·TO
FELIX ADLER,
GEORG VON GIZYCKI, AND EDWIN D. MEAD,
THIS BOOK
IS GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.

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·ETHICAL RELIGION

·TO
FELIX ADLER,
GEORG VON GIŻYCKI, AND EDIVIN D. MEAI.
THIS BOOK
IS GRATEFULLY AND
AFFECTIONATELY IVSCRIBED.

·ETHICAL
RELIGION
BY
WILLIAM MACKINTIRE SALTER
WITH INTRODUCTION BY STANTON COIT, PH.D.
(ISSUED FOR THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LIMITED]
WATTS & CO.,
17, JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
1905

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·CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 7 AUTHOR'S PREFACE II 1. ETHICAL RELIGION 13 II. THE IDEAL ELEMENT IN MORALITY 19 III. WHAT IS A MORAL ACTION ? 27 IV. IS THERE A HIGHER LAW ? 35 V. MORALITY AS A RELIGION 45 VI. DARWINISM IN ETHICS 51 VII. THE SOCIAL IDEAL 59 VIII. PERSONAL MORALITY 68 X. NON-CHEZSTIAN TEACHERS AND JESUS: WHOM SHALL WE FOLLOW? 76 X. DOES THE ETHICS OF: JESUS SATISFY THE NEEDS OF OUR TIME? 83 XI. THE SUCCESS AND THE FAILUKE OF PROTESTANTISM 95 XII. THE BASIS OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT - 104 XIII. THE SUPREMACY OF ETHICS III XIV. THE TRUE BASIS OF RELIGIOUS UNION 117 XV. THE CAUSE OF ETHICS 121

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·INTRODUCTION ETHICAL Societies constitute the only organised religious movement which has come into existence and developed under the Darwinian method of viewing human events. Even the Positivist Society is pre- Darwinian in origin. And the writings, not only of Comte but of his disciples, show, by at least a faint tint, that they have been dipped in the vat of pre-Darwinianism. With this statement I premise my Introduction to Mr. Salter's essays in Ethical Religion. I do so for two reasons. In the first place, they were written-so to speak—from the Ethical Movement; they came out of the heart of it ; they were written for it, and have already had a marked influence upon it. In the second place, their author was, so far as I know, the first to keep the emotional side of the highest moral idealism perfectly intact, and yet adjust himself to the naturalistic view of the origin of the moral sentiments, and of the life that is true to then. I do not think that the like achievement has been attained by any other modern essayist, not even by either of those two more glowing rhetoricians of a naturalistic ethic-Professor Clifford and Monsieur Guyau. And of the founder of the Ethical Society Movement, Professor Felix Adler, althbugh it must be said that no one else's writings excel his in depth strength, and purity of moral chviction, yet in them a distinctly scientific cultivation of mind is not so much in evidence as the philosophical and critical method of the German dialectical schools. Kant and his intellectual successors, however, are not representative of the habits of thought in the Ethical Societies (at least of Great Britain)- 116r, as for that, in the whole of the modern world—to the same degree as are Darwin and all who, with him, seek to account for every new form of life and of mind by the action of environment upon organism. Now, in Mr. Saſter's essays this thought, although it seldom has · occasion to come to overt expression, acts as an all-pervading principle, checking and guiding his speculative fancy, and bringing it into close and seeing relation with the modern universe. It subjects his imagination to its own rigorous canons, and directs his emotions to goals ·8 INTRODUCTION . within cosmic possibilities; but it has not cooled his ethical fervour, nor clipped his soul's wings. The atmosphere of these essays is Science; but Religion is the life of them. Here, indeed, is a science-breathing religiqr. This seems to me the salient feature, the rare charm, of these essays. One cannot read them without the happy surprise of continually finding that in them the spiritual enthusiasm of the old-time saints and martyrs surylves the discipline of the naturalistic and evolutionary way of thinking; and not only survives, but gains from it a new beauty and harmony, as if at last all discord between intellect and the highest sentiment had been resolved. We have here the simplicity and devotion of Thomas à Kempis, and yet a complete dropping of the distinctively Christian symbolism, and an entire absence of all animistic conceptions of the universe. In their place is a deep sense of the universality of the law of cause and effect, and a superb consciousness that man's highest achievements, and even his unattainable dreams of the Best, are a part of Nature-are, indeed, Nature's natural crown. There is here the same sense of the same glory which the ancient prophets felt and beheld. But the glory is no longer above, or outside of, or opposed to Nature. It is Nature become conscious in man, and man become conscious of the Moral Ideal as the vital principle of his constitutiona principle which has not yet been fully embodied in his life, but which he knows he can fulfil, because he finds his deepest cravings satisfied in proportion to his obedience. Mr. Salter was the founder, and is still the lecturer, of the Chicago Society for Ethical Culture. He was the first to join Professor Adler with the intention of devoting his life to the Ethical Movement. He had been educated to become a Unitarian minister, He studied at the Yale Divinity School, and was sent to Germany on a student's scholarship. It was after his return to America that he identified himself with the Ethical Movement. In about 1885 he established the Chicago Ethical Society. Mr. Salter has published many separate essays, which he at first delivered as Ethical lectures. He is also the author of a very helpful book for beginners in the study of metaphysics, entitled First Steps in Philosophy, a volume unique in that its easy style and simplicity of phrase cause the reader to feel quite at home, despite the profundity and massiveness of the thought. With the same literary grace is written Mr. Salter's little book entitled Anarchy or Government ?. The author is unguestionably on the side of government. But he feels to the full ·INTRODUCTION 9 the enormity of the iniquities of the present-day Powers. He makes us understand how these have driven many men of sensitive nature blind to the possibility of overcoming the evils of government without abolishing government itself. Mr. Salter's essay on Anarchy or Government? is, however, more than a speculative argument: it is an autobiographical document. When the great anarchist outrage was perpetrated in the 'eighties, in Chicago, and the anarchists had been condemned to death, they were allowed the privilege of conversing with whatever minister of religion they might wish to meet. Although they were fully aware that Mr. Salter had no sympathy with their anarchic principles or their complicity in the dynamite plot, he was the only teacher of religion whom they would consent to see. He visited them often in their prison cells. And it was in part through his intercession that the judgment against some of the anarchists was commuted from death to imprisonment for life. Whoever reads the following pages will believe that these embittered and maddened enemies of the present social order chose Mr. Salter as their spiritual consoler, not so much because they agreed with his philosophic views of the universe as because they had learned to love and trust the humaneness of the man. Ethical Religion not only presents a point of view; it also reveals the personality of the writer. Ethical Societies, like other religious organisations, are found, in the last analysis, to be dependent upon the characters, the moral individualities, of their leaders and teachers. In this respect, also, this book has a work to perform in the Ethical Cause; and it will become more and more a precious legacy. • Ethical Societies, not falling. back upon the idea of a Personal Creator or of a unique personal Saviour, are by necessity compelled, as well as by inherent preference inclined, to look in democratic fashion to the influence of their own members upon one another as the most abundant source of moral strength and inspiration. The Doctrine of Personality—but the psychological and democratic, not the supernaturalistic and monarchic doctrine-is the one dogma, if I may be permitted to use the word, of the Ethical Movement. Individuals and nations can be saved only by personal moral character ; and individuals and nations will not be completely and ultimately saved except as all are devoting themselves to the task of universal deliverance from misery and wrong. Such is Mr. Salter's message. This sixpenny reprint of Ethical Religion will be welcomed by thousands whose attention and interest have, through the Rationalist ·IO INTRODUCTION Press Association, been directed to the modern view of the world, and its claims upon all thinking men, as compared with the claims of traditional theology. It will, however, be especially acceptable to those whose advancing thought has led them to separate themselves from all the old religious organisations. More and more these isolated thinkers are beginning to crave for fellowship with others of the same way of thinking and feeling. More and more they are -coming to realise that, if ever the moral idealism of the world is to be established on a sure foundation of tested truth, the believers in the new view of the universe must co-operate; they must organise and systematise a mighty propaganda ; they must instruct vast numbers of adults, especially of the working classes-by lectures, discussions, and by the dissemination of literature-in the methods and principles of science, as applied to the human mind and to society, for the attainment of the ideals of Ethical Democracy. This volume of Mr. Salter's is peculiarly fitted to awaken to self-consciousness the craving among isolated thinkers for societies for the propagation of Ethical principles, and for the application of such principles to the reform of our present systems of education, of medicine, of laws and of legal practice, of conjugal and parental custonis, of economic control and of property. holding, of amusements, recreations, and art. It will not be surprising if many an Ethical Democratic Church which shall come into existence during the next twenty years shall trace its origin to the publication of thiş yolume by the Rationalist Press Association. STANTON Cort. October, 1905.

·AUTHOR'S PREFACE It is only fair to anyone who may take up this book to say that it is made up of lectures given, for the most part, before the Society for Ethical Culture of Chicago. It is due to my colleagues in the Ethical Movement to say that they are not responsible for the views here expressed ; that the book nowise claims to represent the Movement, but simply reflects my own attitude of mind upon the various topics treated. Even in discussing “ The Basis of the Ethical Movement” I but give my own interpretation of it. The bond of union between the lecturers, as between the members, of Ethical Societies is not a speculative but a moral one. I must add, however, that my own intellectual indebtedness to Professor Adler is so great that it would be difficult to measure it. Many of the thoughts in this volume-probably the best ones—are really his thoughts; he has given me, or at least quickened in my mind, ideas that will never go from me--that are a part of my better self. As I have gone over the proof-sheets of these pages I have felt afresh how deep and constant are my obligations to him. An occasional criticism which a German translation of some of these lectures' received leads me at the outset to disclaim for this volunie any scientific pretensions. It is not even a connected series of discourses ; there are repetitions in it. These lectures were not written in the first place for publication at all, but to quicken, if they might, the thoughts and lives of those to whom they were addressed. There is possibly one lecture, "What is a Moral Action ?” which, as an attempt to analyse and fix a conception, may be thought to have some scientific worth. After writing it, I was gratified to learn that Aristotle had made a somewhat similar analysis-though the master says in a few words what I spread out in as many pages. But had I attempted to write a philosophical treatise, the whole method would have been different. I Published under the title Die Religion der Moral, translated by [Professor Dr.] Georg von Gizycki, Leipzig and Berlin, Wilhelm Friedrich, 1885. A Dutch translation of the same, by the hand of the Rev. P. H. Hugenholtz, Jr., of Amsterdam, appeared in 1888 under the title, Zedelijke Religie, Amsterdam, Tj. van Holkema. 2 See the Nicomachean Ethics, ii. 4, § 3.

·12 AUTHOR'S PREFACE should then, perhaps, have been able to clear up some of the confusion and inconsistencies with which my thoughts may seem to be involved. For example, I should have attempted to explain my inability to assent either to Theism on the one hand, or to Positivism on the other; I should have sought to reconcile varying points of view in speaking of religion, God, ethics, Christianity; I should have attempted particularly to develop my own theory of ethics, which I cannot call either. Utilitarian or Intuitional. I say "attempted," for I do not assume that my intellectual positions are necessarily final and complete ; speaking from my own brief experience, the intellectual life is one of change and progress, and it is possible that, in attempting to state my views philosophically, I should be led somewhat to modify and enlarge them. My purpose in allowing this book to come before the public is not intellectual, but practical and moral. I do not ask scholars to read it, but inen and women who are in the midst of the stress of life. My only fear is that it may be too scholastic for the latter class, as I know it lacks too much in thoroughness and precision to satisfy the former. But if it should by chance refresh or invigorate, or help to refine, the moral life of anyone who reads it; if it should stir in anyone a divine discontent with himself and the state of society about him; if it should give anyone courage to fight with the evil and contend for the good in the world; if it should nourish anyone's secret hope that there is but one outcome of the course and evolution of things-namely, the victory of the good--if it should thus make anyone more gladly co-operate with the deep tendency of things, then { should count myself happy indeed. I wish to thank Mr. A. W. Stevens, of Cambridge, for valuable counsels and assistance as the book was passing through the press. W. M. S. Chicago, Murch, 1839.

·MAJU PUBLIC LIBRARY MĀJU, HOW RAHU ETHICAL: RELIGION Estd. 1902 1. ETHICAL RELIGION The moral nature is that by which we for they may sometimes seem as firm as transcend ourselves and enter into an the earth and as constant as day and ideal region. Science, with its methods night, and yet have no moral right to be. of observation and experiment, is limited Such are injustice, unscrupulous selfto the world as it is. Ethics is essen- assertion; wrong-though they may be tially the thought of what ought to be. continuous with the course of history; It is not an account of man as he is, nor and all the laws and institutions created is it a transcript and summary abstract under their influence are without binding of the facts of society; it declares the force or obligation. law after which man should act, and in The safety and sanity of life consist in obedience to which society should be keeping in mind the higher ends and constituted. Ethics, in a word, holds laws of our existence. For man is not up the picture of our ideal selves, and only to know, but to do and to achieve. gives us back society transfigured. For Strange, is it not, that man should not man has two sides to his nature-one be content with what he sees; that he looking out on what is, the other on the should turn his back on the known and better that might be. It is a meritorious familiar in search of something better; task to analyse the body and brain and that he should stake his life sometimes mind of man; to explore conscientiously on a hope or dream of his mind? Yet and classify systematically the facts of this, 200, belongs to man: it is the ideal human society. But psychology and ends of human life calling on him for sociology do not take the place of ethics, their accomplishment; and he, simple nor even give its indispensable founda- and loyal, does not fail to hear. tion. In the strict sense of the word, Ethical religion would turn men's science--the science of man as truly as thoughts this way. It would inspire to any other-knows nothing of right and a new confidence in ideas. It would wrong, but only of what is; of facts, and be essentially a practical religion, not the law of their connection. To the practical and ideal, but practical because pure understanding, virtue and vice do ideal. It would lay on men a burden, not exist. These notions arise in virtue assign to them a task-a burden the of our judgment upon facts; and the only relief from which is in action; a organ of that judgment is other than that task which is unescapable till it be by which we learn of and explain the accomplished. Like an architect's plan, facts themselves : men call it Conscience. an idea means nothing in itself: it It pronounces upon the worth of facts; proposes a new form of life, as the plan ·14 ETHICAL RELIGION involves a new structure. For as the world was another literal world like our artist, whose soul images some form of own, only more perfect. If this were so, the beautiful, seizes the brush or the what should we have to do but to lift chisel to portray it; as the thinker's our thoughts to that ideal world, and burning thoughts drive him to utterance, there find the rest and peace that are so in the truly moral nature every idea denied to us here? of the good becomes a necessity, every That might be one kind of religion ; thought of the higher a command; all but surely it would not be a practical that we dream of and that seems so far religion. And what is more, it would be away becomes an end and goal for our an illusory religion ; for there is no such action and our life. Yet how rarely is ideal world as Plato pictures. The the full practical significance of the ideal Platonic world in its moral aspect is side of human nature realised ! In nothing more than the world as we what illusions do men permit themselves should like to see it, the world as it in thinking of the ideal! ought to be. It is, in truth, nothing but First, there is the aesthetic or senti- an ideal for our world; and to transform mental mistake. Men wander into an this actual order of our human life into ideal region to luxuriate there. The an image of it would be the task of a good is an object of delight; they con- practical religion. The truest word that template it, love it, worship it, they say could be addressed to us is, If thou wilt do everything but obey it. Much of ever see the perfect, thou must create the religion of our day, orthodox and it: till that time thou rangest over the other, is but a kind of spiritual revel- earth or through the heavens in vain! ling, wherein men allow themselves The idea only of perfection is in us; the the use of all kinds of fine sentiments perfect itself is to be. Men ask, Can and phrases, yet after which life we be satisfied with such a view ; can we is as flat as ever. This is unpractical be content to regard all that is higher idealism, but only because it is false and better only as a thought of our idealism. That ideas are but the minds ? But a noble mind does not pattern after which we are to fashion first ask, What is satisfactory? but, What our lives is not realised; the element of is true? And I ain sure that one who respect for them is wanting. If a man is has been caught up by the thought of not in the mood to act, if he will not the higter, and felt that the burden and become better, let him not think the the glory of accomplishing it rested upon ideas of the better at all. It is a kind him, would feel the richest sacisfactions of profaning of them to face them, and denied hiin if told that the higher was not begin to act as they command. already real, and he had only to open Closely akin to this æsthetic or senti- some fancied spiritual eyes to discern it. mental mistake is the philosophical What meaning, what significance, would mistake of regarding the ideal as another there be in our lives, with grand thought world alongside of the actual world. It and purpose stirred, to learn that that is so easy to those who are accustomed which we were to do is already acconito deal with ideas to think of them as plished ? Certainly, cousin," said the real, substantial things. They become gallant Earl of Pembroke, on coming up so familiar with them that the natural to the Earl of Derby before Auberoche, order of human thought is inverted; and and finding the battle already won, the ideas are spoken of as real, and the have neither been courteous nor beactual world as an appearance. This haved honourably to fight my enemies seems to have been the Platonic view. without waiting for me, seeing that you Goodness, justice-moral ideas, as well had sent for me." That is an unsatisas all others-Plato looked at as self-exis- factory view of life which leaves us tent, independent entities. The ideal nothing to do, which fixes on us no 66 ·ETHICAL RELIGION great responsibilities, which encircles us We do not find these in the world, we with no grand trusts. In truth, in our do not see them in ourselves; and so, heart of hearts, we want to do, we want foolish creatures that we are, we jump to to dare; we do not care even to be the conclusion that they are in another assured of victory: there is a profound world, that they belong to God. And something in us which disdains the need here is the ignoble side to theology; for of such assurances. not only is the personal Deity of theology And as the philosophical mistake is illusory, but by gathering the divine to the highest type of mind not only qualities into a form outside of man it untrue and delusive, but unsatisfactory allows us to forget that they are qualities rather than satisfactory, so is the theo- for man, and religion becomes the worlogical mistake. Theology gathers all ship of something already existing, inour thoughts of the higher and better stead of the sense of a burden and a together, and conceives them in the task. We are to become divine : we form of a perfect person who rules and are to make this world a scene of justice. guides the world. There is a noble side All that men have gathered into the to theology: I mean, of course, not as form of a God is but the image of our savages or narrow bigots, but as pure possible selves. We make a myth of and lofty souls have conceived it. God love and justice, when we say that they is the perfect; there are no limitations, are actually ruling in the world, as Chrisno failings there--measureless goodness, tian believers hold; or as Emerson says, infinite justice, make up that image of that “though ministers of justice fail, the mind. And if the only alternative justice never," and that the ethical laws were between the world as it is, with no are self-executing, instantaneous." Justice thought of anything above it by which is for ever failing in the world. Whenever to try it, and this lofty ideal of excellence ministers of justice fail, it fails; for it which might be ever kept in mind, I do acquires a real existence only in those not see how we could hesitate in pro- who execute it. Apart from them, it is nouncing which would be the better. only what ought to be, nothing that is. We must look on all that is from some There are no self-executing, instantaideal standpoint; we must keep in our neous, ethical laws; though one might minds some high and unfailing standard well, when one thinks of all the unreof excellence; and until provision is quited wrong there is in the world, wish made for this in the new order of things, to heaven that there were. The laws the old Belief will remain, and deserve are over us, but they wait for us to to remain. For man has these two sides execute them; they are shorn of their to his nature, of which I have spoken, intent, as our lives are of their signifiand the most perfect knowledge of what cance, if we do not execute them. We is will not take the place of the thought can only say that the ethical laws should of what ought to be. But the noble side rule in our lives, that justice for ever of theology is easily disengaged from calls for ministers; and of love, not that theology itself. When one ceases to it is supreme in the world, but let love, believe in God in the ordinary sense, as Buddha said, even the love that fills one does not need to drop flat to the the mother's heart as she watches over world and life as we see them and know her only child, animate all. For the them. All that made that image admir- ideal itself of the old religions is not able remains-all those higher qualities essentially different from that of the new. that we instinctively call divine and that The old, however, say, The ideal does mankind instinctively worships, wherever rule; the new will say, Let it rule! The any hint or suggestion of them appears old religions appear to open to us the in human form-goodness, pity, boundless charity, unfailing justice. "The Preacher.”

·16 ETHICAL RELIGION secrets of what lies behind the veil; the their life, it is their religion. I believe, new will take those august secrets, and indeed, that there is no other thought make them in all their grandeur the aim that wins so instinctive a reverence as and the rule of human life. The old this of the good ; that conceptions of the religions leave us on our knees in rapt Deity and plans for a truer society take contemplation and worship; the new deep hold of men only as they in some will summon us to stand erect, and to sense image or embody it. The quesbelieve that all men have worshipped, tion whether morality can becpme a all that they have dreamed of, all that religion for men in general is the queshas seemed so far above them and tion whether men in general are capable beyond thein, men and women in the of unselfish admiration ; whether they future are to become and to realise. can love the good unmoved by personal But why, if man's ideals do not reveal fears and hopes, because it is the good, anything outside ourselves, but only and has an intrinsic charm for them. I indicate what we ourselves should be and do not doubt it. I believe we ordinarily do-why do we speak of devotion to think too meanly of man. The higher them as religion at all? I do not covet I do not covet nature is in us all : it is not often appealed that word, and disbelieve in all the to, and it is perhaps for this very reason prevailing forms of religion. I do not that human life remains on so low a begin with any attempt to compromise level. Let a new religion arise which with them. And yet I am driven to should dare to take man at his best, speak of religion-not indeed in the which should summon him to justice common way, as of something additional and generosity and all nobleness, solely to morality, but of morality as religion. because these are his true and proper This may be made evident in two life, and I believe the world would be ways. Religion from the purely human astonished at the answer. side might be defined as man's supreme But religion may also be defined from interest; whoever has an absorbing con the objective side. In this aspect, it is cern may be said to have a religion. man's relation with what is ultimate and We often hear persons spoken of as supreme in the world. The truest relireligiously devoted to some object, reli- gion would be that one in which the giously faithful in some attention, some supreme interest gathers about that which regard, some affection. There are those is really supreme and ultimate in the who have memories that are to them a world. Now, morality, truly interpreted, religion-statesmen to whom the service does bring man into contact with the of their country has been a religion, religion, final nature of things. Whatever else I reformers who give their lives and for- may doubt about, I canriot doubt the tunes in religious devotion to the service law of duty-that there is a right and a of some idea. Those who care for no wrong; that the right obliges me, that I one thing more than another, who have ought to do it. It makes no difference no enthusiasm, who are listless and that I have learned this law, that others cannot be conceived as rising to any have learned it before, that I know little height of self-devotion--these are pro more about it than I have received or perly the irreligious people of any time. been taught; it makes no difference that In vain would the most perfect theory of I do not know it now perfectly, that I life and the universe be called a religion, 'may err sometimes in my judgments if it could not stir the souls of men, if it about it. Still, I am sure, as Dorothea could not take hold of life and mould it in the story wds, that there is a perfect into higher forms. If morality then--if right if I could only find it. Sometimes the thought of the good becomes supreme I wish to do the right; and sometimes, over all other thoughts in the minds of any, if it enlists their feelings and masters • Jiddlemarch.

·ETHICAL RELIGION 17 -- again, it seems hard, forbidding, and I ! He alone does a genuinely moral act do not wish to do it. But the right : who does it because he must; because itself does not change with my wishes he nature of things bears down upon and wants. I might unlearn it; I might him to do it. For the crystal, religion under the solicitations of some desire or would be to become a crystal; to own passion, juggle myself into the belief that he pressure that would yield the perfect it no longer existed. Yet the right would form. For man, it can only be to be a not itself cease because my thought of it man, to perform the human part of the ceased.' I might die and others take my universal task. Morality is simply one place, yet the right would exist for them form of the universal law; and in the as truly as it had existed for me. When- yielding to its demands man is lifted ever, wherever, two persons arise and out of himself; and as the tides of ocean look into each other's faces, the law of throb "respondent to the far-off orbs," mutual reverence and respect-the law so do his pulses beat in unison with the of justice we call it-obtains. If they movement of the universe. Yet how do not own it, it is the law all the same; little is the transcendent significance of if they act contrary to it, and defy every morality realised in these days! How prescription of it, it is the law all the often are divine and eternal things consame. Plainly, men do not make this trasted with it! Ethics covers simply the law, but simply find it. If there are equities and amenities of this world, it other rational beings than men, it applies is sometimes said. But there is no to them just as truly; the law is a equity of this world; there is only equity, universal law for all rational intelligence. as good, as commanding on any other As little do the earth and the stars make shining planet as on this. Beyond and the law of gravitation which they obey, above the moral virtues the soul needs a as does man or the combined host of religious life, fed from above”—so reads rational beings throughout the universe a Unitarian tract. Whence come, then, make the law of duty. And though no the moral virtues ? From below, from God were, as God is ordinarily conceived, prudence, from the sense of decency, the law would not cease to be. It is not from long-sighted selfishness? They made, and cannot be changed by God or who think so never breathed the climate man; it belongs to the nature of things. of morality. Channing, when a youth Yes, more truly than the law of gravita- of nineteen, wrote: “All my sentiments tion does it belong there. I can see no and affections have lately changed. I necessity in the law of gravitation; I can once considered mere moral attainments conceive that there might be a different as the only object I had to pursue. I law than this according to which bodies have now solemnly given myself up to attract one another directly as their mass God." This is an unmeaning antithesis, and inversely as the square of their dis a part of the falsehood of the old religious tance from one another. But no other But no other culture, which he afterwards himself law is conceivable for rational beings detected; for twenty years later he wrote: than that of justice, of mutual reverenco "The love of God is but another name and respect ; never conceivably could it 'for the love of essential benevolence and become right to think lightly of another justice," and the object of religion is, not human or any rational being. And yet to "raise us to something higher than men have failed in reverence, in respect, morality, for that would be to raise us for others; have unblushingly used others, above God himself, but to give us sublime are so failing and using them to-day. ideas of morality." Ethics is a pure con- How rarely has the law been obeyed cern of man with man, it is often said ; The law is over all, though it were never it is religion that binds us to a higher obeyed. order of things. Yet ethics is nothing In this way morality becomes religion but the response which man and man ·18 ETHICAL RELIGION make to the higher order of things; for in the world, and trusting that somehow the reason of justice is, not that another in the counsels of God it is -all for the wants it and I choose to give it, but that best, but in confidently attacking the he ought to have it and I ought to give evil and the wrong, and in leading on it. The duty is absolute, not conditioned the good, as John Stuart Mill says, to its on our will or thought, but given to us distant and yet not uncertain triumph. in and by the nature of things. Ethics The truest revelation, the truest voice of realised in its meaning is religion; it is the nature of things, is not in what we the only religion for the rational man. see, but in our thoughts of what ought to In my humblest human service, I may be. Trust thy dreams, o Reformer ! be conscious of owning the call which a thou comest never so nigh to the heari higher-nay, the highest-makes upon and spirit of things as in them. This me. Aspiration, reverence, awe, all those that thou seest, this that seems so strong, sentiments so often contrasted with so secure, so impregnable, will after a morality, are but uncompleted morality; time vanish away; and what thou and when the moral act is done, ecstasy thinkest of, what thou art called visionary is its sign--ecstasy, which is the grace for daring to think of, will then be the heaven sets upon the moment in which real ! the soul weds itself to the perfect good. To the finest flower of New England In speaking of an ethical, an essentially culture, to Emerson, was given the practical religion, I have not in mind insight into the essential identity besimply a few superficial improvements tween morals and religion. I scarcely on the old religions. I mean not simply know what true thought of mine the a little more practical work," a little reader will not find, stripped of its impermore attention to the necessities of the fections of statement, in him. It was poor, a little better education of the he who long ago spoke of the consolayoung among them, a making of their tion, the hope, the grandeur that come life a little cleaner, neater, healthier, more alone out of the culture of the moral respectable. An ethical religion would nature. Theology was to him the mean this, but because it meant vastly rhetoric of morals.3 « 1'he mind of this more. It is nothing else than a changed age," he says, "has fallen away from thought of the nature of religion which theology to morals. theology to morals. I conceive it to be I have in mind-namely, that it can be an advance." Unbelief to him was no longer for rational men to-day to losing hold of the moral intuitions. worship or pray, but to have the sense Religion was the practices private and of a task, the sense of somewhat limitless social, in honour of the moral sentiment.5 to accomplish, and to accomplish it. The commanding fact' which he never The Christian Church sings in one of its lost sight of was the sufficiency of this hymns : sentiment. He will not allow that “Oh, where are kings and empires now, ethics do not satisfy affection, or that Of old that went and came ? they give only a rule, and not the spirit But holy Church is praying yet, by which the rule is animated. All the A thousand years the sanie." religion we have, he says, is the ethics of Might it not go on praying a thousand years more, and no better result come ""The Sovereignty of Ethics" (in Lecture's of it? If we must pray, let us pray to and Biographical Sketches). men; for there all the trouble lies. · Divinity School Address.” 3. "Character" (in Lectures and Biographical Could you, O Churches, but open the Sketches). hearts of your worshippers, as you seek 4 “ The Preacher." to move the heart of God, the need for $"Sovereignty of Ethics." 1 Ibid. all other prayer would soon be gone. 8 « Character" (in Lectures and Biographical Religion is not seeing the evil and wrong Sketches). 2 66 6 lbid.

·THE IDEAL ELEMENT IN MORALITY 19 one or another holy person." And faith that America shall introduce a pure whenever the sublimities of character religion,3 since a true nation loves its are incarnated in a man, we may rely vernacular tongue, and will not import that awe and love and insatiable curiosity its religion, as we have ours from Judea.+ will follow in his steps.? “No man," he It is a grand task to attempt to transsays, “can tell what religious revolutions late the old truths of the moral nature await us in the next years; and the into the language of to-day. Theology education in the divinity colleges may is not more, but less than the truth. well hesitate and vary. But the science Life in the future shall not be less, but of ethics has no mutations; and whoever more freighted with significance than feels any love or skill for ethical studies ever before; for no longer shall men be may safely lay out all his strength and wondering spectators of a divine task genius in working that mine. The accomplishing in the world, but thenpulpit may shake, but this platform will selves the accomplishers of it, themselves not. All the victories of religion belong the hands by which the eternal purpose to the moral sentiments." He has a realises itself. II. THE IDEAL ELEMENT IN MORALITY THE current views of morality are low or awe, with hope or fear! Yes, it is often and conventional. Even the churches, said that morality cannot live save as it which should inspire us with an ideal is grounded in religion ; that it is but a view of life, talk of “ mere morality.” branch from the .vigorous root of re- Morality is thought to be without ligion.8 mystery ;5 worship is contrasted with it.6 Now, in contrast with these conven- A celebrated English preacher says: tional views, I wish to bring out the “Sometimes, losing sight of divine and ideal meaning of morality. I wish to eternal things, Christianity becomes a show that it brings before us great moral discipline without the inspiration thoughts, and thoughts touching the of religious awe and love and hope and deep places of the soul. I wish to show fear."Morality itself, then, is not one of that there is something in it which lays those divine and eternal things; there is hold of eternity; that it may well, and nothing about it to touch the soul with love does in all but the coarsest natures, stir 2 Sovereignty of Ethics." " Character." 3 " Sovereignty of Ethics." 4" Character." 5. Natural Religion, p. 132 ; cf. the passage on p. 133: "At this point it is, at this disappointing identification of religion with morality, that the breach takes place. Can, then, religion mean no more than that we should pay our debts, keep our engagements, and not be too hard on our enemies?" (The italics are ours. This is all then that morality means ! 7 R. W. Dale, Contemporary Review, April, 1883. 8 So Channing said, in early life (Life, A.U. A. ed., p. 74); but later he wrote, i To love God is to love morality in its most perfect form," and the office of religion is not to raise us thing higher than morality," but to give us "sublime ideas of morality” (Life, pp. 230, 231). The conventional view is well brought out in Something above Morality, by Rev. Richard Metcalf-a tract published by the American Unitarian Association, Boston. 6 Ibid., p. 134. to some- ·20 THE IDEAL ELEMENT IN MORALITY awe and love and hope and fear. I wish and wrong do not come from some to show that religion, the only true reli- magical intuition or revelation, but arise gion-though it nowhere exists now-is in the natural course of human expebut the blossoming out of morality; that rience and development; and that morality is its root, instead of being a morality has its ultimate sanction in its branch from the root of religion. And tendency to promote the general good, I am particularly anxious to show this to the universal happiness. I am not con the satisfaction of those who are not cerned with this or any other theory toaccustomed to what are called idealistic day, but with the content of morality, modes of thought. the ideal nature of which is often so Let me distinctly say at the outset faintly realised. As matter of fact, utilithat the ideal view of morality with which tarians are as often idealists, in the sense I am now concerned does not rest upon in which I am now using the word, as idealism in philosophy. There is no the advocates of any other theory of reason why the philosophical materialist morality are. Jeremy Bentham is called should not join me in what I shall say the father of modern Utilitarianism; yet of morality. As matter of fact, there what greater reformer has England had seems to be as much moral idealism during the last hundred years in legislaamong those who call themselves material- tion, politics, prison discipline, and ists as among any other class of people. education, than Bentham ? Of him and Think for a moment of the revolutionists James Mill it has been well said that in Russia---most of them young men "believing that theory was all-powerful, and women, to whom, it is said, you that no hard-and-fast line could be could not offer greater affront than to drawn between the theoretically sound call them idealists. They are materials and the practically feasible, and that ists; they do not believe in a God or a every simple and intelligible system only. future life; the world of the senses is required energy and determination to alone real to them. Yet where do they convert it at once into a body of maxims place their hope? In what they see, in and motives, they set to work in all what their senses can lay hold of, in the directions with undaunted applications actual order of social and political life of their brand new doctrines to the crude that for ever confronts them? No; but material of fact.”: This is the very spirit in something they do not see, in some of idealism, as I am concerned with it thing that is not and never has been in at this time. Reform is essentially ideal- Russia-an era of freedom, an era of istic. Every reformer takes his stand democracy, an era of brotherhood. So not with what is, but with what he conlong as this era is not, it is but a possi- ceives ought to be; not with the customs bility, an idea. And for that possibility, and traditions and institutions that have for that idea, they leave sometimes high come down from the past, but with the rank and station, become almost ascetics ideas that he believes must rule in the in their mode of life, and are ready to future. Successful reform means, indeed, go to Siberia or the scaffold. Nothing, conquering a fact by an idea. not life itself, is so dear to them as the Nor, in speaking of the ideal meaning idea, the dream, of their imaginations of morality, in trying to show that it and their hearts. calls us away from what we see and Nor is moral idealism inconsistent know to what we can only think of, with the utilitarian theory of the origin let me be understood as endeavouring and sanction of our moral ideas. Utili- to transcend the realm of the human tarianism says that our notions of right mind. Shakespeare is involved in the M. Leroy-Beaulieu, in Lalor's Cyclopædia of Political Science; article “Nihilism." i G. S. Bower's Hartley and James Mill, p. 227. See also Maine's Ancient Law, p. 75.

·THE IDEAL ELEMENT IN MORALITY 21 same apparent contradiction when he young woman's desire to lead a pure, speaks of blameless life, or the mature person's .......thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls." craving to see justice reflected in the general arrangements of society. There But moral ideas, however much they is a difference, indeed, all through life may contrast with reality, are thoughts between our longings after what we may of the human mind. To win them and call happiness, comfort, prosperity, ento live in them is not to lose ourselves, joyment, and those after goodness, un.. but to enlarge ourselves. We are not selfishness, and purity. We cannot say merely so much space as is covered by we ought to be happy, but only that we 'our bodies, but minds that can take in should like to be; but we do say that we the past and the future, that can wander ought to be good, and this even if we do over the earth and climb to the stars, not wish to be, if our matter-of-fact that can muse on what is and think of desires chance at any moment to be the better that might be. There is no clean of a contrary sort. In a word, outside to the mind; the grandest, the note of authority seems to go along divinest, most perfect things are simply with a certain class of ideas. We live thoughts of what may be. amid ideas to the extent that we really With these explanations let me proceed live at all ; but some of the ideas we to my task. What are more natural and simply crave, and others seem to bind commonplace experiences with us than us--some we can make a goal for our our wishes and wants ? But if we reflect lives if we choose, and others seem fixed a moment, it is easy to see that they for us, so that we cannot turn from them have an ideal significance. We do not without inwardly experiencing some kind wish for what we have or for what we of disgrace. There is no necessary are already; we wish for what we have dishonour in not having a home and a not or are not, for what we are without, family, or in not entering on a business for what, in the literal sense, we want, But with a home, to be unfaith- What is, then, the wished-for object but ful to it, or in business to forget the laws a possibility or an idea ? If we stop to of truth and honour there, is morally think, we shall see that all our wishes blameworthy. To read this or that book and wants go out to ideas. It may seem on a leisure afternoon, or to leave our strange that we should often set more books altogether and take a stroll, or, store by what is not than by what is. once out, to turn our steps along this Why should we? it may be asked. We street or that there is nothing to bind saying that it us in any of these alternatives; it may seems a part of our nature to do so. As be that no one is better than another; it belongs to us to hear and see, so it the only “better” may be to suit our does to think of what we do not hear or mood, to do according to our own sweet see, to be discontented; to reach out, will. But often we are in the face of to form ideals. Perhaps it is a provision alternatives, one of which has a distinct for progress, for life, for movement; for urgency about it; we know it to be if one is conscious of no wants, if he has better, even though we do not choose no wishes, nor ideals, what is he practi- it; it seems to have a claim upon us cally but dead, without an incentive to whether we will or no, and our real task movement, without the possibility even is, not to wait and see if our natural of becoming more than he is ? choice will not change, but to change it, Our ideas are, however," of two kinds. to choose ever the true and the good. It is a long way from a child's craving Now, those ideas (from out the countless for a doll or a sled to a young man's or number that throng our minds) that have this urgency about them, that are intrin- Hanilet, act i., scene 4. sically better and seem to constrain us, career. cannot answer save 9 ·22 THE IDEAL ELEMENT IN MORALITY we call moral ideas; the sum of them man may go aciually in one way or make what we call morality. another, but it can only go one way and Morality is thus in essence ideal. It go right. There is an ideal for it that is not what men do, but what they ought we cannot conceive as changing. to do; not what they wish, but what they Or take an illustration from the poliought to wish. It is as with truth, Truth tical life of men. The prime concern of is not what one happens to think; it is the State should be for justice. I do not this or that belief which one inay not say this has been the case, or that it cherish, but that which corresponds to is perfectly so now. The State has often the fact of things. And so with art : a And so with art : a stood simply for power; the head of the picture or a statue is not a work of art State has often made others his slavesbecause the brush or the chisel has been men have held property, even life, at his used in producing it, but because it mercy, But does anyone hesitate to say reflects in some degree the ideal of the that the State should stand for justice; beautiful. Let me use some very simple that this makes an ideal for it; thai illustrations of theideal nature of morality. there can be progress only in one direc- Happily, kindliness belongs by a gift of tion; that if the State comes to be in nature to most nen; it finds a special the possession of men or classes of men field of operation in the home, where who rule for their own and not for the others are brought so near to us—how general good, this would be retrogresmuch sweeter and more beautiful is the sion? Suppose that any government life of the family where kindliness is the now makes a distinction between those law ! But suppose that in some family who are equally men, but are of different this ceases to be the law; that some colour; or that, in effect, it has one law member of it forgets to show this spirit, for the rich and another, or none, for easily loses his temper, and grows irrit the poor--should we not hear something able, surly, and cross; and that this affects within us calling and demanding that this the life of the family, and the quiet, be changed? Is there not something genial kindliness that was wont to be commanding, something imperative, in there goes and leaves faint traces of the thought of universal justice? Justice itself-do we hesitate to say that kindli -it is a commonplace word; but is it ness is still the true ideal for that family; even in democratic republics a comthat, though it is no longer there, it ought monplace thing? What is it, then? It to be there, and all should be pervaded is an idea, and one which, though it with this spirit? Because the facts have were never realised, would not cease to come to be contrary to the ideak. have give the ideal, and the only ideal, for we now doubt about the ideal itself? human government. Not all the tyrants Surely not. What difference does it of the past, and no will or combined make that mankind has come from a will of the mightiest to-day, can change time of unspeakable barbarism in the it. The supreme political problem is to past, when there was no kindliness and find it out completely, and to establish no ideal of it ; that men have learned it perfectly; and if human governments the ideal, that many have still to learn do not establish it, not the idea, but it; that the practice of the best of us they, will be humbled and cast down. hardly corresponds to our ideal, that the He who stands by justice--let him be ideal itself may grow completer and finer? aware of it—and who stands the firmer The only question is, Is it not a true and speaks the louder when justice seems ideal; could there have been progress in to fail, stands by an idea. Let him keep the past in any other direction than his faith though it does fail, for in truth towards it; is it possible that there can justice might never be on this earth, and be any progress in the future that is yet not lose one particle of its ideal worth away from it?. No; the family life of and its ideal authority.

