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FREEDOM AND CHRISTIAN
CONDUCT—AN ETHIC
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK - BOSTON - CHICAGO - DALLAS
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 FREEDOM AND
CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
AN ETHIC

BY

of my
/¢6> 173)
JOHN AoW HAAS,
President of Muhlenberg College

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1923
All rights reserved
 CoPpYRIGHT, 1923.
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and printed. Published January, 1923.

Press of
Hamilton Printing Company
Albany, N. Y., U. S. A.
 NNN ES VERUOAYE PUN CRIO! LIDRARKY

Oe
/26/
H//a— PREFACE
After eighteen years of teaching Senior
classes in college ethics, experience and experi-
ment has led to the results formulated in ‘‘The
Problem of Freedom.’’ The purpose is to fur-
nish a comprehensive ethics for students in a
church college, which shall have in view the
whole ethical development, both ancient and
modern, and state it in a systematic philosoph-
ical form. There is an inclusion of the
ethies of Christianity and its correlation with
general ethical questions. No sane reason
exists why the ethics of Christianity should be
neglected in any fair, modern treatment. Its
exclusion is simply due to an unjustified prej-
udice of certain philosophical attitudes. The
point of view which is maintained is that of
freedom as the great ethical question. Its
solution is suggested through personality,
which is expanded beyond its current meaning.
The aim of a course of ethics should not only
be an acquaintance with the academic ethical
problems, but also an awakening, a develop-
ment and a strengthening of the moral sense in
young men and young women. All great ques-
tions ought finally to receive a moral adjudg-
ment. For this reason the practical relation-
ships of moral life have been treated under
the third main part, ‘‘The Functioning of
Freedom.’’ These practical applications of
ethical truth have been found very helpful to
the student, because they lead him to con-
scious deliberation of moral questions on a
reasonable basis, and stimulate him to form a

Sf ff
L PM (-
v1 PREFACE
philosophy of life that does not omit the ethical
issues.
Most paragraphs open with questions. These
are intended to prepare the mind for the criti-
eal attitude of the discussion of a problem.
The presentation is argumentative, and should
be used as the basis of discussion in the class.
The manner in which classes have raised
objections and asked questions has been a great
aid in the solutions suggested. The main pur- |
pose of this book has also received criticism and
approval from friends whose judgment is worth
while. The gratitude of the author is expressed
to all who have aided him, and especially to Mr.
Horace Mann, who has prepared the index.
The literature given in the references at the
end of each chapter is simply representative.
The effort is made to lead the student to new
views differing altogether from the position
taken in this book, as well as those that are in
agreement. In addition to the lists furnished
and books quoted there is much valuable mater-
ial in The International Journal of Ethics, and
in Hasting’s Cyclopedia of Religion and Hthies.
While there is a specific use for the college
class in this discussion, it can be of value to
general readers in centering their minds upon
moral problems.
May this effort aid, not so much in acceptance
of the author’s ideas, as in the arousing of an
interest in ethics, and a purpose to make it less
superficial and more thorough in present day
thought.
Muhlenberg College J. H.
Allentown, Pa.
January, 19238.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PRELIMINARY PROBLEMS
PAGE
CHaAaptTerR I. THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM AS A SCIENCE . 1
The age of problems; the problem of freedom;
what is the problem of freedom; what sort of
science is ethics; what are the sciences of value;
is ethies related to other sciences; it ethics uni-
versal.
CHAPTER II. FREEDOM AND RELIGION : ; 14
The nature of the problem; what ethics does for
religion; is freedom independent; what does the
history of religion show; religion, character, and
conduct; does religion influence our instinets; our
desires and religion; religion and habits; what
value have motives; sanctions, ideals and religion;
the realization of moral freedom; what message
has Christianity.

PART I. FUNDAMENTALS OF FREEDOM

Cuaprer III. Free WIL . 3 :5 ire}

The basic problem; the metaphysical assertion;
what does psychology teach; the brain and free
will; biological theory and freedom; sociology
and freedom; causality and freedom; the difficulty
of religion; Christianity and free will.
CHAPTER IV. CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 54
The organ of freedom; the meaning of conscience ;
the judgment of acts; the law back of the judg-
ment; the origin of the law; the intellectual ele-
ments of conscience; what is the power of emotion;
the conscience and volition; is there a social con-
science; the authority of conscience; Christianity
and conscience.
vill CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER V. FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM : : ; (per
What is the problem; the causes of pessimism;
pessimism and human moods; can we know and be
glad; the emotional dilemma; are our actions satis-
factory; civilization and pessimism; reigion and
pessimism; is Christianity pessimistic.
CHAPTER VI. THE LEADING ETHICAL IDEAS : 95
What do we mean by the leading ethical concepts;
what are ideals; the good and the end; rights or
right; what is duty; what are virtues; the inter-
relation of ethical ideas.

PART II. THE FINDING OF FREEDOM

CHAPTER VII. Freepom THROUGH PLEASURE : Bea iakis
The claim of pleasure; ancient hedonism; what is
utilitarianism; evolution and hedonism; pleasure
and reason; is pleasure happiness; individual or
social; the end, the ideal, the good, the right and
pleasure; duty and pleasure; virtue and hedonism ;
the philosophy of hedonism; Christianity and
hedonism.

CHAPTER VIII. Frrepom TuroucH REASON - 145

What does reason promise; the ancient advocates
of reason; modern intuitonism; Kant and his suce-
cessors; can reason reject feeling; reason and
asceticism; does reason give us the highest good
and the right; duty and reason; how does reason
explain virtue; the philosophy of rationalism
F
Christianity and reason.
CHAPTER IX. FREEpoM THROUGH PERSONALITY . ee 74:
What of the will; will and personality ;persona
lity
and individuality; does personality answer
the
social demand; personality and the ideal;
right,
duty and personality ; personality and virtue;
the
historical approach to personality; personality
and
Christianity.
 CONTENTS
PART III. THE FUNCTIONING OF FREEDOM
PAGE
CHAPTER X. THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 202
Virtues or duties; is the ethical life a pure devel-
opment; the power of a cause; freedom amd voca-
tion; work and freedom; the bodily life; the mental
life; the power over life.
CHAPTER XI. Basic SocraL VIRTUES . 228
The Kindly Virtues, kindness, gentleness, enon
non-resistance, merey, forgiveness, charity, friend-
ship, fraternities; Truth and freedom, wisdom,
lies, misrepresentation, judgment of others, per-
jury, progaganda, the press, prejudice, freedom
of thought; Justice and freedom, righteousness,
knowledge and public opinion, selfish interest,
group conflict, nationality, race, justice and law.
CHAPTER XII. THE FAMILY 249
What is the value of the Anat: the watingof the
family; courtship and engagement; marriage;
divorce; the evil of prostitution; the single life;
the freedom of woman; the right of the child.
CuaprerR XIII. THE CHURCH 267
Why treat of the church; the church and truth;
the nature of the church %3 work; the social work
of the church; the church and ‘its worship; the
ehurch as an ” organization; the church and the
state.
CHAPTER XIV. THE STATE 286
What is the place of the state; what is the idea of
the state; the task of the state; the state and the
nation; the absolute state; the socialistic state; the
state and anarchism ; the right of revolution; the
state and war; the ‘state and internationalism.

INDEX.
FREEDOM AND CHRISTIAN
CONDUCT—AN ETHIC
 FREEDOM AND CHRISTIAN
CONDUCT—AN ETHIC
PRELIMINARY PROBLEMS

CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM AS A SCIENCE

The age of problems. It is quite customary

in our day to approach any body of connected
facts and their laws from the angle of the
problem. The modern mind seems averse to
starting with great principles. It would rather
derive these after asking questions and stating
problems. And thus the method of the problem
is most appealing. Nevertheless no problem
can be merely presented, but it calls for the in-
troduction of-discussion and for certain data
upon which any just discussion must rest.
Problems and principles must be interwoven
to arrive at the best results. To deal merely in
problems raises questions and produces doubts
without aiding in their proper solution. To
begin with principles to the neglect of seeing
problems brings about an unverified dogmatism.
The true procedure balances problems and
principles.
1
2 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
The problem of freedom. Our task is not,
however, to enter upon the general logical ques-
tion of problem and principle, but to endeavor
to make clear one of the great problems of
thought and life. Among the many subjects
that should call forth the effort and interest of
human thought is that of freedom. What do
we really mean by freedom? Is it only a politi-
eal problem, an economic question, a social
difficulty? Or is its compass larger and deeper,
and does it extend to that which is funda-
mentally human? The last supposition seems
to be the best. It would make the problem in
its fulness and fundamentality the moral prob-
lem. To determine the question of freedom
would mean to outline the main questions of
morality or ethics. It is this interpretation of
freedom with which we are concerned. Our
endeavor to give an answer will lead us to posit
some sort of ethical system.
What is the problem of freedom? Is there
any justification in the assertion, that the
answer to the problem of freedom will lead to
some sort of a system? A system is only really
possible where there is a science. Is ethics a
science or is it merely an art? Does it deal
with data that can rightly be co-ordinated into
a science, or is it only a collection of practical
rules and maxims for human life? There can
be no doubt that the question of our freedom
as it eventuates in the doing of good or evil,
right or wrong, touches the whole practice of
life and all of human conduct. It enters into
our thoughts, desires, habits, feelings, decisions,
Judgments, and actions. But does it follow,
 FREEDOM AS A SCIENCE 3
that because the problem of freedom, or of ethics,
has as its material the character and actions
of men, that this material cannot be systema-
tized? A system which makes possible a
science is attained in one of two ways, or in
two ways combined. The one is to collect all
possible facts, and then to pass on to generalize
them, and derive laws and principles. The
other is to assume certain fundamental princi-
ples and then to establish them by deriving con-
sequences from them that explain the existent
facts. The problem of freedom can be discussed
in either of these ways, and perhaps best by
their combination. Ethics can therefore claim
to be a science. We may perhaps define it pro-
visionally as the science of character and
conduct that establishes real, vital, human
freedom.
What sort of science is ethics? To claim
that the problem of freedom is a science does
not settle the question. What do we mean by
a science? Is there only natural science, or
can the term, science, be applied justly to
other groups of data than those that we find
in nature? What types of sciences can rightly
be distinguished in human thinking? ‘The
answer to the inquiries will help us to classify
these sciences. ‘There are sciences which we
may designate as existential and descriptive.
They simply deal with data as data, deseribe
them and then deduce their laws. As an ex-
ample of such sciences we may take chemistry,
which is typical of the whole group of similar
sciences. But a totally different class is that
of the normative sciences. A norm is a standard
4 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
and it implies valuation. The sciences called
normative rest upon value and worth. They
include a judgment about data. It is necessary
to include the existence of facts when we give
an estimate of their worth, but the existence
is not of prime importance. But to deal with
mere worth because the emphasis is put upon
it and to consider the existence as negligible
is an error. How can a value be a value if
the things to which it is attached are deemed
uncertain. Value is not an agnostic escape
from existence; it does not belong to fictions
but to a definitely characterized set of
existences.
What are the sciences of value? In human
knowledge there are three great sciences of
value. The first is logic, which gives the laws
of correct thinking. It is not concerned with
how we think, but how we ought to think when
we want to think correctly. Since the modern
movement of pragmatism there has been a
constant effort to make logic descriptive and
really to sink it into psychology. But the em-
phasis upon value as a reality which began in
modern thought with the philosopher Lotze
cannot be swept aside by the increasing mass
of detail examinations as to how thought fune-
tions. The second normative science is aesthe-
tics. This deals with the estimates of the
beautiful. It asks, what is beauty, and what
are the true standards of the beautiful? We
cannot have any scientific approach to art un-
less we allow the valuations of aesthetics. It
is the third valuing science with which we are
concerned; namely, ethics or the science of
 FREEDOM AS A SCIENCE 5
freedom. Its problem is to ascertain whether
the judgments and estimates, good and bad,
right and wrong, virtuous and vicious, evaluate
facts that in their worth can be put into rela-
tions, which grow out of the actualities of
value and are systematic and scientific. The
description of human motives and of human
actions resulting from them is not morality
unless they are judged according to standards.
The motives and actions must be real and with
them as equally real there go the estimates of
character and conduct. When we thus ap-
proach the facts of the moral life we have the
material which is capable of scientific discus-
sion, and we then arrive at as valuable and
real a science in its place as any that claims
our attention and study.
Is ethics related to other sciences? Why is
it necessary to ask a question like this? Ought
we not proceed at once to the discussion of the
problem of freedom without further prelimin-
aries? If we were inclined to the method so
largely employed today we would simply pro-
ceed, and claim all that we could for our
science; but this onesided procedure is making
onesided men. It is a part of the defective
education which never coordinates, and en-
courages students to elect courses as the Indian
collects scalps. In ethics with its universal
human claim it is necessary if anywhere to
show its interrelation, and thus to put character
and conduct into their proper place. A true
science grows more valuable when seen in the
light not only of its own claim but also in the
light of all related human knowledge. We
6 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
must be led to think not only in detail and
down to the minutiae, but also in the large re-
lations of the whole and the great total of
truth.
What sciences is morality related to? From
which of them does it borrow facts and results?
As soon as we begin to examine any ethical
situation particularly in its practical function-
ing we shall be led back to psychology. To
understand character we must know the human
mind. As far as ethical value is clothed in
desires, wishes, wants, motives it needs the
study of psychology. Instincts and habits deter-
mine conduct and action. The problem of the will
which is fundamental in the study of freedom
presupposes knowledge of human _ behavior.
The composite fact of conscience leads us into
some sort of psychological analysis. In all
moral valuation, therefore, we must be sure that
our psychology is correct. But the knowledge
of the human mind does not of itself determine
the value of conduct.
Again the problem of freedom cannot pass by
its dependence on philology. The examination
of the history of language, and the study of the
meaning which man has put into human words,
show us how some ethical terms have arisen
and how man has understood them. The Ger-
man ethical writers like Wundt? have paid some
attention to the testimony of the common mind
of man in the making of its words of moral im-
port. Nietzsche in the effort to re-value all
values has used his learning as a philologian
1 Alexander Shand, The Foundations of Character.
2 Ethic, Part I, Chapter I.
 FREEDOM AS A SCIENCE 7
to convinee us, if he can, how we must redefine
the terms and words which have been abused
in the interest of the weak. To the degree that
language reveals the reflection of man on the
questions of good and bad it is worth while
studying in ethics.
But the question of freedom leads us to the
story of freedom in human history. It is not.
without benefit that we can trace the history
of morals. A notable example is the study of
Lecky in his history of European Morals.
Westermarck®? and Hobhouse* have collected
much material relative to early customs and
practices of the incipient moral life. But it is
not only in these and similar detail studies of
morals in their historical aspect that we find a
dependence of ethics, but also in any general
history of man the moral life and advance or
decadence dare not be omitted wherever man’s
manners and customs are traced to their moral
import. |
Similarly the problem of freedom must have
some regard for economic conditions.” Man’s
search for food and shelter condition his life.
They do not make his virtues and vices as mere
virtues and vices, but they often give direction
and content to them. The moral valuation is
not caused by the economic strivings of men,
but it cannot be fully appreciated apart from
them. Because the life of freedom affects the
whole man his material interests must be con-
sidered. These concerns, however, must not be
3 The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas.
4Morals in Evolution.
5 Cf. ‘Goods and the Good,’’ in Haas ‘‘In the Light of
Faith,’’ p. 180.
8 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
made the complete motive of man, and morals
must not be reduced to an economic denomin-
ator. Some modern ethics, as e. g. Dewey and
Tufts, seem to indicate the reverse. They
color ethics so largely by economics, that one
would almost receive the impression that morals
are the outcome of economics.
The struggle to establish a science of soci-
ology,—which up to this time has not succeeded
if we judge from the diversity of treatment,—
must be given some place. The collection of
many facts relating to human society, the
gathering of statistics, the practical considera-
tion of the social bearings of marriage, divorce,
the prison problem and similar questions,
are not without use in any ethical study. The
whole outlook on life as social raises the
problem of the relation of the individual to
society which cannot be overlooked in the study
of freedom and ethical thought.*
After having shown to what degree morals
are dependent on all of these sciences we may
ask: Does ethics in turn render service to any
of them? History if fully studied cannot re-
main under the dominance of a purely economic
philosophy; it must give some room to moral
Judgments. Because man is not only an eating
and fighting being, but also a being with a con-
science his doings must be subject to judgments
of right or wrong. When we study the move-
ment of man’s great ideas and ruling ideals we
must apply some moral measurement. But
this measurement must never be that of one age

6 Of. Edward ©. Hayes, Sociology and Ethies.

 FREEDOM AS A SCIENCE 9
as applied to all ages, little as we can finally
escape some ethical appraisement.
One of the remarkable developments in the
latest economic thought is the introduction of
moral standards to problems of business, com-
merce, etc., in short to economic questions."
Judgments resting on the golden rule, decisions
growing out of moral ideals of truth, honesty,
justice, and righteousness are being discussed
among economists. Practical societies of busi-
ness men are choosing service as their motto,
and there is going on a moralization of our
material pursuits. Ethics is conquering eco-
nomics, and the good is attempting to
standardize goods.
Sociology cannot escape the moral impress.
In fact in many evil situations of society the
sociologist is not only a mere describer of con-
ditions, but also a preacher of righteousness.
He has, often without knowing it, a code of
social morality which he applies in his criti-
cisms and denunciations. The great social
movement of socialism, in addition to its ma-
terial appeal, has frequently used the claim of
justice and won men by its moral demands.
Much of sociology has borrowed ethical ideas
and is indebted to the underlying and universal
moral conceptions of men. Thus morals give
as well as receive in the great body of human
thought and knowledge.
Is ethics universal? Matthew Arnold said
that conduct is three-fourths of human life. Is
70f, Annals of American Academy of Political and Social
Science, Vol. CI. No. 190—May 1922, ‘“‘The Ethies of the
Professions and of Business.’’
10 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
this true, or is ethics so universal as to consti-
tute four-fourths? Are there any actions exempt
from the moral judgment? Apparently there
are actions which are ethically indifferent, to
which the term ‘‘adiaphora’’ is applied. It
seems to make no difference morally whether
I wear a blue tie or green tie, whether I eat
veal or lamb, whether I take a vacation at the
seashore or the mountains, whether I go to
visit one friend or another. Thus there may
be many actions which do not appear to enter
at all into the question of moral value. They
are decisions entirely free and have no bearing
on my virtues or faults. And yet even seem-
ingly indifferent actions may gain a moral im-
port through their connection and through the
attitude assumed toward them. If my wearing
a tie of one or another color is a matter of pride,
or a departure from good judgment, and if my
eating veal or lamb influences my health, and if
my going to the seashore or the mountains be-
comes a subject of the most favorable place
for my benefit, or a problem of thrift, and if
my visit to one friend or another depends upon
certain preferential obligations, then all of
these actions are no longer indifferent. In this
manner as our life is connected, and we grow in
the knowledge of moral implications, there are
fewer and fewer actions which are morally
indifferent. In our ethical development the
claim of the good or bad becomes more and
more universal.
Does this universal claim of freedom make
ethics paramount? Are its judgments to be
applied to all spheres of life? If this be as-
 FREEDOM AS A SCIENCE it
serted then can e. g. art be for art’s sake? It
is true that art must seek simply the satisfac-
tion of the sense of the beautiful. In its efforts
it may portray in sculpture, painting, drama,
novel, ete., both good or bad. It may idealize
life, or it may show things in their bare reality.
Whether a subject is morally right or wrong
cannot apparently limit the creative impulse of
the artist. And yet it is a fact that the desire
of the artist must be pure. In all its realism
art cannot justly glorify what is morally ugly.
The beautiful must be related to the good. The
ancient Greeks saw the beauty of goodness,
and their great thinker Plato desired the good-
ness of beauty for the protection of the young.
Art has not only an artistic influence but at
the same time a moral effect. For this reason
there can be no indifference whether art is high
and noble or whether it is decadent. In fact
where the ethical life degenerates art finally also
decays.
Another problem opens up, when we inquire
whether all men are subject to moral judgments,
or whether certain outstanding individuals are
not subject to moral standards, and can, in the
claim of their individuality and freedom, act
as they desire? It may be that there are great
characters who, with a larger vision and an
outlook to the future, seem to violate the ex-
isting moral customs of society, and are never-
theless leaders of a new light. An outstanding
example of such men is Socrates. A conflict
between standards of society and the individual
conscience will take place again and again.
But does it follow, that creative powers or royal
 12 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
positions justify extended privileges?) We may
understand the special difficulties and tempta-
tions of certain positions in life. The bohemi-
anism of the artist, the prerogatives of the ruler
can be sympathetically weighed. But when
this has been done, can we grant a special
morality to any one? Is e. g. Shelly, because
of his poetic power, to be excused for his rela-
tions to Mary Godwin? Can we condone
Byron’s wild escapades? Is Wagner such a
superman of music that his abandonment of his
wife, his relations to Matilda Wesendonck, and
his alliance with Cosima Von Buelow, are to be
forgotten? Shall Poe’s wild carousals be
entirely excused? Surely with all possible al-
lowance we cannot exempt these and like
individuals from a fair moral judgment.

REFERENCES
James Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Introduction,
Chapters I, II.
J. Hyslop, Elements of Ethies, Chapters I, II.
J. H. Muirhead, The Elements of Ethics, Book
I.
John 8. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, Introd
uction, Chap-
ters I, IT.
Frank Thilly, Introduction to Ethies, Chapte
r I.
Theodore De Laguna, Introduction to the
Science of Ethics,
Chapters I, II.
Chas. D’Arey, A Short Study of Ethics,
Introduction.
Henry W. Wright, Self-Realization, Part
I, Chapters I, IT.
John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct,
Part I, Section 3.
A. E. Taylor, The Problem of Conduct,
Chapter I.
Fr. Paulsen, Ethies, Vol. I, Introduction
.
W. Wundt, Ethics, Introduction.
_ Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification
of the Good, Introduc-
tion, Part III, Chapter VII,
 FREEDOM AS A SCIENCE 13
W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God, Chapters
Pelt olit. FV.
R. BR. Marrett, Origin and Validity in Ethics, in Personal
Idealism, Philosophical Essays edited by Henry Sturt, p.
221 ff.
Alexander Sutherland, The Origin and Growth of the Moral
Instinct.
 CHAPTER II
FREEDOM AND RELIGION

The nature of the problem. Why do we try

to correlate freedom and religion? Has the
problem of ethics as freedom any bearing upon
religion, and does religion affect ethics? These
questions are not like the problems of the
scientific character of morals formal and logi-
cal matters, but they deal with the living con-
tacts and the real contents of ethics and
religion. Ethics, with its basis built upon
freedom, and its striving directed toward free-
dom, seems at first sight to have no value for
religion as the search after the divine. The
two are different in purpose and largely in con-
tent. But when we regard them as they form
a unity in the total of human life, and as they
go together historically, the logical separation
is overcome by the actual relation.
What ethics does for religion. Does history
give any information of an ethical influence
upon religion? Is freedom a factor in man’s
dependence upon God? When we look broadly
at the development of the religion and the
morals of mankind, we find again and again
that the permanence of religion depends upon
its ability to measure up to the ethical advance.
Religions have decayed when they could not
adjust themselves to moral awakening. A
4
 FREEDOM AND RELIGION 15
typical example is found in the religion of the
Greeks. It was an amoral naturalism clothed
into the stories of humanized gods. The gods
had all the defects of their natural background
and all the weaknesses of the Greek life.
When Xenophanes saw that in natural religion
men made the gods after their own image the
seeds of doubt were sown. But it was the
moral advancement of Greek thought begin-
ning with Socrates which most effectually
destroyed the old faith. Plato asserted that
the stories of the gods were not fit to be taught
to the young. This influence was also brought
to bear upon Greek religion when the drama-
tist Euripides questioned the justice of the gods
in the great crises of human existence. Thus
the ethical advance outstripped the possibility
of religion with its morals. Similar results
follow either in the independent growth of
morals among a people, or when an ethically
superior religion comes to a group. ‘The final-
ity of a religion is its possibility of meeting all
just moral growth of individual and common
life. Consequently ethical content is very
fundamental to religion.
Is freedom independent? ‘To ask this ques-
tion is to raise the problem whether conversely
ethics is also dependent upon religion? This
is the larger problem. The assertion is fre-
quently made in our day that morals are
autonomic, i. e. that they bear their law within
themselves and are independent of religion.
Ethical culture societies are endeavoring to
show that different religious positions make no
difference in morals, and that men ought to
16 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
develop a moral life unhampered by any reli-
gious consideration. At the same time many
such ethical groups teach some kind of theism
or pantheism. They also live upon many ethi-
cal customs which have developed historically
out of some religion. While secularisation is
going on, and morality itself, and industry,
politics, education, science, family life, etc.,
etc., are divorced from religious influence, it
still remains true, that religion has practically
produced marvelous moral changes. ‘‘Not
only have, by means of it, drunkards and crim-
inals been reformed, prostitutes led to a pure
life, sinners in general made to repent, the sick
made well, but the character of whole commun-
ities has been radically altered, even trans-
formed, in the course of a few years. Such facts
as these are not open to even scientific doubt,
because they are checked up by overwhelming
evidence on the one hand, and by the general
principles of normal and abnormal psychology
on the other hand.’’ 1
What does the history of religion show? Is
there any evidence that in the various forms
which religion has taken there is always an
ethical implication? Modern speculation upon
the common features of the development of
religion begins with the assumption that the
primitive religion was some sort of psychic,
dynamic impersonal power grasped by feeling.
It is called mana, after a term found by Cod-
rington in New Zealand. Whether this assump-
tion is justified or not, it at least implies that
1Chas. A. Ellwood, The Reconstruction of Religion, p. 34,
 FREEDOM AND RELIGION ie
man projects a spiritual value into life, and
this takes him away from a material view of
life and affects all his customs and morals, be-
cause in primitive life religion determines
everything. The next stage assumed is ani-
mism, which gives souls to all things and partly
personalizes them as the young child still does.
Under animism morals become more elevated.
When men take a fetich they ascribe a virtue
to it not only for their help, but they also accept
some obligations. However low this form of
religion is it carries with it certain duties.
Somewhat higher is totemism, which takes
some living form and makes it the symbol and
power in tribal life. The largest social cus-
toms, and many duties of kinship grow out of
totemism. There are frequent evidences of
ancestor worship, and this is more powerful
ethically and produces higher results than
totemism for the individual and common life
in obedience, etc. Polytheism with its glaring
defects has many more moral relationships, and
some of them rise fairly high when the gods
are more social than natural. But the greatest
advance is made when henotheism arrives,
which is the taking up of the worship of one
god at a time. It is introductory to mono-
theism, the worship of one God alone. Under
monotheism the high ethical standards of
Judaism, and the supreme ethics of Christian-
ity have developed. When men depart from
ethical monotheism and revert to deism they
lose moral power because God is separated
from the actual life of the world. A still
lower reversal is pantheism, whether scientific
18 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
or poetical. Under polytheism pantheism was
a striving after unity. When however it
occurs, after the personal moral valuation of
God, it destroys the inherent worth of good and
bad and degrades man to an amoral naturalism.
These outstanding facts and suppositions in
the history of religion all support the claim
that religion at all stages and in all forms has
an ethic.
Religion, character, and conduct. Has real
religion an influence upon character as this
conditions conduct? Is it so universal as by
its very existence in man to affect his morals?
In its full value religion is universal and abso-
lute. It is a life within man which is all em-
bracing. Because life in us is a unity the
power of religion touches every action. It
helps to make character. ‘‘Character, which
is central to morals and must precede the con-
sideration of conduct, cannot remain untouched
wherever religion exists as a fact and reality
in the human soul. If character is dependent
upon religion it follows that the nature of our
conduct cannot be separated from the consider-
ation of the religious life. As man is normally
religious, he is, therefore, normally dependent
in his moral life.’”
Does religion influence our instincts? A
problem which is not always realized is the
reliance of the life of freedom upon our natural
instincts. The instincts are the raw material
of our life. If our morals demand some con-
sideration of our instincts, can it be shown that
2 Haas, ‘‘In the Light of Faith,’’ p. 205.
 FREEDOM AND RELIGION 19
religion bears in upon our freedom because it
changes the instinctive roots of life? There is
a large group of instincts out of which action
readily follows unless by control and modifica-
tion we overcome the urge of the instincts. If
e. g. we select the instincts of acquisitiveness
and combativeness and fear, we know that they
must be hemmed in to make our individual and
common life bearable. Can this change be
brought about by the longing of freedom alone?
Wherever we allow vital religion to lift us
beyond ourselves we shall not press acquisitive-
ness to such an extreme as to endanger society,
and make it acquisitive rather than coopera-
tive.2 Combativeness which leads to war will
be restrained when the considerations of the
common regard of men for each other is rein-
forced by a religion of love. Fear which even
in primitive religion is counterbalanced by awe
and reverence* is at last overcome when God is
accepted as Father. But not only are certain
instincts crowded back but others are given
fulfillment through the religious attitude and
thus produce new moral results. As an ex-
ample we may refer to sympathy which may be
taken as an instinct counterbalancing self-pre-
servation and forming the basis of altruism.
When religion of a high type takes hold of
sympathy it enlarges sympathy beyond the
immediate contacts, and gives it a universal
human meaning. In this manner religion
affecting our instincts works upon our ethical
life.
3 Cf. Tawney, The Acquisitive Society. _
4Leuba, A Psychological Study of Religion, p. 128 ff,
20 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
Our desires and religion. If we study our
mental life we shall find that in addition to in-
stincts we must give a large place to our
desires. Instincts operate through our desires.
Feelings and emotions are shot through with
desires. We express our wants and our long-
ing through desire. The psychological under-
standing of freedom must consider the pressure
of desire upon character. But our problem is
whether religion can so affect desires as to pro-
duce a difference in our morals? The com-
munion with the divine certainly takes hold of
our desires. Without religion desire is cen-
tered upon the immediate wants of the body
and upon material life. But when the super-
natural enters into our considerations it lifts
our desires beyond the wants of the visible and
natural and they seek a spiritual end. It is
through such seeking that the whole ethical
attitude is changed and men strive for higher
values.
Religion and habits. Every tendency in our
life in toward fixation of certain actions. This
fixation is habit. Habit has a fundamental
importance for morals. They rest on good
habits. One of the central ideas of ethics is
virtue, and what else is virtue but the habit of
doing the good. Right formation of habits
makes a steady moral life. Has religion any
contribution to make in the forming of habits
which will influence our life of freedom?
Wherever religion crystallizes into certain
modes of action that are not merely ceremonial,
but touch our inner life and our relation to
others, it makes for ethical habits. A very apt
 FREEDOM AND RELIGION 21
illustration can be found in the virtue and
habit of generosity. There may be in some
men a natural inclination to communicate to
others; the social feeling may be large. But
when a whole group is distinguished by out-
standing generosity we seek for a further cause.
The Jews are marked for their liberality. For
centuries their religion has taught them to give
largely and has made the law of the tithes
obligatory. This long training of the religious
ideal has produced the habit of generosity. In
the same manner all virtues in a group or in
individuals are influenced very quietly but con-
stantly by any religious, living ideals.
What value have motives? We cannot
escape the fact that motives are also a part of
our inner life that make character and produce
action. Is the power of the motives untouched
by religion? Is it not true that the intellectual
and particularly the emotional content of
motives is deeply affected by religion? ‘‘Let
us look at a moral action and analyze it in
order to demonstrate this contention. A stu-
dent is in an examination and is put upon his
honor to use no dishonest means in his work.
The temptation arises that would move him to
break his word and promise. What will be the
strongest motive to keep him true? He may
be kept by the desire not to forfeit the regard
of his fellow-students. His character may
possess a self-esteem which he does not desire
to lose. But amore powerful and purer motive
would be the motive that a man’s honor is a
high possession which is not to be lost, and a
noble standard not to be violated. What is
22 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
the force of this ideal of honor? What is its
origin? Does it not go back to the period of
the prowess of the knights when the mainten-
ance of honor meant respect for the truth,
observance of purity and defense of woman?
But no noble knight was able to maintain the
strength of his honor unless he finally caught
the vision of the Holy Grail. And though the
origin of honor may today be forgotten, the
character of honor as a motive and its ideali-
zation rise to a religious height. Honor even
thus is not as powerful as would be a direct
consciousness of the bearing of religion upon
a moral issue. Can anything equal in potency
the conception ‘Thou God seest me?’ The
motive of the presence and holiness of God is
all-compelling.’’ °
Sanctions, ideals and religion. In continu-
ing the study of the relation of religion to
morals we are confronted with the problem,
whether the sanctions and ideals of the ethical
life can be helped by religion? Sanctions are
the external and objective forces of custom,
manners, opinions, laws, beliefs, ete., which
impinge upon our motives. Ideals are our
aims and purposes of life which we accept as
our guiding stars. We accept sanctions in our
ideals, and sanctions often lead to ideals and
aid in forming their content. If we begin to
enumerate some sanctions and ask, does reli-
gion make them different, we shall find that all
sanctions can be elevated by religion. Religion
itself does not stand as simply one of the sanc-
5Cf. Haas ‘‘In the Light of Faith,’’ p. 213.
 FREEDOM AND RELIGION 23
tions.° Let us consider, as an example, the vir-
tue of purity with its motive. We may be con-
trolled by the sanction of law, or public opin-
ion, or through the knowledge of the dangers
of impurity when they are presented to us in
all their awful reality and their terrible results.
But if religion is an actuality to us, and the
sense of God is real, there is a mightier sanction
in the belief that our bodies are not mere pro-
ducts of nature but temples of God and His Holy
Spirit. This belief goes deeper and is far more
powerful than any fear of results, or any pres-
sure of opinion, or any threat of law. The lack
of the sense of the reality of God is no proof of
its inefficiency.
Ideals can be created in many ways but
whatever enters upon their formation must be
personally weighed and adopted. The attrac-
tiveness of high ideas, the beauty of noble
words, the excellence of good deeds, may shape
ideals. Great characters will lead to emulation.
Noble sentiments of literature and _ heroic
appeals of art will lift us to nobler purposes
and aims in life. The power of virtue will have
its sway. But the question remains, can not
religion do still more than any one of these, or
all of them combined? If we select, as one
instance, the ideal of service, what can give it
the greatest impetus? The joy of life in help-
fulness, the necessity of service for the common
good, the inspiration of noble examples, the
inherent beauty of the moral nature of service?
All of these are effective. Nevertheless when we
6 This was the contention of Bentham and Spencer.
24 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
take service and raise it above its humanitarian
appeal, and find in it the highest exhibition
of divine love as shown in Christ, the Servant,
we have an appeal that far outweighs all other
considerations. The judgment of Christ, that
what we have done to one of the least of His
we have done unto Him, is the strongest motive
to make service one of our controlling ideals.
The realization of moralfreedom. One great
difficulty has always confronted those who
believe in and accept the value of the good.
Does the good prevail, and has virtue its re-
ward? Or do we not find that vice is frequently
successful and powerful? The good do not
always prosper, and the seed of the righteous
does sometimes beg for bread. Is there con-
sequently only a partial triumph of the good,
and must we object to the statement of Schiller,
that the history of the world is the judgment of
the world? These questions cannot be answered
from the mere considerations of the moral life.
It was this conviction which led Kant to become
the classic advocate of the necessity of a future
life and the demand of a moral governor of the
universe. Kant was moved to stress these relig-
ious beliefs as necessary assumptions to sustain
the reality and permanence of the moral. Men
need the belief in God and eternity that right
may remain right. If God, in the definition of
Matthew Arnold is ‘‘the power not ourselves
that makes for righteousness’’ only in limited
time, then there is merely a striving towards
righteousness but no assurance of its victory.
The full realizations calls, however, not only for
mere continuance, but also for the faith, that the
 FREEDOM AND RELIGION 25
universe has a moral order and a plan to be ful-
filled, because God is ethical and not mere foree,
or totality, or all-embracing, unique individual-
ity. The ideal of freedom and its growth imply
the endless unfoldment of life. Where God as
supremely moral is denied, or where the future
life is made uncertain, there both the individual
and society have lost the necessary foundation
for the faith in the good and the permanence
and supremacy of a moral world order.
What message has Christianity? Does the
Christian faith substantiate its claim that it has
the greatest and best moral content within it?
This problem we must meet not only here, but
im connection with every question in our whole
study. Must it not justly be a part of any full
and fair discussion of ethics to compare its
results with the claim of Christianity? If it is
superior can we stop with any lower ideals?
Is philosophical ethics truly universal and im-
partial if it passes by and simply ignores the
ethical attitudes of Christianity?
When we endeavor to sum up briefly the
ethical, idealistic conceptions of Christianity we
shall find that its supreme principle of morals
is love of man for man exhibited in brotherliness
of thought, feeling and deed. It makes for
individual rights and common justice, and seeks
the general welfare because it inculeates sacri-
fice for the common good. By limiting the
pursuit of material things it helps to overcome
the strife and bitterness of selfish commerce,
industry and labor. It militates against im-
purity and the mere life of sex, and elevates
the ideal and life of the married estate. All
26 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
intemperance and dishonesty are opposed, and
pride, hypocrisy and pretense are castigated.
Arrogance and self-complacency are thrust
aside. The individual man is to be free from
false control of law, to become self-reliant and
responsible. For the social life it proposes the
ideal of the Kingdom of God in which His holy,
just, and loving will for the good of men is to
prevail. This ideal defends the weak against
the strong, overcomes the practice of retaliation,
destroys mere class-feeling and narrow national
bonds for a common brotherhood. Race is to
be no hindrance to unity. Rich and poor are
alike; educated and ignorant, prominent and
obscure, master and slave are on the same
spiritual plane. The meek shall inherit the
earth when non-resistance is appreciated as
against the militaristic attitude of destruction.
All life will be joyful, hopeful, helpful, leading
into the social order, which compared with all
our failures in the present and past orders,
promises common happiness, justice and love.’
‘‘Christianity has supreme moral power
because is combines so many high ideals in
Jesus Christ. In Him the divine perfection is
presented in human form. His ideal perfection
leads us to adore Him, and His saving love
moves us to follow Him. Through His act His
life is offered to us, and if we accept it He lives
in us through faith. His strength, therefore, is
shaped in our weakness and leads us to freedom.
In Him all graces unite, strength and humility,
7This paragraph rests upon: Votaw, ‘‘Primitive Christian-
ity an Idealistic Social Movement: ‘‘American Journal of
Theology, January 1918.
 FREEDOM AND RELIGION 27
justice and mercy, holy zeal and forgiving
love, purity and rescuing power for the lost.
Thoughtful and active, forceful as a man and
gentle as a woman, hating evil and saving men,
full of strong impulse and yet calmly balanced,
strong in the virtue of every temperament and
without its weakness, He stands as the supreme
moral ideal in whom age after age finds now
inspiration. The moral perfection and inspira-
tion of Jesus Christ is the guarantee of the
permanence of Christianity in the world’s moral
progress. It is essentially true that if the Son
makes us free, we are free indeed.’’ ®
8 Haas, ‘‘In the Light of Faith,’’ p. 220.

REFERENCES
Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, Chapters VI, VII.
Borden P. Bowne, Principles of Ethics, Chapter VII.
Jas. Hyslop, The Elements of Ethics, Chapter IX.
Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, Part I,
Chapter II, Part II, Chapter IT.
Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Book I, Chapter II; Book II, Chapter
VIII.
W. Wundt, Ethics, Part I, Chapter II.
Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, Introduction V.
W. Hocking, Human Nature and its Remaking, Part VII.
W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God, Chapter
XIII.
G. T. Ladd, What I Ought To Do, Chapter XII.
Sir Henry Jones, A Faith That Enquires, Lectures VIII, IX.
John A. W. Haas, In the Light of Faith, ‘‘The Depend-
ence of Freedom’’ p. 203 ff. Df:
James Ten Broeke, The Moral Life and Religion, Parts
NO nOBe
PART I. FUNDAMENTALS OF FREEDOM

CHAPTER III
FREE WILL

The basic problem. Is there any compelling

reason for identifying the ethical problem with
freedom? Are we justified in making the quest
after an ethical system the problem of freedom?
This basic question demands an answer; other-
wise all that is claimed in the assertion of
freedom falls to the ground. There can be no
doubt that some of the immediate data of our
consciousness are of such a nature as to lead us
to the conviction that we are free in our actions.
We seem to know and feel that we make our
own judgments. Deliberation balancing possible
choices is present. The selection of a choice
appears to be our own, and we arrive at a
decision for which we accept responsibility.
There is no escape from the impression that we
make obligations our own, or that we reject
them. When we have done certain actions they
meet either with approval or disapproval. In
the case of disapproval we blame ourselves
and accept the guilt of the accusation of our
thoughts against our deeds. Remorse may fol-
low, and its occurrence is best explained on the
assumption of our freedom. Unless all of these
28
 FREE WILL 29
mental phenomena are deceptive they cannot be
easily set aside in any explanation of freedom.
Nevertheless the problem is larger and we must
consider other psychological facts, and weigh
in addition certain claims of the natural sciences
and certain metaphysical questions.
Freedom is not only the problem of the liberty
of our choices and action, but also the question
of the aim of the moral life. Is it true or not,
that we all seek happiness, however we may
define it? If we accept this goal of human life,
does it not follow that morals to justify their
claim must attempt to solve this search after
happiness. Now happiness is not possible ex-
cept there be vital freedom. Liberty of mind
and action is the outstanding essential element
without which happiness is unattainable. Con-
sequently freedom is the implied goal in human
life, and we must ask how it can be best found
and realized. It has a living content, and must
not be confused with the negative idea of
independence. When the American colonies
declared their independence from England, they
simply severed connection with the mother
eountry. The relation of dependence was to
cease. But the ideal of liberty which was in the
minds of the founders of our country was larger.
Human strivings in government and life cannot
be found in mere independence but in a positive
ideal of a fulness of happiness of life through
liberty.
Freedom is more than an individual aim
among men. To be real it must also be social.
There must be a liberty for all and not only for
each individual. My happiness and your happi-
30 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
ness ought not to clash; and the social good of
liberty cannot be set aside without strife and
destruction of happiness through the desire and
contest for individual happiness. The common
trend of society today as the outcome of the
movements of history is very commonly charac-
terized as democracy. Democracy is defined,
as not merely the possession of common political
privileges, but also as essential equability in all
relations of life. Its three great ideas have been
called liberty, equality and fraternity. The
latter is the religious implication of democracy.
Brotherhood must grow out of religion. Equal-
ity is the social demand of democracy; and it
must be valued in its possibility by studying
the history of society. But liberty or freedom
is the moral demand of democracy. It is there-
fore not accidental or arbitrary when we assume
freedom as the moral answer for the happiness
of society. The more it obtains in its balanced
reality, not as the selfish prey of individuals, or
of groups in society, whether they be economic
or national, the larger will be the sum total of
human satisfaction with life and its common
human joy and peace.
The metaphysical assertion. May there not
be a direct metaphysical solution of the problem
of free will? If this is possible our question
can be solved without further discussion. The
effort to cut the Gordion knot of freedom and
determination has been made in modern think-
ing. After Immanuel Kant had endeavored to
overthrow the power of theoretical and pure
reason in the ultimate questions of life, and had
found only a strongly bound and closely connec-
 FREE WILL 31
ted causality on the basis of mathematics and
physics, he assumed that all this was phenome-
nal. The direct reality he asserted was in the
human will. In the phenomenal world we are
bound, in the real, nouomenal world we are
free. Fichte in his treatise on the vocation of
man also chose to exalt freedom through the
essential reality of the will. But this emphasis
on the will took a direction not contemplated by
Kant. Schopenhauer, who coined the famous
phrase ‘‘the will to,’’ made it the will to live.
But this will led to misery, and became imper-
sonal and like the energy of the universe. Thus
freedom was lost in the depersonalized will as
force. Von Hartmann followed Schopenhauer
and explained all life through the philosophy
of the unconscious, which is the blind urge of
energy below consciousness. While these phil-
osophers did not identify their impersonal will
with the energy of natural science, this was the
only logical outcome. And thus the free will
was stranded through universalizing will. A
partial rescue was provided in the speculation
of Nietzsche who asserted the will to power.
This will to power seems on the one hand the
mere result of biological necessity just like the
superman. But on the other hand there is a
stressing of direct human will and action.
Nietzsche: never resolved this contradiction.
Bergson makes the self the author of the
free act, and finds liberty in the inner, pure,
qualitative character of duration’. The open
1 Figgis, The Will to Freedom, gives a fair discussion of
Nietzsche.
2 Cf. Time and Free Will, espec. p. 169 ff.
32 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
reassertion of free will came through the
pragmatists. William James coined the term
‘‘the will to believe.’’ He claimed that one
might take the choice of freedom over against
the claim of necessity, and with equal right
gamble on the freedom of will. There was no re-
buttal of the claims of necessity, but only an
acceptance of freedom as highly useful, practi-
eal and workable as a hypothesis in human life.
Upon consideration of all of these efforts to es-
tablish the will to freedom, we cannot honestly
conclude that this short-cut in the question of
liberty is valid. It seems rather an escape of
despair than a real effort to weigh and evaluate
the difficulty of freedom and determination. The
different arguments against freedom must re-
ceive our attention, and we must continue to
estimate them and to correlate them with the
claim of liberty.
What does psychology teach? Have we fairly
considered all the evidence when we dealt with
the immediate data of deliberation, choice, judg-
ment, remorse, ete.? There are other facts whose
import deserves mention. Whenever we come
to any action motives have brought about the
specific action. Sometimes a motive moves
along a direct, straight course, and prevails
without any apparent conflict. But mostly
motives are complex, and in their movement
there is conflict in which the strongest will win.
Does this not demonstrate that our choices and
deliberations are caused by motives and are not
as free as they seem? Surely our mental life is
not disconnected and our decisions do not jump
up out of our mind like a jumping-jack out of
 FREE WILL 33
his box. But are motives forces in us that
control us without our knowledge and power
over them? We must be careful not to make of
motives fictitious energies instead of freely
adopted and chosen directions in the course of
our actions. The motives are our motives; we
chose them or reject them.
Another question arises when we regard the
place and power of habit. Habit arises for the
sake of economy in our life. But when certain
habits have been formed they are fixed ways of
doing things. In the face of the many fixed and
determined actions through habit we can not
claim that our ideas and volitions are undeter-
mined and incalculable in their liberty. But
after we have allowed for the fact of the large
range of habits as the foundation of our virtues
or vices which constitute our moral life, we may
still inquire how did habits arise? Were they
inherited or are they acquired, and did we con-
trol their formation? Surely it is true that
whatever influence training has had upon us,
we cannot escape responsibility for our habits.
Some of them were made in the period beyond
early childhood. To the degree that we were
active in the making of our habits we are
obliged to accept the praise or blame attaching
to them. Our present habits may control us;
but were we not masters of the past and respons-
ible for it? It is also true that while habits are
exceedingly powerful it is still possible through
some great experience to break up habits and to
reform a whole life. Habits are not absolute
masters, and we are not their slaves unless we
desire to be so.
34 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

