To ^ i*j-xX.^ ^^-^-^^^vf^ .f i^ ^ ^JUfnr^ aX<^.^-t^ . M ME^ORI Charles Kdward Kugh 1867-1938 Professor of Education niversity of Calif ornik rrooJ c^^cO cy\j£*.^ ^^d-^-t-t-ix' \ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/deweyethicsOOdewerich amcttcan Science Series Physics. By A. L. Kimball, Professor in Amherst College. Physics. By George F. Barker. Chemistry. By Ira Remsen, President of the Johns Hopkins University. Astronomy. By Simon Newcomb and Edward S. Holden. Geology. By Thomas C. Chamberlin and Rollin D. Salisbury, Pro- fessors in the University of Chicago. Physiography. By Rollin D. Salisbury, Professor in the University of Chicago. General Biology. By William T. Sedgwick, Professor in the Mass. Institute, and Edmund B. Wilson, Professor in Columbia University. Botany. By Charles E. Bbssey, Professor in the University of Nebraska. Zoology. By A. S. Packard, Professor in Brown University. The Human Body. By H. Newell Martin. Psychology By William Jambs, Professor in Harvard University. Ethics. By John Dewey, Professor in Columbia University, and James H. Tufts, Professor in the University of Chicago. Political Economy. By Francis A. Walker. Finance. By Henry C. Adams, Professor in the University of Michigan. For full descriptions of the Advanced, Briefer, and Elemen- tary Courses published under each topic, see the publishers' Educational Catalog. HENRY HO LI Ot CO. 378 Wabasn Ave., Chicago AMERICAN SCIENCE SERIES ETHICS BY JOHN DEWEY Professor of Philosophy in Columbia University AND JAMES H. TUFTS Professor of Philosophy in the University of Chicago NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1908 ^3, 10^^ ^^-a/^ Jt::t»^»., ^J/^ V ^"yZ^.^, "By Utilitarianism is here meant the ethical theory, first dis- tinctly formulated by Bentham, that the conduct which under any given circumstances is externally or objectively right is that which produces the greatest amount of happiness on the whole; that is taking into account all whose happiness is affected by the conduct. It would tend to clearness if we might call this principle, and the method based upon it, by some such name as Universalistic hedonism." And finally, Bain {Emotions and Will, p. 303) : "Utility is opposed to the selfish principle, for, as propounded, it always implies the good of society generally and the subordination of individual interests to the general good." * The discussion of altruism and egoism in ch. xviil. on the Self, considers some aspects of this question from another point of view. 1^ HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS 287 Social Purpose of Utilitarianism. — Its aim, then, was the "greatest possible happiness of the greatest possible number," a democratic, fraternal aim. In the compu- tation of the elements of this aim, it insisted upon the principle of social and moral equality : "every one to count for one, and only for one." The standard was the well- being of the community conceived as a community of indi- viduals, all of whom had equal rights and none of whom had special privileges or exclusive avenues of access to happi- ness. In a period in which the democratic spirit in Eng- land was asserting itself against vested interests and class-distinctions, against legalized inequalities of all sorts, the utilitarian philosophy became the natural and per- haps indispensable adjunct of the liberal and reforming spirit in law, education, and politics. Every custom, every institution, was cross-questioned; it was not allowed to plead precedent and prior existence as a basis for con- tinued existence. It had to prove that it conduced to the happiness of the community as a whole, or be legislated out of existence or into reform. Bentham's fundamental objection to other types of moral theories than his own was not so much philosophic or theoretic as it was practical. He felt that every intuitional theory tended to dignify prejudice, convention, and fixed customs, and so to consecrate vested interests and inequitable institutions. Recognition by an Opponent. — The following remarks by T. H. Green are the more noteworthy because coming from a consistent opponent of the theory: "The chief theory of conduct which in Modern Europe has afforded the conscientious citizen a vantage ground for judg- ing of the competing claims on his obedience, and enabled him to substitute a critical and intelligent for a blind and unquestioning conformity, has no doubt been the Utilitarian. . . . Whatever the errors arising from its hedonistic psy- chology, no other theory has been available for the social or political reformer, combining so much truth with such ready 288 HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS applicability. No other has offered so commanding a point of view from which to criticize the precepts and institutions presented as authoritative." ^ And again, speaking of the possibility of practical service from theory, he says : "The form of philosophy which in the modern world has most conspicuously rendered this service has been the Utili- tarian, because it has most definitely announced the interest of humanity without distinction of persons or classes, as the end by reference to which all claims upon obedience are ultimately to be measured. . . . Impartiality of reference to human well-being has been the great lesson which the Utili- tarian has had to teach." ^ Irreconcilable Conflict of Motive and End. — But un- fortunately the assertion that the happiness of all con- cerned is the "universally desirable end," is mixed up by early utilitarianism with an hedonistic psychology, ac- cording to which the desired object is private and personal pleasure. What is desirable is thus so different from what is desired as to create an uncrossable chasm between the true end of action — the happiness of all, — and the mov- ing spring of desire and action — private pleasure. That there is a difference between what is naturally desired (meaning by "naturally" what first arouses interest and excites endeavor) and what is morally desirable (under- standing by this the consequences which present them- selves in adequate deliberation), is certain enough. But the desirable must be capable of becoming desired, or else there is such a contradiction that morality is impos- sible. If, now, the object of desire is always private pleasure, how can the recognition of the consequences upon the happiness or misery of others ever become an * Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 361. ' Ibid., pp. 365-66. Green then goes on to argue that this service has been in spite of its hedonistic factor, and that if the theory were generally applied with all the hedonistic implications to personal behavior in private life, it would put impediments in the way of moral progress. HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS 289 effective competitor with considerations of personal well- being, when the two conflict? ^ Lack of Harmony among Pleasurable Ends. — If it so happens that the activities which secure the personal pleasure also manage to affect others favorably, so much the better; but since, by the theory, the individual must be moved exclusively by desire for his own pleasure, woe betide others if their happiness happens to stand in the way.^ It could only be by accident that activities of a large number of individuals all seeking their own private pleasures should coincide in effecting the desirable end of the common happiness. The outcome would, more likely, be a competitive "war of all against all." It is of such a situation that Kant says: "There results a harmony like that which a certain satirical poem depicts as exist- ing between a married couple bent on going to ruin, 'Oh, marvelous harmony! what he wishes, she wishes too'; or like what is said of the pledge of Francis I. to the Emperor Charles V., 'What my brother wants, that I want too' (namely Milan)." ^ The existence already noted of an unperceived and unreconcilable division between happi- ness m the form of future consequences, and pleasure as object of desire and present moving spri/ngy thus becomes of crucial and, for hedonistic utilitarianism, of cata- strophic importance. We shall first discuss the efforts of utilitarianism to deal with the problem. * It will be noted that we have here the same double r&le of pleasure that met us at the outset (see ante, p. 267) : one sort of happiness is the moving spring of action, because object of desire; another and incompatible sort is the standard, and hence proper or right end. ^ It is this hedonistic element of the object of desire and moving spring which calls forth such denunciations as Carlyle's; on the other hand, it is the assertion of the common happiness as the standard which calls out the indignant denial of the utilitarians; which, for example, leads Spencer to retort upon Carlyle's epithet of "pig-philosophy" with a counter charge that Carlyle's epithet is a survival of "devil-worship," since it assumes pain to be a blessing. {Principles of Ethics, Vol. I., pp. 40-41). « Abbott's Kanfs Theory of Ethics, p. 116. 290 HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS Mill's Formal Method. — We mention first a purely logical or formal suggestion of Mill's, not because it is of very much significance one way or the other, but because it helps to bring out the problem. **No reason can be given why the general happiness is de- sirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be obtainable, desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good; that each person's happiness is a good to that person; and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons." ^ It clearly does not follow that because the good of A and B and C, etc., is collectively, or aggregately, a good to A and B and C, etc., that therefore the good of A and B and C, etc., or of anybody beyond A himself, is regarded as a good by A — especially when the original premise is that A seeks his own good. Because all men want to be happy themselves, it hardly follows that each wants all to be so. It does follow, perhaps, that that would be the rea- sonable thing to want. If each man desires happiness for himself, to an outside spectator looking at the matter in the cold light of intelligence, there might be no reason why the happiness of one should be any more precious or desirable than that of another. From a mathematical standpoint, the mere fact that the individual knows he wants happiness, and knows that others are like himself, that they too are individuals who want happiness, might commit each individual, theoretically, to the necessity of regarding the happiness of every other as equally sacred with his own. But the difficulty is that there is no chance, upon the hedonistic psychology of desire, for this rational conviction to get in its work, even if it be intellectually entertained. The intellectual perception and * Utilitarianism, third paragraph of eh. iv. HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS 291 the mechanism of human motivation remain opposed. Mill's statement, in other words, puts the problem which hedonistic utilitarianism has to solve. Materially, as distinct from this formal statement, utilitarianism has two instrumentalities upon which it relies : one, internal, found in the nature of the individual ; the other, external, or in social arrangements. I. Bentham's View of Sympathetic Pleasures. — In the long list of pleasures moving men to action which Ben- tham drew up, he included what he called the social and the semi-social. The social are the pleasures of benevo- lence; the semi-social, the pleasures of amity (peace with one's fellows) and of reputation. **The pleasures of benevolence are the pleasures resulting from the view of any pleasures supposed to be possessed by the beings who may be the objects of benevolence" {Prin- ciples of Morals and Legislation). And if it be asked what motives lying within a man's self he has to consult the happi- ness of others, "in answer to this, it cannot but be admitted that the only interests which a man at all times and upon all occasions is sure to find adequate motives for consulting are his own. Notwithstanding this there are no occasions on which a man has not some motives for consulting the happi- ness of other men. In the first place, he has, on all occasions, the purely social motive of sympathy and benevolence; in the next place, he has, on most occasions, the semi-social motives of amity and love of reputation" (Ibid., ch. xix., § 1). So important finally are the sympathetic motives that he says "The Dictates of Utility are neither more nor less than the dictates of the most extensive and enlightened (that is, well advised)^ benevolence" {Ibid., ch. x., §4). In short, we are so constituted that the happiness of others gives us happiness, their misery creates distress in us. We are also so constituted that, even aside from * By this phrase Bentham refers to the necessity of controlling this spring to activity just as any other is regulated, by reference to its consequences. 292 HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS direct penalties imposed upon us by others, we are made to suffer more or less by the knowledge that they have a low opinion of us, or that we are not "popular" with them. The more enlightened our activity, the more we shall see how by sympathy our pleasures are directly bound up with others, so that we shall get more pleasure by encouraging that of others. The same course will also indirectly increase our own, because others will be hkely to esteem and honor us just in the degree in which our acts do conduce to their pleasure. A wise or enhghtened desire for our own pleasure will thus lead us to regard the pleasures of others in our activities. Limitations of Doctrine. — To state the doctrine is almost to criticize it. It comes practically to saying that a sensible and prudent self-love will make us pay due heed to the effect of our activities upon the welfare of others. We are to be benevolent, but the reason is that we get more pleasure, or get pleasure more surely and easily, that way than in any other. We are to be kind, because upon the whole the net return of pleasure is greater that way. This does not mean that Bentham denied the existence of "disinterested motives" in man's make-up; or that he held that all sympathy is coldly calculating. On the contrary, he held that sympathetic reactions to the well-being and suffering of others are in- volved in our make-up. But as it relates to motives for action he holds that the sympathetic affections influ- ence us only under the form of desire for our own pleas- ure: they make us rejoice in the rejoicing of others, and move us to act that others may rejoice so that we may thereby rejoice the more. They do not move us to act as direct interests in the welfare of others for their own sake.^ We shall find that just as Mill transformed the * Bentham himself was not a psychologist, and he does not state the doctrine in this extreme form. But those of the Benthamites who were psychologists, being hedonistic in their psychology, gave the doctrine this form. HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS 293 utilitarian theory of motives by substituting quality of happiness for quantity of pleasures, so he also transformed the earlier Benthamite conception of both the internal and the external methods for relating the happiness of the individual and the welfare of society. II. Mill's Criticism. — Mill charges Bentham with over- looking the motive in man which makes him love excel- lence for its own sake. "Even under the head of sym- pathy," he says: "his recognition does not extend to the more complex forms of the feeling — the love of loving, the need of a sympathizing support, or of an object of admiration and reverence." ^ "Self culture, the training by the human being himself of his affections and will ... is a blank in Bentham's system. The other and co-equal part, the regulation of his outward actions, must be altogether halting and imperfect without the first; for how can we judge in what manner many an action will affect the w^orldly interests of ourselves or others unless we take in, as part of the question, its influence on the regulation of our or their affections and desires.^" ^ In other words, Mill saw that the weakness of Bentham's theory lay in his supposition that the factors of charac- ter, the powers and desires which make up disposition, are of value only as moving us to seek pleasure; to Mill they have a worth of their own or are direct sources and ingredients of happiness. So Mill says: "I regard any considerable increase of human happiness, through mere changes in outward circumstances, unaccom- panied by changes in the state of desires, as hopeless." ^ And in his Autobiography J, speaking of his first reaction against Benthamism, he says : "I, for the first time, gave its proper place, among the prime necessities of human well-being, to the internal culture of the individual. I ceased to attach al- most exclusive importance to the ordering of outward circum- * Early Essays, p. 354. (Reprint by Gibbs, London, 1897.) ' Ibid., p. 357. ' Ibid., p. 404. 294 HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS stances. . . . The cultivation of the feelings became one of the cardinal points in my ethical and philosophical creed." ^ The Social Affections as Direct Interest in Others. — The importance of this changed view lies in the fact that it compels us to regard certain desires, affections, and motives as inherently worthy, because intrinsic constituent factors of happiness. Thus it enables us to identify our happiness with the happiness of others, to find our good in their good, not just to seek their happiness as, upon the whole, the most effective way of securing our own. Our social affections are direct interests in the well-being of others; their cultivation and expression is at one and the same time a source of good to ourselves, and, intelli- gently guided, to others. Taken in this light, it is sym- pathetic emotion and imagination which make the stand- ard of general happiness not merely the "desirable end," but the desired end, the effectively working object of endeavor. Intrinsic Motivation of Regard for Others. — If it Is asked why the individual should thus regard the well- being of others as an inherent object of desire, there is, according to Mill, but one answer: We cannot think of ourselves save as to some extent social beings. Hence we cannot separate the idea of ourselves and of our own good from our idea of others and of their good. The natural sentiment which is the basis of the utilitarian morality, which gives the idea of the social good weight with us, is the "desire to be in unity with our fellow creatures. . . . The social state is at once so natural, so necessary, and so habitual to man, that except in some unusual circumstances or by an effort of voluntary abstraction, he never conceives himself otherivise than as a member of a body. . . . Any condition, therefore, which is essential to a state of society becomes more and more an inseparable part of every person's concep- * Autobiography, London, 1884, p. 143. HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS 295 tion of the state of things he is born into and which is the destiny of a human being." This strengthening of social ties leads the individual "to identify his feelings more and more with the good" of others. "He comes, as though in- stinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being, who, of course, pays regard to others. The good of others becomes to him a thing naturally and necessarily to be attended to, like any of the physical conditions of our existence." This social feeling, finally, however weak, does not present itself "as a superstition of education, or a law despotically imposed from without, but as an attribute which it would not be well to be without. . . . Few but those whose mind is a moral blank could bear to lay out their course of life on the line of paying no regard to others except so far as their own pri- vate interest compels." ^ The transformation is tremendous. It is no longer a question of acting for the general interest because that brings most pleasure or brings it more surely and easily. It is a question of finding one's good in the good of others. III. The Benthamite External Ties of Private and General Interests. — ^Aside from sympathy and love of peaceful relations and good repute, Bentham relied upon law, changes in political arrangements, and the play of economic interests which make it worth while for the indi- vidual to seek his own pleasure in ways that would also conduce to the pleasure of others. Penal law can at least make it painful for the individual to try to get his own good in ways which bring suffering to others. Civil legislation can at least abolish those vested interests and class privileges which inevitably favor one at the expense of others, and which make it customary and natural to seek and get happiness in ways which disre- gard the happiness of others. In the industrial life each individual seeks his own advantage under such conditions that he can achieve his end only by rendering service to ^ Utilitarianism, eh. iii., passim. 296 HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS others, that is, through exchange of commodities or services. The proper end of legislation is then to make political and economic conditions such that the individual while seeking his own good will at least not inflict suffer- ing upon others, and positively, so far as possible, will promote their good/ IV. Mill's Criticism. — Mill's criticism does not turn upon the importance of legislation and of social economic arrangements in promoting the identity of individual and general good. On the contrary, after identify- ing (in a passage already quoted, ante, p. 286) the ideal of utilitarian morality with love of neighbor, he goes on: "As the means of making the nearest approach to this ideal utility would enj oin, first, that laws and social arrangements should place the happiness of every individual as nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the whole; and, secondly, that education and opinion, which have so vast a power over human character, should so use that power as to establish in the mind of every individual an indissoluble asso- ciation between his own happiness and the good of the whole." The criticism turns upon the fact that unless the intrinsic social idea, already discussed, be emphasized, any associa- tion of private and general happiness which law and social arrangements can effect will be external, more or less arti- ficial and arbitrary, and hence dissoluble either by intel- lectual analysis, or by the intense prepotency of egoistic desire. Mill's Transformation. — If, however, this idea of inher- ent social ties and of oneself as a social being is pre- supposed, the various external agencies have something internal to work upon; and their effect is internal, not external. Their effect is not to establish a mere * Some phases of this view as respects legislation, etc., are touched upon later in ch. xviii, HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS 297 coincidence (as with Bentham) between pleasure to oneself and pleasure to others, but to protect, strengthen, and foster the sense, otherwise intermittent and feeble, of the social aspects and relations of one's own being. It is for this reason that Mill lays more stress on education than on mere external institutional changes, and, indeed, con- ceives of the ultimate moral value of the institutional ar- rangements as itself educative. Their value to him is not that they are contrivances or pieces of machinery for making the behavior of one conduce more or less automatic- ally to the happiness of others, but that they train and exercise the individual in the recognition of the social ele- ments of his own character. Summary of Previous Discussion. — ^We have carried on our discussion of the relation between the common good as the standard for measuring rightness, and pleasure as the end and spring of the individual's activity, in terms of Mill's development of Bentham's utilitarianism. But of course our results are general, and they may be detached not only from this particular discussion, but from the truth or falsity of utilitarianism as a technical theory. Put positively, our results are these: (1) Moral quality is an attribute of character, of dispositions and attitudes which express themselves in desires and efforts. (2) Those vattitudes and dispositions are morally good which aim at the production, the maintenance, and devel- opment of ends in which the agent and others affected alike find satisfaction. There is no difference (such as early utilitarianism made) between good as standard and as aim, because only a voluntary preference for and inter- est in a social good is capable, otherwise than by coinci- dence or accident, of producing acts which have common good as their result. Acts which are not motivated by it as aim cannot be trusted to secure it as result; acts which are motived by it as a living and habitual interest are the guarantee, so far as conditions allow, of its realization. 298 HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS Those who care for the general good for its own sake are those who are surest of promoting it. The Good Moral Character. — The genuinely moral person is one, then, in whom the habit of regarding all capacities and habits of self from the social standpoint is formed and active. Such an one forms his plans, regu- lates his desires, and hence performs his acts with refer- ence to the effect they have upon the social groups of which he is a part. He is one whose dominant attitudes and interests are bound up with associated activities. Ac- cordingly he will find his happiness or satisfaction in the promotion of these activities irrespective of the particular pains and pleasures that accrue. Social Interests and Sympathy. — ^A genuine social in- terest is then something much broader and deeper than an instinctive sympathetic reaction. Sympathy is a genu- ine natural instinct, varying in intensity in different indi- viduals. It is a precious instrumentality for the devel- opment of social insight and socialized affection ; but in and of itself it is upon the same plane as any natural endowment. It may lead to sentimentality or to selfish- ness ; the individual may shrink from scenes of misery just because of the pain they cause him, or may seek jovial companions because of the sympathetic pleasures he gets. Or he may be moved by sympathy to labor for the good of others, but, because of lack of deliberation and thought- fulness, be quite ignorant of what their good really is, and do a great deal of harm. One may wish to do unto others as he would they should do unto him, but may err egre- giously because his conception of what is desirable for himself is radically false ; or because he assumes arbitrarily that whatever he likes is good for others, and may thus tyrannically impose his own standards upon them. Again instinctive sympathy is partial ; it may attach itself vehe- mently to those of blood kin or to immediate associates in such a way as to favor them at the expense of others, HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS 299 and lead to positive injustice toward those beyond the charmed circle/ Transformation of Instinctive Sympathies. — It still remains true that the instinctive affectionate reactions in their various forms (parental, filial, sexual, compassionate, sympathetic) are the sole portions of the psychological structure or mechanism of a man which can be relied upon to work the identification of other's ends with one's own interests. What is required is a blending, a fusing of the sympathetic tendencies with all the other impulsive and habitual traits of the self. When interest in power is permeated with an aff^ectionate impulse, it is protected from being a tendency to dominate and tyrannize; it be- comes an interest in effectiveness of regard for common ends. When an interest in artistic or scientific objects is similarly fused, it loses the indifferent and coldly imper- sonal character which marks the specialist as such, and becomes an interest in the adequate aesthetic and intel- lectual development of the conditions of a common life. Sympathy does not merely associate one of these tendencies mith another; still less does it make one a means to the other's end. It so intimately permeates them as to trans- form them both into a single new and moral interest. This same fusion protects sympathy from sentimentality and narrowness. Blended with interest in power, in science, in art, it is liberalized in quality and broadened in range. In short, the fusion of affectionate reactions with the other dispositions of the self illuminates, gives perspective and body to the former, while it gives social quality and direction to the latter. The result of this reciprocal ab- sorption is the disappearance of the natural tendencies in * Mill in his article on Bentham says of him: "Personal affection, he well knew, is as liable to operate to the injury of third parties, and requires as much to be kept in check, as any other feeling whatever: and general philanthropy ... he estimated at its true value when divorced from the feeling of duty, as the very weakest and most unsteady of all feelings" (Op. cit., p. 356). 300 HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS their original form and the generation of moral, i.e., so- cialized interests. It is sympathy transformed into a habitual standpoint which satisfies the demand for a stand- point which will render the person interested in foresight of all obscure consequences (ante, p. 262). I. Social Interest and the Happiness of the Agent. — We now see what is meant by a distinctively moral happi- ness, and how this happiness is supreme in quality as compared with other satisfactions, irrespective of superior intensity and duration on the part of the latter. It is impossible to draw any fixed line between the content of the moral good and of natural satisfaction. The end, the right and only right end, of man, lies in the fullest and freest realization of powers in their appropriate objects. The good consists of friendship, family and political rela- tions, economic utilization of mechanical resources, science, art, m all their complex and variegated forms and ele- ments. There is no separate and rival moral good; no separate empty and rival "good will." Nature of Moral Interest and Motivation. — Yet the in- terest in the social or the common and progressive realiza- tion of these interests may properly be called a distinctive moral interest. The degree of actual objective realiza- tion or achievement of these ends, depends upon circum- stances and accidents over which the agent has little or no control. The more happily situated individual who succeeds in realizing these ends more largely we may call more fortunate; we cannot call him morally better. The interest in all other interests, the voluntary desire to dis- cover and promote them within the range of one's own capacities, one's own material resources, and the limits of one's own surroundings, is, however, under one's con- trol: it is one^s moral self. The nature and exercise of this interest constitutes then the distinctively moral quality in all good purposes. They are morally good not so far as objectively accomplished and possessed, HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS 301 but so far as cherished in the dominant affections of the person. The Moral Interest as Final Happiness — Consequently the true or final happiness of an individual, the happiness which is not at the mercy of circumstance and change of circumstance, lies not in objective achievement of results, but in the supremacy within character of an alert, sincere, and persistent interest in those habits and institutions which forward common ends among men. Mill insisted that quality of happiness was morally important, not quantity. Well, that quality which is most important is the peace and joy of mind that accompanies the abid- ing and equable maintenance of socialized interests as central springs of action. To one in whom these inter- ests live (and they live to some extent in every individual not completely pathological) their exercise brings happi- ness because it fulfills his life. To those in whom it is the supreme interest it brings supreme or final happiness. It is not preferred because it is the greater happiness, but in being preferred as expressing the only kind of self which the agent fundamentally wishes himself to be, it con- stitutes a kind of happiness with which others cannot be compared. It is unique, final, invaluable.^ Identity of the Individual and General Happiness. — No algebraic summing up of sympathetic pleasures, utili- ties of friendship, advantages of popularity and esteem, profits of economic exchange among equals, over against pains from legal penalties and disapproving public opin- ion, and lack of sympathetic support by others, can ever make it even approximately certain that an individual's * "It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures. We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, by hav- ing wide thought and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it, that we can only tell it from pain by its being what we would choose before everything else, because our souls see it is good." — • George Eliot in Romola. 302 HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS own interest, in terms of quantity of pleasures and pains, is to regard the interest of others/ Such a demonstration, moreover, if possible, would not support but would weaken the moral life. It would reduce the manifestation of char- acter to selecting greater rather than less amounts of homogeneous ends. It would degrade reflection and con- sideration to ingenuity in detecting where larger quan- tities of pleasures lie, and to skill in performing sums of addition and subtraction. Even if such a scheme could be demonstrated, every one except the most languid and phlegmatic of pleasure-seekers would reject a life built upon it. Not only the "good," but the more vigorous and hearty of the "bad," would scorn a life in which character, selfhood, had no significance, and where the experimental discovery and testing of destiny had no place. The iden- tity of individual and general happiness is a moral matter ; it depends, that is, upon the reflective and intentional de- velopment of that type of character which identifies itself with common ends, and which is happy in these ends just because it has made them its own. 2. Social Ends and the Happiness of Others. — The same principle holds of the happiness of others. Happiness means the expression of the active tendencies of a self in their appropriate objects. Moral happiness means the satisfaction which comes when the dominant active tend- encies are made interests in the maintenance and propaga- tion of the things that make life worth living. Others, also, can be happy and should be happy only upon the same terms. Regard for the happiness of others means regard for those conditions and objects which permit others freely to exercise their own powers from their own initiative, re- flection, and choice. Regard for their final happiness (i.e., * The recognition of this by many utilitarian hedonists has caused them to have recourse to the supernaturally inflicted penalties and conferred delights of a future life to make sure of balancing up the account of virtue as self-sacrificing action with happiness, its proper end. HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS 303 for a happiness whose quality is such that it cannot be externally added to or subtracted from) demands that these others shall find the controlling objects of prefer- ence, resolution, and endeavor in the things that are worth while. 3. Happiness and Common Ends. — For all alike, in short, the chief thing is the discovery and promotion of those activities and active relationships in which the capac- ities of all concerned are effectively evoked, exercised, and put to the test. It is difficult for a man to attain a point of view from which steadily to apprehend how his own activities affect and modify those of others. It is hard, that is, to learn to accommodate one's ends to those of others; to adjust, to give way here, and fit in there with respect to our aims. But difficult as this is, it is easy com- pared with the difficulty of acting in such a way for ends which are helpful to others as will call out and make ef- fective their activities. Moral Democracy. — If the vice of the criminal, and of the coarsely selfish man is to disturb the aims and the good of others ; if the vice of the ordinary egoist, and of every man, upon his egoistic side, is to neglect the interests of others; the vice of the social leader, of the reformer, of the philanthropist and the specialist in every worthy cause of science, or art, or politics, is to seek ends which pro- mote the social welfare in ways which fail to engage the active interest and cooperation of others.^ The conception of conferring the good upon others, or at least of attain- ing it for them, which is our inheritance from the aris- tocratic civilization of the past, is so deeply embodied in religious, political, and charitable institutions and in moral teachings, that it dies hard. Many a man, feeling himself justified by the social character of his ultimate aim * The recognition of this type of spiritual selfishness is modern. It is the pivot upon which the later (especially) of Ibsen's tragedies turn. 304 HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS (it may be economic, or educational, or political), is genuinely confused or exasperated by the increasing an- tagonism and resentment which he evokes, because he has not enlisted in his pursuit of the "common" end the freely cooperative activities of others. This cooperation must be the root principle of the morals of democracy. It must be, however, confessed that it has as yet made little progress. Our traditional conceptions of the morally great man, the moral hero and leader, the exceptionally good social and political character, all work against the recognition of this principle either in practice or theory. They foster the notion that it is somebody's particular business to reach by his more or less isolated efforts (with "following," or obedience, or unreflective subordination on the part of others) a needed social good. Some genius is to lead the way; others are to adopt and imitate. Moreover, the method of awakening and enlisting the activities of all concerned in pursuit of the end seems slow; it seems to postpone accomplishment indefinitely. But in truth a common end which is not made such by common, free vol- untary cooperation in process of achievement is such in name only. It has no support and guarantee in the ac- tivities which it is supposed to benefit, because it is not the fruit of those activities. Hence, it does not stay put. It has to be continually buttressed by appeal to external, not voluntary, considerations; bribes of pleasure, threats of harm, use of force. It has to be undone and done over. There is no way to escape or evade this law of happiness, that it resides in the exercise of the active capacities of a voluntary agent; and hence no way to escape or evade the law of a common happiness, that it must reside in the congruous exercise of the voluntary activities of all concerned. The inherent irony and tragedy of much that passes for a high kind of socialized activity is pre- cisely that it seeks a common good by methods which for- bid its being either common or a good. HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS 305 LITERATURE See references upon utilitarianism at end of eh. xiv. For happi- ness, see Aristotle, Ethics, Book I., and Book X., chs. vi.-ix.; Dickin- son, The Meaning of Good; Paulsen, Sy stern of Ethics, pp. 268-286; Rickaby, Aquinas Ethicus, Vol. I., pp. 6-39; Mezes, Ethics, ch. xv.; Santayana, The Life of Reason; Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil The following histories of utilitarianism bring out the social side of the utilitarian theory: Albee, History of Utilitarianism; Stephen, The English Utilitarians; Hal^vy, La Formation du Badicalisme Philosophique, especially Vols. I. and II. CHAPTER XVI THE PLACE OF REASON IN THE MORAL LIFE; MORAL KNOWLEDGE § 1. PROBI.EM OF REASON AND DESIRE Intelligence and Reason in a Moral Act. — ^A volun- tary act is one which involves intention, purpose, and thus some degree of deliberateness. It is this trait which marks off the voluntary act from a purely unconscious one (like that of a machine) and from one which yields to the su- perior urgency of present feeling, one which is pushed on from behind, as an instinctive or impulsive act, instead of being called out by some possibility ahead. This factor of forethought and of preference after comparison for some one of the ends considered, is the factor of intelligence involved in every voluntary act. To be intelligent in ac- tion is, however, a far-reaching affair. To know what one is really about is a large and difficult order to fill ; so large and difficult that it is the heart of morality.^ The rele- vant bearings of any act are subtler and larger than those which can be foreseen and than those which will be unless special care is taken. The tendencies which strongly move one to a certain act are often exactly those which tend to prevent one's seeing the effect of the act upon his own habits and upon the well-being of others. The internal forces and the external circumstance which evoke the idea * "Any one can be angry: that is quite easy. Any one can give money away or spend it. But to do these things to the right person, to the right amount, at the right time, with the right aim and in the right manner — this is not what any one can easily do." — Aristotle, Ethics, Book II., eh. ix. 806 PROBLEM OF REASON AND DESIRE 307 of an end and of the means of attaining it are frequently also those which deflect intelligence to a narrow and par- tial view. The demand for a standard by which to regu- late judgment of ends is thus the demand not only for in- telligence, but for a certain kind of intelligence. In short, a truly moral (or right) act is one which is intelligent in an emphatic and peculiar sense; it is a rea- sonable act. It is not merely one which is thought of, and thought of as good, at the moment of action, but one which will continue to be thought of as "good" in the most alert and persistent reflection.^ For by "reasonable" action we mean such action as recognizes and observes all the neces- sary conditions ; action in which impulse, instinct, incli- nation, habit, opinion, prejudice (as the case may be) are moderated, guided, and determined by considerations which lie outside of and beyond them. Not merely to form ends and select means, but to judge the worth of these means and ends by a standard, is then the distinctive prov- ince of reason in morals. Its outcome is moral knowledge; that is judgments of right and wrong, both in general, and in the particular and perplexing cases as they arise. This is the topic of the present chapter. Typical Problems. — The problem of moral knowledge is in its general form : Is there a distinct and separate faculty of moral reason and knowledge, or is there but one power of judgment which varies with its object? The former view is the intuitional (from Latin, intueor: to look at) ; it is associated with theories, which, like the Kantian, em- phasize attitudes, not results and intentions ; while the view which holds that there is but one form of thought which, in morals, concerns itself with results, and with their asso- ciation with the present aim, Is the empirical. There are two especial dlfl^cultles which lead to the upholding of the Intuitional point of view, difficulties which any theory of moral knowledge has to meet. They are (I) The Rela- * Compare the sentence quoted on p. 268 from Hazlitt. PLACE OF REASON IN MORAL LIFE tion of Desire and Reason, and (II) the Knowledge of Private and General Good. 1. Desire and Reason. — Ordinary knowledge in prac- tical matters follows the line set by desire. Hunger makes us think of food and of how to get it; sociable desire, of friends, and how to secure their companionship, and so on. Now a surging mass of desires, vehement and bulky, may concentrate itself upon the idea of any end ; and as soon as it does so, it tends to shut out wider considerations. As we have just seen, it is the object of reason to give us a calm, objective, broad, and general survey of the field. Desires work against this, and unless (so runs the argu- ment ) there is a faculty which works wholly independent of desires, as our ordinary practical knowledge does not, it is absurd to suppose there can be a rational principle which will correct and curb desire. 2. Private and General Good. — Since the wide and permanent good is social, it is urged that unless we have an independent faculty of moral knowledge, our judg- ment will be subservient to the ends of private desire, and hence will not place itself at the public point of view. Or, if it does so, it will be simply as a matter of expediency to calculate better the means for getting our own pleasure. In general, it is urged that only a faculty of knowledge completely independent of personal wishes, habits, pur- poses can secure judgments possessing inherent dignity and authoritativeness ; since these require an elevated, impartial, universal, and necessary point of view. We shall in the sequel attempt to show that this view of knowledge results from the false conception of desire as having pleas- ure for its object, and from a false conception of the rela- tion of intent and motive. When these errors are cor- rected, there is no ground to assume any special faculty of moral intelligence, save as the one capacity of thought is specialized into a particular mental habit by being con- stantly occupied in judging values. We shall try to show KANT'S THEORY OF PRACTICAL REASON 309 that the broad and pubhc point of view is secured by fusion of impulses with sympathetic affections. We shall begin with stating and criticizing the views of Kant, who up- holds the doctrine of a separate independent Moral Reason in its most extreme form. § 2. K A NT's THEOEY OF PRACTICAL REASON Kant is at one with the hedonist as regards the natural object of desire ; it is pleasure. All purposes and ends that spring from inclination and natural tendency come under one head : self-love. Hence, the ordinary use of intelligence is confined to the matter of passing upon what constitutes the individual's private happiness and how he shall secure it. There are then fundamental contrasts between ordi- nary practical activity and genuinely moral activity, contrasts which reflect themselves in the theory of the na- ture and function of moral knowledge. ( 1 ) The moral end is unqualified^ absolute, categorical. It is not something which we can pick or leave at our option. Morality is the region of final ends, ends not to be disputed or questioned ; and reason must set forth such final ends. Since, however, happiness is not a morally necessary end, intelligence in its behalf can only give hypothetical counsel and advice: if you would be happy, or happy in this, or that way, then take such and such measures. Reason which promulgates ends must be of a different sort from the intelligence which simply searches for means. (2) Morality is not qualified, but certain in its require- ments. The most inexperienced, the humblest, the one most restricted in his circumstances and opportunities, must know what is morally required as surely as the wisest and most educated. Hence moral reason must utter its precepts clearly and unambiguously. But no one can be S2ire what happiness is, or whether a given act will bring joy or sorrow. "The problem of determining certainly 310 PLACE OF REASON IN MORAL LIFE what action would promote the happiness of a rational being is insoluble." (Abbott's Kant, p. 36.) The demand for certainty of precepts in moral matters also requires a special faculty. (3) Morality, which is inexorable and certain in its de- mands, is also universal in its requirements. Its laws are the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, the same for one as for another. Now happiness notoriously varies with the condition and circumstances of a person, as well as with the conditions of different peoples and epochs. Intelli- gence with reference to happiness can only give counsel, not even rules, so variable is happiness. It can only advise that upon the average, under certain conditions, a given course of action has usually promoted happiness. When we add that the commands of morality are also universal with respect to the different inclinations of different indi- viduals, we are made emphatically aware of the necessity of a rational standpoint, which in its impartiality totally transcends the ends and plans that grow out of the or- dinary experience of an individual. An A Priori Reason Kant's Solution. — The net out- come is that only a reason which is separate and independ- ent of all experience is capable of meeting the require- ments of morality. What smacks in its origin and aim of experience is tainted with self-love; is partial, tempo- rary, uncertain, and relative or dependent. The moral law is unqualified, necessary, and universal. Hence we have to recognize in man as a moral being a faculty of reason which expresses itself in the law of conduct a priori to all experience of desire, pleasure, and pain. Besides his sen- suous nature (with respect to which knowledge is bound up with appetite) man has a purely rational nature, which manifests itself in the consciousness of the absolute author- ity of universal law.^ * This means Duty. This phase will be discussed in the next chapter. KANT'S THEORY OF PRACTICAL REASON 311 Formal Character of Such Reason. — This extreme sep- aration of reason from experience brings with it, however, a serious problem. We shall first state this problem; and then show that its artificial and insoluble character serves as a refutation of Kant's theory of a transcendental, or wholly non-natural and non-empirical, mode of knowl- edge. Reason which is wholly independent of experience of desires and their results is, as Kant expressly declares, purely formal. (Abbott's Kant, p. 33; p. 114.) That is to say, it is empty; it does not point out or indicate any- thing particular to be done. It cannot say be industrious, or prudent, generous ; give, or refrain from giving, so much money to this particular man at this particular time under just these circumstances. All it says is that morality is rational and requires man to follow the law of reason. But the law of reason is just that a man should follow the law of reason. And to the inevitable inquiry "What then is the law of reason.'*" the answer still is: To follow the law of reason. How do we break out of this empty circle into specific knowledge of the specific right things to be done.'' Kant has an answer, which we shall now consider. Kant's Method. — He proceeds as follows: The law is indeed purely formal or empty (since, once more, all spe- cific ends are "empirical" and changeable), but it is so because it is universal. Now nothing which is universal can contradict itself. All we need to do is to take any pro- posed principle of any act and ask ourselves whether it can be universalized without self-inconsistency. If it can- not be, the act is wrong. If it can be, the act is right. For example: "May I, when in distress, make a promise with the intention not to keep it ? . . . The shortest way, and an unerring one to discover the answer to the question whether a lying promise is consistent with duty, is to ask myself, Should I be con- tent that my maxim (to extricate myself from trouble by a false promise) should hold good as a universal law, for my- self as well as for others? And should I be able to say to 312 PLACE OF REASON IN MORAL LIFE myself, every one may make a deceitful promise when he finds himself in a difficulty from which he cannot otherwise extri- cate himself? Then I personally become aware that while I can will the lie, I can by no means will that lying should be a universal law. For with such a law there would be no such thing as a promise. No one should have any faith in the proffered intention, or, if they do so over hastily, would pay one back in one's own coin at the first opportunity" {Op. cit, p. 19). The principle if made universal simply contradicts itself, and thus reveals that it is no principle at all, not rational. Summing this up in a formula, we get as our standard of right action the principle: "Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of na- ture" (Op. cit., p. 39). The procedure thus indicated seems simple. As long as an individual considers the purpose or motive of his action as if it were merely a matter of that one deed ; as if it were an isolated thing, there is no rationality, no consciousness of moral law or principle. But let the individual imagine himself gifted with such power that, if he acts, the motive of his act will become a fixed, a regular law in the constitu- tion of things. Would he, as a rational being, be willing to bring about such a universalization, — can he, with equa- nimity as a reasonable being, contemplate such an outcome? If he can, the act is right; if not (as in the case of mak- ing a lying promise), wrong. No sensible person would question the instructiveness of this scheme in the concrete. It indicates that the value of reason — of abstraction and generalization — in conduct is to help us escape from the partiality that flows from desire and emotion in their first and superficial manifestations, and to attain a more unified and permanent end. As a method (though not the only one) of realizing the full meaning of a proposed course of action, nothing could be better than asking ourselves how we should like to be committed forever to its principle; how we should like KANT'S THEORY OF PRACTICAL REASON 313 to have others committed to it and to treat us according to it? Such a method is well calculated to make us face our proposed end in its impartial consequences ; to teach the danger of cherishing merely those results which are most congenial to our passing whim and our narrow concep- tion of personal profit. In short, by generalizing a pur- pose we make its general character evident. But this method does not proceed (as Kant would have it) from a mere consideration of moral law apart from a concrete end, hut from an end in so far as it persistently approves itself to reflection after an adequate survey of it in all its hearings. It is the possibility of generalizing the concrete end that Kant falls back upon. Other illustrations which Kant offers enforce the same lesson. He suggests the following: (1) A man in despair from misfortune considers suicide. "Now he inquires whether the maxim of his action could^ be- come a universal law of nature." We see at once that a system of nature by which it should be a law to destroy life by means of the very feeling — self-love — whose nature it is to impel to the maintenance of life, would contradict itself and therefore could not exist. (2) A man who has a certain talent is tempted from slug- gishness and love of amusement not to cultivate it. But if he applies the principle he sees that, while a system of nature might subsist if his motive became a law (so that all people devoted their lives to idleness and amusement), yet he cannot will that such a system should receive absolute realization. As a rational being he necessarily also wills that facul- ties be developed since they serve for all sorts of possible purposes. (3) A prosperous man, who sees some one else to be wretched, is tempted to pay no attention to it, alleging that it is no concern of his. Now, if this attitude were made a universal law of nature, the human race might subsist and even get on after a fashion; but it is impossible to will that such a principle should have the validity of a law of nature. Such a will would contradict itself, for many cases would occur in which the one willing would need the love and sympathy of others; he could not then without contradicting 314 PLACE OF REASON IN MORAL LIFE himself wish that selfish disregard should become a regular, a fixed uniformity. The Social End is the Rational End. — These illustra- tions make it clear that the "contradiction" Kant really depends upon to reveal the wrongness of acts, is the intro- duction of friction and disorder among the various concrete ends of the individual. He insists especially that the social relations of an act bring out its general purport. A right end is one which can be projected harmoniously into the widest and broadest survey of life which the individual can make. A "system of nature" or of conduct in which love of Hfe should lead to its own destruction certainly contradicts itself. A course of action which should include all the tendencies that make for amuse- ment and sluggishness would be inconsistent with a scheme of life which would take account of other tendencies — such as interest in science, in music, in friendship, in business achievement, which are just as real constituents of the individual, although perhaps not so strongly felt at the moment. A totally callous and cruel mode of procedure certainly "contradicts" a course of life in which every individual is so placed as to be dependent upon the sym- pathy and upon the help of others. It is the province of reason to call up a sufficiently wide view of the con- sequences of an intention as to enable us to realize such inconsistencies and contradictions if they exist; to put before us, not through any logical manipulation of the principle of contradiction, but through memory and imag- ination a particular act, proposal, or suggestion as a por- tion of a connected whole of life; to make real to us that no man, no act, and no satisfaction of any man, falls or stands to itself, but that it affects and is affected by others. Our conclusion is : the right as the rational good means that which is harmonious with all the capacities and desires of the self, that which expands them into a cooperative whole. KANT'S THEORY OF PRACTICAL REASON Sl5 Kant's Introduction of Social Factors. — The further development which Kant gives the formula already quoted (p. 312) goes far to remove the appearance of opposition between the utilitarian social standard and his own ab- stract rationalism. Kant points out that according to his view the moral or rational will is its own end. Hence every rational person is always an end, never a means: — this, indeed, is what we mean by a person. But every nor- mal human being is a rational person. Consequently another formula for his maxim is: "So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, as an end, never as a means merely." The man who contemplates suicide "uses a person merely as a means to maintaining a tolerable condition of life." He who would make a lying promise to another makes that other one merely a means to his profit, etc. Moreover, since all per- sons are equally ends in themselves and are to be equally regarded in behavior, we may say the standard of right is the notion of a "Kingdom of Ends" — the idea of "the union of different rational beings in a system by common laws." ^ These propositions are rather formal, but the moment we put definite meaning into them, they suggest that the good for any man is that in which the welfare of others counts as much as his own. The right is that action which, so far as in it lies, combines into a whole of common interests and purposes the otherwise conflicting aims and interests of different persons. So interpreted, the Kantian formula differs in words, rather than in idea, from Ben- tham's happiness of all concerned "each counting for one and only one"; from Mill's statement that the "deeply rooted conception which every individual even now has of himself as a social being tends to make him feel it as one of his natural wants, that there should be harmony between his feelings and aims and those of his fellow creatures." ^ Kanfs Theory of Ethics, trans, by Abbott, pp. 47-51. 316 PLACE OF REASON IN MORAL LIFE In all of these formulae we find re-statements of our con- ception that the good is the activities in which all men participate so that the powers of each are called out, put to use, and reenforced. Consequent Transformation of Theory of Reason. — Now if the common good, in the form of a society of indi- viduals, as a kingdom of ends, is the object with reference to which the ends of desire have to be rationalized, Kant's theory of an a priori and empty Reason is completely made over. In strict logic Kant contradicts himself when he says that we are to generalize the end of desire, so as to see whether it could become a universal law. For accord- ing to him no end of desire (since it is private and a form of self-love) can possibly he generalized. He is set- ting up as a method of enlightenment precisely the very impossibility (impossible, that is, on his own theory that private happiness is the end of desire) which made him first resort to his a priori and transcendental reason.'* No more complete contradiction can be imagined. On the other hand, if we neglect the concrete, empir- ical conditions and consequences of the object of desire, there is no motive whatsoever that may not be generalized. There is no formal contradiction in acting always on a motive of theft, unchastity, or insolence. All that Kant's method can require, in strict logic, is that the individual always, under similar circumstances, act from the same mo- tive. Be willing to be always dishonest, or impure, or proud in your intent; achieve consistency in the badness of your motives, and you will be good ! Doubtless no one, not even the worst man, would be willing to be universally consist- ent in his badness. But this is not in the least a matter of a purely formal, logical inconsistency of the motive with itself ;^ it is due rather to that conflict among diverse * In last analysis Kant is trying to derive moral enlightenment from the most abstract principle of formal logic, the principle of Identity, that A is A! MORAL SENSE INTUITIONALISM 317 desires, and different objects for which one strives, which makes him aware that at some time he should want to act kindly and fairly. Organization of Desires from the Social Standpoint. — What Kant is really insisting upon at bottom is, then, the demand for such a revision of desire as it casually and unreflectively presents itself as would make the desire a consistent expression of the whole body of the purposes of the self. What he demands is that a desire shall not be accepted as an adequate motive till it has been organized into desire for an end which will be compatible with the whole system of ends involved in the capacities and tend- encies of the agent. This is true rationalization. And he further warns us that only when a particular desire has in view a good which is social will it meet this re- quirement. This brings us to our next problem. Just what is the process by which we judge of the worth of par- ticular proposals, plans, courses of actions, desires.? Granted- that a generalized good, a socialized happiness, is the point of view at which we must plaoie ourselves to secure the reasonable point of view, how does this point of view become an operative method.? § 3. MORAL SENSE INTUITIONALISM So far, our conclusions are (1) that the province of reason is to enable us to generalize our concrete ends ; to form such ends as are consistent with one another, and reenforce one another, introducing continuity and force, where otherwise there would be division and weakness ; and (2) that only social ends are ultimately reasonable, since they alone permit us to organize our acts into consistent wholes. We have now, however, to consider how this con- ception takes effect in detail ; how it is employed to deter- mine the right or the reasonable in a given situation. We shall approach this problem by considering a form of in- 318 PLACE OF REASON IN MORAL LIFE tuitionalism historically prior to that of Kant. This em- phasizes the direct character of moral knowledge in par- ticular cases, and assimilates moral knowledge to the analogy of sense perception, which also deals directly with specific objects; it insists, however, that a different kind of faculty of knowledge operates in the knowledge of acts from that which operates in the knowledge of things. Our underlying aim here is to bring out the relation of imme- diate appreciation to deliberate reflection, with a view to showing that the reasonable standpoint, that of the com- mon good, becomes effective through the socialized atti- tudes and emotions of a person's own character. Moral Sense. — This theory holds that rightness is an intrinsic, absolute quality of special acts, and as such is immediately known or recognized for what it is. Just as a white color is known as white, a high tone as high, a hard body as existent, etc., so an act which is right is known as right. In each case, the quality and the fact are so intimately and inherently bound together that it is ab- surd to think of one and not know the other. As a theory of moral judgment, intuitionalism is thus opposed to utili- tarianism, which holds that rightness is not an inherent quality but one relative to and borrowed from external and more or less remote consequences. While some forms of intuitionalism hold that this moral quality be- longs to general rules or to classes of ends, the form we are now to consider holds that the moral quality of an individual act cannot be borrowed even from a moral law, but shines forth as an absolute and indestructible part of the motive of the act itself. Because the theory in ques« tion sticks to the direct perception of the immediately pres- ent quality of acts, it is usually called, in analogy with the direct perception of eye or ear, the moral sense theory. Objections to Theory. — The objections to this theory in the extreme form just stated may be brought under two heads: (1) There is no evidence to prove that all MORAL SENSE INTUITIONALISM 319 acts are directly characterized by the possession of abso- lute and self-evident rightness and wrongness; there is much evidence to show that this quality when presented by acts can, as a rule, be traced to earlier instruction, to the pressure of correction and punishment, and to association with other experiences. (2) While in this way many acts, perhaps almost all, of the average mature person of a good moral environment, have acquired a direct moral coloring, making unnecessary elaborate calculation or reference to general principles, yet there is nothing infallible in such intuitively presented properties. An act may present it- self as thoroughly right and yet may be, in reality, wrong. The function of conscious deliberation and reasoning is precisely to detect the existence of and to correct such intuitive cases.^ I. Direct Perception as Effect of Habits. — It must be admitted, as a result of any unprejudiced examination, that a large part of the acts, motives, and plans of the adult who has had favorable moral surroundings seem to possess directly, and in their own intrinsic make-up, right- ness or wrongness or moral indifference. To think of lying or stealing is one with thinking of it as wrong; to recall or suggest an act of kindness is the same as thinking of it as right ; to think of going after mail is to think of an act free from either rightness or wrongness. With the average person it is probably rare for much time to be spent in figuring out whether an act is right or wrong, after the idea of that act has once definitely presented itself. So far as the facts of moral experience in such cases are concerned, the "moral sense" theory appears to give a correct description. (1) But the conclusion that, therefore, moral good- ness or badness is and always has been an inherent, abso- * A student in an ethics class once made this remark: "Conscience is infallible, but we should not always follow it. Sometimes we should use our reason." SSO PLACE OP REASON IN MORAL LIFE lute property of the act itself, overlooks well-known psy- chological principles. In all perception, in all recognition, there is a funding or capitalizing of the results of past experience by which the results are rendered available in new experiences. Even a young child recognizes a table, a chair, a glass of milk, a dog, as soon as he sees it; there is no analysis, no conscious interpretation. Dis- tance, direction, size, under normal circumstances, are perceived with the same assurance and ease. But there was a time when all these things were learning ; when con- scious experimentation involving interpretation took place. Such perceptions, moreover, take place under the guidance of others; pains are taken indelibly to stamp moral impressions by associating them with intense, vivid, and mysterious or awful emotional accompaniments.^ Anthropological and historical accounts of different races and peoples tell the same story. Acts once entirely innocent of moral distinctions have acquired, under differ- ing circumstances and sometimes for trivial and absurd reasons, different moral values: — one and the same sort of act being stamped here as absolute guilt, there as an act of superior and heroic virtue. Now it would be falla- cious to argue (as some do) that because distinctions of moral quality have been acquired and are not innate, they are therefore unreal when they are acquired. Yet the fact of gradual development proves that no fixed line exists where it can be said the case is closed; that just this is henceforth forever right or wrong; that there shall be no further observation of consequences, no further correction and revision of present "intuitions." (2) Our immediate moral recognitions take place, more- over, only under usual circumstances. There is after all * Compare Locke, Essay on the Human Understanding , Book I., ch. iii. MORAL SENSE INTUITIONALISM 321 no such thing as complete moral maturity; all persons are still more or less children — in process of learning moral distinctions. The more intense their moral inter- ests, the more childlike, the more open, flexible, and grow- ing are their minds. It is only the callous and indifferent, or at least the conventional, who find all acts and projects so definitely right and wrong as to render reflection unnecessary. "New occasions teach new duties," but they teach them only to those who recognize that they are not already in possession of adequate moral judgments. Any other view destroys the whole meaning of reflective morality and marks a relapse to the plane of sheer custom. Ex- treme intuitionalism and extreme moral conservatism; dis- like to calculation and reflection, for fear of innovations with attendant trouble and discomfort, are usually found to go together. II. Direct Perception No Guarantee of Validity. — This suggests our second objection. The existence of im- mediate moral quality, the direct and seemingly final possession of rightness, as matter of fact, is not adequate proof of validity. At best, it furnishes a presumption of correctness, in the absence of grounds for questioning it, in fairly familiar situations, (a) There is nothing more direct, more seemingly self-evident, than inveterate prejudice. When class or vested interest is enlisted in the maintenance of the custom or institution which is expressed in a prejudice, the most vicious moral judg- ments assume the guise of self-conscious sanctity, (b) A judgment which is correct under usual circumstances may become quite unfit, and therefore wrong, if persisted in under new conditions. Life, individual and social, is in constant process of change; and there is always danger of error in clinging to judgments adjusted to older cir- cumstances. "The good is the enemy of the better." It is not merely false ideas of the values of life that have to be re-formed, but ideas once true. When economic, politi- 322 PLACE OF REASON IN MORAL LIFE cal, and scientific conditions are modifying themselves as rapidly and extensively as they are in our day, it is re- construction of moral judgment that needs emphasis, rather than the existence of a lot of ready-made "intui- tions." When readjustment is required, deliberate in- quiry is the only alternative to inconsiderate, undirected, and hence probably violent changes: — changes involving undue relaxation of moral ties on one side and arbitrary reactions on the other. Deliberation and Intuition. — It is indeed absurd to set immediate recognition of quality and indirect cal- culation of more or less remote consequences, intuition and thought, over against each other as if they were rivals. For they are mutually supplementary. As we saw in a previous chapter, the foresight of future results calls out an immediate reaction of satisfaction and dissatis- faction, of happiness or dislike. (See p. 272.) It is equally as false to say that we calculate only future pains and pleasures (instead of changes in the world of things and persons) as it is to say that anticipations of the changes to be wrought in the world by our act are not accompanied by an immediate emotional appreciation of their value. The notion that deliberation upon the various alternatives open to us is simply a cold-blooded setting down of various items to our advantage, and various other items to our disadvantage (as Robinson Crusoe wrote down in bookkeeping fashion his miseries and blessings), and then striking an algebraic balance, implies some- thing that never did and never could happen. Delibera- tion is a process of active, suppressed, rehearsal ; of imagi- native dramatic performance of various deeds carrying to their appropriate issues the various tendencies which we feel stirring within us. When we see in Imagination this or that change brought about, there is a direct sense of the amount and kind of worth which attaches to it, as real and as direct, if not as strong, as if the act were MORAL SENSE INTUITIONALISM 323 really performed and its consequence really brought home to us. Deliberation as Dramatic Rehearsal. — We, indeed, es- timate the import or significance of any present desire or impulse by forecasting what it would come or amount to if carried out; literally its consequences define its con- sequence, its meaning and importance. But if these consequences were conceived merely as remote, if their picturing did not at once arouse a present sense of peace, of fulfillment, or of dissatisfaction, of incompletion and irritation, the process of thinking out consequences would remain purely intellectual. It would be as barren of influence upon behavior as the mathematical speculations of a disembodied angel. Any actual experience of re- flection upon conduct will show that every foreseen result at once stirs our present affections, our likes and dislikes, our desires and aversions. There is developed a running commentary which stamps values at once as good or evil. It is this direct sense of value, not the consciousness of general rules or ultimate goals, which finally determines the worth of the act to the agent. Here is the inex- pugnable element of truth in the intuitional theory. Its error lies in conceiving this immediate response of appre- ciation as if it excluded reflection instead of following directly upon its heels. Deliberation is actually an imag- inative rehearsal of various courses of conduct. We give way, in our mind, to some impulse; we try, in our mind, some plan. Following its career through various steps, we find ourselves in imagination in the presence of the consequences that would follow: and as we then like and approve, or dislike and disapprove, these conse- quences, we find the original impulse or plan good or bad. Deliberation is dramatic and active, not mathematical and impersonal ; and hence it has the intuitive, the direct factor in it. The advantage of a mental trial, prior to the overt trial (for the act after all is itself also a trial, a prov- SM PLACE OF REASON IN MORAL LIFE ing of the idea that hes back of it), is that it is retrievable, whereas overt consequences remain. They cannot be re- called. Moreover, many trials may mentally be made in a short time. The imagining of various plans carried out furnishes an opportunity for many impulses which at first are not in evidence at all, to get under way. Many and varied direct sensings, appreciations, take place. When many tendencies are brought into play, there is clearly much greater probability that the capacity of self which is really needed and appropriate will be brought into action, and thus a truly reasonable happiness result. The tendency of deliberation to "polarize" the various lines of activity into opposed alternatives, into incompatible "either this or that," is a way of forcing into clear recog- nition the importance of the issue. The Good Man's Judgments as Standard. — This ex- plains the idea of Aristotle that only the good man is a good judge of what is really good. Such an one will take satisfaction in the thought of noble ends and will recoil at the idea of base results. Because of his formed capaci- ties, his organized habits and tendencies, he will respond to a suggested end with an emotion which confers its appropriate kind and shade of value. The brave man is sensitive to all acts and plans so far as they involve energy and endurance in overcoming painful obstacles; the kindly man responds at once to the elements that affect the well-being of others. The moral sense or direct appreciations of the good man may thus be said to furnish the standard of right and wrong. There are few persons who, when in doubt regarding a difficult matter of con- duct, do not think of some other person in whose good- ness they believe, and endeavor to direct and clinch their own judgment by imagining how such an one would react in a similar situation — ^what he would find congenial and what disagreeable. Or else they imagine what that other person would think of them if he knew of their doing such THE PLACE OF GENERAL RULES 325 and such an act. And while this method cannot supply the standard of their own judgment, cannot determine the right or wrong for their own situations, it helps emanci- pate judgment from selfish partialities, and it faciUtates a freer and more flexible play of imagination in construing and appreciating the situation. § 4. THE PLACE OF GENERAL RULES Between such a highly generalized and formal principle as that of Kant, and the judgment of particular cases, we have intermediate generalizations; rules which are broad as compared with individual deeds, but narrow as com- pared with some one final principle. What are their ra- tional origin, place, and function? We have here again both the empirical and the intuitional theories of knowl- edge, having to deal with the same fundamental difficulty : What is the relation of the special rule to the general principle on one side and to the special case on the other? The more general, the more abstractly rational the rule, the vaguer and less applicable it is. The more definite and fixed it is, the greater the danger that it will be a Procrustean bed, mutilating the rich fullness of the indi- vidual act, or destroying its grace and freedom by making it conform servilely to a hard and fast rule. Our analysis will accordingly be devoted to bringing to hght the con- ditions under which a rule may be rational and yet be of specific help. I. Intuitionalism and Casuistry. — Utilitarianism at least holds that rules are derived from actual cases of con- duct ; hence there must be points of likeness between the cases to be judged and the rules for judging them. But rules which do not originate from a consideration of special cases, which simply descend out of the blue sky, have only the most mechanical and external relation to the individual acts to be judged. Suppose one is convinced PLACE OF REASON IN MORAL LIFE that the rule of honesty was made known just in and of itself by a special faculty, and had absolutely nothing to do with the recollection of past cases or the forecast of possible future circumstances. How would such a rule apply itself to any particular case which needed to be judged? What bell would ring, what signal would be given, to indicate that just this case is the appropriate case for the application of the rule of honest dealing? And if by some miracle this question were answered so one knows that here is a case for the rule of honesty, how would we know just what course in detail the rule calls for? For the rule, to be applicable to all cases, must omit the conditions which differentiate one case from another; it must contain only the very few similar elements which are to be found in all honest deeds. Reduced to this skeleton, not much would be left save the bare injunction to be honest whatever happens, leaving it to chance, the ordinary judg- ment of the individual, or to external authority to find out just what honesty specifically means in the given case. This difficulty is so serious that all systems which have committed themselves to belief in a number of hard and fast rules having their origin in conscience, or in the word of God impressed upon the human soul or externally re- vealed, always have had to resort to a more and more complicated procedure to cover, if possible, all the cases. The moral life is finally reduced by them to an elaborate formalism and legalism. Illustration in Casuistry. — Suppose, for example, we take the Ten Commandments as a starting-point. They are only ten, and naturally confine themselves to general ideas, and ideas stated mainly in negative form. More- over, the same act may be brought under more than one rule. In order to resolve the practical perplexities and uncertainties which inevitably arise under such circum- stances. Casuistry is built up (from the Latin casus, case). The attempt is made to foresee all the different THE PLACE OF GENERAL RULES cases of action which may conceivably occur, and provide in advance the exact rule for each case. For example, with reference to the rule "do not kill," a list will be made of all the different situations in which killing might occur : — accident, war, fulfillment of command of political supe- rior (as by a hangman), self-defense (defense of one's own life, of others, of property), deliberate or premedi- tated killing with its different motives (jealousy, avarice, revenge, etc.), killing with slight premeditation, from sud- den impulse, from different sorts and degrees of provoca- tion. To each one of these possible cases is assigned its exact moral quality, its exact degree of turpitude and innocency. Nor can this process end with overt acts ; all the inner springs of action which affect regard for life must be similarly classified: envy, animosity, sudden rage, sullenness, cherishing of sense of injury, love of tyranni- cal power, hardness or hostility, callousness — all these must be specified into their different kinds and the exact moral worth of each determined. What is done for this one kind of case must be done for every part and phase of the entire moral life until it is all inventoried, cata- logued, and distributed into pigeon-holes definitely labelled. Dangers of Casuistry. — Now dangers and evils attend this way of conceiving the moral life, (a) It tends to magnify the letter of morality at the expense of its spirit. It fixes attention not upon the positive good in an act, not upon the underlying disposition agent which forms its spirit, and upon the unique occasion and context which form its atmosphere, but upon its literal conformity with Rule A, Class I., Species 1, sub-head (1), etc. The effect of this is inevitably to narrow the scope and lessen the depth of conduct, (i.) It tempts some to hunt for that classification of their act which will make it the most con- venient or profitable for themselves. In popular speech, "casuistical" has come to mean a way of judging acts which splits hairs in the effort to fin,d a way of acting PLACE OF REASON IN MORAL LIFE that conduces to personal interest and profit, and which yet may be justified by some moral principle, (ii.) With others, this regard for the letter makes conduct formal and pedantic. It gives rise to a rigid and hard type of character illustrated among the Pharisees of olden and the Puritans of modern time — the moral schemes of both classes being strongly impregnated with the notion of fixed moral rules. (b) This ethical system also tends vn practice to a legal view of conduct. — Historically it always has sprung from carrying over legal ideas into morality. In the legal view, liability to blame and to punishment inflicted from without by some superior authority, is neces- sarily prominent. Conduct is regulated through specific injunctions and prohibitions: Do this, Do not do that. Exactly the sort of analysis of which we have spoken above (p. 327) in the case of killing is necessary, so that there may be definite and regular methods of measuring guilt and assigning blame. Now the ideas of liability and punishment and reward are, as we shall see in our further discussion (chs. xvii. and xxi.), important factors in the conduct of life, but any scheme of morals is defective which puts the question of avoiding punishment in the foreground of attention, and which tends to create a Phari- saical complacency in the mere fact of having conformed to command or rule. (c) Frobdbly the worst evil of this moral system is that it tends to deprive moral life of freedom and spon- taneity and to reduce it (especially for the conscien- tious who take it seriously) to a more or less anxious and servile conformity to externally imposed rules. Obedience as loyalty to principle is a good, but this scheme prac- tically makes it the only good and conceives it not as loy- alty to ideals, but as conformity to commands. Moral rules exist just as independent deliverances on their own account, and the right thing is merely to follow them. This THE PLACE OF GENERAL RULES 329 puts the center of moral gravity outside the concrete processes of hving. All systems which emphasize the let- ter more than the spirit, legal consequences more than vital motives, put the individual under the weight of external authority. They lead to the kind of conduct described by St. Paul as under the law, not in the spirit, with its con- stant attendant weight of anxiety, uncertain struggle, and impending doom. All Fixed Rules Have Same Tendencies. — Many who strenuously object to all of these schemes of conduct, to everything which hardens it into forms by emphasizing external commands, authority and punishments and re- wards, fail to see that such evils are logically connected with any acceptance of the finality of fixed rules. They hold certain bodies of people, religious officers, political or legal authorities, responsible for what they object to in the scheme ; while they still cling to the idea that morality is an effort to apply to particular deeds and projects a certain number of absolute unchanging moral rules. They fail to see that, if this were its nature, those who attempt to provide the machinery which would render it practically workable deserve praise rather than blame. In fact, the notion of absolute rules or precepts cannot be made work- able except through certain superior authorities who de- clare and enforce them. Said Locke : "It is no small power it gives one man over another to be the dictator of princi- ples and teacher of unquestionable truths." II. Utilitarian View of General Rules. — The utilitari- ans escape the difficulties inherent in the application to particular cases of a rule which has nothing to do with particular cases. Their principles for judging right and wrong in particular cases are themselves generalizations from particular observations of the effect of certain acts upon happiness and misery. But if we take happiness in the technical sense of Bentham (as meaning, that is, ein aggregate of isolated pleasures) it is impossible for 330 PLACE OF REASON IN MORAL LIFE general rules to exist — there is nothing to generalize. If, however, we take happiness in its common-sense form, as welfare, a state of successful achievement, satisfactory realization of purpose, there can be no doubt of the exist- ence of maxims and formulas in which mankind has regis- tered its experience. The following quotations from Mill bring out the essential points: "We think utility or happiness much too complex and in- definite an end to be sought except through the medium of various secondary ends concerning which there may be, and often is, agreement among persons who differ in their ultimate standard; and about which there does in fact prevail a much greater unanimity among thinking persons, than might be sup- posed from their diametrical divergence on the great ques- tions of moral metaphysics" {Essay on Bentham). These secondary ends or principles are such matters as regard for health, honesty, chastity, kindness, and the like. Concerning them he says in his Utilitarianism (ch. ii.): "Mankind must by this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the effects of some actions on their happiness; and the be- liefs which have thus come down are rules of morality for the multitude and for the philosopher until he has succeeded in finding better. . . . To consider the rules of morality as im- provable is one thing; to pass over the intermediate generali- zations entirely and endeavor to test each individual action directly by the first principle, is another. . . . Nobody ar- gues that the act of navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the nautical almanac. Being rational creatures, they go to sea with it already calcu- lated; and all rational creatures go out upon the sea of life with their minds made up on the common questions of right and wrong, as well as on many of the far more difficult ques- tions of wise and foolish." Empirical Rules Run into Fixed Customs. — It cannot be denied that Mill here states considerations which are of great value in aiding present judgments on right an(J THE PLACE OF GENERAL RULES 331 wrong. The student of history will have little doubt that the rules of conduct which the intuitionalist takes as ulti- mate deliverances of a moral faculty are in truth gener- alizations of the sort indicated by Mill. But the truth brought out by Mill does not cover the ground which needs to be covered. Such rules at best cover customary elements; they are based upon past habits of life, past natural economic and political environments. And, as the student of customs knows, greater store is often set upon trivial, foolish, and even harmful things than upon serious ones — upon fashions of hair-dressing, ablutions, worship of idols. Coming nearer our own conditions, past cus- toms certainly tolerate and sanction many practices, such as war, cruel business competition, economic exploitation of the weak, and absence of cooperative intelligent fore- sight, which the more sensitive consciences of the day will not approve. Hence are Unsatisfactory.