·THE IDEAL ELEMENT IN MORALITY 23. Or take an illustration from business peace and satisfaction for each individual life. What honourable man does not soul, are equally fixed. There is some place truth before success in business ? form of form of society which would secure Who does not feel that he ought to be universal well-being ; there is some ideal truthful, whether it will be advantageous type of thinking, feeling, and acting that to him or not? Who does not feel that would, when realised, make a perfect truth gives the ideal for business life, human being. We know the law that and own it in his thoughts, if not in his makes this marvel of order, this regupractice-and want to know how busi- larity, this punctuality, this movement ness can be arranged so that there will without jar which we see in the outward not be even the semblance of a necessity world. How simple, and yet how farfor anything else? What is many a reaching, is the law of gravitation! But man's secret disturbance about the the law that would turn this chaos of matter but a kind of confession that the human life into a cosmos we do not idea ought to rule, that something he know. It differs from the law of gravitacatches a glimpse of within is in its tion very plainly, in that it does not act nature commanding and authoritative, necessarily; if it did, we should have and that with it he must somehow make already an order here comparable to that peace? What matters it that men once we see in the material world. But we had little or no notion of truthfulness, have to discover it; and when we shall that they have learned it, that many have have discovered it, we shall have to give it still to learn it, that it is still an ideal the free consent of our wills. We have, and in advance of the general practice indeed, already gained some notion of of men ? I only ask, Is our confidence it. We know to a certain extent what in it any less on these accounts; is not makes for order and peace among men. progress only towards it; is not all What we call the moral ideal is so much departure from it retrogression; though of it as we know. But how much more men should cease to own it, even in the is there yet to know! Even the idea of scant measure they do now, would they justice, which is the best part of our not be culpably, unmistakably in the moral ideal; who understands it, who wrong? fathoms it, who sces all that it means And so, with all the institutions of and must mean to the future? society and all the relations of human Ethics calls us away to these visions life, there is an ideal and a law for them; of the higher and the better. It is and for each and every separate one an a science of life, not as it is, but as it ideal and a law fitted to its particular ought to be-as it would be if it were nature and constitution. For the family, transfigured with its idea. It means lookfor the State, for business in all their ing at life from the highest standpoint ; departments, there is a true and perfect it means unhesitatingly taking our stand way of conducting them; for every there, and fearing not to criticise the individual life there is an ideal which it actual life of men according to the ideal is to find and follow. For even if we standard. It may be no welcome task have not grasped the ideal, we believe to pass judgment on ourselves; yet, if we that it is there. We know that we do are real in the matter of moral culture, not make and cannot change the condi I do not see how we can avoid doing so. tions of bodily health; that we have to If we have given way to unworthy passion, learn them; that there is, indeed, an if we have done an ungenerous thing, if ideal method of living which would for selfish reasons we have broken a ensure to every one who would follow it promise, if in any way we have followed perfect physical health and strength. the lower rather than the higher reason, We believe that the conditions of social let us not treat the matter as of no conwelfare and prosperity, the sources of sequence, but remember it and judge ·.24 THE IDEAL ELEMENT IN MORALITY ; our ourselves for it; yes, better in some way him by à courtesan, making his way by to try to atone for it than to pass it by the help of it over thousands of the with indifference. Still less welcome is Wronged and slain to the arbitrary dictait to pass judgment upon others. How torship of his city ; retiring from office in easy to excuse a friend where we would old age, with ambition sated, to his villa not excuse ourselves! How hard to to practise again the voluptuous habits have any one whom we love sink in our of his youth; and then, finally dying estimation! The question is: Which peacefully, his funeral attended by comes first, loyalty to a person or to hundreds whom he had captivated by truth? I am sure that, while there is his recklessness, and whose minds he often not enough of charity in the world, had debauched-what is all this but a there is also much false charity; and satire on every sentiment of justice? that while nothing is more uncalled for “History alone could have dared to tell than censoriousness, and the presuming us of a peaceful end to such a life as to be keeper of another's conscience; his; and history, again and again, repeats and that at no time are we so called to the defiance to moral sense. purify ourselves of all mere personal Was it not natural for Seneca, with the feeling as when we judge of another; popular view of the gods as guiding and yet when truth compels us, we should ruling in the affairs of men, to say that judge, remembering that not out of any this good fortune of Sulla was the crime personal regard are we to forget the of the gods? What grand impiety— requirements of the ideal standard. what a measuring not only of men, but Moreover, as we read history we are of gods, by the standard of moral ideas ! to take our moral judgment with us. For this is ever the test of a true nan : How great the temptation will often be will he yield up his ideal conviction to to abandon our moral convictions, so any amount of contrary facts; will he frequently do the facts of history seem take his stand and keep it contra mundun, to do violence to them ! and though the ruling powers of the “Truth for ever on the scaffold, wrong for ever world, visible and invisible, were opposed on the throne ". to him? To lose the sense of an ideal how does the sense of this make us right, to yield it up before a show of almost doubt at times whether there is might ; that is the only infidelity, the any rights or any wrong; whether our only atheism we need have any fear of. ideas of right, instead of unalterable laws Then, indeed, a fairer world than that of human action, are not entirely relative we we see about us--the world 'of moral and conventional things, or even illesory! truth and moral beauty - would be These are the temptations of the moral shattered and broken, and in the ruins idealist. Refreshing are the words of it were hardly worth while to live. In those who do not fail in their moral this feeling, though I would stand alone, convictions, however poorly these may I do not stand alone, and have the be confirmed by the actual course of company of men called utilitarians and history. Seneca, speaking of the Roman materialists as well as many others. Consul Sulla, called his fortune "the John Stuart Mill eloquently protested crime of the gods.": I confess to an that he would rather go to hell than unbounded admiration for the saying. do violence to his moral nature by calling Though it savours of impiety, it hides a Being good who bore no traces of the what is to my mind the deepest and the chamcter designated by that word. A only piety. For what was the history, and particularly the end, of that man, Contemporary Review, February, 1881; article on starting as he did with a fortune "The Moral, Influence of George given Eliot. * Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philo- Consolatip ad Marciam, xil. 6. sophy, chap. vii. 3 ·THE IDEAL ELEMENT IN MORALITY 25 påssage from Huxley reveals the same gone, they but shine clearer in their own noble holding of moral distinctions. :' light, and evidence something in which "For suppose theology established the they are rooted that can never go, that existence of an evil deity-and some is eternal and unchangeable. Some time theologians, even Christian ones, have humanity will be so aroused to its own come very near this—is the religious true place and calțing in the world that affection to be transferred from the such a life and such a death as Sulla's ethical ideal to any such omnipotent can never again happen; society will be demon? I trow not. Better a thousand so ordered, individuals will be so treated times that the human race should perish and judged, that a man like Sulla will under his thunderbolts than it should have no chance of rising, or, if he has, say, 'Evil, be thou my good." will die in universal contempt. The But, with all the most discouraging fortune of Sulla was the crime of the facts in the world, there is no evidence Roman people. Society will always have that the ultimate powers of the world such monsters of iniquity till it purges are evil. Only those who deny freedom itself; and the task set for it, the task and responsibility to man, and affix all from which it cannot escape (unless it blame for whatever is wrong upon the too is to rot and die), is to purge itself ultimate nature of things, can call that --and religion, the only religion the ultimate nature evil. Let responsibility future can have, must be a voluntary for wrong be fixed where it belongs-on dedication on the part of society to that the human doers of it-and the sky is task. cleared of the hideous spectre of an evil Alphonso of Castile's words have a god, and the ideals of justice and of charm like those of Seneca. If he goodness come naturally to be regarded had been present at the creation, he as the voice of the ultimate nature of could have given some useful hints for things, and obedience to them and work- the better ordering of the universe." Ah, ing for them against whatever odds, if Alphonso had only realised that a against whatever show of might on the part of creation was there in his own side of wrong and evil, as the truest, the power to re-fashion, if he would! The deepest, nay the only piety. The only responsibility for the unequal order of mistake would be in thinking that those society that prevailed in the Middle ideals will be accomplished by some Ages, when he lived, was not chargeable power outside ourselves, in thinking of a on the creator, but on men themselves providential justice and goodness. In and particularly on those lords and truth, so far as we can see, there is no princes to the number of which Alphonso such providential justice and goodness, belonged. He might easily have given and the Christian belief is as mythical a better ordering to his little part of the as the old Roman belief. There were universe, and set an example to the no such gods as Seneca pictured, and other princes about him, whereby oppresthere is no such being as the Christian sions and robberies and all manner of believes in. Justice and goodness have despoilings of the weak by the strong power not outside of us, but in our might have in some measure ceased. minds: they are to rule the world, if It is strange, when we bear in mind ever they do, as we surrender ourselves the ideal nature of morality, to hear that to them and make them rule. Yet they morality must be based upon facts. are authoritative, they are binding, they Morality is not really a question of facts, are set fast for us in the mature of things, but of the right of facts to be, of their and by the nature of things; and when correspondence with a standard of the all notions of a providential deity are mind. For all scientific hypotheses we must look for a foundation in the world Critiques and Addresses, p. 49. as it is; for they are nothing but 1 ·26 THE IDEAL ELEMENT IN MORALITY attempted explanations of the actual Does ethics, then, give us no great order of things, and we believe in them thoughts? That man can respond to a more or less, as there is more or less universal good; that he can connect evidence from facts in their favour. But himself with the fortune of those whom morality is in its nature an ideal and a he has never seen nor shall see; that he rule, and we can account for many of the can bless in spirit unborn generations, phenomena of history and of human life and reach out to the world to heal it and to-day only on the supposition that to lift it up; is there nothing mystical, morality was not and is not heeded, and nothing wondrous, nothing strange in all perhaps not even thought of. Base that ? In truth, there is something morality on facts? Which facts? There limitless in human nature, as there is in are innumerable facts, an induction from the good of which it conceives. Our which would only give us immorality: souls crave a perfect good; we feel the The good facts, then ? But plainly, this pull thitherward, we own the law that is moving in a circle. In truth, there is points in that direction. Does this stir nothing on which to base morality. We no awe, nor love, nor hope, nor fear? I do not so much find it as demand it in know of but one thing in this world that the world." All the separate moral may well excite awe; it is not any rules may be resolved into the supreme spectacle of nature, not any show of one, to seck the general welfare, the power or of beauty, but the thought of universal good. But who can give a the supreme law under which we live, of reason for the supreme rule? Indeed, the ideals that are unalterably set for us, no serious man wants a reason. The of the perfect goal to which our inmost supreme command appeals immediately being tends. We are, indeed, strangers to the human mina; it is an assertion of here amid these scenes, where so much the human mind. No honest man wants meets the eye that afflicts the soul; we a reason why he should do right, any cannot avoid picturing our home and more than why he should allow the sun proper country as far away, and ourselves to be in the heavens. The sun is there, as travelling thitherward. What longings and he sees it; and joy and light and seize us as we think of this what love, warmth come, he knows, from living what hope, what fear, lest by any chance under its influence. So with the idea of or carelessness we should lose our way! the universal good; to know it is to love What does religion add, then, to ethics; it; to become simply aware of it is to what greater thought does it give us than feel it to be the true sovereign law of our this of a law that forever encompasses lives. And not to own it, not to own us ? Nothing that I can see; and what the several forms in which it comes to it attempts to add is, generally at least, us, what is this but to make ourselves Aberglaube, superstition. Religion conwanderers and waifs on the earth; yes, ceives the good in the form of a person, to contradict the universal law of and asserts that he is ruling in the world. existence, since even the atoms own But this is an illusion, and really a their attractions, even the senseless rain harmful one. A true, sound, and wholly owns its bond to the sea whence it came? rational religion-so, because containing Man belongs to the idea of the universal no premises that could reasonably be good; he is only himself as he acts from doubted--would be simply a perfected it and for it. ethics. Morality as custom, as public opinion, as law, has, I well know, to be • Amiel," the sweet-souled Genevan mystic,” continually revised and enlarged ; and as says: " It is not history which teaches righteous. morality may have been identified with ness to the conscience; it is conscience which these things, the larger ideas may refuse teaches righteousness to history. The actual is corrupting; it is we who rectify it by loyalty to the name morality as tame and commonthe ideal. place. But morality is in truth a ·ACO ISU WHAT IS A MORAL ACTION ? 27 - ness. principle, and the enlargement mentioned soul. It may drive the timid, the fearful has always been on the basis of the -those so anxious to know whether principles of morality, and has always their poor self-centred selves are going issued in a larger, fuller moral ideal. to live again -- to despair, or to the Religion seems also to add to morality comfort, as they call it, of the gospel the thought of heaven; but this, when and the church. Poor souls ! let them purely conceived, is not something apart have the comfort while they may. But from goodness, but the triumph of good- they might" live on for ever and never We, too, as believers in the good, know what true blessedness is. This look for its triumph. Not yet is the end they will not know till they cease to think and issue of things, but far away; though of themselves, whether they are to live we know not whether these earthly selves or die, and give themselves over to the shall ever see the triumph, though we good, and live now in the supreme can only think of it and know that there eternal moments. For religion, if it will be an outcome of our struggles and means anything, binds us to a law above pains there. us and lifts us out of ourselves. The Religion in the future must not only religious men and women of the future disengage itself from the mythical ele- will give themselves to all their dreams ments of the old religions; it must of the perfect without questioning or present a higher type of religion. The concern; they will know that they are religions of the past have generally had in higher, stronger keeping than any a taint of selfishness about them. They they can themselves devise; that the have held out the hope of recompense; blessed Powers, which no they have not commanded and summoned name, contain them and enfold them; men in the name of the good, and for its that if there is anything of worth in them, sake alone; they have not taken men that will live, and all else they will themout of themselves. I see a new religion selves willingly let die. An ideal perarising, basing itself on trust in man; fection is the only ultimate reason for calling to the hitherto unstirred depths existence. If we do not turn our faces of loyalty inchim, believing that he can thitherward, our lives, however full of love the good without thought of a shows and business and plans and works reward, that he can rise superior to the they may be, are without rational signimotives that ordinarily determine men, ficance; and, if we do, there are at that the heaven of principle care rule in bottom no more puzzles or cares or the human breast. Man's ignorance as anxieties for us; in our heart of hearts to what will become of hiin after he dies there is a peace and joy that no reverses never disturbed a noble, a truly religious or disappointments can disturb or mar. man can LIERATY Estd. 1902. KAJU, HÓW RAH III. WHAT IS A MORAL ACTION ? What is it that gives a moral quality to tude of our every-day actions against an action, that lends it moral worth? I which nothing can be said from a condo not mean to contrast moral with ventional standpoint, deserve to be immoral actions; but what, of the multi- singled out and have this mark of ·28 man cance. WHAT IS A MORAL ACTION? honour attached to them-namely, that defied a world, and yet lived to see they are moral actions'? Most of our the world come round to him, and is actions are probably simply unmoral. one of the ideal figures in America's In our conduct we do as others do history - Wendell Phillips - said in about us; we think and acc according addressing a mixed assembly on the to the prevailing customs. There is not slavery question: "Till you judge men necessarily any hypocrisy in this; by a and things on different principles, I do kind of natural gravitation we settle into not care much what you think of me; I the grooves that are already prepared for have outgrown that interesting anxiety." us. Not only is there nothing wrong No man rises into the dignity of moral about this, but, relatively speaking, there individuality till he says the same. А may be something good. Society, should have no other ultimate perhaps, is scarcely possible (or was, in anxiety than to please the genius of his the early ages of the world) without own bosom. " Whoso would be a man something of an instinct of imitation must be a non-conformist,” said Emeramong men, which holds in check caprice son; and it is true in spirit, if not always and lawless individualism. Still the in form. Man must act for himself, or mere following of custom and usage, he is lost. One looks abroad and sees however useful to society, cannot be men and women blindly following the said to rise to the dignity of morality. ruling traditions in religion, society, A moral act must be our own act. It politics, with scarcely a serious, lonely niust spring from conviction. A purely thought crossing their minds; they are conventional life is without moral signifi all lost, and will be till they come home We begin really to live when we to themselves, and begin to live a real, wake out of this unconscious instinctive inward, personal life. The supreme following of precedents and customs, profanation is not against church or and know that we are ourselves and sacrament or Bible, but against the have minds to use, and when we begin cl est, sanest thought of your own to use them. What we do when we are mind. I will not say the lesson, but awake, aroused; what expresses our in- the significance, of morality is independividuality-that has moral worth, and dence of public opinion, having the that alone. This is entirely apart from centre and rule of our life not in the what particular thing we think or do, or world without, but in the world within ; whether we even join the popular current so that even if we harmonise with the again; for, though when one thinks for world without, if we coincide with pųblic himself it is unlikely that he will not opinion, it will be not as an echo, but as vary somewhat from the hitherto prevail- a living factor in it. ing custom, the trouble with the con If, however, a moral act must be our ventional life is not as to its particular own acte not one merely in accordance ideas and customs, but that it is conwith conventional standards, it goes ventional, that it expresses no personal, almost without saying that it must be genuine conviction. A moral action may one not merely followed by good results, be in entire accord with what convention but one in which those results are indemands; yet it will always be vastly tended. We must not only do good, more than that. Morality is the asser but mean to do good. Yes, the whole tion of ourselves. How sad is his plight properly moral significance of an action who has no sacred self; who never falls is in its intention. Two actions may back on a conviction, as a believer on have exactly the same outward results, his gods, because he has none ; who yet be separated by a heaven-wide lives all out-of-doors ; whose soul is the distance in moral worth, according as empty mirror of the world's passing fashions and shows! A man who once i Orations, Speeches, etc., p. 66.

·WHAT IS A MORAL ACTION? 29 they are prompted by one motive or truth" in another, that in all humility he another; and these motives are of course would take " seek after tråth." Why? only really known, because alone expe- Because the other attitude would practirienced, by those doing the actions. cally deny the significance of our intel- The attempt is sometimes made to lectual being; because we feel that, if divest ethics of all these inward and, as the truth is grand, the learning and it is said, mysterious elements, and to. so knowing the truth is still grander. reduce it to a question simply of results. Any giving of our action over into the Any action is to be counted moral which hands of another Power is practically has good results, or immoral which has saying that our moral being has no signievil, quite apart from motives. It is ficance; while we, on the other hand, perfectly true that an action does not are sure that the glory of the moral have good results simply because they universe is not alone in the good, but in are intended—just as a thought is not the willing of the good, in the conscious necessarily true because it aims at the voluntary practice of it, and would count truth. Hell, it has been said, is paved it better to struggle for and sometimes with good intentions, and at any rate we miss the good than that it should never know that the earth is well covered with be learned by finite beings at all. But, them, and that often they bring forth whether this be true or not, any such little sound or lasting fruit. How many mechanical goodness as Professor Huxley kindhearted persons, for example, give supposes would have no moral quality; charity in such a way that it does more even if the results were just the same as harm than good! The trouble is not those following a properly moral action, with the kindheartedness or the charity, no praise or blame would attach to such but with the lack of intelligence that is goodness any more than to an operation displayed; and the real remedy is not of nature. Alexander the Great, for to depreciate charity, but to light it up example, took the Greek language and with intelligence. An action really Greek culture, art, and manners wherceases to have a moral quality if it does ever he went in his military conquests; not take advantage of all the light and and what a benefit to the world was this knowledge by which it may be directed; spread of Greek civilisation! Yet if, as and those who would turn ethics into a is likely, the passion of Alexander was species of social mechanics do not realise solely for conquest and military power that automata would do as well as men and renown; if the benefit to the world for these merely outward effects, perhaps came simply as an unintended consebetter. Indeed, Professor Huxley says quence, an incident of his victories-- that if some great Power would agree to what moral credit has he in the matter? make him always think what is true and I have heard it argued that it is imposdo what is right, on condition of his sible for a man to foilow his own interests allowing himself to be turned into a sort without benefiting others; that one, for of clock, and wound up every morning example, cannot build up a business before he got out of bed, he should without giving employment and a liveliinstantly close with the offer. What an hood to those who would perhaps otherinfinite saving of pains and trouble such wise be in need; yes, I have sometimes an arrangement would be! Yet I doubt heard it urged, in extenuation of the if there is one in a hundred or a thousand great monopolies of our time, that in the who would share with Mr. Huxley in nature of the case they cannot exist and such a readiness; who would not rather maintain themselves save as they bring say, with Lessing, if God held out themselves under the rule of service to "truth” in one hand and “seek after others. This is all true enough, perhaps, as matter of fact, but all delusion if the Lay Sermons, etc., p. 340, facts are supposed to answer to the ·30 WHAT IS A MORAL ACTION ? requirements of morality. What is the to say which action alone had any virtue business man or the monopolist intent in it? Suppose I live a simple, unpreon?--that is the question which decides tentious life because I have not the whether there is any moral worth in means to live otherwise; or because, .what he does, or not. Are the benefits though with abundant means, I have a which come to others something that he sense of how a man should live, so long ainis at, or only the necessary incidents, as there is so much want and misery in in the accomplishing of his own personal the world about him-one would not aims? I think, indeed, the introduction need to reflect long before saying which of higher motives into business would manner of life, though they were, so far more or less affect the management and as the eye could see, exactly alike, had all the details of business; but I can any moral worth. The economy that imagine two businesses externally almost when necessitated has almost an air of exactly alike, the management of one of meanness, becomes divine when practised which would be dominated by a moral in obedience to an idea. Take again impulse, and the other would be without the case of an employer who yields to any moral character whatever (which is his “striking " employees because he is far from saying that it would have forced to, because they have so arranged an immoral character). The difference matters that if he will not give them an would be all in the thought. Man may advanced rate of wages he cannot find go astray many times in what he thinks any workmen ; and then of another who to be good; but, on the other hand, no does not wait for a strike, and has no action which is without the prompting reason to fear any, but pays the higher of the thought of what is good, no matter rate simply out of regard for his workmen, how externally good and right it may be, and with a thought of their needs and can be called a moral action; and every ends as human beings and heads of time we sincerely, honestly mean to do families—that is, not because he is what is right, no matter how mistaken obliged to, but because he will--and we may turn out to be in our judgment, can there be any hesitancy as to which our action has a moral worth. What one of these inen rises to the dignity of we mean to do, what we want to do, performing a moral action? Freedom, that is all, from a moral standpoint. spontaneity, is the note, the very mark, Closely related with this is another of a moral action. An action dictated mark of a moral action--namely, it is an by fear is not really a free action-as act that is freely done. Whatever I do when King Richard II. of Erfgland under compulsion, under constraint, has sought to quell the angry revolt of the no moral worth. Suppose, to take a peasants by granting them the reforms homely illustration, I rise early in the which they wanted, and gave them letters morning because I am obliged to; sealed with his seal, with all their demands because if I am not at the office of my formally acceded to; and yet later, when employer by a certain time I shall lose the danger was over, ordered under my situation--- plainly there is no morality pain of death that all those who had in this, but if I do so, not thus con- | the King's letters should deliver them pelled, but simply with the feeling that up. A righteous act, do we say, sucit is a good habit, and that I ought to ceeded by an unrighteous one? No, form it, I make a nastery of my laziness never a righteous act at all, but only the that has some moral worth. Suppose I forms of righteousness complied with return a book to the public library to through feaf.' What we do when no escape a fine, or on the other hand pressure is upon us, when we simply simply because I know that others want have the thought of what we ought to the book, and I ought to consider them do, the free, willing expression of the as well as myself-would anyone hesitate soul within us--that alone is moral.

·WHAT IS A MORAL ACTION? 31 . And a moral action, further, must part in that experience in which a man, have no motive of self-interest behind it. if ever, is taken out of himself, and learns, This is not saying that many interested if never before, the disinterestedness actions are not natural, proper, and which is the soul of morality? necessary, as the world now is, but only A moral act is one in which we rise that they do not rise to the dignity of superior to personal considerations; there moral actions. How instantly does an dare not be mingled with it " respects action drop to a lower plane in our that stand aloof from the entire point." estimation when we discover that some Morality does not descend to the low self-regarding motive lies behind it! plane on which we ordinarily live, and Suppose a man is honest, and refrains seek to influence us by showing that we from imposing on the ignorant who come should be better off by adhering to it, into his shop, simply because he knows but takes for granted that we have a that he will thereby build up a reputation higher nature, and appeals to us on the for honesty and increase his chances of higher, the highest, ground. In the old business success—do we do more than anti-slavery times calculating, prudent commend his sagacity; do we think of men used to seek to persuade the slavehim as rising into the atmosphere of holders that it would be cheaper to pay virtue? Suppose a son devotes himself wages than to own slaves; that their to his parents, not in the spirit of filial property would be safer; that even duty, but with the thought that some such indispensable luxuries as iceadvantage will come some time to him cream would cost less if the negroes from doing so—that he will perhaps be were placed on a fair footing; and that assisted in business, or be generously the picturesque house servants, with their remembered in his parents' will: do not heavy Ethiopian manners, their silent such thoughts in connection with those obedience, their hue of bronze and to whom, if to anyone in this wide world, turbaned heads, would find it to their we should be unselfishly attached, seem interest to remain on the masters' estates a kind of profanation, and recall Shake even if they were freed. I know not speare's words: which to wonder at most-that such “ Love is not love foolish appeals should be made with the When it is mingled with re-pects that stand slightest hope that they would be heeded, Aloof from the entire point "? or on the other hand that the citadel Suppose a man becomes a soldief, not and seat of the evil were not attacked, out of unselfish attachment to a cause, and it boldly said, not that the slavebut for hire-is not our estimate of him holders were not as far-sighted and busiall changed? Who Who that has seen the ness-like as they might be, but that they magnificent creation of Thorwaldsen, the were committing a wrong. There are lion carved in the solid rock at Lucerne, some matters where it seems not only in commemoration of the Swiss Guard unmoral, but almost immoral, to appeal that fell defending the Tuilleries in 1792, to any but the highest motives. There but is pained when the thought comes are some things sacred in this world. over him that these men after all had •We are told that Jesus made a scourge sold themselves for gold, and in aid of a of small cords and drove the moneycause against which every instinct and changers out of the Temple, saying, tradition of liberty in Switzerland would "Make not my father's house a house of seem to have protested ? Suppose a merchandise !" I have almost a similar man marries, I will not say for so vulgar indignation when I hear the cause of a motive as money, but only because he human rights, the cause of charity, is tired and wants a home, and the rest treated from any other than the highest and comfort of it-what is he but a standpoint. These subjects ought to selfish creature after all, and without any lift us immediately to their level. I ·WHAT IS A MORAL ACTION? 32 heard, a man, not long ago advocate only a prolongation of such a type of more systematic and effective charity, existence. What claims could such because, forsooth, if we thus took care people have to 'such a destiny, what of the poor we should have less need to good could be served, what higher purfear the spread of socialism. It was not pose of the universe worked out, by man then-man in want, man in sore granting them a new lease of life? How distress—that we were to consider, but pitiable is the view of a great Christian this, that our property become secure authority, Paley, that prudence and duty against the attacks of socialism! Fie on differ only in that in the one case we it, making merchandise thus of charity! consider what we shall gain or lose in But he who urges the cause of humanity the present world, and, in the other, also on any other grounds than the highest what we shall gain or lose in the world respects not the humanity of those who to come! How fittingly does he in are in need, nor the humanity in us, and proposing such a view omit all moral treáts us as if we had no higher nature, declamation, as he calls it, about the and could not transcend these considera- dignity and capacity of our nature, the tions about the security and safety of superiority of the soul to the body, of our property. the rational to the animal part of our “ Unless above himself he can constitution,' since in truth, according Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!" to him and the style of many Christian Yes, man can rise above himself; and preachers, there is no dignity or divine in this higher life, animated by more capacity in our nature, and no difference than personal affections and aspirations, between the animal and the man, save is his honie. There he first knows that man has a spy-glass, and the animal himself; it is, as it were, his native only his eyes to see what is for his selfish eleinent, as the stainless azure is that of interests. In how striking a contrast is the king of birds. the strain of another Christian, Saint Nor for considerations of comfort and Francis Xavier, who passionately expersonal happiness in another world does claims :- man need to be concerned. I hear it " Thou, O my Jesus! th&u didst me said that we must believe in a future Upon the cross embrace ; world, whether there is one or not, to For me didst bear the nails and spear And manifold disgrace, preserve us in paths of virtue here. I And griefs and torments numberless, reject the imputation on human nature. And sweat of agony, The fault with many Churches is not E'en death itself--and all for one that they are too' religious, but that they Who was thine enemy! are not religious enough; that they do “ Then why, O blessed Jesus Christ, Shall I not love thee well? not recognise the divine element in man that they do not appeal to it nor pay Not for the sake of winning heaven, "Or of escaping hell; it reverence. What were the gain, more Not with the hope of gaining aught, over, if men were made "moral" under Not seeking a rewardthe influence of the hopes and fears But as thyselt last loved me, O everlasting Lord !” of another world? They would be no better; whatever outward requirements And of Saint Theresa it is said that she of morality they might be led to comply wished to have a torch in her right hand with, they would not be really moral, the and a vessel of water in her left, that first step towards which is only gained with the one she might burn up the by a renunciation of fears and hopes of glories of heaven, and with the other any kind, and yielding without question extinguish the flames of hell, that men ing or concern to the voice of duty; might learn to serve God from love they would still be their old selfish selves, and immortality in their case would be · Mural Philosophy, book i., chap. vi.

·WHAT IS A MORAL ACTION? 33 alone. What a noble outburst! what a versal consecration to duty-I mean to sublime impatience with the low views all that is right. Most of us live broken, of man and religion that were current in fragmentary lives ;'we have our fits and her time-that are current, alas, still!' starts of goodness--they do not come to What an assertion of the moral nature, stay; and when we do one thing that is as that in us by reason of which we can good, we leave another undone. “Bursts transcend all personal hopes and fears, of great heart and slips in sensual mire" and serve the highest from love alone! -how true is that of many men ! How How near does it come to Emerson's little of wholeness, of consistency, of bold summons, "to turn our back on unity, is there in our conduct! Henry heaven," and how is the spirit of it Clay, one of the kindliest of men, open reflected to us in Matthew Arnold's on almost every side to the gentlest lines : impulses, could yet sacrifice his convic- “ Hath man no second life? Pitch this one tions and the welfare of millions, as high! Wendell Phillips remarks, to his ambi- Sits there no judge in heaven our sin to see? tion. Daniel Webster, with a great intel- More strictly, then, the inward judge obey! lect, and with a sense for the heroic and Was Christ a man like us ? Ah! let us try If we then, too, can be such men as he !" sublime too, could make his seventh of March speech, and sell his intellectual The glow of moral health is in such integrity for a price, which, thank fortune, lines; let us take them and be thankful he never got. Yet, as there is no reason for them, from whatever source they why we should be just which does not come. hold at all times, or why we should be Still further, and perhaps only bring- true which does not hold in face of all ing out clearly what has already been temptations, or humane which does not implied, a moral act must be done on hold in reference to all persons whom principle. If I merely give way to a we meet, so there is no reason why we charitable impulse, and charity is no should be just which is not equally principle with me, my act is only an good for being true, and none none for impulsive, not a moral, one. If I am being true which is not equally for truthful with a friend, and deceitful being humane. being humane. There is no reason for towards another who is not a friend, one virtue which does not hold for all even my truthfulness with my friend has virtue; not this or that, but all good is no moral value. To do according to commanded to us. I suppose a person my inclination –that is not morality. only does a genuinely moral act when Morality is acting according to a rule, or he does it not because it happens to be (what is the same) a principle. It is justic. or truth or any particular form of bringing all my chance inclinations, all duty, but because it is duty, and so with my natural impulses that look in this the implication that he would do all way or that, into conformity with the duty. A moral act has thus, in strict rule-putting thus order and steadfast- truth, a universal or infinite significance, ness and reliability into my life. Of how and he who performs it has a worth to many persons is it not said that, if you which no limits can be assigned. It is find them at the proper moment, they as if there were some mysterious forms will do the right thing! But the right of matter that could be crystal or plant, thing is for always; as it does not or flower or tree, or sun or star, anything depend on our moods for its rightness, in the whole material universe ; for it is so it ought not for its realisation in my proud faith in inan that, hardened, action. The truly moral man is simply stiffened, settled as he often may seem he who says it shall not ; to whom the to be in this or that type or habit of life, right is a constant, an abiding, rule. I he can become anything that is good ; see not any way of escape from a uni that he is at heart plastic, and not cast ·34 WHAT IS A MORAL ACTION in any inevitable mould; that there are ever. I sometimes even dare to chink' no unapproachable heights outside of that, if the stars of heaven should fall, and beyond him; that hero, saint, martyr, these would not; since the stars of if need be, he can become. heaven would only fall if something more We often hear, and I am sorry to perfect were to take their place, and say from religious teachers particularly, anything more perfect than a moral slighting and contemptuous words about action there cannot be. It could grow morality; but, if what I have said is true, more perfect only in itself-only by it is far from being a light or trifling or becoming clearer, fuller, ampler, more petty thing to perform a genuinely moral divinely radiant, not by being resolved action. The dignity of man lies in his and changed into anything else. For a capacity for such action; for such action moral action is not most truly any outmeans that man need not follow the ward deed, or any single partial act of crowd, that his thoughts can determine the will within; all so-called moral actions him, that he can freely will the good, are after all parts of one action, and that that he can be absolutely unselfish in is the total purpose of the soul, the so doing, that he can take captive his action of the life. Notwithstanding all wandering desires and impulses, and trifling variations, we are moving in one reflect the pure heaven of principle in direction or another. No single good his life. And this were, it seems to me, thing we do counts save as it is part of to be a man; this were to be liſted a purpose which sweeps on beyond it; above anxieties, to be no longer the and no purpose is adequate which does slave of fears or hopes. The only hope not cover, in thought at least, the whole could be to be more truly this; the life and all its possible future. The star only fear to fall from such a thought and which we are to set in the firmament is such an aim, and become caught and the total act of our life ; after a time we entangled in any of the lower concerns inay cease to see it, but if there is any that are so easy, so natural, and tempting worth, any foreshadowings of a perfect to men. beauty in it, it will go on. Nothing is There is an ideal aim for every child so treacherous as so treacherous as nemory; nothing It is not in anything outside hangs by so light a thread as personality of ourselves; it is not to please some -the consciousness that I am the same supernatural being in the skies; it is not as I was twenty-five years ago; the conto follow some far-away historical figure sci&usness, which some suppose they in the past. It is closer to us than this; will have in another life,, that they are it is in our own heart; it is given to us the same persons as they were here. It in our very nature as moral beings. is alt an uncertain prop. Death ought There is nothing higher than to perform to bar and teach us the vanity of these a moral action; there is nothing in which personal cravings; but, heedless creatures the full idea and significance of our that we are, we fill up those endless being comes so to expression as in that. horizons of the future with the images It is the victory of the divine in us, of a of our personal selves, and deem the part of those elemental forces which in goodness we have won, the purity we the wide ages of the past have been have gained, and the unselfishness that turning chaos into order, and covering has triumphed in us too shadowy to darkness with light. Every moral action stand of themselves without the "I" to we perform is a new star in the inner support them. Yet which, O Man, is firmament; and I sometimes think that, shadowy-athe "I" or the good? Only once gathered out of the unformed the good in us is worthy to survive, and nebula of our wishes and aspirations, that will. these stars will in some sense shine for of man.

·IS THERE A HIGHER LAW? 35 IV. IS THERE A HIGHER LAW ? We are constantly pronouncing judg. be: we can only say that, as we rise into ments upon the worth of actions. Some a higher atmosphere, as we transcend satisfy us, and others do not; some are personal considerations, as we speak right, and some are wrong. We do not from the standpoint of reason. mean by this that they are, or are not, The right is also independent of the of advantage to us personally—the satis- wishes or personal interests of another. faction we demand is in view of a stan- Right does not mean giving up my wishes dard quite apart from our personal inte- to your wishes, or sacrificing my personal rests. We have at heart certain ideals advantage to your personal advantage. of conduct which we like to see reflected Your wishes must be right, must conform in the actions of men about us. Whether with an impersonal standard -- your a falsehood or any wrong done to another personal advantage must be in harmony affects us or not, we may feel nonethe- with the universal advantage, else Í less that it is wrong, that it should not cannot yield to it. Morality is not have been. We may understand the sympathy: in many cases it may be that train of circumstances which led to the I ought to deny another as well as myact; we may have a tinge of sympathy self. Sympathy is simply a natural infor the doer softening our condemnation stinct, better, indeed, and nobler than of what he has done; but it is wrong, selfishness, but liable to lead us astray nevertheless, and we know that we as truly as selfishness unless guided and should go too far with our sympathy if controlled by moral considerations. it led us to forget this. We may be Sympathy is personal ; morality is immistaken in our judgments about parti- personal. Even if it is your dearest cular cases; motives change the character friend who has done a wrong, it is noneof acts, and we do not always know the theless wrong, and gravity must mingle motives. We only know that, if there with your tenderness in thinking of it. are sach and such motives, the act is The right and wrong, we feel further, morally right or wrong; but, supposing are independent of our changing opinions them to exist, we pronounce confidently about them. When our eyes are open, on its moral character. The right is we see the sun; when they are closed, what should be; it is an idea having it is lost to us; should we become this altogether peculiar relation to the blind, it would be lost to us for ever. In fact. Even if our circumstances should such a case vain would be any one's change, and our wishes come somehow effort to prove to us that it still shone, if to be gratified or our personal interests we were obstinate, and insisted on the served by the wrong being done, it would authority of present experience alone to be wrong nonetheless, and we should, prove that it did; but, for all that, it in a real moment, condemn ourselves would still be there, and, if we for desiring it. The right is, indeed, reasonable and would call to mind our independent of our wishes or our in- former experience, we might be assured terests. In accordance with these we of it. So there are moments in our can only say that we should like to have moral experience which outweigh in something be; we cannot say it ought to authority all others. In such calm, were ·36 IS THERE A HIGHER LAW? If one clear moments we know, we say, that test of truth is conformity to fact-and we see the truth; at other times, over fact is not various, but one. Even borne by our passions or our prejudices, though we do not know what opinions overawed by the contrary customs and are true and what are false, we know opinions of men, we may almost be that such a thing as truth or falsehood aware that we are losing sight of it, exists, and that it is for us to find them but it is there all he same. If one out in each particular case. So I grant asks why we do not always see it that as to many things we may not know if it is always there, the answer is that clearly the right and the wrong ; there we do not always try to see it, our con may be various and contradictory cern being often rather to justify our opinions about them; and yet we may passions and our prejudices. feel that there is a right and a wrong, asks why the customs and opinions of and that it is for us to find them out in men have often been so various and each particular case. No more than the contradictory, I answer that these cus facts of nature are the ideals of morality toms and opinions have been, in the dependent on our opinion of them; main, formed by other than rational there is a true, a best, a wholly right way considerations. Alen have rarely sought, of doing everything. It is not for us to with a single eye, for the right and make this, to try to create it; we cannot, wrong of things; their custoins and indeed, make it or create it, any more opinions have at best simply a little 'than we can the sun in the heavens ; we morality mixed with them. The time is have simply to discover it. yet to come when men, divesting them Granted, however, that there is a right selves as best they may of personal independent of our changing wishes and considerations, shall seek to reflect in opinions, how, it may be asked, can the their thought the pure ideals of morality. right be spoken of as a law? Laws we Moral culture-I nean in general the know of in nature, or in connection with disinterested attempt to fashion human the State. Is not the right, it may be life after the ideals of morality-is in its asked, simply an idea of our minds ? veriest infancy; it is as science was But if we reflect a moment, we shall before the birth of a Bacon or a Darwin. realise that it enters into the very notion Men had not sought the truth; they of right to be a law. The good and the studied nature, if they studied it at all, right are simply what should be; they are to confirm certain old theories of cosmo- nothirg of themselves; they have no gony or theology. Where can you find ' meaning or reality, save as ideals of now the disinterested student of morality action. They have a sovereign relation -patient, painstaking, laborious scrupu to action--they are laws of action ; and lous, ridding himself of attachment to I question if they are 'not more truly mere custom and opinion, and seeking laws than any of the State, or even of only for the perfect right? When such physical nature. The laws of the State students arise, and men become as eager are not really laws unless they are good to explore the world of moral ideas as laws; they do not bind us. An imthey are now to explore the realms of moral law, like the Fugitive-Slave Law, nature, there will gradually arise, I inay be broken every day; it may be believe, an increasing agreement as to affirmed by the judge and commanded moral conceptions, as there is now by the commonwealth, and yet be no coming to be an increasing agreement law at all. That only is a law which among disinterested observers as to binds me, to which I must yield allegiscientific fact. The opinions of men ance if I ani to preserve ny honour as are still various as to matters of science; a rational being. It may be questioned but we do not doubt that some opinions whether the laws of nature the law of are true though others are false, for the gravitation, for example, the law of ·IS THERE A HIGHER LAW? 37 cohesion, the law of chemical affinity- they alone conduce to the general are properly called laws at all; they are welfare. But suppose that one says, “I simply statements of facts-regular, con do not choose the general welfare " - stant, invariable, if you please, but only if morality means nothing more than the facts--and a law is properly a prescrip- explanation just given, what possible tion of what facts ought to be. We may obligation has it upon him? wholly deceive ourselves if we think of In fact, morality must mean more, or the law of gravitation as anything out it is nothing at all—no more than the side of the facts themselves, as some law of crossing the ocean. Morality rises thing which, as we say in common above our wishes and wants just as parlance, the facts obey; the law may truly in the determination of our ends as be but a statement of the facts, simply of the means by which we must reach suinming them up in a convenient way. them. Morality is nothing but reason It might be added that a law of morals uttering itself; and there are rational is more truly a law than the so-called ends just as truly as there are rational laws of health or laws of business. A means of attaining them. If a man does law of health means that if we want a not choose the general welfare, the laws perfect physical condition we must live of morality are nonetheless binding upon in a certain way, we must maintain him. Morality says: You ought to certain habits; but suppose we do not choose the general welfare. It, indeed, aspire to such a perfect condition, what covers all our voluntary action; it is in do the laws of health signify? The laws nowise dependent upon what we do or of business mean that there are certain what we fail to do; it is simply an ideal essential conditions of business success; for doing. It is co-extensive with the but if we are not ambitious in that whole of our active life; not an act, nor direction, or if we do not enter upon a a wish, nor a want, nor a thought, nor a business career at all, what do these judgment, nor any utterance but may be laws of business signify? The laws of confronted with the question: Is it in health and the laws of business merely harmony with the standard of right, declare that, if we desire certain ends, which is sovereign over all ? we must use certain means; but, so far Thus is a higher law unfolded to us in as their obligation upon us goes, all the very nature of morality; it is given depends upon whether we desire the to us in our very constitution as rational ends. If I wish to go to Europe, P must beings. We call it a higher law cross, the ocean; it is the only possible because it is independent of the standard way of getting there-it might be called to which men ordinarily pay respect. the law of getting there; but the law he law How powerful is custom ! how often means nothing if I do not wish to go. does it almost lull to sleep the voice of A law of morals is totally different from conscience ! Yet the question may this. It significs not only that there always be raised, Are the customs right; are certain means we niust take to do they conform to the requirements of achieve our ends, but that there are the law that is above them? certain ends binding upon us which we it is to glide along with the current of must choose if we are to maintain our popular sentiment, to think and love character as rational beings. The laws' and hate as people about us do! Yet of morals are sometimes sought to be any popular sentiment can be brought explained by showing that they point the before a higher bar; and from that bar way which one must take to secure the à judgment will go out as to whether general welfare; if one chooses the such sentiment has a right to be and we general welfare as his end in life, he have a right to follow it, or whether it is must act according to these laws, for our duty to seek to reform it. The higher experience has proved that they and i law is independent of the requirements How easy ·38 IS THERE A HIGHER LAWR of statutes. We can only say, fortu- conformity to a higher standard of justice nate are the statutes if they reflect the and of right. Homer speaks of higher law, and so hold up an ideal “That worst of tyrants, an usurping crowd."' for the people; for if they do not, if they contradict the higher law, it and not Socrates knew that he was very much they are to be obeyed. The whole hated by many persons; that, if conmeaning of ethics is in the sense of an demned, it would be owing to the malice invisible authority; to bow to custom, and the slander of the multitude. Demo to public opinion, or to law, is moral cracy does not mean any ceasing of the idolatry. responsibility of the educated and the Whence comes the authority of this intelligent, but is only a new opportunity law that is within and over us? The for them, a new call upon them to spread ordinary answers seem to me here their light and intelligence among the entirely to fail. Many of our particular people. It is the ideal destiny of every duties may have their sanction in that human being to rule himself; this truth they tend to the general welfare. But is the moral basis of democracy; but the what is the sanction for the supreme rule of one's self must be in accordance duty of seeking the general welfare? with the thought of the highest and the Who can give a reason for this? The best. sources of the authority of the laws of As little are the sanctions of the higher the statute book in our democratic conlaw to be found in the Bible. It would munities are in the will of the people. be idle to speak of this among serious- Civil governments, we say, derive their minded persons, were not a contrary just powers from the consent of the opinion so commonly expressed in the governed. But there is no practical conimunity. “We should do right consent on the part of nien generally to because the Bible commands us": how the supremacy of the laws of morality. often do we hear this expression among The practical consent of most men is to Christian people! I read only the the law of individual self-interest; but if other day of a teacher in one of our men should consent to the laws of theological seininaries, who said he morality, they would, if they were candid, thought that conscience could not vary consent to them with the feeling that from the Bible—the consciousness of those laws had an inherent right to rule, right being, as he declared, derived from and the question would still remain, the Bible. Yet, if this practical atheism, Whence comes this right? Plainly, this absence of living moral conviction, morality-the higher law-does not rest masking itself under the guise of reveron our consent to it, nor is ike right ence for a book-if this is in the teaching determined by a majority or any kind of the leaders of our Churches, what have of vote. It is there, commanding us we reason to believe is the mental conwhether we consent to it or not; our dition of the people themselves? The business is to give our allegiance to it as Bible belongs to the sacred literature of a sovereign whom we have not placed the world; but it does so belong because upon, and cannot displace from, his it reflects the moral ideals and aspirations throne. Ethics and politics are distinct of nian, not because it has created them. in their methods of operation. The last There are other Bibles than that con. basis for popular sovereignty itself is not taining the Hebrew and Christian scripthat the people have a right to do as tures: every line that utters a thought they please, but that the people are more of the good and the just is a sacred line; likely to rule rightly than any one man or and out of the heart of man, out of his class of men is. The ultimate authority prophetic soul, dreaming on things to of the laws of the people, just as truly as those of any king or lord, rests on their · Iliad, ii. 204. i ·IS THERE A HIGHER LAW?" 39 come, will yet issue grander Bibles and instead, he should use the word “ God," more sacred literatures than any the they would think they did. But in truth past has known. they might not understand him any More charity must we have for the better in the one case than in the other, view that the authority of the right is in for they would think that he meant by some way connected with God. God is “God” what they mean by it; and as sometimes only a name for the invisible they use the term it is, perhaps, to him right that is within and over us. When Aberglaube (extra-belief). To them the Socrates says, "Athenians, I love and Deity is a person; and what perhaps was cherish you, but I shall obey the gods once a metaphor, a figure of speech, rather than you ";' when Peter and the borrowed from the shining sky above, Apostles answered the high-priest and they have hardened into a dogma; and his council, " We must obey God rather they think that the laws of morality are than men”;? when Wendell Phillips took laws because he commands them, and his stand with the right, as “that absolute we are to obey them out of reverence essence of things which lives in the sight for him. But, in truth, if the Deity is of the Eternal and Infinite";3 when something thus additional to morality, Antigone set the unwritten, immovable if he is a person giving commands in the laws of the gods above the proclamation literal sense, he gives no authority to his of the king of Thebes, and paid the last commands, but rather they give authority honours to her brother's corpse despite to him. to him. No human or divine will can that proclamation; they, each and all, make anything right that is not of itself had essentially in mind the highest right. If this were possible, it would thought in man, and they felt that it was follow that, if that will commanded what there to rule, that they were to brave was wrong, it would cease to be wrong; anything rather than be untrue to it. and hence there would be a total sub- “God” is often, I suppose, simply a version of moral distinctions. The name for that supreme sanctity which is noblest Christian theologians have held in every man's breast, would he but to a right independent of the will of become aware of it. Socrates says: God, and made their best claims for a “Wherever any one stations himself worship of the divine will in that it because he thinks it right to be there, or perfectly accords with that right. Robert is stationed by his commander, there I Browning says : think he ought to remain ard face .....justice, good, and truth were still danger, taking into account neither Divine, if, by some demon's will, death nor anything else in comparison Hatred and wrong had been proclaimed with disgrace,"S The right, indeed, Lall through the worlds, and right mis. .named." binds him; it holds him as by a charm to the spot where he is. The obligation If this is true, the last answer to the to stay there is ultimate; we can only question as to the sources of the authosay it exists in the reason and nature of rity of the higher law fails as truly as the things. And if by the term “God” was first. In fact, there is no answer; there meant simply the reason and nature of are no sources for that supreme authority. things, it might perhaps be freely used; We cannot go beyond the law of right; but the word means something else to God is not more ultimate; human reason most persons. 'If one should speak of is but that in us which perceives it. the reason and nature of things to many, indeed has no origin; its source is not they would not understand him ; if, in the heavens or the earth; it is a final, irrevocable, uncreated law-I might say, Apology, $ 29. 2 Acts, v. 29. the everlasting adamant on which the 3 Speeches, p. 272: Antigone, 455. § Apology, § 28. Christmas Eve, xvii. 4 ·40 IS THERE A HIGHER LAW? are own. moral universe is built. It is the same Precise scientific statements mot as the old Stoic philosophers called the always desirable, even if they are Law of Nature, contrasting, as it did, in possible, in treating of so great a theme. so many ways with the law of nations; It satisfies me in a general way to say the same as the Roman lawyers thought that the higher law is that which comof as an ideal after which to re-fashion mands us to seek the universal good. the great mass of traditional Roman law. Another statement might be that every It is the same as that which in the eyes man has the ends of a man, and is hence of our forefathers gave the basis for the to be treated as sacred and inviolable. natural and inalienable rights of man. My point now is, that if we do not so It is the same as prompted the exclama respect every man, we offend the higher tion of Sophocles, “Oh that my lot law; and if there are many in a conmight lead me in the path of holy inno- munity who have a similar disregard, cence of thought and deed, the path the fate of that community is sealed. which august laws ordain ; laws which Things are so ordered that righteousness in the highest heaven had their birth, alone is stability and lasting order and neither did the race of mortal man beget permanent peace. We did not make them, nor shall oblivion ever put them this so, and we cannot change it; it is to sleep; the power of God is mighty in a part of the nature of things, which them, and groweth not old !"It is the overrides our will and makes light of our same as that of which Cicero said that intentions; it signifies that we are in we can take nothing from it, change other, stronger hands than our nothing, abrogate nothing ; that neither The prophets of the old time were the Senate nor the people have a right simply those who took the side of the to free us from it. It is the same as higher law, denounced the wickedness Rousseau had in mind when he said that and the corruption that they saw about the eternal laws of nature and of order them, and prophesied the disaster and are still in being, and supply the place ruin that would inevitably follow. of positive laws in the eye of the man Greek tragedy is full of this thought; it is of discernment; as Voltaire, when he religious, even as the prrphecies of the said that the sentiment of justice is so Old Testament are. The higher laws natural, so universally felt by mankind, are not dead, stupid, indifferent things, that it seems to be independent of all but quick and alive, and know, so to law, all party, all religion. The higher speak, when they are offended. You law is that, indeed, which gives mankind cannot escape the consequences of any its goal; it is the foundation of States; wrong you commit; if you do not suffer, it is the basis for all the worth and society society will suffer, your children will dignity of human life. suffer: somehow the wrong must be expiated. There is a moral order in the world, holding up to us what we should That this law is no mere fancy, but a do, and avenging itself upon us if we do reality and a power in human history, is not do it. History is but an impressive shown in this-that nothing which is not lesson of this. The Greeks spoke of the in accordance with it can last. I have Furies that followed, and would sooner not defined this law; I have taken for or later overtake, the guilty man; the granted that we all have some sense Hebrews spoke of the wrath of the of it. Its practical meaning may be Eternal against the doers of wickedness. discovered in the different virtues which These metaphors, these figures of speech, we all have as ideals in our minds. are not more, but less, than the fact. The injured majesty of justice will i Edipus Tyrannus, 863 fl. avenge itself. “ As the whirlwind ? Emile. passeth, so is the wicked no more ;

