Transcriber's note:

 Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e. G. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred in the original book. For its Index, a page number has been placed only at the start of that section. 

THE MORAL ECONOMY

by

RALPH BARTON PERRY

Assistant Professor of Philosophy in Harvard University

Author of

 The Free Man and the Soldier The Moral Economy The Approach to Philosophy

Charles Scribner's SonsNew York -- Chicago -- Boston -- AtlantaSan Francisco -- Dallas

Copyright, 1909, byCharles Scribner's SonsAll rights reserved. No part of this bookmay be reproduced in any form withoutthe permission of Charles Scribner's Sons

DEDICATED TO N. 

MARCH 30, 1909

 "Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be; why then should we desire to be deceived?"

 BISHOP BUTLER. 

{vii}

PREFACE

This little book is the preliminary sketch of a system of ethics. Itsform differs from that of most contemporary books on the subjectbecause of the omission of the traditional controversies. I haveattempted to study morality directly, to derive its conceptions andlaws from an analysis of life. I have made this attempt because, inthe first place, I believe that theoretical ethics is seriouslyembarrassed by its present emphasis on the history and criticism ofdoctrines; by its failure to resort to experience, where without moreado it may solve its problems on their merits. But, in the secondplace, I hope that by appealing to experience and neglecting scholastictechnicalities, I may connect ethical theory with every-day reflectionon practical matters. Morality is, without doubt, the most human andurgent of all topics of study; and I should like, if possible, to makeit appear so. 

The references which I have embodied in the notes are intended to servethe English reader as an introduction to accessible and untechnicalliterature on the subjects treated in the several chapters. Thesechapters coincide with the main divisions of ethical inquiry: Goodness, Duty, Virtue, Progress, Culture, and Religion. And although so brief atreatment of so large a programme is impossible without sacrifice ofthoroughness, it does provide both a general survey of the field, and avaried application of certain fundamental ideas. 

RALPH BARTON PERRY. CAMBRIDGE, 1909. 

{ix}

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I PAGEMORALITY AS THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

I. THE GENERAL CLAIMS OF MORALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

 The practical necessity of morality, 1. The interplay of dogmatism and scepticism, 4. The fundamental character of morality, 7. 

II. GOODNESS IN GENERAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

 The dependence of value on life, 9. Definition of the simpler terms of value. Goodness: the fulfilment of interest, 11. "Good" and "good for, " 12. 

III. MORAL GOODNESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

 The moral organization of life, 13. Definition of the terms of moral value. Moral goodness: the fulfilment of an economy of interests, 15. Moral goodness and pleasure, 16. Rightness or virtue, 18. Morality and life, 19. 

IV. MORALITY AND NATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

 The alleged artificiality of morality, 20. Morality and the struggle for existence, 21. Morality and adaptation, 22. Morality is natural if life is, 24. 

V. MORALITY AND CONFLICT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

 Morality and competitive struggle. Morality the condition of strength, 24. The value of conflict, 23. The elimination of conflict, 26. Morality and the love of life, 27. 

VI. THE DIGNITY AND LUSTRE OF MORALITY . . . . . . . . . . . 28

 The effect of war on sentiment and the imagination, 28. Real power is constructive, not destructive or repressive, 29. Moral heroism, 31. The saving or provident character of morality, 32. Morality and the consummation of life, 33. 

CHAPTER II

THE LOGIC OF THE MORAL APPEAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

I. THE STAND-POINT OF RATIONALISM AND INDIVIDUALISM . . . . 34

 Modern individualism, 34. Distinguished from scepticism, 36. The individual as the organ of knowledge, 37. Moral individualism as a protest against convention, 39. Duty as the rational ground of action, 40. Reasonableness a condition of the consciousness of duty, 41. 

II. THE LOGIC OF PRUDENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

 Prudence as elementary, 43. Interest, action, and goodness, 43. The alleged relativity of goodness, 43. The conflict of interests solved by conciliation, 48. The limits of prudence, 49. 

III. THE LOGIC OF PREFERENCE AND PURPOSE . . . . . . . . . . 50

 The adoption of new interests and the problem of preference, 50. A hypothetical solution of the problem, 51. Solution in the concrete case through the organization of a purpose, 53. The principle of the objective validity of interests, 54. The principle of the quantitative basis of preference, 55. 

IV. THE LOGIC OF IMPARTIALITY AND JUSTICE . . . . . . . . . 57

 The private interest, 57. The personal factor negligible in counting interests, 58. The refutation of egoism. The first proposition of egoism, 59. The second proposition of egoism, 61. Impartiality as a part of justice, 63. Justice as imputing finality to the individual, 64. The equality of rational beings as organs of truth, 64. Summary of justice, 66. 

V. THE LOGIC OF GOOD-WILL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

 All interests are entitled to consideration, 67. Goodwill and the growth of new interests, 67. 

VI. DUTY AND THE IMAGINATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

 The logical imagination, 69. Rationalism and incentive to action, 70. Rationalism and faith, 71. 

CHAPTER III

THE ORDER OF VIRTUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

I. THE VIRTUES AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION . . . . . . . . . . 72

 Summary of the content and logic of moral value, 72. Virtues as verified rules of life, 73. The material and formal aspects of morality, 74. Materialism and formalism due to exaggeration, 75. The general importance of the conflict between the material and formal motives, 76. Duty identified with the formal motive, 76. Formalism less severely condemned, 77. The five economies of interest, 77. Summary of virtues and vices, 79. Table, 81. 

II. THE ECONOMY OF THE SIMPLE INTEREST . . . . . . . . . . . 82

 The simple interest not a moral economy, 82. Satisfaction the root-value, and intelligence the elementary virtue, 82. Incapacity, 83. Overindulgence the first form of materialism, 84. It is due to lack of foresight, 85. Or to the complexity of interests, 86. Overindulgence as the original sin, 86. 

III. THE RECIPROCITY OF INTERESTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

 Prudence as a principle of organization, 87. Moderation and thrift, 87. Honesty, veracity, and tact of the prudential form, 88. The inherent value of the prudential economy. Individual and social health, 88. Temperance and reason, 90. Prudential formalism, or asceticism, 92. Asceticism illustrated by the Cynics, 92. Prudential materialism or sordidness, 94. Aimlessness or idleness, 94. 

IV. THE INCORPORATION OF INTERESTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

 Purpose as a principle of organization. Its intellectual character, 95. The virtues subsidiary to purpose, 95. Truthfulness in the purposive economy, 96. The value of achievement, 97. The formalistic error of sentimentalism, 98. Deferred living, 98. Nationalism, 99. Egoism and bigotry as types of materialism. The pride of opinion, 100. Egoism and bigotry involve injustice, 103. The meaning of injustice, 103. 

V. THE FRATERNITY OF INTERESTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

 Justice as a principle of organization, 105. Justice conditions rational intercourse, 105. Discussion, freedom, and tolerance, 106. Anarchism and scepticism, 107. _Laissez-faire_, 108. Justice and materialism. Worldliness, 110. Ancient worldliness due to lack of pity, 110. Modern worldliness due to lack of imagination, 111. 

VI. THE UNIVERSAL SYSTEM OF INTERESTS . . . . . . . . . . . 112

 The economy of good-will, 112. Good-will as the condition of real happiness. Paganism and Christianity, 113. Merely formal good-will is mysticism, 116. Mysticism perverts life by denying this world, 118. Quietism, 119. Mystical perversion of moral truth, 120. 

VII. SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

 The interworking of the formal and the material principles, 121. Importance of the formal principle. Manners and worship, 121. 

CHAPTER IV

THE MORAL TEST OF PROGRESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

I. THE GENERAL THEORY OF PROGRESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

 The philosophy of history, 123. The meaning of progress, 125. Progress and the Quantitative basis of preference, 127. The method of superimposition as a test of progress, 127. 

CONTENTS

II. THE EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL PRINCIPLES OF PROGRESS . . . . 130

 The external principle: the pressure of an unfavorable environment, 130. The external and the internal principle, 131. The internally progressive type of society. The importance of discussion, 132. Rationality the internal principle of progress, 134. The positive motive: constructive reform, 134. Disinterested reflection and the man of affairs, 136. Success depends on moral capacity, 137. The negative motive: revolution, 139. Christianity as a social revolution, 140. The French Revolution, 141. Dependence of progress on the historical connectedness of human life, 143. 

III. CONSERVATISM AND RADICALISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

 Conservatism values the existing order, 144. Progress requires the maintenance and use of order, 145. The real radical not the sceptic but the rationalist, 145. The justification of the radical, 146. 

IV. PROGRESS IN THE INSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT . . . . . . . 147

 Institutions are permanent moral necessities, 147. Government as the interest both of the weak and of the strong, 148. The moral necessity of government, 150. The variable and progressive factor in government, 151. The principle of rationality in government, 152. The benefits and cost of government in the ancient military monarchy, 152. Solidarity of interest in the Greek and Roman oligarchies, 154. Advance in liberality in Athenian institutions, 156. The development of modern institutions, 157. The modern idea of democracy, 158. Summary of the modern state. It is territorial and impersonal, 160. The representative method, 160. Emphasis on internal policy and international peace, 162. 

V. THE QUALITY OF CONTEMPORARY LIBERALISM . . . . . . . . . 163

 Democracy based not on pity but on enlightenment, 163. The respect for the opinion of those most interested, 164. The spirit of modern justice, 165. Sensitiveness to life, 166. The allowance for growth, 167. The individual and the crowd, 168. Hopefulness and the bias of maturity, 169. The work done and the work to do, 170. 

CHAPTER V

THE MORAL CRITICISM OF FINE ART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

I. THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE MORAL CRITICISM OF ART . . . . . 171

 The higher activities of civilization, 171. The attempt to apply aesthetic standards to life, 172. The claim of art to exemption from moral criticism is based on misapprehension. Morality not a special interest, but the fundamental interest, 174. Morality does not substitute its canons for those of art, 175. 

II. DEFINITION OF ART AND THE ESTHETIC INTEREST . . . . . . 176

 Art as the adaptation of the environment to interest, 176. Industrial art and fine art, 177. The aesthetic interest: the interest in apprehension, 179. The interest in sensation and perception, 181. The emotional interest, 182. Instinct and emotion in the aesthetic experience. Poetry and music, 183. The interest in discernment, 185. The representative element in art exemplified in Greek sculpture, 185. And in Italian painting of the Renaissance, 187. Levels and blendings of the aesthetic interest, 189. The moral criticism of the aesthetic interest, 190. 

III. THE SELF-SUFFICIENCY OF THE AESTHETIC INTEREST . . . . 192

 The aesthetic interest is capable of continuous development, 192. And is resourceful, 192. But tends on that account to be narrow and quiescent, 192. 

IV. THE PERVASIVENESS OF THE ESTHETIC INTEREST . . . . . . . 194

 The aesthetic interest may supply interest where there is none, or enhance other interests, 194. But it must not be allowed to replace other interests, 195. 

V. THE VICARIOUS FUNCTION OF THE AESTHETIC INTEREST . . . . 197

 Other interests may be represented by the aesthetic interest, 197. The danger of confusing vicarious fulfilment with real fulfilment, 198. And of being aesthetically satisfied with failure, 199. 

VI. ART AS A MEANS OF STIMULATING ACTION . . . . . . . . . . 201

 Art is a source of motor excitation, 201. But such excitation is morally indeterminate, 201. Such influences must be selected with reference to their effect on moral purpose, 202. 

VII. ART AS A MEANS OF FIXING IDEAS . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

 The higher practical ideas have no other concrete embodiment than art, 203. Art both fixes ideas and arouses sentiment in their behalf, 204. But if art is to serve this end it must be true, 205. Untruth in art, 206. Universality and particularity in art, 207. Art may invest ideas with a fictitious value, 208. 

VIII. THE LIBERALITY OF THE AESTHETIC INTEREST . . . . . . . 209

 Art is unworldly, 209. The aesthetic intercourse promotes social intercourse on a high plane, 210. 

IX. CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

 When subjected to moral control, art may make the environment harmonious with morality, 212. 

CHAPTER VI

THE MORAL JUSTIFICATION OF RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

I. THE DEFINITION OF RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

 The sound practical motive in religion, 214. Religion as belief, 216. Summary definition of religion, 218. 

II. THE TESTS OF RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

 The measure of religion, extensive and intensive, 218. The test of truth the fundamental test, 220. The therapeutic test, and its confusion of the issue, 222. The two forms of the truth test, cosmological and ethical, 224. The working of these critical principles, 226. Cosmology and ethics are independent of religion, 228. The optimistic bias, 231. Summary of religious development, 231. 

III. SUPERSTITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

 The prudential character of superstition, 232. The ethical idea in primitive religion, 233. The cosmological idea, 234. The method of primitive religion, 235. Superstition in Christianity, 235. The ethical and cosmological correction of superstition, 236. 

IV. TUTELARY RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

 The deity identified with the purpose of the worshipper, 237. The national religion of the Assyrians and Egyptians, 238. The correction of tutelary religion, 239. 

V. PHILOSOPHICAL RELIGION. METAPHYSICAL IDEALISM . . . . . 241

 Religion formally enlightened, 241. Metaphysical and moral idealism, 242. The inherent difficulty in metaphysical idealism, 242. The swing from formalism to materialism. Pessimism, other-worldliness, mysticism, panlogism and aesthetic idealism, 243. Aesthetic idealism falsifies experience and discredits moral distinctions, 246. 

VI. MORAL IDEALISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

 Moral idealism reflects moral judgment, 248. Evil real but not deliberately perpetrated. The knowledge of evil, 249. The ground of moral idealism, 252. 

VII. THE GENERIC VALUE OF RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

 Religion morally inevitable, 252. The value of the religious generalization of life, 253. The immediate reward of service, 254. Religion and moral enthusiasm, 254. Culture and religion, 255. 

NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

{1}

THE MORAL ECONOMY

CHAPTER I

MORALITY AS THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE

In the words with which this book is inscribed, Bishop Butler conveyswith directness and gravity the conviction that morality is neither amystery nor a convention, but simply an observance of the laws ofprovident living. "Things and actions are what they are, and theconsequences of them will be what they will be: why then should wedesire to be deceived?" [1] This appeal, commonplace enough, butconfident and true, sounds the note with which through all that followsI shall hope to keep in unison. 

It is because he professes to believe that morality is an imposturethat must be smuggled into society behind the back of reason, thatNietsche makes a merit of its dulness. "It is desirable, " he says, "that as few people as possible should reflect upon morals, andconsequently it is very desirable that morals should not some daybecome interesting!" [2] He confesses that he sees no occasion foralarm! But the dulness of {2} morality testifies only to itshomeliness and antiquity. For to be moral is simply to be intelligent, to be right-minded and open-minded in the unavoidable business ofliving. Morality is a collection of formulas and models based solidlyon experience of acts and their consequences; it offers the mostcompetent advice as to how to proceed with an enterprise, whether largeor small. It is the theory and technique which underlies the art ofconduct; that "master-workman, " by whom kings reign and princes decreejustice; possessed by the Lord in the beginning of his way, and whom tohate is to love death. 

It is worth while to remark and proclaim such a conviction as this onlybecause mankind has so treacherous a memory, and so fatuous a habit ofdisowning its most precious and dearly won possessions. Cardinaltruths are periodically overlaid with sophistication, blended withtentative opinion, and identified with the instruments of the day. There results a confusion of mind that fails to distinguish the essencefrom the accident, and aims to destroy where there is need to rectify. Because government is clumsy and costly, it is proposed to abolishgovernment; because education is artificial and constraining, societyis exhorted to return to the easy course of nature; metaphysics must beswept away, because the {3} metaphysics of some time or school hasoutlived its usefulness; and morality, because it is hard or tiresome, must give way to the freedom and romance of no morality. Such blindand irresponsible agitation is a perpetual menace to the balance ofimpressionable and unsteady minds, if not indeed to the work ofcivilization. 

Now it is safe to say that these venerable institutions have arisen inanswer to fixed needs; needs implied in life as a general and constantsituation. There is no other way of accounting for them. They havebeen tolerated only because they yield a steady return. Their losswould be a catastrophe which mankind, obedient to the necessities oflife, would fall at once to repairing. Institutions are the very bodyof civilization; and while they may grow and change without limit, ifthey be abruptly destroyed civilization must suffer paralysis in somevital part. At once the most direct and striking proof of this lies inthe fact that the revolutionist, whether he be propagandist or man ofaction, invariably commits himself, and ends by executing the veryfunction he denied. At the moment when he comes to close quarters, andactually engages the object of his attack, he is swept into somecurrent of endeavor that has from the most ancient times been pressingsteadily toward the solution of a problem that lies in the centre of{4} the path of life. He straightway commences himself to govern, educate, speculate, or moralize. And the more patiently he labors, thegreater his respect for the vested wisdom of his time. Whereas hefirst sought utterly to demolish, he is now content to make his littledifference and hand on the work. In the end every purely destructiveprogramme is inevitably futile, because it goes against the grain. Forall conduct is constructive in motive, and forward in direction. Buthow wasteful is the momentary fury--wasteful of high passion anddistinguished capacity, and how mystifying to the lay intelligence!

It may, of course, be said that there is method in this madness; sinceman's twofold blindness, his dogmatism and his scepticism, hisimmobility and his wantonness, tend in the long run to neutralize oneanother. But with the perspective required for such consolation, neither the agencies of destruction nor those of obstruction preservethe same heroic proportions which they are wont to assume in their day. They seem to be engaged in a sort of by-play, and wear an unmistakableaspect of childishness. Lo! Mankind has been a long time on his way, and endures hardily the prospect of endless leagues to go. He is thePatient Plodder, symbol of mature intelligence. And he has in hiscompany two small boys who exhibit an incorrigible {5} naughtiness. The one of these is called Destruction; his other names being Cynic, Sceptic, and Nihilist. He it is that mocks and cries, "Go up, thoubald head! go up, thou bald head!" Mankind does not curse him in thename of the Lord, but invites him to play with another small boy, namedObstruction, and whose other names are Vested Interest, Reactionary, and Pedant. This one, whenever Mankind will lead him, digs in hisheels or lies down in his tracks; until, pricked and goaded by hisplayfellow, he at length gets up and scrambles after. And so these twokeep ever by the side or at the heels of Mankind, whom they neitherlead nor deflect from his course. 

Paradox serves to dislodge prejudice; and blasphemy may rudely buteffectually bring to their senses those who have mistaken the hardnessof their hearts for loyalty, and their easy default for success. Butpractical wisdom belongs only to those who proceed unwaveringly out ofthe past and into the future, correcting mistakes when they may, conserving the good already won, and making new conquests. 

It may be remarked, and should be readily granted, that patientplodding is less _piquant_ than the by-play of inertia and revolt. Thespirit of Nietsche is doubtless even now yawning mightily at suchtedious moralizing; fresh proof of the "dull, gloomy seriousness, " thehopeless {6} stupidity of our sublunary virtue. I believe thatNietsche has frankly confessed the real grievance of his class ofmischief makers. They are impatient and easily bored; while thebusiness of establishing a healthful and vigorous society iscomplicated, tortuous, and slow. Their talent for letters, their loveof vivid pictures, sharp contrasts, and concise dramatic situations, cannot adapt itself to the real bulk and complexity of life. Civilization is too promiscuous, too prolonged and monotonous, forthese rare spirits. And they have their sure reward; for they ease thetension of effort, supplying a recreative release from its pangs underthe flattering guise of higher truth. All the impatience andplayfulness in the world conspires with them. But as one of the demosof moral dullards, I get no little comfort from applying to Nietscheand Ibsen, and to certain prophet litterateurs of England, Burke'sreproof of Lord Bolingbroke. 

When men find that something can be said in favor of what, on the veryproposal, they have thought utterly indefensible, they grow doubtful oftheir own reason; they are thrown into a sort of pleasing surprise;they run along with the speaker, charmed and captivated to find such aplentiful harvest of reasoning, where all seemed barren andunpromising. . . . There is a sort of gloss upon ingenious falsehoodsthat dazzles the imagination, but which neither belongs to, nor becomesthe sober aspect of truth. . . . In such cases, the writer has acertain fire and {7} alacrity inspired into him by a consciousness, that let it fare how it will with the subject, his ingenuity will besure of applause. [3]

It is safe to accept morality as one accepts agriculture, navigation, constitutional government, or any other tried solution of anunavoidable problem. There is false opinion here as elsewhere, andhollow convention is not infrequently paraded as duty and wisdom; butthe nucleus of morality is verified truth, the precipitate of mankind'sprolonged experiment in living. 

I do not propose, however, to be satisfied with so modest a claim. Itmight still be contended that morality is doubtless true so far as itgoes, or well enough for those who care for it; but that it willscarcely concern other than the more coarse-grained and lessadventurous minds. It is customary to associate high wisdom with thepursuit of some special interest, for its own sake, and under no widerlaw than a sort of professional etiquette or code of honor. Businessis business, art is art, truth is truth, and for one who cares to "goin for it, " virtue is for virtue's sake. Those who ride hobbies do notobject to the moralist, provided he does not intrude. But if heapplies his rules to other than his own personal or domestic affairs, he is berated as an impertinent busybody who is talking of things hedoes not understand. Now I venture to assert that the {8} moralist inthe nature of the case can never be impertinent, though he may beimpolite or even insulting. He can never be impertinent because, contrary to the formula of the day, there is no such thing as virtuefor virtue's sake. Morality is the one interest that virtuallyrepresents all interests. It is the interest of every man in thegeneral tests of success and failure, and in the maintenance of thefield or medium of all interests. There is no enterprise which, ifconducted efficiently, is not a verification of moral rules; there isno enterprise which does not receive and transmit the now of life thatcirculates through the moral system at large. To be righteouslyindignant is to protest passionately in behalf of the whole good, andagainst the clumsy and inadvertent evil. To this morality owes itsuniversal support, its invincible finality. It need never beapologetic, because it holds no brief; it advocates no measure exceptthe carrying through to the end of what is virtually undertaken by allparties to the adventure of life. 

It follows that no man can exempt himself from moral liability. He isirrevocably committed to life, and can neglect the laws of life only athis absolute or ultimate peril. What does it profit a man to gain abit here and a bit there, if he is foreordained to loss on the whole?If he squanders his moral patrimony he has no means of {9} recoupinghis fortunes; he has wasted his supporting vitality and forfeited hisgeneral livelihood. 

And now if this be true it is of more than passing or sentimentalimportance. It needs to be vividly realized if morality is to make itssaving appeal. Morality is only discredited through being sanctioned;its proper merits are more eloquent than its friends and borrowedauspices. If it can be simply proclaimed as it is, it cannot bedenied. This is one of the things which I undertake to do. But tounderstand what morality really is, to recognize its claims, is tounderstand also its application, its critical pertinence to art andreligion, to all the great and permanent undertakings of men. Suchapplication I shall in the later chapters undertake to suggest, partlyas an amplification of the meaning of morality, and partly as aprogramme of further reflection looking toward a moral philosophy ofhistory. I can do no more in the present chapter than broadly presentthe structure of morality, leaving the logic of its appeal and its moreimportant applications for the chapters which follow. 

II

The moral affair of men, a prolonged and complicated historicalenterprise, is thrown into historical relief upon the background of amechanical cosmos. Nature, as interpreted by the {10} inorganicsciences, presents a spectacle of impassivity. It moves, transforms, and radiates, on every scale and in all its gigantic range of temporaland spatial distance, utterly without loss or gain of value. Onecannot rightly attribute to such a world even the property of neglector brutality. Its indifference is absolute. 

Such a world is devoid of value because of the elimination of the biasof life. Where no interest is at stake, changes can make no practicaldifference; where no claims are made, there can be neither fortune norcalamity, neither comedy nor tragedy. There is no object of applauseor resentment, if there be nothing in whose behalf such judgments maybe urged. 

But with the introduction of life, even the least particle of it, therudest bit of protoplasm that ever made the venture, nature becomes anew system with a new centre. The organism inherits the earth; themechanisms of nature become its environment, its resources in thestruggle to keep for a time body and soul together. The mark of lifeis partiality for itself. If anything is to become an object ofsolicitude, it must first announce itself through acting in its ownbehalf. With life thus instituted there begins the long struggle ofinterest against inertia and indifference, that war of whichcivilization itself is only the latest and most triumphant phase. 

{11}

Nature being thus enlivened, the simpler terms of value now find ameaning. A living thing must suffer calamities or achieve successes;and since its fortunes are _good_ or _bad_ in the most elementary sensethat can be attached to these conceptions, it is worth our while toconsider the matter with some care. An _interest_, or unit of life, isessentially an organization which consistently acts for its ownpreservation. It deals with its environment in such wise as to keepitself intact and bring itself to maturity; appropriating what itneeds, and avoiding or destroying what threatens it with injury. Theinterest so functions as to supply itself with the means whereby it maycontinue to exist and function. This is the principle of action whichmay be generalized from its behavior, and through which it may bedistinguished within the context of nature. Now the term _interest_being construed in this sense, we may describe goodness as _fulfilmentof interest_. The description will perhaps refer more clearly to humanlife, if for the term _interest_ we substitute the term _desire_. Goodness would then consist in the _satisfaction of desire_. In otherwords, things are good because desired, not desired because good. Tosay that one desires things because one needs them, or likes them, oradmires them, is redundant; in the end one simply desires certainthings, that is, one {12} possesses an interest or desire which theyfulfil. There are as many varieties of goodness as there are varietiesof interest; and to the variety of interest there is no end. 

Strictly speaking, goodness belongs to an interest's actual state offulfilment. This will consist in an activity, exercised by theinterest, but employing the environment. With a slight shift ofemphasis, goodness in this absolute sense will attach either tointerest in so far as nourished by objects, as in the case of hungerappeased, or to objects in so far as assimilated to interest, as in thecase of food consumed. It follows that goodness in a relative sense, in the sense of "good for, " will attach to whatever _conduces_ to goodin the absolute sense; that is, actions and objects, such asagriculture and bread, that lead directly or indirectly to thefulfilment of interest. But "good" and "good for, " like theiropposites "bad" and "bad for, " are never sharply distinguishable, because the imagination anticipates the fortunes of interests, andtransforms even remote contingencies into actual victory or defeat. 

Through their organization into life, the mechanisms of nature thustake on the generic quality of good and evil. They either serveinterests or oppose them; and must be employed and assimilated, oravoided and rejected {13} accordingly. Events which once indifferentlyhappened are now objects of hope and fear, or integral parts of successand failure. 

III

But that organization of life which denotes the presence of moralityhas not yet been defined. The isolated interest extricates itself frommechanism; and, struggling to maintain itself, does, it is true, dividethe world into good and bad, according to its uses. But the moraldrama opens only when interest meets interest; when the path of oneunit of life is crossed by that of another. Every interest iscompelled to recognize other interests, on the one hand as parts of itsenvironment, and on the other hand as partners in the generalenterprise of life. Thus there is evolved the _moral_ idea, orprinciple of action, according to which _interest allies itself withinterest in order to be free-handed and powerful_ against the commonhereditary enemy, the heavy inertia and the incessant wear of thecosmos. Through morality a plurality of interests becomes an_economy_, or _community of interests_. 

I have thus far described the situation as though it were essentially asocial one. But while, historically speaking, it is doubtless alwayssocial in one of its aspects, the essence of the matter is as trulyrepresented within the {14} group of interests sustained by a singleorganism, when these, for example, are united in an individuallife-purpose. Morality is that procedure in which several interests, whether they involve one or more physical organisms, are so adjusted asto function as one interest, more massive in its support, and morecoherent and united in the common task of fulfilment. Interestsmorally combined are not destroyed or superseded, as are mechanicalforces, by their resultant. The power of the higher interest is due toa summing of incentives emanating from the contributing interests; itcan perpetuate itself only through keeping these interests alive. Themost spectacular instance of this is government, which functions asone, and yet derives its power from an enormous variety of differentinterests, which it must foster and conserve as the sources of its ownlife. In all cases the strength of morality must lie in its liberalityand breadth. 

Morality is simply the forced choice between suicide and abundant life. When interests war against one another they render the project of life, at best a hard adventure, futile and abortive. I hold it to be ofprime importance for the understanding of this matter to observe thatfrom the poorest and crudest beginnings, morality is _the massing ofinterests against a reluctant cosmos_. Life has been attended withdiscord and mutual {15} destruction, but this is its failure. Thefirst grumbling truce between savage enemies, the first collectiveenterprise, the first peaceful community, the first restraint ongluttony for the sake of health, the first suppression of ferocity forthe sake of a harder blow struck in cold blood, --these were the firstvictories of morality. They were moral victories in that theyorganized life into more comprehensive unities, making it a moreformidable thing, and securing a more abundant satisfaction. The factthat life thus combined and weighted, was hurled against life, was thelingering weakness, the deficiency which attends upon all partialattainment. The moral triumph lay in the positive access of strength. 

Let us now correct our elementary conceptions of value so that they mayapply to moral value. The fulfilment of a simple isolated interest isgood, but only _the fulfilment of an organization of interests_ ismorally good. Such goodness appears in the realization of anindividual's systematic purpose or in the well-being of a community. That it virtually implies one ultimate good, the fulfilment of thesystem of all interests, must necessarily follow; although we cannot atpresent deal adequately with that conclusion. 

The quality of moral goodness, like the quality of goodness in thefundamental sense, lies not in the nature of any class of objects, butin any {16} object or activity whatsoever, in so far as this provides afulfilment of interest or desire. In the case of moral goodness thisfulfilment must embrace a group of interests in which each is limitedby the others. Its value lies not only in fulfilment, but also inadjustment and harmony. And this value is independent of the specialsubject-matter of the interests. Moralists have generally agreed thatit is impossible to conceive moral goodness exclusively in terms of anyspecial interest, even such as honor, power, or wealth. [4] There is nointerest so rare or so humble that its fulfilment is not morally good, provided that fulfilment forms part of the systematic fulfilment of agroup of interests. 

But there has persisted from the dawn of ethical theory a misconceptionconcerning the place of _pleasure_ in moral goodness. It has beensupposed that every interest, whatever its special subject-matter, isan interest in pleasure. Now while a thorough criticism of hedonismwould be out of place here, even if it were profitable, a summaryconsideration of it will throw some light on the truth. [5]Fortunately, the ethical status of pleasure is much clearer than itspsychological status. As a moral concern, pleasure is either a_special interest_, in which case it must take its place in the wholeeconomy of life, and submit to principles which adjust it to the rest;or it is _an {17} element in every interest_, in which case it isitself not an interest at all. Now whether it be proper to recognize aspecial interest in pleasure, it is not necessary here to determine. That this should be generally supposed to be the case is mainly due, Ithink, to a habit of associating pleasure peculiarly with certainfamiliar and recurrent bodily interests. At any rate it is clear thatthe pleasure which constantly _attends_ interests is not that _in whichthe interest is taken_. Interests and desires are qualitativelydiverse, and to an extent that is unlimited. The simpler organisms arenot interested in pleasure, but in their individual preservation; whileman is interested not only in preservation, but in learning, card-playing, loving, fighting, bargaining, and all the innumerableactivities that form part of the present complex of life. 

Now, it is true that it is agreeable or pleasant to contemplate thefulfilment of an interest; and that such anticipatory gratification insome measure accompanies all endeavor. But there is an absolutedifference between such present pleasure and the prospect which evokesit. And it is that prospect or imagined state of fulfilment which isthe object of endeavor, the good sought. It is also true that the_fulfilment_ of every interest is pleasant. But this means only thatthe interest is conscious of its fulfilment. In pleasure {18} and painlife records its gains and losses, and is guided to enhance the one orrepair the other. Where in the scale of life pleasure and pain beginit is not now possible to say, but it is certain that they are presentwherever interests engage in any sort of reciprocity. If one interestis to control or engage another it must be aware of it, and alive toits success or failure. Where life has reached the human stage ofcomplexity, in which interests supervene upon interests, in which everyinterest is itself an object of interest, the consciousness of good andevil assumes a constantly increasing importance. Life is more watchfulof itself, more keenly sensitive to the fortunes of all of itsconstituent parts. It is proper, therefore, to associate pleasure withgoodness; and happiness, or a more constant and pervasive pleasure, with the higher forms of moral goodness. But pleasure and happinessare incidental to goodness; necessary, but not definitive of itsgeneral form and structure. 

In addition to goodness thus amplified there now enters into life atthe moral stage a new element of value, the _rightness_ or _virtue_ ofaction which, though moved by some immediate desire, is at the sametime controlled by a regard for a higher or more comprehensiveinterest. This is the distinguishing quality of all that wins moralapproval: thrift and temperance; loyalty {19} and integrity; justice, unselfishness, and public spirit; humanity and piety. To the furtherdiscussion of these several virtues we shall have occasion shortly toreturn. 

Moral procedure, then, differs from life in its more elementary form, through the fact that interests are organized. Morality is only lifewhere this has assumed the form of the forward movement of character, nationality, and humanity. Moral principles define the adjustment ofinterest to interest, for the saving of each and the strengthening ofboth against failure and death. Morality is only the method ofcarrying on the affair of life beyond a certain point of complexity. It is the method of concerted, cumulative living, through whichinterests are brought from a doubtful condition of being tolerated bythe cosmos, to a condition of security and confidence. The spring andmotive of morality are therefore absolutely one with those of life. The self-preservative impulse of the simplest organism is the initialbias from which, by a continuous progression in the direction of firstintent, have sprung the service of mankind and the love of God. 

{20}

IV

There is an old and unprofitable quarrel between those who identify, and those who contrast, morality with _nature_. To adjudicate thisquarrel, it is necessary to define a point at which nature somehowexceeds herself. Strictly speaking, it is as arbitrary to say thatmorality, which arose and is immersed in nature, is not natural, as tosay that magnetism and electricity are not natural. If nature bedefined in terms of the categories of any stage of complexity, allbeyond will wear the aspect of a miracle. It would be proper todismiss the question as only a trivial matter of terminology, did notthe discussion of it provide an occasion for alluding to certainconfused notions that have obtained wide currency. 

Thus there is an ancient belief that it is natural to be licentious;that man is at heart unruly and wilful, wearing the artificial goodbehavior of civilization as he wears his clothes. Nietsche hascontributed not a little to the glorification of this pro-natural andanti-moral monster. And yet no one has recognized more clearly thanhe, that restraint and law are not only in life from the beginning, butthat they are themselves the very sources of its power. 

'The singular fact remains, ' he says, 'that everything of the nature offreedom, elegance, boldness, {21} dance, and masterly certainty, whichexists or has existed, whether it be in thought itself, or inadministration, or in speaking and persuading, in art just as inconduct, has only developed by means of the tyranny of such arbitrarylaw; and in all seriousness; it is not at all improbable that preciselythis is "nature" and "natural"--and not _laisser-aller_!'[6]

It only remains to drop the terms "arbitrary" and "tyranny"; since theprinciple of development in life can scarcely be regarded as arbitrary, or its effectual working as tyranny. 

Huxley chose to draw a line between nature and morality, at the pointwhere a limit is set to the isolated organism's struggle against allcomers. 

The practice of that which is ethically best--what we call goodness orvirtue--involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposedto that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint. [7]

But Huxley appears momentarily to have overlooked the fact that thestruggle for existence itself puts a premium on self-restraint. Forthere is no stage of evolution in which the adjustment and co-operationof interests is not an aid to survival. One does not have to risehigher in the scale of life than the plants fertilized by insects, toobserve the working of this principle. It is only the crudest and mostimpotent self-assertion that is "ruthless. " The reason for this {22}is simply that the real enemy of every vital process is not anotherkindred process, but the mechanical environment. Life is essentiallyan assertion, not against life, but against death. Interests thatexpend their energies in destroying or crippling one another, slip backtoward that primeval lifelessness from which they emerged. Restraintfor the sake of organization is therefore only a developed andintelligent self-assertion. 

If one insists still upon drawing a line between cosmical and moralforces, let it be drawn at the point where there first arises thatunstable complex called life. Life does in a sense oppose itself tothe balance of nature. To hold itself together, it must play at parryand thrust with the very forces which gave it birth. Once havinghappened, it so acts as to persist. But it should be remarked thatthis opposition between the careless and rough course of the cosmos, the insidious forces of dissolution, on the one hand, and theself-preserving care of the organism on the other, is presentabsolutely from the outset of life. 

Vegetable and animal organisms do, it is true, adapt themselves to theenvironment; but their adaptation is essentially a method of using andmodifying the environment in their own favor, precisely as is the casewith human action. {23} Therefore Huxley's sharp distinction betweennatural plant life and man's artificial garden is misleading. 

'The tendency of the cosmic process, ' he says, 'is to bring about theadjustment of the forms of plant life to the current conditions; thetendency of the horticultural process is the adjustment of theconditions to the needs of the forms of plant life which the gardenerdesires to raise. '[8]

But this is to ignore the basal fact, which is that plant life in anyform is a defiance of current conditions. Art has already begun whennatural processes assume a form that feeds itself, reproduces itself, and grows. The first organisms have only a local footing; they arerooted in the soil, and can turn to their advantage only the conditionscharacteristic of a time and place. Eventually there evolves a moreresourceful unit of life, like the gardener with his cultivated plants, who is capable of inhabiting nature at large. But the method is stillthe same, that of playing off nature against nature; only it is nowdone on a larger scale, and in a more aggressive and confident spirit. The need of concession to the demands of locality is reduced, through aconcession once and for all to the wider processes of nature. But inrelation to its environment, life is never wholly constructive, as itis never wholly passive. Whether it appears in the form of vegetationor civilization, {24} it always involves both an adaptation of natureto itself and of itself to nature. 