The continuance of certain motives and the

constancy of certain habits make our character.
Whatever we do and all our conduct depends
on our character. Is character so stable that it
determines us to the exclusion of change? Can
character be claimed as making against the
freedom of action? What we do is certainly the
outcome of our character, but our character was
made by our past actions, decisions and ideals,
for which we are responsible. It is never an
absolutely static thing, but is being affected
constantly by what we think and do. As years
go on character will become increasingly fixed,
but as long as men make moral progress char-
acter grows. Character not only determines
actions, but actions help to make character.
A problem which is often slighted is the effect
of temperament on the life of freedom. In the
variety of temperaments, which consist of com-
binations of certain tendencies that are strong
or weak, bright or depressing, joyous or gloomy,
there exist certain guiding and determining
characteristics of our mental life. From these
we cannot escape. They influence our moods,
and we are active or phlegmatic, melancholy or
sanguine. But these temperamental conditions
for which we must make allowance in judging
men are no hindrance to freedom. They, like
our instincts, are a certain kind of raw material
of the mind which can be used and shaped.
Temperament cannot be destroyed but it can be
controlled, modified, ‘and used in our choices
even while it gives color to them. What we
have found true in motives, habits, character,
temperament, is true of instincts and all other
 FREE WILL 35
data of our mind that condition us. None
of
them enslave us, and they cannot be explained
in the interest of absolute determinism, We
are determined and conditioned by all that is
naturally a part of our mind, but we are never-
theless in control of our freedom. A careful
psychology does not destroy the sense and
feeling of our liberty.
A further problem has been raised through
the development of the measurements of intel-
ligence by tests. A large number of school
children were examined,? and it was found that
the great mass of children of the common people
rated quite low. Only a small group coming
from successful mercantile or professional
classes had a high average. It was also ascer-
tained that through the newer immigration the
rate of intelligence was further depressed. Does
not this limitation of mind militate against the
claim of freedom? This difficulty is increased
by the results obtained during the war. An
examination of 1,700,000 men, both officers and
privates,* showed that the average mental age
of Americans is about 14, and that 45,000,000,
or nearly half of the whole population, will
never develop beyond the mental stage of a
normal 12 year old child. Only 13,500,000 will
be superior, and 4,500,000 talented. What does
this indicate as to personal and social liberty?
Is the whole claim of freedom invalidated?
Even if we question the wide applicability of all
the psychological tests and restrict them to the
3Cf. S. M. Terman, The Intelligence of School Children,
and The Measurement of Intelligence.
4 Yerkes and Yoakum, Army Mental Tests.
36 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

limits indicated in the questionnaires, such as

quickness of response, general knowledge, reac-
tion to new situations, ete., it remains true that
we must limit very much the responsibility we
ascribe to people in general. But does the
average mentality destroy liberty? The only
effect of this new knowledg e is not to expect the
intelligent freedom of the highly developed
group from the mass of men. But the conscious-
ness of freedom and its right are not eliminated,
and the average mind is still responsible within
the range of its knowledge. There must be a
gradation of responsibility, but no denial of the
functioning of free decisions in accordance with
the different types of mind.
The brain and free will. Psychology leads us
back to the problem of physiology. Is not the
mind dependent upon the brain and the nervous
system, and since these are subject to natural
laws of necessity, are we really free as soon as
we examine the physical basis of mind? The
old Greek atomists, following Democritus, found
only mechanical motion in the brain, and re-
duced mind to such motion. Modern materialism
has sought to solve the question through the
chemistry of the brain. Its extreme slogan was:
‘¢Without phosphorus, no thought.’’ The chem-
ical claim is still powerful, and the many
physiological facts introduced into the modern
psychology admit the close connection of the
brain with mind. It is not only the chemical
actions and reactions, which are supposed to
furnish the scientific explanation of many men-
tal phenomena that are important, but also the
functioning of the brain producing certain
 FREE WILL 37
feelings, emotions, and actions, the localization
of bodily movements in the brain, ete., count.
The theory of emotions advocated by Lange and
James makes the physiological action prior to
the mental. We are told that in reality we first
ery and then we are sorry. Any antecedent
mental movement is denied. The theory which
obtained for a long time in modern physiological
study of mind was that mind and brain moved
along parallel lines. Was this close parallelism
possible without endangering the mind at least
to some extent? And when the question of
causality arose, this query had to be answered,
how can two movements be so closely parallel
without dependence, or without reliance upon
Some superior antecedent existence? These
inquiries did not lead toward mind but mostly
toward matter.’ A newer group of physiological
students of mind, under the leadership of Pro-
fessor Watson, call themselves behaviorists.
They reduce everything in the mind, even the
most abstruse thought, to action. The final
philosophy of action is not favorable to the
independence of mind. The American school of
neorealistic philosophers reduce sensation to
physiological action, and deny the mental worth
of consciousness. Under the pressure of all of
these hypotheses the mind becomes naturalized
to such a degree that its surface phenomena
making for freedom are set aside in favor of
the reign of natural law.
But there are other counterbalancing facts.
It cannot be denied that mental conditions affect
the brain. The assumption has not been proved,
5Cf. Pratt, Matter and Spirit.
38 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

that only brain conditions affect the mind; on

the contrary purely mental attitudes have
material results. We cannot make our brain,
but we certainly modify it through our mental
life, Our ideas, emotions, volitions plough them-
selves into the brain tissue.* There have come
forth in our modern life different groups of
mental healers, who have all produced sufficient
results to make the claim not for any one of
their separate platforms, but still for the broad
fact of the curative effect of the mind upon the
body. Psycho-analysis and psycho-therapy,
despite some vagaries that have crept in, cannot
be lightly set aside. Of course the extreme
theories of Freud,’ Jung,* and Holt® are not the
whole truth. Even the aberrations of the mind
cannot all be classified according to careful
alienists under the head of suppressed sex-
thoughts, sex-feelings and sex-desires. But
enough has been accomp lished by the psychi c
investigators to justify the claim of the origi-
nating power and influence of the mind. The
student of the mind cannot afford, in addition,
to pass by the investigations of The Society
of Psychic Research. If much of its material
be doubted there still remains sufficient to show
that there is evidence for telepathy and tele-
kinesis. Thought produces passive and active
results at a distance. In view-of all of these
considerations the mind cannot be reduced to
the physiology of the brain. It has its own life
6Thomson, Brain and Personality.
7 Freud, General Introduction to Psycho-analysis.
8 Jung, Libido.
Holt, The Freudian Wish.
 FREE WILL 39
closely connected as it is with the body. And
consequently as far as the mind is sui generis,
and no after-effect of matter, it guarantees all
the phenomena that indicate free will.
Biological theory and freedom. The physio-
logical problem was already a biological ques-
tion. But there is a need not only to grapple
with the immediate problem of brain and mind,
but there are great ruling biological supposi-
tions that deeply affect the problem of freedom.
The two great claims that bear upon liberty
are the claims of heredity and environment. In
any fairly full and honest examination of our
real liberty we must reckon with the questions
which both heredity and environment propose
to us.
The assertion that heredity is all—controlling
is the latest position in the debate, whether
heredity or surroundings are the controlling
factor in human life. The influence of heredity
has grown through two causes. The first is the
fact, that in connection with the increase of the
acceptance of the neo-Darwinian theory of
Weisman, viz., that no acquired characteristics
are handed on but that only the original
elements of the germ-plasm affect life, the
investigations of the Austrian monk Mendel
calculating the proportion of different strains
in heredity’ were more and more established.
The second cause is the increasing belief in the
inference of eugenics. Galton in 1869 endeavy-
ored to prove that success was a family affair."
10 Cf. For a brief practical statement, Micou, Basie Ideas in
Religion, p. 89 ff.
11 Galton, Hereditary Genius.
40 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
More and more the good and bad qualities of
men were supposed to be the result of inherited
tendencies. These were not restricted to physi-
eal traits but they were also applied to mental
characteristics and to moral attitudes.” The
two outstanding examples which are frequently
cited are those of the descendants of one Juke
and of Jonathan Edwards. The Juke Family,
descended from a vagabond born in rural New
York in 1720, caleulated for seven generations,
showed that 310 were professional paupers, 440
were diseased through evil lives, more than
half of the women were prostitutes, 130 were
convicted criminals, 60 were thieves, 7 were
murderers, etc. Thus the record continues one
of degeneracy and crime. On the other hand
Jonathan Edwards in 1900 had 1394 descen-
dants. Of these 1295 were college graduates,
13 presidents of colleges, 65 professors, and
many principals of educational institutions.
60 were physicians, over 100 preachers, mission-
aries and professors of theology, 100 were law-
yers, 30 were judges, 80 held public office, one
was vice-president of the United States, some
were governors, others leaders in commerce and
industry, 60 authors, 75 officers in the army and
navy, ete. This record is supposed to prove the
influence of good heredity. If these contentions
are true and demonstrate the claim made for
them, then of course our moral frame-work is
made for us by our ancestors, and we cannot
really be said to be free. Goodness is then the
result of being well-born.
12 For a modern treatise see Popenoe and Johnson, Applied
Eugenics, Cf. also Holmes, The Trend of the Race.
 FREE WILL 41
But there are some facts that need to be con-
sidered before we can draw such a conclusion.
If acquired traits are not inherited, how can
mental and moral characteristics be handed
down? The only escape is to suppose as
Haeckel did that mind is in the germ-plasm.
But how can this be substantiated by examina-
tion? Binet’* does claim to have found actions
in the didinium, a very primitive form of life,
which seem to indicate deliberation and to
argue for a psychology of low forms. But this
contention has not been widely accepted.* The
only deduction that can be made from the cases
of Juke and Edwards is that there is a social
inheritance. Man, as Professor Conklin claims,
has not changed much physically for long cen-
turies. His evolution has been intellectual and
moral. But has this been the outgrowth of
physical evolution, or the result of certain
social surroundings through which the attain-
ments of families and groups are preserved?
The Jukes became Jukes and the Edwardses
Edwardses through their social atmosphere
and their opportunities in life. It is also to be
noted that there is evidence to be found in con-
sidering the character of twins. There are
two kinds of twins. The one consists of those
who come from different ova, and they show
physical and mental variations. The other
kind come from the division of one ovum and
are physically very much alike, e.g, in color
of eyes, shape of nose, color of hair, ete. But
13 The Psychic Life of Micro-Organisms, p. 11.
14 Of. The extreme claims of N. Quevli, Cell Intelligence the
Cause of Evolution.
42 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
are they mentally and morally similar? Do
they show great common traits? This fact has
by no means been established. Furthermore,
the whole claim of heredity must be counter-
balanced by the fact of variation. Through
variation novelties occur. And in the higher
forms of life, especially in man, the generaliza-
tions of the hereditarians are not correct when
they omit the rise of spontaneity. The type
is not all that there is, but along side of the type
is the individual. The individual has peculiar-
ities that the type cannot fully explain. There
are variations of spontaneity which cannot be
classified under the scheme of heredity.
The other element of environment dare not
be passed by. Lamarck was the advocate of
environment; and while he has been displaced
to a great degree there are still some biological
facts, that seem best explicable through its
assumption. When biology is applied in the
study of society the teachers of sociology claim
that surroundings ought to count at least 50
per cent. A few years ago much ado was made
about the power of environment in the practi-
eal study of the condition of young women
seeking employment in stores. It was shown
that their pay was so small, that in order to
meet the demands of proper dress and living,
and without considering at all any need of
amusement or recreation, they were subject to
the seduction of selling their bodies to keep
alive. The temptation and its reality were
portrayed so vividly that it appeared as though
there was no choice possible, but that the con-
ditions which were very wrong inevitably must
 FREE WILL 43
lead to evil. Is this description of the power
of environment accurate? If so, then of course
neither praise nor blame can be attached to
persons for their actions, and freedom is a de-
lusion. But the hereditarians, strange to say,
refute the environmentalists. The American
biologist, Professor Woods,” claims that the
growth of the power of choice in organisms
diminishes the influence of environment. He
says: ‘‘This may be the chief reason why
human beings, who of all beings have the
greatest power to choose the surroundings con-
genial to their special needs and natures, are
so little affected by outward conditions. The
occasional able, ambitious, and determined
member of an obscure or degenerate family can
get free from his uncongenial associates. So
ean the weak or lazy or vicious (even if a black
sheep from the finest fold) easily find his
natural haunts.’’ This judgment opposes the
strong claim of the advocates of environment,
while at the same time it militates against the
extreme hereditary hypothesis, although Pro-
fessor Woods does not see this implication of
his admission.- The practical question again
arises, that if we take two children in the same
home, under the same influences, receiving the
same education, etc., do they turn out the same?
Is it not rather true that there are great differ-
ences due to their choices? Consequently the
total result in considering the claims of both
heredity and environment does not destroy the
actuality of choice and free decision. That we
15 The Law of Diminishing Environmental Influences, Popu-
lar Science Monthly, April, 1910.
44 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

are morally forced to be what we are cannot be

sustained by the proofs of the biologists.
Sociology and freedom. Are we not condi-
tioned as individuals by social forces, and is
not society itself a product of necessary laws,
which destroy all claims of liberty? The
sociologist has used some of the results of biol-
ogy, notably the power of surroundings, in his
efforts. He thus makes man unfree. But
there are some direct sociological facts to be
considered. The investigations of social psy-
chology with their stressing of certain social
instincts*® tend to show how the individual is
under the compulsion of common instincts and
feelings. Much is made of the influence of the
crowd-mind and the mob-feeling, through
which in any gatherin g or common group
opinions and emotions are borne in upon men.
Among all influences the most potent is imita-
tion’? which rules largely in human endeavor
and moulds us into certain common ways of
doing things and controls our actions. But is
the force of common social mental traits so
strong as to abolish the decisions and actions of
the separate mind? We may oppose the
common power of feeling and thought. There
are always quite a number of individuals who
go their own way. It is only by our willingness
that we can be carried along in the common
stream. If we oppose and resist, the strongest
social forces of mind can have no power over
us. Through our own agreement or compla-
cence alone can we be absorbed into the ruling
16 Of. MeDougal, Social Psychology.
17 Cf. Tarde, Imitation.
 FREE WILL 45
trend of feeling and opinion. The contagion
of common ideas and emotions does not destroy
our individual liberty of choice and judgment.
When sociology becomes more and more
accurate it employs the science of statistics.
But what do we learn from a study of social
statistics? After the data have been collected
we find that there is a certain regularity in
actions that seem purely individual. There is
a steady number of suicides, a definite average
of births, an average proportion of marriages,
ete. The fact that actions like these, and even
distinctly moral attitudes, can be summarized
into figures seems to indicate that there are
underlying influences which shape men. But
when the full value of statistics is admitted, it
only demonstrates a certain regularity of
actions. Does this regularity of ordered lives,
or the calculable expectedness of crime, suicide,
and similar facts, bring such pressure to bear
upon the consideration of freedom as to negate
it? Men still feel their responsibility and
accept it. The great students of criminology
on the one hand argue that influences and en-
vironment and heredity make criminals. But
on the other hand the new practice of prison
reform, probation and parole, rest upon the
assumption of the possibility of change in the
prisoner by appealing to his own power of will
and decision. This is characteristic of other
eases. Whatever our theory may be, in the
actualities of life we act upon the presumption
of liberty and choice.
In addition to the biological conceptions used
by sociology it has also employed at times a
46 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
philosophy of society which makes the indivi-
dual a mere number in the group. Our whole
life as separate beings is virtually denied, and
we are made the creatures of the family, the
place where we dwell, the country that is ours,
the religion we profess, etc. Are we such
socially conditioned men that our individuality
is no real fact? The saner philosophy of
society does not destroy the individual life. It
allows the balance of individual choice and
common social direction.* If we follow this
conception of balance we cannot assume that
society itself is the outcome of natural forces.
The power and urge of food, shelter, sex, will
not be the only influences that are considered.
There will be a recognition of great ideas and
ideals that are accepted by men. Great
passions will arise kindled by eminent leaders.
Men in their common life will think together
and choose together without admitting that
they are the mere playthings of unconscious
forees. Shall the subhuman energies count,
and the natural forces be weighed, as against
the consciousness of men as to their liberty of
action? In this apparent conflict of evidence
the mind which has discovered the laws of
nature ought not to be discounted, and its own
right denied, while what it has established
remains firm. Modern science with its rule has
created an unjustifiable prejudice against the
data of the mind. It wants to rule the uni-
verse from its restricted area of facts and laws.
Causality and freedom. All the different
18 Baldwin, The Individual and Society.
 FREE WILL 47
objections to freedom find their focus in the
metaphysical problem of causality. Can there
be liberty in a universe which is controlled by
the reign and power of cause? From the
lowest particle of matter upward there seems
to be a continuous chain of cause and effect.
So much has already been included, by the
research of science, in the successive phenom-
ena that touch each other causally, that
the unexplained portion of existence would
appear logically to fall in most readily with
the hypothesis of the universal and unex-
ceptional control of natural causality. This
philosophic position has a great unity and
grows upon us as facts accumulate. We do
not seem to be able to really think a universe
without causality. When this view of things
enters human life it necessarily leads to a
strong fatalism. In modern drama Ibsen in
The Wild Duck has applied the power of
causality working up through life to a family
situation, which completely controls every act
and deed, and fills us with an unescapable
dread as we contemplate the utter human help-
lessness over against the tyranny of fate. The
novels of Thomas Hardy are an exposition of
the causal enchainment of man, whether we
analyze Tess of the D’Ubervilles or Two in a
Tower or. the world-drama of The Dynasts.
Hverywhere life is contemplated as completely
conditioned by the power of causality issuing
into fate.
But is this sweeping assumption of the con-
tinuity and control of causality, deriving its
interpretation from the energy observed in
48 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

matter, really true to the whole situation?

When we begin with the minute particles of
matter and the ultimate stressing of energy it is
true that it obtains through all phenomena.
But does the energy exhibited in the lowest
forms of matter actually cause all things as we
rise in the scale from the simple to the complex?
When we pass from physics and chemistry with
their laws to biology, do the same laws of cause
explain biological facts? We find a certain
plus not included in the sub-biological sciences.
Therefore we frame new laws for biology.
There is a physics and chemistry of biology but
it does not unfold the fact of life and the
organism. The continuity of physical and
chemical laws within biology is evident, but
there is an addition of something novel that has
never found an adequate explanation through
the pre-biological facts and inferences. The
lower does not produce the higher by a mere
continuity of the causal chain of the lower.
The examination of the mind as we go on from
biology to psychology opens up another break
in the causal continuity. The facts of life and
mind cause a distinct division which does not
destroy the connection of the causality of what
is below them, but proves the coming in of new
data that interfere with any assumption of the
absolute reign of causal necessity and continu-
ity. Man as a living and rational being finds
that there is a subsumption of the lower under
the higher. The complex and more differen-
tiated takes up into itself the simple and more
homogeneous. The world becomes man’s pos-
session. ‘‘That is to say, he is free by
 CAMPUS CRUSADE FOR CHRIST LIBRARY

FREE WILL 49
the help of his world, and in virtue of the
rational activities which he performs; even
though nature also performs them in and
through him. For the world becomes an
object of his experience and the content of
his self, as he interprets its meaning and deter-
mines its value and use. And it is this rational
recoil upon the world which makes it his object,
and constitutes the individual freedom. What
was outer becomes inner.’’*® It igs this process
of the rational and free permeation of the world
by man’s thought and action which is the
highest disproof of a blind and absolute caus-
ality. Man is the interpreter of nature and its
causality and feels and knows himself in his
immediate consciousness as free.
The difficulty of religion. There is a prob-
lem, which is not met by the general consider-
ation of the dependence of ethics upon religion.
Wherever there is belief in supernatural power
there is some dependence of man upon it. To
the degree then that man is so dependent he ig
not free. But man as an individual can accept
or reject such dependence. No religion is com-
pulsory in itself. The only compulsion has
arisen through human custom or law. But
there has been a real limitation through religion
wherever men have been under the conviction
of the power of fate. Back of all of the Greek
gods there was a tremendous force in the belief
in fate. In Brahmanism there is a unifying
pantheism that virtually destroys individual
initiative, makes man largely meditative, and

19 Sir Henry Jones, A Faith That Enquires, p. 225.

50 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
static
causes stagnation in society, which is
that all life tends towa rd the
through the idea
and in its prese nt form is the delus ive
Absolute
-
shadow of the eternal reality of rest that deter
mines us. Nevertheless there are pract ical
moral rules and freedom is still lived even if it
+s not believed. Buddhism with its doctrine of
Karma, or reincarnation of men through their
deeds, has a moral fatalism of acts, even though
+t denies the continuance of the soul. But with
this fatalism it combines a moral theory of the
suppression of desire and inculcates mercy and
kindness. The Kismet of Mohammedanism
with its strong accent upon predestination of
human life still enjoins merey and calls upon
the decision of men. The belief in fate in
relig ion is there fore not practically destruc-
tive of the exercise of freedom while it does
take away the belief of men in liberty.
Christianity and free will, The Christian
faith raises four questions about free will
through its doctrines of providence, sin, grace,
and predestination. There have been at all
times three attitudes; first the position of those
who stressed determination to the limit of fatal-
ism; second, the group which in reaction almost
denied providence and predestination to save
free will; and third, those who mediated be-
ween the two extremes. Is there a just expla-
nation which does not destroy liberty and still
maintains the value of all Christian truths?
The doctrine of providence, through which
we assert that our lives are in God’s hand, so
that all the hairs of our head are numbered, and
the length of our days written down in God’s
 FREE WILL 51
book, seems to take away our freedom. But
this is not really so. It only asserts that the
many things in our life which we cannot con-
trol, such as are under natural law or appear to
be a matter of accident or chance, are really
known to God, and are in the power of His
fatherly goodness which seeks our liberty
through His provident care and guidance.
Sin when it is given its full value, as the
result not merely of individual choice and act,
but also as the inherited burden of mankind,
certainly spells our bondage. The deliverance
of grace accomplished, if we accept the teach-
ing of Paul, without our co-operation, makes
our goodness apparently wholly the gift of God.
Thus whether we are in sin or under grace we
are not masters of our spiritual life. But this
is not the total meaning of these truths. The
slavery of sin, which is an experienceable fact,
even though its guilt is not naturally recog-
nized, calls for freedom. The awfulness of sin
is stressed so strongly in orthodox Christianity
because only by the recognition of the enslave-
ment of men and human society through the
evil of sin is.the way to freedom possible.
Grace is the necessary emancipation, which is
the act of divine goodness to make us free. It
the power to awaken in us the desire for the
good and to give us the strength to do it.
There is no limitation of life but a bestowal of
the real energy and effective motive to do the
right in its relation toward God as well as
toward man.
Predestination taken in its absolute form,
stressed by Augustine and Calvin, makes man
52 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
a piece of clay in the hands of the divine potter.
Man is molded either into a vessel of honor or
a vessel of dishonor by divine will which elects
or rejects him independently of his responsible
acts. But this form has been almost univer-
sally rejected through the growing apprecia-
tion of God’s love for men. Predestination
means on its positive side, in agreement with
God’s universal will for the salvation of men,
that the redeeming goodness of God foreseeing
the attitude of men takes hold of their will.
The natural and formal freedom is made a vital
freedom of the content of the good. Thus God
through Christ predestines to the liberty of the
children of God. The negative side is the per-
sistence of men in the evil. God’s foresight of
this is not an act of His will to reject. Men
cause their own rejection. The divine will is
no power to evil. Evil rests upon the choice
of men who will not see God’s way for their
deliverance and liberty. Thus interpreted
Christianity makes for a real, full freedom of
the good life in its fulness.
The total result of our study is to vindicate
not an absolute freedom of an anarchistic, illog-
ical sort, but an ordered liberty with limita-
tions which, however, do not destroy it.
REFERENCES
James Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Part IIT,
Chapter I.
Jas. Hyslop, Elements of Ethics, Chapters IV, V.
Frank Thilly, Introduction to Ethics, Chapter XI.
John 8. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethies, Book I, Chapter
Chas. D’Arey, A Short Study of Ethies, Part I, Chapter ITT.
Theo, DeLaguna, Introduction to the Science ITT.
of Ethies,
Chapter IV.
 FREE WILL 53
Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, Part IV, Chapter
XXVIII.
Henry W. Wright, Self-Realization, Part I, Chapter V.
a Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, Part IV, Section

es R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God, Chapter

Ed. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of Moral

Ideas, Chapters IX, XI.
G. T. Ladd, What I Ought To Do, Chapter V.
Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Book II, Chapter IX.
W. Wundt, Ethies, Part III, Chapter II, 3.
Aristotle, Nieomachean Ethics, Book III.
Erasmus, De Libero Arbitrio Diatribe.
Luther, De Servo Arbitrio.
Jonathan Edwards, Careful and Strict Enquiry Into the
Modern Prevailing Notions Respecting That Freedom of Will
Which is Supposed Essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and
Vice, Rewards and Punishment, Praise and Blame.
H. H. Horne, Free Will and Human Responsibility.
Karl Joel, Der Freie Wille.
Wm. James, The Will to Believe.
J. N. Figgis, The Will to Freedom.
Arthur K. Rogers, The Theory of Ethics, Chapter V.
 CHAPTER IV
CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM

The organ of freedom. After the establish-

ment of the range of free will there arises the
question, how the will comes to expression in
moral matters in our whole mental life. The
answer that men readily give is the reference
to~conscience. Through it the judgments and
decisions are made. Choices of good and bad
‘centre in it. Approval and disapproval of
acts, praise or blame, penitence and remorse
are expressed through the conscience. But to
fae the conscience only raises a new problem.
‘What is the conscience? Is it a simple voice
‘in us as the older moralists thought, or is it a
eomplex experience which must be analyzed
according to its component mental constituents?
The latter question will receive an affirmative
answer as we endeavor to consider what the
conscience is and how it functions.
The meaning of conscience. There is a his-
tory in the rise and use of the term ‘‘con-
secience.’? What are its indications, and what
did men intend to express through it? The
first clear evidence of the word, conscience, is
found among the Greek Stoics. They took the
term ‘‘suneidesis,’’ which had been used for
54.
 CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 59
consciousness in general, and applied it specif-
ically to our moral consciousness of ourselves
and our acts. It became the co-knowledge of
the good or bad within us. The Romans
similarly used ‘‘conscientia,’? from which we
derive our ‘‘conscience,’’ and the French their
word ‘‘conscience.’’ The German term ‘‘Ge-
wissen’’ means ‘‘ Mitwissen’’ and expresses the
very same idea as all the other words derivative
from the Greek. From these linguistic facts it
appears that when the idea of conscience was
set apart from other ideas it began with an
emphasis upon the intellect, which modern
psychological analysis will not sustain. A
further error was implied in the apparent
assumption of a double consciousness, one given
to natural things, the other to moral decisions.
Thus the belief arose that the conscience is
a definite unity within us, a single voice, divine
in its content and form, instead of a composite
of different mental functionings concerned with
the good or bad, the right or wrong.
The judgment of acts. What is the most
noticeable fact about conscience? What out-
standing feature is felt when we speak of con-'
science? The very first element is the judg-
ment of ourselves, our words and our acts.
Conscience is a judge within us, either freeing
us or condemning us in our conduct. It is not
not necessary that this judgment should come
after the act, which happens when we go ahead al

in our thoughts, words and deeds without

allowing any estimate to come to us of the ,
moral value of what we are about to think, |
utter or do. But if we pause before any con-
 56 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
nae there is a premonitory warning which
judges what we intend to do in its moral bear-
ings. JI may be placed in a quandary in which
I feel inclined, in order to avoid difficulties, to
tell an untruth. The conflict in the situation
may not be of my own making, but the result
of a condition, as when e. g. the telling a sick
man the actual state of his sickness may be
detrimental, while not doing so is deceit. It
is then that some judgment is made within us
either for truth or for concealment. But most
judgments are clear. I may be tempted to take
an undue profit in a sale or to misrepresent
what I want to sell. If conscience functions,
and I allow it to speak it will mark my inten-
tion as wrong. In the same manner I see some
person in imminent danger in the water. I
come to the rescue at once, and in the doing of
the act or just after it I hear the approval:
‘“This was a noble deed.’’? Thus judgments of
our conduct are always going on. It may
» happen that we suppress the utterance of these
4 judgments, but sooner or later they will press
in upon our consciousness. The judgments are
\strong and have a call to action. The approv-
fing decisions invite obedience, the disapprov-
\ing judgments inhibit action. But we are
‘never forced to follow the judgment of our con-
ie We can accept or reject its rulings.
) When conscience is powerful in us it comes
‘\ with a compelling appeal but never with a com-
*pulsory force. The submission to conscience
or the suppression of its judgment indicates
the nature of our conscience. If we constantly
disregard its promptings and pass by its deci-
 CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 57
sions we have a tough or hardened conscience.
The increase of this attitude finally silences
conscience for a long time or completely atro-
phies it. If we readily obey the judgmenis we
have a ready or tender conscience. This is the
normal, sound position, and makes for the
liberty in the good. Sometimes a tender con-
science may go beyond the proper balance, and
become super-sens and critical about our
itive
own acts or those of others. We not only judge
ourselves, but also others either rightly cr
wrongly. When this judgment is extreme, or
fails to weigh situations justly and sympathet-
ically, it creates a quibbling and contentious
conscience that loses itself in details and minu-
tiae, and fails even when there is justice in the
judgments. The judgment in order to be true
and cultivated must be broad, fair, equitable,
and apply equal decisions to others and to
ourselves.
The law back of the judgment. When con-
science pronounces a judgment the question
rises, on what basis is the judgment given?
Before or after an act of ourselves or others
we say either: ‘‘This is right,’’ or ‘‘This is
wrong.’’ Why can we make such a statement?
fs there a standard or law back of the judgment
which gives us the right to make the judg-
ment? We accept certain great principles as
controlling our judgments of attitudes and acts.
The earliest formulator of scientific ethics,
Aristotle, recognized this law although he had
no definite conception of conscience nor gave
it a name. Resting upon his logic Aristoile
 58 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
called attention to the practical syllogism. In
this syllogism the judgment is either the con-
clusion or the minor premise. When I say:
‘‘This act is just’? I am drawing the conclusion
in a syllogism even if I do not clearly formulate
the major and minor premise. I may use a
minor premise and say to myself: ‘‘This deceit
of mine is a lie.’? The implied conclusion is,
therefore it is wrong. But its foundation is a
major premise which says, when definitely
formulated: ‘‘Lying is wrong.’? When the
judgment is a minor premise a major is neces-
sary, and a conclusion follows. The syllogism
is rarely put into its complete form. But the
necessary implication is that there is always a
major premise on which the judgment rests.
This major premise is one of the laws of con-
science. Thus we find in our mental life that
there are certain standards and laws, which
we have accepted, and upon which our judg-
ments of the moral value of conduct rest.
The origin of the law. The existence of cer-
tain standards and laws in our conscience that
may be traced to definite principles opens up
the problem whence are these laws, and how
are they derived? When we examine the con-
tentof the mora] laws that controls us we find
Nee that it is derived from what has been taught
us.. We grow up in a certain family with its
moral conceptions and practices. Then we are
influenced by the type of religion we have and
its ethical principles. The ruling practices of
an age with its moral trend have a bearing
1Cf. Sir A. Grant, The Ethics of Aristotle, Vol. I, Essay
IV, p. 263 ff.
 CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 59
upon us. Thus the condition of the morals and
the ethical attitude of the society in which we
grow up first begin to shape us. When how-
ever we come to our days of discretion we will
make individual choices and decisions either
affirming or denying what we have received no
matter how powerful early training and sur-
roundings are.
But the problem of tracing the content of
conscience to its sources is not the whole ques-
tion. Why do the moral ideas and practices
have the power of an inner law? It is this
formal problem of conscience which lies at the
root of the origin of conscience. A very com-
mon conception of today is that conscience is
the voice of society in man. .The conscience
is supposed to be the rule of the social power
in the individual, controlling him in the inter-
est of the common life, and saying to him: ‘‘In
the name of society I bid you do this.’’ The
moral laws certainly have large social relations,
and make the common life possible. But are
we conscious of this pressure of society as in-
herent in us? Do men accept the right as the
demand of society? Is this its binding
strength? Men have again and again revolted
against the moral positions of their age and
the society of their times without rejecting the
conscience. In fact great moral leaders have
frequently claimed the right of their own con-
science, and have demanded their ethical free-
dom in the choice of right and wrong. The
stories of Confucius and of Socrates show us
how men are not the mere focus of their age,
but through individual insight into moral truth
 60 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
rise above those about them, and feel an urge
which does not exhibit itself as social. Fre-
quently the laws of conscience develop in the
conflict of our thoughts and emotions. Marti-
neau supposed’ that it was out of the inner con-
flict of thoughts excusing or accusing each
other that conscience arose. He confused St.
Paul’s description of the functioning of con-
science® with its origin. There are no psycho-
logical or social indications sufficiently definite
to permit us in making a fairly adequate con-
jecture as to the origin of conscience.’ We know
its uses but somehow its beginnings are hidden.
It comes to us with a certain mystery about
which religion makes its assertions, tracing the
moral laws in their appeal and power to a gift
of God. Hthics does not seem capable of solving
- this question with its resources. It only knows
of the impelling power of the laws of right,
which we often desire to get rid of but cannot.
Nevertheless we have the liberty to overrule
all the promptings of the laws of conscience by
our desires and actions. We know and feel the
force of the laws accepted as right, but we can
freely disobey them and subject ourselves to
the consequences of the violation of the moral
order.
The intellectual elements of conscience. When
conscience began to be studied separately the
emphasis was put strongly on the intellect in
2 Of. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, p. 58, 54,
401, 402.
3 Romans II: 14, 15.
4 Rogers, Theory of Ethies, Chapter IIT, ig another effort
that fails.
 CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 61
conscience. But modern psychological in-
vestigation has led students to stress the emo-
tional power. Which of these two attitudes is
more correct? The reply will appear as we
attempt to analyse the parts which intellect and
emotion play in conscience. Whenever we pass
a moral judgment of any sort it certainly con-
tains an attitude that either demands thought
or has thought back of it. It is impossible to
make a valuation of a moral act without some
analytical knowledge. If we desired to pass
judgment on a war, and say: ‘‘This war is
wrong,’’ we could not do so except certain facts
were known, considered and estimated by us in
reference to the war we wanted to adjudge.
The moral principles also contain general state-
ments, which are either first assumptions in
conduct or generalized abstractions from the
concrete conditions of life. No intellectually
uncertain or colorless ideas can form the basis
of the maxims and laws of our character and
conduct. If I claim ‘‘Justice is fundamental
in social morality,’? I am making a statement
which has a meaning in every single part of it.
There are large and strong intellectual elements
in it, and it is rich in a far-reaching conception.
The whole functioning of conscience would be
blind and impulsive were it not for the rational
content. It is just this rational content which
gives soundness and stability to conscience and
leads us as rational beings to accept its authority.
As far as the material of our moral laws con-
trolling us comes from society it has a tradition-
al aspect. But will the moral customs of society
last if they do not rest on an inherent rationality
G2), CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
which justifies their currency and permanence?
Sometimes reasonableness is sustained by the
impossibility of the opposite. Hobhouse’ well
says: ‘‘Reason comes by her own, not because
men willingly and consciously accept her, but
because unreason carried far enough produces
misery and disaster. Sufficiently grave depar-
tures, whether to the right hand or to the left,
either produce reaction or lead to social dis-
solution. Against dissolute practice, society
will perhaps erect a barrier of a stringent
theory, and save itself in turn from the con-
sequences of the theory by a network of tacit
understanding forming a secondary and more
genuine code of conduct beside or behind that
which men outwardly profess. The price of
luxury is disorder, the price of undue strictness
is insincerity, and both prices will be paid until
men seek to found conduct on the dispassionate
consideration of what is permanently in accord
with the requirements of human nature under
the conditions of social life.’’ The conditions
of social life fit into a moral order which is
being realized, and beneath which there is a
purpose. The moral development, as well as
the development of nature, when regarded in
its totality leads to the assumption of an inher-
ent purpose. For this cause the laws of moral
life in their individual and common application,
and the judgment of conscience, rest upon
reason which is practically effective because it
is theoretically correct.
What is the power of emotion? After we have
5 The Rational Good, p. 168.
 CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 63
given full place to the intellect, have we really
touched the impulsive and propelling power of
conscience? If we examine a moral law it does
not come to us merely in the cold and dispas-
sionate form of an intellectual theorem. There
is about it a warmth and propulsion of feeling
and emotion. This distinguishes a moral prin-
ciple in action from the mere consideration of it
apart from its functioning. We may discuss an
ethical question in an unconcerned and unap-
plied manner as we discuss any problem. But
as soon as the moral law bears upon the immedi-
ate conduct it is accompanied by a strong inrush
of emotion. When we consider the moral
appraisement in judging of character and con-
duct in its practical working we find an even
stronger emotional tone than in the law. The
judgment of the conscience is not delivered
like the usual sentence of a judge as the exposi-
tion of the law involved. But the condemnation
or acquittal comes with solemnity and power.
It produces either depression of feeling or
heightening of it. We may suppress the full
force of the emotional urge but it is present and
sometimes carries us whither we did not expect
to be carried. A deed that has been done often
leaves behind it an effect of emotion that must
spend itself no matter how long it takes. The
student Raskolnikoff, who is the leading charac-
ter in Dostoievsky’s ‘‘Crime and Punishment,”’
shows how impossible it is for him finally not to
betray himself and to reveal the deed which he
tries to hide. It is the constant emotional
pressure that makes him restless and does not
allow him to bury sin in forgetfulness. This
64 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
power of emotion like a mighty stream fre-
quently overflows the whole life. The great
classic analysis of it in the drama is found in
Macbeth, when both Macbeth and Lady Mac-
beth are overwhelmed by the horror and
ineseapability of the murder they have com-
mitted. The undercurrent of their minds is
mighty emotion. This emotion has various
degrees according to the culpability which is
felt to be in an act. A minor transgression is
followed by sorrow or regret. Hither of these
may be short-lived or continue for some time
according to the emotional strength that pro-
duces the reaction in us after the judgment of
conscience. When an attitude or action leads
to a more severe condemnation it is succeeded
by remorse. Remorse has tremendous tone of
feeling, and is often not overcome very readily.
A change may be effected if after the experience
of sorrow, or regret, or remorse, we turn about
in the direction of the freedom of the good.
This mental reversal is repentance. It is the
acceptance of the full condemnation with its
emotional burden, the resolution to reject the
condemned act and attitude, and in future to
choose the opposite and seek the good. The act
approved of is accompanied by a feeling of
either satisfaction, or joy, or peace. It may also
contain an impetus to continue in the good
through the current of the encouraging emotion.
But no matter how strong the emotional trend
may be we can brace ourselves against it. It is
powerful but it does not control us finally with-
out our volition. Hven the temporary outburst
of its strength can be overcome, and if it pre-
 CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 65
vails it is only as we allow it to do so in the
conflict which ensues between it and our set
desire and will.
The conscience and volition. It is self-evident
that the knowledge and emotion pertaining to
right and wrong lead to action or inhibit it.
But are there any further contacts? In the
study of volition desire plays an important part.
It is the longing which seeks to satisfy a want.
This longing often emerges into a motive, and
the motive brings about the action. The motiv-
ation to action arising in desire can enter into
conscience when our desires adopt the moral
laws as a want to be realized. If, e. g., we take
the saying ‘‘honesty is the best policy,’’ and
change it from the diplomatic form into the
moral law, and say: ‘‘honesty is right,’? we may
make honest words and actions our desire. Then
we begin to incorporate the moral law into our
motives. The promptings and appeals of con-
science become connected inwardly with the
functioning of our volition. It is this end
toward which conscience is striving so that
there may be a joyous approval of judgment.
The inner identification with the moral law
makes us free to the degree that the right
becomes our desire. On the contrary the liberty
of a good life is hindered as far as our desires
remain unmoralized. If, e.g., I give way to the
impulses that crowd in upon me, especially in
the first days of adolescence, and listen to the
pressure of sex without controlling it, it im-
plants itself in my desire. Unless a contest
takes place to dislodge the mere natural instinct
from the conscious desire the impulse will con-
66 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
quer. Conscience with its law of restraint of sex
and its call to purity will speak in vain. My
action will follow the motive controlled by the
desire that is amoral and becomes immoral with
the continual rejection of the appeal of the
moral law. We must implant the moral prin-
ciples into the course of mental phenomena that
lead to action.
Is there a social conscience? The conscience
has always been accepted as acting in and
through the individual mind. But in the last
decades the assertion has been made again and
again, that there is and ought to be a social
conscience. What is really meant by a social
conscience? It is frequently forgotten that the
individual ought to have a social conscience.
By this term we mean, not that we ought to
consider our actions of right or wrong as they
affect other individuals, but as they bear upon
social groups and society at large. Those who
are leaders in the state, the church, in politics,
in industry, in commerce, ete. by their very
position must decide moral issues representa-
tively, and they can do this rightly only if they
acquire a moral sense and judgment that has
the social outlook. But in addition to the
leaders every one in society has a social influ-
ence, and must accept social obligations. It is
being realized in business today that strictly
speaking there is no private transaction. Every
article sold, and the price charged for what is
purchased, have a connection with the whole
conduct of business and the whole scale of
prices as they affect society. There must be
an awakening among all people to understand
 CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 67
how their actions touch the life of society.
Among some people there is the idea that liberty
is mere individual choice. For this reason they
resent, e.g., quarantine that is put upon their
homes when there are cases of contagious dis-
ease. They do not realize the interconnection
of men in society, and the fact that there must
be common liberty, and consequently that there
must be common rights. The usual conscience
has not been developed to function socially.
The other meaning of the social conscience is
the common attitude of society on moral issues.
Of course we must not suppose that there is
some unitary super-mind and super-conscience
in society. We dare not create social fictions
that are unreal. But it is a fact, that through
the ideals of leaders, through common organs of
public opinion, there is found and expressed
what is in the minds of the many. There is a
congruence of certain moral laws and judgments
in the common and public outlook. Through
the merging of the attitude of many, and
through the testing of the average conscience,
we arrive at a common conscience which judges
social matters.. Society will be sound as far as
more and more of its ideas and actions are
controlled, not by political, or economic con-
siderations, but are adjudged by a living
and developing social conscience with high
standards.
The authority of conscience. <A very impor-
tant element in the analysis of conscience is the
problem of its authority. Its moral law comes
to us and impresses us with a feeling that it is
authoritative. We may accept or reject the
68 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
rulings of the authoritative call of conscience,
but we cannot deny the claim of authority. The
authority of conscience is reasonable and not
arbitrarily compulsory. Through it we are not
to be enslaved and made permanently depen-
dent, but it is the way to real liberty of the good.
Its imperative is invitation and appeal, even
if its pronouncement is direct, definite and
unbending. We may overhear the call of
authority but it will reassert itself.
Connected with the authority of conscience
is the problem of its infallibility. It cannot be
denied that we can do nought else than follow
our conscience when it approves of an ideal and
attitude. But this does not imply that the con-
science is unerring. It may not be faulty in
following such knowledge as it has, but its
knowledge may be wrong. The conscience of
the early New England people was correct
according to their conviction of right when they
burned witches, but we know now that their
conception of right in this respect and their
belief in witches was wrong. When Calvin ap-
proved of the burning of Servetus, he thought
that his approval was a high and just moral act. -
Today we know that his standard was wrong.
Thus conscience is never infallible in its content.
One age condemns the position of an age that is
gone. Different people, especially those of the
low tribes, have consciences that are devoid of
what we consider the very fundamentals of
moral law. We can only judge men as they
follow their conscience, but we can not claim
that honesty of obedience to one’s conscience im-
plies the correctness of what conscience dictates.
 CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 69
The authority of the conscience is not de-
stroyed by the defectiveness of its contents.
From the crudest beginnings it has constantly
risen to a better appreciation of the good.
Progress has not been uniform, but there have
been periods of retrogression. The formal au-
thority finds it best content when conscience is
under the influence of two developing causes.
The first is the growth of right reason applied
to morals. When men seriously reflect upon
the good, and observe the effect of evil, they
recognize what makes for happiness and free-
dom. Action does not always follow reflection,
but to the degree that we allow reasonable con-
siderations to guide us we will eliminate the
ignorance that in part prevents higher moral
standards. Enlightenment aids moral progress
and helps in giving sounder content to con-
science. The second cause that elevates con-
science is the content which a great religion
furnishes. While low forms of religion have
stood in the way of ethical advance, the high
forms have presented conceptions of such a
range, and kindled emotions of such power, that
conscience is yery much lifted up. The best
religion is that whose ethical content presents
ideals which it will take the centuries to work
out. This is the claim of Christianity. It aims
to make the authority of conscience complete
for liberty and goodness through its perfect
moral content and ideal.
Christianity and conscience. Itis only through
the writings of Paul that we are introduced to
the Christian conception of conscience in its
beginnings. Christ in the figurative term ‘‘the
70 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
light of the body is the eye,’”* has stated the fact
of the conscience. But the actual word only
came into use in Christian truth through Paul.
In the letter to the Romans Paul has the idea
of conscience in mind, when he describes the
existence of the law in the mind of the Gentiles
who do not have the revealed law of Israel. He
well describes the conflict in the conscience be-
tween thoughts as they accuse or excuse each
other.” The actual inner process of conscience
is realized. But more important is the fact that
Paul’ sees in the conscience that in man which is
to accept the pure truth. He emphasizes the
appeal of divine revelation as saving truth to
the conscience. This is for him the centre toward
which religious truth tends, and before which
it must approve itself. It affirms the essential
Christian position which makes all of its truth
ethical in purpose though not in immediate
character. The conscience is conceived of as
paramount; and neither reason with its logic
nor emotion with its unsteadiness are funda-
mental. Out of this attitude we must judge all
questions of truth, its authority and infallibility.
No demand of dogmatic consistency must stand
in the way of the moral verification of all
spiritual truth before the conscience.
6 Matthew VI: 22.
7Romans II: 15.
82 Corinthians IV: 2; I Timothy I: 5; III: 9.

REFERENCES
Jas. Hyslop, The Elements of Ethies, Chapters VI, VII.
Frank Thilly, Introduction to Ethics, Chapters II, III.
Henry W. Wright, Self-Realization. Part I, Chapter IV.
 CONSCIENCE AND FREEDOM 71
Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, Part I, Chapters IV,
VI
ge
Chas. D’Arey, A Short Study of Ethics, Part II, Chapters
VIII, XIV.
G. T. Ladd, What I Ought To Do, Chapter X.
Chas. Gray Shaw, The Value and Dignity of Human Life,
Part III, Chapter II.
W. Hocking, Human Nature and its Remaking, Part III.
Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Book II, Chapter V.
W. Wundt, Ethics, Part III, Chapter II, 4.
John F. D. Maurice, The Conscience.
Hastings Rashdall, Is Conscience an Emotion.
 CHAPTER V
FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM

What is the problem? A very real difficulty

arises as we consider whether the trend of life
is toward evil or good. The theory of pessimism
is that this is the worst of all possible worlds.
Its opposite is optimism which claims that we
are in the best of all possible worlds. The great
advocate of optimism in modern times is Leibniz
who in the interest of religion wrote his the-
odicy. In this treatise he seeks to prove that
such evil as is in the world is due to human
finiteness, and the nature of liberty. The world,
Leibniz thinks, is the best of all possible worlds
that God could make and still retain freedom.
Whether this position is tenable or not, it is
valuable because it indicates the problem of the
relation of freedom to evil. There are two sides
to this question. The first is that the existence
of the choice of right or wrong makes possible
the wrong choice. This is the risk of freedom.
The other side is the question, whether freedom
1s worth while and really helps the cause of the
good if the whole drift of affairs is toward evil.
The first consequence of the problem of the re-
lation of freedom to good or evil is self-evident.
It is the second which gives us concern and
constitutes the question of pessimism.
72
 _ FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 73
The causes of pessimism. There are several
great causes of intellectual, emotional, and voli-
tional pessimism, disregarding for the moment
the pessimism of mood. Among these those
which characterize our age are naturalism and
realism. It would seem that naturalism ought
to be the friend of hope. When it becomes
tinged with religion and arrives at pantheism
it says with Pope: ‘‘Whatever is is good.’’
There is no room for the distinction of good
and evil where any kind of pantheism rules.
But the actual naturalism, either neglecting its
pantheistic consequence or contradicting it,
takes the real world as one of absolute necessity.
Man seeking the outlook of hope does not find
it but is always subject to inexorable law. The
desire for freedom is a deception. Morals and
religion are really illusions in a universe of mere
forces and energies. Where men think and feel
themselves constrained to accept the conclusions
of natural science alone as fundamental and
ultimate they must abandon moral and spiritual
values. Then bowing to the inescapable reign
of iron natural law they grow sad, weary and
hopeless when the ery of their heart calls for
goodness and its liberty. No one has better
voiced the hopelessness of naturalism than
Matthew Arnold in his poem Dover Plains.
He hears faith’s
‘¢Melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.’’

The second great cause in our day is realism.

