BJ 1261 . H2 5 1923 Haas, John Augustus William, 1862-1937. Freedom and Christian conduct Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/freedomchristianOOhaas FREEDOM AND CHRISTIAN CONDUCT— AN ETHIC THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OP CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO FREEDOM AND CHRISTIAN CONDUCT AN ETHIC BY JOHN A. W. HAAS President of Muhlenberg College fork THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1923 All rights reserved Copyright, 1923. BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and printed. Published January, 1923. Press of Hamilton Printing Company Albany, N. Y., U. S. A. PREFACE After eighteen years of teaching Senior classes in college ethics, experience and experi¬ ment has led to the results formulated in “The Problem of Freedom. ” The purpose is to fur¬ nish a comprehensive ethics for students in a church college, which shall have in view the whole ethical development, both ancient and modern, and state it in a systematic philosoph¬ ical form. There is an inclusion of the ethics of Christianity and its correlation with general ethical questions. No sane reason exists why the ethics of Christianity should be neglected in any fair, modern treatment. Its exclusion is simply due to an unjustified prej¬ udice of certain philosophical attitudes. The point of view which is maintained is that of freedom as the great ethical question. Its solution is suggested through personality, which is expanded beyond its current meaning. The aim of a course of ethics should not only be an acquaintance with the academic ethical problems, but also an awakening, a develop¬ ment and a strengthening of the moral sense in young men and young women. All great ques¬ tions ought finally to receive a moral adjudg¬ ment. For this reason the practical relation¬ ships of moral life have been treated under the third main part, ‘ ‘ The Functioning of Freedom. ” These practical applications of ethical truth have been found very helpful to the student, because they lead him to con¬ scious deliberation of moral questions on a reasonable basis, and stimulate him to form a vi PREFACE philosophy of life that does not omit the ethical issues. Most paragraphs open with questions. These are intended to prepare the mind for the criti¬ cal attitude of the discussion of a problem. The presentation is argumentative, and should be used as the basis of discussion in the class. The manner in which classes have raised objections and asked questions has been a great aid in the solutions suggested. The main pur¬ pose of this book has also received criticism and approval from friends whose judgment is worth while. The gratitude of the author is expressed to all who have aided him, and especially to Mr. Horace Mann, who has prepared the index. The literature given in the references at the end of each chapter is simply representative. The effort is made to lead the student to new views differing altogether from the position taken in this book, as well as those that are in agreement. In addition to the lists furnished and books quoted there is much valuable mater¬ ial in The International Journal of Ethics, and in Hasting’s Cyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. While there is a specific use for the college class in this discussion, it can be of value to general readers in centering their minds upon moral problems. May this effort aid, not so much in acceptance of the author’s ideas, as in the arousing of an interest in ethics, and a purpose to make it less superficial and more thorough in present day thought. Muhlenberg College J. H. Allentown, Pa. January, 1923. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PRELIMINARY PROBLEMS Chapter I. The Problem of Freedom as a Science . The age of problems; the problem of freedom; what is the problem of freedom; what sort of science is ethics; what are the sciences of value; is ethics related to other sciences; it ethics uni¬ versal. Chapter II. Freedom and Religion The nature of the problem; what ethics does for religion; is freedom independent; what does the history of religion show; religion, character, and conduct; does religion influence our instincts; our desires and religion; religion and habits; what value have motives; sanctions, ideals and religion; the realization of moral freedom; what message has Christianity. PART I. FUNDAMENTALS OF FREEDOM Chapter III. Free Will ...... The basic problem; the metaphysical assertion; what does psychology teach; the brain and free will; biological theory and freedom; sociology and freedom; causality and freedom; the difficulty of religion; Christianity and free will. Chapter IV. Conscience and Freedom The organ of freedom; the meaning of conscience; the judgment of acts; the law back of the judg¬ ment; the origin of the law; the intellectual ele¬ ments of conscience ; what is the power of emotion ; the conscience and volition ; is there a social con¬ science; the authority of conscience; Christianity and conscience. PAGE 1 14 28 54 Vlll CONTENTS PAGE Chapter V. Freedom and Pessimism ... 72 What is the problem; the causes of pessimism; pessimism and human moods; can we know and be glad; the emotional dilemma; axe our actions satis¬ factory; civilization and pessimism; reigion and pessimism; is Christianity pessimistic. Chapter VI. The Leading Ethical Ideas . . 95 What do we mean by the leading ethical concepts; wrhat are ideals; the good and the end; rights or right; what is duty; what are virtues; the inter¬ relation of ethical ideas. PART II. THE FINDING OF FREEDOM Chapter VII. Freedom Through Pleasure . .115 The claim of pleasure; ancient hedonism; what is utilitarianism; evolution and hedonism; pleasure and reason; is pleasure happiness; individual or social; the end, the ideal, the good, the right and pleasure; duty and pleasure; virtue and hedonism; the philosophy of hedonism; Christianity and hedonism. Chapter VIII. Freedom Through Reason . . 145 What does reason promise; the ancient advocates of reason; modern intuitonism; Kant and his suc¬ cessors; can reason reject feeling; reason and asceticism; does reason give us the highest good and the right; duty and reason; how does reason explain virtue; the philosophy of rationalism; Christianity and reason. Chapter IX. Freedom Through Personality . . 174 What of the will; will and personality; personality and individuality; does personality answer the social demand; personality and the ideal; right, duty and personality; personality and virtue; the historical approach to personality; personality and Christianity. CONTENTS PART III. THE FUNCTIONING OF FREEDOM Chapter X. The Individual Life .... Virtues or duties; is the ethical life a pure devel¬ opment; the power of a cause; freedom and voca¬ tion ; work and freedom ; the bodily life ; the mental life; the power over life. Chapter XI. Basic Social Virtues .... The Kindly Virtues, kindness, gentleness, meekness, non-resistance, mercy, forgiveness, charity, friend¬ ship, fraternities; Truth and freedom, wisdom, lies, misrepresentation, judgment of others, per¬ jury, progaganda, the press, prejudice, freedom of thought; Justice and freedom, righteousness, knowledge and public opinion, selfish interest, group conflict, nationality, race, justice and law. Chapter XII. The Family ..... What is the value of the family; the spirit of the family; courtship and engagement; marriage; divorce; the evil of prostitution; the single life; the freedom of woman ; the right of the child. Chapter XIII. The Church . Why treat of the church; the church and truth; the nature of the church’s work; the social work of the church; the church and its worship; the church as an organization ; the church and the state. Chapter XIV. The State . What is the place of the state; what is the idea of the state; the task of the state; the state and the nation; the absolute state; the socialistic state; the state and anarchism; the right of revolution; the state and war; the state and internationalism. PAGE 202 228 249 267 286 Index 311 FREEDOM AND CHRISTIAN CONDUCT— AN ETHIC FREEDOM AND CHRISTIAN CONDUCT— AN ETHIC PRELIMINARY PROBLEMS CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM AS A SCIENCE The age of problems. It is quite customary in our day to approach any body of connected facts and their laws from the angle of the problem. The modern mind seems averse to starting with great principles. It would rather derive these after asking questions and stating problems. And thus the method of the problem is most appealing. Nevertheless no problem can be merely presented, but it calls for the in¬ troduction of discussion and for certain data upon which any just discussion must rest. Problems and principles must be interwoven to arrive at the best results. To deal merely in problems raises questions and produces doubts without aiding in their proper solution. To begin with principles to the neglect of seeing problems brings about an unverified dogmatism. The true procedure balances problems and principles. 1 2 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT The problem of freedom. Our task is not, however, to enter upon the general logical ques¬ tion of problem and principle, but to endeavor to make clear one of the great problems of thought and life. Among the many subjects that should call forth the effort and interest of human thought is that of freedom. What do we really mean by freedom? Is it only a politi¬ cal problem, an economic question, a social difficulty? Or is its compass larger and deeper, and does it extend to that which is funda¬ mentally human? The last supposition seems to be the best. It would make the problem in its fulness and fundamentality the moral prob¬ lem. To determine the question of freedom would mean to outline the main questions of morality or ethics. It is this interpretation of freedom with which we are concerned. Our endeavor to give an answer will lead us to posit some sort of ethical system. What is the problem of freedom? Is there any justification in the assertion, that the answer to the problem of freedom will lead to some sort of a system? A system is only really possible where there is a science. Is ethics a science or is it merely an art? Does it deal with data that can rightly be co-ordinated into a science, or is it only a collection of practical rules and maxims for human life? There can be no doubt that the question of our freedom as it eventuates in the doing of good or evil, right or wrong, touches the whole practice of life and all of human conduct. It enters into our thoughts, desires, habits, feelings, decisions, judgments, and actions. But does it follow, FREEDOM AS A SCIENCE 3 that because the problem of freedom, or of ethics, has as its material the character and actions of men, that this material cannot be systema¬ tized? A system which makes possible a science is attained in one of two ways, or in two ways combined. The one is to collect all possible facts, and then to pass on to generalize them, and derive laws and principles. The other is to assume certain fundamental princi¬ ples and then to establish them by deriving con¬ sequences from them that explain the existent facts. The problem of freedom can be discussed in either of these ways, and perhaps best by their combination. Ethics can therefore claim to be a science. / We may perhaps define it pro¬ visionally as the science of character and conduct that establishes real , vital, human freedom. What sort of science is ethics? To claim that the problem of freedom is a science does not settle the question. What do we mean by a science? Is there only natural science, or can the term, science, be applied justly to other groups of data than those that we find in nature? What types of sciences can rightly be distinguished in human thinking? The answer to the inquiries will help us to classify these sciences. There are sciences which we may designate as existential and descriptive. They simply deal with data as data, describe them and then deduce their laws. As an ex¬ ample of such sciences we may take chemistry, which is typical of the whole group of similar sciences. But a totally different class is that of the normative sciences. A norm is a standard 4 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT and it implies valuation. The sciences called normative rest upon value and worth. They include a judgment about data. It is necessary to include the existence of facts when we give an estimate of their worth, but the existence is not of prime importance. But to deal with mere worth because the emphasis is put upon it and to consider the existence as negligible is an error. How can a value be a value if the things to which it is attached are deemed uncertain. Value is not an agnostic escape from existence; it does not belong to fictions but to a definitely characterized set of existences. What are the sciences of value? In human knowledge there are three great sciences of value. The first is logic, which gives the laws of correct thinking. It is not concerned with how we think, but how we ought to think when we want to think correctly. Since the modern movement of pragmatism there has been a constant effort to make logic descriptive and really to sink it into psychology. But the em¬ phasis upon value as a reality which began in modern thought with the philosopher Lotze cannot be swept aside by the increasing mass of detail examinations as to how thought func¬ tions. The second normative science is aesthe¬ tics. This deals with the estimates of the beautiful. It asks, what is beauty, and what are the true standards of the beautiful? We cannot have any scientific approach to art un¬ less we allow the valuations of aesthetics. It is the third valuing science with which we are concerned; namely, ethics or the science of FREEDOM AS A SCIENCE 5 freedom. Its problem is to ascertain whether the judgments and estimates, good and bad, right and wrong, virtuous and vicious, evaluate facts that in their worth can be put into rela¬ tions, which grow out of the actualities of value and are systematic and scientific. The description of human motives and of human actions resulting from them is not morality unless they are judged according to standards. The motives and actions must be real and with them as equally real there go the estimates of character and conduct. When we thus ap¬ proach the facts of the moral life we have the material which is capable of scientific discus¬ sion, and we th(^n arrive at as valuable and real a science in its place as any that claims our attention and study. Is ethics related to other sciences? Why is it necessary to ask a question like this? Ought we not proceed at once to the discussion of the problem of freedom without further prelimin¬ aries? If we were inclined to the method so largely employed today we would simply pro¬ ceed, and claim all that we could for our science; but this onesided procedure is making onesided men. It is a part of the defective education which never coordinates, and en¬ courages students to elect courses as the Indian collects scalps. In ethics with its universal human claim it is necessary if anywhere to show its interrelation, and thus to put character and conduct into their proper place. A true science grows more valuable when seen in the light not only of its own claim but also in the light of all related human knowledge. We 6 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT must be led to think not only in detail and down to the minutiae, but also in the large re¬ lations of the whole and the great total of truth. What sciences is morality related to? From which of them does it borrow facts and results? As soon as we begin to examine any ethical situation particularly in its practical function¬ ing we shall be led back to psychology. To understand character we must know the human mind. As far as ethical value is clothed in desires, wishes, wants, motives it needs the study of psychology. Instincts and habits deter¬ mine conduct and action. The problem of the will which is fundamental in the study of freedom presupposes knowledge of human behavior. The composite fact of conscience leads us into some sort of psychological analysis. In all moral valuation, therefore, we must be sure that our psychology is correct.1 But the knowledge of the human mind does not of itself determine the value of conduct. Again the problem of freedom cannot pass by its dependence on philology. The examination of the history of language, and the study of the meaning which man has put into human words, show us how some ethical terms have arisen and how man has understood them. The Ger¬ man ethical writers like Wundt2 have paid some attention to the testimony of the common mind of man in the making of its words of moral im¬ port. Nietzsche in the effort to re-value all values has used his learning as a philologian 1 Alexander Shand, The Foundations of Character. 2 Ethic, Part I, Chapter I. FREEDOM AS A SCIENCE 7 to convince us, if he can, how we must redefine the terms and words which have been abused in the interest of the weak. To the degree that language reveals the reflection of man on the questions of good and bad it is worth while studying in ethics. But the question of freedom leads us to the story of freedom in human history. It is not without benefit that we can trace the historv %> of morals. A notable example is the study of Lecky in his history of European Morals. Westermarck3 and Hobhouse4 have collected much material relative to early customs and practices of the incipient moral life. But it is not only in these and similar detail studies of morals in their historical aspect that we find a dependence of ethics, but also in any general history of man the moral life and advance or decadence dare not be omitted wherever man’s manners and customs are traced to their moral import. Similarly the problem of freedom must have some regard for economic conditions.5 Man’s search for food and shelter condition his life. They do not make his virtues and vices as mere virtues and vices, but they often give direction and content to them. The moral valuation is not caused by the economic strivings of men, but it cannot be fully appreciated apart from them. Because the life of freedom affects the whole man his material interests must be con¬ sidered. These concerns, however, must not be s The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas. 4 Morals in Evolution. 5 Cf . 1 ‘ Goods and the Good, ’ ’ in Haas 1 1 In the Light of Faith,” p. 180. 8 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT made the complete motive of man, and morals must not be reduced to an economic denomin¬ ator. Some modern ethics, as e. g. Dewey and Tufts, seem to indicate the reverse. They color ethics so largely by economics, that one would almost receive the impression that morals are the outcome of economics. The struggle to establish a science of soci¬ ology, — which up to this time has not succeeded if we judge from the diversity of treatment, — must be given some place. The collection of many facts relating to human society, the gathering of statistics, the practical considera¬ tion of the social bearings of marriage, divorce, the prison problem and similar questions, are not without use in any ethical study. The whole outlook on life as social raises the problem of the relation of the individual to society which cannot be overlooked in the study of freedom and ethical thought.6 After having shown to what degree morals are dependent on all of these sciences we may ask: Does ethics in turn render service to any of them? History if fully studied cannot re¬ main under the dominance of a purely economic philosophy; it must give some room to moral judgments. Because man is not only an eating and fighting being, but also a being with a con¬ science his doings must be subject to judgments of right or wrong. When we study the move¬ ment of man’s great ideas and ruling ideals we must apply some moral measurement. But this measurement must never be that of one age « Cf. Edward C. Hayes, Sociology and Ethics. FREEDOM AS A SCIENCE 9 as applied to all ages, little as we can finally escape some ethical appraisement. One of the remarkable developments in the latest economic thought is the introduction of moral standards to problems of business, com¬ merce, etc., in short to economic questions.7 Judgments resting on the golden rule, decisions growing out of moral ideals of truth, honesty, justice, and righteousness are being discussed among economists. Practical societies of busi¬ ness men are choosing service as their motto, and there is going on a moralization of our material pursuits. Ethics is conquering eco¬ nomics, and the good is attempting to standardize goods. Sociology cannot escape the moral impress. In fact in many evil situations of society the sociologist is not only a mere describer of con¬ ditions, but also a preacher of righteousness. He has, often without knowing it, a code of social morality which he applies in his criti¬ cisms and denunciations. The great social movement of socialism, in addition to its ma¬ terial appeal, has frequently used the claim of justice and won men by its moral demands. Much of sociology has borrowed ethical ideas and is indebted to the underlying and universal moral conceptions of men. Thus morals give as well as receive in the great body of human thought and knowledge. Is ethics universal? Matthew Arnold said that conduct is three-fourths of human life. Is 7 Of. Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. Cl. No. 190 — May 1922, “The Ethics of the Professions and of Business.’ ’ 10 CHBISTIAN CONDUCT this true, or is ethics so universal as to consti¬ tute four-fourths? Are there any actions exempt from the moral judgment? Apparently there are actions which are ethically indifferent, to which the term ‘ ‘ adiaphora ? ’ is applied. It seems to make no difference morally whether I wear a blue tie or green tie, whether I eat veal or lamb, whether I take a vacation at the seashore or the mountains, whether I go to visit one friend or another. Thus there may be many actions which do not appear to enter at all into the question of moral value. They are decisions entirely free and have no bearing on my virtues or faults. And yet even seem¬ ingly indifferent actions may gain a moral im¬ port through their connection and through the attitude assumed toward them. If my wearing a tie of one or another color is a matter of pride, or a departure from good judgment, and if my eating veal or lamb influences my health, and if my going to the seashore or the mountains be¬ comes a subject of the most favorable place for my benefit, or a problem of thrift, and if my visit to one friend or another depends upon certain preferential obligations, then all of these actions are no longer indifferent. In this manner as our life is connected, and we grow in the knowledge of moral implications, there are fewer and fewer actions which are morally indifferent. In our ethical development the claim of the good or bad becomes more and more universal. Does this universal claim of freedom make ethics paramount? Are its judgments to be applied to all spheres of life? If this be as- FBEEDOM AS A SCIENCE 11 serted then can e. g. art be for art’s sake? It is true that art must seek simply the satisfac¬ tion of the sense of the beautiful. In its efforts it may portray in sculpture, painting, drama, novel, etc., both good or bad. It may idealize life, or it may show things in their bare reality. Whether a subject is morally right or wrong cannot apparently limit the creative impulse of the artist. And yet it is a fact that the desire of the artist must be pure. In all its realism art cannot justly glorify what is morally ugly. The beautiful must be related to the good. The ancient Greeks saw tjie beauty of goodness, and their great thinker Plato desired the good¬ ness of beauty for the protection of the young. Art has not only an artistic influence but at the same time a moral effect. For this reason there can be no indifference whether art is high and noble or whether it is decadent. In fact where the ethical life degenerates art finally also decays. Another problem opens up, when we inquire whether all men are subject to moral judgments, or whether certain outstanding individuals are not subject to moral standards, and can, in the claim of their individuality and freedom, act as they desire ? It may be that there are great characters who, with a larger vision and an outlook to the future, seem to violate the ex¬ isting moral customs of society, and are never¬ theless leaders of a new light. An outstanding example of such men is Socrates. A conflict between standards of society and the individual conscience will take place again and again. But does it follow, that creative powers or royal 12 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT positions justify extended privileges? We may understand the special difficulties and tempta¬ tions of certain positions in life. The bohemi- anism of the artist, the prerogatives of the ruler can be sympathetically weighed. But when this has been done, can we grant a special morality to any one? Is e. g. Shelly, because of his poetic power, to be excused for his rela¬ tions to Mary Godwin? Can we condone Byron’s wild escapades? Is Wagner such a superman of music that his abandonment of his wife, his relations to Matilda Wesendonck, and his alliance with Cosima Von Buelow, are to be forgotten? Shall Poe’s wild carousals be entirely excused? Surely with all possible al¬ lowance we cannot exempt these and like individuals from a fair moral judgment. REFERENCES James Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Introduction, Chapters I, II. J. Hyslop, Elements of Ethics, Chapters I, II. J. H. Muirhead, The Elements of Ethics, Book I. John S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, Introduction, Chap¬ ters I, II. Frank Thilly, Introduction to Ethics, Chapter I. Theodore Be Laguna, Introduction to the Science of Ethics, Chapters I, II. Chas. D’Arcy, A Short Study of Ethics, Introduction. Henry W. Wright, Self-Realization, Part I, Chapters I, II. John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, Part I, Section 3. A. E. Taylor, The Problem of Conduct, Chapter I. Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Vol. I, Introduction. W. Wundt, Ethics, Introduction. Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, Introduc¬ tion, Part III, Chapter VII. FREEDOM AS A SCIENCE 13 W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God, Chapters I, II, III, IV. R. R. Marrett, Origin and Validity in Ethics, in Personal Idealism, Philosophical Essays edited by Henry Sturt, p. 221 ff. Alexander Sutherland, The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct. CHAPTER II FREEDOM AND RELIGION The nature of the problem. Why do we try to correlate freedom and religion? Has the problem of ethics as freedom any bearing upon religion, and does religion affect ethics? These questions are not like the problems of the scientific character of morals formal and logi¬ cal matters, but they deal with the living con¬ tacts and the real contents of ethics and religion. Ethics, with its basis built upon freedom, and its striving directed toward free¬ dom, seems at first sight to have no value for religion as the search after the divine. The two are different in purpose and largely in con¬ tent. But when we regard them as they form a unity in the total of human life, and as they go together historically, the logical separation is overcome by the actual relation. What ethics does for religion. Does history give any information of an ethical influence upon religion? Is freedom a factor in man’s dependence upon God? When we look broadly at the development of the religion and the morals of mankind, we find again and again that the permanence of religion depends upon its ability to measure up to the ethical advance. Religions have decayed when they could not adjust themselves to moral awakening. A 14 FREEDOM AND RELIGION 15 typical example is found in the religion of the Greeks. It was an amoral naturalism clothed into the stories of humanized gods. The gods had all the defects of their natural background and all the weaknesses of the Greek life. When Xenophanes saw that in natural religion men made the gods after their own image the seeds of doubt were sown. But it was the moral advancement of Greek thought begin¬ ning with Socrates which most effectually destroyed the old faith. Plato asserted that the stories of the gods were not fit to be taught to the young. This influence was also brought to bear upon Greek religion when the drama¬ tist Euripides questioned the justice of the gods in the great crises of human existence. Thus the ethical advance outstripped the possibility of religion with its morals. Similar results follow either in the independent growth of morals among a people, or when an ethically superior religion comes to a group. The final¬ ity of a religion is its possibility of meeting all just moral growth of individual and common life. Consequently ethical content is very fundamental to religion. Is freedom independent? To ask this ques¬ tion is to raise the problem whether conversely ethics is also dependent upon religion? This is the larger problem. The assertion is fre¬ quently made in our day that morals are autonomic, i. e. that they bear their law within themselves and are independent of religion. Ethical culture societies are endeavoring to show that different religious positions make no difference in morals, and that men ought to 16 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT develop a moral life unhampered by any reli¬ gions consideration. At the same time many such ethical groups teach some kind of theism or pantheism. They also live upon many ethi¬ cal customs which have developed historically out of some religion. While secularisation is going on, and morality itself, and industry, politics, education, science, family life, etc., etc., are divorced from religious influence, it still remains true, that religion has practically produced marvelous moral changes. “Not only have, by means of it, drunkards and crim¬ inals been reformed, prostitutes led to a pure life, sinners in general made to repent, the sick made well, but the character of whole commun¬ ities has been radically altered, even trans¬ formed, in the course of a few years. Such facts as these are not open to even scientific doubt, because they are checked up by overwhelming evidence on the one hand, and by the general principles of normal and abnormal psychology on the other hand. * ’ 1 What does the history of religion show? Is there any evidence that in the various forms which religion has taken there is always an ethical implication! Modern speculation upon the common features of the development of religion begins with the assumption that the primitive religion was some sort of psychic, dynamic impersonal power grasped by feeling. It is called mana, after a term found by Cod- rington in New Zealand. Whether this assump¬ tion is justified or not, it at least implies that i Chas. A. Ellwood, The Reconstruction of Religion, p. 34. FREEDOM AND RELIGION 17 man projects a spiritual value into life, and this takes him away from a material view of life and affects all his customs and morals, be¬ cause in primitive life religion determines everything. The next stage assumed is ani¬ mism, which gives souls to all things and partly personalizes them as the young child still does. Under animism morals become more elevated. When men take a fetich they ascribe a virtue to it not only for their help, but they also accept some obligations. However low this form of religion is it carries with it certain duties. Somewhat higher is totemism, which takes some living form and makes it the symbol and power in tribal life. The largest social cus¬ toms, and many duties of kinship grow out of totemism. There are frequent evidences of ancestor worship, and this is more powerful ethically and produces higher results than totemism for the individual and common life in obedience, etc. Polytheism with its glaring defects has many more moral relationships, and some of them rise fairly high when the gods are more social than natural. But the greatest advance is made when henotheism arrives, which is the taking up of the worship of one god at a time. It is introductory to mono¬ theism, the worship of one God alone. Under monotheism the high ethical standards of Judaism, and the supreme ethics of Christian¬ ity have developed. When men depart from ethical monotheism and revert to deism they lose moral power because God is separated from the actual life of the world. A still lower reversal is pantheism, whether scientific 18 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT or poetical. Under polytheism pantheism was a striving after unity. When however it occurs, after the personal moral valuation of God, it destroys the inherent worth of good and bad and degrades man to an amoral naturalism. These outstanding facts and suppositions in the history of religion all support the claim that religion at all stages and in all forms has an ethic. Religion, character, and conduct. Has real religion an influence upon character as this conditions conduct? Is it so universal as by its very existence in man to affect his morals? In its full value religion is universal and abso¬ lute. It is a life within man which is all em¬ bracing. Because life in us is a unity the power of religion touches every action. It helps to make character. “ Character, which is central to morals and must precede the con¬ sideration of conduct, cannot remain untouched wherever religion exists as a fact and reality in the human soul. If character is dependent upon religion it follows that the nature of our conduct cannot be separated from the consider¬ ation of the religious life. As man is normally religious, he is, therefore, normally dependent in his moral life.”2 Does religion influence our instincts? A problem which is not always realized is the reliance of the life of freedom upon our natural instincts. The instincts are the raw material of our life. If our morals demand some con¬ sideration of our instincts, can it be shown that 2 Haas, ‘ 1 In the Light of Faith, ’ ’ p. 205. FREEDOM AND RELIGION 19 religion bears in upon our freedom because it changes the instinctive roots of life? There is a large group of instincts out of which action readily follows unless by control and modifica¬ tion we overcome the urge of the instincts. If e. g. we select the instincts of acquisitiveness and combativeness and fear, we know that tliev must be hemmed in to make our individual and common life bearable. Can this change be brought about by the longing of freedom alone? Wherever we allow vital religion to lift us beyond ourselves we shall not press acquisitive¬ ness to such an extreme as to endanger society, and make it acquisitive rather than coopera¬ tive.3 Combativeness which leads to war will be restrained when the considerations of the common regard of men for each other is rein¬ forced by a religion of love. Fear which even in primitive religion is counterbalanced by awe and reverence4 is at last overcome when God is accepted as Father. But not only are certain instincts crowded back but others are given fulfillment through the religious attitude and thus produce new moral results. As an ex¬ ample we may refer to sympathy which may be taken as an instinct counterbalancing self-pre¬ servation and forming the basis of altruism. When religion of a high type takes hold of sympathy it enlarges sympathy beyond the immediate contacts, and gives it a universal human meaning. In this manner religion affecting our instincts works upon our ethical life. 3 Of. Tawney, The Acquisitive Society. 4 Leuba, A Psychological Study of Religion, p. 128 ff. 20 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT Our desires and religion. If we study our mental life we shall find that in addition to in¬ stincts we must give a large place to our desires. Instincts operate through our desires. Feelings and emotions are shot through with desires. We express our wants and our long¬ ing through desire. The psychological under¬ standing of freedom must consider the pressure of desire upon character. But our problem is whether religion can so affect desires as to pro¬ duce a difference in our morals? The com¬ munion with the divine certainly takes hold of our desires. Without religion desire is cen¬ tered upon the immediate wants of the body and upon material life. But when the super¬ natural enters into our considerations it lifts our desires beyond the wants of the visible and natural and they seek a spiritual end. It is through such seeking that the whole ethical attitude is changed and men strive for higher values. Religion and habits. Every tendency in our life in toward fixation of certain actions. This fixation is habit. Habit has a fundamental importance for morals. They rest on good habits. One of the central ideas of ethics is virtue, and what else is virtue but the habit of doing the good. Right formation of habits makes a steady moral life. Has religion any contribution to make in the forming of habits which will influence our life of freedom? Wherever religion crystallizes into certain modes of action that are not merely ceremonial, but touch our inner life and our relation to others, it makes for ethical habits. A very apt FREEDOM AND RELIGION 21 illustration can be found in the virtue and habit of generosity. There may be in some men a natural inclination to communicate to others; the social feeling may be large. But when a whole group is distinguished by out¬ standing generosity we seek for a further cause. The Jews are marked for their liberality. For centuries their religion has taught them to give largely and has made the law of the tithes obligatory. This long training of the religious ideal has produced the habit of generosity. In the same manner all virtues in a group or in individuals are influenced very quietly but con¬ stantly by any religious, living ideals. What value have motives? We cannot escape the fact that motives are also a part of our inner life that make character and produce action. Is the power of the motives untouched by religion? Is it not true that the intellectual and particularly the emotional content of motives is deeply affected by religion? “Let us look at a moral action and analyze it in order to demonstrate this contention. A stu¬ dent is in an examination and is put upon his honor to use no dishonest means in his work. The temptation arises that would move him to break his word and promise. What will be the strongest motive to keep him true? He may be kept by the desire not to forfeit the regard of his fellow-students. His character may possess a self-esteem which he does not desire to lose. But a more powerful and purer motive would be the motive that a man’s honor is a high possession which is not to be lost, and a noble standard not to be violated. What is oo AbJ «J CHRISTIAN CONDUCT the force of this ideal of honor? What is its origin? Does it not go back to the period of the prowess of the knights when the mainten¬ ance of honor meant respect for the truth, observance of purity and defense of woman? But no noble knight was able to maintain the strength of his honor unless he finally caught the vision of the Holy Grail. And though the origin of honor may today be forgotten, the character of honor as a motive and its ideali¬ zation rise to a religious height. Honor even thus is not as powerful as would be a direct consciousness of the bearing of religion upon a moral issue. Can anything equal in potency the conception 4 Thou God seest me?’ The motive of the presence and holiness of God is all-compelling. 9 9 5 Sanctions, ideals and religion. In continu¬ ing the study of the relation of religion to morals we are confronted with the problem, whether the sanctions and ideals of the ethical life can be helped by religion? Sanctions are the external and objective forces of custom, manners, opinions, laws, beliefs, etc., which impinge upon our motives. Ideals are our aims and purposes of life which we accept as our guiding stars. We accept sanctions in our ideals, and sanctions often lead to ideals and aid in forming their content. If we begin to enumerate some sanctions and ask, does reli¬ gion make them different, we shall find that all sanctions can be elevated by religion. Religion itself does not stand as simply one of the sanc- r,Cf. Haas “In the Light of Faith,” p. 213. FREEDOM AND RELIGION 23 tions.6 Let ns consider, as an example, the vir¬ tue of purity with its motive. We may be con¬ trolled by the sanction of law, or public opin¬ ion, or through the knowledge of the dangers of impurity when they are presented to us in all their awful reality and their terrible results. But if religion is an actuality to us, and the sense of God is real, there is a mightier sanction in the belief that our bodies are not mere pro¬ ducts of nature but temples of God and His Holy Spirit. This belief goes deeper and is far more powerful than any fear of results, or any pres¬ sure of opinion, or any threat of law. The lack of the sense of the reality of God is no proof of its inefficiency. Ideals can be created in many ways but whatever enters upon their formation must be personally weighed and adopted. The attrac¬ tiveness of high ideas, the beauty of noble words, the excellence of good deeds, may shape ideals. Great characters will lead to emulation. Noble sentiments of literature and heroic appeals of art will lift us to nobler purposes and aims in life. The power of virtue will have its sway. But the question remains, can not religion do still more than any one of these, or all of them combined! If we select, as one instance, the ideal of service, what can give it the greatest impetus! The joy of life in help¬ fulness, the necessity of service for the common good, the inspiration of noble examples, the inherent beauty of the moral nature of service ! All of these are effective. Nevertheless when we 6 This was the contention of Bentham and Spencer. 24 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT take service and raise it above its humanitarian appeal, and find in it the highest exhibition of divine love as shown in Christ, the Servant, we have an appeal that far outweighs all other considerations. The judgment of Christ, that what we have done to one of the least of His we have done unto Him, is the strongest motive to make service one of our controlling ideals. The realization of moral freedom. One great difficulty has always confronted those who believe in and accept the value of the good. Does the good prevail, and has virtue its re¬ ward! Or do we not find that vice is frequently successful and powerful? The good do not always prosper, and the seed of the righteous does sometimes beg for bread. Is there con¬ sequently only a partial triumph of the good, and must we object to the statement of Schiller, that the history of the world is the judgment of the world? These questions cannot be answered from the mere considerations of the moral life. It was this conviction which led Kant to become the classic advocate of the necessity of a future life and the demand of a moral governor of the universe. Kant was moved to stress these relig¬ ious beliefs as necessary assumptions to sustain the reality and permanence of the moral. Men need the belief in God and eternity that right may remain right. If God, in the definition of Matthew Arnold is “the power not ourselves that makes for righteousness” only in limited time, then there is merely a striving towards righteousness but no assurance of its victory. The full realizations calls, however, not only for mere continuance, but also for the faith, that the FREEDOM AND RELIGION 25 universe lias a moral order and a plan to be ful¬ filled, because God is ethical and not mere force, or totality, or all-embracing, unique individual¬ ity. The ideal of freedom and its growth imply the endless unfoldment of life. Where God as supremely moral is denied, or where the future life is made uncertain, there both the individual and society have lost the necessary foundation for the faith in the good and the permanence and supremacy of a moral world order. What message has Christianity? Does the Christian faith substantiate its claim that it has the greatest and best moral content within it? This problem we must meet not only here, but in connection with every question in our whole study. Must it not justly be a part of any full and fair discussion of ethics to compare its results with the claim of Christianity? If it is superior can we stop with any lower ideals? Is philosophical ethics truly universal and im¬ partial if it passes by and simply ignores the ethical attitudes of Christianity? When we endeavor to sum up briefly the ethical, idealistic conceptions of Christianity we shall find that its supreme principle of morals is love of man for man exhibited in brotherliness of thought, feeling and deed. It makes for individual rights and common justice, and seeks the general welfare because it inculcates sacri¬ fice for the common good. By limiting the pursuit of material things it helps to overcome the strife and bitterness of selfish commerce, industry and labor. It militates against im¬ purity and the mere life of sex, and elevates the ideal and life of the married estate. All 26 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT intemperance and dishonesty are opposed, and pride, hypocrisy and pretense are castigated. Arrogance and self-complacency are thrust aside. The individual man is to be free from false control of law, to become self-reliant and responsible. For the social life it proposes the ideal of the Kingdom of God in which His holy, just, and loving will for the good of men is to prevail. This ideal defends the weak against the strong, overcomes the practice of retaliation, destroys mere class-feeling and narrow national bonds for a common brotherhood. Race is to be no hindrance to unity. Rich and poor are alike; educated and ignorant, prominent and obscure, master and slave are on the same spiritual plane. The meek shall inherit the earth when non-resistance is appreciated as against the militaristic attitude of destruction. All life will be joyful, hopeful, helpful, leading into the social order, which compared with all our failures in the present and past orders, promises common happiness, justice and love.7 “Christianity has supreme moral power because is combines so many high ideals in Jesus Christ. In Him the divine perfection is presented in human form. His ideal perfection leads us to adore Him, and His saving love moves us to follow Him. Through His act His life is offered to us, and if we accept it He lives in us through faith. His strength, therefore, is shaped in our weakness and leads us to freedom. In Him all graces unite, strength and humility, 7 This paragraph rests upon: Votaw, “ Primitive Christian¬ ity an Idealistic Social Movement: “American Journal of Theology, January 1918. FREEDOM AND RELIGION 27 justice and mercy, holy zeal and forgiving love, purity and rescuing power for the lost. Thoughtful and active, forceful as a man and gentle as a woman, hating evil and saving men, full of strong impulse and yet calmly balanced, strong in the virtue of every temperament and without its weakness, He stands as the supreme moral ideal in whom age after age finds now inspiration. The moral perfection and inspira¬ tion of Jesus Christ is the guarantee of the permanence of Christianity in the world ’s moral progress. It is essentially true that if the Son makes us free, we are free indeed.’ ’ 8 8 Haas, 1 1 In the Light of Faith, * ’ p. 220. REFERENCES Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, Chapters VI, VII. Borden P. Bowne, Principles of Ethics, Chapter VII. Jas. Hyslop, The Elements of Ethics, Chapter IX. Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, Part I, Chapter II, Part II, Chapter II. Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Book I, Chapter II; Book II, Chapter VIII. W. Wundt, Ethics, Part I, Chapter II. Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, Introduction V. W. Hocking, Human Nature and its Remaking, Part VII. W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God, Chapter XIII. G. T. Ladd, What I Ought To Do, Chapter XII. Sir Henry Jones, A Faith That Enquires, Lectures VIII, IX. John A. W. Haas, In the Light of Faith, “The Depend¬ ence of Freedom’ ’ p. 203 ff. James Ten Broeke, The Moral Life and Religion, Parts II, III. PART I. FUNDAMENTALS OF FREEDOM CHAPTER III FKEE WILL The basic problem. Is there any compelling reason for identifying the ethical problem with freedom? Are we justified in making the quest after an ethical system the problem of freedom? This basic question demands an answer ; other¬ wise all that is claimed in the assertion of freedom falls to the ground. There can be no doubt that some of the immediate data of our consciousness are of such a nature as to lead us to the conviction that we are free in our actions. We seem to know and feel that we make our own judgments. Deliberation balancing possible choices is present. The selection of a choice appears to be our own, and we arrive at a decision for which we accept responsibility. There is no escape from the impression that we make obligations our own, or that we reject them. When we have done certain actions they meet either with approval or disapproval. In the case of disapproval we blame ourselves and accept the guilt of the accusation of our thoughts against our deeds. Remorse may fol¬ low, and its occurrence is best explained on the assumption of our freedom. Unless all of these 28 FKEE WILL 29 mental phenomena are deceptive they cannot be easily set aside in any explanation of freedom. Nevertheless the problem is larger and we must consider other psychological facts, and weigh in addition certain claims of the natural sciences and certain metaphysical questions, y 'Freedom is not only the problem of the liberty r y of our choices and action, but also the question w of the aim of the moral life. Is it true or not, \hat we all seek happiness, however we may define it? If we accept this goal of human life, does it not follow that morals to justify their claim must attempt to solve this search after happiness. Now happiness is not possible ex¬ cept there be vital freedom. Liberty of mind and action is the outstanding essential element without which happiness is unattainable. Con¬ sequently freedom is the implied goal in human life, and we must ask how it can be best found and realized. It has a living content, and must not be confused with the negative idea of independence. When the American colonies declared their independence from England, they simply severed connection with the mother country. The relation of dependence was to cease. But the ideal of liberty which was in the minds of the founders of our country was larger. Human strivings in government and life cannot be found in mere independence but in a positive ideal of a fulness of happiness of life through liberty. , Freedom is more than an individual aim among men. To be real it must also be social. There must be a liberty for all and not only for each individual. My happiness and your happi- 30 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT ness ought not to clash; and the social good of liberty cannot be set aside without strife and destruction of happiness through the desire and contest for individual happiness. The common trend of society today as the outcome of the movements of history is very commonly charac¬ terized as democracy. Democracy is defined, as not merely the possession of common political privileges, but also as essential equability in all relations of life. Its three great ideas have been called liberty, equality and fraternity. The latter is the religions implication of democracy. Brotherhood must grow out of religion. Equal¬ ity is the social demand of democracy; and it must be valued in its possibility by studying the history of society. But liberty or freedom is the moral demand of democracy. It is there¬ fore not accidental or arbitrary when we assume freedom as the moral answer for the happiness of society. The more it obtains in its balanced reality, not as the selfish prey of individuals, or of groups in society, whether they be economic or national, the larger will be the sum total of human satisfaction with life and its common human joy and peace. The metaphysical assertion. May there not be a direct metaphysical solution of the problem of free will! If this is possible onr question can be solved without further discussion. The effort to cut the Grordion knot of freedom and determination has been made in modern think¬ ing. After Immanuel Kant had endeavored to overthrow the power of theoretical and pure reason in the ultimate questions of life, and had found only a strongly bound and closely connec- 31 FREE WILL ted causality on the basis of mathematics and physics, he assumed that all this was phenome¬ nal. The direct reality he asserted was in the human will. In the phenomenal world we are bound, in the real, nouomenal world we are free. Fichte in his treatise on the vocation of man also chose to exalt freedom through the essential reality of the will. But this emphasis on the will took a direction not contemplated by Kant. Schopenhauer, who coined the famous phrase “the will to,” made it the will to live. But this will led to misery, and became imper¬ sonal and like the energy of the universe. Thus freedom was lost in the depersonalized will as force. Von Hartmann followed Schopenhauer and explained all life through the philosophy of the unconscious, which is the blind urge of energy below consciousness. While these phil¬ osophers did not identify their impersonal will with the energy of natural science, this was the only logical outcome. And thus the free will was stranded through universalizing will. A partial rescue was provided in the speculation of Nietzsche who asserted the will to power. This will to power seems on the one hand the mere result of biological necessity just like the superman. But on the other hand there is a stressing of direct human will and action. Nietzsche1 never resolved this contradiction. Bergson makes the self the author of the free act, and finds liberty in the inner, pure, qualitative character of duration2. The open 1 Figgis, The Will to Freedom, gives a fair discussion of N ietzsche. 