Morality, then, is natural if life is natural; for it is defined by thesame essential principles. It is related to life as a later to anearlier phase of one development. The organization of life answers theself-preservative impulse with which life begins; the deliberatefulfilment of a human purpose is only life grown strong enough throughorganization to conduct a larger and more adventurous enterprise. 

V

In the light of this conception let us examine more fully the relationof morality to the competitive struggle between individuals andcommunities. There can, of course, be no doubt that competition forceslife up in the scale. But it is equally true, and more significant, that in the course of that progress competition itself is steadilyeliminated. The stronger units of life prevail against the weaker. But the stronger units of life are the more inclusive and harmoniouscomplexes of interest. They are constituted by adjusting interests;allowing each a modicum of free play, or crushing those that will notsubmit to organization. Within such units the principle of mechanicalsurvival gives way to the principle of moral survival. I mean by thisthat {25} the selection, rejection, and gradation of interests is madenot on the basis of the uncompromising self-assertion of each and thesurvival of the hardy remnant; but on the basis of the contributionmade by each to the life of the collective body. The test of survivalis obedience to a law defined in the joint interest of all, and controlis vested in the rational capacity to represent this interest andconduct it to a safe and profitable issue. The strength of life thusorganized lies in its massiveness, in its effective plenitude. Whensuch units wage war on one another, this strength is wasted; and thevery same principle that strength shall prevail, tends to the extensionof the organization until it shall embrace contentious factions. 

Even where the principle of survival does not operate, conflict hasbeen, and yet remains, a factor in moral progress of enormous andfar-reaching importance. The more keen and unrelenting it is, the moreeffectually does it expose the weakness of the competing units, themore urgently does it require a better concentration and economy ofeffort. In order to fight a rival, it is necessary to leave offfighting one's self, and be healthy and single-minded. An industrialcorporation, in order to overreach its competitors, is compelled toadjust its intricate functions with incredible nicety, to utilizeby-products, and even to introduce old-age pensions for the promotion{26} of morale among its employees. And so a nation, to be strong inwar, must enjoy peace and justice at home. War has served society bywelding great aggregates of interest into compact and effective wholes, the enemy providing an object upon which collective endeavor can unite. 

But circumstances that press life forward will be left behind, if thesecircumstances are not themselves good. And war is not that for whichmen war; they war for the existence and satisfaction of theirinterests. That which is constructive and saving in war is not thecontact between the warring parties, but their internal coherence andharmony. It is _that_ which survives when hostility is inhibited by arecognition of the cost; it is that which is extended when hostilitygives way to a wider co-ordination of interests. 

The loss when contending currents are redirected and flow together isnot a loss of power, but only of neutralizing resistance. It is truethat the lesson of harmony is learned through discord; but harmony isnone the less in the end exclusive of discord. The principle of peace, learned at home through the hard necessity of war abroad, finds only amore complete justification and beneficent application in peace abroad. It is love and not hate that is the moving spring of life. It is lovewhich is constructive; hate destroys even the very object that evokesand {27} sustains it. It is essential, then, to life, not only toassert and reproduce itself, but to increase itself through allyingitself with life. Where the motive of life thus freely expressesitself, there are no natural enemies. 

I count it to be important thus to trace morality back to the originallove of life, since only so is it possible to understand its urgency, and its continuity with every organic impulse. It is because moralityis without warrant dislocated from the natural life, that it is accusedof being barren and formal. To many minds it is best symbolized by thekindly lady who gives the small boy a penny, and admonishes him not tospend it. But there could be no more outrageous travesty. Morality inits springs is absolutely one with that clinging to life which is themost deep-lying of all interests, and with that relish for life inwhich its goodness needs no philosopher's approval. The primaldetermination to be and to sell one's self dearly, is not different, except in its limits, from the moral determination to be and to attainto the uttermost. The whole force of life is behind every moralscruple, and guarantees the sanity even of a universal good-will. 

But the identification of morality with the organization of life, serves also to demonstrate life in its unity and larger auspices. Morality harmonizes life and eliminates its wanton {28}self-destruction; but life is not therefore left without an object ofconquest. For there is one campaign in which all interests areengaged, and which requires their undivided and aggressive effort. This is the first and last campaign, the war of life upon the routineof the mechanical cosmos and its forces of dissolution. To live, tolet live, and to grow in life, constitute an absorbing and passionatetask, in which every human heroism may find a proper object. 

VI

It must be admitted that the imagination has not yet sufficientlyglorified this enterprise of civilization. It is hard to forget oldshibboleths and loyalties. And yet precisely that must be done withevery advance in liberality. Admiration and passion lag behind reason;are forever backsliding and debauching themselves among the companionsof their youth. But man's salvation lies not in degrading his reasonto the level of his loyalties, nor in allowing the two to drift apart, but in acquiring a finer loyalty. And while one cannot extemporize thesymbols and imagery of devotion, these will surely grow about anysustained purpose. 

We hear much in our day of the passing of nobility and enthusiasm withthe era of war. "Whatever makes men feel young, " says Chesterton, {29}"is great--a great war or a love story. " [9] Love stories willdoubtless continue to the end; but must man cease to feel young in thedays when cruelty and exploitation are obsolete? Nietsche[10] speakswith passionate regret of a certain "lordliness, " or assertion ofsuperiority, that has latterly given place to the slave morality, whichaims at "the universal green-meadow happiness of the herd. " There areno more heroes, of "lofty spirituality, " but only levellers, timid, stupid, mediocre folk, "_sans genie et sans esprit_. "

Now there is a paradox that does not seem to have occurred to Nietsche, in the slave insurrection by which he accounts for this drearyspectacle. It can scarcely be a code of slavishness that has enabledslaves to overthrow their masters. The morality of the modern Europeandemocracy is the morality of the strong; of the many, it is true, butof the many united and impassioned, moving toward the general end withgood heart. And it is this which gave mastery to the once rulingclass. Mastery appears wherever action is bold, united, and with thepressure of interest behind it; mastery has nothing to do with the airsof mastery, with Nietsche's "pathos of distance, " separating class fromclass. The "instinct for rank, " and "delight in the nuances ofreverence, " are not signs of nobility, as Nietsche would have it. There is no nose for them so {30} sensitive and discriminating as thatof the chambermaid or butler. The mere pride of an easy mastery overslaves is the taint of every society in which class differences arerecognized as fixed. It attaches to all classes; whether it be calledsnobbery or obsequiousness, it is all one. The virtue of mastery, onthe other hand, lies in the power and in the attainment which itrepresents. 

And this Nietsche himself fully admits in his less inspired but morethoughtful utterances. It is "the constant struggle with uniformunfavorable conditions" that fixes the type he admires. When there areno more enemies, "the bond and constraint of the old disciplinesevers, " and a rapid decay sets in; which leads inevitably, after achaos of individualism, to a period of mediocrity such as the present. In other words, so soon as its political and social activities areconfined to "lording it, " the aristocracy loses its vigor, and falls aneasy prey to democratic or other propagandists _who want something andare united to attain it_. 

Now it seems that if man is not to become spiritually bankrupt, he mustbe confronted with unfavorable conditions that keep him vigilant andalert. Nietsche has no imagination for resistance, struggle, andvictory, except as these arise in the war of man against man. Hisheroes are Alcibiades, Caesar, and Frederick II, "men {31} predestinedfor conquering and circumventing others. " But it is not easy for us ofthis day to forget the others; it is the cost to them that galls ourconscience. We cannot sincerely applaud a heroism in which life iscondemned to feed on itself. Shall the only enemy that never fails, the condition that is always indifferent if not unfavorable, namely, the perpetual wear and drag of nature, be forgotten in order that menmay fall on one another? Has man no more lordly task than that ofdestroying what he holds to be good? Is there no more of "creativeplenipotence" in man than killing and robbing?

I am convinced that it needs only enlightenment to reduce Nietsche'scircumventer of others to the proportions of a burglar; and to enlargeto truly heroic proportions him who circumvents the blindness ofnature, brings up the weak or faint-hearted who lag behind, and throwshimself bravely into the enterprise of steady constructivecivilization. Nietsche is beguiled by a love of melodrama. He forgetsthe real war for the pageantry of an era that will pass. As amisleader of youth he conspires with the writers of dime-novels to fixthe imagination on false symbols. The small boy who would run awayfrom home for the glory of fighting Indians is deceived; both becausethere are no longer any Indians to fight, and because there are moreglorious {32} battles to be fought at home. War between man and man isan obsolescent form of heroism. There is every reason, therefore, whyit should not be glorified as the only occasion capable of evoking thegreat emotions. The general battle of life, the first and last battle, is still on; and it has that in it of danger and resistance, ofcomradeship and of triumph, that can stir the blood. 

But I have not undertaken to make morality picturesque. I shall leavethat to other hands. In an age when it has been somewhat out ofliterary fashion, Chesterton[11] has found it possible even to proclaimmorality as the latest and most enlivening paradox. But I propose toleave it clad in its own sobriety. Its appeal in the last analysismust be to a sense for reality, and to an enlightened practical wisdom. Morality is that which makes man, "naked, shoeless, and defenceless" inbody, the master of the kingdom of nature. Morality in this sense hasnever been more simply and eloquently justified than in the words whichPlato puts into the mouth of Protagoras. He first describes the artswith which men contrived barely to sustain themselves, in a conditionno better than the beasts which preyed on them in their helplessness. It is then that through the gift of Zeus they are rescued from theirdegradation and invested with the forms of civilization. 

{33}

After a while the desire of self-preservation gathered them intocities; but when they were gathered together, having no art ofgovernment, they evil-intreated one another, and were again in processof dispersion and destruction. Zeus feared that the entire race wouldbe exterminated, and so he sent Hermes to them, bearing reverence andjustice to be the ordering principles of cities and the bonds offriendship and conciliation. [12]

But reverence and justice are more even than the ordering principles ofcities. They are the conditions of the maximum of attainment, whetherthis be conceived as that supreme excellence which Plato divined, or asthat all-saving good which is the object of a Christian devotion tohumanity. Morality is the law of life, from its bare preservation toits supreme fruition. There is a high pretension in morality which isthe necessary consequence of its motive. But man is not, on thataccount, in need of those reminders of failure which are so easy tooffer, and which are so impotently true; he needs rather new symbols offaith, through which his heart may be renewed, and his couragefortified to proceed with an undertaking of which he cannot see theend. Faith and courage have brought him thus far:

 "Till he well-nigh can tame Brute mischiefs and control Invisible things and turn All warring ills to purposes of good. "

{34}

CHAPTER II

THE LOGIC OF THE MORAL APPEAL

There is a phrase, "liberty of conscience, " which well expresses themodern conception of moral obligation. It recognizes that duty in thelast analysis is imposed upon the individual neither by society noreven by God, but by himself; that there is no authority in moralmatters more ultimate than a man's own rational conviction of what isbest. 

We meet here with the application to morality of the motive whichunderlies the whole modern reaction against medievalism, the motivewhich John Locke so aptly summarized when he said, "We should not judgeof things by men's opinions, but of opinions by things. " [1] This isindividualism of the positive temper, the protest against conventionand authority; in behalf, not of license, but of knowledge. Mediaevalism is condemned, not for its universalism, but for itsarbitrariness and untruth; for its mistaking of the weight ofcollective opinion, or of institutional prestige, for the weight ofevidence. 

This is the characteristic temper of the modern {35} individualism, whether it be dominated by a bias for sense or a bias for reason. Locke, like his forerunner, Bacon, is an individualist because it isthe individual in his detachment from society that alone can beopen-eyed and open-minded; who is qualified to carry on that "properbusiness of the understanding, " "to think of everything just as it isin itself. " [2] Descartes, although in habit of mind and speculativeinstinct he has so little in common with the Englishman, neverthelessfinds in the individual's self-discipline and concentration the onlyhope of preserving the savor of the salt of knowledge. Thus he says:

I thought that the sciences contained in books, (such of them at leastas are made up of probable reasonings, without demonstrations), composed as they are of the opinions of many different individualsmassed together, are farther removed from truth than the simpleinferences which a man of good sense using his natural and unprejudicedjudgment draws respecting the matters of his experience. [3]

Spinoza, who both abandoned the world and was abandoned by it, soughtan individual philosophy of life that should be more universal than theopinion of the world on account of its greater truth. "Furtherreflection convinced me, that if I could really get to the root of thematter I should be leaving certain evils for a certain good. " [4]

This was the impulse in which modern tolerance of individual opinionand appeal to {36} individual conscience originated. It was a protestnot against order, but against the disheartening drag, the heavy anddull constraint, of an order externally imposed. Freedom was valuednot for the sake of lawlessness, but for the sake of a clearerrecognition of the proper laws of things, of the principles that lie innature and civilization and control them inherently. 

Individualism in this sense is not sceptical. Even a charge thatexisting codes of morality and systems of thought are largely mattersof social habit, or rules devised by church and state to maintain anarbitrary and profitable power, does not justify the inference thatthere is no truth. For there is no dilemma between public tyranny andprivate caprice. On the contrary, it means that tyranny is itself aform of caprice, and that caprice in any form must give way beforereason and experiment. Certain contemporary popular philosophers, suchas Wells and Shaw, appear to believe that to repudiate the rigidconventions of the day means to abolish absolute distinctions utterlyand fall back upon a general laxity and vagueness. But this is tothrow out the baby with the bath. The evil in convention is thesubstitution of merely _habitual_ distinctions for real distinctions, and the only justification for an assault on convention is the bringingof such real distinctions to light. 

{37}

The individualist virtually claims that an individual's belief, if itbe critical, is entitled to precedence over public belief, simplybecause the individual mind is a better instrument of knowledge thanthe public mind. It is the individual mind that is more directlyconfronted with the evidence, more single and responsive. Individualism is not, then, an appeal to private opinion in anydisparaging sense. For, in so far as private opinion is independentand truthful in motive, concerning itself with its objects rather thanwith the social model of the day, it is self-corrective and tendsinevitably toward the common truth. It is the opinion that is notreally individual, but imitative, respectful of persons, generallysubmissive to ulterior motives of a social kind, that is private in thebad sense. Its privacy lies in its artificiality, in its partisanship, and in its remove from the open daylight of experience. 

If, therefore, one must in moral matters finally rely on theindividual's judgment, this in no way implies the breakdown ofuniversal principles. It is neither necessary nor natural thatindividual judgment should bespeak whim, hasty impulse, or narrowself-interest. The guardian in Plato's _Republic_ was as much anindividual as the merchant or the soldier. [5] In a sense he was morean individual than these, since he was not swayed by the crowd, butthought with freedom {38} and independence. Nevertheless his thoughtembraced the interests of the entire community, and comprehended theorganization and forms of adjustment through which they all might liveand thrive. In moral as in other matters the true appeal ofindividualism is to an intelligence which, though emancipated fromconvention, is on that very account committed to the generalnecessities that lie in the field it seeks to know. 

In view of these considerations, then, we may pronounce legitimate andhopeful the moral individualism of the time. It implies therecognition that there is a genuine ground for moral action, which maybe brought home to any individual mind that will deal honestly anddirectly with the facts of life. Morality is not a useful fictionwhich must be protected against inquisitiveness and cherished inignorance and servility; it is a body of compelling truth that willconvince wherever there is a capacity to observe and reason. Itrequires no higher sanction than the individual, because the individualis society's organ of truth; because only in the individual mind issociety open to rational conviction. 

Latitudinarianism and tolerance in this sense bespeak a confidence inmorality's ability to justify itself. At the same time they representa protest against replacing the intrinsic truth of morality by thearbitrary standards of authority {39} and convention. Now, while thereis little need in the present day of protecting individual judgmentagainst encroachments of authority, there can be no doubt of the greatneed of protecting it against the more insidious encroachments ofconvention. This is peculiarly an age of publicity. The forces ofsuggestion and imitation operate on a scale unparalleled in the historyof society. Standards and types readily acquire an almost irresistibleprestige, simply through becoming established as models. And thesanction of opinion may be gained for almost any formula, from afashion in hats to an article in theology. Convention can no longer beaccounted conservative. It sanctions promiscuously usages as venerableas civilization itself, and as transient as the fad of the hour. Democratic institutions and universal educational privileges have breda social mass intelligent and responsive enough to be modish, butlacking in discrimination and criticism. 

The tyranny of opinion, the fear of being different, has long sincebeen recognized as a serious hinderance to the development whichpolitical freedom and economic opportunity ought properly to stimulate. But the moral blindness to which it gives rise has never, I think, beensufficiently emphasized. We require of business men only that measureof honesty that we {40} conventionally expect in that type ofoccupation. A politician is proverbially tricky and self-seeking. Theartistic temperament would scarcely be recognized if it did notmanifest itself in weakness and excess. It is as unreasonable toexpect either tunefulness or humor in a musical comedy as to expect astatement of fact in an advertisement. In short, where any humanactivity is conventionalized, standards are arbitrarily fixed; andcritical discernment grows dull if it does not altogether atrophy. Itsimply does not occur to the great majority of men that any activityshould be judged otherwise than by comparing it with the stereotypedaverage of the day. This is, to be sure, only that blindness of thecommon mind which Socrates and Plato observed in their day, but it isnow aggravated through the greater massiveness and conductivity ofmodern society. 

These considerations will serve both to introduce and to justify mypresent undertaking. I assume that duty is not an arbitrary mandatewhich the individual must obey blindly or from motives of fear; but theconviction of moral truth, the enlightened recognition of the good. [6]Hence I wish to demonstrate morality to an individual reflective mind, open to the facts of life and to conviction of truth. I shall expoundmorality out of no book but experience, "that universal and publickManuscript, that lies {41} expans'd unto the Eyes of all. " To refermorality to custom, to conscience in the sense of individualprepossession or institutional authority, even if these be interpretedas the oracles of God, is to justify the suspicion that it isgroundless and arbitrary, at best a matter of loyalty or good form. Ishall present morality as a set of principles as inherent in conduct, as unmistakably valid there, as is gravitation in the heavens. I shallhope to make it appear that the saving grace of morality is directlyoperative in life; needing no proof from any adventitious source, because it proves _itself_ under observation. 

I shall address myself to an individual protagonist whom I shalldesignate in the second person; and whom I shall suppose to exhibitthat yielding reluctance which is the mark of a mind that for very loveof truth will not too readily assent. 

As I am to prove morality to you, I accept the burden of proof; but youare not on that account totally without responsibility in the matter. As you must not stop your ears, or close your bodily eyes, so you mustnot shut the eye of the mind, or harden your heart. Were you to adoptsuch an attitude I should be compelled to set argument aside, andresort to such practical measures as might shock or entice you intoreasonableness. Or, I might abandon you as incorrigible. It is {42}clear that I can as little show reasons to a man who will not thinkthem with me, as I can show the road to one who will not look where Ipoint it out. A very large amount of moral exhortation consists in theattempt to overcome apathy and inattention. Such exhortation cannot inthe nature of the case be logical, because the subject's logical organis not as yet functioning. I doubt if there is any discussion of moralmatters in common life in which this form of appeal is not present in ameasure sufficient to obscure the merits of the question at issue. Idesire for present purposes to eliminate as far as possible allconflict and prejudices, and thus to dispense with zeal and eloquence. I shall assume, therefore, that you propose to be reasonable concerningthis moral affair. By this I mean simply that you shall directlyobserve the facts of life, report candidly on these facts, and fullyaccept the implications of any judgment to which you may commityourself. I may phrase your pledge of reasonableness thus: "Show whatis right, and that it is right, and I will accept it. I mean my actionto be good, and ask only to have the good demonstrated to me, that Imay intelligently adopt it. "

{43}

II

It is commonly believed that whereas the logic of _prudence_ isunimpeachable, there is a hiatus between this level of morality andthose above. To drink one's self to death is a species of folly thatthe poorest intelligence can understand; but the folly in meanness, injustice, or impiety is a harder matter. Believing as I do that thefolly is equally demonstrable in all of these cases, I propose not toaccept your ready assent in the simpler case until its grounds havebeen made as clear and definite as possible. I feel convinced thatprudence is not so simple a matter as appears; in fact that it involvesthe whole ethical dialectic. 

I find you, let us say, eating an apple with evident relish; and I askyou why. If you are candid, and free from pedantry, you will doubtlessreply that it is because you like to. In this particular connection Ican conceive no profounder utterance. But we may obtain a phraseologythat will suit our theoretical purposes more conveniently and servebetter to fix the matter in our minds. Your eating of the apple is aprocess that tends within certain limits to continue and restoreitself, to supply the actions and objects necessary to its ownmaintenance. I have proposed that we call such a process an_interest_. In that it is a part of that very complex physical and{44} moral thing called "you, " it is _your_ interest, and it also has, of course, its special subject-matter, in this case the eating of anapple. It involves specific movements of body, and makes a specificrequisition on the environment. Now, still confining ourselvesstrictly to this interest, we shall doubtless agree to call any phaseof it in which it is fulfilled, in which its exercise is fostered andunimpeded, _good_. And we shall doubtless agree to attach the sameterm, although perhaps in a less direct sense, to that part of theenvironment which it requires, in this case the apple, and to thesubsidiary actions which mediate it, such as the grasping of the apple, or the biting and mastication of it. I mean only that these modes orfactors of the interest are _in some sense good_; qualifications andlimitations may be adjudicated later. 

In this case, which so far as I can see is the simplest possible caseof the sort of value that enters into life, the value is supplied by aspecific type of process which we may call an interest, and it issupplied thereby absolutely, fundamentally. It makes both this appleand your eating of it good that you should _like to eat it_. If youcould explain every action as you explain this action, when it is thusisolated, there would be no moral problem. 

We may now safely open the door to the objections that have beenpressing for admission. {45} The first to appear is an old friendamong philosophers; but one whose reputation so far exceeds its meritsthat it must be submitted to vigilant examination. It is objected (Iam sure that you have long wanted to say this) that your repast is_good for you, good from your point of view_, but not on that account_really good_. These are the terms with which it is customary toconfound any serious judgment of truth; and they acquire a peculiarforce here because we seem to have invited their application. We haveagreed that your action is good in that it suits your interest, andthus seem to have defined its goodness as relative to you. Now, if weare to avoid a confusion of mind that would terminate our investigationhere and now, we must bring to light a latent ambiguity. 

We have, it is true, discovered goodness to be a phase of a processcalled "interest, " which is qualified further, through the use of apersonal pronoun. The nature of goodness, in other words, is such asto involve certain specific _relations_, here involving a person orsubject. Goodness is not peculiar in this respect; for there are veryfew things in this world that do not involve specific relations. Thisis the case, for example, with planets, levers, and brothers. There isno planet without its sun, no lever without its fulcrum, no brother whois not somebody's brother. 

{46}

But the relationship in the case of goodness is supposed to be a moreserious matter; sufficiently serious to discredit the meaning ofgoodness, or make all judgments concerning goodness merely expressionsof bias. The supposition is due to the confusion of a relativity inthe _subject-matter_ of the judgment, with a relativity of the judgmentitself to the individual that gives utterance to it. Thus thejudgment, "You like apples, " deals with your interest and the objectsrelating to it; but the judgment itself is not therefore biassed. Itis no more an expression of your opinion than it is of mine; it is aformulation of what occurs in the field of experience open to allobservers. A judgment _concerning_ only you, is utterly different froma judgment _representing_ only you. The latter, if there were such athing, would be ungrounded, and would justify the sceptic's suspicions. The confusion is possible here simply because the subject-matter of thejudgment in question is itself a judgment. It could scarcely arise inthe parallel cases. The lever cannot be defined except in relation toits fulcrum. This may be loosely generalized and made to read:judgments concerning a lever are relative to a fulcrum. It might evenbe said that a lever is a lever only from the point of view of its ownfulcrum. But the most unscrupulous quibbler would scarcely offer thisas evidence against {47} the objective validity of our knowledge oflevers. Your brother is necessarily related to you; but theproposition defining the relationship is not on that account relative, that is, peculiarly yours or any one else's. Fraternity is a complexinvolving a personal connection, but is none the less entirelyobjective. And precisely the same thing is true of goodness. Toobserve it adequately one must bring into view that complex objectcalled an interest, which may be yours or his or mine; but it will bebrought none the less into our common view, and observed as any otherobject may be observed. Because goodness is inherent in a processinvolving instincts, desires, or persons, it is not one whit less validor objective than it would be if it involved the sun or the first lawof motion. 

Let us now turn to a much more fruitful objection. Suppose it beobjected that your action, though good when thus artificially isolated, will in the concrete case have to be considered more broadly before anyfinal judgment can be pronounced on it. To this objection I fullyassent. It implies that although we have fully defined a hypotheticalcase of goodness, we have so far simplified the conditions as to makeour conclusions inadequate to moral experience. Accepting thisqualification, it is now in order to complicate the situation; butretaining our analysis {48} of the elementary process, and employingterms in the meaning derived therefrom. 

Let us suppose that the apple which you enjoy eating, is my apple, andthat I delight in keeping it for my own uses. Such being the case, wefall to wrangling over it, and your appetite is like to go unappeased. I now have evidence to show you that your act of violent appropriationdoes not conduce to your interest. This is simply an experimental andempirical fact. I am in a position to show you that the character ofyour action is other than you supposed, that you were under amisapprehension as to its goodness. It leads not to the enjoyableactivity which interests you, but to a series of bodily exertions and astate of unfulfilled longing in which you have no interest at all. Indeed your action is a hinderance to your interest; in other words, isbad. 

But I proceed to point out to you the further fact that, if you willbuy the apple and thus conciliate me, you may get rid of myinterference and proceed with your activity. Your purchase is nowjustified in precisely the same manner as your original seizure of theobject. If you are asked why you do it, you may still reply, "BecauseI like apples. "

Now, it would accord with the customary use of terms to call suchaction on your part _prudence_; and prudence is commonly regarded as avirtue {49} or moral principle. But in prudence the meaning ofmorality is as yet only partially realized; it is morality upon arelatively low level. Hence it is desirable to avoid reading too muchinto it. 

On the one hand, prudence does involve the checking of one interest inconsequence of the presence of another. You have noted my interest, acknowledged it as having its own claims, and made room for it. Therein your action differs signally from your dealings with yourmechanical environment. And it is this contact and adjustment ofinterests, this practical recognition of the fact that the success ofone interest requires that other interests be respected, and dealt within a special manner appropriate to them as interests, that marks theprocedure as moral. On the other hand, while you have acknowledged myinterest, you have not _adopted_ it. You have concerned yourself withmy love of property only in so far as it affected your fondness forapples. In order to appeal to you I have had to appeal to this, as yetyour only interest. The moral value of your action lies wholly in itsconduciveness to this interest, because it is controlled wholly by it. You are as yet only a complex acting consistently in such wise as tocontinue an eating of apples. This formula is entirely sufficient as asummary of your conduct, even after you have learned to respect myproperty. And therein lies {50} its _merely_ prudential character. Inprudence thus strictly and abstractly regarded, there is no preference, no subordination of motives. Action is controlled by an exclusive andinsistent desire, which limits itself only with a view to effectiveness. 

III

It would appear, then, that if I am to justify those types of actionwhich are regarded as more completely moral, _I must persuade you toadopt interests that at any given instant do not move you_. I mustpersuade you to forego your present inclination for the sake ofanother; to judge between interests, and prefer that which on groundsthat you cannot reasonably deny is the more valid. In other words, Imust define a logical transition from prudence to _preference_, or_moral purpose_. 

Let us suppose that, in spite of your liking, apples do not "agreewith" you. It is, for example, pertinent to remark that if you eat theapple to-day you cannot go to the play to-morrow. Our parley proceedsas follows:

"Just now I am eating apples. Sufficient unto the day is the evilthereof. "

"But you acknowledge your fondness for the theatre. "

"Yes, but that doesn't interest me now. "

"Nevertheless you recognize the interest in {51} play-going as a realone, dormant to-day, temporarily eclipsed by another interest, butcertain to revive to-morrow?"

"I do. "

"And you admit that, apart from the chance of your death in themeantime, a chance so small as to be negligible, an interest to-morrowis as real as an interest to-day?"

"Yes. "

"Now, recognizing these two interests, and keeping them firmly in view, observe the consequences of your action if you persist in eating theapple, and pronounce judgment upon it. "

"It would seem to be both good and bad; good in its conduciveness tothe satisfaction of my present appetite, bad in its preventing myenjoyment of the play. "

In your last reply you have fairly stated the problem. You are notpermitted to escape the dilemma by simply neglecting the facts, forthis would be contrary to the original agreement binding you to be andremain open-minded. And you are now as concerned as I to solve theproblem by defining a reorganization of the situation that would permitof an action unequivocally good, that is altogether conducive to thefulfilment of interest. 

To understand what would constitute a solution of this moral problem itis important to observe, {52} in the first place, that an action_wholly conducive to both interests_ would take precedence of an actionwhich fulfilled the one but sacrificed the other. Were it possible foryou to eat the apple now and go to the play to-morrow, your rationalcourse would be to allow your present impulse free play. You wouldthus be alive to the total situation; your action would in reality beregulated by both interests, or rather by a larger interest embracingand providing for both. An action thus controlled would have a moreadequate justification than an action conceived with reference to theone interest exclusively, and merely happening to be favorable to theother interest also. Or suppose that, by substituting a differentspecies of apple for the one first selected, you could avoiddisagreeable consequences, and without loss of immediate gratification. In this case you would have corrected your original action and adopteda course that proved itself better, because conducive to the fulfilmentof to-morrow's interest as well as to-day's. 

We have thus arrived at a very important conception, that of a higherinterest possessing a certain priority in its claims. The higherinterest as I have defined it is simply the greater interest, andgreater in the sense that it exceeds a narrower interest throughembracing it and adding to it. Your interest in the fulfilment of {53}to-day's interest _and_ to-morrow's, is demonstrably greater than yourinterest in the fulfilment of either exclusively, because it providesfor each and more. In this perfectly definite sense your preferencemay be justified. 

Let us now apply this principle of preference to the more complex casein which there is no available action which will fulfil both interests. Suppose that you cannot both eat apples to-day and go to the playto-morrow. How is one to define a good action in the premises? In thefirst place the good act originally conceived in terms of the free playof the present impulse is proved to be illusory. There is no good actuntil your interests are reorganized. In other words, the higherinterest, which is entitled to preference, requires some modificationof the participating interests. But the higher interest owes its titleto its liberality or comprehensiveness. Hence it must represent _themaximum fulfilment of both interests which the conditions allow_. Sucha controlling interest may require you altogether to forego the presentindulgence, or it may merely require that it be severely limited. Inany case, the controlling interest will _represent_ both interests, modified, postponed, or suppressed, as is necessary for their maximumjoint fulfilment. The higher interest which thus replaces the originalinterest, and which is entitled to do so only {54} because itincorporates them, I propose to call _moral purpose_. 

There are two highly important principles which we have been brought torecognize through this analysis of preference, and it will be worth ourwhile briefly to resume them. 

In the first place, no interest is entitled to your exclusive regardmerely because it happens at any given time to be moving you. I shallcall this the principle of the objective validity of interests. I meansimply that an interest is none the less an interest because it doesnot coincide with an individual's momentary inclination. In remindingyou of an interest overlooked, I have not sought to justify it bysubsuming it under your present interest. I have not tried to provethat it is to your interest as an epicure that you should go to theplay. I have simply pointed out the other interest, and allowed it tostand on its merits. In ethical theories of a certain type, and inmuch impromptu moralizing, it is assumed that there is no legitimateappeal except in behalf of interests that are at the instant alreadyalive. This is as absurd as to suppose that in order to bring you tothe truth in any purely theoretical matter, I must confine myself toevidence that you already recognize. In both cases your individualexperience at any given time may be narrow and limited owing to causesthat are in the highest {55} degree arbitrary. It may be advisablethat I should solicit your attention by connecting what I have to offerwith what is already familiar to you; but this is a psychologicalexpedient. My appeal is logically supported by objects, by principles, by data which are in no wise dependent for their claims on theirconnection with your present stock in trade. 

Chesterton refers to one who "had that rational and deliberatepreference which will always to the end trouble the peace of the world, the rational and deliberate preference for a short life and a merryone. " [7] I cannot regard such hedonistic opportunism as other thanwantonness or wilful carelessness. It may be deliberate in the senseof being consciously persisted in, but I cannot find any rationality init. It arises naturally enough through the greater vividness of theinterests that are already adopted and proved; but all prejudices arisefrom such accidents, and they are none the less on that accountabsolutely antagonistic to the rational attitude--that willingness thatthings should be for me even as they are. 

In the second place, it has appeared that there is no demonstrablepriority of one simple interest over another differing onlyqualitatively from it. I propose to call this the principle of _thequantitative basis of preference_. I know that the term quantity hasan ugly sound in this context. {56} But I believe that this is duesimply to a false abstraction. Two good books are not better than onebecause two is better than one, but because in two of a given unit ofgoodness there is more of goodness than in one. Two is more than one, but not more good, unless that which is counted is itself good. Nor istwo longer or heavier than one, unless the units numbered happen to bethose of length or weight. To prefer two interests to one does notimply that one is a lover of quantity, but a lover of good; of thatwhich if it be and remain good, the more the better. 

At any rate it seems to me a matter of simple candor to admit that"more" is a term implying quantity, whether it be "more room, " "moreweight, " "more goodness, " or "more beauty. " It seems to me to beequally evident that "more" implies commensurable magnitude; and thatcommensurability implies the existence of a common unit in the termscompared. Two inches are more than one inch in that they include oneinch and also another like unit. Now in moral matters the unit ofvalue is the fulfilment of the simple interest; and in consequence Isee no way of demonstrating that one such simple interest is more goodthan another, as I see no way of demonstrating that one inch is longerthan another. But I do see that if I can carry a simple interest overinto a compound one, and there both {57} retain it and add to it, Ishall have more--more by what I add. Such comparison is never a simplematter, perhaps in any concrete case never wholly conclusive. But Ican conceive no more important and more clarifying declaration ofprinciple. It means that any rational decision as to the precedence ofsocial ideals, or as to historical progress from good to better, mustbe based on width of representation and weight of incentive. 

IV

If what I have said thus far has proved convincing to you, this may beowing to the fact that you have not been called upon to adopt anyinterest beyond what are conventionally regarded as your own. In moralmatters it is customary to attach a certain finality to personalpronouns. But there are no terms in common use which have so rough andloose a meaning, which cover so equivocal and confused an experience;albeit the necessity and frequency of their use has made them standardcurrency and polished them into a sort of deceptive smoothness to thetouch. There is no term so altogether handy as the term "I, " nor isthere any so embarrassed when called on to show its credentials in theshape of clear and verifiable experience. If, then, you stand upon_your_ interests I shall not be convinced, for I shall {58} not knowwhat you mean. There is no sense in which you are a finished anddemonstrable fact. My dealings with you, and this is peculiarly trueof my rational dealings with you, cannot be tested by _you_ in anyabsolute or fixed sense, simply because they may _make_ you, as theymay make me. 

Let us return to our test case. You are the epicure, and I am theproprietor; you seize my apple, and I protest. But now I no longerappeal to you merely as one who enjoys eating apples, and warn you thatyou are selecting the wrong means of attaining that end. I simplyinform you that the apple is my property, and that I desire to retainit. I appeal to you to respect my wishes, at least to the extent ofnon-interference. If you reply that this is no interest that youacknowledge, then I am in a position to inform you. For on no groundcan you attach finality to the set of interests which at any given timeyou choose to acknowledge. If I may remind you of a forgotteninterest, I may inform you of a new interest. In the one case, youacknowledge that there is such an interest in that you anticipate itsrevival, and realize that its mere absence is no proof of itsnon-existence. You recognize it as having its roots in your organism, and its opportunity for exercise in certain definable and predictablecircumstances. This is what you mean when you acknowledge that _youwill desire_ to go to the play {59} to-morrow. But the evidence of theexistence of still another interest, in this case mine, is no lessconvincing. Like your own latent interest, it does not at the instantmove you. But it has the specific character of an interest, and itsplace in the existent world through its relation to my organism. Recognizing it as an interest, you cannot in the given case fail toobserve that it qualifies your action as good or bad, through beingaffected by it. If your action fulfils your interest and thwarts mine, it is again mixed, both good and bad. In order to define the good actin the premises it is necessary, as in the previous case, to define apurpose which shall embrace both interests and regulate action with aview to their joint fulfilment. 

It is customary to argue this principle of impartiality, according towhich the merely personal consideration is declared to be irrelevant tothe determination of moral value, by a critique of _egoism_. The_reductio ad absurdum_ of egoism has recently been formulated by G. E. Moore in as thorough and conclusive a manner as could be desired. [8]That writer analyzes egoism into a series of propositions all of whichare equivocal, false, or, so far as true, non-egoistic in theirmeaning. I shall reduce Moore's propositions to two, and modify themto suit my own conception of goodness. 

