can, its relationship to the general moral re- 
 quirements of which we have been speaking. 
 
 Liberty is a word that may be differently interpreted. 
 It does not mean the same to one person or set of persons 
 that it does to another. In a large community where the 
 wishes of one man are often opposed to those of his neighbor, 
 liberty, if all are to have it, must necessarily involve on the 
 part of almost everyone more or less self-denial and com- 
 promise. It cannot possibly exist among people all of whom 
 are determined to do exactly as they please. Demo- 
 cratic liberty in America recognizes this fact. Bolshevik 
 democracy in Russia does not. It allows anyone to be 
 robbed or killed who does not agree with those in authority. 
 This instires liberty not for all but for some, and these soon 
 lose it. Undoubtedly some labor leaders hold a concep- 
 tion of industrial liberty such as would benefit all; but 
 others do not ; they seem to think that nothing can give even 
 the least degree of liberty except a condition in which the 
 
258 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 Operatives shall decide by vote all questions not only con- 
 cerning the employment and dismissal of laborers, but of 
 oversight and general superintendence, together with sub- 
 jects having to do with every phase of manufacturing, trad- 
 ing, or ownership, even to the extent, if it seem advisable, 
 of confiscating the capital and distributing it among the 
 employees according to the principle that to the workmen 
 belong the spoils, which, in that case, they certainly would 
 become. Most employers, accepting apparently this inter- 
 pretation of industrial liberty, very naturally oppose it. 
 They remind us that every great business enterprise, some- 
 times when first started, and sometimes later, especially in 
 periods of business depression, comes upon seasons when, if 
 continuing to employ and pay its laborers, it must have 
 money, and that this must be obtained either by assessing 
 its stock already issued, or by issuing new stock or bonds. 
 In either case, it must be helped by capitalists. These are 
 the only ones who can afford to pay more on what they 
 already own, or to buy what is newly offered. It is not 
 feasible, they say, therefore, to try to get along without 
 capitalists. Sooner or later they will be needed. We are 
 reminded, too, that great enterprises cannot be conducted 
 successfully except by those who have education, and ex- 
 perience, and have the right to select and appoint as their 
 chief helpers others who have similar attainments, and that 
 nothing could be worse for the employees themselves than 
 the absolute collapse of the industrial situation that would 
 follow upon the success of some of the measures that their 
 class have advocated. 
 
 But for this reason need the operatives give up their 
 desire for industrial liberty? Not at all. All they need is 
 to revise their wrong conceptions of what it demands. Nor 
 need they lower their conceptions of liberty in general. 
 Who is there in the United States, Great Britain, or France 
 that thinks himself deprived of political liberty, merely 
 because he cannot put his hands into the national treasury 
 and take whatever money he wishes, or cannot have a di- 
 rect voice in selecting cabinet officials or the millions of ap- 
 pointees of these or of their subordinates in army, navy, or 
 civil life? That which gives to the individual citizen of a 
 democracy a consciousness of having political liberty is a 
 condition of life in which, so far as possible, a man is given 
 equality of opportunity with his fellows. Most of us 
 
INDUSTRIAL LIBERTY 259 
 
 Americans think of opportunity as represented in our free 
 school system; and in the numberless instances in which, on 
 account of it, the children of the poorest laborers have risen 
 to the highest positions. They recall too that among these 
 are very many who have worked themselves up by passing 
 through various stages of employment in the industrial 
 world, men like Andrew Carnegie who began as a telegraph 
 messenger boy, or Charles M. Schwab who was once a spoke 
 driver receiving a dollar a day. As virtually all the great 
 manufacturing and transportation corporations of the coun- 
 try are headed, in part at least, by men who have risen 
 in this way from the lowest ranks, people in general are in- 
 clined to argue that, even in present circumstances, em- 
 ployees have as much industrial liberty as they need. 
 
 But some certainly do not have as much as they desire. 
 It must be borne in mind that all of them cannot become 
 Carnegies or Schwabs, and a large part of the mental equip- 
 ment that differentiates the ordinary workman from men of 
 this character is an inability to wait patiently for a future in 
 which alone his desires can be fulfilled. What he wants is 
 to have them ftilfiUed in the present. Of course, all one's 
 desires are never fulfilled; but a little thought ought to 
 convince most of us that there are certain conditions fitted 
 to convey at least a partial consciousness of industrial 
 liberty which are now denied to the majority of employees. 
 Not to speak at present of a natural desire to have a sense of 
 possession, in connection with the enterprise toward which 
 their services are contributing, and the interest that might 
 be imparted to them by a sense of having a share in its 
 profits, even the less ambitious would like to feel, for in- 
 stance, that no one can force them to overwork or to work 
 against their own wills, or in a way for which they are not 
 fitted, or without receiving a fair amount of pay and as 
 much as another is receiving for the same work. They 
 would like to feel that, when employed, they will not be 
 penalized or discharged merely because of personal dislike or 
 false accusations of laziness, carelessness, drunkenness, or 
 other irregularities ; that fair consideration will not be denied 
 them for absences due to illness or responsibility for others; 
 and that their ability will not fail to be recognized as it 
 should be because of the jealous machinations of some 
 tyrannical overseer. There are innumerable matters of 
 contention between employers and employees, that no one 
 
26o ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 likes to have decided against himself arbitrarily, i. e., with- 
 out a hearing. Nor is he satisfied to have the results of this 
 hearing decided solely by the one who has seemed to have 
 once acted unjustly. It is when this is done that he feels 
 that he is treated as a slave. What he wants therefore he 
 describes, without any definite notion of how he shall obtain 
 it, as industrial liberty. 
 
 Would he want this, or feel resentful because of not pos- 
 sessing it, if matters of the kind that have been mentioned 
 could be submitted to the review of a council representing 
 his fellow workmen, just as like matters of dispute in a free 
 state are reviewed by a jury of one's peers? Notice that 
 this arrangement would accomplish several important re- 
 sults. It would cause most of the workmen, because so 
 much would be at stake, to select for their representatives 
 with the employers their wisest rather than their wildest 
 associates. It would bring together representatives of both 
 employers and employees where financial, business, econom- 
 ic, and social conditions could be explained and discussed in 
 a manner to cause a better mutual understanding of them. 
 It would put an end to strikes. Where everything was 
 explained and an honest endeavor made to arrive at a fair 
 and just conclusion, public sentiment among the operatives 
 would not approve of physical force. Finally, it would 
 insure more efficiency both in work and workers. This 
 last is something that is difficult to believe unless one has 
 learned that psychical non-selfish rationality is the con- 
 trolling influence in the minds of the majority of people. 
 Very many employers doubt this. They seem to think 
 that to allow anything like liberty to laborers would be as 
 unwise as to allow it to soldiers; that it would entirely 
 interfere with the kind of discipline that alone can render 
 concerted work successful. But suppose that the soldiers 
 are as much interested in the cause of the warfare and the 
 conduct of it as are the officers? Will there not be disci- 
 pline in an army composed of such soldiers? Years ago 
 the esprit de corps among college students rendered it im- 
 possible for the professors to obtain testimony from them 
 with reference to such a matter, say, as cheating in exami- 
 nations; and it was supposed that college sentiment was not 
 opposed to it. But when partial charge of such cases was 
 given to the students they sometimes proved to be more 
 alert in detecting and severe in punishing the delinquents 
 
PRl VA TE CONTRA CTS AND P UBLIC LAWS 26I 
 
 than the faculty had been. If it cotdd be proved that an 
 employee deserved to have himself dismissed or his wages 
 diminished for laziness, carelessness, or irregularity, it seems 
 certain that, in an establishment where there were the right 
 mental relations between employers and employees, the 
 decisions of both would usually coincide. Moreover, the 
 latter themselves would be the last to imperil the continu- 
 ance of their own salaries by clamoring for any changes that 
 might render less well equipped with the results of capital, 
 experience, or education the general business which fur- 
 nished them with employment.^' 
 
 '3 Very singularly, on the day in which the author was correcting 
 the final printed proofs of this volume, two articles in the American 
 Magazine for December, 1919, arrested his attention. One was en- 
 titled A Man with a Great Idea, written by Mary A. MuUett, and the 
 other entitled Here is My Plan by John Leitch. These articles furnish 
 a remarkable confirmation of the truth of the general theory unfolded 
 in the preceding pages — one crudely resembling which, by the way, 
 was suggested in a lyceum lecture prepared by the author in 1877. At 
 that time, however, it seemed hardly possible that, within forty years, 
 its speculative conceptions would be fully demonstrated to be of 
 practical value. Mr. Leitch during the last five or six years has 
 been instrumental in introducing among some two hundred thousand 
 employees his system of Industrial Democracy. According to this 
 system, all those connected with an industry willing to agree by vote 
 to try his method are given an organized government with a House of 
 Representatives, a Senate, and a Cabinet. Members of the House are 
 chosen by secret ballot cast by all the workmen, and represent each 
 department of the industry, the number of representatives being de- 
 termined by the number in the department and in the whole estab- 
 lishment to which it belongs. In a small factory, for instance, one 
 representative might be elected by ten voters, and in a large factory by 
 a hundred voters. Members of the Senate are made up of the minor 
 executives, heads of departments, and foremen; and members of the 
 Cabinet, who have no vote in legislation, of the chief executive oflBcers 
 with the President of the Corporation as Chairman. All enactments 
 concerning dismissals, wages, salaries, hours of labor, etc., are con- 
 sidered in Committees as in the Congress of the United States, and 
 must be passed by both houses. So far as Mr. Leitch knows, no 
 measure passed in this way has ever been vetoed by a Cabinet. Hours 
 devoted to the duties of legislation are counted as among those spent 
 upon labor, and any money saved by increase of efficiency on the part 
 of departments or persons is distributed, everjr two weeks, as a divi- 
 dend on wages, a weaver, for instance, getting for a perfect product a 
 bonus of 20 per cent. ; for a product with one defect 15 per cent. ; with 
 two defects 10 per cent., etc. The records of increased satisfaction and 
 efficiency among the laborers are marvellous. One plant, for instance, 
 increased its yearly earnings by over eighty thousand dollars. Another 
 lessened its yearly expenditure for coal in 1912 from $8,967.13 to 
 $6,231.97, and for water from $309.91 to $31.82. 
 
262 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 Another thought seems to be needed with reference to 
 this subject. It is this, that in order to carry out the sug- 
 gestions that have been made, it is only infrequently that 
 governmental or political action is needed. All that is 
 needed is a contract so drawn that the State courts can en- 
 force it, — a contract between the employers and each of 
 the employees, signing by himself or through a representa- 
 tive. By the contract the signers are protected, the em- 
 ployer from such things as irregularity in work and strikes 
 imperiling his fulfiling of contracts, and the employee from 
 such things as dismissal or lessening of pay without just 
 cause. Both parties may surrender something but pre- 
 serve much more. A contract in such a case is preferable 
 to government law because it is an agreement whereby each 
 party to the contract preserves his own freedom of action 
 except so far as he himself assigns limits to it. Government 
 law enforces limits without obtaining individual consent. 
 There is another objection to settling questions of this sort 
 through political action. Politics seldom settles them in the 
 right way. It determines them by the result of a physical 
 preponderance of votes, not a psychical overbalancing of 
 ideas. A demagogue who wants votes will side with 
 a hundred thousand operatives rather than with their one 
 employer; and an employer will coerce a hundred thousand 
 voters rather than have his own ability to exert influence 
 diminished. Often whichever side wins will obtain the 
 adoption of some extreme measure that will do about equal 
 harm to both sides. It is always to be hoped that before 
 such a subject becomes a shuttlecock for partisan politics 
 great business corporations of commanding influence 'will 
 see and seize the opportunity to adjust the questions at 
 stake in such a manner as to set examples that will be of in- 
 calculable benefit both to the parties immediately concerned 
 and to the whole community. (See footnote ^^ page 245.) 
 
 In addition to the method just mentioned, in connection 
 with it or without it, there are other means through which 
 an employer can appeal to industrial employees in such 
 ways as to cause them to take a mental interest in his work. 
 Sometimes this may be done merely through expressing 
 personal sympathy and appreciation for those who work 
 faithfully, encouragement for those who have difficulties, and 
 gratitude to those who overcome them. Sometimes the same 
 may be done through an exhibition, not of private but of 
 
AMERICAN VS. EUROPEAN WORKERS 26, 
 
 o 
 
 public sympathy, tending to benefit the employees indirectly 
 by contributing to the comfort and enjoyment of a whole 
 community through introducing improvements into the 
 methods employed in connection with roadways, parks, gar- 
 dens, homes, schools, churches, and places of entertainment. 
 People may become interested in an employer's success on 
 account of the public spirit that he manifests and the good 
 that he does with what he gets. But more satisfactory 
 than these indirect methods of enlisting a workman's in- 
 terest are those that make a direct practical appeal to him 
 by rewarding him for personal efficiency. Such a reward 
 may result from a system of promotion which advances the 
 workmen the quantity or quality of whose output has 
 been particularly commendable; or from a system of pay- 
 ment not for the mere time spent in labor, but for the 
 amount and value of that which each one's labor has pro- 
 duced; or the reward may result from a system of allowing 
 all or certain of the employees to purchase by their labor, 
 and at reduced prices, shares of stock in the company for 
 which they work, or, at the end of each successful season, to 
 receive, proportioned according to the amount of their 
 salary, a bonus now and then, or, invariably, a prescribed 
 share of the profits of the company, gradually introducing 
 more and more of them into the position of stockholders. 
 Lord Leverhulme, the great English soap manufacturer, 
 says that, better than any of these methods, because supply- 
 ing more nearly what the most of the laborers want, is 
 giving a full day's pay for six hours' work, and thus allowing 
 them to get some real enjoyment out of life. He says, too, 
 that this can be done by manufacturers in a way that will 
 enable them to make more money than probably they are 
 making at present. He says that employing two gangs of 
 workmen for six hours each, instead of one gang for eight 
 hours, will enable owners, with the same plant and paying 
 the same daily interest for the capital invested, to increase 
 very greatly their factory's output (see the Metropolitan 
 Magazine for July, 1919). But whatever methods may be 
 adopted, the reader will recognize that all have a moral in- 
 fluence so far as, by complying in a rational and humane way 
 with the wishes and needs of the employee, they tend to de- 
 velop and increase his intelligence, enthusiasm, and energy. 
 A corresponding attitude is equally important on the 
 part of those whom the manufacturer employs. Just as 
 
264 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 he needs to receive their mental interest and, if wise, takes 
 measures to awaken it, so they need to give him the service 
 of their whole being, — of head and heart, as well as of hands 
 and feet. This is the only kind of service that distinguishes 
 a man from a brute, and, therefore, the only kind worthy of 
 manhood. One who fails to feel that he should give it, or 
 fails to make his actions accord with his feelings, is a piti- 
 able and negligible factor in the world of industry, in fact, 
 in any relationship in which he comes into contact with life. 
 Fifty years ago an American could almost be distinguished 
 from a European by the mere fact that, while the former 
 derived his pleasure from his business, the latter separated 
 the two. The American enjoyed his work. Morning, 
 noon, and night, whenever one met him, he was talking and 
 thinking about it, and evidently relishing it. The European, 
 on the contrary, seldom spoke of it. He might endure it, 
 but what he enjoyed was his recreation, his eating, smoking, 
 drinking, fishing, hunting, golf, cricket, and other sports. 
 There are arguments that can be urged in behalf of each of 
 these attitudes of mind; but there is no doubt that the 
 American attitude at that time was best fitted to develop 
 individual industry and enterprise; nor is there any doubt 
 that the increased attention given in recent years in our 
 country to recreation has tended to decrease these qualities. 
 When a student fitting himself to become an orator, for 
 instance, enjoyed athletics mainly so far as it helped pre- 
 pare him for his futxire life work, he put so much thought 
 into the exercise of voice and bearing that he became more 
 or less of an artist. Had he been in college in recent years, 
 his exercise would, most of it, have ended in learning to 
 play ball. This is one reason why our country has no such 
 orators to-day as it had when every thought that inspired 
 the souls of men like Webster, Phillips, Everett, Beecher, or 
 Chapin, took form that, to the very tip of tongue or finger, 
 revealed the subordination of bodily possibilities to mental 
 purposes. The same principle applies to all phases of em- 
 plojrment. We usually can, and if possible we should come 
 to enjoy them, and, only in the degree in which we can do 
 this, can our lives becomes as efficient as is possible. If a 
 man, at any time in life, find himself engaged in an occupa- 
 tion in which, after giving it a fair trial, he cannot take 
 interest, or for which he cannot avoid feeling positive dis- 
 taste, he ought to get out of it. 
 
PROMOTION AMONG EMPLOYEES 265 
 
 If that be impossible, he would be justified in trying to 
 assvtme an interest as a matter of policy demanded by 
 the necessity of self-preservation. He should never forget 
 that, no matter what degree of industrial liberty he may 
 enjoy, he must always depend, both for continued employ- 
 ment and for advancement, upon someone above him, — 
 usually upon his employer; and also that if his employer 
 have merely common sense, he will not imperil the welfare 
 of his establishment by entrusting either its lesser or its 
 larger interests to those who have no loyalty to its purposes, 
 or enthusiasm for their fulfillment. In this world, com- 
 petition in all branches of work is too keen to render it right 
 to allow the indifferent or the slack to escape observation or 
 penalty for their remissness. When business is not prosper- 
 ous and the one in charge of it must lessen the number of 
 operatives, it is not right for him to drop those who always 
 seem eager to begin their work on time, and sorry if they 
 must stop it before it has been completed. When he is seek- 
 ing among the workmen for new overseers, it is not right 
 for him to choose those who keep looking at the clock as the 
 noon hour approaches, and drop their tools at the first stroke. 
 It is his duty to choose those who apparently are willing to be 
 kept busy ; and he is all the more likely to choose them, if, be- 
 sides doing their own work thoroughly, they have studied the 
 work of the one next higher than themselves in rank, and fit- 
 ted themselves to step into his place in case it becomes vacant. 
 
 It is merely adding a corollary to all this to say that often 
 the very worst enemy that the employee can have is the 
 professional labor agitator, — especially when he is not a 
 fellow-workman in the industry, and, therefore, is not in 
 sympathy with the conditions in the industry, whose work- 
 men he is trying to influence. Whatever may be his 
 avowed purpose, that for which he was chosen by the labor 
 leaders and is paid for out of funds contributed by the 
 workingmen, is to awaken discontent in the minds of the em- 
 ployees, the theory being that this discontent will lead them 
 to undertake measures that will force employers to grant their 
 own laborers concessions that will benefit all laborers as a 
 class. Very naturally, with this object in view, these agita- 
 tors never represent labor as a blessing to a man, capable of 
 making his life more interesting and enjoyable, but almost 
 invariably as a curse to be avoided; and the employer not 
 as a helper in a position to reward fidelity and loyalty, but 
 
266 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 as an enemy to be resisted. To say this, is not to oppose 
 organization among the laborers. This has been the source 
 of many improvements in industrial relations. But one 
 should avoid attributing the betterment of the conditions of 
 labor entirely or mainly to the actual or threatened use of 
 physical force, as exemplified sometimes, but fortunately not 
 always, in connection with what is termed a strike. As a rule 
 force thus used embitters the employers to long, stubborn, 
 and, in the end, successful resistence, thereby causing much 
 suffering, throwing thousands out of employment not only 
 temporarily but permanently, and exhausting the savings 
 that they could not afford to lose. Very frequently, too, in 
 case the strike is accompanied by violence, those who have 
 previously been prominent among the workmen, and had 
 reason to expect promotion from the employers, have lost 
 their chance to obtain this, and, because of having shown 
 on one occasion what is considered disloyalty, have re- 
 mained, ever afterward, objects of suspicion. 
 
 Meantime often, all that the strike could have gained, if 
 it had been successful, could have been accomplished by a 
 direct appeal to the minds of the employers, or an indirect ap - 
 peal to them, addressed, first, to public sentiment. A strike 
 may be the means of appealing to the latter. But when, in- 
 stead of this, it is merely a manifestation of trust in physical 
 influence, and of distrust in mental influence, it is usually 
 injurious both to the cause for which it is undertaken, and 
 to the persons who have been prominently engaged in it. 
 The use of force, as applied to industrial conditions, may 
 sometimes be justifiable, for the same reason that a revolu- 
 tion in government is sometimes justifiable, — as an excep- 
 tional method undertaken in view of an exceptional emer- 
 gency. There are schoolboys, as we all know, who can be 
 made to do right without resort to what is termed corporal 
 punishment. But, now and then, one of them needs to be 
 whipped; so it is with some employers. Even then, how- 
 ever, it is rational to suppose, and always rational to act 
 upon the supposition, that a thinking and feeling being like 
 a boy or a man has always within him somewhere, though 
 possibly concealed from ourselves, that which can be in- 
 fluenced by a simple desire to deal with him frankly and 
 fairly; and that, as a rule, only in the degree in which this 
 method is used can a conclusion be reached that is destined 
 to be permanent and, in all regards, beneficial. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 KEEPING THE MIND'S DESIRES UPPERMOST IN FORMS OF 
 
 government: autocracy and democracy 
 
 Citizenship Implies a Possession of Mentality — The Individual not 
 usually Responsible for the Form of Government by which he is 
 Ruled — Professional Revolutiorists — When Revolution is Justified 
 — Political Restlessness of the Present Age — All Beneficial Progress 
 in Government Methods has Gradually Subordinated Physical to 
 Mental Influence — Any Form of Government may be so Admin- 
 istered as to Further the Physical rather than the Mental — Different 
 ways of Classifying Forms of Government: a Monarchy and a 
 Republic — Autocracy and Democracy — Democracy in Great Brit- 
 ain — The United States is a Constitutional and Representative 
 Democracy — Justice and Liberty as Secured through Constitutional 
 Limitations — Through Representative Limitations — Danger of our 
 Losing Faith in these Limitations — As Applied to the Constitutional 
 System — As Applied to the Representative System — Nominating 
 Candidates in a Primary Election — Framing and Enacting Laws 
 by Popular Vote — Cure for Ills of Democracy is not More Democ- 
 racy: Experience of Athens and Rome — The Theory of the 
 Divine Right of Kings Paralleled by that of the Divine Right of the 
 Majority — Kings and Majorities not Infallible — Government Right 
 to Limit Suffrage — Object of Suffrage is to Protect the Rights of the 
 Individual Citizen — These Rights sometimes also need Protection 
 from Ignorant Voters who, as Voters, are also Rulers — Methods 
 of Securing this Protection — These Methods as Applied to Questions 
 needing Expert Decision — Service Suffrage — Suffrage not the Best 
 Corrective for all Moral Abuses — Failure of Unlimited Manhood 
 Suffrage as Applied to the American Emancipated Slaves — Mental 
 Reform does not always Need Physical Assistance — False Methods 
 of Some Reformers — History of the Emancipation of the American 
 Slaves — Patronage as Related to Republican Government. 
 
 A MAN becomes a citizen of a country ]ust as he becomes 
 a child of a family, either by birth or by adoption, 
 which latter, as applied to citizenship, is termed 
 naturalization. In either case he is expected to accommo- 
 date his actions to the laws by which those are ruled with 
 whom he has become a,ssociated. These laws constitute 
 
 267 
 
268 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 a part of the environment with which nature has surrounded 
 him; and it is not illogical to infer that it may be a great 
 mistake for him to suppose that his first duty is to make war 
 against them. It is more natural, rational, and humane for 
 him to infer that his first duty is to accept them, and to try to 
 make the best of them, and thus to gain, for himself as well 
 as for his fellows, the kind of culture which, in fulfillment of 
 the methods influencing life in this world, they seem fitted 
 to impart. It is because of a failure to recognize this func- 
 tion of the limitations of life, that many political and 
 economic reformers, by concentrating all their attention 
 and effort upon endeavors to change the external and 
 material conditions of society in general, rather than the 
 internal, spiritual conditions of individual character, often 
 do more harm than good. Notwithstanding the havoc 
 wrought in the stability of institutions that they have at- 
 tacked, the contentment and happiness of mankind as a 
 whole have been very little increased. 
 
 Of course, if a man, as he grows to maturity, find himself 
 and his fellow countrymen enmeslied in methods that are 
 irrational and promotive of evil and, therefore, in need of 
 reformation, he has a right — and government should recog- 
 nize it — to express his opinion of them, and endeavor to 
 induce others to agree with him. Very seldom, however, is 
 it one's duty to go beyond this. If he attempt to organize, 
 or to induce others to organize, armed resistance for the 
 purpose of using physical force against the officials of the 
 government — even, in some cases, if he merely refuse to 
 enlist in military service in order to oppose those who are 
 resisting these officials, he may become guilty of treason. 
 Because he is a member of a community organized in order 
 to do what the people as a whole consider necessary to insure 
 their safety, prosperity, and happiness, as well as because he 
 is an individual under obligation to be controlled by desires 
 that are non-selfish and humane, it may become his duty to 
 join in the public efforts put forth for the purpose of secur- 
 ing these ends. Even though he may not wholly approve 
 of the particular forms or methods of his government's ad- 
 ministration, it is not morally incumbent upon him to 
 change them except so far as he is or has been responsible 
 for them. But how few are the people of whom this can be 
 said to be true; how few have had anything whatever to do 
 with selecting or framing the form of government of which 
 
REVOLUTIONISTS 269 
 
 they find themselves citizens! They were born under its 
 jurisdiction, or brought under it by the compelling force of 
 conquest, or by the necessity of earning a livelihood. They 
 need have no conscientious scruples, therefore, even though 
 they may be subject to requirements of which, theoretically, 
 their judgments, reinforced by other mental tendencies 
 within them, disapprove. One may be a democrat in senti- 
 ment living under an autocracy, or an aristocrat living under 
 a democracy, but this is no reason why he should be prompted 
 to active hostility. He has a choice to make, — a choice 
 between that which shall conform to his own desires or 
 theories, and that which shall conform to those of the com- 
 munity, — in other words, between the desires and theories 
 of one person and those of hundreds and thousands of others ; 
 or, to put it stronger than this, though no less truthfully, be- 
 tween the satisfaction of one person's private wishes and 
 the certain disturbance of public peace and order. 
 
