AGATE gS LE REST eS Se tn ns et sure ke on ae rete ua aaes poeslat Mane sbasntnes he saaneweensa cae Beans se apenas (Att acu cass ae a Hf en exmuereuaveme 1 yijpomoamnapesat ‘roe asmemeonta eae nen ee eincemeanns oven = ee mee 2: enecomnean poem Saat aterm seer mueneeme sen as =; entensetmaasen jeomnette Abas peers Remnevpiane ae + amemansee penanetns rebar oem a — “n ene coeur sei % enna —_ ne ipreeeeeman ee jae aoiainese renames Saree: ae P seake = Sapromeemneneeee peeacumes ms weaaaa cmenewesnan ae oe ieee Ses ansanietntencsreentaacaniensan, °) >=! aguenoneman sagieastcaionet =e pet sannemeneetenvioovnansananioants presosrenmerss SL coemseead ws 5S solver ooes- inn, emana emvenee = areanen aatemonnee cere matte . ~oveunaune paints poate sae prreveursaes more uA fort ie —aacnamarnnesaheannsaraAparnenarasc: {sim Saepesuainent eo poorer senate prmerrerasrens rear: net —oinanennansanase aerrerarenaree are legates . canacaanrecaneaets!, homie, ak = ey Can = sey pr SE hy REN nse 2 5 pe sa ca SOFT LETT TT FTI Tee TE TS eT prorsaneerts armenian Ie Aa A i, - sls, ele mai treats cae BS tle pibbiceliersciaamomatangoccineenieaeet a UTE ET jit Wii Division Section ,t ! ¢- Sit ETHICS In Theory and Application | yn OF PING E Pn NINN! 7 2 995 oy Oateat § ey KTHICS In Theory and Application BY HORATIO W. ‘DRESSER, Pu.D. Author of ‘‘ Psychology in Theory and Application” NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1925 BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO ALICE REED DRESSER ‘ { mi ‘ ms 2 * é 4 { ' ae. ‘ “Wh Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/ethicsintheoryapO0Odres PREFACE THE purpose of this volume is to consider the great issues of moral life and theory anew in the light of recent tendencies, that ethics may be brought into closer accord with practical life and the other social sciences. Moral issues, always subject to change and calling for fresh esti- mates, have passed through an unusual upheaval since the outbreak of the World War, and the moral situation has enlarged in scope. Psychology has been adding to our knowledge of human nature, disclosing new possibilities of human development, and supplying new topics for ethical criticism. Under the head of psychology, study of the sources of war, analysis of motives which actuate the crowd, and renewed interest in the solidarity of the race, people have been fostering ethical inquiry without calling it so. Controversies over religious creeds have also in- creased our interest in questions which are strictly ethical. The movement toward the abolition of war involves ques- tions of moral principle not to be settled save through reconsideration of our loyalties. The objections raised against philosophy in general, namely, that philosophers deal in abstractions and seldom agree, do not apply to ethics. There is indeed remarkable agreement among the few schools of thought to which ethical types may be reduced. This agreement noted, there is increasing opportunity for alliance between ethics and other fields of interest, such as international law, not usually brought into close relation with ethics. With the breaking down of the old theoretical barriers, all the social sciences have come into more intimate relation with issues for which people are contending day by day. There is no longer any reason why the student of sociology, eco- nomics, or history should stand aloof as if ethics were merely a study of justice in the abstract, an analysis of Vii Vill Preface motives, or & mere inquiry into the nature of conscience. All science eliminates what is peculiar or transitory, In favor of what is significant or permanent. Indeed, there is a meeting-point for all the social sciences in the concrete study of human relations in their complete natural envi- ronment, in the light of social well-being. We are approach- ing a time when the study of human nature may be re- garded as the discipline of greatest significance. Ethics or moral science is regarded in these pages as the science which makes more explicit and persuasive than any other this profound interest in human character. Any lack of interest in ethical matters is taken to mean failure in the past to show the connection between daily life and the moral ideal, to misunderstanding of terms, or to neglect of the relationships between the sciences. This book makes articulate the reaction against the moralizing of the past, by putting new emphasis on spontaneity, the dynamic or energizing principle of daily life, and on practical ideals. The first two parts cover the ground of a semester course, so far as general principles are concerned, while the third is devoted to the application of ethical principles in various fields. The book is intended for use in college classes, and the order of subjects, the mode of presentation is based on experience in teaching classes in ethics. But the book is also intended for the general student of human life and literature, history, economics, sociology, social psychology, and social problems in general; hence the references ap- pended to the chapters are for both the college student, taking up ethics for the first time, and for the student who has opportunity for general research. The appeal is to those larger interests which we are never able to satisfy while we limit our studies to mere description of facts, the use of statistics, or any merely quantitative method. The style has been made as untechnical as possible, in view of the fact that ethics calls for the finest analyses and the most precise definitions. The reader is frequently re- minded that the way to grasp ethical principles is to turn to daily experience for reconsideration of our prevailing interests. We have all been reared under a system of moral Preface aes instruction. If we take exception to it, this criticism implies some other ethical ideal, and the standard which we prefer may be made more intelligible by putting it in relation with the great teachings of the past. Questions are appended to some of the chapters, to suggest application to daily life, lest the student make the traditional mistake and regard ethics as purely abstract or general. In acknowledging indebtedness, it is impossible to say how much is due to Professor G. H. Palmer, under whose guidance the writer began his studies in ethics, and whose work as a teacher of ethics he came to know intimately while Assistant in Philosophy in Harvard University. Such work means knowing men as men seldom know one another. It means placing men in publie life, renewing ancient cul- ture at its best, showing the unity between Greek and Christian ideals, and compassing the wide field where science and religion are too often sundered. Professor Palmer’s great influence in the field of ethics ought indeed to receive such recognition and such a tribute as he him- self has given in his widely read volume, ‘‘ Alice Freeman Palmer.’’ This book attempts to apply this same idealism by con- necting the older interest in ‘‘goodness’’ with present in- terest in moral values, and by calling attention anew to the ideal of the ethical organism which Professor Palmer, more than any other teacher of ethics, has emphasized. The writer is also much indebted to Professor J. M. Warbeke, Miss Margery Carr, and other friends in Mount Holyoke College, who have read portions of the book while in prepa- ration, and have given valuable criticism. The footnotes and references indicate other indebtedness. The references have been chosen with the realization that many are today interested afresh in values—economic, moral, religious— and that many are raising the question anew, What is worth while? Is it possible to acquire a scale of values? Some of the standard text-books have been included in the lists of references throughout the volume, so that one or two of these may be constantly at hand by way of comparison. It will be profitable for the student to make an analysis x Preface of some subject of present interest, such as international law, or to make a special study of a work like Myers’ ‘‘History of Past Ethics.’’ The method of study most strongly advised is a union of the historical and analytic methods. Hence in the following pages there are frequent references to the ethical teachings of the Greeks. Ethical science is indeed in part a philosophy of history, or study of human progress; hence it is important to ask, What constitutes progress? To what extent are the ethical ideals of today new formulations of principles which have ap- peared and reappeared in the past? Horatio W. DRESSER. Hillside, South Hadley, Mass, April 1, 1925. CHAPTER CONTENTS Part ONE THE BASIS OF ETHICS PAGE I. THe NATURE AND SCOPE OF ETHICS . Definition—Moral Conduct—What Ethies As- sumes—The Realities of Moral Experience— Standards—Moral Consciousness and Ideals— The Ideal Element—Quantity and Quality— Custom and Ideals— Moral Philosophy— Moralizing—The Moral Reaction—Morality. II. THe IDEAL AND THE PRACTICAL Moral Struggle— The World Crisis — Moral Benefits—The Larger Problems—-The Indi- vidual Problem—The Sphere of the Ideal— The Practical—Recent Tendencies—Sources of Idealism—Life as an Art—The Creative Art—The Larger Moral Analysis—The Need for Criticism—Summary. Til. Tur ReAumM oF VALUES IV. Ethical Judgments—The Descriptive Sciences— Interpretation—Ethical Interpretations—The Position of Ethics-—-Moral Necessity—Good- ness and Beauty—Sources of Value—Reasons for Values—Human Basis of Values—Lower and Higher Values—The Moral Order—The Supreme Values—The Need for a Practical Scale — Extrinsic and Intrinsic Values — Values Spring from the Deed in the Given Situation. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES : j : Psychology and Ethics—Human Nature The Social View—Social Consciousness--The Un- conscious — Temperament — Efficieney—Men- tal Levels—Fullness of Life—Conversion— xl Ly ol 42 X11 CHAPTER Contents PAGE Value of Psychology—Need of Criticism— Activity—Mental Elements—Instinct — Desire —Wish and Will—Will—Habit—Intuition. V. Conpuct AND CHARACTER . Moral Integration—Feeling—Motives—Intention and Motive—The Basis of Motives—Dynamic Motives—Character—Elements of Character— Unity of Character—The Self—The Self as Ideal—The Self as Conscious—The Self as Person — Spontaneity — Creative Intuition— The Spirit. VI. Toe Dawn or MorRAtity Man and Nature—The Original “Motives—The First Problems—Group Morality—The First Virtues—The Function of Custom—Levels of Development — Conventionality — Develop- ment of Authority—Moral Evolution—Pre- vailing Conceptions—The Universal Element— Reflective Morality — Emotional Origins— Reason as Origin—Summary. VII. Morat OBLiGATION VIII. Pieasvure As tHE Goop Ethical Types—Classification of ffifeevies The Generalization—Moral Action—Moral Judgment —Judgments and Intentions—Objects of Moral Judgment—Moral Law—Moral and Civil Laws—Origin of Moral Law— Hence when we say to another, ‘‘ You ought to do this,’’ there is implied a purpose to influence his action in a certain direction. But duty has its imperative aspect in addition to the striving, or the effort to induce action; and so duty implies a negation, the possibility of transgression: the ought is prohibitive, implies what will happen if duty is not done. If we do our duty only we may not be as fully produc- tive as when the chief incentive is self-realization. Ten Broeke suggests that ‘‘every sense of duty is also a confes- sion of ignorance, for it implies the new and untried.’’ ° So too the sense of duty is ‘‘always a mark of limitations. God has no duties, but the free active possession of the perfect good.’’ Duty is also limited because the individ- ual’s duties grow out of his relation to environment in a way in which no one else is obligated. This is usually re- ferred to as ‘‘my station and its duties.’’? Duty for Duty’s Sake.—Because of this call of duty to meet a specific situation, objection is raised to the idea of ‘‘duty for duty’s sake.’’ This would be too formal and general, and in the end false and self-contradictory.2 The moral being does not exist in isolation. Duty would then be abstract, subjective, and a part of ourselves would be left out. Morality is always relative to situations in which there is opportunity for duty. And so Bradley defines duty in terms of the relation of the particular to the uni- versal; just my will in its affirmative relation.® Duty refers both to the far-off goal of goodness toward which we strive, which seems at times unattainable, and to the immediate situation, plainly imperfect and demanding that something be done.t° Hence we commit ourselves to various courses of action, as means to the great end and because of immediate good to be done; and having com- mitted ourselves we realize that it is incumbent upon us 5 Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, Vol. I, p. 134. 6 Op. cit., p. 74. 7 See Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 346. 8 See F. H. Bradley, Ethical Studies, Chap. IV. 9 Op. cit., p. 187. 10 See Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, Chap. XVII. Duty and Responsibility 195 to remain constant. So it comes about that the hardest phase of duty is what we did not foresee, is what we are called on to do which we did not anticipate or will. By these socially established courses of action to which we become committed we are ‘‘tied-in’’ with people and the trend of events, bound by conditions which we would never voluntarily have chosen. The duties of the soldier who enlists in times of peace without anticipating war or know- ing what it means are typical. Numerous social relation- ships involve contracts to be fulfilled, promises to be kept. And so duties are tied-in with one another endlessly and we find ourselves passing from duty to duty throughout our days and months and years. On the other hand there is a sense in which it is a sound principle to do our duty as an end in itself, namely, as yielding moral value apart from any reward, and not as mere means to an end. There are acts done for their own sake, deeds of the Good Samar- itan, for instance, which are complete. We signalize deeds of valor and service as of great worth in themselves, what- ever values they may also contribute in other connections, what ever part they may play in the self-realization of the one who does them. We owe it to society both to fulfill our regular obligations, meeting the new duties as they occur, and working for the unity of virtue; and to contribute those deeds from time to time which lie outside of our special field and may perchance exceed most other deeds in moral value. The Conflict of Duties—Is conflict possible? Not within duty as a principle. In the ease of conflict between values or various calls to duty, it is my duty to choose one alternative, and so I may be able to do my duty despite this complexity. But duty involves deeds to be done, these are manifold and call for adjustment to social situations in relation to family, town, state, nation, profession, and to organizations or groups whose standards may conflict. Ordinarily these various duties may be compatible, so that I can serve my family, my neighborhood, and all else by the same modes of conduct. But war may break out and I may be under compulsion to serve. What is my duty as 196 Goodness and Freedom regards patriotism in contrast with inter-nationalism? To what level shall I assign love of my fellowmen? When asked to fight, the question of the value of a human life arises in contrast with the end to be attained by fight- ing.4 It is not an easy matter to see what is value and what is means. The unity of the good is not a given entity to be applied as one might a measuring-rod. It must be attained by thought, it must be created. As the unity is a need for action, so it must emerge as an attain- ment through action. New occasions suggest new duties. Fresh emergencies send us back to reconsider the whole situation anew. Hencewe are led to ask, What values are really worth struggling for, and how shall we make effort in their behalf? When forced into fighting a man may find himself compelled to surrender for the time being, so far as external conduct is concerned, everything that con- stitutes the higher values; hence the ends that are primary become lowest in the scale. Half-forgotten values may rise into activity, notably blood-ties, courage, loyalty to dis- agreeable duty. But again the values for which vigorous action is taken may unexpectedly afford opportunity for the expression of self-control, patience, endurance, self- sacrifice, heroism. Thus the least favorable external con- ditions may be accompanied by exceptionally productive moral and spiritual states. The more objective and com- pelling the external situation, as in the case of a soldier exposed to greatest perils in the front-lines when volun- teers for an act requiring utmost courage are called for, the more impressively the individual may rise to meet it. Opportunities for freedom of action may be reduced to the minimum, yet the opportunity for moral choice may be at its maximum. Loyalty._-Sometimes the problem of choice between opportunities taken to mean a conflict of duties is stated with reference to various loyalties and in terms of Royce’s conception of loyalty one is advised to choose that cause or movement which will most greatly increase loyalty in 11 Cf. B. M. Laing, A Study tn Moral Problems, p. 128. Duty and Responsibility 197 the world.!? Loyalty is surely higher than partisanship, and it is inseparable from duty. But loyalty for the sake of loyalty is too general, and it is open to all the objections to Kant’s ethics. Loyalty is not so profound or central as duty. I may indeed do my part toward increasing it as a value in the world, but when it becomes a question of the cause for which I am to be loyal I find that I must be as nearly fundamental in my thinking as possible. Loy- alty may be exacted of me when I am unable to give it. I may be one of those men who put love of truth above demands for fidelity to an institution. I may put love of goodness above loyalty to a party in political power. I may put love of my fellowmen above loyalty to country as conventional patriotism defines it. I may, in short, be disinterested. It is my duty then to weigh the several alternatives put before me, to estimate them in the light of their relative worth as contributory to the greater or lesser good. By what deeds can I foster the greater good? Sometimes I am ealled on to display loyalty toward a person, what- ever he has done, and such loyalty may coincide with the greater good. But again I may in the end contribute most to the welfare of society by disinterestedly manifesting my loyalty to truth, or the right. Loyalty must then be de- fined in terms of the values which we find near the top of our scale.1* Indeed, Everett maintains that value is the basal conception of ethics, more nearly final than duty, law, or right.14 Seth holds that the claims of individuals conflict, the claims of persons never.® To sustain this thesis would be to distinguish in favor of that which is for the best good of a person, personality being under- stood in terms of rational selfhood. In religious terms this would be fidelity to the soul or spirit in contrast with the individual as externally known. And it is commonly rec- 12 J. Royce, The Philosophy of Loyalty, 1908: summarized and discussed in Psychology in Theory and Application, Dresser, Chap. XXIX. 13 Cf. Everett, Moral Values, p. 46. 14 Ibid., p. 7. 15 Ethical Principles, p. 212. 198 Goodness and Freedom ognized that the self in this guise is a supreme value. Obviously there is a difference then between working for loyalty as conventional society may regard individuals and working for those goods which contribute to the develop- ment of character. We like to think that in the total working out of things what is for the best good of one will be for the best good of all others who are concerned, hence we conclude once more that there is no conflict within duty itself. The Ought.—The ought is implied in duty: duties are what I ought to contribute for society’s good. Ought then is another expression for the moral law, with its impera- tives, which is over me. Moral consciousness makes me aware that there is a discrepancy between what zs and what ought to be, and the ought involves judgments in terms of norms or values. The ought is to have practical consequences. An obligation is upon us not only to choose a type of conduct which we judge to be better but to take persistent steps toward its actualization. Something ought ‘‘to be done about it,’’ we say, and we should work to- gether to do it. We are all implicated. The end is social. We need a platform of activities, we need leaders and co- workers. The ought is not static or conservative, but has dynamic value. The Ought as a Standard.—The ought has been char- acterized as ‘‘a rule of human relationship and conduct acknowledged to be unconditioned and universally valid.’’ But this refers to its form, to the moral law; the ought also has content. The ought may be regarded as a uniform rule for similar cases, as a command or imperative, and so asa criterion. Thus I may say, ‘‘I ought to obey the law.’’ But inquiring into the meanings of this obligation I note that it applies to (1) my conduct in relation to the civil law, imposed by the community, for the common safety and welfare, that is, its validity rests on external power and authority, the law is made and executed by the state, and punishment will follow infractions; and (2) my re- lationship to the moral law, the validity of which rests on inner grounds; the law is appealed to because it is right Duty and Responsibility 199 in itself, is universal; and the result of an infraction is not outer punishment but consciousness of unworthiness. I accept the obligation of the civil law as contributory to my conduct as a moral being. I accept the obligation to the moral law by realizing that it stands above inclination, utility, custom, prudence, what is expedient. The ought then is a standard for inner activity of will, for motive and intention. It involves my integrity as a person. It yields a strength not equaled by what I merely believe or feel. The ‘‘I ought’’ involves the ‘‘I ean,’’ that is, the conviction that as a moral agent I am free to take steps toward what I hold to be right: the self has the power to do what the ought impels. Conscience condemns me if I do not do what I ought, and so makes me aware of what I might have done. Involuntarily I revert to my failure. The ought holds me up to the standard of moral success. The alternative would be moral lapse, inner self-division, dissipation. As a Basis of Judgment.—But while I thus insistently tend to judge my own conduct by the standard of per- fection, I should be careful in my judgments of others, lest I hold them up to what I personally say they ought to have done without knowing all the besetting conditions. It is far too easy to condemn people for what we hold they ought to do, on the ground that as members of pres- ent society there are certain principles which they must have been taught, say by the Church, and that therefore they should not do thus and so. ‘‘I ought’’ does not mean “I can’’ without regard to the conditions of (1) my na- ture as a moral being in process, with inclinations to conquer, emotions and passions to sublimate, habits to change, volitions to become more effective; and (2) society, also in process, with forces that need to be better under- stood and more wisely controlled. It has been said that ‘‘to know all is to forgive all.’’ I ought to be perfect even as my Father in heaven is perfect, but this is an ideal. The Creative Ought.—The ought may appear to be simply a stern obligation over us, holding the self and society up to duty. But, we repeat, the moral ideal calls 200 Goodness and Freedom for satisfaction. There is reason in the fact that we are not content with anything less. The fullness of life is what in reality or deepest truth we will to realize. I pass then from the thought that I ought to do my duty to the activity of giving my best, in the joy of doing, or achiev- ing. In all creative work there is satisfaction, and while doing it we are likely to forget processes, conditions, time, even difficulties, in our endeavor to do the work as well as it ean be done. There is no reason why this creativity should not enter into and transform the ought, so that there shall be ‘‘full measure, running over.”’ What I ought to do ds not necessarily what is hardest and least pleasant, although there may be days, even weeks or months when I experience difficulty in keeping at my chosen work. The reaction against Puritanism has taught us to look beyond processes and conditions to an ideal able to lift our consciousness above means to ends. What I owe to others is what I am readily able to do with satis- faction. Self-development and duty coincide to the extent that I am absorbed in my work. If I limit and restrain myself by a severe sense of duty, or if I am greatly con- strained by society, this suppression will interfere with my moral efficiency. It by no means follows that because society puts constraints upon us which involve interior repressions that therefore morality is a burden. The prob- lem is to understand and utilize all elements of our nature, including the passions and self-centering emotions. Duty as Adjustment.—Summarizing then we note that duty for duty’s sake is an insufficient motive, as in the case of loyalty to loyalty: it leads to formalism or generality, and is likely to overlook the spontaneities and satisfactions which yield specific content and incentives. To be an ef- fective moral being one must not only will to do right but will something of benefit to humanity amidst present conditions. It is essential to acknowledge various inclina- tions, or springs of action; and to aim at various ends. In actual practice there are conflicts between matters urged upon us in the name of duty, opportunities presented by our own consciousness. There is need of a criterion, a Duty and Responsibility 201 scale of values. Duty in general is to be expressed con- eretely through what is wise under the conditions, The good will is seen at its best when prompted by the ser- vice-motive. It may be connected at large with God and humanity, but it pertains directly to the welfare of society close at hand, to the family in a specific way. It may be creative. At its best it is essentially productive, not inhibi- tory ; it leads to the fullness of life. Right and Wrong.—We find successive changes coming about in our views of right and wrong in relation to duty. As children, little concerned with right or wrong save so far as we are commanded to do this and abstain from that, we are apt to regard a deed as negligible if our conduct evades detection. So too in later life many people look upon civil regulations as negligible if there is fair chance of evading them, and the effort of our law-breaking gener- ation is to ‘‘get by.’’ Even in the legal world there is sometimes a strange disregard for right and wrong as ethically defined. A judge in a Chicago court who sen- tenced two young men to life-imprisonment for committing murder, in an instance where no one in the community doubted the guilt of the culprits, made the amazing state- ment that these youths had ‘‘never before done a wrong act in their whole life,’’ that is, they had never been caught and arrested. But as evasive as our early conduct and uncritical thought may be, most of us eventually grow into the realization that a deed is wrong ‘‘because con- science tells us so.’’ Still later we come to see that the deed was wrong in itself, and we find that whatever the conflict of opinion concerning social deeds in general some deeds are judged to be wrong by moralists of all schools, for instance, cruelty, falsehood, intemperance. In contrast, other deeds are ‘‘right,’’ straight (rectus) and we hear about men who have decided to ‘‘go straight’? whose previous ways were ‘‘erooked.’?’ What is right or straight is according to rule, and eventually rectitude or righteousness becomes synonymous with justice itself as the culminating virtue, as in Plato’s seale. Arriving at a conception of duty, we see that the right in its ultimate sense is identical with it, 202 Goodness and Freedom while the rights or privileges accorded us enable us to attend to our several duties. Sin, which we are to consider in the next chapter, 1s typical of what we call wrong-doing, although we do not always connect what is wrong with any special conception of sin. We say that sin is ‘‘bad,’’ a term applied to both eonduct and character. Conduct is judged to be wrong with reference to both civil and moral law. The indi- vidual is commanded to do what is right, to obey the law; and one deed is right in relations inherent to it, where many other possible deeds would be wrong. ‘‘Right has no comparative.’? A duty is said to be either fulfilled or not. If not fulfilled the conduct is said to be wrong, and the wrong deed is traced to character. But while we say that character may be bad we do not command a person to have a certain character. We say he ‘‘ought’’ to have acted otherwise, he possesses traits which should have been overcome, and his bettered conduct would have started hin in the direction of a desirable character. There are de- erees of wrong-doing, as there are degrees of goodness. But we adhere to the right as ultimate standard, and ex- pect a person to become of such a character that he will seek and obey the right as he would conform to a mathe- matical principle, which admits of no degrees of rightness. Thus we say it is perfectly right to pay a debt, to keep a promise, abstain from killing and robbing. The opposite ir. each case would be wrong. We do not praise a man for doing what is right in these eases. Praise and blame enter where there are degrees of goodness and wrongness. We hold that obedience to a moral code is right, while a breach 1s wrong. Good and Bad.—Bad is best understood in contrast with good as membership in an organism. There is always something worth doing in behalf of self-realization; it is right to be efficiently active, to produce. By contrast with such activity, idleness, for example, is bad because it results in disorganization, if not degeneration; it is wrong because it results in failure, interferes with duty. Idleness tends to run into laziness. Inertia is strong in human nature Duty and Responsibility 203 any way. In itself idleness is faithlessness. It is social- ized in the ease of the tramp, who becomes a virtual enemy to society. A tendency or condition is bad then which interferes with the codperative life of moral beings, it is bad in relation. When a bad tendency is carried further we call it evil, as in the case of the consequences of lazi- ness. A thing or tendency is evil which not only partly interferes, as in idleness, but which puts its forces against the factors which make for goodness. It does not merely imply imperfection but isolation, internal disorganization ; for example, in the case of wrong-doers who, in a city, gamble, and persuade the police to enter into league with them, and who thus become a group set against the wel- fare of the body politic. A city employee who works for his own interest, who steals, deceives, and fails to perform his function, is a typical instance. Under the term ‘‘oraft’’ much that is wrong in city governments is now briefly classified, and the term ‘‘corruption’’ readily sug- gests the results in the civie organism. Responsibility —There is so much current evasiveness regarding responsibility that it is difficult to approach the matter from the point of view of occurrences recorded day by day. In a popular sense, a person is responsible under certain conditions, and an effort is made to limit his accountability accordingly. One must be careful not to admit responsibility in case of an automobile accident, be- cause this is a question for the claim agent in one’s liabil- ity insurance company, although a man may believe him- self morally at fault. Responsibility is often placed in a superficial way, because it is not customary to probe deeply and avoid all appearance of shirking. Readers of the press follow with eager interest a trial in court in which extenuating circumstances are being found, for instance, in the case of a murder by two young men of another young man where the crime is said to be ‘‘unique,’’ namely, for the sake of a thrill. The youths having pleaded guilty, insanity not being alleged, the question then is: were these murderers ‘‘morally abnormal, as distinguished from in- sane, in a degree that rendered them not responsible for 204 Goodness and Freedom their actions’’? The ground for hearing evidence in such a case at all is said to lie in ‘‘a concession which to many lawyers must seem dubious, but which may be justified by the consideration that the whole legal theory as to erim- inal responsibility is nowadays in a highly uncertain state.’’ In effect, the whole procedure may have been to secure a mitigation of sentence. Meanwhile, the culprits, whose guilt no one questioned, were reported in the case in ques- tion, to have adopted the attitude of amused spectators, an attitude calculated to bear out the theory of ‘‘a com- plete absence of moral sense in them . . . consistent with their self-centered egoism’’; for they had declared that they believed in no God and recognized no law but the urge of their own appetites and desires, although they did believe in ‘‘the power of money to save them from the seaffold and plainly said so.’’1® Such a ease is apt to con- firm the multitude in the notion that accountability de- pends on one’s power to evade responsibility by the aid of money. Moral Responsibility—On the other hand readers of the press are quick enough in their decisions as to moral responsibility, and while ‘‘the vulgar notion of responsi- bility,’’ as Bradley calls it, offers no real explanation, it forcefully emphasizes crucial points.17 A man is respon- sible for what he has done or left undone for which he may be judged in the court of conscience imagined as a judge, divine or human, external or internal, this moral tribunal having a right over him. A man must answer, if called on, for all his deeds. He can disown none of his acts, nothing which in his heart or his will has ever been suf- fered to come into being. This implies self-sameness: I must be the very same person to whom the deed belonged. The deed, issuing from my will, must have been mine; I must have had a minimum of intelligence, so that, as re- sponsible, I can be looked on as a moral agent: for where I am forced there I do nothing. In brief, the deed is at- tributable to me as possessing a certain character. It is 16 From editorial comments in the English press, 17 F, H. Bradley, op. cit., Chap. I. Duty and Responsibility 205 impossible to go behind this character and fix the blame on some one else, for only when a man is alienated from himself (insanity) are a man’s acts not his own.1® Thus the matter is reduced to the psycho-physical causal rela- tions as found in daily life.t° It would be evasive to try to make out that the mere cause is responsible for its effect, as when a man happens to disturb us because he is the bearer of bad news. It is the causal uniqueness that is the real consideration: man is conscious that in his re- sponsible activity he introduces something new into his surroundings which would not be possible without that activity. Hence, although a man is free to act, he must stand the consequences, disagreeable as well as pleasant.?° Man becomes a responsible person socially by his relation- ships to the community which affords him an opportunity to direct his desires and make his plans. Hence one who is aware of these relationships will hold himself respon- sible for the consequences of his acts, without waiting to be held liable by others. Accountability —To this position objection is some- times made by the individual that he is simply what God or nature made him, and God or nature is at fault if he did not turn out well. He did not choose his native en- dowments, his parents, or the social group into which he was born and in which he was reared, or even his char- acter as a product of hereditary dispositions and environ- ment. Why then should blame be put upon him? But our moral judgments turn, not upon a man’s origin, but on what he is, on what he now does, granted the character he has become.” We accept it as no excuse that man judged as worthless and degenerate comes from a family that has been profligate for generations. The individual is accountable although we also judge the collective body which molded him, his family, his social class, his nation, and humanity at large. The individual remains ‘‘the es- 18 Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, p. 407. 19 W. Windelband, An Introduction to Philosophy, tr. by J. McCabe, 1921, p. 249. 20 Dewey and Tufts, Hthics, p. 436. 21 Cf. Paulsen, op. cit., p. 461. 206 Goodness and Freedom sential precondition of the wider judgment.’’?? We are responsible for good, as well as accountable for evil. We ean rightfully be accused. And so our analysis drives us back to moral obligation as the basis of judgment. Our moral consciousness admits of no evasiveness, however many qualifying conditions may enter into our social or environmental relationships. We do not escape from our sense of responsibility by the conclusion that it is relative. Indeed, awareness of responsibility increases with relative knowledge. There may appear to be no ultimate or satis- factory solution of the problem. We may be unable to determine just how far-we are responsible. But this inde- terminateness yields no valid excuse. And a study of the problem of freedom affords further evidence of the per- sistence of this sense of responsibility. Meanwhile, we realize plainly enough that responsibility is essential to the moral order. The existence of shame, remorse, guilt is evidence in point. A man may try to put aside the sufferings of guilt, with its remorse and humiliation, its cowardice and fore- bodings, by what Martineau ealls ‘‘spasms of self-rallying, or artifices of self-forgetfulness,’’ yet he feels himself in the presence of elements which are not placed at his dis- posal, doubly incurred in the attempt to shun them.2? One is unable in these days to fall back on the notion that guilt is hereditary, for, as critics of this view have pointed out, there would then need to be a unitary power of sin per- sisting through all the generations. Sin ig guilt only in so far as it is subjective, that is, self-contradiction on the part of the person who is himself conscious of it. Fellow- ship of humanity in guilt does not excuse the one who has committed a deed which forces guilt home to the intimacies of self-struggle. There may be gradations of sin and guilt, but it is by participation in the series that one comes to feel his own shame and remorse, his own accountability, whatever he may say about those who failed to instruct and aid him as they should. By guilt I am made pain- 22 Ibid., p. 463. 28 Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, p. 112. Duty and Responsibility 207 fully aware of the fact that I have not been true to the promptings of my better self. I realize that not only could I have acted differently but that I ought to have acted ctherwise. JI am cast down. I am so far less than myself. I must then have a way of thinking about sin and evil, and having adopted this point of view, my chief concern will be: social self-realization. For, in the last analysis, cur theory on all these points must be restated in affirma- tive terms. REFERENCES Ten Broexke, J., The Moral Life and Religion, Chap. V. Brapiry, F. H., Ethical Studies, Chap. I (responsibility) ; Chap. IV. MACKENZIE, J. S., Manual of Ethics, Bk. III, Chap. ITI. DEWEY AND Turts, Ethics, Chap. XVII. Royce, J., The Philosophy of Loyalty, 1908. Everett, W. G., Moral Values, Chap. IX. SeTu, J.. Hthical Principles, p. 212. PAULSEN, F., System of Ethics, trans., Bk. II, Chap. V. GizycK!1, G., An Introduction to the Study of Ethics, adapted by S. Coit, 1891, Chap. VII (responsibility). McConne tt, R. M., The Duty of Altruism, 1910, Chap. I. RasHpDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol. I, Chap. V. JANET, P., The Theory of Morals, trans., p. 137. CHAPTER XIV SIN AND EVIL Theories of Evil—The question of the nature of sin and evil lies outside of the ethical field in so far as its solution appears to turn upon a system of theology accepted on authority. A theological view of the redemption of man is apt to evolve a conception of man’s fall, hence a theory of the original appearance of evil. There is a certain evasiveness in such a view, which throws the matter further and further back. So too there was evasiveness as long as man’s temptations were attributed to an evil being or eroup of evil beings or a force operating outside of him- self, or independently of present society. A theological view is apt to turn upon acceptance of a plan for the for- giveness of sins involving non-ethical reasoning. So too in the case of the view that matter belongs to the realm of darkness, as in Neo-Platonism; it was easy to infer that the flesh was the source of evil, and so bodily impulses were condemned unheard. While Augustinianism pre- vailed, it was no less readily assumed that things that had been called evil existed only with God’s permission: be- cause He could cause good to come out of them. The situ- ation was greatly simplified when questions of origin were separated from theories of redemption, when the problem of evil was distinguished from belief in a creed. There was also a change for the better with the rejection of all views that attributed evil to a given element, impulse, or to an unregenerate will, a term as purely general as the term ‘‘fiesh,’’ opposed to spirit. Interest then began to turn upon survivals and misuses of heredity, akin to ani- mal life, subject to intensification, but not in itself to be judged without careful analysis. 208 Sin and Evil 209 The ethical view of man’s unregeneracy involves fewer assumptions, and leaves the matter of the remaking of human nature open to various possibilities. The present existence of evil and its consequences in terms of sin, vice, and crime is the fact with which ethics is concerned, what- ever the first origin. Granted the fact, there is need for precise description, definition, and a theory of the signifi- cance of evil in moral experience. The current description is likely to imply a conception of human development from a simpler mode of life to the complexities of modern civ- ilization. A merely evolutionary conception of the origin of baser traits akin to those of brutes would not carry far, however, since we are chiefly concerned with the subtler evils of the latest phases of civilization. Hence it is a question of psychological analysis rather than one of gen- esis, and to psychology we look for increasing knowledge of human nature in its present social types. Evil in General—tEvil is variously defined by narrow- ing the question, as our interests become specifically ethi- eal. In a metaphysical or very general sense, evil has been looked. on as essential limitation, due to the fact that any being less than God is necessarily imperfect. According to Leibnitz, created beings derive their perfections from the influence of God, but their imperfections come from their own nature, which is incapable of being without limits.? In the physical sense of the word, evil is seen in the struggle of animals, preying on one another by brute force; in calamities such as the great floods which occur from time to time in China, the terrible earthquakes which have visited Mediterranean countries and Japan, the volcanic explosions which have destroyed whole cities; the destruc- tion of crops by pests, and drouth; the spread of plagues and famines. Mental and physical suffering, whatever the cause, 1s regarded as an evil, and the infliction of pain is ordinarily the most direct result of evil attributed to human agency. The terrible consequences of war, with the suffering of non-combatants as well as of the soldiery, are typical of such evil. The sufferings of the world have 1 The Monadology, Sec. 42, tr. by R. Latta, 1898. 210 Goodness and Freedom increased as war has become jhore barbarous, until, in the World War, with its submarines, bombing planes, and poison gas, the evils became terrible beyond description. There is plainly a difference between suffering of this sort which we condemn outright, and pain arising within the organism in bodily disturbances where the sensation is a sign of nature’s remedial forees. Pain in its initial stage may indicate excess due to prolonged work, nervous Strain, or over-eating, and in this respect pain if rightly explained is a clue to bodily well-being. So too when in- crease of pain implies failure on man’s part to respond to the first warning symptoms: naturally pain is intensi- fied with greater imprudence. There would seem to be no other way to bring man to his senses than by increase of painful results as evidences of his failure to respond to nature’s promptings. So long as the results are confined to the person’s own organism the consequences of riotous living may still be looked upon in the light of lessons they teach. But when the suffering of others is involved, and when through heredity children and successive generations are affected, such consequences are condemned outright as evil. Hereditary weaknesses and feeble-mindedness in its various forms, are remote results for which the sufferers themselves are not responsible. Instead of condemning people outright for these evils, the tendency today is to trace the evils to their sources, for instance, in the case of whole families of degenerates descended from a single pair. Then it is a question of specific evils, perhaps drunk- enness and lust, as immediate causes. So too in the case of diseases, notably contagious and more serious diseases so long regarded as mysteries, the effort of science is to get at the root of the malady, the particular germ or the be- setting condition; instead of attributing the disease to the existence of evil in general. It may well be that some evils from which we suffer are due to the animal existence which we share with the higher animals but which in man may become more brutal than in the brutes. Moral Evil— What we mean when we attribute evil to conscious human agency is moral evil, a deed and its Sin and Evil 211 consequences which might have been avoided by those directly responsible for it. Moral evil may be said to in- volve the whole race, for when we begin to trace results back to a pair of degenerates whose evil life led to the most baneful results in whole families through generations, we find the investigation leading farther back till we come to the earliest evils of our civilization. But there is no advantage in mere generalizations. Headway has been made in these scientific times by separating evil into its types and limiting the inquiry to specific instances. In the case of war, for instance, effort is made to fix respon- sibility upon rulers and their ministers, or diplomats and politicians working in secret who gave the word to mobilize. Other nations, through concealed ambitions and rivalries, may be responsible too, but the decision may have rested with one nation, and in that one nation with the militaris- tic party or ambitious potentate. Our judgment concern- ing responsibility for war is likely to become the more severe if as a result of recent discussion we have come to regard war as an evil from first to last. War, long eulo- gized because of the good that comes out of it, the heroism, the self-sacrifice, the increase of patriotism, has more fre- quently been called murder since the World War. Efforts have accordingly been made to outlaw it without waiting for mastery over the allied evils of which it is in part an expression. The Social Evil.—The nature of evil becomes clearer when we consider it in relation to a single deed wrought by one person, and undertake not only to establish guilt, as in the case of murder, but to determine the motive and analyze this in detail, tracing the motive to its sources. Moral evil then is seen in a deed and its results attributable to a person intelligibly regarded as responsible. Without the decisive activity in question, its motive, with the act of choice which made the motive effective, the deed would not have happened. So too we trace consequences of “‘the social evil’’ to inner activities involving real alternatives. In the presence of passions which might have been curbed or overcome, the responsible person is guilty of the initial 212 Goodness and Freedom deed which led to the degradation or enslavement of others. Society sometimes passes judgment upon the innocent girl who is led astray by a man who makes her the victim of kis passions, and so society has a way of slurring over the social evil. The situation is usually more difficult for the woman. The question of a double moral standard com- plicates the issues. But whatever the effort to cloud the issue, the fact is not altered that he is responsible who knew life’s typical situation in this field, who should as a member of a moral community have abstained. Although society is in a way responsible for crimes due to passion, individuals are originally responsible. Here again our changing views lead us to trace causes more directly to their sources than when a double standard of morals ruled without question. By evil in bare simplicity we mean a deed done by an individual who, in the face of a higher alternative, chose the lower and did what implicated his moral nature and brought consequences which could have been prevented. The innocent suffer with the guilty, and so we endeavor all the more insistently to trace the deed to the one who wrought it. We no longer attribute evil to the frailties of human nature in general. Nor do we trace certain evils to the passions of the flesh, as if the body acted independ- ently. We insist that account be taken of all the factors that participate in man’s conduct, especially those activ- ities which distinguish him from the brutes and give powers of control. Evils may begin with behavior which in origin is instinctive, as we find ourselves in process of acting according to customs which we have taken on merely be- cause they existed. But it does not follow that the orig- inal behavior was evil. . Crime.—By crime is meant a breach of civil law, a deed for which responsibility may be determined so that a penalty can be attached. A deed not recognized under the law as a crime may be worse morally speaking. The term crime is often used as a synonym for the worst evils, especially those of war, although these evils have never been Sin and Evil 213 outlawed. Some of the most fiendish evils popularly called erimes against society are not recognized by the statute books. Fixed penalties do not necessarily show the nature or extent of the wrong done. We habitually speak of deeds as morally wrong in instances where occurrences techni- cally known as crimes are not judged as we believe they ought to be. Penalties are attached to crimes with a view to protecting society and reforming the individual. But a prisoner may emerge from confinement far more danger- ous than when he entered, and so crime may increase from more to more. A crime is a deed not to be understood apart from its ultimate connection with social groups in relation to which it is seen as evil. Effort is sometimes made to attribute crimes committed by young offenders to our educational system, or to explain them by the theory of evolution as misunderstood, as consequences of the pro- hibition amendment, as reactions from the World War, or as traceable to the film-play. But these alleged causes are expressions of the mode of social life we live, and that in turn is conditioned in various ways according to type and place, as in the slums. Waves of crime do not spring out of a single source. In sentencing four young men to be electrocuted, Jus- tice Cropsey, as quoted in the press, commenting on their age, said: ‘‘ Most of the criminals are boys and young men. To be exact, over eighty per cent of them are less than twenty-five years of age. If the people of Brooklyn ask why so many youths become criminals, I ean tell them. A dozen years of investigation and experience in these mat- ters have demonstrated that the vast majority of all youth- ful offenders committed crime because they had bad asso- ciates and were not under the proper influences in the years when boyhood was turning into manhood, between the ages of twelve and eighteen. That is the most impor- tant period in a boy’s life. Then his ideals are acquired, his character formed. This condition is a challenge to the manhood of our community. . . . Tens of thousands of boys are nightly on the streets looking for amusements, seeking adventure, yearning for companionship. Many of 214 Goodness and Freedom them have no fathers, and the parents give little or no heed to the places their boys visit or the companions they choose.’ ? Our definition of crime will depend to some extent then on our view of its social origin and our solution of the problem of responsibility. A theory prevails that crime is due to a defect in the lower brain, affecting the emotional life. So a young criminal may have a high degree of in- telligence but no sympathy, no adequate sense of wrong; knowledge of right and wrong, but no feeling about it; no adequate basis for emotional life, and so no adequate social test. But this theory affords only a physiological explanation of facts to be ethically interpreted. The Reality of Evil—Part of our difficulty then is due to the fact that we need light on many issues at once; we are unable to say what degree of evil is to be attributed to a certain individual in a given case. There is plainly a difference between a delinquency which is chiefly a mis- fortune in the life of one whose parentage is offered as the explanation; between ‘‘long-distance sins’’—injuries done to people whom the wrong-doers never see and know— and wrong-doing as a direct injury to a man in his per- sonal life which can be surely traced to one guilty person. Evils run through the whole gamut from the old-jungle sins of the flesh—murder, lust, and theft—to the sins of pride, avarice, slander, and spiritual self-sufficiency, and so intimately related to social life as a whole that a tendency sometimes appears to classify evil as ‘‘unreal’’ because relative. Evil is surely real from any ethical point of view that has prevailed in the Western world. It is real as a brute fact of actual injury done, for instance, by the man who builds a fire-trap in aa people 1686 their lives, who leaves dangerous machinery unguarded, and in rhe case of reckless drivers of automobiles. It has been called unreal in the sense that it is bound to be over- come, and the activities involved in it transmuted into good. But as now present it is real so far as effort is required to understand, master, and transform it. The 2 Quoted in The Literary Digest, Mar. 22, 1924. Sin and Evil Q15 evil deed remains a fact of history whatever good may be brought out of it. It does not follow that because good results may be brought out of it the deed was either unreal or that it was due to short-sightedness or mere social maladjustment. Vice.—Whatever the responsibility assigned to those who have gone before, the given evil is definable with regard to the personality suffering from or inflicting it. Thus vice is evil consciously entered into, maintained per- sonal evil involving self-indulgence of a sensuous kind, evil as a habit. It may arise through simple indulgences in eating, smoking, and drinking which in time becomes excessive, hence more sensuous. The vice may then be- ecme established, and may grow by what it feeds on, even- tually leading to crime. It is a fine point of distinction to determine when an indulgence which seems harmless in a relatively prudent life reaches the point of excess and becomes a vice. Here too the original behavior may be instinctive in origin, or may involve instincts wholly good in their proper places; hence the initial behavior may not be wrong. Some of the unfortunate beginnings may have been due to native promptings and imaginings which were not understood. Environmental influences may foster tendencies which might never have led to vice apart from undesirable company. The sensitive, easily influenced youth may not at first realize that he is less truly himself when with certain associates in whom vice is already mak- ing headway. We judge a man’s conduct more incisively when we see its consequences in his person after these have reached a crucial point, or when the results show in his conduct toward others. Vice is always attributed to the person, and whereas a criminal may be pardoned vice must be overcome by the individual. Society undertakes to pun- ish the criminal, but it is often at a loss to persuade a man to recognize his vices and overcome them. We excuse in ourselves what we condemn in another man as a vice. Some of us seem unwilling to conclude that a man should have no vices. It has been readily assumed that a man will ‘‘settle down’’ after a while, hence vices have been 216 Goodness and Freedom excused as if the situation were not dangerous. Mean- while, the new age finds new approaches to the vices of the old, and vice spreads by imitation, by one sex emulating another, unmindful of what follows, and by confusion be- tween what is manly and what is wrong. Sin.