- — Yet such things have been so identified with happiness that to forego them means misery, to alter them painful disturbance. To take the rules of the past with any literalness as criteria of judg- ment in the present, would be to return to the unpro- gressive morality of the regime of custom — to surrender the advance marked by reflective morality. Since Bentham and Mill were both utilitarians, it is worth noting that Bentham insisted upon the utilitarian standard just be- cause he was so convinced of the unsatisfactory character of the kind of rules upon which Mill is dwelling. The "Nautical Almanac" has been scientifically calculated; it is adapted rationally to its end; but the rules which sum up custom are a confused mixture of class interest, irra- tional sentiment, authoritative pronunciamento, and gen- uine consideration of welfare. Empirical Rules Also Differ Widely. — The fact is, moreover, that it is only when the "intermediate generali- zations" are taken vaguely and abstractly that there is PLACE OF REASON IN MORAL LIFE as much agreement as Mill claims. All educated and virtuous persons in the same country practically agree upon the rules of justice, benevolence, and regard for life, so long as they are taken in such a vague way that they mean anything in general and nothing in particular. Every one is in favor of justice in the abstract; but exist- ing political and economic discussions regarding tariff, sumptuary laws, monetary standards, trades unions, trusts, the relation of capital and labor, the regulation or ownership of public utilities, the nationalization of land and industry, show that large bodies of intelligent and equally well-disposed people are quite capable of finding that the principle of justice requires exactly opposite things. Custom still forms the background of all moral life, nor can we imagine a state of affairs in which it should not. Customs are not external to individuals' courses of action; they are embodied in the habits and purposes of individuals; in the words of Grote (quoted above, p. 173), they "reign under the appearance of habitual, self- suggested tendencies." Laws, formulated and unformu- lated, social conventions, rules of manners, the general expectations of public opinion, are all of them sources of instruction regarding conduct. Without them the individual would be practically helpless in determining the right courses of action in the various situations in which he finds himself. Through them he has provided himself in advance with a list of questions, an organized series of points-of-view, by which to approach and estimate each state of affairs requiring action. Most of the moral judg- ments of every individual are framed in this way. For Customs Conflict. — If social customs, or individ- ual habits, never conflicted with one another, this sort of guidance would suffice for the determination of right and wrong. But reflection is necessitated because opposite habits set up incompatible ends, forms of happiness be- THE PLACE OF GENERAL RULES 333 tween which choice has to be made. Hence the need of principles in judging. Principles of judgment cannot simply reinstate past rules of behavior, for the simple rea- son that as long as these rules suffice there is no reflection and no demand for principles. Good and evil, right and wrong, are embodied in the injunctions and prohibitions of customs and institutions and are not thought about. Moral Import of Principles is Intellectual, Not Imper- ative. — This brings us to the essential point in the con- sideration of the value of general principles. Rules are practical; they are habitual ways of doing things. But principles are intellectual; they are useful methods of judging things. The fundamental error of the intuition- alist and of the utilitarian (represented in the quotation from Mill) is that they are on the lookout for rules which will of themselves tell agents just what course of action to pursue ; whereas the object of moral principles is to supply standpoints and methods which will enable the individual to make for himself an analysis of the elements of good and evil in the particular situation in which he finds himself. No genuine moral principle prescribes a specific course of action; rules,^ like cooking recipes, may tell just what to do and how to do it. A moral principle, such as that of chastity, of justice, of the golden rule, gives the agent a basis for looking at and examining a particular question that comes up. It holds before him certain possible as- pects of the act; it warns him against taking a short or partial view of the act. It economizes his thinking by supplying him with the main heads by reference to which to consider the bearings of his desires and purposes; it guides him in his thinking by suggesting to him the im- portant considerations for which he should be on the lookout. * Of course, the word "rule" is often used to designate a principle — as in the case of the phrase "golden-rule." We are speaking not of the words, but of their underlying ideas. PLACE OF REASON IN MORAL LIFE Golden Rule as a Tool of Analysis. — A moral principle, then, is not a command to act or forbear acting in a given way lit is a tool for analyzing a special situation, the right or wrong being determined by the situation in its entirety, and not by the rule as such. We sometimes hear it stated, for example, that the universal adoption of the Golden Rule would at once settle all industrial disputes and diffi- culties. But supposing that the principle were accepted in good faith by everybody; it would not at once tell every- body just what to do in all the complexities of his rela- tions to others. When individuals are still uncertain of what their real good may be, it does not finally decide matters to tell them to regard the good of others as they would their own. Nor does it mean that whatever in detail we want for ourselves we should strive to give to others. Because I am fond of classical music it does not follow that I should thrust as much of it as possible upon my neigh- bors. But the "Golden Rule" does furnish us a point of view from which to consider acts; it suggests the neces- sity of considering how our acts affect the interests of others as well as our own; it tends to prevent partiality of regard; it warns against setting an undue estimate upon a particular consequence of pain or pleasure, simply because it happens to affect us. In short, the Golden Rule does not issue special orders or commands; but it does simplify judgment of the situations requiring intelligent deliberation. Sympathy as Actuating Principle of a Reasonable Judgment. — We have had repeated occasion (as in the discussion of intent and motive, of intuition and deliberate calculation) to see how artificial is the separation of emo- tion and thought from one another. As the only effective thought is one fused by emotion into a dominant inter- est, so the only truly general, the reasonable as distinct from the merely shrewd or clever thought, is the generous thought. Sympathy widens our interest in consequences THE PLACE OF GENERAL RULES 335 and leads us to take into account such results as affect the welfare of others ; it aids us to count and weigh these consequences as counting for as much as those which touch our own honor, purse, or power. To put ourselves in the place of another, to see from the standpoint of his pur- poses and values, to humble our estimate of our own claims and pretensions to the level they would assume in the eyes of a sympathetic and impartial observer, is the surest way to attain universality and objectivity of moral knowl- edge. Sympathy, in short, is the general principle of moral knowledge, not because its commands take prece- dence of others (which they do not necessarily), but be- cause it furnishes the most reliable and efficacious intellec- tual standpoint. It supplies the tool, par excellence, for analyzing and resolving complex cases. As was said in our last chapter, it is the fusion of the sympathetic im- pulses with others that is needed; what we now add is that in this fusion, sympathy supplies the pou sto for an effective, broad, and objective survey of desires, projects, resolves, and deeds. It translates the formal and empty reason of Kant out of its abstract and theoretic charac- ter, just as it carries the cold calculations of utilitarianism into recognition of the common good. LITERATURE For criticisms of Kant's view of reason, see Caird, Philosophy of Kant, Vol. II., Book II., ch. ii.; Paulsen, System of Ethics, pp. 194- 203 and 355-363; Fite, Introductory Study, pp. 173-188; Muirhead, Elements of Ethics, pp. 112-124. For intuitionalism, see Calderwood, Handbook of Moral Philoso- phy; Maurice, Conscience; Whewell, The Elements of Morality; Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II., pp. 96-115; Mezes, Ethics, ch. iii.; Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, 13ook I., chs. viii.-ix., and Book III. entire, but especially ch. i.; History of Ethics, 170-204, and 224-236, and Lectures on Ethics of Green, Spencer, and Mar- tineau, 361-374. For the moral sense theory, see Sidgwick, History of Ethics, p. 189; Shaftesbury, Characteristics; Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy. PLACE OF REASON IN MORAL LIFE For casuistry, see references in Rand's Bibliography, Vol. III., Part II., p. 880. For the variability of moral rules, see Locke, Essay on the Human Understanding, Book I.; Bain, Moral Science, Part I., eh. iii.; Spen- cer, Principles of Ethics, Vol. I., Part II.; Williams, Review of Evo- lutional Ethics, pp. 423-465; Bowne, Principles of Ethics, ch. v.; Schurman, The Ethical Import of Darwinism; the writings of Wester- marck and Hobhouse elsewhere referred to, and Darwin, Descent of Man, Part I., chs. iv.-v. For the nature of moral judgment and the function of reason in conduct, see Aristotle, Book III., chs. ii.-iii., and Book VI.; Ladd, Philosophy of Conduct, ch. vii.; Sharp, Essay on Analysis of the Moral Judgment, in Studies in Philosophy and Psychology (Garman Commemorative Volume) ; Santayana, Life of Reason, Vol. I., chs. x.-xii.; Bryant, Studies in Character, Part II., chs. iv.-v. For the social character of conscience, see Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order, ch. x. For sympathy and conscience, see Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, especially Part III., chs. i. and iv., and Part IV., chs. i.-iii.; Stephen, Science of Ethics, pp. 228-238. CHAPTER XVII THE PLACE OF DUTY IN THE MORAL LIFE: SUBJECTION TO AUTHORITY Conflict of Ends as Attractive and as Reasonable. — The previous discussion has brought out the contrast be- tween a Good or Satisfaction which is such directly^ immediately, by appealing attractively to desire; and one which is such indirectly, through considerations which reflection brings up. As we have seen, the latter must, if entertained at all, arouse some direct emotional response, must be felt to be in some way satisfactory. But the way may be quite unlike that of the end which attracts and holds a man irrespective of the principle brought to light by reflection. The one may be intense, vivid, absorbing, passing at once into overt action, unless checked by a contrary reason. The good whose claim to be good depends mainly on projection of remote considera- tions, may be theoretically recognized and yet the direct appeal to the particular agent at the particular time be feeble and pallid. The "law of the mind" may assert itself less urgently than the "law of the members" which wars against it. Two Senses of Term Duty. — This contrast gives rise to the fact of Duty. On one side is the rightful suprem- acy of the reasonable but remote good ; on the other side is the aversion of those springs to action which are imme- diately most urgent. Between them exists the necessity of securing for the reasonable good efficacy in opera- tion ; or the necessity of redirecting the play of naturally dominant desires. Duty is also used, to be sure, in a 387 338 PLACE OF DUTY IN MORAL LIFE looser and more external sense. To identify the dutiful with the right apart from conflict, to say that a man did his duty, may mean that he did right, irrespective of the prior state of his inclinations. It frequently happens that the wider and larger good which is developed through reflective memory and foresight is welcomed, is directly appreciated as good, since it is thoroughly attractive. Without stress and strain, without struggle, it just dis- places the object which unreflective impulse had sug- gested. It is the fit and proper, the only sensible and wise thing, under- the circumstances. The man does his duty, but is glad to do it, and would be troubled by the thought of another line of action. So far as calling the act "duty" brings in any new meaning, it means that the right act is one which is found to meet the demands, the necessities, of the situation in which it takes place. The Romans thus spoke of duties as offices, the performance of those functions which are appropriate to the status which every person occupies because of his social relations. Conscious Conflict. — But there are other cases in which the right end is distinctly apprehended by the person as standing in opposition to his natural inclinations, as a principle or law which ought to be followed, but which can be followed only by constraining the inclinations, by snubbing and coercing them. This state of affairs is well represented by the following quotation from Matthew Arnold, if we take it as merely describing the facts, not as implying a theory as to their explanation : "All experience with conduct brings ns at last to the fact of two selves, or instincts, or forces — name them, however we may and however we may suppose them to have arisen — contending for the mastery over men: one, a movement of first impulse and more involuntary, leading us to gratify any inclination that may solicit us and called generally a move- ment of man's ordinary or passing self, of sense, appetite, desire ; the other a movement of reflection and more voluntary. SUBJECTION OF DESIRE TO LAW 339 leading us to submit inclination to some rule, and called gen- erally a movement of man's higher or enduring self, of rea- son, spirit, will." ^ We shall (I.) present what we consider the true ac- count of this situation of conflict in which the sense of duty is found; (II.) turn to explanations which are one-sided, taking up (1) the intuitive, (S) the utilitarian theory; and finally (III.) return with the results of this criticism to a restatement of our own theory. § 1. THE SUBJECTION OF DESIRE TO LAW Ordinary language sets before us some main facts: duty suggests what is due, a debt to be paid; ought is connected with owe; obligation implies being bound to something — as we speak of "bounden duty." We speak naturally of "meeting obligations"; of duties being "im- posed," "laid upon" one. The person who is habitually careless about his duties is "unruly" or "lawless" ; one who evades or refuses them is "unprincipled." These ideas suggest there is something required, exacted, having the sanction of law, or a regular and regulative principle; and imply natural aversion to the requirements exacted, a preference for something else. Hence duty as a conscious factor means constraint of inclination ; an unwillingness or reluctance which should be overcome but which it is diffi- cult to surmount, requiring an effort which only adequate recognition of the rightful supremacy of the dutiful end will enable one to put forth. Thus we speak of interest conflicting with principle, and desire with duty. While they are inevitably bound together, it will be convenient to discuss separately ( 1 ) Inclination and impulse as averse to duty, and (2) Duty as having authority, as express- ing law. * Last Essays on Church and Religion, preface. 340 PLACE OF DUTY IN MORAL LIFE I. Inclination Averse to Duty. — Directly and indi- rectly, all desires root in certain fundamental organic wants and appetites. Conduct, behavior, implies a living organism. If this organism were not equipped with an intense instinctive tendency to keep itself going, to sus- tain itself, it would soon cease to be amid the menaces, difficulties, rebuffs, and failures of life. Life means appe- tites, like hunger, thirst, sex; instincts like anger, fear, and hope, which are almost imperious in their struggles for satisfaction. They do not arise from reflection, but antedate it; their existence does not depend upon consid- eration of consequences, but their existence it is which tends to call out reflection. Their very presence in a healthy organism means a certain reservoir of energy which over- flows almost spontaneously. They are impulsive. Such tendencies, then, constitute an essential and fundamental part of the capacities of a person; their realization is involved in one's happiness. In all this there is nothing abnormal nor immoral. But a human being is something more than a mere demand for the satisfaction of instincts of food, sex, and protection. If we admit (as the theory of organic evolution requires) that all other desires and purposes are ultimately derived from these tendencies of the organism, still it is true that the refined and highly developed forms exist side by side with crude, organic forms, and that the simultaneous satisfaction of the two types, just as they stand, is impossible. Organic and Reflectively Formed Tendencies Conflict. — Even if it be true, as it may well be, that the desires and purposes connected with property were developed out of instincts having to do with food for self and offspring, it is still true that the developed desires do not wholly displace those out of which they developed. The pres- ence of the purposes elaborated by thought side by side with the more organic demands causes strife and the need of resolution. The accumulation of property may SUBJECTION OF DESIRE TO LAW 341 involve subordinating the immediate urgency of hunger; property as an institution implies that one is not free to satisfy his appetite just as he pleases, but may have to postpone or forego satisfaction, because the food supply belongs to another; or that he can satisfy hunger only through some labor which in itself is disagreeable to him. Similarly the family springs originally out of the in- stinct of reproduction. But the purposes and plans which go with family life are totally inconsistent with the mere gratification of sexual desire in its casual and spontaneous appearance. The refined, highly developed, and com- plex purposes exact a checking, a regulation and sub- ordination of inclinations as they first spring up — a control to which the incHnations are not of themselves prone and against which they may rebelhously assert themselves. Duty May Reside on the More Impulsive Side. — It would be a great mistake, however, to limit the need of subordination simply to the unruly agencies of appe- tite. Habits which have been consciously or reflectively formed, even when in their original formation these habits had the sanction and approval of reason, require control. The habits of a professional man, of an investigator, or a lawyer, for example, have been formed through careful and persistent reflection directed upon ends adjudged right. Virtues of painstaking industry, of perseverance, have been formed; untimely and unseemly desires have been checked. But as an outcome these habits, and the desires and purposes that express them, have perhaps become all-engrossing. Occupation is preoccupation. It encroaches upon the attention needed for other concerns. The skill gained tends to shut the individual up to narrow matters and to shut out other "universes" of good which should be desired. Domestic and civic responsibilities are perhaps felt to be insignificant details or irritating bur- dens unworthy of attention. Thus a reflective habit, legiti- PLACE OF DUTY IN MORAL LIFE mate in itself, right in its right place, may give rise to desires and ends which involve a corrosive selfishness. Moreover, that the insubordination does not reside in appetites or impulses, just as appetites and impulses, is seen in the fact that duty may lie on the side of a purpose connected with them, and be asserted against the force of a habit formed under the supervision of thought. The student or artist may find his pursuit makes him averse to satisfying the needful claims of hunger and healthy exer- cise. The prudent business man may find himself unduti- fully cold to the prompting of an impulse of pity; the student of books or special intellectual or artistic ends may find duty on the side of some direct human impulse. Statement of Problem. — Such considerations show that we cannot attribute the conflict of duty and inclination simply to the existence of appetites and unreflective im- pulses, as if these were in and of themselves opposed to regulation by any principle. We must seek for an ex- planation which will apply equally to appetites and to habits of thought. What is there common to the situations of him who feels it his duty to check the satisfaction of strong hunger until others have been properly served, and of the scientific investigator who finds it his duty to check the exercise of his habit of thinking in order that he may satisfy the demands of his body.^^ Statement of Explanation. — Any habit, Hke any appe- tite or instinct, represents something formed, set ; whether this has occurred in the history of the race or of the individual makes little difference to its established urgency. Habit is second, if not first, nature. ( 1 ) Habit represents facilities; what is set, organized, is relatively easy. It marks the line of least resistance. A habit of reflection, so far as it is a specialized habit, is as easy and natural to follow as an organic appetite. (2) Moreover, the ex- ercise of any easy, frictionless habit is pleasurable. It SUBJECTION OF DESIRE TO LAW is a commonplace that use and wont deprive situations of originally disagreeable features. (3) Finally, a formed habit is an active tendency. It only needs an appropri- ate stimulus to set it going; frequently the mere absence of any strong obstacle serves to release its pent-up energy. It is a propensity to act in a certain way whenever oppor- tunity presents. Failure to function is uncomfortable and arouses feelings of irritation or lack. Reluctance to the right end, an aversion requiring to be overcome, if at all, by recognition of the superior value of the right end, is then to be accounted for on the ground of the inertia or momentum of any organized, established tendency. This momentum gives the common ground to instinctive impulses and deliberately formed habits. The momentum represents the old, an adaptation to familiar, customary conditions. So far as similar conditions recur, the formed power functions economically and effectively, supplying ease, promptness, certainty, and agreeableness to the execution of an act. But if new, changed conditions require a serious read- justment of the old habit or appetite, the natural tend- ency will be to resist this demand. Thus we have pre- cisely the traits of reluctance and constraint which mark the consciousness of duty. A self without habits, one loose and fluid, in which change in one direction is just as easy as in another, would not have the sense of duty. A self with no new possibilities, rigidly set in conditions and per- fectly accommodated to them, would not have it. But definite, persistent, urgent tendencies to act in a given way, occurring at the same time with other incompatible tend- encies which represent the self more adequately and yet are not organized into habits, afford the conditions of the sense of restraint. If for any reason the unorganized tendency is judged to be the truer expression of self, we have also the sense of lawful constraint. The constraint of appetite and desire is a phenomenon of practical read- 344 PLACE OF DUTY IN MORAL LIFE justmenty within the structure of character, due to con- flict of tendencies so irreconcilable in their existing forms as to demand radical redirection. When an appetite is in accord with those habits of an individual which enable him to perform his social functions, or which naturally accrue from his social rela- tions, it is legitimate and good; when it conflicts, it is illicit, it is lust ; we call it by hard names and we demand that it be curbed; we regard its force as a menace to the integrity of the agent and a threat to social order. When the reflective habits of an individual come into conflict with natural appetites and impulses, the mani- festation of which would enlarge or make more certain the powers of the individual in his full relations to others, it is the reflective habits which have to be held in and redirected at the cost of whatever disagreeableness. (2) The Authority of Duty. — ^A duty, in Kant's words, is a categorical imperative — it claims the absolute right of way as against immediate inclination. That which, on one side, is the constraint of natural desire, is, on the other, the authoritative claim of the right end to regulate. Over against the course of action most immediately ur- gent, most easy and comfortable, so congenial as at once to motivate action unless checked, stands another course, representing a wider and more far-reaching point of view, and hence furnishing the rational end of the situa- tion. However lacking in intensity, however austere this end, it stands for the whole self, and is therefore felt to be rightly supreme over any partial tendency. But since it looks to realization in an uncertain future, rather than permission just to let go what is most urgent at the mo- ment, it requires eff^ort, hard work, work of attention more or less repulsive and uncongenial. Hence that sense of stress and strain, of being pulled one way by inclination and another by the claims of right, so characteristic of an experience of obligation. SUBJECTION OF DESIRE TO LAW 345 Social Character of Duties. — But this statement de- scribes the experience only on its formal side. In the con- crete, that end which possesses claim to regulate desire is the one which grows out of the social position or function of the agent, out of a course of action to which he is com- mitted by a regular, socially established connection between himself and others. The man who has assumed the posi- tion of a husband and a parent has by that very fact entered upon a line of action, something continuous, run- ning far into the future; something so fundamental that it modifies and pervades his other activities, requiring them to be coordinated or rearranged from its point of view. The same thing holds, of course, of the calling of a doctor, a lawyer, a merchant, a banker, a judge, or other officer of the State. Each social calling implies a continuous, regular mode of action, binding together into a whole a multitude of acts occurring at different times, and giving rise to definite expectations and demands on the part of others. Every relationship in life, is, as it were, a tacit or expressed contract with others, committing one, by the simple fact that he occupies that relationship, to a corre- sponding mode of action. Every one, willy-nilly, occupies a social position; if not a parent, he is a child; if not an officer, then a citizen of the State; if not pursuing an occupation, he is in preparation for an occupation, or else is living upon the results of the labors of others. Connection with Selfhood. — Every one, in short, is in general relations to others, — relationships which enter so internally and so intimately into the very make-up of his being that he is not morally free to pick and choose, say- ing, this good is really my affair, that other one not. The mode of action which is required by the fact that the person is a member of a complex social network is a more final expression of his own nature than is the temporarily intense instinctive appetite, or the habit which has become "second nature." It is not for the individual to say, the 346 PLACE OF DUTY IN MORAL LIFE latter is attractive and therefore really mine, while the former is repellant and therefore an alien intruder, to be surrendered to only if it cannot be evaded. From this point of view, the conflict of desire and duty, of interest and principle, expresses itself as a conflict between tend- encies which have got organized into one's ficced character and which therefore appeal to him just as he is; and those tendencies which relate to the development of a larger self, a self which should take fuller account of social rela- tions. The Kantian theory emphasizes the fact brought out above: viz.^ that duty represents the authority of an act expressing the reasonable and "universal" self over a casual and partial self; while the utilitarian theory em- phasizes the part played by social institutions and demands in creating and enforcing both special duties and the sense of duty in general. § 2. KANTIAN THEORY "Accord with" Duty versus "from" Duty. — Kant points out that acts may be "in accordance with duty" and yet not be done "from duty." "It is always, for ex- ample, a matter of duty that a dealer should not over- charge an inexperienced purchaser, and wherever there is much commerce the prudent tradesman does not over- charge. . . . Men are thus honestly served; but this is not enough to prove that the tradesman so acted from duty and from principles of honesty; his own advantage re- quired it" (Kanfs Theory of Ethics, Abbott's translation, p. 13). In such a case the act externally viewed is in ac- cordance with duty ; morally viewed, it proceeds from self- ish calculation of personal profit, not from duty. This is true in general of all acts which, though outwardly right, spring from considerations of expediency, and are based on the consideration that' "honesty (or whatever) is the best policy." Persons are naturally inclined to take care KANTIAN THEORY 347 of their health, their property, their children, or whatever belongs to them. Such acts, no matter how much they accord with duty, are not done from duty, but from in- clination. If a man is suffering, unfortunate, desirous of death, and yet cherishes his life with no love for it, but from the duty to do so, his motive has truly moral value. So if a mother cares for her child, because she recognizes that it is her duty, the act is truly moral. From Duty alone Moral. — ^According to Kant, then, acts alone have moral import that are consciously per- formed "from duty," that is, with recognition of its au- thority as their animating spring. ^^The idea of good and evil (in their moral sense) must not he determined before the moral law, hut only after it and by means of if (Ibid., p. 154). All our desires and inclinations seek natu- rally for an end which is good — for happiness, success, achievement. No one of them nor all of them put together, then, can possibly supply the motive of acting from duty. Hence duty and its authority must spring from another source, from reason itself, which supplies the consciousness of a law which ought to be the motive of every act, whether it is or not. The utilitarians com- pletely reverse the truth of morals when they say that the idea of the good end comes first and the "right" is that which realizes the good end. Dual Constitution of Man. — We are all familiar with the notion that man has a dual constitution ; that he is a creature both of sense and spirit; that he has a carnal and an ideal nature; a lower and a higher self, a self of appetite and of reason. Now Kant's theory of duty is a peculiar version of this common notion. Man's special ends and purposes all spring from desires and inclinations. These are all for personal happiness and hence without moral worth. They form man's sensuous, appetitive na- ture, which if not "base" in itself easily becomes so, because it struggles with principle for the office of supply- 348 PLACE OF DUTY IN MORAL LIFE ing motives for action. The principle of a law absolutely binding, requires the complete expulsion of the claim of desires to motivate action. (See Kant's Theory^ ipip. 70- 79; 132-136; 159-163.) If a man were an animal, he would have only appetite to follow; if he were a god or angel, he would have only reason. Being man, being a peculiar compound of sense and reason, he has put upon him the problem of resisting the natural prompting of inclination and of accepting the duty of acting from reverence for duty. Criticism of Kant*s Theory. — There is an undoubted fact back of Kant's conception which gives it whatever plausibility it has — the fact that inclinations which are not necessarily evil tend to claim a controlling position, a claim which has to be resisted. The peculiarity of Kant's interpretation lies in its complete and final separation of the two aspects, "higher" and "lower," the appetitive and rational, of man's nature, and it is upon this separation, accordingly, that our discussion will be directed. I. Duty and the Affections. — In the first place, Kant's absolute separation of sense or appetite from reason and duty, because of its necessary disparagement of the affec- tions leads to a formal and pedantic view of morality. It is one thing to say that desire as it first shows itself sometimes prompts to a morally inadequate end ; it is quite another thing to say that ani^ acceptance of an end of desire as a motive is morally wrong — that the act to be right must be first brought under a conscious acknowledg- ment of some law or principle. Only the exigencies of a ready-made theory would lead any one to think that habit- ual purposes that express the habitually dominant tend- encies and powers of the agent, may not suffice to keep morally sound the main tenor of behavior; that it is im- possible for regard for right ends to become organized into character and to be fused into working unity with natural impulses. Only a metaphysical theory regarding KANTIAN THEORY 349 the separation of sense and reason in man leads to the denial of this fact. Between the merchant who is honest in his weights and fixed in his prices merely because he calculates that such a course is to his own advantage, and the merchant (if such a person could exist ) who should never sell a spool of thread or a paper of pins without having first reminded himself that his ultimate motive for so doing was respect for the law of duty, there is the ordinary merchant who is honest because he has the desires characteristic of an hon- est man. Schiller has made fun of the artificial stringency of Kant's theory in some verses which represent a dis- ciple coming to Kant with his perplexity: "Willingly serve I my friends, but I do it, alas with affection. Hence I am plagued with this doubt, virtue I have not attained!" to which he received the reply: "This is your only resource, you must stubbornly seek to abhor them; Then you can do with disgust that which the law may enjoin." These verses are a caricature of Kant's position; he does not require that affections should be crushed, but that they should be stamped with acknowledgment of law be- fore being accepted as motives. But the verses bring out the absurd element in the notion that the affections and inclinations may not of themselves be morally adequate springs to action, — as if a man could not eat his dinner simply because he was hungry, or be amiable to a com- panion because he wanted to be, or relieve distress because his compassionate nature urged him to it. It is worth while noting that some moralists have gone to the opposite extreme and have held that an act is not right unless it expresses the overflowing spontaneity of the affections ; that a man's act is only imperfectly right when he performs it not from affection, but from coercion by duty. Thus Emerson speaks of men who "do by knowl- edge what the stones do by structure." And again, "We 350 PLACE OF DUTY IN MORAL LIFE love characters in proportion as they are impulsive and spontaneous. When we see a soul whose acts are all regal, graceful, and pleasant as roses, we must thank God that such things can be and are, and not turn sourly on the angel and say, 'Crump is a better man with his grunting resistance to all his native devils.' " The facts seem to be that while, in a good man, natural impulses and formed habits are adequate motive powers under ordinary condi- tions, there are times when an end, somewhat weak in its motive force because it does not express an habitually dominant power of the self, needs to be reenforced by associations which have gathered at all periods of his past around the experience of good. There is a cer- tain reservoir of emotional force which, while far from fluid, is capable of transfer and application, especially in a conscientious person. Kant criticizes the moral sense theory on the ground that "in order to imagine the vicious man tormented with a sense of his transgres- sions, it must first represent him as morally good in the main trend of his character" (Abbott, p. 128). Well, a man who is capable of making appeal to the sense of duty in general, is the one in whom love of good is already dominant. II. Tendency to Fanaticism and Idealization of Au- thority. — Kant's theory of fixed and final separation between desire and reason leads us into a fatal dilemma ; either a right end is impossible, or any end is right provided we fall back on a belief that it is our duty to perform it. Kant holds that every concrete end, every definite purpose which we entertain, comes from desire. Law utters no specific command except "do your duty" ; it stamps an end of desire as right only when it is pursued, not because it is an end of desire, but "from duty." The actual end which is before us is, in any case, supplied through inclination and desire. Reason furnishes principle as a motive. We have here, in an- KANTIAN THEORY 351 other form, the separation of end and motive which has already occupied us (p. 248). End and motive are so disconnected, so irrelevant to one another, that we have no alternative except either to condemn every end, be- cause, being prompted by desire, it falls so far short of the majesty of duty; or else fanatically to persist in any course when once we have formally brought it under the notion of duty. The latter alternative would be the one chosen by a truly Kantian agent because it is alone possible in practice. But the moral fanatic does about as much evil in the world as the man of no moral principle. Religious wars, perse- cutions, intolerance, harsh judgment of others, obstinate persistence in a course of action once entered upon in spite of the testimony of experience to the harm that results; blind devotion to narrow and one-sided aims; deliberate opposition to art, culture, social amenities, recreations, or whatever the "man of principle" happens to find obnox- ious : Pharisaical conviction of superiority, of being the peculiar, chosen instrument of the moral law ; — these and the countless ills that follow in their wake, are inevitable ef- fects of erecting the isolated conviction of duty into a suf- ficient motive of action. So far as these evils do not actually flow from an acceptance of the Kantian principle, it is because that has been promulgated and for the most part adopted, where reverence for authority and law is strong. In Germany the Kantian philosophy has, upon the whole, served as a help in criticizing law and procedure on the basis of their rationality, while it has also served as a convenient stamp of rational sanction upon a politic- ally authoritative regime, already fairly reasonable, as such matters go, in the content of its legislation and administration. III. Meaning of Duty for Duty's Sake. — It is a sound principle to do our duty as our duty, and not for the sake of something else. "Duty for duty's sake" means, in truth, 352 PLACE OF DUTY IN MORAL LIFE an act for the act*s own sake; the gift of cold water, the word of encouragement, the sweeping of the room, the learning of the lesson, the selling of the goods, the paint- ing of the picture, because they are the things really called for at a given time, and hence their own excuses for being. No moral act is a means to anything beyond itself y — not even to morality. But, upon Kant's theory, duty for duty's sake means a special act not for its own sake, but for the sake of abstract principle. Just as the hedonists regard a special act as a mere means to happi- ness, so Kant makes the concrete act a mere means to vir- tue. As there is a "hedonistic paradox," namely that the way to get happiness is to forget it, to devote ourselves to things and persons about us ; so there is a "moralistic" paradox, that the way to get goodness is to cease to think of it — as something separate — and to devote ourselves to the realization of the full value of the practical situations in which we find ourselves. Men can really think of their "duty" only when they are thinking of specific things to be done; to think of Duty at large or in the abstract is one of the best ways of avoiding doing it, or of doing it in a partial and perverted way. Summary of Criticism of Kant. — To sum up, the theory which regards duty as having its source in a rational self which is independent of and above the self of inclination and affection (1) deprives the habitual desires and affections, which make the difference between one concrete character and another, of moral significance ; (2) commits us to an unenlightened performance of what is called duty irrespective of its real goodness; and (3) makes moral principle a remote abstraction, instead of the vivifying soul of a concrete deed. Its strongest point, its insistence upon the autonomous character of duty, or that duty is organically connected with the self in some of its phases or functions, will appear more clearly as we con- trast it with the utilitarian theory. UTILITARIAN THEORY OF DUTY § 3. THE UTIIilTAUIAN THEORY OF DUTY Problem of Duty on Hedonistic Basis. — The utilita- rians' explanation of the constraint of desire by the au- thority of right is framed to meet the peculiar difficulty in which their hedonistic theory places them. If pleasure is the good, and if all desire is naturally for the good, why should desire have to be constrained? How can such a thing as "duty" exist at all? For to say that a man is obliged or bound to seek that which he just can't help seeking is absurd. There is, according to the utilitarian, a difference, however, between the pleasure which is the object of desire and that which is the standard of judg- ment. The former is the person's own pleasure; it is private. The happiness which measures the rightness of the act is that of all persons who are affected by it. In view of this divergence, there must, if right action is to occur, be agencies which operate upon the individual so as to make him find his personal pleasure in that which conduces to the general welfare. These influences are the expectations and demands of others so far as they attach consequences in the way of punishment, of suffering, and of reward and pleasure, to the deeds of an individual. In this way the natural inclination of an individual to- wards a certain pleasure, or his natural revulsion from a certain pain, may be checked and transformed by recogni- tion that if he seeks the pleasure, others will inflict more than an equivalent pain, or if he bears the pain, others will reward him with more than compensating pleasures. In such cases, we have the fact of duty or obligation. There is constraint of first inclination through recognition of superior power, this power being asserted in its expressly declared intention of rewarding and penalizing accord- ing as its prescriptions are or are not followed. These ore the factors: (1) demands, expectations, rules exter- B54< PLACE OF DUTY IN MORAL LIFE nally imposed; (2) consequences in the way of proffered reward of pleasure, and penalty of pain; (3) resulting constraint of the natural manifestation of desires. In the main, the theory is based on the analogy of legal obliga- tions.^ (a) Bentham's Account. — Bentham dislikes the very word duty; and speaks preferably of the ''sanctions" of an act. The following quotations will serve to confirm the foregoing statements. "The happiness of the individuals of whom a community is composed is . . . the sole standard^, in conformity to which each individual ought to be made to fashion his behavior. But whether it be this, or anything else that is to be done, there is nothing by which a man can ultimately be made to do it, but either pain or pleasure." A kind of pain or pleasure which tends to make an indi- vidual find his own good in the good of the community is a sanction. Of these Bentham mentions four kinds, of which the first alone is not due to the will of others, but is physical. Thus the individual may check his inclination to drink by a thought of the ills that flow from drunken- ness. Metaphorically, then, he may be said to have a duty not to drink; strictly speaking, however, this is his own obvious interest. The sanctions proper are (a) political, consequences in the way of pleasure and pain (especially pain) attached to injunctions and prohibitions by a legal superior; (b) popular, the consequences following from the more indefinite influence of public opinion — such as being "sent to Coventry," being shunned, rendered un- popular, losing reputation, or honor, etc.; and (3) reli- gious, penalties of hell and rewards of heaven attached to action by a divine being, or similar penances and rewards * Historically it has often taken theological form. Thus Paley defined virtue as "doing good to mankind in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness." Of obligation he said, "A man is said to be obliged, when he is urged by a violent motive resulting from the command of another." UTILITARIAN THEORY OF DUTY 355 by the representatives on earth (church, priests, etc.) of this divine being.^ Value and Deficiencies of This View. — The strong point of this explanation of duty is obviously that it recog- nizes the large, the very large, role played by social insti- tutions, regulations, and demands in bringing home to a person the fact that certain acts, whether he is natu- rally so inclined or not, should be performed. But its weak point is that it tends to identify duty with coercion ; to change the "ought" if not into a physical "must," at least into the psychological "must" of fear of pain and hope of pleasure. Hope of reward and fear of penalty are real enough motives in human life; but acts per- formed mainly or solely on their account do not, in the unprejudiced judgment of mankind, rank very high mor- ally. Habitually to appeal to such motives is rather to weaken than to strengthen the tendencies in the in- dividual which make for right action. The difficulty lies clearly in the purely external character of the "sanc- tions," and this in turn is due to the fact that the obliga- tions imposed by the demands and expectancies of others do not have any intrinsic connection with the character of the individual of whom they are exacted. They are wholly external burdens and impositions. The individual, with his desires and his pleasures, being made up out of particular states of feeling, is complete in himself. Social relationships must then be alien and exter- nal; if they modify in any way the existing body of feel- ings they are artificial constraints. One individual merely happens to live side by side with other individuals, who are * The earlier English utilitarians (though not called by that name), such as Tucker and Paley, assert that upon this earth there is no exact coincidence of the right and the pleasure-giving; that it is future rewards and punishments which make the equilibrium. Sidgwick, among recent writers, has also held that no complete identification of virtue and happiness can be found apart from religious con- siderations. (See Methods of Ethics, p. 505. For theological utilitari- anism see Albee, History.) 356 PLACE OF DUTY IN MORAL LIFE in themselves isolated, and are complete in their isolation. If their external acts conflict, it may be necessary to invade and change the body of feelings which make up the self from which the act flows. Hence duty. The later development of utilitarianism tended to get away from this psychical and atomic individualism ; and to conceive the good of an individual as including within him- self relations to others. So far as this was done, the de- mands of others, public opinion, laws, etc., became factors in the development of the individual, and in arousing him to an adequate sense of what his good is, and of interest in effecting it. Later utilitarianism dwells less than Ben- tham upon external sanctions, and more upon an uncon- scious shaping of the individual's character and motives through imitation, education, and all the agencies which mould the individual's desires into natural agreement with the social type. While it is John Stuart Mill who insists most upon the internal and qualitative change of disposi- tion that thus takes place,^ it is Bain and Spencer who give the most detailed account of the methods by which it is brought about. (b) Bain's Account. — His basis agrees with Bentham's : "The proper meaning, or import, of the terms (duty, obli- gation) refers to that class of action which is enforced by the sanction of punishment" (Bain, Emotions and Will, p. 286). But he sets less store by political legislation and the force of vague public opinion, and more by the gradual and subtle processes of family education. The lesson of obedience, that there are things to be done whether one wishes or no, is impressed upon the child almost unremit- tingly from the very first moment of life. There are three stages in the complete evolution of the sense of duty. The first, the lowest and that beyond which some persons never go, is that in which "susceptibility to pleasure and pain ^ See his Utilitarianism, ch. iii. UTILITARIAN THEORY OF DUTY 357 is made use of to bring about obedience, and a mental asso- ciation is rapidly formed between the obedience and appre- hended pain, more or less magnified by fear." The fact that punishment may be kept up until the child desists from the act "leaves on his mind a certain dread and awful impression as connected with forbidden actions." Here we have in its germ conscience, acknowledgment of duty, in its most external form. A child in a good home (and a citizen in a good state) soon adds other associations. The command is uttered, the penalty threatened, by those whom he admires, respects, and loves. This element brings in a new dread — the fear of giving pain to the beloved object. Such dread is more disinterested. It centers rather about the point of view from which the act is held wrong than about the thought of harm to self. As intelligence develops, the person ap- prehends the positive ends, the goods, which are protected by the command put on him; he sees the use and reason of the prohibition to which he is subject, and approving of what it safeguards, approves the restriction itself. "A new motive is added on and begirds the action with a three- fold fear. ... If the duty prescribed has been approved of by the mind as protective of the general interests of persons engaging our sympathies, the violation of this on our part affects us with all the pain that we feel from inflicting an injury upon those interests.'* Transformation into an Internal Power. — When the child appreciates *Hhe reasons for the command, the char- acter of conscience is entirely transformed.'* The fear which began as fear of the penalty that a superior power may inflict, adds to itself the fear of displeasing a beloved person; and is finally transformed into the dread of in- juring interests the worth of which the individual appreci- ates and in which he shares. The sense of duty now "stands upon an independent foundation." It is an internal "ideal resemblance of public authority," "an imitation (or fac- S58 PLACE OF DUTY IN MORAL LIFE simile) within ourselves of the government without us." ''Regard is now had to the intent and meaning of the law and not to the mere fact of its being prescribed by some power." Thus there is developed a sense of obligation in general, which may be detached from the particular deeds which were originally imposed under the sanction of pen- alty, and transferred to new ends which have never even been socially imposed, which the individual has perhaps for the first time conceived within himself. "The feeling and habit of obligation" which was generated from social pres- sure remains," but as a distinct individually cherished thing (Bain, Emotions and Will, p. 319 n.). This view of the final sense of obligation thus approximates Kant's view of the autonomous character of duty. (c) Spencer's Account. — Herbert Spencer (like Ben- tham) lays emphasis upon the restraining influence of va- rious social influences, but lays stress, as Bentham does not, upon the internal changes effected by long-continued, unremitting pressure exercised through the entire period of human evolution. Taken in itself, the consciousness of duty — the distinctively moral consciousness — is the con- trol of proximate ends by remote ones, of simple by com- plex aims, of the sensory or present ative by the ideal or representative. An undeveloped individual or race lives and acts in the present; the mature is controlled by fore- sight of an indefinitely distant future. The thief who steals is actuated by a simple feeling, the mere impulse of acquisition ; the business man conducts his acquisition in view of highly complex considerations of property and ownership. A low-grade intelligence acts only upon sensory stimulus, immediately present; a developed mind is moved by elaborate intellectual constructions, by imag- inations and ideas which far outrun the observed or ob- servable scene. Each step of the development of intelli- gence, of culture, whether in the individual or the race, is dependent upon ability to subordinate the immediate UTILITARIAN THEORY OF DUTY 359 simple, physically present tendency and aim to the re- mote, compound, and only ideally present intention (Spen- cer, Principles of Ethics, Vol. I., Part I., ch. vii.). Subordination of Near to Remote Good Dependent on Social Influences — "The conscious relinquishment of immediate and special good to gain distant and general good ... is a cardinal trait of the self-restraint called moral." But this develops out of forms of restraint which are not moral; where the "relinquishment" and subordi- nation of the present and temporary good is not con- sciously willed by the individual in view of a conscious ap- preciation of a distant and inclusive good; but where action in view of the latter is forced upon the individual by outside authority, operating by menace, and having the sanction of fear. These outside controls are three in number: political or legal; supernatural, priestly, or reli- gious ; and popular. All these external controls, working through dread of pain and promise of reward, bring about, however, in the individual a habit of looking to the remote, rather than to the proximate, end. At first the thought of these extrinsic consequences, those which do not flow from the act but from the reaction of others to it, is mixed up with the thought of its own proper conse- quences. But this association causes attention at least to be fixed upon intrinsic consequences that, because of their remoteness and complexity, might otherwise escape attention. Gradually the thought of them grows in clear- ness and efficacy and dissociates itself as a motive from the externally imposed consequences, and there is a control which alone is truly moral. The Internal Sanction. — **The truly moral deterrent from murder, is not constituted by a representation of hanging as a consequence, or by a rep- resentation of tortures in hell as a consequence, or by a repre- sentation of the horror and hatred excited in fellow-men; but by a representation of the necessary natural results — the in- 360 PLACE OF DUTY IN MORAL LIFE fliction of death agony on the victim, the destruction of all his possibilities of happiness, tlie entailed sufferings to his belongings" (Spencer, Ibid., p. 120). The external constraints thus serve as a schoolmaster to bring the race and the individual to internal restraint. Gradually the abstract sense of coerciveness, authoritative- ness, the need of controlling the present by the future good is disentangled, and there arises the sense of duty in gen- eral. But even this "is transitory and will diminish as fast as moralization increases" (Ibid., p. 127). Persistence in performance of a duty makes it a pleasure ; an habitually exercised obligation is naturally agreeable. In the present state of evolutionary development, obliga- tion, or the demands made by the external environment, and spontaneous inclination, or the demand of the organism, cannot coincide. But at the goal of evolution, the organism and environment will be in perfect adjustment. Actions congenial to the former and appropriate to the latter will completely coincide. "In their proper times and places, and proportions, the moral sentiments will guide men just as spontaneously and adequately as now do the sensations" (Ibid., p. 129). Criticism of Utilitarianism. — The utilitarian account of the development of the consciousness of duty or its emphasis upon concrete facts of social arrangements and education affords a much-needed supplement to the empty and abstract formalism of Kant, (i.) The individual is certainly brought to his actual recognition of specific duties and to his consciousness of obligation or moral law in gen- eral through social influences. Bain insists more upon the family training and discipline of its immature members; Bentham and Spencer more upon the general institutional conditions, or the organization of government, law, judi- cial procedure, crystallized custom, and public opinion. In reality, these two conditions imply and reenforce each other. It is through the school of the family, for the most UTILITARIAN THEORY OF DUTY 361 part, that the meaning of the requirements of the larger and more permanent institutions are brought home to the individual ; while, on the other hand, the family derives the aims and values which it enforces upon the attention of its individual members mainly from the larger society in which it finds its own setting. (ii.) The later utilita- rianism, in its insistence upon an "internal sanction," upon the ideal personal, or free facsimile of public authority, upon regard for "intrinsic consequences," corrects the weak point in Bentham (who relies so unduly upon mere threat of punishment and mere fear of pain) and approxi- mates in practical effect, though not in theory, Kant's doctrine of the connection of duty with the rational or "larger" self which is social, even if individual. Even in its revised version utilitarianism did not wholly escape from the rigid unreal separation between the selfhood of the agent and his social surroundings forced upon it by its hedonistic psychology. Fictitious Theory of Nature of Self. — ^The supposition that the individual starts with mere love of private pleas- ure, and that, if he ever gets beyond to consideration of the good of others, it is because others have forced their good upon him by interfering with his private pleasures, is pure fiction. The requirements, encouragements, and approba- tions of others react not primarily upon the pleasures and calculations of the individual, but upon his activities, upon his inclinations, desires, habits. There is a common defect in the utilitarian and Kantian psychology. Both neglect the importance of the active, the organically spontaneous and direct tendencies which enter into the individual. Both assume unreal "states of consciousness," passive sensations, and feehngs. Active tendencies may be inter- nally modified and redirected by the very conditions and consequences of their own exercise. Family discipline, jural influences, public opinion, may do little, or they may do much. But their educative influence is as far from the 362 PLACE OF DUTY IN MORAL LIFE mere association of feelings of pleasure and pain as it is from Kant's purely abstract law. Social influences enable an individual to realize the weight and import of the socially available and helpful manifestations of the tend- encies of his own nature and to discriminate them from those which are socially harmful or useless. When the two conflict, the perception of the former is the recog- nition of duties as distinct from mere inclinations. § 3. FINAL STATEMENT Duty and a Growing Character. — Duty is what is owed by a partial isolated self embodied in established, facile, and urgent tendencies, to that ideal self which is presented in aspirations which, since they are not yet formed into habits, have no organized hold upon the self and which can get organized into habitual tendencies and interests only by a more or less painful and difficult reconstruction of the habitual self. For Kant's fixed and absolute separa- tion between the self of inclination and the self of reason, we substitute the relative and shifting distinction between those factors of self which have become so definitely or- ganized into set habits that they take care of themselves, and those other factors which are more precarious, less crystallized, and which depend therefore upon conscious acknowledgment and intentionally directed affection. The consciousness of duty grows out of the complex character of the self; the fact that at any given time, it has tend- encies relatively set, ingrained, and embodied in fixed habits, while it also has tendencies in process of making, looking to the future, taking account of unachieved pos- sibilities. The former give the solid relatively formed elements of character; the latter, its ideal or unrealized possibilities. Each must play into the other; each must help the other out. The conflict gf duty and desire is thu§ an accom- FINAL STATEMENT S6S paniment of a growing self. Spencer's complete disap- pearance of obligation would mean an exhausted and fossil- ized self ; wherever there is progress, tension arises between what is already accomplished and what is possible. In a being whose "reach should exceed his grasp," a conflict within the self making for the readjustment of the direc- tion of powers must always be found. The value of con- tinually having to meet the expectations and requirements of others is in keeping the agent from resting on his oars, from falling back on habits already formed as if they were final. The phenomena of duty in all their forms are thus phenomena attendant upon the expansion of ends and the reconstruction of character. So far, accordingly, as the recognition of duty is capable of operating as a distinct reen forcing motive, it operates most effectively, not as an interest in duty, or law in the abstract, but as an interest in progress in the face of the obstacles found within character itself. LITERATURE The most important references on the subject of duty are given in the text. To these may be added: Ladd, Philosophy of Conduct, chs. V. and xv.; Mackenzie, Manual, Part I., ch. iv.; Green, Prole- gomena, pp. 315-320, 353-354 and 381-388; Sharp, International Jour- nal of Ethics, Vol. II., pp. 500-513; Muirhead, Elements of Ethics, Book II., ch. ii.; McGilvary, Philosophical Review, Vol. XI., pp. 333- 352; Stephen, Science of Ethics, pp. 161-171; Sturt, International Journal of Ethics, Vol. VII., 334-345; Schurman, Philosophical Be- view, Vol. III., pp. 641-654; Guyau, Sketch of Morals, without Obliga- tion or Sanction. CHAPTER XVIII THE PLACE OF THE SELF IN THE MORAL LIFE We have reached the conclusion that disposition as manifest in endeavor is the seat of moral worth, and that this worth itself consists in a readiness to regard the gen- eral happiness even against contrary promptings of per- sonal comfort and gain. This brings us to the problems connected with the nature and functions of the self. We shall, in our search for the moral self, pass in review the conceptions which find morality in ( 1 ) Self-Denial or Self- Sacrifice, (2) Self -Assertion, (3) Combination of Regard for Self and for Others, (4) Self -Realization. § 1. THE DOCTRINE OF SELF-DENIAIi Widespread Currency of the Doctrine. — The notion that real goodness, or virtue, consists essentially in abnega- tion of the self, in denying and, so far as may be, elimi- nating everything that is of the nature of the self, is one of the oldest and most frequently recurring notions of moral endeavor and religion, as well as of moral theory. It describes Buddhism and, in large measure, the monastic ideal of Christianity, while, in Protestantism, Puritanism is permeated with its spirit. It characterized Cynicism and Stoicism. Kant goes as far as to say that every ra- tional being must wish to be wholly free from inclinations. Popular morality, while not going so far as to hold that all moral goodness is self-denial, yet more or less definitely assumes that self-denial on its own account, irrespective of what comes out of it, is morally praiseworthy. A notion so deeply rooted and widely flourishing must have strong 364 THE DOCTRINE OF SELF-DENIAL 365 motives in its favor, all the more so because its practical vogue is always stronger than any reasons which are theo- retically set forth. Origin of the Doctrine. — The notion arises from the tendency to identify the self with one of its own factors. It is one and the same self which conceives and is interested in some generous and ideal good that is also tempted by some near, narrow, and exclusive good. The force of the latter resides in the habitual self, in purposes which have got themselves inwrought into the texture of ordinary character. Hence there is a disposition to overlook the complexity of selfhood, and to identify it with those fac- tors in the self which resist ideal aspiration, and which are recalcitrant to the thought of duty; to identify the self with impulses that are inclined to what is frivolous, sen- suous and sensual, pleasure-seeking. All vice being, then, egoism, selfishness, self-seeking, the remedy is to check it at its roots ; to keep the self down in its proper piece, deny- ing it, chastening it, mortifying it, refusing to listen to its promptings. Ignoring the variety and subtlety of the factors that make up the self, all the different elements of right and of wrong are gathered together and set over against each other. All the good is placed once for all in some outside source, some higher law or ideal; and the source of all evil is placed within the corrupted and vile self. When one has become conscious of the serious nature of the moral struggle ; has found that vice is easy, and to err "natural," needing only to give way to some habitual impulse or desire; that virtue is arduous, requiring re- sistance and strenuous effort, one is apt to overlook the habitual tendencies which are the ministers of the higher goods. One forgets that unless ideal ends were also rooted in some natural tendencies of the self, they could neither occur to the self nor appeal to the self. Hence everything is swept into the idea that the self is inherently so evil that it must be denied, snubbed, sacrificed, mortified. 366 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE In general, to point out the truth which this theory per- verts, to emphasize the demand for constant reconstruc- tion and rearrangement of the habitual powers of the self — is sufficient criticism of it. But in detail the the- ory exercises such pervasive influence that it is worth while to mention specifically some of the evils that accrue from it. 1. It so Maims and Distorts Human Nature as to Narrow the Conception of the Good. — In its legitimate antagonism to pleasure-seeking, it becomes a foe to happi- ness, and an implacable enemy of all its elements. Art is suspected, for beauty appeals to the lust of the eye. Fam- ily life roots in sexual impulses, and property in love of power, gratification, and luxury. Science springs from the pride of the intellect ; the State from the pride of will. As- ceticism is the logical result ; a purely negative conception of virtue. But it surely does dishonor, not honor, to the moral life to conceive it as mere negative subjection of the flesh, mere holding under control the lust of desire and the temptations of appetite. All positive content, all lib- eral achievement, is cut out and morality is reduced to a mere struggle against solicitations to sin. While asceti- cism is in no danger of becoming a popular doctrine, there is a common tendency to conceive self-control in this nega- tive fashion ; to fail to see that the important thing is some positive good for which a desire is controlled. In gen- eral we overemphasize that side of morality which consists in abstinence and not doing wrong. 2. To Make so Much of Conflict with the "Flesh," is to Honor the Latter too Much. — It is to fix too much attention on it. It is an open lesson of psychology that to oppose doing an act by mere injunction not to do it, is to increase the power of the thing not to be done, and to weaken the spring and eff*ectiveness of the other motives, which, if positively attended to, might keep the obnoxious motive from gaining supremacy. The "expulsive power" THE DOCTRINE OF SELF-DENIAL 367 of a generous affection is more to be relied upon than effort to suppress, which keeps aHve the very thing to be sup^ pressed. The history of monks and Puritan saints ahke is full of testimony to the fact that withdrawal from positive generous and wholesome aims reenforces the vital- ity of the lower appetites and stimulates the imagination to play about them. Flagellation and fasting work as long as the body is exhausted; but the brave organism reasserts itself, and its capacities for science, art, the life of the family and the State not having been cultivated, sheer ineradicable physical instinct is most likely to come to the front. 3. We Judge Others by Ourselves Because We Have No Other Way to Judge. — It is impossible for a man who conceives his own good to be in "going without," in just restricting himself, to have any large or adequate idea of the good of others. Unconsciously and inevitably a hardening and narrowing of the conditions of the lives of others accompanies the reign of the Puritanic ideal. The man who takes a high view of the capacities of hu- man nature in itself, who reverences its possibilities and is jealous for their high maintenance in himself, is the one most likely to have keen and sensitive appreciation of the needs of others. There is, moreover, no selfishness, no neglect of others more thoroughgoing, more effectively cruel than that which comes from preoccupation with the attainment of personal goodness, and this interest is an almost inevitable effect of devotion to the negative ideal of self-denial. 4. The Principle Radically Violates Human Nature. — This indeed is its claim — that human nature, just as human nature, requires to have violence done it. But the capacities which constitute the self demand fulfillment. The place, the time, the manner, the degree, and the pro- portion of their fulfillment, require infinite care and pains, and to secure this attention is the business of morals. 368 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE Morals is a matter of direction, not of suppression. The urgency of desires and capacities for expression cannot be got rid of; nature cannot be expelled. If the need of happiness, of satisfaction of capacity, is checked in one direction, it will manifest itself in another. If the direc- tion which is checked is an unconscious and wholesome one, that which is taken will be likely to be morbid and perverse. The one who is conscious of continually denying himself cannot rid himself of the idea that it ought to be "made up" to him; that a compensating happiness is due him for what he has sacrificed, somewhat increased, if any- thing, on account of the unnatural virtue he has dis- played.^ To be self-sacrificing is to "lay up" merit, and this achievement must surely be rewarded with happiness — if not now, then later. Those who habitually live on the basis of conscious self-denial are likely to be exorbitant in the demands which they make on some one near them, some member of their family or some friend ; likely to blame others if their own "virtue" does not secure for itself an exacting attention which reduces others to the plane of servility. Often the doctrine of self-sacrifice leads to an inverted hedonism: we are to be good — that is, to forego pleasure — now, that we may have a greater measure of enjoyment in some future paradise of bliss. Or, the indi- vidual who has taken vows of renunciation is entitled by that very fact to represent spiritual authority on earth and to lord it over others. § 2. SELF-ASSERTION The idea that morality consists in an unbridled asser- tion of self, in its forceful aggressive manifestation, rarely receives consistent theoretical formulation — possibly be- cause most men are so ready to act upon it practically that explicit acknowledgment would be a hindrance rather * Compare the opening words of Emerson's Essay on Compensation. SELF-ASSERTION 369 than a help to the idea. But it is a doctrine which tends to be invoked more or less explicitly as a reaction from the impotency of the self-denial dogma. In reference to some superior individual or class, some leader or group of aristocratically ordained leaders, it is always a more or less conscious principle. Concerning these it is held that ordinary morality holds eventually only for the "com- mon herd," the activities of the leader being amenable to a higher law than that of common morality.^ Moreover, since the self-sacrifice morality is almost never carried out consistently — that is, to the point of monastic asceticism, — much popular morality is an unbalanced combination of self-sacrifice in some regards and ruthless self-assertion in others. It is not "practicable" to carry out the principle of self-denial everywhere; it is reserved for the family life, for special religious duties; in business (which is busi- ness, not morals), the proper thing is aggressive and unre- mitting self-assertion. In business, the end is success, to "make good" ; weakness is failure, and failure is disgrace, dishonor. Thus in practice the two conceptions of self- denial in one region and self-assertion in another mutually support each other. They give occasion for the more or less unformulated, yet prevalent, idea that moral consid- erations (those of self-denial) apply to a limited phase of life, but have nothing to do with other regions in which accordingly the principle of "efficiency" (that is, per- sonal success, wealth, power obtained in competitive vic- tory) holds supreme sway. Recently, however, there has sprung up a so-called **naturalistic" school of ethics which has formulated ex- plicitly the principle of self-assertion, and which claims to find scientific sanction for it in the evolutionary doctrine of Darwin. Evolution, it says, is the great thing, and evolution means the survival of the fit in the struggle for * The principle of a "higher law" for the few who are leaders was first explicitly asserted in modern thought by Machiavelli. 