·IS THERE A HIGHER LAW? 41 us. but the righteous is an everlasting revolution-I mean the horrors and the foundation."1 bloodshed of it, that which made it, as Time may be necessary for the proving someone has said, "a truth clad in hellof this. Our indignation at wrong and fire"-what was it but a righteous judginjustice often fails to have immediate ment upon a corrupt Church, a corrupt satisfaction; but time brings it round monarchy, a corrupt society-a penalty to us—if not to us, then to those who visited upon France by the offended inherit the sense of indignation from us. justice of things ? For the spectacle of righteous retribution What was the Civil War in America is not made for our personal satisfaction, but the natural and unescapable result it works itself out on its own account; of a wrong that was permitted to fester happy are we, we may say, if we are in the vitals of the nation, and came near privileged to see the consummation, but to consuming it away? The statesmen the consummation will come whether we before the war thought to compromise see it or not. The end and issue of with the wrong; they hid themselves present wrongs are in the future—they under the forms of law and the Conare hid from our eyes; but the end and stitution. But the compromises and issue of past wrongs are plain before the wrongs permitted by the Constitution What has become of Assyria, of were part causes of the war; the war was Babylon, those mighty empires that at a judgment on the country for permitting their height of sway felt a boding sense such compromises, for having such a conie on-a sense that their huge frames Constitution. Wendell Phillips used to were not constructed rightsay that the sentiment of justice was " And drooped, and slowly died upon their something “against which no throne is throne." ? potent cnough to stand, no constitution They rested on violence; they were sacred enough to endure"; and he used pernieated with immorality; they were to charge his hearers : “Remember this doomed to fall. What has become of when you go to an anti-slavery gathering Greece, whom her art and her literature in a schoolhouse, and know that weighed and her philosophy could not save?- against its solemn purpose, its terrible Greece, of whom Matthew Arnold says resolution, its earnest thought, Webster that educated man must love her? himself, and all huckstering statesmen every -Greece, who was the lifter-up to the in the opposite scale, shall kick the nations of the banner of art and science, beam." I The prophecy has come true and yet, brilliant as she was, perished for kicked she beam, and now no man the huckstering statesmen have lack of attention enough to conduct--for want of conduct, steadiness, character.3 father had any sympathy with those wants to have it known that he or his What has become of Rome, stretching statesmen. “How shall feeble her empire so grandly as she did over Phillips, minority," cried " without the Western world, whom her Ciceros and Antonines, and schools of great weight or influence in the country, with jurists, failed to save ? Gone down .no jury of millions to appeal to, denounced, vilified, and contemned how because of luxury, because of sensuality, because of the idleness of the higher whelming weight of some colossal reputashall we make way against the overclasses and the slavery of the lower; because of the contempt of human tion, if we do not turn from the idolatrous beings, because of great estates, because present and appeal to the human race ? of inequality, What was the French Saying to your idols of to-day, 'Here we are, defeated; but we will write our * Proverbs, x. 25. judgment with the iron pen of a century 2 Matthew Arnold : Pocms. 3 Ibid., Literature and Dogma. Speeches, p. 50. а 6 1 ·42 IS THERE A HIGHER LAW? no + to come, and it shall never be forgotten, All the unrest, all the disorder, all the if we can help it, that you were false in strikes and outbreaks in our country, are your generation to the claims of the simply proofs that the equilibrium of slave."); Well, brave soul, it will never justice is not reached. Men are for be forgotten ; your appeal to the human peace, when the conditions of peace do race is already heard; you were not not exist. Let men do justice, let the defeated ; the reputation which was so State witness for it, let every shop and colossal in your day weighs very lightly factory and means of intercourse and upon us now, and the man who could transportation be a scene of it, and we speak contemptuously of the higher law shall have peace fast enough. When -"some higher law," Webster said, "order reigns in Warsaw" there is "something existing somewhere between spiritual death. Disorder, confusion, here and the third heaven; I do not uprisings, are signs of spiritual life, proofs know where "—he lives in our national that there are thoughts stirring in the history in small measure to be hearts of men, that they will not be excused and apologised for. content till they have a chance to become What are the outrages now and then something like what they ought to be. cropping out in Ireland, the assassinations Justice will not let us have rest till we now and then taking place in Russia, have satisfied her claims; society, as but the furies of an avenging justice? another ideal voice in American history Sydney Smith said that at the mention (Channing) has said, will be shaken, and of Ireland “the English seem to bid deserves to be shaken, till its solemn adieu to common-sense, and to act with debt to the poor and ignorant is paid. the barbarity of tyrants and the fatuity So does the higher law make itself of idiots”; Byron called England's union known, not only directly to the conwith Ireland “the union of the shark science, but in the course and developwith his prey"; Burke affirmed that ment of human history, and in the unrest Ireland “only got justice from England and disquiet of to-day. when demanded at the sword's point"; and Gladstone himself confessed that The higher law is the solution of our England never conceded anything "ex- social problems. It was but one minor cept when moved to do so by fear."2 If political application of it--that to slavery. this is true, is there not a call for avenging There's demanded an application wherſuries? And of Russia, what descrip- ever man is dishonoured, whether civilly tion is better than that made long ago, free or not. The rule applies everywhere, and repeated by Phillips—"a detpotism Treat each man with whom you are in tempered by assassination"? Is 'Nihil contact as having the ends of a man, ism anything more than, as Phillips and as far as in you lies, help him to declared, "the last weapon of victims, realise those ends. What are the ends .choked and manacled beyond all other of man? I need not attempt any formal resistance"? "God means," Phillips enumeration. What are the things that ..continued, and that is only saying that we deem suitable and proper for ourjustice demands, "that unjust power be selves ? What is good for us, what is insecure; and every move of the giant dear to us, is likely to be good for others. prostrate in chains, whether it be to lift May we not suppose that others would a single dagger or stir a city's revolt, is a like a living income, a decent home, lesson in justice.” some leisure for thought, for the culture of the higher part of their nature? If I am told that in some cases they do not Speeches, p. 114. care for these things, that they have no * See Wendell Phillips's The Scholar in the Republic, from which I have taken these ambition for more than a hand-to-mouth quotations. existence, that they live a stupid, ·IS THERE A HIGHER LAW? 43 brutalised life, and are content with it, thing wrong which hinders or makes must we not ask, as Matthew Arnold said impossible a free progress of every Englishmen must when they think of individual to what is highest and best. the outpourings of Irish Catholic resent The higher law is inconsistent with the ment upon themselves, Whose fault is customary law of wages; the higher law it ? Is it not society's fault, in part, is inconsistent with the subjection of that these men have had to live a hand women, with all that view of her as a to-mouth existence, and to become con mere attendant and helpmeet for man; tent with it?—because, forsooth, it was it is inconsistent with any home where almost vain for them when left to them one person exists to serve and another selves to strive for more; and they, as a to be served ; it calls for a universal rule, have been left to themselves. Have application of the rule of respect and we the heart, when we think of this, to honour and love. talk so glibly of their brutalised life? For the higher law is not a beautiful They will go on living so, it is to be speculation to indulge in; it calls for a feared, till we become brothers to them, higher life. If we win a thought in till we carry to them, and keep ever in advance of the common practice of the ourselves, the thought of what they are day, it is a summons to us to lift our liſe ideally called to be. If no law of busi- to a new level, and contribute so much ness, no law of the State, commands to the onward movement of the world. this, shall we not say that the higher law If we are but vaguely ill at ease, as wecommands it-that law which contem- think of the present condition of society... plates us all as brothers, and gives us it may be that thereby the spirit of proour duty as grounded in that relation, gress marks us out and gives us the first and knows of no limits to our duty save presentiments of the work it has for us.. those inhering in a universal honour and to do. Discontent because our personal love? If this is our true relation; if, as wants and wishes are not gratified may Marcus Aurelius said,? we are made for be far from noble; but discontent with co-operation, like feet, like hands, like ourselves and our lives in view of the eyelids; if it is contrary to nature to be suggestions of an idea that calls us up angry with our kinsmen, or to hate them, higher—there is something almost sacred or to be indifferent to them, then does about that. Every stirring of this disso much that we waste on what is super- content signifies that we are not really fluous belong to us to waste; does so at home in the world as it is; that in. much of the time that we devote to our some sense we have a better country, selfish interests belong to ourselves; is and belong to another order of things. there not a call for humanity overleaping There are those who tell us it will not all conventional limits, a humanity that do to have our ideals too high; that this . shall assert practically in our daily lives would unfit us for life as it is. They our brotherhood with the poorest and forget that it is not necessarily our place the least? The higher law is, in truth, to accept life as it is—that our duty may still in advance of, and above, the be to help to re-make it. It is sometimes. ordinary practice and ordinary thoughts said, with reference to our public life, of men. Men do not dream of the duties that to act with entire honesty and selfthat really belong to them; they are respect one needs always to live in a content with the average standards of pure atmosphere, and it is added that morality about them. They would not the atmosphere of politics is impure. Is countenance slavery, oh no! but that one, then, to accept his atmosphere as which made slavery wrong makes any- if it were something given to him, and not to know that he may be himself a God and the Bible, p. 45. factor in creating it? A man with a too · Meditations, ii. 1. keen sense of rectitude, says Herbert ·44 IS THERE A HIGHER LAW? Spencer, a too elevated standard of becoming or mean or common. Lying conduct, might find life intolerable and is not the law of that ideal commonimpossible. Impossible? No, unless wealth, and it is not for him to lie; in those rare times when for high reasons honour is before gain there, and his first it were better not to live. Intolerable? thought should be to keep himself spot- Yes; and the sense that it was so would less here; selfishness is not neatly matched prompt to the necessary efforts to make with selfishness there, and it is for him life tolerable. Intolerable wrongs ?- to live in an element of disinterested then we will overthrow them. Intolerable love now. The only thing he may have circumstances ? then we will revolt now that he will find no room for there against them. is indignation at and resistance to wrong; « He either fears his face too much, and even these cannot become settled Or his deserts are small, habits with him, for they exist only to Who dares not put it to the touch, the end of removing all wrong; and To gain or lose it all." 2 when that time shall come, should he But with a thought of some higher ever see it, delight and joy and thanksgood, I, in real truth, believe that we giving will take the place of all other cannot lose or fail. The world is meant emotions. To act now, not according to go that way—it is in its make and to our poor human statutes and convennature to do so ; and every effort, every tions, but according to the higher perfect thought, is simply a new beginning, a law that we know only within our own new impulse to that onward novemant. breast; to live here as the citizen of an The only thing that fails in this world is i ideal kingdom-that, it seems to me, wrong—fails, though it ti ke; men and were the proudest distinction a man nations with it, and involves them in could crave. That kingdom is not yet ; ruin. The good is that which preserves only the thought and the law of it are and keeps alive. I almost fancy at times in us, and the kingdom is to be. We that, if a perfectly just society should are to make that kingdom, and we know ever come to be, it would never cease ; ; of its possibilities nowhere else than that the elements would wax kind for it; here. A great creative responsibility that the earth would put off its day of rests upon mankind and upon us for our final destruction to do it honour; or if measure of the task. To be as good as that dire event should ever come, that our fathers, said Phillips, we must be the divine society would then be trans- better. The duties of their day were ported to some happy isles, "ever fertile, new to them; let it not surprise as if clear in atmosphere, and unvexed with there are duties for us and the future storms," and be dowered with thmor- that have never dawncu on mankind tality. But, whether or no, we belong to before. Duty is like the truth—we are such a society. The higher law that ever discovering it. The principles, the sounds within us is sign that we belong great laws, may be old; their applicato another state than that in which we tions, their practical meaning in our live, to a divine commonwealth ; and a, lives, are ever new. man is to remember this higher citizen- " New occasions tvach new duties, ship as he walks the streets of his earthly Time makes ancient good uncouth; city-it is to keep him erect while he They must upward, still, and onward, walks there, and from aught that is un Who would keep abreast of truth !" : - Education, p. 169. • Marquis of Montrose (1612-1650). J. R. Lowell.

·ce 1.4.1 D, !'OWRAH MORALITE AS A HALON * Ext. 1902. ) 45 V. MORALITY AS A RELIGION' as My subject to-day may strike one as given time enough, customary morality strange. The ordinary idea is that tends to become what we may call real morality and religion are distinct things-- morality. And yet this process may be and yet I presume to speak of morality, a more or less unconscious one, and a religion ! Some may think me good customs, like others, may be folguilty of confusion; and the reproach lowed and obeyed more or less unthinkmay come from both sides, from those ingly. The morality may still be a thing who believe in morality but do not want of routine and habit-a half mechanical it mixed up with religion, and from those thing. This morality máy have little or who take their stand with religion and nothing to do with religion. Perhaps a conceive morality tame and common- good part of the morality existing in the place and insufficient compared with it. world to-day is of this instinctive, mecha- And yet the mingling and blending of nical sort-it is a second nature to men; the two is just my point of view—yes, I it has little or nothing to do with religion. think I may say our point of view; for, On the other hand, religion was at the in our own understanding of the term, outset little more than an arrangement we are a religious Society, not ethical by which men got the favour or warded and religious, but a Society whose reli- off the enmity of the gods. There were gion is ethics. friendly and hostile powers in nature- I grant that the common ideas are powers that were made into personsnot without a basis of fact, that there and religion was the reverence and awe may be a morality without religion, and which they naturallyinspired, the reverent that there may be religion quite distinct and awe-struck dealing and commerce and apart from morality-yes, that on with them. Hence altars, and sacrifices, both sides this has been more often the and priests, and temples-all means by case than hot; but I hold that each is which the favour of the Divine persons an imperfect, inadequate, and may even was won. Evidently this had little to be a dangerous thing. I wish to make do with the ways of men in dealing with this clear to-day, and I wish to show one another that are called morality. first, intellectually and scientifically, how One might take part in the religious the two may be united, and, secondly, rites of a community and experience the the strong and imperative need that they thrill of religious émotion, even if he be united. disregarded the common moral standards Morality originally was simply the in any case, one's religious life was customs of a community, the settled apart from his moral life. Perhaps this ways of acting that men living together is still so to a great extent. Religion, naturally fell into. By a natural process we know, is commonly regarded as conthe good customs tend to survive, since cerned with another realm than that of the bad ones weaken a coinmunity and ethics. Reverence and awe still go out lead to its extinction. So everywhere, to Divine persons, or perhaps, vaguely, An address (the conclusion of a series) given before the Society for Ethical Culture of Chicago, at Steinway Hall, November 16th, 1902.

·46 MORALITY AS A RELIGION to unknown powers, not to the laws of friendly. But when man sees that 'the norality. blessings he craves, the welfare he covets, And yet what imperfect and inadequate has other conditions, that the end only things morality and religion so conceived tends to be reached when there is a are! For when the reason once awakes, certain type of life among men, when when men are no longer content to the community has certain laws and is follow in the ruts of custom, when they pervaded by a certain spirit--when he begin to ask the reason why, they sce sees that even physical forces that somethat only those customs are valid customs times affect human destiny so powerfully or real morality which tend to the com- do not act arbitrarily, but that every: munity's good, which make it strong where in the world there is recognisable and happy; they see too that the com- law, then what a change comes over the munity's welfare is dependent on these face of religion! The very ends religion conditions; that so long as certain things craves lead it to pay respect to the real are not done in the community (or by conditions of life-lead it, too, to study the community) it is in vain to sacrifice the laws of the physical world; and to the gods or to pray for their favour. hence, instead of praying or sacrificing Yes, in time they come to see that, as for peace and happiness, men do the welfare and happiness are not arbitrary things that make for peace and happigifts but come naturally, reverence and ness; instead of imploring Apollo or awe have their real ground and object in Jahveh or “God” to stop a pestilence, the natural order under which we live; they search out and remove its causes. that to revere right and justice is the No longer, then, separate and apart from true reverence, and that to have fear and ethics and science, religion becomes trembling in view of the fact that all not ethical and scientific; it sees that ethics founded on right and justice will perish guided by science is its very life and is the true awe. In other words, morality soul---that, as the Hebrew sacred books become conscious, become aware of what say, obedience is more than sacrifice, it means and involves, seen in its wide, and in wisdom and righteousness lies deep ramifications, takes on something the way of life. Yet in face of a religion of that hue of feeling, something of that of this sort, palpitating with life and solemnity, that of old characterised men's reality, a practical force in the process commerce with the gods. Yet in face of man's advancement, how feeble and of a morality that has thus become con- ineffectual, and even false, seems the old scious, rational, full of reverence and type of religion, that thinks morality an religion, how thin and superficial seems outside or secondary affair, that gives the mere unthinking, customary morality reliances to men that are no reliances at that is not touched with the religious all. spirit at all! There is, then, no necessary antithesis On the other hand, when religion is between religion and morality. It is a deepened, when riper thought comes to mistake to identify religion, as is somebe connected with it, when it is more times done, with a set of views about clearly seen what the relation of man is the universe. It is really a set of feelto the forces outside of him, how changed ings, a set of practices. These feelings becomes its attitude to morality! Reli- and practices may, when they take shape, gion, as all other activities, is bent on ally themselves with the views of the securing a blessing for man. Its prayers, world that are then dominant--they its sacrifices, its worship, are all to this almost inevitably will. The old Greek end. For man's welfare was believed to religion harmonised with the old Greek depend on unseen, mysterious powers philosophy, the early Hebrew religion that peopled the earth, air, and sky; and was interpenetrated with the general it was in such ways that they were made ideas about life and the world that were ·MORALITY AS A RELIGION 47 then current among the Hebrew tribes. reason why men conscious of their And yet why do we call the Greek responsibilities and of the great issues religion and the Hebrew religion--or, to at stake should not be touched with take a still more different type, the Bud reverence and awe as they think of these dhist religion --- alike religtons ? The things, should not become hushed and beliefs are widely different, yet in every subdued. Morality would then become case there is a common recognisable a religion to men-in the fundamental attitude, tone, and character of mind." and indeed universally recognised sense We never run the risk of confusing a of the term. Just as obviously as the mans religious acts or devotions with fear or love of a Divine Person can be a anything else. Perhaps his posture religion, as the worship of Apollo or the reveals what he is doing. Even the look worship of Jahveh was once a religion, on his countenance may be peculiar. as the imitation of Jesus or of Buddha There is an intentness, a reverential is a religion, so can morality be a religion manner, a humility, an awe, that are to a man. Much that goes by the name absolutely characteristic, and that a man of morality in the world could not be so shows at no other time than when he is called, for it is a poor surface affair; it in a religious mood. It is the same has no depth, and it has no height; it with the Catholic dropping on adoring stirs nobody, and can stir nobody; it knees before the elevated host, and with hardly counts in the world save in a the Buddhist gazing in homage on a negative way. But morality as I can statue of the Buddha, and with the conceive of it, morality as I have tried, Greek extending his arms to Apollo, and yet well know I am unable, to picture and with the savage standing mute before it--morality as conscious, willing, glad a sacred stone-yes, and with the modern subordination to the universal laws of man, bending hushed and subdued, as life, morality as lifting one to comradehe thinks of those mighty laws on which ship with suns and stars because it is the health and safety of the race depend. faithful as they, morality loving the law Religion, I say, is this peculiar feeling, of life even more than life, morality and the peculia! practices and acts that ready to die rather than be untrue that grow out of it. Views of the universe Views of the universe morality may be the very ideal which are not religion until they touch this one may seek all one's life to follow, that feeling; nor, as matter of fact, is it may be the supreme law to a man, it dependent on any particular views of may be the supreme passion to a manthe aniverse—it is only necessary that down on his knees he may bow before there be something, some fact, some it, as he may before Jesus or before situation, in face of which this deep, Buddha or any other son of man who peculiar emotion arises. has exemplified the ideal or made it iny On the other hand, there is nothing brighter before his eyes. in the nature of morality to hinder it I think, then, it is plain--the sense in from blending with religion. Morality which religion and morality may become is unquestionably a way of acting rather This is because religion is a 'than a way of feeling. And often, as I general term-it is whatever one holds have said, this action has been merely sacred, whatever one venerates, whatever in accordance with custom-instinctive, gives one his supreme rule of life. But unthinking. But there is no reason why what that shall be is another question. moral action should not be thinking and Religion itself does not decide it. Relialive, no reason why it should not take gion is not an independent sphere of in the issues that are involved in it, why knowledge. It originates nothing. It it should not see that true morality is is the way we take knowledge or ideas the way of life and immorality the way of that we otherwise get-whether we view death to men and communities-no them seriously or no, whether we attend P one.

·48 JIORALITY AS A RELIGION to them, whether they become momen eye for cause and effect here and now, tous in our eyes, whether they become a if we have not the secret of happiness principle of order or control in our lives. and of joy and of peace from day to From this point of view, morality (the day? A religion that will teach us how laws of life) is simply one of the possible to live, that will hold up clear and high objects of religion; there may be others the laws of life and win us to obedience -indeed, other types of religion have to them--this is the religion the world been and are more frequent in the world feeds, and it is the only true religion ; than ethical religion. This is why I all others, all that seek to make somespeak as I do to-day of “Morality as a thing else sacred, that make men put Religion”—as if I were making a pro- their trust in “God” or Christ or he posal, something that I am aware will Virgin or the Bible or the Church or its strike many ears strangely. Other types sacraments and rites, are a diverting of of religion are so common that it is man from the real issue; they are the actually imagined that they alone are blind leading of the blind; they ate a religion. delusion and a snare. And yet I am almost ready to turn the And somewhat in the same way I tables and to say that in an enlightened would meet those who think that in this age of the world morality is alone fit to age we have got beyond the need of be a religion; that the prevailing types religion--that science is well and morality of religion are, or ought to be, outworn; is well, but (to use colloquial language) that only so far as they contain the there is no occasion for getting excited germs of a religion of morality have they about them. This is overlooking the any saving salt in them. I am almost real nature of the human problem. It ready to take the jealous tone of Dr. rests on what I would call a smooth and Coit and say, on behalf of righteousness, casy view of human nature. It forgets “Thou shalt have no other Gods before the dark facts of weakness, waywardness, me." For if we are very earnest for and perversity--all that the orthodox human life, if we see it as the frail thing doctrine sums up under the name of that it is, depending for its happiness, "sin.” "sin." There is much illusion in what its security, even its existence, on obedi liberal ministers and writers have said ence to the laws of life, how can we be about the divinity of human nature. If supremely concerned about anything man was really born divine, the orthodox but this obedience? What light is worth doctrine of a “ fall" is necessary to anything but the light of science in account for his present condition. She revealing to us those laws, and what is fact is the divine is the goal of human all our activity worth, all our experigiture nature, not its beginning or origin. Man of energy, if it fails to keep us in the has come from animal origins—and straight and narrow path of obedience shortsightedness and weakness and to them? Of what use is it to call on capriciousness and animality are natural the gods ?--the real gods, the eternal to him. The higher life is like life itself father- and mother-nature from which on the animal plane--it is the fruit of we are all bor, make themselves known 'effort and struggle ; what does not will in those laws; if we do not obey, they to live on the lower plane does not live do not help us, and contentedly allow ---and he who does not will to rise to us and our works to come to nought. the higher life usually does not attain to Of what use are all sorts of mystical it. The best that we can truthfully say emotions, all sorts of heaven-scaling is that almost always men have the speculators, all sorts of unearthings of instinct for higher thingsin their better the secrets of heaven and earth, if we moments they wish and long that way; have not the emotion requisite to keep us but instincts and wishes and longings straight in daily life, if we have not an are far from the reality-and to reach ·MORALITY AS A RELIGION 49 that, there must be effort and thought- to slip down to the view that man is only fulness and a serious purpose and syste- a self-seeking creature after all, and that matic striving, and this is what is practi- all that is said about a higher nature cally meant by religion. I will not cite and a larger life is useless talk and a religious teacher, but a master of the pother; yes, how easy to be simply a human heart from secular literature. In self-seeking creature, a part of the dead his light way Shakespeare says: “If to weight that is everywhere hindering do were as easy as to know what 'tweré society's advance. I have known men good to do, chapels had been churches, myself who have had higher thoughts, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.” and then have lost them--who have Our insight, indeed, runs ahead of our been earnest, religious, and then have action almost all the time. This is ceased to be. Religion itself is no safebecause knowledge, ideas, are almost guard, unless it is ever a religion. There always a play over the surface of our is no discharge in this fight. And so I nature—they are not worked into our cannot assent, friends, to the view that structure; but it is our structure that the days of religion are over---that science determines what we do. If I should try and morality, as we ordinarily know them, to define religion in biological language, are enough Morality, as we ordinarily I should say that it was an effort to make know it, is a sadly imperfect affair--it new structure in man, to write ideas into wants light and air, it wants warmth and our living substance; and, like all evolu- light, it wants height and depth, it wants tion of living structure, this is a slow breadth and scope, it wants to be made process, only coming from repeated and synonymous with the law of an ascendprolonged effort, and perhaps under the ing humanity; and yet to take it in this influence of fiery storm and stress. But way is the meaning of an ethical religion. why argue? Do we not all know it? Nothing but remembrance of the great Even when courses of action concern laws of life will keep us in the way of our own health, does it not sometimes life; nothing but a positive, sustained require a strong, determined will to impulsion to the better will make ourfollow them, so easy is it to do simply selves or the world better. The right, what is pleasant or convenient for the the just, and all that we picture under moment. Is there not meaning in the the form of a perfect humanity are a old saying, “ Dure to be well”? And conquest; they come in no other way. when the higher laws of life are in ques I saw last summer, on my way East, tion, is there any less need of effort, of a poor, unhappy man who was nigh to vigilance? Do we not often go against the end of his earthly career. His our own happiress in giving way to fits brothers and sisters were with him and of temper? Is not hatred and ill-will a full of kind attention. He had been most uncomfortable feeling, and get do out to Colorado in a vain search for we not sometimes fall into it? Is not health. Not many years ago he was a envy almost a sick feeling, and yet are robust Harvard student; but, as his we not easily envious ? And when we brother pathetically remarked to me, he turn to the laws of social life-of that had taken the world as a place to play whole of which we are a part-how much in, and by living thoughtlessly, fast, and harder still to rise to them ! free, had injured hiinself, and made his it is to snatch a gain by which others fine frame an easy prey to disease. lose, to seek to have laws passed for our “The world as a place to play in "the selfish interests, to defraud the com- homely phrase stuck in my mind. Evimunity in our taxes ! How we need to dently the world is not meant to be brace ourselves, to remember the ideal, taken in this way, and those who take it to keep alive the sense of the law, lest so do it to their cost. No, the world is we forget it altogether! How.easy it is a living network of laws, and if we do How easy ·50 MORALITY AS A RELIGION not attend to them the same forces that because the good is not there. And so might give us unbounding happiness and neutrality is really impossible if the joy deal out destruction and death. It real God is not in your heart, the gods is a serious world we live in--and reli- of this world almost inevitably take posgion is simply taking it for what it is. session of it." In a word, religion is an The truth holds throughout. It holds absolute necessity-without it the race of human societies as truly as of the not only does not progress, it degenerates. physical lives of individuals. There are And yet there is no joy to be comcertain laws on the basis of which socie- pared to that of standing up like a man ties can be built up; and on this basis to our tasks in this world. There is no they become strong and happy and joy like the ardour of conflict-particuenduring; but if they do not attend to larly when it is conflict not for ourselves these laws, if they take the world as a only, but for the wide aims of humanity, place to play in, if they allow themselves for the higher life of humanity. This to be little more than a mass of con- joy is in the sense of connection with tending individuals and of warring inte. what is beyond ourselves; it is the elevarests, the secret of life is not in them, tion that comes from being a part of a and it is but a question of time when larger whole. I sometimes think that they will vanish away. this is the final meaning and upshot of Yes, the frailty of everything human life-I mean not the joy, but the fact. is what impresses me--the frailty of When one can fight alone or with a few, health, the frailty of happiness, the frailty when not the glory or the success but of life itself. All these sweet goods are the rightness of the thing attracts him, so dependent, so strictly conditioned. when he can fight though he loses, and Is this a happy world? I do not know be loyal though he die, then, it seems to whether it is or not; but I think I know me, he acquires a meaning and a value of certain conditions that would make it beyond earthly lifeand death; he becomes happy. And so with health, and so with a tried and tested unit of that moral life-the conditions come more and more universe of which, after all, this visible into the foreground, and it is to them universe may be only anticipation and we must primarily attend. No matter, foreshadowing. We conceive of our in the last analysis, if the world is happy material atoms as always true to their or not, if we can make it happy. No attractjons; they can always be counted matter if it is just or not, if we can make on--they depart not a hair's breadth from a cert:in defined course, which, if If we can make it happy and just we knew all the circumstances, could be ah, but what attention that implies what mathematically predicteck Hence, perthought, what purpose, what all-conquer haps, their practical immortality; they ing effort ! You think there is no need are so useful in the make-up of worlds of religion any more. I ask what but that they cannot be spared. And who religion can save us? There is plenty knows but that they may be the outcome to engage a man in life, if he does not of a process of natural selection, in which make a point of attending to these things. other atoms perished because they knew, Money, pleasure, position, lure us—it is no law? Perhaps it is not altogether a more easy than not to follow after them fanciful thought. Well, what is the and let other things go. It is not neces- destiny of man but to be true to his law sary that a man be evil-minded to go --what, perhaps, is the meaning of the this way; he may be simply absent- strange riddle of the universe but the minded-i.e., destitute of any purpose finding out and selection of those who the other way. It is the critical nature will be true? Perhaps this, too, is not of man's situation, that if one is simply altogether fanciful thought-perhaps the neutral, indifferent, the bad comes in true man passes from our sight to live it just.

·DARWINISM IN ETHICS 51 beyond our sight, being needed to make heart is the end of life here; it is the up other worlds that are to be. Perhaps highest achievement of life; it brings the he can pass from one society to another, highest joy in life, and a peace too deep from one world to another, and yet have for words--and this is the meaning of ever the same true and loyal heart. But morality taken as a religion. whether or no, to develop a true loyal VI. DARWINISM IN ETHICS Own It is the high and noble thing to do the side of those who are prudent, since what is good and right of our those who are not she does not permit accord. We do not reach the heights of to live. morality till goodness is the free choice The question is: Does nature sustain of the soul. I believe that man, with any such relation to morality--does the his wonderful gift of reason, can discern force of things outside of us incline the a highest good, and then, unconstrained race to be moral? Or is it, perchance, by all that is without him, can choose favourable to immorality; or is it indifit. It constitutes the incomparable ferent, so that good and bad men dignity of man that he need not be like thrive equally well? In other words, is a cloud driven before the winds, but morality a private matter, about which a can, as George Eliot says, "elect his person need have no more serious condeeds, and be the liege, not of his birth, cern than about any other question of but of that good alone he has discerned individual inclination and taste; or is it and chosen." something having, whether we will or Nevertheless, we have a curious and no, issues of life and death? We profound interest in the question as to naturally incline to take the former view. the tendency of things apart from our Where we transgress any of the laws of own will. We know that we are not morality, we like to say to ourselves that masters of our own life; there are con- it is our own affair ; that nothing outside ditions outside of us to which we have of us takes cognisance of it, nor will any to conform To take one of the grave result follow. simplest illustrations, we know that if, It is at this point that the views on a cold winter day, we are not suffi- of Darwin have a wonderful interest. ciently protected against the weather, we Darwin does not write as an ethical shall perish: We must adjust ourselves philosopher, but as a naturalist. In his to our environment, to use a phrase that famous chapters in the Descent of Man' has come into vogue; we, are compelled his object is, not to give us a theory of to, if we wish to live. The tendency of ethics, but to show the part which things is thus to encourage and develop morality has played in the development prudence. Nature may be said to be on of the race. Any one who thinks that Spanish Gypsy, book ii. ' Part I., chaps. iii., iv, and v.

·52 DARWINISM IN ETHICS morality is a private matter, and that never should he be helped. If a woman physical strength and mental capacity has power to get her rights, very well ; if are the only things that nature takes not, let her go without them. If a account of, should read those chapters. person is smart enough to defraud Everywhere, according to Darwin, among another, let him do so; if he is strong men as truly as among the lower orders enough to do violence to another with of being, there is a struggle to live; and impunity, very well--that is his right, as those who are best fitted to the condi- the stronger. This is the creed of untions of life succeed and leave offspring measured individualism, and was well behind them, and those who are less expressed by Rob Roy in Wordsworth's fitted tend to extinction. Any casual poem as the old rule :- variation, by which an individual has an “ That they should take who have the power, advantage over others, is seized upon, And they should keep who can. intensified by transmission, and per- But it is very crude Darwinism-nay, it is haps in time gives rise to a well-marked opposed to the teachings of Darwin; for, species. according to him, our notions of what Physically a man is no match for a we should and should not do are derived bear or a buffalo; in an actual tussle he from the social instincts, and the social would surely be worsted. Nonetheless instincts contradict such heartless indifis he their superior by virtue of his ference to the welfare of others as the intelligence; he invents a spear, a bow- creed of extreme individualism allows. and-arrow, or a gun, and thereby outdoes Doubtless such social anarchy did exist them. So as between men and races of in the early ages of the world, in the men; variations in the direction of "ages before conscience"; but the greater strength of body are of slight significant fact is that the primitive importance compared with variations in races without conscience did not perthe direction of higher mental powers; petuate themselves; that they had no in war itself it is not necessarily the strength, no stamina, no cohesive power most numerous nation, or the one with in the struggle with those superior races. the hardiest soldiers, but the one with in whom the social instincts were devethe ablest generals and in possession of loped ; that, so far as they do survive the most ingenious methods of warfare, to-day, they survive as savages, and are on that gains the victory. But Darwin the berder line between man and the brute. shows, further, that the possession of Let us observe now, in detail, how moral qualities is an advantage in the morality helps to build man' up, sosihat, struggle for existence; that a rice with by his very love of life, he is naturally strong moral feelings would, other things deterred from those courses of conduct being equal, win in a contest with that conscience condemns. (1) A peaceanother race destitute of such feelings; ful disfiosition is one element of morality. in other words, that nature is on the I do not mean the disposition weakly to side of morality as truly as on the side submit to injuries, but the unwillingness of the strongest arm or the largest brain., to inflict injuries ; I mean the contrary Darwinism is often interpreted in a of a violent and quarrelsome temper. different way; it is often thought to At first sight it may seem as if violent sanction the efforts of the stronger people injure others rather than themindividual to push the weaker to the selves, as if their violence gives them an wall. Let every man stand on his own advantage in the struggle to live. But feet; and those who cannot stand, let turn the nfatter round, and ask, them fall, it is said. To practically between peaceable men and quarrelsome apply the doctrine : if a man can provide men, other things being equal, which are for himself an education, well and good; the more likely to suffer violence in turn, if he cannot, let him go without it and themselves come to an untimely as ·DARWINISM IN ETHICS 53 end ? I think there cannot be a doubt tells us, that by it a man may succeed that peaceful men are more likely to in manufacturing insanity in his progeny, survive and rear offspring than violent and that insane persons, if they are men ; that violence is apt to be a allowed to propagate, become at last a boomerang, striking at last the perpe race of sterile idiots ? trator of it; that the ways of violence, Look at the matter on a wider scale. even in uncivilised societies, are the Consider men, not as individuals, but as ways of death, and the ways of peace societies. If we think that natural selecare the ways of life. (2) Temperate (2) Temperate tion favours simply the strongest in body habits are another element of morality. or mind, consider the history of the The intemperate man, who indulges his family, the most rudimentary of human appetite for intoxicating drinks, thinks it societies. What would a family be his own affair, and that he will not without some measure of unselfishness? greatly suffer; but the laws of life think To answer, we have to go to the lowest differently—they cut short his days. It savages. Among the Andamanese the is a statistical fact that intenperate husband cares for his wife until the child persons at the age of thirty, in England, that is born to them is weaned; then are not likely to live more than thirteen the mother has to look out for herself or fourteen years longer, while the ex and for her child-the father seeks pectation of life of the average country another mate. Is nature indifferent, labourer at that age is forty years. (3) and do we imagine that this is a thriving Another element of morality is respect for tribe ? The fact is that, according to a woman, and the sense of the sanctity of recent reporter, the Andamanesc are the marriage relation. Does it make no gradually dying out; he saw but one difference if men or women lead profli woman who had as many as three yate lives? So profligate persons are children ; few members of the tribe live apt to think; they are rarely serious beyond the age of forty." And now about it. But nature is opposed to suppose the mothers had as little unprofligacy, for she will allow profligate selfishness as the fathers; that they let women to have but few, if any, children; their offspring care for themselves as it is as if she had a distaste for their as weaned—the tribe would probreed -wanted it stopped. In the bably in a generation or two become natural course of things, profligateamen, extinct. It is some measure of unselfish as Darwin remarks, rarely marry ; feeling that allows our race to be pertheir side, too, the breed of those with petuated at all. Yes, Darwin shows that ungoverned lusts tends to extinction. the social instincts, to some extent, exist And if, in another way, men or women in the lower animal, so that there is no sin against nature's laws, and in solitude impassable chasm in that respect beand darkness practise the crimes that tween them and man; timid birds will the light of day would blush to look face great danger to defend their young. upon, does the darkness hide them, and If there were no unselfishness, it is nature take no cognisance? Witness .doubtful if we should have anything in the weakness that comes on-the weak the world at all but the elements and ness of body and weakness of mind, the insensate plants, or perhaps the very loss of memory, the childishness, yes, the lowest forms of animal life, whose offsterility; it is as if nature would cover spring need no care. All the higher them with contempt. And in regard to forms of animal life, as well as men, the persistent disuse of nforal feeling exist because unselfishness has watched generally, do we realise what one of our over the beginnings of their existence; highest scientific authorities, Maudsley,' and what mainly distinguishes human soon on 1 1 Popular Science Monthly, September, 1870. Spencer's Sociology, i: 668.