2 Of. Time and Free Will, espec. p. 169 ff. 32 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT reassertion of free will came through the pragmatists. William James coined the term “the will to believe/ ’ He claimed that one might take the choice of freedom over against the claim of necessity, and with equal right gamble on the freedom of will. There was no re¬ buttal of the claims of necessity, but only an acceptance of freedom as highly useful, practi¬ cal and workable as a hypothesis in human life. Upon consideration of all of these efforts to es¬ tablish the will to freedom, we cannot honestly conclude that this short-cut in the question of liberty is valid. It seems rather an escape of despair than a real effort to weigh and evaluate the difficulty of freedom and determination. The different arguments against freedom must re¬ ceive our attention, and we must continue to estimate them and to correlate them with the claim of liberty. What does psychology teach? Have we fairly considered all the evidence when we dealt with the immediate data of deliberation, choice, judg¬ ment, remorse, etc.? There are other facts whose import deserves mention. Whenever we come to any action motives have brought about the specific action. Sometimes a motive moves along a direct, straight course, and prevails without any apparent conflict. But mostly motives are complex, and in their movement there is conflict in which the strongest will win. Does this not demonstrate that our choices and deliberations are caused by motives and are not as free as they seem? Surely our mental life is not disconnected and our decisions do not jump up out of our mind like a jumping- jack out of FREE WILL 33 his box. But are motives forces in ns that control ns without our knowledge and power over them? We must be careful not to make of motives fictitious energies instead of freely adopted and chosen directions in the course of our actions. The motives are our motives; we chose them or reject them. Another question arises when we regard the place and power of habit. Habit arises for the sake of economy in our life.: But when certain habits have been formed they are fixed ways of doing things. In the face of the many fixed and determined actions through habit we can not claim that our ideas and volitions are undeter¬ mined and incalculable in their liberty. But after we have allowed for the fact of the large range of habits as the foundation of our virtues or vices which constitute our moral life, we may still inquire how did habits arise? Were they inherited or are they acquired, and did we con¬ trol their formation? Surely it is true that whatever influence training has had upon us, we cannot escape responsibility for our habits. Some of them were made in the period beyond early childhood. To the degree that we were active in the making of our habits we are obliged to accept the praise or blame attaching to them. Our present habits may control us; but were we not masters of the past and respons¬ ible for it? It is also true that while habits are exceedingly powerful it is still possible through some great experience to break up habits and to reform a whole life. Habits are not absolute masters, and we are not their slaves unless we desire to be so. 34 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT The continuance of certain motives and the constancy of certain habits make our character. Whatever we do and all our conduct depends on our character. Is character so stable that it determines us to the exclusion of change ? Can character be claimed as making against the freedom of action? What we do is certainly the outcome of our character, but our character was made by our past actions, decisions and ideals, for which we are responsible. It is never an absolutely static thing, but is being affected constantly by what we think and do. As years go on character will become increasingly fixed, but as long as men make moral progress char¬ acter grows. Character not only determines actions, but actions help to make character. A problem which is often slighted is the effect of temperament on the life of freedom. In the variety of temperaments, which consist of com¬ binations of certain tendencies that are strong or weak, bright or depressing, joyous or gloomy, there exist certain guiding and determining characteristics of our mental life. From these we cannot escape. They influence our moods, and we are active or phlegmatic, melancholy or sanguine. But these temperamental conditions for which we must make allowance in judging men are no hindrance to freedom. They, like our instincts, are a certain kind of raw material of the mind which can be used and shaped. Temperament cannot be destroyed but it can be controlled, modified, and used in our choices even while it gives color to them. What we have found true in motives, habits, character, temperament, is true of instincts and all other FREE WILL 35 data of our mind that condition us. None of them enslave us, and they cannot be explained in the interest of absolute determinism. We are determined and conditioned by all that is naturally a part of our mind, but we are never¬ theless in control of our freedom. A careful psychology does not destroy the sense and feeling of our liberty. A further problem has been raised through the development of the measurements of intel¬ ligence by tests. A large number of school children were examined,3 and it was found that the great mass of children of the common people rated quite low. Only a small group coming from successful mercantile or professional classes had a high average. It was also ascer¬ tained that through the newer immigration the rate of intelligence was further depressed. Does not this limitation of mind militate against the claim of freedom! This difficulty is increased by the results obtained during the war. An examination of 1,700,000 men, both officers and privates,4 showed that the average mental age of Americans is about 14, and that 45,000,000, or nearly half of the whole population, will never develop beyond the mental stage of a normal 12 year old child. Only 13,500,000 will be superior, and 4,500,000 talented. What does this indicate as to personal and social liberty! Is the whole claim of freedom invalidated! Even if we question the wide applicability of all the psychological tests and restrict them to the 3 Of . S. M. Terman, The Intelligence of School Children, and The Measurement of Intelligence. 4 Yerkes and Yoakum, Army Mental Tests. 36 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT limits indicated in the questionnaires, such as quickness of response, general knowledge, reac¬ tion to new situations, etc., it remains true that we must limit very much the responsibility we ascribe to people in general. But does the average mentality destroy liberty? The only effect of this new knowledge is not to expect the intelligent freedom of the highly developed group from the mass of men. But the conscious¬ ness of freedom and its right are not eliminated, and the average mind is still responsible within the range of its knowledge. There must be a gradation of responsibility, but no denial of the functioning of free decisions in accordance with the different types of mind. The brain and free will. Psychology leads us back to the problem of physiology. Is not the mind dependent upon the brain and the nervous system, and since these are subject to natural laws of necessity, are we really free as soon as we examine the physical basis of mind? The old Greek atomists, following Democritus, found only mechanical motion in the brain, and re¬ duced mind to such motion. Modern materialism has sought to solve the question through the chemistry of the brain. Its extreme slogan was: ‘ ‘ Without phosphorus, no thought. ’ ’ The chem¬ ical claim is still powerful, and the many physiological facts introduced into the modern psychology admit the close connection of the brain with mind. It is not only the chemical actions and reactions, which are supposed to furnish the scientific explanation of many men¬ tal phenomena that are important, but also the functioning of the brain producing certain FREE WILL 37 feelings, emotions, and actions, the localization of bodily movements in the brain, etc., count. The theory of emotions advocated by Lange and James makes the physiological action prior to the mental. We are told that in reality we first cry and then we are sorry. Any antecedent mental movement is denied. The theory which obtained for a long time in modern physiological study of mind was that mind and brain moved along parallel lines. Was this close parallelism possible without endangering the mind at least to some extent? And when the question of causality arose, this query had to be answered, how can two movements be so closely parallel without dependence, or without reliance upon some superior antecedent existence? These inquiries did not lead toward mind but mostly toward matter.5 A newer group of physiological students of mind, under the leadership of Pro¬ fessor Watson, call themselves behaviorists. They reduce everything in the mind, even the most abstruse thought, to action. The final philosophy of action is not favorable to the independence of mind. The American school of neorealistic philosophers reduce sensation to physiological action, and deny the mental worth of consciousness. Under the pressure of all of these hypotheses the mind becomes naturalized to such a degree that its surface phenomena making for freedom are set aside in favor of the reign of natural law. But there are other counterbalancing facts. It cannot be denied that mental conditions affect the brain. The assumption has not been proved, 5 Cf. Pratt, Matter and Spirit. 38 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT that only brain conditions affect the mind; on the contrary purely mental attitudes have material results. We cannot make our brain, but we certainly modify it through our mental life, Our ideas, emotions, volitions plough them¬ selves into the brain tissue.6 There have come forth in our modern life different groups of mental healers, who have all produced sufficient results to make the claim not for any one of their separate platforms, but still for the broad fact of the curative effect of the mind upon the body. Psycho-analysis and psycho-therapy, despite some vagaries that have crept in, cannot be lightly set aside. Of course the extreme theories of Freud,7 J ung,8 and Holt9 are not the whole truth. Even the aberrations of the mind cannot all be classified according to careful alienists under the head of suppressed sex- thouglits, sex-feelings and sex-desires. But enough has been accomplished by the psychic investigators to justify the claim of the origi¬ nating power and influence of the mind. The student of the mind cannot afford, in addition, to pass by the investigations of The Society of Psychic Research. If much of its material be doubted there still remains sufficient to show that there is evidence for telepathy and tele¬ kinesis. Thought produces passive and active results at a distance. In view of all of these considerations the mind cannot be reduced to the physiology of the brain. It has its own life 6 Thomson, Brain and Personality. 7 Freud, General Introduction to Psycho-analysis. 8 Jung, Libido. 9Holt, The Freudian Wish. FREE WILL 39 closely connected as it is with the body. And consequently as far as the mind is sui generis, and no after-effect of matter, it guarantees all the phenomena that indicate free will. Biological theory and freedom. The physio¬ logical problem was already a biological ques¬ tion. But there is a need not only to grapple with the immediate problem of brain and mind, but there are great ruling biological supposi¬ tions that deeply affect the problem of freedom. The two great claims that bear upon liberty are the claims of heredity and environment. In any fairly full and honest examination of our real liberty we must reckon with the questions which both heredity and environment propose to us. The assertion that heredity is all — controlling is the latest position in the debate, whether heredity or surroundings are the controlling factor in human life. The influence of heredity has grown through two causes. The first is the fact, that in connection with the increase of the acceptance of the neo-Darwinian theory of Weisman, viz., that no acquired characteristics are handed on but that only the original elements of the germ-plasm affect life, the investigations of the Austrian monk Mendel calculating the proportion of different strains in heredity10 were more and more established. The second cause is the increasing belief in the inference of eugenics. Galton in 1869 endeav¬ ored to prove that success was a family affair.11 10 Cf. For a brief practical statement, Mieou, Basic Ideas in Religion, p. 89 ff. 11 Galton, Hereditary Genius. 40 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT More and more the good and bad qualities of men were supposed to be the result of inherited tendencies. These were not restricted to physi¬ cal traits but they were also applied to mental characteristics and to moral attitudes.12 The two outstanding examples which are frequently cited are those of the descendants of one Juke and of Jonathan Edwards. The Juke Family, descended from a vagabond bom in rural New York in 1720, calculated for seven generations, showed that 310 were professional paupers, 440 were diseased through evil lives, more than half of the women were prostitutes, 130 were convicted criminals, 60 were thieves, 7 were murderers, etc. Thus the record continues one of degeneracy and crime. On the other hand Jonathan Edwards in 1900 had 1394 descen¬ dants. Of these 1295 were college graduates, 13 presidents of colleges, 65 professors, and many principals of educational institutions. 60 were physicians, over 100 preachers, mission¬ aries and professors of theology, 100 were law¬ yers, 30 were judges, 80 held public office, one was vice-president of the United States, some were governors, others leaders in commerce and industry, 60 authors, 75 officers in the army and navy, etc. This record is supposed to prove the influence of good heredity. If these contentions are true and demonstrate the claim made for them, then of course our moral frame-work is made for us by our ancestors, and we cannot really be said to be free. Goodness is then the result of being well-bom. 12 For a modern treatise see Popenoe and Johnson, Applied Eugenics, Cf. also Holmes, The Trend of the Race. FREE WILL 41 But there are some facts that need to be con¬ sidered before we can draw such a conclusion. If acquired traits are not inherited, how can mental and moral characteristics be handed down? The only escape is to suppose as Haeckel did that mind is in the germ-plasm. But how can this be substantiated by examina¬ tion? Binet13 does claim to have found actions in the didinium, a very primitive form of life, which seem to indicate deliberation and to argue for a psychology of low forms. But this contention has not been widely accepted.14 The only deduction that can be made from the cases of Juke and Edwards is that there is a social inheritance. Man, as Professor Conklin claims, has not changed much physically for long cen¬ turies. His evolution has been intellectual and moral. But has this been the outgrowth of physical evolution, or the result of certain social surroundings through which the attain¬ ments of families and groups are preserved? The Jukes became Jukes and the Edwardses Edwardses through their social atmosphere and their opportunities in life. It is also to be noted that there is evidence to be found in con¬ sidering the character of twins. There are two kinds of twins. The one consists of those who come from different ova, and they show physical and mental variations. The other kind come from the division of one ovum and are physically very much alike, e. g., in color of eyes, shape of nose, color of hair, etc. But 13 The Psychic Life of Micro-Organisms, p. 11. 14 Cf. The extreme claims of N. Quevli, Cell Intelligence the Cause of Evolution. 42 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT are they mentally and morally similar? Do they show great common traits? This fact has by no means been established. Furthermore, the whole claim of heredity must be counter¬ balanced by the fact of variation. Through variation novelties occur. And in the higher forms of life, especially in man, the generaliza¬ tions of the hereditarians are not correct when they omit the rise of spontaneity. The type is not all that there is, but along side of the type is the individual. The individual has peculiar¬ ities that the type cannot fully explain. There are variations of spontaneity which cannot be classified under the scheme of heredity. The other element of environment dare not be passed by. Lamarck was the advocate of environment; and while he has been displaced to a great degree there are still some biological facts, that seem best explicable through its assumption. When biology is applied in the study of society the teachers of sociology claim that surroundings ought to count at least 50 per cent. A few years ago much ado was made about the power of environment in the practi¬ cal study of the condition of young women seeking employment in stores. It was shown that their pay was so small, that in order to meet the demands of proper dress and living, and without considering at all any need of amusement or recreation, they were subject to the seduction of selling their bodies to keep alive. The temptation and its reality were portrayed so vividly that it appeared as though there was no choice possible, but that the con¬ ditions which were very wrong inevitably must FBEE WILL 43 lead to evil. Is this description of the power of environment accurate ? If so, then of course neither praise nor blame can be attached to persons for their actions, and freedom is a de¬ lusion. But the hereditarians, strange to say, refute the environmentalists. The American biologist, Professor Woods,15 claims that the growth of the power of choice in organisms diminishes the influence of environment. He says: “This may be the chief reason why human beings, who of all beings have the greatest power to choose the surroundings con¬ genial to their special needs and natures, are so little affected by outward conditions. The occasional able, ambitious, and determined member of an obscure or degenerate family can get free from his uncongenial associates. So can the weak or lazy or vicious (even if a black sheep from the finest fold) easily find his natural haunts.’ ’ This judgment opposes the strong claim of the advocates of environment, while at the same time it militates against the extreme hereditary hypothesis, although Pro¬ fessor Woods does not see this implication of his admission. The practical question again arises, that if we take two children in the same home, under the same influences, receiving the same education, etc., do they turn out the same? Is it not rather true that there are great differ¬ ences due to their choices? Consequently the total result in considering the claims of both heredity and environment does not destroy the actuality of choice and free decision. That we 15 The Law of Diminishing Environmental Influences, Popu¬ lar Science Monthly, April, 1910. 44 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT are morally forced to be what we are cannot be sustained by the proofs of the biologists. Sociology and freedom. Are we not condi¬ tioned as individuals by social forces, and is not society itself a product of necessary laws, which destroy all claims of liberty? The sociologist has used some of the results of biol¬ ogy, notably the power of surroundings, in his efforts. He thus makes man unfree. But there are some direct sociological facts to be considered. The investigations of social psy¬ chology with their stressing of certain social instincts16 tend to show how the individual is under the compulsion of common instincts and feelings. Much is made of the influence of the crowd-mind and the mob-feeling, through which in any gathering or common group opinions and emotions are borne in upon men. Among all influences the most potent is imita¬ tion17 which rules largely in human endeavor and moulds us into certain common ways of doing things and controls our actions. But is the force of common social mental traits so strong as to abolish the decisions and actions of the separate mind? We may oppose the common power of feeling and thought. There are always quite a number of individuals who go their own way. It is only by our willingness that we can be carried along in the common stream. If we oppose and resist, the strongest social forces of mind can have no power over us. Through our own agreement or compla¬ cence alone can we be absorbed into the ruling Cf. McDougal, Social Psychology. 17 Cf. Tarde, Imitation. FREE WILL 45 trend of feeling and opinion. The contagion of common ideas and emotions does not destroy our individual liberty of choice and judgment. When sociology becomes more and more accurate it employs the science of statistics. But what do we learn from a study of social statistics? After the data have been collected we find that there is a certain regularity in actions that seem purely individual. There is a steady number of suicides, a definite average of births, an average proportion of marriages, etc. The fact that actions like these, and even distinctly moral attitudes, can be summarized into figures seems to indicate that there are underlying influences which shape men. But when the full value of statistics is admitted, it only demonstrates a certain regularity of actions. Does this regularity of ordered lives, or the calculable expectedness of crime, suicide, and similar facts, bring such pressure to bear upon the consideration of freedom as to negate it? Men still feel their responsibility and accept it. The great students of criminology on the one hand argue that influences and en¬ vironment and heredity make criminals. But on the other hand the new practice of prison reform, probation and parole, rest upon the assumption of the possibility of change in the prisoner by appealing to his own power of will and decision. This is characteristic of other cases. Whatever our theory may be, in the actualities of life we act upon the presumption of liberty and choice. In addition to the biological conceptions used by sociology it has also employed at times a 46 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT philosophy of society which makes the indivi¬ dual a mere number in the group. Our whole life as separate beings is virtually denied, and we are made the creatures of the family, the place where we dwell, the country that is ours, the religion we profess, etc. Are we such socially conditioned men that our individuality is no real fact? The saner philosophy of society does not destroy the individual life. It allows the balance of individual choice and common social direction.18 If we follow this conception of balance we cannot assume that society itself is the outcome of natural forces. The power and urge of food, shelter, sex, will not be the only influences that are considered. There will be a recognition of great ideas and ideals that are accepted by men. Great passions will arise kindled by eminent leaders. Men in their common life will think together and choose together without admitting that they are the mere playthings of unconscious forces. Shall the subhuman energies count, and the natural forces be weighed, as against the consciousness of men as to their liberty of action? In this apparent conflict of evidence the mind which has discovered the laws of nature ought not to be discounted, and its own right denied, while what it has established remains firm. Modern science with its rule has created an unjustifiable prejudice against the data of the mind. It wants to rule the uni¬ verse from its restricted area of facts and laws. Causality and freedom. All the different is Baldwin, The Individual and Society. FREE WILL 47 objections to freedom find their focus in the metaphysical problem of causality. Can there be liberty in a universe which is controlled by the reign and power of cause? From the lowest particle of matter upward there seems to be a continuous chain of cause and effect. So much has already been included, by the research of science, in the successive phenom¬ ena that touch each other causally, that the unexplained portion of existence would appear logically to fall in most readily with the hypothesis of the universal and unex¬ ceptional control of natural causality. This philosophic position has a great unity and grows upon us as facts accumulate. We do not seem to be able to really think a universe without causality. When this view of things enters human life it necessarily leads to a strong fatalism. In modern drama Ibsen in The Wild Duck has applied the power of causality working up through life to a family situation, which completely controls every act and deed, and fills us with an unescapable dread as we contemplate the utter human help¬ lessness over against the tyranny of fate. The novels of Thomas Hardy are an exposition of the causal enchainment of man, whether we analyze Tess of the D’Ubervilles or Two in a Tower or the world-drama of The Dynasts. Everywhere life is contemplated as completely conditioned by the power of causality issuing into fate. But is this sweeping assumption of the con¬ tinuity and control of causality, deriving its interpretation from the energy observed in 48 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT matter, really true to the whole situation? When we begin with the minute particles of matter and the ultimate stressing of energy it is true that it obtains through all phenomena. But does the energy exhibited in the lowest forms of matter actually cause all things as we rise in the scale from the simple to the complex ? When we pass from physics and chemistry with their laws to biology, do the same laws of cause explain biological facts? We find a certain plus not included in the sub-biological sciences. Therefore we frame new laws for biology. There is a physics and chemistry of biology but it does not unfold the fact of life and the organism. The continuity of physical and chemical laws within biology is evident, but there is an addition of something novel that has never found an adequate explanation through the pre-biological facts and inferences. The lower does not produce the higher by a mere continuity of the causal chain of the lower. The examination of the mind as we go on from biology to psychology opens up another break in the causal continuity. The facts of life and mind cause a distinct division which does not destroy the connection of the causality of what is below them, but proves the coming in of new data that interfere with any assumption of the absolute reign of causal necessity and continu¬ ity. Man as a living and rational being finds that there is a subsumption of the lower under the higher. The complex and more differen¬ tiated takes up into itself the simple and more homogeneous. The world becomes man’s pos¬ session. “That is to say, he is free by FREE WILL 49 the help of his world, and in virtue of the rational activities which he performs; even though nature also performs them in and through him. For the world becomes an object of his experience and the content of his self, as he interprets its meaning and deter¬ mines its value and use. And it is this rational recoil upon the world which makes it his object, and constitutes the individual freedom. What was outer becomes inner. ” 19 It is this process of the rational and free permeation of the world by man’s thought and action which is the highest disproof of a blind and absolute caus¬ ality. Man is the interpreter of nature and its causality and feels and knows himself in his immediate consciousness as free. The difficulty of religion. There is a prob¬ lem, which is not met by the general consider¬ ation of the dependence of ethics upon religion. Wherever there is belief in supernatural power there is some dependence of man upon it. To the degree then that man is so dependent he is not free. But man as an individual can accept or reject such dependence. No religion is com¬ pulsory in itself. The only compulsion has arisen through human custom or law. But there has been a real limitation through religion wherever men have been under the conviction of the power of fate. Back of all of the Greek gods there was a tremendous force in the belief in fate. In Brahmanism there is a unifying pantheism that virtually destroys individual initiative, makes man largely meditative, and is Sir Henry Jones, A Faith That Enquires, p. 225. 50 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT causes stagnation in society, which is static through the idea that all life tends toward the Absolute and in its present form is the delusive shadow of the eternal reality of rest that deter¬ mines us. Nevertheless there are practical moral rules and freedom is still lived even if it is not believed. Buddhism with its doctrine of Karma, or reincarnation of men through their deeds, has a moral fatalism of acts, even though it denies the continuance of the soul. But with this fatalism it combines a moral theory of the suppression of desire and inculcates mercy and kindness. The Kismet of Mohammedanism with its strong accent upon predestination of human life still enjoins mercy and calls upon the decision of men. The belief in fate in religion is therefore not practically destruc¬ tive of the exercise of freedom while it does take away the belief of men in liberty. Christianity and free will. The Christian faith raises four questions about free will through its doctrines of providence, sin, grace, and predestination. There have been at all times three attitudes; first the position of those who stressed determination to the limit of fatal¬ ism; second, the group which in reaction almost denied providence and predestination to save free will; and third, those who mediated be- ween the two extremes. Is there a just expla¬ nation which does not destroy liberty and still maintains the value of all Christian truths'? The doctrine of providence, through which we assert that our lives are in God’s hand, so that all the hairs of our head are numbered, and the length of our days written down in God’s FREE WILL 51 book, seems to take away our freedom. But this is not really so. It only asserts that the many things in onr life which we cannot con¬ trol, such as are under natural law or appear to be a matter of accident or chance, are really known to God, and are in the power of His fatherly goodness which seeks onr liberty through His provident care and guidance. Sin when it is given its full value, as the result not merely of individual choice and act, but also as the inherited burden of mankind, certainly spells our bondage. The deliverance of grace accomplished, if we accept the teach¬ ing of Paul, without our co-operation, makes our goodness apparently wholly the gift of God. Thus whether we are in sin or under grace we are not masters of our spiritual life. But this is not the total meaning of these truths. The slavery of sin, which is an experienceable fact, even though its guilt is not naturally recog¬ nized, calls for freedom. The awfulness of sin is stressed so strongly in orthodox Christianity because only by the recognition of the enslave¬ ment of men and human society through the evil of sin is the way to freedom possible. Grace is the necessary emancipation, which is the act of divine goodness to make us free. It the power to awaken in us the desire for the good and to give us the strength to do it. There is no limitation of life but a bestowal of the real energy and effective motive to do the right in its relation toward God as well as toward man. Predestination taken in its absolute form, stressed by Augustine and Calvin, makes man 52 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT a piece of clay in the hands of the divine potter. Man is molded either into a vessel of honor or a vessel of dishonor by divine will which elects or rejects him independently of his responsible acts. But this form has been almost univer¬ sally rejected through the growing apprecia¬ tion of God’s love for men. Predestination means on its positive side, in agreement with God’s universal will for the salvatic that the redeeming goodness of God the attitude of men takes hold of their will. The natural and formal freedom is made a vital freedom of the content of the good. Thus God through Christ predestines to the liberty of the children of God. The negative side is the per¬ sistence of men in the evil. God’s foresight of this is not an act of His will to reject. Men cause their own rejection. The divine will is no power to evil. Evil rests upon the choice of men who will not see God’s way for their deliverance and liberty. Thus interpreted Christianity makes for a real, full freedom of the good life in its fulness. The total result of our study is to vindicate not an absolute freedom of an anarchistic, illog¬ ical sort, but an ordered liberty with limita¬ tions which, however, do not destroy it. REFERENCES James Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Part III, Chapter I. Jas. Hyslop, Elements of Ethics, Chapters IV, V. Frank Thilly, Introduction to Ethics, Chapter XI. John S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, Book I, Chapter III. Chas. D’Arcy, A Short Study of Ethics, Part I, Chapter III. Theo. DeLaguna, Introduction to the Science of Ethics, Chapter IV. FREE WILL 53 Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, Part IV, Chapter XXVIII. Henry W. Wright, Self-Realization, Part I, Chapter V. John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, Part IV, Section III. W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God, Chapter XVII. Ed. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, Chapters IX, XI. G. T. Ladd, What I Ought To Do, Chapter V. Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Book II, Chapter IX. W. Wundt, Ethics, Part III, Chapter II, 3. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book III. Erasmus, De Libero Arbitrio Diatribe. Luther, De Servo Arbitrio. Jonathan Edwards, Careful and Strict Enquiry Into the Modern Prevailing Notions Respecting That Freedom of Will Which is Supposed Essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Rewards and Punishment, Praise and Blame. H. H. Horne, Free Will and Human Responsibility. Karl Joel, Der Freie Wille. Wm. James, The Will to Believe. J. N. Figgis, The Will to Freedom. Arthur K. Rogers, The Theory of Ethics, Chapter V. CHAPTER IV CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM The organ of freedom. After the establish¬ ment of the range of free will there arises the question, how the will comes to expression in moral matters in our whole mental life. The answer that men readily give is the reference to conscience. Through it the judgments and decisions are made. Choices of good and bad centre in it. Approval and disapproval of acts, praise or blame, penitence and remorse are expressed through the conscience. But to name the conscience only raises a new problem. What is the conscience! Is it a simple voice in us as the older moralists thought, or is it a complex experience which must be analyzed according to its component mental constituents ! The latter question will receive an affirmative answer as we endeavor to consider wliat the conscience is and how it functions. The meaning of conscience. There is a his¬ tory in the rise and use of the term “con¬ science.” What are its indications, and what did men intend to express through it! The first clear evidence of the word, conscience, is found among the Greek Stoics. They took the term “suneidesis,” which had been used for 54 CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 55 consciousness in general, and applied it specif¬ ically to our moral consciousness of ourselves and our acts. It became the co-knowledge of the good or bad within us. The Romans similarly used “conscientia,” from which we derive our “ conscience, ’ ’ and the French their word “conscience.” The German term “Ge- wissen” means “Mitwissen” and expresses the very same idea as all the other words derivative from the Greek. From these linguistic facts it appears that when the idea of conscience was set apart from other ideas it began with an emphasis upon the intellect, which modern psychological analysis will not sustain. A further error was implied in the apparent assumption of a double consciousness, one given to natural things, the other to moral decisions. Thus the belief arose that the conscience is a definite unity within us, a single voice, divine in its content and form, instead of a composite of different mental functionings concerned with the good or bad, the right or wrong. The judgment of acts. What is the most noticeable fact about conscience? What out¬ standing feature is felt when we speak of con¬ science? The very first element is the judg¬ ment of ourselves, our words and our acts. Conscience is a judge within us, either freeing us or condemning us in our conduct. It is not not necessary that this judgment should come after the act, which happens when we go ahead in our thoughts, words and deeds without allowing any estimate to come to us of the moral value of what we are about to think, utter or do. But if we pause before any con- 56 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT duct there is a premonitory warning which judges what we intend to do in its moral bear¬ ings. I may be placed in a quandary in which I feel inclined, in order to avoid difficulties, to tell an untruth. The conflict in the situation may not be of my own making, but the result of a condition, as when e. g. the telling a sick man the actual state of his sickness may be detrimental, while not doing so is deceit. It is then that some judgment is made within us either for truth or for concealment. But most judgments are clear. I may be tempted to take an undue profit in a sale or to misrepresent what I want to sell. If conscience functions, and I allow it to speak it will mark my inten¬ tion as wrong. In the same manner I see some person in imminent danger in the water. I come to the rescue at once, and in the doing of the act or just after it I hear the approval: 4 ‘This was a noble deed.” Thus judgments of our conduct are always going on. It may happen that we suppress the utterance of these judgments, but sooner or later they will press in upon our consciousness. The judgments are strong and have a call to action. The approv¬ ing decisions invite obedience, the disapprov¬ ing judgments inhibit action. But we are never forced to follow the judgment of our con¬ science. We can accept or reject its rulings. When conscience is powerful in us it comes with a compelling appeal but never with a com¬ pulsory force. The submission to conscience or the suppression of its judgment indicates the nature of our conscience. If we constantly disregard its promptings and pass by its deci- CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 57 sions we have a tough or hardened conscience. The increase of this attitude finally silences conscience for a long time or completely atro¬ phies it. If we readily obey the judgments we have a ready or tender conscience. This is the normal, sound position, and makes for the liberty in the good. Sometimes a tender con¬ science may go beyond the proper balance, and become super-sensitive and critical about our own acts or those of others. We not only judge ourselves, but also others either rightly cr wrongly. When this judgment is extreme, or fails to weigh situations justly and sympathet¬ ically, it creates a quibbling and contentious conscience that loses itself in details and minu¬ tiae, and fails even when there is justice in the judgments. The judgment in order to be true and cultivated must be broad, fair, equitable, and apply equal decisions to others and to ourselves. The law back of the judgment. When con¬ science pronounces a judgment the question rises, on what basis is the judgment given! Before or after an act of ourselves or others we say either: “This is right,’ ’ or “This is wrong. ’ ’ Why can we make such a statement ? Is there a standard or law back of the judgment which gives us the right to make the judg¬ ment? We accept certain great principles as controlling our judgments of attitudes and acts. The earliest formulator of scientific ethics, Aristotle, recognized this law although he had no definite conception of conscience nor gave it a name. Resting upon his logic Aristotle 58 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT called attention to the practical syllogism.1 In this syllogism the judgment is either the con¬ clusion or the minor premise. When I say: ‘ 4 This act is just ’ ’ I am drawing the conclusion in a syllogism even if I do not clearly formulate the major and minor premise. I may use a minor premise and say to myself : 4 ‘ This deceit of mine is a lie.” The implied conclusion is, therefore it is wrong. But its foundation is a major premise which says, when definitely formulated: “ Lying is wrong.” When the judgment is a minor premise a major is neces¬ sary, and a conclusion follows. The syllogism is rarely put into its complete form. But the necessary implication is that there is always a major premise on which the judgment rests. This major premise is one of the laws of con¬ science. Thus we find in our mental life that there are certain standards and laws, which we have accepted, and upon which our judg¬ ments of the moral value of conduct rest. The origin of the law. The existence of cer¬ tain standards and laws in our conscience that may be traced to definite principles opens up the problem whence are these laws, and how are they derived? When we examine the con¬ tent of the moral laws that controls us we find that it is derived from what has been taught us. We grow up in a certain family with its moral conceptions and practices. Then we are influenced by the type of religion we have and its ethical principles. The ruling practices of an age with its moral trend have a bearing 1 Cf. Sir A. Grant, The Ethics of Aristoitle, Vol. I, Essay IV, p. 263 ff. CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 59 upon us. Thus the condition of the morals and the ethical attitude of the society in which we grow up first begin to shape us. When how¬ ever we come to our days of discretion we will make individual choices and decisions either affirming or denying what we have received no matter how powerful early training and sur¬ roundings are. But the problem of tracing the content of conscience to its sources is not the whole ques¬ tion. Why do the moral ideas and practices have the power of an inner law? It is this formal problem of conscience which lies at the root of the origin of conscience. A very com¬ mon conception of today is that conscience is the voice of society in man. The conscience is supposed to be the rule of the social power in the individual, controlling him in the inter¬ est of the common life, and saying to him: “In the name of society I bid you do this.” The moral laws certainly have large social relations, and make the common life possible. But are we conscious of this pressure of society as in¬ herent in us? Do men accept the right as the demand of society? Is this its binding strength? Men have again and again revolted against the moral positions of their age and the society of their times without rejecting the conscience. In fact great moral leaders have frequently claimed the right of their own con¬ science, and have demanded their ethical free¬ dom in the choice of right and wrong. The stories of Confucius and of Socrates show us how men are not the mere focus of their age, but through individual insight into moral truth 60 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT rise above those about them, and feel an urge which does not exhibit itself as social. Fre¬ quently the laws of conscience develop in the conflict of our thoughts and emotions. Marti- neau supposed2 that it was out of the inner con¬ flict of thoughts excusing or accusing each other that conscience arose. He confused St. PauPs description of the functioning of con¬ science3 with its origin. There are no psycho¬ logical or social indications sufficiently definite to permit us in making a fairly adequate con¬ jecture as to the origin of conscience.4 We know its uses but somehow its beginnings are hidden. It comes to us with a certain mystery about which religion makes its assertions, tracing the moral laws in their appeal and power to a gift of God. Ethics does not seem capable of solving this question with its resources. It only knows of the impelling power of the laws of right, which we often desire to get rid of but cannot. Nevertheless we have the liberty to overrule all the promptings of the laws of conscience by our desires and actions. We know and feel the force of the laws accepted as right, but we can freely disobey them and subject ourselves to the consequences of the violation of the moral order. The intellectual elements of conscience. When conscience began to be studied separately the emphasis was put strongly on the intellect in 2 Of . Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, p. 53, 54, 401, 402. 3 Romans II: 14, 15. 