THE ADEQUATE NORM AN ESSAY ON CHRISTIAN ETHICS BY ARNOLD HAMILTON MALONEY, M.A., B.D. Vicar of St. Philip's Church. Indianapolis, Ind. 1914. C. E. PAULEY & CO. PRINTERS. Copyright 1914 by Arnold Hamilton Maloney PREFACE. The original draft of this essay was sub¬ mitted in the Spring of 1913 to the Depart¬ ment of Ethics of the General Theological Seminary in partial fulfillment of the re¬ quirements for the degree of Bachelor in Divinity. Since that time portions of it, rewritten and revised, have, on several oc¬ casions, been read before Ministerial Alli¬ ances and Literary Clubs. Repeated re¬ quests—the genuineness of which one may not question—on the part of several persons who have heard these papers read, that they be put into permanent book form, have at last convinced the author that, whereas nothing is gained by declining, some good might possibly be derived by complying with such earnest requests. Should good follow, however infinitesimal it might be, the author will feel satisfied that no mistake was made by his compliance. The sources of information consulted and the published works of writers from which help has been freely drawn are many. And throughout the text efforts have been made to indicate our indebtedness by the use of references and quotation marks. The author is also glad to take occasion of acknowledging himself heavily indebted to his brother, Mr. Clarence M. Maloney, LL.B., for numerous invaluable suggestions, cor¬ rections and other kindnesses. A. H. M. Indianapolis, August, 1914. CONTENTS PAGE Introductory 5 PART I. HISTORICAL CRITICISM— CHAPTER 1 Comparative Ethics 13 CHAPTER 2 Evolution in Ethics 32 CHAPTER 3 The Finality of Christian Ethics 42 PART II. THE PROBLEM OF ETHICS- CHAPTER 1 An Ethical Postulate 51 CHAPTER 2 The Task of Christian Ethics 66 PART III. THE ETHICAL IDEAL— CHAPTER 1 Met-Adelphism 101 CHAPTER 2 Its Adequacy 126 CHAPTER 3 A Suggested Programme 148 CONCLUSION— A Note of Hope 159 INTRODUCTORY The history of religion is the history of the ebb and flow of human interest in, and attachment to, eternal realities. The his¬ tory of theology is the history of the posi¬ tions indicated by the magnetic needle of current interest in the thought-values of re¬ ligion. The substance of religion remains constant through quantitative variations of its manifestation; the substance of theology changes with the shifting scenes of the thought-interests- of peoples and times. The¬ ological thought has no centre of gravity— unless the human mind, a variable and un¬ stable manifold, can with any show of ex¬ actitude be called a centre of gravity; relig¬ ious experience has its centre of gravity in the effecting, however feebly or fully, of the will of God. Religion takes for granted the being of God and endues Him with the fun¬ damental qualities of mind and character; theology offers an apologetic for the being of 5 6 ADEQUATE NORM God and construes a schema of divine attri¬ butes with dogmatic precision. A man may be a good theologian with a poor specimen of religion or with no religion at all; or, a man may be exemplary in his religion and be at the same time a poor theologian. Religion may go with theology or it may not; theol¬ ogy, however unconsciously, vaguely, or un- systematically possessed, must go with relig¬ ion. For a man may have, and be able to give, reasons for the being of God; to de¬ scribe God satisfactorily to the critical mind; and even dilate on the categorical imperative of His will and yet not endeavor to adjust himself to that will; but a man who strives diligently to live according to the will of God must, were it merely in the motive of the endeavor, have a notion of the God whose qualities he strives to envisage in his life and a sense of the genius of His will. Religion is life; theologies are views. Now, although theology is not a sine qua non to the religious man, it is an adornment which may be capable of reacting benefi¬ cently on the intensity of his religious life. Herein lies its value. In days gone by the- INTRODUCTORY 7 ology was predominantly dogmatic. Popular interest centered around the nicety of an¬ alytical knowledge of the metaphysical qual¬ ities inherent in Deity. Sieges and assaults from without as well as within the folds of the Church called forth the best efforts of Christian scholars to vindicate the Catholic view of God. This was the age that gave definite form to the great doctrines and creeds of Christendom. Following this the¬ ological "attitude" a question was raised. Briefly stated it was this: You have an¬ alyzed the nature of God; but are you in po¬ sition to verify rationally the being of God? Can you prove the existence of that which you have assumed? It was then that theol¬ ogy took on an apologetic turn. And here¬ after the major portion of the body of theol¬ ogy has been a long-drawn-out discussion of such questions as: Is there a God? If there is, can He be described? And if so, then describe Him. Dogmatic, apologetic, and apologetico- dogmatic theological energy has gravitated until comparatively recently when a distinct¬ ively ethical turn of the needle has been 8 ADEQUATE NORM made. This age is little interested in the dialectic of divinity; but keenly interested in bringing life under the control of God's will. The shift from theology to ethics is signifi¬ cant. Ethics is not religion nor is it theol¬ ogy ; yet it identifies itself with parts of both. On its theoretical side it draws near to the¬ ology, correcting its extravagancies and as¬ similating its staple results; on its practical side it joins hands with religion, enhancing its value and buttressing its fort. Ethics is concrete as well as abstract. An ethical man is one who thinks and lives within bounds of approved ethics. It has to do with the problem and the living of life. Herbert Spencer defines life as the continuous ad¬ justment of inner relations to outer. If that definition be accepted, ethics aims at under¬ standing these relations and at adjusting them to each other. It sets a standard or norm and then endeavors to construct a pathway leading to it. Like every other science it is conducted by individuals or schools, each with a peculiar bent and a dis¬ tinct outlook. Hence there are variations and contradictions to be met with when INTRODUCTORY 9 comparison is made between the statements of the several investigators. But if this be the case the question arises—and it is quite a cogent one—as to which norm must be fol¬ lowed when so many are given. And we seem at the very outset to land in confusion. In striving to answer this question and avoid the confusion a brief survey of representa¬ tive ethical theories will be made; first, to show that a fundamental unity underlies them; and, secondly, to show that the Chris¬ tian norm is representative of the climax of ethical evolution with the inherent capacity of unfolding itself so as to meet the exigen¬ cies of all times and possible conditions. Indeed, so vast is the inclusiveness of Christian ethics that scholars are ever busy on the task of demonstrating its universality. Negatively, the solvent for every moral ill, the panacea for every evil Christian ethics has been parceled out in terms of specific virtues for specific vices; positively, the last word on ideality it has been dissected to feed every aspect of ethical hunger. In this "ap¬ plication" process the synthetic character of the Christian norm has been practically lost 10 ADEQUATE NORM sight of. So-called secular ethics invariably starts out with an organic idea as the centre from which specific points radiate. Chris¬ tian ethics has busied itself with elucida¬ tions of its radiating points with no definite regard for the organic concept. In this essay a definite effort is made to centre thought on one entrancing idea in which all others are united, from which they all issue and around which they all revolve. And we hope that this new departure in method may receive the consideration and the development it merits. PART I. HISTORICAL CRITICISM. 11 CHAPTER 1. COMPARATIVE ETHICS. In his work on the "Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct," Mr. Sutherland says, "What we think the world around us to be, is only the symbolic interpretation of our own consciousness."* This is a fact of signifi¬ cant importance and consequently it can not be overlooked in the formulation of our moral judgments. Since one is bound by the very necessity of his nature to project his subjective feelings, in order to construct out of them the objective world in which he lives, it is not unnatural to expect that opinions will vary, one man's feeling being identical to that of no other man. The objection raised against this view is that it advocates an ethical subjectivism which would inevit¬ ably lead to license. "What I judge the world ought to be," says Sidgwick, "must, ♦Vol. 2, p. 313. 13 14 ADEQUATE NORM unless I am in error, be similarly judged by all rational beings, who judge truly of the matter."f This desire for objectivity is valid, but it may be better satisfied by the fact that there is somewhat of similarity be¬ tween the mental constitutions of men. Be¬ cause one judges an act to be good or bad it does not stand to reason that such judgment is solely the result of an individual emotion; it may have reference to an emotion of a more general character, for emotion is capa¬ ble of being instructed and directed by rea¬ son which presents a more striking uniform¬ ity than does feeling. When I judge the show-window of a certain store on Broad¬ way, New York City, to be beautiful I do not merely mean that it satisfies my aesthetic taste only but I tacitly assume that it will be similarly adjudged by anyone who is ca¬ pable of appreciating the beautiful. The in¬ fluence of the intellect upon moral judgment is certainly immense (vid. Aristotle, for ex¬ ample) for the moral consciousness to a large extent owes its development to the progress made by thought; but a sharp dis- tMethods of Ethics, p. 25. COMPARATIVE ETHICS 15 tinction must be drawn between the agent which helps and the instrument which causes. As to origin, our moral judgments must ultimately be referred to our moral emotions of approval or disapproval. In its primitive naive state there were practically no complications in internal and external conditions so as to produce varieties in emotional reactions; neither were there marked differentiations in the thought-prod¬ uct of the people and consequently there was a "uniformity of views." But with progress there was naturally developed a heterogeni- ety in existing conditions—physical, mental, and social—causing a corresponding diver¬ sity of opinions. But progress is always welcome, present or in retrospect, and since it brings with it diversity it is necessary and desirable that men's moral judgments should present variations. (a) Consciousness Un-moral: Among primitive peoples custom and that alone is the ruling principle of all action; and strict obedience to it is enforced. With these peo¬ ples custom has a dual aspect. It is habitual and because the contrary act would be un- 16 ADEQUATE NORM usual it is also obligatory. Under the dicta¬ torship of custom the prevalent belief is that conduct interpretable as being a breach of faith brings misfortune upon the offender, upon his relatives, or upon the community as a whole. Thus certain tribes of Australia hold that the Erkincha disease comes about as a result of breaches of custom, t Three views are held by these peoples respecting the causal nexus between the disease and the breach, the first magical and the two others religious. In the first the individual feels conscious that even before the act is com¬ mitted its consequences would be disastrous. There is, therefore, present in his mind a horror, an instinctive dread, and this consti¬ tutes him a fit member of human society. But such a conception is mechanical rather than ethical. In the second there is the con¬ ception of some spiritual intervention. This is the real animistic basis of conduct. The agent is brought by the contrary deed under the power of the offended spirit. The Da- kotas attribute bad luck in the chase to a Westermarck, "The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas. 1 COMPARATIVE ETHICS 17 previous offense committed by some member of the hunting party or, his family against the spirit of the dead.* The spirits like the savages themselves hate their enemies and love their friends, their peculiar attitude be¬ ing conformable to the object they inhabit. They are not moral beings whom wickedness, as such, offends. They are selfish beings concerned only with conduct affecting them individually. Whenever their authority is tampered with they manifest their resent¬ ment. It is only in this indirect manner that animism provides a sanction for con¬ duct. In the third, the spirits themselves are conceived of as personifications of the moral order. They now embody a certain type of disinterestedness transforming their actions from the sphere of mere resentment to that of justice. They supervise the cus¬ toms of the family or tribe without reference to their own interests in the matter and in¬ flict punishment on any infringer of the laws laid down by custom as a jury would. This idea of disinterested administration of jus¬ tice had its birth in the development of the Westermarck, ibid. 18 ADEQUATE NORM conception of a Supreme Being as Director and Protector of the whole moral order whose will was carried out by the several spirits of animism. The vengeance of a ghost in the second stage is quite different from the judgment of a god which arises in this stage of the moral consciousness yet in embryo. The god takes peculiar interest in moral acts as such, assisting the needy be¬ cause he is in need and punishing the of¬ fender because he is an offender. In this stage, crude though it be, the point is at¬ tained where the ethical element begins to make its appearance as a fact to be reckoned with in human consciousness. (b) Consciousness Ethical: Following closely in the wake of this period comes re¬ flection which, as it grows more and more, compels men to set aside blind custom and to substitute for it a higher rule of life with a more profound understanding of its rela¬ tion to cosmic forces. The stimulus is men¬ tal as well as economic. Similar beings dwelling together in the same community are subject to simultaneous reactions, and the sense of these common reactions makes pos- COMPARATIVE ETHICS 19 sible the conception of many minds with common experiences. Social consensus stands out as the criterion of habits and opinions. To reverse the order by consult¬ ing one's own judgment with conscious dis¬ regard of judgments already in vogue seems at once futile and audacious; but there are impetuous minds born to disregard the chances they take with forces against them and even to flatly deny that they are taking chances. By them primitive ideas are an¬ alyzed and reconstructed with the view of making them better adaptable to certain per¬ sonal ideas of life and character. With such a method as this there is the beginning of an ethical system conceived of as the basis of a conscious ordering of human life accord¬ ing to standards devised by the deliberate thought-efforts of the best and wisest mem¬ bers of the race. These efforts were carried on synchronously yet independently in two different parts of the world—in China and in Greece—and this makes it a very interest¬ ing undertaking to study the variations de¬ veloped in the process of systematization. The ethics of Confucius, consistent with all 20 ADEQUATE NORM systems standing independently of religious sanction or common custom, lays down as its basic principle the premise that virtue is its own reward. The great teacher repeatedly insisted that the man who practiced virtue had no fear whatever of punishment from any source and no need of anticipating di¬ vine reward. "Virtue for virtue's sake is sufficient reward for the upright man." On this subject Hobhouse writes, "The basis of morals, then, is the intrinsic desirability of a great ideal which accords with the true prin¬ ciples of man's nature when brought to their due development by proper education. To such an ideal man must hold fast in spite of all that fortune or his fellow-men can do to him, and that will be best for him in that he so remains lord of himself. In so doing he keeps the appointments of heaven, yet his re¬ ward is nothing external to the act itself, but consists merely in the high desirability of the life lived in accordance with the best principles that are in one."f As to its application, this premise was in¬ tended to be all-inclusive. The individual in fEvolution of the Moral Ideas, Vol. 2, p. 165 COMPARATIVE ETHICS 21 private life was to live absolutely in and for the service of the family and tribe and the king in public life was to relate himself to his people as father to children, ordering his conduct in such wise as to show to those of his own household the principles of family life, and to the community the principles of corporate life, upon which the structure of Chinese society should be erected. He was to rule more by example than by precept, thereby causing his influence to radiate into a circle the circumference of which was to be as wide as his kingdom. "If you lead on the people with correctness," said he, "who will dare not be correct? To govern is to rectify." Benevolence and rectitude are the leading notes of the character thus de¬ veloped. On the whole, however, the ethical teacher of China and his successors made lit¬ tle or no attempt to get back to first prin¬ ciples—to discover the why or the wherefore of things. They were therefore moral in¬ structors and legislators rather than philos¬ ophers ; hence they accepted too much of the traditional and left the country still bound in the fetters of antiquity. 22 ADEQUATE NORM The Greeks started with the same premise, namely, that virtue should be pursued with¬ out the notice of "men or the gods"; but their method of approach was an entirely different one, so much so, that it entirely demolished the blind laws of custom and the traditions of the Ancients and inaugurated the age of progress. Trained reasoning and method¬ ical analysis now begin to play the leading role in determining the laws of conduct. The first step taken towards the overthrow of customs was in the fifth century B. C. when a wave of skepticism swept over the land like a flood. What was the source of these customs? was the burning question of the day. Right and wrong could not possibly be based on law, it was said, else there would be one and the same law of conduct in force everywhere, and this was not the case. The decision, therefore, was that laws of moral¬ ity were only conventional, depending for their sanction upon the arbitrary will of men, and so it would not be impious to put them to the test. This phase of thought gave rise to philosophic investigation and independence of thought. The principle it COMPARATIVE ETHICS 23 laid down as a working hypothesis was that every man seeks good, or what appears as such to his mind, for himself. Socrates in his use of it was well aware of its individual¬ ism if not in fact at least in phrase, yet he insisted that however liable it was to being so interpreted it was not only reconcilable with the highest claims of consciousness, but it also helped to set these claims upon a firm basis in reason. But the inevitable deduc¬ tion was that only the wise could be good citizens since they alone would be sufficiently sensible to discover the good. The hypothe¬ sis, therefore, tended to make conduct a mat¬ ter of intellect and not of intrinsic character and it destroyed moral responsibility. To Socrates it was simply unthinkable that good or evil was dependent upon will. Just let a man see the good and he will seek it inevi¬ tably. Morality is only a matter of instruc¬ tion. Plato seeing the dilemma introduced the emotions to co-operate with reason, thereby essaying to vindicate the retention of moral responsibility, but his effort was a failure because he hitched the cart before the horse; and the problem passed on to Aristotle. Like 24 ADEQUATE NORM his predecessors, Aristotle taught that every intelligence chooses what is best for itself; but, to understand what is best, he argued, there must be a synthesis between reason and character. The wrongdoer is culpably liable because ignorance on his part in choos¬ ing the wrong is a mark of bad character de¬ veloped through loose methods of living which have corrupted his moral judgment—an argumentum in circulo. The antidote which he offered was the practical training of youth for the purpose of developing the required character. And this character, he claimed, would give the right aim to a trained intel¬ ligence. But this is decidedly an aristo¬ cratic system. It presupposes a condition which is the birthright of only the elite. Sons of noblemen and kings—not the vulgus —were considered by him. Origen in his treatise against Celsus, contrasting the Christian inclusiveness with Pagan exclu- siveness says, "We cure every rational being with the medicine of our doctrine, but Plato and the other wise men of Greece with their fine sayings, are like the physicians who con¬ fine their attention to the better classes and COMPARATIVE ETHICS 25 despise the common man." It was quite a common charge against early Christianity that its teachings could only persuade "Peo¬ ple destitute of sense, position, or intelligence, only slaves, women and children. But Tatian's answer was convincing. He said: "Not so. Our maidens philosophize, and at their distaffs speak of things divine. The poor no less than the well-to-do philosophize with us." And Justin adds, "Christ has not, as Socrates had, merely philosophers and scholars as his disciples, but also artisans and people of no education."