·54 DARWINISM IN ETHICS beings from animals, along, of course, sleek and prosperous selfishness nay with higher intelligence, is that the give a certain element of strength to a social instincts in men are intenser, and society. But these are not the times cover longer periods, and have a wider that test ar society; it is when dangers range. According to Darwin, human arise, either from without or from within beings are simply that portion of the —it is in times of peril that the real animal creation in whom variations in „strength and cohesiveness of a commuthe direction of unselfishness and intel- nity are tested. Can it put down internal ligence have been transmitted and per- dissensions that threaten its life? Can petuated, by which they have secured a it withstand a foreign foe? For, as firmer foothold and a more commanding Darwin shows, not only individuals place on the earth. Think of it: if the struggle to live, but communities and fishes of the sea, or the wild animals of nations; and natural selection tends to the earth, or even the birds of the air, build up or to destroy peoples with the had the fellow-feeling and the intelli same fatality with which it determines gence that men have, would they allow the fate of individual lives. Who does themselves to be so easily caught or not see the truth of what Darwin points captured or shot? Would they not be out, that even in the case of animals a match for man; and unless some new who live in herds, and defend themselves variations, giving greater power on the or attack their enemies in concert, they one side or the other, arose, would it must be in some degree faithful to one not be a pitched battle between them another, and if they have a leader be and man? We are men because, along obedient to him, else they will likely be with more of mind, we do care for one externinated ? How much more truly another; they are animals because they is this the case with men! Suppose the are to such an extent dissocial rather' members of a tribe are given to murder, than social, and because, in a contest, robbery, and treachery among themselves, each one is left so generally to fight his how long will they hold together, even if own battle. they have no external foo? And if they Consider next the community or the have, how easily will they be subjugated ! tribe. What parental feeling is to the The fact is, that a tribe or community family, community or tribal feeling is on cannot live at all unless there is more of the larger scale. Do we think it makes morality than of immorality in it; and no difference whether our unselfishness the great amount of wrong and crime goes beyond our families; that all we have that exists in some savage communities to do is to care for ourselves and our seems so only in comparison with the children; that patriotism and zeal for the higher standards of morality that are public welfare are idle sentiment; and recognised in civilised communities, and that obedience to the laws is necessary does not interfere with the fact that it is only so far as it is for our own interest? less than among savages who scarcely Darwin, and those who have written in live in communities at all, and have few, his spirit, do not think so; and history, if any, fixed customs or laws. It is as if proves that they are in the right. In nature would force a community, whether times of peace, as one writer remarks, possessing any disinterested love of virtue or not, to learn some semblance of it ; 1 Prof. Dr. C. C. Everett on "The New for only those communities that do so Ethics," in the Unitarian Review, October, learn-whose members acquire some 1878-a most suggestive and often eloquent measure of self-control, of faithfulness, article, reprinted, it may be added, in the of public spirit, of obedience to lawauthor's recent volume, Poetry, Comedy, and Duty. I am also indebted to Prof. Georg von Gizycki's valuable article on “Ethics and Science Monthly, July, 1885 (translated from the the Development Theory," in the Popular Deutsche Rundschau).

·DARWINISM IN ETHICS 55 survive, and others, who fail to meet the and the long, slow, painful work of conditions which Nature fixes, perish. building up the race of man would have Darwin says in so many words: “A tribe to be taken up again from the beginning: including many members who, from Let any community to-day try to organise possessing in a high degree the spirit of itself on the extreme individualistic plan, patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, with no charity, since each man looks and sympathy, were always ready to aid after himself alone, with justice for those one another, and to sacrifice themselves who are able to command it, the rest for the common good, would be victo- getting along without it as best they can; rious over most other tribes; and this and let it enter into competition with would be natural selection. At all times, other communities in whose midst the throughout the world, tribes have sup- poor and sick are wisely cared for, and planted other tribes; and, as morality is justice is done to every man, woman, one important element in their success, and child, though there be some who the standard of morality and the number are totally unable to get it for themselves of well-endowed nen will thus every- –let the struggle come to a clash of where tend to rise and increase." arms, and can anyone doubt what the All this holds good equally of civilised result will be ? Selfishness, Professor peoples. The same things that lifted Everett says, will give its money, it will the social savage above the unsocial not give its life, for the common cause. savage or animal, and gave him the pre- If the social spirit has been weak in eminence, lift the civilised man out of peace, it will not, by a miracle, become the ranks of savagery altogether, and suddenly strong in war. The unsocial give to civilised States rightful pre-emi- community will go down, as it deserves nence in the world. Crude interpreters to go down, before the enthusiasm, the of Darwin's theory would have us eschew courage, the devotion of men who have all philanthropy, shut up our asylums been bred in a social community to habits and hospitals, abolish poor laws, and let of sympathy and public spirit. Yes, if the the weak and the helpless take care of community whose principle was every themselves, or die. But this would not man for himself” were, by a bit of good be rising to a higher stage of civilisation, fortune, to be isolated, and never called but would be relapsing into barbarism to enter into a struggle with other comcopying after the Indians, who deave munities, I believe in time it would their feeble comrades to perish on the perish from dissensions within itself; it plains; or the Fijians, who, when their would disintegrate, like any organism of parents get old or fall ill, bury them matter whose particles are no longer alive; or those animals that expel a held together held together by any common attraction, wounded animal from the herd, or gore and from which the animating breath of or worry it to death. Nay, there are life has fled. savages, and even animals, who are supe The thing that builds up a community, rior in sentiment to these heartless a nation, is not less but more sympathy Darwinians; for Darwin tells us of and public spirit-more of all the virtues Indian crows that fed two or three of that spring from these sources. Think their blind companions, and says that for a moment simply of obedience, revehe himself saw a dog who never passed rence for law, whether the law is made a cat that lay sick in a basket without by a chief or by a people for itselfgiving her a few licks with his tongue- what strength, what an almost irresistible the surest sign of kind feelidg in a dog. power, would a whole people trained to Destroy the social instincts, dry up the such a habit have! The Spartans were founts of sympåthy and pity in man, and not equal in intellectual power to other you strike at the social bond itself; Grecian States, but for a short time they society would be dissolved into anarchy, held the supremacy over all Greece ;

·56 DARWINISM IN ETHICS and when I think of the three hundred Persian-perished in turn because they who defended the pass at Thermopylæ were not fit to live. No one can doubt against the Persians, and held it at such that Greece fell a prey to Rome when fearful odds until their last man had she was no longer worthy to rule herself. fallen, and remember that according to No one car doubt that imperial Rome their poet nothing but obedience to the herself fell when it was best she should laws of Sparta kept them at their post, fall; and that it was owing to natural I do not wonder that a country which šelection that the barbarians of the North bred such a soldiery rose once to the became then the leaders of the world's very head of Greece! progress, since out of their splendid “Stranger, go, and to the Spartans tell energy and purer stock the foremost That here, obeying their commands, we fell," nations of a new world have come. It stands graven on the rock as their is difficult to speak of the present and memorial. the future; but the same laws will hold Socrates anticipated the thought of good. Always, I believe, will the nations Darwin and of Bagehot,* one of the most that have anything like a permanent fruitful thinkers who has followed in leadership in the world's affairs be the Darwin's wake, when he said that State best nations-I mean those that have in which the citizens pay most respect the largest amount of virtue and intellito the laws is in the best condition in gence within their borders. It may be, peace, and is invincible in war ;2 and indeed, that no nations at present exist- Socrates himself had such a sense of the ing will be permanent; this would not sanctity of the laws that he refused to be contrary to natural selection, but a flatter and supplicate the judges at his proof of its power. It may be that none trial (a practice which the laws forbade), of them have the conditions of perand although, had he consented to do manency; for natural selection is, i anything of the kind, he might easily believe, as high in its demands, as severe, have been acquitted, as Xenophon says,3 as unrelenting, as any ideal of the Deity he preferred to die abiding by the laws, that has ever been conceived. Nations rather than, transgressing them, to live. that are full of selfishness and injustice What could withstand, other things being cannot stand; they will be turned and equal, a nation of men like Socrates over-turned; the great powers of nature I believe that the things that tend to will not allow them to last. Nations make a people strong, permanently with ruling classes given up to luxury, strong; that tend to give it a lasting to eſſeminate habits, to wantonness, to advantage in the struggle for existence; “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the that make it the fittest, and always the eyes, and the pride of life," and to confittest, to survive--are good things, moral tempt of the poor and the weak, will not things; things that conscience, from its stand. “Behold, this was the iniquity ideal standpoint, would approve. This of Sodom.-pride, fulness of bread, and does not apply to temporary victories, abundance of idleness; neither did she but to those that are held. Respice strengthen the hand of the poor and finem-look to the end and issue of all needy. And they were haughty, and things. No one can doubt that those committed abomination before me; great eastern empires that we have therefore I took them away, as I saw glimpses of in connection with Hebrew good.”: So speaks Natural Selection history and legend—the Egyptian, the to-day, and always will, for it is a power mighty Assyrian, the Babylonian, the as dread, as summary, and as almighty as Jahveh. Nations full of violence towards weaker countries, eager with See his Physics and Politics. Xenophon's Memorabilia, iv. 4, 15. 3 Ibid, iv. 4, 4. · Ezekiel xvi. 49, 50. 2 ·DARWINISM IN ETHICS 57 yawning necks to swallow them up and spoken of peoples and nations ---let us digest them for their own purposes, will not think that these are things too large not stand; they who are insolent and for individual actions to count uport. know no right above the sword shall The fate of a nation depends at last, not perish by the sword. The power of on kings or parliaments or legislatures, natural selection is a moral power, and but on the lives and characters of the nothing, no success or triumph conceived individual men and women who compose and begotten in injustice, shall stand.' it. “The well-being of the State depends This great Judge of all the earth holds upon the well-doing of its individual up the balances, and says to the nations, members.”: We think we are not respon- For every act of injustice thou shalt pay! sible for the evil and wrong there are in England, France, Germany, America - society-we are, to the extent that we each thinks it is dear to the heart of submit to them. A great wrong cannot Destiny, and cannot fail; and Destiny be done by a community unless there is whispers through all the experience of the spirit of wrong, or of tolerance for the past, "I care for none of you; you wrong, widespread among its members. may go, have your little day, and pass Each one of us, no matter how unimporaway, as Babylon and Greece and Rome tant we seem, counts as a factor in the have done before you. I care for justice, public sentiment from which good things for a State of virtuous citizens, with pure or bad are born. or bad are born. Frederick W. Roberthomes and clean hearts and honest lips; son—that tender and strenuous spirit men and women who put truth above too soon passed away from earth-said : life, and would rather their State should “There are current maxims in Church fall than that it should rest on injustice. and in State, in society, in trade, in law, I call for this. Give it to me, O Sons of to which we yield obedience. For this men, and you shall be dear to me; I obedience everyone is responsible. For shall cherish you, and your work shall instance, in trade and in the profession stand while the earth lasts !” of law everyone is the servant of practices This is my interpretation of the ethics the rectitude of which his heart can only of Darwin. Dalwin does not give us a half approve; everyone complains of theory of ethics-or rather, so far as he them, yet all are involved in them. does, I should have something to say in Now, when such sins reach their climax, criticism of it; but he does a greater as in the case of national bankruptcy or service, I almost think, than if he had an unjust acquittal, there may be some given is a perfect theory—he shows how who are in a special sense the actors in ethics works in the world. It is a great the guilt; but evidently for the bankruptcy and consoling belief that the powers of each member of the community is responnature are on the side of man's struggles sible in that degree and so far as he has after justice and a perfect good.. The himself acquiesced in the duplicities of Mighty Power, hid from our gaze by the public dealing. public dealing. Every careless juror, thin screen of nature and of nature's every unrighteous judge, every false laws, is not in love with you or me, but witness, has done his part in the reducit is with our struggles after a perfect tion of society to that state in which the right, for to them it gives fruition--and monster injustice has been perpetrated."2 they are the, salt that keeps the earth Yes, you do count; and the only diffrom spoiling, and their effect is undying, ference is that you may count in those while all else is being thwarted, cut short, influences that help to build man up and passes away. Every brave act we here on the earth, or in those that tend do, and every true word we utter, help to build up human life here on the earth, Statement of Principles of Chicago Society and every mean act and false word tend for Ethical Culture. to pull it down and destroy it. I have a Robertson's Sermons, Third Series, p. 147.

·58 DARWINISM, IN ETHICS - to weaken and undo him. You may because, in plain language, marriage build on the sands, and the floods will became unfashionable and was avoided, come and wash your work away; or on and courtesans held sway. Now, every the rock, and your work will stand for man to-day, whether actually immoral or ever. You may help to make a nation not, who has light thoughts of woman, of money-getters, close, hard, contemp- who is not indignant when she is distuous of the weak, sacrificing honour and honoured, who lets light jests pass his shame and the sense of humanity, even lips or lewd thoughts linger in his mind, life itself, for the sake of amassing riches, helps to swell the tide of our social only to see the nation, if you could live immorality, for he helps to make the on, crumble and disintegrate, and its atmosphere in which it grows. Acts do wealth in ruins; or you may cast your not come from nothing; they come from lot with those who would be lovers of thoughts and words, and what we hear their kind, who would rather see justice others say-from a thousand and one done than amass riches, who would be nameless things that seem in themselves clean in life, and honour woman and to count for nothing. protect the defenceless; and, if you do On the other hand, let us not imagine not win the nation to your side, you, or that the quiet homely virtues, the graces those who follow after you, will form the of the heart, count for nothing with the saving remnant, by whom and through great powers of nature with which we whom a new and wiser nation may arise. deal. Never let us think that physical Men trying to rear States without justice strength is everything; it is not everyin their hearts are like Sisyphus rolling thing, even in the animal world. Prohis giant stones up hill, only to see them fessor Everett has beautifully said that pulled down again by natural gravity; to the powers of natural selection "the and when one sees them anxious, striving, delicate, the graceful, the tender, the thinking with laws and constitutions and beautiful, are as dear as the fierce and the courts and armies to buttress themselves strong. It was the great law of natural about, labouring so with their destiny, selection itself that taught the nightingale one thinks of poor Sisyphus in Homer's to sing, and that painted the humminglines, heaving and straining, the sweat bird with his changeful hues. It is this the while pouring down his limbs, and that whispers to the timid hare to flee, the dust rising upward from his head. and this that 'binds the gentle sheep "Wash ye, make you clean ; put away together in their harmless federation." the evil of your doings from before mine The gentler virtues all count in hueyes; seek justice, relieve the oppressed,” manity's struggle for existence. As is the voice of Natural Selection as well there are no light thaughts of human as of Israel's God. Otherwise man's suffering that do not help to make men work is vanity, and all the labour and cruel, so there are no sympathy and pity pain of it are for nothing; the great God that do not help to draw men of the world will not allow it to stand. together, and make them stronger in any I permit myself two remarks in closing. time of danger or distress. Quiet forti- Think of the Athenian race, whose tude in a mother makes brave sons and average ability Francis Galton, another daughters. Love in peace makes herowriter who has followed in Darwin's wake, ism in times of danger. Selfishness says' was nearly two grades higher than disintegrates and disorganises ; love our own-that is, as much as our race builds up and welds together. Nations is above that of the African negro. Why stand not on' dollars, not on armies, not did this marvellously gifted race decline? on police, but on righteousness; and if Galton says, because of social immorality; unrighteousness becomes rampant in a cominunity, not all its dollars or its Hereditary Genius, p. 343. police will save it. You and I count, nearer 1 ·TAJU USLU THE SOCIAL IDEAL 59 living quiet, inconspicuous lives as we makes human life strong and stable on do. Oh, let us count for good, for the earth! purity, for unselfishness-for all that Estd. 1902. MAJU, VII. HO W RAHU THE SOCIAL IDEAL is no It is sometimes said that all, morality an ideal society; if we see and will a involves social relations. There can be higher justice than the State commands, no question that a large part of it does. it is that we own ourselves members of What is justice but a certain kind of a higher State, which exists as yet only conduct or relation between man and in idea. Every rising above custom or man? What is love, what is kindness, written statute is an assertion that the what is generosity, what is chivalry, save ideal is our true home; it is but an as there are objects to which these espousing of the ideal as over against feelings go out? What is truth, if there the incompleteness of the actual and the one to whom to be truthful? sensible. For it is not so much to What are fidelity and loyalty but ideal society as actually constituted as to the types of social relationship? I need not social ideal that we belong. speak of patriotism, of public spirit, so But though our life is properly in patent are their references. Even what society, it is possible for us to live apart are called personal virtues, are they, and according to our own individual after all, entirely personal? Veracity is caprice, if we will. Such individualism sometimes called a personal virtue; but is the primal sin. Falsehood, unchastity, plainly it means keeping one's word every form of social wrong, are but with another. Chastity is called a exalting personal caprice over against personal duty; but surely chastity is the law of social well-being. Morality, not a *denial of the relation of the in other than its strictly personal form, sexes, but a pure relation of the sexes. consists in taking account at least of Temperance is 'a personal duty; yet two, another with myself, in determining temperance, is hardly an end, but a my action. And morality widens and means to an end-namely, the 'main embraces new duties as the circles of tenance of the supremacy of the rational relationship widen, and as the law of and moral in us. The temperate man each larger circle becomes in its turn the iş so much inore a man; but as a man law for me. As matter of history, so his sphere and duty are, in large measure, long as a man was bent on self-preservawith men, and temperance is to fit him tion merely, he was hardly more than an to take his part well.in the life and work animal; he began to be human when of humanity. the thought of his family determined Even when we assert some stricter him, when he owned himself a part of it truth, some nobler strain of honour than and acted for it, to maintain and defend ordinarily obtains among men, it is not it. He became still more human when so much that we sever ourselves from he was a member of a community, and society as that we yield to the claims of felt the welfare and the honour of the ·60 THE SOCIAL IDEAL community to be his own; still more ing that the statesman should reduce to human was he when he won the thought that condition those who are ignorant of humanity, and would tolerate no inte- and base. Aristotle argued for slavery, rests of his own, nor action of his com- that it was not only a legal part of the munity, which tended to hurt or injure economy of society, but that it was or wrong any, even the humblest, child grounded in nature, in the difference of man. It is evident that the univer- between those endowed with bodily sality of our social feeling is the measure strength and those who possessed mental of its real worth. If I feel an insult to power. In fact, against a very wide myself or my family, or the community experience and against the clever reasonin which I live, and yet have no sense ings of some of the thinkers of the race, of wrong when someone outside these our brave reformers had but to plant circles is similarly affronted, plainly I do themselves on the ideal ground of the not value man as man--that is, am not rights, the claims, of every human being, really human-but have simply a pecu- and say: "What though these rights liar feeling for those who are near me. have been denied in almost all the past; Some sense of the claims of every human what though the cries of outraged human being, though he be the lowest and the nature have been suppressed, and the worst, and that will not allow us to slaves become willing slaves--do not the trample upon him though he be fairly rights exist, shall not the cries now be in the dust at our feet; some feeling of heard, and shall the slaves not themselves indescribable awe, even though it be be summoned to arise out of their deathly. blended with pity, when any human sleep?" How specious may you find form passes before our eye--this is the the defences of past slavery, made even measure and the test, yes, the very signi- now! Only the other day I was reading ficance, of morality. a writer who says: « Refinement is only It is this that determines the form of possible where leisure is possible; and the social ideal. And let me say, before slavery first made it possible. It created proceeding farther, that I do not attempt a set of persons born to work that others to describe, to picture, the social ideal. may not work, and not to think that This has been a pleasing and ennobling others may think....... The patriarchs occupation for many men, but I have Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob could not neither the wit nor the imagination have had the steady calm which marks requisite thereto. I can only in a simple I can only in a simple them, if they had themselves been teased way indicate its principle. And this and hurried about their flocksand herds."3 principle is, in a word, that in the ideal One need not deny that, as matter of order every man shall be an end as well history, there is some truth in this ; none- I need not point out that theless does morality say that it would this principle has not been generally be better that refinement should not recognised in the past. Not only has exist than that it should rest on slavery been almost universal, but there have been elaborate justifications of ! Zeller's Philosophie der Griechen, ii. 1 (3te slavery by some of the greatest philoso-sufl.), S. 755. Cé. Plato's Statesman, 309. phers. We now hardly know what a 2 lbid, ii. 2, S. 690. Cf. Aristotle's Politics, battle the Anti-slavery reformers before i. 5. the civil war had to fight. The notion 3 Bagehot, Physics and Politics, chap. ii., $ 3. Cf. Tylor (Anthropology, p. 435) : of the universal rights of man is a modern the civilised world has outgrown the ancient It is neither in the Old Testament institution [slavery), the benefits which early nor in the New. I doubt if it be in the society gained from it still remain. Scriptures of any of the religions of the through slave-labour that agriculture and industry increased, that wealth accumulated, and world. Plato took slavery for granted, leisure was given to priests, scribes, poets, and appears to have justified it in remark philosophers, to raise the level of men's minds.' as a means. SO Si Though one. It was ·THE SOCIAL, IDEAL 61 I unwighteous a foundation. History tells farther. I see no rest save in the thought us what was not what might have been; of the perfect. I see no satisfaction, no and there are other ways in which an peace for the individual soul, save equal and a better refinement might have losing itself in allegiance to that limitless come without any enslaving of one human idea, in making it to move us, stir us, being by another. I do not think there impel us, and give a limitless sanctity to is any genuine refinement that does not each particular act we do. consist with a fine respect for the rights I believe in a "City of the Light !" of others. Every deference, every It is the social ideal; and from the courtesy, every kindness that is not thought of it, from the consecration to in some degree shown to all with whom it, and the ordering of our lives in accordwe come in contact, indicates a hidden ance with its demands, I look for a new root of selfishness from which they birth of religion in the world. We are spring. builders of that city. There are those The form of the social ideal is then who, not in lightness, but in a sad that of equality. Not, indeed, similarity sincerity, abandon prayer. It is no of place and function for everyone; not longer possible to think of the city as a that all should do the same work or get boon coming down out of the heavensthe same returns for their work; but to look for it from without. The burden simply that all should be in turn ends as is laid on human beings; honour calls well as means, that no one should dare us to bear it; the very purpose of our make of another a mere instrument to being is to bear it. A voice from out his own satisfactions, but should regard the unseen itself seenis to say: “Arise, him as having an independent worth and O Man! from thy knees, and act. I dignity of his own. Ah, when shall the call thee to be not a suppliant, but a time come when the name Man shall creator; re-perform the primal magic have more honour in our eyes than any now, and out of the chaos and the darktitle of rank or power; when in every ness that thou seest within and about man we shall see the king that is really thee bring thou order and bring thou there, though his crown be soiled and light !” If prayers would bring the his garments tattered; when our proudest “Kingdom of God," should we not think thought shall be, as we look back upon that eighteen centuries of Christian our own past, that in every relation of praying would have brought it? And if life we have owned and honoured the they have not, if the condition of the nan, that we have reinembered the ideal world, the selfishness of human hearts, royal brotherhood to which we all belong? the injuries, the wrongs, the hardness I believe it is possible not to rest in our and courtempt of the higher laws and own thought till to the eye of the soul commahdnents, yes, and the low content that time shall have come; till in vision and practical unbelief in the possibility we see humanity transfigured; till the of anything better that so widely prevail, everlasting principles of justice are in are all an open and patent contradiction wrought into every fibre of its life; till of that ideal order of things-what is the one tide of love and of joy sweep through lesson, what is the moral to be drawn it, and it is indeed lifted out of the realm from the facts themselves, but that so of the things that come and go, and long as we look without and above the becomes a pártner in the eternity of the answer will never come; that religion, if purpose that created it. I see not how it will be religion and no more child's it is possible to stop short of this. I see play, must radically change its attinot how one can be content with aiming tude, and set men themselves to the at slightly ameliorated carthly conditions. I sec not how the impulse that leads I The refcrence is to the beautiful lines under him to go so far does not lead him to go that title by Professor Adler.

·62 THE SOCIAL IDEAL accomplishment of the task which they shame on that Government which will have so long entrusted to another? wantonly trample upon them. The Having now considered the social Indians might have been elevated; they ideal as regards its principle, the element may still be elevated. It may be quesof perfection belonging to it, and the tioned whether there is a race of men on true method for its accomplishment, let the earth which, if humanely and wisely us ask, What is its practical meaning for treated, may not lose its savagery and us to-day; what is its bearing upon our make a place in the ranks of civilised political institutions, and the forms and peoples. Not all the interests of civilisahabits of our social life? First, in regard tion justify injustice. Rather is it the to the State. In ancient times ethics problem for the superior race to lift the was almost identical with politics; a truly other with it, to use its superiority and moral life was one which subserved the its strength for service, and not for interests of the State. Our ideal is oppression. wider. Aristotle would regard bar The principle of the social ideal holds, barians--that is, those who were not further, in the relations between the Greeks—as little better than animals, officers of any particular State and its and justified war to the end of making citizens. The tiine is gone by when any them slaves.' To us, nations have rights king or emperor can lay claim to the over against nations, as individuals over unrequited service of his subject. In against individuals; and it is not per- equity the claim never did exist, though mitted one nation to make another an it has existed often enough in fact. Nay, instrument to its own ends merely. the sting is half taken out of monarchy, The social ideal demands, in a word, a and the reproach almost from despotism law of nations. It does not forbid war, itself, when the aim of the monarch and nor does it forbid conquest; but it for- the despot comes to be to use his power bids either of these for selfish aggrandise- for securing and defending the rights of ment. It makes the holding of a the citizens as against one another or dependency for commercial interests against any external power. One may and profit merely, without a conscious be freer under a nona'ch than under purpose of educating and civilising and the rule of a class. It is not the name fitting those who belong to it for the or form of government, but whether the duties of citizenship, a crime. It was interests of all its citizens are made such a mere business dependency that suprelne, that is of highest moment in Great Britain wished to make of her any State. What are the holders of colonies in America, and it was this public office in our own land? Are they that roused their indignation and led the there for service, or are they there for embattled farmers at Concord stream to personal profit? Are they seeking their own ends merely, or are they respecting the shot heard round the world.” and securing the ends of the general And though I grant that civilisation has welfare? I will not answer the question. a perfect right to dispossess barbarism of And, in truth, I am not so much conan exclusive and profitless occupation of cerned for a particular answer as to bring the soil, it is nonetheless a crime, and a out the meaning of the principle of which heinous crime, to do as our country has I am treating ; and I ask, Is not the very done-treat the dispossessed barbarians notion of it faint and uncertain in the as if they had no claims whatever upon us. public mind? Is it not almost forgotten The Indians are human beings, they have that men in,eftering the public service the rights of human beings; and if they 1 This may be said to have been the signifi. cannot defend those rights, all the more cance of the Absolute Monarchy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as contrasted with the ' Politics, i.'S. old Feudal monarchy. fire ·THE SOCIAL IDEAL 63 do so for public service? Is it not times being no better, we do not disdeemed natural that, once in the public tinctly see why politics should be the employ, they should reward themselves sole exception. for their laborious exertions in getting Moreover, if the principle of the social there--yes, and their friends also, their ideal has this application to the State, it faithful friends who helped them in the has also another. The social ideal comstruggle? What matters it that, in accord- mands that the stronger members of ance with our democratic principles, we society respect the weaker. The state have rotation of office, if the effect is only, of nature is the reverse of this, and only when a change of parties or of "bosses" as political communities are formed is comes, to introduce a new set of selfish protection vouchsafed to the weak, and men to office, and thus to distribute the à curb placed on the self-assertive pascorruption and make it wider and more sions of the strong. What is the meangeneral in the community? It is said ing of our courts of justice but to see that we want "business principles" in that what many a man would like to do our civil service; and in the sense in he shall not do, or, if he has done it, that which the reformers use this phrase I he be punished ? What would the civil entirely agree with them--in the sense rights of any of us to-day amount to if of fitness, and of fitness determined by there were no Government to guarantee no personal or partizan preferences on them? In fact, any civilised Government the part of those who appoint. But in at the present day is a partial realisation another sense of the word “business," of the social ideal, and all such Governthe very root and foundation of the evil ments have an increasing part to play in in the matter, is the forgetting the essen- furthering it. furthering it. For where shall the limit tial distinction between politics and be set of Government interference in business. Business! we all know what behalf of the weak as against the strong? that means : it is for profit, and not for Does Government exist solely to protect anyone or everyone, but for ourselves. life and property ? But suppose the life The business impulse is to make that of many is barely worth the having, why profit as great as possible; and with this may not Government interfere to make it idea and aim in politics what other result better worth the having? Why do we could we expect than just that of which have public education, why do we have we hear now general complaint ? I interference with the order of industrial maintain, on the other hand, that public life, and the prevention of the employlife is not business; that it is a stage ment of children under a certain age, or higher than business; that a dignity of women save under certain conditions? attaches to it that cannot attach to any Men can live without education; and undertakings on our own account; that children and women can live, while they it virtually means giving up private aims, live, though they go to work before they and adopting public ones; that it means are ten years of age and work more than living in the State and for the State ; that ten or twelve hours a day. The State the pecuniary return which one receives evidently recognises by these its prois nat reward or profit or gain, but salary, visions that it is not merely to protect given not so much for, as to support one life, but to make life tolerable." Why in, service. It is the idea of the “salaried may it not aim to make it more than service of the State that needs to be tolerable? Why may it not strive to introduced ; and if our office-holders do give opportunity at least for every liſe to not have it, and our Congress has so become a positive blessing, both to itself imperfectly grasped it, it is because the and to others? And as for property, community has not got it--because well why may not the State aim, not merely nigh everything, forsooth, being with us at protecting it as it stands, however it a matter of business, religion itself some- inay have been won, but, without ·64 THE SOCIAL IDEAL arbitrarily disposing of it, at so legislating vate it, but on those who, in whatever that property may be more generally dis- way, get control of its products. We wibuted? Is the State doing its duty want not only food, but clothing, shelter, when by the character of its legislation, means of comfort, even of luxury; for by its granting of privileges, it tends to in the economic sense all is counted assist the process of the accumulation of luxury that delights the eye, that quickens property in the hands of a few, and to the intelligence, that developes the higher widen the gap between the different parts of our being. Every man has in classes in the community? I have no him the possibilities of a more than scheme to propose; I am simply asking merely material existence. Food, clothfor the limits of the application of a ing, shelter, are after all but a scaffolding, principle. And I do not believe that on which the nobler house of the soul is there are any limits to be set, as the to be reared. But, owing to varying cirphilosophers say, à priori; the limits are cumstances and varying natural abilities, simply in what the State can accomplish; one part of the community comes to be and this depends in turn upon what dependent on the other for the supply those think and want who compose the of its physical and higher necessities. State. A revolution of public sentiment, In a word, there arises the relation of or an awakening of the public thought, employer and employed. This is not might lead to the enlargement of the the original relation, which was rather sphere of the State's action, so that it that of master and slave, but it is that should do for the less favoured portions which now well-nigh universally prevails of the community what now it does not in civilised countries. Can we hesitate dream of doing. It is not any particular to say that the principle of the social duty, but the idea and mission of the ideal has an application here; that in State, that I now urge; I urge that it industry, in business of every kind, we stands for justice, for the common good; should not use any man as means to our that, when men act defiantly of the ends merely, but should also regard him common good, they are to be brought as an end in himself? I can see no to submission before it; that its goal is reason for making the exception. I indeed no other than the goal of religion know I may seem to contradict the --a perfect social state-and that it ordinary principles of business; I know differs from religion only in the element the maxim is that everyone must look of force which it uses; that a genuine out for himself. But I must dissent religion and a genuine and far-seeing from such a maxim ; for though in form politics would go hand-in-hand. The it is perfectly true, and everyone must social ideal is the goal of all our institu- look out for himself, the negative that tions. There ought to be no merely lurks behind it is a lying negative, for secular politics. The statesman too that I am not bound to look out for should be a priest, and while toiling, another is false. It was a specious planning here among the intricacies and cxcuse for that sin that had "the primal difficulties and disorders of public life, eldest curse upon it”: it is a denial of should have his eye on the heavens, and the social bond; it hides that spirit which, he guided and sanctified by the principle if it had unrestricted course and were that makes heaven and earth one. not checked by selfish prudence, would But the social ideal has closer appli- make an anarchy of social life. Yet I cations to us. We must all live, but we would not have an air of harshness in have not all equal control of the means saying this., I would not speak in my of subsistence, nor equal opportunities own name, but I would rather call to create them. We have not all first- up the procession of weary, toil-worn hand access to the soil; and we are faces, of bowed forms, of stunted figures, dependent not only on those who culti- starting in the earliest beginnings of ·THE SOCIAL IDEAL 65 manner. man,” said human history and not failing down to to gain that profit. If the workmen the present day, who have toiled and simply want or demand more, he does stitched and hammered and dug and not need to give more : only when they delved and sweated for man, and bid this are in a situation virtually to force him long procession, this unbroken array, to give more will he do so. In a word, plead for me. Ah ! their words, nay, he considers simply his own ends, and their speechless entreaties, their dumb, uses others merely as means to those and reproachful looks, are more moving,' ends. Of course, it is understood that more eloquent, than can possibly be any in so in so speaking I have not in mind any words of mine. They say, they mean, individual man or men, but simply men though they could hardly distinctly so far as actuated by business motives. explain to you, that there was something It is a principle I have in mind-a in them which never had a chance to principle contradictory to the principle grow; that though now and then they of the social ideal. caught a glimpse of the light, and knew Sometimes one may hear the comit by the joy it gave them, the darkness mercial estimate of workmen expressed was ever shutting down upon them, till in the most outspoken and unhesitating at last they did not know whether there Will any business was any light more; that their whole the president of a horse-car company in existence was spent in getting the means Boston, a few years ago, “ tell me the for further existence; that they knew difference between buying labour and that what they produced went somewhere, buying hay, grain, horses, and other but it was not to them, save to enable supplies?" And I think the answer must them to continue the weary round; that be given that there is no difference, from they knew that great things were in the the purely business standpoint. If the world, that great deeds were doing, but employer has only his own ends in view, that they had no part or share in them, what difference can it make to him what and they could only pray the gods to the means are by which the ends are give them grace to bear, for to enjoy was reached ? A machine in a factory is evidently not allowed them. just as good as a man, perhaps as a Ah! is there a sadder thought in the dozen men, viewed merely as so much world than that of the waste of the pos muscular force and skill; and the purely sibilities that are thrown into it? Happy business manufacturer will have inachines is he who never had this reflection in just as fast as he can get them, for in looking back upon his own life, but fact they require no wages at all. He happier still he who has never been the may use, nachines, and the finer and cause of such reflections or of such a more ingenious they are the better; and fact in another! There is no need of he may treat them as he likes. He may waste. I speak not, of course, of the make fire, wind, steam, water, all the order of nature, but of the order of forces of nature, his servants. Yes, he human life, over which we have control. may harness the beasts of the field, and It is not the gods who decree it, but we make them to do his bidding; for I join who permit, nay, who cause it; every in that old sentiment of human dignity failure to act according to the principle which finds all that is not moral and of the ideal which we are considering is rational to be rightfully tributary to man. a permitting, a virtual causing, of such a But when he touches another human waste. I know the employer gives his being this whole order of subordination workmen wages ; but what determines ceases, and he dares not-in the name the rate of wages that he pays ? If his of the Highest Law, I say it, he dares motive is profit, and he proceeds accord not-make him a mere tool or servant ing to business principles, he gives only for himself. Rather must he say: “TOso much wages as he must give in order gether we stand, together we win what- 0 ·66 THE SOCIAL IDEAL serever recompense for our toil we do win; had free play in the past; and the notion and though I, as the leader in the enter- is but dawning upon us that the wife is prise, have theright to the leader's honour, not rightfully the servant of her husband, and to the leader's share of the recom- nor are the children merely means for pense; and though, as I undertake the the parents' ends. Though the sphere task, you must submit to my directions, of the wife may be different, it is an and not I to yours--you are my fellow- equal sphere to that of her husband. soldier, and not a hireling; I am, at best, “As has been said," she is not a satellite, your captain, not your master, in the but a twin star with him. And the chilmarch of industry.' dren—though their weakness exposes The solution of the industrial problem them to mistreatment, all the more sacred ---the abolition of all poverty that is not in is the obligation to bear in mind the itself dishonourable, the lifting of the manhood and the womanhood that are labouring classes to the full dignity and developing in them, to make them indeworth of freemen, the granting to all at pendent ends of our action and our love. least the means and the opportunity for But though the bearings of the principle true and noble lives- is, after all, a very here are being increasingly recognised, simple thing. A simple thing, I say, are there no others in our homes whom though it has not been achieved in the we still incline to regard as means merely centuries of the past, and though it to our own ends? Yes, there are those should not be achieved, alas ! for many in our houses, if not our homes, whom centuries to come. It is not by combi- we distinctly indicate by the title " nations of labour (though these are vants." Do you say, Ah, but they are necessary and justifiable in the present not ours; they are merely waiting on us; distress), for this is but matching selfish- we support them, and we support them ness against selfishness, class against amply, and they are indeed incidentally class; it is not by Government assistance getting a valuable training with us that to labour, it is not by any species of will be of use to them in the future? I legislation, though these may both serve grant all this. I know they are not in their way; it is not by profuse charity, slaves; I know they may be kindly which often injures those who receive, treated; I know, on their side they may and by no means always blesses those be satisfied with what they have and get. who give, as the very means for charity But I ask, Are we satisfied? Are they are often won by headlong selfishness not 'human beings; have they not the and wrong. It is a much simpler and a ends of human beings, and can we rest much more radical remedy than any of till we concede them these ends? Can these. It is in the reception of a new we rest short of a universal application principle into the learts of men; it is in of this law of the social ideal ? I confess taking the law of the social ideal and that I want no one to be my “servant," making it the law of business itself; it is in the ordinary, one-sided use of that in treating every man in our employ not term. The consciousness that anyone as a tool, but as a man, and giving him is does not at all elate me. I like not the means to realise the ends of a man; these fawning airs, these humble looks, it is in knowing no profit that we do not, this punctiliousness and obsequiousness. in some measure, make common with They do not become man, or woman him. either; they humble me, as if I were There are still other and closer bear- guilty of them myself. I want no service ings of the social ideal on our lives. I that I do pot return. I feel that if I do can only hint at them. We stand in the not honour another I do not honour relation to one another of husbands and myself, for I fundamentally am every wives, of parents and children. Here, too, the instincts of self-assertion have By Professor Adler. 1 ·67 THE SOCIAL IDEAL other: it is one common nature, wherein as they rise to its demands. It is, I we all share. I am lifted with every believe, no merely human ideal, but honour, and cast down with every shame, world-ideal, and the world-purpose is that comes to another child of man. Am quick to own those who cleave to it. I asked, What, then, are to be the forms Religion has been described by Proof our domestic life? I answer, I have fessor Adler as the "home-sickness of no thought of forms, I have no thought the soul." the soul.” In truth, it is so. There is even of the destruction of the present something in us which tells us that we forms. I ask only for the admission of do not belong to a realm of jarring disa principle into men's hearts; I only ask cords, of clashing interests, of selfish that it be trusted, and allowed to modify triumphs. We have another country. and fashion, or destroy and recreate, as The home of the soul is-I know not it will. where; it is not here. We belong to peace; we belong to love; we belong to Though I have traversed much ground, all that is covered by the sacred name I have done so only to illustrate the of the Good. Where are those who will compass and sweep of a principle. And assert these high belongings, and by though I have not sought to picture the their surrender to sovereign principle, social ideal, but only to indicate its prin- by the sanctity with which they envelop ciple, and test the present order of our every human being, by the new order of life by it, yet if we can imagine the State, their lives and the peace of their spirits, and the intercourse of the States, trans- prove that even here on the earth they figured by it; if we can imagine business are connected with “realms that know and industry transformed under its hallow- not earthly day"? ing influence; if we can see our homes, The trouble with the established reliand our relationship to the humblest, lit gion is, that it has ceased to stand for up and glorified by the free acceptance ideal convictions. The Churches are of it—we can, to the inward eye at least, friends of the established order. Moraldimly pre-figure what the answering ity has become a tradition. Little is now reality would be. I deem it not too said to shame men, and to contradict great a thought for the humblest man. their lives and the order of society with The humblest man has that in him which an ideal of what these should be. Who will respond to it; the loneliest oman will once more lift up the standard of may yet cherish those feelings and pur- absolute righteousness? Who will strip poses which would fit him for member- morality of its conventional expressions, ship in the ideal society; the poorest and rebuke sins that now go unrebuked, man may find cristence for a moment and make demands upon men that now rich in the contemplation of it; the sick they do not dream of? They who do, man may find in it “medicine for sick- who see the infinite element in morality, ness"; the dying man may feel himself who identify religion with justice, and growing eternal in the thought of it. make the law of the Highest the law for For the issues of every individual exist- all life---they will be the heralds, the ence are there; our spirits live or die, prophets, of the Religion of the Future.

·68 PERSONAL MORALITY VIII. PERSONAL MORALITY I. self. To each one is given a task--to each one particularly and individually, as THERE is no more wonderful or more if no one else were in existence; and the moving thought than that of personal task must, to a certain extent, be accomresponsibility. It seems to go straight plished by each one separately and alone. to the centre of our being, which is not What are the things for which we are the mind or the conscience or the heart, thus personally responsible; what are the but the will. A voice seems to say: things over which we ourselves have “ To thee, individually, O Man, is given control? First, certainly, our private a task. Thou art not one of a mass habits. These may be known by no one merely : thou countest by thyself. Thou but ourselves, yet we are as responsible art what no one else in the world is. for them as if they were known to all the Thou hast a duty that no one else in world. We are responsible, not merely the world can do. Sacred art thou in because of their effect upon others, but the plan of the world. Revere thyself, Revere thyself, because of their effect upon ourselvesthen, and fill out thy arc of the great because we ought to have pure habits, circle of duty. Without thee that circle since these alone are worthy of human must remain for ever incomplete !" beings. Everyone should be watchful of The first lesson of personal ethics is himself, should take an honest pride in self-reverence. Morality is sometimes re- ruling his own impulses, in avoiding all solved into sympathy and regard for others. temptations that he knows may be too But there is something due to ourselves strong for him, in keeping his body as as truly as to father or mother or wife well as his soul-what is unseen and or sister or friend ; the same reason that what is seen-sweet and clean. Tell me, exists for respecting them exists for if it were possible, what a man's private respecting ourselves. I want no one to I want no one to and most solitary habits are, and I will tell show signs of respect to me who does you whether he really respects hijnselfnot stand on his own ground, and in his whether whatever decency and respectabearing and demeanour show that he has bility he has are for show, or are a part an equal sense of what is due to himself. of his very fibre and make-up as a man. I cannot conceive anything more lament- I have read of someone who, when able than that one should think that alone, sat down to dinner with the same obligation first arises when we consider regard for form and ceremony as if he the claims of others, and that in his were entertaining a company of friends. personal and private life he may do this His instinct, at least, was right; for or that, and just as he pleases, because whatever measure of form and ceremony it concerns himself alone. He who is proper on such an occasion is so questions that there is a duty to himself because human beings sít down to the is liable to question, sooner or later, table, and not because of their number. whether there be any real duty to others; All our private habits should reveal our for others are only human beings like sense of what is due to the humanity in himself, and if he feels no obligation to Therefore we should not drink to himself, why should he to them? The excess or eat to excess, for this is brutish; truth is, all are sacred-others and him therefore we should control all our us.

·PERSONAL MORALITY 69 appetites--otherwise there is the abdica- of God means ? for that sanction has, tion of the reason, which makes the truly in the course of man's religious history, human part of us; therefore the body covered almost every conceivable aim of should be treated with reverence because man, high and low, devilish and divine. it is the abode and tabernacle of our But to contribute to an ideal order of humanity; therefore, neglect of the human life seems to me an aim that man person and slovenliness are disgusting, can lay hold of; and it is an exalted because they reveal the lack of a sense aim. For we love this human life of of what is becoming to a man. By every ours, and wish to see it lifted to its ideal. unchaste act, by every surrender of We love it most truly, not for what it is, reason to passion, by all excess and by but for what it may be. We are in love all meanness in our manner of life, by with its ideal. The aim I have proposed neglect of the body as well as neglect of is legitimate for the merchant, for the the soul, the fair humanity that is in us lawyer, for the physician, for the mother, and ought to be reflected in our person for the child, for the working man. One and behaviour is dishonoured; we sink may accomplish little, yet he can have to the level of the animal instead of the aim; and the aim is that for which rising to the stature of the man. alone we are responsible, and may give Another field wherein we alone have significance to our smallest actions and a control is that of our personal aims in priceless value even to our ineffectual life. An aim is nowise set save by the strivings. person whose aim it is. An aim is Once in a while we need to turn back simply the direction of our own will. А on these busy lives of ours, and ask how good aim cannot be given to a man save far this aim is really regulative of them. by himself. He may hear of it, but it is Are the actions we are doing, the sort of not his own till he makes it so. Our lives we are leading, tending towards an outward acts may be constrained, they ideal form of human life; are they such may not express us; but the will is the as, if they were general in the commucentre and citadgl of our personality, and nity, would bring that ideal form of life no power in heaven or in earth is master nearer to the earth ? Let the merchant there but ourselves. With this magnifi- ask himself what are the customs, the cent power we can choose higher or maxims of his trade; and if they are lower aims, we can direct the chanıtel of not what they should be, is he by conour life in this or that direction; or, if senting to them helping to perpetuate we will, we can refuse to aim at anything them, or is he striving to change them? at all, and simply drift, and become Let the lawyer and the physician ask waifs and ignoble wanderers on the themselves as to the morality of their earth. Now, any aim is better than professions, and whether the supreme none; but the highest aim is alone aim is keeping them from aught that is worthy of a man. What is the highest dishonourable, and constraining them to aim?' I will venture to reply that it is seek to elevate the tone and practice of to contribute to an ideal order of human their professions in every possible way. life. The other answers commonly Let the mother ask herself: “Am I given are either ignoble or unreal to us. training my child so that it will be a new To save one's 'Soul-who of us can con factor in the world, or merely a perpesider that the noblest aim we can have? tuator of old-time prejudices and hatreds To glorify God and enjoy him for ever and shams?" Let the child too have how far away and unreal and unpractical its solemn hour, when it shall nurse its does that seem to us! To seek the growing soul on deeds of heroism and kingdom of God--ah! but what is the faithfulness, and ask itself whether it too kingdom of God? To do the will of could venture for an idea, and be patient God; but who will tell us what the will under adversity and the world's contempt.

