DAVI I II iiiiiiiii :iiiiiiiiiiiii!ini;; DAVID JORDAN HIGGINS Centennial ffltmovwl \Xolume HUMAN NATURE A Psychological Study BY DAVID JORDAN HIGGINS The proper study of mankind is man. — Pope THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN NEW YORK CINCINNATI Copyright, 1916, by DAVID JORDAN HIGGINS SRLF URL CONTENTS PAGE Introduction 7 Foreword 5 I. First Principles of Human Nature CHAPTER I. Facts of Consciousness 11 II. Implication of These Facts 15 II. Analysis and Classification of Powers III. What is Human Nature? 21 IV. Capacities of Psychic Action 25 V. The Psychology of Feelings SO VI. The Volitional Nature 34 VII. Psychology of Rational Intelligence. ... 39 III. Anthropology VIII. Development of Human Nature 47 IX. Oriental Psychology 54 X. Western Mentality 62 XI. Modern Psychology 69 XII. Relation of Cosmic to Psychic Nature . . 76 XIII. Unity and Continuity of Human Nature 83 3 CONTENTS IV. Religiousness in Human Nature CHAPTER PAGE XIV. The Religious Capacity 91 XV. Meaning of Religious Experience 95 XVI. Philosophy of Religious Experience 104 V. Ethics of Human Nature XVII. Standard of Morals 115 XVIII. Authority in Conscience 120 XIX. Divine Imperatives on Man 125 VI. Civic Character of Human Nature XX. Development of Human Civilization. 137 XXI. The Ideal World-Life 144 XXII. The Ideal Manhood 152 XXIII. Divine Incarnation in Human Nature 156 XXIV. The Problem of Human Life 161 VII. Eugenics of Human Nature XXV. Social Service Reform 173 XXVI. Civil Service Reform 181 XXVII. Industrial Reform 187 XXVIII. Democracy of Human Nature 194 FOREWORD This book is an interpretation of human nature under the guide of such thinkers as Kant, Hegel, Lotze, and Bowne. Their definition that "being is action" takes the place of the old Greek conception that "be- ing is substance." The ground of all being is life-energy. Human nature is human being; the dynamic of human nature is life- energy; and, therefore, our study of human nature is a study of human activities under the guidance of experience rather than of history or theology. The life of an individual cannot, of course, exhibit all the activities of human nature, but there are so many activities common to all individuals that a unity of human nature may be inferred, so that our study is of the dynamics of human nature, and considers that nature as a unit. The method of this study is psychological rather than historical or theological. His- 6 FOREWORD tory records the exploits of men, and not the cause of their acts ; theology relates only what men believe. We must give heed to intuition, for the facts of life, as learned through the intuitive activities of the soul, are the foundation of all knowledge. The study is suggestive, and in some in- stances is tentative. But it is put forth as a possible help to the student of human nature, and is open to the candid criticism of the reader. 6 INTRODUCTION Few are the individuals who outlive their generation and reach the hundredth mile- stone; fewer still are the authors who give the new generation a volume in their cen- tenary year. This accomplishment on the part of our author marks his book as unique, and calls for congratulations that he has lived so long and wrought so well. It is a wide ground which he covers in his present treatise. Intelligently, boldly, and constructively he sweeps the fields of history, psychology, political economy, and religion with a style and treatment at once original and instructive. The reader, opening a page at random, will find himself interested in the particular theme reviewed, and will desire to read the further chapters of this unusual book. For its intrinsic worth we cannot but commend this Memorial Volume from the pen of our centenarian author. Altogether, the reader will be pleased and 7 INTRODUCTION surprised at the evidences of vigorous intel- lectual activity in extreme age which are herein displayed. A new significance is given to the words of the poet which instinc- tively come to mind: Cato learned Greek at eighty ; Sophocles Wrote his grand (Edipus, and Simonides Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers When each had numbered more than fourscore years. These are indeed exceptions; but they show How far the Gulf Stream of our life may flow Into the arctic regions of our lives, Where little else than life itself survives. * * * 8 FIRST PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN NATURE Know thyself. — Delphic Oracle. CHAPTER I FACTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS From all we know of phenomena it is a fair deduction that life is a creative energy forever acting in the production of organic forms. Whether we call this creative process evolution — a process from simple to more complex by gradual stages — or whether we hold the traditional belief that creation is a process of instantaneous production, we call the power which creates life-energy. There is no other definition in terms of earthly language. The facts of consciousness are, to this end, our last resort, and we make them as they spontaneously obtrude the foundation of our activities. To enumerate: 1. The earliest fact in consciousness is that of existence. This fact is intuitively known. It cannot be rationally proved, and needs no proof. When Descartes wrote, 11 HUMAN NATURE "Cogito, ergo sum" he inferred that think- ing is proof of existence. But he forgot that he must exist before he could think. I think because I exist. My ability to think inheres in my existence; but the fact of ex- istence, known in consciousness, is prior to all thinking. 2. The fact of personality coordinates with that of existence. This knowledge identifies myself to myself, and differen- tiates my existence from that of all others, though I have not sufficient data to define my personality. The knowledge is intuitive, and is the ground of all otherness. 3. Another fact of primary knowledge is that of a unity between soul and body. There is no duality in human nature, how- ever separate and different the two seem. We speak of self as the owner of both soul and body. The knowledge is not the result of logical thinking, but is a primary fact of knowledge. 4. Another primary fact of conscious- ness is that of a "Somewhat" obtruding upon us and promoting a feeling of rever- 12 FACTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS ence and of fear. We instinctively defer to this feeling. There is a felt "Presence." It is personal to us, because we find it im- possible to worship or fear the impersonal. 5. Another fact of intuitive knowledge is the instinct of kinship with all human beings. We feel some sort of a blood rela- tion. It is an affinity that we do not have for any other than the human species. It is a feeling of incompleteness in ourselves. 6. Many other facts of intuitive knowl- edge we name "primary truths." They lie back of all logical reasoning, such as cause, reality, and relation, and are the first prin- ciples of rational knowledge. By cause we mean an indefinite somewhat that produces an effect. By reality what do we mean ex- cept an indefinable certainty, rising spon- taneously, concerning an object? And what do we mean by relation but a mysterious bond of action between subject and object? The same may be said of those primary facts of consciousness lying back of religion and philosophy. All are basal principles from which follow all psychic activities. 13 HUMAN NATURE They constitute a "court of review" for all logical conclusions. They have the power of apprehending the reality of a matter before the intellect has investigated in detail. They have the function of apprehending divine manifestations. Here the seer re- ceives his revelations and the poet his in- spirations. 14 CHAPTER II IMPLICATION OF THESE FACTS We get a clearer understanding of the first principles of human nature, just con- sidered, if we inquire what they imply. They cover all the activities of the psychic nature, and are the foundation of all knowl- edge. The fact of conscious existence is the basis for the philosophy of being. The old Greek thought grounded being in "sub- stance," and represented the mysterious idea of "life" in the form of a beautiful human body named "Psyche" Contempo- raneously, the Hebrew conception of being was formal substance; the Divine Being was given human hands and feet and other organs; he thought and walked, he loved and hated, as men do. Mediaeval Christi- anity formulated a "Trinity" of three Per- sons having like substance. But since the 15 HUMAN NATURE days of Kant, Hegel, and Lotze modern thought no longer anthropomorphizes God nor gives form to spirit. "Being is action," say these latest philosophers. The change really began when Jesus taught the form- less spirituality of God and, by inference, the formless spirituality of all being. The fact of a conscious unity of body and soul implies a definite selfhood. Person- ality, like being, is a matter of intuitive knowledge rather than of logical proof. We cannot define it in logical terms, but it is connate with the fact of existence. We name this self a person rather than a thing; and we infer the difference from experience, while the fact is one of intuitive knowledge. The fact of an intuitive apprehension of God implies an immanent manifestation of some spirituality obtruding on our con- sciousness, and this manifestation implies a mani fester. We have no such intuitive ap- prehension of any other being persistently obtruding upon our consciousness. We do not apprehend the existence of other beings, but infer this from sensuous perception. 16 IMPLICATION OF THESE FACTS The dynamic of life may be considered the cause of all facts of consciousness. As a term so indefinable we may call life the creative energy of God, since tracing back through its successive stages we are forced to postulate him. Life is the cause both of identity and change. If I am, I know it intuitively. Change is also an activity of life; it is both growth and decay. We change because we live, and live by change. 17 II ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICA- TION OF POWERS Nature — the sum of qualities and attri- butes which make a thing what it is. — Webster. CHAPTER III WHAT IS HUMAN NATURE? The first necessity in this study is rightly to define the word "nature." It is derived from natus, the past participle of the verb nascor, "to be born," and means an about- to-be, a becoming. The nature of a dog, for instance, is the way it acts; the nature of a man is the manner of his life. This nature is the sum of the attributes or quali- ties of his being. So the definition of human nature requires the study of the qualities that characterize mankind. Human nature has two departments, the organic and the psychic, whose activities are so interblended that it is often impossible to distinguish between the two. The study of either involves the other. The organic tendencies and propensions, which play so large a part in human life, are back of the motives of the will ; they have no moral value 21 HUMAN NATURE in themselves until the motives are followed which they inspire. The sciences of biology and physiology are a necessary study to the full under- standing of human nature. The former has to do with the formation of the physical structure, and presents the organism fully equipped for its work as it comes from the hand of Life. Physiology tells us of the relation of each organ to the psychic nature and how the psychic is dependent upon the right functioning of each organ. When we think of human nature we are forced to postulate a personal subject as possessing that nature. We are then immediately confronted with the indefinable term "personality." For it we find no synonyms that will make the term clearer, and are forced to take it as an intuitive idea. But it is a necessary term. We cannot think of an ultimate cause of action with- out attributing personality to human nature, for the reason that this can originate action. The psychic capacities of human nature — the intuitional, the intellectual, the emo- 22 WHAT IS HUMAN NATURE? tional, and the volitional — all harmonize in a unity of life. There is no dualistic action by the forces of soul and body. But it is clear that there must be a centralizing and commanding power molding all activities into a unity of action. This is not to be found in the intellect, which is subordinate to the will, nor in the emotions, nor in the volition, which is but the choice of motives; but it inheres in the intuitional capacity of the soul. All psychic movements are from this center. And, if it be objected that this showing limits the freedom of the will, let us remember that the will is simply the soul determining how to act. Mentality is a department of psychic activity needing careful analysis. Great confusion arises from considering mind and soul as two distinct entities in action. Some psychologists make the matter more com- plicated by saying that sometimes the mind acts and sometimes the soul; and even greater confusion is caused when they are made synonymous. There are not two dis- tinct causes acting in human life. But, with 23 HUMAN NATURE self as the supreme and authoritative actor, working in orderly method, we have a monism in human nature and above all a true science of mentality. There is a realm of psychic phenomena which is attracting the attention as well of scientists and of many others who delight in the occult. The study of these phenomena is principally under the use of hypnotism or induced sleep. The subject treated must be put into a psychic state by closing every ave- nue of sensuous knowledge, as in ordinary sleep. The purpose is that he may be in a condition to accept the suggestions of the operator without the distraction of passing objects, for it is by the passive reception of suggestions that the phenomena occur. In other words, the subject must retire from the normal, objective activities of life into the realm of the intuitional. Some physicians are finding beneficial the therapeutic effect of hypnotic treatment in cases of high nerv- ous disorder; the curative power of Spirit- ualists, Christian Scientists, and faith healers lies in this fact of hypnotic suggestion. 24 CHAPTER IV CAPACITIES OF PSYCHIC ACTION These capacities are potencies of action, constantly in process of development. They are not to be taken as entities of force, but rather as modes of personal activity. The personal self in its unity acts in different ways, but always as a unit of action. Psy- chologically, these capacities are named the intuitive, the intellectual, the volitional, and the emotional. Taking them in the order named : The intuitive is the capacity for appre- hending truths by "insight," and is claimed for human nature exclusively. It is the ability to realize an object before the mind has time for the examination of its attri- butes, and to hold it fast in thought for men- tal examination. It is that in the soul of a poet by which he perceives the essence of a truth. It is the ability of the nature-lover to 25 HUMAN NATURE see the reality lying behind phenomena. It is the capability of the seer to take into his consiousness a divine suggestion and to trans- late that message into the idioms of speech. It is the communion of a soul with God in the inner chamber where the self finds Deity. In a sentence, this intuitive capacity is the distinguishing difference between the human and animal natures. We shall get a better conception of the intuitive department of human activities if we think of man as a pure spirit. As such he is in close relation with the Infinite Spirit. Yet this does not imply that the human spirit is a part of the Infinite. The Infinite cannot divide himself into parts and remain an infinite unit. The human spirit cannot, therefore, be a part of him. It has per- sonality. We may think of the body as machinery, the soul as intelligence, the spirit as self -personality. Dissolve the composite, and the individual is extinct ; only the spirit remains. The chief purpose of this review is to show the supreme place of spiritual intui- tion in the make-up of human nature. 26 PSYCHIC ACTION The capacity of intelligence is not so dis- tinct a mark of difference between the human and animal nature as is intuition. Many cases of intelligence in domestic ani- mals are under common observation. Care- ful notice fails to find any sure boundary between instinct and reason. A horse, kept in a paddock where were a watering trough and pump, had seen his master draw water for him to drink. One day, going up to the trough to drink but finding no water in it, the horse took hold of the handle with his mouth, moved it up and down as he had seen his master do, and drew sufficient water for his thirst. And, ever after, he was left to do this. This is claimed as an instance of imita- tion through instinct. But was there not some mental process in the horse very similar to reasoning. If his master could get water for him in that way, did he not reason that he could do the same? At least he would try it. And numerous similar in- stances are given in the case of domesticated animals that go to prove a degree of ration- ality in animal nature. So it is impossible 27 HUMAN NATURE to determine where reason begins and in- stinct ends. May it not be that the dif- ference is only in degree? Many persons give but little evidence of possessing any in- tellectual capacity above that of domesti- cated animals. Is it not true that all organic beings possess a potential capacity of intelli- gence needing only development to make it manifest? At least the evidence is strong that intelligence is not a distinguishing mark of human nature. So we may assert of volition. The choice of motives in action is common to all organic being. A power of selection by voluntary choice is found in the make-up of all creatures. Hence there is but one capac- ity which belongs exclusively to human nature and which is its crowning honor — the capacity of intuitively apprehending reality. Our emotional nature is grounded in cer- tain appetencies or propensions, some of which are organic and some psychic. The appetence has a channel of action which we may call the "idea" of some object to be at- tained. This creates feelings or emotions 28 PSYCHIC ACTION that are "excitements" of soul, and these produce bodily movements which cause what we call "sympathetic action." It is true that emotions produce certain bodily states, and likewise that these states produce corresponding emotions. Thus, the attitude of kneeling induces the feeling of reverence, and the feeling of reverence will induce a corresponding attitude. Here is suggested a wide field of psychological inquiiy which we cannot enter in this study. We may only say that we owe to the faithful interpretation of our sensations any real knowledge of the objective world. 29 CHAPTER V THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELINGS The feelings are named sensibilities be- cause they are grounded in the sensuous nature. They are of two classes, emotions and aesthetics. A feeling is a conscious ex- citement or commotion of the soul. We are drawn toward an object that we have an ap- petence for; we are drawn away from that which thwarts the appetence. While the feeling begins with the organic impulse, exciting the nervous centers, the mental idea of the object is followed by psychic action producing soothing or exasperating feelings. The appetence, which is instinctive and spontaneous, is termed a "spring of action." It is a mental inclination either wholly organic or inherited. For instance, every one is influenced by the love of pleasure, which is wholly without choice. It is only 30 PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELINGS when the desire seizes upon an object that it takes on a voluntary character. All our natural appetites originate in the organic, but become mental and crave gratification for the pleasure they afford. Emotions are wholly from within, such as the aesthetic impulses which urge us to seek and delight in the beautiful, the sublime, the humorous, the picturesque, and which in- spire our taste for music, art, and literature. The moral sense, or conscience, is also in this class. Prospective emotions arise from looking forward and apprehending some disaster or anticipating some good, and are the ground of despair or hope. The rise of the aesthetic emotions is an open question. Some contend that beauty consists in some qualities existing in the object contemplated. Others hold that beauty is realized by some peculiar adapta- tion of the eye in the act of perception. Still others maintain that the idea of beauty is furnished by the association of ideas. But, whatever the real cause of beauty, may we not say that there is in the psychic nature a 31 HUMAN NATURE propension for harmony of lines and color, and that the perception of harmonious com- binations creates the idea which calls out the propension ? The feeling of sublimity is one of awe or veneration. While it is called out from the perception of some majestic object like Niagara, its force lies in the apprehension of an Infinite Power which is manifest in that creation. The feeling exalts and vivi- fies the soul, while the grander facts of the moral world inspire in us even higher de- grees of sublimity. An affection is the going out of the soul toward a desirable object, with a wish to possess it. It is characterized by a perma- nence and persistence which require many rebuffs to break; but when broken the re- action is strong and bitter. A true affection requires reciprocal action. Love calls for love, and is not satisfied unless it is returned. In its communal relations human nature has its sensibilities. All men are more or less swayed by the feelings of others. Pub- lic sentiment may originate, as personal 32 PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELINGS sentiment does, in a common propension, kindling a common enthusiasm and result- ing in a common movement. Take, for ex- ample, the case of the Civil War in the United States. Seeds of opposition were sown on both sides, producing an epidemic of feeling ; and these feelings became springs of action, producing a communal hostility. To understand human nature one needs to study the affections and passions that play so important a part in the common life. These commotions of the soul often appear in groups and break over all the restraints of sober thought. They seem to sweep on like waves of the sea, or to burst forth like the eruptions of a volcano. 