74 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
The attitude of an extreme realism has entered
into all art, and into the whole view and philoso-
phy of life. It claims to be the honest portrayal
of facts as against the idealism which lifting
its head into the clouds forgets that we are
walking on the earth. As a protest realism
serves to correct an unreal idealism which has
lost itself in the dreams of romanticism. But
when realism becomes the ruling outlook and
crowds out the striving after the ideal it
destroys ideals. The destruction of ideals and
their value undermines the worth of morals and
freedom. To see things as they are is of service
if we make the effort to make things as they
ought to be. Realism however discounts such
an effort for betterment. It wants to dwell in
the slums it has discovered, and to keep the
fig-leaf of decency removed. Through realism
men learn to dwell in the tents of ungodliness
and to delight in the examination and descrip-
tion of all that is ugly, mean and bad. This vile
world is the paradise of realism. It loves the
shadows of Main Street, and glorifies the low
aspirations of Alice Adams.t. The decadent
dramas of Strindberg, the free verse that dwells
in nasty places, and the moving picture that
portrays the worst in human life luridly, are
exalted. Painting and sculpture by the power
of realism depart from purity of color and the
glorious beauty of the human form, and unfold
the riot of impure color and exhibit the extrava-
gance of form. If this is life and all that it
contains and all that it may hope to be then
_1The popularity of such a novel as ‘‘Babbit’’ is a sad
sign of a most commonplace, decadent realism.
 FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 75
surely there is no place for the hope and glory
of human freedom. If realism rests on facts
and if its facts are final then we must hang our
heads in shame and despair.
Pessimism and human moods. There is a
kind of pessimism which does not rest upon
naturalism or realism, but is the growth of the
mood of man. A mood is composed of a number
of emotions which have attained permanence
and color the whole feeling of our mind. It is
a settled attitude of feeling toward all experi-
ence and bends it to its own condition. Where
the common feeling is bright there is optimism,
but where it is gloomy there is pessimism. A
depressed mood of gloom may be the result of
wrong physical conditions of the body or the
consequence of mental disorder. But there are
men whose experiences have soured them or who
are hopeless when they view the course of
things. Such men fall into the mood that is
dark and become pessimistic. There are others
who assume pessimism and strike an attitude of
‘“Weltschmerz.’’ With all these different types
of men there can be no debate. Their attitude
is a matter of taste. Sometimes there is a
weariness and ennui of the world which is the
result of a dissipated life which has drunk the
wine of evil indulgence to the dregs. The mood
which is pessimistic as the result of such a life
is the punishment of the wrong choice of evil.
There are temperamental pessimists who are
well represented by Jacques,” when he approves
of the fool’s philosophy:
2°*Ag You Like It,’’ Act II, Scene VII.
76 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
‘‘ *Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more’t will be eleven,
And so from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour, we rot and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale.’’
This makes a stale and unprofitable world.
Can we know and be glad? We begin to
come to the real issue of pessimism when we
ask as our first question, what is the outcome
of knowledge? Does it lead to hope or despair;
does it make us optimistic or pessimistic? At
the outset there seems to be joy in the attain-
ments of the intellect. We are satisfied as
little by little we learn to know. But as soon
as the effort is made to go below the surface of
truth and to dig into its depths we find great
hindrances. Knowledge which begins with
curiosity when it seeks to satisfy itself fully
ends in doubt. The striving of the intellect
comes to an impasse. The more we know the
less we know, because all new knowledge when
searched out leads to further problems. The
searching and critical intellect infects us with
‘‘problemitis.’’ The great classic representa-
tion of man seeking happiness is Goethe’s
Faust. One part of the search is the quest
after knowledge. But neither medicine, nor
law, nor theology satisfy the deep intellectual
longing of Faust. He has tried all of them and
in vain. It almost breaks his heart that we can
know nothing rightly and thoroughly. Thus
kowledge leads to despair. It has not kept its
promise of giving joy and peace and liberty to
the earnest seekers after truth.
A short glance at the development of philo-
sophy in some of its connected movements of
 FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 77
thought confirms the conviction of the final
futility of the intellect to lead to liberty. The
Greeks began with assuming some material
principle as explanatory of the world. But the
early explanation of matter, even in its atomic
form, failed to answer all questions. Then
Anaxagoras first discovered the necessity of
some sort of mind-stuff to account for the order
of the world. Absolute rest and existence was
tried by the Eleatics, and Heraclitus sought to
solve all the problems of the world through
movement. Then after Socrates endeavored to
help morals by clear conceptual thinking arose
Plato with his vision of ideas and ideals. Aris-
totle brought down to earth the eternal beauty
and goodness which Plato had seen. He
showed men a universe of causes and final pur-
pose, high thought moving the world, and men
with moral aims. But the great ethical striv-
ings of these leaders of thought soon split up
into advocates of pleasure, Epicureans, and de-
fenders of reason, Stoics, who fell back into a
material metaphysic of the world. The end of
the Greek deyelopment in the followers of Plato
and Aristotle, and in the students of all schools,
was scepticism. The mind had tried the differ-
ent alternatives, had reached great heights, and
then despaired of any real solution. The his-
tory of English thought gives a leading place
to three speculators, Locke, Berkeley, and
Hume. Locke endeavored to find the secret of
the human understanding, and its relation to
an outside world. He was led to assert that
some qualities of things like color were not in
things but in the mind. Berkeley developing
78 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
the analysis of the mind came to deny all exper-
ience of matter. Restricting the investigation
to immediate knowledge he found only sensa-
tions and ideas. Both were finally mental, and
the mind the only real existence. Hume carry-
ing the analysis still further found only phe-
nomena in the mind. He could not see any evi-
dence for mind itself, but only defended
impressions and notions. Thus the conclusion
reached was sceptical, and there was no real
substance, or cause, or existence, beyond the
immediate appearances in experience. The
more keenly the mind searched after itself the
more mind destroyed itself by doubt. The Ger-
man development in the philosophy of the
nineteenth century began with the endeavor of
Kant to fix the limits of theortical thinking
and to overcome the scepticism of Hume by a
thorough critique of pure and practical reason.
But the criticism of Kant was followed by the
egocentric idealism of Fichte. Kant’s strong
emphasis of the ego with its categories grew
into an absolute ego. Hegel followed as the great
defender of absolute reason as a movement.
But when the heights were reached idealism
failed and materialism ruled again. Blind will
and impulse gained a foothold. The outcome
was confusion and uncertainty... Agnosticism
was the end just as it was the result in the
common sense speculation of the Scotch
thinkers. The line of succession did not stop
with Reid but led to Hamilton with his philos-
ophy of the unconditioned, then on to Mansel
who in the interest of faith doubted the possibil-
ity of the absolute; and at last Spencer adopted
 FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 79
Mansel’s attitude in his First Principles and
argued for the Unknowable. Any careful stu-
dent of the history of philosophy must find that
all ultimate questions have not been solved, and
that every movement of thought has ended in
agnosticism or doubt. And agnosticism is
nothing else but an inconsequental scepticism
unwilling to follow its own logic.
When we look at the efforts of men to frame
theories of the best way of teaching the truth
we are not very much encouraged. Great ped-
agogues have arisen from time to time with
high visions, but after a time they were dis-
carded. Pedagogy has been one series of ex-
periments. There has always been a contest
between the old and the new methods. Neither
were absolutely right. Change succeeded change
and small minds were always announcing that
the last word had been said, and now the
golden age of education had arrived. Today
the apostles of the practical and the utilitarian
and the vocational hold the field. But if we
but wait they will pass from the field of
endeavor and, some new universal nostrum of
education will be announced. Meantime every
sort of education has spoiled as many minds
as it has helped. Men finally educate them-
selves in spite of all theories. The best efforts
of the mind to teach the mind are vain and in
the great things of liberty we go on groping
our way, blundering through, and stumbling
blindly on. All our pedagogy leaves us in the
lurch and we are not solving the great disturb-
ing problems of our day.
The intellectual part of civilization is not
80 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
hopeful. The increase of knowledge has not
been accompanied by increase of general intel-
ligence.® The ancient Greeks on the average
were intellectually more advanced than the
the average man today. Along with the failure
of the increase of brain-power has gone a con-
stant addition of new knowledge. The intellec-
tual structure of civilization has grown too
heavy for the minds of men to bear. Know-
ledge has been very much subdivided and there
are many narrow specialists in all departments
of learning and in every profession, but broad
knowledge is dying out. It can no longer be
assimilated because of its excessive details in
every department. If we take e. g., the study
of history it is evident that the growth of its
material is so tremendous that we can either
know only a small part thoroughly or a larger
part rather superficially. The growth of the
knowledge of civilization is its own destruction.
If we are to have large knowledge some of the
present intellectual civilization must be lost,
and the slate partly wiped clean. Otherwise
we shall all become grubbers in minutiae and
lose the general knowledge, and with it the
broad sympathy that makes for common respect
of rights and universal liberty.
When we weigh all of these- indictments
against the intellect the case seems very ser-
1ous. But there are certain contrary consider-
ations. The intellect is not the whole of human
life. We cannot and ought not stake all of
happiness and liberty on the success or failure
of our logic. The limitations of reason must
8Cf. above page 35.
 FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 81
be clearly recognized and the impossible must
not be asked of it. Ultimate questions may not
be solved easily to the common satisfaction of
men. But the striving after them has not been
entirely without result, and we have at least
learnt the possibility of our knowledge. The
periods of scepticism have been followed by
times of renewed search. It must not be for-
gotten that we have not reached the goal, and
that the development is still going on. In the
search there is the joy of the work. The very
effort of the intellect is its liberation. In many
departments of knowledge we have attained
established facts. Our knowledge of nature
and science has given us many data that have
changed our whole life and freed it from much
superstition and narrowness. There has been
no such complete failure as the pessimists
would have us believe. The difficulty in final
problems has thrown us back upon faith and
strengthened our spiritual life. Experimenta-
tion in education has brought along with its
changes increasing understanding of the child
and has given larger liberty. Subdivision of
knowledge invites more and more people to
think and makes knowledge more universal.
There may be periods of loss and backwardness
but is the total history of knowledge one of
despair or one of progressive advancement?
Along with its scepticism philosophy has un-
folded the intellect and has often given us
glimpses of the world and of mind which exper-
iment has afterwards established. Atoms were
projected in Greek thought before modern
chemistry. Heraclitus saw the world in motion
82 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

long prior to modern physics. Plato had

visions of the essentials of life and the great-
ness in suffering evil centuries ago. We can
find not only errors in the course of human
thinking but also great permanent truths.
There is therefore no reason why we should
despair of the value of real knowledge if we
know its place and function. As it adds a
share to truth it helps to make us free, for all
real truth makes free.
The emotional dilemma. It is particularly
in the sphere of the emotions that pessimism
makes its strong attack. Before the mind’s
eye is called up the vision of all the pain, the
woe, the misery and the evil of the world.
What a picture of suffering, sadness and des-
pair! Are not suffering, woe, sin, and evil
paramount, the most positive facts in human
life against which joy, health, goodness are
utterly insignificant? But this appeal must
not carry us away, powerful as it is; for it does
not prove that all is wrong and evil. We can-
not shut our eyes to the awful fact of suffering,
sickness and sin, but they are after all not the
total of life. The recognition of their existence
only helps to save us from a blind optimism that
finds that all is well in the world when all is
not well. Whether the good overbalances the
evil, or the evil the good cannot be determined
absolutely. It all depends upon the point of
view of the one who speculates about this
subject.
But there is another emotional pessimism
which assails the very centre of our life. The
danger of the life of sense led Brahmanism to
 FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 83
draw men away from the world of deceptive
and alluring sense, the world of externals and
appearance to the peaceful rest of the world of
reality found in the absolute existence, the
universal mind. This tendency of Brahmanism
was further developed by Buddhism. Accord-
ing to it the great bondage of life is the enslave-
ment caused by desire. It is the desire to live
and do which brings about all evil. Nothing
but distraction of life follows. We are carried
hither and thither and arrive nowhere in this
world of ‘‘Maya,’’ deception and illusion. We
must cease to want and stop desiring to live.
Our aim must be to find the great ‘‘ Nirvana,”’
the haven of rest and peace. Only through the
cessation of all wants and the obliteration of
all desires and emotions can we escape the
‘‘Karma,’’ the re-creation because of our deeds.
The religious philosophy of the East was
introduced into the West by Schopenhauer.
He sought to show by psychological analysis
that when we have not we want. We are
unhappy in our wanting. After we get what
we want we are still unhappy because the reali-
zation is less than we pictured it to be. But
still we want again. Therefore whether we
have or want we are always miserable. Hven
if the getting is partially satisfactory the very
nature of desire grows through the getting.
Desire is insatiable. This condition is the very
essential of our life, and causes pain and
misery. ‘‘The ceaseless efforts to banish suffer-
ing accomplish no more than to make it change
its form. It is essentially deficiency, want,
eare for the maintenance of life. If we succeed,
84 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
which is very difficult, in removing pain in this
form, it immediately assumes a thousand
others, varying according to age and circum-
stances, such as lust, passionate love, jealousy,
envy, hatred, anxiety, ambition, covetousness,
sickness, etc., etc. If at last it can find entrance
in no other form, it comes in the sad, grey gar-
ments of tediousness and ennui, against which
we then strive in various ways.’’* But there
is no real escape from the evil. We are always
tossed about by ‘‘many a conflict, many a
doubt.”? ‘‘Thus between desiring and attain-
ing all human life flows on throughout. The
wish is, in its nature, pain; the attainment soon
begets satiety : the end was only apparent;
possession takes away the charm; the wish, the
need, presents itself under a new form; when it
does not, then follows desolateness, emptiness,
ennui, against which the conflict is just as pain-
ful as against want.’’®> How can we escape
from the snares of the fowler, desire? The
tremendous truth of this analysis of desire is
not answered by the counterclaim, that there is
joy in the striving, and that some satisfaction
grows out of the possession of what we want.
This answer is only relatively true. Striving
1s not pure joy; it has its great disappointments.
The seeking of the satisfaction of desire and
emotion is not the same as the search after
knowledge. Its efforts have only a passing
value and give only a temporary rest. The
solution is in the content and object of the
desire and emotion. All objects, like pleasure.
4The World as Will and Idea, Book IV, par. 57.
5 The World as Will and Idea, Book IV, par. 57.
 FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 85
wealth, social power, ete., have no permanent
worth. They are purely relative. But if the
object of desire is moral and spiritual, and
seeks fundamental human values, as e. g., right-
eousness, truth, there is no defect in the desire.
Such hunger and thirst are satisfied. It is not
the wanting, but what we want which deter.
mines its good or less than good value.
The pessimist questions the satisfaction of
art. He asserts that there is no real joy in art,
but only a great burden. It is true that
Schopenhauer inconsistently believes that the
contemplation of art brings partial deliverance.
But the real attitude must make the desire for
art equally futile. It has no solution for
human restlessness. The great artists despair
in their greatest creations. They are driven
on, and the driving power of the creative in-
stinct is painful. Nothing is born without woe.
When the best is reached of which a great
artist is capable, he knows better than any
eritic that the best is bad enough. The spirit
of discontentment is necessary to the progress
of art. Contentment and satisfaction kill the
highest aspirations. The artist who is too much
pleased with himself has already failed. But
is this discontent evil? Does it show utter
failure? Surely it is the way of progress and
greater attainment. The relative merit of any
work of art does not make it, its spirit, and its
producer subject to evil. There is a relative
satisfaction. Of course the depth of the
human spirit is never filled no matter how
deeply one drinks of the refreshing fountain of
art. We must return in the greatest joy and
 86 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
good of any art unfilled again to the source of
beauty, to beauty eternal.°
Are our actions satisfactory? In the concep-
tion that life is an endless and dissatisfied
striving, which Schopenhauer advocated, there
is included the tendency of the will toward
action. The will itself as the human effort to
live must be negated. Its very nature just as
the nature of desire is supposed to be evil, for
it is closely connected with desire. Willing
and striving, as our whole being, can be com-
pared to an unquenchable thirst. And the
foundation of all willing is need, deficiency
and pain. This is but a partial truth, for there
is no mere loss in willing, but despite its many
failures we rise through it to better things.
If willing is evil, action is evil, and all life must
be declared to be evil. But there are positive
contents in activity and life which do not per-
mit us to ascribe only failure to its efforts.
The necessary trend of the will toward the
' wrong makes a stronger appeal for pessimism.
We accept certain ideals and acknowledge
them to be good. But the acceptance of ideals
is all too often not followed by the appropriate
action. We praise what we do not do; we
blame in thought what we frequently do. Our
approval does not guarantee-our action, and
our disapproval does not bring about inhibition
of action. There is a drifting of action and a
lack of earnest effort to overcome our moral
indifference and to break up bad habits. The
easiest way is pursued although we know the
better way. But we are not ready to take upon
‘Cf. Plato, Symposium, 210 ff.
 FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 87
ourselves the better way with its denials and
hardships. It is the old confession: ‘‘Video meli-
ora proboque, deteriora sequor.’? The honest
words of men who know themselves admit with
Paul: ‘‘For that which I do I allow not: for
what I would that I do not; but what I hate
that I do.’’" ‘‘For the good that I would I do
not: but the evil which I would not that I do.??®
The confessions of Augustine and Rousseau,
different as they are, confirm these statements.
The honesty of self-knowledge is, however, not
the end. Where moral laziness is overcome,
and we do not admit our wrong actions with
complacency as though the situation could not
be changed, the consciousness of our failure in
action will lead to renewed effort to become
better. The deeper our feeling about the rift
between ideal and deed, the more hopeful is
the future. Out of the recognition of our real
selves there will come new earnest search for
betterment and the desire for some cure and
help which can overcome our moral deficiency.
When morals appear to be lacking in the
motive power of the ideal then the question
arises whether religion is not the one thing
needful to stimulate more consistent action
through an ideal religiously sanctioned and
strong with emotion. Religion can lead to the
liberty which moral striving seeks.
Civilization and pessimism. Is civilization
a success, or is it a failure? Does it inspire us
with hope or despair? Prior to the experiences
of the world-war the examination of various
7Romans VII: 15.
8 Romans VII: 19.
88 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
civilizations led to the belief that past civili-
zations had failed because of great economic
break-downs in society. Our own civilization
was supposed to have such a large range of
opportunity and to be under the control of such
sentiments as to what constitutes economic
advantage that any serious catastrophe seemed
impossible. We had grown so reasonable; we
had approved so eloquently of the common in-
terests of mankind; we had established leagues
of peace and built great palaces of peace; and
we were being carried upward by the inherent
impulses of a progressive evolution which was
daily making us better. A finer and broader
Christianity, and a considerate tolerance valu-
ing what was good in every faith was welding
us together into a common human brotherhood.
Then came the great disillusionment that
taught us, that we were not controlled by ideal
forces, but that we were under the control and
power of economic selfishness. The reason-
ableness of economic advantage did not appear.
Men saw only more colonies, more commerce,
and more industry to be obtained by selfish
nationalism accentuated through lustful mili-
tarism. The war was not caused by a conflict
of idealisms but was purely material in origin
even though we had to give it a moral justifica-
tion as it proceeded. There was a clear
demonstration that neither morals nor religion
had entered into the great world affairs and
relations. Both seemed utterly powerless and
became the slaves of militant nations to defend
their actions whether right or wrong. The
aftermath of the war has increased jealousies
 FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 89
and hates, and brought about economic up-
heavals and most unreasonable rebellions and
strikes. Civilization is utterly sick and there
is apparently no physician to heal it. The ad-
vocates of progress are routed. Professor
Dewey may claim:*® ‘‘The world war is a bitter
commentary on the nineteenth century miscon-
ception of moral achievement—a misconception
however which it only inherited from the tra-
ditional theory of fixed ends, attempting to
bolster up that doctrine with aid from the
‘scientific’ theory of evolution. The doctrine
of progress is not yet bankrupt. The bank-
ruptcy of the notion of fixed ends to be attained
and stably possessed may possibly be the means
of turning the mind of man to a tenable theory
of progress—to attention to present troubles
and possibilities.’? What an utterly weak solu-
tion of a pragmatist! Men had been trying to
envisage truth in purely relative terms of evo-
lution and progress. The failure was the loss
of great stable ideals and ends in morals and
religion in actual life. The evil was the absorp-
tion of mankind in the desires, the conflicts, the
cruelties of food, clothing and shelter. Science
itself did not liberate but became the servant of
destruction. Socialism was bankrupt. The
morals of freedom were set aside for the liberty
of vagrant and destructive desire. The analysis
of the present situation makes us hopeless of the
immediate present if the same ideas and ideals
persist. The new attitude demanded and
needed is a change by which we actually will
permit the liberating power of righteousness to
9 Human Nature and Conduct, p. 286.
90 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
control us. We have too long surrendered to
being factors in a movement; we must become
free by moralizing all relations. A better
world will come only as we emancipate our-
selves from the thraldom of material evolution
as all-controlling, and conquer economic forces
through an idealization of life sustained by
compelling religious convictions. If men will
not seek this freedom they will die in their sins.
There is no hope for a shallow optimism built
on unreasoning assumption of the natural good-
ness of man either individually or socially. A
new theory of freedom must be elaborated
which reinterprets the eternal laws of right and
applies them to the present evils. We need not
greater flux, but greater stability and balance
of liberty. This attitude will give promise of
real progress in the freedom of the good.
Religion and pessimism. Is it necessary to
raise the problem of the relation of religion to
pessimism? Does not every religion exalt the
hopes of man, and lift him into the sphere of
the spiritual where dwell peace and joy for-
ever? The fact remains nevertheless that
there is a strain of pessimism in religion. It
must grapple with the actuality of evil.
Sorrow, sickness, sin, and death make men
serious and sad. It is religion which must
enter into these moods and experiences of men
and endeavor to overcome them, not by denial
but by an inner grasp of their effect upon the
spirit. While the outcome may be hope it is
a sobered hope and not a mere optimism of
ideas. The strongest pessimism of religion is
however the outgrowth of the failure of the
 FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM ot
ordinary objects of human pursuit to satisfy
the thirst of the soul. The book of Ecclesiastes
with its ery: ‘‘All is vanity’? well voices the
breakdown of knowledge, love as passion,
power, ambition, etc. It shows the course of
human life from youth to age, when the days
come of which we say that we have no pleasure
in them. Life itself in its externality cannot
fulfill its promise. The purpose of this pessi-
mism is to draw men away from the secondary
and minor things of life. When the unsatis-
factory result of all that men fight for and
strive for in their ordinary pursuits is realized,
then religion can create a desire for the things
invisible and eternal. No religion can thrive
on this—worldliness; it must have a transform-
ing power for the temporal issues through an
other-worldliness. Where the latter does not ex-
ist the emptiness of life remains and the only
reply of a religion without a better hope can be:
‘Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.’’? Morals
need hope in the good that liberty may be
maintained. If religion destroys this hope the
ethical life suffers. Consequently we need a
religion with sufficient assurance of the final
permanence of the good to maintain well sup-
ported moral aims.
It Christianity pessimistic? How foolish to
ask such a question, is the reply that at first
comes to your mind. Has not Christianity
been the outstanding religion of hope? It has
brought new motives into the world, and pre-
sented men with the optimism of love in its
teaching of God. Its keynote has been: ‘‘Re-
joice, and again I say, rejoice.’’ Christ has
92 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
filled the world with a spirit of the power and
triumph of the good. But there are teachings
of Christ that contradict this unqualified opti-
mism which so many find in Christianity.
There is an emphasis in the sayings of Jesus
upon the degeneration of the world,’® which
culminates in a repeated warning of eternal
punishment." In no other part of the New
Testament is there such a statement of the
unquenchable fire and the worm that shall not
die as in the words of Jesus. He does not hope
for a universal salvation of men, and such a
triumph of the good that all will choose it.
The realism of evil as conceived by Jesus is
not set aside by His strong teaching of God’s
intention of love for man. According to Him
many travel on the way of destruction, and
few find the narrow way of life.* Many are
called but few are chosen.* The great mass
of men seeing see not and hearing hear not for
their heart is waxed gross.’* Only the few
faithful disciples ascertain the truth because
they really seek it. Even among them there is
Judas Iscariot who cannot be saved, for he is
the son of perdition. The choice of most men
is for the evil. Hell will be full and heaven
with its many mansions will not be over-
erowded. Men regarded in the mass will make
a sorry mess of freedom. When we face these
sayings what is our answer? We cannot do
10 Matthew XXIV: 29 ff.
ae Mark IX: 43-45; Matthew XXIV: 51; XXV: 30; XII:

12 Matthew VII: 13, 14.

18 Matthew XX: 16.
14 Matthew XIII: 12 ff.
 FREEDOM AND PESSIMISM 93
away with the words of Jesus by textual or
higher criticism; the evidence is not sufficiently
strong to eliminate them. Sentimental univer-
salism and a desire to make men better that
Jesus makes them simply disregards the say-
ings of Jesus. Is Christianity a correction of
Jesus? Or shall we follow Him and admit that
as far as the multitude of men are concerned
hope must be abandoned? Is freedom a failure
through the blindness of men? Perhaps there
is a clue to a solution if we put a pragmatic
value upon the words of Christ. He may
desire to awaken men from the thraldom of sin
and evil by stressing the awfulness of sin and
its consequences. Because He loves the people
He warns against the drifting with the crowd
that does not seek the good. The power of the
love of Christ for men impels Him to testify so
definitely. The emphasis of the rescuing
teacher and savior ought possibly not be inter-
preted as a mathematical statement or a his-
torical fact of the future. The freedom with
its risks must be appreciated to stimulate men
to make the.right choice of liberty in the good.
Actually the impress of Christian truth on the
whole agrees with the outcome of the other
arguments considered, in showing the possibil-
ity of meliorism, i. e., of becoming better if we
have the best in view. Nevertheless the power
of evil must be reckoned with and there can
be no easy optimism as a fact. Optimism must
be a belief resting rather on the value of the
good than on the immediate action of men. It
cannot be made a self-evolving process, but the
result of the free choice of men as they are led
94. CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

to recognize the good and as they are willing to

accept the motives of ethics and the sanctions
of religion.
REFERENCES

Frank Thilly, Introduction to Ethics, Chapter X.

Fr. Paulsen, Ethies, Book II, Chapters III, IV, VII.
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I,
Book IV, Vol. II, Appendix to Book IV.
Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga, Chapters XI, XII, XIV.
Sully, Pessimism, A History and Criticism.
W. Mallock, Is Life Worth Living.
Nordau, Degeneration.
Lothrop Stoddard, The Revolt against Civilization.
Duehring, Der Werth des Lebens.
Hartmann, Zur Geschichte und Begruendung des Pessimismus.
William McDougall, Is America Safe For Democracy?
EH. A. Ross, The Old World in the New.
 CHAPTER VI
THE LEADING ETHICAL IDEAS

What do we mean by the leading ethical

ideas? In every science there are some great
underlying and controlling ideas which give
an insight into the inner nature of the science.
In whatever way these ideas are defined and
understood indicates how the whole problem of
a science may be solved. The ideas are clothed
into words whose meaning and import must be
studied to arrive at the ideas. Terms are fre-
quently employed without careful study and
thus confusion is caused. It was in conse-
quence of this difficulty that Locke set aside
several chapters: on the use of words in his
Essay concerning Human Understanding. And
in similar manner Bertrand Russell thinks it
worth while to study words for the sake of
ideas.”
What are the ideas that recur again and
again in the study of ethics? We shall find
that we cannot go very far in the consideration
and discussion of any question in morals with-
out coming into contact with the terms
“inealsy-))- ends,’’* “the” good,’ erent?!
‘‘duty,’’ ‘‘virtue.’? These are the recurrent
1 Book III.
2The Analysis of Mind, Chapter X, p. 188 ff.
95
96 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
terms employed in every ethical study. It was
Schleiermacher who at the beginning of the
nineteenth century critized former ethical study
and called the attention to ideal, duty and vir-
tue as the three great ethical ideas. As ethi-
cal writers think of these terms and ideas they
will see the whole problem of life.
What are ideals? No term is more often
upon our lips than the word ‘‘ideal.’’ Where
does it come from and what does it mean?
We must go back to Plato to find an answer.
According to this thinker the real world was
not to be found in our direct experiences of
sense. These were thought to be only shadows
in a cave.* The essential reality was in the
forms and shapes of thought. These existed
apart as eternal beings in the upper world of
pure thought. Nothing that we experienced in
sense was supposed to have any reality except
so far as it participated in the ‘‘ideas’’
(Thought-forms). The application of ideas to
all things could not be sustained in the long
run. But the great ideas of Plato were ideas
like beauty, truth, courage, temperance, ete.,
leading to the highest idea, the good. It was
after all the permanence of the ethical and its
objective existence which Plato sought. Now
these moral ideas and spiritual realities have
come to be designated as ideals. Ideals are
great existent spiritual realities that we are to
reach up to. Such conceptions as righteous-
ness, or truth, or honesty, call for an answer.
Are they mere conventions arrived at in the
8 The Republic, Book VII, 514.
 THE LEADING ETHICAL IDEAS 97
course of human experience, and do they mean
simply certain customary practices combined
in a common name? Or are they powers mak-
ing for right in the world whether men accept
them or not? Do they testify to an inviolable
moral order not of human making? Are they
evidences of the essential moral implications of
the universe? Are men makers of ideals or
followers of them? What is the strength of
the appeal of justice, purity, etc.?
The modern advocates of development oppose
every claim of great objective ideals. They
attack the value of independent moral ideals.
Professor Dewey well represents this attitude.
He claims that the thought of the ideal which
is an actuating force in Plato rests upon the
conception that: ‘‘Moral realities must be
supreme.’’* He continues: ‘‘Yet they are
flagrantly contradicted in a world where a
Socrates drinks the hemlock of the criminal,
and where the vicious occupy the seats of the
mighty. Hence there must be a truer ultimate
reality in which justice is only and absolutely
justice.’’* There is no sympathy on the part
of the pragmatist Dewey with this hope. He
sees only the present functioning and success of
ideals in human striving, and claims: ‘‘An
ideal becomes a synonym for whatever is
inspiring—and impossible. Then, since intelli-
gence cannot be wholly suppressed, the ideal
is hardened by thought into some high, far-
away object. It is so elevated and so distant
that it does not belong to this world or to ex-
4Human Nature and Conduct, p. 50.
5 Ibid. p. 50.
98 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
perience. It is in technical language trans-
cendental; in common speech, supernatural, of
heaven not of earth. The ideal is then a goal
of final exhaustive, comprehensive perfection
which can be defined only by complete con-
trast with the actual. Although impossible of
realization and conception,® it is still regarded
as the source of generous discontent with
actualities and of all inspiration to progress.’’ *
This dream-world with its unattainable perfec-
tion is rejected. ‘‘Sufficient unto the day is
the evil thereof. Sufficient it is to stimulate us
to remedial action, to endeavor in order to con-
vert strife into harmony, monotony into a
variegated scene, and limitation into expansion.
The converting is progress, the only progress
conceivable or attainable by man. Hence
every situation has its own measure and qual-
ity of progress, and the need for progress is
recurrent, constant.’’* But what causes pro-
gress? There are certain driving ideals whose
content changes but whose power is not derived
from the varying course of experience. If pro-
gress 18 going somewhere whither is it going?
The denial of ideals above man makes a shift-
ing morality. Of course the ideals must be
incorporated into life, but where there is no
high idealism in morals, and we simply call
that right which happens to obtain at any time
and which works, we shall not advance. Our
wagon must be hitched to a star no matter how

6 The denial of the conceivability of the ideal is a misrepre-

sentation.
TIbid. p. 260.
8 Ibid. p. 282.
 THE LEADING ETHICAL IDEAS = 99
far away the star is. The readily attainable
ideal is a moral failure. Our present moral
progress is so uncertain just because we have
sunk our ideals into the slough of expediency.
We have lost faith in a final moral order, and
making our morals without ideals we are stuck
in the morass of doubt as to permanent moral
ideas.
There is an ideal in which man believes con-
stantly, which leads to a better state of life.
What helps to this realization? It is not the
outcome of a mere process and does not rely on
functioning alone. Thomas Hill Green is right
when he posits a divine principle ‘‘as the
ground of human will and reason; as realizing
itself in man; as having capabilities of which
the full development would constitute the per-
fection of human life; of direction to objects
contributary to this perfection as characteris-
tic of a good will.’’® This divine principle is
the ideal. To surrender it means to lose the
real incitement to moral progress. Right
would not be right, nor justice be justice unless
they had more than a temporal basis. Our
understanding and practice may be imperfect,
but the perfect beckons us on as we believe in
it amid the encircling gloom. The pragmatist
has no kindly light, but only a relative practice
which he follows. It is true that the historie
fortunes of an ideal are not always fortunate.
The ideal does not always control events. Will
its abandonment, or its transferral into the
passing thoughts of changing days, help us?
If the recognition of an eternal meaning in
® Prolegomena to Ethics, Book III, Chapter II, p. 214.
100 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
justice has had such a struggle in mankind,
will the denial of the right as right, as God is
God, produce better results? Hobhouse has a
glimpse of the value of the necessity of God to
make the ideal permanent, when he says:
‘‘When God has become the ideal of goodness
—a position only reached at an advanced stage
of religious development—it would certainly
seem that the character attributed to God must
reflect the essential elements of perfection as
conceived by man.’’ To bring the ideal into
life constantly, to elevate every stage of moral
advance, is always necessary. For this reason
it is best to describe ethics under the convic-
tion of the ideal. The effort must be to sum
up our aims under some controlling ideal which
finally reaches up into God. The positing of
freedom is an effort at such an ideal, and we
must endeavor to find its real content.”
The good and the end. What do we really
mean by the term good? How is it related to
the end? These fundamental queries receive
varying answers, just as in the problem of the
ideal, according to the fundamental view we
take of life. Professor Dewey represents the
pure developmentalists, when he states: ‘‘In
quality, the good is never twice alike. It
never copies itself. It is new every morning,
fresh every evening. It is unique in its every
presentation. For it marks the resolution of a
distinctive complication of competing habits
and impulses which can never repeat itself.2?
10 The Rational Good, p. 15.
11'See below, Chapter IX.
12Human Nature and Conduct, p. 211.
 THER LEADING ETHICAL IDEAS 101
The good is wholly therefore within the psycho-
logical process. There is no fixed good and no
final good beyond the immediate experience.
Hobhouse also begins with the good as within
experience. He says: ‘‘What is good appears,
generically, as an element of experience which
is in harmony with feeling.’?" ‘‘Good is a
harmony of experience and feeling.’ It
‘‘signifies something which, in the connection
in which it is applicable, moves feeling, and
through feeling disposes to action.’’**» But
Hobhouse is not content with the mere imme-
diacy of the good as feeling. He believes that
it must be rationally demonstrable. And the
rational good is the fulfillment of vital capacity
as a whole.*® Furthermore ‘‘the rational good
is objective,’’?*’ and ‘‘the function of the
rational impulse in practice is to embrace this
world in a single system of purposes.’’ '® Hob-
house holds to the Platonic ideal of harmony,
but not like Plato through a balance of fixed
psychological faculties in man. He rather
thinks of the harmony as a principle in a devel-
oping world of discord. But this principle
making for the good, is a teleological prin-
ciple."® There is a realization that develop-
ment cannot be development without an end or
purpose. This purpose is the good. And thus
we have arrived at the conception regnant since
18 The Rational Good, p. 93.
14Tbid. p. 96.
15 Ibid. p. 80.
16 Ibid. 198, 156.
17 Ibid. p. 99.
1s Tbid. p. 100.
19 Tbid. p. 226.
102 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
Aristotle that the good is an objective finality.
If this idea is lost we can only know of change
but not of development.”
What, then, is the good? In general usage
what does it signify? A good axe is an axe
that answers its purpose by cutting well. A
good horse is a horse with the qualities and
characteristics that make it usable because it
answers the purpose of a horse. It was Aris-
totle that made this signification of good clear
for all times. He well says at the opening of
his ethics: ‘‘The good is that at which every-
thing aims.’’?*. Everything aims at some good,
but we must try to find some absolute good.
‘Tf then there be one end of all that man does,
this end will be the realizable good—or these
ends if there be more than one.’’*” ‘‘But the
best of all things must, we conceive, be some-
thing final. If then there be only one final end,
this will be what we are seeking,—or if there
be more than one, then the most final of
them.’’* But it is by finding what is the func-
tion of man as man that we shall ascertain this
good. In this manner Aristotle approaches
the ethical problem of the good as in harmony
with the final cause exhibited in the whole
universe.** Despite modern attacks upon Aris-
totle he has not been surpassed in the logical
formulation of purpose and end as involved in
the conception of development. And it is only
20 Cf. Hobhouse, Development and Purpose.
21 The Nicomachean Ethics, transl by F. H. Peters, p. 7.
22Thid. p. 13.
23Tbid. p. 13.
24 Of. Sir A. Grant, The Ethics of Aristotle, Vol. I, Essay
DVeepepce late,
 THE LEADING ETHICAL IDEAS 103
the superficiality of modern thinking that has
dared to propose the mere process of evolution
as a solution of all things, a process which
is
‘‘going but we know not where.’’
With such a conception of good the question
of one of many ends in the moral life also
receives its solution. Professor Dewey, who
has not profited from such enlightenment as
Hobhouse could have given him, persists in an
unqualified attack upon Aristotle. Speaking
of the Aristotelian view of the end in nature,
he continues: ‘‘Such a view, consistent and
systematic, was foisted by Aristotle® upon
western culture and endured for two thousand
years. When the notion was expelled from
natural science”® by the intellectual revolution
of the seventeenth century it should also have
disappeared from the theory of human
action.’’** But it has not disappeared because
it is essential to human character and conduct.
Hobhouse knows that: ‘‘If a man has no domi-
nating purpose or creed that effectively directs
his life as a whole, he has as a rule threads and
finaments of purpose running through and con-
necting branches of his conduct.’’“* The ulti-
mate end is however harmony through develop-
ment. Hthical theory demands a teleological
view of reality and defines the nature of the
25 Could Aristotle have foisted anything upon the world, if
it had not met the demands of human thought. This kind of
modern criticism of Aristotle on the part of those who are
devotees of natural science, and do not know other departments
of life from within, is a sad commentary upon broad knowledge
in America.
26 To the loss of a consistent philosophy of the universe.
27 Ibid. p. 224.
28 Ibid. p. 20.
104 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
end. In the pursuit of the end there dare not
be mere abstraction. And the advocates of
the end recognize this fact and are more consis-
tent than those who have shifting aims without
a single, dominating purpose for life. T. H.
Green speaks for the idealists when he says:
‘‘The idea, unexpressed and inexpressible, of
some absolute and all-embracing end is, no
doubt, the source of such devotion, but it can
only take effect in the fulfillment of some par-
ticular function in which it finds but restricted
utterance.’’** The great end must be trans-
lated into individual deeds and acts. This is
its acceptance and interpretation. Thus free-
dom, which we make the end, must receive con-
tent through all the moral choices and delibera-
tions of man. Nevertheless it remains as an
end inviting us to an ever higher and better life
and bestowing upon us the chance of real
liberty.
Rights or right? What is meant by rights?
In the eighteenth century the doctrine of rights
was developed. It claimed that man had
inherent rights, such as the right of life, liberty
and happiness. The French Revolution aided
in adding to national declarations the sacred
right of property. These rights were regarded
in a purely individual manner, and were sup-
posed to belong by nature to the individual.
They produced an individualistic and atomistic
view of life and conflicted in essence with the
reality of common and social rights. In addi-
tion happiness and liberty are rather ends than
29 Prolegomena to Ethics, Book III, Chapter IT, p. 216.
 THE LEADING ETHICAL IDEAS 105
rights, and life is better regarded as a posses-
sion. The absolute right of property is never
really individual but rests on the will of society,
and has no place as absolute in vital religion.
The counterbalance of duty*° is not adequate to
meet the claim of rights in their individualistic
sense.
The modern claimants of development also
believe merely in rights in opposition to right.
Hobhouse confuses the issue by rejecting what
he considers ‘‘the fanaticism of abstract right,”
in the interest of the principle of harmony in
which ‘‘there is no absolute right short of the
entire system of human well-being.’’?** But
the well-being of men as a harmony does de-
mand a right as supreme. Dewey as usual is
the radical rejector of every great ideal. He
thinks that the advocates of right are anti-
empirical and neglect social conditions.*? In
his opinion: ‘‘Right is only an abstract name
for the multitude of concrete demands in action
which others impress upon us, and of which we
are obliged, if we would live, to take some
account. Its authority is the exigency of their
demands, the efficacy of their insistencies.’’**
But what gives power to social insistency but
the ideal of right. Mere rights could never
become such without the impelling belief of
right back of them. To describe how men see
rights does not tell the why and wherefore.
The ideal of right in morals makes the rights.
80 Cf. Mazzini, The Duty of Man.
31 Tbid. p. 189.
32 Ibid. p. 324.
33 Ibid. p. 326.
106 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
Right is the standard of the good. It is the
end translated into the idea of law. Just as
the functioning conscience has law,* so there
is the idea of a supreme standard which em-
bodies the good. Grotius had insight into this
meaning of right, when he said: ‘‘There is also
a third signification of the word right, which
has the same meaning as law taken in its most
extensive sense, to denote a rule of moral
action, obliging us to do what is proper.’’* If
the end is to be summed up into freedom, the
right must be the law of liberty that in all its
details gives voice to the right of the law.
This right is the natural right in ethics. And
of this it can justly be said: ‘‘Now the law of
nature is so unalterable, that it cannot be
changed even by God himself.’’** With such
a conception of right in the law of liberty, that
God who gave us liberty cannot change its
right, we receive a basis for right that gives it
proper authority and worth. The pluralists of
rights have only social usage and usefulness
with their changes as a foundation. There is
therefore no essential right left for the rights.
Rights have ceased to have the quality of right.
We are then compelled to stand for right, and
to find in separate rights its interpretation but
not its fulfillment, which is given only in its
inherent idea.
What is duty? When we have considered
the right carefully it leads us to the question:
What is its import?’’ The right includes an
84See above, p. 57.
35 The Rights of War and Peace, Book I, Chapter I, par. IX.
36 Grotius, Ibid. Book I, Chapter I, par. X.
 THE LEADING ETHICAL IDEAS 107
obligation, and when we accept the obligation
of the right we have recognized our duty. Our
duty is what we owe. ‘‘The word, I need not
Say, expresses that there is something which is
due from me,—which I owe—which I ought to
do. Nor perhaps is it insignificant, that the
tenses of this verb have lost their distinction,
and one alone, and that the past is made to
serve for all; as if to show that obligation
escapes the conditions of time, and is less a
phenomenon than an essential and eternal real-
ity, which, however, manifested at the moment,
is not new to it. In any case the word ex-
presses the sense we have of a debt which
others have a right to demand from us, and
which we are bound to pay.’’ *”
But the sense of the ought of duty is disputed
by the mere describers of development. Some
of them find in ought simply the expectancy
which prior experience has created of a certain
regularity of procedure. When we go into a
laboratory we know that if we mix two parts
of hydrogen with one part of oxygen we ought
to have water. This result is looked forward
to and ought to come about. Human actions
are analyzed in the same manner. An honest
deed ought to be done because it lies in the ex-
pectancy of society from us, and if our conduct
is regular it will follow. But duty does not
function in this impersonal way like a natural
process. The element of its emotional obliga-
tion impressing itself upon us is entirely neg-
lected in this explanation. Therefore other
37 Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, Book I,
Chapter I, p. 19.
108 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
developmental thinkers are silent altogether
about duty.
Duty comes to us with a claim. ‘‘The moral
judgment imposes on us an obligation. It says
this is right and that is wrong, this is what you
must, that what you must not.do. It seems to
state a fact and also to impose a command.’’ *
The command is the law of conscience now
accepted by us as right. Out of it arises the:
‘‘Do this.’’ The command comes out of our
self. ‘‘When I do a thing that is right because
it is right I do it for a reason which I myself
acknowledge as good, and binding me because
it is good.’’** It is Kant who has largely
stressed duty. He holds that a moral action
gets its value not from its object, but its prin-
ciple. He goes so far as to say: ‘‘A man’s will
is good, not because the consequences which
flow from it are good, nor because it is capable
of attaining the ends which it seeks, but it
is good in itself, or because it wills the good.’’ *
‘‘Duty is the obligation to act from reverence
for law.’’** The command of duty is an im-
perative. The imperative need not be followed,
but is accepted if we are really reasonable.
But the imperative is not a means to some-
thing else, 1. e., it is not hypothetical, but
categorical. There is nothing problematic
about it. ‘‘This imperative is categorical. It
has to do, not with the matter of an action and
the result expected to follow from it, but simply
38 Hobhouse, Ibid. p. 105.
39 Hobhouse, Ibid. p. 106.
40The Metaphysie of Morality, Section I.
41 Ibid. Section I.
 THE LEADING ETHICAL IDEAS 109
with the form and principle from which action
itself proceeds. The action is essentially good,
let the consequences be what they may. This
imperative may be called the imperative of
morality.’’ ** The Kantian emphasis upon duty
has gone too far in two directions. First, it
almost discounts the good as an end. The con-
ception of the good is cancelled in favor of duty.
A number of modern moralists have followed
Kant in the effort to make duty the one
ethical idea. But the absoluteness of the claim,
although it shows great moral earnestness, is
one-sided and does not permit of the conception
of ethical development. After all the Aristo-
telian concept of end and purpose in truer, and
more efficiently answers the whole moral de-
mand. Second, the stressing of the imperative
conceals the danger of elevating the strong and
compelling appeal of duty into the idea of force.
Some later writers have used terminology which
makes duty almost a power that makes us unfree.
In her book on: ‘‘The Good Man and The
Good,’’ Mary W. Calkins attempts to unify
freedom and duty, when she states: ‘‘The expla-
nation of the paradoxical combination in the
moral experience of the seemingly inconsistent
factors of submission and freedom lies precisely
herein: in the fact that the law to which I sub-
mit is neither an inexplorable nature-law, or
uniformity, nor yet an external social law—the
imposition of another’s will—but is rather, the
law, the imperative which I, as ruling self, »
impose on myself, as compelled self.’’** The
42 Ibid. Section II.
43 p. 13.
110 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
‘‘compelled self’’ is almost too strong a term,
and implies bondage to the ‘‘ruling self.”’
The better solution is to follow the suggestion
of duty with its authority in the same direction
as we follow the indications of the law of con-
science.** Can its authority be found in our-
selves or in society? ‘‘Suppose the case of one
lone man in an atheistic world; could there
really exist any ‘authority’ of higher over lower
within the enclosure of his detached personality?
I cannot conceive it; and did he, under such
conditions, feel such a thing, he would then,
I should say, feel a delusion, and have his con-
sciousness adjusted to the wrong universe. For
surely if this sense of authority means any-
thing, it means the discernment of something
higher than we, having claims on ourself—
therefore no mere part of it;—hovering over
and transcending our personality, though also
mingling with our consciousness and manifested
through its intimations.’’** This higher than
our self Martineau cannot find in a phenomenon
or in the universe but only in the personality of
God. When ethics thus leads beyond itself it
does not make duty absolutistic like Kant and
give it no final basis, but it acknowledges our
freedom rightly and fully even in the face of
the claim of duty. At the same time authority
becomes the authority of the God who wills our
goodness through our freedom. The balance
between the authority of duty and our liberty
is assured.
What are virtues? The definition of virtues
44See above, p. 57.
45 ‘Martineau, Ibid. Vol. II, Book I, Chapter IV, p. 104.
 THE LEADING ETHICAL IDEAS 111
must follow duty. Virtues are the habits that
are formed by doing our duties. They become
the customary actions of our doing the good.
Now what are these habits indicative of? Are
they mere natural adjustments in varying situa-
tions? Dewey thinks that he can bring morals
to earth be naturalizing virtues. In his view:
‘*Honesty, chastity, malice, peevishness, cour-
age, triviality, industry, irresponsibility are not
private possessions of a person. They are
working adaptations of personal capacities with
environing forces. All virtues and vices are
habits which incorporate objective forces. They
are interactions of elements contributed by the
make-up of an individual with elements sup-
plied by the out-door world. They can be
studied as objectively as psychological functions,
and they can be modified by change of either
personal or social elements.’’ *® In other words,
there is no ethical ought involved in our actions
of a habitual nature. Our conduct in virtues
or vices is the result of being shaped. We have
no freedom in choosing our virtues. Neither
right nor the good are involved. Men are
children of a process just like a process in
physiology. Whither has the claim of liberty
of the pragmatist gone? The purely naturalistic
conception of habit has led Dewey to destroy
the value of all virtues in his philosophy.
In order to see the right relation of habit to
virtue we must return to the despised Aristotle.
He says: ‘‘The virtues, then come neither by
nature nor against nature, but nature gives the

46 Ibid. p. 16.
112 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
capacity for acquiring them, and this is devel-
oped by training.’’** Virtues are acquired
through doing. ‘‘It is by our conduct in our
intercourse with other men that we become just
or unjust, and by acting in circumstances of
danger, and training ourselves to feel fear or
confidence, that we become courageous or
cowardly.’’** Virtues are trained powers for
the good. ‘‘The proper excellence or virtue of
man will be the habit or trained faculty that
makes a man good and makes him perform his
function well.’’** If we change the term fac-
ulty into fixed mode of action we shall have an
entirely correct and modern, tenable explana-
tion of virtue. There is great worth also in the
definition of Thomas Aquinas: ‘‘Virtue de-
notes some perfection of a power. The perfec-
tion of everything is estimated chiefly in regard
to its end: now the end of power is action: hence
a power is said to be perfect inasmuch as it is
determined to its act. Now there are powers
which are determined of themselves to their
acts, as the active powers of physical nature.
But the rational powers, which are proper to
man, are not determined to one line of action,
but are open indeterminately to many, and are
determined to acts by habits. And therefore
human virtues are habits.’? The virtues are
habits freely formed out of the ideal of the
good, and seek to make our life stable in action.
The interrelation of ethical ideas. As we
47 Nicomachean Ethies, Book II, 1, p. 34,
48 Ibid. Book II, I, p. 35.
49Tbid. Book II, 5 p. 45.
50 Aquinas Eithicus, Quest. LV.
 THE LEADING ETHICAL IDEAS 113
passed from one to another of the ruling ethical
concepts there grew on us the problem of their
relation and connection. It is necessary to
obtain a unified view of our ethical life and to
note how the one concept touches the other.
The ideal is the end or purpose which we choose
to make our actions one and consistent. Among
the many ends as ideals we find the vital one and
this becomes for us the paramount good. It is
not one good among many, but the one supreme
good of morals. The good seeks expression in
the form of a law or standard. The right is the
unfoldment of the good. But the obligation of
the right as it is accepted by us is what we mean
by our duty. Duty is the ideal of the good
acknowledged as right and followed as a call to
action. Virtue is the duty of the good as it has
become habit; and through the economy of
habit it makes the good the constant action in
our life.

REFERENCES

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethies, Book I, II, V.

Sir A. Grant, The Ethics of Aristotle, Vol. I, Essay IV.
Frank Thilly, Introduction to Ethics, Chapter IX.
Borden P. Bowne, The Principles of Ethics, Chapter I.
J. H. Muirhead, The Elements of Ethics, Book IV, Chapter IT.
John S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, Book I, Chapter ITT.
Theo. De Laguna, Introduction to the Science of Ethics,
Chapter V. :
Henry W. Wright, Self-Realization, Part I, Chapters III,
We, NAG
"Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, Chapter XIV.
Durant Drake, The Problem of Conduct, Part II, Chapters
Vil, VIII.
Mary W. Calkins, The Good Man and the Good, Chapters I, IT.
Chas. D’Arey, A Short Study of Ethics, Part II, Chapters
Latins Xe
L. T. Hobhouse, The Rational Good, Chapters IV, V.
114 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
G. T. Ladd, What I Ought To Do, Chapters II, III, IV, VII,
VET EX:
A. E. Taylor, The Problem of Conduct, Chapters II, III, IV,
VII
Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, Part I,
Chapter V.
Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Book II, Chapters I, II, VII.
Fr. Schleiermacher, Grundlinien einer Kritik der bisherigen
Sittenlehre, Zweites Buch.
Arthur K. Rogers, The Theory of Ethics, Chapters I, III,
ID Walhe WEES NABER IB-<
 PART II—THE FINDING OF FREEDOM

CHAPTER VII
FREEDOM THROUGH PLEASURE

The claim of pleasure. After our discussion

of the fundamentals of the moral life seeking
freedom there arises the problem, how we shall
find freedom. What is the good in which and
through which freedom can be realized? Where
shall we seek the content of freedom? The
reply which has been given very frequently in
the history of morals is, that pleasure is the
real end of life. It is supposed to be the vital
part of happiness. Pleasure is the dynamic of
action. The good is the agreeable and the
pleasurable. The true choice is pleasant. The
pleasant is-present wherever life functions
normally. In the physical and natural world
it is an indication of well-being. In the mental
life it is equally true that where the pleasurable
exists there is heightening of mental life.
Pleasure is the unfailing symptom of the good
of freedom. Liberty is joy in the full and un-
hampered exercise of life. On the contrary pain
is the evidence of some disturbance in life. It
is the accompaniment of disease in the body.
In the mind the painful exists where there is a
115
116 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
lowering of life. The restriction of freedom and
its undue limitation always produce the rest-
lessness of the pain of subjection or servitude.
Does it not follow therefore that we ought to
pursue pleasure and avoid pain? Pleasure
accentuates the life of feeling. Without feeling
we cannot live. It is the closest to us and the
most intimately subjective of our experiences.
When we study our life in its full and actual
concrete existence, and ask what is the real
material of our experiences, we must admit that
feeling and sensibility constitute that which
largely makes life, and its value as joy and
happiness in the full exercise of our functions
in freedom.
Ancient hedonism. Because of the claims of
pleasure we must inquire how it has been inter-
preted. How did the theory of pleasure, or
hedonism, arise? Long before there was any the-
ory of hedonism men as they lived their lives and
sought the satisfaction of their senses and their
feelings were unreflective adherents of pleasure.
In the unmoralized and half-moralized state of
society happiness was interpreted as pleasure.
And wherever men today gravitate back to a
lower stage, or live without careful moral ideals
and culture, they are hedonists, livers in pleas-
ure if not technical defenders of it. But pleasure
is not only present at an early stage as an end
but it is also constantly sought and found by
many men. The first effort to defend it as ethi-
cal theory is made by Aristippus, who founded
the Cyrenaic school. Departing from the Socra-
tic idea that the pleasures of the soul are the
real pleasures, Aristippus considers all pleas-
 FREEDOM THROUGH PLEASURE 117
ures as alike. Pleasure as pleasure is to
be
desired. Since it is highest where it is most
intense we must seek the intense pleasure.
There can be no real distinction in quality in
the pleasures of men. They can only differ in
degree. But where can the most intense pleas-
ures be found? Certainly not for the average
man in the intellect. The real seat of pleasures
universally is in the life of sensation and feeling.
But sensation and feeling as remembered are
not vitally real. They must be enjoyed in the
present. Life consists in the immediate and
fleeting moment. The enjoyment of the present
is happiness and liberty. We do not know what
the future has in store. Let us live as children
of time. This is the sunny side of life forgetting
the evil. The classic expression is found, in
Omar Khayyam, when he sings:
‘Some for the glories of this world; and some
Sigh for the prophet’s paradise to come;
Ah! take the cash and let the credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant drum.

Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of spring

Your winter-garment of repentance fling;
The bird of time has but a little way
To fly—and lo! the bird is on the wing.’’