* The Greek eth¬ ical teachers came to call the righteous, not sinners, to repentance. Such is the exclu- siveness of Greek ethical theory. Nor were they unconscious of this, for Aristotle at one time likened society to an animate organism of which some men represented the brain or instrument of thought while others stood for the lower organs that function under the di¬ rection of the brain, and which, because they were by nature lower, could never attain to the position of the brain. This is the oi:t- *Quotation taken from Harnack, "Mission and Ex¬ pansion of Christianity," pp. 117 and 209. 26 ADEQUATE NORM come of all systems based on intellectualism as the ultimate discerner of moral ideas. The differences between Chinese and Greek ethics are marked; but the differences between Greek and Hebrew ethics are more marked. As translated into rules of con¬ duct, Plato advised "common marriage," while the Hebrews held monogamy to be the only recognized form of marriage. The Greeks (and especially the Stoics) held sui¬ cide to be an honorable act, a relief from misery when misery was one's experience; the Rabbis denounced it as criminal even under the extremest conditions of torture when one had no doubt but that one's earthly career must soon cease, and Josephus brands it as cowardice. The Greeks busied them¬ selves about the cultivation of the rational, the aesthetical, and the physical; the He¬ brews made the search for, and acquisition of, holiness and righteousness their end in life. To contrast these radical differences there are illustrations galore, but leaving aside the application let us turn to the theo¬ retical basis thereof. This theoretical basis is the conception of God and of man's rela- COMPARATIVE ETHICS 27 tionship to Him. For the Greeks God is but another name for the Cosmos. With such a deity spiritual relationship is out of ques¬ tion ; and morality becomes but a calculus of prudential obedience and adjustment to the natural world or the world of abstract ideas. From such an ethical viewpoint there could be no rise above the morality of the state, for where man's relationship to some supra- material power is not apprehended anything approaching a world-system is practically unthinkable. Only individual virtues in such a case can be expected. As a result ethics was deprived of that penetrating bond of union which it needs to make it inclusive and which it receives when the realm of hu¬ man personalities is bound together into a larger unity with some superhuman, per¬ sonal power. The Hebrews kept this bond of union intact, for their ethics had its basis and vindication in a religious principle. There is one God, Creator and Sustainer of the world who, as such, is the Founder of the moral order. From Him there radiates flames of Divine Life which, entering into the inner nature of men, constitute them 28 ADEQUATE NORM sons of God and brothers of each other. In view of this organic relationship it becomes the solemn duty of each to elicit the spirit¬ ual welfare of the other; hence one man felt that in order to the attainment of his end it was his duty to assist the other also, and not (like the Greeks) to obstruct him. This cer¬ tainly marks an advance in the development of the moral consciousness, and that, in spite of the recognized fact that intellectual life among the Greeks was far in advance of that of the best Hebrew thinker. One reason why the Hebrews dropped short of the mark was their clannish world-view. We now find ourselves on the verge of an historical movement which began in a very circumscribed compass, but which, charged with vitality too powerful for that compass, soon broke forth like new wine placed in old bottles and enlarged its borders. Jesus Christ has appeared and His disciples have to assail the citadel of the world's thought and action. The world in which Christianity found itself was a veritable melting pot of diverse and divergent thought COMPARATIVE ETHICS 29 and practice. With a decadent Greek learn¬ ing for the centre, Roman institutions for the circumference, and all other conceivable types of synchretistic thought indiscrimi¬ nately filling the space between, Christianity came forward to assert its claim and win for itself the trade-mark of finality. Al¬ though Prof. Harnack may be a correct in¬ terpreter of the mind of Jesus when he as¬ serts that "Jesus addressed His gospel—His message of God's imminent kingdom and of judgment, of God's Fatherly providence, of repentence, holiness and love—to His fel¬ low-countrymen,"* and that "He can not have given any command upon the mission to the wide world,"f it is not to be doubted that the first missionaries did consider themselves within their own rights when they overstepped national and racial bounds and geographical limits and staked life with all its worthwhileness and its comforts on the one endeavor to universalize the teach¬ ings of their Master. The simplicity yet ♦Mission and Expansion of Christianity, Vol. 1, p. 26. tibicl., p. 37. 30 ADEQUATE NORM rich versatility of those teachings guaranteed for them from the very outset a strength which could grapple successfully with any speculation, with any cult of the mysteries, and with any theory of conduct. But it is this very versatility which engenders the sense of inherent contradiction. Early Chris¬ tianity "excited extraordinary fears and hopes," says Harnack, "fears of the immi¬ nent end of the world and of the great reck¬ oning, at which even the just can hardly pass muster; hopes of a glorious reign on earth, after the denouement, and of a para¬ dise which was to be filled with precious de¬ lights and overflowing with comfort and bliss."* But modern Christianity has changed the picture. It looks to the present life as the sphere in which the soul must be harmonized with the world and the world with the soul. It hopes to develop here a perfect order with no thought of a denoue¬ ment, and it warrants that this order will make life long, pleasant, happy and useful. The versatility of Christianity gives the im- *Ibid, p. 90. COMPARATIVE ETHICS 31 pression of contradiction; its unity guaran¬ tees for it leadership of the permanent sort of the world's best thought and conduct. Its versatility insures its adaptability; its unity insures its vitality. CHAPTER 2. EVOLUTION IN ETHICS. Having briefly sketched this "clash of judgments" and "warfare of ideas," it now devolves upon us in the effort at reconciling them to discover that larger synthesis which is the essential feature of the successful norm. One of the standing objections to ethics as a science is that moral opinions differ, that modes of conduct considered right in one age are deemed wrong in another. I think the objection soon loses force when we leave aside ethics for the moment and reflect upon the history of other fields of thought. Be¬ cause the earth was at one time said to be flat; that the sun died each night and an¬ other came into being every morning; and because men in this age have accepted as fact the heliocentricity of our planetary sys¬ tem, no one would because of that difference EVOLUTION IN ETHICS 33 negative the validity and utility of astron¬ omy. The truth, it seems to me, is that the ideal as an eternal principle is a unit. It is the goal of all moral strivings to find which the several systems grope their way along in the darkness or twilight, now and then catch¬ ing glimpses of it as it flashes like a streak of lightning before their gaze. The result is that at different times and on different occasions it has been seen from different per¬ spectives, and the accounts when recorded register these differences. Theories of ethics are not compartments of water-tight opinions each hermetically sealed from, and absolute¬ ly independent of, the other. They are rath¬ er modes of viewing the ideal of perfection, that ultimate desideratum of human con¬ sciousness. By a process of deduction the one may be drawn from the other. Concen¬ tration upon one aspect of the ideal and de¬ veloping that aspect by following out its re¬ lations ad infinitum—if such a faculty of synthesization were granted to any single in¬ dividual—would result in a perfect moral code, a code comprehending all that is both explicit and implicit in the separate theories. 34 ADEQUATE NORM Variations are the result of over-emphasis on particular points with a corresponding overlooking of what would seem to be non¬ essentials. There are striking discrepancies between the ethics of early Christianity and that of modern thinkers. This is generally admitted. But why these discrepancies? The former presents with telling force the worth of the individual and stresses personal purity; the latter, seizing upon a phase of what was left in the background, brings it into light and prominence. It sees in the individual a spirit indispensable to the com¬ pleteness of the social organism and it eval¬ uates him accordingly. The former preached personal duties; the latter while not putting the ban on personal, stresses social duties. Certain aspects of the ideal have been brought to light in the Brahmin, certain others in the Greek, certain others in the Mohammedan, type, etc., and certain others we may fairly say have not yet been developed and brought to light. The several theories of ethics from the point of view of evolution are not dis¬ crepant but supplementary. It is simply the growing complications in the phenomenon EVOLUTION IN ETHICS 35 of life, and the differences in the point of view of ethical approaches to life's problems that aggravate the sense of variation. There is always the tendency in thought to swing, like a pendulum, from one point to its opposite by mutual reaction. In the do¬ main of ethics this is best illustrated by the conflict between Egoism and Altruism. When one reads the two chapters, "Egoism vs. Altruism" and "Altruism vs. Egoism," in Mr. Spencer's "Data of Ethics," the im¬ pression one gets is that there is no possibil¬ ity of harmony. But the mere fact that the one is to some extent the cause of the other, having given spur to its outgrowth, is proof sufficient that there is some tangent. Mod¬ ern ethics has discovered the tangent and healed the breach. Closely allied to this thought is that of displacement. Theories are more or less propounded in lieu of existing ones, and the idea of displacement tends to magnify varia¬ tions which are often merely conventional. Again, there is the objection that each great teacher of ethics claimed that ftis sys¬ tem would stand universal application, 36 ADEQUATE NORM whereas the historic fact is that no system is so recognized on all hands, hence, ethical theory is untrustworthy. The issue hangs in this case on the matter of interpretation. The ideal is conceived in this way by one and in that by another. The standard valid for the one he calls universal, and that valid for the other he calls likewise. Now, the con¬ cept "universal," like every other concept, has been undergoing changes in the breadth of its application. As no human—or rather humanitarian—consideration was extended to members of a foreign clan, primitive man looked upon his own borderlines as the end of his universe. Even in classic days the City-State of Greece constituted the whole cosmic horizon of her sons. It represented for them their "universe." "The social philosophy of each nation," says Dr. Patten, "began with generalizations about local con¬ ditions. They were transformed into uni¬ versal philosophies without any adequate survey of the larger field to which they were applied."* It is only in comparatively re¬ cent days that people have become aware *The Social Basis of Religion," p. 230. EVOLUTION IN ETHICS 37 that their opinions are precious rather than absolute, this being due to some extent at least to the breadth of meaning which the term universal has gradually come to ac¬ quire. But the objection has another defect. It can not stand general application itself. An hypothesis is made in physical science and its maker is sure that it embodies an eternal and objective truth. Sooner or later, how¬ ever, a rival appears making the same tacit claims to exclusive acceptation. If our ideas and perceptions conspire to give strength and force to the new hypothesis it will be¬ come inevitable and necessary for us. We shall then condemn the old hypothesis, not indeed for having been an hypothesis, but for having been a false and artificial one— not following naturally out of facts nor lead¬ ing to satisfactory reactions upon them. And yet we do not condemn the only means by which we do arrive at valid acquaintances with the laws of the physical world. These individual theories were valid in their day, for they followed necessarily out of the facts which were then current coin. But as rival 38 ADEQUATE NORM theories arose and lent more objective satis¬ faction to our experiences they appealed with stronger force while their predecessors fell into disrepute. Such is the regular order of finite things. Many there are who believe that the Eng¬ lish language is destined eventually to be¬ come the common language of the world, and many who do not, have championed the cause of Esperanto in the effort to attain lin¬ guistic universality. But if such persons would reflect that language is merely an artificial means to the communication of thought; that words and phrases are simply instruments used to place the auditor into an attitude corresponding with a certain idea in the mind of the speaker; that every hin¬ drance to the auditor's realizing of the atti¬ tude of the speaker means, to that extent, an impediment to comprehension; and that as thought changes its vehicle of expression must also change, they would soon see that language, a plastic art, becomes obsolete with years and words and phrases lose their suggestive powers so that the ideas they once expressed can no longer be incarnated by EVOLUTION IN ETHICS 89 their repetition. The Greek language with its adaptability and wonderful lucidity as a medium of thought transmission was once expected to become world-wide, but today it takes one with a good classical education to catch the full force of the meaning of its words or to think in Greek. Greek is no more at the command of the masses. Yet no one condemns the most general means by which thought finds its concretion. Eth¬ ical theories, hypotheses, and languages are nothing more than plastic images envisaging eternal principles, but they in and of them¬ selves are not eternal principles. Wisdom is viewed from many and varied perspectives but in essence it remains a unit. The wis¬ dom of Socrates was the wisdom of the mar¬ ket-place; the wisdom of Aristotle was that of the academy. This does not mean that there are two kinds of wisdom, but simply two modes of conceiving the same wisdom. As was said before, it is only in a limited sense that one can speak of a universal sys¬ tem, namely, in so far as there are certain fundamental similarities in the nature of all human beings. But then its rules must be 40 ADEQUATE NORM adapted to specific historic conditions of life before they can be instrumental in directing conduct. The evolutionary theory gives the rational solution to the problem. Surveying the field with the instruments of the evolutionist one sees morality rising out of a maze of in¬ stincts, passions and desires, slowly yet none the less surely gaining consciousness in vol¬ umes that increase as it rises. From this point of view ethical evolution is the register of the effects of the reaction of economic, po¬ litical and intellectual evolution upon the feelings and sensations of society. But while it was first the consequence, in process of time this consequence reacted with casual qualities on its first movers even as the child reacts on the life of the parent. And so in the higher stages of civilization morality comes to be consciously pursued as an end in itself. The changing conditions of experience, therefore, furnish stimulus and material for ethical theories and also give them their particular form and peculiar characteristics. Civilization and history are in reality the EVOLUTION IN ETHICS 41 objectification of our social and ethical con¬ sciousness. But civilization and history are in perpetual flux and ethics in the interest of conformity must manifest this flux also. The whole cosmic system, physical, mental, moral, is subject to the evolutionary process. But "process" suggests movement. Of course from the viewpoint of value move¬ ment may be regressive at times, but such is the exception and not the general rule. At any rate movement is suggestive of contin¬ uity and continuity has for its basis the idea of unity. Variations in ethical theories are, therefore, theoretical indexes of epochs or stages in the process of evolution in ethics. They are delineations—sometimes clearer and sometimes darker—of the great end in view. CHAPTER 3. THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS. The point is now reached when a summary of the foregoing study may be made and an answer to our question given. We showed that a universal system can only be possible if built upon a recognition of the funda¬ mental similarity of human nature; and we stated that such being the case its principles must be adaptable to specific historic condi¬ tions so as to be workable. We also spoke in general terms of the unity and versatility of the ethics of Christianity. On these grounds we propose to base our conclusion that the ethics of Jesus satisfies the demands of that canon which will be universally ac¬ credited. Dr. Newman Smyth finds the ele¬ ments of the accredited norm, which he holds to be the Christian norm, in the three qual¬ ities of extension, comprehension, and ab- FINALITY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 43 soluteness.* No other norm can lay claims to all these qualities at once. "The unity and the variety which characterized the preaching of Christianity from the very first constituted the secret of its fascination and a vital condition to its success," says Har- nack.f And Christianity has never lost these characteristics; neither are there any indications that it ever shall. With a persist¬ ency and a courage like unto a regiment fight¬ ing for a principle and not a pastime Chris¬ tianity has always asserted its confession of faith, viz.: There is one God of heaven and earth and the will of God as exemplified in Jesus Christ our Lord and Helper can and will be done on earth as it is in heaven, pro¬ vided that we accept His proffered aid and strive to live in conformity to His spirit. This is its unity. Dr. Patten, in putting up a plea for a social restatement of the terms of Christianity so as to effect its moderniza¬ tion, enumerates ten fundamental doctrines expressed in social phraseology. It may be of some interest to compare them with their "Christian Ethics, p. 140. tVol. 1, p. 84. 44 ADEQUATE NORM theological counterparts of the first three centuries. We follow Harnack, who does not even profess to be giving an exhaustive summary: Patten: Social Basis, etc., p. 4. 