—Sin is defined as conscious wrong-doing. Thus a vice which in origin was apparently harmless indulgence may reach a point where the person who fosters it becomes well aware of alternatives, and who possibly struggles for a while to overcome his vice. Persisting in his vice, how- ever, going counter to the promptings of his better nature, disregarding moral and spiritual standards, he sins, in his wrong conduct he involves others. Religious people say a sin is not only against one’s better self, against those who suffer from the individual’s wrong-doing, but is against God. ‘‘Against thee only have I sinned.’’ It is also said that sins ean be pardoned by God alone—if the sinner re- pents of his sin as confessedly a sin against God and wills to reform. Morally speaking there is no repentance save in a change which the individual voluntarily strives for, not because he anticipates forgiveness, not because he ex- pects God to overcome his sin on the ground that another has suffered for him and will wash his soul ‘‘white as snow,’’ but because he realizes that there is no atonement save what each makes by leading the better life. Moral atonement for sin is moral life. In contrast with the former tendency to revert to the idea of a Golden Age, and dwell on the supposed fall of man, the trend of thought is toward a Golden Age yet to come. That is, our view of evil turns upon the breach between the ideal and the actual, and our yearning after goodness. Thus Seth calls evil ‘‘the shadow cast by the moral ideal upon the actual life.’?* Our thought of it de- pends on our view of much that is passing in civilization around us. Hence, very much depends on what comes up for response in a given epoch, on the standards that pre- vail; and so the question of origin plays a lessening role. In Mackenzie’s terms, each man’s moral life may be re- 3 Kthical Principles, p. 214. Sin and Evil O14 garded as a universe, and the universe wherein evil is seen may be a broad or a narrow one, and its conflicts may vary with the individual.* The evil sought is sought under particular circumstances. Again, evil may be regarded in contrast with the common good, as in the case of the work- man who drinks away his wages, upsets the equilibrium of his inner nature, and deprives his trade of an efficient member. As the issues are narrowed by our modern knowledge, the outlook upon evil changes more rapidly. Evil is no longer attributed to a ‘‘force’’? which works against the good, that is, a merely general force. It is not an impure element getting itself intermixed with other elements, as a stream might be contaminated. It is neither a power in itself to be condemned outright nor in the agent as a whole. Instead it is insubordination among various traits and tendencies, it is in the motive and re- sults; in the concrete relation, not in anything abstract. The existence of moral evil does not prove that man is inherently wicked. Evil is in the misuse of powers which in right proportions are good. Evil is indeed destructive, but not in the same way as a germ. Nor is evil in the mere will, for the same will can be used constructively. Evil is a hostile or destructive combination, with excessive emphasis on a certain tendency or deed, in contrast with goodness as integrity or wholeness. Evil is disruption, hence the expressions, ‘‘gone all to pieces,’’ ‘‘dissipation,’’ ‘‘duplicity.’’ The outcome of the evil, if carried further, is crime, which becomes downright warfare upon society. In contrast with these terms implying disruption, are such terms as temperance, self-control, balance, suggesting in- tegrity of character. Evil is in general the assertion of the part against the whole. Such a conception of evil affords hope of ultimate victory over it, that is, through the establishment of right adjustments or proportions. Mistakes.—In the effort to place evil so that its reality is neither denied nor over-estimated, it may be compared with mistakes. From want of experience we may make 4 Op. cit., p. 393. 5 See Muirhead, Elements of Ethics, p. 161. 218 Goodness and Freedom mistakes or blunders, but as inadvertent such acts are to be distinguished from conscious wrong-doing. What is wrong is worthy of punishment, involves by contrast what is right. What is right we learn in the first place from the instruction of our elders. But a mistake may be a simple error of judgment into which we fall by ourselves. We excuse the mistakes of others. We explain our own as due to ignorance. Is it possible to classify all sins, evils, and vices under the head of ignorance? That is, is it solely a question of the intellect with its tendencies to err, not of the will with its perversities? Socrates maintained, we have seen, that man never does wrong voluntarily, and the proposition, ‘‘knowledge is virtue,’’ has frequently been defended as the basis of ethical theory. The merit of this view is that it implies faith in the natural goodness of man, and does not attribute evil to a depraved will. But it overlooks man’s unruly desires. If the proposition were to be ac- cepted in entire seriousness evil would never be regarded as anything more than a mistake which further knowledge would correct. Both in theory and in practice a distinc- tion is made between mistakes and evils. We attribute mistakes to stupidity, lack of attention, or fatigue; we find that they can be overcome by alertness, practice, in- creased effort, concentrated attention. But we attribute motives to people whose deeds are evil—who are enemies to society, who steal, burn, make war—which put them in a class apart from people who make mistakes. and we know that character is not only manifold in content but is in process of develop- ment. So, too, Dewey and Tufts maintain that conscience implies a knowledge of the whole act—purpose, motive, and deed.*® It is in this larger sense that conscience de- mands complete obedience: reflective morality is a sign of a progressive society, while customary morality is evidence that society has become stationary. By a progressive con- sclence we mean one that retains its sensitiveness to the mutations of the ethical spirit in the race. It is ‘‘the critical perception’’ we have not only of the relative au- thority of our ‘‘several springs of action,’’ the factor on which Martineau dwells,1” out also our perception of the issue which become vital in the social order in which we live, subject as it is to changes as marked as those wrought by the World War. What Martineau calls the intervals between the springs of action have changed in our day, with ideas of the unconscious; and conscience is now 15 Sctence of Ethics, p. 315. 16 Hthics, p. 183. 17 Op. cit., p. 54. Conscience Q43 concerned with the task of codrdinating the elements of our nature which have unwittingly played a great part in our motives. Conscience has a different sense of the rela- tive values along the scale, since the emphasis shifted in favor of what is dynamic in our nature. If able to discern the ruling passion or prevailing love, we may concentrate upon this, lifting the whole scale by purifying our love. The function of conscience is to guide in this the crucial situation. Its function is positive, affirmative; not pro- hibitory, as if ever insisting ‘‘Thou shalt not.’’ That which is ‘‘absolutely right’’ can not be stated in terms of negations, or in condemnations put upon our lower pro- pensities. The perfect scale, could we possess it, would disclose the use of each prompting in its proper place, each incentive being contributory, each good, every one needed. There would then, in practice, be no excesses, either on the lower levels or near the top; but a joyous attainment of the abundant life.18 Summary.—Conscience then is that principle of our moral nature or combination of moral elements which sets the standard for all others; implies moral law, obliga- tion, duty. It is the witness in ourselves of the right, a perception of moral distinctions accompanied by aware- ness that we ought to do what we take to be right. As involving knowledge of the good, it is a species of judg: ment. As implying the permanent basis of moral obliga- tion, it persists through all moral changes, is the moral constant in all human history: conscience itself determines the natural history of moral distinctions, is the ‘‘higher’’ involved in judgments concerning the ‘‘lower.’’ Thus conscience yields the ideal of moral worth in the long progress toward the highest standard. The moral variables of our nature become intelligible in the light of the con- stant which gives meaning to all relativities in our judg- ments. It is because of conscience that we come to need a scale of values. 18 The question of the social conscience will be considered in another chapter, after we have discussed some of the perplexities of conscience in daily life. Q44 Goodness and Freedom As involving a more or less painful awareness of past deeds, with a realization of what we ought to have done, it is a direct moral incentive to better conduct. The self-depreciation, the dishonoring of the self which is in- volved in the deed judged to be wrong, suggests by con- trast self-realization. Conscience makes us aware that we are responsible, that the self that wills is decisive. But conscience is not merely negative or indirect; it involves positive certainty concerning the ideal, and, on occasion, yields a sense of joy in our productivity as making toward the ideal. Conscience gives stability, and so enables us to overcome the inner dividedness which is implied in all conduct that lowers the self. Although not a mere faculty, sense, intuition, or voice, and not even an inner light to be accepted without interpretation; each of these practical conceptions is a clue and should be retained by those who have found them of value. Conscience is of unlimited practical value, and a basis of guidance for all. REFERENCES PAULSEN, F., System of Ethics, trans., Bk. II, Chap. V. Tuitiy, F., Introduction to Ethics, 1900, Chaps. II, IIT. Muzes, 8. H., Hthics Descriptive and Explanatory, 1900, Chaps. V-VITI. MorrHeaD, J. H., Elements of Ethics, p. 70. Everett, W. G., Moral Values, Chap. IX, See. VI. Mackenziz, J. 8., Manual of Ethics, pp. 117, 182, 264. MaArTINEAU, J., Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, Bk. I, Chaps. V-VII. Dewey And Turts, Ethics, p. 317. STEPHEN, L., Science of Ethics, p. 306, foll. Sipewick, H., Methods of Ethics, p. 369. SerH, J., Ethical Principles, pp. 172, 179, 215. RASHDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol. I, p. 175. CHAPTER XVI THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM Scope of the Question.—The question whether or not man possesses freedom of will appears to be exceptionally simple: man is either morally free or there is no moral order in the universe, consciousness yields direct assurance that we are free, and this unmistakable awareness of free- dom on our part is more conclusive than any argument. Yet the subject has proved far from simple. However, many times the matter has been apparently settled, new considerations have been brought forward. Analysis of the perennial issues is highly profitable for all who are deeply concerned to know human nature and human life. It is well, therefore, to try out the possibilities as if the problem were far from solution, including a brief study of fatalism, and an analysis of arguments for and against determinism. Fatalism.—There is little to be said about fatalism, which ordinarily means belief in a blind but fixed order of cosmic events, including all human deeds and their causes both internal and external, a series over which man has not the shghtest power.t Or, in place of a blind force, the assumption may be that some Power has irrevocably decreed all events whatsoever, hence that there is one Will in the universe. The implication in either case is that events are foredoomed and connected in such a way that a certain occurrence will take place whatever one can do. From the Mahomedan point of view the explanation offered is as brief as possible: ‘‘It was written.’’ Thus the Turkish soldier will inevitably die when fate has de- creed. The practical result is a courage which is terrible 1Cf. Janet, Theory of Morals, trans., p. 365; Gizycki, Introd. to the Study of Ethics, trans., p. 197. 245 Q46 Goodness and Freedom in execution, also an indifference to human suffering and human life. Fatalism in milder forms in ancient times involved superstition, an effort by means of auguries to discover and prepare for events that were imminent. In more recent times, belief in astrology, palmistry, and in other schemes for discovering what is popularly called ‘‘fate,’’ involves a hope that one can discover the way to a fortune partly within control, or avert a predicted dis- aster. Mild belief in fatalism also lurks under unthinking resignation and pessimism. The ethical significance of any belief in fatalism is found in the fact that man usually shows by his conduct what he really believes, and in prac- tice most men proceed on the assumption that their conduct will make a difference. Some advocates of free-will insist that determinism is always fatalism in disguise, but we shall find that determinism should be considered by itself. Science does not adopt fatalism, but formulates all its teachings in terms of the reign of law.? Predestination.—The theological doctrine that God, possessing all foreknowledge and power, chose beforehand both the elect and the reprobate, concerns us in part; since it involves the assumption that even the volitions of moral agents were by a decisive disposal included in this plan. All things being perfectly and equally within the divine view from eternity, any alleged secondary cause would be incompatible with the First Cause; divine knowledge is absolute, and so does not depend either on experience or on the unfolding of events according to a plan laid down. Knowing what God is apart from the world, we know what he decrees for all human beings in any world he may create. As there is foreknowledge of all human possibilities in accordance with decrees for each man, virtue is in reality due to divine grace. Human freedom is utterly impos- sible, even on the supposition that God permits lesser events which can be brought to a point where the good is triumphant; for since God is the sole cause of all that he infallibly forsees, it would be futile to discriminate between 2For objections to fatalism, see G. S. Fullerton, 4 System of Metaphysics, 1904, p. 551. The Problem of Freedom Q47 what he decrees and what he permits.* This may be taken to mean that there is no true creation at all, but simply God evolving in fixed necessary order; or the view that God founded the possibility of sin in the creative order, with the possibility of overcoming sin: ‘‘the possibility of a sinful decision . . . against God is the necessary presup- position of the kingdom of God as a kingdom of free moral persons. ’’ # It has been objected that this view deprives man of true reality as a moral being. For moral philosophers, not bound to sustain a theological system, the reality of the moral self, and with it the fact of evil is the foundation. Hence, predestination becomes practically a dead letter. The relentless logic of Calvin in developing this doctrine to its last conclusion was the utter undoing of the whole system, so far as it concerns ethics. Divine Omnipotence.—Yet there are certain implica- tions of the argument as it has appeared in history since the days of the doctrine of the fall of man that are still significant. The chief issue has turned upon the assump- tion that God is unconditionally omnipotent. Then the question is, How shall evil be accounted for? What of sin and the doctrine of eternal punishment? To start with the conviction that God is good is to conelude that he can not be the author of evil. How then shall evil be reconciled with divine omnipotence? Two views have been maintained: (1) the denial of the reality of evil, on the assumption that it is not positive and substantial but merely a privation of good, or the dark color that throws up the light, as Augustine called it; (2) the assumption of the right of the Creator to do whatever he wills with his creatures. Many have assumed that wrong-doing as related to the growth of human personalities is so distributed that a greater perfection exists as a result. So the attempt is made to reconcile evil with a view of the divine nature without pressing the argument far enough to see what it 3 Cf. James Ward, The Realm of Ends, 1911, p. 311. 4G. B. Foster, Christianity in its Modern Expression, 1921, p. 134. 248 Goodness and Freedom involves. The difficulty becomes more serious with the attempt to reconcile the theory of eternal punishment with the notion that evil is merely negative, incidental to the working out of a higher order. Or, again, admitting that evil is real, the attempt may be made to free God from responsibility on the ground that the salvation of man depends on his own choice, which in turn is not prede- termined by God. The argument comes no nearer a solu- tion in this direction, for free-will as thus understood limits divine omnipotence; and partisans of the implied theology have been more inclined to limit the responsibility of man than the knowledge and authority of God. So the problem becomes that of the evil will, and the argument reverts to Augustine’s assumption that as a good God can not create a bad nature, and as the nature of wicked angels must then have been intrinsically good, the fall of the angels was due to an evil will whose cause can not be explained or even stated. The Bad Will.—It is clear that either the bad will must have an origin somewhere in the nature of beings whom God has created or else it is a force arising out of nothing which God ean not control. But, if God does not control evil but only permits it, despite an omnipotence which might prevent it, the situation is no better; and so the argument tends to reappear in favor of divine omnipotence and responsibility. If the difference between the good will and the bad will lies in the choice of good, and if this choice turns on the grace of God, the old-time conclusion follows that the good will is good because of a greater measure of divine grace, while the bad is such because this grace is lacking. The hypothesis of the uncaused bad will once abandoned, the position of the omnipotent God re- mains secure as ultimate author of the depravity of angels and men by predestination. Calvinism.—Where some would have evaded the con- clusion by dialectical compromise, Calvin drew the in- structive logical consequence: ‘‘those whom God _ passes by, He reprobates, and from no other cause than His determination to exclude them.’’ It seemed even to Calvin The Problem of Freedom 249 ‘an awful decree,’’ that a portion of the race was doomed to eternal torment. But on the assumption of divine fore- knowledge this foreappointment by God’s decree was in- evitable. For Calvin there could be no distinction between will and permission on God’s part. The human will was resolved into an instrument through which God worked. It mattered not that the world was ostensibly created for man’s benefit. Man merited punishment because cor- rupted by sin, and even though it seemed clear that God must then have created him corrupt, the relentless reply was that the potter has power over the vessel. God as supreme judge of the world, from whom issue all law and all right, can do no injustice; that is just which God wills, and if he determined at the outset on the fall of man it was because he foresaw that it would tend to the justification and glory of his name. So, as Hobhouse has argued, to follow Calvin would be to pass outside the range of ethics into a region where ethics as we under- stand the term no longer applies.® Ethics implies the conviction that the human will is no mere puppet of an overruling Power. If free-will means a limitation of divine power, there have been ethical thinkers in abundance as ready to be true to their logic as Calvin was to his. As no man ean be justly rewarded or punished unless he recognizes himself as the doer, responsibility rests with man, and this in turn implies identity of character. In place of the divine omnipotence to be maintained at any cost, God is regarded in the light of limited foreknowledge and power; the doctrine of eternal punishment is relegated to the history of theology, and with it predestination, its implied notion of the human will, merit, justice, and the like. It is no longer customary to insist on a theory of the relation of God to man based on an assumed abstraction regarding the divine nature and the conclusions which follow from this abstraction. The effort, ethically speaking, is to explain and interpret the world of experience which we actually know. More- over, it is out of the question to resolve so many matters 5L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. II, p. 135. 250 Goodness and Freedom at once. An artificial situation was created by the assump- tion of the fall of man. The idea of God can be developed to its full extent without the notion of eternal punishment, or indeed any consequence save those results which come from educative progress toward the realization of a moral ideal. The Necessitarian View.—According to Spinoza all phenomena of the universe arise from the nature of things, as propositions concerning the triangle result from the nature of the triangle. This, the geometric view, involves a conception of God as Substance from whose nature are derived all attributes and all modes. Man/’s selfhood falls under the head of modes of the one Substance, under certain attributes, and so it is in every respect part of the necessary series. It is, indeed, possible for man to enter- tain illusory views concerning the sequences of events of which his life consists, but this is because of his ignorance. Thus arises the notion that men act with ends in view over which they seem to have power. Men deem themselves free because aware of their own volitions and desires, never even dreaming which, in their ignorance of the causes have led them to wish and desire as they do. But the notion of such causes, indeed the mere idea of final causes in general is a mere figment: God acts solely by the neces- sity of his nature, and all things are predetermined, not by free-will or absolute fiat, but through the nature of God as infinite power. The whole nature of man the individual is therefore absorbed by this essentially pantheistic con- ception in which only Substance, its attributes and modes remain, in the light of what Spinoza calls ‘‘adequate’’ knowledge. Determinism.—The prime difficulty with speculative systems is that their advocates assume to tell us, on the basis of partial knowledge, what is absol: ‘cly true of God or of the total universe, as if they possessed complete knowl- edge. Thus the conception of predestination or of rigid geometrical necessity is theoretically imposed on the struc- ture of life from above. But modern science, assuming 6 Ethics, Part I, Appendix. The Problem of Freedom 251 less, works into the structure of the universe from below, and arrives at a conception of law and order. Determin- ism involves the idea of the regn of law. Law is relative to the facts and conditions to be explained. The problem of freedom pertains to a certain field of experience within the universe of law and order. Inquiry into its nature scarcely begins in earnest therefore until absolutistic sys- tems, ignoring many facts and conditions of life as we find it, are classified for analysis in other connections, and the remaining problem is restated under the head of de- terminism. What is determined is not attributed to fate, blind necessity, an inscrutable Will that decrees all things, a Power which predestines, a Substance (as in Spinoza’s system), or an Absolute (as in the Hegelian system), from which all things follow. It is described and explained in its own realm. If all determining causes are regarded as exterior to the agent, so that man is a sheer creature of circumstances, all of which are necessary, then indeed determinism passes over into fatalism. But there is a less severe determinism which places the em- phasis on the agent as the determining cause and hence directs attention to circumstances in relation to character which when fully known involves personal inheritance, habits, instincts, defects, peculiarities, with the factors due to environment, the main consideration being conduct re- garded as calculable, on which predictions may be founded. Conduct expresses character as it exists at a given moment in the individual’s life, and character is determined by Sequences which have gone before and which need to be investigated in detail from various points of view. Cosmic Evidences.—The universe as a system manifests necessary sequences; every effect has its cause; nature is everywhere uniform, makes no ‘‘leaps,’’ is without gaps or interruptions; the sum of energies is constant, hence in case of transmutation from one form to another there is neither diminution nor increase. As there are no breaks in the causal sequenees, all changes are explicable by what went before. Man as part of nature is a product of these sequences: whatever activity he possesses belongs under the 252 Goodness and Freedom same process, which goes on relentlessly without exception. A single real act of mind, breaking into the series of physi- eal events would involve change in the sum of energies. Mind then is without real causality, and the notion of freedom has been called ‘‘man’s grateful self-illusion.’’ The typical objection to this statement of man’s place in the cosmos is that while the implied conception of nature holds in its own field, as described by the physical sciences, a complete philosophy would consider the moral order of the universe in its own right. It is a simple matter for advocates of the mechanical conception of nature to rule out mental life on the ground that admission of mental causality as real would disrupt the theory. But, granted that the sum-total of cosmical energies is constant, it has yet to be shown what that energy is, and how it is related to ultimate reality. Recent discoveries concerning radiant energy have brought the conception of physical forces nearer the mental field, but science is not in a position to define energy in its ultimate form. Mechanical knowledge of nature does not warrant a generalization concerning other types of activity; tells us nothing about the realm of values. Evidences from Biology.—It is more usual to depend on facts from biology tending to show that man’s history as well as his present character is explicable as a product of heredity plus environment by means of natural selec- tion, use and disuse, and other evolutionary factors: man’s nature is a collection of instincts or prepotent reflexes, dis- positions, and habits. The functioning of these elements of his nature can be mechanically deseribed with reference to reactions upon stimuli, acquired modes of behavior, that is, modes of the organism; and the inference seems wholly justifiable that mental life is determined by these reflexes and other modes of behavior. The power of heredity is seen, for example, in degenerate families, traceable to an original pair of defectives, in contrast with families de- rived from excellent stock.?. The power of environment is observable in the tenement, the sweat-shop, the prison; in 7See H. H. Goddard, The Kallikak Family, 1920. The Problem of Freedom 253 contrast with the farm, the estate, the well-situated home. When the issues are narrowed down to a study of the brain, the transition is easy to a mechanical view of life as a whole, which seems to preclude the possibility of freedom.® The objection is that the argument that man is a product of heredity and environment, biologically speaking, does not reach far enough to apply to the question of moral freedom. The description of man as a behavior-being is but one approach to the study of human nature, and the type of psychology founded on or identified with biology, by which the argument is justified, is only one of several types. Mental life may still be regarded as having a value of its own, even from the point of view of biological con- siderations. Morally speaking, it is never a mere question of inherited tendencies which we actually possess, the en- vironment in which we find ourselves; but a question of the use to which we put our powers, what we accomplish by aid of our capacities, the opportunities we select, the social changes in which we participate according to our standards of what ought to be. These are indeterminate factors. If on ethical grounds we conclude that man is in a measure free, the descriptive sciences must take human conduct as well as human ‘‘behavior’’ into account. All the factors of organic selection have not yet been deter- mined. Psychical selection may be a factor, and the whole course of evolution may be ultimately psychical in origin. Sociological Evidences.—Further support is given the deterministic argument by analysis of social influences singled out under the head of imitation, suggestion, cus- tom, fashion, tradition, public opinion, and other factors; all these taken as a whole apparently account for man as produced by his social environment. Sometimes the argu- ment takes the form of the assumption that man is a prod- uct of ‘‘the group mind.’’ The prime result in any case is a collection of facts with regard to marriage, divorce, suicide, so classified that statistics show what types of phenomena are to be expected: conduct once attributed to 8 For a discussion of the intermediate field between biology and psychology, see, for example, 8S. Paton, Human Behavior, 1921. Q54 Goodness and Freedom free-will is explained by social laws, and the given social situation, in quantitative terms. Sociology apparently establishes determinism, although this is not its purpose. The phrase ‘‘economic determinism’’ passes current among observers of social groups who describe man as a product of the conditions under which he lives, in the given social order. The evidences seem to be cumulative and to war- rant the generalization that man is not free. Sociologists, social psychologists, and economists may indeed be cautious in their generalizations: less cautious are those who antici- pate the conclusion at which the social sciences as a whole may arrive. So far, however, the social sciences do not reach the end. All that these sciences tell us about imitation, suggestion, and other factors of man’s social life, including statistics about suicide and divorce, may be true in its own field; while the moral field remains to be considered in relation to the findings of social science. Through his conscience, his moral judgments, his moral conduct man is brought into contact with his total social environment. To substan- tiate determinism it would be necessary to show that all elements of the moral life—moral obligation, moral law, duty, conscience, the sense of responsibility, consciousness of freedom—are explained to the limit by social conditions, or social evolution as a whole. Social predictions are not far-reaching and exact enough to be conclusive, from an ethical point of view. Even if sociology could by its sta- tistical method prove that all human choices are uniform, it would not follow that men are not free in the specific sense required by the facts of moral experience. The social sciences do not profess to take into full account the con- sciousness, the inner life which accompanies man’s experi- ence in relation to social conditions. Physiological Determinism.—The evidences thus far considered regard man in too extensive a way to meet the direct issues. So in the transition from biology and the social sciences to psychology emphasis is sometimes placed more specifically on physiological data, such as the effect of the nervous system, the molecular structure of the The Problem of Freedom 255 brain; the variations due to nutrition, blood-supply, glan- dular activity, accidents, diseases, abnormal behavior. Mental life seems to be a kind of passive accompaniment of brain-states, as if man were a mere automaton, his con- sciousness somehow running parallel with cerebral events but absolutely without power over so much as one of these events. On the hypothesis that our mental life merely accompanies cerebral activity without the slightest partici- pation in it, the scientific view of the conservation of energy is confirmed, and so once more the evidence is cumulative. As it seems inconceivable that consciousness should actuate a molecule the conclusion readily follows that mind is absolutely determined. Physicians and specialists in various types of abnormal mental life, psycho-analysts, and also many psychotherapists ordinarily agree in assuming determinism on physiological grounds; and the term ‘‘moral life’’ if used at all simply refers to a higher phase of conduct still regarded as determined in every respect by the bodily organism.® Thus determinism is a practical postulate which medical practice supposedly confirms. Evidence from Psychology.—Physiological psychology proceeds on the assumption that the normal and abnormal conditions to which the brain is subject are those under which consciousness is possible. Every mental process is said to be determined by a cerebral process, as there is ‘‘no psychosis without neurosis’’; and so the various men- tal principles are accounted for by reference to habit as a cerebral law, by association, and in terms of products of bodily sensation. Theories divide at this point. Some psychologists maintain that mind is an automaton, others that it runs parallel in its activity with corresponding states in the brain, while a third point of view involves interaction between mind and brain.?° But on any of these hypotheses determinism appears to follow. Although brain and mind interact, the mental series must have a cause, 9 For example, see P. Dubois, The Psychic Treatment of Nervous Disorders, trans., 1906. 10 See C, A. Strong, Why the Mind Has a Body, 1903. 256 Goodness and Freedom and this is said to be readily traceable to preceding psycho- physical events and conditions. A eauseless act of will appears impossible: decisions in- volve motives, these have had a history, and if the motives are not supplied by the act of choice they must be due to some other source. There appears to be no psychological basis for what is called ‘‘the liberty of indifference.’’ To fall back on the notion of absolute chance would be to evade the question. Again, as Horne has pointed out, ‘*cehoice is likely to be in line with habit. This is the more true as time advances. It is possible to break a habit of long standing by effort, but it is not probable.’’ Habit, as we well know, limits the ease and efficiency of our choice, and we readily follow in the line of least resistance. Again, choice is limited by the capacities supplied by heredity: these can be developed but not augmented, our capacities set limits to successful choices. Thus, every one chooses within the limits of his capacities, by what opportunity offers, the range of opportunities being very small with most of us. Even the genius is dependent on the opportunities which yield occasions for his selective- ness. Psychology seems to offer no explanation of our choices and the conditions of choice except in terms of preceding events and circumstances, that is, those which have pro- duced the given habits, capacities, and motives brought into relation with the opportunities which disclose what we take to be alternatives. The entire psychical process with its conations implying instinctive dispositions, im- pulses, tendencies to imitation, suggestion, dependence on habit, together with transitory influences due to fatigue, the interplay of varying experiences—this whole process enters into the account and determines the result. Psy- chological considerations readily sustain the view that choice always depends on the strongest motive, whether that motive be dependent on hereditary or environmental influences. It might be claimed that in acting upon a given motive we ‘‘feel ourselves to be free,’’ but the de- terminist’s reply is that a part of the causal chain lies The Problem of Freedom 257 within our consciousness, and what we feel is the phase of experience (in itself determined) in which we appear to decide the course of action which follows. Psychology dis- closes no detachable ego, but only a collection of processes, the total train of thought: the mind and its contents are the same. Ethical Evidences.—Bringing all these considerations together, the argument seems convincing beyond all ques- tion, especially when restated in ethical terms. The terms reward and blame, accountability, conscience, character, seem to imply moral freedom; but the determinist is ready to admit that man possesses character in contrast with disposition, and that acts attributable to character imply conscience and responsibility. A man’s character de- termines his acts, he is responsible because the act is his own; he so acted because with such a character his deed would naturally be precisely what we find it to have been. If he were free, his conduct could not be depended on, he would be an irresponsible agent; society can depend on him precisely because he is a man of a certain character. Indeed, predictability of conduct is said to be the condi- tion of man’s association with his fellowmen. This does not deprive him of anything precious; the higher the de- velopment, the more sure and extensive the prediction. Conduct in the moment when it expresses character implies no ambiguous future. Our whole scheme of rewards and punishments turns upon this accountability. The more constancy of character we have the better, the higher our state of moral development the more surely people can depend on us; and we are to be congratulated on the pos- session of constancy. As matter of fact, people are pleased on the whole when onlookers make predictions implying constancy, honesty, fidelity, loyalty, and similar virtues. Given more enlightenment, it will be more and more sure that we will act in accordance with it. Determinists also claim that there is abundant room for the feeling of remorse and shame: we feel remorse pre- cisely because we are aware that an act condemned as wrong sprang from our character, and because in com- 258 Goodness and Freedom parison with another standard it is inferior. The act did not spring from ‘‘some unmotived freak of willing,’’ but from one’s very self, from an ignoble motive. In this as in all other cases deeds attributable to the self are wholly explicable. Our character, fully known, including heredi- tary traits, personal history to date, habits, proclivities, elements of weakness and of strength, defects and pecu- liarities, then our conduct would be predictable in minute detail. A being looking on and knowing all these factors would be able to foretell the total result. So-called chance is referred to only so far as knowledge of character and circumstance is incomplete. All the arguments in favor of determinism are reducible in fact to the causal argu- ment: the world is a causal system in which all things, per- sons, events, belong together, although the conception of causality is enlarged to include not only physical heredity and environment, various social factors, physiological con- siderations, and psychological evidences, but also a view of final causes, for instance, a theological conception imply- ing a plan for each human being. The ultimate reality in any case is sovereign over all, all 1s gwen, implied in the original elements or original energy, so that there is no novelty or chance in the universe, no individual initiative or any other factor breaking into the system. The Psycho-physical Argument.—The argument in favor of automatism conflicts with what is known concern- ing the whole process of evolution, namely, that organs that are useful survive while those that are useless atrophy. The fact that consciousness appears to be efficacious is evi- dence that it really is so; if it had been useless it would long ago have been eliminated.1: The truth is that con- Sclousness has increased in scope and power, it is plainly useful to the organism in the biological sense of the word, it selects what is useful in the light of organic well-being, regarded as effteacious it is at least one of the causes of successful action. It has proved impossible to reduce all our activities to the reflex type of behavior. The conten- tion that consciousness is a mere product of the brain is 11 See W. James, Psychology, 1890, Vol. I, Chap. V. The Problem of Freedom 959 offset, so some critics hold, by the fact that we are imme- diately sure of the existence of consciousness; whereas we know the nature of brain-events only by inference from the data of consciousness: it remains to be proved that the existence of which we are less directly certain causes those events of which we are immediately aware, notably in case of a moral decision. Physiological and psychological results may then be ac- cepted as far as they go, and yet the argument for deter- minism may fall short of certainty, when the corrections and additions are made. A given hypothesis, such as psycho-physical parallelism, is assumed for the sake of precise scientific description within a certain field; but it may be necessary to reject the notion that there is no interaction between mind and brain, when it is a question of real causes and moral values. Interactionist psychology puts the whole matter in a different light.1? If we dis- cover as a fact that conduct follows upon a moral decision and is carried out in an external deed, we are bound to accept the fact although unable as yet to square it with our theory of the physical universe. There is strong em- pirical evidence in favor of interaction between mind and brain. The contention that every act involves a motive would not be disconcerting to a partisan of free-will, since freedom obtains within very restricted limits. The de- terminist position should not be regarded as established unless it ean be proved that not so much as one free voli- tion ean occur. Again, determinists must account in a per- fectly satisfactory way for man’s consciousness that he actually is free. From the point of view of one of the prevailing types of psychology freedom exists if involved in certain acts of attention (James), said to be the vital factor in mental life: this is as far as psychology may be expected to go. If mental energy be a part of world-energy, the case would appear to be still stronger. The fact that we use our energy so as to seem to be efficient, as if we were 12 Professor James, for example, firmly believed in freedom; see his The Will to Believe. 260 Goodness and Freedom really deciding issues and accomplishing some end, is re- garded by many as capital evidence that consciousness is actually efficacious. Consciousness can be thus useful to the organism without conflicting with the lesser functions, which may well be subservient to it. The habits and functions of the brain and nervous system may be in part resultants of the uses to which the mind has put the or- ganism. It has not been proved that the brain influences the mind without in turn being influenced by it, for ex- ample, in the formation of habits with whose purposes the brain as such has nothing to do. It is at least a possibility that mind is a truly efficient cause. The contention that it is a mere spectator is based on an interpretation of events in the cosmos which at best is but one among several hypotheses in as good standing as the mechanical philoso- phy. Ethical Objections.—It is difficult to persuade advo- cates of free-will that the sense of responsibility is ac- counted for by determinism. It may be granted that man is for the most part determined, and some would add that eonduct can be mostly predicted, namely, the conduct of others. But one is unable to predict one’s own conduct to the full: the consciousness persists that circumstances become our own by actual acceptance of them, and this con- sciousness is worthy of consideration in its own right. Again, determinists are unable to decide precisely what a man’s character is as a determining cause in one’s self or in another person, since ‘‘character’’ is in part at least a changing quantity. In any event, a person is likely to contend that deeds springing from character have reasons, not “‘causes’’ for being. Complete predictability in terms of causality would call for perfect, all-seeing intelligence. Determininism must then fall back on probability, which might be interpreted to imply freedom. The Element of Attention.—In any event we are left with our practical consciousness, with the conviction that praise and blame have real meaning, that our conduct is rightly attributed to the self as responsible. We have the assurance, also which James’ psychology gives us in The Problem of Freedom 261 its emphasis on attention as the acme of mental life, the basis of will, the heart of one’s self-conscious reflection. However limited our power, we are at least able to observe the play of thought and to exercise selective interest. At- tention can not be long sustained, but an instant may suffice to emphasize one alternative, and by inclining toward this alternative one may cast the die, or by turning from its opposite one may remove it; then the results will fol- low according to deterministic description. In a possible instance the arguments pro and con might be so nicely balanced that it would not be from any point of view evident what is going to happen; yet the slightest act of attention might settle the issues. After a decision has been made, it is possible to reason back to the motive which is regarded as decisive and to argue that it was therefore the strongest motive. It might as easily follow, in view of considerations pertaining to one’s mental history and one’s character, that one could not have acted otherwise. But the case never looks so clear in advance, or from the point of view of the unforeseeable element of the situation. Personal Acts.—The act as mine is a new one, a de- eisive combination of factors which as such might have been old. I may stand in the presence of alternatives, one of which is the stronger (the lower), under the probabil- ity that I shall act upon it; but I may make the higher alternative the stronger one by the act of attention where- with I identify it with my better self, my moral ideal. The ideal consciousness may thus become stronger than the present determining consciousness which psychology analyzes with such convincing precision. I select, I attend to the moral alternative by virtue of my own inner mean- ing or purpose. I may rise to the occasion even when every- thing points to the triumph of the lower motive, which, to all appearances, is the stronger up to the moment the die is east. If causality may be said to enter in, it is ideal or creative causality: my moral endeavor is inspired by an ideal towards which I strive even when there seems no possibility of success. Although my act does indeed ex- press my character, it is to be noted that my character is 962 Goodness and Freedom partly the result of past choices, and that the creative activity of character is not expressed through a fixed mold, but is partly in process. I am partly in the making, en- deavoring to remake myself in part. I may in time tend to act more and more uniformly, because of the selection of desirable traits and the lapsing of the undesirable, the triumph of my chosen universe of desire. But the more unity of character I possess the greater my free creative possibility, despite the fact that my character in general is more constant, hence more predictable (by others). Thus the more persistently we follow up the psychologi- cal considerations by interpretation of which determinism is apparently established, the more light we gain on the development of character through the changing processes of attention which at least partly aid in producing it. If character is a collection of tendencies, some of which are being selectively accentuated because more acutely at- tended to, while others are waning because attention turns away from them as undesirable, then the possibility that through attention real freedom is exercised is established on excellent ground. Attention by increment appears to be the central factor in instances where on occasion one does the unexpected. The remarkable apparent changes in character recorded by those who have made an acute study of conversion imply acts of decisive attention, whether the regenerative experience seems to involve the creation of what is uncritically called a ‘‘new will’’ or simply to bring into the foreground possibilities of con- duct previously held in abeyance. Again, it may be an instance of the faithful bank cashier who after long years of service turns thief. Moral Decisions.—All that is needed to meet determin- ism at this the decisive point is a real possibility of either rising or falling in the scale in the face of given alterna- tives. Repentance, regeneration, virtue, and responsibility must be at least as real as sin, must be as surely attrib- utable to the self, as emphatically human, even though man does little more in the presence of the highest alterna- tives than to accept, to give assent. Real meaning enters The Problem of Freedom 263 human experience with such decisions, real opportunities are put before men to select possible lines of action neither foreknown nor decreed, also real codperation with a divine purpose which leaves room for man to accomplish his part. What is lost in giving up the old conception, with its idea of the divine sovereignty and omnipotence, its de- terminate ‘‘plan’’ for each soul (as a fixed entity), is more than compensated for by an appeal to life as still in the making. This ethical pluralism of wills capable of doing their part is more nearly in accord with the facts regard- ing our relatively independent existence, amidst conflicts, surrounded by opportunities inviting decision, calling for real choice, contributory conduct, the acceptance of re- sponsibility. Heredity and Environment.—Summarizing the argu- ments. for determinism, we note that prevailing views of heredity and environment are far from definite. If, with Cattell, we define heredity as ‘‘the resemblances among individuals due to their common origin or germ plasm,’’ we have so far a conception of ‘‘the congenital equipment or original organization of the individual.’’?% But what of environment? How far does the term apply, as we trace influences said to be external and eventually come to the brain with its sphere of influences on the mind? There is plainly a third term between heredity and environment, sometimes referred to as ‘‘function,’’ again as travail, i.e., (1) famille, (2) travail, (3) lieu. It is plain, as Cattell maintains, that experience, or this middle term, is not coordinate with congenital equipment and environment, but dependent on them. If by the term ‘‘nature’’ we mean (with Galton) ‘‘the sum of inborn qualities’? which in- cludes also ‘‘those individual variations’’ which are due to causes other than heredity, and which act before birth; we then have other factors to classify under ‘‘nurture,”’ and still need our third term to describe what the indi- vidual makes of nature plus nurture. The great difficulty consists in separating organism from environment. Cat- tell holds that if in the case of Darwin and Lincoln, born 13 The Science Monthly, May, 1924, p. 509. 264 Goodness and Freedom on the same day, the two infants had been exchanged, there would have been no Darwin and no Lineoln. We may then say that ‘‘what a man can do is determined by his native equipment, what he does do by the circumstances of his life.’’ It then becomes a question of that alertness, that ability which psychologists have recently been trying to estimate in terms of intelligence tests. The Moral Situation—The higher up in the scale we go, the less able we are to gauge what we call intelligence by quantitative tests. So too it might be said that the higher we ascend the less able we are to explain, determin- istically, a man of genius like Darwin or Lincoln. The middle term for which we contend the more insistently, when our point of view becomes ethical, includes not merely ‘‘function,’’ the ability to work, the alertness which enables a man to become highly efficient, but also character as partly created by the way in which a man exercises his ability. The deterministic element includes certain lines laid down for each man, his particular congenital equipment, native disposition, temperament plus the force of circumstances which we eall ‘‘environment’’ in brief, including under that head a very wide classification of in- fluences. These are the lines along which to develop char- acter by the aid of opportunity. The sphere of moral de- velopment is then rather definitely marked out, and the more closely we analyze man’s moral situation the more emphasis we are likely to put on evidences making for determinism. Yet as the physical individual varies in the combination worked out between congenital equipment and environment, so the moral task differs with each, the moral integration involves alternatives even within an extremely limited sphere. It is not a question of hereditary or en- vironmental influences in general, but of the good and evil presented to the particular individual in question in a given situation. It is for the individual to create a character amidst this given situation.14 If the determin- ing causes were wholly from without, due to constraint, violence, natural contingencies and necessities, there would 14 Cf. Seth, op. cit., p. 370. The Problem of Freedom 265 plainly be no freedom, man would be at best a passive spectator. But the determining moral causes are looked upon as within the agent himself, in any given situation, that is, his instincts and tendencies, his dynamic abilities, his spontaneity. The description of the elements that enter into our moral experience can not be regarded as complete till we have given full recognition both to the consciousness of freedom and to the experience of meeting moral issues. In the foregoing discussion we have tried to give determinism the fullest hearing, even at the risk of seeming to prove that man is without freedom. We have found the argument breaking down from one point of view after another, with increasing evidence that moral freedom is real. But thus far our discussion has been chiefly negative. It remains to consider the question more affirmatively, and to define if we can precisely what freedom means. REFERENCES Fuuierton, G. 8., A System of Metaphysics, 1904, Chap. XXXII. Warp, J., The Realm of Ends, 1911, Chap. XIII. Brrason, H., Time and Free Will, tr. by F. L. Pogson, 1911, Chap. ITT. JAMES, W., The Will to Believe, 1897 (“The Dilemma of Deter- minism”’). Mitt, J. S., Logic, Bk. VI, Chap. V. Parmer, G. H., The Problem of Freedom, 1911, Chap. IT (bibli- ography, p. 208). LreicuTon, J. A., The Field of Philosophy, 1923, pp. 339, 400, 413, 426. TuItiy, F., Introduction to Ethics, 1900, Chap. XI. CHAPTER XVII THE NATURE OF FREEDOM Freedom of the Self.—Although the question of free- dom is one of the most famous of ethical inquiries, some writers merely assume moral freedom as the central pos- tulate; while others, strange to relate hold that the subject is unimportant, or maintain that it is a metaphysical ques- tion to be taken up in a general study of first principles. Once it seemed solely a question of free-will, as if the will were separable from the rest of our nature. But will is now regarded as inseparable from the person willing, thinking, acting, paying attention, making effort; hence the issues turn upon the real nature of the self which attends, strives, selects, or casts the die. As it is the self that is somehow free, that is, free in one respect at least, it is well to try out the issues anew from various stand- points, even at the risk of complicating the whole problem. To assert that the self is free is not to affirm that the will is without history or content in the shape of desires, or to deny that the contents of volition have had causes. Bearing in mind the results of the preceding chapter, we admit to the full the facts of body-mind relationship. The self faces the sequences of brain-events and mental events as if for the most part it were a passive spectator. The sources of its freedom are not to be found by looking for a possible break in these sequences from the point of view of ordinary causality. If the self is in some sense a free or efficient cause, this causality is of a higher type, and the ground of freedom is to be looked for within the self. Causal efficiency of this type is real if it occur once, if the single occurrence, however slight, is our own act, and al- though the occasion may never recur, the act never be repeated. Meanings of the Term.