 Thus presented, it should not be difficult for a rational 
 mind to determine which of the two alternatives ought to 
 be chosen; and it should put an end, at once, to the admira- 
 tion which many people not only express but have in their 
 hearts for the reckless agitators who, apparently, spend all 
 their lives in such efforts as cause them to be appropriately 
 termed revolutionists. Some of these men are undoubt- 
 edly idealistic, enthusiastic, resolute, courageous, and self- 
 sacrificing, and for such qualities deserve one's respect; but, 
 in a mind really admirable, these traits need to be balanced, 
 as they are not in them, by reasonableness, good judgment, 
 and kindly consideration for the safety and welfare of others. 
 Revolutions in government, as was said, on page 265 of 
 strikes in industry, are justifiable only when they were used 
 as exceptional agencies in view of exceptional emergencies. 
 Only when the administrative conditions under which one 
 lives are clearly chargeable with injustice and cruelty, can 
 the real interests of the people be promoted by taking 
 forcible measures to secure the change. 
 
 The allusion to public sentiment in this phrase, the 
 kppropriateness of which most people will recognize, sug- 
 gests the relationship of every revolution when it is justifiable 
 to predominating mental influence. A revolution in itself 
 considered is a result of the physical force of one party used 
 to overthrow the physical force of another party. But a 
 revolution is never entirely successful unless the minds of 
 
270 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 the majority, at least, of the people have been prepared to 
 desire it. A sensible reformer, therefore, will always recog- 
 nize the necessity, not only among his own followers but 
 among the whole community, of educational work intended 
 to convince people in general of the wisdom of his theories 
 and the practicality of his methods. If he have not the 
 ability to do this kind of work, and the patience to wait 
 until it has accomplished its legitimate results, then his 
 starting a revolution is as certain to end in failure as if he 
 were a traitor intent upon betraying the cause that he has 
 been professing to advocate. Moreover, if he do have this 
 ability, and do manifest this patience, it will often be fovmd 
 that there is no need of resort to physical force. That which 
 otherwise might have been a sanguinary revolution has 
 become merely a peaceful change in external conditions, 
 which practically all the people have become willing to 
 welcome. 
 
 This much it has seemed well to say here because we are 
 living in an age of great political restlessness, — an age in 
 which each man seems, as never before, perhaps, in the 
 history of the world, to feel an individual responsibility for 
 the political conditions surrounding him. What has been 
 said may possibly aid in ridding the reader of the conception 
 that, in anything like the degree in which he supposes, he 
 is responsible for these conditions; or that, if he were, he 
 could do as much toward changing them through exciting 
 others to use physical force as by trying to influence them 
 psychically. 
 
 The simple and the important fact in connection with 
 this whole subject — and it conforms in principle to the 
 general truth that has been brought out in this volume — is 
 that, according to the testimony of all history, every step 
 indicative of progress toward justice and liberty in any form 
 of government is due to the results of processes through 
 which, more and more, bodily and physical considerations 
 have been prevented from outweighing those that are 
 mental and rational. The primitive ruler, whether the 
 father of a family, a chief of a tribe, or a nobleman, king, or 
 emperor, needed to exercise very little mentality. This was 
 because there was nothing to suggest to him that his 
 authority could be, or would be, limited. Without con- 
 sidering the methods or results of his action, he could order 
 his subjects to do what he chose. He was not obliged to 
 
MENTAL INFLUENCE UPON GOVERNMENT 271 
 
 consult with others or to discuss any undertaking. He 
 dominated through exerting physical force, — his own where 
 he ruled a few, his armies where he ruled many. In our 
 time the agency which has taken the place of unlimited 
 authority exerted through physical force is mental. The 
 King of Great Britain and the nobility, if they wish to 
 secure legislation, must have the reasons for it argued in the 
 House of Commons, and appeal made in this way to the 
 mental desires and designs of its members. In olden times, 
 as in Athens and Rome when most nearly approaching the 
 methods of modern republicanism, the people, in acting 
 together, seem seldom to have recognized any limit to their 
 authority. They did as they chose to do; and they did 
 this because they, too, were conscious that they could rule 
 through the exertion of physical force, — that expressed 
 through the action of the greater number. In our country 
 the agency which has limited this physical power of the 
 majority is also mental. Our written constitution was a 
 result of reasoning on the part of the most learned and 
 sagacious minds that, at the time when it was formulated, 
 our country contained; and the methods devised by them 
 for making future amendments of it necessitate delay that 
 involves a similar exercise of thought and foresight on the 
 part of our present legislators. 
 
 Having said this much, the reader will recognize that it is 
 iOgical to infer that, as in the case of everything in this world 
 that can be controlled by man, and therefore predominantly 
 influenced either physically or psychically, all governments 
 of every possible variety can be so administered as to further 
 ei^er the right or the wrong. A change in the mere political 
 form, therefore, is not — as many revolutionists would lead us 
 to suppose — all that is needed in order to redress every ad- 
 ministrative grievance. There may be a benevolent despot- 
 ism and a malevolent democracy. In each case, that which 
 shall benefit or harm the citizen depends mainly upon the in- 
 dividual characters of those who, in official or other positions, 
 exercise authority over his possibilities. As a general prin- 
 ciple, it is true that it is more or less dangerous to allow a 
 single man to have absolute and unlimited power. Anyone is 
 apt to act more wisely, as well as more humanely, when he is 
 obliged by law to confer with others concerning both his policy 
 and practice. It is true, too, that the larger the number of 
 those with whom he confers, or with whose representatives he 
 
272 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 confers, the more likely will he be to know and to do what is 
 for the interest of a large number; and that the more nearly 
 he can confer with representatives of all the people, the more 
 nearly will his decision be likely to secure the welfare of all. 
 These facts furnish strong arguments against autocracy and 
 in favor of democracy. They would be unanswerable, were 
 it not for individuals who, whether officials or not, may be 
 dominated under any form of government by personal — in 
 the sense of physical or self-seeking — considerations. In a 
 democracy, the very fact that no one man has absolute 
 authority increases the degree of authority exercised by 
 everyone, and it gives everyone more or less opportunity to 
 exert it. This opportunity afforded to men who are weak 
 mentally or strong physically — ^in other words, devoid of well- 
 informed intelligence and breadth of sympathy, or else 
 overflowing with craft and selfishness — a chance to influence 
 others like themselves in such a way that, first, the public 
 sentiment, and, second, the political action, shall be devised 
 and determined wrongly. For this reason the influence of 
 the demagogue in a democracy may sometimes prove as 
 detrimental to the welfare of the people as that of a despot 
 in an autocracy. In a democracy, the people constitute the 
 ruling class, and, in case of governmental wrongdoing, it is 
 the people who need to be resisted, but the demagogue, 
 seeking mainly an election to oSice by them, is always their 
 advocate. In an autocracy, the despot and his repre- 
 sentatives constitute the ruling class ; and, in case of govern- 
 mental wrongdoing, it is he that needs to be resisted. A 
 hero of reform in a democracy, therefore, may oppose the 
 populace for the same reason that, in a despotism, would 
 cause him to lead it. 
 
 Bearing these facts in mind, let us notice now some of the 
 methods through which the laws and regulations of govern- 
 ment may be made to accord with the promptings on the 
 one hand of physical desire and on the other hand of mental 
 desire. Governments are classed in different ways. They 
 are sometimes distinguished from one another according 
 to the origin and functions of their chief official. When 
 either birth or election gives him his position and he holds 
 it for life, and is termed as the case may be a king, emperor, 
 sultan, or mikado, the country is said to be a monarchy. If 
 the position be temporary and elective on the part of the 
 people, acting either individually or through their repre- 
 
GERMAN AND BRITISH GOVERNMENTS 273 
 
 sentatives, then whether there be at the head a single 
 official termed a president, or a collection of officials termed 
 a council, the country is said to be a republic.^" 
 
 A better way of distinguishing governments is that which 
 terms some of them autocracies and others democracies. 
 In an autocracy, laws are framed and carried out according 
 to the order either of a monarch, governed only by his own 
 opinions and will, in which case his mode of government is 
 termed a despotism; or of a group of people who constitute 
 what is variously described as an aristocracy, a nobility, 
 or a ruling class, in which case the government is termed an 
 oligarchy; or of a monarch and nobility acting together. 
 This latter form, for which there is no special name, com- 
 bines some of the characteristics of both forms previously 
 mentioned. It is the form of government that was found 
 until very recently in Germany, Austria, and Turkey. In a 
 democracy, laws are framed and carried out, only so far as 
 they are sanctioned by the people acting individually or 
 through their representatives. It makes no difference 
 whether the chief official position in such a country be that 
 of an emperor, a king, a premier, a president, or a coun- 
 cilor. If these have no authority except that which is 
 delegated to them by the people, and can enact no law except 
 that which the people authorize, the governments may 
 usually be termed democracies. 
 
 On first thought, the former government of Germany 
 might not be supposed to be much unlike that of Great 
 Britain. Both had a monarch, and an upper and a lower 
 house of parliament. But in many important matters, as, 
 for instance, in the making of treaties with foreign nations, 
 and the beginning and ending of wars, the Emperor of 
 Germany made the final decision; and with reference to 
 other matters, the lower house (the Reichstag or Imperial 
 
 •■•According to the Century Dictionary, a republic is "a government 
 in which the executive power is vested in a person or persons chosen 
 directly or indirectly by the body of citizens entitled to vote." Refer- 
 ring more particularly to our own republic, Harry F. Atwood, in Chapter 
 II., of his Back to the Republic, says that it " is a form of government under 
 a constitution which provides for the election of (i) an executive and 
 
 (2) a legislative body who, working together in a representative capacity, 
 have all power of appointment, all power of legislation, all power to 
 raise revenues and appropriate expenditures, and are required to create 
 
 (3) ajudicidry to pass upon the justice and legality of their governmental 
 acts, and to recognize (3) certain inherent individual rights. 
 
274 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 Diet), elected by the people, had no effective way of vetoing 
 measures desired by the upper house (those appointed to the 
 Bundesrath or Federal Council) , which was composed largely 
 of representatives of the nobility. On the contrary, in Great 
 Britain the consent of the people as represented in the lower 
 house must be behind all government action. This govern- 
 ment is sometimes called a limited monarchy. The term was 
 originated centuries ago when there was danger of usurpation 
 of power on the part of the king. At present there is no such 
 danger. The king is little more than the head of society. As 
 such, however, he fulfills an important function. He personi- 
 fies the dignity and dominance of the state as an organized 
 instrumentality securing order and peace; and the respect 
 and loyalty conventionally extended to him express and 
 cultivate among the people respect and loyalty for the 
 legal methods of restraint and administration that he re- 
 presents. It is the premier, however, who is at the head of 
 the civil and military power of the country. But even he, 
 when exercising this authority, has, in his country, less 
 influence than can be exercised in our own country by our 
 President. A vote in the lower English House of Commons 
 against the premier's policy necessitates his resigning and 
 the appointment, by the king of another premier. In this 
 way, at any time the representatives of the people can 
 change the officials of the administration. They were 
 changed during the late war. In our country — and it is a 
 condition that some think should be remedied — such changes 
 cannot be made unless the President, before the Senate 
 acting as a Court of Justice, can be proved to have violated 
 some law. He is elected for four years, and for four years 
 he must continue in office. In this regard, therefore, the 
 administration of public affairs in England is under more 
 direct control of the people than is the case in the United 
 States. A better way through which to designate Great 
 Britain's form of government would be to term it a regal 
 or imperial democracy, or a constitutional or democratic 
 kingdom or empire. 
 
 The United States is also a democracy. But this word 
 alone does not define our government. It is a constitu- 
 tional and representative democracy. In a pure democracy, 
 any kind of a law may be drafted by anyone and enacted 
 by a majority vote of all the people. In our constitutional 
 democracy, a written document limits the subjects concern- 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT 275 
 
 ing which laws can be made, so as to prevent them from in- 
 terfering with local or individual rights; and, in a representa- 
 tive democracy, laws are drafted and enacted, not by the 
 people as a whole, but by legislators whom, in an orderly and 
 carefully prescribed way, the people elect to act for them. 
 
 The reason why democracy in our country is limited by 
 being made constitutional and representative is to prevent 
 the exercise of tyranny. If it were not for these limitations, 
 it would be impossible to deal justly with all of as many 
 people having different interests as are found among us. 
 Unless all had a voice in determining taxes, for instance, 
 those sufficient for the entire country might be levied upon 
 cotton and rice, which are produced only in the south; or up- 
 on wheat and corn, which are produced largely in the west; 
 or upon manufactured articles, which are produced largely 
 in the east. To prevent numerous possibilities of wrongs 
 like these, the Constitution prescribes the kinds of laws that 
 can be enacted by the general government at Washington 
 and the kinds that must be left to the local governments of 
 the different States. Still more important than the guard- 
 ing of State rights is the influence of both the Federal and 
 State constitutions in guarding individual rights. Were it 
 not for our constitutional guarantees of personal liberty, 
 any cruel or irascible ruler, any conscienceless or popularity- 
 seeking demagogue, leading any excitable majority of a 
 community, could, as the result of a single election, deprive 
 any citizen, merely because misunderstood or misrepre- 
 sented, of his right to worship as he wished, to educate his 
 family, to do business, to own property, or even to exist. 
 There are many places in our country to-day where such 
 provisions alone, with the legal redress through the courts 
 always open to them, enable a man who differs from his 
 neighbors by being a Mormon, a Jew, a Negro, a Hindu, a 
 Chinaman, or any one of a score ol possible things, to live 
 in safety and comfort. " California,' ' said an exultant poli- 
 tician of that State referring in the presence of the author 
 to a successful agitation to secure the recall by popular vote 
 of judges and judicial decisions, "is now about as nearly a 
 pure democracy as we can make it." "Yes," was the an- 
 swer, "and so Athens and Rome gradually became, and, as 
 a logical result, Socrates in the one and Jesus Christ in the 
 other were put to death without a fair trial." 
 
 A parallel influence in the direction of protecting local 
 
276 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 and personal rights was intended to be exerted through the 
 limitation of democracy in otir country by means of the 
 provision that it should be representative. The methods of 
 pure democracy may be feasible in a small community; but 
 they are not so in a large one. In this, no one citizen, to 
 say nothing of all the citizens acting together, can find time 
 in which to consider and deal justly with every one of the 
 thousands and, as one might say, tens of thousands of 
 measures presented for approval or disapproval. If, in 
 such a community, everyone attempt to act for himself 
 instead of through a representative, a few, followed by fac- 
 tions that support them, will try to enforce their own opin- 
 ions and purposes upon other individuals and factions. 
 Force thus used will necessarily result in civil strife and 
 anarchy, as in bolshevism; and, if this be continued, it can 
 be ended only by dictatorship and the ignoring of any 
 universal principles or applications of justice. 
 
 In view of these facts, it is no wonder that many of our 
 most thoughtful citizens feel that any effort tending to 
 wean the faith of ovir people away from constitutional and 
 representative government, and to turn it toward pure 
 democracy, ought to be vigorously resisted. Nothing, as 
 these citizens think, is needed more in our times than a 
 recognition that loyalty to our country's written constitu- 
 tion, and to the methods of amending it that it pre- 
 scribes, is as important as loyalty to our country's flag. 
 They think that it is even more important, because the flag 
 could continue to represent the country, even though this 
 were to become degenerate and tyrannical; but the Consti- 
 tution could not so continue. "They deem one among us 
 who denounces this deserving of no better treatment than is 
 visited upon those under a monarchy who denounce the 
 king; and, in case he be a foreigner to our country, they 
 deem him deserving of no less severe punishment than ban- 
 ishment from it. By his own action, in proving treacherous 
 to that which is the main source of our national prosperity 
 in which he has sought to share, he has, in their opinion, 
 exhibited a character exactly symbolized by that of the 
 snake in the old fable that stung its benefactor who had 
 sought to revive its failing life by placing it in his own bosom. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, it is not alone those who are 
 foreigners who have failed to appreciate that which they 
 owe to our form of government. Of late years, in some 
 
DISLOYALTY TO OUR CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM 277 
 
 States, owing to what is actual — though usually uncon- 
 scious — disloyalty, to our nation, arrangements have been 
 made, whereby a single whim-led vote of legislature 
 and people can alter any constitutional provision of the 
 State, or any decree of a judge interpreting it, or remove 
 him from office in case he fails to give a decision in accord- 
 ance with their wishes. As applied to theory, this means the 
 adoption of a conception that right and wrong may be deter- 
 mined by the State as represented in the result reached by any 
 vote of a majority, a theory differing little from that of the 
 Germans except in matters of detail. As applied to the exer- 
 cise of rationality, it deprives the individual of the delay which 
 would give himself and other people time for reflection with 
 reference to questions at stake; and, as applied to practice, 
 it could not legally prevent, in times of excitement, individi- 
 ual rights and liberties from being left to the mercy of a mob. 
 Almost equally deserving of condemnation are the 
 methods that have been adopted in some States with the 
 design of making our institutions more democratic in 
 the sense of less representative. Think of what has resulted 
 from the nomination of candidates for public office by pri- 
 mary elections rather than by representative conventions ! 
 Owing to defects in the management of these latter, which 
 might have been remedied by laws regulating the selection 
 of delegates to them, it has been rendered almost impossible 
 for a modest man, unwilling to go about telling people why 
 he is personally superior to someone else in his own party, 
 to become even a candidate for public office. He becomes 
 such not because men supposed to be intelligent and to have 
 the confidence of the community meet together publicly, 
 and, after considering and debating his qualifications and 
 those of his rivals, give their reasons for his nomination, at 
 the same time stating their own and his political aims. He 
 is selected by himself, or by a small irresponsible coterie, 
 many of them bribed by his purse, or his promise of future 
 political advancement; and all of them together men whose 
 political aims cannot be definitely ascertained. Through 
 secret methods, this coterie can usually induce several others 
 to enter into contest with their candidate at the primary 
 nominating election, and thus divide the opposition to him 
 into so many separate factions that no one of them can de- 
 feat him. After the candidate has been selected, often by a 
 small minority of a political party including some, too, who 
 
278 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 are not members of it,^' the laws of some States render it 
 impossible for members of the same party to nominate and 
 vote for another candidate, as they could in the olden 
 times. The result is that, as in California in the last seven 
 years, at important elections involving the choice of Legis- 
 lators, congressmen, senators, governors, and presidents, 
 many hundreds of thousands of voters have been virtually 
 disfranchised. In 19 12, there was no feasible way in which 
 a resident of that State could vote to return Mr. Taft to the 
 presidency. This was because the names of the "regular" 
 as distinguished from the ' ' progressive ' ' Republican electors 
 were not printed on the official ballots. In 19 18, no one 
 could vote for any man who had- been a candidate at the 
 Democratic primary for the nomination for governor. This 
 was because the man nominated at the primary by that 
 party had received certain votes also for the Republican 
 nomination, and, therefore was considered as a Republican 
 nominee, and yet no Democratic candidate had received as 
 many Democratic votes as he. 
 
 Such results, clearly interfering with individual liberty of 
 action, are evidently caused by unwise laws; and one reason 
 why they are unwise is because they have been drafted by 
 people ignorant of legal requirements, and then submitted 
 to the electorate as a result of petition, and put on the 
 statute book by a majority vote. Why is not this method 
 of making laws just as irrational as would be that of a man 
 making a will or a deed conveying property, and yet failing 
 to consult one acquainted with the requirements rendering 
 such conveyances legal ? As a fact, only those who under- 
 stand legislation, and who are given opportunities to con- 
 sult with others who understand it, are situated so that 
 they can even be expected to draft laws wisely. This is 
 
 = s " The Michigan primaries are of the ' open ' variety. That is, there 
 is no party enrollment, nothing to prevent a Republican from voting for 
 a Democratic candidate, or vice versa. Nor is there anything to pre- 
 vent any candidates from entering the primaries of all the parties. A 
 candidate who has been successful in the primaries of more than one 
 party must pick out the party whose candidate he desires to become in 
 the general election. Under the Michigan law his name cannot appear 
 on more than one ticket. It is taken for granted that Mr. Ford, should 
 he win in the primaries, would elect to become the candidate of the 
 Democratic party. But in that event, the damage, so far as the Re- 
 publicans are concerned, would already have been done, as they would 
 be left without a candidate of their own." — New York Times, June 21, 
 1918. 
 
WEAKENING OUR REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM 279 
 
 why most of us think that laws should be drafted in legisla- 
 tures. Of course, some of the legislators may be dishonest, 
 and for this reason, undeserving of confidence; but the very 
 best possible place in which to find out their real character 
 is in the comparatively small community which they are 
 elected to represent. The greatest objection, however, to an 
 unrepresentative and, therefore, purely democratic method 
 of enacting laws is that few feel individually responsible 
 for the phrasing of them or even for the enacting of them. 
 In Los Angeles, there were once in less than two weeks 
 three different election days for votes upon laws and constitu- 
 tional changes. At one election, a pamphlet describing the 
 measures submitted for approval could not be intelligently 
 read through in less than a whole day. Because of such 
 conditions, the whole number voting was always com- 
 paratively small. At one time, in that city, containing 
 about two hundred thousand registered voters, less than 
 seven thousand went to the polls in order to decide upon 
 the expenditure of six million dollars; and this in a place 
 where, before the war, taxes had already been doubled 
 within three years! In circumstances like these, it is 
 obvious that a very small but well organized minority could 
 enact, especially by exercising a little deceit, almost any 
 measure no matter how unwise or iniquitous. "Eternal 
 vigilance," said the Irish orator, John Philpot Curran, 
 "is the price of liberty." There is no doubt whatever that 
 carelessness about preventing the removal of provisions 
 that secure liberty can end in nothing but its destruction. ^* 
 
 J6 "What do you think of presenting a ballot to the voter containing 
 the names of 334 candidates or a ballot over six feet long covered with 
 printed matter upon which a vote is to be cast within two minutes of 
 time? What do you think of having 128 boards and commissions in a 
 single State, in addition to an executive, two legislative bodies, and seven 
 other elective officials? What do you think of more than doubling the 
 expenses of government in nearly every State in the Union during the 
 decade from 1903 to 1912? What do you think of spending over 
 $2,000,000 of the taxpayers' money on primaries and elections in Cook 
 County, 111., in the single year of 1916, aside from the personal expenses 
 of the horde of candidates? What do you think of our enacting over 
 62,000 new statutes in this country during the five-year period from 
 1909 to 1913, inclusive, and of our having over 65,000 decisions of courts 
 of last resort during these same five years, and compiling 631 large 
 volumes of decisions? These are only a few of the many questions that 
 might be asked because we have drifted away from the plan of a repub- 
 lic? "—Back to the Republic, by Harry F. Atwood, Chapter I. 
 
28o ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 Those of us who once thought that, in our own times, another 
 catastrophe like that of the Dark Ages could never again 
 overthrow the existing civilization, have had reason lately 
 to be disabused of that conception. May we all be pre- 
 served from practical experiences serving to prove that our 
 forebodings with reference to the possibility of a return of 
 such a disaster have been well founded! 
 
 The line of thought that has just been pursued will sug- 
 gest that the one who argues, as some do in our day, that 
 the cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy, is not 
 always giving wise advice. This fact was demonstrated, 
 too, more than two thousand years ago. In both Athens 
 and Rome the people applied this remedy, and the more 
 democracy they got, the more they realized that all were 
 exposed to sufferings from injustice, and the better were 
 they all prepared to welcome imperialism. In applying 
 remedies that shall bring about what is termed progress, 
 one ought always to bear in mind that this is not indicated 
 by mere movement. Movement may take place on the line 
 of a circumference that carries the world back to former 
 conditions which it was supposed to have left behind. 
 
 Almost every one, who thinks, knows that one reason why 
 so many despotisms have led to revolutions by which they 
 have been destroyed, is because so many of the officials of 
 despotism have conceived that the cure for the evils of au- 
 tocracy is more autocracy. Almost everyone knows, too, 
 that the lack of mentality that has occasioned such a con- 
 ception is usually associated with a belief in what is termed 
 "the divine right of Kings," in other words, a belief that 
 the family to which the ruler belongs holds the right to reign 
 by appointment of an overruling Providence, and that, 
 for this reason, his personality is more or less sacred, and 
 obedience to him is a religious duty. Strange as it may 
 appear, at first, a very similar belief comes to be held in a 
 democracy with reference to the divine right, not of the 
 monarch, but of the majority. There are countless numbers 
 who seem to believe that this majority, voting on any given 
 subject at any given time, represents the voice of God, and 
 decides, then and there, the right or the wrong. Prob- 
 ably very many who seem to hold views of this kind would 
 admit, when in a reflective mood and closely questioned, 
 that the monarch or the majority may occasionally make a 
 mistake. Nevertheless, in their heart of hearts, they feel 
 
MAJORITIES NOT ALWA YS RIGHT 281 
 
 that they ought not to concede this; that it ought not to be 
 true. They want to think that the head and source of the 
 authority which claims their allegiance, and is the inspira- 
 tion of their loyalty, is exalted in kind above that of any- 
 thing else in the world. At the risk, however, of shocking 
 the sensibility of people who hold to such a belief, there is 
 nothing to be done except to ascribe it to a stupid lack of 
 mentality, controlled by the influence of crass superstition. 
 