4 Rogers, Theory of Ethics, Chapter III, is another effort that fails. CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 61 conscience. But modern psychological in¬ vestigation has led students to stress the emo¬ tional power. Which of these two attitudes is more correct? The reply will appear as we attempt to analyse the parts which intellect and emotion play in conscience. Whenever we pass a moral judgment of any sort it certainly con¬ tains an attitude that either demands thought or has thought back of it. It is impossible to make a valuation of a moral act without some analytical knowledge. If we desired to pass judgment on a war, and say: “This war is wrong, ’ ’ we could not do so except certain facts were known, considered and estimated by us in reference to the war we wanted to adjudge. The moral principles also contain general state¬ ments, which are either first assumptions in conduct or generalized abstractions from the concrete conditions of life. No intellectually uncertain or colorless ideas can form the basis of the maxims and laws of our character and conduct. If I claim “Justice is fundamental in social morality, ” I am making a statement which has a meaning in every single part of it. There are large and strong intellectual elements in it, and it is rich in a far-reaching conception. The whole functioning of conscience would be blind and impulsive were it not for the rational content. It is just this rational content which gives soundness and stability to conscience and leads us as rational beings to accept its authority. As far as the material of our moral laws con¬ trolling us comes from society it has a tradition¬ al aspect. But will the moral customs of society last if they do not rest on an inherent rationality 62 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT which justifies their currency and permanence? Sometimes reasonableness is sustained by the impossibility of the opposite. Hobhouse5 well says: “Reason comes by her own, not because men willingly and consciously accept her, but because unreason carried far enough produces misery and disaster. Sufficiently grave depar¬ tures, whether to the right hand or to the left, either produce reaction or lead to social dis¬ solution. Against dissolute practice, society will perhaps erect a barrier of a stringent theory, and save itself in turn from the con¬ sequences of the theory by a network of tacit understanding forming a secondary and more genuine code of conduct beside or behind that which men outwardly profess. The price of luxury is disorder, the price of undue strictness is insincerity, and both prices will be paid until men seek to found conduct on the dispassionate consideration of what is permanently in accord with the requirements of human nature under the conditions of social life.” The conditions of social life fit into a moral order which is being realized, and beneath which there is a purpose. The moral development, as well as the development of nature, when regarded in its totality leads to the assumption of an inher¬ ent purpose. For this cause the laws of moral life in their individual and common application, and the judgment of conscience, rest upon reason which is practically effective because it is theoretically correct. What is the power of emotion? After we have 5 The Rational Good, p. 168. CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 63 given full place to the intellect, have we really touched the impulsive and propelling power of conscience ? If we examine a moral law it does not come to us merely in the cold and dispas¬ sionate form of an intellectual theorem. There is about it a warmth and propulsion of feeling and emotion. This distinguishes a moral prin¬ ciple in action from the mere consideration of it apart from its functioning. We may discuss an ethical question in an unconcerned and unap¬ plied manner as we discuss any problem. But as soon as the moral law bears upon the immedi¬ ate conduct it is accompanied by a strong inrush of emotion. When we consider the moral appraisement in judging of character and con¬ duct in its practical working we find an even stronger emotional tone than in the law. The judgment of the conscience is not delivered like the usual sentence of a judge as the exposi¬ tion of the law involved. But the condemnation or acquittal comes with solemnity and power. It produces either depression of feeling or heightening of it. We may suppress the full force of the emotional urge but it is present and sometimes carries us whither we did not expect to be carried. A deed that has been done often leaves behind it an effect of emotion that must spend itself no matter how long it takes. The student Raskolnikoff, who is the leading charac¬ ter in Dostoievsky’s ‘ 1 Crime and Punishment,” shows how impossible it is for him finally not to betray himself and to reveal the deed which he tries to hide. It is the constant emotional pressure that makes him restless and does not allow him to bury sin in forgetfulness. This 64 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT power of emotion like a mighty stream fre¬ quently overflows the whole life. The great classic analysis of it in the drama is found in Macbeth, when both Macbeth and Lady Mac¬ beth are overwhelmed by the horror and inescapability of the murder they have com¬ mitted. The undercurrent of their minds is mighty emotion. This emotion has various degrees according to the culpability which is felt to be in an act. A minor transgression is followed by sorrow or regret. Either of these may be short-lived or continue for some time according to the emotional strength that pro¬ duces the reaction in us after the judgment of conscience. When an attitude or action leads to a more severe condemnation it is succeeded by remorse. Remorse has tremendous tone of feeling, and is often not overcome very readily. A change may be effected if after the experience of sorrow, or regret, or remorse, we turn about in the direction of the freedom of the good. This mental reversal is repentance. It is the acceptance of the full condemnation with its emotional burden, the resolution to reject the condemned act and attitude, and in future to choose the opposite and seek the good. The act approved of is accompanied by a feeling of either satisfaction, or joy, or peace. It may also contain an impetus to continue in the good through the current of the encouraging emotion. But no matter how strong the emotional trend may be we can brace ourselves against it. It is powerful but it does not control us finally with¬ out our volition. Even the temporary outburst of its strength can be overcome, and if it pre- CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 65 vails it is only as we allow it to do so in the conflict which ensues between it and our set desire and will. The conscience and volition. It is self-evident that the knowledge and emotion pertaining to right and wrong lead to action or inhibit it. But are there any further contacts? In the study of volition desire plays an important part. It is the longing which seeks to satisfy a want. This longing often emerges into a motive, and the motive brings about the action. The motiv¬ ation to action arising in desire can enter into conscience when our desires adopt the moral laws as a want to be realized. If, e. g., we take the saying “honesty is the best policy,” and change it from the diplomatic form into the moral law, and say: “honesty is right,” we may make honest words and actions our desire. Then we begin to incorporate the moral law into our motives. The promptings and appeals of con¬ science become connected inwardly with the functioning of our volition. It is this end toward which conscience is striving so that there may be a joyous approval of judgment. The inner identification with the moral law makes us free to the degree that the right becomes our desire. On the contrary the liberty of a good life is hindered as far as our desires remain unmoralized. If, e.g., I give way to the impulses that crowd in upon me, especially in the first days of adolescence, and listen to the pressure of sex without controlling it, it im¬ plants itself in my desire. Unless a contest takes place to dislodge the mere natural instinct froip. the conscious desire the impulse will con- 66 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT quer. Conscience with its law of restraint of sex and its call to parity will speak in vain. My action will follow the motive controlled by the desire that is amoral and becomes immoral with the continual rejection of the appeal of the moral law. We must implant the moral prin¬ ciples into the course of mental phenomena that lead to action. Is there a social conscience? The conscience has always been accepted as acting in and through the individual mind. But in the last decades the assertion has been made again and again, that there is and ought to he a social conscience. What is really meant by a social conscience? It is frequently forgotten that the individual ought to have a social conscience. By this term we mean, not that we ought to consider our actions of right or wrong as they affect other individuals, but as they bear upon social groups and society at large. Those who are leaders in the state, the church, in politics, in industry, in commerce, etc. by their very position must decide moral issues representa¬ tively, and they can do this rightly only if they acquire a moral sense and judgment that has the social outlook. But in addition to the leaders every one in society has a social influ¬ ence, and must accept social obligations. It is being realized in business today that strictly speaking there is no private transaction. Every article sold, and the price charged for what is purchased, have a connection with the whole conduct of business and the whole scale of prices as they affect society. There must be an awakening among all people to understand CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 67 liow their actions touch the life of society. Among some people there is the idea that liberty is mere individual choice. For this reason they resent, e.g., quarantine that is put upon their homes when there are cases of contagious dis¬ ease. They do not realize the interconnection of men in society, and the fact that there must be common liberty, and consequently that there must be common rights. The usual conscience has not been developed to function socially. The other meaning of the social conscience is the common attitude of society on moral issues. Of course we must not suppose that there is some unitary super-mind and super-conscience in society. We dare not create social fictions that are unreal. But it is a fact, that through the ideals of leaders, through common organs of public opinion, there is found and expressed what is in the minds of the many. There is a congruence of certain moral laws and judgments in the common and public outlook. Through the merging of the attitude of many, and through the testing of the average conscience, we arrive at a common conscience which judges social matters. Society will be sound as far as more and more of its ideas and actions are controlled, not by political, or economic con¬ siderations, but are adjudged by a living and developing social conscience with high standards. The authority of conscience. A very impor¬ tant element in the analysis of conscience is the problem of its authority. Its moral law comes to us and impresses us with a feeling that it is authoritative. We may accept or reject the 68 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT rulings of the authoritative call of conscience, but we cannot deny the claim of authority. The authority of conscience is reasonable and not arbitrarily compulsory. Through it we are not to be enslaved and made permanently depen¬ dent, but it is the way to real liberty of the good. Its imperative is invitation and appeal, even if its pronouncement is direct, definite and unbending. We may overhear the call of authority but it will reassert itself. Connected with the authority of conscience is the problem of its infallibility. It cannot be denied that we can do nought else than follow our conscience when it approves of an ideal and attitude. But this does not imply that the con¬ science is unerring. It may not be faulty in following such knowledge as it has, but its knowledge may be wrong. The conscience of the early New England people was correct according to their conviction of right when they burned witches, but we know now that their conception of right in this respect and their belief in witches was wrong. When Calvin ap¬ proved of the burning of Servetus, he thought that his approval was a high and just moral act. Today we know that his standard was wrong. Thus conscience is never infallible in its content. One age condemns the position of an age that is gone. Different people, especially those of the low tribes, have consciences that are devoid of what we consider the very fundamentals of moral law. We can only judge men as they follow their conscience, but we can not claim that honesty of obedience to one ’s conscience im¬ plies the correctness of what conscience dictates. CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 69 Tlie authority of the conscience is not de¬ stroyed by the defectiveness of its contents. From the crudest beginnings it has constantly risen to a better appreciation of the good. Progress has not been uniform, but there have been periods of retrogression. The formal au¬ thority finds it best content when conscience is under the influence of two developing causes. The first is the growth of right reason applied to morals. When men seriously reflect upon the good, and observe the effect of evil, they recognize what makes for happiness and free¬ dom. Action does not always follow reflection, but to the degree that we allow reasonable con¬ siderations to guide us we will eliminate the ignorance that in part prevents higher moral standards. Enlightenment aids moral progress and helps in giving sounder content to con¬ science. The second cause that elevates con¬ science is the content which a great religion furnishes. While low forms of religion have stood in the way of ethical advance, the high forms have presented conceptions of such a range, and kindled emotions of such power, that conscience is very much lifted up. The best religion is that whose ethical content presents ideals which it will take the centuries to work out. This is the claim of Christianity. It aims to make the authority of conscience complete for liberty and goodness through its perfect moral content and ideal. Christianity and conscience. It is only through the writings of Paul that we are introduced to the Christian conception of conscience in its beginnings. Christ in the figurative term “the 70 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT liglit of the body is the eye,”6 has stated the fact of the conscience. But the actual word onlv came into use in Christian truth through Paul. In the letter to the Romans Paul has the idea of conscience in mind, when he describes the existence of the law in the mind of the Gentiles who do not have the revealed law of Israel. He well describes the conflict in the conscience be¬ tween thoughts as they accuse or excuse each other.7 The actual inner process of conscience is realized. But more important is the fact that Paul8 sees in the conscience that in man which is to accept the pure truth. He emphasizes the appeal of divine revelation as saving truth to the conscience. This is for him the centre toward which religious truth tends, and before which it must approve itself. It affirms the essential Christian position which makes all of its truth ethical in purpose though not in immediate character. The conscience is conceived of as paramount; and neither reason with its logic nor emotion with its unsteadiness are funda¬ mental. Out of this attitude we must judge all questions of truth, its authority and infallibility. No demand of dogmatic consistency must stand in the way of the moral verification of all spiritual truth before the conscience. 6 Matthew VI : 22. 7 Romans II : 15. 8 2 Corinthians IV : 2 ; I Timothy 1 : 5 ; III : 9. REFERENCES Jas. Hyslop, The Elements of Ethics, Chapters VI, VII. Frank Thilly, Introduction to Ethics, Chapters II, III. Henry W. Wright, Self-Realization. Part I, Chapter IV. CONSCIENCE AND FEEEDOM 71 Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, Part I, Chapters IV, V, VI. Chas. D’Arcy, A Short Study of Ethics, Part II, Chapters VIII, XIV. G. T. Ladd, What I Ought To Do, Chapter X. Chas. Gray Shaw, The Value and Dignity of Human Life, Part III, Chapter II. W. Hocking, Human Nature and its Remaking, Part III. Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Book II, Chapter V. W. Wundt, Ethics, Part III, Chapter II, 4. John F. D. Maurice, The Conscience. Hastings Rashdall, Is Conscience an Emotion. CHAPTER V FBEEDOM AND PESSIMISM What is the problem? A very real difficulty arises as we consider whether the trend of life is toward evil or good. The theory of pessimism is that this is the worst of all possible worlds. Its opposite is optimism which claims that we are in the best of all possible worlds. The great advocate of optimism in modern times is Leibniz who in the interest of religion wrote his the¬ odicy. In this treatise he seeks to prove that such evil as is in the world is due to human finiteness, and the nature of liberty. The world, Leibniz thinks, is the best of all possible worlds that God could make and still retain freedom. Whether this position is tenable or not, it is valuable because it indicates the problem of the relation of freedom to evil. There are two sides to this question. The first is that the existence of the choice of right or wrong makes possible the wrong choice. This is the risk of freedom. The other side is the question, whether freedom is worth while and really helps the cause of the good if the whole drift of affairs is toward evil. The first consequence of the problem of the re¬ lation of freedom to good or evil is self-evident. It is the second which gives us concern and constitutes the question of pessimism. 72 FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 73 The causes of pessimism. There are several great causes of intellectual, emotional, and voli¬ tional pessimism, disregarding for the moment the pessimism of mood. Among these those which characterize our age are naturalism and realism. It would seem that naturalism ought to be the friend of hope. When it becomes tinged with religion and arrives at pantheism it says with Pope: “Whatever is is good.” There is no room for the distinction of good and evil where any kind of pantheism rules. But the actual naturalism, either neglecting its pantheistic consequence or contradicting it, takes the real world as one of absolute necessity. Man seeking the outlook of hope does not find it but is always subject to inexorable law. The desire for freedom is a deception. Morals and religion are really illusions in a universe of mere forces and energies. Where men think and feel themselves constrained to accept the conclusions of natural science alone as fundamental and ultimate they must abandon moral and spiritual values. Then bowing to the inescapable reign of iron natural law they grow sad, weary and hopeless when the cry of their heart calls for goodness and its liberty. No one has better voiced the hopelessness of naturalism than Matthew Arnold in his poem Dover Plains. He hears faith ’s “Melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.” The second great cause in our day is realism. 74 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT The attitude of au extreme realism has entered into all art, and into the whole view and philoso¬ phy of life. It claims to be the honest portrayal of facts as against the idealism which lifting its head into the clouds forgets that we are walking on the earth. As a protest realism serves to correct an unreal idealism which has lost itself in the dreams of romanticism. But when realism becomes the ruling outlook and crowds out the striving after the ideal it destroys ideals. The destruction of ideals and their value undermines the worth of morals and freedom. To see things as they are is of service if we make the effort to make things as they ought to be. Realism however discounts such an effort for betterment. It wants to dwell in the slums it has discovered, and to keep the tig-leaf of decency removed. Through realism men learn to dwell in the tents of ungodliness and to delight in the examination and descrip¬ tion of all that is ugly, mean and bad. This vile world is the paradise of realism. It loves the shadows of Main Street, and glorifies the low aspirations of Alice Adams.1 The decadent dramas of Strindberg, the free verse that dwells in nasty places, and the moving picture that portrays the worst in human life luridly, are exalted. Painting and sculpture by the power of realism depart from purity of color and the glorious beauty of the human form, and unfold the riot of impure color and exhibit the extrava¬ gance of form. If this is life and all that it contains and all that it may hope to be then 1 The popularity of such a novel as “Babbit” is a sad sign of a most commonplace, decadent realism. FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 75 surely there is no place for the hope and glory of human freedom. If realism rests on facts and if its facts are final then we must hang our heads in shame and despair. Pessimism and human moods. There is a kind of pessimism which does not rest upon naturalism or realism, but is the growth of the mood of man. A mood is composed of a number of emotions which have attained permanence and color the whole feeling of our mind. It is a settled attitude of feeling toward all experi¬ ence and bends it to its own condition. Where the common feeling is bright there is optimism, but where it is gloomy there is pessimism. A depressed mood of gloom may be the result of wrong physical conditions of the body or the consequence of mental disorder. But there are men whose experiences have soured them or who are hopeless when they view the course of things. Such men fall into the mood that is dark and become pessimistic. There are others who assume pessimism and strike an attitude of ‘ ‘ Weltschmerz. ’ ’ With all these different types of men there can be no debate. Their attitude is a matter of taste. Sometimes there is a weariness and ennui of the world which is the result of a dissipated life which has drunk the wine of evil indulgence to the dregs. The mood which is pessimistic as the result of such a life is the punishment of the wrong choice of evil. There are temperamental pessimists who are well represented by Jacques,2 when he approves of the fool’s philosophy: 2 “As You Like It, ” Act II, Scene VII. 76 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT “ ’Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, And after one hour more’t will be eleven, And so from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, And then from hour to hour, we rot and rot, And thereby hangs a tale. ” This makes a stale and unprofitable world. Can we know and be glad? We begin to come to the real issue of pessimism when we ask as our first question, what is the outcome of knowledge! Does it lead to hope or despair; does it make us optimistic or pessimistic! At the outset there seems to be joy in the attain¬ ments of the intellect. We are satisfied as little by little we learn to know. But as soon as the effort is made to go below the surface of truth and to dig into its depths we find great hindrances. Knowledge which begins with curiosity when it seeks to satisfy itself fully ends in doubt. The striving of the intellect comes to an impasse. The more we know the less we know, because all new knowledge when searched out leads to further problems. The searching and critical intellect infects us with “problemitis. ” The great classic representa¬ tion of man seeking happiness is Goethe’s Faust. One part of the search is the quest after knowledge. But neither medicine, nor law, nor theology satisfy the deep intellectual longing of Faust. He has tried all of them and in vain. It almost breaks his heart that we can know nothing rightly and thoroughly. Thus kowledge leads to despair. It has not kept its promise of giving joy and peace and liberty to the earnest seekers after truth. A short glance at the development of philo¬ sophy in some of its connected movements of FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 77 thought confirms the conviction of the final futility of the intellect to lead to liberty. The Greeks began with assuming some material principle as explanatory of the world. But the early explanation of matter, even in its atomic form, failed to answer all questions. Then Anaxagoras first discovered the necessity of some sort of mind-stuff to account for the order of the world. Absolute rest and existence was tried by the Eleatics, and Heraclitus sought to solve all the problems of the world through movement. Then after Socrates endeavored to help morals by clear conceptual thinking arose Plato with his vision of ideas and ideals. Aris¬ totle brought down to earth the eternal beauty and goodness which Plato had seen. He showed men a universe of causes and final pur¬ pose, high thought moving the world, and men with moral aims. But the great ethical striv¬ ings of these leaders of thought soon split up into advocates of pleasure, Epicureans, and de¬ fenders of reason, Stoics, who fell back into a material metaphysic of the world. The end of the Greek development in the followers of Plato and Aristotle, and in the students of all schools, was scepticism. The mind had tried the differ¬ ent alternatives, had reached great heights, and then despaired of any real solution. The his¬ tory of English thought gives a leading place to three speculators, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Locke endeavored to find the secret of the human understanding, and its relation to an outside world. He was led to assert that some qualities of things like color were not in things but in the mind. Berkeley developing 78 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT the analysis of the mind came to deny all exper¬ ience of matter. Restricting the investigation to immediate knowledge he found only sensa¬ tions and ideas. Both were finally mental, and x the mind the only real existence. Hnme carry¬ ing the analysis still further found only phe¬ nomena in the mind. He could not see any evi¬ dence for mind itself, but only defended impressions and notions. Thus the conclusion reached was sceptical, and there was no real substance, or cause, or existence, beyond the immediate appearances in experience. The more keenly the mind searched after itself the more mind destroyed itself by doubt. The Ger¬ man development in the philosophy of the nineteenth century began with the endeavor of Kant to fix the limits of theortical thinking and to overcome the scepticism of Hume by a thorough critique of pure and practical reason. But the criticism of Kant was followed by the egocentric idealism of Fichte. Kant’s strong emphasis of the ego with its categories grew into an absolute ego. Hegel followed as the great defender of absolute reason as a movement. But when the heights were reached idealism failed and materialism ruled again. Blind will and impulse gained a foothold. The outcome was confusion and uncertainty. Agnosticism was the end just as it was the result in the common sense speculation of the Scotch thinkers. The line of succession did not stop with Reid but led to Hamilton with his philos¬ ophy of the unconditioned, then on to Mansel who in the interest of faith doubted the possibil¬ ity of the absolute ; and at last Spencer adopted FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 79 Mansel’s attitude in liis First Principles and argued for the Unknowable. Any careful stu¬ dent of the history of philosophy must find that all ultimate questions have not been solved, and that every movement of thought has ended in agnosticism or doubt. And agnosticism is nothing else hut an inconsequental scepticism unwilling to follow its own logic. When we look at the efforts of men to frame theories of the best way of teaching the truth we are not very much encouraged. Great ped¬ agogues have arisen from time to time with high visions, but after a time they were dis¬ carded. Pedagogy has been one series of ex¬ periments. There has always been a contest between the old and the new methods. Neither were absolutely right. Change succeeded change and small minds were always announcing that the last word had been said, and now the golden age of education had arrived. Today the apostles of the practical and the utilitarian and the vocational hold the field. But if we but wait they will pass from the field of endeavor and some new universal nostrum of education will be announced. Meantime every sort of education has spoiled as many minds as it has helped. Men finally educate them¬ selves in spite of all theories. The best efforts of the mind to teach the mind are vain and in the great things of liberty we go on groping our way, blundering through, and stumbling blindly on. All our pedagogy leaves us in the lurch and we are not solving the great disturb¬ ing problems of our day. The intellectual part of civilization is not 80 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT hopeful. The increase of knowledge has not been accompanied by increase of general intel¬ ligence.3 The ancient Greeks on the average were intellectually more advanced than the the average man today. Along with the failure of the increase of brain-power has gone a con¬ stant addition of new knowledge. The intellec¬ tual structure of civilization has grown too heavy for the minds of men to bear. Know¬ ledge has been very much subdivided and there are many narrow specialists in all departments of learning and in every profession, but broad knowledge is dying out. It can no longer be assimilated because of its excessive details in every department. If we take e. g., the study of history it is evident that the growth of its material is so tremendous that we can either know only a small part thoroughly or a larger part rather superficially. The growth of the knowledge of civilization is its own destruction. If we are to have large knowledge some of the present intellectual civilization must be lost, and the slate partly wiped clean. Otherwise we shall all become grubbers in minutiae and lose the general knowledge, and with it the broad sympathy that makes for common respect of rights and universal liberty. When we weigh all of these indictments against the intellect the case seems very ser¬ ious. But there are certain contrary consider¬ ations. The intellect is not the whole of human life. We cannot and ought not stake all of happiness and liberty on the success or failure of our logic. The limitations of reason must 3 Cf. above page 35. FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 81 be clearly recognized and the impossible must not be asked of it. Ultimate questions may not be solved easily to the common satisfaction of men. But the striving after them has not been entirely without result, and we have at least learnt the possibility of our knowledge. The periods of scepticism have been followed by times of renewed search. It must not be for¬ gotten that we have not reached the goal, and that the development is still going on. In the search there is the joy of the work. The very effort of the intellect is its liberation. In many departments of knowledge we have attained established facts. Our knowledge of nature and science has given ns many data that have changed our whole life and freed it from much superstition and narrowness. There has been no such complete failure as the pessimists would have us believe. The difficulty in final problems has thrown us back upon faith and strengthened our spiritual life. Experimenta¬ tion in education has brought along with its changes increasing understanding of the child and has given larger liberty. Subdivision of knowledge invites more and more people to think and makes knowledge more universal. There may be periods of loss and backwardness but is the total history of knowledge one of despair or one of progressive advancement! Along with its scepticism philosophy has un¬ folded the intellect and has often given us glimpses of the world and of mind which exper¬ iment has afterwards established. Atoms were projected in Greek thought before modern chemistry. Heraclitus saw the world in motion 82 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT long prior to modern physics. Plato had visions of the essentials of life and the great¬ ness in suffering evil centuries ago. We can find not only errors in the course of human thinking but also great permanent truths. There is therefore no reason why we should despair of the value of real knowledge if we know its place and function. As it adds a share to truth it helps to make us free, for all real truth makes free. The emotional dilemma. It is particularly in the sphere of the emotions that pessimism makes its strong attack. Before the mind’s eye is called up the vision of all the pain, the woe, the misery and the evil of the world. What a picture of suffering, sadness and des¬ pair! Are not suffering, woe, sin, and evil paramount, the most positive facts in human life against which joy, health, goodness are utterly insignificant ? But this appeal must not carry us away, powerful as it is; for it does not prove that all is wrong and evil. We can¬ not shut our eyes to the awful fact of suffering, sickness and sin, but they are after all not the total of life. The recognition of their existence only helps to save us from a blind optimism that finds that all is well in the world when all is not well. Whether the good overbalances the evil, or the evil the good cannot he determined absolutely. It all depends upon the point of view of the one who speculates about this subject. But there is another emotional pessimism which assails the very centre of our life. The danger of the life of sense led Brahmanism to FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 83 draw men away from the world of deceptive and alluring sense, the world of externals and appearance to the peaceful rest of the world of reality found in the absolute existence, the universal mind. This tendency of Brahmanism was further developed by Buddhism. Accord¬ ing to it the great bondage of life is the enslave¬ ment caused by desire. It is the desire to live and do which brings about all evil. Nothing but distraction of life follows. We are carried hither and thither and arrive nowhere in this world of “Maya,” deception and illusion. We must cease to want and stop desiring to live. Our aim must be to find the great “Nirvana,” the haven of rest and peace. Only through the cessation of all wants and the obliteration of all desires and emotions can we escape the “Karma,” the re-creation because of our deeds. The religious philosophy of the East was introduced into the West by Schopenhauer. He sought to show by psychological analysis that when we have not we want. We are unhappy in our wanting. After we get what we want we are still unhappy because the reali¬ zation is less than we pictured it to be. But still we want again. Therefore whether we have or want we are always miserable. Even if the getting is partially satisfactory the very nature of desire grows through the getting. Desire is insatiable. This condition is the very essential of our life, and causes pain and misery. “The ceaseless efforts to banish suffer¬ ing accomplish no more than to make it change its form. It is essentially deficiency, want, care for the maintenance of life. If we succeed, 84 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT which is very difficult, in removing pain in this form, it immediately assumes a thousand others, varying according to age and circum¬ stances, such as lust, passionate love, jealousy, envy, hatred, anxiety, ambition, covetousness, sickness, etc., etc. If at last it can find entrance in no other form, it comes in the sad, grey gar¬ ments of tediousness and ennui, against which we then strive in various ways. ’ ’ 4 But there is no real escape from the evil. We are always tossed about by “many a conflict, many a doubt.’ ’ 4 ‘ Thus between desiring and attain¬ ing all human life flows on throughout. The wish is, in its nature, pain; the attainment soon begets satiety : the end was only apparent ; possession takes away the charm; the wish, the need, presents itself under a new form; when it does not, then follows desolateness, emptiness, ennui, against which the conflict is just as pain¬ ful as against want. ’ ’ 5 How can we escape from the snares of the fowler, desire? The tremendous trnth of this analysis of desire is not answered by the counterclaim, that there is joy in the striving, and that some satisfaction grows out of the possession of what we want. This answer is only relatively true. Striving is not pure joy; it has its great disappointments. The seeking of the satisfaction of desire and emotion is not the same as the search after knowledge. Its efforts have only a passing- value and give only a temporary rest. The solution is in the content and object of the desire and emotion. All objects, like pleasure, 4 The World as Will and Idea, Book IV, par. 57. D The World as Will and Idea, Book IV, par. 57. FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 85 wealth, social power, etc., have no permanent worth. They are purely relative. But if the object of desire is moral and spiritual, and seeks fundamental human values, as e. g., right¬ eousness, truth, there is no defect in the desire. Such hunger and thirst are satisfied. It is not the wanting, but what we want which deter¬ mines its good or less than good value. The pessimist questions the satisfaction of art. He asserts that there is no real joy in art. but only a great burden. It is true that Schopenhauer inconsistently believes that the contemplation of art brings partial deliverance. But the real attitude must make the desire for art equally futile. It has no solution for human restlessness. The great artists despair in their greatest creations. They are driven on, and the driving power of the creative in¬ stinct is painful. Nothing is born without woe. When the best is reached of which a great artist is capable, he knows better than any critic that the best is bad enough. The spirit of discontentment is necessary to the progress of art. Contentment and satisfaction kill the highest aspirations. The artist who is too much pleased with himself has already failed. But is this discontent evil! Does it show utter failure! Surely it is the way of progress and greater attainment. The relative merit of any work of art does not make it, its spirit, and its producer subject to evil. There is a relative satisfaction. Of course the depth of the human spirit is never filled no matter how deeply one drinks of the refreshing fountain of art. We must return in the greatest joy and 86 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT good of any art unfilled again to ttie source of beauty, to beauty eternal.6 Are our actions satisfactory? In tlie concep¬ tion that life is an endless and dissatisfied striving, which Schopenhauer advocated, there is included the tendency of the will toward action. The will itself as the human effort to live must be negated. ‘Its very nature just as the nature of desire is supposed to be evil, for it is closely connected with desire. Willing and striving, as our whole being, can be com¬ pared to an unquenchable thirst. And the foundation of all willing is need, deficiency and pain. This is but a partial truth, for there is no mere loss in willing, but despite its many failures we rise through it to better things. If willing is evil, action is evil, and all life must be declared to be evil. But there are positive contents in activity and life which do not per¬ mit us to ascribe only failure to its efforts. The necessary trend of the will toward the wrong makes a stronger appeal for pessimism. We accept certain ideals and acknowledge them to be good. But the acceptance of ideals is all too often not followed by the appropriate action. We praise what we do not do; we blame in thought what we frequently do. Our approval does not guarantee our action, and our disapproval does not bring about inhibition of action. There is a drifting of action and a lack of earnest effort to overcome our moral indifference and to break up bad habits. The easiest way is pursued although we know the better way. Bnt we are not ready to take upon 6 Cf. Plato, Symposium, 210 ff. FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 87 ourselves the better way with its denials and hardships. It is the old confession: “ Video meli- ora proboque, deteriora sequor.” The honest words of men who know themselves admit with Paul: “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would that I do not; but what I hate that I do.” 7 “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not that I do.” 8 The confessions of Augustine and Rousseau, different as they are, confirm these statements. The honesty of self-knowledge is, however, not the end. Where moral laziness is overcome, and we do not admit our wrong actions with complacency as though the situation could not be changed, the consciousness of our failure in action will lead to renewed effort to become better. The deeper our feeling about the rift between ideal and deed, the more hopeful is the future. Out of the recognition of our real selves there will come new earnest search for betterment and the desire for some cure and help which can overcome our moral deficiency. When morals appear to be lacking in the motive power of the ideal then the question arises whether religion is not the one thing needful to stimulate more consistent action through an ideal religiously sanctioned and strong with emotion. Religion can lead to the liberty which moral striving seeks. Civilization and pessimism. Is civilization a success, or is it a failure ? Does it inspire us with hope or despair? Prior to the experiences of the world-war the examination of various 7 Romans VII: 15. 8 Romans VII: 19. 88 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT civilizations led to the belief that past civili¬ zations had failed because of great economic break-downs in society. Our own civilization was supposed to have such a large range of opportunity and to be under the control of such sentiments as to what constitutes economic advantage that any serious catastrophe seemed impossible. We had grown so reasonable; we had approved so eloquently of the common in¬ terests of mankind; we had established leagues of peace and built great palaces of peace; and we were being carried upward by the inherent impulses of a progressive evolution which was daily making us better. A finer and broader Christianity, and a considerate tolerance valu¬ ing what was good in every faith was welding us together into a common human brotherhood. Then came the great disillusionment that taught us, that we were not controlled by ideal forces, but that we were under the control and power of economic selfishness. The reason¬ ableness of economic advantage did not appear. Men saw only more colonies, more commerce, and more industry to be obtained by selfish nationalism accentuated through lustful mili¬ tarism. The war was not caused by a conflict of idealisms but was purely material in origin even though we had to give it a moral justifica¬ tion as it proceeded. There was a clear demonstration that neither morals nor religion had entered into the great world affairs and relations. Both seemed utterly powerless and became the slaves of militant nations to defend their actions whether right or wrong. The aftermath of the war has increased jealousies FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 89 and hates, and brought about economic up¬ heavals and most unreasonable rebellions and strikes. Civilization is utterly sick and there is apparently no physician to heal it. The ad¬ vocates of progress are routed. Professor Dewey may claim :9 ‘ ‘ The world war is a bitter commentary on the nineteenth century miscon¬ ception of moral achievement — a misconception however which it only inherited from the tra¬ ditional theory of fixed ends, attempting to bolster up that doctrine with aid from the ‘ scientific’ theory of evolution. The doctrine of progress is not yet bankrupt. The bank¬ ruptcy of the notion of fixed ends to be attained and stably possessed may possibly be the means of turning the mind of man to a tenable theory of progress — to attention to present troubles and possibilities. ’ ’ What an utterly weak solu¬ tion of a pragmatist! Men had been trying to envisage truth in purely relative terms of evo¬ lution and progress. The failure was the loss of great stable ideals and ends in morals and religion in actual life. The evil was the absorp¬ tion of mankind in the desires, the conflicts, the cruelties of food, clothing and shelter. Science itself did not liberate but became the servant of destruction. Socialism was bankrupt. The morals of freedom were set aside for the liberty of vagrant and destructive desire. The analysis of the present situation makes us hopeless of the immediate present if the same ideas and ideals persist. The new attitude demanded and needed is a change by which we actually will permit the liberating power of righteousness to 9 Human Nature and Conduct, p. 286. 90 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT control us. We liave too long surrendered to being factors in a movement; we must become free by moralizing all relations. A better world will come only as we emancipate our¬ selves from the thraldom of material evolution as all-controlling, and conquer economic forces through an idealization of life sustained by compelling religious convictions. If men will not seek this freedom they will die in their sins. There is no hope for a shallow optimism built on unreasoning assumption of the natural good¬ ness of man either individually or socially. A new theory of freedom must be elaborated which reinterprets the eternal laws of right and applies them to the present evils. We need not greater flux, but greater stability and balance of liberty. This attitude will give promise of real progress in the freedom of the good. Religion and pessimism. Is it necessary to raise the problem of the relation of religion to pessimism? Does not every religion exalt the hopes of man, and lift him into the sphere of the spiritual where dwell peace and joy for¬ ever? The fact remains nevertheless that there is a strain of pessimism in religion. It must grapple with the actuality of evil. Sorrow, sickness, sin, and death make men serious and sad. It is religion which must enter into these moods and experiences of men and endeavor to overcome them, not by denial but by an inner grasp of their effect upon the spirit. While the outcome may be hope it is a sobered hope and not a mere optimism of ideas. The strongest pessimism of religion is however the outgrowth of the failure of the FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 91 ordinary objects of human pursuit to satisfy the thirst of the soul. The book of Ecclesiastes with its cry: “All is vanity’ ’ well voices the breakdown of knowledge, love as passion, power, ambition, etc. It shows the course of human life from youth to age, when the days come of which we say that we have no pleasure in them. Life itself in its externality cannot fulfill its promise. The purpose of this pessi¬ mism is to draw men away from the secondary and minor things of life. When the unsatis¬ factory result of all that men fight for and strive for in their ordinary pursuits is realized, then religion can create a desire for the things invisible and eternal. No religion can thrive on this — worldliness; it must have a transform¬ ing power for the temporal issues through an otlier-worldliness. Where the latter does not ex¬ ist the emptiness of life remains and the only reply of a religion without a better hope can be : “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” Morals need hope in the good that liberty may be maintained. If religion destroys this hope the ethical life suffers. Consequently we need a religion with sufficient assurance of the final permanence of the good to maintain well sup¬ ported moral aims. It Christianity pessimistic? How foolish to ask such a question, is the reply that at first comes to your mind. Has not Christianity been the outstanding religion of hope? It has brought new motives into the world, and pre¬ sented men with the optimism of love in its teaching of God. Its keynote has been: “Re¬ joice, and again I say, rejoice.” Christ has 92 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT filled the world with a spirit of the power and triumph of the good. But there are teachings of Christ that contradict this unqualified opti¬ mism which so many find in Christianity. There is an emphasis in the sayings of Jesus upon the degeneration of the world,10 which culminates in a repeated warning of eternal punishment.11 In no other part of the New Testament is there such a statement of the unquenchable fire and the worm that shall not die as in the words of Jesus. He does not hope for a universal salvation of men, and such a triumph of the good that all will choose it. The realism of evil as conceived by Jesus is not set aside by His strong teaching of God’s intention of love for man. According to Him many travel on the way of destruction, and few find the narrow way of life.12 Many are called but few are chosen.13 The great mass of men seeing see not and hearing hear not for their heart is waxed gross.14 Only the fewr faithful disciples ascertain the truth because they really seek it. Even among them there is Judas Iscariot who cannot be saved, for he is the son of perdition. The choice of most men is for the evil. Hell will be full and heaven with its many mansions will not be over¬ crowded. Men regarded in the mass will make a sorry mess of freedom. When we face these sayings what is our answer? We cannot do 10 Matthew XXIV: 29 ff. 11 Mark IX: 43-45; Matthew XXIV: 51; XXV: 30; XII: 32. 12 Matthew VII: 13, 14. 13 Matthew XX : 16. 14 Matthew XIII : 12 ff. FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 93 away with the words of Jesus by textual or higher criticism; the evidence is not sufficiently strong to eliminate them. Sentimental univer- salism and a desire to make men better that Jesus makes them simply disregards the say¬ ings of Jesus. Is Christianity a correction of Jesus? Or shall we follow Him and admit that as far as the multitude of men are concerned hope must be abandoned? Is freedom a failure through the blindness of men? Perhaps there is a clue to a solution if we put a pragmatic value upon the words of Christ. He may desire to awaken men from the thraldom of sin and evil by stressing the awfulness of sin and its consequences. Because He loves the people He warns against the drifting with the crowd that does not seek the good. The power of the love of Christ for men impels Him to testify so definitely. The emphasis of the rescuing teacher and savior ought possibly not be inter¬ preted as a mathematical statement or a his¬ torical fact of the future. The freedom with its risks must be appreciated to stimulate men to make the right choice of liberty in the good. Actually the impress of Christian truth on the whole agrees with the outcome of the other arguments considered, in showing the possibil¬ ity of meliorism, i. e., of becoming better if we have the best in view. Nevertheless the power of evil must be reckoned with and there can be no easy optimism as a fact. Optimism must be a belief resting rather on the value of the good than on the immediate action of men. It cannot be made a self-evolving process, but the result of the free choice of men as they are led 94 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT to recognize the good and as they are willing to accept the motives of ethics and the sanctions of religion. REFERENCES Frank Thilly, Introduction to Ethics, Chapter X. Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Book II, Chapters III, IV, VII. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I, Book IV, Vol. II, Appendix Marius the Epicurean, I, p. 205. e Ibid. I, p. 206. FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 151 ments, fitnesses or unfitnesses. ’ ’ 7 “And now, that the same reason of things, with regard to which the will of God always and necessarily does determine itself to act in constant con¬ formity to the eternal rules of justice, equity, goodness, and truth, ought also constantly to determine the wills of all subordinate rational beings, to govern all their actions by the same rules, is very evident.”8 “All rational crea¬ tures ought to take care that their wills and actions are governed by the eternal rule of right and equity. ” 9 It was supposed that this rule could be found by man and was clear and definite. The advocates of the rule of common sense in philosophy followed the deistic attitude of Clarke. Richard Price says: “It’s a very necessary previous observation, that our ideas of right and wrong are simple ideas, and must therefore be ascribed to some power of immedi¬ ate perception in the human mind. ’ ’ 10 The mind has a power of immediately perceiving right and wrong. “It is undeniable, that many of our ideas are derived from our intuition of truth, or the discernment of the natures of things by the understanding. This therefore may be the source of our moral ideas. ” 11 If we follow this source we shall arrive at the con¬ clusion, that “morality is eternal and immuta¬ ble.”12 Morals are as unchangeably fixed and as eternally true in their given laws as a triangle 7 I. I, 2. s Ibid. I, 3. a Ibid. I, 3. io A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals, Chapter I. n Ibid. Chapter I. 12 Ibid. Chapter I. 152 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT or circle is what it is unchangeably and etern¬ ally. Thomas Reid argues for a moral sense which he compares to our external senses. The external senses give us the first principles of the material world. “The truths immediately testified by our moral faculty, are the first principles of all moral reasoning, from which all our knowledge of our duty must be deduced. By moral reasoning, I understand all reasoning that is brought to prove that such conduct is right, and deserving of moral approbation; or that it is wrong; or that it is indifferent, and, in itself, neither morally good or ill.” 18 All of the intuitionists of this type believed that somehow man had the ten commandments written within him. They assumed that the interpretations of the moral law of their times were immutable. Inner reflection was called upon as witness without the consideration of the prior education which the mind had received. The great classical opponent of all innate ideas was John Locke. When he comes to treat of the problem of innate moral ideas he says: “Concerning practical principles, that they come short of an universal reception; and I think it will be hard to instance any one moral rule which can pretend to so general and ready an assent as ‘What is, is/ or to be so manifest a truth as this, ‘That it is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be. ’ Where¬ by it is evident, that they are farther removed from a title to be innate; and the doubt of their being native impressions of the mind is stronger 13 Essays on the Active Powers of Man, Essay III, Chapter VI. FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 153 against these moral principles than the other. ’ * 14 He denies that there is historical proof that faith and justice are owned by all men as moral principles. Moral rules are not self-evident but need a proof. “ Another reason that makes me doubt of any innate principles, is, that I think there cannot any one moral rule be pro¬ posed whereof a man may not justly demand a reason; which would be perfectly ridiculous and absurd, if they were innate, or so much as self- evident; which every innate principle must needs be, and not need any proof to ascertain its truth, nor want any reason to gain it appro¬ bation/ ? 15 Locke indicated the essential weak¬ ness of the intuitionist position. After a careful analysis of the contents of our moral life we cannot hold that moral principles are born in us, and that we need only, in the manner of Socrates, develop our native knowledge. But the truth of the contention of intuition is the effort to explain why morals come to us with the formal power of their permanence. No matter how we are educated by experience, conscience, right, duty, the good appeal not only through their a posteriori content, but also through their a priori character. The peculiar force and influ¬ ence of moral ideas is not explicable through the external sources which furnish their material. We have capabilities of moral development that are not created by what enters into us. As soon as anything is accepted as just or true it has an impulsive force which other experience does An Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book I, •Chapter II; Vol. I, p. 64 — Ed. Fraser. 