—In connection with the effort 266 The Nature of Freedom 267 to think out the question of causality to the end, it is well to narrow down the meanings of the term freedom as per- sistently as possible. The term is used in general with reference to citizenship, birth, the rights of man as a physical being over plant and animal life. Freer than the airplane or any other mechanical invention of man in its movements is the flight of the bird. Freedom in this sense involves harmony with natural forces, adaptation to environment, with a power of unrestrained motion, sub- ject to changes in wind and weather, conditions under which food is procured, attacks from other birds, results due to various physical contingencies. Man as an infant is most nearly helpless of any being possessing significant potentialities. As he grows older man depends more and more on alertness and skill, offsets the greater strength of animals, contends successfully with forces which might interfere with his freedom—forces as minute as germs, as massive as the cold in polar regions, as swift as the lightning, as capricious as currents of air threatening an airplane, as violent as storms at sea—and brings the sciences to play in his effort to make his command over nature the more secure. Freedom in the sense of adaptation to the nature of things is not however what we mean by moral freedom unless, with the Stoics, we extend the idea of ‘the nature of things’’ to include what we call the moral order, and carefully consider those conditions of the inner life which show conclusively what is within man’s power, and what is beyond his power. Inner Freedom.—Moral freedom, pertaining to the inner life, plainly does not mean liberty to do anything one likes. It may be understood to mean either a power to act in and from one’s self, without restraint or com- pulsion due to a limiting power; or, liberty to choose be- tween alternatives, not created by the self, but given to the self through experience from within and without. Moral conduct does not spring out of the air, without relation to character and circumstances, not even when most free. The choice may be in some cases merely a decisive moment in a process of quiet reflection, the act 268 Goodness and Freedom of will may be almost indistinguishable from thought, since deliberation and decision are practically one. Introspec- tion does not accompany our moral decisions, informing us when and how we cast the die; for consciousness is absorbed either in weighing the pros and cons or in con- templation of the end to be attained through adoption of certain means. Ideal Freedom.—Through freedom as a capacity or power I may be free to choose between ethical self-realiza- tion and servitude to vicious impulses: ‘‘he who consents to passion, puts himself under the yoke,’’ ‘‘a brute I might have been, but would not sink in the scale.’’ But from the point of view of freedom as an ideal I am not as free to follow a vicious impulse as a moral incentive; since 1 am freest when I express my highest, best self: I am in servitude when I sin. Since sin is disorganization, it does not express the whole self, despite the fact that in giving himself to a sinful act man for the moment boldly asserts himself and apparently enjoys his freedom. I appear to be most free when I am most fully, that is, truly and con- sistently myself, howbeit when most free I most fully obey what I believe to be the moral law. Freedom in any lesser sense is not a capacity to exult in, but a power to exercise as little as possible. The Element of Chance.—If{ we define freedom as power to choose between alternatives, one of which will, we hope, make for an ideal end, it is plain that freedom would have no meaning were there no judgment that one alterna- tive is higher, the other lower. Nor would freedom mean anything unless there were duality, uncertainty, chance, that is, an ambiguous future. Chance exists at least rela- tively, despite the fact that all events are causally con- nected in nature, that is, chance as a negative term imply- Ing inability to forecast the falling of the dice, amid causal paths so numerous that we are unable to follow them. Chance in this its (1) subjective sense has been compared with what, to us, is (2) objective chance in the ease of a stone thrown at a mark which hits a bird that unexpectedly flies across the field of vision and is killed: The Nature of Freedom 269 chance being the concurrence of the flight of the bird and the flight of the stone. As neither line of events in such a case is premonitory of the other, so the coordination of activities combining to produce alternatives faced in the moment of moral refiection may lie outside each group, neither having been intentionally brought into relation with the other. items of experience which we put under the head of chance, luck, accident, do not exclude ideal causality ; a planless concurrence is compatible with a moral consciousness which turns the occasion to its own account. External events frequently coincide with what we regard as moral opportunities, but without any connection so far as we know, although a teleological relationship is some- times claimed by those who uncritically assume a divine *‘plan’’ to cover such instances. More cautious observers merely assert that lines of se- quence coneurring may be turned to account by those who are alert enough to ‘‘take the current when it serves,’’ al- though moral opportunity has often been interpreted to mean an occasion for triumph where circumstance is not favorable but unfavorable, where there is not even an ap- pearance of ‘‘luck.’’ In actual life we often find one line of sequence following its own series of events without re- gard to any other, each making headway in its own direc- tion, like a body continuing in motion unless brought to a standstill by another body in motion or at rest. Thus it has been remarked that lightning strikes a saint as read- ily as a sinner. Nature exhibits a law often brought in sharpest contrast with what we call moral values. Nature, ‘‘red in tooth and claw,’’ exhibits stern necessity, struggle for existence on a level sometimes interpreted to be non- moral. From an ethical point of view our interest centers in coexistences which bear no discoverable causal relation with the events which physical science describes. Thus the Trtanic, rushing to its destruction by severest contact with an iceberg in mid-Atlantie, is at the same time bearer of men and women who, swiftly selecting between their own safety and self-sacrifice or moral victory, add to the moral values of the world by their deeds of heroism. 270 Goodness and Freedom Statistics based on probabilities do not take individual initiatives into account. The alleged strongest motive, de- termining a sequence, seems to imply that no other se- quence is possible. To the question how it is known that this is the strongest motive, there is no positive answer, no answer at all save the one already suggested, namely, by seeing the action ensue and drawing an inference to the effect that because the deed was done ‘‘therefore’’ it followed hard upon the strongest motive. There is no means of rescuing the strongest motive from the context, and putting it to the test of actual experience. Choice.—In the presence of alternatives, I judge that one will make for what I take to be right, and remove the ambiguous future. In behalf of this, the ideal, I choose. The resulting action carries my choice into execu- tion. Although my sense of obligation to choose is strong, I realize that I was not compelled to make just that choice and no other. The action by which I commit myself to a choice is far from being capricious; it implies a real need for a solution, a contrast between my actual self as in part describable, hesitating it may be, where choice seems im- perative but hazardous, and my ideal as attainable. De- cision may seem so great a risk that I may for the moment procrastinate, yet my consciousness also yields the convic- tion that I should take the risk. In making the decision, I am striving toward an end, and this the present moment of my striving I identify with many other moments, all of which I hope may foster my central purpose in life. To all appearances then I am making a very genuine effort to settle a conflict. There are vital interests at heart. To declare that I really can not decide but must ‘‘let events take their course,’’ as people uncritically say, is like affirm- ing that I have no self at all, that motives simply conflict and the strongest decides, leaving the self a passive spec- tator. “‘To talk of motives conflicting of themselves is as absurd as to talk of commodities competing in the absence of traders,’’ says Ward.2 The direct appeal to consciousness discloses the econvic- 1 Op. cit., p. 290. The Nature of Freedom 271 tion that we can choose because we ‘‘ought’’ to decide. I feel myself free in the presence of alternatives, some of which must be cut off, that I may select one of two re- maining in closest competition. If I try to be evasive by refusing to assume responsibility, I nonetheless become re- sponsible by permitting events to follow what I call their course, tacitly yielding where I might have been more affirmative and more rational. _ Awareness of Freedom.—Each man learns these vivid contrasts with their unmistakable implications from ex- perience rather than by means of theory. In fact, the con- sciousness of freedom is unique, is a fact discovered by each moral agent, verifying what others before him have learned by direct observation and analysis of conscious- ness.2, Even people who try to explain away freedom are constrained to admit what is called ‘‘the sense of freedom”’ as a fact to be accounted for. It is at least an illusion, or a delusion which we are all under and which, because we are all aware of it, is the equivalent of reality. The con- sciousness of freedom has proved to be a remarkably per- sistent fact through the ages. It looks forward into the dawning present, betokening a future which, so one is acutely aware, must in some respects be of one’s own mak- ing; and into the past with its reminders that we might have acted differently. If this consciousness be merely apparent, it has been astonishingly persistent in the face of ever-increasing evidences for determinism. Moreover, belief in freedom fits in the facts of moral experience, by rational interpretation, far better than the hypothesis that freedom is self-illusion. This consciousness is involved in the whole working scheme of human society. We both feel and express regret even in the light of larger knowledge of all the factors, in the coolness of later reflection. We persistently feel guilt. We carry a sense of avoidable wrong. ‘‘Can you forgive yourself,’’ asks Horne, ‘‘for the petulant word that escaped you yesterday on the ground that you couldn’t have helped it? . . . On the 2 Palmer, The Problem of Freedom, Chap. III. 272 Goodness and Freedom basis of determinism one could well bewail his fate .. . but could not repent of his sin.’’ Our consciousness yields no less conclusively a sense of the irrevocable. We are well aware that we can not re- turn to the same circumstances, either to act differently or to prove by a repetition of the deed in question what was possible or impossible. If there is no empirical proof of our freedom, there is also no final proof that our act was determined. Left once more with probability, we may still regard life as a challenge, with a balance in favor of belief in freedom. In fact, it is partly from our sense of moral freedom that our conceptions of freedom in other connections has arisen. Ideal Causality— It has frequently been pointed out that our perception of activity, with the implication that we can accomplish results, is the source of the widespread conviction that final causality exists, that action towards ends really takes place. ‘‘If,’’ says Ward, ‘‘we ask a man why in a new and strange situation he acts as he does, it will hardly oceur to him to explain his conduct by de- scribing to us the immediately preceding situation. The answer he is likely to give, and that we naturally expect, will consist rather in describing the end at which he aims and the value that it has for him, as the reasons for his determination.’’? Things, we know, have necessary con- nection according to law; what occurs today is the conse- quence of what went before, and the only way to explain natural events is by an appeal to such connection. Neces- sary connection as thus conceived implies uniformity, as our argument for determinism has shown, the results are calculable, and the mechanical philosophy readily follows. But this conception rests on an analogy between our own behavior and what we regard as the behavior of forces and objects. We observe the thunder-clap followed by the lightning-flash, and infer necessary connection between the events; we do not perceive the connection, but only that one event follows another, not that it must follow, as Hume long ago pointed out. But we proceed to an idea of a 3 Op. cit., p. 278. The Nature of Freedom 273 causal efficiency within and behind nature on the basis of a very different sort of experience observable within our- selves. Moral Deeds.—Experience shows that in the inner world a moral deed implies selective attention, effort, at times an action which may be contrary to the line of least resistance: the strongest motive of presented alternatives may be overcome for reasons. Sometimes there is likeness between our moral deeds, sometimes not. The point is that there is no uniformity such that in all lke cireum- stances a like moral deed occurs and always will recur— as if we could revert to the idea of causality as attributed to nature’s sequences. Again, it is a noteworthy fact that moral deeds are not followed by decrease of energy, but by increase of moral values. There is conservation of values whatever the physical facts may be. The results are qualitative, not quantitative or purely calculable. It is a question of origins, not of ends. If it be a question of fact at all, it may be called one of spontaneity, the spon- taneity of a purposive self possessing an effective ‘‘uni- verse of desire.’’ Initiatives.—F rom this point of view motives are said to conflict because they diverge. Rejected motives testify to the strength of the one who discarded them. The strength of the motive depends also on the worth assigned to it, not on the mere strength of the desires or other incen- tives behind it. The sufficient reason is found then not in what is behind but what is before, teleologically inter- preted. Professor Palmer calls this ante-sequential causa- tion.t The determinist, keenly aware of the reign of law, defends the conception of causality by which nature’s se- quences are explained; whereas the libertarian defends the idea of life, spontaneity, progress. Thus reason seems arrayed against itself. But we need both considerations, the alternatives of non-purposive and purposive action. Freedom is present, character looks toward the future, out of which the self draws power. The past has not locked up our future. Our ideals are operative with regard to 4 Op. ctt., p. 97. Q7 4 Goodness and Freedom the dawning future, despite the fact that ideas also oper- ate as past facts. It is through their representative char- acter, depicting what may occur, through suggested possi- bilities, that ideas work ante-sequentially. Thus we aim at betterment through apprehension of some need, im- poverishment or pain, as in the case of a boy going to college because aware of his ignorance. Whatever mere experience may contribute, we partly shape our ideals anew by our initiative and efforts. Personal Action.—So, too, Ward argues that there is a contrast between our consciousness of effects produced on us by experience and our consciousness of effectuation. Both elements are present in our strivings, but our striv- ings are not caused by the situations in which they appear. Experience is always owned. Percepts and appetites that nobody has are not percepts and appetites at all. Our purposes conform to no general law save that of self-con- servation and betterment. To deny these is to deny the reality of the self. If there is merely a bundle of presen- tations but no self to own and select between them, then there is no self to be determined and controlled. The determinist’s argument tries to resolve me into the series of my mental states, but the self is more than the sum of its particular experiences. Freedom is not disproved unless the self can be resolved into its successive states. Determinism gives only the anatomy of action, not what Seth regards as the constitutive ‘‘synthetie principle.’’ The action must be referred to a person. Without the ‘‘I’’ there could be no me: a state is not conscious of itself. There is a principle of unity involved in the fact that a single identical self watches, connects, compares, comments, feels, acts, possesses a duality of subject and object. Free- dom lies in the combination between character and cir- cumstances in which choice becomes manifest, that is, effi- eacy in behalf of ends, ideal causality. Through such moral integration a purpose is achieved, and steadiness of pur- pose, as one writer puts it, is no less a matter of fact than conservation of energy: my actions exhibit a qualitative 5 Op. cit., p. 291, foll. The Nature of Freedom Q75 uniformity which can only be expressed in terms of a pre- vailing interest, the unit of life being a moral constant. Indifference.—The type of theory known as ‘‘freedom of indifference,’’ or characterless choice, involves the idea of caprice.© We are said to be free only when there is nothing to induce us to take one course or another, no causation of any sort. The objection is that the facts of heredity and environment, disposition, habit, character, and the influence of previous choices are disregarded. If I will nothing, if I take no more interest in one course than in another, my will is then inefficient. This would be libertarianism in the extreme. | Self-determination.—In the ‘‘freedom of self-determi- nation’’ there is inner motivation.’ That is, persons are said to be autonomous or self-directed, while things are _ heteronomous, directed by something else. Man is said to be free to do anything which nothing save his own na- ture prevents him from doing. The first objection to this view is that it omits the salient character of freedom, the question whether it expresses a closed past or an open future. Another form of the theory is that freedom is an ability to act or not to act according as we choose or will, there is freedom only in the going forth of purpose.® The objection to this view is that it puts forward as the point of importance ‘‘the obseurest feature of volition’’— the connection between the inner and outer worlds—all inquiry about the origin of that which is to be sent forth into action is omitted. Rational Freedom.—The view that man is not a crea- ture of nature, but that there is a special type of causa- tion open to him as a person (rational causation), involves the proposition that freedom and the rational life are identical. Rational freedom means freedom to do right. Writers from the time of the Stoies to the present time who have espoused this view have had little to say about sin, which, if it is said to exist at all, is regarded as an 6 Palmer, op. ctt., p. 186. 7 Ibid., p. 190. 8 Ibid., p. 192. 276 Goodness and Freedom error of judgment, the cure for which is knowledge through broader contact with reality. The objection is that if this were the whole meaning of freedom dual possibilities would disappear, and sin as the power to become less than rational would be unaccounted for. Freedom applies ‘‘to the matter chosen, not to the manner of choosing.’’?° If we assume that because rationality is necessary in order that man shall be a person, we also assume that he can not cease to be rational. As matter of fact we find men ceasing to be rational, in some respects at least, becoming less than a person, dropping to the level of the brute, the villain, the confirmed criminal. Morover, awareness of freedom in those of us who steadily will to do what is right is accompanied by the possibility of irrationality. We en- deavor to become morally constant that we may make ir- rational deeds less and less likely. Further, rational free- dom regarded by itself, proves to be determinism. If sin and evil, together with everything indicative of blind force or mechanical causality, are only temporary aspects of a universe which is through and through rational, no ground is left for real finite individuals possessing real freedom. This view, which regards disorder as impossible, is some- times called idealistic determinism.? It goes with various theories of the Absolute. Virtue as Knowledge.—The conviction that vice is igno- rance, virtue knowledge, is, as we have seen, as old as Socrates’ time. We have noted the fact that there is abun- dant evidence that with increase of knowledge concerning the nature and sources of wrong-doing in the world— knowledge of man’s congenital equipment and knowledge of environment in all its details, including intimate psy- chological knowledge of abnormal mental life in all its forms—opportunities for moral integration and develop- ment increase. Hence there is a strong probability that knowledge will be virtue. This view is likely to have an increasing number of adherents. It is implied in most of ® Ibid., p. 193. 10 Ibid., p. 195. 11 [bid., p. 196, The Nature of Freedom Q77 our educational efforts, and is highly persuasive. Our knowledge does not permit us to settle the question. We may well cherish the hope that increase of rational knowl- edge will mean wisdom, and that wisdom will mean vir- tue. Yet the doubt lingers whether freedom to do right in the presence of advancing knowledge covers the entire field of freedom. Our present incomplete knowledge, we know, is compatible with failure. We find fault with one another chiefly on the ground that we do not put into practice what we know, that what we most neglect at times is the best we know. Rational persuasion is not habitually followed by immediate effort to carry out what we are persuaded is in highest degree right. The essence of free- dom still appears to be power to reject as well as ability to choose or act upon our knowledge.” The field of freedom narrows down, when we realize that absolute freedom would be possible to one Absolute Being only ; when we shift the point of emphasis from supposed freedom of action to freedom of choice between alternatives which the self does not generate; and then try to pene- trate behind the fact of choice. At first thought the mere fact that we possess the ability to choose may seem suffi- cient evidence of freedom in a very complete sense of the word. But again we find ourselves limited, for we can not wait till all returns are in that we may know precisely how every decision will turn out: life is short, time is pass- ing, a decision is imperative, and one ought to make the venture, even though one can not see except ‘‘in a glass darkly.’’? It is normally a part of our moral selfhood, this willingness to plunge in when delays are dangerous, in- stead of putting off the decision in moral cowardice or weak-kneed hesitancy implying a New England conscience. At times we make a decision with full realization that it is momentous. Looking back, we may recall the precise consideration which, accepted as in a flash, was the turn- ing-point. The Element of Attention.—Shall we say that the act 12 Note what Aristotle says about virtue and vice as voluntary, Ethics, Bk. ITI, Chap. VI. 278 Goodness and Freedom of attention to this idea or prompting which we adopted aS our motive was the essence of our freedom? If so, it would appear to involve self-activity as its efficiency ; since our attention was not purely passive. An objection to the attempt to explain freedom in its entirety in this way is raised by those who hold that all attention is derived, and by those also who deny self-activity, on psychological grounds. The mere psychological analysis is never ade- quate. The self is never sufficiently real for psychology. The decisive act of attention, to be real enough to make a difference must spring from a self also real enough to shift its focusing attention from a higher to a lower alternative, not simply real enough to concentrate upon a higher in contrast with a lower. In my decisive shifting or concen- tration of attention there is an element of self-direction or self-realization, in contrast with a possible yielding to what in other connections would be called a temptation. I ob- viously have a motive, when I focus my thought upon the alternative which I judge to be in line with my purpose; as surely as there is also some sort of attributable motive implied in my heedless deed, in ease I drop back in yield- ing to inertia, despair, or willful neglect. An element of indetermination enters in, although one can not agree with those who deem this a matter of absolute chance. My action is then said to be free inasmuch as my choice was not completely determined. Otherwise stated, there are motives prompting to different courses; in the actual choice there is freedom of the self, attending, deliberating, will- ing, almost unwittingly casting the die; while the volun- tary act as described by psychology is determined. Immediate Certainty—If now I attempt to reduce my freedom to immediate certainty that I possess it, the diffi- culty will be as great as in case of the attempt to simplify the process to the act of attention. Not all men have this intuition in such convincing form, nor do all agree con- cerning what they take to be immediate certainty. It might be said that the judgment of moral obligation ac- ecompanying the volition is sufficient proof, but determinists also admit the fact of this judgment. To insist that unless The Nature of Freedom 279 our choice makes a difference the whole question of the nature of a moral deed is reduced to absurdity is not to cover the whole point, for here again the determinist is ready to admit that what we call choice makes a difference. McTaggart argues that the determinist is quite consistent in this belief: the determinist holds the view he contends for just because he believes that, while the event may well be determined by his choice, his choice is in its turn com- pletely determined.*® It is sometimes averred that there would be disastrous consequences if freedom were not true. But we do not find that people who become convinced of determinism giving themselves over to a life of indifference and self-indulgence. Freedom as a practical postulate remains. Even if, with Sidgwick, we try to give the whole matter up on the ground that the issues are insoluble, that they do not make any practical difference any way, we find that in actual life our views do make a describable difference. Although an uncritical determinism may be the usual creed of the vicious, the increase of vice does not turn upon any argu- ment regarding determinism. Kantian Freedom.—It might seem possible to escape from the whole complexity of our situation by holding, with Kant, that we are free in a superior world, which is transcendental, above time, a world of its own; while in the world of time everything is indeed determined, char- acter is fixed. From this viewpoint it is the inner essence or ideal reality of a thing which determines its character- istic reaction. So man is said to be free as a cause which is not in its turn an effect, the resulting action being in the phenomenal world where necessity everywhere reigns. The objection to this view taken as it reads, without qual- ifications, is that there is no true freedom if the transcen- dental self (out of time) has no power over the empirical character (in time). Determinism on the level of conduct might still be absolute, there would be one vast predeter- mined empirical series. Real experience would then be 13 Op, cit., p. 171. 280 Goodness and Freedom impossible.1+ Our experience in the realm of time, where our moral deeds are done, is real for us, whatever else may be unreal. We find ourselves related to the temporal order, however free we may seem speculatively when we try to conceive of the self as an ‘‘essence’’ in a realm apart. Bergson’s View.—In contrast with the view that time is unreal, Bergson approaches the situation with the prop- Osition that time is real, efficacious; we live real time. ‘‘Pure duration is the form which the succession of our conscious states assumes when our ego lets itself ive, when it refrains from separating its present from its former states. For this purpose it need not be entirely absorbed in the passing sensation or idea; for then, on the contrary, it would no longer endure.’’ ?°. Something is always doing. Reality is a ceaseless springing up of something new, with an element of the unforeseeable.1® If our action is one that ‘‘involves the whole of our person and is truly ours, it could not have been foreseen.’’ Bergson holds then that in reality we choose without ceasing, and without ceasing we also abandon many things. ‘‘Consciousness corresponds exactly to the living being’s power of choice; it is coex- tensive with the fringe of possible action that surrounds the real action ; consciousness is Synonymous with invention and with freedom.’’*” Our real need then is to seek, within the depths of our experience, the moment wherein we feel ourselves most intimately within our own life. It is in this moment that we plunge into pure duration, ‘‘a duration in which the past, always moving on, is swelling unceasingly with a present that is absolutely new. Rare indeed are the moments when we are selt-posdsctedl to this extent: it is then that our actions are truly free.’’ 18 Our consciousness is in truth distinct from the organ it animates, although it undergoes its vicissitudes; it is es- sentially free, is freedom itself; and the self as a living being is a center of action. 14 Cf. Ward, op. cit., p. 300. 15 Time and Free Will, tr. by F. L. Pogson, 1910, p. 100. 16 Creative Evolution, tr. by A. Mitchell, 1911, p. 6. 17 Ibid., p. 263. 18 [bid., p. 200. The Nature of Freedom 281 Freedom Defined.—If from this vivid description, which has never been surpassed, we turn for a final narrowing down of the situation with respect to freedom, we may, with Palmer, define freedom as ‘‘that guidance through which, for purposes of our own, we narrow a dual future possibility to a single actual result.’’19 This is not mere freedom of will, as if the will were detachable, but freedom of the self or person. It involves the power to step back in the moral scale, to be less than a person. The action in question is done to meet a need, in the presence of an ambiguity which must be resolved if one shall proceed. It implies desire, not caprice; a contrast between my actual self and the self I might be, with a possibility that I may commit moral suicide. One clear course will keep me harmonious with my better self and with society. The other courses would mean self-destruction. For me there are not alternative ‘‘rational’’ ideals: no reasoner has many sound conclusions among which to choose; he either hits the valid ones or falls into error. A narrow freedom at- tends a wide vision. A great statesman, merchant, inven- tor, chess-player sees but one thing to do where the ama- teur sees a dozen. The implied purposive linkages are no less clearly knit than are mechanical sequences. The moral self, once committed to its decision, every step follows of necessity. The rational being, capable of irrationality, narrows the possibilities, eliminates the possibility of self- contradiction, and casts the die; he is free because he could have disregarded reason. Moral thought is thus influential because the person is a coordinating center, a fresh cred- tive power, contrasted in kind with other agencies which meet in his life. The experimental evidence of such freedom, as already suggested above, is found in the experience of freedom, not as mere intuitive certainty, but in the act of decision which cuts off various possibilities: I feel myself free where possibilities exist. Freedom is a unique fact, inwardly observable, in the mandate that such an act shall occur, ought to occur. The alternative chosen does not become a 19 See op. cit., Chap. VIII. 282 Goodness and Freedom fact until I have fixed my attention on it, selected it and sent it forth. I am directly conscious of what I choose. I am not directly conscious of what I might have chosen: this does not become a fact. This experience of an alternative becoming a fact, un- mistakably atributable to myself, is the source of the wide- spread conviction that freedom is real, belief in which is imbedded in the structure of society. We employ phrases unintelligible save on libertarian grounds, for example, the fact of blame and praise: we do not blame things.” Estimates of worth or value implying freedom are deeply inwrought in all human intercourse. Praise is a way of securing a recurrence of the good by appeal to freedom, implying a sense on our part that wrong is avoidable. The righteous man believes he could fall. We carry a con- sciousness of uncertainty even when with ever increased precision and effort we mechanize our conduct according to a pattern, whereas for determinism certitude of prediction ig Increased in proportion to the degree of knowledge. Limitations of Freedom.—The considerations which make for determinism are carried forward and given a more adequate interpretation. We frankly admit that man is a human being, that only nature can execute his de- cisions, only such acts go forth from the self as will not jar with those that have the right of way, that our de- cisions must often await their eventuations. We admit too all that psychology tells us concerning pre-inclinations, habits, and human bondage to habit. We no less readily admit that the wise man continually euts off sections of his freedom; that freedom in one sense is not precious, is not to be retained. It is significant that our processes of deliberation involve ambiguity, that is, lack of acquaintance with the world. Much life is wasted in double-mindedness. Strength is gained by mechanizing a large range of deci- sions, that we may by narrowing our freedom realize a certain high ideal. We are encompassed too by duties which close many paths for us. We need to concentrate, we must be constant, and increasingly consistent. Our 20 Palmer, op. cit., p. 61. The Nature of Freedom 283 sense of freedom assures us that we are not compelled to do as duty bids. Yet we realize that the only alternative, as we advance by narrowing our future in behalf of our ideal, would be some sort of disruption of the self, a disin- tegration of character. Yet awareness of the limitations of freedom increases one’s conviction that it is a reality. It is well to give fullest recognition to the arguments for determinism, to see how large they loom upon our intel- lectual horizon, how they increase as our knowledge grows, that we may see how powerful are two or three considera- tions which offset them all. It is important also frankly to admit that our sense of freedom is partly a conviction where we can not wholly see, that freedom is still in a re- spect a fact to marvel over, as Tennyson says: Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them thine. Yet freedom within limits which we did not create and which we can not change still seems to the ethical idealist real freedom involving real responsibility, and a real self whose existence we can not deny. It has been said that self-consciousness is the greatest marvel in psychology: we can establish the fact but can not comprehend it; we can analyze the conditions and prerequisites without ac- counting for the appearence of this marvelous fact.24 It is a puzzle to know how thought, emerging from this con- sclousness, becomes influential, ‘‘how ideals get their clutch on events.’’ But, finding the fact, we undertake the interpretation which is most faithful to the fullness of the facts and the amplitude of values. Here Bergson’s statement comes into play that we are most free when act- ing with the whole self, that the action which involves the whole of our person, the action which is most free, is most truly ours, also the one which could not have been fore- seen. We are sent back to ‘‘the true and living unity’’ which surpasses the factitious unity of the understanding, that in us which is most removed from externality, in the 21 W. Windelband, An Introduction to Philosophy, tr. by J. McCabe, 1921, p. 281. 284 Goodness and Freedom depths of our nature where we are most intimately our- selves,?? There is need then of an appeal from subtle analysis to experience, which gives back to us the rich content of our awareness of freedom. Our analysis leaves us with the im- pression that power to step back in the moral scale, or to accept an alternative making for the good is power at its minimum. But freedom is proved real even by this precise limitation. The self is real in this its decision which makes for or against. Granted the sure reality of the moral self, we may supplement the poverty of our analysis by the other principles of our faith. Thus Berg- son’s inspiring conception of intuition as yielding aware- ness of the full true self in its completer freedom gives horizon to our thought, and once more reminds us of the limitations of the intellect. The self, real in the moment of its minutest analyses, is also real in its vision of ideals, its conviction that there is a realm of values. In actual practice what avails with most of us is our working con- sciousness of freedom, our faith in the moral order, and our interest in the opportunities which enable us to con- tribute our part toward its fulfillment. REFERENCES Bereson, H., Time and Free Will, trans., 1911, Chap. III; Crea- tive Evolution, trans., 1911, Chaps. IT, ITT. Warp, J., The Realm of Ends, Chaps. XIII, XIV. GREEN, T. H., Prolegomena to Ethics, Bk. I, Chap. ITI. Patmer, G. H., The Problem of Freedom, 1911, Chaps. IITI-X. JANET, P., The Theory of Morals, trans., pp. 369-378. MaAckKenzigz, J. 8., Manual of Ethics, p. 90. SerH, J., Hthical Principles, Part III, Chap. I. Leticuoton, J. A., The Field of Philosophy, 1923, Part II, Chap. XXI. Ten Broeke, The Moral Life and Religion, Chap. ITI. Moors, G. E., Hthics, 1916, Chap. VI. 22 Creatwe Evolution, pp. 47, 199; see, also, pp. 29, 212, 270, 262, 306. CHAPTER XVIII OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM Interpretations of Freedom.—The ultimate meaning of freedom is a question which lies outside the field of ethics. Each man introduces the justification of the fact or truth of freedom in the theological or metaphysical terms which he finds acceptable. What is significant for ethics in any case is the practical consequence of the optimism, pessi- mism, meliorism, or whatever the faith may be by which the results of ethical analysis are supplemented. One man will try, for example, to reconcile God’s fore- knowledge with our freedom, on the ground that, as God is eternal, the divine foreknowledge sees all at once what to us is spread out in the realm of time. Another will main- tain that predestination is not attributable to the original Christianity, hence that we should now renew our practi- eal faith in the original teachings of Jesus. Public opinion, sitting in moral judgment, sees in the pleasure-seeker an egoist. We have noted the fact that hedonism in its egoistic form quickly ran itself out. Egoism as a theory proves indeed to be as inconsis- tent as self-sacrifice, taken by itself. Even in popular morality there is ‘‘an unbalanced combination’’ of egoism 13 Data of Ethics, Secs. 68, 69. 14 Fullerton, op. cit., p. 212. 15 [bid., p. 217. Cf. Palmer, Altruism, its Nature and Varieties, p. 8. The Worth of the Individual 305 and altruism, rather than explicit egoism.1*° It is indeed difficult to approximate consistency with either term. Paulsen maintains that there is no duty towards indi- vidual life which can not be construed as a duty toward others, none towards others that can not be shown to be a duty towards self.17 The acquisition of wealth seems to be the central purpose of our egoistic strivings; yet in- dustry, energy, and frugality are no less truly duties towards others. It is proverbial that ‘‘honesty is the best policy,”’ that ill-gotten goods seldom prosper, and that dis- honesty deadens the desire for honest acquisition, while theft is always an uncertain and precarious means of live- lihood. In actual life our motives are always mingled. In- deed the strange assumption many have made is that every act must have one motive; as if duties toward self and toward others were mutually exclusive.t® Even in case of self-sacrifice motives are numerous and are blended. ‘* Every self-sacrifice is at the same time self-preservation, namely, preservation of the zdeal self; indeed, it is the proudest kind of self-assertion for me to sacrifice myself, for me to stake my life in battling for a good which I esteem higher than my life. There is always a ‘selfish’ element in it; ‘unselfish’ eonduct is a contradiction in terms. The self is always involved, it sacrifices a good only for a higher good, possessions for fame, a good name for a good conscience, life for the freedom and honor of the people.’’?® Life indeed is not such an antagonistic affair as some moralists have tried to make out. It is not a con- stant struggle between mine and thine. Nor is the sacri- fice of individual interest for those of others always a duty ; or the sacrifice of personal interests, even when the welfare of others is promoted, invariably meritorious and praise- worthy.” The Individual as Starting-point—If then we con- clude that self-regarding and_other-regarding tendencies 16 Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, p. 369. 17 Op. cit., p. 383. 18 Ibid., p. 386. 19 Ibid., p. 389. 20 Ibid., p. 391. 306 Goodness and Freedom are to be understood together, the first need is to assign the individual to his appropriate place. In so doing we may be free to use the symbol of the ‘‘organism’’ by way of illustration of the intimate relation between the indi- vidual and his group, despite any objection, remembering that it is a symbol, that no analogy drawn from things in Space is adequate to portray codperation between selves. In beginning with the facts of the individual’s con- sciousness, we start with data which any one can verify. Any sure approach to knowledge of society must take ac- count of the fact that society consists of conscious beings, not of ‘‘units’’ constituting a group, which somehow has a “‘mind.’’ All knowledge of the inner life of other people necessarily begins with a measure of self-knowledge. Moral consciousness begins with the individual, whatever the decrees and power of society over the individual by appeal to custom. Moral reform starts with the indi- vidual. Any change or moral growth in which the in- dividual participates takes place from within outward. The individual must see the situation in which a change is called for, must acknowledge its meaning or value; and probably he will be called on to admit his own motives, to recognize conduct that is wrong. It is the individual who cleaves to a standard as ‘‘right,’’ who takes a moral op- portunity. The moral response, if made at all, must be made by the individual, and in freedom. No one can make a moral decision or take a moral step for another, al- though at times the individual may do little more than give assent to the advice of another. It is the individual who sees the need of a scale of values, who realizes obliga- tion, discerns the power of the moral law, becomes aware of the ought; and by acquiring a dominant desire which enlists varied dispositions develops a purpose sufficient to unify or strengthen character. It is the individual who makes effort, overcomes obstacles; learns his relation to he- redity and environment through education and experience, and by adaptation to the social order of which he is a mem- ber. He it is who must make the adjustrnents, adapting him- self to all kinds of social situations. Whatever society does The Worth of the Individual 307 for him, he must find himself through reactions to de- mands made upon him, while he earns his living, meets the requirements of varied groups expecting more of him than he can do except by a process of selection between loyalties. Society helps a man discover his function, but it is the man himself who learns his limitations. The more highly selective he becomes the more truly individual. In fe, human evolution is by individuation. The individual, in uncorrected beginnings, tends to de- velop self-love to the extreme; hence comes egotism, self- conceit, selfishness. But out of self-reliance may come strength, efficiency, and eventually enlargement of interests and motives so that other-regarding motives occupy a larger place than self-regarding. Profound belief in one’s abilities is essential to success in the moral as in any other field. The limited self-culture of one period of a man’s development may greatly contribute to the productive service of the next. In any case the individual is the ground and starting-point of moral development, and we have repeatedly seen that natural content is essential to moral form: self-assertion belongs to the natural stage, self- realization to the moral. Self-love and Altruism.—Where it was once customary to dwell on the differences between egoism and altruism, the more recent tendency is to point to the resemblances. Rashdall holds that we can not distinguish between the good a man does to himself and the good he bestows on others. ‘‘True human good consists in activities which are at once my good and the good of others.’’ One man’s con- tribution to the general good, in its quantity and quality is never exactly the same as that of another man. Unlike- nesses and inequalities accompany differentiation in social progress. Differentiation involves exceptional sacrifice for some, exceptional advantages and enjoyment for others. The true good of every individual is necessarily unlike that of every other.*? So too Alexander points out that morality is itself the answer to the problem of reconciling the manifold likes 21Op. ctt., Vol. I, p. 277. 308 Goodness and Freedom and dislikes of many persons. ‘‘Self-love and love of others describe the moral relation from opposite ends. . . . Every act of respect for others is an act of self-furtherance. Self- furtherance turns to selfishness when the gratification is incompatible with the moral development of others.’’ *? The Basis of Values.—It is a question then of putting matters in right relation so that we understand in what sense the individual is the basis of values. From the point of view of individualism the situation is forcefully put by Warner Fite: (1) the individual is the original source and constituent of all value, and there is no higher stand- ard of obligation than that set by our personal ends and ideals; (2) in a community of conscious beings, the per- sonal interests of the several individuals are strictly codr- dinate, each is committed to a consideration of the ends of each of the others; (3) but this is possible only through consciousness or codrdinateness of interests as a function of self-consciousness.?* The individual is (1) external as he appears to others, (2) internal as he appears to himself. In the latter sense the individual’s act is not the effect of a cause, but the expression of a reason, defined by a mean- ing or purpose. I, the spiritual individual, am not coex- tensive with the mass of my body; but indeterminate. Yet as self-conscious I am perfectly determinate, with my con- erete interests. Outwardly I am seen as part of the mechanical order of nature; but inwardly as part of an idealistic social order, a society of conscious individuals united by consciousness of kind, with functions to fulfill in the social organism. The individual can guard himself from putting too much emphasis on the unity of society by being mindful of the fact that his needs and instincts are not necessarily in harmony with those of his fellows. The meaning which defines our consciousness and makes us truly individual must be our own meaning. ‘‘If the glory of God is not also my glory, and the salvation of society not also my salva- 22S. Alexander, Moral Order and Progress, 1889, p. 172. 23 Individualism, 1911, p. 5. The Worth of the Indimdual 309 tion, then God and society are necessarily strangers to mea, 34 The interests of human individuals are not essentially in harmony because this harmony is divinely pre-estab- lished; not by heredity, or by social education; nor even by mysterious ‘‘consciousness of kind’’: but because men are conscious beings and know themselves and one another. It is consciousness which creates the unity. The unity is not gained by mutual concession of individual claims, but by complete fulfillment of all individual purposes. The intelligence which enables us to adjust our actions to our physical environment ought to enable us to adjust our actions to one another. The Union of Opposites.—To accept this view is to find that many of the problems once raised have ceased to be, for they were due to an artificial conception of the indi- vidual, which in turn arose through an old-time psychology. Other problems were due to the bare assertion that all men were born free and equal; or that there would have been equality of opportunity if the existing social order had been different. In contrast with any materialistic interpretation of history, economie determinism, or any other substitution of external for internal values, ethical idealism conceives of the individual from the point of view of the inner life by taking the clue from consciousness. In our consciousness we find actually attained that unity in diversity which is the despair of all seekers for harmony in material things. For, as we have constantly noted in the foregoing chapters, our several powers interpenetrate so that cognition, desire, will, thought, and feeling may all be operative at the same time. Our awareness of an object may involve many interests, also one dominant ideal or purpose. Our desires may be manifold, and, taken one by one, in sharp contrast if not in conflict; yet there ean also be a centralizing universe of desire. It is this in- ward union of opposites, interpenetrated by a purpose, which should give us the idea of what it means to be an individual. A moral judgment discloses the possibility of 24 Op. cit., p. 27. 310 Goodness and Freedom being one and the same person in any number of acts, of realizing one and the same purpose where to all appear- ances there is a mere assemblage of aims and values. Our consciousness is remarkable for its inclusiveness. Hence a conscious alm can never be exclusive. Like an idea, it is both itself and includes aims other than itself.*® Consciousness as the Type.—The function of conscious- ness is not merely to select one aim to the exclusion of others, but involves the selection of acts which will com- pletely realize all our aims. Thus consciousness, by its ideal of mutual inclusiveness, genuinely many, yet as gen- uinely one, yields the ideal or type. In this unity one thing is not sacrificed for the sake of another, but the course is chosen which will attain both. It is this inelu- sive selection which distinguishes the conscious act. It is your consciousness which makes you an individual per- son. As a conscious being you are necessarily both here and there, both yesterday and today. Thus consciousness involves an infinitely graduated and indefinitely extended scale. The measure of your consciousness is the precise measure of your individuality.?® The reality of consciousness means its efficiency: to know what you are doing makes a difference. You also know what you were doing yesterday and mean to do tomorrow. Thus to understand our conduct is to realize that we act now not merely from personal stimulus but from unity of personal interests. Consciousness as thus deseribed is the antithesis of chance-action, and so it is more than ever law-governed, But the implied law is the consistent ex- pression of one’s personal meaning. The conscious indi- vidual, regarded as a free agent, is free to do what seems best when all things are considered. So in becoming a conscious individual a man becomes an end in himself. Fite avoids the formalism of Kant by insisting that a dis- interested choice is absolutely out of the question, for con- sciousness involves a reference to an individual and per- sonal point of view. In other words, nothing is known to 25 Fite, op. cit., p. 64. 26 Ibid., p. 80. The Worth of the Individual 311 me as an individual save that which involves an expres- sion of my attitude. The Social Relation.—A strong point in favor of this view is its synthesis of knowing with action. It is not in- teraction alone which constitutes a social relation, since each agent must know himself: A social relation is a self- conscious relation.2”7 Mutual understanding is essential. There is need of a system of mutual ends determined in mutual freedom and agreement. There is then no con- tradiction between social welfare and individual freedom. Duty of self-sacrifice for the common good would be a paradox and unintelligible. By becoming conscious an individual does not become less self-regarding, but more so. Since an organization means a union of differences, in which individual differences are not to be transcended or destroyed, each man must know himself far more acutely in order to realize himself. The individuality which this argument pleads for can never be transcended. ‘‘In the measure of the individuality which is realized is to be found the measure of the reality of the social organiza- tion.’’?8 The social good is not a common good, but is mutual and distributive.?9 This conclusion accords with the conception of goodness as self-realization. There is something in our nature which strongly impels us to be individual, to lose nothing from our varied powers of initiative. Hence our objection to any view which asserts equality of birth or affirms that equal- ity shall be imposed on us by society. There must some- how be individual values, so we reason, which we shall be able to preserve to, the utmost and yet do our duty. And the conviction is strong with many that the conduct which is to secure this end must spring from individual leaders, free to express themselves to the full; not hampered by any demand which puts society above the individual. Thus Sheldon holds that, ‘‘however fundamental are the social relations, individuals will always differ in endowment; for 27 Ibid., p. 100. 28 Ibid., p. 280. 29 Ibid., p. 294. 312 Goodness and Freedom each is not simply a social function, but real and unique in himself. Some will get their wants better satisfied than others. Equal opportunity will not insure equal distribu- tion of goods; the socialistic ideal is impractical. Successful enterprise can be carried on only by individual initiative and individual responsibility.’’ °° The Ideal Unity.—The terms ‘‘function’’ and ‘‘social organism’’ then are figurative. If we are ‘‘members one of another’’ it is by a higher relationship than any ex- ternal organization exhibits in full. Even the term ‘‘or- ganic perfection’’ is a figure of speech. No less faulty is the term ‘‘individualism’’ unless carefully qualified. To assume, with Leibnitz, that the harmony between indi- viduals is pre-established is to leave no room for real pro- ductivity. Better the pluralisms and dualisms which vari- ous philosophers have pleaded for than any asserted uni- son of wills. The unity amidst variety which is the ethical ideal is to be an achieved unity, first created in the con- sciousness of the individual, then in his conduct and then in codperation with others who have had the vision. The complete adjustment between individuals within society which is to be heaven on earth is at the outset a possibility only, not a plan. Something essential depends on the in- dividual, however great, yes, however divine his potentiali- ties. The harmony which we discover between what we have to give and what society in our day needs is not mechanical, as if by some subtle power of attraction we were able to draw to us those whom we can best serve. Nor is it a mere unfolding of our capacities in coincident rhythm with the manifestation of power in those most in accord with us. ) The Social Will.