1. The doctrine of one Supreme God. 2 and 3. The doctrine of the fall of man or of so¬ cial degeneration; the doctrine of regeneration or the reincorporation of social outcasts into so¬ ciety. 4. The doctrine of per¬ sonal uplift. 5 and 7. The doctrine of progress through peace and love. The doctrine of service. 6. The doctrine of the Messiah, or lofty, inspir¬ ing leadership. S. The doctrine of social responsibility. 0. The doctrine of per¬ sonal responsibility. 10. The doctrine that the wages of sin is death. Harnack: Miss. and Exp. of Xty., Vol. 1, p. 31. The preaching of God the Father Almighty. The gospel of o Saviour, and of salvation: of re¬ demption and the new creation. The message of man be¬ coming God. The gospel of love and charity. The preaching of God's 3on, the Lord Jesus Christ. The religion of the spirit and power; of moral earn¬ estness. The religion of author¬ ity and of unlimited faith. The religion of reason and of enlightened under- tsanding. The preaching of the resurrection [from death, the wages of sin], (Brac¬ keted words are mine.) Sixteen centuries have not altered its fun¬ damental unity; yet, because of its versatil¬ ity it has kept pace with changing conditions of life and maintained its fascination. To FINALITY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 45 quote again from Harnack,* "This church labored at her mission in the second half of the third century, and she won the day. But had she been summoned to the bar and asked what right she had to admit these novelties, she could have replied, 'I am not to blame. I have only developed the germ which was planted in my being from the very first.' " Still Harnack sounds a note of warning. He says: "But the reasons for the triumph of Christianity in that age are no guarantee for the permanence of that triumph through¬ out the history of mankind. Such a triumph rather depends upon the simple elements of the religion, on the preaching of the living God as the Father of men, and on the repre¬ sentation of Jesus Christ. For that very reason it depends also on the capacity of Christianity to strip off repeatedly such a collective syncretism and unite itself to fresh coefficients." But modern Christianity has no fear of this warning for the conditions of her success mentioned are precisely the things she busies herself in carrying out to¬ day. She still takes over, baptizes, and as- *P. 317. 46 ADEQUATE NORM similates the best products of every age, thereby making them her own, and she gives the same answer to any criticism that ven¬ tures to question her right. And as she does these things, she correspondingly casts off the grave-clothes of the past. But Har- nack is optimistic in spite of the warning, for he continues: "The Reformation made a beginning in this direction." What he says the Reformation began we say succeeding years have continued. Therefore we feel safe in maintaining the permanence of her triumph throughout the history of mankind. As preachers of the ethics of Jesus we are entirely within our right when we marshal all available forces, whatever may be their sources, to fight the battle for God and the world, provided that these forces are in har¬ mony with the spirit of the Master. There are two statements from the pen of Dr. Lyman Abbott which we can not refrain from quoting in this connection. They are to be found in the "Outlook," the first for August 3, 1911, under the title, "De¬ mocracy in Religion," and the second, for December 9,1911, under the title, "The Spirit FINALITY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 47 of the Master." They read: "The life of God in the soul of man is not only for priests and prophets. It does not bloom alone under church roofs. It grows and blooms and fruits in all our common tasks. It is the heart of Moses the statesman and of Bezaleel the artisan and of Joshua the soldier, of David the singer, of Isaiah the preacher, and of Paul the missionary. It was manifested in the life of Jesus Christ and in every act of His life . . . for religion is love, serv¬ ice, and sacrifice; and it is, or may be, shown equally by the child in the home, the artisan in his workshop, the guest in the festive party, the preacher in his pulpit, the doctor in the sick-room, the merchant in his store, the cook in her kitchen." "We all agree that the world is so great that men in differ¬ ent positions and men of different tempera¬ ments and different capacities will see differ¬ ent aspects of it. But we seem to think that the Maker of the world is so small that we can see Him alike, and whoever do not see in Him what we see in Him is an unbeliever. . . . The spirit of Christ is Christianity. It was the spirit of consecration to a great 48 ADEQUATE NORM cause and courage in prosecuting it; it was a spirit of sympathy with men and with all sorts and conditions of men; it was a spirit of forgetfulness of self and service of others; it was a spirit of companionship with the Father's will; in brief, it was the spirit of love, service, and sacrifice. Who¬ ever is dominated and directed in his life by this spirit of love, service, and sacrifice, is a Christian." An ethic that is rooted and grounded in this spirit, and that finds free translation into each and every ramification of human endeavor, if only it be utilized, must necessarily be the ultimate standard of moral adjustment. The ethics of Christianity, then, is the one, supreme, and final guide of human conduct. PART II. THE PROBLEM OF ETHICS. CHAPTER 1. AN ETHICAL POSTULATE: FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY. The ethics of Jesus can not be considered in isolation from its theological presupposi¬ tions. The fact of the being of God; the Son as the incarnation of the Divine idea; the fact of reconciliation and atonement, must all be reckoned with if one's aim were directed towards a synthetic presentation of the mind of Christ in its bearings on the problems of life. These are all taken for granted here. There is one point, however, ph'losophic more so than theological, which our ethic presupposes, and which, because it is so often strenuously assailed if not cat¬ alogued with noli me tangere problems, we may not pass over without some formal men¬ tion. It is the fundamental postulate of the freedom of the will. "Man is capable," says J. C. Murray, "of 52 ADEQUATE NORM proposing to himself ends in life, and of di¬ recting his conduct with a view to the at¬ tainment of these ends." Will is the ulti¬ mate fact, the irreducible datum in the per¬ sonality, an energy working intelligently and with purposive intent. Hume, in one of his characteristic moods of omniscience—moods when with ready ease he could assume the role of the superman and penetrate into the inscrutable! said, "Though man, in truth, is a necessary agent, having all his actions de¬ termined by fixed and immutable laws, yet, this being concealed from him, he acts with the conviction of being a free agent." The idea of the freedom of the will is, therefore, a delusion! And this conclusion has been launched by some of the leading minds of the world. Prof. Santayana asserts that "men, like all things else in the world, are products and vehicles of natural energy, and their operation counts. But their conscious will, in its moral assertiveness, is merely a sign of that energy and of that will's event¬ ual fortune. . . . Attention is utterly powerless to change or create its objects in either respect; it rather registers without AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 53 surprise—for it expects nothing in particu¬ lar—and watches eagerly the images bub¬ bling up in the living mind and the processes evolving there. . . . When the natural order lapses, if it ever does, not mind or will or reason can possibly intervene to fill the chasm—for these are parcels and expres¬ sions of the natural order—but only nothing¬ ness or pure chance."* Formidable a foe as this dictum seems on casual observation to be, it is not charged with much grave danger when clearly understood. By main¬ taining with a laudable consistency his naturalistic monism, Santayana sees all existence summed up in Nature—mind, will, reason, consciousness, are all parcels and expressions of the natural order. Nature is all and moves all, and even though the conscious will must have a share in the grand panorama, being simply a "parcel and ex¬ pression," all credit m the last analysis must be given to Nature. We say it is not quite as formidable as it appears to be, because no one is bound to pin his faith in the kind of monistic philosophy on which it is based. ♦Reason in Common Sense, p. 215ff. 54 ADEQUATE NORM By limiting the application of the term "Na¬ ture" to one and only one aspect of the uni¬ versal order, one can readily dissociate the conscious will from the aspect thus circum¬ scribed giving it a right to existentiality of its own. But (and here the problem really begins) is the will thus severed from its bondage a mere bystander, observing, but absolutely impotent to interfere with, or con¬ trol, or direct, the process of events, as Hux¬ ley asserts ? This parallelistic type of thought is the one that is charged with danger, for it leads logically to a withdrawal of the distinction between right and wrong, and calls a halt upon moral strivings. We can not differentiate between the sum of our activities, assigning certain ones exclusviely to natural coincidences in space and all not therein contained to mind not in space and independent, therefore, of mechanical forces. An object is set in motion by some mechan¬ ical agency, for vividness, let us suppose that the object is a mechanic tumbling from a broken scaffold. A conscious individual realizes from experience what must ensue— all indications pointing in that direction— AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 55 mechanically so determined; but believing that hope is lost only with the extinction of life he springs forward and meets the falling man with a violent push forward and there¬ by breaks the intensity of the gravitative motion and effects for our mechanic a new lease of life. What is the role of the con¬ scious will in this case? Has it not directed a motion? Did it not call to its service a counter energy at the very moment this en¬ ergy was needed to interfere with and di¬ rect that motion which was moving in a direction with which it did not approve? But behold, we have referred to the will as "directing" motion! That is, the language of experience, not of science, comes the objec¬ tion. But does not experience have as good a right to its convictions as does science? This is none other than the long-drawn con¬ flict between the Parallelist and the Inter- actionist. The former contends that his scientific instincts inform him that there is no causal relation between spacial and non- spacial events, while the latter asserts that experience and common sense point to the reasonableness of some causal relationship 56 ADEQUATE NORM between the two. Now science rejects the causal influence of the conscious will in inter¬ est of the theory of the conservation of en¬ ergy. She holds as a fundamental article of her creed that the total quantity of energy in the universe of physical realities must be constant. But may not energy exist in asso¬ ciation with consciousness as well as in asso¬ ciation with matter? In the former case, to be sure, we have no means whereby to meas¬ ure it for it eludes the physical sense, but, the inference that it is there is a valid one, never¬ theless. Granted the conservation of energy in the physical world, * be it remembered that the total energy of the universe is infinite, and the likelihood is that one form of energy changes into the other and vice versa as or¬ der requires; but since energy is infinite no difference in its physical expression is there¬ by evidenced. It is quite impossible to conduct social re¬ lationships without practical acknowledg¬ ment of free-will and responsibility. This acknowledgment is tacitly made even by *Sir Oliver Lodge, a good physicist, is not willing to grant it. AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 57 those who theoretically reject it. Huxley, who asserted that the will is simply a specta¬ tor, is the same one who in his definition of education says that it is "the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections and the will into an earnest and loving desire to live in harmony with these laws." Now, granted the existence of the desire, if there is no power resident in the affections and the will to effect the desire, what purpose does the desire serve? That Providence which per¬ mitted the birth of desire must have accom¬ plished a sorry task if it left no means where¬ by to gratify that desire! The child desires to catch the rainbow, but for the want of power to do so, he resigns in disappointment and despair. Does Providence thus leave the sons of men with their valid desires as impossible to realize as the rainbow to the child? When Bergson remarked that "pure reasoning needs to be supervised by common sense, which is an altogether different 58 ADEQUATE NORM thing,"* he gave expression to a note of ad¬ vice that may well be taken by scientist and philosopher and all thinking men alike. Chris¬ tian ethics without dwelling in the tent of any particular type of philosophic or scien¬ tific thought, that is, refusing to be sectarian, but simply utilizing their best products as instruments for the application of its teach¬ ing, just states its postulates and then veri¬ fies them by their successful handling of the problems of life. A. B. D. Alexander says, "Every human being, simply because he is such, possesses freedom of will, the right to be himself,"f for unless this were so there would be no ground on which to rest motive, and motive is the evaluator of conduct. On page 80, the same author, in summing up St. Paul's teaching on the will, says: "Paul presupposes the ac¬ countability of man. This is an assumption, not of Pauline ethic alone, but of all ethic. Unless man is in some sense free to choose and is responsible for his actions, his life has really no ethical value. A science of ethic ♦Creative Evolution. fEthics St. Paul, p. 325. AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 59 implies that no individual act is necessitated. We could not treat man as responsible, and still less as culpable, if at any single point he were forced into wrong-doing. Freedom of will in the practical sense in which all men understand it, is a necessary postulate of Christian as of all genuine ethic." "Paul is really the great champion of human free¬ dom, the preacher of individual responsibil¬ ity. . . . Upon this truth, which shines forth on every page of his letters, his whole Christology is built, and his entire ethical teaching is based."$ "If you had asked an ancient, what is the highest good or chief end of man? he would probably have an¬ swered, 'happiness.' If you had asked Paul, he would have emphatically replied, 'to do God's will.' " On page 143f, we find: "If, therefore, the motive power of the Christian ethical life is the spirit of Christ, it must not be conceived as operating by an irresistible necessity. It must rather be thought of as a power which is to be appropriated by man's moral nature and conditioned by his free action. In his ethical teaching at least, JPp. 84 and 85. 60 ADEQUATE NORM Paul is no determinist. As an evangelist he is constrained to reckon on the liberty of his hearers. His missionary zeal and fiery elo¬ quence would have no meaning if he did not believe that men were free to accept or re¬ fuse his message." "But"—I thing I hear the objection—"are you not under a delu¬ sion? In freeing yourself from bondage to sin, have you actually secured liberty? Have you not in reality merely effected a transfer of allegiance? No longer a subject of meaner impulses, are you not now the slave of your clear ideas of truth, goodness, and beauty—of moral laws?"* All this we ad¬ mit. St. Paul admitted it, for he said of himself that he was doulos lesou Xristou. Jesus Christ admitted it, for he bids us "take my yoke upon you." But "whoever loves Truth must remain her faithful friend." We hold that the empirical man is not the true man, but the man dwarfted by bondage to that which is not a part of his essential self. We hold that the man who brings him¬ self under the power of Jesus Christ is the *See Dr. DuBois: Psychic Treatment of Nervous Dis¬ orders, Chapters 4, 5 and 6. AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 61 man who lives his own best life and is thus in possession of his best faculties. To be a slave of Christ and to be personally free are one and the same proposition. St. Paul, who said he was the slave of Jesus Christ, also said, "The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ;" "If the Son, there¬ fore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." Dr. Patten's analysis of the matter is as clear as it is profound. He says,f "There are two kinds of determinism so prominent that they can not fail to attract attention. Biological determinism covers the whole range of heredity. Organic change follows definite laws, and its principles are capable of definite enunciation. . . . Were all characters natural and all acts instinctive, there would be no field left indeterminate by biologic evolution. The contrast of natural and acquired characters is a recognition that there are many acts not directly controlled by heredity. Acquired characters must of fThe Social Basis of Religion, p. 138, ft. 62 ADEQUATE NORM necessity have some other source and they grow in importance as organisms rise in the scale of being. They indicate sorrte form of external determinism which supplements or displaces the biologic determinism of lower organisms. . . . The principle of econ¬ omy is back of all acquired traits, activities and knowledge. Their force, however ex¬ erted, makes the economic determinism that stands in contrast with the biologic determ¬ inism imposed by heredity. The two are dominant forces in man's determinate life; but they are not the sole factors. The third is the will. Its workings can not be under¬ stood until the earlier and more objective forms of control have their activity ex¬ plained. To call an act one of will when the forces of biologic selection or economic pres¬ sure are operative, confuses what otherwise would be a plain problem. If these two great forces cover the whole field, there is no will in any sense worth investigating. The will is a reality when there are acts free from the pressure of either of these forces. If we can get beyond heredity and beyond the pres¬ sure of economic events there is a reality to AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 63 freedom that is worth a struggle to realize. . . . The best that could come from com¬ plete biologic and economic determinism would be a static condition. We must look elsewhere for the principles of progress. These lie in some indeterminate field outside the province of these two great forces. . . . Indeterminate action is thus an essential ele¬ ment in normal growth. Without it, the organism degenerates either in a morbid, or in a senile direction. It gives the partially formed and more plastic higher powers a function in the place of what would other¬ wise be mere waste. This office of using up surplus energy and thus promoting the nor¬ mal activity of lower parts is the primary function of the will. . . . It is the telic tendencies of surplus energy that produce epoch-making social changes. . . . Free¬ dom is not the power to do what one pleases, but the power to throw off depression and abnormalities. It demands not the absence of control over individual acts, but the pow¬ er to a thorough regeneration. Volition, rightly understood, is the antecedent of re¬ generation. This reminds us of Principal 64 ADEQUATE NORM Forsyth's remark that "wills are not forces so much as elective and directive powers over forces. If will be a force, it is a force that differs from all others in choosing them, aim¬ ing them, co-ordinating and concentrating them."