33 CHAPTER VI THE VOLITIONAL NATURE This has but a limited range of activities. It is restricted to a choice of motives. What is called the "will" has only the function of determining which motive the soul shall fol- low in voluntary action. But the word "choice" implies freedom to choose from several things, and also implies rejection as well as adoption. Aristotle distinguishes between "choice of ends, choice of means, and deliberate preferences." The power of choosing voluntarily may be increased by practice or diminished by neglect ; the moral effect of choice is seen in the formation of character. The discussion concerning the freedom of the will centers in the question, Do motives sway the volition, and if so, how? Are they a force which drives to action? If so, there is no choice in the matter. Or is motive an 34 THE VOLITIONAL NATURE intellectual reason why we should act in a certain manner? If we so say, we are con- fronted with the fact of experience that we feel something behind urging the reason upon the attention of the soul. Doctor McCosh, in his Motive Powers, grounds the motive in certain appetencies or propensions that are organic in the beginning but that become psychic in their activity. Without following his classification we may postulate self-love as the all-containing propension from which all other propensions originate and in which they all center. This is an organic propension which instinctively seeks self-preservation. It is essentially necessary to life, but when gratified to excess is in- veterated into selfishness and perverts the whole being. But a second element is necessary to com- plete the motive; it needs a channel per- mitting the surging propension to become action. This channel is furnished in the in- tellectual idea of some object to be at- tained, which gratifies the propension. The union of the two elements constitutes the 35 HUMAN NATURE motive that urges its attention upon the soul ; and the choice of the motive determines the action, since there could be no voluntary action without the presence of different motives. The essential element in motivity is choice. Two courses are open to us; we choose one and reject the other, so determin- ing to act in one way and not in another. But why do we so determine? We call the influencing power a motive, not meaning a force of any kind that obliges us so to act, for we know we might choose another way, but feeling there is something which urges that way. What is that which so urges? The philosophy of Jonathan Edwards an- swers that the motive urging our choice is stronger than any other and that we feel obliged by the strength of this motive to choose the course we do. But this answer eliminates all free choice; and if there be no place for choice, there can be no volition in the case, no deliberation on motives, no free determination. But we do know that we voluntarily choose between several courses 36 THE VOLITIONAL NATURE of action, after deliberating upon them and finally adopting one and rejecting others. But why do we give more attention to one motive than to another? Because the pro- pension urging it upon our attention has been gratified more than others and so clamors for notice. Our propensions grow by gratification. It is thinking about a cer- tain course of action that gives it urgency. As a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he." One becomes immoral by thinking of im- moral acts. When he stops thinking in that direction he will not be immoral in that direction. Our motives become persistent as we think of them ; we generally give more attention to what clamors for recognition. It is claimed by some psychologists that there are many instinctive determinations which have been preceded by no delibera- tion. So in walking each step is the effect of determination without deliberation. The trained habit of muscular action becomes so instinctive that we have no consciousness of a choice. By this distinction between in- stinctive and voluntary action we determine 37 HUMAN NATURE the value of human conduct. Motiveless action carries no value, and the man who does not exercise a voluntary choice of motives is worthless in society. 38 CHAPTER VII PSYCHOLOGY OF RATIONAL INTELLIGENCE Next to the intuitional is the intellectual power of human nature. This depends largely upon the healthy condition of the body, and hence modern psychology studies physiology. Nothing can take the place of a sound body as a determining factor in clear thought, for the reason that the nervous sys- tem converts the muscular action into psychic. The mental powers sympathize with the physical. A great hindrance to mind culture is a poor digestion from over- eating, while intoxicants paralyze the ner- vous centers and produce a coma of intel- lectual activities. Most mental diseases come from nervous disorders or from want of vitality. Indeed, a large majority of immoral volitions arise from this source. 39 HUMAN NATURE Hygienic rules are sound rules for thought- making. A second step in the care of the intellect is to supervise the "gates of knowledge" and watch what enters through them. The soul is responsible for what enters. Through these gates all the raw material for thought- making is received, and the product depends upon the quality of the material used. To take in only what can be utilized is good advice in thought-building. The great fault of many systems of education is in not watching the quality of the stimulating supply. The soul needs only a fair chance to grow into a vigorous mentality. The most important fact in psychology is to keep in mind the prime importance of a thought habit. The thing we do the most often we do the easiest. In no department of our being is this more true than in the culture of the intellect. What we think of most habitually we follow most persistently ; and the converse is equally true that what we are most inclined to do we think about most constantly. This is a law of mental 40 RATIONAL INTELLIGENCE reaction. Hence the necessity that the soul command its thoughts. The first step in forming a thought habit is concentration. The flitting thoughts that like birds fly in and out must be caught ; this is not easy, but persistent trying will accomplish it. If one has sufficient mastery of himself to put aside an undesirable thought and substitute an- other, he has gained possession of the situa- tion. "The key to every man," said Emer- son, "is his thought." We have the law. Are we willing to pay the price of obedience to it? The great word in the development of the intellect is "culture." For a definition of the term we turn to Huxley, that clearest teacher of intellectual growth. He says that "a criticism of life is the essence of culture." Then, to explain what he means by a "crit- icism of life," he adds: "Culture certainly means something quite different from learn- ing or technical skill. It implies the posses- sion of an ideal and the habit of estimating the value of things by a comparison with a theoretic standard. Perfect culture should 41 HUMAN NATURE apply a complete theory of life, based upon a clear knowledge alike of its possibilities and its limitations. Literature alone cannot supply this knowledge. We may leam all that Greek and Roman and Eastern antiq- uity have thought and said, and after all that modern literature has to tell us, and be destitute of that culture necessary to understand human life. A full outfit for the work of human life must include a knowl- edge of physical science — a power to prove the properties of literature by scientific analysis. A literary education will furnisn the data of knowledge, but science only can give the power to rightly use that data." The grand end of culture, then, is to develop the human intellect to a degree of power that the soul can use for the purposes of real life. Knowledge is not transferred from one to another, or from books in a finished block, but, on the contrary, it is the result of a con- structive process of the intellect. In this process of thought-making the intellect borrows both from intuition and the emo- 42 RATIONAL INTELLIGENCE tions. Many brilliant images credited to the intellectual processes come from the intui- tional realm, while ideas that hold attention come also from the emotional side of our nature. The main thing is that the personal self shall be master of his thoughts. Strength of intellect can only be acquired from habit- ual training. A certain painter had so dis- ciplined himself to concentrated attention that he required but one sitting of his sub- ject. Then, with a perfect mental picture of his subject, he painted the details on the canvas. Psychological drudgery will re- ward one with great results. Herein lies genius, because genius is born in the travail of thought. 43 Ill ANTHROPOLOGY Every ethnic builds its civilization around its religion and its language. — Mutter. CHAPTER VIII DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN NATURE Anthropology is the science of human nature considered in groups and nations. The common facts of a people form a psychic character. There is always a sort of system of ideas producing certain traits or characteristics in a race or nation. So, if we would comprehend the entirety of humanity, we must observe those fundamen- tal principles which are common to human- ity in general, so far as we are able to know them. There are three distinct factors that con- tribute to the development of human nature, namely, race, environment, and epoch. Observe, for example, the Aryan or Semitic races. After centuries of change they show a community of blood which binds them to- gether in racial unity. Environment also 47 HUMAN NATURE lays hold of a man as soon as he is born. He is obliged to submit to the conditions of his birth, and personally acquires a social char- acter and temperament. So also he is born in those conditions of time, without his choice, that constitute an order of life for him. These combined forces produce a type of human nature for that tribe or nation. But there are two special factors which work with great influence among all classes — religion and language. Taine, in his His- tory of English Literature, presents a psychological map of the development of the Anglo-Saxon race which may stand as a type of the development of all races. The primary causes that wrought in the civiliza- tion of England and of all English-speaking nations have shaped the character of all peo- ples. The furious Jutes, those pirates of a man-hunting kind, made murder not only a trade but a pastime. Viking chiefs who never slept under a peaceful roof laughed at Waves and storms. The blasts of the tempest aided their oars, and the hurricane was their servant. "We hewed with our swords," sang 48 DEVELOPMENT an old song. One may wonder that after four thousand years human nature was still in this gross barbarism. Were there no races that had risen above it? The surviving fragments of ancient literature hint at the rise and fall of many nations which had reached a high state of civilization; and in English history are shown the causes that worked in the case of all races. Let us briefly trace this process of development. The Saxon conquest brought in from Ger- many new blood and new culture. Saxon ideas and heroics, Saxon earnestness and love of order blended with the grosser British temper. Roman Catholic missionaries found a people already predisposed to receive their doctrines. Caedmon, their poet, sang the praise of the new God from a strong though barbarous heart. He was the father of English Christian poetry, in which was blended pagan imagery. In 1066 the Nor- man invasion set up a new order of social life. A new style of literature took the place of the coarse and abrupt Saxon poetry. The Saxon poets had painted war as a 49 HUMAN NATURE murderous fury, but the Norman poets made it a tourney. Though the root re- mained Saxon, the old Saxon became Nor- manized. This compromise represented a new type of mind, and became the founda- tion of modern English. While the riotous spirit of the age was later in constant con- flict with clergy and government, and while Robin Hood with his band of cutthroats was the hero of the populace, the seeds of the Reformation were being sown. Wickliffe appears and translates the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into the old Saxon English, and the new tongue was soon the established speech of the people. Geoffrey Chaucer became the founder of English poetry and, indeed, the real founder of the Anglo-Saxon language. Human nature gained many degrees in psychological activity. The Canterbury Tales exhibit not only the art of Chaucer but more espe- cially the plain common sense of the English mind and its aptitude for subjective thought. Chaucer is on the brink of a new psychologi- cal discovery. Living two centuries before 50 DEVELOPMENT the days of Elizabeth, yet he is in close affinity with the poets of her age. Then scholastic philosophy, like a worm in fruit, ate out the heart of literature, and religion that had been a warm stream of life con- gealed into a hard crystal. But the dawn of a Renaissance broke. It began to shine in the days of Elizabeth. The War of the Roses had ended; peace rested on England. Printing was discovered; the mariner's compass had led to the discovery of the American continent; commerce de- veloped; the name of "merrie England" became familiar; classic literature was studied; the philosophy of Francis Bacon began to dominate the ideas of scholars. An age of poetic idealism commenced, a very efflorescence of poetic vitality, led by Sur- rey, Sidney, and Spenser. Then the Renais- sance found its level in intellectual facts; a new class of thinkers, such as Burton and a host of others, took the field; and Ben John- son heralded the coming of that mighty dramatic genius, Shakespeare. All others sink into insignificance in com- 51 HUMAN NATURE parison with him. What produced him? We must put the emphasis on his environ- ment. The age he lived in made him. That is to say, the remarkable capacities he in- herited as potences were developed by his environment. He would have been an im- possible product in any prior age. No one makes himself; no one can develop his capacities alone. So Shakespeare stands as the exponent of the possibilities of his age. One has only to read the record of his life, his social career, as given in the brief notes of his friends concerning him, to be con- vinced of this fact. But he was prophetic of a higher and better age that was to suc- ceed. His inventive genius created an ideal world that far transcended his age. He thought and talked its language. It seemed a dream at the time, but human nature has since realized it. So all this literary development was a stage in the evolution of human nature. Its religious capacities kept pace with the in- tellectual, and through the same process of culture. By slow advances, with many set- 52 DEVELOPMENT backs, the English race was waiting for the full tide. In English history religion is seen to gain its freedom from traditional enslavement through the evolving power of culture. And this culture made possible the Pilgrim Fathers and prepared the way for American liberty. So the literature of the English people epitomizes the evolution of human nature from its racial beginnings, as we may see from a study of the fragments of racial literature. 53 CHAPTER IX ORIENTAL PSYCHOLOGY The philosophy of human life can only be learned from the philosophy of its his- tory. Mere historic data give no knowledge of the mentality of the actors. Why did the men of history act as they did? What did they think of human life? What were the mental processes by which they formed their conclusions? And what was the relation of their intuitional action to their intellectual? We shall expect to find their mental make- up in the record of their living. The philosophy of their lives may largely be in- ferred from their recorded actions. To get into the inner life of a people of the past we are limited to the fragments of literature that have survived the "siftings of time." But these fragments are records 54 ORIENTAL PSYCHOLOGY only of the objective side of life. The few glimpses they give us of the inner life of the ancients show how little men knew of them- selves and how little thought they gave to the "inner springs of action." Turning to these fragments of history, and following as far as possible the chronological order of de- velopment, we notice : 1. The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Assy- ria. These are found on clay tablets dug from the mounds of that Eastern land. They afford a literature older than any other, and carry us back to at least B. C. 3000. They contain an epic relating to the exploits of Izdubar, his conquest of Erich, his rule over it, as king, and his love adven- tures with Ishta, the goddess of love. He is intensely religious, his piety being intuitive rather than inspired by theological beliefs. His psychic intuitions are especially mani- fest in his apprehension of the constant presence in his life of spiritual beings. A translation in verse of the overthrow of Erich and Ishta's lament show the pathos of the writer and the anguish of Ishta: 55 HUMAN NATURE O Erich, dear Erich, my beautiful home, Accadia's pride, bright land of the bard, Come back to my vision, dear Erich, O come, Fair land of my birth, how thy beauty is marred ! From this poem and from numerous in- scriptions we infer that the Accadians were largely developed in intuitive experience and made much of the inner life. 2. The Five Classics of China. These are claimed by some Oriental writers to be older than the clay tablets of Assyria. In these ancient literary productions is set forth the range of thought of the Chinese. The oldest of the books recognize a divine Personality, while the later writings ignore all reference to Deity. Not to act is the secret of all power. By not acting one identifies himself with Tao. The mentality that can satisfy itself with contradictions must be sadly atrophied. The evidence is clear that the mental growth of the Chinese, like its language, was arrested in the early days of their history. 3. The Hindu Psychology. This is most 56 ORIENTAL PSYCHOLOGY difficult to understand. It is a vast world of ideas, with no unity. It is an intellectual cult, but is principally concerned with its intuitive conceptions. Every mental activ- ity seems centered in its intuitions, not only for the verification of intellectual conclu- sions but as an end. The Hindus have a rich literature, but no historic annals. Their philosophy is acute, but is associated with the coarsest superstitions. An ultra one- sided idealism governs all thought. "There is nothing but God" is the text of all reason- ing. To reach Nirvana, with the loss of per- sonal identity and responsibility, is the end of human life. Buddhism is a revolt of the Indian mind from this paralysis of the in- tellect. Its supreme belief is in the infinite capacity of the soul. The meaning of "Buddha" is "the Intelligent One." Eman- cipation from change and decay is by intui- tive knowledge, and this knowledge is to be attained by introspection and purity of life. The system is, of course, of mental training. Man becomes by this training everything in his psychic nature, and God is nothing. 57 HUMAN NATURE Religion is pure morality, and the chief article of faith is "Karma," which means that every act done in one life entails its re- sults in another. 4. The Zend-Avesta of the Persians. Here we find a psychology based on the conception of an eternal conflict between right and wrong as two principles of human nature. The contest engages all the powers. All mental activities are objective in con- sciousness, and but little attention is given to intuitive experience. Herodotus says of this people: "The Persians have no altars, no temples; they worship on the tops of mountains; they adore the heavens, and sacrifice to the sun." They represent by the name of Ormuzd the principle of good, and by the name of Ahriman, the principle of evil. This dualism confuses the mind in its canvass of the question of responsibility, and cuts away the foundations of human free- dom. 5. The Literature of Egypt. This indi- cates a wide intellectual activity. Egypt was early renowned for its discoveries in art 58 ORIENTAL PSYCHOLOGY and science. It was the world's university, where Moses and Pythagoras and Plato studied. It witnessed the greatest mental activity of any age of human life till its time. Every event was written down, so that we have preserved in writing the daily habits and manner of life of forty-five cen- turies. "Everything," says Maury, "took the stamp of religion." But their religion was represented by symbols, and these were interpreted by a sensuous intellect. Hence their psychic study was from the intellectual viewpoint; their intuitions were not taken into account. They offered prayers for the dead because they thought their dead needed help. Their psychic conceptions made their theology. Their divinities were concrete personalities because they thought in con- crete symbols. Nature as the objective manifestations of Deity held their attention and objectified their conceptions. 