—Our nature involves the will that selects as well as the urge which attracts. If our choices ‘‘converge upon some comprehensive end,’’ it is because our volitions have been ‘‘intelligently harmonized and uni- fied’’ in actual conduct.*t The social will for which Ful- lerton pleads, as relatively permanent, but also moving 30 W. H. Sheldon, Productive Indwiduality, 1918, p. 441. 31 Fullerton, op. ctt., p. 169. The Worth of the Individual 313 with more or less consistency toward comprehensive ends, with the clash of conflicting desires reduced to the mini- mum, is likewise an attainment, not an unfolding.*? It is only by the recognition of all wills that evolution of the enlightened social will is to follow. Moral intuitions as attainments are indispensable too.** Utilitarianism is to be assimilated in part, since there is no reason to ignore the fact that men do generally desire to gain pleasure and avoid pain: it is only the exaggeration of this truth that is to be combated. And so any term that is employed must be explained in accordance with the larger ethical thought of the day which seeks to be at once social and true to the individual, with his reason, enlightened will, moral intuitions. If the limitations of egoism and pessi- mism are seen, it is not necessary to plead for altruism. The argument for goodness as self-realization is through- out an argument for altruism. What now concerns us is to consider how the ideal is to be earried into practice. The Individual and Orthodoxy.— We may illustrate an- other phase of the life of the individual by the difficulties which beset the man of exceptional ability, notably in re- lation to the Church. We have traveled far from the times when men were burned at the stake or made victims of heresy trials. But there are other ways of making life miserable for those who love truth too well to recant. To cultivate their powers in marked degree men have turned to art or science, to public service or business. Statesmen earry on their affairs without paying much heed to the Church. In the arts it has been more customary to encourage talent and individuality. The artist surely works best who dedicates all his powers to Beauty. The medieval artist wrought his masterpieces under the inspiration of the Church, and we look back to that period as one of the great epochs in the history of art. But art was fos- tered by the Church rather than being ruled by it. The ideals of the two coincided for a time, as did the ideals 82 See summary, op. cit., p. 174. 33 Ibid., p. 289. 314 Goodness and Freedom of the Beautiful, the True, and the Good in ancient Greece. The situation was very different in the field of science and philosophy. While theology ruled, science was quiescent ; and philosophy was practically a slave. The lovers of truth who laid the foundations of modern science had to fight for the privilege amidst constant dangers of martyr- dom. We now realize that the scholar must be wholly free to follow truth wherever his love for it may lead. Liberty to pursue truth in this way gave us the marvelous epoch of modern science. Creative Work.— What would equivalent freedom mean in the sphere of man’s religious activities? The question is a new one for some. We have not entertained the pos- sibility that creative work might be done for the moral and spiritual life, as an artist might produce a picture through direct observation of nature and life, instead of consulting authorities to see what may permissibly be portrayed. We lack a complete theory of what we call ‘the creative instinct.’’ In the arts, when a young girl with a great voice is dis- covered she is put under the instruction of the best teachers in a musical atmosphere, and everything in her life is fos- tered by appeal to certain high standards; when a youth is found modeling beautiful figures in clay he is put in charge of masters who will help to develop his talent or genius to the full, for Beauty’s sake. We have separated the arts from the other disciplines, because we now recog- nize their rights, as we do those of science. We have tended to isolate matters pertaining to the Church, leaving them to specialists with their particular standards; while talents for the world’s activities at large are given over to our educational and practical systems. But if there is something akin in all creative work, we might well encourage people to find their places in religion as in every other sphere, so that there shall be free recog- ition of any of the Eternal Ideas, notably the relation of the Good to Beauty and Truth. Any work that is worth doing bears relation to the Ideas. We are preparing for our heavenly functions by doing earthly things well. The The Worth of the Individual 315 spiritual life may be said to grow up out of the common occupations whenever man cherishes an ideal which ap- peals to his whole nature. Vocations.—The art of finding one’s place and of help- ing others to find themselves and their places may well be- come one of the greatest topics in the moral life.** Ideally speaking, every individual has his place, no two are alike, no two would fulfill precisely the same functions, no two would express absolutely the same sentiments; and there would be every reason for encouraging each individual to find an adequate form of self-expression and work. It may be that what is required of us in the moral order— instead of trying to reform people, by persuading them of our own views and ways—is to encourage each man to find his type and live his own life to the full. It may be that all our instincts are for productivity—not originally for mere self-preservation or egoism at all—and that we have been assiduously curbing them, if not trying to exterminate some of them. It was said of a great teacher in one of our universities that he ‘‘ereated men,’’ had creative insight into their type. This summoning of a man into power is the great- est creative work on earth. There is no subordination of the individual here. Each is recognized according to his inherent worth. This means a return to the sources of our best experience; it puts a new value upon human experience, and we note new reasons for learning from one another, by whatever road we have come, whatever we have seen and heard and felt along the way. Not all of us have heard as distinct a call as that which came to Paul on the road to Damascus, for we have not had the same need, we are not of the same type. But the call has been according to gradually recognized capacities and needs, in the light of the use made of individual experi- ence. In this the profounder view of human life the experi- ence of each of us is a revelation of the moral ideal. Limiting the Individual—In contrast with this recog- nition of the worth of the individual, we find many evi- dences of a wholly different attitude. In some of the in- 84 Cf, Rashdall, op. cit., Vol. II, Chap. IV. 316 Goodness and Freedom dustries, under the present system of organization, a man is expected to conform as strictly to the rules of the union to which he belongs as true believers once conformed to orthodoxy. The typical example is that of the brick- layers’ union, decreéing how many bricks a man shall lay in an hour, how many hours he shall work, and what grade of work he shall do. The man of skill must moderate his skill and the quick-motioned man must moderate his pace to fit the deadly average. Ifa grievance arises, a man must strike with the others if ordered to do so. He has little freedom and few opportunities for initiative. These conditions prevail in varied forms in the economic world. Even in what we eall the higher walks of life conformity is also the rule. Thus one finds either an external system applied to men as soldiers are organized into an imperial army; or, rules, a system, a creed, a political machine or other scheme managed by the few and put upon the many. Even teachers must teach what conservatives insist upon. The result is that men of real ability feel restrained and eramped. The moral problem is to show that the ideal of creative individuality is not incompatible with society as it exists today. Conservatism, doing its deadly work, strives against the individual; and so it becomes a question, not of egoism and altruism as of old, but of conservatism and progress. ‘To ascend the scale of values is to en- counter varied leveling influences struggling to keep man where he is. But there need be no moral antagonism be- tween the conservation of values and the effort of the individual to contribute his best life. The individual dis- covers himself by what he overcomes. A man’s experiences fit him for his greater work. Egoism, with its extremes, is a passing stage only, like the pursuit of pleasure as an end in itself. Emerson reminds us that society is a conspiracy against the individual, and that ‘‘whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.’’ What is needed is horizon, that a man may put first things first. A man also needs to understand his repressions, including those put upon him as the skilled mason or carpenter is checked by the mandates of the labor union. Meanwhile there are alsa The Worth of the Individual Sy resources in the realm of the eternal values, however lim- ited the opportunities accorded us by our mundane occu- pations. There are resources too in the old-time interest in work well done for work’s sake, with conscience, en- thusiasm, over and above any question of the number of hours and the compensation. All the higher values may well be pursued as if each were independent. The indi- vidual finds himself; society grants the conditions, dis- closes the occasions. The social group exists for the benefit of individuals. Our argument does not lead to the con- elusion that the state is above the individual, that the uni- versal can rightfully impose itself. The individual is neither a mere unit, nor a mere organ, function, or official. We are ‘‘members one of another.’’ Our relationship is moral, It is a matter of consciousness, of attitude, of life. Questions.—In what sense is virtue its own reward? What is the surest way to keep one’s conscience clean ? What is the value of such a maxim as, ‘‘Honesty is the best policy’’? Is all good action conscious action? In what respects is self-sacrifice a leap in the dark? Is happiness in any respect a criterion of goodness? How far can a person be distinguished from his environ- ment ? What is the objection to the idea of absolute chance in the universe? Is individualism a complete moral ideal? What is the function of a social ideal? How are ideals formed ? How can duality of self be overcome? To what extent is it desirable that conduct should be mechanized, and therefore predictable? When is the prediction of conduct offensive? Does an ideal always appear in the mind as a present fact, or has it other qualities or powers? Is the sense of duty equivalent to respect for law? Is any view of duty compatible with the purpose of each man to realize himself? Can the idea of self-organization become too prominent? 318 Goodness and Freedom Would not a course of conduct which resulted in human misery be abandoned; and, if so, is this an argument in favor of hedonism? Would perfect morality blot out duty? In what sense is intuition a guide to right conduct? What is the moral value of ‘‘the still small voice’’? Is the existence of evil an insuperable objection to belief in the moral goodness of the universe? Is moral experience in general worth what it costs? Is it probable that a man’s ideal of complete social self- realization coincides with the divine purpose? What part does faith play in meeting the issues of the moral life? REFERENCES SPENCER, H., The Data of Ethics, 1879, Chaps. XI, XII. BraDueY, F. H., Hthical Studies, 1876, Chap. VII. PAULSEN, F., System of Ethics, trans., Bk. II, Chap. VI. Mackenziz, J. 8., Manual of Ethics, Bk. III, Chap. I. Dewey AND Turts, Ethics, Chap. XVIII. TEN BROEKE, J., The Moral Life and Religion, Chaps. V1, VII. FULLERTON, G. 8., Handbook of Ethical Theory, pp. 160, 174, 212. Dresser, H. W., Psychology in Theory and Application, Bk. IIT. Fite, W., Individualism, 1911. RASHDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol. II, Chap. IV. McConneE LL, R. M., The Duty of Altruism, 1910. STEPHEN, L., The Science of Hthics, Chap. VI. Part THREE THE MORAL LIFE CHAPTER XX THE VIRTUES The Value of Knowledge.—Ethics, we have seen, is not a purely practical science. It does not undertake to tell individuals what to do, does not promise to make men bet- ter. Yet one can hardly follow any ethical system to the end without finding practical issues cleared up, without gaining an impetus to live more wisely; for ethics counsels man to know, to be, and to do. We have all been reared amid some kind of moral teaching, and the study of ethics is inevitably in part a criticism of the views we have ac- quired. Moreover, there is a large measure of truth in the Socratic teaching that knowledge is virtue; hence increase of ethical knowledge insensibly tends towards benefit. It has been said that all knowledge affects practice, although not all knowledge guides it. If the intuitionist theory in extreme form were true, experience would not be required, and we would need only to consult the appropriate section of our moral code. But if the empirical theories were adequate, it would be solely a matter of practice. It is idealistic ethics which yield rich results, since theory and practice are brought into closest relation. Study shows that it makes a great differ- ence what conclusions we reach concerning desire, love of pleasure, egoism, pessimism, self-sacrifice, conscience, and 319 320 The Moral Infe other subjects which have come before us. We have not been led to the conclusion that those principles only are to be adopted which can be fully applied at once. Unex- pected practical values appear in the course of time. Even the formal ethics of Kant, with its neglect of the content of duty, has practical value. Morality we have defined as ethics in practice, the moral life. The study of it not only involves knowledge of the inner life of the individual but knowledge of the condi- tions of social welfare in our own age. Granted a concep- tion of goodness defended against objections, the problem is to consider how this conception can be carried into prac- tice. It is one thing to understand right action, another to see why men encounter difficulties in endeavoring to realize ideals, why men do not always act rightly. Emer- son reminds us that ‘‘the step from knowing to doing is rarely taken.’’ Increasing knowledge of ethical principles has not been followed by equal increase of effort in making knowledge virtue. Moral teachers in touch with all types of men still appeal to philosophers to know how to arouse the moral will. Even when loyalty, brotherhood, love, service is accepted as the ruling motive, it is a question how to embody this motive in productive conduct. It is our province to consider the application of ethics to prac- tice so far at least as the virtues are concerned, the implied rules of action, and the problem of human nature in rela- tion to virtue. The Nature of Virtue—Under other terms, we have already considered virtue in the foregoing chapters. For we have regarded the moral standard as involving unity, consistency, integrity, insight into goodness and its ele- ments; and each topic we have taken up was an approach to the same subject. To do one’s duty, act rightly, realize goodness in practice is virtue; one’s duties imply the vir- tues, and to possess integrity at the center is to manifest it in lines of conduct proceeding from this ‘‘purity of heart,’’ this kingdom to be sought before all others. Yet the term virtue, although it originally stood for ‘‘duty’’ as defined in a later period of moral history, is also used The Virtues 321 in another sense with reference to goodness carried into practice in the inner life of the individual and in the social order. Virtue is what man possesses who is faithful to the moral ideal, who does his duty in specific situations, instead of allowing it to remain a general principle. It is the per- manent character of the will, attained through single de- cisions of will, successive appeals to moral reason; stead- fastness in the direction of the will toward the moral end; determinateness of the ideational, emotional, and volitional life. It implies regularity or orderliness in mental proc- esses, modes of conduct which spring from imtegrity or constancy of character as its basis. Hence it is a many in one, involving various inner attitudes or modes of ex- pressing character. The Greek View.—For Plato and Aristotle goodness and the virtues were one, the several virtues being the characteristic activities making for the good as the ideal end. Virtue was said to appeal to the man of intelligence as the natural or reasonable thing. It was not then neces- sary to introduce duty as an additional motive. Aristotle held that the virtues are habits of deliberate choice due to stability of character and the attainment of the mean, which in his system is the essence of virtue. Accordingly he characterized most of the chief virtues by indicating the extremes to be avoided. The term virtue naturally suggests the Greek concep- tion, with various maxims for the guidance of the individ- ual; whereas the Hebraic conception suggests the Com- mandments, which pertain to overt acts and prohibitions, while the modern Christian term is duty. The virtues first emphasized by the Greeks relate to the individual, with the personal habit of valuation in mind. The Greeks ex- pected to attain virtue because they regarded man as con- stituted for it; hence the emphasis on self-knowledge and self-culture, in contrast with appeal to the supernatural in the early Christian scheme. Granted a prevailing atti- tude or disposition toward virtue, every virtue can be acquired through effort, and mastery over the irrational 322 The Moral Lrfe impulses. Virtue thus regarded has been ealled a well- spring of right deeds, the will which leads one continually to right actions. Classifications—From the individual virtues, such as temperance, courage, the more social virtues, chiefly jus- tice, follow. Piety and reverence were later distinguished as the religious virtues. The cardinal virtues in Plato’s scheme are wisdom, temperance, courage and justice. The theologic virtues, also known as the triad of Christian graces, are faith, hope, and charity; contrasted in the medieval period with the deadly and venial sins. The virtues have also been classed with reference to the exer- cise of the higher intellectual and esthetic powers; and those which consist in due control of the lower impulses, such as temperance, purity, and the other self-regarding duties.2, It would be impossible to draw up a table of virtues to be agreed upon for any length of time; since very much depends on the prevailing view of human na- ture, the customs which supply content, the philosophy or theology which happens to be in vogue. Belief in the first and last things of the Christian life was once so great a virtue that even to believe what seemed absurd was right, to doubt was sin. Hope ‘‘springs eternal in the human breast’’ according to needs and occasions. Love ‘‘comes,’’ it is not often regarded as a duty: its expression through charity depends on social theory. The Greek virtues are no longer disparaged as ‘‘pagan’’ or as ‘‘splendid vices.’’ What signifies in any period is whole-hearted interest in the direction or mode of life in which virtue is being ex- pressed. Virtue in any age implies integrity, purity of heart, or sincerity. Hence the force of the term ‘‘cardi- nal’’ as applied to the virtues, namely, the virtues which are essential to morality. Prudence.—It is customary, from one ethical point of view, to discriminate rather sharply between prudence and duty. Martineau’s distinction is clearest.2 In moral judg- 1See Sidgwick, History of Ethics, p. 134. 2 Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol, I, p. 192. 3 Types of Ethical Theory, 1891, Vol. II, p. 70. The Virtues 323 ments we discriminate the springs of action within us; in the prudential we are concerned with the effects of action upon ourselves. Moral judgments anticipate action, while prudence has to wait for it. Ethically speaking, an act contrary to what we judge to be higher (right), in the presence of a lower alternative, would be a sin; but an act contrary to prudence would be a blunder. In our moral judgments conscience is already given, latent, whereas pru- dence is arrived at through experience, and we are im- prudent from lack of experience. It is essential to moral discernment that it be spontaneous, not a mere product of experience. There is indeed a natural order of values, according to the strength of our promptings; but this pru- dential scale is variable. Prudence then is definable as ‘‘self-surrender to the strongest impulse,’’ while accept- ance of duty would be ‘‘self-surrender to the highest.’’ 4 Although we ean not fully agree with Martineau, for reasons given in discussing his theory of the springs of action,®? we note the fact that prudence is not necessarily ethical, it may stop with the individual’s private interests. It is a matter of prudence for a man to fit into the eco- nomic scheme, to ‘‘play the game,’’ be on the alert in the sharp struggle for existence in the world of trade; and to earn enough for a good livelihood, to provide for a rainy day, for possible hard times, illness, and for old age. So-called ‘‘worldly wisdom”’ is in point here, namely, what is proverbial or axiomatic. For example, it is said to ‘‘pay’’ to be honest. Again, it is matter of prudence, that is, of hygiene, to eat a wise amount of food, to take sufficient exercise, rest, sleep, recreation; to protect one’s self against wet and cold weather, to eat and drink with due care in extremely hot weather. One keeps good hours to keep fit, playing occasionally, taking a vacation now and then, in order to avoid routine or servitude to circum- stance. If you are a day-worker rather than a night- worker, it is well to know this fact and keep to your type. Again, one acquires the best method of work, one con- 4 Ibid., p. 74. 5 See above, Chap. XV. 394 The Moral Life centrates, adapting hours, plans, and the whole scheme of life to fit the occupation. One learns to be patient, per- sistent, gradually acquiring the art of success.2 To be prudent is also to do what is politic or long-headed. Hence people await occasions for putting their plans through, they seek influence, use their friends, disguise their real motives under the pretense of virtue. On the other hand it is duty or love which prompts one to care for a sick mother, to visit the widowed and fatherless, and help the poor; and at times, when self-neglectful in social service, one may pass far beyond what is prudent in personal care and efficiency. It is not now a question of what ‘‘pays,”’ but of what is right; not what is customary or expected, but what is best; not for myself, but what I owe to others; not mere physical health, but also moral health. It is impossible however to distinguish prudence as mere egoism and separate all matters of duty from all pru- dential matters, under the head of altruism. We have seen that the two are found together and belong together. Most items of prudence rightfully belong under the head of the moral life. One must keep fit, to realize the higher self. While prudence is not necessarily moral, it is essential to morality, notably in case of the individual virtues, such as temperance. The honesty which merely ‘‘pays’’ in the economic world becomes a virtue in the moral. It does more than pay to be virtuous. The question of integrity so enters in that one sees it to be essential to individual life. Unless you are faithful, true, upright, your life is scarcely worth developing to the point of efficiency or success. To arouse greater interest in moral issues, a teacher of ethics in one of our leading colleges once began his course by an experimental appeal. Instead of first defining terms, analyzing principles, and classic types of ethical theory, he asked his students to take careful note during a week of the way they lived and worked, what methods of study were efficient, what habits of life successful, what rules effective, and what was prudent in general; and to report 6 On thrift, punctuality, commercial honor, see Rogers, The Theory of Ethics, 1922, p. 168. The Virtues 395 on what they had learned from experience, untaught as they were in the science of moral conduct. The result was a deeply suggestive discovery in regard to better modes of living, study, arranging hours, adapting habits; increased interest in temperamental differences, in character, ideals, standards of Judgment; and a desire to know how one could acquire a scale of values. In short, these prudential matters quickly led over into the typical considerations which imply the Greek conception of virtue. Self-control— Although it is an element of individual virtue, rather than a virtue, as such, self-control is re- garded as moral in so far it implies knowledge of what is to be controlled through the supremacy of the higher self. Self-control involves rational will or wise choice, and organization of our powers. Paulsen defines it as ‘‘ capacity to govern life by purposes and ideals.’’? It is thus the fundamental condition of the virtues, the fundamental pre-condition of human worth, the basis of freedom and personality in practice. It involves knowledge of tempera- ment, mastery over the animal nature; the conservation of values, in contrast with ‘‘dissipation’”’ or vice. It is the basis of moral efficiency. As conceived nowadays it is plainly not asceticism, not mere self-discipline, although it involves power to face and overcome the disagreeable. In another aspect it implies calmness, inner peace, equanim- ity : ‘fin confidence and equanimity shall be your strength.”’ Thus it is implied in the typical Stoic virtue of serenity amidst rational adjustment to the cosmos.® Temperance.—The values of prudence and self-control, so far as they are moral, pertain especially to the cardinal virtue known as temperance or self-discipline. Essential to this initial virtue is knowledge of the impulses, desires, passions, coarser emotions, refining emotions—the condi- tions under which they rise into prominence—as tendencies to action, and knowledge of the consequences to which these actions lead. Self-control is not only called for, but also 7 System of Ethics, trans., p. 481. 8 For a discussion of bodily life and control see Paulsen, op. cit., p. 505. 326 The Moral Ife the adoption of a worthy universe of desire which makes possible the curbing of unruly desires, resistance to the allurements of sense, not only in the obvious cases of eat- ing and drinking but in the desires as a whole. Temper- ance implies the idea of subordination of detached prompt- ings to action, each one of which, like desire for sensuous pleasure, tends by itself to run to excess; and the organi- zation and wiser use of all promptings classified as “‘lower,’’ not necessarily as ‘‘animalistic,’’ but as involv- ing lesser values. The end in view is individual well- being as essential to self-realization. For temperance is a means to other virtues, and is to be understood both in the light of what it controls and of what it contributes. It is not then abstinence or repression but wise use of our powers. The Greek maxim in this connection is, ‘‘ Nothing to excess,’’ implying the golden mean of Aristotle’s ethics. Much then will depend on temperament, for some people are naturally too emotional, others impulsive, cold, arbi- trary, exacting, or of the single-tracked type. We learn temperance experimentally, profiting by the lessons of excess, by pain, and over-indulgence. Some points in its favor are obvious, but if nothing to excess is to be the rule, much testing is required. The moderation which is essen- tial to health is part of the art of life, so is the moderation which we come to approve of by noting instances of ex- treme self-sacrifice. Seth interprets temperance to mean the reign of reason, and the subjection and obedience of sensibility: character is nature disciplined.® But this mastery of natural impulse by reason will call forth varied criticisms on the part of those who, strong in their sensibilities, maintain that all our promptings to do good spring from impulse. The larger meaning which Seth has in view is, utilization of the dynamic which our impulses yield, conversion of ir- rational into rational energy, the transmutation of impulse into character. Intemperance is disintegration, and im- plies unorganized sensibility. The element of subjection of all impulse to higher rule is the negative aspect only; 9 Hthical Principles, p. 241. The Virtues 327 coordination or control is the positive, that is, unity of purpose. So too in Paulsen’s account the power to resist temptation is a pre-condition, not the larger meaning of temperance.’ Efficient action in line with the ideal is the goal. Temperance is whole-mindedness. At times it ealls for negative self-control, restraint, inhibition; but, again, it involves reverence, recognition of the unique, or invaluable worth embodied in any situation or act of life, involving control of excitement and the guidance of a superior interest.11 Green discloses its essence by compar- ing this eardinal Greek virtue with the Christian virtue of self-denial.1? There is a unity of principle, but a dif- ference of range or comprehension. The fundamental con- viction implied in this virtue is that there is a lower and a higher. In the end it is a question of the fuller capacities of the self. These are larger in the Christian view. They involve a wider activity in the work of perfecting man- kind.+% Courage.—Self-control in another form implies courage, coordination of powers so that one may rise above diffi- culties, persevere, overcome what appears to be the in- superable. Here too there is a negative aspect and a posi- tive, the checking of conflicting desires and emotions, the desire to escape, the emotion of fear, resistance of the fear of pain; but also the vigorous throwing of one’s self into action to ‘‘carry on.’’ The term fortitude covers the first aspect, while bravery is a synonym for martial courage. Sometimes it is a question of putting aside per- sonal comfort and safety, the immediate good; again, there is a plunging in where all seems uncertain, where the pres- ent is ominous, and the future no less so. One’s conclu- sion regarding the worth of self-sacrifice will enter into this ‘‘leap in the dark.’’ Something too will depend on one’s view of loyalty, devotion to duty other than through patriotism, love for people, fidelity to principle.1* Moral 10 Ibid., p. 485. 11 Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, p. 406. 12 Prolegomena to Ethics, 3d ed., p. 281. 13 Ibid., p. 299. 14 Wright distinguishes courage as physical economic, and moral, Self-Realization, p. 341, foll. 328 The Moral Life courage in the popular sense has varied meanings which change with our estimates of things worth doing. The martial courage which has been praised and sung for centuries is falling into disrepute with changed views con- cerning war. | Manliness.—To take standards of manliness into ac- count as clues to courage is to note that in a mythical period the ideal was centered in the hero, in a Hercules or Samson, representative of physical strength. Later, eame the knight of the Middle Ages, in America the hero who went out West to kill Indians; while more recently the hero was one who had the hardihood to venture forth into No Man’s Land at night, the sailor lashed in position aboard a destroyer in quest of German submarines, the aviator in the scout or bombing-plane, or the one who transported the mail at night in the transcontinental air- mail service. Manliness has also been more or less identi- fied with habits of smoking, drinking, and swearing, with the idea of ‘‘being a sport,’’? whatever that might mean, and possibly it meant that a man was supposed to sow his wild oats in youth. But the moral idealist has long dis- tinguished between use of brute strength as evidence of physical courage, and deeds of daring involving real de- votion to duty as in war-time, or wherever the danger was great. It takes no courage to follow the crowd, uncritically adopting external standards, degrading one’s self on the vain assumption that to be a true sport is to indulge in compromises. Courage enters when one refuses to adopt vice of any sort at any time, however strongly one may be urged. True manliness consists in faithfulness to a standard, in business or society, war or peace. It in- creases with victory over enticement in all its subtle forms, by triumph over temptation which the multitude would not regard as temptation ; with strength to do what is right, to speak and act according to conviction. In the world of trade it involves the square deal, in society adaptation to conventions without compromise in favor of pleasure- seekers who appeal to a person to yield ‘‘just this once.’’ Sometimes it means readiness to apologize, or to do any- The Virtues 329 thing difficult, where fidelity to an ideal means ‘‘standing up to a thing,’’ facing it with open eye. Gradually our standards have changed from the martial virtues to the gentler virtues, although we have often failed to note mod- ern equivalents for manliness. True manliness goes with courtesy, kindness; the true gentleman refuses to adopt two standards to govern his speech and conduct—one in the company of women, the other in the company of men. Hence the clue is onee more found in self-consistency. Endurance.—Courage is also known as perseverance or endurance, the power to accept and steadily to meet ad- verse conditions attendant upon difficult enterprises. En- durance implies meeting pain with calmness of self-con- trol or constancy of spirit. Persistence is courage in push- ing through routine, the less agreeable phases of life and work encountered on the way to suecess. It involves con- centration on the goal, pushing through intertias, adapta- tion to the natural rhythms of work, the alternation be- tween work and rest, the relation of pauses to the second wind. Where martial courage was once the ideal, endur- ance of the conditions of labor is often the modern ex- pression. The enterprise of the pioneer in meeting hard- ships, of the explorer in facing the difficulties of a voyage toward the Poles, is also a typical instance. In the endur- ance of pain woman may surpass man, as in submissive- ness, and patience. Independence.—Courage is frequently signalized as ‘‘moral’’? when independence of thought is implied, in the ease of liberality in religion, constancy in the pursuit of truth despite opposition, or any venture where higher self- assertion is called for. Fidelity to principle in an unpop- ular cause, superiority to adverse criticism when doing one’s duty, standing by an ideal when subject to condem- nation, composure under attack and persecution—all these are regarded as matters to be rejoiced over in behalf of true individualism. There are degrees of such allegiance in religious matters: when one espouses an ideal as appli- cable to all situations in life, then passes from loyalty to ereed or institution to loyalty to Christ, the Church In- 330 The Moral Infe visible, to purity of faith in God. To stand by conviction to the end, even to become known as a conscientious objec- tor, is to find that there is increasing need of courage, inner power ito resist all inducements and arguments. By moral courage in the more distinctive sense is meant cour- age which does not depend on physical strength or out- ward appeal. From such courage follow ardent consist- ency, exceptional veracity, and utter sincerity. Patience.—Patience is usually thought of as ability to meet hardship or bear pain without being overcome and without showing signs of annoyance. But patience is called for in meeting details and routine, in adjustment to people of varied types, particularly those who are stupid, inert, excitable, overbearing; those who have ‘‘moods’’ and are ‘‘difficult.’’ Patience in waiting is no less typical, also in meeting complaints, in adaptation to varied conditions of travel, in facing losses, meeting defeats, in disappoint- ments. Such patience grows with increase of serenity, with refinement and beauty of spirit. Patience in general has been called ‘‘feminine courage,’’+° as if seldom found in man, who, because of his more vigorous self-assertion in the world, is unwilling to endure adversities with quietude. Endurance in meeting pain is to be distinguished however from patience as a manifestation of wisdom and composure. Man does not necessarily rouse up in vigorous defense and attack. Some men practice the higher resistance. Stoic composure in meeting the vicissitudes of life is as much needed by man as by woman. The Greek Stoics contrib- uted the wise man’s ideal as one of the great classic types. Woman’s composure is described by Paulsen as ‘‘active patience . . . the elastic resistance of the soul . . . one of the most beautiful and valuable qualities of woman. It is harder for a man to get up again after he has met with misfortunes. A woman generally finds less difficulty in beginning anew; she soon begins to hope and fear again, to work and strive; she has a more flexible nature. Man’s strength is more unbending and brittle. A woman is also better able to battle with long-continued troubles and ob- 15 See, for example, Paulsen, op. cit., p. 499. The Virtues 331 stacles; when the man impatiently sinks beneath the load, she retains her equanimity and even her cheerfulness. For that reason woman is the born guardian of youth, the nurse of the sick, and the counsellor of old age.’’ 1° Wisdom.—In Plato’s sense of the term, wisdom accom- panies the attainment of philosophic knowledge, harmoni- ous and controlled activity, codrdination of the elements of the soul, as essential to uprightness or justice. Wis- dom in the individual corresponds to the governing class in the state. In the inner life it includes prudence, which is, we have seen, for the most part a virtue. It includes order, balance, a scale of worths or values. The morally efficient person sees the superiority of rationalism over ma- terialism, and adopts the most efficient means to the end. Wisdom is acquired by experience, involves volition as an organizing agency directed by thought (reason, enlighten- ment). Through wisdom one assigns both perplexing and spontaneous promptings to their proper places. Only through wisdom ean one realize the Greek maxim, ‘‘noth- ing to excess.’’ It is not a simple matter to decide what promptings are eligible, how to preserve spontaneity, yet have sufficient system. Through wisdom one gives heed more and more to ends to be attained, with less thought of origins. The modern term for wisdom is ‘‘conscientious- ness. ”’ Self-culture—The subject of self-culture has a whole literature of its own involving self-knowledge, develop- ment, expression, according to the point of view of the moral teacher. The basis is found in the principle that true good is inner excellence, as characterized by the Greeks; or in the kingdom ‘‘within,”’ the realities and veri- ties of the spirit, in Christianity. The esthetic element in religious terms is ‘‘the beauty of holiness,’’ in contrast with the superficial attainments of the esthete. In Greek terms, the rational (ideal) self is the self to be cultivated to the full; in Christian terms, the losing or denial of the lesser self in the greater involves different points of em- phasis. Self-culture also calls for preservation of spon- 16 Ibid., p. 499. 332 The Moral Lfe taneity, lest there be too much self-restraint. It is out of the question to understand and develop to the full one’s truer nature without realizing that it is social, that its expression is for the benefit of others. Culture in this larger sense has been called ‘‘the perfect development of the spiritual life,’’ 1” also the symmetrical development of our several capacities.1* There would then be no atrophy of the emotional nature, or incapacity for practical activity. True intellectual culture is impossible without culture of will and emotion. Culture ealls for knowledge of both the poetry and the prose of life, quest for the truth, the use of constructive or creative imagina- tion, assimilation of the values of training in the arts and sciences. The Greek ideal was that of the beautiful soul in the beautiful body. Physical culture is then both a means and an end as expressive of value.*® Intellectual culture is not to be separated as an end, as if the intellect were a thing apart, but is to be regarded as instrumental, as an aid to wise volition, and desirable expression of the emotions. Intellectual knowledge is a leading clue to vir- tue, but it is the life of the spirit as a whole which fosters culture. We distinguish ‘‘mere’’ knowledge or intellect from ‘‘wisdom’’ taught by experience. True individuality involves diversity in unity, is to be conserved in person- ality. Hence we guard against narrowness, over-speciali- zation, a too minute division of intellectual labor. The in- dividual may specialize in his culture, become efficient, practical enough to learn a good living; and yet acquire breadth of view, seek insight in varied directions, retain both partisanship and disinterestedness in different connec- tions. In developing the technique of culture, one may avoid over-precision as one would guard against intellectual pride, vanity, self-conceit. All self-culture is not necessarily moral. Intellectual and esthetic culture may often fall short. Ethics comes as the corrective of our educational systems, to show what 17 Paulsen, op. cit., p. 543. 18 Seth, op. cit., p. 249. 19 Cf. Seth, tbid., p. 250. The Virtues 333 true self-realization is. We once more note the intimate relationship of egoism and altruism. Self-culture in the deeper sense eventuates in altruism by avoiding the ex- cesses above indicated.”° The Christian View.—The Christian ideal of our own time is likely to appeal to us as coming not to destroy but to recognize and fulfill the Greek ideal of self-culture. The Greek ideal did not fail on its individualistic side. It ealled for the modern conception of the more social de- velopment of culture. Greek culture did not necessarily involve social service as we understand it. Stoic self- control did not necessarily mean recognition of the brother- hood of man. Yet the ethical ideals of Plato and Aristotle involved social application in the state in a way which we have hardly attained as yet, and the Stoic ideal actually called for true citizenship in the world. Return to the Greek ideal in contrast with the Christian is not likely to be understood (since the World War) as reaction against the gentler virtues of Christianity, disparaged by Nietzsche. We have seen what the culture of the Teutonic peoples leads to, in its exaltation of the ‘‘super-man.’’ We have also been shown the limitations of the type of moral theory which seeks support in the materialistic interpretation of evolution, as the struggle of those who organize brute- force to the limit. The judgment of many moral teachers, since the war, is that the gentler virtues have never been given fair and full trial. The influence of the martial standard has been too strong. It remains for the world to reconsider peace, the higher resistance, humility, gentle- ness, kindness, forgiveness, charity, love as tests of true self-culture seeking more complete social expression. The true super-man is not a god of physical foree. The indi- vidual virtues are essentials of the social virtues. Tem- perance, courage, wisdom as we have interpreted them above prepare the way for justice, service, brotherhood. 20 On the limitations of idealism, see Seth, op. cit., p. 256; Paulsen, op. cit., p. 565. 334 The Moral Infe REFERENCES Mackenzig, J. S., A Manual of Ethics, 4th ed., 1901, Bk. III, Chap. IV. MurrHeEaD, J. H., The Elements of Ethics, 1892, Bk. V, Chap. I. Dewey AND Turts, Ethics, 1906, Chap. XIX. RASHDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, 1907, Vol. I, Chap. VII. PauLsen, F., System of Ethics, tr. by. F. Thilly, 1899, Bk. ITI, I-III, V, VI. Wrieut, H. W., Self-realization, 1913, Part V. Seru, J., A Study of Ethical Principles, 6th ed., 1902, Part I, Chap. I. Gizycx1, G., An Introduction to the Study of Ethics, adapted by S. Coit, 1891, Chap. V. GREEN, T. H., Prolegomena to Ethics, 5th ed., 1906, Bk. III, Chap. V. Rocsrs, A. K., The Theory of Ethics, 1922, Chap. VIII. Sturt, H., Human Value, 1923, Chap. III. CHAPTER XXI THE SOCIAL VIRTUES Sources of Social Virtue.—Our study of virtue passes from the individual to the more explicitly social virtues, with recognition of the fact that man as a social being is prompted by sympathetic impulses and emotions, manifests pity, altruistic sentiments of various kinds side by side with promptings making for self-culture not explicitly due to an altruistic motive. The content of social virtue is found in the social life prevailing at the time, tested by standards on the part of moral leaders, or wrought into ethical systems, as in the systems of Plato and Aristotle. This content varies greatly as moral change goes on from age to age, and in various lands. Certain of the greater virtues persist as ideal types, although the lst of the car- dinal virtues is not everywhere the same. Thus for Con- fucius the list included humanity (universal sympathy), justice, conformity, rectitude, and sincerity. Justice.—In Plato’s ethical system justice occupies the highest place, as the culmination of the virtues—temper- ance, courage, and wisdom—which stand in need of a co- Ordinating principle. The individual virtues eall for bal- ance, order, self-control in the inner life of the person, whose talents enable him to do his best; these virtues an- ticipate the more social virtue, which is in essence virtue itself in human life as a whole. Virtue would indeed be self-regarding without justice as the enriching quality which discloses goodness in its true estate. The original prompting toward virtue is due to the quickening of love, as we have seen in another chapter, not alone for the Beautiful and the True, but for the Good; not for friendship or completeness through ideal interchange between individuals and small groups alone, 335 336 The Moral Infe but in the state as the realization of social virtue in its highest form. Whatever may be said concerning the de- tails and methods of Plato’s ideal state, his conception of justice as the crowning virtue is the productive principle of his idealism. This is not to be justice attained by sheer democracy or assumed equalities of capacity, character, and class-relationships; but justice according to wisdom, the rule of the best. Aristotle’s View.—Aristotle, starting with the nature of man as social, adds to the Platonic virtues of the indi- vidual such virtues as liberality, magnificence, highminded- ness. The test, as in courage and temperance, is the mean between extremes of couduct in each case. Gentleness, friendliness, and truthfulness also find places in his en- riched conception. Justice is the moral state which enables a man not only to intend but actually to do what is right or just; it is complete virtue in relation to one’s neighbors, the one virtue which unqualifiedly seeks the good of others. Justice, thus defined, is not then a part of virtue but the whole; and the discussion of the larger relations of justice includes matters pertaining to politics, law, and the state in its ethical completeness. Aristotle significantly remarks that justice is difficult of attainment, as it consists not in actions alone but in a moral state. Justice involves, for example, being faithful to the laws of the land, as well as in being fair in all one’s dealings: the law-abiding person is just, and laws pronounce upon all subjects for the good of the community. He who is unjust is not only unfair but is neglectful of equality, in- dulges in excess or defect. Justice then is proportionate, and just conduct is a mean between committing and suf- fering injustice: to commit injustice is to have too much, to suffer it is to have too little. In actual social groups in various lands the conceptions of justice vary according to what is conventional, but there is everywhere ‘‘one naturally perfect polity.”?1 Meanwhile it is, of course, impossible to pronounce upon human action with complete accuracy. 1 Ethics, Bk. V, Chap. X. The Social Virtues 337 The Scope of Justice.—If, with Plato, we hold that the realization of justice calls for the ideal state, we are con- cerned with the total situation as outlined in the Republic, with the program of Aristotle’s Hthics as a whole, and his inquiries into existing states and constitutions. It is first a question of the moral order of powers within the indi- vidual, their full development and greatest use; and of the complete carrying out of the same ethical principles in every sphere of social activity, in education, the arts, the quest for truth, in ideas pertaining to the gods, and in political life in its highest sense. Justice in this scheme of the virtues occupies the place corresponding to right- eousness in the Christian plan. It has been remarked that failure to include justice is the greatest omission of early Christianity, but this criti- cism is no doubt due to failure to consider in what respects **jJustice’’ and ‘‘righteousness’’ are equivalent terms. The original differences were partly matters of application. The Greek ideal in general looked forward to the estab- lishment of a bettered state on earth, while the Christian’s interest centered for ages about salvation and the kingdom of heaven. To consider justice as the ideal for an earthly state is to inquire into inequality, poverty, oppression, the reasons for slavery, and all other conditions which impede the realization of the ideal. The struggle for justice has become the more intense with increase of conditions unfav- orable to it. Hence, attention has been given more and more to social salvation here and now, rather than to in- dividual salvation in the future life. The social virtues ealled for on earth spring from the needs and wants of people under given conditions, favorable and unfavorable. Thus justice is in a way negative. Seth suggests that justice be regarded as social virtue on its negative side, with its corresponding duty of freedom and equality; while on its positive side the virtue is benevolence, and the implied duty fraternity or brotherliness. ‘‘When- ever I do not repress another personality, but allow it room to develop, I am just to [that personality] . . . whenever I help another in the fulfillment of his moral task, I 338 The Moral Infe exercise towards him the virtue of benevolence.’’? Jus- tice then as a relation between moral beings implies recognition of the alter ego in one’s fellowman, whom we should love as we do ourselves. Each man counts for one. In Kant’s terms, each man is an end in a king- dom of ends. Justice involves consideration of all the rights of man—life, freedom, property, the protection pro- vided by law—although ‘‘rights’’ taken collectively are not the same as justice as the organizing principle. Ethi- cally speaking, we are first of all concerned with justice as a cardinal virtue, not with such problems as a just law and its execution, a righteous government, or the admin- istration of justice among the nations. Even in this re- stricted sense it is difficult to define the meaning of justice without putting the term in relation to such mat- ters as equality, reciprocity, mutuality, service, fraternity ; since it is essentially a question of righteousness in fullness of expression. If we say that justice consists in granting to every man an autonomous control over his active powers, with the understanding that he shall not interfere with the same rights and privileges granted to other men,? it then be- comes a question of the divergent conceptions of rights and privileges. Hence the real problem of justice is that of reconciling the conflicting demands of individuals, and eventually the demands of states and nations, finally of the nations constituting the complete world-group. Kquality.—History shows that in the movement towards justice very much depends on the prevailing views of equality. Where the belief in natural inequality is a dogma, as in India, where the Brahmanie ethics is a mat- ter of social grades, castes or classes, the development of moral conceptions will be remote from genuine equality and brotherhood as regarded in other lands.* The result in India was a different moral code for each caste. In other nations, radical views concerning liberty, equality, 2 Op. cit., p. 273. 3 Rogers, op. cit., p. 170. 4 Myers, op. cit., p. 98. The Social Virtues 339 and fraternity have brought about great social upheavals in the endeavor after justice. Although the implied conception of equality is essential to the conception of justice prevailing, equality has proved to be an extremely difficult term to define. In general it might be agreed that each man is to count as one; since human life is sacred, and every man should enjoy certain privileges of existence, food, shelter, protection, the right to enjoy fruits of his toil. ‘‘To each according to his need, from each according to his ability’’ would seem then to be the underlying principle. Justice might accordingly be defined as the realization of moral obligation with respect to such equality. A man ought then to regard the good of any other man as of equal intrinsic value with the good of any one else. Equal distribution of the good seems to be what is called for; and social justice is the principle on which the good is to be distributed, that is, with impar- tial treatment of the individual, due regard for the indi- vidual’s needs and claims.® Our study of conceptions of the good has shown the difficulty of any quantitative standard, for example, in the effort to define the good as pleasure or happiness, to de- velop a calculus of pleasures, and maintain, with Bentham, that it is question of the greatest happiness of the great- est number: ‘‘everybody to count for one and nobody for more than one.’’ Insuperable difficulties have been en- countered by those who have proposed equal distribution of money or other material wealth, equal distribution of the rewards of labor on the basis of manual labor as the test, or any leveling scheme; for moral matters are ques- tions of quality, individuality, differences in type, kinds of service, diversity of needs. The ‘‘equality of oppor- tunity’’ demanded by those who have set up a socialistic standard, founded on a materialistic interpretation of his- tory, has turned out to be opportunity to enjoy the results of material success, with almost entire neglect of the inner life. 5 Cf. Rashdall, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 185. 340 The Moral Life Natural Equality —It was once readily assumed that ‘‘all men are born free and equal,’’ that is, substantially and potentially equal, physically and mentally. As matter of fact, men are born markedly unequal, in ancestry, parentage, hereditary equipment in all its phases; in en- vironmental conditions, and the opportunities which suc- cessive social situations afford; and all their life is spent in inequality. The point of view has so changed since social differences were inquired into that inequality has been called ‘‘nature’s inexorable law.’’ For neither in living nor in dying is there equality. ‘‘The infinite variety of nature’’ is, however, the truer phrase. The law of variation is not the same as a law of inequality. The idea of inequality was not suggested by nature but by study of human society. Psychology has been forcing home the fact of native inequalities by pointing to individual differ- ences in sense-types,’ and more recently by the application of intelligence tests to bring out the native differences in intelligence. The significant fact is that no two men are precisely equal in capacity or intelligence, and that the native equipment has so wide a range that mental differ- ences rather than supposed identities are the direct clues: differences in equipment mean differences in selecting oc- cupations all along the line, differences in efficiency, pro- duction, execution, choice of opportunities, selection of mates, response to environment, and adoption of types of belief. We are scarcely born equal in helplessness, inno- cence, or even in ignorance. Spiritual Equality.