 In the opinion of every intelligent historian, too many 
 monarchs have done wrong, too many majorities have 
 voted wrong, too many nations have done right when 
 they have dethroned their monarchs, and too many com- 
 munities have done right when they have confuted and 
 finally outvoted the decisions of majorities, to render 
 rationally accfeptable any theories with reference to govern- 
 ment that emphasize divine rights through ignoring in- 
 dividual rights. All moral action in this world is a result 
 or development of a moral decision in conscience; and 
 conscience does not exist except in the individual. If this 
 be so, there must always be some tendency to wrong in any 
 theory or practice that can succeed in suppressing the 
 influence of the individual merely because the one who 
 would exert it happens to be a member of a physical minor- 
 ity. Of course, we all have to acknowledge that the origin 
 of the theory, as applied even to the vote of the majority, is 
 not wholly lacking in that which is commendable. It seems 
 due primarily to a feeling of loyalty to a conception funda- 
 mental to our method of government, — a conception ex- 
 pressed, years ago, by the author himself : 
 
 Where, oh where shall trust in truth that speaks through manhood great 
 
 and small 
 Overcome the few's oppressing by entrusting power to all? 
 
 A Life of Song: Watching, XXI. 
 
 but a sincere acceptance of the rule of the majority is per- 
 fectly consistent, as is also an acceptance of that of a mon- 
 arch, with a recognition of the necessity of limiting, in some 
 cases, the extent of the authority thus exercised. 
 
 We have considered so far the limitations prescribed for 
 our democratic government through the provisions that make 
 it constitutional and representative. A few words, per- 
 haps, ought to be added here with reference to the limita- 
 
282 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 tions that have been, or might be, prescribed with reference 
 to exercising the right of suffrage. To begin with, it seems 
 important to notice that all governments that permit 
 suffrage invariably prescribe regulations more or less re- 
 stricting it. It is not granted anywhere, probably, to 
 minors, idiots, insane people, or all classes of immigrants. 
 This limiting is done as a result, in strict accordance with 
 the theory of this book, of subordinating that which is 
 merely physical in a man to that which is mental; and it in- 
 volves a practically universal recognition of a government's 
 right to do this. Indeed, any suggestion of doubting this 
 right is coupled logically with other conceptions so absurd 
 that they can do no harm because they can find so few 
 adherents. Only a superstitious belief in the divine guid- 
 ance of the vote of the majority, analogous to the belief of 
 the peasantry of some parts of Europe in the divine inspira- 
 tion of idiots, could lead to a serious argument such as the 
 author once read in a newspaper report of a lecture delivered 
 before a Woman's Club. The lecturer argued in favor of 
 committing the destiny of the nation to the votes, among 
 others, of children, if old enough to attend school. This 
 conclusion followed an argument in favor of allowing all 
 women to vote, on the ground that it would educate them 
 to a knowledge of politics. "Are not children," it was 
 asked, "in still more need of such education?" This is an 
 example of what sometimes follows when a secondary reason 
 for a course of action is made to take the place of a primary 
 reason. 
 
 The primary reason in favor of allowing people to vote is 
 that doing so enables them to protect their own personal 
 interests. This furnishes a strong argument, — an argument 
 so irrefutable that few people in our country fail, to accept, 
 or to desire to carry into practice, all that it implies. They 
 believe that, so far as feasible, all should have a right to 
 vote, and that the State should impart free education for 
 the purpose of fitting them to vote intelligently. But this 
 belief need not, and ought not_, to prevent them from recog- 
 nizing that there is another side to the question. In this 
 country, the voters, either directly or indirectly, through 
 their representatives, make the laws. The voters of the 
 country, therefore, are really its rulers. Suppose that a 
 physical majority of a mass of people, irrespective of any 
 knowledge or experience that they may possess in connec- 
 
LIMITATION OF SUFFRAGE 283 
 
 tion with a subject, are allowed to dictate government action 
 with reference to it, — can this be said to be a result of trying 
 to prevent the physical from outweighing the mental? 
 Why should one exert a ruling influence upon a community 
 before he knows how to speak or read its language, and thus 
 to find out its needs and the reasons for them ? Why should 
 any foreigner, however intelligent, be permitted to vote 
 before he has lived a sufficient time in our country to under- 
 stand its methods and policies and their purposes? It 
 would not interfere with his personal rights — it might afford 
 him additional protection — could many legislative questions 
 be submitted to the decisions of those alone who have had 
 opportunity to become informed with reference to the sub- 
 jects with which they deal. 
 
 It is owing to considerations of this kind that many have 
 argued that the right to vote should be limited, as it was in 
 many States in the early years of our Republic, to those 
 who can pass a test of intelligence intentionally made so 
 low that all who sincerely desire to attain to it can easily 
 do this. The tests usually suggested are the ability to read 
 the English language, or, in place of this, the ability to earn 
 enough money to support one's self. Both methods, as 
 will be noticed, are suggested, though probably uncon- 
 sciously, by a desire to prevent the physical qualifications for 
 suffrage from outweighing altogether those that are mental. 
 A method that would, possibly, be more effective and at 
 the same time more satisfactory to a larger nimiber of 
 people might follow upon an adaptation of the arrangements 
 already adopted in our country of having two legislative 
 houses. Why might not the qualification for members of 
 the lower house and for those electing these members be as 
 it is to-day, — the possession of a human body irrespective 
 of any test applicable to anything more than the most 
 ordinary mentality; and the qualification for those who, in 
 addition to this, may become members or elect members 
 of the upper house be higher? Why, for instance, might 
 not one's tax-assessment qualify him? Is it too much to 
 say that, in the last century, in our own country, represen- 
 tatives of an actual property owner, as distinguished from 
 a non-owner, if they alone had been made members of one 
 of the two legislative bodies controlling our large cities, 
 might have almost entirely prevented much of the extrava- 
 gance and dishonesty which has characterized expenditures 
 
284 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 in these cities. Besides owners, others also might be 
 made eligible for members or for electors of members of 
 this upper house. Why might it not be feasible to introduce, 
 for their benefit, what could be termed service suffrage, — 
 suffrage virtually possible for all, but never granted except 
 in recognition of some form of expression of public spirit and 
 patriotism, — never granted except to one able to present 
 a certificate showing that he has fitted himself for this 
 function by having performed some service for the state, 
 — perhaps, by attending school, perhaps by enlisting with 
 the Boy Scouts, or in the militia, or, perhaps, by doing 
 other like work ? Through such arrangements, certain rights 
 of suffrage would come to be regarded as attributable not, 
 like a man's beard, to passive physical growth, but to 
 active mental development. It would be recognized as a 
 reward for achievement, and would be welcomed by the 
 appreciation that it deserves. 
 
 It would seem as if the desirability of limiting the exer- 
 cise of suffrage in some such ways would be recognized by 
 all. The world is full of people who are ignorant or selfish. 
 The ignorant are capable of making laws that are against 
 their own interests, though they do not realize that this is 
 so ; and the selfish are prone to make laws that are against 
 the interests of others. It would be better for the ignorant, 
 and better for the neighbors, at least, of the selfish, to have 
 the laws made in connection with some organized influence 
 of the intelligent and unselfish. Of course, such an arrange- 
 ment would not always be feasible. It would be difficult to 
 determine definitely exactly who were intelligent and un- 
 selfish. But it would be feasible to do something in this 
 direction. It would furnish the best way of promoting 
 inciividual welfare for the same reason that the interests of 
 each of the members of a family of young people are best 
 preserved when all have, as an associate and adviser, a wise 
 and kindly guardian. 
 
 In this connection, one cannot avoid commending our 
 country's business men for their recent establishment of a 
 non-political association organized to collect and distribute 
 information gathered by those whose experience has made 
 them most familiar with our country's commercial, in- 
 dustrial, and economic conditions and needs. Few doubt 
 that this association will afford the experts whom it is 
 now usual for each political party to consult in connection 
 
NATIONAL HOUSE OF BUSINESS 285 
 
 with new measures more authority than in the past to 
 meet together, and to discuss and formulate their views. 
 Thus has private initiative and enterprise finally given 
 embodiment to the conception of Pelatiah Webster who, in 
 his Dissertation on the Constitution, issued in 1783, proposed 
 that there should be a National Chamber of Commerce, or 
 House of Business. 
 
 In connection with the unwarranted authority which 
 many people attribute to the opinions expressed through 
 the vote of the majority, there are two conceptions so at 
 variance with the principle of not allowing the mental to be 
 outweighed by the physical, that they seem to need special 
 mention. The first conception is that suffrage gives a man, 
 because reinforced by others who vote with him, physical 
 power; and if he be intent upon using his power for the 
 purpose of doing good to others, gives him an opportunity 
 for lessening the ignorance, indolence, drunkenness, gam- 
 bling, and vice of the world. To a certain extent this is un- 
 doubtedly true. Nevertheless, it seems important to say 
 that the opportunity thus afforded for doing good is not as 
 great, nor the good to be done as high in quality, as is often 
 supposed; and that there are certain circumstances in which 
 the supposition that such is not the case may do harm. As 
 related to effects upon character, neither the possession of 
 the franchise, nor the law which its possession enables one 
 to assist in enacting, is an end in itself, but merely a means 
 to an end. The enactment and execution of the law have 
 to do with an outward deed alone. They never can reach 
 the source of moral action nor secure, for an individual sub- 
 ject to the law, mental control over his own physical in- 
 clinations. The man who thinjks otherwise is making a 
 fatal mistake, — fatal because it is the very thing to prevent 
 l^im from pursuing the only course fitted to accomplish that 
 which he wishes. Nothing has ever so demorklized a 
 civilized community as the conception common to many 
 parts of our own country that laws prescribing physical 
 punishment for certain practices, can take the place of 
 kindly and persistent watchfulness, instructiont precept, 
 argument, and example exercised everywhere toward all in 
 every relation possible to family, school, society, business, 
 church, or state. ^' Of course, laws at times exert a certain 
 
 " Notwithstanding the commendable efforts of sincere reformers to 
 put an end, by legal enactments, to the sale of liquor in one State and to 
 
286 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 beneficial effect; but in such cases, as has been already 
 pointed out in this volume, their chief moral influence is in 
 calling attention to the evils against which a law is directed, 
 and in this way causing men to think about them. It is, 
 therefore, very unfortunate not to recognize that the primal 
 duty of a human being begins with that which can be done 
 by himself personally to benefit the individual at his side. 
 This world would be governed very unjustly, if some of us 
 could not fulfill our missions without becoming voters or 
 legislators; or if any of us could fulfill them entirely by 
 becoming such. What all of us need most is to realizie this 
 fact, and, first of all, in our homes and places of business. 
 If we did this, our families and associates would not need 
 to be restrained by law; and many laws which, for other 
 reasons, are of doubtful expediency, would not be brought 
 iiSto existence. It is about three hundred years now since 
 intelligent people began to learn that men cannot be made 
 genuinely religious merely by drafting and executing civil or 
 military laws penalizing those whose external conduct as 
 manifested in words or deeds seems to be in need of reform. 
 But, even down to our own time, many appear oblivious 
 of the fact that an analogous method adopted for the pur- 
 pose of making men genuinely moral is certain to prove 
 equally futile. Training for morality as well as for religion 
 must be imparted in the home or the church; and no possible 
 influence exerted by the school or the state can ever be suc- 
 cessfully substituted for either of them. 
 
 This seems to be a conception that is difficult to get into 
 the minds of those who have been trained to think that 
 suffrage is a panacea for well-nigh all the evils to which 
 
 sights supposedly banished with the red light district, in another, notice 
 the following testimony with reference to the lack of complete success: 
 "Railroad and express records introduced by the prosecution showed 
 that in a period of 146 days, beginning January ist, more than 212 tons of 
 intoxicating liquors had been received at Bangor, county seat of Penob- 
 scot County (Maine), without seizure or complaint by the sheriff." — 
 Philadelphia Public Ledger, June 13, 1918. " If the undraped truth has 
 no horrors for your unsophisticated eyes, drop into the . . . this week. 
 . . . On the outside the manager is exhibiting a photographic enlarge- 
 ment of one of the scenes in the film which is warranted to make almost 
 every male passer-by hesitate and stare. ... On the inside. Manager 
 ... is featuring . . . posings in the nude ... Of course the evil or 
 impure-minded are sure to talk a lot, but the true lover of that whidi is 
 artistic can only admire." — Los Angeles . . . . , in 1916. 
 
SUFFRAGE AND FORMER SLAVES 287 
 
 society is prone. _ Undoubtedly it can lessen some of them. 
 But even then it is not suffrage that does this; it is the use 
 to which suffrage as a means has been put. Even used as a 
 means, it is frequently no more effective than would be some 
 other means. As a rule, those who possess suffrage have to 
 labor as assiduously to obtain the legislation that they wish, 
 as would be the case did they not possess suffrage. It was 
 supposed, after the Civil War in our country, that the 
 granting of the right to vote to the former slaves would 
 secure them all other civil rights, and in certain States it has 
 been supposed that the granting of it to women would lead 
 to the prohibition of certain forms of indulgence to which 
 they are not so prone as are men; but it has been found that, 
 in order to attain these ends, those to whom suffrage has 
 been granted require the aid of almost as much public can- 
 vassing and private lobbying with legislators as was needed 
 before it was granted. Very often, probably, half the en- 
 ergy and money expended in securing suffrage might have 
 secured directly that which suffrage gave merely a promise 
 of securing indirectly. In many cases, too, this promise 
 has never been fulfilled. It was not fulfilled as a result of 
 granting manhood suffrage to the former slaves of the 
 South. It would have been far better to have granted 
 suffrage to them as a reward to be won by education and 
 industry, and then to have afforded them special aid in these 
 activities. This would have prevented the physical from 
 outweighing the mental; and the thoroughly rational and 
 just spirit manifested in doing this would probably have 
 prevented also that feeling of resentment which, for more 
 than fifty years, has not only caused the former slave- 
 holder to continue by subterfuge to keep his former slaves 
 practically disfranchised, but has also kept himself in the 
 same condition, whenever to vote for what would otherwise 
 be of benefit to him has involved his voting also with the 
 political party that once tried to force himself and his kind 
 into practical subjection to a majority necessarily lacking 
 the education and experience which alone could have 
 rendered such an arrangement sensible and safe. 
 
 This thought suggests in connection with the subject of 
 suffrage the second conception which on page 285 was said 
 to be at variance with the principle of not allowing the 
 physical to outweigh the mental. This conception does 
 not, like the one just discussed, consider the enacting or 
 
288 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 physical executing of law to be a substitute for exerting 
 mental influence: but to be something that must always 
 accompany whatever mental influence is_ exerted. After 
 the Civil War in our country, mental considerations would 
 have admitted to citizenship, upon taking an oath of alle- 
 giance, those who had been in rebellion, and, in addition to 
 this, in order to emphasize the abolition of slavery, have 
 admitted to suffrage former slaves whenever they became 
 sufficiently intelligent and thrifty. This having been done, 
 rationality, common sense, and good judgment among the 
 people would probably, in a little time, have reconciled 
 them to the conditions. As it was, a committee, headed 
 by Carl Schurz, a man of unchallenged integrity, reported 
 that slavery, though abolished by law, was being virtually 
 reestablished in the South by a system of peonage brought 
 about as a penalty for debt. This result, which seemed 
 clearly an endeavor to restore conditions in which physi- 
 cal force should continue to determine industrial relations, 
 seemed to justify counteraction through exertion of the 
 same kind of force. Through votes representing the physi- 
 cal majority of the whole country they decided to en- 
 franchise the former slaves. Through this course it was 
 thought that, in certain States at least, the blacks could 
 outvote the whites sufficiently to prevent anjrthing like a 
 recurrence to conditions of slavery. At the same time the 
 Northerners knew that, as a class, the negroes were at that 
 time too ignorant and inexperienced to use the ballot wisely; 
 and, however difficult it might have been to find a more 
 thoughtful and considerate method of accomplishing their 
 purpose, which in itself was justifiable, they should not have 
 done what they did. They made the mistake of supposing 
 that they could correct one wrong by committing another 
 wrong; and never since the beginning of time have two wrongs 
 made a right. 
 
 Unfortunately, the spirit that animated these Northern 
 politicians at that time is apt to be manifested over and 
 over again by so-called reformers, and even by sincere ones, 
 whenever there seems to be a chance of obtaining a victory 
 for their own cause through influence that can be exerted 
 through the physical force of superior numbers. Much of 
 the campaigning even for the most praiseworthy objects is 
 of this character. The worst feature of the case, too, is the 
 fact that apparently sensible people justify such methods. 
 
EMANCIPATION 289 
 
 They think that they are doing particularly right when 
 they join not only in the marching and shouting, but in the 
 mobbing of those who differ from them in opinion, and in 
 the smashing of their property. Think of the methods 
 adopted by certain prohibitionists of Kansas and suffra- 
 gettes of London! In the long run, however, a resort to 
 physical influence is in danger of being followed by con- 
 sequences in which the evil overbalances the good. 
 
 The same fact, indeed, could be illustrated not only by 
 the attempt to enfranchise universally the former slaves of 
 our own country, but by the whole history of their emanci- 
 pation. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, 
 a few slaves, at least, were held in every State of the Union 
 with the exception of New Hampshire. But partly because 
 the system of slavery was thought wrong, and partly be- 
 cause, in the North, it was found to be unprofitable, it was 
 gradually prohibited by law in all but the Southern States. 
 Even there, however, it was widely opposed. George 
 Washington of Virginia and many others freed the 
 slaves whom they had inherited; and Henry Clay of Ken- 
 tucky, the most popular statesman of that section, advo- 
 cated for years a bill in Congress emancipating all slaves by 
 purchasing them from their owners. If those interested in 
 the subject had aimed chiefly to influence thought, and had 
 exercised patience, and waited a decade or so longer for 
 mental influence to produce its legitimate effects, the war 
 that followed would probably never have occurred. This 
 was clearly a result of forcing the issue. Had it not been 
 for the methods adopted and the bitter feeling excited by 
 the sectional abuse attendant upon them, there might have 
 been a reasonable compromise that would have benefited 
 and satisfied both of the opposing factions. As it was, 
 the resort to physical force brought about a satisfactory 
 physical result, but fifty years have gone by since then, 
 and it has not yet brought about a satisfactory mental 
 result. 
 
 The connection between the influence exerted by the vote 
 of the majority and that which is physical rather than men- 
 tal is nowhere more evident than in the extensive use in all 
 republics of that which is termed patronage. Considered 
 theoretically, laws in a republic represent mental desire. 
 This is the reason — and a worthy one — why many have a 
 conscientious belief in the rightfulness of this form of govern- 
 
290 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 ment. They argue that the measures adopted by it are 
 traceable not to physical force but to the thinking of all the 
 people, the opinion of each of whom is solicited in his vote, 
 and, after being compared and combined with the opinions 
 of others, is embodied in the general result. Practically, 
 however, it often happens that laws do not represent the 
 opinions of the people. They represent the opinions of a 
 few self-seeking partisans. This is because some executive 
 with the power of appointment puts in lucrative positions 
 certain legislators or their friends who also have a power of 
 appointment and, in their turn, put hundreds and perhaps 
 thousands into lucrative positions, many of which involve 
 expenditure of money not easily traceable when expended 
 merely for the spenders' benefit. These appointees and 
 their friends, scattered all over the community, are able to 
 exert so much influence upon the individual voter that few 
 candidates for office who oppose them can be elected. It is 
 possible, therefore, for an executive to use his power of 
 appointment in such a way as to intimidate a sufficient 
 number of legislators to force them to vote for what he 
 wishes. They fear that if they do not, they will be defeated 
 the next time that the people are asked to vote for them. An 
 executive who thus forces a legislative body to do his will, 
 usually begins by appointing to office unfit or dishonest 
 men, and continues by not vetoing unfit or dishonest legis- 
 lation. In some cases, the expenditures of the government, 
 before the majority of the people have divined the reason, 
 have been multiplied three or four times, and chiefly to fill 
 the pockets of appointees of this kind, in the expectation 
 that they will control the popular vote and thus forward the 
 executive's ambition. Even when he himself has not fur- 
 thered the interests of those whom he knows to be dis- 
 honest, he has, too often, furthered the interests of his 
 political party at the expense of his country. The men- 
 tality, the unselfish thinking of the people, has not been 
 allowed free expression and sovereignty. It has been sup- 
 pressed by physical force that has given mastery to the 
 selfish schemes of partisan politicians. Nevertheless, many 
 governors and even presidents of our country, for the very 
 reason that they have ruled in this way, have been called 
 strong men, and have been supposed to be worthy of honor. 
 The time is coming when they will more likely be thought 
 to have made themselves fit for a chain gang, and to be en- 
 
POLITICAL PATRONAGE 291 
 
 titled to less consideration even than some in this class; for 
 they will be recognized to have been no better than traitors 
 to the principle that is most fundamental to the success of 
 the government of which they have had charge. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 KEEPING THE MIND's DESIRES UPPERMOST IN THE FRAMING 
 AND ADMINISTERING OF GOVERNMENT LAWS 
 
 Laws Promote Morality when they Prevent Individuals from Interfer- 
 ing with Others' Mental or Rational Development — Liberty as 
 Applied to Religion — To Education — To Social and Political 
 Position — To Business Conditions and Surroundings — Tendency 
 toward Government Interference as Illustrated from Experience of 
 Railways — Results of Government Oversight and Ownership — 
 Reliance upon Physical not Rational Influence — Arbitration, and 
 Methods of Evading its Intended Effects — Physical rather than 
 Rational Influence Dominant in Making Regulations with Refer- 
 ence to Hours of Labor — To Wages — To Allowing Sons to Follow 
 their Fathers' Trade, or any Trade in which they Need to Experi- 
 ment — Laws Interfering with both Laborers and Leaders in Indus- 
 try — Laws against Combination and in Favor of Competition — 
 Self-seeking Results in Business Cannot be Corrected by Laws 
 Changing Physical Conditions — Influence of Capitalists in Favor of 
 Democracy in Government — Efforts of Capitalists for the Welfare 
 of their Employees — For Agricultural Laborers — Such Capitalists 
 are Needed and should be Honored — False Views of Human 
 Equality Fail to Recognize this Fact — Equality Desirable because 
 it Brings Happiness — and this is often Mental — Logical Results of 
 False Views as Embodied in Socialism and Aiarchism — The 
 Threatened Decay of Democracy in our Own Times — It is some- 
 times Wisest for One to Accept the Existing Conditions of Life, 
 and Make the Best of Them. 
 
 THIS is no place in which to discuss iji detail the various 
 measures of legislation and administration through 
 which a government can aid in preventing the physi- 
 cal from outweighing the mental. We can consider here 
 merely a few of the principles underlying such measures. 
 The most important of these principles seems to be that 
 the primary object of government, as related to morals, is 
 to prevent individuals from interfering with one another's 
 mental development, — in other words, to prevent them 
 from doing that which shall make it impossible or difficult 
 
 292 
 
FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE 293 
 
 for themselves or their neighbors to carry out the prompt- 
 ings of their mental desires. There is nothing that large 
 numbers in every community like better than to tyrannize 
 over their families and associates, — to dictate to them what 
 shall be their beliefs and practices with reference not only to 
 little matters like those of fashion and custom, but to great 
 matters like those pertaining to religion, to education, to 
 social and political action, and to business and industry. 
 One of the chief ends of government is to set the individual 
 free from such tyranny, to give him liberty, as we say. Only 
 as he possesses this, will it be possible for him, in many cases, 
 to conform his outward conduct to that inward guidance 
 which is best both for himself and his fellows. 
 
 It is because of a growing belief in this inward guidance 
 that most modern governments allow the citizen to be an 
 adherent of any religion that appeals to his own conscience. 
 The majority of them no longer persecute, and few of them 
 tax, for purposes in which he has no interest, the man who 
 does not belong to a chiurch established by the state. They 
 have learned that, so far as concerns the outward demeanor 
 which government seeks to regulate, the whole object of 
 religion is thwarted when conditions are such as to frighten 
 or force one into misrepresenting in form that which con- 
 trols him in spirit. 
 
 Similar facts can be stated with reference to education. 
 At one time in the world, there was a theory that the best 
 way to maintain order and peace in a community was to 
 keep the people in a state of ignorance. The less they knew, 
 the more pliant it was supposed that they would be to the 
 dictation of the government officials. But in modern times 
 it has been discovered that, where there are no counter- 
 acting influences, the more intelligent a man is the more 
 inclined he is to orderly and peaceful behavior; and the 
 complementary fact is also true — that the more intelligent 
 the officials are, the more inclined they are to make and to 
 administer laws in a way to lead to such behavior. These 
 are sufficient reasons for holding the theory that the gov- 
 ernment should establish and maintain schools, making 
 education compulsory for children and possible for those 
 more advanced who desire it. Nothing could contribute 
 more to the general welfare than for the government to do 
 this; and nothing, therefore, can more justify the levying of 
 taxes, for this purpose, upon the community. 
 
294 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 The social and political position of a man in a country 
 also ought to be left to be determined by mental rather 
 than by physical considerations; and a wise government 
 will do what it can to secure this aim. It can be done, too, 
 without any revolutionary interest or result. Indeed, a 
 revolution, though it might change the phase, could not 
 affect the substance of the evils to be remedied. Wherever 
 men go in this world, they can always find some who need 
 to be brought to the light because they walk hidden in the 
 shadows of those whom they follow. This is no more true 
 of the physical heirs of the nobility in a monarchy than of 
 the physical relatives of the wealthy, the prominent, or the 
 partisan, in a republic. As a result, oflBces in the army, the 
 navy, and the Civil Service, that ought to be filled by those 
 of exceptional ability, experience, or efficiency, as discovered 
 by an examination of what they know or have done, are 
 often given to candidates utterly incompetent; or, if to 
 others, mainly as a matter of accident, not of design. Some- 
 times the chief influence of those who make appointments 
 seems to be to keep the capable from responsible positions 
 and the community from the efficient service that they 
 ought to receive. _ Nothing could more clearly manifest the 
 importance in this, as in all other relations of life, of pre- 
 venting the physical from outweighing the mental. 
 