But there is another form of Greek hedonism

which modifies the extreme position of Aristip-
pus. It was through Epicurus that the pleasure
of the moment was discarded for lasting pleas-
ure. He says: ‘‘Pleasure is our first and kindred
good. From it is the commencement of every
choice and every aversion, and to it we come
back, and make feeling the rule by which to
judge of every good thing. And since pleasure
118 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
is our first and native good, for that reason we
do not choose every pleasure whatsoever, but
ofttimes pass over many pleasures when a
greater annoyance ensues from them. And
ofttimes we consider pains superior to pleasures ,
and submit to pain for a long time, when it is
attended for us with greater pleasure.’’* Some-
times a good is treated as an evil, and vice versa
because of the final outcome. ‘‘It is not an
unbroken succession of drinking feasts and
revelry, not the pleasures of sexual love, nor the
enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a
splendid table, which produce a pleasant life;
it is sober reasoning, searching out the reasons
for every choice and avoidance, and banishing
those beliefs through which greatest tumults
take possession of the soul. Of all this, the
beginning and the greatest good, is prudence.’’”
‘And we think contentment a great good, not
in order that we may never have but a little, but
in order that, if we have not much, we may
make use of a little, being genuinely persuaded
that those men enjoy luxury most completely
who are the best able to do without it; and that
everything which is natural is easily provided,
and what is useless is not easily procured. And
simple favors give as much pleasure as costly
fare, when everything that can give pain, and
every feeling of want, is removed; and corn and
water give the most extreme pleasure when any
one in need eats them.’’* Because life did not
always give even the simple joys the Epicu-
1 Letters of Epicurus, p. 129.
2 Letters of Epicurus, p. 130.
3 Epicurean Hthies, Book X, XXVI.
 FREEDOM THROUGH PLEASURE 119
reans, as well as the Cyrenaics, at times became
pessimistic. Then they only hoped to be free
from pain and fear, and to cultivate a temper of
indifference to pleasure and pain. There was a
search after a tranquility of soul in which,
undisturbed and unassailed by any change of
fortune, men could live at ease fearing no event
of life and having no dread of death.
It is one of the strange perversions which
ideas and terms sometimes suffer in the course
of history, when we find that today Epicurean-
ism does not signify the balanced and calm con-
tentment of Epicurus, but the joy of the present
for which Aristippus contended. In most books
on ethics the modern term is used without doing
justice to Epicurus himself. Thus Dewey says,
‘‘Hpicureanism is too worldly-wise to indulge
in attempts to base present action upon precari-
ous estimates of future and universal pleasures
and pains. On the contrary it says let the future
go, for life is uncertain. Who knows when it
will end, or what fortune the morrow will bring?
Foster, then, with jealous care every gift of
pleasure now allotted to you, dwell upon it with
lingering love, prolong it as best you may.’’*
This position is really Cyrenaic. Dewey does
not represent the real Epicurus, but only the
modern perversion of the term. He follows
the present verbal usage and not the original
historical facts.
What is utilitarianism? In the teachings of
Epicurus there are occasional references to the
usefulness of his doctrine of pleasure. But it
belongs to modern English ethical thought to
4 Ibid. p. 205.
 120 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
have connected the idea of utility with hedon-
ism. The country in which were worked out the
economic theories of Adam Smith and David
- Ricardo also produced a Jeremy Bentham and
a John Stuart Mill, both economist and philoso-
pher. The economic utilitarianism affected
English moral theory, and vice versa. ‘‘To the
English Utilitarian democracy—which he for-
mulated as a logical deduction from principles
of ethics and psychology—meant, in fact, the
supremacy of his own middle class, and Liberty
meant the plenitude of opportunity for its
commercial ambitions.’’®
The first great formulator® of modern utili-
tarianism was Bentham. He begins the dis-
cussion of utility thus: ‘‘Nature has placed
mankind under the governance of two sovereign
masters, pain and pleasure. Itis for them alone
to point out what we ought to do, as well as to
determine what we shall do. On the one hand
the standard of right and wrong, on the other
the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to
their throne. They govern us in all we do, in
all we say, in all we think; every effort we can
make to throw off our subjection, will serve but
to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man
may pretend to adjure their empire: but in
reality he will remain subject to it-all the while.
The principle of utility recognises the subjection,
and assumes it for the foundation of that sys-
tem, the object of which is to rear the fabric
of felicity by the hands of reason and law.’’?
5 Hobhouse, The Rational Good, p. 8.
6 Hume was also utilitarian in tendency.
7 An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation,
Chapter I, par. I.
 FREEDOM THROUGH PLEASURE 121
Pleasure is the benefit, the good, the advantage,
the happiness which utility produces. The ethi-
eal life works its way out like an economic
movement of goods. The terms ought, right,
wrong, ete., only have a value as conformable to
the principle of utility. But utility does not
function without certain sanctions, which en-
foree conduct. ‘‘There are four distinguishable
sources from which pleasure and pain are in use
to flow: considered separately, they may be
termed the physical, the political, the moral,
and the religious.’’* The physical follow from
the ordinary course of nature, the political from
the persons who are the sovereign or supreme
ruling power in the state, the moral from each
man’s spontaneous disposition, and the religious
from a superior invisible being either in the
present or future life. Pleasures and pains must
be expected to issue from these sanctions. In
order to appreciate rightly the value of a lot of
pleasure and pain, and to measure it correctly,
Bentham proposed what has become known as
the ‘‘hedonistic caleulus.’’ He says: ‘‘To a
person considered by himself, the value of a
pleasure or pain considered by itself, will be
greater or less, according to the four following
circumstances:
1. Its intensity.
2. Its duration.
3. Its certainty or uncertainty.
4. Its propinquity or remoteness. 999

When applied to a number of persons we must

8 Ibid. Chapter III, par. II.
9Ibid. Chapter IV, par. II.
122 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
add 5. Its fecundity. 6. Its purity and 7. Its
extent. In the calculated balance and proper
proportion of these qualities one could find the
right way to estimate and judge moral values
through pleasure. This calculus was sup-
posed to be supported by the practice of man-
kind. When morals come to the problem of
motives it must be remembered that ‘‘pleasure
is in itself a good: nay, even setting aside im-
munity from pain, the only good: pain is in
itself an evil; and, indeed, without exception,
the only evil; or else the words good and evil
have no meaning. And this is alike true of
every sort of pain, and of every sort of pleasure.
It follows, therefore, immediately and incon-
testably, that there is no such thing as any sort
of motive that is in itself a bad one.’’*® Man’s
motives are good or bad only on account of
their effects. They possess no internal char-
acter. Any act that produces pleasure is good;
any act from which pain follows is bad. Ife. g.
self-sacrifice brings pain it is bad. If avarice
produces pleasure it is good. Bentham has
developed in some respects the most consistent
and the baldest system of utilitarian hedonism.
John Stuart Mill with his careful, logical
mind has modified Bentham. While he admits
that the theory of utility means nothing else
than the rule of pleasure, he frames this defini-
tion. ‘‘The creed which accepts as the founda-
tion of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happi-
ness ‘Principle, holds that actions are right in
proportion as they tend to promote happiness,
10 Ibid. Chapter X, par. X.
 FREEDOM THROUGH PLEASURE 123
wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of
happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure,
and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain,
and the privation of pleasure.’’?’* Mill makes
two changes in the doctrine of utilitarianism.
First, he distinguishes between pleasures in
reference to their quality. There are higher
and lower pleasures. The higher are intellec-
tual and agree better with the dignity of man.
It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a
pig satisfied. Mill resents the accusation that
human beings are ‘‘capable of no pleasures
except those of which swine are capable.’ ™
While it is admitted that utilitarian writers
have placed the superiority of mental over
bodily pleasures in the greater permanency,
safety, uncostliness, etc., i. e. in their cireum-
stantial advantages, there is a standard of
quality. ‘‘Of two pleasures, if there be one to
which all or almost all who have experience of
both give a decided preference, irrespective of
any moral obligation to prefer it, that is the
more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is,
by those who are competently acquainted with
both, placed so far above the other that they
prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended
with a greater amount of discontent, and would
not resign it for any quantity of the other
pleasure which their nature is capable of, we
are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoy-
ment a superiority in quality, so far outweigh-
ing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of
11 Utilitarianism, Chapter IT, p. 9.
12 Ibid. p. 10.
124 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
small account.’’* Those acquainted with the
pleasures of sense and of mind always prefer
the latter(?).* The second modification of
Mill is that the principle of greatest happiness
is made the greatest happiness of the greatest
number. It is given a social meaning which is
larger than that suggested in the hedonistic
calculus. There must be a rational balance
between individual and common pleasures.
The usual external and internal sanctions are
accepted, but the ultimate sanction is found in
the subjective, conscientious feelings of man-
kind. The proof of utilitarianism is held to be
realized in the fact, that human nature is so
constituted as to desire nothing which is not
either a part of happiness, or a means of
happiness.
Henry Sidgwick still further rationalizes
utilitarianism. He openly demands reason as
a regulative principle for the distribution of
good through the virtues of prudence, benevo-
lence and justice. Nevertheless the ultimate
good is found in universalistic hedonism, which
may conveniently be designated by the single
word, utilitarianism. Sidgwick holds that ‘‘it
is an assertion incontrovertible because taut-
ological, to say that we desire what is pleasant,
or even that we desire a thing in proportion as
it appears pleasant.’’’* And this statement is
explained through the assumption that we
really in all things desire pleasure, which is in
its largest sense coterminous with happiness.
18 Ibid. p. 12.
14 Of. The weak defense of Mill, Ibid. p. 12 ff.
15 Methods of Ethics, Book I, Chapter IV, par. 2, p. 44.
 FREEDOM THROUGH PLEASURE 125
For if ‘‘we ‘sit down in a cool hour,’ we can only
justify to ourselves the importance that we
attach to any of these objects'® by considering
its conduciveness, in one way or another, to the
happiness of sentient beings.’’ 7
Evolution and hedonism. Why did an evo-
lutionary conception of the theory of pleasure
arise? There are two reasons which caused
the utilitarian form of English ethical hypothe-
sis to become evolutionary. First, the biologi-
eal interest aroused through Darwinism natur-
ally was in sympathy with the idea of pleasure,
for it was connected as a constant symptom
with physical life in its formal functioning.
When evolution sought to be the controlling
view of life it found ready at hand an ethical
idea which fitted in with its fundamental
assumption. The continuity of utilitarianism
in its hedonic coloring was thus brought about
as the evolutionary point of view gained in
acceptance. The manner in which hedonism
could be adapted to various modern move-
ments of thought gave it its vitality. Second,
the stressing of conduct in hedonism permitted
it to be made a part of the whole development
of life. All action was supposed to be one, and
the manner in which hedonism seemed to sub-
stantiate the underlying assumptions of evolu-
tion strengthened Darwinism. At the same
time the opinion came about that now in the
proof of the full adequacy of evolution up into
moral life, ethics itself was made a real natural
science and a part of the whole cosmic process.
16 This refers to possible objective choices and preferences.
17 Ibid. Book III, Chapter XIV, par. 5, p. 401.
126 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
Spencer is the outstanding advocate among
the many writers on evolutional ethics."
Studying movement and action as they produce
conduct, Spencer finds ‘‘that conduct is distin-
guished from the totality of actions by exclud-
ing purposeless actions.’’*® This distinction
rises by degrees according as the adjustment
of acts to ends are more efficient. Among men
‘‘the adjustment of acts to ends are both more
numerous and better than among lower mam-
mals; but we find the same thing on comparing
the doings of higher races of men with those of
lower races.’’*° But the final purpose of the
adjustments is the life of the species. Since
conduct is an evolution actions are good or bad
as they are well or ill adapted to achieve pre-
seribed ends. The process is a shifting one and
therefore we must make ethics relative and not
absolute. ‘‘Instead of admitting that there is
in every case a right and a wrong, it may be
contended that in multitudinous cases no right,
properly so called, can be alleged, but only a
least wrong; and further, it may be contended
that in many of these cases where there can be
alleged only a least wrong, it is not possible to
ascertain with any precision which is the least
wrong.’’** Therefore as the goal to the natural
evolution of conduct is also the standard of
conduct in morals, and as that conduct is good
which conserves life, and that bad which
destroys it, ‘‘ethics has for its subject-matter,
is Cf. C. M. Williams, Evolutional Ethies.
19 Data of Ethics, Part I, Chapter II, par. 4, p. 10.
20Tbid. Part I, Chapter II, par. 4, p. 18.
21Tbid. Chapter XV, par. 10, p. 301.
 FREEDOM THROUGH PLEASURE 127
that form which universal conduct assumes
during the last stages of its evolution.’’ 2
_When Spencer comes to a closer grasp with
his problem in his Principles of Ethies,”* he
arrives at the conclusion that the genesis of
moral conduct is the control of the lower, primi-
tive, presentative simple feelings by the higher,
later-evolved, representative and compound
feelings. He introduces again the sanctions of
Bentham reducing them to three, the political,
the religious and the social. These are however
ealled preparatory or pre-moral controls within
which the moral control evolves. The moral con-
trol is within man and consists of the necessary
natural results of an action. It looks to the
future and through feeling of the results there
arises the sentiment of duty.
Duty has an element of coerciveness, but con-
duct strives to be free functioning. The sense
of moral obligation will cease as we become
really moralized. ‘‘While at first the motive
contains an element of coercion, at last this
element of coercion dies out, and the act is per-
formed without any consciousness of being
obliged to perform it.’’** The consciousness
of the ought ceases and there is a simple,
pleasurable feeling of satisfaction. When men
fit in more fully into the harmony of life they
will act as spontaneously as they now see and
smell. Conduct will become entirely natural,
and it will function as a matter of course
exactly in substance as our glands act, or as any

22Tbid. Chapter II, par. 7, p. 21.

28 Vol. I, p. 127 ff.
24 Tbid. p. 129.
128 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
purely biological movement occurs. Then we
will be almost unconsciously good. We will
bear fruit as do the trees, but not because they
are good or bad, but because they are more
highly developed. It all depends upon time
until the upward curve of conduct will have
arrived at the freedom of the law of the curve.
We will be free in the balance of a naturally
evolved human society in which there will be
neither duty, conscience, nor law, for they will
not be needed.
The golden age of society will be brought
about by the natural conciliation of egoism and.
altruism. They have always been dependent
upon each other and in the course of evolution
the reciprocal services of the two have been
increasing. Altruism will rise to a level when
the happiness of others will become a daily
need. The cause of unhappiness will decrease
and sympathy will increase. ‘‘As the mould-
ing and remoulding of man and society unto
mutual fitness progresses, and as the pains
caused by unfitness decrease, sympathy can
increase in presence of the pleasures that come
from fitness.’’?> Like any living organism
man and society will develop into health and
power. The dead tissue will be cast off and
happiness will be the increasing life. Morality
will grow just like Topsy ‘‘growed.’’ We shall
have heaven on earth merely through the
natural process of evolution. All our hopes
will be satisfied not through any choice that we
make but purely by the course of cosmic
evolution.
25 Ibid. p. 129.
 FREEDOM THROUGH PLEASURE 129
_ Pleasure and reason. When, after portray-
ing the position of hedonism in its various
aspects, we come to consider what is its value
for morals, we must ask: ‘‘Is it self-sufficient?”?
The answer is given by the history of hedonism.
It shows the constant pressure of the theory
of pleasure toward reason. It was not pos-
sible permanently to maintain the Cyrenaic
position of the immediate, present life of sense
and feeling. The Epicurean attitude demanded
the calm calculation of reason. The calculus
of Bentham merged into the idea of utility. It
it true that Bentham, in a note of July, 1812,
added at the beginning of his work, tried to
escape from the consequences of utility, when
he says: ‘‘This want of a sufficiently manifest
connection between the ideas of happiness and
pleasure on the one hand, and the idea of utility
on the other, I have every now and then found
operating, and with but too much efficiency, as
a bar to the acceptance, that might otherwise
have been given, to this principle.’’ But util-
ity was the more powerful idea, and in the use
made of it by Mill it overshadowed immediate
feeling. Man’s dignity, the difference in qual-
ity between actions, the emphasis upon the
pleasures of reason, all demonstrated the logi-
cal necessity of adding reason to mere feeling.
Sidgwick found it still more incumbent upon
his thinking to make reason regulative and
controlling. The apparent re-assertion of
mere pleasure in evolutional ethics is counter-
balanced by putting pleasure into the process
of evolution. But the development of the uni-
130 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
verse cannot be understood without the impli-
cation of reason and purpose.
Because hedonism did not maintain itself
in its original, pure form, it raised this problem:
‘‘Why cannot feeling offer the principles for
the organization of ethics as a science?’’
The whole procedure of the hedonists shows
the constant call upon other principles than
those of feeling to make their view of moral
life fairly consistent. It does not lie within
the nature of sense or feeling, of pleasure or
pain, to furnish laws for a scientific statement.
We may describe their functioning, but we
do not obtain ideas from such a description
that are fit to produce a science of ethics.
There will always be an inadequacy in the
theory of pleasure because of its flowing char-
acter to furnish a foundation for morals. The
concrete changes in the life of feeling do
not allow a place for firm ethical laws. Delibera-
tion will have no real outlook upon the future.
Dewey shows the inadequacy of his position,
when he says: ‘‘The present, not the future is
ours. No shrewdness, no store of information
will make it ours. But by constant watchful-
ness concerning the tendency of acts, by noting
disparities between former judgments and
actual outcomes, and tracing that part of the
disparity that was due to deficiency and excess
in disposition, we come to know the meaning
of present acts, and to guide them in the light
of that meaning.’’** There is no use in foster-
ing conscience or reason, but only impulses and
habits. Thus the pragmatic ethics are evolu-
26 Ibid. p. 207.
 FREEDOM THROUGH PLEASURE 131
tional psychological description, and they can
not formulate a real science because they live
within sense, impulse and feeling.
Is pleasure happiness? The constant assump-
tion of the hedonists is, that pleasure and
happiness are the same. But can this be main-
tained? It is true that there is a coloring of
feeling in happiness and that happiness in its
fulness gives pleasure. But there is a larger
content in happiness than that given by the
sentient life. Happiness means the well-being
of the whole man, and not simply of the feeling
man. The truth of this fact was realized by
Plato and Aristotle. While they both gave
some place to pleasure, they found in happiness
(eudaimonia) the satisfaction for the complete
man. The serious thought of man on the
moral life never rested with contentment in
pleasure except when man followed the mere
incitement of the natural life. Epicurus rea-
lized not only that man could not attain pleas-
ure without pain, but he also saw that calmness
and the undisturbed life of control were neces-
sary. This was virtually the surrender of the
power of mere pleasure to create happiness.
Whenever any man wrote down his creed of
life, through which he thought to attain success
and to solve the mystery of happiness with any
fair analysis of life, and without being under
the necessity of defending an ethical theory, he
arrived at a statement which meant more than
the gratification of pleasure. The well-known
ideal of Robert Louis Stevenson substantiates
this common experience. ‘‘To be honest, to be
kind—to earn a little and to spend a little less,
132 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

—to make upon the whole a family happier for

his presence, to renounce when that shall be
necessary and not to be embittered, to keep a
few friends, but these without capitulation,—
and above all, on the same grim condition, to
keep friends with himself—here is a task for
all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.’’
The claim is made that man, when he really
analyzes himself, is always in pursuit of pleas-
ure. Is this the fact? We may make pleasure
an end in life and subordinate all else to it;
but must we make it the good by our very con-
stitution and nature? What we really seek
in most cases is the attainment of an object.
We expect it to be a satisfaction whether for
the relative purpose we have in mind, or for
the fulness of our life. Life offers us tasks and
we either accept or reject them. Some pursuit
is ours and whatever it may be it must not
be essentially pleasure. We may seek learning
or position, wealth or power, helpfulness
toward men and service for God. In all these
searchings it is not pleasures in themselves
that we desire. And even if we desired them
does the good render pleasure inevitably? Are
there not sufferings of the good and just which
they take upon themselves in seeking right-
eousness? Some of the highest results of the
good must be reached through surrender of the
pleasant by self-sacrifice. The right life does
not inevitably produce pleasure. Society will
often abuse and reject the just, and treat them
as unjust. It seems almost like a prophecy
when Plato says: ‘‘They will say that in such
a situation the just man will be scourged,
 FREEDOM THROUGH PLEASURE 133
racked, fettered, will have his eyes burnt
out,
and at last, after suffering every kind of tortu
re,
will be crucified; and thus learn that it is
best
to resolve not to be, but to seem Just, 2777
Another fact about pleasure is, that it con-
stantly seeks a higher tension. Bentham
rightly emphasized the intensity, the fruitful-
ness, the duration of pleasure as necessary ele-
ments. The senses when indulged in, and the
feelings and emotions sought for themselves,
always lead to a greater demand. It lies in the
nature of mere pleasure to seek an increase.
And even men who know the higher joys select
the lower if they promise more tingling of the
nerves. Dewey, although he will not admit
that love of pleasures is in itself demoralizing,
must confess: ‘‘But pleasure has often become
identified with special thrills, excitations, tick-
lings of sense, stirrings of appetite for the
express purpose of enjoying immediate stimu-
lation irrespective of results.’?** It is this
tendency which grows on man when he chooses
pleasure. He sinks to a low level, and the
freedom which pleasure promises him is a
deception. The free life is never one con-
trolled by any sort of pleasure as the good.
Pleasure will dominate and enslave, and not
liberate men, when it becomes the object of life.
Freedom is only found in pleasure, when pleas-
ure is an accompaniment of a happy life, and
not when it is desired as the solution of liberty.
Individual or social? What do we think of
this contrast? Must the individual exclude the
27 Republic Book II, 361 E.
28 Tbid. p. 158.
134 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
social, or must the social submerge the individ-
ual? Both are facts of life, and both must be
accounted for. If this is true, then every ethi-
cal theory of the good must be tested by the
question: ‘‘How does it conciliate the individ-
ual and social rights??? The outlook upon
life with pleasure as an end is fundamentally
individualistic. As an individual I must seek
and enjoy pleasure. No one else can enjoy for
me. The sentient life is necessarily subjective.
If pleasure is the end I must have pleasure.
There is nothing in the nature of pleasure
which regards others. It is essentially selfish.
And thus men interpret it practically. They
are only willing, from the angle of pleasure to
share pleasure if there is no detraction from
their individual enjoyment. It is not possible
from the consideration of pleasure as such to
surrender and sacrifice. The joy of these acts
only comes as we give up pleasure as the
primal aim of life. The greatest good of the
greatest number does not logically follow from
the choice of pleasure. The altruistic is not
included in the egoistic. Benevolence is no
legitimate child of pleasure. The difficulty
with the hedonists is that they constantly shift
the meaning of pleasure and include under it
many things which do not rightly belong to it.
It is self-evident that the world cannot exist
in the conflict of individual pleasure against
individual pleasure. Much evil is being created
by this attitude. But if pleasure be fully
socialized it means the giving up of some indi-
vidual pleasure, and then we cannot with
justice demand pleasure as the end of the indi-
 FREEDOM THROUGH PLEASURE 135
vidual life. But is the common life satisfied
with pleasure as the end? It is through reason
that we seek the happiness of the greatest num-
ber. When Spencer places the altruistic senti-
ment alongside of the egoistic he is correct.
Both function in human life. But is the
altruistic sentiment the outcome of pleasure?
Altruism rests upon the instinct of sympathy,
if with some psychologists we admit sympathy
to be a mere instinct. But whatever our deci-
sion, is sympathy as it acts for the common
good, useful because it is essentially a pleas-
ure? We cannot affirm this, even if sympathy
may be accompanied or followed by pleasurable
feeling growing out of the nobility of its direc-
tion. Society may be fused to a degree by feel-
ing but the spirit of the crowd is not made
moral by the feeling of pleasure. Some of the
cruelties of the mob spirit are pleasure. There
is more danger in pleasure for the social com-
plex than for the individual. The enslavement
of the crowd through its choice is very severe
and leads to destruction. Make pleasure in its
sentient nature the end of society and society
will lose civilization.
The end, the ideal, the good, the right and
pleasure. Can any moral theory be accepted if
it fails in meeting the inherent demands of the
great ethical ideas? To raise this question is
really to answer it. How does hedonism meas-
ure up to the end, the ideal, the good and the
right? The end and aim of the ethical implies
no mere description of the natural functioning
of man. But pleasure never rises above the
unfoldment of what men do as purely natural
136 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
beings when they lack in moral development.
The ideal is not that which is but that which
ought to be brought about. The ideal is to
transform the actual. It is just this feature
which makes ethics a normative science. But
hedonism dethrones ethics from its place, and
endeavors to deny the value if not the actuality
of the ideal. When we merely portray the
actions of pleasure we do not show what man
may and ought to pursue. He follows pleasure
without an ideal. Pleasure he shares with the
animal world, and it does not belong to ideal
existence as an end.
The good is the ideal to be fulfilled. If it is
to remain the good it must claim to be the
highest good (summum bonum). Now it is
clear that hedonism can never give us a highest
good. In its nature it is quantitative and can
only promise a maximum amount of pleasure.
Its good is relative. Even when quality is
added, as by Mill, the quality simply modifies
the quantity, and does not change the defect of
the purely relative character of the good. Life
in much of its experience is relative. But to
accept this relativity as final, and to lower the
good to the readily attainable, takes away the
worth of the good. The balance of possible
pleasures in the individual and common life is
a compromise which cannot be escaped from.
But will the good be the highest upon a com-
promise? The hedonistic proportionalism is
an enemy to the ethical power of the ideal of
the good.
What do the hedonists make of the right?
They cannot find a firm standard and law of
 FREEDOM THROUGH PLEASURE 137
the right. Their terminology only allows for
the lesser wrong. No motive is right or wrong
in itself, for only the consequences count. Law
can only mean the statement of the average.
There can be no incorporation of the good into
a real right. Right is a flowing term. Thus
the way in which men learn through error is
made the right, as it obtains in society from
time to time. It is this hedonism of the right
which made the economic life of the world so
unreliable in its moral aspect. The biologism
of the evolutionary moralist can not help us.
It has no room for the right. Development,
selection, adaptation is all that it knows. As
far as this theory expresses present moral con-
ditions, and to the degree that it has helped to
make them, it finds its own punishment in the
loss of the sense of a right to which men must
bow to be free. We seek deliverance through
gratification of pleasure and desire, and find
only anarchy and revolution in society as the
result. Hedonism has aided in suppressing
the strong sense of right without which neither
the individual nor society can have a vital
liberty worth while.
Duty and pleasure. How can we explain
duty which is obligation if we accept hedonism?
This question has troubled the hedonists.
According to their conception duty can only
be explained on the natural foundation of the
impetus of pleasure. But pleasure simply
occurs, but duty is asked for. It implies an
ought. When the law ‘‘thou shalt’’ or ‘‘thou
shalt not’’ is made our own in duty we have
more than a mere ‘‘is.’’ The psychological
138 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
aspect of duty can explain it in part as far as
it touches feeling, though even here it cannot
tell why the feeling is imperative. Psychologi-
cal hedonism does not give us a full descrip-
tion of what happens when we follow duty.
Above all it is not ethical. Hobhouse has
clearly indicated the failure of Mill, when he
says: ‘‘Mill held to the sense of Moral Obliga-
tion as a real psychological force, but whether
it had a rational justification was not so easy
for him, on his principles, to determine. The
sense of obligation he held to be built up by
educative processes and the laws of Associa-
tion on the basis of a substratum of sympathy
or Social feeling which he took to be natural.
Given sufficient strength in these feelings and
forces, there is at any rate no contradiction in-
volved in the supposition that the altruistic
action which Mill wishes to explain might
become more pleasurable and the violation of
its rules a source of greater pain to a man than
any selfish consideration. Social and ‘unselfish’
action becomes psychologically possible on
Mill’s view, but whether it becomes rationally
imperative is another question. On Mill’s
account all action is at bottom founded on
desire. The stronger desire, and that is for
Mill the most intensely realized anticipation of
pleasure, must prevail. If a man already finds
his greatest pleasure in promoting the general
happiness no question of obligation arises.
But if he feels nothing of the kind, or if he
halts between two decisions, in what sense can
 FREEDOM THROUGH PLEASURE 139
we tell him that he ‘ought’ to decide for one
course rather than the other.’’ *°
The hedonists of the modern type found it
necessary to introduce external sanctions after
the leadership of Bentham. But why do we
need any external forces if there is a purely
natural sequence in life which ends either in
pleasure or pain? The external sanctions can-
not however readily be accounted moral. To
become moral they must be internally accepted.
Therefore the ultimate sanction is of necessity
internal. But are the external sanctions the
real causes of the internal feeling of obligation?
It is an unproved assumption that the physical,
the social, and even the religious sanctions
ereate the peculiar sense of moral obligation.
After all there is the ineradicable feeling of its
immediacy which has never been solved by any
proposal of the external.
Another problem is raised by the idea of
Spencer that the inner coerciveness of duty is
a passing phase of life. It will, in his opinion,
give way to a moral life that needs no duty,
when conduct has arrived at the highest stage
of balance between egoism and altruism. Then
there will be no necessity for men to be told
their duty or to feel and know it. Duty will
have become almost unconscious habit. But
is it possible at any time for duty to pass away
as long as moral progress takes place? It is
true that when duties are encased in virtues
they do not seem so compelling as in the forma-
tive stage of virtues. Nevertheless virtues
20 Ibid. p. 197.
140 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
need to be re-vivified again and again by the
sense of duty. As we grow in the moral life
we recognize more duties and it is only thus
that we develop new virtues. Will moral pro-
gress ever cease? Men may hope this but we
have not yet arrived within any hailing dis-
tance of this hope. There is a rise and a fall
in individual and social moral life, and the line
is not directly upward. Furthermore will the
inner law ever cease, even when it becomes a
delight? If the highest duty is love will it not
always come to us with its ‘‘thou shalt?’’
Virtue and hedonism. As virtue is habit,
cannot the motive of pleasure very naturally
form virtue? Mill claims that hedonism
‘maintains not only that virtue is to be desired,
but that it is to be desired disinterestedly, for
itself.’’*° But he must admit that, after all,
utilitarian moralists believe that actions and
dispositions are only virtuous because they pro-
mote another end than virtue. In fact with
pleasure as the aim and ideal how can virtue
be disinterested logically, no matter what Mill
may claim? The habit of virtue, according to
the hedonists, is a purely natural production
brought about by the chain of causes and effects
tending to pleasure. Virtue cannot have its
real content because it is not the habit of the
good and right. The loss of a real highest good
has impaired the meaning and value of virtue.
When the advocates of pleasure come to
denominate virtues they always stress pru-
dence. From the days of Epicurus to Sidg-
30 Ibid. Chapter IV, p. 54.
 FREEDOM THROUGH PLEASURE 141
wick this is the great virtue of hedonism. And
there is a consistency in this emphasis upon
prudence. In obtaining the greatest sum of
pleasure we must use a wise and careful dis-
crimination in casting up our accounts for and
against. We may be stupid, foolish, careless,
intellectually deficient in finding pleasure, but
our fault is nothing greater. Prudence is a
low type of virtue of the calculating order
which seeks to live along the line of least resis-
tence. Sidgwick desires to derive a sort of
benevolence in our social relations. Consis-
tently this benevolence can be naught else but
a prudent attitude in view of society. Justice
is to serve as the balance between prudence and
benevolence. But such justice is only high
policy and shrewd diplomacy. It cannot have
in it the strength of eternal right. Thus hedo-
nism again fails, where it has the greatest psy-
chological chance, in giving us any adequate
foundation for virtue.
The philosophy of hedonism. What is the
ruling philosophy that underlies all the differ-
ent types of hedonism? Apparently its immed-
iate character is that of psychologism. Its
world is that of the feelings and senses of man.
But the psychologism is not of the idealistic
but of the naturalistic kind. Even in the case
of Mill there exists a phenomenalism that has
no real place for cause, and the life of the mind
in itself. Materialism is generally connected
with hedonism. Epicureanism pointed the real
way. After the high idealism of Plato and the
realistic idealism of Aristotle it revamped the
old materialism. Despite his many moral
142 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
maxims Epicurus believed in a world of all-
controlling matter. He had no hope of immor-
tality of the soul for which Plato had contended.
Bentham is at heart a materialist. The mater-
ial side of English economic life was taken up
into the thinking of its hedonistic moralists.
With the coming of philosophy of a purely
material evolution a new support was furnished
to hedonism. Spencer may seem idealistic
when he borrows from Hamilton and Mansel
the attitude of agnosticism. But his agnostic-
ism is after all different. It favors a self-
developing universe, in which there is a
procession from the homogeneous to the
heterogeneous through the dissipation of
energy and the integration of matter. Life is
only the adjustment of the inner to the outer.
Psychology is in essence biology, and that of a
material sort. All of these positions of the
great leaders in hedonism demonstrate that it
can only have a naturalistic and materialistic
philosophy as its real basis. Pleasure as
pleasure can fit in with no really ideal world
but only with one that lives on the level of
sense, and has nature and matter as its finality.
Christianity and hedonism. Is there any
need to ask for the relation of Christianity to
hedonism if its philosophy is materialistic?
Does this not settle the question? It is true
that Christian moral teaching warns against
what it calls ‘‘the world.’? A part of this
‘‘world’’ is the life of pleasure. The lust of the
eves and the lust of flesh is condemned.* Man
31I John II: 16,
 FREEDOM THROUGH PLEASURE 143
is not to seek the things that perish with the
using of them. His world is not merely eco-
nomic and biological. But while Christianity
warns men against the power and sufficiency of
life as pleasure, it is not drab and gloomy. As
far as pleasure is not evil it is not rejected.
Christ does not condemn the joys connected
with normal life. He goes to ‘a wedding.*?
His enemies call him a wine-bibber.*? The
picture of His stay with His disciples is that
of the bridegroom.** The mere laws that for-
bid in Judaism Christ does not accept. He has
come to give freedom to man, and therefore the
Sabbath was made for man and not man for
the Sabbath.* Restriction has no value in it-
self according to the teaching of Jesus and of
His immediate followers. To the extent that
pleasure belongs to life Christianity does not
destroy it. Only when it assumes the first and
controlling place, and is entranced by the pre-
sent as the final life is it opposed. A sane and
fair Christianity offers the full life, in which
all minor joys are summed up into the high and
lasting happiness of a life in Christ. Such a
life is the fulfillment of the best desires and the
guarantee and gift of a real and vital liberty.
32 John IT.
33 Matt. XI: 19.
34 Matt. IX: 15
85 Mark ITI: 27.

REFERENCES
James Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Part I, Chapter I.
Frank Thilly, Introduction to Ethics, Chapters VI, VIII.
J. H. Muirhead, The Elements of Ethies, Book III, Chapters
Ay AG
144 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
Chas. D’Arey, A Short Study of Ethics, Part III, Chapters
10Bp EtEa tN
Theo. De Laguna, Introduction to the Science of Ethics,
Chapters VII, XI, IV, XIII, XVII.
Benj. Rand, The Classical Moralists, V.
Mary W. Calkins, The Good Man and the Good, Chapter V.
Henry W. Wright, Self-Realization, Part II, Chapter II.
Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, Chapter XV.
Chas. Gray Shaw, The Value and Dignity of Human Life,
Part II, Chapters II, III, IV, V.
Jas. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, Book II,
Branch I, Chapters I, II.
A. E, Taylor, The Problem of Conduct, Chapter VII.
Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, Part I,
Chapter VI.
R. D. Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean, Chapters V, VI, VII.
Walter Pater, Marius the Epicurean.
Letters of Epicurus; Epicurean Ethies.
Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of
Morals and Legislation.
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism.
H. Sidgwick, Methods of Ethies.
Herbert Spencer, Data of Ethies.
Herbert Spencer, Principles of Ethics.
C. M. Williams, Evolutional Ethics.
Arthur K. Rogers, The Theory of Hthics, Chapter II.
 CHAPTER VIII
FREEDOM THROUGH REASON

What does reason promise? Is there in rea-

son the essential element which will answer to
the ethical demand? It is through reason that
we as human beings are differentiated from the
rest of creation. The life of sensation and feel-
ing ties us up with the animal world below us.
As sentient beings we cannot assert our pecu-
liar place as men. Since morals are distinc-
tively a human sphere of action they cannot
exist without reason. The logic of reason,
which alone makes any group of facts a science,
is needed if our ethical life is to receive a scien-
tific treatment. No theory of morals is at all
possible except through reason. As soon as
we become conscious of our responsibility we
must think and use reason. The unthinking
life will never become moralized. The fact is
that we make so little progress in the ethical
life because we give so little thoughtful atten-
tion to it. If hedonism found it necessary to
demand that reason be regulative, shall not
reason be our ideal? When we rightly employ
reason we come to the solid basis of things,
which must appeal to every human being as
far as reason prevails. There is a unifying,
steadying and stabilizing powerin reason. It
gives power and permanence to life. When we
145
146 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
search carefully and thoroughly into facts to
find the real reason back of them, we are look-
ing for the immutable and finally explanatory.
Reason as it enters the moral life endeavors
to obtain the unvarying and eternal, the fixed
and everlasting laws of right in the world of
change and flux. It lifts us into the pure ideals
of all virtues, and makes duty glorious because
it tends to give it its constant value and its
unchangeable worth.
The ancient advocates of reason. If we ab-
stract the Eastern development of India where
reason submerged desire in the absoluteness of
reason as being, we find that the Western
impulse toward reason in morals came from
Socrates. His purpose was to lead men to vir-
tue through helping them to think clearly. By
aiding men to find the consistent and definite
concept of the good in its various relations
Socrates labored to make the Greeks virtuous,
and to overcome the destructive individualism
of the Sophists who had no definite standards
of right. His principle was, that no man erred
willingly, but only through the lack of right
knowledge. Plato developed the world of
ideas in the interest of the good. For him the
highest virtue was wisdom, which dwelt in the
head. Justice was the balancing virtue but
not the highest individually. Aristotle, with
his conception of the active reason, which
came to man from without like some peculiar
divine gift, naturally exalted the intellectual
virtues above all others. The moral supremacy
of reason was the special Greek vision. Rea-
son was the Greek way of salvation.
 FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 147
This quality of the Greek character found its
strongest expression in the school of the Cynics.
They held that man became master of himself,
independent of circumstances and _ self-suffic.
ient through reason alone. Wisdom is happi-
ness. It dwells within and is shown in the
singleless of virtue. Pleasure leads to a life of
folly and makes man a slave of mere accidents
and of fickle fortune. The wise man has over-
come these attacks of pleasure, and lives in
that which is the essential good of man, namely
reason. lor him there is no evil with the one
virtue of wisdom. All men without reason are
slaves. The man of reason, like a king, des-
pises the people of passion. It is this attitude
of pride and superiority which has given rise
to our modern use of cynicism. The Cynic
cannot attain to the perfect life of passionless
reason without reducing all wants to the mini-
mum. Through hard labor he must climb to
the heaven of peace by self-denial. Thus there
will come a calmness of mind and life that
pierces through all human illusions, is strong
by its indifference to all changing experiences,
and has conquered death itself. This confident
assurance made the Cynics extravagant and
reckless over against the customs of society.
They glorified nature itself as reason, and re-
jected the ways of politeness and even decency,
in the interest of the immediate demands of
nature. The protest against the artificialities
and luxuries of society led them to actions
that far exceeded the dreams of Rousseau in
his day when he demanded a return to nature.
The life conformable to nature received a
148 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
deeper and saner interpretation through the
Stoics. The fundamental tenets of this school
were first stated by Zeno. Of him Diogenes
Laertius says: ‘‘Zeno was the first writer who,
in his treatise on the Nature of Man, said that
the chief good was confessedly to live according
to nature; which is to live according to virtue,
for nature leads us to this point.’’? ‘‘For our
individual natures are all parts of universal
nature; on which account the chief good is to
live in a manner corresponding to nature, and
that means corresponding to one’s own nature
and to universal nature; doing none of those
things which the common law of mankind is in
the habit of forbidding; and that common law
is identical with that right reason which per-
vades everything, being the same with Jupiter,
who is the regulator and chief manager of all
existing things.’?? The Roman followers of
Zeno, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, also
begin with the stressing of reason as funda-
mental in the world. Epictetus not only makes
reason supreme in man, but also essential in
God. He says: ‘‘God is beneficial. Good is
also beneficial. It should seem, then, that where
the essence of God is, there too is the essence of
good. What then is the essence of God,—flesh.
By no means. An estate? Fame? By no means.
Intelligence? Knowledge? Right reason?
Certainly. Here, then, without more ado, seek
the essence of the good.’’* Therefore the chief
concern of a wise and good man is reason and
aoiaabe and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book VIT,

2Tbid. Book VII, LIII.