—It is said indeed that we are equal before God, who is ‘‘no respecter of persons,’’ whose mercy falls upon all without partiality. But this equality in the divine presence has been interpreted to mean ‘‘equality of consideration,’’ and the matters to be brought before the divine tribunal would differ with the individual. ‘‘Com- mon fellowship with Christ’’ is another way of stating the possibility of spiritual union in which all shall count as one. In this sense we are ideally ‘‘members one of an- 6 Cf. I. W. Howerth, The Scientific Monthly, Nov., 1924. 7See H. C. Warren, Elements of Human Psychology, 1922, p. 373. The Social Virtues 341 other,’’ and the ideal of ‘‘the beloved community’’ is the perfect type of brotherhood. By contrast we are reminded that while ‘‘equality before the law’’ is a widely-recognized principle, in practice it is difficult to secure equal con- sideration. Equality of political rights has not readily followed from the affirmation that we are equal before God and in the eyes of the law. Man does not find himself counting as one only, in the economic world. Even in communistic schemes designed to secure justice, the idea of equality has usually been approached from the point of view of earthly needs, not with reference to heaven. Capitalism as a materialistic scheme has been opposed by another materialistic scheme, not to secure justice in terms of equality but by the abolition of rights which are said to have been greedily grasped by promoters of the great industries of the world. The ery, ‘‘Liberty, Freedom, and Equality,’’ signified, ‘‘Down with oppression.’’ The quest has been for a corrective of natural or unmerited inequali- ties, not for realization of spiritual equality on earth. It has seemed impossible to win what has been ealled equality, that is, freedom for working classes, by equal distribution of goods which have different values for different persons at various times. Meanwhile there has been persistent ignoring of the fact that value is the moral consideration, hence a neglect of the one direction in which to look for hope. Inequality has often been socially beneficial, but this seems to be an unpleasant fact. The obvious thing, granted spiritual equality as the only sort of equality we may take for granted, would be to inquire into individual capacities and endeavor to attain perfect adjustment be- tween fitness and vocation on an ethical basis. Proportionality.— Willoughby has suggested that we should turn from the notion of equality to proportionality, or reward according to labor wrought. This brings us in sight of the ethical goal, namely, the ideal of moral worth in any occupation with reference not merely to external standards but to effort put forth, the changes brought about in character, the goals won through constancy of purpose in meeting the adverse conditions of labor. For work 342 The Moral Life differs in quality more than in quantity. It is a question of the type of work, the thought and effort required, the kind of skill, and of many other matters which have never been successfully measured by any standard of manual efficiency, time-schedules, or any scheme of work adopted by labor unions to regulate quality by quantity. Moral rewards are not assigned by any leveling scheme. Merit does not depend upon the number of hours or on any purely external test. The man who understands life’s sit- uation from a moral point of view expects consequences rather than rewards, that is, fruits of character, earned results, deserved reactions; he does not expect a reward for duty, as rewards are understood in the world, al- though he may be pleased to receive recognition. Thus a man would reasonably expect a material reward which bears relation to moral effort, a reward for his labors in proportion to his native ability, skill, the difficulties and intensities involved. There appears to be no common meas- ure applicable all along the line, and even the idea of pro- portionality would fall short at some point. But where obscurity or complexity meets us when we regard the problem of labor externally, clear light is discoverable within. If ‘‘every individual is under moral obligation to employ his talents to their full extent for the benefit of humanity,’’ as Willoughby maintains,’ the moral principle is the starting-point ; and we have every reason for antici- pating failure only, when material or quantitative stand- ards are applied as if they embraced all factors. Opportunity.—By ‘‘equality of opportunity’’ we might then rightfully mean freedom to know our type and de- velop into adequate self-expression. Opportunity is a moral consideration. Man approaches it equipped by heredity, good or bad; helped or hindered by environment ; defeated, encouraged, or benefited by education or train- ing according to his knowledge, the use made of native abilities, the effort put forth; and according to his powers of selection, influenced by his prevailing beliefs, for ex- ample, the acceptance of a materialistic interpretation of 8 W. W. Willoughby, Social Justice, 1900, p. 197. The Socal Virtues 343 history. The proposition, ‘‘to each according to his needs,’’ would therefore, cover a wide range. ‘‘T'o each according to his ability’? would involve other knowledge of native abilities than even the latest psychological methods of meas- urement have been able to disclose. A man may ‘‘need’’ a loaf of bread, or may need to learn the fact and mean- ing of inequality in the social order. It has been remarked that the most loudly voiced wants are not always the most urgent needs. The right to subsistence is granted to those who will work. In any situation we expect a man to ‘‘know his opportunity.’’ Man is neither primarily a unit among equal units, a manual laborer, an economic agent, or a soldier in the vocational world; he is a moral being, ealled upon to face the situation as it is, however many unsolved problems of social justice there may be. Equality and Justice——An initial difficulty in seeking knowledge of justice is due then to conflict between two standards, as stated by Rashdall: (1) the idea that every human being is of equal intrinsic value, and is therefore entitled to respect; and (2) the conviction that the good ought to be preferred to the bad, that is, that men ought to be rewarded according to their goodness or according to their work.® The first conception implies equality, the second just recompense. Bentham’s doctrine concerning the distribution of happiness exemplifies the first of these standards, and the objection is that an equal distribution of good diminishes the amount of good to be distributed. There is no concrete tangible thing, or even specific liberty of action or acquisition to which every individual has a right under all circumstances. No right of man is un- conditional save the right to consideration. If it were a question of equality of opportunity every state would need to supply the child with an equally good mother, and equal educational opportunities for the dunce and the genius. But if liberty of action actually implies inequality, if some inequality is a condition of well-being, the maxim should ® Op. cit., p. 223. 10 Ibtd., p. 227, 344 The Moral Life be: ‘‘Every man’s good to count as equal to the like good of every other man.’’ }4 It is then just recompense, not equality that people seek: to every man according to his merit, to every man accord- ing to his work. If this principle is interpreted from an economic point of view the problem arises; How shall the quality or amount be determined? But if the value of persons iS understood to be the test, then, indeed justice prescribes that ‘‘we should aim at bestowing equal good on equal capacity,’’ and some sacrifice of the individual to the whole will be prescribed by the just claims of the ma- jority.?? The Self-determining Individual—Leighton expresses the ideal end of justice, as it has been clarified through the historical process, as follows: ‘‘the progressive discovery and recognition of the right of every normal human being to be treated as a self-determining indiwidual, as a rational self, free and responsible. . . . Thus the dynamic principle in the evolution of the concept of justice is the emergence and universalization of the ideal of moral personality. The development of the idea of legal responsibility, as depend- ent upon choice or moral responsibility, and of equality before the law, and the doctrine of the inalienable rights of man, are all expressions of this central principle.’’ 1% The advance in recognizing individual liberty keeps step with the ideas of justice. Liberty is definable as ‘‘the sphere or scope of the exercise of individual freedom, of self-direction in society, in so far as such exercise is com- patible with the exercise of a like freedom on the part of all the other members of society.’’ One limitation has been removed after another. The modern industrial system still greatly hinders man in the exercise of economic self-de- termination or freedom, and man’s spiritual liberty is also greatly hampered by*economiec serfdom. The demand today for fuller opportunity indicates the trend toward a fuller measure of economic liberty to be gained in the 11 [bid., p. 240; see summary, p. 241. 12 Tbid., p. 268. 13 The Field of Philosophy, p. 508. The Social Virtues 345 future. A fair opportunity ‘‘to become and live as a full and free moral agent is the logical sequence of justice and liberty.’’?4 Opportunity, ethically speaking, does not then mean absolute economic equality, but so much opportunity as a man can use. We have yet to attain a constant re- lation between the economic status into which a man is born and his congenital abilities. ‘‘Social progress will depend chiefly on the degree in which the economic life of society is so ordered that the individual shall have full opportunity to develop and exercise his native abilities. To say that such is the ease now is to be false to the facts. Here is the heart of the social problem. Social institu- tions should be organized so as to remove, as far as pos- sible, hindrances to the development of personality due to economic handicaps, thus leaving free play to the natural and uncontrollable souree of individuality and inequality, the reproductwe process, which is a re-creative proc- ess.’’ 4 Good Fortune.—From the moral point of view a man can not fall back on the easy-going assumption that some are lucky, fortunate in birth, surroundings, and oppor- tunities; while others, born into adverse conditions, have no chance, as if this assumption covered the whole ground. For there is always the factor of consciousness, of the use made of opportunities, favorable or unfavorable, as well as the factor of intelligence or native capacity. The un- critical assumption is that some are ‘‘under the law,’’ what- ever that phrase may mean; while others are born ‘‘free.’’ The unfortunate in the slums are no more ‘‘under the law’’ than any one else. Injustice is a social condition, not a cosmic situation, not the fault of life, of the moral order of the universe. As a natural being every man is subject to causal sequences, and is so far a precise product of the environmental and ancestral conditions which went before. Unable to ‘‘begin with our grandparents,’’ we start, one and all, with nature and nurture.’ The ‘‘lucky”’ people of the world are not those who, born amidst luxury, 14 Ibid., p. 509. 15 Ibid., p. 510. 346 The Moral Life are ‘‘free’’ because others toil for them. Not exemption from work, but persistent work with a purpose carried through to attainment characterizes the fortunate. The true rationalist no longer seeks something for nothing, or more than he deserves and labors for. The degree of equality or inequality, justice or injustice depends to a large extent on the social group, the state of enlightenment and advancement, the period of history. Each man begins with the capital which his experience yields him, and Squanders or spends it according to the way he takes his opportunity. Each works through social conditions, fav- orable and unfavorable. Externally, there may appear to be little correspondence between what a man takes himself to be, wills to be, and thinks he ought to have; and what he finds himself possessing. But man’s true measure is moral, hence internal. He has rights in the inner life as a moral being which no external organization ever granted him. He ean be true to what he judges to be right, can accept responsibility, refrain from blaming others for what he did himself; he can look to himself, come to judgment, even though justice is not meted out in the law-courts of his community, and whether or not he is blamed. As a moral being he is less interested to have his rights vindi- eated through civil proceedings (distributive and corrective justice) than to manifest fairness, equity, impartiality, honesty in all his dealings; and this because for him jus- tice in the last analysis is uprightness or rectitude, virtue itself.1° Benevolence.—In English ethics, benevolence received Special recognition through emphasis on the moral senti- ments in contrast with reason as the guide to virtue. In- deed, disinterested benevolence was said to be the essence or basis of virtue. Hutcheson held that there is ‘‘a benevo- lent universal instinct.’? Butler contended however that benevolence is no more disinterested than other moral af- fections, although most of the virtues imply this love of the neighbor: conscience in any event is above all the 16 Cf. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, p. 414. The Social Virtues 347 moral sentiments, encouraging man to benevolence to the greatest extent. Adam Smith found the basis of all the altruistic sentiments in sympathy. Pity or compassion is the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, while sympathy enlivens joy and alleviates grief. Generosity, humanity, kindness, compassion, mutual friendship, and esteem belong together in Smith’s conception of the social and benevolent affections. The test is the sympathy of the impartial spectator. Through sympathy one adopts the principle or point of view of the agent, and moves in spirit with the affections which influence the agent’s con- duct, as well as beating time to the gratitude felt for per- sonal benefits. Thus, eventually ‘‘we endeavor to examine our own conduct as we imagine any fair and impartial spectator would examine it.’’ 1’ Some have maintained that the altruistic impulse was originally as blind as the egoistic. It is rational insight into the good of another which enables the doer of good works to avoid ‘‘unwise kindness,’’ to discern and love the neighbor’s true good instead of loving and trying to serve him in a general way. Brotherly sympathy enables one to appreciate another’s task. Sympathy in active expres- Sion, avoiding self-sacrifice on the assumption that it is a good because it is a sacrifice, should seek the other’s greater social good, a good which is not likely to conflict with the good of the agent. The use of the terms ‘‘disinterested,’’ ‘Impartial spectator,’’ on the part of moralists who em- phasize the sentiments, is a tacit admission that reason is the complementary principle. The impartial spectator might indeed be identified with the agent who, accepting Kant’s ethical principle, wills that the conduct which he judges acceptable shall become a universal law. So be- nevolence has been defined as ‘‘the promotion of the maxi- mum social good without reference to the question of its distribution.’’ 18 Plainly, benevolence is not to be identi- fied with either the pleasure of the agent or the happiness of the recipient. Pleasure may indeed be an element of 17 The Theory of the Moral Sentiments, Part III, Chap. I, 18 Rashdall, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 185. 348 The Moral Infe the anticipation, as happiness may result from doing for another what is not primarily done to promote his happi- ness. The ‘‘considerate benevolence’’ and ‘‘reasonable self-love’’ once put in antithesis have come to be regarded as aspects of a common good.!® It is significant that the use of the term benevolence, and to some extent the terms philanthropy and charity have given place to the word ‘“service,’’ as indicating a union of kindly motives with knowledge of social situations and wisdom in meeting them. Charity.—The Christian term charity may be taken as typical of terms which have come to represent various social virtues in the light of criticism. Charity in the larger sense includes (1) righteous judgment; (2) sym- pathy with another’s needs and point of view; (38) a prompting to service, aided by the best available knowledge or wisdom; (4) love, as the term was later used in place of charity, as the greatest gift. The whole field of Chris- tian activity is included, from the stage of the soliciting monk, dependent on funds and food secured by begging from door to door, to the high degree of organization of today, when one is expected to contribute to numerous philanthropies or community chest funds. Charity long ago ceased then to be almsgiving in general or mere liberality in relieving the wants of others, but has come to be regarded in the light of motive and intention, according to one’s view of the social order and one’s moral ideal. This virtue may now be said to rest more in the attitude or spirit than to depend on the deed. We expect our fellowmen to take this attitude toward us in any situ- ation where the frailties of human nature enter in. We realize that people expect righteous judgment of us. Char- ity is an ?deal calling for increased effort to know one another to the foundation and understand the conditions under which we live; the spirit which quickens the best in others, which believes the best even when appearances are conflicting. By allegiance to this standard emotions of the sympa- 19 Green, op. cit., p. 248. The Social Virtues 349 thetic type may be lifted from the level of impulse to the plane of deeds done for the real or lasting benefit of others. By charity we mean unselfishness and benevolence fostered or modified by wisdom. The intellectual element involves considerateness, the emotional includes what we call ‘‘the heart,’’ while the will is expressed in the endeavor ‘‘to do something about it,’? not to pass by on the other side. There is widespread agreement, so far as the attitude or spirit is concerned; differences come in a social group or institution adopting various methods of classification and investigation from other departments. In practice, charity ealls for that union of ‘‘faith’’ with ‘‘works’’ which keeps the human spirit alive amidst numberless tendencies toward erystallization. Charity in the sense of purity of heart may well yield the dynamic which so quickens the per- sonality that the one who serves never becomes a mere ‘fagent’’ of the charities, never forgets the higher service which may accompany or crown the material deed. In- deed, charity might be defined as purity of heart or love in wise activity. The Good Life.—Charity brings love into expression, not alone by wishing well to the neighbor, but by making faith conerete so that a mutual good is established. It has been well said that the quality of our faith is known from our charity, that there is ‘‘a life of charity’’ in which the objects of faith and love become one. In such conduct lesser motives, such as pity, sympathy, mercy are transfigured, and need not be specified. By common consent, charity as an attitude atones for many a failing in lesser matters. When we know a man’s heart as shown in his deeds of mercy, we believe that we have begun to know him in very truth. And so in our day to “‘live the good life’’ has be- come a test of genuineness where all signs had become doubtful so far as allegiance to creed and institution were eoncerned. The good life in this sense is the moral life, and it is compatible with various forms of faith; it indi- cates what a man really loves and is, in contrast with what he is reputed to be. The world has tried other tests of what a man is said truly to be: it (1) has put knowledge 350 The Moral Life first; (2) emphasized the bestowing of all one’s goods to feed the poor; (3) sought faith apart from works, salva- tion as an end in itself. In contrast, the only test which does not fall short is: wisdom quickened by love (charity). Prompted by charity, we never celebrate the fall of our adversary, but give him the benefit of the doubt; we attain the affirmative attitude in full, on the ground that ‘‘to know all is to forgive all.’’ Hence it has been said that when there is love, there is a way. Love in this enlightened sense might indeed be said to be virtue itself: righteous judgment in thought and attitude, and wisdom in its mani- festation. Hence it might also be said that man does not really love when ‘‘self’’ is his incentive: he exists, he strug- gles, trying to control events and things. What passes for love in the world is passion, selfishness, organized self- interest, fondness for power, desire to rule. These motives make for separateness, but love makes for conjunction, manifests itself so that it not only may bring love in re- turn but inspire love as the universal motive. Summary.—The social virtues imply the whole field of the individual’s life in relation to the social order in which he lives. The individual virtues prepare him, progressively, to find his place among the groups with which he is brought in contact, as he discovers his talents, is enlightened by social contacts, and helped to find the sphere in which he can become most fully productive. The ideal in view from a very early period is justice, and jus- tice is essentially social. But, as justice implies social virtue itself in all its fullness, what appeared to be simple proves highly complex; and problems relating to equality, freedom, fraternity, and opportunity are brought forward for solution. Each of these matters pertains to the eco- nomic situation, as surely as to the moral, and for many the question of economic adjustment is the central problem. Ethically speaking, the problem of justice centers about the discovery, enlightenment, and gradual freeing of the self-determining individual, who is in process of finding himself amidst conditions more or less adverse. There would be no social problem if every man enjoyed oppor- The Social Virtues . 351 tunities essential to his complete self-expression as an or- ganic member of society. But imequalities of the social situation afford opportunity for pity, sympathy, benevo- lence, charity, service, love; hence for brotherhood, moral cooperation in realizing the ideals of the social order. The social virtues are not to be understood apart from either the environmental conditions in which they are progres- sively manifested or the inner conditions amidst which the individual gradually comes to know and to realize his true selfhood. Accordingly, we have still to consider other prin- eiples which aid us in the study of the social virtues. REFERENCES DEWEY AND TuFTs, Ethics, p. 414, foll.; Chap. XX. MackeNnzI£, J. S., Manual of Ethics, Bk. III, Chap. II; An Introduction to Social Philosophy, 1890. MuirHEAD, J. H., Hlements of Ethics, p. 182. SetH, J., Hthical Principles, Part II, Chap. II. Everett, W. G., Moral Values, p. 299. RASHDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol. I, Chap. VIII. Exiuiwoop, C. A., Christianity and Social Service, 1923, Chaps. EVV. RAUSCHENBUSCH, W., Christianizing the Social Order, 1912, Part II, Chap. II. CHAPTER XXII THE SPHERE OF ALTRUISM Giving.—It is often assumed that a prevailing motive in the world is the only defensible motive, namely, to be on the alert to secure possessions, money, position, influ- ence. Hence it is said that a man should put his own interests first, taking care not to be cheated, making sure that he will have a return for everything done. Then, if opportunity offers by the way, or later in life, one may indulge in philanthropy. That is to say, egoism is to be the real motive, whatever the plea for altruism, as estab- lished by ethical theory or sustained by religious convic- tion; and the secondary values are to be, for practical pur- poses, primary. To acquire, to store up, and to be pre- pared to defend one’s possessions, seems indeed to be the first law of social life. Meanwhile, the ideal that we should seek first to give, not because we have received, or measure for measure, but out of the treasure of the heart, with giving as the highest motive, in love toward God and the neighbor—this ideal has never been fully believed by great numbers of people. To give something to every man who asks, even when in giv- ing we practice so-called non-resistance, as if tempting a man to take advantage of us, would seem to be the height of folly. When we need more, the customary way is to de- mand or take more. Even when we bestow gifts, we are apt to qualify by tacit reference to a theory of compensa- tion. Since self-interest appears to be the prevalent motive, since no one seems to be prompted by love toward the neighbor, there appears to be no value even in an attempt to give rather than to get. The Mechanisms of Giving.—Yet morally speaking, as we have seen, individual needs are inseparable from social 352 The Sphere of Altruism 353 needs; hence when one needs more, one might at least try the experiment of giving more. In giving there is power, large-mindedness. Giving rather than self-sacrifice is the positive idea to put over against self-interest. It is commonly admitted that ‘‘true self-sacrifice never knows itself to be sacrifice.’? I should not then make self-sacri- fice my conscious aim, but I may rightfully make devotion to the good of others by means of the best I can give my purpose in life. What one is bidden to do, instead of adopting passive resistance as a rule of life, is to give that which is of greater worth, namely, peace, forgiveness, love, even though one is tempted to return an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Our great difficulty has been that giving is not organized as getting is. It lacks the mechanisms which are employed with such skill in the art of getting, keeping, insuring, guarding, and fighting for. Giving on a greater scale will come, not alone through general appeals to people to live at peace; but by understanding the psy- chology of giving. For it is already admitted that a man’s best gifts are what he gives of or from himself. The psycho-physical organism is already a mechanism for giving. Gifts—(1) The truest gift is made ‘‘out of the abun- dance of the heart,’’ because I am prompted to contribute from my store of possessions, such as truth, knowledge essential to the art of living, music, instruction, work for the welfare of the community. Such a gift may be ealled forth from me because I realize the needs of people whom I know. Or I may be prompted to give in general, with the hope that what I thus give will reach those who can best profit by it. There is likely to be affinity between giver and recipients, when I give most to individuals who most need the wisdom which life has taught me. When I give In such wise, I also receive. Giving indeed in a way supersedes itself and involves the values of altruism in its highest forms.* 1Cf. G. H. Palmer, Altruism, Its Nature and Varieties, 1919, p. 86, 354 The Moral Life (2) But giving is also by explicit adaptation to the as- sured needs of others who, by being benefited, will benefit the community. Thus I may give articles of my own pos- session, pleasures which I divert from myself to another, and opportunities for growth which I bestow even at my own cost.’ It is a question of gradually acquired foresight, knowledge of the neediest cases, the moral claims of those most directly related to or dependent on me; and of the limitations of gifts in so far as they are exceptional, ir- rational, and condescending.* Altruistic giving, separated from personal gain and established as an independent prin- ciple for the guidance of our conduct, is not possible. A strong egoistic sense is rightfully a condition of altruistic conduct. Higher than the intrinsic worth of the gift is the expression it makes of the giver’s will, his attitude, or ‘‘heart.’’? So, once more, we turn from the lesser activity to the greater and find that love is the completest ground of giving and receiving. ‘‘Where love is there is no su- perior or inferior, no giver or receiver. The two make up a conjunct self with mutual gain.’’> The Ideal Neighbor.—It is commonly agreed that the ideal neighbor is the one who is kind, hospitable, outgoing in attitude, speech and manners; one who practices the Golden Rule. He is the Good Samaritan, the one who actually does the deed which others merely contemplate or talk about. Again, the ideal neighbor is the one who is considerate, unprejudiced, dispassionate; the one to whom we go for sympathy, advice, help in times of sick- ness, conference concerning the good of the community. You may also go to him with adverse eriticism, to free your system. The true neighbor is human, and regards you as human, whatever your beliefs, social situation, vo- cation, or religious creed. You may go to him to give out of your abundance, without thought of reward. Neighbor- liness is a real test of character, unselfishness, faith, free- dom, wisdom, love. 2 Op. cit., p. 40. 3 Ibid., p. 41. 4 Ibid., p. 57, foll. 5 Ibid., p. 67. The Sphere of Altruism 355 It is the universal element in you which enables you to be a true neighbor. So, too, you see the universal element in your neighbor, loving with all lovers, loving all children, succoring all suffering. You love your neighbor because of the manifestation of God in him, you are prompted to give because of the God in you. Hence it has been said that ‘‘God is the neighbor,’’ God made concrete, incar- nated. There is then a divine kinship, the ideal neighbor is the true friend; ideal neighborliness is brotherhood. To help another through wise charity we ask: What is the divine good in him? What is the best or greater good needed by him? This is his spiritual benefit. It may mean bringing him to himself. A heart-to-heart talk may disclose this greatest need. The neighbor may eall out from you the guidance he needs. Sometimes then those to whom we are drawn by an inner affinity are much closer to us than those whom we try to find by aid of a social organization. Service.—The social virtues imply in brief what we call in our day ‘‘service.’? The individual virtues are presup- posed, also a degree of special training so that one may fit into some organized activity and give one’s best. The leader in social service work may indeed be better equipped in economics, the principles and methods of the charities, than in psychology, ethics, and insight into the moral life. Much will depend on the emphasis, whether on external social conditions to be ameliorated, or on the inner life needing bettered expression through improved environ- mental conditions. Ethically speaking, the previous chap- ters have prepared us to see that the starting-point is the inter-dependence of members of society as participants in groups, giving and receiving, mutually contributory, with social self-realization as the ideal. The individuals served and being served are of varied capacities, unequal in manifold respects, relatively independent, self-determin- ing, yet also no less mutually dependent. The term ‘‘mu- tualism’’ is frequently used in this connection: ‘‘an economy of mutual service and mutual sacrifice on the part of all its members.’’® The ideal of moral association with 6 Cf, C. A. Ellwood, Christianity and Social Service, p. 88. 356 The Moral Life one another would then be ‘‘equality of service rendered.”’ Hence Ellwood defines social justice as ‘‘such a balance and equality in the services and sacrifices which the mem- bers of a group render to one another in order to live to- gether that all are benefited either in proportion to the service they render, or at least in proportion to their ability to receive.’?* This implies adjustment between the contributive and the possessive attitudes, such that giving shall take precedence over getting. The illusions of the ‘‘lust of possession’? must be understood at last. Ellwood regards ‘‘the economy of self-interest’’ or the possessive pattern as a pagan survival, while the contribut- ing attitude involves not only giving but creating. This accords with our conclusion that in the moral ideal there is always a place for the creative element. It finds an adequate place also for love defined as ‘‘a valuing of, and a devotion to, persons rather than things’’; or as ‘“‘a social attitude of unselfish, passionate devotion to the wel- fare of others.’’® Reciprocity.—The essence of justice has sometimes been regarded as reciprocity, understood to mean equable return. Confucius made this idea central in his formula- tion of the Golden Rule: ‘‘What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.’’ That is, each individual is to do his proper part in the relationships of daily life. Again, reciprocity has been taken to mean recompensing others for what they have done for you, with the paying of all one’s social debts. More profoundly, reciprocity is said to imply a law of compensation in human relation- ships in their entirety, a law of action and reaction such that deeds done signify the rebound of experience for ex- perience. The moral order is then regarded as a system of inter-related deeds which, by accumulation, yield results after their kind. ‘‘As aman soweth, so shall he also reap,’’ In the case of Buddhism, the accumulated deeds determine one’s future till these deeds have achieved their fruition and have given place to yet other deeds: the working out of one’s past deeds so that there shall be recompense is the 7 Op. cit., p. 89. 8 [bid., pp. 116, 117. The Sphere of Altruism 357 great reason for reincarnation. Justice as thus regarded would be a kind of mechanical adjustment in precise cor- respondence to deeds done. Compensation.—But this idea of eventual readjustment according to one’s character or deeds has also been held by peoples who do not believe in the necessity of re-birth. Thus Emerson refers to a justice which ‘‘executes itself,’’ each man receiving what he deserves by a principle which nothing can defeat.° The objection to this view as some- times understood is that it substitutes an easily assumed optimism for the needed investigation of social conditions. In fact, it ignores the problem of injustice, denies that injustice actually exists. Reciprocity would involve something more than a recom- pense of like reactions for like deeds, or their equivalent in terms of mechanical compensation. There is a higher motive than to act toward my neighbor as I would have him act in return. If I give, I am likely to receive, but not by a principle of mechanical adjustment. There is indeed what Emerson calls a law of compensation, and a man does indeed reap if he sows; but in the full context of Emer- son’s moral idealism this principle means far more than mechanical reciprocity.2° What Emerson teaches is that ‘*You can not do wrong without suffering wrong. ... Men suffer all their life long, under the foolish superstition that they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time.’’ That is to say, ‘‘we are begirt by laws which execute themselves,’’ hence ‘‘none of us can,wrong the universe.’? The conclusion which follows from this teaching is adaptation to the forces of the moral order, with recognition of the truth that our own conduct is decisive; that nothing is to be won with- out effort; but that the moral universe is to be depended on to reward man according to his efforts. ‘‘Life invests itself with inevitable conditions which the unwise seek to dodge.”’ 9 Essays, First Series. 10 See ‘‘ Spiritual Laws,’’ ‘‘Self-reliance,’’ ‘‘The Over-soul.”’ 358 The Moral Infe Participation.—It is a question then of putting the truth in the principle of compensation in its proper set- ting, without dwelling too emphatically on the mechanical law of cause and effect. Our study of ethical values has shown us that the principle of action and reaction as a descriptive law is not sufficient to account for the moral order of experiences. If it were, I might indeed serenely fold my hands and wait for justice to execute itself, and for all wrongs to right themselves. The moral principle is everywhere founded in the concrete deeds of daily life. I am called upon to meet the needs of people precisely as they are now conditioned. I ought, of course, to help them to see the compensations which life yields, sooner or later. But if I am a Good Samaritan, I do not impas- sively stand apart in sublime trust that the compensations will be great. I take a hand and do my part as if the present deed were the one great act to be done. For there is another principle to be put with this idea of reciprocity, namely, the truth that while interiorly we are open to a universal Life which seeks to bestow what is right upon all by a law of compensation, exteriorly we are conditioned by inequalities and maladjustments (it is through these that we have our experience). In other words, while my inner life may indeed correspond point by point with a universal compensating principle, my outer life is more or less out of correspondence. Hence, as innocent, I may suffer with the guilty, as zealous for truth, I may suffer from the mal-treatment accorded truth-lovers in this world. Mutuality—The term mutuality may be said to fulfill the higher meanings of reciprocity. Mutuality is defined by Palmer as ‘‘the recognition of another and myself as inseparable elements of one another, each being essential ‘to the welfare of each. . . . Even Jesus did not seek simply to give, but to induce in those to whom he gave a similar disposition. Rightly is it counted higher than simple giv- ing, including, as it does, all which that contains and more.’’*+_ In partnership of the higher sort, for example, common interest supersedes private control. So, too, this 11 Op. cit., p. 77. The Sphere of Altruism 359 principle is realized in clubs and other organizations where the members also recognize themselves as members one of another. Commerce too may have this deep ethical ground, with widespread ethical opportunities, cooperation being as essential to it as competition.12 By mutuality in its highest relations is to be understood, love, as ‘‘familiar yet mysterious,’’ potent in developing the best that is in us; with both egoism and altruism given ample room, that is, the wish to be loved and the love which brings return.’® Love in the sense of mutuality then is definable as ‘‘the joint service of a common life.’’ Love as a Motive—We have already noted that the highest moral life follows from love rather than from a sense of duty. Professor Palmer calls emphatic attention to this fact by saying that love has ‘‘a strange aversion to duty. Any suspicion that we are expected to love a certain person alienates us from him. We can not force ourselves to love even when we see it to be desirable; nor can we expel love when we find it unreturned or unworthy. Love insists on freedom, a certain absence of constraint, either from a person, from circumstance, from collaterai ad- vantages, or even from our own volition. Like giving, it recognizes no claim. . . . It can not be bought or sold. But though so little submissive to obligation, it is highly sensitive to suggestion and clamorous appeal. Indeed, it soon perishes when fresh suggestion is withheld. Indirectly, therefore, and accepting time for an ally, we can control lOve mare Love and, Justice.—According to this view of the moral life, only when ‘‘the conjunct self’’ has taken the place of the separate self is altruism completely realized. Yet there is a qualification even here. For love is selective. It chooses one and leaves another, is exercised only toward definite persons, a little group, preferably two persons, and the smaller the group the warmer the love; while altruism is supposed to permeate life as a whole. We are 12 Ibid., p. 87. 13 Ibid., p. 92. 14 Ibid., p. 101. 360 The Moral Life led by this consideration to the idea of justice, once more. Ethically speaking, justice is the highest principle to be considered, that is, justice as ‘‘noble public love.’’ Such love is made universal, is freed from selection, and from the restrictions of knowledge, circumstance, and tempera- ment on which choice is based. Justice seeks to benefit all alike, disinterestedly. Hence, the main work of justice is its ‘‘equal distribution of advantage and its insistence that each individual shall be faithful to what he undertakes for the benefit of all.’’ + To accept this view as complete, however, is to be mind- ful of the truth frequently insisted on in the foregoing, namely, that no general principle is adequate by itself. Virtue for justice’s sake would be as general as duty for duty’s sake. In the last analysis it is love which makes justice complete, despite the qualifications which enter into the ethical conception of love. It is love for this particular form of social service in which one is engaging, this great work to be done, these persons with whom one is associated which makes justice definite and effective. The Concrete Universal._The road is from the particu- lar to the universal. The mother’s love for her own babe, as the selective expression of her motherhood, brings love for other babes. All mankind ‘‘loves a lover’’ because all mankind begins by loving a person through whom one comes to love love. The lover may indeed love an ideal at first, rather than a particular person, and may be disap- pointed to find that the ideal is not identified with the person. But love yields its intuition of what love in es- sence is by being selective before it generalizes. We begin even in youth to have ideals of love, through identification of love with parent, sister, brother, friend. If we ever in later life become for the most part dispassionate, serv- ing any one in need, as in war-time, the greater love which thus prompts us to a life of constant devotion to the good of others is quickened in us by the power of example, or because we have first been deeply touched by one or two individuals. And so in general we come to see that ethical “5 Ibid., p. 123. The Sphere of Altruism 363 writer, versatile and joyous. If there is any tendency to excessive merry-making in the group, this may be offset by the stablizing presence of those who are more quiet; tendencies to be too practical are countered by idealistic sentiments; the less communicative may be helped into expression by those who excel in conversation; and what actuates the group in arriving at mutual decisions will usually be an articulation of what the Quakers call ‘‘the spirit of the meeting.’? No member may manage or even seek to manage any other too much. Ethical questions may never be mentioned, or even thought of, until it be- comes a question of choosing a vocation or helping some one in the group wisely to choose a partner in marriage. Then the mutuality which has grown up spontaneously, amidst the greatest freedom, not at all self-conscious, may be quickened into an ideal instance of the type of goodness for which we have been pleading. In such mutuality there is give-and-take without thought of return, with no explicit reference to reciprocity as a principle; hence there may be no awareness of obligation save so far as loyalty is concerned, the sincerity and fidel- ity to a high standard without which there can be no inti- mate friendship. Yet, to the ethical onlooker, eager to find ideal standards exemplified, here is an embodiment of those principles which are most essential to peace and good-will in the world. Granted such groups, brought together through mutual interests, and becoming aware of the deep meaning of their relationships, this mutuality might conceivably be extended throughout the world. The Implications of Friendship.—Ever since groups of men, interested in knowledge and virtue, gathered about Socrates in Athens, ethical philosophers have turned to friendship in actual life as yielding unsurpassed expression of the moral ideal; and both Plato and Aristotle assigned a very important place to friendship. Even the Christian term ‘‘brotherhood’’ is likely to be inferior, unless the principle on which friendship at its best comes about, is first made explicit; for it is said to be a duty to regard all men as brothers, while friendship springs from real 364 The Moral Infe affinity. The serious problems of life enter into the ac- count in so far as we permit ourselves in thought, attitude, and conduct to drop down from the level of friendship— standing apart in criticism and condemnation, taking ad- vantage of one another, scheming, deceiving, fighting. To ‘‘do things together,’’ to pursue the Beautiful, the True, and the Good in friendly interchange, as people young and old do in college, is indeed to realize an ideal which by implication is capable of development without limit, scarcely needing the formalities by which, later in life, we hedge ourselves about, becoming remote from one another, partisans where we might have been co-workers, sectarians where we should have been Christians. The gain is very great when such a social relationship, implicitly ethical, becomes explicitly so; for life is apt to exceed theory, and to come nearer an exemplification of the perfect ideal. Granted the realization of what a friend- ship group implies, there may then be an extension of the kind of deeds which it yields, just as groups of boy scouts and girl scouts, acquiring ideal principles among the faith- ful, begin to extend these by doing at least one act of kind- ‘ness each day. Only gradually does it dawn upon us that here and there in such groups there is an actual realiza- tion of what the ideal kingdom is meant to be in the great- est way. Where everybody helps and everybody works, there is true codperation, and the leader of such a group (at once young and old) is the one whose privilege it is to make explicit the principles by which all are actuated as principles of very great value in the world at large. The same is true of friendships between older and younger persons beginning in the relationship of teacher and student, pastor and especially interested listener, physician and patient, official and co-worker, where such motives as gratitude and mutuality of interests enter in. So, too, co-workers in public service may find common- place relationships deepening into those that are ideal, and involving the question how far affection shall be allowed to take the lead, what ought to be done for the invalid father or the widowed mother, how one shall find one’s The Sphere of Altruism 365 proper sphere of work in the world yet meet one’s greater obligations. Fundamental Relationships.—Our conclusion is that no principle by itself is absolute, but that each consideration —ideals of equality in the moral sense of the term, the principle of reciprocity, of compensation, mutuality, ser- vice, charity, justice, love—affords a clue to the funda- mental relationship of principles in the moral order. Love is the greatest motive which sends human beings forth into moral activity. It is love which energizes the will, and each of us tends to develop a prevailing love. But ethical love finds place among both principles and persons, and can no more be singled out in terms of mere duty than one can make happiness the object of all endeavor. Love creates the relationships which may then receive their best development through the guidance of wisdom, and the ideals of brotherhood or justice. Love is greater than vir- tue, gives of the best. Justice is intelligible as the highest social virtue, the goal which love strives for in the social order. Love of our fellowmen prompts us to service, but it is by rational inquiry that we become informed con- cerning those ends which must be realized if there shall be righteous consideration of all. For some of us then all tests resolve themselves into one: self-consistency. What pertains to my moral integ- rity is right. For I am then faithful alike to the ideal I am seeking to realize and to the self in its wholeness by which my being is linked with my fellowmen and with the divine purpose. ‘‘To thine own self be true,’’ is Shakespeare’s advice, put into the mouth of Polonius, ‘‘it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.’’ It is not in the last analysis a question of what is done, as I join in companionship with my fellowmen, but of my endeavor to be the same self in process of complete realization wherever I am placed. What to some would be harmless might be for me a vice, and what I do with ease in my best work in the world others would find difficult. Each finds his own road to constancy, although each of us in being constant attains the same universal principle. 366 The Moral Life. REFERENCES PatmER, G. H., Altruism, Its Nature and Varieties, 1919. RAUSCHENBUSCH, W., Christianity and the Social Crisis, 1907; Christianizing the Social Order, 1912, Part II. Preasopy, F. G., Jesus Christ and the Social Question, 1900. Cootry, C. H., Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902; Social Organization, 1909. Watuas, G., The Great Society, 1914. Mecxkuin, J. M., Introduction to Social Ethics, Chap. XIV. Dewey AND Turts, Ethies, Chap. XX VI. Emerson, R. W., Essays, “Compensation,” “Self-Reliance,” “Spiritual Laws,” “The Over-soul.” CHAPTER XXIII TESTS OF VIRTUE The Unity of Virtue —Our studies have disclosed sev- eral underlying conceptions which belong together in clos- est relation. As moral obligation imples a standard of goodness which enables us to test the values of various theories of the good, so duty as a central principle in- volves relationships between the several duties. Con- science as the moral constant of human history underlies manifold judgments in the name of goodness or duty. Virtue as a general principle is another term for the good, the right, or duty; while the virtues are modes of realizing goodness by means of the several duties. Con- science is the standard of judgment throughout. The unity of virtue follows from the unity of the good, duty, and conscience. In studying the individual and social virtues we have been making this unity explicit. Comparison of Systems.—The unity of the virtues within a given group, such as the cardinal virtues of Plato’s scheme, the larger classification of Aristotle’s sys- tem, or in Christian ethics of the primitive type, is more evident than when unity is sought by comparison of the groups of virtues found in the leading moral systems of the world. War was denounced in China by a great moral leader, Mencius (371-288 B.c.) with such emphasis as to foster the gentler virtues, while in Rome the martial virtues were predominant. Oriental countries in general are contrasted with Occidental because of the prevalence of the virtues pertaining to peace. Yet fiercely warlike tribes have come out of the East to invade the West. There are striking points of resemblance between the ethical systems of ancient China and ancient Greece, notably in the adoption of ‘‘nature’s way’’ understood as ‘‘Tao’’ 367 368 The Moral Life in China, and as ‘‘the nature of things’’ to be followed in the life of reason, by the Stoies. Emphasis in each case belongs on serenity, inner quiet, constancy, and the wise man’s ideal. Resemblances and identities have fre- quently been traced between the monastic life, with the virtnes which it involves, in the case of Buddhism and the life of virtue of medieval Christianity. With resem- blances or identities are always found differences, when actual lists of virtues are compared. The cardinal virtues of Plato, supplemented by liberality, magnificence, high- mindedness, ambition, and allied virtues, in the Aristotelian system, call for a different mode of life from that of the early Christian ideal of obedience, patience, benevolence, purity, humility, and alienation from the flesh and the world. The individual virtues are displaced for the most part in an ethical system like that of Hobbes, with its em- phasis on justice, equity, requital of benefits, moderate for- giveness, and the avoidance of pride and arrogance; while in other English ethical systems, reacting against the ego- ism of Hobbes’ doctrine, benevolence occupies the central position. Much depends on the place assigned either to sentiment or to reason as the test of virtue. Justice, verac- ity, and regard to common good might, with Butler, seem — to be the virtues everywhere prevailing; while Leslie Ste- phen would expect mercy, truth, and temperance. The differences in groups of virtues are what we would - rationally anticipate, when we note that it is the social life of a nation which gives content to virtue, as in ancient China, with its reverence for the past as perfect, its wor- ship of ancestors, and the conviction that filial virtue, rev- erence for superiors, and conformity to ancient custom are — central in the moral life; in contrast with India, with its easte-system, its belief in re-birth, and the virtues which follow from acceptance of spiritual pantheism and the life of contemplation. Identical lists of virtues are not to be expected, although we look for universal condemnation of cruelty, falsity, intemperance; and expect to find either 1See Fullerton’s discussion of the content of virtue, Handbook of Ethical Theory, Chap. I. Tests of Virtue 369 mercy or benevolence, sympathy or compassion, and justice or righteousness. Wherever the individual virtues are re- garded as important, we would look for temperance, bal- ance, the ‘‘just mean’’ or ‘‘golden mean.’’ The unity of virtue means diversity in unity, and a wide range of values, from the martial to the gentler virtues, from those per- taining to worldly success to those anticipating heaven as the abode of the blessed. If a test of this unity can be dis- covered, by reference, for example, to Myers’ History as Past Ethics, it is to be found in the central point of empha- sis in the given moral ideal, as justice becomes central for Plato or righteousness for Christianity. Contrasted Types.—The test, too, may be found in the type of character embodied in this ideal, for instance, (1) the balanced type of the ancient Grecks, (2) the other- worldly or self-denying type of the early Christians, (3) the ideal of Stoic self-control. The inner life then is a test, especially in its emphasis on freedom from outward circum- stance, as opposed to the Utilitarian type of virtue. Myers notes the fact that the fusion of races in Europe has re- sulted in a very composite type of conscience, with Greek, Roman, Hebraic, Celtic, Gothic, and Slavonie elements.’ ‘‘This heterogeneous conscience, so different, for instance, from the comparatively homogeneous conscience of ancient Egypt and of China, has been the most important factor in the life and civilization of the European people. It is largely because Europe has been constantly getting a new conscience that its history has been so disturbed and so progressive, just as it is because China has had the same Confucian conscience for two thousand years and more, that her history has been so uneventful and unchanging.’’ If then there appears to be no common list of virtues as the guide, what is indeed common is the zeal with which the prevalent type is adhered to, whatever its content. Hence Myers generalizes by saying: ‘‘Do the thing thou seest to be good; realize thy ideal. In the words of Sa- batier, ‘The essential thing in the world is not to serve this ideal or that, but with all one’s soul to serve the ideal 2 Op. cit., p. 7. 370 The Moral Life which one has chosen.’ Such loyalty to one’s ideal is moral goodness. ‘This imperative of conscience that one be true to the best one knows is the only thing absolute and ecate- gorical in the utterance of the moral faculty.’’ ? Codes as Tests.—If we compare such a code as the Ten Commandments with codes adopted by other peoples, we note impressive differences, and in case of a given command we find variations dependent on custom. The command, ‘‘Thou shalt not kill,’’ depends in its application on the interpretation, for example, in the case of capital punish- ment or war. In eontrast with the absolute veracity which one might expect among the peoples, we meet the lie of courtesy, the clever lie, the lie to the stranger. Hence one asks, with Fullerton, ‘‘Where does the silence of indiffer- ence shade into purposed concealment, and the latter into what is unequivocally deception?’’* Sincerity or truth- fulness has often been rated very low in the Western world, also the keeping of contracts and treaties; but for Zoroaster truthfulness was the paramount virtue, international mor- ality occupied the highest rank, the keeping of treaties was a sacred obligation.» It is right according to some ancient codes to hold slaves, suicide was regarded by some as a virtuous act, or the right of the father to kill grown-up children or to sell them as slaves was recognized. Uni- versal benevolence, tolerance, and compassion have been advocated by Buddhists as seldom by Christians. It would be difficult to determine the nature of justice, veracity, or even the common good by comparison of codes, but a greater code might be developed by selecting the nobler precepts of various systems. In the Buddhistie Ten Com- mandments the duties toward God are omitted, while in addition to the commands not to kill, steal, or lie, it is said, ‘‘Thou shalt not drink intoxicating drink, defame, boast, be stingy, or angry, or revile the three precious ones,’’ ® 3 Ibid., p. 10. 