* But to continue from Dr. Patten: "Volition is more than activity. It is activ¬ ity among plastic cells forced on by the ac¬ tion of surplus energy. By making will the psychic antecedent of regeneration instead of an immaterial entity, religion avoids an im¬ passable philosophic barrier, and realizes an opportunity to verify its claims by evidence that no careful thinker will reject. . . . The moral education of a man might be com¬ plete and his social sentiments strong. Yet, if he had no surplus energy to reinforce them, they would be powerless in a conflict with impulse and passion." Now this postulate of Christian ethics, be it remembered, was the central postu¬ late of Christ's life and doctrine. The gospel of His living and teaching is permeated with the "haunting idea" of the freedom of the will. Free in Person & Place of Jesus Christ, p. 345. AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 65 the life lived after His will which is the will of God, it was His supreme desire that mankind should experience the life of free¬ dom which was His to give and which could be received only by a harmonious adjustment of their wills to the will of God. And so in His model prayer He incorporated the idea: "Thy will be done as in heaven so also upon the earth." Man's will is free to choose the right or choose the wrong. To choose the wrong he becomes a slave and wharps and destroys his manhood. To choose the right he effects his emancipation and directs his manhood along the path which leads to its full and most fruitful development. It is not of man's nature to be bad and at the same time normal. In the highest sense normality, rightness, freedom, and God-likeness are synonymous terms. CHAPTER 2. THE TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS. We must now take note of some of those salient factors in modern life that thwart and vitiate man's ideal adjustment to his fellows and to cosmic forces, thereby cur¬ tailing the full expression and experience of the best type of life. Stated in general terms there are three, namely, economic, so¬ cial, and personal. 1. Economic. It has been said—and that truly—that in this country, at least, there is a surplus of the physical necessities of life, and yet each citizen is not a sharer of the minimum quota of his would-be allotment, to say nothing of the surplus. The equilibrium that ought to exist between actual need and actual posses¬ sion to meet that need falls lamentably short 66 TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 67 of being attained. There are those who have more than need calls for while there are others who eke out a bare existence or are brought under the pressure of a deficit which ultimately spells physical death. Nu¬ merous are the explanations given respect¬ ing the cause or causes: Exploitation through partisan legislation or otherwise; the too rapid increase of machine work sup¬ plementing human agency and the element of personality and personal interest; the utilization of child and female labor which supplants that of men, thereby depriving the latter of the occasion for employment, de¬ pleting the moral and physical energies of the former, and filling the coffers of employ¬ ers who secure cheaper labor; the uneven balance between the amount of output and amount of receipts for same on the part of the laborer, receipts often falling below the mark demanded by living conditions; the re¬ sults of "obvious economic laws" which have caused the development and fostered the growth of large business units with a corre¬ sponding inequality of opportunity—uneven competition, etc. Dr. Paulsen, in his "Sys- 68 ADEQUATE NORM tems of Ethics," sums the matter up briefly thus: "The form in which the social ques¬ tion now comes up is the inner dissolution of the body of the people through the pro¬ gressive proletarizing of a constantly in¬ creasing portion of the population on the one side, and through the corresponding over- fattening on the other side. On the one side the personal spiritual-moral life falls to the ground through impoverishment and isola¬ tion, on the other side through idleness and luxuriousness." Omitting the latter for the time being, the problem facing the "sub¬ merged tenth" may well be summed up in the word "poverty." Now what are the con¬ sequences attendant upon this monster, "Poverty?" They are many and grievous. Poverty gives birth to the tenement-house. And Dr. Moskowitz tells both what the tene¬ ment-house is and what it is not in the fol¬ lowing few words, he asks: "Are these tenement-houses homes? Are they not, after all, merely places to eat and sleep in? Are they the spiritual anchorages that homes ought to be? Do they give the members of the family the opportunity to enjoy free and TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 69 intimate experiences? No; the tenements are not homes. That is why boys and girls go wrong. Dark hallways are not places for courting, nor crowded streets good play¬ grounds. Congestion is a fundamental evil which causes juvenile crime, high death rate, and immorality."* But the poor live in them because they are poor and can do no better. The industrial pressure which de¬ pletes the body and fails to nourish the soul drives the poor and unfortunates to all kinds of makeshifts for palliatives. But they reap discomfort. And some who fail to find healthy solace eventually betake themselves to the saloons or gambling dens where they think to bury the sense of pressure under an avalanche of alcohol, or to procure money by a short and easy method only to find them¬ selves sevenfold the more under the cruel grip of misfortune. In this way pest-houses originate and criminal-breeding places are established. Poverty drives children of ten¬ der years who, by right, should be in the school-room or on the recreation ground, and women who by right, ought to be in the *In the Outlook for Oct. 2G, 1912. 70 ADEQUATE NORM real sense mothers and home-makers, to be¬ take themselves to the mills and factories and other places of industry to work so as to help out the totally inadequate wages of the father or husband, who is the rightful bread¬ winner; nay, more, it reduces to practical servitude the helpless worker who has to toil over-hours through days and weeks and months and years, denying him the opportu¬ nity to cultivate the higher life of the spirit. Dr. Lyman Abbott writes: "Our Declara¬ tion of Independence says every man has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap¬ piness ; but poverty denies all three of these rights." And he continues, "How shall the great wealth of a great nation be so dis¬ tributed that no man shall go hungry or cold or naked? 'In my father's house,' said the prodigal son, 'there is bread enough and to spare.' America is your 'father's house,' and in America there is bread enough and to spare, and we, the intelligent, the educated, the thoughtful, and the comparatively well- to-do Americans, are ourselves guilty of our brother's blood if we do not see that society is so organized, not that all men shall have TASK OP CHRISTIAN ETHICS 71 alike, but that all men shall have enough to enable them to live in comfort and grow to manhood."* This is the economic problem. Of course a large part of its solution devolves upon the State through its legislative and adminis¬ trative instruments; but after all, legislation to be effective must be rooted in a high type of morality and social justice, and adminis¬ trative success must be backed by an awak¬ ened public conscience. The ethics of Chris¬ tianity are to supply these pre-conditions and if it can, successfully, then its success would be its own vindication. Because Jesus' aim was to strike at the very root of the matter He refrained from enacting specific legisla¬ tion, but instead He laid down the broad principles on which legislation should be en¬ acted and by which public conscience should be trained. "The heavenly Father knows His children have need of food and raiment, but just for that very reason men are not to make the search for them the chief end of life. A man's life does not consist in the ♦The Outlook for Oct. 19, 1912, An Adress at Clark Col¬ lege Commencement. 72 ADEQUATE NORM abundance of things that he possesses. The satisfaction not of these lower wants, but of those other and higher desires after truth and the higher verities and experiences of life, is to be the underlying motive in the new order of life. Men are not to be compelled to be good, but their desires are to lead them to goodness, or, if the desire be lacking, are to be convinced of the sin of the lack. Not obedience, but loving impulse, is the key to " noble living. The members of this new so¬ ciety are to be friends, and conventional duties are no measure of what friendship may prompt." "Jesus gives a constitution, men can frame statutes."f The spirit of the Master must inspire the State and give it the correct insight with which to grapple successfully the economic issues of the day. 2. Social. A healthy sign of the times is a world¬ wide social discontent with a categorical im¬ perative on the part of all to unite for the purpose of devising ways and means, and t Shatter Mathews, "The Social Teachings of Jesus," pp. 183 and 212. TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 73 the putting of them into practice, to quench this spirit. It must be subdued but its sub¬ jugation can not be effected by anodynes or opiates. The basis of the spirit of unrest must be discovered and the remedy applied to it. Materials may be drawn from every conceivable source in a discussion of this aspect of mal-adjustment, but as it is not the purpose of this essay to cover the whole field, just a few salient features of the prob¬ lem will be touched upon in order to a graph¬ ic presentation of its gravity. (a) International Relations: The rela¬ tionship at the present time existing between the nations is, to be sure, not motived by mutual hate, but it is far from the ideal of genuine friendliness. Mutual fear and sus¬ picion seem to be the dominant notion con¬ trolling the actions of the nations towards each other. One nation stands in dread of the possible aggressiveness of the other, and this fear finds expression in the common increase of armamentation. The prophecy of old that nations shall beat their s words into plow-shears and their spears in¬ to pruning-hooks falls far short even in these 74 ADEQUATE NORM enlightened days of the twentieth century of its happy fulfillment. The solution of the problem must work along positive as well as negative lines. In addition to developing the sense that as war is hell so the prepara¬ tion for war is hell also there is need of a substitution for the appeal to armaments the appeal to reason based on the principle of universal brotherhood. The experiences of the day are enough to call forth the best efforts along these lines. Present happen¬ ings in the Balkan States demonstrate quite clearly the reason for the urgent call for amelioration and so do the war policies of the foremost nations. On page 5, volume 2, of those valuable books published by the "Men and Religion Movement," we find the following statement: "Back of the oppres¬ sive armaments of the modern world, which consume so many billions annually from the taxes and keep so many able-minded and able-bodied men in unproductive callings, is an unchristian patriotism that has not yet learned that a nation must love its neighbors as itself, that greed and aggression are as vicious in nations as in men, that national TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 75 greatness consists solely in national service for the brotherhood of nations. Here, then, is a breeding-place of pestilence to be drained. Patriotism must cease to be a standing-pool bounded and confined by na¬ tional self-interest, and must be given an outlet in world-service and an inlet from the living water of the spirit of the Son of Man, the Prince of Peace." This shows how an international fear economy is destructive of the true spirit of patriotism as well as sub¬ versive of the right channel in which the in¬ ternational wealth and brain and brawn should flow. If the energy of the nations is to be conserved and utilized for the bringing to pass of the reign of peace and love their fear and suspicion must give way to love and the confidence it engenders. No one agrees in every particular with the author of "The Great Analysis," but surely he deserves serious attention when he proclaims that "the human intellect, organizing, order- bringing, must enlarge itself so as to em¬ brace, in one great conspectus, the problems not of a parish, or of a nation, but of the pendent globe;" and his suggestion that the 76 ADEQUATE NORM controlling ideal of a "rational world-order" should be placed under the supervision of an "International College of Systematic Sociol¬ ogy"—"a conclave of representative investi¬ gators and thinkers, brought together, not by election, but by selection, from all quar¬ ters of the globe"—may be more than a dream. It may be a vision worthy the real¬ izing. (b) Racial Relations: Closely allied to International relation is the relation of the races of the world to each,other. In fact the solution of the one is, if not also the solution of the other, the enhancement thereof. The lesson the age needs to be taught on this score is the marvelous oneness of the human race. If heterogeniety in the superficial ex¬ teriors be the justification for the erection of absolute social barriers, it is so because of a total ignorance or denial of humanity's es¬ sential oneness. "The Christian church," says Prof. E. A. Steiner,* "may divide the human race into the undeveloped and the partially developed, but it cannot divide it *In an article on "The Church in Relation to the Immi¬ grant," Vol. 2, Men and Religion Series. TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 77 by any arbitrary geographic line, nor by color, nor by speech into the good or bad, for the Christian there is only one race, all of it needing the grace of God to raise it to the ideals of the Christ, the perfect man. . . . It is easy, or comparatively easy, to love even our enemies when they smell of violets, but to act in our relationship with men as brothers who have eaten garlic, who have a different tint to their skin, a different crook to their nose, that's the difficult test we are facing . . . only as the church believes in this common kinship can it begin the task which is before it. Not only must the church change its mind about the new immigrant, but it must learn to practice at home the brotherhood it now professes. The church is facing a new test today, and that test is not theological; it is psychological. The question is not: Do we believe in God as the Father of mankind? this belief is to¬ day almost universal. Do we believe in Jesus, the Saviour of men? In varied de¬ grees and definitions the masses of religious men believe it. Do we believe in brother¬ hood? Yes. Do we practice it? That's 78 ADEQUATE NORM the test—do we practice brotherhood?" What Prof. Steiner addresses to the church in particular, is what we address to the world in general—Does the world, the civil¬ ized world, at least, practice brotherhood? "But, ah!" comes the objection, "brother¬ hood emphasizes 'likeness,' but it overlooks or tries to deny 'unlikenessthis is the shortsightedness of Christian ethics. Jesus teaches that we are to treat each other as equals, which is impossible." But listen to the response of Shailer Mathews,f "Jesus does not claim that men in the world today are physiologically equal. There are lame and halt. Nor are they mentally on equal¬ ity. There are men to whom one talent could be entrusted, and those to whom five and ten. Nor does Jesus so far fall into the class of nature philosophers as to teach that because men are to be brothers they are therefore to be twins. The equality of fra¬ ternity does not consist in duplication of powers, but in the enjoyment and the exer¬ cise of love. Further, according to the new social standard of Jesus two men are equal, fSocial Teaching of Jesus, pp. 172 and 173. TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 79 not because they have equal claims upon each other, but because they owe equal duties to each other. The gospel is not a Declaration of Rights, but a Declaration of Duties." Hence, "every barrier broken down between races, classes or languages leads to a blend¬ ing of the thought and ideas of the united group," says Dr. Patten. Men may be broth¬ ers and society an all-embracing family, and these, without a sacrifice of individuality. We have made capital of diversity; we need now to strees unity. (c) Civic Relations: In medical science Preventive Medicine has lately come into its own and has been assigned its rightful place in the galaxy of the healing art. The adage "an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure" has given up its hidden phil¬ osophy to the Medical Fraternity's use. Here is an example that the doctors of social science may well emulate. Their duty lies not solely in devising means to restore nor¬ mal social conditions when the balance is dis¬ turbed, but first and foremost in devising means that will prevent sub-normality. And in the new social unrest it must be acknowl- 80 ADEQUATE NORM edged that this shifting of the scheme of at¬ tack is happily being made. What is most needed to give the effort that momentum it deserves and ought to have is a more scien¬ tific and vital co-operation on the part of the various agencies in the field. In the child there is a bundle of possibilities, which pos¬ sibilities, as the child grows in years are in proportionate degrees translated into actual¬ ities. As a general rule these innate possi¬ bilities when carefully looked after turn out to be qualities of good citizenship, civic as well as moral; when they are not carefully cultivated the reverse is often the case, how¬ ever. Since, then, the child of today is the citizen of tomorrow, the care taken of the child today will redown to the credit of to¬ morrow's citizenship. Education in the etymological sense of the term is the draw¬ ing forth of native possibilities to the point of actuality. This is why the education of youth is of such far-reaching importance. But education is inclusive. It has reference to the total life; therefore, in the truest sense it is "moralwards" inclined. Just consider one aspect of it, viz.: Recreation. The TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 81 child has possibilities for recreation and they clamor for articulation. "The boy does not play because he wants to; he plays because he has to." That is a part of the very fibre of his nature. In order to the correct artic¬ ulation of the recreational instinct, whole¬ some conditions must be created and careful methods of supervision instituted. In larger units of population the problem of playground accommodation for the child's health and amusement has presented itself as forcibly even as the problem of housing accommodation for the poor. And the mu¬ nicipal authorities and other charitable or¬ ganizations are to be duly commended for what they have done and are doing, and en¬ couraged for what they can still do. But here, as elsewhere, the distinctively moral side of the problem often eludes the best intentions while the physical side is yielding to the power which goes with adequate funds and established scientific laws. Our school¬ rooms and playgrounds are fast approaching the ideal, but the question as to what should be taught and how best to teach it; how must plays and games be conducted and who are 82 ADEQUATE NORM best fitted to direct them; how to moralize sport without emasculating it—this is the question our age must strive to answer. With growth and the enlarging of vision there is the advent of new social desires. The little child finds satisfaction in nursery tales and nursery games, but the adolescent youth can find no amusement in them strong enough to attract. If the recreational in¬ stinct is not more intensive it certainly be¬ comes more extensive. The social perspect¬ ive has now come to include numbers of children of like ages and desires along with the immediate members of the family. Where change takes place alteration in conditions to meet such change is in order. Hence there is a shifting of the scene from the nursery and kindergarten to the dance hall, the movies, the theaters, to music, to novels, to clubs, etc. And these all have their pur¬ pose to serve; but the great question is, do they serve their purpose well? The popular dances are often barbarous and vulgar; the moving pictures, that great modern educa¬ tional power, quite frequently stoop to cater TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 83 to the baser sentiments; the theaters often dispense mental and moral poison in dis¬ guise ; popular music is often harsh in sound and unwholesome in wording; while novels and other popular reading matter too fre¬ quently are not worth the paper on which they are printed. But if these agencies are to produce the best results, for they are in demand and will be used for good or ill, there is urgent need for their standardization; and the difficulty of the task is no argument against the undertaking of it. The question as to how the entente morale is to be duly developed furnishes this day and generation with a task which they dare not shirk. The first duty of the physician is to so direct the affairs of health as to prevent the assaults of disease; his second duty is to adopt therapeutic measures in cases of im¬ paired metabolism. Like the general he for¬ tifies the garrison against attack, but in case of attack he takes to the sword and gun. This is precisely the order the social worker follows. He first tries to prevent social de¬ generation; but, 84 ADEQUATE NORM "If a frail sister slip, we must hold her; If a brother be lost in the strain Of the infinite pitfall of pain, We must love and lift him again." So sings Corrine Robinson* and so must everyone act who has a burning zeal for hu¬ man well-being. We have in mind under this caption those who, through economic or social pressure, or both, are classified as the outcasts. I think it was St. Augustine who justified the existence of prostitution as a safeguard against the total contamination of society. I thing the Japanese government has legalized the existence of a class of pros- titues. At any rate, whether justified or legalized as an expediency those who consti¬ tute such a class are socially debarred from living contact and association with the "immuned." The discovery of their guilt, like the discovery of that of Cain of old, is followed by an immediate taboo on the part of society, and from that moment on they are left to their own fate as though they were "totally depraved." Jane Addams has *The Call to Brotherhood and Other Poems. TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 85 said, "It is certainly easy to point out the moral and religious disaster which has re¬ sulted from her exclusion, fostering the 'I am holier than thou' attitude, the innermost canker of the spiritual life/'* and further, "But the effect of this impious contempt is not confined to legal enactment. It also be¬ comes registered in the ethical code of con¬ temporary society held by good women as well as men. Women, kindly towards all other human creatures, become hard and hostile to young girls, who, in evil houses, are literally beaten and starved by the dis¬ solute men whom they support. Kind- hearted women could not brook these things; their hearts would break had they not been trained to believe that virtue itself demanded from them first ignorance and then harsh¬ ness. Their inherited fear of the harlot and terror lest she contaminate their daughters, may be traced in the caste basis of our so¬ cial amenities and in the lack of democracy and fellowship which so fatally narrows wo¬ men's interests. Yet the test comes to them none the less, for as all women fell in the ♦Vol. 2, Men and Religion Series, p. 131. 86 ADEQUATE NORM estimation of religious men, because they came to be looked upon as possible harlots, so may we not predict that women will never take a normal place in the moral life of so¬ ciety until they recognize as one of them¬ selves the very harlot, who, all unwittingly, has become the test of their spirituality, the touchstone of their purity ? As women were lowered in the moral scale because of their identification with her at the bottom of the pit, so they can not raise themselves, save as they succeed in lifting her with whose sins they are weighed."! The very core of social life is affected by this condition, and its ram¬ ifications are to be detected in every sphere of life's expression. When it is clearly un¬ derstood that this evil gives nourishment to the saloon and the gambler's den and that it fosters an illicit partnership between the po¬ lice and organized vice, as was brought to light in the Rosenthal murder and the Becker trial, and that the four are "literally at the base of the real administration of our cities," the problem assumes its truly stupendous proportions. Are these conditions to con- flbid., pp. 135 and 136. TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 87 tinue unnoticed, are they to be smothered over by public silence, are they to be con¬ demned and yet left to their own fate? De¬ cidedly not. It is the religious duty of thoughtful men and women to strive to right the awful wrong; for, no one embued with the spirit of the Master can ever feel satisfied until that state which affords to all the free¬ dom and the purity of the sons of God is present in our midst. But there is another social evil of the first magnitude which today clamors for adjust¬ ment. I speak of the problem of penology. It is true that the philosophy of imprison¬ ment based on retributive justice has become outworn and is being superseded by a phil¬ osophy of discipline; but discipline itself, as valuable as it is, must be coupled with an intent upon a thorough reformation, together with an impartation of high social ideals. It is a healthy omen that public conscience is being aroused and a sense of the se¬ riousness of the situation has made necessary the recourse to scientific measures in the effort to discover some adequate remedy. In the meantime such revelations as come from 88 ADEQUATE NORM Donald Lowrie's, "My Life in Prison," and Hutchings Hapgood's article in the New York Globe, can not but hasten the searchers along in their great and difficult task. The latter's criticism on the present prison sys¬ tem are, to say the least, scathing. He says, "Prisons affect the health unfavorably. They affect the mind unfavorably. They affect the character unfavorably. They are bad in¬ dustrially and economically. They do not reform. They do not make better. They make the convicts worse. They make the keepers worse. They demoralize the com¬ munity. . . . If we are interested in the building up of a better society we can not take hope away from any person; we can not tear down the health and character. We must build them up. Ask anybody who knows anything about prison whether health and character and fitness and sweetness and light and idealism are built up there. They will laugh or cry, in accordance with their specific character, at the absurdity of such a question." This arraignment is not ex¬ aggerated, therefore it can not be gainsaid that here is a situation which, until it is TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 89 remedied, is a menace and an eye-sore to our Christian civilization. But Jesus Christ de¬ fined his mission in part as the preaching of glad tidings to the poor, the healing of the broken-hearted, the bringing of deliverance to captives and those under oppression. Such being the case, it mayiprove a fruitful under- talcing to apply methods conforming to the spirit of His teaching to this and the other pressing social problems of the day. 3. Personal. Under this caption the problem of sin is the burden of our discussion. "The thing I would not, that I do," was the plaintive lament of the apostle St. Paul, and so also is it the wail, of the Christian consciousness. The economist, of course, would consider a discussion of this kind as futile. Sin, he would be inclined to say, is the result of ab¬ normal economic conditions removable with the reinstatement of normality. "To re¬ move the temptationi to sin means to do away with starvation, poverty, disease, over-work and bad conditions which depress workers 90 ADEQUATE NORM and turn virtue into vice," says Dr. Patten, and, of course, the temptation being re¬ moved, sin vanishes with it. Temptation and its effect, sin, exist among the econom¬ ically sub-normal, but they are not solely confined to this class. There is also wicked¬ ness in high places. The social group that have all the necessities and consolations of life—that are above those external condi¬ tions named as the economic basis of sin— are not spotless. What causes a man or woman with all the accessories to a life of ease, happiness, contentment, yes and even service, to indulge in the subtler if not the open forms of crime and vice? and whence are the springs of their antecedents—temp¬ tations? Must the phenomenon be explained away by answering that vicariously they are experiencing the pressure which drives astray the social unfortunates? That the contagion is in the atmosphere and it grips them in its deadly grasp all unawares ? That "imaginative woe," to use Tennyson's phrase, may account partially, but it can not account entirely for such perversities, such moral turpitudes. The springs are more TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 91 elemental than these; they are in the indi¬ vidual's will; they are subjective. But on the other hand there are not a few who fall within the radius of economic pressure and who bear their lot feeling confident in the faith that "tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope," and who would rather die martyrs to the cause of righteousness and personal purity than suffer their names to be in any way, or for whatever cause, associated with crime or vice. There are many prophets, abused and mal-treated by Jezebel who have not bent the knee to Baal. Economic pressure may be the occasion and in many cases the immediate cause of social disease; but it can not be looked upon as being the sole cause in all cases. The ultimate cause, ultimate because it is the cause of these second causes, is irre- ligion; it is the refusal of men and society to live in conformity to the will of God; it is their refusal to articulate the Creator's ideal; it is human will, not in harmony, but in conflict with Divine will. The whole em¬ phasis needs to be shifted. Sin is the root, not the fruit of mal-adjustment. So long 92 ADEQUATE NORM as sin remains the problem stands unsolved; the more thorough the victory over sin, the weaker will be the abnormal momentum; and with the total overthrow of sin, normality is achieved. "It is not enough with Jesus," says Shailer Mathews,* "to improve the con¬ ditions of human life. The mere conquest of matter, the exploitation of natural resources, as seen clearly enough today, need not of necessity imply any essential advance in civ¬ ilization. To clothe a man and to feed him well, to enable him to build up great build¬ ings and establish large businesses, to enable an entire people so to develop its land and its mineral deposits as to become rich, may be the furtherest possible from building that person or that people into a more fraternal life. . . . But to bring the constructive forces of a man or a nation into subjection to lofty ideals; to make that which is wrong hated and that which is good loved; so to transform and improve and ennoble a man that instead of seeking his own selfish inter¬ ests he will find his life by spontaneously losing it in the society of other lives about The Social Teaching of Jesus, pp. 207 and 208. TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 93 him; to develop a love for men because one is oneself a child of God; in a word, to make normal social life depends upon goodness— that is the fundamental position of Jesus. . . . To give large wages, to make the home more comfortable and happy, to see that the sanitary arrangements of the city and community are perfect, to provide a fair income, healthful food, good amusements, and all the other requirements of respect¬ able life today; to do this and let evolution do the rest—this is the position of more than one social teacher. But the imperfection that must needs be corrected, in the estima¬ tion of Jesus, was no change of birth or oc¬ cupation in life. The Pharisee was quite as ill as the harlot and the publican. The cause of all inequality and lack of fraternity is moral; it is sin." What is sin? Hegel and those of his dis¬ ciples who remain faithful to him on this question explain it as being a negative mo¬ ment in the evolutionary progress toward the good or the Absolute Idea. It is therefore stripped of content and in spacial terms would be represented by a blank spot or a break at 94 ADEQUATE NORM some point in a given line. But a negative moment is void of moral assets, consequent¬ ly, though sin may be unmoral, it is not im¬ moral, and culpability is an alien element that we need not reckon with. Equally as dangerous is the theory of sin promulgated by John Fiske. He describes it as an "in¬ dispensable part of the dramatic whole," "a part and parcel of the universe."* Sin is a necessary play of opposites. To know the good, to be conscious of it, demands the ex¬ istence of evil with which to contrast it; to be conscious of color there must be a con¬ trast of colors; "Without the element of an¬ tagonism there could be no consciousness and therefore no world," are the words with which he heads his chapter. But if sin is such a necessary element that consciousness and even existence depend upon its existence, to say that it is relative and not absolute is begging the question. It must necessarily be absolute, hence the overthrow of sin is a futile and unwise endeavor and efforts aimed at its eradication become engulfed in a flood of pessimism. For if consciousness, ^Through Nature to God, p. 34 ff. TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 95 which is necessary to the moral existence of the world, is made possible only through the fact of the presence of sin, it follows that every achievement along the line of good means a corresponding lowering of the flame of consciousness—a partial defeat of the world's stability of existence. Good must abound, but so also must evil in order that that happy equilibrium which seems to be the guarantee for the grandest expression of consciousness may be maintained! If this does not lead to the atrophy of the moral de¬ sires, what then ? Surely this seems to follow more naturally from the premise than Fiske's conclusion.f Over against the foregoing theories there is the Christian doctrine which positively de¬ nies that sin is a part of the necessary order of things. Kant is fundamentally Christian when he recognizes a propensity to evil in human nature, but refers it for ethical evalu¬ ation and imputability not to natural powers, such as inheritance or external pressure, but to personal freedom of will, however at vari¬ ance his idea of freedom may be from ours. fAs stated under caption 10, beginning with p. 54. 96 ADEQUATE NORM It was because of this attitude on the part of Kant that Albert Ritschl refers to him in glowing terms. Sin has its ground neither in the nature of the world nor yet in the nature of God. It is born out of the will of the individual running counter to the will of God. A man may gain the whole world and yet the profit to him may be nil if, by so doing, he loses his own soul. Be it a "slip," a "missing of the mark," or a "rebellion," or a combination of them all, sin is the deliber¬ ate choice of one's own will's rulings in utter disregard of that which ought to be. Rob¬ inson Crusoe, on the lonely isle, was not under the power of any laws, social or po¬ litical; he was a law unto himself. The in¬ dividual who suffers himself to be controlled by the notion that he is morally isolated from the social order and the moral order which are God's, and insists on erecting a code of laws unto himself, is an extreme example of the sinner in the Christian sense. Sin of whatever type shows itself as Dr. Inge puts it, "in self-consciousness, self-will, and self- seeking." To strike the death-blow against sin, and thereby inaugurate the new social TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 97 order—this can only be achieved when indi¬ viduals, who are the integral and indispen¬ sable factors in the social order, are so in¬ dividually regenerated as to become micro- cosmic embodiments and exponents of the social ideal. The ethics of Jesus calls atten¬ tion to the infinite worth of the individual, and that, because a society into which every individual can and must enter is the only really universal society. Sin's presence in the soul obstructs the realization of the Highest Good, and so it is often described as the sworn enemy of the Christian ideal. What is this ideal? How does it present it¬ self to the ethical imagination ? This we will discuss in the following section. PART III. THE ETHICAL IDEAL. 99 CHAPTER 1. MET-ADELPHISM OR INFINITE BROTHERHOOD. When Aristotle went in quest of a concep¬ tual mould, in which to cast the "Telos," his thoughts lighted on politics and politics found concretion in the Greek state; and, although Plato, in his "Republic," had trans¬ cended the natural and tapped upon the ideal, yet, on the whole, classic ethics remained a branch of natural philosophy. Even Zeno's statement that "all men shall be regarded as members of one people" (if we follow Plu¬ tarch's comment on it) was fulfilled in the military achievements of Alexander—an ar¬ gument in favor of its lack of comprehen¬ siveness. Beautiful as his ideal was in its literary presentation, it merely meant a melting of men into a homogeneous oneness, not a developing of mankind into a mani¬ fold organism. Zeno's thoughts were too deeply steeped in that intellectualism which 101 102 ADEQUATE NORM subsequently crystallized into the atomistic theory of Democritus to make a grander dis¬ covery. Says W. F. Cooley, "There is a per¬ fectly plain line of division between that which is called one, because it is conceived as being an ultimate, undifferentiated case of simple entity—an existence with but one constituent—and that which is so called, be¬ cause, with all its possible complexity of constitution, its parts are yet duly related to some point of unification, physical or ideal."* This "line of division" slipped the mental vision of Zeno. The application of the organic idea, which means the recogni¬ tion of unity constituted out of a combined manifold in which each unit bears intimate relationship not to itself and its own preser¬ vation or to its fellows, merely, but to the whole, was the basic principle of the ethics of Jesus, and it still remains the inalienable inheritance of Christian ethics. Addressing Himself to His fellow-countrymen, our Lord depicted the ideal in terms of a kingdom con¬ stituted of regenerated individuals, and He took the greatest care to place the individual *The Individual, p. 15. MET—ADELPHISM 103 and the social in their due relationship to each other, thereby giving the clue to all future applications of His essential doctrine. In adopting the kingdom idea He proved His claim, as did Socrates, to being a good and true teacher. The idea of the kingdom was the mould into which the Hebrew ideal was cast since the time of Moses, and the whole history of this people had been a "compro¬ mise between this vision and reality." Their prophets had preached it; their poets had sung it; their pious men had sighed for it. Even the captivity, dark and gloomy as it was, did not extinguish that persistent idea of the kingdom; and the restoration, a poor, partial expression of it, did not cause hope in the realization to wane. The period which gave rise to the Apocryphal literature gave vent to the hope in this kingdom in that literature; and when John the Baptist emerged from the solitude of the Judean wilderness to enter upon his public career, the keynote of his preaching was "repent for the Kingdom is at hand." But the idea of kingdom is a mundane idea and as such is subject to become outworn. Expressive of 104 ADEQUATE NORM a condition which attracts now but repels then, its value is local and its being evan¬ escent. There is, therefore, to be no sur¬ prise if a displacement of the kingdom idea is made in interest of some more entrancing or satisfying one. The disciples were aware of this fact, which is the only explanation of their almost absolute setting aside of the kingdom idea. "The Apostolic Age," says Dr. Stalker, "was too much alive to be the slave of phraseology, even if it were the phraseology of its Master. When the Apos¬ tles went forth into the heathen world, then practically conterminous with the Roman Empire, it is easy to understand that they could not speak much of a kingdom, because such language would have been interpreted as treason against Caesar. The kingdom was an essentially Jewish idea, and, when the Jewish state had ceased to exist, the phrase was dropped as a matter of course." And he continues, "To the common ear it has a forced and foreign sound. Kings and kingdoms do not appeal to the modern as they do to the ancient mind, most of the MET—ADELPHISM 105 advanced modern nations being republican."