·70 PERSONAL MORALITY Let the working man ask himself: "What Strange and unmeaning to us as is the is my motive; and, would it, if it were theological dogma that has been based general, tend to an ideal form of life? upon it, it hides a vital truth. 'Tis not Do I work merely for hire, or do I take the mending of our actions that is first pride in a piece of honest, thorough needed; 'tis not the forming of this, or work? In my demand for changes, that habit; 'tis not any outward change. perhaps revolutions, in the industrial It is the renovation of the fountains of world, am I actuated by the spirit of our life; it is the making victorious a malice and revenge or by the simple new aim in life; it is the changing our thought of justice ?" Yes, even the un thoughts and experiencing the transformemployed working man may feel the ing power of a new purpose. This does pressure of that supreme ain upon him, not alone help us in one particular, but and, in his sorest misfortune, may will in all; it involves an advance along the to commit no crime, and, though he be whole line of duty. And the difference insulted, not to insult again, and to bear from the old religion is simply that, even to the death rather than do a wrong while it seems to say that such a purpose to others. Everywhere does this supreme must come from God, we say that it aim hold good; everywhere may it take must be formed by ourselves. We do from the pride of those who are great, not fall on our knees and pray; we arise, and give dignity to those who are humble and summon our energies, and resolve. How quickly does it recall us from those And though the old nature in us may aims in which it is so easy to settle down! not yield at once, though old faults may To earn a comfortable living, and provide persist and old habits be stubborn, yet for wife and children-how many seeni we can gradually win the victory over to have this practically as their aim in them; and our connection with that life! But there is nothing peculiarly Supreme Power which upholds the world human about this; beavers and the and supports the human soul is simply whole tribe of animals do the same. in the belief that he is behind us and Man has intelligence, has imagination, beneath us and above rs, and pours his has a moral nature, has dreams of uni- all-mightiness into us, so that we can versal justice; yet sometimes he forgets ourselves do all that in our nature we the dignity and glory that belong to him, are summoned to do. turns his back on his dreams, perverts Not only the supreme dominant aim his conscience, loses his imagination, and of our lives, but our motives in all our uses his gnd-like intelligence only so far actions, are under our control, and for as to provide for himself a comfortable purifying them we are responsible. It living, perhaps in his selfishness and is here that the ethics based entirely on hardness leaving even wife and children the results of our actions altogether fails. out. O Friend, lift up thy thoughts! An action may have exactly the same think of what thou art called to be! results, yet at one time have moral worth, Light up thy heart, thy imagination, and and at another have none. A dollar thy life with a great aim! Do it, because given to a poor man will go just so far, with all thy hoarding and saving thou provide so much bread, whether given art wasting thyself, becoming little while to rid one's self of his presence or out of thou shouldst be becoming great, grow- love for the man. But an act of the ing old while thou shouldst be keeping former sort is not a moral act at all. It ever young, turning life into a game of is wonderful' how completely our moral profit and loss, while it should be an value is hidden from all the world but opportunity for all noble action and the ourselves, and yet how in importance it service of all good causes ! transcends all else we can think of. I The old religion contains a subtle would not ignore the question of results word -- "thou must be born again." in the theory of ethics. Our acts must ·PERSONAL MORALITY not only be moral-they must be right,' unworthy thought as soon as it appears, they must correspond with an objective to check an unholy impulse as soon as standard; and with the determination it arises. It implies that we have out? of that the results of our actions have a selves well in hand, that the will is strong. great deal to do. An action' is right Ah! but this is our task, this is that to which tends to the good of humanity, which we are called. There were no the results of which are actually bene- honour in easy victories. To contend ficial to humanity. A moral action is against odds, to hold to the fight after one that, in addition, aims at the good defeat once and twice; yes, though the of humanity. It is not enough to be body is weak and the heart is faint, to perfectly righteous-we must mean to keep the purpose strong, there is glory be righteous; and in our so meaning, in that; and into the secrets of such a wanting, purposing, our whole moral strife the angels might well look with worth consists. The real life of man is wonder and awe. 'Twas Hesiod of old not the seen, but the unseen one; what who said that before the temple of virtue we see are but effects the causes are the immortal gods had placed labour, and hidden away. The world is satisfied The world is satisfied the way to it was long and steep. 'Tis with a certain decorousness, and we our hard to know, indeed, what good thing selves all too easily incline to take the in life is to be had for the asking. The world's standard ; but in our graver whole significance of our being is that moments we know what a surface thing we are made imperfect, and called to be it is, and that our unclean thoughts, our perfect. jealousies, our envies and spites, and all And, oh, if Nature sinks, as oft she may, our littlenesses and uncharitablenesses, 'Neath long-lived pressure of obscure distress, though no one else knows of them, are Still to be strenuous for the bright reward, the things that defile us. Oh for a clean Still in the soul to admit of no decay, heart! Oh to be holy within !—to be Brook no continuance of weak-nindedness; Great is the glory, for the strife is hard.” as pure in our own eyes as we would be in the eyes of the world without! Oh It is wonderful how every great relito banish all selfishness, and to look on gious movement in the past has been others only with love !-so that if we marked by a new sense of the need of chide or are severe towards them it shall personal righteousness. 'Twas thus when not be in anger; so that if they wrong real religion arose among the ancient us we shall not hate them, and if we are Hebrews, and a cry went forth from the injured we shall not injure again. The prophetic lips, "Create in me a clean highest care, after all, of each one should heart, and renew a right spirit within be for himself, and for that which is most me !" Twas so when Jesus called for personal to himself. There, in that a deeper righteousness than even the inner realın, no one else can help him. most religious of his own day practised. Each morning, I conceive, a man might 'Twas so when Luther threw off the well arise, and say: "This day I wel- bondage of dead works, and wrote and come to my heart all good thoughts, and spoke to the conscience, and said that will that they should prompt and guide an act in itself good becomes sinful if its all my action. I banish hate, I banish motive is sinful. If I ever have a doubt spite, I banish all low cunning and greed; of the possibility of a religion arising out and I will not let a word escape my lips, of Liberalism to-day, it is because or an act be done, that truth and honour Liberalism speaks more of the rights of and love cannot sanctions. It is easier, men than of their duties; because it I know, to control our actions than our talks more of the reform of society than motives. It takes great watchfulness, it of the reform of ourselves; because its may involve a long discipline, and mean ideal is philanthropy rather than justice; many a struggle to be able to banish an because it forgets that “society gains ·72 PERSONAL MORALITY we see nothing," as Emerson says, “while a man truth, what is best for us; we know not not himself renovated attempts to reno what will bring out that which is most vace things about him," or, as John C. truly divine and godlike within us. The Learned says, that those who are in lamented Garfield said we could not the wrong cannot cure evils." Let us know anyone perfectly well while he purify ourselves ; let us leave the world's was in perfect health ; and as the ebbstandards behind us, and ask what tide discloses the real lines of the shore manner of men we ourselves are; and if «and the bed of the sea, so feebleness, we find ourselves unholy, unchaste, pas- sickness, and pain bring out the real sionate, envious, ready to take advantage, character of a man.” Matthew Arnold petty in spirit, and narrow in sympathy, says of a friend :- oh, let us leave doctoring the ills of the “I saw him sensitive in frame, world, and first cure ourselves ! I knew his spirits low, But life is not all in doing. Duty is And wished him health, success, and famenot all in striving and battling-it is I do not wish it now. sometimes in waiting, in enduring, in For these are all their own reward, bearing what we cannot remove. Per- And leave no good behind : They try us-oftenest make us hard, haps our sharpest battles are with our Less modest, pure, and kind." impatience, and with what seems a cruel fate that assigns us burdens heavier than Emerson even says: "Adversity is the we can bear. Sympathy often we cannot prosperity of the great"; and if this receive; often, we cannot tell our griefs. seems strained, we do not feel it so when The tragedies of our life are in secret, some heroic man or woman and this is what makes then tragedies. bearing up under great ills with godlike O Friend, I allow myself to believe, however, that equanimity and patience. nothing is given us in life greater than we think not thyself off the track of destiny can bear. It may seem as if the adver- because things are awry, and fortune sity were too sore, but we can endure it. does not smile upon thee, and thou hast We cannot always control our bodily not, perhaps, a thing that thou cravest ! health, but we can our spirits. We can think not that the World Spirit has not bear the death of friends; we can bear any path marked out for thee to follow ! the ingratitude of friends, or their un- The path of duty is still the predestined faithfulness; we can bear to have our path; and though it be no longer to do, hopes defeated; we can bear to have but to bear, bear but as bravely as thou light and joy vanish out of our skies wouldst do, and never was there better bear it without bitterness, bear it with soldier of duty than thou! magnanimity. The deep purpose of our II. being does not lie in anything that can be taken from us. 'Tis not in our pros- THE field of our thoughts is a wide perity, and it may be accomplished in one; the field of our actions is ordinarily spite of adversity ; 'tis not in the relation- Ethics covers both. It ships of home, in tender companionship asks that we have just thoughts, true with friends, in public honour or regard. thoughts, everywhere; it gives the ideal Thy worth, O fellow man or woman, is also for each day's smallest and, as it in thyself--in thy patient soul, in thinc may seem, most insignificant actions. incorruptible will, in thy readiness to the real world to most of us is not at accept whatever post the universe all large ; it is so near and commonassigns thee, in thy quiet faithfulness place that we are apt to slight it. Our there, whether amid sunshine or the real world, that which we daily see and dark, amid joy or sorrow. We know not are acting in the midst of almost conany more than Socrates what we ought stantly, is made up of those in our own to wish for ourselves; we know not, in household, of a few friends, and of a few a narrow one.

·PERSONAL MORALITY 73 more acquaintances, and of ourselves. none who have such a right to thy love; Yet it is here that our actions tell, and none for whom thou wilt ever have here that our responsibility centres. right to do so much! . The home lies closest about us. How Nothing more befits a man in his tender we should be there! What solace intercourse with his acquaintances than ought every member of that intimate magnanimity-a certain largeness of circle to find there! If in the world temper and soul. It might be almost without we feel that we are misunderstood called the courtesy due to human nature and misjudged, how should the fret and as such to be generous towards it. Men depression that come from it vanish and are so constituted that, if we think evil dissipate as we return to that loving, of them, we are apt to find some evil, genial atmosphere, and to those generous and if we look for what is good we find hearts who take us at our best, and by the good instead. trusting us tend to keep us so ! What Magnanimity means looking for the opportunity equals that of of parents good, expecting it, not being willing to towards their children, that of elder allow the contrary till we are forced to. brothers or sisters towards the younger? It means, where there are two interpreta- With what ample consideration should tions of a man's conduct possible, the we treat those who are not so strong as being inclined to take the more generous others, not so bright in mind, or who one ; not out of charity, but because of have some failing that causes the world an instinct of breadth and liberality. to look down upon them, and the sense Magnanimity is ordinarily thought to of which brings to themselves at times consist in overlooking injuries, but I confusion and mortification ! How should say it was more truly shown in watchful we should be about hurting unwillingness to credit them. Somethenı! How we should strive to keep times we are like the boys who put chips in them something of that self-respect on their shoulders and dare some one to which is the basis of all the virtues ! knock them off; and then injuries come What is more pitiable than a child to us that are never meant to be injuries, ignored or contemptuously treated at that exist only in our active imagination home? Yet, strangely enough, those and our suspicious minds. “Trifles who are brought nearest to us, and for light as air," says Shakespeare, "are to whom we can do most, we sometimes the jealous confirmations strong as proofs treat the most coolly, and for them do of holy writ"; but to the magnanimous the least. Many a man who is courtesy they are like those discords of which itself to other women comes to show George Eliot speaks, that, quenched little to his wife ;' many a son who has by meeting harmonies, die in the large great deference for men in general, shows and charitable air." I have seen mislittle before his own father; mahy a understandings arise between persons young woman who has ample considera who I am sure meant no ill to one tion for the failings of her sex is yet another, yet, simply because each was impatient and ungenerous towards her jealous of his own rights and suspicious own sisters. Oh that we might learn that the other was willing to wrong him, that our nearest duties are the highest; involved themselves in grave and sad that we might think more and more complications; and I have thought that tenderly of those whom we daily and, the way out of the difficulty was not in perhaps, hourly see; that wo might keep finding how far each was right and each our reverence for them; that we might was wrong, but in the gaining by both bear with them, and always have the of a larger and nobler temper. I see no will to do them good! Father, mother, way to go along smoothly in the world wife, child, brother, sister; thou wilt without an habitual large-mindedness. never know any as precious as these; There are so many "touchy" persons, ·74 PERSONAL MORALITY to use a colloquial phrase, who are them in the world. And let us And let us do this aking others uncomfortable all the not grudgingly, or as if we were conce time, and, what is quite as bad, making ing something, but with a truth-loving themselves uncomfortable too. They spirit; and this spirit will perchance are on the watch, as it were, lest some pass to those with whom we converse, one trespass on their rights; they con and lead them to deal with us in a fairer stantly misinterpret others, and come to temper. The test of any set of views is, wear often a gently injured air, which after all, to what extent open, candid, would be amusing were it not so annoy- truth-loving minds can hold them. The ing. All 'this is the opposite of mag- best argument in our favour lies in the nanimity. A magnanimous man never noble temper we at all times show, in doubts that others will respect him. our aversion to all the tricks by which He is impatient with those who magnify the passions and prejudices of men are trifles; he is conscious of rectitude in stirred, in our magnanimity to friend and himself, and believes in it in others in foe alike. spite of a few appearances to the Another disposition, upon which the contrary. smoothing and sweetening of our daily And what an occasion for magnaniınity life much depends, is thoughtfulness arises in the little differences of opinion about little things. There is much conin the discussions between friends and ceit and nonsense about what makes the acquaintances, that often arise ! How gentleman or lady. One essential mark profitless many of our discussions are, of such persons, I should say, is mindbecause we persist in keeping our own fulness of little attentions, the habit of point of view, and do not even try to rendering little kindnesses of which the understand what the other person really ordinary, grosser man or woman scarcely means ! How we are apt to seize upon thinks. The root of courtesy, after selfsome trifling mistake, to magnify some respect, is in a ſine sympathy with others. petty error, and overlook the drift and We widely err in thinking that great tenour of the differing opinion as a whole things are necessary to make us happy. What a change it would be if, neglecting A woman does not ask much from her these minor blemishes, we seized upon husband, but she asks his love—and this the main idea of the person with whom shown in numberless, trifling ways. You we are conversing, and sought to do do not count on great favours from your justice to it, and to understand it! friend; but a little, done with real Surely, one has little confidence in the friendship, goes a long way with you. truth of his own view who is not willing verily believe that the happiness of most for a moment to entertain a different of us, so far as others are concerned, A discussion never should de depepds more on their manner, their generate into a dispute ; if ill-will arises, look, their voice, their evident friendlithere should be an end of it. Bigotryness for us, than upon anything they can can never be conquered by bigotry. do for us. I believe that nothing so Bigotry can only be conquered by contributes to the evenness and serenity candour, and by a noble breadth of and cheerfulness of our own minds as view that will make even the idea of the the habit of saying pleasant words, bigot swim in a sea of larger thought. rendering little attentions, and doing Let Liberals not harbour narrow pre- little insignificant services which we judices against those of Jewish or should be ashamed to speak of, after Christian faith. Let us be willing to they are done. Small service is true consider all the truth there is in the old service while it lasts," says Wordsworth: religions, all the services they have yes, if we put love into it. It is these rendered mankind, all the uses to which small services that bind friends, that their nobler adherents are still putting keep the love of lovers fresh. They are one.

·PERSONAL MORALITY 75 the flower of courtesy; they go to make Another virtue much needed in our uprwhat the same poet calls daily intercourse with others is readiness to own a fault. The whole virtue is in "That best portion of a good man's life our readiness-in being quick to own His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love." we have been in the wrong. We do not like, of course, to shame ourselves, not Many persons are oppressed with the only before others, but in our own eyes. littleness of their lives; they would like Nothing is more unwelcome. Therefore to be doing great things, and the petty there are few more genuine moral experiduties of each day take up all their time. ences than those of confessing a fault, They do not recollect that faithfulness is provided it be spontaneous, and we are the first and highest thing required of not driven or compelled to it. We us, that this may be shown in little things separate ourselves in such an act from as well as in great, and that the com what we ought to be, and feel the monest lot may be transfigured by the "ought to be" as above us, and, as it were, love, the patience, and the sweetness we condemning us. It is sensitiveness we put into it. What is, after all, wanted need to have. Most persons know when most in the world is not great persons they do wrong; but they do not rue it, fitted for great occasions, or ordinary they do not grieve over it, they do not ones fitted for the ordinary, but great confess it—if they confess at all—until persons who will throw their greatness the feelings of contrition have lost their into the ordinary; who will show how warmth, and the confession half its much dignity, how much goodness, how virtue. It is an affecting passage of much sweetness, may characterise the Scripture : "Let not the sun go down life of every day; whose minds are conupon your wrath." Each blessed day in versant with principles that their most this life of ours makes a kind of whole, private actions exemplify; whose very and no evil should be done in it that is "good morning": makes us glad, and not repented of before its close. For whose "good-bye" seems like a benedic- who will allow that confession is only a tion; whose daily look mirrors a heaven childish virtuemor, if it were, would not of love, of self-renouncement, and of ask that he might keep the child's heart peace. Ah, friend; fight the battle in and the child's habit, and even if it be. thy obscure corner of life-fight the before some sainted spirit of the dead, battle with thyself, thy restlessness, thy or before Jesus, or before some image of fears, and accept thy lot! Thou canst the highest, which seems to bend over not choose thy task, perhaps, but thou and listen to him, might pour out his canst “choose to do it well.” Thou sorrow and his shame rather than not canst not do whát thou wouldst, yet thou have any sorrow and shame at all? But canst do bravely what thou must. Do the man's habit should differ from the it! for the deepest law of human life is child's only in that, while the child confaithfulness, and by obeying it thou dost fesses to a father or mother, the man acquire a worth that life itself cannot should confess to himself. The dignity exhaust and death cannot destroy. “He of man is that he is both the doer and that is faithful in that which is least is the judge of his actions. The child faithful also in much," said Jesus. A could not humble itself before the parent great saying, 'for it upsets the measure did not the parent voice the dormant ments of the world and of our worldly conscience of the child. The man only morality. It is enough to endear him reaches the true stature of a man when to the hearts of men, for it shows that his conscience becomes awake and he looked upon the heart, and judged alive. men by what they were, and not by what “Sits there no judge in heaven, our sin to see? they could do. More strictly, then, the inward judge obey."

·76 NON-CHRISTIAN TEACHERS AND JESUS: Is this impossible? No; an unwel- towards himself, as high in his demands, come, a difficult task it may be to sit in and as sure in his condemnations. There judgment on ourselves, but not impos- is a God in every man, and it is for us to sible. I believe a man can be as vigilant let him speak, and to hear him; and not over himself as ever God or angel could till we do this is the true aim of our being be. I believe he may be as impartial carried out. IX. NON-CHRISTIAN TEACHERS AND JESUS: WHOM SHALL WE FOLLOW? We have been brought up in a religious with the ordinary Jew or the ordinary tradition which looks with a kind of Christian now; he is a provincial-not a disdain upon a large part of human kind. citizen of the wide world. The ancient Jews thought they were a The man who has the consciousness peculiar people. Christianity thinks it of allies in his efforts towards the good is a peculiar religion. The feeling has a in China, in India, in Greece, has far certain basis in both cases--almost all more ground for hope than he whose pride has some superiority behind it; whole faith is based on what was said or yet it may as well be admitted that the done in Palestine. The broader the feeling is pride, and that, like all pride, base of our pyramid, the higher it can it involves a certain amount of blindness rise and be at the same time secure. and of injustice. The Greeks had a similar This does not mean that all the feeling when they called the rest of the higher voices are alike, but that they are world barbarians. As matter of fact, all higher voices, that now in one way there was civilisation in Egypt and in and now in another they open out paths China before the Greeks were heard of. of advance for man and beckon him on. So beyond the people of Israel and Perhaps only at bottom is all religion outside the world of Christianity there one-namely, as a sense of ideal things, have been those who witnessed for the a craving for something which man has higher truths on which the souls of men not and yet would have. It is a part of and nations live. the process by which man expands-by Speaking for myself, there has been a which he rises to a larger quantity and kind of pleasure in going out beyond the a higher quality of being. Those who bounds within which we of Jewish and are contented are never religious. It is Christian birth ordinarily confine our those who are ill at ease, those who see selves. It is the sort of pleasure one has something wrong, those who have a in going to foreign lands or into strange pitiful sense of what is lacking in the cities--the world is bigger thereafter ; world, that have the spur to ideal effort. our souls are enlarged. We unlearn our Yet one person may see one thing wrong provincialism and that is the trouble or awry, and 'another another ; 'and one * This address followed a series on “Great Teachers Outside Christianity"--the subjects being Confucius, Buddha, Socrates, and Marcus Aurelius. The addresses were given before the Society for Ethical Culture of Chicago, December, 1901-January, 1902.

·WHOM SHALL WE FOLLOW! 77 person may devise one way of surmount political or social movement such as ing the evil, and another another; and might arise from a similar impulse now. so various types of ideal effort or religion Jesus looked for nothing from the State, may arise. They are alike in leading He expected nothing from laws of man upward and onward ; they differ in changes in laws. Rather did he anticithe direction they take and in the means pate opposition from the State-he spoke or way. They are like men climbing a of persecution and prison and death mountain from different approaches; which his followers might have to face. they resemble one another only in that His movement was to rise in a hostile they climb. Or, they are like pilgrims world. Moreover, the new society which travelling from many lands towards a Jesus announced was an intensely moral sacred shrine--their routes are different one-I mean that he did not have in and their means of transportation are mind any mere external order, but one different; they are alike only in that, in which the hearts of men would be whether from the east or the west, from changed, in which not only justice the north or the south, whether over seas would be done, but men would be just or over the land, they move towards one -yes, in which love and brotherliness goal. would surpass all that ordinary justice Perhaps, in this manner of speaking, demanded.. Precedent to admission to you already anticipate my answer to the his movement was confession of sin, and question : “Non-Christian teachers and repentance-his Church was to consist Jesus: whom shall we follow?" I do of those born again into a new life and not attempt a special address on Jesus. dedicated to it. This interior character, I have spoken of him at different times this sense of a needed revolution in the in the past. Recently a vivid and real- heart and life, of a call to be perfect, istic portrait of him has been drawn by pure, and holy in the springs of one's a recognised authority on Biblical sub- being, is what takes the movement of jects. I must take for granted that his Jesus into the realm of religion, rather main ideas are understood by those in than of social reform, with which otherthe habit of poming here. Jesus is wise it has much in common. For such among the prophets and social dreamers a new and righteous order, an order of The kingdom of heaven which love should be the law and in which he announced as near at hand which love should be the impulse too, was a social ideal. It meant a riglttcous Jesus believed the earth was destined. order of human life on the earth-one The struggles with the old disorder, with in which those crushed in the ruthless, selfishness and cunning and might, would competitive struggles of society would not lastºfor ever. A hand mightier than have a chance. It was to be a day of man, mightier than the State-a hand recompense for the sorrows and sufferings from out the unseen-would intervene and inequalities of the world. The and lay low the powers of evil. The valleys should be exalted and the moun earth would be purged—the goodly wheat tains made low. Jesus continued the would be garnered, the chaff and the strains of the Hebrew prophets. His stubble burned up and destroyed. Then difference was that that which they would the earth. itself be transformed : longed to see he said was at hand. He no longer should there be death or took an affirmative' tone. He inspired dying ; no longer should there be wondrous hope. He founded a move- mourning or crying or pain—all things ment. He created a Church. And yet would become new; the heavens would there was a very vital difference from any be new, the earth would be new--the dream of a perfect society, of a perfect · Professor Nathaniel Schmidt, of Cornell world, would come true. University. Such was the substance of the thought ·78 NON-CHRISTIAN TEACHERS AND JESUS: of Jesus. In his own person he expecan no more be Buddhists than we can rienced the hostility of the existing be Christians--i.e., in the historic, exclü: religious and political order. He was sive sense of those words. put to death after a career of only two Let us briefly see the deficiencies in or three years, faring differently from each of the movements referred to, and Confucius, Buddha, or Socrates, each of then try to bring together the positive whom continued his activity till a ripe elements of truth, the lasting principles, old age. The very pathos of his early which each set of teachings contains, and death touched the hearts of his followers to mould them, in connection with the to an unusual degree, and won for him a thought of to-day, into a higher unity, pitying, adoring love such as history First, Confucius. The deficiency is hardly gives another example of. not so much in anything he taught- Christians find it self-evident that we though he did not rise to the level of should follow Jesus--and I can never Marcus Aurelius and of Jesus with bring up the thought of him myself with respect to the treatment of injuries—as out an act of reverence; I have more in in the fact that his teachings are not lit common with those who worship him up with hope and a forward-looking than with those whº defame him or prospect. Somehow Confucius's eyes make light of him. And yet as for were turned mainly to the past. There, taking him as one's sole master-it is, we are made to feel as we read his for those who sympathise with the words, are the great examples of wise thought and attitude of to-day, impos- kings and happy states. But there is a sible. kind of fatality for any people in putting And I think we have to say the same its “golden age” behind it. It need of all the teachers I have been consider- not affect the insight-that may even be ing. None of them quite gives the perfect---but it does somehow the mood rounded whole of an ideal of life such and temper, what the Germans call the as we seek. Men who live in the light "Stimmung," of a people. There is of to-day cannot throw themselves at the something else beyond knowledge, or feet of yesterday-great as are the figures even earnestness, in the world; buoyancy, that loom up there. Few have stated cheer, what the French call 'élan, the attitude which I think we must take enthusiasm, are important factors. The more impressively than Walt Whitman. misfortune of the Chinese people is that Referring to the “old times," the "great they are retrospective, and Confucius masters," he says :- did not rise above the national habit. “I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit This conduces to calmness, to wisdom, what you have left wafted hither, • to stability, but it is hardly a spring of I have perased it, own it is admirable (enoving progress. Your eyes can scarcely look awhile among it), Think nothing can ever be greater, nothing longingļy backward and forward at the can crer deserve more than it deserves, same tinie. China is an illustration of Regarding it all intently a long while, then the peril of making an advance and then dismissing it, stand in my place with my stopping. It is like a man who, once own day here." having done a good thing, thinks with Infinite receptivity, infinite appreciation, so much satisfaction of it that he does yet remembering that we have our own little or nothing more. At a very early situation, our own tasks, our own minds period China attained a relatively high now-that is the true attitude ; "into stage of civilisation, and was blessed the Future fuse the Past, and the world's with rulers who were almost sages as flowing fates in our own mould recast" well. Let me speak of but one thing. --that is our duty. Some think, for The importance of the family as a unit whom the Christian dogmas have dis- in society was strongly felt. “Honour solved, that we can be Buddhists : we thy father and mother” is one of the ·WHOM SHALL WE FOLLOW? 79 great commandmentsof Chinese morality. old age, life into death-Buddha sought But yet there may come great crises in to wean men from the love of life, from social developnient when this cannot be the craving for pleasure to detach them, taken as an absolute law. There may to cut them loose, so that all these be situations in which a higherallegiance things, sickness, pain, life and death, is called for than that to father and existence and non-existence, should be mother. Jesus said, “He that loveth as nothing to them, and they rise into father' or mother more than me is not an exalted state of calm, even of bliss worthy of me.” Superficial critics charge and rapture, to which the name "Nirit against Jesus that he thus made light vana" was given. There is a profound of family ties. But if father and mother truth here-Buddhism is a magnificent are to bind us when causes beyond their assertion of the power of the human appreciation or understanding appeal to spirit over the impulses and cravings us, how can advances be made? Filial that are usually thought to be essential reverence makes for stability in society, to it; and yet the lurking one-sidedness and in all ordinary cases is a duty; but and deficiency become manifest as we if it is an absolute duty, it means social contemplate the practical working of the stagnation. When the past rules the religion which Buddha founded. For present, then the present cannot go the Buddhist disciple proper-I do not beyond the past. Confucius, as I have speak of those who do not take the said, shared the national limitations. So strict obligations of the religion-is a extraordinary was his misjudgment of mendicant; he lives on the gratuitous things on this account that he set most gifts of others. Ordinarily-and having store by a book of historical annals that in mind the Eastern world in which he wrote--saying that by this he should Buddhism had its birth-the Bhikku (or be known and by this be condemned- mendicant) takes his bowl of a morning a record of the past purely, and a dry and quietly goes from house to house, record at that. It is important that we uttering a pious wish on behalf of the know the past, important for every giver if something is put into it, and if people ; but it is the thought of the not passing silently on. It is a life future that gives high inspiration-it is without care, without the distractions the daring spirit that is ready to venture and pre-occupations that most men have new paths that is the parent of -a life favourable to that disentangleenthusiasm. Yes, we do not get at the ment from earthly things which makes real secret of the triumphs of the past, the Buddhist ideal. For most of us to save as we are ready to go beyond them. be homeless, propertyless, dependent on As Wendell Phillips put it, to be as good the goodwill of others, would seem a as our fathers we have to be better. If lot Hard, forlorn, and scarcely consistent we do not go beyond them, we all too with self-respect; to the Buddhist there easily fall behind them. The lack of a is a kind of joy in the very frecdom of sense of this, the lack of horizon, the it-it is the beginning of his emancipalack of a daring forward look, is the tion. "In high joy we live, without deficiency of Confucius and Confucian- striving and grasping among the striving ism. and grasping.' “In high joy we live, Second, Buddha. Buddha's view of calling nothing our own—we are like the life is a strange one to us-so strange bright gods who feed on happiness ”- that I had to spend the greater part of such areancient exclamations of Buddhist my address on him in 'trying simply to happiness. And yet, if we stop to think, make it credible. On ałcount of the what does the Buddhist manner of life change, the impermanence, the insub- imply? Evidently, a more, or less stantiality in life-health passing into orderly state of industrial society, in sickness, pleasure into pain, youth into which at least the necessary means of on ·80 NON-CHRISTIAN TEACHERS AND JESUS. life are provided. The Bhikku goes we do not know, and as we know to lice from house to house and gets the sus as we know, but not in the direction of tenance that he has not himself pro- any one theory of life or any one mode duced. His life could not be without of life. Socrates represents the free life that other life from which he seeks to be of the intellect. But the intellect is not emancipated. If all men should rise to the whole of man, and sometimes men the Buddhist ideal, sustenance for man, can be more occupied in analysing and save fruits or roots—and they might defining the good than they are in need plucking and digging--would fail, practising it. The intellect, too, must and Buddhism or any other religious ever lead to the truth-its search must theory would perish of inanition. It is yield us something; yet, when truth is not noble, and it is hardly honest, to found, when it stands out clear, then place in low esteem that which we really comes the work of religion in organising need—whether it be things or people. it into life, in inspiring men and com- The Buddhist must, then, admit the munities to shape their conduct and significance of the material pursuits of their institutions after its image. Socrates men after all. Sowing and reaping, is rather an inspirer than a teacher, and ploughing, digging, even striving and his inspiration is greatest in times of grasping and buying and selling and transition, when old ideas are breaking protecting and ruling in any stage of up and men are hazy and inclined to be society short of communism)-in brief, two things at once, or when new ideas the whole of industrial and civil society, are formulating themselves and in need of acquire a certain relative necessity and criticism and the clearest possible statejustification; they must be justified, and ment. But when we are craving definite men engaged in them must be capable truths, when we want an outcome of of being sanctified, if there is to be a human searchings, when we ask what is plan of salvation broad enough to the world then, and what is my life, and embrace all mankind. The Buddhist what is my duty, Socrates hardly preideal is, then, a partial thing. The tends to answer though he offers some Buddhist seeks to take himself out of things tentatively, he mainly says, Search the struggling, striving world, and yet is yourselves, know what you know and supported by it. Instead of trying to distinguish it from what you do not give a more orderly and reasonable and know; and be very sure that you are beneficent form to the industrial and not deceived. This is not to make light political efforts of men, he turns away of his great service, but only to say that from them. it is not the only kind of service of which Third, Socrates. The deficiency of deficiency of man stands in need. Socrates appears in the fact that lie is Marcus Aurelius, on the other hand, not properly to be classed among religious has a body of ideas. The intellectual founders at all. He represents rather quest which Socrates started or inspired the search for truth than any settled has reached a very tangible result. And doctrine-much less any propagation of a noble body of doctrine it is--I can it, or establishing of a religious com- hardly conceive of a nobler treasuremunity or Church. Individually, morally, house of living, practical ideas than Socrates attracts an unlimited admira. those jottings in camp or court that are and he communicates to us familiarly known to the world as his powerful impulses--no one can be quite Meditations. They show the full soul the same after he has read and studied and heart of the man. And yet, with all him (as portrayed by Xenophon and that is profound and beautiful and affect- Plato)--but the impulses are to think, ing, there is something lacking in Marcus to define, to know, and to know what Aurelius. He gives us very large views, we know and distinguish it from what and he makes us very tender of our kind tion;

·WHOM SHALL WE FOLLOW 81 -I think one who took to heart what a religion that can satisfy those who have he says would be as good as if he had been touched with the Christian (and read almost anything from Jesus or from old prophetic) spirit, whose souls have Paul; and yet somehow there is an air leaped with the prospect of great and of sadness about him. And when I sublime things to be. analyse this and look for its causes, they However much, then, we honour and seem to me to lie in the conception of revere the great teachers whom I have the universe which he had formed, been considering, I see not how we can according to which, while there was a be unquestioning followers of any of them. continuous round of changes in the And I must say the same of Jesus. The world, there was really no progress. Let Let deficiency of Jesus lies in the lack of a me quote a passage or two : “He who has scientific sense of cause and effect. He seen present things has seen all, both puts a sublime goal before the race, he everything which has taken place from interprets history and life as a movement all eternity, and everything which will be thitherward; but he thinks we are to for time without end, for all are of one attain the goal at last by a sort of leap, by kin and of one form.". Again : "Those a sort of Divine tour-de-force; and this who come after us will see nothing new was just because he was without the ...... but in a manner he who is forty scientific habits of thought that he might years old, if he has any understanding at have learned of a Socrates, a Plato, or all, has seen, by virtue of the uniformity an Aristotle. The home of science is that prevails, all things which have been not Palestine, but Greece. And our and all that will be."3 It was such a Palestinian religion has ever suffered conception, it seems to me, that cast a from this lack. Witness the descriptions kind of shadow over this beautiful spirit of the coming of the kingdom of heaven -perhaps, all unconsciously to himself. by Jesus and by Paul. "The sun shall There is an air of resignation in his be darkened, the moon shall not give pages rather than of joy and of faith. her light, the stars shall fall from heaven; There is no presentiment of a trans- and then shall appear the sign of the figured world, such as lights up the Son of Man in heaven; and all the tribes pages of the New Testament, and, of the earth shall mourn, and they shall indeed, dawns in the prophecies of the see the Son of Man conring on the clouds Old. The universe is not hastening on of heaven with power and great glory; to some grand event, human history is and he shall send forth his angels with not moving towards some sublimeclimax, a great sound of a trumpet, and they as in the conception of Jesus; but instead shall gather together his chosen ones he might almost have said with the from the four winds, from one end of author of Ecclesiastes : “All things are heaven to the other". -so Jesus is full of weariness......that which hath reported to have said. And now Paul: been is that which shall be; and that "For the Lord himself shall descend which hath been done is that which from heaven, with a shout, with the shall be done; and there is no new voice of the archangel, and with the thing under the sun." The deficiency trump of God; and the dead in Christ of Marcus Aurelius resembles that of shall rise first; then we that are alive, Confucius--only it is not from retrospec- that are left, shall together with him be tion and conservatism, but from a certain caught up in the clouds, to meet the philosophic conception pf the whole Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be system of things. We do not get hope with the Lord."a It is all sheer miracle. and daring faith from his pages; though his views are almost a religion, it is not : Matthew xxiv. 29-31. There are many passages of the same tenour. Thessalonians iv. 16, 17. i vi. 37 a xi. I.