 In a commercial country like our own, the evils that are 
 being considered are apt to reveal themselves chiefly in 
 business. In connection with this, there are certain ar- 
 rangements and methods necessary to secure economy, 
 efficiency, fair play, comfort, and health, which, either 
 because of ignorance or exclusive self-seeking, are often 
 overlooked. To these it is the clear duty of the government 
 to call attention by enjoining certain courses to be pursued, 
 and prescribing penalties for their violation. There ought 
 to be laws, for instance, with reference to the methods of 
 obtaining and preparing the materials needed for use in 
 business; laws to prevent watersheds from being denuded 
 of soil because their bordering forests whose roots held it in 
 place have been removed and not replanted; laws to con- 
 serve and distribute mineral resources and water privileges; 
 laws to encourage and help Actual settlers in taking posses- 
 sion of fertile lands and developing them, as well as to super- 
 vise, at least, by way of advice, the nature of crops and their 
 transportation, storage, and sale so as to avoid loss through 
 
LAWS REGULATING BUSINESS 295 
 
 speculation. There ought to be laws to secure in factories 
 plenty of ventilation and sanitation, and, in every place, 
 cleanliness and wholesome surroundings, both indoors and 
 outdoors. There ought to be laws against the employment 
 of children, both because it may keep them from acquiring 
 education and training, and because the excessive exertion 
 involved may stunt their growth and injure their health. 
 There ought to be laws enabling the needy to find work ; pro- 
 hibiting overwork, either in kind or duration; or injurious 
 standing, stooping, or stretching on the part of laborers; or 
 the employment of machinery so constructed as to be irk- 
 some or dangerous; or the handling, in industries, of in- 
 gredients of such a nature as to be poisonous, or in any way 
 harmful to the user. There ought to be laws, too, making 
 employers accountable for accidents that a reasonable 
 amount of expense and contrivance on their part could pre- 
 vent, and there ought to be laws insuring a living wage for 
 all, as well as changes in the nature of the work required of 
 the aged, or providing means of pensioning them when grow- 
 ing infirmities have rendered them no longer able to labor 
 as they once could. These and other similar provisions, the 
 simplest promptings of mental, in the sense of rational and 
 non-selfish, desire would seem to demand. 
 
 Frequently, however, legislators, or the people who elect 
 them, are tempted to go beyond provisions of this character. 
 Purchasers who are not disposed to pay prices that are 
 asked or employees who are dissatisfied with wages or other 
 conditions of labor, succeed in getting the government to 
 interfere and to pass laws in accordance with their individ- 
 ual, and, in many cases, selfish, interests. In some instances 
 and countries this process has gone so far that the govern- 
 ment has assumed complete control and management of the 
 forms of industry against which complaints have been made. 
 This course may succeed for a time in lowering prices and 
 raising wages; but it is a question whether, in the long run, 
 it does not lessen the quality of the product or service 
 rendered, and very greatly increase the cost of it to people 
 in general. One argument, showing that this may be the 
 case, seems to have been presented lately to the experience 
 of almost every reader of this book. A few years ago the 
 railways of our country outnumbered in mileage those of all 
 Europe taken together, while prices here for the transpor- 
 tation of freight and passengers were about half what they 
 
296 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 were there, and the accommodations, as a rule, were better. 
 Private enterprise had pushed these railways of ours, as a 
 government never would have felt justified in doing, into 
 almost every uninhabited region of the country; and to 
 them, almost solely, we owe the development of the States 
 of the West and Southwest. Some of these railways — but 
 possibly not half of them — were very successful financially; 
 and good railway bonds were, for years, considered among 
 the safest investments in the market. Nevertheless, there 
 was much speculation, especially in stocks; and much of 
 this was manipulated dishonestly, causing some to become 
 suddenly rich and others as suddenly poor. Speculation, 
 however, is not confined to railway stocks; and it needed 
 remedies not confined to them. Besides this, it was largely 
 carried on by those who had nothing to do with the practical 
 management of the railways themselves. But people sup- 
 posed that it had, and that the money made by speculators 
 was due to political influence able to obtain franchises and 
 public property at less than its real value, as well as due 
 also to making unfair discrimination and overcharging for 
 the transportation furnished. 
 
 There were various ways in which these evils, so far as 
 they had been actually ascertained, could have been cor- 
 rected. But, as so often happens, the easiest way — ^the 
 physical way — was chosen, — the way of government inter- 
 ference exercising authority in lowering transportation 
 charges. This was followed, after a time, when workmen 
 also complained of their treatment by the railways, by the 
 shortening of the hours of labor, with an accompanying 
 increase of pay for the service rendered. As a result, some 
 of the roads did not receive sufficient to justify them in 
 expenditures needed in order to keep their equipment in 
 good condition ; and, after a time, they lost their expert work- 
 men because of the great increase in wages offered them 
 in factories providing munitions for the European war. 
 Then our own country entered the war; and the railways 
 apparently proved unable to meet its exceptional demands 
 upon transportation. So, as a temporary expedient to be 
 applied only during the emergency, the goverimient took 
 control of them. We all know the result upon people in 
 general. At present it can be said that the convenience and 
 comfort of the individual traveler has been greatly lessened, 
 while prices for transportation have been greatly increased; 
 
GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF BUSINESS 297 
 
 and, in case the railways do not pay their expenses, we shall 
 all have to be taxed to make up the deficit.^* Yet many 
 influenced apparently more by theory than by fact, are now 
 saying, after the war is over, that this temporary arrange- 
 ment should be made permanent. If it were made so, the 
 result would certainly have a tendency, at least, to cause 
 trains to be run for the convenience of the operatives rather 
 than of the public, just as are the government-controlled 
 telegraphs in Germany. There, unless, possibly, from large 
 cities, one can send no messages out of ordinary business 
 hours, no matter what may be the emergency. In our coun- 
 try the railways alone might furnish us with many millions 
 of voters who, if they chose, could dictate the action of the 
 government toward them, and, if the government accepted 
 their dictation, might by their votes enable the party in 
 power to remain there almost indefinitely. This suggests a 
 reason why government ownership, or even management, is 
 apt to be less successful under a democracy than under an 
 autocracy. In America, political administration in large 
 cities has usually shown extravagance in expenditures and in- 
 efficiency in results. This is because politicians rather than 
 experts have been at the head of affairs. In Germany and, 
 for many years in the city of Washington in our own coun- 
 try, the officials have been appointed and not elected, and 
 for this reason the general conduct of affairs has been more 
 satisfactory. It certainly would be unwise to place the in- 
 dustrial development of our country under the conditions 
 which, so far in our history, have been most conspicuous in 
 proving that our form of democracy is not completely 
 successful. To do this might very easily in a short time 
 
 ''In the five months to December ist — the latest date for which a 
 statement is now at hand — the railroads moved not very much more 
 traffic than in the corresponding period of 19 17, when they were under 
 private management, but their operating expenses were greater by more 
 than a hundred million dollars a month, or at the rate of a billion and a 
 quarter a year. In July, operating expenses took sixty-nine per cent. 
 of gross receipts ; in August, seventy-one per cent. ; in September, seventy- 
 six per cent.; in October, seventy-eight per cent.; in November, eighty- 
 three per cent. In eleven months of government operation patrons of 
 the Pennsylvania Railroad paid sixty-six million dollars more for about 
 the same quantity of service — due to advanced rates — but operating 
 expenses were ninety- three million dollars more, and, after paying taxes 
 and rents, the sum remaining for interest and dividends dropped from 
 forty-eight million dollars in 1917 to nineteen millions in 1918. — Satur- 
 day Evening Post, Philadelphia, February 22, 1919. 
 
298 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 throw such discredit upon our institutions as to lead to their 
 ultimate overthrow. Even in an autocracy, government 
 management, though not so threatening to the general 
 welfare, is not wholly safe. One reason why, in Germany, a 
 few at the head of the government were able to begin the 
 recent war, and were able to continue it, notwithstanding 
 enormous loss of life and property, is because the govern- 
 ment had come to control the minutest details of so many dif- 
 ferent employments. Almost any one who, by word or deed, 
 opposed the government, or opposed a representative of the 
 government happening to be one step above him, might 
 be turned out of his position, whether a telegraph operator, 
 a brakeman on a railway, a pastor in a city church, or a 
 professor in a university. There is no doubt that this ar- 
 rangement keeps large numbers of people orderly and dili- 
 gent. But notice that it also keeps them where they can be 
 easily made to obey the orders of those who are their mas- 
 ters, — a result that, after a time, is certain to follow wherever 
 government interference has deprived people in general of 
 the stimulus, the inclination, and, as a consequence, the 
 ability to give free expression to their individual mental 
 desires. 
 
 That which connects this subject with our present dis- 
 cussion is the readily recognizable fact that the kind of 
 goverimient interference indicated, so far as it may prove 
 injurious, is traceable to the subordination of mental to 
 physical influence. Mental influence is always exerted in 
 the rational and non-selfish way that reaches a decision 
 after a full and fair presentation of facts and arguments by 
 those interested in both sides of the question involved. 
 Physical influence is exerted in ways exactly the opposite. 
 In a democracy it usually relies upon the numbers of people 
 who can be brought into political union and made to de- 
 mand the same thing, very often not because they all think 
 alike, but because many of them seldom think at all. The 
 physical method is exemplified also in the numbers of people 
 induced to threaten to vote against a legislator in case he 
 fails to obey their dictates; in the numbers of legislators 
 combining to overawe an executive sufficiently to make him 
 sign any bill that they may pass; and in the numbers of 
 agencies that can be used by a government in carrying out 
 its laws. This same physical method, in case of dispute 
 between two parties, the success of each of which depends 
 
ARBITRATION 299 
 
 upon cooperation in the same business, finds no more than 
 logical fulfillment in a course that causes one of the two to 
 call a strike, bum or smash buildings or machinery, and, if 
 possible, force politicians to action in their behalf irrespec- 
 tive of exercising justice toward the other party; or else in a 
 course equally logical that causes the other of the parties to 
 call on the militia, get them to fire on their opponents, and 
 , oblige these to submit without question to whatever orders 
 are given them. In both cases each party is carrying out 
 the principle of ruling men through the exertion of physical 
 force; and it is doing this because of a lack of confidence in 
 the effects of mental influence. 
 
 It is to prevent and, if possible, counteract such condi- 
 tions of action and belief, that wise legislators, of late, have 
 been endeavoring to induce, and, if possible, to oblige by 
 law, both parties in such disputes to submit to a settlement 
 of their differences through arbitration. This is a method 
 through which a number of selected men, sitting as a court 
 of justice, hear what may be said by representatives of those 
 at variance, and try to reach a decision which, through 
 compromise at least, if not through means more satisfactory, 
 shall deal fairly with all. Unfortunately, however, there 
 seem to be in our country those who suppose that they can 
 accept the principle of arbitration in form, and yet not at all 
 in spirit, — in such a way, in fact, as not to surrender in the 
 least their reliance upon physical force. A few months ago 
 an issue of the Literary Digest contained several quotations 
 from papers representing labor organizations, which argued 
 that boards of arbitration could not be acceptable to em- 
 ployees unless composed entirely of those of their own class. 
 The same magazine in its issue for March 2, 1918, quotes the 
 following from one of the same class of papers, — The New 
 York Call. "In a general way we should favor . . . com- 
 pulsory arbitration on the part of the government. It can- 
 not and dare not compel the laborers, but it can compel the 
 employers with the threat of taking over the control of 
 their business. ... In case both sides are stubborn . . . 
 the government would naturally follow the line of least re- 
 sistance. The weakest goes to the wall, and, in this case, 
 it is not labor that is the weakest. So, on the principle 
 that ' might makes right,' we choose government arbitration 
 without troubling to give ethical reasons for our choice." 
 Here is a clear, unadulterated statement of reliance upoa 
 
300 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 physical force, and of the purpose to apply it. There is no 
 necessity of arguing what would be the result if, in a free 
 country like ours, physical force — the conception that 
 'might makes right' — should come to be advocated by any 
 large number of people. Such a principle could not rule 
 anjrwhere without enthroning tyranniy. 
 
 Even at present there are indications that this kind of 
 rule is beginning among us. Take, for instance, the laws 
 that have been passed, because of more or less compulsion 
 exercised by organized voters, with reference to the ntmiber 
 of hours that should constitute a day's work. Everybody 
 who thinks, knows that one who is not interested in his 
 work — i.e., who is not entering into it mentally — ^is tired at 
 the end of six hours; but that the one who is interested in it 
 is often not tired at the end of twelve hours, — indeed, if 
 anxious to " get on, " as people say, the worst possible ex- 
 perience of being tired will come if he be stopped when he 
 wants to keep working. To cause all by law to accommo- 
 date their actions to the physical requirements of the more 
 indolent and inefficient, is to exercise the very worst form of 
 tyranny over the mental nature. It is well enough to pre- 
 vent employees from acting in an inhuman way by refusing 
 to accept a service of six or eight hours a day from those who 
 desire it. But this is a different thing from endeavoring to 
 suppress the interest and enthusiasm, and rendering im- 
 possible the rightful advancement, of those who are actuated 
 by mental desire. 
 
 So with reference to wages. One man can do twice as 
 much work in an hour as another man can, or, even though 
 the quantity produced by both may be the same, the quality 
 in the one case may be twice as good as in the other. A law 
 that tends to make the wages of both men exactly the same 
 is not calculated to increase the efficiency of the former 
 workman, or to lessen the inefficiency of the latter, yet this 
 is the sort of law that large numbers who themselves are 
 indolent and indifferent approve; and that which they par- 
 ticularly disapprove is an added requirement, which alone 
 could insure justice, enjoining, in addition to a minimum 
 wage sufficient to furnish adequate means of support, an 
 extra wage for extra work. It is to be feared that what not 
 a few of them really want, and what the law as formulated 
 not infrequently accomplishes, is the enabling of the most 
 inefficient to receive as high wages as if they were the oppo- 
 
GO VERNMENT REG ULA TION OF IND USTRY 3OI 
 
 site. Neither in the framing of a law that omits peculiar 
 recognition for excellence, nor in the practical effects of such 
 a law, is there any evidence of a desire to prevent physical 
 from outweighing mental considerations. 
 
 The same might be said of many other laws too numerous 
 to mention here, and not needed in order to render more 
 intelligent the principle that is being illustrated. These 
 laws have all of them a tendency to keep the individual from 
 following his own mental bent. Such are those that, owing 
 to the plea that there should not be too many rival workmen 
 in one trade, prevent sons from availing themselves of their 
 father's experience, and probably of their own inherited 
 aptitudes, by learning and practicing his trade; or that pre- 
 vent others from leaving one trade and entering another; or, 
 before they have determined definitely upon any one of 
 them, from experimenting in different lines of work in order 
 to ascertain that for which they are mentally fitted. The 
 wording of laws that produce results of this kind is often 
 intentionally vague, but it will usually be found that their 
 practical effect is to keep down in life those who are looking 
 about in different directions, because prompted to make an 
 effort to rise. This prompting, so far as it is due to a man's 
 mental desire to make the most of himself in order to be 
 able to do the most for his fellows, is right. The govern- 
 ment that does not recognize the fact is wrong. Whether 
 termed democratic or autocratic, if its laws interfere with 
 the legitimate expression in conduct of such desires, it is 
 exercising tyranny over the mental nature. Wherever this 
 is done, the progress and welfare of the entire community is 
 more or less retarded. 
 
 Nor does the influence of such laws affect solely the young, 
 the obscure, the inefficient, or the unprosperous, who might 
 be supposed to be the only ones unable successfully to resist 
 hostile legislation. Of late years, almost every class of the 
 community, if too small to constitute, or at least control, a 
 majority of it, has been handicapped by being made subject 
 to unnecessary restrictions. These have been put upon 
 methods resulting from the experience of the most able men 
 in the country, not always because they have been dishonest 
 or even selfishly inconsiderate, which, of course, would 
 justify such restrictions, but apparently, sometimes, merely 
 because they have been successful. The theory of many 
 seems to be that to make the mental leaders of industry — 
 
302 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 the men who have had the brains to devise and develop 
 great enterprises — less successful, is to make their followers 
 — men for whom they have created work and to whom they 
 are giving wages — more successful. Of course, no theory 
 could be more contrary to the truth . A man whose thought- 
 ful diligence and thrift has enabled him to rise to a position 
 in which he can control large sums of money is the one best 
 able to help others to obtain a similar position. He is the 
 one best able to pay a large price for work, and to pay it 
 steadily. He is the one best able to purchase and develop 
 facilities for transportation; and he is the one, too, who can 
 furnish the necessities of life at the least cost to the con- 
 sumer. This latter is an important fact that seems fre- 
 quently to be overlooked. Let us notice, for a moment, 
 what it involves. Suppose that one wishes to have printed 
 a circular. The principal expense connected with this is 
 incurred in paying for the setting of the type. To set this 
 for one circular costs as much as for a million. Therefore, 
 aside from the paper, the time, and the fuel expended in 
 running the press, one circular, if only one be issued, must 
 necessarily cost very many times as much as each of the 
 million, if all are issued. The same principle applies in every 
 case where enhanced facilities for production increase the 
 output. When the product of an oil well, before it could 
 reach a market, had to be ptraiped into barrels, carted 
 scores of miles, and sent on a long trip by rail, it cost a great 
 deal more than it does now, when from the very mouth of 
 the well it flows to market through a pipe-line. When 
 watches were made by hand, a good one was sometimes 
 worth four or five hundred dollars. Now that they can be 
 turned out by machinery, one that will keep almost perfect 
 time can be purchased for less than a twentieth of that 
 sum. 
 
 It is a recognition of this lessening of the cost both of pro- 
 duction and of the thing produced that, in modern times, 
 has caused the great combinations between different 
 business corporations. For instance, when five separate 
 companies unite, there are thousands of towns in the coun- 
 try in which one agent in one office can do all the business 
 previously requiring five agents, occupying five offices. 
 Merely because such combinations prove economical for 
 capitalists, is it for the interest of the purchaser for whom 
 also they are economical, that they should be forbidden by 
 
COMPETITION VS. COOPERATION 303 
 
 law? Yet, influenced by a desire to conform statements to 
 the prejudices of ignorant constituents, certain of our politi- 
 cians keep telling people that, in order to preserve the 
 laborer and the public from themselves losing the money 
 that is made by the capitalists, these combiriations must be 
 broken up into separate companies; that only when the 
 latter are rivals and antagonistic will they watch and inter- 
 fere with one another sufficiently to prevent dishonesty and 
 extortion. What facts can be instanced to justify this con- 
 ception? Has competition in the past proved to be a pana- 
 cea that can cure dishonesty and extortion ? If not, then the 
 conception must be derived, not from fact, but from theory. 
 Is the theory sound then? Have we any reason to suppose 
 that wrong in business methods can be prevented by rivalry 
 and antagonism? What influence do these latter exert? 
 Almost exclusively a physical influence. They are powerful 
 because, if not actually backed by physical force, they are 
 always more or less associated with it. But that which can 
 best overcome wrong of any kind is mental, rational, hu- 
 mane, altruistic influence. Unless it can be shown that 
 there is more of this in competition than there is in com- 
 bination, it cannot be proved that to substitute the one for 
 the other would lessen the wrong. A little thought, too, 
 would probably cause many of us to conclude that of the 
 two, that which is influenced most by the mental is combina- 
 tion. It is a form of cooperation, and cooperation is always 
 a later result of civilization — a later effect upon it of that 
 knowledge, calculation, and sympathy that are associated 
 with mental development — than is competition. It is not 
 logical, therefore, to suppose that the latter will prove a 
 cure for that which is non-mental in the former. The more 
 likely result will be just the opposite. 
 
 In connection with this subject, too, we should not neg- 
 lect to recall that which always needs to be borne in mind, 
 namely, the impossibility of correcting any abuse that de- 
 mands a mental and psychical remedy by any mere change 
 in external material conditions. The evils that reveal 
 themselves in any form of business cannot be satisfactorily 
 corrected by mere laws. The methods used are largely in- 
 effective unless they reach the innermost source of character 
 in those who do the business. This fact, indeed, is recog- 
 nized, indirectly, though not directly by the only men who 
 seem to place their chief reliance upon a change in laws. 
 
304 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 No argument in favor of substituting competition for com- 
 bination seems quite as convincing to them as the supposi- 
 tion that competition will tend to lessen the influence of 
 individuals who have come to be capitalists, or, at least, to 
 have the control of capital. This argtunent has a basis of 
 truth. But whether it will benefit or injure the community 
 to lessen the influence of these individuals depends entirely 
 upon their personal character. A certain number of the 
 indolent, ignorant, thoughtless, and, for this reason, inefiB- 
 cient, may believe that the very fact that a man has reached 
 a position where he has control of capital indicates that he 
 has taken an unfair advantage and pushed himself into the 
 place that he occupies by pushing others out of it. In some 
 cases this is true. But it is true very rarely. Capitalists 
 who have money to invest do not elect a man of this kind 
 to control it. As a rule, he is one who by diligence, self- 
 denial, economy, intelligence, and alertness has shown both 
 mental and moral qualities that make him superior to his 
 fellows, and therefore entitled to a superior position. Not 
 only does his own corporation need him there, but often 
 also the whole community. 
 
 That this is so is a fact of which the slightest knowledge 
 of conditions in our own country, either in the past or in the 
 immediate present, ought to convince any candid mind. 
 Our " War of the Revolution," was conducted to a successful 
 issue, and the form of our government made that of a re- 
 public rather than a monarchy, owing mainly to the influence 
 of George Washington; and he was, at that time, the most 
 conspicuous, if not the wealthiest, capitalist of the country. 
 An analogous result has been exemplified at almost every 
 critical stage of our nation's history. Not a few, but prob- 
 ably the majority, of those who in private or public life have 
 successfully advocated needed changes or reforms have 
 been men who, like Theodore Roosevelt, have inherited or 
 acquired a fortune large enough to enable them to support 
 their families without the need of salaries dependent upon 
 the continuance of popular favor. This is not the only 
 reason, but it is one very material reason, why they have 
 dared to defy party dictation and public clamor until they 
 have overcome opposition. Everything that is good in this 
 world seems to start in a good individual's initiative; and, 
 therefore, everything that conditions this individual so that 
 he can act freely is an agency for good. At the opening of 
 
CAPITALISTS AND LABORERS 305 
 
 the great war of 191 7, hardly one college student who was 
 a capitalist in his own right, or the son of a capitalist, failed 
 to enlist almost instantly for service at the front, while 
 thousands who were too old to do this gratuitously placed 
 at the disposal of the Government all their savings, salaries, 
 and services. Thousands upon thousands of intelligent 
 working-men who were not capitalists did the same. All 
 honor to them! But it is, nevertheless, true that while the 
 general action of the capitalists tended to make the war for 
 the liberty of the ordinary man a success, the action of a 
 considerable number of the working, men tended to make it 
 a failure. See the note at the bottom of the page. ^» 
 
 What has been said of the relative influence of capitalists 
 and laborers is true as applied especially to interests that are 
 distinctly social, domestic, educational, and religious. Sixty 
 or seventy years ago, when manufacturing on a large scale 
 in our country first began, provision for the safety, comfort, 
 and health of the operatives was included, as a rule, in 
 every plan for a new industrial center, and in proportion to 
 the knowledge of the day with reference to the requirements 
 of such subjects, was consistently carried out. Many now 
 living can recall the care that was exercised in Lowell and 
 other manufacturing centers of New England in the con- 
 struction of factories and homes, in the provisions made for 
 the schooling of the children, and the welcome extended to 
 the operatives by the churches. It is a fact that, in later 
 years, many of these conditions have been changed for less 
 favorable ones. But they have been changed not so much 
 through the influence of the capitalists as of the labor- 
 ers. The former had made the conditions so inviting that, 
 in connection with the extension of business due to their 
 sagacity, the crowds of laborers, mostly foreigners, that 
 flocked to the manufacturing centers overflowed the quarters 
 that had been made to accommodate a smaller number, and 
 accepted without protest those that were inadequate. Only 
 after the capitalists had learned this fact from the acquies- 
 cence of the laborers, were some of the former tempted to 
 let the latter live as they chose. Very many employers,' 
 
 "> A report issued by the National Industrial Conference Board shows 
 that during the six months' period from April 6 to October 6, I9i7,a£ter 
 the opening of the war, there were strikes in 2521 establishments, that a 
 total of 283,402 men were idle, and that 6,285,519 days of production 
 were lost thereby. 
 
306 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 however, have not yielded to this temptation. They are 
 still making efforts, often at great expense to themselves, 
 to better the sanitary and social conditions of those whom 
 they employ. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of 
 factories and villages in the country, built by them, where the 
 provisions for safety in the handling of machinery, and for 
 comfort in homes, would not and could not have been con- 
 ceived by associations of the laborers themselves. To secure 
 such results, these laborers would not have had sufficient 
 scientific knowledge or familiarity with domestic appliances. 
 Nor is it true that these arrangements are for the purpose of 
 extorting money from the operatives. It is largely for the 
 purpose of attracting to the works a set of operatives who 
 are self-respecting and doing their best to prevent the 
 physical from outweighing the mental. The author himself 
 has visited a model city built by the United States Steel 
 Corporation, where, in yards, fifty by a hundred and fifty 
 feet in size, sodded and planted with trees and vines, fronted 
 by a cemented street and backed by a cemented alley, many 
 hundreds of single and apartment fireproof cottages, fitted 
 with all modern appliances in the way of electricity, heating, 
 and bathing, can be rented for one half what is demanded 
 for frame cottages of the same size in a much less cleanly 
 and attractive environment of the adjacent large city. Of 
 course, it is true that such results are also owing to the 
 growth of public sentiment as affected by the discussions of 
 earnest reformers and the agitations of organized laborers. 
 But it is equally true that the theoretical conceptions of 
 these latter could not be carried to a successful practical 
 issue, were it not for the sympathetic cooperation and, in 
 some cases, the intelligent superintendence of some of those 
 who possess capital. (See footnote " on page 245). 
 
 This subject is of particular interest at the present time 
 in our country because of an effort to extend to agricultural 
 districts, which it is proposed to bring within reach of sol- 
 diers returning from the war, the same kind of benefits, 
 material and intellectual, that have done so much to pro- 
 mote prosperity in manufacturing and business districts. 
 The idea is to have a central farm managed by an agricul- 
 tural expert with sufficient money at his disposal to purchase 
 all modern implements of farming, the use of which imple- 
 ments shall be included in the rights pertaining to the owners 
 of the adjoining farms. One can scarcely over-estimate the 
 
HONOR DUE TO CAPITALISTS 307 
 
 advantages of this arrangement. No better illustration 
 could be afforded of the result of an endeavor to prevent 
 the physical from outweighing the mental as applied to the 
 business of farming. 
 