370 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE existence. Nature's method of progress is precisely, so It is said, ruthless self-assertion — to the strong the victory, to the victorious the spoils, and to the defeated, woe. Na- ture affords a scene of egoistic endeavor or pressure, suffer who may, of struggle to get ahead, that is, ahead of others, even by thrusting them down and out. But the justifica- tion of this scene of rapine and slaughter is that out of it comes progress, advance, everything that we regard as noble and fair. Excellence is the sign of excelling; the goal means outrunning others. The morals of hu- mility, of obedience to law, of pity, sympathy, are merely a self -protective device on the part of the weak who try to safeguard their weakness by setting fast limitations to the activities of the truly strong ( compare what was said of the not dissimilar doctrine among the Greeks, pp. 120-22). But the truly moral man, In whom the principle of prog- ress is embodied, will break regardlessly through these meshes and traps. He will carry his own plans through to victorious achievement. He is the super-man. The mass of men are simply food for his schemes, valuable as furnishing needed material and tools. ^ Practical Vogue of the Underlying Idea. — Such a theory, in and of itself, is a literary diversion for those who, not being competent In the fields of outer achievement, amuse themselves by idealizing It In writing. Like most literary versions of science, It rests upon a pseudo-science, a parody of the real facts. But at a time when economic conditions are putting an extraordinary emphasis upon outward achievement, upon success In manipulating nat- * Some phases of the writings of Nietzsche supply relevant material for this sketch. (See especially his Will for Power, Beyond Good and Evil, and such statements as: "The los'' of force which suffering has already brought upon life is still further increased and multi- plied by sympathy. Suffering itself becomes contagious through sympathy" (overlooking the reaction of sympathy to abolish the source of suffering and thus increase force). "Sympathy thwarts, on the whole, in general, the law of development, which is the law of selec- Uon:''-Work8, Vol. XI., p. 242. SELF-ASSERTION 371 ural and social resources, upon "efficiency" in exploiting both inanimate energies and the minds and bodies of other persons, the underlying principle of this theory has a sanction and vogue which is out of all proportion to the number of those who consciously entertain it as a theory. For a healthy mind, the frank statement and facing of the theory is its best criticism. Its bald brutalism flourishes freely only when covered and disguised. But in view of the forces at present, and especially in America, making for a more or less unconscious acceptance of its principle in practice, it may be advisable to say something (1) re- garding its alleged scientific foundation, and (S) the inadequacy of its conception of efficiency. I. The Theory Exaggerates the Role o£ Antagonistic Competitive Struggle in the Darwinian Theory. — (a) The initial step in any "progress" is variation; this is not so much struggle against other organisms, as it is invention or discovery of some new way of acting, involv- ing better adaptation of hitherto merely latent natural resources, use of some possible food or shelter not previ- ously utilized. The struggle against other organisms at work preserves from elimination a species already fixed — quite a different thing from the variation which occasions the introduction of a higher or more complex species, (b) Moreover, so far as the Darwinian theory is concerned, the "struggle for existence" may take any conceivable form; rivalry in generosity, in mutual aid and support, may be the kind of competition best fitted to enable a species to survive. It not only may be so, but it is so within certain limits. The rage for survival, for power, must not be asserted indiscriminately ; the mate of the other sex, the young, to some extent other individuals of the same kin, are spared, or, in many cases, protected and nourished.^ (c) The higher the form of life, the * This phase of the matter has been brought out (possibly with some counter-exaggeration) by Kropotkin in his Mutual Aid, PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE more effective the two methods just suggested: namely, the method of intelHgence in discovering and utihzing new methods, tools, and resources as substituted for the direct method of brute conflict; and the method of mutual pro- tection and care substituted for mutual attack and com- bat. It is among the lower forms of life, not as the theory would require among the higher types, that conditions approximate its picture of the gladiatorial show. The higher species among the vertebrates, as among insects (hke ants and bees), are the "sociable" kinds. It is some- times argued that Darwinism carried into morals would abolish charity: all care of the hopelessly invalid, of the economically dependent, and in general of all the weak and helpless except healthy infants. It is argued that our cur- rent standards are sentimental and artificial, aiming to make survive those who are unfit, and thus tending to destroy the conditions that make for advance, and to in- troduce such as make towards degeneration. But this argument (1) wholly ignores the reflex eff^ect of interest in those who are ill and defective in strengthening social solidarity — in promoting those ties and reciprocal inter- ests which are as much the prerequisites of strong indi- vidual characters as they are of a strong social group. And (2) it fails to take into account the stimulus to fore- sight, to scientific discovery, and practical invention, which has proceeded from interest in the helpless, the weak, the sick, the disabled, blind, deaf, and insane. Taking the most coldly scientific view, the gains in these two respects have, through the growth of social pity, of care for the unfortunate, been purchased more cheaply than we can imagine their being bought in any other way. In other words, the chief objection to this "naturalistic" ethics is that it overlooks the fact that, even from the Darwinian point of view, the human animal is a human animal. It forgets that the sympathetic and social instincts, those which cause the individual to take the interests of SELF-ASSERTION 37S others for his own and thereby to restrain his sheer brute self-assertiveness, are the highest achievements, the high-water mark of evolution. The theory urges a syste- matic relapse to lower and foregone stages of biological development. 2. Its Conception of "Power," "Efficiency," "Achieve- ment" is Perverse. — Compared with the gospel of ab- stinence, of inefficiency, preached by the self-denial school, there is an element of healthy reaction in any ethical sys- tem which stresses positive power, positive success, posi- tive attainment. Goodness has been too much identified with practical feebleness and ineptitude; strength and solidity of accomplishment, with unscrupulousness. But power for the sake of power is as unreal an abstraction as self-denial for the sake of sacrifice, or self-restraint for the sake of the mere restraint. Erected into a central principle, it takes means for end — the fallacy of all mate- rialism. It makes little of many of the most important and excellent inherent ingredients of happiness in its eagerness to master external conditions of happiness. Sensitive discrimination of complex and refined distinctions of worth, such as good taste, the resources of poetry and history, frank and varied social converse among intel- lectual equals, the humor of sympathetic contemplation of the spectacle of life, the capacity to extract happiness from solitude and society, from nature and from art : — all of these, as well as the more obvious virtues of sympathy and benevolence, are swept aside for one coarse undiscrim- inating ideal of external activity, measured by sheer quan- tity of external changes made and external results accu- mulated. Of such an ideal we may say, as Mill said, that the judge of good, of happiness, is the one who has experienced its various forms ; and that as "no intelligent person would consent to be a fool" on account of the pleas- ures of the fool, so no man of cultivated spirit would consent to be a lover of "efficiency" and "power" for the 374 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE sake of brute command of the external commodities of nature and man. Present Currency of This Ideal. — In spite of the ex- traordinary currency of this ideal at present, there is little fear that it will be permanently established. Human nature is too rich and varied in its capacities and demands ; the world of nature and society is too fruitful in sources of stimulus and interest for man to remain indefinitely content with the idea of power for power's sake, command of means for the mere sake of the means. Humanity has long lived a, precarious and a stunted life because of its partial and easily shaken hold on natural resources. Starved by centuries of abstinence enforced through lack of control of the forces and methods of nature, taught the gospel of the merit of abstention, it is not surpris- ing that it should be intoxicated when scientific dis- covery bears its fruit of power in utilization of natural forces, or that, temporarily unbalanced, it should take the external conditions of happiness for happiness itself. But when the values of material acquisition and achievement become familiar they will lose the contrast value they now possess; and human endeavor will concern itself mainly with the problem of rendering its conquests in power and efficiency tributary to the life of intelligence and art and of social communication.^ Such a moral idealism will rest upon a more secure and extensive natural foundation than that of the past, and will be more equitable in applica- ^ Spencer puts the matter truly, if ponderously, in the following: "The citizens of a large nation industrially organized, have reached their possible ideal of happiness when the producing, distributing and other activities, are such in their kinds and amounts, that each individual finds in them a place for all his energies and aptitudes, while he obtains the means of satisfying all his desires. Once more we may recognize as not only possible, but probable, the eventual existence of a community, also industrial, the members of which, having natures similarly responding to these requirements, are also characterized by dominant aesthetic faculties, and achieve complete happiness only when a large part of life is filled with aesthetic activi- ties" (Principles of Ethics, Vol. I., p. 169). SELF-LOVE AND BENEVOLENCE 375 tion and saner in content than that with which aristocra- cies have made us f amihar. It will be a democratic ideal, a good for all, not for a noble class ; and it will include, not exclude, those physical and physiological factors which aristocratic idealisms have excluded as common and unclean. § S. SELF-LOVE AND BENEVOLENCE ; OR, EGOISM AND ALTRUISM For the last three centuries, the most discussed point in English ethical literature (save perhaps whether moral knowledge is intuitive or derived from experience) has been the relation of regard for one's own self and for other selves as motives of action — "the crux of all ethical speculation," Spencer terms it. All views have been rep- resented: (a) that man naturally acts from purely selfish motives and that morality consists in an enforced sub- jection of self-love to the laws of a common social order, (b) That man is naturally selfish, while morality is an "enlightened selfishness," or a regard for self based upon recognition of the extent to which its happiness requires consideration of others, (c) That the tendencies of the agent are naturally selfish, but that morahty is the sub- jection of these tendencies to the law of duty, (d) That man's interests are naturally partly egoistic and partly sympathetic, while morality is a compromise or adjustment of these tendencies, (e) That man's interests are naturally both, and morality a subjection of both to conscience as umpire, (f ) That they are both, while morality is a sub- jection of egoistic to benevolent sentiments, (g) That the individual's interests are naturally in objective ends which primarily are neither egoistic nor altruistic; and these ends become either selfish or benevolent at special crises, at which times morality consists in referring them, equally and impartially for judgment, to a situation in which 376 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE the interests of the self and of others concerned are In- volved: to a common good. Three Underlying Psychological Principles. — ^We shall make no attempt to discuss these various views in detail; but will bring into relief some of the factors in the discussion which substantiate the view (g) stated last. It will be noted that the theories rank themselves under three heads with reference to the constitution of man's tendencies: holding they (1) naturally have in view personal ends ex- clusively or all fall under the principle of self-love or self- regard ; that ( 2 ) some of them contemplate one's own hap- piness and some of them that of others ; that (3) primarily they are not consciously concerned with either one's own happiness or that of others. Memory and reflection may show (just as it shows other things) that their conse- quences affect both the self and others, when the recogni- tion of this fact becomes ah additional element, either for good or for evil, in the motivation of the act. We shall consider, first, the various senses in which action occurs, or is said to occur, in behalf of the person's own self; and then take up, in similar fashion, its reference to the interests of others. I. Action in Behalf of Self. — 1. Motives as Selfish: The Natural Selfishness of Man is maintained from such different standpoints and with such different objects in view that it is difficult to state the doctrine in any one generalized form. By some theologians, it has been asso- ciated with an innate corruption or depravity of human nature and been made the basis of a demand for super- natural assistance to lead a truly just and benevolent life. By Hobbes (1588-1679) it was associated with the anti- social nature of individuals and made the basis for a plea for a strong and centralized political authority ^ to con- * Machiavelli, transferring from theology to statecraft the notion of the corruption and selfishness of all men, was the fir^t modera to preach this doctrine. SELF-LOVE AND BENEVOLENCE 377 trol the natural "war of all against all" which flows in- evitably from the psychological egoism. By Kant, it was connected with the purely sense origin of desires, and made the basis for a demand for the complete subordina- tion of desire to duty as a motive for action. Morals, like politics, make strange bedfellows ! The common factor in these diverse notions, however, is that every act of a self must, when left to its 7iatural or psychological course, have the interest of the self in view ; otherwise there would be no motive for the deed and it would not be done. This theoretical and a priori view is further supported by point- ing out, sometimes in reprobation of man's sinful nature, sometimes in a more or less cynical vein, the lurking pres- ence of some subtle regard for self in acts that apparently are most generous and "disinterested." ^ Ambiguity of the Psychological Basis. — The notion that all action is "for the self" is infected with the same ambiguity as the (analogous) doctrine that all desire is for happiness. Like that doctrine, in one sense it is a truism, in another a falsity — this latter being the sense in which its upholders maintain it. Psychologically, any object that moves us, any object in which we imagine our impulses to rest satisfied or to find fulfillment, becomes^ in virtue of that fact, a factor in the self. If I am enough interested in collecting postage stamps, a collection of postage stamps becomes a part of my "ego," which is in- complete and restless till filled out in that way. If my habits are such that I am not content when I know my neighbor is suffering from a lack of food until I have relieved him, then relief of his suffering becomes a part of my selfhood. If my desires are such that I have no rest of mind until I have beaten my competitor in busi- ness, or have demonstrated my superiority in social gifts by putting my fellow at some embarrassing disadvantage, * See, for example, Hobbes, Leviathan; Mandeville, Fable of the B^€s; and Rochefoucauld, Maxims. 378 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE then that sort of thing constitutes my self. Our instincts, impulses, and habits all demand appropriate objects in order to secure exercise and expression; and these ends in their office of furnishing outlet and satisfaction to our powers form a cherished part of the "me." In this sense it is true, and a truism, that all action involves the inter- est of self. True and False Interpretation. — But this doctrine is the exact opposite of that intended by those who claim that all action is from self-love. The true doctrine says, the self is constituted and developed through instincts and interests which are directed upon their own objects with no conscious regard necessarily for anything except those objects themselves. The false doctrine implies that the self exists by itself apart from these objective ends, and that they are merely means for securing it a certain profit or pleasure. Suppose, for example, it is a case of being so disturbed in mind by the thought of another in pain that one is moved to do something to relieve him. This means that certain native instincts or certain acquired habits demand relief of others as part of themselves. The well-being of the other is an interest of the self: is a part of the self. This is precisely what is meant ordinarily by unselfish- ness: not lack or absence of a self, but such a self as identifies itself in action with others' interests and hence is satisfied only when they are satisfied. To find pain in the thought of others pained and to take pleasure in the thought of their relief, is to have and to be moved by personal motives, by states which are "selfish" in the sense of making up the self; but which are the exact opposite of selfish in the sense of being the thought of some private advantage to self .^ Putting it roundly, then, the fallacy * Compare what was said above, p. 273, on the confusion of pleasure as end, and as motive. Compare also the following from Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 24-1. It is often "insinuated SELF-LOVE AND BENEVOLENCE 379 of the selfish motive theory is that it fails to see that instincts and habits directed upon objects are primary, and that they come before any conscious thought of self as end, since they are necessary to the constitution of that thought. The following quotation from James ^ states the true doctrine : "When I am led by selflove to keep my seat whilst ladies stand, or to grab something first and cut out my neighbor, what I really love is the comfortable seat; it is the thing itself which I grab. I love them primarily, as the mother loves her babe, or a generous man an heroic deed. Wherever, as here, selfseeking is the outcome of simple instinctive pro- pensity, it is but a name for certain reflex acts. Something rivets my attention fatally and fatally provokes the 'selfish* response. ... It is true I am no automaton, but a thinker. But my thoughts, like my acts, are here concerned only with the outward things. ... In fact the more utterly selfish I am in this primitive way, the more blindly absorbed my thought will be in the objects and impulses of my lust and the more devoid of any inward looking glance." 2. Results as Selfish: Ambiguity in the Notion We must then give up the notion that motives are inher- ently self-seeking, in the sense that there is in voluntary acts a thought of the self as the end for the sake of which the act is performed. The self-seeking doctrine may, however, be restated in these terms: Although there is no thought of self or its advantage consciously enter- tained, yet our original instincts are such that their objects do as matter of result conduce primarily to the well-being and advantage of the self. In this sense, anger, that I dislike your pain because it is painful to me in some special relation. I do not dislike it as your pain, but in virtue of some particular consequence, such, for example, as its making you less able to render me a service. In that case I do not really object to your pain as your pain at all, but only to some removable and accidental consequences." The entire discussion of sympathy (pp. 030-245), which is admirable, should be consulted. =* Psychology, Vol. I., p. 320. The whole discussion, pp. 317-329, is very important. 380 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE fear, hunger, and thirst, etc., are said to be egoistic or self- seeking — not that their conscious object is the self, but that their inevitable effect is to preserve and protect the self. The fact that an instinct secures self-preservation or self -development does not, however, make it "egoistic" or "selfish" in the moral sense; nor does it throw any light upon the moral status of the instinct. Everything de- pends upon the sort of self which is maintained. There is, indeed, some presumption (see ante, p. 294) that the act sustains a social self, that is, a self whose maintenance is of social value. If the individual organism did not struggle for food; strive aggressively against obstacles and inter- ferences; evade or shelter itself against menacing supe- rior force, what would become of children, fathers and mothers, lawyers, doctors and clergymen, citizens and patriots — in short, of society.? If we avoid setting up a purely abstract self, if we keep in mind that every actual self is a self which includes social relations and offices, both actual and potential, we shall have no difficulty in seeing that self-preservative instincts may be, and taken by and large, must be, socially conservative. Moreover, while it is not true that if "a man does not look after his own interests no one else will" (if that means that his in- terests are no one else's affair in any way), it is true that no one has a right to neglect his own interests in the hope that some one else will care for them. "His own interests," properly speaking, are precisely the ends which concern him more directly than they concern any one else. Each man is, so to say, nearer himself than is any one else, and, therefore, has certain duties to and about him- self which cannot be performed by any other one. Others may present food or the conditions of education, but the individual alone can digest the food or educate himself. It is profitable for society, not merely for an individual, that each of us should instinctively have his powers most actively and intensely called out by the things that dis- SELF-LOVE AND BENEVOLENCE 381 tinctivelj affect him and his own welfare. Any other arrangement would mean waste of social energy, ineffi- ciency in securing social results. The quotation from James also makes it clear, however, that under certain circumstances the mere absorption in a thing, even without conscious thought of self, is morally offensive. The "pig" in manners is not necessarily think- ing of himself; all that is required to make him a pig is that he should have too narrow and exclusive an object of regard. The man sees simply the seat, not the seat and the lady. The boor in manners is unconscious of many of the objects in the situation which should operate as stimuli. One impulse or habit is operating at the expense of others ; the self in play is too petty or narrow. Viewed from the standpoint of results, the fact which con- stitutes selfishness in the moral sense is not that certain impulses and habits secure the well-being of the self, hut that the well-being secured is a narrow and exclusive one. The forms of coarse egoism which offend us most in ordi- nary life are not usually due to a deliberate or self-con- scious seeking of advantage for self, but to such preoc- cupation with certain ends as blinds the agent to the thought of the interests of others. Many whose behavior seems to others most selfish would deny indignantly (and, from the standpoint of their definite consciousness, hon- estly ) any self-seeking motives : they would point to certain objective results, which in the abstract are desirable, as the true ends of their activities. But none the less, they are selfish, because the limitations of their interests make them overlook the consequences which affect the freedom and happiness of others. 3. There are also Cases in Which the Thought of the Resulting Consequence to the Self Consciously Enters in and Modifies the Motive of the Act. — With increasing memory and foresight, one can no more ignore the lesson of the past as to the consequences of an act 382 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE upon himself than he can ignore other consequences. A man who has learned that a certain act has painful con- sequences to himself, whether to his body, his reputation, his comfort, or his character, is quite likely to have the thought of himself present itself as part of the foreseen consequences when the question of a similar act recurs. In and of itself, once more, this fact throws no light upon the moral status of the act. Everything depends upon what sort of a self moves and how it moves. A man who hesitated to rush into a burning building to rescue a suit of clothes because he thought of the danger to him- self, would be sensible; a man who rushed out of the building just because he thought of saving himself when there were others he might have assisted, would be con- temptible. The one who began taking exercise because he thought of his own health, would be commended; but a man who thought so continually of his own health as to shut out other objects, would become an object of ridicule or worse. There As a moral presumption that a man should make consideration of himself a part of his aim and intent. A certain care of health, of body, of property, of mental faculty, because they are one's own is not only permissible, but obhgatory. This is what the older moral writers; spoke of as "prudence," or as "reasonable self-love." (i.) It is a stock argument of the universal selfishness: theory to point out that a man's acknowledgment of some public need or benefit is quite likely to coincide with hi& recognition of some private advantage. A statesman's recognition of some measure of public policy happens to coincide with perceiving that by pressing it he can bring himself into prominence or gain office. A man is more likely to see the need of improved conditions of sanitation or transportation in a given locality if he has property there. A man's indignation at some prevalent public ill may sleep till he has had a private taste of it. We may SELF-LOVE AND BENEVOLENCE 383 admit that these instances describe a usual, though not universal, state of affairs. But does it follow that such men are moved inerely by the thought of gain to them- selves? Possibly this sometimes happens; then the act is selfish in the obnoxious sense. The man has isolated his thought of himself as an end and made the thought of the improvement or reform merely an external means. The latter is not truly his end at all ; he has not identified it with himself. In other cases, while the individual would not have recognized the end if the thought of himself had not been implicated, yet after he has recognized it, the two — the thought of himself and of the public advantage — may blend. His thought of himself may lend warmth and intimacy to an object which otherwise would have been cold, wliiley at the same time, the self is broadened and deepened by taking in the new object of regard, (ii.) Take the case of amusement or recreation. To an adult usually engaged in strenuous pursuits, the thought of a pleasure for the mere sake of pleasure, of enjoyment, of having a "good time," may appeal as an end. And if the pleasure is itself "innocent," only the requirements of a preconceived theory (like the Kantian) would ques- tion its legitimacy. Even its moral necessity is clear when relaxation is conducive to cheerfulness and efficiency in more serious pursuits. But if a man discriminates mentally between himself and the play or exercise in which he finds enjoyment and relief, thinking of himself as a distinct end to which the latter is merely means, he is not likely to get the recreation. It is by forgetting the self, that is by taking the light and easy activity as the self of the situation, that the benefit comes. To be a "lover of pleasure" in the bad sense is precisely to seek amusements as excitements for a self which some- how remains outside them as their fixed and ulterior end. (iii.) Exactly the same analysis applies to the idea of S84 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE the moral culture of the self, of its moral perfecting, Every serious-minded person has, from time to time, to take stock of his status and progress in moral matters — to take thought of the moral self just as at other times he takes thought of the health of the bodily self. But woe betides that man who, having entered upon a course of reflection which leads to a clearer conception of his own moral capacities and weaknesses, maintains that thought as a distinct mental end, and thereby makes his subsequent acts simply means to improving or perfecting his moral nature. Such a course defeats itself. At the least, it leads to priggishness, and its tendency is towards one of the worst forms of selfishness : a habit of thinking and feel- ing that persons, that concrete situations and relations, exist simply to render contributions to one's own precious moral character. The worst of such selfishness is that having protected itself with the mantle of interest in moral goodness, it is proof against that attrition of experience which may always recall a man to himself in the case of grosser and more unconscious absorption. A sentimentally refined egoism is always more hopeless than a brutal and naive one — though a brutal one not infrequently protects itself by adoption and proclamation of the language of the former. II. Benevolence or Regard for Others. — Ambiguity in Conception: There is the same ambiguity in the idea of sympathetic or altruistic springs to action that there is in that of egoistic and self -regarding. Does the phrase refer to their conscious and express intent .^^ or to their objective results when put into operation, irrespective of explicit desire and aim.^" And, if the latter, are we to believe contribution to the welfare of others to be the sole and exclusive character of some springs of action, or simply that, under certain circumstances, the emphasis falls more upon the good resulting to others than upon other consequences.? The discussion will SELF-LOVE AND BENEVOLENCE 385 show that the same general principles hold for "benevo- lent" as for self-regarding impulses: namely (1) that there are none which from the start are consciously such; (2) that while reflection may bring to light their bearing upon the welfare of others so that it becomes an element in the conscious desire, this is a matter of relative pre- ponderance, not of absolute nature; and (3) that just as conscious regard for self is not necessarily bad or "self- ish," so conscious regard for others is not necessarily good : the criterion is the whole situation in which the desire takes effect. I. The Existence of Other-Regarding Springs to Action. — Only the preconceptions of hedonistic psychol- ogy would ever lead one to deny the existence of reac- tions and impulses called out by the sight of others' misery and joy and which tend to increase the latter and to relieve the former. Recent psychologists (writing, of course, quite independently of ethical controversies) off^er lists of native instinctive tendencies such as the following: Anger, jealousy, rivalry, secretiveness, acquisitiveness, fear, shyness, sympathy, aff^ection, pity, sexual love, curi- osity, imitation, play, constructiveness/ In this in- ventory, the first seven may be said to be aroused specially by situations having to do with the preservation of the self; the next four are responses to stimuli proceeding especially from others and tending to consequences favor- able to them, while the last four are mainly impersonal. But the division into self -regarding and other-regarding is not exclusive and absolute. Anger may be wholly other- regarding, as in the case of hearty indignation at wrongs suffered by others ; rivalry may be generous emulation or be directed toward surpassing one's own past record. Love between the sexes, which should be the source of steady, far-reaching interest in others, and which at times expresses itself in supreme abnegation of devotion, easily ^ See, for example, James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II., ch. xxiv. 386 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE becomes the cause of brutal and persistent egoism. In short, the division into egoistic and altruistic holds only "other things being equal." Confining ourselves for the moment to the native psy- chological equipment, we may say that man is endowed with instinctive promptings which naturally (that is, with- out the intervention of deliberation or calculation) tend to preserve the self (by aggressive attack as in anger, or in protective retreat as in fear) ; and to develop his powers (as in acquisitiveness, constructiveness, and play) ; and which equally, without consideration of resulting ulte- rior benefit either to self or to others, tend to bind the self closer to others and to advance the interests of others — as pity, affection at eness, or again, constructiveness and play. Any given individual is naturally an erratic mixture of fierce insistence upon his own welfare and of profound susceptibility to the happiness of others — different indi- viduals varying much in the respective intensities and pro- portions of the two tendencies. 2. The Moral Status of Altruistic Tendencies. — We have expressly devoted considerable space (ch. xiii.) to showing that there are no motives which in and of them- selves are right; that any tendency, whether original instinct or acquired habit, requires sanction from the special consequences which, in the special situation, are likely to flow from it. The mere fact that pity in general tends to conserve the welfare of others does not guaran- tee the rightness of giving way to an impulse of pity, just as it happens to spring up. This might mean senti- mentalism for the agent, and weakening of the springs of patience, courage, self-help, and self-respect in others. The persistence with which the doctrine of the evils of indiscriminate charity has to be taught is sufficient evi- dence that the so-called other-regarding impulses require the same control by reason as do the "egoistic" ones. They have no inherent sacredness which exempts them from SELF-LOVE AND BENEVOLENCE 387 the application of the standard of the common and rea- sonable happiness. Evils of Unregulated Altruism. — So much follows from the general principles already discussed. But there are special dangers and evils attendant upon an exaggeration of the altruistic idea, (i.) It tends to render others de- pendent , and thus contradicts its own professed aim: the helping of others. Almost every one knows some child who is so continuously "helped" by others, that he loses his initiative and resourcefulness. Many an invalid is con- firmed in a state of helplessness by the devoted attention of others. In large social matters there is always danger of the substitution of an ideal of conscious "benevolence" for justice: it is in aristocratic and feudal periods that the idea flourishes that "charity" (conceived as conferring benefits upon others, doing things for them) is inherently and absolutely a good. The idea assumes the continued and necessary existence of a dependent "lower" class to be the recipients of the kindness of their superiors ; a class which serves as passive material for the cultivation in others of the virtue of charity, the higher class "ac- quiring merit" at expense of the lower, while the lower has gratitude and respect for authority as its chief virtues. (ii.) The erection of the ^'benevolent*' impulse into a virtue in and of itself tends to huild tip egoism in others. The child who finds himself unremittingly the object of attention from others is likely to develop an exaggerated sense of the relative importance of his own ego. The chronic invalid, conspicuously the recipient of the conscious altruism of others, is happy in nature who avoids the slow growth of an insidious egoism. Men who are the con- stant subjects of abnegation on the part of their wives and female relatives rarely fail to develop a self-absorbed complacency and unconscious conceit. (iii.) Undue emphasis upon altruism as a motive is quite likely to react to form a peculiarly subtle egoism in the 388 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE person who cultivates it. Others cease to be natural objects of interest and regard, and are converted into excuses for the manifestation and nurture of one's own generous good- ness. Underlying complacency with respect to social ills grows up because they afford an opportunity for develop- ing and displaying this finest of virtues. In our interest in the maintenance of our own benign altruism we cease to be properly disturbed by conditions which are in- trinsically unjust and hateful.^ (iv.) As present cir- cumstances amply demonstrate, there is the danger that the erection of benevolence into a conscious principle in some things will serve to supply rich persons with a cloak for selfishness in other directions. Philanthropy is made an offset and compensation for brutal exploitation. A man who pushes to the breaking-point of legality aggres- sively selfish efforts to get ahead of others in business, squares it in his own self-respect and in the esteem of those classes of the community who entertain like concep- tions, by gifts of hospitals, colleges, missions, and libraries. Genuine and False Altruism. — These considerations may be met by the obvious retort that it is not true altruism, genuine benevolence, sincere charity, which we are concerned with in such cases. This is a true remark. We are not of course criticizing true but spurious interest in others. But why is it counterfeit? What is the nature of the genuine article? The danger is not in benevolence or altruism, but in that conception of them which makes them equivalent to regard for others as others, irrespective of a social situation to which all alike belong. There is nothing in the selfhood of others, because they are others, which gives it any supremacy over selfhood in oneself. Just as it is exclusiveness of objective ends, the ignoring * Measures of public or state activity in the extension, for ex- ample, of education (furnishing free text-books, adequate medical in- spection, and remedy of defects), are opposed by "good people" be- cause there are "charitable" agencies for doing these things. SELF-LOVE AND BENEVOLENCE 389 of relations, which is objectionable in selfishness, so it is taking the part for the whole which is obnoxious in so- called altruism. To include in our view of consequences the needs and possibilities of others on the same basis as our own, is to take the only course which will give an adequate view of the situation. There is no situation into which these factors do not enter. To have a generous view of others is to have a larger world in which to act. To remember that they, like ourselves, are persons, a;re indi- viduals who are centers of joy and suffering, of lack and of potentiality, is alone to have a just view of the condi- tions and issues of behavior. Quickened sympathy means liberality of intelligence and enlightened understanding. The Social Sense versus Altruism. — There is a great difference in principle between modern philanthropy and the "charity" which assumes a superior and an inferior class. The latter principle tries to acquire merit by employ- ing one's superior resources to lessen, or to mitigate, the misery of those who are fixed in a dependent status. Its principle, so far as others are concerned, is negative and palliative merely. The motive of what is vital in modern philanthropy is constructive and expansive because it looks to the well-being of society as a whole, not to soothing or rendering more tolerable the conditions of a class. It realizes the interdependence of interests: that complex and variegated interaction of conditions which makes it impossible for any one individual or "class" really to secure, to assure, its own good as a separate thing. Its aim is general social advance, constructive social reform, not merely doing something kind for individuals who are rendered helpless from sickness or poverty. Its aim is the equity of justice, not the inequality of conferring benefits. That the sight of the misery that comes from sickness, from insanity, from defective organic structure (as among the blind and deaf), from poverty that destroys hope and dulls initiative, from bad nutrition, should stim- 390 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE ulate this general quickening of the social sense is natural. But just as the activities of the parent with reference to the welfare of a helpless infant are wisely directed in the degree in which attention is mainly fixed not upon weakness, but upon positive opportunities for growth, so the efforts of those whose activities, by the nature of cir- cumstances, have to be especially remedial and palliative are most effective when centered on the social rights and possibilities of the unfortunate individuals, instead of treating them as separate individuals to whom, in their separateness, "good is to be done." The best kind of help to others, whenever possible, is indirect, and consists in such modifications of the condi- tions of life, of the general level of subsistence, as enables them independently to help themselves.^ Whenever condi- tions require purely direct and personal aid, it is best given when it proceeds from a natural social relationship, and not from a motive of "benevolence" as a separate force.^ The gift that pauperizes when proceeding from a philanthropist in his special capacity, is a beneficent acknowledgment of the relationships of the case when it comes from a neighbor or from one who has other inter- ests in common with the one assisted. The Private and the Social Self. — The contrast be- tween the narrow or restrictive and the general or expansive good explains why evil presents itself as a selfish end in contrast with an authoritative, but faint, good of others. This is not, as we have seen, because regard for the good of self is inherently bad and regard for that of others intrinsically right ; but because we are apt to identify the self with the habitual, with that to which we are best adjusted and which represents the cus- * Compare Spencer's criticisms of Bentham's view of happiness as a social standard in contrast with his own ideal of freedom. See Ethics, Vol. I., pp. 162-168. '^ See Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics, ch. ii. THE GOOD AS SELF-REALIZATION 391 tomary occupation. Any moral crisis is thus fairly pic- tured as a struggle to overcome selfishness. The tendency under such circumstances is to contract, to secrete, to hang on to what is already achieved and possessed. The habit- ual self needs to go out of the narrowness of its accus- tomed grooves into the spacious air of more generous behavior. § 4. THE GOOD AS SEIiF-BEALIZATION We now come to the theory which attempts to do justice to the one-sided truths we have been engaged with, viz., the idea that the moral end is self-realization. Like self- assertion in some respects, it differs in conceiving the self to be realized as universal and ultimate, involving the ful- fillment of all capacities and the observance of all relations. Such a comprehensive self-realization includes also, it is urged, the truth of altruism, since the "uni- versal self" is realized only when the relations that bind one to others are fulfilled. It avoids also the inconsistencies and defects of the notion of self-sacrifice for its own sake, while emphasizing that the present incomplete self must be denied for the sake of attainment of a more complete and final self. A discussion of this theory accordingly fur- nishes the means of gathering together and summarizing various points regarding the role of the self in the moral life. Ambiguity in the Conception. — Is self-realization the end? As we have had such frequent occasion to observe, "end" means either the consequences actually effected, the closing and completing phase of an act, or the aim held deliberately in view. Now realization of self is an end (though not the only end) in the former sense. Every moral act in its outcome marks a development or fulfill- ment of selfhood. But the very nature of right action forbids that the self should be the end in the sense of being the conscious aim of moral activity. For there 392 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE is no way of discovering the nature of the self except in terms of objective ends which fulfill its capacities, and there is no way of realizing the self except as it is for- gotten in devotion to these objective ends. I. Self-Realization as Consequence of Moral Action. — Every good act realizes the selfhood of the agent who per- forms it ; every bad act tends to the lowering or destruction of selfhood. This truth is expressed in Kant's maxim that every personality should be regarded as always an end, never as a means, with its implication that a wrong intent always reduces selfhood to the status of a mere tool or device for securing some end beyond itself — the self-indul- gent man treating his personal powers as mere means to securing ease, comfort, or pleasure. It is expressed by ordinary moral judgment in its view that all immoral action is a sort of prostitution, a lowering of the dignity of the self to base ends. The destructive tendency of evil deeds is witnessed also by our common language in its con- ception of wrong as dissipation, dissoluteness, duplicity. The bad character is one which is shaky, empty, ^'naughty," unstable, gone to pieces, just as the good man is straight, solid, four-square, sound, substantial. This conviction that at bottom and in the end, in spite of all temporary appearance to the contrary, the right act effects a realization of the self, is also evidenced in the common belief that virtue brings its own bliss. No matter how much suffering from physical loss or from material and mental inconvenience or loss of social repute virtue may bring with it, the quality of happiness that accompanies devotion to the right end is so unique, so invaluable, that pains and discomforts do not weigh in the balance. It is indeed possible to state this truth in such an exaggerated perspective that it becomes false ; but taken just for what it is, it acknowledges that whatever harm or loss a right act may bring to the self in some of its aspects, — even extending to destruction of the bodily THE GOOD AS SELF-REALIZATION 393 self, — the inmost moral self finds fulfillment and conse- quent happiness in the good. 2. Self-Realization as Aim of Moral Action This realization of selfhood in the right course of action is, however, not the end of a moral act — that is, it is not the only end. The moral act is one which sustains a whole complex system of social values ; one which keeps vital and progressive the industrial order, science, art, and the State. The patriot who dies for his country may find in that devotion his own supreme realization, but none the less the aim of his act is precisely that for which he per- forms it: the conservation of his nation. He dies for his country, not for himself. He is what he would be in dying for his country, not in dying for himself. To say that his conscious aim is self-realization is to put the cart before the horse. That his willingness to die for his coun- try proves that his country's good is taken by him to constitute himself and his own good is true; but his aim is his country's good as constituting his self-realization, not the self-realization. It is impossible that genuine artistic creation or execution should not be accompanied with the joy of an expanding selfhood, but the artist who thinks of himself and allows a view of himself to in- tervene between his performance and its result, has the embarrassment and awkwardness of "self-consciousness," which affects for the worse his artistic product. And it makes little difference whether it is the thought of himself as materially profiting, or as famous, or as technical performer, or as benefiting the public, or as securing his own complete artistic culture, that comes in between. In any case, there is loss to the work, and loss in the very thing taken as end, namely, development of his own powers. The problem of morality, upon the intel- lectual side, is the discovery of, the finding of, the self, in the objective end to be striven for; and then upon the overt practical side, it is the losing of the self in th^ 394 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE endeavor for the objective realization. This is the lasting truth in the conception of self-abnegation, self-forget- fulness, disinterested interest. The Thought of Self-Realization. — Since, however, the realization of selfhood, the strengthening and perfecting of capacity, is as matter of fact one phase of the ob- jective end, it may, at times, be definitely present in thought as part of the foreseen consequences ; and even,, at times, may be the most prominent feature of the con- ceived results. The artist, for example a musician or painter, may practice for the sake of acquiring skill, that is, of developing capacity. In this case, the usual rela- tionship of objective work and personal power is reversed; the product or performance being subordinated to the perfecting of power, instead of power being realized in the use it is put to. But the development of power is not conceived as a final end, but as desirable because of an eventual more liberal and effective use. It is matter of temporary emphasis. Something of like nature occurs in the moral life — not that one definitely rehearses or prac- tices moral deeds for the sake of acquiring more skill and power. At times the effect upon the self of a deed becomes the conspicuously controlling element in the fore- cast of consequences. (See p. 382.) For example, a per- son may realize that a certain act is trivial in its effects upon others and in the changes it impresses upon the world; and yet he may hesitate to perform it because he realizes it would intensify some tendency of his own in such a way as, in the delicate economy of character, to dis- turb the proper balance of the springs to action. Or, on the other hand, the agent may apprehend that some con- sequences that are legitimate and important in themselves involve, in their attainment, an improper sacrifice of per- sonal capacity. In such cases, the consideration of the effect upon self-realization is not only permissible, but imperative as a 'part or phase of the total end. THE GOOD AS SELF-REALIZATION 395 The Problem of Equating Personal and General Hap- piness. — Much moral speculation has been devoted to the problem of equating personal happiness and regard for the general good. Right moral action, it is assumed, consists especially of justice and benevolence, — attitudes which aim at the good of others. But, it is also assumed, a just and righteous order of the universe requires that the man who seeks the happiness of others should also himself be a happy man. Much ingenuity has been directed to explaining away and accounting for the seem- ing discrepancies : the cases where men not conspicuous for regard for others or for maintaining a serious and noble view of life seem to maintain a banking-credit on the side of happiness; while men devoted to others, men conspicu- ous for range of sympathetic affections, seem to have a debit balance. The problem is the more serious because the respective good and ill fortunes do not seem to be entirely accidental and external, but to come as results from the moral factors in behavior. It would not be difficult to build up an argument to show that while ex- treme viciousness or isolated egoism is unfavorable to happiness, so also are keenness and breadth of affections. The argument would claim that the most comfortable course of life is one in which the man cultivates enough intimacies with enough persons to secure for himself their support and aid, but avoids engaging his sympathies too closely in their affairs and entangling himself in any asso- ciations which would require self-sacrifice or exposure to the sufferings of others: a course of life in which the individual shuns those excesses of vice which injure health, wealth, and lessen the decent esteem of others, but also shuns enterprises of precarious virtue and devotion to high and difficult ends. Real and Artificial Aspects of the Problem. — The problem thus put seems insoluble, or soluble only upon the supposition of some prolongation of life under condi- 396 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE tions very different from those of the present, in which the present lack of balance between happiness and goodness will be redressed. But the problem is insoluble because it is artificial.^ It assumes a ready-made self and hence a ready-made type of satisfaction of happiness. It is not the business of moral theory to demonstrate the existence of mathematical equations, in this life or another one, be- tween goodness and virtue. It is the business of men to develop such capacities and desires, such selves as render them capable of finding their own satisfaction, their invaluable value, in fulfilling the demands which grow out of their associated life. Such happiness may be short in duration and slight in bulk: but that it out- weighs in quality all accompanying discomforts as well as all enjoyments which might have been missed by not doing something else, is attested by the simple fact that men do consciously choose it. Such a person has found himself, and has solved the problem in the only place and in the only way in which it can be solved: in action. To demand in advance of voluntary desire and deliberate choice that it be demonstrated that an individual shall get happi- ness in the measure of the rightness of his act, is to de- mand the obliteration of the essential factor in morality: the constant discovery, formation, and reformation of the self in the ends which an individual is called upon to sustain and develop in virtue of his membership in a * Compare the following extreme words of Sumner (Folkways, p. 9) : "The great question of world philosophy always has been, what is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say there is none." But when Sumner, in the next sentence, says, "The whole strength of the notion that they are correlated is in the opposite experience which proves that no evil thing brings happi- ness," one may well ask what more relation any reasonable man would want. For it indicates that "goodness" consists in active interest in those things which really bring happiness; and while it by no means follows that this interest will bring even a prepon- derance of pleasure over pain to the person, it is always open to him to find and take his dominant happiness in making this interest dominant in his life. THE GOOD AS SELF-REALIZATION 397 social whole. The solution of the problem through the individual's voluntary identification of himself with social relations and aims is neither rare nor utopian. It is achieved not only by conspicuous social figures, but by multitudes of "obscure" figures who are faithful to the callings of their social relationships and offices. That the conditions of life for all should be enlarged, that wider opportunities and richer fields of activity should be opened, in order that happiness may be of a more noble and varie- gated sort, that those inequalities of status which lead men to find their advantage in disregard of others should be destroyed — these things are indeed necessary. But under the most ideal conditions which can be imagined, if there remain any moral element whatsoever, it will be only through personal deliberation and personal preference as to objective and social ends that the individual will dis- cover and constitute himself, and hence discover the sort of happiness required as his good. Our final word about the place of the self in the mora] life is, then, that the problem of morality is the formation, out of the body of original instinctive impulses which com- pose the natural self, of a voluntary self in which socialized desires and affections are dominant, and in which the last and controlling principle of deliberation is the love of the objects which will make this transformation possible. If we identify, as we must do, the interests of such a charac- ter with the virtues, we may say with Spinoza that happi- ness is not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself. What, then, are the virtues.? LITERATURE For asceticism, see Lecky, History of European Morals. For self-denial, Mackenzie, International Journal of Ethics, Vol. V., pp. 273-295. For egoism and altruism: Comte, System of Positive Politics, Intro- duction, ch. iii., and Part II., ch. ii.; Spencer, Principles of Ethics, Vol. I., Part I., chs. xi.-xiv.; Stephen, Science of Ethics, ch. vi; 398 PLACE OF SELF IN MORAL LIFE Paulsen, System of Ethics, pp. 379-399; Sorley, Recent Tendencies in Ethics; Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, pp. 494-507. For the doctrine of self-interest, see Mandeville, Fable of Bees; Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, Book I., ch. vii., and Book II., ch. v.; Stephen, Science of Ethics, ch. x.; Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, Part II., Book II., Branch I., ch. i.; Fite, Introdtictory Study, ch. ii. For historic development of sympathy, see Sutherland, Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct. For the doctrine of self-realization, see Aristotle, Ethics; Green, Prolegomena to Ethics; Seth, Principles of Ethics, Part I., ch. iii.; Bradley, Ethical Studies, Essay II.; Fite, Introductory Study, ch. xL; Paulsen, System of Ethics, Book II., ch. i.; Taylor, Interna- tional Journal of Ethics, Vol. VI., pp. 356-371 ; Palmer, The Heart of Ethics, and The Nature of Goodness; Calderwood, Philosophical Review, Vol. V., pp. 337-351; Dewey, Philosophical Review, Vol. II., pp. 652-664; Bryant, Studies in Character, pp. 97-117. For the ethics of success, besides the writings of Nietzsche, see Plato, Gorgias and Republic, Book I., and Sumner, Folkways, ch. XX. For the social self: Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order, chs. V. and vi. ; for the antagonistic self, chs. vii.-ix. For a general discussion of the Moral Self, see Bosanquet, Psy- chology of the Moral Self; Ladd, Philosophy of Conduct, ch. ix. (see also ch. xviii. on the Good Man). CHAPTER XIX THE VIRTUES INTRODUCTORY Definition of Virtue. — It is upon the self, upon the agent, that ultimately falls the burden of maintaining and of extending the values which make life reasonable and good. The worth of science, of art, of industry, of rela- tionship of man and wife, parent and child, teacher and pupil, friend and friend, citizen and State, exists only as there are characters consistently interested in such goods. Hence any trait of character which makes for these goods is esteemed; it is given positive value; while any disposition of selfhood found to have a contrary tendency is condemned — has negative value. The habits of char- acter whose effect is to sustain and spread the rational or common good are virtues ; the traits of character which have the opposite effect are vices. Virtue and Approbation; Vice and Condemnation. — The approbation and disapprobation visited upon conduct are never purely intellectual. They are also emotional and practical. We are stirred to hostility at whatever disturbs the order of society ; we are moved to admiring sympathy of whatever makes for its welfare. And these emotions express themselves in appropriate conduct. To disapprove and dislike is to reprove, blame, and punish. To approve is to encourage, to aid, and support. Hence the judg- ments express the character of the one who utters them — they are traits of his conduct and character; and they react into the character of the agent upon whom they are 399 400 THE VIRTUES directed. They are part of the process of forming char- acter. The commendation is of the nature of a reward calculated to confirm the person in the right course of action. The reprobation is of the nature of punishment, fitted to dissuade the agent from the wrong course. This encouragement and blame are not necessarily of an ex- ternal sort; the reward and the punishment may not be in material things. It is not from ulterior design that society esteems and respects those attributes of an agent which tend to its own peace and welfare ; it is from natural, instinctive response to acknowledge whatever makes for its good. None the less, the social esteem, the honor which attend certain acts inevitably educate the individual who performs these acts, and they strengthen, emotionally and practically, his interest in the right. Similarly, there is an instinctive reaction of society against an infringement of its customs and ideals; it naturally "makes it hot" for any one who disturbs its values. And this disagreeable attention instructs the individual as to the consequences of his act, and works to hinder the forma- tion of dispositions of the socially disliked kind. Natural Ability and Virtue. — There is a tendency to use the term virtue in an abstract "moralistic" sense — a way which makes it almost Pharisaic in character. Hard and fast lines are drawn between certain traits of char- acter labeled "virtues" and others called talents, natural abilities, or gifts of nature. Apart from deliberate or reflective nurture, modesty or generosity is no less and no more a purely natural ability than is good-humor, a turn for mechanics, or presence of mind. Every natural ca- pacity, every talent or ability, whether of inquiring mind, of gentle affection or of executive skill, becomes a virtue when it is turned to account in supporting or extending the fabric of social values; and it turns, if not to vice at least to delinquency, when not thus utilized. The im- portant habits conventionally reckoned virtues are barren INTRODUCTORY 401 unless they are the cumulative assemblage of a multitude of anonymous interests and capacities. Such natural apti- tudes vary widely in different individuals. Their endow- ments and circumstances occasion and exact different virtues, and yet one person is not more or less virtuous than another because his virtues take a different form. Changes in Virtues.— It follows also that the meaning, or content, of virtues changes from time to time. Their abstract form, the man's attitude towards the good, re- mains the same. But when institutions and customs change and natural abilities are differently stimulated and evoked, ends vary, and habits of character are differently esteemed both by the individual agent and by others who judge. No social group could be maintained without patriotism and chastity, but the actual meaning of chas- tity and patriotism is widely different in contemporary society from what it was in savage tribes or from what we may expect it to be five hundred years from now. Cour- age in one society may consist almost wholly in willingness to face physical danger and death in voluntary devotion to one's community; in another, it may be willingness to support an unpopular cause in the face of ridicule. Conventional and Genuine Virtue. — ^When we take these social changes on a broad scale, in the gross, the point just made is probably clear without emphasis. But we are apt to forget that minor changes are going on all the while. The community's formulated code of esteem and regard and praise at any given time is likely to lag some- what behind its practical level of achievement and possi- bility. It is more or less traditional, describing what used to be, rather than what are, virtues. The "respectable" comes to mean tolerable, passable, conventional. Accord- ingly the prevailing scheme of assigning merit and blame, while on the whole a mainstay of moral guidance and in- struction, is also a menace to moral growth. Hence men must look behind the current valuation to the real value. 402 THE VIRTUES Otherwise, mere conformity to custom is conceived to be virtue;^ and the individual who deviates from custom in the interest of wider and deeper good is censured. Moral Responsibility for Praise and Blame —The prac- tical assigning of value, of blame and praise, is a measure and exponent of the character of the one from whom it issues. In judging others, in commending and condemn- ing, we judge ourselves. What we find to be praiseworthy and blameworthy is a revelation of our own affections. Very literally the measure we mete to others is meted to us. To be free in our attributions of blame is to be censorious and uncharitable ; to be unresentf ul to evil is to be indifferent, or interested perhaps chiefly in one's own popularity, so that one avoids giving offense to others. To engage profusely in blame and approbation in speech without acts which back up or attack the ends verbally honored or condemned, is to have a perfunctory morality. To cultivate complacency and remorse apart from effort to improve is to indulge in sentimentality. In short, to approve or to condemn is itself a moral act for which we are as much responsible as we are for any other deed. Impossibility of Cataloguing Virtues. — These last three considerations : ( 1 ) the intimate connection of virtues with all sorts of individual capacities and endowments, (2) the change in types of habit required with change of social customs and institutions, (3) the dependence of judgment of vice and virtue upon the character of the one judging,^ make undesirable and impossible a catalogued list of vir- ^ This is, of course, the point made in ch. iv. on ^^Customs or Mores," save that there the emphasis was upon the epoch of cus- tomary as distinct from the reflective morals, while here it is upon the customary factor in the present. * This fact might be employed to reen force our prior conclusion that moral rules, classifications, etc., are not of final importance but are of value in clarifying and judging individual acts and situations. Not the rule, but the use which the person makes of the rule in approving and disapproving himself and others, is the significant thing. INTRODUCTORY 403 tues with an exact definition of each. Virtues are num- berless. Every situation, not of a routine order, brings in some special shading, some unique adaptation, of disposition. Twofold Classification. — We may, however, classify the chief institutions of social life — language, scientific in- vestigation, artistic production, industrial efficiency, fam- ily, local community, nation, humanity — and specify the types of mental disposition and interest which are fitted to maintain them flourishingly ; or, starting from typical im- pulsive and instinctive tendencies, we may consider the form they assume when they become intelligently exercised habits. A virtue may be defined, accordingly, either as the settled intelligent identification of an agenfs capacity with some aspect of the reasonable or common happiness; or, as a social custom or tendency organized into a per- sonal habit of valuation. From the latter standpoint, truthfulness is the social institution of language main- tained at its best pitch of efficiency through the habitual purposes of individuals; from the former, it is an in- stinctive capacity and tendency to communicate emotions and ideas directed so as to maintain social peace and prosperity. In like fashion, one might catalogue all forms of social custom and institution on one hand; and all the species and varieties of individual equipment on the other, and enumerate a virtue for each. But the performance is so formal as not to amount to much. Aspects of Virtue. — Any virtuous disposition of char- acter exhibits, however, certain main traits, a consider- ation of which will serve to review and summarize our an- alysis of the moral life. I. The Interest Must be Entire or Whole-hearted. — The whole self, without division or reservation, must go out into the proposed object and find therein its own satis- faction. Virtue is integrity; vice duplicity. Goodness is straight, right ; badness is crooked, indirect. Interest that 404 THE VIRTUES is incomplete is not interest, but (so far as incomplete) in- difference and disregard. This totality of interest we call affection, love; and love is the fulfilling of the law. A grudging virtue is next to no virtue at all ; thorough heart- iness in even a bad cause stirs admiration, and lukewarm- ness in every direction is always despised as meaning lack of character. Surrender, abandonment, is of the essence of identification of self with an object. II. The Interest Must be Energetic and Hence Per- sistent. — One swallow does not make a summer nor a spo- radic right act a virtuous habit. Fair-weather character has a proverbially bad name. Endurance through discour- agement, through good repute and ill, weal and woe, tests the vigor of interest in the good, and both builds up and expresses a formed character. III. The Interest Must be Pure or Sincere. — Honesty is, doubtless, the best policy, and it is better a man should be honest from policy than not honest at all. If genuinely honest from considerations of prudence, he is on the road to learn better reasons for honesty. None the less, we are suspicious of a man if we believe that motives of personal profit are the only stay of his honesty. For circumstances might arise in which, in the exceptional case, it would be clear that personal advantage lay in dishonesty. The mo- tive for honesty would hold in most cases, in ordinary and routine circumstances and in the glare of publicity, but not in the dark of secrecy, or in the turmoil of disturbed circumstance. The eye single to the good, the "disin- terested interest" of moralists, is required. The motive that has to be coaxed or coerced to its work by some promise or threat is imperfect. Cardinal or Indispensable Aspects of Virtue. — Bear- ing in mind that we are not attempting to classify various acts or habits, but only to state traits essential to all mo- rality, we have the "cardinal virtues" of moral theory. As whole-hearted, as complete interest, any habit or INTRODUCTORY 405 attitude of character involves justice and love; as per- sistently active, it is courage, fortitude, or vigor; as un- mixed and single, it is temperance — in its classic sense. And since no habitual interest can be integral, enduring, or sincere, save as it is reasonable, save, that is, as it is rooted in the deliberate habit of viewing the part in the light of the whole, the present in the light of the past and future, interest in the good is also wisdom or conscien- tiousness: — interest in the discovery of the true good of the situation. Without this interest, all our interest is likely to be perverted and misleading — requiring to be repented of. Wisdom, or (in modern phrase) conscientiousness, is the nurse of all the virtues. Our most devoted courage is in the will to know the good and the fair by unflinching at- tention to the painful and disagreeable. Our severest dis- cipline in self-control is that which checks the exorbitant pretensions of an appetite by insisting upon knowing it in its true proportions. The most exacting justice is that of an intelligence which gives due weight to each desire and demand in deliberation before it is allowed to pass into overt action. That affection and wisdom lie close to each other is evidenced by our language; thoughtfulness, re- gard, consideration for others, recognition of others, attention to others. § 1. TEMPERANCE The English word "temperance" (particularly in its local association with agitation regarding use of intoxi- cating liquors) is a poor substitute for the Greek sophros- yne which, through the Latin temperantia, it represents. The Athenian Greek was impressed with the fact that just as there are lawless, despotically ruled, and self-governed communities, so there are lawless, and servile, and self- ruled individuals. Whenever there is a self -governed soul, 406 THE VIRTUES there is a happy blending of the authority of reason with the force of appetite. The individual's diverse nature is tempered into a living harmony of desire and intelligence. Reason governs not as a tyrant from without, but as a guide to which the impulses and emotions are gladly re- sponsive. Such a well-attuned nature*, as far from asceti- cism on one side as from random indulgence on the other, represented the ideal of what was fair and graceful in character, and was embodied in the notion of sophrosyne. This was a wJiole-mindedness which resulted from the happy furtherance of all the elements of human nature under the self-accepted direction of intelligence. It im- plied an (Esthetic view of character; of harmony in structure and rhythm in action. It was the virtue of judgment exercised in the estimate of pleasures: — since it is the agreeable, the pleasant, which gives an end excessive hold upon us. Roman Temperantia. — The Roman conceived this vir- tue under the term temperantia, which conveys the same idea, but accommodated to the Roman genius. It is con- nected with the word tempus, time, which is connected also with a root meaning divide, distribute ; it suggests a con- secutive orderliness of behavior, a freedom from excessive and reckless action, first this way, and then that. It means seemliness, decorum, decency. It was "moderation," not as quantity of indulgence, but as a moderating of each act in a series by the thought of other and succeeding acts — keeping each in sequence with others in a whole. The idea of time involves time to think ; the sobering second thought expressed in seriousness and gravity. The negative side, the side of restraint, of inhibition, is strong, and functions for the consistent calm and gravity of life. Christian Purity. — Through the Christian influence, the connotation which is marked in the notion of control of sexual appetite, became most obvious — purity. Passion is not so much something which disturbs the harmony of TEMPERANCE 407 man's nature, or which interrupts its orderliness, as it is something which defiles the purity of spiritual nature. It is the grossness, the contamination of appetite which is insisted upon, and temperance is the maintenance of the soul spotless and unsullied. Negative Phase: — Self-control. A negative aspect of self-control, restraint, inhibition is everywhere involved.^ It is not, however, desire, or appetite, or passion, or im- pulse, which has to be checked (much less eliminated) ; it is rather that tendency of desire and passion so to engross attention as to destroy our sense of the other ends which have a claim upon us. This moderation of pretension is indispensable for every desire. In one direction, it is mod- esty, humility ; the restraint of the tendency of self-conceit to distort the relative importance of the agent's and others' concerns; in another direction, it is chastity; in another, "temperance" in the narrower sense of that word — ^keeping the indulgence of hunger and thirst from passing reason- able bounds; in another, it is calmness, self-possession — moderation of the transporting power of excitement; in yet another, it is discretion, imposing limits upon the use of the hand, eye, or tongue. In matters of wealth, it is decent regulation of display and ostentation. In another, it is prudence, control of the present impulse and de- sire by a view of the "long run," of proximate by remote consequences.^ Positive Phase: Reverence. — The tendency of domi- nant passion is to rush us along, to prevent our thinking. The one thing that desire emphasizes is, for the time being, the most important thing in the universe. This is neces- sary to heartiness and effectiveness of interest and be- * Less is said on this point because this phase of the matter has been covered in the discussion of self-denial in the previous chapter. See pp. 364-68. * Strict hedonism would tend to reduce all virtue to prudence — the calculation of subtler and remoter consequences and the control of present behavior by its outcome. 408 THE VIRTUES havior. But it is important that the thing which thus ab- sorbs desire should be an end capable of justifying its power to absorb. This is possible only if it expresses the entire self. Otherwise capacities and desires which will occur later will be inconsistent and antagonistic, and conduct will be unregulated and unstable. The under- lying idea in "temperance" is then a care of details for the sake of the whole course of behavior of which they are parts ; heedfulness, painstaking devotion. Laxness in con- duct means carelessness; lack of regard for the whole life permits temporary inclinations to get a sway that the outcome will not justify. In its more striking forms, we call this care and respect reverence; recognition of the unique, invaluable worth embodied in any situation or act of life, a recognition which checks that flippancy of surrender to momentary excitement coming from a super- ficial view of behavior. A sense of momentous issues at stake means a sobering and deepening of the men- tal attitude. The consciousness that every deed of life has an import clear beyond its immediate, or first significance, attaches dignity to every act. To live in the sense of the larger values attaching to our pass- ing desires and deeds is to be possessed by the virtue of temperance. Control of Excitement.' — What hinders such living is, as we have seen, the exaggerated intensity, the lack of pro- portion and perspective, with which any appetite or de- sire is likely to present itself. It is this which moralists of all ages have attacked under the name of pleasure — the al- luring and distracting power of the momentarily agree- able. Seeing in this the enemy which prevents the rational survey of the whole field and the calm, steady insight into the true good, it is hardly surprising that moralists have attacked "pleasure" as the source of every temptation to stray from the straight path of reason. But it is not pleasure, it is one form of pleasure, the 'pleasure of excite- TEMPERANCE 409 menty which is the obstacle and danger.^ Every impulse and desire marks a certain disturbance in the order of life, an exaltation above the existing level, a pressure beyond its existing limit. To give way to desire, to let it grow, to taste to the full its increasing and intensifying excitement, is the temptation. The bodily appetites of hunger and thirst and sex, with which we associate the grossest forms of indulgence and laxity, exemplify the principle of expanding waves of organic stimulation. But so also do many of the subtler forms of unrestraint or in- temperate action. The one with a clever and lively tongue is tempted to let it run away with him; the vain man feeds upon the excitement of a personality heightened by display and the notice of others ; the angry man, even though he knows he will later regret his surrender, gives away to the sense of expanding power coincident with his discharge of rage. The shiftless person finds it easier to take chances and let consequences take care of them- selves, while he enjoys local and casual stimulations. Triv- ialities and superficialities entangle us in a flippant life, because each one as it comes promises to be "thrill- ing," while the very fear that this promise will not be kept hurries us on to new experiences. To think of alternatives and consequences is not "thrilling," but serious. Necessity of Superior Interest. — Now calculation of the utilitarian type is not adequate to deal with this temp- tation. Those who are prone to reflection upon results are just those who are least likely to be carried away by excitement — unless, as is the case with some specialists, ^ Says Hazlitt, "The charm of criminal life, like that of savage life, consists in liberty, in hardship, in danger, and in the contempt of death: in one word, in extraordinary excitement" (Essay on Bentham). But this is equally true in principle (though not in degree) of every temptation to turn from the straight and narrow path. Virtue seems dull and sober, uninteresting, in comparison with the increasing excitation of some desire. There are as many forms of excitement as there are individual men. 410 THE VIRTUES thinking is itself the mode of indulgence in excitement.