* When Jesus used the word its connotation, so intended by Him, was void of political al¬ lusion. To Him the kingdom connoted a realm or association of concordant wills in which the will of God was the standard of evaluation as well as operation. It was this departure from the popular notion, and the refusal of the people to accept His reinterpre- tation of the term, insisting, as they did, to enmesh it in a political network, that brought to the climax the spirit of opposition and served as witness against Him in the con¬ flict that culminated in His crucifixion. But the Apostles had profited by the lesson, and, before the imposing audience of the Roman world their proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ found expression in a phrase¬ ology that precluded all entanglement with politics beyond a peradventure. The apostle St. Paul arriving the closest to a systematic characterization of the idealized organism, which Christ had brought to the world, at times embodied it in terms of the "Ecclesia" —the Church—that organism, which, from ♦Ethics of Jesus, pp. 44 and 45. 106 ADEQUATE NORM the nucleus of "picked" or "called" men, was to develop ultimately into a comprehen¬ sive unity including all humanity. At other times he speaks of it as a body "fitly framed and knit together" with all the parts in due proportion functioning for the preservation of each other and the whole, in that ordered "analytical unity" (to use Kant's modern pharse). By this he has set the example whereby we may utilize any figure that best expresses the organic ideal which is at once the goal and the dynamic of our ethical striv¬ ings. The permanent element of the king¬ dom idea, the figure used by Jesus Christ, to employ Dr. Stalker's analysis, are to be found (1) in the recognition of the individ¬ ual as an integral constituent of the univer¬ sal social order; (2) In the expression of the spirit of loyalty on the part of these in¬ dividuals to God which furnishes the "in¬ spiration for all high endeavor;" and (3) In the doing of the will of God which would be nothing short of conditions in heaven rea¬ lized upon the earth, the actualization of the universal social order. Whatever figure we may use, provided these elements are in- MET—ADELPHISM 107 eluded as the fundamental thoughts therein contained, the content of the Christian ideal, the world's ultimate norm, may therein find expression adequate to its representative character as a vehicle for the current trans¬ mission of ethical thought. The process by which an intellectual state¬ ment of the organic ideal is arrived at is primarily analogical. Jesus Christ reasoned in this way, and so did St. Paul, when they aimed at a synthetic presentation of the ideal. When St. Augustine, by pressure of circumstances, was constrained to marshal his intellectual forces against the attacks of heathen philosophers, his thoughts seized, naturally, on the "city" concept. The indict¬ ment made was that the city of Rome, the one microscopic embodiment of the Empire's ideal, had been destroyed by the disintegrat¬ ing forces of the Christian religion. And St. Augustine, in making out his brief, de¬ veloped the ideal in terms of "The City of God." Now, what the great teachers saw and taught intuitively, modern minds explain by reason and observation. Recent investi¬ gation in biology have tended to verify the 108 ADEQUATE NORM cellular theory of Schwann and Virchow and the cell-soul hypothesis of Hseckel. As the starting point of all organic structure and life, the cell is the physiological unit—"an organism of the first order"—which must be reckoned with in a consideration of the whole; for it is the teleological combination of numerous units which aggregate into the adult individual. But it is also recognized that this teleological aggregation is imper¬ fect, in that every unit does not function with the interest of the total organism in view. Moreover, the various organs or in¬ struments, the larger component parts of the organism, are found to have value only in so far as they are mechanical function¬ aries working in the service of the body as a whole, so that some of them at times have to be severed from the body in order to pro¬ long that body's existence. On these grounds modern minds have been compelled to drop the apparent analogy between the biological organism and the ethical ideal and to revert once more to that conception of the social organism which we find unscientifically fore¬ shadowed in the New Testament and in early MET—ADELPHISM 109 Christian literature. The most distinct con¬ tribution that Jesus Christ has made to eth¬ ical thought is His teaching on the infinite worth of the individual. With Jesus, the whole that claims the service of the parts is no abstraction, but the living organism made up of the sum total of living individuals. The individual is, therefore, both an end and a means. Herein do we find the great dis¬ tinction betwen Christian and scientific eth¬ ics, like Spencer's, for instance. The indi¬ vidual is infinitely more than a mere organ in the organism. The purpose of his being can not be summed up in the quantum of me¬ chanical service he renders, or may be ex¬ pected to render, to the total organism. In¬ dispensable to the nice articulation of the organism as a whole, the individual by filling his post there is at one and the same time realizing himself. "This truth," to quote J. C. Murray's words, "is of significance not merely in the spheres of morality and relig¬ ion. It is of the highest value also for the light which it throws on the problems of social science. For it is evident that the government of society, both in its theoretical 110 ADEQUATE NORM structure and in its practical administration, must never lose sight of this truth. Yet in social science and in social activity the truth is perpetually ignored. That is what gives momentous import to the clear, earnest, en¬ ergetic enforcement of it in the teaching of our Lord. While He recognizes the interde¬ pendence of men in their social relations, that is never allowed to conceal the in¬ dependent worth of the individual. On the contrary, it is this independent and infi¬ nite worth of the individual that calls for the infinite obligations of mutual love among men." Social science has helped to equip the modern mind with accurate analytic knowl¬ edge of the structural constitution of the so¬ cial organism, and in addition, it has made imperative the need of idealization. And the ethical imagination intent upon satisfying so reasonable a demand pictures to itself the ideal of infinite organism. But modern science has done its, part. By enlarging the cosmic horizon it has caused men to mould their ideas into univer¬ sal categories. Ancient ideas, circumscribed because they were ancient, ceased to lend objective satisfaction to minds thinking na- MET—ADELPHISM 111 turally in world-terms; and this fact made urgent demands for modern world-figures. Plato's Republic, the City-State of classic days, the limited world-view of the Hebrews, can no more satisfy the modern mind than toys can satisfy the cravings for amusement of the full-grown man. To meet the change, modern ethics calls for a reconstruction, but a reconstruction, not along new and untried lines, but along the lines mapped and followed out in the whole course of Christian history. Jesus Christ used the figure of the kingdom, but in so doing He lifted it into the realm of the transcendent—the kingdom of the world received its apotheosis in the kingdom of heaven. But as the kingdom idea, together with all other ancient ideas, have become outworn; the ethical imagination searches naturally for a metaphor which would satis¬ fy the modern mind. That metaphor is to be found in the term "Brotherhood;" and since in these days brotherhood is synony¬ mous with "Humanity," that ethic is an effective one which pictures the social ideal in terms of the brotherhood concept. Now, logically considered, human brotherhood is charged with limitation—there is always in 112 ADEQUATE NORM evidence the Cain as against the Abel, the Esau as against the Jacob, spirit. This, however, should not stand as an argument against its use. Human personality is charged with limitation, yet those well- known words of John Stuart Mill, "I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-crea¬ tures," is a reminder that we attribute per¬ sonality to God because we find its rudiments in man. God is what we know of person and infinitely more. The same is true of ideal brotherhood. It includes the best of all we find in human brotherhood and infinitely more. By stripping it of its empirical limi¬ tations, the ethical imagination discovers its holy grail in the Met-adelphic ideal. Met- adelphism precludes the "I am favored, you are not" idea; it includes the idea of har¬ monious functioning in the interest of each and of all. The socialist ideal knows no "I" and "you/' it recognizes only a "we;" it cares not for the "each," it worships the "all." Socialism aims at involving all life in that "iron orderliness" (to use Dr. E. B. Andrew's expression) which refuses to coun- MET—ADELPHISM 113 tenance human heterogeniety—the very guarantee of originality and initiative and genius. Met-adelphism precludes a hier¬ archy; it recognizes an equality—an equal¬ ity, not of identity but of benevolent duty and service and love. The scientific maxim spurns equality and advocates a re¬ lentless extermination of the unfit. "The sooner it is perceived," says J. C. Morrison, "that bad men will be bad, do what we will, though, of course, they may be made less bad, the sooner shall we come to the conclusion that the welfare of society demands the sup¬ pression or elimination of bad men, and the careful cultivation of the good only. . . . Nothing is gained by disguising the fact that there is no remedy for a bad heart, and no substitute for a good one."* The scientific ideal includes the spread of civilization and the prevalence of peace. To this all must heartily concur. But when as in the lan¬ guage and thought of the Positivist it in¬ forms us (after agreeing with us that hu¬ manity is an "organism with every quality of organic life") that "humanity is not com- *Service of Man, pp. 215, 216. 114 ADEQUATE NORM posed of all individuals or groups of men, past, present, and future, taken indiscrimi¬ nately," but that, "the new great Being is formed by the co-operation only of such ex¬ istence as are of a kindred nature with it¬ self; excluding such as have proved only a burden to the human race,"f we beg to differ, for the met-adelphic ideal can afford to take hope away from no one. Christ came to call sinners to repentance. Met-adelphism pre¬ cludes the spirit of selfish rivalry; it ex¬ presses the spirit of loyalty, loyalty to the total organism and to every member of its constituents. And finally, it aims after car¬ rying into effect the will of the Father. How ennobling is the doing of the Father's will may be appreciated if one studies into the life of Jesus Christ which is simply its im¬ mediate outcome. Of that life J. S. Mill gives this testimony: "Religion can not be said to have made a bad choice in pitching on this man as the ideal representative and guide of humanity; nor even now would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the tAuguste Comte's Positive Polity, vol. I, p. 333. MET—ADELPHISM 115 abstract into the concrete, than to endeavor to so live that Christ would approve our life."$ Over the life of Christ the Father's will was like an irresistible spell. Dr. Felix Adler, one of the world's fore¬ most ethical philosophers, presents the ideal in terms of infinite organism. In this re¬ spect he is at one with Christian ethics. The interest which this last statement creates leads to the desire for some comparison be¬ tween philosophic met-organism and chris¬ tian met-adelphism. Met-organism is the idealization of the abstract social idea "or¬ ganism;" met-adelphism is the idealization of the concrete social idea "brotherhood." The one views the ideal as a metaphysical abstraction; the other as it finds concretion in a metaphor of world-wide application. The latter is incarnate; the former is not. Greater minds may take readily to ab¬ stract intellectual presentations of truth, ap¬ preciating their trend and issue with en¬ viable ease: but lesser minds shudder in awe before them and fail to appreciate their trend or appropriate their stimulus. Lesser minds JThree Essays on Theism, p. 225. 116 ADEQUATE NORM discover values more readily when expressed in concrete examples. Nor is the value of concretion recognized solely by Christian ethics. The "Philosophic King" of Plato; the "Expert" of Aristotle; the "Wise Man" of the Stoics; the adoration of "Woman¬ hood" of Positivism are witnesses to its effi¬ ciency. "The complexity of the ethical end," says J. S. Mill, "is so great that it can often be best represented by a concrete example."* Tell a man that he is an indispensable mem¬ ber of an infinite spiritual organism and that as such he should so live as to elicit the well- being of every member of that organism, and thereby insure its own, and he is set a-think- ing, out of the perplexity of which condition he may never emerge. But substitute for the word "organism" the word "brother¬ hood" and his moral energies are at once stimulated, and he is ready for action. Christian ethics can not presuppose that ready ability for metaphysical discernment on the part of all, for it is too much alive as to the actual facts and conditions of life; neither can it afford to disregard the "vul- ♦Utilitarianism, p. 15. MET—ADELPHISM 117 gus." Jesus Christ means that all men should strive to live the ideal life. "Be ye perfect" is a condition to which all are in¬ vited to attain. Whereas it would seem but a truism to as¬ sert that the met-adelphic ideal is the one ideal for the day, there are others, neverthe¬ less, towards which many minds find attrac¬ tion. Now, were these opponents simply novel bearing the attraction of novelty the impulse to leave them to their own fate would probably be a consoling one. But they have a history and a following which serious minds dare not disregard. With truth it has been repeatedly said that many of these de¬ partures in modern times from the Chris¬ tian sense are revivals of ancient systems. Pessimism, that Western revival of Orien¬ tal Buddhism, presents a philosophy of life based on the creed that all things are for the worse—that happiness is an illusion and an unhopeful endeavor. Practically the ob¬ verse of this is that theory known in mod¬ ern times as Utilitarianism. Pessimism is represented in poetic garb by the writings of the Italian poet Leopardi; in social and 118 ADEQUATE NORM literary attire by the lower strata of Rus¬ sian society interpreted by Tolstoy; and in philosophic form by the works of Schop¬ enhauer and his disciple Von Hartmann. This philosophy of nihilism, apart from its ethic, is a phenomenon curious enough to en¬ gage the attention of the pathologist. It may be comparatively easy to explain Leo- pardi's world-view taking his life as a com¬ mentary. A hopeless invalid might well during the overshadowing of a dark cloud in his life's experiences exclaim that "the most happy lot is not to live." A continuous suf¬ ferer might well be expected to sum up life in the term "infelicita," and lament the infi¬ nite vanity of all things. But the problem looms large when a man like Von Hartmann with a happy family and genial social acces¬ sories propounds so gloomy and uninviting a picture of the ideal of life. But waiving the psychological issue as an investigation that would lead us too far afield, we restrict ourselves to its ethics. The ideal of pess¬ imism is the total denial of the efficacy of Being. Nihilism is the demand of human nature, the idol before whose shrine we must, MET—ADELPHISM 119 if indeed we are rightly instructed, fall down and worship! The Will which Schopen¬ hauer declares to be the source of Being and the condition of its continuation is the most pernicious power in all the world! It mani¬ fests itself in the "will to live," compelling men to act as fools in the effort to work against their noblest end! By endeavoring to repel disease by providing for the phys¬ ical necessities of life; and worst of all, by insuring the continuation of the species through propagation in the "tragedy of sex¬ ual love" the will works its havoc on human¬ ity! The worthiest effort that man can put forth, therefore, is the persistent denial of this "will to live;" or, as Von Hartmann would express it: the total condemnation of consciousness and the affirmation of the "un¬ conscious"—the annihilation of Being; Nir¬ vana! But how is the ideal which this startling philosophy presents to be realized ? Tolstoy, a tireless writer, deplores the art of print¬ ing for he says it facilitates the production and circulation of his books. But since the 120 ADEQUATE NORM art of printing is here, and here to stay, he wishes that his books may be destroyed so as not to be read. Schopenhauer, a selfish recluse, husbanding his resources which he had inherited in miserly fashion, and living to old age fearing nothing more than sick¬ ness and death, teaches that the duty of each man on his part is to so act as to negative in his life at least the "will to live." While Von Hartmann for the time being assumes a more hopeful attitude by conceding that now is the time for us to affirm the "will to live," and during the time thus occupied efforts should be strenuously and persistently made to instruct the world as to cause and cure, so that in due process of time a general de¬ termination by the whole race may be ar¬ rived at to unite forces in one mighty and successful effort for the extinction of life and consciousness and the relapse into universal oblivion and ennui. And why not? For this world, if not the worst possible, is so bad that no world at all is infinitely more desir¬ able! Kant once admonished men that they should so act that the maxim of their con¬ duct might serve, at the same time, as a MET—ADELPHISM 121 principle of universal legislation. If the ex¬ ponents of pessimism have ever preached that doctrine it is certain that they have not moved a finger in the effort to practice it. Christianity does not deny the dark shades of life's picture. The tragedies of the world are too stubborn to be overlooked. Pain, disease, privation, bereavement, disappoint¬ ment, sin, are fact not fiction. But while pessimism loses hope and thinks to find con¬ solation in despair, Christianity counts on the ultimate overthrow of evil of whatever sort and the triumph of a regenerated social order in which shall reign joy and happiness and bliss; and it girds up its loins and en¬ gages in the task of reconstruction. While the pessimist holds out that gloomy picture there is another class of thinkers which swings to the other extreme and pre¬ sents the ideal entirely in terms of happi¬ ness. As an historical system this "pleas¬ ure" ideal dates earlier than the days of Epi¬ curus. Democritus had taught that happi¬ ness is the highest good but with him the emphasis was on its qualitative side. Its seat being in the soul, external delights and 122 ADEQUATE NORM goods do not secure it. Bentham, a modern exponent, however, clings to its quantitative aspect. He prefers the term "Hedonism" because he considers that "Eudaemonism" is too refined. And this tendency to oscillation may be noted throughout the literature of the philosophy of happiness. Credit is due to J. S. Mill, who critically compares the two and throws the weight of his decision in favor of the former. He writes: "Util¬ ity or the greatest happiness principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness." But pleasures of the intellect and of the moral sentiments are nobler by reason of their intrinsic character than pleasures of the senses. "It is better to be Socartes dis¬ satisfied, than a fool satisfied." The new name by which he calls it, Utilitarianism, conceives of happiness as the goal and prog¬ ress as the means to its realization. It is easy, as against pessimism, to under¬ stand why it is that this philosophy of con¬ duct is such a spell-binder. Judging it by its strongest, and not by its weakest, features, MET—ADELPHISM 123 it is seen that it gives answer to a funda¬ mental desire of the mind. As happiness is so entrancing and desirable an asset of hu¬ man experience the age is ready to exercise itself in quest of it as the goal of life. It inculcates a humanitarian attitude through the endeavor to have it diffused. It there¬ fore fosters philanthropy and sympathy and battles for social betterment. But may we not ask the question: is happiness the su¬ preme inducement to moral living? Is it not an accompaniment rather than the essence of morality? There are not a few who count it their duty to sacrifice that which is ob¬ viously pleasurable for the comfort of their fellows. A person relinquishes not merely sensuous delights but intellectual ambitions to do service for an unfortunate relative or a needy family. This is a matter of common occurrence; and specific instances would be superfluous. Here duty cuts right squarely across the aspiration for happiness. And the explanation that it is justifiable because it gives up a narrow type for a more altruis¬ tic is not satisfying. If one, by obeying the 124 ADEQUATE NORM voice of duty, imparts happiness to his fel¬ low or fellows by denying it to himself or by falling back on a sorry substitute, he can not be said to be doing battle for that uni¬ versal aspiration. And, if in any instance the "happiness" ideal fails to do justice in¬ clusively it is a dangerous undertaking to ap¬ ply it to the universal order. Happiness is an element, and a vital one, of the ultimate social ideal. For it is a part of human na¬ ture to desire it; and it shines forth in every victory, however partial that victory may be, for duty and for right. The met- adelphic ideal, therefore, presupposes and guarantees it; but it can not be the total ex¬ pression of that ideal. "Jesus," says Dr. Stalker, ever true to nature, acknowledged this (i. e., the desire for happiness) as one of the primordial forces of our being, and endeavored to enlist it among the motives of goodness. Only He employed the word 'blessed' in the place of 'happy'—a simple yet a radical change; for blessedness is a happi¬ ness pure and spiritual, reaching down to the profoundest elements of human nature MET—ADELPHISM 125 and reaching forth to the ultimate develop¬ ments of eternity."