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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Problems of Conduct, by Durant Drake
+
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+Title: Problems of Conduct
+
+Author: Durant Drake
+
+Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5775]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 1, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROBLEMS OF CONDUCT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+PROBLEMS OF CONDUCT
+
+AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY OF ETHICS
+
+BY
+
+DURANT DRAKE
+
+A.M. (Harvard) Ph.D. (Columbia)
+
+Associate Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion at Wesleyan
+University
+
+BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
+
+1914
+
+
+
+
+TO THE DEAR TWO WHOSE INTEREST IN PROBLEMS OF CONDUCT FIRST AWAKENED
+MINE AND WHOSE EAGERNESS TO KNOW AND DO REMAINS UNDIMMED BY THE
+YEARS MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+This book represents in substance a course of lectures and discussions
+given first at the University of Illinois and later at Wesleyan
+University. It was written to meet the needs both of the college
+student who has the added guidance of an instructor, and of the
+generalreader who has no such assistance. The attempt has been
+made to keep the presentation simple and clear enough to need no
+interpreter, and by the list of readings appended to each chapter,
+to make a self directed further study of any point easy and alluring.
+These references are for the most part to books in English, easily
+accessible, and both intelligible and interesting to the ordinary
+untrained reader or undergraduate. Some articles from the popular
+reviews have been included, which, if not always authoritative,
+are interesting and suggestive.
+
+The function of the instructor who should use this as a textbook would
+consist, first, in making sure that the text was thoroughly read and
+understood; secondly, in raising doubts, suggesting opposing views,
+conducting a discussion with the object of making the student think
+for himself; and, thirdly, in adding new material and illustration
+and directing the outside readings which should supplement this
+purposely brief and summary treatment. The books to which reference
+is made in the lists of readings, and other books approved by the
+instructor, should be kept upon reserved shelves for the constant
+use of the class in the further study of questions suggested by
+the text or raised in the classroom.
+
+It will be noticed that the disputes and the technical language of
+theorists have been throughout so far as possible avoided. The
+discussion of historical theories and isms' is unnecessarily
+bewildering to the beginner; and the aim has been rather to keep as
+close as possible to the actual experience of the student and the
+language of everyday life. Far more attention is given than in most
+books on ethics to concrete contemporary problems. After all, an
+insight into the fallacies of the reasoning of the various ethical
+schools, an ability to know what they are talking about and glibly
+refute them, is of less importance than an acquaintance with, and a
+firm, intelligent attitude toward, the vital moral problems and
+movements of the day. I have prayed to be saved from academic
+abstractness and remoteness, and to go as straight as I could to the
+real perplexities from which men suffer in deciding upon their conduct.
+The purpose of a study of ethics is, primarily, to get light for the
+guidance of life. And so, while referring to authors who differ from
+the views here expressed, I have sought to impart a definite conception
+of relative values, to offer a thread for guidance through the
+labyrinth of moral problems, and to effect a heightened realization
+of the importance and the possibilities of right living.
+
+It is necessary, indeed, in order to justify and clarify our concrete
+moral judgments, that we should reach clear and firmly grounded
+conclusions upon the underlying abstract questions. And the habit of
+laying aside upon occasion one's instinctive or habitual moral
+preferences and discussing with open mind their justification and
+rationality is of great value to the individual and to society. Hence
+the first two Parts of this volume take up, as simply as is consonant
+with the really intricate questions involved, the history of the
+development of human morality and the psychological foundation of moral
+obligations and ideals. The exposition of the meaning of right and
+wrong there unfolded serves as a basis for the sound solution of the
+confused concrete issues, private and then public, which are discussed
+in the remainder of the volume.
+
+An introductory outline of any subject must inevitably be superficial.
+To explain all the discriminations that are important to the
+specialist, to justify thoroughly all the positions taken, to do
+adequate justice to opposing views, would require ten volumes instead
+of one. And though there is a crying need of scholarly and elaborate
+discussion of the endless problems of morality, there is a prior need
+for the student of surveying the field, seeing what the problems are,
+how they are related, and what is approximately certain. The impression
+left by many ethical treatises, that everything is matter for dispute
+and no moral judgments are reliable, seems to me unfortunate; I have
+preferred to incur the charge of dogmatism rather than to fall into
+that error to offer a clear cut set of standards, to which exception
+will be taken by this critic or that, rather than to hold out to the
+student a chaos of confused possibilities.
+
+No originality of viewpoint is claimed for this book. Its raison d'etre
+is simply to provide a clearer, more concrete, and more concisely
+comprehensive view of the nature of morality and its summons to men
+than has seemed to me available. I have drawn freely upon the thoughts
+of ethical teachers, classic and contemporary. These ideas are, or
+ought to be, common property; and it has been impracticable to trace
+them to their sources and offer detailed acknowledgment. Nothing has
+been presented here that has not first passed through the crucible
+of my own thinking and experience; and where the sparks came from that
+kindled each particular thought I am sure I do not know.
+
+Portions of chapters xxi and xxix have appeared in the Forum and North
+American Review respectively; to the editors of these periodicals my
+thanks are due for permission to reprint.
+
+DURANT DRAKE.
+
+MlDDLETOWN, CONN, August 3, 1914.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+What is the field of ethics? Why should we study ethics?
+
+PART I. THE EVOLUTION OF MORALITY
+
+CHAPTER I. THE ORIGIN OF PERSONAL MORALITY...
+How early in the evolutionary process did personal morality
+of some sort emerge?
+What were the main causes that produced personal morality? How far
+has the moralizing process been blind and how far conscious?
+
+CHAPTER II. THE ORIGIN OF SOCIAL MORALITY...
+How early was social morality developed?
+By what means was social morality produced?
+How has morality been fostered by the tribe?
+
+CHAPTER III. OUTWARD DEVELOPMENT-MORALS...
+What is the difference between morals and non-moral customs?
+What, in general, has been the direction of moral progress?
+What definition of morality emerges from this?
+Is moral progress certain?
+
+CHAPTER IV. INWARD DEVELOPMENT-CONSCIENCE...
+What are the stages in the history of moral guidance?
+Out of what has conscience developed?
+What is conscience now?
+What is the value of conscience?
+
+CHAPTER V. THE INDIVIDUALIZING OF CONSCIENCE...
+Why did not the individualizing of conscience occur earlier?
+What forces made against custom-morality?
+Conservatism vs. radicalism. What are the dangers of conventional
+morality?
+
+CHAPTER VI. CAN WE BASE MORALITY UPON CONSCIENCE...
+What is the meaning of "moral intuitionism"?
+Do the deliverances of different people's consciences agree?
+If conscience everywhere agreed in its dictates, could we base
+morality upon it?
+What is the plausibility of moral intuitionism?
+
+PART II. THE THEORY OF MORALITY
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE BASIS OF RIGHT AND WRONG...
+What is the nature of that intrinsic goodness upon which ultimately
+all valuations rest?
+What is extrinsic goodness?
+What sort of conduct, then, is good?
+And how shall we define virtue?
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE MEANING OF DUTY...
+Why are there conflicts between duty and inclination?
+Must we deny that duty is the servant of happiness?
+Does the end justify the means?
+What is the justification of justice and chivalry?
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE JUDGMENT OF CHARACTER...
+ Wherein consists goodness of character?
+Can we say, with Kant, that the only good is the Good Will?
+What evils may go with conscientiousness?
+What is the justification of praise and blame?
+What is responsibility?
+
+CHAPTER X. THE SOLUTION OF PERSONAL PROBLEMS...
+What are the inadequacies of instinct and impulse that necessitate
+morality?
+What factors are to be considered in estimating the worth
+of personal moral ideals?
+Epicureanism vs. Puritanism.
+What are the evils in undue self-indulgence?
+What are the evils in undue self-repression?
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE SOLUTION OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS...
+Why should we be altruistic?
+What is the exact meaning of selfishness and unselfishness?
+Are altruistic impulses always right?
+What mental and moral obstacles hinder altruistic action?
+How can we reconcile egoism and altruism?
+
+CHAPTER XII. OBJECTIONS AND MISUNDERSTANDINGS...
+Do men always act for pleasure or to avoid pain?
+Are pleasures and pains incommensurable?
+Are some pleasures worthier than others?
+Is morality merely subjective and relative?
+
+CHAPTER XIII. ALTEBNATIVE THEORIES...
+Is morality "categorical," beyond need of justification?
+Should we live "according to nature," and adjust ourselves
+to the evolutionary process?
+Is self-development, or self-realization, the ultimate end?
+Is the source of duty the will of God?
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE WORTH OF MORALITY...
+Morality as the organization of human interests.
+Do moral acts always bring happiness somewhere?
+Is there anything better than morality?
+
+PART III. PERSONAL MORALITY
+
+CHAPTER XV. HEALTH AND EFFICIENCY...
+What is the moral importance of health?
+Can we attain to greater health and efficiency?
+Is continued idleness ever justifiable?
+Are competitive athletics desirable? Is it wrong to smoke?
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE ALCOHOL PROBLEM...
+What are the causes of the use of alcoholic drinks?
+What are the evils that result from alcoholic liquors?
+What should be the attitude of the individual toward
+alcoholic liquors? What should be our attitude toward the use of
+alcoholic liquors by others?
+
+CHAPTER XVII. CHASTITY AND MARRIAGE...
+What are the reasons for chastity before and fidelity after
+marriage? What safeguards against unchastity are necessary?
+What are the factors in an ideal marriage? 1Is divorce morally
+justifiable?
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. FELLOWSHIP, LOYALTY, AND LUXURY...
+what social relationships impose claims upon us?
+What general duties do we owe our fellows?
+Are the rich justified in living in luxury?
+Is it wrong to gamble, bet, or speculate?
+
+CHAPTER XIX. TRUTHFULNESS AND ITS PROBLEMS...
+What are the reasons for the obligation of truthfulness?
+What exceptions are allowable to the duty of truthfulness?
+In what directions are our standards of truthfulness low?
+The ethics of journalism.
+
+CHAPTER XX. CULTURE AND ART...
+What is the value of culture and art?
+What is most important in cultural education?
+What dangers are there in culture and art for life?
+Should art be censored in the interests of morality?
+
+CHAPTER XXI. THE MECHANISM OF SELF-CONTROL...
+What are our potentialities of greater self-control?
+A practicable mechanism of self-control.
+Various accessories and safeguards.
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE ATTAINABILITY OF HAPPINESS...
+The threefold key to happiness:
+I. Hearty allegiance to duty.
+II. Hearty acquiescence in our lot.
+III. Hearty appreciation of the wonder and beauty in life.
+Can we maintain a steady under glow of happiness?
+
+PART IV. PUBLIC MORALITY
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. PATRIOTISM AND WORLD-PEACE...
+What is the meaning and value of patriotism? How should patriotism
+be directed and qualified? What have been the benefits of war? What
+are the evils of war? What can we do to hasten world-peace?
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. POLITICAL PURITY AND EFFICIENCY...
+What are the forces making for corruption in politics?
+What are the evil results of political corruption?
+What is the political duty of the citizen?
+What legislative checks to corruption are possible?
+
+CHAPTER XXV. SOCIAL ALLEVIATION...
+What is the duty of the State in regard to:
+I. Sickness and preventable death?
+II. Poverty and inadequate living conditions?
+III. Commercialized vice?
+IV. Crime?
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. INDUSTRIAL WRONGS...
+In our present organization of industry, what are the duties of
+businessmen:
+I. To the public?
+II. To investors?
+III. To competitors?
+IV. To employees?
+What general remedies for industrial wrongs are feasible?
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION...
+Ought the trusts to be broken up, or regulated?
+What are the ethics of the following schemes:
+I. Trade-unions and strikes?
+II. Profit-sharing, cooperation, consumers' leagues?
+III. Government regulation of prices, profits, and wages?
+IV. Socialism?
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. LIBERTY AND LAW...
+What are the essential aspects of the ideal of liberty?
+The ideal of individualism. The ideal of legal control.
+Should existing laws always be obeyed?
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. EQUALITY AND PRIVILEGE...
+What flagrant forms of inequality exist in our society?
+What methods of equalizing opportunity are possible?
+What are the ethics of:
+I. The single tax?
+II. Free trade and protection?
+III. The control of immigration?
+IV. The woman's movement?
+
+CHAPTER XXX. THE FUTURE OF THE RACE...
+In what ways should the State seek to better human environment?
+What should be done in the way of public education?
+hat can be done by eugenics?
+What are the gravest moral dangers of our times?
+
+
+
+
+PROBLEMS OF CONDUCT
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+What is the field of ethics?
+
+To know what exists, in its stark reality, is the concern of natural
+science and natural philosophy; to know what matters, is the field
+of moral philosophy, or ethics. The one group of studies deals with
+facts simply as facts, the other with their values. Human life is
+checkered with the sunshine and shadow of good and evil, joy and pain;
+it is these qualitative differences that make it something more than
+a meaningless eddy in the cosmic whirl. Natural philosophy (including
+the physical and psychological sciences), drawing its impartial map
+of existence, is interesting and important; it informs us about our
+environment and ourselves, shows us our resources and our powers, what
+we can do and how to do it. Moral philosophy asks the deeper and more
+significant question, What SHALL we do? For the momentous fact about
+life is that it has differences in value, and, more than that, that
+we can MAKE differences in value. Caught as we are by the irresistible
+flux of existence, we find ourselves able so to steer our lives as
+to change the proportion of light and shade, to give greater value
+to a life that might have had less. This possibility makes our moral
+problem. What shall we choose and from what refrain? To what aims shall
+we give our allegiance? What shall we fight for and what against?
+
+For the savage practically all of his activity is determined by his
+imperative needs, so that there is little opportunity for choice or
+reflection upon the aims of his life. He must find food, and
+shelter, and clothing to keep himself warm and dry; he must protect
+himself from the enemies that menace him, and rest when he is tired.
+Nor are most of us today far removed from that primitive condition;
+the moments when we consciously choose and steer our course are few
+and fleeting. Yet with the development of civilization the elemental
+burdens are to some extent lifted; men come to have superfluous
+strength, leisure hours, freedom to do something more than merely
+earn their living. And further, with the development of
+intelligence, new ways of fulfilling the necessary tasks suggest
+themselves, moral problems arise where none were felt before. Men
+learn that they have not made the most of their opportunities or
+lived the best possible lives; they have veered this way and that
+according to the moment's impulse, they have been misled by
+ingrained habits and paralyzed by inertia, they have wandered at
+random for lack of a clear vision of their goal. The task of the
+moralist is to attain such a clear vision; to understand, first, the
+basis of all preference, and then, in detail, the reasons for
+preferring this concrete act to that. Here are a thousand impulses
+and instincts drawing us, with infinite further possibilities
+suggesting themselves to reflection; the more developed our natures
+the more frequently do our desires conflict. Why is any one better
+than another? How can we decide between them? Or shall we perhaps
+disown them all for some other and better way.
+
+Man's effort to solve these problems is revealed outwardly in a
+multitude of precepts and laws, in customs and conventions; and
+inwardly in the sense of duty and shame, in aspiration, in the
+instinctive reactions of praise, blame, contentment, and remorse. The
+leadings of these forces are, however, often divergent, sometimes
+radically so. We must seek a completer insight. There must be some
+best way of solving the problem of life, some happiest, most useful
+way of living; its pursuit constitutes the field of ethics. Nothing
+could be more practical, more vital, more universally human.
+
+Why should we study ethics?
+
+(1) The most obvious reason for the study of ethics is that we may
+get more light for our daily problems. We are constantly having to
+choose how we shall act and being perplexed by opposing advantages.
+Decide one way or the other we must. On what grounds shall we decide?
+How shall we feel assured that we are following a real duty, pursuing
+an actual good, and not being led astray by a mere prejudice or
+convention? The alternative is, to decide on impulse, at haphazard,
+after some superficial and one-sided reflection; or to think the matter
+through, to get some definite criteria for judgments, and to face the
+recurrent question, what shall we do? In the steady light of those
+principles. [Footnote: Cf. Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, vol.
+i: "Marcus Aurelius," opening paragraph: "The object of systems of
+morality is to take possession of human life, to save it from being
+abandoned to passion or allowed to drift at hazard, to give it happiness
+by establishing it in the practice of virtue; and this object they
+seek to attain by presenting to human life fixed principles of action,
+fixed rules of conduct. In its uninspired as well as in its inspired
+moments, in its days of languor or gloom as well as in its days of
+sunshine and energy, human life has thus always a clue to follow, and
+may always be making way towards its goal."]
+
+(2) In addition to the fact that we all have unavoidable problems which
+we must solve one way or another, a little familiarity with life, an
+acquaintance with the biographies of great and good men, should lead
+us to suspect that beyond the horizon of these immediate needs lie
+whole ranges of beautiful and happy living to which comparatively few
+ever attain. There are better ways of doing things than most of us
+have dreamed. The study of ethics should reveal these vistas and
+stimulate us to a noble discontent with our inferior morals. [Footnote:
+Cf. Emerson, in a letter to Fraulein Gisela von Arnim: "In reading
+your letter, I felt, as when I read rarely a good novel, rebuked that
+I do not use in my life these delicious relations; or that I accept
+anything inferior or ugly."] Such a forward look and development of
+ideals not only adds greatly to the worth of life but prepares a man
+to meet perplexities and temptations which may some day arise. It pays
+to educate one's self for future emergencies by meditating not only
+upon present problems but upon the further potentialities of conduct,
+right and wrong, that may lie ahead, and building up a code for one's
+self that will make life not only richer but steadier and more secure.
+
+(3) Another advantage of a systematic study of ethics is that it can
+make clearer to us WHY one act is better than another; why duty is
+justified in thwarting our inclinations and conscience is to be obeyed.
+Not only is this an intellectual gain, but it is an immense
+fortification to the will. There comes a time in the experience of
+every thinking man when a command not reinforced by a reason breeds
+distrust, and when until he can intelligently defend an ideal he will
+hesitate to give it his allegiance. Morality, to be depended upon,
+must be not a mere matter of breeding and convention, or of impulse
+and emotion, but the result of rational insight and conscious resolve.
+To many people morality seems nothing but convention, or an arbitrary
+tyranny, or a mysterious and awful necessity, something extraneous
+to their own desires, from which they would like to escape. To be able
+to refute these skeptics, expose the sophisms and specious arguments
+by which they support their wrongdoing, and show that they have chosen
+the lesser good, is a valuable help to the community and to one's own
+integrity of conduct. Too often the people perish for lack of vision;
+an understanding of the naturalness and enormous desirability of
+morality, together with an appreciation of its main injunctions, would
+enlist upon its side many restless spirits who now chafe under a sense
+of needless restraint and seek some delusory freedom which leads to
+pain and death. Morality is simply the best way of living; and the
+more fully men realize that, the more readily will they submit themselves
+to the sacrifices it requires.
+
+(4) Finally, a study of ethics should help us to see what are the
+prevalent sins and moral dangers of our day, and thus arouse us to
+put the weight of our blame and praise where they are needed. Widespread
+public opinion is a force of incalculable power, which is largely
+unused. Politics and business, and to a far greater extent than now
+private life, will become clean and honest and kind just so soon as
+a sufficient number of people wake up and demand it. We have the power
+to make sins which are now generally tolerated and respectable, so
+odious, so infamous, that they will practically disappear. There are
+certain of the older forms of sin which the race in its long struggle
+upward has so effectually blacklisted that only a few perverts now
+lapse into them; we have execrated out of existence whole classes of
+cruelty and vice. But with the changing and ever more complex relations
+of society new forms of sin continually creep in; these we have not
+yet come to brand with the odium they deserve. Leaders of society and
+pillars of the church are often, and usually without disturbance of
+conscience, guilty of wrongdoing as grave in its effects, or graver,
+than many of the faults we relentlessly chastise. On the other hand,
+many really useful reforms are blocked because they awaken old prejudices
+or cross silly and meaningless conventions. The air is full of proposals,
+invectives, causes, movements; how shall we know which to espouse and
+which to reject, or where best to lend a hand? We need a consistent
+and well-founded point of view from which to judge. To get such a sane
+and far-sighted moral perspective; to see the acts of our fellow men
+with a proper valuation; to be able to point out the insidious dangers
+of conduct which is not yet as generally rebuked as it ought to be;
+and at the same time to emancipate ourselves and others from the mistaken
+and merely arbitrary precepts that are intermingled with our genuine
+morality, and so attain the largest possible freedom of action, such
+should be the outcome of a thorough study of ethical principles and
+ideals.
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+THE EVOLUTION OF MORALITY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+THE ORIGIN OP PERSONAL MORALITY
+
+In almost any field it is wise to precede definition by an impartial
+survey of the subject matter. So if we are to form an unbiased
+conception of what morality is, it will be safest to consider first
+what the morals of men actually have been, how they came into being,
+and what function they have served in human life. Thus we shall be
+sure that our theory is in touch with reality, and be saved from mere
+closet-philosophies and irrelevant speculations. Our task in this First
+Part will be not to criticize by reference to any ethical standards,
+but to observe and describe, as a mere bit of preliminary sociology,
+what it is in their lives to which men have given the name "morality,"
+of what use it has been, and through the action of what forces it has
+tended to develop. With these data in mind, we shall be the better
+able, in the Second Part, to formulate our criteria for judging the
+different codes of morality; we shall find that we are but making
+explicit and conscious the considerations that, unexpressed and
+unrealized, have been the persistent and underlying factors in their
+development. How early in the evolutionary process did personal
+morality of some sort emerge? Of course the words (in any language)
+and the explicit conceptions "morality," "duty," "right," "wrong," etc,
+are very late in appearance, presupposing as they do a power of
+reflection and abstraction which develops only in man and with a
+considerable civilization. Even in the Homeric poems, which reflect
+a degree of mental cultivation in some respects equal to our own, these
+concepts hardly appear. But ages earlier, far back in the course of
+animal evolution, there emerged phenomena which we may consider
+rudimentary forms of morality; and all early human history was replete
+writh unanalyzed and unformulated moral struggles. Concretely, we mean
+by personal morality courage, industriousness, self-control, prudence,
+temperance, and other similar phenomena, which have this in common,
+that they involve a crossing of earlier-developed impulses and
+redirection of the individual's conduct, with the result, normally,
+that his welfare is enhanced. Exceptions to this result will be
+considered later; but the point to be noted at the outset is that
+personal morality is not at first the outcome of reflection, or a
+purely human affair. If we were to take the term "morality" in a
+narrower sense, as meaning conscious obedience to a sense of duty or
+to the moral law, it would obviously be a late product. But morality
+in this sense is only an ultimate development of what in its less
+conscious and reflective forms dates far back in pre-human history.
+
+Take courage, for example, which may be briefly defined as action in
+spite of the instinct of fear and contrary to its leading. Nearly all
+of the higher animals exhibit courage in greater or less degree, and
+there are many touching instances of it recorded to the credit of those
+we best know. Industriousness, again, is proverbial in the case of
+bees and ants "Go to the ant, thou sluggard!"--and noteworthy in the
+case of many birds, of beavers, and a long list of other animals.
+Prudence may be illustrated by the case of the camel who fills himself
+with water enough to last for many desert days, or that of the bird
+who builds her nest with remarkable ingenuity and pains out of the
+reach of invaders. Whether or not we shall attribute self-control to
+the lower animals is a mere matter of definition; in the looser sense
+we may credit with it the hungry fox who does not touch the bait whose
+dangerous nature he vaguely suspects. Temperance is probably one of
+the latest of the virtues, and is rather conspicuously absent in much
+of human history and biography; but perhaps students of animal psychology
+can guarantee instances to which the name might fairly be given.
+
+In lesser degree, then, but unmistakably present, we find the same
+sort of conduct appearing in the animals to which we give in man the
+names courage, prudence, etc. Purely instinctive these acts usually
+are though we may see even in the animals the beginnings of mental
+conflicts, of reasoning, of reflection. But morality (if we keep to
+the wider sense of the term) is none the less morality when it is
+instinctive and natural. Morality is a general name for certain KINDS
+of conduct, certain redirections of impulse. These redirections
+appeared in animal life long before the emergence of what we may call
+man from his ape-like ancestry; and all of our self-conscious moral
+idealism is but a continuation and development of the process then
+begun. Any theory of right and wrong must take account of the fact
+that morality, unlike art, science, and religion, is not an exclusively
+human affair. In contrast with these late and purely human innovations,
+it is hoary with antiquity and the possession, in some rudimentary
+form or other, of nearly the whole realm of organic life.
+
+What were the main causes that produced personal morality?
+
+How did these germinal forms of courage, prudence, industriousness,
+etc, first come into existence? The answer to this question will also
+show what are the main underlying causes that promote these virtues
+today.
+
+(1) They are in part due to certain organic needs and cravings which
+exist independently of the individual's environment. Hunger and thirst
+imperiously check the tendency to laziness, or heedlessness, and
+stimulate to industriousness and prudence. To this day the mere need
+of food and clothing and shelter is the main bulwark of these virtues.
+The acquisitive impulse, which is also rather early in appearance,
+has an increasing share in this sort of moralization. The craving for
+action, which is the natural result of abundant nervous and muscular
+energy, the combative instinct, the joy of conquest and achievement,
+and the sexual impulse, go far in counteracting cowardice and inertia.
+The artistic impulse, when it emerges in man, long before the dawn
+of history, makes against caprice for orderliness, self-control, and
+patience. Ambition is a potent force in human affairs. The desire for
+the approval of others, which is prehuman, makes for all the virtues.
+
+(2) But in addition to these inward springs of morality there is the
+constant pressure of a hostile environment. Cold, storms, rivers that
+block journeys, forests that must be felled, treacherous seas that
+lure with promise and exact toll for carelessness, arouse men out of
+their torpor and aid the development of the virtues we have been
+considering. The necessity of rearing some sort of shelter makes against
+laziness for industry and perseverance. The dangers of wind or flood
+check heedlessness in the choice of location for the home and foster
+prudence and foresight. In the harsher climates man is more goaded
+by nature; hence more moral progress has, probably, been effected in
+the temperate than in the tropical zones.
+
+(3) A third and very important source lies in the mutual hostility
+of the animal species and of men. Slothfulness and recklessness mean
+for the great majority of animals the imminent risk of becoming the
+prey of some stronger animal. Among tribes of men the ceaseless struggles
+for supremacy have pricked cowardice into courage, demanded self-control
+instead of temper, supplanted gluttony and drunkenness by temperance.
+Cruel as has been the suffering caused by war, and deplorable as most
+of its effects, it did a great deal in the early stages of man's
+history to promote the personal virtues, alertness, moderation,
+caution, courage, and efficiency.
+
+In the latest stages of man's development, conscious regard for law
+and custom, the fear of gods, the explicit recognition of duty and
+conscience, and the direct pursuit of ideals-all the reflective
+considerations that we may lump together under the word
+"conscientiousness"-play their ever increasing part and complicate
+the psychological situation. But even in modern civilized man the
+underlying animal forces count for far more. And without them the later
+self-conscious forces would not have come into play at all. There is
+a small class of people who are dominated throughout their activities
+by consciously present ideals or obedience to religious injunctions.
+But the average man still acts mainly under the pressure of the more
+primitive forces which we have enumerated.
+
+How far has the moralizing process been blind and how far conscious?
+
+(1) To a very large extent the moralizing process has been a merely
+mechanical one. Through slight differences in nerve-structure
+individuals have varied a little in their response to the pressure
+of inward cravings and outward perils. The braver, the more prudent,
+the more industrious have had a better chance of survival. So by the
+process which we have come to call natural selection there has been
+a continual weeding-out of the relatively lazy, cowardly, reckless,
+and imprudent. Much of our morality is the result of tendencies thus
+long cultivated by the ruthless methods of nature; we inherit a complex
+nervous organization, the outcome of ages of molding and selection,
+which now instinctively and easily responds to stimuli with a certain
+degree of inbred morality. This is the case much more than is apparent
+upon the surface. The child seems very unmoral, the mere prey of
+passing impulses; but latent in his brain are many aptitudes and
+tendencies which will at the proper time ripen and manifest themselves.
+The period of adolescence is that during which the changes in mental
+structure which were effected during the later stages of evolution
+are being made in the mind of this new individual; he reenacts, as
+it were, in a few years, the history of the race, and emerges without
+any conscious effort, the possessor of the fruits of that long struggle
+of which he was always the heir.
+
+(2) In all the later stages of animal evolution, however, moral
+development is largely conscious, or semi-conscious. Besides our inner
+inheritance of altered brain-paths there is a social inheritance of
+habits which each generation adopts by imitation of its predecessors.
+Without any deliberate intention, the young of every species imitate
+their parents, and then the older members of the flock or herd.
+"Suggestion" is said by some to be the chief means of moralization;
+we are brave or industrious because we see others practicing these
+virtues and naturally do as they do. At any rate, whichever are more
+important, the inherited tendencies or those acquired by contagion,
+both of these factors play a large part in the development of the
+individual's morals.
+
+(3) The third method of moral development is that which we call
+"learning by experience." The pain or dissatisfaction which a wrong
+impulse brings in its train, the satisfaction which follows a moral
+act, are remembered, and recur with the recurrence of a similar
+situation, becoming perhaps the decisive factors in steering the animal
+or man toward his true welfare. Many animals quite low in the organic
+scale learn by experience; and though of course the degree of
+consciousness that accompanies these readjustments varies enormously,
+this method of moralization may be said to be always, like the
+preceding, a more or less conscious process. Learning by experience
+is subject, of course, to many mistaken judgments; the fallacy of post
+hoc propter hoc leads many learners to avoid perfectly innocent acts
+as supposedly involving some evil result with which they were once
+by chance connected; and the true causes of the evils are often
+overlooked. Even when dimly conscious readjustments become highly
+conscious deliberation, the results of that deliberation may be less
+forwarding morally than the unconscious and merciless grinding of
+natural selection.
+
+More and more, of course, as men grew in power of reflection, did they
+consciously shape their morals; and this intelligent selection, which
+has as yet played a comparatively small role, is bound, as men become
+more and more rational, to supersede in importance the other factors
+in moral evolution. But in the later phases of evolution all three
+of these processes blend together; and it would be impossible for the
+keenest analyst to tell how much of his conduct was determined in each
+of these ways.
+
+H. Spencer, Data of Ethics (also published as the first part of his
+Principles of Ethics), chap. I and chap. II, through sec. 4; or J.
+Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, part II, chap, XXII, first half, to "We are
+now prepared to deal." L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, part
+I, chap. I, secs. 1-4. I. King, Development of Religion, pp. 48-59
+A great mass of concrete material will be found in E. Westermarck's
+Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, H. O. Taylor's Ancient Ideals,
+W. E. H. Leeky's History of European Morals.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+THE ORIGIN OF SOCIAL MORALITY
+
+How early was social morality developed?
+
+By social morality we mean, concretely, such virtues as tender and
+fostering love, sympathy, obedience, subordination of selfish instincts
+to group-demands, the service of other individuals or of the group.
+These habits are later in development than some of the personal
+virtues, but long antedate the differentiation of man from the other
+animals. Instances of self-sacrificing devotion of parent to offspring
+among birds and beasts are too common to need mention. Devotion to
+the mate, though less developed, is early present in many species.
+The strict subordination of ants and bees to the common welfare is
+a well-known marvel, the latter enthusiastically and poetically
+described by Maeterlinck in his delightful Life of the Bees. The stern
+requirements of obedience to the unwritten laws of the herd, which
+make powerful so many species of animals individually weak, are
+graphically, though of course with exaggeration, set forth by Kipling
+in his Jungle Book. Many sorts of animals, such as deer and antelopes,
+might long ago have been exterminated but for their mutual cooperation
+and service. Affection and sympathy in high degree are evident in some
+sub-human species. When we come to man, we find his earliest recorded
+life based upon a social morality which, if crude, was in some respects
+stricter than that of today. It is a mistake to think of the savage
+as Rousseau imagined him, a freehearted, happy-go-lucky individualist,
+only by a cramping civilization bowed under the yoke of laws and
+conventions. Savage life is essentially group-life; the individual
+is nothing, the tribe everything. The gods are tribal gods, warfare
+is tribal warfare, hunting, sowing, harvesting, are carried on by the
+community as a whole. There are few personal possessions, there is
+little personal will; obedience to the tribal customs, and mutual
+cooperation, are universal. [Footnote: As an example of the solidarity
+of barbarous tribes, note how Abimelech, seeking election as king,
+says to "all the men of Shechem": "Remember that I am your bone and
+your flesh." (Judges IX, 2.) Later, "all the tribes of Israel" say
+to David, "Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh." (2 Sam. V, 1.) Of
+savage life as observed in modern times we have many reports like this:
+"Many strange customs and laws obtain in Zululand, but there is no
+moral code in all the world more rigidly observed than that of the
+Zulus." (R. H. Millward, quoted by Myers, History as Past Ethics, p.
+11.) Compare this: "A Kafir feels that the 'frame that binds him in'
+extends to the clan. The sense of solidarity of the family in Europe
+is thin and feeble compared to the full-blooded sense of corporate
+union of the Kafir clan. The claims of the clan entirely swamp the
+rights of the individual." (Kidd, Savage Childhood, p. 74.) An elaborate
+and stern social morality, then, long preceded verbally formulated
+laws; it was a matter of instinct and emotion long before it was a
+matter of calculation or conscience. The most primitive men acknowledge
+a duty to their neighbors; and the subsequent advance of social morality
+has consisted simply in more and more comprehensive answers to the
+questions, What is my duty? and Who is my neighbor? At first, the
+neighbor was the fellow tribesman only, all outsiders being deemed
+fair prey. Every member of the clan instinctively arose to avenge an
+injury to any other member, and rejoiced in triumphs over their common
+foes. We still have survivals of this primitive code in the Corsican
+vendettas and Kentucky feuds. With the growth of nations, the cooperative
+spirit came to embrace wider and wider circles; but even as yet there
+is little of it in international relations. The old double standard
+of morality persists in spite of the command to which we give theoretic
+allegiance-"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love
+thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your
+enemies!" From the same lips came the final answer to the question,
+"Who is my neighbour?" It can be found in the tenth chapter of the
+Gospel according to Luke. By what means was social morality produced?
+
+(1) The earliest source of social morality lies in the maternal
+instinct; the first animal that took care of its young stood at the
+beginning of this wonderful advance. The originating causes of the
+first slight care of eggs or offspring lay, no doubt, in some obscure
+physiological readjustments, due to forces irrelevant to morality.
+But the young that had even such slight care had a survival advantage
+over their rivals, and would transmit the rudimentary instinct to their
+offspring. Thus, given a start in that direction, natural selection,
+steadily favoring the more maternally disposed, produced species with
+a highly developed and long continuing maternal love. In similar manner
+but in lesser degree a paternal instinct was developed. The existence
+of these instincts implied the power of sympathy and altruistic action
+that is, action by one individual for another's welfare. From sympathy
+for offspring to sympathy for mate and other members of the group was
+but a step; and all sympathetic action may have its ultimate source
+in mother love.
+
+(2) Not only was natural selection early at work in the rivalry for
+existence between individuals, protecting those stocks that had the
+stronger maternal and paternal instincts, but it played an important
+part in the struggle between groups. Those species that developed the
+ability to keep together for mutual protection or for advantage. And
+within a species those particular herds or flocks or tribes that
+cooperated best outlived the others. With the strongest animals, such
+as lions and tigers, and with the weakest, such as rabbits and mice,
+the instinct to stand by one another is of no value and so was never
+fostered by natural selection. But in many species of animals of
+intermediate strength, that by cooperation might be able to resist
+attack or overcome enemies that they would singly be impotent against,
+the cooperative instinct became strongly developed. Notably in such
+case was man; and we find group consciousness, tribal loyalty,
+continually enhanced by the killing off of the tribes in which it was
+feebler. The dominant races in man's internecine struggles have been
+those of passionate patriotism and capacity for working together.
+Nature has socialized man by a repeated application of the method
+hinted at in the adage "United we stand, divided we fall." Successful
+war demands loyalty and obedience, self-forgetfulness and mutual
+service. It demands also the cessation of internal squabbling, the
+restraint of individual greed, lust, and caprice. At first instinctive,
+these virtues came with clearing consciousness to be deliberately
+cultivated by the tribe, in ways which we shall in a moment indicate.
+
+(3) As in the development of personal morality, the hostility of
+inanimate nature, coupled with the urgency of inner needs, has also
+played its part in the socialization of man. The satisfying of hunger,
+protection against storm, flood, and other physical calamities, is
+greatly forwarded by cooperation. The rearing of a shelter, for
+example, that shall be at all comfortable and secure, demands the labor
+of several. With the development of civilization, mutual assistance
+and the division of labor become more and more imperative. As man
+developed more and more into a reflective animal, the comprehension
+of these advantages became clearer and clearer to him. Resentment against
+mere individualism grew keener; and any member whose laziness or passions
+led him to pull apart from the common good had to incur the anger of
+his fellows. Under these three heads--the selection of the maternal
+instinct, with its potentialities of universal sympathy, through the
+struggle between individuals; the selection of the various powers of
+loyalty and cooperation through the struggle between groups; and the
+production of cooperative habits through the struggle with inanimate
+nature-we may group the causes of social morality in man. How has
+morality been fostered by the tribe? Social morality, like personal
+morality, is passed on from generation to generation by heredity and
+by imitation. Both, in historic man, are also deliberately cultivated
+by the tribe. We have discriminated between the two aspects of morality
+for theoretic reasons which will later become apparent; but no
+discrimination is possible or needful for the savage. Courage and
+prudence and industriousness and temperance in its members are assets
+of the tribe, and are included among its requirements. We shall now
+consider in what ways the group brings pressure to bear upon the
+individual and influences his moral development.
+
+(1) It needs no great powers of observation to convince the members
+of a tribe severally that immorality of any sort-laziness, cowardice,
+unrestrained lust, recklessness, quarrelsomeness, insubordination,
+etc. in another member is detrimental to him personally. His own security
+and the satisfaction of his needs are thereby in some degree decreased.
+Contentment at the morality of the other members of the group, and
+anger at their immorality, are therefore among the earliest
+psychological reactions. No men, however savage, are insensitive to
+these attitudes of their fellows; and the emotional response of others
+to their acts is from the beginning a powerful force for morality.
+When contentment becomes explicitly expressed, becomes praise,
+commendation, honor; when anger becomes openly uttered blame, contempt,
+ridicule, rebuke, their power is well nigh irresistible. A civilized
+man, with his manifold resources, may defy public opinion; the savage,
+who cannot with safety live alone and has few personal interests to
+fill his mind, is unavoidably subject to its sting. His impulses and
+passions lead him often to immoral conduct, but he is pretty sure to
+suffer from the condemnation of his fellows. The memory of that penalty
+in his own case, or the sight of it in the case of others, may be a
+considerable deterrent; while, on the other hand, the craving for
+applause and esteem may be a powerful incentive.
+
+(2) Even among some of the animals, the resentment against the
+misconduct of a member of the herd finds expression in outward
+punishment maltreatment or death. Among men, punishments for the
+immoral and outward honors for the virtuous antedate history.
+Decorations, tattoos, songs, for the conspicuously brave and efficient,
+death or some lesser penalty for the cowardly, the traitorous, the
+insubordinate, figure largely in primitive life. These honors are
+capricious, uncertain, and transitory; but they are undoubtedly more
+stimulating to the savage, who lives in the moment, than they are in
+the more complex existence of the modern man. And while in general
+the savage is more callous to punishments, he has to fear much severer
+penalties than our humane conscience allows. They are inflicted, of
+course, with greatest frequency for those sins which instinctively
+arouse the hottest anger; that in turn varies with different types
+of men and various accidental circumstances that have determined the
+tribal points of view. But in general it is the virtues that most
+obviously benefit the tribe that are rewarded, and those that most
+obviously harm it that are punished.
+
+(3) Another important means of securing morality in the tribe is the
+education of the young. This includes not only deliberate instruction,
+encouragement, and warning, but various symbolic rites and customs,
+whose value in impressing the plastic minds of the boys and girls of
+the tribe is only half realized. Initiation into manhood is accompanied
+in many races of men by solemn ceremonies, which instill into the youth
+the necessity and glory of courage, endurance, self-control, and other
+virtues. The maidens are taught by equally solemn rites the
+obligatoriness of chastity. The lowest races studied by anthropologists
+which, however, represent, of course, the result of ages of evolution
+have commonly an elaborate provision for the guidance of the young
+into the paths of the tribal morals.
+
+(4) Further, all occasions upon which the tribe gets together for
+common work or play strengthen the group loyalty and make the group
+welfare appeal to the member as his own good. Hunting expeditions and
+wars, the sowing and reaping of the communal harvest, births,
+marriages, and deaths, in which usually the group as a whole takes
+a keen interest, feasts and dances, bard recitals, in common
+undertakings, dangers, calamities, triumphs, and celebrations, merge
+the individuality of the separate members into a unity. In many
+primitive races these influences are so strong that the individual
+has scarcely any separate life, but lives from childhood till death
+for the tribe and its welfare.
+
+(5) Religion is, until late in civilization, almost wholly a group
+affair. The gods are tribal gods, their commands are chiefly the more
+obvious duties to the tribe. The fear of their displeasure and the
+hope of their assistance are among the most powerful of the sanctions
+of early morality. Where a special set of men are set aside as priests,
+to foster the religious consciousness and insure obedience to the divine
+behests, he is rash who dares openly to transgress. The idea of "taboo"
+of certain acts which must not be done, certain objects which must
+not be touched, etc. i extraordinarily prominent among many early
+peoples. The taboo may not be clearly connected with a divine
+prohibition; but, whether vague and mysterious or explicit, it brings
+the awe of the supernatural to bear upon daily conduct. The worship
+of the gods is one of the most important of the common activities,
+covered by the preceding paragraph, which make for the unifying of
+a tribe; and the sense of their presence and jealous interest in its
+welfare one of the strongest motives that restrain the individual from
+cowardice or lust or any anti-social conduct.
+
+(6) With the development of language, the moral experience of a people
+becomes crystallized into maxims, proverbs, and injunctions, which
+the elders pass on to the boys and girls together with their comments
+and personal instruction. Oral precepts thus condense the gist of
+recurrent experience for the benefit of each new generation. Such saws
+as "Honesty is the best policy," "Lies are short lived," "Ill gotten
+gains do not prosper," date, no doubt, well back toward the origin
+of articulate language. The gathering antiquity of this inherited counsel
+adds prestige to the personal authority of the old men who love to
+repeat it; and the customs once instinctive and unconsciously imitated,
+or adopted from fear and the hope of praise, are now consciously
+cultivated as intrinsically desirable. There is, of course, very little
+realization of WHY some acts are commended and others prohibited; the
+mere fact that such and such are the tribal customs, that thus and
+so things have been done, is enough. Primitive peoples are highly
+innovation. So that the moral habits which were established before
+the age of reflection and articulate speech remain for the most part
+after they have become crystallized into precepts and commands, and
+by this articulating process become much more firmly entrenched. Then
+from the existence of miscellaneous maxims and prohibitions, taught
+by the elders and linked with whatever impulsive and haphazard
+punishments are customary, to the formulation of legal codes, with
+definite penalties attached to specific infringements, is an easy
+transition. With the invention of written language these laws could
+become still better fixed and more clearly known. The appointment of
+certain men of authority as judges, to investigate alleged cases of
+transgression and award the proper penalties, completes the evolution
+of a civilized legal system, the most powerful of all deterrents from
+flagrantly anti- social acts. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chaps. II, III.
+H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chap. II, secs. 5, 6. J. Fiske, Cosmic
+Philosophy, part II, chap. XXII, second half. A. Sutherland, Origin
+and Growth of the Moral Instinct, vol. I. C. S. Wake, Evolution of
+Morality, vol. I, chaps. V, VI, VII. P. V. N. Myers, History as Past
+Ethics, chap. I. P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, chaps. I-IV. L. T. Hobhouse,
+Morals in Evolution, part I, chaps. I-III. Westermarck, op. cit, chap.
+XXXIV. J. Fiske, Through Nature to God, part II, "The Cosmic Roots
+of Love and Self-Sacrifice." C. Read, Natural and Social Morals, chap.
+III.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+OUTWARD DEVELOPMENT--MORALS
+
+What is the difference between morals and non-moral customs?
+
+MORALITY, before it is a matter of legal prescription or of reflective
+insight, is a matter of instinctive and unconsciously imitated habit.
+That this is so is shown by the fact that many ethical terms are by their
+etymology connected with the idea of custom. "Morals" and "morality"
+are from the Latin mores, usually translated "customs," "ethics," from
+a Greek root of similar sense. The German Sitten has the same fused
+meanings. Most of our present-day morality is a matter of custom or
+convention; and there are those who make a complete identification
+of the two concepts, morality being simply to them conventional habits
+of conduct. But a little thought will show that there is a distinction
+in our common usage; the two categories overlap, but are not identical.
+On the one hand, our highest moral ideals have never become customary;
+we long, in our best moments, to make them habitual, but seldom actually
+attain them. The morals of Jesus, of Buddha, of Marcus Aurelius, have
+never become habits with any but the saints, yet we recognize them
+as the high-water mark of human morality. On the other hand, many of
+our customs have no moral aspect. I may have a fixed habit of going
+from my home to my office by a certain one out of a number of equally
+advantageous routes. All of the members of my set may habitually
+pronounce a given word in a certain way rather equally correct.
+But about such habits there is nothing moral or immoral. In a word,
+MORALS ARE CUSTOMS THAT MATTER, OR ARE SUPPOSED
+TO MATTER; standards to which each member of a group is
+expected by the other members to conform, and for the neglect
+of which he is punished, frowned upon, scorned, or blamed.
+Toward these standards he feels, therefore, a vague or definite
+pressure, the reflection in him of he feelings of his fellows.
+
+The line between mere habits or manners and morals is differently
+drawn in different times and places, according to the differing ideas
+as to what matters. The same actions which are moral to one community
+( i.e, arouse feelings or judgments of commendation) may be immoral to
+another community ( i.e., arouse reprobation or scorn) and non-moral to
+a third ( i.e., arouse no such response at all). For example, in one tribe
+tattooing may be a mere matter of personal liking, of no importance
+and with no group-judgment upon it; yet certain habits with
+regard to it may become widespread. In another tribe certain tattoos
+may be thought to be enjoined by the god, and their neglect deemed
+a matter of serious importance to the tribe as a whole; tattooing may
+here be said to be a part of the tribal morals. To us moderns it is
+probably a morally indifferent affair; but if we should learn it to
+be seriously deleterious to the body, it would again become a moral
+matter. In short, morals are customs that affect, or are supposed to
+affect, a man's life or that of his tribe for weal or woe. Obviously,
+this discrimination is not consciously made by savages; indeed, to
+this day, such distinctions are enveloped in a haze for the average
+man. Men do not realize the raison d'etre of morals. They follow them
+because their fathers did or their fellows do; because they inherit
+instincts that drive them in their direction or inevitably imitate
+those who have formed the habits before; because they feel a pressure
+toward them and are uncomfortable if they hold out against it. When
+pressed for a justification of their conduct, they are usually surprised
+at the inquiry; such action seems obviously the thing to do, and that
+is the end of it. Or they will hit upon some of the secondary sanctions
+that have grown up about these habits the penalties of the law,
+the commandment of the gods, or what not. But with our resources
+of analysis and reflection, it is not difficult to discern that the
+various forces at work have been such as to preserve, in general,
+habits which made for the welfare of individual or tribe and discard
+the harmful ones. It is, then, not merely habits, but habits that
+matter, moral habits, with whose growth and alteration we are here
+concerned. What, in general, has been the direction of moral progress?
+We have noted the main causes at work in the production of morality;
+we now ask in what general direction these forces push. We have in
+mind the concrete virtues which have been developed; but what common
+function have these habits of conduct, so produced, had in human life?
+What has been the net result of the process? At first sight a
+generalized answer seems impossible. All sorts of chance causes bring
+about local alterations in morals. The momentary dominance of an
+impulse ordinarily weak, the whim of a ruler, the self-interest of
+classes, superstitious interpretation of omens, the attribution of
+some success to a prior act which may have had nothing to do with it
+such accidental and irrational sources of morals, and the resulting
+codes, are numberless. But as in the process of organic evolution the
+various obscure physiological alterations which produce variations
+of type are all overruled and guided in a few directions of value to
+the species by the law of natural selection, so in the evolution of
+in all directions are subject to the law of the survival of the fittest.
+It is really of comparatively little importance to discover how a given
+moral habit first arose; it may have arisen in a hundred different
+ways in a hundred different places; indeed, the precise origin of most
+of the cardinal virtues lies too far back in the mists of the past
+to be traced with assurance. But the important truth to observe is
+not the particular details of their haphazard origin but the causes
+of their survival. Overlaying the countless originating causes of moral
+ideals are two main preservation--causes, two constant factors which
+retain certain of the innumerable impulses for one reason or other
+momentarily dominant. These are of extreme significance for a
+comprehension of the function of morality in life.
+
+ (1) In the first place, a certain number of these blind, hit-or-miss
+experiments in conduct were, as we have seen, of use to individuals
+or the tribe in increasing their chances of survival in the ceaseless
+rivalry for life. The inclemency's of nature and the enmity of the
+beasts and other men kill more often the less moral than the more
+moral. So that in general and in the long run those that developed
+the higher moral habits outlived the others and transmitted their morals
+to the future. Even within historic times this same weeding-out process
+has been observable. On the whole, the races and the individuals with
+the more advanced moral standards survive, while those of lower
+standards perish. This law accounts, for instance, in some measure
+probably for the relatively greater increase of whites than of Negroes
+in the United States, in spite of the higher birth rate of the latter.
+Other causes are, to be sure, also at work in this competition for
+life; for one thing, the long period of intercommunication between
+European races has largely weeded out the stocks most liable to certain
+diseases, while the antecedent isolation of savage tribes, with no
+such elimination at work, allows them to fall victims in greater numbers
+to European diseases when mutual contact is established. But the degree
+of the moralization of a people has been certainly one of the criteria
+of survival; and thus by a purely mechanical elimination mankind has
+grown more and more moral. It hardly needs to be added that the conscious
+selection of codes that tend to preserve life is a factor of growing
+importance in insuring movement in this same direction. Altogether,
+moral progress consists primarily in an increasing adaptation of codes
+to the preservation of life.
+
+(2) Morality, however, makes not only for life, thus insuring its own
+perpetuation; it makes also for happiness. Arbitrary and tyrannous
+rules, cruel or needlessly prohibitive customs, engender restlessness,
+and are not stable. Such barbarous morals may long persist, propped
+by the power of the rulers, the superstitions of the people, and all
+the forces of conservatism; but sooner or later they breed rebellion
+and are cast aside. On the other hand, more rational codes promote
+peace and security, banish fear and hatred, and make for all the benefits
+of civilization. Such codes are in relatively more stable equilibrium
+and gradually tend to replace the others. All morality is, of course,
+in one aspect, a restraint upon desire, a check upon impulse;
+rebelliousness against its decrees will be perpetually recurrent until
+human nature itself is completely refashioned and men have no
+inordinate and dangerous desires. But while all codes of conduct are
+repressive at the moment of passion, they vary widely in the degree
+in which they satisfy or thwart man's deeper needs. Such institutions
+as the gladiatorial games of Rome, human sacrifice, or slavery, were
+fruitful of so much pain that they were bound in time to perish. In
+contrast with these cruel customs, the prohibitions of the Jewish law,
+the Ten Commandments, for example, were so humane, so productive of
+security and concord and a deep-rooted and lasting satisfaction, that
+they persisted and became the parent of much of our present day
+morality. An increasing part in this progress has been played by the
+conscious recognition of the advantages of code over code; but long
+before such explicit perception of advantage, the blind instincts and
+emotions of men were making for the gradual humanizing of morals, the
+selection of ideals and laws that make for human happiness. As
+civilization advances, the consideration of mere preservation counts
+for less, and that of happiness for more; the margin, the breathing
+space, for liberal interests, grows. Men become interested in causes
+for which they willingly risk their lives. But, except as these causes
+are fanatical, off the real track of moral progress, they make for
+human happiness. And the center of interest can never shift too far.
+For not only is premature death, an evil in itself, it precludes the
+cultivation of the humane pursuits that life might have allowed.
+
+Men have to learn to find their happiness not in what saps health or
+invites death, but in what makes for health and life. What definition
+of morality emerges from this? The foregoing summary permits us to
+formulate a definition of morality. Historically, there has been a
+gradual, though not continuous, progress toward CODES OF CONDUCT WHICH
+MAKE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF LIFE AND FOR HAPPINESS. These codes have
+received an imaginative consecration, and all sorts of secondary
+sanctions; but it is their underlying utility that is of ultimate
+importance. Very simple and obvious causes have continually tended
+to destroy customs which made in the contrary direction and to select
+those which, however originating, made for either or both of these
+two ends. It is these customs, important for the welfare of the
+individual or tribe, which we call morality. If the original instincts
+of mankind had been delicately enough adjusted to their needs, there
+would have been no need of these secondary and overruling impulses,
+and the differentiation of impulse and duty, of the natural and the
+spiritual man, would never have arisen. But actually, mankind inherited
+from its brute ancestry instincts which, unguided, wrought great harm.
+Without the development of some system of checks men would forever
+have been the prey of overindulgence, sexual wantonness, civil strife,
+and apathy. They would have remained beasts and never won their dominance
+on the earth. Even rudimentary moral codes came as an amelioration
+of this dangerous and unhappy situation; they enabled men, by abstention
+from dangerous passions and from idleness, to make their lives
+efficient, interesting, and comparatively free from pain; by
+cooperation and mutual service to resist their enemies and develop
+a civilization. Morality thus has been the greatest instrument of
+progress, the most fundamental of man's achievements, the most
+important part of the wisdom of the race.
+
+Is moral progress certain?
+
+A measure of hopefulness is to be won from the observation that, quite
+apart from the conscious effort of men, natural laws have been making
+for moral progress. And unquestionably there has been a great advance
+in morality within historic times. We are forever past the age of
+cannibalism, of human torture, of slavery, of widespread infanticide.
+War is on the wane and may vanish within a few generations. Never
+before was there so much sympathy, so much conscious dedication to
+human service, in the world. We are apt to idealize the past; we sigh
+for a "return to nature," or to the golden age of Greece. And there
+is some justification in our regrets. Simplicity of living, hospitality,
+courage, patriotism one virtue or another has been more conspicuous
+in some particular age than ever before or since. Moral progress
+wavers, and not all that is won is retained. But on the whole there
+can be no doubt that we stand on a higher level morally than the Greeks
+who had vices and sins that we scarcely hear of today and incomparably
+higher than savage races. Even within a lifetime one can see the wave
+of moral advance push forward. Yet this observable progress is not
+so certain of continuance that we can lapse into inertia and trust
+it to go on of itself. With the softening of the struggle for existence
+among men, with the disappearance of danger from wild animals, and
+the increasing conquest over nature, the chief means of moral progress
+hitherto are being removed. More and more we must rely on man's
+conscious efforts on personal consecration and self-mastery, on
+improved and extended legislation, on the growth of a moralized public
+opinion, on organizations and institutions that shall work for specific
+causes. Moreover, with the changing situations in which man finds
+himself, and especially with the growing complexification of society,
+new opportunities for sin and new temptations continually arise. No
+sooner is one immoral habit stamped out than another begins
+insidiously, and perhaps unnoticed, to form. The battle-line moves
+on, but new foes constantly appear; it will not be an easy road to
+the millennium. On the whole, our material and intellectual advance
+has outrun our moral progress; at present our chief need is to catch
+up morally. [Footnote: Cf. Alfred Russel Wallace, in his last book,
+Social Environment and Moral Progress (p. 50): "This rapid growth of
+wealth and increase of our power over Nature put too great a strain
+upon our crude civilization and our superficial Christianity; and it
+was accompanied by various forms of social immorality, almost as amazing
+and unprecedented."] We may note several reasons for this eddy in the
+moralizing process, this counter-movement toward the development of
+new sins and the renascence of old ones.
+
+(1) With the growth of large cities and the development of individual
+interests we come to live less and less in one another's eyes. In
+primitive life it is almost impossible for a man to indulge in any
+vice or sin without its being immediately known to his fellows; but
+today millions live such isolated lives in the midst of crowded
+communities that all sorts of immorality may flourish without detection.
+Under early conditions foodstuffs or other goods were consumed if not
+by the producer, at least by his neighbors; and any adulteration or
+sham was a dangerous matter. Today we seldom know who slaughtered the
+meat or canned the fruit we eat, who made the clothing or utensils
+we use; shoddy articles and unwholesome food can be sold in quantity
+with little fear of the consumer's anger. All sorts of intangible and
+hardly traceable injuries can be wrought today by malicious or careless
+men injuries to reputation, to credit, to success. In a city the criminal
+can hide and escape far more easily, can associate with his own kind,
+have a certain code of his own (cf. "honor among thieves"), and more
+completely escape the pangs of conscience, than under the surveillance
+of village life. In a hundred ways there are increased opportunities
+for doing evil with impunity. [Footnote: Cf. E. A. Ross, Sin and
+Society, pp. 32: "The popular symbol for the criminal is a ravening
+wolf; but alas, few latter day crimes can be dramatized with a wolf
+and a lamb as the cast! Your up-to-date criminal presses the button
+of a social mechanism, and at the other end of the land or the year
+innocent lives are snuffed out. As society grows complex, it can be
+harmed in more ways. Each advance to higher organization runs us into
+a fresh zone of danger, so there is more than ever need to be quick
+to detect and foil the new public enemies that present themselves.
+The public needs a victim to harrow up its feelings. The injury that
+is problematic, or general, or that falls in undefined ways upon unknown
+persons, is resented feebly, or not at all. The fiend who should rack
+his victim with torments such as typhoid inflicts would be torn to
+pieces. The villain who should taint his enemy's cup with fever germs
+would stretch] [Footnote continued from previous page: hemp. But think
+of it!-the corrupt boss who, in order to extort fat contracts for
+his firm, holds up for a year the building of a filtration plant designed
+to deliver his city from the typhoid scourge, and thereby dooms twelve
+hundred of his townspeople to sink to the tomb through the flaming
+abyss of fever, comes off scatheless."]
+
+(2) With the gentler conditions of civilized life there is a general
+tendency toward the relaxing of social restraints. The harsh penalties
+of early days would shock us by their cruelty; and early codes are
+full of prohibitions and injunctions on matters which are now left
+to the individual conscience. Needlessly cramping and cruel as these
+primitive laws often were, they were powerful deterrents, and their
+lapse has often been followed by greater moral laxity. The passionate
+pursuit of liberty, which has been so prominent in modern times, though
+on the whole of great advantage to man, has not been without its ill
+effects.
+
+(3) The monotonously specialized and unnatural work, which
+confines a large proportion of our men, women, and youths today, promotes
+restlessness and the craving for excitement. The normal all-round
+occupations of primitive men tended to work off their energies and
+satisfy their natural impulses. But the dulled and tired worker
+released from eight or ten hours' drudgery in a factory is apt to be
+in a psychological state that demands variety, excitement, pleasure
+at any cost. It does not pay to repress human nature too much, or to
+try to make out of a red-blooded young man or woman a mere machine.
+Gambling, drunkenness, prostitution, and all sorts of pathological
+vices flourish largely as a reaction from the dullness and monotony
+of the day's work. We are paying this heavy penalty for our increase
+of material efficiency at the expense of normal human living.
+
+(4) With the increased possibilities of undetected sin, above
+mentioned, and the opportunity which criminals now have of forming
+within a city a little community of their own which permits them
+fellowship without rebuke for their sins, there have arisen whole
+classes of vice-caterers. These men and women make their living by
+tempting others to sin; the allurements which they set before the young
+constitute a great check to moral advance, and even threaten
+continually a serious moral degeneration. The keepers of gambling
+houses, saloons, and houses of prostitution, the venders of vile
+pictures and exciting reading matter, the proprietors of indecent
+dance-halls and theaters, of the "shows" of all sorts that flourish
+chiefly through their offering of sexual stimulation these are the
+worst sinners of our times, for they cause thousands of others to sin,
+and deliberately undermine the moral structure so laboriously reared,
+and at such heavy cost. Conspicuous in commercialized vice-catering
+is the Casino of Monte Carlo, where thousands of lives have been ruined.
+The business of seducing and kidnapping girls-the "white slave trade"
+flourishes secretly in our great cities. Associations of liquor
+producers and sellers are very powerful social and political forces.
+One of the greatest problems before the race is how to exterminate
+these human beasts of prey that live at the expense of the moral
+deterioration and often utter ruin of their victims.
+
+(5) While the older racial and national barriers between peoples are
+breaking down, so that the possibilities of human brotherhood and
+cooperation are laterally increasing, and the wretched fratricidal
+wars between peoples coming toward an end, [Footnote: As I read the
+proof sheets of this book (August, 1914), news comes of the outbreak
+of what may prove the costliest and one of the least excusable wars
+of history. Nevertheless, the end of international wars draws near.]
+Other barriers, between upper and lower classes, are thickening, new
+antagonisms and antipathies that threaten yet much friction and
+unhappiness and a retardation of moral progress. Rich are becoming
+farther and farther consciousness is on the increase, class-wars in
+the form of strikes, riots, and sabotage, are ominous symptoms. Masses
+of the laboring class believe that a great class-war is not only
+inevitable but desirable. Such conflicts, however, besides their
+material losses, engender hatred, cruelty, lust, greed, and all sorts
+of other forms of immorality. No one can predict how far such struggles
+may go in the future toward undoing the socializing process which at
+best has so many obstacles to meet and moves so slowly. Many forces
+are at work, however, for moral uplift. The spread of education, teaching
+men to think, to discern evils, and to comprehend the reasons for right
+conduct, the increasing influence of public opinion through newspapers
+and magazines, the growing number of organizations working to eradicate
+evils, the gradual increase of wise legislation, the reviving moral
+pressure of the Christian Church such signs of the times should give
+us courage as well as show us where we can take hold to help.
+Morality is not static, a cut-and-dried system to be obeyed or neglected,
+but a set of experiments, being gradually worked out by mankind, a
+dynamic, progressive instrument which we can help ourselves to forge.
+There is room yet for moral genius; we are yet in the early and formative
+stage of human morality. We should not be content with past achievement,
+with the contemporary standards of our fellows. If we give our keenest
+thought and our earnest effort, there is no knowing what noble heights
+of morality we may be helping the future to attain.
+
+Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. IV. Hobhouse, op. cit, part II,
+chaps. II, VIII. Westermarck, op. cit, chap. VII. Sutherland, op.
+cit, vol. II, chaps. XIX-XXI. W. G. Sumner, Folkways, chaps. I,
+II, XI. Sir H. Maine, Village Communities. C. Darwin, Descent of
+Man, part  I, chap. v. J. G. Schurman, Ethical Import of Darwinism.
+W. I. Thomas, Source Book for Social Origins, part  VII. C. Read,
+Natural and Social Morals, chap. VI. I. King, Development of Religion,
+chap. XI. On the question of moral progress: Dewey and Tufts, Ethics,
+pp. 187-92. W. Bagehot, Physics and Politics, chap. VI. H. G. Wells,
+New Worlds for Old, chap.I, secs. 2-4. J. Bryce, in the Atlantic Monthly,
+vol. 100, p. 145. E. Root, The Citizen's Part in Government, pp. 96-123.
+J. S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics (2d ed.), chap. XV. A. R. Wallace,
+Social Environment and Moral Progress.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+INWARD DEVELOPMENT--CONSCIENCE
+
+What are the stages in the history of moral guidance?
+
+THERE may be said to be five stages in the history of moral guidance:
+guidance by instinct, by custom, by law and precept, by conscience,
+and by insight. No one of these guides is discarded with the development
+of the others; we rely today upon all of them in varying degree. Their
+evolution overlaps; the alteration of instinct still goes on, changing
+laws and customs still bring their pressure to bear from without upon
+the individual; while our conscience and our insight have their roots
+far back in the past. Yet the prominence of each of these factors in
+turn marks a successive stage in the evolution of moral control.
+Inherited instinct, and then custom, unconsciously passed on by
+imitation and to some extent taught with a dimly conscious purpose,
+shape the crude morality of the animals though the other means of
+guidance are not wholly absent even in them. Among savages legal codes,
+unwritten and perhaps not even clearly formulated, yet exacting and
+strictly enforced by penalties, come to form an important supplement
+to instinct, custom, and proverbial wisdom. But quite as important
+is the gradual development of an inward guide--those very various
+secondary impulses and inhibitions which we hump together because of
+their common function and call the moral sense or conscience. We shall
+now consider briefly the origin of this internal steering-apparatus.
+The latest and most mature guide of all, reflective insight, arises
+in marked degree only when abstraction and analysis. There is no problem
+connected with its origin except the general problems of the development
+of human reason. How moral insight may be trained and brought to bear
+upon conduct will, it is hoped, be clear to the student who patiently
+studies this volume.
+
+Out of what has conscience developed?
+
+The "conscience" of our moralizing and religious literature figures
+as a sharply defined and easily recognizable "faculty," like "will"
+or "reason." But this classification, though useful, is misleading
+by its simplicity. If we observe by introspection what goes on in our
+minds when we "will" or "reason" or "listen to conscience," we shall
+find all sorts of emotions, ideas, impulses, surging back and forth,
+altering from moment to moment, never twice the same. At another period
+of our lives, or in another man's mind, the psychological stuff
+pigeonholed under these names may be almost entirely different. A great
+many diverse mental elements have at one time or other taken the role
+of, or formed an ingredient in, the function we label "conscience."
+We will enumerate the more important:
+
+(1) Experience quickly teaches her pupils that certain acts to which
+they feel a strong impulse will lead to an aftermath of pain or
+weariness, or will stand in the way of other goods which they more
+lastingly desire or more deeply need. The memory of these consequences
+of acts remains as a guide for future conduct, not so often in the
+form of a clearly recognized memory as in a dim realization that the
+dangerous act must be avoided, a vague pressure against the pull of
+momentary inclination, or an uncomprehended feeling of impulsion toward
+the less inviting path. This residuum of the moral experience of the
+individual is one ingredient in what we call his conscience.
+
+(2) But there is much more than this. The individual is a member of
+a group. The customs and expectations of this group not only bear upon
+him from without but find a reflection in his own motor mechanism.
+He hears the voice of the community in his heart, an echo of the general
+condemnation and approval. This acquired response, the reverberation
+of the group judgment, may easily supplant his personal inclinations.
+Primitive man is sensitive to the judgments and emotional reactions
+of his fellows; the tribal point of view is unquestioned and
+authoritative over him. So important is this pressure in his mental
+life, though not understood or recognized for what it is, that conscience
+is denned by many moralists as the pressure of the judgment of the
+tribe in the mental life of its members, or in similar terms. Paulsen
+calls it "the existence of custom in the consciousness of the
+individual." This is to neglect unjustly the other sources of the sense
+of duty; but certainly the pulls and pushes arising from these two
+sources, which we may call the inner aspect of individual moral
+experience and of loyalty to the community-morals, reinforcing one
+another as they generally do, produce a very powerful form of conscience.
+
+(3) A number of primitive emotions join forces with them. Sympathy
+is generally on their side, and the instinctive glow of patriotism
+or pride in the tribe's success. The shrinking from disapproval, the
+craving for esteem, the very early emotions of shame and vanity, help
+to pull away from the self-indulgent or selfish impulse. The
+spontaneous admiration of others for their virtues and anger at them
+for their sins is applied involuntarily by a man to himself; contempt
+for his own weakness and joy in his superiority according to the
+generally accepted code are powerful deterrents. The consciousness
+of the resentment that others will feel if he does evil, the instinctive
+application to himself of a trace of the resentment he would feel
+toward him or toward these fellow tribesmen of is-such complex states
+of mind complicate his mental processes and help check his primary
+instincts.
+
+(4) To these ingredients we must early add the more or less conscious
+fear of the penalties of the tribal law, of the vengeance of chiefs
+or powerful members of the tribe, of the tribal gods and their jealous
+priests. These fears may be but dimly felt and not clearly
+discriminated; but however subconscious they may be in a given case
+of moral conflict, they play a large part. The peace of mind that
+accompanies a sense of conformity to the will of rulers or of gods,
+contrasted with the anxiety that follows infraction, gives a greatly
+increased weight to that growing pressure of counter instincts which
+comes so largely to override a man's animal nature. Most of the sources
+of conscience thus date far back beyond the dawn of history. But they
+can be pretty safely inferred from the earliest records, from a study
+of existing savage races, and from the study of childhood. The definite
+conception of "conscience" is very late, scarcely appearing until very
+modern times. And the fact that conscience itself, even in its
+rudimentary forms, was much later in growth than the underlying animal
+instincts which it developed to control and guide, is shown by its
+late development in the child-not, normally, until the beginning
+of the third year. The early life of the individual parallels the
+evolution of the race; and the later-developed faculties in the child
+are those which arose in the later stages of human progress. But the
+existence of our well-defined moral sense, with its significant role
+in modern life, needs no supernatural explanation. It has grown up
+and come to be what it is as naturally as have our language, our customs,
+and our physical organs.
+
+What is conscience now? It is a valuable exercise in introspection
+to observe a case of "conscience" in one's own life and note of what
+mental stuff it is made. When a number write down their findings
+without mutual suggestion, the results are usually widely divergent.
+Any of the original ingredients hitherto mentioned may be discovered,
+or other personal factors. There may be present to consciousness only
+a vague uneasiness or restlessness, or there may be a sophisticated
+recurrence of the concepts of "conscience," "duty," etc. The one
+universal fact is that there is a conflict between some primitive
+impulse or passion and some maturer mental checks. Any sort of mental
+stuff that serves the purpose of controlling desire will do; we must
+define conscience in terms not of content but of function. There is
+no such unity in the material as the single name seems to imply; and
+whether or not that name shall be given to a given psychological state
+is a matter of usage in which there is considerable variation.
+
+In general, we reserve the name "conscience" for the vaguer and more
+elusive restraints and leadings, the sense of reluctant necessity whose
+purpose we do not clearly see although we feel its pressure, the
+accumulated residuum of long inner experience and many influences from
+without. Our minds retain many creases whose origin we have forgotten;
+we veer away from many a pleasant inclination without knowing why.
+These unanalyzed and residual inhibitions that grip us and will not
+let us go, form a contrasting background to our more explicit motives
+and often count for more in our conduct. The very lack of comprehension
+serves in less rational minds to enhance their prestige with an
+atmosphere of awe and mystery. These strange checks and promptings
+that well up in a man's heart are which he must not dare to disobey.
+The voice of God in our hearts we may, indeed, well conceive them to
+be. The attempt to analyze into its psychological elements and trace
+the natural genesis of conscience, as of morality in general must not
+be taken as an attempt to discredit it or to read God out of the world.
+For God works usually, if not universally, through natural laws; and
+the historical viewpoint, that sees everything in our developed life
+as the outcome of ages of natural evolution, is not only rich in fruitful
+insight, but entirely consistent with a deep religious feeling. For
+hortatory or inspirational purposes we do not need to make this
+analysis; it has, indeed, its practical dangers. It tends to rob the
+glory from anything to analyze it into its parts and study the natural
+causes that produced it. The loveliest painting is but a mess of
+pigments to the microscope, the loveliest face but a mess of cells
+and hairs and blood vessels. There is something gruesome and
+inhuman about embryology and all other studies of origins.
+
+While we are analyzing an object, or tracing its genesis, we are not
+responding to it as a whole or feeling its beauty and power. The mystery,
+the spell, vanishes; we cease to thrill when we dissect. But knowledge
+proceeds by analysis, and gains by a study of origins and causes.
+And the temporary emotional loss should be more than balanced
+by the value of the insight won. We need not linger too long at
+our dissecting. The discovery that conscience is an explicable
+and natural development does not preclude a realization of the
+awfulness of obligation, the sacredness of duty, any more than
+a geologist must cease to thrill at the grandeur and beauty of
+the Grand Canyon because he has studied the composition of
+the rocks and understands the causes that have slowly, through
+the ages, wrought this miracle. So we need feel no sense of duty
+is not something imposed upon human nature from without; it is of
+its very substance, it has developed step by step with our other
+faculties, slowly crystallizing through millenniums of human and
+pre-human experience. In the abstract, then, we may say that
+conscience is a name for ANY SECONDARY IMPULSES OR
+INHIBITIONS WHICH CHECK AND REDIRECT MAN'S PRIMARY
+IMPULSES, FOR A GREATER GOOD; any later developed
+aversions or inclinations, judgments of value or feelings of constraint,
+which guide a man in the teeth of his animal nature toward a better
+way of life PROVIDED THAT THESE SUPERIMPOSED IMPULSES
+ARE NOT EXPLICIT ENOUGH TO BE CLASSIFIED UNDER SOME
+OTHER HEAD. For example, we may be pulled up sharply from a
+course of self-indulgence by a conscious realization of the harm we
+are doing to others thereby; this bridling state of mind, whether chiefly
+emotional or more intellectual, we may call sympathy, or an altruistic
+instinct, or love. But when we feel the pressure from these same
+mental states incipiently aroused, when our motor-mechanism half
+automatically steers us away from the selfish act, without our
+consciously formulating a specific name for the new impulse or
+recognizing any articulate motive, we are apt to give this mental
+push the more general name of conscience. So if we consciously
+reckon up, balance advantages, and decide on the less inviting
+act in recognition of its really greater worth to us, we say we act
+from prudence or insight, we are reasonable about it; while if
+the grumbling of the prudential motives remain subterranean,
+subconscious, they play the role of conscience. Conscience is,
+on such occasions, but inarticulate common sense. Usually,
+however, prudential and altruistic motives would both be
+discovered if the dumb driving of conscience were to be
+made articulate. The reverberation of parental teachings,
+of sermons heard and books read, of the opinions and
+emotions of our fellows, might be found, all bent and
+fused into a combined "suggestion," a mental push,
+a "must" or "ought," from whose influence we find it
+difficult to escape.
+
+The detailed psychological analysis of cases of conscience and the
+study of its genesis are of no essential ethical interest, except as
+they show us that the sense of duty is not an ultimate, irreducible
+element in our consciousness, or make clearer to us its function and
+value. Conscience is the general name for coercion upon conduct from
+within the mind. The important thing to note is the useful purpose,
+which, in its so widely varying forms, it serves. Whatever its sources
+or its exact nature in contemporary man, it is one of the most valuable
+of our assets. To a more explicit statement of its value we must now
+turn. What is the value of conscience?
+
+It would seem, at first glance, as if the development of reason should
+make conscience unnecessary. When we are able to discern the
+consequences of our acts, formulate and weigh our motives and aims,
+what need of these vague pre-rational promptings and inhibitions? Why
+not train men to supplant a blind sense of duty by a conscious insight,
+a rational valuation of ends and means? Is not reason, as it has been
+recently called, "the ultimate conscience"? [Footnote: G. Santayana,
+Reason in Science, p. 232; where also the following: "So soon as
+conscience summons its own dicta for revision in the light of
+experience and of universal sympathy, it is no longer called
+conscience, but reason."]
+
+(1) Conscience is valuable on account of our ignorance. Individually
+we have not had experience enough to guide us in our crises;
+conscience is the representative in us of the wisdom of the race.
+In many cases we should never reason out the right solution of
+a problem; we lack the data. But we can lean upon the racial
+experience. Many past experiences, now forgotten, have gone
+to the molding of this faculty. The need of action is often imminent,
+there is no time for the long study of the situation which alone could
+form a sure insight into the conduct it demands. We need readymade
+morals. Moreover, we are subject to bias, to individual one sidedness,
+and to the distortion of passion; in the stress of temptation we are not
+in a mood to reason judicially, even if we have the necessary data.
+Altogether, insight, though in the long run the critic of conscience,
+is not a practical substitute. What conscience tells us is more apt
+to be true than what at the moment seems a rational judgment.
+
+(2) Conscience is also valuable in view of our rebelliousness.
+Conventional morality is external, and would continually arouse
+revolt, were it not reinforced by an inward prompting. If external
+motives and penalties alone bore upon us we should chafe under
+them, and under the stress of passion or longing throw them aside.
+Even if these external sanctions were reinforced by insight into the
+rationality of morality, that insight might still leave us rebellious and
+unpersuaded. Knowledge alone is feeble, marginal in our lives. We
+often sin in the full knowledge of the penalties awaiting us. We need
+something more dynamic, pressure as well as information. Conscience
+is such a driver. Its commands weigh upon us, and will not be stilled.
+Reason plays but a weak part in the best of us; and to counteract our
+incurable waywardness, our recurrent longings for what cannot be had
+without too great a cost, we need not only the presence of law and
+convention, not only the weak voice of knowledge, but the stern
+summons of this powerful psychological response. Nature was wise
+when she evolved this function as a bulwark against our weakness,
+a bit between our because of our forgetfulness. Over and over again
+we say, "I didn't stop to think." If our conscience had been properly
+acute, it would have made us stop. Insight, however comprehensive
+and clear, is apt to remain somewhere in a locked drawer in our minds
+when the hot blooded impulse appears. If we were but to pause and
+reflect, we should be sensible and kind. But our intellect is dulled by
+our emotions, it does not get working. We need a more instinctive,
+a deeper-rooted mechanism, an imperious "Halt!" at the brief moment
+between the thought of sin and the act. Conscience is not only a
+teacher and a driver, it is a sentinel. Its red flag stops us at the brink
+of many a disaster, and we have it to thank for many an otherwise
+forgotten duty performed.
+
+To sum up: Instinct and desire are lacking in proper adjustment to
+the needs of life. Society seeks to control them by the pressure of
+law and custom. These powerful forces, however, are external, and,
+savoring more or less of tyranny, tend at times to awaken a rebellious
+spirit in the hotheaded. So a perpetual antinomy would exist between
+internal impulse and external constraint, were it not that that external
+constraint is reflected within the individual mind by a secondary and
+overlying set of inhibitions and promptings which we call variously
+the "moral sense," the "sense of duty," or "conscience." We often do
+not know or remember consciously at the moment of decision what the
+law ordains or the wisdom of the race teaches. But we have an inward
+monitor. We often hang back from a recognized duty. But we feel an
+inward push. When the wrong impulse is pungent and enticing, and
+the right one insipid and tame, when we would forget if we could the
+perils of sin, conscience surges up in us and saves us from ourselves.
+It is a mechanism of extreme value, which nature has evolved in us
+for imposing on our weak and vacillating wills action that makes for
+a truer good than we should otherwise choose. No wonder, then, if
+we reverence this saving power within us, and crown it with a halo
+as the divine spark in the midst of our grosser nature. The more we
+revere it, the brighter the glamour it has for us, the stronger it grows
+and the more it helps us. The apotheosis of conscience has been
+of immense use in leading men to heed its voice and obey its leading.
+Yet this blind allegiance has its dangers; conscience has often been
+a cruel tyrant. It is by no means an always-safe guide, as we shall
+presently note. And as men grow more and more adjusted by instinct
+and training to their real needs, they will have less and less need of
+this helmsman. After all, there is something wrong with a life that
+needs conscience; it is a transition help for the long period of man's
+maladjustment. Spencer looks forward, a little too hopefully, perhaps,
+to a time in the measurable future when we shall have outgrown the
+need of it, when we shall wish to do right and need no compulsion,
+outer or inner. And Emerson, in a well known passage, writes: "We
+love characters in proportion as they are impulsive and spontaneous.
+When we see a soul whose acts are all regal, graceful, and pleasant
+as roses, we must thank God that such things can be and are, and
+not turn sourly on the angel and say, 'Crump is a better man with his
+grunting resistance to all his native devils.'" A Chinese proverb says,
+"He who finds pleasure in vice and pain in virtue is still a novice in
+both." The saint is he who has learned really to love virtue, in its
+concrete duties, better than all the allurements of sin; to him we
+may say, as Virgil said to Dante, "Take thine own pleasure for thy
+guide henceforth." But until we are saints it is wise for us to
+cultivate conscientiousness, the habit of obedience, even
+when it costs, to that inward urging which is, on the whole,
+for most of us, our safest guide.
+
+F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book II, chap. V, secs. 1, 2, 5. H.
+Spencer, DATA OF ETHICS, chap. VII, secs. 44-46. S. E. Mezes,
+ETHICS, DESCRIPTIVE AND EXPLANATORY, chaps. V, VIII.
+Sutherland, op. cit, chap. XV. F. Thilly, INTRODUCTION TO
+ETHICS, chap. III. Westermarck, op. cit, chap. V. Darwin,
+DESCENT OF MAN, partt. I, chap. III. J. H. Hyslop, ELEMENTS
+OF ETHICS, chaps. VI, VII. J. S. Mill, UTILITARIANISM, chap.
+v. H. W. Wright, SELF-REALIZATION, part. I, chap. IV.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE INDIVIDUALIZING OF CONSCIENCE
+
+Conscience as we have seen, is the result of a fusion of elements
+coming from personal experience and tribal judgment. In its early
+phases the latter elements predominate; conscience may be fairly called
+the inner side of custom. Primitive men have little individuality and
+involuntarily reflect the general attitude. But with widening
+experience and growing mental maturity, conscience, like man's other
+faculties, tends to become more individual and divergent, until we
+find, in civilized life, a man standing out for conscience' sake
+against the opinion of the world. The individualization of conscience,
+with the consequent clash of ideals, gives the study of morality much
+of its interest and difficulty; it will be worthwhile to note some
+of its causes. Why did not the individualizing of conscience occur
+earlier?
+
+(1) In primitive man there is not much opportunity for the development
+of individuality. There are few personal possessions, there is little
+scope for the exercise of peculiar talents, there is little power of
+reflection, to develop strongly individual ideas. The self-assertive
+instincts are to considerable extent still dormant for lack of stimulus
+to call them forth. The individual is content to take his place in
+the group life, and it seldom occurs to him to question the group-
+judgment.
+
+(2) In primitive life there is a drastic repression of any incipient
+rebelliousness, through the enforcement of custom or explicit law in
+the ways we have indicated; the fear of a heavy discouragement to any
+innovator. If men dared to defy the community morals, they were very
+likely to be put to death before the habit of free judgment had much
+time to spread. There was thus a sort of artificial selection for
+survival of the conventional type, and weeding-out of the freethinker
+and moral genius. Even in historic times this process has continued
+and been an enormous clog on human progress. The man of revolutionary
+moral insight has had to pay the penalty, if not of death as in
+the case of Socrates or of Jesus-at least of ridicule and ostracism,
+of excommunication and isolation as, in our own day, with Tolstoy.
+Many and many a saint who might have been a beacon-light to mankind
+has lived under the curses or sneers of his fellows and died in
+loneliness, to be soon forgotten. A few have, after years of opposition,
+obtained a following and accomplished great reforms, as did Buddha,
+Mohammed, St. Francis, and Luther. But none can count the potential
+reformers, the men of new insight, of individual moral judgment, who
+have been crushed by the weight of group-opposition. Man has been the
+worst enemy of his own progress.
+
+(3) There is another aspect to this selective process, noted before
+in another context- the struggle for existence between groups. So
+intense are these tribal struggles in early society that harmony within
+a group is absolutely necessary. Individualization means
+disorganization; and whatever communities developed free thought and
+divergent ideas were at a disadvantage when it came to action. Many
+such groups, ahead of their rivals in individual moral development,
+were wiped out by barbaric armies that gave unquestioning obedience
+to the tribal will and worked together like a machine. Up to a certain
+stage in human development individuality was an undesirable variation
+and was ruthlessly repressed, sometimes by the execution of the
+particular offenders, sometimes by the destruction of the group to
+which they belonged and which they by their divergence weakened.
+What forces made against custom-morality? Against these repressive
+forces, however, other forces were from early times urging men on to
+reject the tyranny of custom. Those inward promptings that we call
+conscience were continually tending to become less the echo of the
+group conventions and more the expression of the individual's needs
+and deepest desires.
+
+(1) At bottom, of course, lay the natural restlessness and passions
+of men, the impatience of control, the longing for liberty, and the
+craving for self-expression. The combative instinct, pride, obstinacy,
+and notably the sex-instinct, were from earliest times spurring men
+on to a disregard of the conventional and the formation of individual
+standards.
+
+(2) We may make special mention of the love of power over others, which
+has been one of the deep roots of the perpetual internecine struggles
+of man. There is a need of leadership in every group; and this need
+is felt more and more keenly as the groups increase in size. At first
+the authority of the elders suffices, or of strong men who push to
+the fore at times of crisis, as in the case of the so called judges,
+the military dictators, as we might better call them, of early Israel.
+But as Israel, grown in numbers, and feeling the need of greater unity
+and readiness, clamored for a king, so generally, at a certain stage
+of culture, permanent chiefs of some sort become necessary. Now the
+chief, enjoying his sense of power, usually imposed his will upon the
+people; his individuality, at least, had more or less free play. And
+thus, through the changing decrees of successive rulers, all sorts
+of varying standards became realized, and the rigidity of early custom
+was steadily loosened.
+
+(3) In the hunting stage of primitive life, and even in the pastoral
+stage, there was little private property, and hence little opportunity
+for the development of the acquisitive instinct. But with the
+transition to an agricultural life, and still more with the growth
+of commerce and the arts, private accumulation became possible.
+Individual initiative began to pay; the smarter and more ingenious
+could outstrip their fellows by breaking through the crust of custom,
+while those who were hidebound by a conventional conscience were at
+a disadvantage. To a large extent this lawlessness or innovation in
+conduct came into conflict with the individual's conscience. But the
+question "Why not?" would at once arise; if possible, a man would justify
+his act to himself. And to some degree those new ways of acting would
+swing conscience over to their side.
+
+(4) In earliest times each tribe lived, very, much to itself and
+developed its own morals, under the stress of similar forces, but
+without much influence from the experience of other groups. It was
+thus exceedingly difficult for it to conceive of any other ways of
+doing things; the ancestral customs were accepted as inevitable, like
+the sun and the rain. Inter-tribal conflicts first gave, perhaps, a
+vantage point for mutual criticism. A clan that by some custom had
+an obvious advantage over its neighbors would naturally be imitated
+as soon as men became quick-witted enough to understand its superiority.
