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 5

 
 Barbara H?cinctock Lectures on 
 ^florals of Crator 
 
 THE ETHICS OF COOPERATION. By 
 
 JAMBS H. TUFTS. 
 HIGHER EDUCATION AND BUSINESS 
 
 STANDARDS. By WILLARD EUGBNB 
 
 HOTCHKISS. 
 
 CREATING CAPITAL: MONEY-MAKING 
 AS AN AIM IN BUSINESS. By FREDERICK 
 
 L. LlPMAN. 
 
 IS CIVILIZATION A DISEASE? By STAN- 
 TOM COIT. 
 
 SOCIAL JUSTICE WITHOUT SOCIALISM. 
 By JOHN BATES CLARK. 
 
 THE CONFLICT BETWEEN PRIVATE MO- 
 NOPOLY AND GOOD CITIZENSHIP. By 
 JOHN GRAHAM BROOKS. 
 
 COMMERCIALISM AND JOURNALISM. By 
 HAMILTON HOLT. 
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER IN ITS PUBLIC 
 RELATIONS. By ALBERT SHAW.
 
 THE ETHICS OF 
 COOPERATION
 
 THE ETHICS 
 OF COOPERATION 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES H. TUFTS 
 
 PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CHICAGO 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 Cbc JRibereibr JJrtsa Camfcrftgt 
 1918
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE REGENTS OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published September iQi8
 
 HM 
 
 BARBARA WE1NSTOCK 
 
 LECTURES ON THE MORALS 
 
 OF TRADE 
 
 This series will contain essays by 
 representative scholars and men of 
 affairs dealing with the various phases 
 of the moral law in its bearing on 
 business life under the new economic 
 order, first delivered at the University 
 of California on the Weinstock founda- 
 tion. 
 
 1264402
 
 THE ETHICS 
 OF COOPERATION 
 
 i 
 
 ACCORDING to Plato's famous 
 myth, two gifts of the gods 
 equipped man for living : the one, ajts and 
 inventions to supply him with the means 
 of livelihood ; the other, reverence and 
 justice to be the ordering principles of 
 societies and the bonds of friendship and 
 conciliation. Agencies for mastery over 
 nature and agencies for cooperation 
 among men remain the two great sources 
 of human power. But after two thousand 
 years, it is possible to note an interesting 
 fact as to their relative order of develop-
 
 2 THE ETHICS 
 
 ment in civilization. Nearly all the great 
 skills and inventions that had been ac- 
 quired up to the eighteenth century were 
 brought into man's service at a very early 
 date. The use of fire, the arts of weaver, 
 potter, and metal worker, of sailor, 
 hunter, fisher, and sower, early fed man 
 and clothed him. These were carried 
 to higher perfection by Egyptian and 
 Greek, by Tyrian and Florentine, but it 
 would be difficult to point to any great 
 new unlocking of material resources un- 
 til the days of the chemist and electri- 
 cian. Domestic animals and crude water 
 mills were for centuries in man's serv- 
 ice, and until steam was harnessed, no 
 additions were made of new powers. 
 During this long period, however, the
 
 OF COOPERATION 3 
 
 progress of human association made great 
 and varied development. The gap be- 
 tween the men of Santander's caves, or 
 early Egypt, and the civilization of a cen- 
 tury ago is bridged rather by union of 
 human powers, by the needs and stim- 
 ulating contacts of society, than by con- 
 quest in the field of nature. It was in 
 military, political, and religious organ- 
 ization that the power of associated effort 
 was first shown. Army, state, and hier- 
 archy were its visible representatives. 
 Then, a little over a century ago, began 
 what we call the industrial revolution, 
 still incomplete, which combined new 
 natural forces with new forms of human 
 association. Steam, electricity, machines, 
 the factory system, railroads : these sug-
 
 4 THE ETHICS 
 
 gest the natural forces at man's disposal ; 
 capital, credit, corporations, labor un- 
 ions : these suggest the bringing together 
 of men and their resources into units 
 for exploiting or controlling the new 
 natural forces. Sometimes resisting the 
 political, military, or ecclesiastical forces 
 which were earlier in the lead, some- 
 times mastering them, sometimes com- 
 bining with them, economic organiza- 
 tion has now taken its place in the world 
 as a fourth great structure, or rather as 
 a fourth great agency through which 
 man achieves his greater tasks, and in 
 so doing becomes conscious of hitherto 
 unrealized powers. 
 
 Early in this great process of so- 
 cial organization three divergent types
 
 OF COOPERATION 5 
 
 emerged, which still contend for su- 
 premacy in the worlds of action and of 
 valuation : dominance, competition,, and 
 cooperation. All mean a meeting of hu- 
 man forces. They rest respectively on 
 power, rivalry, and sympathetic inter- 
 
 f -" " "* ' J . r. 
 
 change. Each may contribute to human 
 welfare. On the other hand, each may 
 be taken so abstractly as to threaten hu- 
 man values. I hope to point out that 
 the greatest of these is cooperation, and 
 that it is largely the touchstone for the 
 others. 
 
 Cooperation and dominance both 
 mean organization. Dominance implies 
 inequality, direction and obedience, su- 
 perior and subordinate. Cooperation 
 implies some sort of equality, some mu-
 
 6 THE ETHICS 
 
 tual relation. It does not exclude dif- 
 ference in ability or in function. It does 
 not exclude leadership, for leadership is 
 usually necessary to make cooperation 
 effective. But in dominance the special 
 excellence is kept isolated; ideas are 
 transmitted from above downward. In 
 cooperation there is interchange, cur- 
 rents flowing in both directions, con- 
 tacts of mutual sympathy, rather than 
 of pride-humility, condescension-servil- 
 ity. The purpose of the joint pursuit in 
 organization characterized by domi- 
 nance may be either the exclusive good 
 of the master or the joint good of the 
 whole organized group, but in any case 
 it is a purpose formed and kept by 
 those few who know. The group may
 
 OF COOPERATION 7 
 
 share in its execution and its benefits, 
 but not in its construction or in the es- 
 timating and forecasting of its values. 
 The purpose in cooperation is joint. 
 Whether originally suggested by some 
 leader of thought or action, or whether 
 a composite of many suggestions in the 
 give and take of discussion or in experi- 
 ences of common need, it is weighed 
 and adopted as a common end. It is 
 not the work or possession of leaders 
 alone, but embodies in varying degrees 
 the work and active interest of all. 
 