15 Ibid. Book I, Chapter II, 4 Vol. I, p. 68 — Ed. Fraser. 154 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT not have. Our interpretation of the just and true may be wrong, but as long as we think any action to be just or true we cannot escape its hold upon us. Kant and his successors. What has been the value and the idea of the German development of philosophical morals from Kant, through Fichte to Hegel? We must reckon with this influence to understand moral rationalism. Kant began with an emphasis upon the good will. But the good will is the rational will. When we pass from the fundamental Metaphysic of Morality to the Critique of Practical Reason we see that the outcome of the metaphysics of morals is to subordinate the will to universal reason. This appears in man as a rational being. The sense and obligation of the moral impera¬ tive grow out of the real, nouomenal life of man as contrasted with the life of sense and external¬ ity that subjects man in the phenomenal world to necessity. Man feels and ascertains through practical reason that he is greater than the knowledge of science. Man thus exists as an end in himself, and not merely as a means. This principle is elemental. “Its foundation is this, that rational nature exists as an end in itself. Man necessarily conceives of his own existence in this way, and so far this is a subjective prin¬ ciple of human action. But in this way also every other rational being conceives of his own existence, and for the very same reason; hence the principle is also objective, and from it, as the highest practical ground, all laws of the will must be capable of being derived. The practical imperative will therefore be this: Act so as to FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 155 use humanity, whether in your own person or in, the person of another, always as an end, never as merely a means.”16 With this principle in view we must determine our action in accord¬ ance with the idea of certain laws. These laws become embodied in the categorical imperative which may be stated thus: “Act in conformity ivith that maxim, and that maxim only, which you can at the same time tvill to he a universal law.”11 “The universality of the law which governs the succession of events, is what we mean by nature , in the most general sense, that is, the existence of things, in so far as their existence is determined in conformity with universal laws. The universal imperative of duty might therefore be put in this way: “Act as if the maxim from which you act were to become through your tvill a universal law of nature.” 18 The imperative derives its strength from the universal reason. Kant in asserting the realism of will as fundamentally in unison with a rational universe of mind is no mere individualist of reason. In contradiction to the Critique of Pure Reason with its categories of mind as found in the individual, the practical reason is the universal reason which determines the peculiar constitution of human nature. Fichte, the apostle of German national free¬ dom, was impelled by high ideals of national independence, which rested on his moral con¬ ceptions. He takes the ideas of Kant, fills them with enthusiasm, and translates the intellect 16 The Metaphysic of Morality, Section II. Ibid. Section II. is Ibid. Section II. 156 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT into the terms of an absolute logic of power to freedom. There is an impulsion in man to do certain things utterly independent of external purposes. This impulsion is man’s moral nature as surely as he is a rational being. The ultimate ground of the moral nature is when man finds himself as willing. This finding leads man to the real ego, which is the original and objective actuality. The Ego as absolute is actual self-determining of itself through itself. It is not personality but similar to moral world- order; and it must abstract all foreign and minor elements in willing through individuals. The outcome will he absolute intelligence. “The contemplating intelligence posits the above de¬ scribed tendency to absolute activity as itself , or as identical with itself. The intelligence of the absoluteness of real activity thus becomes the true essence of the intelligence, and is brought under the authority of the conception, whereby alone it first becomes true freedom: absoluteness of the absoluteness, absolute power to make itself absolute. Through the conscious¬ ness of its absoluteness the Ego tears itself loose from itself, and posits itself as independent. ’ ’ 19 When we lose ourselves in this rare atmosphere of the absolute Ego we are on the peak of the intellect as in itself. We have not climbed as high into abstraction as Plotinus, who rises from mind to mere being in itself; but we are nevertheless above and beyond all determinate¬ ness. The universal Absolute is freedom and life. 19 The Science of Ethics, Chapter II, Genetical Description of the Consciousness of our Original Being. FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 157 Hegel also starts out in his moral reflections with positing freedom through intelligence. He thinks that freedom belongs to will as weight to bodies. But this freedom as practical begins with the I itself. It goes beyond the I into the indeterminateness. The will is the intellect in its movement, as the possibility of abstraction from every aspect in which the I finds itself or has set itself up. Then it must return upon itself. “The I is, first of all, as such pure activity, the universal which is by itself. Next this universal determines itself, and so far is no longer by itself, but establishes itself as another, and ceases to be universal. The third step is that the will, while in this limitation, i. e., in this other, is by itself. While it limits itself, it yet remains with itself, and does not lose its hold of the universal. This is, then, the concrete conception of freedom, while the other two elements have been thoroughly abstract and one-sided.” 20 This abstract will existing for itself is personality. Personality possesses abstract right. It is the absolute free being of pure self-conscious isolation. “The moral standpoint is the standpoint of the will — in its existence for itself, an existence which is in¬ finite.”21 The ethical system is the idea of freedom developed in a present world. It is thus that the absolute reaches down into life, and takes it up into the absolute will as reason. The passing to and from from absolute to con¬ crete never rests until the opposition is resolved by taking all that is immediate and personal 20 Philosophy of Right, Introd. 7, Addition. 21 Ibid. Second Part, par. 105. 158 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT into the Unique and Absolute Individuality, which is God as thought itself in Action. Can reason reject feeling? Is the claim of reason as the really ethical to the exclusion of feeling justified? We realized that the life of the senses, feelings and emotions was not suf¬ ficient; but shall we reach the solution of the striving after freedom through reason? The rationalist disparages the life of sensibility altogether. He would reduce morals to the movement and power of mere concepts, and satisfy us with the essence of bloodless cate¬ gories. But the elimination of all that is sen¬ tient and belongs to feeling makes an unreal life. Is man a creature of reason alone? The fulness of life, its liberty and joy demand more than reason. The action toward which life always tends is not the outcome of the intellect alone; it has back of it the force of feeling and the impetus of emotion. The senses in them¬ selves cannot be indicated to be evil. Conse¬ quently any theory which does away with them is defective attractive as it may seem through its exalted ideals. The failure of hedonism was its manifoldness in pleasure and its lack of a real unity for the ethical aim. Rationalism has the unity but it has been obtained at the loss of the manifold; all particulars in life are overlooked. A uni¬ versal to be true to its idea must really embrace the particulars. The complex must be summed up into a simplicity that does not deny the com¬ plex. Rationalism is too simple for the real¬ ness of life. It is formal but cannot connect the material with its formal logical scheme. FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 159 The logic of reason lias absorbed the concrete¬ ness of life. Classification through the idea has forgotten what is to be classified. The con¬ tent of the life of feeling is needed to make rationalism worth while. As Kant said: 4 ‘Con¬ cepts without percepts are blind. ” Can reason without feeling give us the bal¬ ance between the individual and social1? On the one hand rationalism exalts the individual mind. Kant finds the end in every individual. No one is to be used as a means. But when this right of the individual is to be universalized the demand is made that we recognize all other individuals as ends in themselves. On this basis society is simply an addition of individ¬ uals. There is no room for humanity through the multiplication of the individual alone. No explanation is given how we can pass to the recognition of others. Furthermore no group and no social forms can have an ethic on the basis of rational individualism. After all are men fused by reason! Are the social unities produced by reflection and by rational consid¬ erations! It is a fact that we may pause and give arguments for social unities, but the real forces are no utilitarian considerations. Great sentiments, and ruling feelings carry men upon the social stream. The ideas of society may be realized by the leaders, and men rejoice to hear the social impulses explained to them, but in actuality the ideas and reasons do not make the social complex. We do not argue ourselves from the individual into the social. We are in the social relationships before we find ourselves 160 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT as individuals. This fact is contrary to rational individualism. On the other hand rationalism has a univer- salism in which the individual is lost. Nature as a rational whole, as conceived of by the Cynics and the Stoics, makes us only parts of the total. The absolute Ego of Fichte, the all- embracing I of Hegel, leave no adequate place for real personality. With the suppression of the separate ego liberty is eliminated. The re¬ puted freedom of the allness is no freedom for the part. We are slaves of universal reason. It may live through us and in us but we are really no concrete existences unless we are related to the total. Thus the universalism of reason destroys the individual, as the individualistic rationalism fails in conceiving the universal. Kant gravitates between both and can build no bridge between them. Reason and asceticism. Is life to be repres¬ sion and not expression? Do surrender and sacrifice form the great and final good? Are we only good as we give up our life? Rational¬ ism if consistent must stand for sacrifice, re¬ pression and abandonment in life. Its ideal is neither control nor limitation of the sentient, but its complete prohibition. The most con¬ sistent and logical asceticism is found in the Orient in the religions of India. They can give no solution of a good life, and no hope of salva¬ tion, except as man destroys every want and desire. By contemplation men are urged to enter into the impassive life of absolute reason and being. They are bidden to mortify every wish and every feeling and emotion. The FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 161 Western asceticism has not gone to this extreme limit. The activistic spirit of the West has not allowed men in great numbers to follow the passive attitude of the resigned and calm East. There have been some Western ascetics, like Madam Guyau, who have become Quietists. For them life was all stillness and cessation. But the power of Western asceticism was par¬ tial abandonment of the life of sense and feel¬ ing. It sought not complete suppression, but simply great restraint from the beating of images upon the eye, from the intrusion of sounds upon the ear, and from the invasion of odors upon the nose. Feelings and emotions were crowded back. But is even the moderate sacrifice final? The meaning of sacrifice is the saving of life. It is no end in itself. Repres¬ sion is worthy of man and good when expression leads to the loss of the greater and fuller life. But freedom from the possible enslavement of sense and feeling ought not to be purchased by the loss of all sentience. This is to seek free¬ dom through destruction. It is the way of despair. But perhaps the milder asceticism of the Puritan is valuable. We need the call of the Puritan, especially in our age, which has gone astray in indulgence. Puritanism is largely a castigation for excess. Often, if the castigation is too severe it leads to new excess. But prohibition of sentience may at times be temporarily necessary; it may be the only way of restraint where sense and appetite cause individual and common evil in societv: but pro¬ hibition increasingly stressed in life is punish¬ ment and imprisonment. The life of moral 162 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT freedom is not finally furthered, either through self-imposed laws, or restrictions imposed upon men by society. Asceticism denies that the bodily life can ever be made moral. For it only mind is good, and all matter is evil. The Hindu looks upon the body as the great obstacle and hindrance to be gotten rid of. Plato, with all his Greek appreciation of harmony and beauty, lives only in the world of ideas. His interest is in the immortality of the soul alone. The body is the prison-house of the soul in which it is kept captive for a time. The soul is eternal, the body the passing tenement. It is this atti¬ tude of asceticism which has had a double deleterious effect. First, it has always con¬ demned the body, and stood in the way of that bodily care and consideration of health, which constitutes a part of human happiness. If the body is a miserable thing why should we give it any attention. Let it die as soon as possible in filth or through disease! The ascetic does not believe that cleanliness is next to godliness. Such a sentiment is of the evil one; dirt and destruction of the body are essential to saint- ship. Second, the condemnation of the bodily life by the ascetic has led to the disregard of the sacredness of the natural life. Therefore men have dealt with the body and its demands, as far as rationalism ruled, in a spirit of aban¬ don. The urge of the body was present and it was followed without moral ideals controlling. The condemnation of the body did not produce its sanctification but the reaction of indulgence. Thus rationalism brought about its very opposite. FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 163 Does reason give us the highest good and the right? To what extent can rationalism answer the claim of the summum bonum? Is its ideal¬ ism adequate? Whither does its conception of right and law lead? The rationalists have al¬ ways held that in distinction from the hedon¬ ists they had solved the problem of the highest good. But what is the highest good? It is reason in its abstraction and universalism. There is the framework of the good but nothing appears within the frame. The ideal is the ideal and reaches up into the universal and absolute. Reason becomes more and more abstract as it rises. The process inherent in its contentless trend toward the inconceivable and formless is like a series approaching zero. No better statement of this tendency has been given than by Plotinus. He says: “Intellect, how¬ ever, is able to see either things prior to itself, or things pertaining to itself, or things affected by itself. And the things indeed contained in itself, are pure; but those prior to itself are purer and more simple; or rather this must bo asserted of that which is prior to it. Hence, that which is prior to it, is not intellect, but something more excellent. For intellect is a certain one among the number of beings; but that it not a certain one, but is prior to every¬ thing. Nor is it being; for being has, as it were, the form of the one. But that is formless, and is even without intelligible form. ’ ’ 22 Thus intellect arrives at mere colorless unity. Where this exists there can be no right nor wrong, no good nor bad. This fact in rational- 22 Enneades, On the Good, or the One. XV, III. 164 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT ism has been thoroughly worked out by Brad¬ ley in his non-contradiction as the absolute.23 We are caught in our own logic and are not free. The rationalists speak of the right as right and of the absolute law. The Cynic and Stoic ideal is to live according to the right, which is the law of nature. But where do we find the law of nature with its contents? The Cynics were consistent when they fell into indulgence of the body as against the artificialities of their time. They followed the laws of bodily life. But these could not be the laws of reason. There¬ fore the Stoics with their praise of apathy thought the law of right was the absolute rea¬ son of the universe. What is this reason? If we observe the order and purpose of the uni¬ verse we find only natural laws. There is an end but in the mere process and development of the universe apart from man there are no traces of morals or freedom. All that we can find of a moral order exists in the history of man and in his apprehension of the power that makes for righteousness. But this moral order is frequently violated. It does not have the absoluteness which rationalism claims. Ration¬ alism can never discover the real final good or Jaw. Its processes end in the fog of the invis¬ ible mountain peaks. All that it can do is to insist on the formal necessity of right and law, and then point beyond itself to religion which by faith sees the invisible. The apex of rational¬ ism is only doubt and agnosticism. The aero¬ planes it sends out disappear and do not return. 23 Appearance and Reality, Book II, Chapter XVII, XXV. FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 165 But it is valuable in stressing the ideal, the highest good, the right, the law, although it cannot lead into the promised land. Duty and reason. Is it not the distinguish¬ ing advantage of rationalism that it furnishes a noble interpretation of duty? Has not the emphasis upon the obligation of the right in eternal principles given the necessary impetus to moral life? When we discussed duty24 it appeared that Kant in the true spirit of the rationalist stressed the priority of duty. But duty cannot be maintained merely as duty and as good in itself without showing how this goodness enters into the full life of various duties. Duty for duty’s sake is a noble aspira¬ tion, and strengthens the moral fibre. But in its abstractness it is simply a formula. It is like a tautology, as A is equal to A. Kant endeavored to make duty realistic by advising men to choose that as a maxim, which can be universally implied. We are e. g. to speak the truth because truthfulness is useful and neces¬ sary for all, and can become a general law. This escape from the bare theoretical descrip¬ tion of duty is however no credit to the high aspirations of reason. It is simply utilitarian¬ ism in another guise. The considerations of use derived from a sort of common sense reflec¬ tion are to give content to abstract duty. A shallow rationalism, derived not from high principles of reason, but from a knowledge of what obtains among men and what is found generally, marks the effort of Kant. The im¬ port of making that our maxim which can 24 Cf. above, p. 106 ff. 166 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT become universal is not passing from universal reason to tlie particular, but using the partic¬ ular and concrete and interpretating it as a universal without showing the cogency of the principles of reason. And such reflection is not usual with men when duty functions. It is only the philosopher thinking upon duty, who would argue thus when he sees man merely as a thinking being. This attitude destroys the categorical imperative of duty on which Kant dwells. If we find the maxims of duty by calm deliberation then the imperative quality is gone, and the categorical has become a hypo¬ thetical. Thus when the rationalist desires to make his conception of duty workable he con¬ tradicts the universal power of duty which is the cornerstone of his system. Another defect of the rationalistic idea of duty is the over-emphasis of duty in its com¬ pelling force. When the men who defend rea¬ son as alone sufficient in moral life remain with¬ in the circle of their concepts they exalt duty almost into the place of a compulsory influence. Reason is portrayed as functioning with such logicality and cogency that man must follow. The practical reason is raised into an absolute law for action. It almost seems as though man had no power to be unreasonable in action as he often is. This tendency is due to the neglect of the other factors in human life beside reason. The preachments of duty are a fine tonic for the ethical life if they stimulate us to action which is reasonable. But the urgency of duty must not be so explained, as to destroy our sense of freedom with its responsibility. FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 167 How does reason explain virtue? Is it not true that the rationalists have a high valuation of virtue in itself? Do they not put it upon an absolute basis? Because they stress virtue for its own sake they make it appear very strong. “ ’Tis certain indeed, that virtue and vice are eternally and necessarily different, and that the one truly deserves to be chosen for its own sake, and the other ought by all means to be avoided, though a man was sure for his own particular, neither to gain nor lose anything by the prac¬ tice of either. ” 25 This choice of virtue for it¬ self without considering consequences is under¬ standable as a protest against the hedonists, for whom there is nothing good nor bad except through consequences of pleasure or pain. But the error of the rationalist in this protest is, that virtue and vice do have consequences. And if man chooses a virtue as the embodiment of the good he has a purpose in mind. Virtue is not so arbitrarily dissociable from the ideal. The ideal is not only the motive at the begin¬ ning of action, but also the purpose at the end. Of course we are not to be calculators of results through prudence as the hedonist thinks, but on the other hand we do count the value of vir¬ tue in reference to the consequences of the good. The same error that characterized the hedon¬ ists in restricting themselves largely to pru¬ dence as the virtue, also marks the rationalists in making wisdom the one virtue. The Stoics only admitted one virtue and altogether missed the understanding of the varying and different virtues. It is true that in all virtues there is 25 Clarke, Discourse upon Natural Religion, I, 7. 168 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT an element of wisdom. We cannot be just, truthful, pure, etc., no matter what motives make us thus, without also being wise in these virtues. Nevertheless all the virtues cannot be derived from wisdom. Their rationality is not that feature which really makes them virtues. The limitation of virtue to wisdom indicates that reason alone is not adequate to explain the nature of virtue and the existence of virtues. Through the Greek influence the intellectual in virtue has been exaggerated. Plato made wisdom paramount. Aristotle put the intellec¬ tual side of life above the purely ethical. As God is thought in action, man rises above the ordinary virtues, like courage, temperance, friendship, etc. through pure mind. Now this attitude, even though not carried to this extreme, produces aristocratic pride. The good in morals are the best in society, and morals are aristocratic. But the aristocracy of the ethical life is not the superiority of intel¬ lect. The more intelligent are not the salt of the earth because of their mind. The intelli¬ gentsia of an age are not the same as the moral idealists of the age. Those who consider them¬ selves wise because of the intellect alone despise the rest. The small group of intellec¬ tuals often live for themselves ; and their boast¬ ful self-estimation entangles them in an over¬ estimate of their worth that enslaves. There is no liberation through intellect alone. The aristocracy of the intellectuals, when not used in helpful service, becomes undemocratic. Therefore the intellectualists not only miss their own freedom, by confusing a certain seep- FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 169 ticism with freedom of thought, but they endanger the common liberty of society. While the freedom of society needs leadership of high thought and moral purpose, thought alone will not create such leadership. There is fre¬ quently an aloofness from the democratic move¬ ment of the age on the part of intellectuals. When they do participate they are likely to gravitate into radicalism, which confuses lib¬ erty with revolution, and is always stronger in destructive criticism than in helpful, construc¬ tive criticism. The mind of man without heart and will will never give us the utopia. Those who live the academic life must be especially careful not to seek truth in the intellect alone. The realities of life must speak to us if we are to approach the problem of liberty. The philososphy of rationalism. What is the underlying philosophy of the rationalists! Whither does their view of the world lead! There is a strong attractiveness about the rationalist position. It is idealism, and satis¬ fies the strivings of those who look for high things. The intellect seems the best in man, and has so much in history to confirm its value for mankind. But we must not confuse the idealistic in life with the idealism of the ration¬ alist. When the good is made purely reason it lowers the worth of all the rest of life. Ideal¬ ism makes a promise which it cannot keep. It offers us our full self-fulfillment and holds out to us the hope of vital liberty. When we begin to live the life of reason in ourselves we do find that knowledge makes free as far as it leads us into the truth. But we cannot advocate reason J 70 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT without following its logic, and logic is inevi¬ table. It does not consider the freshness and fulness of life hut only demands consistency. It carries us forward to the bitter end if we follow. This inherent logic of reason will not permit us on the foundation of reason alone to remain within ourselves. The tendency of reason is toward the universal and absolute. We cannot be Stoics and not submit to world- reason. Kant, his categories, and his apper¬ ception of the ego, contain in germ the position of Fichte and of Hegel. Such is the process of reason that takes us captive. The final out¬ come is the absolutism of reason. Through it we are led to an Absolute of impersonal nature and an existence in which the distinctions of good and bad are lost. We become enslaved through the absolutism of the idea in a world of mind without a personal God, a society in which individuals are submerged as mere parts, and a state that is completely sovereign as the expression of reason. Intellect has thus given us empty apples of Sodom. Its boasted free¬ dom has become a slavery. Idealism of the in¬ tellect alone is a deception. It claims to rescue us from materialism and then makes us doubly slaves of the absolute. Christianity and reason. Is Christianity fundamentally favorable to reason? Does its inherent spirit have a direction toward reason? It is evident that as a religion it cannot be a mere philosophy unless it abandons a part of its truth. The supernatural in any religion is superrational in the philosophic sense. And Christianity is not without its mystic super- FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 171 naturalism. But we approach more closely to the problem when we ask: “What are the teachings of Christianity as to restraint and repression in life?” Is it fundamentally ascetic? The attitude toward pleasure, which it does not completely reject, is a partial ans¬ wer.26 Nevertheless we must consider certain truths that stress surrender. The straight gate and the narrow way are made the way of life.27 He that saveth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life shall find it.28 The very desires of life must be given up. “If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee: for it is better for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”29 Paul, following this attitude of Christ’s teaching, strives to bring his body into subjection. He thinks it is advis¬ able not to marry, hut finally it is better for those who cannot contain themselves to marry than to burn.30 Christianity forbids the love of the world. But all of these negative com¬ mands for life are in the interest of a larger life. They are not rationalistic in the real sense. The aim is to save the spiritual life hut not because it is rational. The life of the spirit must not be lost for the sake of the whole 26 Cf. above, p. 142. 27 Matthew VII: 13. 28 Cf. Mark VIII: 35. 29 Matthew V : 29 ff. 30 I Corinthians VII : 9. 172 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT man. Therefore certain desires must be sup¬ pressed if they imperil the complete life and the final liberty of man. Original Christianity despite these warnings is not essentially ascetic. This appears clearly in the Christian attitude toward the body. The body is not evil in itself. In later post-apos¬ tolic Christianity Platonic influences and orien¬ tal ideas helped to bring about the undervalua¬ tion of the body, and caused asceticism. But in the early days the body was held to be the tem¬ ple of the Holy Spirit.31 It was to be sanctified and not eliminated. The soul was not the total man. But God was to keep us body, soul and spirit. The hope of the future was not a spirit life without the body. The new body of the hereafter was to be a spiritual body differ¬ ent from this mortal body. It was to be changed into glory and immortality.32 But the desire was not to be without a body and to be unclothed and naked in spirit. A new body was to be given to man. The old body was sown into the ground to be raised in newness of life. The old temple and tabernacle of the soul would be broken down, but God would give a new temple and a new tabernacle33 of life in the glorified body which was to be. Such hopes as these are not rationalistic ascet¬ icism. Man was never to be mere spirit, but in all eternity body and spirit. Consequently the teachings of Christianity in their pure form are not spiritual in the sense of reason and 31 I Corinthians III: 16 ff. 33 I Corinthians XV : 43, 44. 33 2 Corinthians V : 1. FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 173 mind, to the detriment of the body. There is no oriental undervaluation of the reality of all life. The ideal is a liberated body free from present enchainments of sickness and death, connected with a liberated spirit. Thus man would enter into the full liberty of a child of God. REFERENCES James Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Part I, Chapter II. Theo. De Laguna, Introduction to the Science of Ethics, Chapters IX, XI, II, XII. Henry W. Wright, Self-Realization, Part II, Chapter III. J. H. Muirhead, The Elements of Ethics, Part III, Chapter II. Chas. D ’Arcy, A Short Study of Ethics, Part III, Chapter I. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, Chapter XVI. Chas. Gray Shaw, The Value and Dignity of Human Life, Part III, Chapter VI. Jas. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, Book II, Branch II. Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, Part I, Chapter II. Benj. Rand, The Classical Moralists, IV, VII, VIII, XV, XXI, XXXV, XXXVI, XXXVII. R. D. Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean, Chapters I, II, III, IV. E. Vernon Arnold, Roman Stoicism. Discourses of Epictetus. Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Kant, The Metaphysic of Morals. Kant, The Critique of Practical Reason. Fichte, The Science of Ethics. Fichte, The Vocation of Man. Hegel, The Philosophy of Right. CHAPTER IX FREEDOM THROUGH PERSONALITY What of the will? It is evident, after our effort to find freedom either through pleasure or reason, that both fail. What is the deepest cause of their inadequacy in addition to the criticisms passed upon them? The answer that readily suggests itself is, that both fall short of their claim because they make the will second¬ ary. In hedonism the will almost disappears. It is attached to the chain of causes and * effects that terminate in pleasure or pain. In rationalism will is called good for the sake - of its rationality. Even Kant cannot really give the will its place in morals despite his high estimate of the reality in will. This is due to the fact, that will is after all in its essence prac¬ tical reason. And yet ethics deals with will and action as fundamental in character and conduct. There can be no ideal of ethical life without a free will. Freedom is the beginning and goal.1 Does this not indicate that if we would approach the problem of freedom aright, and begin to find freedom, we must start out with the will and coordinate it with all of our functionings that affect character and conduct ? How then do our deliberations and choices, i Cf. above, p. 28 ff. 174 THROUGH PERSONALITY 175 our motives and determinations, our decisions and actions, eventuate for the moral life of freedom? Wliat comes from character to con¬ duct through will and action, and what returns to character from conduct and its action? Whenever we will and act in certain directions we form, a unitv of action. This is the outcome •/ of prior decisions and actions crystallized into character. But in turn what we do either con- * firms the unity of direction as it proceeds from our character, or disturbs and reshapes it, and starts a new line of direction. Through motives from within, as desires, wants, in¬ stincts, dispositions, habits, and through con¬ duct from without we form and organize a certain determinateness of life. But this deter¬ minateness is the result of our choices freely made and if rightly made leads to liberty of life. If we pause to examine how determinate¬ ness occurs and how it organizes our life we shall be assured that we are dealing with immediate realities. I am appealed to, e. g. to make a contribution to some good cause of charity or education. The direction of my action will be to respond if there have preceded other actions of generous giving. My answer to the present appeal will strengthen the past and existing determinateness. If I have not responded in the past, but shut up my heart to every request of generosity I will either not give, or if new, strong motives enter in, I may change my former course of action and begin a different line of determinateness. This same procedure appears when I am tempted to do wrong. Under a trying situation it seems 176 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT easier to tell an untruth than to adhere to the truth. My free decision is in unity with pre¬ vious attitudes and actions either for or against the truth. Thus through volition I am always acting out past volitions, confirming them anew, or reversing former positions and actions. A conflict arises in my mind as to two courses of action, neither of which are in themselves wrong. How shall the conflict be settled? I am, e. g. in a quandary whether I shall use my vacation for pure recreation, or for some work which is excluded by my ordi¬ nary daily tasks. The determination will be for work or pure recreation according to the ruling direction of my will. While I may weigh the pro and contra of the advantage of rest as necessary, or the value of work as joy and profit, after all the decision will mostly he in accord with the controlling purposes which have made past actions and formed prior char¬ acter. The living study of this functioning of will as determinateness, but as our determin¬ ateness, is the elemental and fundamental fact for finding the ideal of moral action and ethical life. Will and personality. While we begin with the will and its actions, we cannot stop with it. In the analysis of character and conduct with their decisions and directions we must not for¬ get that volitions and actions are not the whole of life. How do they coordinate with ideas, feelings and emotions? And what term shall we choose to designate the totality of character and conduct in their actual, concrete function¬ ing? Whatever we determine to say or do can THROUGH PERSONALITY 177 have no meaning without the content of some ideas or the presence of some reasons. Voli¬ tion in itself is impossible without knowledge. This knowledge is often not the abstract rea¬ son or logic which the rationalists have in mind. It is the direct and living knowledge growing out of experience. When it becomes formulated into certain principles and subject to certain laws it furnishes the intellectual material of our character and conduct. Con¬ duct can never be really ethical only because it is highly evolved, or very complex, or largely differentiated. The ultimate difference be¬ tween all sub-human action and human action as moral conduct lies in the fact of man’s knowing what he does and assuming responsi¬ bility for what he does. To make action the exclusive fact and dissociating it from reason leads into mere energy and destroys freedom. Action to be moral action must come from within and must always have ideas and ideals animating it. The conjunction of knowledge with character and conduct is not yet the whole of life. Knowledge in mind and in action is not possible without the life of the senses. They must he regarded not only as the source of external experience, but also as giving a certain tone and color to all experience. Our life is either heightened or lowered, elevated or depressed, expanded or contracted, pleasurable or pain¬ ful in the raw material of experience. The nature of experience in its sense-coloring enters intimately into our character and conduct. But no less than the sentient life is the life of 178 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT feeling and emotion. Moral action is no cold, impassionate procedure of conduct through knowledge. It is warm and human with many a feeling. The impetus of feeling is never absent. Corresponding to the tone of the senses from without is the tone of feeling within. Ap¬ proval or disapproval of actions, satisfaction or reproof of what we have said or done, within us, always have some color of feeling. No consider¬ ation of ethical life is just without allowing for the large place of feeling which is the constant undercurrent of action. Similarly there are emotions of joy or sorrow, happiness or dis¬ tress, and many others, constantly present. The portrayal of human life and character in drama and novel gains its hold upon us because it unfolds the living emotion in the lives of men. It is real while the academic description which loses sight of emotion gives us only the dry and dead bones of action and character. What shall we call the unity of determina¬ tions with ideas and feelings, emotions and sensations? The most usable term is that of personality . But we must clearly have in mind that we employ this term with no notion of a fixed substance. It is not the usual defini¬ tion of personality which we mean, namely, the unity of self-consciousness and self-deter¬ mination. This current notion begins with the fact of mere human awareness and con¬ sciousness and fuses it with the will. There is no room for the life of sentience, feeling and emotion. The whole concept smells of the oil of the study. It is abstract and unreal. What we call personality in its immediate sense is THROUGH PERSONALITY 179 tlie unity of determinateness in action, with knowledge, and with all of feeling. Our endeavor is to designate a sum of concrete phenomena of moral action in their living con¬ nectedness and unity. But we must further define and differentiate this meaning of per¬ sonality. Personality and individuality. What is the real difference between personality and individ¬ uality! Are they not different points of view of regarding the individual! In common usage individuality and personality are often made to cover the same idea, without even allowing for the different shades in their designations. The current philosophic definition which places the accent in the unity of consciousness and de¬ termination upon the self in defining personal¬ ity aids the prevalent loose usage in reference to personality and individuality. A closer analysis will justify a definite differentiation. What is an individual! An individual is a single being in distinction from the group. It is the one as separate from the many, the single existence as distinct from the type. There is no merely generic in all nature, but the generic exists along with the individual. In classify¬ ing specimens of rock in geology we find cer¬ tain forms of crystallization. But the general feature of the geometrical form in a rock spec¬ imen has also peculiar variations. There is no mere existence of the purely generic through which we unify and group separate specimens as coming under a general class. A flower or a plant belongs not only to a class, but also shows individual features. An American 180 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT Beauty rose, e. g. has those common qualities and characteristics through which we recog¬ nize and place it as an American Beauty rose. But still one rose is no mere mechanical copy of another. Rose differs from rose, and rose¬ bush varies from rose-bush. The generic and typical does not destroy the individual. This fact is still more marked in the animal world. We can clearly and distinctly note the species, but a closer study of any one animal shows us that one differs from the other in the same species. Two Holstein cows are not absolutely the same. There are variations despite a common stock and a common heredity. Com¬ mon traits appear in the same breed of dogs, and yet e. g. one shepherd dog is not like another even if both come from the same male and female. When we come to man there is a still more marked individuality. The common instincts, such e. g. as acquisitiveness, comba¬ ting, fear, etc.; the general dispositions, as e. g. rivalry, domination, conformity; the generic temperaments, bright or gloomy, joyous or depressed, active or passive; the usual feelings and emotions; — in short all of the marked general human characteristics of mind — are so combined and varied from one man to another as to constitute an individual with separateness of quality. The common features of race and nation do not eliminate individuality. The higher the development of man the more out¬ standing is the individuality. But withal it remains a given fact. Each individual with differing capacities and powers has both the possibility and the limitation of his individu- THROUGH PERSONALITY 181 ality. We cannot pass beyond onr imparted talents; we can only cultivate them more or less. But there is no ethical value in individuality as such. An individual has qualities that may be made good or may tend to evil. What we are as individuals does not of itself make us just, true, righteous. Every individual dispo¬ sition has its handicaps. Often the greater the individual the greater the disadvantages that accompany the advantages. Great individuals like great mountains often cast large shadows. Consequently it is entirely wrong when educa¬ tion posits as its end the developing of the indi¬ vidual. Individualism is not in itself moral freedom. To live out our lives with what is in them is not to be good. Liberty is not guaran¬ teed by merely becoming what is in us as pos¬ sibility and capacity. There is a usage of personality which does not altogether disregard its difference from individuality. The statement is sometimes made about those, who impress themselves upon others through leadership of some sort, that they possess personality. What is meant by this characterization! Two individuals may have equal talents. The equality of talents of the intellect will not make two men equally leaders. There may be in one more strength of sympathetic feeling and more emotional imagination. These added to intellect make him stronger. But finally the quality which is absolutely necessary to constitute some one a personality with power to attract and lead is will. All other advantageous qualities of mind, and all favorable physical features, will not 182 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT compensate for tlie absence of a determinateness of will. A weak will, a wavering volition, will not draw and control others. But while this conception of personality approaches the truth, it is still deficient. It makes personality a natural gift, a given unity, a fixed possession. The vital idea of personality is a unity of determinations with ideas and feelings that is not given by nature. It is shaped and created in man by the direction of his choices. Person¬ ality is the outcome of what men through action make their real determinateness of will, resting upon ideas, and warm with feeling. Its real meaning implies the free unfolding of ideals in conduct as they proceed from character. But character is no mere existence, but a living, active force for action and a result of choice and action. Thus personality is a moral product of freedom and the content of freedom. When the choices and actions are directed toward the wrong there is the result of a fixed character and certain determinate actions. But we cannot justly call this making of an evil determinate¬ ness of life a good, moral personality. In other words, personality must include more than the result of the psychological process of determina¬ tion, idea, and feeling in unity. It has a value, and this value is the good. A real personality in the moral sense is a good personality. An evil personality does not really exist in the moral meaning which we attach to personality. The idea of personality audit sjoo wer for free- domjyjn^ through evil choice sT rHie "same psychological Functiohlngs^afe not the same THROUGH PERSONALITY 183 morally. Personality is the expression of the good in freedom.2 Does personality answer the social demand? One of the defects of both pleasure and reason was their impossibility of furnishing a real basis for the inter-relation of individual and social life. Can the ideal of personality offer a solution? What is designated personalism in modern philosophy would seem to negative this question. It is not as extreme as individualism3 in its accent of the single being as everything, but nevertheless it cannot in most of its presen¬ tations very readily pass beyond the individual without difficulty.4 This is due to its conception of personality as given, and its failure to see in it as far as man is concerned a creative and developing unity. It is of course evident that choices, determinations, ideas, feelings, fusing into oneness, do occur within the individual mind and make the individual personality. Personality does not deny individuality, but functions in and through it. But it finds further expression in the determinateness making for personality in social relations and forms. How personality leads from individuality to the social complex has been outlined by H. Scott Holland in “Property and Personality ” (Property, its Rights and Duties by Various Writers, p. 197): 2 Brightman, The use of the word “Personalism; ” The Personalist, Vol. Ill, No. 4, p. 24 ff. 3 Cf. Warner Fite, Individualism. 4 This is the defect in all philosophic statements up to the present time. It started with Boethius who claimed that ‘ 1 person is the individual subsistence of a rational nature ’ \ (Persona est Naturae rationalis individua substantia.) 184 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT “Individuality,5 then, is really representative, is corporate, is social, by the very principle of its like. It can only be understood as the unit of a society. And this only leads us deeper down into the root-conception of personality which finds expression in personality. Person¬ ality lies in the relation of person to person. A personality is what it is only by virtue of its power to transcend itself and to enter into the life of another. It lives by interpenetration, by intercourse, by communion. Its power of life is love. There is no such thing as a solitary, isolated person. A self-contained personality is a contradiction in terms. What we mean by personality is a capacity for intercourse, a capacity for retaining self-identity by and through identification with others — a capacity for friendship, for communion, for fellowship. Hence the true logic of personality compels us to discover the man’s personal worth in the inherent necessity of a society in which it is realized. Society is, simply, the expression of the social inter-communion of spirit with spirit which constitutes what we mean by personality. Fellowship and Individuality are correlative terms.” Some of the choices and actions of man, together with his ideas and feelings, are not individual. They are the expression of the social connection of an individual. This means more than the fact that most individual choices and acts have a social direction, and that apparently individual virtues are after all social relationships. In the mind of the indi- 5 Individuality ought not to be identified with personality. THROUGH PERSONALITY 185 vidual there exists a social determinateness, although this must not be interpreted as giving authority to morals. If I act as a member of a social group, e. g. a director of a corporation or a committee-man of a labor union, my decisions, actions, feelings, ideas are the group expression. The group acts through me and I represent the group mind. Thus my actions as social help to make or unmake the personality of the group. This is apparent not merely in the free forms of association in society, but especially in the social forms of family, church and state. When an attack is made upon my sister I do not oppose it merely as an individual, but largely as a member of a family. The family acts through me. Out of this family relation of some actions grew the early practice af blood-revenge. And the family feeling was the concomitant of the tribal feeling of unity of blood. The physical fact found an outlet and an interpretation in the moral actions by which men accepted and asserted the social blood relationship. These actions coming forth from the individual are not individual but social in idea, feeling and act. When I confess a truth as member of a church, or cooperate in its great undertakings, what the church believes or does lives in and through me. The state has its history and its life, and at certain times this tradition of history and life calls for certain actions from me. I simply act out the social implications of the state. I think and act as a member of the state to which I belong and in which I was born and reared. All such actions are a part of a larger social personality. 