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AMERICAN SCIENCE SERIES

Professor of Philosophy in Columbia University

Professor of Philosophy in the University of Chicago

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
London: GEORGE BELL AND SONS
1909

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Copyright, 1908,
by
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

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The significance of this text in Ethics lies in its effort to awaken a vital conviction of the genuine reality of moral problems and the value of reflective thought in dealing with them. To this purpose are subordinated the presentation in Part I. of historic material; the discussion in Part II. of the different types of theoretical interpretation, and the consideration, in Part III., of some typical social and economic problems which characterize the present.

Experience shows that the student of morals has difficulty in getting the field objectively and definitely before him so that its problems strike him as real problems. Conduct is so intimate that it is not easy to analyze. It is so important that to a large extent the perspective for regarding it has been unconsciously fixed by early training. The historical method of approach has proved in the classroom experience of the authors an effective method of meeting these difficulties. To follow the moral life through typical epochs of its development enables students to realize what is involved in their own habitual standpoints; it also presents a concrete body of subject-matter which serves as material of analysis and discussion.

The classic conceptions of moral theory are of remarkable importance in illuminating the obscure places of the moral life and in giving the student clues which will enable him to explore it for himself. But there is always danger of either dogmatism or a sense of unreality when students are introduced abruptly to the theoretical ideas. Instead of serving as tools for understanding the [Pg iv]moral facts, the ideas are likely to become substitutes for the facts. When they are proffered ready-made, their theoretical acuteness and cleverness may be admired, but their practical soundness and applicability are suspected. The historical introduction permits the student to be present, as it were, at the social situations in which the intellectual instruments were forged. He appreciates their relevancy to the conditions which provoked them, and he is encouraged to try them on simple problems before attempting the complex problems of the present. By assisting in their gradual development he gains confidence in the ideas and in his power to use them.

In the second part, devoted more specifically to the analysis and criticism of the leading conceptions of moral theory, the aim accordingly has not been to instill the notions of a school nor to inculcate a ready-made system, but to show the development of theories out of the problems and experience of every-day conduct, and to suggest how these theories may be fruitfully applied in practical exigencies. Aspects of the moral life have been so thoroughly examined that it is possible to present certain principles in the confidence that they will meet general acceptance. Rationalism and hedonism, for example, have contributed toward a scientific statement of the elements of conduct, even though they have failed as self-inclosed and final systems. After the discussions of Kant and Mill, Sidgwick and Green, Martineau and Spencer, it is possible to affirm that there is a place in the moral life for reason and a place for happiness,—a place for duty and a place for valuation. Theories are treated not as incompatible rival systems which must be accepted or rejected en bloc, but as more or less adequate methods of surveying the problems of conduct. This mode of approach facilitates the scientific estimation and determination of the part played by various factors in the complexity of moral life. The student is put in a position to judge the problems of [Pg v]conduct for himself. This emancipation and enlightenment of individual judgment is the chief aim of the theoretical portion.

In a considerable part of the field, particularly in the political and economic portions of Part III., no definitive treatment is as yet possible. Nevertheless, it is highly desirable to introduce the student to the examination of these unsettled questions. When the whole civilized world is giving its energies to the meaning and value of justice and democracy, it is intolerably academic that those interested in ethics should have to be content with conceptions already worked out, which therefore relate to what is least doubtful in conduct rather than to questions now urgent. Moreover, the advantages of considering theory and practice in direct relation to each other are mutual. On the one hand, as against the a priori claims of both individualism and socialism, the need of the hour seems to us to be the application of methods of more deliberate analysis and experiment. The extreme conservative may deprecate any scrutiny of the present order; the ardent radical may be impatient of the critical and seemingly tardy processes of the investigator; but those who have considered well the conquest which man is making of the world of nature cannot forbear the conviction that the cruder method of trial and error and the time-honored method of prejudice and partisan controversy need not longer completely dominate the regulation of the life of society. They hope for a larger application of the scientific method to the problems of human welfare and progress. Conversely, a science which takes part in the actual work of promoting moral order and moral progress must receive a valuable reflex influence of stimulus and of test. To consider morality in the making as well as to dwell upon values already established should make the science more vital. And whatever the effect upon the subject-matter, the student can hardly appreciate the full force [Pg vi]of his materials and methods as long as they are kept aloof from the questions which are occupying the minds of his contemporaries.

Teachers who are limited in time will doubtless prefer to make their own selections of material, but the following suggestions present one possible line of choice. In Part I., of the three chapters dealing with the Hebrew, Greek, and modern developments, any one may be taken as furnishing an illustration of the method; and certain portions of Chapter IX. may be found more detailed in analysis than is necessary for the beginner. In Part II., Chapters XI.-XII. may be omitted without losing the thread of the argument. In Part III., any one of the specific topics—viz., the political state, the economic order, the family—may be considered apart from the others. Some teachers may prefer to take Parts in their entirety. In this case, any two may be chosen.

As to the respective shares of the work for which the authors are severally responsible, while each has contributed suggestions and criticisms to the work of the other in sufficient degree to make the book throughout a joint work, Part I. has been written by Mr. Tufts, Part II. by Mr. Dewey, and in Part III., Chapters XX. and XXI. are by Mr. Dewey, Chapters XXII.-XXVI. by Mr. Tufts.

It need scarcely be said that no attempt has been made in the bibliographies to be exhaustive. When the dates of publication of the work cited are given, the plan has been in general to give, in the case of current literature, the date of the latest edition, and in the case of some classical treatises the date of original publication.

In conclusion, the authors desire to express their indebtedness to their colleagues and friends Dr. Wright, Mr. Talbert, and Mr. Eastman, who have aided in the reading of the proof and with other suggestions.

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Provisional Definition.—The place for an accurate definition of a subject is at the end of an inquiry rather than at the beginning, but a brief definition will serve to mark out the field. Ethics is the science that deals with conduct, in so far as this is considered as right or wrong, good or bad. A single term for conduct so considered is "moral conduct," or the "moral life." Another way of stating the same thing is to say that Ethics aims to give a systematic account of our judgments about conduct, in so far as these estimate it from the standpoint of right or wrong, good or bad.

Ethical and Moral.—The terms "ethics" and "ethical" are derived from a Greek word ethos which originally meant customs, usages, especially those belonging to some group as distinguished from another, and later came to mean disposition, character. They are thus like the Latin word "moral," from mores, or the German sittlich, from Sitten. As we shall see, it was in customs, "ethos," "mores," that the moral or ethical began to appear. For customs were not merely habitual ways of acting; they were ways approved by the group or society. To act contrary to the customs of the group brought severe disapproval. This might not be formulated in precisely our[Pg 2] terms—right and wrong, good and bad,—but the attitude was the same in essence. The terms ethical and moral as applied to the conduct of to-day imply of course a far more complex and advanced type of life than the old words "ethos" and "mores," just as economics deals with a more complex problem than "the management of a household," but the terms have a distinct value if they suggest the way in which the moral life had its beginning.

Two Aspects of Conduct.—To give a scientific account of judgments about conduct, means to find the principles which are the basis of these judgments. Conduct or the moral life has two obvious aspects. On the one hand it is a life of purpose. It implies thought and feeling, ideals and motives, valuation and choice. These are processes to be studied by psychological methods. On the other hand, conduct has its outward side. It has relations to nature, and especially to human society. Moral life is called out or stimulated by certain necessities of individual and social existence. As Protagoras put it, in mythical form, the gods gave men a sense of justice and of reverence, in order to enable them to unite for mutual preservation.[1] And in turn the moral life aims to modify or transform both natural and social environments, to build a "kingdom of man" which shall be also an ideal social order—a "kingdom of God." These relations to nature and society are studied by the biological and social sciences. Sociology, economics, politics, law, and jurisprudence deal particularly with this aspect of conduct. Ethics must employ their methods and results for this aspect of its problem, as it employs psychology for the examination of conduct on its inner side.

The Specific Problem of Ethics.—But ethics is not merely the sum of these various sciences. It has a problem of its own which is created by just this twofold aspect of life and conduct. It has to relate these two sides. It[Pg 3] has to study the inner process as determined by the outer conditions or as changing these outer conditions, and the outward behavior or institution as determined by the inner purpose, or as affecting the inner life. To study choice and purpose is psychology; to study choice as affected by the rights of others and to judge it as right or wrong by this standard is ethics. Or again, to study a corporation may be economics, or sociology, or law; to study its activities as resulting from the purposes of persons or as affecting the welfare of persons, and to judge its acts as good or bad from such a point of view, is ethics.

Genetic Study.—When we deal with any process of life it is found to be a great aid for understanding the present conditions if we trace the history of the process and see how present conditions have come about. And in the case of morality there are four reasons in particular for examining earlier stages. The first is that we may begin our study with a simpler material. Moral life at present is extremely complex. Professional, civic, domestic, philanthropic, ecclesiastical, and social obligations claim adjustment. Interests in wealth, in knowledge, in power, in friendship, in social welfare, make demand for recognition in fixing upon what is good. It is desirable to consider first a simpler problem. In the second place, this complex moral life is like the human body in that it contains "rudiments" and "survivals." Some of our present standards and ideals were formed at one period in the past, and some at another. Some of these apply to present conditions and some do not. Some are at variance with others. Many apparent conflicts in moral judgments are explained when we discover how the judgments came to be formed in the first instance. We cannot easily understand the moral life of to-day except in the light of earlier morality. The third reason is that we may get a more objective material for study. Our moral life is so intimate a part of ourselves that[Pg 4] it is hard to observe impartially. Its characteristics escape notice because they are so familiar. When we travel we find the customs, laws, and moral standards of other peoples standing out as "peculiar." Until we have been led by some such means to compare our own conduct with that of others it probably does not occur to us that our own standards are also peculiar, and hence in need of explanation. It is as difficult scientifically as it is personally "to see ourselves as others see us." It is doubtless true that to see ourselves merely as others see us would not be enough. Complete moral analysis requires us to take into our reckoning motives and purposes which may perhaps be undiscoverable by the "others." But it is a great aid to this completer analysis if we can sharpen our vision and awaken our attention by a comparative study. A fourth reason for a genetic study is that it emphasizes the dynamic, progressive character of morality. Merely to examine the present may easily give the impression that the moral life is not a life, a moving process, something still in the making—but a changeless structure. There is moral progress as well as a moral order. This may be discovered by an analysis of the very nature of moral conduct, but it stands out more clearly and impressively if we trace the actual development in history. Before attempting our analysis of the present moral consciousness and its judgments, we shall therefore give an outline of the earlier stages and simpler phases.

Theory and Practice.—Finally, if we can discover ethical principles these ought to give some guidance for the unsolved problems of life which continually present themselves for decision. Whatever may be true for other sciences it would seem that ethics at least ought to have some practical value. "In this theater of man's life it is reserved for God and the angels to be lookers on." Man must act; and he must act well or ill, rightly or wrongly. If he has reflected, has considered his conduct in the light[Pg 5] of the general principles of human order and progress, he ought to be able to act more intelligently and freely, to achieve the satisfaction that always attends on scientific as compared with uncritical or rule-of-thumb practice. Socrates gave the classic statement for the study of conduct when he said, "A life unexamined, uncriticized, is not worthy of man."

It is not proposed to attempt at this point an accurate or minute statement of what is implied in moral conduct, as this is the task of Part II. But for the purposes of tracing in Part I. the beginnings of morality, it is desirable to have a sort of rough chart to indicate to the student what to look for in the earlier stages of his exploration, and to enable him to keep his bearings on the way.

Certain of the characteristics of the moral may be seen in a cross-section, a statement of the elements in moral conduct at a given time. Other characteristics come out more clearly by comparing later with earlier stages. We give first a cross-section.

1. Characteristics of the Moral Life in Cross-section.—In this cross-section the first main division is suggested by the fact that we sometimes give our attention to what is done or intended, and sometimes to how or why the act is done. These divisions may turn out to be less absolute than they seem, but common life uses them and moral theories have often selected the one or the other as the important aspect. When we are told to seek peace, tell the truth, or aim at the greatest happiness of the greatest number, we are charged to do or intend some definite act. When we are urged to be conscientious or pure in heart the emphasis is on a kind of attitude that might go with a variety of acts. A newspaper advocates a good measure. So far, so good. But people may ask, what is the[Pg 6] motive in this? and if this is believed to be merely selfish, they do not credit the newspaper with having genuine interest in reform. On the other hand, sincerity alone is not enough. If a man advocates frankly and sincerely a scheme for enriching himself at the public expense we condemn him. We say his very frankness shows his utter disregard for others. One of the great moral philosophers has indeed said that to act rationally is all that is necessary, but he at once goes on to claim that this implies treating every man as an end and not merely a means, and this calls for a particular kind of action. Hence we may assume for the present purpose a general agreement that our moral judgments take into account both what is done or intended, and how or why the act is done. These two aspects are sometimes called the "matter" and the "form," or the "content" and the attitude. We shall use the simpler terms, the What and the How.

The "What" as a Criterion.—If we neglect for the moment the How and think of the What, we find two main standpoints employed in judging: one is that of "higher" and "lower" within the man's own self; the other is his treatment of others.

The distinction between a higher and lower self has many guises. We speak of a man as "a slave to his appetites," of another as possessed by greed for money, of another as insatiately ambitious. Over against these passions we hear the praise of scientific pursuits, of culture, of art, of friendship, of meditation, or of religion. We are bidden to think of things σέμνα, nobly serious. A life of the spirit is set off against the life of the flesh, the finer against the coarser, the nobler against the baser. However misguided the forms in which this has been interpreted, there is no doubt as to the reality of the conflicting impulses which give rise to the dualism. The source is obvious. Man would not be here if self-preservation and self-assertion and sex instinct were not strongly rooted in[Pg 7] his system. These may easily become dominant passions. But just as certainly, man cannot be all that he may be unless he controls these impulses and passions by other motives. He has first to create for himself a new world of ideal interests before he finds his best life. The appetites and instincts may be "natural," in the sense that they are the beginning; the mental and spiritual life is "natural," as Aristotle puts it, in the sense that man's full nature is developed only in such a life.

The other aspect of the What, the treatment of others, need not detain us. Justice, kindness, the conduct of the Golden Rule are the right and good. Injustice, cruelty, selfishness are the wrong and the bad.

Analysis of the How: the Right and the Good.—We have used right and good as though they might be used interchangeably in speaking of conduct. Perhaps this may in the end prove to be true. If an act is right, then the hero or the saint may believe that it is also good; if an act is good in the fullest sense, then it will commend itself as right. But right and good evidently approach conduct from two different points of view. These might have been noted when speaking of the content or the What, but they are more important in considering the How.

It is evident that when we speak of conduct as right we think of it as before a judge. We bring the act to a standard, and measure the act. We think too of this standard as a "moral law" which we "ought" to obey. We respect its authority and hold ourselves responsible. The standard is conceived as a control over our impulses and desires. The man who recognizes such a law and is anxious to find and to do his duty, we call conscientious; as governing his impulses, he has self-control; as squaring his conduct strictly by his standard, he is upright and reliable.

If I think of "good," I am approaching conduct from the standpoint of value. I am thinking of what is desira[Pg 8]ble. This too is a standard, but it is a standard regarded as an end to be sought rather than as a law. I am to "choose" it and identify myself with it, rather than to control myself by it. It is an "ideal." The conscientious man, viewed from this standpoint, would seek to discover the true good, to value his ends, to form ideals, instead of following impulse or accepting any seeming good without careful consideration. In so far as impulses are directed by ideals the thoroughly good man will be straightforward, "sincere": that is, he will not be moved to do the good act by fear of punishment, or by bribery, just as the upright man will be "governed by a sense of duty," of "respect for principles."

Summary of the Characteristics of the Moral.—To sum up the main characteristics of the moral life viewed in cross-section, or when in full activity, we may state them as follows:

On the side of the "what," there are two aspects:

(a) The dominance of "higher," ideal interests of knowledge, art, freedom, rights, and the "life of the spirit."

(b) Regard for others, under its various aspects of justice, sympathy, and benevolence.

On the side of the "how" the important aspects are:

(a) The recognition of some standard, which may arise either as a control in the guise of "right" and "law," or as measure of value in the form of an ideal to be followed or good to be approved.

(b) A sense of duty and respect for the law; sincere love of the good.

(a) and (b) of this latter division are both included under the "conscientious" attitude.

2. The Moral as a Growth.—The psychologists distinguish three stages in conduct: (a) Instinctive activity. (b) Attention; the stage of conscious direction or control[Pg 9] of action by imagery; of deliberation, desire, and choice. (c) Habit; the stage of unconscious activity along lines set by previous action. Consciousness thus "occupies a curious middle ground between hereditary reflex and automatic activities upon the one hand and acquired habitual activities upon the other." Where the original equipment of instincts fails to meet some new situation, when there are stimulations for which the system has no ready-made response, consciousness appears. It selects from the various responses those which suit the purpose, and when these responses have become themselves automatic, habitual, consciousness "betakes itself elsewhere to points where habitual accommodatory movements are as yet wanting and needed."[2] To apply this to the moral development we need only to add that this process repeats itself over and over. The starting-point for each later repetition is not the hereditary instinct, but the habits which have been formed. For the habits formed at one age of the individual's life, or at one stage of race development, prove inadequate for more complex situations. The child leaves home, the savage tribe changes to agricultural life, and the old habits no longer meet the need. Attention is again demanded. There is deliberation, struggle, effort. If the result is successful new habits are formed, but upon a higher level. For the new habits, the new character, embody more intelligence. The first stage, purely instinctive action, we do not call moral conduct. It is of course not immoral; it is merely unmoral. The second stage shows morality in the making. It includes the process of transition from impulse, through desire to will. It involves the stress of conflicting interests, the processes of deliberation and valuation, and the final act of choice. It will be illustrated in our treatment of race development by the change from early group life and customs to the more conscious moral life of higher civilization. The third[Pg 10] stage, well-organized character, is the goal of the process. But it is evidently only a relative point. A good man has built up a set of habits; a good society has established certain laws and moral codes. But unless the man or society is in a changeless world with no new conditions there will be new problems. And this means that however good the habit was for its time and purpose there must be new choices and new valuations. A character that would run automatically in every case would be pretty nearly a mechanism. It is therefore the second stage of this process that is the stage of active moral consciousness. It is upon this that we focus our attention.

Moral growth from the first on through the second stage may be described as a process in which man becomes more rational, more social, and finally more moral. We examine briefly each of these aspects.

The Rationalizing or Idealizing Process.—The first need of the organism is to live and grow. The first instincts and impulses are therefore for food, self-defence, and other immediate necessities. Primitive men eat, sleep, fight, build shelters, and give food and protection to their offspring. The "rationalizing" process will mean at first greater use of intelligence to satisfy these same wants. It will show itself in skilled occupations, in industry and trade, in the utilizing of all resources to further man's power and happiness. But to rationalize conduct is also to introduce new ends. It not only enables man to get what he wants; it changes the kind of objects that he wants. This shows itself externally in what man makes and in how he occupies himself. He must of course have food and shelter. But he makes temples and statues and poems. He makes myths and theories of the world. He carries on great enterprises in commerce or government, not so much to gratify desires for bodily wants as to experience the growth of power. He creates a family life which is raised to a higher level by art and reli[Pg 11]gion. He does not live by bread only, but builds up gradually a life of reason. Psychologically this means that whereas at the beginning we want what our body calls for, we soon come to want things which the mind takes an interest in. As we form by memory, imagination, and reason a more continuous, permanent, highly-organized self, we require a far more permanent and ideal kind of good to satisfy us. This gives rise to the contrast between the material and ideal selves, or in another form, between "the world" and "the spirit."

The Socializing Process.—The "socializing" side of the process of development stands for an increased capacity to enter into relations with other human beings. Like the growth of reason it is both a means and an end. It has its roots in certain instincts—sex, gregariousness, parental instincts—and in the necessities of mutual support and protection. But the associations thus formed imply a great variety of activities which call out new powers and set up new ends. Language is one of the first of these activities and a first step toward more complete socialization. Coöperation, in all kinds of enterprises, interchange of services and goods, participation in social arts, associations for various purposes, institutions of blood, family, government, and religion, all add enormously to the individual's power. On the other hand, as he enters into these relations and becomes a "member" of all these bodies he inevitably undergoes a transformation in his interests. Psychologically the process is one of building up a "social" self. Imitation and suggestion, sympathy and affection, common purpose and common interest, are the aids in building such a self. As the various instincts, emotions, and purposes are more definitely organized into such a unit, it becomes possible to set off the interests of others against those interests that center in my more individual good. Conscious egoism and altruism become possible. And in a way that will be explained, the[Pg 12] interests of self and others are raised to the plane of rights and justice.

What is Needed to Make Conduct Moral.—All this is not yet moral progress in the fullest sense. The progress to more rational and more social conduct is the indispensable condition of the moral, but not the whole story. What is needed is that the more rational and social conduct should itself be valued as good, and so be chosen and sought; or in terms of control, that the law which society or reason prescribes should be consciously thought of as right, used as a standard, and respected as binding. This gives the contrast between the higher and lower, as a conscious aim, not merely as a matter of taste. It raises the collision between self and others to the basis of personal rights and justice, of deliberate selfishness or benevolence. Finally it gives the basis for such organization of the social and rational choices that the progress already gained may be permanently secured, while the attention, the struggle between duty and inclination, the conscious choice, move forward to a new issue. Aristotle made these points clear:

Summary of the Characteristics of the Moral as Growth.—The full cycle has three stages:

(a) Instinctive or habitual action.

(b) Action under the stress of attention, with conscious intervention and reconstruction.[Pg 13]

(c) Organization of consciously directed conduct into habits and a self of a higher order: Character.

The advance from (a) to and through (b) has three aspects.

(a) It is a rationalizing and idealizing process. Reason is both a means to secure other ends, and an element in determining what shall be sought.

(b) It is a socializing process. Society both strengthens and transforms the individual.

(c) It is a process in which finally conduct itself is made the conscious object of reflection, valuation, and criticism. In this the definitely moral conceptions of right and duty, good and virtue appear.

Part I., after a preliminary presentation of certain important aspects of group life, will first trace the process of moral development in its general outlines, and then give specific illustrations of the process taken from the life of Israel, of Greece, and of modern civilization.

Part II. will analyze conduct or the moral life on its inner, personal side. After distinguishing more carefully what is meant by moral action, and noting some typical ways in which the moral life has been viewed by ethical theory, it will examine the meaning of right and good, of duty and virtue, and seek to discover the principles underlying moral judgments and moral conduct.

Part III. will study conduct as action in society. But instead of a general survey, attention will be centered upon three phases of conduct which are of especial interest and importance. Political rights and duties, the production, distribution, and ownership of wealth, and finally the relations of domestic and family life, all present unsettled problems. These challenge the student to make a careful examination, for he must take some attitude as citizen on the issues involved.

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To understand the origin and growth of moral life, it is essential to understand primitive society. And while there is much that is uncertain, there is one fact of capital importance which stands out clearly. This is the dominant influence of group life. It is not asserted that all peoples have had precisely the same type of groups, or the same degree of group solidarity. It is beyond question that the ancestors of modern civilized races lived under the general types of group life which will be outlined, and that these types or their survivals are found among the great mass of peoples to-day.

Consider the following incident as related by Dr. Gray:

Put beside this the story of Achan:

The converse of these situations is brought out in the regulations of the Kumi, a Japanese local institution comprising five or more households:

For another aspect of the group take Cæsar's description of landholding among the Germans:

Of the Greeks, our intellectual ancestors, as well as fellow Aryans, it is stated that in Attica, even to a late period, the land remained to a large degree in possession of ideal persons, gods, phylæ (tribes) or phratries, kinships, political communities. Even when the superficies of the land might be regarded as private, mines were re[Pg 19]served as public.[3] The basis on which these kinship groups rested is thus stated by Grote:[4]

Coulanges gives a similar statement as to the ancient family group:[5]

Finally, the following passage on clanship among the Kafirs brings out two points: (1) That such a group life implies feelings and ideas of a distinctive sort; and (2) that it has a strength rooted in the very necessities of life.

The above passages refer to Aryan, Semitic, Mongolian, and Kafir peoples. They could be matched by similar statements concerning nearly every people. They suggest a way of living, and a view of life very different from that of the American or of most Europeans.[6] The American or European belongs to groups of various kinds, but he "joins" most of them. He of course is born into a family, but he does not stay in it all his life unless he pleases. And he may choose his own occupation, residence, wife, political party, religion, social club, or even national allegiance. He may own or sell his own house, give or bequeath his property, and is responsible generally speaking for no one's acts but his own. This makes him an "individual" in a much fuller sense than he would be if all these relations were settled for him. On the other hand, the member of such groups as are referred to in our examples above, has all, or nearly all, his relations fixed when he is born into a certain clan or family group. This settles his occupation, dwelling, gods, and politics. If it doesn't decide upon his wife, it at least usually fixes the group from which she must be taken. His conditions, in the words of Maine, are thus of "status," not of "contract." This makes a vast difference in his whole attitude. It will help to bring out more clearly by contrast the character of present morality, as well as to see moral life in the making, if we examine more carefully this group[Pg 21] life. We shall find, as brought out in the passages already quoted, that the most important type of group is at once a kindred or family, an economic, a political, a religious, and a moral unit. First, however, we notice briefly the most important types of groups.

1. The Kinship Group.—The kinship group is a body of persons who conceive of themselves as sprung from one ancestor, and hence as having in their veins one blood. It does not matter for our study whether each group has actually sprung from a single ancestor. It is highly probable that the contingencies of food-supply or of war may have been an original cause for the constitution of the group, wholly or in part. But this is of no consequence for our purpose. The important point is that the members of the group regard themselves as of one stock. In some cases the ancestor is believed to have been an animal. Then we have the so-called totem group, which is found among North American Indians, Africans, and Australians, and was perhaps the early form of Semitic groups. In other cases, some hero or even some god is named as the ancestor. In any case the essential part of the theory remains the same: namely, that one blood circulates in all the members, and hence that the life of each is a part of the common life of the group. There are then no degrees of kindred. This group, it should be noted, is not the same as the family, for in the family, as a rule, husband and wife are of different kinship groups, and continue their several kinship relations. Among some peoples marriage ceremonies, indeed, symbolize the admission of the wife into the husband's kinship, and in this case the family becomes a kinship group, but this is by no means universally the case.

The feeling that one is first and foremost a member of[Pg 22] a group, rather than an individual, is furthered among certain kin groups by a scheme of class relationship. According to this system, instead of having one definite person whom I, and I alone, regard and address as father or mother, grandfather, uncle, brother, sister, I call any one of a given group or class of persons mother, grandfather, brother, sister. And any one else who is in the same class with me calls the same persons, mother, grandfather, brother, or sister.[7] The simplest form of such a class system is that found among the Hawaiians. Here there are five classes based upon the generations corresponding to what we call grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters, children, and grandchildren, but the words used to designate them do not imply any such specific parentage as do these words with us. Bearing this in mind, we may say that every one in the first class is equally grandparent to every one in the third; every one in the third is equally brother or sister to every other in the third, equally father or mother to every one in the fourth, and so on. In Australia the classes are more numerous and the relationships far more intricate and complicated, but this does not, as might be supposed, render the bond relatively unimportant; on the contrary, his relationship to every other class is "one of the most important points with which each individual must be acquainted"; it determines marital relations, food distribution, salutations, and general conduct to an extraordinary degree. A kinship group was known as "tribe" or "family" (English translation) among the Israelites;[Pg 23] as genos, phratria, and phyle among the Greeks, gens and curia among the Romans; clan in Scotland; sept in Ireland; Sippe in Germany.

2. The Family or Household Group.—Two kinds of families may be noted as significant for our purpose. In the maternal family the woman remains among her own kin, and the children are naturally reckoned as belonging to the mother's kin. The husband and father is more or less a guest or outsider. In a blood feud he would have to side with his own clan and against that of his wife if his clan quarreled with hers. Clan and family are thus seen to be distinct. In the paternal, which easily becomes the patriarchal family the wife leaves her relatives to live in her husband's house and among his kin. She might then, as at Rome, abjure her own kindred and be formally adopted into her husband's gens or clan. The Greek myth of Orestes is an illustration of the clashing of these two conceptions of father kin and mother kin, and Hamlet's sparing of his mother under similar circumstances, shows a more modern point of view.

It is evident that with the prevalence of the paternal type of family, clan and household ties will mutually strengthen each other. This will make an important difference in the father's relation to the children, and gives a much firmer basis for ancestral religion. But in many respects the environing atmosphere, the pressure and support, the group sympathy and group tradition, are essentially similar. The important thing is that every person is a member of a kindred, and likewise, of some family group, and that he thinks, feels, and acts accordingly.[8]

[Pg 24]

1. The Land and the Group.—In land, as a rule, no individual ownership in the modern sense was recognized. Among hunting and pastoral peoples there was, of course, no "ownership" by any group in the strict sense of modern law. But none the less, the group, large or small, had its fairly well-defined territory within which it hunted and fished; in the pastoral life it had its pasture range and its wells of water. With agriculture a more definite sense of possession arose. But possession was by the tribe or gens or household, not by the individual:

Greek and German customs were quoted at the outset. Among the Celts the laws of ancient Ireland show a transitional stage. "The land of the tribe consisted of two distinct allotments, the 'fechfine' or tribeland, and the 'orta' or inheritance land. This latter belonged as individual property to the men of the chieftain groups."[10] The Hindoo joint-family and the house-community of the Southern Slavonians are present examples of group[Pg 25] ownership. They are joint in food, worship, and estate. They have a common home, a common table. Maxims of the Slavs express their appreciation of community life: "The common household waxes rich"; "The more bees in the hive, the heavier it weighs." One difficulty in the English administration of Ireland has been this radical difference between the modern Englishman's individualistic conception of property and the Irishman's more primitive conception of group or clan ownership. Whether rightly or not, the Irish tenant refuses to regard himself as merely a tenant. He considers himself as a member of a family or group which formerly owned the land, and he does not admit the justice, even though he cannot disprove the legality, of an alienation of the group possession. For such a clan or household as we have described is not merely equivalent to the persons who compose it at a given time. Its property belongs to the ancestors and to the posterity as well as to the present possessors; and hence in some groups which admit an individual possession or use during life, no right of devise or inheritance is permitted. The property reverts at death to the whole gens or clan. In other cases a child may inherit, but in default of such an heir the property passes to the common possession. The right to bequeath property to the church was long a point on which civil law and canon law were at variance. The relations of the primitive clan or household group to land were therefore decidedly adapted to keep the individual's good bound up with the good of the group.

2. Movable Goods.—In the case of movable goods, such as tools, weapons, cattle, the practice is not uniform. When the goods are the product of the individual's own skill or prowess they are usually his. Tools, weapons, slaves or women captured, products of some special craft or skill, are thus usually private. But when the group acts as a unit the product is usually shared. The buffalo and salmon and large game were thus for the whole Indian[Pg 26] group which hunted or fished together; and in like manner the maize which was tended by the women belonged to the household in common. Slavic and Indian house communities at the present day have a common interest in the household property. Even women and children among some tribes are regarded as the property of the group.

In a modern family the parents exercise a certain degree of control over the children, but this is limited in several respects. No parent is allowed to put a child to death, or to permit him to grow up in ignorance. On the other hand, the parent is not allowed to protect the child from arrest if a serious injury has been done by him. The State, through its laws and officers, is regarded by us as the highest authority in a certain great sphere of action. It must settle conflicting claims and protect life and property; in the opinion of many it must organize the life of its members where the coöperation of every member is necessary for some common good. In early group life there may or may not be some political body over and above the clan or family, but in any case the kin or family is itself a sort of political State. Not a State in the sense that the political powers are deliberately separated from personal, religious, and family ties; men gained a new conception of authority and rose to a higher level of possibilities when they consciously separated and defined government and laws from the undifferentiated whole of a religious and kindred group. But yet this primitive group was after all a State, not a mob, or a voluntary society, or a mere family; for (1) it was a more or less permanently organized body; (2) it exercised control over its members which they regarded as rightful authority, not as mere force; (3) it was not limited by any higher author[Pg 27]ity, and acted more or less effectively for the interest of the whole. The representatives of this political aspect of the group may be chiefs or sachems, a council of elders, or, as in Rome, the House Father, whose patria potestas marks the extreme development of the patriarchal family.

The control exercised by the group over individual members assumes various forms among the different peoples. The more important aspects are a right over life and bodily freedom, in some cases extending to power of putting to death, maiming, chastising, deciding whether newly born children shall be preserved or not; the right of betrothal, which includes control over the marriage portion received for its women; and the right to administer property of the kin in behalf of the kin as a whole. It is probable that among all these various forms of control, the control over the marriage relations of women has been most persistent. One reason for this control may have been the fact that the group was bound to resent injuries of a member of the group who had been married to another. Hence this responsibility seemed naturally to involve the right of decision as to her marriage.

It is Membership in the Group Which Gives the Individual Whatever Rights He Has.—According to present conceptions this is still largely true of legal rights. A State may allow a citizen of another country to own land, to sue in its courts, and will usually give him a certain amount of protection, but the first-named rights are apt to be limited, and it is only a few years since Chief Justice Taney's dictum stated the existing legal theory of the United States to be that the negro "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." Even where legal theory does not recognize race or other distinctions, it is often hard in practice for an alien to get justice. In primitive clan or family groups this principle is in full force. Justice is a privilege which falls to a man as belonging to some group—not otherwise. The[Pg 28] member of the clan or the household or the village community has a claim, but the stranger has no standing. He may be treated kindly, as a guest, but he cannot demand "justice" at the hands of any group but his own. In this conception of rights within the group we have the prototype of modern civil law. The dealing of clan with clan is a matter of war or negotiation, not of law; and the clanless man is an "outlaw" in fact as well as in name.

Joint Responsibility and mutual support, as shown in the blood feud, was a natural consequence of this fusion of political and kindred relations. In modern life States treat each other as wholes in certain respects. If some member of a savage tribe assaults a citizen of one of the civilized nations, the injured party invokes the help of his government. A demand is usually made that the guilty party be delivered up for trial and punishment. If he is not forthcoming a "punitive expedition" is organized against the whole tribe; guilty and innocent suffer alike. Or in lieu of exterminating the offending tribe, in part or completely, the nation of the injured man may accept an indemnity in money or land from the offender's tribe. Recent dealings between British and Africans, Germans and Africans, France and Morocco, the United States and the Filipinos, the Powers and China, illustrate this. The State protects its own members against other States, and avenges them upon other States. Each opposes a united body to the other. The same principle carried out through private citizens as public agents, and applied to towns, is seen in the practice which prevailed in the Middle Ages. "When merchants of one country had been defrauded by those of another, or found it impossible to collect a debt from them, the former country issued letters of marque and reprisal, authorizing the plunder of any citizens of the offending town until satisfaction should be obtained." Transfer the situation to the early clan[Pg 29] or tribe, and this solidarity is increased because each member is related to the rest by blood, as well as by national unity. The Arabs do not say "The blood of M. or N. has been spilt," naming the man; they say, "Our blood has been spilt."[11] The whole group, therefore, feels injured and regards every man in the offender's kin as more or less responsible. The next of kin, the "avenger of blood," stands first in duty and privilege, but the rest are all involved in greater or less degree.

Within the Group each member will be treated more or less fully as an individual. If he takes his kinsman's wife or his kinsman's game he will be dealt with by the authorities or by the public opinion of his group. He will not indeed be put to death if he kills his kinsman, but he will be hated, and may be driven out. "Since the living kin is not killed for the sake of the dead kin, everybody will hate to see him."[12]

When now a smaller group, like a family, is at the same time a part of a larger group like a phratry or a tribe, we have the phase of solidarity which is so puzzling to the modern. We hold to solidarity in war or between nations; but with a few exceptions[13] we have replaced it by individual responsibility of adults for debts and crimes so far as the civil law has jurisdiction. In earlier times the higher group or authority treated the smaller as a unit. Achan's family all perished with him. The Chinese sense of justice recognized a series of degrees in responsibility dependent on nearness of kin or of residence, or of occupation. The Welsh system held kinsmen as far as second cousins responsible for insult or injury short of homicide, and as far as fifth cousins (seventh degree of descent) for the payment in case of homicide. "The[Pg 30] mutual responsibility of kinsmen for saraal and galanas (the Wergild of the Germans), graduated according to nearness of kin to the murdered man and to the criminal, reveals more clearly than anything else the extent to which the individual was bound by innumerable meshes to his fixed place in the tribal community."[14]

The kinship or household group determined largely both the ideas and the cultus of primitive religion; conversely religion gave completeness, value, and sacredness to the group life. Kinship with unseen powers or persons was the fundamental religious idea. The kinship group as a religious body simply extended the kin to include invisible as well as visible members. The essential feature of religion is not unseen beings who are feared, or cajoled, or controlled by magic. It is rather kindred unseen beings, who may be feared, but who are also reverenced and loved. The kinship may be physical or spiritual, but however conceived it makes gods and worshippers members of one group.[15]

1. Totem Groups.—In totem groups, the prevailing conception is that one blood circulates in all the members of the group and that the ancestor of the whole group is some object of nature, such as sun or moon, plant or[Pg 31] animal. Perhaps the most interesting and intelligible account of the relation between the animal ancestor and the members of the group is that which has recently been discovered in certain Australian tribes who believe that every child, at its birth, is the reincarnation of some previous member of the group, and that these ancestors were an actual transformation of animals and plants, or of water, fire, wind, sun, moon, or stars. Such totem groups cherish that animal which they believe to be their ancestor and ordinarily will not kill it or use it for food. The various ceremonies of religious initiation are intended to impress upon the younger members of the group the sacredness of this kindred bond which units them to each other and to their totem. The beginnings of decorative art frequently express the importance of the symbol, and the totem is felt to be as distinctly a member of the group as is any of the human members.