 Cooperation and competition at first 
 glance may seem more radically op- 
 posed. For while dominance and coop- 
 eration both mean union of forces, 
 competition appears to mean antago-
 
 8 THE ETHICS 
 
 nism. They stand for combination; it 
 for exclusion of one by another. Yet a 
 deeper look shows that this is not true 
 of competition in what we may call its 
 social, as contrasted with its unsocial, 
 aspect. The best illustration of what I 
 venture to call social competition is 
 sport. Here is rivalry, and here in any 
 given contest one wins, the other loses, 
 or few win and many lose. But the 
 great thing in sport is not to win ; the 
 great thing is the game, the contest; 
 and the contest is no contest unless the 
 contestants are so nearly equal as to for- 
 bid any certainty in advance as to which 
 will win. The best sport is found when 
 no one contestant wins too often. There 
 is in reality a common purpose the
 
 OF COOPERATION 9 
 
 zest of contest. Players combine and 
 compete to carry out this purpose; and 
 the rules are designed so to restrict the 
 competition as to rule out certain kinds 
 of action and preserve friendly rela- 
 tions. The contending rivals are in re- 
 ality uniting to stimulate each other. 
 Without the cooperation there would 
 be no competition, and the competition 
 is so conducted as to continue the rela- 
 tion. Competition in the world of 
 thought is similarly social. In efforts 
 to reach a solution of a scientific prob- 
 lem or to discuss a policy, the spur of 
 rivalry or the matching of wits aids the 
 common purpose of arriving at the 
 truth. Similar competition exists in 
 business. Many a firm owes its success
 
 io THE ETHICS 
 
 to the competition of its rivals which 
 hasYorced it to be efficient, progressive. 
 As a manufacturing friend once re- 
 marked to me : " When the other man 
 sells cheaper, you generally find he has 
 found out something you don't know." 
 But we also apply the term " compe- 
 tition " to rivalry in which there is no 
 common purpose; to contests in which 
 there is no intention to continue or re- 
 peat the match, and in which no rules 
 control. Weeds compete with flowers 
 and crowd them out. The factory com- 
 petes with the hand loom and banishes 
 it. The trust competes with the small 
 firm and puts it out of business. The 
 result is monopoly. When plants or 
 inventions are thus said to compete for
 
 OF COOPERATION n 
 
 a place, there is frequently no room for 
 both competitors, and no social gain by 
 keeping both in the field. Competition 
 serves here sometimes as a method of 
 selection, although no one would decide 
 to grow weeds rather than flowers be- 
 cause weeds are more efficient. In the 
 case of what are called natural monop- 
 olies, there is duplication of effort instead 
 of cooperation. Competition is here 
 wasteful. But when we have to do, not 
 with a specific product, or with a fixed 
 field such as that of street railways or city 
 lighting, but with the open field of in- 
 vention and service, we need to provide 
 for continuous cooperation, and compe- 
 tition seems at least one useful agency. 
 To retain this, we frame rules against
 
 12 THE ETHICS 
 
 " unfair competition." As the rules of 
 sport are designed to place a premium 
 upon certain kinds of strength and skill 
 which make a good game, so the rules 
 of fair competition are designed to se- 
 tJH cure efficiency for public service, and 
 to exclude efficiency in choking or 
 fouling. In unfair competition there is 
 no common purpose of public service 
 or of advancing skill or invention; 
 hence, no cooperation. The coopera- 
 tive purpose or result is thus the test of 
 useful, as contrasted with wasteful or 
 harmful, competition. 
 
 There is also an abstract conception 
 of cooperation, which, in its one-sided 
 emphasis upon equality, excludes any 
 form of leadership, or direction, and in
 
 OF COOPERATION 13 
 
 fear of inequality allows no place for 
 competition. Selection of rulers by lot 
 in a large and complex group is one illus- 
 tration ; jealous suspicion of ability, which 
 becomes a cult of incompetence, is an- 
 other. Refusals to accept inventions 
 which require any modification of in- 
 dustry, or to recognize any inequalities 
 of service, are others. But these do not 
 affect the value of the principle as we can 
 now define it in preliminary fashion: 
 union tending to secure common ends, 
 by a method which promotes equality, 
 and with an outcome of increased power 
 shared by alL
 
 II 
 
 What are we to understand by the 
 Ethics of Cooperation? Can we find 
 some external standard of unquestioned 
 value or absolute duty by which to meas- 
 ure the three processes of society which 
 we have named, dominance, competition, 
 cooperation ? Masters of the past have 
 offered many such, making appeal to the 
 logic of reason or the response of senti- 
 ment, to the will for mastery or the claim 
 of benevolence. To make a selection 
 without giving reasons would seem arbi- 
 trary ; to attempt a reasoned discussion 
 would take us quite beyond the bounds 
 appropriate to this lecture. But aside 
 from the formulations of philosophers, 

 
 OF COOPERATION 15 
 
 humanity has been struggling often 
 rather haltingly and blindly iior cer- 
 tain goods and setting certain sign-posts 
 which, if they do not point to a highway, 
 at least mark certain paths as blind alleys. 
 Such goods I take to be the great words, 
 liberty, power, j ustice ; such signs of blind 
 paths I take to be rigidity, passive accept- 
 ance of what is. 
 
 But those great words, just because 
 they are so great, are given various mean- 
 ings by those who would claim them for 
 their own. Nor is there complete agree- 
 ment as to just what paths deserve to be 
 posted as leading nowhere. Groups char- 
 acterized by dominance, cut-throat com- 
 petition, or cooperation, tend to work out 
 each its own interpretations of liberty,
 
 1 6 THE ETHICS 
 
 power, justice ; its own code for the con- 
 duct of its members. Without assuming 
 to decide your choice, I can indicate 
 briefly what the main elements in these 
 values and codes are. 
 
 The group of masters and servants 
 will develop what we have learned to 
 call a morality of masters and a moral- 
 ity of slaves. This was essentially the 
 code of the feudal system. We have sur- 
 vivals of such a group morality in our 
 code of the gentleman, which in Eng- 
 land still depreciates manual labor, al- 
 though it has been refined arid softened 
 and enlarged to include respect for other 
 than military and sportsman virtues. The 
 code of masters exalts liberty for the 
 ruling class and resents any restraint
 
 OF COOPERATION 17 
 
 by inferiors or civilians, or by public 
 opinion of any group but its own. It has 
 a justice which takes for its premise a 
 graded social order, and seeks to put and 
 keep every man in his place. But its 
 supreme value is power, likewise for 
 the few, or for the state as consisting of 
 society organized and directed by the 
 ruling class. Such a group, according to 
 Treitschke, will also need war, in order 
 to test and exhibit its power to the utmost 
 in fierce struggle with other powers. It 
 will logically honor war as good. 
 