3 Discourses, Book II, Chapter VIII.
 FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 149
his own reason. It is this submission to reason
which developed two qualities. First the con-
ception that, since we are a part of the whole
of nature governed by reason, we can experience
nothing but our destiny. Marcus Aurelius
says:
‘“Whatever may happen to thee, it was prepared
for thee from all eternity; and the implication
of causes was from eternity spinning the threa
d
of thy being, and of that which is incident to
it.’’* In like manner, Seneca, whatever the
inconsistencies of his life, accepts the universe
and strives toward a calm life. The second
result is an element of severity toward our-
selves. We must consider all things external
as things indifferent and valueless as long as we
attain the control of reason with its denials of
the life of sense. The Stoics were not mere
individualists. Because the life of every one
was merged into the world-reason, all men were
destined for the city of the world. But this city
was a supreme city of reason on high in which
eternal law lived. All cities and governments
could but follow the eternal pattern of everlast-
ing reason. This ideal of world citizenship in
the ideal city turned the optimism of the Stoies
into a certain melancholy. Man was to become
apathetic in view of the insignificance of all
temporal and transitory things. No one has
characterized this spirit better than Walter
Pater. ‘‘I find that all things are now as they
were in the days of our buried ancestors, all
things sordid in their elements, trite by long
usage, and yet ephemeral. How ridiculous,
then, how like a countryman in town, is he who
4 Meditations, Book X, 5.
150 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
wonders at aught! Doth the sameness, the
repetition of the public shows, weary thee?
Even so doth that likeness of events make the
spectacle of the world a vapid one. And so
must it be with thee to the end. For the wheel
of the world hath ever the same motion, upward
and downward, from generation to generation.
When, then, shall time give place to eternity?’’”
‘‘To cease from action—the ending of thine
effort to think and to do—there is no evil in
that.... Thou climbest into the ship, thou
hast made thy voyage and touched the shore;
go forth now! Be it into some other life; the
divine breath is everywhere, even there. Be it
into forgetfulness forever; at least thou wilt rest
from the beating of sensible images upon thee,
from the passions which pluck thee this way
and that, like an unfeeling toy, from those long
marches of the intellect, from thy toilsome
ministry to the flesh.’’ °
Modern intuitionism. What is meant by
intuitionism, and what is its claim for reason?
The intuitionists in morals are those thinkers
who hold that man has in himself the funda-
mental principles of the moral life. These can
be found by looking within ourselves and elicit-
ing the elements of morality through reflection
and reason. Among the earliest English rep-
resentatives of intuition is Samuel Clarke. In
his ‘‘Discourse upon Natural Religion’’ he
asserts that there are ‘‘eternal and unalterable
relations, respects, or proportions of things,
with their consequent agreements or disagree-
5 Marius the Epicurean, I, p. 205.
6 Ibid. I, p. 206.
 FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 151
ments, fitnesses or unfitnesses.’?? ‘And now,
that the same reason of things, with regard to
which the will of God always and necessarily
does determine itself to act in constant con-
formity to the eternal rules of justice, equity,
goodness, and truth, ought also constantly to
determine the wills of all subordinate rational
beings, to govern all their actions by the same
rules, is very evident.’’*® ‘All rational crea-
tures ought to take care that their wills and
actions are governed by the eternal rule of right
and equity.’’® It was supposed that this rule
could be found by man and was clear and
definite. The advocates of the rule of common
sense in philosophy followed the deistic attitude
of Clarke. Richard Price says: ‘‘It’s a very
necessary previous observation, that our ideas
of right and wrong are simple ideas, and must
therefore be ascribed to some power of immedi-
ate perception in the human mind.’’” The
mind has a power of immediately perceiving
right and wrong. ‘‘It is undeniable, that many
of our ideas are derived from our intuition of
truth, or the discernment of the natures of
things by the understanding. This therefore
may be the source of our moral ideas.’’** If we
follow this source we shall arrive at the con-
clusion, that ‘‘morality is eternal and immuta-
ble.’’*’ Morals are as unchangeably fixed and
as eternally true in their given laws as a triangle
OS ofl CR
8 Ibid. I, 3.
9 Ibid. I, 3.
10 A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals, Chapter I.
11 Ibid. Chapter I.
12 [bid. Chapter I.
152 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
or circle is what it is unchangeably and etern-
ally. Thomas Reid argues for a moral sense
which he compares to our external senses. The
external senses give us the first principles of
the material world. ‘‘The truths immediately
testified by our moral faculty, are the first
principles of all moral reasoning, from which
all our knowledge of our duty must be deduced.
By moral reasoning, I understand all reasoning
that is brought to prove that such conduct is
right, and deserving of moral approbation; or
that it is wrong; or that it is indifferent, and,
in itself, neither morally good or ill.’’* All
of the intuitionists of this type believed that
somehow man had the ten commandments
written within him. They assumed that the
interpretations of the moral law of their times
were immutable. Inner reflection was called
upon as witness without the consideration of the
prior education which the mind had received.
The great classical opponent of all innate
ideas was John Locke. When he comes to treat
of the problem of innate moral ideas he
says: ‘‘Concerning practical principles, that
they come short of an universal reception; and
I think it will be hard to instance any one
moral rule which can pretend to so general and
ready an assent as ‘What is;-is,’ or to be so
manifest a truth as this, ‘That it is impossible
for the same thing to be, and not to be.’ Where-
by it is evident, that they are farther removed
from a title to be innate; and the doubt of their
being native impressions of the mind is stronger
18 Hssays on the Active Powers of Man, Essay III, Chapter
VI.
 FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 153
against these moral principles than the other,’’ ™
He denies that there is historical proof that
faith and justice are owned by all men as moral
principles. Moral rules are not self-evident
but need a proof. ‘‘ Another reason that makes
me doubt of any innate principles, is, that I
think there cannot any one moral rule be pro-
posed whereof a man may not justly demand a
reason; which would be perfectly ridiculous and
absurd, if they were innate, or so much as self-
evident; which every innate principle must
needs be, and not need any proof to ascertain
its truth, nor want any reason to gain it appro-
bation.’’** Locke indicated the essential weak-
ness of the intuitionist position. After a
careful analysis of the contents of our moral
life we cannot hold that moral principles are
born in us, and that we need only, in the manner
of Socrates, develop our native knowledge. But
the truth of the contention of intuition is the
effort to explain why morals come to us with the
formal power of their permanence. No matter
how we are educated by experience, conscience,
right, duty, the good appeal not only through
their a posteriori content, but also through their
a priori character. The peculiar force and influ-
ence of moral ideas is not explicable through the
external sources which furnish their material.
We have capabilities of moral development that
are not created by what enters into us. As soon
as anything is accepted as just or true it has
an impulsive force which other experience does
14An Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book TI,
Chapter II; Vol. I, p. 64—Hd. Fraser.
15 Ibid. Book I, Chapter II, 4 Vol. I, p. 68—EHd. Fraser.
154 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
not have. Our interpretation of the just and
true may be wrong, but as long as we think
any action to be just or true we cannot escape
its hold upon us.
Kant and his successors. What has been the
value and the idea of the German development
of philosophical morals from Kant, through
Fichte to Hegel? We must reckon with this
influence to understand moral rationalism. Kant
began with an emphasis upon the good will.
But the good will is the rational will. When
we pass from the fundamental Metaphysic of
Morality to the Critique of Practical Reason we
see that the outcome of the metaphysics of
morals is to subordinate the will to universal
reason. This appears in man as a rational being.
The sense and obligation of the moral impera-
tive grow out of the real, nouomenal life of man
as contrasted with the life of sense and external-
ity that subjects man in the phenomenal world
to necessity. Man feels and ascertains through
practical reason that he is greater than the
knowledge of science. Man thus exists as an
end in himself, and not merely as ameans. This
principle is elemental. ‘‘Its foundation is this,
that rational nature exists as an end in itself.
Man necessarily conceives of his own existence
in this way, and so far this is a subjective prin-
ciple of human action. But in this way also
every other rational being conceives of his own
existence, and for the very same reason; hence
the principle is also objective, and from it, as
the highest practical ground, all laws of the will
must be capable of being derived. The practical
imperative will therefore be this: Act so as to
 FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 155
use humanity, whether in your own person or in
the person of another, always as an end, never
as merely a means.’’** With this principle in
view we must determine our action in accord-
ance with the idea of certain laws. These laws
become embodied in the categorical imperative
which may be stated thus: ‘‘ Act in conformity
with that maxim, and that maxim only, which
you can at the same time will to be a universal
law.’’** ‘‘The universality of the law which
governs the succession of events, is what we
mean by nature, in the most general sense, that
is, the existence of things, in so far as their
existence is determined in conformity with
universal laws. The universal imperative of
duty might therefore be put in this way: ‘‘ Act
as if the maxim from which you act were to
become through your will a universal law of
nature.’’** The imperative derives its strength
from the universal reason. Kant in asserting
the realism of will as fundamentally in unison
with a rational universe of mind is no mere
individualist of reason. In contradiction to the
Critique of Pure Reason with its categories of
mind as found in the individual, the practical
reason is the universal reason which determines
the peculiar constitution of human nature.
Fichte, the apostle of German national free-
dom, was impelled by high ideals of national
independence, which rested on his moral con-
ceptions. He takes the ideas of Kant, fills them
with enthusiasm, and translates the intellect
16 The Metaphysic of Morality, Section II.
17 Ibid. Section II.
18 Thid. Section IT.
156 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
into the terms of an absolute logic of power to
freedom. There is an impulsion in man to do
certain things utterly independent of external
purposes. This impulsion is man’s moral
nature as surely as he is a rational being. The
ultimate ground of the moral nature is when
man finds himself as willing. This finding leads
man to the real ego, which is the original and
objective actuality. The Ego as absolute is |
actual self-determining of itself through itself.
It is not personality but similar to moral world-
order; and it must abstract all foreign and minor
elements in willing through individuals. The
outcome will be absolute intelligence. ‘‘The
contemplating intelligence posits the above de-
seribed tendency to absolute activity as itself,
or as identical with itself. The intelligence of
the absoluteness of real activity thus becomes
the true essence of the intelligence, and is
brought under the authority of the conception,
whereby alone it first becomes true freedom:
absoluteness of the absoluteness, absolute power
to make itself absolute. Through the conscious-
ness of its absoluteness the Ego tears itself loose
from itself, and posits itself as independent.’’?®
When we lose ourselves in this rare atmosphere
of the absolute Ego we are on the peak of the
intellect as in itself. We have not climbed as
high into abstraction as Plotinus, who rises
from mind to mere being in itself; but we are
nevertheless above and beyond all determinate-
oe The universal Absolute is freedom and
life.
19 The Science of Ethics, Chapter II, Genetical Deseription
of the Consciousness of our Original Being.
 FREEDOM THROUGH REASON | 157
Hegel also starts out in his moral reflections
with positing freedom through intelligence. He
thinks that freedom belongs to will as weight
to bodies. But this freedom as practical begins
with the I itself. It goes beyond the I into the
indeterminateness. The will is the intellect in
its movement, as the possibility of abstraction
from every aspect in which the I finds itself or
has set itself up. Then it must return upon
itself. ‘‘The I is, first of all, as such pure
activity, the universal which is by itself. Next
this universal determines itself, and so far is
no longer by itself, but establishes itself as
another, and ceases to be universal. The third
step is that the will, while in this limitation,
1. e., in this other, is by itself. While it limits
itself, it yet remains with itself, and does not
lose its hold of the universal. This is, then, the
concrete conception of freedom, while the other
two elements have been thoroughly abstract
and one-sided.’’*® This abstract will existing
for itself is personality. Personality possesses
abstract right. It is the absolute free being of
pure self-conscious isolation. ‘‘The moral
standpoint is the standpoint of the will—in its
existence for itself, an existence which is in-
finite.’’** The ethical system is the idea of
freedom developed in a present world. It is
thus that the absolute reaches down into life,
and takes it up into the absolute will as reason.
The passing to and from from absolute to con-
erete never rests until the opposition is resolved
by taking all that is immediate and personal
20 Philosophy of Right, Introd. 7, Addition.
21 Ibid. Second Part, par. 105.
158 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
into the Unique and Absolute Individuality,
which is God as thought itself in Action.
Can reason reject feeling? Is the claim of
reason as the really ethical to the exclusion of
feeling justified? We realized that the life of
the senses, feelings and emotions was not suf-
ficient; but shall we reach the solution of the
striving after freedom through reason? The
rationalist disparages the life of sensibility
altogether. He would reduce morals to the
movement and power of mere concepts, and
satisfy us with the essence of bloodless cate-
gories. But the elimination of all that is sen-
tient and belongs to feeling makes an unreal
life. Is man a creature of reason alone? The
fulness of life, its liberty and joy demand more
than reason. The action toward which life
always tends is not the outcome of the intellect
alone; it has back of it the force of feeling and
the impetus of emotion. The senses in them-
selves cannot be indicated to be evil. Conse-
quently any theory which does away with them
is defective attractive as it may seem through
its exalted ideals.
The failure of hedonism was its manifoldness
in pleasure and its lack of a real unity for the
ethical aim. Rationalism has the unity but it
has been obtained at the loss of the manifold;
all particulars in life are overlooked. A uni-
versal to be true to its idea must really embrace
the particulars. The complex must be summed
up into a simplicity that does not deny the com-
plex. Rationalism is too simple for the real-
ness of life. It is formal but cannot connect
the material with its formal logical scheme.
 FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 159
The logie of reason has absorbed the concrete-
ness of life. Classification through the idea
has forgotten what is to be classified. The con-
tent of the life of feeling is needed to make
rationalism worth while. As Kant said: ‘‘Con-
cepts without percepts are blind.’’
Can reason without feeling give us the bal-
ance between the individual and social? On
the one hand rationalism exalts the individual
mind. Kant finds the end in every individual.
No one is to be used as a means. But when this
right of the individual is to be universalized
the demand is made that we recognize all other
individuals as ends in themselves. On this
basis society is simply an addition of individ-
uals. There is no room for humanity through
the multiplication of the individual alone. No
explanation is given how we can pass to the
recognition of others. Furthermore no group
and no social forms can have an ethic on the
basis of rational individualism. After all are
men fused by reason? Are the social unities
produced by reflection and by rational consid-
erations? It is a fact that we may pause and
give arguments for social unities, but the real
forces are no utilitarian considerations. Great
sentiments, and ruling feelings carry men upon
the social stream. The ideas of society may be
realized by the leaders, and men rejoice to hear
the social impulses explained to them, but in
actuality the ideas and reasons do not make the
social complex. We do not argue ourselves
from the individual into the social. We are in
the social relationships before we find ourselves
160 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
as individuals. This fact is contrary to
rational individualism.
On the other hand rationalism has a univer-
salism in which the individual is lost. Nature
as a rational whole, as conceived of by the
Cynics and the Stoics, makes us only parts of
the total. The absolute Ego of Fichte, the all-
embracing I of Hegel, leave no adequate place
for real personality. With the suppression of
the separate ego liberty is eliminated. The re-
puted freedom of the allness is no freedom for
the part. We are slaves of universal reason. It
may live through us and in us but we are really
no concrete existences unless we are related to
the total. Thus the universalism of reason
destroys the individual, as the individualistic
rationalism fails in conceiving the universal.
Kant gravitates between both and can build no
bridge between them.
Reason and asceticism. Is life to be repres-
sion and not expression? Do surrender and
sacrifice form the great and final good? Are
we only good as we give up our life? Rational-
ism if consistent must stand for sacrifice, re-
pression and abandonment in life. Its ideal is
neither control nor limitation of the sentient,
but its complete prohibition. The most con-
sistent and logical asceticism is found in the
Orient in the religions of India. They can give
no solution of a good life, and no hope of salva-
tion, except as man destroys every want and
desire. By contemplation men are urged to
enter into the impassive life of absolute reason
and being. They are bidden to mortify every
wish and every feeling and emotion. The
 FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 161
Western asceticism has not gone to this extreme
limit. The activistic spirit of the West has
not allowed men in great numbers to follow the
passive attitude of the resigned and calm East.
There have been some Western ascetics, like
Madam Guyau, who have become Quietists.
For them life was all stillness and cessation.
But the power of Western asceticism was par-
tial abandonment of the life of sense and feel-
ing. It sought not complete suppression, but
simply great restraint from the beating of
images upon the eye, from the intrusion of
sounds upon the ear, and from the invasion of
odors upon the nose. Feelings and emotions
were crowded back. But is even the moderate
sacrifice final? The meaning of sacrifice is the
saving of life. It is no end in itself. Repres-
sion is worthy of man and good when expression
leads to the loss of the greater and fuller life.
But freedom from the possible enslavement of
sense and feeling ought not to be purchased by
the loss of all sentience. This is to seek free-
dom through destruction. It is the way of
despair. But perhaps the milder asceticism of
the Puritan’is valuable. We need the call of
the Puritan, especially in our age, which has
gone astray in indulgence. Puritanism is
largely a castigation for excess. Often, if the
eastigation is too severe it leads to new excess.
But prohibition of sentience may at times be
temporarily necessary; it may be the only way
of restraint where sense and appetite cause
individual and common evil in society: but pro-
hibition increasingly stressed in life is punish-
ment and imprisonment. The life of moral
162 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
freedom is not finally furthered, either through
self-imposed laws, or restrictions imposed upon
men by society. Asceticism denies that the
bodily life can ever be made moral. For it only
mind is good, and all matter is evil. The Hindu
looks upon the body as the great obstacle and
hindrance to be gotten rid of. Plato, with all
his Greek appreciation of harmony and beauty,
lives only in the world of ideas. His interest
is in the immortality of the soul alone. The
body is the prison-house of the soul in which it
is kept captive for a time. The soul is eternal,
the body the passing tenement. It is this atti-
tude of asceticism which has had a double
deleterious effect. First, it has always con-
demned the body, and stood in the way of that
bodily care and consideration of health, which
constitutes a part of human happiness. If the
body is a miserable thing why should we give
it any attention. Let it die as soon as possible
in filth or through disease! The ascetic does
not believe that cleanliness is next to godliness.
Such a sentiment is of the evil one; dirt and
destruction of the body are essential to saint-
ship. Second, the condemnation of the bodily
life by the ascetic has led to the disregard of
the sacredness of the natural life. Therefore
men have dealt with the body and its demands,
as far as rationalism ruled, in a spirit of aban-
don. The urge of the body was present and it
was followed without moral ideals controlling.
The condemnation of the body did not produce
its sanctification but the reaction of indulgence.
Thus rationalism brought about its very
opposite.
 FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 163
Does reason give us the highest good and the
right? To what extent can rationalism answer
the claim of the summum bonum? Is its ideal-
ism adequate? Whither does its conception of
right and law lead? The rationalists have al-
ways held that in distinction from the hedon-
ists they had solved the problem of the
highest good. But what is the highest good?
It is reason in its abstraction and universalism.
There is the framework of the good but nothing
appears within the frame. The ideal is the
ideal and reaches up into the universal and
absolute. Reason becomes more and more
abstract as it rises. The process inherent in its
contentless trend toward the inconceivable and
formless is like a series approaching zero. No
better statement of this tendency has been given
than by Plotinus. He says: ‘Intellect, how-
ever, is able to see either things prior to itself,
or things pertaining to itself, or things affected
by itself. And the things indeed contained in
itself, are pure; but those prior to itself are
purer and more simple; or rather this must be
asserted of that which is prior to it. Hence,
that which is prior to it, is not intellect, but
something more excellent. For intellect is a
certain one among the number of beings; but
that it not a certain one, but is prior to every-
thing. Nor is it being; for being has, as it
were, the form of the one. But that is formless,
and is even without intelligible form.’’?? Thus
intellect arrives at mere colorless unity.
Where this exists there can be no right nor
wrong, no good nor bad. ‘This fact in rational-
22 Knneades, On the Good, or the One. XV, III.
164 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
ism has been thoroughly worked out by Brad-
ley in his non-contradiction as the absolute.”
We are caught in our own logic and are not free.
The rationalists speak of the right as right
and of the absolute law. The Cynic and Stoic
ideal is to live according to the right, which is
the law of nature. But where do we find the law
of nature with its contents? The Cynics were
consistent when they fell into indulgence of the
body as against the artificialities of their time.
They followed the laws of bodily life. But
these could not be the laws of reason. There-
fore the Stoics with their praise of apathy
thought the law of right was the absolute rea-
son of the universe. What is this reason? If
we observe the order and purpose of the uni-
verse we find only natural laws. There is an
end but in the mere process and development
of the universe apart from man there are no
traces of morals or freedom. All that we can
find of a moral order exists in the history of
man and in his apprehension of the power that
makes for righteousness. But this moral order
is frequently violated. It does not have the
absoluteness which rationalism claims. Ration-
alism can never discover the real final good or
law. Its processes end in the fog of the invis-
ible mountain peaks. All that-it can do is to
insist on the formal necessity of right and law,
and then point beyond itself to religion which
by faith sees the invisible. The apex of rational-
ism is only doubt and agnosticism. The aero-
planes it sends out disappear and do not return.
23 Appearance and Reality, Book II, Chapter XVII, XXV.
 FREEDOM THROUGH REASON — 165
But it is valuable in stressing the ideal, the
highest good, the right, the law, although it
eannot lead into the promised land.
Duty and reason. Is it not the distinguish-
ing advantage of rationalism that it furnishes
a noble interpretation of duty? Has not the
emphasis upon the obligation of the right in
eternal principles given the necessary impetus
to moral life? When we discussed duty** it
appeared that Kant in the true spirit of the
rationalist stressed the priority of duty. But
duty cannot be maintained merely as duty and
as good in itself without showing how this
goodness enters into the full life of various
duties. Duty for duty’s sake is a noble aspira-
tion, and strengthens the moral fibre. But in
its abstractness it is simply a formula. It is
like a tautology, as A is equal to A. Kant
endeavored to make duty realistic by advising
men to choose that as a maxim, which can be
universally implied. We are e. g. to speak the
truth because truthfulness is useful and neces-
sary for all, and can become a general law.
This escape from the bare theoretical descrip-
tion of duty is however no credit to the high
aspirations of reason. It is simply utilitarian-
ism in another guise. The considerations of
use derived from a sort of common sense reflec-
tion are to give content to abstract duty. A
shallow rationalism, derived not from high
principles of reason, but from a knowledge of
what obtains among men and what is found
generally, marks the effort of Kant. The im-
port of making that our maxim which can
24 Cf. above, p. 106 ff.
166 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
become universal is not passing from universal
reason to the particular, but using the partic-
ular and conerete and interpretating it as a
universal without showing the cogency of the
principles of reason. And such reflection is
not usual with men when duty functions. It is
only the philosopher thinking upon duty, who
would argue thus when he sees man merely as
a thinking being. This attitude destroys the
categorical imperative of duty on which Kant
dwells. If we find the maxims of duty by calm
deliberation then the imperative quality is
gone, and the categorical has become a hypo-
thetical. Thus when the rationalist desires to
make his conception of duty workable he con-
tradicts the universal power of duty which is
the cornerstone of his system.
Another defect of the rationalistic idea of
duty is the over-emphasis of duty in its com-
pelling force. When the men who defend rea-
son as alone sufficient in moral life remain with-
in the cirele of their concepts they exalt duty
almost into the place of a compulsory influence.
Reason is portrayed as functioning with such
logicality and cogency that man must follow.
The practical reason is raised into an absolute
law for action. It almost seems as though man
had no power to be unreasonable in action as
he often is. This tendency is due to the neglect
of the other factors in human life beside reason.
The preachments of duty are a fine tonic for
the ethical life if they stimulate us to action
which is reasonable. But the urgency of duty
must not be so explained, as to destroy our sense
of freedom with its responsibility.
 FREEDOM THROUGH REASON _ 167
How does reason explain virtue? Is it not
true that the rationalists have a high valuation
of virtue in itself? Do they not put it upon an
absolute basis? Because they stress virtue for
its own sake they make it appear very strong.
“Tis certain indeed, that virtue and vice are
eternally and necessarily different, and that the
one truly deserves to be chosen for its own sake,
and the other ought by all means to be avoided,
though a man was sure for his own particular,
neither to gain nor lose anything by the prac-
tice of either.’’*> This choice of virtue for it-
self without considering consequences is under-
standable as a protest against the hedonists,
for whom there is nothing good nor bad except
through consequences of pleasure or pain. But
the error of the rationalist in this protest is,
that virtue and vice do have consequences.
And if man chooses a virtue as the embodiment
of the good he has a purpose in mind. Virtue
is not so arbitrarily dissociable from the ideal.
The ideal is not only the motive at the begin-
ning of action, but also the purpose at the end.
Of course we are not to be calculators of results
through prudence as the hedonist thinks, but
on the other hand we do count the value of vir-
tue in reference to the consequences of the good.
The same error that characterized the hedon-
ists in restricting themselves largely to pru-
dence as the virtue, also marks the rationalists
in making wisdom the one virtue. The Stoies
only admitted one virtue and altogether missed
the understanding of the varying and different
virtues. It is true that in all virtues there is
25 Clarke, Discourse upon Natural Religion, I, 7.
168 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
an element of wisdom. We cannot be just,
truthful, pure, ete., no matter what motives
make us thus, without also being wise in these
virtues. Nevertheless all the virtues cannot be
derived from wisdom. Their rationality is not
that feature which really makes them virtues.
The limitation of virtue to wisdom indicates
that reason alone is not adequate to explain the
nature of virtue and the existence of virtues.
Through the Greek influence the intellectual
in virtue has been exaggerated. Plato made
wisdom paramount. Aristotle put the intellec-
tual side of life above the purely ethical. <As
God is thought in action, man rises above the
ordinary virtues, like courage, temperance,
friendship, ete. through pure mind. Now
this attitude, even though not carried to
this extreme, produces aristocratic pride. The
good in morals are the best in society, and
morals are aristocratic. But the aristocracy
of the ethical life is not the superiority of intel-
lect. The more intelligent are not the salt of
the earth because of their mind. The intelli-
gentsia of an age are not the same as the moral
idealists of the age. Those who consider them-
selves wise because of the intellect alone
despise the rest. The small group of intellec-
tuals often live for themselves; and their boast-
ful self-estimation entangles them in an over-
estimate of their worth that enslaves. There
is no liberation through intellect alone. The
aristocracy of the intellectuals, when not used
in helpful service, becomes undemocratic.
Therefore the intellectualists not only miss
their own freedom, by confusing a certain scep-
 FREEDOM THROUGH REASON _ 169
ticism with freedom of thought, but they
endanger the common liberty of society. While
the freedom of society needs leadership of high
thought and moral purpose, thought alone will
not create such leadership. There is fre-
quently an aloofness from the democratic move-
ment of the age on the part of intellectuals.
When they do participate they are likely to
gravitate into radicalism, which confuses lib-
erty with revolution, and is always stronger in
destructive criticism than in helpful, construe-
tive criticism. The mind of man without heart
and will will never give us the utopia. Those
who live the academic life must be especially
careful not to seek truth in the intellect alone.
The realities of life must speak to us if we are
to approach the problem of liberty.
The philososphy of rationalism. What is the
underlying philosophy of the rationalists?
Whither does their view of the world lead?
There is a strong attractiveness about the
rationalist position. It is idealism, and satis-
fies the strivings of those who look for high
things. The intellect seems the best in man,
and has so much in history to confirm its value
for mankind. But we must not confuse the
idealistic in life with the idealism of the ration-
alist. When the good is made purely reason it
lowers the worth of all the rest of life. Ideal-
ism makes a promise which it cannot keep. It
offers us our full self-fulfillment and holds out
to us the hope of vital liberty. When we begin
to live the life of reason in ourselves we do find
that knowledge makes free as far as it leads us
into the truth. But we cannot advocate reason
170 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
without following its logic, and logic is inevi-
table. It does not consider the freshness and
fulness of life but only demands consistency.
It carries us forward to the bitter end if we
follow. This inherent logic of reason will not
permit us on the foundation of reason alone to
remain within ourselves. The tendency of
reason is toward the universal and absolute.
We cannot be Stoics and not submit to world-
reason. Kant, his categories, and his apper-
ception of the ego, contain in germ the position
of Fichte and of Hegel. Such is the process of
reason that takes us captive. The final out-
come is the absolutism of reason. Through it
we are led to an Absolute of impersonal nature
and an existence in which the distinctions of
good and bad are lost. We become enslaved
through the absolutism of the idea in a world
of mind without a personal God, a society in
which individuals are submerged as mere parts,
and a state that is completely sovereign as the
expression of reason. Intellect has thus given
us empty apples of Sodom. Its boasted free-
dom has become a slavery. Idealism of the in-
tellect alone is a deception. It claims to rescue
us from materialism and then makes us doubly
slaves of the absolute.
Christianity and reason. Is_ Christianity
fundamentally favorable to reason? Does its
inherent spirit have a direction toward reason?
It is evident that as a religion it cannot be a
mere philosophy unless it abandons a part of
its truth. The supernatural in any religion is
superrational in the philosophic sense. And
Christianity is not without its mystic super-
 FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 171
naturalism. But we approach more close
ly to
the problem when we ask: ‘“What are
the
teachings of Christianity as to restraint and
repression in life??? Ig it fundamentall
y
ascetic? The attitude toward pleasure, which
it does not completely reject, is a partial ans-
wer.” Nevertheless we must consider certa
in
truths that stress surrender, The straight gate
and the narrow way are made the way of life.?
”
He that saveth his life shall lose it, and he that
loseth his life shall find it.22 The very desires
of life must be given up. “If thy right eye
offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee:
for it is better for thee that one of thy members
should perish, and not that thy whole body
should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand
offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for
it is profitable for thee that one of thy members
should perish, and not that thy whole body
should be cast into hell.’’”® Paul, following this
attitude of Christ’s teaching, strives to bring
his body into subjection. He thinks it is advis.
able not to marry, but finally it is better for
those who cannot contain themselves to marry
than to burn.®*® Christianity forbids the love
of the world. But all of these negative com-
mands for life are in the interest of a larger
life. They are not rationalistic in the real
sense. The aim is to save the spiritual life
but not because it is rational. The life of the
spirit must not be lost for the sake of the whole
26 Of. above, p. 142.
27 Matthew VII: 13.
28 Of. Mark VIII: 35.
29 Matthew V: 29 ff.
80I Corinthians VII: 9.
172 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
man. Therefore certain desires must be sup-
pressed if they imperil the complete life and
the final liberty of man.
Original Christianity despite these warnings
is not essentially ascetic. This appears clearly
in the Christian attitude toward the body. The
body is not evil in itself. In later post-apos-
tolic Christianity Platonic influences and orien-
tal ideas helped to bring about the undervalua-
tion of the body, and caused asceticism. But in
the early days the body was held to be the tem-
ple of the Holy Spirit.*t It was to be sanctified
and not eliminated. The soul was not the
total man. But God was to keep us body, soul
and spirit. The hope of the future was not a
spirit life without the body. The new body of
the hereafter was to be a spiritual body differ-
ent from this mortal body. It was to be
changed into glory and immortality.” But the
desire was not to be without a body and to be
unclothed and naked in spirit. A new body
was to be given to man. The old body was
sown into the ground to be raised in newness of
life. The old temple and tabernacle of the
soul would be broken down, but God would
give a new temple and a new tabernacle® of
life in the glorified body which was to be.
Such hopes as these are not rationalistic ascet-
icism. Man was never to be mere spirit, but
in all eternity body and spirit. Consequently
the teachings of Christianity in their pure form
are not spiritual in the sense of reason and
381 ]7 Corinthians III: 16 ff.
32 T Corinthians XV: 438, 44.
33 2 Corinthians V: 1.
 FREEDOM THROUGH REASON 173
mind, to the detriment of the body. There is
no oriental undervaluation of the reality of all
life. The ideal is a liberated body free from
present enchainments of sickness and death,
connected with a liberated spirit. Thus man
peud enter into the full liberty of a child of
od.
REFERENCES
James Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Part I, Chapter

Theo. De Laguna, Introduction to the Science of Ethics,

Chapters IX, XI, II, XII.
Henry W. Wright, Self-Realization, Part II, Chapter ITI.
J. H. Muirhead, The Elements of Ethics, Part III, Chapter II.
Chas. D’Arey, A Short Study of Ethics, Part ITI, Chapter I.
Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, Chapter XVI.
Chas. Gray Shaw, The Value and Dignity of Human Life,
Part III, Chapter VI.
Jas. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, Book II,
Branch IT.
Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, Part I,
Chapter II.
Benj. Rand, The Classical Moralists, IV, VII, VIII, XV,
XXI, XXXV, XXXVI, XXXVII.
R. D. Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean, Chapters I, I, III, IV.
E. Vernon Arnold, Roman Stoicism.
Discourses of Epictetus.
Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
Kant, The Metaphysic of Morals.
Kant, The Critique of Practical Reason.
Fichte, The Science of Ethics.
Fichte, The Vocation of Man.
Hegel, The Philosophy of Right.
 CHAPTER IX
FREEDOM THROUGH PERSONALITY

What of the will? It is evident, after our

effort to find freedom either through pleas
ure
or reason, that both fail. Whatis the deepe
st
cause of their inadequacy in addition. to
the
criticisms passed upon them? The answer
that
readily suggests itself is, that both fall short
their claim because they make the will
of
second-
ary. In hedonism the will almost disap
pears.
It is attached to the chain of cause
s and
effects that terminate in pleasure or
pain.
In rationalism will is called good for the
sake
of its rationality. Even Kant cannot
really
give the will its place in morals despite his
high
estimate of the reality in will. This is
due to
the fact, that will is after all in its essence
prac-
tical reason. And yet ethics deals with
will
and action as fundamental in character
and
conduct. There can be no ideal of ethic
al life
without a free will. Freedom is the beginnin
g
and goal.* Does this not indicate that
if we
would approach the problem of freedom arigh
t,
and begin to find freedom, we must start
out
with the will and coordinate it with all of
our
functionings that affect character and condu
ct?
How then do our deliberations and choices,
1Cf. above, p. 28 ff.
174
 THROUGH PERSONALITY 175
our motives and determinations, our decisions
and actions, eventuate for the moral life of
freedom? What comes from character to con-
duct through will and action, and what returns
to character from conduct and its action?
Whenever we will and act in certain directions
we form a unity of action. This is the outcome
of prior decisions and actions crystallized into
character. But in turn what we do either con-
firms the unity of direction as it proceeds from
our character, or disturbs and reshapes it, and
starts a new line of direction. Through
motives from within, as desires, wants, in-
stinects, dispositions, habits, and through con-
duct from without we form and organize a
certain determinateness of life. But this deter-
minateness is the result of our choices freely
made and if rightly made leads to liberty of
life. If we pause to examine how determinate-
ness occurs and how it organizes our life we
shall be assured that we are dealing with
immediate realities. I am appealed to, e. g. to
make a contribution to some good cause of
charity or education. The direction of my
action will be to respond if there have preceded
other actions of generous giving. My answer
to the present appeal will strengthen the past
and existing determinateness. If I have not
responded in the past, but shut up my heart to
every request of generosity I will either not
give, or if new, strong motives enter in, I may
change my former course of action and begin
a different line of determinateness. This same
procedure appears when I am tempted to do
wrong. Under a trying situation it seems
176 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
easier to tell an untruth than to adhere to the
truth. My free decision is in unity with pre-
vious attitudes and actions either for or against
the truth. Thus through volition I am always
acting out past volitions, confirming them
anew, or reversing former positions and
actions. A conflict arises in my mind as to
two courses of action, neither of which are in
themselves wrong. How shall the conflict be
settled? I am, e. g. in a quandary whether I
shall use my vacation for pure recreation, or
for some work which is excluded by my ordi-
nary daily tasks. The determination will be
for work or pure recreation according to the
ruling direction of my will. While I may
weigh the pro and contra of the advantage of
rest as necessary, or the value of work as joy
and profit, after all the decision will mostly be
in accord with the controlling purposes which
have made past actions and formed prior char-
acter. The living study of this functioning of
will as determinateness, but as our determin-
ateness, is the elemental and fundamental fact
for finding the ideal of moral action and ethical
life.
Will and personality. While we begin with
the will and its actions, we cannot stop with it.
In the analysis of character and conduct with
their decisions and directions we must not for-
get that volitions and actions are not the whole
of life. How do they coordinate with ideas,
feelings and emotions? And what term shall
we choose to designate the totality of character
and conduct in their actual, concrete function.
ing? Whatever we determine to Say or do can
 THROUGH PERSONALITY 177
have no meaning without the content of some
ideas or the presence of some reasons. Voli.
tion in itself is impossible without knowledge.
This knowledge is often not the abstract rea-
son or logic which the rationalists have in
mind. It is the direct and living knowledge
growing out of experience. When it becomes
formulated into certain principles and subject
to certain laws it furnishes the intellectual
material of our character and conduct. Con-
duct can never be really ethical only because it
is highly evolved, or very complex, or largely
differentiated. The ultimate difference be-
tween all sub-human action and human action
as moral conduct lies in the fact of man’s
knowing what he does and assuming responsi-
bility for what he does. To make action the
exclusive fact and dissociating it from reason
leads into mere energy and destroys freedom.
Action to be moral action must come from
within and must always have ideas and ideals
animating it.
The conjunction of knowledge with character
and conduct is not yet the whole of life.
Knowledge in mind and in action is not possible
without the life of the senses. They must be
regarded not only as the source of external
experience, but also as giving a certain tone
and color to all experience. Our life is either
heightened or lowered, elevated or depressed,
expanded or contracted, pleasurable or pain-
ful in the raw material of experience. The
nature of experience in its sense-coloring enters
intimately into our character and conduct.
But no less than the sentient life is the life of
178 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
feeling and emotion. Moral action is no cold,
impassionate procedure of conduct through
knowledge. It is warm and human with many
a feeling. The impetus of feeling is never
absent. Corresponding to the tone of the senses
from without is the tone of feeling within. Ap-
proval or disapproval of actions, satisfaction or
reproof of what we have said or done, within us,
always have some color of feeling. No consider-
ation of ethical life is just without allowing for
the large place of feeling which is the constant
undercurrent of action. Similarly there are
emotions of joy or sorrow, happiness or dis-
tress, and many others, constantly present.
The portrayal of human life and character in
drama and novel gains its hold upon us because
it unfolds the living emotion in the lives of men.
It is real while the academic description which
loses sight of emotion gives us only the dry
and dead bones of action and character.
What shall we call the unity of determina-
tions with ideas and feelings, emotions and
sensations? The most usable term is that of
personality. But we must clearly have in
mind that we employ this term with no notion
of a fixed substance. It is not the usual defini-
tion of personality which we mean, namely,
the unity of self-consciousness and self-deter-
mination. This current notion begins with
the fact of mere human awareness and con-
sciousness and fuses it with the will. There
is no room for the life of sentience, feeling and
emotion. The whole concept smells of the oil
of the study. Itis abstract and unreal. What
we call personality in its immediate sense is
 THROUGH PERSONALITY 179
the unity of determinateness in action,
knowledge, with
and with all of feeling. Our
endeavor is to designate a sum
of concrete
phenomena of moral action in their
living con-
nectedness and unity. But we must further
define and differentiate this meaning
of per-
sonality.
Personality and individuality. What
is the
real difference between personality and
individ-
uality? Are they not different points of view
of
regarding the individual? In common
usage
individuality and personality are often made
to
cover the same idea, without even allowing
for
the different shades in their designations.
The
current philosophic definition which places the
accent in the unity of consciousness and de.
termination upon the self in defining personal-
ity aids the prevalent loose usage in reference
to personality and individuality. A closer
analysis will justify a definite differentiation.
What is an individual? An individual is a
single being in distinction from the group. It
is the one as separate from the many, the single
existence as distinct from the type. There is
no merely generic in all nature, but the generic
exists along with the individual. In classify-
ing specimens of rock in geology we find cer-
tain forms of crystallization. But the general
feature of the geometrical form in a rock gpec-
imen has also peculiar variations. There is
no mere existence of the purely generic through
which we unify and group separate specimens
as coming under a general class. A flower or
a plant belongs not only to a class, but also
shows individual features. An American
180 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
Beauty rose, e. g. has those common qualities
and characteristics through which we recog-
nize and place it as an American Beauty rose.
But still one rose is no mere mechanical copy
of another. Rose differs from rose, and rose-
bush varies from rose-bush. The generic and
typical does not destroy the individual. This
fact is still more marked in the animal world,
We can clearly and distinctly note the species,
but a closer study of any one animal shows us
that one differs from the other in the same
species. Two Holstein cows are not absolutely
the same. There are variations despite a
common stock and a common heredity. Com-
mon traits appear in the same breed of dogs,
and yet e. g. one shepherd dog is not like
another even if both come from the same male
and female. When we come to man there is a
still more marked individuality. The common
instincts, such e. g. as acquisitiveness, comba-
ting, fear, ete.; the general dispositions, as e. g.
rivalry, domination, conformity; the generic
temperaments, bright or gloomy, joyous or
depressed, active or passive; the usual feelings
and emotions;—in short all of the marked
general human characteristics of mind—are so
combined and varied from one man to another
as to constitute an individual with separateness
of quality. The common features of race and
nation do not eliminate individuality. The
higher the development of man the more out-
standing is the individuality. But withal it
remains a given fact. Each individual with
differing capacities and powers has both the
possibility and the limitation of his individu-
 THROUGH PERSONALITY 181
ality. We cannot pass beyond our imparted
talents; we can only cultivate them more or less.
But there is no ethical value in individuality
as such. An individual has qualities that may
be made good or may tend to evil. What we
are as individuals does not of itself make us
just, true, righteous. Every individual dispo-
sition has its handicaps. Often the greater the
individual the greater the disadvantages that
accompany the advantages. Great individuals
like great mountains often cast large shadows.
Consequently it is entirely wrong when educa-
tion posits as its end the developing of the indi-
vidual. Individualism is not in itself moral
freedom. To live out our lives with what is in
them is not to be good. Liberty is not guaran-
teed by merely becoming what is in us as pos-
sibility and capacity.
There is a usage of personality which does
not altogether disregard its difference from
individuality. The statement is sometimes made
about those, who impress themselves upon
others through leadership of some sort, that
they possess personality. What is meant by
this characterization? Two individuals may
have equal talents. The equality of talents of
the intellect will not make two men equally
leaders. There may be in one more strength
of sympathetic feeling and more emotional
imagination. These added to intellect make
him stronger. But finally the quality which is
absolutely necessary to constitute some one a
personality with power to attract and lead is
will. All other advantageous qualities of mind,
and all favorable physical features, will not
182 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
compensate for the absence of a determinateness
of will. A weak will, a wavering volition, will
not draw and control others. But while this
conception of personality approaches the truth,
it is still deficient. It makes personality a
natural gift, a given unity, a fixed possession.
The vital idea of personality is a unity of
determinations with ideas and feelings that is
not given by nature. It is shaped and created
in man by the direction of his choices. Person-
ality is the outcome of what men through action
make their real determinateness of will, resting
upon ideas, and warm with feeling. Its real
meaning implies the free unfolding of ideals in
conduct as they proceed from character. But
character is no mere existence, but a living,
active force for action and a result of choice and
action. Thus personality is a moral product of
freedom and the content of freedom. When the
choices and actions are directed toward the
wrong there is the result of a fixed character
and certain determinate actions. But we cannot
justly call this making of an evil determinate-
ness of life a good, moral personality. In other
words, personality must include more than the
result of the psychological process of determina-
tion, idea, and feeling in unity. It has a value,
and this value is the good. A real personality
in the moral sense is a good personality. An
evil personality does not really exist in the
moral meaning which we attach to personality.
The idea of personality and its power for free-
dom is lost through evil choices. The same
psychological functionings are not the same
 THROUGH PERSONALITY 183
morally. Personality is the expression of the
good in freedom.?
Does personality answer the social demand?
One of the defects of both pleasure and reason
was their impossibility of furnishing a real basis
for the inter-relation of individual and social
life. Can the ideal of personality offer a
solution? What is designated personalism in
modern philosophy would seem to negative this
question. It is not as extreme as individualism®
in its accent of the single being as everything,
but nevertheless it cannot in most of its presen-
tations very readily pass beyond the individual
without difficulty.* This is due to its conception
of personality as given, and its failure to see in
it as far as man is concerned a creative and
developing unity. It is of course evident that
choices, determinations, ideas, feelings, fusing
into oneness, do occur within the individual
mind and make the individual personality.
Personality does not deny individuality, but
functions in and through it. But it finds further
expression in the determinateness making for
personality in social relations and forms.
How personality leads from individuality to
the social complex has been outlined by H.
Scott Holland in ‘‘Property and Personality”’
(Property, its Rights and Duties by Various
Writers, p. 197):
2 Brightman, The use of the word ‘‘Personalism;’’ The
Personalist, Vol. III, No. 4, p. 24 ff.
3 Cf. Warner Fite, Individualism.
4 This is the defect in all philosophic statements up to the
present time. It started with Boethius who claimed that
‘person is the individual subsistence of a rational nature’’.
(Persona est Naturae rationalis individua substantia. )
184 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
‘‘Tndividuality,° then, is really representative,
is corporate, is social, by the very principle of
its like. It can only be understood as the unit
of a society. And this only leads us deeper
down into the root-conception of personality
which finds expression in personality. Person-
ality lies in the relation of person to person.
A personality is what it is only by virtue of its
power to transcend itself and to enter into the
life of another. It lives by interpenetration,
by intercourse, by communion. Its power of life
is love. There is no such thing as a solitary,
isolated person. A self-contained personality
is a contradiction in terms. What we mean by
personality is a capacity for intercourse, a
capacity for retaining self-identity by and
through identification with others—a capacity
for friendship, for communion, for fellowship.
Hence the true logic of personality compels us
to discover the man’s personal worth in the
inherent necessity of a society in which it is
realized. Society is, simply, the expression of
the social inter-communion of spirit with spirit
which constitutes what we mean by personality.
Fellowship and Individuality are correlative
terms.’’
Some of the choices and actions of man,
together with his ideas and feelings, are not
individual. They are the expression of the
social connection of an individual. This means
more than the fact that most individual choices
and acts have a social direction, and that
apparently individual virtues are after all
social relationships. In the mind of the indi-
5 Individuality ought not to be identified with personality.
 THROUGH PERSONALITY 185
vidual there exists a social determinateness,
although this must not be interpreted as giving
authority to morals. If I act as a member of a
social group, e. g. a director of a corporation or
a committee-man of a labor union, my decisions,
actions, feelings, ideas are the group expression.
The group acts through me and I represent the
group mind. Thus my actions as social help to
make or unmake the personality of the group.
This is apparent not merely in the free forms
of association in society, but especially in the
social forms of family, church and state. When
an attack is made upon my sister I do not oppose
it merely as an individual, but largely as a
member of a family. The family acts through
me. Out of this family relation of some actions
grew the early practice af blood-revenge. And
the family feeling was the concomitant of the
tribal feeling of unity of blood. The physical
fact found an outlet and an interpretation in
the moral actions by which men accepted and
asserted the social blood relationship. These
actions coming forth from the individual are
not individual but social in idea, feeling and act.
When I confess a truth as member of a church,
or cooperate in its great undertakings, what
the church believes or does lives in and through
me. The state has its history and its life, and
at certain times this tradition of history and life
calls for certain actions from me. I simply act
out the social implications of the state. I think
and act as a member of the state to which I
belong and in which I was born and reared.
All such actions are a part of a larger social
personality.
186 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
It would not be possible for the social to
find expression through individual lives unless
there was a unity of determinations, ideas and
feelings which constitute the social personality.
This is no fiction, but is just as real as the
creative formation of personality in the indi-
vidual. Mind is more than connection with a
single body. The social complex as well as
nature shows its presence. The same psycho-
logical functionings of choice and action live
in the group. In our days when the family is
suffering through economic conditions, and
through moral disregard, we forget that a real
family has its life and character. It is made by
the common actions and ideals that influence
and make the spirit of a family. A church has
its peculiar genius and is constantly making
men spiritually, as it is being made through
the church-choices, actions, ideals and emotions.
It therefore possesses all the essential elements
of personality. A state has its living unity of
action in consistency with its past determina-
tions. Like the family and the church it has a
personality. All of these social forms possess
personality in reality when they function
toward the good, and develop liberty.
Personality and the ideal. No matter how
much pains we may take to make clear what
is meant by personality in ethics, the question
still remains: ‘‘How does it satisfy the great
ethical concepts?’’ Is it more adequate than
either pleasure or reason? The ideal which is
to meet the end and purpose of freedom in the
moral sense must be the highest good. There
dare be no mere maximum or an empty abstrac-
 THROUGH PERSONALITY 187
tion. Personality in its determinations and
choices at one with ideas and feelings tends to
freedom. But this freedom is not the mere for-
mal freedom. It fulfills the hope of individual
and common life and secures happiness. The
whole man is satisfied in his moral aspirations
when he grows more and more to be a personal-
ity as the liberty of action in the good develops.
When social choices produce the balance of
happiness through a liberty, that is not desire
nor power, but a full and good life, then the
social personality meets the ideal. But in what
concrete way can such personality strive toward
the ideal and find the highest good?
Personality must be enkindled through per-
sonality. No impersonal power or end can bring
the satisfaction of happiness in liberty. We are
constantly brought nearer to the good when we
possess the example and the direct influence of
the good as it comes to us through some other,
better personality. In our actual life all the
rules and all the laws are not really effective.
The awakening and stimulating power toward
the good is exercised through our contact with
a real, growing personality. The touch of a
strong, just, happy, free personality upon our
lives shapes the ideal in us. We then begin to
strive to become in our way and out of our
choices, not mere imitators, but creators of free-
dom and happiness for our lives. But in
addition to those living personalities that effect
us, we possess the lives of outstanding person-
alities in history. Not the great conquerors,
but the great saints of all times, whether they
be called such or not, raise us beyond the limi-
188 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
tations of our day. Directly or indirectly the
influence of truly great lives still function in
mankind. Just as personality in individual
life is thus developed through other personali-
ties, so also in social life there exist, beside the
forces of evil, the influences of the groups and
social forms, which are meeting their purpose
of happiness in liberty, in such a manner as to
make them attractive. While there is no abso-
lute or abstract perfection anywhere there are
the more free and the more good social groups
and forms, that stand out beyond others. The
traditions of the past do not actually give us
a golden age, but they show us in each age
conditions and actions in society that call for
emulation. The moral continuity in history is
never absolutely broken. The moral order
keeps on just because of the influence of person-
ality in social forms and in the groupings and
associations of society.
But the upward curve toward freedom is not
complete with the best that personality, indi-
vidual and social, can give us both in the past
and the present. There is an urge in personality
which drives the ethical beyond and above
itself. Where can we find the absolute good
that makes the relative good of all human
personality? Ethics has-never given the
answer, but religion has. We shall find the
highest good as ideal and power in God. But
this God cannot be an absentee creator. He
dare not be made an IT, a whole, a universe
as
totality. The only God, through whom ethics
6 Christ held that God alone was
=e absolutel: Y goo d. M atthew
 THROUGH PERSONALITY 189
can find the highest good of personality, must
be personality with all its freedom in infinite
perfection as an active reality. The God who
is personality can also not be a mathematical
unit. In Him there would be no force for good
through the conception of mere unity. Where
can we find the kind of God who will answer
the individual and social demand of person-
ality? History testifies that this highest good
was brought to the world through Christianity.
Its God always deals with men either as Father,
or Son, or as Spirit. The unity comes to us
religiously and morally in personal form. In
God’s life there is also the unity of more than
individual life. There is an inner relationship.’
Chesterton has expressed this fact in a telling
way, when he said: ‘‘There is society in God.”
God is the answer when thus conceived for
individual and common life. Less than such a
God we cannot have if the summum bonum is to
mean anything. But the interpretation and
concreteness of God comes to us through Christ.
He is the living personality that was and is
among men. He says: ‘‘He that hath seen me
hath seen the Father.’’ ®
Right, duty and personality. The ideal must
be translated into the standard of right. This
standard as law must be accepted by duty as
obligation. But how is personality to be related
to right and duty? The law of right, if freedom
is the ideal, must be the law of liberty. Where
do we find the law of liberty? In the early
7 Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, p. 394.
Cf. also Beckwith, The Idea of God, p. 273 ff.
8 John XIV: 9.
 190 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
Christian Church James’ identified this law,
as the royal law, with the law of love. When
we connect with this the highest Christian
conception of God as Love, we shall readily
correlate right with the summum bonum. God
the personality lives His life within the Godhead
and out toward man and society as Love. He
that lives in love lives in God, as God is love.’
Thus the highest good has the law of love, as
the law of liberty, in its very nature and being.”*
The right can be nothing else than love, and
the law as the ideal of perfection can be nothing
else than love, if the highest good is God as
Love. Here is an unfailing, living and concrete
connection which takes right and law from the
sphere of the abstract and impersonal, and
puts it into the sphere of the real and actual.
Personality in God thus sets the ideal as the
actual standard and demand for all personality.
But how does duty, as it appears in separate
duties, find its fulfillment in Love? Duty, which
regarded as the mere ought becomes harsh and
severe, is freed and made joyous if we are to
owe naught else than love. There is no other
way of going beyond ourselves and fulfilling
our duty, while we remain really free and
become enlarged in our life, than if we live in
and for others through love. Love is the great-
est socializing motive. It does the right and
does not feel its burden. The individual de-
velops under it and finds the most free kind of
® James I: 25; II: 8,
10[ John IV: 16.
11 Browning, the poet of optimism, is also the poet of love.
He sings: ‘‘But love is victory the prize itself.’?
 THROUGH PERSONALITY clea
happiness. Social complexes can best be strong
and free within themselves through love. With
love as a motive they will properly coordinate
with all society.
There are three spheres of love as duty.
The commandment which bids us love our
neighbor as ourselves, allows the right kind of
self-love. This is different from selfishness,
and the assertion of mere self-preservation.
Joseph Butler thought that he could solve this
problem by making cool and reasonable self-love
a second principle beside conscience. He Says:
“If passion prevails over self-love, the conse-
quent action is unnatural; but if self-love pre-
vails over passion, the action is natural. It is
manifest that self-love is in human nature a
superior principle to passion. This may be
contradicted without violating that nature; but
the former cannot. So that, if we will act con-
formably to man’s nature, reasonable self-love
must govern.” The notion of Butler is defective,
because he identifies the moral self-love with
reason, and because he stresses self-interest that
begets prudence too largely. The real self-love,
as duty, has the ideal of the developing person-
ality in the self, and unfolds duties out of the SCOT
IV
consideration of the highest good, but not in a
merely natural way through the care of the self. {EROM
THE
Liprar
OF
The second sphere of duty as love is toward
our neighbor. This includes all duties which
touch other lives in their essence. All men are
regarded as personalities with their rights and
privileges, not for the reason that another posi-
tion is impossible; and because we cannot live
12 Sermons, II, par. 16.
192 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
among men if we do not do so. This would be
a life of compulsion under the pressure of
society. The joyous way is the inner identifica-
tion of ourselves with our duties through the
spirit of love. Duties accepted and assumed in
this spirit leave us inwardly free. The law of
‘‘Thou shall love’’ is a yoke as long as it is
unpersonalized and a demand which we pass
by or resist. But the ideal of the right in love
coming from the highest good is freedom when
translated into living action. This same duty
is the highest formulation that can be given to
all social groups and forms and associations in
their common purposes and deeds.
The third sphere of love, as duties toward
God, is generally omitted in the usual ethics.
But if God is the summum bonum, it naturally
follows that the acceptance of Him as ideal
and end, and the entering upon right as His
expression of love, relates us to God. We can-
not but have duties and try to fulfill them
toward Him, unless we cancel the highest good
and the ideal. To love God with our utmost
power is only the motive of reaction toward
His personality by our personality. The duties
toward God are only hard if He is not to us what
He wants to be, viz; the liberating personality
in whom is the source, the joy-and the happiness
of our life. This attitude is no mysticism but
the moral relationship of our personality toward
that of God.
Personality and virtue. What possibilities
for the proper interpretation of virtue are there
in the fact of personality? As personality is
being constantly formed by our determinations,
 THROUGH PERSONALITY 193
these naturally fuse into certain stable habits.
When the content of the habits answers to the
demands of the good, and habits are the crystal-
ization of the right, and the formed actions of
duty, we have virtue in its reality. The whole
manner of the development of personality tends
towards virtue. In the manifold relations of
actual life there must be many virtues, all of
them expressing the good in habit. The richness
and fulness of the life of freedom through per-
sonality offers the opportunity for the variety
and manifoldness of virtues.
Can personality meet the demands for a unity
in this differentiation of virtue? The hedonists
had a unity in prudence, but it did not essen-
tially express the deepest nature of virtue, and
was insufficient as the explanation of the source
of the inner nature of virtue. The rationalists
adopted wisdom as the one virtue. Wisdom
was higher than prudence, but it also was not
the real inner power, nor vital source of the
virtues. The ideal of personality is the trans-
lation of love as duty into love as virtue. It
does not claim that this is the only virtue as
the Stoics supposed wisdom to be. But the
contention in favor of the personalistic view is,
that love can explain the inmost character of
virtue and furnish us with an adequate and
vital motive for every virtue. Love is ideal in
its rationality, effective in its emotion, purpose-
ful in its action. If we take some leading virtues
we shall see how love actuates the different
virtues. Justice seems far removed from love.
But can justice reach its highest perfection
without love? The highest justice as a cold
194 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
proposition of rendering to every one the right
which is due, can become the greatest injustice.
The Romans knew this when they said: ‘‘Sum-
mum jus, summa injuria.’’ It is through the
conception of love functioning in justice that
the end sought is best attained. Justice with-
out love is without equity, and becomes hard,
unbending, and severe to the degree of destroy-
ing liberty. Truth does not seem to need love.
And yet truth may, like justice, defeat its very
end without love. All that is so, is not the same
as the virtue of truthfulness. Truthfulness
needs the spirit of love to make it a liberating
power. No virtue can be named which will not
be the more virtue through love as its inner
vision, motive, and purpose. Consequently our
ideal of personality has the best solution for
concrete virtues and habits, whose deepest
nature is love.
The historical approach to personality. While
personality has been expanded in our discussion
beyond its common usage, is it an entirely new
proposal? Are there no historic antecedents to
lead up to it? Are there no thinkers and philoso-
phers that rest their outlook upon life on some
sort of personalism? Long before the idea of
personality in its individualistic form gained
currency it was upon the threshold of Western
thought. Plato sought the solution of moral
life through harmony. He strove to balance
temperance, courage and wisdom through
justice. The idea of the absolute good was to
dwell relatively in the whole man. But justice
led him to demand the state. And the social
was necessary for the completion of justice
 THROUGH PERSONALITY 195
through which the harmony of virtues became
assured. There is an effort to gain a totality
which Plato could not secure, because his high-
est good was impersonal. Because Plato divided
man up, he could not secure adequate unity
through the loose connection of virtues in the
ideal of harmony. Aristotle saw in the ethical .
life the functioning of the whole man. He found
the real estimate of will. The bridge between
the individual and social was constructed upon
the conception that ethics was a part of polities,
because man was naturally a political animal.
But Aristotle failed, as had Plato, not only
because he did not find the whole of man
through his theory of the middle road, but also,
and that mainly, because he widened the gap
between the ethical and the intellectual. Aris-
totle was searching for real personality and
could not find it. The first strong impulse came
through Christianity. In the modern world
Leibniz with his theory of monads sought to
solve the problem, but drifted into individual-
ism. A strong appreciation is found in Kant,
when he says: ‘‘The idea of personality that
awakens our veneration, places before our eyes
the exaltation of our nature in accordance with
its destiny. At the same time it shows us the
deficiency of the fitness of our action in view
of it, and consequently overthrows self-opin-
ionateness. These facts are naturally and
easily observable by the most common human
reason.’’ **
It is to be regretted that Kant did not develop
the idea of personality in its-social bearing, but
18 Critique of Practical Reason, Part III, par. 27.
 > aa
196 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
this could hardly be expected in his individual-—
istic age. In Goethe’s Faust we find the struggle
of man to find himself through knowledge, love,
and power. But the personality, which was for
Goethe the end of all human ways, became a
mere individualistic cultural attainment. Thus
the moral content was lost. Personalism was
not without its advoeates in later thought.
Lotze saw its worth. Bowne was its advocate
for many years, and in the University of
Southern California personalism has found
lodgment.* In ethics it has been advocated in
its individual form by Charles Gray Shaw and
by Henry Wright. The eudaemonism of James
Seth is also personalistic. It has been at the
background of various other modern positions,
and only needs fuller elaboration than has
been accorded by a whole group of modern
philosophers.*
Personality and Christianity. What is the
attitude of Christianity toward this ideal of
personality? Is it favorable or unfavorable?
The teaching of Christ came into a world with
social divisions. The Greek notion was that of
Plato, that society in its best form demanded
three classes, the philosophers to govern, the
warriors to fight, and, as the lowest class, the
laborers to provide food and-shelter. The non-
Greek world was that of the barbarians. The
Romans were either freemen or slaves. The
Jewish leaders regarded the Gentile world as
beyond the pale, and the common people of the
14Cf. The Journal ‘*The Personalist.’?
15 Cf. Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology,
Vol. I, p. 284; Hastings, Cyclopedia of Religion and Ethies,
Vol. IX, p. 773.
 THROUGH PERSONALITY 197
country were looked down upon by Pharisee
and Sadducee. The whole mode of appreciation
was through classes and by race or nation.
Christ taught the supremacy, first of all, of the
soul as personality. He said: ‘‘What shall it
profit a man if he gain the whole world and
lose his own soul?’’ ** Man as man was rescued
from the social enslavement of ancient society.
This step was necessary as the beginning of the
rescue of personality.
But Christ did not merely save the personality
of the individual from the social bondage, but
He also gave content to personality through His
own life and teaching. He was the incarnate
ideal bringing God, the highest good, into con-
erete and actual human life. From Him came
the final interpretation of right character and
its influence upon men through the power of His
own personality. But He did not stop with
this individual power for liberty.
Christ is the representative of mankind.
The universal lives in Him, and He is the second
Adam, the beginner of a new, spiritual man-
kind." This socially universal import of Christ
gives a genuine value to the moral purpose in
His life. The core of freedom was for Him the
life in the Father. The highest good was His
reality morally. The way to liberty in His life
was the way of obedience. His sacrifice became
a power for the ethical life, because He showed
men that the content of goodness was freedom
in God and in God’s ways. In the ethical
liberation of men the great hindrance was sin.
16 Mark VIII: 36.
17 Romans V: 14 ff.
198 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
‘¢Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of
sin.’’?® From this bondage man must be freed.
The way of freedom through Christ is to die
to sin.® The reverse is the resurrection. A
new life must arise? which is given through
the ‘‘Son that makes us free.’’ * The possibility
to overcome evil and to grow in righteousness,
as permanent life of liberty, has come to the
world in Christ. All men can thus attain the
character and conduct that is essentially the
liberty of the children of God.
Christ, not only thus affects the growth of
freedom through new individual personalities,
but He also has, as one of His main ideals, the
Kingdom of God. While the Kingdom of God
may be individually appropriated,” it is the
social ideal of Christ. The Kingdom of God
is the society in which the will of God is done.
As this will is good and seeks man’s freedom,
it is no arbitrary imposition of law, but only an
invitation to liberty. And wherever this will
enters society it creates the real personality.
Vital content is given to social forms and to the
associations of men in the ideal of God’s will,
the will of the highest good of love. If we take
a single instance we shall see how society could
become morally personalized through the King-
dom, by means of the unity of the will of God
for our freedom. Society places a large em-
phasis upon the economic need. It makes it the
first and controlling interest, and around it
18 John VIII: 34.
19 Romans VIII: 10.
20Romans VIII: 11; VI: 4.
21 John VIII: 36.
22 Matthew XIII: 44, 45, 46.
 THROUGH PERSONALITY 199
cluster contentions of classes and wars of
nations. But when Christ met the economic
temptation, as Messiah of His people, He said:
‘‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth
of God.’’** The people were not allowed by
Him to make Him king because they were filled
with bread.** The economic national temptation
did not allure Him. He was no divider of
goods” and no adjuster of material economic
conflict. Men were bidden to depart from the
prevailing practice of asking: ‘‘What shall we
eat or What shall we drink? or wherewithal
shall we be clothed?’’** The first interest was
to be that of the Kingdom of God, and the power
of His righteousness” upon earth. In the para-
ble of the laborers in the vineyard” there is,
beside the spiritual lesson, an economic con-
dition which utterly contradicts the thought of
haggling for wages. The men who trust the
lord of the vineyard are best off. The bar-
gainers, the seekers after their own returns,
lose. But the situation is possible because the
lord of the vineyard is good. Business is done
not upon the basis of suspicion and outwitting
one another, but upon the foundation of the
trustworthiness of a good master. The moral
implication is a state of society such as we do
not have but which would come about in the
economic order by the freedom of the ideal of
23 Matthew IV: 4.
24 John VI: 13, 26.
25 Tuke XII: 13 ff.
26 Matthew VI: 31.
27 Matthew VI: 33.
28 Matthew XX: 1 ff.
200 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
the Kingdom of God. This ideal would be the
personality of economic society found in God’s
will. It is true that this sort of ethics is not
the description of what human nature and con-
duct is, but what it ought to be and can be if
the ideal of personality in its fulness be adopted.
Ethics is a normative science” and must not
lose itself in the slough of the present. To
depress it to psychology is to make it natural-
istic.*° To remain ethics it must be personalistic.
Consequently our final definition of ethics is the
science of character and conduct, whose end is
the freedom of love through personality.
29 Cf. above p. 4.
30 This is the fundamental error in such ethics as that of
Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct.