6. The Hebrew Literature. This people built their civilization on the conception of the unity of Deity. That conception was re- ceived from Abraham, the founder of their 59 HUMAN NATURE race, who had cultivated his religious capac- ity to the degree of apprehending a per- sonal Divine Presence in his life. This view he so fully enforced upon his posterity that it became a forming force in the make-up of their national mentality. Their mental activity was largely intuitive; they lived mostly in the subjective realm, and conse- quently were open to the divine manifesta- tions. This monotheistic conception not only ruled their moral conduct but was also the formative factor in molding their thinking. For four hundred years it grew into their racial life so deeply that no polytheistic en- vironment could erase it. When the Israel- ites organized their national life under the leadership of Moses this conception, which had become a settled habit of thought, took on an objective form. This was doubtless partly due to the Egyptian education of Moses, who was trained to the objective ex- pression of thought, but principally because with a national regimen it became necessary to express their thought in formal symbols. Their divinities were now conceived as 60 ORIENTAL PSYCHOLOGY bodily personalities because they had become accustomed to think in concrete symbols. Natural forms held their attention and ob- jectified their conceptions. Whatever the facts in the case, in Hebrew literature He- brew thought is expressed in material sym- bols. They had not learned to think in terms of spiritual imagery. But in the reigns of David and Solomon there came a renaissance. The poets and seers of that age became acquainted with the intuitive realm and were able to think in spiritual terms, though the poverty of human lan- guage required the use of material symbols, as will perhaps always be the case. The He- brew poetry is the language of the inner life of the people. In this the poet expressed his intuitive conceptions of reality. Into this intuitive realm the seer also enters to re- ceive his message by divine suggestion, and translates that message into the idiomatic language of his time. In this Hebrew renaissance is given a hint of the gradual development of intuitive mentality. 61 CHAPTER X WESTERN MENTALITY Contemporary with Judaism on the border of Europe began a system of thought that strove to do for the Aryan race what religious thought was doing for the Semitic. But while Hebrew thought began and cen- tered in a monotheistic conception of Deity, the Greeks started from material nature. The four primary elements, earth, air, water, and fire, contained the original, immutable substance out of which all things proceeded. Man was an integral part of the material universe and subject to the same laws. Hence the human mind must be constructed on the same plan as the universe. A cosmic philosophy, with mind as material "stuff" or substance, was the original theory. But, as intelligence must transcend the raw material, the very exercise of thinking drove man up out of the material order. The Sophists abandoned the old Eleatic founda- 62 WESTERN MENTALITY tion and found in man "the measure of all things." This was an advance, yet it was but a day's journey. It left all things as the sport of chance; something more immutable than changing man must be the measure of life. Socrates sought for the stable in the inner life of man. He was not satisfied to take the changing opinions of men as the measure of human life. He thought he had found the immutable, unchanging reality in the intui- tive axioms of the soul, which was the su- preme arbiter of all thought. This opened a new and higher view of life. The world of sensuous perception that had ruled the men- tal activities of past ages retreated more and more from view, and a world of intuitive perception took its place. Soul became the essence of being; consciousness became the organ of knowledge. While reality was composed of essence, yet reality had thrown off its material dress. This essence Plato called the "idea." Here was a discovery that there was a realm of reality beyond the opinions of men. The 63 HUMAN NATURE standard of measurement was now shifted from the outer to the inner man. But the soul had not yet escaped from the fatalistic embrace of materiality. For, while Plato saw truth only in an entire separation of the idea from form, Aristotle insisted that being and its form were inseparable. The spirit, in his view, must not only have its clothing, but they were one; the body is the supreme master of the soul ; intuition is nothing with- out intellect to express it ; the soul has no ex- istence separate from the body. A material psychology grew out of this philosophy. Mentality became materialized and lost all worth as pure thought; sensuous perception was the only road to knowledge. In Plato the intuitional world was again brought to view. The inner life burst the barriers that had suppressed it, and was set free to apprehend a divine association. But the reaction became extreme. Other- worldliness was accentuated. The super- natural became a mighty force in human thought. To experience a mystic union with the Divine was reckoned the greatest good. 64 WESTERN MENTALITY Still, this was not the Christianity even of that day. It was the old subordination of man to the universe. What the age wanted and what it must have to completely fill its longing was the creation of a distinctively new world of reality and ethical values. Christianity entered human life for one purpose — to create this new world by re- generating the inner life of man. Its prin- cipal function was and is to introduce new and better "springs of action" in human nature and to furnish a permanent bond of union in the social life. The first part of this work is the divine energizing of the religious capacity of the soul; the latter is the divine ideal of human perfection set forth as an absolute standard of human conduct. This work of inward culture Jesus commenced and carried on during his ministry. The essence of his teachings was the establish- ment of a new order of society which he named "the kingdom of God." The begin- ning of this new order was the rectification of the intuitive nature by introducing the leavening energy of the Divine Presence. - 65 HUMAN NATURE By its own power this leaven would correct and direct the whole outward conduct of each individual who accepted it; and from this would radiate a power to unify society. Thus human nature takes on a new order of life and puts itself under a new law of living. This new teaching of Jesus must be put to the test of critical analysis. The human soul, enlightened by its inward regeneration, de- mands to know the grounds of this new faith. So Christian philosophy, under the bias of Greek thought, undertook this analysis. Origen began a speculative search for the grounds of Christian faith. The reality of Christ's teaching, he assumed is "in the es- sence of the ideas he taught." It is not realized in his language itself; it, rather, in- heres in the ethical greatness and influence of his ideas. Origen's theology so prevailed that, according to Harnack, "the history of dogma and of the church during the follow- ing centuries is in the Orient the history of Origen's philosophy." To Gregory of Nyssa was due the formulation of the doc- trine of the Trinity. The growing influence 66 WESTERN MENTALITY of the Latin element in Christianity led gradually to the ecclesiastical system of church organization. Augustine, in his The City of God, demolished the anthropomor- phic conception of God; but in order to do that he must destroy the idea of the theo- morphism of man ; and to emphasize both he must make clear the antithesis. To utterly separate God from man, except as he reveals himself in language, is to place him as a transcendent Sovereign wholly outside this creation, and so entirely separate from man. This conception is Platonic, and makes God the reality of an idea only; but from this conception Augustine worked out a theo- logical fatalism that has more or less domi- nated the religious thought of all the sub- sequent ages. Anselm, in the eleventh cen- tury, formulated out of the philosophy of Augustine what is called the doctrine of "atonement," which was an attempt to show why God has done for a few of the human race what he has always done for all man- kind. During all the Middle Ages the Mystics maintained alive pure religion be- 67 HUMAN NATURE cause they avoided all speculative theology and kept their thought within the realm of intuitive experience. They cultivated the re- ligious capacity by feeding the inner life with the intuitive revelations of God. By this means they reduced religion to a mys- ticism without sufficient rational ground for thought, while the psychology of religion was limited to intuitive experience alone. But that experience was a mighty force in human life which waited for some qualified leader to guide it out into action. 68 CHAPTER XI MODERN PSYCHOLOGY With the coming of Sir Francis Bacon there dawns a new psychological world. A blind reverence for the past because it is old no longer holds the mind in subjection. But the break is more than a separation; it in- volves a new creation, a new system of thought based upon the absolute freedom of the will. Reality is no longer deduced from hypothesis' but is discovered lying in the facts of life, and when induced passes the test of experience. Bacon's aphorism, "Knowledge is power," comes from the fact that knowledge is intuitive experience. Then awakens the spirit of discovery and in- vention. Kepler and Galileo map a new heavens ; the invention of the mariner's com- pass opens the way for the discovery of a new continent. Human nature waits for a leader to publish the larger thought. 69 HUMAN NATURE SucK a leader appears in the person of Descartes. He is the father of a self -inter- preting psychology, which bases itself in the constitutional capacity of intuitive insight clothed in the form of intellectual reason. Here is made clear the fact that the soul is conscious activity and that this activity is self -centered because it is always rounding back upon itself. Human nature acquires an autonomy and an independence by its endowment with freedom. This Cartesian conception of the soul is the beginning of the new world of thought. Religion felt the effect of this discovery, for in the inner self there was an immediate human and divine communion. Pascal voices this conscious- ness when he says : "If you ever find God, you will find him in your soul; and what a communion is set up when the discovery is made I" Another effect of this autonomy of human nature is the transference of the basis of ethics from theology to psychology. It, for instance, rejects the authority of tradition and builds upon intuitive knowledge ; it turns 70 MODERN PSYCHOLOGY from the motives of future rewards and punishments to the reward lying in the con- sciousness of right doing. The economical view of ethical conduct rising from this theory is set forth by Adam Smith, who looks upon life from its objective side, who makes the senses the basis of living, and who leaves out of consideration the inner springs of action. But this sensuous view of life, which grounded itself in the autonomy of human nature, contained too much of bald intellectualism to satisfy the spiritual wants of the soul. A return to a more subjective view of life originated with Kant. He strives to find a new basis of morality. Instead of our ideas conforming to objective things, things should conform to our ideas of them. That is to say, we should know things only as they enter into our thought and intuition. The great advance made by the movement was in the changing of reality from object to subject. Man is no longer merely a part of a system that holds him in bondage, but he is the system itself. From him as a center 71 HUMAN NATURE proceed tKe laws that direct his life. He himself is the world-builder of thought and experience. The secret of Hegel's power is in combin- ing a right system of thought with a wealth of intuition; and the value of that combina- tion is that it is made to serve the interests of a social democracy. But the tragedies of human life keep in constant view its con- tradictions. Human experience has to do with objective realities. One cannot get away from his physical conditions ; the work- shop is his place. Hence realism assumes the direction of living; life takes on an ob- jective attitude, and limits thought to the world of immediate observation. Mill and Spencer are the apostles of the nineteenth century realism. The intuitions are sub- merged beneath the cold intellectualism of the times. The doctrine of evolution as it came from the brain of Darwin and Spencer was an at- tempt to fasten human nature in the grasp of material realism. Nature, that in the past had been known as a cosmos under the regi- 72 MODERN PSYCHOLOGY men of a divinely personal supervision, was suddenly surrendered to a blind force im- personal and unknowable. Thought, that had claimed an autonomy of direction, must now submit to a "natural selection" that acknowledged no Selector. Human nature, that had formerly looked for direction to a divine Manager, must now look to the law of the "survival of the fittest." Now, this doctrine, whether scientific or not, is one that human nature has no great interest in, for, by this theor3 r , the inner life has no value; the only right is the might of the strongest to "survive the struggle of life." But the doctrine had in it a worm of destruction, when Spencer admitted that there is "an eternal Energy by which all things consist." This admission is recognized by John Fiske, the modern expounder of Spencer's philos- ophy. In his revision of the doctrine he puts in the place of a "blind force" a per- sonal, eternal Energy, which he declares may be named God. This restores rationality to the doctrine and makes it harmonize with experience. 73 HUMAN NATURE A more rational solution of human life is found in giving cosmic nature a spiritual basis, making it part of a larger system of which the psychic is the head. The psychic is such an indisputable part of experience that its claim to primacy cannot be ignored. Besides, every system of materialism car- ries the worm of its own destruction in itself". Nothing satisfies human nature that does not stand the test of experience; when the events of a purely material life fail in the test, the system itself fails. Several causes have combined to revive the spirit of idealism. One is that the soul instinctively rejects a purely utilitarian theory of morality. The personal advantage in living a moral life is not a sufficient answer to the question, Why should I be moral? Another cause is a growing tend- ency to organize spiritual forces into a psychic whole. Subjectivism is a retreat of the soul from the tyranny of realistic en- croachments, and is an unfolding of the inner life. While subjective feeling alone cannot be the whole of life, it is also true 74 MODERN PSYCHOLOGY that the function of feeling is to nourish and inspire to action all the capacities of the soul. But the greatest transforming factor at work in human life is the deep- seated conviction that behind all seen and known agencies there are spiritual forces molding human destiny. 75 CHAPTER XII RELATION OF COSMIC TO PSYCHIC NATURE Is cosmic nature hostile, indifferent, or beneficent to man? The final and only satisfactory answer is found in the experi- ence of humanity. We find ourselves living in a world of changing, shifting scenes; we seem to be only spectators of all cosmic operations; these go on wholly indifferent to our psychic needs, our joys and sorrows, our prosperity or ruin. And they are equally indifferent as to whether we are saints or sinners. The rains and sunshine, the healthy air or the malarial epidemic are the lot of all alike, without regard to the moral attitude. The hardest problem of faith is the seeming atheistical meaning of cosmic action. This is why Spencer in his First Principles could find no personality in the cause of phenomena, but only "an eternal energy by which all things consist." In the 76 COSMIC AND PSYCHIC NATURE sweep of epidemics, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the blasts of heated tempera- ture the forces of nature appear arrayed against human life with malignant hostility, as expressed by the poet: If but some vengeful god would call to me From out the sky, and laugh, "Thou sufferer Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, That thy love's loss is my keenest profit" — Then would I bear, and clasp myself, and die, Steeled by the sense of an unmerited [fate]. This seeming hostility of the elements makes faith more difficult, leading Mill in his Essay on Religion to lay down the propo- sition that if God were omnipresent, the just law would be that each person's share of suffering would be in exact proportion to that person's deeds. But does this indifference and even hos- tility of cosmic nature express the real ex- perience of life? There is another side. Experience testifies to the beneficent design found in the provisions for the comfort and happiness of men. Consider the materia medica abundantly existing for therapeutic 77 HUMAN NATURE purposes, which even animals recognize and to which they resort for help, and which medical science adopts as the basis of all cures. Surely there is in this no indifference, much less of hostility, to man. Mark also the beneficent design apparent in the har- mony and persistence of cosmic laws, by which man regulates his lifework and with- out which there would be no assurance of a to-morrow. Still more, observe the har- monious combination of earth, air, and water, as if arranged especially for the com- fort and longevity of man. And not least see the working of the cosmic forces for the removal of malarious conditions and the turning of its hostility into benevolent action. The charge that cosmic nature is unmoral in its constitution and action, and therefore indifferent to the life of man, is not an ob- jection to its claim of benevolent design. Suppose that physical nature were built on moral laws, what must result to human life? Suppose that disaster depended upon moral conduct, that to the moral man all the ele- 78 COSMIC AND PSYCHIC NATURE merits were propitious, that needed rains fell only on his land in mild showers, that the germination of seeds responded only to his sowing, that all cosmic activities were so gauged as to exempt the just invariably from all calamity; suppose all this benefi- cent care for the one class, while direct retri- bution fell immediately on the sinner because nature was built on strictly moral lines, what must be the basis of morality? Must it not be prudence? Must not the ground of virtue be what could be gained and what could be avoided by being moral? What kind of character would be grown out of this mo- tive? Is not this unmoral world, whose forces act impartially and whose rains fall on all alike, the only kind of a world in which man may achieve character? The great world "choice" is the key to character. The cosmic world is indeed unmoral, but a bene- ficent design runs through all its processes, which the Divine uses to help our choice. Let us pause a moment and see how cos- mic nature comes to the aid of the psychic in the getting of knowledge. First of all, 79 HUMAN NATURE it furnishes the raw material through the sense organs which we name "percepts." These are passed on to the laboratory of the reason, which forms several percepts into a composite picture named a "concept." Thus, what was the raw material of the sensuous life becomes by this constructive process psychic knowledge and the cause of volition. But not all knowledge takes this course. That which is called "intuitive" is imme- diate. It rises spontaneously; it is an in- born power of the soul, ready organized at birth; it is the foundation of experience. The genetic potencies are related to the cosmic forces, but do not end in them. They capture the field of feeling and occupy the domain of the intellect. From their energy arise the great geniuses of history. The in- ventor, the artist, the orator who sways the multitude are all born of them. Religion in these modern times is finding its affinities with cosmic forces. Her thinkers have always felt that "matter is full of spirit." But it is only since the im- 80 COSMIC AND PSYCHIC NATURE manence of God has become a canon of belief that the true interpretation of the doc- trine, "God is in all his works," has become possible. The human spirit is in constant interaction with the cosmic world. Primi- tive man living close to nature feels the touch of its fire. His conceptions must neces- sarily be crude; but he "sees God in clouds and hears him in the winds." He makes a "totem" to represent his feelings. Sym- bols are necessary in his worship, and it is worthy of note that the necessity of sym- bolism continues through all ages of reli- gious progress. The Greek altar, erected