* *Ethics of Jesus, p. 38. CHAPTER 2. ITS ADEQUACY. The adequacy of an ideal is its applicabil¬ ity—its inherent power to translate adora¬ tion into imitation. It must not simply be an attractive picture but an attractive living picture with the capacity to shape and color its admirer after its own pattern and design. The adequacy of an ethical ideal is to be found in the volume of its transformative and regenerative force—its life-enhancing, character-building power. According to this test the Christian ideal is the only adequate ideal. The Christian ideal is well-rounded personal and social life containing all the magnetism of that life. And herein do we find its ultimate vindication. Under this caption we will discuss the moral dynamics of the met-adelphic ideal. A. (1). The beauty and harmony of the ideal inspire action. 126 ITS ADEQUACY 127 The harmonious mingling of countless dis¬ sonant tones into one grand symphony is the picture herein presented. You, the other, and I are the dissonant tones. But in the orchestra we are not suppressed; we are adjusted—we are harmonized. When it is clearly seen that the grand effect of life's music depends upon the perfect quality of each and every tone we are spurred on to so live as to produce in our life and in every event of it that tone we ought to produce. No one imbued with moral sense would feel justified in considering himself a discordant tone, a vitiator of life's well-ordered sym- phoneous effect. Individuality kept intact in the make-up of the larger synthesis, the con¬ scious recognition of which is the earnest of initiative and genius, creates at the every outset that interest which is essential to eth¬ ical action. And the total effect which prophesies that symmetry and beauty that appeal readily to the rational imagination imparts the energy which contributes to¬ wards making us bend every effort in one continuous march towards the "beatific vi¬ sion" until that vision is realized. The met- 128 ADEQUATE NORM adelphic ideal inspires in both these direc¬ tions at one and the same time. It con¬ vinces me that I must regard you as well as myself as morally indispensable entities in the sum of Being. Each is a distinct yet related element without which the whole can not possibly begin to be. Even the degen¬ erate or the backward must be included be¬ cause of the very fact that he is an integral factor in the great whole. He is human. Just imagine the wonderful missionary en¬ thusiasm, personal, domestic and foreign, that such a thought inspires! Because he is human, the basest degenerate possesses worth, however beclouded it may be. And it naturally becomes the duty of all others to elicit by their influence the atom of worth that there is in him and thereby evolve in him the full expression of the spirit. We are all our brother's keepers. One is judged, therefore, not according to one's actual, but according to one's potential, self—according to one's inherent possibilities. The individ¬ ual is at one and the same time an end and a means; an end in that he is endowed with inalienable worth, a means in that he is es- ITS ADEQUACY 129 sential to the harmonious completion of the ideal of universal brotherhood. Again, met-adelphism lays stress on personal rela¬ tions which instil zest into life. It is a brother working and living alongside of a brother both with the intent on incarnating the spirit of ideal brotherhood to the infinite weal of both alike. It is not two strangers contractually related which temporarily throws them together. Met-adelphism is a social ideal, a social ideal based not merely upon acquired friendship but upon innate kinship, filial regard, spiritual interdepend¬ ence. Not physical indispensability but or¬ ganic constitutionality furnishes the spir¬ itual dynamic of conduct. 2. The Quality of Personal Character it Produces. (a) Reverence: A morally healthy per¬ son sees and denounces his shortcomings. He also admires as worthy of emulation the moral carriage of another whom he regards —and rightly so—as his spiritual superior. Such reverence is as natural as it is healthy. 130 ADEQUATE NORM Call it disparagingly hero-worship if you will; yet, nevertheless, its roots are deeply imbedded in the character that aspires to no¬ bility of living. And the model, if indeed he be worthy the epithet, endeavors on his part to so direct the admirer that he becomes not his second but his superior, if possible. "Be ye imitators of me as I am of Christ," says St. Paul. This is all easy to understand. But the ideal also inspires reverence on the part of the superior for his inferior. Zacharias the father reverences John the son.* Now, this reverence we here speak of is not simply reverence of protection and care but rever¬ ence for that which in others we find less developed in ourselves; reverence in view of new and immeasurable possibilities of spir¬ itual being. Neither does this exhaust itself with natural kinship. The more clearly the Christian becomes conscious of the ideal; the more resolutely he determines to tune his life in accord with its music, the readier is he able to comprehend the great Christian truth that "God has made out of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of ♦Luke I, 76ff. ITS ADEQUACY 131 the whole earth." He comes into contact with the one standing on a lower level of civilization or morality; but his eagle eyes pierce below the uninviting surface to the core, the seat of the personality, and there he discovers a spark—smoldering it may be, yet alive—of the life divine. He looks at the empirical man; but he does not assign him the position of a menial, the position of a hand or a foot, as in the biological organism, for he discovers that he is an end in himself with all the privileges and prerogatives and responsibilities of an end. Back of the em¬ pirical man, broken and defaced or crude and unpolished, he sees the noumenal man, with all the possibilities of efficient membership, on par with himself, in the spiritual brother¬ hood of the human race. Is not this a spur to humane living? (b) The ideal inspires reverence; it also produces simplicity of life. By this it is not meant that it promises a bare life. The ascetic lives a bare life but his is not neces¬ sarily and on that account a simple life. A simple life, like a great work of art or music, is one which makes a distinct, clear, 132 ADEQUATE NORM positive, grand, impression. Nor is a simple life synonymous with a plain life. A plain life is not necessarily a simple life, though a simple life is on that account a plain one. The day-drudger may live a plain life but that is no guarantee that his is a simple life. By a simple life is meant a life that is capa¬ ble of distinguishing between fundamentals and incidentals and of classifying them ac¬ cording to their relative values, and of ad¬ justing itself to that classification. Loaves and fishes as well as the hearing of the Word are necessary and desirable but the one who leads the simple life would follow the Master not primarily for the loaves and fishes but for the word of life. The simple life is the well-proportioned life. Recognizing com¬ plexities, it does not (like Tolstoy) strive to draw away from them and to make its social retreat, but it works through them to calmer heights. By placing just estimate on the things which count it causes the subsidiary ones to take their rightful places in the con¬ stitution of the well-rounded personality. It keeps the sub-, and the super-, ordinate things of life in their relative places. ITS ADEQUACY 138 Aiming at the essential life in self, the simple life also strives to adjust itself to the other from the point of view of the essential in that other. The one who lives the simple life does not see in the other the side that other presents and nothing1 more. Whether that side presented be the complexion of his skin, his pursuits in life, the range of his mentality or the type of his character, the one who lives the simple life knows that these are but fragments of the full life of that other. He endeavors, therefore, to re¬ late himself to that other from the viewpoint of his intrinsic worth. (c) To reverence and simplicity add strength. It is not only to the Anglo-Saxon that the quality of vigor or strength appeals. No race or no individual if called on to choose between personal weakness and per¬ sonal vigor, provided that race or that indi¬ vidual is normal, would prefer the former. Our ideal builds up the personality with that manly quality of strength. Saul of Tarsus detested nascent Christianity for it seemed to him to be a religion of weakness. St. Paul the missionary gloried in the vitality and 134 ADEQUATE NORM vitality-producing religion of the Resurrec¬ tion. This is his verdict: "Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." And when he exhorted his people with the words, "quit you like men," "be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might," he spoke from personal experience. He had made the venture of faith in the re¬ ligion of Jesus Christ, and he had found in it the adequate norm of life. "I am not ashamed of the Gospel," says he, "for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth." Strength is the root; it is also the fruit of the ideal. Effectiveness, force of character, constructive energy, pro¬ ductivity, are the direct issues of the life of the ideal. We search in vain among other systems, ancient or modern, for that grand array of productive personalities the repre¬ sentatives of the fruit of the Christian ideal. With this ideal everything rests upon the strength of unconstrained obligation. Right living is a thing which simply has to be without condition or argument. Truth con¬ vinces, and conviction is an aspect of moral ITS ADEQUACY 135 strength. When the rational mind discovers its satisfaction in the pursuit and practise of truth which the met-adelphic ideal pre¬ sents it is morally self-bound to pursue that truth with unremitting earnestness. B. (1) Christian ethics idealizes the concrete social idea of brotherhood; it also idealizes personal life. It presents to the world in one bold and masterful sketch a single historic life-picture of the perfected met-adelphic ideal. Jesus Christ is not only the dispenser of that spiritual vitality which /generates the perfect life, He is Himself the supreme personal pattern of that life; nay more, He is the perfect life. Life is influenc¬ ing, magnetic, generative. The ideal brought to a focus in the life of Christ is the ultimate generative power in the world. Jesus Christ came to teach life and to live life, but His mission was also to give life. "I am come," says He, "that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Now, the life power He imparts is His own, so that the receiver in proportion to his receipt of that life must also be a liver of it. Let the world endeavor to transform into action in 136 ADEQUATE NORM its every department the power it receives or may receive from the life of Christ and ideal brotherhood is approximated in a ratio pro¬ portionate to the success of the effort. The life of Christ is the spirit of ideal brother¬ hood ; the teachings of Christ are the princi¬ ples of this spirit to be applied to the actual conditions of life. Lives of Christ have ap¬ peared and still continue to appear and yet the sum total of that life in all its grandeur and freshness has not been fully told. New aspects appear with every new condition of mundane experience. "It would be possible to take a single quality of outstanding prom¬ inence in His character, such as love, and group around it all the rest or develop them out of it; or one of His haunting ideas, such as the will of God, might be taken as the key. In spite of the narrow limits of the gospels, so much is crowded into their narratives that it is possible to follow Jesus through nearly every department of human existence and observe His demeanor and bearing in char¬ acteristic experiences, and in this way there may be constructed an image of Christ in the home, in the State, in the Church, in ITS ADEQUACY 137 friendship, in society, as a man of prayer, as a student of Scripture, as a worker, as a sufferer, as a philanthropist, as a winner of souls, as a preacher, as a teacher, as a con¬ troversialist, as a man of feeling, as an in¬ fluence."* Men and nations can profit much by obedience to the Master when He bids us to follow Him. Nor has twenty centuries dimmed the picture or exhausted the regen¬ erative influence of Christ's life. "The man¬ hood of Jesus still exists and is, in essence, not different from what it was when it per¬ vaded the fields of Galilee and moved in the streets of Jerusalem; and the spiritual pres¬ ence, which is with us always and every¬ where, according to His promise, is identical both with the glorified manhood now at God's right hand and with the bygone earthly life, the incidents of which have been preserved to us in the gospels, so that a communion with Christ, wonderfully real and wonder¬ fully similar to that enjoyed by the Twelve, is still accessible to those who covet it. There are men and women now breathing above ground who are more intimately acquainted •Dr. Stalker, "Ethics of Jesus," p. 206. 138 ADEQUATE NORM with Jesus Christ than with any other friend, and these cannot but exhibit the in¬ fluence of His character upon their own."* That all men may be so intimately acquainted with Jesus Christ as to exhibit the influence of His character in their lives and in every ramification of their lives—this is the vision of the met-adelphic ideal. (2) History furnishes a most convincing argument in favor of the adequacy of the Christian ideal. When Celsus made out his indictment against the Christian religion his data were fragmentary and his charges false. J. C. Morison has committed a sim¬ ilar error in the opposite direction. He says that "Christianity has a very limited in¬ fluence on the world at large; but a most powerful effect on certain high-toned na¬ tures, who, by becoming true saints, produce an immense impression on public opinion, and give that religion much of the honor which it enjoys."J What the world has ac¬ complished under the influence of Christian¬ ity is writ large upon the pages of history, ♦Ibid., p. 214. JService of Man, p. 177. ITS ADEQUACY 139 and there preserved for anyone to read who may. That spirit of Christ which He prom¬ ised to send into the world to standardize the intercourse between profession and pro¬ fession, vocation and vocation, man and man; that spirit which reaches out and em¬ braces citizen and nation and humanity into one enormous family all striving for the total weal of each and each for all, is too living a reality to escape the attention. When the Thegns of Northumbria under Eadwine heard from the lips of Paulinus the explanation of life in this world and the as¬ surance of the life to come they voiced the sentiments of Coifi: "Now I understand what the truth is. I see it shining clearly in this teaching"; and they embraced Chris¬ tianity. When Constantine discovered that the moral worth of Christianity imparted that stability which insured conquest he lifted that religion to stately eminence. When Japan and China realized that the stimulus to broader civilization and national progress are intimately interwoven in the religion of the Nazarene they threw wide open their gates and welcomed the faith. 140 ADEQUATE NORM its works has it been known; by its fruits has its worth been tested. If one should take a retrospective glance over the two thousand years of the existence of the Chris¬ tian religion one could not avoid making the discovery that from the time when John the Baptist attracted multitudes to the desert to listen to his preaching the great aim of Christianity has been to equalize social in¬ equalities and to inaugurate a reign of brotherhood on the grandest ethical basis. That men should live rightly with their fel¬ lows and constitute a truly ideal society it elevated the virtue of love to the throne of pre-eminence. "Human life originates in love. It is love that holds together the basal human organization, the family. The phys¬ ical expression of all love and friendship is the desire to get together and be together. Love creates fellowship. In the measure in which love increases in any social organism, it will hold together without coercion. If physical coercion is constantly necessary, it is proof that the social organism has not evoked the power of human affection and ITS ADEQUACY 141 fraternity."* Jesus Christ wanted men to live as neighbors and He has set the example which the Church is ever striving to emulate. As early as the dawn of Pentecost we find the Apostles in their small way striving to effect a moral reconstruction of the then ex¬ isting society. Tertullian in his Apologyf discussing the matter of charitable contribu¬ tions writes: "These monies are, as it were, the deposits of piety. They are expended upon no banquets or drinking-bouts or thankless eating-houses, but on feeding and burying poor people, on behalf of boys and girls who have neither parents nor money, in support of old folks unable now to go about, as well as for people who are ship-wrecked, or who may be in the mines or exiled in islands or in prison." Justinian in the sixth century officially delegated the administra¬ tion of public charities in the East to the Bishops of the Church. Throughout the Middle Ages the Church was the self- appointed custodian of learning and culture; the sole dispenser of moral and spiritual life; *Rauschenbusch, "Christianity and the Social Crisis," pp. 67 and 68. 1160-220, Circ. 142 ADEQUATE NORM the supreme inspirer and director of the as¬ pirations of the people. Animated by this spirit of brotherliness, and propelled by the energy of love she has been the first mover in every effort to ameliorate the strenuous conditions of life. She has evolved the ideal and also directs the way towards the actual¬ ization of the same. In 1913 the following report was presented by the Commission on the Church and Social Service to the Federal Council of Churches in session assembled at Chicago, and adopted: It reads: The Church Must Stand. 