REFERENCES

Jas. Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Part I, Chapter III.

. ogee W. Wright, Self-Realization, Part II, Chapters IV,
FeAl 4
W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God, Chapter V.
Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, Part III,
Chapters I, IT.
Rudolph Eucken, Main Currents of Modern Thought, D. 5.
Personality and Character.
Kant, Critique of Practical Reason.
Charles Gray Shaw, The Value and Dignity of Human Life.
Charles Gray Shaw, The Ground and Goal of Human Life.
F, B. Jevons, Personality.
Borden P. Bowne, Personalism.
C. C. J. Webb, God and Personality.
C. C. J. Webb, Divine Personality and Human Life.
J. R. Illingworth, Personality Human and Divine.
John Laird, Problems of the Self.
E. U. Merrington, The Problem of Personality.
John W. Buckham, Personality and the Christian Ideal.
Felix Adler, An Ethical Philosophy of Life.
G. P. Adams, Idealism and the Modern Age; ‘‘The Gelf
and the Community,’’ p. 197 ff.
 THROUGH PERSONALITY 201
Arthur George Heath, The Moral and Social Significance of
the Conception of Personality.
W. H. Walker, The Development of the Doctrine of Person-
ality in Modern Philosophy.
A. Trendelmburg, A Contribution to the History of the Word
Person, (Monist, July 1910).
Hans Dreyer, Personalismus and Realismus.
Max Scheler, Personalismus.
 PART III—THE FUNCTIONING
OF FREEDOM

CHAPTER X
THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE

Virtues or duties. Approaching to the actual

functioning of freedom, and to some of its
practical questions, the problem confronts us,
whether the point of view shall be that of
virtues or duties? Which of the two best ex-
press the ideal of personality? In a certain
sense they are in the unity of the whole ethical
life. Duties must become virtues, and virtues
are duties formed into habit.t. But the accent
upon duties even in practical ethics favors the
position of the rationalists, and is apt to give
a legal and unfree aspect of the moral life.
Because we have adopted the conception of the
ideal as the best, it is in keeping with our
conception to regard the ethical development
from the angle of the incorporation of the ideal
of freedom through personality. The virtues
are the habits through which the good comes
to men, and it forms the stable ways in which
freedom functions.
Many efforts have been made to properly
1Cf. above p. 1138.
202
 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 203
classify the different virtues, but no effort has
been really successful. No scheme has included
all possible virtues. The best method is to
adopt such a plan as brings to view the leading
attitudes and problems in individual and social
life. Under this procedure the great virtues
will be discussed. Because after all life is a
unity no absolute line of demarcation can be
drawn. The virtues of individual life will reach
over into the common life. The virtues in which
freedom in love goes out toward others in the
basic social virtues demands the consideration
of the individual starting point. The virtues of
the social forms have also an individual bearing.
When we treat of purity, temperance, courage
as individualistic virtues we cannot but see
that they affect others also. Truthfulness is a
virtue in relation to others, but it also has an
individual meaning in the ethical life. Justice
is the outstanding virtue of the state, but it is
likewise an other-regarding virtue from man
to man. Consequently as we study the undi-
vided life of freedom, and its outgoings in love,
and the social life we shall see some virtues in
different light as freedom applies differently
in individual and social life.
Is the ethical life a pure development? A
fundamental question in individual and com-
mon moral life is, whether this life unfolds in
an unhampered, natural manner? Do we pass
from freedom to freedom in love? The prev-
alence of the ideas of evolution has led many
to look upon the growth of the moral life as a
mere problem of how conduct in relation to
society became more differentiated and more
204 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
complex. But the development of freedom is
not a simple upward curve with no depression.
It is rather a rise and a fall with some upward
tendency. Moral life like all life is a conflict.
The world of sense and of things that appeal to
sense needs some limitation. Things cannot be
followed implicitly and without question.
There must be control, as will appear especially
in the virtue of temperance. While repression
must not be final it is in part essential. Not
all that physical life offers can be accepted
without qualification. But the problem lies
deeper than the mere restriction of the gsen-
tient life. There is a tendency of man not to
follow the good, but to choose the evil. In the
whole life there is a doubleness. Opposed to
the striving upward are forces that would drag
us down. These are not merely due to our
sentient and bodily life. The animal nature is
not the only source that may lead us wrong.
There are mental wrongs and vices, like pride,
prejudice, selfish ambition, ete., that can not be
ascribed to the physical life.
The Christian explanation is that man is
prone to sin, the transgression of the law of
liberty, through selfishness. This is not the
soul clinging merely to earth;? it is the soul
gone wrong in itself. For this cause Christ
has a moral value for us through His death.
Paul notes a great contrast between ‘‘the flesh”’
and ‘‘the spirit.’? The flesh is not the animal
nature as such. It is all, both physical and
mental, that stands opposed to the life of the
spirit. The contrast is not metaphysical but
2 Goethe held to this naturalistic view.
 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 205
religious and moral. It is a great oversight in
the usual philosophical ethics, when this fact
is passed by. We cannot understand the posi-
tive and constructive part of ethical life, if we
disregard the overcoming of the evil. Even
when our moral development is strongly dir-
ected toward the good its maintenance always
necessitates the suppression of wrong and evil.
The power of a cause. Can the individual
life thrive if it remains within itself? Does its
liberty mean a life given only to its own care,
comfort and interest? To live only for oneself
and within oneself is not to live a real life.
Even our own development is thwarted if we
do not look beyond ourselves. No single life
is self-sufficient. Its sources will dry up unless
they flow out beyond the self. To live in the
self alone is to die. This truth, observable in
the physical world and in nature, is doubly true
in the ethical life. It is Christ who has
stressed this truth for all times, when He said:
‘‘For whosoever will save his life shall lose it.
but whosoever shall lose his life—the same
shall save it.’’*
The individual life needs attachment not
only to other lives, but above all to some great
cause. We must lose ourselves in the effort to
establish some ideal which is larger than we.
Liberty comes through the enlargement of life
in a great cause. We may work for some
philanthropy; we may give ourselves to estab-
lishing liberty for the oppressed of any sort;
we may dwell upon some moral reform; we may
live for some religious task;—in all of these
3 Mark 8: 35.
206 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

possible causes we grow ourselves. Liberating

others, and being absorbed in a vital idealism,
we become more free ourselves.
These freely chosen attachments develop in
us the virtue of loyalty. Royce thought that
he could make all moral life the outgrowth of
loyalty. But he overstated the case and in his
Hegelian universalism lost other values.
Nevertheless loyalty is valuable as the free
choice by which we bind ourselves to be
true and faithful to a chosen cause, institution
or friend.’ It is a bondage only when our
loyalty neglects to observe justice and truth in
a cause. If I defend the interest of wrongly
limited labor, as I suppose, and then use every
sort of means fair or unfair, and approve of
every action just or unjust, as long as labor is
helped, I am surrendering justice and liberty.
Such an attitude makes a good cause bad. My
loyalties must be morally justifiable. The same
is true if my loyalty is given to an institution
or afriend. If my loyalty to my college, which
I have chosen, leads me to overlook what is
defective in it, and to defend even its wrong
actions, I enslave myself and morally degrade
myself. My loyalty should help me to remedy
the evil, but not to stand by and destroy the
value of loyalty through criticism. The
church to which I belong may take a wrong
course. It is not right for me to say, ‘‘My
church right or wrong,’’ as some men do with
their country. It is my church to aid in mak-
ing it right if it be wrong. But the remedy
4Cf. Philosophy of Loyalty.
5 Loyalty may also extend to ideals, like, e. g., truth.
 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 207
does not lie in denying the loyalty by idle and
destructive criticism. My friendship for some-
one ought to move me to cover up the faults of
my friend and help him to overcome them; but
not to glorify them as virtues.
The virtue of loyalty needs as a counterbal-
ance the virtue of tolerance. Tolerance is an
individual as well as a social virtue. It allows
to others the same right and choice of loyalties
as I claim for myself. The heart of tolerance
is the willingness to permit others to have
attachments to causes and to truths that differ
from my own. It is not indifference to my con-
victions or loyality, or surrender of any posi-
tion to which I adhere, but the granting of
liberty of conviction and loyalty to all men.
Tolerance must not be accepted merely as a
sad but necessary condition is society, which in
our judgment would be better if all men be-
lieved and did as we do. Through it liberty
must be preserved for all in their opinions,
attachments and _ convictions. Intolerance
exists in all the spheres of life where men would
enforce loyalty to secure uniformity, rather
than to allow differences for the sake of
freedom.
Freedom and vocation. How can freedom
and an orderly course of life in a vocation be
combined? If freedom meant ever new and
disconnected choices, if it implied a series of
unrelated, arbitrary decisions, then the ordered
course of life in a vocation would be out of the
question. But the real liberty of man morally
is only found in a regulated life with its accept-
ance of one great unitary purpose, to which
208 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
man knows and feels himself called. There
may exist a number of minor occupations in a
life that forms its avocations as a diversion from
the main aim of the vocation. But the avoca-
tions dare not crowd out the vocation. Only
where we find ourselves in a place of work and
endeavor, freely chosen, can we unfold our life
and grow in every direction. Without this
development there can be no unfolding of per-
sonality within us. The way of freedom is the
way of the vocation that we make our own.
But is the mere selection of a place to fill in ~
the world sufficient? Must we not inquire into
the moral character of a vocation, and try to
work out its ethical obligations? Freedom
cannot exist where personality suffers either
through immoral or unmoral practices and
conditions in a vocation. It is self-evident that
all kinds of activity which are considered erim-
inal, or which violate the law of liberty in
society, are no vocations in the true sense.
Every one must also examine the manner in
which a vocation is carried on. The best eall-
ings can be prostituted by wrong purposes and
actions. There is no greater danger to the
moral life than the constant and subtle power
of the perversion of the standards of justice,
truth, honesty, ete., through-legally unpunish-
able but nevertheless ethically destructive
actions. There can be no genuine ethical life
under such conditions. <A single transgression,
however great, is often far less evil than a
whole life of questionable vocational practices.
But are there not differences in vocations,
not of a social kind, but of a moral? While
 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 209
many occupations can be carried on honestly
according to general maxims, there are some
which offer moral difficulties in themselves.
When our country had not yet passed the Vol-
stead Act the selling of spirituous liquors was
not an occupation that could be altogether de-
fended. The dealer in liquor might have been
careful and straightforward in his business;
but still was he not catering to a want, that
even under limitations, produced much evil,
and led men to unfree habits of indulgence
dangerous to themselves and to society?
There are a number of occupations dealing
with the amusement of men that need moral
examination. While not all people ean find
recreation and be amused by high, intellectual
pleasures of literature and art, but need less
cultivated amusements of the senses, it is still
true, that there are thousands spending lives
that cater to what is merely sentient to the
downward level of the sensual, the degrading
and impure in certain types of vaudeville,
music and dances. All taste and morals are
lowered for the individual and society through
the abuse of giving a life to such indiscriminate
practices of entertainment as invalidate the
liberty in the pure, noble and good.
But there are other vocations rightly so-
called that have not yet been moralized. Many
practices that are traditional in some kinds of
business cannot stand the test of a vital moral
standard. As an example we can direct atten-
tion to all of the occupations that center upon
money, securities, investments, and find a focus
in the great exchanges of stock or produce.
210 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

Unnatural values are created by speculation,

corners in products are established, stocks are
depressed with the purpose of gaining control
of a corporation, and other similar practices
are indulged in, which are unmoralized actions
not rejected by those in the business. It is an
interesting historical fact, which ought to
make us thoughtful, that some of the great
thinkers and leadersof the world have ques-
tioned the right of taking interest. Aristotle
contended that money was non-productive and
only a medium of exchange. Luther held that
there was injustice in taking interest accord-
ing to the New Testament. He saw an inequal-
ity in the risk assumed by the borrower alone.
Ruskin and Morris with their ideals of a better
social order rejected interest. Perhaps some
of the arguments of these thinkers are not
tenable, but they indicate, what is felt very
acutely today; namely, that the whole practice
in dealing with money is largely unmoralized,
and needs real moral standards to make it a
vocation that is truly ethical.
In the problem of the vocation the question
may be asked, whether all occupations, that are
not inherently objectionable, cannot be im-
proved by the professional outlook? Is not
the profession the highest type of vocation in
the moral sense? Says Tawney* who thinks that
industry should be turned into a profession, ‘‘A
Profession may be defined most simply as a
trade which is organized, incompletely, no
doubt, but genuinely, for the performance of
function. It is not simply a collection of indi-
6 The Acquisitive Society, p. 92.
 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 211
viduals who get a living for themselves by the
same kind of work. Nor is it merely a group
which is organized exclusively for the economic
protection of its members, though that is nor-
mally among its purposes. It is a body of
men who carry on their work in accordance
with rules designed to enforce certain stand-
ards both for the better protection of its mem-
bers and for the better service of the public.’
These ends rest upon an ethical foundation.
It is not merely the technical knowledge
required in a profession, the free use of the
intellect, and the individual independence, that
make a profession, but above all the moral
motive. The three well-known professions
illustrate this fact. The interest of law,
rightly conceived and practiced, is to uphold
justice; the aim of medicine is to use every
means to make the physical life sound and to
save it; the purpose of the ministry is to aid in
making men good through the power of reli-
gion. ‘These professions were the first to frame
codes of ethics to maintain the standard of
their profession, and to keep it regulated by
moral and humanitarian ends.” All the occu-
pations of men must seek this attitude. Other
groups like engineers, newspaper men, ete. are
coming to frame codes. We must raise all
kinds of work to a real moral value by making
it a profession in spirit and attitude.
What shall guide us in the choice of a pro-
fession or a vocation in life? Many persons
choose their permanent labor in the world in a
7 Of. James Mickel Williams, Principles of Social Psychology,
p. 225 ff.
212 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
very careless manner. They do not bring to
bear upon it any moral considerations. We
ought not to be led into a vocation simply
through family traditions, although the conti-
nuity of some great work has been assured in
the world where men have followed the voca-
tion of their fathers. Nevertheless the tradi-
tional aspect dare not be controlling if real
liberty that makes a man’s vocation his own
moral choice is to be upheld. Gain and income
are totally unmoral motives and may become
immoral in the determination of our life’s
work. We ought to begin with as careful a
testing of our capacities as is possible through
modern and scientific means. Then some value
must be given to the disinterested advice of
parents, teachers, and elders. But the real
end of the choice is given in the Christian idea.
According to this, men ought to seek that voca-
tion in which their own highest self-fulfillment
is joined to the best service they can render to
mankind. The good is personal and common
liberty in love. And then finally the religious
conception finds its apex in the ideal of seeking
the glory of God in all of the work and the
tasks of our life. With this as the final direc-
tive the moral fulfillment of a vocation reaches
its height.
Work and freedom. The choice of a voca-
tion leads to the moral side of work. Does
human labor conduce to moral development
and freedom, or is it a burdensome necessity
that we cannot escape from? In labor and by
work we may suffer and feel restrained unless
we use it joyfully, as the opportunity through
 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 213
which we can express ourselves. Wherever
work is accepted as the chance for the func.
tioning of all that is in us it is liberating. We
master and overcome the things about us
in
labor and make them serviceable for mankind.
We conquer the forces of nature and make our.
selves more free in a world of laws. Our life
goes out when we touch human lives to help
them to greater liberty. If we do spend our-
selves in our tasks we do not lose ourselves,
but gain control over our own powers. For
this reason work is moral and idleness immoral.
But we can make work oppressive and enslav-
ing so that it loses its power to moralize us.
When men labor to such an extreme that their
work becomes their master, driving them to
ever more intense exertion and filling them
with cares and worries, they abuse work.
Work needs play to keep it sound. For this
reason play is a moral factor for the health of
work, and the maintenance of man’s liberty in
his labor.
There are three groups of men who fail in
moralizing work. The first consists of those
who want to-labor hard and successfully and
severely for a short period, in order that they
may obtain means to spend the rest of their
lives in the enjoyment of idleness and pleasure.
It is not well-deserved rest after long years
that they intend to have; but they seek to throw
off work in middle life, because they have
accepted it as a necessary evil to be cast aside
as soon as possible. The second group are
willing to bow under the yoke of labor all their
lives, and endure its hardships, so that their
214 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
children may not be compelled to labor. With
a wrong conception of what they owe their pos-
terity, they enslave themselves, and create for
their children conditions which are not really
liberating, but lead into many temptations and
into much evil. The third group, which is the
largest, attempts to escape from the tasks of
life by seeking returns through the games of
chance without labor. There is, it is true, a
risk and a dealing in uncertain futures in many
occupations in life. But these chances are in-
cident to work and do not displace it. But
gambling is immoral, not because in the long
run men lose and fail in it, but for the reason
that it fastens itself on human life like an un-
quenchable desire. Men lose the power over
themselves and become thoroughly unreason-
able, destroying their lives through indulgence
in the fascination of chance. Whatever is tem-
porarily gained through gambling has an im-
moral effect, because the money obtained is not
moralized through the self-expression of man
in labor.
What should be the end of work? The
common notion too often followed is, that the
purpose of work is to secure money. As far
as money is necessary for living it is just to
look to it. But when it is pursued for the sake
of itself, or for power, it demoralizesmen. The
increase of returns hoped for in itself produces
attachment to wealth as such. Among the
most severe warnings of Christ are those
against the insidious influence of wealth as
Mammon.* The end of work is for the sake
8 Matthew VI: 24.
 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 215
of life, and secondarily for the sake of living.
What right has the individual to his earn-
ings? Are they absolute? All that any one
honestly secures as the result of work possesses _
the character of his personality. Property is
the right of a man to his own. It expresses a
certain security and a certain economic free-
dom, through which the individual and his
immediate family have the opportunity of an
enlarged life. Individual property became im-
portant when men began to have more rights
as separate from their tribe. In the modern
world individual possessions meant freedom as
against the mediaeval tenure of land. Early
individualism in property was liberating. But
are the conditions the same in the present in-
dustrial world? Is the sacredness of private
property final? There has been an increasing
conviction that unrestrained individualism has
worked to the loss of the liberty of many men
through the increase of the power of a few.
The reason why all sorts of socialistic ideas
have gained a hearing, is the evil which has
attended the use of property in great amounts
by mere individualists of property. The
attacks have been partly just and partly unjust.
‘‘But, however varying in emphasis and
method, the general note of what may conven-
iently be called the Socialist criticism of prop-
erty is what the word Socialism itself implies.
Its essence is the statement that the economic
evils of society are primarily due to the unreg-
ulated operation, under modern conditions of
industrial organization, of the institution of
216 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
private property.’’® This claim is overstated.
But its truth is the abuse of individual rights
in property. Excessive individualism is for-
cing socialism upon the world, and with it a
restriction of what man has a right to have and
hold in the interest of his liberty of life. The
common liberty has been injured and society
is seeking redress. It must not be forgotten
that the safety of property and its title rest
upon the will of society. The Christian ideal
is against the absolute right of property. All
men are considered stewards of what God has
given them. He is the owner finally and not
men. They are only the administrators and
must give account of what has been entrusted
to them. Men are to use what they have for
the common good and for the praise of God.
This is no defense of individualism in the use
of property. It may be individually owned
for a time, but it ought to be used socially.
The virtues which are connected with work
are accuracy, care, patience, purposefulness.
We ought to use what we obtain with thrift,
which is the proper care of our own without
waste, and with frugality. The latter is
opposed to a luxurious life. The virtue of
generosity as a fundamental attitude becomes
liberality in distributing of our own. It is
largess in giving. The virtue which ought to
be the proper response to generous giving is
gratitude.
The bodily life. What are the moral prob-
lems that are related to our bodily life? Be-
cause we do not reject the physical as in itself
9 Tawney, The Acquisitive Society, p. 53.
 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 217
evil we must endeavor to meet the question
how the physical life, which in itself is neutral,
can be moralized. All the functionings of our
body have laws that make for health and well-
being. Our first positive group of virtues must
be those, like cleanliness, purity, ete. They
can only rest upon a right knowledge and
understanding of what our body is and means
’ for us. We should train ourselves in those
habits of right, sane care of the body, which
enable us best to use it and control it, instead
of being hemmed in and limited by it, because
we have disregarded and abused it. The full
development of the body through proper cul-
ture and exercise is not merely a physical
necessity, it ought to be a virtue. The neglect
of the body is as bad as its abuse. No interest
in the growth of our mind can excuse ethically
the overlooking of our bodily life. But the
overtraining of the body, and the emphasis
upon the kind of exercise, especially through
athletics, that makes the body suffer without
cause, is an aberration of a right attitude
toward the physical.
The positive value of the body demands as
the first great virtue the attitude of control and
restraint embodied in temperance. 'Temper-
ance means moderation and limitation in food
and drink. This is its primal definition. The
desire for food to remain healthy, and to ans-
wer the demands of hunger, needs the habit of
control. When men simply follow the sugges-
tions of appetite which is often unnaturally
developed, without reason and consideration,
they become creatures of their stomach. Then
218 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
they gorge themselves with a dozen different
kinds of food, that tickle the palate and satisfy
abnormal taste, so that they may experience
the feeling of comfortable distention.° They
live to eat instead of eating to live. Temper-
ance is the virtue that overcomes such an abuse
of food.
When we approach the problem of drink,
which is really the problem of drinking intoxi.
cating liquors, temperance is not attained by
mere moderation. The terrible results of alco-
holism, its disorganizing effects upon men, its
power to undermine all self-control and liberty,
its result of making men silly and irrespon-
sible, its destructive consequences upon society
—all of these and many other evil consequences
should lead a rational being like man to inter-
pret temperance in drink as_ prohibition.
Even the moderate users suffer, and encourage
those who destroy themselves and their homes
through drink. The unnatural desire of today
for drink, helped by the nervous strain of the
age, is threatening to overthrow all order and
law for mere gratification of unregulated
thirst. The Christian attitude is the willing-
ness to abstain if any one suffers through our
apparent liberty.** The claim that the right to
drink is individual liberty, degrades liberty to
the privilege of indulging desire, no matter
what the results. Such a conception of liberty
is In essence moral anarchism, and leads to in-
dividual and social dissolution if consistently
applied.
10 Of. Hyde, The cores Man and the College Woman, p. 68 ff.
11 Romans XIV: 14ff.
 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 219
But temperance has a wider application than
the question of food and drink. The problem
of drink leads to the examination of the use of
stimulants in human life. What ought to be
our habits in reference to tea, coffee, tobacco,
etc.? Whenever mild stimulants are physi-
cally beneficial, or at least not distinctly harm-
ful, they may be used. But we ought to be
willing to subject every habit that we are about
to form to a fair test, and not merely follow
the crowd. Some habits are positively de-
structive. Among these is the use of drugs
and narcotics, which break down life com-
pletely for the sake of a brief intoxication of
dreams and sense delights. The use of tobacco
should be far more limited especially in the
years of growth, and in many lives ought to
be avoided altogether. The wrong consists in
so forming a habit in the use of stimulants that
we are under their dominance. Any one who
cannot resist a stimulant, and has lost control
over it, has surrendered his freedom to his
desire. The essential evil in using any stimu-
lant is our subjection to habit. If we cannot
at any time give up a stimulant we are unfree.
In the usual restricted sense temperance does
not apply to the control of individual seax-life,
but in a wider application the morals of sex
belong to it. With it are connected the related
virtues of purity, modesty, and shame. Purity
is the attitude of mind which controls thoughts,
words and acts, so that they are clean. It
makes sex a sacred trust of nature given to us,
but not an opportunity for indulgent imagina-
tion and passion. Modesty may be restraint
220 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
of our whole demeanor in life, but it is specifi-
cally the control of dress and manners in the
direction of the privacy of our sex-life, and the
avoidance of everything that leads to the
seductiveness and allurement of sex.” Shame
can be a reaction of guilt after we have com-
mitted the sexually immodest and wrong act.
But it can also be a preventative virtue through
which we recognize the protection of the physi-
eal. Animals have no shame. Shame is the
testimony of the rise of human, rational nature
above the animal world. But we can turn all
of these virtues into vices by simply abandon-
ing ourselves to the fact of sex without govern-
ing it. Then we are liable to sink below the
animal because we dwell with prurient delight
upon the desires of sex, and allow them to hold
our mind and life captive.
Before marriage temperance in sex means
abstention from all sex-relation. There is a
very erroneous opinion secretly handed on, and
sometimes encouraged by physicians, that sex-
hunger like all hunger ought to have its legiti-
mate satisfaction. This position is strengthened
today by the theories of Freud, which identify
sex with the subconscious. Repression of sex
is almost made a danger directly or indirectly
through this theory. In order to prevent the
spread of sexual disease there has been public
recommendation of preventative medicine.
While the intention of such a governmental
measure is honest, the result is to increase
12The moral problem of the dance is whether it arouses
passion. Its dangers are very much multiplied in the dance
hall with its promiscuous crowd.
18:Cf. Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, p. 26 ff.
 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 221
indulgence in sex gratification. The whole sub-
ject of sex has been too prominent in discussion.
It is right that the wrong ideas so often handed
on in the secret and frequently vile communica-
tions from youth to youth should be met. But
the way is that of legitimate, wise and tactful
education, and not indiscriminate publication.
A former age may have been prudish, but we
are too brutally frank. Thus we injure the
finer virtues, and destroy the protection which
culture has erected in the interest of purity.
We make the sacredness of sex an interesting
subject.
The other great virtue which begins in the
bodily life is cowrage. Courage is not the un-
reasoning braving of danger, and the unthinking
assumption of risk of life. It knows the danger
and the risk and is willing to incur it for the
sake of the good. Simply to throw oneself in
the way of danger and to gamble with one’s
life is foolhardiness. But the legitimate under-
going of danger with a resolute will is courage.
There are gradations of courage. It began to
be estimated, first of all, in the unsettled, primi-
tive conditions and in war. But this kind of
courage ought to pass away. The glorification
of courage in war still receives too much praise
as though it were the best type. A higher kind
of courage is that displayed by discoverers,
who incur great risks in the interest of science
and for humanity. But the relative value of
risk in relation to the good must be considered.
Peary and Shackleton displayed as much cour-
age in their efforts in polar expeditions, as did
Livingstone and Stanley in entering the jungles
222 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
of Africa. But the latter had a higher moral
motive and result. The saving of an endangered
life by a quick, impulsive act of courage is very
noble. But even greater is the quiet, sustained
effort to help men, whether by dangerous experi-
ment in the laboratory, or by attendance upon
cases that involve great risk, and all similar
instances. There is no applause to be gained,
and no heroic light about such actions. Courage
ean go beyond bodily risk when it becomes
moral courage, which fearlessly stands for
truth, and seeks no glamor of approval.
The mental life. Is there any need to speak
and treat of the moralizing of the mind? Is
not the relation far removed from the tempta-
tions of the body? If rationalism were the
solution of the moral problem, then to be reason-
able would mean to be good. But the two are
not synonymous. All the operations of our
mind must be fused into the freedom of person-
ality. The virtue through which we grasp
ourselves in our moral worth and dignity is the
virtue of honor. Honor is the right self-estima-
tion by which we do the noble and good acts,
and do not dare to soil ourselves with anything
unworthy of our character. It must be valued
as the protection of our free character, and
ought never degenerate into-pride. Pride,
mostly attended by boastfulness, is to glory in
ourselves; but our honor is not so much our
merit and glory as a precious possession and
trust to be jealously guarded and preserved. It
ought always to be counterbalanced by humility.
In the ancient world humility was regarded as
14 Cf. above, Chapter VIII.
 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 223
weakness and meanness. Aristotle praises the
high-minded man,’ who earries himself with a
conscious sense of his dignity and with a just
pride. But Christianity has taught us, that in
view of the greatness and illimitableness of
truth, and because of our imperfection even
when we are at our best, we need to remain
conscious of our short-comings, failures and
defects. Humility is not the destruction of
right self-confidence and just self-assurance,
but the opposite to pride with its untrue and
exaggerated estimate of the self. Diffidence is
not synonymous with humility. The humble
mind knows its worth, but as it has an infinite
ideal of truth and goodness it realizes its own
place. The mind in search of science must be
careful, accurate, honest and sincere. Honesty
and sincerity in seeking the truth, and in direct-
ing our purposes are as essential as honor and
humility. Their lack destroys the opportunity
of learning more and more of the truth through
the attitude of open-mindedness. And as truth
makes us free, it follows that whatever hinders
the truth hinders our freedom, and whatever
allows the approach of truth and new truth
aids our liberty.
The life of the mind can also be moralized
by a right appreciation of art. The truly
beautiful favors the increase of the good. Aris-
totle held that the beautiful had a purifying
power. Through the beautiful Plato reached
up to the idea of the absolutely beautiful. Art
can cleanse us, if it is pure in intent and execu-
15 Of. Nicomachean Ethics, Book IV, 3, p. 213 ff.
224 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
tion. The sense of the beautiful does lift us up
to God. There is a marvelous power for good
in the enjoyment of the glory and beauty of
nature. In its presence we become calm and
free when we look up to the shining stars, or
look out upon the colors of sunrise and sunset.
The green fields and towering hills, the fra-
grance and varied color of the flowers, the
many-colored plumage of the birds and their
songs, the wonderful arches of the trees, the
brightness of the day and the shadows of the
night,—all these and many other phenomena of
nature are rich in power to uplift and liberate.
When man uses art he can awaken all that is
good, or he ean prostitute art to evil. There
has been a tendency in modern art to degenerate
into a realism that dwells in the mean and ugly.
It often glorifies the passion of sex as right in
its vile naturalism. Art must be delivered
from this trend to be really good. Not all that
exists can be the subject of art, if art is to
liberate man and to aid in unfolding his
character.
The power over life. If we assume that we
are free is not our life in our control? We can
sustain and keep it, and we can ruinit. Do we
possess the right to end it when we please?
Is suicide morally justifiable? We must of
course exclude all those cases of suicide which
are caused by disease. It is necessary to ex-
amine with care into the responsibility of those
who commit suicide. But where the indications
are, that suicide has been deliberate, what shall
be our estimate? Hume” argued that we have
16 Hssay ‘‘Of Suicide.’’
 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 225
the liberty to take our lives because it is in
our power. As God has not restrained us
physically from taking our own life, thus thinks
Hume, He virtually allows us to take it if we
see fit to do so. Therefore we have no binding
command from God. If we become useless to
our relatives and friends we relieve them by
our suicide, continues Hume. Finally he con-
tends, that if we no longer have the desire to
live, and if our lives seem to be of no value we
can end them. But this whole argument con-
fuses the formal liberty with the moral right.
We owe our lives to God, and destruction is the
abandonment of the entrusted good. We may
be a burden to our own, but part of life consists
in bearing each others’ burdens, so that the
spirit of love may increase under trial. We
may see no use of an active kind in our life, but
suffering often perfects men, and leads them
to a noble freedom of soul. The manner in
which we bear ills in a spirit of patience and
cheerfulness, instead of attempting to escape
from them, is an incitement to others. Sufferers
can be a great moral asset in the development
of the finer and kindlier qualities of life. It is
a terrible thing when an evil life ends in suicide.
The motives are cowardice and despair. When
men are unwilling to take upon themselves the
punishment of their evil deeds, they cannot be
rescued through a spirit of repentance. If they
commit suicide they may get away from visible
punishment, but religion holds that there is no
real escape. The atheistic attitude alone can
counsel suicide.
226 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
The question sometimes arises whether there
are not peculiar conditions that justify us in
ending our life? If a young woman is attacked
and is liable to be outraged shall she, if it be
possible, take her life to save her purity? There
is no moral guilt in anything to which one is
forced. Therefore the young woman in such
a case ought to struggle and seek to save her
life. Of course awful conditions may tempo-
rarily craze the mind, and then despair leads to
death. Was Themistocles justified in killing
himself rather than harming his country by
betraying it to the Persians? Can we exonerate
Frederick the Great, because in the Seven
Years’ War he always carried poison with him,
which he intended to take, if the enemy at any
time should capture him? All of these attitudes
caused by war are not justifiable. They en-
deavor to change the fortunes of war by an act
that seems patriotic, but is cowardly and
deceptive. War destroys morals and glorifies
deception; consequently men have been willing
to condone and even praise such acts under the
perverted moral standards of war. But a
real morality cannot excuse them even if it can
understand them.

REFERENCES
James Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Part II, Chapter

John 8S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, Book III, Chapter V.

Borden P. Bowne, Principles of Ethies, Chapter VIII.
Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, Chapter XIX.
Henry W. Wright, Self-Realization, Part IV, Chapter I.
Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, Part II, Chapter X;
Part III, Chapters XV, XVI, XVII.
 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 227
Mary W. Calkins, The Good Man and the Good, Chapter VII.
Ed. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of Moral
Ideas, Chapter XXXV.
Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Book III, Chapters III, IV, V, VI, VII.
W. Wundt, Ethies, Part II, Chapter I.
H. H. Tweedy, Christian Work as a Vocation.
Irving Wood, Modern Christian Callings.
L. T. Hobhouse, H. Rashdall, A. D. Lindsay, Vernon Bartlett.
A. J. Carlyle, H. G. Wood, H. Scott Holland, Property: its
Right and Duties.
 CHAPTER XI
BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES

The kindly virtues. If we begin to look over

the whole range of virtues which affect our
relations to each other, with what group shall
we open? It is clear that the law of lberty
being love, the virtues which most directly
express it as establishing freedom, ought to be
fundamental. The unity of love is differentiated
into various forms and is found in different
habits of the good. Of these kindness marks
a disposition and attitude through which we
deal with men in a spirit of winning love.
Kindness is the virtue that regards all others
as objects of quiet and considerate affection.
It seeks to smooth the rough ways of life and
to bind men together in the little exasperations
of life. Through it words and deeds take on
the character of helpfulness by creating the
atmosphere in which love can live. If manners
are to be genuine and honest they must be
moved by kindness. Because life is lived from
day to day in the single, and often apparently
small, words and deeds we need the habit of
kindness to transfigure and make it large and
free. Closely connected with kindness is gentle-
ness. Gentleness is opposed to wrath and quick
anger. It is the disposition in which under
provocation we do not lose our temper, but deal
228
 BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 229
in all situations with men as those to whom we
owe a soft answer and a kindly act. Through
it we accustom ourselves to allay threatening
storms and to prevent outbreaks of passion
that result in hatred. Gentleness is the great
preventative virtue in human intercourse, and
it keeps life sweet and free. Kindness and
gentleness were not unknown and unrecognized
in the ancient world. But with the advent of
Christianity two other virtues arose which
belong to the same group as kindness and
gentleness. The first virtue is meekness. The
opposite of meekness is forcefulness which over-
comes and subdues. The meek mind would
rather resign all rights than to obtain them by
suppression and force. It wins its way by
apparent withdrawal from conflicts between
men. No one will be pushed to the wall through
it, because it will not use strength to fight down
others. It is not too proud to fight but it is too
good and gentle. Silently and quietly it wins
men. Christ promises that the meek shall finally
rule the earth... Meekness when genuine is not
an assumed inferiority, nor a pretensive humil-
ity, but rather an expression of the love that
bears and hopes all things. Connected with it
as the second outstanding virtue is the attitude
of non-resistance. This is meekness that suffers
and does not strike back. It denies that com-
bativeness is necessary among men. To over-
come the evil it turns the left cheek when the
right has been smitten. Such action is not the
outcome of weakness and cowardice but of self-
controlled strength and courage. The real
1 Matthew V: 5.
230 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
virtue of non-resistance is the habit of not
returning evil for evil, but to suffer it. The
suffering, when retaliation is possible, is borne
to win the opponent, and to establish the good
among men even if it must be at a loss and
with pain.
All of these virtues have been severely at-
tacked by the modern philosopher Nietzsche.
In the interest of power and physical prowess
the philosopher of the superman rejects all those
qualities which are contrary to struggle and
force. He thinks that the weak have given men
in Christianity a self-protective morality of the
decadent. Life is energy and power. Nietzsche
has boldly expressed the modern temper of force
and power of man as against man. He argues
for a realistic world of contest and fight. But
whither has this kind of a world led us? What
have been the results of the practice of force
in economic life, in political problems, and in
international relations? A world and a society
torn apart by bitterness and hatred. The
stronger always stands ready to overcome and
defeat the strong. Battle is followed by battle,
strike succeeds strike, and the end is not in view.
The use of force is making a miserable and sad
world which is destroying itself physically,
economically and politically. The virtues of
kindness, gentleness, meekness, non-resistance
have been called impracticable. They are so
in the present world of force. But the present
world of force is demonstrating that it cannot
liberate but only destroy society. Is force
2Cf. Benjamin Kidd, The Science of Power.
 BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 231

really practicable because men practice force?

As the results show that force is not succeeding,
ethics recommends to men to become reasonable
and adopt the kindly attitude, which is only
unreasonable in a world controlled by evil
passions.
The actualities of life and our common exper-
ience lead us to the recognition of the fact, that
we often fail to reach the ideal. It is true that in
many things we all offend. Love expresses itself
in certain healing virtues that do not condone
the wrong, but seek to win men for the right.
There are particularly two attitudes of love
toward the wrong, mercifulness and the forgiv-
ing spirit. Mercy seeks to stoop down in gentle
graciousness to those on evil ways who have
done the wicked deeds. It does not come with
any air of superiority, nor does it exhibit a
patronizing spirit. Entering with sympathy
upon the difficulties and temptations of a life
mercy strives to effect a change which mere
requital and harsh justice cannot bring.’ In
opposition to the uncompromising attitude of
relentless condemnation and judgment it seeks
betterment of men and society through the
effort to cure and help those who have gone
wrong. Mercy is forgiving. Forgiveness is the
virtue through which the general disposition
of mercy enters upon the individual faults and
sins. According to Christ there can be no end‘
to our willingness to forgive if we are not to
forfeit divine mercy. But forgiveness is not
3 Of. Portia’s description of mercy in Shylock.
4Of. Matthew XVIII: 21 ff.
232 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
merely the temporary expression of release over
against one that has done us wrong. It deals
with individual acts but all its separate cases
of forgiving are the outcome of a willingness
to do so. The memory of a wrong cannot be
effaced, but it dare not be nursed and harbored.
There are certain conditions that enter into
forgiveness and merey. Forgiveness can do
positive harm if it becomes a quick and unques-
tioning cancellation of wrong. An illustration
of this error is found in the attitude of parents
who are so sentimental about their children that,
in their ready condoning of a child’s sin, they
strengthen the child in the wrong because the
forgiveness is so easy. There must be clear
evidence that the wrong is recognized, repented
of, and rejected in the will, if forgiveness is
to be bestowed upon a wrongdoer. As far as
possible the assurance must be obtained that
forgiveness is sought not to escape the conse-
quences of a deed, but out of a real sense of the
evil in a deed. A second condition in forgiving
others, is that their wrong affects us alone.
If the sin goes beyond us and has disturbed
the moral order widely we have no right to
forgive individually a wrong that must be
righted in the common life. When a wave of
criminality sweeps over a land I may be dis-
posed very mercifully toward some one, who
has committed a crime against me. Neverthe-
less I dare not for the common good hide such
a deed. Common liberty and order demand that
such a wrong shall be punished. If the criminal
is really repentant he is willing to undergo the
punishment, and to get into a new attitude of
 BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 233
life by having satisfied the moral rectification
in society. Forgiveness must never degenerate
into sentimental disregard of the wrong, but it
should only counteract a spirit of hate and
revenge. Its end is to heal men and society
and to re-establish right and justice.
One of the constant questions in the applica-
tion of love to life is that of charity. There is
a very old and persistent notion that charity
is identical with giving alms. Men supposed
that the bestowing of alms not only helped the
needy one, but also laid up merit for the giver.
Because of the idea of merit, no matter what
the effect of the charity, it became harmful
rather than helpful. After the conception of
thoughtful and organized charity was given to.
the world by Chalmers a new era began. We
have learnt that the giving of aid is the least
that can be done. The right purpose of charity
is to try to make it unnecessary by overcoming
its causes. There must be careful knowledge
to avoid creating pauperism, and encouraging
vagabondage and trampdom. But the whole
problem is not solved by the organized method
which is necessary for society. Into it must
enter the direct interest and care of the poor,
needy and neglected, by individual work. We
cannot delegate charity simply to organization.
Often the greatest benefit, namely, the personal
touch, is lost in the official machinery of charity.
The poor resent being treated like cases. If
charity is to liberate it must come from a motive
to develop character. The sphere of charity
covers all the good that can be done wherever
good is needed by any one in distress. There
234 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

is a danger in our day of making charity a

substitute for justice. Men of great riches
organize it as a business. While such work
meets some of the great needs of the world it
ought not to become a sport of wealth, or close
our eyes to the examination of the sources of
wealth and their moral justification because
wealth has become charitable.
In the ancient world friendship was given a
large place in ethics. Aristotle devotes more
space to it than to any other virtue. Under it
he includes love and its various manifestations.
Friendship was the great social virtue. Since
Christianity taught us to put the emphasis upon
love friendship has taken a secondary place.
It is not extended so much to attitudes between
groups, as to the relation between individuals.
But it is still of high moralizing value. The
foundation of friendship must rest upon honesty
and sineerity between friends, and a common
purpose in life. Some worthwhile cause or ideal
must unite real friends. The mere social attrac-
tion is inadequate. Friendship requires differ-
ence of individuality, but not too great a
disparity. Friends must find in each other
complementary qualities. The social standing
and rank does not debar friendship especially
among the young, when friendships that last
are most often formed. Nevertheless there can-
not be too great a social cleft between friends.
With the better estimation of woman friend-
ship can exist between those of different sex,
although it has been most helpful between those
of the same sex. A friend stands for a friend,
defends him, speaks well of him, and without
 BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 235
any selfish purpose aids him in his moral un-
folding. The best types of a tender and fine
friendship are found in the stories of Jonathan
and David, and of Damon and Pythias.
In the modern world there has arisen an
organized form of friendship in fraternities.
If men unite for some beneficial and social end,
and use their being together for the satisfaction
of mutual helpfulness or sociability, there is a
moral aid to be derived. But whenever a com-
mon association encourages modes of initiation
and enjoins secrecy by oath in imitation of the
ceremonies for adolescents in the lower tribes
it perpetuates unnecessary lower social atti-
tudes that do not advance modern life morally.
Wherever the sociability behind closed doors
becomes immoral, or wherever association be-
comes a destructive political or a persecuting
agency, all moral right of existence has been
forfeited. The life of fraternities is inimical to
democracy when it develops snobbishness or
separatism among larger groups. It is equally
a prostitution of the right purpose of a frater-
nity, if its exalts philanthropism to take the
place of religion, or develops a certain kind of
indefinite, universalistic faith that acts as a
substitute for historic religion. Those that
make fraternities a religion deceive themselves,
and do not find the satisfaction, either in mysti-
cism or ethics, which a real world-religion
offers. Christianity with its claim for finality
eannot legitimately suffer any inferior substi-
tute, that fails in making Christ all-controlling
and does not ask for love without restriction.
Truth and freedom. What makes truth so
236 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

important in the moral life? Wherefore is it

basic? If we stop but a moment to consider
what truth does we shall readily find an answer.
Any kind of real truth has in it a power of
deliverance from ignorance and error. Ignor-
ance and error keep man from freedom, Truth
as overcoming them bears within itself the
power to free men. Christ has well stressed
this in relation to spiritual truth, when He says:
‘¢Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall
make you free.’’> But the freeing energy of
5 John VIII: 32.