 The truth is that, to do the work that the world demands, 
 it is necessary to enlist in its service all the means of mental 
 influence and all the sources of mental ability that can any- 
 where be obtained. Because some men who have wealth 
 are mean to excess, is no proof that all or that the majority 
 are so. The very fact that there is such a thing as civiliza- 
 tion, and that year by year its conditions are becoming 
 more and more humane, furnishes a proof that those who 
 have been prominent, and leaders in its advances, have 
 themselves been animated by humane motives. Indeed, 
 great captains of industry deserve frequently as much com- 
 mendation for their victories achieved for social betterment, 
 comfort, and enjoyment as does the hero of a battle field for 
 that which has added to national welfare. The reason why 
 the characters of men like these are deserving of admiration, 
 their advice of regard, and their example of imitation, is be- 
 cause of the mental traits that they manifest, — not merely 
 those that are intellectual, like foresight and sagacity, but 
 those that are volition'al and emotional, like industry and 
 public-spirit. An individual or a community that honors 
 and follows such men is putting the mental uppermost, and 
 deserves the advance in prosperity which is the legitimate 
 result of doing this. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, tnere are those who do not 
 recognize this fact. 3° Some of them are ignorant of the 
 requirements needed for the efficient management of busi- 
 ness. Some of them aVe unreasonably and, now and then, 
 temperamentally jealous of those who have succeeded in it. 
 
 3»"A valued contemporary tells us that democracy instinctively and 
 inevitably distrusts competence and success. . . . Suppose no great 
 war had happened. . . . Suppose a President had given cabinet port- 
 folios to the chairman of the Bethlehem Steel Co., a member of the firm 
 of J. P. Mqrgan & Co., and the President of the Anaconda Copper Com- 
 pany! Only two or three years ago the Senate . . . had the hardest 
 kind of work to persuade itself that a man with Wall Street banking 
 experience might be as serviceable in a banking board as a country 
 editor." — Leslie's Weekly. That such statements can be made of condi- 
 tions in our country furnishes one of the worst indictments that could be 
 brought against it. The tendency indicated is certainly one which all 
 intelligent people should resist. 
 
308 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 Many, however — and let us hope the majority — seemto be 
 misled by what, at bottom, is a praiseworthy sentiment 
 inspired by genuine love for humanity. They say that all 
 men are equal; that, therefore, one man should be con- 
 sidered as good as another, even to the extent of allowing 
 him to exercise the same sort of control over his fellows. To 
 say nothing of the first of these statements, the last two 
 certainly need to be reconsidered. They ignore the fact 
 that men are born with minds that have different aptitudes, 
 and, as they grow up, are subjected to different influences of 
 education and experience; and that these develop in them 
 different mental possibilities; and that, therefore, each of 
 them needs to be treated and can be treated as well as the 
 others and yet, at the same time, for a different reason and 
 in a different way. You can treat a manservant and a 
 maidservant, a lawyer and a laboring man, equally well; and 
 yet treat them differently. If you do not, probably neither 
 of them will like you. And, again, if you do not treat differ- 
 ently an intelligent and experienced superintendent in a 
 factory from one who is a mere beginner, it is certain that 
 the services of neither of them will benefit you. 
 
 To go deeper into the subject, the truth is that equality 
 is not affirmable of men considered physically alone. Some 
 men are always physically bigger and stronger than others; 
 and this evidence of inequality extends to everything con- 
 nected with their physical nature or surroundings, — to their 
 physical brain, memory, energy, and to the position, in- 
 fluence or wealth that these give them. When we refer to 
 equality, we refer to a result not of body or form, but of mind 
 or spirit, — to that which is meant when it is said, sometimes, 
 that "all men are equal in the sight of God," and which is 
 aptly described in the American "Declaration of Independ- 
 ence" as a right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness, " — to that which gives a man a consciousness of being 
 free, so far as this is possible without interfering with others, 
 to obtain what he desires. 
 
 It needs to be noticed also — and, it is in accordance with 
 the theories of this book — that what gives the majority of 
 men the most consciousness of happiness is that which en- 
 ables them to fulfill not lower and physical, but higher and 
 mental desire, — is not money, but such things as friendship, 
 love, education, social recognition, business prominence, 
 literary achievement, etc. This is another fact ignored by 
 
HAPPINESS IN FULFILLING HIGHER DESIRE 309 
 
 those whose conceptions of equality and of the happiness 
 brought by it do not include that which is mental and spirit- 
 ual. Of course, those of whom this can be affirmed are not 
 always aware that they are ignoring the mental and the 
 spiritual. Some of them are more likely, perhaps, than 
 many other people to claim to be particularly rational, 
 htimanitarian, and idealistic. Their theories, they say, are 
 founded, in an exceptional degree, upon a recognition of the 
 claims of human brotherhood. But what do they mean by 
 brotherhood? If their conception of this be based upon 
 what a man is physically, and their conception of its benefits 
 upon what can be done to improve merely his physical con- 
 dition, they need to be reminded that there is no physical 
 brotherhood except among those who have the same physi- 
 cal father or mother; and that the brotherhood that is not 
 physical must be psychical and be based upon a union of 
 thought and purpose brought about among men by an 
 endeavor on the part of each individual to prevent the 
 bodily and material within himself from outweighing the 
 mental and spiritual which connects him with his fellows 
 (see pages 20 and 21). 
 
 Unfortunately, this psychical conception of brotherhood 
 is not the conception of those of whom we have been speak- 
 ing. To them the chief evils from which a man suffers seem to 
 be due to his not possessing enough of that which ministers 
 to physical and material desire. Often, indeed, these people 
 attribute such evils solely to the fact that the man has not 
 enough money. They very naturally, therefore, draw the 
 conclusion that the right remedy for his troubles is, so far 
 as possible, to take the money of the country away from 
 individuals who, as a rule, have earned it through hard 
 work and saved it through self-denial, and distribute it, or 
 the control of it, in equal shares among the whole populace 
 without regard to the diligence with which any one has 
 labored or the conscientiousness with which he has econo- 
 mized, — in other words, without regard to the way in which 
 anyone has fulfilled or not fulfilled the promptings of higher 
 rational desire. There are three different methods through 
 which three different classes of theorists suppose that this 
 result can be attained, — through communism, through 
 socialism, and through anarchism; and there are reasons 
 founded on a knowledge of human nature why many 
 thinkers believe that each of the three is essentially inimicd 
 
310 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 to civilization. Communism seeks to abolish individual 
 ownership, — as applied always to one's own business, prop- 
 erty, and home, and, sometimes, as applied to his wife and 
 children. In its extreme and exclusive form, it is too im- 
 practical to find many advocates, and needs to be considered 
 here so far only as it may be connected, as it is in some 
 minds, with socialism. This system seeks to abolish in- 
 dividual management, and, sometimes, also ownership, 
 though only indirectly and so far as this interferes with 
 management. The avowed purpose of the system is to 
 socialize industry, — to put public utilities, like railways, 
 telegraphs, etc., under government control, and even 
 private enterprise, sometimes, under the control of the 
 laborers who further its achievement. Anarchy is the 
 opposite of socialism, it would, if possible, abolish both 
 management and government so far as either is authorized 
 or organized, the conception being that all community ills 
 are due to the government's concerning itself about in- 
 dividual ills, — as in what men term social, political, and 
 industrial rights; and that matters of this sort and the evils 
 connected with them will adjust themselves through apply- 
 ing what the reader of this book will understand to be 
 meant when it is termed the merely physical and material 
 remedy of abolishing government. 
 
 It certainly seems as if a little foresight joined with a 
 little knowledge of human nature ought to make one recog- 
 nize that none of these systems could secure the ends 
 sought by their advocates. The motto of the socialists is 
 "From each according to his ability, to each according to 
 his need." This is admirable when supposed to express the 
 principle in accordance with which the individual should 
 deal with the community; but it is the opposite when 
 supposed to express the principle in accordance with which 
 the community should deal with the individual. The 
 logical inference of the latter from the statement "to each 
 according to his need" is that the more that one can show 
 that he needs, the more he can get or deserve to get. How, 
 from this conception, could one derive any stimulus to 
 work? And how, where there were no stimulus of this sort 
 could a man disinclined to work be induced to work ? If , in a 
 community ruled by socialistic methods, there were any 
 considerable number of men who were incorrigibly lazy — 
 in other words men in whom rational and altruistic desire 
 
SOCIALISM AND ANARCHISM 3" 
 
 had not overcome bodily and physical desire sufficiently 
 to make them willing to do their share of the labor neces- 
 sary in order to promote and continue the general welfare, 
 what would happen? What but this? — that the agencies 
 of civilization would cease to function? Sufficient coal 
 would not be mined, sufficient grain would not be sown or 
 harvested, sufficient supplies of other kinds would not be 
 provided or transported, to keep the people as a whole from 
 freezing, starving, and dying. Then what would happen? 
 Then the men whose higher desires had not been so in- 
 fluenced psychically in home, school, church, or society as to 
 recognize their rational and humane obligations to others 
 would have to be compelled to work. Society, in its own self- 
 defence, would be obliged to make them do this, and, in such 
 circumstances, how could there continue to be any socialistic 
 management on the part of the workers themselves? 
 
 The only conclusion that seems natural and logical is that 
 the condition would soon develop slaves on the one hand, 
 and tyrannical slave drivers on the other. 
 
 Anarchism, on the contrary, would bring plenty of oppor- 
 tunities to develop individual initiative and stimulus; but 
 these would tend chiefly toward the fulfillment of egoistic 
 desires. The conception expressed in the phrase "every 
 man for himself" could not prove a success except so far as 
 non-selfish, rational, and altruistic desires in men had come 
 to outweigh their bodily and selfish desires. When this 
 had been done, such psychical conditions would prevail as 
 would necessarily involve concessions to one's fellows and 
 would demand a community of action with them which of 
 itself would constitute the beginning, and lead to the con- 
 summation, of the most of that which is meant by govern- 
 ment. Otherwise, where only physical desires were in 
 control of men and there were no external government to 
 restrain them from opposing one another, individuals would 
 have to protect themselves against interference, and the 
 strong would soon learn that the most effective way of 
 doing this would be by putting an end to the lives of their 
 opponents. Just as socialism seems to lead logically to 
 slavery, anarchism seems to lead to slaughter; and one 
 would not go far astray, were he to attribute one, at least, 
 of the underlying reasons for each result to the fatal mistake, 
 when forming plans for the betterment of human condi- 
 tions, of supposing the comfort of the physical body to be the 
 
312 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 object of first importance, and the fulfillment of physical 
 desire the attainment of chief consideration. 
 
 According to the philosophy of Herbert Spencer, as un- 
 folded in Chapter XXIII. of his First Principles, the results 
 of development which he applied to all the physical phe- 
 nomena of nature include two different processes, — one 
 of growth and the other of decay. After a time — of £eoiis 
 of time in some cases — the crude elements which gradu- 
 ally acquire greater concentration, completeness, beauty, 
 and fruitfulness begin to develop the sotirces of their own 
 destruction. Dissolution sets in, and, finally, everything 
 resolves itself once more into its elementary conditions. 
 In the early stages only, does progress indicate improve- 
 ment. In the latter it indicates deterioration. This is 
 exactly what a number of thoughtful minds recognize to 
 be indicated by many of the movements that, in our own 
 age, have been termed progressive. Instead, for instance, 
 of improving that form of democracy in which most of our 
 countrymen believe, they have merely revealed the fact that 
 this form carries with it the seeds of its own decay, and is 
 hastening the time when, out of its once inspiring possibilities 
 it shall reinstate some of the worst effects of despotism. 
 
 Notice, however, that according to what was said on 
 pages 98 and 99 this process of deterioration, so far as 
 there is any justification for Spencer's theory, applies to 
 only physical development. In other words, the process 
 applies only to those methods of so-called reform that are 
 the outgrowths of endeavors to do no more than change 
 merely physical conditions, — to do no more than can be 
 done by such methods, to be specific, as are ascribed in the 
 preceding paragraph to communism, socialism, and anarch- 
 ism. Only so far as the methods used have a psychical 
 aim and are influenced not so much to acquiescence in 
 physical desires as to resistance of them with the intent of 
 subordinating their deteriorating tendencies, can the mental 
 energies of men be expected to turn these tendencies into 
 agencies working for human advancement. This is to say 
 that the only possibility of preventing deteriorative mate- 
 rial changes from overcoming spiritual progress lies in the 
 recognition, which always takes place first in the individual 
 consciousness, of the allegiance which one owes to mental — 
 in the sense of rational , humane, and unselfish — desire. This 
 allegiance involves a fulfillment of obligation both to oneself 
 
LOYALTY TO PSYCHICAL REQUIREMENTS 313 
 
 and to others. As regards himself, a man must often — in 
 fact, invariably, as a habit — deny and sometimes sacrifice 
 his own lower desires, in order to prevent them from out- 
 weighing the higher. As regards other people, a man must 
 often deny and sometimes sacrifice the expression of even 
 his own mental desires in case he perceives clearly that the 
 learning, experience, and ability of others give them the 
 right to be supposed to have an ideal that is higher in 
 mental and rational quality than his own. This inference 
 follows upon what was said on page 6 to the effect that 
 mental desires differ in quality, some being more nearly 
 unadulterated and entirely mental than are others. Just as 
 in times of conflict or war between nations men feel under 
 peculiar obligations to be loyal to the ruler of their own 
 country, even though they may not have complete con- 
 fidence in his judgment, so in times of conflict of any kind 
 that requires mental efficiency one often feels under peculiar 
 obligations to be loyal to some mental leader. This latter 
 is a form of loyalty to psychical requirements the demands 
 and limits of which — as of everything that must be deter- 
 mined by thinking — are not easy to define; but it involves, 
 now and then, especially when one is face to face with those 
 who, for any reason, may be presumed to have a right to 
 mental authority, a subordination of that which seems most 
 rational, non-selfish, and hvraiane in oneself to that which 
 seems to indicate still more of these qualities in the character 
 of another. 
 
 The conclusion reached here corresponds very closely to 
 that of religion of every true kind — a conclusion that has 
 often caused it to be reviled by professed unbelievers. 
 These revile it on the ground that it tries to cause men to be 
 satisfied with the conditions in which they find themselves. 
 But this is not true. It tries to cause them to accept these 
 conditions, and then to make the best of them. If, while 
 striving to do this, they fail, owing to the actions of others, 
 or to their own lack of ability, to secure everything for which 
 they had hoped, they certainly will not fail to secure the re- 
 sults of the kind of discipline for which all life is chiefly 
 worthwhile, — that of the mental and spiritual nature, which 
 must often be obtained through the exercise of self-denial 
 and self-sacrifice. According to this view of the subject, it 
 is difficult to perceive how the man always placed where cir- 
 cumstances of inheritance or ability keep him at the top of 
 
314 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 the social organism is much more favored than the one who is 
 kept at the bottom. This is the teaching of religion; but it 
 is well to notice also that, as in the case of everything that 
 is religiously true, it is at the same time the teaching of 
 philosophy. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 KEEPING THE MIND'S DESIRES UPPERMOST IN STIMULATION 
 
 BY THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIVIDUAL INITIATIVE AND 
 
 LEADERSHIP 
 
 The Duty of Government to Afford Men Opportunities to Give Ex- 
 pression to the Desires of the Mind — Application of this Principle 
 to Levying Taxes — Developing Enterprise — Granting of Patents, 
 Copyrights, and Franchises — To Rights Obtained by Purchase or 
 Inheritance— rPhysical and Mental Desires for One's Heirs — Con- 
 tributions to Art, Science, and Life by the Inheritors of a Small 
 Competence — Demoralizing Effects upon a Country of Thinkers 
 who Work only for Pay — Menace to Public Welfare of those In- 
 heriting Great Wealth — The Law against Entail — Concerning the 
 Principle Underlying a Graded Inheritance Tax — Good Govern- 
 ment Secures for Each Individual Liberty to Think and to Act 
 without Undue Interference — To Governments of this Kind, most 
 Modem Progress is Attributable — Also Moral, as well as Mental 
 Development — Different Lessons Drawn from Certain Occurrences 
 Connected with the Recent War — Democracy as a Remedy for the 
 Causes of the War — A League or External Organization of Demo- 
 cratic Nations to Enforce Peace — A Practical Ethical Inference that 
 can Pit either the Possibility or the Impossibility of Realizing, at 
 Present, the Ideals Underlying such Methods — Conclusion. 
 
 IN view of what has been said of the importance to the 
 community of men of exceptional intelligence, and 
 efficiency, that method of government seems wisest 
 which interferes the least with the influence and the means 
 of influence which have been obtained by a man as the 
 natural and legitimate result of his own ability and industry. 
 Honestly and humanely exercised, these traits invariably 
 indicate mental superiority; and those who acknowledge 
 and accept this in another merely manifest in their relations 
 with him their own desire to prevent the physical from out- 
 weighing the mental. Any action of government that tends 
 to discredit or displace him for no other reason than be- 
 cause he has been successful, would often be as detrimental 
 
 315 
 
3l6 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 to the interests of the public as in the middle of a great war 
 to act in the same way for a similar reason toward a great 
 military commander. It seems to be the plain duty of the 
 government to afford such a man, so far as it is compatible 
 with the general welfare, every opportunity for stimulus 
 and development. These are never afforded where oflScial 
 force is used to repress energy that is unofficial. Few 
 heads will be tempted to emerge from the common level of 
 humanity where it is known beforehand that their only wel- 
 come will be a club. In effect this is exactly what follows 
 upon laws that discoiurage success, and lessen inducements to 
 enterprise. Everyone knows, or ought to know, that those 
 who contribute time, energy, or money to new undertakings 
 do so often at great risk. Many mercantile and manufac- 
 turing industries do not pay expenses for years after they 
 have been started, and some never pay them. Few original 
 stockholders of any of our railways do not lose most of the 
 money that they put into them. When the first railway 
 between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans was begun, hardly 
 anyone aside from its promoters believed that it could be 
 completed; and no one even of them knew whether it could 
 be made self-supporting. It is to the persistent faith and 
 foresight of men who are not deterred by hazards like these 
 that our country owes its great commercial and industrial 
 development. After shops and factories became crowded 
 with customers, after farms, mining camps, and cities came 
 to occupy what was once termed "the Great American 
 Desert," values increased enormously, and great wealth came 
 to some of those to whom these developments were due. 
 But was this wealth undeserved? No matter how selfishly 
 those who earned it may have wrought — ^but this was true 
 of few because the most of them had been exceedingly faith- 
 ful to an ideal — the wealth of any one of them could form 
 only an infinitesimal part of that which had been divided 
 among thousands of others. 
 
 The same principle applies in all cases. There is always 
 need of enterprise. A government is unwise whose laws 
 discourage this. Scarcely anything checks initiative more 
 effectively than to penalize by an extra tax. or to prohibit by 
 confiscation, dividends in excess of an ordinary percentage. 
 These dividends are not always unmerited. They are often 
 merely just. A large percentage of gain for a few years 
 seems needed in order to make up for the loss of income 
 
GOVERNMENT ENCOURAGEMENT OF ENTERPRISE 317 
 
 in the past, at the time when the enterprise started, and that 
 which still threatens loss in the future in case there come 
 business depression. Nor is there always justice in laws 
 proportioning dividends to such as afford a fair percent- 
 age upon the cost of an industry when first established. 
 A railway that has surrounded itself with cities where once 
 there was only a desert has made itself of much more value 
 than it possessed on the day after it had been constructed. 
 The builders of it have a right to claim a percentage on the 
 value that they have created. 
 
 This last sentence suggests that it is important to bear in 
 mind that it is not property-value alone that is increased 
 as the result of leaving individual energy as unhampered as 
 feasible by government action. Still more important, per- 
 haps, is the influence of this course in enabling men of 
 ability to open for those who have not yet begun to accu- 
 mulate property the door of opportunity for continued and 
 lucrative employment. The world needs conditions that 
 shall not only impel enterprising men to work, but shall 
 place them in a position where, through exerting legitimate 
 financial and industrialinfluence, they can induce other peo- 
 ple to work. The masses need leaders, and no way of deter- 
 mining who their leaders shall be has yet been discovered 
 equal to that furnished by conditions where opportunities 
 are given for subordinates to work their own way up from the 
 lower ranks to the higher. When those who do this reach 
 the highest rank, they know what needs to be done, and are 
 usually prepared to treat with sympathy and justice any 
 men circumstanced exactly as they themselves were in the 
 past. When this is the case, the more wealth and influence 
 they possess, the better it is for the community. 
 
 In view of these facts, it is evident that there are many 
 directions in which it is in the power of the government to 
 benefit the community through encouraging and increas- 
 ing individual initiative and energy. This may be done 
 by means of a patent, issued by the government, which al- 
 lows a man, or those to whom he delegates his authority, 
 the sole right to manufacture an article which he has in- 
 vented; or to a copyright which allows a similar privilege 
 to one who is the author of a book or a drama; or to a 
 franchise which allows an exclusive possession of property or 
 exercise of business in a certain place, as in laying and using 
 the tracks of a tramway or railway. In these and other 
 
3l8 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 similar ways a government acts wisely in making it worth 
 while for inventors, authors, corporations, or promoters to 
 spend time, energy, and money in providing for that which 
 shall add to the comfort, the instruction, the enjoyment, 
 and the prosperity of the people as a whole. In some cases, 
 it is right, too, that the privilege granted in this way should 
 not be perpetual; but, if not, the limitation should be clearly 
 announced when the privilege is given. 
 
 Similar principles apply to rights obtained either by pur- 
 chase or by inheritance. That which, before a copjrright, 
 patent, or franchise expires, is paid for purchase, is a part of 
 the reward received by the author, inventor, or promoter, 
 and often it could not be received at all, if the privileges that 
 the government had given one could not be transferred — 
 but, of course, under the limitations prescribed by law — to 
 another. It is the same with inheritance. Fully half of the 
 inspiration that underlies the persistent efforts of success- 
 ful men comes from the expectation of transmitting their 
 gains to their children. Only a bachelor usually retires ia 
 the prime of life on an annuity. That which prompts par- 
 ents who are responsible for bringing a child into the world 
 to seek to provide for his future comfort and welfare is one of 
 the noblest instincts of nature; and the laws of government 
 should recognize this fact. 
 
 Of course, there are certain people who carry what they 
 consider their devotion to the interests of their children or 
 descendants too far. They want to found a family, as it is 
 called, entailing upon their heirs, and sometimes upon only 
 one of them, to the impoverishment of the remainder, all the 
 financial privileges that they themselves enjoy. To judge 
 by the practical effects of their theories and actions, thejr 
 seem to desire chiefly to minister to the vanity of their 
 children, to justify them in living ostentatiously, to cause 
 them to occupy an aristocratic position in society, or to 
 insure them commercial or political prominence. It seems 
 clear that the fulfillment of purposes of this kind is some- 
 times detrimental to society because these are actuated by a 
 desire to secure success for oneself or others through that 
 which shall enable one to obtain a physical advantage over 
 his fellows. There are many people, however, and a much 
 larger nimiber of them, whose desire to leave money to their 
 family is actuated by no such purpose. What they want is 
 not to provide their children with the means of luxury, but 
 
BENEFIT OF INHERITED WEALTH 3 19 
 
 to rid them of being obliged to spend all the time and energy 
 of life in planning to supply physical necessities. In so far 
 as this is their desire, it is evidently mental. 
 
 The results of such a desire on the part of parents furnish 
 one of the most inspiring and important of the lessons of 
 history. No matter into what sphere of endeavor we look, 
 we shall find that the great majority of those to whom the 
 world is indebted for noteworthy intellectual and spiritual 
 achievements have been brought up by a parent who, often 
 at the expense of much self-denial, has been able to give his 
 children an education; and, now and then, been able also 
 to leave them enough to provide for their partial support 
 throughout life. This partial support seems sometimes 
 needed because it is difficult for people in general to appre- 
 ciate intellectual and spiritual aims, and all the more so in- 
 asmuch as, frequently, many years must be spent in youth 
 not in productive work, but merely in preparing for what 
 may be produced in the future. A poet, a painter, an his- 
 torian, an inventor, a scientist, or even a statesman must 
 often go through a long apprenticeship. Who is to furnish 
 him with food and lodging while he is doing this ? At this 
 stage in his career, it is sometimes impossible for him to 
 enter employments or to contend for prizes, or fellowships, 
 which, if received, might support him. As a rule, no one, 
 for the time being, can attend to his wants, if not his parents. 
 Even later in life, many a man of undoubted genius fails in 
 his efforts to cause his ability to be recognized. If he have 
 no money, he must earn it by labor that may leave him no 
 time or energy for the kind of work that accords with his 
 plans; or by labor that may oblige him to change the charac- 
 ter of these plans in order to conform them to the concep- 
 tions of those upon whom he is dependent for his support , 
 and often an endeavor to do this may cause him to adopt a 
 course which may and should result in making his career, in 
 every important sense of the term, a failure. 
 
 Probably no more demoralizing influences have ever 
 been exerted in the history of thought than those attending 
 the attempts of novelists, dramatists, artists, and political 
 leaders to earn a livelihood by wholly conforming their 
 message for the people to some popular demand or taste. 
 It would be difficult to conceive of a worse form of prostitu- 
 tion than that of mind or soul influenced to use d,ll its power 
 of thought an-d expression for the purpose of earning the 
 
320 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 price which a constituency, ignorant of truth, beauty, and 
 wholesomeness, or hostile to them, is willing to pay to those 
 who will ignore or misrepresent them. There are many 
 other lines of action in which it could be shown that people 
 who have saved for themselves, or have inherited from 
 others, enough money to enable them to do other work than 
 that needed in order to obtain a livelihood are of great 
 benefit to a community. To say no more, the community 
 needs their capital for its factories, shops, and railways, and 
 their subscriptions for its parks, playgrounds, schools, 
 churches, and hospitals. 
 