1. For equal rights and complete justice for all men in all stations of life. 2. For the protection of the family, by the single standard of purity, uniform divorce laws, proper regulation of marriage, and proper housing. 3. For the fullest possible development of every child, especially by the provision of proper education and recreation. 4. For the abolition of child labor. ITS ADEQUACY 143 5. For such regulation of the conditions of toil for women as shall safeguard the physical and moral health of the community. 6. For the abatement and prevention of poverty. 7. For the protection of the individual and society from the social, economic, and moral waste of the liquor traffic. 8. For the conservation of health. 9. For the protection of the worker from dangerous machinery, occupational diseases, and mortality. 10. For the right of all men to the oppor¬ tunity for self-maintenance, for safeguard¬ ing the right against encroachments of every kind and for the protection of workers from the hardships of enforced unemployment. 11. For suitable provision for the old age of the workers, and for those incapacitated by injury. 12. For the right of employees and em¬ ployers alike to organize, and for adequate means of conciliation and arbitration in in¬ dustrial disputes. 13. For the release from employment one day in seven. 144 ADEQUATE NORM 14. For the gradual and reasonable re¬ duction of the hours of labor to the lowest practicable point, and for that degree of leisure for all which is a condition of the highest human life. 15. For a living wage as a minimum in every industry, and for the highest wage that each industry can afford. 16. For a new emphasis on the applica¬ tion of Christian principles to the acquisition and use of property, and for the most equi¬ table division of the product of industry that can ultimately be devised. Such is the express purpose of an influen¬ tial organization of Federated Churches. And there are other instances without num¬ ber that may be cited which go to show that Christianity is alive and busy at its task to lead the way in bringing about "that one far- off divine event towards which the whole cre¬ ation moves." But the Church so clearly conscious of its mission within its own borders is also wide awake as to its duty to the world at large. Medical and surgical aid follows in the wake ITS ADEQUACY 145 of its preaching of ideal brotherhood to the nations of the Orient and of Africa and the peoples inhabiting the isles of the sea; and schools which really teach spring naturally into being wherever the feet of Christian missionaries have trod. That adverse criti¬ cism, namely: that the Bible is the precursor of commercial greed, has become obsolete; and Missions have become a world-approved movement. Doubt as to the integrity and moral veracity of the motive back of the world-wide evangelistic propaganda can no¬ where be entertained today. To develop or¬ der out of chaos; to engender love in place of hate; to cultivate a healthy altruism as against selfishness; to enthrone fraternity and dethrone animosity—these are the mo¬ tive power propelling missionary enterprises. Says Dr. Harnack: "The entire labor of the Christian mission might be described as a moral enterprise, as the awakening and strengthening of the moral sense. Such a description would not be inadequate to its full contents."* *Miss. & Exp., vol. I, p. 206. 146 ADEQUATE NORM "The ideal of a fraternal organization of society," to quote again from Dr. Rauschen- busch, "is so splendid that it is today enlist¬ ing the choicest young minds of the intel¬ lectual classes under its banner. Idealists everywhere are surrendering to it, especially those who are under the power of the ethical spirit of Christianity."* But it does not suffice to outline the con¬ tents of the ideal and deliniate its adequacy as the efficient dynamic in the regenerative process. Modern efficiency in theoretical pre¬ sentation carries with it the demand for modern efficiency in a program of action. It was because he felt this demand so keenly that Dr. Patten exclaimed, "Christianity needs, not preachers, but workers!" A sense of conditions as they are, an ideal of things as they should be, must just as in¬ evitably be followed by some definite pro¬ gram of action which, when carried out, will help to convert the ideal into the real as day follows the night. The mariner knows where *Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 400. ITS ADEQUACY 147 he is and whither he is bound; but he yet needs a compass to direct his course thither¬ wards. CHAPTER 3 A SUGGESTED PROGRAM OF MORAL REFORM As the individual is both a means and an end so his contribution to the sum of living is a means and also an end. The primary aim of each is to effect that transformation in the personality that makes for the new type of manhood so graphically portrayed in the life of Christ. In this endeavor one finds oneself inevitably and perpetually coming into vital relationships witlj others; and, in the effort to perfect the self, finds oneself working with the co-ordinate desire to per¬ fect the other at one and the same time. Thus the regenerative process transcends personal interests and finds its legitimate locus in the interest alike of the group. Now individual initiative, though it broadens out into cor¬ porate effort, is likely to be unsystematic. The program which follows is an attempt to conserve energy and avoid waste. Without 148 A SUGGESTED PROGRAM 149 disregarding individual efforts it purposes to marshal social forces so as to construct a systematic machinery that will operate for the regeneration of humanity. As social science suggests the organic idea which has proven so effective for ethical theory, so political science (or better) prac¬ tical politics furnishes the clue for a pro¬ gram the working out of which would carry forward the actual in the direction of the ideal. The National Government takes and preserves a census of its population; and political parties keep a list of their voting strength in the several states. If the Church has the interest of the whole population and not merely that of its actual members at heart, why should it not keep a list of the total number of members, actual and poten¬ tial, that must in the last analysis be included in the complete body of Christ, the adelphic organism? In well regulated political units the leader or chairman can easily tell the total number of voters in his constituency. When election time draws near the several subordinate officers among whom the names of voters in that unit are systematically dis- 150 ADEQUATE NORM tributed are sent out to "look up" each voter to find out his leaning with regards to the candidates on the ticket and to do "mission¬ ary work" wherever signs of weakness or defection are in evidence. In this way the chairman can make an approximately ac¬ curate estimate or forecast of the returns from his unit before the day of election. This is business. And the more systematic it is done the more gratifying are the results. The Church of Christ may do well to go about its work in some such business-like fashion. Suppose we follow political divisions—not as an absolute necessity but for practical purposes—and allow for deviation from same wherever such would be advantageous. Let the ministers of each congressional dis¬ trict of every state get together and form a board of religious "leaders" for that district. This having been done, a careful division of the total number of names may be made ac¬ cording to the smallest political units; ex. wards or precincts, and an assignment of each unit be made over to the care of one or more layman according to the numerical status of that unit. There are always in A SUGGESTED PROGRAM 151 every community some men and women with a natural bent for philanthropic and social work. To these, as volunteer agents, such care may be given. Due discretion should of course be exercised in the choice of lay agents. Not churchmanship or denomina¬ tional affiliation, but zeal and readiness to de¬ vote spare time to the service of mankind should determine their choice. With this every-member canvass, this systematic di¬ vision, this assignment of lay agents, all com¬ pleted, the body may then proceed to appoint commissions to each of which work of a spe¬ cial character will be assigned. For ex¬ ample, there may be a commission on em¬ ployment, one on physical welfare, one on domestic relations, one on education, one on religious relations, one on publication, etc., etc., etc. As each congressional district keeps in touch with qyery other thereby making pos¬ sible state-wide machineries and nation-wide organizations, so the same may be done in this field, with the further specification, namely, that in addition to the national or¬ ganization as a whole each commission will 152 ADEQUATE NORM keep in touch with every other of its kind throughout the state and nation. If such a system were to be adopted it would not be long before cognizance would be given it not only by the National Government with which it is a natural co-worker for the National good but also by every other association or¬ ganized for the betterment of humanity everywhere. And the funds and the influ¬ ence necessary for its efficient operation would be forthcoming adequate to the degree of its usefulness. There would be the blend¬ ing of the moral and political aspirations of the people which must spell progress for both. It shall be the duty of each agent to make periodic visitations, and when emergencies call for more, on each person assigned to his or her supervision; and as nearly as possible to enter sympathetically into the life condi¬ tions of each. The agent will also, in the most informal manner, converse with his or her constituents on topics affecting the essen¬ tials of life, and in this way help to bring to the foreground ideas and ideals of duty and responsibility in every field of human en- A SUGGESTED PROGRAM 153 deavor. The agents shall also report at stated intervals, or whenever emergency demands it, to the several commissions on their work and on the problems they find that call for solution. And the commission that has to do with the given problem will take the matter up and strive to get at the cause and apply the best remedy. Room will readily be found in such a scheme for gatherings which would engage in the discussion and elucidation of knotty problems of more than passing inter¬ est. In this way and in others of kindred nature the public mind and conscience will be educated along the lines of the essentials of social living. The Commission on Employment will keep in touch with every institution, public and private, engaged in employing help. It will recommend fit employes and strive to insure adequate protection for employer and employe. All such matters as child-labor, the regulation of hours and conditions of female and male labor, the matter of enforced unem¬ ployment and scanty wages, the matter of labor organizations, etc., etc., will come within the scope of its concern. 154 ADEQUATE NORM The Commission on Physical Welfare will investigate into the sanitary conditions of the community, into housing conditions, into playground accommodations, into conditions having to do with public recreation and amusement, into the food-products of fac¬ tories, pure milk for babies and matters of kindred nature. The Commission on Domestic Relations will have as its aim the training of individ¬ uals as well as the public to respect personal and social purity, to recognize the sanctity of family and all other established social re¬ lationships, to care for orphans, the disabled and the aged. The Commission on Religious Relations will strive to teach the people that the re¬ ligious instincts are elemental in nature; that religion gives value to life; that person¬ ally it calls for individual regeneration while socially it demands human reorganization on a spiritual basis; that it finds outlet in the communion of souls as well as in contem¬ plation of Deity; that attendance upon Church services and affiliation with some re¬ ligious body for the development of a full A SUGGESTED PROGRAM 155 religious life is as desirable and dutiful as affiliation with some political party or at¬ tachment to some political faith is desirable and dutiful for a rounded civic life. Credal differences will pale into insignificance be¬ fore the grand array of forces united for race-betterment and race-regeneration. The Commission on Education will assume oversight over children of school age as well as looking into conditions of schoolhousing. It will also set the standard for the quality and character of the teaching matter and help to influence the state in devising means to the highest efficiency pedagogically. The Sunday School will also come under its gen¬ eral supervision as well as such agencies which aim at enlarging the scope of intel¬ lectual acquisition. Its aim will also be to make instruction workable so as to develop the whole man, muscles, brains and morals. The publishable materials of all the Com¬ missions will be placed under the care of the Bureau of Publication, the purpose of which shall be to print and circulate literature tending to stimulate initiative and educate the mind and conscience in methods and 156 ADEQUATE NORM means for the translation of the actual con¬ ditions of life into ideal conditions. As here stated in the most general terms by way of suggestion and not regulation, such may be the basis of personal and cor¬ porate reconstruction. It is evident that such a scheme as this will cause an overlapping of spheres religious and civic; but wherever such be the case the duty of the Church shall be not to dictate or control but to enlighten and suggest. All advance in legislation must follow in the wake of enlightened morality and public opinion. Real advance—real be¬ cause operative—must come as a result of enlightened public conscience. If each is carried out in details which it is not possible or desirable to here lay down, in conformity to the special and peculiar conditions of each community, and then given nation¬ wide and world-wide application, it would not be long before the economic, social and religious problems, dominant issues of the day would yield to systematic control. Men would soon come to realize that they are not isolated units for whose well-being no one cares but themselves or their kith and kin, A SUGGESTED PROGRAM 157 but that they are entities known everywhere and respected everywhere in a degree con¬ formable to the respect they pay to the cor¬ porate forces that weave the social fabric. When they discover that in them the social organism has a distinct and a conscious in¬ terest and that this interest is an enduring one and one that follows them into each and every activity of life they will be ready to board the "band wagon" and lend a hand in the struggle towards the ideal. "A truly social morality," says Dr. Patten, "will be more authoritative than any traditional code could be. At the same time, its basis will be so clear and attractive that no resistance to its dictation can arise. What men must do, and what they desire to do, will be so blended that no one will know which force determines his acts."* But in addition to that the moral forces of the Church can do more. "The re¬ ligious sentiment can protect good customs and institutions against the inroads of ruth¬ less greed, and extend their scope. It can create humane customs which the law is im¬ potent to create. It can create the convic- *The Social Basis of Religion, p. 230. 158 ADEQUATE NORM tions and customs which are later embodied in good legislation.! As the result of natural circumstances, therefore, institutions work¬ ing for the betterment of the conditions of life will be fostered whereas those that are drags and drawbacks, draining moral energy and stultifying moral growth, will be made to know that they are institutiones non gratae. And they will die a natural death. fRauschenbusch, "Christianity and the Social Crisis," p. 413. CONCLUSION A NOTE OF HOPE And now in drawing this discussion to its close it behooves us to sound a note of hope. The forces of evil are so many and mighty that one in the cloudier moments of life is apt as did Hamlet to despair or as did Timon to hate or yet as does the irresponsible to let things be; but such attitudes ill become the Christian. Myers advises aright when he bids: "Let no man think that sudden in a minute All is accomplished and the work is done— Though with thine earliest dawn thou shouldst begin it Scarce were it ended on thy setting sun." There is satisfaction enough if we but approximate the ideal. Each battle fought and victory won bring with them a reward 159 160 ADEQUATE NORM which, though partial, is none the less real. There is comfort in the consciousness that we have done our duty in proportion to the light, the talent, entrusted to our keeping. If this were not the case we should crave to live on in this world continually and curse the time when that craving comes to face defeat in death. But the sense of duty done, and knowledge that the work begun will continue under leadership that gains in efficiency from day to day, cause us to cheerfully resign the sword of the spirit to our sons and our sons' sons. "In asking for faith in the possibility of a new social order," says Dr. Rauschen- busch, "we ask for no Utopian delusion. We know well that there is no perfection for man in this life; there is only growth towards perfection. In personal religion we look with seasoned suspicion at anyone who claims to be holy and perfect, yet we always tell men to become holy and to seek perfec¬ tion. We make it a duty to seek what is un¬ attainable. We have the same paradox in the perfectibility of society. We shall never have a perfect social life, yet we must seek it with faith. We shall never abolish suffer- CONCLUSION 161 ing. There will always be death and the empty chair and heart. There will always be the agony of love unreturned. Women will always long for children and never press baby lips to their breast. Men will long for fame and miss it. Imperfect moral insight will work hurt in the best conceivable social order. The strong will always have the im¬ pulse to exert their strength, and no system can be devised which can keep them from crowding and jostling the weaker. Increased social refinement will bring increased sensi¬ tiveness to pain. An American may suffer as much distress through a social slight as a Russian peasant under the knout. At best there is always but an approximation to the perfect social order. The kingdom of God is always but coming."* The indefinite duration of the struggle for social and moral adjustment, from the Chris¬ tian viewpoint, should serve as a lever to, and not as a dead weight on, our moral en¬ ergies. It establishes more rationally than anything else the true relationship between man and his Maker; it inspires adoration for JPp. 240, 241. 162 ADEQUATE NORM God and respect for man. Says Dr. Patten: "God and man are not distinct in kind, but as man incorporates the godlike into himself by his social progress, newer views of the residual that lie between himself and perfec¬ tion make God appear to be even more differ¬ ent from himself than He formerly seemed to be. God is a being on whose trail we always are, but whom we never can over¬ take. We approach Him only to find our¬ selves farther off than before." Farther be¬ cause of the more attenuated quality of our moral perception; because of the keener con¬ sciousness of the sublimity of absolute per¬ fection. We adore Divinity because of its ideality; we respect Humanity because we find it working its way onward following the course of its essential nature towards ideal¬ ity. St. Paul is happy in his conclusion of the whole matter. He sums up the noble business of life in the familiar words: "Stretching forward to the things that are before, we press on towards the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus"—a goal and a prize which, unattain- CONCLUSION 163 able here (and this is a fundamental Chris¬ tian hope) may fully be attained hereafter. "Thou love of God! Or let me die Or grant what shall seem heaven almost! Only let me go on, go on, Still hoping ever and anon To reach some eve the Better Land !"* *Browning's "Easter Day."