{60}

As an egoist you may, in the first place, affirm that _there are nointerests but yours_. This proposition, however, is manifestly false. Accept any definition of an interest or desire that you will, and I canfind indefinitely many cases answering your definition and fallingoutside the class of those which you claim as your own. None of these, if it conforms fully to your definition, is any the less an interest ordesire than the one that happens to be moving you at the instant. There would be as good ground for saying that your brother was the onlybrother, or your book the only book. Even if you abate the rigor ofthe proposition, you cannot escape its essential falsity. If youaffirm that there are no interests but the interests of _each_, or that_each_ man's interests are the only interests, you flatly contradictyourself. If you affirm that your interests are of superiorimportance, that they are exceptional, peculiar, entitled topre-eminence--this is virtually equivalent to your originalproposition. The respect in which your interests seem different fromall others either enters into your definition of interest, in whichcase it becomes general; or it is some adventitious circumstance thatdoes not belong to your interests as such, some accident of proximitywhich may have psychological or instrumental importance, but cannotrightly affect your judgment of good. For goodness lies in {61} theobjective bearing of your action on such things as interests; preciselyas the diagonal is a line connecting the vertices of opposite angles ina square, independently of all circumstances that do not affect thegeneric character of the square. 

In the second place, you may affirm that _for you there are nointerests but your own_. But this is an equivocal proposition. It maymean that _in your opinion_ there are none, in which case you admit theprobable falsity of your judgment through contrasting it with theconsensus of opinion; through attributing it to your narrowness andfalse perspective. Your offering it as your opinion gives theproposition at best a tentative form; the question of its truth remainsto be adjudicated. I need only present other interests answering yourdescription of an interest to prove you mistaken. And if you were togeneralize your proposition and say that each man thinks his owninterests the only interests, you would be doubly wrong, in that thegeneralization would be unwarranted, and the opinion imputed to eachman false. 

Or, your claim that for you there are no interests but your own, mightbe taken to mean that in some sense you must confine your endeavors tothe fulfilment of your own interests. Otherwise, you may argue, thepractical situation would {62} reach a dead-lock, a state of hopelessconfusion in which each individual neglected his own proper affairs forthe sake of those he had neither the means nor the competence to serve. Now this is indisputably true, but it is not egoism. The judgment thateach individual must labor where he may do so most effectively, that hemust assume not only a general responsibility for all interestsaffected by his action, but also a special responsibility for thosewith whose direct execution he is charged, is an impartial judgment. It expresses a broad and intelligent view of the total situation. Inthe fable of the fox and the grapes, the action of the fox is due tothe folly of a too fluent attention. Similarly, he who lets go hispresent hold of the web of interests simply because his eye happens toalight on another vantage-point, is as much the blind slave of noveltyas the self-centred man is of familiarity. In both cases the fault isone of narrowness of range, of arbitrary exclusion. 

Egoists, then, are guilty of a kind of stupid provinciality. They arelike those closet-philosophers whom Locke describes. 

The truth is, they canton out to themselves a little Goshen in theintellectual world, where light shines and as they conclude, dayblesses them; but the rest of that vast expansum they give up to nightand darkness, and so avoid coming near it. They have a pretty trafficwith known correspondents, in some little {63} creek; within that theyconfine themselves, and are dexterous managers enough of the wares andproducts of that corner with which they content themselves, but willnot venture out into the great ocean of knowledge, to survey the richesthat nature hath stored other parts with, no less genuine, no lesssolid, no less useful than what has fallen to their lot, in the admiredplenty and sufficiency of their own little spot, which to them containswhatsoever is good in the universe. [9]

The impartial or judicial estimate of value is properly recognized asessential to the meaning of _justice_. I do not here refer to justicein the more narrow and familiar sense. Retributive justice, or justicein any of its special legal aspects, is a political rather than anethical matter. [10] But political justice must be based on ethicaljustice. And to the definition of this fundamental principle somecontribution has now been made. There is a parody of justice, ajustice of condescension, that the principles already defined dodiscredit. For it has sometimes been thought that justice requiredonly a deliberate estimate of interests by those best qualified tojudge, as though the settlement of moral issues were a matter ofconnoisseurship. The viciousness of this conception lies in the factthat qualitatively regarded there is no superiority or inferiorityamong interests. The relish of caviare is no better, no worse, thanthe relish of bread. Preference among interests must be based on theirdifference {64} of representation, or their difference ofcompatibility. A wide and safe interest is better than a narrow andmischievous interest, better for its liberality. It follows that nointerest can be condemned except upon grounds that recognize itsclaims, and aim so far as possible to provide for it among the rest. No interest can rationally be rejected as having no value, but only asinvolving too great a cost. 

But though these considerations are sufficient to expose moralsnobbery, they do not fully define justice. For justice imputes acertain inviolability to the claims of that unit of life which we termloosely a human, personal, moral, free, or rational being. There issome sense in which you are a finality; making it improper for mesimply to dispose of you, even if it be my sincere intention to promotethereby the well-being of humanity. You are not merely one interestamong the rest, to be counted, adjusted, or suppressed by some court ofmoral appraisement. I think I may safely assume that there is to-dayan established conscience supporting Kant's dictum, "So act as to treathumanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in everycase as an end withal, never as means only. " [11]

Let me state briefly what appears to me to be the proper basis of thisjudgment. I have said that I am not entitled simply to suppress your{65} action as may be approved by my own judgment. Now, did I proposeto do so, what justification should I offer? I should present, nodoubt, the facts in the case. I should show you the incompatibility ofyour presently adopted course with the general good. But let ussuppose that you defend your action on the same grounds. In that caseyour endorsement of your action has precisely the same formaljustification as my condemnation of it. Our equality lies in the factthat we are both claiming candidly to represent the truth. In the lastanalysis our equality is based on the identity of the objective contentto which we appeal. As witnesses of a specific truth within the rangeof both, the meanest mortal alive and the omniscient intelligence areequal; and simply because the identical truth is as valid in the mouthof one as in the mouth of the other. Where it is a matter ofdisagreement between you and me, our equality lies in the fact thatneither can do more than appeal to the object. Neither has anyauthority; there _is_ no authority in matters of truth, but onlyevidence. The only rational solution of disagreement is agreement;that is, the coalescence of opinions in the common object to which theyrefer and toward which they converge. The method of approximatingagreement is discussion; which is the attempt of each of two knowers toavail himself of all the organs {66} and instruments of knowledgepossessed by the other. Discussion involves mutual respect, in whicheach party acknowledges the finality of the other as a vehicle oftruth. This, I believe, is that moral equality, that dignity andultimate responsibility attaching to all rational beings alike, withoutwhich justice cannot be fulfilled. 

Justice, then, embraces these two ideas. In the first place, inestimating the goodness or evil of action, merely personal or partyconnections must not be admitted in evidence. In the second place, thedeliberate judgment of any rationally minded individual is entitled torespect as a source of truth. Conflict must in the last analysis beovercome by the congruence of impartial minds. Hence the justificationof reciprocal respect among persons who think honestly; and of a publicforum to which all shall have access, and where business shall betransacted under the vigilant eye of him who is most concerned. Acandid mind is the last court of jurisdiction. So long as theprocedure of society is questioned or resented by one honestconscience, it is lacking in complete verification, and its findingsare open to doubt. 

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V

Enough has already been said to show that the goodness of action mustbe determined with reference to nothing less than the totality of allaffected interests. For this highest principle I have reserved thehonored term, _good-will_. Neither you nor I can reasonably decline toconsider the bearing of our actions on any interest whatsoever. Rightconduct, since it is inconsistent with the least ruthlessness, mustinevitably in the end assume the form of humanity and piety. 

I know that it is not customary to suppose that devotion to the serviceof mankind is rational; it is taken to be gratuitous, if not quixotic. But once let it be granted that goodness accrues to action inproportion to its fruitfulness, it follows that that action is mostblessed that is dedicated without reservation to the general life. There is only one course which can recommend itself to that fair andopen mind to which I conceive myself to be addressing this appeal:namely, so to act in fulfilment of the interest in hand, as either topromote or make room for all other interests. 

And this is true not only of such interests as may be assumed to exist, as constitute one's present neighborhood, near and remote; it is alsotrue of interests that are as yet only potentialities, defined by thecapacity of living things {68} to grow. If it be unreasonable toneglect the bearing of one's action on interests which one happens notto be familiar with, it is unreasonable to neglect its bearing oninterests not yet asserted, wherever there is a presumption that suchmay come to be. In other words, one's moral account cannot be made upwithout a provision for entries that have yet to be made. Such aprovision will take the form of a purpose to grow, an ardent spirit ofliberality, an eagerness for novelty. Good-will builds better than itknows; it is open toward the future; committed to a task which requiresforesight and also faith. But such devotion, with all itsextravagance, with its very reverence for what is not known but mustnevertheless be accounted best, is only, after all, the part offearless good sense. If anything be good, and if it be reasonable topursue it, then is the maximum of that thing the _best_, and thepursuit of it _wholly_ reasonable. 

It may even be said that thrift is only a lesser form of piety, andpiety the whole of thrift. For, first and last, goodness lies in thesaving and increase of life. The justification of any act lies in itsbeing provident; in its yield of immediate fulfilment and its generousallowance for the other interest, the remote interest, and the interestthat is as yet only surmised. The good will is the will to participateproductively, permissively, {69} and formally in the total undertakingof life. Only when this intention controls one's decisions can one actwithout fear of one's own critical reflection. 

VI

Let me add a word concerning the part played by the imagination inenforcing the logic of morality. An enlightened conscience, or arational conviction of duty, will consist essentially in the viewing oflife with a certain remove from its local incidents. In conduct, as inall matters where validity or truth is concerned, the criticalconsciousness must disengage itself and view the course of things inits due proportions, allowing one's dearest interests to lie where theylie among the rest. I have read so admirable a representation of themoral function of the logical imagination in a recent paper by H. G. Lord, that I beg leave to quote it here in full:

As between one's self and another "the image of an impartial outsiderwho acts as our judge" is none other than this rational insight intothe relation existing between two who are cognitively to each otherjust this and not anything else. It is the vision of the actualreciprocity of the two. From this comes the Golden Rule in its variousforms: "Love thy neighbor as thyself, " "Do unto others as ye would bedone by, " "Put yourself in his place. " But, furthermore, even thissimpler justice necessitates the power not only to "see yourself asothers see {70} you, " but even more adequately, and as we say morejustly, to put yourself where you belong in a system of many, in whichyou not only count for one and no more than one, but in which you countfor just that sort of one, fulfilling just that sort of function whichyour place in the rationally conceived system involves or necessitates. And this gives us a form of justice much more profound and complex thanthat of the Golden Rule, and requiring constructive imagination andrational insight of the very highest order. And with this insight goesnecessarily an inevitableness, an inexorableness, and, as we saymetaphorically, an imperativeness, which no amount of twisting andintellectual thimble-rigging can avoid. The logic of the system cannotbe avoided any more than a step in a mathematical demonstration. . . . So long as it stands, its parts, elements, or members are _placed_, andthere is set over each of them the imperative of the system in whichthey are members. [12]

It has sometimes been thought that a fair view of life will inhibitaction through discrediting party zeal. John Davidson describes whathe calls "the apathy of intelligence. "

To be strong to the end, it is necessary to shut many windows, to bedeaf on either side of the head at will, to fetter the mind. . . . Theperfect intelligence cannot fight, cannot compete. Intelligence, fullyawake, is doomed to understand, and can no more take part in thedisputes of men than in the disputes of other male creatures. [13]

Now it is true that intelligence inhibits wantonness; for intelligence, fully awake, knows how unreasonable it is that one who loves lifeshould {71} destroy it. But because intelligence affirms the motive ofeach combatant, it must move action to the saving of both. Whereintelligence is directed to the inner impulse of life, it is notapathetic, but sympathetic. Its span is widened, while its incentiveis not divided but multiplied. 

Nor does it follow that when duty is interpreted as enlightenment, lifemust lose its romantic flavor and cease to require the oldhigh-spirited virtues. It is this very linking of life to life, thisabandonment of one's self to the prodigious of the whole, that providesthe true object of reverence, and permits the sense of mystery toremain even after the light has come. Although the way of morality isevident and well-proved in direction, being plain to whomever will lookat life with a fair and commanding eye, achievement is difficult, thegreat victories hard won, and the certain prospect bounded by a nearhorizon. Even though life be rationalized, it will none the less callfor intrepid faith; for what Maeterlinck calls "the heroic, cloud-tipped, indefatigable energy of our conscience. " [14]

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CHAPTER III

THE ORDER OF VIRTUE

I

We have thus far dealt with the general content of morality, and withits logical grounds. Morality is only life where life is organized andconfident, the struggle for mere existence being replaced with theprospect of a progressive and limitless attainment. The good isfulfilled desire; the moral good the fulfilment of a universal economy, embracing all desires, actual and possible, and providing for them asliberally as their mutual relations permit. The moral good is simplythe greatest possible good, where good in the broad generic sense meansany object of interest whatsoever, anything proved worth the seekingfrom the fact that some unit of life actually seeks it. Whatever isprized is on that account precious. 

The logic of morality rests on this objective relation between interestand value. The maximum good has the greatest weight, its claims areentitled to priority, because it surpasses any limited good inincentive and promise of fulfilment. Duty in this logical sense issimply to {73} control of particular actions by a full recognition oftheir consequences. 

In the present chapter the attention is shifted from the whole to theparts of morality. I am not one of those who stake much on thecasuistical application of ethical principles. Every particular actionvirtually involves considerations of enormous complexity; and theindividual must be mainly guided by general rules of conduct orvirtues, which are proved by the cumulative experience of the race. Life itself is the only adequate experiment in living. Virtues areproperly verified only in the history of society, in the development ofinstitutions, and in the evidences of progress in civilization atlarge. I shall confine myself, then, to such verified virtues, andseek to show their relation to morality as a whole. [1]

Virtues vary in generality according to the degree to which they referto special circumstance; and, since there is no limit to the variety ofcircumstance, there is, strictly speaking, no final and comprehensiveorder of virtues. The term may be applied with equal propriety totypes of action as universal as justice and as particular as conjugalfidelity. We shall find it necessary to confine ourselves to the moregeneral and fundamental virtues. 

I have adopted a method of classification to which I attach no absoluteimportance, but which {74} will, I trust, serve to amplify andilluminate the fundamental conceptions which I have already formulated. I shall aim, in the first place, to make explicit a distinction whichhas hitherto been obscured. I refer to the difference between the_material_ and the _formal_ aspects of morality. On the one hand, action is always engaged in the fulfilment of an immediate interest;this constitutes its material goodness. On the other hand, every moralaction is limited or regulated by the provision which it makes forulterior interests; this constitutes its formal goodness. Let me makethis difference more clear. 

A particular action is invariably connected with a particular interest;and in so far as it is successful it will thus be directly fruitful offulfilment. And it matters not how broad a purpose constitutes itsultimate motive; for purposes can be served only through a variety ofactivities, each of which will have its proximate interest and its owncontinuous yield of satisfaction. Life pays as it goes, even though itgoes to the length of serving humanity at large, and the largerenterprises owe their very justification to this additive andcumulative principle. 

But if action is to be moral it must always look beyond the presentsatisfaction. It must submit to such checks as are necessary for therealization of a greater good. Indeed, action is not wholly {75} gooduntil it is controlled with reference to the fulfilment of the totalityof interests. 

It follows, then, that every action may be judged in two respects:first, in respect of its immediate return of fulfilment; second, inrespect of its bearing on all residual interests. Every good actionwill be both profitable and safe; both self-sustaining and alsoserviceable to the whole. 

The necessity of determining the relative weight which is to be givento these two considerations accounts for the peculiar delicacy of theart of life, since it makes almost inevitable either the one or theother of two opposite errors of exaggeration. The _undue assertion ofthe present-interest_ constitutes materialism, in the moral sense. Materialism is a forfeiture of greater good through preoccupation withnearer good. It appears in an individual's neglect of his fellow'sinterest, in his too easy satisfaction with good already attained, inshort-sighted policy on any scale. Formalism, on the other hand, signifies the _improvident exaggeration of ulterior motives_. It isdue to a misapprehension concerning the relation between higher andlower interests. I have sought to make it clear that higher interestsowe their eminence, not to any intrinsic quality of their own, but tothe fact that they save and promote lower interests. Formalism is the{76} rejection of lower interests in the name of some good that withoutthese interests is nothing. 

The conflict between the material and formal motives in life is presentin every moral crisis, and qualifies the meaning of every moral idea. It may even provoke a social revolution, as in the case of the Puritanrevolution in England. The Puritan is still the symbol of moral rigorand sobriety, as the Cavalier is the symbol of the love of life. Thefull meaning of morality tends constantly to be confused throughidentifying it exclusively with the one or the other of these motives. Thus morality has come, on the whole, to be associated with constraintand discipline, in both a favorable and a disparaging sense. This hasled to its being rejected as a falsification of life by those whoinsist that every good thing is free and fair and pleasant. And, evenamong those who recognize the vital necessity of discipline, moralityis so narrowed to that component, that it commonly suggests only thosescruples and inhibitions which destroy the spontaneity andwhole-heartedness of every activity. 

That morality should tend to be identified with its formal rather thanits material aspect is not strange; for it is the formal motive whichis critical and corrective, substituting a conscious reconstruction ofinterests for their initial movement. It is this fact which gives toduty that {77} sense of compulsion which is so invariably associatedwith it. Duty is opposed to the line of least resistance, wheneverlife is dominated by any motive short of the absolute good-will. Thusamong the Greeks, _dikê_ is opposed to _bia_. [2] This means simplythat because the principles of social organization are not as yetthoroughly assimilated, their adoption requires attention and effort. And a similar opposition may appear at either a higher or lower level, between the momentary impulse and the law of prudence, or between thehabit of worldliness and the law of piety. 

In connection with this broad difference between the material andformal aspects of life, it is interesting to observe a certaindifference of leniency in the popular judgment. Materialism is moreheartily condemned, because he who is guilty of it is not alive to thegeneral good. He is morally unregenerate. Formalism, on the otherhand, is good-hearted or well-intentioned. He who is guilty of it maybe ridiculed as unpractical, or pitied for his misguided zeal; butsociety rarely offers to chastise him. For he has submitted todiscipline, and if he is not the friend of man, it is not because ofany profit that he has reserved for himself. 

In the arrangement which follows I shall use this difference betweenthe material and formal {78} aspects of morality to supplement the mainprinciple of classification, which is that difference of level orrange, of which I have already made some use in the previous chapter, and which I shall now define more precisely. In morality life is soorganized as to provide for interests as liberally and comprehensivelyas possible. But the principles through which such organization iseffected will differ in the degree to which they accomplish that end. Hence it is possible to define several economies or stages oforganization which are successively more complete. The _simpleinterest_, first, is the isolated interest, pursued regardlessly ofother interests; in other words, not as yet brought under the form ofmorality. The _reciprocity of interests_, represents that rudimentaryform of morality in which interests enter only into an externalrelation, through which they secure an exchange of benefits withoutabandoning their independence. In the _incorporation of interests_, elementary interests are unified through a purpose which subordinatesand regulates them. The _fraternity of interests_, is thatorganization in which the rational or personal unit of interest isrecognized as final, and respected wherever it is met. But there mustalso be some last economy, in which provision is formally made for anyinterest whatsoever that may assert itself. This is the realm of {79}good-will, or, as I shall call it for the sake of symmetry, the_universal system of interests_. I shall so construe these economiesas to make the broader or more inclusive comprehend the narrower. 

Now each of these economies possesses its characteristic principle oforganization, or typical mode of action; and this enables us to definefive prime virtues: _intelligence, prudence, purpose, justice, _ and_good-will_. From each of these virtues there accrues to life acharacteristic benefit: from intelligence, _satisfaction_; fromprudence, _health_; from purpose, _achievement_; from justice, _rational intercourse_; and from good-will, _religion_. The absence ofthese virtues defines a group of negative vices: _incapacity, imprudence, aimlessness, injustice, _ and _irreverence_. Finally, applying the distinction between formalism and materialism, we obtaintwo further series of vices; for, with two exceptions, it is possiblein each economy either to exaggerate the principle of organization, andthus neglect the constituent interests which it is intended toorganize; or to exaggerate the good attained, and thus neglect thewider spheres beyond. There will thus be a formalistic series oferrors: _asceticism, sentimentalism, anarchism, mysticism_; and amaterialistic series: _overindulgence, sordidness, bigotry_ or _egoism, worldliness_. Since materialism is in each case due to the lack of thenext higher {80} principle of organization, there is no real differencebetween the materialism of one economy and the negative vice of thenext. But I have thought it worth while to retain both series, becausethey represent a difference of emphasis which it is customary to make. Thus there is no real difference between overindulgence and imprudence;but one refers to the excess, and the other to the deficiency, in anactivity which is excessive in its fulfilment of a present interest, and deficient in its regard for ulterior interests. 

I have thought it best for the purpose of clear presentation totabulate these virtues and vices; and it proves convenient, also, toadopt a fixed nomenclature. It is unfortunate that the terms must bedrawn from common speech; for it is impossible that the meaningassigned to them in the course of a methodical analysis like thepresent, should exactly coincide with that which they have acquired intheir looser application to daily life. But I shall endeavor always tomake plain the sense in which I use them; and, thus guarded, they willserve to mark out a series of special topics which it is importantbriefly to review. 

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 ECONOMY VIRTUE VALUE NEGATIVE FORMALISM MATERIALISM VICE

 Simple Intelli- Satis- Incapacity ------ Over- Interest gence faction indulgence

 Recipro- Prudence Health Imprudence Ascet- Sordidness city of icism Interests

 Incorpor- Purpose Achieve- Aimless- Sentiment- Bigotry ation of ment ness alism Egoism Interests

 Fraternity Justice Rational Injustice Anarchism Worldliness of Inter- Interests course

 Universal Good-Will Religion Irreverence Mysticism ------ System of Interests

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II

We have already had occasion to remark that no moral value attaches tothe successes and failures of the isolated or _simple interest_. Thusit is customary not to apply judgments of approval or condemnation tothe vicissitudes of animal life. So wholesale a generalization isundoubtedly false; but at any rate it is based on the supposition thatthe motive in animal life is always simple. And similarly, wheneverhuman action is regarded only with reference to the impulse itimmediately serves, it is judged to be successful or futile, but neverright or wrong. These properties are reserved for such action as iscontrolled, or is capable of being controlled, with reference both toan immediate and also an ulterior interest. But since the differencebetween goodness in the wider generic sense and goodness in the moralsense is one of complexity, it is proper and illuminating to bring theminto one orderly progression. 

The _root-value_, then, of which all the higher moral values arecompounded, is the fulfilment or satisfaction of the particularinterest. This fundamental value is conditioned by a form oforganization, which I propose in a restricted sense to termintelligence. I mean the capacity which every living interest mustpossess to {83} utilize the environment, to turn it to its ownadvantage. This is the distinguishing and essential capacity of lifein every form. A plant can continue to exist, and a sculptor can modela statue, only through being so organized as to be able to assimilatewhat the environment offers. Whether it be called tropism ortechnique, it is all one. Intelligence in this sense may be said to bethe elementary virtue, conditioning success on every plane of activity. 

In using such terms as "satisfaction" and "success" interchangeablywith so irreproachable a term as "fulfilment, " I may, until my meaningis wholly clear, seem to degrade morality. But the tone ofdisparagement in these first two terms is due to their having acquiredcertain arbitrary associations. It is supposed that to be satisfied isto be complacent, and that to be successful is to be hard and worldly. Now, a narrow satisfaction and a blind success are morally evil; butsatisfaction and success may be taken up into a life that is whollywise and devoted. They will, in fact, constitute the real body ofvalue in any practical enterprise, from the least to the greatest. 

The absence of intelligence, which I shall term _incapacity_, is theone absolutely fatal defect from which life may suffer. Incapacityembraces maladaptation, dulness, feebleness, {84} sickness, and death. Like its opposite it does not enter into the moral account except in sofar as it affects a group of interests, through being prejudicial to anindividual's efficiency or a community's welfare; but it will impairand annul attainment upon any plane. The fault of incapacity attachesnot only to life that is rudimentary or defective, but also to themechanical processes which have not been assimilated to any interestand thus lie outside the realm of value. Incapacity in this sense isthat metaphysical evil of which philosophers speak. It testifies tothe fact that the cosmos is only partially subject to judgments eitherof good or of evil; that value has a genesis and a history within anenvironment that is at best plastic and progressively submissive. 

In terms of intelligence and incapacity, the basal excellence and thebasal fault, it is possible to define that whole affair of whichmorality is the constructive phase: the attempt of life to establishitself in the midst of primordial lifelessness, to avert dissolutionand death, and to extend and amplify itself to the uttermost. 

Within the economy of the simple interest there is no possibility offormalism, since there is no subordination of interest to anythinghigher than itself. But we meet here with materialism in its purestform. _Overindulgence_ is the fault {85} which attaches to theexclusive insistence of the isolated interest on itself; when it growshead-strong, and is like to defeat itself through being blindlypreoccupied. 

The evil of overindulgence arises from two natural causes. In thefirst place an interest is essentially self-perpetuating; in spite ofperiodic moments of satiety, an interest fulfilled is renewed andaccelerated. Just in so far as it is clearly distinguished itpossesses an impetus of its own, by which it tends to excess, untilcorrected by the protest of some other interest which it infringes. Overindulgence is most common where such consequences are delayed orobscured by artificial means; hence its prevalence among those who canafford for a time to dissipate their strength, or have some means ofreplenishing it. And imprudence is common where the penalty isinsidious. The corruption entailed by gluttony, inebriety, andincontinence may be slow and doubtful, or apparently remitted inmoments of recovery; but if one indulge himself in foolhardiness orviolence, he is like to be repaid on the spot. Hence the latter formsof imprudence are more rare. To avoid imprudence, it is necessary todiscount that aspect which the interest wears within the period of itsimmediate fulfilment, and thus avoid the necessity of repeating thehard and wasteful lesson of experience. This {86} truth, which is thefirst principle of all practical wisdom, has been graphicallyrepresented in Jeremy Taylor's _Rules and Exercises of Holy Living_:

Look upon pleasures not upon that side that is next the sun, or wherethey look beauteously, that is, as they come towards you to be enjoyed;for then they paint and smile, and dress themselves up in tinsel andglass gems and counterfeit imagery; but when thou hast rifled anddiscomposed them with enjoying their false beauties, and that theybegin to go off, then behold them in their nakedness and weariness. See what a sigh and sorrow, what naked and unhandsome proportions and afilthy carcass they discover; and the next time they counterfeit, remember what you have already discovered, and be no more abused. [3]

There is a second source of overindulgence, in the ever-increasingcomplexity of the moral economy. The more numerous the interests; themore difficult the task of attending to their connections and managingtheir adjustment. Not only is the need of prudence never outgrown; itsteadily acquires both a greater urgency and a greater difficulty. 

If incapacity may be said to be the metaphysical evil, the taint of thecosmos at large, overindulgence may be said to be the original sin, thetaint of life itself. It is life's offence against itself, the denialof greater life for the sake of the little in hand. It is theperennial failure of the {87} individual interest to unite itself withthat universal enterprise of which it is the microcosmic image. 

III

The simplest _moral_ economy is that in which two or more interests are_reciprocally adjusted_ without being subordinated. The principle oforganization which defines such an economy is _prudence_. Prudencebecomes necessary at the moment when interests come into such contactwith one another as provokes retaliation. Thus, for example, interestsreact on one another through being embodied in the same physicalorganism. Each bodily activity depends on the well-being ofco-ordinate functions, and if its exercise be so immoderate as toinjure these, it undermines itself. _Moderation_ gains for specialinterests the support of a general bodily health. 

But bodily health is not the only medium of interdependence among theinterests of a single individual. His interests must draw not onlyupon a common source of vitality, but also upon a common stock ofmaterial resources. The limitation of interests that follows from thisfact is frugality or _thrift_, the practical working of the principlethat present waste is future lack, and that, therefore, to save now isto spend hereafter. Thrift involves also a special emphasis on {88}livelihood, since this is a source of supply for all particularinterests. 

The social relation makes interests externally interdependent in agreat variety of ways. Interests must inhabit one space, exploit onephysical environment, and employ a common mode of communication. Ifany interest so acts as unduly to divert one of these mediums to itsown uses, it must suffer retaliation from the other interests thatlikewise depend on that medium. It is prudent to give even one's rivalhalf the road, and to divide the spoils with him. There is a politicform of _honesty_; and _veracity_ may be conceived only as a kind ofcaution. Thus Menander says: "It is always best to speak the truth inall circumstances. This is a precept which contributes most to safetyof life. " [4] _Tact_ is only a more refined method of avoiding theantagonism of interests that operate within the same field of socialintercourse. 

The economy of prudence has its own characteristic value. Indeed, ifthis were not so there would be no possibility of that form of basenessknown as being _merely_ prudent. There is a prudential equilibrium; acondition of smooth and harmonious adjustment, within the personal lifeor the community. I propose that this equilibrium be termed _health_. In that admirable idealization of renaissance morality, Castiglione's{89} _Book of the Courtier_, the author refers to the immediate rewardof self-control that comes both from inner harmony and the approbationof one's fellows. To instil goodness into the mind, "to teachcontinence, fortitude, justice, temperance, " Castiglione would give hisprince "a taste of how much sweetness is hidden by the littlebitterness that at first sight appears to him, who withstands vice;which is always hurtful and displeasing, and accompanied by infamy andblame, just as virtue is profitable, blithe, and full of praise. " [5]

Socially, the healthful equilibrium corresponds to that "peace" whichHobbes praised above all things;[6] and which is all that is asked forby those who wish to be let alone in order that they may pursue theirown affairs. Although such peace may be ignominious, it need not beso; and a sense of security and reciprocal adjustment must remain amongthe surviving values, whatever higher achievements be added to it. Butthe inherent value of health is most clearly defined by a niceequilibration of activities within the medium of the individualorganism. I borrow the following description of health in this sensefrom a recent book by H. G. Wells:

The balance as between asceticism and sensuality comes in, it seems tome, if we remember that to drink well one must not have drunken forsome time, {90} that to see well one's eye must be clear, that to makelove well one must be fit and gracious and sweet and disciplined fromtop to toe, that the finest sense of all--the joyous sense of bodilywell-being--comes only with exercises and restraints and fine living. [7]

The temperance praised by the Greeks is of like quality, with a furtherreference to the reasonableness which it fosters. A prudence which ismastered, which has become a spontaneity, delivers reason from bondage, and makes the whole of life easily conformable to it. ThusCastiglione, who is so often reminiscent of Plato and Aristotle, drawsa contrast between continence, as the "conquest" of prudence, andtemperance as its "beneficent rule. "

Thus this virtue does not compel the mind, but infusing it by verygentle means with a vehement belief that inclines it to righteousness, renders it calm and full of rest, in all things equal and wellmeasured, and disposed on every side by a certain self-accord whichadorns it with a tranquillity so serene that it is never ruffled, andbecomes in all things very obedient to reason and ready to turn itsevery act thereto and to follow wherever reason may wish to lead it, without the least unwillingness. [8]

Such is that prudence which, though rich in its own right, isnevertheless subordinate to greater good. 

It is proper to regard prudence as inferior in principle to purpose andgood-will, or even as ignoble when confirmed in its narrowness. It{91} denotes an organization of life in which as yet no interest hasrisen above the rest; it bespeaks the common populace of interests, disciplined, but not moved to any eminent achievement. The fact thatthe validity of the principle of prudence is so readily granted issignificant of this. Prudence requires no interest to be other thanitself, but meets it on its own ground. There is no elevation ofmotive. 

But prudence is the first and most instructive lesson in morality. Ithas a peculiar impressiveness, not only because it is so promptly andunmistakably verified, but because it is so close to life. Its meaningis unlikely to be obscured through being abstracted from the realinterests whose saving is the proof of its virtue. Furthermore, although prudence is not the highest principle in life, it is a mistaketo suppose that it is therefore unnecessary in the highest spheres oflife. There is a problem of prudence that underlies every practicalproblem whatsoever. If interests are to be organized they must be notonly subordinated but also co-ordinated, that is, adjusted within everymedium in which they meet. Without moderation, caution, self-control, thrift, and tact there is no serving man or God. As life increases incomplexity it is easy to forget these basal precepts. Nature hasprovided a model, both simple and fundamental, in physical health. {92} "The body, " says Burke, "is wiser in its own plain way, andattends its own business more directly than the mind with all itsboasted subtilty. " [9]

The prudential organization of life furnishes the first type of_formalism_. Prudence requires that the interest shall be limited inorder that it may not antagonize other interests and thus indirectlydefeat itself. Discipline is justified, in other words, by its fruits. But discipline involves an initial moment of negation, in which themovement of the interest is resisted. It must be checked, and itsheadway overcome, if it is to be redirected. The exaggeration of thismoment of negation, or a steady persistence in it, is _asceticism_. Its fault lies in its emptiness, in its destruction or perversion ofthat which it was designed only to protect against itself. 

Asceticism appears most frequently as a subordinate motive in somegeneral condemnation of the world on religious grounds, and mustreceive further consideration in that connection. Its proper meaningas a purely prudential formalism is best exhibited in the Greek Cynics. These philosophers were moved to mortify the flesh, and to deny theirsocial interests, by extreme caution. They discovered that the safestmethod of adjustment was simplification. If one permits one's self nodesires, one need not suffer {93} from their conflict, nor need onetreat with the desires of others. Now this would be a very perfectsolution of the problem of adjustment, if only there were somethingleft to adjust. If a Cynic can attain to a state of renunciation inwhich he wants nothing, he will be sure of having what he wants; only, unfortunately, it will be nothing. Epictetus has thus represented theCynic's boast:

Look at me, who am without a city, without a house, withoutpossessions, without a slave; I sleep on the ground; I have no wife, nochildren, no praetorium, but only the earth and heavens, and one poorcloak. And what do I want? am I not without sorrow? Am I not withoutfear? Am I not free?

Now it is clear that the sum of the Cynics' attainments is not large. It consists, indeed, almost wholly in a certain hardened complacency, and a freedom to make faces at the world. To the onlooker, whosecomment Epictetus also records, their aspect is mean:

No: but their characteristic is the little wallet, and staff, and greatjaws; the devouring of all that you give them, or storing it up, or theabusing unseasonably all whom they meet, or displaying their shoulderas a fine thing. [10]

In other words, since the Cynic continues to live after having rejectedthe proper instruments and forms of life, he must make a living out ofthe charitable curiosity excited by his very unfitness. {94} Andasceticism of this prudential type tends always to be both empty andmonstrous; empty because it denies life, and monstrous because life isnot really denied, but only perverted and awkwardly obstructed. 

There is a materialistic evil corresponding to the prudentialorganization of life which is known as meanness, vulgarity, or_sordidness_. It denotes a failure to recognize anything better thanthe fulfilment of the simple interests in their severalty. Althoughguarded and adjusted these still determine the general tone of life. The controlling motive, the standard of attainment, is never anythinghigher than the elementary desire with its attendant satisfaction. Inits negative aspect this is termed _aimlessness_, and is identical withthe Christian vice of idleness, so graphically described by JeremyTaylor:

Idleness is called _the sin of Sodom and her daughters_, and indeed is_the burial of a living man_, an idle person being so useless to anypurposes of God and man, that he is like one that is dead, unconcernedin the changes and necessities of the world; and he only lives to spendhis time, and eat the fruits of the earth: like a vermin or a wolf, when their time comes they die and perish, and in the meantime do nogood; they neither plough nor carry burdens; all they do is eitherunprofitable or mischievous. [11]

Thus aimlessness denotes a failure to attain anything of worth; a lackof consecutiveness and {95} unity. The correction of this fault liesin a new principle of organization. 

IV

This new principle of organization consists in the _incorporation ofinterests_, that is, their subordination to a _purpose_ that embracesthem, unifies them, and carries the whole to a successful issue. Theincorporation of interests is peculiarly an intellectual process. Itis this to which Socrates refers when he says that _knowledge isvirtue_. Purpose requires, in the first place, that one should defineand foresee the end, and in the second place, that one should besagacious and watchful in the service of it. Purpose is the virtue ofthe understanding, of a mind which is adventurous enough to project anenterprise, but has enough of home-keeping wit to judge nicely of causeand effect or of part and whole. 

There are many virtues which contribute to purpose, and of these noneis more indispensable than _patience_, or the capacity to labor withouthire for a prize deferred. "Better is the end of a thing, " says thePreacher, "than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit isbetter than the proud in spirit. " Steadiness of purpose under adverseor confusing circumstances is called _persistence, courage, loyalty, _or _zeal_, with {96} differences of meaning that reflect the natureeither of the purpose or the circumstances. 

But since purpose is so much an intellectual virtue, special importanceattaches in this economy to _truthfulness_. If one's purpose be someform of personal achievement, one must deal honestly with one's self. And this is not easily done. Epictetus told his pupils that men wereloath to admit any fault that they held to be really blameworthy:

Some things men readily confess, and other things they do not. No onethen will confess that he is a fool or without understanding; but quitethe contrary you will hear all men saying, I wish that I had fortuneequal to my understanding. But men readily confess that they aretimid, and they say: I am rather timid, I confess; but as to otherrespects you will not find me to be foolish. A man will not readilyconfess that he is intemperate; and that he is unjust, he will notconfess at all. He will by no means confess that he is envious or abusybody. Most men will confess that they are compassionate. [12]

Now if one is to attain anything difficult, he cannot afford to indulgein vanity or self-satisfaction; for action can be kept true to its endonly when the least obliquity is marked and corrected. Hence thestrong man does not attribute his failure to fortune or to his amiablevirtues, but to his folly; for he knows that to be the crucial faultwhich it lies within his power to remedy. On the other hand, if thepurpose be one {97} which involves the co-operation of several persons, it is necessary that these should deal openly and candidly with oneanother. Truthfulness is a condition of any collective undertaking. It is interesting to observe the growing recognition of the need ofpublicity wherever democratic institutions prevail. Secrecy is a sortof treason. If men are to work together for their common welfare theymust be truly in touch with one another; otherwise there is a spy attheir councils, an incalculable force that may counterwork their plans. 