+The taking of prisoners, the exchange of hostages or envoys, friendly
+missions and journeys, would give insight into one another's life.
+With the development of commerce, this mutual criticism of morals would
+be greatly accelerated. So the authority of local conventions and
+standards would be discredited, custom would become more fluid, and
+individual judgment find freer play. Especially would the more
+observant, the more traveled, the more reflective, tend to vary from
+the ideals of their neighbors.
+
+(5) In various other ways, apart from the mutual influence of divergent
+group-customs, the progress of civilization tends to produce variations
+in ideals. The increase of knowledge, the development of science and
+philosophy, bring floods of new ideas to burst the old dams; deepening
+insight reveals the irrationality of old ideas to the leaders of
+thought. The progress of the arts gives new interests and valuations.
+The spiritual seers and prophets see visions of a better order and
+proclaim new gospels. The development of classes and castes allows
+to the aristocracy more leisure to think and criticize; the institution
+of slavery, in particular, produced a class of slave-owners with ample
+time to dissect their inherited conceptions.
+
+(6) Finally, where, under favoring conditions, the danger of war in
+which man has for the most part lived became less acute, custom
+generally grew laxer. It is the imperious necessity of selfpreservation
+that has been the greatest conservative force; warlike states have
+demanded strict allegiance and looked with suspicion upon
+deviations from the group ideals. But peoples that, whether from a
+fortunate geographical situation or because of their marked superiority
+in numbers and power over their neighbors have escaped this need of
+perpetual self-defense could afford to relax their vigilance for
+conformity. And the very notable increase in individual variations
+in conduct and ideal during the past century has been largely owing
+to the era of comparative peace. We seem to be reaching the age when
+the advantage is to lie not with the nation that has the most rigid
+customs, but with the nation that shows the most individual initiative
+and progress.
+
+Conservatism vs. radicalism
+
+We have become forever emancipated from the tyranny of custom morality
+under which the majority of men have lived. Legislation is, to be sure,
+continually on the increase, shutting men out from the ever-new ways
+they discover to prey upon their fellows. But nevertheless, the freedom
+with which men may now live their own lives according to their own
+ideas is almost a new phenomenon upon the earth. When we compare the
+free range that our individuality has with the tyranny of public
+opinion even so recently as the lifetime of our Puritan grandparents,
+when we see the new experiments in personal life and social legislation
+which are being tried on every hand, when we read a few of the
+thousands of books and magazines and newspapers that are pouring a
+continual flood of new ideas into the world, we must realize the
+immense change from the stereotyped customs of nearly all past epochs.
+In each of our forty eight States different codes are showing their
+relative advantages; here woman's suffrage is on trial, there the
+initiative and referendum, there the recall. Almost every sort of
+possible marriage law, it would seem, is being tried somewhere. It
+is a time of moral confusion, of the unsettling of old conceptions
+and a groping, stumbling progress toward the new.
+
+In such a situation it is no wonder that we have two types of thought,
+two sets of forces, at work. On the one hand we have the conservatives,
+the "stand-patters," the maintainers of the existing order; on the
+other hand are the progressives, the radicals, the reformers of the
+existing order. For the former the moral standards of their particular
+age and country tend to have an absolute and unconditional worth, which
+must not be criticized or questioned. The necessity of allegiance to
+morality has been so deeply stamped upon their minds that it has become
+a loyalty to the particular brand of morality they have grown up in,
+however flagrantly inadequate or tyrannous it may be. For the latter
+a commendable impatience with the imperfect is apt to foster a blindness
+to the value that almost always lies in ancient customs and a lack
+of regard for the need of stability and common agreement on some plane.
+These iconoclasts, vociferous in condemnation, are often most empty
+handed, giving us nothing wiser or more advantageous wherewith to
+replace the conventions they discard. So it is difficult to say whether
+humanity is more in danger from the red-handed radicalism which
+destroys the precious fruit of long experience, or from the obstinate
+obstructionists who by the dead weight of their apathy or the positive
+pull-back of their antagonism delay the remedying of existing evils.
+The ideal lies in keeping morality plastic while giving its approved
+forms our hearty allegiance. Widely different ideals are theoretically
+conceivable; but we live in a specific time and place and must defer
+to the code of our fellows; it is along these lines, and by gradual
+steps, that progress must be made. We must be on the alert for new
+suggestions, but slow to tear down till we can build better. The
+greatest of prophets, keenly as he saw the flaws in existing standards,
+proclaimed that he came not to destroy but to fulfill. It is evident
+enough to the impartial observer that our present chaos and mutual
+antagonism of conflicting view-points is not ideal; we need to work
+out of this disorder into some sane and stable order; when we can find
+the best way of life we must discard these manifold variations, most
+of which are foolish and ill-advised. The undesirability of this
+contemporary disagreement, which in some matters amounts to almost
+a complete moral anarchy, is enough to explain the pull back of the
+conservatives. And it is precisely the purpose of such a volume as
+this to help in the crystallizing of definite and universally accepted
+moral principles for personal and social life. But, on the other hand,
+this temporary chaos is more pregnant with promise than the older blind
+acquiescence in full light of criticism and experiment to bear upon
+the laws and customs of the past.
+
+"New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth."
+
+We should reverence the great seers and lawmakers of the past; but
+their true disciples are not those who slavishly accept their dicta,
+they are rather those who think for themselves, as they did, and
+contribute, as they did, toward the slow progress of man.
+
+What are the dangers of conventional morality?
+
+The reasons why we cannot be content with our fathers' conservatism
+in morals, and our fathers' custom-bound conscience, may be summarized
+as follows:
+
+(1) Conventional morality is almost necessarily too general; it is
+not elastic enough to fit the infinite variations in specific cases,
+not detailed enough to fit all needs. It therefore often causes needless
+and cruel repression; the most sensitive and aspiring spirits have
+often revolted from the morality of their times because of its
+harshness. It is well for the marriage-tie to be binding; divorce has
+generally been deemed unchristian. But if this judgment is rigidly
+enforced, special cases arise, very piteous, very pathetic, crying
+out for a more discriminating rule. Our forebears, with their grave
+realization of the dangers of frivolousness, forbade by law and a stern
+public opinion many innocent and wholesome diversions. Such injustices
+are inevitable where custom has unchecked sway. The general aim and
+result may be very salutary, but the application is too sweeping, and
+brings suffering to many unfortunate individuals, or to the community
+as a whole, by its indiscrimination.
+
+(2) But even in its general result custom may be harmful. Morals have
+developed blindly, as we have seen, through all sorts of irrational
+influences, swayed this way by class interest, by rulers or priests,
+veered that way by superstition, passion, and stupidity. Morality has
+not understood itself; and the natural forces which have developed
+it into its enormous usefulness have not always weeded out the baneful
+elements. The persecution of heretics was sheer mistake, but it was
+acceded to by practically the entire Church in the Middle Ages, and
+practiced with utter conscientiousness. The hostility of the Puritans
+to music and art was pure folly, though it seemed to them their grim
+duty.
+
+(3) New situations are continually arising, new sins appearing.
+Conventional morality, while sometimes over-severe against old and
+well-recognized sins, lags far behind in its branding of the newer
+forms. The evils arising from the modern congestion of population,
+the unscrupulousness of modern business, the selfishness of politicians,
+the servility of newspapers to the "interests" and to advertisers,
+for example, find too little reprobation in our established moral codes.
+"Business is business" has been said by respectable church-members.
+A successful American boss, when asked if he was not in politics for
+his pocketbook, said, "Of course! Aren't you?" with no sense of shame.
+Probably he was very "moral" along the old lines, an excellent father,
+a kind husband, an agreeable neighbor; but his conventional code,
+shared by most of his contemporaries, did not include the reprobation
+of the practice of politics for private gain. In the upper classes
+are many people who are "good" by the old standards, but who are
+unhelpful and trivial-minded, mere parasites devoted to sport or society,
+with never a qualm of conscience for their selfishness. The old standards
+need the constant infusion of new blood; our consciences need to be
+adjusted to our new relations and deeper insight. [Footnote: Cf. Rosa,
+Sin and Society, p. 14: "One might suppose that an exasperated public
+would sternly castigate these modern sins. But the fact is, the very
+qualities that lull the conscience of the sinner blind the eyes of
+the onlookers. People are sentimental; and bastinado wrongdoing not
+according to its harmfulness, but according to the infamy that has
+come to attach to it. Undiscerning, they chastise with scorpions the
+old authentic sins, but spare the new. They do not see that blackmail
+is piracy, that embezzlement is theft, that speculation is gambling
+that deleterious adulteration is murder. The cloven hoof hides in patent
+leather; and today, as in Hosea's time, the people 'are destroyed
+for lack of knowledge.'"]
+
+(4) Custom-morality tends to literalism, a mere formal observance of
+law or custom without the true spirit of service, without any inward
+sweetness or power. Christ's condemnation of the Pharisees will occur
+to every one; the parable of the Pharisee and publican, and that of
+the widow's mite, among others, are classic illustrations of a cut-and
+dried formalism in morality. Such a legalism Paul found could not save
+him. And forever the prophets and spiritual leaders of men have had
+to burst the bonds of tradition to awaken a real love of and devotion
+to the good. The letter killeth, and a punctilious observance of rules
+may choke out the aspirations of the soul.
+
+(5) Finally, conflicts between customs inevitably arise. Which shall
+a man obey? The moral perplexity thus caused gives a great deal of
+its poignancy to the tragedy of life. When one accepted ideal pulls
+us one way, and another standard, to which we have given allegiance,
+calls us the other, when we cry out with Desdemona, "I do perceive
+here a divided duty," the only solution lies in the development of
+insight and a recognition of the transition-nature of much of our
+accepted code. If for no other reason, to avoid these conflicts of
+ideals we must comprehend the ultimate aims of morality and take existing
+standards with a sort of tentative allegiance. It should be clear,
+then, that the individualizing of conscience, which has been going
+on observably in recent times, is, in spite of its dangers, a necessary
+and desirable process. Dewey and Tufts, ETHICS, chaps, V. IX. W. Bagehot,
+PHYSICS AND POLITICS, chaps. II, VI. F. Paulsen, SYSTEM OF ETHICS,
+part II, chap. V, sec. 6. S. E. Mezes, ETHICS, chap, VII, pp. 164-83.
+J. H. Coffin, THE SOCIALIZED CONSCIENCE, pp. 12-23.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+CAN WE BASE MORALITY UPON CONSCIENCE?
+
+What is the meaning of "moral intuitionism"?
+
+With the growth of individualism in morals, the relaxing of the
+constraint of publicly accepted standards, there is, of course, a
+dangerous drift toward self-indulgence and moral nihilism. It becomes
+all the more necessary that conscience be strong and sensitive, that
+inner restraints take the place of outer. In the lack of a mature moral
+insight, which is one of the latest of mental developments, and indeed,
+where it exists, to reinforce its pale affirmations with greater
+impulsive power, a stern sense of duty is a veritable rock of
+salvation. Many a people have perished, many a brilliant hope of
+civilization been lost, because of its lack. So we cannot wonder when
+moralists put it forward as the foundation- stone of all morality and
+seek to build their systems upon it. To a man who has been bred to
+obey the inner voice, it seems the very source and basis of the right;
+it is so inescapable, so authoritative, that it cannot be deemed derived,
+or evolved by a mechanical process of selection. It figures as something
+ultimate and unanalyzable, if not frankly supernatural; that it is
+a mere instrument in the attainment of an ulterior end, to be used
+or rejected according to its observed usefulness is an abhorrent thought.
+
+There has thus arisen a school of philosophers who base their
+justification of morality entirely upon the deliverances of conscience.
+Their theories vary in detail and have received sundry names; we will
+group them here for convenience under the general caption "moral
+intuitionism." As a rule they steer clear of the historic point of
+view; they refuse to believe that conscience has a natural history.
+Nor are they usually keen at psychological analysis; the numberless
+variations in form which conscience assumes in different individuals
+are, for their purposes, better ignored. Instead of analyzing the moral
+sense into its components and describing the mental stuff of which
+it is composed, instead of tracing its genesis and studying the forces
+that have produced it, they wax eloquent over its importance and
+universality. As preachers they are admirable. But the foundation they
+provide for morality is slippery. It amounts to saying, "We ought to
+do right because we know we ought!" When we ask how we can be sure,
+in view of the general fallibility of human conviction, that we are
+not mistaken in our assurance, and following a false light, they can
+but reiterate in altered phraseology that we know because we know.
+
+To these intuitionists, and to the popular mind very often, the
+approval or disapproval of conscience is immediate, intuitive, and
+unerring. Its authority is absolute and not to be questioned. We have
+this faculty within us that tells us as surely what is right and what
+wrong as our color-sense tells us what is red and what green. Some
+people may, to be sure, be color-blind, or have defective consciences;
+but the great mass of unsophisticated people possess this innate guide
+and commandment, a quite sufficient warrant for all our distinctions
+of good and evil. Honest men do not really differ in their moral
+judgments. They may misunderstand one another's concepts and engage
+in verbal disputes; but at bottom their moral sense approves and
+disapproves the same acts. Our moral differences come mainly from the
+deluding effects of passion and the sophisticated ingenuities of the
+intellect. We should "return to nature," go by ourselves alone, and
+listen to the inner voice. If we sincerely listen and obey we shall
+always do right. [Footnote: "But truth and right, founded in the
+eternal and, is what every man can judge of, when laid before him.
+'T is necessarily one and the same to every man's understanding, just
+as light is the same, to every man's eyes." (S. Clarke, Discourse upon
+Natural Religion, 1706.)]
+
+We cannot but recognize a certain amount of practical truth in this
+picture. But it is over-simplified, and it is fundamentally
+unsatisfactory to the intellect. We shall now pass in review its most
+obvious inadequacies.
+
+Do the deliverances of different people's consciences agree?
+
+Nothing is more notorious to an unbiased observer than the
+conscientious differences between men. Even among members of a single
+community, with closely similar inheritance and environment, we find
+marked divergence in moral judgment. And when we compare widely
+different times and places we are apt to wonder if there is any common
+ground. It is only a very smug provincialism that can attribute the
+alien standards of other races and nations to a disregard of the light.
+Mohammedans and Buddhists have believed as firmly in, and fought as
+passionately for, their moral convictions as Christians have for
+theirs. When we survey the vast amount of material amassed by
+anthropologists, we find that, as has been often said, there is hardly
+a vice that has not somewhere been deemed a virtue, and hardly a virtue
+but has been branded as a vice. History is full of the pathos of havoc
+wrought by conscientious men, of foolish and ruinous acts which they
+have braced themselves to do for conscience' sake. One has but to think
+of the earnest and prayerful inquisitors and persecutors in the
+mediaeval Church, of the Puritans destroying the stained-glass windows
+and paintings of the Madonna, of the caliph who destroyed the great
+Alexandrian library, bereaving the world at one blow of that priceless
+culture-inheritance. Written biography, fiction which truly represents
+life, and individual memory are full of conscience have sundered those
+who truly loved and wrought irremediable pain and loss. Lately the
+newspapers told us of the heroic suicide of General Nogi and his wife,
+who felt it their duty not to survive their emperor. To a Catholic
+Christian this imperious dictate of the Japanese conscience would be
+a deadly sin. And so it goes. There is no need to multiply instances
+of what can be observed on every hand. Conscience reflects the traditions
+and influences amid which a man grows up.
+
+But if the deliverances of different men's consciences conflict, how
+shall we know which to trust? If any particular command of the inner
+voice may be morally wrong, how can we trust it at all? There are
+obviously morbid and perverted consciences; but if conscience itself
+is the ultimate authority, and is not to be justified and criticized
+by some deeper test, what right have we to call any of its manifestations
+morbid or perverted? Is it not a species of egotism to hold one's own
+moral discernment as superior to another's; and if so, do we not need
+some criterion by which to judge between them? Surely the diversity
+of its judgments makes conscience an impossible foundation for morality;
+we should have as many codes as consciences and fall into a hopeless
+confusion. If conscience everywhere agreed in its dictates, could we
+base morality upon it? Even, however, if conscience led us all in the
+same direction, would that prove its authority? Perhaps we should all
+be following a will o' the wisp, and foolishly sacrificing our desires
+to an idol of the tribe, a universal superstition. Must it not show
+its credentials before it can legitimately command our allegiance?
+It is but one specific type of impulse among many; why should it be
+given the reins, the control over all? Do we say, because conscience
+makes for our best welfare? The answer would, in general, be true;
+but we should then be putting as our test and ultimate authority the
+attainment of our welfare, which would be to abandon the point of view
+we are discussing. Conscience claims authority. But that might
+conceivably be mere impudence and tyranny. Moreover, there are those
+who feel no call to follow conscience; how could we prove to them that
+they ought? Is it not the height of irrationality to bow down before
+an unexplained and mysterious impulse and allow it to sway our conduct
+without knowing why? If the "ought" is really shot out of the blue
+at us, if there is no justification, no imperious demand for morality
+but the existence of this inner push, why might we not raise our heads,
+refuse to be dominated by it, and live the life of free men, following
+the happy breezes of our desires? That is precisely what many have
+done, men who have reached maturity enough of mind to see the emptiness
+of following an ingrained impulse simply because it exists, but not
+a full enough maturity to see beyond to the real justification and
+significance of conscience.
+
+A further realization of the inadequacy of the intuitive theory comes
+when we observe that conscience is by no means always clear in its
+dictates. It often leaves us in the lurch. Developed in us as it has
+been by circumstance and suggestion, it helps us usually only in
+certain recognized types of situation. When new cases arise, it is
+hopelessly at sea. As a practical working principle, conscientiousness
+is not only apt to be a perverted and provincial guide, it is
+insufficient for the solving of fresh and difficult problems. The
+science casnistry has been developed in great detail to supply this
+lack, to apply the well-recognized deliverances of a certain accepted
+type of conscience to the various possibilities of situation. These
+systems, however, reflect the idiosyncrasies of their makers, and have
+never won wide approbation. Morality must remain largely experimental,
+individual. Conscience will play a very useful role in spurring us
+to our recognized duty in the commoner situations, but for all the
+more delicate decisions we need a more ultimate touchstone. We must
+grasp the underlying principles of right conduct, and weigh the relative
+goods attainable by each possible act. A well-balanced and normal
+conscience will save us the recurrent reasoning out of typical
+perplexities, but it must be supplemented by an insight into the ends
+to be aimed for and kept rather strictly in its place.
+
+What is the plausibility of moral intuitionism?
+
+It is never wholly satisfactory merely to refute a theory; we must
+see its plausibility and understand its appeal if we are to be sure
+of doing it justice. In the case of the intuition-theory it is easy
+to discern the reasons that have kept it alive? though it has never
+been at all widespread among thinking men? in spite of the obvious
+objections that can be raised to it.
+
+(1) Perhaps the original source of the doctrine was a certain sort
+of religious faith; it follows easily as a corollary to the belief
+in God. If God commands us to do right, it is felt, He must have given
+us some way to know what is right. The inner voice of conscience may
+be just such a God-given guide; therefore it is such a guide; therefore
+it is infallible. A natural piece of a priori reasoning, on a par with
+the Christian Scientist's syllogism: God is good; a good God would
+not permit evil to exist; therefore there is no evil. Unfortunately
+a priori reasoning has to yield to actual experience. Since we see
+that conscience is not infallible and evil does exist, there must be
+some fallacy in the arguments.
+
+(2) Another source of the doctrine's strength lies in its simplicity.
+It is a great mental relief to drop the tangle of confusing
+considerations, to stop trying to reason out one's course of action,
+and follow a supposedly reliable guide. The intuition-theory goes
+naturally with a moral conservatism which dreads the chaos and
+uncertainty that follow upon the doubt of established moral habits.
+It is so much more comfortable to feel that one has already the one
+divine and ultimate code, that one has always done right because one
+has steadily obeyed the inner light! It is reassuring to divide the
+world into the sheep and the goats? if one can believe one's self a
+sheep. But what O dismay! what if one were after all a goat! A great
+deal of mental anguish has been caused by the pseudo-simplicity of
+this dichotomy. There is no such clean-cut and clearly visible line
+between right and wrong; there is instead a bewildering maze of goods.
+Hardly any choice but involves a sacrifice, hardly any ideal but has
+its disadvantages. One learns with experience to be wary of these simple
+theories, these closet theories which collapse when they are brought
+out into the light of day.
+
+(3) We must, however, be just. The fact of the reliability of
+conscience, and the wisdom of following its guidance, holds over a
+wide range of human experience and the experience which is most
+apparent upon the surface. For all ordinary cases we of Christendom
+agree without hesitation that murder is wrong, and lying, and stealing.
+It seems a waste of time to try to justify our instinctive verdict,
+and the attempt would only be bewildering to most men. It is only when
+brought face to face with some alien code that we see the need of
+digging below intuition. A missionary to the South Seas may be
+confronted with men to whom the killing of other tribesmen and the
+accumulation of skulls is a glorious and honorable feat, or to whom
+skillful lying is an enviable and proud accomplishment. But most of
+us live among neighbors whose conscience is comfortably like our own,
+and only occasionally become seriously perplexed. In the great mass
+of everyday occasions we do know our duty intuitively, and we do agree
+with one another. We recognize a duty at sight without realizing its
+teleology. It is not, indeed, an innate faculty; it was acquired during
+our formative years; it is not infallible. But the forces which have
+gone to the making of it are similar in all our lives, and the products
+are more alike than unlike.
+
+(4) Finally, it is true that to obey conscience is, in a sense, to
+do right, to be moral, no matter how distorted conscience may be.
+Conscientiousness is in itself a virtue. To this point we shall later
+return. We need only say here that conscientiousness is not enough.
+Life is not so simple a matter as that. We need judgment, sanity,
+insight, as well as a strong sense of duty. We need to correct and
+train conscience, to adjust it to our real needs, to recognize that
+it is a means, not an end.
+
+Our discussion, though rapid, should show that we cannot start with
+the "ought" of our conscience, or moral sense, and erect our moral
+theory upon that. Conscience itself needs to be explained. Its commands
+need to be justified by reference to some more ultimate criterion.
+It needs to be pruned of its fanaticism, developed where it is weak,
+and kept in line with our growing insight into what is best in conduct.
+Ruskin once summed the matter up by saying, "Obey thy conscience! But
+first be sure it is not the conscience of an ass!" Conscience may be
+a very dangerous guide. And even where it is normal and useful it must
+not be invested with any absolute and irrational authority.
+
+Historical study, then, reveals the growth of personal and social
+morality through the action of forces, which tend to drive men into
+conduct that makes for their welfare more surely than did their
+primitive animal impulses. Conscience arises through these same forces.
+Though subject to perversion and infinitely variant in detail,
+community-morals and individual conscience have been the chief
+means of making man's life safe and wisely directed. The criterion
+that emerges from such a study is not, however, the bald existence
+of codes of morals, or of conscience, but the human welfare which
+those codes and that conscience exist to serve. To an exposition
+of the ways in which morality serves and should increasingly serve
+human welfare, we now turn.
+
+Classic intuitional theories will be found developed in: Price, Review
+of the Chief Questions and Difficulties of Morals (1757), Shaftesbury,
+An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit (1699). F. Hutcheson, An Inquiry
+Concerning Moral Good and Evil (1725). Joseph Butler, Fifteen Sermons
+upon Human Nature, II, III (1726). J. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory
+(1885).
+
+Criticisms of the intuitional theories will be found in: S. E. Mezes,
+Ethics, chap. III; Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. XVI, sec. 3; F.
+Paulsen, System of Ethics, part II, chap. V, sec. 4; H. Spencer, Data
+of Ethics, chap. II, sec. 14; chap. IV, sec. 20; Muirhead, Elements
+of Ethics, secs. 32-35. H. Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil, book
+I, chap. IV. W. Fite, Introductory Study of Ethics,
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+THE THEORY OF MORALITY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+THE BASIS OF RIGHT AND WRONG
+
+HISTORICAL knowledge without critical insight leads to moral nihilism,
+the conviction of the pre-Socratic Sophists that, since every time
+and people has its own standards, there is no real objective right
+and wrong. Morality is seen to be not a fixed code sent readymade from
+heaven, but a set of habits and intuitions that have had a natural
+origin and development. Our particular moral code is perceived to be
+but one out of many, our type of conscience psychologically on the
+same level with the strange, and to us perverted, sense of duty of
+alien races. How can we judge impartially between our standards and
+those of the Fiji Islanders? What warrant have we for saying that our
+code is a better one than theirs? Or how do we know that the whole
+thing is not superstition?
+
+What is the nature of that intrinsic goodness upon which ultimately
+all valuations rest?
+
+As a matter of fact, underneath the manifold disagreements as to good
+and bad, there is a deep stratum of absolute certainty. It is only
+in the more complex and delicate matters that doubt arises; all men
+share in those elementary perceptions of good and bad that make up
+the bulk of human valuation. To men everywhere it is an evil to be
+in severe physical pain or to be maimed in body, to be shut away from
+air, from food, from other people. It is a good to taste an appetizing
+dish, to exercise when well and rested, to hear harmonious music, to
+feel the sweet emotion of love. The fact that men agree upon judgments
+does not prove them true; but these are not judgments, they are
+perceptions. [Footnote: Or affections. Let no one quarrel about the
+psychological terms used; the only important matter is to note the
+fact, however it be phrased, that "good" and "bad" in their basic usage
+are DESCRIPTIVE terms. A toothache is bad just as indisputably as the
+sky is blue. The word "bad" has a definite meaning, just as the word
+"blue" has; and the toothache is, among other things, precisely what
+we mean by "bad," just as the look of the cloudless sky by daylight
+is what we mean by "blue."] To call love good is not to give an opinion,
+it is to describe a fact. It is a matter of direct first-hand feeling,
+whose reality consists in its being felt. To say that these experiences
+are good or bad is equivalent to saying that they FEEL good or bad;
+there can be no dispute about it. This is the bottom fact of ethics.
+Different experiences have different intrinsic worth as they pass.
+There is a chiaroscuro of consciousness, a light and shade of immediate
+goodness and badness over all our variegated moments. The good moments
+are their own excuse for being, a part of the brightness and worth
+of life. They need nothing ulterior to justify them. The bad moments
+feel bad, and that is the end of it; they are bad-feeling moments,
+and no sophistication can deny it. Conscious life looked at from this
+point of view, and abstracted from all its other aspects, is a flux
+of plus and minus values. Certain of its moments have a greater felt
+worth than others; some experiences are intrinsically undesirable,
+the shadows of life; others, intrinsically sweet, a part of its sunshine.
+In the last analysis, all differences in value, including all moral
+distinctions, rest upon this disparity in the immediate worth of
+conscious states. [Footnote: Cf. G. Santayana, The Sense of Beauty,
+p. 104: "All worth leads us back to actual feeling somewhere, or else
+evaporates into nothing-into a word and a superstition." I cannot but
+feel that contemporary definitions of value that omit reference to
+hedonic differences e.g. that of Professor Brown (Journal of Philosophy,
+Psychology, and Scientific Methods, vol. II, p. 32): "Value is degree
+of adequacy of a potentiality to the realization of the effect by
+virtue of which it is a potentiality"-miss the real meaning of "value."
+We do, indeed, speak occasionally of x as having value as a means to
+y, when y is not good or a means to a good. But that seems to me a
+misuse of the word.] We may say absolutely that if it were not for
+this fundamental difference in feeling there would be no such thing
+as morality. There might conceivably be a world in which consciousness
+should exist without any agreeable or disagreeable qualities; in such
+a world nothing would matter; all acts would be equally indifferent.
+Or there might be a world in which all experiences were equally
+pleasurable or painful; in such a case all acts would be equally good
+or equally sad; there would be no ground for choice. One might in any
+of these hypothetical worlds be driven by mechanical impulse or fitful
+whim to do this or that, but there would be no rational basis for
+preference. Such, however, is not the case. Comparative valuation is
+possible; all secondary goods and evils arise, all morality, all art
+and religion and science have their wellspring in this brute fact,
+this primordial parting of the ways between the more and the less
+desirable phases of possible conscious life. Morality of an elementary
+type would exist on this level even without the further complications
+of actual life. At least a very important art would arise; whether
+or not we should call it morality is a mere matter of definition. For
+a choice between alternatives immediately felt goods would arise, and
+the problem of how to get the better kinds of experience and avoid
+the worse would demand solution. Every bit of plus value added to
+experience would make the world so much the brighter, as would every
+bit of pain avoided. There are, to be sure, the mystical optimisms
+and pessimisms to be reckoned with, the sweeping assertions of certain
+schools and individuals that everything is equally good or equally
+bad. Such undiscriminating formulas are either the mere objectification
+of a mood, of some unusual period of ecstasy or sorrow, a blind outcry
+of thanksgiving or of bitterness, or they are the clumsy expression
+of some practical truth, as, the wisdom of acquiescence, and the futility
+of preoccupation with evil. But taken seriously and literally such
+statements are simply untrue to the facts and blur our fundamental
+perceptions. If actually accredited, either would lead to quiescence;
+if everything were equally good or evil all striving would be
+meaningless, one might as well jump from a housetop or walk into the
+fire. But as a matter of fact such mystical assertions are indulged
+in only in the inactive moments of life, and mean no more than a lyric
+poem or a burst of music. Every one in his practical moments
+acknowledges tacitly, at least, the difference between the intrinsic
+goodness and badness of experiences. A life of even delight or even
+wretchedness, or of colorless indifference, is not inconceivable, but
+it is not the lot of any actual human beings.
+
+The larger quarrel between optimists and pessimists need not, for our
+purposes, be settled. Life may be a very good thing, on the whole,
+or a very bad thing. The only point we need to note is that it is at
+any rate a varying thing. Some experiences are more worth having than
+others. Moral theory needs no further admission to find its foothold.
+Nor do we need to discuss the problem of evil. It may be that all pain
+has its ultimate uses that nothing is "really" bad, if we take that
+to mean that all evil has a necessary existence as a means to a good
+otherwise unattainable and worth the cost. But however useful as a
+means evil may be, it is nonetheless evil and regrettable. It is not
+good qua pain. If the same amount of good could be obtained without
+the preliminary evil, it were better to skip it. In short, the existence
+of different values in immediate experience is indisputable; we may
+call them for convenience intrinsic goodness and badness.
+
+What is extrinsic goodness?
+
+But there is a radically different sense of the words "good" and "bad";
+namely, that in which we say that a thing is good FOR this or that.
+This is the kind of goodness the THINGS about us have; they are good
+for the production of intrinsic goodness (as we are using that phrase),
+which is always (so far as we know) something produced in living
+organisms. [Footnote: We also occasionally speak of things as being
+"good for" something else when that something else is not a good or
+a means to a good (see preceding footnote); as, "sunshine is good for
+weeds." But as applied to evils, the phrase "good for" more often means
+"good to abolish"; as, "hellebore is good for weeds." These usages
+illustrate the ambiguity of all our common ethical terms. To consider
+them here would be, however, needlessly confusing. The two senses of
+the term "good" mentioned in the text are the only senses we need to
+bear in mind for the purposes of ethics.] To put the same truth in
+other terms, things are good or bad only with respect to their effect
+upon our conscious experience. [Footnote: I am fully aware of the
+widespread current distaste for the word "consciousness," with its
+idealistic associations. The term seems to me too useful to discard;
+but I wish to point out that, as I use it, it involves no metaphysical
+viewpoint, but is equally consonant with idealism or realism of any
+sort.] Primitive man, indeed, imagines inanimate things as having
+intrinsic goodness or badness, i.e., as feeling happy or unhappy,
+benevolent or malignant. We still speak of a serene sky, an angry
+storm cloud, a caressing breeze, and in a hundred ways read our
+affective life into material objects. But we now recognize all these
+ascriptions as cases of the pathetic fallacy, poetically significant but
+literally untrue. Animism, which looms so large in primitive religion,
+consists in thus objectifying into things the emotions they arouse
+in us. In reality all of these affective qualities exist in us, not in the
+outer objects; so far as our epithets have an objective truth they
+describe not the content of the objects, but their function in our lives.
+When we speak of delicious food, beautiful pictures, ugly colors, we
+mean strictly that these objects are such as to arouse in us certain
+peculiar pleasant or unpleasant feelings. So that apart from the
+existence of consciousness there would be no goodness or badness
+at all. [Footnote: The neo-realists would prefer to say, perhaps, "apart
+from the existence of organisms,"] and this may be an exacter phrase;
+we from previous page [Footnote: pleasures and pains that remain out
+of connection with that interrelated stream of experience to which
+we usually limit the term "consciousness." On the other hand, MAY it
+not be that God, and angels, or other disembodied beings, have
+consciousness, and intrinsic goodness, without having organisms?
+Of course, for all we know, the world about us may be chock full
+of pleasures and pains. But for practical purposes, and so far as
+our morality is concerned, either the statement in the text or the
+suggested equivalent is true. The point is, that the foundation
+of morality is in US--whether you call US in the last analysis
+consciousnesses or organisms]
+
+It is the existence of felt goodness, intrinsic goodness, and its
+opposite, that allows us to attribute to objects another kind of
+goodness or badness, according as they are calculated to produce in
+us the former kind. This kind of goodness and badness we may call
+extrinsic. It is only by thus attributing a sort of goodness and
+badness to senseless objects that we can aim for and avoid the good
+and bad phases of conscious life. In themselves these conscious moments
+are largely unnamable and inexpressible. There are, as it is, dumb
+objectless ecstasies that are of transcendent sweetness; but we do
+not usually know how to reproduce them, and for the most part we have
+to overlook these goods in our ideals and aim only for those that we
+can associate with recognized outer stimuli. For practical purposes
+we think rather in terms of outer objects than of our states of
+experience; nature has had need to make men but very slightly
+introspective. And so it is that this derived use of our eulogistic
+and disparaging terms plays a larger part than its primary application.
+But the essential point to note is that "goodness" and "badness" in
+the first instance refer to the fundamental cleavage between the
+affective qualities of experience, and only secondarily and by metonymy
+apply to objects in the physical world which affect our conscious states.
+The next point to note is that our conscious experiences and activities
+themselves have not only their intrinsic value, as they pass, but an
+extrinsic value, as means toward future intrinsic values. Each phase
+of experience has its own worth, while it lasts, and also has its results
+in determining future phases with their varying degrees of worth. Our
+reveries, our debauches, our sacrifices are good or bad in their
+effects as well as in themselves. Thus all experience has a double
+rating; acts are not only pleasant, agreeable, intrinsically desirable,
+but also wise, prudent, useful, virtuous, i.e., extrinsically desirable.
+These extrinsic values usually bulk much larger in the end
+than the first transitory intrinsic value; but our natural tendency
+is to forget them and guide our action by immediate values. Hence the
+need of a continual disparagement of the latter, and the many means
+men have adopted of emphasizing the importance of the former. Yet,
+after all, our concern for the extrinsic value of acts has to do only
+with means to ends; and unless acts tend to produce intrinsic goodness
+somewhere they are not extrinsically good. There is no sense in
+sacrificing an immediate good unless the alternative act will tend
+in its ultimate effects to produce a greater good, or unless the act
+sacrificed would have brought, after its present intrinsic good, some
+greater intrinsic evil. The sacrifice of a good for no greater good
+is asceticism or fanaticism. From this there is no ultimate salvation
+but by referring all acts to the final touchstone--asking which will
+produce in the end the greatest amount of intrinsic good and the least
+intrinsic evil. What sort of conduct, then, is good? And how shall
+we define virtue? We are brought thus to the conception of an art which
+shall not only teach us which of two immediate, intrinsic, goods is
+the better, but shall consider all the near and remote consequences
+of acts, and direct us to that conduct which will produce most good
+in the end. [Footnote: The impossibility of finding any other ultimate
+basis for our conception of moral "good" or "bad" is well expressed
+by Socrates in Plato's Protagoras (p. 354): "Then you think that pain
+is an evil and pleasure is a good, and even pleasure you deem an evil,
+when it robs you of greater pleasure than it gives, or causes pain
+greater than the pleasure. If, however, you call pleasure an evil in
+regard to some other end or standard, you will be able to show us that
+standard. BUT YOU HAVE NONE TO SHOW... And have you not a similar way
+of speaking about pain? You call pain a good when it takes away greater
+pains than those which it has, or gives pleasures greater than the
+pains." He then goes on to explain the need of morality,-to guide us,
+in the face of the foreshortening effects of our particular situation,
+to what will make for the greatest happiness in the long run (p. 356):
+"Do not the same magnitudes appear larger to your sight when near,
+and smaller when at a distance? Now suppose happiness to consist
+in doing or choosing the greater, and in not doing or avoiding the
+less, what would be the saving principle of human life? Would not the
+ACT OF MEASURING be the saving principle?"] is best which will in the
+long run bring into being the greatest possible amount of intrinsic
+goodness and the least intrinsic evil. For goodness of conduct we
+commonly use the term "virtue"; and for intrinsic good the most widely
+accepted name-though one which is misleading to many is "happiness."
+So we may say, in sum, that virtue is that manner of life that tends
+to happiness. Objection is occasionally made that happiness is too
+vague a term, too elusive a concept, to be set forth as the ultimate
+aim of conduct. "Alas!" says Bradley, "the one question which no one
+can answer is, what is happiness?" But this is a palpable confusion
+of thought. If we mean by the question, "Wherein is happiness to be
+found, by doing what can we attain it?" then the answer is, indeed,
+uncertain in its completeness; it is precisely to answer it that we
+study ethics. Or if we mean, "What is the psychology of happiness?"
+the answer is as yet dubious; but it is irrelevant. Whatever its
+psychological conditions and the means to attain it, we know happiness
+when we have it. The puzzle is not to recognize it, but to get it.
+By happiness we mean the steady presence of what we have called intrinsic
+goodness and the absence of intrinsic badness; it is as indefinable
+as any ultimate element of experience, but as well known to us as
+blackness and whiteness or light and dark. Take, as a typical moral
+situation, a case in which a thirsty man drinks polluted water. In
+the diagram the arrow represents the direction of the flow of time,
+and each of the ribbons below represents the stream of consciousness
+of an individual concerned-the uppermost being that of the thirsty
+man himself, the others those of his wife, children, or friends. The
+plus sign early in the drinker's stream of experience stands for the
+plus value which drinking the water effects-the gratifying taste of
+the water and the allaying of the discomfort of thirst-real values,
+whose worth cannot be gainsaid. Following, in his own stream of
+experience, are a row of minus signs, indicating the undesirable
+penalties in his own life which follow-disease, pain, deprivation of
+other goods. No good accrues to others, unless the slight pleasure
+of seeing his thirst allayed. But evils follow in their experience:
+worry, sympathetic pain at his suffering, expense of doctor's bills,
+perhaps (which means deprivation of other possible goods), etc. It
+is clear at a glance that the positive good attained is not worth the
+lingering and widespread evils; and the act of drinking the polluted
+water, though to a very thirsty man a keen temptation, is immoral.
+Morality is thus an acting upon a right perspective of life. Personal
+morality considers the goods and evils in the one stream of
+consciousness, social morality the goods and evils in other conscious
+lives concerned. Between them they sum up the law and the prophets.
+
+The best life for humanity is that which is, on the whole, felt best;
+not necessarily that which is judged best by this man or that, for
+our judgments are narrow and misrepresent actual values,-but that which
+has had from beginning to end the greatest total of happiness. No other
+ultimate criterion for conduct can ever justify itself, and most
+theoretical statements reduce to this. To be virtuous is to be a
+virtuoso in life. All sorts of objections have been raised to this
+simple, and apparently pagan, way of stating the case; they will be
+considered in due time. The reader is asked to refrain from parting
+company with the writer, if his prejudices are aroused, until the
+consonance of this sketchy account of the basis of morality with
+Christianity and all idealism can be demonstrated.
+
+H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chap. III. S. E. Mezes, Ethics, chap IX.
+Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, chaps. II, IX. F. Thilly,
+Introduction to Ethics, chaps. IV, V. F. Paulsen, book II, chap. I.
+J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism. B. P. Bowne, Principles of Ethics, chap.
+II. The classic accounts of a rational foundation of ethics are to
+be found by the discerning reader in Plato's Protagoras, Gorgias, and
+Republic (esp. books. I, II, IV), and Aristotle's Ethics (esp. books. I
+and II). For refinements in the definition of right and wrong, see
+G. E. Moore, Ethics, chaps. I-V; B. Russell, Philosophical Essays,
+I, secs. II, III. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 24, p. 293.
+Definitions of value without reference to pleasure or pain will be
+found in Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods,
+vol. II, pp. 29, 113, 141. An elaborate and careful discussion will
+be found in G. H. Palmer's Nature of Goodness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+THE MEANING OF DUTY
+
+Why are there conflicts between duty and inclination?
+
+IF virtue is simply conduct that makes most truly for happiness, why
+are not all but fools virtuous? The answer is, in a word, because what
+will bring about the greatest good in the long run, and to the most
+people, is not always what the individual desires at the moment. The
+two great temptations are the lure of the selfish and the lure of the
+immediate. To purchase one's own happiness at the expense of others,
+and to purchase present satisfaction by an act which will bring less
+good in the end-these are the cardinal sins, and under these two
+heads every specific sin can be put. The root of the trouble is that,
+in spite of the superposition of conscience upon their primitive
+impulses, human organisms have not yet motor-mechanisms fully adjusted
+to their individual or combined needs. Some instincts are over-strong,
+others under-developed, none is delicately enough attuned to the
+changing possibilities of the situation. Our desires tug toward all
+sorts of acts which would prove disastrous either to ourselves or
+others. Many of our faults we commit "without realizing it"; we follow
+our impulses blindly, unconscious of their treachery. Other sins we
+commit knowingly, because in spite of warning voices we cannot resist
+the momentary desire. Readjustment of our impulses is always painful;
+it is easier and pleasanter to yield than to control.
+
+Duty is the name we give virtue when she is opposed to inclination.
+She is the representative at the helm of our conduct of all absent
+or undeveloped impulses. The saints have no need of the concept; virtue
+to them is easy and agreeable; they have learned the beauty of holiness
+and have no unruly longings. Sometimes this happy adjustment of desire
+to need has been won by severe struggle; the dangerous impulses have
+been trained to come to heel through many a painful sacrifice. In other
+cases an approximation to this ideal state is the result of early
+training; by skillful guidance the growing boy or girl has had his
+safe impulses fostered and his perilous desires atrophied with disuse.
+The proverb, "Bring up a child in the way he should go, and when he
+is old he will not depart there from," has much truth in it. But no
+parent and no man himself can ever breathe quite safe; we can never
+tell when some submerged animal instinct will rise up in us, stun all
+our laboriously acquired morality into inactivity, and bring on
+consequences that in any cool headed moment we should have
+known enough to avoid. Thus duty, although she is the truest friend
+and servant of happiness, figures as her foe. And some moralists,
+realizing vividly the frequent need of opposing inclination, have
+generalized the situation by saying that happiness cannot be our
+end. "Foolish Word-monger and Motive grinder," shouts Carlyle,
+"who in thy Logic-mill hast an earthly mechanism for the Godlike itself,
+and wouldst fain grind me out Virtuefrom the husks of Pleasure,
+I tell thee, Nay! Is the heroic inspiration we name Virtue but
+some Passion, some bubble of the blood, bubbling in the direction
+others PROFIT by? I know not; only this I know, If what thou namest
+Happiness be our true aim, then are we all astray. 'Happy,' my brother?
+First of all, what difference is it whether thou art happy or not!
+'Happiness our being's end and aim,' all that very paltry speculation
+is at bottom, if we will count well, not yet two centuries old in the
+world" [Footnote: Sartor Resartus: "The Everlasting No" Past and
+Present: "Happy" Leaving aside this last statement, which is an
+irrelevant untruth, we probably feel an instinctive sympathy with
+Carlyle, and a sort of shame that we should have thought of happiness
+as the goal of conduct. Carlyle goes so far in his tirades as to call our
+happiness-morality a "pig philosophy," which makes the universe out
+to be a huge "swine's trough" from which mankind is trying to get the
+maximum "pigs" wash. Again he calls it a "Mechanical Profit-and-Loss
+theory" In such picturesque language he embodies a point of view
+which in milder terms has been expressed by many.] But to say that we
+must often oppose inclination in the name of duty is by no means to say
+that we must do what in the end will make against happiness. The trouble
+with inclination and passion is precisely that they are often ruiners of
+happiness. The very real and frequent opposition of desire and duty is
+no support of the view that duty is irrelevant to happiness, but quite
+consistent with the rational account of morality-that dates at least back
+to the ancient Greeks-which shows it to be the means to man's most
+lasting and widespread happiness.
+
+Must we deny that duty is the servant of happiness?
+
+We may go on to point out various flaws in the doctrine, of which
+Carlyle is one of the extreme representatives, that the account of
+morality as a means to happiness is immoral and leads to shocking
+results.
+
+(1) The plausibility of the doctrine rests largely on its confusion
+with the very different truth that we should not make happiness our
+conscious aim. It is one of the surest fruits of experience that
+happiness is best won by forgetting it; he that loses his life shall
+truly find it. To think much of happiness slides inevitably over into
+thinking too much of present happiness, and more of one's own than
+others' happiness; it leads to what Spencer properly dubs "the pursuit
+of happiness without regard to the conditions by fulfillment of which
+happiness is to be achieved." Carlyle is practically on the right track
+in bidding us think rather of duty, of work, of accomplishment. But
+that is far from denying that these aims have their ultimate
+justification in the happiness they forward. In order that remote ends
+may be attained, it is often necessary to cease thinking of them and
+concentrate the mind upon immediate means. To acquire unconsciousness
+of manner, the last thing to do is to aim directly for it; to acquire
+happiness, the worst procedure is to make it one's conscious quest.
+Yet in the former case the attainment of the ease of manner sought,
+and in the latter case the attainment of the happiest life for one's
+self and those whom one's action affects is the touchstone which at
+bottom determines the method to be adopted. The proper method, we
+contend, is-morality. It is the method that Carlyle recommends. So
+that in practice we agree with him, while parting with him in theory.
+
+(2) Carlyle evidently has in mind usually the thought that it is one's
+own happiness only that is put up as the end by the moralists he
+opposes. This was pure misunderstanding, however, or perversity. Other
+men's happiness has intrinsic worth (or IS intrinsic worth, for the
+word and the phrase are synonymous) as truly as mine; and morality
+is concerned quite as much with guiding the individual toward the general
+good as toward his own ultimate welfare. To this point we must return,
+merely mentioning here the fact that no reputable moralist now preaches
+the selfish theory.
+
+(3) A part of Carlyle's ammunition consists in the slurring
+connotations which have grown up about the word "pleasure," and even
+the word "happiness." Because of the practical need of opposing
+immediate in the interests of remoter good, the various words that
+designate intrinsic and immediate value have come to have a less worthy
+sound in our ears than those words which indicate control for the sake
+of more widespread or lasting interests-such as "prudence," "duty,"
+and "virtue." Moreover, the word "pleasures" commonly connotes the
+minor goods of life in contrast with the great joys, such as the
+accomplishment of some worthy task or the service of those we love.
+Again, it commonly connotes things passively enjoyed, rather than the
+active joys of life, which are practically more important. So that
+to condemn "pleasure" as an end arouses our instinctive sympathy. A
+"pleasure" is any bit of immediate good, however involved with pain,
+however transitory, and dangerous in its effects. "Happiness" generally
+refers to a more permanent state of satisfaction, including comparative
+freedom from pain; a stable and assured state of intrinsic worth, good
+to reflection as well as to sense. Pleasures are easy enough to get,
+but this safe state of happiness, full of rich positive worth, and
+immune from pain both in action and in moments of retrospect, is far
+from easy. Hence it is better to use the word "happiness" for our goal
+than the word "pleasure." Carlyle, however, takes "happiness" in the
+lower sense and rejects it in favor of what he calls "blessedness."
+This gives him the advantage of seeming to have a new and superior
+theory. But when we ask what "blessedness" is, it is apparent that
+it can be nothing but what we call "happiness" or the living of life
+in such a way as to lead to happiness.
+
+(4) There is another important practical insight underlying the
+protests of Carlyle and those of his ilk, namely, that it pays to
+disregard the minor ills and discomforts of life and keep our thoughts
+fixed on the big things. These minor ills do not matter much as they
+pass; they are transient, and usually leave little pain for reflection.
+It is the fear of them, the complaining about them, the shrinking from
+them, the attending to them, that constitutes the greater part of their
+badness. Carlyle has the same practical common sense that the Christian
+Scientists show; but, as in their case, he lets his practical wisdom
+confuse his theoretical insight.
+
+Sympathize, then, as we all must with these anti-happiness preachers,
+we may point out that their intuitions are quite compatible with a
+sane view of the ultimate meaning of morality. If morality does not
+exist for human welfare, what is it good for? And what else can welfare
+ultimately be but happiness? Other proposed ends we shall presently
+consider. But the happiness-account of morality leads to no dangerous
+laxity. If any eudemonistic moralists have lived loosely, it was
+because they did not realize what really makes for happiness or had
+not strength of will to cleave to it, not because they saw happiness
+as the criterion. An immature perception of this as the criterion without
+a full recognition of its bearings may have misled some; it is possible
+to see a general truth clearly and yet evaluate wrongly in concrete
+situations. But the converse of the truth that morality makes for
+happiness is the truth that the way to attain happiness is morality.
+No lesson could be more salutary. Correct concrete evaluations are
+more important than correct abstract generalizations, and Carlyle is
+nearly always on the right side in the former. But his influence would
+have been still more wholesome if he had added to his sound sermonizing
+a sane and clearly analyzed theory.
+
+Does the end justify the means?
+
+Our account of morality may be called the eudemonistic account, from
+the Greek eudemonia, happiness, or the teleological account, from
+telos, an end. It asserts, that is, that morality is to be judged by
+the end it subserves; that end is happiness. We have seen the sort
+of protest that arises with respect to the word "happiness." We may
+now note a danger that arises from the use of the concept "end"; it
+finds expression in the familiar proverb, "The end justifies the means."
+Conduct is to be judged by the end it subserves; therefore, if the
+end is good any means may be used to attain it. This has been the defense
+of much wrongdoing. The Jesuits who lied, slandered, cheated, and
+murdered, to promote the interests of the Church, the McNamara
+brothers, who dynamited buildings and bridges as a means toward the
+final end of attaining for laborers a just share of the fruits of their
+labor, the suffragettes who have been burning private houses, sticking
+up mail-boxes, and breaking windows, have justified their crimes by
+reference to the great ends they expected thereby to attain. What shall
+we say to this plea?
+
+(1) The motto means: Conduct in itself undesirable may be justified
+IF the end attained is important enough to warrant it. In every case,
+then, the question must arise: Is the end to be attained worth the
+cost? To justify means that are intrinsically bad, it must be shown
+that the end attained is so good as to overbalance this evil. WAS the
+advancement of the Church worth the cost in human suffering,
+estrangement, and bitterness that the Jesuits exacted? IS the
+advancement of labor interests worth the destruction of property and
+life, the fostering of class-enmity and of moral anarchism that the
+criminal wing of the I. W. W. stands for? ARE votes for women worth
+the similar evils which British suffragettes are drifting into? Sometimes
+a cause is so important that almost any act is justified in its
+advancement. But such cases are rare, at least in modern life. Always
+there must be a balancing of good and evil. And the trouble with the
+attitude of mind which we have illustrated is that the end sought is
+usually not so all-important as to warrant the grave evils which its
+seekers cause. When the Titanic was sinking, the boat's officers shot
+several men who tried to jump into the lifeboats ahead of the women
+and children. It was probably the only way to stop a mad panic stricken
+rush, which would have endangered the lives of all as well as broken
+the chivalrous code which is worth so much sacrifice. The evil of
+shooting down unarmed and frightened men was great; but it was
+undoubtedly justified by the end attained. Whether any of the other
+instances mentioned are cases where the evil done would be similarly
+justified by the end, if thereby attained, we shall not here discuss.
+But the principle is evident. The end justifies evil means only if
+it is so supremely good as to overbalance that evil.
+
+(2) It is pertinent, however, to add two considerations. First, we
+must feel sure that no less harmful means are available. And secondly,
+we must feel sure that these evil means are really adapted to attain
+the purpose. Is there no other way of securing votes for women than
+by the hysterical and criminal pranks our British sisters have been
+playing? And will those irritating acts actually forward their cause,
+or tend to bring about a revulsion of feeling? Did the crimes of the
+Jesuits make the Church triumphant? Not in the long run. Immediate
+gains may often be won by unpleasant methods, as in the case of the
+Titanic. But when the struggle is bound to be a long one, as in the
+case of woman's suffrage and industrial justice, methods which (not
+to beg the question) would ordinarily be criminal are seldom in the
+end advantageous. The McNamara case hurt the I. W. W. sorely. Suffrage
+legislation has possibly been retarded in Britain. And in both cases
+there are probably more efficacious, as well as less harmful, ways
+of attaining the desired end.
+
+(3) It is strictly true that THE end, human welfare, justifies any
+means necessary to attain it. Whatever pain must be caused to bring
+about the greatest possible human happiness is thereby exempt from
+reprobation. Whatever conduct is necessary for that supreme end BECOMES
+morality, or virtue; for that is precisely what morality IS. For
+example, it is undoubtedly necessary at times to murder, to steal,
+and to lie for the sake of human welfare; in such cases these acts
+are universally approved. Only, we give the acts in such cases new
+names, that the words "murder," etc, may retain their air of
+reprobation. We call murder of which we approve "capital punishment"
+or "justifiable homicide" or "patriotic courage." If taking a man's
+property without his consent is stealing, then the State steals; but,
+approving the act, we call it "eminent domain."
+
+(4) The motto has its chief danger, perhaps, in the tendency it
+encourages to ignore remoter consequences for the sake of immediate
+gain. This point we will consider under the following topic.
+
+What is the justification of justice and chivalry?
+
+If the greatest total of human happiness is the supreme end of conduct,
+was not Caiaphas right in deeming it expedient that one man should
+die for the people, even though he were innocent of all sin? Were not
+the French army officers sane in preferring to make Dreyfus their
+scapegoat rather than bring dishonor and shame upon their army? For
+that matter, does not the aggregate of enjoyment of a score of cannibals
+outweigh the suffering of the one man whom they have sacrificed to
+their appetite, or the delirious excitement with which a brutal crowd
+witnesses a lynching overbalance the pain of their solitary victim?
+Yet our souls revolt against such things. We cry, ruat caelum, fiat
+justitia! Justice is prior to all expediency! Is this irrational, or
+can it be shown to be teleologically justifiable?
+
+Justice is undoubtedly justifiable; and the only reason that we ever
+hesitate to acknowledge it in any concrete case is that we tend to
+overlook indirect and remote results and see only the immediate effect
+of action. The harm done by injustice consists not merely in the pain
+inflicted upon the victim. There is the sympathetic pain caused in
+all those who are at all tender hearted. There is the sense of insecurity
+caused in each by the realization that he too might some day be a
+victim; when justice is not enforced no man is safe. There is the
+stimulation given to human passions by one indulgence which will breed
+a whole crop of pain. There is the danger that if injustice is allowed
+in one case where a great good seems to warrant it, it will be
+practiced in other cases where no such necessity exists. Men are not
+to be trusted to judge clearly of relative advantages where their
+passions are concerned; they must bind themselves by an inflexible
+code. The cases cited are comparatively clear. No one would seriously
+contend that cannibalism or lynching, the execution of Christ, or the
+banishment of Dreyfus, made in the direction of the greatest happiness
+of mankind. But it has been seriously urged that the insane and the
+feeble and the morally worthless should be killed off, as they were
+in some sterner ancient states. Why should we guarantee life and liberty
+to such as are a useless drag upon the community, spend upon them
+millions which might be spent for bringing joy and recreation to the
+rest of us? Or again, if medical men need a living human victim to
+experiment upon, in order to conquer some devastating disease, why
+not pounce upon some good-for-nothing member of the community and force
+him to undergo the pain? The considerations enumerated in the preceding
+paragraph, however, bid us halt. Imagine the anxiety and the anguish
+that would be caused if some commission were free to determine who
+were insane or feeble or worthless enough to be put out of the way!
+Or free to select a human victim for vivisection whenever experts deemed
+it wise! The widespread horror and uneasiness of such a regime, the
+callousness to suffering it would engender, the private revenges and
+crimes that might insidiously creep in under the guise of public good,
+are alone enough to render vicious such a procedure.
+
+It is true that one person's suffering is less of an evil than the
+suffering of many. The State, by universal consent, inflicts undeserved
+suffering upon individuals when the social welfare seems to require
+it; as when it takes away a man's beloved acre to built a railroad
+or highway, or when it compels vaccination, or when it drafts soldiers
+for the national defense and sends them to their death. When a man
+volunteers to risk his life or to endure pain for his fellows we
+rightly applaud his act. In such a case the ill effects above-mentioned
+do not follow, and the gain is clear; in addition, the stimulating
+value of the voluntary self-sacrifice is great. The American soldiers,
+who risked their lives to rid Cuba and the world of yellow fever, by
+offering themselves for inoculation with the disease, stand among the
+world's heroes.
+
+It is also true that "rights" are not primitive and transcendent; their
+existence rests upon purely utilitarian grounds. The right to liberty
+and life is limited by the community's welfare. So is the right to
+property. But in estimating advantage we must beware of a superficial
+calculation. The concept of justice, and the enthusiasm for it, have
+been of enormous value to man's happiness. It is of extreme importance,
+from a eudaemonistic standpoint, to cherish that ideal. Even if in
+some individual case a greater general happiness would result from
+infringing upon it, we cannot afford to do so; we should find ourselves
+lapsing into less advantageous habits and incurring unforeseen
+penalties.
+
+Chivalry is in like case with justice. It might have seemed better
+for the world that the able and distinguished men should have been
+saved from the Titanic-some of them were men of considerable importance
+in various lines of work-rather than less-needed women. But the effect
+of the noble example in strengthening the will to sacrifice self for
+others, and in maintaining our beautiful devotion to woman, was worth
+the cost. Fox was right when he said, "Example avails ten times more
+than precept." Even if the loss had been greater than it was, it would
+have been better to incur it than to allow an exception to the code
+of chivalry. Such codes are formed with infinite pains and are very
+easily shattered; a little laxity here, a tolerated exception there,
+and the selfishness and passions of men rise to the surface and undo
+the work of years. AT ALL COSTS WE MUST MAINTAIN THE CODE. In the end
+it pays. The greatest genius must run the risk of drowning in the
+endeavor to save the life of some unknown person who may be a worthless
+scamp. He may die and the scamp live, a great loss to the world. But
+only so can the code of honor be maintained which in the long run adds
+so much positive joy to man and saves him from so much pain.
+
+In most instances, though not in some of those cited, the reward of
+justice and chivalry is sufficient for the individual himself. As
+Socrates said to Theodoras, [Footnote: Plato, Theoetetus, 176.] "The
+penalty of injustice cannot be escaped. They do not see, in their
+infatuation, that they are growing like the one and unlike the other,
+by reason of their evil deeds; and the penalty is, that they lead a
+life answering to the pattern which they resemble." "On the other
+hand,"-to supplement Plato with Emerson, [Footnote: Essays, First
+Series: "Spiritual Laws." Cf. George Eliot, in Romola: "The
+contaminating effect of deeds often lies less in the commission than
+the hero the avowal of a just and brave act, it will go unwitnessed
+and unloved. One knows it himself and is pledged by it to sweetness
+of peace and to nobleness of aim, which will prove in the end a better
+proclamation of it than the relating of the incident." And, we may
+add, a greater joy.]
+
+But even in view of the cases where no apparent compensation comes
+to the individual, the ideals of justice and chivalry, like the more
+general concept of duty, are among the most valuable possessions of
+man's fashioning. Cross our inclinations as they often do, cost dearly
+as they sometimes will, the habit of unquestioning allegiance to them
+is one of the greatest of all gains as means to the attainment by
+mankind of a stable and assured happiness.
+
+A brief discussion of the conflict of duty and inclination will be
+found in Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. XVII, first few pages.
+Carlyle's declamations against happiness are too scattered and
+unsystematic to make reference to specific chapters useful. The general
+point of view may be found, more temperately stated, in F. H. Bradley's
+Ethical Studies, the chapter entitled "Why Should I be Moral?"
+Contemporary accounts of the nature of obligation will be found in
+the International Journal of Ethics, vol. 22, p. 282; vol. 23, pp.
+143, 323.
+
+A discussion of the motto, "The end justifies the means" will be found
+in F. Paulsen's System of Ethics, book II, and chap. I, sec. 4. The
+justification of justice is treated in J. S. Mill's Utilitarianism,
+chap. V. [in the consequent adjustment of our desires, the enlistment
+of our self-interest on the side of falsity. The purifying influence
+of public confession springs from the fact that by it the hope in lies
+is forever swept away, and the soul recovers the noble attitude of
+simplicity.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+THE JUDGMENT OF CHARACTER
+
+Wherein consists goodness of character?
+
+Character is the sum of a man's tendencies to conduct. Our estimate
+of a man's character is a sort of weather forecast of what he will
+do in various situations. Goodness of character consists, then, of
+such an organization of impulses as will lead to good acts-to acts
+productive ultimately of a preponderance of intrinsic good, or happiness.
+The blame and approval that attaches in our minds to certain acts becomes
+attached also to the disposition that is fruitful of such acts. A good
+man is he whose mind is so set and adjusted that it will turn away
+from evil deeds and espouse the right. We can say, then, with Dewey
+and Tufts, "Goodness consists in active interest in those things which
+really bring happiness." [Footnote: Ethics, p. 396.] Similarly, Paulsen
+writes, "Virtues may be defined as habits of the will and modes of
+conduct which tend to promote the welfare of individual and collective
+life." [Footnote: System of Ethics, Eng. p. 475.] And Santayana
+puts it more tersely in the statement, "Goodness is that disposition
+that is fruitful in happiness." [Footnote: Reason in Common Sense,
+p. 144.] It is easy, then, to understand the enthusiasm that men feel
+for goodness; it is the resultant of the passionate longing to be
+delivered from the domination of evil impulses, the instinctive joy
+in splendid and unselfish acts, the sense of relief and gratitude felt
+toward those from whom one has nothing to fear. Contrariwise, the
+shrinking from a bad man springs primarily from the dread of what he
+may do, from the disgust which the sight of his foolish and ruinous
+acts inspires and from various other reactions of the spectator which
+we need not enumerate. If character were a sort of merely inward
+possession, unconnected with conduct, we should not Jeel thus toward
+it. Merely to FEEL virtuous is pleasant, but it is not important. Imputed
+goodness must be judged by the kind of conduct it yields, and that
+conduct in turn by its consequences. "By their fruits ye shall know
+them." But this inward disposition, though important chiefly for its
+effects, is more important therefore than we are apt to realize. "As
+a man thinketh in his heart, so he is." The scientific study of
+psychology has emphasized the fact, which is open to everyday
+observation, that even secret thoughts and moods influence
+inevitably a man's outward acts. What we do depends upon
+what we have been thinking and imagining and feeling. The
+Great Teacher was right when he bade men refrain not merely
+from murder, but from angry thoughts; not merely from adultery,
+but from lustful glances; not merely from perjury, but from the
+desire to deceive. Epictetus puts it, "What we ought not to do
+we should not even think of doing." And Marcus Aurelius writes,
+"We should accustom ourselves to think upon othing that we
+should hesitate to reveal to others if they asked to know it."
+This is sound advice. Without attempting to settle the problem
+of determinism or indeterminism, which falls properly within the
+sphere of natural rather than of moral philosophy, it is evident
+that our conduct is largely the result of that set of potentialities
+which we call character, that our happiness is in great degree
+shaped by our inward mental states.
+
+Hence the large role of "motive" and "intent" in ethical theory. High
+motives and good intentions lead-sometimes to disastrous, acts we
+know what place is paved therewith. We need the wisdom of the
+serpent as well as the innocence of the dove. But other things being
+equal, pure desires tend to right conduct. A man whose mind dwells
+upon the good side of his neighbors, who loves and sympathizes,
+and enjoys their friendship, will be far less likely to give vent to acts
+of cruelty or malice than one who indulges in spiteful feelings, fault
+finding, and resentment. Our habitual thoughts and desires make
+us responsive to certain stimuli and indifferent to others. The words
+of our mouth and the meditations of our heart, as well as the trifling
+acts that we perform, in themselves however unimportant, have
+their subtle and accumulative influence in determining our momentous
+acts. The familiar case of the drinker who says, "This glass doesn't
+count" can be paralleled in every field of life. It pays to keep in moral
+training, to cultivate kindly and disciplined thoughts, to forbid ill
+natured and unworthy feelings, and self-indulgent dreams. Otherwise
+before we know it the barriers of resistance will crumble and we shall
+do what we had never supposed we should do, some act that is the
+fruit of our unregulated inner life. [Footnote: Cf. George Eliot in Romola:
+"Tito" (who, having posed as a rich and noble gentleman, being
+unexpectedly confronted with his plebeian father, on the spur of the
+moment disowned him with the merciless words, "Some madman,
+surely!") "Was experiencing that inexorable law of human souls, that
+we prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of
+good or evil that gradually determines character."] Can we say, with
+Kant, that the only good is the Good Will? It is not uncommon for
+instrumental goods to come to receive a homage greater than that
+which is paid to the ends they serve. It is notably and necessarily so
+with the various aspects of the concept of morality; virtue, conscience,
+goodness of character are actually more important for us to think about
+and aim for than the happiness to which they ultimately minister. But this
+apotheosis denial of its fundamentally instrumental value. As with
+the miser who rates his bank notes more highly than the goods he could
+purchase with them, an abstract moralist occasionally exalts the means
+at the expense of the end. We are told that only goodness counts; that
+its worth has nothing to do with its relation to happiness; that goodness
+would command our allegiance even if it brought nothing but misery
+in its train.
+
+The best-known exponent of this blind worship of goodness is Kant.
+He writes, "A Good Will is good, not because of what it performs or
+effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end,
+but simply by virtue of the volition; that is, it is good in itself
+Its fruitfulness or fruitlessness can neither add nor take away
+anything from this value ... Moral worth ... cannot lie anywhere but
+in the principle of the Will, without regard to the ends which can
+be attained by the action." [Footnote: The Metaphysic of Morality.
+To be found in Kant's Theory of Ethics, trans. by Abbott, pp. 10, 16.]
+
+So far does Kant carry this worship of the idea of goodness that he
+separates it from the several virtues that make up goodness in the
+concrete and bows down before the resulting bare abstraction Good
+Will, the will to do good. This leads him to a curiously dehumanized
+position. Prudential acts, he declares, are obviously good in their
+consequences; they therefore deserve no praise; whatever one does
+calculatingly, with view to future results, has no moral worth. And
+on the other hand, whatever good acts one does instinctively, pushed
+on by animal impulses, including love and sympathy, deserve no praise
+and have no moral worth. It is only what one does from the single
+motive of desiring to do the right that awakens Kant's enthusiasm.
+"The preservation of one's own life, for instance, is a duty; but, as
+every one has a natural inclination to which most men usually devote
+to this object has no intrinsic value, nor the maxim from which they act
+any moral import." [Footnote: The Metaphysic of Morality, sec. I.] What
+shall we say to this?
+
+(1) Kant's statements are a mere crystallization of an unanalyzed
+feeling; their plausibility rests upon our ingrained enthusiasm for
+goodness. But if that enthusiasm be challenged, how shall we justify
+it? How do we know that good will is good, unless we can see WHY it
+is good? Many other things appeal to our instincts as good; may not
+this particular judgment be mistaken, or may not all these other things
+be equally good with good will? Kant's Hebraic training is clearly
+revealed in his exaltation of good will; it reflects the practical
+Lebensweisheit we have learned from the Bible. To the Greek it would
+have been foolishness, fanaticism. We want not only good will, but
+wisdom, sympathy, skill, common sense. Also we want health, love, wives
+and children, friends, and congenial work. All of these things are
+part of the worth of life. What would it profit us if we lost all these
+and had only our good will! [Footnote: A reduction ad absurdum of the
+Kantian view may be found in Cardinal Newman's statement of the
+Catholic Christian view. "The Church holds that it were better for
+sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fall, and for all
+the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremist
+agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will
+not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should
+tell one willful untruth, though it harmed no one, or steal one poor
+farthing without excuse." (Anglican Difficulties, p. 190.)] The
+valuation that ignores all natural goods but one is unreal, inhuman,
+fanatical; it leads when unchecked to the emasculated life of the
+anaemic mediaeval saint or anchorite. Kant's eloquent eulogy of good
+will appeals to one of our noblest impulses; but that impulse is as
+much in need of justification to the reason as any other, and it is
+only one of a number of equally healthy and justifiable natural
+preferences. Good will, the desire to do right, is perhaps, on the
+whole, IN THE EMERGENCY, a safer guide to trust than warm-blooded
+impulse or reasoned calculation. Moreover, it has a thin, precarious
+existence in most of us at best, and needs all the encouragement it
+can get. Practically, we need Kant's kind of sermonizing; we need to
+exalt abstract goodness and resist the appeal of immediate and sensuous
+goods. So Kant has been popular with earnest men more interested in
+right living than in theory. But as a theorist he is hopelessly
+inadequate.
+
+(2) It is true that we admire good will without consideration of the
+effects it produces, and even when it leads to disaster. But if good
+will USUALLY led to disaster we should never have come to admire it.
+Chance enters into this world's happenings and often upsets the normal
+tendencies of acts. But we have to act in ways that may normally be
+expected to produce good results. And we have to admire and cherish
+that sort of action, in spite of the margin of loss. The admiration
+that we have come to feel for goodness is partly the result of social
+tradition, buttressing the code that in the long run works out to best
+advantage; and partly, of course, the spontaneous emotion that rises
+in us at the sight of courage, heroism, self-sacrifice, and the other
+spectacular virtues. But however naive or sophisticated a reaction
+it may be, its psychogenesis is perfectly intelligible, U and its
+existence is no proof of the supernal nature of the goodness of "good
+will."
+
+(3) Kant argues as follows: "Nothing can possibly be conceived, in
+the world or out of it, which can be called good WITHOUT
+QUALIFICATION, except a good will." [Footnote: Op. cit, sec. I.]
+He goes on to show that wit, courage, perseverance, etc, are all
+bad if the will that makes use of them is bad as in the case of a
+criminal; while health, riches, honor, etc, may inspire pride or
+presumption, and so not be unmitigated thing that can in every
+case be called good.
+
+But is this so? May not a man have good will and yet do much mischief?
+If courage, wit, etc, need to be employed by good will, so does good
+will need to be joined with common sense, knowledge, tact, and many
+other helpers. Good will is good only if it is sanely and wisely
+directed; else it may go with all sorts of fanaticism. If one says,
+"It is still good qua good will," we may reply, "Yes, but so are all
+goods; courage is always good qua courage, knowledge qua knowledge,"
+etc. All harmless joys are good without qualification, and all goods
+whatever are good except as they get in the way of some greater good
+or lead to trouble.
+
+(4) Kant's formula "good will" is ambiguous. OF COURSE a GOOD act of
+will is good; that is a mere tautology, and gives us no guidance
+whatever. Which acts of will ARE good is our problem. Kant, however,
+worked out his empty formula into a concrete maxim, "Act as if the
+maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of
+nature." But how should we WISH others to act in the given situation?
+It would be quite possible for a lustful man to be willing that
+unrestrained lust should be the general rule; he would be much more
+comfortable and freer if it were. There is nothing in the law of
+consistency to direct him; men might be consistently bad as well as
+consistently good. We have still no criterion, only an appeal to
+coolness, to detachment from hot impulses and selfishness.
+
+Practically, what the Kantian viewpoint amounts to is an exaltation
+of conscience-a much more concrete (and variable) thing than this
+abstract formula. Do your duty, at any cost! Our hearts respond to
+such preaching, but our intellects remain perplexed, if the practical
+apotheosis of goodness is not supplemented by an adequate theoretic
+justification thereof.
+
+What evils may go with conscientiousness?
+
+At this point it may repay us to note more carefully the inadequacy
+of that mere blind conscientiousness which is the practical burden
+of the Kantian teaching. One would think that the only source of our
+troubles lay in our lack of desire to do right! As a matter of fact,
+there is a vast amount of good will in the world which effects no good,
+or does serious harm, for want of wise direction. Much of the tragedy
+of life consists of the clashes between wills equally consecrated and
+pure. Conscientious cranks and blunderers are perhaps even more of
+a nuisance than out-and-out villains; they hurt every good cause they
+espouse and bring noble ideals into ridicule; they provoke discouragement
+and cynicism. There is hardly a folly or a crime that has not been
+committed prayerfully and with a clear conscience; the saint and the
+criminal are sometimes psychologically indistinguishable indeed,
+by which name we call a fanatic may depend upon which side we are on.
+We may discriminate among the types of perverted conscience:
+
+(1) The fanatical conscience, the meddling conscience, that feels a
+mission to stir up trouble. Under this head come the parents who
+interfere needlessly with their children's ways when different from
+their own, the breakers-up of love-affairs, the fault-finders, the
+militantly religious, all that great multitude of men who with prayer
+and tears have felt it their duty to override others' wills and impose
+their codes upon the world.
+
+(2) The obstructive conscience, that has become set and will not suffer
+change. Here we can put all the earnest "stand-patters," who resist
+innovation of every sort. Slaves of the particular standards that they
+happen to have grown up in, unable to conceive that their individual
+brand of religion may not be the ultimate truth, horror-struck at the
+suggestion that we should forsake the ways of our fathers, their
+conscientious conservatism stands like a rock in the way of progress.
+
+(3) The ascetic conscience, that overemphasizes the need of sacrifice,
+and deletes all the positive joy of life for the sake of freedom from
+possible pain. This particular misdirection of conscience is not
+prominent in contemporary life; but at certain periods, as among
+some of the mediaeval saints, or the early Puritans, this hypertrophy
+of conscience has been a serious blight.
+
+(4) The anxious conscience, that magnifies trifles and gives us no
+rest with its incessant suggestions, lest we forget, lest we forget.
+This type of over conscientiousness is a form of unhealthy self
+consciousness, a bane to its possessor and a nuisance to every
+one within range.
+
+These familiar evils that may go with the utmost good will show us
+that good will or conscientiousness is not enough. The conscientious
+man may not only leave undone important duties; his good will may lead
+him to push in exactly the wrong direction and do great harm. There
+are thus two ways of judging a man. First, did he do the best he knew?
+Did he live up to his conscience? Secondly, did he do what was really
+best? Was his conscience properly developed and directed? Our
+approval must often be divided; we may rate him high by the standard
+of conscientiousness, but low in his standard of morality. This is the
+familiar distinction between what is objectively right and what is
+subjectively right. An objectively right action is "one such that,
+if it be done, the total value of the universe will be at least as
+great as if any other possible alternative had been done by the agent";
+whereas "it is subjectively right for the agent to do what he judges
+to be most probably objectively right on his information"-whether he
+judges correctly or not. [Footnote: C. D. Broad in International
+Journal of Ethics, vol. 24, pp. 316, 320.] It may then be right (in
+one sense) for a man to do an act which is wrong (in the other sense)
+[Footnote: Strictly speaking, there are four possible usages of the
+word "right": An act is right which (a) is actually going to have the
+best consequences; which (b) might be expected, on our best human
+knowledge, to have the best consequences; which (c) the actor, on his
+partial information, and with his partial powers of judgment, expects
+to have the best consequences; or which (d) his conscience approves,
+without reference to consequences.] What is the justification of praise
+and blame? Kant was expressing a familiar thought when he wrote that
+a man deserved no praise for either instinctive or calculating acts.
+Why should we praise a man for doing what he wants to do, what is the
+most natural and easy thing for him to do, or what he can foresee will
+bring about desirable consequences? Should we not praise only the man
+who fights his inclinations, does right when he does not want to, and
+without foresight of ultimate gain?
+
+As a matter of fact, however, we do praise and admire and love the
+saints who do right easily and graciously. We do not refuse our
+admiration to Christ because it was his meat and drink, his deepest
+joy, to do his Father's work; nor do we imagine him as having to
+wrestle with inner devils of spitefulness and ill-temper. The type
+of character we rate highest is that from which all these lower impulses
+have been finally banished, the character that inevitably seeks the
+pure and the good. And on the other hand, as we have just seen, we
+often blame the man who, with the noblest intentions, and at great
+cost to himself, does what we consider wrong.
+
+It is thus true that our reactions of praise and blame are complicated
+and inconsistent. We often praise a man and blame him at the same time;
+praise him for following his conscience, and blame him for having a
+narrow and distorted conscience to follow. Different people in a
+community will praise or blame him according as they consider this
+or that aspect of his conduct. What, then, is the rationale of these
+emotion-reactions?
+
+Obviously, the same natural forces which have produced morality have,
+pari passu, produced these emotions; they are one of the great means
+by which men have been pushed into being moral. We praise people,
+ultimately, because it is socially useful to praise them; the
+approbation of one's fellows is one of the greatest possible incentives
+to right conduct. We blame people that they and others may be thereby
+deterred from wrongdoing. For ages these emotions have been arising
+in men's hearts, veering their fellows toward moral action. Neither
+blamer nor blamed has realized the purpose nature may be said to have
+had in view; the emotional reaction has been instinctive, like sneezing.
+But if it had not been for its eminent usefulness it would never have
+developed and become so deep-rooted in us. If blame did no good, if
+it did not tend to correct evildoing, it would be an unhappy and
+undesirable state of mind, to be weeded out, like malice or
+discouragement. Praise might be kept for its intrinsic worth, its
+agreeableness, like sweet odors and pleasant colors. But actually we
+need to conserve these reactions for their extrinsic value, as spurs
+and correctives.
+
+The man who acts upon a calculated expectation of consequences
+is, indeed, to be praised, if the ends he has sought are good and his
+calculation correct. Prudence, foresight, thoughtfulness are among
+the most important virtues. On the other hand, the man who does right
+instinctively is to be most admired; for to reach that goal is the aim of
+much of our inner struggle. The approbation we heap upon him, if not
+needed to keep him up to his best, at least is beneficial to others, who
+thereby may be stimulated to imitate his goodness. Any sort of conduct
+that is in line with human welfare is to be praised and loved and sung,
+and kept before the minds of the young and plastic.
+
+More deeply rooted, perhaps, than the disparagement of praise, is
+the compassionate revulsion from blame. "He meant well"; "His
+conscience is clear"; "How could he help sinning with such a
+bringing-up!" such pleas pull us up in the midst of our condemnation.
+And they must have their weight. Conscientiousness must be praised,
+while in the same breath we blame the folly or fanaticism it led to. And
+the visibly degrading effects of environment should make us tender
+toward the erring, even while, for their own sakes and the sake of
+others, we continue to blame the sin. Society cannot afford to overlook
+sin because it sees provocation for it. There is always provocation,
+there are always causes outside the sinner's heart. But there is also
+always a cause within the heart, an openness to temptation, and
+acquiescence in the evil impulse, which we must try to reach and
+influence by our blame and condemnation. No doubt in like
+circumstances we should do as badly, or worse. But to blame
+does not mean that we set ourselves up as of finer clay; it
+means only that we continue to use a weapon of great value
+for the advancement of human welfare. A man always "could
+have helped it" he could have if his inward aversion to the sin
+had been strong enough; and it is precisely because blame tends
+to make that aversion stronger in the sinner and in all who are
+aware of it, that we must employ it. Reward and punishment are
+the materialization of praise and blame and have the same uses.
+We reward and punish men not because in some unanalyzable
+sense they "deserve" it, but ultimately in order to foster noble and
+heroic acts and deter men from crime. The giving of rewards for
+good conduct has never been systematized (except for Carnegie
+medals, school prizes, and a few other cases), and the practical
+difficulties in the way are probably insuperable. Indeed, the natural
+outward rewards of fame, position, increased salary, etc, would be
+spur enough, if they could be made less capricious and more certain.
+But to restrain its members from injury to one another is so necessary
+to society, and so difficult, that elaborate systems of punishment have
+been used since prehistoric times. To a consideration of the
+contemporary problems concerning punishment we shall return
+at a later stage in our study.
+
+What is responsibility?
+
+There is one plea which exempts a person from blame- when we say
+he was not responsible. Responsibility means accountability, liability
+to blame and punishment. We do not hold accountable those classes
+whom it would do no good to blame or punish. Babies, the feeble
+minded, the insane, are not deterred by blame; hence we do not hold
+them responsible. Beyond these obvious exemptions there are all sorts
+of degrees of responsibility, carefully worked out in that branch of the
+law known as "torts." The principle upon which man has instinctively
+gone, and which the law now recognizes, in holding men accountable
+or, in other words, imputing responsibility-is the degree in which they
+might have been expected to foresee the consequences of their acts.
+The following set of cases will illustrate the principle:
+
+(1) We do not hold a man responsible at all for unforeseeable results
+of his action. If because of turning his cows into pasture a passing
+dog gets excited and tramples a neighbor's flower-bed, the owner of
+the cows is not responsible for the damage; it would do no good to
+exact punishment for what was so indirectly and unexpectedly due to
+his action.
+
+(2) But if his cows got over the wall and trampled the beds, he would
+be held responsible, in different degrees, according to the
+circumstances. If he had inspected the wall with eyes of experience
+and honestly thought it would keep the cows in, we deem him only slightly
+responsible. He could have done nothing more; yet he must learn more
+accurately to distinguish safe walls from unsafe. It is fairer for
+him to pay for the damage than for the owner of the flower- bed to
+suffer the loss; such risks must be assumed as a part of the business
+of keeping cows.
+
+(3) If he was ignorant of the necessary height or strength of wall,
+we blame him more. He has no business-keeping cows until he knows all
+aspects of the business.
+
+(4) If there was a gap in the wall which he would have noticed if he
+had taken ordinary care, we hold him still further to blame, and his
+punishment must be severer.
+
+(5) If he remembered the gap in the wall and did not take the trouble
+to repair it, thereby consenting to the damage his cows might do, his
+case is still worse.
+
+(6) Finally, if he deliberately turned the cows into his field with
+the hope that they would go through the gap and damage his neighbor's
+flower-beds, he is the most dangerous type of criminal, of "malice
+aforethought," and his punishment must be severest of all.
+
+In such ways do we distinguish between traits of character more and
+more dangerous to society, and adjust our blame and punishment to their
+different degrees of danger, and the differing degrees of efficacy
+that the blame and punishment may have. But throughout these are purely
+utilitarian, an unhappy necessity for the preservation of human
+welfare.
+
+On goodness of character: Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. XII. F.
+Paulsen, System of Ethics, book II, chap, I, secs. 3, 5. Leslie
+Stephen, Science of Ethics, chap. VII.
+
+The Kantian theory: Kant's Metaphysic of Morality. A good edition in
+English is Abbott's Kant's Theory of Ethics. There are many discussions
+of his theory. An interesting recent one is Felix Adler's, in Essays
+Philosophical and Psychological in Honor of William James; see also
+the chapter of Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, above mentioned; Paulsen, System
+of Ethics, book II, chap. V, secs. 3, 4; American Journal of Psychology,
+vol. 8, p. 528. On responsibility: Mezes, op. cit, pp. 29-35.
+Sutherland, op. cit, vol. II, chap. XVIII. Alexander, Moral Order
+and Progress, book III, chap, III, sec.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+THE SOLUTION OF PERSONAL PROBLEMS
+
+PERSONAL morality is the way to live the most desirable, the
+most intrinsically valuable, life-in the long run, and in view of the
+inescapable needs and conditions of human welfare; the way to
+avoid the snares and pitfalls of impulse and attain those sweetest
+goods that come only through effort and sacrifice of lesser goods.
+That is what morality is, with reference to the single individual alone,
+and that is ample justification for it. A recent writer phrases it as
+follows: "I would define goodness as doing what one would wish
+one had done in twenty years-twenty years, twenty days, twenty
+minutes, twenty seconds, according to the time the action takes
+to get ripe Perhaps when we stop teasing people and take
+goodness seriously. and calmly, and see that goodness is
+essentially imagination that it is brains, that it is thinking down
+through to what one really wants goodness will begin to be more
+coveted. Except among people with almost no brains or imagination
+at all, it will be popular." [Footnote: Gerald Stanley Lee. Cf. also G.
+Lowes Dickinson, The Meaning of Good, p. 141. Of morality he
+says: "Its specific quality consists in the refusal to seize some
+immediate and inferior good with a view to the attainment of one
+that is remoter but higher".] The difference between the moral and
+the immoral man is not that the latter allows himself to enjoy pleasant
+and exciting phases of experience which the former denies himself
+for the sake of some good lying outside of experience, but that the
+latter indulges himself in any agreeable sensation that he chances
+to desire, while the former conflict with greater, being content not
+with any goods that may come to hand, but only with the attainable
+best. [Footnote: Cf. G. Santayana, Reason in Science, pp. 252-53:
+"Happiness is hidden from a free and casual will; it belongs rather
+to one chastened by a long education and unfolded in an
+atmosphere of sacred and perfected institutions. It is discipline that
+renders men rational and capable of happiness, by suppressing without
+hatred what needs to be suppressed to attain a beautiful naturalness."]
+What are the inadequacies of instinct and impulse that necessitate
+morality? It would seem as if the best way to live should be obvious
+and irresistible in its appeal. But in truth we are commonly very blind
+and foolish about this business of living; we lack wisdom, and we
+lack motive-power at the right place. Instinct is altogether too clumsy
+and impulse too uncertain. We need a more delicate adjustment; for
+this, intelligence and conscience have been developed. Morality is
+the way of life that intelligence and conscience oppose to instinct
+and impulse. Not to be guided by their wisdom is to forfeit our
+birthright, like Esau, for a mere mess of pottage. Some of the main
+types of difficulty that necessitate their overruling guidance we may
+now note.
+
+(1) Our impulses are often deceptive. What promises keen
+pleasure turns flat in the tasting; what threatens pain may prove our
+greatest joy. Most men are led astray at one time or other by some
+delusory good, some ignis fatuus-whoring, money-making, fame are
+among the commonest which has fascinated them, from the thought
+of which they cannot tear themselves away, but which brings no
+proportionate pleasure in realization, or an evanescent pleasure
+followed by lasting regret. "Pleasures are like poppies spread,
+You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed".