to the "unknown God," the Hebrew animal sacrifices, the Roman Catholic images of Christ and saints, and the Protestant cross are all symbols of worship, showing the per- sistent relation of the psychic to the cosmic nature. Religious emotions are a stronger illus- tration of this relation. The religious life is largely fed by them, as they arise from perceptions of the beautiful and the sublime in nature's operations. "The undevout 81 HUMAN NATURE astronomer is mad," said Newton. Reli- gious cults depend largely upon emotion, especially in the beginning of their propa- gandism. When the flame of Methodism was kindled in New England, burning in the dry stubble of traditional theology, Emerson defined it as "morality set on fire with emotion." It is a remarkable psycho- logical fact that the sect which cultivates the emotional side of religion takes the lead in converting the multitude to its faith. Not so much that the Spirit uses the emotions, as he evidently does, but because the emo- tions relate the soul to nature. The human will consents to the divine rule, "through nature up to nature's God." 82 CHAPTER XIII UNITY AND CONTINUITY OF HUMAN NATURE Human nature must be studied as a unit, and not as to individual lives, for a correct view of it. While each man forms his own character, he is obliged to do this in the en- vironment and under the laws of society. He must yield up much of his individuality to the social order. He is gregarious, not by volition and for protection, but by the necessity of his being. His adaptations and natural instincts compel him to a social order. And hence it follows that human nature must be studied as a unit. The flow of human nature is toward a finished manhood. The model of that man- hood is Jesus. The Master of men was much concerned about a completed man- hood as conceived in the unity of humanity. All spiritual endowments one might receive 83 HUMAN NATURE had but one purpose, that purpose being the development in humanity of its highest character. For Jesus taught that all mental, moral, and religious endowment was a preparation that one might do his part in the bringing of human nature to a finished manhood. The history of human life verifies this statement. The trend is toward the grow- ing recognition of human brotherhood. How quickly the natural instinct of help- fulness is aroused by any great calamity occurring to a nation or city! A famine in India or China instantly calls forth the overflowing sympathy of the more pros- perous. The conflagration of cities like Chicago and San Francisco was responded to by the pouring out of help without measure. All such manifestations of broth- erly feeling indicate that in the bond of human relationship "all men are of kin," and the results of such sympathetic activi- ties are found in the increased moral virtue of all those participating in the giving. The primitive unit of human nature is the 84 UNITY AND CONTINUITY family, where the instinct of unity is espe- cially developed. A larger unit of manhood is found in the case of a tribe or nation; the spirit of patriotism merges many fami- lies into a national unity. A still larger unit of manhood, bearing the marks of a similar nature, is that of all nations born of the same blood and constituting a compo- site humanity. True, the conflict which is now disintegrating all Europe and throw- ing each nation back into a separate unit seems to deny any real oneness of humanity and to show that a confederated unity of the whole race of man is but a "rope of sand." But we do well to remember that this ter- rible outbreak of savagery is, rather, a re- lapse into the original, undeveloped state of primitive man. The normal spirit of de- veloped humanity is seen in the quickness with which the sympathies of the other na- tions of the world are aroused. Neutral America exhibits this spirit in the shiploads of supplies sent for the relief of the Euro- pean sufferers, because of the latent feeling of a common brotherhood. 85 HUMAN NATURE It is obvious that the unity of human nature does not require any formal same- ness of individuals. A diversity of forms exists in all unities. The dynamic forces which cement the individual atoms into a sameness constitute the bond of union. As, in the case of a mighty current, the force of gravitation guides all the confluent branches into one stream, whatever different substances are held in solution, so the energy of life makes human nature a unit of that energy. The continuity of human nature is to be inferred from its unity. The divine pur- pose which created humanity gives no hint that it was simply an experiment; but, rather, like all other types of cosmic nature, humanity carries the same evidence of con- tinuity. Let us think of this continuity of human nature as a circle rather than a tan- gent. The circle shall be our symbol of evolution. It is an eternal flow, without end or beginning. The dynamic that flows in the circle is the divine life-energy. The psychic energy of humanity starts at any 86 UNITY AND CONTINUITY point conceivable and continues to flow with this current of divine energy. True, the individual by his choice may refuse to flow in harmony with the current. But human- ity as a unit is under the power of an eternal purpose. This is what we mean by the con- tinuity of human nature. The law of human life is that he who self- ishly withholds his life shall lose it, while he who loses his life individually by blend- ing it with that of others shall keep it eternally. This study is not to discuss the destiny of the lost or of the saved, but is to emphasize the great truth that human nature is God-centered and is put by a divine pur- pose in the flow of psychic evolution. So it is led up to partake of the divine nature, and is thus inspired to increased usefulness. And we may add that we are not thinking in this study so much of individual happi- ness or misery as that the great unit of psychic humanity is under the lead of a divine Energy whose purpose is to make it somewhat worth while for a divine beginning. 87 IV RELIGIOUSNESS IN HUMAN NATURE "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal Life." — Jesus. CHAPTER XIV THE RELIGIOUS CAPACITY At first some will shrink from an attempt to discuss religion from the standpoint of psychology. But we have a current phi- losophy of religion, and why not a psy- chology of religion? Since psychology is the study of the soul, and since the soul is the principal factor in religion, why not study religion with what knowledge we have of the soul? Religion is the psychological ap- prehension and worship of some spiritual power that obtrudes itself upon our con- sciousness. We cannot comprehend it; we may not name it; we simply apprehend the fact that a "Somewhat not of ourselves that makes for righteousness" is immanent. This power to apprehend a spiritual manifesta- tion may be termed a religious capacity. It is not born of revelation, as some assert; neither is it originated at conversion; it is 91 HUMAN NATURE principally intuitional, rather than rational. We know God, first of all, by intuitively apprehending his immanence. The instinct of worship is universal in human life. In the primitive stage there is the intuition of the presence of invisible power. The instinct is indefinable, but real to consciousness. The feeling is that of awe and fear, and worship is largely in the form of effort to placate the divinity by offerings. The invisible powers are regarded as imma- nent in every object of nature. Savage tribes still in the primitive stage ask the question, "What is this something that is the object of my fear?" They are begin- ning their education in religion. Bishop Taylor, who spent so many years with the savages, declared that "the heathen are in the school of the Spirit." But when men begin to reason about the divine powers their method is to theologize and formulate their ideas into beliefs. The history of human life, so far as we have it in literature, shows the gradual ful- fillment of past interpretations of God. 92 THE RELIGIOUS CAPACITY Christ came to make more complete what was but imperfectly revealed in Judaism. It has been in the "fullness of time" that every new and larger revelation has come. This has been given to meet the growing needs of human life; the hunger of the human heart to know more of God and his will, as men have been able to apprehend it, has ever been met by a clearer manifes- tation of that will. God did not leave the world for ages ignorant of himself ; but in every period holy men "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." In the fragments of ancient liter- ature which remain are found some of the divine lessons given men, according to their capacity to apprehend them. The epic poem of "Izdubar," recently translated from the brick tablets dug from the mounds of the Assyrian valley, give us a glimpse of the religiousness of that age. So, in the Zend- Avesta of the early Persians, the Five Classics of ancient China, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Rig-Vedas of India, the Eddas of Scandinavia, the Hebrew 93 HUMAN NATURE writings of Palestine, and the New Testa- ment of Christianity are contained fresh lessons of divine revelation in increasing clearness for the culture of human religious- ness; and the capability to apprehend these revelations has kept pace therewith. It is not fair to cast aside as fiction all the as- sumed divineness of racial revelations and accept as divine the Hebrew revelation, which is equally a race religion. The study of all these revelations is necessary, in the effort to understand the development of the religious capacity. The evolution of the religious capacity culminates in ethical character. The aim of the great Teacher of religion was to bring his followers up to his level of equitable Tightness. The perfection in righteousness which any disciple must reach, in order to belong to his "Kingdom," is a trustworthi- ness of character. This wealth of character is the highest attainment of the religious capacity; it is the end of evolution. 94 CHAPTER XV MEANING OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE Several philosophies of religion have been given to the world to show that religion Jias a lawful place in the rational experience of life. In one of his works the late Bishop Foster makes the distinction between a "Christian experience" and "an experience of Christianity." But he fails to show that the facts of a Christian experience are suffi- cient to cover the ground of all religious experience, because those facts are of a cer- tain class which may not be common to all forms of religion but only to the Christian faith. What is needed, in setting forth a philosophy of religious experience, is to gather the facts common to all experiences and to so classify them as to reach the gen- eral principles of all religious experience. The first thing in this study is to deter- mine what we mean by "experience." It is 95 HUMAN NATURE defined as a test or mental trial of anv • proposition made to us by which we judge its reality and adaptation to our use. A religious experience, therefore, ia the trial of any revelation made to us as to its reality and adaptability. One can consequently have a special Christian experience by the trial of the special forces that the Christian revelation provides. In the matter of char- acter, therefore, experience stands for what experiment stands in science. They are both the test of the reality and worth of the propositions made to them. Religious ex- perience, it may be added, is common to all rt'_.r: ins. In the last quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury speculative optimism gathered its cur- rent from many confluent streams such as Berkeleian idealism, Emersonianism, Chr. - tian Science, and Mind Cure or the thera- peutic power of suggestion. All of these speculations agree in one point, namely, that, to get rid of harrowing fear and to reach the rest of faith, "there is nothing but God, and he is good." E^il, thev hold, is a RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE lie. or. at the most, it is a negation. There- fore we are not to reason about it, but are to leave it and pass oil The best repentance is to be ' ; up and act for righteousness." And one cannot fail to see a similarity between this optimistic attitude and some so-called "evangelistic" methods of the present day. Let us now turn to the pessimistic philosophy which holds that evil is a foreign intrusion which must be expelled- It cannot be ignored, nor adjusted to any lyilm of happiness; it requires a supernatural force for its removal ; it is so ingrained by hered:~ that it is the despair of men and the rival of God. With this philosophy we may expect to find a variety of experiences. Listen to Luther : T am utterly weary of life. I pray the Lord that he will come and carry me home. Let him come with his last judg- ment: the thunder will break, and I shall be at re-* Or Robert Louis Stevenson writes: ''There is an element in human destiny that not blindnes- itself can contro- vert Whatever else we are intended to do, we are not intended to succeed; failure is HUMAN NATURE intended." Or, said another of this class: "The trouble with me is that I believe too much in human happiness and goodness, and nothing can console me." Thus, through long years of morbid experience, this pessi- mism is in the heart of every materialistic philosophy. "The world is on the down- grade and full of misery," it says; "there is no God; or if there is, he made the world to mock its inhabitants." But it is different with Christianity. While, no doubt, it has a pessimistic side, since sin is a stubborn fact and must be expelled as an evil from human life, the glory of Christianity is that it is a system of deliverance and that its normal note is a shout of victory. The main difference between these two classes of optimists and pessimists is that the one lives in a world which to him is a world of unity conserved by a beneficent order, while the other finds mankind under the domination of a duality of powers which are at strife. The optimist seeks to be "born from above" by the addition of the "plus" or highest qualities of life. Paul's "What 98 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE I would that do I not, but what I hate that do I" is the self-conscious approval of the ideal good that he does not reach in conduct and his disapproval of the conduct that he does attain. Both of these classes are honestly seeking a unity with God — one by receiving the "plus" gifts of the Spirit of Life, the other by such a change in himself as kills the carnal nature and sets up the rule of God in his life. The place of suffering in a psychological order of being is a question arising in a study of human nature. The fact of suffer- ing is so universal in human life that, besides the reason found in the violation of law, there ought to be discovered a psychological ground for it. We know that it is not con- fined to the department of physical pain, but that there are mental sufferings far more acute than any physical sensations. This was the nature of the sufferings of Christ, who "hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." But there is a moral side to suf- fering, as there is to all the problems of life. We may take one of two alternatives: we 99 HUMAN NATURE may passively yield ourselves to its influence, or we may struggle against its power to subject us and may use it for self -develop- ment. The first way leads to Nirvana; the second to strenuousness of character. Like Paul, may we not "glory in tribulations" for the strengthening of our soul fiber? And in our sympathetic sufferings for others may we not imitate Jesus who, "for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despis- ing the shame"? Is it not cowardice to run from suffering or to surrender without a manly resistance ? In the struggle for char- acter it is better to square ourselves with the issues of life as they come. The psychology of evil must be studied apart from any theological bias. To sum up the Hebrew conception of sin, the classi- fication was: (1) The unintentional and ignorant missing of the right, to which no personal guilt was attached; (2) personal, intentional wrongdoing, by omitting to do some known duty, or by purposely refusing to do the right and choosing to do the wrong, in which instances the "intention" was the 100 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE prime element in the offense and sin against another was counted as done against God or the State. Turning to the Greek Scrip- tures, we find the same generalization. But the term amartia is a more definite term than the Hebrew chattaw. It confines itself almost wholly to personal intentional wrong- doing; it does not call ignorant, uninten- tional wrongdoing a sin. But it emphasizes the inherited propension as a dual power working in human nature against the intel- lectual judgment of the soul and subjecting the will to evil volitions. And, while Jesus did not teach this dual power of sin, but made it to consist wholly in the intention of the sinner, organized Christianity follows the psychology of Paul, the founder of Christian theology, whose idea of this dual power is set forth in the seventh chapter of Romans. Greek moralists located the seat of evil in the organic propension; modern psychol- ogists find the propelling power of motive in propension. But the appetence itself has no moral quality; it seeks to obtain some- 101 HUMAN NATURE thing either good or bad that the soul de- sires; the moral quality is in the intention. Many motives clamor for attention, and the will chooses which it will follow. The choice is made with a positive intention of doing right or wrong. The sin is not located in the appetence, for that has no moral quality ; it is not in the intellectual idea of something desirable; it must inhere in the purpose of the soul to realize what the appetence craves, knowing it to be wrong. This is the solution that psychology gives of the problem of sin. What is it, psychologically considered, to be saved? We must avoid all theological answers, because of the variant definitions given by theologians and because experience is always psychological rather than theolog- ical. Following our analysis of sin, we may consider salvation both as a deliverance from the habit of sinning and as the acquisition of a pure character. Deliverance from the con- sequences of past sinning can only be pos- sible, whether it has been against God or man, by reparation on the part of the sinner and by forgiveness on the part of the 102 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE offended. The reparation required is re- pentance; and repentance implies the cessa- tion of offending and the humiliation of asking forgiveness. This is the universal requirement, whether the sinning has been against God or man. If the offender is not willing to ask forgiveness, and on the con- dition that the offending cease, then forgive- ness is of no value; the old animosity re- mains, whatever the offended party may be willing to do to heal it. Forgiveness releases the soul from pen- alty, but does not recover it from the natural consequences that sin entails. These con- sequences are limitations of soul activity; they are not to be considered penal, but they remain as scars and marks of infirmity. Yet forgiveness releases the soul from penal guilt; to this there is always some testi- mony, given in some manner, so that the offender knows he is forgiven. In the Scrip- tures this evidence is named the "witness of the Spirit. 103 ■>■> CHAPTER XVI PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE The history of religion shows the har- mony of philosophic thought with it, as each acts upon the other. "There is an oracle that responds to any revelation from God." As Le Verrier and Adams were able to affirm from mathematical reasoning that a planet must exist beyond Uranus which the eye of man had never seen, and as after- ward that affirmation was confirmed by the discovery of Neptune, so the ancient philos- ophers by their conceptions foretold the existence of God, and their affirmations have been verified by revelation and experience. And, as science by its experiments has en- abled us to understand the phenomena of nature, so has philosophy led man from a mystical apprehension of an unknown "Somewhat" to the conscious experience of a Divine Reality. 