_Achievement_, the value which the virtue of purpose conditions, needsno moralist's justification. The world never tires of praising it, forit is the world's business. By achievement I mean the fulfilment bysubordinated and cumulative effort of an interest deliberately adoptedfor its greatness of value. Life is now controlled not by the accidentof desire, but by the due preference of the better. It has begun to berational not only in its method, but also in its aim. It is now morefruitful, because more broadly conceived, being engaged in enterpriseswhich continue, and which draw from many sources. Hence a man canbetter endure the spectacle of his own life, for it seems not to bewholly mean or ineffectual. In that his conduct is unified, consistent, and directed to some worthy {98} end, he is possessed ofthat quality of character which is respected in him both by himself andby his fellows. 

It is unfortunate that there is no better term than _sentimentalism_with which to indicate that variety of formalism which ischaracteristic of the purposive economy. The fallacy consistsessentially in the abstraction of the purpose from its constituentinterests. The true value of a purpose lies in its function oforganization; and is, therefore, inseparable from the interests towhich it gives unity and fulfilment. But its form, or even its merename, may, through association, come to acquire a fictitious value. When this fictitious value gives rise in contemplation or discourse toa certain emotional satisfaction, we employ the term "sentimentalism"in the conventional sense. This is the sentimentalism of those

 "Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched, Nursing in some delicious solitude Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies. "

I wish, however, to emphasize a more insidious variety of this error, in which it may be more profoundly and fatally confusing. I refer, inthe first place, to what may be described as _deferred living_. Thereis a popular illusion to the effect that a life purpose is to befruitful only at the end; that it is something to be prepared for inyouth, worked for in maturity, and attained--well, {99} it is difficultto say when. This is the fallacy of heaven transferred to earth. "Mannever is, but always to be blest. " Life is conceived as a sentence athard labor, the only sure compensation being the ultimate deliverance. Now there is but one justification of a life purpose, and that is itsconserving of the whole of life; it must save each day and each hour. There is no more virtue in the future than in the present. "Thegreatest disaster, " says a Greek proverb, "is for a man to be openedand found empty"; and this does not refer to an autopsy. It is atleast one function of a life-purpose to make life distributively andcontinuously good. That one's life shall be pointed with a purposedoes not mean that it shall be reduced to a point. The very virtue oforganization lies in its making room for the free play of immediate andparticular interests, in its surrounding them at a distance withinvisible safeguards. 

A second important case of sentimentalism is _nationalism_. The valueof the state lies in its protection and development of the concretelife of the community. The true object of patriotism is socialwelfare. But for the state as a provident economy, there may besubstituted as an object of loyalty what is only an idea or a name; andwhen this is done men are easily persuaded to play into the hands ofunscrupulous leaders. {100} To the abominable tyrannies which havethus been made possible I need not refer. In Hegel's philosophy ofhistory, [13] as well as in many modern political theories, this errorhas been deliberately affirmed. But for illustration I prefer to turnto the case of Plato. The _Republic_ was conceived, it is true, without bias of party or race, but there is none the less a strain ofarbitrariness and illiberality in it. This is due to the fact that thestate is conceived by itself, with a quality and perfection of its ownthat displaces the interests of its citizens. [14] A state which isdefined otherwise than as a provision for the very diversity of life, an organization responsive to pressure from every constituent desire, fails from over-simplification. This I take to be the meaning ofAristotle's comment on the _Republic_:

The error of Socrates must be attributed to the false notion of unityfrom which he starts. Unity there should be, both of the family and ofthe state, but in some respects only. For there is a point at which astate may attain such a degree of unity as to be no longer a state, orat which, without actually ceasing to exist, it will become an inferiorstate, like harmony passing into unison, or rhythm which has beenreduced to single foot. The state is a plurality, which should beunited and made into a community by education. [15]

There is a chapter in the _Discourses_ of Epictetus, entitled: "To oragainst those who obstinately Persist in what they have determined. "{101} There could, I think, be no better formulation of purpose grownhard and unworthily self-sufficient. This form of materialism I havetermed _egoism_ and _bigotry_, since the purpose may be either personalor social in scope. But in either case the diagnosis of Epictetus goesto the root of the evil. He thus describes his experience with one ofhis companions, "who for no reason resolved to starve himself to death":

I heard of it when it was the third day of his abstinence from food, and I went to inquire what had happened. 

"I have resolved, " he said. 

"But still tell me what it was which induced you to resolve; for if youhave resolved rightly, we shall sit with you and assist you to depart;but if you have made an unreasonable resolution, change your mind. "

"We ought to keep our determinations. "

"What are you doing, man? We ought to keep not to all ourdeterminations, but to those which are right; for if you are nowpersuaded that it is right, do not change your mind, if you think fit, but persist and say, we ought to abide by our determinations. Will younot make the beginning and lay the foundation in an inquiry whether thedetermination is sound or not sound, and so then build on it firmnessand security?" . . . 

Now this man was with difficulty persuaded to change his mind. But itis impossible to convince some persons at present; so that I seem nowto know, what I did not know before, the meaning of the common saying, That you can neither persuade nor break a fool. May it never be my lotto have a wise fool for my friend: nothing is more untractable. "I{102} am determined, " the man says. Madmen are also; but the morefirmly they form a judgment on things which do not exist, the moreellebore they require. [16]

The wise fool is, as Epictetus says, more intractable than the aimlessand unwitting fool; because there is substance to his folly. There isat least some truth on his side. But his folly is folly none the less. He hardens himself against that which would save him; while boastinghimself a lover of light, he shuts his eyes lest any ray of itpenetrate to him. Thus the egoist, through the atrophy of hissympathies and his preoccupation with a narrow ambition, gratuitouslyimpoverishes his life; and it is difficult to convince him of his loss, because he indubitably has some gain. 

Bigotry consists essentially in the failure to employ the method ofdiscussion, in the failure to recognize in every rational being apossible source of that truth which all need. It is a stupidforfeiture or waste of the resources of intelligence possessed by one'sfellows. The King Creon of Sophocles's _Antigone_ is a masterlyrepresentation of the futility of this pride of opinion. Creon angrilyresents every impeachment of his wisdom, insisting on instant andunquestioning obedience. But his son Haemon thus attempts to save himfrom himself:

Father, the gods plant wisdom in mankind, which is of all possessionshighest. In what respects you {103} have not spoken rightly I cannotsay, and may I never learn; and still it may be possible for some oneelse to be right too. . . . Do not then carry in your heart one fixedbelief that what you say and nothing else is right. For he who thinksthat he alone is wise, or that he has a tongue and mind no other has, will when laid open be found empty. [17]

It was once a practice even among learned men to set personal prideabove the truth. The chancellor of the University of Paris complainsof this practice in the Middle Ages:

What are these combats of scholars, if not true cock-fights, whichcover us with ridicule in the eyes of laymen? A cock draws himself upagainst another and bristles his feathers. . . . It is the same to-daywith our professors. Cocks fight with blows from their beaks andclaws; "Self-love, " as some one has said, "is armed with a dangerousspur. " [18]

Egoism and bigotry, then, consist essentially in the exaggeration andimmobility of an adopted purpose. As is the case with every variety ofmaterialism, their fault lies in their blindness, in their fatuousrejection of the good that is offered to them. But this is not all. For in denying the good which is offered to him, the egoist or bigotalso virtually denies the reason which offers it. It is this thatconstitutes the affront which is called _injustice_. 

The full meaning of injustice has been recognised only gradually, andit is even now by no means free from confusion. But I think that it{104} will be agreed that the sting of it is a failing in respect. Violence may be wholly without this taint; and the most bitterinjustice may be wholly without violence. To be unjust is to becondescending or supercilious; to assume superiority on personalgrounds, ignoring the equal access to truth which is enjoyed by everyrational being. The nice quality of injustice is most clearly to beapprehended where it is accompanied by benevolent intent. It is one ofthe princely attributes described in the _Book of the Courtier_, andjustified in a manner that leaves no doubt of its implied meaning:

True it is that there are two modes of ruling: the one imperious andviolent, like that of masters toward their slaves, and in this way thesoul commands the body; the other more mild and gentle, like that ofgood princes by means of laws over their subjects, and in this way thereason commands the appetite; and both of these modes are useful, forthe body is by nature created apt for obedience to the soul, and so isappetite for obedience to reason. Moreover, there are many men whoseactions have to do only with the use of the body; and such as these areas far from virtuous as the soul from the body, and although they arerational creatures, they have only such share of reason as to recognizeit, but not to possess or profit by it. These, therefore, arenaturally slaves, and it is better and more profitable for them to obeythan to command. [19]

Now the essence of injustice lies in this Platonic manner ofclassifying human beings in terms of {105} limited capacities; inassigning to some the degraded status of the appetites, and to others alimited faculty of understanding, while arrogating to a few the fullpower and title of Reason. The resentment of this arrogance is no morethan the assertion of that potentiality of reason which distinguishesthe animal man; it is his inevitable coming of age, his determinationto play the man's part. 

V

_Justice_ is the mutual respect through which rational purposes enterinto a relation of _fraternal equality_. It is the courteous paying ofhonor where honor is due. In modern times justice has very properlybeen identified with _tolerance_, which is the acknowledgment that oneis one's self equally liable to error with another, and that another isequally liable to truth with one's self. Justice attaches a certainfinality to the judgment of every individual instrument of reason. Under the form of justice _veracity_ realizes its highest meaning. Thetruth is not to be administered with paternal indulgence or caution; itis to be yielded as a right to every free and self-determining mind. 

The practice and the spirit of justice pervade every highly developedsocial grouping, such as marriage, friendship, or fellow-citizenship ina democracy. For Aristotle a friendship is "one {106} soul dwelling intwo bodies";[20] that is, the same high capacity uniting twoindividuals in the acknowledgment of its common principles, and in thecontemplation of its common objects. Aristotle's other saying, that"man is a political animal, " is inspired with the same meaning. Toparticipate in the life of a state, in which one's fellow-citizens wereone's equals, in which men with equal endowments carried on one unitedactivity while acknowledging one another's independence, was to anAthenian the very fulness of life. To be banished from it was, even inthe eyes of the law, equivalent to death. 

In a chapter of his _Physics and Politics_, entitled "The Age ofDiscussion, " Bagehot has admirably represented the importance for humanprogress of an open exchange of opinion on all matters of greatconsequence:

In this manner all the great movements of thought in ancient and moderntimes have been nearly connected in time with government by discussion. Athens, Rome, the Italian republics of the Middle Ages, the communesand states-general of feudal Europe, have all had a special andpeculiar quickening influence, which they owed to their freedom, andwhich states without that freedom have never communicated. And it hasbeen at the time of great epochs of thought--at the Peloponnesian War, at the fall of the Roman Republic, at the Reformation, at the FrenchRevolution--that such liberty of speaking and thinking have producedtheir full effect. [21]

{107} Elsewhere Bagehot attributes to freedom of discussion, not onlythe deliverance from narrow and conventional habits, but that generalelevation of tone which is characteristic of such an era as theElizabethan age in England. In short, justice or toleration, since itencourages men to push on to the limit of their powers, promotes notonly originality and diversity, but a love of perfection. 

It will have been observed that justice and freedom are complementary, for he who is just liberates, and he who is free receives justice. Together they constitute the basis of all the higher relationshipsbetween men, of a progressive society, and of the whole constructivemovement which we call civilization. 

But it is possible to construe justice and freedom only negatively, asmeaning that the individual is to be allowed to go his way in peace. Such a misconception is formalistic, in that it rests on a failure torecognize the providence or fruitfulness of justice. The virtue ofjustice lies not in its disintegration of society, but in its enablingthe members of society to unite upon the highest plane of endeavor. Justice is a method wherewith men may profit collectively, and in theirorganized effort, from a sum of enlightenment to which every individualcontributes his best. _Anarchism_ rests in the negative protestagainst {108} conformity; forgetting that the only right to liberty isfounded on the possession of a reasonableness that inclines theindividual to the universal; and forgetting that the only virtue inliberty lies in the opportunity for union and devotion which itprovides. 

There is a more restricted form of anarchism in _scepticism_ whichattaches finality to differences of opinion, and overlooks the factthat these very differences must be regarded as converging approachesto the common truth. For men can differ only in the presence ofidentical objects which virtually annul their difference. To be freeto think as one pleases cannot but mean to think as truly as possible, and so to approach as closely as possible to what others also tend tothink. 

But a larger importance attaches to that mild variety of anarchismwhich is commonly called _laissez-faire_, and which Matthew Arnoldcalls British Atheism or Quietism. The reader will recall Arnold'squotation from the _Times_:

It is of no use for us to attempt to force upon our neighbors ourseveral likings and dislikings. We must take things as they are. Everybody has his own little vision of religious or civil perfection. Under the evident impossibility of satisfying everybody, we agree totake our stand on equal laws and on a system as open and liberal as ispossible. The result is that everybody has more liberty of action andof speaking here than anywhere else in the Old World. 

{109} And from Mr. Roebuck:

I look around me and ask what is the state of England? Is not everyman able to say what he likes? I ask you whether the world over, or inpast history, there is anything like it? Nothing. I pray that ourunrivalled happiness may last. [22]

This is an almost perfect representation of the sentimental interest injustice. In the course of such justice, "none of us should seesalvation. " It leaves wholly out of account the fact that when men areleft free to talk or act or live as they will, they will eitherstagnate, or they will strive for the best and help it to prevail. Ifthe latter, they will be brought back to the _state as the means ofmaking right reason effective_, and of extending to all not simply theleave to be what they want to be, of following what Arnold calls their"natural taste of the bathos, " but the opportunity of learning better. 

Justice, like purpose and prudence, is a principle of organization, owing its virtue to the larger fulfilment of interest which it makespossible. Through this principle the individual is grantedindependence, in order that his freedom may remove every limit from hisservice. He is delivered from the bondage of violence and convention, but he is delivered into the charge of his own reason, which must givebonds not only that he will keep the peace, but that he will give {110}himself wholly to that true good which he may now discern. 

In justice the human secular society is perfected. By a secularsociety I mean a society held to be self-sufficient as it is; a societyin which only those interests are acknowledged which are actuallypresent, or have actually been admitted to a place of power orprestige. But secularism or _worldliness_ in this sense suffers fromthe general error of materialism, the error of mistaking the _de facto_good for the whole good. It is only another case of that blindnesswhich is the penalty of all self-sufficiency. The ancient and themodern types of worldliness present an interesting difference whichwill serve to illustrate their common fault. 

Greek literature abounds in the glorification of the life alreadyachieved. Thus Solon asks no more of the gods than to be fortunate andhonored: "Grant unto me wealth from the blessed gods, and to have alwayfair fame in the eyes of all men. Grant that I may thus be dear to myfriends, and bitter to my foes; revered in the sight of the one, awfulin the sight of the other. " [23]

To this Pindar adds the petition that, "being dead I may set upon mychildren a name that shall be of no ill report. " [24] Even the idealof the philosophers is only a refinement of this; {111} recognizing thesuperiority of such activities as engage the imagination or reason, butnevertheless finding happiness to be complete in terms of thefulfilment of the dominant desires within the existing politicalcommunity. This conception was vaguely distrusted, it is true; but itrepresents the characteristic enlightenment of the most enlightenedcentre of Greek life. Its insufficiency was not clearly demonstrateduntil the advent of Christianity; when it was proved to lie in a lackof _pity_. Now pity is not, as is sometimes supposed, a kind ofweakness; it is a kind of knowledge, wherewith men are reminded ofobscure and neglected interests. It is easy to understand why theChristian revolution should have been regarded as destructive ofculture. For it meant not the qualitative refinement of the good, butthe quantitative distribution of it. But it none the less marks anepoch in moral enlightenment; since the bringing of all men up to onelevel of opportunity and welfare is as essential a part of the good asthe cultivation of distinction. 

The modern worldliness consists not in a lack of pity, but in a lack of_imagination_. Philistinism, as Matthew Arnold describes it, is acomplacent satisfaction with the _kind_ of good that is praised andsought for in any given time. Such complacency is found in its mostextreme form among those reformers or even religious leaders who are{112} devoted to the saving of men; for these come to overrate theirwares through the very act of pressing them upon others. MatthewArnold never tires of illustrating this from the Liberal propaganda ofhis day:

And I say that the English reliance on our religious organisations andon their ideas of human perfection just as they stand, is like ourreliance on freedom, on muscular Christianity, on population, on coal, on wealth--mere belief in machinery, and unfruitful; and that it iswholesomely counteracted by culture, bent on seeing things as they are, and on drawing the human race onwards to a more complete, a harmoniousperfection. [25]

In other words, both humanism and humanitarianism may be lacking inhumanity: humanism, on account of its insensibility to pain and hungerand poverty when these lie outside a narrow radius of bright intensiveliving; humanitarianism, on account of its failure to honor the highesttype of attainment and to prefigure a perfection not yet realized. 

VI

There is but one economy of interests which furnishes the proper sphereof moral action, namely, the universal economy which embraces withinone system all interests whatsoever, present, remote, and potential. The validity of this economy lies in the fact that the goodness ofaction cannot {113} be judged without reference to all the interestsaffected, whether directly or indirectly. To live well is to live forall life. The control of action by this motive is the virtue of_good-will_. It should be added that the good will must be not onlycompassionate, but just; offering to help, without failing to respect. And it must be not only devoted, but also enlightened; serving, but notwithout self-criticism and insight. 

Such a programme need not seem bewildering or quixotic. If my actiondoes not offend those most nearly concerned, it will scarcely offendthose removed by space, time, or indirection. Charity begun at home isspread abroad without my further endeavor. Furthermore, it isgood-will rather than a narrow complacency that inspires my assuming ofthe special tasks and responsibilities defined by proximity, descent, and special aptitude. Life as a whole is built out of individualopportunities and vocations. It is required only that while I liveeffectively and happily, as circumstance or choice may determine, Ishould conform myself to those principles which harmonize life withlife, and bring an abundance on the whole out of the fruitfulness ofindividual effort. 

Good-will is the moral condition of religion, where this is correctedby enlightenment. The religion of good-will is best illustrated, fromthe {114} European tradition, in the transition from paganism toChristianity. I have said that the Greeks were not without distrust ofthat natural and worldly happiness which they most praised. This, forexample, is the testimony of Euripides:

 Long ago I looked upon man's days, and found a grey Shadow. And this thing more I surely say, That those of all men who are counted wise, Strong wits, devisers of great policies, Do pay the bitterest toll. Since life began; Hath there in God's eye stood one happy man? Fair days roll on, and bear more gifts or less Of fortune, but to no man happiness. [26]

This note of pessimism grows more marked among the philosophers, and isat length taken up into the Christian renunciation of the world. Thephilosophers attempted to devise a way of happiness which the superiorindividual might follow through detaching himself from politicalsociety and cultivating his speculative powers. [27] But the Christianrenunciation involved the abandonment of every claim to individualself-sufficiency, even the pride of reason. It expressed a sense ofthe general plight of humanity, and looked for relief only through apower with love and might enough to save all. Hence there is thisfundamental difference between pagan and Christian pessimism: the paganconfesses his powerlessness to make himself impregnable {115} tofortune, while the Christian convicts himself of sin, confessing hisworthlessness when measured by the task of universal salvation. Theone pities and absolves himself; the other condemns himself. 

Now the other-worldliness of Christianity was without doubt a graveerror, which it found itself compelled to correct; but it was none theless the vehicle through which European civilization became possessedof the most important secrets of religious happiness. In the firstplace, all are made sharers, through sympathy, in the failure of thepresent; and, thus distributed, the burden is lightened. "It is an actwithin the power of charity, " says Sir Thomas Browne, "to translate apassion out of one breast into another, and to divide a sorrow almostout of itself; for an affliction, like a dimension, may be so dividedas, if not indivisible, at least to become insensible. " [28] In thesecond place, it is understood that there is no such thing as ahappiness that is enjoyed at the expense of others and by the specialfavor of fortune. There is no promise of individual salvation save inthe salvation of all. A private and protected happiness is boundsooner or later to be destroyed by an increase of sensibility, by anenlightened awareness of the evil beyond. And to experience evil, torealize it, and yet to be content, lies not within {116} the power ofany moral being; it is not merely difficult, it is self-contradictory. To any one who judges himself fairly, with a wide and vivid image oflife as it is in all its ramifications and obscurities, the evil of theworld is all one. It follows that, as there is no perfect happinessexcept in the annihilation of evil, so there can be no peace of mind, no self-respect, no sense of living truly and for the best, unlessone's action can be conceived as wholly saving and up-building, ascontributing in its place and in its way to the general forwardmovement. This, I think, is the deeper explanation of the buoyancy ofdevoted people, of that buoyancy which was a source of such greatwonder to the disillusioned wise men of ancient times. And this, Ithink, is the meaning of the Christian teaching that it is more blessedto give than to receive; and that the love of one's God is to grow outof the love of one's neighbor. 

I have endeavored to show that the highest good is the greatest good;that it may not only be inferred from the present good, but that itactually _consists_ of the present good, with more like it, and withthe present evil eliminated. By _mysticism_ I mean that species offormalism in which the highest good, out of respect for its exaltation, is divorced from the present good, and so emptied of content. Professor James has said that it is {117} characteristic ofrationalists and sentimentalists, to "extract a quality from the muddyparticulars of experience, and find it so pure when extracted that theycontrast it with each and all its muddy instances as an opposite andhigher, nature. " [29] There is a peculiar liability to suchabstraction in religion, for religion involves a judgment ofinsufficiency against every limited achievement. A longing afterunqualified good is the very breath of enlightened religion; and inorder that that ideal may be kept pure, it must not be identified withany partial good. Indeed, the office of religion requires it tocondemn as only partial, good that is commonly taken to be sufficient. Now there is only one way of defining a good that shall be universalwithout being merely formal, and that is by defining perfectionquantitatively rather than qualitatively; substituting for the PlatonicAbsolute Good, in which the present good is refined away into a phraseor symbol, the maximum good, in which the present good is saved andmultiplied. He who believes that he conceives goodness otherwise thanas the good which he already possesses, deceives himself; as does theauthor of the _Religio Medici_, when he says:

That wherein God Himself is happy, the holy Angels are happy, in whosedefect the Devils are unhappy, that dare I call happiness; whatsoever{118} conduceth unto this may with an easy Metaphor deserve that name;whatsoever else the World terms Happiness, is to me a story out ofPliny, a tale of Boccace or Malizspini, an apparition, or neatdelusion, wherein there is no more of Happiness than the name. Blessme in this life with but peace of my Conscience, command of myaffections, the love of Thyself and my dearest friends, and I shall behappy enough to pity Caesar. [30]

Now it is safe to say that Sir Thomas Browne was in fact unable toattribute to God and the angels any other happiness than these sameblessings which he covets for himself, saving only that they shall bewithout stint, and joined with others like them. 

Formalism, as we have seen, is never merely negative in itsconsequences; for any moral untruth, since it replaces a truth, cannotfail to pervert life. Thus one may be persuaded with the author whom Ihave just quoted to count the world, "not an Inn, but an Hospital; anda place not to live, but to dye in. " [31] I do not suppose that anyone ever succeeded in wholly resisting the hospitality of this world, and one suspects that Thomas Browne partook not a little of its goodcheer; but the opinion is false notwithstanding, and if false, thenconfusing and misleading. This world is not a place to suffer in, noreven a place to be mended in, but the only opportunity of achievementand service that can be certainly {119} counted on. The good is in themaking here, if it is in the making anywhere. To neglect life here isequivalent to forfeiting it altogether. 

Religious formalism may induce not only a default of presentopportunity and responsibility, but also a substitution for good livingof an emotional improvisation on the theme of absolute perfection, likethat in the _Book of the Courtier_:

If, then, the beauties which with these dim eyes of ours we daily seein corruptible bodies, . . . Seem to us so fair and gracious that theyoften kindle most ardent fire in us, . . . What happy wonder, whatblessed awe, shall we think is that which fills the souls that attainto the vision of divine beauty! What sweet flame, what delightfulburning, must that be thought which springs from the fountain ofsupreme and true beauty!--which is the source of every other beauty, which never waxes nor wanes: ever fair, and of its own self most simplein every part alike; like only to itself, and partaking of none other;but fair in such wise that all other fair things are fair because theyderive their beauty from it. This is that beauty identical withhighest good. [32]

Now I do not want to be understood as condemning this mysticism out ofhand. I mean only that while it is eloquent and purifying, it is, nevertheless, not illuminating; and that if it be mistaken forillumination, it does in fact hide the light. It has no meaningwhatsoever except the general idea of the superlative, and if it be notattached to some definite content drawn from {120} experience of actsand their consequences, it does but substitute a phrase for the properobjects of action and an emotion for provident conduct. 

There is a further moral danger in mysticism, which I need only mentionhere, because I propose to discuss it more fully in the chapter onreligion. Since mysticism opposes a formal perfection to the concretegood of experience, it tends to obscure the distinction between goodand evil. That distinction lies within experience, and if experienceas a whole be discredited, the distinction is discredited with it. Ifthe common, familiar good is not to be taken as valid, then finality nolonger attaches to that common, familiar evil which the moral will hasbeen trained to condemn and resist. If the good lie "beyond good andevil, " then neither is the good good nor the evil evil. The result isto leave the moral will without justification, supported only by habitand custom. 

The virtue of piety lies in its completing, not in its replacing, secular efficiency. It gives to a life that is provident and fruitfulas it goes, the stimulus of a momentous project, and reverence for agood that shall embrace unlimited possibilities. 

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VII

In reviewing the several levels of life which morality defines, we mayobserve two types of universal value. The lower values in relation tothe higher are indispensable. There is no health without satisfaction, no achievement without health, no rational intercourse withoutachievement, and no true religion except as the perfecting andcompleting of a rational society. The higher values, on the otherhand, are more universal than the lower in that they surpass these invalidity, and are entitled to preference. Thus the lower values areennobled by the higher, while the higher are given body and meaning bythe lower. Satisfaction derives dignity from being controlled by themotive of good-will, while the moral kingdom at large derives itswealth, its pertinence to life, and its incentive, from the greatmanifold of particular interests which it conserves and fosters. 

It is the formal rather than the material principle in life whichdefines the direction of moral effort. By prudence, purpose, justice, and good-will life is regenerated and urged, against the resistance ofinertia, towards its maximum of attainment. Hence these are thevirtues which make men heroes, and which are symbolized in manners andin worship. Manners are a {122} symbolic representation of rationalintercourse; thus courtesy is a ceremony of respect, chivalry ofservice, and modesty of self-restraint and impersonality. Worship issimilarly a symbolic representation of good-will and hope. Upon thecultivation of "those outward and sensible motions which may express orpromote an invisible devotion" human life is dependent not only for itsgraciousness, but for its discipline and growth. 

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CHAPTER IV

THE MORAL TEST OF PROGRESS

The phrase "philosophy of history" is at present somewhat in disrepute. It enjoys much the same unpopularity among historians as does the term"metaphysics" among scientists, and probably for the same reason. Itis assumed that such a discipline must either violate or exceed thefacts in the interests of some _a priori_ conception. Doubtless somephilosophies of history have been guilty of this charge; but they donot, I am sure, exhaust the possibilities in the case. In the presentchapter I shall present an outline of what might fairly be regarded asa philosophy of history, but which nevertheless does no more thanattempt a precise definition of principles which even the historian isforced to employ. 

I shall not attempt to define the task of history, except in thebroadest terms. The form which its results should finally assume is amatter of dispute among historians themselves. But it is at leastpossible to indicate the field of history in terms that will commandgeneral assent. In the first place, history deals with change, withthe temporal sequence of events; and in the second place, it confinesitself to such events as belong to what is called human conduct. Entirely apart from theories of method or technique, it seems clearthat any established fact falling within this description belongsproperly to that body of knowledge which we call history. 

I wish especially to call attention to the fact that history deals with_human conduct_. It deals, in other words, with actions which serveinterests; with needs, desires, and purposes as these are fulfilled orthwarted in the course of time. Its subject-matter, therefore, ismoral. It describes the clash of interests, the failure or success ofambition, the improvement or decay of nations; in short, all thingsgood and evil in so far as they have been achieved and recorded. Andthe broader the scope of the historian's study the more clearly dothese moral principles emerge. The present-day emphasis on theaccurate verification of data somewhat obscures, but does not negatethe fact, that every item of detail is in the end brought under somejudgment of good or evil, of gain or loss in human welfare. Allhistory is virtually a history of civilization; and civilization is amoral conception referring to the sum of human achievement in so far asthis is pronounced good. 

Now there is a branch of philosophy called {125} "ethics, " to which iscommitted the investigation of moral conceptions. These conceptionsare as much subject to exact analysis as conceptions of motion ororganic behavior. And such an analysis must underlie all judgmentsconcerning the condition of mankind in any time or place, if thesejudgments make any claim to truth. The application of ethical analysisto the recorded life of man is a philosophy of history. [1] Such adiscipline is charged with the criticism of the past in terms ofcritical principles which have been explicitly formulated. With aknowledge of what it means to be good or evil one may conclude in allseriousness whether the fortunes of society in any time or place weregood or evil. One may with meaning distinguish between those who havebeen the friends and the enemies of society; and one may refer to thegrowth or decay of nations with some notion of what these termssignify. But it will be the main problem of a philosophy of history todeliver some verdict concerning the progress or decline ofinstitutions, and of civilization at large. 

It is necessary that we should at once rid our minds of false notionsconcerning the meaning of _progress_. This conception has been greatlyconfused during recent times through being identified with evolution inthe biological sense. It should be perfectly clear that such evolutionmay or {126} may not be progressive; it means only a continuousmodification of life in accordance with the demands of the environment. Even where this modification takes the direction of increasingcomplexity it does not necessarily constitute betterment; and it isentirely consistent with the principle of adaptation that it shouldtake the reverse direction. Biological evolution signifies only asteady yielding to the pressure of the physical environment, whetherfor better or for worse. It is also important not to confuse theconception of progress with that of mere change or temporal duration. Because society has grown older it has not necessarily on that accountgrown wiser; nor because it has changed much has it necessarily on thataccount changed for the better. Whether the accumulations of the pastare wealth or rubbish is not to be determined by their bulk. 

Progress cleared of these ambiguities means, then, _a change from goodto better_; an increase, in the course of time, of the value of life, whatever that may be. Taken in the absolute sense it means, not a gainhere or a gain there, but _a gain on the whole_. It is impossible toreach any conclusion whatsoever concerning progress except in the lightof some conception of the total enterprise of life. Every advance mustbe estimated not merely in relation to the interest immediately {127}served, but in relation to that whole complex of interests which iscalled humanity. 

In discussing progress I shall therefore with right employ those moralconceptions which I have already defined. I shall regard as goodwhatever fulfils interests, and as morally good whatever fulfils allinterests affected to the maximum degree. Especial importance nowattaches to the principle which I have phrased the _quantitative basisof preference_. Since progress involves the change from good tobetter, it implies an increment of value. The later age is judged tobe _as good and better_. I can see no way of verifying such aproposition unless it be possible to find in the greater good both thelesser good and also something added to it and likewise accounted good. In other words, progress involves measurement of value, and thisinvolves some _unit of value_ which is common to the terms compared. The method must be in the last analysis that of superimposition. 

Bagehot virtually employs this method in the chapter of his _Physicsand Politics_, which he entitles "Verifiable Progress PoliticallyConsidered. " Let me quote, for example, his comparison of theEnglishman with the primitive Australian. 

If we omit the higher but disputed topics of morals and religion, weshall find, I think, that the plainer {128} and agreed-on superioritiesof the Englishmen are these: first, that they have a greater commandover the powers of nature upon the whole. Though they may fall shortof individual Australians in certain feats of petty skill, though theymay not throw the boomerang as well, or light a fire with earthsticksas well, yet on the whole twenty Englishmen with their implements andskill can change the material world immeasurably more than twentyAustralians and their machines. Secondly, that this power is notexternal only; it is also internal. The English not only possessbetter machines for moving nature, but are themselves better machines. Mr. Babbage taught us years ago that one great use of machinery was notto augment the force of man, but to register and regulate the power ofman; and this in a thousand ways civilized man can do, and is ready todo, better and more precisely than the barbarian. Thirdly, civilizedman has not only greater powers over nature, but knows better how touse them, and by better I here mean better for the health and comfortof his present body and mind. He can lay up for old age, which asavage having no durable means of sustenance cannot; he is ready to layup because he can distinctly foresee the future, which the vague-mindedsavage cannot. [2]

It will be observed that in each case the superiority of the Englishmenlies in the fact that they _beat the Australians at their own game_. Australians are as much interested as Englishmen in obtaining commandover nature, in organizing their own powers, and in securing health andcomfort. The Englishmen, however, can fulfil these interests not onlyup to but also beyond {129} the point which marks the limit of theAustralians' attainment. 

The method of superimposition is virtually employed in all competitivestruggle. The glory and fruits of victory are sought by bothopponents, and the success of one is the failure of the other. Thesuperiority of the victor to the vanquished is beyond question onlybecause they had the same interest at stake. 

The application of this method to the determination of progress is notconfined to philosophers of history. It is applied by every individualwho realizes that his advance from childhood to maturity has beenattended with growth and development. For the old boundaries ofchildhood still remain as evidence of the greater magnitude of the lifewhich has outgrown them. Similarly every man may mark within himselfthe various limits which once bounded him, but which he has sinceexceeded in consequence of steady and consecutive effort. The progressof mankind at large differs only in complexity and range. It can betested and determined only because identical interests persist. If menhad not in all times wanted the same things it would be impossible tomeasure their attainments. Their successes and failures would beincommensurable. But the old needs and the old hopes yet remain. Theproblem of life which was from {130} the beginning is a problem still. If it can be shown that the old needs are met more easily, along withnew needs besides, that there is better promise that the hopes will befulfilled, and that the general problem of life is nearer a solution, then human progress will have been demonstrated. 

II

I propose, in the first place, to discuss two general principles, theoperation of which is conducive to progress. One of these principlesis _external_, that is, it relates to the environment of life ratherthan to its internal economy; and to this I shall turn first. 

The external environment of life is in some respects favorable, inother respects unfavorable. Now, strangely enough, it is theunfavorable rather than the favorable aspect of the environment thatconduces to progress. Progress, or even the least good, would, ofcourse, be impossible, unless the mechanical environment was morallyplastic. The fact that nature submits to the organization which wecall life is a fundamental and constant condition of all civilization. But there is nothing in the mere compliance of nature to press lifeforward. It is the _menace_ of nature which stimulates progress. Itis because nature always remains a source of difficulty and danger{131} that life is provoked to renew the war and achieve a morethorough conquest. Nature will not permit life to keep what it hasunless it gains more. 

The external environment of life embraces not only mechanical nature, but also such outlying units of life as have not yet been brought intoharmonious relations. Conflict between individuals, tribes, races, ornations operates in a manner analogous to mechanical nature. It exertsa constant pressure in the direction of greater strength andefficiency. In order that man shall not be robbed by his enemies ofwhat he already has, he must forever be attempting to make himselfimpregnable and formidable. 

But war and the struggle with nature not only put a premium on thebetter organization of life; they also make it a condition ofpermanence. Superior individuals survive when inferior individualsperish in the struggle, or the superior type obtains an ascendency overthe inferior. In human warfare the defeated party is rarely if everutterly annihilated; it tends, however, to lose its prestige or evenits identity through being assimilated to the victorious party. Ineither case that form of life which in conflict proves itself thestronger, tends to prevail, through the exclusion of those forms whichprove themselves weaker. 

An unfavorable environment has, then, operated externally to developcoherence and unity {132} in life. But the cost has been prodigious, and must be subtracted from the gain. For there is no virtue inconflict save the strength of the victor. Man has made a virtue ofthis necessity; but to obviate so dire a necessity becomes one of thefirst tasks which civilization undertakes. The attempt to eliminateconflict, and reduce to a minimum the sacrifice of special interests, marks the operation of the _internal_ or _moral_ principle of progress. During the historical period this principle assumes a constantlygreater prominence. 

A society may be said to be internally progressive when it can affordto withdraw some of its energies from the struggle for existence, anddevote them to the improvement of method and the saving of waste. Itsstability and security must be so far guaranteed as to make it safe toundertake a reconstruction, calculated to provide more fully for itsconstituent interests and develop its latent possibilities. There nowobtains, within limits that tend steadily to expand, what Bagehot calls"government by discussion, " that is, the regulation of action by theinvention, selection, and trial of the best means. This substitutionof rational procedure for custom is an irreversible and germinalprocess. Let me quote Bagehot's account of it:

A government by discussion, if it can be borne, at once breaks down theyoke of fixed custom. The {133} idea of the two is inconsistent. Asfar as it goes, the mere putting up of a subject to discussion is aclear admission that that subject is in no degree settled byestablished rule, and that men are free to choose in it. . . . And ifa single subject or group of subjects be once admitted to discussion, ere long the habit of discussion comes to be established, the sacredcharm of use and wont to be dissolved. "Democracy, " it has been saidin modern times, "is like the grave; it takes, but it does not give. "The same is true of "discussion. " Once effectually submit a subject tothat ordeal, and you can never withdraw it again; you can never againclothe it with mystery, or fence it by consecration; it remains foreveropen to free choice, and exposed to profane deliberation. [3]

The strength of custom or established authority lies in prompt andundivided action against external enemies; but its weakness lies in itsexcessive cost to the interests within. And when there is leisure andsecurity for deliberation, the policy and organization of society mustrespond at once to the claims of these interests. Development is nowdue to a moral rather than to a mechanical principle; that is, thesurviving type of life is due not to pressure and elimination fromwithout, but to a provident concern that emanates from within. Thereis a deliberate intention to promote survival, those interests alonebeing restricted or suppressed which do not comply with this intention. There evolves not a selected group of strong individuals, but a strongcommunity, strong because both full of life, or rich {134} inincentive, and also harmonious. And within such a community thestrength of individuals lies not in a sheer power to resist the strainof competition, but in the rational and moral capacity to utilize theresources of the entire community. Through moral organization thestrong are made stronger at the same time that the weak are made strong. 