4Op. cit., p. 12. 5 See Myers, op. cit., p. 127. 6 For points of excellence in the ancient Egyptian system, see Myers, op. cit., p. 37. en) ee ee eae Tests of Virtue 371 Ancient Greece had a very great advantage in the fac that there was no priestly class to enforce theocratic mor- ality, with its artificial ritual duties and its conservative tendencies.’ Hence in Greece the points of excellence were to be found in the philosophical systems, not in a series of prohibitions. The nearest approach to a criterion may perhaps be found by comparing the spirit of various codes and noting points of resemblance or identity, without dwell- ing on differences in content, as in Buddhism and Chris- tianity, both being universal systems teaching the broth- erhood of man, exalting the gentle and self-denying vir- tues, requiring self-conquest, and enjoining benevolence as a duty.® The Golden Rule as a Test.—More direct guidance is found by selecting one precept or rule and considering its universal significance. The Golden Rule is a maxim imply- ing a judgment of disinterestedness, regard for all con- cerned, on the ground that as moral beings we are ‘‘mem- bers one of another.’’ It implies Mill’s ‘‘disinterested and benevolent spectator,’’ Samuel Clark’s ‘‘rule of righteous- ness,’” namely, that ‘‘we should so deal with every man, as in like circumstances we could reasonably expect he should with us.’’ It is expressed in other terms by Kant as the categorical imperative, with the accompanying maxims. In the Mahabharata it is said: ‘‘Let no man do to another that which would be repugnant to himself; this is the sum of righteousness; the rest is according to inclina- tion.’? When Confucius was asked if there were a word which would serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life he said: ‘‘Is not reciprocity such a word?’’ Confucius also indicated four special attainments to be made by the superior man: to serve his father as he would require his son to serve him, to serve his prince as he would require his minister to serve him, to serve his elder brother as he would require his younger brother to serve him, and to set the example in behaving to a friend as he would require the friend to behave to him. 7 Ibid., p. 173. 8 Myers, op. cit., p. 121. 372 The Moral Infe Throughout the various formulations of this rule the implication is that all moral rules ought to be obeyed with- out regard to selfish considerations. ‘‘Do your duty dis- interestedly’’ is the universal command. Dewey and Tufts interpret the principle to mean, not a command to act or forbear acting in a given way; but “‘it is a tool for analyz- ing a special situation, the right or wrong being determined by the situation in its entirety, and not by the rule as such.’?® The mere adoption of this rule, in business, for example, would not then imply the immediate settlement of all industrial disputes and difficulties; the rule would not tell just what to do in all situations: what it yields is ‘ He quotes an authority high in diplo- matic circles on the point that President Wilson used with great effect the prestige of his high office to suppress the sounder judgments and more generous impulses of the American people; and thereby reaches the conclusion that if the American nation had been better organized on the true principles of representative democracy due weight would have been given to the best elements, the most in- structed, the most capable, those in whom the moral tradi- tion was most fully embodied. The world would then have been spared immense sufferings, immense losses of life and morale. There might have been a signal enforcement of international morality. To secure ethical principles in the political field, McDougall would substitute for the prin- ciple, ‘‘one adult, one vote,’’ the principle, ‘‘one qualified citizen, one vote,’’ eliminating (1) the mentally deficient, (2) the convicted criminals, and (3) the illiterate (the literate are those who attain or pass a certain grade of the educational system). He would not then give one vote to every adult and ‘‘leave the rest to nature.’’ Anti-nationalism.—Probably very few among the en- thusiasts and radicals of our day have considered what is involved in their vague idea that the abolition of national- ism is the solution of our difficulties. McDougall interprets anti-nationalism to mean that all national boundaries and distinctions shall be abolished, together with national preju- 5 Ibid., p. 192. 432 The Moral Life dices, preferences and anti-racial sentiments, including the feeling in regard to colored and yellow folk. Everybody in all the present nations would then be accepted on the basis of equality, with no differences due to religious creeds or ecclesiastical systems. There would be no elass-distine- tions based on differences in wealth, or the amount and quality of labor. The government might either be called an anarchy or world-wide cosmopolitanism. What class would have the privilege of establishing this universalism? Shall it be the laborites who insist on the standards of manual labor? If so, would the world then be completely industrialized? Shall it be a so-called pro- letariat of the people imposing a new tyranny on the world? In any event would the gains equal the losses? The test question then is, Is it real love of brotherhood or envy which underlies the movement to abolish all things national ? McDougall foresees, in the adoption of such a scheme (1) immense multiplication of the peoples of the lower cultures; (2) with freedom to emigrate or wander, a wide distribution of peoples; people of the most diverse origins would mingle in complete social equality, with no hin- drances due to color, caste, or class distinctions of any kind; there would be intermarriages or at least interunions on a great scale; (3) the people of higher culture would not multiply rapidly, but would dwindle in numbers; (4) miscegenation would result, as all social and legal bans to intermarriage would be removed. Would the prime re- sult be ‘‘a completely civilized, industrialized, and cosmo- politan world, a world in which swarms of variegated and parti-colored men and women pullulate in vast cities of steel and glass. i 42.272.8 Such a process of so-called civilization would be carried out on the discredited assumption that ‘‘all men were ere- ated free and equal,’’ hence that any man is as good as — any other, that all social distinctions should die out, the spirit of nationality ceasing to exist, with no more race- pride. All these anti-national assumptions would fall if | 8 Ibid., p. 98. International Ethics 433 tested by the principles we have laid down above, namely, in favor of recognizing and developing differences and in- dividualisms in so far as they are contributory to the moral wealth of the world. For we have advocated larger groupings with reference to diversities in capacity, in gifts, in power to become morally productive. Thus the emi- grant could still be actuated by the desire to become a true American, proud of his citizenship in ‘‘the greatest na- tion in the world,’’ aspiring to maintain and promote the greatness of his adopted country. National pride and aspiration would not be mere memories of ‘‘a dark and dreadful past.’’ Nor would the assumption that ‘‘all men are potentially as good as the best’’ become the universal principle, with ‘‘every Hottentot, every dweller in the slums of Canton, of Madras, or of London,’’ regarded as by nature the equal of Washington and Lincoln. Ultra-democracy.— McDougall calls special attention to the facts that (1) some races or peoples have been more - prolific than others in individuals who have displayed great capacities; (2) some peoples have contributed far more than others to the development of culture; and some have proved their capacity to sustain for a time a high level of civilization, while the capacity of other peoples to do so remains unproved; (3) among all people there is a con- siderable proportion of individuals who do not assimilate the higher culture and who, therefore, do not and can not contribute to the maintenance and further development of civilization, but require constant supervision and regula- tion.? The result of some of the experimental attempts to ignore these and other facts, that is, by the imposition of manual labor doctrines, is seen in the ease of bricklayers striking for a basic wage of $12.00 per day, and expressing dissatisfaction because they are not getting $18.00; scav- engers and street-cleaners receiving higher salaries than elementary school teachers; while no unskilled trade-union- ist would be allowed for a day to accept the salary of an average clergyman. The prime result of ‘‘unmitigated democracy’’ would be ‘‘the destruction of all those pre- 7 Ibid., p. 115. 434 The Moral Infe rogatives which the brain-workers have enjoyed in every flourishing civilization,’’ whereas under former conditions the exceptional hand-worker had a natural ambition to rise into the brain-working class. In ultra-democracy the conditions would be unfavorable to the perpetuation of the stronger strains. The more grossly constituted would sup- plant the more finely constituted. There would be strict communism and brotherly love, on the assumption that all men have an equal claim to an equal share in all that is worth having. McDougall’s Solution. What now is McDougall’s solu- tion on an ethical basis for the problem of uniting the two types of ethical theory, the national with the universal? Examining utilitarianism anew, he finds need of a social organization to provide for or guarantee the continuance of pleasure and happiness as the good, that is, ‘‘the endur- mg and the highest happiness of the greatest number.’’ ® In this scheme each man is to be both means and end. The principle of ultra-democracy does not afford the clue because it is founded on deep-lying distrust of human na- ture: each man is to be regarded as of equal value because no man can be trusted to act fairly towards his fellow- men. Hence ultra-democracy is the counsel of despair, and the implied principles have never yet been practiced by any large and enduring community. Yet McDougall is also skeptical regarding any such agree- ment as the League of Nations, unless it shall be enforced by an international airplane force. While then his argu- ment is a strong plea for an ethical solution on the basis of the preservation of nationalism, its weak point is due to neglect of the alternatives to utilitarianism. If happi- ness is to be ‘‘enduring,’’ as well as ‘‘highest,’? and for ‘‘the greatest number,’’ the organization of values essen- tial to these ends will be the significant consideration. The ‘‘oreatest number’’ will include, in the ease of international relations, the peoples of the several lands brought into the organization, on the basis of recognition of national types. 8 Ibid., p. 133. 9 Ibid., p. 166. International Ethics 435 It might then be said that the ideal for each nation is realization of the characteristic ideals.t° ‘‘Live and let live’’ will then be the policy, in contrast with the imperial ambitions of the great nations of the past. The United States, as a one in many, has already exemplified the prin- ciple of relationship which may sometime be realized in a “‘United States of Europe’’ and a ‘‘ United States of the World.’’ But if such a union is to be achieved profound recognition of national types will be imperative, amid even greater divergences than those which have beset the United States Government since the incoming of a vast tide of immigrants, many of whom brought their radicalisms and discontents from the Old World. Christianity and Democracy.—Other scholars, more hopeful than McDougall, have found no essential conflict between Christianity, as a system of universal ethics, and democracy as yielding the greatest impetus which the ethical movement has received since the rise of Christian- ity.11 It is the democratic movement which has extended ‘‘the Christian principle of equality to the political, the social, and the economic domain. . . . It is this identity of the essential spirit of democracy with the essential spirit of Christianity which makes the incoming of democracy a revolution of such supreme importance in the moral history of the world.’’ Prominent among the agencies which have fostered the growth of civilization in the ethical direction are the great inventions which have broken the isolation of the nations, and bound them together by a thousand ties, commercial, social, and intellectual, leading toward ‘‘the growing international conscience of today.’’ Social revolutions, such as the French Revolution of 1789, have aided the ethical movement; democracy has broken down the invidious caste and class distinctions of old; modern education has greatly aided the process. Myers finds the failure of the new industrialism as a move- 10 Fullerton proposes as the solution of the contrasted ethical ideals the principle of the Rational Social Will, Handbook of Ethical Theory, 339 “41 Cf. Myers, op. ctt., p. 340, 436 The Moral Life ment which might have fostered true democracy to be due to the divorce between ethics and business, as in Italy during the Renaissance there was a divorce of ethics from politics... Unfortunately, economists have taught that ethics has nothing to do with economics. On the other hand there is ever-growing recognition of the truth that the re- lationships of men in business are conditioned by the law of human brotherhood. Myers cites as an example of the growing ‘‘social conscience’ the changed moral judg- ments concerning the African slave-trade, in contrast with the period when the peoples of Western Christendom had practically no conscience whatever in the matter, although the conscience of the age was in many other matters true and sensitive. ‘‘The whole subject lay practically outside the realm of morals. The slave-trade was looked upon as a perfectly legitimate business. Practically no one thought it wrong to go to Africa, kidnap or purchase a shipload of the natives, bring them in stifling holds—where some- times half the unhappy victims died on the passage—to the West Indies or to the Spanish and English mainland of the Americas and sell them as slaves.’ 7° International Progress——Then came the profoundly significant revolt of conscience. The history of the growth of conscience in any social group—clan, tribe, nation—is much the same, also in the slow history of the develop- ment of conscience in humanity at large, between the groups which compose the human race. First comes the clarifying conscience, then the law codes, private and pub- lic, which embody it; and so too the development of inter- national law follows the earlier development of municipal law. Hence Myers defines moral progress in the interna- tional domain as ‘‘the gradual assimilation of international to intranational ethics, or, in other words, the growing con- formity of the standard of public morality to that of pri- vate morality.’’1* | Thus, there is increasing recognition by governments of the fact that the obligations of the 12 [bid., p. 348. 13 Ibid., p. 365. 14 Ibid., p. 372. International Ethics 437 strong toward the weak are the same for nations as for individuals. Our dealings with Cuba since its liberation is an instance of this progress in international morality. Again, the movement toward the abolition of war is an evidence of quickened social conscience, with the widespread protest against the assumption that nations may suspend the ordinary moral code when they will to make war; also the protest against the eulogizing of the martial virtues: these protests ‘‘announce the birth into the modern fvorld of a new international conscience.’’ 1° The Social Conscience.—Admitting that equality is not ultimate even in democracy, but will always remain more or less a fiction, also that ‘‘the average man’’ is mythical, Mecklin nevertheless maintains that democracy as the solvent may become increasingly efficient through the or- ganization and self-consciousness of a body of sentiment, hence that we may rightfully speak of a social conscience as authoritative. 1° Indeed, the average man is the keeper of the conscience of the community, for better or worse we have committed our destinies to him, and the salvation of society will be his salvation. Hence the need of look- ing back through the ages to discover with renewed inter- est the origins of the moral sentiments which for the most part constitute the conscience of today, for example, Puri- tanism as an element, Calvinism, the individualistic ele- ment, also the growing conception of the Great Society.1* There are still ‘‘vast areas of our modern life that have completely outgrown the traditional norms of the social conscience. For it is a familiar fact that the principles of right and wrong that one generation applies to its prob- lems are usually the product of the moral experiences of its fathers.’’ 18 The moral indifference or anarchy which we experience are then in part due to the fact that we have not brought our principles up to the standard of our conduct. Truly 15 Ibid., p. 382. 16 Introd. to Social Ethics, p. 5. 17 Ibid., Chap. IV. 18 Ibid., p. 77. 438 The Moral Infe to think in ethical terms would be to correlate one’s thought with the actual problems of the community and the nation; since, in the last analysis, morality is a matter of social sanity. ‘‘HEthical values are those which are fundamental for the solution of the social problem, the essence of which is how to enable men and women to live together with the least amount of friction and the best safeguarding of. hu- man values.’’ ?9 The American Conscience.—What Mecklin finds to be a primary difficulty with morality in America, namely, that it is ‘‘haphazard, local, piecemeal,’’ is true of the world: the world has not yet brought its ethical thinking up to the standard of the best practice within the greater nations or between the nations. So far the morality of America is ‘‘the morality that embraces those norms which must be observed if the business man is to get along peace- fully and successfully with his business associate ... if the minister is to enjoy the sympathy and confidence of his sect,’’? or the morality which the member of the labor union ‘‘finds essential to the welfare of his group,’’ which the political party ‘‘insists each shall observe if he plays the political game.’’ What we lack is the comprehensive authoritative norms, ‘‘acknowledged by all classes and set up as the common goal of a common citizenship in a great democracy,’’ we lack a fully self-conscious democracy. It is indeed true that despite our localisms we possess such conceptions as justice, fidelity to contract, truthfulness, honor, intermingled with ‘‘the great democratic norms’’ of liberty, equality, and fraternity; and it may be said that these are what hold society together. But these must be made concrete in an actual social program. It would not be difficult to agree upon a definition of justice: the difficulty is in trying to unite upon a social policy which shall embody the principle of justice. We have still to reckon with the conflict between individualism and collectivism. There is a dualism in American life. In theory we are idealists, in practice pragmatists or material- ists. ‘‘When the tide of life runs smoothly and the stern 19 Ibid., p. 84. International Ethics 439 necessity for criticism and analysis does not press upon us, the average American is apt to be thoughtless and adven- turous, materialist in business, a Philistine in culture and a prig in religion and morals.’’ 7° Social Conscience Defined.—To play our part, therefore, in the solution of world problems we should rise to the level of thought which we occasionally attain when facing a great crisis, as in our civil war and in the World, War. This means, if one shall profit by Mecklin’s keen analysis, more careful discrimination between (1) custom, in which we yield to social habit without any feeling of obligation, and (2) social conscience, which is to be understood in the light of its traditional norms. Mecklin defines the so- cial conscience as ‘‘that body of comprehensive ethical norms that are integral parts of the moral sentiments of the members of the group, that enjoy unchallenged author- ity, that function almost automatically in the settlement of ethical issues, and that insure the continuity and the in- tegrity of the group’s life.’’??. The primary objects are social justice and civie righteousness, intimately associated as they are with the institutional forms which safeguard national welfare. The social conscience then is ‘‘the sub- jective correlative in the minds of the members of the com- munity of that objective balance of wills that finds expres- sion through a well-ordered institutional life.’’ It is ‘‘indi- vidual in residence’’ but ‘‘social in function.’’ It is meant to be essentially disinterested. As a result of the World War it should become international or cosmopolitan. In- deed the Stoic conception of humanitarianism has become a matter of immediate and practical statecraft. The social consciences of the nations must be reorganized in terms of the common interests and ideals of a family of nations, so that the new internationalism shall be based on the or- ganization of the sentiments of the private citizen.” This will mean, for one thing, more intimate knowledge of the limiting types of social conscience, of public opinion, 20 [bid., p. 90. 21 Ibid., p. 119. 22 [bid., p. 139. 440 The Moral Life the tyranny of the majority, the prevalence of prejudice, the reign of such habits in politics as ‘‘the solid South.”’ One might add to this list the tyranny of ‘‘the vociferous minority,’’ responsible, no doubt, for the introduction of the prohibition amendment before the conscience of the community had adjusted itself to the scientific facts con- cerning the use of alcoholic drinks; the tyranny of ‘‘the machine’’ in polities; of the demagogue whose group is too influential in national life; of ‘‘the irreconcilables’’ and of the senators who are averse to ratifying any sort of treaty with any sort of nation. | The International Conscience.—It is plain then from our analysis of matters which demand a large volume on international ethics that we are still in the formative period of thought, hesitating to make the step from the application of ethical principles to large groups which we have suc- cessfully applied to small, notably in the historic days when the Constitution and Congress were in the making, and political life had not degenerated from the ethical to the irrationally partisan level. International law in proc- ess of more explicit formulation represents a stage in the progress toward the coming international conscience. It will be made more effective by becoming frankly ethical, not in the sense of allegiance (with McDougall) to a par- ticular system, such as utilitarianism; but with regard for the common principles of justice as already recognized by leading nations. So too the larger social conscience will develop by more searchingly testing out such contrasted views of democracy as we have summarized above. Econo- mists and sociologists can help by overcoming the habit of over-categorizing, as if their respective departments had nothing in common with ethics, or even with social psy- chology, is if it were almost a duty to persuade people not to make ethics a major subject, but resolutely to rule out all ethical questions. Religionists can help by inquiring into the genesis of their doctrinal patterns, by analyzing to the limit the elements of their faith, and returning in full vigor to allegiance to what is dynamic, quickening. De- votees of programs for radical social reform ean help by International Ethics 441 coming to self-consciousness concerning the materialistic philosophy of history on which Marxian socialism is based. So too pacifists may help by enlarging their sphere of in- terest from the discredited pacifisms of the World War period to recognition that problems of justice are higher than problems of peace. Organic Codperation.—More productive still may be the idealism of all who have a vision concerning the realiza- tion of the Christian ideal that we are ‘‘members one of another.’’ If the conception of organic codperation is applicable within the sphere of the individual’s most per- sonal life, in the relationships between the individual and the family, the small community, and to various types of social organization, it must in time prove applicable on the largest possible scale. The comparison with an organism is, we have seen, only in part a good one. Human beings are free-moving agents, and are not at all like attached eyes, ears, arms, or even the brain as the central organ. If they are ‘‘parts of a whole,’’ there is no common organic life circulating through these parts. So too in society, as we have repeatedly seen, there is no ‘‘social consciousness’’ in the sense of a group mind apart from individual minds taking social attitudes. Hence, in absolute strictness, there is no ‘‘social conscience’’ and can be no international con- science, if by such terms we mean an entity functioning over and above the functions of its elements, varying from the least critical public opinion to the influence of the most powerful minds in the community. The Ethical Horizon.—But the phenomenon exists, whatever we call it. We are in process of enlarging our horizon, and the symbol of the organism surpasses all others in the portrayal of the intimacy of relationship of fellow- members fulfilling varied purposes, diverse in type yet working together in a spirit of corporate unity. There is both relatedness and headship expressive of purpose in an organism. There is a measure of distinctive activity, yet dependence, and the welfare of one organism is fostered by that of others. Singling out the points of resemblance, and adopting the principle of variety in unity, it is per- 442 The Moral Life missible to carry over into the field of the largest body politic, or social organization on a world-scale, the idea of moral order in all things, of mutuality, service, justice, amid the contributions made by distinctive groups and dis- tinctive individuals. For moral beings, the figure of the organism briefly suggests the ideal to be striven for, espe- cially as the larger part which each is to contribute is to be an extension of activities which begin at home. The differences to be understood and mastered between nations are no more sharply contrasted than those within the individual, torn as he often is in two directions, rent asunder by the conflicts of two phases, promptings or voices of his own nature. As desire, emotion, feeling, imagina- tion, the primal urge, will, and reason are to be coordinated in the inner life, that there may be division of labor with- out friction, so there may be coordination among larger groups in society, each with its representative mentalities. The first result of the coming together of rival moral tend- encies may be tremendous loss on the part of the one, with exceedingly slow gains on the part of the other, as when Christian supernaturalism dispossessed Greek ethics. But then may begin the long process of coérdination, with the breaking down of the doctrinal patterns which sluggishly hold back the social conscience. The emphasis here as elsewhere belongs on the achieving moral spirit rising su- perior alike to things Christian and things Greek and mak- ing in the direction of a union between national ethies and universal ethics. Our study of moral forces shows that the real problem is to develop the mechanisms for carrying into effect the principles already agreed upon as highest, so that friend- ship, mutuality, justice shall be realized among the nations. For the social situation is far more complex and difficult in the international world than within the leading nations regarded by themselves. To make the moral mechanisms effective so that, for one thing, there shall be a complete equivalent for war, it will be necessary to subordinate political and financial interests which will strive to the fore on the ground that diplomacy, political ambition, and eco- International Ethics 443 nomic demands should settle world-issues. It is difficult enough even within a nation so to curb ambitious political leaders as to secure what is best in national welfare, diffi- eult too to secure the passage of a treaty with neighbor- ing nations when the most enlightened people heartily ap- prove of such a treaty. The political situation is ‘‘a eondi- tion, not a theory.’’ So too is the situation among the great financiers who claim to have the power in their hands to determine the fate of nations. Meanwhile, we have been steadily educating one another, and our youth, to believe that economic determinism is decisive. We have not taken ethical principles seriously enough to ground them in mechanisms able to outwit all partisans of secondary values, namely, politicians, diplomats, financial leaders, and other wielders of public policy who are unwilling to carry ethical principles into execution. This much we have gained however if we have learned what the next step is: to put into practice what we believe so that moral forces shall predominate. We know that there is a moral equiva- lent for war. We know that justice is the chief social virtue, what its elements are, and the recognition to be given to national characteristics in contrast with anti- nationalism. We also know that no additional ethical prin- ciple is needed. Meanwhile, the larger social conscience called for by the international situation is steadily being acquired in these days of widespread interchange, rapidly Increasing information concerning the nations, and grow- ing knowledge of the difficulties which beset moral idealism. REFERENCES Meckurn, J. M., An Introduction to Social Ethics, 1920, Chaps. VII-X. McDovuGatu, W., Hthics and Modern World Problems, 1924. Fenwick, G. C., International Law, 1924. Pounp, R., Law and Morals, 1924, Chap. III; bibliography. HucuHan, J. W., A Study of International Government, 1923. Bosanquet, B., The Philosophical Theory of the State, 1910, Chap. XI. Myers, P. V. N., History as Past Ethics, Chap. XVIII. Dewry AND Turrs, Hthics, 1908, Chaps. XXI-XXV. SerH, J., Hthical Principles, p. 287. Fouuuerton, G. S.. Handbook of Ethical Theory, Chap. XXXYV. CHAPTER XXVII MORAL PROGRESS Progress as Inevitable—Krom several points of view, the assumption is readily made that progress necessarily results from the interaction of forces at work in civiliza- tion. To start with the proposition that God, whose world- plan we find in process of outward manifestation, is omnip- otent, and in foresight omniscient, is to conclude that noth- ing can defeat the divine purpose to achieve the noblest result for the good of all, whatever the transitory oppo- sition. If in ultimate nature the universe is spiritual, we anticipate the triumph of spiritual verities, despite the un- ruliness of material things, and even though this triumph be postponed till the future life. The very truth that a moral order exists is taken to mean that moral forces will eventually be supreme in actuality as they are now poten- tially, hence the assumption that moral history means moral progress. From the point of view of the virtues it is maintained that love, kindliness, and justice must tri- umph; since these virtues are ‘‘socially right.’? Indeed, virtue will, we are assured, not only bring its reward, but more. Vice, sin, crime, evil must fail, while virtue must triumph because of its worth, because the moral life is pro- foundly worth while. Finally, evolution—however under- stood, whatever factors of organic development may win supremacy—apparently signifies that progress is inevitable, even though it be progress through struggle, sacrifice and relative defeat, and the triumph of the most fit only. Ancient Views of the World.—Yet other assumptions once seemed as plausible to moral idealists who believed no less profoundly than we in the ultimate reality of good- ness. The past was for centuries revered as perfect by the Chinese. To ancient Hindoo sages, aware of nearly all 444 Moral Progress 4A5 the great typical viewpoints in philosophy, the world of things and events in space and time seemed a lapse from the timeless and spaceless reality of Absolute Being. In both India and Greece, cosmic events were conceived as a eycle which might sometime repeat itself, as indeed there have been other cycles reproducing world-events that had gone before. The idea of a Golden Age in the remote past has not wholly disappeared from the world. What is per- fect has often been regarded as pure Being in a changeless state of bliss from which souls came and to which they will return. With static ideas of perfection came erystal- lized moral standards. Hence wrong-doing was a lapse, apparent moral victory a repentance. The idea that a temporal round of experiences, with no antecedent per- fection to spring from, necessitates or signifies progress, is a modern idea. MHeraclitus long ago advanced the thought that what we call Being is more truly a perpetual Becoming, and Bergson has recently contributed the con- ception of creative evolution as the central principle of all reality. Yet on the whole the idea of Being has been triumphant. Modern Conceptions.—Although the beginnings of a theory of progress are found in ancient thought, the con- ception belongs to modern times, and is partly due to the enlargement of the cosmic horizon from the limited outlook of the old astronomy to the heliocentric theory, in Coperni- cus’ time, and the conception of the universe as infinite which begins with Bruno, burned at the stake in 1600. The ancient Greeks thought of the universe as a cosmos (order), a thing of beauty, complete, perfect. Christians for cen- turies contemplated heaven as an abode of perfect bliss beyond earth’s restlessness and strife, with nothing more to attain. The Nirvana of the Buddhists has always been conceived as the negation of every incentive and power which we associate with this life of desire and accomplish- ment. From any outlook upon perfection, either past or present, as immutable, hence as above time, the idea of change would be repulsive, as somehow suggestive of de- cline and decay. Religious thinkers have surpassed all 446 The Moral Infe others in the defense of the faith; in contrast with the extremely modern notion that the endless quest for truth wherever it may lead is life’s greatest adventure. Hence theology is even now protesting against encroachments on the part of those who insist upon the value of restatements of faith, and on fidelity to the dynamic element of thought. With the enlargement of the world-horizon, realization of the meaning of discoveries and explorations in all quarters of the globe, increasing opportunities for travel and intercommunication, and the development of the his- torical point of view in the special sciences, In the nine- teenth century, came in time a new outlook on the world of human society finding expression in liberalism in re- ligion, an idea of progress in all branches of social en- deavor, and a new moral ideal. We so long ago lost the localism that went with the conception of the earth as the center of things that we take it for granted that existence means progress with infinite resources on which to draw. Almost every discipline has undergone change since the theory of evolution accustomed us to the idea of organic development. Growth.— We are not likely to lose any of our interest and enthusiasm for progress by pausing calmly to consider what we mean by progress, and to distinguish between assumption and intelligible conception. Progress can hardly be the same as organic growth by means of cells and tissues to reproduction of endless individuals of a species, essentially fixed in type. The attempt has been made to compare the successive changes through which a civilization passes to the childhood, youth, middle life, and decline of the human body, but this analogy has not carried very far. The growth of a tree, with some of its branches hanging down, while a few branches only appear at the top, has been moderately suggestive, in contrast with the assumption that progress always means upward growth. By mental growth has been understood multiplication and association of units, like atoms; but mental development is not so simple as associationist psychology would make out. The mind can keep on developing after the body has grown Moral Progress 4AW to full proportions and begun to wear out. Mental progress is a matter of insight, freedom, and productivity. Evolution.—It is easy to confuse evolution with progress, on the assumption that all evolution means ‘‘continuous progressive change’’ due to inherent or im- manent forces essentially purposive in type.2 It has been found extremely difficult to defend the thesis that all nature exemplifies purpose, since the evolutionists called attention to the great struggles and losses of the animal and plant worlds. Evolution may, indeed, signify con- tinuous change in the sense of modifications due to response to environment. But finalism is as difficult to prove as absolute chance.2 On the whole evolution has been con- ceived as an automatic process, chiefly from lower to higher, but not necessarily from lowest to highest. Evo- lutionists are in the habit of beating down everything called higher to what is lower, of. minimizing quality in _ favor of quantity. They afford scant solace to the believer in moral progress. History. What does history show? That there has been progress on the whole? It may be so, but with great losses. Civilizations come and go, as in ancient Egypt and other lands bordering on the Mediterranean. There have been great flowering periods, and then lost arts, points of view, moral values. Was the change from Greek culture, art, and philosophy to Christian civilization wholly a progress? Have we after nineteen centuries succeeded in regaining all that the world lost by passing over to super- naturalism and eccleciastical authority? The changes in process in China seem on the whole to mean progress, how- beit the inheritors of many centuries of the moral idealism of peace are learning the arts of war from the Western world. The change from the despotism of the Czars to the despotism of the Soviets in Russia is widely heralded as progress. We are at least able to say that the given type of civilization fits the conditions and character of the people, as in ancient China, Egypt, and Greece. The ideals 10f, J. Le Conte, Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought. 2Cf, Bergson, Creative Hvolution, trans., p. 39. 448 The Moral Lafe of knighthood, Puritanism, and the like come and go, and leave their contributions. We have passed into the period of great mechanical inventions as if to a period where his- tory and progress are synonymous, but we too appear to have lost very much by becoming so greatly devoted to external values, more determined than ever to reduce all qualities into measurable things and statistical deeds. Wise philosophers of history, trying in vain to determine what progress means, or decide whether or not history means progress, have said in conclusion, at any rate there is change.* What Civilization Means.—Progress is plainly not an unfolding of what is all the while implicit by preéstablished harmony. It must add or contribute, differentiate or in- dividualize by developing new types, integrations, or values. It is not in any case something that goes on auto- matically or inevitably, as if struggle always signified bet- terment; for epochs of progress have been followed by long ages of stagnation or retrogression.* The disorders and reactions of history seem indeed fatal to a finalistic or tele- ological interpretation. If we regard civilization as in- herently valuable, we are frequently reminded of the fact that in many respects it is still an experiment, with pos- sibilities of collapse.6 During the World War it was often feared that civilization might be destroyed. We are slow to learn anything from history. And so we are slow in discovering what we mean by civilization and how to keep it. Hard upon an unsatisfactory treaty of peace, forced on the defeated nation, there follow new hatreds and schemings preparatory to the next armed conflict. We have repeatedly been disillusioned, when we cherished the hope that now at last the love of peace was established in the hearts of men. Nature has not proved to be wholly beneficent. Events, such as earthquakes in Sicily and Japan, floods in China, and famines in India, take place without regard to human welfare; and if there is ever to 3 Cf. F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality, 1893, p. 499. 4L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. II, p. 280. 5 B. M. Laing, op. cit., p. 29. Moral Progress 449 be victory in these matters man must learn to build else- where, build more securely, and be far more provident and philanthropic. Progress depends then on human beings, and human beings are fertile in devices, ready to make new experiments, inventing new things that are inferior for the sake of change, prone to neglect what is best as history dis- closes it to us. Certain it is that the forces of history are not synonymous with progress. Our Spiritual Needs.—The old-time antithesis between spirit and flesh has not wholly disappeared. Mayhap this world was not made for progress any way. If for dis- eipline, that each soul may try out its forces and be sent back into itself to seek higher sources of consolation, then all that one would expect would be a changing historical scene amid essentially the same laws, conditions, and op- portunities. To have real spiritual progress on earth would be to deprive unborn generations of the opportunity to begin at the beginning; for we need to start in igno- rance, need to struggle from darkness into light, through failure and relative defeat. All material things, and espe- cially all fleshly things are disappointing. The earthly life is not permanent and can never become so. But this is pessimism once more. We have rejected it in a previous chapter. We have also set aside the view that: sin and evil are essential to the moral order. To be moral is to be bent on knowing and conquering the conditions of life. The human spirit is subject to conditions which make pos- sible its full development through mastery. With the attainment of perfect adjustment to nature’s forces and conditions, there would still be abundant opportunity for unborn generations, especially if we go on multiplying mechanical devices and increasing our material efficiency. Although there may be nothing inherent in natural con- ditions to guarantee the triumph of the higher type, man has the opportunity to increase moral values, and depend more on moral forees, where he now surrenders to material conditions. What is achieved in one epoch may become the starting-point for the next, when at last we are more serious in our effort to conserve moral values. 450 The Moral Infe The Religious Horizon—We must agree then that the world needs something more than a soft gospel of inevi- table spiritual progress under remote conditions, chiefly in the future life. It needs salvation from its ignorance, its sin, its inefficiency, its apathy, its silly optimism, and ap- palling carelessness. Hope lies in our new scientific con- trol over the latent resources of the earth without and over our mental and moral forces within. We are committed to the hope of making progress the dominant idea. An immeasurable increase of man’s self-reliance is an effect of the idea of progress, confidence in humanity’s power to take care of itself. Hence, we see the abiding necessity of religion in a progressive world. ‘‘Jesus Christ .. . has given us the most glorious interpretation of life’s meaning that the sons of men have ever had. The fatherhood of God, the friendship of the Spirit, the sovereignty of righteous- ness, the law of love, the glory of service, the coming of the kingdom, the eternal hope.’’7 What we need is spiritual mastery of science’s new powers, that is, mastery by an- other kind of power which it is not the business of science to supply, spiritual power which ‘‘comes out of the soul’s deep fellowship with the living God.’’ Religion shows that life develops from within, with possibilities of changing human nature, the new birth being still essential. Spirit- ual development must accompany environmental change, but must reorganize social life and the ideas that underlie it. The great conflict is now centered in economics. Finality—We are coming to see that Christianity is a changing movement in a changing world. Christianity is no longer ‘‘passive submission to God’s will, but an aggressive prayer for the victory of God and righteousness . . active loyalty to the will of God as something to be achieved.’’® We now count it our duty to be ‘‘tirelessly unresigned.’’ Here is ‘‘a new mood in Christianity,’’ that is, a progressive movement instead of a static finality, a sys- tem of doctrines, defended as static in a progressive world. 6H. E. Fosdick, Christianity and Progress, 1922, p. 40. 7 Op. cit., p. 67. 8 Ibid., p. 134. Moral Progress 451 Even within the New Testament there is no static creed. Even the Fourth Gospel is a sermon, not a philosophy. Progress does not, however, shut out finality. It makes each new finality a point of departure for a new adven- ture.° While a revelation from God might conceivably be final and complete, religion as Fosdick regards it ‘‘deals with a revelation of God.’’ Discovery on man’s part is the under side of the process. Meanwhile, the idea of authority is one of the historic curses of religion: religion by its very nature is one of the realms to which external authority is least applicable. The one vital thing in re- ligion is first-hand, personal experience; religion is the most intimate, inward, incommunicable fellowship of the human soul, and the only God you ever will know is the God you know for yourself. Christianity as a Life.—It follows then that if the world had understood Christianity as Dr. Fosdick, among others, is interpreting it to us now, there might have been progress where there was delay for centuries during the long dis- putes of ecclesiastics. For, in Fosdick’s terms, the original Christian fellowship ‘‘consisted of a group of men keeping company with Jesus and learning how to live. They had no creeds to recite . . . no sacraments to distinguish their faith . . . no organization to join . . . Christianity in the beginning was an intensely personal experience.’’*° The ereeds, written in sheer self-defense at a later time, gave static shape to what was meant to be a life. ‘‘So historic Christianity grew, organized, creedalized, ritualized.’’ But as a first-hand, personal experience of God in Christ is ‘falone vital in Christianity,’’ all the rest is once or twice or thrice removed from life: Christianity is not a creed, nor an organization, nor a ritual, but a life. We can not stereotype its expressions in set and final forms. When it once more becomes a life in fellowship with the living God it will build new organizations, expand into new symbolic expressions. Faith in God can indeed satisfy man’s erav- ing for spiritual stability amid change. The central ele- 9 Ibid., p. 154. 10 Ibid., p. 161. 452 The Moral Ife ment in the conception of a progressive world is that ‘‘men’s thoughts and lives have changed, are changing and will change,’’ that nothing is settled in the sense of being finally formulated.1 There are, indeed, desperate en- deavors, perennially made, to congeal the Christian move- ment at some one stage and to call that stage final. Against this they indeed protest who believe in the living God as disclosed through inner experience. Moral Advance as the Test.—What is here said about Christianity applies with great force to moral doctrines, too often the dry or crystallized expressions of theological conservatives, almost totally neglectful of the moral dyna- mic of the ages. We find scholars agreeing that moral progress is the test of all true progress, the true reading of history.1* The ethical motive is ‘‘the most constant and regulative force.’’ Moral progress constitutes ‘‘the very essence of the historic movement.’’ As Myers regards the subject, certain tendencies become characteristic among the nations, virtues develop and become standards or ideals for natural life and thought during ages. Comparison be- tween the virtues emphasized by the nations naturally fol- lows, norm is compared with norm, system with system. The result, for one thing, is the discovery of unevenness among the nations: where one excels, another lags. Mean- while, the ethical motive is becoming more dominant, dis- closing successive enlargements. In no domain has progress been greater than in the moral sphere. Here, indeed, is ‘“the one increasing purpose’’ which runs through the ages. The standard to be employed in judging any civilization is the moral ideal, the group of virtues held in esteem by a given people or a given age, those moral incentives which have a unique dynamic force. How does this ethical progress proceed? Does it act through tradition, as Hobhouse suggests? +2 Hobhouse does not venture to say whether the actual improvement in our conduct is greater than we might expect or even as much 11 Ibid., p. 207. 12 Myers, op. cit., p. 1. 13 Op. cit., p. 283. Moral Progréss 453 as we might expect; he sees a prospect that further de- velopment of society may fall within the scope of an organ- izing intelligence, removed from the play of blind force. But the very ideas which are to direct this progress toward ‘‘the sphere of rational order’’ are yet in their infancy. The promising fact is that there is a culminating self- consciousness, a blending of the moral, the scientific, and the religious. This, indeed, is the culminating fact of all ethical evolution. ‘‘Mind grasps the conditions of its de- velopment, that it may master and make use of them in its further growth.’’ We know little as yet about this growth. But we do know that this slowly wrought out dominance of mind in things is ‘‘the central fact of evolution.’’ What is the Moral Test.—Laing finds difficulty in dis- covering anything in morality by which progress can be tested, amidst the multiplicity of standards. Happiness or pleasure is difficult to gauge. There is no one bold enough to maintain that men have a greater sense of duty, more conscience, more self-sacrifice than in the Homeric age; more refined manners or greater courtesy than in the Mid- dle Ages. The emergence of new values is not a test, for example, the growing emphasis upon freedom, the aboli- tion of slavery, the greater respect for human life and property, the desire for more stable conditions of life, the recognition of personality and of the need of providing opportunities for its development, and the growing sense of brotherhood. For all these are values on which great emphasis was also placed in primitive tribal communities. They are not values freshly created but values revived, after a long period in which they were obscured amid social chaos. Moral progress ‘‘means something more than the consciousness and even the acknowledgment of abstract values.’’?4 It means ‘‘a new and concrete condition of human life.’? Hence the criticisms passed by laborites upon the present social organization. Slavery is apparently abolished only to give place to eco- nomic bondage. The existing industrial conditions deprive the worker of any freedom, they create as great a danger 14 Op. cit., p. 262. ASA The Moral Life to health and life as ever existed in less civilized times. The struggle for existence has become keener with increas- ing industrial development. The old conditions exist under new forms. The attainment of some particular end desired is not an evidence of progress. Progress must be general, must imply the attainment of all or of the most desirable ends, not the attainment of one end at the ex- pense of another. Progress implies value, value is corre- lated with desire; while perfection, to be attained, involves control over conditions so that what is desirable can be attained free from any admixture of undesirable elements, and so that such a type of life can be preserved and made secure.t? What then is the totality of desirable things which has been or is being realized? lLaing’s results are typical of all moralists who, failing to interpret desire, can only say that desire is a process which ends in the realization of values ‘‘provided it is not interfered with by any other process.”’ Community of Interests as the Test.—The result is not much better when, with Perry, we regard morality as a concentration, and agree that ‘‘through morality a plur- ality of interests becomes an economy or community of in- terests,’’ hence that ‘‘only the fulfillment of an organiza- tion of interests is morally good.’’1® Progress is indeed an increase in the course of time of the value of life, what- ever that may be, a gain on the whole; but what shall be the measure of value? Not favorable environment, as Laing would doubtless say; for, as Perry well shows, un- favorable environments conduce to moral progress, it is ‘‘the menace of nature’’ which stimulates progress.1” The tendency to develop coherence and unity, or rationality, is the one interna! principle of progress, through knowledge of the good, and the correction of existing usages. Perry’s test of moral progress therefore is: ‘‘the persistence through the whole course of human history of certain iden- tical interests and purposes,’’ for example, in such fixed 15 Ibid., p. 267. 16 R. B. Perry, The Moral Economy, 1909, pp. 18, 15. 17 Ibid., p. 130. Moral Progress 455 moral necessities as government, education, science, and religion. Each of these might indeed be regarded as sece- ondary tests of progress. But the primary difficulty with Perry’s term ‘‘interest’’ is the same as that which attaches to any general term, such as ‘‘loyalty.’’ From the point of view of any ethical theory, there is economy or com- munity of interests, moral integration or concentration. What is needed is an explicit statement of the content of moral interests. Moral Changes.—We have seen that moral development is not a question of transition from the non-moral to the moral; since man is from the first potentially moral, and the moral life is all the while supplied with content, as natural goodness becomes moral goodness through man’s reflective consciousness. The advance from custom to morality is in process all along the line of development. Different types of morality appear and then pass from the scene, as in the case of egoistic or psychological hedonism, epicureanism and cynicism. Within the field of a given moral interest there are indeed successive changes, hence a development of the implied principles toward their own completion. Thus there is a history of the pleasure-theory from the days of hedonism in its simplest form in Greece to the latest form of evolutionary hedonism and idealistic utilitarianism. But we must distinguish between develop- ment, history, and evolution in the moral field; and moral progress, with its estimates put upon various lines of de- velopment. Both Westermarck and MHobhouse exhibit ‘‘morals in evolution,’’ but neither one offers a criterion of all moral progress. Nelf-discovery as the Test.—It might be said that the law of progress is ‘‘the progressive discovery of the indi- vidual.’’1® This is, indeed, an enlightening test; for, in Seth’s terms, the true nature of the individual answers to the true nature of society, with the self-discovery of the former comes the self-discovery of the latter; and we need not presuppose an original antagonism between egoism and altruism. We have noted many evidences of this advance, 18 Seth, op. cit., p. 323, 456 The Moral Life for example, the stage of moral integration attained when Confucius formulated the principle of reciprocity, when Socrates, reacting against the sheer individualism of the Sophists, made explicit the moral universal, as the basis for ethies, for the first time in history. Plato, we saw, tended to subordinate the individual to the state, and this point of view is still working itself out in moral history. The Stoics advanced a freer conception of the individual, in the direction of a city of God for all mankind. But it was Christianity which contributed the conception of hu- man personality as of supreme worth, both in this world and in the future life, including the uncultured and down- trodden, the freeman and the slave, and the poor as well as the rich. This conception has been tried out in various modes of social life in the intervening centuries until, to- day, the controversy in behalf of true individualism is highly complex and difficult to estimate. In the foregoing pages we have argued throughout for that individualism which is to be harmonious with social self-realization, we have placed much emphasis on self-knowledge, self-develop- ment, and self-expression. Hence, our whole inquiry has turned upon the progressive discovery of the individual. But in so far as this discovery may rightfully be taken as the law of moral progress it must be with most explicit recognition of the central moral truth which it is the object of this book to make clear, that is, that we are ‘‘members one of another’’ in a relationship symbolized by the or- ganism. The Law of Progress.