·82 NON-CHRISTIAN TEACHERS AND JESUS: But for the augustness and sacredness intellectual life; and whenever we are of the subject, it might be taken as a befogged, whenever we are tempted to transformation scene from a fairy-tale. rest in traditional notions, whenever we Things do not happen in this way in the think our prejudices, or our assurances, real world. There may be changes in or our inspirations are good enough, we the future as there have been in the past. may all listen to the Socratic summons Think of the evolution of our earth from to clear up our minds and know ourthe fiery mist, think of the dawn of life, selves; only Socrates tells us to seek for of the origin of man, of the evolution of illumination--he does not always give great states ! What prodigious develop- it. From Rome we get the great illuments, yet all gradual, silent, natural. minating idea of a world-wide brother- There may be prodigious developments hood of the race, of a world-state in in the future; we cannot tell what shall which all are citizens, of the respect and be: we may hope for the highest; this consideration and tender love we owe to mortal may even put on immortality; but all. It is a more comprehensive conwe must suppose that all future changes ception than that of Confucius; it is a will be gradual, silent, natural, too. The conception into which the all-loving scientific point of view is lacking in Buddha might have thrown himself, Jesus; he looks to supernatural agencies could he have avoided his extreme of to accomplish what must come from the asceticism; and yet it is all over tinged working of the natural, inborn forces of with melancholy, for living hope towards nature and of man. It is accordingly an it, joyous expectation of its triumph, are entire change of attitude towards the wanting. It is this needed note of great social ideal which scientific thought triumph, this confident, forward-looking requires. Prayer goes with the old expectation, that Jesus brings. Unattitude-prayer and waiting; creative scientific as he was, unable to stand a work is the demand of the new. Socratic cross-examination as he doubt- In what I have been saying I have less would have been, mistaken as he already anticipated the positive construc- proved to be as to ways and means, tive ideas which these various teachers of he gave a bright and shining goal to the past have bequeathed to us. From men whose feet would otherwise have far-away China we learn that the great wandered in darkness and gloom. It practical task for man is political and was hope that Jesus gave to the world ; social transformation, based on a recti- this was his greatest gift. Sometimes I fication of the thoughts and of the hearts think it is the seed of all the virtues; of men-only the standard and the ideal for, with hope gone, how can men or are too much taken from the past. nations live? From India we learn to rise above the The deficiencies of Jesus it is the love of self, above the love of pleasure, task of modern scientific thought to even above the love of life; we learn supply. This it will do not only by the how to master those passions, those lusts, idea of cause and effect, but by its conthose cleavings and insistences that are ception of evolution. This conception at the root of so much of the disorder, of evolution---the fruit of geological and the wrongs, the oppressions of the world; biological and historical study-is a we learn how to keep our souls in a modern product. It was unknown to state of peace and of love to all our kind; Confucius, unknown to Buddha, unonly with Buddha this leads to a with- known to Socrates and Marcus Aurelius drawal from the active world, instead of and Jesus as truly as to the author of to an attempt to interpenetrate it with a Ecclesiastes. It signifies more than diviner spirit and to reorganise it. From order — mere cause and effect; it Greece we learn the lesson of the duty signifies progress, the unfolding of of thinking, of the significance of the effects whose causes were latent and ·DOES THE ETHICS OF JESUS SATISFY NEEDS OF OUR TIME? 83 hidden before. The world is not ever the But in the world's great morrows to expand same; if it is, how happens it that there With broadest petal and with deepest glow"? are suns, and planets now where ages And so I see a new faith rising in the ago there were none? The old idea hearts of men and organising itself in was that the earth, like the "everlasting human society. It will have the human hills" upon it, had always been. Life is interests, the practical sense, the sanity of not ever the same; it is ascending. Confucius, but in the service of the grand Man is not ever the same; at happy ideals of a Marcus Aurelius or a Jesus; junctures new races have been born. it will with Buddha loosen the cords History need not always repeat itself. that bind men so tightly to the earth, Dowered with reason and social feeling, and master all other loves than the love man has within him the possibilities of of right and the love of love; and yet it indefinite advance. It is in the make of will seek to organise right and love in things that the possibilities of progress the daily work of the world, and no lie. Why is not then a world-state in service to man shall be so material or so wnich all are brothers, a "kingdom of low that it may not also be holy; it will God," conceivable? In the face of the with Socrates inspire to all science, but magnificent story of evolution in the the darling effort of science shall be to past, who will set limits to its future find out the way to those far and shining course? If the diviner order of which heights that shall be anew the object of Marcus Aurelius and Jesus dreamed the aspirations and worship of men, to would be the cap and crown of things, ascertain the laws and true methods of what hinders us from actually anticipating advance. Under the stress of the new it? Why not say with that most scientific faith, wrought organically out of the of modern imaginative writers, George present and the past, men will again Eliot : look' beyond themselves, will again be "I too rest in faith sanctified, will again feel a glow in the That man's perfection is the crowning flower, heart and feel themselves happy in con- Towards which the urgent sap in life's great tributing ever so little to so divine a Is pressing, seer, in puny blossoms now, result. tree X. DOES THE ETHICS OF JESUS SATISFY THE NEEDS OF OUR TIME? It is impossible to forget the moral moral insight and heroism of an Amos services which Judaism and Christianity or an Isaiah? Who would put out of have rendered to the world. To seek to his mind, or could if he would, the relax the obligations which the old reli- lessons of gentleness, of humility, of gions have made us feel, tp lower or any- purity of mind, of charity, of brotherwise abate from the loftiness of the ideals hood, which fell from the lips and shone which they have given to the world, out in the life of the Prophet of would be to make not progress, but Nazareth? Surely, not by forgetting, retrogression. Who would ignore the but by treasuring, all the good the past ·84 DOES THE ETHICS OF JESUS SATISFY NEEDS OF OUR TIME: irhas won, can we hope to advance in the distinct consciousness of hypocrisy. future. Yes, sometimes those who themselves Nonetheless must the advance be most sincerely and impressively utter the made; and in truth all prophecy, Jewish great ideas are unconscious of the full and Christian included, has a temporary sweep of their application. The personas well as a permanent element. Jesus age in Tefence's play who utters the spoke to those of his time, and with the famous sentiment, "Homo sum, humani language and the thought-and we may qihil a me alienum puto," has no horror add with the limitations of his time. at infanticide, and calls it irrational to But the time and the language and the keep a child alive who is in danger of thought of men change, and wider growing up into a career of shame. I do horizons are opened to their minds. not cite it as a parallel case; but it is not What is the voice of prophecy for to- to be forgotten that Jesus, who utters the day? is the question. All in vain would Golden Rule which, adequately interit be for me to assume the prophetic preted, would put an end, perhaps, to all attitude. The prophet does not raise the ills of society, makes no condemnaquestions; he answers them. He has tion of slavery; and this though a party none of that hesitating, tentative spirit existed in his day which had reached a and method which mark the thought of height of moral development from which even the best men of this transition age, it was condemned—the Essenes. Hence, and which will only cease when the new "Christian ethics" could be of slight age shall have come, and the fire of service in the late anti-slavery struggles irresistible convictions shall once more in our land. There is nothing in the burn in the human breast. I an but a New Testament inconsistent with the questioner along with the rest. I, but maintenance of slavery, if only masters seek to turn the attention towards the are guilty of no wilful oppression or inneeds and problems of the present, and humanity. It was only by going back to show that they at least call for distinct to principles of which Christian ethics answers and solutions such as we look themselves are but a partial statement, for in vain in the teaching of Jesus. and which, strangely enqugh, have found For, though I am far from denying, but modern expression in that philosophy of rather have asserted, that Jesus taught human rights to which the Christian eternal principles, I must add that we Church has as often taken an attitude of want more than this; we want the hostility as of sympathy, that the way was application of the principles to the issues prepared for the abolition of slavery in and questions of to-day, and in a form this country. apprehensible to the thought of to-day. What, then, let us ask generally, though Else, as has been said, the principles without essaying any kind of formal commay become as barren as they are old, pleteness, are some of the moral needs Nothing is so common in these days as of our time? seeming reverence for the great rules of 1. First, I will mention that of intelrighteousness along with ignorance of, lectual scrupulousness and honesty. It or indifference to, what they mean and an old Roman saying that "two exact in the conduct of life. We want augurs could never meet each other to make this impossible, save with a without laughing." I doubt if there is any intellectual vice to-day so flagrant or "Conscience, righteousness-what is there coarse as this. I have rather in mind new in these? Their maxims are as old as the what may seein to many light faultshills. Truly, and as barren often as the rocks. for example putting interpretations on The novelty of righteousness is not in itself, but in doctrines not in accordance with their its novtl application to the particular unrighteousness of a particular age" (Felix Adler, Creed and Deed, p. 164). Lecky, History of Morals, ii. 30, k. was ·DOES THE ETHICS OF JESUS SATISFY NEEDS OF OUR TIME: 85 natural meaning; conforming to usages says, "and thou mayst not twist it to thy after the ideas at their basis have ceased liking, or anywise play with it; and the to be matters of conviction; staying in a truth must be according to thine pwn Church or denomination on sufferance, reason, else thou art guilty of profaning and not because of a hearty common the holiest within thee." And yet the belief with them. Doubtless this is evil is, not, one that can be met by any often done with good intentions, and precept. It is a secret spirit, and can some good may be mingled with it as only be met by another spirit, which with all evil; but it strikes at what is of shall, as it were by magic, put health priceless value I might say, rather, of and soundness into the whole intellectual absolute necessity - to the religious nature. It is the spirit of downrightteacher-namely, the full heart and the ness, of absolute and utter sincerity. If consciousness of entire veracity. Expe- such a spirit should get abroad in the rience proves, too, that doctrines and community, it would turn many a young institutions which require this kind of man from the easy, compromising course support are themselves on the downward he is now contemplating, and empty road; and the process of decay can at churches of not a few who listen, as well the best be stayed, and may even at as of some who preach. times (as if in irony of our equivocal A new seriousness is needed in all our intentions) be hastened, by the use of thinking. Men play with phrases, and such means. Carlyle is said to have think, if they can use the same words, pointed out Dean Stanley to a friend, differences of thought need not seriously and remarked : There goes our friend concern them. They build enormous the Dean, boring holes in the bottom of conclusions on the slenderest premises, the good ship Church of Englandmand and assume to know, on the ground of doesn't know it!"I positive science, for example, what never Yet not of the uselessness of the com was so learned, materialism being often promising spirit, but of the fact that it is as assumptive and headlong as the contrary to a true standard of intellectual opposite way of thinking. Or perhaps honour, would I speak. Not a few have the ground of rational thought is abanapparently yet to get the idea that the doned, and by will or arbitrary faith, or intellect as well as the will and outward for some species of subjective interest, a life is under law; that they are not at settlement of philosophical problems is liberty to believe what they like'; that assumed to be reached. conviction is only honourable, as it is What, now, have we in the ethics of only possible in any strength, when Jesus that can be distinctly felt by men formed in obedience to some kind of to have a bearing upon this lack of necessity: I do not wonder that, with straightforwardness, this arbitrariness, such notions, men decm ethics too small not to say dishonesty, in matters of the a thing to become religion. It is too intellect? It is hard to find anything. small when so partially understood. But I do not mean that Jesus positively ethics really means whatever ought to be, slights the intellectual virtues, and I do and hence is not without bearing on not agree with those who put this interevery part of life; it holds up an idea pretation on the first beatitude. It is for the intellect as well as the outward simply that he does not take any account actions, and searches the most hidden of them; that there is not a single motives and processes of the soul of man. passage, to my recollection, in which he “Thou shouldst believe the truth,” it makes any emphatic statement concerning them; and let it be remembered it is such distinct utterance that the moral New York Tribune (semi-weekly), February haziness of the present time calls for. 25th, 1881, The reason of the silence of Jesus is ·86 DOES THE ETHICS OF JESUS SATISFY NEEDS OF OUR TIME: soon not far to seek. The duty of man was political conceptions and morality. The simpler in that day, because life itself State is not merely, as some would have was, simpler and the horizon of man it, a necessary evil, but has a sacred, I narrower. Moreover, the supernatural might almost 'say a religious, character order, it was conceived, would and mission. One of its functions is, break in upon the natural; and only indeed, to prevent violence, to restrain the primal duties of the heart and life passion, to act as society's police. As were emphasised. Science and criticism the law of gravitation keeps the planets were not, as now, breaking up an old view in their courses and binds every atom to of the world ; and, so far as the time was every other, so outwardly, at least, the transitional, it was conceived to be State is to maintain a similar order simply towards the completion and among men. But, far more and higher practical realisation of a view which had than this, the State is a commonwealth, long had currency. At the present time and is to secure the ends needful for all. our views of nature and of man are Each man has an individual sphere of being in many ways radically recast; action, where he is responsible only to nothing less than a new philosophy, a himself; but, when his action touches new general view of the world, seems to the interest of another, he has another be in process of development, and never responsibility -- namely, to the State. before was there such occasion for the The State must see that, in matters and exercise of severe intellectual virtue. affairs where the ends of the many are As matter of fact, the cthics of the affected, those ends are not made imintellect, instead of being taught by the possible of realisation ; it cannot allow followers of Jesus, is most impressively individuals or combinations of individuals displayed by those whom Christian to win advantages at the expense and to teachers have generally thought it their the loss of others. Particularly in our duty to oppose or rebuke : I mean the own country, where ideas of equality are students and investigators in science and at the basis of the political system, is history. I am no believer in the all- such practical injustice out of place. sufficingness of science, or in the finality We have dispossessed kipgs and priests of the lessons of history; yet the of their rights over us; we have a governresearches of students in these depart- ment of the people. The question is, ments have in many cases illustrated to Shall it be a government for the people ? us an open-mindedness, an eagerness I do enot mean a class called by that and reverence for truth, and a simple name, but for all. Shall the common, faithfulness of utterance that make a the universal good be secured, and no model for the conduct of all thinking. individual freedom or rights be allowed A lesson in morals, in ideal scruptlous- which tend to the destruction of the ness, is conveyed by every genuine freedom and rights of others? These scientific investigation, and by none questions must be answered, one way more notably than those of the revolu or another, in the next century of our tioniser of our views of nature, the fore- national existence; and, if the choice most scientific figure of the century were between a religion of the old sort Charles Darwin. Let the same open- and a politics intent on giving them a ness, the same fearlessness of investiga- righteous answer, I see not how any tion, the same virility of thought, and generous-minded young man could hesithe same exact correspondence of word tate to choose the service of the State. to thought characterise our religious There is a touch of religion in all unselthinking, and a revolution of equal con fish devotion to public ends, and it is just sequerce in this department of human such devotion that is the crying political interest will be the result. need of our time. The question of better 2. I turn now to the need of higher civil service is, at bottom, nothing else. ..

·was in DOES THE ETHICS OF JESUS SATISFY NEEDS OF OUR TIME? 87 But what are the lessons which the primitive and always, at least, professed Christian Gospels read us in political Christian belief. Yet it is no accident, morality? The political ideas of Jesus no bit of Oriental colouring, however are a strange contrast to anything we much of this there may be in filling out know of by experience. His land was a the details of the final scene, but the Roman province. There is no evidence climax and consummation of the Christhat he did not love it, and every reason tian view of the world-an answer to to believe that his feeling for it was that deep question of man's heart, which strong and deep. But his method of is not merely what are the just and the political redemption was one of which good, but how are they to be accomwe in these days can scarcely entertain plished; how is an actual end to be the idea. It was not, indeed, political made of injustice and wrong? Religion redemption, but rather deliverance at will dawn anew on the world when the the hand of one from whom emperors old problem again mightily engages us, and empires derive their powers, and and another and equally wide-reaching who, though the Lord of the whole earth, answer is won. The problem is justice a special sense the God of --the bringing to every one the means Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do we and opportunity for the highest and best suppose that the nobler motive which things. things. To every one-that is the very leads men into the service of the State-- meaning of justice. The highest and the passion for justice and the common best things are not for you or for me, or weal-was absent from the breast of for any sort or class of men, but for all; Jesus? Rather can our sense of justice they are the end, the right, the ideal be nowhere better refreshed than by destiny of every human being. But if drinking in his words; nowhere has the this is the problem, Jesus' method of tenderness for the least among men been solving it is no longer capable of belief. more strikingly shown than in the In simple honesty it must be said, to memorials left us of his sacred life. If belong to the category of humanity's justice was not to come from the State, blighted hopes. The “Son of Man," it was, as he believed, to come from a who was to come so soon, has not come in higher than the State; if not through all these centuries to bring the promised blundering human instrumentalities, it redemption. The very idea of his coming was to come through the heayen-sent belongs to a way of thinking now out- “Son of Man," before whom and his grown. angel ministers all mankind would soon Since Jesus believed in the imposbe gathered. Christian men and women sible., he outlined for us no really praclived on this faith in the early time, and ticable way of reaching the desired end. nothing is more pathetic in history than He was not concerned with the State, the story of its gradually fading out of indicating neither ideal nor practical human souls. Even now one will find course for it to follow. A similar indifit in the creeds; and a slight sense of ference to and unbelief in what is to us the old awe and the old triumph inay practicable is shown in the writings of perchance come over us as we listen to the Christian Fathers. Tertullian, early the chanting of the Te Deum, that in the third century, says that "nothing chiefest of Christian hymns, and hear is more remote froin his interests than the words, “We believe that thou shalt public affairs.": Lecky remarks of Saint come to be our Judge''; but such con Cyprian (who belongs a little later in the fessions are on the lips rather than in sanie century) that "the conception of a the hearts of the worshippers. converted empire never appears to have Accordingly nothing is so lightly and even apologetically treated by liberal : "Nec ulla res alicna magis quam publica." Christian critics and teachers as this (1 polost", chap. xxxviii.) .

·88 DOES THE ETHICS OF JESUS SATISFY NEEDS OF OUR TIME? а flashed across the mind of the Saint. that its very sacredness commands that The only triumph he predicted for the we cease all such trifling with it as prayer Chufch was that of another world.": has now come to be, and give it a seat Saint Augustine, a century later, patheti- in our own hearts and an execution in cally asks: “What difference can it make our laws and institutions. Man is to to a man who is about to die whose inherit the sanctity and the glory that government he lives under, if only there were to invest the " Son of Man, is no compulsion to impiety and injus- sitting on his judgment-seat. For, I tice p” His great work, from which this take it, the doing of justice is a sacred quotation is made, was intended to thing. There is a divinity hedging about show, according to Lecky,3 that the every king or judge or magistrate or city of God” was not to be on earth, private citizen who takes this task into and that the downfall of the empire, his hands. For though justice as a under barbarian invasions, need not reality in human conduct and governtrouble his fellow-Christians. If we wish ment is ment is a poor shifting thing, the a worthy conception of the mission of demand for it is eternal, and issues not the State, we shall find it in the old from man, nor from the earth, nor from heathen philosophers and emperors and the stars, but from somewhat older than lawyers rather than in Jesus or his they; and he who executes it acts in followers. Marcus Aurelius, says Lecky, that moment as the delegate of God. " made it his aim to realise the concep A new reverence for the State we tion of a free State, in which all citizens want, then-not the blind submission, are equal, and of a royalty which makes not the passive obedience which has so it its first duty to respect the liberty often been the attitude enjoined upon of the citizens." Slavery," says the Christians, but reverence for the Roman lawyer Florentinus, is a custom mission of the State, for its idea; a of the law of nations, by which one nian, reverence which shall recognise the contrary to the law of nature, is sub- dignity of the servants of the State, jected to the dominion of another." which shall demand that all legislation " As far as natural law is concerned," and administration shall in increasing said another (Ulpian), "all men are measure fulfil the demands of the idea ; equal." "By natural law," * By natural law," again, "all à reverence which shall thus be the men are born free.” source of progress, and not the support These conceptions, with all that they of unreasoning conservatism. A new imply, were never taken up by the patriotism we want, not as an appendage, Church; and the work of giving them but as a part of ethics and religion. effect through the State is a far pore Here is not merely where we eat and difficult one than that of trusting and sleep and work and travel, but this land praying for the "kingdom of God," as is a field of duty; here we are stationed, the Church has done. here we have a task. We are linked to coming to feel that, if justice is to be a larger whole than our family or the circle done in this world (and perhaps equally of our business interests. For pubļic in any other), it is we (that is, rational ends we are to live. The public service beings) who must do it; that praying for must come to have a dignity and honour its accomplishment is but wasted energy; in our eyes such as no work on private account can have; and we shall enter it, * History of Morals, i. 485. if to this we are called, as priests might De Civitate Dei, v. 17: Quid interest sub enter a temple, and with thoughts as cujus imperio vivat homo moriturus, si illi qui religious as theirs. The more do we . imperant, ad impia et iniquia non cogent?" need a new patriotism, since, as men are 3 Morals, i. 435. * Ibid, i. 264. Cf. Marcus Aurelius's now so largely studying the past, con- Meditations, i. 140 sidering what has been rather than what We are now ·DOES THE ETHICS OF JESUS SATISFY NEEDS OF OUR TIME: 89 a - The . may and ought to be, and learning that State is for justice—to see to it that the free institutions have so often failed, a strong do not rule the weak, to break the kind of scholarly scepticism is arising as force of the brute struggle for existence. to the future of this land, if not, indeed, Most ominous of all would be the future a distrust of our fundamental doctrine of of that State wherein freedom should be the rights of man. It is a great experi- ostensibly honoured, and yet in the very ment, viewed from the standpoint of name of freedom the bonds of servitude history, this giving of the sovereign be put on men, women, and children;" power equally into the hands of all wherein freedom would thus mean citizens; and those who will have certain freedom from law, from State examinaproof of success before they act must tion and supervision, and be only a halt and tremble, if not sigh for other specious cloak behind which men might times. But those who have it in their pursue their worst selfishness. blood to believe in the experiment will, A very different spirit must animate by their very belief, help to carry it on the new religion from that which animated to triumph. American patriotism is the old. The Stoic maxim, and not that more than attachment to this land of implied in the teaching of Jesus, must ours : it is attachment to an idea, it is furnish the rule for human life : belief in a cause—the cause of liberty wise man must take part in public life" and human rights; and for the issue every TONITEÚc Oai TDV oogóv. For through the one of us has a measure of responsibility. State, rather than through any mythical The State itself must also advance. judgment in the clouds, the ends of It must assume new duties-new, that justice and right are in an important is, not to its mission, but to its past measure to be worked out. performance. Freedom is good, but it 3. But if we have need of a new must be universal ; and, if my freedom political morality, very closely related tends to the destruction of another's, thereto is our need of a new industrial mine must be limited. What makes the ethics. While the State should to my right of the State to interfere and prevent mind include economy to a certain domestic slavtry? What but its very extent, so that there might be some mission to secure and maintain the meaning in the phrase "political ecopersonal rights of cvery one within its nomy"--and, hence, the true tendency borders ? Are there, then, no other is towards the assumption, or at least encroachments of the naturally stronger direction, by the State of such properties over the naturally weaker ? I will not and businesses as become large and public now undertake to answer this question in their influences—the time is yet far specifically; but wherever there is a distant when a perfect and detailed and tendency of this sort-wherever one man particular justice can be prescribed or or a set of men gets property in land or done by the State. In any case, industry means of transportation or instruments may, relatively speaking, be treated as a of production or the means of subsis- separate topic. We live from day to day tence, to such an extent as to place by our own industry or by that of others; 'others largely at their mercy—there the for I mean by industry not all kinds of State should interfere, and, whether by pursuits, but those which aim to satisfy legislation or actual administration in its our physical needs and provide for our own name, prevent the monopoly, and material comfort. Industrial concerns act for the good of all. The State with are those which touch us to the quick : us is not, as it often was in old time, the a disorder here means so much less rule of the stronger over the weaker-if it were, it would have no sanctity or * Cf. John Stuart Mill (Political Economy, ii. 579): “ Freedom of contract, in the case of defence; if it should become so, then children, is but another word for freedom of revolution would be commanded. The coercion."

·771 90 DOES THE ETHICS OF JESUS SATISFY NEEDS OF OUR TIME; bread for soineone to eat, so much of an idea," says John Stuart Mill, "of distribúincrease in the death-rate. Society has tive justice, or of any proportionality always been partially, I may say largely, between success and merit, or between made up of those whose only means of success and exertion, is in the present commanding the necessaries, not to say state of society so manifestly chimerical the comforts, of life lay in their hands as to be relegated to the regions of and arms, either by way of labour or of romance, A reviewer naïvely remarks: threatening. I say always, yet I do not "The attempt of writers like Bastiat to say necessarily; and here is the whole show an exact harmony between the point. There are doubtless native rules of political economy and the inequalities anong men, and there always demands of absolute justice involves, will be. But the true industrial order like the opposite error of Mr. Froude, a would be one in which the inequalities confusion between economical rules and would mutually supplement one another, moral precepts." That is, in plain according to an ideal law of justice and words, economy is one thing, and ethics humanity. This ideal order does not quite another; and by the “opposite however, belong to history, but to the error of Mr. Froude" was probably future ; society did not fall from it, but meant a demand on his part that there is to rise to it; and the call to rise to it be an infusion of ethics into economy, is felt to lie in the very nature and con which is at least more honourable, and stitution of humanity, whenever it sees I believe more likely to succeed, than through its muddy vesture of brutality the attempt of those who would defend and selfishness, and becomes aware of and justify the present industrial arrangethe beatings of its own heart. ments on the ground not only that they The ideal order is, in a word, CO-OPERA are rooted "in the nature of things,' TION. It implies that those engaged in but that they always mean "service for the production of any means of sub- service."3 Service for service ? In sistence or comfort seek no more than words, yes; but what, not only of the a fair profit from the community which intention, but of the equity, of the they serve, and that they divide the exchange? Suppose that I succour a profit fairly among themselves. There drowning man, and, before doing so, is apparently little thought of fairness exact of him the greater part of his and justice in the present industrial possessions. That is undoubtedly service arrangements. Services are doubtless for service; his life he plainly values done both to the community and by the more than his possessions. But what employer to the employed, as by the should you say of my exaction? So employed to the employer ; but the there are those who take the possessions simple fact that business is ordinarily of men to-day, often the entire possesundertaken for "profit," or, as is said, sions-fpr myriads possess little with " business motives,” shows that fair- nothing but strength of hand and limbnessor equitableness, not to say humanity, and in return give them but the bare is not the determining motive. means of subsistence. O precious Equity! The upward limit of the employer's A new ethics of industry must arise; prices is not ordinarily any thought of or, I might almost say, ethics must be justice, but the knowledge of what can now applied for the first time in this or will be paid. And the wages he is department of human activity. What apt to pay go as high, not as considera- does the ethics of Jesus give us in this tions of justice would suggest, but as the demands of the labourers can make " Chapters orl Socialism. them go, and sink as low as men or ? The Nation, October 4th, 1877, p. 216. women and perhaps children-can be Wealth and Public Welfare," by Hon. Edward 3 Cf. article on the identity of “ Private found who will take them. "The very Atkinson, in Unitarian Review, December, 1885. or 0 ·DOES THE ETHICS OF JESUS SATISFY NEEDS OF OUR TIME: 91 direction ? In truth, if we turn from often equally pressed with the struggle, the ideas of our time to those of Jesus, and as unconcernedly left to his fate by it is almost like going from one world the “heavenly Father "? into another. Did he not. feel for Darwin would console us, in reference poverty? Yes ; his sympathies were to the lower orders of being, "with the boundless. But his remedy for it, apart belief that the war of nature is not from gifts of charity, indicates a notion incessant, that no fear is felt, that death of providence, of the relation betweeh is generally pronipt, and that the vigorous, man and God, that may at times adorn the healthy, and the happy survive." a poem or a tale, but has lost all hold Ah! but man is not one of the lower upon our sober belief. It was not so orders of being, and the consolation much even individual toil and labour as nowise fits our grief for him. Man is trust; belief that, as we are of more value an animal who thinks, and does feel fear; than the sparrows, so we shall be no less his death is often miserably drawn out; provided for than they. Consider the he survives often long after he or others birds, he said, that neither reap nor can see the use of living; and sometimes gather into barns; the lilies, that neither it is at last forgotten that he is a man, toil nor spin! How strangely contrasted and he becomes to many but a mass of with this idyllic view of the world is that flesh or filth, cumbering the ground. to which we in recent years have become Oh, if we have a view of human nature accustomed! The language of Darwin that causes us no shudder and no resentis here better than any paraphrase. “We ment when we think or know of this; if behold,” he says, “the face of Nature we do not say, O remorseless struggle, bright with gladness; we often see super thou hast no right or place in the circle abundance of food. We do not see, or of human relations; there only the law we forget, that the birds which are idly of respect and help and pity should have singing round us mostly live on insects sway! then am I at a loss to know how to or seeds, and are thus constantly destroy- proceed. I can only address myself at ing life; or we forget how largely these the outset to those who have a different songsters, or their eggs, or their nestlings, estimate of human nature, who respond are destroyed by birds and beasts of prey. to the thought of Jesus' words, if not to We do not always bear in mind that, the inference he draws from them: “Ye though food may now be superabundant, are of more value than many sparrows"; it is not so at all seasons of each year.” who believe that Hamlet's words, “ How "I estimated," he says again, "chiefly noble in reason! how infinite in from the greatly reduced number of nests faculties ! in form and moving how in the spring, that the winter of 1854-5 express and admirable, in action how destroyed four-fifths of the birds in my like an angel, in apprehension how like own grounds.": The fact is that the a god !"—that these are none too good “heavenly Father," of whom Jesus spoke, for man, since, though they flatter him probably denies food and protection to as he often is, they give the portrait of more of his creatures than he actually what he may be. I can only address provides for; if he did not, the earth those who see in man, in every man, would soon be covered by the progeny somewhat of measureless possibilities, of of any single pair of them. Hence, priceless worth. priceless worth. On those who think in there often arises a struggle for existence, this way a new burden is laid. which for severity and pitilessness can no longer, without hypocrisy, commend hardly be surpassed by anything our the poor and unfortunate to the care of imagination can conceive. Man also is the " heavenly Father"; nor can we involved in the same process. Is he not assent to the cool indifference and practical materialism of laissez-faire * Origin of Species, pp. 49, 54. doctrinaires, though the facts of the We can ·92 DOES THE ETHICS OF JESUS SATISFY NEEDS OF OUR TIME? on economist and the thoughts of man lying working ideal of the Church has been, at the basis of the Christian confidence mostly, that of charity and pity and have equally our acknowledgment. We consideration the part of the have, in a word, to cherish the thought higher classes in their treatment of the and to change the facts. For though lower, and of deference and submission the facts of external nature-of rain and from the lower to the higher. Justice the soil and its fruits-are not in our would make charity, in great measure, power, the facts of human institution and unnecessary, and the airs of self-humiliacustom and will are; and I believe there tion an offence. Instead of “Christian is no need that a single human being in society"_including the poor and the the limits of civilisation should suffer or rich, the alms-giver and the beggarwant, or live any but a nobly human justice would give us a high society of life, if society would but awake and equals, wherein should be neither respond to the task laid upon it. There patronage nor obsequiousness," but only is no trouble in the nature of things; the a noble, mutual courtesy and respect. nature of things even points and com “One hour of justice,” said an old mands, and in a single way. The Mohammedan precept, "is worth seventy trouble is with man, who will not accept years of prayer." Let us say the same ideal guidance, but prefers each one to of charity. All these hospitals and take his own way, and to act without homes and asylums, while in one way reference to the good of all. an honour, are in another an indication Hence, if the old religion centred in of the disease of our civilisation. We prayer to God, the new must be an do not strike at the root by raising up address to man-and yet not as if the more of them, though while the evils word merely came from man, but in the last this must be done. Yet the religion name of the Highest, and with the aim of the future will only come with those of connecting human life once more who do strike at the root, and who, with a supreme sanctity. This sanctity whether at the command of the State or is that of justice. Jesus, as we have in obedience to the law in their own said, taught the Golden Rule, which is a hearts, do no business and engage in no popular and apprehensible, if somewhat industry in which ample justice is not rude, statement of justice; but he left meted out to all who join them in it; no distinct and binding impression that who will use talents for leadership and industrial life must be ordered thereby. initiatory enterprise, not to give them With his peculiar view of Providence and mastery over others, but, as Godin and of the great change impending in human Leclaire in France have done, for the affairs, the problem of life was hardly of life was hardly elevation of others, and will feel in all serious enough to call for such distinct they do, and in their most material inculcation. Hence, though for the little concerns as well, o'ermastering time that his spirit was a fresh and religious constraint. For though religion powerful force in the minds of his by necessarily includes followers his high demands were a system of theological dogmas, . or matched in the order of their lives, and prayer or worship in the customary the earliest Christianity had some of the sense, I have no confidence that any features of a genuine brotherhood; when great industrial reform will come save discouragements came there was felt to as a product of religion. All man's be no binding obligation to continue natural self - regarding impulses are these features, and later on, and through against any reform. Those winning in the centuries of Christian history, very the battle would rather have the battle little was done to abolish the class separations into which human society • The old social ideal is finely portrayed in always naturally falls. The practical Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley: an no means ·DOES THE ETHICS OF JESUS SATISFY NEEDS OF OUR TIME? 93 go on as it is; and those who do not reappearance of the “Son of Man," and win, and who may some time, instead of to come so soon, has failed to come in fighting for what they can only most all these centuries. And the notions scantily get, turn and fight their success which are the survival of that old conful competitors who seem to be keeping ception-of a heaven beyond the skies, them from getting more-they, even if of a Deity who will be seen, a son they should triumph, would only solve sitting on his right hand, and of angels the problem for themselves, and not for who are their ministers-belong rather humanity, and would perhaps in turn to the realm of fairy-land than to that of have to give way to another inferior actual fact. There is, hence, a wideclass, who, stung by their oppression, spread tendency to find the ends of would rise and overthrow them. The existence in what is near, palpable, of root of the matter, the solution of the present, even of material, interest. industrial problem, is no more with the Now, though it is impossible not to working classes than with their em- sympathise with this tendency, so far as ployers. Both are equally striving for it contrasts with the old one of paying the mastery, and I have heard it said by slight attention to human affairs and a manufacturer that no foreman was so interests, it, too, has its limitations; and self-assertive and tyrannical as one sud- there are deeper moments in our experidenly elevated from the rank of a ence in which we distinctly feel them. common workman. The solution of There is something within us which, at the problem is only in an idea, a prin- least in thought and purpose, rises above ciple, and in persons only as they are all limits, and seeks a measureless good. permeated and actuated by the idea and As that something impels one to find a principle. Moreover, the acceptance of large share of his happiness in that of the idea under the stress of no merely others, so it makes it impossible to find selfish desire or impulse, but because it content in seeing others merely happy. is just and commanding in itself, is One feels that the merely happy have religion, proving, as it does man's link but learned the alphabet of existence; with what is higher and the Highest that the notion of perfection includes and hinting to him as in a dreamthe disposition of the heart, the worthi- « The hills where his life rose, ness to be happy, the enlargement of And the sea where it goes.' the mind, the ennobling of the moral life-these all carried on to heights 4. A fourth ethical need of our time beyond our experience or even imagiis that of a new statement of the end of nation ;, and that nothing less than the human existence, There is general dis- perfect, and this shared in by all, can be satisfaction with the idea that this end the end, the goal. It is characteristic is for each one in the saving of his own of religion to start from the idea of this soul. The early Christian idea of the limitless good, to discern the worth of “kingdom of heaven” was much nobler, all minor or partial goods from their and has, indeed, a basic meaning of tendency to ultimate therein, to send inestimable worth; yet the form and our aspirations to the very stars, and expectation with which not only the thus lend an infinite sanctity to each early Church; but Jesus himself, con particular act. Jesus struck the note of nected it have proved untrustworthy and religion when he counselled his disciples delusive. The righteous, ordering of to be content with no traditional rules human life, which was to come with the of goodness, but only with perfection (Matt. v. 48). His impassioned apostle struck it when he wrote: Whatsoever * Cf. Æschylus (Prometheus Bound, 36): " Who holds a power things are true or honourable or just or But newly gained is ever stern of mood.” pure or lovely, think on these things” ·1. 94 DOES THE ETHICS OF JESUS SATISFY NEEDS OF OUR TIME? (Phil. iv. 8). Religion is the passion of true and the good better than himself; the soul for all good. he who does not put them above all As there are means and ends in the personal attachments; who does not find world-as, for example, matter is for in the dearest object of his love a reflecform, and lower forms for higher, tion of somewhat above and higher, and inorganic for organic, insentient for not a purely individual possession-he, sentient, and the merely sentient for the however else fortunate or gifted, has rational-so the ends of rational exist- 'never found himself in an act of religious ence are the ends of the world, and veneration. For this is not man meeting perfection is not merely a human, but with man, but man bowing before the world, problem. On every act of virtue unalterable, the eternal ideal nature of the stars shine; for every choice of the things; not God, in the ordinary sense higher for the lower, for every sacrifice of that term, but the God of gods--- of private to universal good, a mute something so secret and necessary that, sympathy runs through universal nature. were it to cease, the stars would vanish And no act of ours born of that upward out of the sky, and, were it only to cease aim can fail of its issue. There can be in human consciousness, human society no destruction of what is truly good. would relapse into barbaric chaos. There is something we mortal men can Emerson said, not long ago : "I see do that is not mortal; that that sensible men and conscientious men “ Will last and shine transfigured all over the world were of one religion- In the final reign of Right. the religion of well-doing and daring, It will merge into the splendours men of sturdy truth, men of integrity, Of the City of the Light.” ? and of feeling for others. My inference It is no mere earthly paradise that is is that there is a statement of religion hinted at in these lincs, though to strive possible which makes all scepticism for a nobler social order on the earth as absurd." It is such a statement of a proximate form of the perfect is neces- religion that the time needs; and I can sary, but an end and outcome of human hardly believe that personal conceptions toil and struggle unaffected by earthly of God or immortality will make a neceschanges or earthly dissolution-in truth, sary part of it—which is far from saying a world-city, wherein world-issues are to that men shall be forbidden to entertain be gathered up and a world-purpose them. The certainty and the sanctity consummated, and the thought of which of religion lie, to my mind, in man's is once more to give dignity and the moral nature. Here alone is, in addition sense of permanence to life. to the muy-be or the can-be, the MUST- Do we survive with this good; shall the voice of commartd, the tone of we know in some other state of existence authority, without which, and without the good we have done in this; shall we assent to which, religion is but a playing meet those for whom we have done, and with our opinions or our feelings. We recognise those whom we love? I know are under orders; though we are free to not; and I hold it to be at the best a. obey or not, honour and safety lie only curious question, albeit one one deeply in obedience. And religion will come touching these clinging affections that to us afresh when there is a new percepmake up so much of the sweetness of tion of this fact, and a new recasting of human life. The ends of moral perfec- life and thought and all our human tion are not for our personal satisfaction, relations in obedience to it. but we for them. He who loves not the ! "The Preacher" (in Lectures and Bio- * Professor Felix Adler, The City of the Light. graphical Sketches).

·THE SUCCESS AND THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM '95 XI. THE SUCCESS AND THE FAILURE OF PROTES- TANTISM What is the significance of Protestant- of the courage and the daring and the ism? In what respect has it been defiance which a simple inward necessity successful? In what has it failed? may put into a man. He took his stand Protestantism was successful, in the because he must; because, as he said first place, in that it was a break with before the assembled princes at Worms, the Catholic Church, and not a mere he could not do otherwise. reform of it. Here Luther himself was I need not recount the steps by which great, and not merely the logic of his Luther was led to break with the Church. doctrines. Luther was indeed no violent I need not recall his lonely spiritual despiser of tradition and authority. In struggles in the monastery at Erfurt, his very theses, nailed up on the door of when he came to feel the futility of all the church at Wittenberg, he did not, mere outward works, and that only by contrary to the common opinion, attack faith can man be justified-though this the Pope nor the Pope's power to pardon was the seed-thought of the Reforınation. sins. He said: “Cursed be he who I need not describe his disputations with speaks against the indulgences of the Eck at Leipsic, where he realised that Pope; but blessed be he who speaks his own views were like those of Huss against the foolishand impudent language and Wycliffe before him; and hence, if of the preachers of indulgence !” To popes and councils had condemned the second ambassador from the Pope them, that popes and councils could not Luther even offered to be silent on the be infallible. I need not recount the matter, and to let it die away of itself, if stages of his rapid intellectual developonly his opponents would be sileht on ment at about this time; how his spirit their part; though he added, ominously, seemed to rise at the rumour of a papal “if they continue attacking me, a serious Bull against him; how he saw that his struggle will soon arise out of a trifling cause was the cause of Germany, and quarrel." He declared that he had made hence issued his address to the German his protest against indulgences," as a nobility; how in an almost boyish exubefaithful son of the Church," and offered rance of spirits he burned the Pope's to address the public to that effect. And bull; and how at last he took his worldin this public explanation he said that, historic stand before the imperial Diet at though everything was in a very wretched 'Worms, saying he would not recant, .state in the Ronian Church, "this is not knowing that to act against conscience, a sufficient reason for separating from it. though a mighty Church and a mighty On the contrary, the worse things are empire should approve, is neither right going on within it the more should we nor safe. cling to it; for it is not by separation But though the man is great, the that we shall make it better." Luther significance of the scene is greater. was not, then, spoiling for a fight; in That was the first act of the Protestant truth, he fought only because he had to. revolution. Ill would it have fared with And I do not know of a sublimer instance the world had Erasmus stood there.

·96 THE SUCCESS AND THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM He, in common with other scholars of courts; they alone buried the dead, and the day, was disaffected; he wrote satires could refuse Christian burial in the on the monks and schoolmen, and in churchyards. And this empire, touching general sympathised with Luther; but men in almost every relation in life, he would stay in the Church, would centred in Rome; and its affairs, it was reform from within, and conciliate and well known, were administered, not for compromise at any cost. He continued the benefit of its subjects everywhere, his satires and preached tolerance to the but to heighten the influence and pomp last; but he could not endure schism, and power and to swell the revenues of proclaiming that "peaceful error was Roman popes and cardinals-even as, in better than tempestuous truth." It was the old days of the Cæsars, the masses as it is to-day with the Broad Churchmen of the people scattered through the prowho stay in the English establishment, vinces were ruled by governors, not for or the Liberals in general who feel that their own but for the conqueror's good. they cannot stand on their own feet out. It was this empire over the souls and side the Church. Above every other bodies of men ; over life and death, and fear is that of breaking with the past, of what was believed to come after death; a seeming disloyalty to the institutions over what men should think, and how in which they have been nurtured. they should act-and not in the name Luther knew but one thing, however- of truth and the progressing knowledge loyalty to the convictions that were in of men, but of a view of the world which him; if the Church did not give him almost every scientific discovery and freedom to hold to and express them, he almost every independent philosophical would do so all the same. reflection tended to undermine-it was We can hardly imagine to-day what an this old antiquated empire that was immense fact resting on the past Luther broken, smitten on its crown, and set to had to face. To break with orthodoxy tottering on its feet, when Luther lifted or any form of Protestant Christianity is up his voice over three hundred and fifty an insignificant thing compared with years ago. All hail, O valiant man, for putting oneself out of the pale of that this first and mighty blow! We breathe communion which held the keys of earth more freely now at the very thought of it. almost as truly as it seemed to hold those Other blows will follow after; and notof heaven. For if the Catholic Church is withstanding all the reforms the papal comparatively harmless now, then it was empire may undertake, notwithstanding an empire that brooked no rival. The all the efforts it may make to show its State was no more than a body, with the harmony with modern thought and the Church for its soul. It was a universal principles of political freedom, notwithempire, and knew no national distinc- standing all its Councils of Trent, and all tions; it had its system of taxation, like its Capels leading captive here and there any other kingdom-a tenth part of the a weak-minded man or silly woman, it produce of the soil of Christendom went will never again have its old supremacy. to it; it owned almost a third of the land It is an outlived institution; humanity of Europe. The officers of this empire' and the spirit of progress have passed it were not amenable to the civil jurisdic by. tion-they could be tried only in their This was the first sucoess of Protesown courts, and under the cover of this tantism. A second is closely related to protection to themselves they could fleece it, and for this too we are indebted to their flocks practically as they liked; they Luther himşelf. Goodness had become alone could marry people, and they alone an external, formal thing in the Catholic could grant divorces; they had the dis- Church. It always tends to become so. position of the property of deceased It first creates certain forms, and then personsma will had to be proved in their loses itself in them; and as men are ·THE SUCCESS AND THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM 97 counted good citizens who pay their being that he wanted rest; and he found taxes, vote, and hold office, irrespective it, while still at the Augustinian monasof their thought and motive in so doing, tery in Erfurt; in the suggestions of a so men were counted good Christians passage of Scripture, “The just shall live who simply obeyed the rules of the by faith"; and ever and anon it would empire I have described, who said so ring in his ears and send a strange peace many Aves or Pater-nosters, did so much over his soul-"The just shall live by fasting or penance, gave so much money,, faith.” May I give a modern version of or received of such and such sacraments. that old experience? In the charming That is, there was an external test of Norwegian story of Arne, simple character; and the significance of Luther peasant girl says: "I often think there's is that he proposed an internal test. In something that sings when all is still"; one of his earliest discourses, two years and she spoke in a voice so soft and low, before he published his theses, he strongly the narrative goes on, that her companion urged the doctrine that piety consists felt as if he had heard it now for the first not in outward works, but in an inward time. “It is the good within our own principle; that an act in itself good even souls," he answered. And it is true that becomes sinful if the motive is sinful.. when a man, instead of seeking to do this Luther did not use philosophical language, or that external thing which will commend and his thought was cast entirely in him before the world or give bim a kind theological moulds; but the fundamental of vainglory in his own eyes, turns and significance of his great doctrine of justi- gives himself over to the good, for ever fication by faith rather than by works to obey it, something does sing within ; seems to me to have been this--that the and whether we call it the good or God, inward attitude alone determines the whether we say "the good sings," or worth of a man; so that, though a man's “God is well pleased,” it is all the same; whole outward life were right, yet, if the the differences are differences of dialect, thought or impulse that lay within and not of fact. Protestantism is thus, so behind were merely selfish, he would far as it is true to the original Lutheran still be in the wrong. Luther did not spirit, more inward, more searching than say works were of no account, nor does Catholicism; its religion is more personal; his principle of justification involve of it may make less show, but it has more itself any contempt of the rules and substance; it places men face to face ritual of the Church; he did say that with the central truth of things; it brings works or acts severeil from their motive, them immediately before the nameless and conformity to rites and rules in Authority of which all else is shadow and themselves, were of no account-yes, that reflectioil. I do not say this of Proteswhen viewed as themselves giving those tantism'everywhere. In England it was who practise them moral worth, they niore a political aſfair, and, instead of were harmful and an offence. Only heightening the moral life, it came into Luther said "in the sight of God” where being only with a lowering of it, in I have said "moral"; and an offence to obedience to the intrigues of Henry VIII. him was not simply to an ideal law, but The Puritans were the first true Protesto a personal, angry God. I'rotestantism tants in England, as the Huguenots were thus sprang from a quickening of the in France, and the followers of Zwingle conscience and a deepening of the moral and Calvin in Switzerland. But, in life. Luther could find no rest in fast- general, Protestantism surely brought a ings and penances and alnsgiving-they new moral seriousness into life. Comhumbled the body, they did not purify pare but for one moment Luther or the soul. It was at the centre of his Zwingle or Calvin with Leo X., and see the difference in the type of man. Scar's Life of Luther, p. 169. In another way, also, Protestantism ·98 THE SUCCESS AND THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISI has been a success; it has given us free- ism-it was thrown in among the forces dom of conscience. It must be confessed of history, though he little knew all he that here Luther himself is not so great was doing, by the hand of Martin Luther. as the logic of the movement which he As a fourth success of Protestantism, started. Luther was no advocate of andasa tesult of this spiritof freedom workfreedom of conscience as a principle; he ing in connection with the tendencies of desired freedom simply for his own con- modern thought, not only the old Church science. But the logic of history does but the old religion is gradually breaking not rest on any individual's partial inter- up. Christianity itself is dissolving and pretation of it. When Luther said at passing away. Christianity was not half Worms, " It is not safe nor right to do so much heart in the last century by Paine anything against conscience; here stand and Voltaire as it is in the minds of the I, so help me God,” he virtually stood most serious and thoughtful men to-day for every sincere reformer since; he by the new indirect influences of science spoke for every progressive movement and historical criticism. Men who never in thought and society down to our day. lear popular liberal lectures, who have It is not fair then, to my mind, to charge never read Paine or Voltaire, are getting the narrowness and bigotry of many Pro a new view of the world in the very testants, whether individuals or Churches, intellectual atmosphere they breathe, and to their Protestantisın; it is to be charged the old ideas of miracle and prayer and to them as men or as associations, for Providence drop away so silently that narrowness and bigotry too easily attach they do not know they have lost them. themselves to men and associations : it The new thought is in literature, in may sometimes be charged to them as poetry, in science, in the daily news- Christians and as Christian Churches, paper. The differences between cultibut it can only be due to the lack of real vated men in all Churches and in none Protestantism. The very meaning of are really surprisingly small. If we do Protestantism is freedom. Puritanism not ask for particular opinions, much was a characteristic Protestant movement, less attack them, but simply note how for it was an assertion of conscientious they are reflected in a nan's view of life, scruples against the laxness and formal society, trade, politics-and this is the ism of the English Church. Unitarian- Unitarian- only real test-educated Presbyterians ism was another characteristic Protestant do not differ essentially from cducated movement, for it was a revolt of reason Baptists or Metho:lists or Unitarians. and conscience against the dogmas of Their particular denominational conorthodoxy. When anyone stands up nections are inatter of birth and for the private conviction of his soul, tradition; their religion is, under a against whatever assembly of magnates disguise of pious names and phrases, a or respectabilities, he is in very essence reverence for goodness and a confidence a Protestant. If Luther, then, persecuted that the universe is on that side; their Carlstadt, if Calvin burned Servetus, if Christianity is much like that of a friend the Puritans banished Roger Williams, who once said to me he was not anxious they were so far not Protestants; and in for the name Christian, but, if anyone the very name of the principles by which should say he was not a Christian, he they secured their own freedom thcy should resent it. The special ideas that may be condemned. It takes a long were at the foundation of the different while for a principle thrown into history denominations have little interest for any to work out its consequences, but sooner man now, unless he be an antiquarian or or later it will. This principle of free a zealot. Indeed, no other result could dome of conscience is perhaps first well follow from the Protestant principle realised in any completeness in this of freedom of conscience and private country; but it is a fruit of Protestant- judgment; for it could hardly be expected а ·а. success. THE SUCCESS AND THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM 99 that private judgment would rest with is the later religious renaissance worthy simply interpreting the Bible-sooner or to be praised for putting the old Jewish later it must essay to judge of the worth and the early Christian literatures into of the contents of the Bible. Luther tongues in which every one could read helped to strengthen the mind in the them for himself. Everywhere, as a consciousness of its own perceptions result of the Reformation, the Bible came over against the authority of the Church; to be the property of the common man, when the mind reaches perceptions, and Jesus and the apostles were seen inconsistent with the teachings of Scrip- somewhat as they actually were. So far ture, the same logic inspires to a similar Protestantism was For I confidence here. Nor can any sacred regard it as no part of a genuine radiperson, more than any sacred book, be calism to condemn the Bible indisallowed to reniain an unquestioned criminately, and to wish that the world authority over the mind; yet when Jesus should know nothing of it. The Bible ceases to be an authority, Christianity has had its uses in history; it testifies to in any distinctive sense ceases to be. and is the product of some of the crea- Thus fearlessly and relentlessly is the tive periods in history. Most of the logic of Protestantism conducting out of prophetic writings, for example, of the the very religion in which it was born. Old Testament, the narratives about Luther would have stood aghast at those Jesus and the writings of his early who no longer call themselves Christians, followers in the New Testament, came to whom Jesus is no longer a Lord and from real men, to whom religion was not Master; yet no other result could a sham, and whose minds were intent ultimately follow, and he he is finally on the supreme thing in life-namely, responsible for it, and to the future the accomplishment of righteousness. this result will be counted as one of The very superstitious reverence for the the successes of Protestantisın. For Bible that so many have had is a testihumanity cannot wear for ever its old mony to its power : Cicero and Plato and garments; as it casts off old Churches, Aristotle never touched the heart and so it does old religions. The spirit of conscience dceply enough to produce any the future calls upon it to do so; for the superstitions about themselves. Neverfuture is rich with possibilities, and will theless, while in one way the open Bible yield grander things than ever the past of Protestantism was one of its successes, has known. in another it has been, and is coming As I pass now to my fifth point, I am at more and more to be seen to be, one of a loss to know whether to rank it among its failures. The Bible glows with the the successes or failures of Protestantisme. idea of rightcousness as no other book It is that Protestantism has practically does that has become the property of given us the Bible (for it was alipost a our Western world ; and to those who sealed book before), and particularly have the wit to distinguish substance that it has brought us face to face with from form it is still, and may always be, Jesus and the apostles. The common a means of moral inspiration. But the people in the time of Luther knew little whole intellectual setting of this idea is or nothing of the Bible; Jesus and the no longer true to Righteousness apostles they vaguely thought of as the gains nothing in authority to us by being founders and pillars of the great empire regarded as the will of a supernatural that was cverywhere about them, rather being; our confidence in its triumph in than as living figures in history. And if the world is nowise heightened by the the secular Renaissance is to be com- picture of a judgment which shall some mended for reviving an interest in the time separate the righteous and witked old Greek and Roman literatures, irre as sheep and goats. The open Bible spective of ecclesiastical conimentary, so was not even an altogether, successful us.