 At the same time, it is unfortunate to have the wealth of 
 a country accumulate in the hands of too few individuals, 
 especially if these be so disposed as to spend it solely or 
 mainly for their own benefit. They may "found families" 
 so influential, and with holdings in land or other property so 
 extensive, as virtually to establish a system of aristocracy 
 and serfdom. These conditions may interfere with every 
 interest of those surrounding them, not only industrial and 
 commercial, and so mainly physical, but educational and 
 religious, and so mainly psychical. Indeed, the same argu- 
 ment that leads one to conclude that it is wise to leave 
 wealth and the management of it at the disposal of one who 
 has proved that he knows how to use it to the advantage 
 both of himself and of others, may lead one to conclude that 
 it is unwise to leave it wholly at the disposal of a man who 
 has not proved this. Certain facts, too, might be cited to 
 confirm this conclusion. Some of the inheritors of great 
 wealth in our country have spent it so as to injure them- 
 selves and the community in which they live. They have 
 set examples and developed practices apparently actuated 
 solely by an aim to secure the gratification of physical desire. 
 Mental desire they have seemed to ignore. For the satis- 
 faction of appetite, they have substituted indulgence; for 
 comfort, luxury; for occupation, pastime; for hospitality, 
 ostentatious extravagance; and for pleasure, demoralizing 
 vice. It sometimes seems almost essential, in order to keep 
 civilization from destruction, to limit the amount that such 
 people inherit. How this can be done in such ways as not to 
 interfere with personal liberty of action and the stimulus 
 derivable from it, is difficult to determine. The best way — 
 the way conforming to the methods suggested as applicable 
 to other abuses mentioned in this book — would be, of course, 
 
LAW OF ENTAIL 321 
 
 through the exertion of some psychical influence. At differ- 
 ent times in England, the father of a family who appeared 
 to have an excess of money has been induced to exchange a 
 large part of it for a hereditary title of nobility. An analo- 
 gous arrangement, made entirely different in form so as to 
 accord with the spirit and character of our institutions, 
 might be devised by some ingenious statesman for our own 
 country. Or, through the influence of the press, the pulpit, 
 or other social or religious agencies, there might be created 
 a virtually universal public sentiment against bequests of 
 large personal inheritances. One can imagine a state of 
 popular feeling by which these inheritances would be so 
 disapproved that any man who wished to preserve the 
 respect of his fellows for himself or his family woidd resist 
 the temptation to go against the feeling. 
 
 There are those, however, who think, that, in the direction 
 that has been indicated, something further is needed than 
 the exertion of merely moral influence. This conception 
 has found successful expression in our country through the 
 abolishment by the government of the European law' of 
 entail. In accordance with this law an entire estate was 
 formerly made to descend to one member of the family who 
 thus became a great aristocrat, possessed of suflScient 
 wealth to support his station. In countries where there is 
 no such law, and the money, in case there be no will, is di- 
 vided equally among the children, the theory is that these 
 and their descendants, as they multiply, will gradually 
 divide among themselves even a large fortune in such a way 
 that no one of them will possess a sufficient amount to be a 
 menace to the common welfare. 
 
 Another method that has been applied by our State and 
 Federal governments is to impose upon the heirs of large 
 estates a graded inheritance tax — a levy in which the per- 
 centage of impost is made larger and larger in the degree 
 in which the amount of inheritance is increased. The objec- 
 tion to this form of tax is, of course, mainly in its tendency. 
 If, through the exercise of physical force, the government 
 can take away a part of one's inheritance, why, through 
 an application of the same principle, cannot all of it be 
 taken away? The only agency that can prevent this is 
 an influence that is psychically exerted through non-selfish 
 and altruistic rationality. But why cannot this form of 
 influence be exerted directly through individuals who them- 
 
322 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 selves are prompted by higher desire, rather than indirectly 
 through government which is a physical agency sometimes 
 representing, but sometimes also, owing to an absence of a 
 feeling of individual responsibility, misrepresenting " this 
 desire? In the former case, there would be no necessity for 
 physical force, nor any danger that the exercise of it on the 
 part of ignorant officials or self-seeking demagogues might 
 carry the principle involved too far. In this case, because 
 influenced psychically, those who had accumulated wealth 
 might be led to expend a part of it, before dying, upon works 
 of benevolence intended to benefit all; and the heirs of these 
 would have impressed upon their minds the importance and 
 necessity, in order to continue the popularity and prosperity 
 of themselves and their families, of entering seriously into 
 the work of the world, and of expecting little success except 
 as a result of their own thoughtful industry. It is simply a 
 fact that what the community needs most as applied to such 
 evils as the possession, on the part of some, of too great 
 wealth, is a more deep and full belief in the influence of 
 higher desire working up and through rational, non-selfish, 
 and humane individual action. So far as this action could 
 be influenced through the agency of external law applied to 
 the physical conditions involved, this law would prove 
 beneficial; but so far as the action could not be so influenced, 
 the law might prove, in the long run, of no permanent or 
 universal benefit whatever. 
 
 There are other subjects that could be discussed here in 
 this connection, but those that have been mentioned will 
 suffice to illustrate the principle involved in all of them. 
 It is this, — ^that government was made for man, not man 
 for government; and, therefore, that success in its methods 
 depends upon the degree in which it leaves each individual 
 subjected to it free to think and to act without undue inter- 
 ference. No one can hold in place the springs of a mechani- 
 cal toy and expect it to accomplish that for which it was 
 planned. Much less can success attend upon efforts de- 
 signed to influence analogously the springs of energy in the 
 mind. In circumstances in which thought needs to work 
 independently, such a course, after a few generations, will 
 be almost certain to bring aboiit a national condition such 
 as is ascribed to some of the countries of Asia in which 
 spontaneous methods of thinking and investigating have 
 been supplanted entirely by those of memory and tradition. 
 
POLITICAL LIBERTY AND INVENTIVE GENIUS 323 
 
 As a fact, it would not be difficult to show that almost all 
 of the great discoveries and inventions of modern times, — 
 those of steam, artificial and natural gas, electricity, anses- 
 thetics, aseptic surgery, the railway, the steamship, the iron 
 ship, the sewing machine, the reaping machine, the thrashing 
 machine, the farm tractor, the printing press, the linotype, 
 the wire and wireless telegraph and telephone, the phono- 
 graph, the photograph, the moving picture, the submarine, 
 the aeroplane — have made their first appearance among 
 people whose governments have left them comparatively 
 free to develop themselves according to their own desires. 
 Indeed, neither territorial size nor military strength seems 
 to have played any large r6le in making nations intellec- 
 tually prominent. The civil liberty to which this latter 
 prominence has been attributable has, in some cases, been 
 occasioned by the very smallness and comparative weak- 
 ness of the state; and, in other cases, by the lack of power in 
 the government to overcome the aggressive independence 
 of the citizen. The former condition prevailed in ancient 
 Palestine and Greece, and in comparatively modern times 
 has characterized the Italian republics, the States of Ger- 
 many preceding their union into an empire, and Switzer- 
 land, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands; and 
 the latter condition has for many years been more or less 
 characteristic of France, Great Britain, and America. 
 
 It is not merely in the directions just indicated, that 
 government interference may retard and prevent individual 
 development. The same effect may be produced in educa- 
 tional, literary, artistic, moral, and religious directions. 
 Influenced by such interference, all agencies of thought or 
 expression may gradually be perverted so as to cultivate 
 regard and admiration for physical and covetous as con- 
 trasted with rational and non-selfish ideals. The very streets 
 and parks of a city that is the capital of a government given 
 to such interference come to be filled with public monuments, 
 some of them almost as heavy as a battleship and as high 
 as a church steeple, erected to men who, according to their 
 own confessions and the acknowledgment of their most 
 loyal biographers, have attained their ends wholly through 
 physical methods, through tramping down the natural 
 rights of others, and the right also that in their own con- 
 science is trying to protest against duplicity, injustice, and 
 bloodshed. Where this is the case, the people, no matter 
 
324 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 how exceptionally well educated as a whole, or supplied 
 with leaders distinguished for the accuracy and breadth of 
 their scholarship, will_, all of them, begin to have a tendency 
 to manifest characteristics different in form but the same in 
 effect as those do who, in certain ages and countries, have 
 been treated as slaves, and, because of this treatment, are 
 not expected to be, as a class, truthful, honest, or chaste. 
 A crippled moral development furnishes the only possible 
 explanation that can be given for the fact that, in certain 
 places in our own age, in times of war, hardly a single voice 
 has been raised against the wanton destruction of vineyards, 
 orchards, houses, towns, churches, libraries, museums filled 
 with works of art and hospitals crowded with the wounded, 
 or against other forms of injustice and cruelty, — not the 
 least the separation and deportation of thousands from 
 their homes, notwithstanding the certainty that many of 
 them would die from exposure and starvation. These are 
 deeds that no man whose conscience was not perverted 
 could fail to consider or to condemn as wrong. We need 
 not dispute about their being contrary to modem interna- 
 tional agreements or laws ! Two thousand years ago, Cicero, 
 a senator of Rome, which was by no means the most htmiane 
 of the warring nations of his time, gave not only his own 
 opinion but the opinion of his countrymen with reference 
 to them. Near the end of Book First, of his De Officiis, as 
 translated by C. R. Edmonds, he declared, after discussing 
 the treatment of those with whom a nation is at war, that 
 "some things are partly so disgraceful and partly so crim- 
 inal in their nature that a wise man would not commit 
 them even to save his country . . . nor would his country 
 undertake them to serve herself." 
 
 The clear inference from what has been said is that the 
 one thing necessary in order to promote moral progress 
 through the action of national government is to encourage 
 legislation that shall lessen the control of men through ex- 
 ternal physical force and increase reliance upon their own 
 self-control as influenced by psychical, non-selfish, humane 
 rationality. In the opinion of many, this is the most im- 
 portant of the lessons taught the world through the agency 
 of the late war. When it began, the officials and the com- 
 mon people of many parts of Europe were at one in believ- 
 ing that the Americans especially, because they had not 
 been trained to obey the authority of physical force, would 
 
POLITICAL LIBERTY AND MORALITY 325 
 
 not fight, if individually they could be made to think it too 
 dangerous; that, no matter what the provocation, they would 
 never, as a nation, declare war ; would never enlist for service 
 in it; would never subject themselves to training for it; 
 would never exercise the financial and personal self-denial 
 and sacrifice necessary in order to obtain efficiency in it; and, 
 if they succeeded in sending to Europe a limited number of 
 troops, that these, in the few months that could be devoted 
 to the purpose, could not be prepared to do anything except 
 run away when they saw the enemy approaching. Noth- 
 ing, probably, ever afforded or could afford greater surprise 
 to the latter than the generosity in subscribing, the prompt- 
 ness in enlisting, the alertness in apprehending, the quick- 
 ness in learning, and the efficiency in executing, which, when 
 the practical test came, were manifested by those whom 
 American methods had trained to individual initiative. Very 
 singularly, however, quite a number in our own country 
 have failed to recognize the real significance of all this. 
 That which seems chiefly to have impressed them is the 
 fact that our government, as a war measure, felt obliged to 
 oppose the physical force dominating the industrial as well 
 as military conditions of our enemies' countries by an exer- 
 cise of external physical force similarly directed in our own 
 land; and these countrymen of ours now seem to think that 
 the same exercise of force should continue after the coming 
 of peace. This is not a theoretical remark. It describes an 
 existing condition. It indicates a danger that is actually 
 threatening us. It represents the ideal of many mistaken 
 but sincere socialists, and of others who are not socialists, 
 but are influenced by them. They want government inter- 
 ference in almost everything. They think that this would 
 secure greater efficiency. Some of them individually are 
 sure that they themselves could carry on another per- 
 son's business better than he himself can. Very likely, 
 too, they are right in this supposition. The answer to 
 them is that business is not the foremost aim of life. It 
 is individual character; and no men, nor set of men, can 
 afford to save any kind of business at the expense of losing 
 what is needed for the highest attainments of the mind 
 and soul. 
 
 Even many who can accept as true a statement of this 
 kind will not consider it particularly related to any lesson 
 taught through the agency of the recent war. Because 
 
326 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 the governments that started it were exceptionally devoted 
 to developing the interests of the ruling classes, to the ex- 
 clusion, if deemed necessary, of the common people of their 
 own or of other countries, many have come to attribute 
 the destruction, misery, and death that ensued solely — 
 not merely mainly, as is true — to autocracy. Their rem- 
 edy for war, therefore, is to enforce, as applied to single 
 nations, democracy of government; and, as applied to 
 many nations considered together, a league of democratic 
 governments. 
 
 In view of the many who accept these conclusions, it may 
 be slightly unpopular, but it seems to be necessary in the 
 interest of truth to point out that neither of these remedies, 
 much good as they might do in certain directions, would 
 necessarily insure the stimulation of individual initiative, 
 whether manifested in the form of theoretic opinion, prac- 
 tical enterprise, or personal thoughtfulness, truthfulness, or 
 humaneness. The conception of national machinery oper- 
 ating through physical force upon the mind, as if it were a 
 part of the national machine, might be fully preserved in 
 connection with both of them. Democracy does not neces- 
 sarily change this conception. Under it, as under an auto- 
 cracy, there might still be government control of army, 
 navy, school, church, railway, telegraph, and other forms 
 of industry and business, and this control no less than the 
 same in an autocracy might hamper individual initiative 
 and action. Nor would the removal from office of kings, 
 nobles, capitalists, and other traditional leaders of society 
 lessen to the extent that is sometimes supposed other public 
 influences detrimental to the development of private char- 
 acter. The mere fact that, according to law, our country- 
 men elect their own rulers has not prevented the occasional 
 dictatorship of a non-elected political or industrial boss 
 successful in subordinating the interests of the people as a 
 whole to those of his own self-seeking class. Such condi- 
 tions prove beyond doubt the possibility of making out of 
 democracy merely autocracy turned upside down, with the 
 community ruled from the bottom of society instead of from 
 the top. Inasmuch, too, as usually, owing to the necessaj-y 
 conditions, there is more intelligence and wisdom at the 
 top than at the bottom, it is evident that this form of 
 autocracy might be the most tjnrannical conceivable. 
 
 A similar statement might be made with reference to a 
 
LIMITATIONS OF A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 327 
 
 league of democratic nations or a super-nation. As an ideal 
 toward which to aim, most of us can approve of Tennyson's 
 
 Parliament of man, the federation of the world. 
 
 Locksley Hall. 
 
 And yet, for the present, is this feasible? An International 
 Court with power to enforce its decrees might be so. But 
 a legislative parliament, in order to achieve any worthy 
 purpose, would have to represent people who had a worthy 
 purpose, — in other words represent nations whose public 
 sentiment, giving expression to the private faith of the ma- 
 jority of their citizens, was the result of higher, rational, 
 non-selfish, humane, and altruistic desire. If, in such a par- 
 liament, representatives of nations serving higher desires, 
 met with representatives of nations serving lower desires, the 
 former nations, unless prevented by great foresight in pre- 
 aixangements, might be obliged to compromise or surren- 
 der their ideals, together with all the benefits to the world 
 which their example in applying these ideals to govern- 
 ment could exert. Otherwise, there might be conflict; and 
 in case of conflict, if both parties were pledged to enforce 
 their views, it is difficult to understand why this pledge of 
 itself alone might not bring on war. This is the same as to 
 suggest that conditions in the world to-day may demand 
 mainly at least missionary work more than, or rather than, 
 mandatory work, even though the latter be the result of 
 the military agency of the most perfectly constructed demo- 
 cratic government of which we know. Most of the readers of 
 this volume will probably think this a mere hypothetical 
 statement. But it is more than this. It is legitimately 
 inferred from historic facts. The Roman State was a re- 
 public when, as a super-nation, in an aim which was vir- 
 tually that of enforcing peace for the sake of forwarding the 
 interests of trade, it began to subordinate all other 
 nations to its own rule. The Roman Church was so non- 
 monarchial that the humblest peasant, through appoint- 
 ment and election.might become the papal ruler of the world 
 when it, too, with a similar aim — to bring a universal accep- 
 tance of him whom they termed the Prince of Peace — began 
 to subordinate these nations. No thinker can find any good 
 reason to doubt the non-selfish enthusiasm or sincerity of 
 the majority, perhaps, of the Roman senators or prelates 
 who devised these methods. But they failed, because they 
 
328 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 were based too largely upon the exercise of physical and 
 external force; because of faith in material reconstruction 
 irrespective of individual spiritual regeneration. This is a 
 mistake which people of this age ought to have learned 
 enough to avoid. It is by no means mainly through physical 
 force, whether manifested in bayonets or ballots, in political, 
 social, or ecclesiastical organizations, that the world can be 
 most permanently benefited. It is mainly through psychical 
 influence, exerted upon each individual's mental, rational, 
 non-selfish, humane, altruistic desires. What other con- 
 clusion can anyone reach who is thoughtfully seeking a 
 philosophic explanation of the experiences affecting human 
 life in this world? What are they all for, so far as they can 
 succeed in accomplishing any good end? What can they 
 be for except, through the instrumentality of higher desire, 
 to develop personal character? 
 
 Perhaps the ideals of these old-time leaders and of their 
 present representatives who are living among us to-day 
 can be realized through the methods that seem most likely 
 to be adopted. Let us hope that such will be the case. But, 
 perhaps, these ideals cannot be realized thus. It is even 
 possible that they never through any methods can be real- 
 ized by human nature as it is; that, if they could be so 
 realized, himian nature itself would no longer be needed 
 in order to carry out the purposes of the divine economy. 
 In this case, perhaps a man would have fully attained all 
 the discipline and development which the conditions of life 
 as they are in this world are designed to give him. Such 
 surmisals with reference to the general subject are sometimes 
 suggested; but there is nothing to prove or disprove either 
 side of the question. One thing only is certain; and, for- 
 tunately for those of us who are most interested in seeking 
 guidance, it is also practical. This is that, so long as an 
 individual man is in this world, he possesses a conscience 
 that makes him conscious of an obligation to fulfill the 
 promptings of mental, rational, non-selfish, altruistic desires 
 whenever he is also conscious of lower desires opposing 
 these; and also of an obligation to use all his influence, so 
 far as this can be exerted legitimately, to make the external 
 domestic, educational, social, industrial, political, and reli- 
 gious conditions of life surrounding him such as shall incite 
 and enable all his fellows to fulfill these higher promptings 
 within themselves. 
 
THE CHARACTER OF THIS DISCUSSION 329 
 
 The reader of this volume will be ready now to bear 
 witness that the purpose stated in its opening chapter, — 
 to draw no inference and to advance no theory not war- 
 ranted by known facts as ascertainable in connection with 
 the operations of natural law, has been carried out. The 
 author finds it impossible, however, in closing this dis- 
 cussion, not to direct attention to this conclusion : — that no 
 philosophical conception, least of all one connected with 
 ethics, can be held solely as an end in itself. It influences 
 not only the substance of thought but the trend of thought, 
 so that this necessarily pushes on especially in the direction 
 of imagination and speculation. Both of them have their 
 functions in htiman experience. But the value of that which 
 they bring is almost erltirely determined by the exactness 
 and comprehensiveness of the thinking which formulated 
 the system of ideas from which they start. This system 
 must be well grounded and strongly constructed like the 
 observatory from which, unless it be free from vibration or 
 deviation, the astronomer cannot read aright the message 
 of the stars. For reasons stated in the Preface, this voltmie 
 has not dealt with arguments drawn from theories or specu- 
 lations about religion; but it has contained a great deal 
 that is fundamental to that which is true in these. It might 
 — possibly it should — have gone further than it has in these 
 directions. Certainly the author, in his own mind, has 
 done so. Fifty years ago he had already allowed his 
 imagination to express itself in this way : 
 
 'Tis time our wandering world's philosophy 
 
 Discern life's inward bond of unity, 
 
 Not like the Greek in mere material fire, 
 
 But in the soul's unquenchable desire. 
 
 'Tis time it weigh the worth of arguments 
 
 That treat each consciousness with reverence; 
 
 And, starting with the soul's first certainty, 
 
 Evolve in all its ordered symmetry, 
 
 The Universal law of sympathy. 
 
 'Tis timg the spirit of the living force, 
 
 Whose currents through the frame of nature course, 
 
 And make the earth about, and Stars above. 
 
 The body and abode of infinite Love 
 
 That breathes its own breath through our waiting frames 
 
 With each fresh breeze that blows, and ever aims 
 
 Our lesser lives where all we call advance 
 
 But plays within its lap of circumstance, — 
 
 'Tis time the spirit should be known in truth. 
 
 Inspiring hope in age, and faith in youth, 
 
330 ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW 
 
 And in us all that charity benign 
 Which in us all would make us all divine. 
 
 A Life in Song: Seeking, LV. 
 
 Even that which should chiefly hinder, in ovtx own age, the uni- 
 versal acceptance of these conceptions, was not unforeseen: 
 
 It will need no simple proof to show that justice due to each 
 Never can be gained till each is free to claim his due in speech; 
 Or that kings behind their armies cannot guard the rights of man 
 Better than the battling masses, butchered for them in the van. 
 It will need no nerveless effort to reverse that cruel mill, 
 Where the wheels that run the ruling grind to dust the people's will. 
 
 Idem: Watching, XXI. 
 
 Nor that which should be among the earliest to further these 
 conceptions: 
 
 That stalwart Anglo-Saxon sense that most 
 
 In Church and State keeps thought and action free. 
 
 Who fears a progress, charged with Freedom's mission. 
 That gives to English genius broader scope? 
 
 Earth fears far more thy foe, whose politician 
 
 In tearing thy flag down may lower the whole world's hope. 
 
 Idem: Serving, XLI. 
 
 N or that which should make them victorious : 
 
 Where, O where, shall trust in truth that speaks through manhood great 
 
 and small. 
 Overcome the few's oppression by intrusting power to all? 
 
 And a fresh wind rose that whispered, " Where shall man to man be true, 
 In the old world old ways triumph: Freedom hies to seek the new." 
 
 When the time Shall come, a banner by the right shall be unfurled 
 Where the patriots of the nation shall be patriots of the world; 
 And the right shall triumph then! 
 
 Idem: Watching, XXI, XXII, XX. 
 