—Looking back over the long ages of discovery of the worth of the individual, we must agree with Seth that there has been a recoil from one solu- tion of the problem to another, that no solution has proved final; but that ‘‘it belongs to the nature of progress that no solution will satisfy a later age which does not do full justice to, and rest upon a better understanding of the individual than any previous solution.’’!® The law of progress involves (1) a gradual transition from an external and utilitarian to an internal and spiritual estimate of 19 Ibid., p. 330. Moral Progress 457 action, with emphasis on character, on being rather than doing, on what a man is more than on what he is good for; hence the true criterion of virtue is internal and spiritual; (2) subordination of the sterner to the gentler virtues; and (3) imereasing scope, the change from particularism to universalism, from patriotism or nationalism to humanism or cosmopolitanism. But this progress is always likely to include competition as well as codperation, rivalry as well as love and mutual service, although the rivalry may be generous. social Equilibrium.—So, too, Mecklin holds that a conception of the equilibrium between the individual and society is the test of moral progress, with special reference to the richness and variety of the demands made upon men for social adjustment. The test of the truth of moral ideas must then be sought in the extent to which men in a given social situation are able to eliminate their differences and attain fruitful human relationships. ‘‘ Where we deal with active and intelligent wills every act, good or bad, brings about a need for readjustment....A community of active moral beings assures to us, therefore, a mobile rather than a static moral order. . . . Change is inherent in the very structure of the moral life... . On the heels of the good act completed rise new moral issues.’’ 7° Moral Betterment.—Alexander defines these moral issues making for progress with reference to the continuous variation and transmutation of morality from one form to another as the struggle between ideals proceeds.*? This continuous change is not identical with progress, but the clue is to be found in the process by which each indi- vidual approximates to the highest development and re- expresses the ideal. The good as the goal of this process is always ultimate, but owing to the development of human nature it is always in motion. For individuals in process of development it is not a question of relationship between the good as it is being realized and the best, but always a contrast between the good and a better. Progress from 20 Introd. to Social Ethics, pp. 186, 188. 21§, Alexander, Moral Order and Progress, 1889, p, 262, 458 The Moral Lafe lower to higher does not necessitate finality or a highest, as if morality were sometime to pass away and give place to a different condition. The acts of adjustment by which individuals meet certain conditions alter the sentiments of the agents, and create new needs; and these new needs demand a new satisfaction. The persistence of the ideal through these successive changes reveals its own inade- quacy, the attainment of goodness extends the data and renders the former solution unavailable. What ‘‘is com- monly ealled the moral standard is a kind of generalization from the extremely various operations of different persons as to what is or is not right.’’ Chastity, courage, and temperance, for example, are general names which we retain although the conditions included under them may vary. The name employed signifies the continuity of tra- dition and the permanence of form, while the contents change from age to age. The forces at work are more constantly operative in changing the moral order than in maintaining it. Every good act alters the moral standard, and so ‘‘moral development is the history of human nature exhibited . . . as a Becoming.’’ *? Goodness and Its Conditions——There is real moral progress then, progressive goodness making in the direction of perfection, but our ideas of perfection change and so our conceptions of goodness change also. Morality pro- ceeds by ‘‘an oscillation of two movements, the one solv- ing the problem proposed, the other destroying each solu- tion as it emerges.’’ We look back to an exemplification of goodness in a citizen of ancient Greece, signalizing a man as good whose conduct we would condemn in part. The same would be true were we to compare a good man in England in the twelfth century with a good man in the nineteenth, although a good man in the nineteenth is no better than a good man in the twelfth. The relativity of goodness to its conditions instead of being a term of re- proach is in reality its highest praise. Conduct is good because appropriately related to its conditions. It is both good and inadequate. In brief, an ideal of good conduct, 22 Ibid., p. 291. Moral Progress 459 being a solution of its conditions, is eternally true for them; morality is identical or eternal in virtue of its form; there are ‘‘successive stages of one continuous law. Every ideal while giving place to a new one is the foundation of it. In creating a new standard we do not begin afresh, but at some point where the old was found insufficient. Progress is thus not mere destruction of the lower but fulfillment.’’ 7° Progress in Our Ideals.—Perhaps the best verification of these successive changes is in the fact that no one who is meeting life reflectively, who is aspiring, doing his best to serve, is able even to restate his ideal without modifying it. The spirit lives on, the expression of it in words and mental imagery changes, and every overt expression in deeds of service yields dissatisfaction, which, in turn, is a stimulus to further progress. Thus our ideals changed during the World War, and the expressions of virtue which served to hearten the men at the front were unsuited to the new conditions which came after the armistice. The men in action had an opportunity to rise to a supreme height of courage, energy, ideal response to duty; but when the war was over they could not again have been persuaded to give such an expression to their ideal. The martial virtues which were glorified, possibly for the last time in history, must change in their mode of expression still more if war shall cease and a full moral equivalent be substi- tuted. A moral tendency develops then, has its history and fruition, and passes from the scene, as Puritanism served its purpose for a time and ceased to be, as knighthood flourished and then disappeared. So Christianity allied itself with the martial virtues and developed for genera- tions, and now we are in process of separating these virtues from the Gospel, that we may try out the original Chris- tianity as a pure gospel of peace. We are convinced that there has been real moral progress as a result of our reac- tions against the World War, howbeit this is in part a 23 Ibid., p. 295. 460 The Moral Life matter of revival of values which have never been given adequate recognition by the world. wtatic and Dynamic Elements.—Any estimate of the ideals which have received varied recognition throughout the ages must take account of the fact, therefore, that we are always returning to neglected moral principles almost ignored for generations, and sometimes forgotten for cen- turies. The apparent progress made in European morals in the reaction from Greek ethical standards to the early Christian is viewed in a very different light today, endeav- oring aS we are to revive both the original Gospel and Greek ethical standards at their best. What might have been the progress of Christianity was sadly interfered with by the formalisms of ages of theology. What might have been the progress of Greek ethics was sadly interfered with by the circumstances under which Greck civilization was forced into decline. The struggle is between the dyna- mic and the static elements, the static is strongly en- trenched, and the dynamic must repeatedly disclose the lost arts anew. For us today, the Golden Age is in the future. Yet we are all the while constructing it by re- covering neglected moral values which attributed perfec- tion to the past. National Ideals.—Each moral ideal is indeed a species, perfect after its own kind as Alexander shows in behalf of general principles,** and as Myers shows by summariz- ing in the ease of each nation the elements which econsti- tute the given ideal. Myers’ results might be generalized by saying that as the individual ideal culminates in self- realization so the national ideal culminates in national self-realization. What Myers advises for the individual, namely, ‘‘Do the thing thou seest to be good; realize thy ideal,’’?° might be applied to all the nations: ‘‘ Realize your type, be loyal to your standards of virtue unto the end.’’ For according to Myers moral character is not de- termined by the ideal of conduct but ‘‘by the way this ideal is lived up to,’’ hence, ‘‘by the effort put forth in 24 Op. cit., p. 369. 25 Op. cit., p. 10. Moral Progress 461 the direction of achieving the national type.’’ In estimat- ing the contributions of the nations to universal morality, we should judge therefore, not by this or that formulation of the ideal at any given time, but by the achieving spirit of the people during long periods. Progress in the Social Conscience.—Goodness in this sense may confidently be said to be progressive. The al- ternative to goodness is wickedness, retrogression or stag- nation. The moral spirit does run into its opposite, but external conditions become at times utterly unfavorable, as when by force of arms Rome conquered Greece. In the actual course of expression of the moral spirit the change is from one form to another, from what is right under one set of conditions to what is right under another. Thus it ceases to be right to hold captives taken in war as slaves, or to enslave negroes, although it may still be permissible to enslave woman, to compel men to make war, or to in- dulge in industrial slavery. While we may be no more conscientious than were the ancient Spartans who aban- doned their weaklings, the non-Christian peoples who per- secuted the early Christians, or the later Christians who indulged in the inquisition, there has certainly been marked progress in the social conscience, as one practice after an- other has been brought forth into the light for condemna- tion. The evils we tolerate may often be greater than those that were ignored of old. But the social conscience, with its modern means of enlightenment through the rapid gathering and distribution of information, is swiftly pass- ing judgments where moral consciousness once lagged. Where it was once a question of moral progress within a nation in relative isolation, surpassing its neighbors in some respects, falling below them in others, it is now more truly a question of world progress. Alexander’s Definition of Progress.—Progress is de- fined by Alexander as ‘‘the direction in which all the forces acting within and upon a society dispose it to move, so as to maintain its equilibrium.’’?° This definition does not imply the notion that ‘‘whatever is, is right’’; but that 26 Ibid., p. 330. 462 The Moral Life “‘wherever right is, there is progress.’’ The main course of progress is not linear, or in one continuous direction. Mere differentiation is insufficient to define progress. There is also integration. Sometimes there is simplifi- cation. Christianity introduced a principle of life simpler than the duty of Greek to Greek, or Roman to Roman; it obliterated national distinctions and decreased diversity. Differentiation, for example, tells us nothing of the forces by which progress is produced, and gives no connected view of the actual facts of historical development. The clas- sification and description of institutions and duties will differ with each age, therefore it is vain to map out a scheme of morality for all eternity: as the ideal changes,’ the highest moral sentiment will change with it.?”7 To the ancient Greek, for example, the highest moral conception was the fitting, the proper, the just, and the beautiful. But obedience to law was highest for the Jew, and the claims of duty for the Christian. The Productive Principle.—We have tried in the fore- going chapters to bring the conceptions of goodness, duty, moral law, freedom, conscience, and virtue into as close relation as possible. Yet we must, with Alexander, leave abundant room for moral changes, while putting in clear- est relief the moral constant which persists through them all. We must agree also with the conclusion that no form- ulation of the ideal is final. What is worthy of strongest emphasis in the theories of moral progress we have passed in review is the productive principle which leaves its suc- cessive crystallizations in the moral order as a whole. Scholars hesitate to say that mankind as a whole is surely moving towards one universal end.28 We lack the requi- site ‘‘systematic theory of moral values educed, by con- structive analysis, from the systematic study of the moral history of humanity.’’ We have not yet attained ‘‘the historically grounded and systematically organized doctrine of ethical value-judgments’’ wherewith to estimate con- temporary society, a society still in transition. The Ori- 27 Ibid., p. 401. 28 Leighton, op. cit., p. 500. Moral Progress 463 ental and Occidental civilizations are now in closer contact, but what is to be the issue of this meeting? Can it be said that we have ethically mastered ‘‘the vast industrial mech- anism’’ which we have invoked from the forces of nature to do our bidding? Are the intervening generations mere ‘‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’’ to serve the wel- fare of the final and happy one? ‘The final resource, if we would maintain the thesis of moral progress, is to de- clare, with Seth, that the worth of the individual in the inner life, in character rather than in what a man does in overt conduct, is the real test or criterion of progress. It is ‘‘the individual life which alone feels, thinks and wills, alone knows the bitterness of defeat, the joy of achievement, alone feels the sorrow and the happiness of the common lot, is the actual agent and embodiment of ethical values.’’ 2° Religious faith accomplishes for us what knowledge of moral history fails to yield as yet, namely, ‘‘eonsecration of the highest human values,’’ the affirma- tion that these values are ‘‘integral constituents in, or essential qualities’’ of the universal and enduring order; that ‘‘the higher meanings and purposes of the human spirit are blood kin to the supreme meaning and purpose of life.’’ REFERENCES Mackenziz, J. S., Manual of Ethics, Bk. III, Chap. VII. SetH, J., Ethical Principles, Part II, Chap. III. Myers, P. V. N., History as Past Ethics, Chap. XVIII. ALEXANDER, S., Moral Order and Progress, 1889. LricuTon, J. A., The Field of Philosophy, 1923, Chap. XXVIII (bibliography, p. 511). Fospick, H. E., Christianity and Progress, 1922. Hosnovse, L. T., Morals in Evolution, 1906, Vol. II. Dresser, H. W., Psychology in Theory and Application, Chap. XXXV. Topp, A. J., Theories of Social Progress, 1918. Mecxkun, J. M., Introduction to Social Ethics, Chap. XI. 29 Leighton, op. cit., p. 502. CHAPTER XXVIII ETHICS AND RELIGION Points of Resemblance.—It is not easy to draw sharp distinctions between ethics and religion. The two are one in marked respects. Every religious system involves ethical principles. Some of. the greater ethical principles as definitely involve religious teachings. It ean not truly be said that religion is the parent of morality. Nor do ethical teachings necessarily lead to religion. A moral code and a religious view of life may coincide at significant points, and the sanctions of the one may be the sanctions of the other. Religion would be nothing without the righteous life which gives evidence that it is genuine, and righteous conduct yields incentives for the development of moral theory. One ean neither agree with those ethical leaders who separate ethics as distinctively as possible from re- ligious objects, sources, and interests; nor with partisans of religion who so strongly insist on their particular system of theology as the basis for ethics that they put ethical principles in a subordinate place. Our best course is to maintain that religion and ethies belong intrinsically to- gether, with factors that occasionally interact, and with activities that at times fuse with one another and move forward in a single stream.t If at other times they part, they retain their mutual influences, and the distinctions we draw between then point forward to reconsideration of their relationships. The Problem of Loyalty.—The only ethical instructions many of us receive are given under religious auspices. Few people ever undertake to separate out the theological elements of their faith, to consider what ethical principles they have acquired, or to discriminate between moral au- 1Cf. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. II, p. 2, note. 464 Ethics and Religion 465 thority and the authority of the creed which they have adopted. It has long been customary in Christian circles to try to do right because the Bible says so, because it is taught by leaders of the Church. It does not occur to the average believer to consider whether alien moral teach- ings have been introduced into Christianity at some period of history or by some one in authority, to the disad- vantage of the original ethical teachings of the Gospels. To adopt the religion of authority is to put a theological system in the first rank, to regard its sanctions as final; hence to rule out inquiries which might be profoundly enlightening from an ethical point of view. Loyalty to the system is put first, at the expense of loyalty to truth and to progress in knowledge concerning other peoples, other systems, other sacred books. Yet this larger vision might be gained without in any way sacrificing loyalty to the Christian faith. The result is often intolerance, sometimes persecution, if not coercion; and controversies arise which obscure real issues in favor of points of doctrine of no real moment. But such controversies are often primarily ethical, rather than theological. It becomes a question of what one ought to believe, of one’s duty regarding the creed or sect; one’s attitude toward science, biblical criticism, and the modern outlook on life in general. It is sometimes ethical prin- ciples which decide whether or not a religious dogma makes any difference to life or conduct, rather than the argu- ments for or against the dogma itself. If it appears that one can be an equally good Christian by regarding the dogma as either essential or non-essential, the question arises once more, What ethical principles are essential to the Christian faith and life? Again, if we find points of ethical identity and resemblance between the great reli- gions of the world, or between different sects within one of the chief living religions, we have good reason for main- taining that it is on the ethical side, not the theological, that religions will find their meeting-points; that it will be in terms of life, not by identity of doctrine, that the religious peoples of the world will finally come together. 466 The Moral Infe Priority of Experience as a Clue.—It is plain that the question of inter-relationship is not to be settled by appeal to origins; for the beginnings of both religion and ethics are crude, and we are concerned to know how far each is valid.2, The problem of the original authority and method of acquiring religious doctrines enters the case only on the assumption that the sacred books in which the doctrines are found were given by revelation, on the mechanical theory, that is, dictation word by word, so that the text is regarded as inerrant. On such a view the doctrines are infallible, without discrimination in favor of degrees of inspiration ; and the idea of the supernatural or miraculous plays a constant part. A certain sectarian interpretation of the Bible is then put above the researches and conclu- sions of biblical scholars, and the authority of the Scrip- tures is beyond appeal save through allegiance to the Church. But on the so-called dynamic view of revelation and inspiration the human factors of the process of receiv- ing divine truth are taken into account, revelation is then said to make its progressive appeal to human intelligence, inspiration is not by miracle, and the text is regarded as divine-human rather than merely divine. This view ac- cords with ethics on the ground that experience, both moral and religious, is prior to doctrine, that man becomes aware of inner needs of the spirit, and of values which in a measure meet these needs, before he adopts either codes of morals or systematic views concerning the deity, the soul, and the future life. An ethical principle or spir- itual teaching is not then said to be true merely or solely because it is in the Bible, but also because reason and practice find it true, and comparative study of the world’s great religions shows it to be universal. Theology as a Sign.—Ethics is a science, dependent on philosophy rather than on theology; on the data of the natural sciences rather than on the Church, with its creeds, officials, and sacred books. Moral science implies reasoned principles developed by analysis of the inner life, and by study of the evolution of moral tendencies among nations 2See Palmer, The Field of Ethics, p. 136. Ethics and Religion 467 investigated as freely as any other conceptions are studied. Reason in the sphere of ethics possesses the same freedom to follow truth wherever it may lead which we grant to any special science, including mathematics. It is not necessary to make the implied philosophy explicit in all its bearings, but the usual conviction is that ethical truth and reality pertain to the ultimate nature of things, that the moral order is part of the cosmic order. Religion in its most intelligible forms may be said to imply a science in the same way, that is, by appeal to the history of the great faiths of the world, by aid of psychology, and in as far as theology becomes philosophy. For religion has often been defined with respect to the attitude which man takes toward the universe, his emotional response, and the mode of life to which the cosmic emotion leads. Thus at the top religion and ethics might draw together in clos- est unity. But religion is frequently identified with a theology accepted on authority, not arrived at by begin- ning with the data of human experience in its fullness and adopting those principles which accurately described facts of experience demand. Thus the religion of authority may look askance at modern knowledge, may take alarm when ethical teachings are grounded in human reason and experience. Meanwhile, the religion of the spirit is apt to be in fullest accord with ethical idealism. From this point of view it is well understood that neither intuition nor conscience discloses a different type of knowledge, not even in the ease of revelation; but that there are ascending degrees of moral and religious experience, intuitions, judg- ments in the name of conscience, with which the mind associates higher truths and greater values. Precepts as the Test.—If the laws of morality are said to be laws of God, this is a question of the divine sanction, an added interpretation. The field which ethics and re- ligion share is so rich that it needs to be cultivated in the two ways. Theologically speaking, the ethics of Jesus, for example, are inseparable from a view of the nature and origin of the authority attributed to Jesus. But from an ethical point of view the implied principles may be singled 468 The Moral Infe out of the recorded teachings of the Gospels and compared, for instance, with the ethics of Buddhism, apart from the sharp contrast usually noted between (1) the Chris- tian conceptions of the Father, the human spirit, and heaven; and (2) Buddhistic teachings in regard to Karma (the persistence of moral deeds, rather than the persistence of personality) and the possibility of overcom- ing all desires in order that Nirvana (freedom from desires and incarnations) may be attained. The Christian is apt to assume that if true knowledge of God is lacking in any ethical system, such as Buddhism or Confucianism, its precepts will be inferior, its consequences more or less degrading. But comparison between the great ethical systems does not sustain this assumption.* Yet no dis- paragement of Christianity as religion is implied in the discovery that sometimes the precepts of Jesus have been anticipated, or that in some respects morality in India or China has surpassed that of the Christian world. Ethics as a science rather than as an argument for a given religion is concerned with the truth of moral teachings, their hold upon humanity, their results as disclosed by history, when- ever they have appeared, and whatever the auspices. Hach precept may indeed be investigated by itself, notably in the case of the doctrine of the higher resistance (love conquering hate) so often taken negatively as mere non- resistance, or interpreted both in India and among Chris- tian peoples in the monastic period in terms of a negative or ascetic view of self-sacrifice. Religious Realities.—Religion involves at least three elements: (1) belief in a Supreme Reality or God regarded as the source of all goodness, power, wisdom, love; to- gether with beliefs which follow from this concerning the reality of the human spirit, the future life, heaven; (2) inner experience taken to be supreme or decisive in value, and implying certain responses to the Supreme Reality, such as prayer, worship; and (3) a mode of conduct or life arising from this quickened inner experience and mani- 3See Hume, The World’s Living Religions, Chap. IV. Ethics and Religion 469 festing itself in a distinctive attitude toward the world, toward people, yielding evidences of the realities of faith and experience, for example, a conviction that God as immanent Presence guides, governs, or sustains. In brief there is conviction or judgment in regard to the highest values in life, their sources, their power, and the results to be anticipated from fidelity to these.* Religion, by con- trast, implies recognition of failures, dissatisfactions, dis- cords in the usual life of allegiance to material things; disappointment with one’s own lesser conduct; and aspira- tion to live a bettered life in cooperation with the life, love or wisdom springing from the divine source. Religion in its best estate is not departmental, but touches the whole of life, appealing to man to manifest the highest that is in him, as in its turn a manifestation of the divine pres- ence. In so far as religion thus becomes a ‘‘total attitude of the spirit,’’ it yields the supreme test or criterion. What had previously been a theory becomes a conviction, what had been cautiously accepted as knowledge, becomes a penetrating faith, while the ensuing conduct is the final evidence of the quality of this inward change. It is not necessary for our present purposes to consider what one of the elements of religion is prior. What signifies is the ideal of the fullness of life, with the emotional, intellectual, and volitional consequences which spring from this real- ization. Granted then the enlarged horizon, due to the cosmic emotion and ‘‘the sense of dependence’’® on God which man feels in his weakness in the presence of the problems of life, morality may be said to look to religion not only for horizon and hope, but also in man’s yearning for the divine love. Here love of God and duty may coincide, and in Jesus’ criticism of the Ten Commandments we come in sight of the unity of virtue, in that love which is the ful- filling of the law.* In this sense morality is incapable of completion without religion. ‘‘In the eall for help,’’ says 4Of, J. A. Leighton, Religion and the Mind of To-day, 1924, p. 4. 5 For definitions, see Hume, op. cit., p. 5. 6 Palmer, The Field of Ethics, p. 142. 470 The Moral Lrfe Palmer, ‘‘we reach the clearest consciousness of God.”’ ' In our reverential love for possible greatness as mani- fested in a supreme personality we attain a height which is indeed far above us so long as we dwell on moral pro- cesses in the thick of things, where we seem ‘‘born for trouble,’’ where vice may come in if religion wanes, where religion itself is sensibly dependent on morality. The Element of Controversy.—When, however, the- ology intervenes to sustain by argument what can not be proved by present fact or history, religion and ethics part company. Thus Augustine, in his assertion of the fall of man and its consequences, created facts to suit theory. So, too, Calvin introduced his view of predestination, to make good the glory of God. In our day, bishops have asserted that facts concerning the virgin birth, for in- stance, are created by the creed, that churchmen are bound by their vows to teach what is in the creed because it is in the creed, even though the doctrine in question may not be established by the Scriptures. The student of ethics is concerned to ascertain what actually happened in the course of history, not what ‘‘must have happened’’ be- cause its asserted existence is needed to prove a creed. Yet a controversy over points of doctrine becomes ethical rather than theological, the moment the question of values becomes paramount. For the term value is apt to be ambiguous in ecclesiastical circles. It may serve to con- note those surpassing realities of the religious life which no words of ours can do more than suggest, those values which we enter into by the aid of poetry and music, which uplift us in heart and will in our worship. Thus the enlightened believer may sincerely assign the highest place to the eternal values, realizing that no mere explanation will ever take the place of appreciation. But the liberal may conceal his progressive views under the term ‘‘value,’’ while the agnostic may allege that hymns and creeds which are antiquated in sentiment, doctrine, and phraseology are still useful as ‘‘values for worship.’’ 7 Ibid., p. 150. 8 Dresser, Psychology in Theory and Application, p. 703, Ethics and Religion 471 Liberalism.—When, therefore, the bishops insist that the entire creed shall be taken literally or not at all, that the term ‘‘symbol’’ connotes dishonesty, the issue becomes plainly a matter of conscience. If the liberal remains in orthodox circles, he is likely to be regarded as insincere, if not a heretic, as cloaking his heterodoxy under a verbal device. But he may see his way to a solution on ethical grounds by distinguishing between static and dynamic con- ceptions of both religion and ethics: the static individual is one who conservatively defends the original wording of a creed or theological system, while the dynamic leader is one who, realizing that values always surpass formulas and are subject to growth with increase of spiritual life, favors renewed expressions of the eternal verities.° The liberal may, therefore, insist that the conservative has no right to rule out that freer, progressive interpretation which seeks to be loyal to what is universal or permanent in religion and ethics, in contrast with elements regarded as particular, transient or non-essential. He holds too that an endeavor to follow the spirit of truth is of more sig- nificance than a vow to sustain a ereed subject to varied interpretations and likely to be outgrown. It is often then a question of relative loyalties: what ought I to do as a religious teacher? What place does belief occupy? To what extent does one owe loyalty to ‘‘the church invisible’’ rather than to the established Church? What motive in- volves an appeal to a principle or idea; regarded as ‘‘trans- cending human purposes and as deriving its validity from an all-inclusive meaning’’? 1° Contacts and Divergencies.—Is man when especially religious peculiarly moral? .When most moral is man also especially religious? Palmer thinks the evidences point to the contrary.1+ There are people who are very religious in the emotional sense whom we should not be quite will- ing to trust. The moral view of life is on the whole man- ward, while the religious view is Godward.?? The religious 9 Cf, Fosdick, Christianity and Progress, p. 207. 10 See Everett, Moral Values, p. 389. 11 The Field of Ethics, p. 172. 12 Ibid., p. 175; see, also, Everett, op. cit., p. 380. 472 The Moral Lafe soul seeks for God as all in all, while man in his essentially moral interests is always thinking of matters limited in space and time, in scope and consequences. Thus religion and ethics may be in closest alliance, the moral life sup- plying the opportunities for service in an intimately prac- tical way; while religion gives not only a wider horizon, and greater stability, but a hope at the point where the world is especially discouraging. In Palmer’s view this hope finds its realization in the gospel of the abundant life taught by Jesus. In Everett’s view, ethical conceptions are likely to di- verge more emphatically from religious doctrines in so far as other-world doctrines hostile to life in this world inter- vene.*® There is then a conflict of values, as if the real interests of this life could rightfully dictate one mode of conduct, while another mode pertains to the future life. The presumption is wholly in favor, ethically speaking, of a continuity of values with those of the present order, since we have no evidence of discontinuity. ‘‘As all pos- sible knowledge of values is derived from experiences of the present life, no other world can prescribe standards of value to this world. In our highest endeavors after a truly spiritual life it still holds good that we must ‘live by realities.’ Dualism in values ignores the fact that every attempt to represent to ourselves the values of another sphere of life is based upon actual experiences here and now.’’'4 We part company then, as ethical idealists, with any religious conception which undertakes to pass judgment on present conduct in terms of a system of future rewards and punishments, also any religious pes- simism which involves ‘‘a sense of human helplessness and of the illusory and worthless character of earthly experi- ence.’’ Ethics as the Criterion.—F or us the worth of life is a cardinal proposition. There is a widespread critical re- action in our day against the assumption that super- natural forces direct man’s fate. If religion is to indicate 13 Op. cit., p. 399. 14 Ibid., p. 400. Ethics and Religion 473 the highest ends of thinking and willing, to set up the highest standards or patterns, this must be done, so we now insist, by means of a different view of the spiritual life, based on an immanent teleology. Only thus, by de- veloping a dynamic conception, and avoiding the pitfalls of a static creed, is religion likely to keep pace with our progressing ethical conceptions. Hoffding has put forward a strong plea for a more soundly ethical religion, on a philosophic basis.1° Thus approached, it is seen that re- ligion advances with the growth of man’s aims, and it is plainly ‘‘impossible for man to conceive of divine capaci- ties and wishes which he himself has never experienced in any degree.’’ 7° The transition from natural to ethical re- ligions is the most important transition in the whole history of religion. Thus in time it is seen that good is not good because God wills it, but that God wills the good because it is good; ‘‘he who is just because the God in whom he believes is just, must attribute value to justice itself.’’ 2” And this is why it is clearly seen at least that values must be discovered and produced in the world of experience before they can be said to exist in another world. So, too, ‘‘the criterion of the value of religion and of its signifi- cance as an expression of spiritual culture must ultimately be an ethical one.’’1® It is ethics then which shows how far and in what way the nature of man is developed by means of spiritual culture, although it is religion which yields a motive for action of very great consequence. One agrees with Hoffding then, that it is not a sufficient justi- fication of a religious motive that it is an expression of a man’s personality, for religious motives should be tested in every possible way. In the last analysis, therefore, motives would be ruled out which flourish at the cost of love of truth, which hide under ambiguous verbal subtle- ties. And if ethics and religion finally coincide it will be because there is ‘‘a profound conviction that there is a value which must be maintained as the highest.’’ 15 The Philosophy of Religion, trans., Chap. IV. 16 Ibid., p. 324. 17 [bid., p. 329. 18 [bid., p. 332. 474, The Moral Life If however we say, with Leighton, that ethics is ‘‘the doctrine of the good, of the Supreme Values of Life,’’ ?* we may agree that religion is ‘‘the faith that these values are eternally realized in the Supreme Reality, that God is the Perfect Fulfillment’’; and so we may find complete harmony between our ethical and religious conceptions. We have contended for the position that ethics is not alone ‘‘the doctrine’’ but is inseparable from the moral life which follows on the part of all who are in earnest, and we have found that even a relatively impersonal morality, such as Stoicism, becomes a religion when the element of duty is discerned. Thus morality passes over into religion unless, perchance, as in some ethical culture movements, the element of worship is kept out and agnos- ticism intervenes. Religion and ethics unite in emphasizing ‘‘the supreme worth and reality of the individual soul, the moral freedom and responsibility of the self.’’ 2° And in this intimate alliance with religion morality avoids any suspicion that the ideal of self-realization is in any sense a merely cultural ideal without the impetus to the life of service. To regard God as the Perfect Individual ‘‘ because he is wholly and completely social,’’ because he cares for all and gives of his life without stint, is to find the moral ideal transfigured by the highest standard of fellowship. Creeds as Fetters.—It is important to distinguish (1) the inner experience which yields such convictions and shows the unity between ethics and religion from (2) the interpretations put upon it which make formal matters paramount. For if religion is to yield horizon and give hope, it must be as a life, an experience which is closely akin to morality as an art. In fact religion and morality might have been developed as the art of life, might have been one in spirit and method all along the line had it not been for the imposition of authoritative systems on the facts of experience. Havelock Ellis has a graphic way of putting this matter: ‘‘It is only too familiar a fact how, when the impulse of religion first germinates in the 19 Op. cit., p. 5. 20 Leighton, ibid., p. 123. Ethics and Religion 475 young soul, the ghouls of the Churches rush out and pro- ceed to assure him that his rapture is, not a natural mani- festation, as free as the sunlight and as gracious as the unfolding of a rose, but the manifest sign that he has been branded by a supernatural force and fettered forever to a dead theological creed. Too often he is thus caught by the bait of his own rapture; the hook is firmly fixed in his jaw and he is drawn whither his blind guides will; his wings droop and fall away; so far as the finer issues of life are concerned, he is doomed and damned.’’ *? Religion as Life.—Hllis regards religion as ‘‘the art of finding our emotional relationship to the world conceived as a whole.’’?? Its core is mysticism, in the sense of an advance beyond the individual’s personal ends to an ad- justment to larger ends, through harmony with the Whole, through devotion or love. Such mysticism is an art, and one that is in perfect accord with science at its best. To see this deep-lying unity, at this late day in human history, is to clear away all the accumulated superstitions, the un- reasoned prepossessions, on either side; and to see that the development of the religious instinct and the development of the scientific instinct are alike natural.?? It is the fig- ments of our thought which have obscured the simple realities, our timid dread lest religion should kill our science or science kill religion. In contrast with all this artificial- ity, is the real essence of religion, coming as the revela- tion of a new life springing up from within; a simple process, a natural function, an art which nature makes. The Content of Religion.—To follow this clue is to re- alize afresh that religion appeals to various elements of our nature: It touches the emotions and hence quickens in us the process which Ellis calls mystical. It appeals to the heart, with sympathy and compassion, and so dis- closes the service motive. It arouses the understanding to consideration of the great ideas—the idea of God, of the human spirit, of immortality, and the relation of man as 21 The Dance of Life, 1923, p. 227, 22 Ibid., p. 191. 23 Ibid., p. 226. 476 The Moral Life person to the divine personality—and so it may lead to a quickening intellectual development, if thought is not checked by servitude to ecclesiastical authority. It appeals to the will to go forth and live by the heart’s promptings, to lead the life of service which accords with the thought of God, so that love toward God and man shall be the reigning motive. It involves worship, meditation, prayer; so it is in large measure for the sake of the inner life of the individual, and hence religion may take on highly sub- jective forms. But its appeal is also to objective stand- ards, to a God who is above all, is for all in the larger cosmos of a social order, where the test is not what a man feels and thinks but also what he does as an effective mem- ber of the community. Religion leads to the idea of the beloved community in so far as it passes beyond mere motives of salvation, and by leading to the beloved com- munity it yields vision and power to ethics. The Contributions of Christianity—Comparison be- tween ethics and religion becomes more specific when we consider the ethics of Christianity from typical points of view, since for many of us religion and Christianity are identical. The conclusions of Hobhouse are negative; for he identifies Christianity with a life which might be lived for a time by a selected brotherhood of perfect men and women, with no rule of life applicable to a world in which people are far from perfect.24 According to Bowne, the significance of Christianity lies less in the field of moral judgments and more in the conceptions which condition their application in moral relationships.2®> The moral na- ture is not transformed by this teaching, but the condi- tions of its best unfolding have been furnished, so that although the same life is lived it has very different rela- tions and meanings. For example, the conceptions of God, life, and death are greatly clarified; moral principles are greatly extended, the sense of obligation is reinforced; inalienable sacredness is given to the origin and destiny of man, all men are regarded as children of a common 24 Morals in Evolution, Vol. II, p. 152. 25 B. P. Bowne, The Principles of Ethics, 1892, p. 201. Ethics and Religion ATT Father and heirs of eternal life. It now becomes a question of seeking first the kingdom of God and its righteousness. There is seen to be a moral kingdom stretching over all worlds and ages. The moral law is seen as not merely an expression of fact but also of the divine will. Hence its triumph is seen as secure: the universe and God are seen to be on the side of righteousness. A transcendent personal ideal is set up—the master-light of all our moral seeing and our chief inspiration. Rights grow more sacred, duties enlarge. Love and loyalty to a person take the place of reverence for an abstract law, and this consciousness is vastly more effective, is of incalculable significance for the moral life. Man is now explicitly seen as of divine par- entage and divine destiny. Implied in the Christian con- ception of God is the conviction that the moral essence is the same in God and man: hence later conceptions of Chris- tianity have rejected the view that the divine will is exalted above the divine goodness, as if right and wrong had been ereated by the will of God. The Christian Type.—This more intelligible ethical conception also finds expression in the summary of the philosophical postulates of Christian ethics given by New- man Smyth.?° Human nature is constituted for moral life, involves the idea of moral obligation, the authority of con- science: the ought is a moral constant of the universe ;?7 it is essential to the nature of God. If it were not God’s eternal nature, it would not be our absolute obligation. Moral sovereignty is the sole sovereignty. Life without an ideal is unmoral; we are distinguished from the brute creation by this power of forming ideals. What is the best object then according to the Christian for which a man may live? The ideal has been given his- torically in the Person of Christ, the real example of it; it has been mediated through the Christian life and testi- mony which the Master’s coming and the divine spirit have ealled forth and inspired. It is partly realized in Christian history, and is still further to be interpreted. Jesus was 26 Christian Ethics, 1892, p. 26, 27 Ibid., p. 45. 478 The Moral Infe both an original and originative moral power. He brought in a changed conception, a new type of virtue: the Chris- tian character is a distinct moral type. His moral ideal is disclosed in the doctrine of the kingdom of God, the kingdom as here. His doctrine of the supreme good is personal, The kingdom is constituted of persons: the full- ness and completeness of personal relationships, including holiness, righteousness, benevolence, love, blessedness. Sacrifice is the method of Jesus’ rule. Men should be per- fect. The ideal is absolute, its absolute quality is holiness, passion for righteousness, an ideal which is coextensive with life, comprehends all objects and aims that are good. In contrast with the supreme ideal of Buddhism (renun- ciation) the essence of the Christian ideal is consecration. Christian conscience thus receives distinctive character, namely, from its informing principle of love; including duties to self as a moral end, to others as moral ends, and duties in relation to God as willing the supreme end of being. Christianity as Final.—In relation to Christian theol- ogy, the task of Christian ethics as defined by a typical expositor, is to make clear the meaning and basis of the Christian ideal from the point of view of its connection with Christian faith.28 Its interest is to exhibit the con- tent of the Christian ideal, therefore the individual and social life required by that ideal; the grounds of conviction of the attainability of the ideal in the dynamic which Christian faith supplies. Foster finds the basis for this procedure in the Christian value-judgment that the Chris- tian ideal is the culmination of the moral life of humanity: this ideal is characterized by universal validity. The con- tent is ‘‘a fellowship of persons united by the principle of self-denying love.’’?® In this kingdom of moral per- sonalities all individuals are ends, and in all these ends love rules. In contrast with old-time emphasis on self- sacrifice, Foster restates the ideal in terms of the modern 28 See G. B. Foster, Christianity in its Modern Expression, 1921, p. 190. 29 Ibid., p. 213. Ethics and Religion A479 ethical ideal that nothing should be denied, but all should be organized. So we may come to realize that the Chris- tian moral law opens up to the individual the way to per- fect unity and freedom, and with this to the supreme con- tent of the inner life. For Foster the ideal of Christian morality is indeed unsurpassable; for there is nothing higher than personality, nothing higher than the fellowship of love of such persons, with the infinite capacity for development which this ideal affords. Doctrinal Limitations.— Whatever the student of ethics may conclude regarding arguments for the finality of the Christian religion, the great need throughout is to note that it is a question of a given system already accepted as final on doctrinal grounds. On the other hand a study of the situation ag historically developed by Myers shows how and when the doctrinal ideas were introduced, without pre-judgments for or against any given Christian system.*° Myers regards the displacing of naturalism by supernat- uralism in ethics as one of the most momentous in history. Thus was made rigid large sections of the moral code, and a certain immobility tended to characterize the religious- ethical life of European civilization. So too the dogma of the fall of man became one of the most influential concep- tions in the moral domain ever entertained by the human mind.* Orthodoxy came to mean the substitution of cor- rect religious opinion in place of the former emphasis on moral life as the ideal: orthodoxy has been unwilling to admit that charity, ‘‘though combined with perfect up- rightness of life and expressed in noblest acts of self-ab- negating service of humanity, is a saving virtue unless associated with correctness of religious belief and the out- growth of it.’’*? And so came into Christian thought cer- tain limitations, and the exclusion of ideals highly esteemed by the Greeks and Romans. With the exaltation of faith above reason came the assumption that in the revealed word of the Church was possessed all knowledge really 30 Op. cit., p. 256, foll. 31 Ibid., p. 259. 32 Ibid., p. 262. 480 The Moral Life essential to man’s welfare and salvation. The chief defect was in making the acceptance of all the articles of a given creed an indispensable virtue. ‘‘In assigning orthodox be- lief this place in the ideal of moral goodness, theological ethics has marred Christian morality by fostering the faults of intolerance and intellectual insincerity. This dogma inspired in the Chuch, as soon as it became powerful, a persecuting spirit, and made Christianity for centuries something alien to its real genius and spirit—one of the most intolerant of the world’s religions.’’ ** Thereby was discouraged intellectual veracity and open-mindedness, and the vice of insincere conformity was fostered more than any other fault, to the detriment of Christian morality even to the present day. The resource would be to learn the lesson which history teaches when treated as Myers regards it, to return to the sources of Christianity by returning to the sources of re- ligion in unfettered human experience. Just what Chris- tianity meant in its original form, apart from all sectarian versions, would still be a problem. But for one thing it meant fullness of life as an intelligible moral ideal discov- erable by each individual through experience. And this ideal may be put in intelligible relation with the other great moral ideals of history, to see what part religion has played in the development of ethics as a whole. The Ethical Problem Today.—For many Christians it is no longer a question of fidelity to this or that creed but of a moral obligation to make one’s organization as dis- tinctively ethical and as strongly Christian as one can. The recent tendency among leaders in various Christian churches in America, for example, has been to recover the original Gospel at its best, to make this teaching more explicit as emphatically ethical, and to show that it is a Gospel of social salvation. Hence, in the foregoing chap- _ ters, we have indicated that the real problem today is to carry out in actual social life what we believe, making our moral creed an efficient force, adapting it to present needs while at the same time emphasizing the truth that all 33 Tbid., p. 265. Ethics and Religion 481 true reform begins in the inner life. Such a union of forces shows ethics and religion working together, where sectarian considerations would have separated them. Rauschenbuseh, for example, has been looked up to as leader in this emphasis on the social gospel of Christianity. According to this inspiriting view, Christianity was pure and unperverted when it ‘‘lived as a divine reality in the heart of Jesus Christ.’’ °4 The purpose of Jesus was the social redemption of the entire life of the human race on earth. Jesus was never very passive. He was ‘‘high- power energy from first to last. His death itself was action. It was the most terrific blow that organized evil ever got. .. .’’®° The idea of justice was not lacking in Chris- tianity as thus regarded, but justice was looked upon as the most fundamental quality needed in the moral relation- ships of men, the condition of good-will between individ- uals, the foundation in very truth of the social order. Hence the fundamental step toward Christianizing the so- cial order will be the establishing of social justice by the abolition of unjust privilege.*® The objective is ‘‘the high- est degree of personal liberty plus the most effective codp- eration of all, freedom being ‘‘the condition of a Christian social order.’’ The kingdom of God to be established on this basis will include, in Rauschenbusch’s view, the economic order; since it means ‘‘the progressive transformation of all human affairs by the thought and spirit of Christ,’’ with opportunity for every one to realize the full humanity which God has put into him as a promise and a call.” Summary.—Religion as we have regarded it in this volume is a life, and the dynamic or life-giving element should be paramount from first to last. There are points of divergence between ethics and religion, especially in re- lation to theology and the churches; but emphasis belongs rather on the points of resemblance and identity. For religion, regarded as making for the fullness of life, con- 34 Christianizing the Social Order, p. 49. 35 Ibid., p. 67. 86 Ibid., p. 337. 37 See ibid., p. 458, foll. 482 The Moral Life tributes the quickening power or incentive, the hope, and horizon needed by morality. Ethics is concerned with what is universal, and so with universal principles in the great religions of the world; not with arguments for finality or ecclesiastical authority, or even for the supremacy of the Christian religion as Christianity has often been con- ceived. REFERENCES Paumer, G. H., The Field of Ethics, 1901, Chaps. IV, V. SETH, J., Hthical Principles, Part II, Chap. II. Gizycki, G., An Introduction to the Study of Ethics, trans., Chap. VIII. PauLseNn, F., System of Ethics, trans., Bk. II, Chap. VIII. Ten BRoeke, J., The Moral Life and Religion, 1922, Part IT. RasuHpAuL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Bk. ITI, Chap. IT. SmytTuH, N., Christian Ethics, 1892. Scort, E. F., The Ethical Teaching of Jesus, 1924. Hume, R. E., The World’s Living Religions, 1924. Eitwoop, C. A., The Reconstruction of Religion, 1922. Dresser, H. W., Psychology in Theory and Application, Chap. XLI (references on the psychology of religion, p. 679). Watson, J., Christianity and Idealism, 1897, Chap. I. LuicgHton, J, A., Religion and the Mind of To-day, 1924. CHAPTER XXIX ULTIMATE VALUES First and Last Things.—To turn to the consideration of ultimate or metaphysical questions in relation to ethics is not to engage in a distinctively different inquiry. Meta- physies is the study of first principles, the ultimate nature of reality. It is concerned with ‘‘first and last things’’— the nature and structure of Being, the significance of Be- coming (evolution), the reality of the human self and human experience. It investigates the beginnings and end- ings or presuppositions and conclusions of the special sciences, such as physics, chemistry, biology ; and considers these in their inter-relationship, unity, or system. Every special discipline makes its assumptions, develops the hypotheses peculiar to it; but also leaves issues for con- sideration, as fundamental to any thorough-going study of the nature of things. In the foregoing chapters we have considered some of the first and last things, without sharply distinguishing these matters, as if they belonged wholly outside of ethies. We began with moral activity, moral experience, the self or personality regarded as real; we accepted moral values as bearing relation to experience of the highest type in a realm of values; and we have considered the basis of moral obligation, duty, or conscience as a principle of constancy fundamental to the structure of moral reality. We have, in brief, taken the moral order itself to be part of the ulti- mate structure of the universe. The question of freedom, which some moralists treat as a metaphysical rather than an ethical issue, was introduced as essential to a study of theories of the good; also the problems of evil, optimism, 1 Cf. Seth, op. cit., p. 360. 