·100 THE SUCCESS AND THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM nicans defence against the Roman Church. believe and hope, we cannot live and True, the Bible said nothing of the act as they command us to act; we are Roman Church or the Pope, or of separated from them, not merely by councils or purgatory, or of the inter- eighteen centuries of time, but by cession of the saints; and this to many eighteen centuries of experience, of narrow-minded Protestants inay have knowledge, and of thought. Passing been enough. But the Bible does over minor differences, what man in furnish premises from some sympathy with the culture of to-day can Catholic doctrines are by no believe in the kingdom of heaven as illogical conclusions. If one man spoke Jesus believed in it? what man can look with infallible authority, is there any out on the world and trust in a personal reason in the nature of things why of things why Providence as Jesus trusted? what man others should not speak with the same can believe in miracle as Jesus believed, authority ? If one man could forgive or pray as Jesus prayed, or entertain the sins, it can hardly be denied that he thought of Jesus that Jesus had of himmight have left this power to others who self? Jesus is no longer authority to us, should come after him-as, indeed, he the apostles are no longer authority to is reported to have done. If we may us ; the whole Bible represents what the pray for those who are still on the earth, Germans call an iiberwundener Standand our prayers may avail, why may we punkt (a point of view that has become not for those who have gone into the outgrown). outgrown). Men only fancy the Bible mysterious beyond ? If the intercession is authority to them, as they are not of righteous men now may avail before really acquainted with it, as they have God, why not much more truly the never taken the pains to look at it in intercession of those who have become the light of the circumstances in which saints in heaven? Protestants affect a it was written. Protestantism hoping to great horror that Catholic priests should rule the world with its open Bible is a claim, for example, to forgive sins. The failure. Pharisees manifested a similar horror Another failure of Protestantism is when Jesus claimed to; yet we read that that it has not given tus any new faith, he gave the same power he had himself to such as the world needs. Protestants his apostles, saying: "W'hosesoever sins have for the most part simply clung to ye remit, they are remitted; and whose certain remnants or shreds of an old soever ye retain, they are retained.” 1 garment; they do not see that humanity Was there some peculiar reason why cannot live on reninants, and they have men should be forgiven in the first given to the world no positive new century of the Christian era that does regenerative principle. The Catholic not hold of the subsequent centuries? Church has all the positive parts of the But however lame an instrument the Protestant system of doctrine. The Bible may be against Catholicism, it can Unitarians, for example, save themselves still less be a rule of faith and practice by keeping the Christian name and for men to-day. Its idea of righteous- professing discipleship for Jesus; but ness is of perennial value; but the whole Catholics are all Christians and alí disstage of culture in which it was written ciples of Jesus. Orthodox Christiarts is now superseded by a higher stage. believe in the Divinity of Jesus, the We cannot think as the Bible would Trinity, and the Atonement; but have us think, we cthnot believe or hope Catholics believe in all these doctrines as Jesus and the apostles would have us and many more. Episcopal Churches have their priests and bishops and ritual; but all this the Catholic Church has in John xx. 23. If this Gospel he regarded as of doubtful authority, a saying of similar tenour is much grander style. For freedom of to be found in Matthew xvi. 19. conscience and thought is hardly a ·THE SUCCESS AND THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM IOI positive, but only a formal, principle. It self, will be abandoned ; man will have means standing by the truth as we see it, his connection with the unseen in the or, at best, readiness for truth; it does command which issues from it, “Thou not mean new and positive truth itself; must do the justice that thou cravest," and before there can be a new faith and in his answering obedience. there must be new ideas. Again, the Yes, Protestantism in the person of holding of an internal as opposed to an Luther cast the weight of its influence external test of character is not enough. against the era of social righteousness The thought alone gives dignity to the on which the hearts of the poor oppressed life; but what shall be the thought ? German peasants were set. It must Protestantism has developed no new suffice here to refer to this single inthought ; it has no new ideas of life and stance of Protestant faithlessness. The society; it has seemed to regard moral German peasant wanted freedom-he idealism as exhausted in the statements wanted ecclesiastical and political freeof the Sermon on the Mount: it has dom. The Church and the feudal lord even no genuine understanding of these united in despoiling him; he had no statements, for, if it had, it would take | rights worth mentioning against either. the hint they give, and elaborate an He was bound to the soil, was obliged ideal of social righteousness for the world.' to render any service the lord called for, For this is what the world wants-not the and had lost his right to the old common Bible, nor revisions of it, nor a rational woods and fishing grounds and pastures; understanding of it; no, nor Jesus hin- and to the Church he paid not only self, nor a true estimate of his life and tithes--the tenth part of all his corn, work, but an era of social righteousness. grass, colts, calves, lambs, pigs, geese, This is what Protestantism has not given and chickens, and even every tenth egg us, what it has apparently had no aim of --but he paid money for every particular giving us; for its thought of a perfect service he got from the Church. A social order is no wise different froin that Catholic writer of that period, brother to of Catholicism, as being something that the secretary of the Emperor Charles V., has elsewhere its accomplishment, some says: "We can hardly get anything from thing which is not of our creation and Christian ministers without money : at has slight bearings on this actual order baptism, money; at bishoping, money; in which we now live. Protestantism, at marriage, money; for confession, as Christianity generally, has given a money-no, not extreme unction without kind of sanction to the order of society money. They will ring no bells without that it finds, and feels slight impulse to money, no burial in the church without create a new one. Therefore, a money; so that it seemneth that Paradise religion must come, not preaching ac is shut upon them that have no money. quiescence and submission, but holding .The rich man may readily get up a contrast to what we see about us- indulgences, but the poor none, because saying that in the idea alone is sacred he wanteth money to pay for them.” ness and authority, and that contrary No wonder the peasants protested against facts, though as secure as the earth and such a double tyranny. They drew up as habitual as day and night, have no twelve articles in which they stated their warrant before it. The world needs no deniands : kind of an ecclesiastical religion, with 1. The right to choose their own priests and prayers and holy books ; it pastors. 2. They would pay tithe of needs a religion of justice. In the new corn; but small tithes, as every tenth religion, nothing will count but clear calf or pig or egg, they would not pay. thoughts and honest deeds. Prayer, 3. They would be free, and no longer trust in an outside justice, all reliance serfs and bondmen. serfs and bondmen. 4. Wild game and on another for what man must do him fish to be free to all. 5. Woods and new ·102 THE SUCCESS AND THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTIS:II 7. If IO. II. forests to belong to all for fuel. 6. No of corn if his master may despoil him of services of labour to be more than were the produce, and lavish like dirt the required of their forefathers. money he has thus derived from his more service required, wages must be vassal in fine clothes, fine castles, fine paid for it. 8. Rent, when above the eating and drinking ?" But when the value of the land, to be properly valued princes reſused to yield to his exhorand lowered. 9. Punishments for crime tations, when the peasants began to to be fixed. Common land to be make good their words by their deeds, again given up to conmon use. when they threatened to arise in revolt, Death gifts (that is, the right of the lord Luther himself yielded, and practically to take the best chattel of the deceased went over to the other side. tenant) to be done away with. 12. Any It is not a pleasant task to quote of these articles proved to be contrary to Luther's language against the peasants the Scriptures or God's justice to be null after they were once fairly started on their and void. violent career. It is not the man, but What a chance in view of this for a the Churchman, who speaks. His theory religion that meant to be of any use in was, “ Christians must suffer rather than this world, that meant to vindicate the take up arms”; they must bear the cross right and put down the wrong, to assert -"that is a Christian's right," he said; itself! By this time many of the princes "he has no other." He spoke of Chrishad beconie Protestant. Did their Pro- tians as flocks of sheep, not to be tended, testantism inean any increased sense of but to be slaughtercu, one after the other social justice? What did Luther hiinsell --"Nicht Weideschaf-Schlachtschal! say? He was not indeed without sym nur so hin; cins nach dem anderen!” pathy for the peasants --he was too much If they rebelled against the civil power, of a man, to say nothing of Christian, there was but one fate for then. s to for that; and he did not fail, as a valiant the "murderous and robbing hordes of man, to give the princes his opinion of peasants," as he styled them, he said to them. Even before the articles were the princes: “Let them be destroyed, published he said: “The common man, strangled, stabbed, secretly or publicly, tried beyond all endurance, overwhelmed by whomsoever is able to do it, even as with intolerable burdens, will not and a mad dog is killed, right away!" I do cannot any longer tamely submit; and not Oclieve that this was all due to he has doubtless good reasons for strik cowardice and a desire to side with ing with the flail and the club, as he princely authority--though these motives threatens to do.” Again, of the articles 'may have partly operated with Luther; he says to the princes that some of them for, as he did not fail to commend "contain demands so obviously just that clemency at the end of the war, he did the mere circumstance of their requiring not, during its continuance, cease to to be brought forvard dishonours you speak of the "mad tyranny" of princes before God and man"; and he reminds and lords. In my judgment, it was not them that “government was not insti: Luther mere'y thut failed at this critical tuted for its own ends, nor to make use moment; it was not merely Protestantism of the persons subject to it for the that failed ---it was Christianity, and its accomplishment of its own caprices and impracticable, unphilosophical, and unevil passions, but for the interests and true doctrine of non-resistance. It was advantage of the people. Now, the the Christian 'ductrine that we are not people have become fully impressed with to take justice into our own hands, but this fact, and will no longer tolerate your must leave it to another, that shameful extortions. Or what benefit answerable for the horrors of the were it to a peasant that his field should Peasants' War. Luther had said this, produce as many florins as it does grains and quoted Scripture passages to this was ·THE SUCCESS AND THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM 103 effect from the very start. There was tory of the peasants, assisted by the towns not so much a change in his view or his and cities, which were almost cqually sympathies as in the circumstances to hostile to the nobles, and perhaps a which his view could apply. He said peaceable victory, the horrors of massacre from the beginning such things as these: averted, and no two hundred added “ To revolt is to act like heathen; the years (as was actually the case) of miserduty of the Christian is to be patient, able serfdom for the peasantry and of not to fight; defensive justice is for God. pride and power for the lords. Froude alone. No one can be his own judge; can only speak of the Peasants' War as an attempt to be that is something which the “first scandal” to the Reformation ;' God cannot endure-it is against God, in truth, had the Reformation possessed and God is against it.' Such a view is the moral fibre which we demand of a to men to-day mythological; but to religion to-day, it would have been its Luther, following closely after the teach- first golden opportunity. A biographer ing of his Master, it was sober truth. of Luther speaks in this connection of But if Luther had been more of a the “dark clouds” that threatened a new heathen, he would have stood before the danger to the cause of the Reformation : 2 world a truer man. Not on the basis of what a cause, I am tempted to say, that such a view has progress been made in did not find a part of its very mission in the world. Had Christianity been the meeting the danger! Apologists who rule of life for intelligent Frenchmen a look at the question with the sympathies hundred years ago, there would have of to-day can only say it was a religious been no French Revolution ; had the reformation that Luther had supremely thought that paralysed the arm of Luther at heart. But what is religion ? Must been the conviction of the American not our very concern for truth and colonists in 1776, the United States might justice lead us to disown religion as thus still have been a British province. Pro- understood? The only religion a free gress is with those who know that justice man could care anything about would is to be done by them, who would not involve taking up the cause which Luther honour themselves did they not defend practically deserted, and striving to usher themselves against those who outrage in an era of social righteousness on the their rights. I do not answer for all earth-doing so, that is, with the feeling that the peasants did; many of them that we are bound to do so, that the were as fanatical is Luther, and they world and the invisible necessity of things were as litile disposed to mercy as Luther call us to the work. charged the nobles to be to them. But Who are preparing the way for such a the question is, Were they not right in religion, as much needed now as ever it their claims at the outset ? was in the days of feudal and ecclesias- How mean an idea of the signifi tical oppression? If you doubt it, listen cance of this whole matter many have! to the bitter cry of the outcast poor in D'Aubigné says that the people were not Protestant London ; listen to the cry of ripe for the enjoyment of political reform; the poor in all our Protestant cities; that many unregenerate souls were not listen to the cry of the poor in Chicago. prepared for liberty.'' The cant of it! Not Protestants as such, not Christians Fortunately for social order, he says, the as such, not ministers and Churches as gospel preserved Luther; for what would sạch, are preparing the way for such a have happened had he carried his exten- religion, but they who, anywhere or sive influence into the camp of the under any name, utter or listen to a call peasants? One can conjecture what of justice. Now and then a man dares would have happened-namely, the vic- Contemporary Review, August, 1883. 'Ilistory of the Reformation, iii. 181. • Dr. William Rein's Life of Luther, p. 124.

·104 THE BASIS OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT lift up his voice against unprincipled I voices-heard in the street, heard in the wealth and power; now and then a man secular newspaper, heard when companies utters his belief that unselfishness may of reformers come together; and, though be lived, and not only dreamed of; now they say, not one word of religion, they and then a demand is heard that public are the voices in our night that tell of the ends be put above private ends, in politics, coming day; they are the witnesses to business, everywhere; now and then the an unbelieving age of an ideal truth and community is appealed to, to regard no an ideal authority; and that wherein slightest interest of its humblest member Luther and Protestantism and Chrisas outside the realm of its rightful con- tianity have failed shall be their success cern. Heard now and then are these and their triumph. XII. THE BASIS OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT The Ethical Movement has a serious them, as if they were imported from aim. It is not a literary movement; nor without or had descended ready-made is it primarily a philosophical movement from heaven. But this is a shallow view, It does not aim at culture, in the ordinary and really proceeds from the standpoint of sense of the word. A wider knowledge the religions themselves. Thetruth is that of man and of the best products of the mankind has developed its own religious human spirit--that is very desirable, but beliefs ; that neither God nor devil it does not make our central aim). We revealed them; and hence that to ridiwant to touch the springs of man's moral cule them in a wholesale way is to ridilife, to influence character and conduct. cule the human mind itself. Nonethe- Our aim is moral culture; and it is less are the old beliefs inadequate to our natural that I should try to answer the present light and knowledge. Though question, On what basis does, such a it is simply one stage of human culture movement rest; what is our starting- succeeding another and lower stage, the point, what is the immovable rock on transition is so great as to amount to a which we plant our feet? revolution. To go straight to the heart First, I must frankly say that the of the matter, men have heretofore con- Ethical Movement does not find a sure ceived of the Supreme l'ower of the basis in the great religions that have. world as a personal being like themselves; come down to us, nor even in the and they have had so slight a notion of rationalised forms of them that are the order of nature and the fixity of becoming more or less current. There, nature's laws that they have thought is no occasion for jeers and gibes at they might pray to him and ask him to Judaism and Christianity. They are They are do for them what they could not do for not aliens, but in the order of history-- themselves. Many to-day, on the other the apcestry from which we have sprung, hand, owing partially to the influence of the mother of us all. Taunts are some philosophical criticism and partly to that times directed against then as if the of positive science, are constrained to human mind were not responsible for regard the personality of Deity as an ·THE BASIS OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT 105 open question, and prayer as a useless the present time. It is because the expenditure of human energy, Person- rationalised forms of the old religions do ality is a conception borrowed from our not make room for those who fearlessly experience in connection with human and frankly accept these results that beings; it may be questioned whether their fellowship is too narrow for me. we have a right to apply it to what is For with much of the work of liberal beyond all experience, unless it be by Christianity and reformed Judaism it is way of metaphor or figure of speech--as impossible not to sympathise. They we may speak of the unknown mystery have battled with and left behind many as a sun, or as light or life. Theology is old and outworn notions and forms; simply turning poetry into prose. That they have tried to reconcile reason with unseen Power by which we live is greater religion, and freedom with a spiritual than all our figures of speech, outshines faith. But they have not gone far our most brilliant metaphor-is, indeed, enough with their rationalism. I find light unapproachable, unthinkable. fault with them, not for what they have Prayer seems almost a belittling of that done, but for what they now seem unsolemn mystery in the bosom of which willing to do. Liberal Christians, for we and this wide world rest. For it is example, no longer believe in the three not, let me distinctly say, in the name persons of the old theology, but they of materialism or phenonienalism, but seem to cling with no less energy to the because of a deeper sense of that mystery, doctrine of one person. Judaism has that I abandon prayer. At the same from the beginning tenaciously held to time that we are less able to make dog- this doctrine. Do we now and then, matic assertions respecting the unknown, perhaps, licar that this must not be taken we are learning, and are able to assert, literålly and dogmatically; that it is only more and more in the field of the known. poetic personification that is had in A vision of law and order is dawning mind; that the term "God," as ordinarily upon us; the sphere of caprice is used, is but a metaphor? But how much diminishing and vanishing before our seriousness are we to attribute to such eyes; a conception of the universe is explanations when the old forms, that developing which, if it has less fascination have their meaning only in connection for a childish mind, has infinitely more, with the old ideas, are persisted in? Is and is unspeakably grander tg the it child's play which I am witnessing thoughtful and mature. Arbitrary will, when, after the concession that "God purposes that change and bend, these may be but a metaphor, I hear a solemn may be in man, but they are not in address to him, or a solemn benediction nature; they are not in that ultimate invokad from him upon the people? and total order of things of which man Which word, indeed, of the preacher or and nature are parts. We mayopray to rabbi shall I believe? which does he our fellow-men, we may appeal to one really mean? Or is it possible that relianother to respond to our varying wishes gion-which is, one would suppose, the and wants; but prayer to the Unknown sincere, the utterly truthful attitude of God involves a double vice--first, dis- the soul before what is highest and best 'trust of the beneficence of that order to it-is ceasing to be, and men are conthrough which he is already manifested, tenting themselves with shifts and comand which holds fast whether we pray or promises and the use words with not; second, a despair of our ability to double meanings ? Hear, too, what is act as proximate causes and to bring said and then done in regard to prayer. about the results we wish ourselves. He would be a foolish man nowaday's Such, very hastily expressed, are the who would ignore or deny the reign of results to which modern thought is lead-law in the world; and the liberal pulpit ing some reflecting and earnest men at recognises and teaches it. The bearing > ·106 THE BASIS OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT of it upon prayer is also shown, and we wish to throw ourselves into the stream are told that prayer cannot change or of moral progress. We need not ask suspend the divine laws, but only bring how it is there; we need not peer down us into conformity with them; and along its.course to catch a glimpse of the straightway we hear not only an address sca into which it flows. We want to to deity, but an appeal that he will bless throw ourselves into it and bathe in it, our community and our families, that he because we know it is good; because, will heal the sick and defend the poor when we have so much as touched our all which involve a practical denial of feet or hands to it, we have experienced the view presented in the discourse. its sweetness and felt the life and quick- Meanwhile the community continues ness of its waters; we want to because, unblessed, and the sick are not healed, we are parched and dry, and there is and the poor are defenceless; and, in the only an arid waste around us. name of truth, I ask would it not be But if not the current religious docbetter for the pulpit to address its entrea- trines,' is it perhaps science, or that ties to the men and women in the pews, philosophic attitude of much of modern and say that to them are trusted the care science known as agnosticism, which is of the community and the guardianship to furnish a basis for the new movement? of their families; to them is the sacred This seems to be the impression of many; task committed of going out and healing we will accept nothing, as they think, the sick and raising up the unfortunate; which we cannot scientifically demonto them, in their laws and in their busi strate. There is a certain amount of nesses, is the work given of establishing truth in this impression. One should be justice for the poor? Oh for a wave hospitable to all the results of scientific of seriousness to sweep through the demonstration; one should cling to no Churches! old-time belief against which there is a Yes, for mysell, not merely the rational balance of scientific evidence. I am ised forms of Christianity and Judaism, myself in sympathy with the methods of but religion itself, as it is popularly under- modern science, and with agnosticism, stood, does not give an absolutely sure which, instead of affirming positive knowbasis on which to stand. Religion, in ledge, is a conſession of what we do not the popular sense, hinges on faith in God, and cannot know. Kant in the last Prayer, and Immortality. I do not, century and Herbert Spencer in this indeed, forget that there is a wider sense of were perhaps the first to draw the line the word “religion"- a sense that would clearly between the realm of the known give a place to Buddhism, which at its and knowable and that of the unknowinception was without any of the beliefs able. able. Knowledge is litnited to experialready named, and would include any ence; what is beyond experience may system which sets a supreme ideal before be guessed, imagined, or thought about; the human mind and prescribes a rule but in the naturo of the case no guess or for its attainment; and further, I do not imagination or thought can be verified, conceal iny own faith that out of a fresh and thus converted into scientific knowsense of the demands of morality upon ledge. This critical distinction' has us, out of a new contact with the higher underniined the very foundations of ideal tendencies of the world, there will thcological dogmatism, and has taught dawn upon us and burn into us a new conviction as to life, its meaning and its " It must not be understood that we thereby issue-a new sense of a world-purpose propose a negative dogmatism, and woulú and a world-goal. But now, and at the exclude those who believe in the current reli. start, our word is a simple one. We do gious doctrines”; we differ from the Churches not propound new views of the universe. simply in not requiring assent to them, in not putting them at the basis of the Ethical Move- We wish rather a new sense of duty; we ment.

·THE BASIS OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT 107 to philosophers as well as theologians a page to read. History, which is one long-needed lesson of modesty and branch of the science of man, tells of humility. aniınalism, of brutal selfishness of All this, however, is very different towering wrongs, of slow - returning from regarding agnosticism of positive justice, often of a blind, infuriated justice science as the basis of our movement. that punishes the innocent and leaves In the new and clear atmosphere of the guilty free. And observationmodern thought, many of us have seen statistics, which is nothing else than the old “castles in the air” vanish from scientific observation-reveals almost as our view ; one by one they have scemed many things that ought not to be as to lose their basis in this world of expe- things which should be. Statistics of rience in which we live. But an atmo- crime are just as much science as would sphere is hardly a thing on which to be statistics of peace and order; statistics build-it is at best a transparent medium of prostitution as truly scientific as those through which, and by the light of which, of family purity; of poverty as truly as we may discover the real foundations. those of comfort and competence. Agnosticism is no more than a confes- What science teaches must invariably be sion of the limitations of our knowledge. accepted as fact; but it may, nonethe- But what we do not know is hardly a less, provoke moral repulsion and rebelbasis for action. Simply because men lion. We may say to some of the facts : no longer believe in the old dogmas is “You have no right to be !” Yes, the no reason why they should form an very end of our scientific observation may Ethical Society There are plenty of sometimes be to render such observaagnostics who have little sympathy with tion in the future impossible—that is, to us, whose unbelief may, perhaps, extend destroy the facts. Plainly, then, science to the foundations of morality as well as is not ultimate. It tells us simply what to those of theology, and who may is; it tells us nothing of what ought to live simply lives of supercilious mand be. What ought to be - that is reported refined egotism. Agnosticism is but to us by a higher faculty than that of the dry light of the intellect, which may scientific observation ; it is an assertion, be used to the noblest ends, but may a demand of the conscience. also be perverted to the meanest. Nor Here, then, is, to my inind, the true is science, teaching us positively what basis of our movement. Not the old we do know, a sufficient guide for us. I religions; not religion itself, in the will yield to none in my admiration and popular understanding of that terın; not wonder before the world which science agnosticism--though, as matter of fact, has revealed to us. How has space some of us may be agnostics; not widened and time grown infinite, and science, though ihe facts of science, how does one law seem to hold in its every one of them, should have our grasp the mighty movements of systems recognition. It is something deeper and and the least tear that trickles down a more ancient, I might say, than any child's face! It is a universe, majestic, i these ; it is the rock of conscience, the solemn, in the midst of which we live,' eternal laws that announce themselves and it would seem to suggest to us great in man's moral nature. man's moral nature. Our knowledge and solemn thoughts as to what our own may be limited to the senses; but conlives should be. But when I turn from science is not knowledge, for knowledge nature to consider human life and the is of what is, and conscience is the order of human society, my reverence in thought of what ought to be. It may be one way lessens rather thail grows deeper. that our senses have never revealed to us The science that reports faithfully, philo- a perfectly just man ; that we have never sophically, the varied facts of our human known or heard of an absolutely just existence is not altogether a pleasant government. Nonetheless does conof .

·108 THE BASIS OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT man : science say to every "Thou of what they are. We are to regard oughtest to be just !” And if it could ourselves and society about us as plastic find roices clear and strong enough, it material, in which the divine ideas of would publish aloud to every community goodness have begun to take form, but and every State to-day: “There is no have never reached adequate form, and other law for you save that of absolute are so hemmed and hindered that, if we justice, and, in the measure that you fail judged with the senses alone, we might therein, you have no sanctity and no doubt if they existed, and yet to the eye defence." ." Conscience, in a word, ushers of the soul are still there, and need only us into an ideal realm. Genuine ethics to be seen and believed in to again stir las in this respect more in common and niove, and to shape human life to with art than with science. For true art, finer forms and nobler issues. I take it, is not minute, painstaking Who, as he looks on the face of human photography; it does not consist in society, can be content with what he sees rendering an object in the terms of the there? Who does not find his notions senses unilluminated by the mind, but of justice, of humanity, of the brotherin catching the idea of the object, so that hood in which men ought to live, conin witnessing the picture or the statue we tradicted? Who, with a conscience or a seem to feel the flush of the artist's heart, has not felt that this system of thought, and are touched with the touched with the things, in which self-interest is not only inspiration wherewith he conceived and the impulse, but the rule ; in which we wrought. If the great master, Shake consider not so much the rights or claims speare, said that the object of his art was of men as the extent to which they may simply to hold the mirror up to nature, serve us and contribute to our own gains; to show virtue her own feature, scorn in which any means, any oppression, any her own image, and the very age and grinding down that do not involve open body of the time his form and pressure," violence or fraud are viewed as legitimate, I must say that ethics is an art of very and something which any one must different character. It holds up the practise because all do-who, I say, has mirror, not of the actual, but of the ideal not felt that this system of things, even -that mirror whereby we feel vice to be though he be a partner in it, is wrong, vice, and know virtue to be virtue, and and longed, as a man in thick darkness by which we judge the age and body of longs for light, for some other order of the time, and declare what its form and things, in which he should not be compressure ought to be. It is ideal rather It is ideal rather pelled to beat back the best and purest than realistic art to which I would com- impulses of his nature ? The social pare ethics, the 'art revealed in the questions are the questions of the day. matchless bearing of an Apollo, in the And the social questions are fundamendivine grace of a Venus of Milo, in the tally moral questions ; they involve the majesty of an Angelo's Moses, in the relations of man to man, and morality is radiant freshness of a Raphael's Ma nothing but an ideal of what the relation donna. These are human, and yet they between man and man should be. Not are more than human; for the artist's the smallest subject, or the nerest detuil thought of the perfect has worked in of it, bearing on the rights of human them, and we feel in looking at them a beings is out of the province of a moral reflection of that "light which never was teacher. Morality is as wide as humanity; on land or sea." Art is the realisation it has a bearing on the whole life of of the beautiful; ethics means the realisa humanity; it demands nothing less than tion of the good. As we look on men and that every man have at least the means women, we see the possibilities of the and opportunity for a truly human life. perfect that are in them ; we think of Materialinterests havea sanctity if theyare what they are meant to be, rather than human interests; the question of wages ·.. save a man. save a man. THE BASIS OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT 109 has a moral bearing if wages mean the able than the heavens. To get a new substratum of food and drink and clothing sense of this inward monitor; to feel and shelter on which a human being is that its demands are beyond any mere to build up his higher existence. Educa traditional rules of goodness; that it. tion has a moral bearing : the devising means not this or that good thing, but and putting into operation a rational and all good ; to have thus an infinite horizon man scheme of education is one of open to our view, and to feel that a path the moral problems of the time. Politics of ceaseless progress lies before us--this has a moral bearing : the State has no is to me the aim and significance of the other end than justice and the general Ethical Movement. good, and justice and the general good I know the Churches speak sometimes are a demand of morality. "Political" of " nere morality," and ask if that can life should mean public life--the aban- I answer readily that a donment of private interests or class surface, mechanical morality, no matter interests, and the dedication of one's by whom practised, does not and cannot self to public interests. I know not, But if so, the call in my indeed, on what department or phase of judgment is not for something to take life to cast a glance and find that morality the place of morality, but for a larger, a has no bearing there. Morality is not a more perfect morality, one covering the suppliant, a beggar asking for an entrance whole of life, and allowing no nook or and protection in one corner of our corner of it to lie outside of the sacred existence; it is a sovereign, and, though sway of the just and the good. It is a it be unheard and unnoticed, prescribes higher standard of righteousness which the law and ideal for the whole. It has the world needs, one which shall convict a bearing on the intellect, and condemns evere the religions of the day of the lowthe conscienceless interpretations of ness of their own standards; which shall great doctrines, the clever playing with awaken the slumbering consciences of words not uncommon in some of our men, and regenerate life, private and Churches. It has a bearing on social. If the Churches had the idea of domestic life, iorbidding that anyone morality as a principle, would they dare should be a slave there. It has a bearing to speak of it in this slighting way? on our pleasures, on our business, on the No; by morality they mean custom or conduct of the State. It is, indeed, an tradition, or at best a set of commands invisible companion cleaving to us given by Moses or Jesus, and written wherever we go, rising, as a great down in a book. That it is an indepen- Englishman' has said, with us in the dent idea and law of man's own mind, morning and going to rest with us at at prior to all custom and tradition and night, and only leaving us as we leave books and persons, and so capable of the light of life. A companiop do I superseding them all and making them say? Ah, it is closer than any com- antiquated, is hardly imagined. But it panion, for, though it warns us and com is nothing else than this that I mean by mands us, it does so in that supreme act proposing the pure dictates of conscience in which we warn and command our as the basis of our movement. We assert •selves; it is the utterance of the God in the independence of morality. We do us, of the "prophetic soul” in which we not rest on dogma, because there is all share, and signifies that we are part something in man closer and more conand parcel of another order of things stitutional to him than dogma; we do than that which we can see and handle, not rest on history, because we believe and are rooted in somewhat firmer than that within man lie the springs of history, the earth, and more ancient, more vener and that history's grandest movements started froin no inspiration that we can- "Gladstone, Vatican Decrees, § 4. not draw on equally well to-day. The our ·I10 THE BASIS OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT we modern world talks of progress : them. But their impatience must go believe in moral progress, that the ideas further; they must become impatient of righteousness are not stationary, but with themselves and with the moral capable of endless expansion ; that there state of the community; they must turn can be no final statement of ethics; that a deaf and relentless ear to all the siren men may get scruples in the future that calls that would conſound liberty with they have no thought of now; that, for licence; they must rather own the call example, a sense of justice may develop of stricier rules, of higher ideals of duty, that will make our present manner of and feel that, with the old citadels of conducting business and industry a faith in ruins at their feet, their work has reproach and a shame. but begun. It is to earnest and brave- It is a word of this sort which I should hearted men and women who will turn like to throw out among men and women their faces in this direction that the of to-day. It is a new centre of interest, Eihical Movement addresses itself. a new basis of union, that we have to l'or let me make clear that the basis of propose. The old religions, and Liberal our movement is not a theory of morality, ism in its present forms, rest on other | but morality itself. The moral teacher issues. Judaism is a race religion-a pure, is not primarily to give a metaphysical a lofty religion, but still a race religion. philosophy of ethics, to prepagate trans- Christianity is more universal, but it is cendentalism or utilitarianism-though founded on and limited by Jesus of he may have views of his own, and on Nazareth ; and, though I will not be sur occasion need not refrain from exprespassed in genuine reverence for that sing them. He desires rather, if he can, unique figure, that image of blended to hold up the idea of the good itself; majesty and gentleness which has cast a to make men love it for its own sake, light down the centuries, and has rarely and own its beauty in the conduct, in been without influence, even when the beautiful order and beneficence, of Christians maddest and most their lives. There is but one theory of bigoted, truth equally compels the morals against which I have any feeling, admission that Jesus does not furnish a and this not because it is a theory, but basis broad enough and large enough for because it is subversive of morality itself. the present and coming time. Yes, I mean the vicw which we now and then Jesus himself rests upon a deeper foun- hear advocated, that morality is but a dation in the reason and conscience of refined selfishness, a long-sighted pruman; and on that bottom rock we may dence; that the end of life is and can be stand to-day as truly as he stopd, and may build upon it as serenely, with as may be permiited to prote the following notable words of the late lamented Professor undaunted a faith and as firm a hope as T. II. Green, of Oxford, which I have come ever he or his followers did eighteen upon since writing the abovc:- hundred years ago. No more satisfac- “ It is probable, incieed, that every inovement tory is ordinary Liberalism. It is still of religious reform has originated in some clearer largely critical; it is often but a wild conception of the ideal of human conduct, arrived at by some person or persons and bitter attack on the old religions; it tion, perhaps, towards which many men have , concepis at best a calm and clear perception been silently working, but which finally finds in that the old religions are no longer some one individual the character which can possible to us; it is not seldom coupled give decisive practical expression to it. But in with indifference to moral questions, and, of the ideal, as a theory, always holds a secon. the initiation of religious reforms the new theory where it is zealous, its zeal must often be dary place. It is not absenc, but it is, so to confessed to be on the wrong side. I speak, absorbců in a character-a character to believe the future is for those who have which the speculative completeness of the theory is of little interest; and it is this character which cut loose from the old-time forms and gives the new conception of the ideal its power crceds, and, who have no patience with in the world" (Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 361). Were 1 I ·THE SUPREMACY OF ETHICS III nowhere else than in the accumulation at the start, of the philosophy of ethics. of individual pleasures, and the avoid- It is something far more primary and ance of individual pains. That man simple than philosophy, even the tidest, cannot go out of himself; that he cannot that must be our immediate concern. love another equally with himself; that it is the practically proving to the world he cannot find an end of his being in his that morality is an adequate foundation family, in the community, in the State; for our lives; it is the demonstrating that for all these he cannot live, and that unselfishness can be by showing it; cannot die rather than see them dis- yes, it is, I sincerely hope and trust, honoured—that is what I call the real proving that a higher morality is possible infidelity, and, whether uttered by priest than the world now allows-proving it or philosopher, has, and always shall have, by the stricter purity of our private lives, dissent and my rebuke. Morality is by higher notions of honour in our busithis going out of one's self and living in, ness or professional relations, by juster living for, something larger. Prudence, conduct to our employees; yes, by a selfishness-these are and may well be new wave of sympathy and humanity the servants, the attendants on morality; that shall take us out of ourselves and they never dare take the place of masters. out of our business, and make us bear Aside from this, which is not a theory the burdens of the sick and the poor and but a statement of morality, a moral the forlorn in our community as they teacher need have little to say, at least have never been borne before. XIII. THE SUPREMACY OF ETHICS WHEN all else that the religious world Morality is not a matter of taste, of holds dear falls or becomes uncertain, personal preference, or of temperament; confidence in duty may remain unshake n. it is obedience to a command, it is self- One may doubt all the articles of the surrender to the OUGHT that sounds Christian creed, and have much pain in' within us, it is the free choice of what we doing so, yet never be confused, never cannot avoid choosing without shame have shame; but to doubt thatalove and and dishonour. truth and honour are binding upon us is « If that fail, so unnatural that it can only be accounted The pillared firmament is rottenness, And earth's base built on stubble.” for on the supposition of some moral, obliquity. These moral laws of our The Ethical Movement, as I underbeing are so close and constitutional to stand it, plants itself on this ultimate us that the very existence of virtue is crowning fact of man's nature. We bound up with a recognition of them. start with a certainty. Human beings A man is virtuous on principle, or he is do not choose the sovereign laws of duty not virtuous at all, though he may con- and make them laws. Those laws would form to all the external requirements of be over us did we not choose them ; virtue; and if there is no principle, no they rather choose us. Man no more sovereign ought, constraining, command creates the moral world of obligation ing, and forbidding, there is no morality. than he does the physical, one of fact;