 A group practicing cut-throat com- 
 petition will simply reverse the order : 
 first, struggle to put rivals out of the 
 field; then, monopoly with unlimited 
 power to control the market or possess
 
 1 8 THE ETHICS 
 
 the soil. It appeals to nature's struggle 
 for existence as its standard for human 
 life. It too sets a high value upon liberty 
 in the sense of freedom from control, 
 but originating as it did in resistance to 
 
 (control by privilege and other aspects of 
 dominance, it has never learned the de- 
 fects of a liberty which takes no account 
 of ignorance, poverty, and ill health. It 
 knows the liberty of nature, the liberty 
 of the strong and the swift, but not the 
 liberty achieved by the common effort 
 for all. It knows justice, but a justice 
 which is likely to be defined as securing 
 to each his natural liberty, and which 
 therefore means non-interference with 
 the struggle for existence except to pre- 
 vent violence and fraud. It takes no ac-
 
 OF COOPERATION 19 
 
 count as to whether the struggle kills few 
 or many, or distributes goods widely or 
 sparingly, or whether indeed there is any 
 room at the table which civilization 
 spreads; though it does not begrudge 
 charity if administered under that name. 
 A cooperating group has two working 
 principles: first, common purpose and 
 common good ; second, .that men can 
 achieve by common effort what they can- 
 not accomplish singly. The first, rein- 
 forced by the actual interchange of ideas 
 and services, tends to favor equality. It 
 implies mutual respect, confidence, and 
 good- will . The second favors a construc- 
 tive and progressive attitude, which will 
 find standards neither in nature nor in 
 humanity's past, since it conceives man
 
 20 THE ETHICS 
 
 able to change conditions to a consider- 
 able extent and thus to realize new goods. 
 These principles tend toward type 
 of liberty different from those just men- 
 tioned. As contrasted with the liberty of 
 a dominant group, cooperation favors a 
 liberty for all, a liberty of live and let 
 live, a tolerance and welcome for vari- 
 ation in type, provided only this is willing 
 to make its contribution to the common 
 weal. Instead of imitation or passive ac- 
 ceptance of patterns on the part of the 
 majority, it stimulates active construc- 
 tion. As contrasted with the liberty fa- 
 vored in competing groups, cooperation 
 would emphasize positive control over 
 natural forces, over health conditions, 
 over poverty and fear. It would make each
 
 OF COOPERATION 21 
 
 person share as fully as possible in the 
 knowledge and strength due to combined 
 effort, and thus liberate him from many 
 of the limitations which have hitherto 
 hampered him. 
 
 Similarly with justice. Cooperation's 
 e$hics of distribution is not rigidly set by 
 the actual interest and rights of the past 
 on the one hand, nor by hitherto avail- 
 able resources on the other. Neither nat- 
 ural rights nor present ability and present 
 service form a complete measure. Since 
 cooperation evokes new interests and new 
 capacities, it is hospitable to new claims 
 and new rights ; since it makes new 
 sources of supply available, it has in view 
 the possibility at least of doing better for 
 all than can an abstract insistence upon
 
 22 THE ETHICS 
 
 old claims. It may often avoid the dead- 
 lock of a rigid system. It is better to grow 
 two blades of grass than to dispute who 
 shall have the larger fraction of the one 
 which has previously been the yield. It 
 is better, not merely because there is more 
 grass, but also because men's attitude be- 
 comes forward-looking and constructive, 
 not pugnacious and rigid. 
 
 Power is likewise a value in a cooper- 
 ating group, but it must be power not 
 merely used for the good of all, but to 
 some extent controlled by all and thus 
 actually shared. Only as so controlled 
 and so shared is power attended by the 
 responsibility which makes it safe for its 
 possessors. Only on this basis does power 
 over other men permit the free choices
 
 OF COOPERATION 23 
 
 on their part which are essential to full 
 moral life. 
 
 As regards th,e actual efficiency of a co- 
 operating group, it may be granted that 
 its powers are not so rapidly mobilized. 
 In small, homogeneous groups, the loss 
 of time is small ; in large groups the for- 
 mation of public opinion and the conver- 
 sion of this into action is still largely a 
 problem rather than an achievement. 
 New techniques have to be developed, 
 and it may be that for certain military 
 tasks the military technique will always 
 be more efficient. To the cooperative 
 group, however, this test will not be the 
 ultimate ethical test. It will rather con- 
 sider the possibilities of substituting for 
 war other activities in which cooperation
 
 24 THE ETHICS 
 
 is superior. And if the advocate of war 
 insists that war as such is the most glori- 
 ous and desirable type of life, cooperation 
 may perhaps fail to convert him. But it 
 may hope to create a new order whose ex- 
 cellence shall be justified of her children. 
 
 in 
 
 A glance at the past roles of domi- 
 nance, competition, and cooperation in 
 the institutions of government, religion, 
 and commerce and industry, will aid us 
 to consider cooperation in relation to 
 present international problems. 
 
 Primitive tribal life had elements of 
 each of the three principles we have 
 named. But with discovery by some gen- 
 ius of the power of organization for war
 
 OF COOPERATION 25 
 
 the principle of dominance won, seem- 
 ingly at a flash, a decisive position. No 
 power of steam or lightning has been/T? 
 so spectacular and wide-reaching as the 
 power which Egyptian, Assyrian, Mace- 
 donian, Roman, and their modern suc- 
 cessors introduced and controlled. Po- 
 litical states owing their rise to military 
 means naturally followed the military 
 pattern. The sharp separation between 
 ruler or ruling group and subject people, 
 based on conquest, was perpetuated in 
 class distinction. Gentry and simple, lord 
 and villein, were indeed combined in ex- 
 ploitation of earth's resources, but co- 
 operation was in the background, mastery 
 in the fore. And when empires included 
 peoples of various races and cultural ad-
 
 26 THE ETHICS 
 
 vance the separation between higher and 
 lower became intensified. Yet though 
 submerged for long periods, the principle 
 of cooperation has asserted itself, step by 
 step and it seldom loses ground. Begin- 
 ning usually in some group which at first 
 combined to resist dominance, it has 
 made its way through such stages as 
 equality before the law, abolition of 
 special privileges, extension of ^suffrage, 
 influence of public^ sentiment, inter- 
 cjiange of ideas, toward genuine partici- 
 pation by all in the dignity and respon- 
 sibility of political_ower. It builds a 
 Panama Canal, it maintains a great sys- 
 tem of education, and has, we may easily 
 believe, yet greater tasks in prospect. It 
 may be premature to predict its complete
 
 OF COOPERATION 27 
 
 displacement of dominance in our own 
 day as a method of government, yet who 
 in America doubts its ultimate preva- 
 lence ? 
 