186 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT It would not be possible for the social to find expression through individual lives unless there was a unity of determinations, ideas and feelings which constitute the social personality. This is no fiction, but is just as real as the creative formation of personality in the indi¬ vidual. Mind is more than connection with a single body. The social complex as well as nature shows its presence. The same psycho¬ logical functionings of choice and action live in the group. In our days when the family is suffering through economic conditions, and through moral disregard, we forget that a real family has its life and character. It is made by the common actions and ideals that influence and make the spirit of a family. A church has its peculiar genius and is constantly making men spiritually, as it is being made through the church-choices, actions, ideals and emotions. It therefore possesses all the essential elements of personality. A state has its living unity of action in consistency with its past determina¬ tions. Like the family and the church it has a personality. All of these social forms possess personality in reality when they function toward the good, and develop liberty. Personality and the ideal. No matter how much pains we may take to make clear what is meant by personality in ethics, the question still remains: “How does it satisfy the great ethical concepts ?” Is it more adequate than either pleasure or reason? The ideal which is to meet the end and purpose of freedom in the moral sense must be the highest good. There dare be no mere maximum or an empty abstrac- THROUGH PERSONALITY 187 tion. Personality in its determinations and choices at one with ideas and feelings tends to freedom. But this freedom is not the mere for¬ mal freedom. It fulfills the hope of individual and common life and secures happiness. The whole man is satisfied in his moral aspirations when he grows more and more to he a personal¬ ity as the liberty of action in the good develops. When social choices produce the balance of happiness through a liberty, that is not desire nor power, but a full and good life, then the social personality meets the ideal. But in what concrete way can such personality strive toward the ideal and find the highest good? Personality must be enkindled through per¬ sonality. No impersonal power or end can bring the satisfaction of happiness in liberty. We are constantly brought nearer to the good when we possess the example and the direct influence of the good as it comes to us through some other, better personality. In our actual life all the rules and all the laws are not really effective. The awakening and stimulating power toward the good is exercised through our contact with a real, growing personality. The touch of a strong, just, happy, free personality upon our lives shapes the ideal in us. We then begin to strive to become in our way and out of our choices, not mere imitators, but creators of free¬ dom and happiness for our lives. But in addition to those living personalities that effect us, we possess the lives of outstanding person¬ alities in history. Not the great conquerors, but the great saints of all times, whether they be called such or not, raise us beyond the limi- 188 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT tations of our day. Directly or indirectly the influence of truly great lives still function in mankind. Just as personality in individual life is thus developed through other personali¬ ties, so also in social life there exist, beside the forces of evil, the influences of the groups and social forms, which are meeting their purpose of happiness in liberty, in such a manner as to make them attractive. While there is no abso¬ lute or abstract perfection anywhere there are the more free and the more good social groups and forms, that stand out beyond others. The traditions of the past do not actually give us a golden age, but they show us in each age conditions and actions in society that call for emulation. The moral continuity in history is never absolutely broken. The moral order keeps on just because of the influence of person¬ ality in social forms and in the groupings and associations of society. But the upward curve toward freedom is not complete with the best that personality, indi¬ vidual and social, can give us both in the past and the present. There is an urge in personality which drives the ethical beyond and above itself. Where can we find the absolute good that makes the relative good of all human personality? Ethics has never given the answer, but religion has. We shall find the highest good as ideal and power in God.6 But this God cannot be an absentee creator. He dare not be made an IT, a whole, a universe as totality. The only God, through whom ethics 6 Christ held that God alone was absolutely good. Matthew XIX: 17. THROUGH PERSONALITY 189 can find the highest good of personality, must be personality with all its freedom in infinite perfection as an active reality. The God who is personality can also not be a mathematical unit. In Him there would be no force for good through the conception of mere unity. Where can we find the kind of God who will answer the individual and social demand of person¬ ality? History testifies that this highest good was brought to the world through Christianity. Its God always deals with men either as Father, or Son, or as Spirit. The unity comes to us religiously and morally in personal form. In God’s life there is also the unity of more than individual life. There is an inner relationship.7 Chesterton has expressed this fact in a telling way, when he said: 4 ‘ There is society in God.” God is the answer when thus conceived for individual and common life. Less than such a God we cannot have if the summum bonum is to mean anything. But the interpretation and concreteness of God comes to us through Christ. He is the living personality that was and is among men. He says: “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. ’ 9 8 Right, duty and personality. The ideal must be translated into the standard of right. This standard as law must be accepted by duty as obligation. But how is personality to be related to right and duty? The law of right, if freedom is the ideal, must be the law of liberty. Where do we find the law of liberty? In the early 7 Fairbaim, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, p. 394. Cf. also Beckwith, The Idea of God, p. 273 ff. s John XIV: 9. 190 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT Christian Church James9 identified this law, as the royal law, with the law of love. When we connect with this the highest Christian conception of God as Love, we shall readily correlate right with the snmmum bonum. God the personality lives His life within the Godhead and out toward man and society as Love. He that lives in love lives in God, as God is love.10 Thus the highest good has the law of love, as the law of liberty, in its very nature and being.11 The right can be nothing else than love, and the law as the ideal of perfection can be nothing else than love, if the highest good is God as Love. Here is an unfailing, living and concrete connection which takes right and law from the sphere of the abstract and impersonal, and puts it into the sphere of the real and actual. Personality in God thus sets the ideal as the actual standard and demand for all personality. But how does duty, as it appears in separate duties, find its fulfillment in Love ? Duty, which regarded as the mere ought becomes harsh and severe, is freed and made joyous if we are to owe naught else than love. There is no other way of going beyond ourselves and fulfilling our duty, while we remain really free and become enlarged in our life, than if we live in and for others through love. Love is the great¬ est socializing motive. It does the right and does not feel its burden. The individual de¬ velops under it and finds the most free kind of 0 James I: 25; II: 8. 30 1 John IV: 16. n Browning, the poet of optimism, is also the poet of love. He sings: “But love is victory the prize itself.’ ’ THROUGH PERSONALITY 191 happiness. Social complexes can best be strong and free within themselves through love. With love as a motive they will properly coordinate with all society. There are three spheres of love as duty. The commandment which bids us love our neighbor as ourselves, allows the right kind of self-love. This is different from selfishness, and the assertion of mere self-preservation. Joseph Butler thought that he could solve this problem by making cool and reasonable self-love a second principle beside conscience. He says: “If passion prevails over self-love, the conse¬ quent action is unnatural; but if self-love pre¬ vails over passion, the action is natural. It is manifest that self-love is in human nature a superior principle to passion. This may be contradicted without violating that nature; but the former cannot. So that, if we will act con¬ formably to man’s nature, reasonable self-love must govern.12 The notion of Butler is defective, because he identifies the moral self-love with reason, and because he stresses self-interest that begets prudence too largely. The real self-love, as duty, has the ideal of the developing person¬ ality in the self, and unfolds duties out of the consideration of the highest good, but not in a merely natural way through the care of the self. The second sphere of duty as love is toward our neighbor. This includes all duties which touch other lives in their essence. All men are regarded as personalities with their rights and privileges, not for the reason that another posi¬ tion is impossible; and because we cannot live 12 Sermons, II, par. 16. 192 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT among men if we do not do so. This would be a life of compulsion under the pressure of society. The joyous way is the inner identifica¬ tion of ourselves with our duties through the spirit of love. Duties accepted and assumed in this spirit leave us inwardly free. The law of “Thou shall love” is a yoke as long as it is unpersonalized and a demand which we pass by or resist. But the ideal of the right in love coming from the highest good is freedom when translated into living action. This same duty is the highest formulation that can be given to all social groups and forms and associations in their common purposes and deeds. The third sphere of love, as duties toward God, is generally omitted in the usual ethics. But if God is the summum bonum, it naturally follows that the acceptance of Him as ideal and end, and the entering upon right as His expression of love, relates us to God. We can¬ not but have duties and try to fulfill them toward Him, unless we cancel the highest good and the ideal. To love God with our utmost power is only the motive of reaction toward His personality by our personality. The duties toward God are only hard if He is not to us what He wants to be, viz; the liberating personality in whom is the source, the joy and the happiness of our life. This attitude is no mysticism but the moral relationship of our personality toward that of God. Personality and virtue. What possibilities for the proper interpretation of virtue are there in the fact of personality? As personality is being constantly formed by our determinations, THROUGH PERSONALITY 193 these naturally fuse into certain stable habits, When the content of the habits answers to the demands of the good, and habits are the crystal- ization of the right, and the formed actions of duty, we have virtue in its reality. The whole manner of the development of personality tends towards virtue. In the manifold relations of actual life there must be many virtues, all of them expressing the good in habit. The richness and fulness of the life of freedom through per¬ sonality offers the opportunity for the variety and manifoldness of virtues. Can personality meet the demands for a unity in this differentiation of virtue'? The hedonists had a unity in prudence, but it did not essen¬ tially express the deepest nature of virtue, and was insufficient as the explanation of the source of the inner nature of virtue. The rationalists adopted wisdom as the one virtue. Wisdom was higher than prudence, but it also was not the real inner power, nor vital source of the virtues. The ideal of personality is the trans¬ lation of love as duty into love as virtue. It does not claim that this is the only virtue as the Stoics supposed wisdom to be. But the contention in favor of the personalistic view is, that love can explain the inmost character of virtue and furnish us with an adequate and vital motive for every virtue. Love is ideal in its rationality, effective in its emotion, purpose¬ ful in its action. If we take some leading virtues we shall see how love actuates the different virtues. Justice seems far removed from love. But can justice reach its highest perfection without love? The highest justice as a cold 194 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT proposition of rendering to every one the right which is due, can become the greatest injustice. The Romans knew this when they said : 1 1 Sum- mum jus, snmma injuria.” It is through the conception of love functioning in justice that the end sought is best attained. Justice with¬ out love is without equity, and becomes hard, unbending, and severe to the degree of destroy¬ ing liberty. Truth does not seem to need love. And yet truth may, like justice, defeat its very end without love. All that is so, is not the same as the virtue of truthfulness. Truthfulness needs the spirit of love to make it a liberating power. No virtue can be named which will not be the more virtue through love as its inner vision, motive, and purpose. Consequently our ideal of personality has the best solution for concrete virtues and habits, whose deepest nature is love. The historical approach to personality. While personality has been expanded in our discussion beyond its common usage, is it an entirely new proposal? Are there no historic antecedents to lead up to it? Are there no thinkers and philoso¬ phers that rest their outlook upon life on some sort of personalism? Long before the idea of personality in its individualistic form gained currency it was upon the threshold of Western thought. Plato sought the solution of moral life through harmony. He strove to balance temperance, courage and wisdom through justice. The idea of the absolute good was to dwell relatively in the whole man. But justice led him to demand the state. And the social was necessary for the completion of justice THROUGH PERSONALITY 195 through which the harmony of virtues became assured. There is an effort to gain a totality which Plato could not secure, because his high¬ est good was impersonal. Because Plato divided man up, he could not secure adequate unity through the loose connection of virtues in the ideal of harmony. Aristotle saw in the ethical life the functioning of the whole man. He found the real estimate of will. The bridge between the individual and social was constructed upon the conception that ethics was a part of politics, because man was naturally a political animal. But Aristotle failed, as had Plato, not only because he did not find the whole of man through his theory of the middle road, but also, and that mainly, because he widened the gap between the ethical and the intellectual. Aris¬ totle was searching for real personality and could not find it. The first strong impulse came through Christianity. In the modern world Leibniz with his theory of monads sought to solve the problem, but drifted into individual¬ ism. A strong appreciation is found in Kant, when he says: “The idea of personality that awakens our veneration, places before our eyes the exaltation of our nature in accordance with its destiny. At the same time it shows us the deficiency of the fitness of our action in view of it, and consequently overthrows self-opin- ionateness. These facts are naturally and easily observable by the most common human reason.’ ’ 13 It is to be regretted that Kant did not develop the idea of personality in its social bearing, but is Critique of Practical Reason, Part III, par. 27. 196 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT this could hardly be expected in his individual¬ istic age. In Goethe’s Faust we find the struggle of man to find himself through knowledge, love, and power. But the personality, which was for Goethe the end of all human ways, became a mere individualistic cultural attainment. Thus the moral content was lost. Personalism was not without its advocates in later thought. Lotze saw its worth. Bowne was its advocate for many years, and in the University of Southern California personalism has found lodgment.14 In ethics it has been advocated in its individual form by Charles Gray Shaw and by Henry Wright. The eudaemonism of James Seth is also personalistic. It has been at the background of various other modern positions, and only needs fuller elaboration than has been accorded by a whole group of modern philosophers.15 Personality and Christianity. What is the attitude of Christianity toward this ideal of personality? Is it favorable or unfavorable? The teaching of Christ came into a world with social divisions. The Greek notion was that of Plato, that society in its best form demanded three classes, the philosophers to govern, the warriors to fight, and, as the lowest class, the laborers to provide food and shelter. The non- Greek world was that of the barbarians. The Romans were either freemen or slaves. The Jewish leaders regarded the Gentile world as beyond the pale, and the common people of the 14 Cf. The Journal ‘‘The Personalist. ’ ’ 15 Cf. Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, Vol. II, p. 284; Hastings, Cyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. IX, p. 773. THROUGH PERSONALITY 197 country were looked down upon by Pharisee and Sadducee. The whole mode of appreciation was through classes and by race or nation. Christ taught the supremacy, first of all, of the soul as personality. He said: “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul!” 16 Man as man was rescued from the social enslavement of ancient society. This step was necessary as the beginning of the rescue of personality. But Christ did not merely save the personality of the individual from the social bondage, but He also gave content to personality through His own life and teaching. He was the incarnate ideal bringing God, the highest good, into con¬ crete and actual human life. From Him came the final interpretation of right character and its influence upon men through the power of His own personality. But He did not stop with this individual power for liberty. Christ is the representative of mankind. The universal lives in Him, and He is the second Adam, the beginner of a new, spiritual man¬ kind.17 This socially universal import of Christ gives a genuine value to the moral purpose in His life. The core of freedom was for Him the life in the Father. The highest good was His reality morally. The way to liberty in His life was the way of obedience. His sacrifice became a power for the ethical life, because He showed men that the content of goodness was freedom in God and in God’s ways. In the ethical liberation of men the great hindrance was sin. 1 <5 Mark VIII: 36. i" Romans V : .14 ff. 198 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” 18 From this bondage man mnst be freed. The way of freedom through Christ is to die to sin.19 The reverse is the resurrection. A new life must arise20 which is given through the “Son that makes us free.” 21 The possibility to overcome evil and to grow in righteousness, as permanent life of liberty, has come to the world in Christ. All men can thus attain the character and conduct that is essentially the liberty of the children of God. Christ, not only thus affects the growth of freedom through new individual personalities, but He also has, as one of His main ideals, the Kingdom of God. While the Kingdom of God may be individually appropriated,22 it is the social ideal of Christ. The Kingdom of God is the society in which the will of God is done. As this will is good and seeks man’s freedom, it is no arbitrary imposition of law, but only an invitation to liberty. And wherever this will enters society it creates the real personality. Vital content is given to social forms and to the associations of men in the ideal of God’s will, the will of the highest good of love. If we take a single instance we shall see how society could become morally personalized through the King¬ dom, by means of the unity of the will of God for our freedom. Society places a large em¬ phasis upon the economic need. It makes it the first and controlling interest, and around it is John VIII: 34. is Romans VIII : 10. 20 Romans VIII : 11 ; VI : 4. 21 John VIII: 36. 22 Matthew XIII: 44, 45, 46. THROUGH PERSONALITY 199 cluster contentions of classes and wars of nations. But when Christ met the economic temptation, as Messiah of His people, He said: “Man shall not live by bread alone, hut by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”23 The people were not allowed by Him to make Him king because they were filled with bread.24 The economic national temptation did not allure Him. He was no divider of goods25 and no adjuster of material economic conflict. Men were bidden to depart from the prevailing practice of asking : ‘ ‘ What shall we eat or What shall we drink? or wherewithal shall we be clothed ? ” 26 The first interest was to be that of the Kingdom of God, and the power of His righteousness27 upon earth. In the para¬ ble of the laborers in the vineyard28 there is, beside the spiritual lesson, an economic con¬ dition which utterly contradicts the thought of haggling for wages. The men who trust the lord of the vineyard are best oft. The bar¬ gainers, the seekers after their own returns, lose. But the situation is possible because the lord of the vineyard is good. Business is done not upon the basis of suspicion and outwitting one another, but upon the foundation of the trustworthiness of a good master. The moral implication is a state of society such as we do not have but which would come about in the economic order by the freedom of the ideal of 23 Matthew IV : 4. 24 John VI: 13, 26. 23 Luke XII : 13 ff . 26 Matthew VI: 31. 27 Matthew VI: 33. 28 Matthew XX : 1 ff . 200 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT the Kingdom of God. This ideal would be the personality of economic society found in God’s will. It is true that this sort of ethics is not the description of what human nature and con¬ duct is, but what it ought to he and can be if the ideal of personality in its fulness be adopted. Ethics is a normative science29 and must not lose itself in the slough of the present. To depress it to psychology is to make it natural¬ istic.30 To remain ethics it must be personalistic. Consequently our final definition of ethics is the science of character and conduct, whose end is the freedom of love through personality. 29 Cf. above p. 4. so This is the fundamental error in such ethics as that of Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct. REFERENCES Jas. Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Part I, Chapter III. Henry W. Wright, Self-Realization, Part II, Chapters IV, V, VI. W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God, Chapter V. Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, Part III, Chapters I, II. Rudolph Eucken, Main Currents of Modem Thought, D. 5. Personality and Character. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason. Charles Gray Shaw, The Value and Dignity of Human Life. Charles Gray Shaw, The Ground and Goal of Human Life. P. B. Jevons, Personality. Borden P. Bowne, Personalism. C. C. J. Webb, God and Personality. C. C. J. Webb, Divine Personality and Human Life. J. R. Illingworth, Personality Human and Divine. John Laird, Problems of the Self. E. U. Merrington, The Problem of Personality. John W. Buckham, Personality and the Christian Ideal. Felix Adler, An Ethical Philosophy of Life. G. P. Adams, Idealism and the Modem Age; “The Self and the Community,” p. 197 ff. THROUGH PERSONALITY 201 Arthur George Heath, The Moral and Soeial Significance of the Conception of Personality. W. H. Walker, The Development of the Doctrine of Person¬ ality in Modern Philosophy. A. Trendelnburg, A Contribution to the History of the Word Person, (Monist, July 1910). Hans Dreyer, Personalismus and Realismus. Max Scheler, Personalismus. PART III— THE FUNCTIONING OF FREEDOM CHAPTER X THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE Virtues or duties. Approaching to the actual functioning of freedom, and to some of its practical questions, the problem confronts us, whether the point of view shall be that of virtues or duties? Which of the two best ex¬ press the ideal of personality? In a certain sense they are in the unity of the whole ethical life. Duties must become virtues, and virtues are duties formed into habit.1 But the accent upon duties even in practical ethics favors the position of the rationalists, and is apt to give a legal and unfree aspect of the moral life. Because we have adopted the conception of the ideal as the best, it is in keeping with our conception to regard the ethical development from the angle of the incorporation of the ideal of freedom through personality. The virtues are the habits through which the good comes to men, and it forms the stable ways in which freedom functions. Many efforts have been made to properly 1 Cf. above p. 113. 202 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 203 classify the different virtues, but no effort has been really successful. No scheme has included all possible virtues. The best method is to adopt such a plan as brings to view the leading attitudes and problems in individual and social life. Under this procedure the great virtues will be discussed. Because after all life is a unity no absolute line of demarcation can be drawn. The virtues of individual life will reach over into the common life. The virtues in which freedom in love goes out toward others in the basic social virtues demands the consideration of the individual starting point. The virtues of the social forms have also an individual bearing. When we treat of purity, temperance, courage as individualistic virtues we cannot but see that they affect others also. Truthfulness is a virtue in relation to others, but it also has an individual meaning in the ethical life. Justice is the outstanding virtue of the state, but it is likewise an other-regarding virtue from man to man. Consequently as we study the undi¬ vided life of freedom, and its outgoings in love, and the social life we shall see some virtues in different light as freedom applies differently in individual and social life. Is the ethical life a pure development? A fundamental question in individual and com¬ mon moral life is, whether this life unfolds in an unhampered, natural manner? Do we pass from freedom to freedom in love? The prev¬ alence of the ideas of evolution has led many to look upon the growth of the moral life as a mere problem of how conduct in relation to society became more differentiated and more 204 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT complex. But the development of freedom is not a simple upward curve with no depression. It is rather a rise and a fall with some upward tendency. Moral life like all life is a conflict. The world of sense and of things that appeal to sense needs some limitation. Things cannot be followed implicitly and without question. There must be control, as will appear especially in the virtue of temperance. While repression must not be final it is in part essential. Not all that physical life offers can be accepted without qualification. But the problem lies deeper than the mere restriction of the sen¬ tient life. There is a tendency of man not to follow the good, but to choose the evil. In the whole life there is a doubleness. Opposed to the striving upward are forces that would drag us down. These are not merely due to our sentient and bodily life. The animal nature is not the only source that may lead us wrong. There are mental wrongs and vices, like pride, prejudice, selfish ambition, etc., that can not be ascribed to the physical life. The Christian explanation is that man is prone to sin, the transgression of the law of liberty, through selfishness. This is not the soul clinging merely to earth;2 it is the soul gone wrong in itself. For this cause Christ has a moral value for us through His death. Paul notes a great contrast between “the flesh” and “the spirit.” The flesh is not the animal nature as such. It is all, both physical and mental, that stands opposed to the life of the spirit. The contrast is not metaphysical but 2 Goethe held to this naturalistic view. THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 205 religious and moral. It is a great oversight in the usual philosophical ethics, when this fact is passed by. We cannot understand the posi¬ tive and constructive part of ethical life, if we disregard the overcoming of the evil. Even when our moral development is strongly dir¬ ected toward the good its maintenance always necessitates the suppression of wrong and evil. The power of a cause. Can the individual life thrive if it remains within itself? Does its liberty mean a life given only to its own care, comfort and interest? To live only for oneself and within oneself is not to live a real life. Even our own development is thwarted if we do not look beyond ourselves. No single life is self-sufficient. Its sources will dry up unless they flow out beyond the self. To live in the self alone is to die. This truth, observable in the physical world and in nature, is doubly true in the ethical life. It is Christ who has stressed this truth for all times, when He said: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life — the same shall save it. ’ 9 3 The individual life needs attachment not only to other lives, but above all to some great cause. We must lose ourselves in the effort to establish some ideal which is larger than we. Liberty comes through the enlargement of life in a great cause. We may work for some philanthropy; we may give ourselves to estab¬ lishing liberty for the oppressed of any sort; we may dwell upon some moral reform; we may live for some religious task; — in all of these s Mark 8 : 35. 206 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT possible causes we grow ourselves. Liberating others, and being absorbed in a vital idealism, we become more free ourselves. These freely chosen attachments develop in us the virtue of loyalty. Royce thought that he could make all moral life the outgrowth of loyalty.4 But he overstated the case and in his Hegelian universalism lost other values. Nevertheless loyalty is valuable as the free choice by which we bind ourselves to be true and faithful to a chosen cause, institution or friend.5 It is a bondage only when our loyalty neglects to observe justice and truth in a cause. If I defend the interest of wrongly limited labor, as I suppose, and then use every sort of means fair or unfair, and approve of every action just or unjust, as long as labor is helped, I am surrendering justice and liberty. Such an attitude makes a good cause bad. My loyalties must be morally justifiable. The same is true if my loyalty is given to an institution or a friend. If my loyalty to my college, which I have chosen, leads me to overlook what is defective in it, and to defend even its wrong actions, I enslave myself and morally degrade myself. My loyalty should help me to remedy the evil, but not to stand by and destroy the value of loyalty through criticism. The church to which I belong may take a wrong course. It is not right for me to say, “My church right or wrong,’ ’ as some men do with their country. It is my church to aid in mak¬ ing it right if it be wrong. But the remedy 4 Cf. Philosophy of Loyalty. 5 Loyalty may also extend to ideals, like, e. g., truth. THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 207 does not lie in denying tlie loyalty by idle and destrnctive criticism. My friendship for some¬ one onght to move me to cover np the faults of my friend and help him to overcome them; but not to glorify them as virtues. The virtue of loyalty needs as a counterbal¬ ance the virtue of tolerance. Tolerance is an individual as well as a social virtue. It allows to others the same right and choice of loyalties as I claim for myself. The heart of tolerance is the willingness to permit others to have attachments to causes and to truths that differ from my own. It is not indifference to my con¬ victions or loyality, or surrender of any posi¬ tion to which I adhere, but the granting of liberty of conviction and loyalty to all men. Tolerance must not be accepted merely as a sad but necessary condition is society, which in our judgment would be better if all men be¬ lieved and did as we do. Through it liberty must be preserved for all in their opinions, attachments and convictions. Intolerance exists in all the spheres of life where men would enforce loyalty to secure uniformity, rather than to allow differences for the sake of freedom. Freedom and vocation. How can freedom and an orderly course of life in a vocation be combined? If freedom meant ever new and disconnected choices, if it implied a series of unrelated, arbitrary decisions, then the ordered course of life in a vocation would be out of the question. But the real liberty of man morally is only found in a regulated life with its accept¬ ance of one great unitary purpose, to which 208 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT man knows and feels liimself called. There may exist a number of minor occupations in a life that forms its avocations as a diversion from the main aim of the vocation. But the avoca¬ tions dare not crowd out the vocation. Only where we find ourselves in a place of work and endeavor, freely chosen, can we unfold our life and grow in every direction. Without this development there can be no unfolding of per¬ sonality within us. The way of freedom is the way of the vocation that we make our own. But is the mere selection of a place to fill in the world sufficient? Must we not inquire into the moral character of a vocation, and try to work out its ethical obligations? Freedom cannot exist where personality suffers either through immoral or unmoral practices and conditions in a vocation. It is self-evident that all kinds of activity which are considered crim¬ inal, or which violate the law of liberty in society, are no vocations in the true sense. Every one must also examine the manner in which a vocation is carried on. The best call¬ ings can be prostituted by wrong purposes and actions. There is no greater danger to the moral life than the constant and subtle power of the perversion of the standards of justice, truth, honesty, etc., through legally unpunish¬ able but nevertheless ethically destructive actions. There can be no genuine ethical life under such conditions. A single transgression, however great, is often far less evil than a whole life of questionable vocational practices. But are there not differences in vocations, not of a social kind, but of a moral? While THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 209 many occupations can be carried on honestly according to general maxims, there are some which offer moral difficulties in themselves. When our country had not yet passed the Vol¬ stead Act the selling of spirituous liquors was not an occupation that could be altogether de¬ fended. The dealer in liquor might have been careful and straightforward in his business; but still was he not catering to a want, that even under limitations, produced much evil, and led men to unfree habits of indulgence dangerous to themselves and to society! There are a number of occupations dealing with the amusement of men that need moral examination. While not all people can find recreation and be amused by high, intellectual pleasures of literature and art, but need less cultivated amusements of the senses, it is still true, that there are thousands spending lives that cater to what is merely sentient to the downward level of the sensual, the degrading and impure in certain types of vaudeville, music and dances. All taste and morals are lowered for the individual and society through the abuse of giving a life to such indiscriminate practices of entertainment as invalidate the liberty in the pure, noble and good. But there are other vocations rightly so- called that have not yet been moralized. Many practices that are traditional in some kinds of business cannot stand the test of a vital moral standard. As an example we can direct atten¬ tion to all of the occupations that center upon money, securities, investments, and find a focus in the great exchanges of stock or produce. 210 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT Unnatural values are created by speculation, corners in products are established, stocks are depressed with the purpose of gaining control of a corporation, and other similar practices are indulged in, which are unmoralized actions not rejected by those in the business. It is an interesting historical fact, which ought to make us thoughtful, that some of the great thinkers and leaders of the world have ques¬ tioned the right of taking interest. Aristotle contended that money was non-productive and only a medium of exchange. Luther held that there was injustice in taking interest accord¬ ing to the New Testament. He saw an inequal¬ ity in the risk assumed by the borrower alone. Ruskin and Morris with their ideals of a better social order rejected interest. Perhaps some of the arguments of these thinkers are not tenable, but they indicate, what is felt very acutely today; namely, that the whole practice in dealing with money is largely unmoralized, and needs real moral standards to make it a vocation that is truly ethical. In the problem of the vocation the question may be asked, whether all occupations, that are not inherently objectionable, cannot be im¬ proved by the professional outlook! Is not the profession the highest type of vocation in the moral sense ? Says Tawney6 who thinks that industry should be turned into a profession, “A Profession may be defined most simply as a trade which is organized, incompletely, no doubt, but genuinely, for the performance of function. It is not simply a collection of indi- « The Acquisitive Society, p. 92. THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 211 viduals who get a living for themselves by the same kind of work. Nor is it merely a group which is organized exclusively for the economic protection of its members, though that is nor¬ mally among its purposes. It is a body of men who carry on their work in accordance with rules designed to enforce certain stand¬ ards both for the better protection of its mem¬ bers and for the better service of the pub lie.’ ’ These ends rest upon an ethical foundation. It is not merely the technical knowledge required in a profession, the free use of the intellect, and the individual independence, that make a profession, but above all the moral motive. The three well-known professions illustrate this fact. The interest of law, rightly conceived and practiced, is to uphold justice; the aim of medicine is to use every means to make the physical life sound and to save it; the purpose of the ministry is to aid in making men good through the power of reli¬ gion. These professions were the first to frame codes of ethics to maintain the standard of their profession, and to keep it regulated by moral and humanitarian ends.7 All the occu¬ pations of men must seek this attitude. Other groups like engineers, newspaper men, etc. are coming to frame codes. We must raise all kinds of work to a real moral value by making it a profession in spirit and attitude. What shall guide us in the choice of a pro¬ fession or a vocation in life? Many persons choose their permanent labor in the world in a 7 Cf. James Mickel Williams, Principles of Social Psychology, p. 225 ff. CHRISTIAN CONDUCT 919 1 mU very careless manner. They do not bring to bear upon it any moral considerations. We ought not to be led into a vocation simply through family traditions, although the conti¬ nuity of some great work has been assured in the world where men have followed the voca¬ tion of their fathers. Nevertheless the tradi¬ tional aspect dare not be controlling if real liberty that makes a man’s vocation his own moral choice is to be upheld. Gain and income are totally unmoral motives and may become immoral in the determination of our life’s work. We ought to begin with as careful a testing of our capacities as is possible through modern and scientific means. Then some value must be given to the disinterested advice of parents, teachers, and elders. But the real end of the choice is given in the Christian idea. According to this, men ought to seek that voca¬ tion in which their own highest self-fulfillment is joined to the best service they can render to mankind. The good is personal and common liberty in love. And then finally the religious conception finds its apex in the ideal of seeking the glory of God in all of the work and the tasks of our life. With this as the final direc¬ tive the moral fulfillment of a vocation reaches its height. Work and freedom. The choice of a voca¬ tion leads to the moral side of work. Does human labor conduce to moral development and freedom, or is it a burdensome necessity that we cannot escape from? In labor and by work we may suffer and feel restrained unless we use it joyfully, as the opportunity through THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 213 whicli we can express ourselves. Wherever work is accepted as the chance for the func¬ tioning of all that is in us it is liberating. We master and overcome the things about us in labor and make them serviceable for mankind. We conquer the forces of nature and make our¬ selves more free in a world of laws. Our life goes out when we touch human lives to help them to greater liberty. If we do spend our¬ selves in our tasks we do not lose ourselves, but gain control over our own powers. For this reason work is moral and idleness immoral. But we can make work oppressive and enslav¬ ing so that it loses its power to moralize us. When men labor to such an extreme that their work becomes their master, driving them to ever more intense exertion and filling them with cares and worries, they abuse work. Work needs play to keep it sound. For this reason play is a moral factor for the health of work, and the maintenance of man’s liberty in his labor. There are three groups of men who fail in moralizing work. The first consists of those who want to labor hard and successfully and severely for a short period, in order that they may obtain means to spend the rest of their lives in the enjoyment of idleness and pleasure. It is not well-deserved rest after long years that they intend to have; but they seek to throw off work in middle life, because they have accepted it as a necessary evil to be cast aside as soon as possible. The second group are willing to bow under the yoke of labor all their lives, and endure its hardships, so that their 214 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT children may not be compelled to labor. With a wrong conception of what they owe their pos¬ terity, they enslave themselves, and create for their children conditions which are not really liberating, bnt lead into many temptations and into much evil. The third group, which is the largest, attempts to escape from the tasks of life by seeking returns through the games of chance without labor. There is, it is true, a risk and a dealing in uncertain futures in many occupations in life. But these chances are in¬ cident to work and do not displace it. But gambling is immoral, not because in the long run men lose and fail in it, but for the reason that it fastens itself on human life like an un¬ quenchable desire. Men lose the power over themselves and become thoroughly unreason¬ able, destroying their lives through indulgence in the fascination of chance. Whatever is tem¬ porarily gained through gambling has an im¬ moral effect, because the money obtained is not moralized through the self-expression of man in labor. What should be the end of work? The common notion too often followed is, that the purpose of work is to secure money. As far as money is necessary for living it is just to look to it. But when it is pursued for the sake of itself, or for power, it demoralizes men. The increase of returns hoped for in itself produces attachment to wealth as such. Among the most severe warnings of Christ are those against the insidious influence of wealth as Mammon.8 The end of work is for the sake 8 Matthew VI : 24. THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 215 of life, and secondarily for the sake of living. What right has the individual to his earn¬ ings? Are they absolute? All that any one honestly secures as the result of work possesses the character of his personality. Property is the right of a man to his own. It expresses a certain security and a certain economic free¬ dom, through which the individual and his immediate family have the opportunity of an enlarged life. Individual property became im¬ portant when men began to have more rights as separate from their tribe. In the modern world individual possessions meant freedom as against the mediaeval tenure of land. Early individualism in property was liberating. But are the conditions the same in the present in¬ dustrial world? Is the sacredness of private property final? There has been an increasing conviction that unrestrained individualism has worked to the loss of the liberty of many men through the increase of the power of a few. The reason why all sorts of socialistic ideas have gained a hearing, is the evil which has attended the use of property in great amounts by mere individualists of property. The attacks have been partly just and partly unjust. “But, however varying in emphasis and method, the general note of what may conven¬ iently be called the Socialist criticism of prop¬ erty is what the word Socialism itself implies. Its essence is the statement that the economic evils of society are primarily due to the unreg¬ ulated operation, under modern conditions of industrial organization, of the institution of 216 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT private property. ’ ’ 9 This claim is overstated. But its truth is the abuse of individual rights in property. Excessive individualism is for¬ cing socialism upon the world, and with it a restriction of what man has a right to have and hold in the interest of his liberty of life. The common liberty has been injured and society is seeking redress. It must not be forgotten that the safety of property and its title rest upon the will of society. The Christian ideal is against the absolute right of property. All men are considered stewards of what God has given them. He is the owner finally and not men. They are only the administrators and must give account of what has been entrusted to them. Men are to use what they have for the common good and for the praise of God. This is no defense of individualism in the use of property. It may be individually owned for a time, but it ought to be used socially. The virtues which are connected with work are accuracy, care, patience, purposefulness., We ought to use what we obtain with thrift , which is the proper care of our own without waste, and with frugality. The latter is opposed to a luxurious life. The virtue of generosity as a fundamental attitude becomes liberality in distributing of our own. It is largess in giving. The virtue which ought to be the proper response to generous giving is gratitude . The bodily life. What are the moral prob¬ lems that are related to our bodily life? Be¬ cause we do not reject the physical as in itself 9 Tawney, The Acquisitive Society, p. 53. THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 217 evil we must endeavor to meet the question how the physical life, which in itself is neutral, can be moralized. All the functionings of our body have laws that make for health and well¬ being. Our first positive group of virtues must be those, like cleanliness, purity, etc. They can only rest upon a right knowledge and understanding of what our body is and means for us. We should train ourselves in those habits of right, sane care of the body, which enable us best to use it and control it, instead of being hemmed in and limited by it, because we have disregarded and abused it. The full development of the body through proper cul¬ ture and exercise is not merely a physical necessity, it ought to be a virtue. The neglect of the body is as bad as its abuse. No interest in the growth of our mind can excuse ethically the overlooking of our bodily life. But the overtraining of the body, and the emphasis upon the kind of exercise, especially through athletics, that makes the body suffer without cause, is an aberration of a right attitude toward the physical. The positive value of the body demands as the first great virtue the attitude of control and restraint embodied in temperance. Temper¬ ance means moderation and limitation in food and drink. This is its primal definition. The desire for food to remain healthy, and to ans¬ wer the demands of hunger, needs the habit of control. When men simply follow the sugges¬ tions of appetite which is often unnaturally developed, without reason and consideration, they become creatures of their stomach. Then 218 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT they gorge themselves with a dozen different kinds of food, that tickle the palate and satisfy abnormal taste, so that they may experience the feeling of comfortable distention.10 They live to eat instead of eating to live. Temper¬ ance is the virtue that overcomes such an abuse of food. When we approach the problem of drink , which is really the problem of drinking intoxi¬ cating liquors, temperance is not attained by mere moderation. The terrible results of alco¬ holism, its disorganizing effects upon men, its power to undermine all self-control and liberty, its result of making men silly and irrespon¬ sible, its destructive consequences upon society — all of these and many other evil consequences should lead a rational being like man to inter¬ pret temperance in drink as prohibition. Even the moderate users suffer, and encourage those who destroy themselves and their homes through drink. The unnatural desire of today for drink, helped by the nervous strain of the age, is threatening to overthrow all order and law for mere gratification of unregulated thirst. The Christian attitude is the willing¬ ness to abstain if any one suffers through our apparent liberty.11 The claim that the right to drink is individual liberty, degrades liberty to the privilege of indulging desire, no matter what the results. Such a conception of liberty is in essence moral anarchism, and leads to in¬ dividual and social dissolution if consistently applied. 10 Cf . Hyde, The College Man and the College Woman, p. 68 ff . 11 Homans XIV: 14 ff. THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 219 But temperance has a wider application than the question of food and drink. The problem, of drink leads to the examination of the use of stimulants in human life. What ought to be our habits in reference to tea, coffee, tobacco, etc. ? Whenever mild stimulants are physi¬ cally beneficial, or at least not distinctly harm¬ ful, they may be used. But we ought to be willing to subject every habit that we are about to form to a fair test, and not merely follow the crowd. Some habits are positively de¬ structive. Among these is the use of drugs and narcotics, which break down life com¬ pletely for the sake of a brief intoxication of dreams and sense delights. The use of tobacco should be far more limited especially in the years of growth, and in many lives ought to be avoided altogether. The wrong consists in so forming a habit in the use of stimulants that we are under their dominance. Any one who cannot resist a stimulant, and has lost control over it, has surrendered his freedom to his desire. The essential evil in using any stimu¬ lant is our subjection to habit. If we cannot at any time give up a stimulant we are unfree. In the usual restricted sense temperance does not apply to the control of individual sex4ife, but in a wider application the morals of sex belong to it. With it are connected the related virtues of purity, modesty, and shame. Purity is the attitude of mind which controls thoughts, words and acts, so that they are clean. It makes sex a sacred trust of nature given to us, but not an opportunity for indulgent imagina¬ tion and passion. Modesty may be restraint 220 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT of our whole demeanor in life, but it is specifi¬ cally the control of dress and manners in the direction of the privacy of our sex-life, and the avoidance of everything that leads to the seductiveness and allurement of sex.12 Shame can be a reaction of guilt after we have com¬ mitted the sexually immodest and wrong act. But it can also be a preventative virtue through which we recognize the protection of the physi¬ cal. Animals have no shame. Shame is the testimony of the rise of human, rational nature above the animal world.13 But we can turn all of these virtues into vices by simply abandon¬ ing ourselves to the fact of sex without govern¬ ing it. Then we are liable to sink below the animal because we dwell with prurient delight upon the desires of sex, and allow them to hold our mind and life captive. Before marriage temperance in sex means abstention from all sex-relation. There is a very erroneous opinion secretly handed on, and sometimes encouraged by physicians, that sex- hunger like all hunger ought to have its legiti¬ mate satisfaction. This position is strengthened today by the theories of Freud, which identify sex with the subconscious. Repression of sex is almost made a danger directly or indirectly through this theory. In order to prevent the spread of sexual disease there has been public recommendation of preventative medicine. While the intention of such a governmental measure is honest, the result is to increase 12 The moral problem of the dance is whether it arouses passion. Its dangers are very much multiplied in the dance hall with its promiscuous crowd. Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, p. 26 ff. THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 221 indulgence in sex gratification. The whole sub¬ ject of sex has been too prominent in discussion. It is right that the wrong ideas so often handed on in the secret and frequently vile communica¬ tions from youth to youth should be met. But the way is that of legitimate, wise and tactful education, and not indiscriminate publication. A former age may have been prudish, but we are too brutally frank. Thus we injure the finer virtues, and destroy the protection which culture has erected in the interest of purity. We make the sacredness of sex an interesting subject. The other great virtue which begins in the bodily life is courage. Courage is not the un¬ reasoning braving of danger, and the unthinking assumption of risk of life. It knows the danger and the risk and is willing to incur it for the sake of the good. Simply to throw oneself in the way of danger and to gamble with one’s life is foolhardiness. But the legitimate under¬ going of danger with a resolute will is courage. There are gradations of courage. It began to be estimated, first of all, in the unsettled, primi¬ tive conditions and in war. But this kind of courage ought to pass away. The glorification of courage in war still receives too much praise as though it were the best type. A higher kind of courage is that displayed by discoverers, who incur great risks in the interest of science and for humanity. But the relative value of risk in relation to the good must be considered. Peary and Shackleton displayed as much cour¬ age in their efforts in polar expeditions, as did Livingstone and Stanley in entering the jungles CHRISTIAN CONDUCT 099 of Africa. But the latter had a higher moral motive and result. The saving of an endangered life by a quick, impulsive act of courage is very noble. But even greater is the quiet, sustained effort to help men, whether by dangerous experi¬ ment in the laboratory, or by attendance upon cases that involve great risk, and all similar instances. There is no applause to be gained, and no heroic light about such actions. Courage can go beyond bodily risk when it becomes moral courage, which fearlessly stands for truth, and seeks no glamor of approval. The mental life. Is there any need to speak and treat of the moralizing of the mind! Is not the relation far removed from the tempta¬ tions of the body! If rationalism were the solution of the moral problem, then to be reason¬ able would mean to be good. But the two are not synonymous.14 All the operations of our mind must be fused into the freedom of person¬ ality. The virtue through which we grasp ourselves in our moral worth and dignity is the virtue of honor. Honor is the right self-estima¬ tion by which we do the noble and good acts, and do not dare to soil ourselves with anything unworthy of our character. It must be valued as the protection of our free character, and ought never degenerate into pride. Pride , mostly attended by boastfulness, is to glory in ourselves; but our honor is not so much our merit and glory as a precious possession and trust to be jealously guarded and preserved. It ought always to be counterbalanced by humility. In the ancient world humility was regarded as 14 Cf. above, Chapter VIII. THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 223 weakness and meanness. Aristotle praises the high-minded man,15 who carries himself with a conscious sense of his dignity and with a just pride. But Christianity has taught us, that in view of the greatness and illimitableness of truth, and because of our imperfection even when we are at our best, we need to remain conscious of our short-comings, failures and defects. Humility is not the destruction of right self-confidence and just self-assurance, but the opposite to pride with its untrue and exaggerated estimate of the self. Diffidence is not synonymous with humility. The humble mind knows its worth, but as it has an infinite ideal of truth and goodness it realizes its own place. The mind in search of science must be careful, accurate, honest and sincere. Honesty and sincerity in seeking the truth, and in direct¬ ing our purposes are as essential as honor and humility. Their lack destroys the opportunity of learning more and more of the truth through the attitude of open-mindedness. And as truth makes us free, it follows that whatever hinders the truth hinders our freedom, and whatever allows the approach of truth and new truth aids our liberty. The life of the mind can also be moralized by a right appreciation of art. The truly beautiful favors the increase of the good. Aris¬ totle held that the beautiful had a purifying power. Through the beautiful Plato reached up to the idea of the absolutely beautiful. Art can cleanse us, if it is pure in intent and execu- ir> Cf. Nicomachean Ethics, Book IV, 3, p. 213 ff. 224 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT tion. The sense of tlie beautiful does lift us up to God. There is a marvelous power for good in the enjoyment of the glory and beauty of nature. In its presence we become calm and free when we look up to the shining stars, or look out upon the colors of sunrise and sunset. The green fields and towering hills, the fra¬ grance and varied color of the flowers, the many-colored plumage of the birds and their songs, the wonderful arches of the trees, the brightness of the day and the shadows of the night, — all these and many other phenomena of nature are rich in power to uplift and liberate. When man uses art he can awaken all that is good, or he can prostitute art to evil. There lias been a tendency in modern art to degenerate into a realism that dwells in the mean and ugly. It often glorifies the passion of sex as right in its vile naturalism. Art must be delivered from this trend to be really good. Not all that exists can be the subject of art, if art is to liberate man and to aid in unfolding his character. The power over life. If we assume that we are free is not our life in our control? We can sustain and keep it, and we can ruin it. Do we possess the right to end it when we please? Is suicide morally justifiable? We must of course exclude all those cases of suicide which are caused by disease. It is necessary to ex¬ amine with care into the responsibility of those who commit suicide. But where the indications are, that suicide has been deliberate, what shall be our estimate? Hume16 argued that we have 16 Essay ‘ ‘ Of Suicide. ’ ’ THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 225 the liberty to take our lives because it is in our power. As God has not restrained us physically from taking our own life, thus thinks Flume, He virtually allows us to take it if we see lit to do so. Therefore we have no binding command from God. If we become useless to our relatives and friends we relieve them by our suicide, continues Hume. Finally he con¬ tends, that if we no longer have the desire to live, and if our lives seem to be of no value we can end them. But this whole argument con¬ fuses the formal liberty with the moral right. We owe our lives to God, and destruction is the abandonment of the entrusted good. We may be a burden to our own, but part of life consists in bearing each others’ burdens, so that the spirit of love may increase under trial. We may see no use of an active kind in our life, but suffering often perfects men, and leads them to a noble freedom of soul. The manner in which we bear ills in a spirit of patience and cheerfulness, instead of attempting to escape from them, is an incitement to others. Sufferers can be a great moral asset in the development of the finer and kindlier qualities of life. It is a terrible thing when an evil life ends in suicide. The motives are cowardice and despair. When men are unwilling to take upon themselves the punishment of their evil deeds, they cannot be rescued through a spirit of repentance. If they commit suicide they may get away from visible punishment, but religion holds that there is no real escape. The atheistic attitude alone can counsel suicide. 226 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT The question sometimes arises whether there are not peculiar conditions that justify us in ending our life ? If a young woman is attacked and is liable to be outraged shall she, if it be possible, take her life to save her purity? There is no moral guilt in anything to which one is forced. Therefore the young woman in such a case ought to struggle and seek to save her life. Of course awful conditions may tempo¬ rarily craze the mind, and then despair leads to death. Was Themistocles justified in killing himself rather than harming his country by betraying it to the Persians? Can we exonerate Frederick the Great, because in the Seven Years ’ War he always carried poison with him, which he intended to take, if the enemy at any time should capture him? All of these attitudes caused by war are not justifiable. They en¬ deavor to change the fortunes of war by an act that seems patriotic, but is cowardly and deceptive. War destroys morals and glorifies deception; consequently men have been willing to condone and even praise such acts under the perverted moral standards of war. But a real morality cannot excuse them even if it can understand them. REFERENCES James Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Part II, Chapter I. John S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, Book III, Chapter V. Borden P. Bowne, Principles of Ethics, Chapter VIII. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, Chapter XIX. Henry W. Wright, Self-Realization, Part IV, Chapter I. Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, Part II, Chapter X; Part III, Chapters XV, XVI, XVII. THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE Mary W. Calkins, The Good Man and the Good, Chapter VII. Ed. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, Chapter XXXV. Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Book III, Chapters III, IV, V, VI, VII. W. Wundt, Ethics, Part II, Chapter I. H. H. Tweedy, Christian Work as a Vocation. Irving Wood, Modern Christian Callings. L. T. Hobhouse, H. Rashdall, A. D. Lindsay, Vernon Bartlett. A. J. Carlyle, H. G. Wood, H. Scott Holland, Property: its Right and Duties. CHAPTER XI BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES The kindly virtues. If we begin to look over the whole range of virtues which affect onr relations to each other, with what group shall we open? It is clear that the law of liberty being love, the virtues which most directly express it as establishing freedom, ought to be fundamental. The unity of love is differentiated into various forms and is found in different habits of the good. Of these 'kindness marks a disposition and attitude through which we deal with men in a spirit of winning love. Kindness is the virtue that regards all others as objects of quiet and considerate affection. It seeks to smooth the rough ways of life and to bind men together in the little exasperations of life. Through it words and deeds take on the character of helpfulness by creating the atmosphere in which love can live. If manners are to be genuine and honest they must be moved by kindness. Because life is lived from day to day in the single, and often apparently small, words and deeds we need the habit of kindness to transfigure and make it large and free. Closely connected with kindness is gentle¬ ness. Gentleness is opposed to wrath and quick anger. It is the disposition in which under provocation we do not lose our temper, but deal 228 BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 229 in all situations with men as those to whom we owe a soft answer and a kindly act. Through it we accustom ourselves to allay threatening storms and to prevent outbreaks of passion that result in hatred. Gentleness is the great preventative virtue in human intercourse, and it keeps life sweet and free. Kindness and gentleness were not unknown and unrecognized in the ancient world. But with the advent of Christianity two other virtues arose which belong to the same group as kindness and gentleness. The first virtue is meekness. The opposite of meekness is forcefulness which over¬ comes and subdues. The meek mind would rather resign all rights than to obtain them by suppression and force. It wins its way by apparent withdrawal from conflicts between men. No one will be pushed to the wall through it, because it will not use strength to fight down others. It is not too proud to fight but it is too good and gentle. Silently and quietly it wins men. Christ promises that the meek shall finally rule the earth.1 Meekness when genuine is not an assumed inferiority, nor a pretensive humil¬ ity, but rather an expression of the love that bears and hopes all things. Connected with it as the second outstanding virtue is the attitude of non-resistance. This is meekness that suffers and does not strike back. It denies that com¬ bativeness is necessary among men. To over¬ come the evil it turns the left cheek when the right has been smitten. Such action is not the outcome of weakness and cowardice but of self- controlled strength and courage. The real i Matthew V : 5. 230 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT virtue of non-resistance is the habit of not returning evil for evil, but to suffer it. The suffering, when retaliation is possible, is borne to win the opponent, and to establish the good among men even if it must be at a loss and with pain. All of these virtues have been severely at¬ tacked by the modern philosopher Nietzsche. In the interest of power and physical prowess the philosopher of the superman rejects all those qualities which are contrary to struggle and force. He thinks that the weak have given men in Christianity a self-protective morality of the decadent. Life is energy and power. Nietzsche has boldly expressed the modern temper of force and power of man as against man. He argues for a realistic world of contest and fight. But whither has this kind of a world led us ? What have been the results of the practice of force in economic life, in political problems, and in international relations? A world and a society torn apart by bitterness and hatred. The stronger always stands ready to overcome and defeat the strong. Battle is followed by battle, strike succeeds strike, and the end is not in view. The use of force is making a miserable and sad world which is destroying itself physically, economically and politically. The virtues of kindness, gentleness, meekness, non-resistance have been called impracticable. They are so in the present world of force. But the present world of force is demonstrating that it cannot liberate but only destroy society.2 Is force 2 Cf. Benjamin Kidd, The Science of Power. BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 231 really practicable because men practice force! As the results show that force is not succeeding, ethics recommends to men to become reasonable and adopt the kindly attitude, which is only unreasonable in a world controlled by evil passions. The actualities of life and our common exper¬ ience lead us to the recognition of the fact, that we often fail to reach the ideal. It is true that in many things we all offend. Love expresses itself in certain healing virtues that do not condone the wrong, but seek to win men for the right. There are particularly two attitudes of love toward the wrong, mercifulness and the forgiv¬ ing spirit. Mercy seeks to stoop down in gentle graciousness to those on evil ways who have done the wicked deeds. It does not come with any air of superiority, nor does it exhibit a patronizing spirit. Entering with sympathy upon the difficulties and temptations of a life mercy strives to effect a change which mere requital and harsh justice cannot bring.3 In opposition to the uncompromising attitude of relentless condemnation and judgment it seeks betterment of men and society through the effort to cure and help those who have gone wrong. Mercy is forgiving. Forgiveness is the virtue through which the general disposition of mercy enters upon the individual faults and sins. According to Christ there can be no end4 to our willingness to forgive if we are not to forfeit divine mercy. But forgiveness is not 3 Cf. Portia’s description of mercy in Shyloek. 4Cf. Matthew XVIII: 21 ff. 232 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT merely the temporary expression of release over against one that has done ns wrong. It deals with individual acts but all its separate cases of forgiving are the outcome of a willingness to do so. The memory of a wrong cannot be effaced, but it dare not be nursed and harbored. There are certain conditions that enter into forgiveness and mercy. Forgiveness can do positive harm if it becomes a quick and unques¬ tioning cancellation of wrong. An illustration of this error is found in the attitude of parents who are so sentimental about their children that, in their ready condoning of a child’s sin, they strengthen the child in the wrong because the forgiveness is so easy. There must be clear evidence that the wrong is recognized, repented of, and rejected in the will, if forgiveness is to be bestowed upon a wrongdoer. As far as possible the assurance must be obtained that forgiveness is sought not to escape the conse¬ quences of a deed, but out of a real sense of the evil in a deed. A second condition in forgiving others, is that their wrong affects us alone. If the sin goes beyond us and has disturbed the moral order widely we have no right to forgive individually a wrong that must be righted in the common life. When a wave of criminality sweeps over a land I may be dis¬ posed very mercifully toward some one, who lias committed a crime against me. Neverthe¬ less I dare not for the common good hide such a deed. Common liberty and order demand that such a wrong shall be punished. If the criminal is really repentant he is willing to undergo the punishment, and to get into a new attitude of BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 233 life by having satisfied the moral rectification in society. Forgiveness must never degenerate into sentimental disregard of the wrong, but it should only counteract a spirit of hate and revenge. Its end is to heal men and society and to re-establish right and justice. One of the constant questions in the applica¬ tion of love to life is that of charity. There is a very old and persistent notion that charity is identical with giving alms. Men supposed that the bestowing of alms not only helped the needy one, but also laid up merit for the giver. Because of the idea of merit, no matter what the effect of the charity, it became harmful rather than helpful. After the conception of thoughtful and organized charity was given to the world by Chalmers a new era began. We have learnt that the giving of aid is the least that can be done. The right purpose of charit3r is to try to make it unnecessary by overcoming its causes. There must be careful knowledge to avoid creating pauperism, and encouraging vagabondage and trampdom. But the whole problem is not solved by the organized method which is necessary for society. Into it must enter the direct interest and care of the poor, needy and neglected, by individual work. We cannot delegate charity simply to organization. Often the greatest benefit, namely, the personal touch, is lost in the official machinery of charity. The poor resent being treated like cases. If charity is to liberate it must come from a motive . to develop character. The sphere of charity covers all the good that can be done wherever good is needed by any one in distress. There 234 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT is a clanger in our day of making charity a substitute for justice. Men of great riches organize it as a business. While such work meets some of the great needs of the world it ought not to become a sport of wealth, or close our eyes to the examination of the sources of wealth and their moral justification because wealth has become charitable. In the ancient world friendship was given a large place in ethics. Aristotle devotes more space to it than to any other virtue. Under it he includes love and its various manifestations. Friendship was the great social virtue. Since Christianity taught us to put the emphasis upon love friendship has taken a secondary place. It is not extended so much to attitudes between groups, as to the relation between individuals. But it is still of high moralizing value. The foundation of friendship must rest upon honesty and sincerity between friends, and a common purpose in life. Some worthwhile cause or ideal must unite real friends. The mere social attrac¬ tion is inadequate. Friendship requires differ¬ ence of individuality, but not too great a disparity. Friends must find in each other complementary qualities. The social standing and rank does not debar friendship especially among the young, when friendships that last are most often formed. Nevertheless there can¬ not be too great a social cleft between friends. With the better estimation of woman friend¬ ship can exist between those of different sex, although it has been most helpful between those of the same sex. A friend stands for a friend, defends him, speaks well of him, and without BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 235 any selfish purpose aids him in his moral un¬ folding. The best types of a tender and fine friendship are found in the stories of Jonathan and David, and of Damon and Pythias. In the modern world there has arisen an organized form of friendship in fraternities. If men unite for some beneficial and social end, and use their being together for the satisfaction of mutual helpfulness or sociability, there is a moral aid to be derived. But whenever a com¬ mon association encourages modes of initiation and enjoins secrecy by oath in imitation of the ceremonies for adolescents in the lower tribes it perpetuates unnecessary lower social atti¬ tudes that do not advance modern life morally. Wherever the sociability behind closed doors becomes immoral, or wherever association be¬ comes a destructive political or a persecuting agency, all moral right of existence has been forfeited. The life of fraternities is inimical to democracy when it develops snobbishness or separatism among larger groups. It is equally a prostitution of the right purpose of a frater¬ nity, if its exalts philanthropism to take the place of religion, or develops a certain kind of indefinite, universalistic faith that acts as a substitute for historic religion. Those that make fraternities a religion deceive themselves, and do not find the satisfaction, either in mysti¬ cism or ethics, which a real world-religion offers. Christianity with its claim for finality cannot legitimately suffer any inferior substi¬ tute, that fails in making Christ all-controlling and does not ask for love without restriction. Truth and freedom. What makes truth so 236 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT important in tlie moral life*? Wherefore is it basic? If we stop but a moment to consider wbat truth does we shall readily find an answer. Any kind of real truth has in it a power of deliverance from ignorance and error. Ignor¬ ance and error keep man from freedom. Truth as overcoming them bears within itself the power to free men. Christ has well stressed this in relation to spiritual truth, when He says : “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. ’ 7 5 But the freeing energy of s John VIII: 32. truth is apparent in every kind of truth, scientific, literary, artistic, social, moral, and religious. For this reason society needs truth to live together rightly and freely. Truth begets the confidence between men without which they cannot lead a common life. Our words and actions are the forces that either bind us together or rend us asunder. We can be united in an assured and reliable social life only where truth obtains. Without it no business, no com¬ merce, and no industry can thrive. It lies at the foundation of all intercourse in work or social life. The destruction of truth, therefore, affects not merely our own lives, but also the possibility of a trustworthy common, human life. The virtue which is most intimately con¬ nected with truth is wisdom. Wisdom is truth in solution. The great mistake of the rational¬ ists is to make wisdom purely intellectual. Its knowledge is the living and practical knoAvledge that needs both emotion and volition besides intellect. The amount of knowledge of a tech- BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 237 nical sort does not insure wisdom. There are a great many learned fools who miss the sub¬ stance of life. Wisdom is the full, rounded virtue in which the truth of the living moral relations of man, and his spiritual import, is preserved. It is more than calculating prudence. What is right in prudence receives a higher worth in wisdom, which has a strong aggressive motive, and is not hampered by the timidity and time-serving attitude of prudential con¬ siderations. Tactfidness is a child of wisdom, as well as sound, moral common sense. But both of these receive a depth and impetus through wisdom, which they do not possess of themselves. The way of truth is not at all times simple and easy. There arise conflicts in conditions and situations which put us to the test, as to ivhether truth is always possible. If, e. g., I am put in trust of certain securities, and this fact becoming known to a burglar, I am confronted with a pistol, and asked to reveal the where¬ abouts of the securities, what shall I do? Is it best to tell the truth and betray my trust, or shall I mislead the burglar, and save my life and the securities? A more frequent case is that which occurs in the life of a physician, when a very sick person asks about the chances of recovery. Shall the doctor tell the truth and possibly shock the patient if the chances are poor, or shall a wrong but cheerful statement be made if necessary at the expense of truth? The first case is typical of situations in which evil creates a conflict of duties. It is well to remember that a burglar has no right to 238 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT demand the truth from any one when he seeks to commit a crime. But even in such a condi¬ tion where we do not owe the truth it is not right to lie because it is the easiest escape. Of course the preservation of our life is incumbent upon us, and as an attack compels a defense the most effective defense is allowable. In the second instance, that of the physician, it is often possible to tell no direct untruth and still to keep the patient cheerful and hopeful. The past character of a man will determine his ability to meet such problems in consistency with the truth. The general rule is to keep to the truth always, and so to school ourselves as to meet even the exigencies of conflict with the least loss of truth. The manner in which many people help themselves in a dilemma shows that they lack the finer sense of truth, and find many occasions for lying, because they fear to tell the truth, and use frequent, inexcusable lies under the specious plea of necessity. The direct opposite of the truth is a lie, which may be defined as an intentional untruth with the purpose to deceive. We may make state¬ ments that do not correspond with facts. If such statements grow out of ignorance and are unintentional, we are not at fault though they are not the truth. Only then do words and acts become a lie when we know the truth, and with¬ hold or prevert it with a purpose. Often we tell a partial truth when we know the whole, or we stress certain features to the neglect of others. We apply to sober fact the inventive power that makes a good story. All of these attitudes are misrepresentations , even though BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 239 they are not complete reversals of the truth. More harm is done generally by half-truths than by whole lies. It is the same spirit of lying through which we judge others , and stress their faults to the damage of their char¬ acter. Truth seeks in love to find the good in all men. Unfair criticism of others, and harsh judgment rise from milder gossip to the severe form of totally wrong slander. Almost as frequent as the lie of the misrepresentation of others, is the modern abuse of the oath. Per¬ jury has ceased to be regarded as a great sin. Men take an oath very lightly, and do not con¬ sider its tremendous import upon human soci¬ ety. Its establishment was to guarantee the full truth when important issues involving life or property were at stake. Much injustice has been done through perjury. The deepest rea¬ son why is has become so common is that men have lost the religious sense, and do not fear the God of all truth. There is a relation between truth and current propaganda that calls for moral consideration. When men assert their convictions, whether in matters of social and political or of religious import, they have a right to proclaim and labor for the spread of their views. But such de¬ fense of ideals is different from modern propa¬ ganda that is found in many quarters. The free proclamation of truth, out of which follows the freedom of speech and utterance, seeks to have the truth prevail in the conflict of opinions. But propaganda wants the side for which it stands to succeed. It is based on party spirit, and is not willing to hear the truth 240 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT of other men. Partisan in origin and desirous of power it works for the triumph of its own position and not for the sake of pure truth. Some of the advocates of free speech want liberty simply to propagate doctrines for the destruction of society. Whole groups are only fed the pabulum of their party, and are made zealots that help toward the destruction of tolerance. Even the public press often fails to aid the truth. It has become in many instances the mouthpiece of a propaganda. But where this is not so directly the case the very concep¬ tion of what is news tends to injure the full truth. The object of an American newspaper is to satisfy the taste of the public for some interesting and exciting news. From the lesser curiosity to the highest sensationalism the pur¬ pose is to serve the public by writing a telling story. Facts are not assembled and sifted as they would be by an impartial historian, but the high lights and the dramatic incidents are told often out of all relation to all the facts in their actual connection. News in the daily press possess the character of the novel and drama while they purport to be the relation of facts. This situation makes it almost impos¬ sible for the public, because of its perverted taste, to receive and know the truth when it is most necessary to know it. The press is largely in the hands of powerful interests and serves them and their political and social interests. This adds to the loss of truth and it makes the press even more the servant of propaganda, and not the organ of free public opinion and the servant of truth in its full character. BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 241 Another conflict arises between truth and prejudice. All men have and hold certain pre¬ suppositions. No one is entirely free from fixed and controlling ideas and ideals which color all the positions taken. Every one has some philosophy of life.6 But while all of us are thus men of certain views it is essential that we remain open to other views. We may have certain opinions hut we must not become opin¬ ionated. Prejudice closes our minds to other positions than our own. It is a perversion of the right to our own convictions and ideas. The fact of the rule of prejudice has aided in dividing society. Too many are men of a slogan, and the slogan makes unfree. The con¬ stant aim of true education ought to be to deliver us from the spirit of prejudice, through which without adequate knowledge we are pre- judging others and their ideas, beliefs and attitudes. Truth has a very important hearing upoq freedom of thought and research.7 If truth be hampered it often cannot be found. There must be the guarantee of real liberty to enable the finding of new truth. It is a common human experience that the pathfinders of truth are often persecuted and rejected and yet only by true liberty can the progress of knowledge be advanced. Freedom to think and search must not, however, he identified with so-called free thought. Free thought is the attitude of a group of men who deny theism, and are inimi¬ cal to all religious positions, because they do 6 Hibben, A Defense of Prejudice. 7 Of. John Stuart Mill ’s Essay on Liberty. 242 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT not understand its psychology and history. But genuine freedom must come gradually in the course of education. If there is no proper preparation the result is confusion and doubt. The best method for the freedom of thought is criticism, which seeks not merely to remove the unestablished, but also to make sure and clear the real facts, and to defend the proper infer¬ ences through constructive effort. Justice and freedom. What is the relation of justice to the ethical problem! What does it mean for liberty! Justice is the virtue that renders to every one what rightly belongs to him. It also holds the balance between all, and properly correlates individuals and groups in society. Without it men cannot live and do their work freely. It is the protection of just liberty, and preserves it from becoming either anarchistic or restricted. Aristotle distin¬ guished between punitive justice and distribu¬ tive justice. The former is the problem of the state. The latter is the striving after the right allotment to each and all of their proper deserts and rights. Justice is not possible on a dead level of equality; it rather demands equability. Because proportionality is essential to justice, it can only fulfill its aim when it is not absolute, but includes equity and the fair consideration of each separate case and instance with all its details and limits. When thus applied it is the inner cement of human society and makes it fundamentally moral. What is the relation of justice to righteous¬ ness ! Righteousness is the virtue that em¬ bodies right anl lives for it. It is more con- BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 243 prehensive and lies deeper than justice. The ideal of righteousness leads to the execution of justice. There is a religious attitude in it, and it has regard to our relation to God as well as men. It belongs to the nature of God Himself. When men are desirous of it they seek the power not ourselves that make for righteous¬ ness. For this reason Christ calls those blessed, who hunger and thirst after righteous¬ ness.8 Justice will receive its strongest im¬ petus where righteousness with all that is im¬ plies becomes the ideal, that is more and more incarnate in our longing and habit. If justice is to become a real power there must be a real 'knowledge of men about each other. Nothing hinders justice so much as the lack of proper understanding of the position and need of different men and of the varying groups of society. With right understanding there must he combined the power of imagina¬ tion by which we can place ourselves in the posi¬ tion of others. The mere dry light of know¬ ledge is not sufficient, and men often lack in understanding each other just because there is a want of imagination. Imagination will be easy where sympathy is present as a living motive. But the problem of justice requires a wider range than from man to man. It must become general and universal. To do this justice must grow out of and be sustained by public opinion.9 Whatever men think and feel about common issues creates public opinion. It is the idea and conception of the average mind, 8 Matthew V : 6. 9 Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion. 244 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT no matter whether it be voiced on the platform or through the press. Public opinion if rightly informed desires what is just. While the voice of the people is not invariably the voice of God, there is a strong impress of the moral order among men, which calls for justice. But pub¬ lic opinion must be kept sound and sane. There are constant efforts by all kinds of jin¬ goes and wild propagandists to stir up the crowd feeling unjustly and to arouse the mob spirit. The real necessity is a continuous train¬ ing of the common mind about the affairs that concern it in a spirit of impartiality and fair¬ ness. The organs of public opinion must become educative rather than impulsive in their efforts. One of the great hindrances of justice is the manner in which men interpret it in their own interest. There is a readiness to demand jus¬ tice as soon as the act of justice renders my own to me. The angle from which we often look at justice is that of individual gain, benefit or protection. This makes justice selfish while its aim is to seek what belongs to all rather than what merely belongs to me. There ought to be a common sense and desire that justice be meted out to all who do wrong, and that it bless all who do right. It may happen that full justice will impose a hardship on me, limit me, and control me in my desires and wishes. If I seek and pursue justice I will gladly allow this limitation, for it guarantees the general right and liberty. The satisfaction of justice only for myself will finally so contract and in¬ jure common justice so that in the end I will BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 245 lose the advantages of justice for myself. Jus¬ tice for me cannot be maintained unless justice for all be conserved. The necessity of justice for all is unrealized today in the conflict between groups and tbeir interests especially in the economic issues. Millions of men are deprived of what is due them through a conception of justice, which separate industrial groups contend for as their right. The controlling leaders of industry can only apparently understand, e. g., the excesses of collective bargaining, the evils of the closed shop, etc. They see and know their responsi¬ bility toward their corporation and their stock¬ holders. Their sense for order is strong against those who destroy property and cruelly take lives in a strike. But there seems to be no appreciation of what the opposing group con¬ ceives to be justice. Still less is the public considered with its claims of justice. The laboring group is only led to know of all the misdeeds of capital, and never of its virtues. It looks upon all who employ it as grasping and unjust. The attitude is to be that of watching, and fighting as soon as there is a loss of what seems just in the eyes of those who desire large wages, without considering the whole status of business. Capital is accused of being intrenched in government, and of using military power to suppress the laborer. There is mostly injustice to be warded off through organized power. Class consciousness is fos¬ tered to the extreme. All that labor demands is just, all that capital wants is unjust. This attitude of warfare creates deception and in- 246 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT creases injustice. The common liberty of men is impaired. The remedy is the cultivation of a sense of justice beyond selfish interests. If this cannot be accomplished society will destroy itself despite all industrial progress. There must be a removal of all those leaders in indus¬ try and labor who live by agitation, in order that real agreements in justice can be made between men on the basis of mutual willingness to understand each other and to work together, rather than to claim a victory in their conduct of warfare of class against class. A difficulty is encountered by justice because of the power of nationality. There has been so strong a development of national feeling in the last centuries as to crowd back the common ideal of humanity. Nationalism has enlarged the rights of the single nation, and cultivated the attachment to the national language and customs in a manner that exaggerates the place and claim of the single nation. Suspicions and jealousies are kept alive between nation and nation. The children of a nation are taught history in such a way as to exalt one’s own nation, to describe its actions as always right, and to show the evil in the nation that is the enemy. Nationalism encroaches even upon religion and narrows down its universal, human outlook and sympathy to the interest of one tongue and nation. This is a survival that ought to have no place in the modern world. Still more powerful against broad justice is the consciousness and feeling of race. The racial forces are mighty undercurrents in life that often carry along men against their better BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 247 judgment. Racial prejudice is hindering the common understanding and liberty of mankind. There are two outstanding examples of racial feeling. The first is the anti-Semitic move¬ ment. In a spirit of unjust discrimination all the faults and none of the good qualities of the Jew are stressed. Because of successful qualities in competition, bold and aggressive methods of business, pushing attitudes in social intercourse that mark the lower classes, there is deep- seated antipathy and sometimes a strong oppo¬ sition to the Jew. Sins that are common are attributed to him alone, and he is made the scapegoat. Past history is ransacked to dem¬ onstrate his wrong actions. All modern radi¬ cal movements are traced to him because he has powerful intellectuals. There is no attempt to understand and to do justice. The second case is purely American. It is our attitude toward the Negro. With all the growing attempts to repair the wrong of past slavery there is still a failure to render full and adequate justice. While it is clear that there can never be a racial intermingling of white and black there can be larger opportunity and privilege for the Negro. But whenever this is given there is a reaction. A similar prejudice is constantly fostered toward the yellow races.10 Racial distinctions are exaggerated. Christianity claims that God made of one blood all nations and peoples.11 It would have no distinction in the great finali¬ ties of life. An important problem is the relation of jus- 10 Lothrop Stoddard, The Rising Tide of Color. 11 Acts XVII: 26. 248 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT tice to law as enacted positively by the state. If the law is to serve justice it ought to be the expression of the moral conviction of a people. At no time will the positive law measure up to the ideal standard. When men endeavor to make and enforce a law which does not have the common sentiment and opinion back of it the law is not kept. The result is the lowering of respect for law and the increase of injustice. A strong minority ought never to force a law upon a majority. But on the other hand the morally more thoughtful and advanced minor¬ ity must lead the more sluggish majority. Ethics cannot lower its demand to meet the de¬ fects of existing laws. To assure the real lib¬ erty it dare not abate any of its ideal attitudes. REFERENCES James Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Part II, Chap¬ ters II, I. Henry W. Wright, Self-Realisation, Part IV, Chapters II, III. Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, Part III, Chapter XIX. Mary W. Calkins, The Good Mian and the Good, Chapter IX. L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Part I, Chapter III. Ed. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, Chapters XXIII, XXX, XXXI. Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, Part III, Chapter VIII. Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Book III, Chapters VIII, IX, X. XI; Book IV, Chapter II. CHAPTER XII THE FAMILY What is the value of the family? Among all of the social forms of personality none is more fundamental than the family. It is basic to all society and fundamental to its moral well-being. Today it is being admitted by students of early society that there is no evidence to prove, that the family did not always exist. It is the primitive form of society. Before industry passed through the great modern revolution, caused by the invention of machinery, the family was a large centre of industrial activity. While this is no longer the case, it is still neces¬ sary that the habits for industry and all occu¬ pations in life must receive their beginnings in the home. The most essential qualities in all work, as e. g. carefulness, cleanliness, accuracy, thoroughness, etc., are best formed in the family. Without the family the fruits and results of civilization would not have been handed on. Through it civilization must be transferred from generation to generation. “It must be remembered that civilization con¬ sists in part of material things and in part of ideas, attitudes, customs, and so on. The latter set of phenomena make up by far the larger part of civilization. Now, even material 249 250 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT tilings, as part of culture, are not passed along automatically: their uses must be explained, the implied techniques learned. As to spiritual culture, including language itself, there is no way for it to be passed on, in a society without writing, except through verbal explanation and teachings and the direct observation by the learner of what is being said and done. It is evident that a large part of what the individual receives in this way, especially during the highly important formative years of early childhood, is brought to him through the medium of the family. The culture of man ahvays carries with it in the customs and ideas certain moral conceptions. For these the fam¬ ily is the early school. Connected with the moral training of the family is the religious attitude. From the earliest time the home was also the place of religious teaching and culture. In many religions there were special gods of the home and hearth. Religion in the family consisted not only in ceremonies and practices, but also in certain moral rules and maxims. No world religion, least of all Christianity, has abolished the religion in the home as necessary both for religious life and for moral culture. The spirit of the family. What is the essen¬ tial spirit in the personality of the family? What is to be its peculiar contribution for indi¬ vidual and social life? The family is the insti¬ tution of love. In it there is the place for the unfolding, first of all, of the kindly virtues. The affection, that ought to dwell in the family i Alexander A. Goldenweiser, Early Civilization, p. 239. THE FAMILY 251 as the essential attitude between all its mem¬ bers, is the milieu in which kindness, gentle¬ ness, forbearance, etc. can develop. But these virtues as expressions of love can lead to the other virtues. The spirit of love, for which the foundation must be laid in the home, can be made the controlling disposition only through the early habits of childhood. There are cer¬ tain very elemental qualities that mark the family, and condition its influence upon the life of freedom. The family life is one in which society touches us or ought to touch us with the least restraints. It is true that the first virtue of child-life is obedience. But its meaning is con¬ trol and guidance into moral liberty. While its reasons are not always apparent to the child it tends toward freedom. Through it men are led into the habits of the moral order. Where obedience has been lacking, or where cruelty has destroyed its loving justice, an individual¬ ism develops that cannot give moral freedom. Obedience justly growing in love is the easiest way and the most free way of leading human life into the world of moral relations. In no other social form than the family is the same liberty and its right control possible in the same spirit of affection. The family life is one of close intimacy. In the family we cannot but become familiar with each other. The familiarity reveals us to each other. Nowhere can one so truly find what a man is as in his own family. This fact neces¬ sarily demands that we must have the best sort of character. If family intimacy breeds con- 252 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT tempt for each other it shows great moral defic¬ iencies. Consequently mutual regard and respect, that must make familiarity good, ought to be present and rest upon genuine ethical honor. A good family life puts us on our mettle to be what we claim. Therefore the virtues of sincerity, honesty, truthfulness are needed. We cannot hide our real selves in the family. If any one leads a double life beyond the family the very foundations of the home are undermined. Straightforwardness, open¬ ness with each other, confidences without secrecy, can alone maintain the free, loving spirit of the home. The life of the home is one as between equals in the relation of husband and wife, and / between brothers and sisters. The relationship of man and wife ought to be one of admiring, justly estimating regard, and intimate fellow¬ ship of genuine affection and love. The close¬ ness of the two guiding lives in the home must be one of association in liberty. Individual development and common life ought to inter¬ penetrate in such a manner as to make the free individual and the free family in love. The children, in relation to their parents in obed¬ ience, ought to be taken up more and more into companionship by their parents, provided this privilege is not abused and turned into famil¬ iarity without respect. This danger can be avoided where the parents have a character that of itself inspires honor and respect. The life of brothers and sisters as they grow up to¬ gether makes possible mutual consideration. It teaches us that we are not alone in the world, THE FAMILY 253 and that liberty must be the right of every one. Natural selfishness that wants all and is not willing to share cannot exist in the home. It must be overcome by the spirit of love as lib¬ erty. Thus the family becomes the first school of justice, fairness and considerateness. In the same manner children cannot live together without truthfulness. The necessity of truth toward each other, and toward the parents, can be borne in upon their lives. Thus all the basic social virtues find their starting point in the family. In it they can be formed and made habits under the most helpful and favorable circumstances at a time when habits are cap¬ able of being moulded. Courtship and engagement. What ought to be the relation of the sexes to each other in the days of courtship and engagement? How can these days of approach and the finding of one ’s mate be made ethical? Courtship and engage¬ ment are so largely controlled by the customs of an age that young people often simply fol¬ low the custom, and give little thought to the moral implications in making a choice that will affect their whole future. Formerly courtship and engagement were controlled in large meas¬ ure by the parents. There was constant sur¬ veillance. The defect of this custom was the difficulty of young people really learning to know each other. It forbad the free associa¬ tion through which characters might test each other without interference. The present atti¬ tude is one of the utmost liberty. Restraint has been removed, but at the same time advice, guidance, and the experienced wisdom of the 254 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT elders are rejected. Is the present liberty real freedom, or has it cast aside what is valuable in parental advice, care and guidance? Are happier results following under the uncon¬ trolled modern method of courtship and engage¬ ment? The liberty which the sexes today possess has been hurt by the loss in many cases of the restraint, modesty, and refinement usual in polite intercourse. Respect for each other is often broken down by undue familiar¬ ity, and through the permission of privileges that should only be granted after marriage. Engagements in this day of uncontrolled liberty are dealt with in many cases as not binding. They ought to be the plighting of a troth not to be broken except under the most unusual and compelling circumstances. But the easy and thoughtless manner in which engagements are often made results in their underestimation. On the other hand an engagement is valued in some of our country districts as almost equal to marriage. In fact undue privileges are taken, and physical intimacies and intercourse are allowed to the detriment of the real mean¬ ing of marriage. Such liberties are not liberty, but uncontrolled and premature surrender to mere passion. They do not make for mutual respect and honor. Marriage. In what manner shall marriage be interpreted? What is its function and place? There are three conceptions about the estate of marriage. The first is the biological which considers marriage to be the mating of male and female. It stresses all of the physical facts in marriage, and demands that the best THE FAMILY 255 eugenic relations be obtained before and during marriage, in order to insure the maintenance and improvement of the human race biologi¬ cally. The second view is that of the attain¬ ment of individual happiness. According to it we are to find in marriage the satisfaction of the romance of life in the ideality and poetry of love. It dwells upon the need of loving com¬ panionship and its elevating power. The third position is the social. With a regard for and consideration of what marriage means for soc¬ iety, its continuance and welfare, it asks that we make marriage socially effective and ser¬ viceable. There is some truth in all of these three views. We cannot escape valuing the social import of marriage. It is bound up with the whole social complex and its life. But soc¬ ial considerations are not the only ones to be weighed. The theory of individual happiness has its right. We ought never to lose the lib¬ erty of individual life. As far as marriage heightens the development of individual life and adds to its joy it deserves its place. But finally the first and fundamental meaning of marriage is the union of man and wife for the perpetuation of mankind. The moral problem is to make this purpose serviceable to real per¬ sonality, individual and social. In the bonds of marriage there should be the proper, just and sane rendering of the marital due. (Debi- tum conjugale). For the sake of the creative joy of continuing life, and for the experience of fatherhood and motherhood, man and wife should not withhold from one another physi¬ cally. But usually the denial of intercourse, 256 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT and the straining of the marital tie through cold abstention, is not the great danger. There is rather a temptation to indulge in passion for its own sentient satisfaction. There may be a loss of the end of marriage because of mere sensual gratification. Through such abuse marriage is degraded to legalized indulgence in animal passion as such. This appears clearly when efforts are made to avoid the birth of children, which is the biological and moral jus¬ tification for physical contact. Formerly Amer¬ ica was notorious for its many abortions. To¬ day there is the escape of birth-control. Birth- control has its worth for the state to the degree, that the increase of the criminal class, and the handing down of really inheritable disease, make it necessary. But it is becoming so widely known through inconsiderate propa¬ ganda, that men and women are taught to in¬ dulge in mere animal passion without risking the birth of children both in marriage and out¬ side of marriage. Consequently it is morally dangerous and degrading, as it shows the way to the sensual for indulgence without responsi¬ bility. The whole physical side of marriage needs the intellectual, moral and spiritual fellowship to keep man and wife human beings. While marriage is no Platonic friendship, there must be the agreement and congeniality of two char¬ acters to avoid their being sunk into animality. It is for this reason that monogamy is essential, as the only form that can maintain the moral freedom. The practice of polyandry of the lower tribes has passed away among civilized THE FAMILY 257 people. But polygamy has sought a revival in the form of plural marriages. The plural marriage even under the most favorable con¬ ditions encourages man to uncontrolled passion, and puts woman necessarily in an inferior place, by destroying the intimacy of moral life between one man and one woman. It has been historically established that only in the union between one man and one woman can moral freedom be maintained. The Christian teaching about marriage begins with the recognition that man and woman are to become one flesh,2 and endorses the Old Testa¬ ment idea. Paul in view of the temptations at Corinth advises that it is better to marry than to burn.3 Personally he prefers to remain unmarried for the sake of his work. But Chris¬ tianity, protecting woman as the weaker vessel, does not stop with the admission of the biologi¬ cal side of marriage. It presents the ideal of the love of Christ and the Church toward each other, as typifying the relation of man and wife.4 As the Church looks up to Christ so the wife is to look up to her husband. There is no demand of submission to mere domination, but only the request of reliance upon the husband, and obedience in love to his guidance. The husband is to “love his wife as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it.” The greater duty of love is incumbent upon the husband, for he is to love to the giving of himself for his wife. This is the moral reversal of the physical condition in marriage, in which 2 Mark X : 7, 8. 