104 PHILOSOPHY Paul recognized the influence of Grecian philosophy upon the religiousness of his Athenian hearers. They were "feeling" after God. They had become "very reli- gious." Certain of their poets had arrived at a knowledge of kinship with him, and had said, "We are also his offspring." They had discovered a relation with him which prepared the way for the Christian standard of religion. By accepting the Alexandrian philosophy Christianity purified its theology, advancing from a merely mystical intuition of God to a full concept of his personality. So Clement said, "The night of paganism had its star to light it, and gave hope for the rising sun." The question naturally arises, What is this that obtrudes and persists in my life? Has it name or personality? For the rational mind cannot worship the imper- sonal; there must be the conscious idea of a personal Somewhat to cause either wor- ship or fear. While no rational concept of that personality can be formed, yet the idea arises from an apprehended suggestion of 105 HUMAN NATURE a Divine Presence. The religious capacity is intuitive rather than rational. It is uni- versal, for no tribe of men, however primi- tive and savage, has been found which is destitute of some conscious apprehension of God or what stands for God as present in their lives. It is in the activity of this capacity that religious experience is grounded. In the study of Christian experience it is a remark- able fact that we find instances of Oriental experience in all ethnic religions which prove religion to be a constitutional capacity of the soul, developing its power according to the clearness of the revelations given. Acts of worship and conscious communion with spiritual powers have a definite meaning to us. A sense of reality attaches to the object of worship, and our whole life is polarized by this sense. Even agnostics who do not believe in a personal God have an indefinable consciousness of an abstract reality which they name "It." The psychological feelings of men toward the "Unseen" will be better understood if we 106 PHILOSOPHY classify Christian experiences and make them types of all the manifestations of the Divine. The first class see in God an ani- mating Spirit, beneficent, kind, merciful, and pure. They seldom look back upon their imperfections; they hardly think of themselves at all; they never shrink from God, for he is to them the impersonation of kindness and beauty. One of this class expresses the pleasure it gives her that she can always "cuddle up to God." In his relation of his religious experience Dr. Edward Everett Hale said: "I always knew that God loved me, and was always grateful to him for the world he placed me in; and I always liked to tell him so." A second class consists of such as have a radical and instantaneous change of nature which is like a new creation. These point to a time and place when and where the great change occurred which made over their entire course of life. Tolstoy says: "I re- member one day being alone in the woods, and my thought ran over the year past in which I had been busy on my Quest of God, 107 HUMAN NATURE and all at once there arose within me glad aspirations toward life. Everything within me awoke and received a meaning." Had- ley, a common drunkard, said: "One day I sat in a saloon in Harlem [New York city], a homeless, friendless, dying drunkard. It came into my head to go to Jerry McAuley's Mission. Jerry rose and told his experience. I found myself saying, 'I wonder if God can save me.' When the invitation was given I knelt with a crowd of drunkards. Jerry prayed, and Mrs. McAuley prayed earnestly for us. What a conflict was going on in my soul! A blessed whisper said, 'Come/ The devil said, 'Be careful/ I hesitated a moment. Then I said, 'Dear Lord, can you help me?' Never can I de- scribe that moment. I felt the brightness of a noonday sun shining in my heart; I felt I was a free man." The practical ques- tion is often asked as to whether there are any marks by which to determine the reality of these experiences. The only marks are those indicated by Jesus, "By their fruits ye shall know them." And it is found that 108 PHILOSOPHY practical godliness is as common among the one class as the other. The "fruits" grow as vigorously among the gradually as among the suddenly converted. The question is sometimes raised as to whether conversion is an instantaneous change of the nature, as one might change the action of a machine by changing the relation of its parts, or whether it is a psycho- logical readjustment of the soul activities by the inspiration of God acting in con- junction with the will of the subject. The fact of experience is that in every conver- sion the soul is conscious of some mental action in its surrender to God. Professor Coe, in his The Spiritual Life, well says, "The ultimate test of spiritual values is nothing definable in terms of how it hap- pened, but in something ethically definable in terms of what is attained." As far as definable the content of consciousness in con- version is: (1) A sense of the divine Pres- ence; (2) a sense of freedom from some- thing that has held the soul in bondage; (3) a peaceful rest from mental struggle. 109 HUMAN NATURE And all this is followed by a desire to do the will of God as soon as known. After conversion there arises a new class of experiences consequent on a new class of ideals set up in the soul, for experience is the attempt to actualize our ideals. When one takes Jesus as the model of his life he Jbegins to see what he must do to realize the ideal Christian character. His definition of purity will shape his experience. He may define it as cleanness, and so will conceive of a process of cleansing. He may literalize the symbols of this cleansing as given in the Scripture, and may conceive of the process as a washing of the stains of sin from the soul as one might wash a soiled cloth. Hold- ing that the Spirit uses the "blood" as the instrument in such a process, he may claim this as his experience in purification. An- other may define purity as a completeness or unmixed fullness. With this meaning in mind, he will look for something to complete what is lacking to realize the character he aspires to. His experience will be that of being "filled with all the fullness of God." no PHILOSOPHY The Divine Presence, thus apprehended, purifies the character by harmonizing the activities of the soul with the will of God, who is ever known in consciousness. It is the expulsive power of God's apprehended presence, breaking up the old habitudes of the soul that remain after conversion from the former life. This brief review of the philosophy of religious experience is given to show that the reality of religion does not depend upon its theology or its institutions, but upon the facts of experience. Just as science, long a captive to dogmatic hypothesis, broke the chains of bondage and found its freedom in induction from concrete facts, so religion is breaking away from the deductions of dog- matic theology and is finding its freedom in the facts of religious experience. ill ETHICS OF HUMAN NATURE Everything is what it is by the immuta- bility of its own nature, and so virtue and vice. — Cudworth. CHAPTER XVII STANDARD OF MORALS The science of ethics judges human con- duct by certain generally accepted stand- ards of rectitude. While these standards must have the intellectual approval of men, they are also submitted for verification to the intuitive sense of right before they can be accepted. Whatever development the religious capacity of the soul has attained, there is always a feeling of right or wrong in an act which gives its verdict in the case. This sanctioning power is held by some moralists to be the meaning of conscience. Whatever the standard of morality one adopts, he feels an imperative authority in- truding on his consciousness which declares that some acts are right and some wrong. But why should there be any standard of morals? It is interesting to note the many different answers given the question by 115 HUMAN NATURE social moralists. The Hebrew says that we should be moral because "it is the will of God." Marcus Aurelius says because "it is according to my nature to be right." Thomas Reid in his Essays bases morality on the moral sense or faculty of mind that imperatively obliges us to be moral. Im- manuel Kant finds a "categorical impera- tive" in the soul that compels this. William Paley in his Moral and Political Philosophy defines virtue as doing good to mankind, according to the "will of God," for the sake of "everlasting happiness," this happiness being thus the end of morality. When we reach John Stuart Mill we have a revival of utilitarianism from experience. The substance of the theory is that "the useful is the right"; and the formula of the theory is, "Be moral, that you may be use- ful," morality being thus made a means to utility as the end. Herbert Spencer in his Data of Ethics assumes pleasure to be the end of morals ; and his formula is, "Be moral that you may be happy." But human nature is never satisfied with a morality which is 116 STANDARD OF MORALS based upon selfish considerations only, and which is but a means to some selfish end. Why be happy rather than moral? So the nineteenth century opens with a new theory which makes morality an end in itself. But Francis Herbert Bradley asks of the theory the very pertinent question, "Why not be virtuous rather than be happy, unless virtue is happiness?" Yet happiness is not a virtue but a feeling. Why base morality on that which has no moral quality? This question he discusses fully, and finds that morality is an end in itself. Then, asking what we mean by "an end in itself," he answers: "A moral act carries the motive of the act along in the acting. That motive is the thing, the end, to be realized. Is it not rather to be a somewhat in ourselves — a character? My own character is the why." Thomas Hill Green follows up this answer of Bradley's by saying: "Morality requires a personal agent. The character of society is made up of persons. The ideal of char- acter is always personal worth. Ideal morality exists only in individual morality. 117 HUMAN NATURE Social morality is in a realization of per- sonal ethical character." This fact confirms the doctrine of Bradley to the effect that "morality is an end in itself." The question, Why should I be moral? is a question of personal worth. So the Christian ethics of the twentieth century considers the motivity of acts in judging of their morality. This is the proposition of James Martineau in his Types of Ethical Theory. He deals with the inner springs of action. The authority of conscience is an authority that springs from a law of right, implanted in the con- stitution of man by the infinite Energy of Life. The Christian's answer to the ques- tion, "Why should I be moral?" is the reply, "I am bound by this law within me to obey its imperative mandates." Thus we reach the highest ethical character. It is the su- preme development of the religious capacity. It is the attainment of that worthiness wherein God can trust one to do large work for humanity. Upon such a one God lays great obligations, knowing he will not shrink 118 STANDARD OF MORALS from them, but will at least attempt to meet them. In all this we have considered morality in its application to one's personal obliga- tions. But it has a much wider range of application than to the individual. The morality of social life is more complex, and covers many duties which do not immedi- ately originate with the individual. This we must reserve for special consideration. 119 CHAPTER XVIII AUTHORITY IN CONSCIENCE Whence does conscience derive its authority? Why do we feel obliged to act in one way rather than in another? If there is any authority in the feeling of obliga- tion, it must be a universal authority apply- ing to every one alike and hence an authority that no one can rightly reject. Without these conditions there can be no universal law of moral conduct. But in what consists the difference between a moral law and any other law of sequence? Is it not in this that a moral order of sequence involves a moral quality of intention to do right or wrong? This implies both intelligence and will in the actor. The idea of right arises when one is solicited by any motive to do an act. Before that idea of right or wrong arises in the soul there is some intelligent knowledge of a rela- 120 AUTHORITY IN CONSCIENCE tion with another person. The conception of such a relation is the occasion of the feel- ing, "I ought" or "I ought not"; and when the relation changes the feeling changes. This feeling arises when the relation is per- ceived, and not before. It is admitted that when the felt obligation is repeatedly vio- lated the feeling diminishes until the sense of right is but feebly felt; but this does not prove that the feeling is not universal. Nor does it imply that the capacity to feel the "ought" is not constitutional. Obedience to the impulse to fulfill the obligation is always followed by a feeling of self-approval. From experience we infer the law that every voluntary act, done with an intention to fulfill the felt obligation to another person, is accompanied by a sense of right. But why does such a feeling arise? The many theories of morals acknowledge it, and each tries to find its origin. Pro- fessor Ladd says: "The development of the intellect and will is involved in the rise and growth of the moral sentiment of obligation. The intellect must hold up in imagination 121 HUMAN NATURE the deed or conduct and anticipate the end to be realized as a motive. The sentiment of moral approval or disapproval follows the contemplation of the deed. Here the con- nection between the judgment and moral feeling is in the very nature of moral reason. What I judge right that I must do, and what I must do that I must approve." Now, the main objection to this deliver- ance is that it is not a universal experience. We sometimes judge that to be rationally correct which we sentimentally disapprove. Another theory is that of Herbert Spencer, who says: "The feelings of approval and disapproval rise from acts that are pleasur- able or displeasurable." But this is not universally true, for many persons approve of acts that are not pleasurable and dis- approve of acts that are pleasurable. Pro- fessor Bain, in his article on Moral Sense, says: "Conscience within us is an imitation of the government without us. The first lesson of a child is obedience to the authority of some person. It is a lesson of dread of punishment. The authority of conscience is 122 AUTHORITY IN CONSCIENCE a feeling of dread of punishment. The agony of remorse is the apprehension of punishment. The power that imposes the obligation is law and society." Without following out the many theories of morals, we may assume the agreement of all fair-minded persons that a moral sense, universally applicable to men, must inhere in the constitution of the soul. The consciousness of right as a universal law of action must be grounded in some law written large in the constitution of the human soul. It must be a law of equity which commands the obedience of all men alike, in all stages of human life. We can- not define it in set terms; it needs no such definition. It is more than a knowledge of right; it is an authority that spontaneously commands the conduct to conform with the equity in every case. It is a quality of soul life, a capacity to know the right, and a felt obligation to do it. It has authority in itself to command righteousness, just as the capac- ity of religiousness commands us to wor- ship. All statutory laws of morality are 123 HUMAN NATURE assumed to be based on this inner law of equity, and the moralities of ethnic religions have their spring from this same source. Conscience is its "court of record," wherein its decisions are recorded for future prece- dence. But, as conscience is subject to its environment, it may be biased in its record- ing. Hence the large variety of men's ex- periences, in their varying environments, form the basis for conflicting theories of moral right. It is often asked if the moral sense is the final arbiter. Are there no other and higher sanctions of moral conduct? Certainly there must be. For how can social order be maintained unless there are some superior courts to which men are respon- sible? Society is a court for the trial of moral conduct to whose decisions private conscience must yield in matters of social life. And, beyond and above society, there are divine imperatives whose sanctions must give the final decision for all human conduct. 124 CHAPTER XIX DIVINE IMPERATIVES ON MAN God's imperatives are laid on each man. They cannot be thrust upon mankind and the individual be excused. Man and man- kind are abstract or composite terms, repre- senting the race of men; they are concep- tions of what we call "society," and are used to denote humanity. But God holds each individual responsible, and not mankind. His presence enforces this responsibility in consciousness, and sets up his imperatives in published decrees as well. "Have dominion" was the primary im- perative, given to the first man; and it is repeated to each soul that comes into per- sonal estate. "Have control of thyself," this means, "and of all nature below thee." Every sane soul is born in the lineage of rulers, by divine right. He can never escape from the personal obligation of governor- 125 HUMAN NATURE ship, though he may disqualify himself for the task. To the full extent of the ability given him in the quality of his soul-life he must do his part in this government. The sense of this responsibility is instinctive in the constitution of the soul. "Be fruitful and multiply" is an order as imperative as the former. The sense of this obligation inheres in consciousness. Human- ity is the enlargement of the individual man into many who constitute society. He does not merge his individualism into humanity, but multiplies it in the multitude. The multiplication does not divide up the respon- sibility and make it less for each, but, rather, enlarges the field of his activity and increases his range of dominion. To self-government is added the mutual government of all. Service is added to dominion. "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not" are imperatives commanding obedience to the moral law of humanity; and they denote also the authoritative presence of a moral sense, inherent in the constitution of every soul. They are more than the arbitrary 126 DIVINE IMPERATIVES ON MAN decrees of a lawgiver; they are the limita- tions and restrictions put on a finite being in the exercise of dominion. They are as necessary for the self-government of the in- dividual as they are for the mutual govern- ment of the multiple individuals in society. Self-government is always by self-denial and restriction of personal desires; and social government is only safe and helpful by social restrictions and limitations. Human- ity as society can only be governed by mutual self-denial. These imperatives, revealed in conscious- ness, are both the charter of society and the tribunal of ultimate authority in its govern- ment. Society is not the herding together of gregarious numbers of humanity nor is it the surrender of the personal obligation of each to an irresponsible mass ; but it is an organized republic where each individual is to be regarded as a personal power under the law of self-denial. The sense of right jn the feeling of "ought" organizes indi- viduals into families and governments. It is not compact that drives individuals into 127 HUMAN NATURE organized communities, nor the necessity of the mutual protection of personal rights only; it is the dynamic presence of God that gathers individuals into organized societies. These imperatives, enforced in consciousness, force man into humanity. The study of comparative religions fur- nishes evidence that different standards of morality attend the development of the reli- gious capacity. Beginning with the He- brews, we find with them a code of morals named "the Ten Commandments." This code contained the germ of the idea which every moralist has used since Moses. But the standard of right was original and unique, differing from that of all other races. The "will of God," as made known to the Hebrews by seers and prophets, was that standard of right; and the task of the prophet was to put the message into the language of his times for the use of the people. Turning to the Greek moralists, we find a different code. The good was the standard of conduct; that is, "the good for something." The beautiful and the useful 128 DIVINE IMPERATIVES ON MAN had the right of way in human life. Moral- ity was a means to an end, and this cult con- tinued in the history of moral evolution. The standard of conduct became more and more psychological, as the will of the Divine became more clarified from superstition. It is remarkable how readily Christianity united both Hebrew and Greek conceptions of morality. The school of theology at Alexandria was a composite of both philos- ophies. The sanctions of morality were divine, while the grounds of morality were based in utility. This fact is apparent in the long discussions that followed regarding the standards of moral duty. In the teachings of Jesus Christ we find an altogether different standard of morality set forth. He accepted the Hebrew con- ception of the "will of God" as the sanction- ing power of moral convictions, but he inter- preted that will in a different way. God's "righteousness" was fair dealing with men, and he required that men should so deal with one another. He fused the Ten Command- ments into a law of equity. Love was more 129 HUMAN NATURE than an affection; it was equitable action. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" was treated by him as meaning, "Thou shalt treat thy neighbor in dealing with him as thou treatest thyself, or as thou would have thy neighbor treat thee." Hence the Golden Rule became the formula of equity in action. But love carries with it the obligation of fair dealing. So the affection of God for the race involved the obligation to do all he could to help it; he "so loved" it that he sent his Son to save it. This equity, we repeat, is God's "righteousness." Paul declares that "love is the fulfilling of the law." Jesus also put himself under this law of equity jn all his life service, for we hear him ask- ing, "Ought not Christ to have suffered?" His whole ministry of service and his death in behalf of man were only the meeting of his obligation under the law of equity. In what respect are Christian ethics dif- ferent from the ethics of the Hebrew and the Greek? If we turn to the teachings of Jesus we find at least one new and different principle. His ethics include the consolida- 130 DIVINE IMPERATIVES ON MAN tion of all the virtues in a finished manhood, after the model of his character. Wherever we open the Gospels, especially the synop- tics, we are in the presence of a teacher of morality. Whatever the subject of the hour, the application of the parable or sermon was the enforcement of ethical principles. In the study of Jesus's teachings we are met at once and always with the proposition that human life is to be estimated by the moral virtues which sum up in ethical character. All things are means to this end. A man's regeneration, sanctification, and education all subserve this one purpose; the highest attainment in the Christian life is a holy character, and the atoning mediation of Christ is to promote this result. In proof of this proposition we may note three special divisions in his teachings: (1) He spoke of duty. This word implies rules or principles of action proceeding from an authority that has power to en- force its commands. Jesus commences his ministry by a long sermon on duty, or the moralities of human life. He takes the 131 HUMAN NATURE Decalogue and, without lessening its autKor- itative force, fuses it into a law of equitable love. Duty is simply the fulfilling of this law. (2) But duty carries with it a blessed- ness in ethical service. The ethics of Jesus include ample compensations for all labor and self-denial. In this particular he rises infinitely above the Hebrew idea of morality and that of classical thought ; and herein we find the beauty and originality of his teach- ings above that of all other moralists. He shows, in other words, that the "supreme good" of the moralists and the summum bonum of the scholastics are found only in meeting the self-denying tasks imposed by duty. The whole end of human life is in- volved in the hard service we perform; but obedience to the imperative rules of right living leads to happiness. The blessedness promised in the Beatitudes is closely linked with the fulfillment of the obligation; the compensation is not something that shall follow in some indefinite time, but definitely accompanies the duty done. (3) So another teaching of Jesus is that moral culture is the 132 DIVINE IMPERATIVES ON MAN human method of promoting the highest development in religiousness. Our conten- tion is that the highest good, the supreme happiness, the "kingdom of heaven," is reached through the moralities of human life; and this for the simple reason that all divine energies and agencies coordinate with these moralities in the development of char- acter. Eternal life is not an arbitrary be- stowment, but consists, as Jesus said, in knowing God and the Christ who has been sent. And this means knowing God not merely by perception or rational inference, but through experimental acquaintance with him and becoming like him in character. 133 VI CIVIC CHARACTER OF HUMAN NATURE The history of civilization is the history of the progress of the human race toward realizing the idea of humanity. — Guizot, CHAPTER XX DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION The civilization of human nature has been, like its religion and its intelligence, gradually developed from the beginning of man's existence. The fragments of ancient literature that have escaped the "tooth of time" afford but a glimpse of that process. If we take the Hebrew record, which gives us legends of the antediluvian times, we get only a dark picture of barbarism until after the Flood, when a new world starts in ; and even after the Flood the records of the races are too fragmentary to base any system of development upon. These frag- ments give us a view of racial beginnings, something of their religion, and the form of their language, but they fail to afford a clue to their manners and customs — which constitute the ethos of the people. Only in 137 HUMAN NATURE later history are these features of civilization recorded. The characteristics of an ideal civilization are in evidence. The bond of union between men must be stronger than simply a con- tract for mutual protection from enemies; it must be a sympathetic one, which means the bearing of the yoke together. The customs that prevail and that crystallize into law must bear upon all alike. Language must be developed to a clearness that makes its interpretation easy to every grade of in- telligence. Business transactions must be based upon equity, giving each an equal chance for success in life. Civil government must be administered with just regard for the personal rights of all. And last, but not least, the religion of an enduring civiliza- tion must be broad enough to take all into fellowship. Such is the ideal civilization under which human nature may prosper. The foundation of society is the family. The history of civilization, however, begins with the formation of tribal society. Among the first questions to be settled are: What 138 HUMAN CIVILIZATION is the relation of intelligence to labor; what regulations are necessary to harmonize the distribution of productions; who shall govern this distribution, each laborer or some repre- sentative of the whole? The feudal lord was the first representative to be selected, on account of his fitness or by the exercise of might. But feudalism immediately divided the people into two classes — the governing and the governed. It settled into monarchy; monarchy became a hereditary system, breeding a class of aristocrats who assumed to be of purer blood by the favor of God; the people lost autonomy and be- came laborers of inferior rank. The civil- ization so erected was good or bad according to the character of the governing power; but a feudal policy did not build up an ideal social life. In time a renaissance occurred. Intelligence came to the aid of humanity, and provoked a revolution of thought. Free manhood regained its lost autonomy; reli- gion returned to its allegiance, as the lost right of the common people; and a new civilization was born. 139 HUMAN NATURE In this new social order human nature proclaimed as the basis of organization not an equality of original capacity nor an equality of developed capacity, but an equality of right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This meant its claim to an equal chance to live according to its own ability, native or acquired. Each man, according to its view, was equal to any other before the law, and was entitled to the same protection by the law, the law itself being the voice of equity. If we take the New England social life, with its declara- tion of inherited equality, as a type of this new order, we find that its foundations were laid in the Anglo-Saxon language, a largely developed intellectualism, and a purified religion. With these elements it began to build its political and civil life in small settlements on the accepted sentiment that every man behaving himself with propriety was equal to any other man. Their town organization was a self -determining democ- racy and a miniature republic combined. The settlers were neither lords nor common 140 HUMAN CIVILIZATION vassals, neither rich nor poor. Their Anglo- Saxon language was the most virile speech in the world; their religion had been puri- fied in the fire of persecution; and they gathered in small communities on equal terms. Their laws were enacted by viva voce vote, and were put into the hands of their own selected representatives for exe- cution; and when it became necessary to confederate into a state there remained the germ of the independent town meeting. New England townships were organized and their autonomy recognized as early as 1640; and the order of organization was first the township, then the county, then the State, and lastly the Union. In the nature of things, this civilization based upon the New England doctrine of equal rights for all men alike must be tested by every possible strain, that its strength and staying qualities might be appreciated. This came in a long Civil War. A Southern civilization, having the spirit of the Old World feudalism, attempted the overthrow of the former social order and the setting up 141 HUMAN NATURE of a universal feudalism in America. But the virile spirit of "equal rights" met and forever eliminated it. The "people," who had laid the foundation of the republic in the "inalienable rights" of man, proved their power of self-government. The republic is a representative democracy; and this fact of delegated authority, in which the sover- eignty of each centers in a representative holding the authority of all, constitutes the uniqueness of American civilization. Yet human nature seeks for a civilization that will unite all races in a sympathetic brotherhood, and there is promise of this through the agency of the Anglo-Saxon language and the Christian religion. The former is already the language of the world's commerce, and carries with it the seeds of a common civilization; Christianity in its propaganda has for its prime object the unifying of all races, and toward this end human nature is gradually moving. Just here we are confronted with danger signals, in our boast of the New England civiliza- tion. Competitive interests have combined 142 HUMAN CIVILIZATION in tyrannical "trusts" and "monopolies," which threaten the welfare of individuals and menace civilization itself. Two of the most formidable of these are the political machine and the liquor monopoly. But to meet the tyranny of the first the American citizen is evoking his sovereign power in the initiative, the referendum, and the recall, which measures, when fully at work, promise to save our civilization. Signs there also are of the final overthrow of the liquor trust. When this gigantic evil, like that of American slavery, shall be abolished, the minor dangers arising from our policies will easily be met. Our ideal civilization is prov- ing its virility and worth. 143 CHAPTER XXI THE IDEAL WORLD-LIFE The unity of human nature implies a unity of life. Such an experience for humanity has been the dream of all prophecy and the end of all evolution. History has been a record of anticipations for future conditions of living better than the present, and the ideals of one age when realized have created new ideals for further realization. The present life of humanity is the heritage of past struggles to realize successive ideals. A new world has been created, and we live in it. This is the socialistic law of progress. The pioneer of thought, like the pioneer of new settlements, is led out beyond the frontier of established customs. He cuts his way through the thickets of conserva- tive ideas, and opens up a new vista leading toward something better and grander. Beginning with historic days, we note the 144 THE IDEAL WORLD-LIFE Greek ideals of human life. The earliest conception of an ideal world-life is given in Plato's Republic. It is the conception of an organized community in which no man calls anything his own exclusively, but he himself and all he has in possession belongs to the state. Kings are philosophers, and philosophers are kings. The principal ques- tion is, What is justice, and how adminis- tered? The state is the reality of which justice is the idea. The individual is lost sight of in the unity of an ideal life that has no real existence. But this ideal is not a social organization in which all classes are harmonized and have equal rights; it is, rather, a commtmity of aristocrats in which the working class fades away and is only represented in the common passions of man- kind. The Greek ideal life is the life of the philosopher, the poet, the ruler of the populace. The Hebrew ideal world-life is recorded by the prophets and poets of Israel. It was the conception of a Messianic age wherein universal peace should prevail. This was 145 HUMAN NATURE symbolized in the saying that "the wolf and the lamb shall feed together." It was to be a restoration of the prosperous reign of Solomon in a larger degree. The Messiah should come and deliver his people from all oppression ; he should set up again the throne of David, and the nation should be the ruling power in the earth. The ideal world-life of Jesus was ex- pressed in the term "kingdom of God." This was a spiritualization of the Hebrew conception of the Messianic reign, which had become materialized into a political regimen and involved a revolution against the Roman power. But Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is "a character kingdom," to be realized in social life. He, the living Christ, was to be the inspiring head and power of its government, and a reign of universal peace should take the place of the old war regime. The economic conditions of this re- public would give each a fair deal. His disciples were commanded to be world-wide missionaries, and were not to halt till every human being had been taught the principles 146 THE IDEAL WORLD-LIFE of his kingdom. This hope of a Messianic conquest was for a time crushed by the un- timely death of Jesus. His resurrection restored confidence, and his disciples started out with an earnest hope of converting the world to his principles. But the opposition and persecution they met made them despair of realizing the kingdom on this earth. From being world-conquerors they became "strangers and pilgrims on the earth" seek- ing a better country, even a heavenly. The social ideal of the prophets and of Jesus, and the "New Jerusalem" representing the "kingdom" was transferred to a future exist- ence. A heaven of rest from toil and perse- cution became the end of the Christian life. On the reorganization of Christianity in the fourth century new ideals of the king- dom were formed. The effort was made to return to the social conception of Jesus by putting the world-life under the rule of authority, after the model of imperial Rome. Constantine adopted Christianity as the national religion, and incorporated some of its principles into his policy. Augustine 147 HUMAN NATURE with the bishop of Rome arranged for the conference of Christian institutions with this alliance. Christianity became a world- power, and with the cross as its emblem went forth to establish a world-kingdom. The ideal "kingdom of God" was again trans- ferred to this world, but was changed to a political hierarchy with the pope as world- emperor. The missionary propaganda was not so much to promote character as to establish authority. Rapidly Christianity conquered nations, and made kings and people subjects of Rome. With the cross and the sword it cleaved its way to universal empire. But its hostile and dominating atti- tude excited the wrath of other religions, and, using the same weapons, they met and halted Christianity in its progress. It was driven from Asia, its original home, by Buddhism, and from Africa by Moham- medanism — though it took Europe by storm. Then came the modern ideals of human life. Notwithstanding the good qualities of Romanism, human nature could not endure 148 THE IDEAL WORLD-LIFE its enslaving authority. The Reformation under Luther was not only a revolt from offensive authority but more emphatically a resurrection of submerged manhood. Since that emancipation of manhood there have been created many new ideals of life, the central one being a return to the social king- dom of Jesus. " Other- worldliness" was not his teaching. He labored to get men to live right in this world, with the assurance that they would then be fit to live in any world. The Sermon on the Mount, laying down the standard of moral conduct; his parables illustrating the method of realizing his kingdom; the regeneration of heart taught Nicodemus as a requisite for entering that kingdom — all had as their end in per- fecting a social kingdom of character. The results of all this discipline were not to be deferred to a life after death, but were, rather, to be realized in this world. No- where did Jesus teach otherwise. On the contrary, in every discourse the present life is his theme; and the "place" he goes to prepare," in his announcement of depart- HUMAN NATURE lire, is for those who are fitted therefor by being faithful subjects of his kingdom here. It is clear that organized Christianity, with its ideal of a future life as the goal of human endeavor, has never reached the standard set in the Sermon on the Mount. But world conditions are rapidly changing. A spirit of sympathetic helpfulness is gradually and surely taking the place of the old-time con- ceptions of human life. The idea of brother- hood, that was formerly limited to class or sect, is surely enlarging to include the uni- fication of humanity. To racial shyness, which was largely the result of ignorance of others, is succeeding a respect for the rights of all, and arbitration is becoming the keynote of the new civilization. The present European war may contain the very con- ditions of universal peace, resulting from the exhaustion of the resources of the nations. A new patriotism is in the throes of birth, fostered by the new national ideals. It was a great advance in the evolution of human nature when the love of kin became tribal affiliation, and when that enlarged to the 150 THE IDEAL WORLD-LIFE love of nation. It is a far greater honor to become a world-citizen, to be a cosmopolitan in heart and in effort to make a better earth. As for America, many influences are at work which are developing the higher and broader ideals of human life. Her religion is fostering wider and more tolerant sym- pathy with all forms of Teligious opinion, while widening the scope of her activities; and the wide world is feeling the influence of the nobler ideals of human life. 151 CHAPTER XXII THE IDEAL MANHOOD Ir we inquire as to the essential qualities of ideal manhood, we shall not find an answer in our experience. The average man we meet is only in the process of finishing. But one Man in all history has exhibited all the qualities which go to make up our ideal of complete manhood. Yet all other men may achieve something of this completeness. However much we need the divine help, it waits upon our voluntary acceptance. We shall be what we choose to' be. To man God reveals himself as to one who is kin to himself. Man breaks out of the order of cosmic sequence, and assumes the responsibility of selfhood. He stands forth the master of himself and his destiny. He can let in the light of the divine presence in holy communion, or he can shut out that light and assume the consequences. There is no limit to the reach of his potentialities. 152 THE IDEAL MANHOOD "It doth not yet appear what we shall be," cried the apostle when he caught a vision of the celestial possibilities ; "but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." The primary quality of the ideal man- hood is trustworthiness. This is the basal, underlying fact in manly character. All the emphasis that can be laid on dignity or use- fulness or happiness centers in this quality. If one cannot trust himself anywhere and at any time, he is lacking in this respect. If other men do not trust him, but turn aside from him, and if instinctively he is left out of their counsels, it is because they have dis- covered his lack. If God cannot trust him with responsibilities, it is that he is not honestly trustworthy. This quality is the ground of honor, integrity, and every other manly virtue. The fact that some men possess this quality is encouragement for all. But no one is thoroughly trustworthy until by trial he knows himself to be so. A man stood on a narrow steel girder, ten inches in thickness and sixty feet from the ground. 153 HUMAN NATURE He was self-possessed, and walked the length of the girder as fearless of danger as if walking on the ground. How did he do it? He had tested his ability to control his muscles and his sensibilities until he knew he was master of himself. So can self become the master of every passion, as well as of every muscle of the body. This is doubtless the purpose and value of temp- tation, that we may learn self-command. By trial we come to know the measure of our trustworthiness. "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation ; for when he is tried he shall receive" — strength. Another quality of ideal manhood is the disposition to put ourself on God's side in every moral issue. Every question has this side and the side which is not God's. The only right thing which any man or company of men can do is to find God's side in any moral question, as certified by the principles of the divine order. One day during the Civil War a general said to President Lin- coln, "Mr. President, I believe that God is on our side." To this Mr. Lincoln answered, 154 THE IDEAL MANHOOD "I am not so much concerned that God is on our side as I am to be on God's." He said to Vice-President Hamlin, soon after, "I am convinced that God's side of this con- flict requires the emancipation of the slaves, and I have resolved to issue a proclamation of emancipation, as we must swing the nation on God's side." He did so, victories crowned the Union efforts, and the nation was saved. Thus the summary of qualities going to make up an ideal manhood is embodied in the word "character." This, said Emerson, is moral order seen through the medium of an individual nature. And it is, says Smiles, "one of the greatest motive powers in the world." Genius, indeed, commands admira- tion, but character secures respect and homage. It is not so much brain as heart power that rules. Man's life is centered in common duties. There may be nothing heroic in our performance to attract atten- tion. But the qualities of character that are most in demand in daily life are the ones which constitute the ideal manhood. 