^ With those who are carried away habitually by some mode of excitement, the disease and the incapacity to take the proffered remedy of reflection are the same thing. Only some other passion will accomplish the desired control. With the Greeks, it was sesthetic passion, love of the grace and beauty, the rhythm and harmony, of a self-controlled life. With the Romans, it was the passion for dignity, power, honor of personality, evidenced in rule of appetite. Both of these motives remain among the strong allies of ordered conduct. But the passion for purity, the sense of something degrading and foul in surrender to the base, an interest in something spotless, free from adultera- tion, are, in some form or other, the chief resource in over- coming the tendency of excitement to usurp the governance of the self." § 2. COURAGE OR PERSISTENT VIGOR While love of excitement allures man from the path of reason, fear of pain, dislike to hardship, and laborious effort, hold him back from entering it. Dislike of the dis- agreeable inhibits or contracts the putting forth of energy, just as liking for agreeable stimulation discharges and exhausts it. Intensity of active interest in the good alone subdues that instinctive shrinking from the unpleasant and hard which slackens energy or turns it aside. Such * There is something of the nature of gambling, of taking chances on future results for the sake of present stimulation, in all unre- straint or intemperate action. And the reflection of the specialist — that is, the one whose reflection is not subjected to responsible tests in social behavior — is a more or less exciting adventure — a "specu- lation." * In the last words of Spinoza's Ethics, "No one delights in the good because he curbs his appetites, but because we delight in the good we are able to curb our lusts." ' What has been said about Self-assertion, in the last chapter, anticipates in some measure what holds of this virtue. COURAGE OR PERSISTENT VIGOR 411 energy of devotion is courage. Its etymological connec- tion with the Latin word for heart, suggests a certain abundant spontaneity, a certain overflow of positive energy ; the word was applied to this aspect of virtue when the heart was regarded as literally (not metaphorically) the seat of vital impulse and abundant forcefulness. Courage and the Common Good. — One of the prob- lems of early Greek thought was that of discriminating courage as virtuous from a sort of animal keenness and alacrity, easily running into recklessness and bravado. It was uniformly differentiated from mere overflow of physi- cal energy by the fact that it was exhibited in support of some common or social good. It bore witness to its volun- tary character by abiding in the face of threatened evil. Its simplest form was patriotism — willingness to brave the danger of death in facing the country's enemy from love of country. And this basic largeness of spirit in which the individual sinks considerations of personal loss and harm in allegiance to an objective good remains a cardinal aspect of all right disposition. Courage is Preeminently the Executive Side of Every Virtue. — The good will, as we saw, means endeavor, eff^ort, towards certain ends ; unless the end stirs to strenuous exer- tion, it is a sentimental, not a moral or practical end. And endeavor implies obstacles to overcome, resistance to what diverts, painful labor. It is the degree of threatened harm — in spite of which one does not swerve — which measures this depth and sincerity of interest in the good. Aspects of Interest in Execution. — Certain formal traits of courage follow at once from this general defini- tion. In its onset, willingness in behalf of the common good to endure attendant private evils is alacrity, prompt- ness. In its abiding and unswerving devotion, it is con- stancy, loyalty, and faithfulness. In its continual resist- ance to evil, it is fortitude, patience, perseverance, will- ingness to abide for justification an ultimate issue. The 412 THE VIRTUES totality of commitment of self to the good is decision and firmness. Conviction and resolution accompany all true moral endeavor. These various dimensions (intensity, du- ration, extent, and fullness) are, however, only differing expressions of one and the same attitude of vigorous, ener- getic identification of agency with the object. Goodness and Effectiveness. — It is the failure to give due weight to this factor of morality (the 'Vorks" of theo- logical discussion) which is responsible for the not uncom- mon idea that moral goodness means loss of practical effi- cacy. When inner disposition is severed from outer ac- tion, wishing divorced from executive willing, morality is reduced to mere harmlessness ; outwardly speaking, the best that can then be said of virtue is that it is innocent and innocuous. Unscrupulousness is identified with energy of execution; and a minute and paralyzing scrupulosity with goodness. It is in reaction from such futile morality that the gospel of force and of shrewdness of selecting and adapting means to the desired end, is preached and gains hearers — as in the Italy of the Renaissance ^ in reaction against mediaeval piety, and again in our own day (see ante, p. 374). Moral Courage and Optimism. — ^A characteristic mod- ern development of courageousness is implied in the phrase "moral courage," — as if all genuine courage were not moral. It means devotion to the good in the face of the customs of one's friends and associates, rather than against the attacks of one's enemies. It is willingness to brave for sake of a new idea of the good the unpopularity that attends breach of custom and convention. It is this type of heroism, manifested in integrity of memory and foresight, which wins the characteristic admiration of to-day, rather than the outward heroism of bearing wounds and undergoing physical dangers. It is attention * See Sumner, Folkioays, ch. xx. COURAGE OR PERSISTENT VIGOR 413 upon which the stress falls. ^ This supplies, perhaps, the best vantage point from which to survey optimism and pessimism in their direct moral bearings. The indi- vidual whose pursuit of the good is colored by honest recognition of existing and threatening evils is almost al- ways charged with being a pessimist ; with cynical delight in dwelling upon what is morbid, base, or sordid ; and he is urged to be an "optimist," meaning in effect to conceal from himself and others evils that obtain. Optimism, thus conceived, is a combination of building rosy-colored castles in the air and hiding, ostrich-like, from actual facts. As a general thing, it will be those who have some interest at stake in evils remaining unperceived, and hence unrem- edied, who most clamor in the cause of such "optimism." Hope and aspiration, belief in the supremacy of good in spite of all evil, belief in the realizability of good in spite of all obstacles, are necessary inspirations in the life of virtue. The good can never be demonstrated to the senses, nor be proved by calculations of personal profit. It in- volves a radical venture of the will in the interest of what is unseen and prudentially incalculable. But such optimism of will, such determination of the man that, so far as his choice is concerned, only the good shall be recognized as real, is very different from a sentimental refusal to look at the realities of the situation just as they are. In fact a cer- tain intellectual pessimism, in the sense of a steadfast will- ingness to uncover sore points, to acknowledge and search for abuses, to note how presumed good often serves as a cloak for actual bad, is a necessary part of the moral op- timism which actively devotes itself to making the right prevail. Any other view reduces the aspiration and hope, which are the essence of moral courage, to a cheerful ani- mal buoyancy; and, in its failure to see the evil done to others in its thoughtless pursuit of what it calls good, is * Upon this point see James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II., pp. 561-567, and Royce, World and Individualy Vol. II., pp. 354-360. 414 THE VIRTUES nextdoor to brutality, to a brutality bathed in the atmos- phere of sentimentality and flourishing the catchwords of idealism. § 3. JUSTICE In Ethical Literature Justice Has Borne at Least Three Different Senses. — In its widest sense, it means righteousness, uprightness, rectitude. It sums up mo- rality. It is not a virtue, but it is virtue. The just act is the due act; justice is fulfillment of obligation. (2) This passes over into fairness, equity, impartiality, honesty in all one's dealing with others. (3) The narrowest meaning is that of vindication of right through the administration of law.^ Since Aristotle's time (and following his treat- ment) this has been divided into (i.) the distributive , hav- ing to do with the assignment of honor, wealth, etc., in pro- portion to desert, and (ii.) the corrective, vindicating the law against the transgressor by effecting a requital, re- dress, which restores the supremacy of law. A Thread of Common Significance Runs through These Various Meanings. — The rational good means a comprehensive or complete end, in which are harmoniously included a variety of special aims and values. The just man is the man who takes in the whole of a situation and reacts to it in its wholeness, not being misled by undue respect to some particular factor. Since the general or inclusive good is a common or social good, reconciling and combining the ends of a multitude of private or particular persons, justice is the preeminently social virtue: that which maintains the due order of individuals in the inter- est of the comprehensive or social unity. Justice, as equity, fairness, impartiality, honesty, carries the recognition of the whole over into the ques- tion of right distribution and apportionment among its * This receives more attention in ch. xxi. of Part III. JUSTICE 415 parts. The equitable judge or administrator is the one who makes no unjustifiable distinctions among those dealt with. A fair price is one which recognizes the rights of both buyer and seller. An honest man is the one who, with respect to whatever he has to distribute to others and to receive from them, is desirous of giving and taking just what belongs to each party concerned. The fair-minded man is not bribed by pleasure into giving undue impor- tance to some element of good nor coerced by fear of pain into ignoring some other. He distributes his attention, regard, and attachment according to the reasonable or objective claims of each factor. Justice and Sympathy or Love. — The most significant questions regarding justice are as to its connection with love and with condemnation and punishment. It is a com- mon notion that justice is harsh or hard in its workings and that it requires to be supplemented, if not replaced, by mercy. Taken literally this would mean that justice is not just in its workings. The truth contained is that what is frequently regarded as justice is not justice, but an imperfect substitute for it. When a legal type of mo- rality is current, justice is regarded as the working of some fixed and abstract law; it is the law as law which is to be reverenced; it is law as law whose majesty is to be vindicated. It is forgotten that the nobility and dignity of law are due to the place of law in securing the order involved in the realization of human happiness. Then the law instead of being a servant of the good is put arbi- trarily above it, as if man was made for law, not law for man. The result is inevitably harshness ; indispensable factors of happiness are ruthlessly slighted, or ruled out ; the loveliness and grace of behavior responding freely and flexibly to the requirements of unique situations are stiffened into uniformity. The formula summum jus summa injuria expresses the outcome when abstract law is insisted upon without reference to the needs of con- 416 THE VIRTUES Crete cases. Under such conditions, there arises a demand for tempering the sternness of justice with mercy, and supplementing the severity of law with grace. This de- mand means that the neglected human values shall be restored into the idea of what is just. "Social Justice." — Our own time has seen a generous quickening of the idea of social justice due to the growth of love, or philanthropy, as a working social motive. In the older scheme of morals, justice was supposed to meet all the necessary requirements of virtue; charity was do- ing good in ways not obligatory or strictly exacted. Hence it was a source of peculiar merit in the doer, a means of storing up a surplus of virtue to offset vice. But a more generous sense of inherent social relationships bind- ing the aims of all into one comprehensive good, which is the result of increase of human intercourse, democratic institutions, and biological science, has made men recog- nize that the greater part of the sufferings and miseries which afford on the part of a few the opportunity for charity (and hence superior merit), are really social in- equities, due to causes which may be remedied. That jus- tice requires radical improvement of these conditions dis- places the notion that their effects may be here and there palliated by the voluntary merit of morally superior indi- viduals. The change illustrates, on a wide scale, the transformation of the conception of justice so that it joins hands with love and sympathy. That human nature should have j ustice done it under all circumstances is an infinitely complicated and difficult requirement, and only a vision of the capacities and accomplishments of human beings rooted in affection and sympathy can perceive and execute justly. Transformation of Punitive Justice. — The conception of punitive or corrective justice is undergoing the same transformation. Aristotle stated the rule of equity in the case of wrongdoing as an arithmetical requital: the JUSTICE 417 individual was to suffer according to his deed. Later, through conjunction with the idea of a divine judge in- flicting retribution upon the sinner, this notion passed into the belief that punishment is a form of justice restoring the balance of disturbed law by inflicting suffering upon the one who has done wrong. The end and aim of punish- ment was retribution, bringing back to the agent the evil consequences of his own deed. That punishment is suffer- ing, that it inevitably involves pain to the guilty one, there can be no question; this, whether the punishment is ex- ternally inflicted or is in the pangs of conscience, and whether administered by parent, teacher, or civil author- ity. But that suffering is for the sake of suffering, or that suffering can in any way restore or affect the violated majesty of law, is a different matter. What erring human nature deserves or merits, it is just it should have. But in the end, a moral agent deserves to be a moral agent ; and hence deserves that punishments inflicted should be corrective, not merely retributive. Every wrongdoer should have his due. But what is his due.? Can we measure it by his past alone; or is it due every one to regard him as a man with a future as well? as having possibilities for good as well as achievements in bad.'^ Those who are responsible for the infliction of pun- ishment have, as well as those punished, to meet the re- quirements of justice; and failure to employ the means and instrumentalities of punishment in a way to lead, so far as possible, the wrongdoer to reconsideration of conduct and re-formation of disposition, cannot shelter itself under the plea that it vindicates law. Such failure comes rather from thoughtless custom; from a lazy unwilling- ness to find better means ; from an admixture of pride with lack of sympathy for others ; from a desire to main- tain things as they are rather than go to the causes which generate criminals. 418 THE VIRTUES § 4. WISDOM OR CONSCIENTIOUSNESS As we have repeatedly noted, the heart of a voluntary act is its intelligent or deliberate character. The indi- vidual's intelligent concern for the good is implied in his sincerity, his faithfulness, and his integrity. Of all the habits which constitute the character of an individual, the habit of judging moral situations is the most important, for this is the key to the direction and to the remaking of all other habits. When an act is overt, it is irretrievably launched. The agent has no more control. The moral life has its center in the periods of suspended and post- poned action, when the energy of the individual is spent in recollection and foresight, in severe inquiry and serious consideration of alternative aims. Only through reflection can habits, however good in their origin and past exercise, be readapted to the needs of the present; only through reflection can impulses, not yet having found direction, be guided into the haven of a reasonable happiness. Greek Emphasis upon Insight or Wisdom. — It is not surprising that the Greeks, the first seriously to inquire into the nature of behavior and its end or good, should have eulogized wisdom, insight, as the supreme virtue and the source of all the virtues. Now, indeed, it seems para- doxical to say with Socrates that ignorance is the only vice; that man is bad not voluntarily, from deliberate choice, but only from ignorance. But this is largely be- cause we discriminate between difl^erent kinds of knowledge as the Greek did not, and as they had no occasion for doing. We have a second-hand knowledge, a knowledge from books, newspapers, etc., which was practically non- existent even in the best days of Athens. Knowledge meant to them something more personal; something like what we call a "realizing sense" ; an intimate and well-founded con- viction. To us knowledge suggests information about what others have found out, and hence is more remote in its WISDOM OR CONSCIENTIOUSNESS 419 meaning. Greek knowledge was mostly directly connected with the affairs of their common associated life. The very words for knowledge and art, understanding and skill, were hardly separated. Knowledge was knowledge about the city, its traditions, literature, history, customs, purposes, etc. Their astronomy was connected with their civic reli- gion; their geography with their own topography; their mathematics with their civil and military pursuits. Now we have immense bodies of impersonal knowledge, remote from direct bearing upon affairs. Knowledge has accord- ingly subdivided itself into theoretical or scientific and practical or moral. We use the term knowledge usually only for the first kind; hence the Socratic position seems gratuitously paradoxical. But under the titles of con- science and conscientiousness we preserve the meaning which was attached to the term knowledge. It is not para- doxical to say that unconscientiousness is the fundamental vice, and genuine conscientiousness is guarantee of all virtue. Conscientiousness. — In this change from Greek wisdom to modern conscientiousness there have been some loss and some gain. The loss lies in a certain hardening of the idea of insight and deliberation, due to the isolation of the moral good from the other goods of life. The good man and the bad man have been endowed with the same faculty ; and this faculty has been treated as automatically deliver- ing correct conclusions. On the other hand, modern con- scientiousness contains less of the idea of intellectual ac- complishment, and more of the idea of interest in finding out the good in conduct. "Wisdom" tended to emphasize achieved insight; knowledge which was proved, guaran- teed, and unchangeable. "Conscientiousness" tends rather to fix attention upon that voluntary attitude which is interested in discovery. This implies a pretty radical change in wisdom as virtue. In the older sense it is an attainment ; something possessed. 420 THE VIRTUES In the modern, it resides in the active desire and effort, in pursuit rather than in possession. The attainment of knowledge varies with original intellectual endowment; with opportunity for leisurely reflection; with all sorts of external conditions. Possession is a class idea and tends to mark off a moral aristocracy from a common herd. Since the activities of the latter must be directed, on this as- sumption, by attained knowledge, its practical outcome is the necessity of the regulation of their conduct by the wisdom possessed by the superior class. When, however, the morally important thing is the desire and effort to discover the good, every one is on the same plane, in spite of differences in intellectual endowment and in learning. Moral knowing, as a fundamental or cardinal aspect of virtue, is then the completeness of the interest in good exhibited in effort to discover the good. Since know- ing involves two factors, a direct and an indirect, con- scientiousness involves both sensitiveness and reflectiveness.^ (i) Moral Sensitiveness. — The individual who is not directly aware of the presence of values needing to be per- petuated or achieved, in the things and persons about him, is hard and callous or tough. A "tender" conscience is one which is immediately responsive to the presentation of good and evil. The modern counterpart to the Socratic doc- trine that ignorance is the root of vice, is that being morally "cold" or "dead," being indifferent to moral dis- tinctions, is the most hopeless of all conditions. One who cares, even if he cares in the wrong way, has at least a spring that may be touched; the one who is just irre- sponsive offers no leverage for correction or improvement. (2) Thoughtfulness. — While the possession of such an immediate, unreflective responsiveness to elements of good and bad must be the mainstay of moral wisdom, the character which lies back of these intuitive apprehensions ^ Compare what was said concerning the intuitive and the dis- cursive factors in moral knowledge in ch. xvi. WISDOM OR CONSCIENTIOUSNESS 421 must be thoughtful and serious-minded. There is no indi- vidual who, however morally sensitive, can dispense with cool, calm reflection, or whose intuitive judgments, if reliable, are not largely the funded outcome of prior thinking. Every voluntary act is intelligent : i.e., includes an idea of the end to be reached or the consequences to accrue. Such ends are ideal in the sense that they are present to thought, not to sense. But special ends, be- cause they are limited, are not what we mean by ideals. They are specific. With the growth of the habit of reflec- tion, agents become conscious that the values of their par- ticular ends are not circumscribed, but extend far beyond the special case in question ; so far indeed that their range of influence cannot be foreseen or defined. A kindly act may not only have the particular consequence of relieving present suff^ering, but may make a difference in the entire life of its recipient, or may set in radically diff^erent direc- tions the interest and attention of the one who performs it. These larger and remoter values in any moral act tran- scend the end which was consciously present to its doer. The person has always to aim at something definite, but as he becomes aware of this penumbra or atmosphere of far-reaching ulterior values the meaning of his special act is thereby deepened and widened. An act is outwardly temporary and circumstantial, but its meaning is per- manent and expansive. The act passes away ; but its sig- nificance abides in the increment of meaning given to further growth. To live in the recognition of this deeper meaning of acts is to live in the ideal, in the only sense in which it is profitable for man to dwell in the ideal. Our "idealsy'* our types of excellence, are the various ways in which we figure to ourselves the outreaching and ever-expanding values of our concrete acts. Every one achievement of good deepens and quickens our sense of the inexhaustible value contained in every right act. With achievement, our conception of the possible goods of life 42^ THE VIRTUES increases, and we find ourselves called to live upon a still deeper and more thoughtful plane. An ideal is not some remote all-exhaustive goal, a fixed summum honum with respect to which other things are only means. It is not something to be placed in contrast to the direct, local, and tangible quality of our actual situations, so that by contrast these latter are hghtly esteemed as insignificant. On the contrary, an ideal is the conviction that each of these special situations carries with it a final value, a mean- ing which in itself is unique and inexhaustible. To set up "ideals" of perfection which are other than the serious recognition of the possibilities of development resident in each concrete situation, is in the end to pay ourselves with sentimentalities, if not with words, and meanwhile it is to direct thought and energy away from the situa- tions which need and which welcome the perfecting care of attention and affection. Thoughtfulness and Progress — This sense of wider values than those definitely apprehended or definitely at- tained is a constant warning to the individual not to be content with an accomplishment. Conscientiousness takes more and more the form of interest in improvement, in progress. Conscientiousness as sensitiveness may rest upon the plane of already secured satisfactions, upon discrimi- nating with accuracy their quality and degree. As thoughtfulness, it will always be on the lookout for the better. The good man not only measures his acts by a standard, but he is concerned to revise his standard. His sense of the ideal, of the undefinable because ever-expand- ing value of special deeds, forbids his resting satisfied with any formulated standard; for the very formulation gives* the standard a technical quality, while the good can be maintained only in enlarging excellence. The highest form of conscientiousness is interest in constant progress. Love and Courage Required for Thoughtfulness. — We may close this chapter by repeating what we have WISDOM OR CONSCIENTIOUSNESS 423 already noted, that genuine moral knowledge involves the affections and the resolute will as well as the intelligence. We cannot know the varied elements of value in the lives of others and in the possibilities of our own, save as our affections are strong. Every narrowing of love, every encroachment of egoism, means just so much blindness to the good. The man who pleads "good motives" as excuse for acts which injure others is always one whose absorption in himself has wrought harm to his powers of perception. Every widening of contact with others, every deepen- ing of the level of sympathetic acquaintance, magnifies in so much vision of the good. Finally, the chief ally of moral thoughtfulness is the resolute courage of willingness to face the evil for the sake of the good. Shrinking from apprehension of the evil to others consequent upon our behavior, because such realization would demand pain- ful effort to change our own plans and habits, maintains habitual dimness and narrowness of moral vision. LITERATURE Upon the principle of virtue in general, see Plato, Republic, 427- 443; Aristotle, Ethics, Books II. and IV; Kant, Theory of Ethics (Abbott's trans.), pp. 164-182, 305, 316-322; Green, Prolegomena, pp. 256-314 (and for conscientiousness, 323-337) ; Paulsen, System of Ethics, pp. 475-482; Alexander, Moral Order and Progress, pp. 242- 253; Ladd, Philosophy of Conduct, chs. x. and xiv.; Stephen, Science of Ethics, ch. v.; Spencer, Principles of Ethics, Vol. II., pp. 3-34 and 263-276; Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, pp. 2-5 and 9-10; Rickaby, Aquinas Ethicus, Vol. I., pp. 155-195; Mezes, Ethics, chs. ix. and xvi. For natural ability and virtue: Hume, Treatise, Part II., Book III., and Inquiry, Appendix IV.; Bonar, Intellectual Virtues. For discussions of special virtues: Aristotle, Ethics, Book III., and Book VII., chs. i.-x.; for justice: Aristotle, Ethics, Book V.; Rickaby, Moral Philosophy, pp. 102-108, and Aquinas Ethicus (see Index); Paulsen, System of Ethics, pp. 599-637; Mezes, Ethics, ch. xiii.; Mill, Utilitarianism, ch. v.; Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, Book III., ch. v., and see Index; also criticism of Spencer in his Lectures on the Ethics of Green, Spencer and Martineau, pp. 272-302; Spen- cer, Principles of Ethics, Vol. II.; Stephen, Science of Ethics, ch. v. For benevolence, see Aristotle, Ethics, Books VII.-IX. (on friend- ship) ; Rickaby, Moral Philosophy, pp. 237-244, and Aquinas Ethicus (see charity and almsgiving in Index) ; Paulsen, System^ chs. viii. 424 THE VIRTUES and X. of Part III,; Mezes, Ethics, ch. xii.; Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, Book II., ch. iv.; Spencer, Principles of Ethics, Vol. II.; see also the references under sympathy and altruism at end of ch. xviii. Courage and temperance are discussed in chs. x. and xi. of Mezes; in pp. 485-504 of Paulsen; pp. 327-336 of Sidgwick; ch. xi^ of Ladd's Philosophy of Conduct. PART III THE WORLD OF ACTION GENERAL LITERATURE FOR PART III Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics, 1902, Newer Ideals of Peace, 1907; Santayana, The Life of Reason, Vol. II., 1905; Berg- mann, Ethik als Kulturphilosophie, 1904, especially pp. 154-304; Wundt, Ethics, Vol. III., The Principles of Morality and the De- partments of the Moral Life (trans. 1901) ; Spencer, Principles of Ethics, 1893, Vol. II., Principles of Sociology, 1882, Vol. I., Part II.; Ritchie, Studies in Political and Moral Philosophy, 1888; Bosanquet, Philosophical Theory of the State, 1899; Willoughby, Social Justice, 1900; Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902; Paulsen, System der Ethik, 5th ed., 1900, Book IV.; Runze, Praktische Ethik, 1891; Janet, Histoire de la Science Politique dans ses Rapports avec la Morale, 3d ed., 1887; Plato, The Republic; Aristotle, Ethics, Book v., and Politics (trans, by Welldon, 1883) ; Hegel, Philosophy of Right (pub. 1820, trans, by Dyde, 1896) ; Mackenzie, An Introduction to Social Philosophy, 1890; Dunning, History of Political Theories, Vol. I., 1902, Vol. II., 1905; Stein, Die Sociale Frage im Licht der Philosophie, 1897. CHAPTER XX SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL Object of Part and Chapter. — The history of morals manifests a twofold movement. It reveals, on one side, constantly increasing stress on individual intelligence and affection. The transformation of customary into reflective morals is the change from "Do those things which our kin, class, or city do" to "Be a person with certain habits of desire and deliberation." The moral history of the race also reveals constantly growing emphasis upon the social nature of the objects and ends to which personal prefer- ences are to be devoted. While the agent has been learn- ing that it is his personal attitude which counts in his deeds, he has also learnt that there is no attitude which is exclusively private in scope, none which does not need to be socially valued or judged. Theoretic analysis enforces the same lesson as history. It tells us that moral quality resides in the habitual dispositions of an agent; and that it consists of the tendency of these dispositions to secure (or hinder) values which are sociably shared or sharable. In Part One we sketched the historical course of this de- velopment ; in Part Two we traced its theoretic analysis. In the present and concluding Part, our purpose is to con- sider the distinctively social aspects of morality. We shall consider how social institutions and tendencies supply value to the activities of individuals, impose the conditions of the formation and exercise of their desires and aims; and, especially, how they create the peculiarly urgent problems of contemporary moral life. The present chap- 427 428 SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL ter will take up the general question, that of the relation of social organization to individual life. § 1. GROWTH OF INDIVIDUALITY THROUGH SOCIAI. ORGANIZATIONS From one point of view, historic development represents the increasing liberation of individual powers from rigid social control. Sir John Lubbock remarks : " No savage is free. All over the world his daily life is regulated by a complicated and apparently most inconvenient set of cus- toms (as forcible as laws), of quaint prohibitions and privileges." Looked at from another point of view, eman- cipation from one sort of social organization means initia- tion into some other social order ; the individual is liberated from a small and fixed (customary) social group, to be- come a member of a larger and progressive society. The history of setting free individual power in desire, thought, and initiative is, upon the whole, the history of the forma- tion of more complex and extensive social organizations. Movements that look like the disintegration of the order of society, when viewed with reference to what has pre- ceded them, are factors in the construction of a new social order, which allows freer play to individuals, and yet increases the number of social groupings and the depth of social combinations. This fact of historical development is well summed up in the following words of Hobhouse, set forth as a summary of a comprehensive survey of the historic development of law and justice, of the family including the status of women and children, of the relations between communities, and between classes, the rich and the poor. He says : " Amid all the variety of social institutions and the ebb and flow of historical change, it is possible in the end to detect a double movement, marking the transition from the lower to the higher levels of civilized law and custom. On the GROWTH OF INDIVIDUALITY 429 one hand,, the social order is strengthened and extended. . . . On this side the individual human being becomes more and more subject to social constraint, and, as we have frequently seen, the changes making for the tightening of the social fabric may diminish the rights which the individual or large classes of individuals can claim. ... In this relation liberty and order become opposed. But the opposition is not essential. From the first the individual relies on social forces to main- tain him in his rights, and in the higher form of social organ- ization we have seen order and liberty drawing together again. . . . The best ordered community is that which gives most scope to its component members to make the best of them- selves, while the ' best ' in human nature is that which con- tributes to the harmony and onward movement of society. . . . The responsible human being, man or woman, is the center of modern ethics as of modern law, free so far as cus- tom and law are concerned to make his own life. . . . The social nature of man is not diminished either on the side of its needs or its duties by the fuller recognition of personal rights. The difference is that, so far as rights and duties are conceived as attaching to human beings as such, they become universalized, and are therefore the care of society as a whole rather than of any partial group organization.** ^ With this statement may be compared the words of Green and Alexander. According to Green, moral progress consists in the extension of the area or range of persons whose common good is concerned, and in the deepening or intensification in the individual of his social interest: "the settled disposition on each man's part to make the most and best of humanity in his own person and in the person of others." * Alexander's formulae for moral growth are the " laws of differentiation and of com- prehension." The first means diversification, special- ization, differentiating the powers of an individual with increased refinement of each. The law of comprehension means the steady enlargement of the size and scope of the social group (as from clan to modern national state) * Vol. I., pp. 367-368, italics not in original. * P. 262 of Prolegomena to Ethics; see chs. iii. and iv. of Book III, 430 SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL with its increased complexity of ways in which men are brought into contact with one another/ Social Life Liberates and Directs Individual Energies. — Breadth in extent of community life goes hand in hand with multiplication of the stimuli which call out an indi- vidual's powers. Diversification of social activities in- creases opportunities for his initiative and endeavor. Nar- row and meager social life means limitation of the scope of activities in which its members may engage. It means little occasion for the exercise of deliberation and choice, without which character is both immature and fossilized; it means, in short, restricted personality. But a rich and varied society, one which liberates powers otherwise torpid and latent, also exacts that they be employed in ways con- sistent with its own interests. A society which is extensive and complex would dissolve in anarchy and confusion were not the activities of its various members upon the whole mutually congruent. The world of action is a world of which the individual is one limit, and humanity the other ; between them lie all sorts of associative arrangements of lesser and larger scope, families, friendships, schools, clubs, organizations for making or distributing goods, for gathering and supplying commodities ; activities politically organized by parishes, wards, villages, cities, countries, states, nations. Every maladjustment in relations among these institutions and associated activities means loss and friction in the relations between individuals; and thereby introduces defect, division, and restriction into the vari- ous powers which constitute an individual. All harmonious cooperation among them means a fuller life and greater freedom of thought and action for the individual person. Order and Lav^^s. — The world of action as a scene of organized activities going on in regular ways ^ thus pre- * Alexander, Moral Order and Progress, pp. 384-398. * This does not of course exclude change and reform. It means that, so far as a society is organized, these changes themselves occur in regular and authorized ways. GROWTH OF INDIVIDUALITY 431 sents a public or common order and authority, with its established modes of operation, its laws. Organized in- stitutions, from the more permanent to the more casual, with their orderly rules of conduct, are not, of course, prior to individual activity; for their elements are indi- vidual activities related in certain ways. But with respect to any one individual in his separate or distributive ca- pacity, there is a genuine and important sense in which the institution comes first. A child is born into an already existing family with habits and beliefs already formed, not indeed rigid beyond readaptation, but with their own order (arrangements). He goes to schools which have their established methods and aims; he gradually assumes membership in business, civic, and political organizations, with their own settled ways and purposes. Only in par- ticipating in already fashioned systems of conduct does he apprehend his own powers, appreciate their worth and realize their posibilities, and achieve for himself a con- trolled and orderly body of physical and mental habits. He finds the value and the principles of his life, his satis- faction and his norms of authority, in being a member of associated groups of persons and in playing his part in their maintenance and expansion. The Social and the Moral. — In customary society, it[ does not occur to any one that there is a difference be-j tween what he ought to do, i.e., the moral, and what those) about him customarily do, i.e., the social. The socially : established is the moral. Reflective morality brings with it, as we have seen, a distinction. A thoughtfully minded person reacts against certain institutions and habits which obtain in his social environment ; he regards certain ideas, which he frames himself and which are not embodied in social habits, as more moral than anything existing about him. Such reactions against custom and such projections of new ideas are necessary if there is to be progress in society. But unfortunately it has often been forgotten 432 SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL that this distinctly personal morality, which takes its stand against some established usage, and which, there- fore, for the time being has its abode only in the initiative and effort of an individual, is simply the means of social reconstruction. It is treated as if it were an end in itself, and as if it were something higher than any morality which is or can be socially embodied. At some periods, this view has led to a monastic retreat from all social affairs for the sake of cultivating personal goodness. At other times, it has led to the political in- difference of the Cynic and Stoic. For ages, it led to a morality of "other worldliness" ; to the belief that true goodness can be attained only in another kind of life and world — a belief which carried with it relative contempt and neglect of concrete social conditions in this life. Social affairs at best were only "secular" and temporal, and, in contrast with the eternal and spiritual salvation of the individual's own soul, of little account. After the Renais- sance and the Protestant Revolt, this kind of moral individualism persisted in different forms. Among the hedonists, it took the form of assuming that while social arrangements are of very great importance, their im- portance lies in the fact that they hinder or help indi- viduals in the attainment of their own private pleasures. The transcendentalists (such as Kant) asserted that, since morality is wholly a matter of the inner motive, of the personal attitude towards the moral law, social conditions are wholly external. Good or evil lies wholly inside the individual's own will. Social institutions may help or hinder the outward execution of moral purpose; they may be favorable or hostile to the successful outward display of virtue. But they have nothing to do with originating or developing the moral purpose, the Good Will, and hence, in themselves, are lacking in moral significance.. Thus Kant made a sharp and fast distinction between moralityy appertaining solely to the individual's own inner conscious- GROWTH OF INDIVIDUALITY 433 ness, and legality, appertaining to the social and political conditions of outward behavior. Social institutions and laws may indeed regulate men's outer acts. So far as men externally conform, their conduct is legal. But laws can- not regulate or touch men's motives, which alone determine the morality of their behavior. We shall not repeat here our prior criticisms of hedonism and utilitarianism in order to point out the falsity of this division of moral action into unrelated inner (or private) and outer (or social) factors. We may recall to memory, however, that Kant himself virtually passed beyond his own theory of moral individualism in insisting upon the promotion of a " Kingdom of Ends," in which every per- son is to be treated as an end in himself. We may recall that the later utilitarians (such as Mill, Leslie Stephen, Bain, and Spencer) insisted upon the educative value of social institutions, upon their importance in forming cer- tain interests and habits in the individual. Thus social arrangements were taken out of the category of mere means to private good, and made the necessary factors and conditions of the development of an individuality which should have a reasonable and just conception of its own nature and of its own good. We may also enumerate some of the more fundamental ways in which social institutions determine individual morality. 1. Apart from the social medium, the individual would never "know himself"; he would never become acquainted with his own needs and capacities. He would live the life of a brute animal, satisfying as best he could his most urgent appetites of hunger, thirst, and sex, but being, as regards even that, handicapped in comparison with other animals. And, as we have already seen, the wider and the richer the social relationships into which an individual enters, the more fully are his powers evoked, and the more fully is he brought to recognize the possibilities latent in them. It is from seeing noble architecture and hearing 434 SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL harmonious music that the individual learns to know to what his own constructive and rhythmic tendencies, other- wise blind and inchoate, may come. It is from achieve- ment in industrial, national, and family life that he is initiated into perception of his own energy, loyalty, and affection. 2. Social conditions not only evoke what is latent, and bring to conscious recognition what is blind, but they select, encourage, and confirm certain tendencies at the expense of others. They enable the individual to dis- criminate the better and the worse among his tendencies and achievements. There is no limit in the power of society to awaken and strengthen this habit of discrimi- nation, of choice after comparison, in its individual mem- bers. A small social group with fixed habits, a clan, a gang, a narrow sect, a dogmatic party, will restrict the formation of critical powers — i.e., of conscientiousness or moral thoughtfulness. But an individual who really be- comes a member of modern society, with its multiple occu- pations, its easy intercourse, its free mobility, its rich resources of art and science, will have only too many opportunities for reflective judgment and personal valua- tion and preference. The very habits of individual moral initiative, of personal criticism of the existent order, and of private projection of a better order, to which moral individualists point as proofs of the purely ^Hnner'* na- ture of morality, are themselves effects of a variable and complex social order. The Moral Value of the State. — If then we take modern social life in its broadest extent, as including not only what has become institutionalized and more or less fossilized, but also what is still growing (forming and re-forming), we may justly say that it is as true of progressive as of sta- tionary society, that the moral and the social are one. The virtues of the individual in a progressive society are more reflective, more critical, involve more exercise of GROWTH OF INDIVIDUALITY 435 comparison and selection, than in customary society. But they are just as socially conditioned in their origin and as socially directed in their manifestation. In rudimentary societies, customs furnish the highest ends of achievement; they supply the principles of social organization and combination; and they form binding laws whose breach is punished. The moral, political, and legal are not differentiated. But village communities and city-states, to say nothing of kingdoms and empires and modem national States, have developed special organs and special regulations for maintaining social unity and public order. Small groups are usually firmly welded to- gether and are exclusive. They have a narrow but intense social code: — like a patriarchal family, a gang, a social set, they are clannish. But when a large number of such groups come together within a more inclusive social unity, some institution grows up to represent the interests and activities of the whole as against the narrow and centrifu- gal tendencies of the constituent factors. A society is then politically organized; and a true public order with its comprehensive laws is brought into existence. The moral importance of the development of this public point of view, with its extensive common purposes and with a general will for maintaining them, can hardly be overestimated. With- out such organization, society and hence morality would remain sectional, jealous, suspicious, unfraternal. Senti- ments of intense cohesion within would have been con- joined with equally strong sentiments of indifference, intolerance, and hostility to those without. In the wake of the formation of States have followed more widely co- operative activities, more comprehensive and hence more reasonable principles of judgment and outlook. The in- dividual has been emancipated from his relative sub- mergence in the local and fixed group, and set upon his own feet, with varied fields of activity open to him in which to try his powers, and furnished with principles of judg- 436 SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL ing conduct and projecting ideals which in theory, at least, are as broad as the possibilities of humanity itself. § 2. EESPONSIBILITY AND FREEDOM The more comprehensive and diversified the social order, the greater the responsibility and the freedom of the individ- ual. His freedom is the greater, because the more numer- ous are the effective stimuli to action, and the more varied and the more certain the ways in which he may fulfill his powers. His responsibility is greater because there are more demands for considering the consequences of his acts; and more agencies for bringing home to him the recognition of consequences which affect not merely more persons individually, but which also influence the more remote and hidden social ties. Liability. — Freedom and responsibility have a relatively superficial and negative meaning and a relatively positive central meaning. In its external aspect, responsibility is liability. An agent is free to act; yes, but — . He must stand the consequences, the disagreeable as well as the pleasant, the social as well as the physical. He may do a given act, but if so, let him look out. His act is a matter that concerns others as well as himself, and they will prove their concern by calling him to account; and if he cannot give a satisfactory and credible account of his intention, subject him to correction. Each community and organization informs its members what it regards as ob- noxious, and serves notice upon them that they have to answer if they offend. The individual then is (1) likely or liable to have to explain and justify his behavior, and is (2) liable or open to suffering consequent upon inability to make his explanation acceptable. Positive Responsibility. — In this way the individual is made aware of the stake the community has in his behavior ; RESPONSIBILITY AND FREEDOM 437 and is afforded an opportunity to take that interest into account in directing his desires and making his plans. If he does so, he is a responsible person. The agent who does not take to heart the concern which others show that they have in his conduct, will note his liability only as an evil to which he is exposed, and will take it into consideration only to see how to escape or evade it. But one whose point of view is sympathetic and reasonable will recognize the justice of the community interest in his per- formances; and will recognize the value to him of the instruction contained in its assertions of its interest. Such an one responds, answers, to the social demands made; he is not merely called to answer. He holds himself re- sponsible for the consequences of his acts ; he does not wait to be held liable by others. When society looks for re- sponsible workmen, teachers, doctors, it does not mean merely those whom it may call to account; it can do that in any case. It wants men and women who habitually form their purposes after consideration of the social conse- quences of their execution. Dislike of disapprobation, fear of penalty, play a part in generating this responsive habit; but fear, operating directly, occasions only cun- ning or servility. Fused, through reflection, with other motives which prompt to action, it helps bring about that apprehensiveness, or susceptibility to the rights of others, which is the essence of responsibility, which in turn is the sole ultimate guarantee of social order. The Two Senses of Freedom. — In its external aspect, freedom is negative and formal. It signifies freedom from subjection to the will and control of others; exemption from bondage; release from servitude; capacity to act without being exposed to direct obstructions or interfer- ences from others. It means a clear road, cleared of im- pediments, for action. It contrasts with the limitations of prisoner, slave, and serf, who have to carry out the will of others. 438 SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL Effective Freedom. — Exemption from restraint and from interference with overt action is only a condition, though an absolutely indispensable one, of effective free- dom. The latter requires (1) positive control of the re- sources necessary to carry purposes into effect, possession of the means to satisfy desires; and (2) mental equipment with the trained powers of initiative and reflection requisite for free preference and for circumspect and far-seeing de- sires. The freedom of an agent who is merely released from direct external obstructions is formal and empty. If he is without resources of personal skill, without con- trol of the tools of achievement, he must inevitably lend himself to carrying out the directions and ideas of others. If he has not powers of deliberation and invention, he must pick up his ideas casually and superficially from the sug- gestions of his environment and appropriate the notions which the interests of some class insinuate into his mind. If he have not powers of intelligent self-control, he will be in bondage to appetite, enslaved to routine, imprisoned within the monotonous round of an imagery flowing from illiberal interests, broken only by wild forays into the illicit. Legal and Moral. — Positive responsibility and freedom may be regarded as moral, while liability and exemption are legal and political. A particular individual at a given time is possessed of certain secured resources in execution and certain formed habits of desire and reflection. In so far, he is positively free. Legally, his sphere of activity may be very much wider. The laws, the prevailing body of rules which define existing institutions, would protect him in exercising claims and powers far beyond those which he can actually put forth. He is exempt from inter- ference in travel, in reading, in hearing music, in pursuing scientific research. But if he has neither material means nor mental cultivation to enjoy these legal possibilities, mere exemption means little or nothing. It does, however, RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS 439 create a moral demand that the practical limitations which hem him in should be removed; that practical conditions should be afforded which will enable him effectively to take advantage of the opportunities formally open. Sim- ilarly, at any given time, the liabilities to which an indi- vidual is actually held come far short of the accountability to which the more conscientious members of society hold themselves. The morale of the individual is in advance of the formulated morality, or legality, of the community. Relation of Legal to Moral. — It is, however, absurd to separate the legal and the ideal aspects of freedom from one another. It is only as men are held liable that they become responsible ; even the conscientious man, how- ever much in some respects his demands upon himself exceed those which would be enforced against him by others, still needs in other respects to have his unconscious partiality and presumption steadied by the requirements of others. He needs to have his judgment balanced against crankiness, narrowness, or fanaticism, by reference to the sanity of the common standard of his times. It is only as men are exempt from external obstruction that they become aware of possibilities, and are awakened to de- mand and strive to obtain more positive freedom. Or, again, it is the possession by the more favored individuals in society of an effectual freedom to do and to enjoy things with respect to which the masses have only a formal and legal freedom, that arouses a sense of inequity, and that stirs the social judgment and will to such reforms of law, of administration and economic conditions as will trans- form the empty freedom of the less favored individuals into constructive realities. § 3. RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS The Individual and Social in Rights and Obligations. — That which, taken at large or in a lump, is called free- 440 SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL dom breaks up in detail into a number of specific, concrete abilities to act in particular ways. These are termed rights. Any right includes within itself in intimate unity the individual and social aspects of activity upon which we have been insisting. As a capacity for exercise of power, it resides in and proceeds from some special agent, some . individual. As exemption from restraint, a secured release from obstruction, it indicates at least the per- mission and sufferance of society, a tacit social assent and confirmation ; while any more positive and energetic effort on the part of the community to guarantee and safeguard it, indicates an active acknowledgment on the part of societ}^ that the free exercise by individuals of the power in question is positively in its own interest. Thus a right, individual in residence, is social in origin and intents The social factor in rights is made explicit in the demand that the power in question be exercised in certain ways. A right is never a claim to a wholesale, indefinite activity, but to a defined activity; to one carried on, that is, under certain conditions. This limitation constitutes the obliga- tory phases of every right. The individual is free; yes, that is his right. But he is free to act only according to certain regular and established conditions. That is the obligation imposed upon him. He has a right to use public roads, but he is obliged to turn in a certain way. He has a right to use his property, but he is obliged to pay taxes, to pay debts, not to harm others in its use, and so on. Correspondence of Rights and Obligations. — Rights and obligations are thus strictly correlative. This is true both in their external employment and in their intrinsic natures. Externally the individual is under obligation to use his right in a way which does not interfere with the rights of others. He is free to drive on the public high- ways, but not to exceed a certain speed, and on condition that be turns to right or left as the public order requires. RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS 441 He is entitled to the land which he has bought, but this possession is subject to conditions of public registration and taxation. He may use his property, but not so that it menaces others or becomes a nuisance. Absolute rights, if we mean by absolute those not relative to any social order and hence exempt from any social restriction, there are none. But rights correspond even more intrinsically to obligations. The right is itself a social outcome: it is the individual's in so far as he is himself a social mem- ber not merely physically, but in his habits of thought and feeling. He is under obligation to use his rights in social ways. The more we emphasize the free right of an individual to his property, the more we emphasize what society has done for him : the avenues it has opened to him for acquiring; the safeguards it has put about him for keeping; the wealth achieved by others which he may ac- quire by exchanges themselves socially buttressed. So far as an individual's own merits are concerned these opportunities and protections are "unearned increments," no matter what credit he may deserve for initiative and industry and foresight in using them. The only funda- mental anarchy is that which regards rights as private monopolies, ignoring their social origin and intent. Classes of Rights and Obligations. — ^We may discuss freedom and responsibility with respect to the social or- ganization which secures and enforces them; or from the standpoint of the individual who exercises and acknowl- edges them. From the latter standpoint, rights are con- veniently treated as physical and mental: not that the physical and mental can be separated, but that emphasis may fall primarily on control of the conditions required to execute ideas and intentions, or upon the control of the conditions involved in their personal formation and choice. From the standpoint of the public order, rights and duties are civil and political. We shall consider them in the next chapter in connection with the organization of society 442 SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL in the State. Here we consider rights as inhering in an individual in virtue of his membership in society. I. Physical Rights. — These are the rights to the free unharmed possession of the body (the rights to life and limb), exemption from homicidal attack, from assault and battery, and from conditions that threaten health in more obscure ways ; and positively, the right to free movement of the body, to use its members for any legitimate pur- pose, and the right to unhindered locomotion. Without the exemption, there is no security in life, no assurance; only a life of constant fear and uncertainty, of loss of limb, of injury from others, and of death. Without some positive assurance, there is no chance of carrying ideas into effect. Even if sound and healthy and extremely pro- tected, a man lives a slave or prisoner. Right to the control and use of physical conditions of life takes effect then in property rights, command of the natural tools and materials which are requisite to the maintenance of the body in a due state of health and to an effective and com- petent use of the person's powers. These physical rights to life, limb, and property are so basic to all achievement and capability that they have frequentl}^ been termed "natural rights." They are so fundamental to the exist- ence of personality that their insecurity or infringement is a direct menace to the social welfare. The struggle for human liberty and human responsibility has accord- ingly been more acute at this than at any other point. Roughly speaking, the history of personal liberty is the history of the efforts which have safeguarded the security of life and property and which have emancipated bodily movement from subjection to the will of others. Unsolved Problems: War and Punishment. — While history marks great advance, especially in the last four or five centuries, as to the negative aspect of freedom or release from direct and overt tyranny, much remains un- done on the positive side. It is at this point of free RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS 443 physical control that all conflicts of rights concentrate themselves. While the Hmitation by war of the right to life may be cited as evidence for the fact that even this right is not absolute but is socially conditioned, yet that kind of correspondence between individual activity and so- cial well-being which exacts exposure to destruction as its measure, is too suggestive of the tribal morality in which the savage shows his social nature by participation in a blood feud, to be satisfactory. Social organization is clearly defective when its constituent portions are so set at odds with one another as to demand from individuals their death as their best service to the community. While one may cite capital punishment to enforce, as if in large type, the fact that the individual holds even his right to life subject to the social welfare, the moral works the other way to underline the failure of society to socialize its members, and its tendency to put undesirable results out of sight and mind rather than to face responsibility for causes. The same limitation is seen in methods of im- prisonment, which, while supposed to be protective rather than vindictive, recognize only in a few and sporadic cases that the sole sure protection of society is through educa- tion and correction of individual character, not by mere physical isolation under harsh conditions. Security of Life. — In civilized countries the blood feud, infanticide, putting to death the economically useless and the aged, have been abolished. Legalized slavery, serfdom, the subjection of the rights of wife and child to the will of husband and father, have been done away with. But many modern industries are conducted with more refer- ence to financial gain than to life, and the annual roll of killed, injured, and diseased in factory and railway prac- tically equals the list of dead and wounded in a modern war.^ Most of these accidents are preventable. The will- * It is stated, upon good authority, that a street railway system in a large American city declined to adopt an improved fender, which 444 SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL ingness of parents on one side and of employers on the other, conjoined with the indifference of the general public, makes child-labor an effective substitute for exposure of children and other methods of infanticide practiced by savage tribes. Agitation for old-age pensions shows that faithful service to society for a lifetime is still inadequate to secure a prosperous old age. Charity and Poverty. — Society provides assistance and remedial measures, poorhouses, asylums, hospitals. The exceedingly poor are a public charge, supported by taxes as well as by alms. Individuals are not supposed to die from starvation nor to suffer without any relief or assist- ance from physical defects and disease. So far, there is growth in positive provision for the right to live. But the very necessity for such extensive remedial measures shows serious defects farther back. It raises the question of so- cial reponsibility for the causes of such wholesale poverty and widespread misery. Taken in conjunction with the idleness and display of the congested rich, it raises the question how far we are advanced beyond barbarism in making organic provision for an effective, as distinct from formal, right to life and movement. It is hard to say whether the heavier indictment lies in the fact that so many shirk their share of the necessary social labor and toil, or in the fact that so many who are willing to work are unable to do so, without meeting recurrent crises of unemployment, and except under conditions of hours, hygiene, compensation, and home conditions which reduce to a low level the positive rights of life. The social order protects the property of those who have it ; but, although historic conditions have put the control of the machinery of production in the hands of a comparatively few per- made it practically impossible to kill persons, because the annual cost would be $5,000 more than the existing expense for damages. This same system declined to adopt improved brakes which would reduce accidents to life and limb; and it was discovered that one of its directors was largely interested in the manufacture of the old brakes. RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS 445 sons, society takes little heed to see that great masses of men get even that little property which is requisite to secure assured, permanent, and properly stimulating con- ditions of life. Until there is secured to and imposed upon all members of society the right and the duty of work in socially serviceable occupations, with due return in social goods, rights to life and free movement will hardly ad- vance much beyond their present largely nominal state. II. Rights to Mental Activity. — These rights of course are closely bound up with rights to physical well-being and activity. The latter would have no meaning were it not that they subserve purposes and affections; while the life of mind is torpid or remote, dull or abstract, save as it gets impact in physical conditions and directs them. Those who hold that the limitations of physical conditions have no moral signification, and that their improvement brings at most an increase of more or less materialistic comfort, not a moral advance, fail to note that the devel- opment of concrete purposes and desires is dependent upon so-called outward conditions. These conditions affect the execution of purposes and wants ; and this influence reacts to determine the further arrest or growth of needs and resolutions. The sharp and unjustifiable antithesis of spiritual and material in the current conception of moral action leads many well-intentioned people to be callous and indifferent to the moral issues involved in physical and eco- nomic progress. Long hours of excessive physical labor, joined with unwholesome conditions of residence and work, restrict the growth of mental activity, while idleness and excess of physical possession and control pervert mind, as surely as these causes modify the outer and overt acts. Freedom of Thought and Affection. — The fundamental forms of the right to mental life are liberty of judgment and sympathy. The struggle for spiritual liberty has been as prolonged and arduous as that for physical freedom. Distrust of intelligence and of love as factors in concrete 446 SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL individuals has been strong even in those who have pro- claimed most vigorously their devotion to them as abstract principles. Disbelief in the integrity of mind, assertion that the divine principles of thought and love are perverted and corrupt in the individual, have kept spiritual author- ity and prestige in the hands of the few, just as other causes have made material possessions the monopoly of a small class. The resulting restriction of knowledge and of the tools of inquiry Have kept the masses where their blindness and dullness might be employed as further evi- dence of their natural unfitness for personal illumination by the light of truth and for free direction of the energy of moral warmth.^ Gradually, however, free speech, free- dom of communication and intercourse, of public assem- blies, liberty of the press and circulation of ideas, freedom of rehgious and intellectual conviction (commonly called freedom of conscience), of worship, and to some extent the right to education, to spiritual nurture, have been achieved. In the degree the individual has won these liberties, the social order has obtained its chief safeguard against ex- plosive change and intermittent blind action and reaction, and has got hold of the method of graduated and steady reconstruction. Looked at as a mere expedient, liberty of thought and expression is the most successful device ever hit upon for reconciling tranquillity with progress, so that peace is not sacrificed to reform nor improvement to stagnant conservatism.^ Right and Duty of Education. — It is through educa- tion in its broadest sense that the right of thought and ^ Said Emerson: "If a man is sick, is unable, is mean-spirited and odious, it is because there is so much of his nature which is unlaw- fully withholden from him." ^ Recent suppression by the police in the larger American cities of public meetings called to discuss unemployment or other matters deemed by some dangerous to vested interests, shows that the value of free speech as a "safety-valve" has not even yet been thoroughly learned. It also shows how the victories of freedom in the past have to be fought and won over again under new conditions, if they are to be kept alive. RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS 447 sympathy become effective. The final value of all insti- tutions is their educational influence; they are measured morally by the occasions they afford and the guidance they supply for the exercise of foresight, judgment, seriousness of consideration, and depth of regard. The family, the school, the church, art, especially (to-day) literature, nurture the affections and imagination, while schools impart information and inculcate skill in various forms of intellectual technique. In the last one hundred years, the right of each individual to spiritual self- development and self-possession, and the interest of society as a whole in seeing that each of its members has an opportunity for education, have been recognized in pub- licly maintained schools with their ladder from kinder- garten through the college to the engineering and professional school. Men and women have had put at their disposal the materials and tools of judgment; have had opened to them the wide avenues of science, history, and art that lead into the larger world's culture. To some extent negative exemption from arbitrary restriction upon belief and thought has been developed into positive capacities of intelligence and sentiment. Restrictions from Inadequate Economic Conditions. — Freedom of thought in a developed constructive form is, however, next to impossible for the masses of men so long as their economic conditions are precarious, and their main problem is to keep the wolf from their doors. Lack of time, hardening of susceptibility, blind preoccupation with the machinery of highly specialized industries, the combined apathy and worry consequent upon a life main- tained just above the level of subsistence, are unfavorable to intellectual and emotional culture. Intellectual coward- ice, due to apathy, laziness, and vague apprehension, takes the place of despotism as a limitation upon freedom of thought and speech. Uncertainty as to security of posi- tion, the welfare of a dependent family, close men's mouths 448 SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL from expressing their honest convictions, and blind their minds to clear perception of evil conditions. The instru- mentalities of culture — churches, newspapers, universities, theatres — themselves have economic necessities which tend to make them dependent upon those who can best supply their needs. The congestion of poverty on one side and of "culture" on the other is so great that, in the words of a distinguished economist, we are still questioning "whether it is really impossible that all should start in the world with a fair chance of leading a cultured life free from the pains of poverty and the stagnating influ- ences of a life of excessive mechanical toil." ^ We provide free schools and pass compulsory education acts, but ac- tively and passively we encourage conditions which limit the mass of children to the bare rudiments of spiritual nurture. Restriction of Educational Influences. — Spiritual re- sources are practically as much the possession of a special class, in spite of educational advance, as are material resources. This fact reacts upon the chief educative agencies — science, art, and religion. Knowledge in its ideas, language, and appeals is forced into corners; it is overspecialized, technical, and esoteric because of its iso- lation. Its lack of intimate connection with social prac- tice leads to an intense and elaborate over-training which increases its own remoteness. Only when science and phi- losophy are one with literature, the art of successful com- munication and vivid intercourse, are they liberal in eff^ect ; and this imphes a society which is already intellectually and emotionally nurtured and alive. Art itself, the em- bodiment of ideas in forms which are socially contagious, becomes what it is so largely, a development of technical skill, and a badge of class differences. Religious emotion, the quickening of ideas and aff^ections by recognition of * Marshall, Principles of Economics, RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS 449 their inexhaustible signification, is segregated into special cults, particular days, and peculiar exercises, and the common life is left relatively hard and barren. In short, the limitations upon freedom both of the physi- cal conditions and the mental values of life are at bottom expressions of one and the same divorce of theory and practice, — which makes theory remote, sterile, and techni- cal, while practice remains narrow, harsh, and also illiberal. Yet there is more cause for hope in that so much has been accomplished, than for despondency because mental power and service are still so limited and undeveloped. The in- termixture and interaction of classes and nations are very recent. Hence the opportunities for an effective circula- tion of sympathetic ideas and of reasonable emotions have only newly come into existence. Education as a public interest and care, applicable to all individuals, is hardly more than a century old; while a conception of the rich- ness and complexity of the ways in which it should touch any one individual is hardly half a century old. As society takes its educative functions more seriously and comprehensively into account, there is every promise of more rapid progress in the future than in the past. For education is most effective when dealing with the immature, those who have not yet acquired the hard and fixed direct- ing forms of adult life; while, in order to be effectively employed, it must select and propagate that which is common and hence typical in the social values that form its resources, leaving the eccentric, the partial, and exclu- sive gradually to dwindle. Upon some generous souls of the eighteenth century there dawned the idea that the cause of the indefinite improvement of humanity and the cause of the little child are inseparably bound together. LITERATURE Kant, Philosophy of Law, 1796 (trans, by Hastie, 1887); Fichte, The Science of Bights, 1798 (trans, by Kroeger, 1869); Rousseau^ 450 SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL Social Contract, 1762 (trans, by Tozer, 1893) ; Bonar, Philosophy and Political Economy, 1893; Stephen, Science of Ethics, ch. iii. (on So- cial Motives); Caird, Social Philosophy of Comte, 1885; Sidgwick, Practical Ethics, 1898, Essay on Public Morality; Sidgwick, Elements of Politics, 1891, ch. iv. on Individualism, vi. on Contract, x. on Socialistic Interferences, xiii. on Law and Morality; Maine, Ancient Law, 1861, Pollock's ed., 1906, chs. iii. and iv. on law of nature and equity; Stephen, Essays in Political and Moral Philosophy, 1888; Rickaby, Political and Moral Essays, 1902; Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. II., ch. vii. (on the general relation of the social and the moral). On the development of rights to life, limb, and free- dom of movement, see Westermarck, chs. xiv.-xxii,, and Sumner, Folkways, chs. vi., vii., and viii. ; Hobhouse, Vol. I., ch. vii. (on. slavery) ; Spencer, Ethics, Vol. II., Part IV. For charity, see Loch on Charity and Charities, Encyclopedia Britannica; Uhlhorn, Chris- tian Charity in the Ancient Church; L'AUemand, Histoire de la Charit4; NichoU, History of the English Poor Law, 2 vols., 1898. CHAPTER XXI CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE POLITICAL STATE We have been considering responsible freedom as it centers in and affects individuals in their distinctive capacities. It implies a public order which guarantees, defines, and enforces rights and obligations. This public order has a twofold relation to rights and duties: (1) As the social counterpart of their exercise by individuals, it constitutes Civil Society. It represents those forms of associated life which are orderly and authorized, because constituted by individuals in the exercise of their rights, together with those special forms which protect and insure them. Families, clubs, guilds, unions, corporations come under the first head ; courts and civil administrative bodies, like public railway and insurance commissions, etc., come under the second. (2) The public order also fixes the fundamental terms and conditions on which at any given time rights are exercised and remedies secured; it is or- ganized for the purpose of defining the basic methods of exercising the activities of its constituent elements, indi- vidual and corporate. In this aspect it is the State. § 1. CIVIL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS Every act brings the agent who performs it into asso- ciation with others, whether he so intends or not. His act takes effect in an organized world of action ; in social arrangement and institutions. So far as such combina- tions of individuals are recurrent or stable, their nature and operations are definitely formulated and definitely 451 452 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE enforceable. Partnerships, clubs, corporations, guilds, families are such stable unions, with their definite spheres of action. Buying and selling, teaching and learning, pro- ducing and consuming, are recurrent activities whose legit- imate methods get prescribed. These specific provinces and methods of action are defined in Civil Rights. They express the guaranteed and regular ways in which an individual, through action, voluntarily enters into association or com- bination with others for the sake of a common end. They diff^er from political rights and obligations in that the latter concern modes of social organization which are so fundamen- tal that they are not left to the voluntary choice and pur- pose of an individual. As a social being, he must have po- litical relationships, must be subject to law, pay taxes, etc. I. Contract Rights. — Modes of association are so nu- merous and variable that we can only select those aspects of civil rights which are morally most significant. We shall discriminate them according as they have to do (1) with the more temporary and casual combinations of indi- viduals, for limited and explicit purposes; and (2) with more permanent, inclusive, and hence less definable ends; and (3) with the special institutions which exist for guar- anteeing individuals the enjoyment of their rights and providing remedies if these are infringed upon. (1) Contract rights. Rights of the first type are rights re- sulting from express or implied agreements of certain agents to do or refrain from doing specific acts, involving exchange of services or goods to the mutual benefit of both parties in the transaction. Every bargain entered into, every loaf of bread one buys or paper of pins one sells, involves an implied and explicit contract. A genuinely free agreement or contract means (i.) that each party to the transaction secures the benefit he wants; (ii.) that the two parties are brought into cooperative or mutually helpful relations; and that (iii.) the vast, vague, complex business of conducting social life is broken up CIVIL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS 453 into a multitude of specific acts to be performed and of specific goods to be delivered, at definite times and definite places. Hence it is hardly surprising that one school of social moralists has found in the conception of free con- tract its social ideal. Every individual concerned assumes obligations which it is to his interest to perform so that the performance is voluntary, not coerced; while, at the same time, some other person is engaged to serve him in some way. The limitations of the contract idea will con- cern us later. 2. The Permanent Voluntary Associations. — Part- nerships, limited liability corporations, guilds, trades unions, churches, schools, clubs, are more permanent and comprehensive associations, involving more far-reaching rights and obligations. Societies organized for conversa- tion and sociability or conviviality, "corporations not for profit," but for mutual enjoyment or for benevolent ends, come under the same head. Most significant are the asso- ciations which, while entered only voluntarily and having therefore a basis in contract, are for generic ends. Thus they are permanent, and cover much more than can be written in the contract. Marriage, in modern society, is entered into by contract ; but married life is not narrowed to the exchange of specific services at specific times. It is a union for mutual economic and spiritual goods which are coextensive with all the interests of the parties. In its connection with the generation and rearing of chil- dren, it is a fundamental means of guarding all social interests and of directing their progress. Schools, col- leges, churches, federations of labor, organizations of employers, and of both together, represent other forms of permanent voluntary organizations which may have the most far-reaching influence both upon those directly con- cerned and upon society at large. 3. Right to Use of Courts. — All civil rights get their final application and test in the right to have conflicting 454 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE rights defined and infringed rights remedied by appeal to a pubhc authority having general and final jurisdic- tion. "The right to sue and be sued" may seem too legal and external a matter to be worthy of much note in an ethical treatise; but it represents the culmination of an age-long experimentation with the problem of reconciling individual freedom and public order. No civil right is effective unless it carries with it a statement of a method of enforcement and, if necessary, of redress and remedy. Otherwise it is a mere name. Moreover, conflicts of civil rights are bound to occur even when there is good faith on the part of all concej:ned, just because new situations arise. Unless there is a way of defining the respective rights of each party in the new situation, each will arbi- trarily and yet in good faith insist upon asserting his rights on the old basis : private war results. A new order is not achieved and the one already attained is threatened or disrupted. The value of rights to the use of courts resides, then, to a comparatively small degree, in the specific cases of deliberate wrong which are settled. What is more important is that men get instruction as to the proper scope and limits of their activities, through the provision of an effective mechanism for amicable settlement of disputes in those cases in which rights are vague and ambiguous because the situations are novel. Classes of Wrongs and Remedies. — Infringements upon rights, such as murder, theft, arson, forgery, imply a character which is distinctly anti-social in its bent. The wrong, although done to one, is an expression of a disposi- tion which is dangerous to all. Such a wrong is a crime; it is a matter for the direct jurisdiction of public author- ity. It is the business of all to cooperate in giving evi- dence, and it may render one a criminal accomplice to conceal or suppress evidence, just as it is "compounding a felony" for the wronged individual to settle the wrong done him by arranging privately for compensation. The CIVIL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS 455 penalty in such cases is generally personal; imprisonment or at least a heavy fine. The violation may, however, be of the nature of a wrong or "tort," rather than of a crime ; it may indicate a disposition indifferent to social interests or neglectful of them rather than one actively hostile to them. Such acts as libels, trespasses upon the land of another, are illustrations. In such cases, the machinery of justice is put in motion by the injured individual, not by the commonwealth. This does not mean that society as a whole has no interest in the matter; but that under certain circumstances encouraging individuals to look out for their own rights and wrongs is socially more important than getting certain wrongs remedied irrespective of whether men stand up for their own rights or not. Then again, there are civil disputes which indicate neither a criminal nor a harmful disposition, but rather uncer- tainty as to what the law really is, leading to disputes about rights — interpretations of a contract, express or implied. Here the interest of society is to provide a method of settlement which will hinder the growth of ill will and private retaliation; and which also will provide precedents and principles that will lessen uncertainty and conflict in like cases in the future. Peace and tranquillity are not merely the absence of open friction and disorder. They mean specific, easily- known, and generally recognized principles which deter- mine the province and limits of the legitimate activity of every person. Publicity, standards, rules of procedure, remedies acknowledged in common, are their essence. Res pii.blica, the common concern, remains vague and latent till defined by impartial, disinterested social organs. Then it is expressed in regular and guaranteed modes of activ- ity. In the pregnant phrase of Aristotle, the administra- tion of justice is also its determination: that is, its discovery and promulgation. 