Strictly speaking, there is only one internal principle of progress, namely, _rationality_. By rationality, in this connection, I mean theknowledge of the good, and the correction of existing usages throughwhich it is accidentally or wantonly frustrated. If fulfilment be themotive of life, and maximum fulfilment be the good, then any existingusage stands condemned when it is proved to involve unnecessarysacrifice. And such usages will be condemned, and in the long runrejected, wherever there is an opportunity for self-assertion anddiscussion among the various interests concerned. But such correctionmay be initiated either by a positive or a negative motive. It mayresult either from the action of those who seek constructively topromote the general welfare of society, or from the action of those whoprotest against society in behalf of neglected interests. The first is_constructive reform_, the second, _revolution_. 

_Constructive reform_ is the work of disinterested {135} reflection. It may originate in speculation, as political or social theory; or itmay originate in the solution of a practical problem. Plato hasdescribed the type of mind which in either case it requires: a mindwhich is free from individual or party bias, and which represents andco-ordinates all the interests of the community. Now the failure ofpolitical and social theories as measures of reform is proverbial; nonefailed more completely and conspicuously than Plato's own. And it isnot difficult to see why this should be the case; for, as a rule, theyare adapted neither to the habits and intelligence of the time, nor tothe actual instruments of practical efficiency. But it may be observedthat the distance between the philosopher and the man of affairs isconsiderably shorter than it used to be. The method of discussionbeing once generally adopted, action, both individual and social, ispervaded with theory. Even the man of affairs cannot easily avoidbeing a philosopher. 

And even in distinguishing as sharply as I have between theory andpractice, I have simply followed a customary habit of thought that ison the whole misleading. For, in truth, it is as impossible for theman of affairs to avoid disinterested reflection, as it is for thecommercial traveller to be unsociable. The activity of the one has todo with the organization of a wide range of {136} interests, as theactivity of the other has to do with the capitalization ofgood-fellowship. 

Those of you who are familiar with the First Book of Plato's _Republic_will remember the account given there of the forced benevolence of thetyrant. It is, I believe, one of the great classics in ethical theory;and although its full meaning will not appear until we deal directlywith the problem of government, I must allude to it here for the sakeof the principle involved. The sophist of the dialogue, oneThrasymachus, attempts to overthrow Socrates's conclusion that virtueis essentially beneficent, by pointing to the case of the tyrant, whois eminent and powerful, as every one would wish to be, but who is atthe same time wholly unscrupulous. He is the symbol of success, inthat he can on all occasions do what it pleases him to do, and with noregard for the feelings of others. Now Socrates in his reply is notsatisfied to show that even the tyrant must have some scruples; he goesto the length of asserting that the tyrant must of all persons in thecommunity have the _most_ scruples. And the reason which Socratesadvances is unanswerable. The tyrant is the one person in thecommunity who has to _please everybody_. He owes his position andpower, not to any directly productive activity, such as agriculture, industry, or military service, but wholly to his skill in {137}organizing and promoting interests that are not primarily his own. Tobe sure, he has his hire; but to earn it he must pay every man hisprice. 

Now let us apply this to the general case of the man of affairs. Itfollows that just in so far as action is broad in scope, it must beconsiderate and just. To conduct enterprises on a large scale involvescontact with many interests, and these interests, once affected, musteither be understood and provided for or else antagonized. The greaterthe enterprise, the more truly does it exist by sufferance; it dependson the support of those who profit by it, and if that support bewithdrawn, it collapses into absolute impotence. The ancient Cynicswere right in thinking that the only man who can afford to beindifferent to the interests of his fellows is the man who renouncesambition and retires to his tub. 

Once the era of civilization is inaugurated, power depends on moralcapacity, that is, the capacity to protect and promote a considerablenumber of interests, and thus win their backing. This is proved inevery field of human activity, military, political, religious, intellectual, social, or commercial. Commerce and industry afford atpresent the most striking examples. The man who succeeds is the manwho can satisfy the greatest number of appetites. And the more hisenterprise grows the more it becomes a public concern; {138} and themore, therefore, must he be studious of public welfare and responsiveto public opinion. Thus manufacturing, transportation, or banking, when conducted on a large scale, touch life at so many points, that hewho seeks to gain power or wealth by means of them will gradually andwithout any abrupt change of motive approximate the method ofdisinterested service. So every station in life, from that of theruler to that of the shopkeeper, has its own characteristic form of theone problem of _meeting, adjusting and fulfilling interests_. Thedesire to be successful or to attain eminence in one's station exerts aconstant pressure in the direction of the invention, trial, andselection of methods that will solve this problem. And such methodsonce devised are at once supported by the interests they serve, andbecome necessary to the life of the community. 

Now the wise leader anticipates the needs and wishes of his followers, and so enjoys their continued support without ever seeming to depend onit. But there are very few such wise leaders. The reason for theirscarcity lies in the natural inertia of profitable activities. Thereis a universal propensity to let well enough alone. So methods areallowed to outlive their usefulness, or remain unmodified when moreprovident and fruitful methods could be devised. When leadership {139}thus fails to be statesmanlike and far-sighted, there occurs thatuprising of the disaffected interests which is called _revolution_. 

_Revolution_, then, is the self-assertion of the various constituentinterests which do not find room or fair measure within the existingorganization. The evidence of the insufficiency of present methodsbeing neglected by those in charge, that evidence _makes itself known_. In the long run this is the surest principle of progress, because it isbrought into operation by those who have a nearer or more indispensableinterest at stake. It is unquestionably to the interest of theindividual who heads an enterprise to conduct it rationally, that is, to make it always as productive as possible for all the interests whichit serves. But if he fails he may not at once incur the penalty, or beconscious of it if he does; he may only forfeit an increase of power, or render his position precarious. On the other hand, to theconstituent interest which is sacrificed, this same failure may meanloss of bread or even loss of life. Hence the latter is more sure tomove in the matter. Justice is more urgently needed by the slave whorebels, than by the master who may be brought through enlightenment toliberate him. Thus neglected interests have been the conscience ofevery great human reform. Let me cite the two greatest cases of thisin the history of {140} European civilization, Christianity and theFrench Revolution. 

Christianity as a social revolution was a protest against the existingorder on the part of interests which it did not recognize. I do notmean that these interests were not tolerated; they were, of course, protected, and even given a legal status. But in the reckoning of goodand evil they were not _counted_. Women and slaves, the poor, theill-born, and the ignorant, were instruments which the happy man mightuse, or incidents of life which might test his charity and magnanimity. These classes rose to overthrow no single institution, but a wholeconception of life, or standard of well-being which was defined toexclude them. In paganism, which did not pass with the advent ofChristianity, but still lingers as the creed of the very precioussouls, humanity is conceived only qualitatively, and notquantitatively. The good of the race is conceived to consist in theperfection of a few, chosen for their superior endowment and fortune. The eminent refinement and nobility of these demigods is substitutedfor the saving of lives, for the general distribution of welfare andopportunity. The many are to find compensation for their hardship inthe happiness of the few. But the Christian principle of atonement wasthe precise opposite of this: one suffered that all might be blessed. Christianity {141} looked towards a good that should number every onein the multitude and endure throughout all time. Now it has sinceappeared that this was no more than the truth; and that it might havebeen conceived and executed by the wise men, had they only been morewise. But they were wise only within the limits of their own conceit. Hence it took the form of an assault on the established enlightenment. The many, with their yearning for a universal happiness, with theirdeep concern for the greater good, and their jealous compassion for allsouls, destroyed the narrow eminence of the few. Thus Christianity wasa revolution, and not a constructive reform. 

The French Revolution was a protest not only against apathy, butagainst insolence as well. It was a demand of the many not merely tobe happy, but to have what they called their "rights" respected; aprotest against authority, not only because it was cruel, but becauseit was arbitrary, tyrannical. Hence it was aimed against priestcraftas well as against monarchy. It was based on the conviction that noone is so justly entitled to pass judgment on a man's affairs as a manhimself. But it was a cry from the depths, the bitter resentment of along-standing abuse. Therefore it took the form of an uprising againstthe established order; and while it opened men's eyes, it was notconducted in the spirit of enlightenment. {142} In spite of hisinferences, Nietsche has not described the matter falsely:

The slave . . . Loves as he hates, without _nuance_, to the verydepths, to the point of pain, . . . His many _hidden_ sufferings makehim revolt against the noble taste which seems to _deny_ suffering. The scepticism with regard to suffering, fundamentally only an attitudeof an aristocratic morality, was not the least of the causes, also, ofthe last great slave insurrection which began with the FrenchRevolution. [4]

Insurrection, in other words, is the flat, downright, and unqualifiedaffirmation of interests to which those in charge of affairs havedenied existence. It is a flash in the eyes of those who will not see;a blast in the ears of those who will not hear. Insurrection asserts_only_ the interests that have been neglected; hence, though it brings_new_ light, that light for lack of which the world went in darkness, it is careless and blind in its own way, and does not concern itselfwith restoring the balance. But, as Nietsche prefers not tocomprehend, insurrection demonstrates beyond question the bankruptcy ofaristocratic morality; discredits it as effectually, and in the sameway, as new evidence discredits old theories. 

These, then, are the two complementary methods through whichrationality gets itself progressively established: through theimagination and foresight of constructive minds, and through theprotest or uprising of neglected interests. 

{143}

I must mention briefly, before leaving this general topic, an accessorycondition on which this internal principle of progress depends for itseffectual working. It is necessary that the life of society should beunbroken; that its achievements should be preserved and accumulatedfrom generation to generation. This is provided for in the permanenceof records, monuments, and institutions; but these are of lessconsequence than the _continuity of tradition_. Generations of men donot come into being and pass away like regiments in marching order. There is no present generation; unless one arbitrarily selects those ofa certain age to represent the spirit of the day. He who is born now, enters into the midst of a social life in which the present is blendedwith the past through the interpenetration of individual lives of everystage of maturity. The threads are innumerably many, and their lengthis but threescore years and ten; but there is no place at which morethan a few end, so that they are woven into one continuous and seamlessfabric. It does not exceed the facts, then, to say that the life ofsociety is one life, which may gather headway, increase in wealth, andprofit by experience. Through this continuity society may learn, asthe individual organism does, by the method of trial and error. Costlyblunders need not be repeated, and the waste involved {144} in untriedexperiments may steadily be reduced. Furthermore, the advance is bygeometrical, and not merely by arithmetical progression. Everydiscovery and achievement is multiplied in fruitfulness through beingadded to the capital stock and reinvested in fresh enterprises. 

III

Human progress, thus determined by the movement of life towards itsmore rational, that is, more provident, organization, is attended inall its stages with a very significant difference of emphasis. I referto the old conflict between _conservatism_ and _radicalism_. If thiswere merely a difference of temperamental bias, it would not need todetain us. But it is really an opposition between exaggerated truths, in which each is boldly and impressively defined. 

The truth of conservatism lies, first, in its love of the existingorder. Every established form of social life has had a certainwholeness and strength and perfection of its own. This is as true ofsavagery as it is of any type of civilization. Interests are inequilibrium, and are guaranteed security within certain limits that aregenerally understood. In other words, _at least a measure offulfilment may be counted on_. The conservative is right in valuingthis as a prodigious achievement. He knows that disorder is ruin, notto {145} any class, but to all; the paralysis, if not the absolutedestruction, of all fruitful activities. 

And secondly, conservatism proclaims the truth that since orderconditions all activity, it is impossible to promote human welfareexcept by using order. The enemy of order threatens to destroy theinstruments of power, and so to make himself weak and helpless with therest. The conservative understands the real delicacy of theseinstruments, and the difficulty of remodelling them while still forcedto use them. For nothing puts so great a strain on society asprogress. It tends to destroy its rigidity, to dull its edge, and tospoil the fine adjustment without which so complex an organizationcannot function. There could be no human life whatsoever, and stillless a progressive life, were not the great mass of men content toremain steadily in their places, and so form parts of a stablestructure. An organization cannot actually _work_ until it is inequilibrium. 

Now while the conservative fears to "swap horses while crossing thestream, " the radical reminds him that if he does not do so he willnever gain the farther shore. The conservative is satisfied to sitfirmly in the saddle, but the radical thinks only of the long distanceyet to go. There is a common misconception as to who is the realradical, the real menace to this existing order. {146} He is not thesceptic, but _the man with a purpose_; the man who believes in thepossibility of better things, and so has a motive impelling him toabolish and reconstruct the present things. The sceptic, who holds allorder to be conventional and arbitrary, is as well satisfied with onesystem as another. His natural course is a cynical acquiescence in theinveterate folly of mankind. Or, finding order convenient, and fearingthat its true groundlessness will be exposed if it be made a matter fordiscussion, he advocates blind obedience to the authority of the day. Hence the disillusioned, especially if they occupy positions of powerin church or state or trade, may be counted on as the leaders ofconservative policy. The typical radical, on the other hand, isSocrates, who censured the men of his time because they were satisfiedwith something short of the best; and who was condemned because heoffered men _a good reason_ for reorganizing life. 

The radical, like the conservative, is right. He is right, in thefirst place, because he points out that the stability of theestablished order is not proof of its finality. It may be, indeedalways will be, largely due to habit. Society forfeits a greater goodthrough mere inertia, through the tendency of any organization ofinterests which runs smoothly and brings a steady return, to perpetuateitself. The radical is the critic of {147} custom, condemning it fortimidly clinging to the present good, and abandoning the originalintent of life to attain to the maximum. 

The radical is right, secondly, because he protests that so long asthere is the least waste of life, the least wanton suppression ordestruction of interests, the work of civilization is not done. Herepresents those interests which under any system are most heavilytaxed, and presses for their relief. 

Conservatism and radicalism, then, are the two half-truths into whichthe principle of progress is divided by the propensity of every humanactivity to override the mark, and by the confusion of mind that cannotfail to attend so venturesome and bewildering an undertaking ascivilization. 

IV

I have said that it is possible to measure progress because of thepersistence throughout the whole course of human history of certainidentical interests and purposes. When such an interest or purpose issufficiently broad in its scope, and gets itself permanently embodied, it is called an _institution_. Thus _government_ embodies the need ofthe general regulation of interests within the social community. _Education_ is due to the individual's prolonged period of helplessnessand dependence, and the need of assimilating him to the order of histime. _Science_ is man's {148} knowledge of the ways of nature indetail, when this is recorded, organized, and preserved as a permanentutility answering to the permanent need of adaptation. And _religion_expresses in outer form the human need of reckoning with the final dayof judgment, of establishing right relations with the powers thatunderly and overrule the proximate sphere of life. There is no limitednumber of institutions, but these are notable examples. Government, education, science, and religion are fixed moral necessities. Theyarise out of those conditions of life which are general and constant. Hence each has a history coextensive with the history of societyitself. And since the function of each remains identical throughout, the adequacy with which at any given time it fulfils that function maybe taken as a measure of civilization. Government being the mostprominent of institutions, and its improvement being the deepestconcern of society, I shall select it for special consideration. [5]

I have already referred to the Platonic account of government, given inthe _Republic_. It furnishes the starting-point of all politicalphilosophy. In the First and Second Books, Plato examines two contrarysceptical criticisms of government, with a most illuminating result. In the First Book the sceptic urges the view that government representsthe interest of the strong; {149} primarily of the ruler himself, enabling him to aggrandize himself at the expense of the weak. But inthe Second Book the sceptic is made to suggest that governmentrepresents rather the interest of the weak, since it affords him aprotection which he is not strong enough to afford himself. Now themoral of this paradox lies in the fact that government represents theinterest neither of the strong nor of the weak, but of the community asa whole. This moral is virtually pointed in the reply which Platomakes to the first of these two sceptical positions. The ruler gainshis power and prestige not from the exploitation of the interests ofhis subjects, but from his protection of them. His activity touchesall the interests of the community, and is tolerated only in so far asit conciliates them. In other words, his strength is drawn wholly fromthe constituency which he serves. The many individual interests, onthe other hand, owe their security to that concentration andorganization which centres in the ruler. They only participate in apower which the ruler may exercise and enjoy as a unit. But unlessthat power be engaged in their service it ceases to exist. It is not apersonal power, but a permanent function, through which the manyinterests of society unite, and so share severally the security, glory, and resourcefulness of the whole body. 

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Government in this sense is both a necessity and an opportunity. Suppose men to be in contact through propinquity or common descent. Divided among themselves they are prey to natural forces, wild beasts, or human enemies. But acting as a unit they are sufficiently strong toprotect themselves. He who wields them as a unit to this end is forthe time-being the ruler; and to submit to his leadership is simply tosubmit to the necessity of protection. Or, divided among themselves, they remain in a condition of poverty and fear; while united they canwage an aggressive campaign against nature, and against those whothreaten them or possess what they lack. Again, he who settles theirinternal differences, accomplishes their organization, and makes iteffective, is their ruler; and he owes his authority to the opportunityof conquest which his leadership affords. 

The fact that government is thus of natural origin, the inevitablesolution of an inevitable problem, has been obscured through confusingits general necessity with the accidental circumstances connected withthe selection of rulers. The first ruler may have been appointed byGod; or, as is more likely, he may have owed his choice to his ownbrutal self-assertion. But this has no more to do with the origin ofthe function of government, than the present methods of ambitious {151}politicians have to do with the constitutional office of a republicanpresidency. Government meets a moral need; and no man has ever ruledover men who has not met that need, however cruel and greedy he mayhave been in his private motives. 

From the very beginning, then, government exists by virtue of the goodthat it does. But there have been enormous differences in the pricethat men have paid for that good; and this constitutes its variable andprogressive factor. Tyranny is, in the long run, the most unstableform of government, because it grossly overestimates the amount thatmen will pay for the benefit of order. In the _Antigone_ of Sophocles, Creon thus justifies his rule:

Than lawlessness there is no greater ill. It ruins states, overturnshomes, and joining with the spear-thrust breaks the ranks in rout. Butin the steady lines what saves most lives is discipline. Therefore wemust defend the public order. 

But when his son Haemon protests against his tyranny, Creon states hisunderstanding of the bargain:

CREON Govern this land for others than myself?

HAEMON No city is the property of one alone. 

CREON Is not the city reckoned his who rules?

HAEMON Excellent ruling--you alone, the land deserted![6]

{152} In other words, Creon does not understand that if he exactseverything he will possess nothing. There will come a point when thecost to the community exceeds the gain; and when that point is reachedgovernment must either make more liberal terms or forfeit its power. 

The principle of rationality in government is parsimony. When itsbenefit involves a wasteful sacrifice of interests and may be purchasedmore thriftily, the pressure of interest inevitably in the long runbrings about the change. The interests upon which the burden weighsmost heavily constitute the unstable factor, and since, in order thatequilibrium may be restored, these must be relieved, there isnecessarily a gradual liberalization of governmental institutions. Inthe light of these general considerations I wish briefly to examinethree historical types of government, and then to present a summary ofpresent tendencies. 

There is an interesting estimate of the benefits and cost of the_ancient military monarchy_ in the history of Israel, as recorded bythe writer of the Book of Samuel. The elders have demanded that Samuelmake them a king, to judge them, "like all the nations. " But he firstwarns them of the price that they will have to pay:

And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign overyou: he will take your sons, and {153} appoint them unto him, for hischariots, and to be his horsemen; and they shall run before hischariots; and he will appoint them unto him for captains of thousands, and captains of fifties; and he will set some to plow his ground, andto reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and theinstruments of his chariots. . . . And he will take your fields, andyour vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and givethem to his servants. . . . And he will take your men servants, andyour maid-servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, andput them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks: and yeshall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because ofyour king that ye shall have chosen you. 

But the men of Israel were willing to pay even this price, saying:

Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all thenations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, andfight our battles. [7]

The benefits of monarchy, in which Israel sought to emulate herneighbors, were _judgment_ and _military prowess_. Even where theevils of tyranny were most aggravated these benefits actually accruedand constituted a rational ground of authority. The king was, at leastin a measure, worthy of his hire. But the cost was extravagant; theking exacted a disproportionate share of the plunder, and reduced hissubjects to a condition of personal bondage. In the great monarchies, such as Assyria, Egypt, Persia, and the Roman {154} Empire in its laterperiod, the benefits of his role were greatly attenuated before theyreached to the depths and extremities of his kingdom, judgment beingreduced to the caprice of an irresponsible officer, and militaryprowess to a faint reflection of national glory. Now the weakness ofsuch a polity lay in its doubtful value to the governed, these failingto participate fairly in its achievements, and so lacking incentive tosupport it. There was no clear and convincing identification ofindividual interest and national purpose. 

The strength of Greek and Roman oligarchies, on the other hand, lay inprecisely this _morale_, or solidarity of interest. Their small sizeand racial homogeneity brought the ruler into direct relations with aconstituency which was clearly conscious of its purpose and held himclosely to it. So even where the kingship lingered on as a form, thispolity was virtually a compact self-governing community. The benefitsof government, to which every other interest was harshly subordinated, were still judgment and military prowess. But these benefits wereeffectually guaranteed; and the sacrifices which they required became acode of honor, both to be praised and gloried in as parts of happiness. Those who think that the Spartans felt their discipline to beessentially a hardship should read the song of Tyrtaeus, {155} whichthey recited in their tents on the eve of battle:

With spirit let us fight for this land, and for our children die, beingno longer chary of our lives. Fight, then, young men, standing fastone by another, nor be beginners of cowardly flight or fear. But rousea great and valiant spirit in your breasts, and love not life when yecontend with men. And the elders, whose limbs are no longer active, the old desert not or forsake. For surely this were shameful, thatfallen amid the foremost champions, in front of the youths, an olderman should lie low, having his head now white and his beard hoary, breathing out a valiant spirit in the dust. . . . Yet all this befitsthe young while he enjoys the brilliant bloom of youth. To mortal menand women he is lovely to look upon, whilst he lives; and noble when hehas fallen in the foremost ranks. [8]

But the cost is none the less heavy because it is not felt. In thefirst place, there was the cost untold to those whom the oligarchy heldin subjection, a hundred thousand Messenians and twice as many Helots. Their unequal participation in the benefits of government, necessarythough it may have been, lent instability to the whole polity. It wasthe menace of their resentment that forced upon their rulers a policyof perpetual vigilance and military discipline. And in the secondplace, there was the cost to the Spartan himself of attaining to aphysical efficiency equal to that of ten Helots. 

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In the rival polity of Athens, the first of these abuses is only in ameasure corrected. The liberal extension of the privileges ofcitizenship is the achievement of a later age. But the democracy ofAthens did demonstrate the internal wastefulness of a polity dominatedby purely military aims. The classic representation of this protestagainst sacrificing individual taste and capacity, together with allgrowth and abundance in the arts of peace, to the harsh rigors andpassive obedience of a soldier's life, is to be found in Thucydides. In the funeral oration attributed to Pericles there is this account ofthe superiority of Athenian institutions:

It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is inthe hands of the many and not of the few. But while the law securesequal justice to all alike in their private disputes, the claim ofexcellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any waydistinguished, he is preferred to the public service. . . . And wehave not forgotten to provide for our weary spirits many relaxationsfrom toil; we have regular games and sacrifices throughout the year; athome the style of our living is refined; and the delight which we dailyfeel in all these things helps to banish melancholy. . . . And in thematter of education, whereas they [the Spartans] from early youth arealways undergoing laborious exercises which are to make them brave, welive at ease, and yet are equally ready to face the perils which theyface. . . . If then we prefer to meet danger with a light heart butwithout laborious training, and with a courage which is gained by habitand not enforced by law, are we not greatly the gainers? Since we donot anticipate the {157} pain, although, when the hour comes, we can beas brave as those who never allow themselves to rest; and thus too ourcity is equally admirable in peace and in war. For we are lovers ofthe beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mindwithout loss of manliness. [9]

The political disorders of later Athenian history illustrate thedifficulty of reconciling individualism with order and stability. Butat the same time they prove that the task is a necessary one, and thatuntil it has been successfully performed, government can enjoy at bestonly a false security. For no interests can safely be neglected, leastof all those which arise from the natural activities of men and lie inthe direction of the normal growth of human capacities. 

Now these ancient polities illustrate the inevitable pressure in thedirection of liberal government. The original and always thefundamental values of government are _order_ and _power_. But thesemust be obtained with the minimum of personal exploitation on the partof the ruler; the function of government must be clearly understood andvigilantly guarded by a body of citizens who identify their interestswith it. And secondly, order and power must be made compatible withindividual initiative, with playfulness and leisure, and with the freedevelopment of all worthy interests. This pressure has been steadilyoperative in the evolution of modern political institutions. 

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But there has also been another force at work of equally far-reachingimportance. This force is the modern idea of democracy, in which_justice is modified by good-will_. With the ancients justice meant"that every man should practise one thing only, that being the thing towhich his nature was most perfectly adapted. " [10] Equality upon thehighest plane of human capacity was limited even in theory to aprivileged class. But since the advent of Christianity it has neverbeen possible for European society to acquiesce with good conscience ina limited distribution of the benefits of civilization. For the newenlightenment teaches that when men's potentialities are considered, rather than their present condition, _there are no classes_. As aconsequence men demand representation not for what they are, but forwhat they may become if given their just opportunity. The body ofcitizens whose good is the final end of government virtually includes, then, all men without exception. It is no longer possible simply todismiss large groups of human beings from consideration on grounds ofwhat is held to be their unfitness. For they now demand that they bemade fit. Burke expresses this enlightenment when he says, in speakingof the lower strata of society:

As the blindness of mankind has caused their slavery, in return theirstate of slavery is made a pretence of keeping them in a state ofblindness; for {159} the politician will tell you gravely, that theirlife of servitude disqualifies the greater part of the race of man fora search of truth, and supplies them with no other than mean andinsufficient ideas. This is but too true; and this is one of thereasons for which I blame such institutions. [11]

And so does every man now demand of the community as a whole that heshall be permitted to share equally in its benefits, and also, in orderthat his claims may be represented, that he shall have a voice in itscouncils. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean that all men, therefore, must here and now be held to be equal; but only that theymust be held to be capable of being as good as the best until they havedemonstrated the contrary by forfeiting their opportunity. Nor do Imean that all men must therefore be given the ballot. We arediscussing a question not of instrument, but of principle. I do meanthat there is an idea that the best of life is for all; and that ifthere are many that are incapable of entering into it, then they mustbe helped to be capable. And I mean, furthermore, that _this ideaworks irresistibly_. It commands the support of the whole army ofinterests. It will never be abandoned because it makes for theincrease of life on the whole; and hence no social order will fromhenceforth be stable that is not based upon it. 

This idea that all men alike shall be the beneficiaries of government, when taken together {160} with the ancient ideas that government shallbe directly responsible to its beneficiaries, and shall make as liberalan allowance as possible for their individual claims and opinions, constitutes the general principle upon which the progressive modernstate is founded. Let me briefly recapitulate certain characteristicsof the modern state[12] which indicate its recognition of thisprinciple, and hence its advance on the whole over earlier types. 

1. In the first place, the modern state is essentially a territorialrather than a racial or proprietary unit. In other words, it isclearly defined as a necessity and utility arising out of thecircumstance of propinquity. If men are to cast in their lot togetherthey must submit to organization, and obey laws promulgated in theinterest of the community as a whole. To-day men understand that ifthey had no government it would be necessary to invent one; that theexisting government, whatever divinity doth hedge it, is thus virtuallythe instrument of their needs. 

2. Secondly, this moral function of government is emphasized throughbeing largely freed from personal or dynastic connections and expressedas a constitutional office. 

3. Thirdly, the requirements of justice and good-will are reconciledwith order through the principle of representation. Without this {161}principle it would be impossible for societies large enough to affordmen protection, to admit all men to a share in their positive benefitsand to a voice in their councils. Representative government is amethod of political procedure through which authority is madeanswerable in the long run to all interests within its jurisdiction. The more recent tendencies in democratic communities to modify therepresentative system indicate the direction in which the pressure ofinterests is still urging society forward. It is no longer a questionmerely of the extension of the suffrage, but of directness andpublicity. The procedure of government being recognized as of vitalimportance to all citizens, it must be straightforward andbusinesslike, with its books constantly open to inspection. Thepresent distrust in elected representatives is not a sign of reaction, but of the evolution of the democratic intelligence. Where themachinery of representation becomes wasteful and clumsy, it ceases toserve the community. But this may mean either direct legislation, thatis, a direct participation in public affairs by the people at large, orthe intrusting of these affairs to a few conspicuously responsibleagents selected for their businesslike competence and owing theirtenure of office to the consent of their constituency. These methodsare entirely consistent with one another; and they owe their {162}adoption entirely to their better execution of the intent of democracy. Both presuppose that political authority is empowered by all theinterests of the community to serve them, and that these interestsshall in the end decide whether or not that service is adequatelyperformed. 

4. Fourthly, the modern state lays a constantly greater stress onquestions of internal policy, thus emphasizing its basal function ofconserving and fostering the interests directly committed to itscharge. It is less occupied with war, and more occupied witheducation, sanitation, the conservation of national resources, and theregulation of commerce and industry. 

5. Fifthly, the sequel to this is the growing recognition of the follyand wastefulness of war. War is becoming a last resort, a hardnecessity, rather than an opportunity of national glory. The growth ofthe idea of international peace, and the improvement and extension ofthe method of arbitration, are evidence of a yielding to the weight ofthe collective interests of humanity. They prove the priority of theprinciple of construction over that of destruction, and the essentiallythrifty and provident function of the state. 

The present form of progressive political institutions will serve as anindex of the times and a pledge of the future. It reflects better thanany other element of civilization that growth of {163} liberality andsolidifying of interests which is the deep current of progress. Humansociety is becoming one enterprise, provident of all existing interestsand covetous of the best. Now I know that this is to many but a drearyspectacle. There are those who feel diminished by it, overwhelmed bynumbers, and degraded to the low level of average capacity and averageattainment. Therefore I wish in conclusion to deal further with thisspirit of the age, to guard it against misunderstanding, and make itsfine quality more apparent. 

V

It is charged that modern democracy is contrary to enlightenmentthrough subordinating the strong man to the multitude of weak men, orthe wise man to the multitude of ignorant men. But the modern idea ofjustice is based fundamentally neither on the mere sentiment of pitynor on fear of the mob, but on love of truth, and respect for allorgans that mediate it. Society cannot afford forcibly to repress thejudgment of any individual or class, lest her deeds be deeds ofdarkness. The task of good living is a task of well-nigh overwhelmingdifficulty, because it requires that no interest shall be ignored, andyet that all interests shall be in unison. Interests left out of theaccount will inevitably assert themselves, and through their steadypressure or {164} violent impact destroy the organization which hasexcluded them. Hence the need of an order that shall provide for itsown gradual correction; stable enough for security, and pliant enoughto yield without shock to the claims of neglected or abused interests. 

This need underlies the modern sentiment of tolerance, and the love ofall the liberties that give a hearing to any sincere demand: freedom ofspeech and press, the wide distribution of the franchise, and ofopportunity for power. Contrary to a theory that philosophers havedone much to support, democracy is not a method of confoundingintelligence with the clamor of many voices, but a method of correctingthe single intelligence by the report of whatever other intelligencemay be most advantageously related to the matter at issue. Humanintelligence must operate from a centre, and must always overcome aninitial bias due to familiarity and proximity. The consensus ofopinion, or public opinion, is not essentially a composite opinion, buta corrected opinion in which such accidents of locality cancel oneanother. The following justification of democracy, formulated byMatthew Arnold, lays bare its insistent and wholly incontrovertiblemotive:

If experience has established any one thing in this world, it hasestablished this: that it is well for any {165} great class ordescription of men in society to be able to say for itself what itwants, and not to have other classes, the so-called educated andintelligent classes, acting for it as its proctors, and supposed tounderstand its wants and to provide for them. They do not reallyunderstand its wants, they do not really provide for them. A class ofmen may often itself not either fully understand its own wants oradequately express them; but it has a nearer interest and a more surediligence in the matter than any of its proctors, and therefore abetter chance of success. [13]

This conception of democracy has come latterly to be as fine a point ofhonor as any article in the code of chivalry or noblesse. Thearrogance that claims a superiority of class, and the obsequiousnessthat loves a lord, all this Nietschean "pathos of distance, " whetherfelt from the heights or the depths, is sharply repugnant to a newgentility, that embraces all that have had the joy of promiscuoussocial intercourse. From this aristocracy no one is excluded that doesnot exclude himself through servility or superciliousness. Itsdistinction is liberality, that is, the habit of disputing questionsand judging persons on their merits, with due allowance for that neverwholly negligible possibility that the other man is right. Among thosewho are united by this spirit, there is one joke that is an unfailingtouchstone and bond of union--the institution of _lèse-majesté_. It isa matter for unquenchable laughter, {166} that superiority shouldrequire to be protected against inferiority by the enforced signs ofrespect, or by a hedge of reserve. 

It is the ridiculousness of the haughty or the prostrate manner that isabsolutely fatal to it. And its ridiculousness appears at the momentwhen you let in the light. Class elevation is pretence, notsuperiority; complacence, not wisdom; impudence, not power. But thecontempt of the just man for the unjust is edged with knowledge. Itarises out of a sense for things as they are: a recognition of thebreadth and intricacy of life, compared with the pitifully smallunderstanding of those who propose to regulate it on their ownauthority; of the vivid reality and worth of interests that do notexist for those whose claims are absolute, but who are only the haplessvictims of a narrow and warping tradition. 

Many think that the modern democracy is too easy-going; too muchinfected with charity. Now it is quite true that it means that nointerest whatsoever shall be cut off through being forgotten or lightlyestimated. The conscience of to-day expresses the persuasion thatthere is no stable happiness in any activity which entails cruelty, which has any other motive than to save. But this is no more than thefull meaning of the Platonic dictum that "the injuring of another canbe in no case just. " [14] This sensitiveness to {167} life that isremote or obscure, this feeling for the whole wide manifold ofinterests, is not a weakness; it is enlightenment, a lively awarenessof what is really relevant to the task of civilization. To imagine andthink life collectively, with all its interests abreast, is only tomeasure up roundly and proportionately to the practical situation as itactually is. Upon a mind thus alive to the whole spectacle there atonce flashes the awkwardness here, the waste there, as of an enterpriseonly begun. Let me allow another to interpret this latter-dayconscience. I quote from _First and Last Things_, written by Wells:

I see humanity scattered over the world, dispersed, conflicting, unawakened. . . . I see human life as avoidable waste and curableconfusion. I see peasants living in wretched huts knee-deep in manure, mere parasites on their own pigs and cows; I see shy hunters wanderingin primeval forests; I see the grimy millions who slave for industrialperfection; I see some who are extravagant and yet contemptiblecreatures of luxury . . . I see gamblers, fools, brutes, toilers, martyrs. Their disorder of effort, the spectacle of futility, fills mewith a passionate desire to end waste, to create order, to developunderstanding. . . . All these people reflect and are part of thewaste and discontent of my life, and this coordinating of the speciesin a common general end, and the effort of my personal salvation arethe social and the individual aspect of essentially the same desire. [15]

But it must not be thought that this is a matter of mere creaturecomfort, of distributing staple {168} benefits for which men alreadyhave the appetite. For every step in the organization of life isattended with the growth of new interests, and especially of interestsfostered or directly evoked by principles that have proved their moralvirtue. Thus the forms of prudence and justice are supported by theimmediate love of these things. And a growing rationality involves anincreasing subtlety and delicacy in desires, the enrichment of lifethrough the multiplication of such sources of satisfaction as areconsistent with order and liberality. The true democracy isconsiderate not only of present interests, but also of the potentialityand promise of life. 

Only when the imagination pictures life in these terms is it possibleto avoid a sense of ignominy and irresponsibility. And, contrary to acommon misconception, there is no other attitude that can reconcile oneto the unavoidable participation in the common life of all men. Onlywhen thus united with one's fellows in a spirited and ennoblingenterprise can one endure their fellowship. Comrades in arms are notfastidious. If one confines one's self, on the other hand, to acultivation of one's rarity, or to a company of choice spirits, notonly do these values themselves grow stale and vanish away, but theremainder of mankind becomes a crowd, and civilization a tumult. Thecollective life of {169} mankind ceases to be jarring and repugnantonly at the moment when one enters into it and becomes infused with itsmorale. 