2. Ancestral Religion.—At a somewhat higher stage of civilization, and usually in connection with the patriarchal households or groups in which kinship is reckoned through the male line, the invisible members of the group are the departed ancestors. This ancestor worship is a power to-day in China and Japan, and in the tribes of the Caucasus. The ancient Semites, Romans, Teutons, Celts, Hindoos, all had their kindred gods of the household. The Roman genius, lares, penates, and manes, perhaps the Hebrew teraphim,—prized by Laban and Rachel, kept by David, valued in the time of Hosea,—were loved and honored side by side with other deities. Sometimes the nature deities, such as Zeus or Jupiter, were incorporated with the kinship or family gods. The Greek Hestia and Roman Vesta symbolized the sacredness of the hearth. The kinship tie thus determined for every member of the group his religion.

Religion Completes the Group.—Conversely, this bond of union with unseen, yet ever present and powerful kin[Pg 32]dred spirits completed the group and gave to it its highest authority, its fullest value, its deepest sacredness. If the unseen kin are nature beings, they symbolize for man his dependence upon nature and his kinship in some vague fashion with the cosmic forces. If the gods are the departed ancestors, they are then conceived as still potent, like Father Anchises, to protect and guide the fortunes of their offspring. The wisdom, courage, and affection, as well as the power of the great heroes of the group, live on. The fact that the gods are unseen enhances tremendously their supposed power. The visible members of the group may be strong, but their strength can be measured. The living elders may be wise, yet they are not far beyond the rest of the group. But the invisible beings cannot be measured. The long-departed ancestor may have inconceivable age and wisdom. The imagination has free scope to magnify his power and invest him with all the ideal values it can conceive. The religious bond is, therefore, fitted to be the bearer, as the religious object is the embodiment in concrete form, of the higher standards of the group, and to furnish the sanction for their enforcement or adoption.

While the kindred and family groups are by far the most important for early morality, other groupings are significant. The division by ages is widespread. The simplest scheme gives three classes: (1) children, (2) young men and maidens, (3) married persons. Puberty forms the bound between the first and second; marriage that between the second and third. Distinct modes of dress and ornament, frequently also different residences and standards of conduct, belong to these several classes. Of groups on the basis of sex, the men's clubs are espe[Pg 33]cially worthy of note. They flourish now chiefly in the islands of the Pacific, but there are indications, such as the common meals of the Spartans, of a wide spread among European peoples in early times. The fundamental idea[16] seems to be that of a common house for the unmarried young men, where they eat, sleep, and pass their time, whereas the women, children, and married men sleep and eat in the family dwelling. But in most cases all the men resort to the clubhouse by day. Strangers may be entertained there. It thus forms a sort of general center for the men's activities, and for the men's conversation. As such, it is an important agency for forming and expressing public opinion, and for impressing upon the young men just entering the house the standards of the older members. Further, in some cases these houses become the center of rites to the dead, and thus add the impressiveness of religious significance to their other activities.

Finally, secret societies may be mentioned as a subdivision of sex groups, for among primitive peoples such societies are confined in almost all cases to the men. They seem in many cases to have grown out of the age classes already described. The transition from childhood to manhood, mysterious in itself, was invested with further mysteries by the old men who conducted the ceremonies of initiation. Masks were worn, or the skulls of deceased ancestors were employed, to give additional mystery and sanctity. The increased power gained by secrecy would often be itself sufficient to form a motive for such organization, especially where they had some end in view not approved by the dominant authorities. Sometimes they exercise strict authority over their members, and assume judicial and punitive functions, as in the Vehm of the Middle Ages. Sometimes they become merely leagues of enemies to society.

[Pg 34]

The moral in this early stage is not to be looked for as something distinct from the political, religious, kindred, and sympathetic aspects of the clan, family, and other groups. The question rather is, How far are these very political, religious, and other aspects implicitly moral? If by moral we mean a conscious testing of conduct by an inner and self-imposed standard, if we mean a freely chosen as contrasted with a habitual or customary standard, then evidently we have the moral only in germ. For the standards are group standards, rather than those of individual conscience; they operate largely through habit rather than through choice. Nevertheless they are not set for the individual by outsiders. They are set by a group of which he is a member. They are enforced by a group of which he is a member. Conduct is praised or blamed, punished or rewarded by the group of which he is a member. Property is administered, industry is carried on, wars and feuds prosecuted for the common good. What the group does, each member joins in doing. It is a reciprocal matter: A helps enforce a rule or impose a service on B; he cannot help feeling it fair when the same rule is applied to himself. He has to "play the game," and usually he expects to play it as a matter of course. Each member, therefore, is practicing certain acts, standing in certain relations, maintaining certain attitudes, just because he is one of the group which does these things and maintains these standards. And he does not act in common with the group without sharing in the group emotions. It is a grotesque perversion to conceive the restraints of gods and chiefs as purely external terrors. The primitive group could enter into the spirit implied in the words of the Athenian chorus, which required of an alien upon adoption[Pg 35]

"To loathe whate'er our state does hateful hold,
To reverence what it loves."[17]

The gregarious instinct may be the most elemental of the impulses which bind the group together, but it is reinforced by sympathies and sentiments growing out of common life, common work, common danger, common religion. The morality is already implicit, it needs only to become conscious. The standards are embodied in the old men or the gods; the rational good is in the inherited wisdom; the respect for sex, for property rights, and for the common good, is embodied in the system—but it is there. Nor are the union and control a wholly objective affair. "The corporate union was not a pretty religious fancy with which to please the mind, but was so truly felt that it formed an excellent basis from which the altruistic sentiment might start. Gross selfishness was curbed, and the turbulent passions were restrained by an impulse which the man felt welling up within him, instinctive and unbidden. Clannish camaraderie was thus of immense value to the native races."[18]

[Pg 37]

A young man may enter a profession thinking of it only as a means of support. But the work requires foresight and persistence; it broadens his interests; it develops his character. Like Saul, he has gone to search for asses, he has found a kingdom. Or he may marry on the basis of emotional attraction. But the sympathies evoked, the coöperation made necessary, are refining and enlarging his life. Both these cases illustrate agencies which are moral in their results, although not carried on from a consciously moral purpose.

Suppose, however, that children are born into the family. Then the parent consciously sets about controlling their conduct, and in exercising authority almost inevitably feels the need of some standard other than caprice or selfishness. Suppose that in business the partners differ as to their shares in the profits, then the question of fairness is raised; and if one partner defaults, the question of guilt. Or suppose the business encounters a law which forbids certain operations, the problem of justice will come to consciousness. Such situations as these are evidently in the moral sphere in a sense in which those of the preceding paragraph are not. They demand some kind of judgment, some approval or disapproval. As Aristotle says, it is not enough to do the acts; it is necessary to do them in a certain way,—not merely to get the result, but to intend it. The result must be[Pg 38] thought of as in some sense good or right; its opposite as in some sense bad or wrong.

But notice that the judgments in these cases may follow either of two methods: (1) The parent or business man may teach his child, or practice in business, what tradition or the accepted standard calls for; or (2) he may consider and examine the principles and motives involved. Action by the first method is undoubtedly moral, in one sense. It is judging according to a standard, though it takes the standard for granted. Action by the second method is moral in a more complete sense. It examines the standard as well. The one is the method of "customary" morality, the other that of reflective morality, or of conscience in the proper sense.

The Three Levels and Their Motives.—We may distinguish then three levels of conduct.

1. Conduct arising from instincts and fundamental needs. To satisfy these needs certain conduct is necessary, and this in itself involves ways of acting which are more or less rational and social. The conduct may be in accordance with moral laws, though not directed by moral judgments. We consider this level in the present chapter.

2. Conduct regulated by standards of society, for some more or less conscious end involving the social welfare. The level of custom, which is treated in Chapter IV.

3. Conduct regulated by a standard which is both social and rational, which is examined and criticized. The level of conscience. Progress toward this level is outlined in Chapters V. to VIII.

The motives in these levels will show a similar scale. In (1) the motives are external to the end gained. The man seeks food, or position, or glory, or sex gratification; he is forced to practice sobriety, industry, courage, gentleness. In (2) the motive is to seek some good which is social, but the man acts for the group mainly because he is of the group, and does not conceive his own good as dis[Pg 39]tinct from that of the group. His acts are only in part guided by intelligence; they are in part due to habit or accident. (3) In full morality a man not only intends his acts definitely, he also values them as what he can do "with all his heart." He does them because they are right and good. He chooses them freely and intelligently. Our study of moral development will consider successively these three levels. They all exist in present morality. Only the first two are found in savage life. If (1) existed alone it was before the group life, which is our starting-point in this study. We return now to our consideration of group life, and note the actual forces which are at work. We wish to discover the process by which the first and second levels prepare the way for the third.

The Necessary Activities of Existence Start the Process.—The prime necessities, if the individual is to survive, are for food, shelter, defense against enemies. If the stock is to survive, there must be also reproduction and parental care. Further, it is an advantage in the struggle if the individual can master and acquire, can outstrip rivals, and can join forces with others of his kind for common ends. To satisfy these needs we find men in group life engaged in work, in war or blood feuds, in games and festal activities, in parental care. They are getting food and booty, making tools and houses, conquering or enslaving their enemies, protecting the young, winning trophies, and finding emotional excitement in contests, dances, and songs. These all help in the struggle for existence. But the workmen, warriors, singers, parents, are getting more. They are forming certain elements of character which, if not necessarily moral in themselves, are yet indispensable requisites for full morality. We may say therefore that nature is doing this part of moral evolution, without the aid of conscious intention on man's part. To use the terms[Pg 40] of Chapter I., we may call this a rationalizing and socializing process, though not a conscious moral process. We notice some of the more important agencies that are operative.

1. Work.—The earlier forms of occupation, hunting and fishing, call for active intelligence, although the activity is sustained to a great degree by the immediate interest or thrill of excitement, which makes them a recreation to the civilized man. Quickness of perception, alertness of mind and body, and in some cases, physical daring, are the qualities most needed. But in the pastoral life, and still more with the beginning of agriculture and commerce, the man who succeeds must have foresight and continuity of purpose. He must control impulse by reason. He must organize those habits which are the basis of character, instead of yielding to the attractions of various pleasures which might lead him from the main purpose. To a certain extent the primitive communism acted to prevent the individual from feeling the full force of improvidence. Even if he does not secure a supply of game, or have a large enough flock to provide for the necessities of himself and his immediate family, the group does not necessarily permit him to starve. The law "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap" does not press upon him with such relentless grasp as in the modern individualistic struggle for existence. Nevertheless it would be an entirely mistaken view of primitive group life to suppose that it is entirely a lazy man's paradise, or happy-go-lucky existence. The varying economic conditions are important here as measuring the amount of forethought and care required. It is the shepherd Jacob whose craft outwits Esau the hunter; and while the sympathy of the modern may be with Esau, he[Pg 41] must remember that forethought like other valuable weapons may be used in a social as well as a selfish fashion. The early Greek appreciation of craft is probably expressed in their deification of theft and deception in Hermes. Agriculture and commerce, still more than preceding types of occupation, demand thoughtfulness and the long look ahead.

The differentiation of labor has been a powerful influence for increasing the range of mental life and stimulating its development. If all do the same thing, all are much alike, and inevitably remain on a low level. But when the needs of men induce different kinds of work, slumbering capacities are aroused and new ones are called into being. The most deeply-rooted differentiation of labor is that between the sexes. The woman performs the work within or near the dwelling, the man hunts or tends the flocks or ranges abroad. This probably tends to accentuate further certain organic differences. Among the men, group life in its simplest phases has little differentiation except "for counsel" or "for war." But with metal working and agricultural life the field widens. At first the specializing is largely by families rather than by individual choice. Castes of workmen may take the place of mere kinship ties. Later on the rules of caste in turn become a hindrance to individuality and must be broken down if the individual is to emerge to full self-direction.

2. The Arts and Crafts.—Aside from their influence as work, the arts and crafts have a distinctly elevating and refining effect. The textiles, pottery, and skilfully made tools and weapons; the huts or houses when artistically constructed; the so-called free or fine arts of dance and music, of color and design—all have this common element: they give some visible or audible embodiment for order or form. The artist or craftsman must make definite his idea in order to work it out in cloth or clay, in wood[Pg 42] or stone, in dance or song. When thus embodied, it is preserved, at least for a time. It is part of the daily environment of the society. Those who see or hear are having constantly suggested to them ideas and values which bring more meaning into life and elevate its interests. Moreover, the order, the rational plan or arrangement which is embodied in all well-wrought objects, as well as in the fine arts in the narrow sense, deserves emphasis. Plato and Schiller have seen in this a valuable preparation for morality. To govern action by law is moral, but it is too much to expect this of the savage and the child as a conscious principle where the law opposes impulse. In art as in play there is direct interest and pleasure in the act, but in art there is also order or law. In conforming to this order the savage, or the child, is in training for the more conscious control where the law, instead of favoring, may thwart or oppose impulse and desire.

3. War.—War and the contests in games were serving to work out characteristics which received also a definite social reënforcement: namely, courage and efficiency, a sense of power, a consciousness of achievement. All these, like craft, may be used for unmoral or even immoral ends, but they are also highly important as factors in an effective moral personality.

Coöperation and Mutual Aid.[19]—Aside from their effects in promoting intelligence, courage, and ideality of life, industry, art, and war have a common factor by which they all contribute powerfully to the social basis of morality. They all require coöperation. They are socializing as well as rationalizing agencies. Mutual aid is the[Pg 43] foundation of success. "Woe to him who stands alone, e'en though his platter be never so full," runs the Slav proverb. "He that belongs to no community is like unto one without a hand." Those clans or groups which can work together, and fight together, are stronger in the struggle against nature and other men. The common activities of art have value in making this community of action more possible. Coöperation implies a common end. It means that each is interested in the success of all. This common end forms then a controlling rule of action, and the mutual interest means sympathy. Coöperation is therefore one of nature's most effective agencies for a social standard and a social feeling.

1. Coöperation in Industry.—In industry, while there was not in primitive life the extensive exchange of goods which expresses the interdependence of modern men, there was yet much concerted work, and there was a great degree of community of property. In groups which lived by hunting or fishing, for instance, although certain kinds of game might be pursued by the individual hunter, the great buffalo and deer hunts were organized by the tribe as a whole. "A hunting bonfire was kindled every morning at daybreak at which each brave must appear and report. The man who failed to do this before the party set out on the day's hunt was harassed by ridicule."[20] Salmon fishery was also conducted as a joint undertaking. Large game in Africa is hunted in a similar fashion, and the product of the chase is not for the individual but for the group. In the pastoral life the care of the flocks and herds necessitates at least some sort of coöperation to protect these flocks from the attacks of wild beasts and from the more dreaded forays of human robbers. This requires a considerable body of men, and the journeying about in company, the sharing together of watch and ward, the common interest in the increase of flocks and[Pg 44] herds, continually strengthens the bonds between the dwellers in tents.

In the agricultural stage there are still certain forces at work which promote the family or tribal unity, although here we begin to find the forces which make for individuality at work until they result in individual ownership and individual property. Just as at the pastoral stage, so in this, the cattle and the growing grain must be protected from attacks by man and beast. It is only the group which can afford such protection, and accordingly we find the Lowland farmer always at the mercy of the Highland clan.

2. Coöperation in War.—War and the blood feud, however divisive between groups, were none the less potent as uniting factors within the several groups. The members must not only unite or be wiped out, when the actual contest was on, but the whole scheme of mutual help in defense or in avenging injuries and insults made constant demand upon fellow feeling, and sacrifice for the good of all. To gain more land for the group, to acquire booty for the group, to revenge a slight done to some member of the group, were constant causes for war. Now although any individual might be the gainer, yet the chances were that he would himself suffer even though the group should win. In the case of blood revenge particularly, most of the group were not individually interested. Their resentment was a "sympathetic resentment," and one author has regarded this as perhaps the most fundamental of the sources of moral emotion. It was because the tribal blood had been shed, or the women of the clan insulted, that the group as a whole reacted, and in the clash of battle with opposing groups, was closer knit together.

"Ally thyself with whom thou wilt in peace, yet know
In war must every man be foe who is not kin."

"Comrades in arms" by the very act of fighting together[Pg 45] have a common cause, and by the mutual help and protection given and received become, for the time at least, one in will and one in heart. Ulysses counsels Agamemnon to marshal his Greeks, clan by clan and "brotherhood (phratry) by brotherhood," that thus brother may support and stimulate brother more effectively; but the effect is reciprocal, and it is indeed very probable that the unity of blood which is believed to be the tie binding together the members of the group, is often an afterthought or pious fiction designed to account for the unity which was really due originally to the stress of common struggle.

3. Art as Socializing Agency.—Coöperation and sympathy are fostered by the activities of art. Some of these activities are spontaneous, but most of them serve some definite social end and are frequently organized for the definite purpose of increasing the unity and sympathy of the group. The hunting dance or the war dance represents, in dramatic form, all the processes of the hunt or fight, but it would be a mistake to suppose that this takes place purely for dramatic purposes. The dance and celebration after the chase or battle may give to the whole tribe the opportunity to repeat in vivid imagination the triumphs of the successful hunter or warrior, and thus to feel the thrill of victory and exult in common over the fallen prey. The dance which takes place before the event is designed to give magical power to the hunter or warrior. Every detail is performed with the most exact care and the whole tribe is thus enabled to share in the work of preparation.

In the act of song the same uniting force is present. To sing with another involves a contagious sympathy, in perhaps a higher degree than is the case with any other art. There is, in the first place, as in the dance, a unity of rhythm. Rhythm is based upon coöperation and, in turn, immensely strengthens the possibility of[Pg 46] coöperation. In the bas-reliefs upon the Egyptian monuments representing the work of a large number of men who are moving a stone, we find the sculptured figure of a man who is beating the time for the combined efforts. Whether all rhythm has come from the necessities of common action or whether it has a physiological basis sufficient to account for the effect which rhythmic action produces, in any case when a company of people begin to work or dance or sing in rhythmic movement, their efficiency and their pleasure are immensely increased. In addition to the effect of rhythm we have also in the case of song the effect of unity of pitch and of melody, and the members of the tribe or clan, like those who to-day sing the Marseillaise or chant the great anthems of the church, feel in the strongest degree their mutual sympathy and support. For this reason, the Corroborees of the Australian, the sacred festivals of Israel, the Mysteries and public festivals of the Greeks, in short, among all peoples, the common gatherings of the tribe for patriotic or religious purposes, have been attended with dance and song. In many cases these carry the members on to a pitch of enthusiasm where they are ready to die for the common cause.

Melodic and rhythmic sound is a unifying force simply by reason of form, and some of the simpler songs seem to have little else to commend them, but at very early periods there is not merely the song but the recital, in more or less rhythmic or literary form, of the history of the tribe and the deeds of the ancestors. This adds still another to the unifying forces of the dance and song. The kindred group, as they hear the recital, live over together the history of the group, thrill with pride at its glories, suffer at its defeats; every member feels that the clan's history is his history and the clan's blood his blood.

[Pg 47]

Family life, so far as it is merely on the basis of instinct, takes its place with other agencies favored by natural selection which make for more rational and social existence. Various instincts are more or less at work. The sex instinct brings the man and the woman together. The instinct of jealousy, and the property or possessing instinct, may foster exclusive and permanent relations. The parental instinct and affection bind the parents together and thus contribute to the formation of the social group described in the preceding chapter. Considering now the more immediate relations of husband and wife, parents and children, rather than the more general group relations, we call attention to some of the most obvious aspects, leaving fuller treatment for Part III. The idealizing influences of the sex instinct, when this is subject to the general influences found in group life, is familiar. Lyric song is a higher form of its manifestation, but even a mute lover may be stimulated to fine thoughts or brave deeds. Courtship further implies an adaptation, an effort to please, which is a strong socializing force. If "all the world loves a lover," it must be because the lover is on the whole a likable rôle. But other forces come in. Sex love is intense, but so far as it is purely instinctive it may be transitory. Family life needed more permanence than sex attraction could provide, and before the powerful sanctions of religion, society, and morals were sufficient to secure permanence, it is probable that the property interest of the husband was largely effective in building up a family life, requiring fidelity to the married relation on the part of the wife.

But the most far-reaching of the forces at work in the family has been the parental instinct and affection with its consequences upon both parents and children. It[Pg 48] contributes probably more than any other naturally selected agency to the development of the race in sympathy; it shares with work in the development of responsibility. It is indeed one of the great incentives to industry throughout the higher species of animals as well as in human life. The value of parental care in the struggle for existence is impressively presented by Sutherland.[21] Whereas the fishes which exercise no care for their eggs preserve their species only by producing these in enormous numbers, certain species which care for them maintain their existence by producing relatively few. Many species produce hundreds of thousands or even millions of eggs. The stickleback, which constructs a nest and guards the young for a few days, is one of the most numerous of fishes, but it lays only from twenty to ninety eggs. Birds and mammals with increased parental care produce few young. Not only is parental care a valuable asset, it is an absolute necessity for the production of the higher species. "In the fierce competition of the animated forms of earth, the loftier type, with its prolonged nervous growth, and consequently augmented period of helplessness, can never arise but with concomitant increases of parental care." Only as the emotional tendency has kept pace with the nerve development has the human race been possible. The very refinements in the organism which make the adult a victor would render the infant a victim if it were without an abundance of loving assistance.[22]

Whether, as has been supposed by some, the parental care has also been the most effective force in keeping the parents together through a lengthened infancy, or whether other factors have been more effective in this particular, there is no need to enlarge upon the wide-reaching moral values of parental affection. It is the atmosphere in which the child begins his experience. So far as any environ[Pg 49]ment can affect him, this is a constant influence for sympathy and kindness. And upon the parents themselves its transforming power, in making life serious, in overcoming selfishness, in projecting thought and hope on into the future, cannot be measured. The moral order and progress of the world might conceivably spare some of the agencies which man has devised; it could not spare this.

On this first level we are evidently dealing with forces and conduct, not as moral in purpose, but as valuable in result. They make a more rational, ideal, and social life, and this is the necessary basis for more conscious control and valuation of conduct. The forces are biological or sociological or psychological. They are not that particular kind of psychological activities which we call moral in the proper sense, for this implies not only getting a good result but aiming at it. Some of the activities, such as those of song and dance, or the simpler acts of maternal care, have a large instinctive element. We cannot call these moral in so far as they are purely instinctive. Others imply a large amount of intelligence, as, for example, the operations of agriculture and the various crafts. These have purpose, such as to satisfy hunger, or to forge a weapon against an enemy. But the end is one set up by our physical or instinctive nature. So long as this is merely accepted as an end, and not compared with others, valued, and chosen, it is not properly moral.

The same is true of emotions. There are certain emotions on the instinctive level. Such are parental love in its most elemental form, sympathy as mere contagious feeling, anger, or resentment. So far as these are at this lowest level, so far as they signify simply a bodily thrill,[Pg 50] they have no claim to proper moral value. They are tremendously important as the source from which strong motive forces of benevolence, intelligent parental care, and an ardent energy against evil may draw warmth and fire.

Finally, even the coöperation, the mutual aid, which men give, so far as it is called out purely by common danger, or common advantage, is not in the moral sphere in so far as it is instinctive, or merely give and take. To be genuinely moral there must be some thought of the danger as touching others and therefore requiring our aid; of the advantage as being common and therefore enlisting our help.

But even although these processes are not consciously moral they are nevertheless fundamental. The activities necessary for existence, and the emotions so intimately bound up with them, are the "cosmic roots" of the moral life. And often in the higher stages of culture, when the codes and instruction of morality and society fail to secure right conduct, these elementary agencies of work, coöperation, and family life assert their power. Society and morality take up the direction of the process and carry it further, but they must always rely largely on these primary activities to afford the basis for intelligent, reliable, and sympathetic conduct.

[Pg 51]

We have seen how the natural forces of instinct lead to activities which elevate men and knit them together. We consider next the means which society uses for these purposes, and the kind of conduct which goes along with the early forms of society's agencies. The organization of early society is that of group life, and so far as the individual is merged in the group the type of conduct may be called "group morality." Inasmuch as the agencies by which the group controls its members are largely those of custom, the morality may be called also "customary morality." Such conduct is what we called at the opening of the previous chapter "the second level." It is "ethical" or "moral" in the sense of conforming to the ethos or mores of the group.

Meaning of Customs or Mores.—Wherever we find groups of men living as outlined in Chapter II., we find that there are certain ways of acting which are common to the group—"folkways." Some of these may be due merely to the fact that the members are born of the same stock, just as all ducks swim. But a large part of human conduct, in savage as truly as in civilized life, is not merely instinctive. There are approved ways of acting, common to a group, and handed down from generation to generation. Such approved ways of doing and acting are[Pg 52] customs, or to use the Latin term, which Professor Sumner thinks brings out more clearly this factor of approval, they are mores.[23] They are habits—but they are more. They imply the judgment of the group that they are to be followed. The welfare of the group is regarded as in some sense imbedded in them. If any one acts contrary to them he is made to feel the group's disapproval. The young are carefully trained to observe them. At times of special importance, they are rehearsed with special solemnity.

Authority Behind the Mores.—The old men, or the priests, or medicine men, or chiefs, or old women, may be the especial guardians of these customs. They may modify details, or add new customs, or invent explanations for old ones. But the authority back of them is the group in the full sense. Not the group composed merely of visible and living members, but the larger group which includes the dead, and the kindred totemic or ancestral gods. Nor is it the group considered as a collection of individual persons. It is rather in a vague way the whole mental and social world. The fact that most of the customs have no known date or origin makes them seem a part of the nature of things. Indeed there is more than a mere analogy between the primitive regard for custom and that respect for "Nature" which from the Stoics to Spencer has sought a moral standard in living "according to nature." And there is this much in favor of taking the world of custom as the standard: the beings of this system are like the person who is expected to behave like them; its rules are the ways in which his own kin have lived and prospered, and not primarily the laws of cosmic forces, plants, and animals.

Origin of Customs; Luck.—The origin of customs is to be sought in several concurrent factors. There are in the first place the activities induced by the great primi[Pg 53]tive needs and instincts. Some ways of acting succeed; some fail. Man not only establishes habits of acting in the successful ways; he remembers his failures. He hands successful ways down with his approval; he condemns those that fail.

This attitude is reënforced by the views about good luck and bad luck. Primitive man—and civilized man—is not ruled by a purely rational theory of success and failure. "One might use the best known means with the greatest care, yet fail of the result. On the other hand, one might get a great result with no effort at all. One might also incur a calamity without any fault of his own."[24] "Grimm gives more than a thousand ancient German apothegms, dicta, and proverbs about 'luck.'"[25] Both good and bad fortune are attributed to the unseen powers, hence a case of bad luck is not thought of as a mere chance. If the ship that sailed Friday meets a storm, or one of thirteen falls sick, the inference is that this is sure to happen again. And at this point the conception of the group welfare as bound up with the acts of every member, comes in to make individual conformity a matter for group concern—to make conduct a matter of mores and not merely a private affair. One most important, if not the most important, object of early legislation was the enforcement of lucky rites to prevent the individual from doing what might bring ill luck on all the tribe. For the conception always was that the ill luck does not attach itself simply to the doer, but may fall upon any member of the group. "The act of one member is conceived to make all the tribe impious, to offend its particular god, to expose all the tribe to penalties from heaven. When the street statues of Hermes were mutilated, all the Athenians were frightened and furious; they thought they should all be ruined because some one had mutilated a[Pg 54] god's image and so offended him."[26] "The children were reproved for cutting and burning embers, on the ground that this might be the cause for the accidental cutting of some member of the family."[27] In the third place, besides these sources of custom, in the usefulness or lucky character of certain acts, there is also the more immediate reaction of individuals or groups to certain ways of acting according "as things jump with the feelings or displease them."[28] An act of daring is applauded, whether useful or not. The individual judgment is caught up, repeated, and plays its part in the formation of group opinion. "Individual impulse and social tradition are thus the two poles between which we move." Or there may even be a more conscious discussion analogous to the action of legislatures or philosophic discussion. The old men among the Australians deliberate carefully as to each step of the initiation ceremonies. They make customs to be handed down.

The most general means for enforcing customs are public opinion, taboos, ritual or ceremony, and physical force.

Public Approval uses both language and form to express its judgments. Its praise is likely to be emphasized by some form of art. The songs that greet the returning victor, the decorations, costumes, and tattoos for those who are honored, serve to voice the general sentiment. On the other hand ridicule or contempt is a sufficient penalty to enforce compliance with many customs that may be personally irksome. It is very largely the ridicule of the men's house which enforces certain customs among the men of peoples which have that institution. It is the ridicule or scorn of both men and women which forbids the Indian to[Pg 55] marry before he has proved his manhood by some notable deed of prowess in war or chase.

Taboos.—Taboos are perhaps not so much a means for enforcing custom, as they are themselves customs invested with peculiar and awful sanction. They prohibit or ban any contact with certain persons or objects under penalty of danger from unseen beings. Any events supposed to indicate the activity of spirits, such as birth and death, are likely to be sanctified by taboos. The danger is contagious; if a Polynesian chief is taboo, the ordinary man fears even to touch his footprints. But the taboos are not all based on mere dread of the unseen.

They may be used with conscious purpose. In order to have a supply of cocoanuts for a religious festival the head men may place a taboo upon the young cocoanuts to prevent them from being consumed before they are fully ripe. The conception works in certain respects to supply the purpose which is later subserved by ideas of property. But it serves also as a powerful agency to maintain respect for the authority of the group.

Ritual.—As taboo is the great negative guardian of customs, ritual is the great positive agent. It works by forming habits, and operates through associations formed by actually doing certain acts, usually under conditions[Pg 56] which appeal to the emotions. The charm of music and of orderly movement, the impressiveness of ordered masses in processions, the awe of mystery, all contribute to stamp in the meaning and value. Praise or blame encourages or inhibits; ritual secures the actual doing and at the same time gives a value to the doing. It is employed by civilized peoples more in the case of military or athletic drill, or in training children to observe forms of etiquette, so that these may become "second nature." Certain religious bodies also use its agency. But in primitive life it is widely and effectively used to insure for educational, political, and domestic customs obedience to the group standards, which among us it secures to the codes of the army, or to those of social etiquette. Examples of its elaborate and impressive use will be given below under educational ceremonies.

Physical Force.—When neither group opinion, nor taboo, nor ritual secures conformity, there is always in the background physical force. The chiefs are generally men of strength whose word may not be lightly disregarded. Sometimes, as among the Sioux, the older braves constitute a sort of police. Between different clans the blood feud is the accepted method of enforcing custom, unless a substitute, the wergeld, is provided. For homicide within a clan the remaining members may drive the slayer out, and whoever meets such a Cain may slay him. If a man murdered his chief of kindred among the ancient Welsh he was banished and "it was required of every one of every sex and age within hearing of the horn to follow that exile and to keep up the barking of dogs, to the time of his putting to sea, until he shall have passed three score hours out of sight."[29] It should be borne in mind, however, that physical pains, either actual or dreaded, would go but a little way toward maintaining authority in any such group as we have regarded as typi[Pg 57]cal. Absolutism, with all its cruel methods of enforcing terror, needs a more highly organized system. In primitive groups the great majority support the authority of the group as a matter of course, and uphold it as a sacred duty when it is challenged. Physical coercion is not the rule but the exception.

Although customs or mores have in them an element of social approval which makes them vehicles of moral judgment, they tend in many cases to sink to the level of mere habits. The reason—such as it was—for their original force—is forgotten. They become, like many of our forms of etiquette, mere conventions. There are, however, certain conditions which center attention upon their importance and lift them to the level of conscious agencies. These conditions may be grouped under three heads. (1) The education of the younger, immature members of the group and their preparation for full membership. (2) The constraint and restraint of refractory members and the adjustment of conflicting interests. (3) Occasions which involve some notable danger or crisis and therefore call for the greatest attention to secure the favor of the gods and avert disaster.

1. Educational Customs.—Among the most striking and significant of these are the initiation ceremonies which are so widely observed among primitive peoples. They are held with the purpose of inducting boys into the privileges of manhood and into the full life of the group. They are calculated at every step to impress upon the initiate his own ignorance and helplessness in contrast with the wisdom and power of the group; and as the mystery with which they are conducted imposes reverence for the elders[Pg 58] and the authorities of the group, so the recital of the traditions and performances of the tribe, the long series of ritual acts, common participation in the mystic dance and song and decorations, serve to reënforce the ties that bind the tribe.

Initiation into the full privileges of manhood among the tribes of Central Australia, for instance, includes three sets of ceremonies which occupy weeks, and even months, for their completion. The first set, called "throwing up in the air," is performed for the boy when he has reached the age of from ten to twelve. In connection with being thrown up in the air by certain prescribed members of his tribe, he is decorated with various totem emblems and afterward the septum of his nose is bored for the insertion of the nose-bone. At a period some three or four years later a larger and more formidable series of ceremonies is undertaken, lasting for ten days. A screen of bushes is built, behind which the boy is kept during the whole period, unless he is brought out on the ceremonial ground to witness some performance. During this whole period of ten days, he is forbidden to speak except in answer to questions. He is decorated with various totem emblems, for which every detail is prescribed by the council of the tribal fathers and tribal elder brothers. He is charged to obey every command and never to tell any woman or boy what he may see. The sense that something out of the ordinary is to happen to him helps to impress him strongly with a feeling of the deep importance of compliance with the tribal rules, and further still, with a strong sense of the superiority of the older men who know and are familiar with the mysterious rites of which he is about to learn the meaning for the first time. At intervals he watches symbolic performances of men decorated like various totem animals, who represent the doings of the animal ancestors of the clan; he hears mysterious sounds of the so-called bull-roarers, which are supposed by the women and un[Pg 59]initiated to be due to unseen spirits; and the whole ends with the operation which symbolizes his induction into young manhood. But even this is not all; when the young man has reached the age of discretion, when it is felt that he can fully comprehend the traditions of the tribe, at the age of from twenty to twenty-five, a still more impressive series of ceremonies is conducted, which in the instance reported lasted from September to January. This period was filled up with dances, "corroborees," and inspection of the churinga or sacred emblems—stones or sticks which were supposed to be the dwellings of ancestral spirits and which are carefully preserved in the tribe, guarded from the sight of women and boys, but known individually to the elders as the sacred dwelling-place of father or grandfather. As these were shown and passed around, great solemnity was manifest and the relatives sometimes wept at the sight of the sacred object. Ceremonies imitating various totem animals, frequently of the most elaborate sort, were also performed. The young men were told the traditions of the past history of the tribe, and at the close of the recital they felt added reverence for the old men who had been their instructors, a sense of pride in the possession of this mysterious knowledge, and a deeper unity because of what they now have in common. One is at a loss whether to wonder most at the possibility of the whole tribe devoting itself for three months to these elaborate functions of initiation, or at the marvelous adaptability of such ceremonies to train the young into an attitude of docility and reverence. A tribe that can enforce such a process is not likely to be wanting in one side, at least, of the moral consciousness, namely, reverence for authority and regard for the social welfare.[30]

2. Law and Justice.—The occasions for some control over refractory members will constantly arise, even though[Pg 60] the conflict between group and individual may need no physical sanctions to enforce the authority of the group over its members. The economic motive frequently prompts an individual to leave the tribe or the joint family. There was a constant tendency, Eastman states, among his people, when on a hunting expedition in the enemy's country, to break up into smaller parties to obtain food more easily and freely. The police did all they could to keep in check those parties who were intent on stealing away. Another illustration of the same tendency is stated by Maine with reference to the joint families of the South Slavonians:

Or covetousness might lead to violation of the ban, as with Achan. Sex impulse may lead a man to seek for his wife a woman not in the lawful group. Or, as one of the most dangerous offenses possible, a member of the group may be supposed to practice witchcraft. This is to use invisible powers in a selfish manner, and has been feared and punished by almost all peoples.