456 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE § 2. DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL BIGHTS Contrast of Primitive with Present Justice The sig- nificance of the accompHshments and the defects of the present administration of law may be brought out by a sketch of its contrast with primitive methods. In savage and barbarian society, on account of the sohdarity of the kin-group, any member of the group is hkely to be at- tacked for the offense of any other (see p. 2^). He may not have participated in the act, or have had comphcity in planning it. His guilt is that the same blood runs in his veins. ^ The punitive attack, moreover, is made directly and promiscuously by the injured man and by his blood-relatives ; it is made in the heat of passion or in the vengeance of stealth as custom may decree. Says Hearn, the state "did not interfere in the private quar- rels of its citizens. Every man took care of his own property and his own household, and every hand guarded its own head. If any injury were done to any person, he retaliated, or made reprisals, or otherwise sought redress, as custom prescribed." ^ The reprisal may itself have called for another, and the blood-feud was on. In any case, the state of affairs was one literally, not meta- phorically, described as "private war." Changes Now Effected. — This state of affairs has been superseded by one in which a third, a public and impartial authority (1) takes cognizance of offenses against an- other individual as offenses against the commonwealth; (2) apprehends the supposed offender; (3) deteraiines and applies an objective standard of judgment, the same * A traveler tells of overhearing children in Australia, when one of their kin had injured some one in another clan, discuss whether or no they came within the degree of nearness of relationship which made them liable to suffer. ^ Hearn, The Aryan Household, p. 431. Hearn is speaking, more- over, of a later and more advanced condition of society, one lying well within "civilization." DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS 457 for all, the law; (4) tries the supposed offender accord- ing to rules of procedure, including rules of evidence or proof, which are also publicly promulgated; and (5) takes upon itself the punishment of the offender, if found guilty. The history of this change, important and in- teresting as it is, does not belong here. We are concerned here only with the relation of public authority, public law, and public activity to the development of the free- dom of the individual on one side and of his responsibility on the other. ^ We shall point out in a number of particu- lars that the evolution of freedom and responsibility in individuals has coincided with the evolution of a public and impartial authority. I. Good and Evil as Quasi-Physical. — There are two alternatives in the judgment of good and evil. (1) They may be regarded as having moral significance, that is, as having a voluntary basis and origin. (2) Or they may be considered as substantial properties of things, as a sort of essence diffused through them, or as a kind of force resident in them, in virtue of which persons and things are noxious or helpful, malevolent or kindly. Savage tribes, for instance, cannot conceive either sickness or death as natural evils; they are attributed to the malicious magic of an enemy. Similarly the evil which follows from the acts of a man is treated as a sign of some metaphysical tendency inherent in him. Some men bring bad luck upon everything and everybody they have anything to do with. ^ Those interested in this important history, as every student of morals may well be, will find easily accessible material in the fol- lowing references: Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, ch. iii. of Vol. I.; Hearn, The Aryan Household, ch. xix.; Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, Vol. I., pp. 120-185, and parts of ch. XX.; Sutherland, Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct, chs. XX. and xxi.; Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, Vol. II., pp. 447-460 and ch. ix.; Pollock, Oxford Lectures (The King's Peace) ; Cherry, Criminal Law in Ancient Communities; Maine, Ancient Law. References to anthropological literature, dealing with savage and barbarian customs, will be found especially in Wester- marck and Hobhouse, 458 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE A curse is on their doings. No distinction is made be- tween such evils and those which flow from intention and character. The notion of the moral or voluntary nature of good and evil hardly obtains. The quasi-physical view, bordering upon the magical, prevails. The result is that evil is thought of as a contagious matter, transmitted from generation to generation, from class or person to class or person; and as something to be got rid of, if at all, by devices which are equally physical. Natural evils, plagues, defeats, earthquakes, etc., are treated as quasi-moraly while moral evils are treated as more than half physical. Sins are infectious diseases, and natural diseases are malicious interferences of a human or divine enemy. Morals are materialized, and nature is moralized or demoralized.^ Now it is hardly necessary to point out the effect of such conceptions in restricting the freedom and responsi- bility of the individual person. Man is hemmed in as to thought and action on all sides by all kinds of myste- rious forces working in unforeseeable ways. This is true enough in his best estate. When to this limitation is added a direction of energy into magical channels, away from those controllable sources of evil which reside in human dis- position, the amount of eff'ective freedom possible is slight. This same misplacing of liability holds men accountable for acts they have not committed, because some magic tendency for evil is imputed to them. Famine, pestilence^ defeat in war are evils to be remedied by sacrifice of goods or persons or by ritualistic ceremonies; while the reme- * For facts regarding the importance and nature of these concep- tions, see Westermarck, op. cit., pp. 52-72; Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, pp. 427-435 and 139-149; Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion; Hobhouse, op. cit., Vol. II., chs. i. and ii.; and in general facts bearing on the relations between taboos, holiness, and uncleanness; ablutions, purifications by fire, transference by scapegoats; also the evil power of curses, and the early conceptions of doom and fate. For a suggestive interpretation of the underlying facts, see Santayana, The Life of Reason, Vol. Ill,, chs. iii. and iv. DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS 459 diable causes of harm in human ignorance and negli- gence go without attention. 2. Accident and Intention. — Under such circumstances, little distinction can be made between the good and evil which an individual meant to do and that which he hap- pened to do. The working presumption of society, up to a comparatively late stage of its history, was that every harmful consequence is an evidence of evil disposition in those who were in any way concerned. This limitation of freedom was accompanied by a counterpart limitation of responsibility. Where no harm actually resulted, there was thought to be no harmful intent. Animals and even inanimate objects which do injury are baleful things and come under disapprobation and penalty. Even in civil- ized Athens there was a survival of the practice of holding inanimate things liable. If a tree fell on a man and killed him, the tree was to be brought to trial, and after con- demnation cast beyond the civic borders, i.e., outlawed.^ Anyhow, the owner of an offending article was almost always penahzed. Westermarck,^ with reference to the guilt of animals, cites an instance, dated in 1457, "when a sow and her six young ones were tried on a charge of their having murdered and partly eaten a child; the sow, being found guilty, was condemned to death, the young pigs were acquitted on account of their youth and the bad example of their mother." When sticks, stones, and animals are held accountable for evil results, there is little chance of discriminating intent and accident or misad- venture in the case of personal agents. "The devil him- self knoweth not the intent, the 'thought' of man" was * See Plato, Laios, IX., 873. Compare Holmes, Common Law. In mediaeval and early modern Europe, offending objects were "deo- dand," that is, devoted to God. They were to be appropriated by the proper civil or ecclesiastical authority, and used for charity. In theory, this lasted in England up to 1846. See Tylor, Primitive Cul- ture, Vol. I., pp. 286-287; and Pollock and Maitland, op. cit,, II., pp. 471-472. » Op. cit., p. 257. 460 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE the mediseval maxim; all that can be certain is that harm has come and the one who caused it must suffer; or else no overt harm has come and no one is to blame/ Harm has been done and any one concerned, even remotely, in the injurious situation, is ex officio guilty; it will not do to take chances. The remoteness of an implication which may involve liability is seen in the condition of English law in the thirteenth century: "At your request I ac- company you when you are about your own affairs: my enemies fall upon and kill me : you must pay for my death. You take me to see a wild-beast show, or that interesting spectacle a madman : beast or madman kills me ; you must pay. You hang up your sword; some one else knocks it down so that it cuts me ; you must pay." ^ Only gradually did intent clearly evolve as the central element in an act, and thus lead to the idea of a voluntary or free act. That the limitation upon the side of responsibility was equally great is obvious. If a man is held liable for what he did not and could not foresee or desire, there is no ground for his holding himself responsible for antici- pating the consequences of his acts, and forming his plans according as he foresees. This comes out clearly in the obverse of what has just been said. If no harm results from a willful attempt to do evil, the individual is not blamed. He goes scot free. "An attempt to commit a crime is no crime." ^ 3. Character and Circumstances — Even in law, to say nothing of personal moral judgments, we now almost as a matter of course take into account, in judging an agent's intent, both circumstances, and character as inferred from past behavior. We extend our view of consequences, tak- * The very words cause and to blame are closely connected in their origin. Cf. the Greek aiTia. ' Pollock and Maitland, op. cit, II., p. 469 ; I., 30. For the history of the idea of accident in English law with reference to homicide, see also pp. 477-483. Also Stephen, History of the Criminal Law in England, Vol. III., pp. 316-376. "Pollock and Maitland, II., p. 473; see Westermarck, pp. 240-247. DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS 461 ing into account in judging the moral quality of a partic- ular deed, consequences its doer is habitually found to effect. We blame the individual less for a deed if we find it contrary to his habitual course. We blame him more, if we find he has a character given to that sort of thing. We take into account, in short, the permanent attitude and disposition of the agent. We also discriminate the condi- tions and consequences of a deed much more carefully. Self-defense, protection of others or of property, come in as "extenuating circumstances"; the degree of provo- cation, the presence of immediate impulsive fear or anger, as distinct from a definitely formed, long-cherished idea, are considered. The questions of first or of repeated offense, of prior criminality or good behavior, enter in. Questions of heredity, of early environment, of early education and opportunity are being brought to-day into account. We are still very backward in this respect, both in per- sonal and in public morals; in private judgment and in legal procedure and penalty. Only recently have we, for example, begun to treat juvenile delinquents in special ways ; and the effort to carry appropriate methods further meets with strong opposition and the even stronger in- ertia of indifference. It is regarded by many good people as lowering the bars of responsibility to consider early training and opportunity, just as in its day it was so regarded to plead absence of intent in cases where evil had actually resulted. It is not "safe" to let any one off from the rigor of the law. The serious barrier, now as earlier, is upon the scientific or intellectual side. There was a time when it did not seem feasible to pass upon intent; it was hidden, known only to God. But we have now devised ways, adequate in principle, though faulty in detail, to judge immediate intent; similarly, with the growth of anthropology, psychology, statistics, and the resources of publicity in social science, we shall in time 462 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE find it possible to consider the effects of heredity, early environment, and training upon character and so upon intent. We shall then regard present methods of judging intent to be almost as barbarous as we now consider the earlier disregard of accident and provocation. Above all we shall learn that increased, not relaxed responsibility, comes with every increase of discrimination of causes lying in character and conditions.^ 4. Intellectual Incapacity and Thoughtlessness. — ^With increasing recognition of character as the crucial element in voluntary action, we now take into account such matters as age, idiocy, and insanity as factors of judgment. But this also has been a slow growth. If we take the one question of insanity, for example, in 1724 exculpation for harm resulting from a madman's acts required that the person excused "be a man that is totally deprived of his understanding and memory, and doth not know what he is doing, no more than an infant, than a brute, or a wild beast." At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the excuse was no longer that of being such a raving lunatic as is here implied ; but of knowing right and wrong from each other in the abstract. By a celebrated case in 1843, the rule was changed, in English law, to knowl- edge of the difference between right and wrong in the particular case. Further advance waits upon progress of science which will make it more possible to judge the specific mental condition of the person acting; and thus do away with the abuses of the present system which tend, on the one hand, to encourage the pleading of insanity where none may exist ; and, on the other hand (by a rigid appli- cation of a technical rule), to condemn persons really irre- * The slowness and indirectness of change throw light upon the supposed distinction of justice and mercy (see ante, p. 415). When the practical injustice of regarding accidental homicide or killing in self-defense as murder began to be felt, the theory was still that the man in justice was guilty, but that he was to be recommended to the crown for mercy or pardon. This was a mean terra in the evolution of our present notion of justice. DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS 463 sponsible/ Popular judgment still inclines to impute clear and definite intention on the basis of results ; and to ignore conditions of intellectual confusion and bewilderment, and justifies itself in its course on the ground that such is the only "safe" course.^ Responsibility for Thoughtlessness. — But the release from responsibility for deeds in which the doer is intel- lectually incapacitated, is met on the other side by holding individuals of normal mental constitution responsible for some consequences which were not thought of at all. We even hold men accountable for not thinking to do certain acts. The former are acts of heedlessness or carelessness, as when a mason on top of a building throws rubbish on to a street below which injures some one, without any thought on his part of this result, much less any deliberate desire to effect it. The latter are acts of negligence, as when, say, an engineer fails to note a certain signal. In such cases even when no harm results, we now hold the agent morally culpable. Similarly we blame children for not thinking of the consequences of their acts; we blame them for not thinking to do certain things at a certain time — to come home when told, and so on. This is not merely a matter of judgment by others. The more con- scientious a person is, the more occasions he finds to judge himself with respect to results which happened because he did not think or deliberate or foresee at all — provided he has reason to believe he would have thought of the harmful results if he had been of a different character. Because we were absorbed in something else we did not think, and while, in the abstract, this something else may have been * For some of the main historic facts on intellectual disability, see Westermarck, pp. 264-277. ' Popular judgment, we may say, tends to be as grossly utilitarian in its practice as it is grossly intuitional in its theoretical standpoint. In assuming the possibility of an almost infallible, oflFhand, pat per- ception of right and wrong, it commits itself practically to judging in an offhand, analyzed way, on the basis of the evils which overtty result. 464 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE all right, in the concrete it may be proof of an unworthy character. The very fact that we permitted ourselves to become so absorbed that the thought of an engagement, or of an opportunity to help some friend whom we knew to be in need, did not occur to us, is evidence of a selfish, i.e., inconsiderate, character. The case seems paradoxical and is crucial. Others hold us responsible because we were irresponsible in action and in order that we may become responsible. We blame ourselves precisely because we discover that an unconscious preference for a private or exclusive good led us to be careless of the good of others. The effect (if the regret is genuine, not simulated) is to develop a habit of greater thoughtf nines s in the future. Less and less do men accept for others or for themselves ignorance as an excuse for bad consequences, when the ignorance itself flows from character. Our chief moral business is to become acquainted with consequences. Our moral character surely does not depend in this case, then, upon the fact that we had alternatives clearly in mind and chose the worse; the difficulty is that we had only one alterna- tive in mind and did not consciously choose at all. Our freedom lies in the capacity to alter our mode of action, through having our ignorance enlightened by being held for the neglected consequences, when brought to accounta- bility by others, or by holding ourselves accountable in sub^ sequent reflection. Cases of careless acts and of acts omitted through negligence are thus crucial for any theory of freedom and responsibility. Either we are all wrong in blaming ourselves or others in such cases, because there is no free or voluntary element in them; or else there is responsibility when deliberate comparison of alternatives and conscious preference are absent. There is responsi- bility for the absence of deliberation. Nature does not forbear to attach consequences to acts because of the ignorance of the one who does the deed. The evil results DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS 465 that follow in the wake of a thoughtless act are precisely the reminders that make one take thought the next time. Similarly, to be held liable by others or to take ourselves to task for forgetfulness, inconsiderateness, and negligence, is the way in which to build up conscientious foresight and deliberate choice. The increased complexity and danger of modern industrial activity, the menace of electric power, of high explosives, of railway trains and trolley cars, of powerful machines, have done much to quicken recog- nition that negligence may be criminal, and to reawaken the conviction of Greek thought that thoughtless igno- rance, where knowledge is possible, is the worst of evils. The increased interdependence of men, through travel and transportation, collective methods of production, and crowding of population in cities, has widened the area of the harm likely to result from inconsiderate action, and has strengthened the belief that adequate thoughtfulness is possible only where there is sympathetic interest in others. 5. The Conflict of Form and Substance The technical forms of procedure concerned in establishing and reme- dying rights were, for long ages, more important than the substantial ends by which alone the forms may be justified. Any effort for a remedy was nullified if the minutiae of complicated formulae (largely magical or ritu- alistic in their origin) were deviated from. Almost any obligation might be escaped by some quirk or turn in some slight phrase or motion, without which no agreement was binding, so sacramental was the importance of the very words. In early days the rigidity of these semi-ritualistic performances doubtless served to check arbitrary and reckless acts, and to impress the sense of the value of a standard.^ But they survived as "rudimentary organs" * See Pollock and Maitland, Vol. II., p. 561, who quote from Ihering: "Formulation is the sworn enemy of arbitrariness, the twin- sister of liberty"; and who add: "As time goes on there is always a larger room for discretion in the law of procedure: but discre- tionary powers can only be safely entrusted to judges whose im- 4^66 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE long after they had done their work in this respect; and after they had been eliminated from legal procedure they survived as habits of judging conduct. Survivals of Spirit of Individualistic Litigation. — The fact that the procedure of justice originated as methods of supplying impartial umpires for conflicts waged be- tween individuals, has had serious consequences. It has had indeed the desirable consequence of quickening men to the perception of their rights and to their obligation as social members to maintain them intact. But it has also had the undesirable result of limiting the function of the public interest to the somewhat negative one of securing fair play between contentious individuals. The battle is not now fought out with fists or spears or oaths or ordeals : but it is largely a battle of wits and of technical resources between the opposite parties and their lawyers, with the State acting the part of a benevolently neutral umpire. The ignorant, the poor, the foreign, and the merely honest are almost inevitably at a discount in this battle.^ And, in any case, the technical aspect of justice, that is, the question of proper forms gets out of true perspective. The "legally-minded" man is likely to be one with whom technical precedents and rules are more important than the goods to be achieved and the evils to be avoided. With increase of publicity and scientific methods of determining and interpreting facts, and with a public and professional criticism which is impartial and wise, we may anticipate that the supremacy of the general good will be increas- ingly recognized in cases of litigation, and that the courts, as organs of public justice, will take a more active and sub- stantial part in the management of all legal controversies.* partiality is above suspicion and whose every act is exposed to public and professional criticism." * A lawyer, asked if the poor were not at a disadvantage in the legal maintenance of their rights, replied: "Not any more than they are in the other relations of life." 2 The devices of "equity" as distinct from strict legality are of course in part intended to secure this result. DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS 467 Legal and Moral. — But, at the best, definitions of rights and of remedial procedures only ( 1 ) lay down general, not individual conditions, and (2), so far as they are strict, register precedent and custom rather than anticipate the novel and variable. They can state what shall not be done. Except in special cases, they cannot state what shall be done, much less the spirit and disposition in which it shall be done. In their formulations, they present a sort of minimum limit of morality not to be overstepped by those inclined to ill. They throw little light on the posi- tive capacities and responsibilities of those who are socially minded. They have a moral purpose: they free energy from the friction attendant upon vague, obscure, and uncertain situations, by enlightening men as to what they may do and how they may do it. But the exaggeration of form at the expense of the substantial end and good, leads to misplaced emphasis and false perspective. The rules are treated as ends ; they are employed not to get insight into consequences, but as justifying, apart from consequences, certain acts. The would-be conscientious agent is led into considering goodness as a matter of obey- ing rules, not of fulfilling ends. The average individual conceives he has satisfied the requirements of morality when he has conformed to the average level of legal definition and prescription. Egoistic, self-seeking men regard their actions as sanctioned if they have not broken the laws ; and decide this question by success in evading penalties. The intelligence that should go to employing the spirit of laws to enlighten behavior is spent in ingenious inventions for observing their letter. The "respectable" citizen of this type is one of the unsocialized forces that social reformers find among their most serious obstacles. This identification of morality with the legal and jural leads to a reaction which is equally injurious: the com- plete separation of the legal and the moral, the former conceived as merely "outer," concerned entirely with acts, 468 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE not at all with motive and character. The effect of this divorce is perhaps more serious upon the moral than upon the legal. The separation makes morals sentimental and whimsical, or else transcendental and esoteric. It leads to neglect of the social and institutional realities which form a world of action as surely as natural objects and energies form a physical world, and ends in the popular conception of morals as just a matter of "goodness" (the goody-goodiness ) of individuals. One of the most fundamental of moral duties is that of making the legal order a more adequate expression of the common good. Special Problems. — Civil Society thus imposes upon its members not only specific obligations, but it also imposes upon all who enjoy its benefits the supreme obligation of seeing that the civic order is itself intelligently just in its methods of procedure. The peculiar moral problems which men have to face as members of civil society change, of course, from time to time with change of conditions; among the more urgent of present problems, we may mention : I. Reform of Criminal Procedure. — The negative side of morality is never so important as the positive, because the pathological cannot be as important as the physio- logical of which it is a disturbance and perversion. But no fair survey of our methods, either of locating criminality or of punishing it, can fail to note that they contain far too many survivals of barbarism. Compared with primi- tive times we have indeed won a precious conquest. Even as late as 1813, a proposal to change the penalty for stealing five shillings from death to transportation to a remote colony, was defeated in England.^ But we are likely in flattering ourselves upon the progress made to overlook that which it remains to make. Our trials are technical rather than human : they assume that just about so much * Robinson and Beard, Development of Modern Europe, Vol. II., p. 207. DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS 469 persistent criminality must persist in any case. They endeavor, in rather routine and perfunctory ways, to label this and that person as criminal in such and such degrees, or, by technical devices and resources, to acquit. In many American states, distrust of government, inherited from days of tyrannical monarchy or oligarchy, protects the accused in all sorts of ways. For fear the government will unjustly infringe upon the liberty of the individual, the latter is not only — as is just — regarded as innocent till proved guilty ; but is provided with every possible technical advantage in rules of evidence, postponements and ap- peals, advantages backed up, in many cities, by associa- tion with political bosses which give him a corrupt "pull." On the other hand, there is as yet no general recognition of the possibility of an unbiased scientific investigation into all the antecedents (hereditary and environmental) of evildoers ; an investigation which would connect the wrong done with the character of the individual committing it, and not merely with one of a number of technical degrees of crime, laid down in the statute books in the abstract, with- out reference to particular characters and circumstances. Thus while the evildoer has in one direction altogether too much of a chance to evade justice, he has in another direction a chance at only technical, rather than at moral, justice — justice as an individual human being. It is not possible to discuss here various methods which have been proposed for remedying these defects. But it is clearly the business of the more thoughtful members of society to consider the evils seriously and to interest themselves actively in their reform. W^e need, above all, a change in two respects: (a) recognition of the possibilities of new methods of judgment which the sciences of physiology, psychology, and sociology have brought about; and (b) surrender of that feudal conception according to which men are divided, as it were essentially, into two classes: one the criminal and the other the meritorious. We need 470 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE to consider the ways in which the pressure and the opportu- nities of environment and education, of poverty and com- fortable Hving, of extraneous suggestion and stimulation, make the differences between one man and another; and to recognize how fundamentally one human nature is at bottom. Juvenile courts, probation officers, detention officers, mark the beginnings of what is possible, but only the beginnings. For the most part crime is still treated sordidly and by routine, except when, being sensational, it is the occasion for a great battle of wits between keen prosecuting attorney and clever "criminal lawyer," with the world through the newspapers watching the display. 2. Reform of Punishment. — Emerson's bitter words are still too applicable. " Our distrust is very expensive. The money we spend for courts and prisons is very ill laid out. We make, by distrust, the thief and burglar and incen- diary, and by our court and j ail we keep him so." ^ Re- formatories, whose purpose is change of disposition, not mere penalization, have been founded; but there are still many more prisons than reformatories. And, if it be argued that most criminals are so hardened in evil-doing that reformatories are of no use, the answer is twofold. We do not know, because we have never systematically and intelligently tried to find out ; and, even if it were so, nothing is more illogical than to turn the unreformed crim- inal, at the end of a certain number of months or years, loose to prey again upon society. Either reform or else permanent segregation is the logical alternative. Inde- terminate sentences, release on probation, discrimination of classes of offenders, separation of the first and more or less accidental and immature offender from the old and experienced hand, special matrons for women offenders, introduction of education and industrial training into pen- itentiaries, the finding of employment for those released — *"Man the Reformer." DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS 471 all mark improvements. They are, however, as yet in- choate. Intelligent members of society need to recognize their own responsibility for the promotion of such reforms and for the discovery of new ones. 3. Increase of Administrative Efficiency. — In the last one hundred years, society has rapidly grown in inter- nal complexity. Commercial changes have brought about an intense concentration of population in cities; have promoted migratory travel and intercourse, with destruc- tion of local ties ; have developed world markets and col- lective but impersonal (corporate) production and distri- bution. Many new problems have been created, while at the same time many of the old agencies for maintaining order have been weakened or destroyed, especially such as were adapted to small groups with fixed habits. A great strain has thus been put upon the instrumentalities of justice. Pioneer conditions retarded in America the development of the problems incident upon industrial reconstruction. The possibility of moving on, of taking up new land, finding unutilized resources of forest and mine, the development of new professions, the growth of population with new needs to be met, stimulated and re- warded individual enterprise. Under such circumstances there could be no general demand for public agencies of inspection, supervision, and publicity. But the pioneer days of America are practically ended. American cities and states find themselves confronted with the same prob- lems of public health, poverty and unemployment, con- gested population, traffic and transportation, charitable relief, tramps and vagabondage, and so forth, that have troubled older countries. We face these problems, moreover, with traditions which are averse to "bureaucratic" administration and public "interference." Public regulation is regarded as a "paternalistic" survival, quite unsuited to a free and independent people. It would be foolish, indeed, to over- 472 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE look or deny the great gains that have come from our American individualistic convictions: the quickening of private generosity, the growth of a generalized sense of noblesse oblige — of what every successful individual owes to his community; of personal initiative, self-reliance, and versatile "faculty"; of interest in all the voluntary agencies which by education and otherwise develop the individuality of every one ; and of a demand for equality of opportunity, a fair chance, and a square deal for all. But it is certain that the country has reached a state of development, in which these individual achievements and pos- sibilities require new civic and political agencies if they are to be maintained as realities. Individualism means inequity, harshness, and retrogression to barbarism (no matter under what veneer of display and luxury), unless it is a generalized individualism: an individualism which takes into account the real good and effective — not merely formal — freedom of every social member. Hence the demand for civic organs — city, state, and federal, — of expert inquiry, inspection, and super- vision with respect to a large number of interests which are too widespread and too intricate to be well cared for by private or voluntary initiative. The well-to-do in great cities may segregate themselves in the more healthful quarters; they may rely upon their automobiles for local transportation ; they may secure pure milk and unadulterated foods from personal resources; they may, by their combined "pull," secure good schools, policing, lighting, and well-paved streets for their own localities. But the great masses are dependent upon pub- lic agencies for proper air, light, sanitary conditions of work and residence, cheap and effective transportation, pure food, decent educative and recreative facilities in schools, libraries, museums, parks. The problems which fall to the lot of the proper organs of administrative inspection and supervision are essentially POLITICAL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS 473 scientific problems, questions for expert intelligence con- joined with wide sympathy. In the true sense of the word political, they are political questions: that is, they relate to the welfare of society as an organized community of attainment and endeavor. In the cant sense of the term political, the sense of conventional party-issues and party- lines, they have no more to do with politics than have the multiplication table and the laws of hygiene. Yet they are at present almost hopelessly entangled with irrelevant "political" issues, and are almost hopelessly under the heel of party-politicians whose least knowledge is of the scientific questions involved, just as their least interest is for the human issues at stake. So far "civil service re- form" has been mainly negative : a purging away of some of the grosser causes which have influenced appointments to office. But now there is needed a constructive reform of civil administration which will develop the agencies of inquiry, oversight, and publicity required by modern conditions ; and which will necessitate the selection of public servants of scientifically equipped powers. § 3. POLITICAL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS No hard and fast line can be drawn between civil society and the State. By the State, however, we denote those conditions of social organization and regulation which are most fundamental and most general : — conditions which are summed up in and expressed through the general will as manifested in legislation and its execution. As a civil right is technically focused in the right to use the courts, "to sue and be sued," that is in the right to have other claims adjudicated and enforced by a public, impartial authority, so a political right is technically summed up in the power to vote — either to vote directly upon laws or to vote for those who make and carry out laws. To have the right in a legislative assembly to speak for or against 474 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE a certain measure ; to be able to say "yea" or "nay" upon a roll-call; to be able to put into a ballot-box a piece of paper with a number of names written thereon, are not acts which of themselves possess the inherent value of many of the most ordinary transactions of daily life. But the representative and potential significance of political rights exceeds that of any other class of rights. Suffrage stands for direct and active participation in the regulation of the terms upon which associated life shall be sustained, and the pursuit of the good carried on. Political freedom and responsibility express an individuaVs power and ohliga- tion to make effective all his other capacities by fixing the social conditions of their exercise. Growth of Democracy. — The evolution of democratic- ally regulated States, as distinct from those ordered in the interests of a small group, or pf a special class, is the social counterpart of the development of a comprehensive and common good. Externally viewed, democracy is a piece of machinery, to be maintained or thrown away, like any other piece of machinery, on the basis of its economy and efficiency of working. Morally, it is the effective embodiment of the moral ideal of a good which consists in the development of all the social capacities of every indi- vidual member of society. Present Problems: i. Distrust of Government. — Pres- ent moral problems connected with political affairs have to do with safeguarding the democratic ideal against the in- fluences which are always at work to undermine it, and with building up for it a more complete and extensive embodi- ment. The historic antecedent of our own governmental system was the exercise of a monopoly by a privileged class.^ It became a democratic institution partly because * The term "the King's Peace," as the equivalent in England for the peace and order of the commonwealth, goes back to a time when literally it meant a private possession. Pollock says that the desire to collect larger revenues was the chief motive for pushing the royal jurisdiction against lesser local authorities. Essay on the King's Peace in Oxford Essays. POLITICAL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS 475 the King, in order to secure the monopoly, had to concede and guarantee to the masses of the people certain rights as against the oligarchical interests which might rival his powers ; and partly because the centralization of power, with the arbitrary despotism it created, called out protests which finally achieved the main popular liberties: safety of life and property from arbitrary forfeiture, arrest, or seizure by the sovereign; the rights of free assembly, petition, a free press, and of representation in the law- making body. Upon its face, the struggle for individual liberty was a struggle against the overbearing menace of despotic rulers. This fact has survived in an attitude towards government which cripples its usefulness as an agency of the general will. Government, even in the most democratic countries, is still thought of as an external "ruler," operating from above, rather than as an organ by which people associated in pursuit of common ends can most effectively cooperate for the realization of their own aims. Distrust of govern- ment was one of the chief traits of the situation in which the American nation was born. It is embodied not only in popular tradition, and party creeds, but in our organic laws, which contain many provisions expressly calculated to prevent the corporate social body from effecting its ends freely and easily through governmental agencies.^ There can be no doubt that the movement to restrict the functions of government, the laissez-faire movement, was in its time an important step in human freedom, because * Says President Hadley: "The fundamental division of powers in the Constitution of the IJnited States is between voters on the one hand, and property-owners on the other. The forces of democracy on one side, divided between the executive and the legislature, are set over against the forces of property on the other side, with the ju- diciary as arbiter between them. . . . The voter could elect what officers he pleased, so long as these officers did not try to do certain duties confided by the Constitution to the property-holders. Democ- racy was complete as far as it went, but constitutionally it was bound to stop short of social democracy." 476 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE so much of governmental action was despotic in intention and stupid in execution. But it is also a mistake to con- tinue to think of a government which is only the people associated for the assuring of their own ends as if it were the same sort of thing as a government which repre- sented the will of an irresponsible class. The advance of means of publicity, and of natural and social science, provides not only protection against ignorant and unwise public action, but also constructive instrumentalities of intelligent administrative activities. One of the chief moral problems of the present day is, then, that of mak- ing governmental machinery such a prompt and flexi- ble organ for expressing the common interest and pur- pose as will do away with that distrust of government which properly must endure so long as "government" is something imposed from above and exercised from without. 2. Indifference to Public Concerns. — The multiplica- tion of private interests is a measure of social progress: it marks the multiplication of the sources and ingredients of happiness. But it also invites neglect of the funda- mental general concerns which, seeming very remote, get pushed out of sight by the pressure of the nearer and more vivid personal interests. The great majority of men have their thoughts and feelings well occupied with their family and business affairs ; with their clubs for recreation, their church associations, and so on. "Politics" becomes the trade of a class which is especially expert in the manipulation of their fellows and skilled in the "accelera- tion" of public opinion. "Politics" then gets a bad name, and the aloofness from public matters of those best fitted, theoretically, to participate in them is further pro- moted. The saying of Plato, twenty-five hundred years ago, that the penalty good men pay for not being inter- ested in government is that they are then ruled by men worse than themselves, is verified in most of our American cities. POLITICAL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS 477 3. Corruption. — This indifFerence of the many, which throws the management of poHtical affairs into the hands of a few, leads inevitably to corruption. At the best, gov- ernment is administered by human beings possessed of ordinary human frailties and partialities ; and, at the best, therefore, its ideal function of serving impartially the common good must be compromised in its execution. But the control of the inner machinery of governmental power by a few who can work in irresponsible secrecy because of the indifference and even contempt of the many, incites to deliberate perversion of public functions into private ad- vantages. As embezzlement is appropriation of trust funds to private ends, so corruption, "graft," is prostitu- tion of public resources, whether of power or of money, to personal or class interests. That a "public office is a public trust" is at once an axiom of political ethics and a principle most difficult to realize. In our own day, a special field has been opened within which corruption may flourish, in the development of public utility companies. Railways, city transportation systems, telegraph and telephone systems, the distribution of water and light, require public franchises, for they either em- ploy public highways or they call upon the State to exer- cise its power of eminent domain. These enterprises can be carried on efficiently and economically only as they are either monopolies, or quasi-monopolies. All modern life, however, is completely bound up with and dependent upon facilities of communication, intercourse, and distri- bution. Power to control the various public-service cor- porations carries with it, therefore, power to control and to tax all industries, power to build up and cast down communities, companies, and individuals, to an extent which might well have been envied by royal houses of the past. It becomes then a very special object for great corporations to control the agencies of legislation and administration; and it becomes a very special object for 478 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE party leaders and bosses to get control of party machinery in order to act as brokers in franchises and in special favors — sometimes directly for money, sometimes for the perpetuation and extension of their own power and influ- ence, sometimes for the success, through influential sup- port and contribution to party funds, of the national party with which they are identified. 4. Reforms in Party Machinery. — The last decade or so of our history has been rife with schemes to improve political conditions. It has become clear, among other things, that our national growth has carried with it the development of secondary political agencies, not contem- plated by the f ramers of our constitutions, agencies which have become primary in practical matters. These agencies are the "machines" of political parties, with their hier- archical gradation of bosses from national to ward rulers, bosses who are in close touch with great business interests at one extreme, and with those who pander to the vices of the community (gambling, drink, and prostitution) at the other; parties with their committees, conventions, pri- maries, caucuses, party-funds, societies, meetings, and all sorts of devices for holding together and exciting masses of men to more or less blind acquiescence. It is not necessary to point out the advantages which parties have subserved in concentrating and defining public opinion and responsibility in large issues; nor to dwell upon their value in counteracting tendencies which break up and divide men into a multitude of small groups having little in common with one another. But behind these ad- vantages a vast number of abuses have sheltered them- selves. Recent legislation and recent discussion have shown a marked tendency formally to recognize the part actually played by party machinery in the conduct of the State, and to take measures to make this factor more responsible in its exercise. Since these measures directly affect the conditions under which the government as the organ of POLITICAL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS 479 the general will does its work of securing the fundamental conditions of equal opportunity for all, they have a direct moral import. Such questions as the Australian ballot, the recognition of party emblems and party groupings of names ; laws for direct primary nominations ; the register- ing of voters for primary as well as for final elections ; legal control of party committees and party conventions ; publicity of accounts as to the reception and use of party funds; forbidding of contributions by corporations, are thus as distinctly moral questions as are bribery and ballot- box stuffing. 5. Reforms in Governmental Machinery. — Questions that concern the respective advantages of written versus unwritten constitutions are in their present state problems of technical political science rather than of morals. But there are problems, growing out of the fact that for the most part American constitutions were written and adopted under conditions radically unlike those of the present, which have a direct ethical import. As already noted, our constitutions are full of evidences of distrust of popular cooperative action. They did not and could not foresee the direction of industrial development, the increased com- plexity of social life, nor the expansion of national terri- tory. Many measures which have proved indispensable have had therefore to be as it were smuggled in; they have been justified by "legal fictions" and by interpreta- tions which have stretched the original text to uses un- dreamed of. At the same time, the courts, which are the most technical and legal of our political organs, are su- preme masters over the legislative branch, the most popu- lar and general. The distribution of functions between the states and the nation is curiously ill-adapted to present conditions (as the discussions regarding railway regula- tion indicate) ; and the distribution of powers between the state and its municipalities is hardly less so, resting in theory upon the idea of local self-government, and in prac- 480 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE tice doing almost everything possible to discourage re- sponsible initiative for the conduct of their own affairs on the part of municipalities. These conditions have naturally brought forth a large crop of suggestions for reforms. It is not intended to discuss them here, but the more important of them, so far as involving moral questions, may be briefly noted. The proposals termed the initiative and the referendum and the "recall" (this last intended to enable the people to with- draw from office any one with whose conduct of affairs they are dissatisfied) are clearly intended to make the ideal of democratic control more effective in practice. Proposals for limited or complete woman's suffrage call attention to the fact that one-half of the citizenship does the politi- cal thinking for the other half, and emphasizes the diffi- culty under such conditions of getting a comprehensive social standpoint (which, as we have already seen, is the sympathetic and reasonable standpoint) from which to judge social issues. Many sporadic propositions from this and that quarter indicate a desire to revise constitutions so as to temper their cast-iron quality and increase their flexible adaptation to the present popular will, and so as to emancipate local communities from subjection to State legislatures in such a way as to give them greater au- tonomy and hence greater responsibility, in the manage- ment of their own corporate affairs. It is not the argu- ments pro and con that we are here concerned with; but we are interested to point out that moral issues are involved in the settlement of these questions. It may, moreover, be noted that dividing lines in the discussion are generally drawn, consciously or unconsciously, on the basis of the degree of faith which exists in the democratic principle and ideal, as against the class idea in some of its many forms. 6. Constructive Social Legislation. — The rapid change of economic methods, the accumulation and concentration POLITICAL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS 481 of wealth, the aggregation of capital and labor into dis- tinct bodies of corporations and trusts, on one side, and federated labor unions, on the other; the development of collective agencies of production and distribution, have brought to the focus of public attention a large number of proposals for new legislation, almost all of which have a direct moral import. These matters are discussed at length in subsequent chapters (chs. xxii.-xxv.) ; and so are passed over here with the reminder that, while on one side they are questions of the ethics of industry, they are also questions of the right and wrong use of political power and authority. We may also note that the theoretical principle at issue, the extension versus the restriction of governmental agencies, so far as it is not simply a ques- tion of what is expedient under the given circumstances, is essentially a question of a generalized versus a partial individualism. The democratic movement of emancipation of personal capacities, of securing to each individual an effective right to count in the order and movement of society as a whole (that is, in the common good), has gone far enough to secure to many, more favored than others, peculiar powers and possessions. It is part of the irony of the situation that such now oppose efforts to secure equality of opportunity to all on the ground that these efforts would effect an invasion of individual liberties and rights: i.e., of privileges based on inequality. It requires perhaps a peculiarly sympathetic imagination to see that the question really involved is not one of magnifying the powers of the State against individuals, but is one of making individual liberty a more extensive and equitable matter. 7. The International Problem. — The development of national States marks a tremendous step forward in the realization of the principle of a truly inclusive common good. But it cannot be the final step. Just as clans, sects, gangs, etc., are intensely sympathetic within and intensely 482 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE exclusive and jealous without, so States are still arrayed against States, with patriotism, loyalty, as an internal virtue, and the distrust and hatred of divisive hostility as the counterpart vice. The idea of humanity in the ab- stract has been attained as a moral ideal. But the political organization of this conception, its embodiment in law and administrative agencies, has not been achieved. Interna- tional law, arbitration treaties, and even a court like the Hague tribunal, whose power is sentimental rather than political, mark steps forward. Nothing could be more absurd, from the historic point of view, than to regard the conception of an international State of federated humanity, with its own laws and its own courts and its own rules for adjudicating disputes, as a mere dream, an illusion of sentimental hope. It is a very slight step to take forward compared with that which has substituted the authority of national States for the conflict of isolated clans and local communities; or with that which has substituted a publicly administered j ustice for the regime of private war and retaliation. The argument for the necessity (short of the attainment of a federated international State with universal authority and policing of the seas) of preparing in peace by enlarged armies and navies for the possibility of war, must be offset at least by recognition that the possession of irresponsible power is always a direct tempta- tion to its irresponsible use. The argument that war is necessary to prevent moral degeneration of individuals may, under present conditions, where every day brings its fresh challenge to civic initiative, courage, and vigor, be dismissed as unmitigated nonsense. § 4. THE MORAL CRITERION OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY The moral criterion by which to try social institutions and political measures may be summed up as follows : The test is whether a given custom or law sets free individual CRITERION OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY 483 capacities in such a way as to make them available for the development of the general happiness or the common good. This formula states the test with the emphasis fall- ing upon the side of the individual. It may be stated from the side of associated life as follows: The test is whether the general, the public, organization and order are pro- moted in such a way as to equalize opportunity for all. Comparison with the Individualistic Formula. — The formula of the individualistic school (in the narrow sense of that term — the laissez-faire school) reads: The moral end of political institutions and measures is the maximum possible freedom of the individual consistent with his not interfering with like freedom on the part of other indi- viduals. It is quite possible to interpret this formula in such a way as to make it equivalent to that just given. But it is not employed in that sense by those who advance it. An illustration will bring out the difference. Imagine one hundred workingmen banded together in a desire to improve their standard of living by securing higher wages, shorter hours, and more sanitary conditions of work. Imagine one hundred other men who, because they have no families to support, no children to educate, or because they do not care about their standard of life, are desirous of replacing the first hundred at lower wages, and upon conditions generally more favorable to the employer of labor. It is quite clear that in offering them- selves and crowding out the others, they are not inter- fering with the like freedom on the part of others. The men already engaged are "free" to work for lower wages and longer time, if they want to. But it is equally certain that they are interfering with the real freedom of the others : that is, with the effective expression of their whole body of activities. The formula of "like freedom" artificially isolates some one power, takes that in the abstract, and then inquires whether it is interfered with. The one truly moral ques- 484 CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STATE tion is what relation this particular power, say the power to do a certain work for a certain reward, sustains to all the other desires, purposes, and interests of the individual. How are they affected by the way in which some one activity is exercised? It is in them that the concrete freedom of the man resides. We do not know whether the freedom of a man is interfered with or is assisted until we have taken into account his whole system of capacities and activities. The maximum freedom of one individual consistent with equal concrete or total freedom of others, would indeed represent a high moral ideal. But the individualistic formula is condemned by the fact that it has in mind only an abstract, mechanical, external, and hence formal freedom. Comparison with the Collectivistic Formula. — There is a rival formula which may be summed up as the sub- ordination of private or individual good to the public or general good: the subordination of the good of the part to the good of the whole. This notion also may be inter- preted in a way which renders it identical with our own criterion. But it is usually not so intended. It tends to emphasize quantitative and mechanical considerations. The individualistic formula tends in practice to emphasize the freedom of the man who has power at the expense of his neighbor weaker in health, in intellectual ability, in worldly goods, and in social influence. The collectivistic formula tends to set up a static social whole and to pre- vent the variations of individual initiative which are neces- sary to progress. An individual variation may involve opposition, not conformity or subordination, to the exist- ing social good taken statically ; and yet may be the sole means by which the existing State is to progress. Minori- ties are not always right ; but every advance in right be- gins in a minority of one, when some individual conceives a project which is at variance with the social good as it has been established. CRITERION OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY 485 A true public or social good will accordingly not sub- ordinate individual variations, but will encourage indi- vidual experimentation in new ideas and new projects, endeavoring only to see that they are put into execution under conditions which make for securing responsibility for their consequences. A just social order promotes in all its members habits of criticizing its attained goods and habits of projecting schemes of new goods. It does not aim at intellectual and moral subordination. Every form of social life contains survivals of the past which need to be reorganized. The struggle of some individuals against the existing subordination of their good to the good of the whole is the method of the reorganization of the whole in the direction of a more generally distributed good. Not order, but orderly progress, represents the social ideal. LITERATURE Green, Principles of Political Obligation, 1888; Ritchie, Principles of State Interference, 1891, Natural Bights, 1895; Lioy, Philosophy of Right, 2 vols., 1901; Willoughby, An Examination of the Nature of the State, 1896; Wilson, The State, 1889; Donisthorpe, Individual- ism, 1889; Giddings, Democracy and Empire, 1900; Mulford, The Nation, 1882; Spencer, Principles of Sociology, Vol. II., Part V., 1882, on Political Institutions; Bentham, Fragment on Government, 1776; Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, 1861, On Liberty, 1859, and The Subjection of Women, 1859; Austin, Jurisprudence, 2 vols., 4th ed., 1873; Hadley, The Relations between Freedom and Responsibility in the Evolution of Democratic Government, 1903; Pol- lock, Expansion of the Common Law, 1904; Hall, Crime in Its Rela- tions to Social Progress, 1901; Philanthropy and Social Progress, Seven Essays, 1893; Stephen (J. F.), Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, 1873 (a criticism of Mill's Liberty); Tufts, Some Contributions of Psychology to the Conception of Justice, Philosophical Review, Vol. XV., p. 361. CHAPTER XXII THE ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE In considering the ethics of the economic life and of property, so far as this latter topic has not received treat- ment elsewhere, we give ( 1 ) a general analysis of the ethi- cal questions involved, (2) a more specific account of the problems raised by the present tendencies of industry, busi- ness, and property; we follow these analyses with (3) a statement of principles, and (4) a discussion of unsettled problems. § 1. GENEEAIi ANALYSIS Both the economic process and property have three distinct ethical aspects corresponding respectively to the ethical standpoint of happiness, character, and social justice. (1) The economic process supplies men with goods for their bodily wants and with many of the neces- sary means for satisfying intellectual, aesthetic, and social needs ; property represents permanence and security in these same values. (2) Through the difficulties it presents, the work it involves, and the incitements it offers, the eco- nomic process has a powerful influence in evoking skill, foresight, and scientific control of nature, in forming char- acter, and stimulating ambition to excel. Property means power, control, and the conditions for larger freedom. (3) The economic process has an important social func- tion. Through division of labor, cooperation, and ex- change of goods and services, it affords one of the funda- mental expressions of the organic nature of society in 486 GENERAL ANALYSIS 487 which members are reciprocally ends to each other. Prop- erty, likewise, is not only a possessing, but a "right," and thus, like all rights, involves the questions why and how far society should support the individual in his interests and claims. Let us examine each of these aspects further. I. The Economic in Relation to Happiness — Subject to the important qualifications to be made below under this and the succeeding sections, we note first that the supply of needs and wants by industry and commerce is ethically a good. A constant increase in production and consumption is at least a possible factor in a fuller life. Wealth is a possible condition of weal, even if it is not to be gratuitously identified with it. Rome is frequently cited as an example of the evil effects of material wealth. But it was not wealth per se, but wealth (a) gained by conquest, and exploitation, rather than by industry; (b) controlled by a minority; and (c) used in largesses or in crude spectacles — rather than democratically distributed and used to minister to higher wants. The present aver- age income in the United States is about two hundred dollars a year per capita, too small a sum to permit comfortable living, sufficient education for children, and the satisfaction which even a very moderate taste may seek. From this point of view we may then ask of any industrial process or business method whether it is an eco- nomical and efficient method of production, and whether it naturally tends to stimulate increased production. To do this is — so far as it goes — ethically as well as eco- nomically desirable. If wealth is a good, it might seem that property must be judged by the same standard, since it represents se- curity in the satisfactions which wealth aff^ords. But there is an important distinction. Wealth means enjoy- ment of goods and satisfaction of wants. Property means the title to the exclusive use or possession of goods. Hence the increase of property may involve increasing exclusion 488 ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE of part of the community from wealth, although the owners of the property may be increasing their own enjoyments. For, as pointed out very forcibly by Hadley in the first chapter of his Economics, the public wealth of a com- munity is by no means equal to the sum of its private prop- erty. If all parks were divided up into private estates, all schoolhouses controlled by private owners, all water supplies and highways given into private control, the sum of private property might be very much increased; but the public wealth would be decreased. Property is one of the means of dealing with public wealth. It is important to bear in mind, however, that it is only one means. Wealth may be (1) privately owned and privately used; (2) pri- vately owned and publicly or commonly used; (3) publicly owned, but privately used; (4) publicly owned and pub- licly or commonly used. Illustrations of these four meth- ods are, for the first, among practically all peoples, clothing and tools ; of the second, a private estate opened to public use — as a park; of the third, public lands or franchises leased to individuals; of the fourth, public highways, parks, navigable rivers, public libraries.! Whether prop- erty in any given case is a means to happiness will depend, then, largely upon whether it operates chiefly to in- crease wealth or to diminish it. ' The view has not been infrequent that the wealth of the community is the sum of its private property. From this it is but a step to believe "that the acquisition of property is the production of wealth, and that he best serves the common good who, other things equal, diverts the larger share of the aggre- gate wealth to his own possession." ^ The ethical questions as to the relation of property to happiness involve accord- ingly the problem of justice and can be more conveniently considered under that head. 2. Relation to Character. — Even in its aspect of satisfy- ing human wants, quantity of production is not the only ^ Veblen, Theory of Business Enterprise, p. 291. GENERAL ANALYSIS 489 consideration. As was pointed out in the chapters on Hap- piness, the satisfaction of any and every want is not necessarily a moral good. It depends upon the nature of the wants ; and as the nature of the wants reflects the nature of the man who wants, the moral value of the eco- nomic process and of the wealth it provides must depend upon the relation of goods to persons. As economists we estimate values in terms of external goods or commodities ; as ethical students we estimate values in terms of a certain quality of life. We must ask first how the satisfaction of wants affects the consumers. Moral Cost of Production. — Consider next the pro- ducers. It is desirable to have cheap goods, but the price o? goods or service is not measurable solely in terms of other commodities or service; the price of an article is also, as Thoreau has said, what it costs in terms of human life. There is cheap production which by this standard is dear. The introduction of machinery for spinning and weaving cotton cheapened cotton cloth, but the child labor which was supposedly necessary as a factor in cheap production, involving disease, physical stunting, ignorance, and frequently premature exhaustion or death, made the product too expensive to be tolerated. At least, it was at last recognized as too expensive in England ; apparently the calculation has to be made over again in every community where a new system of child labor is introduced. What is true of child labor is true of many other forms of modern industry — the price in human life makes the product dear. The minute subdivi- sion of certain parts of industry with the consequent mo- notony and mechanical quality of the labor, the accidents and diseases due to certain occupations, the devices to cheapen goods by ingredients which injure the health of the consumer, the employment of women under unsani- tary conditions and for excessive hours with consequent risk to the health of themselves and their off^spring — all 490 ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE these are part of the moral price of the present processes of industry and commerce. Moreover, the relation of production to physical welfare is only one aspect of its effects upon life and character. We may properly ask of any process or system whether it quickens intelligence or deadens it, whether it neces- sitates the degradation of work to drudgery, and whether it promotes freedom or hamper;s it. To answer this last question we shall have to distinguish formal from real freedom. It might be that a system favorable to the utmost formal freedom — freedom of contract — would re- sult in the most entire absence of that real freedom which implies real alternatives. If the only alternative is, this or starve, the real freedom is limited. Property and Character. — Viewed on its positive side, property means an expansion of power and freedom. To seize, master, and possess is an instinct inbred by the biological process. It is necessary for life; it is a form of the Wille zum Lehen or Wille zur Macht which need not be despised. But in organized society pos- session is no longer mere animal instinct; through ex- pression in a social medium and by a social person it becomes a right of property. This is a far higher ca- pacity; like all rights it involves the assertion of per- sonality and of a rational claim upon fellow members of society for their recognition and backing. Fichte's doc- trine, that property is essential to the effective exercise of freedom, is a strong statement of its moral importance to the individual. Over against these positive values of property are cer- tain evils which moralists have always recognized, evils both to the property owner and to society. Avarice, cov- etousness, hardness toward others, seem to be the natural effects of the enormous possibilities of power offered by property, joined with its exclusive character. The prophets of Israel denounced the rich, and Jesus's image GENERAL ANALYSIS 491 of the difficulty found by the rich man in entering the kingdom of God — a moral society — has met general ac- ceptance. Plato's portrayal of the State in which the wealthy rule sketches the perversion and disobedience of laws, the jealousies and class hatred, the evasion of taxes for public defense, and gives the moral outcome: — "And henceforth they press forward on the path of money- getting, losing their esteem for virtue as the esteem for wealth grows upon them. For can you deny that there is such a gulf between wealth and virtue, that when weighed as it were in the two scales of a balance one of the two always falls, as the other rises .''" ^ Even apart from questions of just distribution, the moral question arises as to whether an unlimited power should be given to individuals in this form, and whether there should be unlimited right of inheritance. But all these tend to pass over at once into questions of justice. 3. Social Aspects. — The various relations of man to man, political, friendly, kindred, are developed forms of the interdependence implicit in the early group life. A group of units, each independent of the others, would represent mass only, but such a group as is made up of men, women, and children, sustaining all the relations found in present human life, represents something vastly more than a mass of individuals. Every life draws from the rest. Man without friendship, love, pity, sympathy, communication, cooperation, justice, rights, or duties, would be deprived of nearly all that gives life its value. The necessary help from others is obtained in various ways. Parental, filial, and other kinship ties, friendship and pity, give rise to certain services, but they are neces- sarily limited in their sphere and exact in return a special attitude that would be intolerable if made universal. The modern man does not want to be cousin to every one, to give every one his personal friendship, to be in a per- petual attitude of receiving favors, or of asking and not ^Republic, 550. Davies and Vaughan. 492 ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE receiving. Formerly the way of getting service from men outside these means was by slavery. The economic rela- tion provides for the mutual exchange of goods and services on a basis of self-respect and equality. Through its system of contracts it provides for future as well as present service. It enables each to obtain the services of all the rest, and in turn to contribute without incurring any other claims or relations. Nor does it at all diminish the moral value of these mutual exchanges of goods and services that they may be paid for. It used to be the theory that in every bargain one party gained and the other lost. It is now recognized that a normal transaction benefits both parties. The "cash payment basis," which was at first denounced as substituting a mechanical nexus for the old personal tie, is in reality a means for estab- lishing a greater independence instead of the older per- sonal relation of "master" and "servant." It enabled a man, as Toynbee puts it, to sell his labor like any other commodity without selling himself. But while the economic process has these moral possi- bilities, the morality of any given system or practice will depend on how far these are actually realized. First of all, we may fairly ask of a process. Does it give to each member the kind of service needed by him.'' In economic terms. Does it produce the kinds of goods which society needs and desires.? A method which pro- vides for this successfully will in so far be providing against scarcity of some goods and oversupply of others, and thus against one of the sources of crises, irregularity of work and wages, and ultimately against suffering and want. Secondly, if the process is an expression of the mutual dependence and service of members who as persons all have, as Kant puts it, intrinsic worth, and who in our political society are recognized as equal, we may fairly ask how it distributes the results of services rendered. Does GENERAL ANALYSIS 493 the process tend to a broad and general distribution of goods in return for services rendered, or to make "the rich richer and the poor poorer?" Or, from another point of view, we might ask. Does the process tend to reward members on a moral or equitable basis, or upon a basis which is non-moral if not immoral or unjust. Thirdly, the problem of conflicting services presents itself under several forms. There is, first, the ever-present conflict between producer and consumer. Higher wages and shorter hours are good for the carpenter or the weaver, until he pays his rent or buys clothes, when he is interested in cheaper goods. What principle can be em- ployed to adjust such a question.'^ Again, service to the consumer may lead a producer to a price-list implying a" minimum of profits. One producer can afford this be- cause of his larger business, but it will drive his com- petitor from the field. Shall he agree to a higher price at which all can do business, or insist on the lower which benefits the consumer and also himself? The labor union is a constant embodiment of the problem of conflicting services. How far shall it serve a limited group, the union, at the expense of other workers in the same trade — non-unionists ? Does it make a difference whether the union is open to all, or whether the dues are fixed so high as to limit the membership? Shall the apprentices be limited to keep up the wage by limiting the supply? If so, is this fair to the boys or unskilled laborers who would like to enter? And granting that it is a hardship to these, is it harder or is it kinder to them than it would be to leave the issue to the natural weeding-out or starving-out procedure of natural selection in case too many enter the trade? Shall the hours be reduced and wages raised as high as possible, or is there a "fair" standard — fair to both consumer and laborer? How far may the union combine with the capitalist to raise prices to the consumer? 494 ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE Private Property and Social Welfare. — The social value of property is obviously indirect, just as in law, private rights are regarded as indirectly based on social welfare. It is society's aim to promote the worth of its members and to favor the development of their personal dignity and freedom. Property may, therefore, claim social value in so far as it serves these ends, unless it interferes with other social values. The effect of private property has seemed to some disastrous to community of interest and feeling. Plato, for example, in his ideal state would permit his guardians no private property. There would, then, be no quarrels over "meum" and "tuum," no suits or divisions, no petty meanness or anxieties, no plundering of fellow-citizens, no flattery of rich by poor. The medi- aeval church carried out his theory. Even modern society preserves a certain trace of its spirit. For the classes that Plato called guardians — soldiers, judges, clergy, teachers — have virtually no property, although they are given support by society. It would probably be generally agreed that it is better for the public that these classes should not have large possessions. But it is obvious that private property is not the sole cause of division between individuals and classes. Where there is a deep-going unity of purpose and feeling, as in the early Christian community, or in various other companies that have attempted to practice communism, common ownership of wealth may be morally valuable as well as practically possible. But without such unity, mere abolition of prop- erty is likely to mean more bitter divisions, because there is no available method for giving to each the independ- ence which is necessary to avoid friction and promote happiness. Granting, however, the general position that some parts of wealth should be privately owned, we must recog- nize that a great number of moral problems remain as to the precise conditions under which society will find it PROBLEMS SET BY THE NEW ORDER 495 wise to entrust the control of wealth to private ownership. For it must be clearly kept in mind that there is no abso- lute right of private property. Every right, legal or moral, derives from the social whole, which in turn, if it is a moral whole, must respect the individuality of each of its members. On this basis moral problems, such as the following, must be considered. What kind of pubKc wealth should be given into absolute control of private individuals or impersonal corporations .f* Does the in- stitution in its present form promote the good of those who have no property as well as of those who have it, or only of those who own.? Would the welfare of society as a whole be promoted by giving a larger portion of public wealth into private control, or by retaining a larger pro- portion than at present under public ownership.? Should there be any limit to the amount of land or other property which an individual or corporation may own? Are there any cases in which private ownership operates rather to exclude the mass of society from the benefits of civilization than to give them a share of those benefits.? Should a man be allowed to transmit all his property to his heirs, or should it be in part reserved by society.? The preceding analysis has aimed to state some of the problems which belong necessarily to the economic life. At the present time, however, the moral issues assume a new and puzzling aspect because of the changes in eco- nomic conditions. It will be necessary to consider briefly these changed conditions. § 2. THE PROBLEMS SET BY THE NEW ECONOMIC OEDEE The Collective and Impersonal Organizations. — Two changes have come over a large part of the economic and industrial field. The first is the change from an indi- vidual to a collective basis. The second, which is in part a consequence of the first, is a change from personal to 496 ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE impersonal or corporate relations. Corporations are of course composed of persons, but when organized for eco- nomic purposes they tend to become simply economic purpose incorporate, abstracted from all other human qualities. Although legally they may be subjects of rights and duties, they have but one motive, and are thus so abstract as to be morally impersonal. They tend to be- come machines for carrying on business, and, as such, may be as powerful — and as incapable of moral considera- tions — as other machines. Ethical Readjustment. — Both these changes require readjustment of our ethical conceptions. Our conceptions of honesty and justice, of rights and duties, got their pres- ent shaping largely in an industrial and business order when mine and thine could be easily distinguished ; when it was easy to tell how much a man produced ; when the pro- ducer sold to his neighbors, and an employer had also the relations of neighbor to his workmen; when responsi- bility could be personally located, and conversely a man could control the business he owned or make individual contracts ; when each man had his own means of lighting, heating, water supply, and frequently of transportation, giving no opportunity or necessity for public service cor- porations. Such conceptions are inadequate for the pres- ent order. The old honesty could assume that goods be- longed to their makers, and then consider exchanges and contracts. The new honesty will first have to face a prior question. Who owns what is collectively produced, and are the present "rules of the game" distributing the returns honestly and fairly.'