 So much to suggest, where, in accordance with the limits 
 prescribed for this discussion, nothing further is feasible, the 
 practical bearings of our subject upon every phase not only 
 of secular but of religious righteousness; and not only in the 
 individual, but in the nation; and not only in the nation, but 
 in the world. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abelard, 75 
 
 Abercrombie, John, 65, 141 
 
 Esthetic harmony, and ethical, 
 146-154; effects experienced 
 first in emotions, 149, 150 
 
 Esthetics and ethics, hedonic 
 theory of, 70-73; physical and 
 psychical effects similarly re- 
 lated in both, 29-34 
 
 Msthetics Outlines of, Lotze, 70 
 
 Age, restlessness of the present, 
 270 
 
 Agitator, labor, 265 
 
 Agriculturist, 34 
 
 Alcohol, drinking of, 222-225 
 
 Alexander, S., 98 
 
 Altruism, xii; objection to exclu- 
 sive, 120. See Non-selfish 
 
 Ambrose, 75 
 
 American, initiative in the late 
 war, 324-326; method of po- 
 litical influence, vii-x 
 
 American Magazine, 261 
 
 Analogy of Religion, Butler, 91, 92 
 
 Analysis, lack of, in ethical theo- 
 ries, xi, xii, 45 
 
 Analysis of the Phenomena of the 
 Human Mind, James Mill, 96 
 
 Anarchism, its nature and results, 
 310-312 
 
 Anatomical testimony concerning 
 higher and lower desires, 12-15 
 
 Anger, Seneca, 63 
 
 Animals distinguished from men, 
 
 Anselm, 75 
 
 Antisthenes, 73 
 
 Apostle Paul, 31, 57 
 
 Aquinas, Thomas, 75 
 
 Archimedes, 138 
 
 Argument, influence on morals, 1 67 
 
 Aristippus, 74 
 
 Aristotle, 37, 72, 73, 75, 95, 100 
 
 Army, Salvation, 129 
 
 Art, as related to culture, 235; to 
 morals, 169, 170, 234-239; to 
 nature, 235; to religion and 
 science, 29, 30; to truth, 238, 239 
 
 Art composition, chart of methods 
 
 of, 143 
 
 Art in Theory, Raymond, 29 
 
 Asceticism, 102, 124-130 
 
 Associates, effects of, on self-de- 
 velopment, 210, 211 
 
 Astrologers, theory of, xvi 
 
 Astronomer, 33 
 
 Athens, government of, 271, 275, 
 280 
 
 Athletics in educational insti- 
 tutions, 201, 202, 263, 264 
 
 Atwood, H. P., 273, 279 
 
 Augustine, 75 
 
 Aurelius, Marcus, 68, 74, 102 
 
 Authoritative character of con- 
 science, 112 
 
 Autocracy, 272, 273, 326 
 
 Automobile racing, 234 
 
 Back to the Republic, Atwood, 
 
 273, 279 
 Bacon, Francis, Lord, 77-79 
 Bain, Alexander, 63, 96 
 Balance, physical, 137; method of 
 
 acquiring, 140; moral, 136-145; 
 
 relation to harmony, 145 
 Baldwin, J. M., 49, 54, 70, 99 
 Banquets, ancient and modem, 
 
 126, 127 
 Bargainers, dishonest, 243 
 Bascom, John, 90 
 Beattie, James, 65 
 Beauty as related to harmony, 
 
 14s. 146 
 Beecher, H. W., 264 
 
 331 
 
332 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Belgium, vi 
 
 Benevolence, as the source and 
 end of obligation, xi, 93-95 
 
 Bentham, Jeremy, 66, 95, 97 
 
 Bergson, Henri, 34, 56 
 
 Berkeley, 92 
 
 Bernard of Clairvaux, 76 
 
 Betting, 232-234 
 
 Bixby, J. T., 55, 63 
 
 Bodily desire, when thought more 
 important than mental, 130 
 
 Bonaventura, 76 
 
 Bradley, F. H., 53, 100 
 
 Brentano, 91 
 
 British Government, 271,273, 274 
 
 British Journal oj Psychology, 
 36 
 
 Brotherhood, true and false con- 
 ceptions of, 308, 309 
 
 Brown, Justice H. B., 186; 
 Thomas, 65 
 
 Bucke, R. M., 14 
 
 Buddhists, xiv, 46 
 
 Burns, Robert, 58 
 
 Business, and morals, 241-251; 
 higher and lower desires in, 244; 
 in not making money but 
 effecting exchange, 243, 244; 
 laws hampering it, 301, 302, 316, 
 317; laws regulating it and justi- 
 fiable, 294, 295; liberty, 294- 
 314; National House of, 285 
 
 Butler, Joseph, 64, 90, 91, 92 
 
 Buyers and sellers, 241-251 
 
 Calderwood, Henrv, 64, 89 
 
 Cambridge school of ethics, 81 
 
 Capitalists, care for laborers, 305 ; 
 
 honor due them, 307; influence 
 
 on public and workers, 304-307, 
 
 316-318; loyalty in recent war, 
 
 304. 305 
 Carnegie, Andrew, 259 
 Carrieri, B., 98 
 Categorical imperative, 81 
 Catholics, xiv; seven capital sins 
 
 of, 134 
 
 Cause and effect between physi- 
 cal and psychical, in ethics and 
 cesthetics, 29-33 
 
 Centrifugal force, 33 
 
 Centripetal force, 33, 
 
 Chapin, E. H., 264 
 
 Character, personal, developed by 
 
 civil and industrial liberty, 323- 
 326 
 Chastity, 214-217; especially re- 
 quired in women, 215, 2l6;hon- 
 ored by men, 215; its own re- 
 ward, 216; obligatory upon all, 
 216; taught to children, 191- 
 
 193 
 China, ethics of, 61, 62 
 Choice, effect of, upon morality, 
 
 40, 41, 153 
 Christianity, muscular, 129 
 Christians, xiv, 46; of fifteenth 
 
 century, 109 
 Christian Science, xiv, loi 
 Chrysippus, 73 
 Church, institutional, 45, 46 
 Cicero, 68, 74, 324 
 Cigarettes, 220, 221 
 Clarke, Samuel, 65, 80, 91, 95 
 Cleanliness, in children, 191-193; 
 
 in others, 218 
 Clothing, 226-228 
 Coeducation, 203-205 
 Collier, Jeremy, 68 
 Collins, W.L., 68 
 Combe, George, 141 
 Combinations in business, 302- 
 
 304 
 Commerce, National Chamber of, 
 
 285 
 Commercial relations between 
 
 men, 241-251 
 Common good as determining the 
 
 source and end of obligation, 73, 
 
 94,95 
 
 Communism, its nature and re- 
 sults, 309-3 n 
 
 Competition, in athletics, 201, 
 202: in business 303, 304; in 
 school, 200, 201, 204 
 
 Comte, Auguste, 96 
 
 Conduct and the Supernatural, 
 Thornton, 56 
 
 Conflict, between higher and lower 
 desires, causing depression in 
 youth, 152; recognized without 
 realizing its philosophic im- 
 portance, 54-57 
 
 Confucius, 45, 61 
 
 Confucianists, xiv 
 
 Congress, viii 
 
 Conscience xiii, xiv, 9, 17; a con- 
 sciousness of conflict between 
 
INDEX 
 
 333 
 
 Conscience — Continued 
 higher and lower desire, 37, 51— 
 59, III-I22- affecting sense of 
 obligation, 55, 56; Butler's con- 
 ception of, 92 ; conception of, in 
 this book covers all require- 
 ments, 1 13-122; conforms to 
 modem thinking, 116; consid- 
 ered as a source of obligation, 
 113-U6; considered as end to 
 which obligation is directed, 
 1 16-122; definitions of, in foot- 
 notes, 63-67; depression caused 
 in youth by consciousness of 
 conflict involved in it, 152; 
 derivation of the terms applied 
 to it, 62, 63; experienced in our 
 feeling, 114; fundamental to 
 character in children, 185-187; 
 fundamental to religion, 186; 
 has supreme importance as a 
 guide to conduct, 113; influence 
 of one's conceptions of it upon 
 community feeling, 1 1 9- 1 2 1 ; 
 intellection, 118, 119; mental 
 activity, 57-59. 117. 118, 224; 
 moving to acceptance of life's 
 limitations, 313, 314; necessi- 
 tating cooperation on the part 
 of the whole mind, 57-59; ob- 
 served with earliest conscious- 
 ness, 59; perversions of, 115; 
 popular use of the term, 63, 
 73; termed voice of God, 67- 
 69, 90, 91; why authoritative, 
 112; wisdom needed in applying 
 its promptings, 148 
 
 Consciousness of conflict, as im- 
 pelling to right action, 55-59 
 
 Constitutional republic, 274-280 
 
 Constitution of the United States, 
 vii, 274-280; loyalty to, 276 
 
 Contracts, 213; between employ- 
 ers and employees, 261 
 
 Conversion, 40-42 
 
 Cooking, 220 
 
 Cooperation vs. competition, 302- 
 
 ^ 304 . , 
 
 Copyright, 318 
 
 Corporations, care for employees, 
 
 245, 246, 305, 306 
 Corson, C. R., 66 
 Courtship, 174-178 
 Cousin, v., 92, 146 
 
 Creative Evolution, Bergson, 34, 56 
 Creed of Hobbes Examined, The, 
 
 Tennyson, 80 
 Crime, publishing details of, 169 
 Critique af Pure Reason, of Prac- 
 tical Reason, and of Judgment, 
 Kant, 80 
 Cud worth, Ralph, 79 
 Cutler, Carroll, 67 
 Curran, John Philpot, 279 
 Cynic School of Ethics, 73 
 Cyrenaic School of Ethics, 74 
 Czar, vi 
 
 Dancing, right and wrong of, 231, 
 232, 237, 238 
 
 Darwin, Charles, xii, 63, 98, 116 
 
 Darwin and the Humanities, J. M. 
 Baldwin, 99 
 
 Data of Ethics, Spencer, 66, 97 
 
 Davis, N. K., 64, 90 
 
 Dawn of Day, The, Nietzsche, 87 
 
 Day, H. N., 66, 93 
 
 Decency in children, 191-193; in 
 others, 214 
 
 Deference to others' opinions, 209 
 
 De Jure Belli et Pads, Grotius, 78 
 
 Demagogue, 272 
 
 Democracy, 271-280; no certain 
 preventive of war, 325-328; 
 pure, 275 
 
 Depression of the immature when 
 first recognizing moral respon- 
 sibility, 152 
 
 De Rerum Natura, Lucretius, 74 
 
 Descartes, 79 
 
 Descent of Man, The, Darwin, 63, 
 98, 116 
 
 Desirable, learning of the, through 
 experience 163-166; through in- 
 formation, 166-171; through ob- 
 servation, 157-163 
 
 Desires, a combination of the 
 activity of feeling and thought, 
 4-12, 39, 112, 131; basis of 
 morality in them, 2-15, 17; 
 bodily alone tend to egoistic 
 and brutal self-indulgence, men- 
 tal to altruistic, rational hu- 
 maneness, 20-26, 119, 130, 131; 
 bodily unduly emphasized, 130, 
 131; both needed for human 
 development, 28, 128-136; both 
 underlie all forms of psychic 
 
334 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Desires — Continued 
 intelligence, 38, 39; character 
 and conduct as due to bodily 
 alone, 24-26; due to mental 
 alone, 26-28 ; confirmation from 
 anatomy of these distinctions, 
 12-15, 18-24; constant tend- 
 ency to antagonism between 
 bodily and mental, 16-34, 5i~ 
 59; effect of, on a man's con- 
 scious intelligence, 3, 4, 37-50; 
 embodiment of, in a man, 2; 
 end and quality of, closely con- 
 nected, 116; energy needed to 
 fulfill mental, 117, 118, 161, 162, 
 197, 198; highest human de- 
 velopment traceable to highest 
 or mental, 21-23; influence of, 
 on business, 244, 245 ; on conver- 
 sion, 41 ; on education, 197-201 ; 
 on government and revolution, 
 269, 270, 271; on temptation, 
 43, 44; one's most mental, must 
 sometimes be subordinated to 
 more mental in another, 312- 
 314; overreaching, 133-136; 
 physical, origin of, 12, 13; pre- 
 venting true theories from being 
 applied to practice, 45 : separa- 
 tion between higher and lower, 
 sometimes difficult, 23, 40, 124; 
 supposing bodily and mental dif- 
 ferently derived and developed 
 is not unphilosophical, 29-34 
 
 Despotism, 271, 273 
 
 Destiny and fate, footnote, 10 
 
 Dewey, John, 64, 97 
 
 Diogenes, 73 
 
 Divine and Moral Government, 
 McCosh, 92 
 
 Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, 
 Swedenborg, 82 
 
 Divorce, 178-180 
 
 Doctrine of Philosophic Necessity 
 Explained, The, Priestley, 79 
 
 Drama, truth to nature in the, 
 238, 239 
 
 Dressing, relation of, to attrac- 
 tiveness, 228; to lower and 
 higher desire, 228; over, 228; 
 under, 227 
 
 Drill in school, mistake of neg- 
 lecting it, 198: two ends 
 attained by it, 196, 197 
 
 Drinking and morals, 220-225 
 Duns Scotus, 75 
 Durkheim, Emile, 89 
 Duty, Science of. Day, 66, 96 
 Dymond, Jonathan, 90 
 
 Ecce Homo, Nietzsche, 87 
 
 Eckhart, 76 
 
 Economy, personal, 247 
 
 Ecstasjr, divine, experienced by 
 mystics, 75, 76 
 
 Edmonds, C. R., 74 
 
 Education, as related to morality, 
 194-205; effect of, on moral 
 principles, 150-152, 166-171; 
 its methods as influenced by 
 higher or lower desire, 197-201 : 
 should be made interesting, 
 not easy, 199; taxes for free, 
 
 293 
 Educational, liberty, 293; uni- 
 versal, 293 
 Edwards, Jonathan, 93 
 Effect, material, and mental cause 
 as related in aesthetics and 
 ethics, 29-33 
 Efficiency and public office, 294 
 Effort needed to fulfill higher but 
 not lower desire, 117, 118, 161, 
 . 162, 197, 198, 199 
 Elan Vital, 8. 
 Elementary Forms of Religious Life, 
 
 Durkheim, 98 
 Etementology of Ethics, Kant, 67 
 Elements, of Ethics, Davis, 64, 94: 
 Hyslop, 64; Muirhead, 66, 95, 
 100; of Moral and Political Phi- 
 losophy, Paley, 96; of Morality, 
 Whewell, 66, 92: of Morals, 
 Janet, 66; of Moral Science, 
 Porter, 81: Wayland, 89, 95, 
 182, 242, 243 
 Elgin National Watch Co., 245 
 Emancipation of slaves in United 
 
 States, 287-289 
 Emerson, R. W., 134, 153 
 Emotion vs. feeling, 3-8 
 Emotional theory of morals, xi 
 Emotional intuitional theory, 65, 
 
 91 
 
 Emotions and Will, Bain, 63 
 Empiricism, 79 
 
 Employees, interest in work, 263- 
 265; loyalty to employer. 264. 
 
INDEX 
 
 335 
 
 Employees — Continued 
 265; relation to employer, 253, 
 254. 263-265 
 
 Employers, relation to employees, 
 252-266 
 
 Energism, 8, 57, 117 
 
 Enjoying one's work, 263-265 
 
 Entail, law of, 321 
 
 Enterprise as stimulated by gov- 
 ernment laws, 316-318 
 
 Environment, influence of, on 
 desire, 41, 157-163; in youth, 
 172-174 
 
 Epictetus, 74 
 
 Epicureus, 74 
 
 Epicureanism, 74, 75 
 
 Equality, human, of opportunity 
 vs. position, 308, 309 
 
 Erigena, Johannes Scotus, 76 
 
 Essay on the Human Under- 
 standing, Locke, 64, 79 
 
 Essays on the Intellectual Faculties 
 and Active Powers, Raid, 92 
 
 Eternal and Immutable Morality, 
 The, Cudworth, 79 
 
 Ethica, Spinosa, 79 
 
 Ethical harmony, corresponding 
 to aasthetic, 146-154 
 
 Ethical theories, ancient and mod- 
 em, 60-76; similar in all ages, as 
 also the differences between 
 them, 60 
 
 Ethical, like aesthetic, effects often 
 experienced first in the emo- 
 tional nature, 114, 149, 150; 
 knowledge and skill connected 
 with them increased by study, 
 151, 152; recognized by ordi- 
 nary intelligence, 150 
 Ethical Studies, F. H. Bradley, 100 
 Ethical Principles, A Study of, 
 
 Seth, 95, 100 
 Ethics, Aristotle, 72, 75, 100; 
 Bascom, 90; Dewey and Tufts, 
 97; and Modern Thought, 
 Eucken, 56, 87; and Moral Sci- 
 ence, Levy-Bruhl, 89 ; Beginnings 
 0/, Cutler, 67 ; Elements of, Davis, 
 64, 94; Hyslop, 64; Muirhead, 
 66, 95, 100; Evolution and, Hux- 
 ley, xii, 55, 98; Hints toward a 
 Theory of. Stork, 56; Historical 
 Introduction to, Moore, 68: In- 
 troductionto, Mmrny, 66; Thilly, 
 
 98, 100, 142; Introductory Study 
 of, Pite, 46; Manual of, Mac- 
 kenzie, 94, 100; Metaphysics of, 
 Kant, 65; Methods of, Sidgwick, 
 55. 96,_ioo; of Evolution, Bixby, 
 55; of Nature or Custom, Rous- 
 seau, 66, 68 ; Outline of a Criti- 
 cal Theory of, Dewey, 64; Philo- 
 sophical Introduction to, Gibson, 
 100; Principles of, Dymond, 90; 
 Problems in, Kedney, 93; Pro- 
 legomena of. Green, 55, 74, 99, 
 loi; Recent Tendencies in, Sor- 
 ley, 61 ; Self-Realization, an Out- 
 line of, Wright, 57, 100; System 
 of, Paulsen, 55-57, 67, 87, 94, 
 107 
 
 Eucken, K., 37, 56, 87 
 
 Eudaimonian, or welfare theory, 
 
 ^ 45. 73, 92, 95-97, 117, "8, 139 
 
 Eugenic requirements for mar- 
 riage, 172, 173 
 Everett, E., 264 
 Evolution and Ethics, Huxley, xii, 
 
 55, 98 
 Evolutionary theory and morality, 
 
 xii, 29-34; reconciled with that 
 
 of this volume, 29-34 
 Evolutionism, effect of, on ethical 
 
 theory, 32-34, 97-99 
 Exchange, the basis of commerce, 
 
 241-244, 249, 250 
 Exertion needed to follow mental 
 
 desire, 117, 118, 161, 162, 197, 
 
 198 
 Experience, affecting desires, 163- 
 
 166; influence of, in ethics and 
 
 assthetics, 42 
 Experimentalism, 79 
 Extortion in business not general, 
 
 246 
 
 Face and hands expressive of higher 
 thoughtful nature, 226, 227 
 
 Pairchild, J. H., 93 
 
 Fairness, 242 
 
 Faith, in others, its effect on 
 character, 27; especially on 
 children, 185, 186 
 
 Family, 172-174, 178-181; train- 
 ing children in, 182-193; wor- 
 ship in 187, 188. See Educa- 
 tion, Instruction, Information, 
 Puritanism. 
 
336 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Farm, community life in, 2 lo, 2 1 1 , 
 306, 307 
 
 Fate, or destiny, source of concep- 
 tion of, 10 
 
 Faust, 43 
 
 Fear, exerting mainly physical 
 influence, 25, 26, 190 
 
 Feasting, 230, 231; ancient and 
 modern, 127 
 
 Feeling, a constituent of desire, 
 7-9; of pleasure and pain, sug- 
 gesting, teaching, and develop- 
 ing morality, 70-72, 95-99, 107- 
 
 IIO 
 
 First Principles, Spencer, 312 
 
 Fite, W., 46 
 
 Fitness as an ethical test, 95 
 
 Fitzgerald, P. E., 93 
 
 Plechsig, P., 18-20 
 
 Food and drink as related to 
 health and morals, 219-225 
 
 Force, physical, 26; as source of 
 morality, vii, viii; its effect on 
 character, 25, 26, 224, 225, 285- 
 289; used to influence opinion, 
 viii 
 
 Foresight in business, 249 
 
 Forgiveness of sins, how to prac- 
 tice it, 239, 240 
 
 Form, human, as expressive of 
 thought, 236 
 
 Fortune spent to benefit others, 
 230 
 
 Franchise, 317, 318 
 
 Frankness, in children, 191; in 
 others, 21 1-2 13, 242 
 
 Freedom of press, abuse of, 169, 
 170 
 
 Free love, as easy divorce, 178: 
 why will always be reprobated, 
 214 
 
 Functional philosophers of Greece, 
 72, 73 
 
 Fundamental principles, impor- 
 tance of finding, 139, 140 
 
 Gall, F. J., 18 
 
 Gambling, 232-234 
 
 General principles, importance of 
 
 finding, 139, 140 
 Genesis of Art-Form, Raymond, 
 
 ^ 142, 143 
 George, Henry, 242 
 German institutionism, xi 
 
 Germany, v, ix; government of, 
 
 273. 274 
 Gibson, W. R. B., 100 
 Gilbert and Sullivan opera, 238 
 God, His voice in conscience, 67, 
 
 90, 91; in majority vote, 280, 
 
 281 
 Goethe, 43, 85, 153 
 Gorgias, 74 
 Government, different forms of, 
 
 270-276; made for man, not 
 
 man for it, 322, 323 
 Great Britain, form of govern- 
 ment, 271, 273, 274 
 Greatest happiness, ethical theory, 
 
 xi, 96, 139. 157 
 Greece, ethics of, 61-63, 68-75 
 Green, T. H., 53, 55, 74, 99, loi 
 Grotius, Hugo, 78 
 Guyan, M., 98 
 
 Haldane, R. D., 82 
 Hamilton.E. J.,90;SirW.,7, 8, n, 
 
 63 
 
 Handbook of Moral Philosophy, 
 Calderwood, 64, 89; of Psy- 
 chology, Baldwin, 49, 54, 70 
 
 Hands and face, expressive of one's 
 higher thoughtful nature, 226, 
 227 
 
 Happiness, greatest for greatest 
 number theory, xi, 95, 96, 139, 
 
 157 
 Harmony, ssthetical, 141-153; 
 ethical, 140-154; of character, 
 xiii, 146; preestablished, 32, 82; 
 relation to beauty, 145, 146; 
 result of arrangement, 142; 
 serving others as well as self, 
 
 153- 154 
 Hartley, David, 79 
 Hartley's Theory of the Human 
 
 Mind, Priestley, 79 
 Hauptmann, 179 
 Haven, Joseph, 90 
 Hayes, R. B., vii 
 Hebrews, xiv 
 Hedonistic ethical theory, xi, 45: 
 
 narrowness of, 70-73, 117; ob- 
 
 iections to, 70-75, 95-97 
 Hegel, G. W. F., 84-87 
 Heracleitus, 70, 72, 73 
 Herbart, 91 
 Heredity, 172, 173 
 
INDEX 
 
 337 
 
 Hickock, L. P., 64, 89 
 
 Hildreth, R., 93 
 
 Hints toward a Theory of Ethics, 
 Stork, 56 
 
 Historical Introduction to Ethics, 
 Moore, 68 
 
 History of European Morals, 
 W. E. H. Lecky. 75 
 
 Hobbes, Thomas, 64, 78 
 
 Hoffding, H., 98 
 
 Honesty, characteristic of success- 
 ful business men, 244-248; dis- 
 covered to be best policy by 
 practicing it, 245 ; importance of 
 it in character, 242 
 
 Hope, influence of, on children 
 and others, 184, 185 
 
 Hopkins, Mark, 64, 93 
 
 Howard, G. H., 12 
 
 Howell, W. H., 18, 19 
 
 Hubbell, C. B., 220 
 
 Hugo of St. Victor, 76 
 
 Human, distinguished from ani- 
 mal intelligence, 35-38 
 
 Humane, the, a characteristic de- 
 veloped from mental desire, 22, 
 23, 38; treatment of employees, 
 253-261 
 
 Human Nature, Hobbes, 64, 78 
 
 Hume, David, 79, 91 
 
 Humility, 209 
 
 Hutcheson, Francis, 65, 91 
 
 Huxley, T., xii, 55, 98 
 
 Hygiene, se?:, taught in schools, 1 70 
 
 Hyslop, J. H., 64 
 
 Ibsen, influence of, 85, 178, 179 
 
 Idea, what it is, 46 
 
 Ideal, what it is, 36, 46-50 
 
 IdeaUty, 39, 47 
 
 Idealism, German, 84 
 
 Imagination, 47, 49; vs. imitation, 
 
 38,47 
 Imitation, 47, 48 ; vs. imagination, 
 
 38,47 
 Immodesty in dress, 227, 228, 236- 
 
 238 
 Immoral traits, 189, 190 
 Imperative, categorical of Kant, 
 
 64, 65, 81 
 India, holy men of, 124, 125 
 Individual liberty, 316, 317 
 Industrial liberty, 257-261 
 Information, adding to moral 
 
 enlightenment, 151, 152; as 
 affecting and afifected by desires, 
 166-171; as influencing con- 
 duct, 43, 44, 166-170; not 
 always necessary to insure 
 morality, 43, 44, 150, 151 
 
 Inheritance, benefits of, to indi- 
 viduals and communities, 318- 
 320; evils of, 320, 321 ; rights of, 
 318-322; tax, and objections to, 
 321, 322 
 
 Initiative, individual, as devel- 
 oped by civil liberty, 323-326; 
 by government laws, 250, 315- 
 328; as suppressed by institu- 
 tionism and socialism, 62, 295- 
 317; vs. institutionism in 
 Greece, 69, 70 
 
 Inner or inward light, 49, 50, 83, 
 85.86 
 
 Innere Stimme, 85 
 
 Inquiry Concerning Virtue and 
 Merit, Shaftesbury, 65, 91; into 
 the origin of our Ideas of Beauty 
 and Morality, Hutcheson, 91 
 
 Inspiring effect of ideality, 49, 
 50 
 
 Instinct, 4, 36, 68: as derived from 
 inheritance, 97, 98; ethics of, 
 68; vs. intuition, 68, 81 
 
 Instinctive theory, xi 
 
 Institutes of Moral Philosophy, 
 Teflt,67_ 
 
 Institutionism, early acceptance of, 
 among persons and races, 61,62; 
 ecclesiastical, of Middle Ages, 
 75, 76; English, 78; German, 
 84-88; French, 8g;others,6i, 62, 
 63, 88, 89; narrowness of, xi, 
 117, 120: obiections to, 62, 69, 
 70, 87, 88, 120 
 
 Instruction, see Education and 
 Information 
 
 Intelligence, as affected by lower 
 and higher desire, 38; human 
 vs. animal, 35-38, 47, 48 
 
 Interest, in study should be excited 
 in youth, 197-202 ; should be and 
 can be created in one's own 
 work, 210, 263-265 
 
 Introduction to Ethics, Murray, 
 66; Thilly, 98, 100, 142; to the 
 Principles of Morals and Legis- 
 lation, Bentham, 95 
 
338 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Introductory Study of Ethics,Fite, 46 
 Intuition vs. instinct, 68, 81 
 Intuitionism, emotional of Shaftes- 
 bury, 65, 91; perceptional of, 
 Butler, 64, 65, 92; rational of, 
 Kant, 80-86, 89, 90; restric- 
 tions of, xi, 117, 121, 122 
 Invention furthered by political 
 
 and industrial liberty, 323 
 Inward light, 49, 50, 83, 85, 86 
 
 James, William, xii 
 Janet, Paul, 66, 89 
 Jealousy of a Country Town, 
 
 Balzac, 57 
 Jevons, Jr., W., 65 
 Jouffroy, Theodore, 92 
 Justice, importance of, 242 
 
 Kant, Immanuel, 65-68, 80-86, 
 89-91, loi; fortunate effects of 
 his theories, 89, 90; unfor- 
 tunate effects, 81-89 
 Kedney, J. S., 93 
 Kindergarten, 198 
 Kings, divine right of, 280, 281 
 Knights of Columbus, 129 
 Knowledge, its influence upon 
 conduct, 43, 44, 168-170: one's 
 own, in determining truth, 2 
 
 Labor agitator, inciting to dis- 
 content, 265, 266; party, its 
 demands in England, 256 
 
 Laboring men, loyalty to nation, 
 of, in recent war, 305 
 
 Ladd, G. T., 67 
 
 Langley, Dr., 13 
 
 Law, external, not a cure for per- 
 sonal immorality, 225; not a, 
 substitute for private influence, 
 285-289 
 
 Law of Love and Love as a Law, 
 The, Hopkins, 64, 93 
 
 Laws, as framed and administered 
 by government, 292-314; con- 
 cerning business, 294, 295; 
 interfering with business, 295- 
 303; regulating prices and 
 wages, 295-299; stimulating in- 
 dividual initiative, 315-326 
 
 Laws, S. S., xiv 
 
 Leadership, as stimulated by 
 government, 249-251, 315-318 
 
 League of Democratic Nations, 
 
 not preventive of war, 326-328 
 
 Lecky, W. E. H., 75 
 
 Lectures on Metaphysics, Hamil- 
 ton, 7, 63; Moral Philosophy, 
 Jouffroy, 92 ; Moral Philosophy, 
 Peabody, 55, 65, 95; Philosophy 
 of the Human Mind, Brown, 65 
 