3 I Corinthians VII : 9. * Ephesians V : 24 if. 258 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT the wife gives herself, and bears the heavy physical burdens. It is this ideality which lifts the marriage np into the highest moral and spiritual sphere. Divorce. Under what conditions can marriage be severed? The tremendous and threatening increase of divorces in America makes this a very serious problem. Ethics is not primarily concerned with the kind of legislation that should be passed to restrict divorces. It is troubled about the fact that marriage is entered into lightly and unadvisedly, carelessly and inconsiderately. The ease of divorce is depreci¬ ated because of the moral injury inflicted by it, and the evil effect upon the children of the home. It is self-evident that the best legislation will not cure the low moral valuation of the binding power of marriage until there is an advance in the general moral consciousness about divorce. The proposal seriously made to overcome the risks of marriage through trial-marriages can¬ not be entertained. Such trial-marriages will lead to indulgence, and will lack the moral force and obligation that is needed to make marriage morally effective. The causes for which divorce is allowable have been, according to Christian ideals, adultery5 and cruel dissertion.6 The latter is supposed to have adultery in view. Therefore the only cause valid in Christian ideals is adultery. Perhaps there might be added conditions of cruelty and persecution that break down life. But incompatibility of temper and similar causes today allowed among 5 Maitthew XIX : 9. s I Corinthians VXI : 15. THE FAMILY 259 us are insufficient. A wrong conception of indi¬ vidual liberty lias destroyed the real liberty of the common life in marriage. Where hard bur¬ dens must be borne the very submission in a patient spirit helps us to rise above them. Liberty must often be attained not by escape from difficulties but through an inner conquest of them. Divorce should only be sought when conditions in marriage make the moral life really impossible. No mere considerations of ease, comfort, and individual pleasure are ethical reasons to justify divorce. The evil of prostitution. What must be the ethical judgment about the sin of prostitution! There can be no condoning of prostitution whether engaged in by the unmarried or married. As far as the man is concerned it makes him a slave of passion, and increases his animality. All indulgence outside of the married estate is destructive of the dignity and liberty of the moral life. But the greatest wrong of prostitution is the degradation to which it brings woman. For her the selling of her body to gratify the lust of the unrestrained male means the abandonment of her life as moral. She sacrifices her whole character and becomes a sensual piece of flesh. Man accepts her no longer as a personality but only a con¬ venience for his passion. The wrong standards of society allow the man to escape. There is a double standard which condemns woman, puts all the disgrace upon her, and permits man to remain seemingly and outwardly respectable although he is the aggressor. For this reason there can be no acceptance of any proposal to 260 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT legalize prostitution. Wherever it has been tried it only offered an excuse for an evil that can legitimately have no excuse. Even under the taboo prostitution is an awful sin; to legalize it would be a new invitation to men, who are responsible for its existence and continuance. Free love offers an escape from prostitution, but morally it is only a safer type of prostitution. The single life. What is the moral justification of the single life? Under what conditions can it he lived morally? There are those who ought never to marry on account of physical reasons. Where any one clearly knows this hindrance, and still marries, entailing misery and sickness upon life to he born, there is guilt and wrong in marriage. Some individuals are under special and peculiar limiting conditions, imposed upon them through the care of their immediate fam¬ ily, who justly refrain from marriage, because they could not fulfill their prior duties that no one else can assume. A great mission and call in life may so fill the mind and heart of an indi¬ vidual that marriage is not thought of. Christ spoke of men who were eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.7 Paul did not marry because he thought that he could better fulfill his mission, and care for the cause of the Lord in single life.8 Men and women can still devote themselves to such labor of mercy or religion and not marry. But the celibate life must not be made a rule for any office or class. It should he the free choice of individuals who can remain ? Matthew XIX : 12. 8 I Corinthians VII : 7. THE FAMILY 261 unmarried, and be pure in the suppression of passion. But there are many who remain single for reasons that are not morally defensible. When men and women abstain from marriage because they want to live with certain economic com¬ forts, and possess the luxuries of life, they have no adequate excuse. The love of ease, and individual gratification through the soft things of life, are demoralizing. If a wrong intellec- tualism, or a selfish conception of liberty, turns men away from the married estate, the results are not liberating. The man or woman who deliberately avoids marriage to remain free, will find that in later life the risks of great physical and mental disturbances are incurred. The character is liable to become self-centred and unhappy; the outlook upon life mean and small; oddities of conduct will appear that contract life into unsatisfying habits. The way of escape for those who have lacked a chance for marriage is to give themselves to the care of some rela¬ tives, or to find their freedom in the work of some noble cause. The freedom of woman. What should be the right and freedom of woman in the light of our modern advance? The answer to this question depends upon settling the problem as to the real mission of woman. There are two opposite attitudes that combat each other. The first is the position, that woman is destined only for the home, that her function is to be the home¬ maker. In the execution of this destiny, some demand of woman, that she should assume the work of the home with all its little cares and 262 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT narrowing minutiae. Tlie women who lead this sort of life make themselves slaves and drudges. Different homes will of course grant different possibilities according to the economic liberty which they allow. But in no case should the home with all its labor interfere with the intel¬ lectual and moral growth of woman. The truth of the home-making mission of woman will be lost if woman assumes the bulk of the burdens of the family life. Connected with the home as the ideal for woman is the duty of motherhood. It is this obligation which largely justifies the attachment of woman to the home. Motherhood is a fundamental privilege and also an elemental burden of woman. It ought not to be evaded for any selfish reason, for through it woman fulfills a noble service. But the duty of mother¬ hood does not include the whole responsibility for the education of the child. This must be shared in by the father if the moral training of the child is to be strong as well as gentle. In direct opposition to woman as destined exclusively for the home is the conception of her full freedom to a vocation. The preparation for a useful life in a freely chosen occupation is demanded in modern life because woman does not know whether she shall be called to a home and to motherhood. But a woman’s voca¬ tion ought not to rest merely upon her equality with man. It ought to satisfy her peculiar physical and mental ability and limitation. Formerly the limitation of woman was over¬ emphasized, but the modern success of woman in many different callings has established her large rights. On the other hand there has THE FAMILY 263 arisen a type of woman who, untrue to her best nature, has pressed into occupations that have impaired her womanliness. We need a more balanced conception than exists through the reaction of emancipation against the former denial of the rights of woman. The radical advocates ought to remember that the Nora of Ibsen’s Doll’s House is not the last word. A woman cannot be a plaything of man; but does this justify escape from the home and neglect of it for the sake of a vocation? A thoughtful sequel to Nora is Rosalie in Hutchinson’s “This Freedom. ’ ’ Rosalie reaps the sad consequences of the modern emancipated woman in the aberrations of her children. What is the early Christian position in refer¬ ence to woman? Christ does not choose any woman among the twelve, but He deals with woman in utter freedom, as we see, e. g., in the woman that is a sinner,9 and in the Samaritan woman at the well.10 Women minister unto Him, and He first shows Himself to women after the resurrection. His tenderest friendships is with Mary of Bethany. In the early Church women prophesy.11 Paul believes that in Christ there is neither male nor female.12 But he advocates the limitation of woman in the public worship, and wants her to keep silent and ask any questions that may be in her mind of her husband at home.13 Woman is to have her head covered in the public assemblies. While the 9 Luke VII: 37 ff. 10 John IV: 1 ff. 11 I Corinthians XI : 5 ; Acts XXI : 9. 12 Gal. HI: 28. is I Corinthians XIV : 34, 35. 264 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT man is nothing without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord, still the man is the head of the woman, as Christ is the head of the man. The glory of the man is Christ, the glory of woman is man.14 This limita¬ tion of woman was intended for Corinth where women were rather too free and bold. A social gradation which puts woman below man is implied, but this differentiation does not affect the equality of soul. It only touches the outer customs of the church and leads Paul to a principle of the headship of man. The right of the child. What is the legitimate place of the child ? How shall its moral freedom be regarded! There has been great progress in the proper appreciation of the child and of child-life in our days. We have begun to apply the ideal of Christ15 in definite manner; and we are learning to understand Paul, when, with all admonition to the child to be obedient, he coun¬ sels parents not to be cruel, and not to provoke their children to wrath.16 The day of harsh and undue severity toward the child has passed ex¬ cept where there is backwardness of moral status. The child is being studied to understand its real nature and mind. Everything is being done in home and school to give the child the best conditions of health and the best opportun¬ ities of education. It is only the greed of selfish economic interest in industry that is holding to child-labor because it is cheap. The pressure of the law must still be used against the moral delinquency of profiteering manufacturers. 14 Cf. I Corinthians XI. 1 5 Matthew XIX: 14. 16 Ephesians VI : 4. THE FAMILY 265 But perhaps, with all the care now given the child and with all the liberty that is allowed, the real freedom of the child that will make it a personality has not been attained. Parents have become indulgent to the extreme, and long before the child knows what best to choose it is permitted to have its own way. Over against the excessive discipline of a former age we have scarcely any discipline at all. Thus the child becomes selfish and fails to understand common rights of liberty. To gain the attention of the child in education we have almost turned the school into a playground. From the Montessori school upward the child is supposed by some innate tact to discover itself, and to be capable as a born democrat to govern itself without any interference by elders. Interest is the charm, the open sesame of education. Duty has been relegated to the scrap-heap. The result is a life that cannot meet the real issues and will fail in the test of experience because it has not learnt the control of freedom and its law of love. The child has to be chastened so gently that it does not know that it is being punished. All corporal punishment is tabooed, and yet sweet reasonableness is not producing saints. Self- willed ideas of desire take the place of moral freedom; and we have youth, often drunk with the intoxication of its unrestrained rights and liberty, that has lost its moral background. The modern liberty of the child will destroy vital liberty unless we return to some sense and practice of the truth, that it is good for youth to bear its yoke. Control in freedom is only learnt when the child is controlled to freedom. 266 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT REFERENCES Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, Chapter XXYI. Borden P. Bowne, Principles of Ethics, Chapter IX. L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Part I, Chapters IV, V. Ed. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, Chapters XXV, XXVI, XL, XLI, XLII, XLIII. Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Book IV, I. W. Wundt, Ethics, Part IV, Chapter II. Chas. Gore, The Question of Divorce. G. E. Howard, The Question of Matrimonial Institutions. W. Goodsell, The Family as a Social and Educational Institution. John Stuart Mill, On the Subjection of Women. CHAPTER XIII THE CHURCH Why treat of the church? What necessity is there for considering the church in a general ethic! Does the usual text-book on morals do so! There is no discussion at all in most hooks on ethics about the church. But this is a real oversight. Wherever there is religion there is some organization of it. Durkheim says correctly: “Never was there a religion without a church.” Religion particularly among the lower tribes is social. Individual religion is a later development, and it has never crowded out the social form. In any fairly full study of social ethics the church can no more be omitted than the family and the state. As religion has a bearing upon morals1 its social form must raise some ethical questions. As far as the church develops man ethically it must receive attention in any moral estimate of man. Freedom of character, which leads it to function for the good, lies within the task of the church. An effort must be made to evaluate the church ethically. What is its service for morals! To what degree does it meet the ideal! These practical questions about i Cf. above Chapter II. 267 268 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT the present worth and work of the church lead us to search for its fundamental ethical place. Our problem today is to find the fundamental moral issues of the Christian church. The church and truth. Why do we associate the church, first of all, with truth ? The church is the institution of truth. As the family is the the moral centre for the kindly virtues, so the church is the centre for truth. But we must define what is meant by truth. There is truth ascertained and found by man as he searches and discovers the usual, natural facts about the universe and himself. But there is also truth that is concerned with spiritual and moral realities. Man has always accepted such truth in religion as a gift and bestowal. Consequently all religion claims revelation of spiritual truth. This truth aims to satisfv man ’s soul. It is not %/ truth for the intellect as such, not for the emotions and volitions in themselves, for it serves neither science nor art as an end. The truth of religion is the final, ultimate necessity for man’s spirit and spiritual life. In Chris¬ tianity Christ asks to be accepted as the way of religion and the reality of life because He is the truth.2 The religious satisfaction in truth is to be obtained in Christ, the personality, the fulfillment of religion and the motive of freedom in ethics. In striving to know the moral service of religious truth we are led to admit its super¬ naturalism. If the truth of religion abandons its supernaturalism, with its peculiar authori¬ tative claim, it becomes speculation, and its 2 John XIV: 6. THE CHURCH 269 systematic efforts are only philosophy. It is the belief in the divine character of the truth of religion which differentiates it from other truth, and therefore gives it a peculiar power for the moral life. Real, vital religious truth is the enemy of superstition. What low forms of religion held and did, and what magic practiced and in part handed on from age to age, con¬ stitute the remnants of traditional belief and practice which we call superstition. Super¬ stition is in conflict with the growth of know¬ ledge, and, despite the appearance of order, has in reality a disordered, disjointed world gov¬ erned by the arbitrary caprice of a distorted supernaturalism. Rationalism has never liber¬ ated men in the mass from superstition. Some times even the most intelligent men hold to strange superstitions contradicting their gen¬ eral rationality. The spirit of man longs for some divine tokens, and will often seek them in the strangest quarters and in the most illogical way. The escape from superstition and the ethical freedom in religious truth is best guar¬ anteed through a supernaturalism that does not deny or destroy the just results and fair infer¬ ences of the searching mind of man. The church must have progressive truth to preserve a just supernaturalism. As mankind passes from age to age the treasure of truth which the church possesses must be re-inter¬ preted again and again. It must satisfy the changing mental outlook of men, and their temper and mood in different times. Even the common people have a different state of mind in the various periods of history. If the reli- 270 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT gious truth of the church is to avoid becoming superstition it cannot assume a final statement of the faith in the forms of thought or culture of any past age. A church, which rejects all that is modern, because it has clothed its con¬ ceptions in the garments of the scientific and philosophic terms that have been outlived, serves ignorance and obstructs the free pro¬ gress of truth. Nothing serves so much to create the impression that religion needs ignor¬ ance, as the attitude that will not rethink its faith in each age, but simply lives on inherited, undigested ideas that are memorized and repeated. There must be a continuous read¬ justment by the church of its supernaturalism to progress, not by destroying the supernatural but by seeing it in a new light. But the progressive adjustment of religious truth ought not to degenerate into radicalism. The spirit of man needs a continuity and cer¬ tainty in his faith. These radicalism cannot furnish, for it has no sense of history, and wants to reconstruct the whole world anew in every age. Through it the very roots of supernatur¬ alism are constantly being uprooted. Progress cannot identify itself with radicalism, and therefore needs the balance of a sane conserva¬ tism. Not all that is new is true, and not all that is old is wrong. There are certain per¬ manent characteristics of man, and he possesses certain ineradicable spiritual and moral needs. To meet these a church must hold to some con¬ servative content of truth which it cannot abandon in essence without a loss, no matter THE CHURCH 271 how it brings this unchanging content to men in varying forms. But have we not missed the whole underlying meaning of religion by stressing the relation of the church to truth! Is not religion essentially emotion! This peculiar, prevailing idea, that rests on certain inferences form primitive reli¬ gion, and upon a selection of certain outstanding features in American forms of religious life, disrupts man’s inner spiritual life. Its atomism fails to. note that there never has been a religion without a set of beliefs and convictions. Super¬ naturalism is not merely for the heart but also for the head. It is active but also meditative. The truth of the church is for the whole man, and therefore it cannot be freed from intellec¬ tual elements. Religion to be lived must be understood, otherwise it becomes mere imitation or unthinking traditionalism. Men have always had some forms of belief and therefore some creeds. Creeds are as universal as religion. What we believe must clothe itself into certain ideas and be stated in certain words. The con¬ tention for a creedless religion deceives itself, for a religion without convictions and some statement of its faith, whether definitely for¬ mulated or not, is impossible psychologically, and cannot be found historically. The truth believed must, however, be believed freely, and must be freely confessed and spread. The ethical danger of a creed is not its existence, but its intolerant abuse. The effort should never be made to impose it on any one without willing acceptance after full and free conviction. The inherited creeds must be interpreted his- 272 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT torically and used as guides intelligently. They dare not be made masters of our faith, but only notable formulations of the past, which express the substance of what we are convinced of as our own belief. Whenever a church endeavors to enforce its creed, and assents to persecution of whatever kind, it destroys the free appeal of truth. Religious truth like all truth must wTin through its own merit and not through force or through false authority. Freedom is the very atmosphere of truth. The nature of the church's work. What shall the church do with the truth that it holds! What is its purpose! The truth for which the church stands puts the obligation upon the church to perpetuate and to spread it. Because there is a value for freedom in spiritual truth it must be handed on through the agency of the church. The justification of the church ethically in extending itself rests upon the moral results of its truth. It is this test which Christ desires to have applied to all teachers and teaching, when He says: “By their fruits ye shall know them. 9 9 3 The ethical outcome of doctrine is its defense and the strength of its appeal. The mere mystical satisfaction has its place but it is not adequate, because religious truth tends toward the conscience. A church has a moral right of existence, and a justifica¬ tion of its work if it holds to a definite body of truth. The better the ethical progress brought about by the work of the church, the larger its right to live. It does happen that a good faith does not produce its logical results, be- s Matthew VII : 20. THE CHURCH 273 cause of individual sin, or through limiting and distorting national characteristics. On the con¬ trary, a faith ethically inferior will not bring about the defects of its position, because those that hold it may be under the past influence of a better truth, or may follow a superior morality about them in a society shaped by higher stan¬ dards. Whenever in history a certain side of truth seemed neglected it offered opportunity for a new group to stress the truth that was overlooked. But finally no church can ade¬ quately live through the emphasis upon a single great element of truth. There must be the balance of the whole body of truth. An excess often rights itself in history. Extreme predes¬ tination has passed away in part through its ethical defect. Exclusive emotionalism seems to have had its day because it lacked the fullest appeal to conscience. The church may use any means to win men to its truth, but if it wants the moral results for character it must use the method most effec¬ tive for ethical growth. Character is not formed by quick changes. It must grow gradually into personality through the habits of the good led by the ideal. This implies that moral progress is educative. Consequently that church will produce the best ethical advance that uses the best education for morals and religion. The child must receive the ideals and be led to know the right according to its capacity. From the age of childhood into youth, and onward, the work of the church in all its departments will be genuinely helpful for the moral unfolding, as far as it is educative. Education is not only 274 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT a specific task alongside of the other work of the church, but it ought to be the controlling spirit of all that the church does. The message of the church dare not he simply emotional, or a call to action. The basis must be instruction. Christ recognized this when He enjoined His disciples to bring in the nations by teaching them.4 Missionary operations will be of no final avail without impartation of truth by education. The moral demand upon the church is for thoughtful development, through the training that creates personality, in the freedom of the truth that is known and grows into the life of man. The church must also include in its work the right expression of love. Its truth always seeks to produce love. The God of Christianity is Love, anl love is the law of liberty in the Christian moral conception. The genuine spirit of love must lead the church to every kind of activity that love demands. No matter what general work may be carried on outside of the church, it ought to engage in all the spheres of rescue, prevention and true charity. Into them it should put the strength and power of its motive of love as superior in purpose and out¬ look. But the higher motive dare not neglect the best methods and plans of the present. High motives do not excuse deficient execution and wrong method. The church has often begun work, like charity organization, and then has allowed it to pass into the free use of society. The philanthropy of the present day has had its inspiration in the church, even if it is not 4 Matthew XXVIII: 20. THE CHURCH 275 credited to the cliurcli. Most of those who give themselves to modern philanthropy receive their inspiration through the church. The life that makes for mercy flows out from the church, but it waters and fructifies many fields beyond the borders of the church. The social work of the church. Is there any specific task incumbent upon the church in the great, modern questions of society! If the church has any value for man in all his attitudes it must have some social message. To make it effective in its special nature certain dangers must be avoided. First there dare not be one¬ sided emphasis upon the social. There is much modern sociology which thinks that man can only be dealt with as a social being. It puts such emphasis upon the mass that the individ¬ ual is only a number in a group. There is truth in the social outlook. Plato could only define justice through the Republic. Aristotle made man a political animal. But man is also an individual. In the balance between the social and individual lies the solution. Personalitv «/ is both individual and social. The church can¬ not adopt most of the philosophy of modern social thought, but it must develop the truth of the Kingdom of God to find its social task. Second, the error of most modern social phil¬ osophy is the exclusive point of view of the external. The social problem is supposed to he the question of the economic needs of man. Their right adjustment is interpreted as the end of mankind. But man will never be helped merely from without. A new social order means a new moral order. The church that is wise 276 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT will not overlook the value of the outer. It uses it in its charity and work of mercy, where the bodily need is not overlooked. But the bodily is only the occasion to reach into the conscience and soul of man. The church will not succeed in helping society if it loses itself in the mere external tasks of social betterment. Third, much social progress is demanded through legislation. The church will never oppose any law that makes for a better society through restraint of the forces of evil. But law cannot produce righteousness. Men must have a new conscience to do good, and not an increase of legislation. Therefore the church, working upon the conscience of man,3 ought never to deceive itself that it is helping society by enter¬ ing the field of legislation. To make a law to produce good is the process of impatience and shortsightedness. It contradicts the facts in¬ volved in the betterment of society. A law that does not come out of a moral enlighten¬ ment only produces transgression. Life that is good comes out of a new motive. With the avoidance of these dangers the social obligation of the church is not fulfilled. It is the business of the church to recognize that there is a social life, that this social life is very defective, and that it needs the large awakening of the social conscience. To remain aloof from the great evils of modern society is as wrong as to neglect the individual life. The 5 ‘ ‘ The Church ’s pronouncements on social and economic questions must be such and such only as grow out of the dis¬ tinctive function of the Church as a religious institution con¬ ceived primarily with motives and ideals. ’ ’ Wm. Adams Brown, The Church in America, p. 157. THE CHURCH 277 duty of the church cannot be met simply through the changing of individual lives funda¬ mental as such a mission is. Men have social relationships that must be moralized, because many of them are altogether unmoralized, or half-moralized, and simply follow traditional attitudes. In the propaganda that obscures facts in modern social contests, the church must seek to get at the real status. Then it ought boldly proclaim the moral truths involved with¬ out fear or favor. Great leaders of the church in the past have not hestitated to give voice to the claims of righteousness in the morals ills of society. Chrysostom spoke plainly against the vanity and luxury of liis day. Luther did not abstain from giving his opinion on the economic evils and the disorders of the society of the sixteenth century. There are many messages of the prophets that contain permanent principles of righteousness, and need to be applied to our times by the church. The church and its worship. Is there any moral question involved in the worship of the church, or does it belong simply to the religious problems of a church? While the first aim of worship is to lead men into communion with God, and it is therefore religious, still if the God worshipped is ethical His worship must be so also. It is implied in the saying of Christ: “God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth, ’ ’ 6 that the spiritual worship is one of truth. Because truth is a moral attitude a moral relation must be maintained in worship. The maintenance 6 John IV : 24. 278 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT of the ethical in worship is not finally one of form. Neither the set form nor the individua¬ listic method are wrong in themselves. The problem is whether the fixed liturgy is abused and becomes a means of stagnant worship, merely formal, repititious and mechanical, thus injuring spiritual worship. The individualis¬ tic method may become erratic, abusive of devotion, non-beautiful, and destroy spiritual worship. The worship must aid in making man express his real attitude toward God. It must be honest, sincere, whole-hearted, leading to the genuine worship of a free man before the God who gave him liberty. The church as an organization. What are the problems that pertain to the church as organized? Every church to do its work must have some form of organization. But the or¬ ganization ought to be secondary to the prophe¬ tic message of the church. Above all, it is not morally defensible to make the question of organization one of divisive difference, unless the organization hinders the truth. But even when organization is not made primal it can become a hindrance. Too much attention mav be given by the leadership of the church to the maintenance of the organization. Its glory and progress may be sought; it may be exalted without the honest self-criticism it needs, not in its ideal purpose but in its practical life and administration. Machinery can become too pronounced and powerful. The consistency of an administrative policy may be maintained to the detriment of honesty and the freedom of the church. The whole spiritual purpose of THE CHURCH 279 the church is liable to be injured and obstructed where the interest in effective organization becomes controlling and occupies the minds and the talents of the leadership of the church too exclusively. There will then be a trend toward centralization beyond the necessities of the work, and the church will repeat past errors in stressing powerful organization rather than the power of its free and unhampered truth. The church and the state. Among all the problems affecting the church none is more far- reaching, than the question, how shall the church be related to the state. In the religion of the lower tribes the medicine man, or the shaman, or the priest control the common life of the tribe. Nothing is undertaken without the sanction of the religious leaders. When religion receives its national form, either an organized priesthood rules, or the king is the centre of religious organization. The ruler is deified and the ideal of the state becomes divine. With the rise of Christianity the established religion of the state opposed the new faith and made it a forbidden religion (religio illicita). After the act of Constantine gave Christianity the endorsement of the state the church devel¬ oped gradually into the controlling power of life. It showed its spiritual and moral power when Ambrose would not admit Theodosius to the services of the church before he had pub¬ licly repented for a cruel deed. But this moral control soon developed into power over the policy and government of the state, and become political. The outstanding historical fact dem¬ onstrating this clearly is the compulsory jour- 280 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT ney of Henry IV of Germany to Canossa at the bidding of the Pope Gregory VII. Another change took place in the days of the Reforma¬ tion. The churches of the European continent came under the control of the princes of differ¬ ent provinces, who were called bishops in necessity as the chief members of the church. In Geneva the mind of Calvin governed the city according to strict moral laws of religion. In England Henry VIII directly reformed the church and made it the established church of England. It was only on American soil that the effort was made to have a free church and a free state. But does this freedom mean entire lack of connection? Is there no co-ordination? What are the conditions and what should they be? In great measure the church and the state live their separate and independent lives, each fulfilling its own task. The state gives the churches legal status and protects them. The churches serve the state indirectly through the making of good character which is necessary for good citizenship. But the duty of the church does not end with its influence upon individuals in the state. It has an obligation in the interest of truth and righteousness toward the state. At all times there should go forth from its streams of influence that help in keeping the state moral, and moralizing it where it is amoral or immoral. The church ought to have a message for the ethical import of great state questions, and it ought to elevate the political situation through the stirring up of the conscience of men. Sometimes it must THE CHURCH 281 enter directly into a state question when this question has a large spiritual and moral con¬ tent. This was the case in the problem of slavery. It obtains in the question of prohibi¬ tion, and in the modem selfish movement toward bloc-rule by small organized economic groups to the detriment and freedom of the whole people. But the church should never descend into the political arena or maintain a lobby. Its voice must be heard, but it should refrain from interfering with state action ex¬ cept for its own protection in critical situations. There are two ways in which the church oversteps its rights. The first is the power brought to bear by a church through its organ¬ ized strength in order to obtain state aid for its institutions. Such action is unfair to all other churches, violates equity, and makes the state the direct supporter of a church or of churches to the loss of the independence of the church. The second is the effort to perpetuate the experiment of Calvin at Geneva. It con¬ sists in the church demanding certain restric¬ tive laws and ordinances. True it is that the state ought to protect the church in all its rights, above all in the freedom to worship un¬ molested. To this extent the church, e. g., can ask for Sunday laws. It can oppose the break¬ ing down of the American Sunday, through uttering its voice on behalf of the necessity of a day of rest, and for the protection of the moral value of Sunday for the state. But when a church or group of churches demand definite prohibitory laws against certain liberties on Sunday, or strive to impose restrictions upon 282 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT amusements not considered wrong or impure in themselves, they assume control over con¬ sciences that differ. Their effort is to enforce by law their own views upon the state and all its citizens of various faiths. Such action would make one opinion of common moral rights binding and destroy the liberty of conscience. The state may encroach upon the liberty of the church in two ways. First both the church and the state have their claim upon education. The church must have education for its truth and life, and the state for the training of its citi¬ zens. The state ought at all times respect the rights of the church, unless the schools of the church are so deficient in efficiency that they lower the common intelligence, or unless the church schools make a divided citizenrv %/ through fostering religious intolerance, or prop¬ agating anti-American sentiments of language or nationalism. The state needs the religious teaching of the church which it cannot furnish in its schools. This is being granted today against the opinion of some radical educators and sociologists, who want the state schools to teach some universal religion and morals and really establish a state-religion of mere theism. But the state is endangering the church when it allows the teaching of certain naturalistic hypotheses as facts in the lower grades of the schools before the children are ripe enough to judge. There is in fact opposition to the faith of the church whenever any sort of materialis¬ tic teaching obtains in the lower schools, the high schools, and the universities. By devel- THE CHURCH 283 oping a great system, and through strong cen¬ tralization, the state often injures the freedom of education. The injury generally falls upon the schools of the church. A free people need all types of schools and no great system ought at any time destroy the right of a school to its life. So great is the modern pressure of cen¬ tralized education that freedom has almost ceased. The state has begun to dictate not only in the interest of efficiency, but also in details of management. The second encroachment upon the liberty of the church is made by the state in times of war. When men are swept off their feet by the tre¬ mendous emotions that make the war-spirit, the state asks the church to keep silence. It is not to pass upon the justice of a war. On the other hand, it is expected to accept the moral justification of the war that is offered, to stir up and keep alive the morale of the people for war, to serve as an agitator, to preach hate against another nation, to exalt the national consciousness and pride, and even to be a col¬ lecting agency for war-funds. This demand asks the church to abandon its own right of judgment and its truth of love. The church should surely not oppose the state, especially in a critical time. But it is an unjustified tak¬ ing away of the liberty of the church to make it a war agency while its message is to be that of the Prince of Peace. The freedom of the church does not mean, however, that it should raise a revolution against the state. The Christian teaching enjoins submission. Christ did not permit 284 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT Himself to aid the revolutionary zealots of His clay. On the contrary He advised giving Cae¬ sar what was the due of Caesar.7 Power was not opposed to power, although Pilate was told by Christ, that such power as Pilate had over Him was given by God.8 Paul advised the Christians to be obedient to the Roman rule, for it bore the sword to punish the evil-doers and protect the righteous.9 It was the great restraining force for law and order.10 In the whole early church men were bidden rather to suffer than to disturb the order of government. When the Christians experienced the persecut¬ ing power of the state they comforted them¬ selves with the final triumph of God’s King¬ dom and Christ’s rule,11 but they were never advised to rebel. Their freedom of utterance was not to cease, and their right to proclaim the gospel was not to be surrendered at any cost. It was to be carried on if necessary at the risk of their lives. But no matter how the state might oppose and persecute, the church was not to take the sword, or endeavor as a church to overthrow any state evil as it might be. The fact that Christians were kings, a spiritual, royal priesthood,12 was not to be used for political purposes. Its consequences were great through the new ferment in Christianity, but this was to work out spiritually, and not through the use of force by the church or for the church. 7 Matthew XXII: 21. 8 John XIX: 11. 9 Romans XIII : 1 ff . 10 II Thessalonians II: 7. 11 Cf. Revelation. 12 I Peter II : 9 THE CHURCH 285 REFERENCES Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, Chapters III, II. par. 3. H. Martensen, Christian Ethics, Vol. II, par. 133 ff. J. N. Figgis, Churches in the Modern State. Leighton Parks, The Crisis of the Churches. Chas. A. Ellwood, The Reconstruction of Religion. Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianizing the Social Order. Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis. Walter Rauschenbusch, A Theology for the Social Gospel. William Adams Brown, The Church in America. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, ‘ 1 Industrial Relations and the Churches ; ’ ’ Vol. CIII, No. 192. Elijah E. Kresge, The Church and The Ever-Coming Kingdom of God. CHAPTER XIV THE STATE What is the place of the state? In the seven¬ teenth and eighteenth centuries there was much unhistorical individualism. Through it there arose the theory, that man at the begin¬ ning was without any government. A pre¬ political condition of society was supposed to have existed, which men ended by making a social contract, because the war of all against all had to cease. The great advocates of this view were Hobbes and Rousseau. But the nineteenth century corrected this unhistorical opinion. It secured general acceptance for the fact, that there was always a state of some sort. No evidence can be found that groups of men were ever without some government, whether patriarchal or tribal. The state is a funda¬ mental necessity in common life. It is as old as the family and the church, and of equal value for the social well-being of mankind. The orderliness and steadiness of external life depend upon the state. But is the state not a limitation of liberty? Does it not impair the individual will? If a society were possible with individual wills functioning without co-ordination and unity there would be no place for the state. But in- 286 THE STATE 287 dividual wills clash, and, therefore, for the maintenance of common rights and liberty the state is needed. The individual will only feels limited and restrained by the state as far as it fails to recognize the common will. As soon as we know that we are not only individuals, but also social beings, we must ask for some organ that shall maintain the social life, and for some institution through which the safety of all and of each shall be guaranteed. The state is far from being a hindrance to general ]iberty. If it functions rightly, it supports, aids and advances the happiness and progress of a people, and makes its common life a safe and an orderly one. What is the idea of the state? It is very im¬ portant to gain a clear conception of what the state is essentially. Like the family and the church it is a real personality. But its moral unity must be found in its essential character and being. It cannot be a mere corporate per¬ sonality as Rosseau thought; nor can it be per¬ sonalized as an addition of individuals, or an order voted into existence by the citizens or sustained simply by their willingness.1 The personality of the state makes it the institution of justice. It lives and is to act to uphold justice in the largest and fullest sense. This is its moral basis that gives it worth and purpose in social life. The idea of justice as the foundation of the state was first enunciated by Plato. He could not find justice as long as it was written small in human lives. It had to be written large in the state, the ideal 1 Laski, Authority in the Modern State, p. 102 ff. 288 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT Republic. Because justice was tlie moral centre of the state “ kings ought to be philoso¬ phers, and philosophers kings. ” Only the thinkers were adequate to solve the great prob¬ lems of justice, and not the common, untrained mind. Plato was the advocate of the expert in government in order to make justice secure. We may not agree, that only the expert of a certain type can govern, but we must admit that justice is the foundation of the state, its right and its duty. Plato opposed Thrasymachus, who held that might made right. This theory of might, the claim of the stronger, was altogether unethical. The state cannot be made and justified by might. But this extreme form of the concep¬ tion of might has been abandoned. A moder¬ ate formulation of the necessity of might as essential to the state has taken its place. Paulsen conceives the state to be the unity of right, will and might. The two are placed on an equal basis. He says: “The state is the organization of a people into a sovereign unity of will, might and right. ’ ’ 2 A large place is given to will and might beside justice. James Seth3 thinks that: “The essence of the State is sovereignty, and the maintenance of the sover¬ eign power through coercion or control.” In the same manner Wilson4 holds that: “The essential characteristic of all government, whatever its form, is authority. There must in every instance be, on the one hand, gover¬ nors, and, on the other, those who are governed. 