+
+All sorts of insidious consequences follow secretly in the train of
+innocent-seeming acts; the value of following a given impulse is
+complicated in many ways of which the impulse itself does not inform
+us. We are the frequent victims of a sort of inward mirage, and have
+to learn to discount our hopes and fears. Morality is the corrector
+of these false valuatiens; it discriminates for us between real and
+counterfeit goods, teaches us to discount the pictures of our
+imagination and see the gnawed bones on the beach where the
+sirens sing.
+
+(2) Our impulses often clash. And since, as we have just said, the
+relative worth to us of the acts is not always accurately represented
+by the impulses, we need to stand off and compare them impartially.
+No single passion must be allowed to run amuck; the opposing voices,
+however feeble, must be heard. When desires are at loggerheads, when
+a deadlock of interests arises-an almost daily occurrence when life'
+is kept at a white heat-there must be some moderator, some governing
+power. Morality is the principle of coordination, the harmonizer, the
+arbitrator of conflicting claims.
+
+(3) We often lack impulses which would add much to the worth of our
+lives; we are blind to all sorts of opportunities for rich and joyous
+living. We need to develop our latent needs, to expand our natures
+to their full potentiality, to learn to love many things we have not
+cared for. In general we ignore the joys that we have not ourselves
+experienced or imagined, and those which belong to a different realm
+from that of our temporary enthusiasms. A lovesick swain, an opium
+fiend, are utterly unable to respond to the lure of outdoor sport or
+the joy of the well-doing of work; these joys, though perhaps
+acknowledged as real possibilities for them, fail to attract their
+wills, touch no chord in them, have no influence on their choices.
+Morality is the great eye-opener and insistent reminder of ignored
+goods.
+
+(4) We often have perverted impulses. We inherit disharmonies from
+other conditions of life, like the vermiform appendix and the many
+other vestigial organs which have come down to us only for harm. In
+general we inherit bodies and brains fairly well organized for our
+welfare; but there are still atavisms to be ruthlessly stamped out.
+The craving for stimulants or drugs, sexual perversions, kleptomania,
+pyromania, and the other manias, bad temper, jealousy- there is a good
+deal of the old Adam in us which is just wholly bad and to be utterly
+done away with; rebellious impulses that are hopelessly at war with
+our own good and must go the way of cannibalism and polygamy. Morality
+is the stern exterminator of all such enemies of human welfare.
+
+What factors are to be considered in estimating the worth of personal
+moral ideals?
+
+This summary consideration of the obstacles that block the path to
+happiness through the heedless following of impulse, shows the
+necessity of moral ideals; that is to say, of directive codes which
+shall steer the will through the tumultuous seas of haphazard desire
+into the harbor of its true welfare. How, then, can we decide between
+conflicting ideals and estimate their relative value? It can only be
+by judging through experience the degree of happiness which they
+severally effect in the situations to which they are to be applied.
+But there are many factors which contribute to or detract from that
+happiness in its totality; and a proper estimation of ideals must note
+the degree in which they provide for each possible element of
+satisfaction.
+
+(1) In the first place, the mere fact of yielding to
+an impulse, of whatever sort, brings a relief from craving, and a
+momentary satisfaction. Just to do what we wish to do is, negatively
+at least, a good; and in so far every act desired is really desirable.
+An ideal which crosses inclination must have this initial price debited
+against it. At times the restlessness of pent-up longing is so great
+that it pays to gratify it even at some cost of pain or loss. But in
+general, desire can be modified to fit need; and rational ideals rather
+than silly wishes must guide us. It is dangerous to lay much stress
+on the urgency of desire, and almost always possible with a little
+firmness to hush the blind yearning and replace it with more ultimately
+satisfying desires.
+
+(2) Normally, however, our desires represent real goods, which must
+bulk much larger in our calculation than the mere relief of yielding
+to the impulse. Not only is it ipso facto good to have what we want,
+but what we want is usually something that can directly or indirectly
+give us pleasure. The pleasure, then, to be attained through following
+this or that impulse is to be estimated, both in its intensity and
+its duration. The certainty or uncertainty of its attainment may also
+legitimately be considered. And this pleasure, though it is but one
+phase of the total situation, must be taken seriously into account
+in our appraisal of ideals which permit or forbid it.
+
+(3) A further question is as to the purity of this pleasure, i.e,
+its freedom from mixture with pain. Most selfish and sensual pleasures,
+however keen, are so interwoven with restlessness, shame, or
+dissatisfaction, or so inevitably accompanied by a revulsion of
+feeling, disgust or loathing, that they must be sharply discounted
+in our calculus. Whereas intellectual, aesthetic, religious pleasures
+are generally free from such intermixture of pain, and so, though milder,
+on the whole preferable even in their immediacy and apart from ultimate
+consequences.
+
+(4) But the most imperious need of life lies in the tracing-out and
+paying heed to these extrinsic values, these after effects of conduct.
+The drinking of alcoholic liquors, for example, not only stills a
+craving that arises in a man's mind, not only brings pleasure of taste
+and comfort of oblivion, not only brings the quick revulsion of
+emotional staleness and headache, but has its gradual and inevitable
+effects in undermining the constitution, lessening the power of
+resistance to disease, and decreasing the vitality of offspring. Quite
+commonly these ultimate consequences are the most important, and so
+the determining, factors in deciding our ideals. Among them may be
+included the influence of single acts in increasing or decreasing the
+power to resist future temptations, and the gradual paralysis of the
+will through unchecked self-indulgence.
+
+(5) Another important aspect of any moral situation lies in the
+rejection which every choice involves. Not only must we ask what a
+given impulse has to offer us, in immediate and remote satisfaction;
+we must consider what alternative goods its adoption precludes. What
+might we have been doing with our time and strength or money? Is this
+act not only a good one, is it the best one for that moment of our
+lives? An important function of ideals is to point us to realms of
+happiness into which our preexisting impulses might never have led
+us, and whose existence we might scarcely have suspected.
+
+(6) Finally, we may ask of every proposed line of conduct, what will
+be its worth to us in memory? Not only in our leisure hours, but in
+a current of subconscious reflection that accompanies our active life,
+we constantly live in the presence of our past. And the nature of memory
+is such that it cannot well retain the traces of certain of our keenest
+pleasures, but can continually feed us upon other joys of our past.
+It is imperative, then, for a happy life, so to live that the years
+are pleasant to look back upon. Vicious self-indulgence and selfishness
+are rarely satisfying in retrospection, whereas all courage and heroism
+and tenderness are a source of unending comfort. For better or worse,
+we are, and cannot shirk being, judges of our own conduct. We may be
+prejudiced, and may properly try to correct our prejudices; we may
+discount our own disapprovals, and seek to escape from our own self-
+condemnation. But after all, we must live with ourselves; and it pays
+to aim to please not only the evanescent impulses whose disapproval
+will soon be forgotten, but that more deeply rooted and insistent
+judgment that cannot wholly be stilled. Regret and remorse are among
+the greatest poisoners of happiness, and prospective ideals must bear
+that truth in mind. "No matter what other elements in any moment of
+consciousness may tend to give it agreeable tone, if there is not the
+element of approval, there is not yet any deep, wide, and lasting
+pleasantness for consciousness. A flash of light here, a casual word
+there, and it is gone. "Just when we are safest, there's a sunset-
+touch; A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death, A chorus ending
+from Euripides, And that's enough" to bring the shock of disapproval,
+and with it disagreeable feeling- tone continues till disapproval is
+removed or approval is won. If there be won this approval, other
+elements of disagreeableness, however great, can be endured. The
+massive movement of the complex unified consciousness of a Socrates
+drinking hemlock, of a Jesus dying on the cross, whatever strong eddies
+of pain there be in it, is still toned agreeably, as it makes head
+conqueringly toward that end which each has ideally constructed as
+fit." [Footnote: H. G. Lord, in Essays Philosophical and Psychological
+in Honor of William James, p. 388-89.] No reference has been made,
+in this summary of the factors which determine our estimate of the
+worth of personal ideals, to the bearing of these ideals upon other
+people's lives. Actually, of course, the social values of even primarily
+personal ideals are impossible to overlook, and often bulk larger than
+the merely personal values. This whole side of the matter will be left
+for convenience, however, to the following chapter.
+
+Epicureanism vs. Puritanism.
+
+Personal ideals have swung historically between two magnets, richness
+and purity, self-expression and self-repression, indulgence and
+asceticism. The crux of the individual's problem is the question how
+much repression is necessary; and man's answer has wavered somewhere
+between these extremes, which we may designate by the names of their
+best-known exemplars, Epicureanism and Puritanism. Many differences
+in degree or detail there have been, of course, in the various historic
+embodiments of these ideals; but for the sake of making clear the
+fundamental contrast we may neglect these individual divergences and
+group together those on the one hand who have called men to a fuller,
+completer life and those who have summoned them to an austerer and
+purer life, free from taint of sin and regret. We shall then put in
+the first group such well-known seers and poets as Epicurus, Lucretius,
+Horace, Goethe, Shelley, Byron, Walter Pater, Walt Whitman; we shall
+think of the Greek gods, of the Renaissance artists, the English
+cavaliers. We shall think of the motto, "Carpe diem," and "Gather ye
+rosebuds while ye may"; and perhaps of Stevenson's
+
+"The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all
+be as happy as kings." [Footnote: An excellent brief plea for this
+ideal of the life that shall be rich in experience can be found in
+Walter Pater's Renaissance, the "Conclusion."] In contrast to these
+followers are afraid of impulse, those who warn and rebuke and seek
+to save life from its pitfalls. We shall think of Buddha, the Stoics,
+the Hebrew prophets, the mediaeval saints, Dante and Savonarola, the
+English and American Puritans, or, in modern times, of Tolstoy. The
+ideal of such men is expressed not by the wholesomely happy and carefree
+Greek gods, but by haloed saint, by the calm-eyed Buddha of Eastern
+lands, by the figure of Christ on the cross. The answer to the
+Epicurean's heedlessness is expressed in such lines as "What is this
+world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright."
+
+It is condensed in the familiar "Respice finem"; the peace of its self-
+denial shines out in Christ's "Not my will but thine," and in Dante's
+"In His will is our peace." Meager and cold and repellent as this ideal
+in its extreme expressions often seems, it appeals to us as the softer
+and irresponsible ideal of the Epicureans cannot. But obviously our
+way lies between the extremes. And after all that has now been said,
+our summary of the dangers inherent in each ideal may be very brief.
+
+What are the evils in undue self-indulgence?
+
+Apart from the selfishness of self-indulgence, which is obvious upon
+the surface, but with which we are not now concerned,
+
+(1) Self-indulgence, if unbridled, leads almost inevitably to pain,
+disease, and premature death. For in the majority of men there are
+certain instincts so strong and so dangerous -as, the sex-instinct,
+the craving for stimulants and excitement-that where no repressive
+principle exists they tend to override the grumblings of prudence and
+drag their possessor to disaster. It is impossible for most men, if
+they give themselves over to the pursuit of personal pleasure, to keep
+to the quiet, refined, healthful pleasures which Epicurus advocated.
+Their feet go down to death.
+
+(2) But even if the worst penalties are escaped, indulgence brings
+at least satiety, the "heart high cloyed," a blunted capacity for
+enjoyment, ennui, restlessness, and depression of spirit. Keen as its
+zest may be at the outset, it is short-lived at best; and with the
+ensuing emotional fatigue, pleasures pall, life seems empty, robbed
+of its meaning and glory.
+
+(3) Moreover, pleasure-seeking is cursed with the specter of
+aimlessness; it entirely misses the deepest and most satisfying joys
+of life, the joy of healthy, unspent forces and desires, the joy of
+purpose and achievement, the joy of the pure, disciplined, loyal life.
+It renders these joys unattainable; we cannot serve God and sense,
+ideals and lusts of the flesh. The parting of the ways lies before
+every man; and it is the perennial tragedy of life that so many, misled
+by impulse and blinded by desire, fail to see the beauty of holiness
+and choose the lesser good.
+
+(4) Especially as we grow older does it matter less and less what
+evanescent enjoyments we have had, and more and more what we have
+accomplished. Our happiness lies increasingly with the years in the
+memory, subconscious most of the time but constantly potent in its
+influence, of our past. To have gratified the senses, to have tasted
+the superficial delights of life, to have yielded to the tug of desire,
+leaves little in the way of satisfaction behind; but to have done
+something worthy, to have lived nobly, even to have fought and failed,
+is a lasting honor and joy.
+
+What are the evils in undue self-repression?
+
+Asceticism, like self-indulgence, is selfish. It asks, "What shall
+I do to be saved?" rather than "What shall I do to serve?" Endlessly
+preoccupied with the endeavor not to do wrong, the ascetics have failed
+to do the positive good they ought. The grime that comes through loving
+service is better than the stainlessness of inactivity; as the poet
+Spenser puts it, "Entire affection hateth nicer hands." And the
+emphasis upon freedom from taint of sin tends to produce a scorn of
+others who do not thus deny themselves, a self-righteousness and
+Pharisaism, a callousness to others, which distorts the judgment as
+well as dries up the sympathies.
+
+But apart from these dangers, and from a purely personal point of view,
+asceticism has its evil side.
+
+(1) An overemphasis upon self-denial sacrifices unnecessarily the
+sweetness and richness of life, stunts it, distorts it, robs it of
+its natural fruition. The denial of any satisfaction is cruel except
+as it is necessary. Purity, carried to a needless extreme, became
+celibacy; the virtue of frugality became the vice of a starvation diet,
+producing the emaciated and weakened saints; the unworldliness which
+can be in the world but not of it was transformed into the morbidly
+lonely and futile isolation of the hermits. These are abnormal and
+undesirable perversions of human nature.
+
+(2) A reaction from needless repression is almost inevitable. The
+attempt radically to alter and repress human nature is nearly always
+disastrous. Most of the ascetics had to pass their days in constant
+struggles against their temptations, and many of them recurrently
+lapsed into wild orgies of sin, the result of pent-up impulses denied
+their natural channels. Morality should be rather directive than
+repressive, using all of our energies for wise and noble ends, and
+overcoming evil with good. A merely negative morality implies the
+continual dwelling of attention upon sin and the continual rebellion
+of desire. It keeps the soul in a state of unstable equilibrium, and
+defeats its own ends.
+
+R. B. Perry, Moral Economy, chap, II, secs, II, III; chap, III, secs,
+II, III, IV. F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book III, chap. II. S. E.
+Mezes, Ethics, chap, X, XI, Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap, XVIII, secs.
+1, 2, 4; chap, XIX, sees. 1, 2, 4. Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy,
+chap. IV. H. C. King, Rational Living, pp. 93-102. W. dew. Hyde, The
+Five Great Philosophies of Life, chaps, I-IV. H. Bashdall, Theory of
+Good and Evil, book II, chap. III.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+THE SOLUTION OP SOCIAL PROBLEMS
+
+DUTY, like charity, begins at home; and we need to take the motes out
+of our own eyes before we can see clearly how to help our fellows.
+To keep physically well, pure, and prudent, following worthy purposes
+and smothering unruly desires, is our first business; and there would
+be much less to do for one another if every one did his duty by himself.
+
+But even with our best endeavors we need a helping hand now and then,
+and, indeed, are continuously dependent upon the work and kindness
+of others for all that makes life tolerable, or even possible. And
+the other side to this truth is that we are never free from the
+obligation of doing our duty squarely by those whose welfare is in
+some degree dependent upon us. No man can, if he would, live to himself
+alone; life is necessarily and essentially social. Personal and social
+duties are so inextricably interwoven that it is impossible except
+by an artificial abstraction to separate them. The cultivation of one's
+own health, for example, is a boon to the community; and to care for
+the community's health is to safeguard one's own. Every advance in
+personal purity, culture, or self-control increases the individual's
+value and diminishes his menace to his fellows; while every step in
+social amelioration makes life freer and more comfortable for him.
+So close- knit is society today that an indifference to sanitation
+in Asia or a religious persecution in Russia may produce disastrous
+results to some innocent and utterly indifferent individual in
+Massachusetts or California. On the other hand, there is no vice so
+solitary and so can widespread social results. [Footnote: Cf. George
+Eliot in Adam Bede: "There is no sort of wrong deed of which a man
+can bear the punishment alone. Men's lives are as thoroughly blended
+as the air they breathe; evil spreads as necessarily as disease."]
+Society has a vital interest in the personal life of its members, and
+every member, however self- contained he may be, has a vital interest
+in the general standards of morality. For purposes of analysis, however,
+it is convenient to make the distinction between the two aspects of
+morality, the governance of intra-human and of inter-human relations;
+the ordering of the single life and the ordering of the community life.
+Of the two the latter is even more imperative than the former, the
+arbitration of clashes between individuals even more difficult than
+the governing of the impulses within a single heart. We turn, therefore,
+to consider the problems involved in the general conception of social
+morality, which we may define as the direction of the action of each
+toward the greatest attainable welfare of all. Why should we be
+altruistic? That altruism (action directed toward others' welfare)
+is best for the community as a whole is obvious. In order to maintain
+his life in the face of the many obstacles that thwart and dangers
+that threaten him, man must present a solid front to the universe.
+All clashes of interest, friction, and civil strife, all withholding
+of help, means a weakening of his united forces, an invitation to
+disaster. And even where life becomes relatively secure and individualism
+possible, the greatest good for the greatest number is attainable only
+by continual cooperation and mutual sacrifice. So vital is it to each
+member of the community that selfishness and cruelty in others be
+repressed, that society cannot afford to leave at least the grosser
+forms of egoism unpunished. Men must enforce upon one another that
+mutual regard which individuals are constantly tempted to ignore, but
+without which no man's life can find its adequate fulfillment or
+security. No man, then, can be called moral, can be said to have found
+a comprehensive solution of life, however self-controlled and pure
+he may be, if he is cruel, or even lacking in consideration for others.
+This is the most glaring defect in both Epicureanism and asceticism;
+both are fundamentally selfish. For the proper adjustment of life to
+its needs we must turn rather to Christianity, or to Buddhism, with
+their ideals of service; to the patriotic ideals of the noblest Greeks;
+to Kant, with his "So act as to treat humanity, whether in their own
+person or in that of any other, as an end, never as a means only";
+or to the British utilitarians with their "Every one to count for one,
+and only one." The question, however, persistently recurs, Why should
+the INDIVIDUAL be altruistic? What does HE get out of it? To this we
+may reply:
+
+(1) The life of service is, in normal cases, a happier life in itself
+than the life that is preoccupied with self. It is richer, fuller in
+potentialities of joy; it is freer from regrets and the eventual
+emptiness of the self-centered life. [Footnote: Cf. Mill,
+Utilitarianism, chap. 2: "When people who are tolerably fortunate in
+their outward lot do not find in life sufficient enjoyment to make
+it valuable to them, the cause generally is, caring for nobody but
+themselves."] It is saner, less likely to be veered off on some tangent
+of morbid and ultimately disastrous indulgence
+
+(2) The altruistic life earns the gratitude and love of others, while
+the selfish life remains isolated, unloved, without their stimulus
+and help. Ingratitude there is, of course, and the returning of evil
+for good; on the other hand, the selfish man may hope for undeserved
+forgiveness and even love from his fellows. But in the long run it
+pays to be good to others; bread cast upon the waters does return after
+many days; normally unkindness provokes dislike, contempt, open
+hostility, retaliation, while kindness finds a natural and proper reward
+in return favors, esteem, and affection. No man can tell when he will
+be in need of sympathy or of aid; it is folly so to live as to forfeit
+our fellows' good will. And finally, selfishness carried beyond a certain
+point brings the penalty not only of the unfavorable opinion and
+private retaliations of others, but of the publicly enforced law. "In
+normal cases," we have said. And we must add that there are cases
+though they are less common than we are apt to suppose in which the
+good of the individual is hopelessly at variance with that of the
+community. If our fellows could be counted on for a fair reciprocity
+of self-denial and service, we should not begrudge these necessary
+sacrifices. The sting lies not so much in the loss of personal
+pleasures as in the lack of appreciation and return; to do our part
+when others are not doing theirs takes, indeed, a touch of saintliness.
+Socrates drinking the hemlock, Jesus dying in agony on the cross,
+Regulus returning to be tortured at Carthage, were deliberately
+sacrificing their personal welfare for the good of other men. And in
+numberless ways a host of heroic men and women have practiced and are
+daily practicing unrewarded self-denial in the name of love and
+service, self-denial which by no means always brings a joy commensurate
+with the pain. These are the abnormal cases; but the abnormal is, after
+all, not so very uncommon. And for these men and women we must grieve,
+while we honor and admire them and hold them up for imitation. Society
+must insist on just such sacrifices when they are necessary for the
+good of the whole, and must so train its youth that they will be
+willing to make them when needful.
+
+What is the exact meaning of selfishness and unselfishness?
+
+Selfishness is the pursuance of one's own good at the expense of
+others. A mistaken idea, which it is necessary to guard against, is
+that selfishness must be conscious, deliberate. It is not uncommon
+for a person accused of selfishness to say, or think, "This is an unjust
+accusation; I have not had a selfish thought!" But unconscious
+selfishness is by far the commoner sort; millions of essentially good-
+hearted people are guilty of selfish acts through thoughtlessness and
+stagnant sympathy. Conscious cruelty is rare compared with moral
+insensibility. It cannot be too often repeated that selfishness is
+not a way of feeling about people, it is a way of acting toward them.
+To be wholly free from selfish conduct necessitates insight into the
+needs and feelings of others as well as a vague good will toward them.
+The girl who allows her mother to drudge that she may have immaculate
+clothes, the mother who keeps her son at home when he ought to be given
+the opportunity of a wider life, is conscious only of love; but she
+is really putting her own happiness before that of the loved one. The
+owner of the vilest tenement houses is sometimes a generous and
+benevolent-minded man, the luxuriously rich are often honest and glad
+to confer favors, the political boss is full of the milk of human
+kindness; but the superficial or adventitious altruism of such men
+should not blind us to their fundamental, though often entirely
+unrealized, selfishness. A complementary fallacy is that which denies
+the epithet "unselfish" to a man who enjoys helping others. Who has
+not heard the cynical remark, "There's nothing unselfish about
+So-and-So's benevolence that is his enjoyment in life!" Such a comment
+ignores the fact that the goal of moral progress lies precisely at
+the point where we shall all enjoy doing what it is our duty to do.
+Altruistic impulses are our own impulses, as well as egoistic ones;
+the distinction between them lies not in the pleasure they may give
+to their possessor, or the sacrifice they may demand, but in the
+objective results they tend to attain. Happy is the man whose DELIGHT
+is in the law of the Lord! Unselfish action is, in the broader sense,
+all action that is not selfish; in the narrower and positive sense,
+it is all action that tends to the welfare of others at the expense
+of the narrower interests of the individual.
+
+Are altruistic impulses always right?
+
+It would be an easy solution for our problems if we could say, "In
+every case follow the altruistic impulse." But this simplification
+is impossible; the ideal of service is not such an Open Sesame to our
+duty. And this for several reasons:
+
+(1) There are frequently clashes between altruistic impulses. In fact,
+almost all moral errors have some unselfish impulse on their side which
+helps to justify them in the eyes of the sinner and his friends. The
+politician who gets the best jobs for his supporters, the legislator
+who puts through a special statute to favor his constituents, the jingo
+who helps push his country into war for its "honor" or "glory"-these
+and a host of other wrongdoers are conscious of a genuine altruistic
+glow. They ignore the fact that they are doing, on the whole, more
+harm than good to others, because the smaller group that is apparently
+benefited looms larger to the eye than the more widely distributed
+and less directly affected sufferers.
+
+All of our most vexing moral problems are those in which benefit to
+some must be weighed against benefit to others. Shall a man who is
+needed by his family risk his life to save a ne'er-do-well? Shall we
+insist that people unhappily married shall endure their wretchedness
+and forego the possibility of a happier union in order that
+heedlessness and license may not be encouraged in the lives of others?
+Life is full of such two- sided problems; it is not enough that an
+act may bring good to some, it must be the act that brings most good
+to most.
+
+(2) An apparently altruistic act, dictated by sympathy, and productive
+of happiness, may not be for the ultimate good of the very person made
+happy. To give everything they want to children is inevitably to
+"spoil" them, as we rightly say; to spoil their own happiness in the
+long run as well as their usefulness to others. To condone another's
+sin and save him the unpleasantness of rebuke or the inflicting of
+a penalty is often the worst thing that could be done to him. To give
+alms to a beggar may mean to assist his moral degeneration and in the
+long run increase his misery.
+
+(3) Even when an act superficially egoistic conflicts with one that
+seems altruistic, the greatest good of the community often dictates
+the former. There is, as Trumbull used to put it, a "duty of refusing
+to do good." A man who can best serve the common good by concentrating
+his strength on that work where his particular ability or training
+makes him most effective, may be justified in refusing other calls
+upon his energies, however intrinsically worthy. An Edison would be
+doing wrong to spend his afternoons in social service, a Burbank has
+no right to diminish his resources by giving a public library. Emerson
+deserves our commendation for refusing to be inveigled into the various
+causes that would have drafted his time and strength. Even to the
+anti-slavery agitation he refused his services, saying, "I have quite
+other slaves to free than those Negroes, to wit, imprisoned thoughts
+far back in the brain of man, which have no watchman or lover or defender
+but me." This brings us to the question how far a man may legitimately
+live a self- contained life. Certainly there is a measure of truth
+in Goethe's saying, "No man can he isolates himself"; in Ibsen's "The
+most powerful man is he who is most alone"; and in Matthew Arnold's
+
+"Alone the sun rises, and alone Spring the great streams."
+
+A multiplicity of interests distracts the soul and often confuses our
+ideals. By keeping free from social burdens some men, like Kant, have
+accomplished tasks of unusual magnitude.
+
+On the other hand, we can match Goethe's assertion with another of
+his own: "A talent forms itself in solitude, a character in the stream
+of the world." Isolation tends almost inevitably to narrowness, to
+an abnormal and cramped outlook, to willfulness or Pharisaism, and
+usually to loneliness and depression. The only pervasively happy life
+for man is the life of cooperation and loyalty. We may well "withdraw
+into the silence," take our daily communion with God in our closets,
+or our forty days in the wilderness, to win clearer vision and steadier
+purpose. But solitude should, in normal cases, be only an interlude
+of rest, or a quiet maturing for service. The ideal is perhaps expressed
+in Wordsworth's sonnet on Milton:
+
+"Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart. .... And yet thy heart The
+lowliest duties on herself did lay."
+
+The organization of life implies a criticism of and control over
+altruistic as well as egoistic impulses. There is nothing inherent
+in the fact of a good being OTHERS' good to make it necessarily the
+greatest good in a given situation. The ultimate criterion must always
+be the greatest good of the greatest number; but an altruistic as well
+as an egoistic impulse may stand in the way of that end. Our altruistic
+inclinations are often perverted, non-representative, a matter of
+instinctive and irrational sympathy or shortsighted impulse. And so,
+while one of the great tasks of moral education is to make men
+unselfish, that alone is not enough; unselfishness must be directed
+by reason and tact, rendered far-sighted and intelligent.
+
+What mental and moral obstacles hinder altruistic action?
+
+Although an altruistic impulse is not necessarily a right impulse to
+follow, there are a great many altruistic duties which are clear and
+summoning; and it is a never ending disappointment to the man of social
+conscience to behold the apathy wherewith obvious social duties are
+regarded. It will be worthwhile to pause and note the chief mental
+and moral obstacles that prevent a more general devotion to social
+betterment.
+
+(1) The most formidable obstacle, perhaps, is the selfishness of those
+who are themselves .well enough off. Our cities, and even, to some
+extent, our small towns, grow up in "quarters"; the rich living in
+one district and the poor in another. This permits the suffering of
+the latter to go unknown or only half-realized by the former. The
+well-to- do have many interests and many pleasant uses for their money;
+the call of the unfortunate-"Come over and help us!"- rings faint and
+far away in their ears. Or they may excuse their callousness by the
+assertion that the poor are used to their evil living conditions, do
+not mind them, and are as contented, on the whole, as the rich;
+complacently ignoring the fact that being used to conditions is not
+the same as enjoying or profiting by them, and that contentment by
+no means implies a useful or desirable life. It is true that the needy
+are often but dimly conscious of their needs; in that very fact lies
+a reason why the favored classes should rouse them out of their dullness,
+save them from the physical and moral degeneration into which they
+so unconsciously and helplessly drift. The indifference of the fortunate
+comes not so often from a deliberate hardening of the heart as from
+a lack of contact with the needy or imagination to picture their
+destitution. But blame must rest upon all comfortable citizens who
+do not bestir themselves to help in social betterment because it is
+too much trouble or requires a sacrifice they are not willing to make.
+
+(2) Another serious obstacle lies in the distrust with which many
+people regard any duty which they have not been accustomed to regard
+as a duty. This may take the form of an overdeveloped loyalty, that
+bows before the sacredness of existing institutions and labels any
+reform as "unconstitutional," a departure from the ways that were good
+enough for our fathers. It may wear the guise of a lazy piety that
+would leave everything with God, accepting social ills as manifestations
+of his will, and interference as a sort of arrogant presumption! It
+may be a mere mental apathy, an inertia of habit, that sees no call
+for a better water supply or bothersome laws about the purity of milk.
+Or it may defend itself by pointing out the uncertainties that attend
+untried ways and warning against the danger of experimentation. To
+these warnings we may reply that our altruistic zeal must, indeed,
+be coupled with accurate thinking; unless we have based our proposals
+on wide observation and cautious inference we may find unexpected and
+baneful results in the place of our sanguine expectations. But we may
+point out that it is "nothing venture nothing have"; we cannot work
+out our social salvation without experimenting; and, after all, ways
+that do not work well can readily be discontinued. What is vital is
+to keep alive an intolerance of apathy and contentment, to realize
+that we are hardly more than on the threshold of a rational civilization,
+to recognize evils, cherish ideals, and maintain our determination
+in some way to actualize them.
+
+(3) A further steady damper upon our altruistic zeal is the dread of
+raising the taxes. Humanitarian movements are well enough, but they
+cost so much! What is needful is to point out that poverty,
+unemployment, disease, and the other social ills are also costly;
+indeed, they cost the public in the long run far more than the
+expenditure necessary for their abolition or alleviation. It pays in
+dollars and cents, within a generation or two at least, to make and
+keep the social organism sound. A wise altruism is not merely a matter
+of philanthropy; it is also a matter of economy; a means of saving
+individuals from suffering, but at the same time a means of
+safeguarding the public treasury. If the community does not pay for
+the curing of these evils it will have to pay for their results. "It
+seems to me essentially fallacious to look upon such expenditures as
+indulgences to be allowed rather sparingly to such communities as are
+rich enough to afford them. They are literally a husbanding of
+resources, a safeguard against later unprofitable but compulsory
+expenditure, a repair in the social organism which, like the repair
+of a leaky roof, may avert disaster." [Footnote: E. T. Devine, Misery
+and its Causes, p. 272.] The public must be educated to see the wisdom
+of investing heavily in long-neglected social repairs and reconstruction,
+which in the end will far more than pay for itself in the lowering
+of expenses for police, courts, prisons, hospitals, asylums, and
+almshouses, in the lowered death-rate, immunity from costly disease,
+and increased working capacity of the people.
+
+(4) Finally, a hopelessness of accomplishing anything often paralyzes
+our zeal. This sometimes takes the form of a more or less honest
+conviction that poverty, unemployment, and other maladjustments are
+simply the result of moral degeneration-of the laziness, extravagance,
+drinking, or other wrongdoing of the poor; their suffering is their
+own fault, and they must be left to endure it. Of course such factors
+often-though by no means always-enter in. One may well say, "Who are
+we of the upper classes to throw the first stone?" Under like conditions
+most of us would have become as discouraged or demoralized, yielded
+to the consolation of some vice, or balked at the monotonous grind
+of factory labor. But however that may be, in so far as social evils
+are due to these faults, the faults must be attacked, not accepted
+as inevitable and incurable. The pressure that pushes men into them
+must be eased, the ignorance and foolishness that foster them must
+be dissipated by education and moral training. And for all the social
+maladjustments that are NOT due to vice and sin, other remedies must
+be found. The road to social salvation is long and beset with many
+difficulties, but the goal is not hopeless of attainment; and every
+step toward the goal is so much gain. Because we cannot now see how
+to remedy all evils must not be a pretext for refusing to lend a hand
+to movements that are of proved value.
+
+How can we reconcile egoism and altruism?
+
+Although altruism is usually wise from the individual's own standpoint,
+it does not always seem so. The commonest moral clash is between the
+individual's apparent good and that of others; the cases in which one
+man's position, wealth, success precludes another's are everyday
+occurrences. Must this conflict be eternal? Is there any way of
+reconciling these opposing interests except by an unhappy and
+regrettable sacrifice? Must life be a perpetual compromise, a "social
+contract," a treaty to make reciprocal concessions, with every one's
+real interests at war with every one else's? Certainly the altruistic
+summons cannot be ignored; we cannot all follow our egoistic impulses;
+in the common disaster we should be individually involved. And, indeed,
+the altruistic impulses have become so deeply rooted in our natures
+that, turn away from them as we might, they would yet persist in the
+form of an undercurrent of dissatisfaction and remorse. The only
+possible solution of the deadlock lies in the killing-off of the
+selfish impulses.
+
+This is not a fantastic dream. We see in the ideal mother, father,
+husband, wife, in the ardent patriot and religious devotee, this
+sloughing-off of the egoistic nature already accomplished. Love, and
+joy in service, are not alien to us; they are as instinctive as self-
+seeking; the hope of ultimate peace lies in the strengthening of these
+impulses till they so dominate us that we no longer care for the
+selfish and narrow aims. We must cultivate the masculine aspect of
+unselfishness, the loyalty of the Greeks, the impulse to stand by and
+fight for others; and we must cultivate its more feminine side, the
+caritas of I Corinthians XIII, the love that suffereth long and is
+kind, the sympathy and tenderness infused into a rough and rugged world
+by Christianity. In this highest developed life there will then be
+no dualism of motive; at the top of the ladder of moral progress
+individual and social goods coincide. It is joy to the righteous to
+do righteousness; it is the keenest delight in life for the lover of
+men to serve.
+
+The unselfish impulse has thus a double value; it blesseth him that
+gives and him that takes. It is more blessed to give than to receive,
+when the giver has reached the moral level where giving is his greatest
+joy. The development of sympathy and the spirit of service in modern
+times gives great hope that the time will come when men will
+universally find a rich and satisfying life in ways which bring no
+harm but only good to others.
+
+H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chaps, XI-XIV. R. B. Perry, Moral Economy,
+chap, II, secs, IV, V.; chap, III, secs, V, VI. F. Paulsen, System
+of Ethics, book II, chap. I, sec. 6; chap, VI; book III, chap, X, sec.
+1. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap, XVIII, sec. e. W. K. Clifford, Right
+and Wrong, On the Scientific Basis of Morals, in Lectures and Essays,
+vol. II. R. M. McConnell, Duty of Altruism. B. Russell, Philosophical
+Essays, chap. I, sec. V. J. Royce, Problem of Christianity, vol. I,
+chap. III.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+OBJECTIONS AND MISUNDERSTANDINGS
+
+HAVING now outlined the eudfemonistic account of morality, we may
+note certain objections that are commonly raised to it, and certain is
+understandings that constantly recur.
+
+Do men always act for pleasure or to avoid pain?
+
+Many of the earlier theorists, not content with showing that the good
+consists ultimately in a quality of conscious states, asserted that
+all of men's actions are actually DIRECTED TOWARD the attainment of
+agreeable states of experience or avoidance of disagreeable states.
+There is no act but is aimed for pleasure of some sort or away from
+pain; men differ, then, only in their wisdom in selecting the more
+important pleasures and their skill in attaining what they aim for.
+This assertion, easily refuted, has seemed to some opponents of the
+eudemonistic account of morality so bound up with it as to involve
+its downfall.
+
+The classic statement of this erroneous psychology, which has been
+the source of much satisfaction to anti-eudemonistic philosophers,
+is to be found in the fourth chapter of Mill's Utilitarianism. "There
+is in reality nothing desired except happiness. Whatever is desired
+otherwise than as a means to some end beyond itself, and ultimately
+to happiness, is desired as itself a part of happiness, and is not
+desired for itself until it has become so. Human nature is so constituted
+as to desire nothing which is not either a part of happiness or a means
+to happiness" A careful reading of Mill shows that he did not mean
+these statements without qualification. But since they, and similar
+sweeping assertions, [Footnote: Cf. Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics,
+p. 44: "The love of happiness must express the sole possible motive
+of Judas Iscariot and of his Master; it must explain the conduct of
+Stylites on his pillar or Tiberius at Caprae or A Kempis in his cell
+or of Nelson in the cockpit of the Victory."] have been a stumbling-block
+to many, we must pause to note their inaccuracy, while insisting that
+they are no part of a sound utilitarian, or eudemonistic, theory. Far
+from the desire for happiness being the universal motive, it is one
+of the less common springs of conduct. Habit, inertia, instinct, ideals
+drive us this way and that; we do a thousand things daily without any
+thought of happiness, because our minds are so made that they naturally
+run off into such action. We desire concrete THINGS, without reference
+to their bearing on our happiness. We even go directly and consciously
+counter to our happiness at times, deliberately sacrifice it, perhaps
+for some foolish fancy. The idealist in politics expects to get no
+pleasure out of what his associates deem his pigheadedness; but he
+has seen a vision and he keeps true to it. Regulus did not go back
+to Carthage to be tortured to death for the pleasure of it, or to avoid
+the greater pain of an uneasy conscience; he went in spite of foreseen
+pain and the allurement of possible pleasure. When a man endures
+privations for the sake of posthumous fame, it is not that he expects
+to enjoy that fame when it comes, or expects others to enjoy it; he
+is simply so made that he cannot resist the sway of that ambition which
+will bring him no good. The pursuit of pleasure is a sophisticated
+impulse which appears in marked degree only in a few self-conscious
+and idle individuals. William James gave the deathblow to this
+pleasure-seeking psychology. "Important as is the influence of pleasures
+and pains upon our movements, they are far from being our only stimuli.
+With the manifestations of instinct and emotional expression, for
+example, they have absolutely nothing to do. Who smiles for the pleasure
+of smiling, or frowns for the pleasure of the frown? Who blushes to
+escape the discomfort of not blushing? Or who in anger, grief, or fear
+is actuated to the movements which he makes by the pleasures which
+they yield? In all these cases the movements are discharged fatally
+by the vis a tergo which the stimulus exerts upon a nervous system
+framed to respond in just that way. The IMPULSIVE QUALITY of mental
+states is an attribute behind which we cannot go." [Footnote: W. James,
+Psychology, vol. II, p. 550.] It is not true, then, that love of pleasure
+and fear of pain are the universal motives. It is not true that we
+inevitably act along the line of least hedonic resistance, that pain
+necessarily veers us off and pleasure irresistibly attracts. By force
+of will, by "suggestion" or training, we can go directly counter to
+the pull of pleasure. It is true that we should not have the instincts
+and habits and impulses that we do were they not in general useful
+for our existence or happiness. But the evolutionary process has been
+clumsy; we are not properly adjusted; we become the victims of ideas
+fixes; ideas and activities obsess us quite without relation to their
+hedonic value. So pleasure and pain are not usually the impelling force
+or conscious motive behind conduct. What they are is-the touchstone,
+the criterion, the justification.
+
+We do not act in ways that bring the greatest happiness, but we ought
+to. We do not consciously seek happiness, and we ought not to. We ought
+to continue to care for THINGS and for IDEALS; but the things and
+ideals we care and work for ought to be such that through them man's
+welfare is advanced.
+
+Are pleasures and pains incommensurable?
+
+An objection commonly raised is that pleasures and pains of various
+sorts are incommensurable; that therefore no calculation of relative
+advantage is possible; and that the eudaemonistie criterion for action
+is thereby made impracticable and useless.
+
+(1) To this we may reply that the estimation of the relative worth
+of different kinds of experience is, indeed, often very difficult.
+But on any theory the decision as to the right is equally complicated
+and puzzling. The fact that the criterion is difficult to use is no
+evidence that it is not the right criterion. Which set of consequences
+will be of most intrinsic worth, it is sometimes impossible to know.
+But one set is, nevertheless, of more intrinsic worth, and the act
+that secures them is the best act, even though we do not recognize
+it as such. There will continue to be, many differences of judgment
+as to which of alternative possible experiences is the more desirable.
+But that uncertainty does not alter the fundamental fact that some
+experiences ARE intrinsically more desirable than others and more
+deserving of pursuit.
+
+"A debtor who cannot pay me offers to compound for his debt by making
+over one of sundry things he possesses- a diamond ornament, a silver
+vase, a picture, a carriage. Other questions being set aside, I assert
+it to be my pecuniary interest to choose the most valuable of these,
+but I cannot say which is the most valuable. Does the proposition that
+it is my pecuniary interest to choose the most valuable, therefore,
+become doubtful? Must I not choose as well as I can, and if I choose
+wrongly, must I give up my ground of choice? Must I infer that in
+matters of business I may not act on the principle that, other things
+equal, the more profitable transaction is to be preferred, because,
+in many cases, I cannot say which is the more profitable and have often
+chosen the less profitable? Because I believe that of many dangerous
+courses I ought to take the least dangerous, do I make 'the fundamental
+assumption' that courses can be arranged according to a scale of
+dangerousness, and must I abandon my belief if I cannot so arrange
+them?" [Footnote: H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chap. IX.]
+
+(2) If it is practically impossible to calculate the relative worth
+of consequences in many cases, it is yet easy enough to do so in the
+great majority of moral situations. In most cases the preponderance
+of value is clear. That selfishness and self-indulgence are not worth
+while; that abstinence from pleasure-giving drugs and intoxicating
+liquors is worth the sacrifice; that truth and honesty, the law-abiding
+spirit, the spirit of service, friendliness and courtesy, sanitary
+measures, incorruptible courts, and a thousand other things are worth
+the effort and cost of acquiring them, is indisputable. It is only
+in some peculiarly balanced situations that we find practical difficulty
+in deciding. If morality were limited to the cases where we can be
+sure on which side the greater good or lesser evil lies, we should
+not be shorn of much of our present code.
+
+(3) It would, of course, be impracticable to stop and calculate at
+the moment when action is needed. But such continual recalculation
+is unnecessary. Our ancestors, after many experiments, have found
+solutions for all the familiar types of situation; the results of their
+thought are crystallized for us in the ideals that press upon us from
+without and the voice of conscience that calls to us within. Forces
+beyond the individual human mind have taken care of these things and
+slowly steered man, with all his passions and caprices, toward his
+own better welfare. It is only in moments when we long to understand
+and justify our ideals, or when some unusually baffling problem arises,
+that we need to calculate and weigh relative advantage and
+disadvantage. And that is what, in such situations, most people do.
+
+Are some pleasures worthier than others?
+
+Undiscriminating critics have often condemned the eudsemonistic
+criterion on the ground that any sort of pleasure is rated equally
+high on its scale so long as it is pleasure. "Pushpin as good as poetry!"
+seems to some the height of sarcasm. Socrates says in the Philebus,
+"Do we not say that the intemperate has pleasure, and that the temperate
+has pleasure in his very temperance, and that the fool is pleased when
+he is full of foolish fancies and hopes, and that the wise man has
+pleasure in his wisdom? And may not he be justly deemed a fool who
+says that these pairs of pleasures are respectively alike?"
+
+Why, however, do we rate the pleasures of temperance and wisdom above
+those of intemperance and folly? Simply because of their respective
+EFFECTS. INTRINSICALLY they may be equally desirable, or the latter
+may even be keener pleasures? that depends upon the individual
+circumstances; but there is no question about their relative EXTRINSIC
+value. There is always "the devil to pay" for intemperance and folly;
+while temperance and wisdom lead to health, love, honor, achievement,
+and many another good. As to push- pin-or let us say baseball-VERSUS
+poetry, it is only prejudice that makes us say we rate the latter
+higher. Outdoor games are not only productive of a keener delight to
+most people, they are extrinsically good as well, conducing to health,
+quickness of wit, self-control, and other goods. They ARE, in their
+time and place, as good as poetry. The reason for the greater reverence
+we feel, or feel we ought to feel, for poetry lies in the fact that
+it takes much more mental cultivation to acquire the taste for it;
+the love of poetry is a sort of patrician distinction. It is also true
+that poetry opens up to its lover a much wider range of enjoyments;
+it opens his eyes to the beauty and significance and pathos in the
+world; it is immensely educative, and inspiring to the spiritual life.
+The love of broadening and inspiring things requires cultivation in
+most of us; so that we praise and honor such things and urge people
+toward them. Pushpin, or baseball, NEEDS no apotheosis. But if we ever
+develop into a race of anaemic bookworms, we shall have to glorify
+sport and learn to shrug our shoulders at the soft and easy enjoyments
+of poetry. Nothing is more obvious than the utilitarian nature of such
+habitual judgments and attitudes.
+
+One of the Platonic illustrations, often brought up, is that of the
+happy oyster. [Footnote: Philebus, 22. "Is such a life eligible?" asks
+Socrates. Later (40), he agrees that "a man must be admitted to have
+real pleasure who is pleased with anything or anyhow," but asks if
+it is not true that some pleasures are "false." Protarchus hits the
+nail on the head by replying, "No one would call pleasures bad because
+they are 'false,' but BY RASON OF SOME OTHER GREAT EVIL TO WHICH THEY
+ARE LIABLE," i.e, because of their after-effects.] Who would wish,
+however miserable, to exchange places with it! Are there not other
+things to be considered besides happiness? "It is better to be a Socrates
+dissatisfied than a fool satisfied." And why? In the first place, we
+suspect that the oyster's, or even the fool's, range of happiness is
+very limited. We should hesitate to forego such joys as we do have,
+even if sorrow attends them, at so great a sacrifice. In the second
+place, each of us has a deep-rooted love of his own personal memories
+and expectations; and except in cases of unusual depression of spirits
+few of us would wish to lose our identity and become some other person
+or thing even if we knew that other being to be happier. In the third
+place, a man knows HE could NOT be happier as an oyster; an oyster's
+joys (whatever they may be) would not satisfy him; he has other needs
+and desires. He must find happiness, if at all, in the satisfaction
+of his human cravings. The oyster's life, however satisfactory to the
+oyster, would leave him restless and bored. If you are a Socrates,
+you realize similarly that you could not FIND satisfaction in the fool's
+life. You know that although you have sorrows the fool wots not of,
+you also have a whole range of joys beyond his ken; and those joys
+are particularly precious to you. In the fourth place, the very words
+"oyster" and "fool" beg the question. "Fool" means by very definition
+a sort of person one would NOT choose to be; and the very visualization
+of an oyster is repellent. Were one to offer as the alternative a happy
+lion or eagle; or a happy, free- hearted savage such as Chateaubriand
+and Rousseau painted, one suspects that not a few suffering men and
+women would jump at the chance.
+
+It is not really important to decide, however, what any one would
+choose. Our choices are biased and often foolish. The actual question
+is, Is the happiness of a fool, or of an oyster (if happiness it has)
+as worthy, as objectively desirable, as that of a wise man? And here
+again we have to say, not EXTRINSICALLY so desirable. The wise man
+is he who finds his happiness in activities that conduce to his ultimate
+welfare and that of others. The happiness of fool or oyster is
+transitory, blind, and fraught with unseen dangers; it is of no value
+to the community in which they live. But INTRINSICALLY, just qua
+happiness, it is-if it is-as good. What makes one form of happiness
+more worthy than another is simply, in the first place, its greater
+keenness or extent or freedom from pain, and in the second place its
+potentialities of future happiness or pain for self and others. When
+Mill wrote, therefore, in his classic treatise, that "some KINDS of
+pleasure are more desirable and valuable than others," he showed a-for
+him unusual-failure to analyze. Some kinds of PLEASURES are more
+desirable, for the reasons summarized above. But PLEASURE, in the
+abstract, pleasantness, agreeableness, intrinsic worth, whatever you
+choose to call it, is itself a quality; there can be more or less of
+it in a concrete experience, that is all. To speak of KINDS of pleasure
+is to mean KINDS OF EXPERIENCE which have the common attribute of
+pleasantness. In themselves all kinds of experience that are equally
+pleasant are equally worthy; there is no meaning to that adjective
+as applied to intrinsic immediate good. "Worthy" and "unworthy" apply
+to experience only when we begin to consider their consequences.
+
+Is morality merely subjective and relative?
+
+Different people find happiness in different ways; if morality is
+simply the means to happiness, is it not relative to their varying
+desires; is it not a purely subjective matter and without a fixed
+objective nature?
+
+We must discriminate. Morality is not relative to our inclinations
+and desires, because those often do not rightly represent our own true
+welfare, still less the general welfare. Happiness is desirable whether
+our impulses are adjusted so as to aim for it or not. Nor is morality
+relative to our opinions; an act may be wrong though the whole world
+proclaim it right. It is a matter not of opinion but of fact whether
+an act is going to bring the greatest attainable welfare or not. However
+biased and shortsighted we may. be, the consequences of acts will be
+what they will be. In a very real sense, then, morality is objective;
+it is valid whether we recognize its validity and want it or not. It
+represents our needs more truly than our own wills, and thus has a
+greater authority, just as the rules of dietetics are not a matter
+of appetite or whim, but have a rational authority over our caprices.
+Morality is not, like imagination, something we can shape at will;
+it is imposed upon us from without, like sensation. Its development
+is predetermined by the structure of human nature and its environment;
+we do not invent it, we accept it. [Footnote: Cf. Cudworth (ca. 1688),
+Treatise, chap, n, sec. 3: "It is so far from being true that all moral
+good and evil, just and unjust, are mere arbitrary and factitious
+things, that are created wholly by will, that (if we would speak
+properly) we must needs say that nothing is morally good or evil, just
+or unjust, by mere will without nature, because everything is what
+it is by nature, and not by will." A good recent discussion bearing
+upon the question of the relativity of morality will be found in
+Santayana's Winds of Doctrine, pp. 138-154.] But although imposed upon
+our restive impulses, it is not imposed by any alien and arbitrary
+will. It is imposed by the same cosmos that set our consciousness into
+relation with a given kind of body in a given world. Submission to
+it is simply submission to the laws of our own natures. Lasting happiness
+can be found only in certain ways; we must make the best of it, but
+it is for our own good that we obey. Morality is relative to our organic
+needs and particular environment. It is a function of human nature,
+varying with its variations. A different race of beings on another
+planet might have to have a very radically different code. Ours is
+a distinctively human code, bearing the earmarks of our humanity and
+stamped with the particular nature of our earth-life.
+
+To say this is to admit that morality varies with different
+temperaments and different needs. What is best for one person is not
+necessarily best for another; what is right for an early stage of
+civilization is not always right for a later. The patriarchal family
+was a source of strength in primitive society; today it would be a
+needless tyranny. Life in a tropical isle frees man from the necessity
+of many virtues which a more rigorous climate entails. The poet needs
+to live in a different way from the coal-heaver. Just so far as our
+individual and racial needs vary-our real needs, not our supposed needs
+and pathological desires (and always bearing in mind the needs of
+others)-just so far is what is right for one different from what is
+right for another. This is no condemnation of eudsemonistic morality.
+On the contrary, a clear recognition of this truth would happily relax
+the sometimes over-rigid conventions of society, its cut-and- dried-
+made-on-one-pattern code, and make it more elastic and suitable to
+individual needs.
+
+However, we are not so different from one another as we are apt to
+think. The extenuation of sin on the plea that the "artistic
+temperament" demands this, or a "sensitive nature" needs that, is much
+overdone. Differences in temperament are superficial compared with
+the miles of underlying strata of plain human nature. "A man's a man
+for a' that," and must submit to the rules for human life. The man
+of "artistic temperament" does not know himself well enough. He feels
+superficial and transient cravings; he ignores his underlying needs,
+and the fundamental duties which, in common with all other men, he
+owes to his fellows.
+
+The standard of morality is absolute and objective, then, for each
+individual, and approximately the same for all human beings. He is
+wise who seeks not to mould his life according to his longings, but
+who accepts the rules of the game and follows the paths blazed by the
+seers and doers before him. Only those individuals and those nations
+have achieved success that have been willing to learn and follow the
+ideals which life itself imposes, the eternal laws which religious
+men call the will of God.
+
+For criticisms of the account of morality here defended: F. Paulsen,
+System of Ethics, book II, chap. II. J. Martineau, Types of Ethical
+Theory, book II, chaps, I, II. T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics,
+book in, chap. I, first half, book IV, chap. III. Dewey and Tufts,
+Ethics, chap. XIV. J. S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, 2d ed, chap.
+vi. H. Rashdall, Theory of Good and Evil, book I, chap, III; book II,
+chaps, I, II. W. Fite, Introductory Study of Ethics, part I. G. E.
+Moore, Ethics, chap. VII. In rebuttal of some of these arguments: J.
+S. Mill, Utilitarianism, chaps, II and IV. H. Spencer, Data of Ethics,
+chaps, IX, X. Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, chap. X.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+ALTERNATIVE THEORIES
+
+AFTER this summary answer to the commoner objections to our account
+of morality, we should notice a few of the more persistently recurrent
+formulas that seem inconsistent with this explanation of its
+fundamental nature.
+
+Is morality "categorical," beyond need of justification?
+
+To Kant and his followers, as well as to many less philosophical minds,
+the justification of morality by its utility has seemed unworthy.
+Morality is much more ultimate and imperious. The pursuit of happiness
+is not binding; morality is. The way to attain happiness is dubious
+and variable; the commandments of morality are clear-cut and certain.
+Different people find happiness in different activities; the laws of
+morality are universal and changeless. Morality, therefore, is prior
+to the pursuit of happiness; its dictates are known by an independent
+faculty. There is in us all an unanalyzable and unavoidable "ought";
+ours not to reason why; ours but to do-and die, if need be. Morality
+is not a means to employ IF we wish happiness; in that case its precepts
+would be but hypothetical, if you wish happiness, do so and so. No,
+its commands are categorical. The inescapable fact of "oughtness" is
+the bottom fact upon which our ethics must be built. To the truth in
+this manner of speech we must all respond. As we have seen, morality
+is not purely subjective and relative; it carries the authority not
+of opinion but of fact. The right, the best way, IS unconditionally
+best, whether we are wise enough to desire it or no. The greatest good
+IS the greatest good, however narrow or short- sighted our impulses.
+Kant expresses eloquently the absolute and inescapable nature of duty
+in its perennial opposition to our transitory and nickering desires.
+
+(1) But Kant is unfair in his picturesque contrast between the
+perplexities attending the pursuit of happiness and the certainty
+attachable to morality. As a matter of observation, moral codes have
+varied quite as much as man's different ways of finding happiness.
+Cases of moral perplexity are as common as cases of uncertainty with
+regard to the road to happiness; there is no such universality and
+changelessness about morality as he assumes. If a certain code seems
+fixed and indubitable to us, it is in large degree because we have
+become accustomed to it and given it our allegiance; a wider
+acquaintance with other codes, contemporary or past, would shake our
+confidence. Some fundamental rules are unquestionable-rules against
+murder, rape, etc.; but just as unquestionable is the fact that these
+acts make against human happiness.
+
+(2) Only a man with an Hebraic training and rigoristic temper could
+think of morality in this awestruck and unquestioning way. More
+Bohemian people feel no such "categorical ought" in their breasts.
+And if a man feels no such "categorical imperative," how can you prove
+to him it is there? Kant's theory is at bottom mere assertion; if because
+of your training and temperament you respond to it, and if you are
+content not to analyze and explain the existence of this imperious
+pressure upon your will, you are tremendously impressed. Otherwise
+the whole elaborate Kantian system probably seems to you an unreal
+brain-spun structure.
+
+Kant, though a man of extraordinary mental powers, had but a narrow
+range of experience to base his theories upon, and lived too early
+to catch the genetic viewpoint. Hence there is a certain pedantic
+naivete in his constructions. No man with any modern psychological
+or historical training ought to be content to leave this extraordinary
+"categorical imperative" unexplained. It is quite possible to trace
+its origin and understand its function; there is nothing unique or
+mysterious about it. Why should we bow down to a command shot
+at us out of the air, a command irrelevant to our actual interests?
+Children have to do so, and the majority of the human race are
+still children, who may properly acquiesce in the rules of morality
+without clearly realizing why. But the reflective man should not be
+content to yield himself to the yoke unless he can see its necessity
+and value. The "ought," the knowledge of what is right, antedates
+the individual's experience of what is best, and so seems mysterious
+and a priori to him; but it does not antedate the racial experience; it
+is rather its fruit. The teleology of conscience is very simple, and its
+genesis and development purely natural.
+
+(3) The "ought" seems more objective than "conscience," more
+impersonal. Just so does "beauty" seem more impersonal and objective
+than our pleasure in contemplating nature and art. It is a constant
+tendency of the mind to project its values out of itself; to create
+"universes of discourse" that seem more stable and real than its own
+fleeting states. All that exists psychologically is a sense of pleasure
+at looking at certain combinations of outer objects; but that pleasure
+is constantly evoked by that peculiar combination, both in our own
+mind and in others'. So we objectify that pleasure and call it the
+"beauty" of the object. Similarly, all that exists psychologically
+is a certain felt pressure, certain emotions and ideas and pushes whose
+teleology is not realized. But we objectify that constantly and pretty
+universally felt pressure and think of an impersonal, objective "ought."
+All the arts are expressible in "oughts"; and if there is a more
+authoritative and categorical nature to moral laws than there is, for
+example, to the aesthetic laws that art-study reveals, it is because
+aesthetics deals with only one aspect of human good and ethics with
+its totality. Indeed, every impulse is, in its initial push, categorical,
+offering no reasons, simply pressing upon us with its requirements.
+Hunger and thirst and sex-desire do not say to us, "If you desire to
+be happy, eat, drink, and gratify your passion"; they call to us with
+an imperious and immediate demand. The demand of the moral law
+is more insistent and more authoritative simply because it represents
+a far more widespread and lasting need.
+
+(4) Kant's "categorical imperative" is purely formal and empty. We
+OUGHT, we OUGHT-but what? It leads, if to anything, to a mere
+emotional reinforcement of our preexisting moral conceptions, to that
+canonization of good will as the one and only good, which is Kant's
+own position, but which we have found inadequate and misleading.
+When we come to new situations it has no clue to offer. How do we
+actually decide in such cases? By imagining the consequences of acts
+and seeing their relative productiveness of happiness and pain. Or else
+by finding some already decided case under which we can put the new
+instance. We are tempted to an act that promises profit, but something
+checks us. Ought we to do this? Gradually it comes over us that this
+would be stealing; and stealing we have already decided, or the race
+has decided for us, is wrong.
+
+We have to decide things in terms of our welfare, or of those already
+stereotyped decisions which represent the half-conscious strivings
+of past generations for human welfare. There is no other way; the
+conception of an imperious impersonal "ought" bearing ruthlessly down
+upon us gives no help whatsoever.
+
+A later and English expression of the feeling that morality needs no
+justification may be found in Bradley's ETHICAL STUDIES. [Footnote:
+Pages 56-57.] "To take virtue as a mere means to an ulterior end is
+in direct antagonism to the voice of moral consciousness. That
+consciousness, when unwarped by selfishness and not blinded by
+sophistry, is convinced that to ask for the Why is simple immorality;
+to do good for its own sake is virtue, to do it for some ulterior end
+or object...is never virtue...Virtue not only does seem to be, but
+is, an end in itself. Against the base mechanical which meets us on
+all sides, with its 'What is the use' of goodness, or beauty, or truth,
+there is but one fitting answer from the friends of science, or art,
+or religion and virtue, 'We do not know and we do not care.'"
+
+(1) But morality would then be a mere arbitrary tyranny; if it were
+of no use, the sacrifices it demands would be sheer cruelty. A moral
+law irrelevant to human interests would have no possible authority
+over us; it would not be a moral, i.e,. a right, law for us.
+
+(2) And what criterion should we have to judge what is virtuous?
+"Virtue for virtue's sake" is equivalent to "the best way because it
+is the best way." But what makes it the best way? And how shall we
+decide what is the best way?
+
+(3) We must be blind not to see the use of morality, even if we feel
+that usefulness degrades it. All moralists agree that virtue does
+actually lead to happiness. But is that connection a mere accident?
+Is it not likely that the usefulness of virtue has something to do
+with its origin and existence?
+
+(4) A real practical value of the motto "Virtue for virtue's sake"
+lies in the implied rejection of virtue for INDIVIDUAL profit merely.
+The moralist rightly feels that such proverbs as "Honesty is the best
+policy," "Ill-gotten gains do not prosper," do not strike deep enough.
+Even if ill-gotten gain should prosper, it would be wrong. But it would
+be wrong simply because of the damage to others' welfare, not for any
+transcendental reason. The opponent of the eudaemonistic account of
+morality nearly always identifies it with a selfish pursuit, by each
+individual, of his own personal happiness. But that is, of course,
+a very narrow and unjustifiable interpretation of it.
+
+(5) Another practical value of the motto lies in the implied contrast
+of virtue with expediency. Questions of expediency are questions of
+the best means to a given end; questions of virtue ask which ends are
+to be sought. Expediency asks, "How shall I do this?" Virtue asks,
+"Shall I do this or that?" The counsels of expediency are thus always
+relative to the value of the end, in itself unquestioned; "this is the thing
+to do IF such and such an end is right to seek." The counsels of virtue
+are absolute-"This is the best thing to do." It is rightly felt that in matters
+of right and wrong there is no "if" about it; you act not with relation to
+an end which may be chosen or rejected, on ulterior grounds. The only
+end to which virtue is the means is-the living of the best life. Virtue is
+the ultimate expediency. But it is well contrasted with all those
+secondary matters of debate for which we reserve the name
+"expediency."
+
+(6) Finally, the motto is practically useful in advising us not to
+rely upon calculation in the concrete emergency, but to fall back upon
+an already adopted code, to love virtue as one does the flag, and follow
+it unquestioningly, as the soldier does his general. We must be willing
+to accept guidance and leadership. But every one knows that the flag
+is but a symbol; that the general's word is authoritative because it
+serves the best interests of the country. And our impulsive allegiance
+to virtue, and love of it, would be a mere silly daydream and empty
+sacrifice were it not for its loyal safeguarding of human interests.
+
+Should we live "according to nature," and adjust ourselves to the
+evolutionary process?
+
+According to the Stoic philosophy, the criterion for conduct was to
+live "according to nature." "What is meant by 'rationally'?" asks
+Epictetus, and answers, "Conformably to nature." "Convince me that
+you acted naturally, and I will convince you that everything which
+takes place according to nature takes place rightly." [Footnote: Book
+III, chap, I; book I, chap. XI.] And Marcus Aurelius writes, "Do not
+think any word or action beneath you which is in accordance with nature;
+and never be misled by the apprehension of censure or reproach. I will
+march on in the path of nature till my legs sink under me. Philosophy
+will put you upon nothing but what your nature wishes and calls for."
+[Footnote: Book V.] Of this preaching Bishop Butler says that it is
+"a manner of speaking, not loose and indeterminate, but clear and
+distinct, strictly just and true." [Footnote: Preface to Sermons.]
+In modern times this doctrine has taken the form of exhortation to
+take our place in the evolutionary process. It is thought by some that
+to grasp the trend of existing natural forces is to know the direction
+of duty. We have only to keep in the current, to espouse heartily the
+"struggle for existence" and rejoice in the "survival of the fittest,"
+because it is nature's way. In a recent book by a Harvard professor
+we read, "Whatever the order of the universe is, that is the moral
+order...The laws of natural selection are merely God's regular methods
+of expressing his choice and approval. The naturally selected are the
+chosen of God...The whole life of [moral] people will consist in an
+intelligent effort to adjust themselves to the will thus expressed."
+[Footnote: T. N. Carver, The Religion Worth Having, pp. 84-89.] It
+is easy enough to point out, however, that nature man to follow. "In
+sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned
+for doing to one another, are nature's everyday performances. Nature
+impales men, breaks them as if on the wheel, casts them to be devoured
+by wild beasts, crushes them with stones like the first Christian
+martyr, starves them with hunger, freezes them with cold, poisons them
+by the quick or slow venom of her exhalations." [Footnote: J. S. Mill,
+Three Essays on Religion: "Nature," p. 28.] The evolutionary process
+is cruel and merciless; multitudes perish for every one that survives,
+and the survivor is not the most deserving, but the strongest or swiftest
+or cleverest. Why should we imitate such ruthless ways? Nature is to
+be not followed but improved upon. Not only morality, but most of man's
+activity, consists in making nature over to suit his needs. "If nature
+and man are both the works of a Being of perfect goodness, that Being
+intended nature as a scheme to be amended, not imitated, by man."
+[Footnote: Ibid, p. 41.]
+
+(2) Not only is there no reason WHY we should "follow nature," but
+the result of so doing would be any thing but what we agree is moral.
+Hardly a sin is committed but was "natural" to the sinner. It is
+"natural" to lose our tempers; to be vain, selfish, greedy, lustful.
+Nothing could be practically more pernicious than the idea that an
+impulse is right because it is natural; that is, because it is common
+to most men. "Following nature" naturally means following our
+inclinations; nothing is more disastrous. Virtue necessitates self
+denial, effort, living by ideals, which are late and artificial
+products. It is actually true, in its metaphorical way, that we need
+to be born again, to be turned about, converted, saved from ourselves.
+The "natural" man is the "carnal" man; the "spiritual" man, while
+potential in us all, needs to be fostered and stimulated by every
+possible means if life is to be serene and full and beautiful. The
+difference between the "natural" man and the moral man is the
+difference between the untrained child, capricious, the victim of
+a thousand whims and longings, and the man of formed character
+whom we respect and trust. Morality is, of course, in a sense, natural
+too-everything that exists is natural; but in the sense in which the word
+has a specific meaning, it is flatly opposed to that making-over, that
+readjustment of our impulses, which is the very differentia of morality.
+There is, indeed, a eulogistic sense of the word "natural"; to Rousseau
+the "return to nature" meant the abandonment of needless artificiality
+and silly convention. But except in this sense, what is "natural" has
+no particular merit. The great achievements of man have consisted
+not in following natural, primitive instincts, but in controlling and
+disciplining those instincts.
+
+If we were to imitate nature in making the survival of the fittest
+our aim, we should return to the barbaric ruthlessness of ancient Sparta
+or Rome, exposing infants, killing the feeble and insane, and becoming
+just such cold-blooded pursuers of efficiency as Nietzsche admires.
+That such pitiless competition is moral, or desirable, no one but a
+few cranks would on examination maintain. "Let us understand once for
+all," says Huxley," that the ethical progress of society depends not
+on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it,
+but in combating it." [Footnote: Evolution and Ethics, title essay.]
+
+(3) This cosmic defiance of Huxley's commands our approval; if
+morality interferes with the evolutionary process, let it interfere;
+the sooner an immoral process is stopped the better. But, after all,
+Huxley unnecessarily limits the meaning of the phrase "the cosmic
+process," applying it only to that stage which antedates the
+development of morality. That development, however, is itself
+natural selection, which in its earlier stages selects merely the
+strong and swift and clever, in its later stages selects also the moral
+races and individuals. So that to follow out the evolutionary process
+is, for man, after all, to follow morality as well as to cultivate
+speed and strength and wit.
+
+There is, indeed, a danger to the race from the development of the
+tenderer side of morality, in the care for the feeble and degenerate
+which permits them to live and produce offspring, instead of being
+ruthlessly exterminated, as in ruder days. But this danger can, and
+will, be met by measures which, while permitting life and, so far as
+possible, happiness, to these unfortunates, will prevent them from
+having children. Except for this removable danger, the development
+of sympathy and tenderness by no means involves a lessening of virility,
+but is rather its necessary complement and check.
+
+Is self-development or self-realization the ultimate end?
+
+It is no justification of morality to say that it is "in harmony with
+nature." Is it an adequate justification to say that morality is what
+makes for self-development or self-realization? A number of classic
+and contemporary moralists, fighting shy of the acknowledgment of
+happiness as the ultimate end, have rested content with such expressions.
+Darwin wrote, "The term 'general good' may be defined as the rearing
+of the greatest number of individuals in full vigor and health, with
+all their faculties perfect, under the conditions to which they are
+subjected." [Footnote: Descent of Man, chap, iv.] Paulsen writes, "The
+value of virtue consists in its favorable effects upon the development
+of life...The value of life consists in the normal performance of all
+functions, or in the exercise of capacities and virtues...A perfect
+human life is an end in itself. The standard is what has been called
+the normal type, or the idea, of human life." [Footnote: System of
+Ethics, book II, chap. II.]
+
+(1) Such a point of view gives opportunity for stimulating words. But
+it gives no guidance. Observation can teach us, slowly, what conduct
+makes for happiness; but what conduct makes for "self-development"?
+The fact is, the cultivation of any impulse will develop us in its
+direction and preclude our development in other directions; along which
+path shall we let ourselves develop? Every choice involves rejection;
+infinite possibilities diverge before us; which among the myriad
+impulses that call upon us shall we follow? While still young and
+plastic, we may develop ourselves into poets or philosophers or lawyers
+or businessmen. In which of these ways shall we "realize" ourselves?
+[Footnote: Cf. William James, Psychology, vol. I, p. 309: "I am often
+confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves
+and relinquishing the rest. Not that I would not, if I could, be both
+handsome and fat and well dressed, and a great athlete, and make a
+million a year, be a wit, a bon-vivant, and a lady-killer, as well
+as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African
+explorer, as well as a 'tone-poet' and saint. But the thing is simply
+impossible. The millionaire's work would run counter to the saint's;
+the bon vivant and the philanthropist would trip each other up; the
+philosopher and the lady-killer could not well keep house in the same
+tenement of clay. Such different characters may conceivably at the
+outset of life be alike possible to a man. But to make any one of them
+actual, the rest must more or less be suppressed."] It is evident that
+we need some deeper ground of choice. May it not even be better
+drastically to choke our natures, better to get a new nature than to
+realize the old? Surely there are perverted natures, which ought not
+to be developed. In the name of happiness we can decide on
+development or non-development, as the need may be. But the
+ideal of "self development" gives us no criterion. It is too sweeping,
+too indiscriminate.
+
+(2) Again, we may ask WHY we should develop ourselves. This ideal
+is in need of justification to the has a eulogistic connotation in our
+ears; but to rely upon that is to beg the question. Strictly, it means
+only the actualizing of potentiality, which may be potentiality for
+evil as well as for good. Concretely, if developing our natures led
+to pain and sorrow we should do well to resist such development.
+The plausibility of the formula lies in the fact that the development of
+one's self along any line is normally pleasant and normally conduces
+to ultimate happiness. The idea of it attracts us, and it is well that
+it should; it is intrinsically and extrinsically good. But it is the
+fact of possessing that intrinsic and extrinsic goodness that makes
+it a legitimate ideal. In sum, it is good to develop one's powers only
+because and in so far as such development makes for happiness or is
+itself an aspect of happiness. For happiness is the only sort of thing
+that is in itself intrinsically and obviously desirable, without need
+of proof.
+
+(3) Practically, this ideal-tends to selfishness; it does not point
+to the fact that the best development of self lies in service. The
+ideal is capable of this interpretation, but its emphasis is in the
+wrong direction. It is essentially a pagan conception, and practically
+inferior to the Christian ideal of service. Service cannot be the
+ultimate ideal, any more than the Chinese in the story could support
+themselves by taking in one another's washing; and it needs to be
+justified, like self-development, by the happiness it brings. But for
+a working conception it is far better. Self-realization has never been
+the aim of the saints and heroes. Imagine a patriot dying for his
+country's freedom, or a mother giving years of sacrificing toil for
+her child, on the ground of self-development! The patriot may feel
+that through his sacrifice and that of his comrades his countrymen
+will be freer or more united or rid of some curse i.e., ultimately,
+happier. The mother thinks consciously of the happiness of the child
+she serves. But except for the young man or properly be for the time
+self-centered, self-development makes but a sorry ideal. We may admire
+a Goethe who cares primarily for the development and perfection of
+his own powers-if he is handsome and clever and of a winning personality.
+But the men we really love and reverence are those who forget themselves
+and prefer to go, if necessary, with their artistic sense undeveloped
+or their scientific sense untrained, so they may bring help and peace
+to their fellows. [Footnote: Cf. a recent story writer, Nalbro Hartley,
+in Ainslee's (a mountain-white is speaking): "I reckon the best way
+to get on in this world is to learn just enough to make you all always
+want to know more but to be so busy usin' what you-all has learned
+that there ain't no time to learn the rest!"] Goethe, with all his
+genius, encyclopedic knowledge, and universality of experience,
+his wit and energy and power of expression, stands on a lower moral
+level than Buddha, St. Francis, Christ.
+
+(4) Finally, the theory, if taken strictly, is immoral. To set up self-
+realization as the criterion is to say that the self-realizing act
+is to be chosen EVEN IF IT SHOULD PRODUCE LESS THAN
+THE GREATEST ATTAINABLE TOTAL GOOD. That such cases
+do not occur, no one can prove; in fact, observation tends to the
+belief that they do. This criterion is, then, not only practically but
+theoretically selfish. Perfection of character should be our aim, yes.
+But perfection of character is not to be found in a mere indiscriminate
+cultivation of whatever faculties we may have. It means the superposition
+of a severe discipline upon our faculties, a purification of the will,
+directed by more ultimate considerations. Is the source of duty the
+will of God? "Obedience to the will of God" describes the highest
+morality, as does the phrase "perfection of character." But is it, any
+more than that, the ULTIMATE JUSTIFICATION of morality? Is the
+will of God the SOURCE of morality? An adequate discussion of this
+question would involve a philosophy of religion, but a few considerations
+may be useful, and it is hoped, not misleading.
+
+(1) How can we know what is the will of God except by considering what
+makes for human welfare? Our Bible is but one of a number of holy books
+which are held to be a revelation of God's will. Even if we grant the
+superior authority of the Hebrew- Christian Bible, can we rely on its
+teachings implicitly? How do we know that it is a revelation of God
+except by our experience of the beneficence of its teachings? As a
+matter of fact, there is wide disagreement, among those who accept
+the Bible as authoritative, over its real teachings. A text is available
+for every variety of belief. Christians usually emphasize those texts
+that make for what they hold true, and slur over others. "Look not
+on the wine when it is red" is preached in every Sunday School, while
+"Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake" is seldom quoted save by
+brewers. The Bible, the work of a hundred hands during a span of a
+thousand years, represents a great variety of views. It is certainly
+an inspired book if there ever was one; so much inspiration could not
+have come from it if none had gone into it. But to extract a satisfactory
+ethical code from it is possible only by a process of judicious
+selection and ingenious inference. The Mosaic code is held by
+Christians to be now abrogated; the recorded teachings of Christ are
+fragmentary and touch only a few fundamental matters. How, for example,
+shall we ascertain from the Bible the will of God with respect to the
+trust problem, or currency reform, or penal legislation? Times have
+changed, our problems are no longer those of the ancient Jews; a
+hundred delicate questions arise to which no answers can be will of
+God to be clearly and unquestionably known, why should we obey it?
+Because he is stronger, and can reward or punish? If that is the reason,
+the freehearted man would defy Him. Might does not make right. If God
+were to command us to sin, it would not be right to obey Him. On the
+contrary, we should sympathize with Mill in his outburst: "Whatever
+power such a being may have over me, there is one thing which he shall
+not do: he shall not compel me to worship him. I will call no being
+good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow
+creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so
+calling him, to hell I will go." [Footnote: An Examination of Sir
+William Hamilton's Philosophy, chap. VI.] It is clear that God is to
+be obeyed only because He is good and his will right. Not the existence
+of a will, but its goodness makes it authoritative. But how do we know
+that it is good unless we have some deeper criterion to judge it by?
+How do we know that God is not an arbitrary tyrant? The answer must
+be that we judge the Christian teachings to be a revelation of God
+because we know on other grounds what we mean by "right" and "good,"
+and see that these teachings fit that conception. If the teachings
+were coarse and low, no prodigies or miracles would suffice to attest
+them as God-given; it would be superstition to obey them. Experience
+alone can be judge; the experience of the beneficence of the Christian
+ideal. The Way of Life that Christ taught verifies itself when tried;
+that it is the supreme ideal for man is proved by the transfiguration
+of life it effects. Christ and the Bible deserve our allegiance because
+they are worthy of it; from them we can learn the secrets of man's
+true welfare. Morality is, indeed, older than religion. It develops
+to a certain point, and in some cases very highly, without the concept
+of God. It has an and needs no supernatural prop. Religion is not the
+root of morality, but its flower and consummation. The finest ideals,
+the loftiest heights of morality, merge into religion; but even these
+spiritual ideals have their ultimate root in the common soil of human
+welfare, and are rational ideals because they minister to human need.
+
+For the "categorical" theory of morality, see Kant's Theory of Ethics,
+trans. Abbott; F. H. Bradley, Ethical Studies; F. Paulsen, System of
+Ethics, book II, chap, V, secs. 3 and 4; Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap,
+XVI, sec. 2; H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chap, III, sees. 12, 13. W.
+Fite, Introductory Study of Ethics, chap. X. H. Rashdall, Theory of
+Good and Evil, book I, chap. V. For the "according to nature" theory,
+see Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, passim; Rousseau, Discourse on
+Science and Art, etc.; J. S. Mill, "Nature" in Three Essays on
+Religion; T.H. Huxley, Evolution and Ethics. T. N. Carver, The Religion
+Worth Having. For the "self-realization" theory, see T. H. Green,
+Prolegomena to Ethics; F. Paulsen, op. cit, esp. book II, chap, II,
+secs. 5-8; H. W. Wright, Self-Realization; J. S. Mackenzie, Manual
+of Ethics, 2d ed, chaps, VI and VII. W. Fite, op. cit, chap. XI.
+For theological ethics, see any of the older theological books. A brief
+comment may be found in H. Spencer's Data of Ethics, chap, IV, sec.
+18.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+THE WORTH OF MORALITY
+
+BEFORE proceeding to a more concrete unfolding of the difficulties
+and problems of morality, it will be well to formulate our theory in
+terms of modern biology, and then, finally, to answer those modern
+critics who reject not merely the rational explanation of morality
+but morality itself.
+
+Morality as the organization of human interests.
+
+The worth of morality is most commonly defended today, in biological
+terms, by describing it as a synthesis of human interests; it is
+valuable because it is what we really want and need. It does, indeed,
+forbid the carrying-out of any impulse which renders impossible greater
+goods; it flatly opposes that unrestrained satisfying of a part of
+our natures which we call self-indulgence, or of one nature at the
+expense of others which we call selfishness. But it stifles desire
+only for a greater ultimate good; it rejects that needless repression
+of a part of the self which we call asceticism, and an undue
+subordination of self to others. It is, then the organizing or
+harmonizing principle, subordinating the interests of each aspect of
+the self, and of the many conflicting selves, to the total welfare
+of the individual and of the community. As Plato pointed out, [Footnote:
+Republic, books. I-IV; e.g. (444): "Is not the creation of righteousness
+the creation of a natural order and government of one another in the
+parts of the soul, and the creation of unrighteousness the opposite?"
+and (352): "Is not unrighteousness equally suicidal when existing in
+an individual [as it is when it exists in the State], rendering him
+incapable of action because he is not at unity with himself, making
+him an enemy to himself?" and (443): "The righteous man does not permit
+the several elements within him to meddle with one another, or any
+of them to do the work of others; but he sets in order his own inner
+life, and is his own master, and at peace with himself; and when ...
+he is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly
+adjusted nature, then he will think and call right and good action
+that which preserves and cooperates with this condition." (In quoting
+Plato I have used Jowett's translation, with an occasional substitution;
+as, above, in the use of "righteousness" and "right" instead of "justice"
+and "just.")] representative of all other interests, the consensus
+of interest. Such a definition, we must admit, happily describes
+morality, showing us that if we would find its leading we must know
+ourselves; we must examine our actual existing needs and consider how
+best to attain them. The direction of morality is that of a carefully
+pruned and weeded human nature. But there are certain dangers inherent
+in this form of definition which we must note:
+
+(1) We must not be satisfied with the synthesis of consciously felt
+desires. Many of our deepest needs fail to come to the surface and
+embody themselves in impulses; we do not know or seek what is really
+best for ourselves. There are possibilities of harmony and peace upon
+low levels. We must be pricked into desire for new forms of life and
+not allowed to stagnate in a condition which, however well organized
+and contented, is lacking in the richness and joy we might attain.
+We must include in the "interests" to be organized all our dumb and
+unrealized needs, all potential and latent impulses, as well as our
+articulate desires.
+
+(2) On the other hand, there are perverse and pathological impulses
+which are deserving of no regard and must be simply cast aside in the
+organizing process, because they lead only to unhappiness. There is
+a difference between the desirable and the desired; morality is not
+merely an organizing but a corrective force, bringing sometimes not
+peace but a sword. A truer figure would be to represent it as a flowers
+and ruthlessly pruning or weeding out others, that the garden may be
+the most beautiful place.
+
+(3) Moreover, this definition, while an excellent DESCRIPTIONTION of
+what morality in general is, is not a JUSTIFICATION of morality, does
+not point to its ultimate raison d'etre. To all this organizing
+activity we might say, Cui bono, for what good? WHY should we organize
+our interests; why not deny them like the ascetics? The mere existence
+of pushes, in this direction and that, affords no material for moral
+judgment; a harmonizing of them would make a mathematical resultant,
+but it would be of no superior WORTH. If there were no pleasure and
+pain in life, it would not MATTER in the least whether the various
+life forces were organized or not. In such a colorless world a unison
+of human impulses would be as morally indifferent as the convergence
+of tributary rivers or the formation of an organized solar system.
+It is only, as we long ago pointed out, [Footnote: Cf. ante, p. 74 ]
+when consciousness differentiates into its plus and minus values,
+pleasure and pain, that a reason arises why any forces in the cosmos
+should be thwarted or allowed free play. With the emergence of those
+values, however, everything that affects them becomes significant.
+If the complete transformation of our interests would make human life
+brighter, fuller of plus values, such a radical alteration, rather
+than a harmonization, would be our ideal. As it is, desire points
+normally toward the really desirable; the direction of human welfare
+lies, in general, along the line of our organic needs, of the avoidance
+of clashes, of the mutual subordination and cooperation of natural
+impulses. The principle of reason, of intelligence, is necessary in
+morality to find this way of cooperation, this ultimate drift of need;
+but without the potentiality of happiness chaos would be as good as
+order, both within the individual soul and within the social group.
+[Footnote: Plato realized this, and in the Philebus points out that
+we cannot completely describe morality either in terms of pleasure-pain
+or in terms of reason (or wisdom), the organizing principle. Both aspects
+of morality are important. Cf, along this line, H. G. Lord, The Abuse
+of Abstraction in Ethics, in the James memorial volume.] Do moral acts
+always bring happiness somewhere? The ultimate justification of
+morality the value of synthesizing our interests, lies in the happiness
+men thereby attain. But there is one fundamental doubt that ever and
+anon recurs the doubt whether, after all, actions that we agree in
+calling virtuous always BRING happiness. If not, either our definition
+of morality, or our universal judgment as to what is moral, would seem
+to be in error. Perhaps morality is, after all, off the track, and
+to be discarded.
+
+(1) We must first lay aside cases of perverted conscience, acts which
+are "subjectively moral," or conscientious, but not objectively best.
+These cases we have already glanced at; they need be no stumbling
+block.
+
+(2) We must remember that the types of conduct which we have glorified
+by the concepts "virtue," "duty," etc, are those which TEND to produce
+happiness. We have to frame our judgments and pigeonhole acts according
+to their normal results. But it happens not infrequently that accidents
+upset these natural tendencies. For these unforeseeable eventualities
+the actor is not responsible; if his act was the best that could have
+been planned, in consideration of all known factors, it remains the
+ideal for future cases, it still retains the halo of "virtue" which
+must attract others to it. Good acts may lead, by unexpected chance,
+to evil consequences; bad acts may result, by some accident, in good.
+But to the interfering factor belongs the credit or blame; the act
+that would normally have led to good or to evil remains right or wrong.
+To rescue a drowning man is right, for such action normally tends to
+human welfare; if the rescued man turns out a great criminal, or escapes
+this death to suffer a worse, the act of rescuing the drowning remains
+a desirable and therefore moral act. On the other hand, if one man
+slanders another, with the result that the latter, refuting the
+slander, thereby attains prominence and position, the act of slander,
+normally harmful, remains an immoral act.
+
+It is a failure to recognize this necessarily general character of
+our moral judgments that raises the problem of Job. The ancient
+Israelites saw clearly that righteousness was the road to happiness;
+[Footnote: Cf. for example, "Righteousness tendeth to life; he that
+pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death." "Blessed is every one
+that feareth the Lord, that walketh in his ways. Happy shalt thou be,
+and it shall be well with thee."] and when a righteous man like Job
+fell into misfortune, they accused him of secret sin. Job is conscious
+of his innocence, of having done his part aright, and cannot understand
+how he has come to such an evil pass. It would have brought him no
+material alleviation, but it might have saved him some mental chafing,
+to recognize that morality is simply doing our part. When we have done
+our best we are still at the mercy of fortune. Happiness, as Aristotle
+pointed out, is the result of two cooperating factors, morality and
+good fortune. [Footnote: Nichomachean Ethics, book I, several places:
+e.g, in chap. VII, "To constitute happiness there must be, as we have
+said, complete virtue and fit external conditions."] If either is
+lacking, evil will ensue. If all men were perfectly virtuous, we should
+still be at the mercy of flood and lightning, poisonous snakes,
+icebergs and fog at sea, a thousand forms of accident and disease,
+old age and death. The millennium will not bring pure happiness to
+man; he is too feeble a creature in the presence of forces with which
+he cannot cope. Morality is just-the best man can do; and it is not
+to be blamed for the twists of fate that make futile its efforts. (3)
+Are there not, however, cases where conduct which we agree is right
+is not even likely to bring the greatest happiness attainable; where
+not only immediate but lasting happiness is to be deliberately sacrificed
+in the name of morality? Suppose, for example, a politician who becomes
+convinced of the evils of the liquor trade ruins his career in a hopeless
+fight against the saloons. He loses his office, his income, his honor
+in the sight of his associates; he brings suffering upon his innocent
+wife and children; and all for no good, since his fight is futile and
+ineffective. Surely any one could foresee that such action would make
+only for unhappiness, or for no happiness commensurable with the
+sacrifice. Yet if we agree with his premise, that the liquor trade
+is a curse to humanity, we deem his conduct not only conscientious
+but objectively noble and right. How can we justify that judgment?