155 CHAPTER XXIII DIVINE INCARNATION IN HUMAN NATURE The divine immanence in human nature is an incarnation. In the beginning of human life God put himself into humanity. Man was created in the "image" and "likeness" of the Creator. The divine energy inhered in the psychic nature given to him. This endowment was the mark that distinguished man from all other creatures, and even sin could not destroy that which is constitu- tional. This divine immanence is also manifest when a soul retires into his intuitive nature and seeks to find God. This retreat of the soul is the chamber of prayer. Hither we must go, said Jesus, shutting the door on the sensuous world without, to find audience with Deity. All down the centuries men have so found God. Prophets and seers of all races, in the cultivation of their religious 156 DIVINE INCARNATION capacity, have there received the revelations of the divine will, according to the limits of their religious apprehension. The incarnation of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth was a manifestation of the divine energy far exceeding any other. For many reasons this is clear. He was born, as other men are born, of a woman, but with a capacity for realizing God's presence far exceeding that of any other man. This capacity he cultivated from his childhood, in synagogue schools and in com- munion with the Holy Spirit. Through all the silence of his apprenticeship as a car- penter he fed and stimulated that capacity by study and divine communion. On enter- ing his ministry, at the age of thirty years, he received a fresh endowment of the divine energy, being filled at his baptism with the Spirit. So, from his conscious experience, he could say, "I and my Father are one." This indwelling of God made him the "Christ," the Messianic Revealer. His entire nature was raised to a full preparation for his ministry. He felt himself to be the 157 HUMAN NATURE "Sent of God" on a mediatorial mission for the salvation of men. But he also felt his natural kinship with the race, and called himself the "Son of Man." He wrought his mighty works by the energy of the indwell- ing Father, distinctly saying, "I do nothing of myself." Nor did he claim to be the authority for his teachings, but said, "My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me." He never claimed Deityship, but always was a messenger to reveal God to man. As a human being he remained in the class of humanity. This fact was the key to his temptation in the wilderness, where he finally settled upon his lifework. He foresaw that his teachings would arouse the hostility of his countrymen and would probably cause his early death, but he held fast to his con- victions of duty. There arose to his vision an ideal humanity, raised to the level of an inspired union with God, and his teachings led to that end. The purpose of this review of the char- acter of Christ is not to discuss the question of his divinity. That he was and is divine 158 DIVINE INCARNATION is in clear evidence. But the object is to illustrate the fact of the incarnation of God in humanity. This is not a forceful pos- session, mechanically working its designs; but, rather, it is to be considered as an ac- cepted energy, conditioned on the voluntary consent and cooperation of the subject. Being a constitutional endowment of the soul, the "Presence" may not be appre- hended as a personality until the will con- sents to its rule. But by consent and co- operation the apprehension becomes a reality in consciousness. The measure of growth, and so of the power of cooperation with the divine presence, is gauged by the character of the subject; and this capacity, like all others, may relapse by neglect and revert to the original type. This is the law of de- generation in human nature. But God has not abandoned his purpose, defeated in his design. Rather he will patiently wait for the fruitage of his immanent influence on the lives of men. If we are able to see that this divine im- manence in human nature is the immanence 159 HUMAN NATURE of life-energy — working in all departments in conjunction with consenting culture, and waiting on this culture for the finish of its work — then we will see that nothing can stop the completion of God's plan. Human nature is on the upgrade. Because it has within it the dynamic of the divine imma- nence it will go on increasing in its capacity of apprehending God until it shall reach the full stature of perfect humanity after the model of the "Son of Man," its spiritual representative. 160 CHAPTER XXIV THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE This is only solved by the facts of experi- ence. History records merely the exploits of a few prominent men of a tribe or nation, but the great mass of humanity are not taken into the account. What the common people are thinking about — the psychological proc- esses which make up their character — history does not think worth recording. But these experiences are the material out of which the character of a people is formed, and so must solve the problem of human life. "Experience" is a comprehensive word. It puts on no "theological blinkers," hiding from view the common facts of life with the exception of such as fit in with the creed. It is open-eyed to all that influences life. So to experience we must go to find an ade- quate answer to our question. It is true that the high ideals taught in the creeds do and must affect men's manner of living and their 161 HUMAN NATURE habitual character. But, after all, it is the matters of conduct these ideals teach which make up real life. The great problem of life, therefore, is to weave the facts of action into a seamless web of character. The problem grows more com- plex and difficult as we get into the thick of the struggle of social relations. In youth, or when one has retired and is isolated from the bustle and perplexities of social affairs, the facts of life run smoothly, and it is com- paratively easy to answer Browning's ques- tion, "Has it your vote to do right?" But the problem is not so easy when one is in the competition and worry of life. The stub- born facts of social attrition make the prob- lem very difficult. There is a great differ- ence between the ideals of youth and of seclusion and the rough realities of actual experience. One may desire to do right as he sees the right, but his viewpoint may deceive him. The path may seem solid ground to a defec- tive vision, which is only a concealed pitfall. To one who has in a manner solved the past 162 THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE by living in harmony with the laws of life there seems no difficulty in seeing a divine purpose in giving him life. But to one who sits among the ashes of a burned-out life it is different. Thus we arrive at the conclu- sion that a life rightly lived solves its prob- lem by its experience. The meaning of life is to be learned by living it. Another fact we ought to consider: that we live our lives in an unmoral cosmos. The physical world in which we dwell is not ar- ranged on moral lines. It is indifferent to our moral character. It pays no attention to our sensibilities. It sends its rain alike "on the just and on the unjust." It does not help us in deciding any moral issue, but leaves us to solve the problem without its aid. But, while the cosmic world seems in- different to us, we cannot be indifferent to it. We are obliged to defer to the regimen of nature. The problem of sin must be treated as a fact of experience, because on the theological side there is such a diversity of scriptural interpretations concerning it that we find 163 HUMAN NATURE ourselves at once in the midst of conflicting opinions. It is the conscious transgression of known law. However it may become in- grained in human nature by heredity, it never loses its element of voluntary choice. It is not a debt that can be paid, either by the sinner or any substitute. It is not a stain that can be washed out. It is an act of moral choice, known in experience, and must be treated as such if we try to solve its problem. Jesus begins his solution of sin with the postulate: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Now, if love is equity in action, it follows that the "righteousness of God" obliged him to send his Son on a mis- sion of mediation, to reconcile the rebel man to the same rule of equity. This is the divine side of the problem. The human side is to secure the willingness of the sinner to accept forgiveness for the sake of restoring the broken harmony. Here is seen the need of mediation. The whole mission of Jesus, the Christ, was to accomplish this harmony be- 164 THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE tween rebellious man and God, under the law of equitable and reciprocal obligation. Let us get this proposition clearly settled, for it is the norm of the problem. No harmony can arise from the offer of forgive- ness until the willingness to receive it is secured on terms of reciprocal equity. Thus the whole life and death of Jesus were those of a mediating ambassador of God, recon- ciling men to him. We submit the question if this showing does not solve the problem of sin as fully as human experience is able to do it. When we approach the problem of human suffering we are confronted with greater difficulties. We must approach it from the psychological side. The problem may be stated in formal words, as follows: "Given a beneficent Creator who made and conserves this universe of men and things, under laws of order and harmony, to find a place and cause for human suffering." Let us get the full meaning of the problem by realizing the significance of the term suffering. We find a universal law that the susceptibility to pain 165 HUMAN NATURE increases as life ascends in grade and that this law holds good in the psychic realm as well as in the cosmic. The most highly de- veloped man of history was the "Man of Sorrows"; and we have the right to infer that God is infinitely sensitive to human suf- fering. Nothing can suffer as love does. But we are helped in this emergency by another law that greatly relieves us from the strain — the law that our greatest happi- ness is often realized through suffering. Literature is full of such illustrations. All the great saviors of humanity have found their greatest joy in suffering for others. Martyrs and saints come up to their corona- tion through "great tribulation." The "Man of Sorrows," for "the joy that was set before him, endured the cross." It is a hard lesson to be learned, but the meaning is that the joy of vicarious suffering compen- sates for the hardness of the experience. But we do not get into the heart of the problem until we notice that the largest part of suffering comes from the cruel injustice of others. How can we reconcile this fact 166 THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE with the justice that governs the affairs of human life? Why should "the children's teeth" be "set on edge" because "the fathers have eaten sour grapes"? We may not know the reason for heredity, but infinite wisdom has put men into society under this law as the best for them. This involves the possibility of injustice in the conduct of free agents, and makes the innocent a partaker of the penalty. But society is the law of the universe. And, since "God is love," we may rationally conclude that he will give all a fair deal when weakness and need appeal to equity. If we inquire for the first cause of suffer- ing, theology and psychology unite in giving lawlessness as that cause. Nothing can be lawless except man, with his power of choice ; cosmic nature can never be lawless. The solution of the problem of suffering, then, is found in the restoration of law in all its applications to human life. The problem of character is principally individual. There is what may be called a common character in the case of a family, 167 HUMAN NATURE community, or nation, but such is only a composite of all the individual characters in that class. What we mean by character is the make-up of an individual, achieved in his personal experience by his personal volitions and habits of conduct. In the formation of character a worthy model should be followed. All persons have some kind of an ideal that they imitate. But great care should be taken in selecting that ideal. There is but one model character whose presence in history inspires us to our best endeavor. Jesus is that model, whose personal experience in achieving his own character appeals so strongly for imitation and is the only ideal that can be followed with full confidence. Our effort should be not so much to do what he did as to catch his spirit and to possess the same dynamic that wrought so mightily in him. But having a perfect model is not enough. A persistent and faithful following thereof is the only surety of success. One must have not only the fullest determination to exercise his utmost power, but also a fixed 168 THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE purpose to succeed. He must lay hold of divine as well as human help. The face of Jesus represents the face of God. Looking steadfastly on that, as in a mirror, we "are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." And this solves the whole problem of human life. Never, in all the ages of existence has human life taken on so high a grade of char- acter as in this twentieth century. It is evidently an age of development, not only of the religious capacity but also of a clearer apprehension of human nature in its progress toward its climax in evolution. 169 VII EUGENICS OF HUMAN NATURE The heredity of genius has been fully proved by that very interesting writer and accurate observer, Francis Galton; and he has put forth in a masterly manner the claims of eugenics, or race culture. — Popular Science Monthly. CHAPTER XXV SOCIAL SERVICE REFORM To understand social service, as it is now considered, one needs to study the science of sociology. This word was first used by Comte in 1838 to designate a science of social physics. In 1876 Herbert Spencer published his Principles of Sociology. American sociology commenced with the issue of The Principles of State Science, by Henry C. Cary, in 1858, in which he cen- tered all phenomena around the principle of association. This science .primarily had its inception in the intuition of human inter- action and sympathy. Like natures become aware of similarities ; a consciousness of kind creates an assimilation. Sociology as a science declares that the individual is to a large extent a product of environment. Society is psychological rather than physical. Hence there is in society what may be called a social mind. 173 HUMAN NATURE It is concrete in the individual, but in the interaction of individuals it becomes a uni- versal unit. While in the lowest class of men it is instinctive and emotional, yet the highest and purest form of the social mind is an evolution of a reasoning public opinion. It takes on many forms in its concrete work, such as: 1. Social Purity Organizations. The purpose of these is to promote purity of life in the individual. This it seeks through preventive, educational, reformatory work, as well as through law enforcement, legis- lative, and sanitary lines of effort. As a result state regulation of social vice has been abolished, the white-slave trade has been in- vestigated and vigorously prosecuted, the single standard of morals is being upheld, and a higher public sentiment is being fos- tered which makes reform possible. 2. Social Service Movements in Churches. The Christian churches are organized for this work. The Founder of Christianity was a social service worker. "I am among you as he that serveth," was his statement; 174 SOCIAL SERVICE REFORM and his gospel is a proclamation of social reform. However lax some churches may be in practical work, the Christian Church as a whole is emphatically a social reform movement. Among its organizations for special work are the church brotherhoods, the young peoples' societies, the church temperance societies, and numerous other leagues for helping humanity to better conditions. 3. Socialism. The largest and most effective organization for social service and reform may be classed under this head. The term does not indicate a single, united or- ganization, but embraces many subordinate classes working for the same end. The name is derived from the Latin word socius, mean- ing a comrade, an associate. It is a term definitely opposed to paternalism. In its essence it means economic comradeship. Its clear definition is given in the Encyclopaedia of Social Reform, as follows: "Socialism may be said to be the collective ownership of the means of production by the com- munity, democratically organized, and their 175 HUMAN NATURE operation cooperatively for the equitable good of all." The most significant of all the forms that the movement has taken on is that of Chris- tian socialism. This is simply a reversion to the original teachings of the Founder of Christianity. Every man who understands and earnestly accepts the teachings of the Master is a socialist; and every socialist, whatever his hatred of the church, bears within himself an unconscious mark of Christianity. Socialism, thus understood, is freedom in the American sense. It is an equitable production and distribution of the necessities of life. It is progressive in all that leads human nature up to higher grades, and so it educates to nobler character and purer morals. The forward movements of the age are inspired by its principles. Social service is its legitimate work; with its polit- ical movements we are not at present inter- ested. 4. Temperance Reform. The largest eugenic movement in reform is that of tem- perance. At the opening of the nineteenth 176 SOCIAL SERVICE REFORM century the United States was a nation of drunkards — if we are permitted to accept the modern definition that a man is drunk in a degree when he takes his first glass of alcoholic liquor — for men universally drank New England rum, imported brandy, fer- mented beer, and cider. It was not thought disgraceful to stagger in gait or to be thick in speech. Men were so constantly excited by drink that it passed unnoticed. Women and children drank moderately. All public occasions — weddings, funerals, militia mus- ters — were occasions of unlimited indul- gence. The liquor decanter was on the side- board of every well-to-do family in hospi- tality. Thinking men looked around for some means of checking the evil and saving the nation from the desolation of universal drunkenness. The movement for reform naturally divided itself into two forms — the persuasion of drinkers to total abstinence, or at least to moderation, and legal enact- ments for the regulation of the traffic in spirits. In modem terms the division is "total abstinence" and "prohibition." The 177 HUMAN NATURE first has relation to social service; the latter to civil service. The regulations which John Wesley had written for his United Societies in England were adopted in 1784 by the Methodist Epis- copal Church at its formation, as a part of its "General Rules." This was followed by the circulation of a pledge promising to ab- stain from the use of distilled spirits, its mover being Micaiah Pendleton, of Virginia. The same year Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia, published a medical work ex- posing the deleterious effects of alcohol on the nervous system. In 1808 Dr. J. B. Clark formed a temperance society at Saratoga, New York. In 1813 the Massachusetts So- ciety for the Suppression of Intemperance was formed. In 1826 the American Society for the Suppression of Intemperance was organized. In 1829 there were eleven State societies and one thousand local societies. In this year Dr. Lyman Beecher published six sermons on the subject of intemperance. By 1833 there were reported 6,000 local societies, with 100,000 members enrolled and 178 SOCIAL SERVICE REFORM a record of 2,000 liquor groceries closed. All these movements urged abstinence from distilled spirits only. But in 1836 a teetotal pledge was adopted by a convention at Saratoga, which defined temperance as "consisting in moderation in use of all things useful and total abstinence from all things harmful"; and, as it was found that beer, wine, and cider were large promoters of drunkenness, these were included in the liquors prohibited. In 1840 six drunkards met at Baltimore, signed a pledge of total abstinence, and named themselves the Washingtonians. This society multiplied rapidly, and in five years it was estimated that 650,000 drunkards had signed its pledge; but it did not continue, for it soon became confessed that the habit was too strong to be overcome by merely signing a pledge. In 1842 the Order of Sons of Temperance was organized; in 1851 the Order of Good Templars was instituted; and in 1874 the Woman's Christian Tem- perance Union was formed. Of these so- cieties only the Good Templars and the 179 HUMAN NATURE Woman's Christian Temperance Union con- tinue their active and efficient work. But the churches of all denominations make total abstinence a test of membership, thus giving to the cause a religious sanction. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union is the descendant of the famous "Woman's Temperance Crusade," which in fifty days put two hundred and fifty saloons out of existence. In 1883 it became a world organization, under the leadership of Frances E. Willard, and is established in fifty nations with a membership of half a million. It has expanded its work to include all forms of social service, and seeks to create "a strong public sentiment in favor of purity of life, including abstinence from all intoxicants and narcotic poisons, the pro- tection of home, the suppression of gam- bling, franchising of all women, and estab- lishment of courts of arbitration." 