2 Ethics, Book IV, Part IV, Chapter I. 3 A Study of Ethical Principles, p. 289. 4 The State, II, p. 26. THE STATE 289 And the authority of governors, directly or in¬ directly, rests in all cases ultimately on force. ’ ’ All of these definitions put power on the same level with justice. They make it an essential part of the state. The assertion of sovereignty means, that the state is the final judge of right in human affairs. Each state claims to be sovereign. When states differ in their sover¬ eign power there is no decision but through force. Power is combined with sovereignty and becomes its defense within the state and without. Such a theory must logically make war the right of the state. The moral defini¬ tion of the state must make justice all-control- ling, and power only secondary. If justice demands power it is to be used as a means. But if justice can be obtained without force it is the better condition. The conception of the state which makes power and sovereignty of power essential glorifies force and endeavors to make it moral. We must escape from ele¬ vating the state into an instrument of power rather than the institution of justice and jus¬ tice alone. Brute force even if carried out by the common will is never moral. To associate it with justice as on the same level is a degrad¬ ation of justice. This conception has been the fruitful source of much evil in the world. It always offers a justification of any war if a state is to maintain its power and sovereignty. David Jayne Hill5 has uncovered the fallacy of the prevailing idea of sovereignty, when he says of modern states, with their economic desire wedded to sovereignty: “Inheriting by 5 The Rebuilding of Europe, p. 26. 290 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT tradition from the past alleged rights of abso¬ lute sovereignty, and equipped with military forces on land and sea, they are engaged in a struggle for supremacy which they would not for a moment permit within their own legal jurisdiction. Were a similar organization formed within their own borders, adopting as its principles of action the privileges usually claimed by sovereign states, it would be promptly and ruthlessly suppressed as a dan¬ gerous outlaw.’ ’ To this pass the idea of force and sovereignty has brought the state. The denial of force as a integral part of the idea of the state does not overthrow the auth¬ ority of the state. Because the state is the institution of justice it must have and maintain authority. Authority is the consequence of justice. When it is necessary to assert the authority through force then force is justified. There is a need for a sane understanding of the authority of the state. Many men seem only ready to obey the authority of the state when it is enforced upon them against their self-will. The origin of the disregard of the authority of the state is found in a misapplication of the con¬ ception that government rests upon the consent of the governed. The common will and consent of the people does not give the state the author¬ ity which is inherent in justice. Justice is not established or disestablished by a majority vote. There is a wrong philosophy of individ¬ ualism back of the idea that men by their con¬ sent vote the state into its right. In a demo¬ cratic form of government, which gives the largest political liberty, men are privileged to THE STATE 291 make known tlieir attitude in affairs of the state. But the necessity and authority of jus¬ tice in the state and through it calls for a reli¬ gious foundation. There is a divine will of government for the good of man, and this con¬ stitutes the divine right of government. The rejection of the divine right of kings, which meant the handing down of divine power from God to the kings, ought not to have carried with it the secularization of the idea of the state. The functioning of the state through justice will always suffer to the degree that men see in the state only a human, historical institution, and not a necessity of the moral order founded upon the will and purpose of God. Country will never be what it ought until it is joined with God. “For God and country” is the sound basis of the sentiment of patriotism. Without the sense of justice as the will of God, and the state as a minister of justice, patriotism will degenerate into selfish ambition of nationalism, and lose its just claim upon the devotion and sacrifice of men. The state must stand for sound authority. But the problem of authority becomes, above all, the duty so to organize its character and its pro¬ cesses as to make it, in the widest aspect, “the servant of right and of freedom. ’ ’ 6 The task of the state. How shall the admin¬ istration of justice through the state be de¬ fined ? What is the duty and task of the state '? In executing justice the first necessity is to up¬ hold justice among the citizens of the state. As there are always disturbers of right and 6 Laski, Authority in the Modern State, p. 121. 292 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT justice, and as the innocent must constantly be protected, the state should use the best means of protective and punitive justice. It must be an efficient and wisely just protector of common order, safety and peace. This obligation en¬ tails upon the state the punishment of those that do wrong and commit crime. What is the best theory and practice of punishment? There are some who desire to reduce punish¬ ment to the scientific problem of disease. They want to make it purely a pathological question. But 4 4 to reduce crime to a pathological phenom¬ enon, is to sap the very foundations of our moral judgments; merit as well as demerit, reward as well as punishment, are thereby undermined. Such a view may be scientific; it is not ethical, for it refuses to recognize the commonest moral distinctions.” 7 The patho¬ logical claim destroys freedom and virtually denies personality. Criminals themselves do not want to be treated as objects but as individ¬ uals. The rejection of the pathological idea does not, however, involve the acceptance of punish¬ ment as retribution and requital. It does not mean compensation or the satisfaction of re¬ venge. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” is the expression of the obsolete practice of blood-revenge. The greatness of the crime is not the measure of the kind and the amount of punishment to be meted out. The problem is that of right and justice. It has been found that the old practice of imprisonment in the usual prison, or in the re¬ formatory for beginners in crime, does not meet i Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, p. 315. THE STATE 293 the highest ends of justice. Criminals are mostly not changed; the method of confine¬ ment, and the practices in prisons, lead to the breakdown of all self-respect and make any reformation that might lead to freedom impos¬ sible. The new methods of parole and proba¬ tion for incipient offenders and for other hope¬ ful cases, have in mind the reclamation of the wrong-doer. But they must be applied with wisdom, and endeavor to lead the one punished to a recognition of the wrong. No mere senti¬ mentality nor pity are adequate. The moral order must be upheld, and the offending will directed to acknowledge the common will and justice. The justice of the state does not end with the maintenance of order and the punishment of evil doers. This is the police function of the state. To stop with it is to accept the theory of laissez-faire. This theory does not measure up to the idea implied in justice. There is con¬ structive justice through which the state ought to seek to so order the affairs of those under it, as to render their life as equitable as possible. Whatever advances the moral well-being in external life belongs to the state. It must have an interest in the economic problems and the opportunities of citizens. The common welfare of the people is within the range of the duties of the state. The method through which justice concerns itself with welfare demands, that the health of the people, the prevention of disease, the proper quarantine, the care of sick and dis¬ abled, the protection of the insane, and similar 294 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT tasks, be undertaken. But tbe largest con¬ structive work of tlie state is education. It is necessary not simply in the interest of the state but for the moral good of the people. Particu¬ larly in a democracy, where the largest possible intelligence and goodness are demanded in order that liberty may be maintained, and the common rights of the people sustained, educa¬ tion is the great duty of the state. It ought to fuse the people into unity, break down artificial barriers of social distinction, and produce a people with common ideals and purposes of just liberty founded upon right and justice. The state and the nation. What is the rela¬ tion of the state to nationality? Ought they to be correlated, and how can this be done in the best manner? A nation is a group of people with a common language and with certain common traditions of history and culture. When a state covers one nation the situation for progress is most advantageous. But in many states this is impossible. In Europe no strict line of demarcation can be drawn which will put just one nation in one state. The exis¬ tence of different nationalities under one gov¬ ernment creates many difficulties, because one or the other of the different nationalities does not receive its full liberty of national rights and privileges. Frequently there is unwilling¬ ness to agree and the suppressed nationality is restless and dissatisfied. What is the situation in America? Are we merely a state in the United States, or a nation? While many nationalities are represented amongst us, the United States is nevertheless a THE STATE 295 forming nation. We have one language as the ideal, and we possess common traditions of lib¬ erty and democracy. For this reason Ameri¬ canization is a just process of education through which we aim to absorb other national elements into the final unity of our national life. The process must not be arbitrary or oppres¬ sive, for thus it will strengthen foreign nation¬ alisms. Its spirit must be kindly and consid¬ erate, leading people of other tongues and tra¬ ditions into the understanding of our distinc¬ tive life and culture. In this manner we shall advance freedom if we instruct and guide. The foundation of all education into American ideals must be moral and rest upon the vital liberty of common goodness and justice. The absolute state. What is the meaning and claim of the absolute state? The absolute state endeavors to be the one social form with complete power. It has found advocates both among materialistic and idealistic philoso¬ phers. The great representative of the mater¬ ialists was Hobbes. In the days of the Stuarts he used his idea of man’s pre-political condition, as a war of all against all, to support the claim of an absolute monarchy with unlimited power to keep order and peace. This theory never gained practical hold in England, but its con¬ ception of power to remedy the disorders of society has frequently been used. When con¬ ditions are serious at any time the state must enforce justice, but there are large groups, who desire to stifle all movements toward freedom of any kind through the employment of force. Force is the cure of desperation and does not 296 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT solve any problem. Its unwarranted use only creates reaction and does not lead to greater liberty and privilege. But the largest influence for the absolute state has been exerted through the idealists. Plato thought that in the ideal Republic man would find his full moral fulfillment. The state, which in Greek society was the city state, was to serve all ethical relationships. Plato’s Republic was the Greek kingdom of God. Con¬ sequently the family was dissolved into the state. The state was conceived as the univer¬ sal ethical whole beyond which there was no great unity. For its sake men were to live and realize the good. Aristotle was more realistic, but he also subsumed his ethics to his politics. The political ideal as the moral totality was the controlling one. Later Greek Philosophy in the Stoic school passed beyond Plato and Aris¬ totle both in asserting the conscience in the in¬ dividual, and in stressing the universalism of humanity. It was thus that the absolute state was historically discarded in Greek thought. This lesson of history was lost, however, upon modern absolute idealism. It reasserted the universality of the state with its absolute power. Hegel formulated the modern theory of the all-controlling state. In it the absolute spirit found the final and all-embracing embod¬ iment. There is a reversal to the ancient ideal of the state in the interest of a logical scheme. Hegel virtually deifies the state. He says: “The State is the self-certain absolute mind which recognizes no definite authority but its own; which acknowledges no abstract rules of THE STATE 297 good and bad, shameful and mean, craft and de¬ ception. ” “It is the phenomenon of God. — The absolute government is divine, self-sanc¬ tioned and not made. ’ ’ 8 Such an ideal rises far beyond what is justly implied in authority as divinely willed. In this position Hegel is not nationalistic, although his formulation has found lodgment in Treitschke’s political philos¬ ophy. In England the Hegelians have the same estimate of the state. Bosanquet claims that the state is the supreme power of social life.9 Fortunately English political life has not followed these philosophers, but has remained under the influence of a liberal theory of the state.10 The error of the ideal of the absolute state is the impairment of the right of personality in the individual. Where the state becomes the expression of absolute thought there is no real place for the full right and liberty of the indi¬ vidual. The absolute state also denies the exis¬ tence of social relationships outside of the state. It can have no logical place for the family. No appreciation is accorded many other possible moral contacts in free association and fellow¬ ship. But there is no liberty in the absorption of all social relations into the state particularly in modern society with its many and varying possibilities of human contact. The absolute state is the enemy of freedom and enshrines man in the process of the move- 8 Hegel, System der Sittlichkeit, p. 32 ff: Wallace Hegel ’$ Philosophy of Mind, p. CLXXXTT. Kuno Fischer, Geschichte der Neuern Philosophie, Vol. VIII, pp. 726, 738, 907. 9 The Philosophical Theory of the State. 10 Of. Hobhouse, The Metaphysical Theory of the State. 298 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT ment of absolute thought. Its destroys both individual and social liberty. The socialistic state. What is the meaning and ideal of the socialistic state? Is it morally defensible? The socialistic state is the neces¬ sary result of the idea of a socialistic society. If society is to own and control the great re¬ sources, tools and means of production, and to possess the great lines of transportation, it needs a state through which these socially owned goods can be administered and managed. The socialistic state must not be confounded with the communistic state. In the latter not only the great articles of production are to be in the hands of the state, but virtually every¬ thing is to be nationalized. The individual will then be the pensioner of the state in all his needs. The state will prescribe his work, and allow him his portion. The communistic state is the complete abolition of all individual privi¬ lege, and it therefore takes away man’s legiti¬ mate freedom. At the same time it creates an enslaved society in which there can be no natural development and no social freedom, because every initiative is strangled. The so¬ cialistic state allows liberty to a certain degree, but it also limits free initiative and competition to a great extent. There is no doubt that the concentration of production in a few hands, and the control of public utilities through indi¬ vidualism, have forced the state to assume an increasing supervision and regulation of pri¬ vate business on the large scale. This has been the outcome of the sins of individual ownership and power especially in its concentrated form. THE STATE 299 Nevertheless if the state goes beyond the neces¬ sary restriction it enters upon the limitation of liberty. The socialistic state will become less and less soundly political, and grow into a great economic machine, which takes away from men opportunity and liberty of individual life with its rights and needs for a sound society. The state and anarchism. What is the real meaning of anarchism? How does it affect the state? Anarchism refuses to acknowledge all power and control over the individual. It sees in the state and in any expression of a common will the destruction of natural individual rights. As a protest against despotism, and the deprival of just individual privilege, it is explicable. When it appeared in the late Russian Empire as nihilism it was the result of harsh oppression. But as an actual theory of life it aims at the destruction of all social order. The evaluation of the individual is purely one of individual desire and wish. Liberty is made unbridled license. The actual results of anar¬ chism would be a disordered society, a state of constant warfare between men, and the loss of real freedom. There are variations of the extreme anarch¬ ism that also affect the state. Tolstoi with his great heart and out of a deep sense of pity denied the right of the state to punishment. The extreme measures of Russia, its cruel ad¬ ministration of the prison, and its banishment of men to Siberia serve to make us appreciate the protest of Tolstoi. But when he wanted a society that passed no judgment on wrong- 300 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT doers he projected an impossible society. Many people were unjustly imprisoned in Russia, but it does not follow therefore that the sinners are outside of prison and the saints within it. The mistaken idealism of Tolstoi would overthrow justice for the sake of pity. There are two other types of theoretical anar¬ chism. The first is the conception of naturalis¬ tic evolution, that men will evolve into such a condition of society, that all will be good, and will consequently need no government. There is no promise of such a process that will ever make the state unnecessary. The second type consists of those who believe that the develop¬ ment of the Kingdom of God will be such in our present order of society, that men will need no control because they are all self-controlled. The position is as utopian as the naturalistic conception of development. Only in a com¬ pletely regenerate society will the state be unnecessary. The right of revolution. Is there any moral justification of revolution? Can ethical judg¬ ment approve of the revolutionary attitude in any form? When the Reformation began, its leaders, in the interest of order, and to prevent the Reformation from becoming a revolt, advised submission to the state absolutely. They interpreted the New Testament injunc¬ tion to individuals11 as a general policy for citizenship. Luther was very determined in opposing the Peasant Revolt. He believed in unqualified submission. He says, referring to Christ’s word of rendering to Caesar the things 11 Cf. above p. 284. THE STATE 301 that are Caesar’s: “He here clearly confirms civil authority, princes, and lords, to whom men are to be obedient, whoever they may be and whatever they may be, without regard to whether they possess or use the rule right¬ eously or unrighteously. ’ ’ 12 Calvin is equally strong in advocating un¬ questioning obedience to the state. Among his utterances the following is characteristic: “But let us insist at greater length in proving what does not so easily fall in with the views of men that even an individual of the worst character, one most unworthy of all honor, if invested with public authority, receives that illustrious divine power which the Lord has by His word devolved on the ministers of His justice and judgment, and that, accordingly, in so far as public obedience is concerned, he is to be held in the same honor and reverence as the best of kings.” 13 But these positions are an overstatement of the power of the state. They exclude all possi¬ bility of changing an essentially evil govern¬ ment. Modern liberal ideas allow for the right of revolution. They find one of their best de¬ fenses in the arguments of Locke. He con¬ tends that “the public person vested with the power of the law, is to be considered as the image, phantom, or representative of the commonwealth — and thus he has no will, no 12 Von Weltlicher Obrigkeit, wie weit man ihr Gehorsam schuldig sei, Weimar Ed. Vol. II p. 229 ff — Cf. Waring, The Politicial Theories of Martin Luther. 13 Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. III. “The Limits of Obedience due to Civil Rulers,” p. 25. 302 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT power but that of the law. ” 14 The law is the standard according to which the right of the state and its government is to be measured. When the law is constantly broken the govern¬ ing representatives in the state have forfeited their right to rule. If he that governs misre¬ presents the public will he ceases to be the ruler de jure. “When he quits this public represen¬ tation, this public will, and acts by his own pri¬ vate will, he degrades himself, and is but a single private person without power, and with¬ out will that has any right to obedience — the members owning no obedience but to the public will of the society. ’ ’ 15 This representative conception is in part correct if we make the law rest on essential justice, and not merely on the will of society. The governing powers of the state must have committed continuous and severe transgressions of the law, to the extent of making the common life and the individual life impossible, before the right of revolution can be morally admitted. When the state per¬ sists in injuring the ideal of the state revolu¬ tion is advocated by some moralists. But shall any group of people judge the ideal, and if so, what group shall decide? There is great dan¬ ger in such a notion, particularly today when ideals of the state are so conflicting and range all the way from communism to anarchism. The violation that destroys the state in essence is the only one that calls for revolution. When individual and common liberty of personality are made altogether unsafe, and the moral Treatise of Civil Government, Book II, Chapter XIII. 15 Locke, Ibid. THE STATE 303 order is undermined, then only can ethics allow the right of revolution. Considerations of an economic kind, or social utopias, have no moral claim for the overthrow of the existing form of the state. No matter what are the historical facts of the Revolution that started our national life, and those that made the French Revolution typical, we must keep the ethical judgment clear and unprejudiced in favor of the continuity of the state. Revolution must only be ethically defended as an extreme meas¬ ure in an unremediable condition that negates the moral right of liberty in the essentials of life. Commercial advantages and industrial difficulties ought never to be used to produce a revolution. No single groups but a whole people, or its great majority, must rise on a just basis against their government, to give moral foundation to a revolution. Unfor¬ tunately oppression often so arouses a nation that the wrongs of despotism produce the evils of revolution. The state and war. Is war a necessity for the state? Can it be morally defended? The general belief is that the state cannot surrender the use of war. The necessity of war is justi¬ fied as a matter of defense. But what state admits that it has attacked. The people of all states are led to think that they are not the aggressors. Even those that actually declare the war always show to the satisfaction of their own people, that they were compelled to act as they did. In order to give war a moral excuse no people ever admit their guilt. Each state is always right because it is sovereign. And thus 304 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT war is defended as tlie only way to decide the counterclaims of sovereign states. To this deceptive and evasive attitude there is added the peculiar belief, that God only permits the right to win. War is explained after the manner of an ordeal, and the fact is overlooked that the strongest in soldiery and in economic resources usually win. The right may produce the might, but the success of the might is no proof of the right. It is true that God directs and overrules the affairs of men, and even the evil of war, but this governance is no demonstration that war is the means of ascertaining the will of God. Another argu¬ ment presented for war, is that it develops cer¬ tain virtues. Courage, willingness to sacrifice, patriotism, are claimed as fruits of war. But it is only by long tradition that the courage of war and the acclaim of heroism connected with it have been established. Courage can be ex¬ pended upon constructive work, upon discovery and reclamation of parts of the world.16 It is highest in acts of rescue and in moral situa¬ tions. Patriotism and the readiness to sacri¬ fice for one’s country can be developed in peace. In fact the mistaken notion, that only war calls for sacrifice has lowered the moral tone of citizens in the times of peace. Patrio¬ tism is no mere sentiment for war, but it is at its best when men steadily regard the welfare of their country and love it at all times. The limitation of patriotism to war, and to a strong emotion for one’s own country in enmity 16 This is the suggestion of William James as a moral substitute. THE STATE 305 against another country, has degraded patrio¬ tism, and made it ineffective as a constant vir¬ tue for the civic betterment and moral advance of the state. The hope of moral and religious awakening, in which men attempt to see a moral use for war, is a disappointment. The tempo¬ rary stirring up during a war soon passes away, and the religious and moral after-effects of war are not for the good, but show decadence. The good will remain good, and perhaps be ad¬ vanced in character by a hard experience, hut the bad will remain bad and become worse. In general war produces crime in its wake. All defenses of war fail to make it moral. On the contrary it is a perversion of the moral order. Murder is legitimatized through it, and the taking of life becomes a business. Lying and deception are the approved attitudes. Hate sweeps over peoples, revenge is developed, and the bitterness of war is handed on as a memory from generation to generation. Every war sows the seed of future war. Men are made a great machine, surrender their freedom, and submit to a severe control that asks no questions. All the evil of military rank with its destruction of democracy rules supreme. Science, that ought to be used for the help of mankind, becomes the servant of destruction. Thousands of minds think and plan how they can invent more terrible and more destructive agencies of war. Cruelty is developed and man sinks back to the primal, barbaric instincts. Impurity gains a larger hold. The moral restraints are removed. The press, the plat¬ form, and even the pulpit are commandeered to 306 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT increase the sentiment of hate. To keep up the morale of war everything is set aside but those emotions and acts that will win the war. Surely there is no part of war that does not de¬ grade and enslave man. The effort to moralize war has not succeeded. But shall the state become pacifistic? If war is morally wrong have we any right to suffer it? Morally pacificism is the ideal, but the state cannot surrender its existence and endan¬ ger its life in a non-pacifistic world. The citi¬ zens of the state, even if they are convinced of the essential wrong of war, may feel their obli¬ gation to the state. When there is war a con¬ flict of duties occurs for those who know what they owe the state, and who also reject war. In this conflict the problem is whether it is better to avoid war, or to submit to the state and help to save it. At all events we should labor and strive for a warless world if need be through suffering. The ideal of peace is according to the spirit of Christianity. The state and internationalism. What ought to be the relation of the state to other states? Is there a place for international ethics? The fact that there are many states implies that they should seek the right moral relation toward each other. No state can live only to and for itself. State must co-ordinate itself with state, not only economically and commer¬ cially, but above all ethically. There is then a demand for an international ethical code and ideal. The beginnings of moral relationship between states are indicated in international law. It records the extent to which states have THE STATE 307 agreed upon certain principles that make for the common rights of all nations. But a law of nations must have back of it a morality between nations, that recognizes mutual liberty. The international morality ought to be the motive and ideal toward which the formulated inter¬ national law moves in its progress. In international law there are certain agree¬ ments as to the limitation of allowable actions in war on land and sea. The invention of the aeroplane will necessitate some restrictions of its use. The right of freedom especially on sea and in the air are not completely covered by the present laws. A larger sense of justice must inspire the nations to avoid the ruling selfish policies, and to guarantee the freedom of men. There are still disparities of naval equipment, and superiorities of air-attack, that are not demanded except in the interest of the main¬ tenance of the power of the stronger as against the weaker nations. War will be crowded back by equalizing war equipment. But more im¬ portant still is the recognition that arbitrament of war does not make for sane justice. There¬ fore there should be universal international courts to adjust disputes between nations. Such courts would no more destroy national liberty, than the social adjustment of contests between individuals takes away real and sane individual freedom. Internationalism of jus¬ tice is not supernationalism, but only justice as between nations rather than power and fear. There must be an elevation of international practice in reference to colonization. At pres¬ ent the economic and commercial demands of a 308 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT growing nation move it to seize land from the weaker nations wherever it can do so. The weaker nations are not protected and advanced but preyed upon. The desire for world-mar¬ kets is the motive of colonization. There should be an honest and fair economic co-operation between nations in the place of the seizure of lands and products that are wanted from the less civilized and weaker nations. The imposi¬ tion of civilization upon a people in the interest of commerce is not liberty but enslavement, and a contradiction of the real spirit of civilization. Even the motives for advancing a backward nation are not just if the backward nation does not freely consent. It is a pretense if any nation claims to defend a people against another nation controlling it, when the real desire is to gain entrance into areas of great economic value. Nations and peoples can be delivered from overlords with the approval of moral sanctions only when such action offers real liberty. The ethical relations between nations can be furthered by associations across national boun¬ daries. The modern labor movement has such international plans. But its internationalism is class internationalism, and seeks merely the advantage of one group in society. The total interest is the economic advantage of labor, and its control of society, rather than universal friendship and good-will. The moral unity of mankind is not sought except to aid labor. Therefore the internationalism of labor tends to coercion of humanity, and to the breaking down of the just right and power of separate states. THE STATE 309 The real interest of the common brotherhood of men in liberty is furthered by friendships and associations that seek the advancement of science, literature and art.17 The more men work together in great problems of science and art, the more a common bond in the search for truth is formed. Through it a large and free life of mankind can be developed. But finally men will not be fused into the real and lasting fel¬ lowship of nations and peoples until there is a strong unity of religion. At the present all faiths ought to seek points of approach, and use what they have in common, to produce a better understanding of each other. There can be a closer relationship for advancing the common good and freedom through moral and religious purposes.18 In such contact that religion will finally win out which has the highest and best ethics for the accomplishment of the liberty of men. The missionary enterprise of Christian¬ ity ought to be carried on in this spirit, and not for the glory of any church, or for the influence of any nationality back of any church. The universal liberty of man through the develop¬ ment of an international moral personality should be the apex of ethical hope and the goal of all sound internationalism. 17 The Greeks were unified through their games. Can modern games be used to aid in creating international good will? is Among various movements of an international character the World Student Federation has been very effective in creating good will on a Christian basis. 310 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT REFERENCES James Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Part II, Chap¬ ters II, III. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, Chapter XXI, ff. Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, Part IV, Chapters XXIII, XXIV. Vladimir Solo vy of, The Justification of the Good, Part III, Chapters V, IX, X. W. Hocking1, Human Nature and its Remaking, Chapters XXVIII, XXX, XXXI, XXXII. Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Book IV, Chapters I, II, III. W. Wundt, Ethics, Part IV, Chapters III, IV. J. K. Bluntschli, The Theory of the State. T. H. Green, Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation. Woodrow Wilson, The State. Bernard Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State. L. T. Hobhouse, The Metaphysical Theory of the State. David Jayne Hill, The Rebuilding of Europe. Viscount James Bryce, International Relations. Sidney L. Gulick, The Christian Crusade for a Warless World. INDEX Names of authorities are printed in italics. Absolute, the, 156, 170. Action, and pessimism, 86-87 ; adjustment of, 126 ; unity of, 175. Adiaphora, 10. Aesthetics, 4. Altruism, opposed to egoism, 135. Anaxagoras : philosophy of 77. ‘ Anarchism, and the state, 299-300. Animism, 17. Aquinas, Thomas: definition of virtue, 112. Aristippus: and pleasure, 116. Aristotle: logic of, 58; mean¬ ing of ‘ ‘ the good, ’ ’ 102 ; defence of, 103n; virtues of, 111, 234, 242; and happi¬ ness, 131; and reason, 146; ethics of, 195, 223 ; on in¬ terest, 210; idea of state, 296. Arnold, Matthew: on conduct, 9 ; definition of 1 1 God, ’ ’ 24; and pessimism, 73. Art, and morals, 11; and pessimism, 85 ; apprecia¬ tion of, 223. Asceticism, and reason, 160- 162; effects of, 162; of Christianity, 171-172. Atomists, notion of brain, 36. Aurelius, Marcus: on reason, 148. < Authority, of conscience, 67- 69. Bentham, Jeremy: religion as sanction, 23n ; on utilitar¬ ianism, 120-122, 129; in¬ tensity of pleasure, 133 ; sanctions of, 139; on ma¬ terialism, 142. Bergson, Henri: and free will, 31. Berkley, George : philosophy of, 77. Binet, Alfred: psychology of low forms, 41. Biology, and freedom, 39. Boethius: 183n. Bosanquet, Bernard : theory of the state, 297. Brahmanism, and freedom, 49; and pessimism, 83. Brain, and free will, 36; and mind, 37-38. Brown, William Adams: the church, 276n. Buddhism, and freedom, 50 ; and pessimism, 83. Butler, Joseph: on self-love, 191. Calculus, hedonistic, 121. Calkins, Mary W.: duty and freedom, 109. Calvin, John: theory of the state, 301. Casualty, and freedom, 46. Cause, attachment to, 205- 206. Chalmers, Thomas: and char¬ ity, 233. Character, and religion, 18; 311 312 INDEX and free will, 34; and knowledge, 177. Charity, 233. Child, right of the, 264-265. Christ: high ideals of, 26; pessimism of, 92 ; optimism of, 93 ; and pleasure, 143 ; personality of, 197 ; and woman, 263 ; as the truth, 268 ; and the state, 284. Christianity, and morals, 25 ; and free will, 50 ; and con¬ science, 69 ; and pessimism, 91-94; and hedonism, 142- 143; and reason, 170-173; and personality, 196-200 ; humility of, 223 ; and mar¬ riage, 257 ; in the state, 279. Church, and marriage, 257 ; and religion, 267 ; and the truth, 268-272; nature of work of, 272-275; social work of, 275-277 ; and worship, 277-278; organiza¬ tion of, 278-279; and the state, 279-284. Civilization, and pessimism, 87-90. Clarice, Samuel: on intuition- ism, 150 ; on virtue and reason, 167n. Conduct, and religion, 18; in hedonism, 125 ; evolution of, 126; freedom of, 127, 177. Conlclin, Edwin G. : on evolu¬ tion, 41. Conscience, and freedom, 54ff ; meaning of, 54-55 ; judgment of, 56, 63 ; origin of, 59; intellectual ele¬ ments of, 60 ; emotional, 61, 62-65 ; and volition, 65 ; social, 66-67 ; authority of, 67 ; infallibility of, 68 ; and Christianity, 69. Courage, 221. Courtship, 253-254. Creeds, 271. Cynics: philosophy of, 147. Dance, problem of, 220n. Democracy, defined, 30. Desires, and religion, 20 ; and pessimism, 83. Determinateness, social, 185. Dewey, John: relation of eco¬ nomics to ethics, 8 ; doc¬ trine of progress, 89 ; meaning of ideals, 97 ; “the good,” 100, 103; the right, 105; naturalizing vir¬ tues, 111; and Epicurean¬ ism, 119; inadequacy of, 130; and pleasure, 133; ethics of, 200n. Divorce, 258-259. Dostoievsky, Feodor: emo¬ tion in conscience, 63. Drink, problem of, 218. Durlcheim, Emile: and church, 267. Duty, 95, 106-110; claim of, 108; imperative of, 109; as an ideal, 113 ; and pleasure, 137-140 ; and rea¬ son, 165-166; and love, 190; or virtues, 202. Economics, relation of ethics to, 7, 9; and civilization, 88; in Christ’s teaching, 199. Education, of the church, 273; of the state, 294. Ellwood, Charles A.: “The Reconstruction of Reli¬ gion, ’ ’ 16n. Emotion, and conscience, 61, 62-65; and pessimism, 82- 86. End, the 95, 100—104; and ideals, 113 ; and pleasure, 135 ; in the individual, 159. Engagement, 253-254. INDEX 313 Environment, and free will, 41. Epictetus : and reason, 148. Epicurus: meaning of pleas¬ ure, 117 ; life of control, 131; philosophy of, 141; Ethics, definition of, 3, 200; as a normative science, 4; relation to other sciences, 5-9; universality of, 9-12. Euripides : and the Greek gods, 15. Evolution, and hedonism, 125- 128. Family, value of, 249-250; spirit of 250-253. Feeling, race, 246. Fichte, Johann: and free will, 31; idealism of, 78; theory of the 1 1 ego, ’ ’ 155-156. Force, use of, 230; in the state, 290. Forgiveness, 231. Fraternities, 235. Freedom, problem of, 2; and religion, 14ff ; realization of, 24 ; and conscience, 54ff ; organ of, 54 ; and pessimism, 72f¥; through pleasure, 115ff ; through reason, 145ff ; of thought, 169, 241; through person¬ ality, 174ff; and the will, 174; and vocation, 207- 212; and work, 212-216; and truth, 235-242 ; and justice, 242-248 ; of wo¬ man, 261-264. Freud, Sigmund: theory of mind, 38; theory of sex, 220. Friendship, 234. Galton, John: and heredity, 39. Gambling, morality of, 214. Gentleness, 228. God : is ethical, 25 ; and right, 106; as the Absolute Individuality, 158; as ab¬ solute good, 188; is Love, 190 ; love toward, 192 ; Kingdom of, 198, 300 ; spirituality of, 277 ; will of, 291. Goethe, Wolfgang : “Faust, ’ ’ 76, 196; naturalism of, 204n. Goldenweiser , Alexander A.: and the family, 250n. Good, the, 95, 100-104; ex¬ pression of, 113 ; and pleasure, 136; and reason, 163 ; and personality, 182. Green, Thomas Hill: defini¬ tion of ideal, 99 ; “ the end,” 104. Grotius: and right, 106. Groups, conflict between, 245. Haas, John A. W.: “In the Light of Faith,” 18n, 21- 22n, 27n. Habits, and religion, 20; and free will, 33 ; and virtue, 111; of right, 217. Haeckel, Ernst: theory of mind, 41. Hamilton, William: philoso¬ phy of, 78. Happiness, principle of, 124; and pleasure, 131-133; and reason, 147. Hardy, Thomas: novels of, 47. Hedonism, ancient, 116-119; evolutionary conception of, 125-128; and virtue, 140- 141, 193 ; philosophy of, 141 ; and Christianity, 142- 143 ; and reason, 145 ; op¬ posed to rationalism, 158. Hegel, George W. F. : and absolute reason, 78; free¬ dom through reason, 157 ; idea of the state, 296. 314 INDEX Henotheism, 17. Heracleitus: philosophy of, 77. Heredity, and free will, 40. Hilly David Jayne: the idea of sovereignty, 289. History, relation of ethics to, 7, 8. Hobbes, Thomas: social con¬ tract, 286; as materialist, 295. Hobhouse, L. T.: incipient moral life, 7 ; reason and conscience, 62 ; permanency of ideal, 100; “the good, ” 101, 103 ; right, 105 ; and duty, 108n; and utilitarian¬ ism, 120n; failure of Mill, 138; and the state, 297n. Holland, H. Scott: individul- ity, 183-184. Holt, Edwin B. : theory of mind, 38. Honor, 222. Hume, David: philosophy of, 78; and suicide, 225. Humility, 222. Ibsen, Hendrik: and casual¬ ty, 47. Idealism, 169. Ideals, and religion, 23 ; in realism, 74; meaning of, 95, 96-100 ; realization of, 98; conception of, 98; and the end, 113; and pleasure, 136; and personality, 186- 189. Ideas, leading ethical, 95ff ; interrelation of ethical, 113; of the state, 287-291. Immortality, 172. Imperative, of duty, 155, 166. Individual, definition of, 179; in the state, 298. Individuality, and personal¬ ity, 179-183. Infallibility, of conscience, 68. Instincts, influenced by reli¬ gion, 18-19; common, 180. Intellect, and conscience, 60. Intelligence, measurement of, 35 ; and free will, 36. Internationalism, and the state, 306-309. Intuitionism, modern, ISO- 154. James, William: choice of freedom, 32; theory of emotions, 37 ; substitute for war, 304n. Jones, Sir Henry: and indi¬ vidual freedom, 49n. Justice, and freedom, 242- 248 ; interpretation of, 244 ; institution of, 287 ; in the state, 290. Judgment, of acts, 55; law back of, 57. Jung, C. G.: theory of mind, 38. Kant, Immanuel: necessity of future life, 24; and casu¬ alty, 30 ; philosophy of, 78; stressing of duty, 108, 165 ; philosophy of reason, 154-155 ; the end in the individual, 159 ; and will, 174; and personality, 195. Kindness, 228. Knowledge, and pessimism, 76-82; of men, 243. Lamarck, Jean B.: on envir¬ onment, 42. Lange, Friedrich: theory of emotions, 37. Laski, Harold: authority of the state, 291. Law, of the sciences, 48; back of judgment, 57 ; ori- INDEX 315 gin of moral, 58; of action, 155 ; and justice, 248. Leclcy, William : ‘ ‘ Study of European Morals, ’ 7 7. Legislation, social, 276; for the church, 281-282. Leibniz, G. W.: and optimism, 72; theory of monads, 105. Liberty, of choices , 29 ; of knowledge, 81; of the church, 282-283. Lie, 238. Life, sentient, 134, 204; de¬ terminateness of, 175; in¬ dividual, 202f£ ; moral, 204- 205; the bodily, 216-222; mental, 222-224 ; power over, 224-226; family, 25i- 252 ; the single, 260-261. Locke, John: philosophy of, 77; use of words, 95; against intuitionism, 152 ; right of revolution, 301; and rulers, 302n. Logic, 4; of Aristotle, 58. Lotze, Herman: emphasis upon value, 4; and person¬ ality, 196. Love, brotherly, 25, 191; law of, 190; and duty, 190; of God, 192; in justice, 194; expression of, 231, 274; in¬ stitution of, 250. Loyalty, 206-207. Luther, Martin : on taking in¬ terest, 210 ; economic evils, 277 ; submission to author¬ ity, 300. Mana, 16. Mansel, Henry L.: philos¬ ophy of, 78. Marriage, 254-258. Martineau, James: and con¬ science, 60; and duty, 110. Materialism, and hedonism, 141. Meekness, 229. Mendel, Johann G.: law of heredity, 39. Mercy, 231. Metaphysics, and free will, 30. Mill, John Stuart: and utili¬ tarianism, 122-124, 129 ; failure of, 138; hedonism and virtue, 140. Misrepresentation, 238. Modesty, 219-220. Mohammedanism, and free¬ dom, 50. Monotheism, 17-18. Moods, and pessimism, 75. Morality, perfection of, 128. Morris, William: and interest, 210. Motives, and religion, 21; and free will, 32; and pleasure, 122; and will, 175. Nationality, 246; and the state, 294-295. Naturalism, and pessimism, 73. Nature, rational, 154. Nietzsche, Friedrich: re-valu¬ ing values, 6 ; will to power, 31; attack on meek¬ ness, 230. Non-resistance, 229. Obedience, 251. Omar Khayyam: 117. Opinion, public, 243. Organization, of the church, 278-279. ‘ ‘ Ought, ” as foundation of duty, 107 ; consciousness of 127. Pacifism, 306. Pain, meaning of, 115; as a master, 120 ; source of, 121. Pantheism, and naturalism, 73. 316 INDEX Pater, Walter: on eternity, 149-150. Paul, St.: and conscience, 60, 70; willingness to action, 87; asceticism of, 171; and ‘ 1 the flesh, ’ ’ 204. Paulsen, Friedrich : idea of the state, 288. Pedagogy, theories of, 79. Perjury, 239. Personality, Hegel’s idea of, 157; and will, 176-179; definition of, 178; and in¬ dividuality, 179-183; and society, 183-186; and the ideal, 186-189 ; influence of, 187 ; and right, 189 ; and virtue, 192-194; history of, 194—196 ; and Christianity, 196-200. Pessimism, and freedom, 72ff; causes of, 73-75; and hu¬ man moods, 75; and know¬ ledge, 76-82; and emotion, 82-86 ; and actions, 86-87 ; and civilization, 87-90 ; and religion, 90 ; and Christianity, 91-94. Philology, and ethics, 6. Philosophers, neorealistic, 37. Philosophy, of society, 46 ; development of, 77-79; of hedonism, 141; of rational¬ ism, 169. Plato : and Greek religion, 15 ; philosophy of, 77, 141, 146; 196; ideas, 96; happi¬ ness, 131; theory of harm¬ ony, 194-195 ; and art, 223 ; idea of the state, 288, 296. Pleasure, claim of, 115-116; theory and origin, 116; as a good, 118; as a master, 120; source of, 121; sanc¬ tions of, 121 ; quality of, 123; and reason, 129-131; and happiness, 131-133 ; of individual, 134; social, 135; and the end, 135; and the ideal, 136; and the good, 136; and the right, 137 ; and duty, 137-140. Plotinus: and intellect, 163. Power, and justice, 288-289. Predestination, and freedom, 50, 51-52. Prejudice, 241. Press, public, 240. Price, Bichard : intuitionism, 151. Pride, 222. Problem, and principle, 1; of freedom, 2 ; of ethics and religion, 14 ; of free will, 28; of pessimism, 72; of drink, 218. Professions, 211. Propaganda, 239. Property, private, 215. Prostitution, evil of, 259-260. Providence, doctrine of, 50. Prudence, 118, 140, 237. Psycho-analysis, 38. Psychologism, 141. Psychology, ethics and, 6; and free will, 32. Psycho-therapy, 38. Punishment, 292. Puritanism, 161. Purpose, implication of, 130. Quietists, 161. Race feeling, 246. Radicalism, 270. Rationalism, and hedonism, 158 ; apex of, 164 ; defect of, 166; philosophy of, 169. Realism, and pessimism, 74. Reason, and morals, 69; and pleasure, 129-131; freedom through, 145fF ; promise of, 145 ; ancient advocates of, 146-150 ; and intuitionism, 150-154 ; German develop- INDEX 317 ment of, 154-158; and feel¬ ing, 158-160; and asceti¬ cism, 160-162 ; and the good, 163 ; and the right, 164; and duty, 165-166; and virtue, 167-169; and Christianity, 170-173. Beid, Thomas: philosophy of, 78; moral sense, 152. Religion, development of, 14; history of, 16-18; and character and conduct, 18; and instincts, 18-19; and desires, 20; and habits, 20; and motives, 21; and sanc¬ tions, 22 ; and ideals, 23 ; and free will, 49; and con¬ science, 69; and pessimism, 90. Repentence, 64. Revolution, right of, 300-303. Right, 95, 104-106 ; and 1 1 the good,” 113; social, 104; and pleasure, 137 ; and rea¬ son, 164; and personality, 189; of the child, 264-265; of revolution, 300-303. Righteousness, 242-243. Bousseuu, J ean J. : dream of, 147 ; social contract, 286. Boyce, Josiah: theory of loy¬ alty, 206. Bushin, John: and interest, 210. Sacrifice, meaning of, 161. Sanctions, and religion, 22 ; of conduct, 121, 127; ex¬ ternal and internal, 139. Schiller Johann C. F.: judg¬ ment of world, 24. Schleiermacher, Friedrich: eth¬ ical ideas, 96. Schopenhauer, Arthur: “will to,” 31; philosophy of, 83; on art, 85 ; and actions, 86. Science, normative, 3 ; of value, 4; relation of, 5. School, Montessori, 265. Self-love, 191. Seneca: and reason, 149. Seth, James: eudaemonism of, 196; idea of the state, 288; and punishment, 292. Sex, morals of, 219. Shakespeare, William: “Mac¬ beth,” 64; “As You Like It,” 75n, 76. Shaw, Charles Gray : theory of personality, 196. Sidgwick, Henry: and utili¬ tarianism, 124, 129 ; and virtue, 141. Sin, and freedom, 51. Socialism, economics of, 215. Society, and conscience, 59 ; conscience of, 67 ; and pleasure, 135; and person¬ ality, 183-186; and the church, 275-276. Sociology, and ethics, 8, 9 ; and freedom, 44. Socrates: leader of a new light, 11 ; and Greek re¬ ligion, 15 ; and conscience, 59; philosophy of, 77; and reason, 146. Spencer, Herbert: religion as sanction, 23n ; philosophy of, 79; and evolutionary ethics, 126-127 ; altruism, 135; and duty, 139; agnos¬ ticism of, 142. Standards, of society, 11. State, and the church, 279- 284; place of, 286-287; idea of, 287-291 ; task of, 291-294; and the nation, 294- 295 ; the absolute, 295- 297 ; socialistic, 298 ; and anarchism, 299-390 ; and war, 303-306; and internationalism, 306-309. Stevenson, B. L.: ideal of, 131. Stimulants, use of, 219. 318 INDEX Stoics: virtues of, 167-168, 193; idea of the state, 296. Suicide, 224-226. Superstition, 269. Syllogism, of judgment, 58. Tactfulness, 237. Tawney, Richard H. : and pro¬ fessions, 210; and social¬ ism, 216n. Telepathy, 38. Temperament, and free will, 34. Temperance, 217. Thought, freedom of, 169, 241. Tolerance, 207. Tolstoi, Lyof N. : and the state, 299. Totemism, 17. Truth, and freedom, 235- 242; way of, 237; and the church, 268-272. Tufts, James H.: relation of economics to ethics, 8. Universalism, of reason, 160. Universality, of ethics, 9, 10. Utilitarianism, meaning of, 119. Utility, principle of, 120. Virtue, 95 ; meaning of, 110- 112; and duty, 113, 139; and hedonism, 140-141, 193 ; and reason, 167-169 ; and personality, 192—194 ; classification of, 203; so¬ cial, 228ff. Vocation, selection of, 208, 211; morals of, 209; of women, 262. Volition, and conscience, 65; possibility of, 177. Von Hartmann, Edward.: philosophy, of the uncon¬ scious, 31. War, and the state, 303-306, 307. Waring, Luther H.: “ Politi¬ cal Theories of Luther, ’ 1 30 In. Watson, John: and mind, 37. Weisman, August: neo-Dar¬ winian theory, 39. Westermarck, Edward: in¬ cipient moral life, 7. Will, free, 28ff ; metaphysi¬ cal solution of, 30; and psychology, 32; and the brain, 36; and biology, 39; and sociology, 44; and causality, 46; and religion, 49 ; and Christianity, 50 ; definition of, 174; and per¬ sonality, 176-179, 181-182. Williams, James M.: 211n. Wilson, Woodrow: idea of the state, 288. Wisdom, 236. Woman, freedom of, 261-264. Woods, Fredrick A.: and en¬ vironment, 43. Work, moral side of, 213; end of, 214-215; virtues of, 216; of the church, 272- 277. Worship, of the church, 277- 278. Wright, Henry: and person¬ ality, 196. Wundt, Wilhelm: moral im¬ port of words, 6. Xenophanes : and naturalism, 15. Zeno : philosophy of, 148. Date Due k 9 ' 1 21 ’4 v> rn> r ?.n ' 'I Jf^) | % 0 ’4' 7 * <7 m * ** 4 M MY 4~« NO 9 -■’5< / wr- ’•*"• "'***■* L 'I, <$> _ i ft&». nr < /. %.u a. Xofl 5. J fo K i. 1 x _L ' S. ? 3 9 ' XX ?09 © ®Y 2? SI -309 Z1S 2?® 3.55" 7J- 9? . 237 - 2®? Sj - (PW 5 - iffiV — 03 5 202 — ® » X Ft*Gc;iom anc t> \ p \ * i A V \< r- ^ “VVi y :J a v