^ The old justice in the economic field consisted chiefly in securing to each individual his rights in property or contracts. The new justice must consider how it can secure for each individual a standard of living, and such a share in the values of civilization as shall make possible a full moral life. The old virtue allowed a man to act more as an individual; the new CORPORATIONS AND UNIONS 497 virtue requires him to act in concerted effort if he is to achieve results. Individualist theories cannot interpret collectivist facts. The changes in the economic and industrial processes by which not only the associated powers of present human knowledge, skill, and endurance, but also the combined re- sults of past and future skill and industry are massed and wielded, depend on several concurrent factors. We shall notice the social agency, the technique of industry, the technique of business, the means of fixing value, and the nature of property. § 3. THE AGENCIES FOR CARUYING ON COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY Early Agencies. — The early agencies for carrying on trade and industry were not organized purely for economic purposes. The kindred or family group engaged in cer- tain industries, but this was only part of its purpose. So in the various territorial groups. The Athenian city- state owned the mines ; the German village had its forest, meadow, and water as a common possession ; and the "com- mon" survived long in English and American custom, though the cattle pastured on it might be individually owned. In the United States certain land was reserved for school purposes, and if retained would now in some cases be yielding an almost incredible amount for public use; but it has usually been sold to private individuals. The national government still retains certain land for forest reserve, but until the recent movement toward municipal ownership, the civic community had almost ceased to be an economic factor in England and America, except in the field of roads, canals, and the postoffice. In both family and territorial or community control of industry, we have the economic function exercised as only one among several others. The economic helped to strengthen the other bonds 498 ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE of unity. On the other hand, the economic motive could not disentangle itself and stand out in all its naked force. Within either family or civic group the effects of the ac- quisitive instincts were limited by the fact that individuals in their industrial relations were also kin or neighbors. The Business Enterprise. — In the business enterprise — partnership, company, corporation, "trust," — on the other hand, men are organized solely for economic pur- poses. No other interests or ends are regarded. Cor- porations organized for this purpose "have no souls," be- cause they consist of merely the abstract economic inter- ests. While in domestic and territorial agencies the acquisitive forces were to some degree beneficially con- trolled, they were also injuriously hampered. With the rise of business enterprise as a distinct sphere of human action, the way was opened for a new force to manifest itself. This brought with it both advantages and dis- advantages for the moral and social life as a whole. On the one hand, it increased tremendously the possibilities of economic and industrial efficiency. The size of the en- terprise could be as large or as small as was needed for the most efficient production, and was not, as in family or community agency, sometimes too small and sometimes too large. The enterprise could group men according to their capacity for a particular task, and not, as in the other forms, be compelled to take a group already consti- tuted by other than economic or industrial causes. Further, it could without difficulty dispense with the aged or those otherwise unsuited to its purposes. When, moreover, as is coming to be increasingly the case, great corpora- tions, each controlling scores or even hundreds of millions of capital, are linked together in common control, we have a tremendous force which may be wielded as a unit. It is easy to assume — indeed it is difficult for managers not to assume — that the interests of such colossal organiza- tions are of supreme importance, and that diplomacy, CORPORATIONS AND UNIONS 499 tariffs, legislation, and courts should be subordinate. The moral dangers attaching to such corporations formed solely for economic purposes are obvious, and have found frequent illustration in their actual workings. Knowing few or none of the restraints which control an individual, the corporation has treated competitors, employees, and the public in a purely economic fashion. This insures certain limited species of honesty, but does not include motives of private sympathy or public duty. The Labor Union. — Correlative to these corporate combinations of capital are Labor Unions of various types. They are usually when first organized more complex in mo- tive, including social and educational ends, and are more emotional, or even passionate in conduct. With age they tend to become more purely economic. In the United States they have sought to secure better wages, to provide bene- fits or insurance in case of sickness and death, and to gain better conditions in respect of hours, of child-labor, and of protection against dangerous machinery, explosions, and occupational diseases. In Great Britain they have also been successful in applying the cooperative plan to the pur- chase of goods for consumption. The organizations have been most successful among the skilled trades. For so far as the aim is collective bargaining, it is evident that the union will be effective in proportion as it controls the whole supply of labor in the given trade. In the unskilled forms of labor, especially with a constant flow of immigration, it is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain organizations comparable with the organizations of capital. Hence in conflicts it is natural to expect the moral situations which frequently occur when grossly unequal combatants are op- posed. The stronger has contempt for the weaker and re- fuses to "recognize" his existence. The weaker, rendered desperate by the hopelessness of his case when he contends under rules and with weapons prescribed by the stronger, refuses to abide by the rules and resorts to violence — only 500 ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE to find that by this he has set himself in opposition to all the forces of organized society. Group Morality Again. — The striking feature of the new conditions is that it means a reversion to group moral- ity. That is, it has meant this so far. Society is strug- gling to reassert a general moral standard, but it has not yet found a standard, and has wavered between a rigid in- sistence upon outgrown laws on the one hand, and a more or less emotional and unreasoned sympathy with new de- mands, upon the other.^ Group morality meant imper- sonal, collective life. It meant loyalty to one's own group, little regard for others, lack of responsibility, and lack of a completely social standard. There is, of course, one impor- tant difference. The present collective, impersonal agen- cies are not so naive as the old kinship group. They can be used as effective agencies to secure definite ends, while the manipulators secure all the advantages of the old solidarity and irresponsibility. Members and Management.^The corporation in its idea is democratic. For it provides for the union of a number of owners, some of them it may be small owners, under an elected management. It would seem to be an admirable device for maintaining concentration of power with distri- bution of ownership. But the very size of modern enter- prises and unions prevents direct control by stockholders or members. They may dislike a given policy, but they are individually helpless. If they attempt to control, it is al- most impossible, except in an extraordinary crisis, to unite a majority for common action.^ The directors can carry on a policy and at the same time claim to be only agents of the stockholders, and therefore not ultimately responsible. What influence can the small shareholders in a railway * E.g., in a strike there is sometimes a toleration by public sen- timent of a certain amount of violence where it is believed that there is no legal remedy for unfair conditions. * Recent elections in the great insurance companies have shown this. CORPORATIONS AND UNIONS 501 company, or a great industrial corporation, or labor union, have? They unite with ease upon one point only: they want dividends or results. When an illegal policy is to be pursued, or a legislature or jury is to be bribed, or a non-union man is to be "dealt with," the head officials like- wise seek only "results." They turn over the responsibility to the operating or "legal" department, or to the "educa- tional committee," and know nothing further. These de- partments are "agents" for the stockholders or union, and therefore, feel quite at ease. The stockholders are sure they never authorized anything wrong. Some corporations are managed for the interest of a large number of owners ; some, on the other hand, by ingenious contracts with side corporations formed from an inner circle, are managed for the benefit of this inner circle. The tendency, moreover, in the great corporations is toward a situation in which boards of directors of the great railroad, banking, insur- ance, and industrial concerns are made up of the same limited group of men. This aggregate property may then be wielded as absolutely as though owned by these individ- uals. If it is used to carry a political election the direct- ors, according to New York courts, are not culpable. Employer and Employed. — The same impersonal rela- tion often prevails between employer and employed. The ultimate employer is the stockholder, but he delegates power to the director, and he to the president, and he to the foreman. Each is expected to get results. The em- ployed may complain about conditions to the president, and be told that he cannot interfere with the foreman, and to the foreman and be told that such is the policy of the company. The union may serve as a similar buffer. Often any individual of the series would act humanely or gener- ously, if he were acting for himself. He cannot be humane or generous with the property of others, and hence there is no humanity or generosity in the whole system. This system seems to have reached its extreme in the creation of 502 ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE corporations for the express purpose of relieving employ- ers of any personal responsibilitity. Companies organized to insure employers against claims made by employees on account of injuries may be regarded as a device for dis- tributing the burden. But as the company is organized, not primarily to pay damages, as are life insurance com-» panics, but to avoid such payment, it has a powerful mo- tive in contesting every claim, however just, and in making it so expensive to prosecute a claim that the victims may prefer not to make the attempt. The "law's delay" can nearly always be counted upon as a powerful defense when a poor man is plaintiff and a rich corporation is defendant. Relations to the Public. — The relations of corporations to the public, and of the public to corporations, are simi- larly impersonal and non-moral. A convenient way of ap- proach to this situation is offered by the ethical, or rather non-ethical, status of the various mechanical devices which have come into use in recent years for performing many economic services. The weighing machines, candy ma- chines, telephones, are supposed to give a certain service for a penny or a nickel. But if the machine is out of order, the victim has no recourse. His own attitude is corre- spondingly mechanical. He regards himself as dealing, not with a person, but with a thing. If he can exploit it or "beat" it, so much the better. Now a corporation, in the attitude which it takes and evokes, is about half-way be- tween the pure mechanism of a machine and the completely personal attitude of a moral individual. A man is over- charged, or has some other difficulty with an official of a railroad company. It is as hopeless to look for immediate relief as it is in the case of a slot machine. The conductor is just as much limited by his orders as the machine by its mechanism. The man may later correspond with some higher official, and if patience and life both persist long enough, he will probably recover. But to prevent fraud, the company is obliged to be more rigorous than a person CORPORATIONS AND UNIONS 503 would be who was dealing with the case in a personal fash- ion. Hence the individual with a just grievance is likely to entertain toward the corporation the feeling that he is dealing with a machine, not with an ethical being, even as the company's servants are not permitted to exercise any moral consideration in dealing with the public. They merely obey orders. Public sentiment, which would hold an individual teamster responsible for running over a child, or an individual stage owner responsible for reckless or careless conduct in carrying his passengers, feels only a blind rage in the case of a railroad accident. It cannot fix moral responsibility definitely upon either stockholder or management or employee, and conversely neither stock- holder, nor manager, nor employee ^ feels the moral re- straint which the individual would feel. He is not wholly responsible, and his share in the collective responsibility is so small as often to seem entirely negligible. Relations to the Law. — The collective business enter- prises, when incorporated, are regarded as "juristic per- sons," and so gain the support of law as well as become subject to its control. If the great corporation can thus gain the right of an individual, it can enter the field of free contract with great advantage. Labor unions have not incorporated, fearing, perhaps, to give the law control over their funds. They seek a higher standard of living, but private law does not recognize this as a right. It merely protects contracts, but leaves it to the individual to make the best contract he can. As most wage-earners have no contracts, but are liable to dismissal at any time, the unions have seen little to be gained by incorporation. They have thus missed contact with the institution in which society seeks to embody, however tardily, its moral ideas and have been, in a sense, outlaws. They were such ^"J. O. Fagan," in the Atlantic Monthly (1908), has called atten- tion to the influence of the union in shielding individuals from the penalties of carelessness. 504 ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE at first by no fault of their own, for the law treated such combinations as conspiracies. And they are still at two decided disadvantages. First, the capitalistic or employ- ing corporation acting as a single juristic person may refuse to buy the labor of a union ; indeed, according to a recent decision, it cannot be forbidden to discharge its em- ployees because of their membership in a union. As the corporation may employ scores of thousands, and be prac- tically the only employer of a particular kind of labor, it can thus enforce a virtual boycott and prevent the union from selling its labor. It does not need to use a "black- list" because the employers are all combined in one "per- son." On the other hand, the union is adjudged to act in restraint of interstate commerce if it boycotts the employ- ing corporation. The union is here treated as a combina- tion, not as a single person. The second point in which the employing body has greatly the legal advantage appears in the case of a strike. Men are allowed to quit work, but this is not an effective method of exerting pressure unless the employer is anxious to keep his plant in operation and can employ no one else. If he can take advantage of an open labor market and hire other workmen, the only re- source of the strikers is to induce these to join their ranks. But they have been enjoined by the courts, not only from intimidating, but even from persuading ^ employees to quit * Recent Illinois decisions (216 111., 358 f., and especially 232 111., 431-440) uphold sweeping injunctions against persuasion, no matter how peaceable. "Lawful competition, which may injure the business of a person, even though successfully directed to driving him out of business, is not actionable." But for a union to hire laborers away from an employer by money or transportation is not "lawful compe- tition." The object is assumed by the court to be malicious, i.e., the injury of the employer. The court does not entertain the possi- bility that to obtain an eight-hour day is as lawful an aim for the labor union as to acquire property is for an employer. The decision shows clearly the difference in legal attitude toward pressure exerted by business corporations for the familiar end of acquisition, and that exerted by the union for the novel end of a standard of living. The court regards the injury to others as incidental in the former, but »s primary and therefore as malicious in the latter. It may be that CORPORATIONS AND UNIONS 505 work. The method of procedure in enforcing the injunc- tion, which enables the judge to fix the offense, eliminate trial by jury, determine the guilt, and impose any penalty he deems fit, has all the results of criminal process with none of its limitations, and forms a most effective agency against the unions. Where persuasion is enjoined it is difficult to see how a union can exert any effective pressure except in a highly skilled trade, where it can control all the labor supply. In the field of private rights and free contract, the labor unions are then at a disadvantage be- cause they have no rights which are of any value for their purposes, except, under certain conditions, the right to refuse to work. And since this is, in most cases, a weapon that injures its wielder far more than his opponent, it is not effective. Disappointed in the field of free contract, the labor unions seek to enlist public agency in behalf of better sani- tary conditions and in prevention of child-labor, long hours for women, unfair contracts, and the like. Capitalistic corporations frequently resist this change of venue on the ground that it interferes with free contract or takes away property without "due process of law," and many laws have been set aside as unconstitutional on these grounds,^ future generations will regard this judicial psychology somewhat as we regard some of the cases cited above, ch. xxi. Other courts have not always taken this view, and have permitted persuasion unless it is employed in such a manner or under such circumstances as to "operate on fears rather than upon their judgments or their sympathies" (17., N. Y. Supp., 264). For other cases. Am. and Eng, Decisions in Equity, 1905, p. 565 f.; also Eddy on Combinations. * The list appended was bulletined at the Chicago Industrial Ex- hibit of 1906, and reprinted in Charities and The Commons. "What 'Freedom of Contract' has Meant to I^abor: 1. Denial of eight-hour law for women in Illinois. 2. Denial of eight-hour law for city labor or for mechanics and ordinary laborers. 3. Denial of ten-hour law for bakers. 4. Inability to prohibit tenement labor. 5. Inability to prevent by law employer from requiring employee as condition of securing work, to assume all risk from injury while at work. 606 ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE several of them no doubt because so drawn as to appear to be in the interest of a class, rather than in that of the public. The trend in the direction of asserting larger pub- lic control both under the police power and over corpora- tions in whose service the public has a direct interest, will be noted later. Against other corporations the general public or the unsuccessful competitor has sought legal aid in legislation against "trusts," but this has mainly proved to be futile. It has merely induced a change in form of organization. Nor has it been easy as yet for the law to exercise any effective control over the business corpora- tion on any of the three principles invoked — namely: to prevent monopoly, to secure the public interest in the case of public service corporations, and to assert police power. For penalties by fine frequently fail to reach the guilty persons, and it is difficult to fix any personal responsibility. Juries are unwilling to convict subordinate officials of acts 6. Inability to prohibit employer selling goods to employees at greater profit than to non-employees. 7. Inability to prohibit mine owners screening coal which is mined by weight before crediting same to employees as basis of wages. 8. Inability to legislate against employer using coercion to pre- vent employee becoming a member of a labor union. 9. Inability to restrict employer in making deductions from wages of employees. 10. Inability to compel by law payment of wages at regular intervals. 12. Inability to provide by law that laborers on public works shall be paid prevailing rate of wages. 13. Inability to compel by law payment of extra compensation for overtime. 14. Inability to prevent by law employer from holding back part of wages. 15. Inability to compel payment of wages in cash; so that employer may pay in truck or scrip not redeemable in lawful money. 16. Inability to forbid alien labor on municipal contracts. 17. Inability to secure by law union label on city printing." Labor representatives speak of "the ironic manner in which the courts guarantee to workers: The right to be maimed and killed with- out liability to the employer; the right to be discharged for belong- ing to a union; the right to work as many hours as employers please and under any considerations which they may impose." The "irony" is, of course, not intended by the courts. It is the irony inherent in a situation when rules designed to secure justice become futile, if not a positive cause of injustice, because of changed conditions. PRODUCTION, EXCHANGE, VALUATION 507 which they beheve to have been required by the policy of the higher officials, while, on the other hand, the higher offi- cials are seldom directly cognizant of criminal acts. Grad- ually, however, we may believe that the law will find a way to make both capital and labor organizations respect the public welfare, and to give them support in their desirable ends. The cooperative principle cannot be outlawed; it must be more fully socialized. § 4. THE METHODS OF PRODUCTION, EXCHANGE, AND VALUATION The Machine. — The technique of production has shown a similar progress from individual to collective method. The earlier method was that of handicraft. The present method in most occupations, aside from agriculture, is that of the machine. But the great economic advantage of the machine is not only in the substitution of mechanical power for muscle ; it is also in the substitution of collective for individual work. It is the machine which makes pos- sible on a tremendously effective basis the division of labor and its social organization. The extraordinary increase in wealth during the past century depends upon these two factors. The machine itself moreover, in its enormous ex- pansion, is not only a social tool, but a social product. The invention and discovery which gave rise to the new proc- esses in industry of every sort were largely the outcome of scientific researches carried on at public expense to a great extent by men other than those who finally utilize their results. They become in turn the instruments for the production of wealth, which is thus doubly social in origin. This machine process has an important bearing upon the factors of character mentioned in our analysis. It standardizes efficiency; it calls for extraordinary increase of speed; it requires great specialization of function and often calls for no knowledge of the whole process. On the 508 ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE other hand, it gives a certain sense of power to control and direct highly complicated machinery. In the more skilled trades there is more time and resource for intellectual, aes- thetic, or social satisfactions. The association of work- men favors discussion of common interests, sympathy, and cooperation ; this may evoke a readiness to sacrifice indi- vidual to group welfare, which is quite analogous to patriotic sentiment at its best, even if it is liable to such violent expressions as characterize patriotic sentiment at its worst. The association of workmen is one of the most significant features of modern industry. Capital and Credit — The technique of exchange of serv- ices and goods has undergone a transformation from an individual and limited to a collective and almost unlimited method. The earlier form of exchange and barter limited the conduct of business to a small area, and the simpler form of personal service involved either slavery or some personal control which was almost as direct. With the use of money it became possible to make available a far greater area for exchange and to accumulate capital which repre- sented the past labors of vast numbers of individuals. With the further discovery of the possibilities of a credit system which business enterprise now employs, it is possible to utilize in any enterprise not merely the results of the labor of the past, but the anticipated income of the future. A corporation, as organized at present, issues obligations in the form of bonds and stock which represent no value as yet produced, but only the values of labor or privilege an- ticipated. The whole technique, therefore, of capital and credit means a collective business enterprise. It masses the work and the abilities of thousands and hundreds of thou- sands in the past and the future, and wields the product as an almost irresistible agency to achieve new enterprises or to drive from the field rival enterprises. Basis of Valuation. — The whole basis for value and prices has also been changed. The old basis, employed for PRODUCTION, EXCHANGE, VALUATION 509 the most part through the Middle Ages in fixing the value of labor or goods, was the amount of labor and material which had been expended. The modern basis is that of sup- ply and demand. This proceeds on the theory that it is hu- man wants which after all give value to any product. I may have expended time and labor upon a book or carving, or in the cultivation of a new vegetable, or in the manufacture of an article for apparel, but if no one cares to read the book or look at the carving, if the vegetable is one that no one can eat, or the garment is one that no one will wear, it has no value. Starting then from this, we can see how the two elements in valuation — namely, demand and sup- ply — are affected by social factors. The demand for an article depends upon the market: i.e., upon how many buyers there are, and what wants they have. Modern methods of communication and transportation have made the market for goods as large as the civilized world. Edu- cation is constantly awakening new wants. The facilities for communication, for travel, and for education are con- stantly leading one part of the world to imitate the stand- ards or fashions set by other parts. We have, therefore, a social standard for valuation which is constantly extend- ing in area and in intensity. The other factor in valuation, namely, the supply, is likewise being affected in an increasing degree by social forces. With many, if not with most, of the commodities which are of greatest importance, it has been found that there is less profit in an unrestricted supply than in a sup- ply regulated in the interest of the producers. The great coal mines, the iron industries, the manufacturers of cloth- ing, find it more profitable to combine and produce a limited amount. The great corporations and trusts have usually signalized their acquisition of a monopoly or an approxi- mate control of any great field of production by shutting down part of the factories formerly engaged. The supply of labor is likewise limited by the policies of labor unions 510 ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE in limiting the number of apprentices allowed, or by other means of keeping the union small. Tariffs, whether in the interest of capital or of labor, are a social control of the supply. Franchises, whether of steam railroads, street transportation, gas, electric hghting, or other public utilities so-called, are all of them in the nature of monopolies granted to a certain group of individuals. Their value is dependent upon the general need of these utilities, coupled with the public limitation of supply. In many cases the services are so indispensable to the community that the servant does not need to give special care or thought to the rendering of especially efficient service. The increase in population makes the franchises enormously profitable without any correspond- ing increase of risk or effort on the part of the utility company. But the most striking illustration of the creation of values by society is seen in the case of land. That an acre of land in one part of the country is worth fifty dollars, and in another part two hundred thousand dollars,^ is not due to any difference in the soil, nor for the most part to any labor or skill or other quality of the owner. It is due to the fact that in the one case there is no social demand, whereas, in the other, the land is in the heart of a city. In certain cases, no doubt, the owner of city real estate may help by his enterprise to build up the city, but even if so this is incidental. The absentee owner profits as much by the growth of the city as the foremost contributor to that growth. The owner need not even improve the property by a building. This enormous increase in land values has been called the "unearned increment." In America it is due very largely to features of natural location and transpor- tation. It has seemed to some writers, such as Henry * In Greater New York. An acre on Manhattan Island is of course worth much more. The Report of the New York Tax Department for 1907 is very suggestive. PRODUCTION, EXCHANGE, VALUATION 511 George, not only a conspicuous injustice, but the root of all economic evil. It is, no doubt, in many cases, a conspicuous form of "easy money," but the principle is not different from that which is involved in nearly all departments of modern industry. The wealth of modern society is really a gigantic pool. No individual knows how much he creates ; it is a social product. To estimate what any one should receive by an attempted estimate of what he has individu- ally contributed is absolutely impossible. § 5. THE FACTORS WHICH AID ETHICAL EECONSTRUCTION The two distinctive features of the modern economic sit- uation, its collective character and its impersonal charac- ter, are themselves capable of supplying valuable aid to- ward understanding the ethical problems and in making the reconstruction required. For the very magnitude of mod- ern operations and properties serves to bring out more clearly the principles involved. The impersonal character allows economic forces pure and simple to be seen in their moral bearings. Publicity becomes a necessity. Just as the factories are compelled to have better light, air, and sanitation than the sweat shops, so public attention is aroused and the conscience stimulated by practices of great corporations, although these practices may be in principle precisely the same as those of private persons which escape moral reprobation. In some cases, no doubt, the very mag- nitude of the operation does actually change the principle. A "lift" on the road from an oldtime stage-driver, or a ''special bargain" at a country store was not likely to dis- turb the balance of competition as a system of free passes or secret rebates may in modern business. But in other cases what the modern organizations have done is simply to exhibit the workings of competition or other economic forces on a larger scale. An illustration of this is seen in the familiar fact that a law passed to correct some corpo- 51^ ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE rate practice is often found to apply to many practices not contemplated by the makers of the law. The effect of getting a principle out into the open and at work on a large scale is to make public judgment clear and reprobation of bad practices more effective. The im- personal factor likewise contributes powerfully to make condemnation easy. Criticism is unhampered by the con- siderations which complicate the situation when the conduct of an individual is in question. The individual may be a good neighbor, or a good fellow, or have had bad luck. But no one hesitates to express his opinion of a corporation, and the average jury is not biased in its favor, whatever may be true of the bench. Even the plea that the cor- poration includes widows and orphans among its share- holders, which is occasionally put forth to avert interfer- ence with corporate practices, usually falls on unsympa- thetic ears. A higher standard will be demanded for busi- ness conduct, a more rigid regard for public service will be exacted, a more moderate return for invested capital in public service, and a more liberal treatment of employees will be insisted upon from corporations than from private individuals. Nor does the organization of labor escape the same law. When an agent of a union has been detected in calling a strike for private gain, public sentiment has been as severe in condemnation as in the case of corporate offi- cials who have profited at the expense of stockholders. Summary. — We may summarize some of the chief points brought out by our analysis. Modern technique has in- creased enormously the productivity of labor, but has in- creased its dangers to health and life, and to some extent diminished its educating and moralizing values. The im- personal agencies give vast power, but make responsibility difficult to locate. The collective agencies and the social contributions make the economic process a great social pool. Men put in manual labor, skill, capital. Some of it they have inherited from their kin; some they PRODUCTION, EXCHANGE, VALUATION 51S have inherited from the inventors and scientists who have devised tools and processes; some thej have wrought themselves. This pooling of effort is possible because of good government and institutions which were created by statesmen, patriots, and reformers, and are maintained by similar agencies. The pool is immensely productive. But no one can say just how much his contribution earns. Shall every one keep what he can get? Shall all share alike.'' Or shall there be other rules for division — either made and enforced by society or made by the individual and enforced by his own conscience? Are our present rules adequate to such a situation as that of the present? These are some of the difficult questions that modern conditions are pressing upon the man who thinks. LITERATURE Besides the classic treatises of Adam Smith, J. S. Mill, and Karl Marx, which are important for the relation of the economic to the whole social order during the past century, the following recent works in the general field give especial prominence to the ethical problems involved: Marshall, Principles of Economics, 1898; Hadley, Economics, 1896; Clark, Essentials of Economic Theory as Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy, 1907; George, Progress and Poverty, 1879; Schmoller, Griindriss der allgemeinen Staatswirt- schaftslehre, 1900-04; Bonar, Philosophy and Political Economy, 1893; Hobson, The Social Problem, 1901; Brooks, The Social Unrest, 1903. Ox MoDERx Business axd Industry: Veblen, The Theory of Business Enterprise, 1904; Taylor, The Modern Factory System, 1891; Hobson, Evolution of Modern Capitalism, 1894; Toynbee, The Industrial Revolution, 1890; Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, 1905; S. and B. Webb, History of Trade Unionism, 1894, Problems of Modern Industry, 1898, and Industrial Democracy, 1903; Mitchell, Organized Labor, 1903; Ely, The Labor Movement in America, 1886; Hollander and Barnett, Studies in American Trades Unionism, 1907; Henderson, Social Elements, 1898, chs. vii.-x. CHAPTER XXIII SOME PRINCIPLES IN THE ECONOMIC ORDER Certain problems suggested by the foregoing analysis are unsettled, for the issues are so involved, and in some cases, both the facts and their interpretations are so much in controversy, that we cannot yet formulate sure moral judgments. On the other hand, certain principles emerge with a good degree of clearness. We state some of the more obvious. 1. Wealth and Property are Subordinate in Impor- tance to Personality. — The hfe is more than meat. Most agree to this, stated abstractly, but many fail to make the application. They may sacrifice their own health, or human sympathy, or family life; or they may consent to this actively or passively as employers, or consumers, or citizens, in the case of others. A civilization which loses life in providing the means to live is not highly moral. A society which can afford luxuries for some can- not easily justify unhealthful conditions of production, or lack of general education. An individual who grati- fies a single appetite at the expense of vitality and effi- ciency is immoral. A society which considers wealth or property as ultimate, whether under a conception of "nat- ural rights" or otherwise, is setting the means above the end, and is therefore unmoral or immoral.'^ 2. Wealth Should Depend on Activity. — The highest aspect of life on its individual side is found in active and resolute achievement, in the embodying of purpose in ac- tion. (Thought, discovery, creation, mark a higher value than the satisfaction of wants, or the amassing of goods. \ 514 U ^^ kj'^^^'-^l/$A4jf\ PRINCIPLES IN ECONOMIC ORDER 515 If the latter is to be a help it must stimulate activity, not deaden it. (inherited wealth without any accompany- ing incitement from education or class feeling or public opinion would be a questionable institution from this point of view. Veblen in his Theory of the Leisure Class points out various forms of degeneration that may attend upon leisure, whenjeisure means not merely release from mechanical labor in the interest of more intellectual ac- tivity, but a relinquishing of all serious labor. As the race has made its ascent in the presence of an environment which has constantly selected the more active persons, so- ciety in its institutions and consciously directed processes may well plan to keep this balance between activity and reward. Modern charity has adopted this principle. We fear to pauperize by giving aid to the poor unless we can provide some form of self-help. But in its treatment of the rich, society is not solicitous. Our provisions for in- heritance of property undoubtedly pauperize a certain proportion of those who inherit. Whether this can be prevented without interfering with motives to activity on the part of those who acquire the property, or whether the rich thus pauperized are not as well worth saving to society as the poor, will undoubtedly become more pressing problems as the number of inheritors increases, and so- ciety recognizes that it may have a duty to its idle rich as well as to its idle poor. 3. Public Service Should Go Along with Wealth. — Note that we do not say, "wealth should be proportionate to public service." This would take us at once into the controversy between the individualist and the socialist which we shall consider later among the unsettled prob- lems. 'The individualist, as represented, for example, by Herbert Spencer, would say that except for the young, the aged, or the sick, reward should be proportioned to merit. The socialist, on the other hand, is more inclined to say, "From each according to his ability, to each ac- i 516 PRINCIPLES IN ECONOMIC ORDER . ^ cording to his needs." In either case, it is assumed that « there should be pubhc service. Leaving for later consid- p 4 eration the question whether we can fix any quantitative ^ -^ rule, let us notice at this time why some service is a funda- ^. mental moral principle. 1 JV Such service in the form of some economically useful contribution, whether to the production and distribution of goods, to the public order, to education, to the satis- faction of aesthetic and religious wants, might be de- manded as a matter of common honesty. This would be to treat it as a just claim made by society upon each of its members. There is, of course, no legal claim. The law is far from adopting as a universal maxim, "If any man will not work, neither let him eat." Vagrancy is not a term applied to all idlers. It is sufficient for the law if some of a man's ancestors obtained possession and title by service, or force, or gift. Modern law, in its zeal to strengthen the institution of property, releases all the iW 'Owner's posterity forever from the necessity of any use- • ^^ ful service! The old theology used to carry the concep- ^^^\\ tion of inherited or imputed sin and merit to extremes ^ which modern individualism rejects. But the law — at least in the United States — permits a perpetual descent of inherited property; i.e., of inherited permission to re- ceive from society without rendering any personal return. Theologically and morally, however, the man of to-day repudiates any conception which would reduce him to a shadow of another. He wishes to stand on his own feet, to be rewarded or blamed according to his own acts, not because of a deed of some one else. To follow out this principle in the economic sphere would require that every man who receives aught from others should feel in duty bound to render some service. Merely "to have been born" is hardly sufficient in a democratic society, however munificent a contribution to the social weal the French aristocrat may have felt this to be. PRINCIPLES IN ECONOMIC ORDER 517 But it is only one aspect of the case to say that society may claim service as a just due. There is another as- pect — what this service means to the person himself. It is his opportunity to fulfill his function in the social or- ganism. Now a person is as large as his purpose and will. The person, therefore, who identifies his purposes with the welfare of the public is thereby identifying him- self with the whole social body. He is no longer himself alone ; he is a social power, i Not only the leader of society, but every efficient servant makes himself an organ through which society itself acts and moves forward. This is per- haps most conspicuous in the case of the great inventors or organizers of industry and society. By serving civili- z_ation they have become its bearers and have thus shared its highest pulses. But it is true of every laborer. As he is an active contributor he becomes creative, not merely receptive. " 4. The Change from Individual to Collective Methods, of Industry and Business Demands a Change from Indi- vidual to Collective Types of Morality .^Moral action is either to accomplish some positive good or to hinder some wrong or evil. But under present conditions the individual by himself is practically helpless and useless for either purpose. It was formerly possible for a man to set a high standard and live up to it, irrespective of the practice or cooperation of others. When a seller's market was limited to his acquaintance or a limited ter- ritory, it might well be that honesty or even fair dealing was the best policy. But with the changes that have come in business conditions the worse practices, like a baser coinage, tend to drive out the morally better. This may not apply so thoroughly to the relations between seller and buyer, but it applies to many aspects of trade. A merchant may desire to pay his women clerks wages on which they can support life without selling their souls. But if his rival across the street pays only half the wage 518 PRINCIPLES IN ECONOMIC ORDER I necessary for subsistence, it is evident the former is in l^o far at a disadvantage. Extend the same policy. Let the former have his goods made under good conditions and the latter have no scruple against "sweating" ; let the former pay taxes on an honest estimate and the latter "see" the assessor, or threaten to move out of town if he is assessed for more than a figure named by himself; let the former ask only for a fair chance, while the latter \ secures legislation that favors his own interests, or gets I specifications for bids worded so that they will exclude / his opponents, or in selling to public bodies "fixes" the 1 councils or school committees, or obtains illegal favors in transportation. Let this continue, and how long will the former stay in the field.'' Even as regards quality * of goods, where it would seem more plausible that honest dealing might succeed, experience has shown that this ' depends on whether the frauds can be easily detected. ^v In the case of drugs and goods where the adulterations ^^ cannot be readily discovered, there is nothing to offset the more economical procedure of the fraudulent dealer. The _fact that it is so difficult to procure pure drugs and pure food would seem to be most plausibly due to the fatal competition of the adulterated article. Or, suppose a person has a little property invested in some one of the various corporations which off^er the most convenient method for placing small sums as well as large. This railroad defies the government by owning coal mines as well as transporting the product; that public service corporation has obtained its franchise by bribery ; this corporation is an employer of child labor ; that finds it less expensive to pay a few damage suits — those it cannot fight successfully — than to adopt de- vices which will protect employees. Does a man, or even an institution, act morally if he invests in such corpora- tions in which he finds himself helpless as an individual stockholder? And if he sells his stock at the market ^^m PRINC price to invest PRINCIPLES IN ECONOMIC ORDER 519 Ice to invest the money elsewhere, is it not still the price of fraud or blood? If, finally, he buys insurance for his family's support, recent investigation has shown that he may have been contributing unawares to bribery of legis- latures, and to the support of political theories to which he may be morally opposed. The individual cannot be moral in independence. The modern business collectivism forces a collective morality. Just as the individual can- not resist the combination, so individual morality must give place to a more robust or social type. 5. To Meet the Change to Corporate Agency and Ownership, Ways Must be Found to Restore Personal Control and Responsibility.— Freedom and responsibility must go hand in hand. The "moral liability limited' theory cannot be accepted in the simple form in which it now obtains. If society holds stockholders responsible, they will soon cease to elect managers merely on an eco- nomic basis and will demand morality. ; If directors are held personally responsible for their "legal department," or union officials for their committees, directors and offi- cials will find means to know what their subordinates are doing. "Crime is always personal," and it is not usual for subordinates to commit crimes for the corporation against the explicit wishes of the higher officials. In cer- tain lines the parties concerned have voluntarily sought to restore a more personal relation.^ It has been found profitable to engage foremen who can get on smoothly with workmen. It has proved to be good economy to treat men, whether they sell labor or buy it, with respect and fairness. The managers of some of the great public service cor- porations have also recently shown a disposition to recog- nize some public obligations, with the naive admission that this has been neglected. Labor unions are coming to see ^ Hayes Robbins in the Atlantic Monthly for June, 1907, "The Personal Factor in the Labor Problem." 520 PRINCIPLES IN ECONOMIC ORDER the need of conciliating public opinion if they are to gain their contests. 6. To Meet the Impersonal Agencies Society Must Require Greater Publicity and Express Its Moral Stand- ards More Fully in Law. — PubHcitj is not a cure for bad practices, but it is a powerful deterrent agency so long as the offenders care for public opinion and not solely for the approval of their own class. ^ Professor JRpss ^ maintains that in the United States classes are still so loosely formed that general approval is desired by the leaders. '"-^^Hence he urges that it is possible to enforce moral standards by the "grilling of sinners." But to make this "grilling" a moral process society needs much more accurate information and a more impartial basis for selecting its sinners than present agencies afford. The public press is itself in many respects one of the most conspicuous examples of the purely economic motive. The newspaper or magazine must interest readers and not displease advertisers. The news is selected, or colored, or worked up to suit particular classes. If a speaker says what the reporter does not regard as inter- esting he is likely to find himself reported as saying something more striking. Publicity bureaus are able to point with pride to the amount of matter, favorable to certain interests, which they place before the public as news. The particular interests singled out for "exposure " are likely to be determined more by the anticipated effects on circulation or advertising than by the merits of the case. It is scarcely more satisfactory to leave all the education of public opinion to commercial control than to leave all elementary education to private interests. Publicity — scientific investigation and public discussion — is indeed indispensable, and its greatest value is proba- bly not in the exhilarating discharge of righteous indig- nation, but in the positive elevation of standards, by giv- ^ Sin and Society. ^" PRINCIPLES IN ECONOMIC ORDER 521 ing completer knowledge and showing the fruits of certain practices. A large proportion of the public will wish to do the right thing if they can see it clearly, and can have •ublic support, so that right action will not mean suicide. But Jhe logical way to meet the impersonal character^ j)f modern economic agencies is by the moral conscious- ^less embodied in an impersonal agency, the law. The law is not to be regarded chiefly as an agency for pun- ishing criminals. It, in the first place, defines a standard ; and, in the next place, it helps the morally disposed to maintain this standard hy freeing him from unscrupulous j^ompetition. It is a general principle that to resort ta... ^the law is an ethical gain only when the getting something done is more important than to get it done from the right motive. This evidently applies to acts of corporate bodies. We do not care for their motives. We are not concerned to save their souls. We are concerned only; for resyltg — rjust the place where we have seen that the personal responsibility breaks down. The value of good motives and moral purpose is in this case located in those ^who str ive to secure and execute progressive legislation for the public good, and in the personal spirit with which this is accepted and carried out by officials.^ -^ \ 7. Every Member of Society Should Share in Its Wealth and in the Values Made Possible by It — The quantitative basis of division and the method for giving each a share belong to the unsettled problems. But the worth and dignity of every human being of moral capac- ity is fundamental in nearly every moral system of modern times. It is implicit in the Christian doctrine of the worth of the soul, in the Kantian doctrine of personality, in the Benthamic dictum, "every man to count as one." It is imbedded in our democratic theory and institutions. ] With the leveling and equalizing of physical and mental j)ower brought about by modern inventions and the spread / * See Florence Kelley, Some Ethical Gains through Legislation. ^ r ^7^0^ I 522 PRINCIPLES IN ECONOMIC ORDER of intelligence, no State is permanently safe except on a foundation of justice.v And justice cannot be funda- mentally in contradiction with the essence of democracy. This means that wealth must be produced, distributed, and owned justly: that is, so as to promote the indi- viduality of every member of society, while at the same time he must always function as a member, not as an individual. In defining justice some will place freedom first; others, a standard of living. Some will seek fair- ness by distributing to each an actual share of the goods ; others, by giving to each a fair chance to get his share of goods. Others again have held that if no moral purpose is proposed and each seeks to get what he can for himself, the result will be a just distribution be- cause of the beneficent effects of competition. Still others have considered that if the economic process has once been established on the basis of contracts rather than status or slavery, justice may be regarded as the maintenance of these contracts, whatever the effect in actual benefits. These views will be considered under the next topic as unsettled problems. LITERATURE In addition to the works cited at the close of the last chapter, Giddings, The Costs of Progress, in Democracy and Empire, 1901; Bosanquet (Mrs. B.), The Standard of Life, 1898; Bosanquet, B., Aspects of the Social Problem, 1895; Stephen, Social Bights and Duties, 1896; Tufts, Some Contributions of Psychology toward the Conception of Justice^ Philosophical Review, xv., 1906, pp. 361-79; Woods, Democracy, a New Unfolding of Human Power, in Studies in Philosophy and Psychology (Garman Commemorative Volume), 1906. CHAPTER XXIV UNSETTLED PROBLEMS IN THE ECONOMIC ORDER Under this head we propose to consider one general and three special problems on which society is at present at work, framing new moral standards to meet new con- ditions. Many of the questions involved in the new order marshal themselves under a single antithesis. Will the moral values of wealth be most fully secured and justly distributed by leaving to individuals the greatest possible freedom and holding them morally responsible, or by social agency and control? The first theory is known as indi- 'vidualism. The most convenient term for the second position would be socialism. Socialism, however, is, for many, an epithet rather than a scientific conception. It is supposed to mean necessarily the abolition of all private enterprise or private property. In its extreme form it might mean this, as individualism in its extreme form would mean anarchy. But as a prac- tical ethical proposition we have before us neither the abolition of public agency and control — extreme indi- vidualism — nor the abolition of private agency and con- trol. We have the problem of getting the proper amount of each in order that the highest morality may prevail. Each theory professes to desire the fullest development and freedom of the individual. The individualist seeks it through formal freedom and would limit public agency to a minimum. The socialist is willing to permit limita- tions on formal freedom in order to secure the "real" freedom which he regards as more important and sub- 523 524 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS stantial. Between the extremes, and borrowing from each, is a somewhat indefinite programme known as the demand for equal opportunity. Let us consider each in a brief statement and then in a more thorough analysis. § 1. GENERAIi STATEMENT OF THE POSITIONS OF INDIVID- UALISM AND OF PUBLIC AGENCY AND CONTROL I. Individualism. — Individualism ^ believes that each man can secure his own welfare better than any one else can secure it for him. It further holds that society is made up of individuals, and hence, if each is provided for, the welfare of the whole" is secured. Such goods as are social can be secured by voluntary association. Believing that the course of civilization has been "from status to contract," it makes free contract its central principle. It should be the chief business of organized society to maintain and safeguard this freedom. It locates the important feature of freedom precisely in the act of assent, rather than in any consideration of whether the after consequences of the assent are good or bad ; nor does it ask what motives (force and fraud aside) brought about the assent, or whether there was any other alternative. In other words, it regards formal freedom as fundamental. If not in itself all that can be desired, it is the first step, and the only one which law need recognize. The individual may be trusted to take other steps, if protected in this. The only restriction upon individual freedom should be that it must not interfere with the equal freedom of others. In the economic sphere this restriction would mean, "must not interfere by force." The theory does not regard eco- nomic pressure by competition as interference. Hence it favors free competition. Leaving out of account be- nevolence, it holds that in business each should be allowed, * See above, pp. 428 f., 471-6, 483. INDIVIDUALISM AND PUBLIC AGENCY 5%5 or even recommended, to seek his own advantage. But when the question as to the justice of the distribution reached by this method is raised, a division appears be- tween the democratic individuaHsts and the ^'survival of the fittest*' individuahsts. The democratic individuaHsts — Adam Smith, Bentham, Mill ^ — ^believed that individ- ualism would promote the welfare of all members of society. The "survival of the fittest" school maintains that the welfare of the race or of civilization depends on the sifting and selecting process known as the "struggle for existence." If the "fittest" are thus selected and sur- vive, it matters not so much what is the lot of the rest. We must choose between progress through aristocratic selection and degeneration through democratic leveling. 2. Theory of Public Agency and Control. — SociaHsm (using the word in a broad sense) holds that society should secure to all its members the goods of life. It holds that an unrestrained liberty of struggle for existence may secure the survival of the strongest, but not necessarily of the morally best. The individualist's theory emphasizes formal freedom. "Seek first freedom and all other things will be added." The socialist view emphasizes the con- tent. It would have all members of society share in edu- cation, wealth, and all the goods of life. In this it agrees with democratic individualism. But it considers this im- possible on the basis of individual effort. To hold that society as a whole can do nothing for the individual either ignores social goods or supposes the social will, so power- ful for democracy in the political sphere, to be helpless and futile in the economic world. To assume that all the control of economic distribution — the great field of justice — may be left to individual freedom and agency, is as archaic as to leave the collection of taxes, the ad- ministration of provinces, and the education of citizens to * In his later years Mill had much more confidence in the value of social agency. 526 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS private enterprise. It regards the unregulated struggle for existence as economically wasteful and morally vicious, both in its inequality of distribution and in the motives of egoism on which it relies. Individuahsm, on the other hand, so far as it is intelligent and does not lump socialism with anarchy and all other criticisms on the established order, regards socialism as ignoring the supreme im- portance of active personal effort, and the value of free- dom as the keynote to progress. 3. Equal Opportunity. — ^An intermediate view has for its maxim, "equal opportunity." It holds with individual- ism that the active personality is to be stimulated and made a prime end. But because it believes that not merely a few but all persons should be treated as ends, it finds individualism condemned. For it holds that an unregu- lated struggle for existence does not secure the end indi- vidualism professes to seek. When individuals start in the race handicapped by differences in birth, education, family, business, friends, and inherited wealth, there is no selection of ability; there is selection of the privileged. Hence it would borrow so much from socialism as to give each individual a "fair start." This would include public schools, and an undefined amount of provision for sani- tation, and for governmental regulation of the stronger. It is manifest, however, that this theory of the "square deal" is a name for a general aim rather than for a definite programme. For a "square deal," or equality of opportunity, might be interpreted to call for a great variety of concrete schemes, ranging all the way from an elementary education up to public ownership of all the tools for production, and to abolition of the right to bequeath or inherit property. The peoples of America, Europe, and Australasia are at present working out policies which com- bine in various degrees the individualistic and the socialis- tic views. Most have public schools. Some have provi- sion for old age and accident through either mutual or INDIVIDUALISM ANALYZED 527 State systems of insurance and pensions. Let us analyze the moral aspects of the two opposing theories more thoroughly. It is obvious that the third view is only one of a number of mediating positions. § 2, INDIVIDUALISM OR FREE CONTRACT ANALYZED : ITS VALUES Efficiency in Production. — Individuahsm can make out a strong case in respect to several of the ethical qualities which are demanded : viz., efficiency in production of goods, stimulation of active and forceful character, promotion of freedom and responsibility, encouragement to wide diversification of occupation and thus of services, and, finally, the supply to society of the kinds of goods which society wants. It would be absurd to credit the enormous increase in production of wealth during the past century to individualism alone, ignoring the contributions of science and education which have been mainly made under social auspices. It would be as absurd to credit all the gains of the century in civilization and freedom to indi- vidualism as it would be to charge all the wretchedness and iniquity of the century to this same policy. But, setting aside extravagant claims, it can scarcely be doubted that Adam Smith's contentions for greater individual freedom have been justified as regards the tests named. Granting that the great increase in amount and variety of production, and in means of communication and distri- bution, has been primarily due to two agencies, the ma- chine and association, it remains true that individualism has permitted and favored association and has stimulated invention. Initiative and Responsibility. — Moreover, the general policy of turning over to individuals the power and re- sponsibility to regulate their own acts, is in accord with one great feature of moral development. The evolution 528 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS of moral personality, as traced in our early chapters^ shows the individual at first living as a member of a kin- ship group which determines his economic as well as his religious and social life, and permits him neither to strike out independently, nor, on the other hand, to suffer want so long as the group has supplies. Individual initiative and responsibility have steadily increased, and the eco- nomic development has undoubtedly strengthened the development of religious, political, and moral freedom. It is the combination of these which gives the person of to-day the worth and dignity belonging to autonomy, self-government, and democracy. Regulation of Production. — Further, it may be said that supply and demand, individualism's method of regu- lating prices and the kinds of goods produced, not only accords with a principle of freedom, but also gets those goods made which society most needs or wants. If goods of a certain kind are scarce, the high price stimu- lates production. While it permits crises, panics, and hardship, it at least throws the burden of avoiding hard- ship upon the foresight of a great many: namely, all producers, rather than upon a few persons who might be designated for the purpose. In thus providing a method to find out what society wants and how much, it is per- forming a social service, and, as we have pointed out, it is none the less a service because the goods are to be paid for; it is all the more so because they can be paid for. So far, then, individualism has a strong case. § 3. CEITICISMS UPON INDIVIDUALISM There is undoubtedly great waste in some of its meth- ods, e.g., its advertising and its competitions, but the most serious objections to individualism are not to be found here ; they arise in connection with the other ethical criteria of economic morality. They fall chiefly under CRITICISMS UPON INDIVIDUALISM 529 two heads. (1) Does individualism provide for real as well as formal freedom? (2) Does it distribute the bene- fits widely or to the few? Does it distribute them justly or unjustly? It Does Not Secure Real Freedom — The distinction between real and formal ^ freedom has been forced into prominence by several causes. The division of labor trains a man for a specific kind of work. If there is no opening in this he is unable to find work. The continual invention of improved machinery is constantly displacing particular sets of workers and rendering their special training worthless. A business panic causes immediate discharge of thousands of laborers. A "trust" closes several of its shops, and workmen who have purchased homes must lose their jobs or their investments, or per- haps both. The employer is no less limited in his con- duct by the methods of competing firms; but it is the wage-workers who have felt this lack of real freedom most keenly. Theoretically, no one is forced to labor. Every one is free to choose whether he will work, and what work he will do. But in effect, freedom of choice depends for its value upon what the alternative is. If the choice is, do this or — starve — the freedom is not worth much. Formal freedom excludes constraint by the direct control or will of others. It excludes violence or fear of violence. But subjection to the stress or fear of want, or to the limits imposed by ignorance, is just as fatal to freedom. Hunger is as coercive as violence ; ignorance fet- ters as hopelessly as force. Whether a man has any choice of occupation, employment, residence, or wage, depends on his physical strength, education, family ties, and accu- mulated resources, and on the pressure of present need. To speak of free contract where there is gross inequality between the parties, is to use a mere form of words. Free » See above, p. 437 f. 530 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS contract in this case means simply the right of the stronger to exploit the weaker. Individualism and Justice. — Individualists, as stated, belong to two very different schools, which we may call the democratic and aristocratic, or perhaps more cor- rectly, if we may coin a word, "oligocratic." Democratic individualism would have every man count as one. It would distribute benefits widely. It holds that since so- ciety is made up of individuals all social goods will be secured if each individual seeks and finds his own. Aris- tocratic individualism ^ has been reenforced by the Dar- winian theory of the struggle for existence as a condi- tion for "survival of the fittest," by race prejudice, and by imperialism. It holds that civilization is for the few "best," not necessarily for the many. Progress lies through the selection of the few efficient, masterful, ag- gressive individuals, races, or nations. Individualism is a policy which favors these few. It is Nature's method of dealing. It is of course regrettable that there should be weak, backward, ineffective individuals or races, but their exploitation serves the advance of the rest, and benevolence or charity may mitigate the most painful results. The older economists of democratic individualism could properly claim two respects in which economic justice was furthered by economic processes under free management and exchange. The social body is in truth made up of members, and the old policy had been to tie up the mem- bers to make the body grow. It did promote justice to remove needless and excessive restrictions. In the sec- ond place, it is true, as the economists insisted, that in a free exchange each party profits if he gets what he wants. There is mutual benefit, and so far as this goes there is an element of justice. But while the benefit may be mutual, the amount of advantage each gets is not * See above, pp. 368 ff. CRITICISMS UPON INDIVIDUALISM 531 necessarily the same, and if the party who has greater shrewdness or resources takes advantage of a great need on the part of the other, the result may be a very unequal division. Exchanges of a birthright for a mess of pot- tage will be common. Very well, says the individualist, Esau will know better next time — or if he doesn't, he is an object for charity. But the trouble is that even if Esau does "know better" he is in even poorer condition next time to make a bargain if his birthright is gone; besides, if starvation or misery for himself or his family is his only alternative, what good will it do him to "know better".? Can the result, then, be just or fair.? This depends on how we define "just" and "fair." If we take a purely formal view and make formal freedom of con- tract the only criterion, then any price is fair which both parties agree to. The law for the most part takes this view, assuming absence of force or fraud. But this leaves out of account everything except the bare formal act of assent. It is too abstract a conception of personality on which to base a definition of justice. To get the true organic relation of mutual service and benefit by a system of individualism we must have the two parties to the bar- gain equal. But in a large part of the exchange of busi- ness and services the two parties are not equal. One has greater shrewdness, better education, more knowledge of the market, more accumulated resources, and, therefore, less pressing need than the other. The moral conscious- ness will call prices or contracts unfair where the stronger takes advantage of the weaker's necessities, even if the law does not. Competition. — The fact of competition is depended upon by the individualist to obviate the disadvantages of the weaker party. If A is ignorant of the market, B may impose upon him ; but if C and D are competing with B for A's goods or services, A will soon find out what they are "worth." That is, he will get for them a social 632 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS and not a purely individual valuation. There is doubt- less such a gain to A. But in considering competition as removing the objections to the unfairness possible in bar- gaining, we must bear in mind two things. First, com- petition cuts both ways. It helps A when several com- pete for his goods or labor ; but, on the other hand, it may ruin one of the competitors. If A is a laborer, it is a good thing if X, Y, and Z, employers, compete for his services. But if the boot is on the other foot, if B, C, and D also are laborers and compete with A for a place, we have the conditions which may lead to the sweat-shop. Whether there is any better way to avoid unequal distri- bution will be considered later. The second and seem- ingly fatal objection to competition as a means to justice, is that free competition under an individualistic system tends to destroy itself. For the enormous powers which the new forms of economic agency and technique give to the individual who can wield them, enable him to crush competitors. The process has been repeated over and over within the past few years in various fields. The only way in which a semblance of competition has been maintained in railroad business has been by appeal to the courts. This is an appeal to maintain individualism by checking individualism, and as might be expected from such a contradictory procedure, has accomplished little. Nor can it be maintained that the evils may be obviated, as Spencer holds, by private restraints on excessive com- petition. As already pointed out, if one of a body of competitors is unscrupulous, the rest are necessarily at a disadvantage. Under present conditions individualism can- not guarantee, and in many cases cannot permit, just dis- tribution and a true organic society. The other school of individualists is not disturbed by inequality of goods. It frankly accedes to the logic of unrestrained competition. It stakes its case upon the importance for social welfare of the exceptionally gifted CRITICISMS UPON INDIVIDUALISM 533 few. It is important to have their services. It can have them only on terms which they set, as they will not work unless there is sufficient motive. It is, on this view, per- fectly just that all the enormous increase of wealth due to modern methods should go to the few leaders, for their ability has produced it all. "The able minority of men who direct the labor of the majority are the true pro- ducers of that amount of wealth by which the annual total output, in any given community, exceeds what would have been produced by the laborers if left to their own devices, whether working as isolated units or in small self -organized groups, and controlled by no knowledge or faculties but such as are possessed in common by any one who can handle a spade or lay one brick upon another." ^ Either from the standpoint of natural rights or from that of utilitarianism it is proper, according to this school, that all the increasing wealth of society, now and in all future time, should go to the few. For, on the one view, it belongs to the few since they have produced it; and, on the other, it must be given them if society is to have their services. It is possible they may not claim it all for their exclusive possession. They may be pleased to distribute some of it in gifts. But this is for them to say. The logical method for carrying out this pro- gramme would require an absolute abandonment by the people as a whole, or by their representatives, or the courts, of any attempt to control economic conditions. The courts would be limited to enforcing contracts and would cease to recognize considerations of public interest except in so far as these were accepted by the able minority. All such legislation as imposes any check upon the free- dom of the individual is mischievous. Under this head would presumably come regulation of child labor, of hours, of sanitary conditions, of charges by railroads, *W. H. Mallock, Socialism, 634 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS gas companies, and other public service corporations. Graded income or inheritance taxes are also to be con- demned from this standpoint. It should in fairness be added that while its upholders do not allege as their main argument that individualism is for the interest of the many, they hold, nevertheless, that the many are really better off under individualism than under socialism. For since all the increase in wealth is due to the able few whom individualism produces, and since some of this increase, in cases where the few compete for the custom or labor of the many, may fall to the share of the many or else be given them outright by the more generous, it appears that the only hope for the many lies through the few. The general naturalistic theory has been discussed in Chapter XVIII. Here it is only necessary to point out that it is a misreading of evolution to suppose unregu- lated competition to be its highest category of prog- ress, and that it is a misinterpretation of ethics to assume that might is right. With the dawn of higher forms of life, cooperation and sympathy prove stronger forces for progress than ruthless competition. The "struggle" for any existence that has a claim to moral recognition must be a struggle for more than physical existence or survival of force. It must be a struggle for a moral existence, an existence of rational and social beings on terms of mutual sympathy and service as well as of full individuality. Any claim for an economic process, if it is to be a moral claim, must make its appeal on moral grounds and to moral beings. If it recognizes only a few as having worth, then it can appeal only to these. These few have no moral right to complain if the many, whom they do not recognize, refuse to recognize them. Summary of the Ethics of Individualism. — Individual- ism provides well for production of quantity and kinds required of goods and services ; for activity and formal freedom. Under present conditions of organization and CRITICISMS UPON INDIVIDUALISM 535 modern methods it cannot be made to serve a democratic conception of justice, but inevitably passes over into a struggle for preeminence, in which the strong and less scrupulous will have the advantage. It can be treated as just only if justice is defined as what is according to contract (formal freedom) ; or if the welfare of cer- tain classes or individual members of society is regarded as of subordinate importance; or, finally, if it is held that this welfare is to be obtained only incidentally, as gift, not directly through social action. The criticism on individualism is then that under a collective system like that of the present, it does scant justice to most indi- viduals. It leaves the many out from all active partici- pation in progress or morality.^ LITERATURE Individualism and Socialism are discussed in the works of Hadley, Veblen, Hobson, Spencer, Marx, George, already cited; cf. also Menger, The Bight to the Whole Produce of Labor, 1899 ; Ely, Social- ism and Social Reform, 1894- ; Bosanquet, Individualism and Socialism, in The Civilization of Christendom, 1893; Fite, The Theory of Democ- racy, International Journal of Ethics, xxviii. (1907), pp. 1-18; Hux- ley, Administrative Nihilism, in Essays; Godwin's Political Justice, 1793, raised many of the fundamental questions. Recent representa- tive Individualistic works are: Spencer, Social Statics, The Man versus the State, various essays in Vol. III. of Essays; Sumner, What Social Classes Oice to Each Other, 1883; Donisthorpe, Indi- vidualism, 1889; Harris, Inequality and Progress, 1897; Mallock, Socialism, 1907. On Socialism: Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw, London, 1890, New York, 1891; Spargo, Socialism, 1906; Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Eng. tr.; Reeve, The Cost of Competition, 1906; Rae, Contemporary Socialism, 1891; Hunter, Socialists at T^orA;, 1908; Wells, New Worlds for Old, 1907. * Above, p. 472. CHAPTER XXV UNSETTLED PROBLEMS IN THE ECONOMIC ORDER (Continued) § 4. THE THEOKY OF PUBLIC AGENCY AND CONTROL The various theories of public direction, including socialism in the technical sense, are primarily interested in the just distribution of goods. It is not so much "How many goods can be produced?" as "Who is to get them?" Individualism was chiefly concerned in increasing public wealth, assuming (in the case of the democratic individ- ualists) that all would get the benefit. Socialism is more concerned that the producing persons shall not be sacri- ficed, and that each member shall benefit by the result. Public agency and control might assert itself (1) as a method of production, (2) as a method of distribution of goods and returns, (3) as a method of property. It is important to note at the outset that all civilized peoples have some degree of social direction in each of these fields. (1) Practically all peoples collect taxes, coin money, carry mails, protect life and property, and supply such elementary demands as those for water and drainage, through State or municipal agency instead of leaving it to private initiative. And in every one of the instances the word was formerly done privately. (2) Under distribu- tion, all progressive peoples give education through the State. Further, the benefits of the mail service are dis- tributed not in proportion to receipts, but on other princi- ples based on social welfare. (3) As a method of prop- erty-holding, all civilized peoples hold certain goods for SOCIETY AS AGENCY OF PRODUCTION 537 common use, and in the United States, after a period in which it has been the poHcy to distribute for httle or no compensation public lands, public franchises, and public goods of all kinds, the public policy is now not only to retain large tracts for forest reserve, but to construct irrigation plants, and to provide public parks, play- grounds, and other forms of property to be used for common advantage. Just as the individualist does not necessarily carry his doctrine to the extreme of dispensing with all social agency, at least in the matters of public protection and public health, so the socialist does not necessarily wish to abolish private property or private enterprise. We have, then, to consider briefly the ethical aspects of public agency for production, public control over distribution, public holding of wealth. § 5. SOCIETY AS AGENCY OF PRODUCTION The advantage claimed for society as an agent of production is not primarily greater efficiency, although it is claimed that the present method is enormously wasteful except where there already is private monopoly. Nor is it in the social service rendered by providing great variety of goods, and of the kinds most wanted. It is rather (1) that in the case of public service enterprises, such as transportation or lighting, fairness to the various shippers, localities, and other users can be secured only through public control or operation. These services are as indispensable to modern life as air or navigation. Only by public agency can discrimination be avoided. (2) That the prizes to be gained are here so enormous that bribery and corruption are inevitable under private man- agement. (3) That the profits arising from the growth of the community belong to the community, and can only be secured if the community owns and operates such agencies of public service as transportation, communi- 538 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS cation, and in cities water supply and lighting. (4) That the method of individualistic production is reckless of child life and in general of the health of workmen. Great Britain is already fearing a deterioration in physical stature and capacity. (5) The motive of self- interest, relied upon and fostered by individualism, is anti- social. How can morality be expected to improve when the fundamental agency and method of business and in- dustry is contradictory to morality? (6) More complete socialism maintains that, under modern capitalism, a dis- proportionate share is sure to fall to the capitalist, and, more than this, to the great capitalist. Modern produc- tion is complex and expensive. It requires an enormous plant; the capitalist, not the workman, has the tools, and can therefore charge what he pleases. The small capitalist cannot undertake competition with the great capitalist, for the latter can undersell him until he drives him from business, and can then recoup himself by greater gains. Hence the only way to secure fair distribution is through social ownership of the tools and materials for production. Private Interests and Public Welfare. — Touching these points it may be said that the public conscience is rapidly coming to a decision upon the first five. ( 1 ) The public has been exploited, the officials of government have been bribed, and individual members of society dis- criminated against. The process of competition always involves V(E victiSy but the particular factor which makes this not only hard but unjust, is that in all these cases we have a quasi-public agency (monopoly, franchise. State-aided corporation) used to give private advantage. This must be remedied either by public ownership or public control, unless the ethics of the struggle for ex- istence is accepted. The corruption which has prevailed under (2) must be met either by public ownership or con- trol, or bj SQ reducing th^ Ysiine of such franchises as SOCIETY AS AGENCY OF PRODUCTION 539 to leave "nothing in it" for the "grafter" and his co- operators. Vice — gambhng, excessive use of drugs and liquors, prostitution — is no doubt injurious to its vic- tims, and when leagued with public officials and yielding enormous corruption funds to debauch politics, it is a public evil as well. But its victims are limited, and its appearance not attractive to the great majority. The exploitation and corruption practiced by the more gen- erally successful and "respectable" members of society, is far more insidious and wide-reaching. It demoralizes not individuals only, but the standards of society. As to (3) there is no doubt as to the rights of the matter. Gains due to social growth should be socially shared, not appropriated by a few. The only question is as to the best method of securing these gains. European States and cities have gone much farther than the United States along the line of public agency, and, while there is still dispute as to the balance of advantage in certain cases, there is a growing sentiment that the more intelligent and upright the community, the more it can wisely un- dertake. The moral principle is that the public must have its due. Whether it pays certain agents a salary as its own officials, or a commission in the form of a mod- erate dividend, is not so important.