+
+In the first place, we cannot be sure, beforehand, that such a fight
+will not be successful. Forlorn hopes sometimes win. We must encourage
+men to venture, to take chances; only so can the great evils that ride
+mankind be banished. If there is a fighting chance of accomplishing
+a great good it is contemptible not to try; society must maintain a
+code that leads at times to quixotic acts.
+
+In the second place, the fight, even if in itself hopeless, is sure
+to have valuable indirect results. It arouses others to the need; it
+stimulates in others the willingness to sacrifice self-interest and
+work for the general good. Every such honorable defeat has its share
+in the final victory. The subtle benefits that result from such moral
+gallantry are not evident on the surface, but they are there. No push
+for the right is wholly wasted. It pays mankind to let its heroes
+lavish their lives in apparently ineffective struggles; through their
+example the apathetic masses are stirred and moved a little farther
+toward their goal.
+
+In general, we may say that the belief that virtue is not the right
+road to happiness betrays inexperience and immaturity of judgment.
+A moderate degree of morality saves man from many pitfalls into which
+his unrestrained impulses would lead him. The highest levels of morality
+bring a degree of happiness unknown to the "natural man." Who are the
+happiest people in the world? The saints; those who are inwardly at
+peace, who play their part with absolute loyalty. Even the irremediable
+misfortunes of life do not affect them as they do the worldly man;
+they have "learned the luxury of doing good." Of morality a recent
+writer says, "Its distribution of felicity is ideally just. To him
+who is most unselfish, who sinks most thoroughly his own interests
+in those of the race of which he is a unit, it awards the most complete
+beatitude." [Footnote: J. H. Levy, of London, in a funeral oration.]
+To him who complains that he is moral but not happy, the answer is,
+Be more moral! A high enough morality, a complete enough consecration,
+will lead, in all but very abnormal cases, to happiness in the individual
+life, as well as make its due contribution to the happiness of others.
+
+Is there anything better than morality?
+
+It is this lack of vision, this immature skepticism as to the
+service of morality to human welfare, that has fired a flame of
+revolt in certain minds, a revolt not merely against incidental
+defects and outworn conceptions of morality, but against morality
+uberhaupt. The declamations of these Promethean rebels make it
+clear, however, that their protest is but the old fault of
+condemning a necessary institution altogether for its imperfections
+or its abuses. Morality has been blended with superstition and
+tyranny, has been often blind, perverted, narrow, checking noble
+impulses and choking the rich and happy development of life. But it
+is one thing to arraign these accidents and corruptions of morality;
+it is quite another to discard the whole system of guidance of which
+they are but the excrescences and mistakes. This usurping is, of
+course, also in large part a thirst for novelty, a love of paradox,
+of practicing ingenuity in making the better appear the worse; it is
+in part a volcanic eruption of suppressed longings and a protest
+against the inadequacy of our present code to provide opportunity
+and happiness for the masses. The motives vary with the individual
+rebels.
+
+It must suffice, however, from among the many leaders of this
+revolt, to quote that clever but unbalanced German iconoclast,
+Nietzsche. Typical of his doctrine is the following: [Footnote:
+Genealogy of Morals (ed. Alex. Tille), Foreword, p. 9.] "Never until
+now was there the least doubt or hesitation to set down the 'good'
+man as of higher value than the 'evil' man-of higher value in the
+sense of furtherance, utility, prosperity, as regards MAN in general
+(the future of man included). What if the reverse were true? What if
+in, the 'good' one also a symptom of decline were contained, and a
+danger, a seduction, a poison, a narcotic by which the present might
+live AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FUTURE? Perhaps more comfortably, less
+dangerously, but also in humbler style- more meanly? So that just
+morality were to blame, if a HIGHEST MIGHTINESS AND SPLENDOR of type
+of man-possible in itself were never attained? And that, therefore,
+morality itself would be the danger of dangers?"
+
+The point of this tirade is that morality puts a wet blanket over
+human powers; it is a bourgeois ideal, saving men, indeed, from
+pain, but also robbing life of its picturesqueness and glory. Many
+people frankly prefer "interesting" to "good" people; Nietzsche
+generalizes this feeling. Morality is to him uninteresting, dull, a
+code for slaves, for the clash of combat, the tang of cruelty and
+lust, the tingle of unrestrained power. Every man for himself then,
+and the Devil take the hindmost. Shocked as we are by this brutal
+platform, there is something in it that appeals to the red blood and
+adventurous spirit in us; after all, we are not far removed from the
+savage, and the thought of a psalm-singing, tea-drinking, tamely
+good world is abhorrent to the marrow of us. Stevenson, with his
+delightfully irresponsible audacity, sighs for an occasional
+"furlough from the moral law"; and there are times for most of us
+when it seems as if we should choke and smother under the
+everlasting "Thou shalt not!" But the daring rebel, the defiant
+Titan, comes creeping back to the shelter of morality with a
+headache or something worse, and discovers that his Promethean
+boldness was but childish petulance; that it is futile and foolish
+to try to escape the inexorable laws of human life. There are, in
+fact, two adequate answers that can be made to the despiser of
+morality:
+
+(1) Dull or not, repressive or not, morality is absolutely necessary.
+It is better than the pain, the insecurity, the relapse into barbarism,
+that immorality implies. Our whole civilization, everything that makes
+human life better than that of the beasts of prey, would collapse
+without its foundation of moral obedience. The regime of slashing
+individualism would kill off many of the weaker who are precious to
+humanity-a Homer (if he was blind), a Keats, a Stevenson; nay, if
+carried to extreme, it would put an end to the race. For who are the
+weakest, the "hindmost," but the babies! Sympathy and love and self
+sacrifice, at least in parents, are necessary if the race is to endure
+a generation. But even for the individual, the penalties of immorality
+are too obvious to need recapitulation. If morality is repression,
+it is the minimal repression consistent with the maintenance of
+successful and happy life. Its real aim is to bring life, and life
+more abundantly.
+
+(2) But if we are looking for something great, for adventure and
+excitement and battle against odds, we can find it much better than
+in brutally slashing at our fellows, or running amuck at the beck of
+our impulses, by putting our valor at the service of some really great
+human endeavor. If we want to get into the big game, the great
+adventure, we must pit ourselves, with the leaders of mankind, against
+the hostile universe. The men and women who set our blood tingling
+and our hearts beating fastest are-Darwin, discoverer by patient labor
+of a great cosmic law; Pasteur, conqueror at last over a terrible human
+disease; Peary, first to plant foot upon the axis of the world; Goethals,
+builder of a canal that links the oceans. The steady march of a
+moralized civilization, presenting united front to the cosmos,
+is infinitely more glorious than the futile, aimless, and petty struggles
+of an anarchic immorality. Our half-disciplined life is already far richer
+and more romantic than the life of Nietzsche's "supermen" could
+be; and we are only a little way along the road of moral progress.
+The real superman will be a BETTER man, a man of tenderness
+and chivalry, of loyalty and self-control, a man of disciplined heart
+and purified will; to attain to such a supermanliness is, indeed, a heroic
+and splendid achievement, worthy of our utmost endeavor, and calling
+into play all our noblest powers.
+
+Some there are, accustomed to the vision of tables of stone engraved
+by the hand of God and set up for man's obedience amid Sinaitic thunders,
+for whom the discovery of the humble human and prehuman origin, and
+the stumbling hit-or-miss evolution, of morality dulls its sanctity.
+But any one who is tempted for this reason to deride morality may console
+himself with the reflection that everything else of supreme importance
+in human life is of plebeian ancestry. Reason, art, government,
+religion, had their crude and superstition-ridden beginnings. Man
+himself was once hardly different from a monkey. Yet there is a spark
+of the divine in him and in all these arts and institutions which he
+with the aid of the cosmic forces has evolved. Surely a juster judgment
+may find a sublimity in this age-long march from the clod toward the
+millennium that could never belong to the spectacular but very
+provincial myths of the Semites. The emotions ever lag behind the
+intellect; and our hearts may still yearn for the neighborly and
+passionate battle-god of the Pentateuch. Moreover, we shall continue
+to recognize a vast fund of truth and insight in those early folk tales
+and primitive codes. But there comes a deeper breath to the man who
+realizes that morality and religion long antedate the Jewish
+revelation, and comes to see God in the tens and hundreds of thousands
+of years of slow but splendid human progress. Historical codes of
+morals are, indeed, seamed with superstition and are progressively
+displaced; but morality persists. At no time has man wholly solved
+the problem of life, but he must ever live by the best solution he
+has found. The innumerable codes are so many experiments, their very
+differences bearing witness to the need of some set of guiding
+principles for conduct.
+
+It is sometimes said that morality, being a merely human invention,
+may be discarded when we choose. To this we may reply that morality
+bears, indeed, the indisputable marks of human instinct, will, and
+reason; but it is not an invention; it is a lesson, slowly learned.
+In its humanness lies its value. It is not an alien code, irrelevant
+to human nature; it is a natural function; it is the greatest of human
+institutions unless that be religion, which is its flower and
+consummation. Morality is made for man, for his use and guidance; what
+could possibly have greater sanctity or authority for him? Rebel as
+he may, and chafe under its restraints, he always comes back to morality;
+perhaps to a revised code, but to essentially the same control; for
+he cannot do without it. Our morality has its defects, but it is on
+the right track. A clearer insight into its teleological necessity,
+the purpose it exists to serve, will direct us in our efforts to revise
+it, so to fashion it as to make it productive of still greater good
+in the time to come. But if we discard it altogether, we are "like
+the base Indian" who "threw a pearl away, Richer than all his tribe."
+
+What we need is not to abandon but to steadily improve our code; and
+whereas any one can pick flaws, only the man of trained mind and
+controlled desire can discover feasible lines of advance. "When all
+is said, there is nothing as yet to be changed in our old Aryan ideal
+of justice, conscientiousness, courage, kindness, and honor. We have
+only to draw nearer to it, to clasp it more closely, to realize it
+more effectively; and, before going beyond it, we have still a long
+and noble road to travel beneath the stars." [Footnote: Maeterlinck,
+"Our Anxious Morality," in The Measure of the Hours.] The conception
+of morality as the organization of interests will be found in Plato's
+Republic and Aristotle's Ethics, and in many recent ethical books and
+papers. Among them are R. B. Perry's Moral Economy, G. Santayana's
+Reason in Science (chap. IX); William James, "The Moral Philosopher
+and the Moral Life" (in the Will to Believe and Other Essays).
+
+A discussion of whether morality really makes for happiness will be
+found in Leslie Stephen, System of Ethics, chap. X; W. L. Sheldon,
+An Ethical Movement, chap. VIII. For Nietzsche's theory, see his Beyond
+Good and Evil. There are many excellent replies; a brief but adequate
+one will be found in Perry, op. cit, chap. I.
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+
+PERSONAL MORALITY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+HEALTH AND EFFICIENCY
+
+With the general nature and justification of morality in our minds,
+we may now seek to apply our criteria of conduct to the concrete
+problems that confront us, first taking up those problems which,
+however important their social bearings, are primarily problems of
+private life, problems for the individual to settle, and then turning
+to those wider problems which the community as a whole must
+grapple with and solve by public action.
+
+Bodily health is the foundation of personal morality; to act at all
+there must be physical energy available; and, other things equal,
+the man with the greatest store of vitality will live the happiest and
+most useful life. Christianity has too often forgotten this fundamental
+truth, which needs emphasis at the very outset of our concrete studies
+in morality.
+
+What is the moral importance of health?
+
+(1) Health is in itself a great contribution to the intrinsic worth
+of life. To awake in the morning with red blood stirring in the veins,
+to come to the table with hearty appetite, to go about the day's work
+with the springing step of abounding energy, and to reach the close
+of day with that healthy fatigue that quiets restless desire and betokens
+the blessed boon of sound and dreamless sleep-this is to be a long
+way on the road to contentment. Health cannot in itself guarantee
+happiness if other evils obtrude; but it removes many of the commonest
+impediments thereto, and normally produces an increase in all other
+values. Heightened vitality means an increased sense of power, a keener
+zest in everything; troubles slide off the healthy man that would stick
+to the less vigorous. Bodily depression almost always involves mental
+depression; our "blues" usually have an organic basis. It was not a
+superstition that evolved our word "melancholy" from the Greek "black
+(i.e., disordered) liver" nor is it a mere pun or paradox to say that
+whether life is worth living depends upon the liver.
+
+More than this, health is opportunity. The man of abundant energy can
+taste more of the joys of life, can enlarge the bounds of his
+experience, can use precious hours of our brief span which the weakling
+must devote to rest, can learn more, can range farther, can venture
+all sorts of undertakings from which the other is precluded by his
+lack of strength. All these experiences, if they are guided by prudence
+and self-control, bring their meed of insight and skill and character.
+It is only through living that we grow, and health means the potentiality
+of life.
+
+(2) Health means efficiency, more work done, greater usefulness to
+society. Sooner or later every man who is worth his salt finds some
+task the doing of which arouses his ambition and becomes his particular
+contribution to the world. How bitterly will he then regret the
+heritage denied him or foolishly squandered, the handicap of quivering
+nerves, muscular flabbiness, wandering mind, that impedes its
+accomplishment! Determination and persistence may, indeed, use a frail
+physique for splendid service; such names as Darwin, Spencer, Prescott,
+remind us of the strength of human will that can override physical
+obstacles and by long effort produce a great achievement. But for one
+victor in this struggle of will against body there are a hundred
+vanquished; and even these men of genius and grit could have
+accomplished far more if they had had normally serviceable bodies.
+
+(3) Health makes morality easier and likelier. The pernicious influence
+of bodily frailty and abnormality upon mind and morals has always been
+recognized (cf. the mens sana in corpore sano of the ancients), but
+was never so clearly seen as today. The lack of proper nutrition or
+circulation, the state of depressed vitality resulting from want of
+fresh air, exercise, or sleep, are important factors in the production
+of insanity and crime. Over fatigue means a weakening of the power
+of attention, and hence of will, a paralyzing of the highest brain
+centers, a lowered resistance to the more primitive instincts and
+passions. Chronic irritability, moroseness, pathological impulses of
+all sorts, generally betokens eyestrain, dyspepsia, constipation, or
+some other bodily derangement. With the regaining of normal health
+the unruly impulses usually become quieter, sympathy flows more freely,
+the man becomes kinder, more tolerant, and morally sane. Professor
+Chittenden of Yale is quoted as saying that "lack of proper physical
+condition is responsible for more moral ... ills than any other
+factor." Certain temptations, at least, bear more hardly upon the man
+of weak and unstrung nerves; in Rousseau's well known words, "The
+weaker the body, the more it commands." And in general, abnormal
+organic conditions involve a warping of the judgment, a twisted or
+unbalanced view of life (e.g. Wordsworth's "Spontaneous reason breathed
+by health"), which leads away from the path of virtue. All honor, then,
+to the men who have kept clean and true and cheerful through years
+of bodily depression; such conquest over evil conditions is one of
+the finest things in life. But nobility of character is hard enough
+to attain without adding the obstacle of a reluctant body; and although
+some virtues are easier to the invalid, and some temptations removed
+from his circumscribed field of activity, it remains true in general
+that health is the great first aid to morality.
+
+Can we attain to greater health and efficiency? If health is, then,
+so important to the individual and society, its pursuit is not a selfish
+or a trivial matter; it is rather a serious and unavoidable duty. The
+gospel of health is sorely needed in our modern world. Young men and
+women use up their apparently limitless capital with heedless waste;
+those who start with a lesser inheritance neglect the means at their
+command for increasing their stock of strength and winning the power
+and exuberance of life that might be theirs. There are, of course,
+many cases of undeserved ill health; we ill understand as yet the causes
+and enemies of bodily vigor, and many a gallant fight for health has
+gone unrewarded. But in the great majority of cases a wise conduct
+of life would retain robust strength for the threescore or more years
+of our allotted course, increase it for those who start poorly equipped,
+and regain it for those who by mischance, blunder, or imprudence have
+lost their heritage. Yet half the world hardly knows what real health
+is. Our hospitals and sanitariums are crowded, our streets are full
+of half-sick people-hollow chests, sallow faces, dark-rimmed eyes,
+nervous, run-down, worn-out, brain-fagged, dragging on their existence,
+or dying before their time, robbed by stupidity and ignorance of their
+birthright of full-breathed rosy-cheeked health, and robbing the
+society that has reared them of the full quota of their service. Health
+is not merely freedom from disease; we have a right to what Emerson
+called "plus health." And among the men who rightly awaken our
+enthusiasm are those who out of a frail childhood have built up for
+themselves by perseverance and will a manhood of physical power,
+endurance, and efficiency.
+
+The principles of health for the normal man are few and simple, the
+reward great; what stands in the way is partly our apathy and
+indifference, partly our incontinent appetites, partly the unwholesome
+and deadening social influences in which we find ourselves enmeshed.
+For those who care enough, almost unlimited vistas open up; as Spinoza
+has it, "No one has yet found the limits of what the body can do."
+William James was convinced [Footnote: See his essay, "The Energies
+of Man," in Memories and Studies.] that the potentialities of human
+energy and efficiency are but half realized by the best of us. We must
+learn better to run the human machine. Our prevalent disregard of the
+conditions of bodily vigor, our persistent carelessness in the
+elementary matters of hygiene and health, is nothing short of criminal.
+
+"We would have health, and yet still use our bodies ill; Bafflers of
+our own prayers from youth to life's last scenes."
+
+Happiness that impairs health seldom pays. Where it is a question of
+useful work done at the expense of our fatigue, there may be more
+question; normally such sacrifices are undesirable; but what seems
+over fatigue may not really be so, and the earnest man will err on
+this side rather than run risk of pusillanimous shirking. Moreover,
+some work practically requires an over effort for its accomplishment;
+and no man of mettle will begrudge his very life-blood when necessary.
+Overwork is "the last infirmity of noble minds." Yet when not really
+necessary, it must be ranked as a sin, and not too generously condoned.
+The intense competition of modern industry, the complexity of our
+economic machinery, the colossal accumulation of facts which must be
+mastered for success, bring heavy pressure to bear upon those who have
+their way to make in the world. The pace is fast, and many there are
+that die or break from overstrain when at the height of their usefulness.
+Such, overpressure does not pay; it means that less work will in the
+end get done. When we consider also the moral dangers it involves,
+the glumness or irritability of taut nerves, the unhealthy tension
+that demands strong excitements and does not know how to rest or enjoy
+quiet and restorative pleasures; when we consider the broken men and
+women that have to be taken care of, the widows and children of the
+workers who have died before their time, the children perhaps weakened
+for life because of the tired condition of their parents at birth;
+when we consider the number of defective children born to such overworked
+parents, we realize that it is not primarily a question of enjoying
+life more or less, it is a matter of grave economic and moral import.
+[Footnote: Cf. M. G. Schlapp, in the Outlook, vol. 100, p. 782.]
+Whether we actually work harder, on the whole, than our forebears,
+and whether there is actually a decrease in the health and endurance
+of the younger generation today owing to the overstrain of their parents,
+is open to dispute. Certainly when one compares a portrait of Reynolds,
+Gainsborough, or Stuart with one by Sargent, Thayer, or Alexander,
+there is a noticeable difference of type, indicative of a different
+ideal of life in the upper stratum of society, an ideal of effort and
+efficiency, which is far better than a patrician dilettantism, but
+has in turn its dangers.We need to recall the line of AEschylus,
+"All the gods' work is effortless and calm." Or Matthew Arnold's
+sonnet on Quiet Work:
+
+"One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, A lesson that on every wind
+is borne, A lesson of two duties kept at one Though the loud world
+proclaim their enmity: Of toil unsevered from tranquility, Of labor
+that in lasting fruit outgrows Far noisier schemes, accomplished in
+repose, Too great for haste, too high for rivalry..."
+
+Most of us would find our powers adequate to our duties if we learned
+to rest when we are not working, and spend no energy in worry and
+fretfulness. [Footnote: Cf. W. James's essay on "The Gospel of
+Relaxation," in Talks to Teachers and Students, or Annie Payson Call's
+books, of which the best known is Power Through Repose.] This nervous
+leakage is a notoriously American ailment; we knit our brows, we work
+our fingers, we fidget, we rock in our chairs, we talk explosively,
+we live in a quiver of excitement and hurry, in a chronic state of
+tension. We need to follow St. Paul's exhortation to "Study to be
+quiet"; to learn what Carlyle called "the great art of sitting still."
+We must not lower our American ideal of efficiency, of the "strenuous
+life"; but it is precisely through that self-control that is willing
+to live within necessary limitations, and able to cut off the waste
+of fruitless activity of mind and body, that our national efficiency
+can be maintained at its highest.
+
+Is continued idleness ever justifiable?
+
+We do not need Stevenson's charming Apology for Idlers, to know that
+rest and recreation are as wholesome and necessary as work. But
+idleness is only profitable and really enjoyable when it comes as an
+interlude in the midst of activity. There is much to be done, and no
+one is free to shirk his share of the world's work; we may enjoy our
+vacations only as we have earned the right to them. Except for invalids
+and idiots, continued idleness never justifiable. Clothes we must have,
+and food, and shelter, and much else; if a man does not produce these
+things for himself, or some equivalent which he can fairly exchange
+for them, he is a parasite upon other men's labor. "Six days shalt
+thou labor" is the universal commandment, and "In the sweat of thy
+brow shalt thou eat bread." An old Chinese proverb runs, "If there
+is one idle man, there is another who is starving." Certainly a state
+in which the masses will have their drudgery lightened for them and
+opportunity for a well rounded human life given, will be attained only
+in a society where there are no drones; and no man or woman worthy
+of the name will be content to live idly on the labor of others. "Others
+have labored, and we have entered into their labors"; it is not fair
+to accept so much without giving what we can in return.
+
+For most men and women there is, of course; no alterative; they must
+work or live a wretched, comfortless life, with the actual risk of
+starvation. A few may prefer the precarious existence of the tramp,
+or pauper; but they must pay the price in homelessness and hazard.
+Except for abnormal social conditions, the vile housing of the poor,
+the hopeless monotony and overlong hours of most forms of unskilled
+labor, the lure of drink, and the deprivation of the natural joys of
+life, there would be few of these voluntary idlers among the poor.
+The aversion to work, when it is decently agreeable, in decent
+surroundings, and not carried to the point of fatigue, is abnormal;
+and it is by the improvement of the conditions and remuneration of
+labor that we must seek to cure that unwillingness to work, in the
+poor, which Tolstoy came to believe was their greatest curse.
+[Footnote: See his What Shall We Do Then? (or What to Do?)]
+
+Much more difficult to cure is the curse of idleness among the rich.
+The absence of the need of working, and the possibilities of pleasure
+seeking which money affords, are a constant temptation to them to
+live a life of ease. The spectacle is not unfamiliar of rich young men
+traveling about the world, living at their clubs, spending their
+energies in gayeties and sports, with hardly a sense of the
+responsibilities which their privileges entail. Fortunately, however,
+there is, in America at least, a pretty widespread sense of shame among
+men about such shirking, and the idler has to face a certain amount
+of mild contempt. Upon women the pressure of public opinion has not
+yet become nothing upper-class ladies who spend their time at cards,
+at teas, at the theater, who think of little but dress and gossip,
+or of the latest novels and music, who evade their natural duties of
+motherhood or give over care of home and children to hired servants,
+that they may be freer to live the butterfly life, are still too little
+rebuked by their hard-working sisters and by men. We must impress it
+upon all that the inheritance of money does not excuse laziness; if
+the pressure to earn a living is removed, there are numberless ways
+in which the rich can serve, privileged ways, happy ways, which there
+is far less pretext for avoiding than the poor have for hating their
+grim toil. In Carlyle's words, "If the poor and humble toil that we
+have food, must not the high and glorious toil for him in return, that
+he may have light, have guidance, freedom, immortality?" The rich
+commonly point the finger of scorn at the poor who turn away from honest
+work; we may well wonder if they would work themselves at such dirty
+and dangerous occupations. Many a charity visitor who preaches the
+gospel of toil is herself, except for some fitful and ineffective "social
+work," a useless ornament to society who hardly knows the meaning of
+"toil." If idleness is a mote in the eyes of the poor, it is a beam
+in the eyes of the rich. Neither blood nor rank nor sex excuses from
+the universal duty. "We must all toil or steal (howsoever we name our
+stealing), which is worse." [Footnote: Carlyle's writings are full
+of such wholesome declarations. And cf. W. Dew. Hyde: "An able-bodied
+man who does not contribute to the world at least as much as he takes
+out of it is a beggar and a thief; whether he shirks the duty of work
+under the pretext of poverty or riches." Cf. also Tolstoy, in What
+to Do? For example (from chap. XXVI), "How can a man who considers
+himself to be, we will not say a Christian, or an educated and humane
+man, but simply a man not entirely devoid of reason and of conscience,
+how can he, I say, live in such a way that, not taking part in the
+struggle of all mankind for life, he only swallows up the labor of
+others, struggling for existence, and by his own claims increases the
+labor of those who struggle, and the number of those who perish in
+struggle?"] relieved from the necessity of earning a living" (unless
+one intends to use that freedom for unpaid service), an ideal dangerous
+to social welfare, and shortsighted for the individual. Work makes
+up a large part of the worth of life. Drudgery it may be at the time,
+a weary round, with no compensation apparent; but it is of just such
+stuff that real life is made. What ennobles it, what gives it meaning,
+is the courageous attack, the putting of heart into work, the facing
+of monotony, the finding of the zest of accomplishment. There is no
+such thing as "menial" work; the washing of dishes and the carting
+away of garbage are just as necessary and important as the running
+of a railway or the making of laws. The real horror is the dead weight
+of ennui, the aimlessness and fruitlessness of a life that has done
+nothing and has nothing to do. If the thought of the day's work
+depresses, it is probably because of ill health, over fatigue, unpleasant
+surroundings or companions, because of worry, or because the particular
+work is not congenial. The finding of the right work for the right
+man and woman is one of the great problems which we have hardly begun
+to solve. But all of these sources of the distaste for work can normally,
+or eventually, be reached and the evil remedied. In spite of the burden
+and the strain, if we could have our way with the order of things,
+one of the most foolish things we could do would be to take away the
+necessity of work. Here, as usual, personal and social needs coincide;
+in the working life alone can be found a lasting satisfaction for the
+soul and the hope of salvation for society. Are competitive athletics
+desirable? As samples of the concrete problems involved in the ideal
+of health and efficiency, we may briefly discuss two questions that
+confront particularly the young man. And first, that concerning athletic
+sports are of marked value:
+
+(1) They are to any normal man or woman, and especially to the young
+who have not yet become immersed in the more serious game of life,
+one of the greatest and most tonic joys. The stretching and tension
+of healthy muscles, the deep draughts of out-of-door air, the excitement
+of rivalry, the comradeship of cooperative endeavor, the ABANDON of
+effort, the glow of achievement, contribute much in immediate and
+retrospective pleasure to the worth of living.
+
+(2) When not carried too far, the physical gain is clear. Regular
+exercise is necessary for abundant health; and of all forms of
+exercise the happiest is, other things equal, the best.
+
+(3) In many ways there are potentialities of moral gain in athletics
+which do not result from ordinary exercise. There is the stimulus to
+intense effort, the awakening of strenuousness which may carry over
+into other fields of activity. Here, at least, indolence is impossible,
+alertness is demanded, and the willingness to strive against obstacles.
+To put one's whole soul into anything is wholesome, even if it be but
+a game; and the man who bucks the line hard on the gridiron has begun
+a habit which may serve him well when he meets more dangerous
+obstacles and more doughty opponents on a larger field.
+
+(4) The lesson of cooperation taught by teamwork of any sort is a
+valuable schooling. One of the prime needs of our day is the
+development of the spirit of loyalty, the willingness to subordinate
+individual welfare to that of a group, and to look upon one's own work
+as part of a larger endeavor. The man who has learned to take pride
+in making sacrifice hits is ripe to respond to the growing sense of
+the dishonorableness of making personal profit the aim of business
+or of politics.
+
+(5) Athletic games, where properly supervised, inculcate the spirit
+of sportsmanship. To keep to the rules of longing, to restrain temper
+and accept the decisions of the umpire without complaint, to take no
+unfair advantage and indulge in no foul play, to give a square deal
+to opponents and ask no more for one's own side, to endure defeat with
+a smile and without discouragement- surely this is just the spirit
+we need in everything. It is vitally important that unsportsmanlike
+conduct should be ruthlessly stamped out in all competitive sports,
+and that every team should prefer to lose honorably than to win unfairly.
+[Footnote: There has been a good deal of criticism of American
+intercollegiate athletics on the ground of their fostering
+unsportsmanlike conduct. A recent paper in the Atlantic Monthly (by
+C. A. Stewart, vol. 113, p. 153) concludes with this recommendation:
+"A forceful presentation of the facts of the situation, with an appeal
+to the innate sense of honor of the undergraduates; such a revision
+of the rules as will retain only those based upon essential fairness;
+and a strict supervision by the faculty;-upon the success of these
+three measures rests the hope that college athletics may be purged
+of trickery and the spirit of 'get away with it.' ... A few men expelled
+for lying about eligibility, and a few teams disbanded because of
+unfair play, would arouse undergraduates with a wholesome jolt."]
+
+(6) Wherever they are taken seriously athletic contests require a
+preliminary period of "training," which includes abstinence from sex
+incontinence, from alcohol, smoking, overeating, and late hours. The
+discipline which this involves is an object lesson in the requirements
+for efficiency in any undertaking, and excellent practice in their
+fulfillment. How far athletes learn this lesson and apply it to wider
+spheres of activity, it would be interesting to discover. In any case,
+they have proved in themselves the ability to repress inclination and
+find satisfaction in what makes for health and efficiency; and all
+who know the implications of "training" have received a subconscious
+"suggestion" in the right direction. The other side of the problem
+is this:
+
+(1) Competitive athletics, if taken seriously contests,inevitably
+take more time and energy than their importance .warrants. A member
+of a college football or baseball team can do little else during the
+season. Studies are neglected, intellectual interests are subordinated,
+college figures essentially as a group of men endeavoring to beat
+another college on the field. If a man is bright he may "keep up with"
+his studies, but his intellectual profit is meager; his energies are
+being absorbed elsewhere. This phenomenon has given rise to much
+satire and to much perplexity on the part of college administrations. A
+few have gone so far as to banish intercollegiate contests, asserting
+thatthe purpose of coming to college is primarily to learn to use the
+brain, not the muscles.
+
+(2) The strain of intense rivalry is too severe on the body. It is
+now known that the intercollegiate athlete is very probably sacrificing
+some of his life when he throws his utmost effort into the game or
+the race. The length of life of the big athletes averages considerably
+shorter than that of the more moderate exercisers. From the physical
+point of view, interclass or interfraternity contests, not taken too
+earnestly, are. far better than the intercollegiate struggles. They
+also have the advantage that far more can participate. The problem
+before our college authorities and leaders of student sentiment is
+how to check the fierceness of the big contests-shortening them,
+perhaps, possibly forbidding entirely the more strenuous and how
+to provide sports for all members of the college; so that, instead of
+a few overstrained athletes and a lot of fellows who under exercise,
+we shall see every man out on the field daily, and no one overdoing.
+This ideal necessitates far larger athletic grounds than most of our
+colleges have reserved. It may necessitate the abolition of some of
+the big contests that have been the excitement of many thousands. But
+it must not be forgotten prelude and preparation for life; they must
+not be allowed to usurp the chief place in a man's thoughts or to unfit
+him for his greatest after-usefulness. [Footnote: Cf. Atlantic Monthly,
+vol. 90, p. 534; Outlook, vol. 98, p. 597.] Is it wrong to smoke?
+Statistics taken with care at many American colleges show with apparent
+conclusiveness that the use of tobacco is physically and mentally
+deleterious to young men. [Footnote: See, e.g., in the Popular Science
+Monthly for October, 1912, a summary by Dr. F. J. Pack of an
+investigation covering fourteen colleges. Similar investigations have
+been made by several others, with generally similar results.] It seems
+that smokers lose in lung capacity, are stunted slightly in their
+growth, are lessened in their endurance, develop far more than their
+proportion of eye and nerve troubles, furnish far less than their
+proportion of the athletes who win positions on college teams, furnish
+far less than their proportion of scholarship men, and far more than
+their proportion of conditions and failures. It is perhaps too early
+to be quite sure of these results; but in all probability further
+experiment will confirm them, and make it certain that tobacco is
+physically harmful as has long been recognized by trainers for athletic
+contests. The harm to adults seems to be less marked; perhaps to some
+it is inappreciable. And if there is appreciable harm, whether it is
+great enough to counterbalance the satisfaction which a confirmed
+smoker takes in his cigar or pipe, or any worse than the restlessness
+which the sacrifice of it might engender, is one of those delicate
+personal problems that one can hardly solve for another. But certainly
+where the habit is not formed, the loss of tobacco involves no
+important deprivation; its use is chiefly a social custom which can
+be discontinued without ill effects. Effort should be made to keep
+the young from forming the habit; college "smokers," where free
+cigarettes and cigars are furnished, should be superseded by "rallies,"
+where the same amount of money could provide some light and harmless
+refreshment. This is not one of the important problems. But, after
+all, everything is important; and men must, and ultimately will, learn
+to find their happiness in things that forward, instead of thwarting,
+their great interests; what makes at all against health and
+efficiency-when it is so needless and artificial a habit as smoking,
+so mildly pleasant and so purely selfish-must be rooted out of desire.
+The great amount of money wasted on tobacco could be far more
+wisely and fruitfully expended. We shall not brand smoking as a sin,
+hardly as a vice; but the man who wishes to make the most of his life
+will avoid it himself, and the man who wishes to work for the general
+welfare will put his influence and example against it.
+
+H. S. King, Rational Living, chap. VI, secs. I, II. J. Payot, The
+Education of the Will, book III, sec. IV. J. MacCunn, The Making of
+Character, part II, chap. II. W. Hutchinson, Handbook of Health. L.
+H. Gulick, The Efficient Life. F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book III,
+chap. III. T. Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life. P. G. Hamerton, The
+Intellectual Life, part I.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+THE ALCOHOL PROBLEM
+
+OF all the problems relating to health and efficiency there is none
+graver than that of the narcotic-stimulants. With the exception of
+tobacco, which is probably, for adults, but mildly deleterious, their
+use is fraught with danger, both physical and moral; beyond the
+narrowest limits it is certainly baneful, while it is as yet an open
+question whether even a very slight use is not distinctly harmful.
+The exact physiological effects of the several narcotic-stimulants
+are different, but they are alike in stimulating certain activities
+and depressing others; and their attraction for men is similar. Opium,
+morphine, and cocaine are more powerful drugs, and more inherently
+dangerous; but alcohol is much the most widely used and so most
+productive of evil. The hypodermically used narcotics need not be here
+discussed; for although they can give a far keener pleasure than
+alcohol, the penalty they inflict is more evident. Moreover, since
+their sale is not pushed by such powerful interests as continually
+stimulate the use of alcohol, they can, by the vigilant enforcement
+of existing laws, be readily removed from any general use. We turn,
+then, to the consideration of the one which has got a universal hold
+on the imagination and social habits of men, the only one that
+constitutes at present a serious and complicated problem.
+
+What are the causes of the use of alcoholic drinks?
+
+(1) We may dismiss at once the suggestion that alcoholic liquors are
+drunk for the pleasantness of their taste or for their food value.
+To some slight extent these factors enter in; but neither is important.
+The taste for them is for most men an acquired taste; and with so many
+other delicious drinks to be had, especially in recent years, drinks
+that are far less expensive and without their poisonous effects, it
+is safe to say that the mere taste of them would not go far toward
+explaining the lure they have for men. As to their food value, there
+are those who justify themselves on the score of the nutrition they
+are getting from their wine or beer. But careful experiments have shown
+that the food value of alcohol is slight; and certainly, for nutrition
+received, these are among the most expensive foods, to be ranked with
+caviar and pate de foie gras. Beer is the most nutritious of the
+alcoholic drinks; but the same amount of money spent on bread would
+give about thirty times the nutrition, and a more all-round nutrition
+at that. Alcoholic liquors as food are, as has been said, like
+gunpowder as fuel very costly and very dangerous. [Footnote: See H.
+S. Williams, Alcohol, p. 133; H. S. Warner, Social Welfare and
+the Liquor Problem, p. 80, and bibliography, p. 95.]
+
+(2) A much commoner plea for drinking rests upon its sociability. But
+this is a matter of convention which can readily enough be altered.
+There is nothing inherently more sociable in the drinking of wine than
+in the drinking of grape-juice, or coffee, or chocolate, or tea.
+Indeed, one may well ask why the chief social bond between men should
+consist in drinking liquids side by side! Games and sports, in which
+wit is pitted against wit, or which bring men together in happy
+cooperation, together with the great resource of conversation, are
+more socially binding than any drinks. There will, indeed, be a temporary
+social hardship for many abstainers until the custom is generally
+broken up; one runs the risk of being thought by the heedless a prig
+and a Puritan. But that is a small price to pay for one's health and
+one's influence on others.
+
+(3) More important than any of these causes is the craving for a
+stimulant. The monotony of work, the fatigue toward the end of the
+day, the severity of our Northern climate, the longing for intenser
+living, lead men to seek to apply the whip to their flagging energies.
+This stimulus to the body is, however, largely if not wholly, illusory.
+The mental-emotional effects, noted in the following paragraph, give
+the drinker the impression that he is physically fortified; but objective
+tests show that, after a very brief period, the dominant effect upon
+the organism is depressant. The apparent increase in bodily warmth,
+so often experienced, is a subjective illusion; in reality alcohol
+lowers the temperature and diminishes resistance to cold. Arctic
+explorers have to discard it entirely. The old idea of helping to cure
+snake bite, hydrophobia, etc, by whiskey was sheer mistake; the patient
+has actually much less of a chance if so drugged. Only for an immediate
+and transitory need, such as faintness or shock, is the quickly passing
+stimulating power of alcohol useful; and even for such purposes other
+stimulants are more valuable. Reputable physicians have almost wholly
+ceased to use it. [Footnote: See H. S. Williams, op. cit, p. 4,
+124-127; H. S. Warner, op. cit, pp. 87]
+
+(4) The one real value of alcohol to man has been the boon of
+stimulating his emotional and impulsive life, bringing him an elevation
+of spirits, drowning his sorrows, helping him to forget, helping to
+free his mind from the burden of care, anxiety, and regret. As William
+James, with his unerring discernment, wrote twenty-five years ago:
+"The reason for craving alcohol is that it is an unaesthetic, even
+in moderate quantities. It obliterates a part of the field of
+consciousness and abolishes collateral trains of thought." [Footnote:
+Tolstoy also hit the nail on the head in his little essay, Why do Men
+Stupefy Themselves?] This use, in relieving brain-tension, in bringing
+a transient cheer and comfort to poor, overworked, worried, remorseful
+men, is not to be despised. Dull lives are vivified by it, a fleeting
+anesthesia of unhappy memories and longings is effected, and for the
+moment life seems worth living.
+
+Without considering yet the physical penalty that must be paid for
+this evanescent freedom, we may make the obvious remark that it is
+a morally dangerous freedom. As the Odyssey has it, "Wine leads to
+folly, making even the wise to love immoderately, to dance, and to
+utter what had better have been kept silent." Alcohol slackens the
+higher, more complicated, mental functions-our conscience, our scruples,
+our reason- and leaves freer from inhibition our lower passions and
+instincts. We cannot afford thus to submerge our better natures, and
+leave the field to our lower selves; it is a dangerous short cut to
+happiness. A far safer and more permanently useful procedure for the
+individual would be so to live by his reason and his conscience that
+he would not need to stupefy them, to forget his life as he is shaping
+it from day today. And the lesson to the community is so to brighten
+the lives of the poor with normal, wholesome pleasures and recreations,
+so to lift from them the burdens of poverty and social injustice, that
+they will not so much need to plunge into the grateful oblivion of
+the wine-cup.
+
+(5) The most tenacious hold of the alcohol trade lies,
+however, in two things not yet enumerated. The one is, that much use
+of alcohol creates a pathological craving for it; the man who is
+accustomed to his beer or whiskey is restless and depressed if he cannot
+get it, and will sacrifice much to still for the nonce that insatiable
+longing. The other and even more important fact is, that the sale of
+liquor is immensely profitable to the manufacturers and sellers. The
+fighters for prohibition have to encounter the desperate opposition
+of those who have become slaves to the drug-many of whom may never
+get intoxicated, and would resent the term "slaves," but who have formed
+the abnormal habit and cannot without discomfort get rid of it. They
+have to meet the still fiercer hostility of those who are making money
+from the sale of liquor and do not intend to let go their opportunity.
+What are the evils that result from alcoholic liquors?
+
+The one real value of alcohol, we have said, lies in its temporary
+mental effects. It raises the hedonic tone of consciousness; it brings
+about, when taken in proper amounts, the well-known happy-go-lucky,
+scruple-free, expansive state of mind. What now is the price that must
+be paid for its use?
+
+(1) The physical harmfulness of even light drinking is considerable.
+
+(a) Alcohol, even in slight doses, as in a glass of wine or beer, has
+poisonous effects upon some of the bodily functions, which are clearly
+revealed by scientific experiment. [Footnote: See, for one testimony
+out of very many in medical literature, an article by Dr. Herbert
+McIntosh in the Journal of Advanced Therapeutics for April, 1912, p.
+167: "Alcohol and ether are the two great enemies of the
+electrochemical properties of the salts necessary to organic life."
+He speaks of "paralysis of the vaso-constrictor nerves," "inhibition
+of the cortical centers," etc.] Hence the temporary cheer must be paid
+for with usury by a much longer depression, resulting from the poisonous
+effects of alcohol upon the body. A jolly evening is followed by the
+familiar symptoms of the morning after. The extent of the physical
+and mental depression caused is not always realized, because it is
+spread out over a considerable period of time and may not be acute;
+a healthy person can stand a good deal without being conscious of
+the ill effects. But they are there. In bodily vigor, and so in mental
+buoyancy, the abstainer is IN THE END better off than if he drank
+even a little, or seldom.
+
+(b) Careful and repeated experiments seem to show that even a very
+little drinking-a glass of beer or wine a day- decreases the capacity
+for both muscular and mental work. This loss of ability is not usually
+perceptible to the drinker; he often feels an illusory glow of power;
+but he cannot do as much. A bottle of beer a day means an
+appreciable loss in working efficiency. [Footnote: Accounts of
+the experiments will be found in H. S. Williams, op. cit, pp. 5-23,
+128, 137; H. S. Warner, op. cit, p. 116. They had some
+realization of this truth even in the days of the Iliad. Hector says,
+"Bring me luscious wines, lest they unnerve my limbs and make
+me lose my wonted powers and strength."]
+
+(c) Even a moderate use of alcohol increases liability to disease and
+shortens the chances of life. In any case of exposure to or contraction
+of disease, the total abstainer has a proved advantage over even the
+light drinker. The British life insurance companies reckon that at the
+age of twenty a total abstainer has an average prospect of life of
+forty-four years, a temperate regular drinker a prospect of thirty-one
+years, and a heavy drinker of fifteen years. Many other factors enter
+into the individual situation, of course; we know many cases where
+inveterate drinkers have lived to a ripe old age; it takes a great
+deal to break the iron constitutions of some men. But averages
+tell the story. An authority on tuberculosis states that "if for no
+other reason than the prevention of tuberculosis, state prohibition
+would be justified" The use of alcohol predisposes the body to
+many kinds of disease; and according to conservative figures,
+approximately seventy thousand deaths yearly in the United
+States are caused by alcoholism and diseases that owe their
+grip to the use of alcohol. Besides this, a great deal of insanity
+and chronic invalidism, and a large proportion of deaths after
+operations, are due to this cause. [Footnote: See H. S. Williams,
+op. cit, pp. 25- 43, 149, 150; H. S. Warner, op. cit, chap. IV, and
+bibliography at end.]
+
+(d) The chances of losing children at chances of begetting
+feeble-minded or degenerate children, are markedly greater
+for even moderate drinkers than for abstainers. Children of
+total abstainers have a great advantage, on the average, in
+size, stature, bodily vigor, intellectual power; they stand, on
+the average, between a year and two years ahead in class
+of the children of moderate drinkers, they have less than half
+as many eye, ear, and other physical defects. This proved
+influence of even light drinking upon the vitality and normality
+transmitted to children should be the most serious of indictments
+against self-indulgence. Truly the sins of the fathers are visited
+upon the second and third generation. [Footnote: See Journal
+of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, vol. IX, p.
+234; H. S. Williams, op. cit, pp. 44-47.]
+
+(2) The economic waste is enormous:
+
+(a) Nearly, if not quite, two billion dollars a year are spent by the
+people of the United States for intoxicating beverages. Between fifty
+and seventy-five million bushels of grain are consumed annually in
+their production, besides the grapes used for wines. Nor does the money
+spent for liquors go in any appreciable degree into the pockets of
+the farmers who raise the grains; less than a thirtieth part finds
+its way to them, the brewers, distillers, and retailers getting about
+two thirds. The money invested in the beer industry alone was in 1909
+over $550,000,000. [Footnote: See Independent, vol. 67, p. 1326;
+Year-Books of the Anti-Saloon League. For this whole subject of the
+cost of the liquor trade, see chap. V, in H. S. Warner, op. cit, and
+the bibliography appended.] The importance of the national liquor bill
+can be realized by a simple computation; it would suffice to pay two
+million men three dollars a day, six days in the week, year in and
+year out; it would suffice to build four or five Panama Canals (at
+$400,000,000) a year. When we reckon up the total liquor bill of the
+world, a sum many times this, we can see what a frightful waste of
+man's resources is going on; for not only is there no a tremendous
+additional drain of wealth caused indirectly thereby.
+
+(b) Among the factors in this additional drain of wealth, which must
+be added to the figures given above in estimating the total financial
+loss to the community, are: the loss in efficiency of workers through
+the- usually unrealized- toxic effects of alcohol; the loss of the
+lives of adult workers due to alcoholic poisoning-an annual loss greater
+than that of the whole Civil War; the support by the State of paupers,
+two fifths of whom, it is estimated, owe their status to alcoholism;
+[Footnote: See H. S. Williams, op. cit, p. 85] the support by the
+State of the insane, from a quarter to a half of whom owe their
+insanity directly or indirectly to alcohol; [Footnote: Ibid, p. 63]
+the support of destitute and deserted children; [Footnote: Ibid,
+p. 89 ] the maintenance of prisons, of courts, and police - the
+Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics has shown that eighty-four
+per cent of all criminals under conviction in the correctional
+institutions of that State committed their crimes under the influence
+of alcohol. [Footnote: Ibid, p. 72] When we add to this the still
+greater numbers of incapables supported by their families and friends,
+we realize that the national drink bill is really very much greater
+than the mere sums spent for liquor. Comparative statistics show
+graphically how strikingly pauperism, crime, and destitution are
+diminished by prohibition. It is variously estimated that a fourth
+or a third or more of all acute poverty is due directly or indirectly
+to alcohol. Our municipalities are always poor; all sorts of needed
+improvements are blocked for lack of funds. If this leakage of the
+national wealth can be stopped we shall be able with the money saved
+to create a radically different and higher civilization.
+
+(3) The moral harm of alcohol is comparable to its physical and
+economic harm.
+
+(a) As we noted when considering the value of alcohol, the higher
+nature is stupefied, leaving the emotions less controlled. The
+silliness, the irritability, the glumness, the violence, the lust of
+men are given freer rein. The effect of alcohol is coarsening,
+brutalizing; we are not our best selves under its influence. The
+judgment is dulled, the spirit of recklessness is stimulated-an
+impatience of restraint and a craving for further excitement. Even
+after the palpable effects of a potation have disappeared, a permanent
+alteration in the brain remains, which makes it likely that the drinker
+will "go farther" next time or the time after. The accumulation of
+such effects leads finally to the complete demoralization of character,
+to the point where a man's higher nature can no longer keep control
+over his conduct. This is what is meant by saying that alcohol undermines
+the will power. [Footnote: See H. S. Williams, op. cit, p. 56]
+In particular, most sexual sins are committed after drinking; and the
+gravity of the sex problem is so great that this fact alone would
+justify the banishment of alcohol, the greatest of sexual stimulants.
+[Footnote: Cf. Jane Addams, A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil, p.
+189: "Even a slight exhilaration from alcohol relaxes the moral sense
+and throws a sentimental or adventurous glamour over an aspect of life
+from which a decent young man would ordinarily recoil; and its
+continued use stimulates the senses at the very moment when the
+intellectual and moral inhibitions are lessened."]
+
+(b) A very large proportion of the crimes committed are committed under
+the influence of alcohol. In Massachusetts, for example (in 1895),
+only five per cent of convictions for crime were of abstainers. In
+general, statistics show that from a half to three quarters of the
+total amount of crime has drinking for a direct contributing cause.
+When we add to this the crime-inducing influence of the poverty, ill
+health, and immoral social conditions caused by drink; we can form
+some idea of the moral indictment against alcohol. [Footnote: H. S.
+Warner, op. cit, p. 261.]
+
+(c) The liquor trade is the most powerful of all "interests" in the
+corruption of politics, one of the most demoralizing phases of our
+American life. [Footnote: H. S. Warner, op. cit, chap. XI.] The saloon
+power is in politics with a grim determination to keep its business
+from extermination. It is able to throw the votes of a large body of
+men as it wills. It maintains a powerful lobby at Washington and at
+the state capitals. In many places it has had a strangle hold on
+legislation. The trade naturally tends to ally itself with the other
+vicious interests that live by exploiting human weakness-the gamblers,
+the fosterers of prostitution, the keepers of vile "shows"; it has
+a vast revenue for the purchasing of votes, and, in the saloon, the
+easiest of channels for reaching the bribable voter. Corrupt political
+machines have been glad to use its support, and have derived a large
+measure of their strength there from. Were the liquor trade destroyed,
+the greatest obstacle in the way of political reform would be removed.
+In sum, we can say that the evils caused by alcohol, instead of having
+been exaggerated, have never until very recently been sufficiently
+realized. The half hath not been told.
+
+What should be the attitude of the individual toward alcoholic liquors?
+
+In the light of our present knowledge, the attitude toward liquor
+demanded by morality of the individual admits of no debate. He may
+love dearly his wines or his beer, but his enjoyment is won at too
+dear a cost to himself and others; his support of the liquor trade
+is very selfish. He has no right to poison himself, to impair his health
+and efficiency, as even a little drinking will do. He has no right
+to run the risk of becoming the slave of alcohol, as so many of the
+most promising men have become; the effect of the drug is insidious,
+and no man can be sure that he will be able to resist it. He has no
+right to spend in harmful self-indulgence money that might be spent
+for useful ends. He has no right to incur the, however immeasurable,
+moral and intellectual impairment which is effected by even rather
+moderate drinking. He has no right to bequeath to his children a weakened
+heritage of vitality. He has no right, by his example, to encourage
+others, who may be far more deeply harmed than he, in the use of the
+drug; "let no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in his
+brother's way." The influence of every man who is amenable to
+altruistic motives is needed against liquor, to counteract its lure;
+we must create a strong public sentiment and make it unfashionable
+and disreputable to drink. Happily the tide of liquor-drinking, which
+has been rising rapidly in the last half- century, owing to the increase
+in prosperity, the great influx of immigrants from liquor-drinking
+countries, and the stimulation of the trade by the highly organized
+liquor industry, has at last, by the earnest efforts of enlightened
+workers, been turned. Men of influence are standing out publicly
+against it. Grape-juice has been substituted for wine in the White
+House; Kaiser Wilhelm has become an abstainer, with a declaration that
+in the present era of fierce competition the nations that triumph will
+be those that have least to do with liquor. So conservative and
+cautious a thinker as ex-President Eliot of Harvard has recently become
+an abstainer, saying, "The recent progress of science has satisfied
+me that the moderate use of alcohol is objectionable." The yearly per
+capita consumption of alcoholic liquors, which rose from 8.79 gallons
+in 1880 to 17.76 in 1900 and 22.79 in 1911, fell in 1912 to 21.98.
+It is to be devoutly hoped that the tide will ebb as rapidly as it
+rose. What should be our attitude toward the use of alcoholic liquors
+by others? The consideration of this question falls properly under
+the head of "Public Morality." But it will be more convenient to treat
+it here, following the presentation of the facts concerning alcohol.
+The right of the community to interfere with the conduct of its members
+will be discussed in chapter xxviii, and we must assume here the result
+therein reached, that whatever is deemed necessary for the greatest
+welfare of the community as a whole may legitimately be required of
+its individual members, however it may cross their desires or however
+they may consider the matter their private concern. The argument against
+prohibition on the ground that it interferes with individual rights
+would apply also to child-labor legislation, to legislation against
+street soliciting by prostitutes or the sale of indecent pictures,
+and, more obviously still, against anti-opium and anti-cocaine
+legislation. As a matter of fact, the older individualistic point of
+view has been generally abandoned now, and we are free to discuss what
+is desirable for the general welfare. We may at once say that whatever
+method will most quickly and thoroughly root out the evil should be
+adopted. Different methods may be more or less efficacious in different
+places; it is a matter for legitimate opportunism. But the goal to
+be kept in sight can only be absolute prohibition of the manufacture,
+sale, and importation of all alcoholic liquors for beverages. Education
+on the matter, and exhortation to personal abstinence, must be continued.
+But education and exhortation are not alone sufficient; self-restraint
+cannot be counted on, constraint must be employed.
+
+"High License" and "Regulation" have been thoroughly tried and have
+not checked the evil; moreover, it has been a serious blunder to make
+the State or municipality dependent upon the liquor trade for revenue,
+and therefore eager to retain it. The "State Monopoly" system has not
+proved a success in this country in lessening the evil; it made the
+liquor power a more sinister influence than ever in politics. If liquor
+must be sold, the "Company," or Scandinavian system, which eliminates
+the factor of private profits, without fostering political corruption,
+is probably the least harmful method of selling. But no method of
+selling liquor can be more than a temporary expedient. We must work
+inch by inch to extend the boundaries of absolutely "dry" territory.
+"Local Option" has been of very great value in this movement, and may
+still in some States be the best attainable status. Option by counties,
+with a prohibition of the shipment of liquor from "wet" to "dry"
+counties, is the preferable form. Statewide prohibition, for a while
+in disrepute because of open violation of the law, is again gaining
+ground, ten of the forty-eight States being entirely "dry" at time
+of writing. The ultimate solution can only be the adoption of an
+amendment to the National Constitution enforcing nation-wide
+prohibition; the agitation for such an amendment is already acute,
+and the promise of its passage within a generation bright. The arguments
+against prohibition are not strong. That the law is poorly enforced
+in localities where public sentiment is against it is natural; but
+no law is universally obeyed, and that a law is broken is a poor reason
+for removing it from the statute books. No one would suggest repealing
+the laws against burglary or seduction because they are daily disobeyed.
+This pseudo-concern for the dignity of the law is simply a specious
+argument advanced by those who have an interest in the trade, and
+accepted by those who suppose liquor drinking to be wrong only in
+excess and harmless in moderation. The reply is to show that alcohol,
+practice that is always harmful must be fought by the law as well as
+by moral suasion. Public sentiment must be educated up to the law;
+and the existence of the law is itself of educative value. Moreover,
+the old observations of non-enforcement must now be modified; recent
+experience shows that the prohibition States are on the whole
+increasingly successful in enforcing their laws. The new national law
+prohibiting importations from "wet" to "dry" States helps immensely;
+and with the forbidding of importations from abroad and of the
+manufacture of liquor anywhere in the country, the problem of enforcement
+will settle itself. Except for the precarious existence of
+"moon-shiners," and for what individuals may make for themselves, the
+stuff will not be obtainable. [Footnote: For the arguments for
+prohibition, see H. S. Warner, op. cit, chaps. IX, XII. Artman, The
+Legalized Outlaw. Fehlandt, A Century of Drink Reform. Wheeler,
+Prohibition.] That prohibition involves the ruin of a great industry
+is true; these millions of workers will be free to give their strength
+to productive labor, these millions of dollars can be invested in some
+industry useful to mankind. Confiscation will work hardship to the
+brewers and distillers; so it does to the opium-growers, the makers
+of indecent pictures, and counterfeit money. A trade so inimical to
+the general interest deserves no mercy. The States that have unwisely
+used the "tainted money" drawn from the industry by license will have
+a far richer community to tax in other ways; for every dollar got in
+liquor-license fees, many dollars have been lost to the State. As
+Gladstone said, "Give me a sober population, not wasting their earnings
+in strong drink, and I shall know where to obtain the revenue." Pending
+the enactment of legal prohibition, what is called industrial prohibition
+is proving widely efficacious. Growing numbers of manufacturers, railway
+managers, and storekeepers are refusing to employ men who drink at
+all. The United States Commissioner of Labor reports that ninety per
+cent of the railways, eighty-eight per cent of the trades, and
+seventy-nine per cent of the manufacturers of the country discriminate
+already against drinkers. The only other point to be noted is that
+the saloon-the "public house," the "poor man's salon"-must be replaced
+by other social centers, that give opportunities for recreation, cheer,
+and social intercourse. The question of substitutes for the saloon
+will be alluded to again, in chapter xxx. [Footnote: See Raymond Calkins,
+Substitutes for the Saloon. H. S. Warner, op. cit, chap. VIII. Forum,
+vol. 21, p. 595.] The nation-wide campaign against alcohol is on, the
+area of its legalized sale is steadily diminishing. We who now discuss
+it may live to see it swept off the face of the earth; if not we, our
+children or children's children. And we must see to it that no other
+drug opium, morphine, or the like gets a similar grip on humanity.
+Our descendants will look with as great horror upon the alcohol
+indulgence of our times as most of us now do upon opium smoking.
+"O God, that men should put an enemy into their mouths to steal
+away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and
+applause, transform ourselves into beasts!"
+
+The best book for practical use is H. S. Warner's Social Welfare
+and the Liquor Problem (revised edition, 1913), where extensive
+references to the authorities will be found. Two other excellent
+popular books are H. S. Williams, Alcohol (1909), and Horsley
+and Sturge, Alcohol and the Human Body (1911). See also
+Rosanoff, in McClure's Magazine, vol. 32, p. 557; Rountree
+and Sherwell, The Temperance Problem and Social Reform;
+T. N. Kelynack, The Drink Problem: Scientific Conclusions
+concerning the Alcohol Problem (Senate Document 48, 61st
+Congress, 1909); and the five volumes of conclusions of the
+Committee of Fifty, published by Houghton, Mifflin Co, under
+the general title, Aspects of the Liquor Problem; a summary of
+these conclusions is published with the title The Liquor Problem,
+ed. F. J. Peabody. Barker, The Saloon Problem and Social Reform.
+Fanshawe, Liquor Legislation in the United States and Canada.
+C. B. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, chap. XVI. The
+best available data, to date, on the physiological questions
+underlying the moral questions may be found in G. Rosenfeld,
+Der Einfluss des Alkohols auf den Organismus (1901) A.B.Cushney,
+The Action of Alcohol (1907)-paper read before the British Association;
+Meyer and Gottlieb, Pharmacology (1914).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+CHASTITY AND MARRIAGE TEMPERANCE
+
+In the indulgence of the appetites is a manifest necessity for health and
+efficiency-temperance in work and play, in eating and drinking, in
+novel reading and theater going, in whatever activity desire may suggest.
+But two appetites stand on a different footing from the others, and
+demand more than temperance. The love of alcohol and the other narcotics,
+being, as we have seen, a pathological and highly dangerous appetite,
+productive of scarcely any real good, must be completely rooted out
+of human nature, as it readily can be, to the great advantage of mankind.
+The other great appetite, that of sex, cannot be treated so cavalierly;
+to eradicate it or deny its fulfillment would be to put a speedy end
+to the human race. The solution of the problems of sex is therefore
+not so simple, the remedying of the evils of which sexual passion is
+the source not so feasible. On the one hand, we have to recognize the
+sex instinct as normal and necessary, the source of the keenest, and,
+indirectly, of some of the most lasting, pleasures of life; the denial
+of its enticements to the extent which our Christian ideal demands
+provokes perennial resentment and rebellion. On the other hand, we
+are confronted by the incalculable evils which unrestrained lust
+produces, and forced to admit the imperious necessity of some strictly
+repressive code. To many, the gravest dangers in life lie here; the
+sex instinct is the great rebel, promising a glorious liberty, a melting
+of the barriers between human bodies and souls, an ecstasy of mutual
+happiness that nothing else can offer. Yet beyond these transient
+excitements lie the saddest tragedies-disease and suffering, unwished
+childbirth, heartbreak and death. Desire sings a siren music in our
+ears; but the bones of those who have surrendered to the song lie
+bleaching on the rocks. These sweet anticipations presage sorrow and
+ruin; there is no heavier sight than to see happy, heedless youth caught
+by the lure of this strange, mysterious thrill and drifting to their
+destruction-"As a bird hasteth to the snare, And know not that it is
+for his life." So much is at stake here that we must be more than
+ordinarily sure that we are not biased, that we are not binding ourselves
+by needless restrictions. But after whatever doubts and wanderings,
+the man of mature experience comes back to the monogamous ideal with
+the conviction that in it lies not only our salvation but our truest
+happiness. A thousand pities that so many learn the lesson too late!
+Nothing in the whole field of ethics is more important than for each
+generation, as it stands on the threshold of temptation and
+opportunity, to see clearly the basic reasons for our hard-won and
+barely maintained code of chastity. A reverence for authority, a deep-
+implanted sentiment, a recurrent emotional appeal, and a barrier of
+scruples and pledges may keep many within the lines of safety. But
+the morality of sentiment and authority must always be based on a
+morality of reason and experience. We must therefore begin by
+recapitulating the fundamental reasons for our monogamous ideal.
+
+What are the reasons for chastity before and fidelity after marriage?
+
+(1) The most glaring danger for a man in unchastity is disease. The
+venereal diseases are among the most terrible known to man; they are
+highly contagious-one contact, and that not necessarily actual
+intercourse, sufficing for infection-and at present only very partially
+curable. Practically all prostitutes become infected before long; the
+youngest and prettiest are usually diseased; the chance of indulging
+in promiscuous intimacies without catching some form of infection is
+slight. The only sure way of escape from this imminent danger is by
+the exclusive love of one man and one woman. Moreover, these diseases
+are, in their effects, transmissible from husband to wife and from
+wife to children. Many women's diseases, a large part of their sterility,
+of miscarriages and infant deaths, a large proportion of the paralysis,
+insanity, and blindness in the world, are due to the sins of a husband
+or parent. Thus the penalty for a single misstep may be very grim;
+and the worst of it is that it must often be shared by the innocent.
+[Footnote: See Prince Morrow, Social Diseases and Marriage. W. L.
+Howard, Plain Facts on Sex Hygiene.]
+
+(2) For a girl the danger of disease is not all. There is the
+additional danger of pregnancy, which means, and must mean, for her
+not only pain and risk of life, but lasting shame and disgrace. Even
+paid prostitutes, who are willing to employ dangerous methods to prevent
+conception, and soon become nearly sterile through disease or
+overindulgence, often have to resort to illegal operations, at the
+risk of their lives, and not infrequently come to childbirth. The virgin
+who gives herself to her lover under the spell of his ardent wooing
+is very much more likely to conceive. It cannot be too bluntly stated
+that the barest contact may suffice for conception; for a momentary
+intimacy two lives, or three, have often been ruined.
+
+(3) The reason why society cannot afford to be lenient with
+illegitimacy is that there is no proper provision for rearing children
+born out of wedlock. The woman and the child usually need the financial
+support of the man; they always need his love and care. If the man
+marries the girl he has wronged, there is not only the disgrace still
+attaching to her (and rightly to him, still more), but the fact of
+a hasty and unintended and probably more or less unhappy marriage.
+Certainly in every such case the girl has a right to demand that the
+man shall marry her; whether or no she will wish him to, or will prefer
+to bear her burden and disgrace alone, is for her to determine. But
+this is sure that any man who takes the chance of ruining a foolish
+and ignorant or oversusceptible girl "and all for a bit of pleasure,
+as, if he had a man's heart in him, he 'd ha' cut his hand off sooner
+than he'd ha' taken it" [Footnote: George Eliot's Adam Bede, from which
+these words are taken, ought to be read by every boy and girl.]- ought
+to be despised and socially ostracized by his fellows. Except for the
+penalty of disease, women have always borne the brunt of sexual
+follies, though men have been the more to blame. It is high time that
+this injustice were remedied to such extent as law and public opinion
+can do it.
+
+(4) The employment of paid prostitutes for man's gratification keeps
+in existence the unhappiest and most degraded class in the world.
+Brutalized and worn by their abnormal life, treated with coarse
+indignities which they cannot resent, deprived of their birthright
+of genuine love, of wifehood and motherhood, stricken with disease
+and doomed to an early death, thousands of the prettiest,
+reddest-blooded, most promising young girls of our land, the girls
+who ought to be bearing healthy children and rearing the future citizens
+of the State, now walk the streets painted and gaudily bedecked, seeking
+their miserable livelihood, and snaring the heedless and restless youth
+of the cities, the "young men void of understanding," to their common
+degradation. This human wastage is worse upon the race than war; and
+all the more pathetic because it consists of girls scarcely past the
+threshold of their maidenhood. When we consider further the
+indescribably horrible cruelty of the "white-slave trade," which the
+insatiable lust of men has brought into being, we may begin to realize
+to what the absence of restraint upon this appetite has led.
+
+It is quite conceivable that within the near future the venereal
+diseases will be rendered entirely curable by the progress of medicine.
+It is possible that some certain and harmless method of preventing
+conception will be found and become so universally known that the
+danger of unintentional childbirth will become practically nonexistent.
+Such a situation would remove the most obvious reasons for
+chastity, and would insure a rapid growth of free-love sentiment. It
+would be pointed out that free love would do away with the shameful
+existence of the paid prostitutes, and that thus all four of the basic
+reasons above given for chastity would no longer exist. To discuss
+such possibilities may seem premature. But as a matter of fact, even
+now every one who indulges in "free" love hopes to escape disease and
+conception. And there is an increasing propaganda insisting on the
+removal of the old conventions and the permission of promiscuous love.
+The spirit of adventure is in the air; and with even a good chance
+of escaping the penalties, there are many who will seize their
+opportunities for enjoyment, preferring a present pleasure with its
+spice of risk to a dull negation of desire. We must then go on with
+the argument and point out that even where these terrible results are
+escaped, the way of free love is not the happiest way.
+
+(5) Freedom from restraint in inter-sex relations inevitably leads,
+in the majority of men and women, to an overindulgence which seriously
+impairs health and efficiency. The one salient motive for the
+opposition of ancient codes to sex license was the necessity of
+preserving the virility of the young men for war. Today athletes are
+enjoined to chastity. But, indeed, if a man would succeed in anything,
+he must check this so easily overdeveloped impulse. Promiscuity means
+a continually renewed stimulus; the passion, which quickly becomes
+normal and intermittent when it spends itself upon one object, is apt
+to become an abnormal and almost continuous craving when it is solicited
+by a succession of novel and piquant attractions. The advocates of
+free love assert that it is unnatural repression that creates an undue
+and morbid longing; that freedom to satisfy the instinct would tend
+to keep it in its properly subordinate place. But the contrary is,
+in reality, true. More usually, as Rabelais has it, "the appetite comes
+during the eating." The absence of temptation will leave an instinct
+dormant which free opportunity to indulge will develop into a dominant
+appetite. And nothing more quickly drafts strength or ambition than
+absorption in sex pleasures; we need to put our energies into something
+that instead of being inimical is forwarding to the rest of our
+interests.
+
+(6) Sexual intemperance coarsens, blunts delight in the
+less violent and more delicate emotions. The pleasures of sex,
+though of the keenest, are not lasting, like those of the intellect,
+of religion, art, and manly achievement. But if recklessly indulged
+in, they inevitably sap our interest in these other ideals. Except
+where they spring from and reinforce true affection, they are an
+opiate, taking us into a dream world that makes actual life stale
+and tasteless. "Hold off from sensuality," says Cicero; "for if you
+give yourself up to it, you will be unable to think of anything else."
+There is so much else that is worthwhile, life has so many possible
+values, that for our own final happiness, we cannot afford to let this
+instinct usurp too great a place. The vision of God is worth many
+hours of transient and shallow excitement; and that vision comes
+only to the pure in heart.
+
+(7) But even for the greatest pleasure in sex itself,
+incontinence is a blunder. The one telling argument for free love is
+the sweetness of the delights that the chaste must miss; the bodily
+intimacy that soothes the lonely heart, the adventurous excitement
+of breaking down barriers, of dominance and surrender, with its
+quickened breathing and heightened sense of living. But the plea
+comes usually from the inexperienced; it is the yearning of youth
+toward the lure of the untried ways, of the untasted joys. Actually,
+where passion is unbridled, the halo and the vision quickly vanish;
+the sated impulse becomes a restless craving for more violent
+stimulation, a thirst that no mere physical intimacy can ever assuage;
+or it leaves the heart cloyed and despondent and resourceless.
+This is the natural history of undisciplined passion; it cheapens
+love, it robs it quickly of its exquisiteness and charm. The faithful
+lover, on the other hand, by checking premature intimacies, and
+keeping true to the one woman who calls or will some day call out
+all his love, knows a steady joy that bulks in the end far greater than
+the flaring and fitful and quickly disillusioned passions of unearned
+love. Where the veil of mystery is not too rudely drawn aside, the
+ability to respond to the charm of girlhood and of ripe womanhood
+may be long retained; the pleasures of sex that count for most in
+the end are not the moments of passion, but the daily enjoyment
+of companionship with the opposite sex, the assurance and comfort
+of mutual fidelity, the love that feeds on daily caresses, endearing
+words, and acts of tender service. And these lasting joys do not
+accrue to the man or woman who is not willing to wait, or who
+squanders his potentialities of love in reckless and fundamentally
+unsatisfying debauchery. This is the paradox of love; whoso would
+find its best gifts must be willing to deny himself its gaudiest. The old
+love of twos, the loyalty of man and wife that bring to each other
+pure hearts and bodies, is best.
+
+(8) There are, besides, certain practical consequences of which
+experience warns. Free love would mean that the pretty and well-
+developed girls, the handsomer and physically stronger men, would be
+besieged with solicitations and almost inevitably debauched by excess
+of temptation, while the less attractive would starve for love. It would
+mean jealousies, deserted lovers, and broken hearts. Free love
+is especially hard on a woman; she readily becomes attached,
+and craves loyalty. Inconstancy, though it is so natural to man as
+often to need the pressure of law and convention for its repression,
+is not only the worst enemy of his own happiness, but the inevitable
+source of friction and clash between men and between women. If
+freedom to break the troth that love instinctively plights is allowed,
+the chances are numerous that one or the other will some day
+discover another "affinity" that, at least for the time, seems closer
+and better suited to him; unless a stern loyalty prevents, one or two
+or three hearts may be broken. Our monogamous code-whose
+iological value is clearly indicated by its adoption by most of the
+higher animals (not counting the domesticated animals, whose
+morals have been hopelessly ruined)-stands among the wisest
+of our ideals.
+
+What safeguards against unchastity are necessary?
+
+Overwhelming as is the argument for monogamy, it runs counter to such
+violent impulses that it needs every prop and sanction that can be
+given it. It must shelter itself under the law, keep on its side the
+conscience of men, and be hallowed by alliance with religion. All this
+is partially attained by the social-religious institution of marriage.
+The wedding ceremony itself, adding as it does dignity and symbolism,
+the memory of a beautiful occasion, and the witness of friends to the
+plighting of mutual vows, is of appreciable value. We must now consider
+the practical question how, in the face of almost inevitable
+temptation, the young man and woman may keep chaste during the years
+prior to marriage. If pre-marital chastity is maintained, there is
+comparatively little danger of infidelity when chosen love and loyalty
+to vows come to reinforce the earlier motives.
+
+(1) Certain abstinences, that might not seem in themselves important,
+are necessary. Little familiarities, kisses and caresses, must be
+avoided; they are a playing with fire; and the youth never knows when
+the electric thrill will vibrate through his being, awakened by a
+touch, that will summon him to a new world wherein he must not yet
+enter. The finest men do not take these liberties, nor do well-bred
+girls permit them or respect those who seek them. Vulgar jokes and
+stories must be despised, as well as all allusions to vice as a natural
+or amusing thing. Alcohol, gambling, and all unhealthy excitements
+must be shunned. Above all, the imagination must be controlled; nothing
+is more dangerous than the indulgence in voluptuous dreams. Longings
+so fostered, so pent up without outlet, are too apt to break out, in
+despite of scruples and resolves, if a favorable and alluring
+opportunity occurs. The battle against sin is won more in private than
+in the actual moments of temptation.
+
+(2) But in this matter, as always, we must not merely avoid evil, we
+must overcome evil with good; we can best hope to escape the sirens
+not as Ulysses did, by having himself bound to the mast, but as Orpheus
+did, by playing a sweeter music still than they. The best antidote
+to impurity is a pure love, the next best the dedication to a love
+yet to be found. The passionate youth must speak in the vein of the
+Knight in Santayana's poem:
+
+"As the gaudy shadows Stalked by me which men take for beauteous
+things, I laughed to scorn each feeble counterfeit, And cried to the
+sweet image in my soul, How much more bright thou wast and beautiful."
+
+Normal friendships with pure girls are vitally necessary for a man,
+and comradeship with men important for women. Normal interests of all
+sorts are necessary; the man or woman who has a full, all-round life,
+who cultivates wholesome intellectual, aesthetic, religious activities,
+is in far less danger of an unregulated passion. Human energy must
+find some happy outlets, or it will tend to run amuck; what we become
+depends largely on what we get interested in. In particular, the
+abundant physical activity of robust health makes it much easier to
+banish immoderate desires.
+
+(3) There are certain safeguards that the community should erect.
+(a) Among these are the conventions that control intimacy between the
+sexes. On the one hand, the wholesome comradeship of boys and girls,
+above desiderated, must be encouraged, not only for the removal of
+that loneliness and morbid curiosity which are among the greatest of
+sex irritants, but in order that husband and wife may be wisely chosen.
+On the other hand, the attractiveness of the other sex may easily draw
+too much attention from the studies and sports that ought to make up
+the bulk of the activity of youth; and too great freedom of companionship
+leads to an unnecessary amount of temptation. The fearless, heart-
+free friendship of chaste youths and maidens is a priceless boon. But
+close lines must be drawn, and a certain amount of wise chaperonage
+is necessary. Too free a physical intimacy between the sexes leads
+almost irresistibly on, with many, to actual intercourse; the instinct
+is too imperious to be withstood when opportunity is too easy, if there
+are not many barriers to be broken first.
+
+(b) Another duty of the community lies in the fight against the public
+sources of sensual appeal not merely the houses of prostitution
+and street solicitation, but the vile shows, indecent pictures and
+books, and other means by which the greed of money panders to the sex
+instinct. The questions concerning the drama, the ballet, and the nude
+in art will recur when we come to discuss the general relations of
+art and morality. Closely parallel are the problems concerning the
+costume of women; these are phases of the eternal conflict between
+beauty and morality. What is pretty is tempting. How can we have
+enjoyment without being wrecked by it; how can we make life rich and
+yet keep it pure? Some line must be drawn; just where, we have not
+space to discuss.
+
+(c) Education on matters of sex must probably be attended to in the
+public schools. It were better done by parents, perhaps; but parents
+cannot be depended upon to do it. The dangers that await indulgence,
+the cruelty and brutality of prostitution, should be universally but
+cautiously taught; too many boys and girls wreck their lives for l
+ack of such knowledge. It is indeed a delicate task to instruct
+adolescents in these matters; there is, as Professor Munsterberg
+has well pointed out, a grave danger of stimulating, by calling
+attention to it, the very impulse which it is desired to curb, of
+dissipating the fear of the unknown which may be greater than
+that of clearly understood, and thereby, perhaps, avoidable
+dangers, and of breaking down barriers of shyness and reticence,
+which form one of the most effective of safeguards. Personal
+attention to the individual needs of boys and girls of widely
+differing temperaments and mental condition is imperative.
+But in general, it is to be remembered that almost every boy
+and girl learns, somehow, long before marriage, the main facts
+concerning sex-relations. And it is far better that that knowledge
+should be imparted reverently, accurately, unemotionally, and with
+due emphasis upon perils and penalties, than that it should be gained
+ in coarse and exciting ways, or remain half understood and with a
+glamour of mystery about it.
+
+What are the factors in an ideal marriage?
+
+Celibacy is neither natural nor desirable; a happy marriage should
+be the goal of every healthy man's and woman's thought. The economic
+situation that prevents so many from marrying till nearly or quite
+thirty is thoroughly unwholesome and must in some way be remedied.
+Marriage in the early twenties is not only an important safeguard
+against unchastity; it is physiologically better for the woman and
+her offspring. The danger and pain in childbirth to a woman of twenty
+or twenty-five are less than in later life, and the children have a
+better chance of health. Moreover, young people are mentally and morally
+more plastic; they have not yet become so "set" in their ways as they
+will later become, and are more likely to grow together and make easily
+those little compromises and adjustments which the fusing of two lives
+necessitates. And it is always a pity that the two who are to be life
+comrades should fail to have these years, in some ways the best of
+their lives, together.
+
+Yet this sacred and exacting relationship must not be hastily entered,
+for nothing more surely than marriage makes or mars character and
+happiness. Too early marriage is apt to be impulsive and thoughtless.
+It is true that many confirmed bachelors and maiden ladies lose through
+an excess of timidity the great experiences and joys which a little
+boldness, a little willingness to take a risk and put up with the
+imperfect would have brought them. No man or woman is perfect; no one
+can expect to find a wholly ideal mate; it is foolish to be too
+exacting, and it is conceited, implying
+that one is flawless one's self. Nevertheless, the counsel of caution
+is more commonly needed. Happily we have pretty generally got away
+from mariages de convenance, marriages for money, or title, or other
+extraneous advantages. And we have recognized the right of the
+two who are primarily concerned to make their own choice without
+interference, other than friendly counsel and warning, from others.
+But we still have many marriages from which the basic desiderata
+are in too great degree absent.
+
+(1) There should be genuine sex attraction; not necessarily a violent
+passion, or love at first sight, but some measure of that instinctive
+organic attraction, that unpredictable and irrational emotional
+satisfaction in physical proximity, which differentiates sex love from
+the love of men or women for one another. Not that "platonic" relations
+between husband and wife are not possible or permissible; but if a
+young couple are not linked by this sweetest of bonds, they not only
+miss much of the charm and mutual drawing- together of marriage, but
+they stand in gravest danger of an eventual arousing of the instinct
+by another-and that means either a bitter fight for loyalty or actual
+tragedy. It is never to be forgotten that husband and wife have to
+spend a great part of their life in the same house, in the same room.
+No degree of similarity of interests can take the place of that mere
+instinctive liking, that pervasive content at each other's presence,
+that enjoyment in seeing each other about, and in the daily caresses
+and endearing words that rightly mated couples know.
+
+(2) But this underlying physical attraction, however keen at first
+is not of guaranteed permanence; it must be buttressed by common
+tastes and sympathies. To like the same people, to enjoy doing the
+same things, to judge problems from the same angle, to cleave to
+similar moral, aesthetic, religious canons is of great importance. A
+certain amount of contrast in ideas and ideals is, indeed, piquant
+and stimulating; and where marriage is early there is likelihood of
+an adequate convergence in Weltanschauung. But too radically
+different an outlook upon life may lead to continual friction, to
+loneliness, and mutual antagonism. The two who are to be
+comrades in the great experiment of life must be able to help
+each other, strengthen each other's weaknesses, and admire
+each other's aims and achievements. In particular, religious
+fanaticism is an intractable enemy of marital happiness. As
+Stevenson puts it, "There are differences which no habit
+nor affection can reconcile, and the Bohemian must not
+ntermarry with the Pharisee. The best of men and the best of
+women may sometimes live together all their lives, and, for want
+of some consent on fundamental questions, hold each other lost
+spirits to the end."
+
+(3) It scarcely needs to be added that there must be on both sides
+a high standard of morality. Truthfulness, sincerity, self-control,
+the willingness to work, to sacrifice personal desires and pull together
+for the common welfare of the house, are essential, as well as fidelity
+to marriage vows and abstinence from all intemperance and lawbreaking.
+Common tastes can be formed after marriage; even the organic attraction
+is pretty sure to be awakened in some degree if the pair are not
+actually repulsive to each other; but low moral ideals at the age of
+marriage are seldom radically transformed afterward and render any
+happiness in home-making insecure.
+
+(4) Perhaps some day it may become incumbent upon the suitor to weigh
+the matter of the heredity back of the lady of his choice, and consider
+whether she is best adapted, by mating with him, to give birth to
+normal and healthy children; or for the maiden sought to regard with
+equal care the antecedents of the suitor. But-fortunately for lovers'
+consciences-we know too little at present about heredity and the
+breeding of human beings to give much useful advice or make any demands
+of the prospective couple, except to insist that those who are tainted
+with hereditary disease or feeble-mindedness shall refrain from
+marriage. To this subject we shall recur in chapter XXX.
+
+Is divorce morally justifiable?
+
+If marriage were always undertaken with adequate caution, there would
+seldom be need of annulling it. But since mistakes are bound to be
+made and unhappy unions result; since, further, matters arising after
+marriage often tend to push couples apart and engender a state of
+friction or absolute antagonism, a necessary postscript to the
+questions concerning marriage must be that concerning divorce. It is
+matter of common knowledge that there is a marked tendency in recent
+years toward a loosening of the marriage bond; the ease with which
+divorces are granted in some States has become a national scandal.
+Among the causes for this are the lessening of allegiance to religious
+authority, the loss of the older fears and restraints, the growing
+spirit of adventure and iconoclasm. With the breaking-up of traditions,
+the lure of freedom has been strong, especially upon the so-long-
+dominated and docile sex. Women are becoming better educated and
+asserting their rights everywhere; they are now able to earn their
+living in many independent ways, and are in a position to break loose;
+the era of the subjection of women is over, and it is natural that
+many, particularly of the idle and frivolous, should turn this new-won
+liberty into license.
+
+But, indeed, human nature being as it is, there would inevitably arise,
+and have always arisen, many cases of strain and friction in marriage
+relations. As Chesterton says, a man and a woman are, in the nature
+of the case, incompatible; and that underlying incommensurability of
+viewpoint easily results in clash where a deep-rooted affection and
+a habit of self-control are absent. Innumerable couples have suffered
+and hated each other and made the best of it; nowadays they are
+deeming it better frankly to admit and end the discord. And the problem,
+Which solutionis better? is by no means an easy one. We can but make
+here a few general suggestions.
+
+(1) Divorce must certainly not be so easy as to encourage hasty and
+unconsidered marriage, or to turn this most sacred of relationships
+into a mere experimental and provisional alliance. "Trial marriage"
+is a palpably reprehensible scheme, involving an unwarrantable stimulus
+to the sex appetite; many men would enjoy taking one woman after another,
+until their passion in each case had exhausted its force with the lapse
+of novelty; women, who are not so naturally promiscuous, would suffer
+most. What would become of the children is a question whose very posing
+condemns the proposal. But a lax divorce law provides practically for
+trial marriage; one or the other party may enter into the contract
+and pronounce the solemn vows without any intention of keeping them
+when it shall cease to be for his or her pleasure. Not in this way
+is to be got the real worth of marriage; the conscious and earnest
+effort, at least, must be to keep to it for life. An easy short cut
+to freedom would tempt too many from the harder but nobler way of
+compromise, conciliation, and self-subordination. If one is weak and
+erring, or petulant and unkind, the other must patiently and lovingly
+seek to help, to educate, to uplift; seventy times seven times is not
+too often for forgiveness; and many a marriage that seemed hopelessly
+wrecked has been saved by magnanimity and tactful affection. There
+is a fine disciplinary value in these forbearances, and much opportunity
+for spiritual growth in the persevering endeavor toward harmony and
+mutual understanding. Many a man and woman who might have been lost
+if divorced, has been saved for a better life by the unwillingness
+of wife or husband to desert under grievous provocation. There comes
+an ebb to most conjugal disputes; men and women grow wiser, and often
+gentler, with age; while there is any hope for readjustment and revival
+of love it is wrong to break marital vows. Many a divorce has been
+as hasty and ill considered as the marriage it ended, and has left
+the couple in the end less happy and useful members of the community.
+Particularly when there are children should the parents sacrifice much
+for the sake of giving them a real home, with both mother- and
+father-love.
+
+(2) Yet there are cases where love is hopelessly killed
+and harmony is impossible; cases where much suffering, and even moral
+degeneration, would result from continuance of the married life. Where
+a man transfers his love to another or indulges in infidelity to his
+vows; where he crazes himself with liquor or some other narcotic, and
+will not give it up; where he treats his wife with cruelty or contempt,
+or through selfishness or laziness deserts or refuses to support her;
+where she refuses to perform her wifely duties, gives herself to other
+men, makes home intolerable for him--in short, in any case where
+mutual loyalty and cooperation are hopeless of attainment, it is surely
+best that there should be separation. It does not make for the welfare
+of the children, or for the sanctity of marriage, that such wretched
+travesties of it should continue. Moreover, for eugenic reasons, we
+must urge the freeing of wives from husbands who have transmissible
+diseases, inheritable defects, or chronic alcoholism. Nor should the
+fact of one mistake preclude the injured party from another opportunity
+for happiness and usefulness. Whether the guilty man or woman, the
+one wholly or chiefly to blame for the failure, should be permitted
+to remarry is another matter; but probably, on the whole, it is better
+than the alternative encouragement of immorality and illegitimacy.