In all these cases it is of course no abstract theory of crime which leads the community to react; it is self-preservation. The tribe must be kept together for protection against enemies. Achan's sin is felt to be the cause of defeat. The violation of sex taboos may ruin the clan. The sorcerer may cause disease, or inflict torture and death, or bring a pestilence or famine upon the whole group. None the less all such cases bring to conscious[Pg 61]ness one aspect of moral authority, the social control over the individual.

And it is a social control—not an exercise of brute force or a mere terrorizing by ghosts. For the chief or judge generally wins his authority by his powerful service to his tribesmen. A Gideon or Barak or Ehud or Jephthah judged Israel because he had delivered them. "Three things, if possessed by a man, make him fit to be a chief of kindred: That he should speak on behalf of his kin and be listened to, that he should fight on behalf of his kin and be feared, and that he should be security on behalf of his kin and be accepted."[32] If, as is often the case, the king or judge or chief regards himself as acting by divine right, the authority is still within the group. It is the group judging itself.

In its standards this primitive court is naturally on the level of customary morality, of which it is an agent. There is usually neither the conception of a general principle of justice (our Common Law), nor of a positive law enacted as the express will of the people. At first the judge or ruler may not act by any fixed law except that of upholding the customs. Each decision is then a special case. A step in advance is found when the heads or elders or priests of the tribe decide cases, not independently of all others, but in accordance with certain precedents or customs. A legal tradition is thus established, which, however imperfect, is likely to be more impartial than the arbitrary caprice of the moment, influenced as such special decisions are likely to be by the rank or power of the parties concerned.[33] A law of precedents or tradition is thus the normal method at this level. The progress toward a more rational standard belongs under the next chapter, but it is interesting to note that even at an early age the myths show a conception of a divine judge[Pg 62] who is righteous, and a divine judgment which is ideal. Rhadamanthus is an embodiment of the demand for justice which human collisions and decisions awakened.

The conscious authority of the group is also evoked in the case of feuds or disputes between its members. The case of the blood feud, indeed, might well be treated as belonging under war and international law rather than as a case of private conflict. For so far as the members of the victim's clan are concerned, it is a case of war. It is a patriotic duty of every kinsman to avenge the shed blood. The groups concerned were smaller than modern nations which go to war for similar reasons, but the principle is the same. The chief difference in favor of modern international wars is that since the groups are larger they do not fight so often and require a more serious consideration of the possibility of peaceable adjustment. Orestes and Hamlet feel it a sacred duty to avenge their fathers' murders.

But the case is not simply that of clan against clan. For the smaller group of kin, who are bound to avenge, are nearly always part of a larger group. And the larger group may at once recognize the duty of vengeance and also the need of keeping it within bounds, or of substituting other practices. The larger group may see in the murder a pollution, dangerous to all;[34] the blood which "cries from the ground"[35] renders the ground "unclean" and the curse of gods or the spirits of the dead may work woe upon the whole region. But an unending blood feud is likewise an evil. And if the injured kin can be appeased by less than blood in return, so much the better. Hence the wergeld, or indemnity, a custom which persisted among the Irish until late, and seemed to the English judges a scandalous procedure.

For lesser offenses a sort of regulated duel is sometimes[Pg 63] allowed. For example, among the Australians the incident is related of the treatment of a man who had eloped with his neighbor's wife. When the recreant parties returned the old men considered what should be done, and finally arranged the following penalty. The offender stood and called out to the injured husband, "I stole your woman; come and growl." The husband then proceeded to throw a spear at him from a distance, and afterwards to attack him with a knife, although he did not attempt to wound him in a vital part. The offender was allowed to evade injury, though not to resent the attack. Finally the old men said, "Enough." A curious form of private agencies for securing justice is also found in the Japanese custom of hara-kiri, according to which an injured man kills himself before the door of his offender, in order that he may bring public odium upon the man who has injured him. An Indian custom of Dharna is of similar significance, though less violent. The creditor fasts before the door of the debtor until he either is paid, or dies of starvation. It may be that he thinks that his double or spirit will haunt the cruel debtor who has thus permitted him to starve to death, but it also has the effect of bringing public opinion to bear.

In all these cases of kindred feuds there is little personal responsibility, and likewise little distinction between the accidental and intentional. These facts are brought out in the opening quotations in Chapter II. The important thing for the student to observe is that like our present practices in international affairs they show a grade of morality, a limited social unity, whether it is called kinship feeling or patriotism; complete morality is not possible so long as there is no complete way of settling disputes by justice instead of force.[36][Pg 64]

3. Occasions Which Involve Some Special Danger or Crisis.—Such occasions call for the greatest attention to secure success or avoid disaster. Under this head we note as typical (a) the occasions of birth, marriage, death; (b) seed time and harvest, or other seasons important for the maintenance of the group; (c) war; (d) hospitality.

(a) Birth and Death Customs.—The entrance of a new life into the world and the disappearance of the animating breath (spiritus, anima, psyche), might well impress man with the mysteries of his world. Whether the newborn infant is regarded as a reincarnation of an ancestral spirit as with the Australians, or as a new creation from the spirit world as with the Kafirs, it is a time of danger. The mother must be "purified,"[37] the child, and in some cases the father, must be carefully guarded. The elaborate customs show the group judgment of the importance of the occasion. And the rites for the dead are yet more impressive. For as a rule the savage has no thought of an entire extinction of the person. The dead lives on in some mode, shadowy and vague, perhaps, but he is still potent, still a member of the group, present at the tomb or the hearth. The preparation of the body for burial or other disposition, the ceremonies of interment or of the pyre, the wailing, and mourning costumes, the provision of food and weapons, or of the favorite horse or wife, to be with the dead in the unseen world, the perpetual homage paid—all these are eloquent. The event, as often as it occurs, appeals by both sympathy and awe to the common feeling, and brings to consciousness the unity of the group and the control exercised by its judgments.

The regulations for marriage are scarcely less important; indeed, they are often seemingly the most important of the customs. The phrases "marriage by capture" and[Pg 65] "marriage by purchase," are quite misleading if they give the impression that in early culture any man may have any woman. It is an almost universal part of the clan system that the man must marry out of his own clan or totem (exogamy), and it is frequently specified exactly into what other clan he must marry. Among some the regulations are minute as to which of the age classes, as well as to which of the kin groups, a man of specific group must choose from. The courtship may follow different rules from ours, and the relation of the sexes in certain respects may seem so loose as to shock the student, but the regulation is in many respects stricter than with us, and punishment of its violation often severer. There can be no doubt of the meaning of the control, however mistaken some of its features. Whether the regulations for exogamy, which provide so effectually for avoiding incest, are reinforced by an instinctive element of aversion to sex relations with intimates, is uncertain; in any case, they are enforced by the strongest taboos. Nor does primitive society stop with the negative side. The actual marriage is invested with the social values and religious sanctions which raise the relation to a higher level. Art, in garments and ornament, in dance and epithalamium, lends ideal values. The sacred meal at the encircled hearth secures the participation of the kindred gods.

(b) Certain Days or Seasons Important for the Industrial Life.—Seed time and harvest, the winter and summer solstices, the return of spring, are of the highest importance to agricultural and pastoral peoples, and are widely observed with solemn rites. Where the rain is the center of anxiety, a whole ritual may arise in connection with it, as among the Zuñi Indians. Ceremonies lasting days, involving the preparation of special symbols of clouds and lightning, and the participation of numerous secret fraternities, constrain the attention of all. Moreover, this constraint of need, working through[Pg 66] the conception of what the gods require, enforces some very positive moral attitudes:

Phases of the moon give other sacred days. Sabbaths which originally are negative—the forbidding of labor—may become later the bearers of positive social and spiritual value. In any case, all these festivals bring the group authority to consciousness, and by their ritual promote the intimate group sympathy and consciousness of a common end.

(c) War.—War as a special crisis always brings out the significance and importance of certain customs. The deliberations, the magic, the war paint which precede, the obedience compelled by it to chiefs, the extraordinary powers exercised by the chief or heads at such crises, the sense of danger which strains the attention, all insure attention. No carelessness is permitted. Defeat is interpreted as a symbol of divine anger because of a violated law or custom. Victory brings all together to celebrate the glory of the clan and to mourn in common the warriors slain in the common cause. Excellence here may be so conspicuous in its service, or in the admiration it calls out, as to become a general term for what the group approves. So the aretē of the Greeks became their general term, and the Latin virtus, if not so clearly military, was yet largely military in its early coloring. The "spirit of Jehovah," the symbol of divine approval and so of[Pg 67] group approval, was believed to be with Samson and Jephthah in their deeds of prowess in Israel's behalf.

(d) Hospitality.—To the modern man who travels without fear and receives guests as a matter of almost daily practice, it may seem strained to include hospitality along with unusual or critical events. But the ceremonies observed and the importance attached to its rites, show that hospitality was a matter of great significance; its customs were among the most sacred.

The duty of hospitality is one of the most widely recognized. Westermarck has brought together a series of maxims from a great variety of races which show this forcibly.[38] Indians, Kalmucks, Greeks, Romans, Teutons, Arabs, Africans, Ainos, and other peoples are drawn upon and tell the same story. The stranger is to be respected sacredly. His person must be guarded from insult even if the honor of the daughter of the house must be sacrificed.[39] "Jehovah preserveth the sojourners," and they are grouped with the fatherless and the widow in Israel's law.[40] The Romans had their dii hospitales and the "duties toward a guest were even more stringent than those toward a relative"—primum tutelæ, delude hospiti, deinde clienti, tum cognato, postea affini.[41] "He who has a spark of caution in him," says Plato, "will do his best to pass through life without sinning against the stranger." And there is no doubt that this sanctity of the guest's person[Pg 68] was not due to pure kindness. The whole conduct of group life is opposed to a general spirit of consideration for those outside. The word "guest" is akin to hostis, from which comes "hostile." The stranger or the guest was looked upon rather as a being who was specially potent. He was a "live wire." He might be a medium of blessing, or he might be a medium of hurt. But it was highly important to fail in no duty toward him. The definite possibility of entertaining angels unawares might not be always present to consciousness, but there seems reason to believe that the possibility of good luck or bad luck as attending on a visitor was generally believed in. It is also plausible that the importance attached to sharing a meal, or to bodily contact, is based on magical ideas of the way in which blessing or curse may be communicated. To cross a threshold or touch a tent-rope or to eat "salt," gives a sacred claim. In the right of asylum, the refugee takes advantage of his contact with the god. He lays hold of the altar and assumes that the god will protect him. The whole practice of hospitality is thus the converse of the custom of blood revenge. They are alike sacred—or rather the duty of hospitality may protect even the man whom the host is bound to pursue. But, whereas the one makes for group solidarity by acts of exclusive and hostile character, the other tends to set aside temporarily the division between the "we-group" and the "others-group." Under the sanction of religion it keeps open a way of communication which trade and other social interchange will widen. It adds to family and the men's house a powerful agency in maintaining at least the possibility of humaneness and sympathy.

These have been suggested, in the main, in the description of the nature of custom and its regulation of conduct.[Pg 69] We may, however, summarize them as a preparation for the next stage of morality.

1. The Forming of Standards.—There is a standard, a "good," a "right," which is to some degree rational and to some degree social. We have seen that custom rests in part on rational conceptions of welfare. It is really nothing against this that a large element of luck enters into the idea of welfare. For this means merely that the actual conditions of welfare are not understood. The next generation may be able to point out as equally absurd our present ignorance about health and disease. The members of the group embodied in custom what they thought to be important; they were approving some acts and forbidding or condemning others; they were using the elders, and the wisdom of all the past, in order to govern life. So far, then, they were acting morally. They were also, to a degree, using a rational and social standard when they made custom binding on all, and conceived its origin as immemorial. When further they conceived it as approved by the gods, they gave it all the value they knew how to put into it.

The standards and valuations of custom are, however, only partly rational. Many customs are irrational; some are injurious. But in them all the habitual is a large, if not the largest, factor. And this is often strong enough to resist any attempt at rational testing. Dr. Arthur Smith tells us of the advantage it would be in certain parts of China to build a door on the south side of the house in order to get the breeze in hot weather. The simple and sufficient answer to such a suggestion is, "We don't build doors on the south side."

An additional weakness in the character of such irrational, or partly rational standards, is the misplaced energy they involve. What is merely trivial is made as important and impressive as what has real significance. Tithing mint, anise, and cummin is quite likely to involve[Pg 70] neglect of the weightier matters of the law. Moral life requires men to estimate the value of acts. If the irrelevant or the petty is made important, it not only prevents a high level of value for the really important act, it loads up conduct with burdens which keep it back; it introduces elements which must be got rid of later, often with heavy loss of what is genuinely valuable. When there are so many ways of offending the gods and when these turn so often upon mere observance of routine or formula, it may require much subsequent time and energy to make amends. The morals get an expiatory character.

2. The Motives.—In the motives to which it appeals, custom is able to make a far better showing than earlier writers, like Herbert Spencer, gave it credit for. It doubtless employs fear in its taboos; it doubtless enlists the passion of resentment in its blood feuds. Even these are modified by a social environment. For the fear of violating a taboo is in part the fear of bringing bad luck on the whole group, and not merely on the violator. We have, therefore, a quasi-social fear, not a purely instinctive reaction. The same is true in perhaps a stronger degree of the resentments. The blood revenge is in a majority of cases not a personal but a group affair. It is undertaken at personal risk and for others' interest—or rather for a common interest. The resentment is thus a "sympathetic resentment."[42] Regarded as a mere reaction for self-preservation this instinctive-emotional process is unmoral. As a mere desire to produce pain it would be immoral. But so far as it implies an attitude of reacting from a general point of view and to aid others, it is moral. Aside from the passions of fear and resentment, however, there is a wide range of motives enlisted. Filial and parental affection, some degree of affection between the sexes over and above sex passion, respect for the aged and the[Pg 71] beings who embody ideals however crude, loyalty to fellow clansmen,—all these are not only fostered but actually secured by the primitive group. But the motives which imply reflection—reverence for duty as the imperious law of a larger life, sincere love of what is good for its own sake—cannot be brought to full consciousness until there is a more definite conception of a moral authority, a more definite contrast between the one great good and the partial or temporary satisfactions. The development of these conceptions requires a growth in individuality; it requires conflicts between authority and liberty, and those collisions between private interests and the public welfare which a higher civilization affords.

3. The Content.—When we consider the "what" of group and customary morality we note at once that the factors which make for the idealizing and expansion of interests are less in evidence than those which make for a common and social interest and satisfaction. There is indeed, as we have noted, opportunity for memory and fancy. The traditions of the past, the myths, the cultus, the folk songs—these keep up a mental life which is as genuinely valued as the more physical activities. But as the mode of life in question does not evoke the more abstractly rational activities—reasoning, selecting, choosing—in the highest degree, the ideals lack reach and power. It needs the incentives described in the following chapters to call out a true life of the spirit. The social aspects of the "what," on the other hand, are well rooted in group morality. It is unnecessary to repeat what has been dwelt upon in the present and preceding chapters so fully. We point out now that while the standard is social, it is unconsciously rather than consciously social. Or perhaps better: it is a standard of society but not a standard which each member deliberately makes his own. He takes it as a matter of course. He is in the clan, "with the gang"; he thinks and acts accordingly. He cannot begin to be as selfish as a modern[Pg 72] individualist; he simply hasn't the imagery to conceive such an exclusive good, nor the tools with which to carry it out. But he cannot be as broadly social either. He may not be able to sink so low as the civilized miser, or debauchee, or criminal, but neither can he conceive or build up the character which implies facing opposition. The moral hero achieves full stature only when he pits himself against others, when he recognizes evil and fights it, when he "overcomes the world."

4. Organization of Character.—In the organization of stable character the morality of custom is strong on one side. The group trains its members to act in the ways it approves and afterwards holds them by all the agencies in its power. It forms habits and enforces them. Its weakness is that the element of habit is so large, that of freedom so small. It holds up the average man; it holds back the man who might forge ahead. It is an anchor, and a drag.

[Pg 73]

1. What the Third Level Means.—Complete morality is reached only when the individual recognizes the right or chooses the good freely, devotes himself heartily to its fulfillment, and seeks a progressive social development in which every member of society shall share. The group morality with its agencies of custom set up a standard, but one that was corporate rather than personal. It approved and disapproved, that is it had an idea of good, but this did not mean a good that was personally valued. It enlisted its members, but it was by drill, by pleasure and pain, and by habit, rather than by fully voluntary action. It secured steadiness by habit and social pressure, rather than by choices built into character. It maintained community of feeling and action, but of the unconscious rather than the definitely social type. Finally it was rather fitted to maintain a fixed order than to promote and safeguard progress. Advance then must (1) substitute some rational method of setting up standards and forming values, in place of habitual passive acceptance; (2) secure voluntary and personal choice and interest, instead of unconscious identification with the group welfare, or instinctive and habitual response to group needs; (3) encourage at the same time individual development and the demand that all shall share in this development—the worth and happiness of the person and of every person.[Pg 74]

2. Collisions Involved.—Such an advance brings to consciousness two collisions. The oppositions were there before, but they were not felt as oppositions. So long as the man was fully with his group, or satisfied with the custom, he would make no revolt. When the movement begins the collisions are felt. These collisions are:

(1) The collision between the authority and interests of the group, and the independence and private interests of the individual.

(2) The collision between order and progress, between habit and reconstruction or reformation.

It is evident that there is a close connection between these two collisions; in fact, the second becomes in practice a form of the first. For we saw in the last chapter that custom is really backed and enforced by the group, and its merely habitual parts are as strongly supported as those parts which have a more rational basis. It would perhaps be conceivable that a people should move on all together, working out a higher civilization in which free thought should keep full reverence for social values, in which political liberty should keep even pace with the development of government, in which self-interest should be accompanied by regard for the welfare of others, just as it may be possible for a child to grow into full morality without a period of "storm and stress." But this is not usual. Progress has generally cost struggle. And the first phase of this struggle is opposition between the individual and the group. The self-assertive instincts and impulses were present in group life, but they were in part undeveloped because they had not enough stimulus to call them out. A man could not develop his impulse for possession to its full extent if there was little or nothing for him to possess. In part they were not developed because the group held them back, and the conditions of living and fighting favored those groups which did keep them back. Nevertheless they[Pg 75] were present in some degree, always contending against the more social forces. Indeed what makes the opposition between group and individual so strong and so continuous is that both the social and the individual are rooted in human nature. They constitute what Kant calls the unsocial sociableness of man. "Man cannot get on with his fellows and he cannot do without them."

Individualism.—The assertion by the individual of his own opinions and beliefs, his own independence and interests, as over against group standards, authority, and interests, is known as individualism. It is evident that such assertion will always mark a new level of conduct. Action must now be personal and voluntary. It is also evident that it may be either better or worse than the level of custom and group life. The first effect is likely to be, in appearance at least, a change for the worse. The old restraints are tossed aside; "creeds outworn" no longer steady or direct; the strong or the crafty individual comes to the fore and exploits his fellows. Every man does what is "right in his own eyes." The age of the Sophists in Greece, of the Renaissance in Italy, of the Enlightenment and Romantic movement in western Europe, and of the industrial revolution in recent times illustrate different phases of individualism. A people, as well as an individual, may "go to pieces" in its reaction against social authority and custom. But such one-sided individualism is almost certain to call out prophets of a new order; "organic filaments" of new structures appear; family, industry, the state, are organized anew and upon more voluntary basis. Those who accept the new conditions and assume responsibility with their freedom, who direct their choices by reason instead of passion, who "aim at justice and kindness" as well as at happiness, become moral persons and gain thereby new worth and dignity. While, then, the general movement is on the whole a movement of individualism, it demands just as necessarily, if there is to be moral progress, a recon[Pg 76]structed individual—a person who is individual in choice, in feeling, in responsibility, and at the same time social in what he regards as good, in his sympathies, and in his purposes. Otherwise individualism means progress toward the immoral.

The agencies which bring about the change from customary and group morality to conscious and personal morality are varied. Just as character is developed in the child and young man by various means, sometimes by success, sometimes by adversity or loss of a parent, sometimes by slow increase in knowledge, and sometimes by a sudden right-about-face with a strong emotional basis, so it is with peoples. Some, like the Japanese at the present, are brought into sudden contact with the whole set of commercial and military forces from without. Among others, as with the Greeks, a fermentation starts within, along intellectual, economic, political, and religious lines. Or again, national calamities may upset all the old values, as with the Hebrews. But we may note four typical agencies which are usually more or less active.

1. Economic Forces.—The action of economic forces in breaking up the early kinship group or joint family may be noticed in the history of many peoples. The clan flourishes in such conditions of hunting life or of simple agriculture as were found among Australians and Indians, or among the Celts in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. It cannot survive when a more advanced state of agriculture prevails. A certain amount of individualism will appear wherever the advantage for the individual lies in separate industry and private ownership. If buffalo was to be hunted it was better to pool issues, but for smaller game the skilful or persistent huntsman or shepherd will think he can gain more by working for himself. This is intensi[Pg 77]fied when agriculture and commerce take the place of earlier modes of life. The farmer has to work so hard and long, his goal is so far in the future, that differences of character show themselves much more strongly. Hunting and fishing are so exciting, and the reward is so near, that even a man who is not very industrious will do his part. But in agriculture only the hard and patient worker gets a reward and he does not like to share it with the lazy, or even with the weaker. Commerce, bargaining, likewise puts a great premium on individual shrewdness. And for a long time commerce was conducted on a relatively individual basis. Caravans of traders journeyed together for mutual protection but there was not any such organization as later obtained, and each individual could display his own cunning or ability. Moreover commerce leads to the comparison of custom, to interchange of ideas as well as goods. All this tends to break down the sanctity of customs peculiar to a given group. The trader as well as the guest may overstep the barriers set up by kin. The early Greek colonists, among whom a great individualistic movement began, were the traders of their day. The parts of Europe where most survives of primitive group life are those little touched by modern commerce.

But we get a broader view of economic influences if we consider the methods of organizing industry which have successively prevailed. In early society, and likewise in the earlier period of modern civilization, the family was a great economic unit. Many or most of the industries could be advantageously carried on in the household. As in the cases cited above (p. 60) the stronger or adventurous member would be constantly trying to strike out for himself. This process of constant readjustment is, however, far less thoroughgoing in its effects on mores than the three great methods of securing a broader organization of industry. In primitive society large enterprises had to be carried on by the co-operation of the group. Forced labor as used[Pg 78] by the Oriental civilizations substituted a method by which greater works like the pyramids or temples could be built, but it brought with it the overthrow of much of the old group sympathies and mutual aid. In Greece and Rome slavery did the drudgery and left the citizens free to cultivate art, letters, and government. It gave opportunity and scope for the few. Men of power and genius arose, and at the same time all the negative forces of individualism asserted themselves. In modern times capitalism is the method for organizing industry and trade. It proves more effective than forced labor or slavery in securing combination of forces and in exploiting natural resources. It likewise gives extraordinary opportunities for the rise of men of organizing genius. The careers of "captains of industry" are more fascinating than those of old-time conquerors because they involve more complex situations, and can utilize the discoveries and labors of more men. But modern capitalism has been as destructive to the morality of the Middle Ages, or even of a hundred years ago, as was forced labor or slavery to the group life and mores which they destroyed.

2. The Progress of Science and the Arts.—The effect of the progress of science and intelligence upon the mores is direct. Comparisons of the customs of one people with those of another bring out differences, and arouse questions as to the reasons for such diversity. And we have seen that there is more or less in the customs for which no reason can be given. Even if there was one originally it has been forgotten. Or again, increasing knowledge of weather and seasons, of plants and animals, of sickness and disease, discredits many of the taboos and ceremonials which the cruder beliefs had regarded as essential to welfare. Certain elements of ritual may survive under the protection of "mysteries," but the more enlightened portion of the community keeps aloof. Instead of the mores with their large infusion of the accidental, the ha[Pg 79]bitual, and the impulsive, increasing intelligence demands some rational rule of life.

And science joins with the various industrial and fine arts to create a new set of interests for the individual. Any good piece of workmanship, any work of art however simple, is twice blest. It blesses him that makes and him that uses or enjoys. The division of labor, begun in group life, is carried further. Craftsmen and artists develop increasing individuality as they construct temples or palaces, fashion statues or pottery, or sing of gods and heroes. Their minds grow with what they do. Side by side with the aspect of art which makes it a bond of society is the aspect which so frequently makes the skilled workman the critic, and the artist a law to himself. In the next place note the effect on those who can use and enjoy the products of the arts. A new world of satisfaction and happiness is opened which each person can enter for himself. In cruder conditions there was not much out of which to build up happiness. Food, labor, rest, the thrill of hunt or contest, the passion of sex, the pride in children—these made up the interests of primitive life. Further means of enjoyment were found chiefly in society of the kin, or in the men's house. But as the arts advanced the individual could have made for him a fine house and elaborate clothing. Metal, wood, and clay minister to increasing wants. A permanent and stately tomb makes the future more definite. The ability to hand down wealth in durable form places a premium on its acquirement. Ambition has more stuff to work with. A more definite, assertive self is gradually built up. "Good" comes to have added meaning with every new want that awakes. The individual is not satisfied any longer to take the group's valuation. He wants to get his own good in his own way. And it will often seem to him that he can get his own good most easily and surely either by keeping out of the common life or by using his fellow men to his own advantage. Men of culture[Pg 80] have frequently shown their selfishness in the first way; men of wealth in the second. An aristocracy of culture, or birth, or wealth may come to regard the whole process of civilization as properly ministering to the wants of the select few. Nearly every people which has developed the arts and sciences has developed also an aristocracy. In the ancient world slavery was a part of the process. In modern times other forms of exploitation may serve the purpose better. Individualism, released from the ties which bound up the good of one with the good of all, tends to become exclusive and selfish; civilization with all its opportunities for increasing happiness and increasing life has its moral risks and indirectly, at least, its moral evils.

These evils may appear as the gratification of sense and appetite and thus may be opposed to the higher life of the spirit, which needs no outer objects or luxuries. Or they may appear as rooted in selfishness, in the desire for gratifying the exclusive self of material interests or ambition, as over against sympathy, justice, and kindness, which mark a broadly human and social life. In both cases serious men have sought to overcome by some form of "self-denial" the evils that attend on civilization, even if they are not due to it.

3. Military Forces.—The kinship group is a protection so long as it has to contend only with similar groups. The headlong valor and tribal loyalty of German or Scottish clans may even win conflicts with more disciplined troops of Rome or England. But permanent success demands higher organization than the old clans and tribes permitted. Organization means authority, and a single directing, controlling commander or king. As Egypt, Assyria, Phœnicia show their strength the clans of Israel cry, "Nay, but we will have a king over us; that we may also be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles."[43] Wars afford the oppor[Pg 81]tunity for the strong and unscrupulous leader to assert himself. Like commerce they may tend also to spread culture and thus break down barriers of ancient custom. The conquests of Babylon and Alexander, the Crusades and the French Revolution, are instances of the power of military forces to destroy old customs and give individualism new scope. In most cases, it is true, it is only the leader or "tyrant" who gets the advantage. He uses the whole machinery of society for his own elevation. Nevertheless custom and group unity are broken for all. Respect for law must be built new from the foundation.

4. Religious Forces.—While in general religion is a conservative agency, it is also true that a new religion or a new departure in religion has often exercised a powerful influence on moral development. The very fact that religion is so intimately bound up with all the group mores and ideals, makes a change in religion bear directly on old standards of life. The collision between old and new is likely to be fundamental and sharp. A conception of God may carry with it a view of what conduct is pleasing to him. A doctrine as to the future may require a certain mode of life. A cultus may approve or condemn certain relations between the sexes. Conflicting religions may then force a moral attitude in weighing their claims. The contests between Jehovah and Baal, between Orphic cults and the public Greek religion, between Judaism and Christianity, Christianity and Roman civilization, Christianity and Germanic religion, Catholicism and Protestantism, have brought out moral issues. We shall notice this factor especially in Chapters VI. and VIII.

The psychological forces which tend toward individualism have been already stated to be the self-assertive instincts and impulses. They are all variations of the effort[Pg 82] of the living being first to preserve itself and then to rise to more complicated life by entering into more complex relations and mastering its environment. Spinoza's "sui esse conservare," Schopenhauer's "will to live," Nietzsche's "will to power," the Hebrew's passionate ideal of "life", and Tennyson's "More life, and fuller" express in varying degree the meaning of this elemental bent and process. Growing intelligence adds to its strength by giving greater capacity to control. Starting with organic needs, this developing life process may find satisfactions in the physical world in the increasing power and mastery over nature gained by the explorer or the hunter, the discoverer, the craftsman, or the artist. It is when it enters the world of persons that it displays a peculiar intensity that marks the passions of individualism par excellence. We note four of these tendencies toward self-assertion.

1. Sex.—The sex instinct and emotion occupies a peculiar position in this respect. On the one hand it is a powerful socializing agency. It brings the sexes together and is thus fundamental to the family. But on the other hand it is constantly rebelling against the limits and conventions established by the social group for its regulation. The statutes against illicit relations, from the codes of Hammurabi and Moses to the latest efforts for stricter divorce, attest the collision between the individual's inclination and the will of the group. Repeatedly some passion of sex has broken over all social, legal, and religious sanctions. It has thus been a favorite theme of tragedy from the Greeks to Ibsen. It finds another fitting medium in the romance. It has called into existence and maintains in every large city an outcast colony of wretched creatures, and the evils which attend are not limited in their results to those who knowingly take the risks. It has worked repeated changes in the structure of the family authorized by society. Its value and proper regulation were points at issue in that wide-reaching change of mores attendant[Pg 83] upon the Reformation, and apparently equilibrium has not yet been reached.

2. The Demand for Possession and Private Property.—In the primitive group we have seen that there might be private property in tools or weapons, in cattle or slaves. There was little private property in land under the maternal clan; and indeed in any case, so long as the arts were undeveloped, private property had necessary limits. The demand for private property is a natural attendant upon individual modes of industry. As we have said, it was a common principle that what the group produced was owned by the group, and what the individual made or captured was treated as his. When individual industry came to count for more, the individual claimed more and more as private possession.

The change from the maternal clan to the paternal family or household was a reënforcement to the individual control of property. The father could hand down his cattle or his house to his son. The joint family of India is indeed a type of a paternal system. Nevertheless the tendency is much stronger to insist on individual property where the father's goods pass to his son than where they go to his sister's children.

The chiefs or rulers were likely to gain the right of private property first. Among certain families of the South Slavs to-day, the head has his individual eating utensils, the rest share. Among many people the chiefs have cattle which they can dispose of as they will; the rest have simply their share of the kin's goods. The old Brehon laws of Ireland show this stage.

But however it comes about, the very meaning of property is, in the first place, exclusion of others from some thing which I have. It is therefore in so far necessarily opposed to group unity, opposed to any such simple solidarity of life as we find in group morality. As the American Indian accepts land in severalty, the old group life,[Pg 84] the tribal restraints and supports, the group custom and moral unity that went with it, are gone. He must find a new basis or go to pieces.

3. Struggles for Mastery or Liberty.—In most cases these cannot be separated from economic struggles. Masters and slaves were in economic as well as personal relations, and nearly all class contests on a large scale have had at least one economic root, whatever their other sources. But the economic is not their only root. There have been wars for glory or for liberty as well as for territory or booty or slaves. As the struggle for existence has bred into the race the instinct of self-defense with its emotion of anger, the instinct to rivalry and mastery, and the corresponding aversion to being ruled, so the progress of society shows trials of strength between man and man, kin and kin, tribe and tribe. And while, as stated in the preceding chapter, the coöperation made necessary in war or feud is a uniting force, there is another side to the story. Contests between individuals show who is master; contests between groups tend to bring forward leaders. And while such masterful men may serve the group they are quite as likely to find an interest in opposing group customs. They assert an independence of the group, or a mastery over it, quite incompatible with the solidarity of the kinship clan, although the patriarchal type of household under a strong head may be quite possible. There comes to be one code for rich and another for poor, one for Patricians and another for Plebs, one for baron and another for peasant, one for gentry and another for the common folk. For a time this may be accepted patiently. But when once the rich become arrogant, the feudal lord insolent, the bitter truth is faced that the customs have become mere conventions. They no longer hold. All the old ties are cast off. The demand for freedom and equality rises, and the collision between authority and liberty is on.[Pg 85]

Or the contest may be for intellectual liberty—for free thought and free speech. It is sometimes considered that such liberty meets its strongest opponent in the religious or ecclesiastical organization. There is no doubt a conservative tendency in religion. As we have pointed out, religion is the great conservator of group values and group standards. Its ritual is most elaborate, its taboos most sacred. Intellectual criticism tends to undermine what is outgrown or merely habitual here as elsewhere. Rationalism or free thought has set itself in frequent opposition likewise to what has been claimed to be "above reason." Nevertheless it would be absurd to attribute all the individualism to science and all the conservatism to religion. Scientific dogmas and "idols" are hard to displace. Schools are about as conservative as churches. And on the other hand the struggle for religious liberty has usually been carried on not by the irreligious but by the religious. The prophet Amos found himself opposed by the religious organization of his day when he urged social righteousness, and the history of the noble army of martyrs is a record of appeal to individual conscience, or to an immediate personal relation to God, as over against the formal, the traditional, the organized religious customs and doctrines of their age. The struggle for religious toleration and religious liberty takes its place side by side with the struggles for intellectual and political liberty in the chapters of individualism.

4. The Desire for Honor, or Social Esteem.—James, in his psychology of the self, calls the recognition which a man gets from his mates his "social self." "We are not only gregarious animals, liking to be in sight of our fellows, but we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably by our kind. No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members[Pg 86] thereof."[44] From such a punishment "the cruelest bodily tortures would be a relief; for this would make us feel that however bad might be our plight, we had not sunk to such depth as to be unworthy of attention at all."[45] Honor or fame is a name for one of the various "social selves" which a man may build up. It stands for what those of a given group may think or say of him. It has a place and a large place in group life. Precedence, salutations, decorations in costume and bodily ornament, praises in song for the brave, the strong, the cunning, the powerful, with ridicule for the coward or the weakling are all at work. But with the primitive group the difference between men of the group is kept within bounds. When more definite organization of groups for military or civil purposes begins, when the feudal chief gathers his retainers and begins to rise above the rest of the community in strength, finally when the progress of the arts gives greater means for display, the desire for recognition has immensely greater scope. It is increased by the instinct of emulation; it often results in envy and jealousies. It becomes then a powerful factor in stimulating individualism.

But while desires for honor and fame provoke individualism, they carry with them, like desires for property and power, elements that make for reconstruction of the social on a higher level. For honor implies some common sentiment to which the individual can make appeal. Group members praise or blame what accords with their feeling or desire, but they do not act as individuals merely, praising what pleases them as individuals. They react more or less completely from the group point of view; they honor the man who embodies the group-ideal of courage, or other admirable and respected qualities. And here comes the motive which operates to force a better ideal than mere desire of praise. No group honors the man who is definitely[Pg 87] seeking merely its applause rather than its approval—at least not after it has found him out. The force of public opinion is therefore calculated to elicit a desire to be worthy of honor, as well as to be honored. This means a desire to act as a true social individual, for it is only the true member of the group,—true clansman,—true patriot,—true martyr,—who appeals to the other members when they judge as members, and not selfishly. When now the group whose approval is sought is small, we have class standards, with all the provincialism, narrowness, and prejudice that belong to them. As the honor-seeker is merely after the opinion of his class, he is bound to be only partly social. So long as he is with his kin, or his set, or his "gang," or his "party," or his "union," or his "country"—regardless of any wider appeal—he is bound to be imperfectly rational and social in his conduct. The great possibilities of the desire for honor, and of the desire to be worthy of honor, lie then in the constant extension of the range. The martyr, the seeker for truth, the reformer, the neglected artist, looks for honor from posterity; if misjudged or neglected, he appeals to mankind. He is thus forming for himself an ideal standard. And if he embodies this ideal standard in a personal, highest possible judging companion, his desire to be worthy of approval takes a religious form. He seeks "the honor that is from God." Though "the innermost of the empirical selves of a man is a self of the social sort, it yet can find its only adequate socius in an ideal world."[46]

The moral value of these three forces of individualism was finely stated by Kant:

We have spoken of the "forces" which tend to break down the old unity of the group and bring about new organization. But of course these forces are not impersonal. Sometimes they seem to act like the ocean tide, pushing silently in, and only now and then sending a wave a little higher than its fellows. Frequently, however, some great personality stands out preëminent, either as critic of the old or builder of the new. The prophets were stoned because they condemned the present; the next generation was ready to build their sepulchers. Socrates is the classic example of the great man who perishes in seeking to find a rational basis to replace that of custom. Indeed, this conflict—on the one hand, the rigid system of tradition and corporate union hallowed by all the sanctions of religion and public opinion; upon the other, the individual making appeal to reason, or to his conscience, or to a "higher law"—is the tragedy of history.