There will be some in whom this prospect arouses no eagerness. Thewise men of any day are, of course, agreed among themselves that thetimes are bad--that they are likely to be still worse after they, theremnant, have departed. But this is an opinion which most men acquirewhen they attain to maturity, and happily the world has long since seenthat they cannot help it, and learned on that account not to take it toheart. The part of Cassandra is always being played somewhere by agentleman of middle age with a ripe experience of life. But in anyserious judgment concerning progress this bias of maturity must beovercome by the use of the imagination, by a rational estimate of humanaffairs in their broad sweep, or, if necessary, by an infusion ofyouthfulness. We shall wait long if we wait

 "Till old experience do attain To something like prophetic strain. "

There is a more serious cause of hopelessness, in the complexity ofmodern civilization. Its very teeming life, its wealth, itsmultiplicity of activities and passions, overwhelm the mind in itsmoments of fatigue like a devouring chaos. One longs for the day whenthe house of {170} civilization shall be completed, so that one maydwell in it in peace. 

We are, it is true, in a time when there is still rough work to bedone. But it is not blind work. Never has society been so clear as toits several special ends, never has so little effort been due to chanceor compulsion. Nor is it ineffective work; for man now works with goodtools and the help of many hands. And there is consolation in the factthat the foundations of civilization are laid wide and deep in charityand welfare. There remains the perpetual task of re-establishing aspiritual order which has been strained and wracked by the heaving ofmany forces. But when the sanctuaries and altars are restored it willprove to be a new order, richer, more liberal, and more complete thanany since men began to live. 

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CHAPTER V

THE MORAL CRITICISM OF FINE ART

There are certain human activities which not only are of specialinterest on their own account, but also hold a position of pre-eminencein civilization. Such are science, philosophy, the love of nature, politics, friendly intercourse, and fine art. The last of theseactivities enjoys a peculiar distinction because it is monumental. Itnot only calls into play all of the more refined capacities, but alsorecords itself in permanent and worthy form. Hence the fine art of anyperiod comes to be taken as an index of its remove from savagery. 

In submitting fine art to moral criticism, I shall use it as the bestrepresentative of the whole class of activities which I have justdescribed. If we have not been wholly astray in our analysis of thegood, it should appear that these activities owe their pre-eminence notto their bare quality or tone, but to their humanity, that is, to theirconnection with a harmonious, just, and progressive state of society. 

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It is hard for a moralist to approach such a subject without timidity, especially if he is concerned with his reputation for enlightenment. For there are many who think that it is a mark of intellectualemancipation to abandon moral standards altogether when dealing withthe fine arts. Life itself, they remind us, is only the greatest ofthe fine arts; and if life can be called beautiful, the last word hasbeen said. The man of taste and delicate sensibility is thus empoweredto overrule the moralist, and replace with his ideal of grace andsymmetry the harsh and clumsy scruples of conscience. Now it isdoubtless true that when life is good, it is also beautiful; a life inwhich every activity is true, in which the medium of opportunity isformed to accord with the most noble purpose, may well exhibit asuperlative grace and symmetry. But to be beautiful, life must be good_in its own way_; and the principles which define that way are theprinciples of morality. Furthermore, in order that life shall bebeautiful it must be made an object of perception or contemplation;while, in order to be good, it must be lived. And the principles whichdefine the living of life are moral. 

The confusion of goodness with beauty is, therefore, doublystultifying. On the one hand, it substitutes for the moral conceptionof value conceptions that morally are indeterminate. For {173} graceand symmetry may be exhibited by life on any plane whatsoever, providedonly that it acquires stability. Indeed, one who aims above all thingsto make his life beautiful, ought consistently to abandon the moraleffort to bring life to its maximum of fulfilment, and cultivateperfection of form within the sphere of least resistance. It isproverbial that many lower forms of life are more beautiful than man, but it is not always seen that these are the stationary forms of life, wholly lacking in that principle of rational reconstruction which isthe condition of moral goodness. On the other hand, the confusion ofgoodness with beauty tends to substitute appreciation for action, andthus to make of life a spectacle rather than an enterprise. Thus toreplace ethical with aesthetic conceptions is to take the heart out ofmorality. Beauty is precisely as relevant to moral goodness as it isto truth; and if investigators were taught to devise the prettiesttheory imaginable, the result would be no more fatal to knowledge thanis aesthetic sentimentalism to life. To think conformably with realityis knowledge, and to act conformably with all interests is life. Ifbeauty is to be added unto truth and goodness, it must come as thenatural sequel to a single-minded fidelity to these motives. 

But even if it be true that moral standards are absolutely independentof the standards proper {174} to art, it is not yet clear that themoralist is justified in regarding his standards as more fundamentalthan those of art. He may be politely but positively informed that heis not to trespass. Now I feel that, after what has preceded, I amfortified against the charge of impertinence. Art is subject to moralcriticism, because morality is nothing more nor less than the law whichdetermines the whole order of interests, within which art and everyother good thing is possible. It will scarcely be denied that art isan expression of interest, that both its creation and its enjoyment areactivities, moods, or phases of life; and it follows that before thisspecific interest can be safely or adequately satisfied, it isnecessary to fulfil the general conditions that underlie thesatisfaction of all interests. It is as absurd to speak of art forart's sake as it is to speak of drinking for drinking's sake, if youmean that this interest is entitled to entirely free play. Art, likeall other interests, can flourish only in a sound and whole society, and the law of soundness and wholeness in life is morality. 

The claim of art to exemption from moral criticism is commonly due toone or both of these two forms of misapprehension. 

In the first place, it is assumed that morality, too, is a specialinterest; and that if the artist or connoisseur lets the moralistalone, it is no more {175} than fair that the moralist should let himalone. 

But this assumption is false; as false as though the athlete were tochafe at the warnings of his medical adviser on the ground that generalhealth was irrelevant to endurance or strength or agility. Now, doubtless, an athlete may for a time neglect his general health with nonoticeable diminution of his skill; but that is only because he alreadypossesses the health to abuse. It still remains true that theprinciples of health which the trainer represents are the principlesupon which his skill is fundamentally based. Nature has made himhealthy according to these principles, and he simply does not recognizehis debt to them. Similarly, art may flourish in spite of the neglectof social and individual well-being, so that the pleadings of the moraladvocate seem irrelevant; but this is possible only because the socialorder is already established, and the personality formed, according tothe very principles which the moralist is announcing. Art maydissipate moral health, but it nevertheless lives only by virtue ofsuch a source of supply. The basal condition of art is not the elementof social evil or morbid temperament that may attract attention, butthe measure of soundness that nevertheless remains. 

The second misapprehension that lends plausibility to the excuses ofart is the assumption that {176} the moralist is proposing to_substitute_ his canons for those of art. Now it is entirely true thatmoral insight in no way equips one for connoisseurship. There is aspecial aptitude and training that enables one to discriminate in suchmatters. But the moralist is judging art _on moral grounds_. Hence hedoes not say, "I see that your painting is ugly"; but he does say, "Isee that your painting, which you esteem beautiful (and I take yourword for it), is _bad_. " In the same way the moralist does not say tothe self-indulgent man, "I see that you are not having a good time"(the self-indulgent man is likely to know better); but he says, "I seethat it is bad for you to be having this particular kind of good time. "In other words, for the moralist larger issues are at stake, and he isconsidering these on the grounds proper to them. He is charged withdefining and applying the principles which determine the good ofinterests on the whole; and while his conclusions can never replacethose of the expert within a special field, they will always possessauthority to overrule them. 

II

Since we are to be occupied mainly with the bearing of art on morality, I wish so far as possible to avoid debatable questions concerning theorigin and ultimate meaning of art. But we {177} cannot proceedwithout agreeing on a use of terms. I shall attempt, therefore, togive a straightforward and empirical account of that which comes to becalled art in the history of civilization. [1]

We have already had occasion to observe that from the very beginninglife adapts the environment to its uses; that is, gives to matter andto mechanical processes a new form in which these fulfil interest. Thus an area of land deforested and cultivated, or two stones so hewnand fitted as to afford a grinding surface, take on the imprint of thehuman need for food. Now such reorganizations of nature as the farm orthe mill, however crude they may be, are works of art in the broadestsense. And in this same sense all the tools, furniture, and panoply ofcivilization, from the most primitive to the most highly evolved, whatever without exception owes its form to its fulfilment of aninterest, may with entire propriety be called art. 

In the great majority of cases the work of art after being made is_used_; that is, it becomes an instrument in the making of somethingelse. Such art is called useful or _industrial art_. But it sometimeshappens that the work of art is valued, not as an instrument in theordinary practical sense, but simply as an object to be experienced. In the Scriptural account of creation it is said that "God saweverything that he had {178} made, and, behold, it was good. " When theproducts of activity are thus found good in the beholding of them theybecome works of _fine art_. 

It would be improper sharply to divorce these two motives, or to makeone any more original than the other. The interest in the exercise ofthe sensibilities, or other powers of apprehension, is doubtless asprimitive as any of the special interests of the organism; and it isimprobable that man ever made anything without getting somesatisfaction from looking at it or handling it or feeling it. Commonlythe same object is both useful and beautiful; as was the case with theprimitive religious dance, which at the same time indulged a taste forrhythm and served as a means of propitiating the gods. 

But the motive of fine art becomes clearer when it is purer. Objectsare then made with explicit reference to the interest taken inapprehending them. I do not mean that they cannot on that account beuseful, for without doubt utility itself contributes to beauty; butonly that they owe their form primarily to the aesthetic interest. Themotive of fine art in its purity appears when special materials areselected on account of their plasticity and their appeal to the morehighly developed senses. Fine arts that employ one medium are nowseparated and perfected through the cultivation of expert proficiency. {179} Thus there arise such arts as painting and music, one of whichgives form to light and appeals to the eye, while the other gives formto sound and appeals to the ear. In this way society comes to acquireand accumulate objects which are designed, either wholly or in part, with reference to the special aesthetic interest. They are thecreatures of this interest, and their place in life is determined byit. To understand their importance and to estimate their moral valueit is therefore necessary to isolate this interest and examine it withsome care. [2]

By the aesthetic interest I mean to refer to the interest that is takenin the work of fine art by the observer. There is undoubtedly aspecial interest in creation, but it is of relatively small importance. Even the artist is controlled largely by the interest in observing hisown work; and art is a serious social concern only because of itsappeal to the unlimited number of persons who may enjoy it withouthaving any hand in the making. Now, in the passing allusion which Ihave made to the aesthetic interest, I have already used the term whichis most convenient for purposes of general definition. The aestheticinterest is _the interest in apprehension_. What I mean by this willbecome clear when I compare it with two other interests which may alsobe taken in the content of experience. There is, in the first {180}place, what is called the practical interest, that is, the interest inan object on account of what can be done with it by manipulation orcombination with other objects. Secondly, there is the theoreticalinterest in the structure of reality, manifesting itself in theexploration of the object and its context. Now the interest inapprehension is not an interest in what can be done with the object, nor in its real structure, but in _the present conscious reaction toit_. One may take all three of these interests in the same object. Thus if I pluck the flower and take it home to my wife, I give evidenceof a practical interest in it; if I kneel down and examine itcarefully, I suggest the botanist; while if I continue to gaze at itwhere it lies, it would appear that I enjoy simply looking at it. Itis this interest simply in looking at things, in just the perceiving, feeling, thinking, or imagining them, that I mean to sum up as theinterest in apprehension, or the aesthetic interest. When objectsexcite this interest, when, that is, any state or process ofconsciousness of which they are the content tends to be prolonged forits own sake, they are said to be beautiful. And objects which aredeliberately and artificially invested with a peculiar capacity toexcite this interest are works of fine art. 

I shall not undertake to explain the interest in apprehension furtherthan to describe certain {181} typical forms which it assumes. Theseforms will serve not only to illustrate its general meaning, but alsoto amplify that meaning in a manner that will prove important when wecome to the discussion of moral questions. The forms which I shallmention are by no means exhaustive of the possible forms of theinterest in apprehension, while the order that I shall follow is onlyroughly the order of increasing complexity. 

There is, in the first place, an interest in _sensation_. I do not, ofcourse, mean to assert that any state of purely sensuous enjoyment ispossible; but only that the senses have a certain bias of their ownwhich will modify every state in which they are called into play. There is a delight of the eye and ear, a pleasantness to the touch, anagreeableness of taste and smell, wholly without reference to anythingbeyond. The arts which employ any of these senses must satisfy theirbias, however much they may appeal to higher faculties; nothing whichrankly offends them can by any possible means be made beautiful. Thuspainting must be charming in color, and music in tone; and certaincolors and tones are charming for no deeper reason than that whichmakes certain foods palatable. 

The interest in _perception_[3] assumes special prominence in the greatvisual art of painting. For the process of perception is mostelaborated {182} in connection with the sense of vision, this beingpeculiarly the human organ of watchfulness and orientation. Theinterest in perception is the interest in completing the sensation orrounding it into an object or situation with the aid of thought andimagination. In painting, as most commonly in life, the stimulus isvisual--texture, perspective, or a quality of light. 

The _emotional_ form of apprehension plays the predominant part inrepresentations of human action, in music, and in the appreciation ofnature. It is in this latter connection that we can, I think, bestunderstand it; and I propose for purposes of illustration to record anexperience of my own. 

I walked one night on the deck of a steamer plying between New York andBermuda, and gave myself up wholly to the aspect of nature. The moonshone brightly half-way between the horizon and zenith, and opened apath of light from where I stood to the uttermost distance. Withhalf-closed eyes I watched the hard lustre of the waves, or turned fromthis to the smooth roll of the foam turned up by the steamer's prow. And I remember that I seemed to dwell upon these things with an instantrelish, like that with which my lungs devoured the fresh and plentifulair. But when I looked towards the moon along the path of light, therewas something that stirred me more deeply. The prospect of an endlessjourney opened {183} out before me, like an invitation to live, or afulness of opportunity. And I seemed to leap in response, rejoicing inmy power. But I did not act; it was as though I already achieved andpossessed. Presently I turned from the path of light to the blacknessthat beset it on every side. In this blackness there seemed to lurkevery kind of unknown danger; I was moved with a sense of helplessness, and shrank from the thought of being deserted there. And yet though Iwas afraid, the fear never seemed to _possess_ me, but always to bepossessed _by_ me, as mine to prolong and exult in as I would. 

Now I think that the interpretation of my dream is this. Deeplyimplanted in the organism are certain co-ordinated responses such ascourage and fear, or such as love, hate, combativeness, pity, andemulation. They may owe their present form to habit, but they are allrooted in instinct, and so call the body into play as a unit. [4]Primarily they are plans of action, through which the organism promptlydeals with practical emergencies. But it is possible for man to detachhimself from overt motor relations with his environment; and in thiscase these responses return as it were into the body and reverberatethere, taking on a purely emotional form which may be valued foritself. Thus courage and fear may lead to no act of bravery orcaution, but {184} remain simply _experiences_ of courage and fear, promoted and treasured by the imagination. Nature will probably remainthe object which evokes these responses most keenly, because nature isthe hereditary environment towards which they were originally directed. But human action is scarcely less moving. Hence dramatic art, or therepresentation of social and moral confrontations, will both arouse andprolong the old passions, thus evoking a deeper and more massiveresponse than the play of the senses. 

I fully recognize that the value of dramatic art is by no means limitedto its emotional appeal. I contend only that it does make such anappeal, and that it owes to that appeal, to its evoking of sympathy, love, or hate, to its stirring of incipient action, the peculiarintensity and reverberance of the enjoyment which it affords. The sameholds true, I think, of poetry generally, where this deals with life. The case of music is more doubtful. It is generally agreed that theenjoyment of music has never been adequately accounted for, albeit itis probably more ancient than man. But that music does arouse thegreat emotions, and owe its popularity mainly to that fact, canscarcely be questioned. It is only necessary to add that over andabove this appeal, as well as its appeal to the ear and to anintellectual apprehension of its technical forms, it seems to {185} becapable of developing emotions of its own; that is, experiences whichdo not coincide with the instinctive emotions, but which have a likemassiveness and organic reverberation. It may be, as Walter Paterinsists, that in this respect "all art constantly aspires towards thecondition of music. " [5] But this does not contradict the fact thatsuch arts _are_ emotionally stimulating, will always stir men as menare capable of being stirred, and in society at large will make theirmain appeal to the fundamental and constant emotions, cultivating theenjoyment of love, fear, and the other elemental passions for the verypoignancy and thrill of them. 

For the intellectual type of apprehension I propose to employ the term_discernment_. I mean the apprehension of an _idea_ when conveyed bysome sensuous medium; the finding or recovery of some unity of thoughtin a perceptual context. When discernment in this sense is directlyagreeable without any ulterior motive, it is a special case of theaesthetic interest. From this interest the representative or pictorialelement in art derives its value. 

Let me illustrate my meaning by referring to what Taine says of Greeksculpture:

Here we have the living body, complete and without a veil, admired andglorified, standing on its pedestal without scandal and exposed to alleyes. {186} What is its purpose, and what idea, through sympathy, isthe statue to convey to spectators? An idea which, to us, is almostwithout meaning because it belongs to another age and another epoch ofthe human mind. The head is without significance; unlike ours it isnot a world of graduated conceptions, excited passions, and a medley ofsentiments; the face is not sunken, sharp, and disturbed; it has notmany characteristics, scarcely any expression, and is generally inrepose. . . . The contemporaries of Pericles and Plato did not requireviolent and surprising effects to stimulate weary attention or toirritate an uneasy sensibility. A blooming and healthy body, capableof all virile and gymnastic actions, a man or woman of fine growth andnoble race, a serene form in full light, a simple and natural harmonyof lines happily commingled, was the most animated spectacle they coulddwell on. They desired to contemplate man proportioned to his organsand to his condition and endowed with every perfection within theselimits; they demanded nothing more and nothing less; anything besideswould have struck them as extravagance, deformity, or disease. Such isthe circle within which the simplicity of their culture kept them. [6]

In other words, Greek art expressed the rare quality of Greek life; itsnaturalism, its compactness, its clearness. And it did soinstinctively both to the artist and the spectator. We are not tothink that because, in order to understand ancient art, it may benecessary for us first to obtain a conception of life and then to matchit in art, this is essential to its appreciation. On the contrary, theobject of art is not beautiful {187} until it flashes the idea upon us, communicating an ideal unity that is not intellectually articulate atall. This must always be the effect upon contemporaries, in whom theidea is so assimilated as to be unconscious. But the idea is therenone the less; and the full beauty cannot exist for any one who isincapable of discerning the idea, and rejoicing in the apprehension ofit. 

The incomparable excellence of Greek sculpture is due to a type ofgenius in which clearness of mind and delicacy of touch are united. Among the Greeks the term infinite was a term of disparagement; theythought roundly and cleanly, thus preferring ideas to vague surmises. This was their first gift. And, adding to it a sensitiveness to form, they were enabled to _express themselves_, without redundancy andexaggeration, bringing whatever medium they employed into accord withthe idea. It is this felicity and luminousness that gives to the artof the Greeks a peculiar appeal to the intelligence. For the minddelights in definiteness and light. 

But the Greek conception of life belongs to an age preceding the adventof what has proved to be the European religion. And Christianity hasso reconstructed the experience of the average man through itssensitiveness to pain, and its emphasis on what is called "the innerlife, " that I want further to illustrate the meaning of {188}discernment in art, by referring to the representation of the spirit ofthe Renaissance in the painting of Leonardo da Vinci. I quote thefollowing from Pater's description of "La Gioconda":

The presence that thus rose so strangely beside the waters, isexpressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come todesire. Hers is the head upon which all "the ends of the world arecome, " and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought outfrom within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, ofstrange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set itfor a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautifulwomen of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, intowhich the soul with all its maladies has passed. All the thoughts andexperience of the world have etched and moulded there, in that whichthey have of power to refine and make expressive the human form, theanimalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the reveries of the middle agewith its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of thepagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than the rocksamong which she sits; like the vampire, which has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deepseas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strangewebs with Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen ofTroy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been toher but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in thedelicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tingedthe eyelids and the hands. [7]

The power of Renaissance painting is not wholly a matter of color, texture, modelling, and composition; for though it contains these andmany {189} sensuous and perceptual values besides, it conveys throughthem with surpassing truth and delicacy ideas as evasive as they aresubtle and profound. There is an ecstasy of mind in the discernment ofthese ideas, and a blend of emotion that follows in their train, bothof which are conditioned by insight; that is, by a process that isneither sensuous, perceptual, nor emotional merely, but, in anadditional sense, intellectual. 

The interest in apprehension may thus be exhibited and satisfied indivers ways, differing according to the special processes ofconsciousness which they call into play. And while it may be crude orcultivated, it is safe to say that in all of its modes it is present tosome degree in every individual human life. The simple-minded personwho hisses the villain of the melodrama, and he who takes pleasure inthe inevitableness of the Greek tragedy, are exhibiting the sameinterest in the emotions evoked by the spectacle of life. There isonly a difference of training and sophistication between the man whoenjoys a cheap chromo for the color or the "likeness, " and one whoappreciates Velasquez's treatment of light or the characterization ofFranz Hals. 

In the enjoyment of the highest forms of art these various modes ofapprehension will be united, each so contributing to the enhancement ofthe {190} rest that it is impossible sharply to divide them. Nor do Iventure any opinion as to which of these modes, if any, is fundamentalin the different arts or in fine art as a whole. It is sufficient forour purposes to know that art does exercise and develop human nature inall of these ways. 

We are now in a position to define a programme of criticism. Artthrives because it fulfils a complex and multiform interest. It issupported by an interest which it supplies with its proper objects. Hence it falls within the circle of life where questions of prudence, justice, and good-will are paramount. But, because moralconsiderations must thus in the nature of the case take precedence overpurely aesthetic considerations, this proves nothing whatsoeverconcerning the way in which this precedence should be established. Itwas Plato's belief that society should employ a rigorous censorship, and banish the offending poet:

We will fall down and worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderfulbeing; but we must also inform him that there is no place for such ashe is in our State--the law will not allow them. And so when we haveanointed him with myrrh, and set a garland of wool upon his head, weshall send him away to another city. [8]

But there is another way of protecting society from whatever may be theevil effects of art, and that is to educate the individual and the{191} community in their use of art. This would mean, in place of aregulation of the supply, a regulation of the demand. It would meanthat the aesthetic interest itself, like every other interest withinthe moral economy, should be so controlled as to make it as conduciveas possible to health and abundance of life. The exercise orcultivation of the interest in art would then, like the love of natureor of social intercourse, be unlimited so far as its objects wereconcerned, but limited through its relation to other interests withinthe individual or community purpose. But with this differenceconcerning the proper remedy, the present inquiry will coincide in itsintent and presuppositions with that model of all moral criticisms, the_Republic_ of Plato. What are the possibilities for life of thisaesthetic interest or love of art? How is it liable to abuse orexcess? What is its bearing on other interests, and how far does ittend to make life gracious and happy, without destroying its balance orcompromising its truth? These are the questions on which I hope that Imay be able to throw some light by calling attention to the followingcharacteristics possessed by the aesthetic interest: _self-sufficiency, pervasiveness, vicariousness, stimulation of action, fixation ofideas, _ and _liberality_. [9]

{192}

III

It has long been pointed out that the aesthetic interest, unlike thebodily appetites, is _self-sufficient_, in that it is capable of beingevenly sustained. It depends on no antecedent craving, and has nodefinite periodic limit of satiety. It engages the capacities thatare, on the whole, the most docile and the least liable to progressivefatigue, while through its own internal variety it is guarded againstmonotony. Consequently the aesthetic interest is peculiarly capable ofbeing continued and developed through a lifetime, providing a constantand increasing source of satisfaction. 

Furthermore, the aesthetic interest is resourceful, easily supplyingitself with the objects which it uses. It follows that it contributesto independence, being like the "speculative activity" ofAristotle, [10] in giving the individual a means of happiness in himselfwithout the aid of his fellows or the favor of fortune. Since theaesthetic interest is in these ways self-sufficient, its continuousreturn of good being guaranteed, it is one of the safest of investments. 

But every special interest is a source of danger in direct proportionto its isolation. Its very self-sufficiency may serve to promote anarrow concentration, a blindness to ulterior interests {193} and widerpossibilities. This undue dwelling on the given material of life may, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, attach to any interest; but theaesthetic interest is peculiarly liable to it. This is due to the factthat, in so far as an object appeals to the aesthetic interest, ittends not to develop, but to retain some fixed aspect in which theapprehension of it is agreeable. The various practical interestsramify indefinitely through the dynamic relations of objects, andthrough the handling of objects common to a variety of interests. Onceengaged in what is called "active life" one tends to be drawn into themain current of enterprise and made aware of the larger issues. Andthe theoretical interest also tends to lead beyond itself; for itprompts the mind to examine the whole nature of objects, and to exploretheir context without limit in the hope of completer truth. But theaesthetic interest readily acquires equilibrium, and feels noinducement to leave off an activity which, though its limits may benarrow, is free and continuous within them. Plato accused art of beingessentially imitative, and so of confirming the vulgar respect for thesurface aspect of things. [11] It is truer, I think, to say that theaesthetic interest is quiescent, tending to perpetuate experience inany form that is found pleasant, and without respect either topractical exigencies or to the order of truth. {194} Hence thisinterest on account of its very self-sufficiency offers a passiveresistance to the formal principles of moral organization--to prudence, purpose, justice, and good-will. 

IV

The aesthetic interest is the good genius of the powers ofapprehension, making them fruitful in their own kind. Now the powersof apprehension are engaged during all the waking hours, and if theycan be taught to mediate a good of their own, that good will _pervade_the whole of life. It is through the cultivation of the aestheticinterest that there is most hope of redeeming the waste places, ofgiving to intervals and accidental juxtapositions some graciousness andprofit. With all the world to see and contemplate, and with the eyeand mind wherewith to contemplate them, there is a limitless abundanceof good things always and everywhere available. Let me quote ArthurBenson's account of this discovery:

The world was full of surprises; trees drooped their leaves overscreening walls, houses had backs as well as fronts; music was heardfrom shuttered windows, lights burned in upper rooms. There were athousand pretty secrets in the ways of people to each other. Then, too, there were ideas, as thick as sparrows in an ivied wall. One hadbut to clap one's hands and cry out, and there was a fluttering {195}of innumerable wings; life was as full of bubbles, forming, rising intoamber foam, as a glass of sparkling wine. [12]

To this delight which the casual environment affords a sensitiveobserver, art may add through a decorous furnishing of city and house. Or the instruments of other interests may be made to give pleasure ofthemselves, so that there may be no long periods of deferred reward. Thus to the hire of manual labor may be added the immediatecompensation which comes from a love of the tools, or from thesatisfaction taken in the aspect of work done; to physical exercise maybe added the love of nature, to scholarship the love of scientificform, and to social intercourse the love of personal beauty or ofconversation. In these ways, and in countless ways beside, theaesthetic interest may multiply the richness of life. 

Society is, on the whole, protected against the danger of overemphasison the aesthetic interest, through the habitual subordination of it inpublic opinion to standards of efficiency. Men commonly believe, andare justified in so believing, that a life delivered wholly to theaesthetic interest is frivolous; amusing itself with "bubbles" and"amber foam, " while supported by a community in whose graver and moreurgent concerns it takes no part. Probably no one has {196} done morethan Pater to persuade men of the present generation that it is worthwhile to "catch at any exquisite passion, . . . Or any stirring of thesenses"; and yet he is not a prophet in our day. Is it possiblybecause in that same famous conclusion to the _Renaissance_ he said, "Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end, " [13]and thus exposed himself to misunderstanding, if not to refutation, atthe hands of any one of average moral enlightenment? The moral lessonis one that none have escaped, and that only a few are permitted toforget. This lesson has taught with unvarying reiteration that actsare to be judged by their consequences; that all purposes areconstructive, and so far as wise fitted into the building ofcivilization; that experience itself, in Pater's sense, is possibleonly as a fruit of experience. A life in which the aesthetic interestunduly dominates, in which action is transmuted into pulses ofsensation, and the means of efficiency into the ends of contemplation, is an idle life, protected from the consequences of its own impotencyonly by the constructive labor of others. He who from prolonged gazingat the spoon forgets to carry it to his mouth, must die of hunger andcease from gazing altogether, or be fed by his friends. Theinstruments of achievement may be adorned, and made delightful in theusing, but they must not {197} on that account be mistaken for theachievement; leisure may be made a worthy pastime through thecultivation of the sensibilities, but it must not be substituted forvocation, or allowed to infect a serious purpose with decay. 

V

It has always been recognized that there is a peculiar massiveness ordepth in aesthetic satisfaction, as though it somehow carried with itthe satisfaction of all interests. And this is not due merely to thefact that other interests tend to fall away or remit their claims; itis due besides to the fact that other interests may in a sense actuallybe fulfilled in the aesthetic interest. In other words, this interestserves a vicarious function, transmuting other interests into its ownform, and then affording them a fulfilment which they are incapable ofattaining when exercised in their own right. 

This occurs when other interests, such as love or personal ambition, are imagined or represented, and thus made objects of agreeableapprehension. There is in this a compensation for failure, withoutwhich life would be stripped of one of its main barriers againstdespair. Those whom circumstance has provided no opportunity for thefulfilment of interests so ingenerate as maternal love or heroicaction, may, in a way, make themselves whole {198} through thecontemplation of these things; for the contemplation of them engagesthe same instincts, arouses the same emotions, but without requiringthe existence of their objects. The prolongation of arduous anduncertain effort is compensated through the imaginative anticipation ofsuccess, or through the apprehension of some symbol of perfectfruition. It is through this happy illumination of struggle with avision of fulfilment, that mankind is reconciled to such tasks ascivilization and spiritual wholeness; tasks in which great effortsproduce small results, and of which the end is not seen. 

Now it remains true, of course, that such vicarious fulfilment is notreal fulfilment; and to suppose it to be, is one of the most seriouserrors for which the aesthetic interest is responsible. The man who, with clenched hands and quickened pulse, is watching some image ofhimself as it triumphs over obstacles and arrives at the summit of hisambition, may and doubtless does _feel_ like Alexander, but henevertheless has not conquered the world; and if he thinks he has, hewill probably never conquer any of it. It must be remembered that thevicarious aesthetic fulfilment of interests is the easiest fulfilmentof them; and that it may, therefore, become a form of self-indulgenceand a source of false complacency. A sanguine imagination is one ofthe {199} chief causes of worldly failure; an exaggerated interest inrepresentations of virtue is a common cause of irresponsibility and ofhypocrisy. William James, in a passage that is frequently quoted, calls attention also to the danger of acquiring a chronic emotionality. 

The weeping of a Russian lady over the fictitious personages in theplay, while her coachman is freezing to death on his seat outside, isthe sort of thing that everywhere happens on a less glaring scale. Even the habit of excessive indulgence in music, for those who areneither performers themselves nor musically gifted enough to take it ina purely intellectual way, has probably a relaxing effect upon thecharacter. One becomes filled with emotions which habitually passwithout prompting to any deed, and so the inertly sentimental conditionis kept up. The remedy would be, never to suffer one's self to have anemotion at a concert, without expressing it afterwards in _some_ activeway. Let the expression be the least thing in the world--speakinggenially to one's aunt, or giving up one's seat in a horse-car, ifnothing more heroic offers--but let it not fail to take place. [14]

But not only is it possible through the exaggeration of the aestheticinterest to substitute apparent achievement for real achievement; it ispossible to extract solace from the contemplation of failure itself. Is there any one who has not met the man who is actually made buoyantby his consistent misfortune? For it is flattering that an evil fateshould single one out from the crowd for conspicuous attention, thatall the {200} tragedy of existence should centre upon one's devotedhead. And a certain interest attaches even to unredeemed misery andabject futility on their own account, if only they can be viewed fromthe right angle, and with a cultivated sense for such things. Now thusto poetize the tragedy of one's own life is fatuous; it is likeenjoying one's dizziness on the brink of a precipice, or the pangs ofsickness without seeking a remedy. But to poetize the tragedy ofothers, to fiddle while Rome is burning, is brutal. Nevertheless, though it is not commonly possible to do things on Nero's scale, precisely the same attitude is the commonest thing in the world, and isfostered by the whole aesthetic bias of the race. The meanness ofsavage life, the squalid poverty of the slums, suffice in theirpicturesqueness to make a holiday for those who are more occupied withimages than with deeds. And there is actually a philosophy of life inwhich all things are held to be good because they afford a tragic, sublime, and, therefore, pleasing spectacle. This is the very extremeof moral infidelity, the abandonment of the will to make good for theinsidious and relaxing interest in making things seem good as they are. 

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VI

That a beautiful object commonly _stimulates_ a motor response isbeyond question. Even when it does not appeal to any definite emotionit is _generally_ stimulating, through its affording to the naturalpowers at some point an unusual harmony with their environment. Andwhen there is a definite emotional appeal, there is a tendency to act. For, as we have seen, originally the fundamental emotions were allco-ordinated reactions to the environment, enlisting the whole organismto cope with some practical emergency. That the emotions should become_mere_ emotions is due to the modification of instinct by habit. Whatever, then, arouses the emotions does in some degree stir toaction. So that one of the most important moral uses of art is itsalliance with other interests in order to intensify their appeal, inorder to make them more instantly moving. Art is a means of enliveningdormant impulses; as music is a means of rekindling the love of countryor the love of God, so that men may be brought to take up arms withenthusiasm or endure reverses without complaint. 

But this motor excitement which art stimulates may be morallyindeterminate; that is, it may be capable of being discharged in anyway that accident or bias may select. In other words, {202} art maycommunicate power without controlling its use, thus merely increasingthe disorder and instability of life. Or it may serve to exaggeratethe appeal of the present interest, until it becomes ungovernable andobscures ulterior interests. This tendency to promote dissoluteness isthe most serious charge which Plato brings against the arts. Afterreferring to the unseemly hilarity to which men are incited by thecomic stage, he adds:

And the same may be said of lust and anger and all the otheraffections, of desire and pain and pleasure which are held to beinseparable from every action--in all of them poetry feeds and watersthe passions instead of drying them up; she lets them rule instead ofruling them as they ought to be ruled, with a view to the happiness andvirtue of mankind. [15]

In an earlier passage Plato discusses types of music in relation toaction, the Lydian which is sorrowful, and the Ionian which isindolent; showing that selection must be made if men are not to be atthe mercy of random influences. It is not necessary, as Plato wouldhave it, to banish Lydian and Ionian harmonies from society; but withinone's personal economy, within the republic of one's own soul, one mustprefer with Plato those stirrings of the emotions which support andre-enforce one's moral purpose:

Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one warlike, whichwill sound the word or note {203} which a brave man utters in the hourof danger and stem resolve, or when his cause is failing, and he isgoing to wounds or death or is overtaken by some other evil, and atevery such crisis meets fortune with calmness and endurance; andanother to be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action, whenthere is no pressure of necessity, and he is seeking to persuade God byprayer, or man by instruction and advice. . . . These two harmonies Iask you to leave: the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the unfortunate and the strain of the fortunate, thestrain of courage and the strain of temperance; these, I say, leave. [16]

VII

Where art is not employed directly to incite action, it may still beindirectly conducive to action through _fixing_ ideas and inclining thesentiments towards them. This is probably its most important moralfunction. The ideas which are of the greatest significance for conductare ideas which receive no adequate embodiment in the objects ofnature. Every broad purpose and developed ideal requires the exerciseof the constructive imagination. But the immediate images of theimagination are fluctuating and transient, and need to be supportedthrough being embodied in some enduring medium. Thus monuments serveas emblems of nationality; or, as in the thirteenth century, all thearts may unite to represent and suggest the objects of religious {204}faith. Poetry and song have always served as means of incarnating themore delicate shadings of a racial ideal; and every man would be a poetif he could, and trace the outline of that hope which stirs him andwhich is not the hope of any other man. 

But it must be made clear that art does more than make ideas definiteand permanent. It inclines the sentiments towards them. The greatpower of art lies in its function of making ideas alluring. Nowwhatever is loved or admired is, in the long run, sought out, imitated, and served. Understanding this, the ancient Athenians sought toeducate the passions, and employed music to that end. This isAristotle's justification of such a course:

Since then music is a pleasure, and virtue consists in rejoicing andloving and hating aright, there is clearly nothing which we are so muchconcerned to acquire and to cultivate as the power of forming rightjudgments, and of taking delight in good dispositions and nobleactions. Rhythm and melody supply imitations of anger and gentleness, and also of courage and temperance and of virtues and vices in general, which hardly fall short of the actual affections, as we know from ourown experience, for in listening to such strains our souls undergo achange. The habit of feeling pleasure or pain at mere representationsis not far removed from the same feeling about realities. [17]

The simple and incontestable truth of these statements is a standingcondemnation of the {205} usual environment of youth. Virtue consists, as much as it ever did, "in rejoicing and loving and hating aright";but the guidance of these sentiments to their proper objects is leftalmost wholly to chance. It is by making the good also beautiful, byilluminating the modes of virtue with jewels, and endearing them to theimagination, that the moral reason may be re-enforced from early daysby high spirits. It should be a task of education, using this meanseither in the home or the school or the city at large, to inculcate aright habit of admiration. 

If art is to serve a moral end in fixing and embellishing ideas, itmust be _true_. What I mean by this most important qualification Imust now endeavor to make plain. Art, in so far as it is a means ofrepresentation, deals either with physical nature, as in landscape andfigure painting, or with types and incidents of human life, as indramatic painting and in the greater part of poetry. In either case itmay, like thought, either reflect or distort the structure of reality. Now the real structure of human life is moral; consisting only in avariety of instances of the one law that _the wages of sin is death_. To represent life otherwise is to falsify it, precisely as to representbodies without solidity and gravity is to falsify physical nature. Butin representing physical nature art does not, as science does, {206}formulate merely its geometrical or dynamical skeleton; to do so wouldbe contrary to the intent of art to represent things in theirperceptual concreteness. Similarly art does not represent abstractvirtues. Nevertheless, if it is not to depart from the truth art must, at the same time that it conveys the color and vividness of life, alsoconform to its proper laws, and demonstrate the consequences of actionas they are. And the same standard of clearness and fidelity, whichrequires that great art shall reveal nature as it is, not to thesuperficial or imitative observer but to the thoughtful and penetratingmind, requires also that it shall throw into relief the profounder andmore universal forces of life. 