 Leibnitz, G. W., 32, 82 
 
 Leitch, John, 261 
 
 L'Estrange, R., 63 
 
 Leverhulnie, Lord, 263 
 
 Leviathan, Hobbes, 78 
 
 Levy-Bruhl, Lucian, 89 
 
 Liberty, educational, 293; busi- 
 ness, 294-314; industrial, 257- 
 261; political and social, 270- 
 272, 275-280, 294, 322-328; 
 religious, 293, 294 
 
 Life in Song, A, Raymond, 281, 
 
 329. 330 
 
 Life of the Spirit, R. Eucken, 37 
 
 Lindsay, B. B., 240 
 
 Locke, John, 64, 79, 92 
 
 Locksley Hall, Tennison, 327 
 
 Lotze, Rudolph H., 70 
 
 Louis XIV., of Prance, 135 
 
 Love, as the aim of obligation, 93- 
 95; moral influence of, on a 
 child, 183, 184 
 
 Lowell, J. R., 158-160 
 
 Loyalty, a citizen's to his govern- 
 ment, 267-270; to the United 
 States Constitution, 276; work- 
 men's, to their industry, 264 
 
 Luck in business, 248, 249 
 
 Lucretius, 74 
 
 Mackenzie, J. S., 95, 100 
 
 McCosh, James, 92 
 
 Majority, rule of, 280-285; "ised 
 to enforce by physical pre- 
 dominance, 285-291, 298-301 
 
 Malebranche, Nicholas, 92 
 
 Man, origin of,and of mankind, 1,2 
 
 Manners as related to Morality, 
 193 ; taught to children, 191-193 
 
 Manual of Ethics, The, Mackenzie, 
 94. 100 
 
 Marriage, 173-181; false views 
 with reference to, 177; infliuence 
 of parents on, 177, I78;influence 
 of prospects of, 1 76 ; precautions 
 preceding, 175-178; why cere- 
 monials accompany, 214 
 
INDEX 
 
 339 
 
 Martin, S. A., loo 
 
 Martineau, James, 53, 65, 91 
 
 Materialism, vii-xi, 38-39, 78, 79 
 
 Matthew, St., 153, 240 
 
 Mature, methods of influencing 
 morally, the, vs. the young, 
 206-208 
 
 Master, great, 30; of Galilee, 128, 
 139; Nazareth, 125; the intel- 
 lectual methods of, 139 
 
 Meakin, Frederick, 63 
 
 Mechanism of the Human Mind, 
 Hartley, 79 
 
 Meditations, Marcus Aurelius, 68, 
 74, 102; Descartes, 79 
 
 Memorabilia, Xenophon, 72, 100 
 
 Memory, 38; learning from, 43 
 
 Men distinguished from animals, 
 35-38 
 
 Mencius, 46 
 
 Mental, meaning of the word as 
 used in this volume, 4; is 
 rational, unselfish, and humane, 
 20, 2 1 ; underlies all develop- 
 ment of art, religion, or science, 
 21-23 
 
 Mental and bodily, connection 
 between the two, 23, 82, 83; not 
 related as are material causes 
 with effects, 29-34 
 
 Mental and Moral Philosophy, 
 Bain, 96 
 
 Mental faculties, Hamilton's 
 classification of, 7; of animals 
 M. men, 37, 38 
 
 Mental Science, Bain, 63 
 
 Metaphysics, Lectures on, Hamil- 
 ton, 7, 63 
 
 Metaphysics of Ethics, Kant, 65 
 
 Methods of Ethics, Sidgwick, $5, 
 96, 100 
 
 Metropolitan Magazine, 263 
 
 Meyers, C. S., 36 
 
 Michigan primary election meth- 
 ods, 278 
 
 Militarism, vii 
 
 Mill, James, 53, 96; John S., 96, 97 
 
 Mind, definition of the term. 4, 
 148, 149; desire of, should sub- 
 ordinate not suppress that of 
 the body, 123-140 
 
 Moderation, Greek, 132, 133 
 
 Modesty, 237. See Immodesty 
 and Humility 
 
 Mohammedan, xiv, 46 
 
 Monarchy, 272-274 
 
 Money, a medium of exchange, 
 
 243-244; making it, not the 
 
 chief aim of business, 243, 244; 
 
 nor chiefly desirable in planning 
 
 for human betterment, 308, 
 
 309; saving it, 247 
 Monks, 124, 128 
 Montessori System of Teaching, 
 
 186 
 Moore, T. V., 68; W. L., 221 
 Moral delinquents, how should 
 
 be treated by the State, 240 
 Moral Law, The, E. J. Hamilton, 
 
 90 
 Moral Nature of Man, The, Bucke, 
 
 14 
 
 Moral Philosophy, Combe, 141; 
 Pairchild, 93; Stewart, 92; 
 Haven, 90; Handbook of, Cal- 
 derwood, 64, 88; Institutes of, 
 Tefft, 67; Lectures on, Jouffroy, 
 92; Peabody, 55, 65, 95 
 
 Moral Science, Elements of. Por- 
 ter, 81; Wayland, 89, 95, 182, 
 242, 243 
 
 Moral sense theory, 91-93, 121 
 
 Moral Sentiments, Theory of, Adam 
 Smith, 91, 93 
 
 Moral traits enumerated, 189 
 
 Moralist, The, Shaftesbury, 91 
 
 Morality, furthered by civil lib- 
 erty, 323-326; personal, not the 
 result of external laws, 285-289, 
 303-305; related to religion, 
 xiv-xvi, 329, 330; taught in 
 schools, 170, 190, 195, 196, 203, 
 204; traced to external condi- 
 tions, ix-xi; to those within the 
 mind, ix-xi; same standards of, 
 desirable in a country, xv 
 
 Morality, Principles and Practice 
 of, Robinson, 67 ; Rational Ideal 
 of, Fitzgerald, 93 
 
 Morals, Elements of, Janet, 66; 
 History of European, Lecky, 
 75 
 
 Moving pictures, 170, 173, 177,237 
 
 Muirhead, J. H., 66 
 
 Mullet, M. A., 261 
 
 Munsterberg, Hugo, 98 
 
 Murray, J. C, 66 
 
 Musset-Pathay, 66, 68 
 
340 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Mystery, effect of, on children, 
 
 l86, 187 
 Mysticism, 102, 103; Christian, 76, 
 
 99; pagan, 76 
 Mystics, 76, 77 
 
 Nature of Virtue, The, J. Edwards, 
 
 93 
 
 Nature, Stoic method of living 
 according to, 74, 92 
 
 Neo-Platonism, 75, 76, 99 
 
 Nervous system, automatic and 
 cerebro-spinal, 13, 14; preceded 
 by muscular, 12-14 
 
 New Essays on the Human Under- 
 standing, Leibnitz, 32 
 
 Newspapers, occasional evil in- 
 fluence of, 169, 178 
 
 Nietzsche, Frederick, 87, 88 
 
 Non-selfish character of mental 
 desires, 20-23, 152-154 
 
 Noumenal mind according to 
 Kant, 80, 81, 84 
 
 Novels, when injurious, 173, 178, 
 179, 238, 239 
 
 Novum Organum, Bacon, 77 
 
 Nude art, 236-238 
 
 Obligation, attributed to expe- 
 riencing pleasure and pain, 70- 
 72; divine origin of, 67-69, Ty, 
 end and source of, similar in 
 character in the same mind, 65- 
 67; how it influences the whole 
 mind, 120-122; how the sense 
 of, is derived, 61, 63, 111-122; 
 main questions concerning, 61; 
 traced to thinking, 104-107; 
 traced to feeling, 107-110; 
 traced to feeling and also 
 thinking, 111-122 
 
 Observation, as influencing de- 
 sire and character, 157-163; 
 how and when of benefit to one, 
 42 
 
 Occam, William, 75 
 
 Orator's Manual, The, Raymond, 
 I39> 236 
 
 Order, importance of, in aesthetics 
 and ethics, 143, 146 
 
 Outlines of Esthetics, Lotze, 70 
 
 Overdressing, 228 
 
 Overindulgence, 133, 134 
 
 Overreaching desires, 133-136 
 
 Ownership, public, 295-299, 308- 
 312 
 
 Pain and pleasure, experience of, 
 as the source of ethics and 
 aesthetics, 70-72, 97-99 
 
 Painting, Sculpture, and Arch- 
 tecture as Representative Arts, 
 Raymond, 236 
 
 Paley, W., 96 
 
 Paradoxes, Cicero, 74 
 
 Parentage, training for, 173, 174 
 
 Parliament, 274, 327 
 
 Patents granted by govenmient, 
 
 317 
 
 Patronage in a Republic, 289-291 
 
 Paul, Apostle, 26, 31, 57 
 
 Paulsen, P., 55-57, 67, 87, 107 
 
 Peabody, A. P., 55, 65, 95 
 
 Perception, 4; when influencing 
 higher desire, 42 
 
 Perceptional intuitionism, 65, 92 
 
 Personality, as influencing an- 
 other's desire and character, 
 45, 46, 125 
 
 Personal will in determining 
 character, 10, 11, 138 
 
 Phcsdo, Plato, 54 
 
 Phenology, 18 
 
 Phenomenal, according to Kant, 
 80,81 
 
 Philebus, Plato, 72 
 
 Phillips, W., 264 
 
 Philosophical Introduction to 
 Ethics, Gibson, 100 
 
 Philosophy, of Conduct, Ladd, 67; 
 Martin, 100; of the Human 
 Mind, Brown, 65; of Loyalty, 
 Royce, 67; of Moral Feeling, 
 Abercrombie, 141 ; of the Right, 
 Hegel, 86 
 
 Physiological psychology, xii 
 
 Physiologische Psychologic, Wuildt, 
 70 
 
 Placards used for moral sugges- 
 tions in schools, 195, 196 
 
 Plato, 46, 54, 72, 73, 75, 95, 141 
 
 Platonism, 99 
 
 Pleasure, see Pain 
 
 Pleasures and recreations of so- 
 ciety, 230-240 
 
 Pledge not to drink intoxicants,222 
 
 Plotinus, 75 
 
 Plutarch, 75 
 
INDEX 
 
 341 
 
 Pogson, F. L., 37 
 
 Political, corruption resulting from 
 government ownership or man- 
 agement, 295-301; liberty due 
 to expression of higher desire, 
 270-272 
 
 Porphyry, 75, 76 
 
 Porter, Noah, 81 
 
 Practice and theory, as philo- 
 sophically separated by Kant, 
 81-86, 89, 90 
 
 Pragmatism, as related to utili- 
 tarianism, 96; to the self-realiza- 
 tion theory, 100, 101 
 
 Premier of England vs. President 
 of United States, 274 
 
 President of United States vs. 
 Premier of England, 274 
 
 Price, Richard, 80 
 
 Priestley, Joseph, 79 
 
 Principles, of Ethics, Dymond, 90; 
 of Morality, Wundt, 8, 64 
 
 Problem of Conduct, The, Taylor, 
 138 
 
 Problems in Ethics, Kedney, 93 
 
 Professor, disloyalty of a, in Theo- 
 logical Seminary, viii 
 
 Professors in Germany tempo- 
 rarily disregardful of scientific 
 accuracy, vi 
 
 Prohibition of manufacture and 
 sale of intoxicants, 221-225; 
 not a cure for immorality, 225 
 
 Progress and Poverty, Henry 
 George, 242 
 
 Progress in methods of govern- 
 ment due to mental desire, 270- 
 272 
 
 Prolegomena of Ethics, Green, 55, 
 74. 99. loi 
 
 Promises, keeping, 213 
 
 Property, how rightly acquired, 
 242 ; by purchase or inheritance, 
 318; violation of its rights, 242, 
 
 243 
 
 Protagoras, 74 
 
 Psychical, or mental, and physical, 
 or material, brought into ap- 
 parently causal relationship in 
 the consciousness of the human 
 mind, 82, 83 
 
 Psychology, John Dewey, 64; 
 W. James, xii; Handbook of, 
 Baldwin, 49, 54, 70 
 
 Public sentiment, influence on 
 reform, 269-271 
 
 Quakers, 83, 86 
 
 Racing, as connected with betting, 
 233, 234; with automobiles, 233, 
 
 234 
 
 Rashdall, Hastings, 66, 93 
 
 Rational, associated with the non- 
 selfish, 21; as one source of the 
 sense of obligation, 70-72, 77, 
 78. See Mental and Thinking 
 
 Rational Ideal of Morality, The 
 Fitzgerald, 93 
 
 Rational intuitionism according 
 to Kant, 80-86, 89, 90 
 
 Raymond, B. W., xiii, 245; G. L., 
 29. 139. 142, 143. 236, 329, 330 
 
 Recent Tendencies in Ethics, Sor- 
 ley, 61 
 
 R^e, Paul, 98 
 
 Reform, accomplished with revo- 
 lution, 268-270; in character, 
 influenced by both the indivi- 
 dual and the community, 239, 
 240 
 
 Reid, Thomas, 92 
 
 Religion, as related to morality, 
 xiv-xvi, 329, 330; as taught in 
 schools, 195; in conventional 
 observances for the benefit of 
 society, 209-211; in the home, 
 186-188; liberty of, 293; rela- 
 tions of, to science and art, 29, 
 30 
 
 Religious Life, Elementary Forms 
 of the, Durkheim, 89 
 
 Repetition of action, its influence 
 on morality, 163-166 
 
 Representative character of art, 
 29-32, 82, 83, 147; of a republic, 
 274-280 
 
 Republic, constitutional, 273 ; rep- 
 resentative, 274-280 
 
 Republic, The, Plato, 141 
 
 Republican party, 278 
 
 Republicanism, 271 
 
 Residence, a man's, as related to 
 higher or lower desire, 228-230 
 
 Responsibility for others, feeling 
 of, overdone, 207, 208; for self, 
 206; the latter causing depres- 
 sion to the young, 152 
 
342 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Restraint, moral, needed by taen, 
 X, xi 
 
 Reverence, in children, 186-188; 
 in mature characters, 209, 210; 
 taught in school, 194-196 
 
 Revolution, 294; not the method 
 of higher desire, viii-xi, 268-270, 
 312-314; when justified, 269, 270 
 
 Revolutionists, 268-270; their 
 errors, 269 
 
 Reward, large, an incentive to 
 large service, 249-251 
 
 Robinson, E. G., 67 
 
 Roman, church, unable, through 
 external physical force to pre- 
 vent war, 378 ; ethics, 62, 63, 68- 
 75; republic, unable to enforce 
 peace, 378 
 
 Rome, 271, 275, 280 
 
 Roosevelt, T., 158-160, 304 
 
 Royce, J., 46, 67 
 
 Russia, V, 18 
 
 Russian revolutionists, vi 
 
 Sabotage, viii 
 
 Salary, large, needed for large 
 service, 248-251 
 
 Salvation Army and Volunteers, 
 129 
 
 Saving money, 247, 248 
 
 Schools, 194-205; appeal in, to 
 higher and lower desire, 197- 
 202; athletics in, 201, 202, 263, 
 264; competition in, 200, 201; 
 coeducational, 203-205 ; large vs. 
 small, 202; physical drill and 
 psychical practice, 196, 197, 
 200; reverence, religion, and 
 morals as taught in, 170, 194- 
 196, 203, 204 
 
 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 67, 82 
 
 Schwab, C. M., 259 
 
 Science, cause and effect as re- 
 lated in, and in art and religion, 
 29, 30, 81-83; confirmation of 
 the theories of this book, 12-23, 
 
 32-34 
 
 Science of Duty, Day, 66 
 
 Science, the magazine, 12 
 
 Scientific late conclusions apt to 
 concur with those of early com- 
 mon sense, 69 
 
 Scrupulousness in personal char- 
 acter, 209 
 
 Self-control and feeling of respon- 
 sibility, 206-208 
 
 Self-denial and sacrifice, express- 
 ing higher desire, 313, 314 
 
 Self-love, necessary in character, 
 
 125 
 
 Self-Realization, an Outline of 
 Ethics, Wright, H. W., 57, loo 
 
 Self-realization, theory of ethics, 
 xi, 99-103, 116 
 
 Sellers and buyers, 241-251 
 
 Seneca, 63, 74 
 
 Sensation, physical, 4, 12; effect 
 of, rather than of truth, some- 
 times sought in novels and 
 dramas, 238, 239 
 
 Sensationalism in philosophy, 79 
 
 Sermons on Human Nature, But- 
 ler, 64, 90, 91 
 
 Seth, James, 95, 100 
 
 Settlement workers, x 
 
 Seven capital sins of the Catho- 
 lics, 134 
 
 Shaftesbury, Lord (Arthur Ashley 
 Cooper), 65, 67, 91-93. 107 
 
 Shame accompanying unchastity, 
 214 
 
 Shaw, C. G., 56, 67 
 
 Sidgwick, Henry, 55, 96, 100 
 
 Simmel, Georg, 98 
 
 Sincere, yet wrong, 109 
 
 Sincerity. See Truthfulness 
 
 Skill in balance dependent on will, 
 
 137 
 
 Smith, Adam, 91, 93 
 
 Smoking, tobacco, habit of, 220- 
 221; by women, 221 
 
 Social customs, habits, pleasures, 
 206-240 
 
 Socialism, its nature and logical 
 results, 310-312; lessons con- 
 cerning, taught in recent war, 
 325, 326; relying upon use of 
 force, 89 
 
 Socialistic, ix, x 
 
 Social Statics, Herbert Spencer, 
 242 
 
 Society, ethics as related to gen- 
 eral conditions in, 206-217; 
 religious conformity in, for the 
 sake of others, 209-211; traits 
 of useful members of, 209-211 
 
 Socrates, 45, 72, 73, 95 
 
 Solomon, 138 
 
INDEX 
 
 343 
 
 Sophists, 74 
 
 Sorley, W. R., 6i 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, xii, 53, 66, 97, 
 98, 242, 312 
 
 Spinosa, 79 
 
 Standard Dictionary, 4 
 
 State as the source of morality ,vi-x 
 
 Steel corporation, United States, 
 care for operatives, 306 
 
 Stephen, Leslie, 53, 98 
 
 Stewart, Dugald, 65, 80, 92 
 
 Stimulants, as related to morals, 
 220-225; intoxicating, prohibi- 
 tion vs. regulation of sale of, 
 222-225 
 
 Stoicism, 99 
 
 Stoics, 68, 69, 73-75. 78, 80, 92, 
 
 125 
 
 Stork, T. D., 56 
 
 Strait-laced, the, not always mor- 
 ally influential, 208 
 
 Strikes in industries, 265, 266, 305 
 
 Study of Ethical Principles, A, 
 Seth, 95, 100 
 
 Study should be made interesting, 
 not easy, 199 
 
 Subconscious processes of mind, 
 influence of, 159, 160, 168-170 
 
 Subordinating rather than sup- 
 pressing lower desire, 123-140. 
 See Suppressing 
 
 Sudermann, 179 
 
 Suffrage, 278-291; limitations of, 
 as applied to children, for- 
 eigners, former slaves, etc., 
 282-289; right of, as derived 
 from intelligence, service, tax- 
 paying, thrift, etc., 283, 284; 
 used to apply physical force to 
 the solving of psychical prob- 
 lems, 285-289 
 
 Suffragettes, viii 
 
 Suggestions, influence of , 159-161, 
 164, 165, 168-171 
 
 Suppressing lower desires, 124, 
 128, 149; easy remedy for 
 wrong, but not sufficient, 128 
 
 Survival of the fittest, evolu- 
 tionary theory of, as applied to 
 morals, xii, 99 
 
 Sutherland, A., 98 
 
 Swedenborg, Emmanuel, 82 
 
 Sympathy as the source and end 
 of moral obligation, xi, 93 
 
 System of Ethics, F. Paulsen, 55- 
 57, 67, 87, 94, 107; of Moral 
 Philosophy, Hutcheson, 65; of 
 Moral Science, Hickok, 64, 90 
 
 Systematic Morality, Jevons W., 
 65 
 
 Taft, W. H., 278 
 
 Tauler, 76 
 
 Taylor, A. E., 138 
 
 Tefft, L. B., 67 
 
 Teleological ethical theory, xi, 
 
 45.94.97, 117, 139 
 Temptation, as affected by desire, 
 
 ^43,44 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, 327; Thomas, 80 
 
 Text Book of Physiology, Howell, 
 18 
 
 Theatre, 237-239 
 
 The Beginnings of Ethics, Cutler, 
 67 
 
 The Creed of Hobbes Examined, 
 Tennyson, 80 
 
 The Doctrine of Philosophic Ne- 
 cessity Explained, Priestley, 79 
 
 The Elements of Moral Science, 
 Wayland, 89, 95, 182, 242, 243 
 
 The Eternal and Immutable 
 Morality, Cudworth 79 
 
 The Ethics of Evolution, Bixby, 
 55,63 
 
 The Moral Law, E. J. Hamilton, 
 90 
 
 The Moralist, Shaftesbury, 91 
 
 The Nature of Virtue, Edwards, 93 
 
 Theories of ethics, analogous in all 
 ages, as also in the differences 
 between them, 60; ancient and 
 mediasval, 60-76 
 
 Theory, desire preventing its ap- 
 plication to practice, 45 ; philo- 
 sophically separated from prac- 
 tice by Kant, 81-88 
 
 Theory of Moral Sentiments, 
 Adam Smith, 91, 93 
 
 The Outlines of Moral Philosophy, 
 Stewart, 80 
 
 The Principles and Practices of 
 Morality, Robinson, 67 
 
 The Religion of Nature Deline- 
 ated, Wallaston, 80 
 
 The Science of Duty, Day, 93 
 
 The Theory of Good and Evil, 
 Rashdall, 66, 93 
 
344 
 
 INDEX 
 
 The Theory of Morals, Hildreth, 
 
 93; Janet, 94 
 The Unchangeable Obligations 0} 
 
 Natural Religion, Clarke, 80, 
 
 95 
 
 The Value and Dignity of Life, 
 Shaw, 56, 67 
 
 The World as Will and Idea, Scho- 
 penhauer, 67, 82 
 
 Thilly, P., 55, 57, 67, 98, 100, 107, 
 142 
 
 Thinking, combined with feeling, 
 as in desire, the source of moral- 
 ity, 110-112; influential in 
 morality in both its intuitional 
 and reflective forms, 70-72, 77- 
 81, 104-107, 1 16-122 
 
 Thomas Aquinas, 75 
 
 Thornton, L. S., 56 
 
 Thought, a constituent of desire, 
 
 5-12, 39 
 Times, the, Los Angeles, 236; 
 
 New York, 278 
 Tobacco, 220-221 
 Treatise on Human Nature, Hume, 
 
 79,91 
 
 Trustworthiness in children, 191 
 
 True, the Beautiful and the Good, 
 The, Cousin, 146 
 
 Truth, as the source of influence 
 in a Republic, viii-x; disregard 
 of, in dramas and novels, 238 
 239; when axiomatic, 27 
 
 Truthfulness, 21 1-2 13; in busi- 
 ness, 242, 247; in children, 191 
 
 Tufts, J. H., 97 
 
 Turks, 109 
 
 Tusculum Disputations, Cicero, 
 68 
 
 Twilight, Nietzsche, 87 
 
 Tyriamy, freedom from 275, 
 
 293 
 Types of Ethical Theory, Marti- 
 neau, 53, 65 
 
 Unchangeable Obligations of Nat- 
 ural Religion, The, Clarke, 80, 
 
 95 
 
 Unconscious. See Subconscious 
 Underdressing, 227 
 Union, desire for, psychical reason 
 for marriage and birth, 3, 4, 
 
 17 
 
 Universal welfare, as the source 
 
 and end of morality, xi. See 
 Eudaimonian 
 
 University, false views with ref- 
 erence to methods and means 
 of instruction in, 198, 199 
 
 Utilitarian, ethical theory, xi, 45, 
 96, 97; its limitations, 117, 139 
 
 Utilitarianism, J. S. Mill, 96 
 
 Utility, ethical theory with ref- 
 erence to, 96, 97 
 
 Vice, indulgence in, leading to 
 repetition of, 163-165; pro- 
 hibiting portrayal or publishing 
 details of, 169, 170; temptation 
 to, sometimes repelled by high- 
 est uninstructed desire, 43, 44, 
 150, 151, 167-170 
 
 Voice of God in conscience. See 
 God 
 
 Von Gizycke, G., 98 
 
 Von Shering, R., 98 
 
 Voting. See Suffrage 
 
 Wages as determined by govern- 
 ment law, 295-302 
 
 War can be best prevented 
 through influencing the higher 
 desires of individuals, 327-328 
 
 Washburn, M. P., 8, 64 
 
 Washington, George, 304 
 
 Watson, J. S., 72 
 
 Wayland, P., 89, 95, 182, 242 
 
 Webster, Daniel, 264; Pelatiah,285 
 
 Welfare or eudaimonism, as the 
 aim of morality, 73, 94, 95 
 
 West Point Military Academy, 
 250 
 
 Whewell, W., 66 
 
 Whipping children, 190 
 
 Will, as a mental faculty, 7-1 1; 
 effect upon it of desire, 8; of 
 feeling 7-9; of thought, 9; its 
 relation to conversion, 40, 41; 
 its responsibility for its action, 
 9-1 1 
 
 William Occam, 75 
 
 Will to Power, Nietzsche, 87 
 
 WoUaston, W., 80, 91 
 
 World, as Will and Idea, Scho- 
 penhauer, 67, 82 
 
 Work, enjoying one's, 263-265 
 
INDEX 
 
 345 
 
 Wright, H. W., 57, 100 
 Wundt, W. M.j 8, 64, 70, 87, 98 
 
 Xenophon, 72, 100 
 
 Yotuig Men's and Women's Chris- 
 tian and Hebrew Associations, 
 
 their influence in correcting the 
 errors of religious asceticism, 
 129 
 Youthful delinquents, how they 
 should be treated by the States 
 and Courts, 240 
 
 Zeno, 73 
 
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