[Pg 89]

It must not be supposed that the moral process stops at the points indicated under the several divisions of this last section. As already stated, if the people really works out a higher type of conscious and personal morality, it means not only a more powerful individual, but a reconstructed individual and a reconstructed society. It means not only the disintegration of the old kinship or family group, which is an economic, political, and religious unity as well. It means the construction of a new basis for the family; new moral principles for business; a distinct political state with new means for government, new conceptions of authority and liberty; finally, a national or universal religion. And the individual must on this higher level choose all these voluntarily. More than this: as he chooses in the presence of the new conflicting ends presented by individualism, he sets up or adopts a standard for himself. He thinks definitely of what is "good" and "right." As he recognizes its claim, he is responsible as well as free. As he identifies himself heartily with it, he becomes sincerely and genuinely moral. Reverence, duty, and love for what is good become the quickening emotions. Thoughtfulness, self-control, aspiration toward an ideal, courageous venturing in its achievement, kindness and justice, become the dominant temper, or at least are recognized as the temper that should be dominant. The conception of moral character and moral personality is brought to consciousness. The development of the Hebrews and Greeks will show how these positive values emerge.

[Pg 91]

1. The Hebrew and the Greek.—The general character of the Hebrew moral development may be brought out by a contrast with that of the Greeks.[48] While many phases are common, there is yet a difference in emphasis and focus. There were political and economic forces at work in Israel, and religious forces in Greece. Nevertheless, the moral life in one people kept close to the religious, and in the other found independent channels. Conscientious conduct for the Hebrew centered in doing the will of God; for the Greek, in finding rational standards of good. For the Hebrew, righteousness was the typical theme; for the Greek, the ideal lay rather in measure and harmony. For the Greek, wisdom or insight was the chief virtue; for the Hebrew, the fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom. The social ideal of the Hebrews was the kingdom of God; of the Greeks, a political State. If we distinguish in conscience two aspects, thoughtfulness in discovering what to do and hearty desire to do the right when found, then the Greeks emphasize the former, the Hebrews the latter. Intellect plays a larger part with the Greek; emotion and the voluntary aspect of will with the Hebrew. Feeling plays its part with the Greeks largely as an æsthetic demand for measure and harmony; with the Hebrews it is chiefly prominent in motivation, where it is an element in what is called[Pg 92] "the heart," or it functions in appreciation of acts performed, as the joy or sorrow felt when God approves or condemns. Both peoples are interesting for our study, not only as illustrating different kinds of moral development, but also as contributing largely to the moral consciousness of western peoples to-day.

2. The Early Morality.—The accounts of the tribal life and customs in the early period after the settlement in Canaan, show the main features of group life which are already familiar to us. Clan or kinship loyalty was strong on both its good and its defective sides. There were fidelity, a jeoparding of lives unto death, honor for group heroes, joint responsibility, and blood revenge. There were respect for hospitality and regulation of marriage, though not according to later standards. A rough measure of justice was recognized in "as I have done, so God hath requited me." But there was no public authority to restrain the wrongdoer, except when a particularly revolting brutality shocked public sentiment. Festivals and sacrificial meals united the members of the family or clan more closely to each other and to their god. Vows must be kept inviolable even if they involved human sacrifice. The interests and ends of life were simple. The satisfaction of bodily wants, the love of kin and above all of children, the desire to be in right relation of favor and harmony with the unseen deity who protected from enemies and sent fruitful seasons,—these made their chief good. The line of their progress from these rude beginnings to a lofty moral ideal lay through religion. But the religious conceptions were directly related to political, social, and economic conditions; hence, both aspects must be briefly characterized.

3. Political Development.—The political development (a) built up a national unity which worked to break down old group units, (b) strengthened military ambition and race pride, (c) stimulated the prophets to their highest[Pg 93] conceptions of the divine majesty and universality, but, finally when the national power and hope were shattered, (d) compelled the most thoroughgoing reconstruction of all the values, ideals, and meaning of life. It is not possible or necessary to trace this process in detail, but we may point out here the general effect of the political development in bringing into clearer consciousness the conceptions of authority and law which were important factors in Hebrew morality. The earlier patriarchal head of the clan or family exercised certain political power, but there was no explicit recognition of this. Government by the "elders" or by the heads of the household makes no clear distinction between the common kinship and the political and legal authority of the sovereign. The "judges," whose rule preceded the kingdom, were military deliverers who owed their authority to personal powers rather than to a definite provision. To establish an organized political community, a kingdom, was then to bring into clearer recognition this element of authority which was merely implicit in the tribal organization. It allowed a more distinctly voluntary relationship to be differentiated from the involuntary relationship of kinship, or the personal relationship of the hero. While, therefore, in the formation of the kingdom the earlier prophets saw only a rejection of God, the later prophets saw in it the symbol of a higher type of relation between God and people. It was given religious sanction and the king was regarded as the son of Jehovah. It was thus ready to serve as the scheme or setting for the moral unity and order of a people.

4. The Economic Factors.—The organization and growing prosperity of the political power were attended by economic and social changes. The simple agricultural life of the early period had not caused entire loss of clan organization and customs. But the growth of trade and commerce under Solomon and later kings brought in wealth[Pg 94] and shifted the center of power and influence from country to city. Wealth and luxury had their usual results. Clashing interests asserted their strength. Economic and social individualism destroyed the old group solidarity. At the times of the prophets Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, there were classes of rich and poor. Greed had asserted itself in rulers, judges, priests, and "regular" prophets. Oppression, land monopoly, bribery, extortion, stirred moral indignation. The fact that these were practiced by the most zealous observers of ritual and guardians of religion roused in the great reformers a demand for a change in religion itself. Not sacrifices but justice is the need of the hour and the demand of God.

The interaction between the religious and the moral education of the Hebrews was so intimate that it is difficult to distinguish the two, but we may abstract certain conceptions or motives in Israel's religion which were especially significant. The general conception was that of the close personal relation between god and people. Israel should have no other god; Jehovah—at least this was the earlier thought—would have no other people. He had loved and chosen Israel; Israel in gratitude, as well as in hope and fear, must love and obey Jehovah. Priests maintained his cultus; prophets brought new commands according to the requirements of the hour; the king represented his sovereignty and justice; the course of events exhibited his purpose. Each of these elements served to provoke or elicit moral reflection or moral conduct.

1. The "Covenant" Relation was a Moral Conception.—The usual religious conception is that of some blood or kin relation between people and deity. This has the same potential meaning and value as that of the other relations of group life outlined in Chapter II. But it is[Pg 95] rather a natural than a "moral"—i.e., conscious and voluntary—tie. To conceive of the relation between god and people as due to voluntary choice, is to introduce a powerful agency toward making morality conscious. Whatever the origin of the idea, the significant fact is that the religious and moral leaders present the relation of Israel to Jehovah as based on a covenant. On the one hand, Jehovah protects, preserves, and prospers; on the other, Israel is to obey his laws and serve no other gods. This conception of mutual obligation is presented at the opening of the "Ten Commandments," and to this covenant relation the prophets again and again make appeal. The obligation to obey the law is not "This is the custom," or "Our fathers did so"; it is placed on the ground that the people has voluntarily accepted Jehovah as its god and lawgiver.

The meaning of this covenant and the symbols by which it was conceived, changed with the advance of the social relationships of the people. At first Jehovah was "Lord of Hosts," protector in war, and giver of prosperity, and the early conceptions of the duty of the people seemed to include human sacrifice, at least in extreme cases. But with later prophets we find the social and family relationship of husband and father brought increasingly into use. Whether by personal experience or by more general reflection, we find Hosea interpreting the relationship between God and his people in both of these family conceptions. The disloyalty of the people takes on the more intimate taint of a wife's unfaithfulness, and, conversely, in contrast to the concepts of other religions, the people may call Jehovah "my husband" and no longer "my master" (Baal). The change from status to contract is thus, in Israel's religion, fruitful with many moral results.

2. The Conception of a Personal Lawgiver.—The conception of a personal lawgiver raises conduct from the level of custom to the level of conscious morality. So[Pg 96] long as a child follows certain ways by imitation or suggestion, he does not necessarily attach any moral meaning to them. But if the parent expressly commands or prohibits, it becomes a matter of obedience or disobedience. Choice becomes necessary. Character takes the place of innocence. So Jehovah's law compelled obedience or rebellion. Customs were either forbidden or enjoined. In either case they ceased to be merely customs. In the law of Israel the whole body of observances in private life, in ceremonial, and in legal forms, is introduced with a "Thus saith the Lord." We know that other Semitic people observed the Sabbath, practiced circumcision, distinguished clean from unclean beasts, and respected the taboos of birth and death. Whether in Israel all these observances were old customs given new authority by statute, or were customs taken from other peoples under the authority of the laws of Jehovah, is immaterial. The ethical significance of the law is that these various observances, instead of being treated merely as customs, are regarded as personal commands of a personal deity.

This makes a vital difference in the view taken of the violation of these observances. When a man violates a custom he fails to do the correct thing. He misses the mark.[49] But when the observance is a personal command, its violation is a personal disobedience; it is rebellion; it is an act of will. The evil which follows is no longer bad luck; it is punishment. Now punishment must be either right or wrong, moral or immoral. It can never be merely non-moral. Hence the very conception of sin as a personal offense, and of ill as a personal punishment, forces a moral standard. In its crudest form this may take the god's commands as right simply because he utters them, and assume that the sufferer is guilty merely because he suffers. We find this in the penitential psalms of the Babylonians. These express the deepest conviction of sin and the utmost[Pg 97] desire to please the god, but when we try to discover what the penitent has done that wakens such remorse within him, we find that he seems merely to feel that in some way he has failed to please God, no matter how. He experiences misfortune, whether of disease, or ill-luck, or defeat, and is sure that this must be due to some offense. He does not know what this may be. It may have been that he has failed to repeat a formula in the right manner; it is all one. He feels guilty and even exaggerates his own guilt in view of the punishment which has befallen him. Job's three friends apply the same logic to his case.[50]

But side by side with the conception that the laws of Jehovah must be obeyed because they were his commands, there was another doctrine which was but an extension of the theory that the people had freely accepted their ruler. This was that Jehovah's commands were not arbitrary. They were right; they could be placed before the people for their approval; they were "life"; "the judge of all the earth" would "do right." We have here a striking illustration of the principle that moral standards, at first embodied in persons, slowly work free, so that persons are judged by them.

3. The Cultus as Morally Symbolical.—The elaborate cultus carried on by the priests, symbolized, however imperfectly, certain moral ideas. The solicitous care for ceremonial "purity" might have no direct moral value; the contamination from contact with birth or death or certain animals might be a very external sort of "un[Pg 98]cleanness." Nevertheless, they emphasized in the most forcible manner a constant control over conduct by a standard which was set by a divine law. The "holiness" of the priests, as set apart to special service of Jehovah, emphasized the seriousness of their work; and further, it contributed to that distinction between spiritual and material, between higher and lower, which is a part of moral life. Moreover, while part of this value inheres in all ritual, the contrast between Jehovah's worship and that of other deities challenged moral attention. The gods of the land, the various Baals, were worshipped "upon every high hill and under every green tree." As gods of fertility, they were symbolized by the emblems of sex, and great freedom prevailed at their festivals. At certain shrines men and women gave themselves for the service of the god. The first born children were not infrequently sacrificed.[51] These festivals and shrines seem to have been adopted more or less fully by Israel from the Canaanites, but the prophets have an utterly different idea of Jehovah's worship. The god of Sinai rejects utterly such practices. License and drunkenness are not, as the cultus of Baal and Astarte implied, the proper symbols of life and deity. The sensual cannot fitly symbolize the spiritual.

Moreover, one part of the cultus, the "sin offering," directly implied transgression and the need of forgiveness. The "sins" might themselves be ceremonial rather than moral, and the method of removing them might be external—especially the process of putting the sins upon a scapegoat which should "bear upon him all their iniquities into a solitary land,"—nevertheless, the solemn confession, and the shedding of the blood which was the "life," could not but remind of responsibility and deepen reflection. The need of atonement and reconciliation, thus impressed, symbolized the moral process of reconstructing,[Pg 99] of putting away a lower past, and readjusting life to meet an ideal.

4. The Prophets as a Moral Force.—The prophets were by far the most significant moral agency in Israel's religion. In the first place, they came to the people bearing a message from a living source of authority, intended for the immediate situation. They brought a present command for a present duty. "Thou art the man," of Nathan to David, "Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?" of Elijah to Ahab, had personal occasions. But the great sermons of Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, were no less for the hour. A licentious festival, an Assyrian invasion, an Egyptian embassy, a plague of locusts, an impending captivity—these inspire demand for repentance, warnings of destruction, promises of salvation. The prophet was thus the "living fountain." The divine will as coming through him "was still, so to speak, fluid, and not congealed into institutions."

In the second place, the prophets seized upon the inward purpose and social conduct of man as the all-important issues; cultus, sacrifice, are unimportant. "I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies," cries Amos in Jehovah's name, "But let justice roll down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream." "I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts," proclaims Isaiah, "new moons, and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies,—I cannot away with iniquity and the solemn meeting." You need not ceremonial, but moral, purity. "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings;—seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." Micah's "Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" seized upon the difference once for all between the physical and the moral; a completely ethical standpoint is gained in his summary of religious duty: "What doth[Pg 100] God require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" And the New Testament analogue marks the true ethical valuation of all the external religious manifestations, even of the cruder forms of prophecy itself. Gifts, mysteries, knowledge, or the "body to be burned"—there is a more excellent way than these. For all these are "in part." Their value is but temporary and relative. The values that abide, that stand criticism, are that staking of oneself upon the truth and worth of one's ideal which is faith; that aspiration and forward look which is hope; that sum of all social charity, sympathy, justice, and active helpfulness, which is love. "But the greatest of these is love."

5. The Religious View of the Kingdom Gave the Setting for a Social Ideal.—Jehovah was the king of his people. The human ruler in Jerusalem was his representative. The kingdom of Israel was under divine care and had on the other hand a serious purpose. The expansion and glory of the kingdom under Solomon showed the divine favor. Division and calamity were not mere misfortunes, or the victory of greater armies; they were divine rebukes. Only in righteousness and justice could the nation survive. On the other hand, the confidence in Jehovah's love for Israel guaranteed that he would never forsake his people. He would purify them and redeem them even from the grave. He would establish a kingdom of law and peace, "an everlasting kingdom that should not be destroyed." Politics in Israel had a moral goal.

6. Religion Gave the Problem of Evil a Moral Significance.—The Greek treatment of the problem of evil is found in the great tragedies. An ancestral curse follows down successive generations, dealing woe to all the unhappy house. For the victims there seems to be nothing but to suffer. The necessity of destiny makes the catastrophe sublime, but also hopeless. Ibsen's Ghosts is conceived in a similar spirit. There is a tremendous[Pg 101] moral lesson in it for the fathers, but for the children only horror. The Greek and the Scandinavian are doubtless interpreting one phase of human life—its continuity and dependence upon cosmical nature. But the Hebrew was not content with this. His confidence in a divine government of the world forced him to seek some moral value, some purpose in the event. The search led along one path to a readjustment of values; it led by another path to a new view of social interdependence.

The book of Job gives the deepest study of the first of these problems. The old view had been that virtue and happiness always went together. Prosperity meant divine favor, and therefore it must be the good. Adversity meant divine punishment; it showed wrongdoing and was itself an evil. When calamity comes upon Job, his friends assume it to be a sure proof of his wickedness. He had himself held the same view, and since he refuses to admit his wickedness and "holds fast to his integrity," it confounds all his philosophy of life and of God. It compels a "reversal and revaluation of all values." If he could only meet God face to face and have it out with him he believes there would be some solution. But come what may, he will not sell his soul for happiness. To "repent," as his friends urge, in order that he may be again on good terms with God, would mean for him to call sin what he believes to be righteousness. And he will not lie in this way. God is doubtless stronger, and if he pursues his victim relentlessly, may convict him. But be this as it may, Job will not let go his fundamental consciousness of right and wrong. His "moral self" is the one anchor that holds, is the supreme value of life.

"As God liveth, who hath taken away my right,
And the Almighty who hath vexed my soul;
Surely my lips shall not speak unrighteousness.
Till I die, I will not put away my integrity from me,
My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go."[52]

[Pg 102]

Another suggestion of the book is that evil comes to prove man's sincerity: "Does Job serve God for naught?" and from that standpoint the answer is, Yes; he does. "There is a disinterested love of God."[53] In this setting, also, the experience of suffering produces a shifting of values from the extrinsic to the internal.

The other treatment of the problem of suffering is found in the latter half of Isaiah. It finds an interpretation of the problem by a deeper view of social interdependence, in which the old tribal solidarity is given, as it were, a transfigured meaning. The individualistic interpretation of suffering was that it meant personal guilt. "We did esteem him stricken of God." This breaks down. The suffering servant is not wicked. He is suffering for others—in some sense. "He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." The conception here reached of an interrelation which involves that the suffering of the good may be due to the sin or the suffering of others, and that the assumption of this burden marks the higher type of ethical relation, is one of the finest products of Israel's religion. As made central in the Christian conception of the Cross, it has furnished one of the great elements in the modern social consciousness.

The moral conceptions which were thus worked out may now be brought together for convenient summary under the two heads of the "How" and the "What" indicated in our introductory chapter. Under the first we specify the conceptions resulting (1) from recognition of a standard of right, and an ideal of good, (2) from free choice of this ideal. Under the What we indicate the content of the ideal on both its personal and its social sides.[Pg 103]

1. Righteousness and Sin.—Righteousness and sin were not exact or contradictory opposites. The righteous man was not necessarily sinless. Nevertheless, the consciousness of sin, like a dark background, brought out more emphatically the conception of righteousness. This conception had its two aspects, derived from the civil and the religious spheres of life—spheres which were not separate for the Hebrew. On the one hand, the just or righteous respected the moral order in human society. The unrighteous was unjust, extortionate, cruel. He did not respect the rights of others. On the other hand, the righteous man was in "right" relation to God. This right relation might be tested by the divine law; but as God was conceived as a living person, loving his people, "forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin," it might also be measured by an essential harmony of spirit with the divine will. There was the "righteousness of the law," and the "righteousness of faith." The first implies complete obedience; the second implies that in spite of transgressions there is room for atonement[54] or reconciliation. As the first means ethically the testing of conduct by a moral standard, a "moral law," so the second stands for the thought that character is rather a matter of spirit and of constant reconstruction than of exact conformity once for all to a hard and fast rule. Specific acts may fail to conform, but the life is more than a series of specific acts. The measurement of conduct by the law has its value to quicken a sense of shortcoming, but alone it may also lead either to self-righteous complacency or to despair. The possibility of new adjustment, of renewal, of "a new birth," means liberation and life. As such it may be contrasted with the Buddhist doctrine of Karma, the causality from which there is no escape but by the extinction of desire.[Pg 104]

"Sin" had likewise its various aspects. It stood for missing the mark, for violating the rules of clean and unclean; but it stood also for personal disobedience to the divine will, for violation of the moral order of Israel. In this latter sense, as identified by the prophets with social unrighteousness, it is a significant ethical conception. It brings out the point that evil and wrongdoing are not merely individual matters, not merely failures; they offend against a law which is above the private self, against a moral order which has its rightful demands upon us.

2. Personal Responsibility.—The transition from group to individual responsibility was thoroughly worked out by the prophets, even if they were not able to carry full popular assent. In early days the whole kin was treated as guilty for the offense of the kinsman. Achan's case has already been cited; and in the case of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, "Their wives and their sons and their little ones" were all treated alike.[55] In like manner, the family of the righteous man shared in the divine favor. The later prophets pronounced a radical change. The proverb, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge," is no more to be used, declares Ezekiel, speaking for Jehovah. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die; the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son;" and it is especially interesting to note that the Lord is represented as pleading with the people that this is fair, while the people say, "Wherefore doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father?" The solidarity of the family resisted the individualism of the prophetic conception, and five hundred years after Ezekiel the traces of the older conception still lingered in the question, "Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"[56] For another aspect of responsibility, viz., intent, as distinct[Pg 105] from accidental action,[57] we have certain transitional steps shown in the interesting "cities of refuge"[58] for the accidental homicide in which he might be safe from the avenger of blood, provided he was swift enough of foot to reach a city of refuge before he was caught. But the fullest development in the ethics of responsibility along this line seemed to take the form described under the next head.

3. Sincerity, and Purity of Motive.—The Hebrew had a philosophy of conduct which made it chiefly a matter of "wisdom" and "folly," but the favorite term of prophet and psalmist to symbolize the central principle was rather "the heart." This term stood for the voluntary disposition, especially in its inner springs of emotions and sentiments, affections and passions. The Greek was inclined to look askance at this side of life, to regard the emotions as perturbations of the soul, and to seek their control by reason, or even their repression or elimination. The Hebrew found a more positive value in the emotional side of conduct, and at the same time worked out the conception of a sincere and thoroughgoing interest as lying at the very root of all right life. The religious influence was as elsewhere the important agency. "Man looketh on the outward appearance, but Jehovah looketh on the heart," "If I regard iniquity in my heart, Jehovah will not hear me," are characteristic expressions. A divine vision, which penetrates to the deepest springs of purpose and feeling, will not tolerate pretense. Nor will it be satisfied with anything less than entire devotion: the Israelite must serve Jehovah with all his heart. Outer con[Pg 106]formity is not enough: "Rend your heart and not your garments." It is the "pure in heart" who have the beatific vision. Not external contacts, or ceremonial "uncleanness," on which earlier ritual had insisted, defile the man, but rather what proceeds from the heart. For the heart is the source of evil thoughts and evil deeds.[59] And conversely, the interests, the emotions, and enthusiasms which make up the man's deepest self do not spring forth in a vacuum; they go with the steadfast purpose and bent, with the self of achievement. "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

Purity of motive in a full moral consciousness means not only (formal) sincerity, but sincere love of good and right. This was not stated by the Hebrew in abstract terms, but in the personal language of love to God. In early days there had been more or less of external motives in the appeals of the law and the prophets. Fear of punishment, hope of reward, blessings in basket and store, curses in land and field, were used to induce fidelity. But some of the prophets sought a deeper view, which seems to have been reached in the bitterness of human experience. Hosea's wife had forsaken him, and should not the love of people to Jehovah be as personal and sincere as that of wife to husband? She had said, "I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my water, my wood and my flax, my oil and my drink."[60] Is not serving God for hire a form of prostitution?[61] The calamities of the nation tested the disinterestedness of its fidelity. They were the challenge of the Adversary, "Doth Job fear God for naught?" And a remnant at least attested that fidelity did not depend on rewards. The moral maxim that virtue is its own reward is put in personal terms by the prophet after the exile:[Pg 107]

4. The Conception of "Life" as an Ideal.—The content of Israel's moral ideal on its individual side was expressed by the term "Life." All the blessings that the leader of Israel could offer his people were summarized in the phrase, "I have set before you life and death; wherefore choose life." The same final standard of value appears in the question of Jesus, "What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own life?" When we inquire what life meant, so far as the early sources give us data for judgment, we must infer it to have been measured largely in terms of material comfort and prosperity, accompanied by the satisfaction of standing in right relations to the god and ruler. This latter element was so closely united with the first that it was practically identical with it. If the people were prosperous they might assume that they were right; if they suffered they were surely wrong. Good and evil were, therefore, in this stage, measured largely in terms of pleasure and pain. The end to be sought and the ideal to be kept in mind was that of long and prosperous life—"in her right hand length of days, in her left hand riches and honor." Intellectual and æsthetic interests were not prized as such. The knowledge which was valued was the wisdom for the conduct of life, of which the beginning and crown was "the fear of the Lord." The art which was valued was sacred song or poetry. But the ideal values which came to bulk most in the expanding conception of "life" were those of personal relation. Family ties, always strong among Oriental peoples, gained in purity. Love between the sexes was refined and[Pg 108] idealized.[63] National feeling took on added dignity, because of the consciousness of a divine mission. Above all, personal union with God, as voiced in the psalms and prophets, became the desire. He, and not his gifts, was the supreme good. He was the "fountain of life." His likeness would satisfy. In his light the faithful would see light.

But even more significant than any specific content put into the term "life," was what was involved in the idea itself. The legalists had attempted to define conduct by a code, but there was an inherent vitality in the ideal of life, which refused to be measured or bounded. The "words of eternal life," which began the new moral movement of Christianity, had perhaps little definite content to the fishermen, and it is not easy to say just what they meant in moral terms to the writer of the Fourth Gospel who uses the phrase so often. With Paul, life as the realm of the spirit gets definition as it stands over against the "death" of sin and lust. But with all writers of Old or New Testament, whatever content it had, life meant above all the suggestion of something beyond, the gleam and dynamic power of a future not yet understood. It meant to Paul a progress which was governed not by law or "rudiments," but by freedom. Such a life would set itself new and higher standards; the laws and customs that had obtained were felt to be outgrown. The significance of early Christianity as a moral movement, aside from its elements of personal devotion and social unity to be noticed below, was the spirit of movement, the sense of newly forming horizons beyond the old, the conviction that as sons of God its followers had boundless possibilities, that they were not the children of the bond woman, but of the free.

5. The Social Ideal of Justice, Love, and Peace.—We have seen how this ideal was framed in the setting of[Pg 109] a kingdom of God. At first national, it became universal, and with a fraternity which the world is far from having realized, it was to know "neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free." At first military, it took on with seer and psalmist the form of a reign of peace and justice. After the fierce and crude powers typified by the lion and the bear and the leopard had passed, the seer saw a kingdom represented by a human form. Such a kingdom it was that should not pass away. Such was the kingdom "not of this world" which Jesus presented as his message. Membership in this moral kingdom was for the poor in spirit, the pure in heart, the merciful, the peace-makers, the hungerers after righteousness. Greatness in this moral community was to depend on service, not on power. The king should not fail till he had "set justice in the earth." He should "deliver the needy, and the poor."

Certain features of this ideal order have since found embodiment in social and political structures; certain features remain for the future. Certain periods in history have transferred the ideal entirely to another world, regarding human society as hopelessly given over to evil. Such theories find a morality possible only by renouncing society. The Hebrews presented rather the ideal of a moral order on earth, of a control of all life by right, of a realization of good, and of a completeness of life. It was an ideal not dreamed out in ecstatic visions of pure fancy, but worked out in struggle and suffering, in confidence that moral efforts are not hopeless or destined to defeat. The ideal order is to be made real. The divine kingdom is to come, the divine will to be done "on earth as it is in heaven."

[Pg 111]

Convention versus Nature.—The Hebrew moral life was developed under the relation, first of the people, then of the individuals, to God,—a relation at once of union and of conflict. It was out of the relation of the individual to social traditions and political order that the Greek came to full consciousness of moral law on the one hand, and a moral personality on the other. And just as in Jewish life the law and the prophets (or, later, the "law and the gospel") stood for the conflicting forces, so in Greek life the opposition between the authority of the group, embodied in custom and institutions, on the one hand, and the urging claims of developing personality, manifest in both intelligence and desire, on the other, found expression in contrasted terms. The authority of the group embodied in customs and institutions, came to be regarded by the radicals as relatively external, artificial, and rigid. It was dubbed "convention," or "institution" (thesis, what is set up). The rapidly developing intelligence challenged the merely customary and traditional; the increasing individuality challenged the superior authority of the group, especially when this manifested itself apparently in a government of force. Personal intelligence and personal feeling asserted a more elemental claim, felt themselves rooted in a more original source, and called this source "nature" (physis). Social tradition and authority, individual reason and feeling, thus [Pg 112]confronted each other as "convention" and "nature." It was a struggle which has its analogy in the development of many a young man or young woman who is emerging from parental control to self-direction. But in Greek life more distinctly than elsewhere we see the steps of the process as a civic and not merely an individual development. Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides presented this conflict of the individual with law or destiny as the great, oft-repeated tragedy of human life. Aristophanes mocked with bitter satire the "new" views. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cynics, Cyrenaics, Epicureans, and Stoics took part in the theoretical discussions.

Measure.—The fundamental note of all Greek life, before, during, and after this development, was Measure, Order, Proportion. This note found expression in religion, science, art, and conduct. Among their gods, the Greeks set Moira, "Destiny," and Themis, "Custom," "Law," "Right." They found order in the universe, which on this account they called the "cosmos." They expressed it in their arts, especially in architecture, sculpture, the choral dance, and the more highly developed tragedy or lyric:

The best people, the "gentlemen," were styled kaloika-gathoi—"fair and good." The motto at the Delphic shrine was, "Nothing in excess." Insolent disregard of propriety, "hybris," was the quality most denounced by the early moralizing poets. Tityus, Tantalus, and Sisyphus, the three special subjects of divine punishment, suffered the[Pg 113] penalty of insatiate desire, or limits overstepped. And after criticism and individualism had done their work, Plato's conception of justice, Aristotle's doctrine of the "mean," the Stoic maxim of "life according to nature," have but discovered a deeper significance for the fundamental law of Greek life.

The Good and the Just.—The conceptions of the Good and the Just are developed from the two notes just presented. The motive for challenge to established institutions was the awakening desire of the individual to seek his own good and to live his own life. Commerce was bringing a great variety of rewards to the shrewd merchant and a great variety of goods to evoke and gratify wants. Slavery set free the citizen from the need of manual labor and gave him leisure to cultivate his tastes. The forces of individualism, described in Chapter V., were all at work to bring the process and object of desire to consciousness. Moreover, the term "good" was also in use to mark the popular ideal. It was applied to what we should call the "successful" men of the day. In present life our term "good" has become so definitely moral that probably most young persons would hesitate to say that they have it as their ideal to become good, although few would hesitate to say that they wish to be capable and successful. For social and political recognition seems to be based rather on achievement of striking results than upon what is technically called "goodness." But in Greece moral goodness was not used to designate "character" as contrasted with "results." The "good man" was like the "good lawyer" or "good athlete" or "good soldier," the man who was efficient and conspicuous. It was in the process which we are to trace that the ambiguities and deeper meanings of the term came to definition.

The terms Just and Justice were not of course merely synonyms for order and measure. They had likewise the social significance coming from the courts and the[Pg 114] assembly. They stood for the control side of life, as Good stood for its aspect of valuation and desire. But as compared with the Hebrew conception of righteousness, they meant much less a conformity to a law divine or human which had been already set up as standard, and much more, an ordering, a regulating, a harmonizing. The rational element of measure or order was more prominent than the personal note of authority. Hence we shall find Plato passing easily back and forth between justice or order in the individual and justice or order in the State. On the other hand, the radicals of the day could seize upon the legal usage and declare that Justice or the Law was purely a matter of self-interest or class interest.

The Scientific Spirit.—The older standards were embodied in religious and political ideas and institutions; the agency which was to disentangle and bring into clear consciousness the standards as such, was the scientific spirit, the knowledge and reflection of an intellectual people at a period of extraordinarily rapid development. The commercial life, the free intercourse with other peoples and civilizations, especially in the colonies, the absence of any generally dominating political authority, the architectural problems suggested by a beauty-loving people,—all promoted alertness and flexibility of mind.

In a concrete form, this rational character had already found expression in the quality of Greek art. Reference has already been made to the formal side of Greek art, with its embodiment of rhythm and measure; the subject-matter shows the same element. The Greek world, as contrasted with the barbarian world, was conceived by the Greek as the realm of light contrasted with darkness; the national God, Apollo, embodied this ideal of light and reason, and his fitting symbol was the sun. The great[Pg 115] Pan-Athenaic procession, as reproduced in the Parthenon frieze, celebrated the triumph of Greek light and intelligence over barbarian darkness. Athena, goddess of wisdom, was a fitting guardian of the most Greek of all Greek cities. Greek tragedy, beginning in hymns of worship, soon passed over into a portrayal of the all-controlling laws of life, as these are brought into stronger relief by a tragic collision with human agents.

It was, however, in the realm of science that this intellectual genius found field for expression in a clearly conscious manner. Almost all our sciences were originated by the Greeks, and they were particularly successful in those which called for abstract thinking in the highest degree. Euclid's geometry and Aristotle's logic are conspicuous illustrations of this ability. The most general conceptions of natural science: e.g., the conception of the atom and the whole materialistic theory of the universe; the conception of evolution, meaning by this the process of change according to an all-controlling law; the conception of natural selection, according to which those organisms survive which are fitted for their environment,—all these were the product of the keen intelligence of the Greeks. Nor was their scientific ability expended upon external nature alone. The conception of history as more than a series of events, the comparative method in the study of political systems, the analysis of literary and artistic effects, attest the same clarity of mind and the same eager search for the most general laws of every aspect of experience.

Science and Religion.—When, now, this scientific mind began to consider the practical guidance of life, the older political and religious controls presented serious difficulty. The gods were supposed to reward the good and punish the evil,[64] but how could this be reconciled with their practices?[Pg 116] Æschylus attempted a purifying and elevating of the divine ideal, similar to that which Israel's conception underwent in the work of the prophets. He magnified the dignity and providential government of Zeus, which, though dark, is yet just and certain. But the great obstacle was that the earlier and cruder conceptions of the gods had been fixed in literary form; the tales of Cronos's impiety to Uranos, of Zeus' deceitful messenger and marital unfaithfulness, of Aphrodite's amours, and Hermes' gift of theft, were all written in Hesiod and Homer. The cruder conceptions of the gods had thus become too firmly fixed in the popular imagination to be capable of becoming the bearers of advancing ethical ideals, and so not merely the irreverent scoffer, but the serious tragedian, Euripides, and the religious idealist, Plato, do not hesitate to challenge boldly the older conceptions, or to demand a revision of all this literature before it comes into the hands of the young.

Social Standards.—The social standards of propriety and honorable conduct were likewise brought in question by advancing intelligence. The word which summed up the early Greek idea of the best type was Kalokagathos. This word was very nearly the equivalent of our English word "gentleman." It combined the elements of birth, ability, and refinement, but in the earlier usage the emphasis was upon the fact of birth, even as our terms "generous," "noble," "gentle," originally referred to membership in a "gens." Socrates investigated the current estimates and found that the people who were generally regarded as the "respectable," or, as we should say, the "best" people of Athens, were not necessarily either "fine" or[Pg 117] "good" in person or character; the term had come to be one of "convention," without basis in reason. Plato goes still further and with a direct application of the rational standard to the current estimates, pokes fun at the conventional judgment of what constitutes the respectable gentleman.

The type of life that is really noble or fine and good is to be found in the seeker for true beauty and goodness. External beauty of form and appearance has its value in kindling the desire for the higher forms of beauty,—beauty of mind, of institutions and laws, of science,—until finally the conception of the true beauty is reached. This true beauty, as distinct from the particular beauties, and true good, as distinct from seeming or partial good, are discovered only by the "philosopher," the seeker for wisdom.

Popular Morals.—Nor did the more positively recognized types of moral excellence fare better. As recognized in common life, they were courage, prudence or moderation, holiness or a certain respect for the serious things of life, and justice: but none of these, Plato argues, is really an independent excellence, apart from conscious[Pg 118] and intelligent action. Courage, for example, is not really courage unless one knows and foresees the danger in all its strength; otherwise there is merely reckless bravery. Prudence or moderation, to be really excellent, must be measured by wisdom. Even justice cannot be regarded as at bottom distinct from wisdom, the true measure of all the relations of life.

Science and the Laws.—The political control was likewise involved in question by the same forces of intelligence which had challenged the religious authority. The frequent changes of government, and the more or less arbitrary measures that were oftentimes adopted, were adapted to awaken doubt as to the absolute right and authority of the laws. The despot who gained control in many a Greek city was not bound by ties of blood to all members of the community, nor did he govern in accordance with the ancestral traditions of the tribe. The political authority frequently clashed with the instincts and traditions of family and kinship. Under such circumstances, the political authority was likely to be challenged and its constraining power stretched to the breaking point. So in the Antigone of Sophocles, the command of the ruler is opposed to the "higher law" of kinship and nature. The law of man is not the law of nature or of God. To disobey this conventional law of man is to be guilty of "holiest crime." The old standards, both of religion and of political life, crumbled before the analysis of the developing intelligence, and the demand for some standard could be met only by the intelligence itself. To question the old must inevitably seem irreverent and anarchical. Some questioned merely to doubt; others, and of these Socrates was the leader, questioned in order to find a firmer basis, a more authoritative standard. But naturally the popular mind did not distinguish between these two classes of questioners, and so Socrates perished, not merely as the victim of unjust popular calumny, but[Pg 119] as the victim of the tragedy of moral progress, of the change from the established to the new.

A further line of development joined forces with this growth of intelligence, to emphasize the problem of moral control, and to set the individual with his standards over against the objective standards of society. This was the rapidly growing consciousness of individual goods and interests. The commercial life, with its possibilities of individual property, the rapid changes of political life, with the rise of individuals to power and privilege, the increasing opportunities which a high civilization brought both men and women for personal enjoyment and gratification of rapidly increasing wants, all tended to make the individual seek his own good, and to shift the emphasis of life from the question, What is proper, or honorable? to the question, What is good—good for me?