^ But to pay a man or a small group of promoters a million dollars to supply water or lighting or transportation, seems no more moral than to pay such a salary to a mayor or counsel or super- intendent of schools. Taxpayers would probably de- nounce such salaries as robbery. Such franchises as have for the most part been given in American cities have been licenses to collect high taxes from the citizens for the benefit of a few, and do not differ in principle from pay- ing excessive salaries, except as the element of risk enters, * Boston has an ingenious method of dividing profits. The com- pany which supplies gas must lower the price of gas in proportion as it increases its rate of dividends. 540 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS What is needed at present in the United States is a larger number of experiments in various methods of agency to see which type results in least corruption, fairest dis- tribution, and best service. Conditions of Labor. — On the fourth point, the neces- sity of public control to regulate child labor, the labor of women, sanitary conditions, and the use of dangerous machinery, the public conscience is also awakening. De- cisions of the courts on the constitutionality of regulating women's labor have been somewhat at variance. But the recently announced decision ^ of the United States Su- preme Court in the "Oregon case" seems likely to be deci- sive of the principle that women may be treated as a class. Freedom of contract cannot be regarded as interfering with the right to establish reasonable precautions for women's health. Woman may be protected "from the greed as well as from the passion of man." The immo- rality of child labor under modern conditions is also be- coming clear. For the public to see child life stunted physically, mentally, and morally by premature labor under the exhausting, deadening, and often demoralizing conditions of modern industry and business, is for the public to consent to wickedness. It cannot leave this matter to the conscience of individual manufacturers and parents, for the conscientious manufacturer is at a disad- vantage, and it might with as much morality consent to a parent's starving or poisoning his child as to his injur- ing it in less violent manner. For a society pretending to be moral to permit little children to be used up or stunted under any plea of cheap production or support of parents, is not above the moral level of those peoples which prac- tice infanticide to prevent economic stress. Indeed, in the case of a country which boasts of its wealth, there is far less justification than for the savage. In the case of provision against accident due to dangerous machinery, ^ February 24, 1908. SOCIETY AS AGENCY OF PRODUCTION 541 the ethical principle is also clear. To throw all the burden of the accidents incident to modern production upon the families of the laborers is entirely unjust. To impose it upon the conscientious manufacturer is no better, for it places him at a disadvantage. This is a necessary — ex- cept so far as it can be minimized by safety devices — part of the modern machine process. It ought to be paid for either by all manufacturers, who would then shift it to the consumers in the price of the goods, or by the public as a whole in some form of insurance. European countries have gone much farther than the United States in this direction. The theory that the employer is exempt if a fellow workman contributes in any way to the acci- dent has been applied in the United States in such a way as to free employers, and thus the public, from any share in the burden of a large part of accidents — except as these entail poverty and bring the victim and his family into the dependent class. Moreover, it is only by public action that fair condi- tions of labor can be secured in many trades and under many employers. For the single workman has not the slightest chance to make conditions, and the union has no effective means to support its position unless it repre- sents a highly skilled trade and controls completely the supply of labor. It may go without saying that violence is wrong. But it is often ignored that for a prosperous society to leave the laborer no remedy hut violence for an intolerable condition is just as wrong. Motives. — (5) On the question of motives the collectivist theory is probably over-sanguine as to the gain to be effected by external means. It is difficult to believe that any change in methods would eliminate selfishness. There is abundant exercise of selfishness in political democracy, and even in families. Further, if it should be settled on other grounds that competition in certain cases performs a social service, it would then be possible for a man to 542 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS compete with a desire to serve the pubHc, just as truly as it would be possible to compete for selfish motives. That a process causes pain incidentally does not neces- sarily pervert the motive of the surgeon or parent. It does, of course, throw the burden of proof upon the advo- cate of the process. Rivalry need not mean enmity if the rivals are on an equal footing and play fair. Exploitation of Labor — (6) The question whether all capitalistic production first exploits the laboring class, and then tends to absorb or drive out of business the small capitalist, is not so easy of decision. It seems to be easy to make a plausible statement for each side by statistical evidence. There seems little doubt that the general stand- ard of living for laborers is rising. On the other hand, the number of enormous fortunes seems to rise much faster, and there is an appalling amount of poverty in the great cities. This is sometimes attributed to thrift- lessness or to excessively large families. A careful study of an English agricultural community, where the condi- tions seemed at least as good as the average, showed that a family could not have over two children without sinking below the line of adequate food, shelter, and clothing, to say nothing of medical attendance or other comforts. In the United States there has been such a supply of land available that the stress has not been so intense. Just what the situation will be if the country becomes thickly settled cannot be foretold. Professor J. B. Clark shows that the tendency in a static society would be to give the laborer more and more nearly his share — provided there is free competition for his services. The difficulty is that society is not static and that a laborer cannot shift at will from trade to trade and from place to place. That sometimes capital exploits labor is merely to say that the buyer sometimes gets the advantage. That capi- tal usually has the advantage in its greater resources may SOCIETY AS AGENCY OF PRODUCTION 543 be admitted, but that it invariably must seems an un- warranted deduction. The multiplication of wants widens continually the number of occupations and thus increases the competition for the service of the more skilled. In such cases some, at least, of the sellers should be in a position to make a fair bargain. Indeed, recent socialists do not advocate any such complete assumption by society of all production as is presented in some of the socialistic Utopias. Their principle is "that the State must under- take the production and distribution of social wealth wher- ever private enterprise is dangerous or less efficient than public enterprise."^ It is for those who do not believe in public control to prove that in the great enterprises for the production of the necessaries of life, for transportation, banking, min- ing, and the like, private enterprise is not dangerous. The conduct of many — not all — of these enterprises in recent years, not only in their economic aspects, but in their recklessness of human life, health, and morality, is what makes socialism a practical question. If it is adopted, it will not be for any academic or a priori rea- sons. It will be because private enterprise fails to serve the public, and its injustice becomes intolerable. If busi- ness enterprise, as sometimes threatens, seeks to subordi- nate political and social institutions, including legislatures and courts, to economic interests, the choice must be be- tween public control and public ownership. And if, whether by the inherent nature of legal doctrine and procedure, or by the superior shrewdness of capital in evading regulation, control is made to appear inef- fective, the social conscience will demand ownership. To subordinate the State to commercial interests is as im- moral as to make the economic interest supreme in the individual. As regards the relations between capital and labor, it * Spargo, Socialism, 220-27. 544 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS argues an undeveloped state of society that we have no machinery for determining controversy as to what is a fair wage. In the long run, and on the whole, supply and demand may give an approximately fair adjustment, but our present method of fighting it out in doubtful cases is barbaric. The issue is decided often by violence or the no less unmoral motive of pressing want, instead of by the moral test of what is fair. And the great third interest, the consumer, or the public at large, is not rep- resented at all. New Zealand, Canada, and some of the states in the United States have made beginnings. The President undoubtedly commanded general support in his position during the coal strike, when he maintained that the public was morally bound to take some part in the struggle. Must not society be lacking in resources if its only resource is to permit exploitation, on the one hand, or carry on all industry and business itself, upon the other.? To lose the flexibility, variety, and keenness of interest secured by individual or associated enterprise, would certainly be an evil. Early business was conducted largely by kinship organizations. The pendulum has doubtless reached the other extreme in turning over to groups, organized on a purely commercial basis, opera- tions that could be more equitably managed by city or state agency. Most favor public agency in the case of schools. Railroads, gas companies, and other monopolies' are still subject to controversy. But that an ideally organized society should permit associations and group- ing of a great many kinds as agencies for carrying on its work seems a platform not to be abandoned until proved hopeless. Collective Agency is Not Necessarily Social. — The socialist is inclined to think that if the agency of pro- duction were the government or the whole organized so- ciety this would give a genuine social agency of control. THEORIES OF JUST DISTRIBUTION 545 This by no means follows. Party government and city government in the United States have shown the fallacy of this. But even apart from the possibility of a cor- rupt boss there is still a wide gap between the collective and the socialized agency. For until the members of society have reached a sufficiently high level of intelli- gence and character to exercise voluntary control, and to cooperate wisely and efficiently, there must be some central directing agency. And such an agency will be morally external to a large number. It doesn't matter so much what name this agent is called by — i.e., whether he is "capitalist," or "government," — so long as the con- trol is external. In general, individuals are still with- out the mutual confidence and public intelligence which would enable them really to socialize the mechanically collective process. § 6. THEORIES OF JUST DISTRIBUTION Socialism as theory of distribution does not necessarily imply public operation of production. By graded taxa- tion the proceeds of production might be taken by society and either held, used, or distributed on some supposedly more equitable basis. To give point to any inquiry as to the justice of a proposed distribution, it would be de- sirable to know what is the present distribution. Unfor- tunately, no figures are accepted by all students. Spahr's Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States estimates that seven-eighths of the families in the United States own only one-eighth of the wealth, and that one per cent, own more than the remaining ninety-nine per cent. This has been challenged, but any estimate made by the economists shows such enormous disproportion as to make it incredible that the present distribution can be regarded as just on any definition of justice other than ''according to the principles of contract and competi- 546 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS tion." Suppose, then, the question is raised, How can we make a just distribution? Criteria Proposed. — The simplest, and at the same time most mechanical and abstract, method would be to divide all goods equally. This would be to ignore all moral and other differences, as indeed is practically done in the suf- frage. If all men are accounted equal in the State, why not in wealth? It may be admitted that, if society were to distribute, it would have to do it on some system which could be objectively administered. To divide wealth ac- cording to merit, or according to efforts, or according to needs, would be a far more moral method. But it is difficult to see how, in the case of material goods or their money equivalent, such a division could be made by any being not omniscient as well as absolutely just. If we are to consider distribution as administered by society, we seem reduced to the alternative of the present system or a system of equality. I. The Individualistic Theory. — It is indeed supposed by some that the individualistic or competitive system dis- tributes on a moral basis: viz., according to merit. This claim would have to meet the following criticisms : (1) "The first abstraction which this individualistic principle of reward usually makes it that it gives a man credit for all he achieves, or charges him with all his failures, without recognizing the threefold origin of these achievements or failures. Heredity, society, per- sonal choice, have each had some share in the result. But, in considering the ethics of competition upon this maxim, there is evidently no attempt to discriminate between these several sources. The man born with industrial gen- ius, presented by society with the knowledge of all that has been done in the past, and equipped by society with all the methods and tools society can devise, certainly has an advantage over the man of moderate talents and no education. To claim that the first should be justly re- THEORIES OF JUST DISTRIBUTION 547 warded for his superiority would imply that the reception of one gift constitutes a just claim for another. (2) Secondly, the theory as applied to our present sys- tem is guilty of a further abstraction in assuming that the chief, if not the only, way to deserve reward is by indi- vidualistic shrewdness and energy. (3) It measures desert by service rendered without tak- ing any account of motive or even of intent. The captain of industry performs an important service to society; therefore, it is argued, he should be rewarded accordingly, quite irrespective of the question whether he was aiming at social welfare or at selfish gain. It may even be plau- sibly argued that to reward men financially for good mo- tives would be bribing men to be honest. It is true that financial rewards will not make good citizens, but this is irrelevant. The point is that whatever other reasons, — expediency, difficulty of estimating intent and motive, — may be urged for abstracting from everything but the result, the one reason which cannot be urged is, such ab- straction is just. A person has rights only because he is a social person. But to call a man a social person be- cause he incidentally produces useful results, is to say that purpose and will are negligible elements of personality.^ 2. Equal Division. — The system of equal division is liable to the following criticism. In their economic services men are not equal. They are unequal not merely in talent and ability; not merely in the value of their work; they are unequal in their disposition. To treat idle and indus- trious, useless and useful, slow and quick alike is not equality, but inequality. It is to be guilty of as palpable an abstraction as to say that all men are equally free because they are not subject to physical constraint. Real equality will try to treat like conditions alike, and unlike character, efforts, or services differently. There is, moreover, a psychological objection which ^Philosophical Review, xiv., 370 f. 548 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS would weigh against an equal division even if such were regarded as just. The average man perhaps prefers an economic order in which there are prizes and blanks to an order in which every man draws out the same. He pre- fers an exciting game to a sure but tame return of his investment. He may call for a "square deal," but we must remember that a "square deal" in the great American game from which the metaphor is taken is not designed to make the game less one of chance. It is designed to give full scope to luck and nerve. A game in which every player was sure to win, but also sure to win just what he had put in, would be equitable, but it would not be a game. An equal distribution might rob life of its excitement and its passion. Possibly the very strain of the process de- velops some elements of character which it would be unfor- tunate to lose. Is there no alternative possible for society except an equality which is external only, and therefore unequal, or an inequality which charges a man with all the accrued benefits or evils of his ancestry .? Must we either recognize no moral differences in men, or else be more merciless than the old orthodox doctrine of hereditary or imputed guilt.? The theological doctrine merely made a man suffer for his ancestors' sins ; the doctrine of unlimited individual- ism would damn him not only for his ancestors' sins and defects, but for the injustice suffered by his ancestors at the hands of others. The analysis of the sources of a man's ability may give a clue to a third possibility, and it is along this line that the social conscience of to-day is feeling its way. 3. A Working Programme. — A man's power is due (1) to physical heredity ; (S) to social heredity, including care, education, and the stock of inventions, information, and institutions which enables him to be more efficient than the savage; and finally (3) to his own efforts. Individ- ualism may properly claim this third factor. It is just THEORIES OF JUST DISTRIBUTION 549 to treat men unequally so far as their efforts are un- equal. It is socially desirable to give as much incentive as possible to the full development of every one's powers. But the very same reason demands that in the first two respects we treat men as equally as possible. For it is for the good of the social body to get the most out of its members, and it can get the most out of them only by giving them the best start possible. In physical heredity the greater part is, as yet, wholly outside control, but there is an important factor which is in the sphere of moral action, namely, the physical condition of the parents, particularly of the mother. Con- ditions of food, labor, and housing should be such that every child may be physically well born. In the various elements included under social heredity society has a freer hand. Not a free hand, for physical and mental inca- pacity limit the amount of social accumulation which can be communicated, but we are only beginning to appreciate how much of the deficiency formerly acquiesced in as hope- less may be prevented or remedied by proper food, hygiene, and medical care. Completely equal education, likewise, cannot be given ; not in kind, for not all children have like interests and society does not want to train all for the same task; nor in quantity, for some will have neither the ability nor the disposition to do the more advanced work. But as, little by little, labor becomes in larger degree scientific, the ratio of opportunities for better trained men will increase, and as education becomes less exclusively academic, and more an active preparation for all kinds of work, the interests of larger and larger numbers of children will be awakened. Such a programme as this is one of the meanings of the phrase ''equal opportunity," which voices the demand widely felt for some larger con- ception of economic and social justice than now obtains. It would make formal freedom, formal "equality" before the law, less an empty mockery by giving to every child 650 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS some of the power and knowledge which are the necessary, conditions of real freedom. Society has already gone a long way along the line of giving an equal share in education. It is moving rapidly toward broader conceptions of education for all occupa- tions — farming, mechanics, arts, trade, business — as well as for the "learned professions." It is making a begin- ning toward giving children (see the Report of the New York Tenement House Commission) a chance to be born and grow up with at least a living minimum of light and air. Libraries and dispensaries and public health offi- cials are bringing the science and literature of the world in increasing measure into the lives of all. When by the bet- ter organization of the courts the poor man has real, and not merely formal equality before the law, and thereby justice itself is made more accessible to all, another long step will be taken toward a juster order. How far society can go is yet to be solved. But is it not at least a work- ing hypothesis for experiment, that society should try to give to all its members the gains due to the social progress of the past? How far the maxim of equal opportunity will logically lead it is impossible to say. Fortunately, the moral problem is to work out new ideals, not merely to administer old ones. Other possibilities of larger justice are noticed under § 8 below. § 7. OWNERSHIP AND USE OF PROPERTY The public wealth may be controlled and used in four ways: It may be (1) Privately owned and used; (2) Pri- vately owned and publicly used ; (3) Publicly held, but pri- vately used; (4) Publicly held and commonly used. The individualist would have all wealth, or as much as possible, under one of the first two forms. The tendency in the United States until very recently has been to divest the public of all ownership. The socialist, while favoring pri- OWNERSHIP AND USE OF PROPERTY 551 vate ownership and use of the more strictly personal ar- ticles, favors the public holding of much which is now pri- vately owned — notably the land, or the instruments of production — as versus the holding of these by private or corporate persons. Or, again, it may be maintained that while individuals should be allowed to accumulate as much property as they can, they should not be allowed to trans- mit it entirely to their heirs. Value of Private Property — The individualist may properly point to the psychological and historical signifi- cance of private property, which has been stated in a preceding chapter (p. 490). He may say that the evils there mentioned as attendant upon private property do not belong to the property in itself, but to the exag- gerated love of it. He may admit that the present empha- sis of attention upon the ownership of wealth, rather than upon intellectual or aesthetic or social interests, is not the highest type of human endeavor. But he urges that the positive values of property are such that the present pol- icy of placing no check upon property should be main- tained. In addition to the indirect social value through the power and freedom given to its owners, it may be claimed that the countless educational, charitable, and philanthropic agencies sustained by voluntary gifts from private property, are both the best method of accomplish- ing certain socially valuable work, and have an important reflex value in promoting the active social interest of those who carry them on. Nor is the force of this entirely broken by the counter claim that this would justify keep- ing half the population in poverty in order to give the other half the satisfaction of charity. No system short of absolute communism can abolish the need of friendly help. Defects and Dangers in the Present System. — ^The first question which arises is : If property is so valuable morally, bow many are profiting by it under the present system, 552 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS and how many are without its beneficent effects? Is the number of property-owners increasing or diminishing ? In one of the morally most valuable forms of property, the number of those who profit is certainly decreasing rela- tively : viz.y in the owning of homes. The building of private residences has practically ceased in New York and many other cities except for the very rich. With the increasing value of land the owning of homes is bound to become more and more rare. Only the large capitalist can put up the apartment house. In the ownership of shops and indus- tries the number of owners has relatively decreased, that of clerks has increased. The wage-workers in cities are largely propertyless. The management of industries through corporations while theoretically affording oppor- tunity for property has yet, as Judge Grosscup has pointed out forcibly, been such as to discourage the small investor, and to prompt to the consumption of wages as fast as received. The objection to individualism on this ground would then be as before, that it is not individual enough. An objection of contrary character is that the posses- sion of property releases its owner from any necessity of active effort or service to the public. It may therefore injure character on both its individual and its social side. Probably the absolute number of those who refrain from any social service because of their property is not very large, and it may be questioned whether the particular persons would be socially very valuable under any system if they are now oblivious to all the moral arguments for such activity and service. A more serious objection to the individualistic policy is the enormous power allowed to the holders of great prop- erties. It has been estimated that a trust fund recently created for two grandchildren will exceed five billion dol- lars when handed over. It is easily possible that some of the private fortunes now held may, if undisturbed, amount OWNERSHIP AND USE OF PROPERTY 553 to far more than the above within another generation. Moreover, the power of such a fortune is not hmited to its own absolute purchasing value. By the presence of its owners upon directorates of industrial, transportation, banking, and insurance corporations the resources of many other owners are controlled. A pressure may be exerted upon political affairs compared with which actual contributions to campaign funds are of slight importance. The older theory in America was that the injury to the private character of the owners of wealth would negative the possible dangers to the public, since possession of large wealth would lead to relaxation of energy, or even to dissi- pation. It was assumed that the father acquired the for- tune, the son spent it, and thus scattered it among the many, and the grandson began again at the bottom of the ladder. Now that this theory is no longer tenable, society will be obliged to ask how much power may safely be left to any individual. It must be recognized that the present management of such natural resources as forests under the regime of pri- vate property has been extremely wasteful and threatens serious injury to the United States. Individual owners cannot be expected to consider the welfare of the country at large, or of future generations ; hence the water power is impaired and the timber supply of the future threat- ened. Finally it must be remembered that many of the present evils and inequities in ownership are not due necessarily to a system of private property, but rather to special privileges possessed by classes of individuals. These may be survivals of past conquests of arms as in Europe, or derived by special legislation, or due to a perfectly uncon- scious attitude of public morals which carries over to a new situation the customs of an early day. * Mill's famous indictment of present conditions is not in all respects so applicable to America as to the older countries of Europe, 554 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS but it has too much truth to be omitted in any ethical con- sideration. "If the choice were to be made between communism with all its chances, and the present state of society with all its sufferings and injustices, if the institution of private property necessarily carried with it, as a consequence, that the produce of labor should be apportioned as we now see it, almost in an inverse ratio to the labor, — the largest portions to those who have not worked at all, the next largest to those whose work is almost nominal, and so in descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work grows harder and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing and exhausting bodily labor cannot count with certainty on being able to earn even the necessaries of life, — if this, or communism, were the al- ternative, all the difficulties, great or small, of communism would be but as dust in the balance. But to make the com- parison applicable, we must compare communism at its best with the regime of individual property, not as it is, but as it might be made. The principle of private property has never yet had a fair trial in any country." {Polit. Econ., Book II., ch. i.) § 8. PRESENT TENDENCIES Individualistic Foundations. — The general tendency up to very recent time in the United States has been de- cidedly individualistic, both in the policy concerning the method of holding property, and in the legal balance be- tween vested property rights and the social welfare. Pub- lic lands were granted on easy terms to homesteaders; mines as well as soil were practically free to the prospector ; school fund lands were in most cases sold for a song in- stead of being kept for the public. So general has been the attitude that all wealth ought to be in private hands that it has been difficult to convict men who have fraudu- lently obtained vast tracts of public land. The magni- tude of the operation has given "respectability" to the beneficiaries. The taxing power has done little to main- tain adjustment. In this^ as in many other respects, the PRESENT TENDENCIES 555 policy of the United States has been far more individual- istic than that of Great Britain. The latter has graded income and inheritance taxes. In the United States, on the other hand, the Federal taxation bears more heavily on the poor as they are the large body of consumers, — ^not, of course, in the sense that the individual poor man pays more than the individual rich man, but in the sense that a million of dollars owned by a thousand men pays more than a million owned by one man. Legally, the Constitu- tion of the United States and certain of its amendments gave private rights extraordinary protection, especially when contracts were construed to mean charters, as well as private contracts. The public welfare was conceived to reside almost solely in private rights.^ Increased Recognition of Public Welfare. — Recent pol- icy and legal decisions show a decided change. Reserves of forest lands have been established. Water-supplies, parks, and many other kinds of property have been changed from private to public ownership. The question as to mines has been raised. Graded inheritance taxes have been established in some states, and the question of graded income taxes is likely to be more generally con- sidered unless some other form of taxation based on the social values given to land, or franchises, or other forms of property seems more equitable. The Supreme Court in recent decisions "has read into the constitution two sweep- ing exceptions to the inviolability of property rights." ^ One is that of public use. "Whenever the owner of a property devotes it to a use in which the pubUc has an interest, he in effect grants to the public an interest in such use, and must to the extent of that use submit to be con- trolled by the public for the common good so long as he maintains the use." The second exception is that of the ^ Cf. J. A. Smith, The Spirit of American Oovernment, 1907. ^ I have followed in this paragraph the discussion of Professor Munroe Smith, Van Norden's Magazine, February, 1908. For a full history see E. Freund, The Police Power, 1905. 556 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS police power which in 1906 (204 U. S., 311, 318) was de- clared to extend "to so dealing with the conditions which exist in the state as to bring out of them the greatest wel- fare of its people." The application of this broad princi- ple is still in an uncertain condition, but there can be no question that it recognizes a changed situation. When peo- ple are living in such interdependence as in the collective life of to-day, it is no longer possible to locate public wel- fare in any such preponderating degree in private rights as was justified under the conditions of a new country a century ago. Says Professor Smith: "On the fundamental question of the relation of public policy to private property rights the [Supreme] Court has abandoned the individualist views with which the founders of the constitution were imbued; and in its doctrines of the public use and the police power it has distinctly accepted what may be termed, in the literal and proper sense of the word, the socialist view. In so doing, it has unquestionably ex- pressed the dominant opinion of the American people. The American people does not accept the coUectivist theory; it believes in private property; but it recognizes that rights of property must yield, in cases of conflict, to the superior rights of society at large." If some of the means set forth above for securing juster distribution were adopted, the first step toward Mill's de- mand ^ would be met. If the community should reap the return for its own growth, if taxation should be so ar- ranged as to fall most heavily on those best able to pay rather than on those who are most honest or least able to evade, it would seem rational to hold that society will find a way to continue the four forms of control now exist- ing, making such shifts as changing conditions require. Some of these shiftings are already evident and give promise of greater justice without loss of any of the bene- fits accruing from private property. ^ Above, p. 554. PRESENT TENDENCIES 557 Social Justice through Economic, Social, and Scien- tific Progress. — Not all moral advance comes "with obser- vation," or by political agency. The economic process is providing in certain lines a substitute for property. Science and invention, which are themselves a fine illustra- tion of the balance and interaction between individual and social intelligence, individual effort and social cooperation, are making possible in many ways a state of society in which men have at once greater freedom and greater power through association, greater individual development and greater socialization of interests, less private property but greater private use and enjoyment of what is common. The substitute for property provided by the economic process itself is permanence or security of support. If the person can count definitely upon a future, this is equiv- alent to the security of property. And through the or- ganization of modern industry supplemented by insurance and pensions, either state, institutional, or in corporations, or in mutual benefit associations, there has been on the whole, a great increase of security, although it is still un- fortunately true that the wage-worker may in most cases be dismissed at any moment, and has virtually no con- tract, or even any well-assured confidence of continued employment. It is a mutual cooperation of economic, social, and sci- entific factors which has brought about a great increase of individual use and enjoyment through public owner- ship. This has placed many of the things which make life worth living within the enjoyment of all, and at the same time given a far better service to the users than the old method of private ownership. In this change lies, perhaps, the greatest advance of justice in the economic sphere, and a great promise for the future. There was a time when if a man would sit down on a piece of ground and enjoy a fine landscape, he must own it. If he would have a plot where his children might play, he must own it. If he would 558 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS travel, he must carry his own lantern, and furnish his own protection from thieves. If he would have water, he must sink his own well. If he would send a letter, he must own or hire a messenger. If he would read a book, he must not merely own the book, but own or hire the author or copyist. If he would educate his children, he must own or hire the tutor. We have learned that public parks, public lighting and water works, public libraries, and public schools, are better than private provision. The objection which comes from the individualist to this programme is that it does too much for the individual. It is better, urges individualism, to stimulate the individual's activity and leave his wants largely unsatisfied than to satisfy all his wants at the expense of his activity. But this assumes that what is done through public agencies is done for the people and not by the people. A democracy may do for itself what an aristocracy may not do for a dependent class. The greatest demoralization at the pres- ent time is not to those who have not, but to those who appropriate gains due to associated activity, complacently supposing that they have themselves created all that they enjoy. Another Great Advance is the Change in What Makes Up the Chief Values of Life. — In early times the values of life were largely found in food, clothing, personal or- naments, bodily comfort, sex gratifications. Enjoyment of these involved exclusive possession and therefore prop- erty. But with the advance of civilization an increasing proportion of life's values falls in the mental realm of sharable goods. Satisfaction in knowledge, in art, in association, in free- dom, is not diminished, but increased when it is shared. The educated man may have no more property than the illiterate. He has access to a whole system of social values. He has freedom ; he has a more genuinely independent type of power than accrues from the mere possession of things. THREE SPECIAL PROBLEMS 559 The society of the future will find a part of its justice in so adjusting its economic system that all may enter as fully as possible into this more social world. Methods of Social Selection. — Finally, recognizing all the value of the competitive process in the past as a method of selecting ability, it must be regarded as crude and wasteful. It is like the method of blind trial and error which obtains in the animal world. The method of ideas, of conscious use of means to secure ends, is the more effective and the more rational. Society now is gaining the scientific equipment which may allow the substitution of the more effective and less wasteful method. It should discover and educate capacity instead of giving merely a precarious encouragement to certain special types. § 9. THREE SPECIAL PEOBLEMS Three special problems may be noticed about which moral judgment is as yet uncertain: The open versus the closed shop, the capitalization of corporations, and the "unearned increment." I. The Open versus the Closed Shop. — In certain in- dustries in which the workmen are well organized they have made contracts with employers which provide that only union men shall be employed. Such a shop is called a closed shop, in distinction from an "open shop" in which non-union men may be employed in part or altogether. The psychological motive for the demand for the closed shop is natural enough: the union has succeeded in gain- ing certain advantages in hours or wages or both ; this has required some expense and perhaps some risk. It is nat- ural to feel that those who get the advantage should share the expense and effort, and failing this, should not be ad- mitted to the shop. If the argument stopped here it would be insufficient for a moral justification for two reasons. First, joining a union involves much more than payment 560 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS of dues. It means control by the union in ways which may interfere with obhgations to family, or even to the social order. Hence, to exclude a fellow workman from the op- portunity to work because he — perhaps for conscientious reasons — would not belong to the union, could not be justi- fied unless the union could make it appear that it was maintaining a social and not merely a group interest. Second, in some cases unions have sought to limit output. In so far as this is done not for reasons of health but to raise prices, the union is opposing the interest of con- sumers. Here again the union must exhibit a social justi- fication if it is to gain social approval. On the other hand it may be noted that the individual- ist of the second sort — who believes in the competitive struggle as a moral process — has no ground on which to declare for "open shop." Exactly the same principle which would permit combination in capital and place no limit on competitive pressure, provided it is all done through free contracts, can raise no objection against combinations of laborers making the best contracts pos- sible. When a syndicate of capitalists has made a highly favorable contract or successfully underwritten a large issue of stock, it is not customary under the principle of "open shop" to give a share in the contract to all who ask for it, or to let the whole public in "on the ground floor." Nor are capitalists accustomed to leave a part of the market to be supplied by some competitor for fear such competitor may suffer if he does not have business. When the capitalist argues for the open shop upon the ground of freedom and democracy, it seems like the case of the mote and the beam. An analogy with a political problem may aid: Has a nation the right to exclude (or tax heavily) goods or per- sons from other countries? May it maintain a "closed shop"? The policy of the American colonists and of the United States has varied. The Puritans maintained a THREE SPECIAL PROBLEMS 561 "closed shop" on religious lines. They came to this coun- try to maintain a certain religion and polity. They ex- pelled several men who did not agree with them. The United States excludes Chinese laborers, and imposes a tariff which in many cases is intended to be prohibitive against the products of other countries. This is done avowedly to protect the laborer, and in so far as it is effect- ive it closes the shop. The maxim "This is a white man's country" is a similar "closed shop" utterance. On moral grounds the non-union man is in the same category as the man of alien race or country. What, if anything, can justify a nation or smaller group from excluding others from its benefits? Clearly the only conditions are (1) that the group or nation is existing for some morally justifiable end, which (2) would be endangered by the ad- mission of the outsiders. A colony established to work out religous or political liberty would be justified in excluding a multitude who sought to enter it and then sub- vert these principles. If a union is working for a morally valuable end, e.g., a certain standard of living which is morally desirable, and if this were threatened by the ad- mission of non-union men, the closed shop would seem to be justified. If the purpose were merely to secure certain advantages to a small group, and if the open shop would not lower the standard but merely extend its range of benefits, it is hard to see why the closed shop is not a selfish principle — though no more selfish than the grounds on which the tariff is usually advocated. 2. The Capitalization of Corporations, especially of public service corporations, is a matter on which there is a difference of policy in different states, owing probably, to uncertainty as to the morality of the principles in- volved. The two theories held are: (a) Companies should issue capital stock only on the basis of money paid in; dividends then represent a return on actual investment, (b) Companies may issue whatever stock they please, or 562 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS whatever they expect their income will enable them to pay dividends upon; dividends will then represent return for valuable privileges, or for some utility to be marketed. In behalf of this latter view it may be claimed that if the company pays dividends the investors have nothing to complain of, and if it sells its products or transportation at market rates, the consumer has nothing to complain of. So far as the relations between corporation and investor are concerned, the issues are simple. If the stocks are issued with no expectation that they will give any return, merely to "sell," it is pure dishonesty, of the same type which under cruder conditions sold spavined horses or made counterfeit money, and now assumes the more vulgar type of dealing in "green goods." The fact that fictitious capital can be publicly advertised, gives it a financial but not a moral advantage. This, however, would have such decided limitations, credulous as human nature is, that if fictitious capital paid no dividends it would soon have no market. Hence, for the far-seeing promoter, the pressure is toward making some at least of the ficti- tious capital pay dividends. What is the principle in this case? If we are dealing with a new and untried mode of production or public service, the case is simply that of any speculation. If a proposed product has a possi- ble utility, but at the same time involves so much risk that in the long run only half of such enterprises will succeed, society may consider it worth offering a profit equal to fifty per cent, in order to pay for the risk. If, on the other hand, the income is to derive from valuable public franchises, or from the growth of the community and its necessities, the case is different. Here there is little, if any, risk for which it is fair for society to pay. The excessive capital beyond the cost is designed to dis- guise the rate of profit, and therefore conceal from the community the cost of the goods or service. If the public demands cheaper rates it is told that the company is now THREE SPECIAL PROBLEMS 563 paying only a fair dividend upon its stock.^ The usual method of capitalizing many enterprises of a quasi-public sort is to issue bonds to cover the cost of construction or plant, and then one or more series of stocks which are known as "velvet. In part these stocks may represent a work of organization which is a legitimate public service, but in many cases they represent devices for transferring public wealth to private property. Enor- mous sums have been taken from the public in this manner. The element which makes this method particu- larly obnoxious is that the quasi-public corporations are given a monopoly by the community and then take ad- vantage of this to capitalize indefinitely the necessities of a growing community. In this case the conception of public service is lost sight of In the "dazzling possi- bility of public exploitation." ^ Few methods of extorting wealth have equaled this. In some cases bribery of public officials has added an item of expense to be collected later from the public. When the various forms of public service or protected Industry were first projected there was risk involved. It was neces- sary to offer inducements to capital to engage in them. It was desirable to have railroads, gas, water, express service. But as the factor of risk has been eliminated, the public tires of paying double prices, and a "fair" return must be estimated on the basis of actual rather than fictitious capital. The public has come to have a clear idea as to the morality of such practices as have been employed in letting contracts for public buildings at prices far above market value. The New York City court- house and Pennsylvania capitol offer familiar examples. Does it differ materially from such practices when a com- * As in the case of gas in New York City, where the court has decided that the public cannot refuse to pay interest on the value of the franchise — its own gift. * Cf. Hadley, Economics, p. 159. 564 UNSETTLED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS pany charges the pubHc an excessive price for transporta- tion or Hghting, and when State or municipal authori- ties authorize by franchise or monopoly such excessive charges? Probably the conscience of the next century, if not of the next generation, will fail to see the superior moral quality of the latter procedure. 3. The "Unearned Increment." — This term is apphed most frequently to the increase in land value or franchise value which is due, not to the owner, but to the growth of the community. A tract of land is bought at a price fixed by its value as farm land. A city grows up. The owner of the land may have been active in the building up of industry, but he may not. An increase of values follows, which is due to the growth of the community. Shall the owner have it all, or shall the community have it all, or shall there be a division? The growth in value of a franchise for gas, electric lighting, transportation, presents the same problem. It is not usually recognized, however, that the same principle is found in every in- crease of value due to increasing demand. The logical basis for distinction would seem to be that in some cases increase of demand calls out competition, and the price is lowered; the public thus receives its share in lower cost. In other cases, notably those first mentioned, there can be no competition, the price is therefore not often lowered unless by legislative action, and the whole benefit goes to the owner of land or franchise. As regards land, the case is much stronger in Europe, for land titles were originally gained there largely by seizure, whereas in America private titles have been largely through purchase. Individualism, according as it argues from the platform of natural rights or from that of social welfare, would claim either that individuals should have all the increase because they have a right to all they can get under a system of free contracts, or that it is for the social wel- THREE SPECIAL PROBLEMS 565 fare to allow them all they can get since private property is public wealth. From the standpoint of natural rights the reply would seem to be unanswerable: the community gives the increased value; it belongs to the community. From the standpoint of social welfare the answer is not so simple. It might, for example, be socially desirable to encourage the owners of farming land by leaving to them the increase in value due to the growth of the country, whereas city land-owners might need no such inducement. Investors in a new form of public service corporation might need greater inducements than would be fair to those in enterprises well established. But, although de- tails are complex, the social conscience is working toward this general principle: the community should share in the values which it produces. If it cannot do this by cheaper goods and better service, it must by graded taxa- tion, by ownership, or by some other means. The British government has already considered a measure for ascer- taining the land values in Scotland as a preliminary step toward adjustment of this question. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XXV WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO WAGE-EARNERS In the conviction that in the field of social legislation the United States is behind the more progressive countries of Europe, Professor Henry R. Seager, of Columbia Uni- versity, presented the following Outline for discussion at a meeting of the American Association for Labor Legis- lation, December 30, 1907. It is reproduced with his consent as giving concrete expression to several of the principles advocated in the foregoing chapters. The ends to be aimed at in any programme of social legisla- tion are: I. To protect wage-earners in the continued enjoyment of standards of living to which they are already accustomed. II. To assist them to attain to higher standards of living. /. Measures to protect prevailing standards of living. The principal contingencies which threaten standards of living already acquired are: (1) industrial accidents; (2) ill- ness; (3) invalidity and old age; (4) premature death; (5) unemployment. These contingencies are not in practice ade- quately provided against by wage-earners themselves. In consequence the losses they entail, in the absence of any social provision against them, fall with crushing force on the families which suffer from them, and only too often reduce such families from a position of independence and self-respect to one of humiliating and efficiency-destroying social dependency. The following remedies for the evils resulting from this situation are suggested. (1) Employers' liability laws fail to provide adequate in- demnity to the victims of industrial accidents because in a large proportion of cases no legal blame attaches to the employer 566 PROFESSOR SEAGER'S PROGRAMME 567 and because litigation under them is costly and uncertain in its outcome. Adequate indemnification must be sought along the line of workmen's compensation for all industrial accidents at the expense of the employer (the British system) or of compulsory accident insurance (the German system). The former seems to accord better with American ideas and traditions. (2) The principle of workmen's compensation may be ex- tended to include indemnity for loss of wages due to trade diseases. Provision against illness not directly traceable to the employment must be sought either in compulsory illness insurance or in subsidized and state-directed sick-insurance clubs. Trade unions may assume the functions of such clubs in organized trades. The latter plan seems better suited to present American conditions than compulsory illness insurance. (3) Provision against invalidity and old age may be through compulsory old age insurance, or through state old age pen- sions. The latter, though more costly, are believed to be better suited to American conditions, when hedged about by proper restrictions, than compulsory old age insurance with the elabo- rate administrative machinery which it entails. (4) Premature death may be provided against by an ex- tension of the machinery for caring for the victims of industrial accident and of illness to provide for their families when ac- cident or illness results fatally. (5) Provision against losses due to unemployment is at- tended with great difficulties because unemployment is so fre- quently the consequence of incapacity or of disinclination for continuous labor. The most promising plan for providing against this evil appears to be through subsidizing and super- vising trade unions which pay out-of-work benefits to stimulate this side of their activity. Public employment bureaus and industrial colonies for the unemployed may also help to alleviate the evil of unemployment. Adequate social provision against these five contingencies along the lines suggested, would, it is believed, go a long way towards solving the problem of social dependency. If these concessions were made to the demands of social justice, a more drastic policy towards social dependents than public opinion will now sanction might be inaugurated with good prospect of confining social dependency to the physically, mentally, and morally defective. 568 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XXVI //. Measures to elevate standards of living. The primary conditions essential to rising standards of liv- ing are energy and enterprise on the part of wage-earners and opportunities to make energy and enterprise count in the form of higher earnings. The principal contributions which social legislation may make to advancing standards of living in the United States are believed to be: (1) measures serving to en- courage saving for future needs on the part of wage-earners by providing safe investments for savings; (2) measures pro- tecting wage-earners from the debilitating effects of an un- regulated competition; (3) measures serving to bring within the reach of all opportunities for industrial training. Stand- ards of living will also be advanced, of course, by nearly all measures calculated to promote the general well-being, such as tax and tariff-reform legislation, laws safeguarding the na- tional domain, the public regulation of corporations, especially those with monopolistic powers, etc., but these are not usually classed under the head of social legislation. ( 1 ) The greatest present need under this head is for a postal savings bank like those of European countries. The advan- tages of a postal savings bank over privately managed banks are the wider distribution of places of deposit, post-offices being located in every section of the country, and the greater confi- dence depositors would feel in such a bank. Once established the postal savings bank might enter the insurance field, as has the British postal savings bank, not as a rival of privately managed insurance companies, but to bring to every wage- earner the opportunity to secure safe insurance. Next to providing itself opportunities for safe investment and insur- ance, the government has an important duty to perform in supervising the business of privately managed savings banks and insurance companies. Notwithstanding the progress made in recent years in the United States in this field, there is still something left for social legislation to accomplish. (2) If energy and enterprise are to be kept at a maximum, wage-earners must be protected from exhausting toil under unhealthful conditions. Skilled wage-earners can usually pro- tect themselves through trade unions, but unskilled workers, women and children, require legal protection. Under this head belong, therefore, the familiar types of protective labor laws. The following may be specified : (a) Laws prohibiting the employment of children below PROFESSOR SEAGER'S PROGRAMME 569 fourteen in all gainful pursuits. Such laws should be uniform throughout the United States and rigidly enforced by means of employment certificates based on convincing evidence of age and physical examination to determine fitness. As provision for free public education is made more adequate to present needs the minimum age may be advanced perhaps to sixteen. (b) Laws limiting the hours of labor of young persons over fourteen. Protection here should extend to eighteen, at least in factory employments, and employment certificates should be required of all under that age. (c) Laws limiting the hours of labor of women. In the regulation of women's work in the United States the principal needs are uniformity and machinery for efficient enforcement. The last is facilitated by the plan of specifying in the law the working period for the protected classes, and American courts must be brought to see the reasonableness (administratively) of such prescriptions. The nine-hour day and prohibition of night work set a high enough standard until greater uniformity and more efficient enforcement shall have been secured. (d) Prescriptions in regard to sanitation and safety ap- pliances. General prescriptions in regard to ventilation, etc., need to be made more exact, and much more attention needs to be given to the special regulation of dangerous trades, the existence of which has been largely ignored thus far in Amer- ican legislation. (3) The chief reason for restricting the labor of children and young persons is to permit the physical and mental de- velopment of childhood and youth to proceed unhampered and to ripen into strong, vigorous, and efficient manhood and womanhood. To attain this end, it is necessary to provide not only for wholesome living conditions and general free public education, but also for special industrial training for older children superior to the training afforded in modern factories and workshops. The apprenticeship system now fails as a method of industrial training, even in those few trades which retain the forms of apprenticeship. There is urgent social need for comprehensive provision for industrial training as a part of the public school system, not to take the place of the training now given to children under fourteen, but to hold those between fourteen and sixteen in school. As this need is supplied the period of compulsory school attendance may gradually be extended up to the sixteenth year. The guiding principle of such industrial training should be that it is the 570 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XXVI function of free public education in the United States not only to prepare children to lead useful, well-rounded and happy- lives, but to command the earnings without which such lives are impossible. The above programme of social legislation is urged as a step towards realizing that canon of social justice which demands for all equal industrial opportunities. It is believed that it will also help to raise the standard of citizenship in the country by- making both wage-earners and employers more intelligent, more efficient, and more truly democratic. Thus it will serve to prepare the way for such further industrial reorganization as may be found desirable. CHAPTER XXVI THE FAMILY The family in its moral aspects has one end, the com- mon good of all its members, but this has three aspects. (1) Marriage converts an attachment between man and woman, either of passion or of friendship, into a delib- erate, intimate, permanent, responsible union for a com- mon end cf mutual good. It is this common end, a good of a higher, broader, fuller sort than either could attain in isolation, which lifts passion from the impulsive or selfish to the moral plane; it is the peculiar intimacy ^-nd the peculiar demands for common sympathy and co- operation, which give it greater depth and reach than ordinary friendship. (2) The family is the great social agency for the care and training of the race. (3) This function reacts upon the character of the parents. Ten- derness, sympathy, self-sacrifice, steadiness of purpose, responsibility, and activity, are all demanded and usually evoked by the children. A brief sketch of the development of the family and of its psychological basis, will prepare the way for a consideration of its present problems. § 1. HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS OF THE MODERN FAMILY The division of the sexes appeals to the biologist as an agency for securing greater variability, and so greater possibility of adaptation and progress. It has also to the sociologist the value of giving greater variety in function, and so a much richer society than could exist without it. Morally, the realization of these values, and 671 572 THE FAMILY the further effects upon character noted above, depend greatly upon the terms under which the marriage union is formed and maintained. The number of parties to the union, the mode of forming it, its stabihty, and the rela- tions of husband and wife, parents and children, while in the family relation, have shown in western civilization a tendency toward certain lines of progress, although the movement has been irregular and has been interrupted by certain halts or even reversions. The Maternal Type. — The early family, certainly in many parts of the world, was formed when a man left his father and mother to "cleave unto his wife," that is, when the woman remained in her own group and the man came from his group to live with her. This tended to give the woman continued protection — and also contin- ued control — by her own relatives, and made the children belong to the mother's clan. As recent ethnologists seem inclined to agree, this does not mean a matriarchal family. The woman's father and brothers, rather than the woman, are in the last analysis the authority. At the same time, at a stage when physical force is so large a factor, this type of family undoubtedly favors the woman's condition as compared with the next to be mentioned. The Paternal Type. — When the woman leaves her own group to live in the house of her husband, it means a pos- sible loss of backing and position for her. But it means a great gain for the influence which insures the wife's fidelity, the father's authority over the children and interest in them, and finally the permanence of the family. The power of the husband and father reached its extreme among western peoples in the patriarchate at Rome, which allowed him the right of life and death. At its best the patriarchal type of family fostered the dignity and power of a ruler and owner, the sense of honor which watched jealously over self and wife and children to keep the name unsullied; finally the respective attitudes HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS OF FAMILY 573 of protector and protected enhanced the charm of each for the other. At its worst it meant domineering bru- tahty, and either the weakness of abject submission or the misery of hopeless injustice. Along with this building up of "father right" came variations in the mode of gaining a wife. When the man takes a wife instead of going to his wife, he may either capture her, or purchase her, or serve for her. In any of these cases she may become to a certain extent his prop- erty as well as his wife. This does not necessarily imply a feeling of humiliation. The Kafir women profess great contempt for a system in which a woman is not worth buying. But it evidently favors a commercial theory of the whole relation. The bride's consent may sometimes be a necessary part of the transaction, but it is not always. Effects of Father Right. — This family of "father right" is also likely to encourage a theory that the man should have greater freedom in marriage than the woman. In the lowest types of civilization we often find the marital relations very loose from our point of view, although, as was noted in Chapter II., these peoples usually make up for this in the rigidity of the rules as to who may marry or have marriage relations. With some advance in civilization and with the father right, we are very apt to find polygamy permitted to chiefs or those who can afford it, even though the average man may have but one wife. In certain cases the wives may be an eco- nomic advantage rather than a burden. It goes along with a family in which father and children are of first importance that a wife may even be glad to have her servant bear the children if they may only be reckoned as hers. The husband has thus greater freedom — for polyandry seems to have been rare among civilized peoples except under stress of poverty. The greater freedom of the husband is likely to appear also in the 574 THE FAMILY matter of divorce. Among many savage peoples divorce is easy for both parties if there is mutual consent, but with the families in which father right prevails it is almost always easier for the man. The ancient Hebrew might divorce his wife for any cause he pleased, but there is no mention of a similar right on her part, and it doubtless did not occur to the lawgiver. The code of Hammurabi allows the man to put away the mother of his children by giving her and her children suitable main- tenance, or a childless wife by returning the bride price, but a wife who has acted foolishly or extravagantly may be divorced without compensation or kept as a slave. The woman may also claim a divorce "if she has been eco- nomical and has no vice and her husband has gone out and greatly behttled her." But if she fails to prove her claim and appears to be a gadder-about, "they shall throw that woman into the water." India and China have the patriarchal family, and the Brahmans added the obligation of the widow never to remarry. Greater free- dom of divorce on the part of the husband is also attended by a very different standard for marital faithfulness. For the unfaithful husband there is frequently no penalty or a slight one ; for the wife it is frequently death. The Roman Family. — The modern family in western civilization is the product of three main forces: the Roman law, the Teutonic custom, and the Christian Church. Early Roman law had recognized the extreme power of the husband and father. Wife and children were in his "hand." All women must be in the tutela of some man. The woman, according to the three early forms of marriage, passed completely from the power and hand of her father into that of her husband. At the same time she was the only wife, and divorce was rare. But by the closing years of the Republic a new method of marriage, permitting the woman to remain in the manus of her father, had come into vogue, and with it HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS OF FAMILY 575 an easy theory of divorce. Satirists have charged great degeneracy in morals as a result, but Hobhouse thinks that upon the whole the Roman matron would seem to have retained the position of her husband's companion, coun- selor, and friend, which she had held in those more austere times when marriage brought her legally under his dominion/ The Germanic Family. — The Germanic peoples recog- nized an almost unlimited power of the husband. The passion for liberty, which Caesar remarked as prevalent among them, did not seem to require any large measure of freedom for their women. In fact, they, like other peo- ples, might be said to have satisfied the two principles of freedom and control by allotting all the freedom to the men and all, or nearly all, the control to the women. Hobhouse thus summarizes the conditions: "The power of the husband was strongly developed; he might expose the infant children, chastise his wife, dispose of her person. He could not put her to death, but if she was unfaith- ful, he was, with the consent of the relations, judge and execu- tioner. The wife was acquired by purchase from her own rel- atives without reference to her own desires, and by purchase passed out of her family. She did not inherit in early times at all, though at a later period she acquired that right in the absence of male heirs. She was in perpetual ward, subject, in short, to the Chinese rule of the three obediences, to which must be added, as feudal powers developed, the rule of the king or other feudal superior. And the guardianship or mundium was frankly regarded in early law rather as a source of profit to the guardian than as a means of defense to the ward, and for this reason it fetched a price in the market, and was, in fact, salable far down in the Middle Ages. Lastly, the German wife, though respected, had not the certainty enjoyed by the early Roman Matron of reigning alone in the household. It is true that polygamy was rare in the early German tribes, but this, as we have seen, is universally the case where the numbers * Morals in Evolution, Part I., p. 216. ^76 THE FAMILY of the sexes are equal. Polygamy was allowed^ and was practiced by the chiefs." Two Lines of Church Influence. — The influence of the church on marriage and family life was in two conflicting lines. On the one hand, the homage and adoration given to Mary and to the saints, tended to exalt and refine the conception of woman. Marriage was, more- over, treated as a "sacrament," a holy mystery, symbolic of the relation of Christ and the church. The priestly benediction gave religious sacredness from the beginning; gradually a marriage liturgy sprang up which added to the solemnity of the event, and finally the whole ceremony was made an ecclesiastical instead of a secular function.^ The whole institution was undoubtedly raised to a more serious and significant position. But, on the other hand, an ascetic stream of influence had pursued a similar course, deepening and widening as it flowed. Although from the beginning those "forbidding to marry" had been denounced, it had nearly always been held that the celibate life was a higher privilege. If marriage was a sacra- ment, it was nevertheless held that marriage made a man unfit to perform the sacraments. Woman was regarded as the cause of the original sin. Marriage was from this standpoint a concession to human weakness. "The gen- erality of men and women must marry or they will do worse; therefore, marriage must be made easy; but the very pure hold aloof from it as from a defilement. The law that springs from this source is not pleasant to read." ^ It must, however, be noted that, although celi- bacy by a selective process tended to remove continually the finer, more aspiring men and women, and prevent them from leaving any descendants, it had one important value for woman. The convent was at once a refuge, and a * Howard, History of Matrimonial Institutions, I., ch. vii. 2 Pollock and Maitland, Hist. Eng. Law, II., 383, quoted in Howard, I., 325-26. HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS OF FAMILY 577 door to activity. "The career open to the inmates of convents was greater than any other ever thrown open to women in the course of modern European history." ^ Two important contributions to the justice of the mar- riage relation, and therefore to the better theory of the family, are in any case to be set down to the credit of the church. The first was that the consent of the parties was the only thing necessary to constitute a valid marriage. "Here the church had not only to combat old tradition and the authority of the parents, but also the seignorial power of the feudal lord, and it must be accounted to it for righteousness that it emancipated the woman of the servile as well as of the free classes in rela- tion to the most important event of her life." ^ The other was that in maintaining as it did the indissolubility of the sacramental marriage, it held that its violation was as bad for the husband as for the wife. The older theories had looked at infidelity either as an injury to the husband's property, or as introducing uncertainty as to the parenthood of children, and this survives in Dr. Johnson's dictum of a "boundless" difference. The feel- ings of the wife, or even of the husband, aside from his concern for his property and- children, do not seem to have been considered. The church thus modified the Germanic and Roman traditions, but never entirely abolished them, because she was divided within herself as to the real place of family life. Protestantism, in its revolt from Rome, opposed both its theories of marriage. On the one hand, the Re- formers held that marriage is not a sacrament, but a civil contract, admitting of divorce. On the other hand, they regarded marriage as the most desirable state, and abol- ished the celibacy of the clergy. The "subjection of women," especially of married women, has, however, re- ^ Eckstein, Woman under Monasticism, p. 478. * Hobhouse, op. cit., I., 218. 578 THE FAMILY mained as the legal theory until very recently. In Eng- land it was the theory in Blackstone's time that "The very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and con- solidated into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs everything." Ac- cording to the old law, he might give her "moderate correction." "But with us in the politer reign of Charles II., this power of correction began to be doubted." It was not until 1882, however, that a married woman in England gained control of her property. In the United States the old injustice of the common law has been gradu- ally remedied by statutes until substantial equality in rela- tion to property and children has been secured. § 2. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF THE FAMILY The psychology of family life may be conveniently considered under two heads: that of the husband and wife, and that of parents and children, brothers and sisters. 1. The complex sentiment, love, which is found in the most perfect family life, is on the one hand (1) a feeling or emotion; on the other (S) a purpose, a will. Both these are modified and strengthened by (3) parenthood and (4) social and religious influences. (i) The Emotional and Instinctive Basis. — As feeling or emotion love may have two roots. A mental sympathy, based on kindred tastes and interests, is sometimes pres- ent at the outset, but in any case it is likely to develop under the favoring conditions of a common life, particu- larly if there are either children or a common work. But it is well known that this is not all. A friend is one thing; a lover another. The intimacy involved requires not only the more easily described and superficial attrac- tion of mind for mind; it demands also a deeper con- PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF FAMILY 579 geniality of the whole person, incapable of precise formu- lation, manifesting itself in the subtler emotional atti- tudes of instinctive reaction. This instinctive, as con- trasted with the more reflective, attraction is frequently described as one of opposites or contrasting dispositions and physical characteristics. But this is nothing that enters into the feeling as a consciious factor. The only explanation which we can give in the present condition of science is the biological one. From the biological point of view it was a most successful venture when Nature, by some happy variation, developed two sexes with slightly different characters and made their union necessary to the continuance of life in certain species. By uniting in every new individual the qualities of two parents, the chances of variation are greatly increased, and variation is the method of progress. To keep the same variety of fruit the horticulturist buds or grafts ; to get new varie- ties he plants seed. The extraordinary progress com- bined with continuity of type, which has been exhibited in the plant and animal world, has been effected, in part at least, through the agency of sex. This long process has developed certain principles of selection which are instinctive. Whether they are the best possible or not, they represent a certain adjustment which has secured such progress as has been attained, and such adaptation to environment as exists, and it would be unwise, if it were not impossible, to disregard them. Marriages of con- venience are certainly questionable from the biological standpoint. But the instinctive basis is not in and of itself suffi- cient to guarantee a happy family life. If man were living wholly a life of instinct, he might trust instinct as a guide in establishing his family. But since he is living an intellectual and social life as well, intellectual and social factors must enter. The instinctive basis of selection was fixed by conditions which contemplated only 580 THE FAMILY a more or less limited period of attachment, with care of the young for a few years. Modern society requires the husband and wife to contemplate life-long companionship, and a care for children which implies capacity in the father to provide for a great range of advantages, and in the mother to be intellectual and moral guide and friend until maturity. To trust the security of these increased demands to instinct is to invite failure. Instinct must be guided by reason if perfect friendship and mu- tual supplementation in the whole range of interests are to be added to the intenser, but less certain, attraction. (2) The Common Will. — But whether based on instinct or intellectual sympathy, no feeling or emotion by itself is an adequate moral basis for the life together of a man and a woman. What was said on p. 249, as to the moral worthlessness of any mere feeling abstracted from will, applies here. Love or affection, in the only sense in which it makes a moral basis of the family, is not the "affection" of psychological language — the pleasant or unpleasant tone of consciousness ; it is the resolute purpose in each to seek the other's good, or rather to seek a common good which can be attained only through a com- mon life involving mutual self-sacrifice. It is the good will of Kant specifically directed toward creating a com- mon good. It is the formation of a small "kingdom of ends" in which each treats the other "as end," never as means only; in which each is "both sovereign and subject" ; in which the common will, thus created, enhances the person of each and gives it higher moral dignity and worth. And, as in the case of all purpose which has moral value, there is such a common good as the actual result. The disposition and character of both husband and wife are developed and supplemented. The male is biologically the more variable and motor. He has usually greater initiative and strength. Economic and industrial life accentuates these tendencies. But alone PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF FAMILY 581 he is apt to become rough or hard, to lack the feeHng in which the charm and value of life are experienced. On the other hand, the woman, partly by instinct, it may be, but certainly by vocation, is largely occupied with the variety of cares on which human health, comfort, and morality depend. She tends to become narrow, unless sup- plemented by man. The value of emotion and feeling in relation to this process of mutual aid and enlargement, as in general, is, as Aristotle pointed out, to perfect the will. It gives warmth and vitality to what would other- wise be in any case partial and might easily become insin- cere. There was a profound truth which underlay the old psychology in which "the heart" meant at once char- acter and passion. (3) The Influence of Parenthood. — Nature takes one step at a time. If all the possible consequences of family life had to be definitely forecasted, valued, and chosen at the outset, many would shrink. But this would be be- cause there is as yet no capacity to appreciate new values before the actual experience of them. "Every promise of the soul has innumerable fulfillments; each of its joys ripens into a new want." Parental affection is not usually present until there are real children to evoke it. At the outset the mutual love of husband and wife is enough. But as the first, more instinctive and emotional factors lose relatively, the deeper union of will and sympathy needs community of interest if it is to become permanent and complete. Such community of interest is often found in sharing a business or a profession, but under present industrial organization this is not possible as a general rule. The most general and effective object of common interest is the children of the family. As pointed out by John Fiske, the mere keeping of the parents together by the prolongation of infancy in the human species has had great moral influence. Present civilization does not merely demand that the parents cooperate eight or ten years 582 THE FAMILY for the child's physical support. There has been a sec- ond epoch in the prolongation. The parents now must cooperate until the children are through school and college, and in business or homes of their own. And the superiority of children over the other common interests is that in a different form the parents repeat the process which first took them out of their individual lives to unite for mutual helpfulness. If the parents treat the chil- dren not merely as sources of gratification or pride, but as persons, with lives of their own to live, with capacities to develop, the personality of the parent is enlarged. The affection between husband and wife is enriched by the new relationship it has created. (4) Social and Religious Factors. — The relations of husband and wife, parent and child, are the most intimate of personal relations, but they are none the less relations of social interest. In fact, just because they are so inti- mate, society is the more deeply concerned. Or, to put it from the individual's standpoint, just because the parties are undertaking a profoundly personal step, they must take it as members of a moral order. The act of estab- lishing the family signifies, indeed, the entrance into fuller participation in the social life; it is the assuming of ties which make the parties in a new and deeper sense organic parts of humanity. This social and cosmic meaning is appropriately symbolized by the civil and religious cere- mony. In its control over the marriage contract, and in its prescriptions as to the care and education of the chil- dren, society continues to show its interest. All this lends added value and strength to the emotional and intellectual bases. 