 Religion presents a fascinating mixture,/^ 
 of cooperation with dominance on the'^ 
 one hand, and exclusiveness on the other. ^^ 
 The central fact is the community, which 
 seeks some common end in ritual, or in - 
 
 beneficent activity. But at an early pe- ^ 
 
 ^v 
 riod leaders became invested, or invested 
 
 themselves, with a sanctity which led to 
 dominance. Not the power of force, but 
 that of mystery and the invisible raised 
 the priest above the level of the 
 
 And, on another side, competition be- 
 tween rival national religions, like that 
 between states, excluded friendly con-
 
 28 THE ETHICS 
 
 tacts. Jew and Samaritan had no deal- 
 ings ; between the followers of Baal and 
 Jehovah there was no peace but by ex- 
 termination. Yet it was religion which 
 confronted the Herrenmoral with the first 
 reversal of values, and declared, "So 
 shall it not be among you. But who- 
 soever will be great among you let him 
 be your minister." And it was religion 
 which cut across national boundaries in 
 its vision of what Professor Royce so 
 happily calls the Great Community. Pro- 
 test against dominance resulted, however, 
 in divisions, and although cooperation in 
 practical activities has done much to pre- 
 pare the way for national understanding, 
 the hostile forces of the world to-day lack 
 the restraint which might have come
 
 OF COOPERATION 29 
 
 from a united moral sentiment and moral 
 will. 
 
 In the economic field the story of 
 dominance, cooperation, and competi- 
 tion is more complex than in govern-^ 
 ment and religion. It followed somewhat y 
 different courses in trade and in industry. 
 The simplest way to supply needs with 
 goods is to go and take them; the sim- 
 plest way to obtain services is to seize 
 them. Dominance in the first case gives 
 piracy and plunder, when directed against 
 those without ; fines and taxes, when ex- 
 ercised upon those within ; in the second 
 case, it gives slavery or forced levies. But 
 trade, as a voluntary exchange of pres- 
 ents, or as a bargaining for mutual ad- 
 vantage, had likewise its early begin-
 
 3 o THE ETHICS 
 
 nings. Carried on at first with timidity 
 and distrust, because the parties belonged 
 to different groups, it has developed a 
 high degree of mutual confidence be- 
 tween merchant and customer, banker 
 and client, insurer and insured. By its 
 system of contracts and fiduciary rela- 
 tions, which bind men of the most vary- 
 ing localities, races, occupations, social 
 classes, and national allegiance, it has 
 woven a new net of human relations far 
 more intricate and wide-reaching than 
 the natural ties of blood kinship. It rests 
 upon^mutual responsibility and good 
 faith; it is a constant force for their 
 extension. 
 
 The industrial side of the process has 
 had similar influence toward union. Free
 
 OF COOPERATION 31 
 
 craftsmen in the towns found mutual 
 support in gilds, when as yet the farm 
 laborer or villein had to get on as best 
 he could unaided. The factory system 
 itself has been largely organized from 
 above down. It has very largely assumed 
 that the higher command needs no ad- 
 vice or ideas from below. Hours of labor, 
 shop conditions, wages, have largely been 
 fixed by "orders," just as governments 
 once ruled by decrees. But as dominance i 
 in government has led men to unite 
 against the new power and then has 
 yielded to the more complete coopera- 
 tion of participation, so in industry the 
 factory system has given rise to the labor 
 movement. As for the prospects of fuller 
 cooperation, this may be said already to
 
 32 THE ETHICS 
 
 have displaced the older autocratic sys- 
 tem within the managing group, and the 
 war is giving an increased impetus to ex- 
 tension of the process. 
 
 Exchange of goods and services is in- 
 deed a threefold cooperation : i$ meets 
 
 """^^ / /j 
 
 wants which the parties cannot them- 
 
 L *" f "" 
 
 selves satisfy or cannot well satisfy ; it 
 
 ftjawakens new wants; it calls new inven- 
 
 (3r' 
 
 tions and new forces into play. It thus 
 not only satisfies man's existing nature, 
 but enlarges his capacity for enjoyment 
 and his active powers. It makes not only 
 for comfort, but for progress. 
 
 IV 
 
 If trade and industry, however, em- 
 body so fully the principle of coopera-
 
 OF COOPERATION 33 
 
 tion, how does it come about that they 
 have on the whole had a rather low , 
 reputation, not only among the class 
 groups founded on militarism, but among 
 philosophers and moralists ? Why do we 
 find the present calamities of war charged 
 to economic causes ? Perhaps the answer 
 to these questions will point the path 
 along which better cooperation may be 
 expected. 
 
 There is, from the outset, one defect 
 in the cooperation between buyer and 
 seller, employer and laborer. The co- 
 operation is largely unintended. Each is 
 primarily thinking of his own advan- 
 tage, rather than that of the other, or 
 of the social whole; he is seeking it in 
 terms of money, which as a material ob-
 
 34 THE ETHICS 
 
 ject must be in the pocket of one party 
 or of the other, and is not, like friend- 
 ship or beauty, sharable. Mutual benefit 
 is the result of exchange it need not 
 be the motive. This benefit comes about 
 as if it were arranged by an invisible 
 hand, said Adam Smith. Indeed, it was 
 long held that if one of the bargainers 
 gained, the other must lose. And when 
 under modern conditions labor is con- 
 sidered as a commodity to be bought and 
 sold in the cheapest market by an im- 
 personal corporate employer, there is a 
 strong presumption against the coopera- 
 tive attitude on either side. 
 
 The great problem here is, therefore : 
 How can men be brought to seek con- 
 sciously what now they unintentionally
 
 OF COOPERATION 35 
 
 produce ? How can the man whose ends 
 are both self-centered and ignoble be 
 changed into J:he man whose ends are 
 wide and high ? Something may doubt- 
 less be done by showing that a narrow 
 selfishness is stupid. If we rule out mo- 
 nopoly the best way to gain great suc- 
 cess is likely to lie through meeting 
 needs of a great multitude ; and to meet 
 these effectively implies entering by im- 
 agination and sympathy into their situa- 
 tion. The business maxim of " service," 
 the practices of refunding money if goods 
 are unsatisfactory, of one price to all, of 
 providing sanitary and even attractive 
 factories and homes, and of paying a 
 minimum wage far in excess of the mar- 
 ket price, have often proved highly re-
 