·112 THE SUPRENIACY OF ETHICS he has only to fit himself into it, and let righteousness, and the will of God has its sublimity make him sublime. Man Man been identified with the good of man. is not the summit of things; as the But the noral sentiment that has played heavens bend over his body and the such a transforming and revolutionary stars unalterably shine, so the moral law part in the keld of religion in the past is arches over the soul of man, and he is still with us; it was never more alive greatest as he bends in lowly worship than to-day. It is born into the world to it. Nobleness, magnanimity, great with every child; it is as fresh as if this hearted love, unswerving truth-these were creation's morn. It is that from are not ours, but we are theirs, bound to which we cannot get away, in regard to "them as the iron to the magnet, as the which scepticism is absurd, and out of needle to the star, as the tides to the which, in conjunction with modern cul- “far-off orb" of heaven; bound to them, ture, shall come, I believe, a nobler that is, in idea, and should be in fact. religion than the world has ever known Great and reassuring are the lessons before. of the moral sentiment. It gives us a The depths, not of fear, but of awe, place whereon to plant our feet. It were never stirred in man till he felt the casts out fear. See how it deals with sublime promptings of the ought within the fear of so many anxious minds that, ! him. The ancient gods Ci goddesses in face of modern conditions, not only were never truly reverend and august Christianity, but religion itself, will pass till they were regarded as the authors of away from the world. We live in an age the pure and high commands that give of transition, and all the way from the the law to man's life and conduct; and, Catholic to the Unitarian there are so far as they were interpreted in this mutterings and tremblings, as if, in case way, they must always be revered. The this or that or the other creed loses its' moral sentiment blossoms as naturally hold on man, the stays and consolations into a religious faith as the buds of spring of human life will be gone. Idle fears ! open out into leaf or flower. A man Religion, so far as it has not been the may give up all that passes current as outgrowth and blossoming of the moral ! religion-give up God and Immortality sentiment, has been at best an expensive and Prayer (in the customary sense), as luxury to the race, and has come near to well as the claims of the Church or of being a curse. That man's peace and Jesus, yet, if he keep his hold on happiness and safety depend upon beings morality, if he bend before Truth and whose favour must be gained by costly Justice and Love, if he feel there is sacrifices and prayers-this belief, that something sovereign within him which made the basis of primitive religion, and it were better to die than to forget, he is survives in all the great branches of the on the open highway that leads to those Christian Church, has caused more dis- grand confidences and trusts that are the tress of inind, niore false torments of imperishable part of religion. conscience, more waste of energy, moral for the sense of morality is the sense and material, than we can ever calculate of somewhat sacred, holy; it is the sense or dream of. Religion-the thought of of a law above all other laws. There is it in the past, I mean--is only endurable not a law of nature that may not conto the free man and earnest lover of his ceivably be altered or suspehded, or that kind as moral elements have been taken we may not violate or defy, should duty up into it and an end has been made of command. Wo use nature every daysacrifices; as the prayers have come to her forces, her laws, we are for ever be prayers for righteousness-or else turning to account. We cannot worship have ceased altogether before the stern nature or the sum of nature's powers. determination to be righteous at what- That sovereign allegiance and fealty we ever cost; as religion has come to mean owe to what is absolutely inviolable, to - ·THE SUPREMACY OF ETHICS 113 66 ctual sense, what we dare not use, to what exists for its nor have we reason to suppose that God, own sake, and we for it, to Goodness, as so conceived, exists. God” is the to Love, to eternal Truth. The moral infinite element in all duty, its eternal sentiment dwarfs nature; it goes out to basis, without which duty and man and that which is beyond naturę. What is the world would alike disappear. regnant in the universe is no fact, nor And what an aim does ethics give to sum of facts; no law in the man ! With what solemnity does it nor sum of laws, but a commundment invest our life ! We are here to lift And the deepest, the bottom thing in ourselves to the measure of perfect the universe must be that which is goodness; society exists to lift itself to capable of giving a commandment : not perfect justice. Life is not for living matter, then, nor force, nor will, but merely, but for living so that somewhat reason, or that ineffable reality of which divine may be incorporated into it. How hunan reason is a poor and shadowy low men's thoughts ordinarily are! Relisuggestion. Matter is phenomenal; our gion itself sometimes takes sides with the thoughts come and go, our acts are ill- world as it is, and distrusts reform. How matched even with our thoughts; but many in his Church to-day would hear that to which our thoughts aspire, and Jesus, should he come again enraptured from which, alas! they so often wander, with his thought of a coming kingdom of does not change with our changing, does God? Was ever Socialist so wild and not rise when we rise, or fall when we visionary as he? Carlyle used to say fall; though we die, though the wide there was properly no religion in Eng. earth and the everlasting hills fade away land. A stern saying ; but when we into insubstantial mist, and the heavens remember how stern a thing religion is are rolled together as a scroll, lives for (or it is nothing)—when we remember ever! Without morality and the infinite the fact of absolute obligation which is suggestions it makes, worship could not its essence, and ask ourselves how niany find an object, and the word "adorable" men and women in our own country live would have to pass out of literature-and invisibly bound to truth and honour and this, though so-called religious men at justice, we cannot deny all credence 10 the present day have such partial con the saying, and may ask ourselves, Are ceptions of morality that they contrast we, in America, much better off ? Our religion with it, and speak of something own Emerson spoke nearly fifty ycars ago above morality, and in addition to ethics of “the universal decay, and now almost plead for devotional truths well. death, of faith in society." The Church, Something above justice and goodness! he declared, “had lost its grasp on the --there is nothing above. Devotional Devotional affection of the good and the fear of the truth in addition to ethics !--'tis the bad." It is as if Christianity had at merest sentimentality. Religion has had last got itself well lodged in this world, connected with it much besides ethics and had forgotten its dream of another. in the past; it has been weighted with Yet its dream of another, its vision of a blood and with lust, and to-day it is perfect society that should replace the weighted with unreality and maudlin present order based so largely on selfishsentiment and cant. But, so far as it has ness and cruelty and wrong, was at the had more, it has been a disturber, and full beginning its very inspiration and life. of harm to men; and so far as it has more Hence its high demands, its seemingly to-day, being no longer taken seriously, it impracticable precepts; hence its enthuis at best a superfluity which self-respecting siasm, that swept through an old decaying men and women are apt to do without. society like fire, destroying and recreating. Duty is ordinarily divided into duties to There is a little of this enthusiasm now. man and duties to God. But there are no duties to God in the sense implied, Divinity School Address, 1838. as 1 ·114 THE SUPREMACY OF ETHICS You cannot have enthusiasm and com- the social reformer who shall appeal to monplace aims. Enthusiasm is born of the sublime in man; who shall be able an idea, and idealism is at a low ebb to hold a savage, angry mob in check, among the Churches. There is probably and make them more willing to die than more idealism outside the Church than to do wrong; and who shall pierce with within it; it is born in mangers again, the power of his convictions through the and makes its home in despised social lying and sophistical selfishness of the reformers, among men who cannot live prosperous, and make them own with and see the world go on as it is. The trembling the law they now defy, and by trouble, on the other hand, with our bis persuasiveness entreat them and woo social reform is that it does not start then, so that with tears and penitent from within, that it is partial, that its aims gladness they will do tasks of love and are not severe and grand enough ; and tenderest goodwill. Such social reform so its enthusiasn is finite, and does not will be religion once more on the face reach the depths of man. Not resent of the earth ; such a reformer will be ment and not wrath, but the moral another Christ, come with his solemn sentiment, must give anew the aim to purity, his high faith, his unconquerable human life. Once more niust the call love, to shame and to heal the world. go forth for a perfect life; once more \Vhat power, what omnipotence, will must it be brought home to man that not come in that day to our poor old human food nor raiment nor shelter, not com nature--poor now only because it will fort nor ease, not science nor art, are the not surrender itself to the moral sentiend of existence, but the "kingdom of ment, because it will not unlock its heart God"; and that this is not only the end, and receive of the infinite riches of justice but the beginning, since without justice and love that lie for ever waiting and and human sympathy science and art even knocking at the door! The moral may minister to vice as well as virtue, sentiment is deliverance; it is the open and not even comfort or daily bread is door to infinite power. When, in answer necessarily within the reach of all. to the inner imperative, man obeys, he Louise Michel, predicting the outcome is rejuvenated, and feels'the freshness of of the social revolution, says that man, an eternal day in his heart and through having at last attained his plenitude, all the arteries of his being. There is being no longer hungry nor cold, nor no age to the spirit that lives in high afflicted by any of the miseries of the sentiments. "Always young for liberty," present time, will be good. I see not exclained Dr. Channing. The faith one ray of hope for humanity in such a born of ethics is that man can do the philosophy. The tendency of the evolu right. The imperative itself brings the tionary doctrine is, to a certain extent, to power to meet it. To say that duty hold justice impracticable, save in an commands us, but that we cannot obey, ideal state of society. But justice is is to suppose a lic in the nature of things. commanded, and is the only thing that There is no duty if I cannot perform it. is practicable now or in any state of And as duty exists and charms and binds society. Goodness is the sovereign law me, I know I can do it. The will is not of life, first as well as last; it is sovereign bound. Men say we are born selfish, avariover life, as even Patagonian Indians cious, lustful, and cannot be otherwise. may fcel---three of whom, Darwin tells You can be; and the first thing is to feel in us, once allowed themselves to be shot, your heart of hearts that you ought to be one after the other, rather than, betray --and the iron weight of that obligation their companions in war.? I look for felt in your inmost soul will transform you and give you its iron strength. Yet "Chirago Times, February 14th, 1885. how the religion of the day travesties our 2 Descent of Man, p. 111, n. nature ! Not only dues orthodoxy teach ·THE SUPREMACY OF ETHICS 115 the impotency of man, but Liberal Chris is to harden one's heart and keep out of tianity teaches the necessity of prayer, suffering one's self. But suffering and which comes to the same thing--saying wrong are not necessary; they might as that we poor creatures are weak and well not be as be-nay, they never would must have help. But Emersorf answers: be if men listened to the promptings "Such as you are, the gods themselves from on high that visit them. Suffering could not help you.” Again ; “ The and wrong are foreign to the nature of weight of the universe is pressed down things; they are contradictory to it, they on the shoulders of each moral agent to exist despite it. The heart of the world hold him to his task. The only path of is sound; and would we but give way to escape known in all the worlds of God it in our own hearts, the face of society is performance." There is a breath as There is a breath as might be as fair as nature is in her most of mountain air in such words-invigora- joyous moods. We have not to make tion and re-invigoration for the moral the world anew, but only ourselves. In life of man, and the secret of regenera- the niidst of our work we can adore, and tion for religion, which, as Emerson pass into that central peace which laps says, now effeninates and demoralises. the world about, and which all our heat It is a sublime faith that, whatever the and worry cannot disturb, nor man's outward seeming, man is made for the extremest faithlessness mar. If man good ; that, starting imperfect, he is does not do the good, he cannot have called to be perfect; that society and all peace--that is all. An ethical religion the races of men have the way open to is nowise concerned with the justification an infinite goal, which they will fail to of the order of society as it is; it has reach only if they do not will to. What little in common with the weak optimism is wanting in us, what is wanting in that.sometimes passes current as religion ; society, is not the power, but the will, to it must oppose those canting economists do and dare and suffer. The wide earth who say that, there being no such thing might be a scene of justice to-morrow, as chance, the Christian must regard and every city of our land transformed present social conditions as the best into a City of the Light, if men and possible, else they would not be consiswomen would wake with to-niorrow's tent with the orderings of a wise Provisun to will the good which now lies like dence. If a man is given a task, and is it half-formed vision in their minds. not faithful to it, the result cannot be It is thus that the moral sendiinent the best possible. The integrity and gives a great peace to the soul. Things sanity of things nowise requires a justifioften seem so bad about us that we are cation of the present order of things. tenipted to think evil cleaves to the The high God commands to almost all nature of things. With all the boasted the nighty of this world, and to many progress of the modern world in industry more besides, to do differently from and inventions, things scem little better what they do, and as long as they do for the mass of men. The spectacle of not obey, they are off the track appointed debasement and misery anong large for them, and the integrity of things is classes in the very centres of our civili- only concerned in forever bringing then sation and culture is almost maddening to nought. Where did Jesus find peace to a sensitive nature, and easily breeds as he confronted the order of society in despair. If all this suffering and wrong his day? In the thought of a judgment are necessary, there is no escape from that should destroy it. ó friend, the conclusion that this is a black and curse thyself, curse thy ncighbour and crael world we live in; and the only society about thee, but not the fundaway to live and to have any contentment mental arrangement of things !e-bless that; thou canst not dream so high as it Worship,' in Conduit of Life. makes possible. Heard already are the ·116 THE SUPREMACY OF ETHICS voices which, if thou and all wouldst the obscure reformer, martyrs and heroes hear, the dread chaos and anarchy that who died in nooks and corners of the nom dishearten thee would pass away. world, and all who loved and did the Out of all this high spirit of faith and right, are the stars that shine in this firobedience, and as the issue of it all, is mament;'and all others count for nothing. bred a great hope. Our current doctrine This world 'will pass away; the generaof immortality is weak; it has little moral tions of men are going, and some time fibre in it. That august possibility for vill all be gone; nothing in nature or valorous and virtuous souls is made the that belongs to nature stays; there is property of all alike; and no drivelling nought permanent or everlasting outside saint or damnable sinner but imagines the blessed Powers that are over all and he or she is going to live again, and live in all. Yet a high presentiment arises for ever. There was never such effron- in the breast that, out of all the countless tery. We haye reason to believe there personalities that have been or shall be is another life, if there are souls worthy born on “this bank and shoal of time," of it. The mystery is that wicked, there shall be some accounted worthy to frivolous, selfish men and women live share with these blessed Powers their out their natural term of life here; own eternity. Such a faith is too great the gods are surely gracious and long for demonstration ; it rests on the cumu. suffering to permit it; and, when death lative suggestions and inspirations of the brings to an end their vain career, it moral sentiment. But it is that kind of would seem the part of piety to let them immortality which has supreme interest rest in eternal forgetfulness. But for the for the morally serious man. That we good the heart conjectures a better fate. are inherently immortal I can discover The good are simply those who respond very little reason for supposing; that any to the demands which the invisible world authority, whether of holy book or holy makes upon them. They only are good Church, could settle the question for us who are so because they must be, because seenis like an offence to reason. Our a divine necessity constrains them, be- personal affections and desires of reunion cause they could not hold up their heads do not appear to be a sotid foundation; if they were unfaithful, because in such Jesus says not a word in their favour, a case they would feel like traitors to though he does speak of those who shall the trust the universe had assigned to be "accounted worthy to attain to that them. The value of a faithful soul is world and the resurrection of the dead.". beyond all estimation. Duty is that by That science can ever give us proof which we link ourselves to absolute of immortality seems improbable, since being, and by which absolute being links science, save in its purely formal aspects, itself in turn to us. Perishing man looks deals with the sensible--that is, with aloft and sees the imperishable, and with what may be observed or experimented every moral act the imperishable becomes upon--and immortality is a truth, if it a part of him. No atom, no tree, no be one, of the super-sensible. The animal, no man incapable of self-surren- doubtful vistas of spiritualism make the der, has this worth and incomparable other world but a poor. faded copy of dignity. The stars in heaven are not so this, with immortal cats and dogs as well · grand as man, living in obedience to the as human beings, until that life seems moral sentiment, and dying when it is more feeble and ineffectual even than “better not to live." Yet there is no this. What reason for the perpetuation caste in virtue. In this lore, in this of an old worn-out show? For my part, imperishable wealth, the great of this I would rather leave death begirt with world have no monopoly. The dignity all its solemn and touching mystery, and that dignifies the highest is within reach of the lowliest. The savage Patagonian, 1 Luke xx. 35.

·THE TRUE BASIS OF RELIGIOUS UNION 117 simply trust that somehow transcendent he said, " founded on moral science; at issues will be worked out through it. first cold and naked, a babe in a manger There is no thought of reward for the again, the algebra and mathematics of good in what I say. As the good are so ethical law, the church of men to come, for goodness' sake, so their high destiny without shawms or psaltery or sackbut. must come unbought and unsought. But it will have heaven and earth for its beams and rafters, science for symbol Such are some of the lessons of the and illustration; it will fast enough moral sentiment as they have made gather beauty, music, picture, poetry. themselves felt in my own mental experi- Was never stoicism so stern and exigent ence, and such is something of what I as this shall be. It shall send man home conceive would be the gist and scope of to his central solitude, shame these social an ethical religion. Ethics is not a closed supplicating manners, and make him circle, so that when one has forborne to know that much of the time he must cheat and paid his debts he is at the end have himself to his friend. He shall of it. It starts with the lowest uses of expect no co-operation, he shall walk earth, but covers the highest and widest with no companion. The nameless flights of the spirit of man. To plant Thought, the nameless Power, the superoneself on the fundamental verity, and personal Heart-he shall repose alone then allow its natural suggestions and on that. He needs only his own verdict. implications to have unhindered No good fame can help, no bad fame development in one's mind and in one's can hurt him. The laws are his conlife, seenis to me one of the most impor- solers; the good laws themselves are tant and inspiring tasks of the present alive--they know if he have kept them; day. they animate him with the leading of What a prospect is that which Emerson great duty and an endless horizon." held out! "There will be a new church," an 11 XIV. THE TRUE BASIS OF RELIGIOUS UNION” Ir is one thing to express views freely, i entirely practical question, though I am and another to propose then as a basis aware that in trying to answer it I may of religious union. This I'am distinctly develop an ideal of religious fellowship unwilling to do. To propose any new which has little or no relation to any set of views as a part of the basis of existing religious movement. religious fellowship would be so far to In general, I conceive that assent revive the intolerance of ancient ortho- should not be required in a religious doxy. body to any truth about which it is I wish to ask now, What should possible for a thoughtful and good man make the fundamental terms of fellow to doubt. The basis of fellowship should ship in a religious body? This is an i be so broad that no person striving for Worship," in Condut of Life. Abridged.

·113 THE TRUE BASIS OF RELIGIOUS UNION 1 sets up. an ideal order of human life should be ex strives to realise the ideal of humanity cluded. Hence, assent to the doctrines in his life, and to contribute to the of Catholic or Protestant Christianity, or establishment of an ideal order of human even of pure theism, should not be re life on the earth, should he be welcomed quired. No one will deny that serious to the moral communion. Love cannot and good men can, and in some cases have fellowship with those who hate; do, question these doctrines. Shall they, just men cannot be joined in sacred therefore, be excluded from the most union with tyrants and oppressors; men sacred of all unions between man and who are trying to lead pure lives cannot man? For my part, there is no mate- fraternise with those who are reckless rialist or atheist who yet loves and and profligate. Conditional for admispursues the good, who feels that truth sion must be the desire to purify oneself and honour bind him, whom I do not of all that is unworthy, to live according wish to call in the deepest and most to one's best ideals. But other condisacred sense my brother. tions should be unknown. One should The truth which it appears impossible not be obliged to confess himself a to doubt is that duty binds a man. It is Christian, or to confess himself a Jew; true that men may differ in their theories the antagonisms of Protestant and of the ultimate grounds of duty; but the Catholic, of Evangelical and Unitarian, fact of moral obligation and the broad should be forgotten; all barriers should outlines of personal and social duty pass away save those which conscience remain under any theory. The truth is that the thought of what ought to be is as I am aware that the realisation of such elemental a part of man's being as the an ideal involves a great change in the sense of what is. The thought of the right habits and sentiments of men. It seems is one that cannot be outgrown, that has to be taken for granted that men who entered into every religion worthy of our differ intellectually cannot belong to one reverence, that even the savage has in some fellowship, that varying theological or half-conscious, imperfect fashion, that philosophical views are necessarily more man can lose only as he loses his reason. potent to divide than imoral aims can be We cannot say, however, that the pro- to unite. It is a sad and saddening positions of the Athanasian or even the opinion; yet I am afraid there is more Apostles' Creed are thus rooted in the in the religious history of the race to nature of man ; neither can this be said confirm it than there is to encourage the of the theistic or perhaps any distinct aim I cherish. Never has there been, to speculative doctrine. A true religious A true religious my knowledge, such a fellowship as I fellowship, then, would not oblige assent Men seem always to have been to any of these doctrines; it would ready to magnify their intellectual agreerequire only the recognition that duty ments, or disagreements, and to put a binds a man. slight on the good purpose and the pure Positively speaking, the ideal religious heart. History docs not give much body would be a union of all those who encouragement to such a fellowship as I owned the authority of duty, and who propose ; and, as with morality in general, sought to live as duty commands. The the dream of a moral basis of religious fellowship aimed at would be that of all union is an ideal of the heart rather than good men-that is, of all striving to be anything else. Yet it has on its side, I good and to advance the cause of good- make bold to say, the best instincts of ness in the world. For the omission of not a few men to-day : the larger minds a doctrinal basis does not mean a “mush in almost al the historic Christian comof concession," or the drowning of con munions are moving in this direction, science in sentimentality. Not because though they may be far from having a one is a hunian being, but because he clear vision as yet of the goal. crave. ..

·THE TRUE BASIS OF RELIGIOUS UNION 119 Let nie now state a little more dis- be the ideal of a true religious fellowtinctly what a moral basis of fellowship ship. would involve. Hence, thirdly, a new meaning would First, it would not 'necessitate the attach to heresy in connection with such giving up of any theological or philo- a fellowship. That word, I well know, sophical beliefs which one might hold is no longer covered with opprobrium. dear. Because one's beliefs are not Men who have stood faithful to the light made a part of the bond of union does that was in them, and have refused for not mean that one shall not be free to the sake of life itself to be untrue to it, hold them. If one found satisfaction in have made heresy almost glorious. the theistic theory of the universe, he Apart, however, from its historical should be free to cherish it; if one felt associations, the meaning of heresy is compelled to be an agnostic as to the simply separation : a heretic is one who nature of Deity, or if one took material is separated, or separates himself, from a istic ground, he should be equally free. religious body. A fundamental principle The aim of the fellowship would not of the ideal religious fellowship I have in be to make theists or materialists or mind would be freedom of belief; the agnostics, but to confirm the good body should neither decree nor prescribe, purpose in the soul, to make good nor in any way stand for, any set of citizens, good fathers and mothers, to theological or philosophical opinions. make lovers of justice and haters of all The query might arise, Would not heresy wrong. If one wished to keep company cease to have any meaning in connection only with those of his own creed, he with such a body? It certainly would, would, of course, not enter the body; in the customary sense of the word. but the body would not exclude him: There would be neither necessity nor he would simply exclude himself. One motive for any one to leave the body, would not have to renounce Christianity to the end of gaining liberty of thought nor Judaism in entering the fellowship; or utterance. But suppose that another his entering would simply involve a set of motives should arisc. Suppose willingness to live on terms of brother- that the theistic members of the body houd with others who might not be should say: "Our theism has become so Christians or Jews--that is, he would precious to us that we cannot hold out give up Christianity or Judaism as the any longer the fraternal hand to materialbasis of religious fellowship. ists or agnostics.” Suppose that agnostics Secondly, the free expression of theo or materialists should say: 6. We cannot logical or philosophical opinions would have patience with theism ; it is an not be preventead. It might even happen antiquated, exploded doctrine, and we that those who were drawn together by must refuse to fraternise with those the affinity of intellectual conviction who cling to it." In any of these would form subordinate groups, just as cases, the fundamental bond of union those who were united in holding to of the religious body would be certain practical solutions of the problem, assailed; each and every group which of society might do the same. The only thus withdrew and formed a new body necessity would be that no group should would be, in the literal sense of the word, make so much of its peculiar views and heretical. Instead of standing for freeains that it would be in danger of losing dom, heresy would thus stand for the spirit sympathy :ind the sense of union with of intolerance. The heretic would be one the body at large. One fellowship with who refused to concede to others the same many branches, one body with many rights he claimed for himself; who said in members, one subtle life-blood running effect : “I am determined that all others through the whole and making every shall think as I do, and, if they do not, part kin to every other - that would I will have no part or lot with them."

·I 20 THE TRUE BASIS OF RELIGIOUS UNION No one has argued more finely against Fourthly, it would follow that through the sectarian, dissenting spirit than the entire body, and in all its groups Matthew Arnold. “The dissidence of and local branches, more should be made dissent and the protestantism of the of the common aims and ideals of the Protestant religion ” was the object of body than of anything else. Varying his delicate and yet merciless satire. philosophical views or economic aims The various dissenting bodies in England could only make a kind of atmosphere were for the most part “ hole-and-corner” , in each group or branch, but could not Churches, out of relation to the great' take the form of a creed or binding common religious life of the English statement. The basis of local fellowship nation. His argument was only vitiated should be the same as the basis of the by the assumption that the Church of general fellowship; nothing should be England was representative of that required anywhere which was not required nation's common religious life. He everywhere. In other words, the quescalled it "a national association for the tions of personal and social morality promotion of goodness." It is, in truth, should have the first (I do not say the not only that, but an association equally only) claim on the attention of every well for the promotion of the ideas branch or local organisation. If from enibodied in the Apostles' and Nicene, any meeting someone should not go not to say the Athanasian, Creeds. But away with clearer light as to duty, or though in judgment he was wrong, his with some fresh impulse towards the ideal was right. There should be an ideal life, the holding of that ineeting association in every nation for the pro- would be well-nigh vain. Right living motion of goodness --one that would is in one sense the most natural thing to gather to itself all the elements in the man; in another, it is at times a most nation ready to work for that high end. difficult and arduous thing, and seems And when a genuine and all-inclusive to require almost superhuman watchfulsociety of this nature does arise, whether ness and strength. Those most honest in England or elsewhere, then all that with themselves are the aptest to feel Mr. Arnold so eloquently said of the that the better part of them is not what spirit of dissent will hold good. Then they are, but what they aspire to be. As the separate Churches that may be set for our actual selves, some oi us know up by the theistic or agnostic or social we are self-conscious, anxious for notice, istic or individualistic sects will be justly tickled with applause, without seriouscalled "hole-and-corner" Churches; ness, and good only by impulse.* Others but, I must add, not till that day. know they are proud, glorying in mastery Almost all the dissenting Churches and in having others obedient to them. England, and almost all the separate Others still are full of irrational aversions denominations in this country, have had and prejudices, and scarcely try to let an excuse for being; they have arisen the calm, purifying light of reason penebecause freedom in the mother Churches trate their minds. Some are sensual, from which they separated was and others are close and ungenerous. allowed. Better disorder and confusion, Then in the realm of social morality, and an infinite number of “hole-and- how we founder! We know that selfishcorner" Churches, than despotism and. ness as a principle is disorganising and iron law. When a better day shall dawn, anarchic, and yet our industrial order is however, and a religious order with to a great extent. founded on it, and we liberty-inaking, indeed, a principle of think it is all right! We call it in the liberty-shall arise on the earth, then abstract a dexilish maxim that everyone only could narrowness and bigotry, the should look out for himself, and woe very spirit of schism and odious heresy, betide the hindmost; yet in our business lead to separation from it. relations we are apt to act upon it, and not .

·'THE CAUSE OF ETHICS 121 there are those who can scarcely imagine the deepest thing, the root-thing in relibusiness being conducted on any other gion, was not so much any peculiar object basis. Ethics, the principles of justice to which the religious sentiment went and love, are pooh-poohed when they out, as the feeling that the object was are sought to be applied in this realm; sacred. It is reverence and awe that to advocate them is thought to be senti make the heart of religion. Whoever mentalism, or, at best, philanthropy. holds to something as sacred has a reli- The religious world is divided into theo gion or the elements of one. Duty-the logical camps, when it oughtao be a unit thought of the laws under which we in devising a plan of peace and brother- live, of their inviolable nature, of their hood for the industrial life of society. supreme authority, in obedience to which It is not enough to preach the Golden are safety and life and joy, and in depart- Rule; it is necessary to say what the ing from which we stray into darkness Golden Rule means. To hold up more and the night-may as truly excite awe elevated ideals of personal and social as did the phenomena of nature, the life, to create and to sustain an enthu- powers of earth and sky, wbich first ensiasm forthem, to lift life actually to higher chained the attention of our forefathers. levels--this would be the sovereign and The most perfect religion, to my own the central mission of a true religious mind, would be a blending of the religion body. of morality and the religion of nature But is all this religion, it may be into an ideal unity. asked? Is it not morality? I answer But whether such a fellowship as I that, for my own part, it is impossible to have sketched the ideal of would be distinguish between them. Morality is called religious or not is a comparatively only true morality when it is given reli- . unimportant matter. It might not call gious consecration, and religion is first a itself religious, conscious of the untruly sacred thing when it becomes an certainty and ambiguity in the current exalted moral enthusiasm. I am aware use of that term; and there would be no that, historically, religion arose indepen-harni in this. But what it should be, dently of morality--as, happily, morality whether it was faithful to its ideal or not arose independently of religion. But: --on this everything would depend. . XV. . THE CAUSE OF ETHICS Ņot every interest or concern of man fo with a love of truth. We may desire micans'a cause. We may be drawn to simply to understand, to have a clear many things, and yet not feel impelled idea of, this frame of things amid which to do anything about them. We may we live. And when we hirve done this, love beauty or beautiful things, for when we have penetrated some obscure example. And when we are looking at corner of the world, or found the clue to some rich, eyening sky, and the warm some mysterious process, or unravelled colours, the deepening vistes, the light some hidden law, we do not necessarily and radiance seem almost like "an open- ask what we are going to do with the ing gateway, into heaven," we do not ask knowledge; the joy of discovery may be what to do about it; enjoyment is all. enough. There is a satisfaction of the ·122 THE CAUSE OF ETHICS mind, as of the love of beauty, that is Ethics, we familiarly say, means human sufficient unto itself. welfare, the greatest possible welfare, and is no reflection upon these things I see not how we can stop short of the to say that a cause rests on a different thought of a perfect development of man. basis. A cause means that there is In the abstract sense, indeed, ethics something to be done or accomplished covers all' our voluntary activity and in the world. It arises not so much applies to our dealings with the lower from what we see or discover as from orders of creation as well ; but, in the what we do not see.and want to see. It nature of the case, it is intercourse with is born of the idealising instincts of the our fellow-beings that makes up the mind---not the idealising that dresses greater part of human life, and it is here things up in fanciful shapes, but that, that most of our duty lies. We are to while seeing things as they are, conceives think of what mankind may be and of what they might be. should be, and then work for it. We By every true cause that wins, the are to do everything that will help man world of reality is made so much fuller, and nothing that will harm him. It is richer, more perfect. Particularly is this but another more explicit way of putting true (perhaps here alone is it true) of this to say that we are to love all men, that part of the world of reality we save in so far as they dehumanise themcall human society. Over the world out- selves, and even then we are to love side man we have little power. The them so long as there is hope of reclaimbirds of the air, the tribes of animals, the ing them; that we are to do justice to all flowers of the field, fulfil their nature and men, giving them their respective dues ; attain their perfection of form unassisted that we are to cheat no one, to defraud by man. And our power over ourselves no one, to speak falsely to no one; that and the forms of human society is not we should strengthen those who are weak absolutely unlimited; yet it is great. and have pity on those who err; that we Our nature is not altogether set for us, it should remove needless temptations and is in part made by us; and no one can surround men with all good influences; tell beforehand how much may be made that we should try by all the forces of -i.l., what are the real possibilities of love and persuasion to convert those who our nature. Physically, man can perhaps have fallen into vicious and shameful easily be classified ; but the real man is ways; that we should spread light and spiritual---is madeup, I mean, of thoughts, knowledge and hope and cheer, so that wishes, aspirations, struggles, actions; all may attain something like a worthy and it is not easy to draw lines and say human life on the earth. And most of what these may or may not be. Since us have special duties owing to our man attains his end by thought, there peculiar circumstances and situation in would seem to be no necessary limits to life. We are members of families, we his attainments save those of thought, live in communities, we have some special and he would appcar to have in him trade, calling, or profession. For husthe possibility of an infinite progression., bands and wives to be true to one Perhaps, after all, man has no fixed' another and to faithfully educate their nature, in the sense that a bird or a tree children, for citizens to care for the has, but can become anything that is public good as well as their own private good and great-can, give him time interests, for each one to follow faithfully enough. his chosen task in life and do that one Now, this thought of a perfected thing well-this, too, is human duty. humanity--we may not be able to say I have said ethics aims at a perfected just what perfection is, and yet we know humanity. And yet how far away, how the tendency thitherward--is the goal, vague, in a sense how unpractical, such a the ambition, the mainspring of ethics. thought seens ! It is the duties that lie ;

·he says: THE CAUSE OF ETHICS 123 right before us, that arise in the relation arise on the basis of it? What more ships of life with which we are already natural than that this cause of causes familiar, which give an immediate point, should organise itself and take on body a concrete, definite content that no one and form ? Some of us are familiar with can mistake, to ethics. Emerson's words, in which, after remark- Such is my general understanding of ing that Stoicism has now no temples, ethics. It includes a great aim and im- 'It accuses us that it has none; mediate definite duty. Or, to tuin ito that pure ethics is not now formulated round, it means immediate definite duty and concreted into a cultus, a fraternity and a great aim-it includes not only with assemblings and holy days, with the few rules we are all familiar with, but song and book, with brick and stone." an enlarging circle of duty, enlarging as The trouble that I suppose nany our knowledge advances and as our would feel about such a purely ethical opportunities increase; and this enlarge- movement would be that ethics is so ment has no limit till the goal of perfec- mixed up with other things--with relition, the actual universal humanisation gion, for instance, with science, with of man is reached. practical reform--that it is hardly pos- Ethics is thus in its very nature a cause sible, or even necessary, to make it a ---for it represents an uncompleted ideal, separate thing and cultivate it on its own something that in any perſection is still account. Is not religion, it may be said, to be. We may, of course, study the an instrumentality for furthering the ideal of hunian life, and the conditions cause of ethics; and is not science our of its attainment, simply to make things instructor in ethics; and are not the clear to ourselves; we may do so with various reforms the way in which ethics out a thought of what is to be done with -at'least, social ethics --practically works the knowledge, whether by ourselves or in the world? To belong to a Church, anybody else. To the pure student or to engage in the scientific study of ethics, investigwtor, as I have said, the repose, and to identify ourselves with some the illumination of the mind, are their special reform movement or movements own reward. Yet this would be thought --is not this our whole duty, so far as about ethics rather than ethical thought helping the cause of ethics goes? And ---ilt least, it would be ethical thought yet I think one may admit the place and without ethical impulse or disposition, function of all these agencies, and perfor the real ethical, as contrasted with haps himself be connected with them, the purely scientific or speculative, spirit and yet hold that there is a place for a is just in this tendency to action; it pre- distinctive cthical movement. Let mc supposes knowledge, but the character proceed to show this. istic thing about it is the disposition to first, as to religion. I should be the turn knowledge to account, to live by it, last to deny or question that the and to wish to have others come into | Churches are an ethical instrumentality. living possession of it too. However objectionable their beliefs or To live according to the light we have creeds may be (or may not be), no one and try to spread it, and to be receptive' who is not a victim to the anti-religious towards all new light; to plant our feet bias can say that tlicy are not, on the firmly on the ground whereon we stand whole, a moral force in the community, to-day, and yet to turn our faces forward and, I should say, the strongest organised and be ready to strike out on new paths, moral force. A Church, however, stands in the brave hope of leading mankind of course for two things--for morality further on towards its goal..such would and for certain views of God; these two seem to be the true ethical spirit. things, at least. Now, there may be But if ihis is all truq, what more certain advantages in this, but there are natural than that a. movement should also disadvantages.

·124 THE CAUSE OF ETHICS In the first place, it provides only for more than the Trinity or the Inspiration those who hold these two things in of the Scriptures, and there be but one common, or, what is the same, does not thing asked for-namely, to love the provide for those who, while holding to right and to strive to do it. morality, are uncertain about the belief Yet, when the Church does go so far in God. The time was when it might as this, it will take its stand alongside of have been (or at least was) said that only a purely ethical movement. the fool could say in his heart there was And if it does not go so far, but conno God. And perhaps downright atheism tinues to require assent to some of the was always more or less folly. But uncer ancient doctrines, it surely cannot object tuinty about this greatest of all concepto the formation of an association on the tions cannot be called so. No intelligent broader and more inclusive lines. Its man who knows anything of the thinking members, as individuals, might join such world to-day can label those who refrain an association, retaining loyally their from saying that they believe in God as Church connections, and yet in this way fools, much less as persons who prefer striking hands with all persons ready to darkness to light; though pious ignorance further the great cause of righteousness in the pulpit does sometiines talk in this in the community. The only persons way. With the best use of the intelli- who would be necessarily opt from such gence they have, and in all honour and an association would be those who conscience, there are those who can only thought that morality had no meaning or say that they hold to one of the two basis apart from religion, or else who things the Church stands for. What is were so jealous of their religious faith to be done with them or for them ? A that they did not care to make any effort purely ethical movement would seem to for human advancement that was not be a necessity, when we consider their undertaken under its sanction. Alas ! that there should be persons so unen- But, in the second place, there are lightened or so narrow; yet there may those in the Church itself who do not be such. As scientific enlightenment like to be cut off from (or to cut off) and as charity spread, however, their earnest and conscientious brethren number will inevitably diminish, and simply for a belief's sake. The spirit of The spirit of niore and more it will be seen that relitoleration is in the air ; sentintents of gious fellowship may be one thing, and love and brotherhood are stirring human ethical fellowship another, and that men hearts now as never before. There is a may be joined in the latter who are craving for union rather than fivision, divided in the former. Of course, if in for comprehension rather than exclusion the basis of an ethical movement were In orthodoxy there is a steady ininimis- atheism or agnosticism or any new type ing of the essentials of religious faith. of religious belief, this could not be said. Some say only faith in the Bible should But in such a case it would not be a be required; others only faith in Christ, purely ethical association, and would even if one is doubtful about the inspirat differ from a Church only in form, not tion of the Bible ; still others that only in principle. faith in God is necessary, even if one is And besides all this there is a great uncertain who and wiat Christ was. and positive reason for a : movement But the same reasons that urge the giving its whole devotion to the cause of Churches to go thus far urge them to go ethics. This season is that that cause further. For, if the idea is to cease to itself itself may make progress as it never has require assent to ideas that carnest and before. Interests prospert in this world conscientious men can doubt, or at least by separation and concentration. It differ about, then if theism is such a is the familias principle of the division of inatter, it should not be required any labour again. What strides science has case.

·'THE CAUSE OF ETHICS 125 made since it has been free to follow its ties within the larger association for this own instincts apart from the leading-end, each with its special interest and its strings of religious authority, since it has special work; and there might be scriebecome an independent pursuit and has ties with different ideas and methods in its .own special votaries! And how in detail, with different sorts of practical each branch of science is specialisation programme-just as there are varying the order of the day! Why should not schools of religious thought in any broad the same be true of ethics? why would, and comprehensive Church-all harmonnot the world be richer to hake a special, ising fundamentally and recognising the distinctive ethical movement? To make same great rules of life, and yet interrighteousness prevail in the earth, to preting them differently and working in make goodness supreme in every heart, friendly rivalry with one another. llow to keep the springs fresh of unfailing could anything but good come from all effort for the advancement of man, to this specialisation and diversity of task ? work for the good we know and to open What an ethical advance inight be made and explore wider horizons--why is it in society if a movement of this descripnot well to have a movenient in a coni tion were in existence! munity that aims at this and at this alone, But if there is a place for an ethical that does not concern itself with religious association independent of religious questions, that does not attempt to solve organisations, there is also place for such the problem of man's origin and destiny, an association independent of societies bfit only to make him, while he lives, with purely scientific aims. I use science live nobly, purely, and to great ends? now broadly, as covering ethical as well If the Churches are a moral force, as physical science, and I have in mind although they aim at other things as well, particularly the purely scientific spirit why should not another form of organi- (whether applied to ethics or elsewhere). sation that gives its whole devotion to The aim of science, as I understand it, this be 2.moral force with addetl power is to find the truth, and it has nothing in proportion to its concentration? How necessarily to do with the propagation of can a body of then, it might be asked, the truth. The man who is eager to whose thoughts go so largely to questions spread scientific knowledge, praiseworthy relating to God and the hereafter, to the as this is, is not a whit more scientific on inission of Jesus, to the authority of the this account, Professor Huxley is an Bible, to creeds and the revision of them, excellent instance of a man who was at to forms of Church government, to details once a scientific authority and a boru of ritual---how can they give themselves preacher ; but the two things are disup so to human service or inspire others tinct, and the fact that he was so carnest to do so, as another body whose very to spread his light and was such a master aim, whose single mission, should be of of popular exposition does not in the this description? And this is said with- slightest increase his scientific standing. out in the slightest implying that these Now I cheerfully grant that science is religious questions have not their places. your guide in ethics-and the scientific Moreover, thics itself necds to be sul thinkers, the Platos, the Aristotles, the divided; there are various departments Kants, the Spencers, the Sidgwicks, are of it; the Home, the school, business and our masters in this departmeni. Ethics industry, the community or nation, the apart from science in this sense) is mere world -- there are apprppriate duties impulse, or emotion, or habit; it has not under each of these heads; and these , the dignity of thought. And yet science duties should be specially studied, and is as incomplete on the one side as mere the knowledge, love, and practice of impulsive ethics is on the other. Seience them specially propagated in the coni- is truth simply, but real ethics is life; munity. There should be rious spcie- and there is needed an instrumentality ·126 THE CAUSE OF ETHICS one of art; are to turn truth into life, something, then, he covets compared with 'peace and guided by science, and yet that is more charity”-and he added, depend upon than science, something rooted in that it, if such a Church existed, no desire for perfection of which I have would seek to disestablish it. I need spoken, in those elemental moral impulses, not point out that no one could have which are not light indeed, but are energy written in'this way who did not have and moving force. There is a place, profound sympathy with the ideal he then, for something more than scientific portrayed. There is plainly nothing in societies, even than scientific societies the most avere scientific training that for the study of ethics; there is a place keeps one from appreciating all that can for societies aiming to teach, to move be done for the culture of the moral life. and inspire. In the nature of the case, Equally is there a place for an ethical these societies will not be afraid of appeal- movement alongside of, and yet distinct ing to feeling, to sentiment, for these are from, the reform movements of the day. the means by which action is stirred and Speaking in general, I think conscience life is moulded; they will not be afraid is on the side of reform. Must of the of music and poe ry and all the resources reforms of our time are ethical in origin, they will not be ashamed of or at least have an ethical impulse among' enthusiasm. All those things that would their moving forces. Mugici... riform, be out of place in a purely scientiſic for instance, reform of the tariff, retirm association the very means and of the system of taxation-thise are methods by which they will do their asked for because men believe trat work. But though something apart from justice and the common welfare would be scientific associations, it need not be served by them. The larger schemes of apart from scientific men, any more than, 'reform of society as a whole have, I being distinct from religious associations, believe, more of truth than of error in it need be without the co-operation of them. The desire for a more fraternal religious men ; rather should I say that spirit ir: society, and in the industrial an ethical movement was in a position department of society as truly as in any of peril if it did not enlist in its work other, and for competfcicn and rivalry persons of scientific habits and training, only so far as they are congpatible with for they are the persons to sober, to the fraternal spirit--this is but an exprestemper, to keep rational our enthusiasm; sion of the ethical impulse. If we take and as for being themselves benefited stand on ethics, we are bound, as by connection with a genuine ethical Emerson said of the reforms of his day, movement, they, I believe, would be the to be for reform. All the same, I believe first to admit. No less a man of science there is a special separate place for an than Professor Huxley suggested, in ethical society. For, in the first place, discussing the disestablishment of the we are to conserve and hand on Church of England, a Church "in which, posterity the googl that already is; and week by week, services should be devoted, ihat, in the nature of the case, is another not to the iteration of abstract proposio work than that which the reformer tions in theology, but to the setting undertakes, though no sane and Jargebefore men's minds of an ideal of truly minded reformer would denyits necessity, just and pure living; a place in whici The commonly recognised :virtues are those who are weary of the burden of none too prevalent in society, and some daily cares should find a moment's rest of them are a continual effort and struggle in the contemplation of the higher life, for many people. The barbaric and which is possible for all, though attained bestial are always more or mess belowhe þy so few; a place in which the man of fair spurface of civilised society, and strife and business should have time to sometimin e are surprised to have think how small, after all, are the rewards i revealed throws how incomplete and our lo ·*THE CAUSE OF ETHICS 127 superficial a thing our civilisation is. either morals or nanners; and I cannot There are men ready to commit murder, see how making comfort and wealth rape, arson, robbery, in all our large general in the community, desirable as communities, and in many smaller ones this would be, would of itself make much as well. There is a great work to do in difference in this respect; I cannot see simply completing and strengthening the how the justest conditions are of thempresent order of society-I mean the selves bound to change the characters of order which is organised to protect the. men. And all this is equivalent to saying, lives and persons and property of men not that reform work is not necessary, from violence. This is homely work; it not that everything under heaven that does not attract the imagination; but it, can be done to increase the chances and too, was reform work once on a time, opportunities of men, of all men, should wlien society was emerging from its early not be done, but that other work is also stages of anarchy, and it is work that necessary--that, as the excellent old must be done and must be ever better Statement of Principles of the Philadeldone, if oten what civilisation and culture phia Ethical Society put it, efforts for we have are to be transmitted and the personal reformi niust go hand in hand mere possibilities secured of greater with efforts for social reform. This is a advancor the future. Ethics is thus field that forever needs to be cultivated, larer than reform, for it includes pre- as nothing, absolutely nothing, can take servirings the foundations of society as well the place of the energising of the private at rearing a nobler superstructure. will, the striving of the individual man Then there is the private and personal to be true to his better self. life of men which reforms do not attempt And there is still another way in which to deal with-at least the social reforms reform movements do not take up the which I now have particularly in mind. whole field of ethics, Each of them is Of course, temperance reform and work partial, each consists of a remedy for one for "social purity," so-called, toi ch parts abuse or system of abuses. Each means of personal morality, but even they, so an advance in one direction, and, while far as they are called reform movements, this is necessary and perhaps the only aim more, as I understand, at changing way to secure the progress necded, there conditions and laws, than habits and is needed to satisfy the mind and soul of sharacter directly. And yet how much man a vision of the whole of which these men need reinforcement in their pitvate arc fragments, a sense of the principle consciences and personal inward efforts, of which these are but varied applicanot only as regards temperance and tions, and such a sense as will give rise purity, but as regards all the virtues of to new applications of the principle as private and domestic life! How much time and occasion demand. From the unhappiness is caused in the world, not ethical point of view, it must be rememby any social wrong, but by the meanness bered, we want not tax reform merely, and INtleness of men, by ill temper, by or tariff reform, or municipal reform, but lack of consideration, by rough-shod a perfect society, a state of things in ways, by forgetfulness and most prosaic which all men have the opportunity to selfishness! It is much to be feared realise the fulness of their natures and that, with a reform of society, something in which they are doing so, and hence will be found to be lacking so long as all reforms that are necessary or are steps people do not learn to curb their tongues to that end. How narrow relormers and control their passions of every kind. , sometimes are, and how they are apt to Caffort and pealih do not always bring light one another! The conservative upright character after them; I fear waxes metry over this, but lovers' of those who have these things tow a humanity grieve. How rarely reformers not much superior to ofl people in take a comprehensive view of society, so ·HASO FULLIC LIBIA 128 THE CAUSE OF ETHICS that they see a place and meaning for all I have, in all this, it is true, sketched needed reforms others as well as those an idea rather than a reality, and yet it to which they are specially devoted ! is in the light of an idea of this son that Possibly narrowness of vision is neces I interprdt what is commonly called the sary to intensity, but I am loth to believe thical Movement. Almost all realities it; I am well aware that a limited range are poor copies of the ideas they gre of action is necessary to effective work, meant to serve, and yet it is, I take it; but I do not see why with this may not some such idea ase I have tried to set go a large range of thought; why one fortií that inspires us who are working cannot do his own task just as well, in this movement. I do not care.co though he is conscious that it is part of glorify the movement, but I am always a larger task. What the world most ready to glorify the cause for which it needs, I believe, is not large thought stands. Our achievements are slight; alone nor earnest action alone, but but that which wins us and holds us to large thought conibined with carnest our work is the vast unachieved. When action, and I believe that for this a perfect humanity arrives, vuixwork will union both the thought will be clearer be done; when the city of God appears and saner and the action will be more on earth, we can lay down our arms. . effective. Separation in work, com But till then, the fight, the trgle-, munion in thought--such, I suspect, is and (for the present) the victory far ff! the true though, I admit, not easily In forin, of course, ours is new attainable ideal. movement, and there is a disadvantage And so, turn it on whatever side we in anything new. Yet there is also an will, there seems to be a distinct place advantage--namely, that we for an ethical association. Other types freer to follow the inspiration of our own of organisation have their place, but this hearts, and to consult not so much has its place, and, if they did their work precedents and traditions as the living perfectly, this would no less be necessary. ideal in pur own minds. As an organic A society is wanted in the community sation, we have no past behind us, and where all good men (so disposed, that therein some may holds weak; but is), whatever their religious creeds, may time has his earlier and his later births, work together, and feel their comradeship and both may be beautiful i'the new day with one another. This want no Church has a freshness all its own—and there-is, supplies (nor can supply, so long as it indeed, a kind of charm for generous has articles of religious faith). A place spirits in embarking on an untried and is wanted, too, which shall be a centre uncertain enterprise. We ask not to be for the propaganda of the tr&hs of assured of victory; we only ask for a ethical science, and this place no purely chance to deserve it. We give what we scientific association can fill. And a have, and we are ready to give all we place is wanted which shall not so much have, Conscious that it is a great end we stand for one reform as give an impulse strive for--that we are responding to a to all reform; which shall hold up the deep central need of the time and of principle of reform, and serve as a bond' long ages to come. of union for reformers place, too, " And oh, if nature sinks, as oit, she may, which shall conserve as well as reforme, 'Neath long-lived pressure of (1. scure aistress, and shall strive to touch and inspire the Still to be strenuous for the Brig Mt reward, Still in the soul to admit of no decay, individual heart; and this want is not Brook no continuance of weak-mindedness, met by any existing reform organisation. Great is the glory, for the strifiis hard.” are in it 52 Estd. 1902. KIJU, HOW RATES

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