2. Parent and Child. — The other relationships in the family, those of parents and children, brothers and sisters, need no elaborate analysis. The love of parents for chil- dren, like that of man and woman, has an instinctive basis. Those species which have cared for their offspring have PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF FAMILY 583 had a great advantage in the struggle for existence. Nature has selected them, and is constantly dropping the strains of any race or set which cares more for power, or wealth, or learning than for children. Tenderness, courage, responsibility, activity, patience, forethought, personal virtue — these are constantly evoked not by the needs of children in general, but by the needs of our own children. The instinctive response, however, is soon broadened in outlook and deepened in meaning. Intel- lectual activity is stimulated by the needs of provid- ing for the physical welfare, and, still more, by the necessity of planning for the unfolding mind. The inter- change of question and answer which forces the parent to think his whole world anew, and which with the allied interchange of imitation and suggestion produces a give and take between all members of the family, is constantly making for fluidity and flexibility, for tolerance and catholicity. In the thoughtful parent these educative influences are still further enriched by the problem of moral training. For in each family, as in the race, the need of eliciting and directing right conduct in the young is one of the most important agencies in bringing home to the elders the significance of custom and authority, of right and wrong. It is natural enough, from one stand- point, to think of childhood as an imperfect state, looking forward for its completeness and getting its value be- cause of its rich promise. But the biologist tells us that the child is nearer the line of progress than the more developed, but also more rigidly set, man. And the lover of children is confident that if any age of humanity exists by its own right, and "pays as it goes," it is child- hood. It is not only meet, but a joy, that the fathers labor for the children. Many, if not most, of the objects for which men and women strive and drudge seem less satis- factory when obtained; because we have meanwhile out- grown the desire. Children aff^ord an object of affection 584 THE FAMILY which is constantly unfolding new powers, and opening new reaches of personality.^ Conversely, an authority which is also tender, patient, sympathetic, is the best medium to develop in the child self-control. The neces- sity of mutual forbearance where there g^re several chil- dren, of sharing fairly, of learning to give and take, is the best possible method of training for membership in the larger society. In fact, from the point of view of the social organism as a whole, the family has two functions; as a smaller group, it affords an oppor- tunity for eliciting the qualities of affection and char- acter which cannot be displayed at all in the larger group; and, in the second place, it is a training for future members of the larger group in those qualities of disposition and character which are essential to citizenship.^ go. GENERAL ELEMENTS OF STRAIN IN FAMILY RELATIONS Difference in Temperament. — ^While there are intrinsic qualities of men and women that bring them together for family life, and, while there is in most cases a strong reenf or cement afforded by the presence of children, there are certain characteristics which tend just as inevitably to produce tension, and those forces of tension are strengthened at the present time by certain economic, edu- cational, and cultural conditions. The differences be- tween men and women may be at the basis of their in- stinctive attraction for each other; they certainly have * Helen Bosanquet, The Family, p. 313 : " 'They must hinder your work very much,' I said to a mother busy about the kitchen, with a two-year-old clinging to her skirt. 'I'd never get through my work without them,' was the instant rejoinder, and in it lay the answer to much of our sentimental commiseration of hard-worked mothers. It may be hard to carry on the drudgery of daily life with the little ones clamoring around; it is ten times harder without, for sheer lack of something to make it worth while," " Bosanquet, Part II., ch. x, STRAIN IN FAMILY RELATIONS 585 possibilities of friction as well. A fundamental difference already noted is that the male is more variable, the female more true to the type. Biologically at least, the varium et mutahile is applied by the poet to the wrong sex. Applied to the mind and disposition, this means probably not only a greater variation of capacity and temper as a whole, — more geniuses and also more at the other ex- treme than among women, — but also a greater average mobility. Differences Accentuated by Occupation From the early occupations of hunting and fishing, to the modern greater range of occupations, any native mobility in man has found stimulation and scope, as compared with the energies of women which have less distinct differentiation and a more limited contact with the work of others. And there is another industrial difference closely connected with this, which has been pointed out by Ellis,^ and Thomas.^ Primitive man hunted and fought. Much of primit^*^^'^ ^'^dustry, the prototype, so far as it existed, of the industrial activity of the modern world, was carried on by woman. Industrial progress has been signalized by the splitting off of one phase of woman's work after another, and by the organization and expansion of this at the hands of man. Man's work has thus become more spe- cialized and scientific ; woman's has remained more de- tailed, complex, and diffused. Her work in the family of ordering the household, caring for the children, secur- ing the health and comfort of all its members, neces- sarily involves personal adjustment; hence it resists sys- tem. As a result of the differentiation man has gained in greater and greater degree a scientific and objective standard for his work ; woman neither has nor can have — at least in the sphere of personal relations — the advantage of a standard. Business has its ratings in the quantity * Man and Woman. ' (Sea; and Society, 586 THE FAMILY of sales or the ratio of net profits. The professions and skilled trades have their own tests of achievement. A scientist makes his discovery, a lawyer wins his case, an architect builds his bridge, the mechanic his machine; he knows whether he has done a good piece of work, and respects himself accordingly. He can appeal from the man next to him to the judgment of his profession. Con- versely, the standard of the trade or profession helps to lift the individual's work. It is a constant stimulus, as well as support. A woman's work in the family has no such professional stimulus, or professional vindication. If the family is lenient, the work is not held up to a high level. On the other hand, it must make its appeal to the persons immediately concerned, and if they do not respond, the woman feels that she has failed to do some- thing really worth while. If her work is not valued, she feels that it is not valuable. For there is no demon- strative proof of a successful home any more than there is of a good work of art. It is easy enough to point out reasons why the picture or the home should please and satisfy, but if the work itself is not convincing, no demonstration that similar works have satisfied is of any avail. The way in which men and women come into contact with others is another element in the case. Man comes into contact with others for the most part in an abstract way. He deals not with men, women, and children, but with employers or employed, with customers or clients, or patients. He doesn't have to stand them in all their varied phases, or enter into those intimate relations which involve strain of adjustment in its fullest extent. More- over, business or professional manner and etiquette come in to relieve the necessity of personal effort. The "pro- fessional manner" serves the same function in dealing with others, which habit plays in the individual life ; it takes the place of continual readjustment of attention. STRAIN IN FAMILY RELATIONS 587 When a man is forced to lay this aside and deal in any serious situation as "a human being," he feels a far greater strain. The woman's task is less in extension, but great in intension. It obliges her to deal with the children, at any rate, as wholes, and a "whole" child is a good deal of a strain. If she does not see the whole of the husband, it is quite likely that the part not brought home — the professional or business part of him — is the most alert, intelligent, and interesting phase. The con- stant close-at-hand personal relations, unrelieved by the abstract impersonal attitude and the generalizing ac- tivity which it invites, constitute an element of strain which few men understand, and which probably few could endure and possess their souls. The present divi- sion of labor seems, therefore, to make the man excess- ively abstract, the woman excessively personal, instead of supplementing to some extent the weak side of each. Difference in Attitude toward the Family. — As if these differences in attitude based on disposition and occu- pation were not enough, we have a thoroughgoing differ- ence in the attitude of men and women toward the very institution which invites them. The man is ready enough to assent to the importance of the family for the race, but his family means not an interference with other ambi- tions, but usually an aid to their fulfillment. His family is one interest among several, and is very likely subor- dinate in his thought to his profession or his business. In early ages to rove or conquer, in modern life to master nature and control her resources or his f ellowmen — this has been the insistent instinct which urges even the long-tossed Ulysses from Ithaca and from Penelope again upon the deep. Woman, on the other hand, if she enters a family, usually abandons any other ambition and forgets any acquired art or skill of her previous occupation. To be the mistress of a home may be precisely what she would 588 THE FAMILY choose as a vocation. But there is usually no alternative if she is to have a home at all. It is not a question of a family in addition to a vocation, but of a family as a vocation. Hence woman must regard family life not merely as a good; it must be the good, and usually the exclusive good. If, then, a woman has accepted the family as the supreme good, it is naturally hard to be in perfect sym- pathy with the man's standard of family life as sec- ondary. Of course a completer vision may find that a division of labor, a difference of function, may carry with it a difference in standards of value; the mastery of nature and the maintenance of the family may be neither an absolute good in itself, but each a necessity to life and progress. But neither man nor woman is always equal to this view, and to the full sympathy for the rela- tive value of the other's standpoint. Where it cuts closest is in the attitude toward breach of faith in the family tie. Men have severe codes for the man who cheats at cards or forges a signature, but treat much more leniently, or entirely ignore, the gravest offenses against the family. These latter do not seem to form a barrier to political, business, or social success (among men). Women have a severe standard for family sanctity, espe- cially for their own sex. But it would probably be diffi- cult to convince most women that it is a more heinous offense to secrete a card, or even with Nora in The DolVs House, to forge a name, than to be unfaithful. It is not meant that the average man or woman approves either form of wrongdoing, but that there is a difference of emphasis evidenced in the public attitude. In view of all these differences in nature, occupation, and social standard it may be said that however well husband and wife may love each other, few understand each other completely. Perhaps most men do not understand women at all. Corresponding to the "psychologist's fallacy," STRAIN IN FAMILY RELATIONS 589 whose evils have been depicted by James, there is a "mas- culine fallacy" and a "feminine fallacy." Difference in Age. — The difference in age between parents and children brings certain inevitable hindrances to complete understanding. The most thoroughgoing is that parent and children really stand concretely for the two factors of continuity and individual variation which confront each other in so many forms. The parent has found his place in the social system, and is both steadied and to some extent made rigid by the social tradi- tion. The child, though to some extent imitating and adopting this tradition, has as yet little reasoned adher- ence to it. The impulses and expanding life do not find full expression in the set ways already open, and occa- sionally break out new channels. The conservatism of the parent may be a wiser and more social, or merely a more hardened and narrow, mode of conduct; some of the child's variations may be irrational and pernicious to himself and society; others may promise a larger rea- sonableness, a more generous social order — ^but meanwhile certain features of the conflict between reason and im- pulse, order and change, are constantly appearing. Dif- ferences in valuation are also inevitable and can be bridged only by an intelligent sympathy. It is easy to consider this or that to be of slight importance to the child when it is really his whole world for the time. Even if he does "get over it," the effect on the disposition may remain, and affect the temper or emotional life, even though not consciously remembered. Probably, also, most parents do not realize how early a crude but sometimes even passion- ate sense for "fairness" develops, or how different the relative setting of an act appears if judged from the motives actually operative with the child, and not from those which might produce such an act in a "grown-up." Most parents and children love each other; few reach a complete understanding. 590 THE FAMILY § 4. SPECIAL CONDITIONS WHICH GIVE RISE TO PRESENT PROBLEMS In addition to the more general conditions of family life, there are certain conditions at present operative which give rise to special problems, or rather emphasize certain aspects of the permanent problems. The family is quite analogous to political society. There needs to be constant readjustment between order and progress, between the control of the society and the freedom of the individual. The earlier bonds of custom or force have to be exchanged in point after point for a more voluntary and moral order. In the words of Kant, heteronomy must steadily give place to autonomy, subordination of rank or status to division of labor with equality in dignity. The elements of strain in the family life at present may fairly be expected to give rise ultimately to a better constitution of its relations. The special conditions are partly economic, partly educational and political, but the general process is a part of the larger growth of modern civilization with the increasing development of individ- uality and desire for freedom. It is sometimes treated as if it affected only the woman or the children; in reality it affects the man as well, though in less degree, as his was not the subordinate position. The Economic Factors. — The "industrial revolution" tranferred production from home to factory. The house- hold is no longer as a rule an industrial unit. Spinning, weaving, tailoring, shoemaking, soap-making, iron- and wood-working, and other trades have gone to factories. Men, young unmarried women, and to some extent mar- ried women also, have gone with them. Children have lost association with one parent, and in some cases with both. The concentration of industry and business leads to cities. Under present means of transportation this means apart- ments instead of houses, it means less freedom, more CAUSES OF PRESENT PROBLEMS 591 strain, for both mother and children, and possible dete- riorating effects upon the race which as yet are quite outside any calculation. But leaving this uncertain field of effects upon child life, we notice certain potent effects upon men and women. It might be a difficult question to decide the exact gains and losses for family life due to the absence of the man from home during the day. On the one hand, too con- stant association is a source of friction; on the other, there is likely to result some loss of sympathy, and where the working-day is long, an almost absolute loss of contact with children. If children are the great natural agencies for cultivating tenderness and affection, it is certainly un- fortunate that fathers should be deprived of this educa- tion. The effect of the industrial revolution upon women has been widely noted. First of all, the opening of an increasing number of occupations to women has rendered them economically more independent. They are not forced to the alternative of marriage or dependence upon rela- tives. If already married, even although they may have lost touch to some extent with their former occupation, they do not feel the same compulsion to endure intolerable conditions in the home rather than again attempt self- support. An incidental effect of the entrance of women upon organized occupations, with definite hours and im- personal standards, is to bring out more strongly by con- trast the "belated" condition of domestic work. It is difficult to obtain skilled workers for an occupation re- quiring nearly double the standard number of hours, iso- lation instead of companionship during work, close personal contact with an employer, a measure of control over conduct outside of the hours on duty, and finally the social inferiority implied by an occupation which has in it survivals of the status of the old-time servant. In- deed, the mistress of the house, if she "does her own work," doesn't altogether like her situation. There is now no 592 THE FAMILY one general occupation which all men are expected to master irrespective of native tastes and abilities. If every male were obliged to make not only his own clothing, including head- and foot-wear, but that of his whole family, unassisted, or with practically unskilled labor, there would probably be as much misfit clothing as there is now unsatisfactory home-making, and possibly there would be an increase of irritability and "nervousness" on the one side and of criticism or desertion on the other, which would increase the present strain upon the divorce courts. To an increasing number of women, the position of being "jack-at-all-trades and master-of-none" is irritating. The conviction that there is a great waste of effort with- out satisfactory results is more wearing than the actual doing of the work. For the minority of women who do not "keep house," or who can be relieved entirely of domestic work by experts, the industrial revolution has a different series of possi- bilities. If there is a decided talent which has received adequate cultivation, there may be an opportunity for its exercise without serious interference with family life, but the chances are against it. If the woman cannot leave her home for the entire day, or if her husband regards a gainful occupation on her part as a reflection upon his ability to "support the family," she is practically shut out from any occupation. If she has children and has an intelligent as well as an emotional interest in their welfare, there is an unlimited field for scientific develop- ment. But if she has no regular useful occupation, she is not leading a normal life. Her husband very likely cannot understand why she should not, in the words of Veblen, perform "vicarious leisure" for him, and be satis- fied therewith. If she is satisfied, so much the worse. Whether she is satisfied or not, she is certainly not likely to grow mentally or morally in such an existence, and the family life will not be helped by stagnation or frivolity. CAUSES OF PRESENT PROBLEMS 593 In certain classes of society there is one economic fea- ture which is probably responsible for many petty annoy- ances and in some cases for real degradation of spirit. When the family was an industrial unit, when ex- change was largely in barter, it was natural to think of the woman as a joint agent in production. When the production moved to factories and the wage or the wealth was paid to the man and could be kept in his pocket or his check-book, it became easy for him to think of him- self as "supporting" the family, to permit himself to be "asked" for money for household expenses or even for the wife's personal expenses, and to consider money used in these ways as "gifts" to his wife or children. Women have more or less resistingly acquiesced in this humiliat- ing conception, which is fatal to a real moral relation as well as to happiness. It is as absurd a conception as it would be to consider the receiving teller in a bank as supporting the bank, or the manager of a factory as supporting all the workmen. The end of the family is not economic profit, but mutual aid, and the continuance and progress of the race. A division of labor does not give superiority and inferiority. When one considers which party incurs the greater risks, and which works with greater singleness and sincerity for the family, it must pass as one of the extraordinary superstitions that the theory of economic dependence should have gained vogue. Cultural and Political Factors. — Educational, cultural, and political movements reenforce the growing sense of individuality. Educational and cultural advance strengthens the demand that woman's life shall have as serious a purpose as man's, and that in carrying on her work, whether in the family or without, she may have some share in the grasp of mind, the discipline of char- acter, and the freedom of spirit which come from the scientific spirit, and from the intelligent, efficient organ- 594 THE FAMILY izatibn of work by scientific methods. Political democ- racy draws increasing attention to personal dignity, irre- spective of rank or wealth. Increasing legal rights have been granted to women until in most points they are now equal before the law, although the important exception of suffrage still remains for the most part. Under these conditions it is increasingly difficult to maintain a family union on any other basis than that of equal freedom, equal responsibilities, equal dignity and authority. It will probably be found that most of the tension now especially felt in family life — aside from those cases of maladapta- tion liable to occur under any system — results either from lack of recognition of this equality, or from the more general economic conditions which society as a whole, rather than any particular family, must meet and change. § 5. UNSETTLED PROBLEMS .* ( 1 ) ECONOMIC The family as an economic unit includes the relation of its members to society both as producers and as consumers. The Family and Production. — We have noted the in- dustrial changes which have seemed to draw the issue sharply between the home and outside occupations. We have seen that the present organization of industry, busi- ness, and the professions has separated most of the occu- pations from the family, so that woman must choose between family and a specific occupation, but cannot ordinarily combine the two. We have said that in requir- ing all its women to do the same thing the family seems to exclude them from individual pursuits adapted to their talents, and to exclude them likewise from the whole scien- tific and technical proficiency of modern life. Is this an inevitable dilemma? Those who think it is divide into two parties, which accept respectively the opposite horns. The one party infers that the social division of labor must UNSETTLED PROBLEMS 595 be: man to carry on all occupations outside the family, woman to work always within the family. The other party infers that the family life must give way to the industrial tendency. (1) The "domestic theory," or as Mrs. Bosanquet styles it, the "pseudo-domestic" theory, is held sincerely by many earnest friends of the family in both sexes. They feel strongly the fundamental necessity of family life. They believe further that they are not seeking to subordinate woman to the necessities of the race, but rather to give her a unique position of dignity and affec- tion. In outside occupations she must usually be at a disadvantage in competition with men, because of her physical constitution which Nature has specialized for a different function. In the family she "reigns supreme." With most women life is not satisfied, experience is not full, complete consciousness of sex and individuality is not attained, until they have dared to enter upon the full family relations. Let these be preserved not merely for the race, but especially for woman's own sake. Further, it is urged, when woman enters competitive occupations outside the home, she lowers the scale of wages. This makes it harder for men to support families, and therefore more reluctant to establish them. Riehl urges that not only should married women remain at home; un- married women should play the part of "aunt" in some one's household — he says alte Tante, but it is not necessary to load the theory too heavily with the adjective. ( 2 ) The other horn of the dilemma is accepted by many writers, especially among socialists. These writers assume that the family necessarily involves not only an exclu- sively domestic life for all women, but also their economic dependence. They believe this dependence to be not merely a survival of barbarism, but an actual immorality in its exchange of sex attraction for economic support. Hence they would abandon the family or greatly modify it. It 596 THE FAMILY must no longer be "coercive"; it will be coercive under present conditions. Fallacies in the Dilemma. — Each of these positions involves a fallacy which releases us from the necessity of choosing between them. The root of the fallacy in each case is the conception that the economic status determines the moral end, whereas the moral end ought to determine the economic status. The fallacy of the pseudo-domestic theory lies in sup- posing that the home must continue its old economic form or be destroyed. What is essential to the family is that man and wife, parents and children, should live in such close and intimate relation that they may be mutually helpful. But it is not essential that present methods of house construction, domestic service, and the whole indus- trial side of home life be maintained immutable. There is one fundamental division of labor between men and women. The woman who takes marriage at its full scope accepts this. "The lines which it follows are drawn not so much by the woman's inability to work for her family in the outside world — she constantly does so when the death or illness of her husband throws the double burden upon her; but from the obvious fact that the man is incapable of the more domestic duties incident upon the rearing of children." ^ But this does not involve the total life of a woman, nor does it imply that to be a good wife and mother every woman must under all possible advances of industry continue to be cook, seamstress, housemaid, and the rest. True it is that if a woman steps out of her profession or trade for five, ten, twenty years, it is in many cases difficult to reenter. But there are some occu- pations where total absence is not necessary. There are others where her added experience ought to be an asset instead of a handicap. A mother who had been well trained ought to be a far more effective teacher in her wholesome and intelligent influence. She ought to be a * Helen Bosanquet, The Family, p. 272. UNSETTLED PROBLEMS 597 more efficient manager or worker in the great variety of civic and social enterprises of both paid and unpaid char- acter. There is no doubt that the present educational and social order is suffering because deprived of the com- petent service which many married women might render, just as women in their turn are suffering for want of con- genial occupation, suited to their capacities and individual tastes. A growing freedom in economic pursuit would improve the home, not injure it. For nothing that inter- feres with normal development is likely to prove beneficial to the family's highest interest. The fallacy of those who would abolish the family to emancipate woman from economic dependence is in sup- posing that because the woman is not engaged in a gain- ful occupation she is therefore being supported by the man for his own pleasure. This is to adopt the absurd assumptions of the very condition they denounce. This theory at most, applies to a marriage which is conceived from an entirely selfish and commercial point of view. If a man marries for his own pleasure and is willing to pay a cash price ; if a woman marries for cash or support and is willing to pay the price, there is no doubt as to the proper term for such a transaction. The result is not a family in the moral sense, and no ceremonies or legal forms can make it moral. A family in the moral sense exists for a common good, not for selfish use of others. To secure this common good each member contributes a part. If both husband and wife carry on gainful occupations, well ; if one is occupied outside the home and the other within, well also. If there are children, the woman is likely to have the far more difficult and wearing half of the common labor. Which plan is followed, i.e., whether the woman works outside or within the home, ought to depend on which plan is better on the whole for all concerned, and this will depend largely on the woman's own ability and tastes, and upon the number and age of the children. But the eco- 598 THE FAMILY nomic relation is not the essential thing. The essential thing is that the economic be held entirely subordinate to the moral conception, before marriage and after. The Family as Consumer. — The relation of the family as consumer to society and to the economic process at large involves also an important moral problem. For while production has been taken from the home, the select- ive influence of the family over production through its direction of consumption has proportionally increased. And in this field the woman of the family is and should be the controlling factor. As yet only the internal aspects have been considered. Most women regard it as their duty to buy economically, to secure healthful food, and make their funds go as far as possible. But the moral respon- sibility does not stop here. The consumer may have an influence in helping to secure better conditions of produc- tion, such as sanitary workshops, reasonable hours, decent wages, by a "white label." But this is chiefly valuable in forming public opinion to demand workrooms free from disease and legal abolition of sweatshops and child labor. The greater field for the consumers' control is in deter- mining the kind of goods that shall be produced. What foods shall be produced, what books written, what plays presented, what clothing made, what houses and what fur- nishing shall be provided — all this may be largely deter- mined by the consumers. And the value of simplicity, util- ity, and genuineness, is not limited to the eff^ects upon the family which consumes. The workman who makes fraud- ulent goods can hardly help being injured. The economic waste involved in the production of what satisfies no per- manent or real want is a serious indictment of our present civilization. It was said, under the subject of the economic process, that it was an ethically desirable end to have in- crease of goods, and of the kind wanted. We may now add a third end: it is important that society should learn to want the kinds of goods which give happiness and not UNSETTLED PROBLEMS 599 merely crude gratification. Men often need most what they want least. Not only the happiness of life but its progress, its unfolding of new capacities and interests, is determined largely by the direction of the consumption. Woman is here the influential factor. If there were no other reason for the better and wider education of woman than the desirability of more intelli- gent consumption, society would have ample ground to demand it. §6. UNSETTLED PROBLEMS: (2) POLITICAL The family may be regarded as a political unit, first in its implication of some control of the members by the common end, and in the second place in its relation to the authority of the State. I. Authority within the Family. — If the poHtical char- acter of the family were kept clearly in mind, the internal relations of the members of the family would be on a far more moral basis and there would be less reason for fric- tion or personal clashes. If there is a group of persons which is to act as a unity, there must be some leadership and control. In many cases there will be a common con- viction as to the fittest person to lead or direct, but where the group is a permanent one with frequent occasions for divergent interests, unity has been maintained either by force or by some agency regarded by the people as embody- ing their common will. In the earliest forms of society this, as we have seen, was not clearly distinguished from personal and individual command. But as the concep- tion of the political worked free from that of the personal agent, it could be recognized more and more that the ruler was not the man — ^not Henry or William, — ^but the King or the Parliament, as representing the nation. Then government became a more consciously moral act. Obe- dience was not humiliating, because the members were sovereign as well as subject. It was not heteronomy but 600 THE FAMILY autonomy. In the family the personal relation is so close that this easily overshadows the fact that there is also a family relation of a political sort. The man in the patriarchal family, and since, has exercised, or has had the legal right to exercise authority. And with the legal theory of inequality to support him it is not strange that he should often have conceived that obedience was due to him as a person, and not to him as, in certain cases, best representing the joint purpose of the family, just as in other cases the woman best represents this same purpose. Equality or Inequality. — But even when there had been recognition of a more than personal attitude the question would at once arise, are the members of a family to be considered as of equal or unequal importance? The an- swer until recently has been unequivocal. In spite of such apparent exceptions as chivalry, and the court paid to beauty or wit, or the honor accorded to individual wives and mothers, woman has seldom been taken seriously in the laws and institutions of society. Opportunities for edu- cation and full participation in the thought and life of civilization are very recent. Public school education for girls is scarcely a century old. College education for women, in a general sense, is of the present genera- tion. But the conviction has steadily gained that democ- racy cannot treat half the race as inferior in dignity, or exclude it from the comradeship of life. Under primi- tive society a man was primarily a member of a group or caste, and only secondarily a person. A woman has been in this situation as regards her sex. She is now asserting a claim to be considered primarily as a person, rather than as a woman. This general movement, like the economic movement, has seemed to affect the attitude of unmarried women, and to a less degree, of men, toward marriage, and to involve an instability of the fam- ily tie. The question is then this; does the family neces- sarily involve inequality, or can it be maintained on 9, UNSETTLED PROBLEMS 601 basis of equality? Or to put the same thing from another angle: if the family and the modern movement toward equality are at variance, which ought to give way? The "pseudo-domestic" theory on this point is suggested by its general position on the economic relations of the family as already stated. It believes that the family must be maintained as a distinct sphere of life, coordinate in importance for social welfare with the intellectual, artis- tic, and economic spheres. It holds, further, that the fam- ily can be maintained in this position only if it be kept as a unique controlling influence in woman's life, isolated from other spheres. This of course involves an exclusion of woman from a portion of the intellectual and political life, and therefore an inferiority of development, even if there is not an inferiority of capacity. Some of this school have maintained that in America the rapid advance in education and intelligence among women has rendered them so superior to the average man who has to leave school for business at an early age that they are unwilling to marry. A German alliterative definition of woman's "sphere" has been found in "the four K's" — Kirche, Kin- der, Kiiche, und Kleider. If the permanence of the family rests on the mainte- nance of a relation of inferiority, it is indeed in a perilous state. All the social and political forces are making to- ward equality, and from the moral standpoint it is im- possible successfully to deny Mill's classic statement, "The only school of genuine moral sentiment is society between equals." But some of the advocates of equality have ac- cepted the same fallacious separation between the family and modern culture. They have assumed that the family life must continue to be unscientific in its methods, and meager in its interests. Some women — like some men — un- doubtedly place a higher value on book learning, musical and dramatic entertainment, and other by-products of modern civihzation than on the elemental human sympathies 602 THE FAMILY and powers which these should serve to enrich. It is too easily granted that the opportunity and duty of woman as wife and mother are limited to a purely unscientific pro- vision for physical wants to the exclusion of scientific methods, intellectual comradeship, and effective grappling with moral problems. Isolation Not the Solution. — ^The solution for the pres- ent unrest is therefore to be found not in forcing the sepa- ration between the family on the one hand and the intel- lectual, political, and other aspects of civilization on the other, but in a mutual permeation. They think very lightly of the elemental strength of sex and parental in- stincts who suppose that these are to be overslaughed in any great portion of the race by cultural interests. And it is to ignore the history of political progress to suppose that organic relations founded on equality and democracy are less stable than those resting on superiority and sub- ordination. The fact is that there is no part of life so much in need of all that modern science can give, and no field for intellectual penetration and technological organi- zation so great as the family. Correlative with its control over economic processes through its position as consumer, is its influence over social, educational, and political life, through its relation to the children who are constantly renewing the structure. To fulfill the possibilities and even the duties of family life under modern conditions requires both scientific training and civic activity. Provisions for health and instruction and proper social life in school, provisions for parks and good municipal housekeeping, for public health and public morals, — these demand the intelligent interest of the parent and have in most cases their natural motive in the family necessities. A theory of the family which would limit the parent, especially the mother, to "the home" needs first to define the limits of "the home." To measure its responsibilities by the limit of the street door is as absurd as to suppose that the UNSETTLED PROBLEMS 603 sphere of justice is limited by the walls of the courtroom. A broader education for women is certainly justified by precisely this larger meaning of the care of children and of the family interests. The things of greatest impor- tance to human life have scarcely been touched as yet by science. We know more about astrophysics than about health and disease ; more about waste in steam power than about waste in foods, or in education ; more about classical archaeology than about the actual causes of poverty, alco- holism, prostitution, and childlessness, the chief enemies of home life. In the light of the actual possibilities and needs of family life two positions seem equally absurd : the one that family life can be preserved best by isolating it, and particularly its women, from culture ; the other, that it does not afford an opportunity for a full life. Neither of these errors can be corrected apart from the other. It is in the mutual permeation and interaction of the respect- ive spheres of family and cultural life, not in their isola- tion, that the family is to be strengthened. Here, as in the economic field, no one family can succeed entirely by itself. The problem is largely a social one. But every family which is free and yet united, which shows comradeship as well as mutual devotion, is forcing the issue and preparing the way for the more perfect family of the future. 2. Authority over the Family: Divorce. — The strains which have been noticed in the foregoing paragraphs have centered public attention on the outward symptoms of un- rest and maladaptation. Current discussions of family problems are likely to turn largely upon the increase of di- vorce. For the reasons which have been given there has doubtless been increasing tendency to seek divorce, and this may continue until more stable conditions are reached. Now that the authority of the church is less implicitly ac- cepted, individuals are thrown back upon their own volun- tary controls, and whether marriages are arranged by pa- rents as in France, or formed almost solely on the initia- 604 THE FAMILY tive and ungulded will of the parties as in America, the result is much the same. Two classes of persons seek di- vorce. Those of individualistic temperament, who have formed the marriage for selfish ends or in frivolous mo- ments, are likely to find its constraints irksome when the expected happiness fails to be realized and the charm of novelty is past. This is simply one type of immoral con- duct which may be somewhat checked by public opinion or legal restraint, but can be overcome only by a more serious and social attitude toward all life. The other class finds in the bond itself, under certain conditions, a seem- ingly fatal obstacle to the very purpose which it was de- signed to promote : unfaithfulness, cruelty, habitual intox- ication, and other less coarse, but equally effective modes of behavior may be destructive of the common life and morally injurious to the children. Or alienation of spirit may leave external companionship empty of moral unity and value, if not positively opposed to self-respect. This class is evidently actuated by sincere motives. How far society may be justified in permitting dissolution of the family under these conditions, and how far it may properly insist on some personal sacrifice for the sake of larger social ends is simply another form of the problem which we considered in the economic field — the antithesis between individual rights and public welfare. The solution in each case cannot be reached by any external rule. It will be found only in the gradual socializing of the individual on the one hand, and in the correlative development of society to the point where it respects all its members and makes greater freedom possible for them on the other. Mean- while it must not be overlooked that the very conception of permanence in the union, upheld by the state, is itself effective toward thoughtful and well-considered action after as well as before marriage. Some causes of friction may be removed, some tendencies to alienation may be sup- pressed, if the situation is resolutely faced from the stand- UNSETTLED PROBLEMS 605 point of a larger social interest rather than from that of momentary or private concern. General Law of Social Health. — Divorce is a symptom rather than a disease. The main reliance in cases of fam- ily pathology, as for the diseases of the industrial and economic system, is along the lines which modern science is pursuing in the field of medicine. It is isolating certain specific organisms which invade the system under favorable circumstances and disturb its equilibrium. But it finds that the best, and in fact the only ultimate protection against disease is in the general "resisting power" of the living process. This power may be temporarily aided by stimulation or surgery, but the ultimate source of its re- newal is found in the steady rebuilding of new structures to replace the old stagnation ; the retention of broken- down tissues means weakness and danger. The social or- ganism does not escape this law. Science will succeed in pointing out the specific causes for many of the moral evils from which we suffer. Poverty, crime, social injus- tice, breaking down of the family, political corruption, are not all to be accepted simply as "evils" or "wicked- ness" in general. In many cases their amount may be greatly reduced when we understand their specific causes and apply a specific remedy. But the great reliance is upon the primal forces which have brought mankind so far along the line of advance. The constant remaking of values in the search for the genuinely satisfying, the con- stant forming, criticizing, and reshaping of ideals, the reverence for a larger law of life and a more than indi- vidual moral order, the outgoing of sympathy and love, the demand for justice — all these are the forces which have built our present social system, and these must con- tinually reshape it into more adequate expressions of gen- uine moral life if it is to continue unimpaired or in greater vigor. We do not know in any full sense whence the life 606 THE FAMILY of the spirit comes, and we cannot, while standing upon the platform of ethics, predict its future. But if our study has shown anything, it is that the moral is a life, not a something ready made and complete once for all. It is instinct with movement and struggle, and it is precisely the new and serious situations which call out new vigor and lift it to higher levels. Ethical science tracing this process of growth, has as its aim not to create life — for the life is present already, — but to discover its laws and principles. And this should aid in making its further advance stronger, freer, and more assured because more intelligent. LITERATURE On the early history of the Family, see the works cited at close of ch. ii.; also Starcke, The Primitive Family, 1889; Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage, 1901 ; Howard, A History of Matri- monial Institutions, 3 vols., 1904. On present problems : H. Bosanquet, The Family, 1906; Parsons, The Family, 1906; Bryce, Marriage and Divorce in Roman and in English Lata, in Studies in History and Jurisprudence, 1901; Ellis, Man and Woman; Thomas, Sex and So- ciety, 1906; Bebel, Woman and Socialism; Riehl, Die Familie, INDEX Ab6lard, 150 f. Achan, 18, 29, 60, 104 Addams, Jane, 144 ^schylus, 112, 116, 139 Esthetic, in Greek valuation of conduct, 91, 112, 116 f., 133 f., 135 n., 137 Agency, public, see Public Agency ; rationalizing, 40-2 ; socializing, 42-8 Altruism, discussion of theories concerning, 384-91 ; altruistic springs, 385; true and false, 387-8; contrasted with social justice, 389 Amos, 85 Approbation, 399, 402 Angell, 9 Aquinas, Thomas, 150 Aristophanes, 112 Aristotle, on the criterion of a moral act, 12, 37, 202; on na- ture and the natural, 7, 127 f.; on the State, 127 ff.; Eudaemo- nism, 134 ; the " mean," 134 ; on " highmindedness," 135 ; on the reflective life, 138; on the good man, 279, 324; on the right, 306 n.; on justice, 414; re- ferred to, 230, 455 Arnold, M., 91, 338 Art and arts, as a rationalizing agency, 41 f.; as a socializing agency, 45 f.; create new in- terests, 79 f.; Hebrew, 107; Greek, 112, 114 f.; mediaeval, 147, 149; Church and modern, 155; as a good that is sharable, 559 Asceticism, 145, 185, 366, 576 Attitude, defined, 229; empha- sized by one type of theory, 236-7, 240; relation to will, 246 ; see Motive and " How " Augustine, 150 Aurelius, Marcus, 136 Authority, of group, Q6 f.; be- hind customs, 52; in Israel's religion, 96 f.; of custom chal- lenged in Greece, 111 ff., 119 ff.; of the church, 145-7; con- flict of reason with, 165 f. ; of duty, 344; in the family, 599 f.; see Duty, Control, Stand- ard Autonomy, as essence of moral duty, 225; Kant's conception of, 169, 346, 352; in later util- itarianism, 361; in State and the family, 599 f.; see Control, Duty, Law, State Australian customs, marriage, 22; initiatory, 58 f.; regulated duel, 63 Bacon, Francis, 4, 164, 165 Bacon, Roger, 164 Bagehot, 53 Bain, on happiness, 265; on utili- tarianism, 286; his account of duty, 356-8 Balzac, 189 Bayard, Chevalier, 149 Benevolence, 160 f., 375-91 Bentham, on motive, 228, 247-8,' 354; on moral science, 235; on disposition, 254-5; on pleas- ure and happiness, 264, 286; on utilitarian calculus, 275-6; de- nial of quality of pleasure, 282; on pleasure of sympathy, 291 ; democratic individualism of, 525 Blackstone, 578 Blood feud, 28, 62 f., 70, 456 Boniface VIII., Bull of, 147 Bosanquet, Helen, 584, 595 f. Bryce, James, 146 Caesar, 18 607 608 INDEX Capital and labor, 499, 501 f., 505 f., 532, 543 f. Capitalism, as method of indus- try, 78, 158-60, 498 f., 508, 538, 545; see Capital, Corporation Carelessness, 462-4 Carlyle, criticism of individual- ism, 161, 192; of utilitarianism, 265, 289 n. Casuistry, 325-8 Categorical Imperative, 344 Celts, clan system of, 144; see also Ireland, Welsh Character, formation of, 9 f.; organization of, in group morality, 72; in Hebrews, 104- 6; among Greeks, 138-41; rela- tion to desire and deliberation, 202; moral importance of, 229, 233; relation to will, 246; rela- tion to conduct. Chapter XIII.; and disposition, 254-7; meas- ures the pleasant and unpleas- ant, 277-9; unification of, 283; its reconstruction, 343, 362; recognized by law, 460 f. Charity, in Middle Ages, 146, 157; and right to life, 444; see Benevolence Chastity, 146, 177 Chief, authority of, 61 Child-labor, 193 f., 444, 489, 538, 540 f. Chinese customs, 17 f., 69 Chivalry, 149 f. Christian conceptions, love, 100; sacrifice, 102; faith, 103; free- dom, 108; social order, 109, 187; asceticism and authority, 145 f., 364; unity of members, 147; moral value of labor, 156; relation to social order, 184 ff.; see Church, Hebrew Church, its contribution to mod- ern morality, 142; its ideals, 145; and jural theory of morals, 218 f.; its influence on history of the family, 576-8; see also Religion Cicero, 152 Civil Society, Chapter XXI.; de- fined, 451; reform of its ad- ministration, 471-3 Clark, J. B., 542 Class ideals, of Greeks, 116 f.; of Germans and Celts, 144 f.; honor and, 86 f.; as source of ^ moral terms, 175 f. Class interests, 84, 94, 119-24, _ 127, 162, 474 Closed shop, 559-61 Collective Agencies, see Corpora- tions, Labor Union, Public Agency, Socialism Collectivism, its formula, 484; contrasted with socialism, 556 Colonna, ^gidius, 147 L Communism, 161 Competition, modern theory of, 158, 531, 542; tends to destroy itself, 532, 538; crude method of selecting ability, 559; Car- lyle on, 161 Conduct, as subject of ethics, 1; two aspects of, 2; three stages of, 8-10; three levels of, 37-9; first level. Chapter III.; second level. Chapter IV.; third level. Chapters V.-VIII.; nature of, 205, 237-8; relation to char- acter. Chapter XIII.; place of happiness in. Chapter XIV.; place of reason in. Chapter XVI. Conflicting services, problem of, 493 Conscience, transition from cus- tom to, 73 f., 179; Greek sym- bols of, 139 f.; Stoic sugges- tion of, 140 f.; with Ab6lard, 151; meaning of, 183, 188 f.; analysis of, see Intuitionalism, Knowledge, Reason Conscientiousness, 405, 434 Consequences, Chapter XIII.; im- portance of, 234-5, 238; denied by Kant, 242-4; when foreseen form intention, 247; practical importance, 251 ; as moral sanc- tions, 358-60; as self-realiza- tion, 392; accidental, 459-60; careless, 463 Content, see Consequences, and " What " Contracts, versus status, 20; theory and value of, 158, 452 f ., 496 ; of little benefit to wage- earner, 503-5, 529 f.; as ob- INDEX 609 stacle to legislation, 505 f.; an- alyzed, 527 ff. Control, the right as, 7; in primi- tive group, 26-9, 32, 34, 52; primitive means of enforcing, 54 fF.; challenged in Greece, 118 ff.; problem of, 217-9; -eories concerning, 225, 232; external and internal, 353-61; self-control, 407; see Jural, Law, Standard, Right Convention, in Greek morals and ethics. 111 f., 124 f. Cooperation, and mutual aid, 43; in industry, 43; in war, 44 f.; in art, 45 f.; as organized in corporations and unions, 495- 507 Corporations, moral difficulties of, 498; management of, 500 f.; relations to employes and public, 501 ff. ; require new types of morality, 517-22; cap- italization of, 561 ff. Corruption, political, 477, 537-9 Coulanges, 19 Courage, 42, 118, 410-13 Courts, primitive, 61; as school of morality, 182 f.; as instru- ments of oppression, 195; civil, ethical value of, 454; in labor disputes, 504 f.; on police power, 505 f., 555 f.; recogni- tion of public welfare by, 555 f. Covenant, in Hebrew moral de- velopment, 94 ff. Criminal Procedure, reform of, 468-9 Criterion of the moral, 5-13, 202 ff.; of the good and right, typi- cal theories of, 224 ff.; see Good, Right, Kant, Utilitar- ianism, Plato, Aristotle Crusades, 154 Cunningham, W., 157 Custom, and the term ethics, 1; in early group life, 17 ff.; as " second level " of conduct, 38, 51; general discussion of, 51 ff., 171 ff.; educational, 57 ff.; jural, 59 ff.; birth, marriage, death, 64 f.; festal, 65; hospi- tality, 67 f.; values and de- fects of, 68 ff.; transition to conscience from, 73 ff.; transi- tion among Hebrews, 95 f.; among Greeks, 110 ff.; opposed to "nature," 120 f.; Grote on, 172 f.; compared with reflec- tive morality, 172 ff.; and moral rules, 330-2, 431 Cultus, of Hebrew priesthood, 97 ff. Cynics, 112, 125 f. Cyrenaics, 112, 125 f. Dante, 150 Darwinism, and morals, 371 f.; see Naturalism Deliberation, 202, 319; and intui- tion, 322-3; and conscience, 421; of crucial importance, 464 Democracy, in Greece, 119 f.; de- velopment of, 151 ff., 162 f.; moral, 303; and moral prob- lems, 474-81 ; the corporation in relation to, 500; and economic problems, 521 f.; and individ- ualism, 530, 535; as agency, 558; and the family, 594, 600 f. Descartes, 164 f. Desire, hedonistic theory of, 269; relation to pleasure, 270-1; to happiness, 272-3; and reason, 308; their organization, 317; conflict with duty, 339-46; and temperance, 406-8 Dharna, 63 Distribution, theories of, 545-50; present inequalities in, 545; in- dividualism and, 546; equal division, 547; a working pro- gramme, 548-50 Divorce, 574 f., 577, 603-5 Dominicans, 149 f. Duty, Chapter XVII.; Stoic con- ception, 140 f.; origin of the term, 176; standpoint of, 232; double meaning of, 337; con- flict with desire, 340; explana- tion of, 342-4, 362-3; author- ity of, 344; social character of, 345; Kant's view, 346-52; utili- tarian view of, 353-62 Eastman, Charles, 43, 54, 60 Eckstein, 577 Economic conditions and forces. 610 INDEX in kinship and family groups, 24 f.; help to eflFect transition from group morality to con- science, 76; among Hebrews, 93 f.; among Greeks, 119 ff.; modern, 155-63; in reflective morality, 194; restrict physical freedom, 444; and freedom of thought, 447; legislative reform of, 481; in relation to happi- ness and character, 487 ff.; social aspects of, 491 ff.; re- quire ethical readjustment, 496, 517-22; impersonal char- acter, 511 f.; ethical principles, 514 ff.; unsettled problems, 523-65 Education, moral significance of, 168 f.; right to, 446 f.; restric- tions upon, 448 f. ; as a means of justice, 548 f., 557 f. Egoism, 214, 258, 303, 423, 467; hedonistic, 288-9 (see Chapter XV.) ; naturalistic theory of, 368-74; contrasted with altru- ism, 375; explanation of, 377- 81; reasonable self-love, 382; see Self, Individualism Ellis, H., 584 Eliot, George, 154, 301 Emerson, 349, 350, 446 n., 470, 581 Empiricism, 226, 231, 306; dis- cussion of, 329-32 Ends, and Means, 210; relation of happiness to, 273-4; utili- tarian, conflicts with its hedo- nistic motive, 289; social and rational, 314; kingdom of, 315 and 433 Enlightenment, period of, 163, 165 ff. Epictetus, 140 Epicureans, theory of life, 125, 135, 218; on friendship, 125, 130, 187 Ethics, definition, 1; derivation of term, 1 ; specific problem of, 2; method of, 3-13 Ethos, meaning, 1; Chapter IV., 175 Eudsemonism, 134, 230; see Hap- piness, Self-realization Euripides, 112, 116, 139 Evil, problem of, in Israel, 100 ff. Excitement, and pleasure, 408 Ezekiel, on personal responsibil- ity, 104 " Pagan, J. O.," 503 Family, or Household Group, 23- 31; as an agency in early so- ciety, 47-9; as affected by re- flective morality, 193; and contract, 453; history of, 571- 8; psychological basis of, 578- 84; strain in, 584-9; present factors of strain in, 590-4; and the economic order, 594-9; authority in, 599-603; and di- vorce, 603-5 Feelings, the hedonistic ultimate, 225; an ambiguous term, 249- 51; Mill on importance of, 294 Feud, see Blood Feud Fichte, 490 Fisher, G. P., 143 Fiske, John, 581 Franchises, abuses of, 539 Franciscans, 149 f. Francke, Kuno, 149 Freedom, Pauline conception, 108; formal and real, 158 ff., 437-9, 483 f., 525 f., 529, 549; see Rights Freund, E., 555 Galileo, 164 Genetic Method in Ethics, 3 Gentleman, in Greece, 116 f.; mediaeval and class ideal of, 144 f., 149, 155-7 Genung, J. F., 102 George, Henry, 162, 510 f. Germans, customs of, 18, 53; character and ideals, 143 f., 149; family among, 575 f. Golden Rule, 334 Good, the, as subject of ethics, 1, 7 f., 12, 203-5, 215, 236, 241; origin of the conception of moral, 183 f.; in group moral- ity, 69-72; Hebrew ideals of, 107-9; significance in Greek thought, 113, 117, 119, 124; Greek individualistic and hedo- nistic theories of, 126; Plato INDEX 611 on, 131-4, 136 f., 140; Aristotle on, 134 f., 138; and modern civilization, 154 ff., 557 f.; as happiness, 169, Chapter XIV.; private and general, 289-300, 308; the true, 208, 284, 302; good men as standard, 279, 324; rational and sensuous, 337; wealth as, 487; see Hap- piness, Value Goodness, 233, 251; formal and material, 259 n.; of character, 279; and happiness, 284; and social interest, 298; intrinsic, 318-20; and progress, 422; see Virtue Government, distrust of, 474; re- form of, 479-80; see also State Gray, J. H., 17 Greeks, early customs, 18 f., 46; compared with Hebrews, 91 f.; moral development of, 111-41, 197 Green, on duty, 225; on hedo- nism, 269; on practical value of utilitarianism, 287-8; on moral progress, 429 Grosscup, Judge, 552 Grote, 19, 172 f., 178 Group ideal, mediaeval, 144 f.; see Class Ideal Group Life, early. Chapter II.; necessary to understand moral life, 17; typical facts of, 17; kinship, 21 If.; family, 23 ff.; ownership of land in, 24; other economic aspects of, 25 f.; political aspects of, 26-30; rights and responsibilities of individual in, 27-30; religious aspects of, 30-2; age and sex groups in, 32-4; moral signifi- cance of, 34 f. Group Morality, 34 f., 51 if.; ''alues and defects of, 68-73; in early Hebrew life, 92; in Middle Ages, 144 f.; persist- ence of, 173-8; in legal prog- ress, 456; and international re- lations, 481 f.; in industrial conflicts, 500 Habit, and character, 9 f., 12, 202; effect on knowledge, 319; effect upon desire, 342-3 Hadley, A. T., 475 n., 488, 563 Hammurabi, Code of, 82, 105, 574 Happiness, and pleasure, 230, 263; ambiguity in conception of, 266; relation to desire, 272- 4; as standard, 275-80; ele- ments in its constitution, 281-3; final or moral, 284; general, 286; and sympathy, 300-3; and eflSciency, 373; private and public, 395-7; see Eudaemo- nism. Good Hazlitt, on Bentham, 268; on ex- citement, 409 n. Hearn, 24 Hebrews, early morality, 18; moral development, 91-110; compared with Greek, 91 Hedonism, 230; Hebrew, 106 f.; Greek, 126, 132 f . ; criticism of, 269-75; universalistic, 286; egoistic character of, 289-94; Kant's, 309; paradox of, 352; its theory of duty, 353 Hegel, on institutional character of morals, 225-6 High-mindedness, Aristotle's de- scription of, 135 n. Hobhouse, L. T., on formation of custom, 54; on social order and individuality, 428; on the family, 575 f., 577 Hoffding, 253 n. Honesty, 188, 414, 496 Honor, 85-8, 144 f., 176 Hosea, 95 Hospitality, in group morality, 67 "How," the, in conduct, 5-8, 228 f., 240; in group morality, 69 f . ; in Hebrew morality, 102 ff. ; in Greek ethics, 136 ff.; see At- titude Howard, 576 Ibsen, 82, 100, 157, 303, 588 Ideal, V8. actual in Greek thought, 136-8; meaning of, 421 f. India, customs of, 26, 63, 524 Indians (American), 25, 43, 54, 60 61^ INDEX Indifferent Acts, 205-6, 210-11 Individual, the, in early group life, 20, 22 f., 27-30, 34, 71 f.; collision of with group, 74, 75 f., 82 ff., 88, 184-7, 432; among Hebrews, 104; development of, in modern civilization, 148-69; as affected by reflective moral- ity, 187-92; and society, 427- 36; relation to corporations and unions, 500-3; see Indivi- dualism, Self Individualism, as factor in tran- sition from custom to con- science, 75; forces producing, 76-87; in Israel, 94, 102, 104; in Greece, 114-24, 432; in Greek ethical theory, 124-6; in modern world, 149-63, 184-6, 220-3, 432 f.; in ethical theory, 225 f., 290; Carlyle's criticism of, 265 f.; hedonistic, 289 ff., 301 f.; as self-assertion, 368- 75; true and false, 481; politi- cal formula of, 483 f.; in eco- nomic theory, 523-35; demo- cratic, 525, 530 f . ; " survival of the fittest," 525, 532-4; values, 527 f., 548 f.; does not secure real freedom, 529; nor justice, 530 ff., 535, 546 f.; other de- fects of, 551 ff.; in U. S. Con- stitution, 534 ; on " unearned increment," 564 f.; in family, 604; see Individual, Self Industry, as a rationalizing agency, 39-42 ; differentiation in, 41; as a socializing agency, 42 f.; factor in effecting tran- sition from custom to con- science, 76-8; modern develop- ment of, 155-9; agencies of, 497 Initiation, in primitive tribes, 58 Institutions, 192-5, 222, 225-6; see Chapter XX. Intention, and Motive, 246-54, 257-8, 261; and accident, 63, 104, 459-60; see Deliberation Intuitionalism, 226, 232, 306; dis- cussion of, 317-25; and casuis- try, 325-8 Ireland, ancient law of, 24 f., 62, 83 Israel, moral development of, 91-110, 197 James, William, on the social self, 85-7; on animal activity, 204; on effect of emotion on ideas, 253 Japanese morality, 18 Jesus, 106 f., 109 Job, moral theory in, 97, 101 f., 106 Judgments, moral; see Moral Jural influence, 7, 103, 113 f., 177, 218-9, 224, 328, 353-6, 439, 454-5, 467-8 Justice, in primitive society, 27 f.; as Hebrew ideal, 94 f., 99 f., Iu8 f.; in Greek theory, 113 f.; natural and conventional, 120 f.; as interest of the stronger, 122-4; modern de- mand for, 148, 161 ff.; and charity, 148, 389 f.; virtue of, 414-7; development of civil, 456-63; formal and substantial, 465 f ., 531 ; social, 161, 410, 521, 556-8; the new, 496 f.; and in- dividualism, 530-5; in distribu- tion, theories of, 545-50 Kafirs, clanship among, 19, 35 Kant, on unsocial sociableness of man, 75; forces of progress, 87 f.; his Critique of Pure Reason, 166; on dignity of man, 167; general standpoint, 169; individualism of, 191; and the " law of nature," 222 n. ; on moral law, 228-9; on the Good Will, 241-3; his theory of will discussed, 241-46; on egoistic hedonism, 289; theory of prac- tical reason, 309-17; theory of duty, 344, 346-52; on legality and morality, 432; cf. also 231, 492, 580 Kidd, Dudley, 19, 23, 35 Kinship, 21 ff.; see Group Life Knowledge, place in morals, 215; theories of, 231-2; close con- nection with emotion, 256 n.; with character, 279; see Chap- ter XVI.; Kant's theory of, 309-16; intuitional theory of. INDEX 613 I 317-24; casuijtical view, 325-9; principles in, 333-4; and sym- pathy, 334; and conscience, 418-23 Labor, differentiation of, in early society, 41; the gentleman and, 156; church and, 156; and the law, 504-7; conditions of, 540 f.; of women and children, 540 f.; exploitation of, 542-4; Prof. Seager's programme for bene- fit of, 566 ff.; see Industry, Labor Union, Capital Labor Union, moral aspects of, 499 f.; revives group morality, J 500; relations to the law, 503 ff.; disadvantages of, 503-6; violence of, 541; open and closed shop, 559 ff. Laissez-faire, 161, 475 Land, " unearned increment," 510 f. Lankester, Ray, 168 Law, as control in group life, 59- 63; in Hebrew moral develop- ment, 95-8; righteousness of the, 103; Greek conceptions of, 118-23; of nature, 130, 136, 152, 222; Roman, 142, 152, 222; and government, 194 f.; as defining rights, 454; devel- opment of, 456 ff.; formal in, 465 ; needed reforms in, 468 ff . ; relation to corporations and unions, 503-7; needed to em- body and enforce moral stand- ards, 520 f. ; moral, see Jural; and Right; see Civil Society, Courts, Justice, Legal, State Legal and Moral, 177, 182 f., 433, 439, 454-5, 467-8; see also Jural, Law, Right Leibniz, 165 Levels of conduct, 37-9, 51, 73 Liability, equals external respon- sibility, 436 Liberty, struggle for, 84 f.; see Freedom, Rights " Life," Hebrew and Christian moral ideal, 107; the moral as, 606 Locke, on natural rights, 152; on the "natural light," 166^ his Essay, 166; on danger of fixed rules, 329 Love, between the sexes, 107; psychological analysis of, 578 ff.; as moral ideal, 100, 108 f. Lubbock, 428 Machine, in production, 507 f. MacLennan, 24 Magic, contrasted with religion, 30 n. ; influence on morals, 457 f.; see Taboos Maine, status and contract, 20; Slav families, 60 Mallock, W. H., 533 Marriage, regulations for, in group moralitj^ 64 f. ; viola- tion of, provokes moral reflec- tion, 106; in reflective morality, 193; and contract, 453; Roman, 574 f.; church views of, 576 f.; see Divorce, Family, Sex Marti, 98 Mead, G. H., 164 Mean, Aristotle's conception of, 134 f. Measure, among Greeks, 112 f. Men's clubs and houses, 32 f. Micah, 99 Mill, John Stuart, on Bentham's method, 235 n.; on motive and intention, 248; on disposition, 254; on partial and complete intent, 256; on the desirable, 265 ; on the quality of pleasure, 279-80; on utilitarian standard, 286; on general happiness, 290; criticism of Bentham, 293; on desire for social unity, 294, 295, 296; on personal affections, 299 n.; on general rules, 330; as democratic individualist, 525 ; on private property, 553 f ., 556 ; on equality in the family, 601 Monasticism, 149 f., 185 f., 187; women under, 576 f. Moral, derivation of term, 1 f.; characteristics of, 5-13, 49 f., 51, 73, 89, 201-11; conceptions, derivation of, 175-7; differen- tiation of, 177-92; see Morality Morality, customary or group, 51 ff.; defined, 73; Hebrew, 91 ff. (Chapter VI.); Greek, 111 ff. 614 INDEX (Chapter VII.); Modern, 142 ff.; customary and reflective, compared, 171 if.; subjective and objective, 259; Kant's view of, 309-10; social nature of, 431; and legality, 433, 439; changes in, necessitated by present economic conditions, 496 f., 517 ff. Mores, or customs. Chapter IV.; definition, 51; authority and origin of, 52-4; means of en- forcing, 54-7, 172 Moses, 82 Motives, 216, 228, 237; in custom- ary morality, 70; purity of, in- sisted on by Hebrews, 105 f.; relation to effort and achieve- ment, 243-6; relation to inten- tion, 246-54, 257-8, 261; hedo- nistic theory of, criticized, 273, 288-92; sympathy as, 298-300; Kantian view of, 346-8; egois- tic, 379-80; altruistic, 385-6; in business, 538, 541 f. Naturalism, ethical, 369-75; and individualism, in the economic, 525, 532-4; see Nature Nature, opposed to convention among Greeks, 111 f.; 124-31, 135; in modern development of rights, 152 f.; versus arti- ficiality of society, 221 f.; see Naturalism Nemesis, 132, 139 Newton, 165 Nietzsche, 82, 122, 370 n. Nineteenth Century, development of intelligence in, 163 Obligations, 186; and responsi- bility, 440; and rights, 441; see Duty Opportunity, equal, 526 f., 549 Optimism and courage, 412-3 " Oregon case," decision of U. S. Supreme Court in, 540 Ought, 176; see Duty Owen, 161 Paley, 354 n. Parsifal, 149 Parties, political, 478 Paul, his ethics, 100, 108 f. Peace, as moral ideal, 108 Perfectionism, 231 Pessimism, and courage, 413 Pindar, 122 Plato, on the necessity of the moral sense, 2; moral influence of art, 42; duty to strangers, 67; on measure, 112; religious critic, 116; on the "gentle- man," 117; presents argu- ments of individualists, 120 ff.; on the State, 127, 129 f.; on the good, 131 ff. ; on pleasure, 132 f.; on the ideal, 136 ff.; on the self, 140; on rule of wealthy, 491; on private prop- erty, 494 Pleasure, good measured by, among early Hebrews, 107; Greek doctrines of, 125 f., 132 f.; not the object of desire, 269-71; quality, 279, 282, 300; relation to happiness, 230, 281- 3; and sympathy, 291-2; con- trol of, 407-8 Police Power, 505-7, 540 f., 555 f. Pollock and Maitland, 460, 576 Post, 61 Principles, 179; nature of, 333-4; as motives, 350-2 Problems of Moral Theory, Chap- ter XI. (211-23); classified, 201 ; 214-5, 239, 263, 307 Production, moral cost of, 489; efficiency of, in individualistic systems, 527; regulation of, 528 f. Property, in primitive groups, 24-6; taboo as substitute for, 55; as factor in growth of in- dividualism, 79 f., 83, 94, 119 f.; Plato on, 130; the Church on, 146 f.; and wealth, 487 f.; and character, 490; social as- pects of, 491 f.; private, and social welfare, 493-5; implies public service, 515-7; value of private, 551; defects in pres- ent system, 551 ff. Prophets, Hebrew, 99 f. Protagoras, 3 Protestantism, conception of marriage, 577 INDEX 615 Public Agency, theory of, 535, Chapter XXV. ; advantages claimed by, 537 fT. Public ownership, 494 f. Publicity, necessity of, 511 f., 520 f. Punishment, as necessitating moral judgment, 96 f.; evil viewed as by Hebrews, 96 f., 101; and duty, 353-5; and jus- tice, 417; and social welfare, 442-3; and intent, 461; reform of, 470 Puritans, conception of God- given rights, 152; of art, 155; emphasized value of work, 156 Reason, as element in the moral, 10, 12, 40-2; as standard among Greeks, 91, 131 f., 134; age of, 163, 166; see Chapter XVI.; defined, 306; relation to desire, 308; a priori of Kant, 310; is social, 315; value of principles, 333; and sympathy, 334; opposition to desire, 338, 340; and virtue, 405; and con- scientiousness, 418-23 Religion, in early group life, 30- 2; socializing force, 81 f.; moral agency among Hebrews, 94-102; Greek, 115 f., 139-41; ideals of mediaeval, 145-7; modern development of, 148- 50; and customary morality, 180; in reflective morality, 195 ff.; as sanction of the family, 582; see Church Renaissance, 163 ff. Responsibility, collective, in group life, 17-20, 63, 70, 102; development of personal, 104 f., 141, 153, 158, 182 f.; mean- ing of, 436-9; for accidents, 458-60; for carelessness and negligence, 463-5; as affected by modern economic conditions, 500-3, 519 f. Reverence, 30 n., 59, 71, 140, 407 Revolution, American, 152; Eng- lish, 151; French, 152; Indus- trial, 159, 591 Riehl, W., 595 Right, as subject of ethics and moral judgments, 1-3, 37 f., 201-3, 215, 218, 224, 307 ff.; meaning of, 7 f., 177, 182 f., 224 f.; as standard, 7, 69, 89, 97; among Hebrews as right- eousness, 102-4, 109; among Greeks as justice, 113 f., 140; see also Jural, Justice, Law, Reason, Standard Righteousness, typical theme in Hebrew morality, 91 f., 99, 101, 102 ff., 109, 188; as justice, 414; see Right, Justice Rights, development of, 83 ff., 151 ff.; natural, 152 f. ; modern assertion of, 186; and freedom, 440 ; and obligations, 441 ; phys- ical, 442-4; mental, 445-9; civil, 452; contract, 452; of as- sociation, 453; to use of courts, 454; development of civil, 456- 66; political, 473-4 Ritual, 55 Romanticists, on art and moral- ity, 155 Rome, government and law, con- tribution to modern morality of, 142, 152, 218, 222; patri- archal family, 572, 574 f. Ross, E. A., 520 Rousseau, 152 f., 221 Rules, general, 325-35; and casu- istry, 326-8; and legalism, 328- 9; utilitarian view of, 329-32; distinguished from principles, 333-4 Sanctions, Bentham's theory of, 354; internal, 359 Sceptics, 135, 218 Schiller, 42; on Kant, 349 Schopenhauer, 82 Schurtz, 33 Science, as agency in effecting the transition from custom to conscience, 78-80; in Greek de- velopment, 114-9; in modern period, 155, 167 f.; influence on morals, 469, 473-6; as pro- moting justice, 557-9; and family problems, 593 f., 601-3 Seager, Henry R., programme of social legislation, 566 ff. Secret societies, 33 616 INDEX Seebohm, F., 29, 61 Self, higher and lower, 5, 347 f.; social, how built up, 11, 86 if.; individual and tribal or clan, 93 f.; Greek conception of, 138-41; the twofold, 310; Ar- nold on, 338; Kant on, 347; as social, 294, 345; fictitious theory of, 221, 361 ; theories re- garding its nature, see Chapter XVIIL; self-denial, 364-8; self-assertion, 368-74; self-love and benevolence, 375-91 ; self- realization, 391-4; see Individ- ual, Self-sacrifice Self-sacrifice, 366-8; cf. 102, 298- 304, 380-2, 388-91, 393-5 Seneca, 140 Sense, moral, 317-22 Sex, groups on the basis of, 32 f . ; as a socializing agency, 47 f.; as prompting to self-assertion, 82; taboos, 55, 60, 65; in Hebrew conceptions, 98, 107; in different standards for men and women, 142 ff.; vices, 82, 189; psychology of, 578-81; differences between the sexes, 584-8 Shakspere, 23, 62, 97, 154, 197 Shop, open vs. closed, 559 Simmons and Wigmore, 18 Sidgwick, H., 265 n., 286 Sin, 98, 103 f., 108 Slav grpups, 20, 24 f., 60, 83 Slavery, 84 Smith, Adam, on the formation of conscience, 141; on sym- pathy, 160; Theory of Moral ^ Sentiments, 166; as individual- ist, 525, 527 Smith, Arthur, 69 Smith, H. P., 106 Smith, J. A., 555 Smith, Munroe, 555 f. Smith, W. Robertson, 29 f. Social Ends, of utilitarianism, 287 (see Chapter XV.), 296; and happiness, 302-3; and ra- tionality, 314; and duties, 338, 345; and altruism, 389-90; and individuality, 430 Socialism, doctrine of, 162, 523, 525 f., 535; on production, 537 ff.; in decision of U. S. Su- preme Court, 556; see Public Agency, Collectivism, Individ- ualism Socializing Process and Agencies, 11, 33, 42 f., 47 f., 57 ff., 186, 191 Socrates, 5, 116, 118 Sophocles, 35, 112, 118, 139 f. Spahr, C. B., 545 Spargo, John, 543 Speech, freedom of, 446 Spencer (Baldwin), and Gilleh (F. B.), 22, 58 f. Spencer, Herbert, on primitive morality, 70; on nature and morality, 52, 53; on conduct as indifferent and as ethical, 205- 6; on feeling as ultimate end, 225; on consequences, 234 n.; on happiness 265 n.; on duty, 358-60; on aesthetic ingredients of happiness, 374 n. ; on reward and merit, 515; on voluntary limitation of competition, 532 Spinoza, 82, 253 n., 397, 410 n. Standard, right as, 7; in group morality, 34; custom as, 38, 51 f., 61, 69 f.; law of deity as, 95-7, 103; measure as, 112; popular, in Greece, 116 f.; felt necessity of in Greece, 118, 124; for pleasure, 132 f.; the "mean" as, 135 f.; importance of, 138; utilitarians confuse with object of desire, 266-9; why necessary, 274; happiness as, 275-80; general happiness as. Chapter XV.; the rational, 307; revision of, 422; of politi- cal action, 482-5 Standard of living, 503, 504 n., 522, 540-2; Professor Seager's programme for, 566-70 State, the, early group as germ of, 26-30, 61 f.; as bearer of moral ideals in Israel, 92 f., 100, 108 f.; in Greece, 127; authority challenged, 118-24; Plato and Aristotle on, 127-30; and Church, 146 f., 150; moral effect of organization of, 194 f.; moral value of, 434-6; de- fined, 451; see Chapter XXI. INDEX 617 Stephen, on love of happiness, 273; on egoism, 378 n.; also 265 n. Stevenson, Mrs. M. C, 66 Stoics, the "wise man" of, 135; on following nature, 136; on inner self, 140; natural law, 136, 142, 152, 222; on conflict between the moral and the ac- tual order, 185; cosmopolitan- ism, 187; on control of pas- sions, 217 Sumner, on "mores," 51; on luck, 53; on taboo, 55; on Ethos, 175; gladiatorial shows, 189; on relation between good- ness and happiness, 396 n. Sutherland, 48 Sympathetic Resentment, 44, 49, 70; see Sympathy- Sympathy, as factor in socializa- tion, 11, 35, 44; fostered by art, 45 f.; and family life, 47 f.; and hospitality, 68; when moral, 49, 70; in the moral judgment, 141 n.; modern de- velopment of, 160 f.; Ben- tham's view of, 291-2; Mill's view of, 293-4; importance of, 298-9; principle of knowledge, 334; and duty, 348-9; and efficiency, 370-3; and thought- fulness, 465; see Sympathetic Resentment Taboos, 55, 60 f.; Hebrew, 96; survival of, in modern life, 174 Tariff, protective, 560 Taxation, 555 Teleological types of moral theory, 224; see Good, Value Temperance, 405-10; Greek view of, 117, 406; Roman, 407; Christian, 408 Theodorus, 126 Theory, relation to practice, 4, 212, 606; types of, classified and discussed, 224-39; see also Problems ' Thomas, W., 584 Thoreau, 489 Totem groups, 30 Torts, 455 Toynbee, A., 492 Trades Unions, see Labor Union Unearned Increment, 510 f., 564 f. United States, individualism in, 554; Supreme Court decisions, 555 f. Utilitarianism, relation of, to modern civilization, 169; theory j of intention, 246-52; theory of | the good. Chapters XIV. and XV.; method of, 275; intro- , duction of the idea of quality, ' \ 279; its social standard, Chap- \ ter XV.; theory of general rules, 329-31; theory of duty, 353-61; see also Bentham, Mill Valuation, changed basis of, 508- 11; see Value Value, as "higher and lower," 6, 197; the good as, 7 f., 12; measure of, among Hebrews, 107 f.; question and standard of, among the Greeks, 116, 119, 125 ff.; in modern civilization, 153-7, 169, 194; transformation of, 186 f., 558; moral, and in- compatible ends, 207-9; and teleological theories, 224; of Good Will, 241 Veblen, T. B., 488, 515, 592 - Vices, of reflective stage of morality, 189 ff. Virtue, 230, 397, Chapter XIX.; origin of term, 156, 176; gen- eral meaning, 230, 397; in Greek popular usage, 117 f.; as "mean," 134; as wisdom, 135; highmindedness as, 135; mean- ing in group morality, 176; "old-fashioned," 188; defined, 399-402; classified, 402-3; as- pects of, 403-4; cardinal, 405 Voltaire, 166, 195 Voluntary Action, its nature, 9 f ., 201 f . ; essential to morality, ^ 12 f., 39, 49 f., 73, 89; agencies tending to evoke, 57, 75 ff.; covenant as implying, 95; fun- damental, in Hebrew morality, 91, 105 f.; relatidn to moral theories, 227; divided into "in- ner" and "outer," 227-30; 237- 618 INDEX 9, 261, 432; place of motive and endeavor, 243-6; place of dis- position, 254-8; and accident, 459-60; see Conduct War, as agency in development, 42, 44, 66, 84; and right to life, 442 f.; and organized human- ity, 482 Wealth, in Israel, 93 f.; in Greece, 119 ff.; and property, 487 f.; subordinate to person- ality, 514; should depend on activity, 514 f.; implies public service, 515-7; distribution of, 521 f., 545 ff.; see Property Welsh, kin group, 29, 61 Wergild, 30, 62 Westermarck, 67, 70, 459 " What," the, meaning of, 5-8 ; in group morality, 71; in Hebrew morality, 102 ff.; in Greek theory, 125 ff.; relation to the " how " as outer to inner, 228-39; see Attitude, Conse- quences, " How " WUamowitz-Mollendorf, 18 Windelband, 126 Wisdom, as chief excellence or virtue with Plato, 118; Aris- totle, 135; Sceptics, Epicureans, and Stoics, 135; as standard for pleasure, 133; nurse of all the virtues, 405; as conscien- tiousness, 418-23 Woman, as "leisure class," 157, 188; as laborer, protection for, 489, 540; and the family, 572 ff.; subordination of, 574 f.; her temperamental and occupa- tional distinction from man, 584 ff.; effect of industrial revolution upon, 591 f.; and occupations, 594 ff.; deter- mines consumption, 598 f.; use of higher training for, 599, 602; see Family, Marriage, Sex Work, see Industry, Labor Worth, see Value Wyclif, 150 Xenophon, 115 f. 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