Great art, therefore, is of necessity enlightening. But it is possiblethat untruth should parade in the dress and under the auspices of art, and so work to the confusion of the moral consciousness. If art wereonly realistic in the full sense, an unequivocal representation of thelaws of life, it would invariably justify and support the moral will;it would be idealistic. It is the art of desultory and irresponsiblefancy that is a source of danger. There is a species of romantic artthat is guarded by its very excess of fantasy; it being impossible tomistake it for a representation of life. But where romantic art is notthus clear in its motive, it becomes what is called "sensational" {207}art, in which the wages of sin are not paid; in which imprudence, infidelity, and a mean ambition are made to yield success, freedom, andglorious achievement. The realities are violated, with the consequencethat resolve is weakened and the intelligence bewildered. 

Since art may be true or untrue, it may also be universal orparticular, profound or superficial, in its apprehension of reality. This difference has operated to define a scale of importance in art, sofar as the interest of society is concerned. There is at least ameasure of truth in Taine's graduated scale by which he estimates thegreatness of art according as it represents the fashion of the day, thetype of the generation, the type of the age, the type of the race, orman himself in his immutable nature. [18] That art will be the mosteffective instrument of moral enlightenment which reflects theexperience of mankind in the basal and constant virtues, giving qualityand distinction to truths which might otherwise suffer from their veryhomeliness and familiarity. 

There is a kindred consideration to which Tolstóy, undiscerning as heis in most of his criticism of art, has very justly called attention. In the broad sense, art is liable to untruth from reflectingexclusively the bias of a certain temperament. The followingdescription {208} of a class of contemporary dramas is not wholly inapt:

They either represent an architect, who for some reason has notfulfilled his former high resolves and in consequence of this climbs onthe roof of a house built by him and from there flies down headlong; orsome incomprehensible old woman, who raises rats and for some unknownreason takes a poetic child to the sea and there drowns it; or someblind people, who, sitting at the sea-shore, for some reason all thetime repeat one and the same thing; or a bell which flies into a lakeand there keeps ringing. [19]

That a tendency to cultivate acquaintance with the curious and rare, and communicate it to a narrow group of initiated persons, ischaracteristic of modern times, and that on the whole it is a symptomof decadence, Tolstóy has, I believe, proved. At any rate, the effectof such a tendency in art can not fail to be morally injurious, sincelife is not represented proportionately. Art has much to do with thevogue and prestige of ideas. Thus, for example, though theproblem-play may be faithful to life where it deals with life, if thestage be given over wholly to this form of drama, there will almostinevitably result a false conception of the degree to which theincidents selected are representative of social conditions on the whole. 

There is one further source of moral error in connection with thisfunction of art. Because art can not only fix ideas but also make them{209} alluring, it may invest them with a fictitious value. I refer towhat is only a different aspect of that sentimentalism or chronicemotionalism to which I have already called attention. Not only is itpossible that men should be brought through the aesthetic interest toreplace action with emotion; they may also persuade themselves that thehigher principles of life owe their validity to some quality that isdiscerned immediately in the apprehension of them. But purpose, justice, and good-will are essentially principles of organization;their virtue is their provident working. To regard them only as imageswith a value inhering in their bare essence, is to forfeit theirbenefits. Verbalism, formalism, mysticism, are given a certain falsecharm and semblance of self-sufficiency by the cultivation and exerciseof the aesthetic interest. Hence morality and religion must hereresist its enticements, and never cease to remind themselves thattheirs is the task of acknowledging all interests according to theirreal inwardness, and of banishing cruelty and blindness in their behalf. 

VIII

Finally, art serves to _liberalize_ life, to make it expansive andgenerous in spirit. This is possible because, in the first place, artis unworldly. I mean simply that the enjoyment of beauty is not {210}a part of ambition; that it does not call into play those habits ofcalculation and forms of skill that conduce to success in livelihood orthe gaining of any of the proximate ends of organized social life. Itfrees the mind from its harness and turns it out to pasture. I supposethat every one has had that experience of spiritual refreshment whichoccasionally comes when one has gone body and soul _out of doors_, orwhen one is delivered over to the enchantment of sober and elevatingmusic, and suddenly made aware of the better things that have been longforgotten. Such experiences are a moral inspiration. It is as though, the clamor of the world being for the moment shut out, one hears atlast the voices that speak with authority. For an instant the broadsweep of truth flashes upon eyes that have been too intently watchfulof affairs near at hand. The good-will can be sustained only by a mindthat now and then withdraws itself from its engagements, and expandsits view to the full measure of life. For the momentary inhibiting ofthe narrower practical impulses, and the evoking of this quiet andcontemplative mood, the love of nature and the love of art are the mostreliable means. 

But art promotes liberality of spirit in an even more definitely moralsense. For art, like all forms of culture, and like the service ofhumanity, {211} provides for the highest type of social intercourse. The aesthetic interest is one of those rare interests which are commonto all men without being competitive. All men require bread, but sincethis interest requires exclusive possession of its objects, its verycommonness is a source of suspicion and enmity. Similarly all menrequire truth and beauty and civilization, but these objects areenhanced by the fact that all may rejoice in them without their beingdivided or becoming the property of any man. They bring men togetherwithout rivalry and intrigue, in a spirit of good-fellowship. "Culture, " says Matthew Arnold, "is not satisfied till we _all_ come toa perfect man; it knows that the sweetness and light of the few must beimperfect until the raw and unkindled masses of humanity are touchedwith sweetness and light. "

'This, ' he continues, 'is the _social idea_; and the men of culture arethe true apostles of equality. The great men of culture are those whohave had a passion for diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying fromone end of society to the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas oftheir time; who have labored to divest knowledge of all that was harsh, uncouth, difficult, abstract, professional, exclusive; to humanize it, to make it efficient outside the clique of the cultivated and learned, yet still remaining the _best_ knowledge and thought of the time, and atrue source, therefore, of sweetness and light. '[20]

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Art, both in the creation and in the enjoyment of it, is thus true tothe deepest motive of morality. It is a remoulding of nature to theend that all may live, and that they may live abundantly. 

IX

I have sought to place before you what art may contribute to life. Itwill have become plain that while art is the natural and powerful allyof morality, it does not itself provide any guarantee of propercontrol; in the interests of goodness, on the whole, no man cansurrender himself to it utterly. The good-will is not proved until, asPlato said, it is _tried with enchantments_, and found to be strong andtrue. Goodness can not be cast upon a man like a spell; it is a workof rational organization, and can not be had without discipline, efficiency, and service. But it is for art to surround life with fitauspices; to create an environment that reflects and forecasts its bestachievements, thus both making a home for it and confirming itsresolves. 

Having modelled this moral criticism of art upon the method of Plato, Ishall conclude with his familiar summary of all the wisdom andeloquence that there is in the matter:

Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the truenature of beauty and grace; then will our youth dwell in the land ofhealth, amid fair sights {213} and sounds; and beauty, the effluence offair works, will visit the eye and ear, like a healthful breeze from apurer region, and insensibly draw the soul even in childhood intoharmony with the beauty of reason. [21]

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CHAPTER VI

THE MORAL JUSTIFICATION OF RELIGION[1]

It is generally agreed that religion is either the paramount issue or themost serious obstacle to progress. To its devotees religion is ofoverwhelming importance; to unbelievers it is, in the phrasing of Burke, "superstitious folly, enthusiastical nonsense, and holy tyranny. " Thedifference between the friends and the enemies of religion may, I think, be resolved as follows:

Religion recognizes some final arbitration of human destiny; it is alively awareness of the fact that, while man proposes, it is only withincertain narrow limits that he can dispose his own plans. His nicestadjustments and most ardent longings are overruled; he knows that untilhe can discount or conciliate that which commands his fortunes hiscondition is precarious and miserable. And through his eagerness to savehimself he leaps to conclusions that are uncritical and premature. Irreligion, on the other hand, flourishes among those who are more snuglyintrenched {215} within the cities of man. It is a product ofcivilization. Comfortably housed as he is, and enjoying an artificialillumination behind drawn blinds, the irreligious man has the heart tocriticise the hasty speculations and abject fear of those who standwithout in the presence of the surrounding darkness. In other words, religion is perpetually on the exposed side of civilization, sensitive tothe blasts that blow from the surrounding universe; while irreligion isin the lee of civilization, with enough remove from danger to foster arefined concern for logic and personal liberty. There is a sense, then, in which both religion and irreligion are to be justified. If religionis guilty of unreason, irreligion is guilty of apathy. For without doubtthe situation of the individual man is broadly such as religion conceivesit to be. There is nothing that he can build, nor any precaution that hecan take, that weighs appreciably in the balance against the powers whichdecree good and ill fortune, catastrophe and triumph, life and death. Hence to be without fear is the part of folly. Behold, the fear of theLord, that is wisdom. 

Religion is man's recognition of the overruling control of his fortunes. It is neither metaphysical nor mythical, but urgently practical. Primeval chaos, Chronos, the father of Zeus, and the long line ofspeculative Absolutes have no {216} worshippers because they take no handin man's affairs. They may be neglected with impunity. But not so thegods who send health and sickness, fertility and death, victory anddefeat; or He who sits in judgment on the last day to determine the doomof eternity. Religion is the manifestation of supreme concern for life, an alertness to the remotest threat of danger and promise of hope. Acertain momentousness attaches to all the affairs of religion, becauseeverything is at stake. Its dealings are with the last court of appeal, in behalf of the most indispensable good. 

In form, religion is a case of _belief_; that is, of settled conviction. There is no religion until some interpretation of life, someaccommodation between man and God, has been so far accepted as to beunhesitatingly practised. The absurdity of doubt in matters of religionhas been pointed out in the well-known parody, "O God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul. " The quality of religion lies not in theentertaining of a speculative hypothesis, but in an assurance soconfident that its object is not only thought but enacted. God is notGod until his unquestioned existence is assimilated to life. Indeed, itis conceivable that an object thus made the basis of action should stillremain theoretically doubtful. To Fontenelle is attributed the remarkthat he "did not believe in ghosts, but was afraid of {217} them. " Thisis a paradox until we distinguish theoretical and practical conviction;then it becomes not only credible but commonplace. If one prays to God, it is not necessary for the purposes of religion that one should, inFontenelle's sense, believe in him. But I prefer to use the term"belief" more strictly, to connote such assent as expresses itself, notin a deliberate judgment made conformable to one's intellectualconscience, but in fear, love, and purpose, in habitual imagery, in anyattitude or activity that spontaneously and freely presupposes the objectwith which it deals. 

By conceiving religion as belief we may understand not only its air ofcertainty, but also the variety of its forms and agencies. Belief sitsat the centre of life and qualifies all its manifestations. Hence thefutility of attempting to associate religion exclusively with any singlefunction of man. The guises in which religious belief may appear are asmultiform as human nature, and will vary with every shading of mood andtemperament. Its central objects may be thought, imagined, or dealtwith--in short, responded to in all the divers ways, internal and overt, that the powers and occasions of life define. 

This will suffice, I trust, to lay the general topic of religion beforeus. I shall employ the terms and phrases which I have formulated as a{218} working definition: _Religion is belief on the part of individualsor communities concerning the final or overruling control of theirinterests_. [2] I propose from this point to keep in the forefront of thediscussion the standards whereby religion is to be estimated, andapproved or condemned. On what grounds may a religion be criticised?What would constitute the proof of an absolute religion? History isstrewn with discredited religions; men began to quarrel over religion sosoon as they had any; and it is customary for every religious devotee tobelieve jealously and exclusively. There can be no doubt, then, thatreligion is subject to justification; it remains to distinguish the testswhich may with propriety be applied, and in particular to isolate andemphasize the moral test. 

II

In the first place, let me mention briefly a test which it is customaryto apply, but which is not so much an estimate as it is a measure. Irefer to the various respects in which an individual or community may besaid to be _more_ or _less_ religious. Thus, for example, certainreligious phenomena surpass others in acuteness or intensity. This ispeculiarly true of the phenomena manifested in conversion and inrevivals. In this respect the mysteries of the ancients exceeded {219}their regular public worship. Individuals and communities vary in thedegree to which they are capable of enthusiasm, excitement, or ecstasy. 

Or a religion may be measured extensively. He whose religion is constantand uniform is more religious than he whose observance is confined to theSabbath day, or he whose concern in the matter appears only in time oftrouble or at the approach of death. This test may best be summed up interms of consistency. Religion may vary in the degree to which itpervades the various activities of life. That religion is confined andsmall which manifests itself only in words or public deeds or emotionsexclusively. If it is to be effective it must be systematic, sothoroughly adopted as to be cumulative and progressive. It must engageevery activity, qualify all thought and imagination, in short, infuse thewhole of life with its saving grace. 

It is clear, however, that a measure of religion does not constituteeither proof or disproof. If a religion be good or true, or on likegrounds accredited, then the more of it the better. But differences ofdegree appear in all religions. Indeed, the quantitative test has beenmost adequately met by forms of religion the warrant of which isgenerally held to be highly questionable. We may, therefore, dismissthis test without further consideration. The application of it must be{220} based upon a prior and more fundamental justification. 

There is one test of religion which has been universally applied bybelievers and critics alike, a test which, I think, will shortly appearto deserve precedence over all others. I refer to the test of truth. Every religion has been justified to its believers and recommended tounbelievers on grounds of evidence. It has been verified in its working, or attested by either observation, reflection, revelation, or authority. 

In spite of the general assent which this proposition will doubtlesscommand, it is deserving of special emphasis at the present time. Students of religion have latterly shifted attention from its claims totruth to its utility and subjective form. This pragmatic andpsychological study of religion has created no little confusion of mindconcerning its real meaning, and obscured that which is after all itsessential claim--the claim, namely, to offer an illumination of life. Religious belief, like all belief, is reducible to judgments. Thesejudgments are not, it is true, explicit and theoretically formulated; butthey are none the less answerable to evidence from that context ofexperience to which they refer. It is true that the believer's assuranceis not consciously rational, but it is none the less liable before thecourt of reason. Cardinal Newman {221} fairly expressed the differencebetween the method of religion and the method of science when he saidthat "ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, " that "difficultyand doubt are incommensurate. " [3] Nevertheless, the difficulties are ineach case germane; and the fact that every article of faith has itsbesetting doubt is proof that the thorough justification of faithrequires the settlement of theoretical difficulties. 

No religion can survive the demonstration of its untruth; for salvation, whether present or eternal, depends on processes actually operative inthe environment. Religion must reveal the undeniable situation andprepare man for it. It must charge the unbeliever with being guilty offolly, with deceiving himself through failing to see and take heed. Every religious propaganda is a cry of warning, putting men on theirguard against invisible dangers; or a promise of succor, bringing gladtidings of great joy. And its prophecy is empty and trivial if thedanger or the succor can be shown to be unreal. The one unfailing biasin life is the bias for disillusionment, springing from the organicinstinct for that real environment to which, whether friendly or hostile, it must adapt itself. Every man knows in his heart that he can not besaved through being deceived. Illusions can not endure, and those wholightly perpetrate them are fortunate {222} if they escape the resentmentand swift vengeance which overtook the prophets of Baal. 

The grounds of religious truth will require prolonged consideration; butbefore discussing them further let me first mention a test of religionwhich belongs to the class of psychological and pragmatic tests to whichI have just alluded, but which has latterly assumed special prominence. Though realizing that I use a somewhat disparaging term, I suggest thatwe call this the "therapeutic test. " It has been proved that the stateof piety possesses a direct curative value through its capacity toexhilarate or pacify, according to the needs of a disordered mind. As apotent form of suggestion, it lends itself to the uses of psychiatry; itmay be medicinally employed as a tonic, stimulant, or sedative. 

Now we can afford to remind ourselves that, at least from the point ofview of the patient, this use of religion bears a striking resemblance tocertain primitive practices in which God was conceived as a glorifiedmedicine-man, and the healing of the body strangely confused withspiritual regeneration. Bishop Gregory of Tours once addressed thefollowing apostrophe to the worshipful St. Martin: "O unspeakabletheriac! ineffable pigment! admirable antidote! celestial purgative!superior to all the skill of physicians, more fragrant than aromaticdrugs, stronger than {223} all ointments combined! thou cleanest thebowels as well as scammony, and the lungs as well as hyssop; thoucleanest the head as well as camomile!" [4]

It is true that religion is in these days recommended for more subtledisorders; but even religious ecstasy may be virtually equivalent to amere state of emotional exhilaration, or piety to a condition of mentaland moral stupor. What does it profit a man to be content with his lot, or to experience the rapture of the saints, if he has lost his soul? Thesaving of a soul is a much more serious matter than the cessation ofworry or the curing of insomnia, or even than the acquiring of a habit ofdelirious joy. Tranquillity and happiness are, it is true, thelegitimate fruits of religion, but only provided they be infused withgoodness and truth. If religion is to be a spiritual tonic, and notmerely a physical tonic, it must be based on moral organization andintellectual enlightenment. I do not doubt that religion has in alltimes recommended itself to men mainly through its contributing to theirlives a certain peculiar buoyancy and peace. There is such a genericvalue in religion, which can not be attributed wholly to any of itscomponent parts. But, like the intensity or extent of religion, this maymanifest itself upon all levels of development. _Sound_ piety, atranquillity and happiness {224} which mark the soul's real salvation, must be founded on truth, on an interpretation of life which expressesthe fullest light. Again, then, we are referred to the test of truth forthe fundamental justification of religion. There is a generic valuewhich is deserving of the last word, but that word can be said only aftera rigorous examination of the more fundamental values from which it isderived. 

Religious truth is divisible into two judgments, involved in everyreligious belief, and answerable respectively to _ethical_ and_cosmological_ evidence. Since religion is a belief concerning theoverruling control of human interests, it involves on the one hand asumming up of these interests, a conception of what the believer has atstake, in short, an ethical judgment; and on the other hand, aninterpretation of the environment at large, in other words, acosmological judgment. Religion construes the practical situation in itstotality; which means that it generalizes concerning the content offortune, or the good, and the sources of fortune, or nature. Bothfactors are invariably present, and no religion can escape criticism onthis twofold ground. 

The ethical implications of religion are peculiarly far-reaching, sincethey determine not only its conception of man, but also, in part, itsconception of God. This is due to the fact that {225} the term "God"signifies not the environment in its inherent nature, but the environmentin its bearing on the worshipper's interests. It follows that whetherGod be construed as favorable or hostile will depend upon theworshipper's conception of these interests. Thus, for example, ifworldly success or long life be regarded as the values most eagerly to beconserved, God must be feared as cruel or capricious; whereas, if thelesson of discipline and humility be conceived as the highest good, itmay be reasonable to trust the providence of God without any change inits manifestation. 

Furthermore, as we shall shortly have occasion to remark, it ischaracteristic of religion to insist, so far as possible, upon thefavorableness of the environment. But this favorableness must beconstrued in terms of what are held to be man's highest interests. Consequently, the disposition and motive of God always reflect humanpurposes. This is the main source of the inevitable anthropomorphism ofreligion. 

Conceptions of nature, on the other hand, define the degree to which theenvironment is morally determined, and the unity or plurality of itscauses. Animism, for example, reflects the general opinion that thecauses of natural events are wilful rather than mechanical. Such anopinion obtained at the time when no sharp {226} distinction was madebetween inorganic and organic phenomena, the action of the environmentbeing conceived as a play of impulses. 

Religion is corrected, then, by light obtained from these sources: man'sknowledge of his highest interests, and his knowledge of nature. As arule, one or the other of these two methods of criticism tends topredominate, in accordance with the genius of the race or period. Thus, the evolution of Greek religion is determined mainly by the developmentof science. Xenophanes attacks the religion of his times on the groundof its crude anthropomorphism. "Mortals, " he says, "think that the godsare born as they are, and have perception like theirs, and voice andform. " But this naïve opinion Xenophanes corrects because it is notconsistent with the new enlightenment concerning the _archê_, or firstprinciple of nature. "And he [God] abideth ever in the same place, moving not at all; nor doth it befit him to go about, now hither, nowthither. " [5]

In a later age Lucretius criticised the whole system of Greek religion interms of the atomistic and mechanical cosmology of Epicurus:

For verily not by design did the first-beginnings of things stationthemselves each in its right place guided by keen intelligence, nor didthey bargain sooth to say what motions each should assume; but becausemany in number and shifting about in many ways throughout the universethey are driven and {227} tormented by blows during infinite time past, after trying motions and unions of every kind at length they fall intoarrangements such as those out of which this our sum of things has beenformed. [6]

In the light of such principles Lucretius demonstrates the absurdity ofhoping or fearing anything from a world beyond or a life to come. Inthis case, as in the case above, the religion of enlightenment does notdiffer essentially from the religion of the average man in its conceptionof the interests at stake, but only in its conception of the methods ofworship or forms of imagery which it is reasonable to employ in view ofthe actual nature of the environment. 

If, on the other hand, we turn to the early development of the Hebrewreligion, we find that it is corrected to meet the demands not ofcosmological but of ethical enlightenment. No question arises as to theexistence or power of God, but only as to what he requires of those whoserve him. The prophets represent the moral genius of the race, itsacute discernment of the causes of social integrity or decay. "And whenye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when yemake many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Washyou, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mineeyes; cease to do evil: learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve {228}the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. " [7]

But whichever of these two methods of criticism predominates, it is clearthat they both draw upon bodies of truth which grow independently ofreligion. The history of Christianity affords a most remarkable recordof the continual adjustment of religious belief to secular rationality. The offices of religion have availed no more to justify cruelty, intolerance, and bigotry than to establish the Ptolemaic astronomy or theScriptural account of creation. This is more readily admitted in thecase of natural science than in the case of ethics, but only becauseteachers of religion have commonly had a more expert acquaintance withmoral matters than with the orbits of the planets or the natural historyof the earth. 

For the principles of conduct, like the principles of nature, must bederived from a study of the field to which they are applied. Theyrequire nothing more for their establishment than the analysis andgeneralization of the moral situation. If two or more persons conductthemselves with reference to one another and to an external object, theiraction either possesses or lacks, in some degree, that specific valuewhich we call moral goodness. And by the principles of ethics we meanthe principles which truly define and explicate this value. Now neitherthe truth nor {229} the falsity of any religion affects these fundamentaland essential conditions. If the teachings of religion be accepted astrue, then certain factors may be added to the concrete practicalsituation; but if so, these fall within the field of morality and must besubmitted to ethical principles. Thus, if there be a God whosepersonality permits of reciprocal social relations with man, then manought, in the moral sense, to be prudent with reference to him, and mayreasonably demand justice or good-will at his hands. 

But the mere existence of a God, whatever be his nature, can neitherinvalidate nor establish the ethical principles of prudence, justice, andgood-will. Were a God whose existence is proved, to recommend injustice, this would not affect in the slightest degree the moral obligation to bejust. Moral revelation stands upon precisely the same footing asrevelation in the sphere of theoretical truth: its acceptance can bejustified only through its being confirmed by experience or reason. Inother words, it is the office of revelation to reveal truth, but not toestablish it. In consequence of this fact it may even be necessary thata man should redeem the truth in defiance of what he takes to be thedisposition of God. Neither individual conscience nor the moral judgmentof mankind can be superseded or modified save through a higher insightwhich these may {230} themselves be brought to confirm. Whatever a manmay think of God, if he continues to live in the midst of his fellows, heplaces himself within the jurisdiction of the laws which obtain there. Morality is the method of reconciling and fulfilling the interests ofbeings having the capacity to conduct themselves rationally, and ethicsis the formulation of the general principles which underlie this method. The attempt to live rationally--and, humanly speaking, there is noalternative save the total abnegation of life--brings one within thejurisdiction of these principles, precisely as thinking brings one withinthe jurisdiction of the principles of logic, or as the moving of one'sbody brings one within the jurisdiction of the principles of mechanics. 

Religion, then, mediates an enlightenment which it does not of itselforiginate. In religious belief the truth which is derived from astudious observation of nature and the cumulative experience of life, isheightened and vivified. Like all belief religion is conservative, andrightly so. But in the long run, steadily and inevitably, it responds toevery forward step which man is enabled to take through the exercise ofhis natural cognitive powers. Only so does religion serve its realpurpose of benefiting life by expanding its horizon and defining itscourse. 

I have hitherto left out of account a certain {231} stress or insistencethat must now be recognized as fundamental in religious development. This I shall call _the optimistic bias_. This bias is not accidental orarbitrary, but significant of the fact that religion, like morality, springs from the same motive as life itself, and makes towards the samegoal of fruition and abundance. Life is essentially interest, andinterest is essentially positive or provident; fear is incidental tohope, and hate to love. Man seeks to know the worst only in order thathe may avoid or counterwork it in the furtherance of his interests. Religion is the result of man's search for support in the last extremity. This is true, even when men are largely preoccupied with the merestruggle for existence. It appears more and more plainly as life becomesaggressive, and is engaged in the constructive enterprise ofcivilization. Religion expresses man's highest hope of attainment, whether this be conceived as the efficacy of a fetich or the kingdom ofGod. 

Such, then, are the general facts of religion, and the fundamentalcritical principles which justify and define its development. Religionis man's belief in salvation, his confident appeal to the overrulingcontrol of his ultimate fortunes. The reconstruction of religious beliefis made necessary whenever it fails to express the last verified truth, cosmological or ethical. The {232} direction of religious development isthus a resultant of two forces: the optimistic bias, or the saving hopeof life; and rational criticism, or the progressive revelation of theprinciples which define life and its environment. 

I shall proceed now to the consideration of types of religion whichillustrate this critical reconstruction. The types which I shall selectrepresent certain forms of inadequacy which I think it important todistinguish. They are only roughly historical, as is necessarily thecase, since all religions represent different types in the various stagesof their development, and in the different interpretations which are puton them in any given time by various classes of believers. I shallconsider in turn, using the terms in a manner to be precisely indicatedas we proceed, _superstition, tutelary religion_, and two forms of_philosophical religion_, the one _metaphysical idealism_, and the other_moral idealism_. 

III

_Superstition_ is distinguished by a lack of organization both in man andhis environment. It is a direct cross-relationship between an elementaryinterest, passion, or need, and some isolated and capricious naturalpower. The deity is externally related to the worshipper, having privateinterests of his own which the worshipper respects {233} only frommotives of prudence. Religious observance takes the form of barter orpropitiation--_do ut des, do ut abeas_. The method of superstition isarbitrary, furthermore, in that it is defined only by the liking oraversion of an unprincipled agency. 

Let us consider briefly the type of superstition which is associated withthe most primitive stage in the development of society. [8] Theworshipper has neither raised nor answered the ethical question as towhat is his greatest good. Indeed, he is much more concerned to meet thepressing needs of life than he is to co-ordinate them or understand towhat they lead. He can not even be said to be actuated by the principleof rational self-interest. Like the brute, whose lot is similar to hisown, he feels his wants severally, and is forced to meet them as theyarise or be trampled under foot in the struggle for existence. There islittle co-ordination of his interests beyond that which is provided forin the organic and social structure with which nature has endowed him. Over and above the instinct of self-preservation he recognizes in customthe principle of tribal or racial solidarity. But this is proof, not somuch of a recognition of community of interest, as of the vagueness ofhis ideas concerning the boundaries of his own self-hood. The very factthat his interests are scattering and loosely knit prevents him fromclearly {234} distinguishing his own. He readily identifies himself notonly with his body, but with his clothing, his habitation, and varioustrinkets which have been accidentally associated with his life. It isonly natural that he should similarly identify himself with those otherbeings like himself with whom he is connected by the bonds of blood andof intimate contact. Morally, then, primitive man is an indefinite andincoherent aggregate of interests which have not yet assumed the formeven of individual and community purpose. 

To turn to the second, or cosmological, component, we find that primitiveman's conception of ultimate powers is like his conception of his owninterests in being both indefinite and incoherent. In consequence of thedaily vicissitudes of his fortune, he is well aware that he is affectedfor better or for worse by agencies which fall outside the more familiarroutine operations of society and nature. So great is the disproportionbetween the calculable and the incalculable elements of his life that heis like a man crouching in the dark, expecting a blow from any quarter. The agencies whose working can be discounted in advance form his secularworld; but this world is narrow and meagre, and is overshadowed by abeyond which is both mysterious and terrible. Of the world beyond he hasno single comprehensive idea, but he acknowledges it in his {235}expectation of the injuries and benefits which he may at any time receivefrom it. It is an abyss whose depths he has never sounded, but which heis forced practically to recognize, since he is at the mercy of forceswhich emanate from it. 

The method of primitive religion is the inevitable sequel. In behalf ofthe interests which represent him man must here, as ever, make the bestterms he can with the powers which beset him. He has no concern withthese powers except the desire to propitiate them. He has no knowledgeof their working excepting as respects their bearing upon his interests. Obeying a law of human nature which is as valid now as then, he seeks forremedies whose proof is the cure which they effect. Let the associationbetween a certain action on his own part and a favorable turn in the tideof fortune once be established, and the subsequent course of events willseem to confirm it. Coincidences are remembered and exceptionsforgotten. Furthermore, his belief in the effectual working of theestablished plan is always justified by the difficulty of proving anyother alternative plan to be better. 

But, in order to understand superstition, it is not necessary toreconstruct the earliest period in the history of society, nor even tostudy contemporary savage life, for the superstitious intelligence andthe superstitious method survive {236} in every stage of development. They appear, for example, in mediaeval Christianity; in Clovis's appealto Christ on the battle-field: "Clotilda says that Thou art the Son ofthe living God, and that Thou dost give victory to those who put theirtrust in Thee. I have besought my gods, but they give me no aid. I seewell that their strength is naught. I beseech Thee, and I will believein Thee, only save me from the hands of mine enemies. " The same periodis represented by the petition attributed to St. Eloi, "Give, Lord, sincewe have given! _Da, Domine, quia dedimus!_" [9] In modern life themotive of superstition pervades almost all worship, appearing in sundryexpectations of special favor to be gained by service or importunity. 

The application of critical enlightenment to this type of religion hasalready been made with general consent. It is recognized that morallysuperstition represents the merely prudential level of life. It bespeaksa state of panic or a narrow regard for isolated needs and desires. Furthermore, it tends to emphasize these considerations and at the sametime degrade the object of worship through claiming the attention of Godin their behalf. The deity is conceived, not under the form of a broadand consecutive purpose, but under the form of a casual and desultorygood-nature. 

{237}

But superstition has been corrected mainly by the advancement ofscientific knowledge. Science has pronounced finally against the beliefin localized or isolated natural processes. Whether the mechanicaltheory be accepted or not, its method is beyond question, in so far as itdefines laws and brings all events and phenomena under their control. Inthe dealings of nature there can be no favoritism, no specialdispensations, no bargaining over the counter. 

IV

The correction of superstition brings us to our second type, which I havechosen to call _tutelary religion_. It is distinguished by the fact thatlife is organized into a definite purpose, which, although still narrowand partisan with reference to humanity at large, nevertheless embracesand subordinates the manifold desires of a community. The deityrepresents this purpose in the cosmos at large, and rallies the forces ofnature to its support. He is no longer capricious, but is possessed of acharacter defined by systematic devotion to an end. His ways are theways of effectiveness. Furthermore, since his aims are identical withthose of his worshippers, he is now loved and served for himself. Itfollows that he will demand of his followers only conformity to thoserules which define the realization of the {238} common aim, and thatthese rules will be enforced by the community as the conditions of itssecular well-being. Ritual is no longer arbitrary, but is based on anenlightened knowledge of ways and means. 

While this type of religion is clearly present in the most primitivetribal worship, it is best exemplified when a racial or national purposemanifests itself aggressively and self-consciously, as in the cases ofancient Assyria and Egypt. Here God is identified with the kingship, both being symbols of nationality. Among the Assyrians the nationalpurpose was predominantly one of military aggrandizement. Istarcommunicates to Esar-haddon this promise of support: "Fear not, OEsar-haddon; the breath of inspiration which speaks to thee is spoken byme, and I conceal it not. . . . I am the mighty mistress, Istar ofArbela, who have put thine enemies to flight before thy feet. Where arethe words which I speak unto thee, that thou hast not believedthem? . . . I am Istar of Arbela; in front of thee and at thy side do Imarch. Fear not, thou art in the midst of those that can heal thee; I amin the midst of thy host. " [10]

Egyptian nationality was identified rather with the principles ofagriculture and political organization. The deity is the fertilizingNile, or the judge of right conduct. There is recorded in {239} the_Book of the Dead_ the pleading of a soul before Osiris, in which thecommands of the god are thus identified with the conditions of nationalwelfare:

 I have not committed fraud and evil against men. I have not diverted justice in the judgment hall. I have not known meanness. I have not caused a man to do more than his day's work. I have not caused a slave to be ill treated by his overseer. I have not committed murder. I have not spoiled the bread of offering in the temple. I have not added to the weight of the balance. I have not taken milk from the mouths of children. I have not turned aside the water at the time of inundation. I have not cut off an arm of the river in its course. [11]

Similar illustrations might be drawn from the nationalistic phase ofHebraism. The same principle appears in mediaeval Christianity, and isthus embodied in the prologue of the Salic Law, "Long live the Christ, who loves the Franks. " In more recent times one might point to theChristianity of the Puritan revolution, not wholly misrepresented by themaxim popularly attributed to Cromwell, "Put your trust in God and keepyour powder dry, " or in Poor Richard's observation that "God helps themthat help themselves. "

Such is the religion of nationalism, {240} sectarianism, of sustained butnarrow purpose. I shall not attempt to formulate exhaustively the ideasthrough which this religion has been corrected. It is clear that itsdefect lies in its partisanship. All forms of partisanship yield slowlybut inevitably to the higher conception of social solidarity. Suchenlightenment reflects a recognition of community of interest, and awidening of sympathy through intercourse and acquaintance. Tutelaryreligion, in short, is corrected through the validity of the ethicalprinciples of justice and good-will. The cosmological correction of thistype of religion is due to the same enlightenment that discreditssuperstition, a knowledge, namely, of the systematic unity of the cosmos. The laws of nature are as indifferent to private purposes as they are toprivate desires, and whether these be personal or social in their scope. Furthermore, the universality of God is recognized in principle in therules of worship. For a god of war or agriculture or politics can not beprivately appropriated. If the observance of the principles proper tothese institutions brings success to one, it brings success to all. Inshort, a god of nationality must be a god of all nations. 

{241}

V

The correction of tutelary religion brings us at length to a type whichmay be said to be formally enlightened. Both components of belief, theethical and the cosmological, are universalized. I shall call this type, in its general form, _philosophical religion_, since it recognizes theunities which systematic reflection defines. It recognizes, on the onehand, the summing up of life in a universal ideal, and on the other hand, a summing up of the total environment in some scientifically formulatedgeneralization. It affirms the priority of justice and good-will overparty interest, and the determination of the world without reference tospecial privilege. Religion is now the issue between the good--thehighest good, the good of all--and the undivided cosmos. 

Within the limits of philosophical religion thus broadly defined there isyet provision for almost endless variety of belief. Religions may stilldiffer in tradition, symbolism, and ritual. They may differ as moralcodes and sentiments differ, and reflect all shades of opinion as this isdetermined by discovery and criticism. 

But I propose to confine myself to a difference which is at once the mostbroad and fundamental, and the most clearly defined in contemporarycontroversy. This difference relates to neither {242} ethics norcosmology exclusively, but to the religious judgment itself in whichthese two are united. How is the universe in its entirety to beconstrued with reference to the good? In both of the answers which Ipropose to consider it is claimed that goodness in some sense possessesthe world. Hence both may be called _idealisms_. But in one of theseanswers, which I shall call _metaphysical idealism_, the cosmologicalmotive receives the greater emphasis. The good is construed in terms ofbeing; and, in order that it may be absolutely identified therewith, itsoriginal nature must, if necessary, be compromised. In the other, the_moral_ motive predominates. It is held that goodness must not lose itsmeaning, even if it be necessary that its claims upon the cosmos shouldbe somewhat abated. 

_Metaphysical idealism_ is the extreme form of the optimistic bias. Itprovides a moral individual with a sense of proprietorship in theuniverse; it justifies him in the belief that the moral victory has beenwon from all eternity. Goodness is held to be the very essence andcondition of being. 

Let me briefly state the inherent difficulty in this philosophy ofreligion. Being is judged to be identical with good. But the world ofexperience is not good; it must therefore be condemned as unreal. Ofwhat, then, do goodness and being consist? If an empty formalism is{243} to be avoided, the all-good-and-all-real must be restored to theworld of experience. But as the all-real it can not consistently beidentified with only a part of that world; and if it be identified withthe whole, its all-goodness contradicts the moral distinction within theworld of experience, between good and evil. The theory is now confrontedwith the opposite danger, that of materialism, or moral promiscuousness. Let me illustrate this full swing of the pendulum from formalism tomaterialism by briefly summarizing certain well-known types of religiousphilosophy. 

At the formalistic extreme stands the Buddhistic _pessimism_, [12]which rests on a recognition of the inevitable taint of this world, of the implication of evil in life. To avoid this taint, theall-real-and-all-good must be freed even from existence. It can beconceived and attained only by denial. Nirvana is at once the all-real, the all-good, and--in terms of the existent world--nothing. 