+
+(3) The community should exert its influence toward the remedying of
+the present anomalies and uncertainties by making both marriage laws
+and divorce laws more stringent, and uniform throughout the country.
+Statutes that will render impulsive marriage impossible, by requiring
+an interval to elapse after statement of intention to marry, and making
+a clean bill of health necessary; divorce laws that shall refuse to
+pander to caprice and willfulness, but shall make it easy, without
+scandal or needless publicity, to deliver a woman or a man from an
+intolerable and irremediable situation, and that shall not be
+appreciably more lenient in one State than in another, will go far
+toward curing contemporary evils. It may yet be that the Constitution
+will be so amended as to permit the National Government to control
+these matters and thus replace our present chaos with order.
+
+Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. XXVI. Scharlieb and Silby, Youth and
+Sex. C. Read, Natural and Social Morals, chap. VII. Anon, Life, Love,
+and Light (Macmillan), pp. 84-96. R. C. Cabot, What Men Live By, chaps.
+XXIV-XXIX. W. L. Sheldon, An Ethical Movement, chaps. XI, XII. C. F.
+Dole, Ethics of Progress, part VII, chap. III. Felix Adler, Marriage
+and Divorce, The Spiritual Meaning of Marriage. N. Smyth, Christian
+Ethics, pp. 405-15. B. P. Bowne, Principles of Ethics, part III, chaps.
+VIII, IX. W. E. H. Lecky, The Map of Life, chap. XIV. Stevenson,
+Virginibus Puerisque. G. E. C. Gray, Husband and Wife. J. Rus, The
+Peril and Preservation of the Home. Thompson and Geddes, Problems of
+Sex. H. Munsterberg, "Sex-Education" (in Psychology and Social Sanity).
+H. G. Wells, "Divorce" (in Social Forces in England and America). C.
+J. Hawkins, Will the Home Survive? Biblical World, vol. 43, p. 33.
+International Journal of Ethics, vol. 17, p. 181. For the data: United
+States Department of Commerce and Labor, Reports on Marriage and
+Divorce. Publications of the National League for the Protection of
+the Family (Secretary S. W. Dike, Auburndale, Massachusetts)
+and of the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis (105 West 40th
+Street, New York). Howard, MATRIMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. Sutherland,
+ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE MORAL INSTINCT of the Moral Instinct,
+chaps. vii, ix. Lestourneaux, EVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+FELLOWSHIP, LOYALTY, AND LUXURY
+
+EVERY man has to solve the problem of how far he will live for his
+smaller, personal self, and how far for that larger self that includes
+the interests of others. The general principles involved we have
+discussed in chapter XI; we may now proceed to consider their
+application to the concrete situations in which we find ourselves.
+What social relationships impose claims upon us?
+
+(1) The relations of husband and wife and of parenthood are most sacred
+and exacting, because they are voluntarily assumed, and because the
+need and possibilities of help are here greatest. A man or woman may
+without odium remain free from these obligations; but once they have
+made the vows that initiate the dual life, once they have brought a
+helpless child into the world, neither may evade the consequent
+responsibilities. If undertaken at all, these duties must be
+conscientiously fulfilled; and whatever sacrifices are necessary must,
+as a matter of course, and ungrudgingly, be made.
+
+(2) Next in inviolability to these claims are those of father and
+mother, brother and sister, and other near relatives. Involuntary as
+these relations are, the natural piety that accepts the burdens they
+entail must not be allowed to grow dim. Those nearest of kin are the
+natural supports and helpers of the weak and dependent; and though
+patience and resources be severely taxed, it is better to let blood
+ties continue to involve obligation than to permit the selfish
+irresponsibility of a freer and more individualistic society. Much
+provocation can be borne by remembering "She is my mother"; "He is
+my brother"; after all, their interests are ours, and our lives are
+impoverished, as well as theirs, if we ignore them.
+
+(3) The voluntary bonds of friendship entail somewhat vaguer
+obligations, since the closeness of the tie is not clearly fixed, as
+it is in the case of blood relationship. But "once a friend always
+a friend" is the truehearted man's motto. "Assure thee," says one of
+Shakespeare's heroines, "if I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it
+to the last article." No one who has won another's friendship, and,
+however tacitly, pledged his own, is thenceforth free to ignore the
+bond. Here are for most men the happiest opportunities for fellowship,
+for inward growth, and for service; for if the love of wife surpasses
+that of friends, it is not only on account of the fascination of sex,
+but because marriage may be the supreme friendship. Emerson declared
+that "every man passes his life in the search after friendship"; and
+the greatest of Stevenson's three desiderata for happiness was - "Ach,
+Du lieber Gott, friends!" Human beings, even when brought up in a
+similar environment, are so infinitely divergent in temperament and
+ideal, that the near of kin seldom meet a man's deepest needs, and
+he must wait and watch to find one here and there with whom he can
+clasp hands in real mutual comprehension and accord. Want of this
+spontaneous comradeship sadly limits a life; nothing pays more in joy
+than the circle of friends that a man can draw about him. Nothing,
+likewise, is more morally stimulating. "What a friend thinks me to
+be, that must I be." This linking of our lives to others draws us out
+of ourselves, corrects our cramped and distorted vision, and reinforces
+our wavering aspirations. Hence those who are so critical and fastidious
+as to make few friends ill serve their own interests. A certain
+heartiness and fearlessness of trust is necessary; reproaches and
+suspicions, accusations and demands for explanations, must not be
+indulged in, even if wrong is actually done. A presumption of good
+intentions must always be maintained, even if appearances are black.
+It is more shameful, as La Rochefoucauld said, to distrust a friend
+than to be deceived by him. Indeed, these deceptions and disillusions
+are oftenest the result of our own mistaken idealization; we must expect
+neither perfection nor those particular virtues in which we ourselves
+are especially punctilious, and undertake to love and cleave to a mortal,
+not an angel. Friendship requires not only that we lend a hand when
+help is needed; it implies patience and tact and the endeavor to
+understand. Through common experiences, repeated interchange
+of thought and observation, mutual enjoyment of beauty and fun,
+particularly in expressing common ideals and working together for
+common causes, there grows to maturity this wonderful relationship
+"the slowest fruit in the whole garden of God, which many summers
+and many winters must ripen."
+
+(4) Beyond the boundaries of blood and friendship lie a whole hierarchy
+of lesser relationships-to neighbors, to employees, to fellow townsmen,
+to human beings the world over. Mere proximity constitutes a claim that
+is not commonly acknowledged when distance interposes;
+most men would be mortally ashamed to let a next-door neighbor starve,
+although they may feel no call to lessen their luxuries when thousands,
+whom they could as easily succor, are perishing in the antipodes. And
+there is a measure of necessity in this; to burden our minds with the
+thought of the suffering in India, in Russia, in Japan, leads to a
+paralyzing sense of impotence. If we confine our thought to the
+dwellers on our street or in our town, it may not seem utterly hopeless
+to try to remedy their distress; to improve the situation of the
+laborers in one's own shop or factory lies within the limits of
+practicability. But the Christian doctrine of the universal brotherhood
+of man is becoming a working principle at last; and millions of dollars
+and thousands of our ablest young men and women are crossing the
+oceans to uplift and civilize the more backward nations, in deference
+to the admonition that we are our brothers' keepers. At home this
+recognition of the basic human relationship of living together on this
+little sphere, that is plunging with us all through the great deeps of
+space, should help to obliterate class lines and snobbishness and
+bring about a real democracy of fellowship.
+
+(5) Finally, we have a duty to those dumb brothers of ours, the animal
+species that share with us the earth. For they, too, feel pain and
+pleasure, and are much at our mercy. We must learn "Never to blend
+our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."
+
+All needless hurting of sentient creatures is cruelty, whether of the
+boy who tortures frogs and flies, or of the grown man who takes his
+pleasure in hunting to death a frightened deer. Beasts of prey must,
+indeed, be ruthlessly put to death, just as we execute murderers; among
+them are to be counted flies, mosquitoes, rats, and the other pests
+so deadly to the human race and to other animals. But death should
+be inflicted as painlessly as possible; no humane man will prolong
+the suffering of the humblest creature for the sake of "sport" or take
+pleasure in the killing. We must say with Cowper "I would not enter
+on my list of friends, (Though graced with polished manners and fine
+sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon
+a worm."
+
+This does not necessarily imply that we may not rear and kill animals
+for food. When properly slaughtered, they suffer inappreciably-no
+more, and probably less, than they would otherwise suffer before death;
+the fear of the hunted animal is not present, and there is no danger
+of leaving mate and offspring to suffer. Indeed, the animals that are
+bred for food would not have their chance to live at all but for serving
+that end; and their existence is ordinarily, without doubt, of some
+positive balance of worth to them. Certainly the rearing of cattle
+and sheep and chickens adds appreciably to the picturesqueness and
+richness of human life; and if dieticians are to be believed, their
+food value could hardly be replaced by substitutes.
+
+The question of vivisection is not a difficult one. Certainly
+experimentation on living animals should be sharply controlled,
+anesthetics should be used whenever possible, and the needless
+repetition of operations for illustrative purposes should be forbidden.
+But it is far better for the general good that necessary
+experimentation should be performed upon animals than upon human
+beings; not at all as a partisan judgment, to shift suffering from
+ourselves to others, which would be unjustifiable, but because animals
+are less sensitive to pain, and unable to foresee and fear it as human
+beings would. The human lives saved have been of far greater worth
+not only to themselves but objectively than the animal lives sacrificed.
+Moreover, except for a few glaring instances, vivisection has involved
+little cruelty; and the crusade against it, though actuated by a noble
+impulse, has rested upon misrepresentation of facts and exaggeration
+of evils.
+
+What general duties do we owe our fellows?
+
+(1) The abstract duty to refrain from hurting our fellows, and to give
+positive help, to whomever we can, will find constant application in
+connection with each specific problem we are to study. But a few
+general remarks may be pertinently made here. In the first place, we
+need to be reminded that to help requires insight and tact and
+ingenuity; it is not enough to respond to obvious needs or actual
+requests; we must learn to understand our fellows' wants, remember
+their tastes, seek out ways to add to their happiness or lighten their
+burdens. For another must realize the importance of manners, cultivate
+kindliness of voice and phrase, courtesy, cheerfulness, and good humor.
+Surliness and ill temper, glumness, touchiness, are inexcusable; nor
+may we needlessly burden others with our troubles and disappointments
+- the motto, "Burn your own smoke," voices an important duty. Again,
+we must remember that people generally are lonely and in need of love;
+we must be generous in our affection. It is sometimes said that love
+given as a duty is a mockery; and doubtless spontaneous and irresistible
+love is best. But it is possible to cultivate love. If we think of
+others not as rivals or enemies, but as fellows whose interests we
+ourselves have at heart, if we try to put ourselves in their place,
+see through their eyes, and enjoy their pleasures and successes, we
+shall find ourselves coming to want happiness for them and then feeling
+some measure of affection. Men and women do not have to be perfect
+to be loved; all or nearly all are love worthy, if we have it in us
+to love.
+(2) The question how far we should tolerate what we believe
+to be wrong in others, and how far we should work to reform them, is
+of the most difficult. Certainly moral evil must be fought; the counsel
+to "resist not evil" cannot be taken too sweepingly. No one can sit
+still while a big boy is bullying a smaller, while vice caterers are
+plying their trades, while cruelty and injustice of any sort are being
+perpetrated. In lesser matters, too, we must not be inactive, but use
+our influence and persuasion to call our fellows to better things.
+They may well at some later day reproach us if we shirk our duty to
+help them see and correct their faults; still more may we be reproached
+by others who have been harmed by faults that we might have done
+something toward curing. Often a single gentle and tactful admonition
+has turned the whole current of a man's life. The truest friendship
+is not too easy- going; it stimulates and checks as well as comforts.
+Emerson happily phrases this aspect of the matter: "I hate, when I
+looked for a manly furtherance, or at least a manly resistance, to
+find a mush of concession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend
+than his echo."
+
+This is, however, only half the truth. What Stevenson calls the
+"passion of interference with others" is one of the wretchedest
+poisoners of human happiness. People are, after all, hopelessly at
+variance in ideals, and we must be content to let others live in their
+own way and according to their own inner light, as we live by ours.
+Probably neither is the light of perfect day. Parents are particularly
+at fault in this respect; rare is the father or mother who is willing
+that son and daughter should leave the parental paths and follow their
+own ideals. Incalculable is the amount of needless suffering caused
+by the conscientious attempt to make others over into our own image.
+As Carlyle wrote, "The friendliest voice must speak from without; and
+a man's ultimate monition comes only from within." We need not only
+a shrugging "tolerance," but a willingness to admit that those who
+differ from us may after all be in the right of it. It often happens
+that as we live our standards change, and we come to see that those
+whom we were anxious to reform were less in need of reformation than
+we; and very likely while we were blaming others, they in their hearts
+were blaming us. The older we grow the less we feel ourselves qualified
+for the office of censor.
+
+Certain practical counsels may perhaps be not too impertinent: Be sure
+you can take advice yourself without offense or irritation before you
+proffer it to others; there may be beams in your own eyes as well as
+motes in your neighbors'. Be sure you see through the other's eyes,
+and get his point of view; only so can you feel reasonably confident
+that you are right in your advice or reproof.[Footnote: Cf. W. E. H.
+Lecky, The Map of Life, p. 68: "Few men have enough imagination to
+realize types of excellence altogether differing from their own. It
+is this, much more than vanity, that leads them to esteem the types
+of excellence to which they themselves approximate as the best, and
+tastes and habits that are altogether incongruous with their own as
+futile and contemptible."] Be sure that you are saying what you are
+saying for the other's good, and not to give vent to your own
+irritability or selfishness or sense of superiority; say what must
+be said sweetly or gravely, never patronizingly or sharply, with
+resentfulness or petulance. Be sure you choose your occasion tactfully,
+and above all things do not nag; it is better to have it out once and
+for all than to be forever hinting and complaining and reproving. Praise
+when you can, temper advice with compliments, make it apparent that
+your spirit is friendly and your mood good-tempered. Talk and think
+as little as possible of others' faults; he who is above doing a low
+act is above talking about another's failings. The only right gossip
+is that which dwells upon the pleasant side of our neighbors' doings.
+Avoid all impatience, contempt, and anger; they poison no one so much
+as him who feels them. Cultivate kindliness and sympathy; love opens
+blind eyes, helps us to understand our neighbor, and to help him in
+the best way. Are the rich justified in living in luxury? Of all the
+problems that loyalty to our fellows involves, none is acuter, to the
+conscientious man, than that concerning the degree of luxury he may
+allow himself. It is strictly things in the world is limited; the more
+I have, the less others have. How can a good man be content to spend
+unnecessary sums upon himself and his own family, when within arm's
+reach men and women and children are being stunted mentally and morally,
+are living in dirt and squalor, are succumbing to disease, are actually
+dying, for lack of the comfort and opportunity that his superfluous
+wealth could give? "Wherever we may live, if we draw a circle around
+us of a hundred thousand [sic], or a thousand, or even of ten miles'
+circumference, and look at the lives of those men and women who are
+inside our circle, we shall find half- starved children, old people,
+pregnant women, sick and weak persons, all working beyond their strength,
+with neither food nor rest enough to support them, and so dying before
+their time."[Footnote: Tolstoy, What Shall We Do Then? chap. xxvi.]
+It is only a lack of imagination and sympathy, or an actual ignorance
+of conditions, that can permit so many really kind-hearted people to
+spend so much money upon clothes, amusements, elaborate dinners, and
+a lot of other superfluities, in a world so full of desperate need.
+It would be well if every citizen could be compelled to do a little
+charity-visiting, or something of the sort, that he might see with
+his own eyes the cramping and demoralizing conditions under which,
+for sheer lack of money, so many worthy poor, under the present crude
+social organization, must live. It is the segregation of the well to
+do in their separate quarters that fosters their shameless callousness,
+and leads, in the rich, "to that flagrant exhibition of great wealth
+which almost frightens those who know the destitution of the poor."
+
+There is, however, a growing uneasiness among those who have, an
+increasing sense of responsibility toward those who have not; there
+are hopeful signs of a return to the sane ideal of the Greeks, who
+deemed it vulgar and barbaric to spend money lavishly on self. The
+compunctions of the rich are indicated, on the one hand, by generous
+donations made to all sorts of causes, and on the other hand, by the
+arguments which are now thought necessary to justify the selfish use
+of money. These arguments we may cursorily discuss.
+
+(1) A clever writer in a recent magazine [Footnote: Katherine Fullerton
+Gerould, in the Atlantic Monthly, vol. 109, p. 135.] speaks of
+"factitious altruism"; with this "altruism of the Procrusteans" who
+would reduce every one to the simple life-she has "little patience."
+"Thousands of people seem to be infected with the idea that by doing
+more themselves they bestow leisure on others; that by wearing shabby
+clothes they somehow make it possible for others to dress better-
+though they thus admit tacitly that leisure and elegance are not evil
+things. Or perhaps-though Heaven forbid they should be right!-they
+merely think that by refusing nightingales' tongues they make every
+one more content with porridge. Let us be gallant about the porridge
+that we must eat; but let us never forget that there are better things
+to eat than porridge."
+
+This philosophy, less gracefully expressed, is not uncommon. Luxury
+is, other things equal, better than simplicity. But other things are
+not equal when our neighbors are cold and sick and hungry. What self-
+respecting man can eat "caviar on principle" when another has not even
+bread? By wearing plainer clothes we can make it possible for others
+to dress better, by denying ourselves nightingales' tongues we can
+buy porridge for the poor. It surely betokens a low moral stage of
+civilization that so many, nevertheless, choose the Paquin gowns and
+the six-course dinners. Luxury is better than simplicity if it can
+be the luxury of all. If not, it means selfishness, callousness, and
+broken bonds of brotherhood. Moreover, it has personal dangers;
+it tends to breed softness and laziness, an inability to endure
+hardship, what Agnes Repplier calls "loss of nerve." It tends to choke
+the soul, to crush it by the weight of worldly things, as Tarpeia was
+crushed by the Sabine shields. "Hardly can a rich man enter the kingdom
+of heaven." Simple living, with occasional luxuries, far more
+appreciated for their rarity, is healthier and safer, and in the end
+perhaps as happy. Certainly the luxury of the upper classes has usually
+portended the downfall of nations. "It is luxury which upholds states?"
+asks Laveleye; "yes, just as the executioner upholds the hanged man."
+"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates
+and men decay."
+
+(2) There is a patrician illusion prevalent among the rich, to the
+effect that they are more sensitive than the poor, have higher natures
+which demand more to satisfy them; that the lower classes do not need
+and would not appreciate the luxuries which are necessary to their
+existence. To this the reply is, "Go and get acquainted with them;
+you will find that they are just the same sort of people that you and
+your friends are"-not so educated, very likely, nor so refined of speech
+and manner, but with the same longings and capacities for enjoyment.
+Of course, they become used to discomfort and deprivation, seared by
+suffering; so would you in their place. Human nature has a fortunate
+ability to adjust itself to its environment. But even if the poor do
+not realize what they are missing, that is scant excuse for not
+bringing to them, as we can, new comforts and opportunities.
+
+(3) The commonest fallacy lies in the argument that by lavish
+consumption the rich provide employment for the poor. They provide
+employment, yes, in serving them. They create needless work, where
+there is so much work crying to be done. If that money is put into
+the bank, instead, or into stocks and bonds, it will employ men and
+women in really useful tasks. If it is given to some of the worthy
+"causes" which are always handicapped for lack of funds, it will employ
+men in caring for the sick, in educating the ignorant, in feeding the
+hungry, or in bringing recreation and relief to the worn. Every man
+or woman whose time and strength we buy for our personal service-valet,
+maid, gardener, dressmaker, chef, or what not-is taken away from the
+other work of the world.
+
+(4) A certain hopelessness of effecting any good often paralyzes good
+will. The help a little money can give seems like a drop in the bucket;
+its assistance is but for a day, and the need remains as great as ever.
+It may even be worse than wasted; it may encourage shiftlessness, it
+may pauperize. There is no doubt that indiscriminate and thoughtless
+charity is dangerous; the crude largesse of a few rich Romans of the
+Empire bred vast corruption and pauperism. But there is much that can
+safely be done; there are many wise and cautious agencies at work for
+aid and uplift; and every little, if given to one of them, is of real
+help.
+
+(5) It is sometimes said that if society discountenances luxury, the
+motive for hard and efficient work will be too much reduced; we need
+this extra spur to exertion. But the earning of what may permissibly
+be spent on self is spur enough; there is no need of inordinate luxury
+to foster faithfulness and exertion. The praise of superiors and equals,
+a moderate rise in scale of living, the shame of shirking, the
+instinctive glory in achievement, and the joy of helping others, are
+stimuli enough.
+
+(6) Finally, the last argument of the selfish man is that "he has
+earned his money; it is his; he has a right to do with it as he
+pleases" This we cannot admit. Legally he is as yet free so backward
+is our social order-to accumulate and spend upon himself vast sums.
+But it is not best for society that he should, and so he is not morally
+justified therein. We must agree with Carnegie that "whatever surplus
+wealth comes to him (beyond his needs and those of his family) is to
+be regarded as a social trust, which he is bound to administer for
+the good of his fellows"; and with Professor Sager, that "the general
+interest requires acceptance of the maxim: the consumption of luxuries
+should be deferred until all are provided with necessaries." This does
+not mean that we need live like peasants, as Tolstoy advised, make
+our own shoes, and till our own plot of ground; nor that we must come
+down to the level of the lowest. By doing that we should lose the great
+advantages of our material progress, which rests upon the high
+specialization of labor and reciprocal service. We should lose the
+charm and picturesqueness of highly differentiated lives, and sink
+into the dull, monotonous democracy which Matthew Arnold so dreaded.
+We must work where we can best serve; we must try to make our lives
+and their surroundings beautiful, so far as beauty does not require
+too great cost. We must save up for a rainy day, for insurance against
+illness and old age, for wife and children. We may properly invest
+money, where it will be used to good ends - so that we beware of
+spendthrift or lazy heirs. We must keep up a reasonably comfortable
+and beautiful standard of living, such a standard as the majority could
+hope to attain to by hard work and abstinence and thrift. But all the
+money one can earn beyond this ought to be used for service. The
+extravagance and ostentation and waste of many even moderately well
+to do are a blot upon our civilization. The insane ideal of lavish
+adornment, of fashionable clothes and costly furnishings, of mere vain
+display and wanton luxury, infects rich and poor alike, isolating the
+former from the great universal current of life, and provoking in the
+latter bitterness and anarchism. Let us ask in every case, Does this
+expenditure bring use, health, joy commensurate with the labor it
+represents? A great deal of current expense in dressing, in
+entertaining, in eating, could be saved by a sensible economy, with
+no appreciable loss in enjoyment. We must not forget that everything
+we consume has been produced by the labor and time of others. What
+fortune, or our own cleverness, has put into our hands that we do not
+need for making fair and free our own lives, and the lives of those
+dependent upon us, we should pass on to those whose need is greater
+than ours. Is it wrong to gamble, bet, or speculate? A corollary to
+our discussion of the duties appertaining to the use of money must
+be a condemnation of gambling. Its most obvious evil is the danger
+of loss of needed money; most gamblers cannot rightly afford to throw
+away what ought to be used for their real needs and those of their
+families. Notably is this the case with college students, supported
+by their parents, who heedlessly waste the money that others have worked
+hard to save. But even if a man be rich, he should steward his wealth
+for purposes useful to society. And he must remember that if he can
+afford to lose, perhaps his opponent cannot. Moreover, if many cannot
+afford to lose, no one can afford to win. Insidiously this getting
+of unearned money promotes laziness, and the desire to acquire more
+money without work. It makes against loving relations with others,
+since one always gains at another's expense. It quickly becomes a morbid
+passion, an unhealthy excitement, which absorbs too much energy and
+kills more natural enjoyments. The gambling mania, like any other
+reckless dissipation, easily leads to other dissipations, such as
+drinking and sex indulgence. These disastrous consequences are, of
+course, by no means always incurred. But in order that the weaker may
+be saved from them, it behooves the stronger to abstain. All betting,
+all playing games for money, all gambling in stocks is wrong in
+principle, liable to bring needless unhappiness. The honorable man
+will hate to take money which has not been fairly earned; he will wish
+to help protect those who are prone to run useless risks against
+themselves. The safest place to draw the line is on the near side of
+all gambling, however trivial.[Footnote: See H. Jeffs, Concerning
+Conscience, Appendix. R. E. Speer, A Young Man's Questions, chap. xi
+B. S. Rowntree, Betting and Gambling. International Journal of Ethics,
+vol. 18, p. 76.] General relations to others: F. Paulsen, System of
+Ethics, book III, chap. IX, sec. 6; chap. X, secs. 3, 4, 5. G. Santayana,
+Reason in Society. J. S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, 2d ed, chap.
+IX. Emerson, Society and Solitude title essay. P. G. Hamerton, The
+Intellectual Life, part IX. Friendship: Aristotle, Ethics, books. VIII,
+IX. Emerson, "Friendship" (in Essays, vol. I). H. C. Trumbull, Friendship
+the Master Passion. Randolph Bourne, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 110,
+p. 795. Luxury: E. de Laveleye, Luxury. E. J. Urwick, Luxury and Waste
+of Life. Tolstoy, What Shall We Do Then? (or, What To Do?) Maeterlinck,
+"Our Social Duty" (in Measure of the Hours). F. Paulsen, System of
+Ethics, book III, chap. IV, secs. 3, 4. T. W. Higginson, in Atlantic
+Monthly, vol. 107, p. 301. H. Sidgwick, Practical Ethics, chap. VII.
+Hibbert Journal, vol. II, p. 39. H. R. Seager, Introduction to Economics,
+chap. IV, secs. 43-45.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+TRUTHFULNESS AND ITS PROBLEMS
+
+Sins of untruthfulness are not so seductive or, usually, so serious
+as those we have been considering; but for that reason they are perhaps
+more pervasive - we are less on our guard against them. What are the
+reasons for the obligation of truthfulness? Truthfulness means
+trustworthiness. The organization of society could not be maintained
+without mutual confidence. This general need and the specific harm
+done to the individual lied to, if he is thereby misled, are sufficiently
+plain. [Footnote: I will content myself with quoting one sentence from
+Mill (Utilitarianism, chap. II), warning the reader to take a deep
+breath before he plunges in: "Inasmuch as the cultivation in ourselves
+of a sensitive feeling on the subject of veracity is one of the most
+useful, and the enfeeblement of that feeling one of the most hurtful,
+things to which our conduct can be instrumental; and inasmuch as any,
+even unintentional, deviation from truth does that much towards
+weakening the trustworthiness of human assertion, which is not only
+the principal support of all present social well-being, but the
+insufficiency of which does more than any one [other] thing that can
+be named to keep back civilization, virtue, everything on which human
+happiness on the largest scale depends, - we feel that the violation,
+for a present advantage, of a rule of such transcendent expediency,
+is not expedient, and that he who, for the sake of a convenience to
+himself or to some other individual, does what depends on him to
+deprive mankind of the good, and inflict upon them the evil, involved
+in the greater or less reliance which they can place in each others'
+words, acts the part of one of their worst enemies."] The evil
+resulting to the man who lies is less generally recognized. We may
+summarize it under three heads:
+
+(1) It is much simpler and less worrisome, usually, to tell the truth.
+A lie is apt to be scantly on our guard; and one lie is very likely
+to need propping by others. We are led easily into deep waters, and
+discover "what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to
+deceive." But when we tell the truth, we have no need to remember what
+we said; there is a carefree heartiness about the life that is open
+and aboveboard that the liar, unless he has given up trying to maintain
+a reputation, never knows.
+
+(2) Lying is usually a SYMPTOM - of selfishness, vanity, greed,
+slovenliness, or some other vicious tendency which a man cannot afford
+to tolerate. Refusing to give vent in speech to these undesirable
+states of mind helps to atrophy them, while every expression of them
+insures them a deeper hold. Untruthfulness is the great ally of all
+forms of dishonesty; and strict scruples against lying make it much
+easier to clear them from the soul. This is the best vantage point
+from which to attack the half-conscious egotism which seeks to create
+a false impression of one's virtues or powers, the insidiously growing
+avarice that instinctively overvalues goods for sale and disparages
+what is offered. It is a good vantage point from which to attack
+carelessness, inaccuracy, and negligence; the man who has trained
+himself to precision of speech, who is painstakingly honest in his
+statements, who qualifies and discriminates, and hits the bull's eye
+in his descriptions of fact, can be pretty safely depended upon to
+do things rightly as well. The selfish lie is never justifiable, because
+selfishness is never justifiable; the cowardly lie - "lying out of"
+unpleasant consequences - is wrong, because cowardice is wrong. To
+banish the symptoms may not wholly banish the underlying causes, but
+it is one good way to go about it. At least, the lies are danger signals.
+
+(3) The habit of lying is very easily acquired; and the habitual liar
+is sure, sooner or later, to be caught and to be despised. He has
+forfeited the confidence of men and will find it almost impossible
+to regain it or to win a position of trust. If one must lie, then,
+it pays to lie boldly, as a definite and authorized exception to one's
+general rule; in this way one may keep from sliding unawares into the
+habit. All equivocations and dissimulations, all literal truths that
+are really deceptions, all attempts to salve one's own conscience by
+making one's statements true "in a sense," and yet gain the advantage
+of an out-and- out lie, are miserable make-shifts and utterly
+demoralizing. There is "not much in a truthfulness which is only
+phrase-deep." Whether we deceive others or no, we cannot afford to
+deceive ourselves; we should never deviate a hair's breadth from the
+truth without acknowledging the deviation to ourselves as a necessary
+but unfortunate evil. A man may say nothing but what is true, and yet
+intentionally give a wrong impression; "truth in spirit, not truth
+to the letter, is the true veracity." "A lie may be told by a truth,
+or a truth conveyed by a lie." "A man may have sat in a room for hours
+and not opened his teeth, and yet come out of that room a disloyal
+friend or a vile calumniator."[Footnote: Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque,
+chap. IV.] If a man lies deliberately and regretfully, for an end that
+seems to him to require it, he may be making a mistake; but he is
+escaping the worst danger of lying. He is not corrupting his soul,
+blurring his vision of the line between sincerity and insincerity,
+and numbing his conscience so that presently he will lie as a matter
+of course - and be universally distrusted. All of this is very clear,
+and sufficiently explains our ideal of veracity. But it is not enough
+for moralists to dwell upon the general necessity of truthfulness;
+the problems connected therewith arise when one asks, Are there not
+legitimate or even obligatory exceptions to the rule? Except for a
+few theorists who are more attracted by unity and simplicity than by
+the concrete complexities of life, practically all agree that there
+are occasions when lying is necessary, occasions when the confidence
+of men would not be destroyed by a lie because of the clearly exceptional
+nature of the case. Can we lay down any useful rules in the matter,
+indicating what types of cases require untruthfulness? What exceptions
+are allowable to the duty of truthfulness? Love undoubtedly sometimes
+requires, and oftener still excuses, a lie.
+
+(1) There are the trite cases where by misinformation a prospective
+murderer is misled and his potential victim saved;[Footnote: Cf. the
+somewhat similar situation in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables (Fantine,
+last chapter) where Soeur Simplice lies to Javert about Jean Valjean.
+Hugo applauds the lie perhaps too extravagantly ("O sainte fille! que
+ce mensonge vous soit compte dans le paradis!"); but few probably
+would condemn it. Another interesting case is that of a French girl in
+the days of the Commune. On her way to execution her fiance tried
+to interfere; but she, realizing that if he were known to be her lover
+he would likewise be executed, looked coldly upon him and said, "Sir,
+I never knew you!"] where a sick man, who would have less chance of
+recovery if he realized his dangerous condition, is cheered and carried
+over the critical point by loving deception; where a theater catches
+fire and a disastrous panic is averted by a statement to the audience
+that one of the actors has fallen ill, and the performance must be
+ended. In such cases it is foolish to talk of the possibility of
+evasion; it is direct misstatement that is necessary to prevent the
+great evil that knowledge, or even suspicion of the truth, might
+entail. Truthfulness under such circumstances, or even the taking
+of a chance by attempting to effect deception without literal untruth,
+would be brutal and inexcusable. As Saleeby puts it, "When the
+choice is between being a liar or a brute, only brutal people can
+tell the truth or hesitate to lie - and that right roundly.[Footnote:
+Ethics, p. 103.] In such cases the public, including the very
+people deceived (except the murderer, who deserves no
+consideration), applaud the lie; no lack of confidence is
+engendered. Other cases, less commonly discussed, are
+equally clear. A mother has just lost a son whom she has
+idealized and believed to be pure; his classmates know him
+to have been a rake. If she asks them about his character,
+will not all feel called upon to deceive her, and leave her in
+her bereavement at least free from that worst sting? When
+a timid woman or a sensitive child is alarmed, say, for example,
+at sea in a fog, will not a considerate companion reiterate
+assurance that there is little or no danger, even when he
+himself believes the risk may be great? When a man is asked
+about some matter which he has promised to keep secret, if
+the attempt to evade the question in the nature of the case is
+practically a letting-out of the secret, there seems sometimes to
+be hardly an alternative to lying. Mrs. Gerould puts it thus: "A
+question put by some one who has no right to the information
+demanded, deserves no truth. If a casual gossip should ask
+me whether my unmarried great-aunt lived beyond her means,
+I should feel justified in saying that she did not although it might
+be the private family scandal that she did. There are inquiries
+which are a sort of moral burglary" [Footnote: In the Atlantic
+essay referred to at the end of this chapter. The unassigned
+quotations following are from that paper, which I am particularly
+glad to commend after rather curtly criticizing that other essay of
+hers in the preceding chapter.]
+
+(2) In regard to the little lies which form a part of the conventions of
+polite society, there may be difference of opinion. Their aim is to
+obviate hurting people's feelings, to oil the wheels of social misled
+by them. When asked by one's hostess if one likes what is apparently
+the only dish provided, or if one has had enough when one is really
+still hungry, the average courteous man will murmur a gallant falsehood.
+What harm can be done thereby, and why cause her useless
+embarrassment? "We simply have to be polite as our race and clime
+understand politeness, and no one except a naive is really going to take
+this sort of thing seriously." To thank a stupid hostess for the pleasure
+she has not given, is loving one's neighbor as one's self. "I know only
+one person whom I could count on not to indulge herself in these
+conventional falsehoods, and she has never been able, so far as I
+know, to keep a friend. The habit of literal truth-telling, frankly, is
+self-indulgence of the worst." In some circles, at least, the phrase
+"not at home" is generally understood as a politer form of "not
+seeing visitors." It must be admitted, however, that there is danger
+in these courteous untruths. If the visitor does not understand the
+"not at home" in the conventional sense, she may be deeply hurt
+and lose her trust in her friend, if she by chance discovers her to
+have been in the house at the time. Nor is it always wise to truckle
+to sensibilities that may be foolish; blunt truthfulness, even if
+unpalatable, is often in the end the best service. There are cases
+where untruthfulness is shirking one's duty, just as there are cases
+where truthfulness is mean or brutal.
+
+To tell what we honestly think of a person, or his work, may mean to
+discourage him and invite demoralization or failure; to attribute virtues
+or powers to him which he actually does not possess may be to foster
+those virtues or powers in him. Or the reverse may be the case; his
+individual need may be of frank criticism or rebuke. The concrete
+decision can only be reached by following the guidance of the law of
+kindness, the Apostle's counsel of "speaking truth in love."
+
+(3) In this connection it may be well to go further and emphasize the fact
+that there are many cases, not necessitating a lie, where the truth
+is not to be thrust at people. "Friend, though thy soul should burn
+thee, yet be still. Thoughts were not meant for strife, nor tongues
+for swords, He that sees clear is gentlest of his words, And that's
+not truth that hath the heart to kill." There are usually pleasant
+enough things that one CAN say - though one may be hard put to it;
+and if the truth must be told, it may often be sugarcoated. President
+Hadley, when a young man, was receiving instructions for a delicate
+negotiation. "If the issue is forced upon us," he interrupted, "there
+is, I think, nothing to do but to tell the truth." "Even then," replied
+his chief, "not butt end foremost." Cases of religious disbelief will
+occur to every one. While all hypocrisy and truckling to the majority
+opinion is ignoble, the blunt announcement of disbelief may do much
+more harm than good. Truth is not the only ideal; men live by their
+beliefs, and one who cannot accept a doctrine which is precious and
+inspiring to others should think twice before helping to destroy it.
+Not only may he, after all, be in the wrong, or but half right; even
+if he is wholly right, it may not be wise to thrust his truth upon
+those whom it may discourage or morally paralyze. [Footnote: On the
+ethics of outspokenness in religious matters, see H. Sidgwick, Practical
+Ethics, chap. VI; J. S. Mill, Inaugural Address at St. Andrews; Matthew
+Arnold, Prefaces to Literature and Dogma and God and the Bible F.
+Paulsen, System of Ethics, book III, Chap. XI, sec. 10.] In what
+directions are our standards of truthfulness low? Truthfulness in private
+affairs averages fairly high in our times. Many people will, indeed,
+lie about the age of a child for the sake of paying the half- fare
+rate, use the return half of a round-trip ticket sold only for the
+original purchaser's use, or look unconcernedly out of the window if
+they think the conductor will pass them by without collecting fare.
+Certain forms of such oral or tacit lying are so common that people
+of looser standards adopt them with the excuse that "every one does
+it," or that "the company can afford to lose it." But in more public
+matters the prevalence of untruthfulness is much more shocking. Standards
+are low or unformulated, and it is often extremely difficult for the
+honorable man to know what to do; strict truthfulness would deprive
+him of his position. We may barely hint at some of these situations.
+
+(1) In business, misstatement is generally expected of a salesman.
+Advertisements of bargains, for example, have to be discounted by the
+wary shopper. "$10 value, reduced to $3.98," may mean something worth
+really $3. "Finest quality" may mean average quality; goods passed
+off as first-class may be shoddy or adulterated. Labels on foodstuffs
+and drugs are, happily, controlled to some degree by the national
+government; there ought to be a similar control over all advertising.
+Much is being done by the better magazines in investigating goods and
+refusing untruthful advertising; and many houses have built up a deserved
+reputation for reliability. But still the economical householder has
+to spend much time in comparing prices and studying values, that he
+may be sure he is not being cheated.
+
+(2) In politics, frank truth telling is almost rare. It is deemed
+necessary to suppress what sounds unfavorable to a candidate's
+chances, to make unfair insinuations against opponents, to
+juggle statistics, emphasize half-truths, and work generally
+for the party by fair means or foul. Too great candor in admitting
+the truth in opponents' arguments or the worth of their candidates
+would be sharply reprimanded by party leaders. Especially in
+international diplomacy is truthfulness far to seek. Secretary Hay,
+indeed, stated in the following words: "The principles which have
+guided us have been of limpid simplicity. We have set no traps;
+we have wasted no time in evading the imaginary traps of others.
+There might be worse reputations for a country to acquire than
+that of always speaking the truth, and always expecting it from
+others. In bargaining we have tried not to get the worst of the
+deal, alway remembering, however, that the best bargains are those
+that satisfy both sides. Let us hope we may never be big enough to
+outgrow our conscience." Other American diplomats have followed
+the same ideal. But American diplomacy has been labeled abroad
+as "crude," and is perpetually in danger of lapsing from this moral level.
+
+ (3) The profession of the lawyer presents peculiarly difficult problems.
+May he so manipulate the facts in his plea as to convince a jury of
+what he is himself not convinced? May he by use of the argumentum
+ad populum, by his eloquence and skill, win a case which he does not
+believe in at heart? In some ancient codes lawyers had to swear not to
+defend causes which they believed unjust. But this is hardly fair to a
+client, since, even though appearances are against him, he may be
+innocent; whatever can be said for him should be discovered and
+presented to the tribunal. Dr. Johnson said: "You are not to deceive
+your client with false representations of your opinion, you are not to
+tell lies to the judge, but you need have no scruple about taking up
+a case which you believe to be bad, or affecting a warmth which you
+do not feel. You do not know your cause to be bad till the judge
+determines it. An argument which does not convince you may
+convince the judge, and, if it does convince him, you are wrong
+and he is right." [Footnote: Quoted by W. E. H. Lecky,
+The Map of Life, p. 110. The chapter which contains this quotation
+gives an interesting discussion of the ethics of the lawyer and some
+further references on the subject.] This dilemma of the lawyer could
+be matched by equally doubtful situations that confront the physician,
+[Footnote: See, for a discussion of the ethics of the medical profession,
+G. Bernard Shaw, Preface to The Doctor's Dilemma, and B. J. Hendrick,
+"The New Medical Ethics," in McClure's Magazine, vol. 42, p. 117.]
+and members of the other professions. There is need of acknowledged
+professional codes, drawn up by representative members, and enforced
+by public opinion within the profession and perhaps by the danger of
+expulsion from membership in the professional associations. It is largely
+the variation in practice between equally conscientious members that
+causes the distrust and disorder of our present situation. Truthfulness
+must be standardized for the professions. [Footnote: On professional
+codes, see H. Jeffs, Concerning Conscience, chap. VIII.]
+
+(4) The author, whether of books or essays or reviews, has to face
+particularly powerful temptations. It is so easy to overstate his case,
+to omit facts that make against his conclusions, to use colored words,
+to beg the question adroitly, to create prejudice by unfair epithets,
+to evade difficult questions, to take the popular side of a debated
+matter at the cost of loyalty to truth. Controversy almost inevitably
+breeds inaccuracy; there are few writers who fight fair. Quotations,
+torn from their context, mislead; carefully chosen figures give a wrong
+impression; the reviewer is tempted to pick out passages that support
+only his contention, whether eulogistic or depreciatory. Leslie Stephen
+speaks of "the ease with which a man endowed with a gift of popular
+rhetoric, and a facility for catching at the current phrases, can set
+up as teacher, however palpable to the initiated may be his ignorance."
+A larger proportion of the great mass of books yearly published are
+mere trash, appealing to untrained readers, and only confirming them
+in unwarranted beliefs and opinions. Few there are who are really fit
+to teach the public; and of those there are fewer still who love truth
+more than the triumph of their opinion, who are candid, scrupulous,
+and exact in their statements. There is doubtless little conscious
+deception; but there is a great deal of misstatement which is
+inexcusable, and due either to slovenliness, lack of proper training,
+or partisanship.
+
+This brings us to the similar and even graver evils in our modern
+newspapers, which we must pause to study in somewhat greater detail.
+For nowhere is untruthfulness so rampant and so shameless as in
+contemporary journalism. The ethics of journalism.
+
+(1) The gravest evil, perhaps, in journalistic practice is the
+suppression or distortion of news in the interest of political parties
+and "big business." It is impossible to rely on the political
+information given in most of our newspapers; they are dominated by
+a party, subservient to "the interests," afraid to publish anything
+that will offend them. They misrepresent facts, give prejudiced accounts
+of events, gloss over occurrences unfavorable to their ends, circulate
+unfounded rumors to create opinion, pounce upon every flaw in the
+records of opponents,- going often to the point of shameless libel,-
+while eulogizing indiscriminately the politicians of their own party.
+Many of them cannot be counted on to attack corruption or politically
+protected vice. They are organs neither of an impartial truth seeking
+nor of public service. However conscientious the reporters and editors
+might wish to be, they are bound, by the fear of dismissal, to follow
+the policy of the owners.
+
+(2) No less reprehensible, though somewhat less important, is the
+toadying of the newspapers to their advertisers. The average paper
+could not exist were it not for this source of income, and it cannot
+afford to refuse the big advertisements even when they are pernicious
+to the morals or health of the community. So we are confronted daily
+by the premedicine fakirs, who injure the health and drain the
+pocketbooks of the guileless. So we are exposed to the plausible
+suggestions of the swindlers, feasted with glowing prospectuses of
+mines that will never yield a dividend, or eulogistic descriptions
+of house lots to be sacrificed at a price that is really double their
+worth. In a recent postal raid the financial frauds exposed had fleeced
+the public of nearly eighty million dollars, about a third of which
+had been spent in advertising.
+
+Not only do the newspapers accept such advertisements, and those of
+the brewers, the cigarette-makers, and the proprietors of vile theaters,
+but they do not dare in their columns to denounce these frauds or
+undesirable trades. They are muzzled because they cannot afford to
+tell the truth when it will offend those who supply their revenue.
+
+(3) Less harmful, but more superficially conspicuous, is the tendency
+toward the fabrication of imaginary news, to attract attention and
+sell the paper. Huge headlines announce some exciting event, which
+below is inconspicuously acknowledged to be but a rumor. It will be
+denied the next day in an obscure corner, while the front page is devoted
+to some new sensation. This "yellow journalism" is very irritating
+to one who cares more for facts than for thrills; and the more reputable
+newspapers have stood out against this disgraceful habit of their less
+scrupulous rivals. Mr. Pulitzer, the son of the famous editor of the
+New York "World," in an address at the opening of the Columbia
+University School of Journalism, spoke vehemently against this evil:
+"The newspaper which sells the public deliberate fakes instead of facts
+is selling adulterated goods just as surely as does the rascal who
+puts salicylic acid in canned meats or arsenical coloring in preserves;
+and it ought to be subject to the same penalties for adulteration as
+are these other adulterators. The fakir is a liar if he is guilty of
+a fake that injures people, he is not only a vicious liar but often
+a moral assassin as well; but in either event he is a liar, and it
+is only by treating him uncompromisingly as such that he may be corrected
+if he is not yet a confirmed fakir, or rooted out if he is an inveterate
+fakir." There is surely enough, for those who have eyes to see, that
+is dramatic and exciting in actual life without depending upon fictitious
+news. Chesterton berates the contemporary press for failing to give
+us the thrill of reality. It "offends as being not sensational or violent
+enough; . . . does not merely fail to exaggerate life-it positively
+underrates it. With the whole world full of big and dubious
+institutions, with the whole wickedness of civilization staring them
+in the face, their idea of being bold and bright is to attack the War
+Office. . . . Something which is an old joke in fourth-rate comic
+papers." [Footnote: "The Mildness of the Yellow Press," chap. VIII
+of Heretics.]
+
+(4) Another danger of our irresponsible journalism lies in pandering
+to prejudices and antipathies, in stirring up class hatred or national
+jingoism. Evil motives are attributed to foreign powers; the German
+Emperor has designs upon South America; the Japanese are preparing
+to invade our Pacific Coast. Insignificant words of individuals are
+headlined and treated as portentous; foreign peoples are caricatured;
+our national "honor" is held to be in danger daily. Or the capitalists
+are pictured as universally fat and greedy and unscrupulous; anarchism
+is encouraged-as in the case of the murderer of McKinley, who was
+directly incited to his deed by the violent diatribes of a contemporary
+newspaper. Such demagoguery might flourish even with strict regard
+for truthfulness; but it becomes far worse when, as usual, in its appeal
+to popular prejudices, it exaggerates and invents and suppresses facts.
+
+(5) The notorious emphasis upon crime and summary of journalistic
+evils. Every unpleasant fact that ought, from kindness to those
+concerned and from regard to the morals of the readers, to be ignored
+or passed lightly over, is instead dragged out into the light. The
+delight in besmirching supposedly respectable citizens, the brutal
+intrusion into private unhappiness, the detailed description of
+domestic tragedy, is nothing short of outrageous. Pictures of
+adulterers and murderers, of the instruments and scenes of crimes,
+precise instructions to the uninitiated for their commission,
+explanations of the success of burglary or train-wreckers, help
+marvelously to sell a paper, but do not help the morals of the younger
+generation. No one can estimate the amount of sexual stimulation, of
+suggestion to sin and vice, for which our newspapers are responsible.
+
+(6) In conclusion, we may mention a trivial matter which, however,
+brings our newspapers into deserved disrepute-their self-laudation
+ad boasting. How many "greatest American newspapers" are there? There
+are even, in this country alone, more than one "World's greatest
+newspaper!" From this principle of conceit there are all gradations
+down to the humblest village paper that lies about its circulation
+and extols itself as the necessary adjunct of every home. These
+overstatements are pernicious in their influence upon public standards
+of accuracy and honesty.
+
+The newspaper is potentially an instrument of incalculable good. No
+other influence upon the minds and morals of the people is so
+continuous and universal. Through the newspapers knowledge is
+disseminated, judgment and outlook upon life are crystallized,
+political and social beliefs are shaped. They might be the means of
+great social and moral reforms. But so long as they are subject to
+the struggle for existence which, necessitates their truckling to
+parties, to advertisers, and to public prejudices and passions, so
+long their influence will be largely unwholesome. If public opinion
+cannot force them to a higher moral level in their present status as
+sources of private profit, they must be published by the State or by
+trustees of an endowment fund. Municipally owned papers are liable
+to partisanship and corruption, in their way, and endowed papers to
+an undue regard for the interests of the class to which the majority
+of the trustees may belong. But the dangers would probably be far less
+than are inherent in our present system, where morals have to defer
+to pocketbooks; and when municipal government in this country is finally
+ordered in a sensible way, so that corruption is much more difficult
+and easily detected, the municipal newspaper, run after the "city
+manager" plan, will probably become universal.
+
+F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book III, chap. XI. L. Stephen, Science
+of Ethics, chap, V, sec. IV. C. F. Dole, Ethics of Progress, part VII,
+chaps, I, II. E. L. Cabot, Everyday Ethics, chaps. XIX, XX. T. K.
+Abbott, Kant's Theory of Ethics, Appendix I. Stevenson, Virginibus
+Puerisque, chap. IV. E. Westermarck, Origin and Development of Moral
+Ideas, chap. XXXI. K. F. Gerould, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 112, p.
+454. Ethics of Journalism: H. Holt, Commercialism and Journalism. H.
+George, Jr, The Menace of Privilege, book VII, chap. I. W. E. Weyl,
+The New Democracy, chap. IX. Educational Review, vol. 36, p. 121.
+Atlantic Monthly, vol. 102, p. 441; vol. 105, p. 303; vol. 106, p.
+40; vol. 113, p. 289. Forum, vol. 51, p. 565. E. A. Ross, Changing
+America, chap. VII. North American Review, vol. 190, p. 587.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+CULTURE AND ART
+
+THE function of the newspaper, which we have been discussing, is, to
+a considerable extent, to widen our horizon, to give us new ideas and
+sympathies, to enrich and brighten our lives; in greater degree, that
+is the role of the fine arts, and of that wide conversance with beauty
+and truth that we call culture. Man is not a mere worker, and
+efficiency is not the only test of value; the pursuit of truth and
+beauty for its own sake is a legitimate human ideal. But beauty, as
+we have seen, brings temptations; and even the search for truth may
+lure a man away from his duty. We must consider, then, how far culture,
+and its outward expression in art, may rightly claim the time and
+energies of man.
+
+What is the value of culture and art?
+
+(1) Culture, according to Matthew Arnold, [Footnote: Culture and
+Anarchy, Preface, and chap. I.] is "the disinterested endeavor after
+man's perfection . . . . It is in endless additions to itself, in the
+endless expansion of its powers, in endless growth in wisdom and beauty
+that the spirit of the human race finds its ideal." This wisdom, this
+beauty that culture offers us, does not need extrinsic justification;
+it is, as Emerson so happily said, its own excuse for being; it is
+a fragment of the ideal; and it means that life has in so far been
+solved, its goal attained. It is in itself a great addition to the
+worth, the richness and joy, of life, and it is a pledge to the heart
+of the possibility of the ideal, a realization of that perfection for
+which we long and strive.
+
+It means a multiplication of interests, a participation by proxy in
+the throbbing life of mankind, which lifts us above the disappointments
+of our personal fortunes, helps us to identify ourselves with the larger
+currents of life, and to live as citizens of the world. A limitless
+resource against ennui, it refreshes, rests, and recreates, relieves
+the tension of our working hours, makes for health and sanity. "If
+a man find himself with bread in both hands," said Mohammed, "he should
+exchange one loaf for some flowers of the narcissus, since the loaf
+feeds the body, indeed, but the flowers feed the soul."
+
+There is in certain quarters a tendency to disparage culture as not
+practical-" a spirit of cultivated inaction" -unworthy of the attention
+of serious men. The word connotes, perhaps, to these critics certain
+superficial polite accomplishments, mere frills and decorations, which
+fritter away our time and dissipate our ambitions. But in its proper
+sense, culture is far more than that; it is the comprehension of the
+meaning of life and the appreciation of its beauty. And grim as is
+the age-long struggle with evil, insistent as is the duty to toil and
+suffer and achieve, it were a harsh taskmaster who should refuse to
+poor driven men and women the right to snatch such innocent joys as
+they can by the way, to try to understand the whirl of existence in
+which they are caught; in short, to really live, as well as to earn
+a living. It would be a sorry outcome if when we reached the age of
+complete mechanical efficiency, with all the machinery of a complex
+industrial life well oiled and perfected, we should find ourselves
+imaginatively sterile, hopelessly utilitarian, earthbound in our
+vision.
+
+(2) But the moralist need not rest with this apology for culture. By
+helping us to understand the life about us, culture shows us the better
+how to solve our own problems, and saves us from the tragedy of putting
+our energies into fiction, poetry, and the drama give us an insight
+into the longings, the temptations, the ideals of others, and so
+indirectly into our own hearts. Thus a normal perspective of values
+is fostered; we come to learn what is base and what is excellent, and
+have our eyes opened to the inferior nature of that with which we had
+before been content. There is a pathos in the ignorance of the
+uncultivated man as to what is good. Give him money to spend and he
+will buy tawdry furniture and imitation jewelry, he will go to vulgar
+shows and read cheap and silly trash. He is unaware of what the best
+things are, and unable to spend his money in such a way as really to
+improve his mind, his health, or his happiness. Even in his vocation
+he could be helped by a background of culture; the college graduate
+outstrips the uneducated man who has had several years the start of
+him. And no one can tell how many an undeveloped genius there may be,
+now working at some humble and routine task, who might have contributed
+much to the world if his mental horizon had been widened and his latent
+powers unfolded. Knowledge is power; we never know what bit of apparently
+useless insight may find application in our own lives and help us to
+solve our personal problems.
+
+(3) Moreover, culture is not only informative, it is inspirational.
+History and biography fire the youth with a noble spirit of emulation;
+poetry, fiction, and the drama, and to some extent music, painting,
+and sculpture, arouse the emotions and direct them-if the art is
+good-into proper channels. Meunier's sculptured figures, Millet's Angelus
+or Man with the Hoe, the oratorio of the Messiah or a national song
+like the Marseillaise, have a stirring and ennobling effect upon the
+soul; while such a poem as Moody's Ode in Time of Hesitation, a story
+like Dickens's Christmas Carol, or a play like The Servant in efficacious
+than many a sermon. The study of any art has a refining influence,
+teaching exactness and restraint, proportion, measure, discipline.
+And in any case, if no more could be said, art and culture substitute
+innocent joys and excitements for dangerous ones, satisfy the craving
+for sense-enjoyment by providing natural outlets and developing normal
+powers, thus tending to check its crude and unwholesome manifestations.
+In these ways they are valuable moral forces, whose usefulness we ought
+not to neglect.
+
+(4) Culture socializes. It adds to our competitive life, to our
+personal ambitions and self-seeking, an unselfish pleasure, a pleasure
+which we can share with all, and which needs to be shared to be best
+enjoyed. Nothing binds men together more joyously and with less
+likelihood of friction than their common love of the beautiful. All
+classes and all peoples, men of whatever trade or interests, may learn
+to love the same scarlet of dawn, the same stir and heave of the sea,
+that Homer loved and fixed in winged words for all men of all time.
+From whatever land we come we may thrill to the words of English
+Shakespeare or Florentine Dante, to the chords of German Wagner and
+Italian Verdi, to the colors of Raphael and Murillo, to the noble
+thoughts of Athenian Plato, Roman Marcus Aurelius, and Russian Tolstoy.
+Our opinions differ, our interests diverge, our aims often cross; but
+in the presence of high truth and beauty, fitly expressed, our
+differences are forgotten and we are conscious of our essential unity.
+Prejudices and provincialisms crumble, personal eccentricities fade,
+barriers are broken, all sorts of fanaticisms and frictions are choked
+off, under the influence of a widespread cultural education. What is
+most important in cultural education? Wisdom and beauty are vague
+words; and to make our discussion practical we must indicate what in
+the ideal curriculum. It is a matter of relative values, since nearly
+every study is of some worth; and the detailed decision as to subjects
+and methods must be left to the expert on pedagogy. But to present
+the general needs that education must meet falls within our province.
+In addition, then, to the particular vocational education which is
+to fit each man for his specific task, in addition to that physical
+development which must always go hand in hand with intellectual growth,
+in addition to that moral-religious training and that preparation for
+parenthood, of which we shall later speak, we may mention three
+important ideals to be grouped under our general conception of culture.
+
+(1) First, we must have KNOWLEDGE of the world we live in -not so much
+masses of facts as a comprehension of principles, insight into
+relations and tendencies. A man should be at home upon the earth; he
+should be able to call the stars by name, to realize something of the
+immensities by which this spinning planet is surrounded, and to see
+in every landscape a portion of the wrinkled, water-eroded surface
+of the globe. He should see this apparently solid sphere as a whirl
+of atoms, and come face to face with the old puzzles of matter and
+mind. He should be able to trace in imagination the growth of stellar
+systems; the history of our own earth; the evolution of plant and animal
+life, from the first protoplasmic nuclei to the mammoth and mastodon;
+the emergence of man from brute hood into self-consciousness, his triumph
+over nature and the other animals, and his achievement of civilization.
+He should watch primitive man wrestling with problems as yet partly
+unsolved, see him gradually establishing law and order, inventing and
+discovering, mastering his fate. He should follow the floods and ebbs
+of progress, the rise and fall of nations, know the great names of
+history and have for friends humanity's saints and heroes. He should
+be at home in ancient Israel, in classic Greece, in Rome of the Republic,
+in Italy of the Renaissance, especially in the early days of our own
+land, learning to comprehend and sympathize with the struggles and
+ideals that have made our nation what it is. He should understand the
+clash of creeds and codes, follow the thoughts of Plato, of Bacon,
+of Emerson, and grasp the essence of the problems that now confront
+us. What dangers lie before us, what the great statesmen and reformers
+are aiming at, what are the meaning and use of our institutions, our
+government, our laws, our morals, our religion - here is a hint of
+the knowledge that every man who comes into the world should amass.
+To know less than this is to be only half alive, and unable to fulfill
+properly the duties of citizenship. Widespread ignorance of the larger
+social, moral, political, religious problems of the day, is ominous
+to the Republic; and it is impossible to understand aright without
+a background of history and theory. The aim of the schools should be
+to give not only some detailed information but a structural sense of
+life as a whole, a sane perspective; and to inspire an enthusiasm for
+intellectual things which shall outlast the early years of schooling.
+The few facts imparted should suggest the vast fields beyond, and stir
+youth to that passion for truth which shall lead to ever-new vistas
+and farther horizons.
+
+(2) But the most encyclopedic acquaintance with facts, or even with
+principles, is not enough; TRAINING TO THINK ACCURATELY, to reason
+logically, so as to arrive at valid conclusions and be able to
+discriminate sound from unsound arguments in others, is vitally
+necessary. With new and intricate problems continually confronting
+us, we need the temper that observes with exactness, and without
+prejudice or passion, that judges truly, that thinks clearly, and forms
+independent convictions. There has been in our educational system an
+overemphasis on the acquirement of facts, a natural result of our
+modern dependence upon books; too much is accepted on authority, too
+little thought out at first hand. We must "banish the idolatry of
+knowledge," as Ruskin exhorted, and "realize that calling out thought
+and strengthening the mind are an entirely different and higher process
+from the putting in of knowledge and the heaping up of facts." We have
+many well-informed scholars to one clear and reliable thinker; the
+world is full of books, widely read and applauded, in which the trained
+mind detects false premises, fallacious reasoning, unwarranted
+conclusions. When the public is really educated, these superficially
+plausible arguments will not be heeded, these appeals to the prejudices
+and emotions of the reader will not be tolerated; a stricter standard
+of logic will be demanded, and we shall be by so much the nearer a
+solution of our perplexing problems.[Footnote: This mental training
+can be given not merely by a specific course in logic, but by an
+insistence on exactness and the critical spirit in every study. It
+is particularly easy to cultivate this temper in scientific study.
+So Karl Pearson, for example, pleads for more science in our schools:
+"It is the want of impersonal judgment, of scientific method, and of
+accurate insight into facts, a want largely due to a non-scientific
+training, which renders clear thinking so rare, and random and
+irresponsible judgments so common in the mass of our citizens today."
+(Grammar of Science, Introductory.) Cf. Emerson, "Education," in Lectures
+and Biographies: "It is better to teach the child arithmetic and Latin
+grammar than rhetoric or moral philosophy, because they require
+exactitude of performance; it is made certain that the lesson is
+mastered, and that power of performance is worth more than the
+knowledge." There is in our modern get-knowledge-easy methods a grave
+danger of letting the child absorb wisdom so comfortably, so almost
+unconsciously, that its wits shall not be sharpened to grapple with
+fallacies, to refute specious arguments, and to find their way through
+a chaos of facts to a correct conclusion. By way of contrast with these
+pleas for science, the student should read Arnold's argument for the
+superiority of literature, in the address on "Literature and Science"
+included in Discourses in America.] We may include under our ideal
+of clear thought, the ability to use clearly and efficiently the language
+by which the steps and conclusions of thought are formulated and
+expressed. Thought proceeds, where it is precise and logical, by words;
+unless a man's vocabulary is wide, unless his understanding of the
+language is exact, his thoughts must inevitably be vague and muddled.
+Moreover, he will be unable to transmit his thoughts clearly and
+readily to others. The most important tool for the carrying on of life
+is- language; the slovenliness and inadequacy of the average man's
+speech is a sad commentary on our boasted educational system.
+
+(3) Wide information and a trained mind must be supplemented by a SOUND
+TASTE. To love excellence everywhere, to appreciate the good and the
+beautiful in every phase of life, should be the third, and possibly
+most important, aim of cultural education. It is, at least, the prime
+function of art. Art informs us of life, its pursuit trains in
+precision and judgment; but above all, it opens our eyes to beauty.
+The man who is versed in the work of the masters can never after be
+content with the ugliness and squalor that our industrial civilization
+continually tends to increase. He has caught the vision of beauty,
+and must strive to shape his environment toward that high ideal. The
+artist sees what we had not learned to see; by isolating and perfecting
+this bit of the ideal, he directs our attention to it and teaches us
+to love it. No one can feel the spell of a landscape by Corot or Innes
+without delighting more deeply in such scenes in the outdoor world;
+no one can live long in the atmosphere of Greek art without longing
+for such a body and such a poise of spirit. We are not accustomed to
+look at nature, or at man, with observing eyes, to see the richness
+of color in sun-kissed meadows or humming city streets, the infinite
+variations of light and shade, the depth of distance, the charm of
+line and composition. The picturesque is everywhere about us, undiscerned
+and unloved. So us the marvelous varieties in human character and
+circumstance, the humor and dignity and pathos of life. Literature
+and art, by revealing to us unsuspected possibilities of beauty, breed
+a healthy discontent with ugliness and urge us on to its banishment.
+The ultimate aim of art should be to make life beautiful in every nook
+and corner, to elevate the humdrum working days of common men by fair
+and sunny surroundings, to make manners gentle and gracious, speech
+melodious and refined, homes, pleasant and restful.
+
+But art has a further function. However beautiful and harmonious our
+lives, they are at best confined within narrow boundaries; and the
+lover of beauty will always rejoice in the glimpses which art affords
+into an ideal realm beyond his daily horizon. He will gaze eagerly
+at the masterpieces of color and form that he cannot have forever about
+him, he will enrich his imagination with the great scenes of drama,
+he will solace his soul with the cadenced lines of poetry and the melody
+of music, he will live with the heroes of fiction for a day, and return
+to his work ennobled and sweetened by the contact with these forms
+of excellence which lie beyond the bounds of his own outward life.
+In two ways the fine arts add to the preexisting beauty in a man's
+life: by representing to him beautiful scenes and objects which he
+cannot enjoy in themselves, because he cannot go where they are, and
+by creating from the artist's imagination a new universe of emotions
+and satisfactions, congenial to the human spirit and full of a refined
+and pure joy.
+
+What dangers are there in culture and art for life?
+
+We must now glance at the other side of the picture. Enormous as are
+the potentialities for good in culture and art, they also have their
+perils.
+
+(1) Culture and art must not take time, energy, or money that is needed
+for work. Achievement necessitates concentration and sacrifice; beauty
+must not beguile men away from service. [Footnote: Cf. what Pater says
+of Winckelmann (The Renaissance, p. 195): "The development of his force
+was the single interest of Winckelmann, unembarrassed by anything else
+in him. Other interests, practical or intellectual, those slighter
+motives and talents not supreme, which in most men are the waste part
+of nature, and drain away their vitality, he plucked out and cast from
+him."] The boys and girls who squander health in their eagerness to
+explore the new worlds opening before them, the older folk who give
+a disproportionate share of their time and money to music or the theater,
+the voracious readers who pore over every new novel and magazine
+without really assimilating and using what they read, are turning what
+ought to be recreation or inspiration into dissipation, and thereby
+seriously impairing their efficiency. It is so much easier to read
+something new than to meditate fruitfully upon what one has read, to
+pass from picture to picture in a gallery and win no genuine insight
+from any. A single great book thoroughly mastered-the Bible, Homer,
+Shakespeare-were better for a man than the superficial skimming of
+many, one beautiful picture well loved than a hundred idly glanced
+at and labeled with some trite comment. Too many of the upper class,
+for whom limitless cultural opportunities are open, dabble in everything,
+know names and schools, repeat glibly the current phrases of criticism,
+but miss the lesson, the clarification of insight, the vision of the
+author or artist. Such superficial culture is a futile expenditure
+of time and money. [Footnote: For an arraignment of the money thrown
+away on modern decadent art, see Tolstoy's What is Art? chapter I.]
+
+In this connection we must mention the waste of time over what Arnold
+called "instrument knowledge." Years are spent by most upper-class
+boys and girls in half-learning several languages which they will never
+use, in acquiring the technique of the piano, or of some other art
+which they will never learn to practice with proficiency. There is,
+to be sure, a certain mental training in all this, but no more than
+can be found in more useful studies. A foreign language is essentially
+a tool for carrying on conversation with its users, or for utilizing
+the literature written therein; the technique of an art is a tool for
+producing or copying beautiful forms of that art. And except as these
+tools are actually so utilized, the time spent on learning to handle
+them might better be otherwise occupied.
+
+(2) More than this, cultural interests may fritter away in passive
+and useless thrills the emotions and energies that ought to stimulate
+moral and practical activity. It is so easy, where there is money enough
+to live on, to let one's faculties become absorbed in the fascinations
+of study, without applying it to practice; to enjoy the relatively
+complete attainment possible in the fine arts, and keep out of the
+dust and chaos and ugliness of real life. Or, when the student or
+art-lover does return to realities, after his absorption in some
+dream-world, there is danger that he carry over into actual moral
+situations his habit of passive contemplation, that he be content to
+remain a spectator instead of plunging in and taking sides. He has
+learned to enjoy the spectacle-sin, suffering, and all-and lost the
+primitive reaction of protest against evils, of practical response
+to needs, and the impulse to realize ideals in conduct. Thus culture
+and art may relax human energy or scatter it in trivial accomplishments;
+the dilettante spends his days in dreaming rather than in doing.
+[Footnote: Cf. William James, Psychology, vol. I, pp. 125-26: "Every
+time a fine glow of feeling evaporates without bearing practical fruit
+is worse than a chance lost; it works so as positively to hinder future
+emotions from taking the normal path of discharge. There is no more
+contemptible type of human] Footnote continued from Page 269 [character
+than that of the nerveless sentimentalist and dreamer, who spends his
+life in a weltering sea of sensibility and emotion, but who never does
+a manly concrete deed. . . . The habit of excessive novel reading and
+theater going will produce true monsters in this line. The weeping
+of a Russian lady over the fictitious personages in the play, while
+her coachman is freezing to death on his seat outside, is the sort
+of thing that everywhere happens on a less glaring scale. Even the
+habit of excessive indulgence in music, for those who are neither
+performers themselves nor musically gifted enough to take it in a purely
+intellectual way, has probably a relaxing effect upon the character.
+One becomes filled with emotions which habitually pass without prompting
+to any deed, and so the inertly sentimental condition is kept up. The
+remedy would be, never to suffer one's self to have an emotion at a
+concert, without expressing it afterward in some active way. Let the
+expression be the least thing in the world-speaking genially to one's
+aunt, or giving up one's seat in a horse-car, if nothing more heroic
+offers-but let it not fail to take place." Professor James also refers
+in this connection to an interesting paper by Vida Scudder in the Andover
+Review for January, 1887, on "Musical Devotees and Morals."]
+
+(3) Graver still, however, is the risk of the overstimulation of
+certain dangerous emotions. The "artistic temperament" is notoriously
+prone to reckless self- indulgence; the continual seeking of the
+immediately satisfying tends to weaken the powers of restraint. Artists
+and poets, and those who immerse themselves constantly in the pleasures
+of sense, tend to chafe under the dull repressions of morality and
+crave ever-new forms of excitement. Art is an emotional stimulant;
+and unless the emotions aroused are harnessed in the service of morality,
+they are apt to run amuck. Artists and authors often take to drink,
+and almost always have to meet exceptional sexual temptations. The
+most beautiful forms of art are those which have the element of sex
+interest, and the general emotional susceptibility of the creator or
+lover of beauty makes the sex emotion particularly inflammable. Other
+emotions also may be unwisely stimulated by art. In times of
+international friction, war-songs, "patriotic" speeches, or martial
+processions may arouse an unreasoning jingo spirit. The love of
+deviltry is fostered in boys by many of the penny novels, by
+sensational "movies" and newspaper "stories"; a famous detective has
+said that seventy per cent of the crimes committed by boys under twenty
+are traceable to "suggestions" received from these sources. Should
+art be censored in the interests of morality? Art, then, with its vast
+potentialities of both good and harm, needs supervision in the
+interests of human welfare. The motto, "Art for art's sake," should
+not be taken to mean that what is detrimental to human life must be
+tolerated, just because it is art. There is, indeed, this truth in
+the adage, that art does not need to have a moral or practical use
+to justify its existence. It may be merely pleasant, serving no end
+beyond the enjoyment of the moment. But it must not be harmful. It
+is but one of the many interests in life, and must be judged, like
+any other interest, in the light of the greatest total good. We cannot
+say, "Work for work's sake," "Education for education's sake"; not
+even, "Morality for morality's sake"; it is work, education, morality,
+for the sake of the ultimately happiest human life. The moralist must
+not despise forms of art which have no ulterior, utilitarian value;
+but he must insist that no enjoyment of art is really, in the long
+run, good for man which influences his life in the unwholesome ways
+we have indicated. Since morality is that way of life that gives it
+its greatest worth, indulgence in art at the expense of morality is
+seizing an immediate but lesser good at the expense of an ultimately
+greater good. Practically, however, the censorship of art is the most
+delicate of matters, because the influence of the same work of art
+on one person may be widely different from its effect upon another.
+A play or a picture that pleases or even inspires one spectator may
+be disastrous to his neighbor. And it is always difficult to decide
+between the claims of an immediate good and the warnings of dangers
+that may lurk therein. But we universally acknowledge the duty of some
+censorship, by prohibiting the most openly tempting pictures, plays,
+and literature. And there can be no doubt that this supervision should
+be carried further than it now is.
+
+The most pressing contemporary problem is that concerning the stage.
+[Footnote: See J. Addams, The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets,
+chap. IV. P. MacKaye, The Civic Theatre in Relation to the Redemption
+of Leisure. H. Munsterberg, Psychology and Social Sanity, pp. 27-43.
+J. H. Coffin, The Socialized Conscience, pp. 130-41. Outlook, vol.
+92, p. 110; vol. 101, p. 492; vol. 107, p. 412. Atlantic Monthly, vol.
+89, p. 497; vol. 107, p. 350.] Any number of boys and girls owe their
+undoing to the influences of the theater. No other form of art now
+tolerated so frequently overstimulates the sex instinct. The scant
+costumes permitted, with their conscious endeavor to reveal the feminine
+form as alluringly as possible, the voluptuous dances and ballets,
+the jokes, stories, and suggestive gestures, and often the low moral
+tone of the play, making light of sacred matters and encouraging lax
+ideas on sex relations, are powerful excitants. Many theaters frankly
+pander to the desire for such stimulation; and they are crowded. For
+while human nature remains as it is, the young will flock whither they
+can find sex excitement. Scarcely less dangerous are the magazines
+and books that by their pictures and their stories play up to this
+eternal instinct. Even painters in oils often use this drawing card;
+the Paris salons have always a considerable sprinkling of nudes, in
+all sorts of voluptuous attitudes, making a frank appeal to desire.
+French literature abounds in books, some of great literary merit, that
+exploit this aspect of human nature; but in every tongue there are
+the Boccaccios and the Byrons.
+
+Plato found this problem in planning his ideal republic, and decreed
+that all voluptuous and tempting art must be banished. We are rightly
+unwilling to sacrifice beauty and enjoyment to so great an extent;
+such Puritanism inevitably provokes reaction, besides sadly impoverishing
+life. The feminine form, at its best, is exquisitely lovely; and a
+perfect nude is one of the most beautiful things in the world.
+[Footnote: On the moral problem of the nude in art, see Atlantic
+Monthly, vol. 88, pp. 286, 858.] How we shall retain this beauty to
+enrich our lives while avoiding the overstimulation of an already
+dangerously dominant instinct, is a problem whose gravity we can but
+indicate without presuming to offer a satisfactory solution.
+
+What can emphatically be said is that artists must subordinate
+themselves to the welfare of life as a whole. And this is not so great
+a loss, for only that art is of the deepest beauty which expresses
+noble and wholesome feelings. The trouble with the artist is apt to
+be that he becomes so absorbed in the solution of the practical
+difficulties attendant upon his art that he cares primarily for
+triumphs of technique, irrespective of the worth of the feelings which
+that technique is to express. Indeed, there is actually a sort of scorn
+of beauty in certain studies and studios; the "literary" or "artistic"
+point of view is taken to mean a regard only for skill of execution,
+rather than for that beauty of whose realization the skill should be
+but the means. There is, indeed, a beauty of words and rhythms, of
+brushwork, of modeling; but if the poet does not love beautiful
+thoughts and acts, no verbal power can make his product great; and
+if the artist paints trivial or vulgar subjects he wastes his genius.
+Too much poetry that is sensual, flippant, drearily pessimistic, morbid,
+or obscure, is included in anthologies because cleverly wrought, with
+a sense for form and cadence. Too many stories, too many pictures,
+are applauded by critics, though in subject and tone they are
+contemptible. As proofs of human skill these works may excite such
+admiration as we give to a juggler's feats; as practice in handling
+a stubborn medium they may be valuable. But the artist who does not
+have a sane and high sense of what is really noble and beautiful in
+life prostitutes the talents by which he ought to serve the world.
+Often one feels as Emerson felt when he wrote of another, "I say to
+him, if I could write as well as you, I would write a good deal better."
+The bald truth is that artists are seldom competent to be final judges
+of art; they are too much behind the scenes, concerned too constantly
+with problems of method. The final judgment as to beauty can come only
+from one who combines a delicate appreciation of technique with a wide
+insight into life and a sane perspective of its values. For lack of
+such a criticism of art, the average man wanders distracted through
+our art-museums, with their hodge-podge of beautiful and ugly pictures,
+wades through the ingeniously clever stories and sensationally original
+but often meaningless or trivial verses in the magazines, goes to a
+concert and joins others in applauding some brilliant display of vocal
+gymnastics, some instrumental pyrotechnics, while his heart is thirsting
+for high and noble feelings, for something to elevate and inspire his
+life. The great poets, the great painters, the great dramatists and
+novelists, have been high-souled men as well as artists, lovers of
+the really beautiful in life as well as masters of their medium. Their
+art has no conflict with morality; it is rather its greatest stimulus
+and stay. To the lesser brood with the gift of melody, of rhythm, with
+an eye for color or form, but without a true perspective of human values,
+we must repeat sadly, or even sternly, the poet's reproof:
+"Can'st thou from heaven, O child Of light, but this to declare?"
+
+On culture: Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy; "Literature and
+Science" (in Discourses in America). F. Paulsen, System of Ethics,
+book III, chap. V. H. Spencer, Education. H. Sidgwick, Practical Ethics,
+chap. VIII. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 90, p. 589; vol. 97, p. 433; vol.
+109, p. 111. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 23, p. 1. On the
+moral censorship of art: Plato, Republic, books. I, III, X. Aristotle,
+Poetics. Ruskin, Lectures on Art. Tolstoy, What is Art? G. Santayana,
+Reason in Art, chaps. IX, XI. R. B. Perry, Moral Economy, chap. V.
+H. R. Haweis, Music and Morals. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, chap.
+XVI. C. Read, Natural and Social Morals, chap. X. Forum, vol. 50, p.
+588. Outlook, vol. 107, p. 412.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+THE MECHANISM OF SELF-CONTROL
+
+To discuss, as we have been doing, the various duties which are the
+unavoidable pre-conditions of a lasting and widespread welfare for
+men, would be futile, if we had not the ability to fulfill them. The
+power of self-control is the sine qua non of a secure morality, and
+therefore of a secure happiness. But this power seems often bafflingly
+absent. Hard as it is to know what is right to do, it is harder yet
+for many of us to make ourselves do what we know is right. Life for
+the average conscientious man is a perpetual battle between two opposing
+tendencies, that which his better self endorses, and that which is
+easiest or most alluring at the moment of action. The latter course
+too often seduces his will; and for the earnest and aspiring this
+continual moral failure constitutes one of the most tragic aspects
+of life. [Footnote: Cf. Ovid's Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor.
+And St. Paul's "To will is present with me, but how to perform that
+which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not, but the
+evil which I would not, that I do." From pagan and Christian pen alike
+there comes testimony to this universal and disheartening experience.]
+There is no greater need for most men than that of some wiser and more
+effective method whereby those who have ideals beyond their practice
+may regularly and consistently realize them.
+
+What are our potentialities of greater self-control?
+
+The encouraging side of the matter is that there have been many, of
+very various codes and creeds, who have attained to a nearly perfect
+self-control, who easily and almost inevitably govern their conduct
+by their ideals. Puritans with their personal Devil, Christian Scientists
+who believe that there is no evil at all-Christians, Buddhists,
+atheists-there have been saints in all the folds. The fact seems to
+be that the particular form which our moral ideas take matters much
+less than the completeness with which they possess the mind. Almost
+any of the many motives to right conduct will reform a character if
+it be so stamped into the mind as to become the dominant idea. What
+is necessary is some vivid and dominating anti-sinning idea rammed
+deep into the brain. The religions have been the chief means of effecting
+this; and the Church, that draws men together, and into the presence
+of God, for the reinforcing of their better selves, is the most
+efficacious of instruments for the control of sin. But the existence
+of a vast, and by most men hardly tapped, reservoir of power for
+righteousness (whether or not it is thought of as God) is recognized
+today by science as well as by religion; and we must here discuss the
+matter in a purely secular way. We can control our conduct if we care
+enough to set about using the forces at our disposal. The various
+religions have found and used them; modern psychology, analyzing their
+success, shows us clearly and exactly how to succeed, even if we stand
+aloof from religion altogether.
+
+Psychologically considered, this whole affair of saintliness or
+sinfulness is a matter of the preponderant idea. To have merely
+resolved is not enough; our moral forces must be drilled and made ready
+before the battle. This fortifying process we nowadays call
+"suggestion." By it we can so "set" our minds, so deepen the channels
+that flow toward the right actions, that when the time of conflict
+comes our minds will work along those grooves. Habit, to be sure, means
+a deep-cut channel in the mind; it may require much effort to dig a
+deeper one to take its place. Unless the work is persistently carried
+through, the mental currents, diverted temporarily into the new course,
+will soak through the barriers and find their old bed again. Moreover,
+different minds differ greatly in their plasticity, their
+susceptibility to suggestion. But the great fact remains that habits
+can be made over, temptations rendered harmless, and character formed,
+by this simple means.
+
+It may be worthwhile to remind ourselves of the remarkable power of
+suggestion. It is most strikingly seen at work in the phenomena of
+hypnotism, because a person who is hypnotized is in a peculiarly
+susceptible state; he is asleep to everything but the words of the
+hypnotist, which thus have full influence over him, except as checked
+and balanced by the preexisting bias of his mind. Hypnotism is simply
+the perfect case of suggestion, isolated from disturbing factors. The
+hypnotizing process itself, the putting to sleep, is only preliminary
+to the suggestion; and to patients who are difficult to hypnotize,
+"waking suggestion" is given, with the patient in as relaxed and empty
+a state of mind as possible. The popular notion that healing through
+hypnotism is uncanny and dangerous is, of course, entirely erroneous.
+To be sure, every great power has its dangers from misuse, and
+hypnotism is not to be used except for proper ends; but there is
+nothing occult about it. It simply uses the psychological truth that
+the mind acts on the predominating idea, by lulling to sleep all ideas
+but the one wanted and impressing that upon the mind. Immediate and
+lasting moral changes are daily being effected through suggestion by
+professional hypnotists.
+
+But though the power of suggestion is most obvious when employed by
+the scientifically trained physician of today, it has been successfully,
+though often unconsciously, used in all times. Prophets and saints
+of old, the touch of a king's hand, the sight of relics or images,
+have wrought striking moral and physical cures through this same mental
+law. Christian Scientists and mental healers of various sorts are curing
+people daily through them. Cases of religious conversion, where a man's
+whole inner life is turned about through a powerful emotional appeal,
+show best of all the possibilities of suggestion in the moral field.
+These are the extreme cases. But, indeed, all our moral education is,
+in psychological language, but so much "suggestion." The imperious
+necessity for man of preaching, of ritual and liturgy, of prayer and
+praise, is to drive home the high and noble thoughts which in his
+sanest moments he recognizes to be what he needs. The aim of the
+preacher is to bring to his hearers ideals of right living and to make
+them as appealing and vivid as possible. Yet even the best preaching
+comes only on Sundays, and there are six days between of other sorts
+of suggestion, which are often counter- suggestions, so that it is
+no wonder we lag so far behind our Sabbath- day ideals. In subtle and
+unrealized ways all the factors of our environment are so many sources
+of suggestion, constantly working upon our minds. Could we always
+command powerful and inspiring moral influences, and keep out of range
+of evil ones, our morals would perhaps take care of themselves. But
+while seeking so far as possible these external props, and if necessary
+having recourse to the still more effective help of the professional
+hypnotists, there remains a vast deal that we must do for ourselves
+if we are to resist successfully the downward pull of evil influences,
+solve our own individual problems, conquer our own peculiar
+temptations, and attain our ideals. We must practice autosuggestion.
+It is noteworthy that the loftiest spirits have always practiced it,
+in their habit of daily prayer. For whatever else prayer accomplishes,
+it certainly brings the mind back to its ideals, concentrates it
+earnestly engaged in, is the best possible form of suggestion. The
+lapse of this habit helps to explain why unbelievers so often degenerate
+morally. Comte, that positive disbeliever in supernatural dogmas, clearly
+recognized this danger, and enjoined upon his followers a consecration
+prayer three times a day. In recent years the writers who call their
+doctrine by the name of The New Thought - and other kindred thinkers
+have called attention to the possibilities of self- help, directing
+us to "retire into the silence," there to concentrate our minds upon
+those beliefs that are comforting and inspiring to us; and have helped
+many thereby to attain peace and self-possession. But still the conscious
+use of autosuggestion for the attainment of personal ideals has been
+very little discussed, and in the employment of this great power we
+are astonishingly backward.
+
+A practicable mechanism of self-control.
+
+Let us, then, outline briefly the chief points necessary to note in
+using this force for our own benefit. A necessary preliminary is to
+study our problems, analyze our difficulties, make sure exactly what
+we want to do and wherein we fail; and thereby to pin our aspirations
+down to definite resolves to act in certain ways rather than in certain
+other ways. Our ideals are apt to be vague and even conflicting, or
+else so abstract and general as to fail to direct us with precision
+to any concrete act. We realize dumbly that we are not what we
+should be, and we grope for better things; but just wherein the
+difference consists, just where is the point where we go off the track,
+is uncertain in our minds. As in physical achievement, half the success
+lies in applying the effort at just the right place. The men who have
+accomplished much are those who have known exactly what they wanted
+to do and have concentrated their energies upon that. If we have so
+much self-reformation to accomplish as to dissipate our attention,
+it may be wise to decide which changes are most immediately important
+and to limit our endeavors at first to those.
+
+Included in this preliminary task is the fixation in our minds of the
+reasons for the lines of conduct we intend to follow, all the motives
+that draw us toward them. This will show us whether we, i.e., our
+better selves, really wish to acquire these new habits, are really
+convinced that they are right, or whether we are merely putting before
+ourselves some one else's ideal which we vaguely feel we ought or are
+expected to follow. One can often convince one's self quite thoroughly
+of ideas one did not really believe in by this method of suggestion;
+but if we are to control our own morals we wish to control them not
+by some one else's ideals but by our own. If a thing is really right
+to do there must be definite and legitimate reasons for the doing which
+can appeal to our intelligence and our emotions; these we should bring
+into the foreground of our thought and express as clearly and forcibly
+as possible.
+
+We have now the material for our work. We must so hammer these
+resolutions and the motives to them into our heads that they will be
+vividly conscious to us when they are needed. In this process there
+are three main points to be remembered - Concentration, Iteration,
+and Assertion.