180 CHAPTER XXVI CIVIL SERVICE REFORM This branch of the United States service includes all governmental employments not military or naval. It has two divisions — ■ the political, which embraces all positions filled by the vote of the people, and the non- political, which comprises all ministerial offices filled by appointment. Until recent years the corruption attend- ing the filling of the latter class of positions had grown to such enormous proportions as to menace our republican form of govern- ment. The making of these appointments had gradually become a means of increasing the political power of the officials concerned. The doctrine was held that "to the victors belong the spoils"; the positions were dis- tributed to the servitors and loyal supporters of the appointing officer; and both parties were corrupted thereby. Civil service re- formers urged the necessity of making the 181 HUMAN NATURE tenure of all ministerial appointments inde- pendent of party changes and of establish- ing a system of competitive examinations for the offices to be filled. For the purpose of such examinations a Commission was appointed by Congress in 1870, but fell into inactivity on account of political opposition. In 1884, however, a system of competitive examinations became the established order for political appoint- ments; and, while the political side of national civic service still needs improve- ment, the reform is advancing. Of the 325,000 positions in the federal service, 184,000 are now under the system of com- petitive examination, and the opportunities for corruption are thus greatly reduced. The fact that the whole expense of the ministerial service in the United States for the past year was $200,000,000 shows the great opportunity formerly afforded for the working of the "spoils system." While in many States there still remain corrupt prac- tices in the operation of the civil service, these States are gradually falling into line 182 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM with the methods of general government. Many municipalities are also adopting the system of competitive examinations for ap- pointive positions, and are realizing the benefit of better service. The elimination of party politics from the conduct of city governments is the result of the reform. The prohibition of the liquor traffic is part of the civil service reform. The work of persuading men to become sober citizens is frustrated by a licensed traffic that has be- come entrenched in the protection of the general government. If the legal guardian- ship of the government over the traffic could be removed and the traffic be left to defend itself against public sentiment, it would soon retreat from its present attitude of defiance and would hide itself away. The national government itself initiated the doctrine of prohibition against the traffic, even while protecting it. As early as 1835 the secre- tary of war prohibited the introduction of alcoholic spirits into any camp, fort, or gar- rison of the United States army; and in 1834 the general government forbade the 183 HUMAN NATURE sale of ardent spirits to any Indian living within the national bounds. In 1851 the manufacture and sale of distilled spirits was prohibited by the legislature of Maine, and the act was confirmed by the almost unani- mous vote of the people and has remained in force sixty-five years. A setback for the reform movement occurred in the Civil War. In the struggle for national life the govern- ment found itself exhausted in revenue, and in its desperation to meet the demands of the war it laid a tax on the manufacture of whisky and beer. To this tax the manufac- turers readily consented, provided the gov- ernment would give them legal protection against all attempts to curtail their busi- ness. President Lincoln reluctantly con- sented, hoping that at the close of the war the unholy alliance would be abolished. But the manufacturers had the nation by the throat, and would not loosen their grip. Having capitalized and formed a trust, they gained control of the political machine. At the death of President Lincoln they were able to dictate all legislation concerning the 184 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM liquor traffic. Not only did they cement the alliance, but they gained the further advan- tage of a governmental license to sell liquors in States that prohibited it. In getting rid of slavery by war the nation thus became a party to a greater and more menacing evil, and for fifty years has suffered untold misery because of the great mistake. Another foe to prohibition has been the heavy immigration of beer-drinking foreign- ers. Within twenty years after the Civil War 1,330,000 Germans settled in this country, and under their influence the manu- facture and sale of beer has become a com- manding power. Prohibition seemed an utter failure at the close of the Civil War, for of thirteen States that had taken action against the traffic only Maine was left to uphold the system of prohibition. The allied forces of temperance then aligned, under the call for local option, to give counties and municipalities the right to defend themselves against the foe of humanity. The plan was at first a great success. Numerous counties and municipalities voted themselves "dry." 185 HUMAN NATURE But, because the environing towns continued to sell, drunkenness persisted. Then the spirit of prohibition inherent in the local option movement rallied again, and under the call for State prohibition has forced the enemy to retreat from fourteen States, thus recovering the ground lost by the Civil War. The unanimous call is now for national prohibition. Congressmen and senators must now adjust themselves to a new code of political morals. The people of the American republic are aroused to a convic- tion that the unholy alliance of the govern- ment with the nefarious liquor interests must be broken. Our thinkers are awakening to the eternal fact that law is a moral agent and that this conviction is implanted in human nature. All legal enactments are but the transcript of that intuitive sense of right which manifests itself in legal statutes. The claim of the liquor interests that men cannot be made moral by law is, like most of their sayings, fallacious and contrary to common experience. Millions of men gauge their conceptions of moralitv by the statute law, 186 CHAPTER XXVII INDUSTRIAL REFORM In primitive life commerce began with the exchange of commodities. The producer of one kind bartered his surplus with his neighbor for something he had not produced himself. But in process of time, when the wants of men became more complex, this simple exchange between producers became inconvenient and finally impossible. The middle man appeared to perfect the ex- change; and of necessity he must have his wage for the service. This became the method for the distribution of productions; the wage paid was called the profit of the middleman. But soon the producer was seized with a desire to reap a profit on his productions. Money became a necessity for the exchange. While at first it was simply an equivalent of production for convenience in exchange, it became invested with a value and was itself esteemed as wealth. Profit 187 HUMAN NATURE was considered legitimate, and the middle- man became a necessity. But the lust for wealth came into control both of production and distribution and made labor its servant, because labor was not yet trained to assert its freedom. Then labor, feeling the hardship of being a vassal to wealth, after many years of servile toil organized itself into a confederacy for pro- tection against the oppression of wealth. But these belligerent forces which manifest themselves in the economic world are not dual forces; they, rather, originate in the same organic principle of self-love, which is an essential principle in human life. They have been rightly named "plutocratic selfish- ness" and "democratic opportunity." The former demands the privilege of profit- making at the expense of labor; the latter demands the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The claim of the former is to all the profits of industry, by reason of the money invested in that indus- try; the latter claims that the distribution of all profits shall be equitable. The former 188 INDUSTRIAL REFORM asserts that capital is the only basis of all production, and for that reason has the right to fix the price of labor and the price of productions in the market; the latter as- sumes that trained ability to use machinery and the skill to manufacture productions are as essential as capital, and have the right to fix the price of labor. The motto of the former is "Profit-making for personal wealth"; the motto of the latter is "Equity in both production and distribution." Now, let us examine the grounds of this contention. The "bill of rights" inhering in human nature declares that any system of economics which asserts that the necessities of life can become private property is false and inequitable. The assumption contra- dicts the accepted definition of private property. Moreover, the necessities of living must be classed with the natural pro- visions of earth, air, water, and sunshine. If all have an equal right to live, they must have an equal right to the necessities of living. So it follows that all which is neces- sary to living should go into the free list of 189 HUMAN NATURE provisions for living. For another reason this contention is true; each one of the human family is a component part of the great unit of humanity, and for that reason is entitled to an equitable share in the means ol living. Why should he as a pauper ask in charity for that which he has a right to claim as his? It is clear that all an indi- vidual can claim as his private property is his ability to produce, and that what he produces belongs to the commonwealth in the same way he belongs to the common- wealth as a component part of the unit of humanity. Perhaps the greatest rupture in economics is the giving of speculative values to the necessities of life. In the present system of business all commercial exchange is carried on under the inspiration of these values given to commodities necessary to life and happiness. The bulls and bears of trade are in constant conflict to raise or depress prices, that they may make a profit. Land, which God made for man to live upon, is seized and made private property for mar- 190 INDUSTRIAL REFORM ginal profit. Good men engage in promoting these fictitious values with no thought of how many are made to herd in tenements. Who can fail to see the cause of the serious unrest and conflict in such economic rela- tions? Some plants, indeed, declare for the "open shop" and defy organized labor, but they are careful to pay the wage that organ- ized labor demands. From an ethical stand- point we must apprehend the coming of a crisis that is full of danger. Some hope, it is true, to heal the breach by arbitration; but it is easily seen that this leaves the way open for future outbreaks. The conflicting principles inhere in the differing systems of economics. But let us not despair. Human nature, underneath the lust for money-making, has an instinct for fair dealing. Its sense of equity is not lost. It cries out against op- pression, and is seeking better business methods. It aims to establish a system of industry based upon two principles: first, the recognition that trained ability is capital invested in cooperation with money; and, 191 HUMAN NATURE secondly, that the net profits of production belong to all invested capital alike, both money and labor, and should be so distrib- uted. This is a system of industry that is feeling its way tentatively in the economic world and, it is hoped, may solve the open questions of industrial activity. A notable illustration of this new system is found in the Washington-Crosby Flour- ing Corporation, in the city of Minneapolis. Each man employed is a component part of the concern, in the sense of being an integral unit thereof. Invested capital con- sisting of money and labor is graded accord- ing to its worth in production. The distri- bution of profits, above the wage or salary, is according to the value of each in the process of production. Money for the plant and material goes in as invested capital with labor, each drawing from the general funds. Many other plants are imitating this, and the prospect is that this will become the pre- vailing system of production. Its beauty and morality are shown in the long experi- ence of the corporation noted. Though 192 INDUSTRIAL REFORM existing and operating for many years, it has never had a strike or a lockout. A place in it has always been at a premium, and the old workmen on retiring are allotted a pen- sion for life. So, it has proved itself the most successful and satisfactory corporation in the world. 193 CHAPTER XXVIII DEMOCRACY OF HUMAN* NATURE The term "democracy" is derived from two Greek words signifying "the rule of the people." The word is socialistic rather than individualistic. No one can be a demo- crat alone, but must be associated with others, however small the number. The earliest democracy is described in Hebrew literature, where by hereditary custom or by election the rule centered in a father or chief as the representative of the people. The democracy of Greece and Rome was that of a select class and should be styled an aristocracy. Even the republic of Plato was never realized. A pure democracy in which all the people have an equal voice in the government has never had realization. The only practical democracy as yet achieved is that in which every enfranchised person 194 DEMOCRACY has a vote or voice in determining who shall represent their right to rule. The greatest obstacle to the establishment of democratic equality has been "the law of hereditary descent." We find it a universal custom that the first-born of a family shall inherit both the property and the official title of the father. By this law or custom a man acquires a class distinction. This dis- tinction unites all who are in that class into a separate and dominant rulership to which even the majority must submit. Here is the basis for the claim of "the divine right of kings" to rule and also for "the pride of family name." This law of descent divides the whole human family into two classes — the rich and the poor, or the privileged and the servile. True, by revolution and other causes the parties may change places, but the law remains. Whenever men for any cause abolish this law of descent, then equal rights prevail. Here is the birth of democracy. Many re- markable changes then occur in the natural order of sequence. Property no longer 195 HUMAN NATURE represents the family ; the greatness of name that is based on landed estates sinks into oblivion. Aristocracy of blood dies out for want of servile dependencies ; where all men are socially and politically equal there can be no lordly class claiming peculiar privi- leges by divine right. Democracy is social- istic. One remarkable result of this equality, also, is seen in the medium standard of in- telligence it promotes ; it fosters no ignorant class, nor elevates any to a pedestal of envi- able notoriety. It is impossible that such social equality should become the fixed habit of a people without affecting their political condition. They must eventually become politically equal or lose their freedom. This equality can only be enjoyed by each person being in possession of all his rights, involving an equal standing before the law and an equal opportunity to enjoy such rights. Yet the people as a whole must be the sovereign power. Their will may be expressed by a personal voice in a general assembly or by elected representatives. The former is a . 196 DEMOCRACY pure democracy; the latter may be termed a representative democracy where the sovereignty of all the people is represented by a few selected to voice their will. The main difference, then, between a monarchy and a republic is that in the former the will of the people is vested in one man who rules by "divine right," while in the other case the will of the people is vested in a majority who elect the ruler. But the tyranny of the majority may be as oppressive as the tyranny of the monarch. Against the latter the* people have the right of revolution. But what is the remedy against the tyranny of the majority? The only possible relief is in changing the will of the majority by education. Against the oppression or infidelity of a representative the people have the right of appeal, either by impeachment or by direct vote. They have likewise the right to initiate laws and the right to accept or reject laws passed by their representatives. That is to say, the rights of recall, initiative, and referendum are reserved rights of a democracy. 197 HUMAN NATURE The history of democracy traces the psychological development of human nature in comprehending and asserting its original capacities for self-government. In the primitive times the government took on the patriarchal form as the closest and most natural representation of the rights of the individuals of the family. Out of the family grew the tribe, and out of the tribe grew the nation. The divinely given right of the father to rule his family was claimed by each ruler in the succession as father of the tribe or nation. As before said, the law of heredity, however originated, submerged all claims to individual autonomy in govern- ment into the larger idea of the fatherhood of the ruler. The attempt of Greece and Rome to set up a democratic form of gov- ernment, after the model of Plato's ideal republic, failed because their demos was a select class of scholars and wealthy politi- cians, while all the laboring class was left out in the consideration. Their governments were really aristocracies of scholars and politicians, and were closely akin to the 198 DEMOCRACY monarchy. The same may be said of the republics of Switzerland and Holland. It remained for the American colonists to establish a consistent and permanent re- public. It was born in the Mayflower, when the Compact, drawn up by Elder Brewster, was signed by the Pilgrims. It found its first political expression in the "town meet- ing" established in every settlement after the landing at Plymouth. The assembly of all the electors set apart three of their number as "selectmen" to execute their regulations. This township assembly was the first recog- nition of the equal right of all men to life, liberty, and happiness. But it was not a pure democracy, for it excluded minors, women, Indians, and Negroes. Only per- sons of certain possessions and qualities of character were entitled to vote, and these constituted the "people" from whom all officials were to be chosen. Yet this equal- ity, as far as it went, held the spirit of the republic. The union of several townships made the county, and the county was the confederacy 199 HUMAN NATURE of the several towns for the purpose of estab- lishing a primary judiciary and a central registry of titles to real estate. The justices of the peace were the primary judiciary; and several counties formed a State, where was centered all legislation. Here was the first form of the republic. Each township was an integral part of the State, and yielded up some of its sovereign rights to constitute a larger unit. The State as constituted had no intrinsic rights except as they were vested in it by representatives of the several towns ; it was only and always a representative sovereignty. The constitution of a State recognizes the right of the people to make it what they will. The right of initiation is the reserved right to initiate all laws for their own government. The right of recall is the right to relegate an undesirable repre- sentative to private life. The right of refer- endum is the right to accept or reject any law passed by their representatives. So the constitution of the republic was made in the name of the people of the several townships. "We, the people, do ordain," is 200 DEMOCRACY the language of the document. And so every franchised person living anywhere within the limits of the republic is a citizen of the republic, as he is of a State or a munic- ipality. Hence, in the evolution of human nature, one may become a citizen of a united world. Are there not some signs of a con- federated humanity wherein all human rights may be conserved? To this end Christianity, the mightiest factor in the de- velopment of human nature, is bending its energies. And to this end, also, the spirit of democracy is working. To a large extent it has abrogated the ancient law of descent; it has already abolished the divine right of kings to rule ; and it is demanding and secur- ing a just and honest distribution of the necessities of living. These and other agen- cies are uniting to give to human nature the possession of all its vested rights. When the movement accomplishes its design, the demos will come into its own. The process is that of psychological education rather than any form of force. Public sentiment is of slow growth ; but, when grown, it is an irresistible 201 HUMAN NATURE power in a democracy. This equitable rule of living is bound to become the law of life, for the great wheel of evolution rolls on, using all agencies for this accomplishment. 202 REGIONAL LIBRARY FACIUTY "A 000 217 348 2