Class Interests.—The conviction that the authority of government and law was largely dictated by the very considerations of private interests which they were supposed to overrule and eliminate, made the situation more acute. For the Greek States were no longer groups with common interests. The growth of capital, the corresponding eagerness for gain, the formation of distinct classes, each intent on its interests, supplanted the older, more homogeneous State. "The whole development of the political life of the Hellenic republics depended ultimately on the decision of the question, which of the different social classes—the capitalistic minority, the middle class, or the poor—should obtain the dominant place." Aristotle defines an oligarchy as a State governed in the interest of the rich; a democracy, as a State governed in the interest of the poor. Another contemporary writer explains a democracy as consulting the interests of the[Pg 120] democrats, the "lower classes," and considers this a matter of course, "for if the rich had the say, they would do what was good for themselves but not for the multitude." Naturally such dominance by classes called out vigorous criticisms upon the laws and standards so established. The aristocratic minority inveighed against "custom" or conventions which would tame the strong to the level of the weak. Nature demands rather the "survival of the fittest," i.e., of the strong. The enlightened spectator of the game of government, on the other hand, declares that all laws are made in the interest of ruling classes. The reader of current criticisms on laws and courts will see how close is the parallel to present complaints. We have to-day the same two classes: One inveighs against governmental interference with the right to combine, to contract, and in general to get from the earth or from men, women, and children all that superior power and shrewdness can possibly extract. The other complains that legislatures are owned by wealth, that judges are appointed from corporation lawyers, that common law is a survival of ancient aristocratic status, and that for these reasons labor can get no justice.

Let us first hear the plea for inequality:

The essence of this view is, therefore, that might is right, and that no legislation or conventional code ought to stand in the way of the free assertion of genius and[Pg 122] power. It is similar to the teaching of Nietzsche in recent times.

But the other side had its complaint also. The laws are made by the "shepherds" of the people, as Homer called them. But who is now so simple as to suppose that the "shepherds" fatten or tend the sheep with a view to the good of the sheep, and not to their own good? All laws and governments really exist for the interest of the ruling class.[65] They rest upon convention or "institution," not upon "nature."

Why Obey Laws?—And if laws and social codes are but class legislation, conventional, why obey them? The older Greek life had felt the motives described in Chapter IV., though it had embodied them in symbolism and imagery. The Nemesis that followed the guilty, the Erinnys, or avenging goddesses, were the personified wrath of outraged law; aidōs, respect or reverence, aischyne, regard for public opinion, were the inner feelings. But with the advancing tide of intellectual criticism and individual interest, these sanctions were discredited; feelings of personal enjoyment demanded recognition, and the moralists at first appealed to this. "Parents and tutors are always telling their sons and their wards that they are to be just; but only not for the sake of justice, but for the sake of character and reputation." But if the only reason for justice is reputation, there might seem to be no sufficient reason for taking the thorny path, if there be an easier. Will not the youth say, in the words of Pindar:

And if I decide that the crooked way is the easier, why shall I not follow it? My party, or my "union", or my lawyer will stand by and see me through:[Pg 123]

Besides, the greatest prizes, not only in material goods, but even in the line of reputation, seemed to fall to the individualist if he could only act on a sufficiently large scale. He could then be both prosperous and "respectable." If he could steal the government, or, in modern phrase, bribe a legislature to elect him to Congress, pass special legislation, or grant a franchise, he could not merely escape punishment, but be honored by his fellows.

The Question Formulated.—The outcome of this first movement was thus twofold: (a) It forced the questions, "What is just?" "What is good?" into clear and definite consciousness. The very necessity of comparison and of getting a general standard, forced the inquirer to disentangle the concepts previously embodied in customs and laws. But when the essence was thus found and freed, or disembodied, as it were, the custom seemed lifeless, merely "convention", and the essence often quite opposed to the form. (b) It emphasized the personal interest, the affective or emotional side of conduct, and made the moral problem take the form, "What is the good?"

Furthermore, two positive theses have been established by the very forces which have been active in disintegrating the old status. If custom no longer suffices, then reason must set the standard; if society cannot prescribe the good to the individual, then the individual must find some method of defining and seeking it for himself unless he is to make shipwreck of his whole venture.

We may bring both aspects of the problem under the conception of "nature", as opposed to convention or institution. Convention is indeed outgrown, nature is the imperious authority. But granting that nature is rightful master, is "nature" to be sought in the primitive beginnings, or in the fullest development? in a life of isolation, or in a life of society? in the desires and passions, or in reason and a harmonious life?[Pg 125]

Or, stating the same problem otherwise: granting that reason must fix the measure, and the individual must define and seek the good for himself, is the good to be found in isolation, or is it to be sought in human society with its bonds of family, friendship, and justice? Is the end to be pleasure, found in the gratification of desires, irrespective of their quality, and is it the business of reason merely to measure one gratification with another and get the most? or is wisdom itself a good, and is it better to satisfy certain impulses rather than others? i.e., shall reason form the standard as well as apply it?

These contrasting solutions of the problem of life may be stated then under the two pairs of antitheses: (1) The Individual versus the Social; (2) The Immediate Satisfaction versus an Ideal Standard, at once higher and more permanent.

Typical Solutions.—Poets, radicals, sensualists, individualists of no philosophic school, as well as the historic philosophic schools, contributed to the discussion and solution of these problems. All sought the "natural" life; but it is noteworthy that all the philosophic schools claimed Socrates as their master, and all sought to justify their answers by reason, all made the wise man the ideal. The Cynics and Cyrenaics, Stoics and Epicureans, Plato and Aristotle represent the various philosophic answers to these alternatives. Cynics and Cyrenaics both answer (1) by individualism, but diverge on (2), the Cynics placing emphasis on independence from wants, the Cyrenaics on gratification of wants. Stoics and Epicureans represent broader and more social development of the same principles, the Stoics seeking a cosmopolitan state, the Epicureans a community of friends; the Stoics emphasizing reason or wisdom as the only good; the Epicureans finding for wisdom a field in the selection of refined pleasures. Plato and Aristotle, with varying emphasis but essential agreement, insist (1) that the good of man is found in[Pg 126] fulfilling completely his highest possible functions, which is possible only in society; (2) that wisdom is not merely to apply a standard but to form one; that while neither reason alone nor feeling alone is enough for life, yet that pleasure is rather for life than life for pleasure. Finally, Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, as well as the tragic poets, contribute successively to the formation of an ideal of responsible character.

Early Individualistic Theories.—Cynics and Cyrenaics were alike individualists. Society, they held, is artificial. Its so-called goods, on the one hand, and its restrictions on the other, are to be rejected unless they favor the individual's happiness. Independence was the mark of wisdom among the Cynics; Antisthenes, proud of the holes in his garment; Diogenes, dwelling in his tent or sleeping in the street, scoffing at the current "conventions" of decency, asking from Philip only that he would get out of his sunshine—are the characteristic figures. The "state of nature" was opposed to the State. Only the primitive wants were recognized as natural. "Art and science, family and native land, were indifferent. Wealth and refinement, fame and honor, seemed as superfluous as those enjoyments of the senses which went beyond the satisfaction of the natural wants of hunger and sex."

The Cyrenaics, or hedonists (hēdonē, pleasure), gave a different turn to wisdom. The good is pleasure, and wisdom is found in that prudence which selects the purest and most intense. Hence, if this is the good, why should a man trouble himself about social standards or social obligations? "The hedonists gladly shared the refinement of enjoyment which civilization brought with it; they found it convenient and permissible that the intelligent man should enjoy the honey which others prepared; but no feeling of duty or thankfulness bound them to the civilization whose fruits they enjoyed. Sacrifice for others, patriotism, and devotion to a general object, Theodorus declared to be a[Pg 127] form of foolishness which it did not become the wise man to share."[69]

Value of a State.—Plato and Aristotle take up boldly the challenge of individualism. It may indeed be granted that existing states are too often ruled by classes. There are oligarchies in which the soldier or the rich control for their own interests; there are tyrannies in which the despot is greed and force personified; there are democracies (Plato was an aristocrat) in which the mob bears rule, and those who flatter and feed its passions are in authority. But all these do but serve to bring out more clearly the conception of a true State, in which the rule is by the wisest and best and is not for the interest of a class, but for the welfare of all. Even as it was, the State of Athens in Plato's day—except when it condemned a Socrates—meant completeness and freedom of life. It represented not merely a police force to protect the individual, but stood for the complete organization of all the life which needs coöperation and mutual support. The State provided instruction for the mind and training for the body. It surrounded the citizen with an atmosphere of beauty and provided in the tragedy and comedy opportunities for every citizen to consider the larger significance of life or to join in the contagious sympathy of mirth. In festivals and solemn processions it brought the citizen into unity of religious feeling. To be an Athenian citizen meant to share in all the higher possibilities which life afforded. Interpreting this life, Aristotle proclaims that it is not in isolation, but in the State, that "the goal of full independence may be said to be first attained."

The Natural.—Aristotle goes directly to the heart of[Pg 128] the problem as to what is natural by asserting that nature is not to be found in the crude beginning, but rather in the complete development. "The nature of anything, e.g., of a man, a horse, or a house, may be defined to be its condition when the process of production is complete." Hence the State "in which alone completeness of life is attained" is in the highest sense natural:

Nor does Aristotle stop here. With a profound insight into the relation of man to society, and the dependence of the individual upon the social body, a relation which modern social psychology has worked out in greater detail, Aristotle asserts that the State is not merely the goal of the individual's development, but the source of his life.

And, moreover, when we look into the nature of the individual, we do not find him a being devoid of the sympathies and qualities which find their natural expression not only in the State, but in various social and friendly relations. There is "an impulse toward the life in common" (φιλία) which expresses itself in friendship, but which is also so essential to that recognition of others called justice that we may say "it is the most just of all just things." There is also a unity of disposition and purpose (ὁμόνοια) which may be called "political friendship."[72]

Plato's Ideal State.—How then is the State constituted and governed which is to provide for man's full development, his complete good? Evidently two principles must control. In the first place, it must be so constituted that every man may develop in it the full capacities of his nature, and thereby serve at once the perfection of the State and his own completeness; and in the second place, the State or social whole must be ruled by those best fitted for this work. Not the soldier, nor the plutocrat, nor the artisan, but the man who knows, is the suitable ruler for our ideal community. The soldier may defend, the artisan may support, but the scientific or intelligent man should rule. And it is evident that in settling this principle, we have also answered our first problem; for the soldier and the artisan will find his full development by doing the work which he can do well, not by meddling with a task in which he must[Pg 130] necessarily fail. In order to guard against the greed which was so characteristic of the governments of his day, Plato would provide that the rulers and warriors should have no private property, and not even private families. Their eye should be single to the good of the whole. When asked as to the practicability of a State governed by such disinterested rulers, and with such wisdom, he admits indeed its difficulty, but he stoutly demands its necessity:

And yet the question of the actual existence of a perfect State is not the question of supreme importance. For Plato has grasped the thought that man is controlled not only by what he sees, but by what he images as desirable. And if a man has once formed the image of an ideal State or city of this kind, in which justice prevails, and life reaches fuller and higher possibilities than it has yet attained, this is the main thing:

The Social as Law of Nature.—The social nature of man, thus vindicated by Plato and Aristotle, remained as the permanent possession of Greek thought. Even the Epicureans, who developed further the hedonistic theory of[Pg 131] life, emphasized the values of friendship as among the choicest and most refined sources of pleasure. The Stoics, who in their independence of wants took up the tradition of the Cynics, were yet far from interpreting this as an independence of society. The disintegration of the Greek states made it impossible to find the social body in the old city-state, and so we find with the Stoics a certain cosmopolitanism. It is the highest glory of man to be a citizen not of Athens but of the universe,—not of the city of Cecrops, but of the city of Zeus. And through this conception the social nature of man was made the basis of a "natural law," which found its expression in the principles of Roman and modern jurisprudence.

Passion or Reason.—In answering the question as to the true nature of man, Plato and Aristotle found the suggestions likewise for the problem of individual good. For if the soldier as the seeker for fame and honor, the avaricious man embodying the desire for wealth, and still more, the tyrant personifying the unbridled expression of every lust and passion, are abhorrent, is it not easy to see that an orderly and harmonious development of impulses under the guidance and control of reason, is far better than that uncramped expression of desires and cravings for which some of the radical individualists and sensualists of the day were clamoring? As representative of this class, hear Callicles:

[Pg 132]

But even Callicles himself admits that there are certain men, the creatures of degraded desire, whose lives are not ideal, and hence that there must be some choice of pleasure. And carrying out in the individual life the thought above suggested by the State, Plato raises the question as to whether man, a complex being, with both noble and ignoble impulses, and with the capacity of controlling reason, can be said to make a wise choice if he lets the passions run riot and choke out wholly his rational nature:

Necessity of a Standard for Pleasure.—If, for the moment, we rule out the question of what is noble or "kalon," and admit that the aim of life is to live pleasantly, or if, in other words, it is urged as above that justice is not profitable and that hence he who would seek the highest good will seek it by some other than the thorny path, we must recognize that the decision as to which kind of pleasure is preferable will depend on the character of the man who judges:

It is thus evident that even if we start out to find the good in pleasure, we need some kind of measuring art. We need a "standard for pleasure," and this standard can be found only in wisdom. And this forces us to maintain that wisdom is after all the good. Not merely intellectual attainment—a life of intellect without feeling would be just as little a true human life as would the life of an oyster, which has feeling with no intelligence. A life which includes sciences and arts, and the pure pleasures of beauty,[Pg 134] presided over by wisdom and measure and symmetry,—this is Plato's vision of the life of the individual, viewed from within.

Eudaemonism.—Aristotle's conception of the good is fundamentally the same. It is a full development of man's capacities, culminating in a rational and harmonious life. If, says Aristotle, we are to find the ultimate good, we must try to find, if possible, some one end which is pursued as an end in itself, and never as a means to something else, and the most general term for this final end is "eudaimonia," or well-being, "for we also choose it for itself and never for the sake of something else." What is the essence of well-being? This, according to Aristotle, is to be found by asking what is the function of man. The life of nutrition and growth man has in common with the plants; the life of sense in common with the animal. It is in the life of his rational nature that we must find his especial function. "The good of man is exercise of his faculties in accordance with their appropriate excellence." External goods are valuable because they may be instruments toward such full activity. Pleasure is to be valued because it "perfects the activities, and therefore perfects life, which is the aim of human desire"—rather than valued as an end in itself. No one would choose to live on condition of having a child's intellect all his life, though he were to enjoy in the highest possible degree all the pleasures of a child.[78]

The "Mean."—The crowning importance of wisdom as the rational measure of the ideal life is also illustrated in Aristotle's theory of excellence (or virtue) as a "mean". This phrase is somewhat ambiguous, for some passages would seem to indicate that it is merely striking an average between two kinds of excesses, and finding, as it were, a moderate amount of feeling or action; but there is evidently involved here just the old thought of measure, and "the mean is what right reason prescribes." It is not every[Pg 135] one who can find the mean, but only he who has the requisite knowledge. The supreme excellence or virtue is, therefore, the wisdom which can find the true standard for action.[79]

The Wise Man.—Finally the conception of virtue as wisdom is illustrated in the ideals of the three prominent schools in later Greek thought,—the Sceptics, Epicureans, and Stoics. The wise man among Sceptics is he who suspends judgment where it is impossible to be certain. The wise man among Epicureans is he who chooses the finest and surest and most lasting pleasures. The wise man among Stoics is he who overcomes his emotions. But in every case the ideal is expressed in the same phrase, "the wise man."

Man and the Cosmos.—We see thus how Greek thought, starting out to challenge all society's laws and standards and bring them to the bar of knowledge, has found a deeper value and higher validity in the true social and moral order. The appeal was to the Cæsar of reason, and reason taken in its full significance carries us beyond the immediate and transient to the broader and more permanent good. Nor can reason in its search for good be[Pg 136] content, urges Plato, with the superficial facts of life and society. He who would find and achieve his complete function, his full development, must broaden his horizon still further. As his own particular life is but a part of the ongoing of the larger world, whose forces act upon him, limit him, and determine his possibilities, it becomes absolutely necessary to study not merely his own end and purpose, but the end and purpose of the universe. Human good requires us to know the larger good, the Good, in the full and complete sense. And this perfect Good which is, in truth, the very essence of the universe, is but another term for God, and Plato often uses the two as interchangeable terms.

So the "Nature" which Greek life was seeking gets its deepest significance and reinterprets the old religious demand for unity of the life of man with the forces of the unseen. And the Stoic later, in his maxim "Follow Nature," gives more explicit recognition to the return of the circle. For the great work of Greek science had brought out into complete clearness the idea of Nature as a system of law. The universe is a rational universe, a cosmos, and man, as above all else a rational being, finds thus his kinship to the universe. To follow Nature, therefore, means to know the all-pervading law of Nature and submit to it in calm acceptance or resignation.

"All is harmonious to me that is harmonious to thee, O universe; all is fruit to me which thy seasons bring."[80]

Contrast of Actual and Ideal.—The two stages of Greek thought which we have sketched did more than to readjust Greek life to deeper views of the State and the individual; of the good and of nature. The very challenge and process brought into explicit consciousness a new feature of the moral life, which is fundamental to true[Pg 137] moral consciousness, viz., the factor of contrast between the actual and the ideal. We have seen that the clash of one-sided interests and political institutions and, in the case of Plato, the tragic execution of Socrates, obliged Plato and Aristotle to admit that the actual State did not subserve the real purpose which they were forced to seek in social organization. Both Plato and Aristotle, therefore, draw the picture of a State that should serve the complete purposes of human development. And again, in the individual life, both the conception of the development of man's highest possibilities and the conception of a measure or standard for the conflicting desires and purposes lead on to a conception which shall embody not merely the existing status but the goal of yet unrealized purpose.

The Ideal as the True Reality.—Various qualities and aspirations are embodied by Plato in this conception, and with characteristic Greek genius he has given to this conception of the ideal almost as concrete and definite a form as the Greek sculptor of Apollo gave to his ideal of light and clarity, or the sculptor of Aphrodite to the conception of grace. As contrasted with the flux of transient emotions, or the uncertain play of half-comprehended or futile goods, this ideal good is conceived as eternal, unchanging, ever the same. It is superhuman and divine. As contrasted with various particular and partial goods on which the sons of men fix their affections, it is the one universal good which is valid for all men everywhere and forever. In his effort to find suitable imagery for this conception, Plato was aided by the religious conceptions of the Orphic and Pythagorean societies, which had emphasized the pre-existence and future existence of the soul, and its distinction from the body. In its previous life, said Plato, the soul has had visions of a beauty, a truth, and a goodness of which this life affords no adequate examples. And with this memory within it of what it has looked upon before, it judges the imperfect and finite goods of this present[Pg 138] world and longs to fly away again and be with God. This thought of contrast between ideal and actual, to which Plato in some of his writings gave the turn of a contrast between soul and body, passed on with increased emphasis into Stoic and later Platonist schools, and furnished a philosophic basis for the dualism and asceticism which is found in Hellenistic and mediæval morality.

Ethical Significance.—While the true ethical contrast between the actual and the ideal was thus shifted over into a metaphysical contrast between soul and body, or between what is fixed and what is changing, the fundamental thought is highly significant, for it merely symbolizes in objective form the characteristic of every moral judgment, viz., the testing and valuing of an act by some standard, and what is even more important, the forming of a standard by which to do the testing. Even Aristotle, who is frequently regarded as the mere describer of what is, rather than the idealistic portrayer of what ought to be, is no less insistent upon the significance of the ideal. In fact, his isolation of reflection or theoria from the civic virtues was used by the mediæval church in its idealization of the "contemplative life." Like Plato, he conceives the ideal as a divine element in human nature:

The Poets.—Out of the fierce competition of individual desires, the clashing of individual ambitions, the conflict[Pg 139] between the individual and the state, and the deepening of the conception of the individual's "nature," emerged also another conception of fundamental importance for the more highly developed reflective moral life, viz., that of the moral personality, its character and its responsibility. We may trace the development of this conception through the poets, as well as in the philosophers. Æschylus set man over against the gods, subject to their divine laws, but gave little play to human character or conscious self-direction. With Sophocles, the tragic situation was brought more directly into the field of human character, although the conception of destiny and the limitations marked thereby were still the dominant note. With Euripides, human emotions and character are brought into the foreground. Stout-heartedness, the high spirit that can endure in suffering or triumph in death, which shows not merely in his heroes but in the women, Polyxena and Medea, Phædra and Iphigenia, evinces the growing consciousness of the self—a consciousness which will find further development in the proud and self-sufficient endurance of the Stoic. In more directly ethical lines, we find increasing recognition of the self in the motives which are set up for human action, and in the view which is formed of human character. Conscience in the earlier poets and moralists, was largely a compound of Nemesis, the external messenger and symbol of divine penalty, on the one hand, and Aidos, the sense of respect or reverence for public opinion and for the higher authority of the gods, on the other. But already in the tragedians we find suggestions of a more intimate and personal conception. Pains sent by Zeus in dreams may lead the individual to meditate, and thus to better life. Neoptolemus, in Sophocles, says,

"All things are noisome when a man deserts
His own true self and does what is not meet."

and Philoctetes replies,

"Have mercy on me, boy, by all the gods,
And do not shame thyself by tricking me."
[Pg 140]

The whole Antigone of Sophocles is the struggle between obedience to the political rulers and obedience to the higher laws which as "laws of reverence" become virtually inner laws of duty:

"I know I please the souls I ought to please."

Plato.—Here, as in the formulation of his conception of the ideal, religious imagery helped Plato to find a more objective statement for the conception of a moral judgment and a moral character. In the final judgment of the soul after death, Plato sees the real self stripped bare of all external adornments of beauty, rank, power, or wealth, and standing as naked soul before the naked judge, to receive his just reward. And the very nature of this reward or penalty shows the deepening conception of the self, and of the intrinsic nature of moral character. The true penalty of injustice is not to be found in anything external, but in the very fact that the evil doers become base and wicked:

The Stoics.—It is, however, in the Stoics that we find the conception of inner reflection reaching clearest expression. Seneca and Epictetus repeat again and again the thought that the conscience is of higher importance than any external judgment,—that its judgment is inevitable. In these various conceptions, we see attained the third stage of Adam Smith's description of the formation[Pg 141] of conscience.[83] Man who read his duty at first in the judgments of his fellows, in the customs and laws and codes of honor, and in the religious precepts of the gods, has again come to find in gods and laws, in custom and authority, the true rational law of life; but it is now a law of self. Not a particular or individual self, but a self which embraces within it at once the human and the divine. The individual has become social and has recognized himself as such. The religious, social, and political judgments have become the judgments of man upon himself. "Duty," what is binding or necessary, takes its place as a definite moral conception.

[Pg 142]

The moral life of the modern western world differs from both Hebrew and Greek morality in one respect. The Hebrews and Greeks were pioneers. Their leaders had to meet new situations and shape new conceptions of righteousness and wisdom. Modern civilization and morality, on the other hand, received certain ideals and standards already worked out and established. These came to it partly through the literature of Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins, partly through Greek art and Roman civilization, but chiefly, perhaps, through two institutions: (1) Roman government and law embodied Stoic conceptions of a natural law of reason and of a world state, a universal rational society. This not only gave the groundwork of government and rights to the modern world; it was a constant influence for guiding and shaping ideas of authority and justice. (2) The Christian Church in its cathedrals, its cloisters, its ceremonials, its orders, and its doctrines had a most impressive system of standards, valuations, motives, sanctions, and prescriptions for action. These were not of Hebrew origin solely. Greek and Roman philosophy and political conceptions were fused with more primitive teaching and conduct. When the Germans conquered the Empire they accepted in large measure its institutions and its religion. Modern morality, like modern civilization, shows the mingled streams of Hebrew, Greek, Roman, and German or Celtic life. It contains also conceptions due to the peculiar industrial, scientific, and political development of modern times. Thus we have to-day such inherited[Pg 143] standards as that of "the honor of a gentleman" side by side with the modern class standard of business honesty, and the labor union ideal of class solidarity. We have the aristocratic ideals of chivalry and charity side by side with more democratic standards of domestic and social justice. We find the Christian equal standard for the two sexes side by side with another which sets a high value on woman's chastity, but a trivial value on man's. We find a certain ideal of self-sacrifice side by side with an ideal of "success" as the only good. We cannot hope to disentangle all the threads that enter this variegated pattern, or rather collection of patterns, but we can point out certain features that at the same time illustrate certain general lines of development. We state first the general attitude and ideals of the Middle Ages, and then the three lines along which individualism has proceeded to the moral consciousness of to-day.

The mediæval attitude toward life was determined in part by the character of the Germanic tribes with their bold, barbaric strength and indomitable spirit, their clan and other group organizations, their customs or mores belonging to such a stock; and in part by the religious ideals presented in the church. The presence of these two factors was manifest in the strong contrasts everywhere present.

The harsh clashes of the Venus music over against[Pg 144] the solemn strains from the Pilgrim's Chorus in Tannhäuser might well symbolize not only the specific collision of the opera but the broader range of passions opposed to the religious controls and values in this mediæval society.

The Group and Class Ideal.—The early Germans and Celts in general had the clan system, the group ideals, and group virtues which belonged to other Aryan peoples, but the very fact of the Germanic victories shows a military spirit which included both personal heroism and good capacity for organization. Group loyalty was strong, and the group valuation of strength and courage was unbounded. A high value was also set on woman's chastity. These qualities, particularly the loyalty to the clan and its head, survived longest in Celtic peoples like the Scots and Irish who were not subjected to the forces of political organization. Every reader of Scott is familiar with the values and defects of the type; and the problems which it causes in modern democracy have been acutely described by Jane Addams.[85] Among the Germanic peoples, when the clan and tribal systems were followed by the more thoroughgoing demarcation of classes, free and serfs, lords and villains, chevalier or knight, and churl, the old Latin terms "gentle" and "vulgar" found a fitting application. The term "gentle" was indeed given in one of its usages the force of the kindred term "kind" to characterize the conduct appropriate within the kin, but in the compound "gentleman" it formed one of the most interesting conceptions of class morality. The "honor" of a gentleman was determined by what the class demanded. Above all else the gentleman must not show fear. He must be ready to fight at any instant to prove his courage. His word must not be doubted. This seems to have been on the ground that[Pg 145] such doubt would be a refusal to take the man at his own estimate, rather than because of any superlative love of truth, for the approved way to prove the point at issue was by fighting, not by any investigation. But the class character appears in the provision that no insult from one of a lower class need be noticed. Homicide was not contrary to the character and honor of a gentleman. Nor did this require any such standard in sex relations as a "woman's honor" requires of a woman. In conduct toward others, the "courtesy" which expresses in ceremony and manner respect for personal dignity was a fine trait. It did not always prevent insolence toward inferiors, although there was in many cases the feeling, noblesse oblige. What was needed to make this ideal of gentleman a moral and not merely a class ideal, was that it should base treatment of others on personal worth rather than on birth, or wealth, or race, and that it should not rate reputation for courage above the value of human life. This has been in part effected, but many traits of the old conception live on to-day.

The Ideal of the Church.—The ideal of life which the church presented contained two strongly contrasting elements, which have been frequently found in religion and are perhaps inevitably present. On the one hand, a spiritual religion implies that man in comparison with God is finite, weak, and sinful; he should therefore be of "a humble and contrite heart." On the other hand, as a child of God he partakes of the divine and is raised to infinite worth. On the one hand, the spiritual life is not of this world and must be sought in renouncing its pleasures and lusts; on the other hand, if God is really the supreme governor of the universe, then this world also ought to be subject to his rule. In the mediæval view of life, the humility and withdrawal from the world were assigned to the individual; the sublimity and the ruling authority to the church. Ethically this distribution had[Pg 146] somewhat the effect of group morality in that it minimized the individual and magnified the corporate body of which he was a part. Asceticism and humility go hand in hand with the power of the hierarchy. Individual poverty—wealth of the church; individual meekness and submission—unlimited power and authority in the church; these antitheses reflect the fact that the church was the heir both of a kingdom of God and of a Roman Empire. The humility showed itself in extreme form in the ascetic type of monasticism with its vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. It was reflected in the art which took for its subjects the saints, conceived not individually, but typically and according to tradition and authority. Their thin attenuated figures showed the ideal prescribed. The same humility showed itself in the intellectual sphere in the preëminence given to faith as compared with reason, while the mystic losing himself in God showed yet another phase of individual renunciation. Even charity, with which the church sought to temper the hardship of the time, took a form which tended to maintain or even applaud the dependent attitude of the recipient. So far as life for the individual had a positive value, this lay not in living oneself out, but rather in the calm and the support afforded by the church:

On the other side, the church boldly asserted the right and duty of the divine to control the world,—the reli[Pg 147]gious symbol of the modern proposition that conscience should dominate political and business affairs. "No institution is apart from the authority of the church," wrote Ægidius Colonna. "No one can legitimately possess field or vine except under its authority or by it. Heretics are not owners, but unjustly occupy." Canossa symbolized the supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal power, and there is a sublime audacity, moral as well as political, in the famous Bull of Boniface VIII., "We declare that every human creature is subject to the Roman pontiff."

The church as a corporate society expressed also the community of its members. It was indeed no mere collection of individual believers. As a divine institution, the "body of Christ on earth," it gave to its members rather than received from them. It invested them with new worth, instead of getting its own worth from them. Nevertheless, it was not an absolute authority; it represented the union of all in a common fellowship, a common destiny, and a common cause against the powers of evil.

The massive cathedrals which remain as the monuments of the ages of faith, are fitting symbols of these aspects of mediæval life. They dominate their cities architecturally, as the church dominated the life of the ages which built them. They inspired within the worshipper, on the one hand, a sense of finiteness in the presence of the sublime; on the other, an elevation of soul as he became conscious of union with a power and presence not his own. They awed the worshiping assembly and united it in a common service.

We have seen that the mediæval life had two sets of standards and values: one set by the tribal codes and the instinct of a warlike people; the other set by a church[Pg 148] which required renunciation while it asserted control. Changes may be traced in both ideals. The group morality becomes refined and broadened. The church standards are affected in four ways: (a) The goods of the secular life, art, family, power, wealth, claim a place in the system of values. (b) Human authority asserts itself, at first in sovereign states with monarchs, then in the growth of civil liberty and political democracy. (c) Instead of faith, reason asserts itself as the agency for discovering the laws of nature and of life. (d) As the result of the greater dignity and worth of the individual which is worked out in all these lines, social virtue tends to lay less value on charity and more on social justice.

It must not be supposed that the movements to be outlined have resulted in the displacement or loss of the positive values in the religious ideal. The morality of to-day does not ignore spiritual values; it aims rather to use them to give fuller meaning to all experience. It does not abandon law in seeking freedom, or ignore duty because it is discovered by reason. Above all, it is seeking to bring about in more intimate fashion that supremacy of the moral order in all human relations for which the church was theoretically contending. And in recent times we are appreciating more thoroughly that the individual cannot attain a full moral life by himself. Only as he is a member of a moral society can he find scope and support for full development of will. In concrete phrase, it is just as necessary to improve the general social environment in which men, women, and children are to live, in order to make better individuals, as it is to improve the individuals in order to get a better society. This was a truth which the religious conception of salvation through the church taught in other terms.

To follow the development of the modern moral consciousness, we shall rely not so much on the formal writ[Pg 149]ings of moral philosophers as on other sources. What men value most, and what they recognize as right, is shown in what they work for and fight for and in how they spend their leisure. This is reflected more immediately in their laws, their art and literature, their religion, and their educational institutions, although it finds ultimate expression in moral theories. The more concrete aspects are suggested in this chapter, the theories in Chapter XII.

An interesting blending of the class ideal of the warrior and "gentleman" with the religious ideals of devotion to some spiritual service, and of protection to the weak, is afforded by chivalry. The knights show their faith by their deeds of heroism, not by renunciation. But they fight for the Holy Sepulcher, or for the weak and oppressed. Their investiture is almost as solemn as that of a priest. Honor and love appear as motives side by side with the quest of the Holy Grail. Chevalier Bayard is the gallant fighter for country, but he is also the passionate admirer of justice, the knight sans peur et sans reproche. Moreover, the literature which embodies the ideal exhibits not only feats of arms and religious symbolism. Parsifal is not a mere abstraction; he has life and character. "And who will deny," writes Francke,[87] "that in this character Wolfram has put before us, within the forms of chivalrous life, an immortal symbol of struggling, sinning, despairing, but finally redeemed, humanity?"

If chivalry represented in some degree a moralizing of the warrior class, the mendicant orders represented an effort to bring religion into secular life. The followers of St. Dominic and St. Francis were indeed ascetic, but instead of maintaining the separate life of the cloister[Pg 150] they aimed to awaken a personal experience among the whole people. Further, the Dominicans adopted the methods and conceptions of Greek philosophy to support the doctrines of the church, instead of relying solely on faith. The Franciscans on their part devoted an ecstatic type of piety to deeds of charity and beneficence. They aimed to overcome the world rather than to withdraw from it. A bolder appeal to the individual, still within the sphere of religion, was made when Wyclif asserted the right of every instructed man to search the Bible for himself, and a strong demand for social justice found expression in Wyclif's teaching as well as in the vision of Piers Plowman.

In the political world the growing strength of the empire sought likewise a religious sanction in its claim of a divine right, independent of the church. The claims of the civic life find also increasing recognition with the spiritual teachers.

The State had been regarded by Augustine as a consequence of the fall of man, but it now comes to claim and receive a moral value: first, with Thomas Aquinas, as the institution in which man perfects his earthly nature and prepares for his higher destiny in the realm of grace; then, with Dante, as no longer subordinate to the church, but coördinate with it.

Finally, the rise of the universities shows a most significant appearance of the modern spirit under the old sanctions. The range of secular studies was limited and the subject-matter to be studied was chiefly the doctrine of the Fathers. The teachers who drew thousands of eager young men about them were clerics. But the very fact that dialectics—the art of reasoning—was the focus of interest, shows the dawn of a spirit of inquiry. Such a book as Abelard's Sic et Non, which marshaled the opposing views of the Fathers in "deadly parallel," was a challenge to tradition and an assertion of reason. And it is not without significance that the same bold thinker was[Pg 151] the first of the mediæval scholars to treat ethics again as a field by itself. The title "Know Thyself" suggests its method. The essence of the moral act is placed in the intent or resolve of the will; the criterion for judgment is agreement or disagreement with conscience.

Rights.—It is not possible or necessary here to sketch the advance of political and civil liberty. Finding its agents sometimes in kings, sometimes in cities, sometimes in an aristocracy or a House of Commons, and sometimes in a popular uprising, it has also had as its defenders with the pen, Churchmen, Protestants, and freethinkers, lawyers, publicists, and philosophers. All that can be done here is to indicate briefly the moral significance of the movement. Some of its protagonists have been actuated by conscious moral purpose. They have fought with sword or pen not only in the conviction that their cause was just, but because they believed it just. At other times, a king has favored a city to weaken the power of the nobility, or the Commons have opposed the king because they objected to taxation. What makes the process significant morally is that, whatever the motives actuating those who have fought its battles with sword or pen, they have nearly always claimed to be fighting for "rights." They have professed the conviction that they are engaged in a just cause. They have thus made appeal to a moral standard, and in so far as they have sincerely sought to assert rights, they have been recognizing in some sense a social and rational standard; they have been building up a moral personality. Sometimes indeed the rights have been claimed as a matter of "possession" or of tradition. This is to place them on the basis of customary morality. But in such great crises as the English Revo[Pg 152]lutions of the seventeenth century, or the French and American Revolutions of the eighteenth, some deeper basis has been sought. A Milton, a Locke, a Rousseau, a Jefferson, has but voiced the sentiments of a people in formulating an explicitly moral principle. Sometimes this has taken the form of an appeal to God-given rights. All men are equal before God; why should one man assume to command another because of birth? In this sense the Puritans stood for liberty and democracy as part of their creed of life. But often the appeal to a moral principle borrowed the conceptions of Greek philosophy and Roman law, and spoke of "natural rights" or a "law of nature."[88]

Natural Rights.—This conception, as we have noted, had its origin in Greece in the appeal from custom or convention to Nature. At first an appeal to the natural impulses and wants, it became with the Stoics an appeal to the rational order of the universe. Roman jurists found in the idea of such a law of nature the rational basis for the law of society. Cicero had maintained that every man had its principles innate within him. It is obvious that here was a principle with great possibilities. The Roman law itself was most often used in the interest of absolutism, but the idea of a natural law, and so of a natural right more fundamental than any human dictate, proved a powerful instrument in the struggle for personal rights and equality. "All men naturally were born free," wrote Milton. "To understand political power right," wrote Locke, "and derive it from its original, we must consider what state all men are naturally in, and that is a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature; without asking leave or depending on the will of any other man. A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal." These doctrines found eloquent portrayal[Pg 153] in Rousseau, and appear in the Declaration of Independence of 1776. Finally, the effort to find in nature some basis for independence and freedom is given a new turn by Herbert Spencer when he points to the instinct for liberty in animals as well as in human beings as the origin of the law of freedom.