+
+(1) Concentration. The more completely the mind can be concentrated
+upon the resolution and its motives the deeper will they penetrate
+into it, to lie there ready for use at the moment of action. A definite
+time should be set apart when the mind can be withdrawn from other
+thoughts and compelled to give all its attention to this matter. On
+first waking, or just before going to sleep. If one is not too tired-one
+can usually best get away from the distracting details of life. The
+resolutions should be written down, with the most important words or
+phrases underlined, to serve as catchwords and mottoes. They should
+be read aloud and repeated from memory, as well as thought over silently,
+thus adding visual and auditory images to the mental concepts. In
+meditating upon them one's thoughts should not be allowed to wander
+too far, but must be constantly referred to the definite numbered
+resolutions. The use of symbols, of colors, etc, will readily occur
+to any one who goes into this matter with lively interest. Always repeat
+the resolutions with the greatest possible emphasis and enthusiasm,
+so as to carry them away ringing in the mind. Remember that the
+astonishing results of hypnotism and mental healing are due simply
+to the complete possession of the mind by the new idea.
+
+(2) ITERATION. The oftener the mind is fixed upon the resolution and
+its motives, the more deeply will they become engraved in it. Sometimes
+one determined concentration will carry the day; but if this quick
+assault does not win the victory a long-continued siege can do it.
+By hammering away continually at the same spot the requisite impression
+will finally be made. A momentary rehearsal of the resolutions may
+be made a hundred times a day, in passing; and immediately before the
+time for execution, if it can be foreseen, forces should be rallied,
+even if only by an instantaneous flash of determination. Above all,
+one should not be discouraged and stop trying; for every renewed effort,
+even if showing no reward in success, produces its exact and unfailing
+effect. Keeping everlastingly at it is as necessary for success in
+morals as in everything else.
+
+(3) ASSERTION. The more vigorously we assert our power to keep our
+resolutions the more likely we are to do so. It is largely lack of
+confidence in ourselves that paralyzes us. The religions have realized
+the need of inspiring hope and confidence in their converts by
+preaching the necessity of faith.
+
+The faith we need is not necessarily faith in any supernatural help,
+but only in the demonstrated fact of the possibility of controlling
+our own minds and morals by going at it in the right way. But we must
+not passively wait for faith to possess us, we must grasp it, cleave
+to it, assert it. We must repeat our resolutions always with the
+conviction that we are really going to carry them out. We must picture
+ourselves at the time of temptation, with the triumphant thought of
+how splendidly we are going to worst the Devil, and never for a moment
+think or talk of ourselves as likely to forget or yield. Such
+persistent assertion, even if there is a background of distrust that
+we cannot wholly banish from our minds, will greatly help. Whatever
+we may think about the ethics of belief as applied to supernatural
+things, the "will to believe" in our own power is certainly legitimate
+and important. [Footnote: The important problem of the ethics of belief,
+as applied to religious matters, has not been discussed in this volume.
+The present writer hopes to discuss it fully in a later volume, to
+be called Problems of Religion.] Various accessoriesand safeguards.
+The dogged and hearty practice of auto-suggestion,
+whether in the secular form above outlined, or in the warmer and more
+satisfying form of prayer, is sufficient to keep a man master of
+himself and above the reach of whatever temptations he recognizes and
+chooses to resist. But there are various other furtherances to self-
+control that may be briefly suggested.
+
+(1) The method of "turning over a new leaf" is of the utmost value
+to minds of a certain type. To declare a definite break with the old
+life, a fresh beginning, unstained and full of hope, often gives just
+the extra impetus that was needed. We are weighted by the memory of
+our failures, we live in the shadow of the past, and easily slide into
+a hopelessness and sense of impotence which a mere dogged persistence
+cannot overcome. New Year's Day, a birthday, any change in place or
+manner of life, may well be made the occasion for a bout of "moral
+house-cleaning," which will give a new enthusiasm and vitality to our
+better natures. The essential thing in such cases is to look out for
+the first tests, and not allow a single exception to the new
+resolutions. A slight lapse, that seems inconsequential, may serve
+to check the new momentum; as La Rochefoucauld says, "It is far easier
+to extinguish a first desire than to satisfy all those that follow
+in its train."
+
+There is, however, a real danger in this method, of a discouragement
+and demoralization resulting from the collapse of enthusiastic hopes.
+And there is the further danger that a man will excuse indulgence in
+such hours of discouragement, on the ground that he is going to turn
+over another new leaf to-morrow and might as well have a good fling
+to- day. It is well to remember the truth that Martineau expressed
+by his apt phrase, "the tides of the spirit." "But, alas," Stevenson
+puts it, "by planting a stake at the top of the flood, you can neither
+prevent nor delay the inevitable ebb." After all, in most of our moral
+warfare, "it's dogged as does it." "He that stumbles and picks himself
+up is as if he had never fallen."
+
+"We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides;
+The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides. But tasks
+in hours of insight will'd Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd."
+
+If we do try the abrupt break, it is of the utmost importance to
+utilize every opportunity for the carrying out of the new program,
+to hunt up occasions while the will is strong and the courage high.
+One actual fulfillment of a resolution is worth many mental rehearsals.
+And when the enemy is repulsed by this charge with the bayonet,
+vigilance must not be relaxed, lest he return to take us unawares.
+[Footnote: I cannot forbear including, in this connection, the admirable
+remarks of William James (Psychology, vol. I, pp. 123-24): "The first
+[maxim] is that in the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of
+an old one, we must take care to LAUNCH OURSELVES WITH AS
+STRONG AND DECIDED AN INITIATIVE AS POSSIBLE. Accumulate
+all the possible circumstances which shall reinforce the right motives;
+put yourself assiduously in conditions that encourage the new way;
+make engagements incompatible with the old; take a public pledge,
+if the case allows; in short, envelop your resolution with every aid you
+know. This will give your new beginning such a momentum that the
+temptation to break down will not occur as soon as it otherwise might;
+and every day during which a breakdown is postponed adds to the
+chances of its not occurring at all. "The second maxim is: NEVER
+SUFFER AN EXCEPTION TO OCCUR TILL THE NEW HABIT IS
+SECURELY ROOTED IN YOUR LIFE. Each lapse is like the letting
+fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip
+undoes more than a great many turns will wind again. The need of
+securing success at the OUTSET is imperative. Failure at first is apt
+to dampen the energy of all future attempts, whereas past experience
+of success nerves one to future vigor. It is surprising how soon a desire
+will die of inanition if it be NEVER fed. "A third maxim may be added to
+the preceding pair: SEIZE THE VERY FIRST POSSIBLE
+OPPORTUNITY TO ACT ON EVERY RESOLUTION YOU MAKE,
+AND ON EVERY EMOTIONAL PROMPTING YOU MAY EXPERIENCE
+IN THE DIRECTION OF THE HABITS YOU ASPIRE TO GAIN. It is not
+in the moment of their forming, but in the moment of their producing
+MOTOR EFFECTS that resolves and aspirations communicate the
+new 'set' to the brain."]
+
+(2) It is an excellent thing to do a little gratuitous spiritual
+exercise every day, just to keep in training, to get the habit of
+conquering impulse, of doing disagreeable things. Nothing is more
+useful to a man than that power. We must not let our lives get too
+easy and our wills too soft. To jump out of bed when the whistle blows,
+instead of dawdling just for a minute more in indolent comfort, to
+make one's self take the cold bath that is abhorrent to the flesh,
+to deny one's self the cigar or the candy that may not be in itself
+particularly harmful-by some means or other to keep one's self in
+the saddle and riding one's desires, may enable one when some
+crisis comes to thrust aside a man too fatally accustomed to doing
+things in the easiest way.
+
+(3) Discretion is sometimes the better part of valor. Besides
+strengthening our own wills, it is wise to seek in every way to remove
+temptation from our path, and, if need be, to run away from it. We
+must keep away from situations that experience warns are dangerous
+for us, however innocent they may be to others. If a man find that
+dancing, or the theater, arouses his passionate nature, it may be better
+to avoid it entirely till his hypersensitive state is normalized. Always
+alcoholic liquors are to be avoided; they cloud the reason and the
+will, and let impulse loose. Always overexcitement and overfatigue
+are to be avoided. "The power to overcome temptation," Jane Addams
+writes, "reaches its limit almost automatically with that of physical
+resistance."
+
+(4) We must follow Bossuet's advice not to combat passions directly
+so much as to turn them aside by applying them to other objects. Our
+emotional nature is a gift of the gods; the sinner might have been
+a saint if his emotions had only been enlisted under the right banner.
+Something good to love, to work for, and think about, something that
+can arouse our whole nature and relieve it from suppression, is the
+best antidote to morbid desire. It is sometimes alleged that it is
+better to satisfy a passion than to keep it pent up within the
+organism. But satisfying a wrong passion not only brings its inevitable
+unhappy consequences, to one's self and to others, it makes it far
+harder to resist the passion again, when it recurs. The only safe
+outlet is one that leads into right conduct; under skilful guidance
+all passions can be transmuted into valuable driving forces and allies
+of morality.
+
+(5) Even if one seems to be playing a losing game, one can still keep
+up the fight. One can spoil one's enjoyment in self-indulgence or
+selfishness; one can refuse to give in all over. This minority
+representation of the better impulse will suffice to keep it alive
+in us; and when the revulsion from sin comes we shall be in better
+shape to make the fight next time. A hundred failures need not
+discourage; some of the greatest men have gained the final ascendancy
+over their weaknesses only after a long and often losing struggle.
+The case is hopeless only for the man who stops fighting.
+
+Self-control is the measure of manhood. It is the most important thing
+in the personal life. And it is within the reach of any man who can
+be brought to understand the mechanism where through it can be attained.
+It remains true that it is best attained through religion, which
+utilizes the power of prayer, of faith, the enthusiasm of a great cause
+and motive, and the comradeship and help of others engaged in the same
+eternal war with sin. But religion, to be efficacious, must be not
+passively accepted, but USED. Its help comes not to him who saith
+"Lord, Lord!" but to him who earnestly seeks to do the will of the
+Father. J. Payot, Education of the Will. H. C. King, Rational Living,
+chap. VI, sec. III; chap. X. W. James, Psychology, vol. I, pp. 122-27;
+vol. II, pp. 561-79. W. E. H. Lecky, Map of Life, chap. XII. A. Bain,
+The Emotions and the Will, part II, chap. IX. L. H. Gulick, in World's
+Work, vol. 15, p. 9797. Bossuet, Connaissance de Dieu et de Soi meme,
+chap. III, sec. 19. St. Augustine, Confessions, book VIII, chap. V.
+Janet, Elements de Morale, chap. X, sec. 3. W. L. Sheldon, An Ethical
+Movement, chap. X. A. Bennett, The Human Machine, chaps. I-V. O. S.
+Marden, Every Man a King.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+THE ATTAINABILITY OF HAPPINESS
+
+WE have now discussed the more recurrent problems of the individual,
+and pointed out the salient duties that private life entails. But there
+remains something to be added before we shall have clearly pointed
+the way to personal happiness. "Mere morality," even when coupled with
+good fortune, is not enough; a sinless man, scrupulous to fulfill the
+least command of the law, may yet be anxious, restless, depressed,
+unsatisfied. We need more than morality, as the word is commonly used;
+we need religion - or something of the sort. There is no doubt that
+for the attainment of a pervasive and stable happiness there is nothing
+so good as the best sort of religion; but, as in discussing self-
+control, we must here steer clear of religious controversy and phrase
+what we have to say in the colder terms of "mere morality." And though
+there will be a great loss in feeling, in persuasiveness and unction
+thereby, there will be gain in clearness. It is possible to express
+in the drab tones of morality the profound insights which have made
+religion the great guide to happiness; and even the man who deems
+himself irreligious may, if he takes to heart these more prosaic counsels,
+find something of the peace that has been the boon of true believers.
+
+The threefold key to happiness:
+
+I. HEARTY ALLEGIANCE TO DUTY.
+
+The one thing above all others that makes
+life worth living is the utter devotion of the heart and will to the
+commands of morality. To throw one's self whole-heartedly into the
+game, to play one's part for all it is worth, transforms what were
+else a grim and unhappy necessity into a glorious opportunity. The
+happy man is the loyal man, the man who has taken sides, who has
+enrolled himself definitely on the side of right and tastes the zest of
+battle. He has something to live for, and something lasting. He has
+put his heart into a cause that the limitations and accidents of life
+cannot take from him, he has laid up his treasure in heaven, where
+moth and rust doth not corrupt or thieves break through and steal.
+
+Any cause, any ambition, any great endeavor that can stir the blood,
+and give a life direction, purpose, and continuity of achievement,
+has the power to rescue life from ennui, from emptiness, and give it
+positive worth. But most ambitions pall in time, and many a cause that
+has taken a man's best energies has come to seem mistaken or futile
+with the years. There is only one great campaign which is so eternal,
+so surely necessary, so clear in its summons to all men, that the heart
+can rest in it as in something great enough to ennoble a whole life.
+That is the age-long war against evil, the unending summons to duty,
+the service of God. Once a man learns this deepest of joys, nothing
+can take it from him; whatever his limitations, however narrow his
+sphere, there will not fail to be a right way, a brave way, a beautiful
+way to live. There is comradeship in it; in this common service of
+God - or of good, if we must avoid religious terms - we stand shoulder
+to shoulder with the saints and heroes of all races and times, with
+all, of whatever land or tongue, who are striving to push forward the
+line, to make the right prevail and banish evil. Every effort, every
+sacrifice, has its inextinguishable effect; in his moral conquests
+a man is no longer an individual, he is a part of the great tide that
+is resistlessly making toward the better world of the future, the Kingdom
+of God. The great Power in the world that makes for righteousness is
+back of him, and in him; in no loyal moment is he alone. . . .
+Inevitably the tongue slips into religious language in dealing with
+these high truths; but nonetheless are they scientific truths, matters
+of plain every day observation.
+
+The essential point is, that it is not enough to obey the Law; we must
+ESPOUSE the Law, clasp it to our bosoms, love it, and give ourselves
+to it utterly. We must - to use the pregnant words of James "base our
+lives on doing and being, not on having"; base our lives solidly upon
+it, so that everything else is secondary. The pleasures of life are
+well enough in their time, but they must not usurp the chief place
+in a man's thought.[Footnote: Cf. J. S. Mill, Autobiography, p. 142:
+"The enjoyments of life are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing,
+when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object.
+The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external
+to it, as the purpose of life."] His first concern must be to keep
+true, to play the game; he must seek first the Kingdom of God and His
+righteousness, if he would have these other things added unto him.
+He must lose his life his worldly interests, his dependence upon
+ease and luxury, and even love if he would truly find it. In a hundred
+such phrases from the Great Teacher's lips one finds the secret. More
+baldly expressed, it comes to this, that only through putting the main
+emphasis upon doing the right, obeying the call of duty, only through
+the courageous attack and the giving of our utmost allegiance, can
+we keep a positive zest in living, exorcise the specter of aimlessness
+and depression, and lift ordinary commonplace life to the level of
+heroism. Blessed is the man whose DELIGHT is in the law of the Lord.
+
+II. HEARTY ACQUIESCENCE IN OUR LOT.
+
+The fighter, for whatever cause, can bear the blows that come as
+a part of the battle; if a man has put his heart into living by his ideal,
+he is immune from the disappointments and irritations that beset man
+upon a lower level. But it is well to take thought also for this side of
+the matter, to cultivate deliberately the spirit of acquiescence in the
+inevitable pain and losses of life. Many of the sweetest pleasures
+are by their nature uncertain or transient; these we must hold so
+loosely that, while not refusing to enjoy their sweetness, we are
+]ot dependent upon them and can let them go without losing sight
+of the steady gleam that we follow. However dear to us are the people
+we love, and the material things we own, we must keep the underlying
+assurance that if they be taken from us life will still bring us in other
+ways renewed opportunities for that loyalty to duty, that faithful living,
+which is after all the end for which we live. We must count whatever
+comes to us, whether sweet or bitter, as the conditions under which
+we serve, the material with which we have to work, the stuff which
+we have to "try the soul's strength on." For there is no way to be
+armor-proof against unhappiness but by seeing to it that our hearts
+are not set on anything but doing or being; nothing else is reliably
+permanent amid the fitful sunshine and shadow of human life. "Make
+hy claim of wages a zero; then hast thou the world at thy feet."
+[Footnote: In Maeterlinck's Measure of the Hours, he speaks of a
+sundial found near Venice by Hazlitt with the inscription, Horas non
+numero nisi serenas and quotes Hazlitt's remarks thereon: "What a
+fine lesson is conveyed to the mind to take no note of time but by its
+benefits, to watch only for the smiles and neglect the frowns of fate,
+to compose our lives of bright and gentle moments, turning always to
+the sunny side of things and letting the rest slip from our imaginations,
+unheeded or forgotten."] This necessity of detaching the heart from
+dependence upon uncertainties found extreme expression in the
+various historic forms of asceticism and monasticism. Such a running
+away from the world does not satisfy our age, with its eagerness for
+life and life more abundantly; if it escapes the poignant sorrows it
+cannot happiness, or make life better for others. But we may well
+take to heart the half-truth taught by the hermits and monks of the
+past. We may be "in the world," indeed, but not "of it"; we, too,
+may make no claims upon life, while putting our hearts into playing
+our own part in it well. The writings of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius
+are full of passages that express the gist of the matter, such as the
+following: "It is thy duty to order thy life well in every single act; and
+if every act does its duty as far as is possible, be content; no one is
+able to hinder thee so that each act shall not do its duty. But something
+external will stand in the way? Nothing will stand in the way of thy
+acting justly and soberly and considerately. But perhaps some of thy
+active powers will be hindered? Well, by acquiescing in the hindrance,
+and being content to transfer thy efforts to that which is allowed,
+another opportunity of action is immediately put before thee in place
+of that which was hindered." What is this but saying in other words
+that not in having lies our life, but in doing and being. Not even
+in succeeding, we must remember; and this is perhaps the hardest part
+of our lesson. It is one thing to bear with serenity those blows of
+fortune against which we are obviously defenseless; it is another thing,
+when there seems a chance for averting the disaster, when our whole
+heart and soul are thrown into that effort, to await the outcome with
+tranquility, to bear failure without complaint. The "might have been's"
+and the "perhaps may yet be's" are the greatest disturbers of our peace.
+To use our keenest wits for attaining what seems best, to use our utmost
+persuasion for protecting ourselves from the selfishness and stupidity
+of others, and then if we fail, if the fair hope slips from our grasp,
+if the thoughtlessness or cruelty of men prevails against us, to smile
+and attack the next problem with undaunted cheerfulness, requires,
+indeed, to attain to that level may well be called "the last infirmity
+of noble minds." For the very concentration of life upon doing and
+being carries with it the danger of staking happiness upon the success
+of the doing, the attainment of the ideals. We must count even the
+stupidity and impulsiveness of our own mental make-up as among the
+materials we have to work with, and not allow remorse for our own part
+in past failures to interfere with the joyful earnestness with which
+we attack the problems of the eternal present. We may, indeed, often
+succeed, and that may be a very great and pure joy to us; but we are
+not to count upon success; or, to put it another way, we are to think
+of the real success as lying in the dauntless renewal of the effort
+rather than in the show of outward result. "To have often resisted
+the diabolic, and at the end to be still resisting it, is for the poor
+human soldier to have done right well. To ask to see some fruit of
+our endeavor is but a transcendental way of serving for reward." This
+is not pessimism, it is the first step toward a sound and invulnerable
+optimism. We must recognize once for all that this world is not the
+world of our dreams, and cease to be so pathetically surprised and
+hurt when it falls short of them. Were we to be rebellious at life
+for not being built after the pattern of our ideals there would be
+no limit to our faultfinding. We may, indeed, long in our idle hours
+with Omar "To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, shatter it
+to bits-and then Remould it nearer to the heart's desire!" But in our
+daily life a braver and saner attitude befits us; for it is not in
+such an ideal world but in the actual world that we have to live. Evils
+there are in it and will yet be-why we cannot tell and need not know;
+the only alternative we have is to take them cheerfully or gloomily,
+to rebel or to accept the situation. Our duty then is clear. To face
+the events of life as they come to us, without discouragement or dismay,
+to laugh at them a little and learn to carry on our lives through them
+with steadfast heart and smiling face- surely that is the part of wisdom
+and of true manliness. The ugly things in life seem much less formidable
+when thus boldly faced than when we try to shut our eyes to them,
+with the consequent disillusion at their continual reappearance.
+Confess frankly the faults of life and it becomes tolerable, is even
+in a fair way to become lovable. For after all, when its obvious
+imperfections do not blind us to its good points, it is a dear old
+world we live in, and the healthy minded man loves it, as he
+loves his friends in spite of their faults loves it, and finds it a
+world gloriously worth living in.
+
+III.
+HEARTY APPRECIATION OF THE WONDER AND BEAUTY IN LIFE.
+
+Finally, when we have our great purpose in life, and have overcome
+the fear of pain and loss, we must learn to see and appreciate the
+beauty of the world we live in. The man who refuses to be downed by
+trouble is in a condition to enjoy each bit of good fortune that comes
+to him, to welcome each as a pure gift or addition to life, and to
+know that gifts of some sort or other will always come. Holding all
+things with that looser grasp that is ready to let them go if go they
+must, he can relish the good things of life the more freely for not
+having counted on them, as he can the more freely admire the virtues
+of his friends for not having expected them to be perfect. He can feel
+the beauty of the world without being dependent upon it, not looking
+for mortal things to be immortal or human things to be ideal, but
+whole-heartedly enjoying today what he has today and tomorrow what
+he shall have to-morrow. The things he cannot have at all, instead
+of spoiling his happiness in what he has, will rather add to it by
+forming another dimension of the actual, full of beautiful visions
+and glorious possibilities. And meantime the real world, of events
+that actually occur, will not fail, in spite of its flaws and rebuffs,
+to bring him ever-fresh delights. Let no one minimize these delights.
+There is more beauty, more interest here in this mundane existence
+of ours, more inspiration, more inexhaustible possibility of enjoyment
+than the keenest of us has dreamed of. We need some sort of shaking
+up to rouse us to the beauty of common things- the freshness of the air
+we breathe, the warmth of sunshine, the green of trees and fields and
+the blue of the sky, the joy in exercise of brain and muscle, in reading
+and talking and sharing in the life of the world; and in such daily
+things as eating at the family table when we are hungry, or a good
+night's sleep when we are tired. We need some teacher like Whitman
+to open our eyes to the beauty not only of flowers but of leaves of
+grass, to the picturesqueness and significance of so dull a thing as
+a ferryboat; or like Wordsworth, with his picturing of homely country
+scenes and events, with his emotion at the sight of the sleeping city-
+"a sight so touching in its majesty." This sense of the meaning of
+common things floods most of us at one time or another, and we see
+what in our blindness we have been overlooking. Go without your
+comfortable bed for a while, your well-cooked food, your home, friends,
+neighbors, and you will discover how rich you have been. Your mother's
+face hinted by some stranger in a foreign land will some day overcome
+you with the realization of the comfort of her love; and unless you
+are a crabbed egotist the life of your fellows can furnish you with
+endless pleasures. It is not necessary to own things to enjoy them;
+our interests and enjoyments may well overlap and include those of
+our friends and neighbors, and even those of strangers. The smile of
+a happy child, a friend's good fortune a sunrise or moonlit cloud-strewn
+sky, should bring a pure gladness to any one who has eyes to see and
+heart to feel. We must "Learn to love the morn, Love the lovely working
+light, Love the miracle of sight, Love the thousand things to do."
+[Footnote: These lines are Richard Le Gallienne's. Cf. also Matthew
+Arnold's lines: "Is it so small a thing To have enjoyed the sun, To have
+lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done,
+To have advanced true friends and beat down baffling foes? The sports
+of the country people, A flute note from the woods, Sunset over the sea;
+Seed-time and harvest, The reapers in the corn, The vinedresser
+in his vineyard, The village girl at her wheel. . ."] The true lover of
+beauty will not need to seek forever-new scenes and objects
+to admire. He will find that which can feed his heart in the clouds
+of morning, the blue of noon, or the stars of night. One graceful vase
+with a flower-stalk bending over to display its drooping blossoms,
+will fill him with a quiet happiness; the merry laughter of a child,
+the tender smile of a lover, the rugged features of a weather beaten
+laborer, will stir his soul to response; a few lines of poetry remembered
+in the midst of work, a simple song sung in the twilight, a print of
+some old master hanging by his bedside, a bird-call heard at sunset
+or the scent of evening air after rain, may so speak to his spirit
+that he will say, "It is enough!" It is not the number of beautiful
+things that we have that matters, but the degree in which we are open
+to their influence, the atmosphere into which we let them lead us.
+Our hearts must be free from self-seeking, from regret, from anger,
+from restlessness. The vision comes not always to the connoisseur,
+comes to him whose life is simple, earnest, open-eyed and openhearted.
+In the pauses of his faithful work he will refresh his soul with some
+bit of beauty that tells of attainment, of peace, of perfection. That
+is a proof to him of the beauty in the midst of which he lives,
+inexhaustible, hardly discerned; it carries him beyond itself into
+the ideal world of which it is a sample and illustration; unconsciously
+during the duties of the day he lives in the light of that vision,
+and everything is sweetened and blessed thereby.
+
+Can we maintain a steady under glow of happiness?
+
+Happiness--happiness sufficient to make life well worth living is,
+for most men at least, at most times, a real possibility. To be won
+it has but to be sought vigorously enough. It is to be sought,
+however, not primarily by changing one's environment but by
+changing one's self; not by acquiring new things, but by acquiring
+a new attitude toward things; not by getting what could make one
+happy, but by learning to be happy with what one can get. THE
+KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS WITHIN YOU! This is not merely a
+moralist's theory, or an empirical observation; it is a scientific fact.
+We may restate the matter in psychological language by saying
+that happiness and unhappiness are responses of the organism
+to its environment, reactions upon a stimulus, our attitude of
+welcome or dissatisfaction toward the various matters of our
+experience. True, we often think of the quality of pleasantness
+as inhering in the things we enjoy, and speak of troubles and
+sorrows as objective. But this is only a shorthand way of describing
+experience. In reality the pleasure we feel in eating when we are
+hungry or in seeing a friend we love is something added to and
+different from the taste sensations, or the complex visual perceptions
+and memory images the friend arouses in us. So a cutting or burning
+sensation, the thought of a friend's death, or of our failure, on the one
+hand, and our unhappiness thereat on the other hand, are two distinct
+things, closely bound together in our minds but separable.
+
+The separation is, indeed, difficult to bring about, because the age
+long struggle for existence has made unhappiness at physical pain
+and pleasure at the healthy exercise of our organs or satisfying of our
+appetite instinctive and immediate, that we may avoid what is harmful
+to life and pursue what is useful. All our cravings and longings and
+regrets have this biological value; they are the machinery by which
+nature spurs us on to better adjustment to the conditions of life.
+And in learning to do without the spur we must learn not to need it.
+Discontent is better than laziness, remorse better than callous
+selfishness, suffering under extreme cold better than recklessly
+exposing the body till it is weakened. But as soon as we have reached
+that stage of rationality where we can choose the better way and stick
+to it without the stinging goad of pain, the pain is no longer
+necessary and we may safely learn to weed it out.
+
+A few blessed souls we know who have learned the secret, who go about
+with perpetually radiant face and take smilingly the very mishaps that
+worry and sadden the rest of us. To some extent this may be merely
+a matter of better nerves, of less sensitive temperament, of more
+abounding vitality; but there are many of the weakest and most
+sensitive among those who have learned that better way; they can turn
+everything into happiness as Midas turned everything into gold. It
+is surprising, looking through such a one's eyes, to see how full life
+is of delight. Yet in the same situations there may be room for endless
+complaint if "every grief is entertained that's offered." It all
+depends on the attitude taken. In trouble one man will fall to
+fretting, while another does what can be done and then turns his
+thoughts to something else; in discomfort one will lower the corners
+of his mouth and feel wretched, while the other finds it all vastly
+amusing; one will have his day quite spoiled by some disappointment
+which the other takes as a mere incident; one will find the same
+environment dull and stupid which the other finds full of interest
+and opportunity; and so out of like conditions one will make an unhappy,
+the other a happy life. [Footnote: Cf. "In journeying often, in perils
+of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen,
+in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the
+wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in
+weariness and painfulness, in watching often, in hunger and thirst,
+in fasting often, in cold and nakedness . . . yet always rejoicing!"
+"Rejoicing in tribulation" even, because to the brave man every
+obstacle and failure is so much further opportunity for courage and
+contrivance, for matching himself against things. "Human joy," writes
+the author of the Simple Life, "has celebrated its finest triumphs
+under the greatest tests of endurance." The Apostle Paul is but one
+of many who have welcomed each rebuff, and proved that if rightly taken
+life almost at its worst can be transmuted by courage into happiness.]
+This, then, is the philosophy of happiness in a nutshell: PUT YOUR
+HEART INTO DOING YOUR DUTY; DEMAND NOTHING ELSE OF
+LIFE THAN THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO YOUR DUTY; ENJOY
+FREELY AND WITHOUT FEAR EVERYTHING GOOD AND
+BEAUTIFUL THAT COMES IN YOUR WAY.
+
+To acquire and keep this attitude of mind requires of course resolution
+and persistence. We must rouse ourselves and take sides. We must
+definitely pledge ourselves once and for all to happiness; and if we]
+cannot at a leap attain to it, we must still remember that we have
+committed ourselves to that side. We must pretend to be happy,
+throw aside all complaining and sighs and long faces; whatever
+comes, we must remember that we are on trial to preserve our
+buoyancy, our power not to be downcast. We shall not be able]
+to disuse our habit of unhappiness at once. But if we stick to
+our colors and refuse to add to whatever depression masters
+us by brooding upon it and giving it right of way; if we remember
+the conditions of happiness stated above, and thrust resolutely
+from us all thoughts and words incompatible with living according
+to them, the unhappiness will be gone before we know it. It is a
+well-known psychological law that if we choke the expression
+of an emotion, we shall presently find that we have smothered the
+emotion itself. It may seem like hollow pretense at first, but it will pay
+to pretend hard; when we have pretended long enough, we shall find
+we no longer need to pretend. There will always be those, no doubt,
+who will declare it impossible, and they will continue to be unhappy;
+there will be many others who will concede the possibility of it, but will
+not have the determination and persistence to effect it; but there will
+always be some who will say, "Happiness is possible!" who will set
+out to get it, and who will get it, as they will deserve to. Some men
+are born happy, some seem to have happiness thrust upon them,
+but some achieve happiness. It will not be the same kind of happiness
+that we had as children, before the shocks of life awoke us. It will be
+a happiness that meets and rises above pain. Life will always have its
+tragedies, sickness and separation, pain and sudden death. They are
+the common inheritance of mankind. But it is not these things in
+themselves that make life unendurable, it is the way we take them,
+our fear of them, our worry over them, our longings and rebelliousness,
+our magnifying and brooding over and shrinking from them; when we resolve
+to lift our heads and assert our power, we shall find life tragic,
+yes, but endurable, and full of a deep joy. The little worries and
+disappointments will cease to trouble us. And the same attitude that
+enables us to rise above them will, when more staunchly held, lift
+us over the great sorrows also, and keep alive in us an under glow
+of joy. An under glow of joy-that is what can be found in life in any
+but its highly abnormal phases, by conforming to its conditions and
+taking it for what it is, stuff which, we have to shape into service
+to the ideal. It should be recognized as the final word of personal
+morality that a man must train himself to a happiness that is independent
+of circumstances. We need no mystical painting out of the shadows,
+no blindness to facts, only a will to serve the right, a readiness
+to accept the imperfect, and eyes to see the beauty that surrounds
+us. "If I have faltered more or less In my great task of happiness,
+If I have moved among my race And shown no glorious morning face,
+If beams from happy human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies,
+Books" and my food, and summer rain, Knocked on my sullen heart in
+vain. If, in short, we have not disciplined ourselves to happiness,
+it may well be maintained that we have left undone our highest duty
+to our neighbor and ourselves. And he may with good reason declare
+that he has solved the greatest problem of life who can proclaim with
+Tolstoy, "I rejoice in having taught myself not to be sad!" or with
+the Apostle Paul, "I have learned in whatsoever state I am therein
+to be content." Much of the secret of happiness is to be found in
+Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius  and, of course, in the Gospels. Of
+modern writers, among the most useful are Stevenson and Chesterton.
+See, for example, Stevenson's Christmas Sermon, and J. F. Genung's
+Stevenson's Attitude toward Life. Chesterton's counsels are too
+sattered to make reference practicable.
+
+See also C. W. Eliot, The Happy Life. C. Hilty, Happiness. P. G.
+Hamerton, The Quest of Happiness. P. Paulsen, System of Ethics,
+book m, chap, n, sees. 3, 6; chap, iv, sees. 1, 2. H. C. King, Rational
+Living, chap, x, sec. iv. J. Payot, Education of the Will, book iv, chap.
+iv. A. Bennett, The Human Machine, chaps, VI; Mental Efficiency,
+chap. ix. In Royce's Philosophy of Loyalty, Roosevelt's Strenuous
+Life, and Gannett's Blessed be Drudgery, we get valuable notes;
+and Carlyle has many, especially ID the latter chapters of Sartor
+Resartm.
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+
+PUBLIC MORALITY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+PATRIOTISM AND WORLD-PEACE
+
+THE goal of personal morality is reached with the adoption of that
+mode of life that leads to the stable and lasting happiness of the
+individual. Such a happiness necessarily presupposes relations of
+kindness and cooperation with those other persons that form the
+immediate environment. But it is quite compatible with a neglect of
+those wider aspects of duty that we call public morality. The Stoics,
+the anchorites, some communities of monks, and many a well-to-do
+recluse today, are examples of those who have found a selfish happiness
+for themselves without taking any hand in forwarding the general
+welfare. Yet the greatest total good is not to be attained in any such
+way; if man is to win in his inexorable war with a hostile and grudging
+environment, men must march EN MASSE, must work for ends that lie
+far beyond their personal satisfactions, for the welfare of the State and
+posterity. It is these larger, public duties that we must now consider.
+And it is here that our greatest stress must be laid; for these
+obligations are too easily overlooked, and toward them the contemporary
+conscience needs most sharply to be aroused. The first great public
+problem, historically, is that of war. And theoretically it may well
+come first, since the attainment of peace is the prerequisite of all
+other social advance. While a nation's energies are absorbed in war,
+nothing, or nearly nothing else can be done. So we turn to a
+consideration of war; and first, of that emotion, patriotism, whose
+training and redirection must underlie the movement toward universal
+peace.
+
+What is the meaning and value of patriotism?
+
+Matthew Arnold began his famous American address on Numbers by
+quoting Dr. Johnson's saying, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a
+scoundrel." We must admit that to certain forms of it the gibe is
+pertinent. But in its essence, patriotism is that most useful of
+human possessions, an emotion that turns a duty into a joy. It is
+necessary for men, however burdensome they may find the obligation,
+to be loyal to the interests of the State of which they are members.
+But the patriot feels it noburden; he loves his country, and serves
+her willingly, as his privilege and glad desire. To be conscious of
+belonging to a social group, whose interests are regarded as one's
+own, to mourn its disasters and rejoice in its successes, and give
+one's hands and brains without reluctance, when needed, to its
+service- that is patriotism. For the individual, its value is that
+it widens his sympathies, gives him new interests, stimulates his
+ambition, warms his heart with a sense of brotherhood in common
+hopes and fears; the "man without a country" is, as Dr. Bale's story
+graphically depicted, like a man without a home; the "citizens of
+the world," who voluntarily expatriate themselves, miss much of the
+tang of life that is tasted by him who keeps his local attachments
+and national loyalty. For the State, its value is that it welds men
+together, softens their civil strife, lifts them above petty
+jealousies, rouses them to maintain the common weal against all
+dangers, external and internal. Especially in view of our hybrid
+population is it necessary to stimulate patriotism, by the
+celebration of national anniversaries, the salutation of the flag in
+the public schools, and whatever other means help to enlist the
+emotions on the side of civic consciousness. But while seeking to
+foster patriotism, for its great potentialities of good, we must
+guard diligently against its lapse into forms that are really
+harmful to the community which it avowedly serves. Like every other
+great emotion, it needs to be controlled, developed along the lines
+of greatest usefulness, directed into proper channels. How should
+patriotism be directed and qualified?
+
+(1) Patriotism must be rationalized, so as to be an enthusiasm for
+the really great and admirable phases of the national life. Instead
+of a pride in the prowess of army and navy, of yachts or athletes,
+it should become a pride in national efficiency and health, in the
+national art, literature, statesmanship, and educational system, in
+the beauty of public buildings and the standards of public manners
+and morals. It should think not so much of defending by force the
+national "honor," as of maintaining standards of honor that shall be
+worth defending. There may, indeed, still be occasions when we can
+learn the truth of the old Roman verse, Dulce et decorum est pro patria
+mori; but the newer patriotism consists not so much in willingness
+to die as in willingness to live, for one's country-to take the trouble
+to study conditions, to vote, and to work for the improvement of
+conditions and the invigorating of the national life. The real
+anti-patriots are not the peace-men, but the selfish and unscrupulous
+money-makers, the idle rich, the dissolute, the ill-mannered, all those
+who put private interest or passion above the public weal, help to
+weaken national strength and solidarity, and bring our country's name
+into disrepute.
+
+(2) Patriotism must not merge into conceit and blind
+self-satisfaction. The superior, patronizing air of many Americans,
+their insufferable boasting and dogmatism, does more, perhaps, to
+prejudice foreigners against us than any other thing. We must teach
+international good manners, a becoming modesty, a generosity toward
+the prejudices of others, and a recognition of our own shortcomings.
+The blind patriotism that will not confess to any fault, that shouts,
+"Our country, right or wrong," leads in the direction of arrogance,
+wrongdoing, and dishonor. We must be free to criticize our own
+government; we must have no false notions about national "honor" such
+as were once held concerning personal "honor" in the days of dueling.
+We shall doubtless be in the wrong sometimes; we must welcome
+enlightenment and try to learn the better way. Apologizing is sometimes
+nobler than bluster; and he is no true lover of his country who seeks
+to condone, and so perpetuate, her errors.
+
+(3) Patriotism must not imply a hatred of, or desire to hurt, other
+countries. The sight of one great civilization seeking to injure
+another is the shame of humanity. For in the end our interests are
+the same; we should not profit by Germany's loss any more than
+Connecticut would gain by injury to Vermont. Jingoism, contempt of
+other peoples, and purely selfish diplomacy, are sinful outgrowths
+of patriotism. We must learn to be fair and good-tempered, to appreciate
+the admirable in other nations, to thrill to their ideals, and banish
+all suspicious, sneering, or hypercritical attitudes toward them. It
+is a pity that the mass of our people get their conceptions of foreign
+peoples and rulers so largely through newspaper cartoons and caricatures,
+which emphasize and exaggerate their points of difference and inferiority
+instead of revealing their power and excellence. It is a stupid
+provinciality that conceives a distaste for foreigners because of their
+alien manners and to us uncouth language, their different dress and
+habits. As a matter of fact, they feel as superior to us as we to them,
+and on the whole, perhaps, with as good a right. No one of the nations
+but has some noble ideals and achievements to its credit; if we do
+not appreciate them, we are thereby proved to be in need of what they
+have to give. And underneath these usually superficial differences,
+we are all just men and women, with the same loves and hatreds, the
+same needs, the same weaknesses and repentances and aspirations. If
+we realized our common humanity, we should try to treat them as we
+should wish to be treated by them; the Golden Rule, the Christian spirit,
+the method of reason and kindness, is as applicable to international
+as to inter-personal relations. We should not be too sensitive to the
+trivial breaches of manners, the intemperate words and selfish acts
+of neighbor-nations, but make allowances and preserve our
+good-fellowship, as we do in our personal life. We should beware of
+letting our own patriotism lead us into like misconduct. Above all,
+we must refuse to let it lead us into the lust of conquest; we must
+respect the rights and liberties of other peoples, keep strictly to
+our treaty obligations, honor less the patriots who have inflamed
+national hatreds and led us to battle against other peoples than those
+who have wrought for their country's righteousness and true honor,
+and let it be our pride to stand for international comity and good
+will. A question that may properly be discussed here is whether it
+is permissible to shift patriotism from one country to another. Such
+a change of loyalty is, in times of war, called treason, and naturally
+evokes the resentment of the deserted side. Even as impartial judges,
+we are properly suspicious of such action, as denoting a vacillating
+nature, devoid of the true spirit of loyalty, or as indicative of a
+selfishness that follows its own personal advantage. And so far as
+that suspicion is well founded, we must condemn the traitor. But
+certainly, if a man experiences a sincere change of conviction, he
+should not be required to continue to serve the side that he now feels
+to be in the wrong; every man must be free to follow his conscience,
+even if it leads him to disavow his own earlier allegiance. Suppose
+Benedict Arnold to have developed a sincere conviction that the American
+revolutionists were in the wrong, and that the true welfare of both
+America and Britain lay in their continued union. In such a case he
+must, as a conscientious man, have transferred his allegiance to the
+Tory side. So a man who has been a worker for the saloon interests,
+who should become convinced of the anti-social influence of the liquor
+trade, would do right to come over to the anti- saloon side and work
+against his former associates. The really difficult question lies
+rather here: may such a man use for the advantage of the cause he now
+serves the knowledge he gained, the secrets entrusted to him, the power
+he won, as a worker for the opposite cause? If Benedict Arnold was
+a sincere convert to the British cause, did he do right in trying to
+deliver West Point into their hands? Or are we right in execrating
+him for his attempted breach of trust? May the former saloon-worker
+use his inside knowledge of the saloon men's plans, and his familiarity
+with the business, to help the cause to which he has transferred his
+allegiance? The two cases may be closely parallel; but each will
+probably be decided by most people according to the side upon which
+they stand. An impartial judgment will, perhaps, condemn all breaches
+of faith, all use of delegated power for ends contrary to those for
+which the power was delegated, including secrets deliberately
+entrusted, but will not condemn the use for the new cause of knowledge
+gained by the individual's own observation, or influence won through
+the power of his own personality.
+
+What have been the benefits of war?
+
+War has not been an unmitigated evil. In fairness we must note the
+following points:
+
+(1) In spite of its danger, and its pain, war has been a great
+excitement and joy to men. Tennyson is doubtless true to life in making
+Ulysses exclaim "All times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered
+greatly. . . And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the
+ringing plains of windy Troy. How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
+As though to breathe were life!"
+
+In the Iliad, indeed, we read: "With everything man is satiated, sleep,
+sweet singing, and the joyous dance; of all these man gets sooner tired
+than of war." In primitive times, and even, though decreasingly, in
+modern times, the cause of war has lain not merely in the ends to be
+attained thereby, but in the sheer love of war for its own sake-the
+quickened heartbeats, the sense of power and daring and achievement,
+the joy in martial music and uniforms, in the rhythmic footsteps of
+marching men, in the awakened thrill of patriotism, the love of effort
+and sacrifice for a cherished cause.
+
+To some extent this primitive lure of war still persists. But,
+fortunately, the glory and excitement of hand-to-hand conflict, the
+picturesque valor and visible achievement of earlier battles, are now
+gone. The soldier is but a cog in a machine, usually at a considerable
+distance from his enemy. He does not know whether his shot has hit
+or not; if he is wounded it is by an invisible hand. All the strain
+and fatigue and pain of war remain, but little of its glory and delight.
+Moreover, whatever normal satisfaction has been found in war can be
+had, as we shall presently note, in other ways- in all sorts of
+generous rivalries and useful as well as exciting endeavors that are
+open to the modern man.
+
+(2) War has necessitated discipline, organization, courage, self-
+sacrifice, and has thus been a great stimulus to virtues which to some
+extent have carried over into other fields. It has kept men from
+sinking into inertia or mere pleasure seeking, fostered energy and
+hardihood, quieted civil strife, taught the necessity of union and
+justice at home. The patriotism awakened by struggle against a common
+enemy has often persisted when the conflict was over, given birth to
+art and history, and many an act of devotion to the State.
+But national solidarity and a regime of justice within the State are
+now our stable possession, while the hardier and heroic virtues can
+be awakened in other and less disastrous ways. War has ceased to have
+its former usefulness as a spur to personal and social morality.
+
+(3) Wars of self-defense have often been necessary, to preserve goods
+that would have been lost by conquest; as when the Greeks at Marathon
+repelled the barbaric hordes of Asia, or when Charles Martel and the
+Franks checked the advance of the Saracens at Tours. Offensive wars,
+even, may have been necessary to wipe out evils, such as slavery or
+the oppression of neighboring peoples. But in modern times the moral
+justification of war on such grounds has usually been a flimsy pretext;
+and certainly the occasion for legitimate warfare is becoming steadily
+rarer. Nearly always the good aimed at could have been attained without
+the evils of war. If the American colonies had had a little more
+patience, they could have won the liberty they craved without war and
+separation from the mother country-as Canada and Australia have done.
+If the United States had had a little more patience and tact and
+diplomacy, it is probable that Cuba could have been saved from the
+intolerable oppression of Spain without war. Now that the moral
+pressure of the world's opinion is becoming so strong, and the Hague
+tribunal stands ready to adjust difficulties, there is seldom excuse
+for recourse to brute strength. The real cause of war lies far less
+often in the moral demand that prefers righteousness to peace than
+in the touchiness, selfishness, and resentments of nations, or their
+desire for glory and conquest.
+
+(4) War has, directly or indirectly, been the means of spreading the
+blessings of civilization. Alexander's campaigns brought Greek culture
+to the Eastern world, the Roman conquests civilized the West, the
+famous Corniche Road was built by Napoleon to get his troops into
+Italy, the trans-Siberian railway, the subsidized steamship lines of
+modern nations, the Panama Canal, owe their existence primarily to
+the fear of war. But today all lands are open to peaceful penetration;
+missionaries and traders do more to civilize than armies. And if the
+building of certain roads and railways and canals might have been
+somewhat postponed in an era of stable peace, many more material
+improvements, actually more imperative if less spectacular, would
+certainly have been carried out with the vast sums of money saved from
+war expenditures. Whatever good ends, then, war may have served in
+the past, it is now superfluous, a mere survival of savagery, a relic
+of our barbaric past, a clear injury to man, in ways which we shall
+next consider.
+
+What are the evils of war?
+
+(1) We need not dwell on the physical and mental suffering caused by
+war; General Sherman's famous declaration, "War is hell!" sums the
+matter up. Agonizing wounds, pitiless disease, the permanent crippling,
+enfeeblement, or death of vigorous men in the prime of life, the
+anguish of wives and sweethearts, the loneliness of widows, the lack
+of care for orphans-it is impossible for those who have not lived through
+a great war to realize the horror of it, the cruel pain suffered by
+those on the field, the torturing suspense of those left behind. It
+is, indeed, a sad commentary on man's wisdom that, with all the distress
+that inevitably inheres in human life, he should have voluntarily
+brought upon himself still greater suffering and premature death.
+
+(2) But the moral harm of war is no less conspicuous than the physical.
+It fosters cruelty, callousness, contempt of life; it kills sympathy
+and the gentler virtues; it coarsens and leads almost inevitably to
+sensuality. After a war there is always a marked increase in crime
+and sexual vice; ex-soldiers are restless, and find it hard to settle
+down to a normal life. There is a permanent coarsening of fiber. Even
+the maintenance of armies in time of peace is a great moral danger.
+The unnatural barrack-life, the requisite postponement of marriage,
+the opportunity for physical and moral contagion, make military posts
+commonly sources of moral contamination. Prostitution flourishes and
+illegitimacy increases where soldiers are quartered; the army is a
+bad school of morals.
+
+Add to this indictment the stimulus to national hatreds caused by war,
+the inflaming of resentments and checking of international good will.
+Frenchmen still nourish a bitter animosity against the Germans for
+the possession of Alsace and the occupation of Paris. The instinctive
+racial antipathies of the Balkan peoples have been immeasurably
+deepened by the recent wars on the peninsula. The eventual brotherhood
+of man is indefinitely postponed by every war and by every rumor of
+war.
+
+The interest in war also takes attention and effort away from the
+remedying of social and moral evils; it is useless to attempt any moral
+campaign while a war is on. Jane Addams tells us, in Twenty Years at
+Hull House, that when she visited England in 1896 she found it full
+of social enthusiasm, scientific research, scholarship, and public
+spirit; while on a second visit, in 1900, all enthusiasm and energy
+seemed to be absorbed by the Boer War, leaving little for humanitarian
+undertakings.
+
+(3) A less obvious, but even more lasting, evil is that caused by the
+loss of the best blood of a nation. In general, the strongest and best
+men go to the field; the weaklings and cowards are left to produce
+the next generation. The inevitable result is racial degeneration.
+The decline of the Greek and Roman civilizations was doubtless in large
+part due to the continual killing off of the best stocks, until the
+earlier and nobler breed of men almost ceased to exist. The effect
+of modern war is the exact opposite of that of primitive war, where
+all the men had to fight, and the strongest or bravest or swiftest
+survived; strength and valor and speed avail nothing against modern
+projectiles, and it is the stay-at-homes who are selected for survival,
+in general the weakest and least worthy. War is the greatest of
+dysgenic forces, and undoes the effect of a hundred eugenic laws.
+
+(4) The vast and increasing expense of war is a very serious matter
+for the moralist, because it means a drain of the resources that might
+otherwise be utilized for the advance of civilization. The cost of
+a modern war goes at least into the hundreds of millions of dollars,
+and any great war would cost billions. Every shot from a modern sixteen
+inch gun costs approximately a thousand dollars! Add to this direct
+cost the indirect costs of war, not reckoned in the usual figures-the
+loss of the time and work of the hundreds of thousands of able-bodied
+men, the economic loss of their illness and death, the destruction
+of buildings, bridges, railways, etc, the obstruction of commerce,
+the paralysis of industry and agriculture, the ravages and looting
+of armies, the maintenance of hospitals and nurses, and then, finally,
+the money given in pensions.[Footnote: The recent Balkan war is reckoned
+to have cost nearly half a million men killed or permanently disabled,
+a billion and a half dollars of direct] Add further the cost of the
+expenditure, besides many billions of indirect expense. The colossal
+European war just beginning as these pages go to press bids fair to
+cost immeasurably more aintenance of armies upon a peace-footing-the
+feeding and clothing of the men, the building and maintenance of barracks
+and forts, of battleships and torpedo boats, of guns and ammunition,
+automobiles, aeroplanes, and the increasing list of expensive modern
+military appurtenances. Europe spends nearly two billion dollars a year
+in times of peace on its armies and navies-money enough to build four
+or five Panama canals annually. The entire merchant marine of the world
+is worth but three billion dollars. More than this, over four million
+strong young men are kept under arms in Europe, a million more workers
+are engaged in making ships, weapons, gunpowder, military stores. Over
+a million horses are kept for army use. This money and these men, if
+used in the true interests of humanity, could quickly provide adequate
+and comfortable housing for every European, adequate schooling,
+clothing, and food for every one. Here is the great criminal waste
+of our times. In America our waste is less flagrant, but it is steadily
+increasing. We throw away money enough in these fratricidal
+preparations to cover the country with excellent roads in short order,
+or give every child a high school education.
+
+In a way, however, the rapidly growing cost of war and preparation
+for war is to be welcomed. For it is this that is creating, more than
+all our moral propaganda, a rising sentiment against war, and will
+presently make it impossible. When the German militarists became
+excited over the Morocco incident in 1911, a financial panic ensued,
+credit was withdrawn, pockets were touched, and a great protest arose
+which did much to quench the jingo spirit. Japan was induced to sign
+her treaty of peace with Russia because her money was giving out.
+Turkey was unable, in the winter of 1913-14, to renew war with Greece
+for the Aegean Islands, because she could not raise a loan till she
+promised peace. The growing international financial network, and the
+revolt of the taxpayers against the incessant draining of their
+pocketbooks, promise a change for the better in European militarism
+before very long.
+
+What can we do to hasten world-peace?
+
+There are powerful forces, which without our conscious effort are
+making for the abolition of war: its growing cost; the extension of
+mutual knowledge, through the newspapers and magazines, through travel,
+through exchange professorships and Rhodes scholarships and all
+international associations; the growing sensitiveness to suffering;
+the spread of eugenic ideals; and the increasing interest in worldwide
+social, moral, and material problems. But the epoch of final peace
+for man can be greatly accelerated by means which we may now note.
+
+(1) We may stimulate counter-enthusiasms to take the place of the
+passion for war. After all, the great war of mankind is the war against
+pain, disease, poverty, and sin; the real heroes are not those who
+squander human strength and courage in fighting one another, but those
+who fight for man against his eternal foes. The war of man against
+man is dissension in the ranks. We must make it seem more glorious
+to men to enlist in these humanitarian campaigns than in the miserable
+civil wars that impede our common triumphs. [Footnote: Cf. Perry, Moral
+Economy, p. 32; "War between man and man is an obsolescent form of
+heroism. . . . The general battle of life, the first and last battle,
+is still on; and it has that in it of danger and resistance, of
+comradeship and of triumph, that can stir the blood." And cf. President
+Eliot's fine eulogy of Dr. Lazear, who died of yellow fever after
+voluntarily undergoing inoculation by a mosquito, in the attempt to
+learn how to stay the disease: " With more than the courage and]
+Further, we should awaken interest in innocent devotion of the soldier,
+he risked and lost his life to show how a fearful pestilence is
+communicated and how its ravages may be prevented."] excitements and
+rivalries-in sports, in industrial competition, in missionary
+enterprise. A world's series in baseball, or an intercollegiate
+football season, can work off the restless energies of many thousands
+who in earlier days would have lusted for war. The revival of the
+Olympic games was definitely planned as a substitute for war. And men
+must have not only excitements and rivalries, but real difficulties
+and dangers-something to try their courage and endurance and train
+them in hardihood. For this we have exploration and mountaineering,
+the prosecution of difficult engineering undertakings, the attacking
+of corruption and the achievement of political and social reforms.
+[Footnote: Cf. W. James, "The Moral Equivalent of War" (in Memories
+and Studies), p. 287: "We must make new energies and hardihood's continue
+the manliness to which the military mind so faithfully clings. Martial
+virtues must be the enduring cement, intrepidity, contempt of softness,
+surrender of private interest, obedience to command, must still remain
+the rock upon which states are built. The martial type of character
+can be bred without war. The only thing needed henceforward is
+to inflame the civic temper as past history has inflamed the military
+temper."]
+
+(2) We may spread popular knowledge of the evils of war. It is
+incredible that this barbarous method of deciding disputes could be
+continued if the people generally had a lively realization of its cost
+in pain, money, and degradation. Already many societies exist for the
+diffusion of literature on the matter, [Footnote: And of course for
+other work in the direction of peace. The oldest such organization
+in this country is the American Peace Society. The Association for
+International Conciliation, founded in Paris by Baron d' Estournelles
+de Constant, in 1899, has branches now in all the important countries.
+Lately we have Mr. Carnegie's endowments for international peace]
+conscientious editors of journals and newspapers use their columns
+for peace propaganda, public schools teach children the evils of war,
+ministers use their pulpits to denounce it. All this, effort must be
+pushed in greater degree until a general public sentiment is aroused
+that will insist on the peaceful settlement of all international
+difficulties.
+
+(3) Indirectly, too, education and association can make war more and
+more unlikely. We can create a greater knowledge of and sympathy with
+other nations. We can to considerable extent train out pugnacity, quick
+temper, resentfulness, and train in sensitiveness to suffering,
+sympathy, breadth of view. All such moral progress helps in the war
+against war. We can encourage the interchange of professors and
+scientists between countries, increase the number of professional and
+industrial international organizations. The International Socialist
+party, with its threatened weapon of the general strike against war,
+may actually prove to be- whether we like it or not the most efficient
+of all forces. The International Federation of Students (Corda ratres),
+founded at Turin in 1898, with its branches in all civilized countries,
+may be of great use. A censorship of the press to exclude all
+jingoistic and inflammatory utterances may at times be necessary. It
+is even questionable whether uniforms and martial music ought not to
+be banished for a while, until the habit of peaceful settlement becomes
+fixed.
+
+(4) Politically, we must make our public policies so high and unselfish
+that other nations cannot justly take offense. Most wars are provoked
+by national greed or selfishness, lack of manners, or the breaking
+of treaty obligations. The United States, it must be confessed, has
+to some extent lost the respect and trust of other nations for its
+high- handed methods and disregard of treaties. Congress is allowed
+to modify or abrogate any treaty without consultation with the other
+nation involved; and we have what many critics deem acts of grave
+dishonor upon our record. [Footnote: For example, the recent abrogation
+of our long-standing treaty with Russia, without her consent, which
+has forfeited her friendship; or what seemed to many the violation
+of our treaty-promise to England by Congress in its exemption, now
+repealed, of American coastwise shipping from canal tolls. It would
+be well to engrave over the entrance to the Capitol the Psalmist's
+words: "He that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not."] ways we
+have needlessly offended and insulted other nations. The voter must
+watch the conduct of parties and work to elect men who, refraining
+from provoking other nations, will aim for peace.
+
+(5) Practical steps in the direction of peace may be mentioned. Most
+important are arbitration treaties. They must be made binding, and
+made to apply to all matters; the loophole which permits a nation to
+refuse to arbitrate a matter which it believes to involve its "honor"
+practically invalidates the treaty altogether, as every matter in
+dispute may be so construed. Alliances in which one country agrees
+to help another if the latter has agreed to arbitrate a matter and
+its enemy has refused, may be of great value. Treaties that guarantee
+existing boundaries and bind a nation not to extend its territory are
+useful, even if there is no adequate method as yet of enforcing such
+guaranties. The question whether we shall increase or decrease our
+army and navy is hotly disputed. The United States might well lead
+the way in disarmament, since the oceans that separate us from Europe
+and Asia are a better protection than forts or fleets, and no nation
+has enough to gain by fighting us to make it worth the cost. With the
+great European nations the case is different, and disarmament will
+probably have to come by mutual agreement. The only valid reason for
+an American army and navy lies in the power they give us to protect
+our citizens abroad, or to protect our weaker neighbors against foreign
+aggression. Perhaps until there is formed an international army and
+navy, it will be necessary for the most civilized and pacific nations
+to keep armed, since the less scrupulous nations would remain armed
+and acquire the balance of power. But the contention that a great
+armament is the best guaranty of peace is untrue, for two reasons:
+it is an inevitable provocation to other nations to match it with other
+great armaments; and the very existence of battleships and weapons
+creates a temptation to use them. The professional soldier is always
+eager to see active service, to prove his efficiency, have excitement,
+win glory and advancement. As the Odyssey puts it, "The steel blade
+itself often incites to deeds of violence."
+
+(6) The ultimate solution for international difficulties must, of
+course, be world organization. The beginnings of an international court
+we have already, the outcome of the first two Hague Conferences, in
+1899 and 1907. It must be given greater powers, and backed up by an
+international executive, legislature, and police. Perhaps the police
+will be the combined armies of the world put at the service of
+international justice. This "parliament of nations, federation of the
+world" is not a Utopian dream; it is hardly a greater step than that
+by which savage tribes, or the thirteen States of North America, or
+the South African and Australian States, became welded into nations.
+It is to be remembered that the wager of battle was the original method
+of settling private disputes; and even when trial by jury was authorized,
+the older form of settlement persisted long-being legally abolished
+in England only as late as 1819. Similarly, the peaceful settlement
+of international disputes will doubtless before many generations become
+so universal that it will be difficult for our grandchildren or great-
+grandchildren to realize that as late as early in the twentieth century
+the most civilized nations still had recourse to the old and barbarous
+wager of battle.
+
+H. Spencer, "Patriotism,", " Rebarbarization" (in Facts and Comments).
+G. K. Chesterton, "Patriotism" (in The Defendant). G. Santayana, Reason
+in Society, chap. VII. Outlook, vol. 92, p. 317; vol. 90, p. 534.
+International Journal of Ethics, vol. 16, p. 472. The American
+Association for International Conciliation (Sub-Station 84, New York
+City) sends free literature on request. A bibliography of peace
+literature will be found in their pamphlet No. 64. E. L. Godkin,
+"Peace" (in Reflections and Comments). W. James, "Speech at the Peace
+Banquet," and "The Moral Equivalent of War" (in Memories and Studies').
+Jane Addams, Newer Ideals of Peace, chaps. I, VII; The Arbiter in
+Council. J. Novicow, War and its Alleged Benefits. N. Angell, The Great
+Illusion. W. J. Tucker, The New Movement of Humanity. V. L. Kellogg,
+Beyond War, chap. I. D. S. Jordan, War and Waste. R. C. Morris,
+International Arbitration and Procedure. International Journal of
+Ethics, vol. 22, p. 127. World's Work, vol. 20, p. 13318; vol. 21,
+p. 14128. Independent, vol. 77, p. 396. Outlook, vol. 86, pp. 137,
+145; vol. 83, p. 376; vol. 84, p. 29; vol. 98, p. 59. Hibbert
+Journal, vol. 12, p. 105.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+POLITICAL PURITY
+
+AND EFFICIENCY THE attainment of a stable peace is the first public
+duty; the second is the achievement of an efficient government. Where
+politics are corrupt and inefficient all social progress is obstructed;
+and all such ideals of a reshaped human society as the Socialists yearn
+toward must be postponed until we have learned to run the machinery
+of government smoothly and effectively. The backward condition of peoples
+whose government is unintelligent needs no examples. The Russo-Japanese
+War brought into sharp contrast a nation of limitless resources and
+fine human stock handicapped and crippled by a selfish bureaucracy,
+and a much smaller nation, inexperienced and remote from the great
+world currents, but strengthened and made efficient by an intelligent
+and patriotic administration. In Persia and Mesopotamia we find poverty,
+ignorance, desert, where once flourished mighty empires: bad government
+is the cause. Greece and Italy and Egypt are struggling to recover
+from centuries of misgovernment. In this country government has been
+far wiser and more responsive to the community's needs; and yet the
+apathy of the intelligent public and the intrusion of private greed
+have distorted and obstructed legislation until social reformers throw
+up their hands in despair. But there are hopeful signs. The causes
+of this political mismanagement are being more generally recognized
+today, and it is probable that the next few decades will witness great
+strides toward improving the mechanism of American government and
+banishing corruption.
+
+What are the forces making for corruption in politics?
+
+(1) By one means or other, unscrupulous rulers and officeholders have
+always been able to replenish their private income by misuse of their
+official powers. Since popular government was first tried there has
+existed a class of professional politicians with little regard for
+the public welfare and ready to do anything to keep themselves in power
+and fatten their pocketbooks. We have in America the well-known phenomena
+of the "machine," the "ring," and the "boss," whose motto is "Politics
+is politics," and who are unashamed to put their interests above those
+of the people at large. Their control of the machinery of government
+enables them, unless ingenious provisions prevent, to wink at illegal
+voting and fraudulent counting of votes, to get the dregs of the
+population out to the polls, and perhaps intimidate their opponents
+from voting. The police power has often been misused for such purposes;
+the gerrymander is another clever method of manipulating the results
+of elections. Such means, together with the use as bribe money of funds
+deflected from the public treasury, the blackmail of vice, and the
+acceptance of "contributions" from favored parties, create a vicious
+circle which tends to keep in power corrupt officials who have once
+got hold.
+
+(2) But the power of unscrupulous politicians is made far greater by
+the support of those whose personal interests they make a business
+of furthering. Whole sections of the people are pleased and placated
+and bribed by special legislation in their favor, and as many individuals
+as possible are given positions. Behind every "boss" there are always
+hundreds of men who owe their "jobs" to him, and many others who
+cherish promises and hopes for personal favors. Jane Addams tells us
+that upon one occasion when the reformers in Chicago tried to oust
+a corrupt alderman they "soon discovered that approximately one out
+of every five voters in the nineteenth ward at that time held a job
+dependent upon the good will of the alderman." [Footnote: Twenty Years
+at Hull House, p. 316.]
+
+(3) Of especial importance are the great "interests" that are always
+to be found behind a corrupt administration. These corporations are
+so dependent upon the good will of the Government for their prosperity,
+and even for their very existence, that from the primitive instinct
+of self-preservation as well as from the greed of exorbitant profits,
+they stand ready to give liberal bribes, or at least to back with money
+and moral support the party machine that promises to favor them. They
+control a large proportion of the newspapers and magazines, and are
+thus able to distort facts, protect themselves from attack, and even
+stir up a factitious distrust of would-be reformers. As every little
+contractor naturally favors the "ring" that awards contracts to him,
+so the great corporations publicly or secretly support it. The liquor
+trade and the vice caterers-the keepers of gambling dens, illegal
+"shows," and disorderly houses-back by their money and votes the
+"machine" that they know will let them alone. But, indeed, the most
+"respectable" trusts and public-service corporations are often most
+culpable, and the greatest power behind the throne. Their interest
+in the personnel of the Government is far keener than that of the average
+citizen; they can usually succeed, by cleverly specious presentations
+of the situation, in dividing the forces against them, and often, by
+"deals," in effecting secret alliances of the "rings" in control of
+supposedly opposing parties. The poor are right in supposing that these
+powerful "interests" are their greatest enemy; as that keen observer
+of our national life, Mr. Bryce, has put it, "the power of money is
+for popular governments the most constant source of danger."
+
+(4) But, after all, this combination of forces in defiance of the
+common weal would not be effective but for the comparative indifference
+of the people, which may thus be called a contributing factor. The
+average voter feels no stimulus of self-interest in the matter; "what
+is everybody's business is nobody's business," and the individual finds
+his personal influence so slight that it seems hardly worth his pains
+to do anything about it. Occasionally popular passions become aroused
+and reform movements make a clean sweep; but the result is usually
+temporary, and when the general attention is turned elsewhere the
+bosses creep back to power. Modern life has so many more personal
+interests in it than the ancient republics had, that public affairs
+seldom become so big and absorbing an interest. And the more public
+affairs become the concern of a special group of men with dubious
+reputations, the more politics are shunned by the average citizen.
+Home life and business, social life and amusements, aesthetic,
+intellectual, and religious interests, are so much more attractive
+to him, that he gives little heed to political conditions, lets himself
+be duped by newspaper talk, and votes blindly some party ticket, without
+realizing his gullibility and his poor citizenship.
+
+What are the evil results of political corruption?
+
+(1) The obvious result of these conditions is inefficiency of
+administration and waste of the public moneys. The real interests of
+city or State are neglected. Streets become filthy, unsanitary
+tenements are built, firetrap factories and theaters allowed; every
+effort to improve public health is sidetracked, and the will of the
+people is subordinated to the will of the gang. Officials are nominated
+or appointed not for their competence but for their subservience to
+the organization; the boss himself, inexpert in administration,
+responsible to no one, and usually bribable, dictates public policy.
+The public funds disappear as in a quicksand; extravagant prices are
+paid for building lots and contracts, in return for political support
+or a share of the loot. Philadelphia before the reform movement of
+1911 borrowed fifty-one million dollars in four years, and at the end
+had practically nothing to show for it, with the city dirty, buildings
+out of repair, and everything important neglected. One contractor in
+the "ring" was paid $520,000 a year to remove the city garbage-a
+privilege which is actually paid for in some cities, the value of the
+garbage for fertilizer and the manufacture of other products making
+the collection of it a profitable business.
+
+(2) Another evil result lies in the subordination of general to local
+interests. The scattered and ineffective "pork-barrel" appropriations
+of Congress are dictated not by intelligent consideration for the
+public weal, but by the desire to throw a sop to this and that section
+of the country, and thereby win votes. Costly buildings are authorized
+in many towns where they are not needed, river and harbor improvements
+proceed at a halting pace in a hundred places at once, unnecessary
+navy yards and custom houses are maintained at heavy cost, the army
+is scattered at many small and expensive posts. Even the tariff is
+largely a deal between various manufacturing interests, rather than
+an instrument of the public good. Most officials consider themselves
+bound to exert all their influence in favor of their particular
+constituency's desires; if they cross those wishes they will probably
+not be reelected, while if they sacrifice the interests of the people
+as a whole they will be immune from punishment. Most of the state
+universities, normal schools, asylums, and other institutions have
+been located where they are as the result of a deal between different
+sections rather than with a view to the most advantageous site.
+
+(3) To these grave evils we must add the moral harm of selfish and
+corrupt politics. Standards of honor are blurred, the spirit of public
+service is almost lost sight of, and the cheap materialism to which
+our prosperous age is too easily prone flourishes apace. The man who
+would succeed in politics-unless he is a man of extraordinary personality
+and favored by good fortune-must be disingenuous and a time-server,
+must truckle to bosses and do favors for the ring; he must appeal to
+prejudice and passion and put his personal advancement before his
+ideals. No one can estimate the evil effect that corruption in politics
+has had upon the national character. When we add the indirect effects-
+the distortion of the public news-service, the protection of vice,
+the insecurity of justice-the moral evils of political corruption are
+seen to be of gravest importance.
+
+What is the political duty of the citizen?
+
+(1) In the present chaotic state of our machinery of government, where
+corruption is so easy and efficiency so difficult to obtain, the burden
+must rest upon every conscientious voter to play his part with
+intelligence. He must study the situation, keep himself informed as
+to candidates and issues, watch the conduct of officials, vote at
+primaries and elections, however irksome and fruitless this effort
+may seem. Above all, he must use independence of judgment, and not
+let himself be duped by disingenuous appeals to "party loyalty"; where
+blind party voting is prevalent there is little stimulus to party
+managers to nominate able and honorable men or to promote needed
+legislation. Public opinion must be kept aroused, the sense of
+individual responsibility awakened, and political matters kept in the
+glare of publicity. At election times whoever can spare the time
+should, after learning the local situation, take some part in the
+campaign, by public speaking, personal soliciting of is a shame that
+the peaceable home-loving citizen should have to be dragged into this
+business of politics, which ought to be
+left to experts to manage; but at present there seems no help for it
+in most communities.
+
+(2) An important service lies in joining or forming local branches
+of the leagues which now exist for the pushing of specific political
+measures, for the investigation and publication of impartial records
+of candidates, or for the investigation of the expenditures and results
+of administrations. Under the first head we may classify, for example,
+the National Short Ballot Organization; under the second head the Good
+Government Association, that makes it its business to send to each
+voter in a community a printed statement of the past history of each
+candidate for office, including the record of his vote on important
+matters; under the third head there are the Bureaus of Municipal
+Research. The New York Bureau, incorporated in 1907, conducts a yearly
+budget exhibit that shows graphically what is being done with the money
+raised by taxation. Inefficiency and corruption are ferreted out, waste
+is demonstrated, suggestions are made for economy, for the improvement
+of administration in every detail, and the amelioration of evil social
+conditions. By its determined publicity it can do much to energize
+and modernize city government. [Footnote: Cf. World's Work, vol. 23,
+p. 683. National Municipal Review, vol. 2. p. 48.]
+
+(3) The outlook for clean and public-spirited young men, with expert
+knowledge and ideals, who wish to enter a political career, is
+gradually becoming more encouraging. The reformer in politics must
+be not merely an idealist, but a man who can do things. He must show
+his constituents that reform government serves them better than the
+ringsters. Reform tactics have too often been negative; stopped, but
+no positive measures for social welfare have been passed. To be
+successful, a politician must show the people that he understands and
+is able to satisfy their needs. More effective than any moral house-
+cleaning in securing the tenure of an administration is its efficiency
+in promoting better living and working conditions, improving
+opportunities for recreation and education, or loosening the clutch
+of the predatory "interests." Moreover, the politician must be a good
+mixer, willing to work with those who do not share his idealism, good-
+natured and conciliatory, ready to postpone the accomplishment of much
+that he has at heart in order to get something done. As organization
+is in most matters necessary for effectiveness, he must usually work
+with a party, do a lot of distasteful detail work, and make compromises
+for the sake of agreements. Happily, the Progressive party has made
+an out- and-out stand for the application of morals to politics; and
+the growing movement in the cities toward seeking experts to manage
+their affairs gives hope that the way will soon be generally open for
+men of scientific training and high ideals in political life.
+
+What legislative checks to corruption are possible?
+
+It is, of course, an unnatural situation when the ordinary citizen
+has to spend a lot of time and effort if he would guard against being
+misgoverned. He ought to be able to tend to his own affairs and leave
+the machinery of government to those who have been trained to it and
+whose business it is. And while no political mechanism will ever wholly
+run itself, without watchfulness on the part of the people, experience
+shows clearly that it is possible by a wise system to make corruption
+much more difficult and more easily checked. We Americans are beginning
+to awake from our complacent self-gratulation and realize that our
+political machinery is clumsy and antiquated and a standing invitation
+to inefficiency. The discussion of the relative advantages of
+legislative schemes belongs to the science of government rather than
+to ethics; but their bearing upon public morality is so important that
+certain typical movements must be explained. The stages by which the
+advanced form of popular government which we have now attained has
+been reached need not, for our purposes, be considered-the extension
+of suffrage to the masses, government by representatives, registration
+laws, the secret ballot, and the like. We need only discuss several
+reforms now being agitated and tried, whose aim is to make government
+more responsive to the real wishes and needs of the people, and more
+difficult of usurpation by selfish interests.
+
+I. We may first speak of several reforms whose aim is to improve our
+mechanism of election, in order that merit, rather than "pull," shall
+lead to office, and that officials shall represent the people rather
+than the political rings. It is not generally true that good and able
+men are unwilling to accept public office; what they are unwilling
+to do is to truckle to bosses, to do all the questionable things that
+will keep them in with the ring, or to spend large sums of money in
+advertising their claims to the public. So thoroughly have political
+machines entrenched themselves that it is often practically useless
+for any one to oppose the machine candidate. Appointees receive their
+positions for "political services" rendered, or in return for a
+"campaign contribution" for which they may hope to recoup themselves
+when in office. To destroy utterly this political "graft" will be
+impossible until human nature becomes more generally moralized; but
+to render it more difficult and less common is the purpose of a number
+of measures, of which we may mention the following:
+
+(1) CIVIL SERVICE LAWS. These require appointments to
+office, made by officials, to be made on the basis of competitive
+examinations which shall test the ability and knowledge of the
+applicants. By this means, within a generation, tens of thousands of
+positions have been put beyond the reach of spoilsmen, and men of worth
+have replaced political henchmen. Instead of a great overturn with
+every new political regime, the man who has now fairly won his position
+retains it for life, except in case of proved inefficiency. The quality
+of the public service has been immeasurably improved, the subservience
+of office-holders to political chiefs abolished. [Footnote: See
+Atlantic Monthly, vol. 113, p. 270. National Municipal Review, vol.
+1, p. 654; vol. 3, p. 316.] But there are still many thousands of offices
+that have not been brought within the civil service, and there are
+continual attempts on the part of politicians to withdraw from it this
+or that class of appointments, that they may have "plums" to offer
+their constituents. To the most important positions the civil service
+method is, however, inapplicable; imagine a President having to appoint
+as his Secretary of State the man who passed the best examination in
+diplomacy! So many other considerations affect the availability of
+a man for such posts that the elected officials must be given a free
+hand in their choice and held responsible therefore to the people.
+These important appointees will be enough in the public eye to make
+it usually expedient for the career of the appointers that they pick
+reasonably honest and able men-especially if the recall (of which we
+shall presently speak) is in operation.
+
+(2) The short ballot. As our government has grown more and more
+complex, the number of officials for whom the citizen must vote has
+increased, with the result that he has to decide in many cases among
+rival candidates about none of whom he knows anything definitely. For
+four or five offices he can be fairly expected the merits of the
+candidates in the field; but to investigate or remember the relative
+merits and demerits of a score or more is more than the average voter
+will do. So he may "scratch" his party's candidate for governor or
+mayor, but usually votes the "straight ticket" for the minor officials.
+This works too well into the hands of the political machines. The
+obvious remedy is to give him only a few officers to vote for and to
+require the remaining offices to be filled by appointment instead of
+election.
+
+By this method, not only is the voter saved from needless confusion
+and enabled to concentrate his attention upon the few big offices,
+but the responsibility for misgovernment is far more clearly fixed,
+and the possibility of remedying it made much easier. If a dozen state
+officials are elected, the average citizen is uncertain who is to blame
+for inefficiency; each official shoves the responsibility on to the
+others' shoulders, and it is not plain what can be done except to
+depose them all, one by one. If a governor only is elected, and is
+required to appoint his subordinates, the entire blame rests upon his
+shoulders. If dishonesty or misadministration is discovered, he must
+take the shame; he may be recalled from office if he is not quick
+enough in removing the guilty man and remedying the evil.
+
+Further, the right to choose his own subordinates makes the work of
+the chief much easier, brings a unity of purpose into an administration
+which is likely to be absent when a number of different men,
+simultaneously elected, perhaps representing different parties, have
+to work together. The increased power and responsibility of the chief
+offices attract able men, men of ideals and training, who do not care
+for an office whose power is limited by that of various machine
+politicians who, they know, will hamper them on every side in their
+efforts for efficient administration. And, apart from this
+consideration, a man able enough to win election as governor is a far
+better judge of the men best fitted for the various technical duties
+that fall to his subordinates than is the general public. Experience
+shows that the men chosen by chiefs who are elected and held
+responsible to the people are generally abler than those elected to
+the same positions by popular vote.
+
+The present movement toward a short ballot, with responsibility clearly
+denned and concentrated, will doubtless do away ultimately with the
+clumsy systems by which both States and cities in this country are
+now governed-the two-chambered legislatures, with their inevitable
+friction betwixt themselves and with the executive. This method of
+checks and counter-checks was thought necessary as a safeguard against
+tyranny, the bugbear of our forefathers, but is now the enemy of
+efficiency and the haunt of corruption. The much simpler commission
+form of government, which, originating in Galveston and Des Moines
+a few years ago, has already, at date of writing, been adopted by over
+three hundred cities, substitutes for the usual executive and legislative
+branches a small group of elected officials - commonly five-who, with
+the aid of appointed subordinates, carry on the whole business of the
+city. Some such plan may eventually be adopted for states, and even
+for the national government. [Footnote: R. S. Childs, Short Ballot
+Principles, Story of the Short Ballot Cities. C. A. Beard, Loose Leaf
+Digest of Short Ballot Charters. Free literature of the National Short
+Ballot Organization (383 Fourth Avenue, New York City). C. R. Woodruff,
+City Government by Commission. E. S. Bradford, Com- mission Government
+in American Cities. National Municipal Review, vol. 1, pp. 40, 170, 372,
+562; vol. 2, p. 661. The American City, vol. 9, p. 236. Outlook, vol. 92,
+pp. 635, 829; vol. 99, p. 362. Forum, vol. 51, p. 354.]
+
+(3) Direct primaries. Experience has conclusively shown
+that the caucus system of making nominations for office plays directly
+into the hands of the machine; its practical result has been that the
+voter is usually restricted in his nominees of the bosses and the
+"interests." The direct primary gives the independent candidate his
+opportunity, and makes it more practicable for honest citizens to
+determine between what candidates the final choice shall lie. It
+implies effort on the part of the candidate to make himself known to
+the voters; but such effort there must always be, unless the candidate
+is already a conspicuous figure, in order that the citizen may have
+grounds for his decision. It has in some places led to an exorbitant
+expenditure for self-advertisement; but this expenditure can be pretty
+well controlled by legislation. The argument that it does away with
+the deliberation possible in a caucus wears the aspect of a joke, in
+view of the sort of deliberation the caucus has in practice encouraged;
+and discussion does, of course, take place in the public press, which
+is the modern forum. It is possible, however, that some modified form
+of the direct primary plan may be better still, such as the Hughes
+plan, which provided for the election at each primary of a party
+committee to present carefully discussed nominations for the following
+year's primary to approve or reject.[Footnote: See Outlook, vol. 90,
+p. 382; vol. 95, p: 507. North American Review, vol. 190, p. 1] Arena,
+vol. 35, p. 587; vol. 36, p. 52; vol. 41, p. 550. Forum, vol. 42, p.
+493. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 110, p. 41.
+
+(4) PREFERENTIAL VOTING. A more radical movement would abolish
+primaries altogether and settle elections upon one day by preferential
+voting. The voter indicates his second choices, and any further choices
+he may care to indicate. If no candidate receives a majority of first
+choices, the first and second choices are added together; if necessary,
+the third choices. In this way the danger, so often realized, of a
+split vote and the election of a minority candidate, will be banished;
+it will no longer be possible for a machine candidate, actually the
+least majority of the people, to win a plurality over the divided
+forces of opposition. The real wishes of the voter can be discovered
+and obeyed more readily than with our present troublesome and expensive
+system of double elections. [Footnote: National Municipal Review, vol.
+1, p. 386; vol. 3, pp. 49, 83.]
+
+(5) PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. By means of preferential voting it
+is possible to make representative bodies a mirror not of the majority
+party, but of the real divisions of opinion in a community. One of
+the great evils in our present system of majority rule is the suppression
+of the wishes of the minority-which may amount to nearly half the
+community. [Footnote: Cf. Unpopular Review, vol. 1, p. 22.] Strong
+parties may go for many years without any representation, or with
+representation quite disproportionate to their numbers. By the method
+of proportional representation, every man's vote counts, and every
+considerable body of opinion can send its representative to council.
+Men of marked personality, who have aroused too great hostility to
+make them safe candidates as we vote today, because they would be
+unlikely to win a majority, can get a constituency sufficient to elect
+them, while the harmless nobody, elected today only to avoid a feared
+rival, will have less chance. The evil gerrymander will be abolished,
+and representative bodies will be divided along party lines in the
+very proportions in which the people are divided.
+
+Moreover, since on this plan every vote counts, the greatest source
+of political apathy will be removed-that sense of hopelessness which
+paralyzes the efforts of the members of a minority party. Corruption
+will hardly pay; for whereas at present the boss has but to win the
+comparatively few votes necessary to swing the balance toward a bare
+majority, in order to have complete control, he will upon this plan
+secure control only in actual proportion to the number of votes he
+can secure.
+
+Another advantage of the system lies in the stabler policy it will
+ensure. Our present system results in frequent sharp overturns,
+according as this party or that may get a temporary majority. But this
+battledore and shuttlecock of legislation does not represent the far
+more gradual changes in public opinion. A system whereby the number
+of representatives of each party is always directly proportioned to
+the number of votes cast for that party would make it possible to evolve
+a careful machinery of government, as is not possible with our periodic
+upheavals and reversals of personnel and policy.[Footnote: See
+publications of the American Proportional Representation League
+(Secretary C. G. Hoag, Haverford, Pennsylvania). National Municipal
+Review, vol. 3, p. 92. American City, vol. 10, p. 319. Thomas Hare,
+Representation. J. S. Mill, Representative Government, chap. VII.
+Political Science Quarterly, vol. 29, p. 111. Atlantic Monthly, vol.
+112, p. 610.]
+
+(6) THE SEPARATION OF NATIONAL, STATE, AND LOCAL ISSUES. The obtrusion
+of national party lines into state and municipal affairs has
+continually confused issues and blocked reforms in the narrower
+spheres. Masses of voters will support a candidate for governor or
+mayor simply because he is a Republican or Democrat, although the
+national party issues in no way enter into the campaign. Bosses
+skillfully play on this blind party allegiance, and many a scoundrel
+or incompetent has ridden into office under the party banner. The
+separation of local from national elections has proved itself a
+necessity; in the most advanced communities they are now put in
+different years, that the loyalties evoked by one campaign may not
+carry over blindly into another. The direct election of United States
+Senators has this great advantage, among others, of separating issues;
+in former days the alternative was often forced upon the citizen of
+voting for a state legislator who stood for measures of which he
+disapproved, or of voting for a better legislator who would not vote
+for the United States Senator he wished to see elected.
+
+(7) Space forbids the further discussion of reforms that aim at
+improving the machinery of election. The value of anti-bribery laws
+is obvious, as of the laws that require publicity of campaign accounts,
+forbid campaign contributions by corporations, and limit the legal
+expenditures of individuals. [Footnote: Cf. Outlook, vol. 81, p. 549.]
+The publication at public expense and sending to every voter of a
+pamphlet giving in his own words the arguments on the strength of which
+each candidate seeks election has recently been tried in the West.
+But this is sure, that in one way or other the American people will
+evolve a mechanism which will make it easier for able and honest men
+to attain office than for the rogues and their incompetent henchmen.
+
+II. A second set of reforms bears rather upon the quality of
+legislation than upon the selection of men for office. It is not enough
+that the way be made easy for good men to attain office; they must,
+when elected, be freed from needless temptations and given every
+inducement to work for the interests of the community they represent.
+Every possible pressure is valuable that can counteract the pull of
+sectional interests, party interests, or the interests of the great
+corporations, away from the general welfare. For even the best
+intentioned officials may yield to the insistence of local or partisan
+wishes, to the arguments of "big business," or to the lure of personal
+advantage.
+
+(1) REPRESENTATION AT LARGE. The method of legislation by
+representatives of local districts leads inevitably to laws that are
+a compromise or bargain between the interests of the several districts,
+rather than the result of a desire to further the best interests of
+the entire community. Congressmen are continually beset by their
+constituents to secure special favors for them, aldermen are expected
+to push the interests of their respective wards. Each representative
+stands in danger of political suicide if he refuses to use his
+influence for these often improper ends; and legislation takes the
+form of a quid pro quo:-"You vote for this bill which my section desires,
+and I'll vote for the bill yours demands." This evil is so great that
+it may be necessary eventually to do away entirely with district
+representation.[Footnote: See Outlook, vol. 95, p. 759.]
+
+(2) DELEGATED GOVERNMENT. Another plan, which evades the
+pressure of local interests while allowing district representation, also
+avoids the friction and deadlocks which result from government by a
+group of representatives of sharply opposed parties or principles. By
+this plan, a representative body is elected, by districts, or at large,
+by proportional representation; but this body, instead of itself deciding
+or executing the state or municipal policy, serves merely to select
+and watch experts, who carry on the various phases of government.
+These experts remain responsible to the representatives, who in turn
+are responsible to the people. This method promises to combine
+concentration of responsibility, efficiency, and business-like
+government, with democracy, that is, responsiveness to popular control.
+The national Congress may, for example, appoint a commission of experts
+on the tariff, agreeing to consider no tariff legislation except such
+as they recommend; in this way they are freed from all requests to
+propose this or that alteration in the interests of their State or
+one of its industries, while the commissioners, not being responsible
+to any localities, are under no pressure to yield to such requests.