_Other-worldliness_ is the Christian modification of the Orientalphilosophy of illusion. Heaven is a world beyond, to be exchanged forthis. It is not constituted by the denial of this world, as is Nirvana, but access to it is conditioned by such denial. It is goodness andhappiness hypostasized, and offered as compensation for martyrdom. Butsince every natural impulse and source {244} of satisfaction must berepudiated, it remains a purely formal conception, except in so far asthe worldly imagination unlawfully prefigures it. Rigorously construed, it consists only in obedience, a willing of God's will, whatever that maybe. 

_Mysticism_, [13] which appears as a motive in all religions of this type, defines the all-real-and-all-good in terms of the consummation of aprogression, certain intermediate stages of which constitute man'spresent activities. In Brahmanism, God is the perfect unity, which maybe approximated by dwelling on identities and ignoring differences; inPlatonism, God is the good-for-all, which may be approximated by dwellingexclusively upon the utilities and fitness of things. The absolute worldstill remains beyond this world and excludes it, although a hint of itsactual nature may now be obtained. But there at once appears aformidable difficulty. So long as the absolute world is wholly separatedfrom this world, and therefore purely formal, evil need not be imputed toit; but at the moment when it is conceived by completing and perfectingcertain processes belonging to this world, it is committed to theseprocesses with all their implications, and tends to be usurped by them. In other words, heaven, in so far as it obtains meaning, grows worldly. 

In the conception which may be termed _panlogism_, {245} heaven is boldlyremoved to earth. It is identified with laws or other universals, thatlie within the scope of human intelligence and control the course ofnature. God is now immanent rather than transcendent; he has obtained acertain definable content. But the difficulty which has already appearedin mysticism now grows more formidable. How can it be said that a beingthat coincides with the known laws of nature works only good? Among theStoics the attempt was made to conceive all necessities as somehow"beneficial, " as somehow good in the commonly accepted sense of theterm. [14] But even the Stoics found themselves compelled to abandon thecommon conception of goodness. And in Spinoza the motive of panlogism isclear and uncompromising. [15] God as the immanent order of the world isgood only in that he is necessary--good only in so far as he satisfiesthe logical interest and enables the mind to understand. In panlogism, then, we find metaphysical idealism already compelled in behalf of itscardinal principle to deny the moral consciousness. But this is not all. For even were it to be admitted that mere system and order constitute thegood, wholly without reference to their bearing on the concerns of life, the fact remains that even such a good does not fairly represent thecharacter of this world. For experience conveys not only law, {246} butalso irrelevance and chaos; not only harmony but also discord. 

To meet this last difficulty, and at the same time better to provide forthe complexity of human interests, metaphysical idealism finally assumesthe _aesthetic_ form. The absolute world, the all-real-and-all-good, isboldly construed in terms of the historical process itself, with all itsconcreteness and immediacy. Endless detail, contrast, and evencontradiction may be brought under the form of aesthetic value. The veryflux of experience, the very struggles and defeats of life, are notwithout their picturesqueness and dramatic quality. Upon this romanticlove of tumult and privation is founded the last of all metaphysicalidealisms. [16] A strange sequel to the doctrine of despair with whichour brief survey began!

I can only recapitulate most briefly the characteristic limitations of anaesthetic idealism. First, in spite of the fact that aesthetic value maybe extraordinarily comprehensive in its content, as a value it is nonethe less narrow and exclusive. For in order that experience may haveaesthetic value, an aesthetic interest must be taken in it. And evenwere all experience to satisfy some such interest, this would in no wiseprovide for the endless variety of non-aesthetic interests that are alsotaken in it. Thus, were it to be proved that life on the whole ispicturesque, this {247} would in no way affect the fact that it is alsopainful, stultifying, and otherwise abounding in evil. 

But, even if it were to be granted that aesthetic value embraces andsubordinates all other values, this higher value would still exist onlywhere such an aesthetic interest was actually fulfilled. If it wereassumed that the totality of the world is pleasing in the sight of God, this would in no way affect the fact that it is otherwise in the eyes ofmen. Those who furnish a spectacle which has dramatic value for anobserver do not necessarily themselves share in that value. It is anincontrovertible fact that the aesthetic interests of men are actuallydefeated; and this whether or no some other aesthetic interest--that, forexample, of a divine onlooker--is fulfilled. 

But the radical defect of this aesthetic philosophy of religion lies inits absolute discrediting of moral distinctions. Optimism has so faroverreached itself as to sacrifice the very meaning of goodness. Inorder that the ideal may possess the world, it has been reduced to theworld. God is no more than a name for the unmitigated reality. LikeHardy's Spirit of the Years, he is the mere affirmation of things as theyare:

 "I view, not urge; nor more than mark What designate your titles Good and Ill. 'Tis not in me to feel with, or against, These flesh-hinged mannikins Its hand upwinds {248} To click-clack off Its preadjusted laws; But only through my centuries to behold Their aspects, and their movements, and their mould. " [17]

Morally, there could be no more sinister interpretation of life. Itoffers itself as a philosophy of hope, promising the lover of good thathis purpose shall be fulfilled, nay, that it is fulfilled from alleternity. But when the pledge is redeemed, it is found to stipulate thatthe good shall mean only life as it is already possessed. In otherwords, man is promised what he wants if he will agree to want what hehas. This is worse than a sorry jest. It is a philosophy of moraldissolution, discrediting every downright judgment of good and evil, removing the grounds upon which is based every single-minded endeavor topurify and consummate life. John Davidson says: "Irony integrates goodand evil, the constituents of the universe. It is thatBeyond-Good-and-Evil which somebody clamoured for. " [18] Irony is indeedthe last refuge of that uncompromising optimism that equates goodness andbeing. 

VI

But the bankruptcy of metaphysical idealism does not end the matter. There is another idealism in which religious faith both confirms moralendeavor and gives it the incentive of hope. This {249} idealismestablishes itself upon an unequivocal acceptance of moral truth. Itcalls good good and evil evil, with all the finality which attaches tothe human experience of these things, leaving no room for compromise. Its faith lies in the expectation that the world shall become goodthrough the elimination of evil; it manifests itself in the resolution tohasten that time. God is loved for the enemies he has made. Evil ishated without reservation as none of his doing, and man is free toreverence the Lord his God with all his heart. 

From the stand-point of _moral idealism_ the universe resumes somethingof its pristine ruggedness and grandeur. If, as James says, "the worldappears as something more epic than dramatic, " the dignity of life isenhanced and not diminished on that account. [19] Life is not a spiritualexercise the results of which are discounted in advance; but is actuallycreative, fashioning and perfecting a good that has never been. And themoment evil is conceived as the necessary but diminishing complement topartial success, the sting of it is gone. Evil as a temporary andaccidental necessity is tolerable; but not so an evil which is absolutelynecessary, and which must be construed with some hypothetical divinesatisfaction. 

This in no way contradicts the fact that the {250} fullest life underpresent conditions involves contact with evil. Innocence must be tragicif it is not to be weak. Jesus without the cross would possess somethingof that quality of unreality which attaches to Aristotle's high-mindedman. But this does not prove that life involves evil; it proves onlythat life will be narrow and complacent when it is out of touch withthings as they are. Since evil is now real, he who altogether escapes itis ignorant and idle, taking no hand in the real work to be done. Not tofeel pain when pain abounds, not to bear some share of the burden, isindeed cause for shame. In that remarkable allegory, "The Man Who WasThursday, " Chesterton has most vividly presented this truth. In the lastconfrontation, the real anarchist, the spokesman of Satan, accuses thefriends of order of being happy, of having been protected from suffering. But the philosopher, who has hitherto been unable to understand thedespair to which he and his companions have been driven, repels thisslander. 

'I see everything, ' he cried, 'everything that there is. Why does eachthing on the earth war against each other thing? Why does each smallthing in the world have to fight against the world itself? . . . So thateach thing that obeys law may have the glory and isolation of theanarchist. So that each man fighting for order may be as brave and gooda man as the dynamiter. So that the real lie of Satan may be {251} flungback in the face of this blasphemer, so that by tears and torture we mayearn the right to say to this man, "You lie!" No agonies can be toogreat to buy the right to say to this accuser, "We also have suffered. "

'It is not true that we have never been broken. We have been broken uponthe wheel. . . . We have descended into hell. We were complaining ofunforgettable miseries even at the very moment when this man enteredinsolently to accuse us of happiness. I repel the slander; we have notbeen happy. '[20]

But the charge of happiness is to be repelled as a slander only becausethere are real sufferers in the world to make the charge. It is, afterall, not happiness but insensibility which is the real disgrace. If thesuffering is real, not to see it, not to feel it, not to heal it, isintolerable. To say, however, that suffering is wilfully caused in orderthat it may eventually contribute to an ultimate reconciliation, is tocharge God with something worse than complacency. If life is a realtragedy it can be endured, and to enter into it will bring the deepsatisfaction which every form of heroism affords. But if the tragedy oflife be preconceived and wilfully perpetrated, it must be resented forthe sake of self-respect. Even man possesses a dignity which is notconsistent with puppetry and mock heroics. 

Moral idealism means to interpret life consistently with ethical, scientific, and metaphysical truth. It endeavors to justify the maximumof {252} hope, without compromising or confusing any enlightened judgmentof truth. In this it is, I think, not only consistent with the spirit ofa liberal and rational age, but also with the primary motive of religion. There can be no religion with reservations, fearful of increasing light. No man can do the work of religion without an open and candid mind aswell as an indomitable purpose. 

I can not here elaborate the evidence upon which moral idealism isgrounded; but it might be broadly classified as ethical, cosmological, and historical. The ethical ground of moral idealism is the virtualunity of life, the working therein of one eventual purpose sustained bythe good-will of all moral beings. The cosmological proof lies in themoral fruitfulness and plasticity of nature. The historical proof liesin the fact of moral progress, in the advent and steady betterment oflife. 

VII

In conclusion I wish to revert to the topic of the generic proof ofreligion. We have defined the tests which any special religion mustmeet, and unless conformably to such tests it is possible to justify someform of idealism, it is clear that the full possibilities of religion asa source of strength and consolation must fail to be realized. But itmay now be affirmed that there is a moral {253} value in religion whichis independent of the cosmological considerations which prove or disprovea special religion. No scientific or metaphysical evidence cancontrovert the fact that man is engaged in an enterprise whichcomprehends all the actualities and possibilities of life, and that thesuccess of this enterprise is conditioned, in the end, on the complianceof the universe. A summing up of the situation as involving these twofactors is morally inevitable. Some solution of the problem, assimilatedand enacted, in other words, some form of piety, is no more than the laststage of moral growth. 

The value of religious belief, in this generic moral sense, consists inthe enlargement of the circle of life. Man knows the best and the worst;he walks in the open, apprehending the world in its full sweep and justproportions. An inclusive view of the universe, whatever it may reveal, throws into relief the lot of man. Religion promulgates the idea of lifeas a whole, and composes and proportions its activities with reference totheir ultimate end. Religion advocates not the virtues in theirseveralty, but the whole moral enterprise. With this it affiliates allthe sundry activities of life, thus bringing both action and thoughtunder the form of service of the ideal. At the same time it offers asupreme object for the passions, which are otherwise divided against{254} themselves, or vented upon unworthy and fantastical objects. Through being thus economized and guided, these moving energies may bebrought to support moral endeavor and bear it with them in their current. 

Piety carries with it also that sense of high resolve without which lifemust be haunted with a sense of ignominy. This is the immediate value ofthe good-will: the full deliverance of one's self to the cause ofgoodness. This value is independent of attainment. It is that _doing ofone's best_, which is the least that one can do. Having sped one'saction with good-will, one can only leave the outcome to the confluenceand summing of like forces. But such service is blessed both in theeventualities and in a present harmony as well. The good ofparticipation in the greatest and most worthy enterprise is proved in itslending fruitfulness, dignity, and momentousness to action; but also inits infusing the individual life with that ardor and tenderness which iscalled the love of humanity and of God, and which is the only form ofhappiness that fully measures up to the awakened moral consciousness. 

Since religion emphasizes the unity of life and supplies it with meaningand dignity, it is the function of religion to kindle moral enthusiasm insociety at large. Religion is responsible for the {255} prestige ofmorality. As an institution, it is the appointed guardian and medium ofthat supreme value which is hidden from the world; of that finalitywhich, in the course of human affairs, is so easily lost to view and soinfrequently proved. It is therefore the function of the religiousleader to make men lovers, not of the parts, but of the whole ofgoodness. Embarrassed by their very plenitude of life, men require tohave the good-will that is in them aroused and put in control. This, then, is the work of religion: to strike home to the moral nature itself, and to induce in men a keener and more vivid realization of their latentpreference for the higher over the lower values. This office requiresfor its fulfilment a constructive moral imagination, a power to arouseand direct the contagious emotions, and the use of the means ofpersonality and ritual for the creation of a sweetening and upliftingenvironment. 

In culture and religion human life is brought to the elevation which isproper to it. They are both forms of discipline through which isinculcated that quality of magnanimity and service which is the mark ofspiritual maturity. But while culture is essentially contemplative, far-seeing, sensitive, and tolerant, religion is more stirring and vital. Both are love of perfection, but culture is admiration; religion, concern. {256} "Not he that saith Lord, Lord, but he that doeth the willof his Father, shall be saved. " In religion the old note of fear isalways present. It is a perpetual watchfulness lest the work of life beundone, or lest a chance for the best be forfeited. 

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NOTES

CHAPTER I

[1] Joseph Butler: _Sermon VII_, edited by Gladstone, p. 114. _Cf. _also _Sermon X_, on Self-Deceit. 

[2] Nietsche: _Beyond Good and Evil_, translated by Helen Zimmern, p. 174. 

[3] Edmund Burke: _A Vindication of Natural Society_, Preface, pp. 4, 5. (Boston, 1806. )

[4] The classic discussion of the whole matter is to be found inAristotle's _Nicomachean Ethics_, Book I, Chapters I-VI, translated byJ. E. C. Welldon. _Cf. _ also Fr. Paulsen: _System of Ethics_, Book II, Chapters I, II, translated by Frank Thilly; G. H. Palmer: _The Natureof Goodness_, Chapters I, II; and W. James: _The Moral Philosopher andthe Moral Life_, in his _Will to Believe_. 

[5] The issue is presented clearly and briefly in Paulsen: _Op. Cit. _, Book II, Chapter II, and in James's _Principles of Psychology_, Vol. II, pp. 549-559. 

[6] Nietsche: _Op. Cit. _, p. 107. 

[7] Huxley: _Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays_, pp. 81-82. Thefirst two essays contained in this volume, the _Prolegomena_, and the_Romanes Lecture_, contain a very interesting study of the relation ofmorality to nature. 

[8] Huxley: _Op. Cit. _, p. 13. 

[9] G. K. Chesterton: _Napoleon of Notting Hill_, p. 291. The wholebook is a brilliant satire, intended to show that all of the heroicsentiments and virtues depend on war and local pride. 

[10] Nietsche: _Op. Cit. _, pp. 59, 163, 176, 223, 235, 237, 122. 

[11] Chesterton: _Heretics_, and _Orthodoxy_. 

[12] Plato: _Protagoras_, p. 322 (marginal pagination), and _passim_;translated by Jowett. 

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CHAPTER II

[1] Locke: _The Conduct of the Understanding_, Bohn's Library Edition, Vol. I, p. 72; also, _passim_. 

[2] Locke: _Op. Cit. _, p. 56. 

[3] Descartes: _Discourse on Method_, translated by Veitch, pp. 13-14. Also, _passim_. 

[4] Spinoza: _The Improvement of the Understanding_, translated byElwes, Vol. II, p. 4. 

[5] _Cf. _ Plato's _Republic_, Books V-VII, _passim_. 

[6] For further discussion of the meaning of duty, _cf. _ Kant's_Critical Examination of the Practical Reason_, Book I, Chapter III, translated in Abbott's _Kant's Theory of Ethics_, p. 164; Bradley's_Ethical Studies_, Essays II and V; and Sidgwick's _Methods of Ethics_, Book I, Chapter III. 

[7] Chesterton: _Napoleon of Notting Hill_, p. 162. 

[8] G. E. Moore: _Principia Ethica_, Chapter III, Sect. 58-63. 

[9] Locke: _Op. Cit. _, p. 29. 

[10] There is an excellent account of the questions that lie on theborder between ethics and jurisprudence in S. E. Mezes's _Ethics, Descriptive and Explanatory_, Chapter XIII. 

[11] Kant: _Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals_, translated in Abbott's _Kant's Theory of Ethics_, p. 47. 

[12] H. G. Lord: _The Abuse of Abstraction in Ethics_, in _EssaysPhilosophical and Psychological in Honor of William James_, pp. 376-377. 

[13] John Davidson: _A Rosary_, pp. 77, 82. 

[14] Maurice Maeterlinck: _The Measure of the Hours_, translated by A. T. De Mattos, p. 151. The essay in this volume, entitled "Our AnxiousMorality, " charges rationalism with destroying the romantic andmystical element in life. 

CHAPTER III

[1] A good discussion of the several virtues will be found in Paulsen:_Op. Cit. _, Book III. 

[2] W. H. S. Jones: _Greek Morality_, p. 50. 

[3] Jeremy Taylor: _Rules and Exercises of Holy Living_, edited by EzraAbbot, p. 73. 

[4] Jones: _Op. Cit. _, p. 124. 

{259}

[5] Count Baldesar Castiglione: _The Book of the Courtier_, translatedby Opdycke, p. 250. 

[6] _Cf. _ Hobbes: _Leviathan_, Chapters XIII, XIV, XV. In Hobbes'saccount, morality is reduced wholly to the prudential economy. 

[7] H. G. Wells: First and Last Things, p. 82. 

[8] Castiglione: _Op. Cit. _, p. 257. 

[9] Burke: _Op. Cit. _, p. 8. 

[10] Epictetus: _Discourses_, Book III, Chapter XXII, translated byLong, Vol. II, pp. 82, 83. 

[11] Taylor: _Op. Cit. _, p. 7. 

[12] Epictetus: _Op. Cit. _, Book II, Chapter XXI, translated by Long, Vol. I, p. 229. 

[13] _Cf. _ Hegel: _Philosophy of Right_, Third Part, Third Section, translated by S. W. Dyde; and _Philosophy of History_, Introduction, translated by J. Sibree. 

[14] _Cf. _ Plato's _Republic_, _passim_, but especially Book IV. Platomakes the state analogous to the individual organism, requiring baserclasses that shall permanently supply its lower functions, as well asclasses that shall supply its higher functions and so participate inits full benefits. 

[15] Aristotle: _Politics_, Book II, Chapter V, translated by Jowett, p. 35. _Cf. _ also Chapter II. 

[16] Epictetus: _Op. Cit. _, Book II, Chapter XV, translated by Long, Vol. I, p. 189. 

[17] Sophocles: _Antigone_, translated by G. H. Palmer, pp. 61, 62. 

[18] Munro and Sellery: _Medieval Civilization_, pp. 349-350. 

[19] Castiglione: _Op. Cit. _, p. 261. 

[20] Quoted from Diog. Laert. By Jones, _Op. Cit. _, p. 69. For a fullaccount, _cf. _ Aristotle's _Nicomachean Ethics_, Books VIII and IX, translated by Welldon, pp. 245-314. 

[21] Walter Bagehot: _Physics and Politics_, No. V, in the edition ofthe International Scientific Series, pp. 165-166. _Cf. _ this chapter_passim_. 

[22] Matthew Arnold: _Culture and Anarchy_, p. 100. 

[23] Quoted by Jones: _Op. Cit. _, p. 128. 

[24] Ibid. 

[25] Arnold: _Op. Cit. _, pp. 25-26. _Cf. Passim_. 

[26] Euripides: _Medea_, translated by Gilbert Murray, pp. 67-68. 

{260}

[27] _Cf. , e. G. _, Aristotle, _Nicomachean Ethics_, Book X. Also J. A. Farrer's _Paganism and Christianity, passim_; and Paulsen, _op. Cit. _, Book I, Chapters I-III. 

[28] Sir Thomas Browne; _Religio Medici_, edited by J. M. Dent & Co. , p. 97. 

[29] W. James: _Pragmatism_, p. 230. 

[30] Browne: _Op. Cit. _, pp. 118-119. 

[31] _Ibid. _, p. 110. 

[32] Castiglione: _Op. Cit. _, pp. 304-305. 

CHAPTER IV

[1] The nearest approach to such a philosophy of history is GeorgeSantayana's Life of Reason. The reader will find it the best book ofreference for this and the following chapter. _Cf. _ also, SamuelAlexander's Moral Order and Progress. 

[2] Bagehot: _Op. Cit. _, No. VI, pp. 208-209. 

[3] _Ibid. _, p. 161. 

[4] Nietsche: _Op. Cit. _, pp. 65-66. 

[5] For a general ethical discussion of the function of government, _cf. _ Santayana: _Reason in Society_, Chapters III-VIII. 

[6] Sophocles: _Antigone_, translated by Palmer, pp. 60, 63-64. 

[7] 1 Samuel, Chapter VIII. 

[8] Quoted in Taine's _Philosophy of Art in Greece_, translated by J. Durand, p. 130. 

[9] Thucydides: _Peloponnesian War_, Book II, Chapters 37-40, translated by Jowett, pp. 117-119. 

[10] Plato: _Republic_, Book IV, p. 433, translated by Jowett. 

[11] Burke: Op. Cit. , p. 43. 

[12] For a brief statement of the elements of political science intheir application to modern institutions, _cf. _ E. Jenks: _A History ofPolitics_. 

[12] Arnold: _The Future of Liberalism_, in the volume, _Mixed Essays, Irish Essays and Others_, p. 383. _Cf. _ also the admirable essay onDemocracy in the same volume. 

[14] Plato: _Republic_, Book I, p. 335, translated by Jowett. 

[15] Wells: _Op. Cit. _, pp. 130-131. 

{261}

CHAPTER V

[1] A good account of the meaning of art is to be found in Santayana's_Reason in Art_, Chapters I-III. 

[2] For this whole topic of the aesthetic interest, _cf. _ H. R. Marshall's _Pleasure, Pain, and Aesthetics_. 

[3] For an interpretation of painting in terms of the perceptualprocess, _cf. _ B. Berenson's _Florentine Painters of the Renaissance_, pp. 1-16; and _North Italian Painters of the Renaissance_, pp. 145-157. 

[4] The best account of the emotions and instincts is to be found inJames's _Principles of Psychology_, Vol. II, Chapters XXIV, XXV. 

[5] Walter Pater: _The Renaissance_, p. 140. 

[6] Taine: _Op. Cit. _, pp. 112, 114-115, and _passim_. 

[7] Pater: _Op. Cit. _, pp. 129-130; _cf. _ the chapter on _Leonardo daVinci_, entire. 

[8] Plato: _Republic_, Book III, p. 398, translated by Jowett. Thewhole of Books III and X are interesting in this connection. 

[9] In connection with the general topic of the moral criticism of art, _cf. _ Santayana's _Reason in Art_, Chapters IX-XI; also Ruskin's_Lectures on Art_, Lectures II-IV. 

[10] Aristotle: _Nicomachean Ethics_, Book X. 

[11] _Cf. _ the _Republic_, Book X. 

[12] Arthur Benson: _Beside Still Waters_, pp. 138-139. _Cf. _ also pp. 143-144. 

[13] Pater: _Op. Cit. _, pp. 249, 250; _cf. _ the Conclusion, passim. 

[14] James: _Op. Cit. _, Vol. I, pp. 125-126. 

[15] _Republic_; Book X, p. 606, translated by Jowett. 

[16] _Ibid. _, Book III, p. 399. 

[17] Aristotle: _Politics_, Book VIII, Chapter V, translated by Jowett, p. 252. 

[18] Taine: _The Ideal in Art_, translated by J. Durand, pp. 42 _sq. _

[19] Tolstóy: _What is Art?_ X, translated by Leo Wiener, p. 227. 

[20] Arnold: _Culture and Anarchy_, pp. 37, 38. _Cf. _ Chapter I, _passim_. 

[21] _Republic_, Book III, p. 401, translation by Jowett. 

{262}

CHAPTER VI

[1] This chapter is reprinted from the _Harvard Theological Review_ forApril, 1909. 

[2] I have treated this matter more fully in my _Approach toPhilosophy_, Chapters III and IV. At the close of that book the readerwill find a selected bibliography of the subject. 

[3] John Henry Newman: _Apologia pro Vita Sua_, p. 239. The whole bookis of interest in this connection. 

[4] Munro and Sellery: _Mediaeval Civilization_, p. 69. 

[5] _Fragments of Xenophanes_, in Burnet's _Early Greek Philosophy_, p. 115. 

[6] Lucretius: _De Rerum Natura_, Book I, lines 1021-1028, translatedby Munro. 

[7] _Isaiah_ 1:15-17. 

[8] For a brief account of primitive religion, _cf. _ J. B. Pratt's_Psychology of Religious Belief_. For a fuller account, _cf. _ F. B. Jevons's _Introduction to the History of Religion_. 

[9] Munro and Sellery: _Op. Cit. _, pp. 80, 75. 

[10] A. H. Sayce: _Babylonians and Assyrians_, p. 253. 

[11] A. Wiedemann: _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, p. 250. 

[12] _Cf. _ H. C. Warren's _Buddhism in Translation_. 

[13] The reader will find a good exposition of mysticism in Royce's_World and the Individual_, First Series, Lectures II, IV, V. 

[14] _Cf. , e. G. _, _Epictetus_: Discourses, Book II, Chapter VIII. 

[15] _Cf. _ Spinoza's Ethics, _passim_, translated by Elwes. 

[16] _Cf. _ Royce's account of Romanticism and Hegel, in his _Spirit ofModern Philosophy_, Lectures VI, VII. This motive, together with themotive of mysticism, appears in such writings as J. McT. E. McTaggart's_Studies in Hegelian Cosmology_, Chapter IX; and A. E. Taylor's_Problem of Conduct_, Chapter VIII. 

[17] Thomas Hardy: _The Dynasts_, Part I, p. 5. 

[18] John Davidson: _A Rosary_, p. 88. 

[19] James: _Pragmatism_, p. 144. The whole chapter is a brilliantrepresentation of the stand-point of moral idealism. 

[20] G. K. Chesterton: _The Man Who Was Thursday_, pp. 278-279. 

{263}

INDEX

 Achievement, 79, 81, 97. Adaptation, 22. Aesthetic Interest, definition of, 179; varieties of, 181 _ff. _, 189; moral limitation of, 190; sell-sufficiency of, 192; exaggeration of, 192, 195, 198 _ff. _; its pervasiveness, 194 _ff. _; vicariousness of, 197; stimulating character of, 201, 203 _ff. _; liberality of, 209 _ff. _; in religion, 246 _ff. _ Aimlessness, 94. Anarchism, 107. Aristotle, quoted, 100, 106, 192, 204. Arnold, M. , quoted, 108, 109, 112, 164, 211. Art, moral criticism of, Ch. V; its liability to moral criticism, 173 ff; definition of, 177; distinction between industrial and fine, 177 _ff. _; emotion in, 182 _ff. _; representative function of, 185 _ff. _, 203 _ff. _; Greek, 185 _ff. _; of Renaissance, 187; censorship of, 190; stimulating character of, 201 _ff. _; truth in, 205 _ff. _; universality and particularity of, 207 _ff. _; and liberality, 209 _ff. _; moral function of, 212. Asceticism, 79, 81, 92 _ff. _

 Bagehot, quoted, 106, 127, 132. Beauty, and goodness, 172 _ff. _ Belief, and religion, 216, 220, 228. Benson, A. , quoted, 194. Bigotry, 79, 81, 101 _ff. _ Browne, Sir Thomas, quoted, 115, 117, 118. Buddhism, 243. Burke, quoted, 6, 92, 158, 214. Butler, J. , quoted, 1. 

 Castiglione, quoted, 89, 90, 119. Character, 97. Chesterton, G. K. , 32; quoted, 28, 55, 250. Christianity, 94, 111, 114 _ff. _, 140, 158, 187, 228, 239, 243. Civilization, 3, 6, 10, 23, 32, 124, 137, 167, 170, 215. See Progress. Competition, 14, 129, 130; relation to morality, 24 _ff. _ Conscience, 34, 36. See Duty. Conservatism, 144 _ff. _ Convention, 36, 38 ff. Cosmological, test of religion, 224, 225, 234, 237, 240, 241, 252. Courage, 95. Culture, 211, 253. Chap. V, _passim_. Cynics, the Greek, 92 _ff. _, 137. 

 Davidson, J. , quoted, 70, 248. Democracy, 29, 39; modern idea of, 158 _ff. _, 163 _ff. _ Descartes, quoted, 35. Desire, 11. See Interest. Discussion, 106, 132. Dogmatism, 4. Duty, Ch. II, 40, 72; formalism and, 76. 

 Egoism, theoretical, 59 _ff. _; practical, 79, 81, 101. Emotion, and art, 182 _ff. _, 201 _ff. _ Epictetus, quoted, 93, 96, 100. Equality, 65, 66, 158 _ff. _, 163 _ff. _ Ethics, and history, 124; and religion, 224 _ff. _, 233, 240, 241, 252; independence of, 228. See Morality. Euripides, quoted, 114. Evil, 11, 15, 84, 86; religious conception of, 243 _ff. _, 249 _ff. _ See Good, Vice, Formalism, Materialism. 

 Faith, 33, 71. Fine Art. See Art. Formalism, 74 _ff. _, 92; and duty, 76, 77; varieties of, 79, 81, 92, 98, 107, 116, 209, 242. Freedom, 36, 107, 164. 

 God, 216, 224 _ff. _, 229, 232, 237, 240, 245, 249. Good, basal definition of, 11 _ff. _, 44; definition of moral, 15 _ff. _; relativity of, 45 _ff. _; relation to beautiful, 172 _ff. _, 212. Good-will, logic of, 67 _ff. _; virtue of, 79, 81, 113 _ff. _, 158. Government, 14; progress in, 148 _ff. _; Platonic theory of, 148; definition of, 150; ancient forms of, 152 _ff. _; summary of modern, 160 _ff. _ Greece, morality of, 110, 114; government in, 154 _ff. _; art of, 185 _ff. _, 204; religion of, 226. 

 Happiness, 18, 115, 116 _ff. _ Hardy, T. , quoted, 247. Health, 79, 81, 88 _ff. _ Hebrews, government of, 152; religion of, 227, 239. Hedonism, 16. History, meaning of, 123 _ff. _ Hobbes, 89. Honesty, 88. Huxley, theory of morality and nature, 21 _ff. _

 Idealism, metaphysical, 242 _ff. _; aesthetic, 246; moral, 248 _ff. _ Idleness, 94. Imagination, 28, 69, 111. Imprudence, 79, 81, 85 _ff. _ Incapacity, 79, 81, 83. Individualism, 34 _ff. _ Injustice, 79, 81, 103. See Justice. Institutions, their necessity, 3, 147. See Government. Intelligence, 79, 81, 82 _ff. _ Interest, definition of, 11, 43; organization of, 13, 14, 19, variety of, 16, 17; the higher, 52; conflict of, 53; objective validity of, 54; private, 57 _ff. _; the potential, 67, 68, 167; present and ulterior, 74 _ff. _; economies of, 78; simple, 78, 81, 82 _ff. _; reciprocity of, 78, 81, 87 _ff. _, incorporation of, 78, 81, 95 _ff. _; fraternity of, 78, 81, 105 _ff. _; universal system of, 79, 81, 112 _ff. _; and progress, 132; and reform, 137; and revolution, 139; and government, 148 _ff. _; the aesthetic, 179; the theoretical, 180, 193; varieties of the aesthetic, 181 _ff. _ See Aesthetic Interest. 

 James, W. , quoted, 116, 199, 249. Justice, meanings of, 63, 79, 81, 105, 158, 163; logic of, 63 _ff. _

 Kant, quoted, 64. 

 Laissez-faire, 108. Liberality, 156; and art, 209. Life, morality as the organization of, Ch. I; versus mechanism, 10, 22; morality one with, 19, 27; method of, 23. Locke, quoted, 34, 35, 62. Logic, of the moral appeal, Ch. II; and the imagination, 69. Lord, H. G. , quoted, 69. Lucretius, quoted, 226. 

 Maeterlinck, quoted, 71. Manners, 121. Materialism, 74 _ff. _, 84; varieties of, 79, 81, 94, 101, 110, 243. Mechanical Nature, 12; lack of value in, 9, 84; and progress, 130. Menander, quoted, 88. Metaphysics and religion, 242 _ff. _ Moderation, 87. Moore, G. E. , critique of egoism, 59 _ff. _ Morality, as the organization of life, Ch. I; the dulness of, 1; as verified truth, 7; its universal pertinence, 7 _ff. _; essential to life, 9, 32; natural genesis of, 9 _ff. _; basal definition of, 13; and nature, 20 _ff. _; and competition, 24 _ff. _; the logic of, Ch. II; rational ground of, 38, 40 _ff. _; material and formal aspects of, 74 _ff. _, 121; and progress, Ch. IV; and art, Ch. V; and aesthetic standards, 172 _ff. _; and religion, Ch. VI; and idealism, 248 _ff. _ Mysticism, 116, 244; and art, 208. 

 Nationalism, 99. Nature, genesis of morality in, 9 _ff. _; and morality, 20 _ff. _; theories of, in religion, 224, 225, 234, 237, 240. Newman, J. H. , quoted, 220. Nietsche, his conception of morality, 1, 5, 6, 20, 29 _ff. _, 165. 

 Optimism, 230, 242, 247. Other-worldliness, 115, 243. Overindulgence, 79, 81, 84 _ff. _

 Panlogism, 244. Pater, quoted, 185, 188; on the aesthetic interest, 196. Patience, 95. Pessimism, 114, 243. Philosophy, of history, 123 _ff. _; and religion, 241 _ff. _ Piety, 67, 68, 120, 223, 253, 254. Pity, 111, 163. Plato, quoted, 32; individualism in, 37; nationalism in, 100; account of disinterested activity in, 135 _ff. _; theory of government in, 148; on art, 190, 193, 202, 212; on religion, 244. Pleasure, its relation to morality, 16 _ff. _ Preference, 50; the quantitative principle of, 55 _ff. _, 127. Progress, moral test of, Ch. IV, 127; definition of, 125 _ff. _; principles of, 130 _ff. _; by constructive reform, 134 _ff. _; by revolution, 139 _ff. _ Prudence, 79, 81, logical ground of, 43 _ff. _; limits of, 49, 88, 90, 91, 94; meaning of, 87 _ff. _; basal character of, 91; in religion, 232. Purpose, logic of, 50 _ff. _; virtue of, 95 _ff. _

 Radicalism, 145 _ff. _ Rationality, 37, 42, 65; and progress, 134, 142; in government, 152. Reform, 134 _ff. _ Religion, 79, 81; and good-will, 113; mysticism in, 117; as an institution, 148; and progress, 170; moral justification of, Ch. VI; moral necessity of, 214 _ff. _; definition of, 215 _ff. _; quantitative tests of, 218 _ff. _; psychological study of, 220; belief in, 216, 220; therapeutic test of, 222 _ff. _; superstitious, 232 _ff. _; primitive, 233 _ff. _; and ethics, 224 _ff. _, 233, 240, 241, 252; cosmological test of, 224, 225, 234, 237, 240, 241, 252; tutelary, 237 _ff. _; Assyrian, 238; Egyptian, 238; Hebrew, 227, 239; philosophical, 241 _ff. _; generic proof of, 252 _ff. _ See Piety, Good-will, Worship and Christianity. Revolution, definition of, 139; the Christian, 140; the French, 141. Rightness, 18. See Virtue. 

 Satisfaction, 11, 79, 81, 83. Scepticism, 4 _ff. _, 36, 108. Sentimentalism, 98 _ff. _, and art, 209. Society, Chap. I, _passim_, 38; prudential basis of, 89; character of modern, 39, 166; progress in, 126, 132; continuity of, 143; and the aesthetic interest, 195, 211. Sophocles, quoted, 102, 151. Sordidness, 79, 81, 94. Spinoza, quoted, 35. Stoics, religion of, 245. See Epictetus. Struggle for existence, 30; its relation to morality, 21 _ff. _; its relation to progress, 130. Superstition, 232 _ff. _ Survival, 24, 131. 

 Tact, 88. Taine, quoted, 185. Taylor, J. , quoted, 86, 94. Temperance, 90. Thrift, 68, 87. Thucydides, quoted, 156. Tolerance, 38, 105, 164. Tolstóy, on art, 207. Truth, of art, 205 _ff. _; of religion, 220 _ff. _ Truthfulness, 96. See Veracity. Tyranny, 36, 39, 151 _ff. _

 Value, the simpler terms of, 11, 82; definition of moral, 15; varieties of moral, 79, 81. Veracity, 88, 96, 105. Vice, varieties of, 79, 81. See Virtue, Formalism, and Materialism. Virtue, the order of, Ch. III; verification of, 73; varieties of, 73, 79; classification of, 73 _ff. _; table of, 81. See under particular virtues, Prudence, etc. 

 War, and morality, 24 _ff. _, 30; the passing of, 28, 162; and progress, 131. Wells, H. G. , quoted, 89, 167. Worldliness, 79, 81, 110 _ff. _ Worship, 122, 232, 235, 237, 240. 

 Xenophanes, quoted, 326.