By one of the paradoxes of history, the principle is now most often invoked in favor of "vested interests." "Natural" easily loses the force of an appeal to reason and to social good, and becomes merely an assertion of ancient usage, or precedent, or even a shelter for mere selfish interests. Natural rights in property may be invoked to thwart efforts to protect life and health. Individualism has been so successful in asserting rights that it is now apt to forget that there are no rights morally except such as express the will of a good member of society. But in recognizing possible excesses we need not forget the value of the idea of rights as a weapon in the struggle in which the moral personality has gradually won its way. The other side of the story has been the growth of responsibility. The gain in freedom has not meant an increase in disorder; it has been marked rather by gain in peace and security, by an increasing respect for law, and an increasing stability of government. The external control of force has been replaced by the moral control of duty.

The development of industry, commerce, and art affects the moral life in a variety of ways, of which three are of especial importance for our purpose.

(1) It gives new interests, and new opportunities for individual activity.

(2) This raises the question of values. Are all the ac[Pg 154]tivities good, and shall one satisfy whatever interest appeals to him, or are some better than others?—the old question of "kinds of happiness."

(3) It raises further the question of sharing and distribution. How far may one enjoy the goods of life in an exclusive way and how far is it his duty to share with others? Do society's present methods of industry, commerce, art, and education distribute these goods in a just manner?

The examination of these questions will be made in Part III. It is our purpose at this point merely to indicate the trend of the moral consciousness with regard to them.

1. The Increasing Power and Interests of the Individual.—Power for the mediæval man could be sought in war or in the church; interests were correspondingly limited. The Crusades, contact, through them and later through commerce, with Arabian civilization, growing acquaintance with the literature and art of Greece and Rome, were effective agencies in stimulating the modern development. But when once started it needed but the opportunities of sufficient wealth and freedom to go on. Art and letters have depicted a variety and richness of experience which the ancient world did not feel. Shakspere, Rembrandt, Bunyan, Beethoven, Goethe, Balzac, Shelley, Byron, Hugo, Wagner, Ibsen, Thackeray, Eliot, Tolstoy, to name almost at random, reflect a wealth of interests and motives which show the range of the modern man. Commerce and the various lines of industry have opened new avenues for power. No one can see the palaces or dwellings of Venice or the old Flemish ports, or consider the enormous factories, shops, and office buildings of to-day, without a sense of the accession to human power over nature and over the activities of fellow men which trade and industry have brought with them. The use of money instead of a system of personal service—slavery or serfdom—has not only made it possible to[Pg 155] have men's labor without owning the men, it has aided in a vastly more effective system than the older method allowed. The industrial revolution of the past century has had two causes: one the use of machinery; the other the combination of human labor which this makes possible. So far this has greatly increased the power of the few leaders, but not of the many. It is the present problem to make possible a larger opportunity for individual freedom and power.

2. The Values of Art and Industry.—Are all these wider interests and fuller powers good? The church ideal and the class ideal already described gave different answers. The class ideal of gentleman really expressed a form of self-assertion, of living out one's powers fully, and this readily welcomed the possibilities which art and its enjoyment afforded.[89] The gentleman of the Renaissance, the cavalier of England, the noblesse of France, were patrons of art and letters. The Romanticist urged that such free and full expression as art afforded was higher than morality with its control and limitation. The church admitted art in the service of religion, but was chary of it as an individual activity. The Puritans were more rigorous. Partly because they associated its churchly use with what they regarded as "idolatry," partly as a protest against the license in manners which the freedom of art seemed to encourage, they frowned upon all forms of art except sacred literature or music. Their condemnation of the stage is still an element, though probably a lessening element, and it is not long since fiction was by many regarded with suspicion. On the whole, the modern moral consciousness accepts art as having a place in the moral life, although it by no means follows that art can be exempt from moral criticism as to its sincerity, healthfulness, and perspective.

In the case of industry the church ideal has prevailed.[Pg 156] The class ideal of gentleman was distinctly opposed to industry, particularly manual labor. "Arms" or the Court was the proper profession. This was more or less bound up with the fact that in primitive conditions labor was mainly performed by women or by slaves. It was the business, the "virtue" of men to fight. So far as this class ideal was affected by the models of ancient culture, the prejudice was strengthened. The classic civilization rested on slave labor. The ideal of the gentleman of Athens was the free employment of leisure, not active enterprise. The church, on the other hand, maintained both the dignity and the moral value of labor. Not only the example of the Founder of Christianity and his early disciples, who were for the most part manual laborers, but the intrinsic moral value of work, already referred to, entered into the appraisal.[90] The Puritans, who have had a wide-reaching influence upon the standards of the middle and lower classes of England, and upon the northern and western portions of America, were insistent upon industry, not merely for the sake of its products,—they were frugal in their consumption,—but as expressing a type of character. Idleness and "shiftlessness" were not merely ineffective, they were sinful. "If any will not work, neither let him eat," commended itself thoroughly to this moral ideal. That the laborer brought something to the common weal, while the idler had to be supported, was a reënforcement to the motives drawn from the relation of work to character. As the middle and lower classes became increasingly influential, the very fact that they were laborers and traders strengthened the religious ideal by a class motive. It was natural that a laboring class should regard labor as "honest," though from the history of the word such a collocation of terms as "honest labor" would once have been as absurd as "honest villain."[91] A further[Pg 157] influence effective in America has been the fluidity of class distinctions in a new country. The "influence of the frontier" has been all on the side of the value of work and the reprobation of idleness. At least this is true for men. A certain tendency has been manifest to exempt women of the well-to-do classes from the necessity of labor, and even by training and social pressure to exclude them from the opportunity of work, and make of them a "leisure class," but this is not likely to establish itself as a permanent moral attitude. The woman will not be content to live in "The Doll's House" while the man is in the real work of the world.

3. The Distribution of the Goods of Life.—Mediæval society made provision for both benevolence and justice. Charity, the highest of the virtues, had come to mean specifically the giving of goods. The monasteries relieved the poor and the infirm. Hospitals were established. The gentleman felt it to be not only a religious duty, but a tradition of his class to be liberal. To secure justice in the distribution of wealth, various restrictions were imposed. Goods were not to be sold for whatever they could bring, nor was money to be loaned at whatever rate of interest the borrower was willing to pay. Society aimed to find out by some means what was a "reasonable price" for products. In the case of manufactured goods this could be fixed by the opinion of fellow craftsmen. A "common estimation," where buyers and sellers met and bargained in an open market, could be trusted to give a fair value. A maximum limit was set for victuals in towns. Or, again, custom prescribed what should be the money equivalent for payments formerly made in kind, or in personal service.[92] Money-lending was under especial guard. To ask interest for the use of money, provided the principal was returned intact, seemed to be taking advantage of another's necessity. It was usury. Class[Pg 158] morality added a different kind of restrictions. As embodied in the laws, it bound the tenants to the soil and forbade the migration of laborers. The significant thing in the whole mediæval attitude was that society attempted to control business and industry by a moral standard. It did not trust the individual to make his own bargains or to conduct his business as he pleased.

Modern Theory: Free Contract.—The distinctive feature of the modern development has been the tendency to abandon moral restrictions and to substitute a wage system, freedom of exchange, and free contract. It was maintained by the advocates of the new method that it was both more efficient and at least as just as the old. It was more efficient because it stimulated every one to make the best possible bargain. Surely every man is the most interested, and therefore the best promoter of his own welfare. And if each is getting the best results for himself, the good of the whole community will be secured. For—so ran the theory, when individualism had so far advanced—society is simply the aggregate of its members; the good of all is the sum of the goods of the members. The system also claimed to provide for justice between buyer and seller, capitalist and laborer, by the agencies noticed in the next paragraph.

Competition.—To prevent extortionate prices on the one hand, or unduly low prices or wages on the other, the reliance was on competition and the general principle of supply and demand. If a baker charges too high for his bread, others will set up shops and sell cheaper. If a money-lender asks too high interest, men will not borrow or will find a loan elsewhere. If a wage is too low, labor will go elsewhere; if too high, capital will not be able to find a profit and so will not employ labor—so runs the theory. Without analyzing the moral value of the theory at this point, we notice only that, so far as it assumes to secure fair bargains and a just distribution,[Pg 159] it assumes the parties to the free contract to be really free. This implies that they are upon nearly equal footing. In the days of hand work and small industries this was at least a plausible assumption. But a new face was placed upon the situation by the industrial revolution.

Problem Raised by the Industrial Revolution.—The introduction of machinery on a large scale near the end of the eighteenth century brought about a change which has had extraordinary economic, social, and moral effects. The revolution had two factors: (1) it used steam power instead of human muscle; (2) it made possible the greater subdivision of labor, and hence it made it profitable to organize large bodies of men under a single direction. Both these factors contributed to an enormous increase in productive power. But this increase made an overwhelming difference in the status of capitalist and laborer. Without discussing the question as to whether capital received more than a "fair" share of the increased profit, it was obvious that if one "Captain of Industry" were receiving even a small part of the profits earned by each of his thousand workmen, he would be immeasurably better off than any one of them. Like the mounted and armored knight of the Middle Ages, or the baron in his castle, he was more than a match for a multitude of poorly equipped footmen. There seemed to be in the nineteenth century an enormous disproportion between the shares of wealth which fell to capitalist and to laborer. If this was the result of "free contract," what further proof was necessary that "freedom" was a mere empty term—a name with no reality? For could it be supposed that a man would freely make an agreement to work harder and longer than any slave, receiving scarcely the bare necessities of existence, while the other party was to gain enormous wealth from the bargain?

The old class morality was not disturbed by such contrasts. Even the religious morality was apt to consider [Pg 160]the distinction between rich and poor as divinely ordered, or else as insignificant compared with eternal destiny of weal or woe. But the individualistic movements have made it less easy to accept either the class morality or the religious interpretation. The latter lends itself equally well to a justification of disease because it is providentially permitted. Moreover, the old group morality and religious ideal had this in their favor: they recognized an obligation of the strong to the weak, of the group for every member, of master for servant. The cash basis seemed to banish all responsibility, and to assert the law of "each for himself" as the supreme law of life—except so far as individuals might mitigate suffering by voluntary kindness. Economic theory seemed to show that wages must always tend toward a starvation level.

Sympathy.—Such tendencies inevitably called out response from the sentiments of benevolence and sympathy. For the spread of civilization has certainly made man more sensitive to pain, more capable of sympathy and of entering by imagination into the situations of others. It is noteworthy that the same Adam Smith who argued so forcibly the cause of individualism in trade, made sympathy the basis of his moral system. Advance in sympathy has shown itself in the abolition of judicial torture, in prison reform, in the improved care of the insane and defective; in the increased provision for hospitals, and asylums, and in an innumerable multitude of organizations for relief of all sorts and conditions of men. Missions, aside from their distinctly ecclesiastical aims, represent devotion of human life and of wealth to the relief of sickness and wretchedness, and to the education of children in all lands. Sympathy has even extended to the animal world. And the notable fact in modern sympathy and kindness, as contrasted with the mediæval type, is that the growth in individuality has demanded and evoked a higher kind of benevolence. Instead of fostering de[Pg 161]pendence and relieving wants, the best modern agencies aim to promote independence, to set the man upon his own feet and enable him to achieve self-respect. "Social settlements" have been strong factors in bringing about this change of attitude.

Justice.—Various movements looking toward greater justice in distribution have likewise been called out by the conditions since the industrial revolution. Naturally one reaction was to denounce the whole individualistic tendency as represented in the "cash-payment" basis. This found its most eloquent expositor in Carlyle. His Past and Present is a bitter indictment of a system "in which all working horses could be well fed, and innumerable workingmen should die starved"; of a laissez-faire theory which merely says "impossible" when asked to remedy evils supposedly due to "economic laws"; of a "Mammon Gospel" which transforms life into a mutual hostility, with its laws-of-war named "fair competition." The indictment is convincing, but the remedy proposed—a return to strong leaders with a reëstablishment of personal relations—has rallied few to its support. Another reaction against individualistic selfishness has taken the form of communism. Numerous experiments have been made by voluntary associations to establish society on a moral basis by abolishing private property. "These new associations," said Owen, one of the most ardent and generous of social reformers, "can scarcely be formed before it will be discovered that by the most simple and easy regulations all the natural wants of human nature may be abundantly supplied; and the principle of selfishness will cease to exist for want of an adequate motive to produce it."

In contrast with these plans for a return to earlier conditions, the two most conspicuous tendencies in the thought of the past century have claimed to be advancing toward freedom and justice along the lines which we have just traced. The one, which we may call "individualistic" re[Pg 162]form, has sought justice by giving free play to individual action. The other, socialism, has aimed to use the power of the State to secure more adequate justice and, as it believes, a more genuine freedom. The great reform movement in Great Britain during the nineteenth century emphasized free trade and free contracts. It sought the causes of injustice in the survival of some privilege or vested interest which prevents the full working of the principles of free contract and competition. Let every man "count as one"; make laws for "the greatest good of the greatest number." The trouble is not that there is too much individualism, but that there is too little. Tax reformers like Henry George have urged the same principle. If land is monopolized by a few who can levy a toll upon all the rest of society, how can justice obtain? The remedy for injustice is to be found in promoting greater freedom of industry and trade. Socialism on the other hand claims that individualism defeats itself; it results in tyranny, not freedom. The only way to secure freedom is through united action. The merits of some of these programs for social justice will be examined in Part III. They signify that the age is finding its moral problem set anew by the collision between material interests and social good. Greek civilization used the industry of the many to set free the higher life—art, government, science—of a few. The mediæval ideal recognized the moral value of industry in relation to character. The modern conscience, resting back upon a higher appreciation of human dignity and worth, is seeking to work out a social and economic order that shall combine both the Greek and the mediæval ideas. It will require work and secure freedom. These are necessary for the individual person. But it is beginning to be seen that these values cannot be divided so that one social class shall perform the labor and the other enjoy the freedom. The growth of democracy means that all members of society[Pg 163] should share in the value and the service of work. It means that all should share according to capacity in the values of free life, of intelligence and culture. Can material goods be so produced and distributed as to promote this democratic ideal?

The development of intelligence in the modern world, as in Greece, has two sides: on the one hand, a working-free from the restrictions which theology or the State or other social authorities imposed; on the other hand, positive progress in knowledge of nature and of human life. Under its first aspect it is known as the growth of rationalism; under its second aspect, as the growth of science and education. We cannot separate the development into two periods, the one negative, the other positive, as was convenient in the case of Greece. The negative and the positive in the modern world have gone on contemporaneously, although the emphasis has sometimes been on one side and sometimes upon the other. We may, however, indicate three periods as standing out with clearly defined characteristics.

(1) The Renaissance, in which the Greek spirit of scientific inquiry found a new birth; in which the discovery of new continents stimulated the imagination; and in which new and more fruitful methods of investigation were devised in mathematics and the natural sciences.

(2) The period of the Enlightenment, in which the negative aspect of the process reached its sharpest definition. The doctrines of revealed religion and natural religion were criticised from the standpoint of reason. Mysteries and superstition were alike rejected. General intelligence made rapid progress. It was the "Age of Reason."

(3) The Nineteenth Century, in which both the natural[Pg 164] and social sciences underwent an extraordinary development. The doctrine of evolution has brought a new point of view for considering the organic world and human institutions. Education has come to be regarded as both the necessary condition for the safety of society and as the right of every human being; Science, in large measure set free from the need of fighting for its right to exist, is becoming constructive; it is assuming increasingly the duty of preserving human life and health, of utilizing and preserving natural resources, of directing political and economic affairs.

1. The Renaissance.—It would be giving a wrong impression to imply that there was no inquiry, no use of reason in the mediæval world. The problems set by the inheritance of old-world religion and politics, forced themselves upon the builders of castles and cathedrals,[93] of law and of dogma. As indicated above, the universities were centers of discussion in which brilliant minds often challenged received opinions. Men like Roger Bacon sought to discover nature's secrets, and the great scholastics mastered Greek philosophy in the interest of defending the faith. But theological interest limited freedom and choice of theme. It was not until the expansion of the individual along the lines already traced—in political freedom, in the use of the arts, in the development of commerce—that the purely intellectual interest such as had once characterized Greece awoke. A new world of possibilities seemed dawning upon the Italian Galileo, the Frenchman Descartes, the Englishman Francis Bacon. The instruments of thought had been sharpened by the dialectics of the schools; now let them be used to analyze the world in which we live. Instead of merely observing nature Galileo applied the experimental method, putting definite questions to nature and thus preparing the[Pg 165] way for a progress step by step toward a positive knowledge of nature's laws. Descartes found in mathematics a method of analysis which had never been appreciated before. What seemed the mysterious path of bodies in curved lines could be given a simple statement in his analytic geometry. Leibniz and Newton carried this method to triumphant results in the analysis of forces. Reason appeared able to discover and frame the laws of the universe—the "principles" of nature. Bacon, with less of positive contribution in method, sounded another note which was equally significant. The human mind is liable to be clouded and hindered in its activities by certain inveterate sources of error. Like deceitful images or obsessions the "idols" of the tribe, of the cave, of the market, and of the theater—due to instinct or habit, to language or tradition—prevent the reason from doing its best work. It needs vigorous effort to free the mind from these idols. But this can be done. Let man turn from metaphysics and theology to nature and life; let him follow reason instead of instinct or prejudice. "Knowledge is power." Through it may rise above the kingdom of nature the "kingdom of man." In his New Atlantis, Bacon foresees a human society in which skill and invention and government shall all contribute to human welfare. These three notes, the experimental method, the power of rational analysis through mathematics, and the possibility of controlling nature in the interests of man, were characteristic of the period.

2. The Enlightenment.—A conflict of reason with authority went on side by side with the progress of science. Humanists and scientists had often set themselves against dogma and tradition. The Reformation was not in form an appeal to reason, but the clash of authorities stimulated men to reasoning upon the respective claims of Catholic and Protestant. And in the eighteenth century, under the favoring influence of a broad toleration and a gen[Pg 166]eral growth of intelligence, the conflict of reason with dogma reached its culmination. The French call the period "l'Illumination"—the illumination of life and experience by the light of reason. The Germans call it the Aufklärung, "the clearing-up." What was to be cleared up? First, ignorance, which limits the range of man's power and infects him with fear of the unknown; then superstition, which is ignorance consecrated by wont and emotion; finally, dogma, which usually embodies irrational elements and seeks to force them upon the mind by the power of authority, not of truth. Nor was it merely a question of intellectual criticism. Voltaire saw that dogma was often responsible for cruelty. Ignorance meant belief in witchcraft and magic. From the dawn of civilization this had beset man's progress and quenched many of the brightest geniuses of the past. It was time to put an end once for all to the remnants of primitive credulity; it was time to be guided by the light of reason. The movement was not all negative. Using the same appeal to "nature," which had served so well as a rallying cry in the development of political rights, the protagonists of the movement spoke of a "natural light" which God had placed in man for his guidance—"the candle of the Lord set up by himself in men's minds, which it is impossible for the breath or power of man wholly to extinguish." A natural and rational religion should take the place of supposed revelation.

But the great achievement of the eighteenth century in the intellectual development of the individual was that the human mind came to realize the part it was itself playing in the whole realm of science and conduct. Man began to look within. Whether he called his work an Essay concerning Human Understanding, or a Treatise of Human Nature, or a Theory of Moral Sentiments, or a Critique of Pure Reason, the aim was to study human experience. For of a sudden it was dawn[Pg 167]ing upon man that, if he was then living upon a higher level of knowledge and conduct than the animal or the savage, this must be due to the activity of the mind. It appeared that man, not satisfied with "nature," had gone on to build a new world with institutions and morality, with art and science. This was no creation of instinct or habit; nor could it be explained in terms of sense, or feeling, or impulse alone; it was the work of that more active, universal, and creative type of intelligence which we call reason. Man, as capable of such achievements in science and conduct, must be regarded with new respect. As having political rights, freedom, and responsibility, man has the dignity of a citizen, sovereign as well as subject. As guiding and controlling his own life and that of others by the power of ideas, not of force, he has the dignity of a moral person, a moral sovereignty. He does not merely take what nature brings; he sets up ends of his own and gives them worth. In this, Kant saw the supreme dignity of the human spirit.

3. The Present Significance and Task of Scientific Method.—In the thought that man is able to form ends which have value for all, to set up standards which all respect, and thus to achieve worth and dignity in the estimation of his fellows, the Individualism of the eighteenth century was already pointing beyond itself. For this meant that the individual attains his highest reach only as a member of a moral society. But it is one thing to point out the need and meaning of a moral society, it is another thing to bring such a society into being. It has become evident during the past century that this is the central problem for human reason to solve. The various social sciences, economics, sociology, political science, jurisprudence, social psychology, have either come into being for the first time, or have been prosecuted with new energy. Psychology has assumed new significance as their instrument. Not that the scientific progress of the[Pg 168] century has seen its greatest triumphs in these fields. The conspicuous successes have been rather in such sciences as biology, or in the applications of science to engineering and medicine. The social sciences have been occupied largely in getting their problems stated and their methods defined. But the discoveries and constructions of the nineteenth century are none the less indispensable prerequisites for a moral society. For the new conditions of city life, the new sources of disease, the new dangers which attend every successive step away from the life of the savage, demand all the resources of the sciences.[94] And as the natural sciences overcome the technical difficulties which obstruct their work of aiding human welfare, the demand will be more insistent that the social sciences contribute their share toward enabling man to fulfil his moral life. Some of the specific demands will become more evident, as we study in subsequent chapters the present problems of political, economic, and family life.

Education.—The importance for the moral life of the modern development of science is paralleled by the significance of modern education. The universities date from the Middle Ages. The classical interest of humanism found its medium in the college or "grammar school." The in[Pg 169]vention of printing and the growth of commerce promoted elementary schools. Supposed necessities of popular government stimulated a general educational movement in the United States. Modern trade and industry have called out the technical school. Germany has educated for national defense and economic advance; England has concerned itself preëminently for the education of statesmen and administrators; and the United States for the education of voters. But, whatever the motive, education has been made so general as to constitute a new element in the modern consciousness and a new factor to be reckoned with. The moral right of every child to have an education, measured not by his parents' abilities, but by his own capacity, is gaining recognition. The moral value of a possession, which is not, like material goods, exclusive, but common, will be more appreciated when we have worked out a more social and democratic type of training.[95]

Theoretical Interpretation of this Period in Ethical Systems.—While the theoretical interpretation of this period is to be treated in Part II., we may point out here that the main lines of development which we have traced find expression in the two systems which have been most influential during the past century. These are the systems of Kant and of the Utilitarians. The political and certain aspects of the intellectual development are reflected in the system of Kant. He emphasized freedom, the power and authority of reason, human dignity, the supreme value of character, and the significance of a society in which every member is at once sovereign and subject. The Utilitarians represent the values brought out in the development of industry, education, and the arts. They claimed that the good is happiness, and happiness of the greatest number. The demands for individual satisfaction and for social distribution of goods are voiced in this system.

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To eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil may result in ultimate gain. A more conscious and individualistic attitude may result in definite conceptions of duty and rights, of values and ideals. At the same time, as humanity's eyes have been opened and its wisdom increased, many forms of nakedness unknown in ruder conditions have been disclosed. With every increase of opportunity and efficiency for good there is a corresponding opportunity for evil. An immensely more complex environment gives scope for correspondingly more capable and subtle personalities. Some will react to the situation in such a way as to rise to a higher moral level, both in personal integrity and in public usefulness. Others will find in facilities for gratifying some appetite or passion a temptation too strong for their control and will become vicious, or will seize the chances to exploit others and become unjust in their acquirement and use of power and wealth. There will be a Nero as well as an Aurelius, a Cæsar Borgia as well as a Savonarola, a Jeffreys as well as a Sidney, a Bentham, or a Howard. For an Eliot or a Livingston or an Armstrong, there are the exploiters of lower races; and for an Elizabeth Fry, the women who trade in the wretchedness of their kind. By the side of those who use great abilities and resources unselfishly are those who view indifferently the sacrifice of human health or life, and pay no heed to human misery. Such contrasts show that the "evolution of morality" is[Pg 172] also an evolution of weakness, wretchedness, evil, and crime. They suggest some general comparisons between custom and reflective morality. They require from every age a renewed analysis of conduct and the social system. As a preliminary to such an analysis, we review in this chapter some of the general relations between the morality of custom and the morality of reflection.

The moral life shows its continuity in two ways. First, the earlier type of group and customary morality persists in part; in the second place, when the moral is differentiated from the other spheres of life in which it was embedded, it does not have to find entirely new conceptions. It borrows its terms from the group life or from the various spheres, religious, political, æsthetic, economic, which separate out from the older group unity.

The following quotation from Grote will serve as a vivid restatement of the régime of custom:

The important facts brought out are (1) the existence in a social group of certain habits not only of acting, but of feeling and believing about actions, of valuing or approving and disapproving. (2) The persistent forcing of these mental habitudes upon the attention of each new member of the group. The newcomer, whether by birth or adoption, is introduced into a social medium whose conditions and regulations he can no more escape than he can those of his physical environment. (3) Thus the mental and practical habits of the newly introduced individual are shaped. The current ways of esteeming and behaving in the community become a "standing habit" of his own mind; they finally reign as "habitual, self-suggested tendencies." Thus he becomes a full member of the social group, interested in the social fabric to which he belongs, and ready to do his part in maintaining it.

1. Persistence of Group Morality.—Comparing this state of affairs with what obtains to-day in civilized communities, we find certain obvious points of agreement. The social groups with which an individual comes in touch are now more numerous and more loosely formed. But everywhere there are customs not only of acting, but of thinking and feeling about acting. Each profession, each institution, has a code of which the individual has to take account. The nature of this code, unexpressed as well as formulated, is brought to the attention of the individual in countless ways; by the approval and disapproval of its public opinion; by his own failures and successes; by his[Pg 174] own tendency to imitate what he sees about him, as well as by deliberate, intentional instruction.

In other words, group morality does not vanish in order that conscious and personal morality may take its place. Group and customary morality is still the morality of many of us most of the time, and of all of us for a good deal of the time. We do not any of us think out all of our standards, weigh independently our values, make all our choices in a rational manner, or form our characters by following a clearly conceived purpose. As children we all start in a family group. We continue in a school group and perhaps a church group. We enter an occupation group, and later, it may be, family, political, social, and neighborhood groups. In every one of these if we are members, we must to a certain degree accept standards that are given. We have to play according to the rules of the game. As children we do this unconsciously. We imitate, or follow suggestions; we are made to conform by all the agencies of group morality—group opinion, ritual, pleasure and pain, and even by taboos;[97] above all, we act as the others act, and coöperate more or less to a common end. We form habits which persist, many of them as long as we live. We accept many of the traditions without challenge. Even when we pass from the early family group to the new situations and surroundings which make us repeat more or less of the experience of the race, a large share of our conduct and of our judgments of others is determined by the influences of group and custom. And it is fortunate for progress that[Pg 175] this is true. If every one had to start anew to frame all his ideals and make his laws, we should be in as melancholy a plight morally as we should be intellectually if we had to build each science anew. The fundamental safeguards which the group provides against individual impulse and passion, the condition of close association, interdependence and mutual sympathy which the group affords, the habituation to certain lines of conduct valued by the group—all this is a root on which the stem and flower of personal morality may grow. Individualism and intellectual activity, however necessary to man's progress, would give no morality did they not start out of this deeper level of common feeling and common destiny. The rational and personal agencies of the "third level" come not to destroy, but to fulfill the meaning of the forces and agencies of the first and second levels described in Chapters III and IV.

2. The Moral Conceptions.—The conceptions for the moral are nearly all taken from the group relations or from the jural and religious aspects, as these have been gradually brought to clearer consciousness. As already noted, the Greek term "ethical," the Latin "moral," the German "sittlich," suggest this—ethos meant the "sum of the characteristic usages, ideas, standards, and codes by which a group was differentiated and individualized in character from other groups."[98]

Some specific moral terms come directly from group relations. The "kind" man acts as one of the kin. When the ruling or privileged group is contrasted with the man of no family or of inferior birth, we get a large number of terms implying "superiority" or "inferiority" in birth, and so of general value. This may or may not be due to some inherent superiority of the upper class, but it means at least that the upper class has been most effectual in shaping language and standards of approval. So[Pg 176] "noble" and "gentle" referred to birth before they had moral value; "duty" in modern usage seems to have been principally what was due to a superior. Many words for moral disapproval are very significant of class feeling. The "caitiff" was a captive, and the Italians have their general term for morally bad, "cattivo," from the same idea. The "villain" was a feudal tenant, the "blackguard" looked after the kettles, the "rascal" was one of the common herd, the "knave" was the servant; the "base" and "mean" were opposed to the gentle and noble. Another set of conceptions reflects the old group approvals or combines these with conceptions of birth. We have noted the twofold root of kalokagathia in Greek. "Honor" and "honesty" were what the group admired, and conversely "aischros" and "turpe" in Greek and Latin, like the English "disgraceful" or "shameful," were what the group condemned. "Virtue" was the manly excellence which called out the praise of a warlike time, while one of the Greek terms for morally bad originally meant cowardly, and our "scoundrel" has possibly the same origin. The "bad" was probably the weak or the womanish. The economic appears in "merit," what I have earned, and likewise in "duty" and "ought," what is due or owed—though duty seems to have made itself felt especially, as noted above, toward a superior. Forethought and skill in practical affairs provided the conception of "wisdom," which was highest of the virtues for the Greeks, and as "prudence" stood high in mediæval systems. The conception of valuing and thus of forming some permanent standard of a better and a worse, is also aided, if not created, by economic exchange. It appears in almost identical terms in Plato and the New Testament in the challenge, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own life?"[99] From the processes of fine or useful arts came probably the conceptions of measure,[Pg 177] order, and harmony. A whole mode of considering the moral life is jural. "Moral law," "authority," "obligation," "responsibility," "justice," "righteousness," bring with them the associations of group control and of the more definitely organized government and law. Finally the last named terms bear also a religious imprint, and numerous conceptions of the moral come from that sphere or get their specific flavor from religious usage. The conceptions of the "soul" have contributed to the ideal of a good which is permanent, and which is made rather by personal companionship, than by sensuous gratification. "Purity" began as a magical and religious idea; it came to symbolize not only freedom from contamination but singleness of purpose. "Chastity" lends a religious sacredness to a virtue which had its roots largely in the conception of property. "Wicked" is from witch.

We have indeed certain conceptions drawn from individual experiences of instinct, or reflection. From the sense recoil from what was disgusting such conceptions as "foul," and from kindred imagery of what suits eye or muscular sense come "straightforward," "upright," "steady." From the thinking process itself we have "conscience." This word in Greek and Latin was a general term for consciousness and suggests one of the distinctive, perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of the moral. For it implies a "conscious" thoughtful attitude, which operates not only in forming purposes, but in measuring and valuing action by the standards it approves. But it is evident that by far the larger part of our ethical terms are derived from social relations in the broad sense.

Differentiation of the Moral.—The most obvious difference between the present and the early attitude is that we now make a clear distinction between the moral aspect[Pg 178] of behavior and other aspects such as the conventional, the political, the legal; while in customary morality all activities esteemed by society were put upon the same level and enforced with the same vigor. Matters which we should regard as purely matters of fashion or etiquette, or as modes of amusement, such as styles of wearing the hair, were imperative. To mutilate the body in a certain way was as exigent as to observe certain marriage customs; to refrain from speaking to the mother-in-law as binding as to obey the chieftain; not to step over the shadow of the chief was even more important than not to murder the member of another tribe. In general we make a clear distinction between "manners" and morals, while in customary morality manners are morals, as the very words "ethical," "moral" still testify.

When Grote speaks of "Ethical, Religious, Æsthetical, and Social" beliefs, the term "ethical" belongs with the other terms only from a modern standpoint. The characteristic thing about the condition of which he is speaking is that the "religious, æsthetical, and social" beliefs brought to bear upon the individual constitute the ethical. We make the distinction between them as naturally as the régime of custom failed to make it. Only by imagining a social set in which failure to observe punctiliously the fashions of the set as to the proper style of dress makes the person subject to a disparagement which influences his feelings and ideas as keenly and in the same way as conviction of moral delinquency, can we realize the frame of mind characteristic of the ethics of custom.

Observing versus Reflecting.—Customs may be "observed." Indeed, customary morality made goodness or rightness of character practically identical with observing the established order of social estimations in all departments. This word observe is significant: it means to note, or notice as matter of fact, by perception; and it means[Pg 179] to yield allegiance, to conform to, in action.[100] The element of intelligence, of reason, is thus reduced to a minimum. The moral values are there, so to speak, palpably, tangibly; and the individual has only to use his mind enough to notice them. And since they are forced upon his notice by drastic and unrelaxing methods of discipline, little initiative is required for even the attitude of attention. But when the moral is something which is in customs and habits, rather than those customs themselves, the good and right do not stand out in so obvious and external fashion. Recognition now demands thought, reflection; the power of abstraction and generalization. A child may be shown in a pretty direct and physical fashion the difference between meum and tuum in its bearing upon his conduct: a fence may be pointed at which divides his yard from that of a neighbor and which draws as well the moral line between what is permissible and what is forbidden; a whipping may intensify the observation. But modern business knows also of "intangible" property—good will, reputation, credit. These, indeed, can be bought and sold but the detection of their existence and nature demands an intelligence which is more than perception. The greater number of duties and rights of which present morality consists are of just this type. They are relations, not just outward habits. Their acknowledgment requires accordingly something more than just to follow and reproduce existing customs. It involves power to see why certain habits are to be followed, what makes a thing good or bad. Conscience is thus substituted for custom; principles take the place of external rules.

This is what we mean by calling present morality reflective rather than customary. It is not that social customs have ceased to be, or even have been reduced in number. The exact contrary is the case. It is not that they have[Pg 180] shrunk in importance, or that they have less significance for the individual's activity, or claim less of his attention. Again, the reverse is the case. But the individual has to grasp the meaning of these customs over and above the bare fact of their existence, and has to guide himself by their meaning and not by the mere fact noted.[101]

Custom is Static.—This difference introduces a second very important difference. In customary morality, there is no choice between being enmeshed in the net of social rules which control activity, and being an outlaw—one beyond the pale, whose hand is against every man's, and every man's against him. The extent to which social customs are regarded as of divine origin and are placed under the protection of the gods, i.e., the tendency of all sanctions to become religious and supernatural, is evidence of the binding force of institutions upon the individual. To violate them is impiety, sacrilege, and calls down the wrath of gods, as well as of men. The custom cannot be questioned. To inquire means uncertainty, and hence it is immoral, an attack upon the very foundations of the life of the group. The apparent exception, which after all exhibits the rule, is the case of great reforming heroes who demarcate epochs of history even in customary societies. Such individuals meet contemporary opposition and persecution; it is only by victory, by signal success over a rival faction at home, over plague and famine, or over an enemy abroad, that the hero is justified. Thereby it is proved that the gods are with him and sanction his changes—indeed that he is their own chosen instrument. Then the modified or new customs and institutions have all the binding sacredness and supernatural sanction of the old. It is not yet an outgrown story for the fathers to kill the prophets, and for the sons to build and adorn their tombs, and make them into shrines.[Pg 181]

Reflection Discovers a Higher Law.—But in so far as the individual's activity is directed by his comprehension of the meaning of customs, not by his apprehension of their existence, so far the notion of moral progress or reform in social affairs becomes ethically important and greater moral responsibility is put upon the individual just as greater practical freedom is secured to him. For (a) the individual may set the meaning of a custom against its present form; or (b) he may find the meaning of some custom much more commanding in value than that of others, and yet find that its realization is hindered by the existence of these other customs of less moral importance. On the basis of such discrimination, the abolition or, at least, the modification of certain social habits is demanded. So far as this sort of situation frequently recurs, the individual (c) becomes more or less vaguely aware that he must not accept the current standard as justification of his own conduct, unless it also justify itself to his own moral intelligence. The fact that it exists gives it indeed a certain prima facie claim, but no ultimate moral warrant. Perhaps the custom is itself wrong—and the individual is responsible for bearing this possibility in mind.