truth is apparent in every kind of truth,

scientific, literary, artistic, social, moral, and
religious. For this reason society needs truth
to live together rightly and freely. Truth begets
the confidence between men without which they
eannot lead a common life. Our words and
actions are the forces that either bind us
together or rend us asunder. We can be united
in an assured and reliable social life only where
truth obtains. Without it no business, no com-
merce, and no industry can thrive. It lies at
the foundation of all intercourse in work or
social life. The destruction of truth, therefore,
affects not merely our own lives, but also the
possibility of a trustworthy common, human life.
The virtue which is most intimately con-
nected with truth is wisdom. Wisdom is truth
in solution. The great mistake of the rational-
ists is to make wisdom purely intellectual. Its
knowledge is the living and practical knowledge
that needs both emotion and volition besides
intellect. The amount of knowledge of a tech-
 BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 237
nical sort does not insure wisdom. There are a
great many learned fools who miss the sub-
stance of life. Wisdom is the full, rounded
virtue in which the truth of the living moral
relations of man, and his spiritual import, is
preserved. Itis more than calculating prudence.
What is right in prudence receives a higher
worth in wisdom, which has a strong aggressive
motive, and is not hampered by the timidity
and time-serving attitude of prudential con-
siderations. Tactfulness is a child of wisdom,
as well as sound, moral common sense. But
both of these receive a depth and impetus
through wisdom, which they do not possess of
themselves.
The way of truth is not at all times simple
and easy. There arise conflicts in conditions
and situations which put us to the test, as to
whether truth is always possible. If, e. g., 1am
put in trust of certain securities, and this fact
becoming known to a burglar, I am confronted
with a pistol, and asked to reveal the where-
abouts of the securities, what shall I do? Is it
best to tell the truth and betray my trust, or
shall I mislead the burglar, and save my life
and the securities? A more frequent case is
that which occurs in the life of a physician,
when a very sick person asks about the chances
of recovery. Shall the doctor tell the truth and
possibly shock the patient if the chances are
poor, or shall a wrong but cheerful statement
be made if necessary at the expense of truth?
The first case is typical of situations in which
evil creates a conflict of duties. It is well to
remember that a burglar has no right to
238 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
demand the truth from any one when he seeks
to commit a crime. But even in such a condi-
tion where we do not owe the truth it is not
right to lie because it is the easiest escape. Of
course the preservation of our life is incumbent
upon us, and as an attack compels a defense
the most effective defense is allowable. In the
second instance, that of the physician, it is
often possible to tell no direct untruth and still
to keep the patient cheerful and hopeful. The
past character of a man will determine his
ability to meet such problems in consistency
with the truth. The general rule is to keep to
the truth always, and so to school ourselves as
to meet even the exigencies of conflict with the
least loss of truth. The manner in which many
people help themselves in a dilemma shows that
they lack the finer sense of truth, and find many
occasions for lying, because they fear to tell
the truth, and use frequent, inexcusable lies
under the specious plea of necessity.
The direct opposite of the truth is a lie, which
may be defined as an intentional untruth with
the purpose to deceive. We may make state-
ments that do not correspond with facts. If
such statements grow out of ignorance and are
unintentional, we are not at fault though they
are not the truth. Only then do words and acts
become a lie when we know the truth, and with-
hold or prevert it with a purpose. Often we
tell a partial truth when we know the whole, or
we stress certain features to the neglect of
others. We apply to sober fact the inventive
power that makes a good story. All of these
attitudes are musrepresentations, even though
 BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 239
they are not complete reversals of the truth.
More harm is done generally by half-truths
than by whole lies. It is the same spirit of
lying through which we judge others, and
stress their faults to the damage of their char-
acter. Truth seeks in love to find the good in
allmen. Unfair criticism of others, and harsh
judgment rise from milder gossip to the severe
form of totally wrong slander. Almost as
frequent as the lie of the misrepresentation of
others, is the modern abuse of the oath. Per-
jury has ceased to be regarded as a great sin.
Men take an oath very lightly, and do not con-
sider its tremendous import upon human soci-
ety. Its establishment was to guarantee the
full truth when important issues involving life
or property were at stake. Much injustice has
been done through perjury. The deepest rea-
son why is has become so common is that men
have lost the religious sense, and do not fear
the God of all truth.
There is a relation between truth and current
propaganda that calls for moral consideration.
When men assert their convictions, whether in
matters of ‘social and political or of religious
import, they have a right to proclaim and labor
for the spread of their views. But such de-
fense of ideals is different from modern propa-
ganda that is found in many quarters. The
free proclamation of truth, out of which follows
the freedom of speech and utterance, seeks to
have the truth prevail in the conflict of
opinions. But propaganda wants the side for
which it stands to succeed. It is based on
party spirit, and is not willing to hear the truth
240 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
of other men. Partisan in origin and desirous
of power it works for the triumph of its own
position and not for the sake of pure truth.
Some of the advocates of free speech want
liberty simply to propagate doctrines for the
destruction of society. Whole groups are only
fed the pabulum of their party, and are made
zealots that help toward the destruction of
tolerance. Even the public press often fails to _
aid the truth. It has become in many instances
the mouthpiece of a propaganda. But where
this is not so directly the case the very concep-
tion of what is news tends to injure the full
truth. The object of an American newspaper
is to satisfy the taste of the public for some
interesting and exciting news. From the lesser
curiosity to the highest sensationalism the pur-
pose is to serve the public by writing a telling
story. Facts are not assembled and sifted as
they would be by an impartial historian, but
the high lights and the dramatic incidents are
told often out of all relation to all the facts in
their actual connection. News in the daily
press possess the character of the novel and
drama while they purport to be the relation of
facts. This situation makes it almost impos-
sible for the public, because of its perverted
taste, to receive and know the truth when it is
most necessary to know it. The press is largely
in the hands of powerful interests and serves
them and their political and social interests.
This adds to the loss of truth and it makes the
press even more the servant of propaganda,
and not the organ of free public opinion and
the
servant of truth in its full character.
 BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 241
Another conflict arises between truth and
prejudice. All men have and hold certain pre-
suppositions. No one is entirely free from
fixed and controlling ideas and ideals which
color all the positions taken. Every one has
some philosophy of life.6 But while all of us
are thus men of certain views it is essential that
we remain open to other views. We may have
certain opinions but we must not become opin-
ionated. Prejudice closes our minds to other
positions than our own. It is a perversion of
the right to our own convictions and ideas.
The fact of the rule of prejudice has aided in
dividing society. Too many are men of a
slogan, and the slogan makes unfree. The con-
stant aim of true education ought to be to
deliver us from the spirit of prejudice,
through which without adequate knowledge we
are pre-judging others and their ideas, beliefs
and attitudes.
Truth has a very important bearing upon
freedom of thought and research.” If truth be
hampered it often cannot be found. There
must be the guarantee of real liberty to enable
the finding of new truth. It is a common
human experience that the pathfinders of truth
are often persecuted and rejected and yet only
by true liberty can the progress of knowledge
be advanced. Freedom to think and search
must not, however, be identified with so-called
free thought. Free thought is the attitude of
a group of men who deny theism, and are inimi-
eal to all religious positions, because they do
6 Hibben, A Defense of Prejudice.
7Cf. John Stuart Mill’s Essay on Liberty.
242 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
not understand its psychology and _ history.
But genuine freedom must come gradually in
the course of education. If there is no proper
preparation the result is confusion and doubt.
The best method for the freedom of thought is
criticism, which seeks not merely to remove the
unestablished, but also to make sure and clear.
the real facts, and to defend the proper infer-
ences through constructive effort.
Justice and freedom. What is the relation
of justice to the ethical problem? What does
it mean for liberty? Justice is the virtue that
renders to every one what rightly belongs to
him. It also holds the balance between all, and
properly correlates individuals and groups in
society. Without it men cannot live and do
their work freely. It is the protection of just
liberty, and preserves it from becoming either
anarchistic or restricted. Aristotle distin-
guished between punitive justice and distribu-
tive justice. The former is the problem of the
state. The latter is the striving after the right
allotment to each and all of their proper deserts
and rights. Justice is not possible on a dead
level of equality; it rather demands equability.
Because proportionality is essential to justice,
it can only fulfill its aim when it is not absolute,
but includes equity and the fair consideration
of each separate case and instance with all its
details and limits. When thus applied it is
the inner cement of human society and makes
it fundamentally moral.
What is the relation of justice to righteous-
ness? Righteousness is the virtue that em-
bodies right anl lives for it. It is more con-
 BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 243
prehensive and lies deeper than justice. The
ideal of righteousness leads to the execution of
justice. There is a religious attitude in it, and
it has regard to our relation to God as well as
men. It belongs to the nature of God Himself.
When men are desirous of it they seek the
power not ourselves that make for righteous-
ness. For this reason Christ calls those
blessed, who hunger and thirst after righteous-
ness.° Justice will receive its strongest im-
petus where righteousness with all that is im-
plies becomes the ideal, that is more and more
incarnate in our longing and habit.
If justice is to become a real power there
must be a real knowledge of men about each
other. Nothing hinders justice so much as the
lack of proper understanding of the position
and need of different men and of the varying
groups of society. With right understanding
there must be combined the power of imagina-
tion by which we can place ourselves in the posi-
tion of others. The mere dry light of know-
ledge is not sufficient, and men often lack in
understanding each other just because there is
a want of imagination. Imagination will be
easy where sympathy is present as a living
motive. But the problem of justice requires a
wider range than from man to man. It must
become general and universal. To do this
justice must grow out of and be sustained by
public opinion.’ Whatever men think and feel
about common issues creates public opinion. It
is the idea and conception of the average mind,
8 Matthew V: 6.
® Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion.
244 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
no matter whether it be voiced on the platform
or through the press. Public opinion if rightly
informed desires what is just. While the voice
of the people is not invariably the voice of God,
there is a strong impress of the moral order
among men, which calls for justice. But pub-
lic opinion must be kept sound and sane.
There are constant efforts by all kinds of jin-
goes and wild propagandists to stir up the
crowd feeling unjustly and to arouse the mob
spirit. The real necessity is a continuous train-
ing of the common mind about the affairs that
concern it in a spirit of impartiality and fair-
ness. The organs of public opinion must
become educative rather than impulsive in their
efforts.
One of the great hindrances of justice is the
manner in which men znterpret it in their own
interest. There is a readiness to demand jus-
tice as soon as the act of justice renders my
own to me. The angle from which we often
look at justice is that of individual gain, benefit
or protection. This makes justice selfish while
its aim is to seek what belongs to all rather
than what merely belongs to me. There ought
to be a common sense and desire that justice
be meted out to all who do wrong, and that it
bless all who do right. It may happen that full
justice will impose a hardship on me, limit me,
and control me in my desires and wishes. If
I seek and pursue justice I will gladly allow
this limitation, for it guarantees the general
right and liberty. The satisfaction of justice
only for myself will finally so contract and in-
jure common justice so that in the end I will
 BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 245
lose the advantages of justice for myself. Jus-
tice for me cannot be maintained unless justice
for all be conserved.
The necessity of justice for all is unrealized
today in the conflict between groups and their
interests especially in the economic issues.
Millions of men are deprived of what is due
them through a conception of justice, which
separate industrial groups contend for as their
right. The controlling leaders of industry can
only apparently understand, e. g., the excesses
of collective bargaining, the evils of the closed
shop, etc. They see and know their responsi-
bility toward their corporation and their stock-
holders. Their sense for order is strong
against those who destroy property and cruelly
take lives inastrike. But there seems to be no
appreciation of what the opposing group con-
ceives to be justice. Still less is the public
considered with its claims of justice. The
laboring group is only led to know of all the
misdeeds of capital, and never of its virtues.
It looks upon all who employ it as grasping
and unjust. The attitude is to be that of
watching, and fighting as soon as there is a loss
of what seems just in the eyes of those who
desire large wages, without considering the
whole status of business. Capital is accused of
being intrenched in government, and of using
military power to suppress the laborer. There
is mostly injustice to be warded off through
organized power. Class consciousness is fos-
tered to the extreme. All that labor demands
is just, all that capital wants is unjust. This
attitude of warfare creates deception and in-
246 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
creases injustice. The common liberty of men
is impaired. The remedy is the cultivation of
a sense of justice beyond selfish interests. If
this cannot be accomplished society will destroy
itself despite all industrial progress. There
must be a removal of all those leaders in indus-
try and labor who live by agitation, in order
that real agreements in justice can be made
between men on the basis of mutual willingness
to understand each other and to work together,
rather than to claim a victory in their conduct
of warfare of class against class.
A difficulty is encountered by justice because
of the power of nationality. There has been so
strong a development of national feeling in the
last centuries as to crowd back the common
ideal of humanity. Nationalism has enlarged
the rights of the single nation, and cultivated
the attachment to the national language and
customs in a manner that exaggerates the place
and claim of the single nation. Suspicions
and jealousies are kept alive between nation
and nation. The children of a nation are
taught history in such a way as to exalt one’s
own nation, to describe its actions as always
right, and to show the evil in the nation that is
the enemy. Nationalism encroaches even upon
religion and narrows down its universal, human
outlook and sympathy to the interest of one
tongue and nation. This is a survival that
ought to have no place in the modern world.
Still more powerful against broad justice is
the consciousness and feeling of race. The
racial forces are mighty undercurrents in life
that often carry along men against their better
 BASIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 247
judgment. Racial prejudice is hindering the
common understanding and liberty of mankind.
There are two outstanding examples of racial
feeling. The first is the anti-Semitic move-
ment. In a spirit of unjust discrimination all the
faults and none of the good qualities of the Jew
are stressed. Because of successful qualities in
competition, bold and aggressive methods of
business, pushing attitudes in social intercourse
that mark the lower classes, there is deep-
seated antipathy and sometimes a strong oppo-
sition to the Jew. Sins that are common are
attributed to him alone, and he is made the
scapegoat. Past history is ransacked to dem-
onstrate his wrong actions. All modern radi-
cal movements are traced to him because he has
powerful intellectuals. There is no attempt to
understand and to do justice. The second case
is purely American. It is our attitude toward
the Negro. With all the growing attempts to
repair the wrong of past slavery there is still
a failure to render full and adequate justice.
While it is clear that there can never be a racial
intermingling of white and black there can be
larger opportunity and privilege for the Negro.
But whenever this is given there is a reaction.
A similar prejudice is constantly fostered
toward the yellow races.'® Racial distinctions
are exaggerated. Christianity claims that God
made of one blood all nations and peoples."
It would have no distinction in the great finali-
ties of life.
An important problem is the relation of jus-
10 Lothrop Stoddard, The Rising Tide of Color.
11 Acts XVII: 26.
248 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
tice to law as enacted positively by the state.
If the law is to serve justice it ought to be the
expression of the moral conviction of a people.
At no time will the positive law measure up to
the ideal standard. When men endeavor to
make and enforce a law which does not have
the common sentiment and opinion back of it
the law is not kept. The result is the lowering
of respect for law and the increase of injustice.
A strong minority ought never to force a law
upon a majority. But on the other hand the
morally more thoughtful and advanced minor-
ity must lead the more sluggish majority.
Ethics cannot lower its demand to meet the de-
fects of existing laws. To assure the real lib-
erty it dare not abate any of its ideal attitudes.

REFERENCES
James Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Part II, Chap-
ters IT, I.
ae W. Wright, Self-Realization, Part IV, Chapters II,
I
Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, Part III, Chapter XIX.
Mary W. Calkins, The Good Man and the Good, Chapter IX.
L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Part I, Chapter ITI.
Ed. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of Moral
Ideas, Chapters XXIII, XXX, XXXI.
Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, Part III,
Chapter VIII.
Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Book III, Chapters VITT, EX, OX ers
Book IV, Chapter IT.
 CHAPTER XII
THE FAMILY

What is the value of the family? Among all

of the social forms of personality none is more
fundamental than the family. It is basic to all
society and fundamental to its moral well-being.
Today it is being admitted by students of early
society that there is no evidence to prove, that
the family did not always exist. It is the
primitive form of society. Before industry
passed through the great modern revolution,
caused by the invention of machinery, the
family was a large centre of industrial activity.
While this is no longer the case, it is still neces-
sary that the habits for industry and all occu-
pations in life must receive their beginnings in
the home. The most essential qualities in all
work, as e. g: carefulness, cleanliness, accuracy,
thoroughness, ete., are best formed in the
family. Without the family the fruits and
results of civilization would not have been
handed on. Through it civilization must be
transferred from generation to generation.
‘‘Tt must be remembered that civilization con-
sists in part of material things and in part of
ideas, attitudes, customs, and so on. The
latter set of phenomena make up by far the
larger part of civilization. Now, even material
249
250 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
things, as part of culture, are not passed along
automatically: their uses must be explained,
the implied techniques learned. As to spiritual
culture, including language itself, there is no
way for it to be passed on, in a society without
writing, except through verbal explanation and
teachings and the direct observation by the
learner of what is being said and done. It is
evident that a large part of what the individual
receives in this way, especially during the
highly important formative years of early
childhood, is brought to him through the
medium of the family.”?! The culture of man
always carries with it in the customs and ideas
certain moral conceptions. For these the fam-
ily is the early school. Connected with the
moral training of the family is the religious
attitude. From the earliest time the home was
also the place of religious teaching and culture.
In many religions there were special gods of
the home and hearth. Religion in the family
consisted not only in ceremonies and practices,
but also in certain moral rules and maxims.
No world religion, least of all Christianity, has
abolished the religion in the home as necessary
both for religious life and for moral culture.
The spirit of the family. What is the essen-
tial spirit in the personality of the family?
What is to be its peculiar contribution for indi-
vidual and social life? The family is the insti-
tution of love. In it there is the place for the
unfolding, first of all, of the kindly virtues.
The affection, that ought to dwell in the family
1 Alexander A, Goldenweiser, Early Civilization, p. 239.
 THE FAMILY 251
as the essential attitude between all its mem-
bers, is the milieu in which kindness, gentle-
ness, forbearance, etc. can develop. But these
virtues as expressions of love can lead to the
other virtues. The spirit of love, for which the
foundation must be laid in the home, can be
made the controlling disposition only through
the early habits of childhood. There are cer-
tain very elemental qualities that mark the
family, and condition its influence upon the life
of freedom.
The family life is one in which society
touches us or ought to touch us with the least
restraints. It is true that the first virtue of
child-life is obedience. But its meaning is con-
trol and guidance into moral liberty. While
its reasons are not always apparent to the child
it tends toward freedom. Through it men are
led into the habits of the moral order. Where
obedience has been lacking, or where cruelty
has destroyed its loving justice, an individual-
ism develops that cannot give moral freedom.
Obedience justly growing in love is the easiest
way and the most free way of leading human
life into the world of moral relations. In no
other social form than the family is the same
liberty and its right control possible in the
same spirit of affection.
The family life is one of close intimacy. In
the family we cannot but become familiar with
each other. The familiarity reveals us to each
other. Nowhere can one so truly find what a
man is as in his own family. This fact neces-
sarily demands that we must have the best sort
of character. If family intimacy breeds con-
252 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
tempt for each other it shows great moral defic-
iencies. Consequently mutual regard and
respect, that must make familiarity good, ought
to be present and rest upon genuine ethical
honor. A good family life puts us on our
mettle to be what we claim. Therefore the
virtues of sincerity, honesty, truthfulness are
needed. We cannot hide our real selves in the
family. If any one leads a double life beyond
the family the very foundations of the home
are undermined. Straightforwardness, open-
ness with each other, confidences without
secrecy, can alone maintain the free, loving
spirit of the home.
The life of the home is one as between equals
in the relation of husband and wife, and
between brothers and sisters. The relationship
of man and wife ought to be one of admiring,
justly estimating regard, and intimate fellow-
ship of genuine affection and love. The close-
ness of the two guiding lives in the home must
be one of association in liberty. Individual
development and common life ought to inter-
penetrate in such a manner as to make the free
individual and the free family in love. The
children, in relation to their parents in obed-
ience, ought to be taken up more and more into
companionship by their parents, provided this
privilege is not abused and turned into famil-
larity without respect. This danger can be
avoided where the parents have a character
that of itself inspires honor and respect. The
life of brothers and sisters as they grow up to-
gether makes possible mutual consideration.
It teaches us that we are not alone in the world,
 THE FAMILY 253
and that liberty must be the right of every one.
Natural selfishness that wants all and is not
willing to share cannot exist in the home. It
must be overcome by the spirit of love as lib-
erty. Thus the family becomes the first school
of justice, fairness and considerateness. In the
Same manner children cannot live together
without truthfulness. The necessity of truth
toward each other, and toward the parents, can
be borne in upon their lives. Thus all the
basic social virtues find their starting point in
the family. In it they can be formed and made
habits under the most helpful and favorable
circumstances at a time when habits are cap-
able of being moulded.
Courtship and engagement. What ought to
be the relation of the sexes to each other in the
days of courtship and engagement? How can
these days of approach and the finding of one’s
mate be made ethical? Courtship and engage-
ment are so largely controlled by the customs
of an age that young people often simply fol-
low the custom, and give little thought to the
moral implications in making a choice that will
affect their whole future. Formerly courtship
and engagement were controlled in large meas-
ure by the parents. There was constant sur-
veillance. The defect of this custom was the
difficulty of young people really learning to
know each other. It forbad the free associa-
tion through which characters might test each
other without interference. The present atti-
tude is one of the utmost liberty. Restraint
has been removed, but at the same time advice,
guidance, and the experienced wisdom of the
254 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
elders are rejected. Is the present liberty real
freedom, or has it cast aside what is valuable
in parental advice, care and guidance? Are
happier results following under the uncon-
trolled modern method of courtship and engage-
ment? The liberty which the sexes today
possess has been hurt by the loss in many
cases of the restraint, modesty, and refinement
usual in polite intercourse. Respect for each
other is often broken down by undue familiar-
ity, and through the permission of privileges
that should only be granted after marriage.
Engagements in this day of uncontrolled liberty
are dealt with in many cases as not binding.
They ought to be the plighting of a troth not
to be broken except under the most unusual
and compelling circumstances. But the easy
and thoughtless manner in which engagements
are often made results in their underestimation.
On the other hand an engagement is valued in
some of our country districts as almost equal
to marriage. In fact undue privileges are
taken, and physical intimacies and intercourse
are allowed to the detriment of the real mean-
ing of marriage. Such liberties are not liberty,
but uncontrolled and premature surrender to
mere passion. They do not make for mutual
respect and honor.
Marriage. In what manner shall marriage
be interpreted? What is its function and
place? There are three conceptions about the
estate of marriage. The first is the biological
which considers marriage to be the mating of
male and female. It stresses all of the physical
facts in marriage, and demands that the best
 THE FAMILY 209
eugenic relations be obtained before and during
marriage, in order to insure the maintenance
and improvement of the human race biologi-
cally. The second view is that of the attain-
ment of individual happiness. According to it
we are to find in marriage the satisfaction of
the romance of life in the ideality and poetry
of love. It dwells upon the need of loving com-
panionship and its elevating power. The third
position is the social. With a regard for and
consideration of what marriage means for soc-
iety, its continuance and welfare, it asks that
we make marriage socially effective and ser-
viceable. There is some truth in all of these
three views. We cannot escape valuing the
social import of marriage. It is bound up with
the whole social complex and its life. But soc-
ial considerations are not the only ones to be
weighed. The theory of individual happiness
has its right. We ought never to lose the lib-
erty of individual life. As far as marriage
heightens the development of individual life
and adds to its joy it deserves its place. But
finally the first and fundamental meaning of
marriage is the union of man and wife for the
perpetuation of mankind. The moral problem
is to make this purpose serviceable to real per-
sonality, individual and social. In the bonds
of marriage there should be the proper, just
and sane rendering of the marital due. (Debi-
tum conjugale). For the sake of the creative
joy of continuing life, and for the experience of
fatherhood and motherhood, man and wife
should not withhold from one another physi-
eally. But usually the denial of intercourse,
256 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
and the straining of the marital tie through
cold abstention, is not the great danger. There
is rather a temptation to indulge in passion for
its own sentient satisfaction. There may be a
loss of the end of marriage because of mere
sensual gratification. Through such abuse
marriage is degraded to legalized indulgence in
animal passion as such. This appears clearly
when efforts are made to avoid the birth of
children, which is the biological and moral jus-
tification for physical contact. Formerly Amer-
ica was notorious for its many abortions. To-
day there is the escape of birth-control. Birth-
control has its worth for the state to the degree,
that the increase of the criminal class, and the
handing down of really inheritable disease,
make it necessary. But it is becoming so
widely known through inconsiderate propa-
ganda, that men and women are taught to in-
dulge in mere animal passion without risking
the birth of children both in marriage and out-
side of marriage. Consequently it is morally
dangerous and degrading, as it shows the way
to the sensual for indulgence without responsi-
bility.
The whole physical side of marriage needs
the intellectual, moral and spiritual fellowship
to keep man and wife human beings. While
marriage is no Platonic friendship, there must
be the agreement and congeniality of two char-
acters to avoid their being sunk into animality.
It is for this reason that monogamy is essential,
as the only form that can maintain the moral
freedom. The practice of polyandry of the
lower tribes has passed away among civilized
 THE FAMILY 257
people. But polygamy has sought a revival in
the form of plural marriages. The plural
marriage even under the most favorable con-
ditions encourages man to uncontrolled passion,
and puts woman necessarily in an inferior
place, by destroying the intimacy of moral life
between one man and one woman. It has been
historically established that only in the union
between one man and one woman can moral
freedom be maintained.
The Christian teaching about marriage begins
with the recognition that man and woman are
to become one flesh,” and endorses the Old Testa-
ment idea. Paul in view of the temptations at
Corinth advises that it is better to marry than
to burn.* Personally he prefers to remain
unmarried for the sake of his work. But Chris-
tianity, protecting woman as the weaker vessel,
does not stop with the admission of the biologi-
eal side of marriage. It presents the ideal of
the love of Christ and the Church toward each
other, as typifying the relation of man and
wife.* As the Church looks up to Christ so the
wife is to look up to her husband. There is no
demand of submission to mere domination, but
only the request of reliance upon the husband,
and obedience in love to his guidance. The
husband is to ‘‘love his wife as Christ loved
the Church and gave Himself for it.’’? The
greater duty of love is incumbent upon the
husband, for he is to love to the giving of
himself for his wife. This is the moral reversal
of the physical condition in marriage, in which
2Mark X: 7, 8.
8I Corinthians VII: 9.
4 Ephesians V: 24 ff.
208 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
the wife gives herself, and bears the heavy
physical burdens. It is this ideality which lifts
the marriage up into the highest moral and
spiritual sphere.
Divorce. Under what conditions can marriage
be severed? The tremendous and threatening
increase of divorces in America makes this a
very serious problem. Ethics is not primarily
concerned with the kind of legislation that
should be passed to restrict divorces. It is
troubled about the fact that marriage is entered
into lightly and unadvisedly, carelessly and
inconsiderately. The ease of divorce is depreci-
ated because of the moral injury inflicted by it,
and the evil effect upon the children of the home.
It is self-evident that the best legislation will
not cure the low moral valuation of the binding
power of marriage until there is an advance in
the general moral consciousness about divorce.
The proposal seriously made to overcome the
risks of marriage through trial-marriages can-
not be entertained. Such trial-marriages will
lead to indulgence, and will lack the moral force
and obligation that is needed to make marriage
morally effective. The causes for which divorce
is allowable have been, according to Christian
ideals, adultery’ and cruel dissertion.® The
latter is supposed to have adultery in view.
Therefore the only cause valid in Christian
ideals is adultery. Perhaps there might be
added conditions of cruelty and persecution
that break down life. But incompatibility of
temper and similar causes today allowed among
5 Matthew XIX: 9.
6I Corinthians VII: 15.
 THE FAMILY 259
us are insufficient. A wrong conception of indi-
vidual liberty has destroyed the real liberty of
the common life in marriage. Where hard bur-
dens must be borne the very submission in a
- patient spirit helps us to rise above them.
Liberty must often be attained not by escape
from difficulties but through an inner conquest
of them. Divorce should only be sought when
conditions in marriage make the moral life
really impossible. No mere considerations of
ease, comfort, and individual pleasure are
ethical reasons to justify divorce.
The evil of prostitution. What must be the
ethical judgment about the sin of prostitution?
There can be no condoning of prostitution
whether engaged in by the unmarried or
married. As far as the man is concerned it
makes him a slave of passion, and increases
his animality. All indulgence outside of the
married estate is destructive of the dignity and
liberty of the moral life. But the greatest
wrong of prostitution is the degradation to
which it brings woman. For her the selling of
her body to gratify the lust of the unrestrained
male means the abandonment of her life as
moral. She sacrifices her whole character and
becomes a sensual piece of flesh. Man accepts
her no longer as a personality but only a con-
venience for his passion. The wrong standards
of society allow the man to escape. There is
a double standard which condemns woman, puts
all the disgrace upon her, and permits man to
remain seemingly and outwardly respectable
although he is the aggressor. For this reason
there can be no acceptance of any proposal to
260 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
legalize prostitution. Wherever it has been
tried it only offered an excuse for an evil that
can legitimately have no excuse. Even under
the taboo prostitution is an awful sin; to legalize
it would be a new invitation to men, who are
responsible for its existence and continuance.
Free love offers an escape from prostitution, but
morally it is only a safer type of prostitution.
The single life. What is the moral justification
of the single life? Under what conditions can
it be lived morally? There are those who ought
never to marry on account of physical reasons.
Where any one clearly knows this hindrance,
and still marries, entailing misery and sickness
upon life to be born, there is guilt and wrong
in marriage. Some individuals are under special
and peculiar limiting conditions, imposed upon
them through the care of their immediate fam-
ily, who justly refrain from marriage, because
they could not fulfill their prior duties that no
one else can assume. A great mission and eall
in life may so fill the mind and heart of an indi-
vidual that marriage is not thought of. Christ
spoke of men who were eunuchs for the sake of
the kingdom of heaven.” Paul did not marry
because he thought that he could better fulfill
his mission, and care for the eause of the Lord
in single life.’ Men and women.can still devote
themselves to such labor of mercy or religion
and not marry. But the celibate life must not
be made a rule for any office or class. It should
be the free choice of individuals who can remain
7 Matthew XIX: 12.
8T Corinthians VII: 7.
 THE FAMILY 261
unmarried, and be pure in the suppression of
passion.
But there are many who remain single for
reasons that are not morally defensible. When
men and women abstain from marriage because
they want to live with certain economic com-
forts, and possess the luxuries of life, they have
no adequate excuse. The love of ease, and
individual gratification through the soft things
of life, are demoralizing. If a wrong intellec-
tualism, or a selfish conception of liberty, turns
men away from the married estate, the results
are not liberating. The man or woman who
deliberately avoids marriage to remain free, will
find that in later life the risks of great physical
and mental disturbances are incurred. The
character is liable to become self-centred and
unhappy; the outlook upon life mean and small;
oddities of conduct will appear that contract
life into unsatisfying habits. The way of escape
for those who have lacked a chance for marriage
is to give themselves to the care of some rela-
tives, or to find their freedom in the work of
some noble cause.
The freedom of woman. What should be the
right and freedom of woman in the light of our
modern advance? The answer to this question
depends upon settling the problem as to the
real mission of woman. There are two opposite
attitudes that combat each other. The first is
the position, that woman is destined only for
the home, that her function is to be the home-
maker. In the execution of this destiny, some
demand of woman, that she should assume the
work of the home with all its little cares and
262 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
narrowing minutiae. The women who lead this
sort of life make themselves slaves and drudges.
Different homes will of course grant different
possibilities according to the economic liberty
which they allow. But in no ease should the
home with all its labor interfere with the intel-
lectual and moral growth of woman. The truth
of the home-making mission of woman will be
lost if woman assumes the bulk of the burdens
of the family life. Connected with the home as
the ideal for woman is the duty of motherhood.
It is this obligation which largely justifies the
attachment of woman to the home. Motherhood
is a fundamental privilege and also an elemental
burden of woman. It ought not to be evaded
for any selfish reason, for through it woman
fulfills a noble service. But the duty of mother-
hood does not include the whole responsibility
for the education of the child. This must be
shared in by the father if the moral training of
the child is to be strong as well as gentle.
In direct opposition to woman as destined
exclusively for the home is the conception of
her full freedom to a vocation. The preparation
for a useful life in a freely chosen occupation
is demanded in modern life because woman
does not know whether she shall be ealled to a
home and to motherhood. But a woman’s voeca-
tion ought not to rest merely upon her equality
with man. It ought to satisfy her peculiar
physical and mental ability and limitation.
Formerly the limitation of woman was over-
emphasized, but the modern success of woman
in many different callings has established her
large rights. On the other hand there has
 THE FAMILY 263
arisen a type of woman who, untrue to her best’
nature, has pressed into occupations that have
impaired her womanliness. We need a more
balanced conception than exists through the
reaction of emancipation against the former
denial of the rights of woman. The radical
advocates ought to remember that the Nora of
Ibsen’s Doll’s House is not the last word. A
woman cannot be a plaything of man; but does
this justify escape from the home and neglect
of it for the sake of a vocation? <A thoughtful
sequel to Nora is Rosalie in Hutchinson’s ‘‘ This
Freedom.’’ Rosalie reaps the sad consequences
of the modern emancipated woman in the
aberrations of her children.
What is the early Christian position in refer-
ence to woman? Christ does not choose any
woman among the twelve, but He deals with
woman in utter freedom, as we see, e. g., in the
woman that is a sinner,’ and in the Samaritan
woman at the well..° Women minister unto
Him, and He first shows Himself to women after
the resurrection. His tenderest friendships is
with Mary of Bethany. In the early Church
women prophesy.* Paul believes that in Christ
there is neither male nor female.” But he
advocates the limitation of woman in the public
worship, and wants her to keep silent and ask
any questions that may be in her mind of her
husband at home.** Woman is to have her head
covered in the public assemblies, While the
9Luke VII: 37 ff.
10 John IV: 1 ff.
11I Corinthians XI: 5; Acts XXI: 9.
12Gal. III: 28.
13 Corinthians XIV: 34, 35.
264 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
man is nothing without the woman, nor the
woman without the man in the Lord, still the
man is the head of the woman, as Christ is the
head of the man. The glory of the man is Christ,
the glory of woman is man.'* This limita-
tion of woman was intended for Corinth where
women were rather too free and bold. A social
gradation which puts woman below man is
implied, but this differentiation does not affect
the equality of soul. It only touches the outer
customs of the church and leads Paul to a
principle of the headship of man.
The right of the child. What is the legitimate
place of the child? How shall its moral freedom
be regarded? There has been great progress
in the proper appreciation of the child and of
child-life in our days. We have begun to apply
the ideal of Christ in definite manner; and we
are learning to understand Paul, when, with all
admonition to the child to be obedient, he coun-
sels parents not to be cruel, and not to provoke
their children to wrath.** The day of harsh and
undue severity toward the child has passed ex-
cept where there is backwardness of moral
status. The child is being studied to understand
its real nature and mind. Everything is being
done in home and school to give the child the
best conditions of health and the best opportun-
ities of education. It is only the greed of selfish
economic interest in industry that is holding to
child-labor because it is cheap. The pressure
of the law must still be used against the moral
delinquency of profiteering manufacturers.
1¢ Cf. I Corinthians XT.
15 Matthew XIX: 14,
16 Ephesians VI: 4.
 THE FAMILY 265
But perhaps, with all the care now given the
child and with all the liberty that is allowed,
the real freedom of the child that will make it
a personality has not been attained. Parents
have become indulgent to the extreme, and long
before the child knows what best to choose it
is permitted to have its own way. Over against
the excessive discipline of a former age we have
searcely any discipline at all. Thus the child
becomes selfish and fails to understand common
rights of liberty. To gain the attention of the
child in education we have almost turned the
school into a playground. From the Montessori
school upward the child is supposed by some
innate tact to discover itself, and to be capable
as a born democrat to govern itself without any
interference by elders. Interest is the charm,
the open sesame of education. Duty has been
relegated to the scrap-heap. The result is a life
that cannot meet the real issues and will fail
in the test of experience because it has not
learnt the control of freedom and its law of love.
The child has to be chastened so gently that it
does not know that it is being punished. All
corporal punishment is tabooed, and yet sweet
reasonableness is not producing saints. Self-
willed ideas of desire take the place of moral
freedom; and we have youth, often drunk with
the intoxication of its unrestrained rights and
liberty, that has lost its moral background.
The modern liberty of the child will destroy
vital liberty unless we return to some sense and
practice of the truth, that it is good for youth
to bear its yoke. Control in freedom is only
learnt when the child is controlled to freedom.
266 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
REFERENCES
Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, Chapter XXVI.
Borden P. Bowne, Principles of Ethics, Chapter IX.
L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Part I, Chapters IV,

Ed. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of Moral

Ideas, Chapters XXV, XXVI, XL, XLI, XLII, XLIII.
Fr. Paulsen, Ethics, Book IV, I.
W. Wundt, Ethics, Part IV, Chapter II.
Chas. Gore, The Question of Divorce.
G. E. Howard, The Question of Matrimonial Institutions.
W. Goodsell, The Family as a Social and Educational
Institution.
John Stuart Mill, On the Subjection of Women.
 CHAPTER XIII
THE CHURCH

Why treat of the church? What necessity

is there for considering the church in a general
ethic? Does the usual text-book on morals
do so? There is no discussion at all in most
books on ethics about the church. But this is
a real oversight. Wherever there is religion
there is some organization of it. Durkheim
says correctly: ‘‘Never was there a religion
without a church.’’ Religion particularly
among the lower tribes is social. Individual
religion is a later development, and it has never
crowded out the social form. In any fairly full
study of social ethics the church can no more
be omitted than the family and the state.
As religion has a bearing upon morals! its
social form must raise some ethical questions.
As far as the church develops man ethically it
must receive attention in any moral estimate
of man. Freedom of character, which leads
it to function for the good, lies within the task
of the church. An effort must be made to
evaluate the church ethically. What is its
service for morals? To what degree does it
meet the ideal? These practical questions about
1Cf. above Chapter IT.
267
268 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
the present worth and work of the church lead
us to search for its fundamental ethical place.
Our problem today is to find the fundamental
moral issues of the Christian church.
The church and truth. Why do we associate
the church, first of all, with truth? The church
is the institution of truth. As the family is the
the moral centre for the kindly virtues, so the
chureh is the centre for truth. But we must
define what is meant by truth. There is truth
ascertained and found by man as he searches
and discovers the usual, natural facts about the
universe and himself. But there is also truth
that is concerned with spiritual and moral
realities. Man has always accepted such truth
in religion as a gift and bestowal. Consequently
all religion claims revelation of spiritual truth.
This truth aims to satisfy man’s soul. It is not
truth for the intellect as such, not for the
emotions and volitions in themselves, for it
serves neither science nor art as an end. The
truth of religion is the final, ultimate necessity
for man’s spirit and spiritual life. In Chris-
tianity Christ asks to be accepted as the way
of religion and the reality of life because He is
the truth.2 The religious satisfaction in truth
is to be obtained in Christ, the personality, the
fulfillment of religion and the motive of freedom
in ethics.
In striving to know the moral service of
religious truth we are led to admit its super-
naturalism. If the truth of religion abandons
its supernaturalism, with its peculiar authori-
tative claim, it becomes speculation, and its
2John XIV: 6.
 THE CHURCH 269
epétematic efforts are only philosophy. It
is
the belief in the divine character of the truth of
religion which differentiates it from other truth,
and therefore gives it a peculiar power
for the
moral life. Real, vital religious truth is the
enemy of superstition. What low forms of
religion held and did, and what magic pract
and in part handed on from age to age, iced
stitute the remnants of traditional belie con-
f and
practice which we call superstition.
Super-
stition is in conflict with the growth of
know-
ledge, and, despite the appearance of order
, has
in reality a disordered, disjointed world
gov-
erned by the arbitrary caprice of a disto
rted
supernaturalism. Rationalism has never
liber-
ated men in the mass from superstition.
Some
times even the most intelligent men hold
to
strange superstitions contradicting their gen-
eral rationality. The spirit of man longs for
some divine tokens, and will often seek them in
the strangest quarters and in the most illogical
way. The escape from superstition and the
ethical freedom in religious truth is best guar-
anteed through a supernaturalism that does not
deny or destroy the just results and fair infer
.
encesof the searching mind of man.
The church must have progressive truth to
preserve a just supernaturalism. As mankind
passes from age to age the treasure of truth
which the church possesses must be re-inter-
preted again and again. It must satisfy the
changing mental outlook of men, and their
temper and mood in different times. Even the
common people have a different state of mind
in the various periods of history. -If the reli-
270 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

gious truth of the church is to avoid becoming

superstition it cannot assume a final statement
of the faith in the forms of thought or culture
of any past age. A church, which rejects all
that is modern, because it has clothed its con-
ceptions in the garments of the scientific and
philosophic terms that have been outlived,
serves ignorance and obstructs the free pro-
gress of truth. Nothing serves so much. to
create the impression that religion needs ignor-
ance, as the attitude that will not rethink its
faith in each age, but simply lives on inherited,
undigested ideas that are memorized and
repeated. There must be a contin uous read-
justment by the church of its supernaturalism
to progress, not by destroying the supernatural
but by seeing it in a new light.
- But the progressive adjustment of religious
truth ought not to degenerate into radicalism.
The spirit of man needs a continuity and cer-
tainty in his faith. These radicalism cannot
furnish, for it has no sense of history, and wants
to reconstruct the whole world anew in every
age. Through it the very roots of supernatur-
alism are constantly being uprooted. Progress
cannot identify itself with radicalism, and
therefore needs the balance of a sane conserva-
tism. Not all that is new is true, and not all
that is old is wrong. There are certain per-
manent characteristics of man, and he possesses
certain ineradicable spiritual and moral needs.
To meet these a church must hold to some con-
servative content of truth which it cannot
abandon in essence without a loss, no matter
 THE CHURCH 271
how it brings this unchanging content to men
in varying forms.
But have we not missed the whole underlying
meaning of religion by stressing the relation of
the church to truth? Is not religion essentially
emotion? This peculiar, prevailing idea, that
rests on certain inferences form primitive reli-
gion, and upon a selection of certain outstanding
features in American forms of religious life,
disrupts man’s inner spiritual life. Its atomism
fails to note that there never has been a religion
without a set of beliefs and convictions. Super-
naturalism is not merely for the heart but also
for the head. It is active but also meditative.
The truth of the church is for the whole man,
and therefore it cannot be freed from intellec-
tual elements. Religion to be lived must be
understood, otherwise it becomes mere imitation
or unthinking traditionalism. Men have always
had some forms of belief and therefore some
creeds. Creeds are as universal as religion.
What we believe must clothe itself into certain
ideas and be stated in certain words. The con-
tention for a creedless religion deceives itself,
for a religion without convictions and some
statement of its faith, whether definitely for-
mulated or not, is impossible psychologically,
and cannot be found historically. The truth
believed must, however, be believed freely, and
must be freely confessed and spread. The
ethical danger of a creed is not.its existence,
but its intolerant abuse. The effort should
never be made to impose it on any one without
willing acceptance after full and free conviction.
The inherited creeds must be interpreted his-
272 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
torically and used as guides intelligently. They
dare not be made masters of our faith, but only
notable formulations of the past, which express
the substance of what we are convinced of as
our own belief. Whenever a church endeavors
to enforce its creed, and assents to persecution
of whatever kind, it destroys the free appeal
of truth. Religious truth lke all truth must
win through its own merit and not through force
or through false authority. Freedom is the
very atmosphere of truth.
The nature of the church’s work. What shall
the church do with the truth that it holds?
What is its purpose? The truth for which the
ehurch stands puts the obligation upon the
church to perpetuate and to spread it. Because
there is a value for freedom in spiritual truth
it must be handed on through the agency of
the chureh. The justification of the church
ethically in extending itself rests upon the
moral results of its truth. It is this test which
Christ desires to have applied to all teachers
and teaching, when He says: ‘‘By their fruits
ye shall know them.’’* The ethical outcome
of doctrine is its defense and the strength of
its appeal. The mere mystical satisfaction has
i1s place but it is not adequate, because religious
truth tends toward the conscience. <A church
has a moral right of existence, and a justifica-
tion of its work if it holds to a definite body of
truth. The better the ethical progress brought
about by the work of the church, the larger
its right to live. It does happen that a good
faith does not produce its logical results, be-
3 Matthew VII: 20.
 THE CHURCH 273
cause of individual sin, or through limiting
and
distorting national characteristics. On the
con-
trary, a faith ethically inferior will not
bring
about the defects of its position, because those
that hold it may be under the past influence of
a better truth, or may follow a superior morality
about them in a society shaped by higher stan-
dards. Whenever in history a certain side of
truth seemed neglected it offered opportunity
for a new group to stress the truth that was
overlooked. But finally no church ean ade-
quately live through the emphasis upon a single
great element of truth. There must be the
balance of the whole body of truth. An excess
often rights itself in history. Extreme predes-
tination has passed away in part through its
ethical defect. Exclusive emotionalism seems
to have had its day because it lacked the fullest
appeal to conscience.
The church may use any means to win men
to its truth, but if it wants the moral results
for character it must use the method most effec-
tive for ethical growth. Character is not formed
by quick changes. It must grow gradually into
personality through the habits of the good led
by the ideal. This implies that moral progress
is educative. Consequently that church will
produce the best ethical advance that uses the
best education for morals and religion. The
child must receive the ideals and be led to know
the right according to its capacity. From the
age of childhood into youth, and onward, the
work of the church in all its departments will
be genuinely helpful for the moral unfolding,
as far as it is educative. Education is not only
274 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
a specific task alongside of the other work of
the church, but it ought to be the controlling
spirit of all that the church does. The message
of the church dare not be simply emotional, or
a call to action. The basis must be instruction.
Christ recognized this when He enjoined His
disciples to bring in the nations by teaching
them.‘ Missionary operations will be of no final
avail without impartation of truth by education.
The moral demand upon the church is for
thoughtful development, through the training
that creates personality, in the freedom of the
truth that is known and grows into the life
of man.
The church must also include in its work the
right expression of love. Its truth always seeks
to produce love. The God of Christianity is
Love, anl love is the law of liberty in the
Christian moral conception. The genuine spirit
of love must lead the church to every kind of
activity that love demands. No matter what
general work may be carried on outside of the
ehurch, it ought to engage in all the spheres of
rescue, prevention and true charity. Into them
it should put the strength and power of its
motive of love as superior in purpose and out-
look. But the higher motive dare not neglect
the best methods and plans of the present. High
motives do not excuse deficient execution and
wrong method. The church has often begun
work, like charity organization, and then has
allowed it to pass into the free use of society.
The philanthropy of the present day has had its
inspiration in the church, even if it is not
4 Matthew XXVIII: 20.
 THE CHURCH 275
credited to the church. Most of those who
give
themselves to modern philanthropy recei
ve their
inspiration through the church. The
life that
makes for mercy flows out from the churc
h,
but it waters and fructifies many fields beyo
nd
the borders of the church.
The social work of the church. Is there any
specific task incumbent upon the church in the
great, modern questions of society? If the
church has any value for man in all his attitudes
it must have some social message. To make
it
effective in its special nature certain dangers
must be avoided. First there dare not be one-
sided emphasis upon the social. There is much
modern sociology which thinks that man can
only be dealt with as a social being. It puts
such emphasis upon the mass that the individ-
ual is only a number in a group. There is truth
in the social outlook. Plato could only define
justice through the Republic. Aristotle made
man a political animal. But man is also an
individual. In the balance between the social
and individual lies the solution. Personality
is both individual and social. The church ecan-
not adopt most of the philosophy of modern
social thought, but it must develop the truth
of the Kingdom of God to find its social task.
Second, the error of most modern social phil-
osophy is the exclusive point of view of the
external. The social problem is supposed to
be the question of the economic needs of man.
Their right adjustment is interpreted as the
end of mankind. But man will never be helped
merely from without. A new social order means
a new moral order. The church that is wise
276 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

will not overlook the value of the outer. It

uses it in its charity and work of mercy, where
the bodily need is not overlooked. But the
bodily is only the occasion to reach into the
conscience and soul of man. The church will
not succeed in helping society if it loses itself
in the mere external tasks of social betterment.
Third, much social progress is demanded
through legislation. The church will never
oppose any law that makes for a better society
through restraint of the forces of evil. But law
cannot produce righteousness. Men must have
a new conscience to do good, and not an increase
of legislation. Therefore the church, working
upon the conscience of man,’ ought never to
deceive itself that it is helping society by enter-
ing the field of legislation. To make a law to
produce good is the process of impatience and
shortsightedness. It contradicts the facts in-
volved in the betterment of society. A law
that does not come out of a moral enlighten-
ment only produces transgression. Life that
is good comes out of a new motive.
With the avoidance of these dangers the
social obligation of the church is not fulfilled.
It is the business of the church to recognize
that there is a social life, that this social life is
very defective, and that it-needs the large
awakening of the social conscience. ‘To remain
aloof from the great evils of modern society is
as wrong as to neglect the individual life. The
5‘¢The Church’s pronouncements on social and economic
questions must be such and such only as grow out of the dis-
tinetive function of the Church as a religious imstitution con-
ceived primarily with motives and ideals.’?’ Wm. Adams
Brown, The Church in America, p. 157.
 THE CHURCH 277
duty of the church cannot be
met simply
through the changing of individual
lives funda-
mental as such a mission is. Men
have social
relationships that must be moralized,
many
because
of them are altogether unmorali
zed, or
half-moralized, and simply follow
traditional
attitudes. In the propaganda that
obscures
facts in modern social contests, the chur
ch must
seek to get at the real status. Then
it ought
boldly proclaim the moral truths involved with
out fear or favor. Great leaders of the -
church
in the past have not hestitated to give
voice to
the claims of righteousness in the mora
ls ills of
society. Chrysostom spoke plainly agai
nst the
vanity and luxury of his day. Luther did
not
abstain from giving his opinion on the econ
omic
evils and the disorders of the society of
the
sixteenth century. There are many messages
of
the prophets that contain permanent principl
es
of righteousness, and need to be applied to our
times by the church.
The church and its worship. Is there any
moral question involved in the worship of the
church, or does it belong simply to the religious
problems of a’church? While the first aim of
worship is to lead men into communion with
God, and it is therefore religious, still if the
God worshipped is ethical His worship must
be so also. Itis implied in the saying of Christ:
‘‘God is a spirit, and they that worship Him
must worship Him in spirit and truth,’’* that
the spiritual worship is one of truth. Because
truth is a moral attitude a moral relation must
be maintained in worship. The maintenance
6 John IV: 24,
278 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
of the ethical in worship is not finally one of
form. Neither the set form nor the individua-
listie method are wrong in themselves. The
problem is whether the fixed liturgy is abused
and becomes a means of stagnant worship,
merely formal, repititious and mechanical, thus
injuring spiritual worship. The individualis-
tie method may become erratic, abusive of
devotion, non-beautiful, and destroy spiritual
worship. The worship must aid in making
man express his real attitude toward God. It
must be honest, sincere, whole-hearted, leading
to the genuine worship of a free man before the
God who gave him liberty.
The church as an organization. What are
the problems that pertain to the church as
organized? Every church to do its work must
have some form of organization. But the or-
ganization ought to be secondary to the prophe-
tic message of the church. Above all, it is not
morally defensible to make the question of
organization one of divisive difference, unless
the organization hinders the truth. But even
when organization is not made primal it can
become a hindrance. Too much attention may
be given by the leadership of the church to the
maintenance of the organization. Its glory and
progress may be sought; it may be exalted
without the honest self-criticism it needs, not
in its ideal purpose but in its practical life and
administration. Machinery can become too
pronounced and powerful. The consistency of
an administrative policy may be maintained to
the detriment of honesty and the freedom of
the church. The whole spiritual purpose of
 THE CHURCH 279
the church is liable to be injured and obstructed
where the interest in effective organization
becomes controlling and occupies the minds
and the talents of the leadership of the church
too exclusively. There will then be a trend
toward centralization beyond the necessities of
the work, and the church will repeat past errors
in stressing powerful organization rather than
the power of its free and unhampered truth.
The church and the state. Among all the
problems affecting the church none is more far-
reaching, than the question, how shall the
church be related to the state. In the religion
of the lower tribes the medicine man, or the
shaman, or the priest control the common life
of the tribe. Nothing is undertaken without
the sanction of the religious leaders. When
religion receives its national form, either an
organized priesthood rules, or the king is the
centre of religious organization. The ruler is
deified and the ideal of the state becomes divine.
With the rise of Christianity the established
religion of the state opposed the new faith and
made it a forbidden religion (religio illicita).
After the act of Constantine gave Christianity
the endorsement of the state the church devel-
oped gradually into the controlling power of
life. It showed its spiritual and moral power
when Ambrose would not admit Theodosius to
the services of the church before he had pub-
licly repented for a cruel deed. But this moral
control soon developed into power over the
policy and government of the state, and become
political. The outstanding historical fact dem-
onstrating this clearly is the compulsory jour-
280 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
ney of Henry IV of Germany to Canossa at the
bidding of the Pope Gregory VII. Another
change took place in the days of the Reforma-
tion. The churches of the European continent
came under the control of the princes of differ-
ent provinces, who were called bishops in
necessity as the chief members of the church.
In Geneva the mind of Calvin governed the
city according to strict moral laws of religion.
In England Henry VIII directly reformed the
church and made it the established church of
England. It was only on American soil that the
effort was made to have a free church and a
free state. But does this freedom mean entire
lack of connection? Is there no co-ordination?
What are the conditions and what should they
be?
In great measure the church and the state
live their separate and independent lives, each
fulfilling its own task. The state gives the
churches legal status and protects them. The
churches serve the state indirectly through the
making of good character which is necessary
for good citizenship. But the duty of the
church does not end with its influence upon
individuals in the state. It has an obligation
in the interest of truth and righteousness
toward the state. At all timesthere should go
forth from its streams of influence that help in
keeping the state moral, and moralizing it
where it is amoral or immoral. The church
ought to have a message for the ethical import
of great state questions, and it ought to elevate
the political situation through the stirring up
of the conscience of men. Sometimes it must
 THE CHURCH 281
enter directly into a state question when this
question has a large spiritual and moral con-
tent. This was the case in the problem of
slavery. It obtains in the question of prohibi-
tion, and in the modern selfish movement
toward bloc-rule by small organized economic
groups to the detriment and freedom of the
whole people. But the church should never
descend into the political arena or maintain a
lobby. Its voice must be heard, but it should
refrain from interfering with state action ex-
cept for its own protection in critical situations.
There are two ways in which the church
oversteps its rights. The first is the power
brought to bear by a church through its organ-
ized strength in order to obtain state aid for
its institutions. Such action is unfair to all
other churches, violates equity, and makes the
state the direct supporter of a church or of
churches to the loss of the independence of the
church. The second is the effort to perpetuate
the experiment of Calvin at Geneva. It con-
sists in the church demanding certain restric-
tive laws and, ordinances. True it is that the
state ought to protect the church in all its
rights, above all in the freedom to worship un-
molested. To this extent the church, e. g., can
ask for Sunday laws. It can oppose the break-
ing down of the American Sunday, through
uttering its voice on behalf of the necessity of
a day of rest, and for the protection of the
moral value of Sunday for the state. But when
a church or group of churches demand definite
prohibitory laws against certain liberties on
Sunday, or strive to impose restrictions upon
282 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
amusements not considered wrong or impure
in themselves, they assume control over con-
sciences that differ. Their effort is to enforce
by law their own views upon the state and all
its citizens of various faiths. Such action
would make one opinion of common moral
rights binding and destroy the liberty of
conscience.
The state may encroach upon the liberty of
the church in two ways. First both the church
and the state have their claim upon education.
The church must have education for its truth
and life, and the state for the training of its citi-
zens. The state ought at all times respect the
rights of the church, unless the schools of the
church are so deficient in efficiency that they
lower the common intelligence, or unless the
church schools make a _ divided citizenry
through fostering religious intolerance, or prop-
agating anti-American sentiments of language
or nationalism. The state needs the religious
teaching of the church which it cannot furnish
in its schools. This is being granted today
against the opinion of some radical educators
and sociologists, who want the state schools to
teach some universal religion and morals and
really establish a state-religion of mere theism.
But the state is endangering the church when
it allows the teaching of certain naturalistic
hypotheses as facts in the lower grades of the
schools before the children are ripe enough to
judge. There is in fact opposition to the faith
of the church whenever any sort of materialis-
tic teaching obtains in the lower schools, the
high schools, and the universities. By devel-
 THE CHURCH 283
oping a great system, and through strong cen-
tralization, the state often injures the freedom
of education. The injury generally falls upon
the schools of the church. <A free people need
all types of schools and no great system ought
at any time destroy the right of a school to its
life. So great is the modern pressure of cen-
tralized education that freedom has almost
ceased. The state has begun to dictate not
only in the interest of efficiency, but also in
details of management.
The second encroachment upon the liberty of
the church is made by the state in times of war.
When men are swept off their feet by the tre-
mendous emotions that make the war-spirit,
the state asks the church to keep silence. It
is not to pass upon the justice of a war. On
the other hand, it is expected to accept the
moral justification of the war that is offered, to
stir up and keep alive the morale of the people
for war, to serve as an agitator, to preach hate
against another nation, to exalt the national
consciousness and pride, and even to be a col-
lecting agency for war-funds. This demand
asks the church to abandon its own right of
judgment and its truth of love. The church
should surely not oppose the state, especially
in a critical time. But it is an unjustified tak-
ing away of the liberty of the church to make
it a war agency while its message is to be that
of the Prince of Peace.
The freedom of the church does not mean,
however, that it should raise a revolution
against the state. The Christian teaching
enjoins submission. Christ did not permit
284 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
Himself to aid the revolutionary zealots of His
day. On the contrary He advised giving Cae-
sar what was the due of Caesar.’ Power was
not opposed to power, although Pilate was told
by Christ, that such power as Pilate had over
Him was given by God.* Paul advised the
Christians to be obedient to the Roman rule,
for it bore the sword to punish the evil-doers
and protect the righteous.® It was the great
restraining force for law and order.*® In the
whole early church men were bidden rather to
suffer than to disturb the order of government.
When the Christians experienced the persecut-
ing power of the state they comforted them-
selves with the final triumph of God’s King-
dom and Christ’s rule," but they were never
advised to rebel. Their freedom of utterance
was not to cease, and their right to proclaim
the gospel was not to be surrendered at any
cost. It was to be carried on if necessary at
the risk of their lives. But no matter how the
state might oppose and persecute, the church
was not to take the sword, or endeavor as a
church to overthrow any state evil as it might
be. The fact that Christians were kings, a
spiritual, royal priesthood,” was not to be used
for political purposes. Its consequences were
great through the new ferment.in Christianity,
but this was to work out spiritually, and not
through the use of force by the church or for
the church.
7 Matthew XXII: 21.
8 John XIX: 11.
9 Romans XIII: 1 ff.
10TI Thessalonians II: 7.
11 Cf. Revelation.
12T Peter II: 9.
 THE CHURCH 285

REFERENCES
Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, Chapters III, II. par. 3.
H. Martensen, Christian Ethies, Vol. II, par. 133 ff.
J. N. Figgis, Churches in the Modern State.
Leighton Parks, The Crisis of the Churches.
Chas. A. Ellwood, The Reconstruction of Religion.
Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianizing the Social Order.
Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis.
Walter Rauschenbusch, A Theology for the Social Gospel.
William Adams Brown, The Church in America.
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, ‘‘Industrial Relations and the Churches;’’
Vol. CIII, No. 192.
Elijah E. Kresge, The Church and The Ever-Coming
Kingdom of God.
 CHAPTER XIV
THE STATE

What is the place of the state? In the seven-

teenth and eighteenth centuries there was
much unhistorical individualism. Through it
there arose the theory, that man at the begin-
ning was without any government. A _pre-
political condition of society was supposed to
have existed, which men ended by making a
social contract, because the war of all against
all had to cease. The great advocates of this
view were Hobbes and Rousseau. But the
nineteenth century corrected this unhistorical
opinion. It secured general acceptance for the
fact, that there was always a state of some sort.
No evidence can be found that groups of men
were ever without some government, whether
patriarchal or tribal. The state is a funda-
mental necessity in common life. It is as old
as the family and the church, and of equa!
value for the social well-being of mankind.
The orderliness and steadinessof external life
depend upon the state.
But is the state not a limitation of liberty?
Does it not impair the individual will? If a
society were possible with individual wills
functioning without co-ordination and unity
there would be no place for the state. But in-
286
 THE STATE 287
dividual wills clash, and, therefore, for the
maintenance of common rights and liberty the
state is needed. The individual will only feels
limited and restrained by the state as far as
it fails to recognize the common will. As soon
as we know that we are not only individuals,
but also social beings, we must ask for some
organ that shall maintain the social life, and
for some institution through which the safety
of all and of each shall be guaranteed. The
state is far from being a hindrance to general
liberty. If it functions rightly, it supports,
aids and advances the happiness and progress
of a people, and makes its common life a safe
and an orderly one.
What is the idea of the state? It is very im-
portant to gain a clear conception of what the
state is essentially. Like the family and the
church it is a real personality. But its moral
unity must be found in its essential character
and being. It cannot be a mere corporate per-
sonality as Rosseau thought; nor can it be per-
sonalized as an addition of individuals, or an
order voted into existence by the citizens or
sustained simply by their willingness.’
The personality of the state makes it the
institution of justice. It lives and is to act to
uphold justice in the largest and fullest sense.
This is its moral basis that gives it worth and
purpose in social life. The idea of justice as
the foundation of the state was first enunciated
by Plato. He could not find justice as long as
it was written small in human lives. It had
to be written large in the state, the ideal
1 Laski, Authority in the Modern State, p. 102 ff.
288 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
Republic. Because justice was the moral
centre of the state ‘‘kings ought to be philoso-
phers, and philosophers kings.’’ Only the
thinkers were adequate to solve the great prob-
lems of justice, and not the common, untrained
mind. Plato was the advocate of the expert
in government in order to make justice secure.
We may not agree, that only the expert of a
certain type can govern, but we must admit
that justice is the foundation of the state, its
right and its duty.
Plato opposed Thrasymachus, who held that
might made right. This theory of might, the
claim of the stronger, was altogether unethical.
The state cannot be made and justified by
might. But this extreme form of the concep-
tion of might has been abandoned. A moder-
ate formulation of the necessity of might as
essential to the state has taken its place.
Paulsen conceives the state to be the unity of
right, will and might. The two are placed on
an equal basis. He says: ‘‘The state is the
organization of a people into a sovereign unity
of will, might and right.’’* A large place is
given to will and might beside justice. James
Seth® thinks that: ‘‘The essence of the State is
sovereignty, and the maintenance of the sover-
eign power through coercion or control.’’ In
the same manner Wilson‘ holds that: ‘The
essential characteristic of all government,
whatever its form, is authority. There must
in every instance be, on the one hand, gover-
nors, and, on the other, those who are governed.
2 Ethies, Book IV, Part IV, Chapter I.
8A Study of Ethical Principles, p. 289.
4The State, II, p. 26.
 THE STATE 289
And the authority of governors, directly or in-
directly, rests in all cases ultimately on force.’’
All of these definitions put power on the same
level with justice. They make it an essential
part of the state. The assertion of sovereignty
means, that the state is the final judge of right
in human affairs. Each state claims to be
sovereign. When states differ in their sover-
eign power there is no decision but through
force. Power is combined with sovereignty
and becomes its defense within the state and
without. Such a theory must logically make
war the right of the state. The moral defini-
tion of the state must make justice all-control-
ling, and power only secondary. If justice
demands power it is to be used as a means.
But if justice can be obtained without force it
is the better condition. The conception of the
state which makes power and sovereignty of
power essential glorifies force and endeavors
to make it moral. We must escape from ele-
vating the state into an instrument of power
rather than the institution of justice and jus-
tice alone. Brute force even if carried out by
the common will is never moral. To associate
it with justice as on the same level is a degrad-
ation of justice. This conception has been the
fruitful source of much evil in the world. It
always offers a justification of any war if a
state is to maintain its power and sovereignty.
David Jayne Hill’ has uncovered the fallacy of
the prevailing idea of sovereignty, when he
says of modern states, with their economic
desire wedded to sovereignty: ‘‘Inheriting by
5 The Rebuilding of Europe, p. 26.
290 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
tradition from the past alleged rights of abso-
lute sovereignty, and equipped with military
forces on land and sea, they are engaged in a
struggle for supremacy which they would not
for a moment permit within their own legal
jurisdiction. Were a similar organization
formed within their own borders, adopting as
its principles of action the privileges usually
claimed by sovereign states, it would be
promptly and ruthlessly suppressed as a dan-
gerous outlaw.’’ To this pass the idea of force
and sovereignty has brought the state.
The denial of force as a integral part of the
idea of the state does not overthrow the auth-
ority of the state. Because the state is the
institution of justice it must have and maintain
authority. Authority is the consequence of
justice. When it is necessary to assert the
authority through force then force is justified.
There is a need for a sane understanding of the
authority of the state. Many men seem only
ready to obey the authority of the state when it
is enforced upon them against their self-will.
The origin of the disregard of the authority of
the state is found in a misapplication of the con-
ception that government rests upon the consent
of the governed. The common will and consent
of the people does not give the state the author-
ity which is inherent in justice. Justice is not
established or disestablished by a majority
vote. There is a wrong philosophy of individ-
ualism back of the idea that men by their con-
sent vote the state into its right. In a demo-
cratic form of government, which gives the
largest political liberty, men are privileged to
 THE STATE 291
make known their attitude in affairs of the
state. But the necessity and authority of jus-
tice in the state and through it calls for a reli-
gious foundation. There is a divine will of
government for the good of man, and this con-
stitutes the divine right of government. The
rejection of the divine right of kings, which
meant the handing down of divine power from
God to the kings, ought not to have carried
with it the secularization of the idea of the
state. The functioning of the state through
justice will always suffer to the degree that
men see in the state only a human, historical
institution, and not a necessity of the moral
order founded upon the will and purpose of
God. Country will never be what it ought
until it is joined with God. ‘‘For God and
country’’ is the sound basis of the sentiment
of patriotism. Without the sense of justice as
the will of God, and the state as a minister of
justice, patriotism will degenerate into selfish
ambition of nationalism, and lose its just claim
upon the devotion and sacrifice of men. The
state must stand for sound authority. But the
problem of authority becomes, above all, the
duty so to organize its character and its pro-
cesses as to make it, in the widest aspect, ‘‘the
servant of right and of freedom.’’ *
The task of the state. How shall the admin-
istration of justice through the state be de-
fined? What is the duty and task of the state?
In executing justice the first necessity is to up-
hold justice among the citizens of the state.
As there are always disturbers of right and
6 Laski, Authority in the Modern State, p. 121.
292 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
justice, and as the innocent must constantly be
protected, the state should use the best means
of protective and punitive justice. It must be
an efficient and wisely just protector of common
order, safety and peace. This obligation en-
tails upon the state the punishment of those
that do wrong and commit crime. What is the
best theory and practice of punishment?
There are some who desire to reduce punish-
ment to the scientific problem of disease. They
want to make it purely a pathological question.
But ‘‘to reduce crime to a pathological phenom-
enon, is to sap the very foundations of our
moral judgments; merit as well as demerit,
reward as well as punishment, are thereby
undermined. Such a view may be scientific; it
is not ethical, for it refuses to recognize the
commonest moral distinctions.’’’ The patho-
logical claim destroys freedom and virtually
denies personality. Criminals themselves do
not want to be treated as objects but as individ-
uals. The rejection of the pathological idea does
not, however, involve the acceptance of punish-
ment as retribution and requital. It does not
mean compensation or the satisfaction of re-
venge. ‘‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”’
is the expression of the obsolete practice of
blood-revenge. The greatness.of the crime is not
the measure of the kind and the amount of
punishment to be meted out. The problem is
that of right and justice.
It has been found that the old practice of
imprisonment in the usual prison, or in the re-
formatory for beginners in crime, does not meet
7Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, p. 315.
 THE STATE 293
the highest ends of justice. Criminals are
mostly not changed; the method of confine-
ment, and the practices in prisons, lead to the
breakdown of all self-respect and make any
reformation that might lead to freedom impos-
sible. The new methods of parole and proba-
tion for incipient offenders and for other hope-
ful cases, have in mind the reclamation of the
wrong-doer. But they must be applied with
wisdom, and endeavor to lead the one punished
to a recognition of the wrong. No mere senti-
mentality nor pity are adequate. The moral
order must be upheld, and the offending will
directed to acknowledge the common will and
justice.
The justice of the state does not end with the
maintenance of order and the punishment of
evil doers. This is the police function of the
state. To stop with it is to accept the theory
of laissez-faire. This theory does not measure
up to the idea implied in justice. There is con-
structive justice through which the state ought
to seek to so order the affairs of those under is,
as to render their life as equitable as possible.
Whatever advances the moral well-being in
external life belongs to the state. It must have
an interest in the economic problems and the
opportunities of citizens. The common welfare
of the people is within the range of the duties
of the state.
The method through which justice concerns
itself with welfare demands, that the health of
the people, the prevention of disease, the
proper quarantine, the care of sick and dis-
abled, the protection of the insane, and similar
294 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
tasks, be undertaken. But the largest con-
structive work of the state is education. It is
necessary not simply in the interest of the state
but for the moral good of the people. Particu-
larly in a democracy, where the largest possible
intelligence and goodness are demanded in
order that liberty may be maintained, and the
common rights of the people sustained, educa-
tion is the great duty of the state. It ought to
fuse the people into unity, break down artificial
barriers of social distinction, and produce a
people with common ideals and purposes of
just liberty founded upon right and justice.
The state and the nation. What is the rela-
tion of the state to nationality? Ought they to
be correlated, and how ean this be done in the
best manner? A nation is a group of people
with a common language and with certain
common traditions of history and culture.
When a state covers one nation the situation
for progress is most advantageous. But in
many states this is impossible. In Hurope no
strict line of demarcation can be drawn which
will put just one nation in one state. The exis-
tence of different nationalities under one goy-
ernment creates many difficulties, because one
or the other of the different nationalities does
not receive its full liberty of national rights
and privileges. Frequently there is unwilling-
ness to agree and the suppressed nationality is
restless and dissatisfied. What is the situation
in America? Are we merely a state in the
United States, or a nation?
While many nationalities are represented
amongst us, the United States is nevertheless a
 THE STATE 295
forming nation. We have one language as the
ideal, and we possess common traditions of lib-
erty and democracy. For this reason Ameri-
canization is a just process of education
through which we aim to absorb other national
elements into the final unity of our national life.
The process must not be arbitrary or oppres-
sive, for thus it will strengthen foreign nation-
alisms. Its spirit must be kindly and consid-
erate, leading people of other tongues and tra-
ditions into the understanding of our distine-
tive life and culture. In this manner we shall
advance freedom if we instruct and guide.
The foundation of all education into American
ideals must be moral and rest upon the vital
liberty of common goodness and justice.
The absolute state. What is the meaning
and claim of the absolute state? The absolute
state endeavors to be the one social form with
complete power. It has found advocates both
among materialistic and idealistic philoso-
phers. The great representative of the mater-
ialists was Hobbes. In the days of the Stuarts
he used his idea of man’s pre-political condition,
as a war of all against all, to support the claim
of an absolute monarchy with unlimited power
to keep order and peace. This theory never
gained practical hold in England, but its con-
ception of power to remedy the disorders of
society has frequently been used. When con-
ditions are serious at any time the state must
enforce justice, but there are large groups, who
desire to stifle all movements toward freedom
of any kind through the employment of force.
Force is the cure of desperation and does not
296 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
solve any problem. Its unwarranted use only
creates reaction and does not lead to greater
liberty and privilege.
But the largest influence for the absolute
state has been exerted through the idealists.
Plato thought that in the ideal Republic man
would find his full moral fulfillment. The
state, which in Greek society was the city state,
was to serve all ethical relationships. Plato’s
Republic was the Greek kingdom of God. Con-
sequently the family was dissolved into the
state. The state was conceived as the univer-
sal ethical whole beyond which there was no
great unity. For its sake men were to live and
realize the good. Aristotle was more realistic,
but he also subsumed his ethics to his polities.
The political ideal as the moral totality was the
controlling one. Later Greek Philosophy in
the Stoic school passed beyond Plato and Aris-
totle both in asserting the conscience in the in-
dividual, and in stressing the universalism of
humanity. It was thus that the absolute state
was historically discarded in Greek thought.
This lesson of history was lost, however,
upon modern absolute idealism. It reasserted
the universality of the state with its absolute
power. Hegel formulated the modern theory
of the all-controlling state. Init the absolute
spirit found the final and all-embracing embod-
iment. There is a reversal to the ancient ideal
of the state in the interest of a logical scheme.
Hegel virtually deifies the state. He Says:
‘‘The State is the self-certain absolute mind
which recognizes no definite authority but its
own; which acknowledges no abstract rules of
 THE STATE 297
good and bad, shameful and mean, craft and de-
ception.’’ ‘‘It is the phenomenon of God.—
The absolute government is divine, self-sane-
tioned and not made.’’* Such an ideal rises
far beyond what is justly implied in authority
as divinely willed. In this position Hegel is
not nationalistic, although his formulation has
found lodgment in Treitschke’s political philos-
ophy. In England the Hegelians have the
Same estimate of the state. Bosanquet claims
that the state is the supreme power of social
life.° Fortunately English political life has not
followed these philosophers, but has remained
under the influence of a liberal theory of the
state.”
The error of the ideal of the absolute state is
the impairment of the right of personality in
the individual. Where the state becomes the
expression of absolute thought there is no real
place for the full right and liberty of the indi-
vidual. The absolute state also denies the exis-
tence of social relationships outside of the state.
It can have no logical place for the family. No
appreciation ,is accorded many other possible
moral contacts in free association and fellow-
ship. But there is no liberty in the absorption
of all social relations into the state particularly
in modern society with its many and varying
possibilities of human contact.
The absolute state is the enemy of freedom
and enshrines man in the process of the move-
8 Hegel, System der Sittlichkeit, p. 32 ff: Wallace Hegel’s
Philosophy of Mind, p. CLXXXII. Kuno Fischer, Geschichte
der Neuern Philosophie, Vol. VIII, pp. 726, 738, 907.
9The Philosophical Theory of the State.
10 Of. Hobhouse, The Metaphysical Theory of the State.
298 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
ment of absolute thought. Its destroys both
individual and social liberty.
The socialistic state. What is the meaning
and ideal of the socialistic state? Is it morally
defensible? The socialistic state is the neces-
sary result of the idea of a socialistic society.
If society is to own and control the great re-
sources, tools and means of production, and to
possess the great lines of transportation, it
needs a state through which these socially
owned goods can be administered and managed.
The socialistic state must not be confounded
with the communistic state. In the latter not
only the great articles of production are to be
in the hands of the state, but virtually every-
thing is to be nationalized. The individual will
then be the pensioner of the state in all his
needs. The state will prescribe his work, and
allow him his portion. The communistic state
is the complete abolition of all individual privi-
lege, and it therefore takes away man’s legiti-
mate freedom. At the same time it creates an
enslaved society in which there can be no
natural development and no social freedom,
because every initiative is strangled. The so-
cialistic state allows liberty to a certain degree,
but it also limits free initiative and competition
to a great extent. There is no doubt that the
concentration of production in a few hands,
and the control of public utilities through indi-
vidualism, have forced the state to assume an
increasing supervision and regulation of pri-
vate business on the large scale. This has been
the outcome of the sins of individual ownership
and power especially in its concentrated form.
 THE STATE 299
Nevertheless if the state goes beyond the neces-
sary restriction it enters upon the limitation of
liberty. The socialistic state will become less
and less soundly political, and grow into a
great economic machine, which takes away
from men opportunity and liberty of individual
life with its rights and needs for a sound
society.
The state and anarchism. What is the real
meaning of anarchism? How does it affect the
state? Anarchism refuses to acknowledge all
power and control over the individual. It sees
in the state and in any expression of a common
will the destruction of natural individual
rights. As a protest against despotism, and
the deprival of just individual privilege, it is
explicable. When it appeared in the late
Russian Empire as nihilism it was the result of
harsh oppression. But as an actual theory of
life it aims at the destruction of all social order.
The evaluation of the individual is purely one
of individual desire and wish. Liberty is made
unbridled license. The actual results of anar-
chism would be a disordered society, a state of
constant warfare between men, and the loss of
real freedom.
There are variations of the extreme anarch-
ism that also affect the state. Tolstoi with his
great heart and out of a deep sense of pity
denied the right of the state to punishment.
The extreme measures of Russia, its cruel ad-
ministration of the prison, and its banishment
of men to Siberia serve to make us appreciate
the protest of Tolstoi. But when he wanted a
society that passed no judgment on wrong-
300 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
doers he projected an impossible society. Many
people were unjustly imprisoned in Russia, but
it does not follow therefore that the sinners are
outside of prison and the saints within it. The
mistaken idealism of Tolstoi would overthrow
justice for the sake of pity.
There are two other types of theoretical anar-
chism. The first is the conception of naturalis-
tic evolution, that men will evolve into such a
condition of society, that all will be good, and
will consequently need no government. There
is no promise of such a process that will ever
make the state unnecessary. The second type
consists of those who believe that the develop-
ment of the Kingdom of God will be such in our
present order of society, that men will need no
control because they are all self-controlled.
The position is as utopian as the naturalistic
conception of development. Only in a com-
pletely regenerate society will the state be
unnecessary.
The right of revolution. Is there any moral
justification of revolution? Can ethical judg-
ment approve of the revolutionary attitude in
any form? When the Reformation began, its
leaders, in the interest of order, and to prevent
the Reformation from becoming a revolt,
advised submission to the state absolutely.
They interpreted the New Testament injunc-
tion to individuals" as a general policy for
citizenship. Luther was very determined in
opposing the Peasant Revolt. He believed in
unqualified submission. He says, referring to
Christ’s word of rendering to Caesar the things
11 Of. above p. 284.
 THE STATE 301
that are Caesar’s: ‘‘He here clearly confirms
civil authority, princes, and lords, to whom men
are to be obedient, whoever they may be and
whatever they may be, without regard to
whether they possess or use the rule right-
eously or unrighteously.’’
Calvin is equally strong in advocating un-
questioning obedience to the state. Among his
utterances the following is characteristic: ‘‘ But
let us insist at greater length in proving what
does not so easily fall in with the views of men
that even an individual of the worst character,
one most unworthy of all honor, if invested
with public authority, receives that illustrious
divine power which the Lord has by His word
devolved on the ministers of His justice and
judgment, and that, accordingly, in so far as
public obedience is concerned, he is to be held
in the same honor and reverence as the best of
kings.’’ ?°
But these positions are an overstatement of
the power of the state. They exclude all possi-
bility of changing an essentially evil govern-
ment. Modern liberal ideas allow for the right
of revolution. They find one of their best de-
fenses in the arguments of Locke. He con-
tends that ‘‘the public person vested with the
power of the law, is to be considered as the
image, phantom, or representative of the
commonwealth—and thus he has no will, no
12. Von Weltlicher Obrigkeit, wie weit man ihr Gehorsam
sehuldig sei, Weimar Ed. Vol. II p. 229 ff—Cf. Waring, The
Politicial Theories of Martin Luther.
13 Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. III. ‘‘The
Limits of Obedience due to Civil Rulers,’’ p. 25.
302 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
power but that of the law.’’?* The law is the
standard according to which the right of the
state and its government is to be measured.
When the law is constantly broken the govern-
ing representatives in the state have forfeited
their right to rule. If he that governs misre-
presents the public will he ceases to be the ruler
de jure. ‘‘When he quits this public represen-
tation, this public will, and acts by his own pri-
vate will, he degrades himself, and is but a
single private person without power, and with-
out will that has any right to obedience—the
members owning no obedience but to the public
will of the society.’’*® This representative
conception is in part correct if we make the law
rest on essential justice, and not merely on the
will of society. The governing powers of the
state must have committed continuous and
severe transgressions of the law, to the extent
of making the common life and the individual
life impossible, before the right of revolution
can be morally admitted. When the state per-
sists in injuring the ideal of the state revolu-
tion is advocated by some moralists. But shall
any group of people judge the ideal, and if so,
what group shall decide? There is great dan-
ger in such a’notion, particularly today when
ideals of the state are so conflicting and range
all the way from communism to anarchism.
The violation that destroys the state in essence
is the only one that calls for revolution. When
individual and common liberty of personality
are made altogether unsafe, and the moral
1 Treatise of Civil Government, Book II, Chapter XIII.
15 Locke, Ibid.
 THE STATE 303
order is undermined, then only ean ethics allow
the right of revolution. Considerations of an
economic kind, or social utopias, have no moral
claim for the overthrow of the existing form of
the state. No matter what are the historical
facts of the Revolution that started our
national life, and those that made the French
Revolution typical, we must keep the ethical
judgment clear and unprejudiced in favor of
the continuity of the state. Revolution must
only be ethically defended as an extreme meas-
ure in an unremediable condition that negates
the moral right of liberty in the essentials of
life. Commercial advantages and industrial
difficulties ought never to be used to produce a
revolution. No single groups but a whole
people, or its great majority, must rise on a
just basis against their government, to give
moral foundation to a _ revolution. Unfor-
tunately oppression often so arouses a nation
that the wrongs of despotism produce the evils
of revolution.
The state and war. Is war a necessity for
the state? Can it be morally defended? The
general belief is that the state cannot surrender
the use of war. The necessity of war is justi-
fied as a matter of defense. But what state
admits that it has attacked. The people of all
states are led to think that they are not the
aggressors. Even those that actually declare
the war always show to the satisfaction of their
own people, that they were compelled to act as
they did. In order to give war a moral excuse
no people ever admit their guilt. Hach state is
always right because it is sovereign. And thus
304 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
war is defended as the only way to decide the
counterclaims of sovereign states. To this
deceptive and evasive attitude there is added
the peculiar belief, that God only permits the
right to win. War is explained after the
manner of an ordeal, and the fact is overlooked
that the strongest in soldiery and in economic
resources usually win. The right may produce
the might, but the success of the might
is no proof of the right. It is true that God
directs and overrules the affairs of men, and
even the evil of war, but this governance
is no demonstration that war is the means
of ascertaining the will of God. Another argu-
ment presented for war, is that it develops cer-
tain virtues. Courage, willingness to sacrifice,
patriotism, are claimed as fruits of war. But
it is only by long tradition that the courage of
war and the acclaim of heroism connected with
it have been established. Courage can be ex-
pended upon constructive work, upon discovery
and reclamation of parts of the world.* It is
highest in acts of rescue and in moral situa-
tions. Patriotism and the readiness to sacri-
fice for one’s country can be developed in
peace. In fact the mistaken notion, that only
war calls for sacrifice has lowered the moral
tone of citizens in the times of-peace. Patrio-
tism is no mere sentiment for war, but it is at
its best when men steadily regard the welfare
of their country and love it at all times. The
limitation of patriotism to war, and to a strong
emotion for one’s own country in enmity
16 This is the suggestion of William James ag a moral
substitute.
 THE STATE 305
against another country, has degraded patrio-
tism, and made it ineffective as a constant vir-
tue for the civic betterment and moral advance
of the state. The hope of moral and religious
awakening, in which men attempt to see a moral
use for war, is a disappointment. The tempo-
rary stirring up during a war soon passes away,
and the religious and moral after-effects of war
are not for the good, but show decadence. The
good will remain good, and perhaps be ad-
vanced in character by a hard experience, but
the bad will remain bad and become worse. In
general war produces crime in its wake.
All defenses of war fail to make it moral.
On the contrary it is a perversion of the moral
order. Murder is legitimatized through it, and
the taking of life becomes a business. Lying
and deception are the approved attitudes.
Hate sweeps over peoples, revenge is developed,
and the bitterness of war is handed on as a
memory from generation to generation. Every
war sows the seed of future war. Men are
made a great machine, surrender their freedom,
and submit to a severe control] that asks no
questions. All the evil of military rank with
its destruction of democracy rules supreme.
Science, that ought to be used for the help of
mankind, becomes the servant of destruction.
Thousands of minds think and plan how they
can invent more terrible and more destructive
agencies of war. Cruelty is developed and man
sinks back to the primal, barbaric instincts.
Impurity gains a larger hold. The moral
restraints are removed. The press, the plat-
form, and even the pulpit are commandeered to
306 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
increase the sentiment of hate. To keep up the
morale of war everything is set aside but those
emotions and acts that will win the war.
Surely there is no part of war that does not de-
grade and enslave man. The effort to moralize
war has not succeeded.
But shall the state become pacifistic? If war
is morally wrong have we any right to suffer
it? Morally pacificism is the ideal, but the
state cannot surrender its existence and endan-
ger its life in a non-pacifistic world. The citi-
zens of the state, even if they are convinced of
the essential wrong of war, may feel their obli-
gation to the state. When there is war a con-
flict of duties occurs for those who know what
they owe the state, and who also reject war.
In this conflict the problem is whether it is
better to avoid war, or to submit to the state
and help to save it. At all events we should
labor and strive for a warless world if need be
through suffering. The ideal of peace is
according to the spirit of Christianity.
The state and internationalism. What ought
to be the relation of the state to other states?
Is there a place for international ethics? The
fact that there are many states implies that
they should seek the right moral relation
toward each other. No state can live only to
and for itself. State must co-ordinate itself
with state, not only economically and commer-
cially, but above all ethically. There is then a
demand for an international ethical code and
ideal. The beginnings of moral relationship
between states are indicated in international
law. It records the extent to which states have
 THE STATE 307
agreed upon certain principles that make for
the common rights of all nations. But a law of
nations must have back of it a morality between
nations, that recognizes mutual liberty. The
international morality ought to be the motive
and ideal toward which the formulated inter-
national law moves in its progress.
In international law there are certain agree-
ments as to the limitation of allowable actions
in war on land and sea. The invention of the
aeroplane will necessitate some restrictions of
its use. The right of freedom especially on sea
and in the air are not completely covered by the
present laws. <A larger sense of justice must
inspire the nations to avoid the ruling selfish
policies, and to guarantee the freedom of men.
There are still disparities of naval equipment,
and superiorities of air-attack, that are not
demanded except in the interest of the main-
tenance of the power of the stronger as against
the weaker nations. War will be crowded back
by equalizing war equipment. But more im-
portant still is the recognition that arbitrament
of war does not make for sane justice. There-
fore there should be universal international
courts to adjust disputes between nations.
Such courts would no more destroy national
liberty, than the social adjustment of contests
between individuals takes away real and sane
individual freedom. Internationalism of jus-
tice is not supernationalism, but only justice as
between nations rather than power and fear.
There must be an elevation of international
practice in reference to colonization. At pres-
ent the economic and commercial demands of a
308 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
growing nation move it to seize land from the
weaker nations wherever it can do so. The
weaker nations are not protected and advanced
but preyed upon. The desire for world-mar-
kets is the motive of colonization. There should
be an honest and fair economic co-operation
between nations in the place of the seizure of
lands and products that are wanted from the
less civilized and weaker nations. The imposi-
tion of civilization upon a people in the interest
of commerce is not liberty but enslavement, and
a contradiction of the real spirit of civilization.
Even the motives for advancing a backward
nation are not just if the backward nation does
not freely consent. It is a pretense if any
nation claims to defend a people against
another nation controlling it, when the real
desire is to gain entrance into areas of great
economic value. Nations and peoples can be
delivered from overlords with the approval of
moral sanctions only when such action offers
real liberty.
The ethical relations between nations can be
furthered by associations across national boun-
daries. The modern labor movement has such
international plans. But its internationalism
is class internationalism, and seeks merely the
advantage of one group in society. The total
interest is the economic advantage of labor,
and its control of society, rather than universal
friendship and good-will. The moral unity of
mankind is not sought except to aid labor.
Therefore the internationalism of labor tends to
coercion of humanity, and to the breaking down
of the just right and power of separate states.
 THE STATE 309
The real interest of the common brotherh
of men in liberty is furthered by friendshood
and associations that seek the advancem ips
ent of
science, literature and art.” The more
men
work together in great problems of science
art, the more a common bond in the searc
and
h for
truth is formed. Through it a large and free life
of mankind can be developed. But finally men
will not be fused into the real and lasting fel-
lowship of nations and peoples until there is
a
strong unity of religion. At the present all
faiths ought to seek points of approach, and use
what they have in common, to produce a better
understanding of each other. There can be a
closer relationship for advancing the common
good and freedom through moral and religious
purposes.’* In such contact that religion will
finally win out which has the highest and best
ethics for the accomplishment of the liberty of
men. ‘The missionary enterprise of Christian-
ity ought to be carried on in this spirit, and not
for the glory of any church, or for the influence
of any nationality back of any church, The
universal liberty of man through the develop-
ment of an international moral personality
should be the apex of ethical hope and the goal
of all sound internationalism.
17 The Greeks were unified through their games. Can
modern games be used to aid in creating international good
will?
18 Among various movements of an international character
the World Student Federation has been very effective in
creating good will on a Christian basis.
310 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT
REFERENCES
James Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Part II, Chap-
ters II, III.
Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, Chapter XXI, ff.
Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, Part IV, Chapters
XXIII, XXIV.
Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good, Part III,
Chapters V, 1X, X.
W. Hocking, Human Nature and its Remaking, Chapters
XXVIII, XXX, XXXI, XXXII.
Fr. Paulsen, Ethies, Book IV, Chapters I, II, III.
W. Wundt, Ethics, Part IV, Chapters III, IV.
J. K. Bluntschli, The Theory of the State.
T. H. Green, Lectures on the Principles of Political
Obligation.
Woodrow Wilson, The State.
Bernard Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State.
L. T. Hobhouse, The Metaphysical Theory of the State.
David Jayne Hill, The Rebuilding of Europe.
Viscount James Bryce, International Relations.
Sidney L. Gulick, The Christian Crusade for a Warless
World.
 INDEX
Names of authorities are printed in italics,
Absolute, the, 156, 170. Bentham, Jeremy: religion as
Action, and pessimism, sanction, 23n; on utilitar-
86-87; adjustment of, 126; janism, 120-122, 129; in-
unity of, 175. tensity of pleasure, 133;
Adiaphora, 10. sanctions of, 139; on ma-
Aesthetics, 4. terialism, 142.
Altruism, opposed to egoism, Bergson, Henri: and free
135. will, 31.
Anaxagoras: philosophy of Berkley, George: philosophy
tie OLE Gas
Anarchism, and the state, Binet, Alfred: psychology of
299-300. low forms, 41.
Animism, 17. Biology, and freedom, 39.
Aquinas, Thomas: definition Boethius: 183n.
of virtue, 112. Bosanquet, Bernard: theory
Aristippus: and pleasure, 116. of the state, 297.
Aristotle: logic of, 58; mean- Brahmanism, and _ freedom,
ing of ‘‘the good,’’ 102; 49; and pessimism, 83.
defence of, 103n; virtues of, Brain, and free will, 36; and
111, 234, 242; and happi- mind, 37-38.
ness, 131; and reason, 146; Brown, William Adams: the
ethics of, 195, 223; on in- church, 276n.
terest, 210; idea of state, Buddhism, and freedom, 50;
296. and pessimism, 83.
Arnold, Matthew: on conduct, Butler, Joseph: on self-love,
9; definition of ‘‘God,’’ ENT.
24; and pessimism, 73.
Art, and morals, 11; and Calculus, hedonistic, 121.
pessimism, 85; apprecia- Calkins, Mary W.: duty and
tion of, 223. freedom, 109.
Asceticism, and reason, 160— Calvin, John: theory of the
1623) effects “of, 162) ~of state, 301.
Christianity, 171-172. Casualty, and freedom, 46.
Atomists, notion of brain, 36. Cause, attachment to, 205—
Aurelius, Marcus: on reason, 206.
148. Chalmers, Thomas: and char-
Authority, of conscience, 67- ity, 233.
69. Character, and religion, 18;
311
312 INDEX
and free will, 34; and Courtship, 253-254.
knowledge, 177. Creeds, 271.
Charity, 233. Cynics: philosophy of, 147.
Child, right of the, 264-265.
Christ: high ideals of, 26; Dance, problem of, 220n.
pessimism of, 92; optimism Democracy, defined, 30.
of, 93; and pleasure, 143; Desires, and religion, 20; and
personality of, 197; and pessimism, 83.
woman, 263; as the truth, Determinateness, social, 185.
268; and the state, 284. Dewey, John: relation of eco-
Christianity, and morals, 25; nomics to ethics, 8; doc-
and free will, 50; and con- trine of progress, 89;
science, 69; and pessimism, meaning of ideals, 97;
91-94; and hedonism, 142- “‘the good,’’? 100, 103; the
143; and reason, 170-173; right, 105; naturalizing vir-
and personality, 196-200; tues, 111; and Epicurean-
humility of, 223; and mar- ism, 119; inadequacy of,
riage, 257; in the state, 130; and pleasure, 133;
279. ethics of, 200n.
Church, and marriage, 257; Divorce, 258-259.
and religion, 267; and the Dostoievsky, Feodor: emo-
truth, 268-272; nature of tion in conscience, 63.
work of, 272-275; social Drink, problem of, 218.
work of, 275-277; and Durkheim, Emile: and church,
worship, 277-278; organiza- 267.
tion of, 278-279; and the Duty, 95, 106-110; claim of,
state, 279-284. 108; imperative of, 109;
Civilization, and pessimism, as an ideal, 113; and
87-90. pleasure, 137-140; and rea-
Clarke, Samuel: on intuition- son, 165-166; and _ love,
ism, 150; on virtue and 190; or virtues, 202.
reason, 167n.
Conduct, and religion, 18; in Economies, relation of ethics
hedonism, 125; evolution to, 7, 9; and _ civilization,
of, 126; freedom of, 127, 88; in Christ’s teaching,
Ais 199.
Conklin, Edwin G.: on evolu- Education, of the church,
tion, 41. 273; of the state, 294.
Conscience, and freedom, Ellwood, Charles A.: ‘‘The
54ff; meaning of, 54-55; Reconstruction of Reli-
judgment of, 56, 63; origin gion,’’ 16n.
of, 59; intellectual ele- Emotion, and conscience, 61,
ments of, 60; emotional, 61, pone and pessimism, 82-
62-65; and volition, 65;
social, 66-67; authority of, End, the 95, 100-104; and
67; infallibility of, 68; and ideals, 113; and pleasure,
Christianity, 69. 135; in the individual, 159.
Courage, 221. Engagement, 253-254.
 INDEX 313
Environment, and free will, God: is ethical, 25; and
41, right, 106; as the Absolute
Epictetus: and reason, 148. Individuality, 158; as ab-
Epicurus: meaning of pleas- solute good, 188; is Love,
ure, 117; life of control, 190; love toward, 192;
131; philosophy of, 141; Kingdom of, 198, 300;
Ethies, definition of, 3, 200; A a of, 277; will of,
as a normative science, 4; AIG
relation to other sciences, Goethe, Wolfgang: ‘‘ Faust,’’
5-9; universality of, 9-12. 76, 196; naturalism of,
Euripides: and the Greek 204n.,
gods, 15. Goldenweiser, Alexander A.:
Evolution, and hedonism, 125— and the family, 250n.
128. Good, the, 95, 100-104; ex-
pression of, 113; and
Family, value of, 249-250; pleasure, 136; and reason,
spirit of 250-253. 163; and personality, 182.
Feeling, race, 246. Green, Thomas Hill: defini-
Fichte, Johann: and free will, tion of ideal, 99; ‘‘the
31; idealism of, 78; theory end,’’ 104.
of the ‘‘ego,’’ 155-156. Grotius: and right, 106.
Foree, use of, 230; in the Groups, conflict between, 245.
state, 290.
Forgiveness, 231. Haas, John A. W.: ‘In the
Fraternities, 235. Light of Faith,’’? 18n, 21-
Freedom, problem of, 2; and 22n, 27n.
religion, 14ff; realization Habits, and religion, 20; and
of, 24; and _ conscience, free will, 33; and virtue,
54ff; organ of, 54; and 111; of right, 217.
pessimism, 72ff; through Haeckel, Ernst: theory of
pleasure, 115ff; through mind, 41,
reason, 145ff; of thought, Hamilton, William: philoso-
169, 241; through person- phy of, 78.
ality, 174ff; dnd the will, Happiness, principle of, 124;
174; and vocation, 207— and pleasure, 131-133; and
212; and work, 212-216; reason, 147.
and truth, 235-242; and Hardy, Thomas: novels of, 47.
justice, 242-248; of wo- Hedonism, ancient, 116-119;
man, 261-264. evolutionary conception of,
Freud, Sigmund: theory of 125-128; and virtue, 140-
mind, 38; theory of sex, 141, 193; philosophy of,
220. 141; and Christianity, 142—
Friendship, 234. 143; and reason, 145; op-
posed to rationalism, 158.
Galton, John: and heredity, Hegel, George : and
39. absolute reason, 78; free-
Gambling, morality of, 214. dom through reason, 157;
Gentleness, 228. idea of the state, 296.
314 INDEX
Henotheism, 17. Infallibility, of conscience,
Heracleitus: philosophy of, 68.
77. Instincts, influenced by reli-
Heredity, and free will, 40. gion, 18-19; common, 180.
Hill, David Jayne: the idea Intellect, and conscience, 60.
of sovereignty, 289. Intelligence, measurement of,
History, relation of ethics to, 35; and free will, 36.
pekch Internationalism, and _ the
Hobbes, Thomas: social eon- state, 306-309.
tract, 286; as materialist, Intuitionism, modern, 150-—
295. 154.
Hobhouse, L. T.: incipient
moral life, 7; reason and James, William: choice of
conscience, 62; permanency freedom, 32; theory of
of ideal, 100; ‘‘the good,’’ emotions, 37; substitute for —
101, 103; right, 105; and war, 304n.
duty, 108n; and utilitarian- Jones, Sir Henry: and indi-
ism, 120n; failure of Mill, vidual freedom, 49n.
138; and the state, 297n. Justice, and freedom, 242—
Holland, H. Scott: individul- 248; interpretation of, 244;
ity, 183-184, institution of, 287; in the
Holt, Edwin B.: theory of state, 290.
mind, 38. Judgment, of acts, 55; law
Honor, 222. back of, 57.
Hume, David: philosophy of, Jung, C. G.: theory of mind,
78; and suicide, 225, 38.
Humility, 222.
Kant, Immanuel: necessity of
Ibsen, Hendrik: and easual- future life, 24; and casu-
ity, 47. ality, 30; philosophy of,
Idealism, 169. 78; stressing of duty,
Ideals, and religion, 23; in 108, 165; philosophy of
realism, 74; meaning of, reason, 154-155; the end in
95, 96-100; realization of, the individual, 159; and
98; conception of, 98; and will, 174; and personality,
the end, 113; and pleasure, 195.
pe and personality, 186- Kindness, 228.
Knowledge, and pessimism,
Ideas, leading ethical, 95ff ; 76-82;-of men, 243.
interrelation of ethical,
113; of the state, Lamarck, Jean B.: on envir-
287-291.
Immortality, 172. onment, 42.
Imperative, of duty, Lange, Friedrich: theory of
155, 166. emotions, 37.
Individual, definition of, 179; Laski, Harold: authority of
in the state, 298.
the state, 291.
Individuality, and personal- Law, of the sciences, 48;
ity, 179-183. back of judgment, 57; ori-
 INDEX 315
gin of moral, 58; of action, Mendel, Johann G.: law of
155; and justice, 248. heredity, 39.
Lecky, William: “*Study of Mercy, 231.
European Morals,’’ 7. Metaphysics, and free will,
Legislation, social, 276; for 30
the church, 281-282. Mill, John Stuart: and utili-
Leibniz, G. W.: and optimism, tarianism, 122-124, 129;
72; theory of monads, 105. failure of, 138; hedonism
Liberty, of choices, 29; of and virtue, 140.
knowledge, 81; of the Misrepresentation,238.
church, 282-283, Modesty, 219-220.
Lie, 238. Mohammedanism, and free-
Life, sentient, 134, 204; de- dom, 50.
terminateness of, 175; in- Monotheism, 17-18.
dividual, 202ff; moral, 204— Moods, and pessimism, 75.
205; the bodily, 216-222; Morality, perfection of, 128.
mental, 222-224; power Morris, William: and interest,
over, 224-226; family, 251- 210.
252; the single, 260-261. Motives, and religion, 21; and
Locke, John: philosophy of, free will, 32; and pleasure,
77; use of words, 95; 122; and will, 175.
against intuitionism, 152;
right of revolution, 301;
Nationality, 246; and the
and rulers, 302n.
state, 294-295.
Logic, 4; of Aristotle, 58. Naturalism, and pessimism,
Lotze, Herman: emphasis 73.
upon value, 4; and person- Nature, rational, 154.
ality, 196. Nietzsche, Friedrich: re-valu-
Love, brotherly, 25, 191; law ing values, 6; will to
of, 190; and duty, 190; of power, 31; attack on meek-
God, 192; in justice, 194; ness, 230.
expression of, 231, 274; in- Non-resistance, 229,
stitution of, 250.
Loyalty, 206-207.
Luther, Martin: on taking in- Obedience, 251.
terest, 210; economic evils, Omar Khayyam: 117.
277; submission to author- Opinion, public, 243.
ity, 300. Organization, of the church,
278-279,
Mana, 16. “‘Ought,’’ as foundation of
Mansel, Henry L.: philos- duty, 107; consciousness of
ophy of, 78. 127.
Marriage, 254-258.
Martineau, James: and con- Pacifism, 306.
science, 60; and duty, 110. Pain, meaning of, 115; as a
Materialism, and hedonism, master, 120; source of, 121.
141. Pantheism, and naturalism,
Meekness, 229. 73.
316 INDEX
Pater, Walter: on eternity, individual, 134; social,
149-150. 135; and the end, 135; and
Paul, St.: and conscience, 60, the ideal, 136; and the
70; willingness to action, good, 136; and the right,
87; asceticism of, 171; and 137; and duty, 137-140.
“‘the flesh,’’ 204. Plotinus: and intellect, 163.
Paulsen, Friedrich: idea of Power, and justice, 288-289.
the state, 288. Predestination, and freedom,
Pedagogy, theories of, 79. 50, 51-52.
Perjury, 239. Prejudice, 241.
Personality, Hegel’s idea of, Press, public, 240.
* 157; and will, 176-179; Price, Richard: intuitionism,
definition of, 178;
and in- 151.
dividuality, 179-183; and Pride, 222.
society, 183-186; and the Problem, and principle, 1; of
ideal, 186-189; influence freedom, 2; of ethics and
of, 187; and right, 189; and religion, 14; of free will,
virtue, 192-194; history of, 28; of pessimism, 72; of
194-196; and Christianity, drink, 218.
196-200. Professions, 211.
Pessimism, and freedom, 72ff; Propaganda, 239.
causes of, 73-75; and hu- Property, private, 215.
man moods, 75; and know- Prostitution, evil of, 259-260.
ledge, 76-82; and emotion, Providence, doctrine of, 50.
82-86; and actions, 86-87; Prudence, 118, 140, 237.
and civilization, 87-90; Psycho-analysis, 38.
and religion, 90; and Psychologism, 141.
Christianity, 91-94. Psychology, ethics and, 6; and
Philology, and ethics, 6. free will, 32.
Philosophers, neorealistic, 37. Psycho-therapy, 38.
Philosophy, of society, 46; Punishment, 292.
development of, 77-79; of Puritanism, 161.
hedonism, 141; of rational- Purpose, implication of, 130.
ism, 169.
Plato: and Greek religion, Quietists, 161.
15; philosophy of, 77, 141,
146; 196; ideas, 96; happi- Race feeling, 246.
ness, 131; theory of harm- Radicalism, 270.
ony, 194-195; and art, Rationalism, and hedonism,
223; idea of the state, 288, 158; apex of, 164; defect
296. of, 166; philosophy of, 169.
Pleasure, claim of, 115-116; Realism, and pessimism, 74.
theory and origin, 116; as Reason, and morals, 69; and
a good, 118; as a master, pleasure, 129-131; freedom
120; source of, 121; sanc- through, 145ff; promise of,
tions of, 121; quality of, 145; ancient advocates of,
123; and reason, 129-131; 146-150; and intuitionism,
and happiness, 131-133; of 150-154; German develop-
 INDEX 317
ment of, 154-158; and feel- School, Montessori, 265.
ing, 158-160; and asceti- Self-love, 191.
cism, 160-162; and _ the Seneca: and reason, 149.
good, 163; and the right, Seth, James: eudaemonism of,
164; and duty, 165-166; 196; idea of the state, 288;
and virtue, 167-169; and and punishment, 292.
Christianity, 170-173. Sex, morals of, 219.
Reid, Thomas: philosophy of, Shakespeare, William: ‘‘ Mac-
78; moral sense, 152. beth,’’ 64; ‘‘As You Like
Religion, development of, 14; Tt,27 Tons 0:
history of, 16-18; and Shaw, Charles Gray: theory
character and conduct, 18; of personality, 196.
and instincts, 18-19; and Sidgwick, Henry: and utili-
desires, 20; and habits, 20; tarianism, 124, 129; and
and motives, 21; and sane- virtue, 141.
tions, 22; and ideals, 23; Sin, and freedom, 51.
and free will, 49; and con- Socialism, economies of, 215.
science, 69; and pessimism, Society, and conscience, 59;
90. conscience of, 67; and
Repentence, 64. pleasure, 135; and person-
Revolution, right of, 300-303. ality, 183-186; and _ the
Right, 95, 104-106; and ‘‘the ehurch, 275-276.
good,’’ 113; social, 104; Sociology, and ethics, 8, 9;
and pleasure, 137; and rea- and freedom, 44.
son, 164; and personality, Socrates: leader of a new
189; of the child, 264-265; light, 11;) and Greek re-
of revolution, 300-303. ligion, 15; and conscience,
Righteousness, 242-243. 59; philosophy of, 77; and
Rousseau, Jean J.: dream of, reason, 146.
147; social contract, 286. Spencer, Herbert: religion as
Royce, Josiah: theory of loy- sanction, 23n; philosophy
alty, 206. of, 79; and evolutionary
Ruskin, John: and interest, ethics, 126-127; altruism,
210. 135; and duty, 139; agnos-
ticism of, 142.
Sacrifice, meaning of, 161. Standards, of society, 11.
Sanctions, and religion, 22; State, and the church, 279-—
of conduct, 121, 127; ex- 284; place of, 286-287;
ternal and internal, 139. idea of, 287-291; task of,
Schiller Johann C. F.: judg- 291-294; and the nation,
ment of world, 24. 294-295; the absolute,
Schleiermacher, Friedrich: eth- 295-297; socialistic, 298;
ical ideas, 96. and anarchism, 299-390;
Schopenhauer, Arthur: ‘‘will and war, 303-306; and
to,’’ 31; philosophy of, 83; internationalism, 306-309.
on art, 85; and actions, 86. Stevenson, R. L.: ideal of,
Science, normative, 3; of 131.
value, 4; relation of, 5. Stimulants, use of, 219.
318 INDEX
Stotcs: virtues of, 167-168, philosophy, of the uncon-
193; idea of the state, 296. scious, 31.
Suicide, 224-226.
Superstition, 269. War, and the state, 303-306,
Syllogism, of judgment, 58. 307.
Waring, Luther H.: ‘‘ Politi-
Tactfulness, 237. cal Theories of Luther,’’
Tawney, Richard H.: and pro- 301n.
fessions, 210; and _ social- Watson, John: and mind, 37.
ism, 216n. Weisman, August: neo-Dar-
Telepathy, 38. winian theory, 39.
Temperament, and free will, Westermarck, Edward: in-
34, cipient moral life, 7.
Temperance, 217. Will, free, 28ff; metaphysi-
Thought, freedom of, 169, cal solution of, 30; and
241. psychology, 32; and _ the
Tolerance, 207. brain, 36; and biology, 39;
Tolstot, Lyof N.: and the and sociology, 44; and
state, 299. causality, 46; and religion,
Totemism, 17. 49; and Christianity, 50;
Truth, and freedom, 235— definition of, 174; and per-
242; way of, 237; and the sonality, 176-179, 181-182.
church, 268-272. Williams, James M.: 211n.
Tufts, James H.: relation of Wilson, Woodrow: idea of the
economics to ethies, 8. state, 288.
Wisdom, 236.
Universalism, of reason, 160. Woman, freedom of, 261-264,
Universality, of ethics, 9, 10.
Woods, Fredrick A.: and en-
Utilitarianism, meaning of, vironment, 43.
119.
Work, moral side of, 213; end
Utility, principle of, 120.
of, 214-215; virtues of,
216; of the’ church, 272-
Virtue, 95; meaning of, 110- 277.
112; and duty, hes 139;
Worship, of the church, 277—
and hedonism, 140- 141, 278.
193; and reason, 167-169;
Wright, Henry: and person-
and personality, 192-194:
ality, 196.
classification of, 203; s0-
cial, 228ff. Wundt, Wilhelm: moral im-
port of words, 6
Vocation, selection of, 208,
211; morals of, 209; of
women, 262. Xenophanes: and naturalism,
Volition, and conscience, 65; 15.
possibility of, 177.
Von Hartmann, Edward.: Zeno: philosophy of, 148.
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