+Similarly, the right to recommend-or even to enact-legislation on
+pensions, on river and harbor appropriations, or what not, may be
+delegated to an appointed body responsible only to the Congress at
+large; and all the "pork-barrel" legislation, which the better class
+of legislators hate, but which is forced upon them by the threat of
+political ruin, may be obviated. [Footnote: Cf. the new (1914) Public
+Health Council of six members, in New York State, to whom has been
+delegated all power to make and enforce laws bearing upon the public
+health throughout the State (except in New York City). See World's
+Work, vol. 27, p. 495.] The plan of delegating power to appointed
+experts has very recently been winning approval in municipal
+government, where it is commonly called the "City Manager " plan.
+A small body of commissioners are elected and held responsible for
+the city government; these men may remain in their private vocations,
+and draw a comparatively small salary from the city. Their duty is
+to select an expert city manager who will receive a high salary, and
+conduct personally and through his appointees the whole business of
+the city. The commissioners may dismiss him if his work is not
+satisfactory and engage another to take his place. Responsibility is
+concentrated; mismanagement can be stopped at once, more readily even
+than by the recall; unity and continuity of policy become possible;
+in short, the same successful methods that have made American business
+the admiration of the world can be applied to politics. If this plan
+becomes widely adopted, as it bids fair to be, politics can become
+a trained profession, and we can be governed by experts instead of
+by politicians. [Footnote: See The City Manager Plan of Municipal
+Government (printed by the National Short Ballot Organization)
+National Municipal Review, vol. 1, pp. 33, 549; vol. 2, pp. 76, 639;
+vol. 3, p. 44. Outlook, vol. 104, p. 887.]
+
+(3) THE RECALL. Many of the newer plans for government include a method
+by which an inefficient or dishonest official can be removed from
+office by the people, without the cumbersome process of an impeachment.
+It would not be wise to apply the recall to local representatives,
+who would then be still more at the mercy of local wishes; but with
+a short ballot and the concentration of responsibility upon executives
+or small commissions who represent the community as a whole, it is
+highly desirable to have a method available for quickly remedying
+mistakes. The danger of being recalled from office is a salutary
+influence upon a weak or a self-willed man. And the possibility of
+it allows the election of officials for longer terms, which are desirable
+from several points of view: they bring a more stable government, freed
+from too frequent breaks or reversals of policy; they permit the
+acquiring of a longer political experience, and stimulate abler men
+to run for office; they save the public the bother and expense of too
+frequent elections. [Footnote: See National Municipal Review, vol.
+1, p. 204. Forum, vol. 47, p. 157. North American Review, vol. 198,
+p. 145.]
+
+(4) THE REFERENDUM. A less drastic instrument of popular control
+over legislation is the referendum, which refers individual measures
+back to the people for approval or rejection. An official may be
+efficient and free from corruption, yet opposed to the general wish
+on some particular matter. In this, then, he may be overruled by the
+referendum without being humiliated or required to resign his office.
+Thus not only the improper influence of the machine or the interests
+may be guarded against by the public, but the unconscious prejudices
+of generally efficient officials. Of course there is, in the case of
+both recall and referendum, the possibility that the official may be
+right and the people wrong. But that danger is inherent in democratic
+government. The best that can be done is to make government responsive
+to the sober judgment of the majority; if that is mistaken, nothing
+but time and education can correct it. [Footnote: See W. B. Munro,
+The Initiative, Referendum and Recall; The Government of American Cities,
+p. 321. Political Science Quarterly, vol. 26, p. 415; vol. 28, p.
+207. National Municipal Review, vol. 1, p. 586. Nation, vol. 95, p.
+324.]
+
+The air is full of suggestions, and experiments are being tried in
+every direction. There is every hope that America may yet learn by
+her failures and evolve a system of government that shall be her pride
+rather than her shame. Our National Government has worked far better
+than our state and local government, but even that can be further freed
+from the pull of improper motives, made much more efficient and
+responsive to the general will. We are in a peculiar degree on trial
+to show what popular government can accomplish. The Old World looks
+to us with distrust, but with hope. And though the solution of our
+political problem involves many technical matters, it has deep underlying
+moral bearings, and affects profoundly the success of every great moral
+campaign.
+
+R. C. Brooks, Corruption in American Politics and Life. L. Steffens,
+The Shame of the Cities. J. Bryce, The Hindrances to Good Government.
+W. E. Weyl, The New Democracy, chaps. VIII, IX. Jane Addams, Democracy
+and Social Ethics, chap. VII. A. T. Hadley, Standards of Public
+Morality, chaps. IV, V. T. Roosevelt, American Ideals. C. R. Henderson,
+The Social Spirit in America, chap. XI. Edmond Kelly, Evolution and
+Effort, chap. IX. W. H. Taft, Four Aspects of Civic Duty. E. Root,
+The Citizen's Part in Government. D. F. Wilcox, Government by All the
+People. L. S. Rowe, Problems of City Government. H. E. Deming, The
+Government of American Cities. Publications of the National Municipal
+League (703 North American Building, Philadelphia). Political Science
+Quarterly, vol. 18, p. 188; vol. 19, p. 673;
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+SOCIAL ALLEVIATION
+
+WHEN the security of peace and an efficient government are attained,
+the way lies open for the amelioration of social evils. Freedom from
+war and from political corruption are but the pre-conditions of social
+advance, which must consist in three things: the healing of existing
+ills, the reorganization of society to prevent the recurrence of
+similar ills, and the bringing of new opportunities and joys to the
+people. Our first step, then, is to consider social therapeutics-the
+palliation of present suffering, the redressing of existing wrongs;
+however we may seek, by radical readjustments, to strike at the roots
+of these evils, we must not fail to mitigate, as best we can, the lot
+of those who are the unfortunate victims of our still crude social
+organization. The detailed study of social ills and their remedies
+has come to be a science by itself, and a science that calls for close
+attention; for there is more good will than insight a field, and
+nothing demands more wisdom and experience than the permanent curing
+of social sores. But it falls to ethics to note the general duties
+and opportunities, to point out the responsibility of the individual
+citizen for wrongs which he is not helping to right, and to direct
+him to the great moral causes in one or more of which an increasing
+number of our educated men and women are enrolling themselves. A
+questionnaire recently sent out by the author of this book discloses
+the fact that over half the college graduates of this country have
+given time and money to one or more of the campaigns which are being
+waged for social betterment. [Footnote: Some of the results of this
+questionnaire were published in the Independent for August 5, 1913,
+vol. 75, p. 348.] These evils which it is the duty of the State to
+try to remedy we shall now consider.
+
+What is the duty of the State in regard to:
+
+I. SICKNESS AND PREVENTABLE DEATH? Physical ills are the unavoidable
+lot of the human race; but by no means to the extent to which they
+now prevail. A very large percentage of existing sickness and infirmity
+could have been prevented by a timely application of such knowledge
+as the intelligent already possess. It is the poverty, the crowded
+and unsanitary living conditions, the ignorance and helplessness of
+the masses, that perpetuate all this unnecessary suffering, this economic
+waste, this drag on human efficiency and happiness. Not only from
+humanitarian motives, but also from regard for national prosperity
+and virility, it behooves the State to wage war against preventable
+illness and safeguard the general health.
+
+How shocking conditions are, in view of the sanitary and medical
+knowledge we now possess, we are not apt to realize. It is estimated
+that of the three million or so who are seriously ill in this country
+on any average day, more than half might have been kept well by the
+enforcement of proper precautions; that of the 1,500,000 deaths that
+occur annually in the United States, nearly half could have been
+postponed. Tuberculosis, for example, is not a highly contagious or
+rapid disease; it is absolutely preventable by measures now understood,
+and almost always curable in its earliest stages. Yet half a million
+people in our country are suffering from it, and about 130,000 die
+of it annually. Typhoid, which could readily be as nearly eradicated
+as smallpox has been, claims some 30,000 victims annually. It has been
+estimated by various statisticians that the nation could save a billion
+dollars a year through postponing deaths, and at least half as much
+again by preventing illness that does not result fatally. Tuberculosis
+alone is said to cost the country half a billion annually, typhoid
+over three hundred million, and so on. The cost in suffering, broken
+lives, and broken hearts is beyond computation.
+
+There are many different ways in which the campaign for public health
+can be simultaneously waged:
+
+(1) The enforcement of quarantine laws, vaccination, and fumigation,
+should be much stricter than it is in many parts of the nation. By
+such means the cholera, bubonic plague, and other terrible diseases
+have been practically kept out of the country, and smallpox has become,
+from one of the most dreaded scourges, an almost negligible peril.
+Experience shows strikingly the advantage of isolating patients
+suffering from contagious diseases; here at least the State, in the
+interest of the community as a whole, must sternly limit individual
+liberty. And it looks as if we were at the threshold of an era of
+"vaccination" for other diseases besides smallpox; typhoid is now
+absolutely preventable by that means, and the number of diseases
+amenable to prevention or mitigation by similar methods is yearly
+increasing. In some or all of these cases there is a slight risk to
+the patient, in view of which compulsory "vaccination" is in some
+quarters strenuously opposed. Leaving the discussion of the principle
+here involved to chapter XXVIII, we may confidently say, at least,
+that voluntary inoculation against diseases is an increasingly valuable
+safeguard not only for the individual in question but for the whole
+community.
+
+(2) Apart from state action, voluntary organizations formed to attack
+specific diseases, by spreading popular knowledge of preventive
+measures, and pushing legislation for their enforcement, offer much
+promise. The Anti-Tuberculosis League can already point to a ten per
+cent decline in the death rate from that plague in the decade from
+1900 to 1910. [Footnote: For methods and results consult the Secretary
+of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis,
+105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City. Free literature is sent,
+and information furnished on request.] But while in New York City alone
+nearly thirty thousand fresh victims are seized by the disease every
+year, a voluntary organization cannot hope to cope with the situation;
+the power and resources of the State are needed. The congestion of
+population, and the lack of proper light and air, which are the
+greatest factors, perhaps, in the spread of the scourge, must be
+attacked by legislation. So typhoid must be fought not only by
+vaccination, but by legislation insuring a pure water supply, proper
+sewage disposal, and the protection of food from contamination.
+Measures necessary to eradicate that pest, the house fly, must be
+enforced, the mosquito must be as nearly as possible exterminated,
+streets and yards must be kept clean, the smoke nuisance abated, the
+slaughtering of animals and canning of food sharply regulated, sanitary
+conditions enforced in homes and factories. One of the prerequisites
+to any marked improvement will be the "taking out of politics" of the
+public health service and making it an expert profession.
+
+(3) Another service that the community must eventually, in its own
+interests, provide, is free medical attendance, by really competent
+physicians, wherever there is need. Without referring to the suffering
+and anxiety spared, the expense of this service will far more than
+be saved the State in the prevention of illness and premature death.
+The most careful medical inspection of school children, including
+attention by experts to eyes, ears, and teeth, is of utmost importance;
+all sorts of ills can thus be averted which the parents are too ignorant
+or careless to forestall. [Footnote: Consult the literature of the
+American School Hygiene Association (Secretary T. A. Storey, College
+of the City of New York). L. D. Cruickshank, School Clinics at Home
+and Abroad. Outlook, vol. 84, p. 662.] It is earnestly to be hoped
+that the present chaos of medical education and practice will be soon
+reduced to a better order; that practitioners who prefer manipulation
+or mental healing, for example, will, instead of forming separate and
+antagonistic schools, unite their insight and experience with the main
+stream of scientific therapeutic effort. The quacks who delude and
+murder hordes of ignorant victims must be, so far as is practicable,
+severely punished; and adequate physiological and medical education
+should be required for all practicing healers, whatever methods they
+may then choose to employ.
+
+(4) Besides free medical attendance, the State must pro- vide free
+hospitals for the sick, nurses for the poor, asylums for those who
+are incapacitated by infirmity from self-support. The care and treatment
+of the feeble-minded, the insane, the deaf, the blind, the crippled,
+should always be in the hands of experts; and, so far as possible,
+work that they can do must be provided. With the enforcement of the
+measures we have enumerated, the need of such institutions will become
+much less; but at present they are inadequate in number and equipment,
+too often managed by incompetent officials, and not always free from
+scandal. [Footnote: Cf. C. R, Henderson, Social Spirit in America,
+chap. XV.]
+
+(5) Most important of all, perhaps, is the work that must be done to
+save the babies. Approximately a third of the babies born in this
+country die before they are four years old; half or two thirds of these
+could be saved. Wonderful results in baby saving have followed strict
+control of the milk supply and the banishing of the fly. Besides this,
+mothers must in some way be given instruction in the very difficult
+and complicated art of rearing infants; for many of the deaths are
+due to simple ignorance.[Footnote: For methods and results in
+baby-saving, consult the Secretary of the National Association for
+the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality, 1211 Cathedral Street,
+Baltimore, Maryland. Also Outlook, vol. 101, p. 190. J. S. Gibbon,
+Infant Welfare Centers.] Poverty, the necessity of self- support on
+the part of mothers, also plays a large part; we shall consider in
+chapter xxx the possibility of state care of mothers during the infancy
+of their children. II. Poverty and inadequate living conditions? If
+human illness can be in large measure averted by state action, poverty
+can be practically abolished. The poor we have always had with us,
+indeed; but we need not forever have them. There is no excuse for our
+tolerance of the suffering and degradation of the submerged classes;
+the causes of this wretchedness are in the main removable. The initial
+cost will be great, but in the long run the saving to the community
+will be enormous. Individual effort can only achieve a superficial
+and temporary relief; and even the two or three hundred charity
+organization societies in the country are impotent, for lack of funds
+and of power, to stem the forces that make for poverty. To dole out
+charity to this family and to that is unhappily necessary in our
+present crude social situation; but it is not a solution. It not only
+runs the continual risk of encouraging shiftlessness and dependence,
+but it does not go to the root of the matter. There will always be
+inequalities in wealth and room for personal gifts from the more to
+the less fortunate; but the State must not be content with such patching
+and palliating, but must strike at the roots of the evil. We will
+consider the chief causes of poverty and their cure.
+
+(1) The cause that bulks largest is the inadequate wages of a
+considerable portion of the lowest class. It is obviously impossible
+to support the average family of five in decency, not to say in health,
+efficiency, or comfort, with an income of, say, less than a thousand
+dollars a year, as prices go at time of writing (1914). Yet great
+numbers of families at present have to exist somehow upon less, even
+much less. Five million adult male workers in this country receive
+less than six hundred dollars a year for their work.[Footnote: Cf.
+Professor Fairchild's comments in Forum, vol. 52, p. 49 (July, 1914).]
+Even when mothers work who ought to be at home tending the children,
+even when children work who ought to be in school, the total income
+is often miserably inadequate. Yet there is ample wealth in the country,
+if it were better distributed, to pay a living wage to every laborer.
+By some one of the means which we shall presently discuss, the State
+must see that all laborers are well enough paid to enable them, while
+they work, to support in comfort a moderate family.
+
+(2) Involuntary unemployment is the next source of poverty. This is
+due to many causes: the periodic depressions and failures of industries;
+the introduction of new machinery, throwing out whole classes of
+laborers; the enormous influx of immigrants and consequent congestion
+in the cities of unskilled labor; lack of education, or natural
+stupidity, which render some men too incompetent to retain positions.
+Ignorance can be overcome by proper compulsory education laws; all
+but the actually feeble-minded (who must be cared for in institutions)
+can, by skillful attention, be taught proficiency in some trade. And
+with a more widespread education the work that requires no skill can
+be left to the hopelessly stupid. The congestion of labor in the cities
+[Footnote: In February, 1914, there were reported to be 350,000 men
+out of work in New York City (Outlook, March 14, 1914).] can be largely
+remedied by free state employment bureaus which shall serve as
+distributing agencies; there is almost always work enough and to spare
+in some parts of the country, and usually not far away. But more than
+this is necessary; the State must see that work is offered every man
+who is able to work. All sorts of public works need unskilled laborers
+in every city of the country; there is digging to be done, shoveling
+and sweeping and carting. There are roads to be built, rivers to be
+dredged, parks to be graded, buildings to be erected, a thousand things
+to be done. It will be quite feasible, when wages are generally
+adequate, for the cities, by general agreement, to offer work to all
+applicants at a wage so low as not to attract men away from other
+employments, and yet to enable them to support their families decently.
+The low wages given will save the city much money directly, as well
+as saving it the care of the indigent. But it will be a feasible plan
+only when the city's jobs cease to be used as a means of vote-buying
+by politicians and are offered where they are needed. [Footnote: 1 See
+W.H. Beveridge, Unemployment. J.A. Hobson, The Problem of the
+Unemployed. Alden and Hayward, The Unemployable and the
+Unemployed. C. S. Loch, Methods of Social Advance, chap. IX.
+Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 8, pp. 168, 453, 499. Review
+of Reviews, vol. 9, pp. 29, 179. Charities Review, vol. 3, pp. 221,
+323. Independent, vol. 77, p.363. National Municipal Review,
+vol. 3, p.366. The unemployment which is the result of laziness
+must be cured by compulsory work as in farmcolonies, which
+have been successful in Europe. Cf. Edmond Kelly, The
+Elimination of the Tramp.]
+
+(3) The third important cause of poverty is sickness and the death
+of wage earners. Here the way is clear. When the State has taken the
+measures we have enumerated for the public health, when it provides
+competent doctors and nurses, and bears the cost of illness, we shall
+have only the loss of wages during the illness or after the death of
+wage earners to consider. And here some form of universal insurance
+will probably be the solution; this is preferable to state care of
+dependents, as it carries no taint of charity. This solves every
+problem but the delicate one, which must be entrusted to expert
+diagnosticians, of determining to work is caused by physical
+weakness or mere laziness.
+
+(4) The fourth great cause of poverty, drink, can and must be abolished
+in the near future, by the means already considered.
+
+(5) There remain three personal causes which need be the only
+permanently troublesome factors- -laziness, self-indulgence, and the
+incontinence which results in over- large families. The laziness which
+prefers chronic inactivity to work is not normal to human nature, and
+will be largely banished by education, the improvement of health, and
+the improvement of the conditions and hours of labor. The obstinate
+cases of unwillingness to work must be cured by compulsory labor in
+farm colonies or on public works; most such cases respond to
+intelligent treatment and cease to be troublesome when some physical
+or moral twist has been remedied. The waste of income in self-indulgence
+of one form or other is more difficult to deal with; but the law can
+justly forbid the wage-earner from squandering upon himself money
+needed by wife and children, and direct that a due proportion of his
+wages be paid directly to the wife. If neither father nor mother will
+use their money for the proper welfare of the children, the State must
+take the children from them though that step should only be a last
+and desperate resort. Finally, there is the tendency, unfortunately
+most prevalent among the lowest classes, to have more children than
+can be decently cared for. To some extent this evil can be remedied
+by the dissemination of information concerning proper methods of
+preventing conception [Footnote: There is, however, a danger in the
+general dissemination of such information- the danger of increasing
+prostitution by lessening one of the chief deterrents there from.];
+to some extent by moral training to self-control and a sense of
+responsibility. Or the State may undertake the countenance large
+families; if this is done (see chapter xxx), steps must of course be
+taken to prevent the marrying of the unfit-or, at least, their
+breeding. With our rapidly decreasing birth rate, and the spread of
+education, which will do away with "lower" classes and fit every one
+in some decent degree to be a parent, this will probably be the ultimate
+solution. With the disappearance of poverty, the miserable living
+conditions of so large a proportion of our population will
+automatically improve. But much should be done directly by the State
+to prevent such housing conditions as make for physical or moral
+degeneration. We are far behind Europe in housing-legislation, and
+conditions in most of our cities are going from bad to worse. There
+is, however, no need whatever of unsanitary housing; it is merely the
+selfishness of owners and the apathy of the public that permits its
+existence. The crowding-which in New York City runs up to some
+thirteen hundred per acre-can be stopped by simple legislation. The
+lack of proper light or ventilation, of proper water supply, plumbing,
+or sewerage, of proper removal of ashes, garbage, or rubbish, is
+inexcusable. The results of living in the dark, foul-aired, unsanitary
+tenements of our slums are: a great increase in sickness and premature
+death; a stunting of growth, physical and mental, and an increase in
+numbers of backward and delinquent children; the spread of vicious
+and criminal habits through the lack of privacy and contagion of close
+contact with the vicious.
+
+We are breeding in our slums a degenerate race,-boys who grow up
+used to vice, and girls that drift naturally into prostitution; we are
+allowing disease to spread from them, through the children that go
+to the public schools, the shop-girls we buy from in the stores, the
+servants that enter our houses, the men we rub elbows with on the
+street or in the street-cars. Very salutary are the laws that require
+the name of the owner to be placed on all buildings; shame before the
+public may wring improvements from many a landlord who now takes
+profits from tenements unfit for habitation. But it ought not to be
+left to the conscience of the individual owner; the State must exercise
+its primary right to forbid the crowding of tenants into houses which
+do not afford sanitary quarters and permit a decent degree of privacy.
+
+
+III. COMMERCIALIZED VICE?
+
+The duty of the State in regard to the vice caterers is obvious; the
+commercializing of vice must be strictly prohibited by law and enforced
+by whatever means experience proves most effective. We must learn
+to include in this class of enemies of society the manufacturers and
+sellers of alcoholic liquors, as well as of the less generally used
+arcotics; but this matter has been already discussed in connection
+]with our study of the individual's duty in relation to alcohol. Of the
+proprietors of gambling dens, indecent "shows," etc, we need not
+further speak, concentrating our attention instead upon the worst
+species of vice catering, the commercializing of prostitution. The
+extent to which the sale of woman's virtue prevails in our cities is
+scarcely believable. The recent commission of which Mr. Rockefeller
+was chairman actually counted 14,926 professional prostitutes in
+Manhattan alone, in 1912; while personal visitation established the
+existence of over sixteen hundred houses where the gratification of
+lust could be bought. Not all, certainly, were counted; and this list is,
+of course, entirely exclusive of the great number of girls occasionally
+and secretly selling themselves to friends, acquaintances, and employers.
+Many hundreds of men and women, keepers of houses, procurers,
+and the like, live on the proceeds of this great underground industry;
+and to some extent-though to what extent it is, of course, impossible
+to ascertain the forcible retention of young girls is exist in most of the
+world's cities. What is being done to abolish this ghastliest of evils?
+In most great cities, scarcely anything, for two reasons: the one being
+that so many men, perhaps the majority, secretly wish to retain an
+opportunity for purchasing sex gratification, the other that the police
+generally find the protection of illegal vice an easy source of revenue.
+If the police are honest, they break up a disorderly house-and let the
+inmates carry the lure of their trade elsewhere. The magistrates fine
+them, or give them sentences just long enough to bring them needed
+rest and nutrition, and send them back to their business. Or they drive
+them out of town-to swell the numbers in the next town. Attempts at
+legalization and localization are frank admissions of inability or
+lack of desire to fight the evil; their effect is to make the way of
+temptation easier for the youth. Compulsory medical inspection gives
+a promise of immunity from disease which is largely illusory, and entices
+men who are now restrained by prudential motives. There are, however,
+many promising lines of attack:
+
+(1) When women gain the vote, they can be counted on to fight the
+evil. The prostitutes themselves, being mostly minors, and, in any case,
+anxious to conceal their identity, seldom vote; and the remaining women
+are almost en masse bitterly opposed to the trade. With women voting,
+and an efficient political administration inaugurated in our cities, we
+shall hope to witness the end of the scandalous nonenforcement of
+existing laws.
+
+(2) The abolishing of the liquor trade will take away the great
+political ally of the trade in girlhood; and without the demoralizing
+influence of alcohol fewer men will yield to their passions and
+fewer girls be pliant thereto.
+
+(3) The Rockefeller Commission disclosed majority of prostitutes are
+almost wholly uneducated-about half of those questioned had not even
+gone through the primary school, and only seven per cent had finished
+the grammar-school work. Compulsory education, vigilantly enforced,
+will greatly lessen the number of girls who will be willing to take
+up the life of degradation, suffering, and premature death; especially
+will this be the case if sex hygiene is properly taught. Approximately
+a quarter of the girls studied were mentally defective; these should
+have been detected in the schools and removed to the proper
+institutions before they fell prey to the clever schemes of the
+procurer.[Footnote: Of 647 wayward girls recently at the Bedford
+Reformatory, over 300 were accounted mentally deficient.] For a
+falling-off in this alarming number of mental defectives we must await
+scientific eugenic laws to be discussed in chapter xxx.
+
+(4) It is a shameful fact that thousands of girls, dependent upon their
+own earnings for support, receive less than enough to enable them to
+live in decent comfort, not to say with any enjoyment of life. Many,
+of course, waste their earnings on needlessly fine clothes, or at the
+"shows"; the American fashion of extravagant dress and the craving
+for amusement are factors of importance in the ruin of young girls.
+But five dollars, or even seven dollars, a week is not enough to live
+on in the cities; and many girls are paid no more, even less. The
+State, in framing its minimum wage laws, or other legislation, must
+take cognizance of this startling and intolerable situation.
+
+(5) Provision should be made for the care of girls who come alone to
+the cities. Dormitories with clean and airy bedrooms at minimum cost,
+and attractive reading- and social-rooms, offering provision for normal
+social life and amusement, can do much to keep lonely and restless
+girls out of the clutches of the vicious provision for young men who
+live alone might avail to lessen to some extent their patronage of
+houses of vice.
+
+(6) The model injunction acts of a few of our more advanced States
+"vest the power in any citizen, whether he or she is personally damaged
+by such establishment, to institute legal proceedings against all
+concerned; to secure the abatement of the nuisance, and perpetual
+injunction against its reestablishment." It is too early yet to speak
+with assurance of the practical working of this method; but it bids
+fair to make the brothel business more precarious. If, in addition,
+laws against street soliciting are strictly enforced, the first steps
+of young men into vice will be made much less alluringly easy than
+at present.
+
+(7) The most radical and effective measure of all will be to arrest
+the professional prostitutes, segregate them, and keep them segregated
+during the dangerous years, except as genuine signs of intention to
+reform appear, in which case they may be released upon probation. The
+expense will be, at the outset, considerable. But the girls will be
+taught trades, and kept at work which will in most cases more than
+pay for their support. Moreover, the community will, of course, save
+the vast sums now passed over by its lustful men to these women. The
+saving of health and life will be incalculable. The girls, although
+under restraint, will be infinitely better off than they were, and
+can in most cases, with patience and education, be made ultimately
+to realize their gain; as they grow older and forget their early years
+of shame, they can be set free again, with some skilled trade learned,
+and some accumulated earnings. Professional prostitution will, of course,
+still flourish to a degree underground; but it will be a highly risky
+business, attracting far fewer girls, and difficult for the uninitiated
+young man to discover. With this outlet for lust partially closed,
+there would no doubt tend to be an increase in solitary and homosexual
+vice, and in the seduction of innocent girls. But the latter outlet
+can be checked by raising the "age of consent" to twenty or twenty-one,
+and punishing the seduction of younger girls as rape. And the former
+evils, serious as they are, are far less of an evil than the creation
+of our present wretched class of professional prostitutes. As a matter
+of fact, there would, beyond all question, be a great diminution in
+sexual vice, the present amount of it being due by no means wholly
+to desire that is naturally imperious, but to the artificial fostering
+of that desire by those who hope to profit financially thereby.
+
+IV. Crime?
+
+The gravest of all social ills is-crime. Its treatment
+may be considered under the three heads of prevention, conviction,
+and the treatment of convicted criminals.
+
+(1) To some extent, not yet clearly determined, the causes of crime
+are temperamental, due to congenital defects or overexcitable impulses.
+The inherited effects of insanity, alcoholism, and other pathological
+conditions, make self-control far more difficult for some unfortunates.
+Such baneful inheritances will some day be minimized by eugenic laws;
+and individuals whose abnormal mental condition makes them dangerous
+to society will be kept under permanent restraint. The causes of crime
+are, however, to a far greater degree environmental. Undernutrition,
+overwork, worry, and various other sources of poor health, create a
+condition of lowered resistance to impulse. The herding of the poor
+into crowded tenements, the inability to find work, the lack of
+wholesome interests and excitements to provide a normal outlet for
+energy of body and mind, the daily sight of the luxury of the rich
+and the bitterness of its contrast with their own need, awaken dangerous
+passions and reckless defiance of law. The lack of education, contact
+with absorption of law-defying philosophies of life, tend to make crime
+appear natural and justified. All of these unhealthy conditions are
+being attacked under the spur of our new social conscience; and with
+every step in social alleviation crime diminishes. Criminals are, in
+general, just such men and women as we; in like situations we too
+should be tempted to crime. We might all repeat with Bunyan: "There,
+but for the grace of God, go I!" Give every man and woman a fair chance
+for happiness in normal ways, and the lure of crime will largely
+vanish.[Footnote: Cf. An Open Letter to Society from Convict 1776 (F.
+H. Revell Co.).] Yet human nature in its most favorable circumstances
+and in its most favored individuals has its twists and its anti-social
+impulses. For the potential criminal-and that means for every one of
+us-there must be elaborated also a system of moral or religious
+training which shall seek to develop the better nature that is in every
+man and enchain the brute. With such a discipline imposed upon each
+generation there would be a far greater hope for the repression of
+evil tendencies, whether due to temperamental perversion or provocative
+environment.
+
+(2) If there is much to be done in the prevention of crime, there is
+also much to be done in insuring the prompt conviction of offenders.
+The legal delays and obtrusion of the technicalities which now so often
+obstruct the administration of justice, hold out a means to the
+criminal of escaping punishment, work hardship to the poor, who cannot
+afford to employ the sharpest lawyers, and needlessly retard the
+clearing of the reputation of the innocent. The overuse of the plea
+of insanity has become latterly a public scandal. In certain courts
+it has sometimes seemed impossible to convict a criminal who has plenty
+of money or strong political influence. In other cases such men have
+been set free on bail and proceeded to further may have to wait years
+for compensation; if they are poor, they may hesitate to set out on
+the long and dubious course of a lawsuit; or, if they embark upon it,
+it is only by an agreement wherein the speculator- lawyer takes the
+lion's share of the compensation. The result of all this friction in
+the machinery of the courts is an increase in crime, and an increase
+in the illegal punishment of crime. Lynching, which are such a disgrace
+to this country, are due primarily to indignation at crime which bids
+fair to be inadequately punished; they will occur, in spite of their
+injustice and brutality, until the penalties of the law are made
+universally prompt and sure and fair.[Footnote: See J. E. Cutler, Lynch
+Law. Outlook, vol. 99, p. 706.] A wholesome disregard of
+technicalities, and an interpretation of the law in the line of equity,
+a rigid exclusion of irrelevant evidence and argument, the provision
+of an adequate number of courts to prevent the piling up of cases,
+and of a public defender, of skill and training, to look after the
+interests of the poor, the removal of judgeships from politics by the
+general improvement of our political system, and the adjudgment of
+insanity only by impartial, state-hired alienists-these are some of
+the reforms that ethical considerations suggest.[Footnote: Cf. W. H.
+Taft, Four Aspects of Civic Duty, II. Outlook, vol. 92, p. 359; vol.
+98, p. 884.]
+
+(3) The ends to be borne in mind in the treatment of the
+convicted Criminal are four: First, reparation to the injured party
+must be demanded of him, so far as money will constitute reparation;
+if he has not the money, his future work must go for its accumulation,
+so far as that is compatible with the support of his infant children.
+Secondly, he must be punished severely enough to serve as a warning
+to other potential offenders and, so far as they are amenable to such
+fears, deter them from similar crimes. Capital punishment for the worst
+crimes is shown deterrent than confinement; whether the danger of
+executing an innocent man is grave enough to offset this public gain
+is an open question.[Footnote: See A. J. Palm, The Death Penalty.]
+Thirdly, he must be prevented from doing any more harm; this means
+confinement just so long as expert criminologists deem him dangerous,
+whether not at all (unless to deter others) or for life. The old system
+of giving a fixed sentence is wholly unjustifiable; some are thereby
+kept imprisoned when there is every reason to believe them capable
+of living honorably and serving the community as free men, others are
+let loose, after a term, more dangerous to the community than ever.
+The habitual criminal, who alternates between periods of crime and
+periods of imprisonment, should be an unknown phenomenon. The judge
+should be obliged to pronounce an indeterminate sentence, and leave
+it to the expert prison officials to decide if, or when, it is safe
+to release the prisoner on parole. Experience has already shown that
+few mistakes are made (where prison management is kept out of machine
+politics); and as the released prisoner is under surveillance, and
+may be returned to the prison without trial for disorderliness,
+drunkenness, or other anti-social conduct, he is not likely to do much
+damage. A second offense would be likely to bring upon him imprisonment
+for life, which would be within the discretion of the prison officials.
+This method provides a spur to good behavior, and, when used in
+conjunction with the reforming influences we are about to consider,
+works admirably in abolishing the criminal class; whatever criminal
+class persists-those who cannot or will not reform are kept under
+restraint for life, where they can do no harm. Fourthly, and most
+important of all, a painstaking attempt must be made to reform the
+criminal, to make him a normal, socially useful man. At present our
+prisons are rather schools of corruption than of uplift; too often
+first offenders are thrown into association with hardened criminals,
+and come out after their term of years with their minds full of criminal
+suggestions, and less able than before to live a normal life. The prison
+should be a training school for the morally perverted. First of all,
+the prisoner should be taught a trade, if he knows none, and made
+competent to earn an honest living. He should be kept at regular work,
+and his wages used partly to reimburse society for his keep, and partly
+to support his family, or, if he has none, to give him a new start
+when he leaves prison. Recent experience shows that the great majority
+of prisoners can be trusted to work outside the prison, at any ordinary
+labor, without guards-returning to the prison each evening.[Footnote:
+See Century, vol. 87, p. 746.] Regular hours, and wholesome living
+in every way, are, of course, enforced; sports are encouraged in leisure
+hours, and physical development ensured. Educational influences are
+brought to bear, through class-instruction, books, sermons, private
+talks. The individual's mind is studied and every effort made to supplant
+morbid and anti-social by normal and moral ideas. Few criminals but
+are amenable to skillful guidance; most of them, could, if pains were
+taken, be transformed into useful citizens. All this application of
+modern penological ideas means a greatly increased expense per capita;
+but this will be largely offset by the work required of all healthy
+prisoners, and in any case is the best sort of an investment. The
+prevention of crime is, in the long run, much less costly, even from
+a purely financial standpoint, than crime itself. On pathological social
+conditions in general: Smith, Social Pathology. E. T. Devine, Misery
+and its Causes. M. Conyngton, How to Help. C. Aronovici, Knowing One's
+Own Community. Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House. S. Nearing,
+Social Adjustment. Charles Booth, Life and Labor of the People of
+London. Hall, Social Solutions. C. R. Henderson, Social Duties. W.
+Gladden, Social Salvation. Public health: H. Ellis, The Task of Social
+Hygiene, The Nationalization of Health. Outlook, vol. 98, p. 63; vol.
+102, p. 764. Literature published by The Committee of One Hundred on
+National Health (105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City). C.
+R. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, chap. V. World's Work,
+vol. 17, p. 11321; vol. 21, p. 13881; vol. 23, p. 692. W. H. Allen,
+Civics and Health. Poverty and living conditions: R. Hunter, Poverty.
+B. S. Rowntree, Poverty, A Study of Town Life. Adams and Sumner, Labor
+Problems, chap. V. A. S. Warner, American Charities. E. T. Devine,
+Principles of Relief. S. Webb, Prevention of Destitution. Literature
+of the American Association of Societies for Organizing Charity, and
+of the Charity Organization Department of the Russell Sage Foundation
+(both at 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City). L. Veiller,
+Housing Reform. Deforest and Veiller, The Tenement-House Problem. J.
+Lee, Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy. Alden and Hayward,
+Housing. J. A. Riis, The Battle with the Slum. National Municipal
+Review, vol. 2, p. 210. Commercialized vice: Jane Addams, A New
+Conscience and an Ancient Evil. Report of the Chicago Vice Commission:
+The Social Evil in Chicago. G. J. Kneeland, Commercialized Prostitution
+in New York City. Outlook, vol. 94, p. 303; vol. 101, p. 245; vol.
+104, p. 101. Crime: F. H. Wines, Punishment and Reformation. E. A.
+Ross, Social Control, chap. XI. R. M. McConnell, Criminal Responsibility
+and Social Constraint. H. Ellis, The Criminal. A. H. Currier, The
+Present- Day Problem of Crime. P. A. Parsons, Responsibility for Crime.
+E. Ferri, The Positive School of Criminology. W. Tallack, Penological
+and Preventive Principles. E. Carpenter, Prisons, Police, and Punishment.
+Outlook, vol. 94, p. 252; vol. 97, p. 403. World's Work, vol. 21, p.
+14254. North American Review, vol. 138, p. 254. International Journal
+of Ethics, vol. 20, p. 281.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+INDUSTRIAL WRONGS
+
+WE have been discussing the treatment of recognized crime. But beyond
+the boundaries of conduct universally labeled as criminal, there is
+a whole realm of anti-social action to which the public conscience
+is only beginning to be sensitive, although it is often far more harmful
+to the general welfare than that for which men are imprisoned.
+Especially is this true of the wrongs connected with modern industry.
+As Professor Ross puts it, [Footnote: Sin and Society, p. 97.] "the
+master iniquities of our time are connected with money-making"; and
+so our "moral pace-setters," who are, for the most part, confining
+their attacks to the time-worn and familiar sins, "do not get into
+the big fight at all." The root of the trouble is that great power
+over the lives and happiness of others has been acquired by a small
+class of irresponsible men, many of whom fail to recognize their
+privileged position as a public trust and care only for enriching
+themselves. As we noted in chapter in, the complexification of our
+industrial life is making possible a whole new range of what must be
+branded as crimes; endless opportunities have been opened up of
+money-making at the cost of others' suffering. Often that suffering,
+or loss, is so remote from the path of the greedy business man that
+he does not see himself, and others fail to see him, as the predatory
+money-grabber that he is. The many who have been ruined by unscrupulous
+competitors are often embittered, the repressed capitalism; but the
+public as a whole has not been aroused to rebuke this "newer
+unrighteousness." We must proceed to note its commonest contemporary
+forms. In our present organization of industry, what are the duties
+of businessmen:
+
+I. To the public?
+
+(1) The first duty of businessmen is to supply honest goods, in honest
+measure. Underweight, undermeasure, double- bottomed berry-boxes,
+bottles so shaped as to appear to contain more than their actual
+contents, are obviously cheating. Misbranding of goods is now
+regulated, so far as interstate trade goes, by the Federal Pure Food
+and Drugs Act; and most States have similar legislation.
+Misrepresentation in advertisement should be severely punished; the
+selling of cold storage for fresh products, of part-cotton for all-wool
+clothing, of less for more expensive woods, and the thousand other
+ways of panning inferior goods upon an inexpert public for high-grade
+articles. At present there is little recourse but to carry distrust
+into all purchasing, learn to be canny, and to recognize differences
+in quality in all articles needed. But the average man cannot become
+an expert purchaser; he buys furniture which breaks down prematurely;
+he pays a high price for clothing which proves to have no wearing
+quality; he buys patent medicines which promise to cure his physical
+ills, and is lucky if they do not leave him worse in health than before.
+Jerry- building, and the doing of fake jobs by contractors, especially
+for municipalities, is one of the scandals of our times. [Footnote:
+See Encyclopedia Britannica, article, "Adulteration." E. Kelly Twentieth
+Century Socialism, book ii, chap. i. For a notorious case of tampering
+with weights, see Outlook, vol. 92, p. 25; vol. 93, p. 811. For cases
+of adulteration, Good Housekeeping Magazine, vol. 54, p. 593. F. W.
+Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 45.]
+
+(2) Another duty, less generally recognized by even the more honorable
+businessmen, is to sell their goods at fair prices. The strangulation
+of competition by mutual agreements or the formation of trusts, aided
+often by an iniquitously high tariff, has put many a business for a
+time on a par with those natural monopolies which, if unregulated,
+can always exact exorbitant prices for what the public needs. Rich
+profits have been made by the tucking of a few cents on to the price
+of gas, or coal, or steel, or oil, or telephone service. Enormous
+fortunes have been made, at the public expense, by the practical
+cornering of staple commodities. These hold-up prices should be clearly
+recognized for what they are-a form of modern piracy. No business man
+or corporation is entitled in justice to more than a moderate reward
+for the mental and physical labor expended; the excessive incomes of
+monopoly are largely at the expense of the public, who, by one means
+or other, are being compelled to pay more than a fair price for the
+article. [Footnote: For cases, see C. R. Van Hise, Concentration and
+Control, pp. 109,145, 149.]
+
+(3) Finally, all business must be looked upon as a form of public
+service, and the convenience of customers scrupulously consulted. Where
+there is competition this tends to regulate itself; but our public-
+service monopolies have too often followed the "public- be-damned"
+policy. The long-suffering community puts up with inadequate and
+crowded streetcars, inconvenient train service, a bungled and high-
+handed telephone system. Railway managements have sometimes been
+criminally indifferent to public safety, finding it less expensive
+to lose occasional damage suits than to install safety appliances.
+Efficiency in serving the public has likewise been sacrificed to
+dividends; and courtesy, where it is not recognized to have a cash
+value, tends to disappear. Such indictments point to the widespread
+existence of the idea that men and corporations are in business for
+themselves only, and not as fulfilling a public need.[Footnote: For
+concrete illustrations, see Outlook, vol. 91, p. 861; vol. 95, p. 515.
+World's Work, vol. 23, p. 579.]
+
+
+II. TO INVENTORS?
+
+It has not been generally enough recognized that business men owe it
+to investors to do their best to see to it that they get fair returns
+on their money invested -and only fair returns. There are a number
+of ways in which, on the one hand, the investing public is "skinned,"
+and, on the other hand, stock in a business, largely owned by the
+management itself, has been rewarded with undeserved dividends at the
+expense of the public.
+
+(1) There are, in the first place, the get-rich-quick swindles, the
+out-and-out impostures, which have deceived the credulous into
+investments that never could pay. Bonanza mines, impractical
+inventions, town lots laid out on the prairie, orange groves that
+existed only on paper-such bogus hopes have enticed many an honest
+man and woman, who could ill afford to lose, into turning over their
+small earnings to the brazen exploiters.[Footnote: For cases, see World's
+Work, vol. 21, p. 14112.]
+
+(2) But such arrant deception is not the commonest form of wrong. A
+more usual practice, and more dangerous- because it deceives even the
+intelligent-is to overcapitalize an honest business, to issue "watered"
+stock-that is, stock in excess of the actual value of plant, patents,
+and other assets. These stocks are issued merely to sell. If the
+business is very successful, its profits may pay a fair return on all
+this capital; if not, low dividends or none can be paid until the
+business slowly catches up with its overcapitalization. In all
+investment-as our industrial organization at present goes-there is
+risk; but to create a needless risk and deceive the public into taking
+it is plain dishonesty. The extra money thus sucked from the public
+goes sometimes to pay excessive salaries to the officials of the
+company, sometimes to pay excessive prices for patents or plants
+purchased; there are many subtle ways, known to "high finance," of
+misappropriating stockholders' money and diverting it to the pockets
+of the promoters. Many great fortunes have been made in this way; such
+exploitation is so new to society that it has not yet awakened to its
+essentially criminal nature. Even if the business is able to pay good
+dividends on watered stock, the crime of overcapitalization is not
+lessened, though the harm done is now not to the investor but to the
+public. Stocks should represent only the actual value of the property,
+so that dividends may be only a fair return for capital really invested
+in the business. Where there is sharp competition, the possibility
+of overcharging the public to make returns on watered stock is cut
+out, and the loss falls upon the investor. But in the case of monopolies,
+such as railways, or of combinations which practically stifle
+competition, the public may be charged enough to "pay a fair dividend
+to investors," although the money upon which dividends are being made
+went not into improving the service, but into fattening the promoters'
+purses. [Footnote: On stock watering, see Dewey and Tufts, Ethics,
+pp. 561-64. Outlook, vol. 85, p. 562. Political Science Quarterly,
+vol. 26, p. 88. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 18, p. 151. C.
+R. Van Hise, Concentration and Control, pp. 115, 142, etc.]
+
+(3) A third method of "fleecing" investors lies in skillful
+manipulation of the stock market. In ways which are known to the
+initiated, it is often possible artificially to raise or lower the
+market value of stocks. Unwary investors are lured in; timid investors
+are frightened out; through all ticker fluctuations the brokers win
+their commissions; the skilled financiers and organizers of
+combinations rake in unearned sums that are sometimes immense,
+while the losses fall mostly to the lot of the are honestly seeking to put
+their savings into solid investments. The ethics of the stock market has
+not yet been clearly decided, and the subject is too big to discuss here.
+It is mentioned only to point out one more form of social sinning, as yet
+inadequately punished or rebuked, whereby men of capital and brains
+have been able to pocket money for which they have given no return
+to society. [Footnote: For cases, see C. Norman Fay, Big Business and
+Government. Outlook, vol. 91, pp. 591, 636.]
+
+III. TO COMPETITORS?
+
+(1) The most conspicuous form of wrongdoing, perhaps, to be charged
+to modern business is the attempt to get monopoly by foul means. The
+story of too many of our great trusts is a story of competitors ruined
+by ruthless and unscrupulous methods. The competitor may be hurt by
+the circulation of falsehoods concerning his business, his right to
+patents, or the worth of his goods. He may be denied outlet to markets
+by control of the railway upon which he must depend. If the capital
+of the concern that is seeking monopoly permits, the price of the article
+manufactured may be lowered until rivals with less financial backing
+are forced out of business-after which the price can be raised and
+losses recouped. With skill and foresight worthy of a better cause,
+some of the great industrial leaders of our day have eliminated one
+rival after another and attained that unification of a business which
+has, indeed, its great economic advantages, but is not to be won at
+such a bitter cost. [Footnote: See, for example, I. Tarbell, History
+of the Standard Oil Company.]
+
+(2) Even where monopoly is not sought, there are many unfair methods
+of competition-unfair to competitors and to the public that both should
+serve. One method, much discussed in recent years, is that of railway
+rebates. By this is meant favoritism in freight rates between shippers
+and between localities. One manufacturer, who is in a position to ship
+his goods by either of two railways, perhaps by a water route, is given
+a low rate to get his freight; another manufacturer of similar goods,
+not so favorably situated, is made to pay a higher rate. Rates from
+seaboard or river cities, where water competition exists, have often
+been considerably lower than rates from inland towns on the same line,
+with a very much shorter haul. In such ways the railway squeezes those
+whom it can squeeze and is content with a bare profit where it can
+do no better. Where the railway is controlled by the same interests
+that control some industrial combination, the favoritism may go even
+farther, and the railway's profits be sacrificed entirely for the
+cheaper marketing of that particular trust's article. Against all such
+inequalities in the treatment of shippers the public conscience has
+lately protested; the railways are recognized as a public instrument
+of transportation, which should be open to use by all upon equal terms,
+at a price which will repay the cost of carriage plus a fair profit.
+[Footnote: On railway rebates, see H. R. Seager, Introduction to
+Economics, chap. XXIV, secs 260-63. F. W. Taussig, Principles of
+Economics, chap. 60, secs. 7, 8. Outlook, vol. 81, p. 803; vol. 85,
+p. 161.] IV. TO EMPLOYEES?
+
+(1) The first duty of employers is to give to all employees a fair
+wage. If the business does not pay enough to allow this, it has no
+right to exist; if the owners are pocketing large salaries, or giving
+dividends to stockholders, this money should be used first for a proper
+payment of the workers. So many laborers are at the mercy of the
+employing class, because of their ignorance, their lack of capital
+and necessity of work at any wage, and often their unfamiliarity with
+the language and customs of the country, that it has become possible
+in many cases to treat them like animals and give them less than enough
+to sustain life in decency, not to say in comfort. Such a case as that
+of our benevolent Mr. Carnegie, who million dollars in one year's
+earnings of his steel trust, while many hundreds of his employees were
+getting but a miserable pittance and living in vile surroundings, is
+exceptionally glaring; but in lesser degree the same injustice is being
+wrought in many industries. Wages have, indeed, been raised gradually,
+here and there; but not usually by the free will of employers. The
+callousness of some of the privileged classes toward the underpayment
+of the lower classes is almost on a par with the attitude of the
+nobility before the French Revolution.[Footnote: See, for example,
+Outlook, vol. 101, p. 345.] Fortunately, the public is coming to see
+not only the wrong done to the helpless poor, but the cost to the
+community in breeding underfed, ill- housed, criminally tempted
+classes, and the danger that lies ahead if these classes realize their
+power before amelioration is effected from above. As a recent writer
+has put it, Addition Division=Revolution. [Footnote: S. Hearing,
+Wages in the United States; Social Adjustment, chap. IV. Ryan,
+ A Living Wage.]
+
+(2) Another phase of modern industrial injustice is the overlong hours
+of work still required in many industries. The race for cheapness of
+product has blinded manufacturers and the public to the cost in terms
+of human happiness. An eight-hour day is quite long enough to produce
+all that is necessary, with the aid of modern machinery; every man
+should be given a margin of leisure for education, recreation, and
+social life. And every man should be given the benefit of that one
+day's rest out of seven which is so precious a legacy to us from the
+Jewish religion.[Footnote: A joint legislative committee in
+Massachusetts in 1907 estimated that 222,000 persons in that State
+were working seven days in the week. Similar, or worse, conditions
+exist throughout the country.] Those industries that require continuous
+use of machinery should employ three complete shifts of workmen; and
+those that must be run every day in the week should have enough extra
+helpers man. This humanizing of hours cannot be done by individual
+action, where competition is sharp; but by legislation that bears equally
+upon all, a generous standard-the eight-hour day and six-day week -can
+be maintained, with hardship to none and a great increase in the health
+and happiness of the masses. Especially jealous should the law be for
+the welfare of women workers. In cotton mills in the South women work
+ten and twelve hours a day; in canneries in the North they work, during
+the short season, fifteen and eighteen hours a day, eighty or even
+ninety hours a week. Particularly should women be protected during
+the weeks before and after childbirth; as it is, women workers are
+often ruined in health for life, the rate of infant mortality is
+shockingly high, and the children that survive are usually subnormal.
+Girls through overwork are weakened too seriously to bear strong
+children- which, in any case, they have had no time or opportunity
+to learn how to nurture and rear. No doubt women should work, as well
+as men; if not in the home, then outside the home. But the contemporary
+economic pressure that bears so hard on so many girls and women must
+be eased not only for their sakes but for that of coming generations.
+[Footnote: Dorothy Richardson, The Long Day. S. Nearing, Social
+Adjustment, chap. X. J. Rae, Eight Hours for Work.]
+
+(3) The most piteous form of industrial slavery is that of young
+children, who should be in school or out of doors, developing their
+minds and bodies into some measure of readiness for adult work and
+responsibility, instead of prematurely losing the joy of life and
+stunting their mental and physical growth. In 1910 some two million
+children under sixteen were earning their living in this country. Even
+many thousands of children of twelve years or less are set to work
+in our factories and canneries. These children get almost no development
+and wholesome recreation; in great numbers they die early, and if they
+live it is commonly to fall into some form of vice or crime, and to
+breed an inferior race. Nothing is more inhumane or more mad than for
+the community to permit cheapness of goods at such a price. Indeed,
+child labor means, in the end, economic waste; the ultimate loss in
+efficiency on the part of these undeveloped, uneducated children, far
+more than overbalances the temporary industrial gain. The situation
+has been incredibly shocking; the employers who seek such an advantage
+over their humaner rivals, and the legislators who have winked at their
+inhumanity, deserve no mild reprobation. But legislation alone is not
+adequate to meet the situation; the underlying cause is the
+insufficient payment of adult workers, which practically necessitates
+supplementation by what the children can add to the family income.
+This is one illustration of the way in which all our social problems
+are tangled together so that it is impossible fully to solve any one
+without solving the others. When every adult receives wages enough
+to support a normal family-and when he is content to restrict his family
+to normal size; when the public schools are made efficient enough to
+show their evident worth to parents and to attract the children
+themselves, and a strict truant system takes care that the law is
+really obeyed; when the sick and defective and aged among the poor
+are cared for at public expense as a matter of course, there will be
+no need for children to work to help support the family; and we must
+endeavor, by the arousal of public opinion and by nationwide
+legislation, to keep children out of the factories, the shops, and
+the mines, till they are full-grown and educated. [Footnote: S. Nearing,
+The Solution of the Child-Labor Problem. J. Spargo, The Bitter Cry
+of the Children. E. N. Clopper, Child Labor in City Streets. Reports
+of Annual Meetings of the National Child Labor Committee. (Free
+literature. 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City.)]
+
+(4) A less appalling, but still sufficiently serious; aspect of
+industrial unrighteousness is the dirty, crowded, ugly, unsanitary,
+and sometimes indecent conditions under which many workers in our
+prosperous age have to carry on their work. Lack of proper lighting,
+space, and ventilation, unnecessary noises, and general untidiness,
+undermine the health and morals of laborers; while insufficient fire-
+protection causes intermittently one tragedy after another. Much has
+been done in many quarters to improve such conditions; not a few up-to-
+date factories are models of cleanliness and sanitation, spacious,
+reasonably quiet, and altogether pleasant places in which to spend
+the working day. They point the way which all must in time follow.
+In addition, the provision of reading-rooms, baths, rest- and recreation-
+rooms, lunch-rooms, athletic fields, and the like, give augury of that
+happy future when work shall be divorced from ugliness and free from
+unnecessary physical strain.[Footnote: Sir T. Oliver, Diseases of
+Occupation. W. H. Tolman, Social Engineering, chaps. III, X, XI.
+World's Work, vol. 15, p. 9534; vol. 23, p. 294. Outlook, vol. 97,
+p. 817; vol. 100, p. 353.]
+
+(5) Finally, the callousness to injuries incurred by employees must
+be sharply checked. Well over a hundred thousand men, women, and children
+are killed or injured every year in the various industries of this
+country. Our proportion of accidents is far greater than in Europe;
+the great majority are preventable by the adoption of known safeguards.
+What stands in the way is, partly, ignorance and heedlessness on the
+part of employers, and, still more, the initial cost of installing
+safety appliances. It is often cheaper to lose an occasional damage
+suit than to forestall accidents. In coal mines alone we have let
+thirty thousand men be killed and seventy-five thousand be more or
+less seriously maimed, in a decade; proportionately about twice as
+many as in European mines-which are far from ideally safeguarded. There
+are two ways to check this waste and crippling of human life; one is
+to keep our legislation up to date, and require the installation of
+every effective safety device, no matter if the cost to the public
+has to be increased. The other is to make accidents so expensive to
+employers that they will have a greater interest in taking measures
+to prevent them.
+
+Certainly all deaths or injuries in any industry where proper
+precautions have been neglected must be a criminal matter for the
+employer. [Footnote: Outlook, vol. 92, p. 171; vol. 93, p. 196; vol.
+99, p. 202. World's Work, vol. 22, p. 13602; vol. 23, p. 713.] We must
+do entirely away with the system whereby accidents to workingmen bear
+so heavily upon their families. Though it is true that they are
+commonly due, in some measure, to the carelessness of the worker, his
+punishment, in the loss of life or limb, is great enough; and if he
+dies or is incapacitated from supporting wife and children, the burden
+should fall upon the community, which is able to bear it. It should
+not be necessary to bring a damage suit against the employer; that
+method is slow, dubious, and expensive; the corporation, with its expert
+lawyers, has too great an advantage over the helpless and sorrow-struck
+poor. In some form, automatic compensation for injuries is destined
+to become universal; the cost will fall upon the industry, where it
+belongs, bad feeling between employer and employee will cease, the
+courts will be freed from a good deal of work, and relief will follow
+injury with promptness and certainty. [Footnote: H. R. Seager, Social
+Insurance. Outlook, vol. 85, p. 508; vol. 92, p. 319; vol. 98, p. 49.
+S. Nearing, Social Adjustment, chap. XII.] What general remedies for
+industrial wrongs are feasible?
+
+(1) The first step toward an amelioration of our crude and unjust
+industrial code is to awaken the public conscience to protest against
+the evils we have enumerated. Publicity, pitiless publicity, alone
+can lead to redress. These large- scale, impersonal sins must not be
+so nonchalantly tolerated; instead of applauding and envying the shrewd
+financier who rakes in unearned profits by clever manipulation, by
+unscrupulous use of inside information, and disregard of the welfare
+of workers, competitors, and public, we must brand him as a selfish
+scoundrel, turn him out of the church, ostracize him in society. Such
+a man must not be looked upon as a successful businessman any more
+than a pirate is a successful trader; success must clearly imply
+obedience to the rules of the game. Taking all that one can grab without
+punishment is a reversion to barbarism; the unscrupulous magnate is
+morally no better than a pickpocket. And these men are, in general,
+responsive to public opinion; it has effected rapid improvement in
+some points in the past few years. Just so soon as the community
+conscience is aroused to the point of a general condemnation of
+industrial robbery, it will cease to flaunt itself so boldly, and lurk
+only underground with the other furtive sins.
+
+(2) We cannot rely wholly upon the force of public opinion, however;
+the law must be ready to check those who are insensitive to moral
+restraints. One by one, the paths of evildoing must be blocked.
+Especially must the law learn how to punish corporations, which have
+been the greatest offenders. At present the stockholders throw
+responsibility upon the directors, the directors upon their managers,
+and they upon the subordinates who have personally carried through
+the evil practices. But to punish these subordinates is ineffective,
+because they have, in general, little money wherewith to pay fines,
+and will be ready to run the risk of imprisonment for the sake of
+pleasing their superiors and earning promotion. If they are imprisoned,
+others can readily be found to step into their places and higher up.
+It is these superiors who must be held responsible for acts done by
+their subordinates. If they realize the risk of punishment falling
+upon their own heads, they will see to it that illegal practices are
+discontinued. It will probably be necessary to hold directors responsible
+for the conduct of their managers, and stockholders for the character
+of their directors. It will then become the business of owners and
+directors to watch out for lawbreaking and to put men in control who
+will keep to fair dealing. This will put an end to the easy assumption
+of the directorship of several corporations at once by men whose names
+are wanted; directorship will be made to imply actual attention to
+the affairs of the business. And the stockholders will take pains to
+elect such directors as will not incur fines for the corporation that
+will lessen their dividends. [Footnote: For comment on this matter,
+see Outlook, vol. 88, p. 862.]
+
+(3) Through these two means, public opinion and the law, we must work
+toward the ultimate solution, the establishment of codes of honor in
+the professions and industries. Canons of professional ethics have
+been adopted by lawyers and doctors; any member of these professions
+who is guilty of breaking these canons suffers loss of prestige and,
+almost inevitably, financial loss. So must it be in every industry;
+each must be organized and must formulate for itself its code; so that
+pressure from within will supplement pressure from without. There is
+plenty of capacity for loyalty, self-denial, and discipline in men,
+even in captains of industry; it needs only to be aroused, crystallized,
+directed. "We may prevent certain specific practices by statutes which
+make them misdemeanors; but in so doing we have simply cut off one
+way of reaching an end. Men will get the same result by another route.
+obtaining money or office in certain specified ways. We must so shape
+their ambitions that they do not wish to obtain money or office by
+means that injure the community. We must get them to consider public
+selfishness as dishonorable a thing as we now consider private
+selfishness". If a man today crowds himself out of a theater, leaving
+behind him a trail of bruised women and children, the very newsboy
+in the street will hiss him when he gets to the door. Such a man will
+be despised by the public, and in his heart he will despise himself,
+for taking advantage of his strength to crush others. But if a man
+gets money or office by analogous processes, the world is inclined
+to admire the result and forgive the means; and the man, instead of
+despising himself for his selfishness, applauds himself for his
+success.[Footnote: A. T. Hadley, Standards of Public Morality,
+p. 8.] Certainly, unless in these peaceful ways we can transform our
+present system of grab-as-grab-can into a fair and rational industrial
+order, changes will come by violence and revolution. There are volcanic
+passions slumbering beneath the prosperity of our trade and
+manufacture; there is but a brief respite before society wherein to
+evolve a measure of social justice. The lower classes are awakening
+to their power; unless society and government grant them their fair
+share of the fruits of industry, they will take them through the wreck
+of society and government. There is no moral problem more pressing
+than the finding of peaceful remedies for industrial wrongs.
+
+E. A. Ross, Sin and Society. H. R. Seager, Introduction to Economics,
+chap. XXII. C. R. Van Hise, Concentration and Control, chap. II. A.
+T. Hadley, Standards of Public Morality. H. C. Potter, The Citizen
+in his Relation to the Industrial Situation. W. Gladden, The New
+Idolatry. R. C. Brooks, Corruption in American Politics and Life. H.
+Jeffs, Concerning Conscience, chaps. XXII, XXIII. C. R. Henderson,
+The Social Spirit in America, chaps. VII, IX. J. S. Brooks, The Social
+Unrest. Jane Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics, chap. V. Buskin,
+Unto this Last. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 23, p. 455. [For
+specific references, see footnotes.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION
+
+OUR modern industrial evils are so grave and so deep-rooted that it
+is highly questionable whether the pressure of public opinion, piecemeal
+legislation, and the development of codes of honor can strike deep
+enough to eradicate them. Is not, perhaps, the whole system morally
+wrong? Instead of these endless attempts to cure the natural results
+of the system, is there not need of a radical reconstruction? Various
+attempts have been made, divers proposals are offered, in the hope
+of curing the causes of present maladies and devising a juster system.
+Many of these are doubtless impracticable, or tend to work more
+hardship than amelioration. But each proposal, of any plausibility,
+has a right to a hearing if it offers to end the great wrongs of
+contemporary industry; we must be very confident that it will not work
+before we reject it. For some way must be found to right these wrongs,
+or our whole industrial order will go to smash. We must not condemn
+too hastily a method which has not had a thorough trial, or whose defects
+time and experience might remedy. For mistaken experiments can be
+discontinued; and great as is the danger in incautious radicalism,
+the danger in "standing pat" is greater.
+
+Ought the trusts to be broken up or regulated?
+
+The greatest sinners are, certainly, to speak generally, the great
+corporations that we call trusts-though the word "distrust" would
+better express contemporary feeling! So great has popular hostility
+to them become that the Democratic party platform of July, 1912, declared
+that "a private monopoly is indefensible and intolerable," and demanded
+"the enactment of such additional legislation as may be necessary
+to make it impossible for a private monopoly to exist in the United
+States,"  i.e., "the control by any one corporation of so large a
+proportion of any industry as to make it a menace to competitive
+conditions." But is it necessary to destroy this splendidly
+efficient concentration of industry in order to avoid its evils? The
+proposal to revert to the older competitive plan is reminiscent of
+the outcry against machine production a century earlier, and the earnest
+pleas then made to return to the hand-tool method. "Big business"
+constitutes one of the greatest advances in human industry, and
+therefore has surely come to stay. From the era of individual workers
+owning their tools, mankind advanced to the age of competition between
+small concerns using machines; no less marked an advance is that to
+the age of large-scale production and unified industry. Its advantages
+may be briefly summarized:
+
+(1) The competitive system involves needless duplications of plant,
+machinery, and workers; clerks stand idly in rival stores, waiting
+for trade, drummers spend their time in getting trade away from one
+another, great sums have to be spent on advertising. Monopoly means
+a saving of all this wasted time, labor, and money.
+
+(2) The competitive system means great fluctuations in industry,
+constant anxiety, forced cut prices, and frequent failures, with their
+financial ruin and heartbreak to employers and loss of work to
+employees. Monopoly means stability, comparative freedom from anxiety,
+and a saving of the economic confusion and loss of bankruptcies.
+
+(3) The great scale of monopolistic production tends to still further
+economies. Raw ported in larger quantities, and so at lower cost; less
+need be kept on hand at a given time. The utilization of by-products,
+made feasible by large-scale production, has proved, in many cases,
+a striking addition to human wealth.
+
+(4) Monopolistic production means that more money can be put into
+improved processes, into plant and machinery, into making factories
+sanitary, and working conditions pleasant. The conspicuousness of the
+plant makes it more open to public criticism and more likely to awaken
+a sense of pride in the owners. Conditions are seldom tolerated in
+the big concerns that go unheeded in the little shops.
+
+Surely our attempt, then, must be to retain "big business," and cure
+its evils, rather than to turn the hands of the clock backward by
+reverting to the wasteful competitive system. If this proves possible,
+we should work for the organizing of the as yet unorganized industries.
+Half of human effort is still wasted, through lack of such
+organization. If the innumerable butcher shops, grocery stores,
+apothecary shops, dry goods stores, etc, throughout the country, were
+consolidated locally, and then for some considerable section of the
+country, we could have greatly reduced prices and greatly improved
+shops. Mr. Woolworth's chain of five- and ten-cent stores offers a
+familiar contemporary example of the efficiency and saving to the
+consumer of such consolidation.
+
+What are the ethics of the following schemes:
+
+I. TRADE UNIONS AND STRIKES? We must, then, consider what methods of
+regulating, without destroying, monopoly are efficient and morally
+defensible; and, first, the method into which the working classes have
+put most of their effort and enthusiasm. The labor-unions have, as
+a matter of fact, actually effected certain results, which we may rapidly
+review:-
+
+(1) Their chief accomplishment, and indeed effort, has been the raising
+of wages and shortening of hours for labor. Their success, however,
+has fallen far short of their hopes; and it is impossible to say how
+much more they have accomplished in this direction than would have
+been effected by other causes without their efforts. As a whole, the
+employing class disbelieves in the unions and is strenuously
+disinclined to yield to their desires. And at present the employers
+are usually stronger than their employees, unless public opinion or
+legislation forces them to surrender their position.
+
+(2) To some slight extent, but only to a slight extent, they have
+effected amelioration in other matters have freed labor from the
+tyranny of company stores, decreased child labor, secured the
+installation of safety appliances, sanitary conditions, and other
+needed improvements.
+
+(3) Their social effect has been greatest. They have amalgamated our
+stream of heterogeneous immigrants and fired them with common
+understanding and purpose; they have taught the ignorant to cooperate,
+made them think, frowned to some degree upon vice, insured their
+members to. some extent against illness and death, and promoted general
+friendliness among the laboring classes.
+
+On the other hand, their methods have been productive of much harm:
+
+(1) The economic loss due to strikes has been enormous; the employers
+have suffered heavily, the public has suffered heavily; the laborers
+have suffered most of all. Social amelioration certainly ought not
+to have to come about through such wasteful methods and such bitter
+privation.
+
+(2) The inconvenience caused the public by strikes has often been very
+great, especially where the coalmines or railways have been affected.
+Only a few years ago a veritable tragedy was barely averted, when
+President Roosevelt succeeded, after the most strenuous efforts, in
+ending the general coal strike in the winter season. A strike of
+locomotive engineers means obviously a great peril to the traveling
+public.
+
+(3) The antagonisms and class hatreds engendered by this sort of
+industrial warfare do infinite moral harm, and retard heavily the
+peaceful solution of the problems. The class organs always denounce
+in bitterest terms the opposing class, and lawlessness always lurks
+in the background.
+
+(4) Apart from their conduct of strikes, the labor unions must answer
+to many serious indictments. They have endeavored to restrict output,
+in order to raise prices. They have sought to restrict the number of
+apprentices in a trade, and have opposed trade schools, in order to
+keep down the competition for positions. They have insisted on a
+uniform wage without regard to efficiency. They have opposed scientific
+management and the increase of efficiency in various industries, in
+order to retain more workers therein. They have insisted upon the
+retention of incompetent employees, thereby directly causing railway
+accidents and other evils. They have often antagonized such other
+ameliorative methods as profit sharing and government regulation, and
+have rejected overtures from employers, because these-to quote from
+a union pamphlet-"remove the scope and field of trade-unionism." They
+have at times been run in the interests of selfish leaders and seemed
+chiefly a moneymaking scheme of a few grafters.
+
+There can be no question, on a dispassionate consideration, that the
+militant methods of the trade unions are an unfortunate and temporary
+expedient. The grievances which they have sought to remedy are very
+real and very bitter; and perhaps, on the whole, the unions have done
+more good than harm, and accomplished results that would not so soon
+have been effected in any other way. But they have been rather
+strikingly unsuccessful. After fifty years of propaganda, seventy per
+cent of all industrial workers remain non-unionized; and there has
+been a relative loss in their numbers during the past decade. They
+have never succeeded in cornering the labor market, and there seems
+to be no prospect of their succeeding. In all events, for a permanent
+and thoroughgoing solution of labor troubles we must turn to some other
+method.
+
+
+II. PROFIT SHARING, COOPERATION, AND CONSUMERS' LEAGUES?
+
+(1) The usual method of profit-sharing is for the employer to set aside
+voluntarily a certain proportion of the profits of successful years,
+to be distributed among the employees in addition to their regular
+wages, the distribution being made proportionate to the amount of each
+man's wages. It is thus properly called a dividend to wages, and is
+equivalent to a small ownership of the stock of the business by each
+worker. The advantage lies not only in the fairer distribution of the
+profits of a business, but in the interest, contentment, and increased
+efficiency of the employees. The self-interest of the laborers is
+enlisted to prevent strikes, and a feeling of good will tends to
+prevail. Not a few employers are giving a degree of profit sharing
+as a mere business proposition; and the results have been generally
+successful. But the method is only a sop. It touches only one of the
+evils above mentioned, that of underpayment of workers. And, for that
+matter, it is oftenest introduced where the workers are already well
+paid. It is possible only in successful and firmly established
+industries; and even in them, bad years may necessitate a temporary
+cessation of dividends to wages, and generate resentment in the minds
+of the laborers, who do not know the precise status of the business.
+Moreover, since the workers cannot be expected to reverse the procedure
+in lean years and contribute to the maintenance of the business, it
+is necessary, in most industries, to reserve a considerable sum from
+the profits of fat years to tide over possible periods of lean years.
+It might be possible to enforce by law the accumulation of such a reserve
+fund, and then the distribution of a fixed percentage of the net
+profits of the business to labor-instead of permitting all the profits
+to go into the pockets of owners or stockholders. But such a plan will
+probably be superseded by or incorporated into some more comprehensive
+solution for industrial evils, a scheme that can remedy other wrongs
+besides that of inadequate wages.
+
+(2) Cooperation in production involves democratic management of a
+business as well as a more radical sharing of its profits. The workers
+themselves contribute the capital, elect the managers, and divide the
+profits. By their votes they can determine hours of work, and arrange
+conditions to suit themselves, so far as their capital allows.
+Cooperation-when fully carried out-is socialism on a small scale
+introduced into the midst of a capitalistic regime. Its defects are,
+first, that it is difficult while that regime lasts to find capital
+enough-since those who have capital to invest usually prefer to manage
+the business themselves or to entrust their money to a business
+conducted on ordinary lines; secondly, that failure means the loss
+of the hard-earned savings of workingmen; thirdly, that it is difficult
+to retain skillful managers, since such men usually prefer the
+opportunities which individualistic business offers of making a larger
+income; and fourthly, that it is difficult for a democratically managed
+concern to compete successfully with autocratic business. Political
+democracies are at a disadvantage in a struggle with tyrannies, if
+the latter are governed by able men. A one- man policy is more stable,
+permits of quicker action and a more consistent policy than is possible
+to a democracy. Exactly so in business, our dictatorial captains of
+industry have an advantage over their usually less skilled and always
+less powerful heads, and their smaller capital. The millionaire can
+cut prices and stand losses which would ruin a cooperative body of
+workingmen. So that cooperative production has not generally proved
+successful. In any case, there seems to be no probability of societies
+of producers being able to supplant the capitalistic concerns; we must
+turn elsewhere for the solution of our problems.
+
+(3) Consumers' cooperation has been more widely successful. On this
+plan a number of people contribute the capital of a business in equal
+small amounts and share the profits in proportion to their purchases.
+The possibility of excessive profits to a single owner or a small group
+of owners is thus abolished. But the other evils of autocratic industry
+remain; laborers are hired for current wages, as by the capitalists,
+and the temptations to unfair treatment of employees and of competitors
+remain.
+
+(4) "Consumers' Leagues," so called, have made a business of
+ascertaining the conditions under which goods are produced, and
+exhorting their members to purchase only those which have involved
+fair treatment to the workers. The undertaking is praiseworthy, and
+has accomplished some good. But its effects are limited by obvious
+causes. It is extremely difficult in many cases for the consumer to
+discover the conditions of production of what he wishes to buy. It
+is a nuisance to have to burden himself with such perplexing
+considerations. And it is impossible to maintain public allegiance
+to a white list in face of the temptation of bargain sales. Evils must
+be attacked at their source; they cannot be effectively controlled
+from the consumer's end. III. Government regulation of prices, profits,
+and wages? There are two proposals that promise thoroughgoing cure
+for industrial evils government regulation of business, leaving it
+upon its present capitalistic basis, and socialism, the complete
+democratizing of industry. It seems that one or the other alternative
+must ultimately be accepted. According to the former, and less radical,
+plan, publicity of accounts would be required in every industry; and
+state or national commissions would have full power to supervise the
+conditions of production, to set a minimum standard below which wages
+must not fall, to fix maximum prices above which the products must
+not be sold, to prevent stock- watering, to enforce standards of honesty
+and good workmanship in goods, to see to it that all competition is
+carried on fairly, and to forbid excessive salaries to managers. Equal
+standards would be exacted throughout an industry, and any increased
+cost of production would result in the raising of prices (except where
+profits had previously been exorbitant); thus there would be no real
+hardship upon employers. The minimum wage should not, of course, be
+set above the actual productive power of labor; and the inefficient
+laborers who would be thrown out of employment as not worth the standard
+wage must be looked after by the provision of free vocational education
+and state employment. Apprentices, cripples, defectives, and persons
+giving only part time, would be permitted to receive partial wages;
+and above the minimum wage, differences in stipend would still exist,
+as now, to stimulate industry and skill. With such provision for safe-
+guarding the rights of labor, of competitors, and of the public, profits
+would not be directly regulated; if they became excessive, they would
+be clipped by the requirement of a lower price for the product, or
+of more sanitary or safer conditions of production. But the initiative
+and energy of the owners would be retained by permitting a sliding
+scale of profits; the higher the wages paid, or the lower the price
+set upon products, the greater the profits they could be allowed. Thus
+a premium would still be set upon efficiency. Under this plan monopoly
+could be carried to any extent; strikes could be absolutely forbidden,
+and all dissatisfaction settled by the arbitration of the impartial
+government commission. Monopoly might even be legally maintained by
+a refusal of charters to would-be competitors, thus insuring to the
+public the advantages of a completely organized business without
+leaving the public at its mercy. The natural monopolies, such as
+railways, telephones, lighting-service, from which private fortunes
+have often been made at public expense, can easily be regulated by
+carefully considered and short-term franchises.
+
+Up to date, the partial and tentative trials of this plan have been
+encouragingly successful. But there are obvious defects in it, which
+we must notice:
+
+(1) The danger of failures in business would still exist. Some factors
+would tend to lessen this danger as, the prevention of stock-
+watering, misappropriation of funds, excessive salaries, and the unfair
+competition of rivals. But failures could no longer be averted by
+squeezing wages, neglecting conditions of production, or lowering the
+quality of goods. The employers may well ask, in bitterness, what right
+the Government has to close their chances of high profits when it
+leaves the chance of total loss. Private ownership of business, still
+retained on the plan we are considering, must involve risk of
+bankruptcy, with its economic waste and its suffering.
+
+(2) The plant, capital, and management of a business would still be
+entirely at the disposal of the owner, and handed down in his family
+or to partners voluntarily taken in. The son of a capitalist, who
+inherits the business, may be by no means the most deserving or efficient
+person to carry it on. Industry is not democratic under this plan;
+justice is attained as a compromise between the interests of capitalists
+and laborers. Class antagonisms are still fostered; distrust of the
+impartiality of the government commission would continually be present,
+and might at any time lead to actual rebellion and violence.
+
+(3) The temptations to corruption would be enormous. The capitalists,
+with their reserve funds, would be in a position to bribe or unfairly
+influence any susceptible members of the commissions; and with the
+danger of bankruptcy on the one hand, and the great prizes to be won
+on the other, there would inevitably result in the present state
+of the average human conscience-a great deal of foul play.
+Commissioners would have an unlimited opportunity of blackmailing
+employers. Labor members would pull in one direction, and upper-class
+members in another. The strain upon public morality would be severe.
+
+IV. SOCIALISM? Socialism promises, according to its adherents, to
+accomplish all the good results of government regulation, while
+obviating its defects. It behooves us, then, to give it careful and
+unbiased attention. The movement toward it is, at least, one of the
+most significant and widespread movements of our times, evoking on
+the one hand extraordinary enthusiasm and loyalty, so that to millions
+of men it is almost a religion, and on the other hand deep distrust,
+impatient contempt, or bitter hostility. Moreover, the movement is
+steadily growing; we must recognize that it is not a fad, but a deep
+current, an international brotherhood that numbers in its ranks many
+able and intellectual men. We may here disregard the inadequate
+economic theories that have hampered its earlier years, and the Utopian
+dreams that have been published under its name, and consider it only
+as a practical program for remedying our acknowledged and serious
+industrial evils.
+
+The gist of the socialist proposal is that all industry shall be made
+democratic, as government is now becoming democratic all over the
+earth. All plants and all capital are to be owned by the State, and
+all business run as the Post-Office is run, or as the Panama Canal
+was built. The managers of each industry are to be chosen from the
+ranks, according to their fitness, for proved efficiency and knowledge
+of the business. Everybody will be upon a salary, and the opportunity
+of increasing personal profits by lowering wages, cheating the public,
+neglecting evil conditions of production, or damaging rivals, will
+be absent. Thus, instead of trying by an elaborate system of checks
+to keep within due bounds the greed of man, the possibility of satisfying
+that greed is definitely removed, and all earnings made proportionate
+to industriousness and skill. We proceed to summarize the advantages
+that, it is urged, would follow the inauguration of this industrial
+democracy:
+
+(1) All industries could be organized and centralized. A vast amount
+of human effort could be saved, and waste eliminated. Business would
+no longer, as so often now, be hampered for lack of funds to carry
+out plans. A special staff could be retained to invent and apply new
+ideas. In short, just as the trusts now are much more efficient and
+economical than the small concerns they have superseded, so the
+completely organized industries of a socialistic regime would be, we
+are told, in a position to double human efficiency. If the postal
+business were open to competition, there can be no doubt that we should
+be paying higher rates today for a much less efficient service. If
+it were a private monopoly, some one would probably be getting enormous
+profits out of it profits which now go back into extending the service.
+The labor saved by industrial unification would be available for a
+thousand other undertakings that cry to be carried out.
+
+(2) All the industrial wrongs enumerated in the preceding chapter
+could, it is asserted, be remedied, and all problems adjusted, with
+comparatively little friction, because it would be to no one's
+particular advantage to retard such betterment. Those in control of
+every business, being upon a fixed salary, and having nothing to gain
+by squeezing laborers or public, would be amenable to a sense of pride
+in the honesty, cleanliness, and efficiency of their business, and
+the contentment of their employees. If they were too lazy or stupid
+to respond to such motives, they could quickly be superseded in office
+by men who were more ambitious for the fair showing of their branch
+of the public service.
+
+(3) Opportunity to rise to the control of a business would be open
+to every laborer in it. The sons of rich men could no longer step easily
+into the soft berths, whether they were deserving or not. Proved
+efficiency, plus popularity, would be the road to success. With the
+higher wages paid to labor (made possible partly by the economic saving
+through organization, and partly by cutting out the private fortunes
+now made out of industry), every boy would be able to get a thorough
+vocational education, and be in a position to strive, if he is
+ambitious, for leadership. Industrial power would be conferred,
+directly or indirectly, by popular vote; business would be recognized
+as a public affair, and nepotism and hereditary advantage banished
+from it as they have been from politics.
+
+(4) The risk of bankruptcies, with all their attendant evils, would
+be done away with entirely. Business would have a stability unknown
+to our present individualistic industry, and businessmen would be freed
+from that anxiety that drives so many today to a premature grave.
+
+(5) All speculation in stocks would be likewise eliminated. The
+necessary capital for any new undertaking would be provided by the
+industrial State, and the undeserved gains and losses of our present
+system of private investment would come to an end.
+
+(6) Morally, there would be a probable gain in several ways. The
+elimination of private profit from business would give freer room for
+the development of a social spirit which is now choked out by the
+temptation that each owner of a business is under to grab all that
+he can for himself. There would be no motive, and no fortunes available,
+for, at least, the most striking forms of that corruption of the press
+which is such a grave problem today. Municipal theaters would be under
+no temptation to produce nasty plays. All this exploitation of human
+weakness and passion is done because it PAYS; if the men at the top
+were on a salary there would be no such inducement to cater to vicious
+instincts. The economic pressure that now pushes so many girls in the
+direction of prostitution would be relieved. The people generally would
+be dignified and educated by their participation in industrial, as
+now in political decisions. If some of the tougher strains of character,
+grit, push, endurance, etc. would be less fostered, the gentler and
+more social aspects of character would find better soil.
+
+Whether all these advantages would actually accrue, in the degree hoped
+for, it is, of course, impossible to know. There are, however, at least
+two grave dangers in socialism which must be squarely faced:
+
+(1) A certain degree of slackness and consequent inefficiency would
+almost inevitably result from the relaxing of the pressure of
+competition and the removal of the opportunity for unlimited personal
+profit. Employees and managers of state and municipal undertakings
+are apt to take things easily; and there have been usually waste and
+inertia and extravagance in such enterprises. The probable loss in
+grit, push, and endurance, mentioned above, might prove serious.
+We must admit that, on the whole, private business has been managed
+much better than public business, both in this country and abroad. To a
+considerable extent, however, the inefficiency of municipal and state
+undertakings has been due to the clumsiness and corruption of political
+systems, and can be cured by political reform. That public affairs
+can be managed as successfully as private business has been
+demonstrated on many occasions. The parcel post offers a much
+more economical service than the express companies ever gave.
+The most efficient and successful engineering undertaking ever
+accomplished by man the construction of the Panama Canal was
+a thoroughgoing socialistic achievement. Moreover, in our criticism
+of public undertakings, we are apt to forget how slack and inefficient
+the great bulk of private business has been; our attention is caught
+by the few concerns that have made a striking success, and we
+overlook the vast numbers that have failed or barely kept alive.
+Looking at the matter psychologically, observation does not
+altogether confirm the statement that men need an unlimited
+possibility of financial reward to work hard. The vast majority of
+workers today are on salary; and on the whole they probably work
+as faithfully as the few at the top (continually becoming fewer) who
+have the spur of private profit.[Footnote: 1 Cf. this testimony in regard
+to former owners of stores in Minnesota and Wisconsin who have been
+bought out and retained as managers by cooperative societies: "they
+work for moderate salaries, and in almost all cases are working
+as ardently for success as they ever did for their own gain." N. O.
+Nelson, in Outlook, vol. 89, p. 527.] Not all capitalists are hard
+workers; much of the real work is done for them by salaried managers.
+It is very questionable if doctors and lawyers, who work for profits,
+give any more loyal service to the community than teachers, ministers,
+or nurses, who work on salary. There would still be the need of earning
+one's living, and the incentive of rising to positions of higher salary,
+greater authority, and wider interest. And, after all, most of the really
+good work of the world is done on honor, from the normal human
+pleasure in doing things well, and pride in being known to do
+things well. When freed from the private greed and antisocial class
+feelings which now inhibit it, this zest in efficient work and loyal
+service might receive a new impetus. A socialistic regime would surely
+make a business of inculcating in its public schools the conception
+of all work as public service; and the pressure of public opinion would
+bear more heavily upon workers-as there is today much freer criticism
+of public than of private undertakings. But even if there should be
+a considerable increase in slackness and a decrease in PER
+CAPITA production, that economic loss might be more than
+made up by the saving of labor through organization. And if
+not, it is true that efficiency is not the only good. Considerations
+of humanity should weigh with us as well as considerations of
+moneymaking; if socialism can cure the intolerable evils in our
+present selfish and chaotic system, a certain decrease in
+production might not be too great a price to pay.
+
+(2) The running of the complicated socialistic machine would involve
+a great deal of friction, with consequent dissatisfaction and dissension.
+Problems would arise on all hands: On what basis should the wage-rate
+in this industry and in that be determined? How much of the public
+moneys should be put into this and how much into that undertaking?
+Was this department head fair in discharging this man and promoting
+that man? Suspicion of bribery and graft would continually recur. Bad
+seasons would be encountered, blunders would be made, overproduction
+would occur, men would be thrown out of employment in the work they
+had chosen, floods, fires, plagues, and other disasters would sweep
+away profits; the adjustment of these losses would be an enormously
+delicate matter. At present, the poor are apt to feel that prosperity
+for them is hopeless; under a socialistic regime they would expect
+it, and be loath to see their incomes diminished when things went
+wrong. Socialism would require a great deal of good temper and
+willingness to submit to decisions which seemed unwise or unfair.
+It is highly doubtful if human nature is yet good enough to fit the
+system.
+
+(3) A third objection to socialism, that corruption would be increased,
+is a much-debated point. There would be, as now, opportunity for
+falsification of accounts and embezzlement. Individual promotions
+would too often hinge upon personal friendship or favors received.