 36 THE ETHICS 
 
 munerative. Yet, I should not place ex- 
 clusive, and perhaps not chief, reliance 
 on these methods of appeal. They are 
 analogous to the old maxim, honesty is 
 the best policy; and we know too well 
 that while this holds under certain con- 
 ditions, that is, among intelligent peo- 
 ple, or in the long run, it is often pos- 
 sible to acquire great gains by exploiting 
 the weak, deceiving the ignorant, or 
 perpetrating a fraud of such proportions 
 that men forget its dishonesty in admira- 
 tion at its audacity. In the end it is 
 likely to prove that the level of economic 
 life is to be raised not by proving that 
 cooperation will better satisfy selfish and 
 ignoble interests, but rather by creating 
 new standards for measuring success, new
 
 OF COOPERATION 37 
 
 interests in social and worthy ends, and 
 by strengthening the appeal of duty 
 where this conflicts with present inter- 
 ests. The one method stakes all on hu- 
 man nature as it is ; the other challenges 
 man's capacity to listen to new appeals 
 and respond to better motives. It is, if 
 you please, idealism ; but before it is dis- 
 missed as worthless, consider what has 
 been achieved in substituting social mo- 
 tives in the field of political action. 
 There was a time when the aim in polit- 
 ical life was undisguisedly selfish. The 
 state, in distinction from the kinship 
 group or the village community, was 
 organized for power and profit. It was 
 nearly a gigantic piratical enterprise, 
 highly profitable to its managers. The
 
 3 8 THE ETHICS 
 
 shepherd, says Thrasymachus in Plato's 
 dialogue, does not feed his sheep for 
 their benefit, but for his own. Yet now, 
 what president or minister, legislator or 
 judge, would announce as his aim to 
 acquire the greatest financial profit from 
 his position ? Even in autocratically gov- 
 erned countries, it is at least the assump- 
 tion that the good of the state does not 
 mean solely the prestige and wealth of 
 the ruler. 
 
 A great social and political order has 
 been built up, and we all hold that it 
 must not be exploited for private gain. 
 It has not been created or maintained 
 by chance. Nor could it survive if every 
 man sought primarily his own advan- 
 tage and left the commonwealth to care
 
 OF COOPERATION 39 
 
 for itself. Nor in a democracy would 
 it be maintained, provided the govern- 
 ing class alone were disinterested, de- 
 prived of private property, and given 
 education, as Plato suggested. The only) 
 safety is in the general and intelligent 
 desire for the public interest and com- 
 mon welfare. At this moment almost 
 unanimous acceptance of responsibility 
 for what we believe to be the public 
 good and the maintenance of American 
 ideals though it brings to each of us 
 sacrifice and to many the full measure 
 of devotion bears witness to the abil- 
 ity of human nature to adopt as its com- 
 pelling motives a high end which op- 
 poses private advantage. 
 
 Is the economic process too desperate
 
 40 THE ETHICS 
 
 a field for larger motives ? To me it 
 seems less desperate than the field of 
 government in the days of autocratic 
 kings. One great need is to substitute a 
 different standard of success for the finan- 
 cial gains which have seemed the only 
 test. Our schools of commerce are aim- 
 ing to perform this service, by intro- 
 ducing professional standards. A physi- 
 cian is measured by his ability to cure 
 the sick, an engineer by the soundness 
 of his bridge and ship; why not meas- 
 ure a railroad president by his ability to 
 supply coal in winter, to run trains on 
 time, and decrease the cost of freight, 
 rather than by his private accumula- 
 tions? Why not measure a merchant 
 or banker by similar tests?
 
 OF COOPERATION 41 
 
 Mankind has built up a great eco- 
 nomic system. Pioneer, adventurer, in- 
 ventor, scientist, laborer, organizer, all 
 have contributed. It is as essential to 
 human welfare as the political system, 
 and like that system it comes to us as 
 an inheritance. I can see no reason why 
 it should be thought unworthy of a 
 statesman or a judge to use the political 
 structure for his own profit, but per- 
 fectly justifiable for a man to exploit 
 the economic structure for private gain. 
 This does not necessarily exclude profit 
 as a method of paying for services, and 
 of increasing capital needed for develop- 
 ment, but it would seek to adjust profits 
 to services, and treat capital, just as it 
 regards political power, as a public trust
 
 42 THE ETHICS 
 
 in need of cooperative regulation and 
 to be used for the general welfare. 
 
 But the war is teaching with dra- 
 matic swiftness what it might have need- 
 ed decades of peace to bring home to us. 
 We are thinking of the common wel- 
 fare. High prices may still be a rough 
 guide to show men's needs, but we are 
 learning to raise wheat because others 
 need it not merely because the price 
 is high. Prices may also be a rough 
 guide to consumption, but we are learn- 
 ing that eating wheat or sugar is not 
 merely a matter of what I can afford. 
 It is a question of whether I take wheat 
 or sugar away from some one else who 
 needs it the soldier in France, the 
 child in Belgium, the family of my less
 
 OF COOPERATION 43 
 
 fortunate neighbor. The great argu- 
 ment for not interfering with private 
 exchange in all such matters has been 
 that if prices should by some authority 
 be kept low in time of scarcity, men 
 would consume the supply too rapidly; 
 whereas if prices rise in response to 
 scarcity, men at once begin to econo- 
 mize and so prevent the total exhaus- 
 tion of the supply. We now reflect that 
 if prices of milk rise it does not mean 
 uniform economy it means cutting 
 off to a large degree the children of the 
 poor and leaving relatively untouched 
 the consumption of the well-to-do. 
 Merely raising the price of meat or 
 wheat means taking these articles from 
 the table of one class to leave them
 
 44 THE ETHICS 
 
 upon the table of another. War, re- 
 quiring, as it does, the united strength 
 and purpose of the whole people, has 
 found this method antiquated. In Eu- 
 rope governments have said to their 
 peoples : we must all think of the com- 
 mon weal ; we must all share alike. In 
 this country, the appeal of the food ad- 
 ministrator, though largely without force 
 of law, has been loyally answered by 
 the great majority. It is doubtless rash 
 to predict how much peace will retain 
 of what war has taught, but who of us 
 will again say so easily, " My work or 
 leisure, my economy or my luxury, is 
 my own affair, if I can afford it ? " Who 
 can fail to see that common welfare 
 comes not without common intention?
 