483 484 The Moral Life and pessimism. The relation of ideals as moral forces to causal sequences has come before us, too. Hence the persistent question is this: What is the relation of values to reality? This problem is as old as Plato’s time, namely, the relation of experience in general—with its appearances or relativities, its imperfections and disappointments—to the Ideas as archetypes. Space will not permit an analysis of the problem except so far as me may indicate certain typical lines of approach. The Conservation of Values.—A direct road to the issues likely to be raised by the student of ethics, approach- ing ultimate problems from the point of view of values, is found in Hoffding’s Philosophy of Religion. Although the principle proposed by Hoffding bears special reference to religion, it is as directly applicable to ethics; since the criterion is to be discovered within ethies rather than in any religious system. The hypothesis is this: the conserva- toon of value is the fundamental axiom of religion. Value is defined as ‘‘the property possessed by a thing either of conferring immediate satisfaction or serving aS a means to procuring it. Value therefore may be mediate or im- mediate. Where immediate value is given we seek it to preserve it; where not given, to produce it. We make it . our end.’’? Hoffding finds that the question of the conservation of religious values is an ethical question be- cause it is for ethics to show what is the highest present value, how value is to be fostered as of central importance. It is in experience that values are discovered, we look to experience to disclose whatever values may yet be given, and not until experience has made its full deliverance shall we know what other values are to be considered. The question of the relation of values to reality is a meta- physical question because, in the first place, the theory of knowledge is involved. The Basis of Values.—If, for example, we analyze re- ligious views of the world, to find a secure basis for values, we find that since Kant’s day such views are no longer defensible as scientific conceptions of the nature of things, 2 Op. cit., p. 12. Ultimate Values 485 as if religion offered primary knowledge of reality: the essence of religion is valuation, not comprehension of exist- ence, the central conviction being that no value perishes out of the world. Religion sought to show that the world was produced by a push from without, by divine will. But there are fundamental difficulties besetting the idea of a First Cause, as the beginning of a series of causes. The tendency to localize God in space, as ‘‘above’’ while the world is ‘‘below,’’ gave way in time to the conception of ‘‘above’’ and ‘‘below’’ as symbolical, that is, it became a distinction of value. A change came about also in re- gard to time. Creation was once regarded as time run- ning out, with a beginning and end, with means and ends separated ; and while this mundane sphere was a place for work without enjoyment, heaven was to be enjoyment with- out work. The dualism of past and present, time and eternity, Hoffding regards as the worst of dualisms. Work and development should have immediate value, with per- manence of value throughout time’s changes; the eternal life is already present. What now is the central question for those who are seek- ing a basis for the persistence of values? Hoffding begins with the problem of the interconnection of phenomena, the need for continuity in our consciousness, an inner law- abiding connection which holds the world together from within. The principle of unity must not lead out beyond itself, must round out knowledge, conclude the intellectual process. If we start with the idea of God, as the rational explanatory principle, and regard God and the world as two beings, the conception fails: we can not deduce the manifold from unity, the world from God, the imperfect from the perfect, the mutable from the immutable. Neither creation nor emanation is adequate. God as the absolutely unchangeable ground of continuous change is unthinkable. We are thrown back to the view that possibly Being is not complete. We may of course regard God as inclusive of the highest known values, ethical and esthetic. Since experience is inexhaustible, there is indeed no objective con- clusion to our knowledge. 486 The Moral Infe Being as the Basis.—What results if we try out the idea of the psychical side of existence as continuous, as the innermost essence of reality, experience being spiritual ac- tivity? Hoffding’s difficulty here is that we do not know whether the inner essence is psychical or material.* The question can not be answered. Our arguments from the facts of consciousness to the conception of a world-ground proceed according to analogy. But analogy is not knowl- edge. The analogy falls short, idealism remains a faith only. Our thought changes indeed from concepts to fig- ures of speech, because of the inadequacy of our more precise terms. Figurative ideas express relations, hence never yield an absolute conclusion. Even the idea of ‘‘per- sonality,’’ applied to God or the ultimate Principle, fails at the essential point; for it is drawn from the idea of a finite ego—a single member of the great world-order, in contrast with the inexhaustible principle. But in the idea of God nothing finite remains. So too ideas of ‘‘Force,’’ **Life,’’ ‘‘Substance,’’ fall short. The result of Hoffding’s inquiry can not however be sheer agnosticism or doubt, for whatever knowledge we have is a part of existence. It is still rational to regard Being as the home of the devel- opment and conservation of value. Inner Experience as the Basis.—It is plain that the object of religious consciousness can no longer be grasped by immediate intuition. We can not claim, by ‘‘an expan- sion of feeling’? that we have arrived at the ultimate es- sence of things. By experience (1) we acquire only par- ticular and definite values, conditioned by our nature, and the special conditions of life; (2) we learn nothing posi- tive about the conservation of values—the highest value is not shown by experience to be the central fact of existence ; (3) we gain only at best a motive for believing. In other words, (1) we do not experience the cause, what is imme- diately experienced being an abstraction; (2) we do not learn the supernatural in contrast with the natural: we judge by tradition, that is, we experience the strivings 3 Ibid., p. 74. Ultemate V alues 487 and states inculeated by tradition; our experiences are made for us by the creeds, are assigned to a lower rank; we need therefore a counter-test to test experience; and (3) our experience remains individual. Nevertheless, re- ligious feeling presupposes (1) experience of life, truth, beauty, goodness; (2) a striving to maintain values.* Where our knowledge falls short, we tend to supplement knowledge by faith, that we may pass beyond the oscilla- tions of experience to steadfastness in our search for rest, our effort to rise above differences and struggles. Faith assumes the principle of continuity, eomprehensibility, God as its object, and the principle of the conservation of value through all experience; it implies stable and continuous direction of the mind in the assertion of the persistence of values. Hoffding concedes that experience is thus far real experience of the relation between value and reality. The eontent of religious experience always depends however on the experiences of man, what he has found to be of value. The highest value is not demonstrable. The religious life still yields a greater continuity than religious ideas. As the center or basis of these ever-persistent experiences of ours, seeking values and endeavoring to preserve them, human personality should be regarded as end, above mere means, above mere authority; as winning and developing conviction. The Present Life as Basis—When it becomes a matter of selection between values, discovered and produced as they are in the world of experience, the ethical standpoint is decisive, with the implied faith in present values. Hoff- ding does not at all depend on the supposed moral compen- sations of the future life. He is too agnostic or skeptical to say whether there be a future life. All values are dis- covered and produced in this world. The idea of the other world is derived from ideas of this one, and the idea of another world can never be a primary concept.® Real life is life in this world. Only experience can ever decide whether another world exist. Hence in the last analysis 4 Ibid., p. 113. 5 Ibid., p. 330, 488 The Moral Lrfe we are sent back to the present movement toward culture, under the ethical command to make this life valuable.® Few writers have more searchingly narrowed down the issues to those that are central for ethics. Hoffding’s con- clusion seems for the moment meager in the extreme. His point of view is purely naturalistic; the laws and forces of nature stand first in order; law is primary, qualities secondary; the axiom of the conservation of values is regarded as inferior in validity to the conception of the conservation of energy. Religious ideas are assigned to second rank throughout; for religion lives on in human feelings and needs, not by surety of knowledge; religious thought either (1) hesitates between literal and figurative terms or (2) falls back on mysticism, rejecting all anal- ogies, holding that God is outside of every concept or genus. The prime result is paradox, dependence on habit and imagination, a return to the salvation-motive, the in- terspersing of gaps in knowledge with dogmas and symbols, dependence on ‘‘saints’’ and prophetic personalities. But while this critique is disillusioning in the extreme for re- ligion, it is of prime significance for ethics: the discovery, production, and conservation of values in this world af- fords sufficient moral opportunity for all men. If a spir- itual world exist, life here in behalf of the highest known values will be the best preparation. God, as object of faith, is the ideal basis of just these values whose per- sistence we believe in and work for. Ethics does not eall upon man to do more than is implied in the axiom of the conservation of values. The Value of Faith—The uncertainty with which this critique leaves us is indeed characteristic of the moral life. This fact came before us in the study of freedom, or the ambiguities of our moral future. Because of this uncer- tainty man as essentially a moral being is under obligation to choose, choice is a venture implying faith: man in part ereates his own future by his deed. If man knew what we all at times wish we knew, precisely how the future is to 6 Ibid., p. 381. Ultimate Values A489 develop for us, he could not make a real decision. Even an act of self-sacrifice is ‘‘a leap in the dark.’’ No vir- tuous deed carries with the motive that gives it impetus a guarantee that it will necessarily bring the consequences sought. Our faith is that the moral order is more real, good is greater in power than evil, meliorism more nearly true than pessimism; but it is still a faith. The remarkable fact about man’s moral history is that there is a moral constant persisting through all changes so that, however great the relativity of his knowledge, whatever the upheavals in the period in which he lives, he still passes moral judgment, considers moral law and obligation, goes forth into duties, and makes the ventures of faith with moral conviction. The conservation of values is indeed a profound fact of his history. It is this which gives constancy to his religion. This fact points forward to a constructive faith in the integrity of conduct and char- acter regarded as implying the future life and a spiritual world, so that the ethical argument for immortality is by common consent the strongest. Beyond Agnosticism.—To note the relativities on which Hoffding and others who build on the critical philosophy of Kant insist is not then to revert to mere positivism, empiricism, or phenomenalism. For ethics, in developing conceptions of goodness, duty, moral law, conscience, free- dom is concerned with realities; and the implied constant, principle, or highest value accepted as needing no demon- stration, is a principle central to our intelligence in acquir- ing metaphysics or ‘‘first philosophy.’’ We have to this extent already advanced beyond the point of view of de- scription and begun to interpret, whereas natural science, with all its certainty, in terms of the reign of law, the con- servation of energy, the persistence of the relationship of cause and effect, remains on the level of description. The moral order is an interpretative order. It demands what Seth calls ‘‘speculative courage,’’ which is at the root of all intellectual progress.? The moral philosopher contrib- 7 Op. ctt., p. 356. 490 The Moral Lrfe utes a system of value-judgments to be brought into rela- tion with esthetic judgments and judgments concerning scientific truth, convinced as he is that the Good is one of the three surpassing Eternal Values. He insists as stoutly that the facts of moral experience shall have final hearing as the cosmologist with all his assurance insists that the mechanical order of nature qualifies ultimate reality. It is a notable fact that men more nearly agree in ethics than in theology or in metaphysics. Indeed, allowing for dif- ferences in terms it might be said that a single ethical system is implied in the trend of thought, assimilating as it does elements from “both empirical and rationalistic theories with reference to a conception of the ideal self, in process of attaining realization, satisfaction or perfec- tion. It is ethics, with its strong emphasis on the worth of the individual, alike in empirical and in idealistic theories, which more than any other discipline, holds out against any mere monism or pantheism insisting on a single self or the lumping of Self with the World. Still, for ethics as surely as for any other fundamental point of view, the unity of the cosmos is a postulate. Whether the basis of this conception is to be gained, with Green, by a study of the spiritual principle in knowledge, in nature, in man, as intelligence, is too large a question to concern us here.® The student of ethics is likely to consider the traditional three issues at least—God, freedom, and immortality—in their relation.%? He probably will not be satisfied with mere pragmatism, namely, the notion that an ethical con- ception suffices if it ‘‘works’’ in application to this life as just now presented. What ‘‘works’’ is not thereby proved true. It may not take us beyond custom or appearance. What works at one time may not at another. Thus far we have not penetrated beyond particular judgments concern- ing what is right, as among the Spartans, who abandoned their weaklings to perish. What accords with our moral nature in the long run is what we seek. Our moral nature 8 Cf. Muirhead, op. cit., p. 218. 2See Prolegomena to Ethics, Bk. I, 10 Cf, Seth, op. cit., Part ITI, Ultimate Values 491 persists through all the mutations of particular judgments. What is the meaning of this persistence of the self through all its discoveries, the production and preservation of values ? Kthical Points of View.—It is not difficult to see why some writers on ethics, holding in general to a critical rationalism akin to Hoffding’s, are skeptical in regard to ultimate reality and accept little more than the positive knowledge of the surest of the special sciences. The moral life is said to be a scheme of values for this life because, for one thing, such writers have experienced a reaction against the religious conception of the world. Their atti- tude is typical of the decay of belief in God, doubt concern- ing immortality. The only authority left is that of moral reason in its most meager form. Hence, instead of under- taking to develop an ethical system by including the great- est conceptions of the ages, what these writers expound is their own temperamental reaction upon life as they view it, devoid as their life is of insight. The resulting ethical conceptions are so meager that one is surprised that the moral life was chosen for discussion at all. It is sig- nificant that some of these writers are still trying to be hedonists, in the face of the long array of arguments against it. Others become antagonistic the moment one men- tions Christianity as in any way superior to other relig- ions, and such writers would rule out of the present volume every term suggestive of theology or the spiritual life: one must be absolutely impartial, never for a moment sug- gesting that ethics is of value in the remaking of human nature. But to be so dreadfully dispassionate is to neg- lect one of the great lessons of the whole history of ethics, namely, that the true universal is concrete, is grounded in particulars. Hence we have insisted throughout that it is wholly ethical to believe and to do something in particular, to cleave to some system, some institution, or religion, and to work to make that system the best it can become. Hence we have given consideration to the religious view of the world, and accorded a hearing to teachings which find in Christianity the fulfillment of ethical systems at their best. 402 The Moral Life In a work like Martineau’s Types of Ethical Theory, there is also, it is true, a temperamental reaction upon the world; but, in contrast with the various naturalisms, it is a reaction rich in result, because Martineau brings to his task a constructive religious faith enabling him to appre- ciate realities of the moral order which scarcely exist even as appearances for those whose ethical faith is limited by naturalism. So too Leighton, on the basis of a closely reasoned philosophical system and an idealistic point of view in ethics, defends the religious conception of the world, and sees in Christianity the culmination of the great religions.*+ For Rashdall, the starting-point in constructive faith is the basic reality of the self, as implied in all knowledge, as the cause of its own activities; together with the objectiv- ity of the moral law, conceived as having real existence.” Morality then is absolute. If we ask where it exists, the reply is, not in material things, or merely in the mind of this or that individual. For there exists a Mind ‘‘for which the true moral ideal is already in some sense real . the source of whatever is true in our own moral judgments.’’** Belief in God then is the logical presup- position of an objective or absolute morality, the postulate of God’s existence is a postulate of sound morality: the universe must have a rational purpose or end. The pos- tulate of immortality follows. The ultimate coincidence between the higher and lower kinds of goods demands im- mortality, namely, as essential to the true and full well- being of the soul. It is typical of many writers on ethics thus to start with the reality of the moral self and its re- lation to human action as the primary postulate of ethics, with belief in God as the second postulate, and immortality the third, all three being postulates of what Kant called the practical reason. Christianity as Ultimate Basis—For writers like Wat- Son an interpretation of Christianity is from the start 11 See, especially, Religion and the Mind of To-day, 1924. 12 Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 189. 13 [bid., p. 212. Ultimate Values 493 essential to a constructive faith.14 Christianity as Watson interprets it shows morality and religion indissolubly con- nected. The whole race is taken to be a single spiritual organism. Each man is to gain his own perfection by self- conscious identification with all the rest. This commun- ity of life is possible because identical in nature with the one divine principle. To attain unity with himself, the individual must surrender his whole being to the influence of the Holy Spirit. There is no other basis for the moral ideal, and no possibility of its realization apart from the religious ideal: the life of man is moral in so far as it is in harmony with the divine nature. It follows then that goodness is real in the ultimate nature of things. It follows too that it is religious faith which alone gives full- ness of meaning to moral effort: to overcome the world is to overcome one’s lower self. Repentance is a personal consciousness of the infinite love of God.7° The king- dom of heaven is already present in the souls of those who have absolute faith in the goodness of God, a faith ex- pressed in unselfish devotion to one’s fellowmen, rejoicing in the adversities which beset those who live by this faith. Righteousness in the fuller sense of the word depends on spiritual regeneration. The source of morality is found then, not in the external act, but in the inner spirit from which the act proceeds; the moral law is indestructible. The spirit of God is present in each member of the whole spiritual organism, ‘‘at once distinguishing and uniting them.’’?° There is then a spiritual community in which each man is to find himself by losing himself. The Philosophy of History.—It is plain that such an interpretation of values, in contrast with their mere con- servation on a naturalistic basis, Involves a philosophy of history which in turn is a clue to a system of metaphysics. We have seen that it was not customary in the ancient world to regard human life and civilization as a progress, and so the philosophy of history did not, as in the case of 14 J, Watson, Christianity and Idealism, 1897. 15 Op. cit., p. 63. 16 Ibid., p. 97. 494 The Moral Life the other philosophical disciplines, berin with the Greeks. Plato and Aristotle interpreted existence in the light of eternal values, but not in the sense of an interpretation of human history regarded as a whole.” The idea of a connected world-plan of historical development had not yet been conceived. But with Christianity came the concep- tion of the whole movement of the world towards an end as essentially the experiences of personalities, while the outer world became the field for the development of the relationships of persons. The principle of love became the determining power, with the consciousness of the solidarity of the human race. Here, to be sure, Christian thought deviated for generations into the pathways of dogma turn- ing upon the conviction of universal sinfulness and the need for a common redemption; and so the subsequent history falls outside of the ethical field till ethics wins its freedom. But the point of view of an interpretation of human history had come to stay, the educative value of the divine revelation became a prevailing interest, man and his destiny was a starting-point, and these conceptions found fruitful development in a later period. In the days of Lessing and Herder, for example, religion as made pos- sible by revelation is still the clue from which the educa- tion of the human race is regarded.t® Hence comes the problem of civilization of a still later generation, the ques- tion whether civilization has fostered the moral order and increased man’s true happiness. The starting-point for interpretation need not be that of a divine revelation alone, but may begin with a view of man’s first estate when com- pared with actual history, or with history regarded as an uninterrupted progress of natural development, as in Her- der’s philosophy of history. It is the idea of humanity then which comes to be the great interest.?® Our interest in the philosophy of history centers about the fact that the system of ethical values which we adopt 17 See Windelband, History of Philosophy, trans., p. 255. 18 Windelband, op. cit., p. 498. 19 For the later developments of the philosophy of history, see Windelband, op. cit., pp. 605, 612, 652; Leighton, The Field of Philosophy, p. 485, foll. Ultamate Values 495 is the basis for such a philosophy.” It is, to be sure, the study of history which yields the data on which such a system is founded, as we have seen in our frequent refer- ences to the history of ethics and to the works of Myers, Hobhouse, and other writers who treat ethics historically. There appears indeed to be a logical cirele here: history is judged by a system of ethical values which appear to have been derived from a study of history; and there seems to be no escape from the circle. But although it was Chris- tianity which brought in the idea of the interpretation of human history in terms of the development of person- alities, it was the analytical philosophy of Plato and Aris- totle which yielded the norms. Our study of ethical con- ceptions as found in the historical studies of the subject would have very slight value for us were it not for the profounder ethical principles which were arrived at when the moral unwersal (of the Socratic insight) was put over against the deliverances of man’s mere history. Partisans of divine revelation as the starting-point contend that without a revelation man would never have been able to interpret history aright, while devotees of moral reason (developed independently of any specific theory of revela- tion) emphasize man’s intuition or creative insight as yield- ing the true universal. Certain it is that the central basis of ethical judgment is a value which does not need to be demonstrated, which man brings to his history as his principle of interpretation. The central principle is meta- physical, and is to be carried over into the implied system of philosophy, together with the assumed reality of moral selves, and the postulates of God, freedom, and immor- tality. The Future Life——Whatever view one may adopt con- cerning religious conceptions which we have touched on above so as to put in strong relief the alternatives to nat-. uralism, the final issue for many of us is that of immor- tality ; and here it is chiefly a question of the reconstructed faith which many have acquired by facing the critical 20 Cf. Leighton, The Field of Philosophy, p. 498. 496 The Moral Life problems dwelt on by writers like Hoffding. The starting- point is in an affirmative conception of goodness or value implying the reality of the moral self and a field of experi- ence sufficient for the complete working out of the age- long issues of freedom, equality, and justice. Granted this firm belief in the moral order of the world, with prospect of continued moral progress, the point of view of ethical idealism becomes triumphant, the natural world is looked upon as the first field of exercise of the moral spirit, and the future life as the carrying out of the activities here scarcely begun in the larger sense. So we note that with the breaking down of attempts to localize God in space, to think of creation as a beginning and ending of time, or of heaven as a ‘‘place’’ just above the earth, many other conceptions have broken down too: eternity has ceased to be a sphere to be entered, heaven is no longer postponed to a remote spiritual world, but we already live in the realm of the Eternal Values. In short, the moral life has become continuous. Since earth is no longer a place where all is ‘‘work without enjoyment,’’ heaven is no longer anticipated as a realm of perfect bliss in bare monotony of inactivity. Conduct through unbroken progressive changes has become the ideal whether here or there. We are coming to know this life so well that it has ceased once for all to be temporal. The more deeply we live in the present, discerning and working for its values, the less we live in mere time, the more we are already in the eternal moral order where values survive. Death, as a relatively external event, is no longer the decisive moment of human striving, as if ‘‘probation’’ ended with it. Such deeds as we have done with heart and will persist in their effect on our character. Real changes are not due to the shifting of a spatial garment, as if we were to ‘‘put on’’ an im- mortality which begins then, by ‘‘entering’’ an eternity which was alien to us before. There are as few ‘‘leaps’’ in the moral order as in nature. The self does not ‘‘leave’’ time, if by time we mean the moments of our experience, that is, the ‘‘real time’’ of Bergson which we ‘‘live Ultamate Values 497 through.’’ Character is in the making, in the persistence of the moral self, along with the temporal process in the natural world wherethrough moral deeds are made actual in relation to other events. What is inner and in a measure concealed while we lead this mundane existence, with the conventionalities behind which we hide, the traditions which we keep, and the language which was given us to ““conceal thought,’’ will undoubtedly be disclosed in what we call the future life, so that each of us will stand for what we truly are; and what we truly were an incident or two before death we undoubtedly will continue to be an incident or two after—till new occasions suggest new duties. Moral Persistence.—In Janet’s terms the future life will not then be a ‘‘recompense,’’ as Christians long thought, under the notion that virtue is a mere ‘‘reward’’; it will be a ‘‘deliverance,’’ freedom from illusions. Hence meditation on our future sends us back to profounder rec- ognition of what we are in our present experience. Very far from being sheer creatures of circumstance, we as surely reap what we have sown as if we were nothing more than units of behavior in a causal series inexorably ruled by mechanical necessity. Indeed, moral choice is brought home to us as the quintessence of activity. We are actually in a measure creators of our desitny, despite the truth that, as Wordsworth assures us, we are ‘‘building up the crea- tures that we are.’’ Whatever our potentialities, either as children of nature or as participants in the divine pur- pose, we have power of recognition, assent, rejection; hence power to keep on with what we have chosen. And what I in my decisive moment select bears fruit in kind, the activities set free by choice of potentialities persist as un- mistakably in my future selfhood as if (with believers in Karma) I were bound by ‘‘the wheel of life,’’ and doomed to be incarnated again. Moral persistence or conservation is higher in type than causal or mechanical sequence. The freedom we seek is as far from the old-time Christian heaven of bliss as from the Nirvana of the cessation of all desire. Activity through victory and the desire for more 498 The Moral Infe opportunities and fresh victories is precisely what we have come to desire. Everything turns upon our conception of personality as the locus of values.2?. There is little to be said about im- mortality if we have succumbed to behaviorism and nat- uralism; there is everything to be said if we realize the significance of the ethical argument for personality. We live this life best by seeking to realize and to manifest it more abundantly. Emphasis belongs on the dynamic or creative element. Memory of the past remains to show us what we were in part, what we did in part. Meanwhile the ‘‘something more’’ in us that found only partial ex- pression lives on through other moments of real experience, each with its more than temporal aspect because, as mem- bers of eternity, we pertain to the moral order. External things still partake of the imperfections which Plato sig- nalized by ever reminding us of the Ideas. But we move forward to nearer realizations of the ideal, in touch in- wardly with a higher type of life. Some of our attain- ments have barely begun. We are aware of possibilities scarcely realized under conditions imposed by our life as just now ordered, under economic needs and social de- mands. Our present moral life is in large measure an adjustment. But this adaptation to conditions and occa- sions is part and parcel of the moral order, the values acquired will persist. We may reasonably anticipate the future of ever more complete self-realization. There is strong reason to believe that the human spirit is not merely constituted for existence in the natural world. If the spirit were thus limited the widespread belief in human immortality, with our moral ideals and high aspira- tions would be what Ward ealls ‘‘unaccountable anomalies, a cruel and senseless mockery without a parallel. Within the whole range of the wide world’s literature we find no more constant theme than just this disparity be- tween man’s possibilities and aspirations on the one hand and the narrow scope afforded them in the brief space 21 Cf. Seth, op. cit., p. 450. Ultumate Values 499 of the present life on the other.’’ 2? The conditions of the present life are inadequate to our highest personal ends, but also inadequate from the point of view of our possible moral victories, since ‘‘evil is not overcome unless over- come in each individual.’’ Hence our conviction that if the moral life has the full meaning which it seems to pos- sess, ‘‘a certain personal continuity and continuity of de- velopment is essential.’’ 7% Man’s True Selfhood.—From Kant’s point of view, we find ourselves already living ‘‘as if immortal; in the moral life we constitute ourselves heirs of immortality, by living the life of immortal or eternal beings. Man’s true life is not, like the animal’s, in time, a life in time; its law issues from a world beyond ‘our bourne of Time and Place,’ from a sphere ‘where time and space are not.’ In every moral act, therefore, man transcends the limits of the pres- ent life, and becomes already a citizen of the eternal world. He has not to wait for his immortality ; it broods over him even in the present, it is the very atmosphere of his life as a moral being.’’ 24 This conviction that man, the real moral self, is already a denizen of the eternal world, by implication, has been the central thought throughout the ages in the ethical ideal- isms which have been taken seriously. Moral values, re- garded in this light, are not mere items of transitory util- ity. The values of our moral experience imply the Realm of the Eternal Values as an actual moral order of the universe. The self or soul, dwelling between, partakes of both the natural world of space and time and the eternal world of Values. As such in innermost essence, man is eternal, and interiorly he transcends the world of time by his moral deeds. His real life comes from the higher sphere. And so his life has real meaning, his moral deeds accomplish something, add actual values to the moral order. So too his freedom is real—not alone in the higher sphere from whence his power comes—but in the sphere of 22 The Realm of Ends, p. 386. 23 Ibid., p. 407. 24 Seth’s summary, op. cit., p. 451. 500 The Moral Life his moral deeds in this world, with the triumphs won in making his ideals efficacious. Thus the two worlds are brought closer than Kant brought them. ‘‘The strenuous and idealistic moral temper is rooted in the conviction of the eternal meaning of this life in time, and is willing to stake everything on this great Peradventure.’’ *® REFERENCES MACKENZIE, J. S., Manual of Ethics, Concluding Chapter. MurrHead, J. H., Elements of Ethics, Bk. V, Chap. III. SeruH, J., Hthical Principles, Part ITI. GREEN, T. H., Prolegomena to Ethics, Bk. I, Chap. I. RASHDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Bk. III, Chap. I. Lana, B. M., A Study in Moral Problems, Chap. II. Warp, J., The Realm of Ends, 1911, Chaps. XVITI-XX. LeiaHtTon, J. A., The Field of Philosophy, Chap. XXVII; Religion and the Mind of To-day, 1924, Part III. BosaNnQuEt, B., The Principal of Individuality and Value, 1917. LatrD, J., The Idea of the Soul, 1924, Chap. IX. 25 Seth, tbid., p. 451. Seth gives telling expression to the wide- spread sentiment in favor of belief in immortality, p. 453, foll. INDEX Accountability, 205, 257 Action, moral, 94; springs of, ethical scale, 288-243 Activity, 51-58 Adler, F., on Golden Rule, 372 Alexander, 8., definition of prog- ress, 461; on egoism and altru- ism, 307; on moral progress, 457-459 Altruism, 299; as natural fact, 301; origins, 303; sphere of, 352-366 Altruism and egoism, combined, 305; resemblances, 307 American morality, 438 Analysis of moral states, 378 Anti-nationalism, 431 Antisthenes, 144 Aristippus, 121 Aristotle, and international prin- ciples, 427; contrasted with Kant, 177; doctrine, 173 Art of life, 26; of morality, 27 Asceticism, 152 Attention, 260, 27 Authority, factor in morality, 84- 87 Awareness. See Consciousness Bad and good, 202; Beauty, 35 Behavior and character, 67 Benevolence, 346; defined, 347 Bentham, on hedonism, 125, 126; on the good, 131 Bergson, on freedom, 280; on intuition, 59 Bowne, B. P., on Christianity, 476 Bradley, F. H., on duty, 194 will, 248 Brown, W. A., on God, 387 Business ethics, 413 Caird, E., on Stoicism, 148 Calculus of pleasures, 123-125 Calvinism, 248 Casuistry, 375-376 Categorical imperative, 162-164 Cattell, definition of heredity, 263 Causality, ideal, 272 Chance, defined, 268 Character, 67-70, 264; and at- tention, 261; and conduct, 62- 76, 257; as test of virtue, 369; defined, 68 Charity, and love, 349; defined, 348; test of life, 349 Choice, 6, 270; and habit, 256; in determinism, 279; moral de- cisions, 262 Christianity, and democracy, 435; as social gospel, 480; construc- tive faith, 492; devotion to purpose, 156; doctrinal limita- tions, 479; ethics, 476-481; in business, 413; in moral prog- ress, 450-452; relation to Kant’s doctrine, 165; vs. Greek idealism, 174 Civilization, meaning, 448 Codes, moral, 9-11, 84-87; as test of virtue, 370; not final authority, 192 Compensation, 357 Complexes, 45 Compromise, 411-413 Conduct, and character, 62-76, 257; and motives, 65; defined, 67; evolution of, 133-135; 501 502 good, 180; moral, 2; moral judgment of, 98; moral order, 37; predictability of, 257; synthetic, 391. See also Ac- tion Conscience, 4, 225-244; Ameri- ean, 438; and intuition, 167- 168; a phase of consciousness, 235; a synthesis, 236; as a voice, 5, 228, 386; as dictate, 231; as faculty, 227; as test of virtue, 369, 386; authority in, 237; defined, 225-226; di- vine, 232; elements of, 233; ethical constant, 233; evolu- tional view, 229; function, 106, 243; growth, 235; interna- tional, 436, 440; moral con- stant, 228; practical clues, 232 ; qualities, 234; religious, 231; scale of excellencies, 238-243; vs. intuition, 227 Conscience, social, 437-441; de- fined, 439; progress, 461 Conscientiousness, 331 Conscious self, 71 Consciousness, 258; as conscience, 235; creates unity, 309, 310; moral, and ideals, 7-9; of free- dom, 271; social, 45, 407-410 Consistency in virtue, 411 Conventionality, influence on mo- rality, 83 Conversion, 49 Coordination, 186 Courage, 327; speculative, 489 Creative work, 314 Creeds, 84-87; as fetters, 474; loyalty to, 464 Crime, and disease, 218; defined, 212 Cropsey, on crime, 213 Culture, 332 Custom, and duty, 92; and law, 98; function in morality, 81 Customs and ideals, 9-11 Cynicism, 143; reason arbiter in, 150; simple life, 143-145 Darwinism, 138 Democracy, and_ Christianity, 435; Hughes’ opinion, 429; Index Mussolini’s view, 428; repre- sentative, 431; ultra, 433 Determinism, 250-265; action, 274; attention, 260; biological evidences, 252; choice, 279; cosmic evidences, 251; econo- mic, 254; ethical evidences, 257; ethical objections, 260; heredity and environment, 263; moral decisions, 262; physio- logical, 254; psychological evi- dences, 255; psycho-physical argument, 258; rational free- dom, 276; sociological evi- dences, 253; vs. limitations of freedom, 282 Devotion, ideal of fullness of life, 156 Dewey and Tufts, on asceticism, 152-153; on casuistry, 376; on character, 68; on egoism, 305; on Golden Rule, 372; on mo- rality, 82; on naturalism, 139 Desire, 54, 56 Discipline, 148 Disease and crime, 218 Duality of self, 416-423 Duty, and custom, 92; and evil, 219; and goodness, 189; and inclination, 190; and love, 192; and loyalty, 196; and prudence, 239, 322; and responsibility, 189-207; as adjustment, 200; command of, 192; conflict, 195; defined, 189; for duty’s sake, 194; objections to, 191; ought as standard, 198; ra- tionalistie view 91; Stoic law, 146 Economic determinism, 254 Education, moral, 404 Efficiency, 47 Egoism, 298; reaction against, 304 Egoism and altruism, combined, 305; resemblances, 307 Ellis, H., definition of science, 26; on life as art, 26-27; on religion and ethics, 474—475 Ellwood, C. A., on love, 356; on service, 355-356 Index Emerson on compensation, 357 Emotion. See Feeling Emotional origins of morality, 88 Ends, action towards, 272; king- dom of, 163, 169, 170 Endurance, 329 Environment, mental, 419; moral, 420. See also Heredity and Environment Epictetus, 149 Epicureanism, early, 122 Equality, 338-344; vs. tionality, 341, Equanimity, Stoic, 147 Ethical constant, conscience, 233 Ethical judgments, 31 Ethics, and law, 427; and meta- physics, 483; and psychology, 42-61; and religion, 464-482; propor- basis of, 1-113; defined, 1-4;7 defined by Everett, 11; defined by Kant, 162; defined by Leigh- ton, 40; defined by Seth, 99; derivation of term, 9; inter- national, 425-443; nature and scope, 1-16; relation to other sciences, 31-35; standard of, 35; ultimate values, 483-500 Eudemonia, in Aristotle’s doc- trine, 173; of Socrates, 171; Janet’s, 177 Everett, W. G., definition of ethics, 11; on desire, 55; on religion and ethics, 472; on values, 39 Evil, 203; a disorganization, 222; and ignorance, 218; and re- sponsibility, 220; and sin, 208- 224; crime, 212, 218; defined, 209-212, 216, 217; melioristic view, 295; moral, 210; reality of, 214; social, 211; theories of, 208; vs. mistakes, 217 ; vice, 215 Evolution, and moral reason, 141; and progress, 447; and utili- tarianism, 131-142; of con- duct, 133-135; of morality, 85- 93; value of, 140 Experience, basis of values, 486; moral, 4 Extroverts, 46 503 Failure, moral, 41, 398 Faith, 488 Fatalism, 245 Feeling, 62 Fenwick, C. G., on international law, 426 Fite, W., on individualism, 308, 310-311; on social conscious- ness, 407; theories of the good, 115 Forces, moral, 20, 389-406 Formalism and intuition, 160-170 Fosdick, H. E., on Christianity and progress, 450-452 Foster, G. B., on Christianity, 478; on freedom, 287-2883; on free will, 247. Freedom, in action, 274; and goodness, 115-318; as ideal, 288; attention in, 277; aware- ness of, 271; Bergson’s view, 280; certainty of, 278; chance, 268; choice, 270; defined, 266, 281; degrees of, 287; ideal, 268; initiatives, 273; in Stoic terms, 147; interpretations of, 285; Kant’s, 164, 279; limita- tions of, 282; moral, 267; na- ture of, 266-284; of will, 3, 245-266; rational, 164, 275, 279; types, 286. Friendship, 362-365. Fullerton, G. 8., on egoism, 304; on social will, 312 Fullness of life, 48; devotion, 156 Future life, 495-500 Giving, 352-354 God, as conscience, 386; basis of moral obligation, 107; basis of values, 488; consciousness of, 469; omnipotence, 247 Golden Rule, as test of virtue, 3713; reciprocity, 356; moral law, 192 Good, and bad, 202; as a goal, 186; as utility, 131; defined, 9, 179; ethical types, 115; greater vs. higher, 182; pleas- ure as, 115-130; theories class- 504 ified, 115-117. See also Good- ness Good fortune, 345 Good will, Kant’s doctrine, 160- 166 Goodness, 35; and duty, 189; and freedom, 115-318; and its con- ditions, 458; and _ progress, 461; as organic, 184; dawn of morality, 92; extrinsic, 180; intrinsic, 181; organic self- realization, 182; stages of, 184; test of, 183; types of, 179-181. See also Good Green, T. H., on conscience, 233 ; on desire, 56; on self in action, 57 Group morality, 79; phenomena, 45 Guilt and sin, 206 Habit, 57; and choice, 256; and selfishness, 412-413 Happiness, and pleasure, 125- 130; Rashdall’s definition, 137. See also Eudemonia Hartmann’s philosophy, 292, 293 Hedonism, 115, 121-128; ethical, 131; evolutionary, 133-142; objections to, 122; psychologi- eal, 131 Hedonistice ealeulus, 123-125 Hegesias, 122 Heredity defined, 263 Heredity, and environment, 252, 263 History, growth of moral sys- tems, 10; philosophy of, 495; progress in, 447 Hobbes, on egoism, 298 Hobhouse, L. T., on moral prog- ress, 452; on morality, 78, 82, 90-92 Hoffding, on religion and ethics, 473; on values, 484-488 Honor system, 409-410 Hughes, on democracy, 429 Human nature, 42-60; social view, 44; three meanings, 43 Ideal, sphere of, 22; and practi- cal, 17-30; wise man’s, 146 Index Ideal freedom, 268 Ideal life, 398 Ideal self, 187 Ideal utilitarianism, 137-139 Idealism, 116, 171-188; and op- timism, 290; Janet’s, 177; Paulsen’s solution, 176; prob- lem of, 389-392; Seth’s theory, 175; sources, 25; vs. Christian- ity, 174 Idealistic theories of the good, 116 Ideals, 7-11; and events, 17-30; as forces, 399; as objectives, 401; national, 460; progress. in, 459 Ideas as forces, 390 Ignorance and evil, 218 Immorality, 14 Immortality, 495-500 Impulse, 394 Inclination and duty, 190 Independence, 329; Stoic, 147 Indifference, 275 ‘Individual, begins reforms, 21,. 305; worth of, 298-318 Individualism, 308 Individuality, and 313; limiting, 315 Initiatives, 273 Inner life, and conduct, 3, 4 Instinct, 53, 394 Integration, moral, 62 Integrity, 324 Intelligence and evil, 219 Intention, and action, 96; and motives, 64-66 . International conscience, 440 International ethics, 425-443 International law, 425 International progress, 436 Interpretation, moral, 49; vs. explanation, 32 Introverts, 46 Intuition, 58-60; ambiguities of term, 167; as conscience, 167- Heo creative, 75; defined, 166, 87 Intuitionism, 166-170; 166; objections to, 166 orthodoxy, defined,, Janet’s Eudemonism, 177 Index Joy, 129 Judgments, ethical, 31; 95-98 Justice, and equality, 338, 343; Aristotle’s, 336; Plato’ 3, 335; ideal end, 344; main work of, 360; reciprocity, 356; scope, 337: social, defined, 356, moral, Kant, I., categorical imperative, 162-164; conception of free- dom, 279; contrasted with Aristotle, 177; definition of ethics, 162; doctrine of good will, 160-166; estimate of doctrine, 164; influence on ethics, 164; view of immortal- ity, 499; purpose, 161; rules of action, 170 Karma, 291 Knowledge, and virtue, 276; value of, 319 Laing, B. M., on moral forces, 392-400; on moral test, 453 Law, and ethics, 427; beginnings of recognition, 82; civil, 99; developed by Stoicism, 146; international, 425; moral, see Moral Law; of progress, 456; reign of, determinism, 251 Lawlessness, 413 Leibnitz, 290 Leighton, J. A., definition of ethics, 40; on justice, 344; on religion and ethics, 474; on values, 39, 40 Liberalism, religious, 471. Liberty, defined by Leighton, 344 Life as an art, 26 Love, and duty, 192; and justice, 359; as charity, 349; as mo- tive, 359; as mutuality, 359; defined, 356; ethical, 361; in giving and receiving, 352; ruling, 285 Loyalty, and duty, 196; to creeds, 464 Luck, 345 McConnell, R. M., on altruism, 505 300-303 ; on moral forces, 390- 392; on ’ will, 301. MeDougall, W., on democracy, 431; on international ethics, 430-435 Mackenzie, on desire, 54; on will, 56 Mandeville, on egoism, 298 Manliness, 328 Marcus Aurelius, 149 Marriage, 361 Martineau, J., ethical scale, 238- 243; on moral judgment, 95, 97; on moral law and the self, 106; on moral worth, 110; on prudence, 322 Mecklin, J. M., on moral prog- ress, 457; on social conscience, 437-440 Meliorism, 294; evil, 295 Mental levels, 47 Metaphysics and ethics, 483 Mill, J. 8., doctrine, 131-133 Mind, 394; mental levels, 47 Mistakes, 217 Moderation, test of virtue, 373 Moods, 396 Moral action, 94 Moral codes, 9-11 Moral command, 73 Moral conduct, 2 Moral consciousness and 7-9 Moral constant, conscience, 228 Moral evolution, 85-93 Moral experience, 4 Moral failure, 41, 398 Moral forces, 20, 389-406 Moral integration, 62 Moral judgment, 95-98 Moral law, 34, 98-102; and obli- gation, 103; and the self, 105; Golden Rule, 192; origin, 99; sanctions, 101; the ought, 198 Moral life, 319-500 Moral obligation, 94-113; basis, ultimate, 107; function of con- science, 106; nature of, 102; reasons for, 103 Moral order, 37 Moral philosophy, 11-14 limitations of ideals, ! 506 Moral problems, 407-424 Moral progress, 444-463; test, 453—456 Moral reaction, 13 Moral reason, and _ evolution, 141; defined, 76 Moral standards, 5-7, 15, 90 Moral struggle, 17-30 Moral values, 28-30 Moral worth, 110 Morality, 1, 14-16; absolute ele- ment, 110; and religion, 471; art or discipline, 27; authority in, 84-87, dawn of, 77-93; emotional origins, 88; first problems, 78; function of cus- tom, 81; group, 79; influence of conventions, 83; levels of development, 82; original mo- tives, 78; reason as origin, 90— 92; reflective, 88; starting point, 80 Moralizing, 12 Morals, derivation ef term, 9 Motives, 65, 66; and action, 96; of morality, 78; strongest, 270 Mussolini, on popular sover- eignty, 428 Mutualism, 355 Mutuality, defined, 358; in friendship, 363 Myers, P. V. N., on Christian doctrines, 479, 480; on con- science, 369; on moral prog- ress, 452; on morality, 80; on national ideals, 460; on social conscience, 435, 436, 437 National and universal ethics, 430 National ideals, 460 Nature, Galton’s definition, 263 Naturalism, 300; objections. 302 Necessitarian theory, 250 Neighborliness, 354 Nirvana, 292 Obedience, and duty, 189 Obligation, moral. See Moral Obligation Opportunity, 342, 345 Index | Optimism, and pessimism, 285- 297; moral, 289; popular, 289 Organic self-realization, 182 Organic view of morality, 135 Organism, moral, defined, 181 Orthodoxy and individuality, 313 Ought, the, 198-200; as basis of judgment, 199; as standard, 198; creative, 199 Pain, and evil, 209; and pleas- ure, 119 Palmer, G. H., definition of free- dom, 281; definition of organ- ism, 181; on ethical scale, 241; on giving, 353-354; on justice, 360; on love, 359; on mutual- ity, 358; on religion and ethics, 47] Panetius, 149 Participation, 358 Patience, 330 Paulsen, F., on Christianity and Greek idealism, 176; on cul- ture, 332; on duty and custom, 92; on egoism, 305; on self- control, 325; on woman’s pa- tience, 330 Perry, R. B., on moral progress, 454 Perseverance, 329 Person, defined, 73 Personality, 332, 345; as locus of values, 498 Pessimism, 291; and optimism, 285-297; in hedonism, 122; limitations, 293; types, 292; value, 293 Philosophy, moral, 11-14; of his- tory, 493 Plato, doctrine, 171, 335 Pleasure, and happiness, 125- 130; and pain, 119; as the good, 115-130; characteristics, 119; hedonism, 121 — 125; scope, 117-119; seeking, 117. See also Hedonism Practical, defined, 23; vs. ideal, 17-30 Pragmatism, 490 Predestination, 246; Calvinism, 248; necessitarian view, 250 Index Progress, defined by Alexander, 461; law of, 456; moral, 444— 463 Proportionality, 341 Prudence, 238; and duty, 322 Psychology, principles essential to ethics, 42-61; the new, 422; value in ethics, 49 Purpose, 57, 128 Questions, 112, 130, 317 Rashdall, H., definition of ben- evolence, 347; on egoism, 307; on faith, 492; on hedonism, 124; on ideal utilitarianism, 137-139; on justice, 343-344; on optimism, 289 Rational freedom, 164, 275, 279 Rational standard in Stoicism, 146 Rationalism, in Plato’s doctrine, 172. See also Cynicism, and Reason Rationalistic view of morality, 90-92 Rauschenbuseh, on Christianity, 481 Reaction, against old moral sys- tem, 13 Realistic theories of the good, 116 Reason, arbiter in Cynicism and Stoicism, 150; in freedom, 164; in Stoic philosophy, 146; moral, and evolution, 141; moral, defined, 76; origin of morality, 90-92; universal, ba- sis of moral obligation, 107 Reciprocity, 81, 356-3857; as mu- tuality, 358 Recompense, 343, 344 Reflective morality, 88 Reform, moral, individual, 21 Religion, and ethics, 464-482; and morality, 471; conserva- tion of values, 484; elements of, 468; in moral progress, 450 Remorse, 206, 257 Repressions, 419 Resolution, 56 Responsibility, evil, 220 203-207; and 507 Revelation, origin of moral law, 9 Reverence, 240 Right, defined, 9; vs. duty, 189 Right and wrong, 102, 105, 108, 201; defined by Martineau, 110, 240; utilitarian view, 132 Rights, nature of, 109 Rogers, on compromise, 411; on self-realization, 408 Roman Stoicism, 149 Royce, J., on optimism, 289, 290 Sanctions for observing laws, 101. Schopenhauer’s philosophy, 291 Science, defined by Ellis, 26 ae relation to ethics, 31- 5 Self, the, 70-76; and moral obli- gation, 106; as ideal, 71; as person, 73; center of values, 37; conscious, 71; defined, 71; duality of, 416-423; freedom of, 266; ideal, 187; interde- pendence of phases, 182 Self-assertion, 139 Self-consciousness, 408 Self-consistency, 365; Stoic good, 148 Self-control, 57, 325; in Paul- sen’s theory, 176, 177 Self-culture, 331 Self-denial, 153 Self-determination, 185, 275, 344 Self-discovery, test of progress, 455 Self-examination, 378 Self-expression, true, 422 Self-indulgence and vice, 215 Self-interest, 298; implies pleas- ure, 118 Self-mastery, 421-423 Self-organization, 186 Self-realization, 76, 408; defined by Wright, 185; in idealism, 175; organic, 182; Stoic good, 148 | Self-sacrifice, 151-159; as instru- mental, .:..155., defined. by Wright, 186; limitations, 157; uncertainties, 154 Self-satisfaction, and pleasure, 508 118, 128-129; and the creative ought, 200 Selfishness, 44; and compromise, 412-413 Seneca, 149 Serenity, Stoic, 147; value of, 400 Service, 348, 355; and duty, 193 Seth, J., definition of ethics, 99 ; definition of evil, 216; on con- duct, 67; on culture, 332; on idealism and Christianity, 174— 175; on immortality, 498, 500; on justice, 337; on moral prog- ress, 455; on self-realization, 175; on temperance, 326 Shame, 206, 257 Sheldon, W. H., on individualism, 311 Sidgwick, H., on ethical scale, 240; theory, 136 Simple life, 143-145 Sin, an enigma, 223; and evil, 208-224; and guilt, 206; and vice, 216; defined, 216; irra- tional, 221 Slosson, E. E., geometry of vir- tue, 382 Smith, Adam, on sympathy, 347 Smyth, N., on Christianity, 477 Social conscience, 437-441; de- fined, 439; progress, 461 Social consciousness, 45, 407-410 Social equilibrium, 457 Social relation, 311-313 Social self-realization, in moral organism, 181, 184 Social utility, 132 Social view of human nature, 44 Social will, 312 Socrates, and discipline, and self-mastery, 421; trine, 171 Spencer, H., doctrine, 133-135 Spinoza, 250, 299 Spirit, human, defined, 75 Spiritual progress, 449 Spontaneity, 74 Springs of action, ethical scale, 238-243 Standards, moral, 5-7, 15, 90 Stephen, L., theory, 135 143; doe- Index Stoicism, 145-151; and self-sac- rifice, 143-159; central inter- est, 148 ; emphasis on law, 146; equanimity, 147; freedom, 147; reason as arbiter, 150; Roman, 149 Subconscious mind, 45, 72 Sublimation, 46 Super-man, 333 Sympathy, 347 Temperament, 46 Temperance, 325 Ten Broeke, J., on duty, 193; on moral obligation, 104; on rights, 109 Theology and religion, 466, 470 Thing vs. person, 73 Truths, self-evident, 168 Tufts. See Dewey and Tufts. Unconscious, the, 45, 72 Unity in life, 148 Universalism, 431 Universality as test of virtue, 373 Utilitarianism, and_ evolution, 131 — 142; ideal, 137 — 139; Mill’s doctrine, 131-133; Sidg- wick’s view, 136; Spencer’s theory, 133-135; Stephen’s theory, 135; value of, 139 Utility as the good, 131 Valuation an attitude, 39 Values, and causes, 393; and ob- ligations, 104; basis of, 484- 488; conservation of, 484; Everett’s table, 39; extrinsic and intrinsic, 40; lower and higher, 37; moral, 28-30; realm of, 31-41; reasons for, 36; relations to conditions, 41; sources, 35; testing, 39-41; ultimate, 483-500; working scale, 385 Vice, and sin, 216; defined, 215 Virtue, as conscience, 369; as habit, 58; as knowledge, 276; codes, 370; consistency in, 411; defined, 320-322; effect- ive, 397; geometry of, 382; Index Golden Rule, 371; in Aristo- tle’s theory, 174; its own re- ward, 34; rules, limitations, 376-381; tests of, 367-388; unity of, 367-369. See also Goodness Virtues, 319-334; as forces, 402- 405; classifications, 322; fun- damental, 80; social, 335-351 Vocations, 315 Voice, of conscience, 5, 228; the ‘¢still small,’’? moral value, 386 Volition, 186 War, contribution to moral ex- perience, 18-22; world, lessons of, 20 Ward, J., on action, 274; on causality, 272; on choice, 270; on immortality, 498 Watson, J., on Christianity, 492 509 Westermarck, E., on duty, 193; on moral judgmert, 97; on morality, 88-90 Will, 58, 55-57; a product of na- ture, 301; and action, 96; and evil, 219; bad, 248; freedom of, 3, 245-265; good, 162; moral, arousing, 414; pure, 162; social, 312; vs. desire, 91 Willoughby, W. W., on propor- tionality, 341 Wisdom, 331 Wise man’s ideal, 146 Wish, 55 Work, moral value, 414 World-ground, 38, 107 Wright, H. W., on self-realiza- tion, 185; on self-sacrifice, 186 Wrong, defined, 9. See also Right and Wrong Zeno the Stoic, 145 Date Due . 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