Consequent Transformation of Custom.—Of course the plane of customary morality still persists; no wholesale divergence of reflective from customary morality exists. Practically, for example, many business men do not bother themselves about the morality of certain ways of doing business. Such and such is the custom of the trade, and if a man is going to do business at all he must follow its customs—or get out. Law, medicine, the ministry, journalism, family life, present, in considerable extent, the same phenomenon. Customary morality persists, almost as the core of present morality. But there is still a difference. A few, at least, are actively engaged in a moral criticism of the custom, in a demand for its transformation; and almost everybody is sufficiently affected by the discussions[Pg 182] and agitations thus called out to have some lingering and uneasy idea of responsibility for his part in the maintenance of a questionable custom. The duty of some exercise of discriminating intelligence as to existing customs for the sake of improvement and progress, is thus a mark of reflective morality—of the régime of conscience as over against custom. In the morally more advanced members of contemporary society, the need of fostering a habit of examination and judgment, of keeping the mind open, sensitive, to the defects and the excellences of the existing social order is recognized as obligation. To reflect on one's own behavior in relation to the existing order is a standing habit of mind.

Deepening of Meaning.—While the materials and conceptions of more conscious morality are provided by the earlier stages, and taken from other spheres of life, we find that these conceptions naturally undergo a deepening of meaning when they are used to express the more intimate and personal attitude. Take, for example, the conceptions borrowed from the jural sphere. It is in the school of government and courts that man has learned to talk and think of right and law, of responsibility and justice. To make these moral instead of jural terms, the first thing that is needed is that we make the whole process an inward one. The person must himself set up a standard, recognize it as "law," judge his conduct by it, hold himself responsible to himself, and seek to do justice. It takes several persons to carry on these processes in the realm of government. Legislators, judges, jury, executive officers, all represent the State, organized society. That a single person can be himself lawgiver, judge, and jury, as well as claimant or defendant, shows that he is himself a complex being. He is a being of passions, appetites, and individual interests, but he is also a being who has a rational and social nature. As a member of society he not only feels his individual[Pg 183] interest but recognizes social interests. As a rational being he not only feels the thrill of passion but responds to the authority of a law and obeys the voice of duty. Like a member of a democratic State he finds himself in the sphere of conduct, not only a subject but a sovereign, and feels the dignity of a person. A conscientious person is in so far one who has made the law of God or man an inward law of life—a "moral law." But the act of making the process inward makes possible a deepening of meaning. Governments and courts are necessarily limited in purview and fallible in decisions. They are sometimes too lenient, sometimes too severe. Conscience implies a knowledge of the whole act—purpose, motive, and deed. Its authority makes claim for absolute obedience. The laws of the State are felt to be binding just because they are believed to be, on the whole, right and just as measured by this moral court of appeal. When they conflict, the power may be with the political sovereign, but the man whose conscience is clear believes that he follows a "higher law." Much of the great literature of the world draws its interest from its portrayal of this fundamental fact of human experience. "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within."

The conceptions taken from the economic sphere show similar deepening. In the economic world things are good or have value if people want them. It is in the experience of satisfying wants that man has learned the language of "good and evil," and to compare one good with another; it is doubtless by the progress of science and the arts that objective standards of more permanent, rational, and social "goods" are provided. When this term is taken up to a higher level and given moral meaning, two new factors appear. First the individual begins to consider his various goods and values in relation to[Pg 184] each other and to his life as a whole. In the second place, in thus comparing the various goods and the desires they satisfy, he begins to realize that in some way he is himself more than the mere sum of his natural instincts and appetites. He finds that he can take an interest in certain things, and is not merely passive. He gives value as well as measures it. He feels that as such an active and organizing judge and creator of value, he himself has a higher worth than any of the particular things that gratify particular desires. "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he possesseth." "The life is more than meat." Or, to use the phrase which will be explained later, moral good implies purpose, character, "good will." In common language, it implies being, and not merely having.

The term good where used in our judgments upon others (as in a "good" man), may have a different history. As has been noted, it may come from class feeling, or from the praise we give to acts as they immediately please. It may be akin to noble or fine or admirable. All such conceptions undergo a similar transformation as they pass from the sphere of class or public opinion to become moral terms. As moral they imply in the first place that we consider not merely outward acts, but inward purpose and character. They imply in the second place that we who judge are ourselves acting not as members of a class, not as merely emotional beings, but as social and rational. Our moral judgments in this sense are from a general, a universal standard; those of a class are partial.

Withdrawal from the Social Order.—The development of reflection tends to set up a moral opposition[Pg 185] between the individual and society. Sometimes "conscience" goes beyond the need of criticizing, of discriminating, of interpreting social customs, of following their spirit rather than their letter; it takes the form of an assertion of a purely inner, personal morality, so distinct from the conditions of social life that the latter are conceived to be totally lacking in positive moral significance. The prescriptions of morality are thought to be revealed in conscience, as a faculty of pure intuition or revelation, receiving neither material nor warrant from social conditions. The distinction already spoken of between the moral and the economic, legal, or conventional, is conceived as a complete separation; customs and institutions are external, indifferent, irrelevant, or even hostile to the ideal and personally perceived demands of morality. Such a conception of morality is especially likely to arise in a period when through the clash of ways and standards of living, all customs, except those maintained by force and authority, are disintegrating or relaxing. Such a state existed in the early years of the Roman empire when, for the first time in history, local boundaries were systematically overstepped; when the empire was a seething mixture of alien and unlike gods, beliefs, ideals, standards, practices. In the almost universal flux and confusion, external order was maintained by the crystallized legislation and administration of Rome; but personal aims and modes of behavior had to be ascertained by the individual thrown back upon himself. Christian, Stoic, Epicurean, alike found the political order wholly external to the moral, or in chronic opposition to it. There was a withdrawal into the region of personal consciousness. In some cases the withdrawal was pushed to the point where men felt that they could be truly righteous only by going by themselves into the desert, to live as hermits; or by forming separate communities of those who agreed in their conceptions of life; mental[Pg 186] and moral aloofness from prevailing social standards and habitudes was preached by all.

Individual Emancipation.—In other cases, what takes place is a consciousness of liberation; of assertion of personal rights and privileges, claims for new modes of activity and new kinds of enjoyment. The individual feels that he is his own end; that the impulses and capacities which he finds in himself are sacred, and afford the only genuine law for his behavior; that whatever restricts the full exercise of these personal powers and hampers the satisfaction of personal desires is coercive and morally abnormal. Existing social institutions may be practically necessary, but they are morally undesirable; they are to be used, or got around in the interests of personal gratifications. As some feel that social conditions are hostile to the realization of the highest moral obligations, so others feel that they are hostile to the full possession of their rights, of that to which they are properly entitled.

Eventual Transformation of Social Values and Aims.—In extreme cases, the individual may come to believe that, either on the basis of his true obligations or his true rights, the very principle of society is morally indifferent or even unworthy; that the moral life is eventually or intrinsically an individual matter, although it happens to be outwardly led under social conditions. But in the main the opposition is not to the social relations as such, but to existing institutions and customs as inadequate. Then the reaction of the individual against the existing social scheme, whether on the ground of ideals too high to be supported by it or on the ground of personal claims to which it does not afford free play, becomes a means to the reconstruction and transformation of social habits. In this way, reflective morality is a mark of a progressive society, just as customary morality is of a stationary society. Reflection on values is the method of their modification.[Pg 187]

The monastic Christian in his outward withdrawal from social life, still maintained the conception of a perfected society, of a kingdom of God or Heaven to be established. This ideal became to some extent the working method for changing the existing order. The Stoics, who held in light esteem existing community ties, had the conception of a universal community, a cosmopolis, ruled by universal law, of which every rational being was a member and subject. This notion became operative to some extent in the development of judicial and administrative systems much more generalized and equitable than the purely local customs, laws, and standards which it swept away. The Epicurean had the ideal of friendship on the basis of which were formed groups of congenial associates held together neither by legal ties, nor by universal laws of reason, nor by unity of religious aspiration and belief, but by friendship and companionable intercourse. Thus were afforded other centers of social reconstruction.

General Effects.—The characteristic differences which have been pointed out in the preceding section, when taken together with the specific conditions of change—liberty of action and thought, incentives to private acquisition, facilities for power and pleasure—enable us to understand the contrasts referred to at the opening of the chapter. We have, on the one hand, the inbred craving for power, for acquisition, for excitement, for gratification of sense and appetite, enhanced by what it feeds on. We have, on the other hand, the progressive differentiation of the moral, tearing the individual loose from the bonds of the external moral order and forcing him to stand on his own feet—or fall. Note how each of the points brought out in the preceding section operates.[Pg 188]

(1) To separate out the moral as a distinct element from certain spheres of life, allows the less seriously minded and the less sympathetic individuals to live complacently a trivial or unscrupulous life. Fashion, "social duties," amusements, "culture" emptied of all earnest meaning, "business" and "politics" divorced from any humane or public considerations, may be regarded as justifiable vocations. A "gentleman" who no longer has the occupation of his fighting predecessors as an excuse for a distinct type of life, may find the support of a large leisure class in declining any useful service to the community and devoting himself to "sport"; a "lady" may be so engaged by the multifarious demands of "society" as never to notice what an utterly worthless round she follows.

(2) The fact that the morality of conscience requires reflection, progress, and a deeper meaning for its conception, makes it obvious why many fail to grasp any moral meaning at all. They fail to put forth the effort, or to break with habit. Under customary morality it was enough to "observe" and to continue in the mores. It requires a higher degree of insight and a greater initiative to get any moral attitude at all when the forms have become mere forms and the habits mere habits. Hence when a change in personal environment or in general social and economic conditions comes, many fail to see the principles involved. They remain completely satisfied with the "old-fashioned virtues" or intrench themselves in the "righteousness" and "honesty" of a past generation. This habitual and "painless" morality will often mean a "virtue" or "righteousness" which involves no conflict with present conditions. A man who feels honest because he does not break contracts or defraud in old-fashioned ways, may be quite at ease about watering stock or adulterating goods. A society which abhors murder with iron and explosives in the form of[Pg 189] daggers and bombs, may feel quite unconcerned about the preventable homicides by iron machinery, or by explosives used in coal mines.

(3) The conflict with society which reflective morality requires, works to thrust some below the general level, while it raises others above it. To criticize the general moral order may make a man a prophet, but it may also make him a Pharisee. Practical reaction may make reformers, but it is likely to make another set of men dissolute; to make them feel superior to the morality of "Philistines" and therefore exempt from social restraints.

Vices Incident to Reflective Stage.—The vices increase with civilization, partly because of increased opportunity, partly because of increased looseness in social restraint. There is a further element. When any activity of man is cut off from its original and natural relations and made the object of special attention and pursuit, the whole adjustment is thrown out of balance. What was before a useful function becomes pathological. The craving for excitement or stimulation is normal within certain limits. In the chase or the battle, in the venture of the explorer or the merchant, it functions as a healthy incentive. When isolated as an end in itself, taken out of the objective social situation, it becomes the spring of gambling or drunkenness. The instincts and emotions of sex, possessing power and interest necessitated by their place in the continuance of the race, become when isolated the spring of passion or of obscenity or lubricity. Avarice and gluttony illustrate the same law. The gladiatorial shows at Rome became base and cowardly when the Romans were themselves no longer fighters.[102] Even the aspiration for what is higher and better may become an "otherworldliness" which leaves this world to its misery and evil. Such a series of pictures as Balzac has given in[Pg 190] his Comédie Humaine, shows better than any labored description the possibilities of modern civilization.

There is, moreover, in civilized society a further most demoralizing agency unknown to earlier life. As the vices are specialized and pursued they become economic and political interests. Vast capital is invested in the business of ministering to the vicious appetites. It is pecuniarily desirable that these appetites should be stimulated as greatly as possible. It makes "business." The tribute levied by public officials upon the illegal pursuits forms a vast fund for carrying elections. The multitude engaged in the traffic or dependent upon it for favors, can be relied upon to cast their votes as a unit for men who will guarantee protection.

Relations to Fellow Men.—The motives and occasions for selfishness and injustice have been indicated sufficiently perhaps in preceding chapters. As the general process of increasing individuality and reflection goes on, it is an increasingly easy matter to be indifferent or even unjust. When all lead a common life it is easy to enter into the situation of another, to appreciate his motives, his needs, and in general to "put yourself in his place." The external nature of the conduct makes it easy to hold all to a common standard. The game must be shared; the property—so far as there is property—respected; the religious rites observed. But when standards becomes more inward the more intelligent or rigorous may find sympathy less easy. When they attempt to be "charitable" they may easily become condescending. The pure will not soil their skirts by contact with the fallen. The "high-minded citizen" refuses to mix in politics. The scholar thinks the business man materialistic. The man of breeding, wealth, and education finds the uneducated laborer lacking in courtesy and refinement and argues that it is useless to waste sympathy upon the "masses." The class terms which have become moral terms are illus[Pg 191]trations of this attitude. Finally, the moral process of building up freedom and right easily leads to a disposition to stand on rights and let other persons look out for themselves. Kant's doctrine, that since all morality is personal I can do nothing to promote my neighbor's perfection, is a laissez faire in ethics which he did not carry out, but it is a not unnatural corollary of reflective morality. "Am I my brother's keeper?" is much more likely to be the language of reflective, than of customary and group life.

Reconstructive Forces.—We have dwelt at length upon the disintegrating forces, not because civilization necessarily grows worse, but because, having pointed out in earlier chapters the positive advances, it becomes necessary to allude also to the other aspect of the process. Otherwise it might appear that there is no problem. If the evolution were supposed to be all in one direction there would be no seriousness in life. It is only in the pressure of constantly new difficulties and evils that moral character adds new fiber, and moral progress emerges. Individualism, self-seeking, and desire for property force the establishment of governments and courts which protect poor as well as rich. Luxury and ostentation have not only called out the asceticism which renounces the world and sees in all gratification of appetite an evil; they have brought into the fore the serious meaning of life; they have served to emphasize the demand for social justice. The countless voluntary associations for the relief of sickness, misfortune, and poverty; for aiding the defective, dependent, and criminal; for promoting numberless good causes—enlist a multitude in friendly co-operation. The rising demand for legislation to embody the new sentiments of justice is part of the process of reconstruction. And now when all the arts and goods of civilization are becoming more and more fully the work, not of any individual's labor or skill, but rather of the com[Pg 192]bined labor and intelligence of many, when life in cities is necessitating greater interdependence, finally when contrasts in conditions are brought more forcibly to notice by the very progress of knowledge and the means of knowledge,—the more thoroughly social use of all that civilization produces becomes more insistent and compelling. It is not a matter of sentiment but of necessity. If any one is disposed to deny the claim, it becomes increasingly certain that Carlyle's Irish widow will prove her sisterhood by infecting the denier with fever;[103] that the ignorant, or criminal, or miserable will jeopardize his happiness.

Two processes went on side by side in the movement we have traced. (1) The primitive group, which was at once a kinship or family, an economic, a political, a religious, an educational, and a moral unit, was broken down and replaced by several distinct institutions, each with its own special character. (2) The moral, which was so largely unreflective that it could be embodied in every custom and observance, became more personal and subjective. The result of this was either that the moral was now more consciously and voluntarily put into the social relations, thereby raising them all to a higher moral level, or that, failing such a leavening of the distinct[Pg 193] spheres of the social order, the latter were emptied of moral value and lost moral restraints. We notice very briefly certain illustrations of this, leaving a fuller treatment for Part III.

The Family.—When the family was largely determined by status, when it was an economic, a political, and a religious unit, it had a strong support. But the support was largely external to the true purpose and meaning of the family. Only as these other elements were separated, and the family placed on a voluntary basis, could its true significance emerge. Affection and mutual supplementation of husband and wife, love and devotion to offspring, must stand the strains formerly distributed over several ties. The best types of family life which have resulted from this more moral basis are unquestionably far superior to the older form. At the same time the difficulties and perversion or subversion of the more voluntary type are manifest. When no personal attachment was sought or professed, or when marriage by purchase was the approved custom, the marriage contracted under these conditions might have all the value which the general state of intelligence and civilization allowed. When the essential feature which hallows the union has come to be recognized as a union of will and affection, then marriage without these, however "solemnized," almost inevitably means moral degradation. And if the consent of the parties is regarded as the basis of the tie, then it is difficult to make sure that this "consent" has within it enough of steadfast, well-considered purpose and of emotional depth to take the place of all the older sanctions and to secure permanent unions. The more complete responsibility for the children which has been gained by the separation of the family, has also proved susceptible of abuse as well as of service. For while savages have often practiced infanticide for economic reasons, it is doubtful if any savage family ever[Pg 194] equaled the more refined selfishness and cruelty of the child labor which modern families have furnished and modern society has permitted.

The Economic and Industrial.—The economic lost powerful restraints when it became a separate activity divorced from family, religious, and, in the view of some, from moral considerations. It has worked out certain important moral necessities of its own. Honesty, the keeping of contracts, the steadiness and continuity of character fostered by economic relations, are important contributions. Modern business, for example, is the most effective agency in securing sobriety. It is far more efficient than "temperance societies." Other values of the economic and industrial process—the increase of production, the interchange of services and goods, the new means of happiness afforded by the increase of wealth—are obvious. On the other hand, the honesty required by business is a most technical and peculiarly limited sort. It does not interfere with adulteration of goods under certain conditions, nor with corrupt bargains with public officials. The measurement of values on a purely pecuniary basis tends to release a large sphere of activity from any moral restraints. The maxim "Business is business" may be made the sanction for any kind of conduct not excluded by commercial standards. Unless there is a constant injection of moral valuation and control, there is a tendency to subvert all other ends and standards to the purely economic.

Law and Government.—To remove these functions from the kinship group as such, is at once to bring the important principles of authority and duty, and gradually of rights and freedom, to consciousness. Only by such separation could the universality and impartiality of law be established. And only by universality can the judgment of the society as a whole be guaranteed its execution as over against the variations in intelligence[Pg 195] and right purpose of individual rulers and judges. Moreover, the separation of law from morality has likewise its gain or loss. On the one hand, to separate off a definite sphere of external acts to which alone physical constraints or penalties may attach, is at once to free a great sphere of inner thought and purpose and to enable purely psychical values and restraints to attain far greater power in conduct. Liberty of thought and religious belief, sincerity and thorough responsibility, require such a separation. It is also to make possible a general law which rises above the conscience of the lower even if it does not always reach the level of the most enlightened and just. To make a command a "universal law" is itself a steadying and elevating influence, and it is only by a measure of abstraction from the individual, inner aspect of conduct that this can be achieved. On the other hand, the not infrequent contrast between law and justice, the substitution of technicality for substantials, the conservatism which made Voltaire characterize lawyers as the "conservators of ancient barbarous usages," above all the success with which law has been used to sanction or even facilitate nearly every form of oppression, extortion, class advantage, or even judicial murder, is a constant attestation of the twofold possibilities inherent in all institutions. Government in other functions exhibits similar possibilities. At first it was tyranny against which the subject had to defend himself. Now it is rather the use of political machinery for private gain. "Eternal vigilance" is the price not only of freedom, but of every moral value.

The Religious Life.—When freed from interdependence with kinship, economic, and political association, religion has an opportunity to become more personal and more universal. When a man's religious attitude is not fixed by birth, when worship is not so closely bound up with economic interests, when there is not only religious[Pg 196] "toleration," but religious liberty, the significance of religion as a personal, spiritual relation comes to view. The kinship tie is sublimated into a conception of divine fatherhood. It becomes credible that Job does serve God "for naught." Faith and purity of heart are not secured by magistrates or laws.

And the universality of religion is no less a gain. So far as religion was of the group it tended to emphasize the boundary between Jew and Gentile, Greek and Barbarian, between the "we-group" and the "others-group." But when this group religion gave place to a more universal religion, the kingdom of Israel could give place to the kingdom of God; brotherhood could transcend family or national lines. In the fierce struggles of the Middle Ages the church was a powerful agency for restraining the powerful and softening the feuds of hostile clans and peoples. The "peace of God" was not only a symbol of a far-off ideal, but an actual relief. The universality might indeed be sought by force in a crusade of Christian against Moslem, or in the horror of a thirty years' war between Catholic and Protestant. But as the conception of religion as a spiritual relation becomes clearer, the tendency must inevitably be to disclose religion as essentially a unifying rather than a divisive and discordant force. If any religion becomes universal it will be because of its universal appeal. And so far as it does make universal appeal, like science, like art, it invites its followers.

The differentiation of the moral from the religious is often difficult to trace. For the religious has often been the agency through which certain of the characteristics of the moral have been brought about. The inward and voluntary aspect of the moral, as compared with the verdicts of law or public opinion, has been emphasized. But this is often developed by the religious conceptions of an all-seeing God, an all-wise judge. "Man looketh on the outer[Pg 197] appearance, but the Lord looketh upon the heart" has its literary parallels in Xenophon and Plato and Shakspere. The distinction between higher and lower values has received its most impressive symbol in the conception of "another world," in which there is neither pain nor sin, but eternal blessedness and eternal life. Ideals of character, when embodied in divine persons, command love, reverence, and devotion in supreme degree. A society in which love and justice are the law of life has seemed more possible, more potent to inspire sacrifice and enthusiasm, when envisaged as the Kingdom of God. But in all these illustrations we have, not the religious as distinct from the moral, but the religious as modified by the moral and embodying the moral in concrete examples and imagery. We can see the two possible types of development, however, in the concrete instances of the Hebrews and the Greeks. In Israel religion was able to take up the moral ideals and become itself more completely ethical. The prophets of religion were at the same time the moral reformers. But in Greece, in spite of the efforts of some of the great poets, the religious conceptions for the most part remained set and hence became superstition, or emotional orgy, or ecstasy, while the moral found a distinct path of its own. Religion at present is confronting the problem of whether it will be able to take up into itself the newer ethical values—the scientific spirit which seeks truth, the enhanced value of human worth which demands higher types of social justice.

A brief characterization of the respective standpoints of religion and morality may be added, as they both aim to control and give value to human conduct. The religious has always implied some relation of man's life to unseen powers or to the cosmos. The relation may be the social relation of kin or friend or companion, the political of subject to a sovereign, the cosmic relation of[Pg 198] dependence, or that of seeking in the divine completer meaning or more perfect fulfillment for what is fragmentary and imperfect. In its aspect of "faith" it holds all these ideals of power, wisdom, goodness, justice, to be real and effective. The moral, on the other hand, concerns itself, not with unseen beings or cosmic reality, but with human purposes and the relations of a man to his fellows. For religion, conscience may be the "voice of God"; for morality, it must be stated in terms of thought and feeling. The "moral law" must be viewed as a law which is capable of being approved, at least—and this implies that it may also be criticized—by the mind. The difference which religion states as a choice between "God and mammon," between heaven and earth, morality must state in terms of good and evil, right and wrong, ideal interests and natural appetites. Instead of regarding its standards as laws established once for all by a divine authority, morality seeks to reach principles. Instead of embodying its ideals in persons, the moral seeks to reshape them continually. It is for religion to hold that "God reigns," and therefore "All's right with the world." The moral as such must be continually overcoming evil, continually working out ideals into conduct, and changing the natural order into a more rational and social order.

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Object of Part Two and of Present Chapter.—From the history of morals, we turn to the theoretical analysis of reflective morality. We are concerned to discover (1) just what in conduct it is that we judge good and evil, right and wrong (conduct being a complicated thing); (2) what we mean by good and evil, right and wrong; (3) on what basis we apply these conceptions to their appropriate objects in conduct. But before we attempt these questions, we must detect and identify the moral situation, the situation in which considerations of good and evil, right and wrong, present themselves and are employed. For some situations we employ the ideas of true and false; of beautiful and ugly; of skilful and awkward; of economical and wasteful, etc. We may indeed apply the terms right and wrong to these same situations; but if so, it is to them in some other light. What then are the differentiating traits, the special earmarks, presented by the situation which we identify as distinctively moral? For we use the term moral in a broad sense to designate that which is either moral or immoral: i.e., right or wrong in the narrower sense. It is the moral situation in the broad sense as distinct from the non-moral, not from the immoral, that we are now concerned with.

The Moral Situation Involves Voluntary Activity.—It will be admitted on all hands that the moral situation is one which, whatever else it may or may not be,[Pg 202] involves a voluntary factor. Some of the chief traits of voluntary activity we have already become acquainted with, as in the account by Aristotle, already noted (ante, p. 12). The agent must know what he is about; he must have some idea of what he is doing; he must not be a somnambulist, or an imbecile, or insane, or an infant so immature as to have no idea of what he is doing. He must also have some wish, some desire, some preference in the matter. A man overpowered by superior force might be physically compelled by some ingenious device to shoot a gun at another, knowing what he was doing, but his act would not be voluntary because he had no choice in the matter, or rather because his preference was not to do the act which he is aware he is doing. But if he is ordered to kill another and told if he does not he will himself be killed, he has some will in the matter. He may do the deed, not because he likes it or wishes it in itself, but because he wishes to save his own life. The attendant circumstances may affect our judgment of the kind and degree of morality attaching to the act; but they do not take it entirely out of the moral sphere.[104] Aristotle says the act must also be the expression of a disposition (a habit or ἕξις), a more or less settled tendency on the part of the person. It must bear some relation to his character. Character is not, we may say, a third factor, It is making clear what is implied in deliberation and wish. There may be little deliberation in a child's act and little in an adult's, and yet we may regard the latter as much more voluntary than the child's. With the child, the thought is superficial and casual, because of the restricted stage of organization or growth reached (see p. 10): his act flows from organic instinct or from accidental circumstances—whim, caprice, and chance suggestion, or[Pg 203] fancy. The adult's act may flow from habitual tendencies and be accompanied by an equally small amount of conscious reflection. But the tendencies themselves are the outcome of prior deliberations and choices which have finally got funded into more or less automatic habits. The child's act is to a slight extent the expression of character; the adult's to a large extent. In short, we mean by character whatever lies behind an act in the way of deliberation and desire, whether these processes be near-by or remote.

Not Everything Voluntary is Morally Judged.—A voluntary act may then be defined as one which manifests character, the test of its presence being the presence of desire and deliberation; these sometimes being present directly and immediately, sometimes indirectly and remotely through their effects upon the agent's standing habits. But we do not judge all voluntary activity from the moral standpoint. Some acts we judge from the standpoint of skill or awkwardness; others as amusing or boring; others as stupid or highly intelligent, and so on. We do not bring to bear the conceptions of right and wrong. And on the other hand, there are many things called good and bad which are not voluntary. Since what we are in search of must lie somewhere between these two limits, we may begin with cases of the latter sort.

(1) Not Everything Judged Good or Right is Moral.—We speak, for example, of an ill-wind; of a good engine; of a watch being wrong; or of a screw being set right. We speak of good and bad bread, money, or soil. That is, from the standpoint of value, we judge things as means to certain results in themselves desirable or undesirable. A "good" machine does efficiently the work for which it is designed; "bad" money does not subserve the ends which money is meant to promote; the watch that is wrong comes short of telling us time correctly. We have to use the notion of value and[Pg 204] of contribution to value; that is a positive factor. But this contribution to valuable result is not, in inanimate objects, something meant or intended by the things themselves. If we thought the ill-wind had an idea of its own destructive effect and took pleasure in that idea, we should attribute moral quality to it—just as men did in early times, and so tried to influence its behavior in order to make it "good." Among things that promote favorable or unfavorable results a line is drawn between those which just do so as matter of fact, and those in which meaning so to do, or intention, plays a part.

(2) Good in Animal Conduct.—Let us now consider the case of good and bad animal conduct. We speak of a good watch-dog; of a bad saddle-horse, and the like. Moreover, we train the dog and the horse to the right or desired kind of action. We make, we repair the watch; but we do not train it. Training involves a new factor: enlistment of the animal's tendencies; of its own conscious attitudes and reactions. We pet, we reward by feeding, we punish and threaten. By these means we induce animals to exercise in ways that form the habits we want. We modify the animal's behavior by modifying its own impulses. But we do not give moral significance to the good and bad, for we are still thinking of means to ends. We do not suppose that we have succeeded in supplying the hunting dog, for example, with ideas that certain results are more excellent than others, so that henceforth he acts on the basis of his own discrimination of the less and the more valuable. We just induce certain habits by managing to make certain ways of acting feel more agreeable than do others. Thus James says: "Whether the dog has the notion of your being angry or of your property being valuable in any such abstract way as we have these notions, is more than doubtful. The conduct is more likely an impulsive result of a conspiracy of outward stimuli; the beast feels like acting so when these stimuli are pres[Pg 205]ent, though conscious of no definite reason why"[105] (Psychology, Vol. II., p. 350, note). Or putting it the other way: if the dog has an idea of the results of guarding the house, and is controlled in what he does by loyalty to this idea, by the satisfaction which he takes in it, then in calling the dog good we mean that in being good for a certain result, he is also morally good.

(3) Non-moral Human Acts.—There are also acts evoked by an idea of value in the results to be reached, which are not judged as coming within the moral sphere. "Conduct is three-fourths of life," but in some sense it is more: it is four-fourths. All conscious human life is concerned with ends, and with selecting, arranging, and employing the means, intellectual, emotional, and practical, involved in these ends. This makes conduct. But it does not follow that all conduct has moral import. "As currently conceived, stirring the fire, reading a newspaper, or eating a meal, are acts with which morality has no concern. Opening the window to air the room, putting on an overcoat when the weather is cold, are thought of as having no ethical significance. These, however, are all portions of conduct" (Spencer, Principles of Ethics, Vol. I., p. 5). They all involve the idea of some result worth reaching, and the putting forth of energy to reach the result—of intelligently selected and adapted means. But this may leave the act morally indifferent—innocent.

Introduction of Moral Factor.—A further quotation from Spencer may introduce discussion of the needed moral qualification:

This illustration suggests two differing types of conduct; two differing ways in which activity is induced and guided by ideas of valuable results. In one case the end presents itself directly as desirable, and the question is only as to the steps or means of achieving this end. Here we have conduct which, although excited and directed by considerations of value, is still morally indifferent. Such is the condition of things wherever one end is taken for granted by itself without any consideration of its relationship to other ends. It is then a technical rather than a moral affair. It is a question of taste and of skill—of personal preference and of practical wisdom, or of economy, expediency. There are many different roads to most results, and the selection of this path rather than that, on the assumption that either path actually leads to the end, is an intellectual, æsthetic, or executive, rather than an ethical matter. I may happen to prefer a marine view to that of the uplands—that is an æsthetic interest. I may wish to utilize the time of the walk for thinking, and may find the moor path less distracting; here is a matter of intellectual economy. Or I may conclude that I shall best get the exercise I want by going to the water fall. Here it is a question of "prudence," of expediency, or practical wisdom. Let any one of the ends, æsthetic, intellectual, hygienic, stand alone and it is a fit and[Pg 207] proper consideration. The moral issue does not arise. Or the various ends may be regarded as means to a further unquestioned end—say a walk with the maximum of combined æsthetic interest and physical exercise.

(4) Criterion for Moral Factor.—But let the value of one proposed end be felt to be really incompatible with that of another, let it be felt to be so opposed as to appeal to a different kind of interest and choice, in other words, to different kinds of disposition and agency, and we have a moral situation. This is what occurs when one way of traveling means self-indulgence; another, kindliness or keeping an engagement. There is no longer one end, nor two ends so homogeneous that they may be reconciled by both being used as means to some more general end of undisputed worth. We have alternative ends so heterogeneous that choice has to be made; an end has to be developed out of conflict. The problem now becomes what is really valuable. It is the nature of the valuable, of the desirable, that the individual has to pass upon.[106]

Suppose a person has unhesitatingly accepted an end, has acquiesced in some suggested purpose. Then, starting to realize it, he finds the affair not so simple. He is led to review the matter and to consider what really constitutes worth for him. The process of attainment calls for toil which is disagreeable, and imposes restraints and abandonments of accustomed enjoyments. An Indian boy, for example, thinks it desirable to be a good rider, a skilful shot, a sagacious scout. Then he "naturally," as we say, disposes of his time and energy so as to realize his purpose. But in trying to become a "brave," he finds that he has to submit to deprivation and hardship, to forego other enjoyments and undergo arduous toil. He[Pg 208] finds that the end does not mean in actual realization what it meant in original contemplation—something that often happens, for, as Goldsmith said: "In the first place, we cook the dish to our own appetite; in the latter, nature cooks it for us."

This change in apparent worth raises a new question: Is the aim first set up of the value it seemed to be? Is it, after all, so important, so desirable? Are not other results, playing with other boys, convivial companionship, which are reached more easily and pleasantly, really more valuable? The labors and pains connected with the means employed to reach an end, have thrown another and incompatible end into consciousness. The individual no longer "naturally," but "morally," follows the selected end, whichever of the two it be, because it has been chosen after conscious valuation of competing aims.

Such competitions of values for the position of control of action are inevitable accompaniments of individual conduct, whether in civilized or in tribal life. A child, for example, finds that the fulfillment of an appetite of hunger is not only possible, but that it is desirable—that fulfillment brings, or is, satisfaction, not mere satiety. Later on, moved by the idea of this sort of value, he snatches at food. Then he is made aware of other sorts of values involved in the act performed—values incompatible with just the value at which he aimed. He brings down upon himself social disapproval and reproach. He is termed rude, unmannerly, greedy, selfish. He acted in accordance with an unhesitatingly accepted idea of value. But while reaching one result he accomplished also certain other results which he did not intend, results in the way of being thought ill of, results which are disagreeable: negative values. He is taught to raise the question of what, after all, in such cases is the really desirable or valuable. Before he is free to deliberate upon means, he has to form an estimate of the relative worth of various[Pg 209] possible ends, and to be willing to forego one and select the other. The chapters on Hebrew and Greek moral development have shown this same process at work in the life of a people.

Summary and Definition.—If we sum up the three classes of instances thus far considered, we get the following defining traits of a moral situation, that is, of one which is an appropriate subject of determinations of right and wrong: Moral experience is (1) a matter of conduct, behavior; that is, of activities which are called out by ideas of the worth, the desirability of results. This evocation by an idea discriminates it from the so-called behavior of a pump, where there is no recognition of results; and from conduct attributed to the lower animals, where there are probably feelings and even dim imagery, but hardly ideas of the comparative desirability or value of various ends. Moral experience is (2) that kind of conduct in which there are ends so discrepant, so incompatible, as to require selection of one and rejection of the other. This perception of, and selection from, incompatible alternatives, discriminates moral experience from those cases of conduct which are called out and directed by ideas of value, but which do not necessitate passing upon the real worth, as we say, of the value selected. It is incompatibility of ends which necessitates consideration of the true worth of a given end; and such consideration it is which brings the experience into the moral sphere. Conduct as moral may thus be defined as activity called forth and directed by ideas of value or worth, where the values concerned are so mutually incompatible as to require consideration and selection before an overt action is entered upon.

End Finally at Issue.—Many questions about ends are in reality questions about means: the artist considers whether he will paint a landscape or a figure; this or that landscape, and so on. The general character of the[Pg 210] end is unchanged: it is to paint. But let this end persist and be felt as desirable, as valuable; let at the same time an alternative end presents itself as also desirable (say keeping an engagement), so that the individual does not find any way of adjusting and arranging them into a common scheme (like doing first one and then the other), and the person has a moral problem on his hands. Which shall he decide for, and why? The appeal is to himself; what does he really think the desirable end? What makes the supreme appeal to him? What sort of an agent, of a person, shall he be? This is the question finally at stake in any genuinely moral situation: What shall the agent be? What sort of a character shall he assume? On its face, the question is what he shall do, shall he act for this or that end. But the incompatibility of the ends forces the issue back into the question of the kinds of selfhood, of agency, involved in the respective ends. The distinctively moral situation is then one in which elements of value and control are bound up with the processes of deliberation and desire; and are bound up in a peculiar way: viz., they decide what kind of a character shall control further desires and deliberations. When ends are genuinely incompatible, no common denominator can be found except by deciding what sort of character is most highly prized and shall be given supremacy.

The Moral and Indifferent Situations.—This criterion throws lights upon our earlier discussion of morally indifferent acts. Persons perform the greater bulk of their activities without any conscious reference to considerations of right and wrong, as any one may verify for himself by recollecting the general course of his activity on any ordinary day from the time he arises in the morning to the time he goes to bed at night. His deliberations and wants are mostly concerned with the ends involved in his regular vocation and recreations. But at any time the question of his character as concerned with what he is doing may arise[Pg 211] for judgment. The person may later on realize that the type or kind of character which is to prevail in his further activity was involved in deeds which were performed without any such thought. He then judges them morally, approving or disapproving. On the other hand, a course of action which at the time presented a moral crisis even, may afterwards come to be followed as a matter of course. There is then no fixed line between the morally indifferent and the morally significant. Every act is potential subject-matter of moral judgment, for it strengthens or weakens some habit which influences whole classes of judgments.

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We have identified in its framework and main outlines the sort of voluntary activity in which the problem of good and evil appears and in which the ideas of right and wrong are employed. This task, however, is only preliminary to theoretical analysis. For it throws no light upon just what we mean by good and bad; just what elements of complex voluntary behavior are termed right or wrong; or why they are so termed. It does not even indicate what must be discovered before such questions can be answered. It only sets forth the limits of the subject-matter within which such questions arise and in reference to which they must be answered. What are the distinctive problems which must be dealt with in the course of such a discussion?