+The enormous administrative machinery would open up all sorts of new
+avenues to personal gain at the expense of others, which unprincipled
+men would be quick to take advantage of. But, on the other hand, no
+great private fortunes or wealthy corporations would exist to bribe,
+and no such money-prizes would exist to be won by bribery as are
+common in our present system. There would be no temptation to adulterate
+goods, and less of a temptation to award contracts or franchises to
+friends -since there would be no private profit in it. What supports
+our political rings today is, above all, the existence of the
+"interests" wealthy corporations that are making profits enough to
+spare large sums for "influencing" legislation; these "interests" would
+no longer exist. On the whole, then, the amount and direction of
+corruption under socialism is unpredictable; but its possibility should
+give us pause. The other general objections to socialism are probably
+less serious; some of them complete misapprehensions. It is certainly
+not anti-Christian; on the contrary, there are those who believe that
+it is the necessary the Christian spirit.[Footnote: Cf, for example,
+W. Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis.] It is not
+"materialistic" any more than any industrial system must necessarily
+be. It would not necessarily destroy private property or lessen human
+freedom, except in the one matter that it would prevent private
+ownership of the instruments of industrial production and destroy the
+freedom to conduct business to private advantage. But it is clear that
+it would involve us in all sorts of complicated and delicate problems
+of detail which would require generations for satisfactory solution
+and which might never be satisfactorily solved. And it might, of course,
+lead to other difficulties now unforeseen, graver and more difficult
+to meet than we now realize. Surely, then, it is not to be lightly
+undertaken, and not to be undertaken as a mere revolt of the lower
+classes against their industrial masters. It must be worked out in
+great detail, and contrasted with every possible alternative, before
+cautious statesmen will consent to its adoption. For it would mean
+a revolutionary change of enormous proportions; and it would not be
+easy to revert to the earlier order. Our political machinery, under
+which the vast industrial system would come, must first be reconstructed
+and made efficient. Religion and public education must be strengthened
+to meet the new demands upon character and intelligence. It is earnestly
+to be hoped that if socialism comes, it will come not by revolution,
+as the result of a class struggle, but by evolution and a general
+consent, the result of long and careful public discussion. In the
+writer's opinion, present steps must be along the line of government
+regulation, with socialism as the possible, but as yet by no means
+certain, eventual outcome. In any case, there is no simple and sweeping
+panacea for our industrial ills; the patient thought and experimentation
+and effort of generations will be required before a satisfactory and
+stable equilibrium is attained.
+
+Competition VS. concentration: C. R. Van Hise, CONCENTRATION AND
+CONTROL, chap. I. J. W. Jenks, THE TRUST PROBLEM. E. von Halle,
+TRUSTS AND INDUSTRIAL COMBINATIONS. F. C. McVey, MODERN
+INDUSTRIALISM. S. C. T. Dodd, COMBINATIONS, THEIR USE AND
+ABUSE. R. T. Ely, MONOPOLIES AND TRUSTS. C. N. Fay, BIG
+BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT. Edmond Kelly, TWENTIETH CENTURY
+SOCIALISM, book II, chap, II; book III, chap. I. A. J. Eddy, THE NEW
+COMPETITION. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 79, p. 377. FORUM, vol. 8, p. 61.
+JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, vol. 20, p. 358. Labor unions and
+strikes: J. R. Commons, TRADE-UNIONISM AND LABOR PROBLEMS.
+Carlton, HISTORY AND PROBLEMS OF ORGANIZED LABOR. S. and
+B. Webb, INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY; HISTORY OF TRADE
+UNIONISM. J. Mitchell, ORGANIZED LABOR. C. R. Henderson, SOCIAL
+SPIRIT IN AMERICA, chap. ix. Jane Addams, NEWER IDEALS OF
+PEACE, chap. v. ATLANTIC MONTHLY, vol. 109, p. 758. H. R. Seager, I
+NTRODUCTION TO ECONOMICS, chap. xxi. F. W. Taussig, PRINCIPLES
+OF ECONOMICS, chap. 55. Profit sharing: W. H. Tolman, SOCIAL
+ENGINEERING, chap. vii. Seager, OP. CIT, chap, xxvi, sec. 281. Adams
+and Sumner, LABOR PROBLEMS, chap. X. N. P. Gilman, PROFIT
+SHARING; A DIVIDEND TO LABOR. Outlook, vol. 106, p. 627.
+QUARTERLY REVIEW, vol. 219, p. 509. Cooperation: G. J. Holyoake,
+HISTORY OF COOPERATION. C. R. Fay, COOPERATION AT HOME
+AND ABROAD. Adams and Sumner, LABOR PROBLEMS, chap. x.
+ARENA, vol. 36, p. 200; vol. 40, p. 632. H. R. Seager, OP. CIT, sec.
+282. F. W. Taussig, OP. CIT, chap. 59. Consumers' leagues: Publications
+of the National Consumers' League (106 East Nineteenth Street, New
+York City). Government regulation: J. W. Jenks, OP. CIT, Appendices.
+C. R. Van Hise, OP. CIT, chaps, iii-v. F. W. Taussig, OP. CIT, chaps.
+62,63. H. R. Seager, OP. CIT, chap. xxv. C. L. King, REGULATION
+OF MUNICIPAL UTILITIES. J. B. and J. M. Clark, CONTROL OF THE
+TRUSTS. E. M. Phelps, FEDERAL CONTROL OF INTERSTATE
+CORPORATIONS. ATLANTIC MONTHLY, vol. iii, p. 433. OUTLOOK,
+vol. 99, p. 649; vol. 100, pp. 574, 690; vol. 101, p. 353; vol. 103,
+p. 476. NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, vol. 197, pp. 62, 222, 350.
+INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS, vol. 23, p. 158. JOURNAL
+ OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, vol. 20, pp. 309, 574. Socialism:
+Edmond Kelly, TWENTIETH CENTURY SOCIALISM. H. G. Wells,
+NEW WORLDS FOR OLD. J. Spargo, SOCIALISM. M. Hillquit,
+SOCIALISM IN THEORY AND PRACTICE. A. Schaffle, THE
+QUINTESSENCE OF SOCIALISM. F. W. Taussig, OP. CIT, chaps.
+64, 65. J. Rae, the roman numerals are both upper and lower case
+did not standardize PORARY SOCIALISM. R. T. Ely, SOCIALISM.
+W. G. Towler, SOCIALISM IN LOCAL GOIVERNEMNT. H. R. SEAGER,
+OP. CIT, sec. 282. N. P. Gilman, SOCIALISM AND THE AMERICAN
+SPIRIT. R. Hunter, SOCIALISTS AT WORK. JOURNAL OF POLITICAL
+ECONOMY, vol. 14, p. 257. OUTLOOK, vol. 91, pp. 618, 662; vol. 95,
+pp. 831, 876.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+LIBERTY AND LAW
+
+WE have spoken of the practical defects and dangers inherent in the
+various proposals that look to the rectification of industrial wrongs.
+But there is one source of opposition to these proposals that requires
+more extended consideration-the fear that they-and especially
+socialism-unduly threaten that ideal of personal liberty which our
+fathers so passionately served and we have come to look upon as the
+cornerstone of our prosperity. What is this ideal of liberty, and how
+should it affect our efforts at industrial regeneration? What are the
+essential aspects of the ideal of liberty? Throughout a long stretch
+of human history one of the most vexing obstacles to general happiness
+and progress has been the irresponsible power of sovereigns and
+oligarchies. To generations it has seemed that if freedom from selfish
+tyranny could but be won, the millennium would be at hand. Our heroes
+have been those who fought against despots for the rights of the
+people; we measure progress by such milestones as the Magna Charta,
+the French Revolution, the American Declaration of Independence. To
+this day we engrave the word "liberty" on our coins; and the converging
+multitudes from Europe look up eagerly to the great statue that
+welcomes them in New York Harbor and symbolizes for them the freedom
+that they have often suffered so much to gain. In Mrs. Hemans's hymn,
+in Patrick Henry's famous speech, in Mary Antin's wonderful
+autobiography, The Promised Land, we catch glimpses of that devotion
+to liberty which, it is now said, we are jeopardizing by our increasing
+mass of legislative restraints and propose to banish for good and all
+by an indefinite increase in the powers of the State. More than a
+generation ago Mill wrote: "There is in the world at large an
+increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers of society over
+the individual, both by the force of opinion and even by that of
+legislation; and as the tendency of all the changes taking place in
+the world is to strengthen society, and diminish the power of the
+individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which tend
+spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary, to grow more and
+more formidable."[Footnote: Essay on Liberty, Introductory.] Not a
+few observers today are reiterating this note of alarm with increasing
+emphasis. Are their fears well founded? We may at once agree in
+applauding the liberty worship of our fathers and of our contemporaries
+in the more backward countries. No secure steps in civilization can
+be taken until liberty of body, of movement, and of possession are
+guaranteed; there must be no fear of arbitrary execution, arrest, or
+confiscation. To this must be added liberty of conscience, of speech,
+and of worship; the right of free assembly, a free press, and that
+"freedom to worship God" that the Pilgrims sought. Wherever these
+rights, so fundamental to human happiness, are impugned, "Liberty!"
+is still the fitting rallying-cry.[Footnote: The exact limits within
+which freedom of speech must be allowed are debatable, (a) Speech which
+incites to crime, to lawbreaking, to sexual and other vice, must be
+prevented; and (b) slander, the public utterance of grossly disparaging
+statements concerning any person, without reasonable evidence of their
+truth. May we attempt to stifle the utterance of (c) such other
+untruths as are inexcusable in the light of our common knowledge? There
+are certainly many matters where there is no longer room for legitimate
+difference of opinion; and the general diffusion of correct knowledge
+is greatly retarded by the silly utterances of uninformed people. Yet
+to draw the line here is so difficult that we must probably tolerate
+this evil forever rather than run the risk of stifling some generally
+unsuspected truth.] rights are safely won; the danger now is rather
+of abusing them. We must not forget that liberty is only a means, not
+an end in itself, to be restricted in so far as may be necessary for
+the greatest happiness. From our discussion in Part II it should be
+clear that there are no "natural rights" which the community is bound
+to respect; liberty must be granted the individual so far, and only
+so far, as it does not impede the general welfare. We do not hesitate
+to end the liberty, or even to take the life, of those we deem dangerous
+to society. We do not hesitate to confiscate the land which we deem
+necessary for a highway or railroad or public building. Indeed, we
+hedge personal liberty about with a thousand restrictions by general
+consent, in the realization that public interests must come before
+private. We have no need to discuss the doctrine of anarchism
+[Footnote: For an eloquent defense of anarchism see Tolstoy's writings;
+here is a sample statement: "For a Christian to promise to subject
+himself to any government whatsoever-a subjection which may be
+considered the foundation of state life-is a direct negation of
+Christianity." (Kingdom of God, chap. IX.) Cf. this utterance of one
+of the Chicago anarchists of 1886. "Whoever prescribes a rule of action
+for another to obey is a tyrant: usurper, and an enemy of liberty."]-
+unrestricted liberty since the general chaos that would result there
+from, in the present stage of human nature, is sufficiently apparent.
+Liberty can never be absolute. Indeed, there has been a curious
+reversal of situation. The older cry of liberty that stirs us was a
+cry of the oppressed masses against their masters; now it is a slogan
+of the privileged upper classes against that increasing popular
+legislation which restricts their powers. Kings are now but
+figureheads, if they linger at all, in our modern democracies;
+governments are not irresponsible masters of the people, they are
+instruments for carrying out the popular will. The real tyrants now,
+those whose irresponsible authority is dangerous to the masses, are
+the kings of industry; if the cry of "liberty" is to be raised again,
+it should be raised, according to all historical precedent, in behalf
+of the slaves of modern industry rather than in behalf of the fortunate
+few who give up so grudgingly the practical powers they have usurped.
+There were those, indeed, who fought passionately for the divine right
+of kings, those who died to maintain the right of a white man to hold
+Negroes as slaves; there are those today who with a truly religious
+fervor uphold the right of the capitalistic class to manage the
+industries of the country at their own sweet will, unhampered by such
+legislative restrictions as the majority may deem expedient for the
+general welfare. But it is a travesty on the sacred word "liberty"
+that it should be thus invoked to uphold the prerogatives of the favored
+few. Liberty, in the sense in which it is properly an ideal for man,
+connotes the right to all such forms of activity as are consonant with
+the greatest general happiness, and to no others. It implies the right
+not to be oppressed, not the right to oppress. Mere freedom of contract
+is not real freedom, if the alternative be to starve; such formal
+freedom may be practical slavery. The real freedom is freedom to live
+as befits a man; and it is precisely because such freedom is beyond
+the grasp of multitudes today that our system of "free contract" is
+discredited; it offers the name of liberty without the reality. But
+apart from this questionable appeal to the ideal of liberty, there
+are not a few who sincerely believe, on grounds of practical expediency,
+that legislation ought not to interfere any more than proves absolutely
+necessary with the conduct of industry. This scheme of individualism
+we will now consider.
+
+The ideal of individualism. The individualistic, or laissez-faire,
+ideal dates perhaps from Rousseau and the French doctrinaires; its
+best-known representatives in English speech are Mill and Spencer.
+Dewey and Tufts have pithily expressed it as follows: "The moral end
+of political institutions and measures is the maximum possible freedom
+of the individual consistent with his not interfering with like freedom
+on the part of other individuals."[Footnote: Ethics, p. 483.] Its leading
+arguments may be presented and answered, summarily, as follows:
+
+(1) Legislation has so often been mischievous that it is well to have
+as little of it as possible. The masses are uneducated, the prey of
+impulse and passion; politics are corrupt; to submit the genius of
+free ENTREPRENEURS to the clumsy and ill-fitted yoke of a popularly
+wrought legal control is to stifle their enterprise and interfere with
+their chances of success. After all, every one knows his own needs
+best; and if we leave people alone, they will secure their own welfare
+better than if we try to dictate to them how they shall seek it. "Out
+of the fourteen thousand odd acts which, in our own country, have been
+repealed, from the date of the Statute of Merton down to 1872 . . .
+how many have been repealed because they were mischievous? . . . Suppose
+that only three thousand of these acts were abolished after proved
+injuries had been caused, which is a low estimate. What shall we say
+of these three thousand acts which have been hindering human happiness
+and increasing human misery; now for years, now for generations, now
+for centuries?"[Footnote: H. Spencer, Principles of Ethics, part IV,
+sec. 131.] But to admit that much legislation has been blundering is
+not to admit that the principle of social control is wrong. Our political
+system must, indeed, be made must be placed in the way of overhasty
+and ill-considered lawmaking. But it is not always true that the
+individual is the best judge of his own ultimate interests; and it
+is demonstrably untrue that the pursuit by each of what he deems best
+for himself will bring the greatest happiness for all. The stronger
+and more favorably situated will take advantage of their position and
+resources; the weaker, though theoretically free, will in reality be
+under the handicap of poverty, ignorance, hunger. Such a system is
+inevitably vicious in its moral effects. To say that in a popular
+government legislation cannot properly standardize practice, cannot
+formulate a higher code of public morality than men can be depended
+upon to attain if unrestrained, is unwarrantably to discredit democracy.
+If the laws are bad, improve them. If the public is uneducated, educate
+it. If our system gives us poor lawmakers, change the system. But to
+give up the attempt at legal control, to leave things as they are or
+rather, to leave them to go from bad to worse, is unthinkable.
+
+(2) Too much legislation stifles individuality, drags genius down to
+the dead level of average ideas, tends to produce an unprogressive
+uniformity of practice. It imposes the conceptions of the past upon
+the future. "If the measures have any effect at all, the effect must
+in part be that of causing some likeness among the individuals; to
+deny this is to deny that the process of molding is operative. But
+in so far as uniformity results advance is retarded. Every one who
+has studied the order of nature knows that without variety there can
+be no progress."[Footnote: H. Spencer, op. cit, sec. 138.] "Persons
+of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small
+minority; but in order to have them it is necessary to preserve the
+soil in which they grow. Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere
+of freedom. ... It is important to give the freest scope possible to
+uncustomary things, in order that it may in time appear which of these
+are fit to be converted into customs." [Footnote: J. S. Mill, On Liberty,
+chap. III.] But the intention of social legislation is to check only
+such individual action as is demonstrably detrimental; the uniformity
+produced will be only a uniform absence of flagrant wrongs and adoption
+of such positive precautions as will make the detection and checking
+of these harmful acts easy. Beyond this minimum uniformity (which,
+however, must include an enormous number of details, so manifold have
+the possibilities of wrongdoing become) there will on any system be
+ample range for the development of new methods and processes. Whatever
+danger there once was in choking individual initiative by needlessly
+paralyzing restrictions, will be, in the long run, negligible in an
+age of omnivorous reading and free discussion, and in a land whose
+conscious ideal is improvement, new invention, progress. As a matter
+of fact, it is chiefly through legislation that new methods of social
+practice become diffused. Each of our forty-eight States is
+experimenting in social guidance, trying to thwart this or that sin,
+to remedy this or that wrong, to work out a plan by which men can happily
+cooperate in our complex public life. The process of evolving an
+efficient and frictionless social machine, instead of being retarded
+by this activity of lawmaking, is actually accelerated thereby. Private
+business tends to fall into ruts; and one man's ideals are blocked
+by lack of cooperation from others. Legislation tends not only to
+preserve the best of past experiments; but, goaded by the zeal of
+reformers, and pushed by political parties, to drag complacent and
+inert individuals along new and untried paths. The greatest field for
+genius lies today in devising successful constructive legislation;
+and the greatest hope for progress in this era of mutual dependence
+lies in the winning of a majority for some social scheme that must
+be generally adopted if at all.
+
+(3) Laws, however beneficent, which rise above the general conscience
+of the people are undesirable; character should precede legislation.
+"To conform to custom, merely as custom, does not educate or develop
+in [a man] any of the qualities which are the distinctive endowment
+of a human being. . . . He who does anything because it is the custom
+makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring
+what is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are
+improved only by being used. . . . It is possible that he might be
+guided in some good path, and kept out of harm's way, without [using
+his own judgment, powers of decision, self control, etc.] But what
+will be his comparative worth as a human being? It really is of
+importance, not only what men do, but also what manner of men they
+are that do it." [Footnote: J. S. Mill, op. cit, chap. III.] A little
+common sense will show us, however, that there are, and always will
+be, plenty of occasions for exercising our moral muscle, however closely
+we hedge in the field of legitimate activity. Prone to temptation as
+men are, and beset by a thousand wrong impulses, we may well seek to
+block this and that path of possible wrongdoing without fear of turning
+them mechanically into saints. On the contrary, we should hasten to
+use the experience of the past to avert needless temptations from the
+men of the future.
+
+Our experience has been costly enough; and if it has revealed its
+lessons too late to save contemporary social life, at least it should
+serve as warning for our sons. To sacrifice right conduct to moral
+gymnastics is to set up the means as more important than the end; every
+good act that can be lifted from the plane of moral struggle and put
+securely on the plane of habit is a step in human progress, and leaves
+men freer to grapple with the remaining temptations. If you wish to
+educate men up to a law, put it upon the statute books if you can,
+compel attention to it and discussion of the reasons pro and con,
+show its practical workings; it is far easier to educate conscience
+up to an existing law than beyond it. Moreover, it must be said that
+those who prefer to see men left to think things out anew for
+themselves, without the restraint and guidance of the law,
+show a singular callousness toward those whom their action,
+if they choose wrongly, will hurt. If we could trust men to
+choose aright-but we cannot; and men must be protected
+against their own stupidity and weakness, and that of others,
+by the collective wisdom and will.
+
+(4) Individualism makes for prosperity. Offering a fair chance to all,
+it brings the best to the top; the fittest survive, and win the
+positions of power; the community as a whole is, then, in the end
+advantaged. "Free competition in profits coordinates industrial
+efficiency and industrial reward.This is equality of opportunity,
+through which every man is rewarded according to his worth
+to the consumer." [Footnote: F. Y. Gladney, in the Outlook, vol. 101,
+p. 261.] Unfortunately, however, it is those who are fittest to serve
+not the community but their own interests that have the best chance
+to survive-the clever, the privileged, the unscrupulous. Nor is there
+equality of opportunity where some will not play fair and others have
+a long start. The individualistic struggle makes for the selection
+of a type of greedy, self-centered man, with little sense of social
+responsibility. Even granted that the men who reach the top are the
+men best fitted to manage the industries of the country, this method
+of selection of leaders is too wasteful of strength, too hard on the
+unsuccessful, to be generally profitable. The prosperity of modern
+industry is due not primarily to its chaotic plan of individual effort
+and cross-purposes, but to the measure of cooperation we have
+nevertheless attained, with its consequent division and specialization
+of labor and large-scale production, aided by the extraordinary
+development of invention and machinery. The ideal of legal control.
+The epoch of ultra individualism, of what Huxley called "administrative
+nihilism," is rapidly passing. Jane Addams speaks of "the inadequacy
+of those eighteenth-century ideals the breakdown of the machinery
+which they provided," pointing out that "that worldly wisdom which
+counsels us to know life as it is" discounts the assumption "that if
+only the people had freedom they would walk continuously in the paths
+of justice and righteousness." [Footnote: Newer Ideals of Peace, pp.
+31-32.] H. G. Wells remarks, "We do but emerge now from a period of
+deliberate happy- go-lucky and the influence of Herbert Spencer, who
+came near raising public shiftlessness to the dignity of a natural
+philosophy. Everything would adjust itself-if only it was left alone."
+[Footnote: Social Forces in England and America, p. 80.] It is becoming
+clear that we cannot trust to education and the conscience of
+individuals to right matters, not only because as yet we provide no
+moral education of any consequence for our youth, but because, if we
+did, the temptations in a world where every man is free to grab for
+himself would still be almost irresistible. But there are two positive
+arguments for the extension of legal control that clinch the matter:
+
+(1) Without the support of the law it is often impossible for the
+conscientious man to act in a purely social spirit. The competition
+of those who are less answerable to moral motives forces him to lower
+his own ideals if he would not see his business ruined. The employer
+of child labor in one factory cannot afford to hire adults, at their
+higher wage, until all the other factories give up the cheaper labor
+also. Where sweatshop labor produces cheap clothing for some
+manufacturers, the more scrupulous are undersold. One employer cannot,
+unless he is unusually prosperous, raise the wages of his employees
+or shorten their hours until his competitors do likewise. Improvement
+of conditions must take place all along the line or not at all. And
+since unanimous voluntary consent is practically impossible to obtain,
+and of precarious duration if obtained, the legal enforcement of common
+standards is necessitated.
+
+(2) Men generally are willing to bind themselves by law to higher codes
+than they will live up to if not bound. In their reflective moments,
+when they are deciding how to vote, temptations are less insistent
+and ideals stronger than when they are confronting concrete situations.
+To vote for a law which will restrain others, and incidentally one's
+self, comes easier than to make a purely personal sacrifice that leaves
+general practice unaltered. To realize that this is true, we need but
+look at the remarkable ethical gains made now year by year through
+laws voted for by many of the very men whose practice had hitherto
+been upon a lower moral level. Very many evils that once seemed fastened
+upon society have been thus legislated out of existence.[Footnote:
+For a vivid picture of earlier industrial conditions which would not
+now be tolerated, see Charles Reade's Put Yourself in His Place.] And
+if the industrial situation still seems wretched, it is because, in
+our swift advance, new evils are arising about as fast as older evils
+are eradicated. The law necessarily lags behind the spread of abuses,
+so that "there will probably always be a running duel between anti-social
+action and legislation designed to check it. Novel methods of
+corruption will constantly require novel methods of correction . .
+But this constant development of the law should make corrupt
+practices increasingly difficult for the less gifted rascals who must
+always constitute the great majority of would-be offenders." [Footnote:
+R. C. Brooks, Corruption in American Politics and Life, p. 99.] The
+law can never, of course, cover the whole field of human conduct; it
+represents, in Stevenson's phrase," that modicum of morality which
+can be squeezed out of the rock of mankind." Unnecessary extension
+of the law is cumbersome, expensive, and provocative of impatience
+and rebellion. Moreover, there is always some minimum of danger of
+injustice in attempting legal constraint; the law itself, as approved
+by the majority, may be unfair, or its application to the concrete
+case may be unfair. The individualists are right in feeling that men
+must be left alone, wherever the possible results are not too dangerous.
+But no hard-and-fast line can be drawn between activities that must
+be left free and those which must be regulated. Such apparently personal
+matters as the use of opium or alcohol must be checked because the
+general happiness is, in the end, greatly and obviously enhanced by
+such restraint. But there will always be, beyond the law, a wide field
+for the satisfaction of personal tastes and the practice of generosity.
+There is no double standard; if an act is legally right and morally
+wrong, that simply means that it lies beyond the boundaries of the
+limited field which the law covers. The extension of that field is
+a matter of practical expediency in each type of situation; beyond
+that field, but working to the same ends, the forces of education and
+public opinion are alone available. [Footnote: For a discussion of
+this point, see F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book III, chap. IX, sec.
+9. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 18, p. 18.] Should existing
+laws always be obeyed? Year by year we are extending our network of
+laws over human conduct; more and more pertinent becomes the them?
+and the further question, Are there times when the law may be rightly
+disobeyed? We shall discuss the second question first. It is obvious
+that our whole social structure rests upon the willingness of the
+people to obey the law. The watchword of republics should be, not
+"liberty," but "obedience"; their gravest danger now is not tyranny,
+but anarchy. We must individually submit with patience and good temper
+to the decisions of the majority, even if we disapprove those
+decisions. We must abide by the rules of the game until we can get
+the rules changed. And all changes must be effected according to the
+rules agreed upon for effecting changes. This law-abiding spirit is
+the great triumph of democracy; only so long as it exists can popular
+government stand. Though it be slower and exacting of greater effort
+and skill, evolution, not revolution, is the method of permanent
+progress. We must, then, band together against any groups that, in
+their impatience of reform or opposition to the common will, cast aside
+the restraints of law. However dearly we may long for woman's suffrage,
+we must sternly repress those excited suffragettes who would gain this
+end by defiance of law and destruction of property; even if they further
+their particular cause by their violence-which is highly doubtful-they
+do it at the expense of something still more precious, the preservation
+of the law-abiding spirit. Other organizations will not be slow to
+profit by the lesson of their success; and we shall have Heaven knows
+how many causes seeking to attain their ends by destructiveness and
+resistance. Similarly, the more serious and menacing rebellion of labor
+against law must be firmly controlled; much as we may sympathize with
+their grievances, we cannot countenance the attempt to remedy them
+by violence. The Industrial Workers of the World, with action, [Footnote:
+Cf, in a pamphlet issued by them: "The I.W.W. will get the results
+sought with the least expenditure of time and energy. The tactics used
+are determined solely by the power of the organization to make good
+in their use". The question of 'right' and 'wrong' does not concern
+us. In short, the I.W.W. advocates the use of militant 'direct action'
+tactics to the full extent of our power to make them." (Quoted in
+Atlantic Monthly, vol. 109, p. 703.)] have made themselves enemies
+of society. The advocates of "sabotage," the "reds" in the socialist
+camp, the preachers of practical anarchism, must be treated as among
+the most dangerous of criminals. On the other hand, the spread of the
+spirit of lawlessness among the lower classes should serve to warn
+the upper classes that present social conditions will not much longer
+be endured.[Footnote: Cf. Ettor (quoted in Outlook, vol. 101, p. 340):
+"They tell us to get what we want by the ballot. They want us to play
+the game according to the established rules. But the rules were made
+by the capitalists. THEY have laid down the laws of the game. THEY
+hold the pick of the cards. We never can win by political methods.
+The right of suffrage is the greatest hoax of history. Direct action
+is the only way."] There is a great deal of idealism among the advocates
+of violence;[Footnote: Cf, for example, Giovannitti's poem, The Cage,
+in the Atlantic Monthly, June, 1913.] there is a great deal of sympathy
+on the part of the public with lawless strikers, with the I.W.W. gangs
+that have recently invaded city churches, with all those under-dogs
+who are now determining to have a share in the good things of life.
+Unless the employing and governing classes meet their demands halfway,
+gunpowder and dynamite pretty surely lie ahead. Will the spirit of
+lawlessness spread? Ought we to slacken our process of lawmaking lest
+we make the yoke too hard to bear? As a matter of fact, it is through
+more laws, better laws, and a better mechanism for punishing infraction
+of laws, that we can hope to check lawlessness. Lynching-as we noted
+in chapter XXV-have been the product of inadequate legislation and
+judicial procedure; as our laws against the worst crimes become
+sharper, our police forces more efficient, and our court trials quicker
+and less hampered by technicalities, they decrease in number. As
+education on the liquor question spreads, violations of prohibition
+laws become fewer. The kind of lawlessness that is on the increase
+is that which exists as a protest against and a means of remedying
+evils that the laws have not yet properly dealt with. Give us by law
+an industrial code that will minimize the exploitation of the weak
+by the strong, bringing a good measure of security and comfort to all,
+and such outrages as those of the McNamara brothers will cease, or
+at worst will be merely sporadic and generally condemned. Allow present
+conditions to drift on without sharp legal guidance, and such outrages
+will certainly become more and more numerous. The alternative that
+confronts the modern world is plainly evolution by law or revolution
+by violence. Individualism: J. S. Mill, On Liberty. H. Spencer,
+Principles of Ethics, part iv, chaps, XXV-XXIX; Social Statics; and
+many other writings. J. H. Levy, The Outcome of Individualism. Various
+publications of the British Personal Rights Association. W.
+Donisthorpe, Individualism. W. Fite, Individualism, lect. IV. Legal
+control: Florence Kelley, Some Ethical Gains through Legislation. Jane
+Addams, Newer Ideals of Peace. E. A. Ross, Social Control, chap. XXXI.
+D. S. Ritchie, Principles of State Interference. J. W. Jenks,
+Government Action for Social Welfare. A. V. Dicey, Law and Opinion.
+J. Seth, Study of Ethical Principles, pp. 297-331. H. C. Potter, Relation
+of the Individual to the Industrial Situation, chap. VI. W. J. Brown,
+Underlying Principles of Modern Legislation. Journal of Philosophy,
+Psychology, and Scientific Methods, vol. 10, p. 113. A. T. Hadley,
+Freedom and Responsibility. J. W. Garner, Introduction to Political
+Science, chaps, IX, X. Edmond Kelly, Evolution and Effort. Lawlessness:
+Atlantic Monthly, vol. 109, p. 441. Outlook, vol. 98, p. 12; vol. 99,
+p. 901; vol. 100, p. 359. J. G. Brooks, American Syndicalism.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+EQUALITY AND PRIVILEGE
+
+All men, our Declaration of Independence tells us, are created free
+and equal-that is, with a right to freedom and equality. They are
+not actually equal in natural gifts, but they ought, so far as possible,
+to be made equal in opportunity; equality is not a fact, but an ideal.
+And as an ideal it comes sometimes into conflict with its twin ideal
+of liberty; the freedom of the stronger must be curtailed when it robs
+the weaker of their fair share of happiness; but, on the other hand,
+a dead level of equality must not be sought at the sacrifice of the
+potentialities for the general good that lie in the free play of
+individuality. The various projects for securing a greater equality
+among men must be scrutinized with an eye to their total effects
+upon human happiness.
+
+What flagrant forms of inequality exist in our society?
+
+Equality is a modern ideal; in former times it was generally assumed
+that men inevitably belong to classes or castes; that some must have
+luxury and others poverty, some must rule and others obey. Plato, in
+constructing his ideal state, retains the walls between the small
+governing class, the warriors, and the mass of artisans, who are of
+no particular account but to get the work done. Castiglione, in his
+Book of the Courtier, declares that "there are many men who,
+although they are rational creatures, have only such share of
+reason as to recognize it, but not to possess or profit by it. These,
+therefore, are naturally slaves, and it is better and more profitable
+for them to obey than to command."
+
+But the invention of the printing press brought ideas to the masses,
+the invention of gunpowder brought them power; the colonization of
+new continents leveled old distinctions of rank; the development of
+manufacture and commerce brought fortune and power to men of
+humble origin. The forces thus set in motion have resulted in our
+day in the general acceptance of political democracy witness in
+contemporary affairs the inception of the Portuguese Republic,
+the Chinese Republic, the abolition of the veto-power of the British
+House of Lords-and are creating a widespread belief in industrial
+democracy. So complete is our American acquiescence in the
+principle of equality in the abstract that it is difficult for us to
+realize the burning passions that underlay such familiar words
+as Don Quixote's, "Know, Sancho, that one man is no more
+than another unless he does more than another"; or Burns's
+"A man's a man for a' that"; or Tennyson's " 'Tis only noble
+to be good."
+
+Yet, for all our abstract belief in equality, we have not become equal
+in opportunity, and in some ways are actually becoming less so. Land,
+for example, which was once to be had for the taking, is steadily
+rising in price, and is now, in most parts of the country, getting
+beyond the reach of the poor. Foreign observers agree that there is
+no other existing nation so plutocratic as our own; and wealth here
+is probably though the matter is in doubt becoming more and more
+concentrated. [Footnote: For a recent and cautious discussion of this
+point see F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 54, sec. 3.
+There is really no accurate information available to settle the
+question whether wealth is becoming more or less concentrated.
+Certainly the number of the rich has rapidly increased, and very many
+of the poor have risen into the class of the well to do. Wages and
+the scale of living of the poor have risen, but not in proportion to
+the total increase in wealth. The rich seem to be not only getting
+richer, but getting a larger SHARE of the national wealth.] It is
+estimated that one per cent of the inhabitants of our country now own
+more property than the remaining ninety-nine per cent.
+
+The natural resources of the country have been to a considerable extent
+such natural monopolies as railways, telegraph and telephone service,
+gas and electric lighting, are controlled by, and largely in the
+interests of, a small owning class. The Astors have become enormously
+rich because one of their progenitors bought for an inconsiderable
+sum farm land on Manhattan Island which is now worth so many dollars
+a square foot. Others have made gigantic fortunes out of the country's
+forests, its coal deposits, its copper, its waterpower, its oil. A
+certain upper stratum of society is freed from the necessity of work,
+can exercise vast power over the lives of the poor, and use its great
+accumulations for personal luxury or at its caprice, in defiance of
+the general welfare. Such congestion of wealth involves poverty on
+the part of masses of the less fortunate. With no capital, the poor
+man cannot compete in the industrial game; he has no money to invest,
+no reserve to fall back upon; he must accept employers' terms or starve.
+He cannot pause to educate himself, to get the skill and knowledge
+that might enable him to work up the ladder. His power in politics
+is overshadowed by that of the great corporations with their funds
+and their control of legal skill. He cannot afford expert medical care,
+or proper hygienic conditions of life; he is lucky if he can get a
+measure of justice in the courts. To call such a situation one of
+equality is irony. It is certain that, far as we are yet from final
+solution of the problems of production, we are still farther from a
+solution of the problems of the distribution of wealth. "A new and
+fair division of the goods and rights of this world should be," De
+Tocqueville long ago declared, "the main object of all who conduct
+human affairs." What methods of equalizing opportunity are possible?
+
+Three plans for a fairer distribution of wealth have been proposed.
+According to one, the profits from industry would be divided among
+the population on a basis of their NEEDS. This is, however, clearly
+impracticable; every one, would discover unlimited needs, and no one
+would be fit to make the apportionment. The second scheme is that all
+men should be paid alike for equal hours of work, or, rather, in
+proportion to the disagreeableness of the work, the amount of
+SACRIFICE made. This scheme is that usually advocated by Socialists.
+The objection to it is that equal pay for every man would take away the
+chief stimulus to initiative, skill, energy, efficiency; it would take
+the zest and excitement out of the game of life, make living too
+monotonous; there must be rewards for the ambitious youth, prizes to
+be won. The third plan proportions reward to efficiency. And on the
+whole, as men are constituted, it seems desirable to reward men
+financially according to their efficiency, so far as that can be
+measured.[Footnote: F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 64,
+sec. 3.] This does not mean to leave things as they are. For at present
+the shrewd, if also fortunate, are rewarded out of all proportion to
+their efficiency; and many who are not efficient at all, who even do
+no work at all that is socially useful, are among the wealthiest.
+Moreover, efficiency itself is only partly due to the individual's
+will and effort; it is due to the physique and gifts and fortune he
+has inherited, the education and environment that have molded him,
+the social situation in which he finds himself, the willingness of
+others to cooperate with him, and his good luck in early ventures.
+It seems unfair that to him that hath so much, so much more should
+be given. Or at least it seems fair that he that hath less should be
+given more favorable opportunity. It is not enough, as Professor Giddings
+says, to reward every man according to his performance; we must find
+a way to enable every man to achieve his potential performance. The
+plan of proportioning rewards to efficiency must be modified by mercy
+for the weak-minded and weak-bodied. It must be supplemented by earnest
+efforts to provide health, education, and favorable environment for
+all, and, by the limitation of the right of inheritance, that all may
+have, so far as possible, approximately equal opportunity. It must
+beware of judging efficiency by immediate and obvious results, must
+encourage inventions that ripen slowly, genius that stumbles and blunders
+before succeeding, work that contributes to others' results and makes
+no showing for itself. It must involve a restriction of the right to
+unearned incomes. To put these necessary corollaries to the efficiency-\
+reward plan into concrete form:
+
+(1) The handicap of ignorance must be removed by providing free
+education for all, to the point of enabling every one to develop
+efficiency in some vocation. Scholarships for the needy, the
+prohibition of child labor, and a high enough wage scale for adults
+to permit the youth of all classes to complete their education, are
+indispensable.
+
+(2) The handicap of ill-health must be, so far as possible, removed
+by state support of mothers-so that children need not inherit a weakened
+constitution from overtired mothers, or suffer from want of care in
+infancy; by free medical aid to all; by strict legislation for sanitary
+housing, pure food, etc; by the provision of public parks and
+playgrounds.
+
+(3) The possibility of exorbitant profits from industry (profits out
+of proportion to the actual contribution of the individual in skillful
+work, mental or manual) must be abolished, by one of the plans
+discussed in chapter XXVII.
+
+(4) There must be abolition or sharp limitation of unearned incomes
+i.e., incomes for which a return to society in service has not been
+made by the getter. This is the step that is clearest of all
+theoretically, but the worst sticking point in practice. If we could
+persuade men that they should not reap where they have not sown,
+the gravest inequities of our present order would disappear. The
+sources of unearned incomes are, first, the "unearned increment"
+in land values; secondly, the "unearned increment" in the value of
+natural resources; thirdly, all interest on investment; fourthly, all
+wealth inherited or obtained by legacy or gift.
+
+(a) Land in the heart of New York or London sells at fifteen million
+dollars or so an acre. The land value of Manhattan Island alone,
+the central part of New York City, is in the neighborhood of
+$3,500,000,000, and rapidly increasing. A few generations ago it was
+all bought from the Indians for $24. It is estimated that the "unearned
+increment" of land values in Berlin during fifty years has been between
+$500,000,000 and $750,000,000. What is true so strikingly in the case
+of these great cities is true, in lesser degree, of all cities and
+towns and villages that have grown in population. The total increase
+in land values in America since the days of the pioneers equals, of
+course, the present value of its land, since it was acquired by our
+forefathers without payment, or with only a nominal fee to the Indians.
+Almost all of this enormous increase in wealth has gone into the
+pockets of the fortunate individuals who got possession; very little
+into the public treasury. Our cities have remained terribly poor,
+always in debt, obliged to pass by many needed improvements and to
+impose heavy taxes on their citizens. Yet all this wealth (not counting
+improvements made by the possessor upon his land) has been socially
+created. Others have moved into the neighborhood, factories have been
+built near by, roads and railways and sewers and water systems and
+lighting-systems and police protection, and a hundred other things,
+have made the individual's land more and more salable. If our fathers
+had been wise enough to divert a large percentage of this increase
+in value into the public coffers, no one would have been wronged, but
+many private fortunes would today be smaller, and the entire population
+could have been free from taxation from the beginning, with plenty
+of money for all needed public works, including many that we can now
+only dream about.
+
+It is easy to see what could have been done; to determine what should
+now be done is far more difficult. To try to regain for the public
+the unearned increments of past years would be an injustice to those
+who have purchased lands recently, at the increased prices, and even,
+perhaps, to those who have benefited by the increasing values, since
+they have regarded the increase as theirs and adjusted their
+expenditures to this added income. The best that could be done would
+be to take an inventory of all land values now, and provide for a
+recurrent reappraisal; then to take all, or a large percentage, of
+the increased value from now on. It would, indeed, be dangerous to
+attempt to take it all, on account of the extreme difficulty of drawing
+the line between earned and unearned increments; even the most
+painstaking and impartial decisions would be sometimes unjust. But
+to take half or two thirds of what should be deemed "unearned" would
+be practicable. Several modern States now take from ten to fifty per
+cent; and the percentage taken will doubtless increase. The objections
+to such a course are twofold. In the first place, it is pointed out
+that if the unearned increment of value is appropriated by the State,
+the State should recoup landowners for all undeserved decrements of
+value; it is not fair to take away the possibility of gain and leave
+the possibility of loss. So long, however, as our population grows,
+the State could afford to make good the comparatively few cases of
+decreased value and yet get a big income. The other objection is that
+the hope of winning the increased land values has been a great and
+needed incentive to the development of the country, and a legitimate
+compensation for the hardships of pioneering. But while this is true
+of the earlier days, it applies less and less to present conditions,
+and is hardly at all applicable to the profits made in city lands.
+On the whole, there seems little objection to the appropriation by
+the State henceforth of the unearned increments of land value. But
+the days of enormous increments are passing, and land will presently
+reach a comparatively stable value. So that this method of preventing
+inflated fortunes must be counted, on the whole except for new and
+rapidly growing communities a lost opportunity. [Footnote: H. J.
+Davenport, State and Local Taxation, pp. 294-303. F. C. Howe, European
+Cities at Work, pp. 189-207. Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 22,
+p. 83; vol. 25, p. 682; vol. 27, p. 539. Political Science Quarterly,
+vol. 27, p. 586. National Municipal Review, vol. 3, p. 354. F. W.
+Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 44, sec. 5.]
+
+(b) What is true of land is true of the natural resources of the
+country-coal, minerals, oil, gas, waterpower, forests. These were
+seized, with a small payment or none, by the early comers, and sold
+later at a great advance, or worked for an increasing profit by the
+owner. Here, again, if the nation had maintained an inventory of these
+values and appropriated to itself all or a percentage of the increase
+in value (which results from the increasing public need of the
+resources and the limited supply, together with the increase in
+facilities for transportation, etc, rather than from the owner's labor
+or skill), many of our present gross inequalities in wealth would have
+been forestalled, and the community would be far richer in its common
+wealth. Add to the realization of this fact the sight of the reckless
+waste by private owners of such resources as can be wasted, and the
+present conservation movement is fully explained. The best that can
+now be done is to retain under government ownership such natural
+resources as have not yet passed into private hands, and to appropriate
+further increases in value of those that are privately owned. [Footnote:
+C. R. Van Hise, Concentration and Control, pp. 154-66. Outlook, vol.
+85, p. 426; vol. 86, p. 716; vol. 93, p. 770; vol. 95, p. 21.]
+
+(c) Practically all of the upper classes add to the incomes they earn by
+labor of hands or brain an "unearned" income derived from investment;
+i.e., from the willingness of others to pay for the use of their
+accumulated wealth or lands. A considerable class is thus enabled,
+if it chooses, to live without working. A great proportion of this
+wealth that draws interest was never itself earned by the possessors,
+in the stricter sense of the word "earned"; it has come to them by
+inheritance, by the increase of value of land or natural resources,
+or squeezed out of labor and the public by the unregulated profits
+of some autocratically managed industry or franchise. Is it expedient
+to allow this accumulated wealth to bring an income to its possessors?
+There are two possibilities: one goes with government control of private
+industry, the other with industrial socialism.
+
+According to the first plan, income might still be derived from money
+in savings banks, from stocks and bonds, and from the rent of land
+and buildings. But it would cease to be a serious source of inequality.
+For if the unearned increment of land values and natural resources
+were deflected to the State, if none but moderate profits were allowed
+from industry; and if, in addition, the right of inheritance and gift
+were sharply curtailed, there would be, after a generation, no large
+fortunes left or thereafter possible. A man might receive by legacy
+a moderate amount of money, a little land or property; by working
+efficiently and living simply he might add continually to his
+investments and so come to have an income measurably beyond his
+earnings. But he could not get wealth enough for investment to be freed
+in perpetuity from the necessity of earning his living; and
+inequalities of wealth could not become very great; no greater,
+perhaps, than would be consistent with the greatest happiness.
+
+According to the socialistic plan, since all industry would be run
+by the State, on state provided capital, there would be no demand
+for a man's savings except for purely personal uses, no stocks and
+no bonds, no savings banks, except for the safe deposit of money
+and valuables. All interest might then be forbidden; and a man would
+save merely for future use, or to pass on to others, not for the sake of
+drawing a further income from his savings. All rent must then in fairness
+be forbidden also, except such payments as would be a fair return for
+improvements made, buildings constructed, with the cost of repairs,
+insurance, etc. This would result in all land being owned by the users,
+and do away with landlordism. The unearned increment would be so
+widely distributed that it would be needless, for purposes of equalizing
+distribution, to bother with it, though it might still be appropriated
+by the State as a means of increasing its revenue. This scheme would
+make it impossible for any one to live without earning his livelihood,
+except during such periods as his accumulated earnings would tide
+him over. It would, indeed, lessen the incentive to saving; but if it were
+buttressed by the provision of fair salaries for all and by universal
+insurance against illness, accident, old age, and death, there would
+no longer be much need of saving. This social order would be eminently
+just, leaving only such inequalities in wealth as would result from
+the differences in productive efficiency of different men, coupled
+with a moderate right of inheritance. Its practicability, however,
+hinges upon the general practicability of socialism, which must remain
+for the present an open question. [Footnote: F. W. Taussig, Principles
+of Economics, chap. 46; chap. 66, sec. 5; chap. 64, radical change
+as this lies beyond the range of immediate possibilities]
+
+(d) The right of inheritance and gift, which we have had to mention
+as aggravating other sources of inequality, needs, as matters are at
+present, drastic curtailment. The tax must not, indeed, be heavy enough
+to encourage spendthrift living and lessen thrift, or to cut too deeply
+into the capital necessary for carrying on business. But a carefully
+devised tax can escape these dangers; and it is plainly not best for
+society, or for the heirs themselves in most cases, that they should
+have irresponsible use of large sums of money which they have not
+earned in a world where millions are starving, physically, mentally,
+and spiritually, for lack of what money can provide. If, however, the
+plan last outlined is ever carried into effect, there will be no need
+of restricting the right of inheritance; even the alternative plan
+would require little attention to inheritance after present
+inequalities had been approximately leveled, as there would then be
+little opportunity for large accumulations. A sharply graded
+inheritance tax may therefore be looked upon as a now necessary but
+temporary expedient.[Footnote: F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics,
+chap. 54, sec. 5; chap. 67. secs. 5, 6.] We may conclude with the
+consideration of four special problems that are related, in some
+aspect, to the conceptions of equality and privilege.
+
+What are the ethics of:
+
+I. The single tax? The single-tax idea is that all the public revenue
+should be raised by a land tax. The push behind the movement comes
+from the sight of the unearned fortunes that have been made out of
+land. The term is used loosely by some to mean merely the taking or
+taxing by the State, as we have already suggested, of all future unearned
+increments of land value, so far as they can be computed. But, this
+would not now provide enough revenue for most communities, and so would
+not really make possible a single tax. The real single tax would involve
+taking in taxation not only future INCREASES in values, but ALL the
+rental value of land. Even this would not always produce revenue enough,
+as the needs of public revenue bear no relation to the land values
+in a given area. But it would in most places produce considerably more
+than enough revenue. Land taxes in New York City, for example, if
+trebled, would supply all the revenue; they would have to be quintupled
+to absorb the entire rental value of the land the city stands on. The
+simplicity of the scheme appeals to many-especially to those who own
+no land. But it amounts to a confiscation of land values by the State,
+which would be unjust to land-owners, however advantageous to the
+rest of the community. It means charging everybody rent for the land
+he now owns. Present tenants would be no worse off, but present owners
+of the land they use, as well as landlords, would be hard hit. Let
+us consider each in turn.
+
+A considerable proportion of the land is owned by the users, the
+majority of whom are members of the middle class and but moderately
+well to do. Upon them the burden of supporting our increasing public
+undertakings would largely fall. But why? THEY are not getting any
+unearned income. THEY have, in most cases, paid pretty nearly full
+value for their land, even though that land was originally acquired
+for little or nothing. They have put their earnings into land in good
+faith, when they might have put it into industry or enjoyed its use.
+The single tax would work grave injustice to them. It would also be
+practically inexpedient, in drawing the public revenue largely from
+a class that can less afford it, while leaving hardly touched most
+of the bigger fortunes, which consist seldom chiefly of land oldings.
+But even as to that part of the land that is bringing unearned income
+to landlords is it fair to stop that income unless we stop all other
+forms of income on investment? One man has put his fortune into stocks
+or bonds; he draws his five per cent in security with no further trouble
+than clipping coupons; another, having put an equal fortune into land,
+finds his five per cent income entirely confiscated. Not by such class
+legislation can justice be served or equality produced. The landlord
+class deserves no worse than the stockholder class or the investor
+in a savings bank. It is fair, as we suggested above, to put an end
+to ALL incomes from investment, and make every man live on his earnings;
+it is not fair to pick out landlords for exploitation.
+
+II. Free trade and protection?
+
+Free trade is undoubtedly the ultimate industrial ideal; not as a natural
+right, but as a matter of mutual advantage, that everything may be
+manufactured in the most economical place and way. The geographical
+division of labor is as generally advantageous as the assignment of
+highly specialized tasks within a community. Import duties result in
+diverting labor into less economical channels, and hence entail a loss
+to the community as a whole. The prosperity of the United States has
+been in considerable measure the result of its complete internal free
+trade. On this general truth the best economists are pretty universally
+agreed. The argument that a tariff wall is necessary to maintain our
+generally higher standard of wages and living is pure fallacy, as,
+indeed, can be seen in the fact that wages in free-trade England are
+higher than in protectionist Germany. The only legitimate economic
+question is whether special advantages may accrue from protecting certain
+industries under certain peculiar conditions. For example, a new
+industry, in the conduct of which skill has not yet been acquired,
+may need nursing while it is growing strong enough to produce as cheaply
+as foreign competitors. Again, when foreign nations impose a tax upon
+our products, it may be politically expedient to impose a counter-tariff,
+as a means toward reciprocity and eventual free trade. But the
+discussion of such situations involves no ethical principles, and may
+be left to the economists and statesmen.
+
+The considerations that concern the moralist are rather such as these:
+Is it advisable to keep our own people self-sufficing, producing all
+they need to consume? Is it permissible to protect (by a subsidy, which
+is equivalent to an import duty in other matters) our foreign merchant
+marine, so as to have the satisfaction of seeing our flag flying in
+foreign ports and the assurance of plenty of transports, colliers,
+etc, in case of war? Or is it better for humanity that the nations
+should become mutually interdependent, requiring one another's products
+and somewhat at one another's mercy in case of war? There can be no
+doubt that the narrower, "patriotic" view retards the deepest interests
+of humanity, and that free trade is to be sought not only as a means
+toward economic prosperity, but as an avenue toward universal peace.
+
+The other dominant ethical aspect of the situation lies in the fact
+that the tariff plays into the hands of certain monopolies, enables
+them to maintain high prices and make excessive profits, which
+international competition would reduce. As actually used, the American
+tariff is largely an instrument for favoring special classes of
+manufacturers at the general expense, and so is to be condemned.
+
+On the other hand, where manufacturers are enabled by the tariff merely
+to make fair profits, and economic considerations would dictate a
+removal of the duty and the shifting of labor to industries where it
+could be more regard for vested interests should make us pause. To
+ruin an industry in which capitalists have invested their fortunes
+and laborers have acquired skill, although it would be in the end for
+the general good, would work unjust hardship to them; in such cases,
+then, a tariff should be lowered only with great caution, or some
+compensation should be made to the individuals who suffer loss thereby.
+
+III. The control of immigration? Another contemporary question is
+whether discrimination may rightfully be exercised in the admission
+of aliens to residence in our country. Abstract considerations would
+suggest the desirability of equal treatment to all comers. But certain
+practical effects must be considered.
+
+(1) The admission of hordes of ill-educated and ill-disciplined
+immigrants from countries lower in the scale of progress than our own
+is a serious menace to the ideals and standards of living that we have
+at great cost evolved. Our own morals and manners are not firmly enough
+fixed to be sure of withstanding the downward pull of more primitive
+conceptions and habits. Their willingness to work for small wages
+lowers the remuneration of Americans; their contentment with wretched
+living conditions blocks our attempts to raise the general standard
+of life. Many of them are unappreciative of American ideals, easily
+misled by corrupt politicians, and thus a deadweight against political
+and social advance. We may, perhaps, disregard the poverty of the
+immigrant, if he is in good health and able to work; we may even
+disregard his lack of education, if he is mentally sound and reasonably
+intelligent. But if some practicable method could be devised to lessen
+radically the incoming stream of those who are low in their standards
+of living, we should be spared the social indigestion from which we
+now suffer. One feasible suggestion is to limit the number of immigrants
+annually admitted from each country to a certain small percentage of
+the number of natives of that country already resident here. In that
+way the total number could be restricted without offense to any nation,
+and those peoples most easily assimilated would be admitted in greatest
+proportions. In addition, naturalization should be permitted only after
+a number of years, during which the immigrant would be in danger of
+deportation for proved criminality, vicious indulgence, intemperance,
+shiftlessness, troublesome agitation, and other undesirable traits.
+
+(2) The admission of peoples of very alien race to residence side by
+side with our own inevitably gives rise to friction and unpleasantness.
+However irrational it may be, there are instinctive antipathies and
+distrusts between the different racial stocks. The importation of the
+Negroes brought us a terrible racial problem, one for which there seems
+no satisfactory solution. White men as a class dislike living side
+by side with them, and fiercely resent intermarriage, which might
+ultimately merge the races, as it seems to be doing in South America.
+A general feeling of brotherhood and social democracy is greatly retarded
+by this racial chasm.[Footnote: Cf. J. M. Mecklin, Democracy and Race
+Friction.] It is earnestly to be hoped that Chinese, Japanese, Hindus,
+and other non-European races may not be admitted to residence here
+in any great degree; similar antipathies and resentments would be added
+to our existing discords. It is not that these races are inferior to
+our own, they are simply different; and however superficial the
+differences, they are just the sort of differences that cause social
+friction. Precisely the same argument would apply to the exodus of
+Americans and Europeans to Asiatic countries. A certain amount of
+intermingling of students, travelers, missionaries, traders, is highly
+beneficial, in the exchange of ideas and manners it stimulates; that
+the main racial stocks should remain apart, on their several
+continents, in that mutual respect and brotherhood that the superficial
+repugnancies of too close contact tend to destroy. The plan suggested
+at the close of the preceding paragraph would sufficiently avert these
+undesirable racial migrations.
+
+IV. The woman-movement? The demand of women for a larger life and a
+recognition from men of their full equality has found expression
+recently, not only in the hysterical and criminal acts of British
+suffragettes, but in many soberer revolts against the traditional
+assignment of duties and privileges. We may agree at once in deploring
+the exclusion of women from any rights and opportunities which are
+not inconsistent with a wise division of labor, and that patronizing
+air of superiority shown toward them by so many men-a condescension
+not incompatible with tenderness and chivalry. Theirs has been the
+repressed and petted sex. Yet there are no adequate grounds for
+supposing that men are, on an average, really abler or saner or more
+reasonable naturally than women; that they are, indeed, in any
+essential sense different, except for the results of their different
+education and life, and such divergences as the differentiation of
+sex itself involves including an average greater physical
+strength.[Footnote: But cf. Munsterberg, Psychology and Social Sanity,
+p. 195] Men and women are naturally equals; with equally good
+training they can contribute almost equally to the world's work; they
+have an equal right to education, a useful vocation, and the free
+pursuit of happiness. But equal rights do not necessarily imply
+identical duties; there is a certain division of labor laid down by
+nature. Women alone can bear children, mothers alone can properly rear
+them; no incubators and institutions can supply this fundamental need.
+If women, in their eagerness to compete with men in other occupations,
+neglect in any great numbers this most difficult and honorable of all
+vocations, there will be a dangerous decline in the numbers and the
+nurture of coming generations. Moreover, if homes are not to be
+supplanted by boarding houses and hotels, the great majority of women
+must stay at home and do the work which makes a home possible. Home
+making and child rearing are the duties that always have been and
+always will be the lot of most women; and they are duties too exacting
+to permit of being conjoined with any other vocation.
+
+On the other hand, the woman who has servants and rears no children
+should be pushed by public opinion into some outside occupation; women
+have no more right to idle than men. All unmarried women, when past
+the years that may properly be devoted to education, should certainly
+enter upon some useful vocation; and there is no reason why (with a
+few obvious exceptions) any occupation save the more physically arduous
+should be closed to such. Every girl should be prepared for some
+remunerative work, in case she does not marry or her husband dies
+leaving her childless. Such economic independence would, further, have
+the inestimable value that she would be under no pressure to marry
+in order to be supported and have an honorable place in the world;
+if she is trained to earn her living she will be free to marry only
+for love. If she does marry, and gives up her prior vocation to be
+housekeeper and child-rearer, she should be legally entitled to half
+her husband's earnings. The grave difficulty is that a woman needs
+to prepare herself both for her probable duties as housekeeper and
+mother, and also for her possible need of earning a living otherwise.
+Education in the former duties, that must fall to the great majority
+of women, cannot safely be neglected, as it is so largely today; the
+only general solution will be for unmarried women to adopt, as a class,
+the vocations for which less careful preparation is necessary.
+
+The question of the ballot is not practically of great importance,
+first, because equal suffrage is coming very fast, whatever we may
+say, and, secondly, because it will make no great difference when it
+comes. There is no natural right in the matter; the decision in political
+affairs might well be left to half the population-when that half cuts
+so completely through all classes and sections-if the saving in
+expense or trouble seemed to make it expedient. The interests of
+women are identical with those of men. Women are, in most parts
+of this country, as well off before the law as men; they do not need
+the ballot to remedy any unjust discriminations. Moreover, the ballot
+will mean the necessity of sharing the burden of political responsibility.
+The women who look upon the right to vote as a plum to be grasped
+for, a something which they want because men have it, with no
+conception of the training necessary to exercise that right responsibly,
+are not fit to be trusted with it. It often seems that it were better to
+restrict our present trustful and generous right of suffrage to those
+who can show evidence of intelligence and responsibility, rather
+than to double the number of shallow and untrained voters.
+
+But, on the other hand, there is reason to suppose that women,
+through their greater interest in certain goods, will materially accelerate
+some reforms-as, the sanitation of cities, the improvement of
+education, child-welfare legislation, the warfare against alcohol and
+prostitution. The actual results already attained where women vote
+are, on the whole, important enough to warrant the extension of the
+right, as a matter of social expediency. Moreover, the very increase
+in the number of voters makes the securing of power through bribery
+more difficult; and the entrance of women into politics will probably
+hasten their purification in many places. At any rate, the necessity
+of voting will tend to develop a larger interest among women in public
+affairs, to fit them better for the education of their children, and
+to do away with the lingering sense of the inferiority of women. Certain
+it is, finally, that an increasing number of women want the vote, and
+will not rest till they get it.
+
+General: F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 54. W. E. Weyl,
+The New Democracy, book I. Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, chap.
+XIII. C. B. Spahr, The Present Distribution of Wealth in the United
+States. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. XXV, secs. 6, 7. Atlantic
+Monthly, vol. 112, pp. 480, 679. The single tax: Henry George, Progress
+and Poverty; Social Problems. R. C. Fillebrown, The A.B.C. of Taxation.
+Outlook, vol. 94, p. 311. Shearman, Natural Taxation. Atlantic Monthly,
+vol. 112, p. 737; vol. 113, pp. 27, 545. H. R. Seager, Introduction
+to Economics, chap, XXVI, secs. 283-88. F. W. Taussig, op. cit, chap.
+42, sec. 7. Arena, vol. 34, p. 500; vol. 35, p. 366. New World, vol.
+7, p. 87. Free trade: North American Review, vol. 189, p. 194. Quarterly
+Review, vol. 202, p. 250. H. Fawcett, Free Trade and Protection. W.
+J. Ashley, The Tariff Problem. H. R. Seager, op. cit, chap. XX, secs.
+211-17. F. W. Taussig, op. cit, chaps. 36, 37. Immigration: Jenks
+and Lauck, The Immigration Problem. H. P. Fairchild, Immigration. Adams
+and Sumner, Labor Problems, chap. III. F. J. Warne, The Immigrant
+Invasion. A. Shaw, Political Problems, pp. 62-86. North American Review,
+vol. 199, p. 866. Nineteenth Century, vol. 57, p. 294. Educational
+Review, vol. 29, p. 245. Forum, vol. 42, p. 552. Charities, vol. 12,
+p. 129. Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 16, pp. 1, 141. The
+woman question: J. S. Mill, The Subjection of Women. C. P. Gilman,
+Women and Economics. O. Schreiner, Woman and Labor. K. Schirmacher,
+The Modern Woman's Rights Movement. Jane Addams, Newer Ideals of Peace,
+chap. VII. F. Kelley, Some Ethical Gains through Legislation, chap.
+V. Outlook, vol. 82, p. 167; vol. 91, pp. 780, 784, 836; vol. 95, p.
+117; vol. 101, pp. 754, 767. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 112, pp. 48, 191,
+721. Century, vol. 87, pp. 1, 663. National Municipal Review, vol.
+1, p. 620.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+THE FUTURE OF THE RACE
+
+In proportion as fair means are found and utilized for remedying the
+gross inequalities in the present distribution of wealth, and big
+fortunes disappear, it will become necessary for the State to undertake
+more and more generally the functions that have, during the last few
+generations, been largely dependent upon private philanthropy. This
+will be an advantage not merely in putting this welfare work upon a
+securer basis, but in enlisting the loyalty of the masses to the
+Government. Much of the energy and devotion which are now given to
+the labor-unions, because in them alone the workers see hope of help,
+might be given to the State if it should take upon itself more adequately
+to minister to the people's needs. The rich can get health and beauty
+for themselves; but the poor are largely dependent upon public provision
+for a wholesome and cheerful existence. Laissez-faire individualism
+has provided them with saloons; in the new age the State must provide
+them with something better than saloons. "Flowers and sunshine for
+all," in Richard Jefferies' wistful phrase-the State should make
+a determined and thoroughgoing effort, not merely to repress, to punish,
+to palliate conditions, but in every positive way that expert thought
+can devise and the people will vote to support, to add to the worth
+of human life. We may consider these paternal functions of government
+under three heads: the improvement of human environment, to make it
+more beautiful and convenient; the development, through educational
+agencies, of the mental and moral life of the people; and the
+improvement, by various means, of the human stock itself.
+
+In what ways should the State seek to better human environment?
+
+(1) Municipal governments should supervise town and village planning.
+The riotous individualism of our American people has resulted in the
+haphazard growth of countless dreary towns and an architectural anarchy
+that resembles nothing more than an orchestra playing with every
+instrument tuned to a different key. The stamp of public control is
+to be seen, if at all, in an inconvenient and monotonous chessboard
+plan for streets. Congestion of traffic at the busy points; wide
+stretches of empty pavement on streets little used; houses of every
+style and no style, imbued with all the colors of the spectrum;
+weed-grown vacant lots, unkempt yards, some fenced, some unfenced;
+poster-bedecked billboards-verily, the average American town is not
+a thing of beauty. Matthew Arnold's judgment is corroborated by every
+traveler. "Evidently," he wrote, "this is that civilization's weak
+side. There is little to nourish and delight the sense of beauty there."
+A certain crudeness is inevitable in a new country, and will be outgrown;
+age is a great artist. Man usually mars with his first strokes; and
+it is only when he has met his practical needs that he will dally with
+aesthetic considerations. Many of our older cities and villages have
+partly outgrown the awkward age, become dignified in the shade of
+spreading trees, and fallen somehow into a kind of unity; a few of
+them, especially near the Atlantic seaboard, where the stupid
+rectangularity of the towns farther west was never imposed, are among
+the loveliest in the world. But in general, in spite of many costly,
+and some really beautiful, buildings, and acknowledging the individual
+charm of many of the wide piazzaed shingled houses of the well-to-do,
+and the general effect of spaciousness, our towns and villages are
+shockingly, depressingly ugly. Money enough has been spent to create
+a beautiful effect; the failure lies in that unrestrained individualism
+that permits each owner to build any sort of a structure, and to color
+it any hue, that appeals to his fancy, without regard to its effect
+upon neighboring buildings or upon the eyes of passers-by. All sorts
+of architectural atrocities are committed-curious false fronts, fancy
+shingles, scroll-work balustrades, and the like;-in the town where
+these words are written, a builder of a number of houses has satisfied
+a whim to give eyebrows to his windows, in the shape of flat arches
+of alternate red and white bricks, with an extraordinarily grotesque
+and discomforting effect. But even where the buildings are good
+separately, the general effect is, unless by coincidence, a sad chaos.
+
+In the more progressive countries of Europe matters are not left thus
+to the caprice of individuals; in some German towns, and the so-called
+garden cities of England, we have excellent examples of scientific
+town planning, conducing to homogeneity, convenience, and beauty. The
+awakening social sense in this country will surely lead soon to a
+general conviction of the duty of an oversight of street planning and
+building in the interests of the community as a whole. There is no
+reason why our towns should not be sensibly laid out, according to
+a prearranged and rational plan; they might have individuality,
+picturesqueness, charm; be full of interesting separate notes, yet
+harmonious in design, making a single composition, like a great mosaic.
+Such an environment would have its subconscious effects upon the morals
+of the people, would awaken a new sense of community loyalty, and drive
+home the lesson of the necessity and beauty of the cooperative spirit.
+
+Among the features of this town planning are these:
+
+Streets must be laid out in conformity with the topography of the
+neighborhood and the direction of traffic. Gentle curves, or frequent
+circles, as in Washington, must break the monotony of straight lines;
+the natural features of the landscape, hills, bluffs, a river, must
+be utilized to give character to the town. The height of buildings
+must be regulated in relation to the width of the streets, and the
+percentage of ground space that may be built upon determined.
+All designs for buildings must be approved by the community architects
+with consideration of their harmony with neighboring buildings. A public
+landscape architect should have supervision over and give expert advice
+for the planting of trees and shrubbery and the beautifying of yards
+back as well as front. Factories and shops should be confined to
+certain designated portions of a town (and the smoke nuisance strictly
+controlled); disfiguring billboards and overhead wires done away with;
+parks laid out and kept intact from intrusion of streets or buildings.
+Fortunately, the majority of our American houses, built of wood, are
+temporary in character; and most city buildings at present have a life
+of but a generation or two. In this evanescence of our contemporary
+architecture lies the hope for an eventual regeneration of American
+towns. In the city and village of the future, life will be so bosomed
+in beauty that there will be less need of artificial beauty-seeking
+and gaslight pleasures. A healthy local pride will be fostered and
+community life come into its own again.
+
+(2) Municipalities should provide facilities for wholesome recreation
+out of doors. Children, in particular, ought not to be obliged, for
+lack of other space, to play upon city streets, where they impede
+traffic and run serious risks. [Footnote: On New York City streets
+two hundred and thirty-one children were killed in twenty-one months,
+according to recent figures.] Schoolyards should be larger than they
+generally are, and bedtime; in the big cities the roofs should be
+utilized also. Every neighborhood should have its ample playgrounds.
+For want of such provision children of the poor grow up pale and
+pinched, without the normalizing and educative influence of healthy
+play, and with no proper outlet for their energies, so that crime and
+vice flourish prematurely. With proper foresight open spaces can be
+retained as a city grows, without great expense; the economic gain,
+in a reduced death-rate, reduced cost for doctors and nurses, police,
+courts, and prisons, and increased efficiency of the next generation
+of workers, will easily balance the outlay, without weighing the gain
+in happiness and morality.[Footnote: See on this point, the literature
+of the Division of Recreation of the Russell Sage Foundation, and of
+the Playground and Recreation Association of America (1 Madison Avenue,
+New York City). Jane Addams, The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets.
+C. Zueblin, American Municipal Progress, chap IX. J. Lee, Constructive
+and Preventive Philanthropy, chaps. VIII-XII. Outlook, vol. 87, p.
+775; vol. 95, p. 511; vol. 96, p. 443.] But, indeed, adults stand also
+in need of outdoor life. Grounds for ball games, bowls, and all sorts
+of sports should be generously provided if human life is not to lose
+one of its pleasantest and most useful aspects. For evenings there
+should be attractive social meeting-places, neighborhood clubs,
+supervised dance halls, and the like, such as the social settlements
+now to a slight extent provide, with notably beneficial results. As
+the poorer classes come more and more into their inheritance of the
+fruits of industry, these desiderata may perhaps be again left to private
+initiative; but at present there is a large class too pressed by
+poverty to get for itself these necessities of a normal life; and the
+need of the people makes the duty of the State.[Footnote: Cf. C. R.
+Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, chap. XIV.]
+
+(3) The States and the Nation must be careful to conserve the natural
+resources of the country from waste, and advantage of the people. The
+forests, still so recklessly felled, must be guarded, not only for
+the sake of the future timber supply, but to prevent floods, ensure
+a proper supply of water in times of drought, and preserve the soil
+from being washed away. The scientific practice of forestry, the
+maintenance of an efficient fire patrol, and the reforestation of denuded
+areas that can best be utilized for the growth of timber, must be
+undertaken or supervised by government experts. The very limited supplies
+of coal, oil, and natural gas must be protected from waste. Arid lands
+must be brought into use where irrigation is possible, swamp lands
+drained, waterways and harbors improved to their full
+usefulness.[Footnote: On national conservation, see C. R. Van Hise,
+The Conservation of Natural Resources. Outlook, vol. 93, p. 770. Atlantic
+Monthly, vol. 101, p. 694. Review of Reviews, vol. 37, p. 585.
+Chautauquan, vol. 55, pp. 21, 33, 112.] National and state highways
+must be built as object-lessons to the towns and counties that still
+leave their roads a stretch of mud or sand.[Footnote: It is estimated
+that ninety per cent of the public roads in the United States are still
+unimproved; that the average cost of hauling produce is twenty-five
+cents a mile-ton, as against twelve cents in France; that $300,000,000
+a year would be saved in hauling expenses if our roads were as good
+as those of western Europe.] All of these material improvements have
+their civilizing influence, their moral significance; as Edmond Kelly
+put it, "By constructing our environment with intelligence we can
+determine the direction of our own development." So it is of no small
+consequence what sort of homes and cities we live in. During the next
+generation or so, while the State is slowly bestirring itself to
+undertake these duties, there will be great need of civic and village
+improvement associations, women's clubs, merchants' associations, etc,
+to arouse public interest, demonstrate possibilities, and stir up
+municipal holidays, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Arbor Day,
+Thanksgiving Day, etc, should be used to stimulate civic pride in
+these matters; pulpit and press should be brought into line. It will
+be a slow and discouraging, but necessary, task to awaken the people
+to a realization of the potentialities for a better civilization that
+lie in the utilization of government powers. What should be done in
+the way of public education? The principle of state support of education
+has, happily, been pretty fully accepted  in this country, although
+in the East the universities still have to depend upon private
+benefactions. The public-school system  is excellent in plant and
+principle; the next step is to work out a rational curriculum. The
+average high-school graduate today has learned little of what he most
+needs to know how to earn his living, how to spend his money wisely,
+how to live. The average girl knows little of housekeeping, less of
+the duties of motherhood.[Footnote: Cf. H. Spencer, Education, chap.
+I: "Is it not an astonishing fact that though on the treatment of
+offspring depend their lives or deaths, and their moral value or ruin,
+yet not one word of instruction on the treatment of offspring is ever
+given to those who will hereafter be parents? Is it not monstrous that
+the fate of a new generation should be left to the chances of unreasoning
+custom, impulse, fancy . . . ?" The whole chapter is worth reading;
+the neglect of which Spencer complained still persists.] The dangers
+of sex indulgence-the greatest of all perils to youth, the poisonous
+effects of alcohol, the necessities of bodily hygiene, are seldom
+effectively taught. Moral and religious education is, owing to our
+sectarianism, almost absolutely neglected. The evils of political
+corruption and unscrupulousness in business, the social problems that
+so insistently beset us, are little discussed in school. Yet here is
+an enormous opportunity for the awakening of moral idealism and the
+social spirit. Boys and girls in their teens can be brought to an eager
+interest in moral and social problems; class after class could be sent
+out fired with enthusiasm to remedy wrongs and push for a higher
+civilization. The failure to awaken more of this dormant good will
+and energy, and to direct it for the elevation of community standards
+and the solution of community problems, is a grave indictment against
+our complacent "stand-pat" educational system. Religious instruction
+will be a delicate matter for the indefinite future; but inspirational
+talks on non-controversial themes should find place, and perhaps a
+presentation of different religious views in rotation by representatives
+of different communions. In some way, at least, recognition should
+be made of the important role played by religion in life. Besides the
+school system, other means of public education must be extended. The
+libraries and art museums must reach a wider public. The docent-work
+in the museums is a recent undertaking of considerable importance.
+Free public lectures, free mothers' schools, city kindergartens,
+municipal concerts, university extension courses-such enterprises will
+doubtless become universal. The work of the National Government in
+spreading knowledge of scientific methods of agriculture and of
+practicable methods of improving country life- information about the
+installation of plumbing systems, water supply, sewage systems, electric
+lights, etc.- is of wide educational value. In 1911 the average schooling
+of Americans was five years apiece. Such inadequate preparation for
+life is a disgrace to our prosperous age. Education should be universally
+compulsory until the late teens at least; it should be regarded not
+as a luxury, like kid gloves and caviar, but as the normal development
+of a human being and the common heritage. It ought not to be the
+exclusive privilege of "gentlemen"- of certain select, upper- class
+individuals; as economic conditions are straightened out, universal
+education will become practically feasible. It is not only as a matter
+of justice, but in the interests of public welfare, that education
+should be given to all. It will actually pay in dollars and cents,
+in increased efficiency, more intelligent voting, decreased crime,
+decreased commercial prostitution, and crazy propaganda of all sorts.
+The city of Boston was right in inscribing on its public library the
+motto: "The commonwealth requires the education of the people as the
+safeguard of order and liberty." What can be done by eugenics?
+Environment and education are of enormous importance in determining
+what the mature individual shall be. But the result is strictly limited
+by the material they have to work upon; the individual who is handicapped
+by heredity cannot expect to catch up with him who starts the race
+of life better equipped, if both have equally favorable influences
+and opportunities. These influences can effect little permanent
+improvement in the human stock; that can only be radically bettered
+by seeing to it that individuals of superior stock have children and
+those of inferior stock do not. We have "harnessed heredity" to produce
+better types of wheat and roses and cattle and horses and dogs; why
+not produce better types of men? The study of these possibilities
+constitutes the new science of eugenics, which its founder, Francis
+Galton, defined as the study of "those agencies which humanity through
+social control may use for the improvement or the impairment of the
+racial qualities of future generations." Dr. Kellogg defines it as
+"taking advantage of the facts of heredity to make the human race
+better." "Good breeding of the human species." We may first ask what
+duties the disclosures of this new science lay upon the individual.
+
+(1) The constitutional health of children is partly deter parents at
+the time of conception and birth. Most deaths of newborn infants are
+due to prenatal influences. Overstrain, malnutrition, alcoholism, and
+all physical excesses tend to cause physical degeneracy in the
+offspring. It is obviously the duty of prospective parents- and that
+means practically all healthy young people-to keep themselves well
+and strong, so as to give a good endowment of health to their children.
+
+(2) Feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, some forms of insanity, and some
+venereal diseases are inheritable defects; those who suffer from them
+must refrain from having children. Studies of the "Jukes" family and
+the "Kallikak" family, and others, show convincingly the spread of
+these defects where defectives marry. To bring children into the world
+to bear such burdens-and to cost the State, as they are almost sure
+to, for their support [Footnote: The descendants of the original
+degenerate couple of "Jukes" cost New York State in seventy-five years
+$1,300,000. See R. L. Dugdale, The Jukes. H. H. Goddard, The Kallikak
+Family]-ought to be regarded as a grave sin.
+
+(3) Little positive advice can yet be given as to those who are BEST
+fitted to have children, except in the matter of health and freedom
+from inheritable defects. According to Professor Boaz,[Footnote: F.
+Boaz, The Mind of Primitive Man.] one racial stock is about as good
+as another; so whatever selection is to be made may be between individual
+strains. But to breed the human stock for beauty, energy, mental
+ability, immunity to disease, sanity, or what not, is a task far beyond
+our present knowledge. Personal value and reproductive value are not
+closely correlative; and the factors that determine a good inheritance
+are highly complex. So that the choice of wife and husband may be left
+to those instinctive affinities and preferences which will in any case
+continue to be the deciding causes for the strong and educated and
+well-to-do to beget and rear children; the tendency to "race-suicide"
+among the upper classes is a matter for serious alarm. That portion
+of the population that is least able to give proper nurture to children,
+and to train them up to American ideals, is producing them in
+overwhelmingly greatest numbers. The older stocks in this country are
+dying out and being replaced by the large families of the east and
+south European immigrants. In England also, we are told, one sixth
+of the population, and this the least desirable sixth, is producing
+half of the coming generation. In 1790 the American family averaged
+5.8 persons; in 1900 the average was 4.6. Among native Americans
+the average is lower still. College graduates are failing to reproduce
+their own numbers. Everywhere the Western peoples are breeding more
+and more slowly, while the Orientals, Negroes, and, in general, the
+less civilized peoples, are multiplying rapidly. Unless the upper classes
+in western Europe and America cease their selfish refusal to rear
+citizens, the earth will be inherited by the more backward peoples.
+This means, plainly, a perpetual clog upon progress. We may now ask
+what the State should demand in the interests of race- improvement.
+
+(1) Health certificates may be required from both parties at marriage
+i.e., marriage may be prohibited without a guarantee from a licensed
+physician of freedom from communicable or inheritable disease, or
+inheritable defects. This seems the minimum of protection due the
+contracting parties themselves, as well as due the next generation.
+
+(2) Marriage restrictions are easily evaded, however; unscrupulous
+physicians can usually be found to sign certificates. And where
+marriage is prohibited, illegitimacy is sure to flourish. Hence the
+segregation (with proper care) of those obviously unfit to become
+parents seems necessary. Great as would be the initial expense, the
+rapid reduction in the number of idiots, epileptics, etc, would in
+a generation or two counterbalance it and greatly diminish the problem.
+It is estimated that there are some three hundred thousand feeble-
+minded persons in the United States, only twenty thousand of whom are
+segregated in institutions, the rest being free to propagate-which
+they do with notorious rapidity. Most of them can be made
+self-supporting; and real as the hardship to some of them may be in
+confining them from sex relations, the sacrifice seems demanded by
+the welfare of coming generations.
+
+(3) An alternative to segregation (for inheritable, but not for
+communicable, diseases) is sterilization. The operation when performed
+on adults seems to have no effects upon character or the enjoyment
+of life, not even interfering with ordinary sex gratification. It is
+not painful, and perfectly harmless, to man; for women there is a risk,
+which is said, however, to be slight.[Footnote: Cf. Dr. E. C. Jones,
+in Woman's Medical Journal, December, 1912.] Sterilization permits
+the unfit to be entirely at liberty, to marry, if they can find mates,
+and to have all the pleasures of life except that of parenthood. A
+number of the American States have passed laws permitting the compulsory
+sterilization of certain very restricted classes of people undesirable
+as parents, at the discretion of the proper authorities; and this
+seems, on the whole, at least in the case of men, the best solution.
+
+(4) Of an entirely different nature is the movement to secure state
+support for mothers; a movement, however, which is also eugenic in
+its intent. At present those parents who are zealous to maintain a
+high standard of living, those with talents which they are ambitious
+to develop, and those who realize keenly the care and expense that
+children need, are deterred from having many, or any; while the
+shiftless and happy-go-lucky propagate without scruple. There is, for
+all except the rich, a premium on childlessness, which the natural
+desire for parenthood cannot wholly discount. But this ought not to
+be so. Childbearing and rearing is a very necessary and arduous vocation,
+in which all the best women should be enlisted. In a socialistic regime
+the State would as a matter of course pay for this work as well as
+for all other productive work. But state endowment of motherhood, the
+payment of "maternity benefits," may be practiced apart from industrial
+socialism. It may be objected that the removal of economic pressure
+would bring an undue increase in population and the evils that Malthus
+feared. But the tendency of advancing civilization seems to be so
+strikingly toward a declining birth-rate-a phenomenon unrecognized
+in this country because of the tide of immigration, but apparent in
+western Europe-that the net outcome may be attained of a stationary
+population. Moreover, the scheme in question would not only tend to
+increase the number of children born to the prudent among the middle
+classes, it would enable mothers and prospective mothers to save
+themselves from that overwork which enfeebles so many children today;
+it would insure them the means to care properly for the children. State
+inspectors would visit homes and examine the children of state
+supported mothers; the amount granted might vary in proportion to the
+care apparently given to the children, their cleanliness, health,
+progress in education, the clothing, food, air, and space provided
+for them; if the nurture of a child was judged too inadequate, it might,
+after warning, be removed to an institution and the parents
+punished.[Footnote: See, besides the books referred to later, H. G.
+Wells, "The Endowment of Motherhood" (in Social Forces in England
+and America); or, New Worlds for Old, chap. III. F. W. Taussig, Principles
+of Economics, chap. 65, sec. 1. Survey, vols. 29 and 30, many
+articles.] recruiting of coming generations from the diseased and
+feeble-minded, to prevent the handicapping of poor children through
+the overwork and poverty of their parents, and gradually to raise the
+level of inherited human nature. When coupled with improved environment
+and with universal and rational education, it will surely mean the
+existence of a happier race of men-which should be the ultimate goal
+of all human endeavor. What are the gravest moral dangers of our times?
+In conclusion, we may venture a judgment as to which, out of the many
+evils we have noted in contemporary life, are most serious, and where
+our moral energies should most earnestly be directed.
+
+The most prominent of prevalent vices are certainly sex incontinence
+and the use of alcohol; the lure of wine and the lure of women have
+from time immemorial been man's undoing. Alcohol is being vigorously
+fought, and is probably doomed to general prohibition, together with
+opium and morphine and the other narcotics. The sex dangers are not
+to be so easily overcome, and we are probably in for an increase of
+license and its inevitable evils. There will be need for every
+farsighted and earnest man and woman to stand firm, in spite of
+enticing promises of liberty, for the great ideal of faithful marriage
+that makes in the end for man's deepest happiness.
+
+The most prominent sins of today are, selfish moneymaking, selfish
+money spending, selfish idleness; the chief sinners we may label
+pirates, prodigals, parasites. By pirates are meant the dishonest
+dealers, the grafters, the vice caterers, the unscrupulous competitors,
+the pilers-up of exorbitant profits at the expense of employees and
+public; by prodigals, the spendthrift rich, the wasters of wealth,
+those who lavish in luxury or ostentation money that is sorely needed
+by others; by parasites, the idle rich, the lazy poor, the tramps,
+all who take, but do not give a return of honest work. There are also
+the jingoes, the preachers of lawlessness, the demagogues, and many
+less common types of sinners. But the particularly flagrant wrongs
+of our day have to do with the getting and spending of money; and the
+peril of the near future which looms now most menacingly on the horizon
+is the irritation of the wronged classes to the point of civil warfare
+and revolution. Such a calamity might, of course, be ultimately a means
+of great social advance; but it is a highly dangerous and uncertain
+method, involving great moral damage as well as great individual
+suffering, and to be averted by every possible means. The hope for
+averting it lies not only in the growth of public condemnation of
+lawlessness, but in the substitution of an ideal of service for the
+ideal of personal gain, and in the growing willingness of the community
+to check by progressive legislative measures the various means which
+resourceful men have discovered for advantaging themselves at the
+expense of society. Necessary initial steps are the securing of
+international peace and the construction of an efficient political
+system. When these ends have been attained and a just industrial order
+evolved, the citizens of the future will take pride in using the powers
+of the State to bring the greatest possible health and happiness to
+all.
+
+Our forefathers had great wrongs to right-political tyranny to
+overthrow, human slavery to eradicate, civil and religious liberty
+to win, a system of popular education to inaugurate, and with it all
+the wilderness to tame and a new land to develop. For these ends
+they sacrificed much. It is for us to attack with equal courage the
+evils of the present. Life has outwardly become easy for many of us;
+our spiritual muscle easily becomes flabby. But there are new tasks
+equally importunate, equally worthy of our loyalty and sacrifice,
+hard enough to stir our blood. The times call for new idealism, new
+courage, new effort; the purpose of this book will not be attained
+unless the reader carries away from its perusal some new realization
+of the moral dangers that confront our civilization, and some new
+determination to have a hand in meeting them.
+
+Environment: J. Nolen, Replanning Small Cities. T. C. Horsfelt, The
+Improvement of the Dwellings and Surroundings of the People. E.
+Howard, Garden Cities of To-Morrow. The City Beautiful (magazine).
+Literature of the National League of Improvement Associations, the
+American Civic Association (914 Union Trust Building, Washington,
+D.C.), the City Club of New York, Metropolitan Improvement League of
+Boston, etc. The Civic Federation of Chicago, What it has
+Accomplished (Hollister, Chicago, 1899). Atlantic Monthly, vol. 113,
+p. 823. World's Work, vol. 15, p. 10022. Outlook, vol. 92, p. 373;
+vol. 97, p. 393; vol. 103, p. 203. National Municipal Review, vol.
+1, p. 236.
+
+Education: H. Home, Idealism in Education. G. Spiller, Moral
+Education in Eighteen Countries. International Journal of Ethics,
+vol. 20, p. 454; vol. 22, pp. 146, 335. I. King, Social Aspects of
+Education. E. Boutroux, Education and Ethics. Proceedings of the
+National Education Association, Religious Education Association,
+International Moral Education Congresses. C. R. Henderson, The
+Social Spirit in America, chap, xn, xm. S. Nearing, Social
+Adjustment, chaps, in, xv. World's Work, vol. 15, p. 10105. Outlook,
+vol. 85, pp. 664, 943; vol. 89, p. 789; vol. 94, p. 701.
+
+Eugenics: C. B. Davenport, Eugenics; Heredity in Relation to
+Eugenics. W. D. McKim, Heredity and Human Progress. E. Schuster,
+Eugenics. C. W. Saleeby, Parenthood and Race Culture. H. G. Wells,
+Mankind in the Making, chap. in. New Tracts for the Times (various
+authors, Moffat, Yard Co.). Reports of International Eugenic
+Congresses. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 110, p. 801. Forum, vol. 51, p.
+542. Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 26, p. 1.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Problems of Conduct, by Durant Drake
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