 OF COOPERATION 45 
 
 The second great defect in our eco- 
 nomic order, from the point of view 
 of cooperation, has been the inequality 
 of its distribution. This has been due 
 largely to competition when parties 
 were unequal, not merely in their abil- 
 ity, but in their opportunity. And the 
 most serious, though not the most ap- 
 parent, aspect of this inequality, has not 
 been that some have more comfort 
 -or luxuries to enjoy; it is the fact that 
 wealth means power. In so far as it can 
 set prices on all that we eat, wear, and 
 enjoy, it is controlling the intimate af- 
 fairs of life more thoroughly than any 
 government ever attempted. In so far 
 as it controls natural resources, means 
 of transportation, organization of credit,
 
 46 THE ETHICS 
 
 and the capital necessary for large-scale 
 manufacturing and marketing, it can 
 set prices. The great questions then 
 are, as with political power : How can 
 this great power be cooperatively used ? 
 Is it serving all or a few ? 
 
 Two notable doctrines of the courts 
 point ways for ethics. The first is that 
 of property affected with public interest. 
 Applied thus far by the courts to ware- 
 houses, transportation, and similar pub- 
 lic services, what limits can we set eth- 
 ically to the doctrine that power of one 
 man over his fellows, whether through 
 his office, or through his property, is 
 affected with public interest ? 
 
 The police power, which sets the wel- 
 fare of all above private property when
 
 OF COOPERATION 47 
 
 these conflict, is a second doctrine whose 
 ethical import far outruns its legal ap- 
 plications. 
 
 Yet it is by neither of these that the 
 most significant progress has been made 
 toward removing that handicap of in- 
 equality which is the chief injustice of 
 our economic system. It is by our great 
 educational system, liberal in its provi- 
 sions, generously supported by all classes, 
 unselfishly served, opening to all doors 
 of opportunity which once were closed 
 to the many, the most successful depart- 
 ment of our democratic institutions in 
 helping and gaining confidence of all 
 a system of which this University of 
 California is one of the most notable 
 leaders and the most useful members
 
 48 THE ETHICS 
 
 that fair conditions for competition and 
 intelligent cooperation in the economic 
 world are increasingly possible. 
 
 What bearing has this sketch of the 
 significance and progress of cooperation 
 upon the international questions which 
 now overshadow all else? Certainly the 
 world cannot remain as before: great 
 powers struggling for empire; lesser 
 powers struggling for their separate ex- 
 istence ; great areas of backward peoples 
 viewed as subjects for exploitation; we 
 ourselves aloof. It must then choose be- 
 tween a future world order based on 
 dominance, which means world empire; 
 
 r)rld order based on nationalism joined 
 .
 
 OF COOPERATION 49 
 
 with the non-social type of competition, 
 which means, every nation the judge of 
 its own interests, continuance of jeal- 
 ousies and from time to time the recur- 
 
 > 
 rence of war ; and a world order based 
 
 on nationalism plus international cooper- 
 ation, " to establish justice, to provide for 
 common defense, to promote the gen- 
 eral welfare, and to secure the blessings 
 of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." 
 It is not necessary to discuss in this 
 country the principle of dominance and 
 world empire. It contradicts our whole 
 philosophy. Safety for dominance lies 
 only in a civilization of discipline from 
 above down, in ruthless repression of all 
 thinking on the part of the subject class 
 or race.
 
 50 THE ETHICS 
 
 Nor can I see any genuine alternative 
 in what some advocate reliance by 
 each nation on its own military strength 
 as the sole effective guarantee for its in- 
 terests. After the military lessons of this 
 war, the concentration of scientific, eco- 
 nomic, and even educational attention 
 upon military purposes would almost in- 
 evitably be vastly in excess of anything 
 previously conceived. What limits can 
 be set to the armies of France and Great 
 Britain if these are to protect those coun- 
 tries from a German empire already 
 double its previous extent, and taking 
 steps to control the resources of eastern 
 Europe and the near East? What navy 
 could guarantee German commerce 
 against the combined forces of Great
 
 OF COOPERATION 51 
 
 Britain and the United States ? What 
 limits to the frightfulness yet to be dis- 
 covered by chemist and bacteriologist? 
 What guarantee against the insidious 
 growth of a militarist attitude even in 
 democratically minded peoples if the 
 constant terror of war exalts military 
 preparations to the supreme place ? Some- 
 thing has changed the Germany of other 
 days which many of us loved even while 
 we shrank from its militarist masters. 
 Is it absolutely certain that nothing can 
 change the spirit of democratic peoples ? 
 At any rate, America, which has experi- 
 mented on a larger scale with coopera- 
 tion political, economic, and religious 
 than any other continent, may well 
 assert steadily and insistently that this is
 
 52 THE ETHICS 
 
 the more hopeful path. It may urge this 
 upon distrustful Europe. 
 
 The obstacles to cooperation are : 
 
 1. The survival of the principle of 
 dominance, showing itself in desire for 
 political power and prestige, and in cer- 
 tain conceptions of national honor. 
 
 2. The principle of non-social com- 
 petition, exhibited in part in the political 
 policy of eliminating weaker peoples, and 
 conspicuously in foreign trade when the 
 use of unfair methods relies upon national 
 power to back up its exploitation or mo- 
 nopoly. 
 
 3. The principle of nationalistic sen- 
 timent, itself based on cooperation, on 
 social tradition and common ideals, but 
 bound up so closely with political sov-
 
 OF COOPERATION 53 
 
 ereignty and antagonisms as to become 
 exclusive instead of cooperative in its at- 
 titude toward other cultures. 
 
 The principle of dominance deters 
 from cooperation, not only the people 
 that seeks to dominate, but peoples that 
 fear to be dominated or to become in- 
 volved in entangling alliances. Doubtless 
 a policy of aloofness was long the safe 
 policy for us. We could not trust po- 
 litical liberty to an alliance with mon- 
 archies, even as with equal right some 
 European peoples might distrust the pol- 
 icies of a republic seemingly controlled 
 by the slavery interest. At the present 
 time one great power professes itself in- 
 credulous of the fairness of any world 
 tribunal ; smaller powers fear the com-
 
 54 THE ETHICS 
 
 manding influence of the great ; new 
 national groups just struggling to ex- 
 pression fear that a league of nations 
 would be based on present status and 
 therefore give them no recognition, or 
 else a measure of recognition conditioned 
 by past injustices rather than by future 
 aspirations and real desert. All these fears 
 are justified in so far as the principle 
 of dominance is still potent. The only 
 league that can be trusted by peoples 
 willing to live and let live, is one that is 
 controlled by a cooperative spirit. And 
 yet who can doubt that this spirit is 
 spreading ? Few governments are now 
 organized on the avowed basis that mili- 
 tary power, which embodies the spirit of 
 dominance, should be superior to civil
 
 k ^Uwe^ f^\ 
 
 OF COOPERATION 
 
 control, and even with them the prin- 
 ciple of irresponsible rule, despite its re- 
 inforcement by military success, is likely 
 to yield to the spirit of the age when once 
 the pressure of war is removed which 
 now holds former protesters against mili- 
 tarism solid in its support. For all powers 
 that are genuine in their desire for co- 
 operation there is overwhelming reason 
 to try it ; for only by the combined 
 strength of those who accept this prin- 
 ciple can liberty and justice be main- 
 tained against the aggression of powers 
 capable of concentrating all their re- 
 sources with a suddenness and ruthless- 
 ness in which dominance is probably su- 
 perior. 
 
 Yet cooperation for protection of
 
 
 56 THE ETHICS 
 
 liberty and justice is liable to fall short 
 of humanity's hopes unless liberty and 
 justice be themselves denned in a co- 
 operative sense. The great liberties which 
 man has gained, as step by step he has 
 risen from savagery, have not been chiefly 
 the assertion of already existing powers 
 or the striking-offof fetters forged by his 
 fellows. They have been additions to 
 previous powers. Science, art, inven- 
 tion, associated life in all its forms, have 
 opened the windows of his dwelling, 
 have given possibilities to his choice, 
 have given the dream and the interpre- 
 tation which have set him free from his 
 prison. The liberty to which interna- 
 tional cooperation points is not merely 
 self-direction or self-determination, but
 
 o, *. A^^^- </T 
 OF COOPERATION^, o^gj- 
 
 a larger freedom from fear, a larger free- 
 dom from suspicion, a fuller control over 
 nature and society, a new set of ideas, 
 which will make men free in a far larger 
 degree than ever before. 
 
 Similarly justice needs to be cooper- 
 atively defined. A justice that looks 
 merely to existing status will not give 
 lasting peace. Peoples change in needs 
 as truly as they differ in needs. But no 
 people can be trusted to judge its own 
 needs any more than to judge its own 
 right. A justice which adheres rigidly 
 to vested interests, and a justice which 
 is based on expanding interests, are likely . 
 to be deadlocked unless a constructive 
 spirit is brought to bear. Abstract rights 
 to the soil, to trade, to expansion, must
 
 58 THE ETHICS 
 
 be subordinate to the supreme question: 
 How can peoples live together and help 
 instead of destroy? This can be ap- 
 proached only from an international 
 point of view. 
 
 The second obstacle, unsocial com- 
 petition, is for trade what dominance is 
 in politics. It prevents that solution for 
 many of the delicate problems of inter- 
 national life which cooperation through 
 trade might otherwise afford. Exchange 
 of goods and services by voluntary trade 
 accomplishes what once seemed attain- 
 able only by conquest or slavery. If Ger- 
 many or Japan or Italy needs iron or 
 coal ; if England needs wheat, or if the 
 United States sugar, it is possible, or 
 should be possible, to obtain these with-
 
 OF COOPERATION 59 
 
 out owning the country in which are 
 the mines, grain, and sugar cane. The 
 United States needs Canada's products ; 
 it has no desire to own Canada. But in 
 recent years the exchange of products 
 has been subjected to a new influence. 
 National self-interest has been added to 
 private self-interest. This has intensified 
 and called out many of the worst fea- 
 tures of antagonism and inequality. 
 
 Few in this country have realized the 
 extent to which other countries have 
 organized their foreign commerce on na- 
 tional lines. We are now becoming in- 
 formed as to the carefully worked-out 
 programmes of commercial education, 
 merchant marines, trade agreements, 
 consular service, financial and moral sup-
 
 60 THE ETHICS 
 
 port from the home government, and 
 mutual aid among various salesmen of 
 the same nationality living in a foreign 
 country. We are preparing to undertake 
 similar enterprises. We are reminded 
 that "eighty per cent of the world's 
 people live in the countries bordering 
 on the Pacific Ocean, and that as a re- 
 sult of the rearrangement of trade routes, 
 San Francisco's chance of becoming the 
 greatest distributing port of the Pacific 
 for goods en route to the markets of the 
 Orient, are now more promising than 
 ever before." Can the United States take 
 part in this commerce in such a way as 
 to help, not hinder, international prog- 
 ress in harmony ? Not unless we re- 
 member that commerce may be as
 
 OF COOPERATION 61 
 
 predatory as armies, and that we must 
 provide international guarantees against 
 the exclusive types of competition which 
 we have had to control by law in our 
 own domestic affairs. An Indian or an 
 African may be deprived of his posses- 
 sions quite as effectively by trade as by 
 violence. We need at least as high stand- 
 ards of social welfare as in domestic 
 commerce. I cannot better present the 
 situation than by quoting from a recent 
 article by Mr. William Notz in the 
 "Journal of Political Economy" (Feb. 
 
 1918): 
 
 During the past twenty-five years competi- 
 tion in the world markets became enormously 
 keen. In the wild scramble for trade the 
 standards of honest business were disregarded 
 more and more by all the various rival na-
 
 62 THE ETHICS 
 
 tions. In the absence of any special regulation 
 or legislation, it appeared as though a silent 
 understanding prevailed in wide circles that 
 foreign trade was subject to a code of busi- 
 ness ethics widely at variance with the rules ob- 
 served in domestic trade. What was frowned 
 upon as unethical and poor business policy, 
 (if not illegal at home, was condoned and 
 winked at or openly espoused when foreign 
 markets formed the basis of operations and 
 foreigners were the competitors. High-minded 
 men of all nations have long observed with 
 concern the growing tendency of modern in- 
 ternational trade toward selfish exploitation, 
 concession-hunting, cut-throat competition, 
 and commercialistic practices of the most sor- 
 did type. Time and again complaints have 
 been voiced, retaliatory measures threatened, 
 and more than once serious friction has en- 
 sued. 
 
 Mr. Notz brings to our attention va- 
 rious efforts by official and commercial
 
 OF COOPERATION 63 
 
 bodies looking toward remedies for such 
 conditions and toward official recogni- 
 tion by all countries of unfair competi- 
 tion as a penal offense. 
 
 What more do we need than fair 
 competition to constitute the coopera- 
 tive international life which we dreamed 
 yesterday and now must consider, not 
 merely as a dream, but as the only 
 alternative to a future of horror ? 
 
 Free trade has been not unnaturally 
 
 ' 
 urged as at least one condition. Tariffs 
 
 certainly isolate. To say to a country : 
 " You shall manufacture nothing unless 
 you own the raw material; you shall 
 sell nothing unless at prices which I 
 fix," is likely to provoke the reply: 
 " Then I must acquire lands in which
 
 64 THE ETHICS 
 
 raw materials are found; I must ac- 
 quire colonies which will buy my prod- 
 ucts." Trade agreements mean cooper- 
 ation for those within, unless they are 
 one-sided and made under duress; in 
 any case they are exclusive of those 
 without. Free trade, the open door, 
 seems to offer a better way. But free 
 trade in name is not free trade unless 
 the parties are really free free from 
 ignorance, from pressure of want. If 
 one party is weak and the other unscru- 
 pulous; if one competitor has a lower 
 standard of living than the other, free- 
 dom of trade will not mean genuine co- 
 operation. Such cooperation as means 
 good for all requires either an equality 
 of conditions between traders and labor-
 
 OF COOPERATION 65 
 
 ers of competing nations and of nations 
 which exchange goods, or else an in- 
 ternational control to prevent unfair 
 competition, exploitation of weaker peo- 
 ples, and lowering of standards of liv- 
 ing. Medical science is giving an ob- 
 ject lesson which may well have a 
 wide application. It is seeking to com- 
 bat disease in its centers of diffusion. 
 Instead of attempting to quarantine 
 against the Orient, it is aiding the Ori- 
 ent to overcome those conditions which 
 do harm alike to Orient and Occident. 
 Plague, anthrax, yellow fever, cannot 
 exist in one country without harm to 
 all. Nor in the long run can men reach 
 true cooperation so long as China and 
 Africa are a prize for the exploiter
 
 66 THE ETHICS 
 
 rather than equals in the market. Not 
 merely in the political sense, but in its 
 larger meanings democracy here is not 
 safe without democracy there. Educa- 
 tion, and the lifting of all to a higher 
 level, is the ultimate goal. And until 
 education, invention, and intercommu- 
 nication have done their work of eleva- 
 tion, international control must protect 
 and regulate. 
 
 In many respects the obstacle to in- 
 ternational cooperation which is most 
 difficult to remove is the strong and still 
 growing sentiment of nationality. This 
 is not, like dominance, a waning sur- 
 vival of a cruder method of social order; 
 it is a genuine type of cooperation. 
 Rooted as it is in a historic past, in
 
 OF COOPERATION 67 
 
 community of ideals and traditions, and 
 usually of language and art, it wakens 
 the emotional response to a degree once 
 true only of religion. Born of such a } 
 social tradition, the modern may be said 
 in truth mentally and spiritually, as well 
 as physically, to be born a Frenchman 
 or a German, a Scotchman or Irishman 
 or Englishman. He may be content to 
 merge this inheritance in an empire if 
 he can be senior partner, but the strug- 
 gles of Irish, Poles, Czechs, and South 
 Slavs, the Zionist movement, the na- 
 tionalistic stirrings in India, with their 
 literary revivals, their fierce self-asser- 
 tions, seem to point away from inter- 
 nationalism rather than toward it. The 
 Balkans, in which Serb, Bulgar, Rou-
 
 68 THE ETHICS 
 
 manian, and Greek have been develop- 
 ing this national consciousness, have 
 been the despair of peacemakers. 
 
 The strongest point in the nationalist 
 programme is, however, not in any wise 
 opposed to cooperation, but rather to 
 dominance or non-social competition. 
 The strongest point is the importance 
 of diversity combined with group unity 
 for the fullest enrichment of life and 
 the widest development of human ca- 
 pacity. A world all of one sort would 
 not only be less interesting, but less 
 progressive. We are stimulated by dif- 
 ferent customs, temperaments, arts, and 
 ideals. But all this is the strongest argu- 
 ment for genuine cooperation, since by 
 this only can diversity be helpful, even
 
 OF COOPERATION 69 
 
 as it is only through diversity in its 
 members that a community can de- 
 velop fullest life. A world organization 
 based on the principle that any single 
 group is best and therefore ought to 
 rule, or to displace all others, would be 
 a calamity. A world organization which 
 encourages every member to be itself 
 would be a blessing. 
 
 Why do nationalism and internation- 
 alism clash ? Because this national spirit 
 has rightly or wrongly, been bound up 
 so intimately with political independ- 
 ence. Tara'sharp long hangs mute when 
 Erin is conquered. Poland's children 
 must not use a language in which they 
 might learn to plot against their masters. 
 A French-speaking Alsatian is suspected
 
 yo THE ETHICS 
 
 of disloyalty. Professor Dewey has re- 
 | cently pointed out that in_jhe_United 
 States we have gone far toward separating 
 culture from the state, and suggests that 
 this may be the path of peace for Europe. 
 We allow groups to keep their religion, 
 their language, their song festivals. It 
 may perhaps be claimed that this main- 
 tenance of distinct languages and sepa- 
 rate cultures is a source of weakness in 
 such a crisis as we now face. Yet it may 
 , well be urged, on the other hand, that a 
 policy less liberal would have increased 
 rather than diminished disunion and dis- 
 loyalty. 
 
 VI 
 
 The student of human progress is 
 likely to be increasingly impressed with
 
 OF COOPERATION 71 
 
 the interaction between ideas and insti- 
 tutions. How far does man build andj ' 
 shape institutions to give body to his 
 
 '; 
 
 ideas ? How far is it the organized life I 
 with its social contacts, its give and take, 
 its enlargement of its membership to see 
 life sub specie communitatis, which itself 
 brings ideas to birth? Desire may bring 
 the sexes together, but it is the associa- 
 tion and organized relationships of the 
 family which transform casual to per- 
 manent affection and shape our concep- 
 tions of its values. A herding instinct or 
 a common need of 'defense or of food 
 supplies may bring together early groups, 
 and will to power may begin the state, 
 but it is the living together which gen- 
 erates laws and wakens the craving for
 
 72 THE ETHICS 
 
 liberty and the struggle for justice. Seer 
 and poet doubtless contribute to prog- 
 ress by their kindling appeals to the im- 
 agination and sympathy ; the philosopher 
 may, as Plato claimed for him, live as 
 citizen of a perfect state which has no 
 earthly being, and shape his life accord- 
 ing to its laws ; but mankind in general 
 has learned law and right, as well as the 
 arts of use and beauty, in the school of 
 life in common. 
 
 So it is likely to be with international 
 cooperation. Fears and hopes now urge 
 it upon a reluctant, incredulous world. 
 But the beginnings scientific, legal, 
 commercial, political timid and im- 
 perfect though they be, like our own 
 early confederation, will work to reshape
 
 OF COOPERATION 73 
 
 those who take part. Mutual under- 
 standing will increase with common ac- 
 tion. When men work consistently to 
 create new resources instead of treating 
 their world as a fixed system, when they 
 see it as a fountain, not as a cistern, they 
 will gradually gain a new spirit. The j 
 Great Community must create as well as 
 prove the ethics of cooperation.
 
 CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
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