Growth of Theory from Practical Problems.—Of one thing we may be sure. If inquiries are to have any substantial basis, if they are not to be wholly up in the air, the theorist must take his departure from the problems which men actually meet in their own conduct. He may define and refine these; he may divide and systematize; he may abstract the problems from their concrete contexts in individual lives; he may classify them when he has thus detached them; but if he gets away from them he is talking about something which his own brain has invented, not about moral realities. On the other hand, the perplexities and uncertainties of direct and personal behavior invite a more abstract and systematic impersonal treatment[Pg 213] than that which they receive in the exigencies of their occurrence. The recognition of any end or authority going beyond what is embodied in existing customs, involves some appeal to thought, and moral theory makes this appeal more explicit and more complete. If a child asks why he should tell the truth, and is answered, "because you ought to and that is reason enough"; or, "because it will prove profitable for you to do so"; or, "because truth-telling is a condition of mutual communication and common aims," the answer implies a principle which requires only to be made explicit to be full-fledged theory. And when this principle is compared with those employed in other cases to see if they are mutually consistent; and if not, to find a still more fundamental reconciling principle, we have passed over the border into ethical system.

Types of Theoretical Problems.—The practical problems which a thoughtful and progressive individual must consider in his own conduct will, then, give the clue to the genuine problems of moral theory. The framework of one is an outline of the other. The man who does not satisfy himself with sheer conventional conformity to the customs, the ethos, of his class will find such problems as the following forced upon his attention:—(1) He must consider the meaning of habits which have been formed more or less unreflectively—by imitation, suggestion, and inculcation from others—and he must consider the meaning of those customs about him to which he is invited to conform till they have become personal habits. This problem of discovering the meaning of these habits and customs is the problem of stating what, after all, is really good, or worth while in conduct. (2) The one whose morality is of the reflective sort will be faced by the problem of moral advance, of progress beyond the level which has been reached by this more or less unreflective taking on of the habits and ideas of those about him, progress up to the level of his own reflective insight. Otherwise put, he has to face the prob[Pg 214]lem of what is to be the place and rôle in his own conduct of ideals and principles generated not by custom but by deliberation and insight. (3) The individual must consider more consciously the relation between what is currently regarded as good by the social groups in which he is placed and in which he has to act, and that regarded as good by himself. The moment he ceases to accept conformity to custom as an adequate sanction of behavior, he is met by discrepancy between his personally conceived goods and those reigning in the customs about him. Now while this detachment makes possible the birth of higher and more ideal types of morality, and hence of systematic effort for social reform and advance; it also makes possible (as we have seen on the historical side, p. 189) a more generalized and deliberate selfishness; a less instinctive and more intentional pursuit of what the individual judges to be good for himself against what society exacts as good for itself. The same reflective attitude which generates the conscientious moral reformer may generate also a more deliberate and resolute anti-social egoism. In any case, the individual who has acquired the habit of moral reflection, is conscious of a new problem—the relation of public good to individual good. In short, the individual who is thoughtfully serious and who aims to bring his habit of reflection to bear on his conduct, will have occasion (1) to search for the elements of good and bad, of positive and negative, value in the situations that confront him; (2) to consider the methods and principles by which he shall reach conclusions, and (3) to consider the relations between himself, his own capacities and satisfactions, and the ends and demands of the social situations in which he is placed.

The Corresponding Problems of Theory.—Theory will then have similar problems to deal with. (1) What is the Good, the end in any voluntary act? (2) How is this good known? Is it directly perceived, and if so, how? Or[Pg 215] is it worked out through inquiry and reflection? And if so, how? (3) When the good is known, how is it acknowledged; how does it acquire authority? What is the place of law, of control, in the moral life? Why is it that some ends are attractive of themselves, while others present themselves as duties, as involving subordination of what is naturally attractive? (4) What is the place of selfhood in the moral process? And this question assumes two forms: (a) What is the relation of the good of the self to the good of others? (b) What is the difference between the morally good and the morally bad in the self? What are virtues and vices as dispositions of the self? These abstract and formal questions will become more concrete if we consider them briefly in the order of their development in the history of the moral theory.

Problem of Knowledge of Good Comes First in Theory.—The clash and overlapping of customs once so local as to be isolated, brought to Athenian moral philosophers the problem of discovering the underlying and final good to which all the conflicting values of customs might be referred for judgment. The movement initiated by Socrates was precisely the effort to find out what is the real good, the true end, of all the various institutions, customs, and procedures current among men. The explanation of conflict among men's interests, and of lack of consistency and unity in any given person's behavior, of the division of classes in the state, of the diverse recommendations of different would-be moral teachers, was that they were ignorant of their own ends. Hence the fundamental precept is "Know thyself," one's own end, one's good and one's proper function. Different followers of Socrates gave very different accounts of knowledge, and hence proposed very different final aims. But they all agreed that the problem of knowing the good was the central problem, and that if this were settled, action in accord with good would follow of itself. Could it be imagined that man could know[Pg 216] his own good and yet not seek it? Ignorance of good is evil and the source of evil; insight into the real good will clear up the confusion and partiality which makes men pursue false ends and thus straighten out and put in order conduct. Control would follow as a matter of course from knowledge of the end. Such control would be no matter of coercion or external restriction, but of subordination and organization of minor ends with reference to the final end.

Problem of Motive Force.[107]—The problem of attaining this knowledge was seen to be attended, however, by peculiar obstructions and difficulties, the growing recognition of which led to a shifting of the problem itself. The dilemma, in brief, was this: The man who is already good will have no difficulty in knowing the good both in general and in the specific clothing under which it presents itself in particular cases. But the one who does not yet know the good, does not know how to know it. His ignorance, moreover, puts positive obstacles in his way, for it leads him to delight in superficial and transitory ends. This delight increases the hold of these ends upon the agent; and thus it builds up an habitual interest in them which renders it impossible for the individual to get a glimpse of the final end, to say nothing of a clear and persisting view. Only if the individual is habituated, exercised, practiced in good ends so as to take delight in them, while he is still so immature as to be incapable of really knowing how and why they are good, will he be capable of knowing the good when he is mature. Pleasure in right ends and pain in wrong must operate as a motive force in order to give experience of the good, before knowledge can be attained and operate as the motor force.[Pg 217]

Division of Problem.—But the exercise and training requisite to form the habits which make the individual rejoice in right activity before he knows how and why it is right, presuppose adults who already have knowledge of the good. They presuppose a social order capable not merely of giving theoretic instruction, but of habituating the young to right practices. But where shall such adults be found, and where is the social order so good that it is capable of right training of its own immature members? Hence the problem again shifts, breaking up into two parts. On the one hand, attention is fixed upon the irrational appetites, desires, and impulses, which hinder apprehension of the good; on the other, it is directed to the political laws and institutions which are capable of training the members of the State into a right manner of living. For the most part, these two problems went their own way independently of each other, a fact which resulted in the momentous breach between the inner and "spiritual," and the outer and "physical" aspects of behavior.

Problem of Control of Affections and Desires.—If it is the lively movements of natural appetites and desires which make the individual apprehend false goods as true ones, and which present obstacles to knowledge of the true good, the serious problem is evidently to check and so far as possible to abolish the power of desire to move the mind. Since it is anger, fear, hope, despair, sexual desire which make men regard particular things instead of the final end as good, the great thing is wholly to free attention and judgment from the influence of such passions. It may be impossible to prevent the passions; they are natural perturbations. But man can at least prevent his judgment of what is good or bad from being modified by them. The Stoic moral philosophers most emphasized the misleading influence of desire and passion, and set up the ideal of apathy (lack of passion) and "ataraxy" (ab[Pg 218]sence of being stirred up). The other moral schools, the Sceptics and Epicureans, also made independence of mind from influence of passion the immediate and working end; the Sceptics because they emphasized the condition of mental detachment and non-committal, which is the state appropriate to doubt and uncertainty; the Epicureans because the pleasures of the mind are the only ones not at the mercy of external circumstances. Mental pleasures are equable, and hence are the only ones which do not bring reactions of depression, exhaustion, and subsequent pain. The problem of moral theory is now in effect, if not in name, that of control, of authority and subordination, of checking and restraining desire and passion.

Problem of Control of Private Interests by Law.—Such views could at the best, however, affect only a comparatively small number, the philosophers. For the great masses of men in the Roman Empire, the problem existed on the other line: by what laws and what administration of laws to direct the outward acts of men into right courses, courses at least sufficiently right so as to maintain outward peace and unity through the vast empire. In the Greek city-state, with its small number of free citizens all directly participating in public affairs, it was possible to conceive an ideal of a common good which should bind all together. But in an Empire covering many languages, religions, local customs, varied and isolated occupations, a single system of administration and law exercised from a single central source could alone maintain the requisite harmony. The problems of legislations, codification, and administration were congenial to the Latin mind, and were forced by the actual circumstances. From the external side, then, as well as from the internal, the problem of control became dominant over that of value and the good.

Problem of Unification.—It was the province of the moral philosophers, of the theologians, of the church to at[Pg 219]tempt a fusion of these elements of inner and outer control. It was their aim to connect, to synthesize these factors into one commanding and comprehensive view of life. But the characteristic of their method was to suppose that the combination could be brought about, whether intellectually or practically, only upon a supernatural basis, and by supernatural resources. From the side of the natural constitution of both man and the State, the various elements of behavior are so hopelessly at war with one another that there is no health in them nor help from them. The appetites and desires are directed only upon carnal goods and form the dominant element in the person. Even when reason gets glimpses of the good, the good seen is narrow in scope and temporal in duration; and even then reason is powerless as an adequate motive. "We perceive the better and we follow the worse." Moreover, it is useless to seek aid from the habituation, the education, the discipline and restraint of human institutions. They themselves are corrupt. The product of man's lower nature cannot be capable of enlightening and improving that nature; at most it can only restrain outer action by appealing to fear. Only a divine revelation can make known man's true end; and only divine assistance, embodied in the ordinances and sacraments of the supernaturally founded and directed church, can bring this knowledge home to erring individuals so as to make it effectual. In theory the conception of the end, the good, was supreme; but man's true good is supernatural and hence can be achieved only by supernatural assistance and in the next world. In practice, therefore, the important thing for man in his present condition is implicit reliance upon and obedience to the requirements of the church. This represents on earth the divine sovereign, ultimate source of all moral law. In effect, the moral law became a net-work of ordinances, prescriptions, commands, rewards, penalties, penances, and remissions. The jural point of view was com[Pg 220]pletely enthroned.[108] There was no problem; there was a final, because a supernatural solution.

The Problems of Individuality and Citizenship.—With the Renaissance began the revolt against the jural view of life. A sense of the joys and delights which attend the free and varied exercise of human capacities in this world was reborn. The first results were a demand for natural satisfaction; the next a profound reawakening of the antique civic and political consciousness. The first in its reaction against the Middle Ages was more individualistic than the Greek ideal, to which it was in some respects allied. The Greek had emphasized the notion of value, but had conceived this as generic, as the fulfillment of the essential nature of man as man. But with the moderns, satisfaction, the good, meant something direct, specific, personal; something the individual as an individual could lay hold of and possess. It was an individual right; it was final and inalienable. Nothing had a right to intervene or deprive the individual of it.

This extreme individualistic tendency was contemporaneous with a transfer of interest from the supernatural church-state over to the commercial, social, and political bodies with which the modern man found himself identified. The rise of the free cities, and more especially the development of national states, with the growth of commerce and exchange, opened to the individual a natural social whole. With this his connections were direct, in this he gained new outlets and joys, and yet it imposed upon him definite responsibilities and exacted of him specific burdens. If the individual had gained a new sense of himself as an individual, he also found himself enmeshed in national states of a power constantly increasing in range and intensity. The problem of the moral theorists was to recon[Pg 221]cile these two tendencies, the individualistic and that of political centralization. For a time, the individual felt the social organization in which he was set to be, with whatever incidental inconveniences, upon the whole an outlet and reënforcement of prized personal powers. Hence in observing its conditions, he was securing the conditions of his own peace and tranquillity or even of his own freedom and achievement. But the balance was easily upset, and the problem of the relation of the individual and the social, the private and the public, was soon forced into prominence; a problem which in one form or other has been the central problem of modern ethical theory.

Individualistic Problem.—Only for a short time, during the first flush of new achievement and of hopeful adventure, did extreme individualism and social interests remain naïvely combined. The individualistic tendency found a convenient intellectual tool in a psychology which resolved the individual into an association or series of particular states of feeling and sensations; and the good into a like collection of pleasures also regarded as particular mental states. This psychological atomism made individuals as separate and disconnected as the sensations which constituted their selves were isolated and mutually exclusive. Social arrangements and institutions were, in theory, justifiable only as they could be shown to augment the sum of pleasurable states of feeling of individuals. And as, quite independent of any such precarious theory, the demand for reform of institutions became more and more imperative, the situation was packed by Rousseau into a formula that man was naturally both free and good, and that institutional life had enslaved and thereby depraved him. At the same time, there grew up an enthusiastic and optimistic faith in "Nature," in her kindly intentions for the happiness of humanity, and in her potency to draw it to perfection when artificial restrictions were once out of the way. Individuals, separate in themselves and[Pg 222] in their respective goods, were thereby brought into a complete coincidence and harmony of interests. Nature's laws were such that if the individual obeyed them in seeking his own good he could not fail to further the happiness of others. While there developed in France (with original initiative from England) this view of the internal isolation and external harmony of men, a counterpart movement took place in Germany.

The Rationalistic Problem.—German thought inherited through both Roman law and the natural theology and ethics of the church, the conception that man's rational nature makes him sociable. Stoicism, with its materialistic idealism, had taught that all true laws are natural, while all laws of nature are diffusions and potencies of reason. As they bind things together in the world, so they bind men together in societies. Moral theory is "Natural Law" conceived in this sense. From the laws of reason, regarded as the laws of man's generic and hence sociable nature, all the principles of jurisprudence and of individual morals may be deduced. But man has also a sensuous nature, an appetitive nature which is purely private and exclusive. Since reason is higher than sense, the authority of the State is magnified. The juristic point of view was reinstated, but with the important change that the law was that of a social order which is the realization of man's own rational being.[109] If the laws of the State were criticized, the reply was that however unworthy the civic regulations and however desirable their emendation, still the State is the expression of the idea of reason, that is of man in his true generic nature. Hence to attempt to overthrow the government is to attack the fundamental and objective conditions of moral or rational life. Without the State, the particularistic, private side of man's nature[Pg 223] would have free sway to express itself. Man's true moral nature is within. We are then left, from both the English-French and the German sides, with the problem of the relation of the individual and the social; of the relation of the inner and outer, of the psychological structure of the person and the social conditions and results of his behavior.

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Problems and Theories.—We were concerned in the last chapter with the typical problems of moral theory. But it was evident that theories themselves developed and altered as now this, now that, problem was uppermost. To regard the question of how to know the good as the central problem of moral inquiry is already to have one type of theory; to consider the fundamental problem to be either the subordination or the satisfaction of desire is to have other types. A classification of types of theory is rendered difficult, a thoroughly satisfactory classification almost impossible, by the fact that the problems arrange themselves about separate principles leading to cross-divisions. All that we may expect to do is somewhat arbitrarily to select that principle which seems most likely to be useful in conducting inquiry.

(1) Teleological and Jural.—One of the fundamental divisions arises from taking either Value or Duty, Good or Right, as the fundamental idea. Ethics of the first type is concerned above all with ends; hence it is frequently called teleological theory (Greek τέλος, end). To the other type of theory, obligations, imperatives, commands, law, and authority, are the controlling ideas. By this emphasis, arise the jural theories (Latin, jus, law). At some point, of course, each theory has to deal with the factor emphasized by its rival. If we start with Law as central, the good resides in these acts which conform to[Pg 225] its obligations. The good is obedience to law, submission to its moral authority. If we start from the Good, laws, rules, are concerned with the means of defining or achieving it.

(2) Individual and Institutional.—This fundamental division is at once cut across by another, arising from emphasizing the problem of the individual and the social. This problem may become so urgent as to force into the background the conflict between teleological and jural theories, while in any case it complicates and subdivides them. We have individualistic and institutional types of theory. Consider, for example, the following representative quotations: "No school can avoid taking for the ultimate moral aim a desirable state of feeling called by whatever name—gratification, enjoyment, happiness. Pleasure somewhere, at some time, to some being or beings, is an element of the conception";[110] and again,[110] "the good is universally the pleasurable." And while the emphasis is here upon the good, the desirable, the same type of statement, as respects emphasis upon the individual, may be made from the side of duty. For example, "it is the very essence of moral duty to be imposed by a man on himself."[111] Contrast both of these statements with the following: "What a man ought to do, or what duties he should fulfill in order to be virtuous, is in an ethical community not hard to say. He has to do nothing except what is presented, expressed, and recognized in his established relations."[112] "The individual has his truth, real existence, and ethical status only in being a member of the State. His particular satisfactions, activities, and way of life have in this authenticated, substantive principle, their origin and[Pg 226] result."[113] And in another connection: "The striving for a morality of one's own is futile and by its very nature impossible of attainment. In respect to morality the saying of one of the wisest men of antiquity is the true one. To be moral is to live in accord with the moral tradition of one's country."[114] Here both the good and the law of the individual are placed on a strictly institutional basis.

(3) Empirical and Intuitional.—Another cross-division arises from consideration of the method of ascertaining and determining the nature of moral distinctions: the method of knowledge. From this standpoint, the distinction of ethical theories into the empirical (ἐμπειριϰός) and the intuitional (Latin, intueor, to look at or upon) represents their most fundamental cleavage. One view makes knowledge of the good and the right dependent upon recollection of prior experiences and their conditions and effects. The other view makes it an immediate apprehension of the quality of an act or motive, a trait so intrinsic and characteristic it cannot escape being seen. While in general the empirical school has laid stress upon the consequences, the consequences to be searched for were considered as either individual or social. Some, like Hobbes, have held that it was directed upon law; to knowledge of the commands of the state. And similarly the direct perception or intuition of moral quality was by some thought to apply to recognition of differences of value, and by others to acknowledgment of law and authority, which again might be divine, social, or personal. This division cleaves straight across our other bases of classification. To describe a theory definitely, it would then be necessary to state just where it stood with reference to each possible combination or permutation of elements of all three divisions. Moreover, there are theories[Pg 227] which attempt to find a deeper principle which will bridge the gulf between the two opposites.

Complexity of Subject-matter and Voluntary Activity.—This brief survey should at least warn us of the complexity of the attempt to discriminate types of theory, and put us on our guard against undue simplification. It may also serve to remind us that various types of theory are not arbitrary personal devices and constructions, but arise because, in the complexity of the subject-matter, one element or another is especially emphasized, and the other elements arranged in different perspectives. As a rule, all the elements are recognized in some form or other by all theories; but they are differently placed and accounted for. In any case, it is voluntary activity with which we are concerned. The problem of analyzing voluntary activity into its proper elements, and rightly arranging them, must coincide finally with the problem of the relation of good and law of control to each other, with the problem of the nature of moral knowledge, and with that of the relation of the individual and social aspects of conduct.

The What and How of Activity.—Starting from the side of the voluntary act, we find in it one distinction which when forced into an extreme separation throws light upon all three divisions in theory which have been noted. This is the relation between desire and deliberation as mental or private, and the deed, the doing, as overt and public. Is there any intrinsic moral connection between the mental and the overt in activity? We may analyze an act which has been accomplished into two factors, one of which is said to exist within the agent's own consciousness; while the other, the external execution, carries the mental into operation, affects the world, and is appreciable by others.[Pg 228] Now on the face of the matter, these two things, while capable of intellectual discrimination, are incapable of real separation. The "mental" side, the desire and the deliberation, is for the sake of determining what shall be done; the overt side is for the sake of making real certain precedent mental processes, which are partial and inadequate till carried into effect, and which occur for the sake of that effect. The "inner" and "outer" are really only the "how" and the "what" of activity, neither being real or significant apart from the other. (See ante, p. 6).

Separation into Attitude and Consequences.—But under the strain of various theories, this organic unity has been denied; the inner and the outer side of activity have been severed from one another. When thus divided, the "inner" side is connected exclusively with the will, the disposition, the character of the person; the "outer" side is connected wholly with the consequences which flow from it, the changes it brings about. Theories will then vary radically according as the so-called inner or the so-called outer is selected as the bearer and carrier of moral distinctions. One theory will locate the moral quality of an act in that from which it issues; the other in that into which it issues.

The following quotations put the contrast in a nutshell, though unfortunately the exact meaning of the second is not very apparent apart from its context.

If now we recur to the distinction between the "what" and the "how" of action in the light of these quotations, we get a striking result. "What" one does is to pay money, or speak words, or strike blows, and so on. The "how" of this action is the spirit, the temper in which it is done. One pays money with a hope of getting it back, or to avoid arrest for fraud, or because one wishes to discharge an obligation; one strikes in anger, or in self-defense, or in love of country, and so on. Now the view of Bentham says in effect that the "what" is significant, and that the "what" consists ultimately only of the pleasures it produces; the "how" is unimportant save as it incidentally affects resulting feelings. The view of Kant is that the moral core of every act is in its "how," that is in its spirit, its actuating motive; and that the law of reason is the only right motive. What is aimed at is a secondary and (except as determined by the inner spirit, the "how" of the action) an irrelevant matter. In short the separation of the mental and the overt aspects of an act has led to an equally complete separation of its initial spirit and motive from its final content and consequence. And in this separation, one type of theory, illustrated by Kant, takes its stand on the actuating source of the act; the other, that of Bentham, on its outcome. For convenience, we shall frequently refer to these types of theories as respectively the "attitude" and the "content"; the formal and the material; the disposition and the consequences theory. The fundamental thing is that both theories separate character and conduct, disposition and behavior; which of the two is most emphasized being a secondary matter.

Different Ways of Emphasizing Results.—There are, however, different forms of the consequences or "content"[Pg 230] theory—as we shall, for convenience, term it. Some writers, like Spencer as quoted, say the only consequences that are good are simply pleasures, and that pleasures differ only in intensity, being alike in everything but degree. Others say, pleasure is the good, but pleasures differ in quality as well as intensity and that a certain kind of pleasure is the morally good. Others say that natural satisfaction is not found in any one pleasure, or in any number of them, but in a more permanent mood of experience, which is termed happiness. Happiness is different from a pleasure or from a collection of pleasures, in being an abiding consequence or result, which is not destroyed even by the presence of pains (while a pain ejects a pleasure). The pleasure view is called Hedonism; the happiness view, Eudaimonism.[115]

Different Forms of the "Attitude" Theory.—The opposite school of theory holds that the peculiar character of "moral" good is precisely that it is not found in consequences of action. In this negative feature of the definition many different writers agree; there is less harmony in the positive statement of just what the moral good is. It is an attribute or disposition of character, or the self, not a trait of results experienced, and in general such an attribute is called Virtue. But there are as many differences of opinion as to what constitutes virtue as there are on the other side as to what pleasure and happiness are. In one view, it merges, in its outcome at least, very closely with one form of eudaimonism. If happiness be defined as the fulfillment of satisfaction of the characteristic functions of a human being, while a certain function, that of reason, is regarded as the characteristic human trait whose exercise is the virtue[Pg 231] or supreme excellence, it becomes impossible to maintain any sharp line of distinction. Kant, however, attempted to cut under this union of happiness and virtue, which under the form of perfectionism has been attempted by many writers, by raising the question of motivation. Why does the person aim at perfection? Is it for the sake of the resulting happiness? Then we have only Hedonism. Is it because the moral law, the law of reason, requires it? Then we have law morally deeper than the end aimed at.

We may now consider the bearing of this discussion upon theories of moral knowledge and (2) of moral authority.[116]

I. Characteristic Theories of Moral Knowledge.—(1) Those who set chief store by the goods naturally experienced, find that past experiences supply all the data required for moral knowledge. Pleasures and pains, satisfactions and miseries, are recurrent familiar experiences. All we have to do is to note them and their occasions (or, put the other way, to observe the tendency of some of our impulses and acts to bring pleasure as a consequence, of others to effect misery), and to make up our ends and aims accordingly. As a theory of moral knowledge, Hedonism is thus almost always allied with empiricism, understanding by empiricism the theory that particular past experiences furnish the method of all ideas and beliefs.

(2) The theory that the good is some type of virtuous character requires a special organ to give moral knowledge. Virtue is none the less the Good, even when it is not attained, when it is not experienced, that is, as we experience a pleasure. In any case, it is not good because it is experienced, but because it is virtue. Thus the "attitude" theory tends to connect itself with some form of In[Pg 232]tuitionalism, Rationalism, or Transcendentalism, all of these terms meaning that there is something in knowledge going beyond the particular experiences. Intuitionalism holds there is a certain special faculty which reveals truths beyond the scope of experience; Rationalism, that beside the particular elements of experience there are universal and necessary conceptions which regulate it; Transcendentalism, that within experience there is a factor derived from a source transcending experience.[117]

II. Characteristic Theories of Moral Control.—The result school tends to view authority, control, law, obligation from the standpoint of means to an end; the moralistic, or virtue, school to regard the idea of law as more fundamental than that of the good. From the first standpoint, the authority of a given rule lies in its power to regulate desires so that after all pleasures—or a maximum of them, and a minimum of pains—may be had. At bottom, it is a principle of expediency, of practical wisdom, of adjustment of means to end. Thus Hume said: "Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions"—that is, the principles and rules made known by reason are, at last, only instruments for securing the fullest satisfaction of desires. But according to the point of view of the other school, no satisfaction is really (i.e., morally) good unless it is acquired in accordance with a law existing independently of pleasurable satisfaction. Thus the good depends upon the law, not the law upon the desirable end.

The Opposition in Ordinary Life.—To some extent, similar oppositions are latent in our ordinary moral convictions, without regard to theory. Indeed, we tend, at[Pg 233] different times, to pass from one point of view to the other, without being aware of it. Thus, as against the identification of goodness with a mere attitude of will; we say, "It is not enough for a man to be good; he must be good for something." It is not enough to mean well; one must mean to do well; to excuse a man by saying "he means well," conveys a shade of depreciation. "Hell is paved with good intentions." Good "resolutions," in general, are ridiculed as not modifying overt action. A tree is to be judged by its fruits. "Faith without works is dead." A man is said "to be too good for this world" when his motives are not effective. Sometimes we say, "So and so is a good man," meaning to say that that is about all that can be said for him—he does not count, or amount to anything, practically. The objection to identifying goodness with inefficiency also tends to render suspected a theory which seems to lead logically to such identification. More positively we dwell upon goodness as involving service; "love is the fulfilling of the law," and while love is a trait of character, it is one which takes immediate action in order to bring about certain definite consequences. We call a man Pharisaical who cherishes his own good character as an end distinct from the common good for which it may be serviceable.

On the other hand, indicating the supremacy of the voluntary attitude over consequences, we have, "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own life?" "Let us do evil that good may come, whose damnation is just." The deep-seated objection to the maxim that the end justifies the means is hard to account for, except upon the basis that it is possible to attain ends otherwise worthy and desirable at the expense of conduct which is immoral. Again, compare Shakspere's "There's nothing right or wrong, but thinking makes it so" with the Biblical "As a man thinketh in his heart,[Pg 234] so is he." And finally we have such sayings as, "Take the will for the deed"; "His heart is in the right place"; Pereat mundus, fiat justitia.

Passing from this popular aspect of the matter, we find the following grounds for the "content" theory:

1. It Makes Morality Really Important.—Would there be any use or sense in moral acts if they did not tend to promote welfare, individual and social? If theft uniformly resulted in great happiness and security of life, if truth-telling introduced confusion and inefficiency into men's relations, would we not consider the first a virtue, and the latter a vice?[118] So far as the identification of goodness with mere motive (apart from results effected by acts) reduces morality to nullity, there seems to be furnished a reductio ad absurdum of the theory that results are not the decisive thing.

(2) It Makes Morality a Definite, Concrete Thing.—Morality is found in consequences; and consequences are definite, observable facts which the individual can be made responsible for noting and for employing in the direction of his further behavior. The theory gives morality an objective, a tangible guarantee and sanction. Moreover, results are something objective, common to different individuals because outside them all. But the doctrine that goodness consists in motives formed by and within the individual without reference to obvious, overt results, makes goodness something vague or else whimsical and arbitrary. The latter view makes virtue either something unattainable, or else attained by merely cultivating certain internal states having no outward results at all, or even results that are socially harmful. It encourages fanaticism, moral crankiness, moral isolation or pride; obstinate persistence in a bad course in spite of its demonstrable[Pg 235] evil results. It makes morality non-progressive, since by its assumption no amount of experience of consequences can throw any light upon essential moral elements.

(3) The Content Theory Not Only Puts Morality Itself upon a Basis of Facts, but Also Puts the Theory of Morality upon a Solid Basis.—We know what we mean by goodness and evil when we discuss them in terms of results achieved or missed, and can therefore discuss them intelligibly. We can formulate concrete ends and lay down rules for their attainment. Thus there can be a science of morals just as there can be a science of any body of observable facts having a common principle. But if morality depends upon purely subjective, personal motives, no objective observation and common interpretation are possible. We are thrown back upon the capricious individual ipse dixit, which by this theory is made final. Ethical theory is rendered impossible. Thus Bentham, who brings these charges (and others) against the "virtue" theory of goodness, says at the close of the preface to his Principles of Morals and Legislation (ed. of 1823):

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Arguments not unlike, however, may be adduced in favor of the attitude theory.

1. It, and It Alone, Places Morality in the High and Authoritative Place Which by Right Characterizes It.—Morality is not just a means of reaching other ends; it is an end in itself. To reduce virtue to a tool or instrumentality for securing pleasure is to prostitute and destroy it. Unsophisticated common sense is shocked at putting morality upon the same level with prudence, policy, and expediency. Morality is morality, just because it possesses an absolute authoritativeness which they lack.

2. The Morally Good Must be Within the Power of the Individual to Achieve.—The amount of pleasure and pain the individual experiences, his share of satisfaction, depends upon outward circumstances which are beyond his control, and which accordingly have no moral significance. Only the beginning, the willing, of an act lies with the man; its conclusion, its outcome in the way of consequences, lies with the gods. Accident, misfortune, unfavorable circumstance, may shut the individual within a life of sickness, misery, and discomfort. They may deprive him of external goods; but they cannot modify the moral good, for that resides in the attitude with which one faces these conditions and results. Conditions hostile to pros[Pg 237]perity may be only the means of calling forth virtues of bravery, patience, and amiability. Only consequences within character itself, the tendency of an act to form a habit or to cultivate a disposition, are really of moral significance.

3. Motives Furnish a Settled and Workable Criterion by Which to Measure the Rightness or Wrongness of Specific Acts.—Consequences are indefinitely varied; they are too much at the mercy of the unforeseen to serve as basis of measurement. One and the same act may turn out in a hundred different ways according to accidental circumstances. If the individual had to calculate consequences before entering upon action, he would engage in trying to solve a problem where each new term introduced more factors. No conclusion would ever be reached; or, if reached, would be so uncertain that the agent would be paralyzed by doubt. But since the motives are within the person's own breast, the problem of knowing the right is comparatively simple: the data for the judgment are always at hand and always accessible to the one who sincerely wishes to know the right.

Conclusion.—The fact that common life recognizes, under certain conditions, both theories as correct, and that substantially the same claims may be made for both, suggests that the controversy depends upon some underlying misapprehension. Their common error, as we shall attempt to show in the sequel, lies in trying to split a voluntary act which is single and entire into two unrelated parts, the one termed "inner," the other, "outer"; the one called "motive," the other, "end." A voluntary act is always a disposition, or habit of the agent passing into an overt act, which, so far as it can, produces certain consequences. A "mere" motive which does not do anything, which makes nothing different, is not a genuine motive at all, and hence is not a voluntary act. On the other hand, consequences which are not intended, which[Pg 238] are not personally wanted and chosen and striven for, are no part of a voluntary act. Neither the inner apart from the outer, nor the outer apart from the inner, has any voluntary or moral quality at all. The former is mere passing sentimentality or reverie; the latter is mere accident or luck.

Tendency of Each Theory to Pass into the Other.—Hence each theory, realizing its own onesidedness, tends inevitably to make concessions, and to borrow factors from its competitor, and thus insensibly to bridge the gap between them. Consequences are emphasized, but only foreseen consequences; while to foresee is a mental act whose exercise depends upon character. It is disposition, interest, which leads an agent to estimate the consequences at their true worth; thus an upholder of the "content" theory ends by falling back upon the attitude taken in forecasting and weighing results. In like fashion, the representative of the motive theory dwells upon the tendency of the motive to bring about certain effects. The man with a truly benevolent disposition is not the one who indulges in indiscriminate charity, but the one who considers the effect of his gift upon its recipient and upon society. While lauding the motive as the sole bearer of moral worth, the motive is regarded as a force working towards the production of certain results. When the "content" theory recognizes disposition as an inherent factor in bringing about consequences, and the "attitude" theory views motives as forces tending to effect consequences, an approximation of each to the other has taken place which almost cancels the original opposition. It is realized that a complete view of the place of motive in a voluntary act will conceive motive as a motor force; as inspiring to action which will inevitably produce certain results unless this is prevented by superior external force. It is also realized that only those consequences are any part of voluntary behavior which are so con[Pg 239]genial to character as to appeal to it as good and stir it to effort to realize them. We may begin the analysis of a voluntary act at whichever end we please, but we are always carried to the other end in order to complete the analysis. The so-called distinction between the "inner" and "outer" parts of an act is in reality a distinction between the earlier and the later period of its development.

In the following chapter we shall enter upon a direct discussion of the relation of conduct and character to one another; we shall then apply the results of the discussion, in successive chapters, to the problems already raised: The Nature of Good; of Knowledge; of Moral Authority; The Relation of the Self to Others and Society; The Characteristics of the Virtuous Self.

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Problem of Chapter.—We have endeavored in the preceding chapters (1) to identify the sort of situation in which the ideas of good and evil, right and wrong, in their moral sense, are employed; (2) to set forth the typical problems that arise in the analysis of this situation; and (3) to name and describe briefly the types of theory which have developed in the course of the history of the problems. We have now to return to the moral situation as described, and enter upon an independent analysis of it. We shall commence this analysis, as was indicated in the last chapter, by considering the question of the relation of attitude and consequences to each other in voluntary activity,—not that this is the only way to approach the problem, but that it is the way which brings out most clearly the points at issue among types of moral theory which since the early part of the nineteenth century have had the chief currency and influence. Accordingly the discussion will be introduced by a statement of the two most extreme doctrines that separate the "inner" and the "outer," the "psychical" and the "overt" aspects of activity: viz., the Kantian, exclusively emphasizing the "how," the spirit, and motive of conduct; the Utilitarian, dwelling exclusively upon its "what," its effects and consequences. Our positive problem is, of course, by means of arraying these two extreme views against each other, to arrive at a statement of the mutual relations of attitude and act, motive and consequence, character and conduct.[Pg 241]

We shall begin with Kant as a representative of the attitude theory.

Kant says:

Element of Truth in Statement.—There can be no doubt that in some respects these ideas of Kant meet a welcome in our ordinary convictions. Gifts of fortune, talents of mind, qualities of temperament, are regarded as desirable, as good, but we qualify the concession. We say they are good, if a good use is made of them; but that, administered by a bad character, they add to power for evil. Moreover, Kant's statement of the intrinsic goodness of the Good Will, "A jewel which shines by its own light" (Ibid., p. 10), awakens ready response in us. Some goods we regard as means and conditions—health, wealth, business, and professional success. They afford[Pg 242] moral opportunities and agencies, but need not possess moral value in and of themselves; when they become parts, as they may, of a moral good, it is because of their place and context. Personality, character, has a dignity of its own, which forbids that it be considered a simple means for the acquisition of other goods. The man who makes his good character a simple tool for securing political preferment, is, we should say, prostituting and so destroying his own goodness.

Ambiguity of Statement.—The statement made by Kant, however, is ambiguous and open to opposed interpretations. The notion that the Good Will is good in and of itself may be interpreted in two different ways: (i) We may hold, for example, that honesty is good as a trait of will because it tends inevitably to secure a desirable relationship among men; it removes obstructions between persons and keeps the ways of action clear and open. Every man can count upon straightforward action when all act from honesty; it secures for each singleness of aim and concentration of energy. (ii) But we may also mean that honesty is absolutely good as a trait of character just in and by itself, quite apart from any influence this trait of character has in securing and promoting desirable ends. In one case, we emphasize its goodness because it arranges for and tends towards certain results; in the other case, we ignore the factor of tendency toward results.

Kant's Interpretation of Goodness of Will is Formal.—Kant's further treatment leaves us in no doubt in which of these two senses he uses the term Good Will. He goes on (Ibid., p. 10):

And again he says: