30 Cr Certain Movements in England and America which Influenced the Transition from the Ideals of Personal Righteousness of the Seventeenth Century to the Modern Ideals of Social Service A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FAC^ILTY OF QUE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOBHY DnPARTMT-XT OF PHILOSOPHY (^KOkGE TTLDEN COLMAN Private Edition, Distributed liy I Ffi: rJNTVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARIKS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 1917 EXCHANGE Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/certainmovementsOOcolmrich JLi^t JttttorBttg of QIIjiras0 Certain Movements in England and America which Influenced the Transition from the Ideals of Personal Righteousness of the Seventeenth Century to the Modern Ideals of Social Service A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY BY GEORGE TILDEN COLMAN Private Edition, Distributed By THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARIES CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 1917 ^r c1 ^0 GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY MENASHA. WISCONSIN 90* .V ' J, ".,' V- 0- NOTE The aim of the author has been to trace the course of the develop- ment of social ideals in England and America during the eighteenth and ninteenth centuries and to show that these ideals have been a basal factor in furthering economic, poHtical, religious, and intellectual freedom for the masses of mankind. It has not been possible within the scope of this work to treat of the influence which men of letters have exerted. The broad s)nnpathies of a Dickens and an Eliot among the novelists, of Burns, Tennyson, Coleridge, and the Brownings among the poets and of Ruskin and Carlyle among the essayists have been a great force in softening the hearts of men. But to treat with any adequacy the social teachings of the world of literature would require an additional volume of equal proportions with the present one. Herein the author has sought only to follow out the evolution of the social ideal through the chief economic, religious, and philosophical movements. The ad- vancement of learning, the development of science is found to be the underlying basis responsible for this gradual transformation in the motives which the human heart has valued. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Summary vii CHAPTER I Introduction 1 CHAPTER n The Ethical Ideal or Puritanism 8 CHAPTER III The Rise of Commerce and Industry — The Settlement of the New World 24 CHAPTER IV Deism and Rationalism 30 CHAPTER V The Early Eighteenth Century Moralists 38 CHAPTER VI Social Unrest.. 42 CHAPTER VII The Spread of Methodism 49 CHAPTER VIII The Abolition of Slavery and the Establishment OF Christian Missions 56 CHAPTER IX The Evangelical Movement and Parliamentary Social Reform 64 CHAPTER X The Broad Church Movement and Christian Socialism 70 CHAPTER XI Utilitarianism 77 CHAPTER XII The Workingman 86 CHAPTER XIII Science 96 CHAPTER XIV Democracy and Free Public Education 102 SUMMARY I. The ethics of Puritanism had warned the individual of the need and the difficulties of his personal salvation, and had centered interest upon a future world. II. The rise of commerce and industry assisted in creating secular individuals who were assured of their own powers and engrossed in human affairs. III. The rationalistic movement took as its premise the dignity of the human reason, and the deistic writings enlarged the church group- consciousness, banished hope of supernatural interference, and exalted morality of life above prayer and profession. IV. The early eighteenth century moralists explicitly formulated the social ideal, showing that man possessed in his own nature benevo- lent sympathies and a moral sense which impelled him to altruistic action. V. The growth of factories and of large bodies of dependent wage- earners created a class peculiarly in need of cooperation among them- selves and of the aid of public law and private generosity. VI. The spread of Methodism and of Evangelicalism created an interest in the welfare of the lower classes and awakened enthusiasm for social reform. VII. The agitation against slavery and the establishment of Chris- tian missions drew public attention to movements prompted by zeal for the good of humanity. VIII. The spread of knowledge and the development of science have operated toward a recognition of the value of human life, of the organic nature of society, and of the worth of all classes in the social whole. IX. The Utilitarian "greatest happiness" principle both prompted definite effort for public good and gave strong theoretical sanction to the social ideal. X. The working man has gradually come to a consciousness of his rights and his duties in the social organism. He has been aided by such movements as Christian Socialism, Trade Unionism, free public education, social service organizations, and SociaUsm proper. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Is it true that the course of the world's history is the progressive struggle of the human soul after freedom? Frequently it is claimed that intellectual freedom, the escape from the bondage of Scholasticism, was the achievement of the Renaissance of the fifteenth century; that reUgious freedom was the mighty issue in the Reformation of the six- teenth century; that political freedom came in with the triumph of democracy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; and that now industrial freedom is slowly working itself out to be the contribution of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But are not such generali- ties true only for the favorites of fortune at each successive period? — those endowed by nature with vigorous mentality and those, who, by reason of birth or exceptional qualifications, are able to free themselves from the tyranny of bodily needs and the dominance of existing institu- tions. They are never true for the great mass of mankind who have always been slaves to their own selfishness and ignorance, to their own physical weaknesses, to environment, to public opinion, to the chance opportunities which befall in the course of daily life. As a matter of fact, the Renaissance did not bring intellectual freedom to mankind so long as man despised himseK as by nature depraved, and even so long as conditions of life remained such for great numbers as to give them neither the education nor the time which are necessary for the understanding of great productions of thought. Neither did the Reformation bring religious freedom so long as men believed the avenues of salvation to be not through the touch of God in the human heart, but solely through belief in the tenets of an infallible revela- tion or the profession of a sectarian creed. Nor is that man perfectly free to come to God who is burdened by the tyranny of an evil environ- ment or by the exigencies of poverty and incessant labor or by the torture of unmitigated physical suffering. Again, can anyone be so bold as to claim that the French or the American Revolution brought any really complete political freedom to be the share of a great submerged portion of the people? The power of wealth, the dominance of organ- ized vice, the force of selfish class^interest, the rule of unscrupulous personalities who can lead ignorant constituencies by understanding the foibles of human nature, still carry elections today and wield voters as easily as though chains were about their necks. By the successive struggles through the centuries, the individual — certain individuals — became emancipated, but society did not. Privileged classes gained the right to think as they chose, then to worship as they chose, and finally to dictate the course of government. But of what avail are books to him who cannot read, of Sunday schools to the child who has no coat, of a pohtical franchise to an inmate of a nefarious resort whose livelihood depends upon obedience to a grafting politician? It is just such situations which the ethics of individualism did not meet. The action of the individual motivated wholly by his own good assumed as its law that each individual must work out his own salvation; that every man for himself is the first law of nature; that if each person only looks after his own best interest, the interest of the whole will be gained; that "God's in His heaven, all's well with the world." Most human action has ever been — and shall we say always will be? — on this basis. A want is felt by the organism and response follows the stimulus. The hunger or unsatisfied longings of another can manifestly not affect me with the same somatic sensations and mental perturbation that my own needs arouse. The Hobbesian philosophy of the seventeenth century postulated frankly the inherent and neces- sary selfishness of human nature. Further, it was believed that "en- lightened self-interest" would see one's own dependence upon the cosmic whole and would seek one's own personal welfare in the welfare of all. But neither religious nor political nor economic nor industrial history bears out this optimistic hypothesis. Religious wars and sectarian persecution sought the extermination of opponents in cases where strong personalities refused to sacrifice personal worth in hypocritical sub- mission. In all the course of nations, no ruling class has desired to elevate its underlings to the same affluence and fullness of life it has sought for itself. The essence of competitive business has been personal gain — not a desire that production should be as cheap as possible for the consumer, or that profit should be justly and equitably divided throughout the course of manufacture and distribution. In industry, human labor has been the means of profit; and the glory of the adminis- trator the end. True it is that "benevolent despots" have in all these several fields done much to remove abuses and to introduce improve- ments for the benefit of those under their control. But no abundance of benevolent despots could ever purify a self-seeking world, where all who could were oppressing all who could not. They have merely here and there modified a few factors in the environment; they have merely brought a touch of brightness to patches of our world, to little groups of men lost in the mass of humanity. Freedom must ultimately come from within. It cannot be a gift from without sent in showers of blessing upon the children of men. The daily workers of the shop or field or factory can never possess true freedom till education has raised them where they are no longer merely the tools of other men. Whatever the profusion of parks and beauty spots might be, they lay unu^sed one day in seven, so long as man and the rulers whom he selected believed that a divine mandate forb de pleasurable enjoyment on the Sabbath. Freedom comes from within, but freedom for some living individual is interfered with in every act performed on the competitive basis. Will perfect and universal freedom ever be achieved? Perhaps not, but we are interested now only in progress toward that end. The nineteenth century, in laying a new stress upon the old motive principle of brotherly love, has opened up a hope impossible when the ideal of conduct rested upon the individual's desire for self-preservation in this world or the next. So long as man sought only for himself his own good, there could never appear in the masses, who did not know their own good, the proper mental and physi- cal development necessary for inner freedom. The goal is too far ahead — we cannot glimpse its fulfillment — when there shall be no want upon the earth, but every new adherent inclined to the cause of the social ideal is a laborer contributing his infinitesimal part to the happy con- sumation. Of course, no individual in the imperfection of human char- acter as we know it can guide every thought and action in the interests of the purpose "each for all, and all for each" — but the very recogni- tion that the ideal is desirable, the felt purpose, blind and ill-directed though it be, to find the most effective means of social uplift signifies a step in the building of the temple of human perfection. Human nature, like all organic life, has, since the beginning of exis- tence, sought self-expression. Man proved also to be a social being, with his character, his desires, his very mentality, shaped and formed by human relations. But withal, through the centuries down to our own era, the common philosophy of life, whether formulated into theory or implicit in conduct, has been that of furthering individual develop- ment. Christianity, in fact all the expressions of religious interest in its manifold forms, held out the goal of eternal life as the purpose of earthly existence. In so far, its mission, up to the past century at least, has been largely the giving of warning and inspiration to men to save their own individual souls. However, unable calmly to watch his fellows travel to eternal destruction, the early Christian sought also in greater or less degree to save by exhortation his neighbors out of this vile world. Now suddenly in many a pulpit there is heralded a "social gospel" and on the lecture platform is proclaimed a social ethics. Truly a momentous break with the past has occurred. The very course of evolution which, up to this time, had been going on through the ages in almost a straight line determined by the struggle for exis- tence and survival of the fittest takes a bend when great numbers of mankind seek not their own perfection but the perfection of the race. The evolutionary process, once discovered, is being brought under control ever more and more cleverly and comprehensively. Sacrifice becomes meaningful. The individual stands ready to give of his talents, his strength, even of his life not for the sake of an indefinite, hypothetical after-death Elysium, but with the aim of contributing toward a pro- cess of human development whose laws he knows and in whose course he can foretell in some measure what the contribution of his own effort may effect. The social ideal, then, has been steadily enlarging along with the progress of human knowledge, coincident with the development of scientific thought. Primitive man sought human welfare — perhaps his own, perhaps that of his family, or even perhaps that of his tribe. Traditional Christianity sought that welfare, but now conceived in supposedly ultimate and eternal terms, in which this carnal existence amounted to little or nothing. The ethics of modern social life seeks also human welfare, but now seen in the light of a comprehensive grasp of the meaning and methods of world progress. The savage sought largely sensuous gratification, the Puritan reUgious sanctification leading to blessedness in a future life, both mainly in reference to self; the modern social idealist seeks the fullest possible enlargement of the whole physi- cal, intellectual, and spiritual life not oily of _'self but of §l11 men Well into the eighteenth century, the Puritan ideals of salvation were still exerting a wide sway over the purposes of the English people.^ The author is seeking in this treatise to trace the fundamental factors which, within a single century, transformed the popular aims for indi- vidual salvation into the social ideals which began to touch all ranks during the nineteenth. Many of the factors affecting the transition have, of course, been at work throughout history. Here and there, persons filled with love and sympathy for their fellows have appeared, * It is just to assert that to this day security in eternal life continues to be the mo- tive to which the Roman Catholic Church makes the strongest appeal in seeking the loyalty of its adherents. especially in emulation of the Christ, seeking some in one way, some in another, to better the human lot. But the idea, that the great pur- pose and meaning of life is involved in service, seems to be the light of the nineteenth century. At least, earlier times reveal no movement of world significance, gripping numbers of men, which leapt over all bounds of class and nation and race, and sought, without thought of self, to labor for more beautiful and more efficient earthly life for all men. We live in an atmosphere today which is charged with social feeling, which condemns with invincible force any waste of life or needless suffering, which honors a Jane Addams, a Jacob Riis, a Judge Lindsay, and indeed a Woodrow Wilson. Our rich men are widely known for their good works — a Carnegie Library, a Rockefeller Foundation, a Henry Ford profit-sharing plan. True it is that against these names could be matched thousands of other business men who are notoriously self-seeking. There is no evidence to show that in our day altruistic motives have already proved on the universal scale more weighty than selfish ones. The significant fact is simply that the social ideal is here, and that its acceptance has spread remarkably during the course of the last two centuries. Truly an aristocracy of service has arisen, if that be not a contradiction in terms. Herein is a long stride away from the aristocracy of special privilege, ruling since written history began. And it is only through the working out of this ideal of mutual love, that the lot of the masses can be so improved as to allow for development in them of the intellectual freedom which the Renaissance did not give, the religious freedom which the Reformation did not offer, and the political freedom which the French Revolution did not secure. What, then, is the essence, the central principle of modern social idealism? Is it merely the expression of a yielding to a blind impulse to helpfulness and love? No, it is that principle which considers human life the most valuable reality in the universe. It assumes that mankind is evolving constantly into larger and larger life. It believes that man, through his own efforts in invention of automobiles and flying-machines, in research in sanitation and medicine, in experimentation for the improvement of plant and animal life, in a study of the conditions which govern society and make for equity, and in the spreading of all this new knowledge through general education, can himself direct and further and hasten that evolution. Herein, we have come very close to the scientific point of view. And modern social idealism is decidedly scien- tific. It has taken up into its purposes and adapted to the needs of man an enormous fund of knowledge which the research of the century has brought to light. An eagerness to aid humanity has been an incen- tive to effort after greater knowledge, and in turn increased knowledge of the laws of life has awakened men to the need and opportunity of altruistic endeavor. Action and reaction have been constantly present. Science may be said to have been "discovered" in the nineteenth cen- tury; in the same century, social idealism wove its aims into the common religious consciousness and even into the hearts of masses who profess no regard for supernatural beliefs. Rapid progress of science and philosophy demands untrammelled freedom for the human mind. It must be able to investigate without preconceptions or artificial restraints, due to the supposed sacredness of institutions or beliefs, all of the laws and conditions which regulate the universe. In this work it has been the author's effort to treat the various religious, pohtical, economic, and social movements of the past two centuries in England in regard to the contributions which they made toward a softening of the hearts of men, toward a Uberalizing of thought and investigation, and therefore toward a realization of the needs of society. In the contention that the modern enthusiasm for social ameUora- tion has been largely dependent upon the great development of human knowledge during the past two centuries, there is no disparagement of the value and place of the religious consciousness and of the Chris- tian church during the course of history. Each of these has been evolv- ing also, seeking ever higher and broader ideals, and, by encouraging in men a lofty conception of duty, by urging them to stop and think of eternal values in the course of the pursuit of carnal desires, has aided and stimulated the development of such ideals. In some cases the pro- gress of science has been aided and enthusiasm in its pursuit has been generated by a Christian love of mankind, in others, and in general on the side of the conservative organization of the church, the researches of a Galileo, a Spinoza, a Kepler, and a Newton have been discredited and hindered. But once the proposition has been accepted that re- search in all the various fields of science would promote human welfare and even tell us more of God, the Christian church has been an influence in support of undertakings for the spread of truth. Even in the days of her antagonism towards scientific discovery, her benevolent institu- tions were doing all that was done to mitigate the burden of human suf- fering. She distributed "charity" and relief in those days when man did not know how to remove the cause of evil, but only to apply a deaden- ing cocaine to its cancerous growths. Through her earlier history, the church did not possess the knowledge of how to save men in this world, so she made it her primary aim to save them in the next. It is not denied that she accepted and taught love as a cardinal principle. And yet those nations which called themselves Christian and the masses of the members of official churches did not hold that the essence of moral duty was service, that the consummate purpose of existence was the perfection of human life, and that all men equally have a right to share in the goods of this earth, until the progress of economic, politi- cal, and social science forced such convictions upon them. The zeal manifested now by individuals and organizations avowedly Christian in such lines as medical missions, the promotion of peace, and the fur- thering of eugenics through marriage restrictions is motivated, and rightly so, in terms of aiding God's purposes and preparing self and fellows for immortality. But this enlargement of the religious ideal into a social one has been coincident with and even dependent upon the advance of scientific thought. Religious conviction has been modi- fied by scientific discovery, rather than science developed by religion. The social ideal has been primarily a result rather than a cause of the progress of thought, although interaction has, of course, been present throughout. A St. Francis of Assisi, it is true, centuries ago went about from land to land doing good. But the masses of men — even Christians — never accepted until the nineteenth century the view that the great principle of their lives should be the doing of good to all of any class or creed. CHAPTER II The Ethical Ideal of Puritanism Neither Luther nor Calvin was a Democrat. The Reformation was, to be sure, a revolt against the arrogance, the bigotry, the cor- ruption, even the cruelty and vice which had grown up in the heart of a church secure in its own sense of infallibiUty. Luther's original appeal was to the consciousness of each individual Christian who felt the conviction of God's favor upon him. The behever was held to be independent of all outer authority, if he was assured of the creation of a new being in Christ within him by means of an inner moral miracle. Thus in the passion of his protest against the rigidity of CathoHcism, Luther declared it the privilege of every Christian to create his own decalogue. In his Primary Work he extolled the right of the individual, while accepting the Holy Scriptures as infallible, to interpret them, untrammelled, through the aid of the spirit within him. Apparently we have here religious freedom and toleration. But no such ideal was really in the minds of the reformers. The Peasants' War arose, demanding only some relief from wretchedness, and Luther bade the workers almost angrily to be content with their lot and to listen to the commands of God's word, as interpreted by himself. He denounced the ethical enthusiasm of individuals as often misleading, and declared the secular rulers to be divinely called to guarantee the integrity of the orthodox Lutheran church against all perversions. In fact, he appealed to the secular rulers to preserve the protestant church in the same authoritative fashion which Catholicism had made use of. Luther never contemplated a radical shift in human tasks, but rather instilled a religious loyalty to the present regime, asserting the duty of man to work out his own salvation at the post which Providence had assigned to him. Hence Lutheranism has always taken an attitude which regards social revolution as wrong. And it has laid a heavy emphasis on doc- trine, on assent to its own theological system which is really regarded as infallible. Likewise, Calvinism, mainly because of its political aims, claimed in the name of God authority for its church. It proceeded, therefore, to organize Christian society into the kind of organization prescribed in the Bible, and to discipline those who did not live up to it. In ac- cordance with this program, Calvin in Geneva, John Knox in Scotland, Cromwell in England, the Puritans in America all sought to create a poUtical state which embodied the commands of God. The ideal of Calvinism is a theocracy administered byji religious aristocracy. The real ruler is conceived to be God, but society is to be administered under His direction by men who live according to the Bible. Now Puritanism is really the expression of the ethics: of the Reforma- tion taken over into England. The revolt against the ritual, the indulgences, the vice in the Roman Catholic establishment had been successful, but the attempt to rule out intolerance and bigotry from the churchly organization had failed. A creed, embodied in a church possessing supreme authority, was still ruling in the Christian system. The supreme purpose for the life of any individual was the discovering of the will of God. Good works, in so far as they might lead one to put his trust in them, are dangerous. All the details of conduct have been settled by divine command and outhned in the holy Book. The debt to the law is tremendous and man's life must be one constant struggle to partake in the pardon offered through faith in its atoning sacrifice. The one end of human conduct for the Puritan is the attain- ment of righteousness by the individual. There is always some one conviction or purpose which is dominant in human consciousness, which regulates the motives in action, and which forms the center of interest in the religious life. Religious thinking has always been dominated by some one attitude which has gripped the souls of men. They could not die for several causes at once. Now the cause for which the Puritan lived and struggled and died was the regulation of his own life in ac- cordance with the will of God, the attainment of such individual right- eousness as alone opened up to him salvation throughout eternity. The exposition of the details of the Puritan conception and of the manner in which social ideals were suppressed therein will occupy the remainder of this chapter. John Calvin had been trained in the law. The code of belief which Puritanism took over from him conceives the relationship between human and divine in essentially legalistic terms. Godjs-iiiLiLll-powerfid lawj^er; man a mere puppet in Kis hands. Objectively, the implica- tions of the theory assert the world to be in the hands of God, towards the working out of whose plans man can add nothing of his own. Sub- jectively, the effect is so to impress the consciousness of the individual with his own nothingness or — still worse with his own baseness — as to prohibit any thought or even presumptuous wish to benefit one's fellows or brighten the blackness of earthly existence. 10 In the first place, then, on the objective side, Puritanism beUeved intensely in the inner depravity of man since the fall. The original sinfulness of human nature had plunged society justly into wrong-doing and suffering that cannot be removed. Man is vile, prone ever to sin and ever to reap the results of sin. "There is no health in us." Even as late as the revivals of 1736 and in the disturbing sermons of Jonathan Edwards, talk was common about "creatures infinitely sinful and abominable, wallowing like swine in the mire of their sins."^ The riches, pleasures, and beauties of the world are themselves lures of the devil, leading deeper and deeper into sin, as one becomes a slave to his own appetites and passions. There is no conception that the evils which man has created, man can remove. On the contrary, sin and selfishness are inherent in all fleshly existence. They belong to the character and lot of man by every right of inheritance. "Do we then come sinners into the world? Yes, we are transgressors from the womb and go astray as soon as we are born, speaking hes.''^ There was no problem of evil for the Puritan. Evil is here, unalterably, irrevocably here, part and parcel of the very nature of man as decreed by a merci- lessly just judge for all of Adam's race. In fact, the world, in the belief of many of the theologians of that day, has been handed over to the possession of demons. Whatever apparent good there was in pre- Christian civilization, whatever similar to the Christian sacraments and virtues there is in heathen religions, all of this has been devised by clever demons as counterfeits of truth. The world, then, is hopeless. This was exactly the position of John Robinson, the one figure among the Pilgrim Fathers of 1620 who was of sufficient intellectual eminence to interest the historian. He speaks as follows: "All men in Adam have sinned (Rom. 5:12-15); and by sin lost the unage of God in which they were made; so as the law is impossible, Rom. S:3] unto them by reason of the flesh, and so cannot possibly but sin, by reason of the same flesh reigning in the unregenerate and dweUing in all; . . . and that this so comes to pass by God's holy decree, and work of provi- dence answerable, not forcing evil upon anyone, but ordering all persons in all actions, as the supreme Governor of all; and that the wicked, being left of God, some, destitute of the outward means, the gospel; all of them, of the effectual work of the Spirit, from that weak flesh, and natural corruption, daily increased in them, sin both necessarily as unable to keep the law, and willingly, as having in themselves the beginning and ^ Riley, I. W.: American Philosophy, p. 193. 2 Bunyan: Instruction for the Ignorant. 11 cause thereof, the blmdness of their own minds, and perverseness of their will and affections; and so are inexcusable in God's sight. "^ A just God has condemned mankind and who would presume to dispute omnipotence? Let none presume to fight against the cause of justice nor hope that his puny powers can avail for good in the face of God's contrary plan. In the second place, Puritanism in the objective phase of its legal aspect, conceived that each person's misfortunes were more or less the result of his own sin. "How are men punished in this world for sin?" Bunyan asks in his Instruction for the Ignorant. "Many ways," is the answer, "as with sickness, losses, crosses, disappointments and the like; sometimes also God giveth them up to their own hearts' lusts, to blindness of mind also and hardness of heart; yea, and sometimes to strong delusions, that they might believe Ues and be damned."'^ Not only, then, are sin and suffering integral parts of the human constitution, found in some degree in all, but the woes of life are in general equitably distributed. "In the house of the righteous is much treasure; but in the revenues of the wicked is trouble."^ Of course, the belief was not worked out with scientific exactness, for he whof runs could read that the sins of the fathers are visited upon their inno- ' cent offspring. But there was a more or less vague feeling that God was arranging things according to a justice past man's comprehension. , " May God not, to show his wrath, suffer with much long-suffering all that are the vessels of wrath, by their own voluntary will, to fit them- selves for wrath and destruction?" "To believe God had appointed the evils of life for purposes of good; to try to trace a connection real or imagined between misfortune and sin so that the sufferings of the individual could be interpreted a judgment of God'; to exercise a sub- missive faith amid sorrows — these were the virtues which accompanied the idea of man's helplessness in the presence of adversities. "^ Witches were considered to be inhabited by demons, "accursed of God," due to the very vileness of their own natures. Such a conviction could not but be a dampener upon sympathy in their behalf. Efforts for the relief of the orphan or widow must needs be looked upon somewhat in the same fashion as today are regarded the exertions of the lawyer who fights, for the sake of his fee, to alloW ag uilty criminal to escape 3 Robinson: Works, v. 1, pp. 398 f. * Bunyan: Works, ^. 289. "Proverbs, 15:8. • Smith, G. B.: Social Idealism, p. 116. 12 his just deserts. If one is himself blessed with health and friends and earthly goods, it is due to the fact that God considers him worthy of them, and if another is miserable, it is due to his own unworthiness in ^the sight of the Almighty. What a comfortable feeling for the rich! Would not the blessed of God be betraying his trust if he should seek, contrary to the Master's evident will, to divide up his good things among those for whom God did not intend them? Such is plainly the line of reasoning which the Puritan would have adduced, had he been chided by a modern friend of humanity for his selfishness, but mani- festly the Puritan clergyman did not need to bring forth any such ex- hortations against philanthropic endeavor. The question simply held no place in the consciousness of the day. The destiny of all men was conceived to be in God's hands and there were no proposals to undertake organized social effort to thwart His wishes by endeavoring to improve conditions of life for the sinner. In the third place, we find a conception, which to modern thought sounds inconsistent with the previous theory that the sufferings of men are requitals for their own wilful wrong-doing — namely the belief in predestination. The immutable decree of God has assigned some men to eternal salvation and others to eternal damnation. That is, some have not been elected, and they, sinful and a curse to their fellows, must die in their own misery. In view of the persecution which he himself had suffered, it seemed clear to Bunyan that, although even the righteous must be conceived as meeting afflictions, yet as elect they must ultimately triumph while the reprobate die in their sins.' His sense of the justice of this divine plan is " God cannot be justly charged with partiaUty or severity, in bestowing his grace upon some, while he ' "They (the elect) conquer when they thus do fall They kill when they do die; They overcome then most of all, And get the victory. And let us count those things the best, That best will prove at last; And count such men the only blest, That do such things hold fast. And what though they us dear do cost, Yet let us buy them so; We shall not count our labor lost When we see others' woe." Works, p. 109. 13 witholds it from others; herein he doth what he pleases with his own: so that the reprobates, not having the divine image reinstamped upon them by the regenerating power of the Holy Ghost, are consequently disapproved of God and perish in their sins."^ The decree of election and reprobation went forth before the world began. "This was the best and fittest way for the decrees to receive sound bottom, even for God both to choose and refuse, before the creature hath done good or evil." Even the holiest of the world could not through his own effort have so maintained his faith as to have earned election. But God, in an unchangeable act of grace, made choice before the creature's birth. "Thus the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth who are his. "^ The effect of this belief in predestination in dwarfing and stultifying all that was noblest in human character can hardly be overestimated. It gave no hope to those that needed hope; it put no love into the breasts of those who felt "assured of salvation." It was definitely asserted that no human effort could do aught to save the "unsaved." A great gulf was fixed between the elected and the accursed of God. In no way could one of God's unfortunate children hope by any amount of effort or devotion or sacrifice to enter into the joy of the Lord. Thomas Cobbett (ministry in Lynn, Mass., from 1637 to 1657) cannot deny the duty of the unregenerate to pray, and tries to find reasons for their prayer, though he asserts they are wicked in praying. Suffice it to say that up to the time of Increase Mather (President of Harvard College 1684-1701) there was no noteworthy preacher who was able to triumph over his belief in the foreordained damnation of sinners sufficiently to lead him to adopt evangeUstic methods in seeking to lay hold of "the lost. " He trampled the doctrine of inability under foot and preached ^ sermons burning with passion and love for human souls. But he is an example of a great and generous nature whose sympathies could not be hardened amidst the aristocratic callousness common to "the elect." Secure in the conviction that God and not man could remedy human ills, those divinely elected were led in logical consistency to sit with folded hands, watching the universal machinery run its course. The role of the chosen was merely to rest blissfully in their own good for- tune, knowing it to be beyond their power to be of service to the damned about them. Even benevolence was logically impossible for it would *Bunyan: Works, p. 111. ^Bunyan: Works, p. 112. 14 imply that the agent aimed to be more generous and just than the Deity. Love, Hkewise, must needs be stifled, for should one love the wicked, the very children of the Evil One? Such were the manifest impHcations of the doctrine of predestination, which, it must be remembered, was dropped from the Calvinistic creed of Presbyterianism only within the memory of our own generation. It must be admitted that most of the upholders of the theory of election have claimed it wholly to mean fore-knowledge upon the part of God and have asserted— whether inconsistently or not — the freedom of thfe individual to choose between right and wrong. They have also insisted that manifestly no person was "chosen of God" who did not give testimony to his election by the purity and unselfishness of his life. But the fact remains that in Puritan times the doctrine of predestination was conceived in much cruder terms, and that it was a curse to those who felt convicted of sin and a blaster to the gentler virtues of sympathy and love in the hearts of the self-assured elect. Another point to be noted in connection with this doctrine of pre- destination is that it led the believer to think in terms of God's sover- eignty rather than of man's conduct. He sought not to discover the evil and the good which men were doing, but only to find out what God had willed. Today we commonly brand men as good or bad, clean or crooked, honest or "grafting," and if we use the categories righteous and wicked, we do it largely with reference to their conduct. Calvinism, thinking in terms of divine sovereignty divided men into forgiven rebels and impenitent rebels. IJThis current method of classification gave rise^ to a somewhat patriotically disapproving attitude toward God's enemies^ In so far attention was directed not so much toward regenerating the wicked as toward shunning or annihilating them. In their subjective effect upon the disposition of the individual, the legal teachings of Calvinism concerning human obHgation to the divine law were very marked. Any person of a keenly sensitive nature was fearfully oppressed by the sense of the depravity and worthlessness of his own being before the subUme and autocratic grandeur of the Almighty. (Especially "when inability was preached to men who were not conscious that they were the elect, when passive waiting for the gracious deliverance of God was inculcated upon men whom the tide of events no longer forced to activity in spite of themselves and of their theories, it produced sluggishness, apathy, seK-distrust, despair.^'^'^ Excellently illustrative of the predominantly depressing and gloomy " Foster: History of New England Theology, p. 27. 15 character of the discourses of the period are the sermons of Thomas Hooker (minister in Hartford 1637-47) such as The Soul's Humiliation (1638), The Unbeliever's Preparing for Christ (1638), and The Poor Dying Christian Drawn to Christ (1643). "There were not lacking many appeals which were adapted to stir the conscience, produce repen- tance and call out faith; for when men are moved by the great forces of the soul, and the truths of the gospel are presented to them, they will respond in the natural manner, regardless of the theories which they may be taught and which at other times may paralyze their action. But when every allowance has been made for the brighter and better side of the early preaching, it still remains that the general impression of the pulpit was that the sinner is dead, helpless, cannot be interested in divine things, and has nothing to do but to wait for God. "^^ Many of the writings and sermons of Puritan days sound to us like the out- bursts of melanchoHc dyspeptics. The pursuit of science requires enthusiasm, courage, faith in its own methods and hope of success in adding to human knowledge the solution of some problem today un- solved. Should we say that in Puritan language this would be wresting from God something he had not yet given to man, that it is taking the control of natural forces out of God's hands into man's? In any event, the common Calvinistic^^opinion, offered no such hope to abe- nighted human. It felt that only a sense of absolute incapacity and.- wretchedness would lead the individual to throw himself upon the Lord, to despise this world and to throw off the bondage of sin. It believed man could escape from his abject vileness only by a miracle of grace within him.^We find, accordingly, in Puritan thinking much dejection and a tendency to sit in misery and shame bemoaning the wretched fate of men^^^nly those significant and dominant personali- ties, whose natural energy led them out to taste of the joy of achievement and the satisfaction that comes from the exercise of bodily strength and mental powers, triumphed over the prevalent depression. Secondly, in the subjective aspect, in addition to the individual's distrust in his own powers and gloom over the necessary wretchedness of mankind, the conviction is impressed upon him in the Calvinistic system that his hands are only too full if he is to rid his own soul of sin. How must I worship God? the learner asks in Bunyan's catechism. And the answer simply is: Thou must confess thy transgressions unto the Lord . . . when we confess sin, tears, shame and brokenness of " Foster: History New England Theology, p. 28. 16 heart become us. Tremble at the word of God, tremble at every judg- ment, lest it overtake thee; tremble at every promise lest thou shouldst miss thereof: ''For (saith God) to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at my word. " Isa. 66:2.12 Christian in Pilgrim's Progress turns neither to the right nor the left — he gives no alms and scarcely helps another soul along the straight and narrow path. He is so convinced of the dangers on every hand, and of the proneness of his own nature to sin, that he dares not tarry a moment in seeking his own salvation. In two fundamental respects, therefore, by his own inner dejection and lack of enthusiasm, and by his sense of the immensity of the obstacles to his own salvation, an individual wh might otherwise have been stirred to serve and encourage his fellow-men was restricted to the narrow strife after self- righteousness. In addition to its legal aspect, Calvinism presents another strikmg characteristic in its emphasis upon other worldliness. As aheady dis- cussed, human existence had been cursed of God. Even the elect are subject to misfortunes and miseries attendant upon existence in this vile world under the influence of the appetites of carnal flesh. What, then, is the purpose and meaning of this temporal existence? Its whole value must be measured in terms of eternal life, beside which the days on this planet are but as grains of sand on the shores of the sea. For many a Puritan mind, the overwhelmingness of the concept of eternity simply held the whole of consciousness in its grip and paralyzed activity in human affairs. The one purpose of life became to gain salvation and escape the frightfulness of a torture that knew no end. To gain the one and flee the other, no price was too great to pay. Pleasure in this world counted for nothing if it interfered with the hope of the future. Even home, family, and friends must be renounced if they bind the loving father or son to this earth. Witness how Bunyan abandoned this world to the enemy: "I must first pass a sentence of death upon everything that can properly be called a thing of this life, even to reckon myself, my wife, my children, my health, my enjoyments, and all, as dead to me, and myself as dead to them; ... as touching this world, to count the grave my house, to make my bed in darkness, and to say to corruption, Thou art my father, and to the worm. Thou art my mother and sister. . . . The parting with my wife and my poor children hath often been to me as the pulling of my flesh from my bones, especially my poor bhnd " Bunyan; "instruction for the Ignorant," Works, p. 293. 17 child who lay nearer my heart than all I had besides. ... But yet I must venture you all with God, though it goeth to the quick to leave you. " The other-wordly notion served in a surprising manner to stifle the ordinary human affections and sympathies. The Puritans became noted for their sternessT and severity. Witches were beaten mercilessly or burned, slight offenses punished with cruel tortures of the pillory or whipping-post — partly at least, from the conviction that by such means the victim might have the error of his ways impressed upon him. His agonies in this world counted for nothing if only he could be side-tracked on to the road which would lead him to escape the agony that would endure through all time. There was no pity for the sinner. The sinner incarnated evil upon the earth and the work of the righteous was to wipe evil from the earth, to pursue it to the utmost with inexorable hate. All human action, then, was to be weighed according to its value in the sight of eternity. The gentler virtues, su ch as loye, grace, and aesthetic appreciation were rather, despised lest they should lead a person to forget even momentarily the placation of a deity who knew no pity. In so far as the making of this world sanitary and beautiful served to render it an attractive place to live in, and to fill the heart with the joy of life, societies for civic improvement were really dangerous?- As for measures for social relief — what could be done comparable to exhortation and preaching, in order that souls might be saved? There is where one's money and time should be expended — there lay the one and only purpose of missions, inasmuch as the soul-rescuing was so boundless and the funds and workers so limited. To be sure, this sketch is an exaggerated picture of the hardening influences which the sense of eternity pressed upon Puritan hearts, exaggerated from the point of view of individual psychology. In specific cases, the instincts and desires of human nature were bound to assert themselves, parti- cularly where the abandonment of pleasures and the glorification of thrift led to stable finances. Many of the Puritans became well-to-do and with the accumulation of the material means for the purchase of the comforts of life, their renunciation became ever more difficult. Also the instinct of paternal love could not be wholly suppressed, often reaching out beyond one's own family toward homeless and unprotected waifs. But, in general, in all of the ways suggested, Puritan ethics tended to keep the whole thought upon the heavenly life and to prevent effort for the physical and social welfare of men, lest their souls be neg- lected. ^ 18 " to hear the approving voice of God at the final judgment, rather than to rejoice in the possibility of better moral conditions on this earth has been the supreme motive for right living proclaimed by the church. A hymn book shows how largely our Christian devotion has been stim- ulated by visions of the heavenly Jesus, the glory of which we may enjoy only after death has removed us from the earth. "^^ In addition to its legal aspect and essential other- worldliness, Puritan religious thought reveals a third important variation from modern ideas in its emphasis upon intellectual belief. Bunyan sums up the worship of God into these four elements: confession of sin, faith in Jesus Christ, prayer and self-denial. Note the absence of any reference to purity of life or love for one's fellows. He says "Without faith it is impossible to please Him; for he that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that dihgently seek Him. There is no other name given under Heaven among men whereby we must be saved; and therefore he that helieveth not shall be damned. There is no righteousness in this world that can save the sinner. "^^ To- day the popular demand is that religion must be judged by its fruits, that the man who professes himself a follower of Christ must live a life like his Master's in the doing of good toward mankind. The note sounded from our pulpits does not call for pious professions and prayers, but for virtuous action. Men say: "I care not what a man believes, but only what he does. " Quite the contrary in Puritan days, men were warned that the supreme need of man was not good works but belief in God. In the fore-front of the religious consciousness and in the center of public interest were the controversies over the conflicting views in regard to the fundamentals of Christian theology. This is a necessary stage in the evolution of any system of thought or organi- zation in society. So the tenets of Mormonism or Christian Science had to go first through a stage where they were built up on a strong logical basis, by being tried in the melting-pot of public opinion. So the So- cialism of H. G. Wells and of the Belgian cooperative societies, as worked out in actual practice, has discarded much of the older theory and provides for home Hfe, personal property and unequal salaries, paid according to abiHty and experience. But when Socialism first started its fight against the existing economic order, it took the form of a Marxian whirlwind philosophy. The philosophical justification of the ideas, "the Apologetics," have first to be worked out, before any active and " Smith, G. B.: Social Idealism, p. 104. ** A group of Biblical quotations cited by Bunyan in his Instruction for the Ignorant The italics are mine. 19 enthusiastic propaganda can regularly begin. When the churches were separating from CathoUcism and pointing out their points of dissension from her, it was natural there should be emphasis upon the intellectual. Much pleasure was taken in formulating and pondering over the theoretical bases which formed the grounds for secession from the older church. Not only that, but the heritage of the Middle Ages was a profound interest in theological disputation. Unlike Joseph Smith or Mary Baker Eddy, Christ had not left His doctrines explicitly set forth in written form. Hence, beginning with His own disciples, there had always been controversy regarding the cardinal points of His teachings. At the time of the Puritan church, the theologians were pretty well agreed in their interpretations, but the interest in behef was still paramount. Within certain limits, dogmatism could not be questioned without suffering the vengeance of the law. It had to be accepted ready-made, and thus the presence of such a body of unquestionable truth acted as a narcotic upon freedom of thought. "Theology was gradually strangling life. ... The system proved itself to be non-ethical, . . . making hohness a state entered into . . . by an experience essentially mysterious — faith — and consisting in an attitude of the soul and not in its activities. "^^ The soul's salvation was considered to be wholly this matter of intellectual belief. Now, in its ultimate aspect, belief is always an individual matter — in the end, each person must save himself, no other can "believe" in the stead of the sinner. Here also was a fact which allowed the Puritan Christian to sit comfortably by and watch his neighbor grow up environed by evil and shame. It was his neighbor's belief which was far more impor- tant than any danger he might be in unnecessary death. Belief, "the man higher up" could complacently feel, the "under-dog" must alter for himself. The stress on doctrine had, therefore, confined the in- dividual ultimately to himseK, but, more than that, in its broader as- pects, dogmatic discussion was distinctly anti-social. So long as various sects differed on some point of theory, they could not unite in the same church worship, and hence the need of Lutherans and Presbyterians, of Baptists and Methodists. Not until men could "boil down" their doctrinal necessities to a minimum, or until they could unite on the basis of a certain course of conduct declared to be Christian, did any possibility of church union arise. In the seventeenth century, the bitterness of intolerance between sects was still rampant. Puritanism, " Foster: Hist. New England Theology, p. 544. 20 as intensely theological and doctrinal, was a characteristic product of the century. The fourth chief phase of Puritan ethical thinking which encouraged strife after personal salvation was the stress laid upon membership within an exclusive group. All the centuries of belief in sacramental magic lent the weight of their sanction to the assertion that the only approach to God was through the church. The unbeliever might bring upon himself the gratitude of the oppressed by his good works, but really he was a hindrance and not an aid to the near-approach of the kingdom of righteousness. Such beneficence was prompted by the devil in order to turn men's minds away from the prime need of soul salvation. The only really hallowed activities which made for ultimate good were those carried on by men guided by the spirit of Christ, as evinced by their profession of faith in him. The Protestants, in their revolt from Catholicism and then, in their turn, the Dissenters in their withdrawal from the Church of England, found themselves seeking strength in union, and necessarily, in the very struggle for existence, building up a church which claimed for itself an exclusive monopoly of the sources of salvation. Even the Puritan state as founded in Massa- chusetts, though thanking God for His mercy in providing a land where He might be worshipped in accord with conviction, yet excluded from a share in its government all those not members of its own church group. There was fear lest the hand of the wicked would create conditions of corruption and vice to surround the holy. In the words of Cotton Mather: "It was feared that, if all such as had not yet exposed them- selves by censurable scandals should be admitted unto all the privileges in our churches, a worldly part of mankind might, before we are aware, carry all things into such a course of proceeding, as would be very dis- agreeable unto the kingdom of heaven. "^^ However honest or generous the motives of a Jew or of a Baptist or of an atheist might appear, yet they were popularly ascribed in their inner essence to be due to pride or wanton wickedness. Religion to the Puritan mind, in accordance with the whole course of traditional Christianity, was conceived not as a force which was to make this earth God's habitation, but rather only as a means of saving one out of an evil environment into membership in a heavenly kingdom in the Great Beyond. Only those in the church could expect to stand at the right hand of God on the Great Day of Judgment. i« Magnolia II, p. 277 ff . 21 A final factor in men's thinking which prevented the growth during the seventeenth century of a religious purpose toward social better- ment was the prevalent belief that the revelation of God to men was all-comprehensive and final as presented in the Scriptures. In this conception, study of the natural laws governing the conditions of Hfe today is quite without avail compared with an understanding of the witness of a divine prophet given two thousand years ago. The Mil- lenium would be here were all men to obey the ten commandments. No scientific study could legally be instituted if all men were convinced that the only knowledge the world really needed was a perfect under- standing of the Gospel. The one supreme need of men was declared to be spiritual wisdom, an illumining of the hearts of men with divine Hght. Watch and pray, therefore, and search the Holy Scriptures — in this brief injunction was included the full guide for earthly existence. Herein was no encouragement to the nature lover that he seek to find God in the Universe, nor to the lover of mankind that he seek to serve God through ennobling and refining human existence. It was not allowed that economic theory or the study of sociology could teach to man principles for his betterment unknown to the Jewish writers of Palestine in the first century. All truth had been told — your work and mine was solely to follow in the footsteps of the prophet of Nazareth. The beUef in the finality of revelation, in the helplessness of man to add greater knowledge of God to that revealed in the Bible was in its logical implications a powerful deadener of human activity in other channels than in a pietistic worship of God. It sent the pilgrim to his study to ponder on the inspired words and left no room for the suggestion that he might learn of God also through love and service. Once more a cardinal principle glorified not works, but faith. All that man really needed to know was told in full in revelation; all that he might discover by the scientific method of trial and error concerning the virtuous life had been detailed for him by a divine teacher. Why err, therefore? — search ye the word of God. The Puritan, through his lack of knowledge of the history of Christian thought, could not know that many of his ideas were not explicitly affirmed in those very Scriptures, and that many of his fundamental tenets had been formulated by great religious teachers living since the time of Christ. These men had seen visions of new truth, by virtue of their own meditation, by their activity in Christian service, or by communion with the spirit of God directly in the human heart. The belief, then, in the infaUibiUty of the Bible tended to obscure the virtues of social activity and to lead the individual 22 to seek his own salvation by getting hold of a panacea, certain and perfect, for all the ills of flesh. In addition to the factors of intellectual belief which determined the Puritan individualistic ethics, there must be mentioned as con- tributing elements two very practical conditions in the constitution of society. In the first place, it must be noted that society in itself was much more conservative and less plastic than at the present day. The nations were still insecure in the determination of their boundaries and in the establishment of the national consciousness of each as a member of the world-family. Hence, authority regarded its own power as necessarily arbitrary, and the people respected its sway as essential to the preservation of the father-land. There was a certain sacredness attached to existing institutions. The lack of a general education among the masses tended to produce awe and fear and subservience which accompany the sense of impotence and the recognition of the superior quahties and abilities of a privileged class. The medieval trust in an omnipotent God who might interfere with vengeance upon the wicked at any moment tended to produce the habit of humility as opposed to self-assertion. This spirit manifested itself, also, in some degree in a slavish submission toward the aristocracy who, by virtue of the possession of property and shrewdness of intellect, were able to estabhsh themselves as distributors of pains and pleasures. Institutions tended to remain fixed. The privileged classes were well satisfied with their own advantages; the lower classes through awe of superior power were well-satisfied in their own submission. Even though some mag- nanimous statesman might see an abuse in need of remedying, he found all the inertia of an estabhshed order standing in the way. The machin- ery through which reform legislation might carry itself against the forces of conservatism had not yet been invented. The very impos- sibility of carrying bills altering the status of social classes prevented their initiation. Secondly, all improvements had to come from above, and charity never possesses the dynamic effectiveness which righteous indignation can command for itseK. In other words, the people could not speak for themselves. The lower classes, for whose sake reforms are mainly necessary, had little or no voice in the government. Democracy had scarcely begun its work. Two-thirds of the House of Commons were appointed by peers or other influential persons. Conceive, if you can, what effect upon the legislation of today would be produced if all of the influence of public opinion were withdrawn. Today public sentiment 23 is the avenger which corruption dreads; it is the backing force which gives to a legislator the courage to fight corporate greed and to plead for health and labor measures or the initiative and referendum. Con- sider, therefore, the situation where the poor and laboring classes were both ignorant and unenfranchised, and there is Uttle wonder that their needs were scarcely recognized in the social whole. The welfare of the nation was considered to lie not in the interests of those who could not speak for themselves, not in the interests of the sheep who knew only how to obey, but rather in the good of the shepherds, the managers of political and industrial affairs. In so far, then, the ethics of Puritan days did not look toward the good of society as we think of it, but rather toward the good of individuals of distinction. In the religion of Puri- tanism, therefore, as it laid hold upon the middle classes, there was Httle of the democratic ideal. It was influenced by no voice of public opinion, rising from the midst of oppressed classes and declaring that any who professed belief in God must stand for equal justice to all men. The third and last point to be noted in this list of practical conditions which inhibited attention toward the welfare of humanity in the large was the complete absence of knowledge of the technique of social reform. The habit of looking over society from the scientific point of view had simply not been formed. There was no group of thousands of news- papers and hundreds of magazines constantly surveying the field, and seeking to gain public favor by exposing abuses and evils in official or private life. No rewards of honor and bonuses were offered to those who could suggest solutions and work out remedies by experiment and observation. The amelioration of conditions of human life has itself been worked out in part by the aid of the slow growth of the science of sociology, a science quite unknown in the days of the individualistic ethics of Puritanism. Without a careful analysis and discovery of social diseases in need of cure, and without experimental study of the medicines and operations which would effect remedies desired, it was no wonder that a sort of fatahstic attitude was prevalent, or a feeling that each must work out his own salvation. Society had not come to a consciousness of itself. It did not see that improvement of the whole would make vastly easier the salvation of the individual parts. CHAPTER III The Rise or Commerce and Industry — ^The Settlement of the New World The account which has been given of the thought and Hfe of Puritan days has sought to outline only those tendencies which were responsible for the fact that the characteristic note of the popular ethics of the time was a striving after the individual's own well-being. The picture has been, of course, one-sided. Nevertheless, it is true that the great stress and pull of all conditions of the day — ecclesiastical, poUtical, social, — were decidedly toward the suppression of freedom and the encouragement of humble submission to authority. Under such cir- cumstances, thought for the social good was not to be expected. An individual, sorely restricted in his efforts after self-improvement, could not dream of seeking to achieve for others what he could not gain for himself. In so far, therefore, the gaining of personal freedom was an integral and necessary step in the path of progress toward social freedom. The ethics of benevolent despotism is by no means the ethics of social idealism. Benevolent despotism presupposes a certain indi- vidual or certain individuals vastly better equipped than others. If it has raised up a body of citizens able and free to contribute its share of wisdom and power to the government, then the tyranny has vanished. Autocratic rule presupposes an exclusive monopoly of knowledge and abihty in legislative matters in its own hands. Social ethics, on the contrary, arose when individuals appeared in great numbers, capable of saying, "By the people, for the people." Absolutely prerequisite, therefore, were independent, seK-assertive personalities throughout the full strata of society. Now, even in the seventeenth century, certain factors were at work tending toward the emancipation of efficient charac- ters outside of the ruling classes. Foremost among such influences was the rise of commerce and industry, as it manifested itself, partly simultaneous with the Puritan era, but especially immediately subse- quent to it. The secularization of the modern state has progressed hand in hand with the rise to control of economic interests. The sixteenth century, as the age of discovery and exploration, was followed by a hundred years which marked a great expansion in industry and commerce, neces- sitated by trade with the new lands. The Dutch tradewith the Far 25 East was at its very height in 1650, the English East Indian Company obtained its charter from Queen Elizabeth in 1600, and by 1750 had conquered the larger part of the Indian Empire. The trade with the American colonies, beginning soon after the opening of the seventeenth century, waxed ever stronger through the next two hundred years until abruptly interrupted by the outbreak of the War of Independence. A large increase in production responded to the increased demand for English goods. The growth of cities was very marked, although merely a suggestion of their coming expansion in the nineteenth century. In- dustrial communities sprang up in many parts of the country. We are not, however, interested in the statistics of the growth of trade and industry. It is only for us to note the changes in current ethical thought tnereby occasioned. The general tendency in the case of the successful ; acquirement of riches is to engross the merchant in the very joy of \ achievement. Wealth becomes an end in itself. The Puritans, in consequence of their glorification of thrift, in their regard for work as a mortification of the flesh, and in their abjuration of costly pleasures, found themselves building up capitahstic enterprises. Now great numbers of business men have remained pious reUgionists, but the general development is rather toward an over-shadowing of the other interests of life in that of money-getting. Commercial enterprise assumes larger and larger proportions and demands increasing shrewdness in the struggles of ever fiercer competition. The simple craftsman and , the small store-keeper of medieval times knew Httle of the tremendous ' fascination which the great game of organized trading began to exert ( in city life. The center of attention in the case of the new trading i classes became transferred from effort after future blessedness toward j the gaining of material success in this life. Many became introduced / to the comforts of fine homes and a bountiful board, who had been half- \ persuaded previously that such blessings were associated by divine \ enactment with the blue blood of aristocracy only. The strife was no longer to despise the world and leave it; very practical openings for the / exercise of all the talents of the individual and very substantial rewards for such effort were presented right in the world of affairs. The business / man, in the general run, leaned away from other-worldly aims toward this-worldly purposes. Furthermore, the blind faith in a divine manipulation of human affairs was decidedly weakened by the new trade-impetus. It became, on the surface at least, perfectly evident that business success came not so directly in response to prayer as in reward of cleverness and 26 initiative. Men saw the actual cash value of that superior education which would enable a man of natural gifts to out-distance his competitors. Attention was turned towards a seeking after material goods and, with that desire, came a realization that the end was best attained through proficiency and expertness in some trade or profession. Now, as a rule, the expert, who had attained a reputation for unique wisdom and signal ability over his fellows was the man who had completely engrossed himseK in the interests of some one narrow phase of worldly affairs. The influence of developing trade, therefore, was to elevate a class of men, hitherto lorded over by the aristocracy, to positions of affluence, to fill them with the joy of emancipation and achievement, and to en- gross them in the fitting of themselves and their children for still greater success in business and larger influence in public and social affairs. Again, the large impetus to commercial activity which we are here considering, not only encouraged a riveting of interest upon the good things of this world and the means of their acquirement, but also wiped out, in surprising fashion, much of man's supposedly necessary burden of poverty and misery. The commercial cities became more flourishing than their less ambitious neighbors, and, accordingly, the whole general standard of life was raised. Increased prosperity among the inhabitants led to better conditions of sanitation and such steps toward civic im- provement as were then understood. Even vice could be combatted more effectively where Hberal provision was made for more efficient policing and administration. The Calvinistic doctrine of election im- plied that all things at present existent could not have been otherwise than they were. And the given amount of sin and suffering were the necessary consequences of an evil mortal nature. Yet here were certain cities able, by virtue of their superior prosperity, to do away with a very considerable portion of the vice and poverty which other more lethargic cities did not have the means to remove. The commercially successful man began to observe, what science also was beginning to discover, that the welfare of himself and even of society was improved accordingly to perfectly traceable laws of cause and effect working through material phenomena. The settlement of new lands, quite in addition to its stimulation of commercial activity, exerted an influence in altering the ethical ideals of the pioneers who stepped out from the conservatism and finish of an old civilization into a wilderness requiring subjugation and con- structive development. There was an exaltation of the heroic virtues. To be sure, individualism was emphasized in some respects. Men 27 were seeking fame and fortune for seK in abandoning the home-ties and father-land The joy of triumph over obstacles and mastery over nature causes a glow of self-pride. Yet this is not the Puritan individ- ualism. The ends sought were such as the clearing of forests — aims of practical accomplishment rather than religious devotion. The enthu- siasm in creative work left little chance for a pioneer to be a Bunyan, oppressed by a melancholic burden of sin. And social tendencies are also decidedly apparent among the settlers of the New World. United action was necessary against the Indians; fences were put up and roads built with very evident cooperation among neighbors. Persons far from the scenes of their birth, surrounded by a new environment and unfamiliar races of men, feel a strong sympathy and attachment towards anyone who comes from ''the old home." So today communities of Americans in oriental cities and in our island possessions feel a solidarity one with another which would be unknown where all men are of common color and stage of civilization. In Chicago, one chooses his intimate friends with careful, though largely unconscious, selection, and is perhaps accustomed to mingle with thousands of persons in social and business affairs with scarcely a feeling of any real affection toward them. In Hongkong, however, every American you meet is your friend, and there is a very definite sense that you are thoroughly glad to see him. In general, therefore, the frontier offered much incentive to the growth of a feehng of fellowship and of a sense of social responsibility, parallel with increased confidence in individual strength. The reUgious intolerance of many of the early communities in the American colonies has often been commented upon. However, the wonder is, not that many groups retained their old World ideas of secta- rian salvation, but that so many places did manifest tendencies toward religious magnanimity. To Roger Williams belongs the honor of having founded in Rhode Island the first modern state which was really tolerant and was based on the principle of giving the civil government no control over rehgious matters. In Maryland, through the influence of Lord Baltimore, an Act of Toleration was passed in 1649, notable as the first decree, voted by a legal assembly, granting complete freedom to all Christians.^ Particularly as the trend went westward beyond the closed religious communities of the East, church bigotry became less marked and the path opened through mutual appreciation of personal worth in the weakening of faith in a specific creed or ritual as the sole 1 See Bury, J. B.: Hist, of Freedom oj Thought, p. 97. 28 means of salvation. Secular agencies began to be increasingly estab- lished in the new country which took away from the church its former supervision of such lines as punishment of crime, the relief of the poor and the maintenance of schools. Especially marked in the settlement of America was the influx of personalities of broad and generous purposes whose social sympathies had arisen in noble hearts but had found insuperable obstacles amid the conservatism of Europe. In 1667, William Penn, having assisted to expel a soldier who disturbed a meeting of Quakers at Cork, was thrown into prison and from there he first pubhcly asserted in a letter the claim for perfect freedom of conscience. In the constitution which he drew up for his new colony in America, he, therefore, guaranteed as a fundamental principle the rights he could not win for himself in England. He gave a first place to the new conception of entire reUgious freedom and further asserted that "no one might be condemned in life, Uberty or estate except by a jury of twelve. " The wretched death of a friend in the debtor's prison drew the attention of Oglethorpe to England's ignorant injustice toward men, criminal not in intent but only by force of circumstances. In response to his efforts in ParHament, he obtained a grant of land which enabled him to form a colony for the relief of insolvent debtors. These men, hitherto left to suffer under the "vengeance of God," found God's hand led them into successful careers in America, as soon as man let them out of prison. The fault was, evidently, not with God, but rather with man's inhumanity to man. The new land was, therefore, a land of new beginnings, new promfses and new ideals. It was preeminently the home of those who had known what oppression and suffering was and who were longing for a larger and fuller life. It knew no such class division as centuries of precedent had built up in Europe, principally because the titled class sent few representatives into the hardships of a new field. There was scarcely the slightest appearance of the aristocratic notion of the meanness of manual labor. There was fear of ignorance, and the leaders of the new nation embodied in the checks and balances of the constitu- tion their dread of rule by the hasty sentiment and passion of the mob. Yet this very fact is a recognition of the value of intelligence and not birth as measuring a man's worth. Although some trace of aristocratic feeling remained even in a Washington, stiU the New World had taught that, given equal chances, an aristocracy of worth would spring up and that, by increasing those chances for all, a nobility of the many and not of the few would appear. It was a new vision of the possibilities in 29 every human being, regardless of his antecedents. The fact that men of all births and stations were working together on a common ground, the joy in freedom from oppression by a privileged class, the fact that the citizens realized their chance to develop a system which would avoid many of the abuses of the Old World, fostered a marked sense of social solidarity in the young colonies. CHAPTER IV Deism and Rationalism They cried: "Peace, peace, when there is no peace." Since the days of the Reformation, the history of the church-controlled states of Europe had been a constant course of strife and bloodshed. In Ger- many, the horrors of the Thirty Years War had been perpetrated in the name of Christian doctrine. Bearing aloft the cross of Christ, the stern forces of Spain under Philip II had come to exact a bloody tribute from valiant Uttle Holland. The Huguenots, numbering many of the noblest and most courageously virtuous men of France, had been driven from their homes because they set the teachings of the Gospel against the doctrines of the Roman Church. The Anabaptists, with deep conviction that the existing church was too hopelessly corrupt to be worthy of the name of Christian, were moved to cast aside the traditions dearest to the German heart and separate from the church of the Fatherland. Persecution and martyrdom were the reward of their faithfulness to conscience. England, too, had suffered her full share of religious dissension. That the old narrow, persecuting, intol- erant spirit was still rife in England was shown by the hanging of Thom.as Aikenhead in 1697 for ridiculing the Bible. When William began his reign, the avowed non-conformists, including Presbyterians, Indepen- dents, and Baptists, numbered a fifth of the population, and at its close a full million members were in their ranks. But the hand of the law still laid heavy disabilities upon them. The universities were closed to them; only Anglican ministers could marry them legally; and oc- casional conformity was necessary if they wished to escape serious risks in taking office or going into any of the great corporations of the day. Within the Established Church the non-jurors created a rumpus. When William and Mary ascended the throne, nine bishops of the church refused the oath of allegiance. The chronicle of Europe in the Seventeenth Century is the story of endless strife, ill-will and destruction of property due to the hatred of Christian by Christian. Society at length grew tired of the never ceasing conflict between ecclesiastical leaders and parties. If the Christian message required love toward one's neighbor, it looked as though the church must be a sorry exponent of its master's teachings. "Peace on earth, good- will toward men:" had been completely lost sight of in the endless tangle of 31 theological disputes and bitter contests for the reins of political power. The rationalistic movement throughout Europe was the expression of the wide-spreading conviction that the religion of the church and theo- logy was dead. Its purpose was to formulate a philosophy, dependent neither upon a church nor upon revelation, which might steady things and might build up a rock of strength as a refuge for men in the midst of troubled waters. It was the church consciousness which had been stimulating wars. BeUef in a verbally-inspired body of scripture had resulted in a hopeless conflict of warring factions, each supporting its own interpretations of the given words. A priori rationalism is the attempt to substitute for ecclesiastical control a rational control. It seeks to ground in the human reason and not in external authority the great spiritual values of life. It aims to found a philosophy of life needing no supernatural sanctions for its support, but to which any reasonable man must assent upon presentation. An Inquisition or a trial for heresy was henceforth to be impossible. Every man, in so far as he possessed the divine spark of wisdom, in his breast, must recognize the elemental truths of God and immortality. As a rule, it is only necessary to bring a spark to the lamp of reason, and the inner light will glow. If you disagree with principles accepted universally by rational minds, you are manifestly probably in error, but you are none the less supreme in your own little kingdom and no external authority can compel your beliefs. The contention of McGiffert seems pertinent and reasonable that the true break between Medievalism and Modernism occurred in the change from belief in the depravity of man to trust in his reason. As to ontology, Calvinism tended to determinism, the new deism to volun- tarism; as to cosmology, the one to pessimism, the other to optimism; as to epistemology, the one to agnosticism, the other to rationalism; as to psychology, the one to a doctrine of inabiUty, the other to that of ability.^ Catholicism and all the branches of the Protestant church down through Calvinism to Puritanism had asserted the natural sin- fulness of man and the original inability of the human reason. An infallible church was needed to direct man aright. But numerous churches had arisen each declaring its own infallibility, and negating that of others. Inevitable conclusion — no church is infalhble. But by what authority was this conclusion reached? — by no other verdict than that of the much-despised human reason. The first great leader of thought to lay hold of this truth was Grotius (1583-1645) who Hved ^ See Riley, I. W.: American Philosophy, p. 43. 32 long before the appearance of Deism in England. The ultimate au- thority, which cannot be found in the church must he in nature — this he intuitively discerned. And the content of this natural law must be discoverable by the human reason. Tests indeed we have: (1) the a priori one in which we judge agreement or disagreement with a reason- able and social nature, and (2) the a posteriori method in which the com- mon agreement of mankind substantiates validity. But it is the human reason— hitherto despised and rejected of men — which applies these tests. The influence of Grotius was great. A new respect for man appeared, in the writings of other than ecclesiastical authors. There was enthusiasm for man's greatness in contrast to the former contempt for his wretched worthlessness. Gustavus Adolphus always carried in his pocket a copy of Grotius, the new friend and champion of mankind. During the close of the 17th century and the first half of the 18th, the Deistic controversy arose to a foremost place in the pubhc attention of England. The beginnings of this revolt against ecclesiastical au- thority are noticeable as early as the reign of Charles I; its culmination is in the period from the Revolution of 1688 to the invasion of the Pre- tender in 1745; while during the close of the reign of George II and the early part of that of George III, Deism, as a separate philosophical movement is in visible decline. During the first of the 18th century, the adherents to the Deistic point of view were almost wholly members of the upper classes. But in the latter part, the revolt spread to the lower also, pohtical antipathy toward the church finally having tended toward rehgious unbelief. The tremendous popularity of the Deistic writings and the amazing extent of their influence can be mentioned only in a brief paragraph. Overton, in discussing Berkeley's Anti-Deis tic book, Alciphron or the Minute Philosopher, speaks of it as written "at a. time when Christianity was regarded not only as unworthy of investigation, but so fundamen- tally unsound and untrue, so wanting even in the necessary basis of historic fact, that the only thing to be done with it was to finally dis- credit it by means of mirth and ridicule, and thus prevent it from any longer interfering with the ways and works of the world. It was dead and needed only to be buried. "^ The sale even of Woolston's very partisan and almost venomous work Six Discourses on Miracles very quickly ran into a sixth edition. Voltaire states the immediate sale to have exceeded thirty thousand copies, and Swift describes them as the food of every pohtician. It must be emphasized, however, that the 2 Overton, J. H.: The English Church, p. 52. 33 rationalistic movement did meet in many quarters with fierce opposition. Its influence for the future cannot, of course, be considered in that degree to have been lessened, for opposition gave it always greater publicity and added adherents. The forces of church organization and conservative institutions proved bitterly intolerant. Woolston was prosecuted in court by the Bishop of London, condemned to a fine, and, unable to pay, was confined in prison till released by death. The good Toland, two years after the publication of his Christianity not Mysterious received sentence from the Irish Parliament, which refused to hear him in defense, that his book be burned and its author imprisoned. He escaped only by flight and years of exile. Yet, withal, he lived to see the spirit of free inquiry for which he stood accorded the favor of public appreciation. As throughout history, persecution had but abetted the cause of freedom. The impression must not be left that most of the Deists were writing from fundamental impulses of hostility to the teachings of Christ. Here let me quote from McGiffert: "To claim that such men as Tindal, Chubb, and Morgan were opposed to Christianity, and were trying to destroy it, is to misrepresent them altogether. They did not deny that Jesus was a divine messenger, or that Christianity is a true religion. . . . They were . . . attempting to distinguish the essential and the non- essential in Christianity, with the design of promoting true morality and religion, and doing away with the superstitions of the traditional Christian system which so commonly interfered with both. The tre- mendous interest of most of the Deists in the public good, and their hostility to selfishness and self-seeking, are very noticeable. In our own day similar attempts to distinguish between the true and the false in Christianity with the like purpose of promoting the good of humanity . . . are made by men who are within the Christian church. . . . This should throw light upon the situation in the eighteenth century and lead us to speak at least of some of the Deists as defenders rather than opponents of Christianity."^ At least three essential premises of Puritanism were fundamentally uprooted from the rehgious thought of England as a result of the ration- alistic philosophical movement: (1) the idea that salvation was only through the church; (2) that God spoke to men only in one complete revelation external to the hearts of men; and (3) that the supernatural was an active agency in the world causing and removing evil which was itself necessary and due to man's depravity. These three postu- » M'Giffert, A. C: Protestant Thought Before Kant, pp. 228-9. 34 lates the Deists in general thought to be productive of a positively- unmoral attitude towards life. Deism did not hold out the goal of social service, nor the greatest good of the greatest number as the end and purpose of all individual life— but it did exalt morality of life above a claim to supernatural authority. It declared, in its method at least, that the purpose of religion was purity of life. It performed in large measure a work of destruction — destruction of privilege, of clerical tyranny, of slavery to candles and ritual prayers, of belief in a super- natural which left no room for human interference and achievement. A striking weakness of the Deistic position from the point of view of this paper may well be pointed out. In the first place it did not instill the moral enthusiasm which is essential for binding men together in effort and for placing the aims of the individual on a vigorous and lofty plane. The great Deistic writers were thinkers rather than doers. They left the leadership of society to others — a scheme which was perhaps necessary to insure their own success in building up a coherent philosophical system. But in some cases the moral tone of their own lives was not high. Their philosophy did not create a following of men of broad and generous sympathies, who were lead out into careers of great political or economic import. From this assertion Robertson would dissent, claiming that nearly all the leaders of the American Revolution — Washington, Paine, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams confessed themselves at one time or another to have been profoundly influenced by Deism. But none the less, they also, for the most part, held loyally to the Christian church, as best offering the incentive and stimulus to righteous activity. Virtues defined as innate truths, lurking in the human soul, do not make a strong appeal to the heroic in man. Deism did not possess sufficient intensity to make of itself a great propaganda. In its revolt on the negative side against the abstract and soulless ortho- doxy of its time, it was successful, but it was itself to fall before a more positive movement, before a deeper and more intense religious life which supplied the moral enthusiasm necessary to achievement. In summary, it may be said that the Deistic, or in larger aspect, the rationalistic movement, in its wide influence upon the intellectual life of Europe, emphasized five great conceptions which formed just that many steps in the transition from the ideals of personal right- eousness to those of social service. First, the exaltation of reason as the lawful arbiter between antagonistic "supernatural revelations" and mutually destructive "infallible churches" enlarged greatly man's intellectual freedom. It both placed a new value upon the human 35 individual and it left him free to think. This much became so keenly ground into the convictions of the period that even the replies of the church writers admit at the outset of their proofs that reason is the final judge of the controversy. Butler aimed at exhibiting as "the same set of moral laws the moral government of God which is visible to natural reason, and the spiritual government which is unveiled by revelation."* Deism represented the first wide-spread recognition of the right of free inquiry in regard to every province of the interests of man. It gave philosophical expression to all the many movements at this time for the dethronement of constituted authorities — intellectual, political, and ecclesiastical. The Revolution had promoted for the people of England civil and religious liberty, generating free speculation and urging each man to form his own political creed. On the intel- lectual side, the philosophy of Locke demanded a reconstruction of the very first principles of knowledge. The Deistic spirit of free inquiry destroyed in large measure the last barriers — namely those built by priestcraft and sacerdotalism — against the free expression of man's spirit in his universe. Secondly, in its destruction of the theory of the natural depravity of man and in its discard of supernatural intervention, rationaUsm prepared the way for the scientific attitude toward the world. The attack upon miracle tales, which was begun in Blount's writings and continued by Woolston, furthered a general acceptance of the right to question any assumption and hold it up to scientific examination. This was an essential step in clearing the way for the appearance of an eager- ness among individuals to make some contribution of their .own towards the world's progress. As long as there existed hope of d vine intervention, it was presumptuous in man to attempt to mold his world. As long as all of the details of human affairs were explicitly directed in the hands of God, there was no room for the scientific conception of mastery over nature. Deism told mankind that God was working out his purposes through them. He had endowed them with reason — a spark of the divine — sufficient for working out their own destinies, and there could be no hope that a rational God would irrationally set at naught the workings of His own nature as expressed in natural law. The challenge was given to science to take up the salvation of life in this world. Thirdly, the entire rationalistic development tended to admit the inherent equaUty of every human individual. Democracy Ues implied * Farrar, A. S.: History of Thought, p. 159. k 36 at every hand in the thought of the period. A rational (secular) in- dividual is created with absolute rights, each self with its own inalienable endowment, as over against earlier Christian doctrine which had re- cognized only the regenerate (ecclesiastical) individual as possessing absolute rights. The spirit of Protestantism had long stood for demo- cracy within its own ranks, but the unbeliever was essentially an outcast, a being in the possession of the evil one from whom nothing but evil could proceed. The church never gave its blessing fully to the efforts of unbelieving philanthropists and scientists, but the Deistic movement gave them definite recognition, which was bound to be some stimulus to their labors for human weKare. The rights of the lower classes as over against the privileged aristocracy were not sounded with any definiteness, nor did champions of the oppressed appear. But the prior step towards an awakening to social wrongs was the preparation of the public mind for a respect for every individual as such. Ration- aHsm went back to Stoicism in recognizing the spark of the divine, the presence of the Logos in every rational person of this world. The Deists aimed at rational faith in order that they might make religion the heritage not of God's elect, but of &Dery man. In the writings of Tindal, we find one of the first visions in Christian literature that God in his infinite mercy may extend salvation to the heathen also. The recognition of the consequent rights of each individual, as implied in the inherent worth of each, was left to later generations to work out in the development of democracy. Fourthly, and perhaps most significantly, as its own direct and far-reaching contribution. Deism gave to the moral life a new evaluation. Virtue is placed higher than formal adherence to church or creed. Re- ligion is to be tested by its fruits. Shaftesbury, Morgan, and Toland all bring God into the world and stand for His immanence. He is not to be worshipped, therefore, in the old forms of asceticism, sectarian zeal, or pious communion, but by a life of virtue in the world. Moral conscience, convinced of its own sterling integrity can say to a lying and hypocritical priest: "You are a sinner! My life is more acceptable to God than is yours, however much you wear the robes and trappings of religion." The indirect influence of Deism was perhaps even more important than any wide-spread acceptance of its official tenets. Deism did not say that morality makes religion and creates its own God. But it did say that morality typifies for us the godlike. It did claim that God in His very nature must embody ethical law, and that we humans 37 can refuse to accept any conception of God which does not accept the highest moral principles to which the race has attained. Fifthly, in their glorification of the practice of virtue over the ob- servance of holy forms, some of the Deists, notably Tindal and Chubb, caught a glimpse of the social gospel. The supreme duty of man, Tindal explicitly stated, is to live in such a way as to promote the public good. Benevolence is the highest attribute both in God and man, and to live the life of love is to fulfill the will of God. This needs no revelation to prove it true. Reason itself leads necessarily to the recog- nition of universal love and kindness as the highest duty of man, in whose practice consists his perfection. Chubb is interesting as re- presenting the Deism of a working man, as contrasted with that of Tindal, the theologian. His main contention is that Christianity is not a doctrine but a life, not the reception of a system of truth or facts, but a pious effort to live in accordance with God's wiU here in the hope of joining Him hereafter. He dealt with special emphasis on the fact that Christ preached his gospel to the poor and sought to bring hap- piness to all classes of men. However, in the conception of these early thinkers, benevolence meant little more than "charity" — a self-satisfied virtue showering gifts from above on those below as a manifestation of its own goodness. We do not find the ideas of the inherent right of every person to his share in the goods of the cosmic process, nor of the necessity of the individual self, as social, expressing itself in relation to the whole. Full regard is not paid to the fact that the good of the individual is bound up in the good of the whole. We now see that if I cast good bread upon the waters, I find nourishing food available in turn for myself; if I spread evil, I must myself eat of the poisoned loaves. But, in their emphasis upon altruistic purpose as high in tjie hierarchy of virtues, the Deists contributed positive gain in spreading an interest in the welfare of humanity. CHAPTER V The Early Eighteenth Century Moralists Simultaneously with the researches of {he rationalistic theologians into the foundations of religious belief, an important series of specula- tions was being carried on in the strictly philosophic realm concerning the nature of the moral consciousness. Beginning with the appearance of Clarke's series of Boyle Lectures (1705) and running through Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiment (1759), a group of highly significant thinkers were busy interpreting ethics in a fashion which paid considerable attention to the disposition upon the part of mankind to value moraUty of conduct in terms of its relation to public interest. The principle that man must be both fair and just towards his neigh- bor was declared by Dr. Samuel Clarke to be one of the axioms imme- diately recognized as valid by the human reason. Three rules of right- eousness were laid down to which, it is claimed, man intuitively assents. These three principles concern the individual's relations to God, fellow men and self. It is the fact that Clarke especially stressed the second rule that is significant for our purpose. He found that man commonly recognizes the validity of two divisions of this law: (a) Equity — which commands ''that we so deal with every man as in like circumstances we could reasonably expect that he should deal with us"; and (b) Love — universal benevolence, which bids one to promote the welfare and the happiness of all men. The conception that the nature of society is organic received its first formulation by Shaftesbury in his Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit (1711). A part of any system, he points out, is good only as properly fitted to its place in the whole. The meaning and purpose of the individual is largely found in his significance for the larger whole, in the role which he has to play in making complete the drama of life. Now the good of the species must be more valuable than the good of any single representative. Therefore, the proper end of moral conduct is the good of all — ''public interest" is the final standard in the judgment of right and wrong. Yet it is only because virtue and happiness coincide that we can really be sure of this conclusion. Shaftesbury had started with "thoroughly individualistic conceptions measuring value in terms of feeling, conceiving reason largely as a mere means for obtaining the 39 goods of feeling."^ But progressing, he found social feeling to be one of the strongest, if not the strongest, of human affections. This is Shaftesbury's great contribution to the history of ethical thought — his conception of the individual as orginally social both in feeling and instinct. Man, therefore, derives his greatest happiness from action which pro- motes the public weal. To be naturally endowed with strong public affections is to possess within yourseff the chief source of self-enjoyment. "Hence the good of all tends to become realized through the enlightened endeavors of each to attain his own true happiness; for vice, according to Shaftesbury, ultimately springs from ignorance."^ Virtue does, indeed, consist in a harmony of the " self -affections, " but benevolence and happiness are so wrought together that they appear merely as different aspects of this same moral harmony. The two main contributions which Shaftesbury made toward a philosophical justi- fication of the validity of a social ideal in ethics are those which Tufts has outlined:^ (1) his assertion that social feeling is instinctive; and (2) his claim that happiness depends upon having the generous affections strong, while misery is the consequence of too prominent private affec- tions. If the individual seeks only self -gratification, he is acting contrary to the full law of nature and must suffer the penalty that comes in a losing battle against himself and his creator. Thus Shaftesbury rallied to the support of the social ideal not only happiness as the reward of disinterested service, but threatened the punishment of wretchedness in return for its neglect. Furthermore, he led those who responded to his teachings to the attitude of giving, as distinct from that of getting. The modern technique of social service could never have been developed by men whose thoughts were centered on grabbing all they could for themselves. It was only those who went out, filled with desire to seek and to save that which was lost, who advanced very far in a vision of the needs of the social whole. The study of human hearts is one of the deepest of studies, and they who have been the leaders in that science are those who have given themselves unreservedly to its pursuit. He who stands with eyes closed sees no opportunities for service; he who does not go out and suffer with his neighbor, can never really understand his needs. Shaftesbury, therefore, was urging men to enter into that effort which alone could show them what there was to be done. Reverence for the dictates and promptings of an inner voice has proved in modern men a strong reinforcement to the moral motive. 1 Tufts, J. H. Univ. of Chicago Contribs. to Phil, No. VI, pt. 2, p. 58. 2 See Tufts, J. H., Ih. p. 6. ' Albee, E. : Hist. Eng. Utilitarianism, p. 56. 40 It was Butler, who, in his Sermons on Human Nature {1126) , added the concept of conscience to Shaftesbury's proof that the pubUc good is the moral end of human conduct. Man not only possesses a rational moral sense inclining him to benevolence, but there is developed within him, by reflection, a principle which carries with it authority — a law which man makes to himself, impelling him to seek the good of all. He accepts Shaftesbury's idea that society is naturally an organic whole. There are just as real indications in human nature that we were made for society and to benefit our neighbors, as that we were intended to quard our own life and health and private well-being. Sympathy formed the basis of Hume's account of man's moral nature as set forth in his Treatise on Human Nature (1739). Sympathy is accompanied by pleasure and therein lies the explanation that, although pleasure is the productive factor in conduct, man seeks to benefit others. Good or pleasure means not merely- private good but public good. " Another's good may 'by means of that affection' (benevolence) become our own and be afterward 'pursued from the combined motives of benev- olence and self -enjoyments.'"^ The instinct of s)mipathy, becoming generalized by thought, presents public utility as the primary and universal standard of morality. The Utilitarian standard of morality, the greatest possible happiness of human creatures, is suggested and accepted both by Hutcheson in his System (1755) and by Adam Smith in the Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). The end the Creator has in view is a maximum quantity of human happiness, and He has endowed us with a moral sense, in order that He may use us as instruments in attaining His purposes. Accord- ing to Smith, every member of society attempts to regulate his passions to the point at which the ordinary spectator can sympathize with them. His view of the organic unity of social feeling, as based on common circumstances and conditions of life, is a great advance even over Shaf- tesbury's conception. The moral sense men had, conceived society as built up of individuals, each equipped with a complete moral faculty; while the early Utilitarians had assumed that in society there was not much to explain. The idea of the individual conscience as developed out of the social, the idea of society as the whole from which the indi- vidual emerges is emphasized first in Adam Smith's writings.^ We have seen that in the first half of the eighteenth century, the social ideal was very definitely and explicitly formulated by a. series * Tufts, J. H.: Univ. of Chicago Contribs. to Phil., Vol. I, No. VI, pt. 2, p. 46. 6 See Selby-Bigge: British-Moralists, V. I, p. Ix. 41 of ethical thinkers who rank high among England's greatest intellects. However, to maintain that they exerted any widespread influence over their own time in the inculcation of aims to live out that ideal would seem unwarranted. They did, without doubt, turn the attention of thinking men toward the place of social sympathy in a moral life. Furthermore, they did give a most invaluable impetus toward inquiry concerning the individual's relationship to the social group — the action of the whole in molding the destiny of the part, and the possibility of the part in turn reacting upon society. But, on the whole, their influence was rather upon the subsequent development of English philosophy than upon the common consciousness of their generation. None of these writers took pains to write in so popular a form as to reach the masses. They did not organize any movements to give better food or housing or education to the lower classes of society. They were simply developing a notion of the value of the Alter to the Ego, and pointing out the superior beauty of a life inspired by thoughts of help- fulness over one motivated by selfishness. Such a system of philosophy might still be largely aristocratic and, however much democracy may follow as an implication of their doc- trines, we can find no impassioned pleas in their writings on behalf of equal opportunity for all. Their conception of benevolence was largely a well-wishing upon the part of those naturally superior in intellect and breeding toward those who were innately inferior in capacity. Theirs was purely an attempt to formulate a philosophy of life. The solving of political problems, the study of economic forces, the working out of schemes for social improvement — these were all left for succeeding and more pragmatic generations of statesmen. To Shaftesbury and Adam Smith we owe the intellectual foundations upon which the later missionaries of active social service were to build. CHAPTER VI Social Unrest The Decay of Puritanism 1700-1750— The Growth of the Factory System after 1775 — The Effects of the American and French Revolutions The first half of the eighteenth century was a period of tragic moral and religious decline in the life of the English people. Amid a growing commercial and industrial prosperity, which gave a name to the period of the "golden age for the English peasant," a strange lethargy took hold of the reUgious world. The posts of highest honor in the ecclesias- tical world were held by a few favorites, chosen by Walpole, but, none the less, heartily despised by him and by the lower clergy. Bishops competed for rich holdings, but the system of pluralities allowed them to remain in absentia, wholly without knowledge of their parishoners or interest in them. Sermons lost all of the rigor of Puritan days and the doctrine of eternal punishment remained almost unsounded. To be a popular ''gentleman," it was necessary to throw off all of the virtues, as well as the bigotry, for which Puritanism had stood. In the revolt against the intolerable tyranny of the church, even a frivolous and superficial attack against anything sacred by a rationalistic critic was widely applauded. The example of the court was degrading. Leading statesmen were both infidel and inamoral — drunkenness and blasphemy brought no disgrace upon Premier Walpole. Literature was rich in proverbs implying wide-spread impurity. Schools were few and defec- tive, and the country people were grossly ignorant and superstitious. The people found their sport in bull-fights, dog-fights, and brutalizing exhibitions in the country fight halls. Although punishment was most savage, and as late as 1726 a murderess, Katherine Hayes, was burned alive at the stake, violence on the high-ways was very common and travel was unsafe. Puritanism was dead and Methodism not yet born. Beginning with the middle of the century, a remarkable series of inventions, such as those by Arkwright, Hargraves, and Cartwright was made, by which automatic machinery was introduced as a substitute for hand labor in the manfacture of cotton and woolen cloth. In 1769 the steam engine was put into use by Watt, in 1769 the spinning frame was invented, in 1787 the power loom, and in 1793 the cottbn-gin. The machinery, thus introduced, was too expensive and its use involved 43 too large an outlay for raw material and for disposing of the finished product to make it available for the independent artisan. It was neces- sary for the laborer to come into the wage system, and it was largely to meet this situation, that factories came into existence. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, all four steps essential to the growth of the factory system had been taken — the introduction of automatic machinery, the application of steam as a motive force, improved methods of transportation, and the grouping of workers in industrial centers. The establishment of factories had, therefore, been carried on with astounding rapidity from 1775 to 1800. Now the grouping of workers together under one roof created bonds of social unity which had hitherto been unknown. Common needs, grievances, and plans began to be subjects of discussion among the new groups thus formed. At the same time, also, as a sense of comradeship arose, there came an in- creased need for united social action and for relief and protection of the helpless worker as an individual. The craftsman became himself largely reduced to the position of a machine — the laborer who works in a modern shoe factory feeding an automatic sole-cutting machine cannot have the mental vision of the ancient shoemaker, unless he have leisure for recreation and study outside of the daily routine. The independence of the worker was largely destroyed. He became depen- dent upon his employer for his very subsistence and found himself a tool which the master could pick up or discard at will. Submitting constantly to the authority of another, he did not have the initiative nor the under- standing which comes from the free exercise of one's own powers. He had no trade to support him when discharged or "laid off," for he had learned only the running of a specific machine in the mill. The former reliance of the individual was, therefore, cut off. Yet, while a vague feeling of social unity and responsibility, one for the other, arose among the workers, the methods of voluntary organization were not perfected until well into the nineteenth century. Meanwhile, in the period we are studying, the individual mill laborer was left largely unprotected, except as the sympathies of co-workers or of charity visitors might supply needs in times of unusual distress. "The old group morality had this in its favor — it recognized an obUga- tion of the strong to the weak, of the group for each member. The cash basis seemed to banish all responsibility and to assert the law of 'each for himself' as the supreme law of life — except in so far as indi- viduals might mitigate suffering by voluntary kindness."^ 1 Dewey & Tufts: Ethics, p. 160. 44 Laborers were often en masse sodden and sluggish, and abuses of their rights, meekly submitted to, grew ever more brazen and cruel. "Such was the zest attending the operation of the first great factories that small regard was apt to be paid to the welfare of employes." Un- like the slaves of America, they had neither "fresh air, substantial -ood, nor hours for rest and recreation."' Children of tender years were worked to death by unfeeling employers whose minds were centered wholly on the economic returns of their investments. Factories, as first instituted, had to be placed where water power was available, and there labor was often scarce or k eking. To supply this gap, manu- factures were allowed to engage workhouse children, undertaking to feed and keep them during the five years indentured. This was nothing less than child slavery. Ill fed, uneducated, working for long hours, cuffed and flogged, often laboring in mud and in mines, they yet had no redress because of the lack of public knowledge and interest and the non-development of social organization among the workers them- selves. In general, the first factory laborers, adults as well as children, were dulled in initiative by their monotonous and confining work, and incapacitated for working out their own physical, intellectual or moral betterment. The mill hand was separated from the land, from capital, from any active connection with the administration of industry and even from any probable opportunity for himself or his children of rising out of the laboring class.^ For the great mass of factory operatives, the individual ideals of a former generation had broken down. "The conditions of industrial life tore up the individual from the roots by which he normally received strength, and crowded the workers together in masses, thus generating a confusion, which no individual activity could grapple with. To stand by and applaud the efforts of the individual who was sinking deeper, seemed diabolical."^ The worker possessed neither the power nor the intelligence to carve out his own destiny for himself. The thought of his own needs and wrongs, and the injustice of it all rather obscured a blind faith in a God who was taking care of all things. He found him- self powerless in his own strength and began to wonder if there were no earthly means to save him from his plight. The crying baby called the mother's mind from thoughts of the other world to attention to the present. 2 Ogg, F. A. : Social Progress in Contemporary Europe, p. 98. 3 Cheyney, Edwar P. : Introd. to the Indus. &" Social Life ofEng.y p. 238. ♦ Ellis, Havelock: Task of Social Hygiene, p. 3. i 45 Again, the institution of the factory tended to destroy for the opera- tives the old-fashioned home life they had known in the rural districts. Whereas, previously, the women and children had done most of their work within their own threshold, even the mothers now answered the call of the machines. The children were sent in as soon as they were old enough to do any of the required work, often at seven or eight years of age. The hours of labor were frequently fourteen hours a day and in some cases still longer. Lunch was eaten at the factory, and even at the other meals the full family circle did not gather as all were not working on the same shifts. The father came home worn with the day's toil — a fact not conducive to the continuance of the old family worship. The youngsters, after the dull monotony of the day's task, craved excitement and tended to be led into the vicious pleasures Puri- tanism had abhorred. The deeply devout, religious life, in the midst of which the concept of eternal salvation had held sway, could not flourish in such an atmosphere. Gambling and drink became extremely preva- lent in the new industrial communities. TJie demoralization was great when ign orant, health y, country lads found themselves in cities whose y coarseness ^fTifS^anJmorals is described with distressing realism by Defoe, Fielding, and Swif t.^^ The factory hand felt that he had no time ©r'Snergy l^for offering lengthy private prayers, nor for listening to sermons of Puritan bulk. The smaller group of the home circle was broken up, and men entered the larger industrial group which had not yet come to consciousness of itseK. Just as in America now, we hear much about the need of the rehabilitation of the home, shattered by the rush and tear of city life and swallowed up amidst tremendous economic agencies, so the appearance of the factory with its unrestricted hours of labor and with the huddling together in miserable quarters tended to destroy the sancity of the home. And with the home went all of those sterner virtues which rigid discipline had once inculcated. We are apt to think of the building of a city, to meet the needs of a large industrial concern, to be an audacious plan undreamed-of before the twentieth century. The story of Gary, Indiana, now a city of 30,000, brought into being suddenly at the behest of a steel corporation, is cited as an example of the tremendous schemes of modern finance. Yet we have there just an illustration, on a larger scale, of a necessary accompaniment of the foundation of factories. Each became the nucleus of a village in itself, or else, locating in the midst of a town already large, served to create the boom always present in a city whose industries are rapidly developing. Now, the sudden influx of wage- r^NIVJ?. ^-31T 46 earners into a town where a factory was building meant that the pro- visions for their reception were wholly inadequate. Improper water supply and drainage facilities were common and scarcity of living places meant high rents and the use of insanitary quarters. In the country, a lack of fresh air had been unknown, and, if there were an addition to the family, the father could put on an extra room through the use of his own simple knowledge of carpentering. In the city, the indi- vidual was immensely more a slave to conditions over which he had little or no control. As the servant of a great industry he could only say, "My own strength is not enough — I need the help of my fellows and of the state, if my most fundamental rights and barest elements of hap- piness are to be preserved for me." Manifestly today, the need for social relief and for measures protecting the individual is tremendously more urgent in our cities than in the rural districts. The cry "Back to the land" is a realization that no such distress could exist in the country as we find in our cities. Rural life needs much effort and thought in its direction in order to make it beautiful and soul-enlarging, but it scarcely known the depths of hunger, disease and misery that big centers show. The growth of cities, therefore, suddenly^ at the time of the first installation of industrial plants, both created the need for social reUef and slowly and painfully generated the realization of that need as appearing in social ideals. In our study of the social unrest from 1760 to 1800, undue pre- eminence among the causal factors must not be given to the change in industrial conditions. For movements of vast significance were occurring in the political and governmental realm. The secession of the American colonies was, in many respects, a severe blow to the old individualistic ethics. It was in one sense the most stupendous move- ment for social reform the world had yet seen, and it was to be followed almost immediately by an even more terrific upheaval in the demand of the people of France for a government which would serve them. Wars innumerable are recorded in history, but they have been largely wars of conquest, wars to satisfy the vaulting ambition of imperial potentates, or wars to throw off the yoke of a hated invader. No such motives prompted the mighty conflicts of 1776 and 1789. In those cases, the basal factors were economic and social. The war cries "No taxation without representation" and "Liberty, Equahty, Fraternity" are not the cries of demagogues, but of whole peoples standing for ethical prin- ciples. They are not the philosophy of the study, but of the street. They are not the mottoes of charitable philanthropists, but the spon- 47 taneous demands of needy multitudes come to a comprehension of their own needs. The loss of the American colonies caused the English nation to stop and think. Evidently kings did not rule by divine right, nor an aris- tocracy hold its prestige as the elect of God. The demand of a whole people, when united, was invincible — neither kings nor lords could stand in their way. Reforms could evidently be effected through a common social conscience awakened. England began to study the corruption of her own social fabric. She found the nation had been weakened by a riot of profligacy and gambling between the years 1772-6.^ She saw her colonies had been mismanaged and unjustly bled. She learned that pride and arrogance on the part of ruling classes could not build up a national structure which would endure. The vision was opened that nations might stand for moral principles and that a united people might fashion its own government in the interests of the many. Of considerable significance for our study, was the fact that the popular demand included the separation of church and state as a basic principle in the estabhshment of the new republics. The interests of a church seeking always its own aggrandizement and of good govern- ment had not been found to coincide. The church was now estabhshed as a voluntary organization, which could not command support. The great step toward the complete secularization of the modern state was therein taken. A successful state had been launched on the basis of complete religious liberty. A great blow was struck at the .preten- sions of the church groups to be sole holders of the keys of salvation. The new state plainly put as the first and foremost factor of life, not the saving of the soul for another world, but the well-being of her citi- zens today. There was tacit admission that the church was not the exclusive and perhaps not even the most effectual organization for social ameUoration. England saw that religious convictions did not justly bar one from the privileges inherently his own in his rights as a man. Accordingly one by one, the "Disabilities" were removed. Legal toleration was granted to the Unitarians in 1813, but they were not given full rights of citizenship till the forties. If it had not been for the opposition of King George III, the Catholics might have been freed from their disabilities by 1800, but the measure, though advocated by Burke and favored by Pitt, was not carried till 1829. No Jew was admitted to the House of Lords till 1858; and it was not until 1871 that the last legal discrimination on religious grounds was removed 6 Overton, J. H.: The English Church (1714-1800), p. 224 ff. 48 and Dissenters were admitted to the universities. The complete sepa- ration of church and state in America and the gradual secularization of the government in England brought home to all, that moral duty did not lie only in virtuous actions toward fellow members in a religious group, but toward all one's neighbors, Jew, Gentile, or barbarian. Dis- crimination by legal authority had been a strong bulwark of sectarian bitterness. The French Revolution made an even deeper impression upon Eng- lish thought than did the revolt of the American colonies. At first, the rejoicing liberals of England hailed with delight the victory of the *' rights of man " which had been gained at Paris. A sure hope of success was inspired in the minds of the reformers of England by the easy vin- dication of their liberties by the heavily oppressed people of France. However, when fearful atrocities followed swiftly, committed by the new sons of freedom, and the new republic began wantonly to desecrate the rights of other nations, English feeling experienced a sudden revul- sion. "France combined against herself the abhorrence of all classes of politicians — from those on the one extreme who feared the undue power of the populace to those on the other whose apprehensions pointed wholly to the excessive authority of the government. "® The English — aristocrat and democrat alike — set to work whole-heartedly to accom- plish the overthrow of the Emperor Napoleon. But with the final coming of peace, the cause of Democracy was seen to have been pro- foundly strengthened by these terrible martial struggles. Even the judicial code of Napoleon had taught equaUty before the law. His overthrow of countless princes taught a lower estimate than had hitherto prevailed of the sacredness of royal blood. His administration of Italy, Germany, and Spain emphasized the excellence of unity and self-government. His rude assault had been a fatal blow to privilege and unjust perference of one class over its fellows, and throughout Europe, a desire for seK-government had spread through the lower orders of the people. Plainly, inhuman neglect of the rights of man, unjust and cruel oppression of the lower classes, could only in the end bring a harvest of vengeance and ruin. Written in blood were the lessons of the dignity of the human reason and of the rights of all men against tyranny in any form. The doctrine of equality enjoyed considerable vogue even in conservative England — wigs and swords began to dis- appear. The industrial democracy of England welcomed the ideas that were spreading not only in France, but throughout Europe. •Mackenzie, R.: The 19th Century, p. 102. CHAPTER VII The Spread of Methodism It was the unsocial character of religion, the selfishness of its luxury- loving prelates and the hollow insincerity of its formal professions that awoke John Wesley, at the time of his conversion in 1738, to study anew the conditions of salvation. His intense devotion to God and love for men made all theological bickering seem to him mean and small. The Methodism he founded was preeminently a revolt against a reUgion which considered its essence to be the understanding and acceptance of dogmas. This revival and the following Evangelical movement are the expressions of the shift within religious life from intellectual to practical Christianity, from the theological to the devo- tional and vitally ethjlcal. "Go on, gentlemen," John Wesley wrote to the Deists in a letter to Dr. Middleton, "and prosper. Shame these nominal Christians out of that poor superstition which they call Christianity. Reason, raUy, laugh them out of their dead empty forms, void of spirit, of faith and love. . . . And then, He, Whom neither they nor you know now, shall rise and gird Himself with strength and go forth in his almighty love and sweetly conquer you altogether. " The Oxford Methodists drew together not on the basis of a common creed, but of a common need. They were united not in doctrine, but in prayers, worship, loyal fellowship, and practical charity. Their purposes still remained, as they felt, ultimately other-worldly, but theirs was a social other-worldliness, as opposed to the Puritan personal and selfish other-worldUness. The strength of Puritanism had been largely in the middle classes, since it could appeal strongly only to those who could read and know the Scriptures for themselves, who felt themselves sufficiently blessed to be regarded among God's chosen and who were not so burdened with daily toil or privations, but what they could become interested in doctrinal discussion. Nor had Deism really made any deep impress upon the thinking of laboring men. Dogmatic disputes had never reached the mining population of Kingswood; but even for these, Methodism felt that it carried a burning message. Wes- ley conceived that no man was truly redeemed, unless he was filled with a tremendous desire and yearning to lead his fellows also to partake in the saving grace of Christ. Into Ireland, into Scotland, even into 50 the Continent and America, the Oxford group entered, seeking to find in their labors of love the vitally religious life they craved. The movement Wesley had started became the center of a great enthusiasm for man, though chiefly on the religious side, it is true. Human life came to be valued, because every human being was a son of God, capable of eternal life. Like the Roman CathoHc church, but unlike the common tendencies in Protestantism, the Methodist church became a pure democracy, recognizing all men as equal before Christ. Indeed, its insistence upon the universahty of God's salvation, binding all men together, gave the revival such an aggressively popular character that it aroused cynical and even bitter opposition in the upper classes. The inauguration and encouragement of lay preaching meant the refusal to recognize even the privileges of a priesthood as exclusive. "The lay ministry raised up hundreds of men so intensely in earnest that they became educated men before their ministry was nearly over. . . . These Methodist working men sprang, by dint of conscience and mental power, into the forefront of the great world's international battle. What part the chapel played in preparing the English working man's mind for that struggle can only be a matter of opinion, but in our judgment it was a chief factor, though a neglected factor, in the exciting story of England's industrial development."^ What one such man could do for the betterment of his own class is shown by the case of Mr. Joseph Arch who *'is a local Methodist preacher and he is organizer and head of the Agricultural Laborer's Union, which has done more to improve the condition of the EngUsh peasant than ony other agency." The class-meeting idea, which came into Methodism chiefly from contact with the Moravians, presented as its most noticeable feature an utter absence of any note of class distinction. These simple reli- gious gatherings especially contributed toward the inculcating of social sympathies, in that they developed a sense of personal responsibility to God for one's neighbor. It was fortunate indeed that, when the shift in industrial conditions was threating to unbalance society, bonds of a tender sort were being formed in religious fellowship throughout the working classes who, neglected, might have fallen into bitter dis- satisfaction and anarchy. We have seen how the sudden transfer of masses of the population from the fields to the city without slow process of adjustment portended, as in France, danger and bloodshed; oppor- tunely, Methodism stood ready, where it was accepted, to reorganize the new life. The Tory Squire and Church of England parson had ^ Hall, T. C: Social Meaning of Mod. Relig. Movements in Eng., p. 66. 51 held themselves on a superior plane, above their humble parishioners and had made little effort after that heart to heart contact with their flock which breeds mutual love. The Methodist class leader, on the other hand, was one of his people, praying with them and seeking to give of himself to minister to those in his care in sorrow as well as in joy, and in need more especially than in plenty. To quote from Thorold Rogers: **I have often found the whole character of a country parish changed for the better by those rustic missionaries. ... I believe it is true that all successful religious movements have aimed at heightening the morality and improving the material condition of those they have striven to influence. "^ Just this vital religious touch was the crying need, if religion was to redeem itself among the poorer classes after the coldness and insin- cerity of the Georgian ecclesiastics. Partly a result of the awakening of the lower classes to self-assertion, partly a stimulus to its develop- ment, the arrogance of the aristocracy of England was excessive during this period. There was no time in England's history when English nobles' pride was more obstrusive than from 1750 to 1785. ''Noble youth found a satisfaction in street outrages and indecencies, noble age, in vaporing about the privileges of the peers and in attempts to constitute themselves a limited order. "^ A deep gulf between the rich and the poor, dug in bitterness and hatred, was sorely threatening, but the Methodist class meeting did much to turn unworthy passions into a deep-rooted religious sympathy. Furthermore, the class meeting did a great deal to raise up leaders to be the voices of the masses in the coming order. These leaders gradually educated themselves in keeping with the dignity of their profession and, in virtue of the beauty of the lives they lived and message they preached, refined in outward manners as well as in spirit. The estabhshed hierarchy had failed to educate its own citizens in leadership and constructive thought. The lessons of self-control, self-discipHne, and self-government had to be learned outside of the State Church in the Methodist chapels. They were training schools to fit the work- ing men of England for the poUtical life which was just beginning for them. Many of them learned not only the arts of speaking but also the art of organization. Five members of the House of Commons in 1900, who were miners, were all trained in the Methodist Church. "^ Work and Wages, p. 516. » Rogers, T.: Work and Wages, p. 473. 52 The day of the people was at hand. Leaders were certain to arise according to the very force of circumstances. In France, they cried for revenge and destruction. How fortunate that in England leaders had been educated from the ranks of the toilers who saw the ultimate good of all would lie in molding rather than in melting the social order! How fortunate that the masses could see that, with competent men from their own number working even in parliament for their interests, vio- lence might not help, but hinder! In fact, the whole manner of life of those who came under the new religious influence was refined thereby. The rough horse-play of the lower strata of English society, at times shading over into the coarse and heartless, was in large measure deterred from culminating in the unfeeling and merciless brutahty soon to appear in the French masses. The church undertook a system of simple instruction in the three R's in order that her members might study the bible and prove more useful citizens in the community. The hymns of Watts and of the Wesleys, as sung from a consecrated heart, lightened the burden of daily toil and sanctified it. ''The Methodists went below the third estate; they spoke to the very lowest of the population. . . . Methodism invested them with a greater power than did the Revolution those it lifted from the abyss. . . . Supposing this movement had been confined to the poorest in society, it would still have been of the greatest significance. . . . But a sense of their need of the Infinite and Eternal . . . was awakened in numbers of the upper classes. ... A number of persons, who had cared little for any interests but their own class or private interests, began to think of the greatest number. . . . Many who had an intense dislike to Methodism, . . . yet spoke in their own way of an Eternal and Infinite Being, all-good and benevolent, who was seeking the greatest happiness of His creatures. "^ From its very inception, Methodism has strongly devoted efforts towards the relief of the poor and of unfortunates confined in institutions. The little band at Oxford in 1730 made it one of the rules which they followed so methodically as to earn their own title therefrom, that they should regularly visit the sick and the inmates of the prisons. Another rule which they followed scrupulously commanded them to give away to the poor everything not needed for their own necessities. To be sure, their charity was still Puritanical in its sternness and no effort was made to bring pleasures or the beauties of art into barren lives. It was also thoroughly unscientific and did not aim to secure * Maurice, F. D.: Moral and Metaph. Phil., II, p. 667-8. better economic conditions or reform legislation with a view to removing the underlying causes of misery. But John Wesley's social sympathies were broad and deep, even if not, from the expert point of view, en- lightened, and in view of the great variety of movements for pubUc good in which he interested himself, he easily stands as the Father of modern socialized Christianity. To auote his own words: **Now that Ufe tends most to the glory of God wherein we most promote holiness in ourselves and others; I say ourselves and others, as being fully persuaded that these can never be put asunder."^ Wherever Wesley's message touched the hearts of men, it awakened a new watchfulness toward the cruel wrongs under which great numbers of men struggled, and a sense of personal obligation to give of oneself toward their amelioration. An extensive system of poor relief was organized and every member of his societies was called upon to con- tribute a penny a week. More potent than words, was the force of his own example, for throughout his entire ministry, he lived on £28 a year and gave the rest of his income away. In fact, his total bene- factions amounted to more than $150,000, a sum which, considering his moderate means, far surpassed the munificence of a Carnegie. His great sermon on the "Use of Money" laid three injunctions upon his follow- ers: (1) Make all you can; (2) Save all you can; (3) Give all you can. Wesley's loan bank for the poor which he organized in London in 1746 seems to have been the first benevolent loan fund ever estab- hshed, whose benefits were not confined solely to the members of a closed society. Again, Wesley instituted the first free medical dispensary of which we have any record in history. In several places, he founded hospitals, having found that it was less expensive to care for the sick in the midst of proper equipment than in their own homes. But the great unselfish work for which the name of Wesley is especially blessed was his devoted espousal of the cause of free education for poor children. Throughout England, he found thousands of children allowed by a sleeping nation to grow up under vicious influences, because their parents were unable to clothe them and pay the tuition required in the schools. Ingham gathered together the children of the villages around Oxford and sought to teach them their letters. If the Methodist Revival had done naught else for the cause of social righteousness save this popularizing of education for the masses, its contribution would still have been momentous. No claim is made that Methodism inaugurated the modern secular system of education. Two of the rules in the charity 6 Wesley, J. : Journal, p. 122. 54 schools founded by Wesley read as follows: (1) No play days nor picnics granted, (2) All must listen to a daily sermon. Like the Puritan, Wesley dreaded the profane and sought only meat for the soul; but unHke the Puritan, he saw that general education would be a means toward the entrance of the Hght of truth into the souls of masses hitherto in dark- ness. The end and aim of education was largely the gaining of an adequate knowledge of the Scriptures, but the contribution of the Revival was its insistence that the privilege of such elementary educa- tion should be extended to the humblest child. The caste system, whereby the children of laborers could not rise above the social station of their fathers through the denial to them of the opportunity of school" ing, was broken down. Those hungry ones, to whom the new taste of a wider life was opened up through the acquirement of the ability to read, made use of their advantages as only those, who have known privation, can do. ''The eagerness of the Methodists to read trans- formed illiterate communities into such absorbers of literature that publishing houses existed solely from this demand."^ With pohtics and with the condition of laborers in industry, Metho- dism undertook little or no interference. Wesley did,. however, protest against corruption in the management of public affairs. And in his diary he made many notes upon the social conditions of the places he visited during the 250,000 miles covered by his travels. He often described the poverty of the people, the conditions of the roads, the shift of population and the insanitary states of the towns. He saw that the great permanent step towards social betterment would be in providing for all labor that should pay a living wage, even though h e did not agitate for national legislation upon the subject. In a small wa y only he formed his plans, and in 1740 he converted the Society Room in London into a carding, spinning, and knitting factory in order that work might be provided for needy women. Finally, included in the Methodist Revival, was the awakening of the pubHc conscience to the slave trade and to the virtue in Christian missions. Wesley, himself, wrote a pamphlet of 53 pages which had a tremendous circulation both in Europe and America and which character- ized the buying and selling of the bodies of men as " that execrable sum of all villainies. " Members of his societies were forbidden to engage in the slave trade. But especially enduring, has been the interest which Methodism stimulated in missions founded for the social re- organization of the world. Rough Yorkshire laboring men heard for ^ Hall, T. C: Social and Relig. Movements in Eng., p. 60. 55 the first time the message of the brotherhood of man, and thousands listened eagerly while Whitefield pleaded for the colonies and planta- tions where men were needed to do and die for Christ. Nothing could have been more wholesome for the narrow outlook of the British laborer than his humble, prayerful, yearning interest in the representatives he sent out to preach a gospel of love and sympathy. The effect of the missionary interest among the Methodists exerted fruitful influence upon other religious bodies. These observed, if only from a sense of self-preservation, that it would not do to let the new dissent become a world power without a struggle in competition upon the part of the ''old line." Yet the missionary leaven permeated but slowly into some conservative sects, for even after Wesley's death the Church of Scotland went on record in declaring foreign missions a sacri- legious interference with God's plans. The missionary enterprises of Methodism were undertaken solely from the motive of saving those doomed to a hard lot in this world into a blessedness in eternity. This is, of course, largely the old " other- worldhness," but it is most signi- ficant for our study that the new missions inaugurated a sense of respon- sibility in the hearts of men for their fellows, no matter what their station or remoteness. The love was awakened which in time was to see that the needs of men are not wholly spiritual. The habit of service was formed, which in later generations could be extended into a brotherly offering of hands to meet any need. Methodism had educated a large part of the lower classes of England up to a new point of social efficiency. "Commerce, trade, art, literature, industrial conditions . . . had entered as factors into the social state of King George Ill's reign. But probably no factor . . . had the same social significance for the future of England's Empire as the Methodist phase of the EvangeUcal revival."^ »HaU,T. C: 76., p. 74. CHAPTER VIII The Abolition of Slavery and the Establishment of Christlan Missions ''In Elizabeth's time, Sir John Hawkins initiated the slave trade and in commemoration of his achievement, was allowed to put in his coat of arms a 'demi-moor, proper bound with a cord': — the honor- ableness of his action being thus assumed by himself and recognized by- Queen and public. " In those days moral value was estimated in terms of national prosperity and almost not at all in terms of human happiness. The habit had simply not been formed in men of thinking, that each was responsible for the welfare of any man within his power to aid. The ethical worth of an action was not measured in terms of the resulting gain for human freedom and welfare. Rather, values were in terms of achievement, determined by the degree of mastery over one's fellows. He held the highest niche in t^e hall of fame, who was the strongest ruling personality. And individual well-being was as nothing compared with national well-being. Religion despised the individual's life in this world because it was merely an atom in eternity; poUtics considered it of no consequence because it was merely an atom in the nation. The aim of government was not the happiness of its citizens, but rather national prestige, national wealth, national aggrandizement. It was entirely sufficient justification that the great mass of the common people should live in misery and die prematurely, if by that means, the economic success of the government was estabUshed. Parliamentary action, which sought to give greater freedom and blessings to the lower class from a disinterested love and respect for all men, was almost unknown. Rather, in governmental ethics, we find the nation taking the place of the individual in religious ethics. It is a case of the nation for itself irrespective of the welfare of its integral parts or of other nations, just as in Puritanical ethics, the individual soul seeks its own salvation regardless of others. The worth of the individual's life, which both Puritanism and absolutism denied in this world, had to be asserted before combined action for the good of all individuals — social ethics — was possible. Now in the days when slavery flourished, there was no such attitude of mind. If slavery contributed to the economic welfare of the nation, as an institution, not as composed of individuals, then its justification went unquestioned. The Utihtarian standard was 57 unknown as the principle of legislation — the end sought was only the power and prosperity of the national government. One is reminded of many recent German utterances upon the supremacy and sacredness of ''the State.'' In England, the wave of humanitarian feeling, which was to develop some day a new code of ethical purposes, first manifested itself in that great religious revival led by Whitefield and the Wesleys. In 1787, Granville Sharp founded the original Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, a majority of whose original twelve members were Quakers. The Society at once began collecting evidence to show the barbarity of the traffic, proving finally that fifty out of every one hundred, crowded together as they were, did not survive the "Middle Passage" in con- dition fit to become efficient laborers. Edmund Burke wanted to move against the slave trade and although he was too early, the noble appeals which he made to the national conscience called forth a splendid response from the best in English life. By 1792, the opposition had gained in strength and Pitt made the greatest of all his speeches in Parliament — a plea for the blotting out of slavery. The sympathy of the public was deeply stirred. Even as in our own day, the club women of the United States have fought with much success the system of sweat- shop labor by refusing to buy clothing manufactured under such con- ditions; so thousands of earnest persons in England denied themselves the use of any sugar which had been cultivated by slave labor. Two men — Thomas Clarkson and WilHam Wilberforce — made anti-slavery agitation the supreme purpose of their lives. Particularly during the fifteen years from 1792 to 1807, the un- selfish sentiment stirred up throughout England on behalf of an ignorant and powerless class of people was decidedly ennobling to her thought. The generous and self-denying efforts of the slave trade opponents in Parliament breathed a new sense of lofty purpose and of stewardship into the spirit of the legislators — a feeling of responsibility for those under their control. The years of agitation brought attention to the rights of men as individuals. It revealed to the closed minds and cal- loused hearts of men what awful sufferings they had been allowing to go on in fellow creatures without even troubling themselves to learn of the situation. It started a habit of thought among men in channels other than those of personal wants and achievement. Utter failure was at hand to that scheme which had prophesied that all would be well if only there was faith in the justice of God, and men were left to work out each his own salvation. For it was proven 58 that the greed of men in power was able to enslave others by keeping them in ignorance and poverty, and so to hold them that their very souls, in bodies oppressed by toil and hunger, could not reach out to God. Before the standard of life of a people can be raised and their ideals elevated, the desire for better things must be inculcated within them. The child of the slums often cannot appreciate the beauty of the daisy nor the joy of running through the fields and woods. So also the slave, born in servitude, never truly understanding what freedom meant, often did not know enough to rebel even in his heart. From his infancy, he had been taught that he had no rights and that he was but the tool of another's will. A free man could say, ''You have done me wrong"; a slave could not. In the case of the slave, therefore, another instance appeared where the individual ethic was not sufficient. His time was not his own, his action was dictated by another, even his beliefs and knowledge of truth were circumscribed by the lack of educa- tion to which external control held him. The slave was in no position to serve either himself or another — it is hard to conceive how the moral consciousness of a slave could ever have recognized the existence of social obligation. If these souls were to be saved, surely the respon- sibility lay not upon themselves but upon society. The time was ripe and a Wilberforce awoke to the call of the social ideal in this phase. The effects of the institution of slavery had not been evil upon those only who were held in bondage. Slavery, so long as unopposed, was a hardener of hearts, a deadener of the finer sensibiUties, a stifler of Christian love. Those actively engaged in the trade, particularly in the shipping end, became coarse and brutalized in character. Be- neath them were humans whose very chastity was under their beck and call. Sin brought with it no punishment, brutality, no hatred, degrada- tion, no revenge. Such a system made for a fearful looseness of morale among the masters. Slavery was twice accursed. The fight against evil is in itself usually a blessing. By the appear- ance of leaders, morally inspired with conviction of deep wrong, con- secration to the cause of others was stimulated; a great outpouring of sympathy followed. The act aboUshing the slave trade was passed by Parliament in 1807. This act of 1807, may be said to be the first sweeping legislative enactment in England which was prompted for the good of an oppressed class upon purely moral grounds and in the face of apparent economic ruin to the nation. It is, therefore, the first great example of the new social legislation, the first step in the building up of that technique in the methods of securing reform through 59 legal enactment affecting the entire nation. Individual effort in cor- recting abuses appeared puny and powerless compared with this new course of national interference, by which all citizens could be forced into line — the unwilling, as well as the willing. The work of the social idealist became henceforth not so much to correct abuses by means of the little time and resources at his own command, but rather to per- suade legislators and to educate the public in knowledge of existing evils and of possible remedies and irradicators. It was seen that co- operation could accomplish in a day what scattered and spasmodic effort could not attain in years. Finally in 1833, by enactment, all slavery was aboUshed throughout the British colonies, by the payment of £20,000,000 to the owners for the emancipation of 800,000 slaves. England was a changed nation after the abolition. Even those who had been supporters of the old institution could not but feel the sting of an organized pubUc opinion, which declared itself against injustice toward any human soul. En- thusiasm ran high in seeking to provide some care for those thrown upon their own resources. The measures taken, particularly in Jamaica, were woefully deficient, but the good intentions had been provoked at any rate. Free sugar circles were formed, contributions for the slaves were collected and considerable efforts were made to reach them with schools and literature.^ Slavery had been defended in massive volumes both in Europe and America by an appeal to supernatural revelation. Long disserta- tions had been compiled by some of the most august prelates of the churches proving that slavery existed in patriarchal times under divine sanction. Even the words of Christ had been invoked to show he did not advocate setting the bond-man free. Hence, the total abolition of slavery indicated a triumph of the moral consciousness of man, either declaring itself superior to the supernatural claims or demanding its right to interpret revelation according to its own highest light. In America, anti-slavery feeling seems to have been more slowly aroused than in England, perhaps because it seemed such an integral part of the great cotton-growing industry. The whole system of life in the South had grown up on the assumption that this institution was a fixed certainty. The big plantation became surrounded with romance and glamor. It became associated in thought with the picture of spa- cious halls, munificent hospitality, abundant crops, handsome horses, and fair women. The happy singing and dancing of the "darkies" 1 See Hall, T. C: Social Movements, p. 117. 60 was proverbial. Prior to 1830, even many of the leaders of the churches denounced the abolitionists as infidels and their conduct as fanatical and wicked. But anti-slavery sentiment had been by no means non- existent. The Federal Constitution in 1787 had a provision that importation of slaves should not be prohibited by Congress before 1808. From that year on, the slave trade, as distinct from slavery, was under prohibition of the law, but was carried on secretly till the Civil War. As in England, the labors of the abolitionists were productive of a large impulse toward broader human sympathies. The very agitation on behalf of a people, dirty, ignorant, even low in morality, meant the creation of a new sort of public conscience. The Revolution had been a social movement in the sense that it sought the good of the whole and in that it involved thorough social union. But, there, each citizen saw that in fighting for his country, he was fighting for himself also. However, in the revolt of conscience in the North against slavery, we have no such personal motives entering. It signals the entrance of a great public interest and zeal in the cause of a portion of society who could not speak for themselves. It is the herald of a social sympathy ready to respond to any call of wrong to be righted, or of better con- ditions of life to be instituted. It marks the significant introduction of a common spirit among the people to stand for moral principles, irrespective of whether it was "none of one's business" or not. In the organization of extensive propaganda on behalf of Christian missions, we have a manifestation, in some respects, of the same social sympathy evident in the revolt against slavery. To be sure, the mis- sionary impulse was confined to the members of the Christian church and its original purposes were not so much to express love for the heathen as to do duty by him as the possessor of a soul capable of entering into another world. In another aspect, however, the aim of the missionary was even broader than that of the aboUtionist — ^for he felt responsibiUty toward men in distant lands and not simply, as in American slavery, toward his own fellow-inhabitants. And as a matter of fact, those who went into the foreign work were seldom hard-hearted beings, who shut their eyes toward the earthly condition of men and sought only to preach conviction to their souls. They were largely men of deep sympathies to whom any request for love or food or shelter could not fail to appeal. Here lies the kernel of the contribution of the missionary movement to the revolt against Puritanism — it softened and opened the hearts of men toward their fellows. 61 The call to missionary effort did not, of course, meet with anything like unanimous response within the church itself. William Carey went out as the first Christian messenger to India in 1793, but it was only three years previous when, on proposing missions in a Baptist conference, he had been commanded to be silent and not to "meddle with Pro- vidence." Opposition among conservative prelates to the foreign work was long and bitter and has by no means been fully removed. Outside of the church, unselfish giving toward the uplifting of neglected classes had been almost nil up to very recent times — the dynamic of a sufficiently cosmopolitan social sympathy has not existed in any large measure sundered from religious feeling. About the earliest Protestant missionary work, of which we have record, was at stations estabhshed for the Indians in Virginia in 1710 and for the Mohawks at Albany in 1727. Roman Catholic missions had, of course, existed, especially among the Iroquois throughout the entire seventeenth century. Their policy, however, remained to give no education to the natives or only so much as could not hinder their complete subjection to the religious order. The Catholic missions must, therefore, be neglected in this brief survey of the molding of public opinion in England and America. The work among the Indians did not flourish before the Revolution, probably because of the lack of fimds to support permanent workers. But the chief hindrances to development of missions on behalf of the Indians were the diversity and difficulty of their dialects and their general lack of education and, therefore, of capacity for understanding the Christian message. It is an interesting fact, emphasized by James in his English Institutions and the American Indian, that several educational institutions now considered of the highest rank were founded in whole or in part to Chris- tianize the Indian. In 1691, the College of William and Mary was founded with the aid of a benefaction of Robert Boyle, and there Indian youth were boarded and received their education for many years. The original charter of Harvard University provided for all things ''that may conduce to the education of the English and Indian youth of this country in knowledge and Godliness." The royal charter granted to Dartmouth College in 1769 contained the provision "that there be a college erected for the education of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land in reading, writing and all parts of Learning which shall appear necessary and expedient for civilizing and Christianizing children of Pagans. " As early as 1723, Bishop Berkeley began his project to reform the manners of the EngUsh in the plantations in the West Indies and to 62 propagate the gospel among the American savages. He pleaded especially for the education of a native ministry who might become imbued with public-spirited principles so as to spread "rehgion, morals, and civil life among their countrymen, who can entertain no suspicion of men of their own blood." He forcefully denounced to the British nation the lamentable fact of the "small care that had been taken to convert the negroes of our plantations, who, to the infamy of England and scandal of the world, continue heathen under Christian masters and in Christian countries. " The influence of Berkeley was large, because of the general respect in which his philosophical acumen was held, and his following was so great that the government officials did not dare oppose him until they had safely relegated him to Rhode Island. In 1743, Cod- rington College was founded in Barbadoes to instruct physicians so as to do "good to men's souls while caring for their bodies.^' The purpose and value of medical missions were, therefore, thus early in the century recognized. The active participation of the Methodists in the missionary enter- prise has already been noted. The awakening of the sympathies of that church for those in ignorance of the Gospel was unquestioned. But the beginning of extensive organization for the sake of promoting missionary activity was not until 1792 when the Baptist Missionary Society was planned by the devoted Carey who went to India. Then followed rapidly the London Missionary Society, where Churchmen and Dissenters united in 1795; the Scottish Church Society, 1796; the Church Missionary Society, 1799; and the Wesleyan Missionary Society, 1813. Besides, in 1799, the Religious Tract Society and in 1804, the British and Foreign Bible Society were founded. Throughout the nineteenth century, the missionary spirit has made regular and tre- mendous progress. At present there is an army of 25,000 men and women in the service of the Christian Church in foreign lands, supported from the United States alone. The total foreign missionary contribu- tions of American Protestant churches for 1913 were $16,000,000, which is just twice the total amount given only eight years ago. This money has been contributed under the impulse of our modern social ideals, which place service and not self-perfection at the head of the list of virtues. The Puritan Church gave nothing for such purposes — it was too much concerned with the frightful burden of sin under which its own members labored and too willing to leave all in the hands of a super- intending Deity. 63 The missionary enterprise has been not only an expression of social ideals, but also a creator of them. Originally the motive which im- pelled men to go out to the heathen and others to support them was to rescue souls, otherwise doomed in their ignorance to eternal damnation. Even this was one step away from an individual other-worldliness. This was, to say the least, a social other-worldliness. It did reveal an interest in other souls besides one's own, and it did interfere in some sense with the course of ''predestination." Under the ethics of strict Calvinism, a man was justified in attending to himself and leaving the rest to God. But in the new missionary church, the Methodist or Baptist was no longer seeking each the salvation of his own soul; his heart was reaching out toward fellow-men less fortunate. As a matter of fact, missions from the very start have persistently refused to remain other-worldly. The missionaries could not but see how plainly those whom they went out to serve had been molded by their environment and by the degree and sort of their education. Those on the field saw they could not leave men in the depths of poverty, ignorance, and disease, and expect them to listen while told of a God of mercy and love. We learn from the journal of Carey — the very first to go to India — that he devoted much of his time to "the study, the printing office, and the school." The mission worker found he could only preach a God of love, if he were living a life of love. He set to work, therefore, to alter vicious environment, to introduce improved sanitation, to bring pressure to bear on governments, to prohibit cruel exploitation of labor, to estabUsh schools in order that the converts might take their places as useful members of their communities. The spiritual was found to be reached with surprising success through the material. Year by year, hospitals and schools multiplied on the field, until no mission station was considered complete which did not possess both. And, in some countries, until the governments awoke to their responsibilities, the only higher education offered was in the schools founded by rehgious societies. Placing spiritual values first, the mis- sionary propaganda proceeded to build up strong men intellectually, physically and morally. The messenger went out prompted by a social call, though this was viewed only in terms of religion. His vision grew until he sought to redeem the whole man; he became filled with eager desire to give of all the best the West had learned to the East that knew it not. CHAPTER IX The Evangelical Movement and Parlla.mentary Soclal Reform In the religious decline of the reigns of George I and II the old Puritan emphasis upon doctrinal belief had fallen into disuse. With it, the ster- ner virtues of the older days had been in a measure discarded also. Partly to counteract this influence, and partly because of the lack of any deep spirituahty in the wealthy ecclesiastics themselves, the ser- mons had come quite largely to be moral exhortations. Herein a valuable step had been taken in the progress of ethical thought which we are following in so far as the moral end came to be presented as virtuous activity and not as mere passive intellectual belief. However, the religious decline had been but part of a general decline in earnest- ness of aim and seriousness of outlook upon life. Moral teachings by a class of divines whose Uves were plainly engrossed in self-gratification did not stir the Ufe of England to large attempts for social righteousness and civic purity. In reaction to this era of indifference, the later eighteenth century manifested a great religious revival. "The success of this religious 'reaction,' as it is called, was aided, though not caused, by the common belief that the French Revolution had been mainly due to infidelity; the Revolution was taken for an object lesson showing the value of religion for keeping the people in order. . . . But this means not that free thought was less prevalent, but that the beliefs of the majority were more aggressive and had powerful spokesmen, while the eighteenth- century form of rationalism fell out of fashion. "^ The religious majority were, however, divided into two schools. The earliest extensive mani- festation of religious fervor which appeared was that led by John Wesley. Radical innovations in the form of class-meetings, lay preaching and the like, gradually forced this movement out of the EstabUshed Church into the Non-Conformist group. Almost simultaneously with the Methodistic movement, but flower- ing out into wide popularity and influence considerably later, a great spiritual awakening appeared within the Anglican fold itself. There resulted a conservative division within the Established Church which became known as Evangelical, and still exists under that name. The time when this movement possessed its widest significance for our study 1 Bury, J. B.: Hist. Freedom of Thought, p. 202. 65 was in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. In the period of its inception, the wealth, rank and intellect of the country had been as hostile to the Evangelical group as to the schism headed by Wesley and Whitefield. But a new era of success and enthusiasm began with the accession of Wilberforce, who lent to the cause his brilliant parliamentary and social prestige and the noble reputation which he had gained in his successful attack upon the slave trade. His Practical View of Christi- anity, published in 1797, stands for the entrance of Evangelicalism as a great religious and social force in the midst of the public life of England. In this work, his plea for deeper religious conviction was presented in ringing terms. He decried the facts that religious teachers no longer asked what a man believed, but only what he did, that guilt was measured not by offensiveness to God, but by injuriousness to society. Here we have the exact converse of the position of the sleeping divines in their beneficed stations — they had been preaching morality, while themselves living for selfish gratification; Wilberforce plead for deeper religious con- viction, while himself making his life an expression of ceaseless service. Methodism had failed to reach the upper classes in whose hands from long years had been the wealth, the education, and the governmental power of England. These were becoming steadily more presumptuous in their aristocratic pretensions and less sympathetic toward the masses of the people. The appearance of the Evangelical spirit within the EstabUshed Church is probably what averted a great social split. After 1760, the influence of the Court was thrown in favor of the Low Church party, and George III took pleasure in proving himself a patron of rehgion. The first twenty years of the nineteenth century showed EvangelicaUsm dominating the EngUsh Church and making rapid progress throughout English society. It was well for the social welfare of England, that the EvangeUcal movement raised up an influential laity who, filled with religious zeal, sought to understand the life about them. "The permanent heritage received from Evangelicalism is not theo- logical nor intellectual, it is social and philanthropic. It is not the thinkers of the party that have given it character, but the workers like Howard, Wilberforce, and Lord Shaftesbury. "^ The Non-Conformists and Methodists had never enjoyed any sort of influential representation in Parliament. Fortunate indeed was it, there- fore, that the Evangelical party appeared, ready to give voice to the appeals of the people, instead of allowing the aristocracy, by a foolish 2 Hall, T. C. : Social and Relig. Movements, p. 254. 66 and bitter antagonism, to engender hatred and revolt. The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury took his place as the exponent of the newly aroused social feeling and sought to secure for it proper legislative expression. The period from 1800 to 1832 has become notable as the era of reform bills which wrought social changes of the most sweeping sort. The work of John Howard bore fruit in measures for better prison conditions. The bloody penal codes were attacked by Minchin, an Evangelical in Parliament. In 1791, Gray, another of the same party, had a committee appointed to investigate the justice of the system of imprisonment for debt, and their findings reported 10,000 incarcerated on that charge and twice that number in hiding to escape such a life without hope. The mere revelation of such conditions as existing was a long step toward their remedy. EngUsh society was shocked to know how blind it had been to the nature of its own structure. The habit of subjecting social conditions to a careful scientific investigation was set under way. The work of relief in the hardships of factory workers progressed slowly when even such a sincere Christian and essential democrat at heart as John Bright could not see their rights and their distress. Not until 1844 could an act be passed limiting the work of children to six and a half hours a day, and making their attendance at school compul- sory. And finally, in 1847, the ten hours bill was passed, when at length the human needs of the adult came to recognition. Hannah More (1745-1833) estabhshed schools for the education of poor children, a provision unknown when it had been the fashion to expect the children of the poor to stay in the position of their fathers. So also. Lord Shaftes- bury founded the Ragged School Union with the express purpose of teaching the boys of the streets. In fact Lord Ashley, the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, was the first true apostle of Social Christianity in England. His personality, talents, and prestige were such as to allow expression to his earnest religious feeling in a work of tremendous accom- plishment for improvement in the living conditions of the lower classes. He was one of the founders of the Young Men's Christian Association, and an active promoter of foreign missions. "He was the rally ing-point for a great circle of earnest men and women who felt a new seriousness in life and who recognized almost for the first time that the best proof of salvation in any other world is a vigorous effort to redeem the homes and activities of men and women in this world."3 Yet Shaftesbury was truly one man among a thousand, and the social ideals for which he stood can by no means be thought to have prevailed ' Smith, S. G.: Democracy and the Church, p. 301. 67 in England in general, not even in the group of his fellow church mem- bers. In his journal under date of July 4, 1840, he writes: *'I find that Evangehcal religionists are not those on whom I can rely. The factory question and every question for what is called 'humanity' receive as much support from the 'men of the world' as from the men who say they will have nothing to do with it." In fact, the social zeal of Shaftesbury and his fellow reformers aroused a large sympathetic following among many who had never been touched by any religious motives whatever, while, on the other hand, much of the conservative element of the church stood laggard. The Reform Bill of 1832 introduced into Enghsh parliamentary life a very considerable part of the great middle classes. The House of Commons had been falling more and more out of touch with the nation at large, and England's more sturdy and progressive elements felt them- selves represented with hopeless inadequacy by that body. The bill was twice passed by the House of Commons, only to be defeated by the Lords, who were at length forced to yield to the overwhelming pres- sure from crown and public. Spencer Walpole pronounced the act 'the largest revolution which had ever been peaceably effected in any country;'* and, regarded as the forerunner of other more far-reaching extensions of the suffrage, it may well be so considered. All of the most glaringly unjust distributions of electoral representation were remedied. No longer were two representatives to be allowed to Boseney in Corn- wall, a hamlet of three cottages, while Birmingham and Manchester, great industrial cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants each, had no representation. The new statute did not introduce — and was not in- tended to introduce — democracy. But it did put a new hope into the masses. Evidently properly qualifications were not so sacred as for- merly thought and could be lowered when the demand was sufficiently strong. A path had been broken into the sacrosanct enclosure of priv- ilege — the breach might still be widened by the use of the same weapons, provided only the charge of gunpowder be made heavier. The admis- sion of a large additional number of voters of the middle class was a distinct impetus to the progress of social ideals. A larger group of people — and the additions were largely from the trading and more humble classes — stood ready to demand that their rights be considered in the making of laws. The new voters were also more closely in touch with the industrial and agricultural laboring classes than the aristocracy had ever been. The custom of looking to the good of all could never take * Walpole: Electorate and Legislature, p. 62. 68 complete root until all were recognized as integral parts of the social structure. Every step, therefore, in the extension of the suffrage tended to bring to public notice that privilege was gradually breaking down and that the ultimate goal of legislation and even of the individual's conduct would be not the good of any one class, but of all classes. The Reform Bill and the introduction thereby into active citizenship of the great middle classes could scarcely have been brought about at this time except through the training and organization of the Evangelical party and the Methodist and Dissenting chapels, and by virtue of the spread of general education which these religious movements had effected. A Democracy had been spread by the religious revival which was an essential preamble to the securing of greater liberality of legislation. "At a time when commercialism and growing town populations threatened to swamp the moral life of England, the energy and sacrifice of the Evangelical party carried the commercial classes over to the side of righteousness. . . . The outcome in missionary and philanthropic en- terprises changed the character of even the mercantile energy of Eng- land."^ EvangelicaHsm had done a great work in filling the upperclasses with a broad-minded, public-spirited, religious zeal, and in equipping the middle classes to take their places as active members of the body politic. But the work was scarcely more than commenced — privilege was only partially broken down, the emancipation of the lower classes had only been set in motion by the enfranchisement of her most prosperous representatives. A large share of the population of England was still excluded from recognition in the social whole. Evangelicalism, having done its splendid work in promoting reform legislation, fell strangely back into narrowness and sectarian bigotry. In its last phases, sectarianism with motives seeking not the good of the world, but rather merely the good of its own members, blasted the spiritu- ality of its life. It became short-sighted even in its benefactions and began to scour all regions for proselytes. Strange to say, it cultivated an excessive spirit of individualism, craving for a personal assurance of divine favor. It was in ridicule of this stage of its development, that the denunciatory caricatures of EvangelicaHsm became popular in English letters, picturing the fruitless effort to separate religion from life. The cultivation of happiness and friendship here was sacrificed to a strife to get sufficient credits necessary to the degree of future blessedness. Meanwhile, the critical powers of the working classes and the growing ^ HaU, T. C: Social and Relig. Movements, p. 256. 69 discovery of their own abilities made them increasingly impatient of the religiosity into which Evangelicalism was deteriorating. On the whole, the accomplishments of the reform legislators which we have been following had resulted in almost final and complete victory in defeat of the old Puritanical ideas of predestined evil and of sufferings as God's punishment upon original sin and present wrong-doing. The scientific point of view in the study of the causes of misery and of the proper methods for its removal or lessening had been introduced amid great applause. The public conscience had discovered that men's mis- fortunes were not due to the vengeance of God, nor more than in part to their own wrong-doing, but largely because of man's inhumanity to man. Concerted action and the education of the public in regard to abuses and their correction were found to work miracles hitherto scarcely hoped-for. The world was plainly not to be improved by fleeing from it or by leaving it in the hands of God, unless men were recognized to be his only instruments. The old conception of original sin had given it a certain sanctity against attack, and permanence under the divine ordina- tion. The new conception, however much it recognized the stern reaHty and omnipresence of sin, despised and hated it, feared it only when unattacked, and considered the fight against it to be the source of trium- phant character in the individual. The new conception regarded the world as a place which could be made agreeable and in which the actual evils were not due so much to inerradicable faults in human nature, as to perverse institutions and perverse education. Interest had been trans- ferred from the dogmas of religion to the improvement of society, and the world inclined to the beUef that man's happiness depended not so much on perusal of revelation as on social transformation. CHAPTER X The Broad Church Movement and Christian Socialism The Evangelical party, after its rise to power in connection with an active participation in the advancement of social welfare, had sunk back into a reliance upon the old sectarian rituahsm. It was treating all questioning as wicked doubt and was driving from it the intelligence of an awakening people. Once more, this time exactly in the midst of the nineteenth century, the church slumped back into a period of lethargy. Meanwhile, science was constantly advancing, calmly proceeding without the aid of revelation to ferret out the wonderful secrets of life and of the structure of the universe. The publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859 was the great land-mark which drew attention to the gulf between the church and natural science. When this book appeared. Bishop Wilberforce, whose breadth of sympathy had, in his later years, been clouded over by his rigid orthodoxy, voiced the senti- ment of the great body of theologians in England and on the Continent when he said, "The principle of natural selection is incompatible with the word of God." But in spite of this ultimatum, great thinkers immedi- ately took up the idea of development and applied it not only to the non-living and the living world of nature, but also to the mind of man and to the history of civiUzation, including thought and religion. The great body of the church stood stohd and sought to deny the truth of a system of scientific inquiry which found no need for divine intervention in the universe. Nevertheless, this situation could not long continue. Two alternatives were open. Either the Church of England might have taken such a stand as did the Pope in 1864, by issuing a Syllabus "embracing the principal errors of the age," in which the propo- sitions were denounced that every man is free to adopt the religion he considers true according to the light of reason; that states are right to allow foreign immigrants to exercise their own reUgion in pubhc; that metaphysics can and ought to be pursued without reference to divine and ecclesiastical authority; and that the Pope ought to make terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization. Or another course was possible — to accept fearlessly and joyfully all the thoroughly substanti- ated results of science, to take them up into the church's own body of truth and to thank God for the bounty of a progressive revelation. This latter course was that taken by divines distinguished for strong 71 personality and brilliant intellect. The Broad Church movement was begun. Had there been a Pope in the Established Church such men as Arnold, Whately, Maurice, Dean Stanley, Coleridge, and Ruskin would probably all have been cast from its doors, and their brilliant ser- vices lost forever to the Christian church. Instead, the Broad Church, as it developed at this time, united all these varied types of men. The permanent service of the Broad Church party was its creation of a spirit of reverent freedom and of Christian confidence in God and man. The protest was maintained and carried that Protestantism does not stand on the basis of any closed metaphysical philosophy. The Christian life was declared to be a life of love and service, of generosity and good- will, inspired by faith in Christ. There was no real necessity for the profession of a long series of forty-nine articles before work in com ron could be undertaken to the glory of God. The church was seen to be losing its hold on the masses because it adhered to old prejudices and sacerdotalism. Dr. Arnold pr6posed a remedy — the church must be made truly national by the admission of dissenters and the encourage- ment of philosophical thought. 'The Church should be,'' as Coleridge urged, "an essential part of the state organism, not a close corporation, belonging to the priestly order. ... It must be liberalized, that the State might be made religious, and drop the antiquated claims to magical authority which opposed it to the common sense of the masses and the reason of the thinkers."^ C r, to ouote Dr. Thomas Arnold's own words: " If the clergy would come forward as one man from Cumberland to Cornwall, exhorting peaceableness on the one side and justice on the other, denouncing the high rents and the game laws, and the carelessness which keeps the poor ignorant and then wonders that they are brutal, I verily believe they might yet save themselves and the State." A platforrr, other than intellectual agreement had to be found on which Christian men could be bound together for religious life and social service. This, such men as Arnold and Maurice sought to find in Christian feeling, love, and sympathy. Many of the church's noblest sons came forward with the assertion that the fundamental concept of Christianity was social love. They decried the manner in which eccle- siastics had conceived rehgion as separate from secular interests. The chief social significance of the Broad Church movement is, that it sought an interpretation ot the new life with its problems and dangers from a deeply sympathetic point of view. Largely through the influence of this vndely-diffused spirit, there was avoided in England that antagonism » Stephen, L.: Eng. Utilitarians III, p. 481. 72 and even animosity which on the continent of Europe had been growing up between the ir'eals of Christianity and progressive bought. Great freedom of thought was the prevalent spirit in Europe — in Italy and Spain the Hberals were driven out of the church into infideUty. It was fortunate that in England a reUgious spirit pervaded Hberal thought and that it was not stifled by church autocracy. The highest genius was saved to enrich the church instead of being driven to fight against it because of its ignorance and narrowness. The Broad Church movement was especially characterized by its distinctively democratic aspect. In his Kingdom of Christy (1842), F. D. Maurice pleaded for the admission of all Dissenters to the Church, not on the basis of a set of opinions, but on that of the organizing life of Christ. His claim was that the element of truth in all religions is not any separable doctrine common to all, but can be found only by regarding all creeds as partial and distorted expressions of the full truth revealed in Christ. Accordingly, the poUcy which the new movement proclaimed was that of "comprehension," as opposed to "toleration," in which there is arrogant assumption of superiority. This is the very essence of the meaning of democracy. Each individual, province or organization has its own share to contribute to the wisdom and wealth of the whole. Society is weakened by the exile or persecution of any of its elements whose purpose is to stand for what it beUeves to be good citizenship. The hberal movement in the church was, therefore, instilling appreciat on of all the many Unes of thought which individuals represent and of the different beliefs which the many classes and groups of society stand for. Herein lay an essential contribution toward social ideals. Mutual ad- miration is an incentive to mutual service. If all the parts of the social whole are recognized as vital and valuable to the health and progress of the organism, then the head will seek to care for the limbs. The ruling forces will do everything in their power to guide and protect their servants, who are at the same time necessary coadjutors. The Broad Church movement was, therefore, a process of education of the most bigoted and conservative elements of society — the ecclesi- astical — which taught them that all of the other elements were of value to the whole. But a man like Maurice went even further and felt that to the very Church itself the discountenanced dissenter would make valuable contributions, if only the doors of that exclusive organization might be thrown open to him. Each member of the social organism is vital to the other parts. Working in harmony, each inspires and invigor- ates the other; working discordantly, each may inhibit the highest 73 efficiency of the other. This fact fully realized, no man seeks to be sufficient to himself alone. When the individual comes to the conscious- ness that all the rest of society affects his interests, then he will seek to aid and improve those agencies by every means that lies in his power. If I must drink of the water of the lake and I see how to purify it or keep it from further contamination, then I am a fool if I do not lend a hand in the cause of sanitation. So the Broad Church movement taught an appreciation of the inherent worth of all persons and groups, and this was a great step in the lesson of social ethics that the existence of any "neglected classes" is a sin and harmful to the best interests of the whole. One of the chief literary productions of the movement we are study- ing was the publication in 1860 of a volume of Essays and Reviews by seven writers, six of whom were clergymen. The views expressed in these essays do not seem very radical today and would be accepted for the most part by any liberal pastor, but they won for their authors the stigma of the ''Seven against Christ." It was laid down that the Bible is to be interpreted like any other book. Two of the clergymen authors were prosecuted, and, though condemned by the ecclesiastical court, were released by the Lord Chancellor on his pronouncement that it is not essential for a clergyman to believe in eternal punishment. This decision won for the Lord Chancellor this famous epitaph : ''Towards the close of his earthly career, he dismissed Hell with costs and took away from orthodox members of the Church of England their last hope of everlasting damnation." The decision is indicative of an important change which had been wrought in public belief. The leaders both of the Methodist Revival and of the Evangelical movement had continued to hold out the threat of eternal agony over the sinners who did not acknowledge the saving grace of religious faith. But the era of the Broad Church movement, marked, as it was, by sympathy with other faiths and with all men who stood on the side of righteousness, whatever their name or creed, refused to consign all non-believers to such a horrible end as Calvinism had painted. Reason had been doing its work both inside and outside of the thurch, and the conception of a truly Christian love seemed incom- patible with the idea of a God more cruel and relentless than the most fiendish of human tyrants. Just this fear of hell and belief in a rigorous God had been perhaps the strongest single support of a negative virtue — of the old individual- istic ethics. This terrible threat held over poor, weak, ignorant humans. 74 was a threat of punishment for sins and for failure to beUeve. It was not conceived chiefly as a threat against leaving undone works of sympathy and love. It made for an attempt to avoid wrong-doing by refusing to have contact with evil. It inspired a ceaseless effort to purify the self and a never-ending watchfulness in keeping the lips from guile and the hands from iniquity. No person could be perfectly sure that his faith was adequate or that his life was sufficiently free from guilt to escape God's wrath. Not until dread of this atrocious penalty was removed, could one properly dare to presume to give himself unreservedly to others. A John Wesley did give of his time and energy unceasingly to altruistic service, but he was buoyed up by his theory of sanctification, which assured him of his own salvation. Now, for all men who had been released from the fear of hell, terror on behalf of one's own fulfillment of the law was banished. Men's hearts and minds, no longer warped by the old selfish fear, were left open to social thoughts and impulses. He who felt that he had talents or wealth or knowledge superior to some of his fellows might go out freely to share of them. No longer consumed by anxiety for his own welfare, man could look around for other worlds to conquer. These he found in the needs of others. He saw his ch allenge in the sin and ignorance existent throughout society. Not only did he feel the need of some outlet for his energy, but a positive motive force he found in Christian love. It is to the glory of the Broad Church move- ment that upon this feature of the existence and beauty of love and sympathy it laid the greatest emphasis of its teachings. Methodism had languished and Evangelicalism had never made a really serious attempt to enroll the laboring masses in its churches. The Broad Church, however, in one of its phases, did attempt an earnest propaganda to come sympathetically into touch with the workingman. The movement called Christian Socialism was headed by four Church of England divines— Maurice, Kingsley, Ludlow, and Thomas Hughes. In the critical period of 1848, these four men bravely stood the storm of opprobrium heaped upon them by aristocracy and clergy and gave proof that part of the Christian church was alive to the great social problems of the day. Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872) felt that he was the possessor of a new vision of the place which Christianity should hold as a vital factor in all life. Especially did the conviction burn within him that the church had been neglecting its duty toward the workingman. ' Glad- stone comments on the conditions in 1830 thus: "Taking together the expulsion of the poor and laboring classes (especi- ally from the town churches) . . . and above all the coldness and 75 indifference of the lounging or sleeping congregations, our services were probably without a parallel in the world for their debasement. "^ Moreover, the spread of general education was bringing to the workers some interest in anti-Christian radicalism. Spurned by the church, many were turning their backs on all things Christian and taking up an open and even bitter hostiUty to Ecclesiasticism as was the case with the Social Democrats of Germany. Maurice, by a study of the needs and aspirations of the laboring classes and by a staunch support of their rights before the public, sought in every way to establish a bond of sympathy between the church and the more intelHgent workingman. For years he made the Workingmen's College, Great St. Ormond St., the scene of his most earnest labors. To this work he drew the interest and cooperation of some of the noblest leaders in English life — ^Tennyson, Carlyle, Kingsley of Brighton, to mention only a few. Maurice embodied in his Kingdom of Christ his faith in the church under two aspects — one as a great social organization, the other as a great educational organization. For the religious philoso- phy of Coleridge and for the practical philanthropy of Owen, Maurice and Kingsley now became eager advocates in the name of orthodox Christi-: anity. In so doing, they brought disfavor upon themselves that negated any chances for lucrative bishoprics. But they gained a more splendid title as the Friends of Man. Workingmen's Colleges were estabUshed at Oxford, Cambridge, Man- chester, Sheffield, Glasgow and many other places. In a small degree at least, the revolt against a hollow ecclesiasticism and vaunting privilege was kept from turning into a revolt against all Christianity. By the meeting of the rich and poor in these colleges, a mutual understanding was engendered which averted to some extent the evils of class-ignorance. Archdeacon Hare wrote of Maurice in 1853: *'I do not believe that there is any other living man who has done anything at all approaching to what Maurice has effected in reconciling the reason and the conscience of thoughtful men of our age to the faith of the church."^ Charles Kingsley in Alton Locke made an appeal for the reform of the city, full of turbulent thinking and passionate appeal, but coming to this conclusion — ''No more of any system good or bad but more of the spirit of God can regenerate the world." In 1851, he preached in London on the "Message of the Church to the Workingman." In consequence, ^ Contemp. Review, Oct. 1874. The Church of Eng. and Ritualism. ' Hare: Life of Maurice, V. II, p. 184. 76 he was forbidden by the Bishop to preach in London, but, undaunted, he entered on an active program of reform. He regarded the ills of the people as social sins and agitated constantly for better housing of the poor, sanitary reform and promotion of industrial cooperation. "Com- petition," said Kingsley, "means Death: cooperation means Life." It was not so much in direct accompUshment that Kingsley was signifi- cant, as in the fact that he lent his Hterary genius to the social cause and preached the gospel in parables of life. The results of the Christian Socialist movement were really con- siderable, but not far-reaching. The church was not more than shghtly touched by the enthusiasm for new purposes. It did not respond ade- quately to the needs of the workingman, and the alienation of the lower classes from an aristocratic clericalism went steadily on. However, the movement had done a great deal to stir up a feeUng of brotherhood between classes previously wholly estranged. To its teaching was due the founding of several cooperative societies especially among the fac- tory people of the Midlands, which continue successful to this day. The creed of Christian Socialism became the model for such labor organ- izations as have since grown up in a spirit of harmony with Christian teaching instead of hostihty to it. CHAPTER XI Utilitarianism Our study thus far has been primarily a tracing of the rise of mani- festations of social sympathy, of the movements in industrial, political and religious life which drew men's attention, now in one way, now in another, to the needs of their fellows. We come finally to the philoso- phy — to a system of ethics more fully developed in terms of social wel- fare than was Adam Smith's. The " Utilitarian" philosophy was worked out by a long line of thinkers in order to substantiate before the bar of reason the purposes which were beginning to grip men's hearts. Self- preservation had long been known as the first law of nature. If any man were, therefore, so far to forget "the law of the ape and the tiger," so to silence his own grasping instinct as to forego any selfish gratification for himself in order that another might not be in destitution, what co uld assure him he was not a fool? If there were nothing but a moral monitor on guard in the heart, that could be stilled or swallowed up by pressing desire. In human society, before any course of action or principle of government has been accepted as a desirable innovation, it has been held up to searching criticism and has presented a satisfactory logical defence. To be sure, Jesus had summed up man's duty in two dictates: (1) Love the Lord thy God; and (2) Love thy neighbor as thyself. But the philosophical systems which the Church Fathers, which Medieval Scho- lasticism, and which even the theologians of the Reformation had worked out, were largely concerned with the first injunction. More than that, the God to be loved had been so exalted in His majesty as to be conceived as rigorous despot. However, philosophy could not neglect the second injunction forever. The moral sense writers perceived that man was not wholly depraved, and postulated in him an instinct toward benevo- lence. Finally, in Utilitarianism, we find the effort to sum up in one formula the full aim and purport of the ethical life as satisfactory not only to the moral sense but to the keenest analysis of the human reason. The influence of the new philosophy under the leadership of Bentham and James Mill, but more especially under John Stuart Mill (1806-73), was exerted over a large group of persons, whose religious sympathies had not been touched by Methodism or Evangelicalism and to whom formal worship and a subsidized clergy could make no appeal. In fact, 78 no educated person of the nineteenth century could escape some touch with the new social ethics as EngHsh literature became colored through and through with its message. Benn says: "Bentham's standard of happiness was the watchword of the century, the cry of the pulpit, no less than of the philosopher." Blackie, a contemporary of Bentham, writes: " Utihtarianism is talked of in the streets and commented on in the closet; and numbering, as it does, amongst its advocates some of the most astute intellects of the age, it certainly does deserve an attentive exami- nation. Never was a system ushered in with greater flourish of trumpets and a more stirring consciousness on the part of its promulgators that a new gospel was being preached which was to save the world at least from centuries of hereditary mistake."^ The movement was, however, it must be remembered, preeminently an intellectual and philosophical one. It did not reach primarily into the factory and into the field, and the awakening of the lower classes to their part in the social welfare was the work of more active educational and philanthropic agencies than philosophic codes. Also all of the technique in the methods by which greatest happiness was to be secured and exactly in what it consisted was left to the slow discovery of scientific experiment and investigation. The Utilitarians took over the principle of Christianity, often for- gotten, but now regarded as cardinal, — the greatest good of mankind — and made it into a philosophy of life, — of government, of economics, all- comprehensive. But most of them, while accepting organized religion as a means both of teaching and enforcing ethical ideals, yet regarded their principle of utility as superior to any religious sanction or estabhshed authority of church or state. In so far as their tenets were accepted, faith in any creed as the sole and necessary means of salvation was absurd. Furthermore, the reform work which Bentham and the Mills undertook added practical motives to these theoretical considerations in deepening their lack of sympathy with the Established Church. They were refor- mers and radicals. The influence of the church was strongly conserva- tive, sometimes fiercely conservative, and this tended to embitter them against ecclesiasticism. Accordingly, James Mill, writing under the Beauchamp pseudonym, attacked not the truth but the utiUty of religi- ous belief. He pointed out that "the conception of a despot-God, having no end in view but his own glory, leads to the formation of a class set apart for the service of the ^ Blackie, J. S.: Four Phases of Morals, p. 281, 79 divine sovereign, a class whose interest is thrown against the intellectual progress of society and to whose interest, its interests are sacrificed. "^ Hating the clerical order, therefore, he failed to see that the ethical interests of the living church both had been and would continue to be modified by men of deep conviction. He threw away the aid, which great numbers of large-hearted church members, as individuals, would have been glad to offer, if only shown the need and the way, to his labors for the general welfare. Several aspects of UtiUtarian doctrine were contributing factors in stimulating a current recognition of social obligation. 1. First and foremost, the Principle of Utility was a philosophical statement of the social ideal — the standard of morality is " the greatest happiness of the greatest number." 2. Secondly, Utilitarians maintained that the individual might be brought through education to find his happiness in the common happiness. Even so far back as Cumberland (1632-1718), who was really the first to lay down the UtiUtarian principle, we find the statement: ''The greatest possible benevolence of every rational agent towards all the rest constitutes the happiest state of each and all, so far as depends on their own power, and is necessarily required for their happiness; accordingly, the common good is the supreme law."^ Cumberland suggests that the individual first comes to act in an altruis- tic fashion because it conduces to his own happiness, but, the habit having been established, he comes to act for common weal without thought of self. That is, one finds his own interest is not apart from, but in relation to the common well-being. As Harris points out in his Moral Evolution: "The individual is not an end to which other men are means nor are other men ends to which he is means, but every man is at the same time end and means in the social organism. The Utilitarians had really no chasm to cross. There can be no true happiness of others which is not the happiness of the individual who perceives or promotes it." Once this conviction generally established, the battle of social ethics has been won. When all individuals see the good of self in the good of all, a completely socialized world would be at hand. Utilitarianism did a service by its earnest support of this truth — that the more actively men work together for their conmion interests, the better will the welfare of each member of society be provided for. - See Bentham, "Philip Beauchamp's," pseud: Analysis of the Influence of Nat- ural Religion . . ., p. 33. * Cumberland, R.: De Legihus Naturae, Ch. I, §4. 80 3. Utilitarianism emphaticly asserted the worth of each individual. The principle of individual equality did not necessarily follow as a corollary from the proposition that the general happiness is the end, but it was not incompatible and was a natural legacy from the "natural rights" views of the 18th century. Society is composed of units, each of whom counts for one. This is the very essence of democracy, and especi- ally as the contention appears in James Mill, it is a reflection of his enthusiasm excited by the French Revolution. This principle means that the poorer classes deserve just as much attention, consideration and effort on behalf of their best interests as is given to the more favored part of the population. This proposition accepted, privilege is denounced, and society must needs begin to provide for the homes, education, and amusements of the masses, even as she builds her palatial hotels and opera houses for the rich. However, this does not mean any such level- ling process as Grote fears, for society cannot and would not, if she could, knock off all the differences in talent and disposition which occur between individuals. Of course, society needs all the tremendously varied ca- pacities that go to play the roles in her economic, political and profes- sional life. Utihtarianism only demanded that each person's happiness be considered as desirable in the sight of all as another's. The bird is only for a "square deal" for all, not for stereotyping. Society came to realize that one man was worth as much as another, not of course in cash value nor in work done, but in his rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Only then did she begin to approve whole- heartedly of all efforts to secure greater fulness of joy for such of her children as are too weak or unfortunate to compete with the strong. 4. A new meaning was given under the principle of utility to the pain or the sacrifice of the individual when incurred in service of the larger whole. Even the right to self-preservation must submit to the higher law of nature which consults the good of all. That act is not a moral one which tends to the defence or preservation of the individual, provided that suffering or sacrifice on the part of the one would mean a blessing to the many. He is a coward and untrue to the highest law of nature, who refuses to go into danger provided he can save others more useful to society than hunself. In other words, Utihtarianism empha- sized service in the cause of the whole social organism even though it cost pain and labor and even death to the individual. 5. Utilitarianism annulled the old legalistic conceptions of virtue as resting in a payment of one's debt to God by means of adoration and belief. It declared that no supernatural sanctions were necessary to 81 stamp an act as moral. The government and betterment of the world was definitely taken over into the hands of man. There was to be no more bHnd faith in a predestined order of things and in the necessity of evil, but virtuous activity was to consist in fighting to change the old order, in seeking to make more happiness and less misery in the world of today than was found in the world of yesterday. "The new secularists had their awakening to a sense of intolerable misery pervading the whole world; but the sin whose presence they felt and deplored was social rather than individual, a disease and corruption of the body politic, not a fall of the single soul. Nor was there any call for supernatural interference to set the disjointed framework right. What interest had perverted, interest better instructed might retrieve."^ As already impHed, the formula "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" refers only to this world. J. S. Mill often said that he knew no more reason for doubting immortality than for accepting it — but at the most, it is only a hope, an uncertain possibility. But the morality of actions rests on no such insecure basis. The virtue of actions performed in this world must be judged by the standards of this world, namely by their contribution of good to Uving persons. "The feeling was that the attention of the best men and women had been too long exhausted upon the next life, while the affairs of this life were left to people of second-rate goodness and intensity. ... To make two blades of grass grow where one grew before, to see to it that " there is more food for all men and better food for every man," to multi- ply opportunities for self-development and bring them within the reach of all men — that is the broad meaning of the doctrine of utiUty. A superb social enthusiasm lurks within the arguments for bringing all existing institutions to the test of present use."^ Other worldliness was dead, neglected and despised by the popular philosophy. In fact, it was just in bringing the church to a sense of its plainly neglected duties that Utihtarianism rendered perhaps .its greatest service to the cause of social progress. In seeking to feed her children with the bread of another life, she had left them only stones and desolation in this earthly existence. Now came a group of men, some despising eccle- siasticism, others merely ignoring it — but all consecrating their lives to the hghtening of the burdens of their less fortunate brethren. If the church had not awakened, the masses would have been alienated, not largely, as was the case, but wholly. They would have sought their strength in a religion of humanity whose ministers stood ready to offer * Benn, A. W.: Hist, of Eng. Rationalism, I, 297. * Nash, H. S. : Genesis of the Social Conscience, p, 275. 82 help in time of need and turned from those who, promising only rewards and punishments that never came, yet sought for themselves very sub- stantial earthly competences. In a letter to a friend Mill wrote: " I have not written it (the Utilitarianism) in any hostile spirit towards Christianity, though undoubtedly both good ethics and good meta- physics will sap Christianity, if it persists in allying itself with bad. The best thing to do in the present state of the human mind is to go on estab- lishing positive truths . . . and leave Christianity to reconcile itself with them the best way it can. By that course, in so far as we have any success, we are at least doing something to improve Christianity."^ Mill was right — his teachings did serve to awaken the sleeping Estab- lishment and from that day to this, her bishops and prelates have been increasingly active in social reform. 6. The greatest happiness principle was by no means left dangling in the air without the effort to show that in human nature there is pro- vided a sufficient dynamic towards its enforcement. The impulse to social action Cumberland and J. S. Mill found in the instinct of benevo- lence implanted in the very make-up of man. Mill likes to speak of it as " the feeling of unity with one's fellow creatures." Really it is the Chris- tian principle of love which is here brought in as the motivating source of moral conduct. It was a principle which, however. Mill believed that the representatives of Christ in the form of the beneficed clergy felt only in the weakest possible degree. 7. A conception was pressed upon poUtical science which swung over into the ranks of social enthusiasts those parliamentarians who were converted by the UtiHtarian doctrines. The purpose of the state was declared to be the promotion of the greatest happiness of its citizens. In other words, the people are not the creatures of the state, but the state is the servant of the people. It exists only to minister to the pubHc welfare. The government is, therefore, under the heaviest obligations to assist the common man to secure his right. The individual has an inherent right to count for one in the general happiness. It is the business of the state to protect that right. This conception of the state which Bentham and the Mills adopted, led them to attack with vigor the idea of the inviolabihty of the law. They set a high value for legislation in the furtherance of plans for social betterment. Mill especially emphasized the educational efficiency of the state, wishing it to interfere freely to strengthen and enlighten. He wished it to promote a fairer distribution of property, which should raise the general standard of life and discourage wasteful luxury. Bent- « MiU, J. S.: Letters, V. I, p. 226. S3 ham, too, was by no means for letting things alone, but for continually interfering with them. Anti-social actions, previously unregulated by law, were to be forcibly forbidden: while virtuous conduct, previously encouraged only by public opinion and religious sanction, was in the future to be stimulated by legislative rewards. In this way, Bentham sought for a large amplification of governmental control. *'He really dealt a death-blow to superstitious reverence for English law. He expelled Mysticism and set the example of viewing laws as means to certain definition and precise ends. He took a systematic view of the wants of society, for which such a code is to provide and of the principles of human nature by which it is to be tested."^ 8. Utilitarianism favored the success of social ideals by creating an interest in historic progress and in the future of the race. The theories of evolution turned men's attention toward racial progress and develop- ment. But in one aspect they glorified the survival of the fittest and the construction of increasingly dominant and efficient personalities. The ethics of such a conception would desire the destruction of the weak for the sake of the exercise of power and increased resources which it gave to the strong. However, Utilitarianism introduced a different end as that toward which the nature of man determined him to carry the course of evolution. Man is not a selfish, non-social being, but is en- dowed with sympathy and with social predilections. His fullest develop- ment is bound up with the progress of the whole of society, and the amount of progress is indicated by the impetus given to general happi- ness. Years of experience have taught the human race to seek that end. It is not necessary to pause previous to action, except in very doubtful cases, to calculate the effects on general happiness, as many of Mill's critics claimed. At the moment a man is tempted to meddle with the property or life of another, he does not begin debating whether murder and theft are injurious. The whole duration of the human species has worked out the answer for him and implanted in his moral conscience an instant revolt against anti-social conduct. Utilitarianism, therefore, lent confidence to the student of evolution, seeking the welfare of the race, that in aiding the weak he was not hindering human progress, but on the contrary he was working toward the real goal of the species — the perfect happiness of all mankind. 9. The work and writings of the Utilitarian enthusiasts stimulated scientific investigation of the true character of human happiness and of the means which contribute to that end. That which contributes per- manently and in the long run to the greatest happiness of the individual ' Birks, T. R. : Modern Utilitarianism, p. 109. 84 is practically coincident with his own greatest good. Evidently, momen- tary pleasure and immediate results are only small factors in the deter- mination of what really produces happiness. Science must enter in and, by a careful estimation of future consequences and by a study of influences on a wide complex of associated conditions, must determine what really does conduce to the highest happiness. The agent need not stop before action to follow out all these investigations any more than the mathema- tician or the chemist feels that he must rework each formula before he employs it. But the need of scientific study is of great consequence that all men may profit by the researches of the few. This scientific attitude Bentham did his utmost to promote. ''He introduced into morals and politics habits of thought and modes of investigation which are essential to the idea of science, and the absence of which made them fields of interminable discussion leading to no re- sult. His methods constituted the value of what he did — he thus formed the intellect of many thinkers who never adopted or have abandoned many of his opinions."^ Bentham was seeking no longer, as were Hume and Paley, to find a rational explanation for things as they were, but to make a revolutionary demand for things as they ought to be. What things ought to be and how the physical agencies are to be employed in bringing such about only science can answer. In science, therefore, lay the hope of the furtherance of the principle of utility. Incidentally, it must be remarked that Bentham's attacks upon the clergy, in so far as they were a privileged class oppressive of society, per- formed a large service in the emancipation of thought and of research from the bondage of orthodoxy. The sin and the evil against which the Utilitarians declared their war was not divinely sanctioned, but was subject to removal by untiring and intelligent effort for the conquest of the secrets of nature. Human happiness is the achievement of men, not the gift by miracle of God. 10. Finally, in any discussion of the contributions of Utihtarian theory toward the social movement, mention must not be omitted of the concrete accomplishments by its greatest exponents. Definite legislation was promoted, and conviction of the desirability of specific changes was spread. In 1817, Bentham and James Mill, pubUshed a reform cate- chism, advocating practically universal suffrage, vote by ballot and annual parliaments. J. S. Mill and his disciples were moved by "the deep and thorough conviction that the elevation of the poorer classes is the main end of all social inquiries."^ In order to further that end, *Birk.s: Uiilitarianism, p. 109, Q. " Stephen, L. : Eng. Utilitarians, III, p. 242-3. 85 Mill twice ran for election to the House of Commons, setting a new standard of purity in politics by refraining from spending a penny for the promotion of either campaign. Especially he championed the cause of suffrage for women. Concerning this interest he says : "Of all my recollections connected with the House of Commons, that of my having had the honor of being the first to make the claim of women to the suffrage a Parliamentary question, is the most gratifying, as I beUeve it to have been the most important, public service that circum- stances made it in my power to render. ..." "The emancipation of women and cooperative production are, I fully believe, the two great changes that will regenerate society."^^ He speaks of the "accident of sex" and the "accident of color" as equally unjust grounds for political distinctions. Furthermore, he freely advo- cated such broad socialistic principles as the following: land ought to belong to the nation at large; national education should be purely secular; raise of wages does tiot necessarily mean rise of prices; the interests of society would be better consulted by laws restrictive of the acquisition of too great masses of property than by attempting to regulate its use." He lent his hearty support to the formation of coop- erative societies and trades unions. He felt it to be a good, in so far as workingmen, by combining in such organizations, chose to seek their prosperity and common advantage in united action rather than in unre- stricted individual freedom and the assertion of personal greed. To the employees of the Messers Brewster of New York, he wrote as follows | "The plan of industrial partnership seems to me highly worthy of encouragement, as uniting some of the advantages of cooperation with the principal advantages of capitaUst management. We should hope indeed ultimately to arrive at a state of industry in which the work-people as a body will either themselves own the capital, or hire it from its owners. Industrial partnerships, however, are valuable preparation for that state; and . . . their competition may prevent cooperative associations of workmen from degenerating."^^ Even such a severe critic as Grote concedes that "practical Utili- tarianism deserves praise for its efforts to diffuse the means of happi- ness." But Hugh EUiott most adequately expresses Mill's worth in these terms: "It would be altogether impossible to name any philosopher who has had the welfare of humanity so deeply at heart, or who has laid himself out so consistently and unsparingly in laboring for the progress of his fellowmen."^^ 10 Mill, J. S.: Letters, V. II, pp. 157 and 272. " See Mm, J. S.: Letters, V. II, pp. 243, 256 and 258. 12 Mill, J. S.: Letters, V. II, p. 230-1. "In Mill, J. S.: Letters, V. I, p. XXXVI. CHAPTER XII The Workingman Alienation from the Church — Rise of Trades- Unionism — Socialism AND cooperative SOCIETIES Up to this point in our discussion, we have been noting the rise of social ideals, largely in the upper and middle classes. We have been especially concerned with the ethical aims which manifested themselves as predominant in the various religious and cultural movements of the passing years. There has been good reason for this direction of our inquiry. Throughout the eighteenth and earlier centuries, it was almost as natural for a man to consider himself a member of some church as a citizen of the nation. The ethical aims and purposes sanctioned by the leaders of religious thought in those. times can justly be taken as largely indicative of the beliefs of society in general. The industrial class, as successors of the old yeomanry, did not rise into prominence until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Even at that time, Methodism held the poorer and laboring classes to a large extent under church influence and in the sway of a deep religious fervor. As the century progressed, workingmen became more and more branded as distinctive class. Their needs, yes, their very poverty, grew more and more distressing as the cities grew in congestion and, what is particularly striking, an alienation from religion and all of its institutions became ever increasingly marked. It becomes no longer possible to trace out the ideals supported by the church and to declare them to be therefore the prevalent notions of society in the large. It is necessary to follow the life and the thought development which was manifested in the history of the laboring classes throughout the century. By that means, it can be noted not only how social sympathies were built up among the workers themselves, but also what reaction the attitude of the humble had upon the ideals of the more fortunate. The causes of the wide-spread aUenation from the church are very important for our study, because they were often the expression of a social attitude among the poor and of an anti-social position taken by the aristocracy. Furthermore, the withdrawal from the church of the classes in whose interest the service of the Christian life was supposed 87 to be largely engaged gradually brought home to the clergy a sense of their own remissness. The situation is admirably put by Harris: "This restoration of religion to its humaneness is perhaps due, in part, to assertion of rights in society, to the socialistic spirit, and to the waning influence of the church over certain classes who regard it as an exclusive and otherworld institution. Thus morality and religion act and react on each other. "^ The social development had really outrun the religious. A moral conviction grew up among the masses that the churches were not organ- ized for the good of all, but for the maintenance of vested interests. They withdrew, and the preachers awoke to the fact that they were talking only to those whom God had already well provided for. The remaining seats were empty. The church found it must go out to seek and to save that which had been lost to it. The whole character of the church became altered, though of course very slowly, in its effort to reach the workingman. Then, in going out seriously to learn to know these men, it discovered how stupidly ignorant it had been of their social and physical needs. In the work of meeting these needs by improving living conditions and spreading education it found new inspiration and was enriched by the new blood which entered its service. A new vision of opportunity was opened up which soon entered into its ethical conception, not only as a privilege, but as a necessity to a complete life. a) Political. The political, industrial, intellectual and social con- ditions under which the workingman lived demand our attention. Much political agitation excited the interests of the industrial classes during this latter haM of the nineteenth century. The Reform Bill of 1832 had admitted to suffrage only the very thriftiest of the workingmen. But in 1868 Great Britain admitted her laboring classse to their just influence in the direction of pubUc affairs. Meanwhile, a vigorous agitation had been carried on. The workers became convinced that the only way they could secure their rights was to equip themselves so as to be in a position to demand them. The burden of taxation lay with heaviest hand upon those who were just barely able to meet the cost of their food and shelter. The EstabUshed Church did not exert its influence in their behalf either in favor of suffrage or against oppressive taxation. It treated the people as children or paupers, not as reasonable and independent men. It was aristocratic through and through, while the ideals of the • Harris, G.: Moral Evolution, p. 214. 88 workers were growing daily more democratic. Accordingly, the indus- trial classes felt themselves thrown upon their own resources, and they accepted the challenge. Leaders appeared in all trades and were given superb political training in the organization of the trades unions. The working classes had found themselves severely in need politically. If the upper classes or the church had been sincerely imbued with social ideals, they would have eagerly set to work to meet those needs. They did not. b) Industrial. The industrial situation contributed powerfully to the necessity for the growth of a deep social sympathy. We have seen how, at the beginning of the factory system, the employees of large concerns were put into a peculiarly helpless condition. Their position did not rapidly improve in the course of the century. In most cases, they did not acquire the homes in which they lived, and they were unable to introduce sanitary improvements and beautify them as they might wish. Their independence was lost — they must work a certain number of hours, pay the rent demanded and, in many cases, buy at the company's store, or be discharged without means of subsistence. Hours of labor were only very slowly brought under regulation, and sixteen hours was frequently considered the day's demand. In fact, the situa- tion became such as absolutely to demand attention. In the period of the Evangelical revival, a considerable group of influential men came forth as the champions of labor. Many, like Mill, were not allied with the church. But society in general by no means awoke to their needs. The workers discovered that there was hope for themselves from within as well as from without. The industrial trades unions opened up a whole new world of possibiUties. c. Intellectual. The appearance of social ideals both among the laboring classes and among others interested in their welfare was stimu- lated by several intellectual factors. Throughout the nineteenth cen- tury, education was more and more widely put within reach of the children of the poor, until in 1876 it was made compulsory. In a cor- responding degree, the mental horizon and general abihty of the lower classes were progressively enlarged. About the middle of the century, Workingmen's Colleges were established in at least a dozen industrial centers. Free libraries were founded on every hand. And what is still more important, literature was brought within the understanding of the moderately well-educated man. Science was presented in popular form, history written by masters of style and fiction crammed with historical and scientific knowledge. Now men do not read Uterature of 89 this high character without acquiring a certain largeness of view and critical attitude that makes them impatient of the narrow and unrea- sonable. Education served to give the workingman confidence in him- self, a realization of his importance to society, and a knowledge of the methods by which he might awaken a stupid pubHc to consciousness of his just rights. In the meantime, while the intellectual acumen of the masses was rapidly developing, religious education stood still, content with old methods, old agents, old standards. Every effort had been by church and government to keep radical thought away from the common people. When any popular book had appeared like Woolston's Discourses on Miracles or Paine's Age of Reason, the authors were persecuted by the bishops, if within reach. But the workers had begun to reason and no repressive measures could stop them. The bishops were but fighting against the tide and defeating their own best interests. They lost their chance to appeal as to reasonable men. The workers turned to accept the radicalism in whose doubts they saw just so many blows at the bigoted and hated priesthood. They "stood aloof from the churches, criticised them, disliked them, doubted their reality, denied their sin- cerity, and became sceptical of all they beHeved."^ The workman really withdrew moved by deep conviction. He felt the churches were not working for the good of all but for the good of a few. He beHeved that many who supported them most liberally were allowing the machines of their factories to grind out the very life-blood of thousands. He became convinced that the clergy were parasitic flatterers and their wealthy patrons insincere schemers. He forced the church to look in upon herself, and an extensive work of purging was begun. The great minds of the church were stirred to denounce the neglect of duty by their fellow clergy. Such men as Whately, Dr. Arnold, Dean Stanley, and Milman sought to give assistance to those perplexed by modern beliefs, and to put the church into her right position of social sympathy with all classes. d) Social. Strong social influences were at work building up a class consciousness among industrial employees which at the same time awak- ened in them a sense of their place and value in the social organism. As the factories grew in size and a group of capitalists took over many plants, the administrative and technical offices in the concerns became sharply divided. Financiers were developed whose business it was to negotiate loans, to issue stocks and bonds and to protect its iijterest ' Fairbairn, A. M. : Religion in History and in Modern Life^ p. 28. 90 in the money market. The running of the machinery and the handling of the employees were left to foremen. The head of a great firm became invisible to his people, and to him his people were thought of no more and no less than the other parts of the machinery. The capitalist and his workers tended to become alienated and lack of knowledge always breeds lack of sympathy and justice. While in one aspect this division seemed to be substituting class ethics for social ethics, it was just this estabUshment of a wide cleft in society which brought to public attention the need for social ideals. The nation became aroused to the fact that its best interests could never be served by internecine strife. The public became aware that there was a public. The nation came to consciousness of itself. It saw that the state was an organism and that its present troubles were due to the super-development of the head without regard to the nourishment of the members who performed the daily routine. Society had been starving those very classes upon whose labor she was dependent for her own sup- port. Now the churches had tended to follow the line of least resistance and to adapt themselves to the division of classes. In a wealthy church, a poorly-dressed stranger was given a back seat, and the child of humble parentage, more sensitive than the adult, could not bear the sting of social ostracism in the Sunday-school. But there is nothing workingmen more abhor than the calling in of divine blessing and religious sanctions upon class distinctions. This is a fundamental reason why the Protes- tant Church of England lost its hold on the masses while the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland, which compelled rich and poor to bow to- gether before the altar, grew in strength. The worker refused to put faith in a church or its God which regarded a man any better because of birth or wealth. The aristocrat who went to worship where only other aristocrats were, consciously or unconsciously, was alienating himself from his people, lowering rehgion in their eyes, and helping to speed the social revolution. The threatening danger was by no means averted, and much of the socialism heard on the streets today is bitterly anti-ecclesiastical and even atheistical. Signs seriously portended that the thoughtful, educated workingman would follow Bentham and the Mills in identifying the exist- ing church with mere reaction. The only thing that averted such catastrophe was that the broad-minded men of the church were led by the prevailing dissatisfaction to see their mistake and to welcome heartily new social purposes into their organization. The doors of many a sane- 91 tuary were thrown open and its best sons sent out to win back by untir- ing and loving effort in all forms of social service those whom another generation had ostracized and forgotten. Politically, socially, and industrially, the lower classes felt that they were oppressed and denied their rightful share of the goods of society. The lack of social ideals among the privileged classes explains, in a rather negative fashion, why they did not exert themselves more fully and promptly on behalf of the unprivileged. Positively, their motives are best explained in this brief quotation from J. S. Mill: "I ascribe it (the bad feelings in the higher classes) to sympathy of officials with officials, ... to the sympathy with authority and power, generated in our higher and upper middle classes by the feeling of being specially privileged to exercise them, and by living in a constant dread of the encroachment of the class beneath, which makes it one of their strongest feehngs that resistance to authority must be put down per fas et nefas.''^^ Meeting Uttle sympathy from above the industrial classes themselves developed initiative in effecting this social revolution. They found that their strength lay in organization. Very early the conviction had been brought home to factory employees that they had common interests as to wages, hours of labor, protection in sickness and accident, and the con- ditions of their daily living. However against the formation of trade unions stood the incompetency of their own class, the power of the law and the force of public opinion. The clergy had always preached " con- tentment" as the great virtue of the lower classes. Philanthropists feared workmen were not wise enough to see their own real and ultimate interests; and the general public dreaded anti-social action by labor organizations in the form of unreasonable demands and lawlessness. Accordingly, at the opening of the nineteenth century, an act of ParUa- ment had made it a crime for persons to combine to advance wages or to decrease the amount of their work. But in 1824 through thediUgent efforts of the Utilitarians, the law against combinations of laborers was duly repealed.* From then on, trades unionism expanded with pro- digious success in England and with parallel strides in America. The trades unions have proved important agents in equipping their members with efficiency as citizens and in giving them breadth of vision concerning the problems of society. They have developed a high degree of skill in administration among their leaders. There has been much of both mental and moral discipUne involved in the organization and 3 Mill, J. S.: Letters, V. II, pp. 69-70. * Cheyney gives this date, differing from Enc. Brit. 92 management of the societies. Especially have the unions created a feeling of brotherhood between all workers. The ideal of individualism has been discredited. The individual gives up his own freedom of action for the sake of higher good to be attained through collective action. The results were found to be satisfactory — wages were raised, hours shortened, but, above all, the treatment by employers became more considerate when the fact had been brought home to them that they that they were dealing with men and not with machines. Success meant great joy to the workers themselves and they felt the glow of enthusiasm in a righteous cause, and longed that workers even in other hues of industry might enjoy the same blessings they had won. While the strike in Australia lasted during the summer of 1890, sixty thousand dollars was sent out by sympathizing English trade-unions. "Laborers, who a few years ago were deemed almost below being hoped for, now, for the sake of seeing justice done, divide their scanty earnings ^ith the confec- tioner girls, the farmhands, or with working men at the other end of the world. "^ The new unions, by creating a sense of brotherhood between all workers, have accomplished much toward the social and the moral education of their members and of the world. The moral enthusiasm and altruistic feelings to which working men could no longer sincerely give scope in the church, found expression in the common cause of labor. Intense loyalty animated their trades unions and clubs. And what must be especially noted, is that their aims have been social as contrasted with individual. The older competitive idea of each man striving for himself hy himself has disap- peared from the thinking of the working classes. At first, until the laboring classes had gained plain justice and the recognition of their unions, their efforts were on behalf of their own interests purely — but the purposes were none the less a great step away from purely personal greed. But now their group consciousness is widening and widening until it begins to include the whole of society. Organized labor has already done considerable toward preserving the peace of Europe. It has strengthened the nation by educating its members. It has reheved the burdens of charity and taxation by providing benevolent funds and insurance fees as protection in case of sickness or death. It has con- tributed much and will contribute more of influence in affecting legislation on the side of a pure democracy and of less corruption in government. A note in the Independent for June 14, 1915, reads, "Organized labor in N. Y. State is urgmg the Constitutional Convention to propose woman * Woods, R. A. : English Social Movements, p. 19. 93 suffrage, the eight hour day, the prohibition of child labor, state insurance, and widow's pensions." The action of certain organizations has, it must be admitted, been distinctly anarchical and anti-social, but the general principle of organization has worked toward the spread of social ideals among the members and in the nation at large. Concerning certain manifestations of the spirit of cooperation just a word must be said. In 1844, the Rochdale Pioneers gave the real start to the cooperative movement. In 1900, the total business done by cooperative societies in the United Kingdom amounted to more than one hundred and ninety million dollars, with a net profit to members of twenty million dollars. The principle of profit-sharing has enjoyed con- siderable extension particularly in the United States, and is especially important for the purposes of our inquiry, as it is an indication of a social spirit which bridges the gulf between employer and employee. The principle of cooperation is an expression of the spirit which seeks " to live and let live," and the history of its acceptance is the history of the growth of strong social feelings of sympathy and respect and interde- pendence. The Socialist propaganda, as the explicit creed of an organized political party, did not rise into wide prominence during the period within which our discussion has been confined, but rather only within recent decades. The socialistic spirit, however, in its simple form as standing for united effort on behalf of the public good, is really the spirit whose growth we have been tracing. The formation of a definite party, taking the name "Socialists" represents the crystallization of a certain phase of slowly- developing social idealism into a thorough consciousness of itself. It has presented definitely and concretely to men a platform on which to stand and a code of moral purpose to which to adapt their action as moral. As usually understood, socialism stands for the complete surrender of the individual's rights to a central public control. We have been studying the development of social ideals in a much broader sense, believing that wherever any single individual took as his aim the welfare of others, he was contributing his part to the good of the social whole. The socialistic platform, in the narrower sense, quite largely hands over the social ideal to the state. It is the stcUe which is to have charge of all human institutions and hence, to have an almost exclusive monopoly of those agencies which contribute to human welfare.^ Without discussing ' Certain recent writers consider "State Socialism" as a transitional stage in the way toward socialism, but not as itself socialism. See Walling,: Larger Aspects of Socialism, Introd. 94 the merits of such a scheme, it is none the less evident that the social ideal of service upon the part of each individual for the good of all is much broader than the platform of "Socialism," and does not necessarily advocate government ownership. It must be noticed that the SociaHstic propaganda has been a factor at work seeking to give popularity to social enthusiasm. It has postulated unreservedly that the one and only moral end of action is the greatest good of the greatest number in this world. Socialism has insisted that all economic questions must be settled from the ethical point of view. Agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, industrial combinations, are all to be forced to serve society instead of controlling it. The aim of production is to be — not profits for the rich man, but cheaper goods for all. The endeavor of Socialism in its purest form is to carry out brother- hood. The central idea is that each one shall contribute to the common welfare whatever his strength and capacity will permit, and that none must suffer for lack of anything he really needs. Socialistic theory has been considerably modified in the course of its working out in practice. The great Belgian cooperative societies which allow no want among their members through sickness or unemployment do not stand for equal pay for all workers, skilled and unskilled, energetic and lazy. They enforce only a minimum wage, and above that reward the laborer according to his deserts. Managers receive liberal advances in salary over those subservient to them, only they cannot secure the excessive incomes which our capitalistic system allows American life insurance presidents to annex. All employees can be paid goodly wages since there are no dividends which must be distributed among greedy stockholders. Furthermore, these successful societies do not stand for the destruction of the family nor for the education of children away from the home. They have found it best to take every step in order to secure the defense and preservation of the home. Whether such a programme as conserva- tive Socialism has outUned has fully justified itself on trial is not vitally important to our study. We are interested only in the fact of the motive which has prompted Socialism and we find that it has felt itself to be striving after cosmopolitan social ideals. To say the least. Socialism has been intensely valuable in creating discussion of the great ethical problems of society.' Socialistic criticism ' Of course, it is true that in the effort to gain certain moral ends, individuals and societies who have taken to themselves the name "Socialists" have often adopted very immoral means, such as arson, sabotage and even murder. As in every reform movement, serious and painful mistakes have been made. But along with these vicious accompaniments, there are more permanent results which are good. 95 has led to an examination from the moral standpoint of such principles as those of private property, freedom of person, free contract, and vested interests. Where any principle, however sacred by precedent, has been found to work toward oppression of the poor, it has been denounced. What Socialism really desires, is that the economic life should be entirely subordinate to the other departments of social life. It wishes leisure and opportunity for the cultivation of the higher human faculties. The constant strife to "earn a living," which hinders the full develop- ment of one's mental and physical powers must be lessened for the working classes. CHAPTER XIII Science The two centuries, through which we have been tracing the rise of the social ideal to wide and popular acceptance have also been the two centuries whose distinctive and most notable achievements have been in the realm of science. The nineteenth century particularly became a scientific era par excellence, during which the pursuit of science and the appUcation of its discoveries in industry became the basic interest around which all civilization centered. It is only natural that science should have proved deeply influential in molding ethical thought as well as business enterprise. 1. In the first place, the very purpose and meaning of science is far from lying in individuality. The principles of chemistry or the facts of geology are anything but personal affairs. Psychology works with the laws of the human mind, not yours or mine, but with the conditions under which psycho-physiological processes operate, either normally or ab- normally. Individual variations, are, of course, studied but largely because of the light which they will shed on the necessity and regularity of variation in general. In other words, science is eternally seeking laws, principles, truths which shed light on society in general, on the course of history and, to be sure, on applications in individual cases. She finds enormous variability in nature, but at the same time she discovers a wonderful unity in variety. It is only because she finds the cosmos organic that she is able to proceed. It is only because her laws are capable of wide appHcation that there is value in her undertakings. It is only in relation to general truths that " Freaks" are of interest, and possess special meaning. But even they are confidently assumed to be the product of natural law and capable of being brought into harmony with the meaning of existence in general. Science, therefore, is in her very nature universal. Her truth is no egoistic, individual affair; it is common, comprehensive, open to all men and valuable for all men. 2. The progress of knowledge reveals ever more minutely the rela- tionship of every part to the whole and to its brother and sister parts. The influences of environment and even of prenatal conditions are dis- discovered to be strikingly determinative of individual character and physique. Disease, communicated from one person to another, is shown 97 to be a basal factor in producing delinquency and imbecility. Possi- bilities in public education and in public care for the health and sur- roundings of children criminally inclined point out hopeful means of solving two of society's greatest problems — the suppression of vice and the lessening of the enormous tax for institutional support of the anti-social. The enforcement of quarantine and inoculation protect from the ravages of epidemics. Science has given a support to the rule ''each for all and all for each" such as no multiplication of philosophical dispositions ever could have produced. It showed death to be the penalty for neglect of one's fellows or of the social good. Carlyle's "Irish Widow" proved her sisterhood by infecting that society which did not provide for her needs with the deadly germs of typhus fever. ^ Medicine, botany, me- chanics — all have revealed the interrelation of part to part and the impossibility of the functioning of the whole when a cog is slipped or a vital cell diseased. 3. The scientific spirit has, in the long run, made certain contribu- tions toward a democratic spirit. Gerald B. Smith remarks that "the scientific attitude is an inevitable accompaniment of democracy," but the converse is equally true. To be sure, science has sometimes tended to the upbuilding of an aristocracy of intellect and power, side by side with an aristocracy of birth and wealth. Discrimination has not been unknown by physicians in favor of wealthy patients. But none the less, in its broadest aspects, science treats man as man. Such studies as sociology, psychology and anthropology tend to consider people in abstraction from adventitious factors. In accordance with the laws of specificity of function, vision is localized in the occipital lobe, alike of the millionaire and of the vagrant. If the physician is to remove the appendix of a king, he must use the same tools and apply the same knowledge of human anatomy, as if he were operating upon a circus clown. In other words, nature and the science of nature are no respecters of persons. In their common subjection to the laws of health and dis- ease, all men are created equal. It is true that men are not endowed with a common strength of physique, but neither are they born with equal intelHgence in political affairs. The fact that all humans have equal rights before the bar of natural law is a strong reinforcement to the claim of democracy that they should possess equal rights before the bar of civil law. 4. Whether intentionally or incidentally, the progress of science has worked for human welfare. Its discoveries have so improved living 1 Carlyle: Past and Present, Bk. Ill, Ch. II. 98 conditions, for all except the very poor, that if a shoemaker of 1800 were to step in to Chicago today to take up his trade of shoe repairing, he would think he had dropped into a veritable Utopia. He would find sewing machines at hand to make his work more rapid and more accurate than the old hand method. Public conveyances impelled by steam or electri- city — an entire novelty to him — would carry him ten miles for a few cents to his little garden home if he preferred to live outside of the density of the city. Bicycles and moving picture shows would be at hand for his physical recreation and enjoyment. He would drink water which had come from a public filtration plant. He and his children could go to school day or night, absolutely free, to learn what science has thus far revealed. Truly science has transformed human life within the cen- tury. A thousand new joys and opportunities have been put within the reach of men. Society has not yet secured full enjoyment of all of these blessings for all earth's children, but science has been doing its part directly towards the realization of the social ideal by adding so richly to the treasures of life. For whether or not the botanist in his study of the structure of plants was aiming at utilitarian results, the fact remains that his researches have produced better food, better shelter and better clothing for all mankind. It is true that the inventions of science are at first usually too expensive to benefit the common man, but at length production is standardized, even the automobile bids fair to come within reach of the average farmer in Kansas. In the long run, every profound advance in scientific discovery has come to work good for the progress of humanity. 5. The achievements of science have not only directly promoted social welfare, they have greatly enlarged men's motives in pursuing the moral ideal. The conception of social amelioration has so altered during the century as to be scarcely recognizable as the same ideal. Physiology, psychology and sociology have brought new knowledge of the physical and so cial causes of crime and of the reformation which improved living and health conditions may bring about in the criminal. The idea of punishment has changed into that of correction and reformation. The purpose of indiscriminate and ignorant "charity" has turned into an endeavor to rehabihtate the homes of the poor. Dispensaries have been reenforced by wide effort for preventive sanitation. Kindness to em- ployees has developed into a wide system of compulsory insurance and profit-sharing. In other words, science has sought out the causes which underHe human ills. These discovered, she has experimented until she has found the cures and the proper legislation to inhibit the growth 99 of these unfavorable circumstances. The method of science, its pro- cedure, has been a great factor in reinterpreting social purpose. It has taught the philanthropist he must look for causes and remedies in pubhc ills exactly as the horticulturist studies fruit bUghts and the chemist watches the effect of different elements in his explosives. New methods discovered and new opportunities opened, it then be- came the duty of the social enthusiast to incorporate corresponding aims within his ideal for humanity. He must seek to enforce the new ideas of preventive medicine, to secure the suggested legislative reforms and to introduce the new plumbing into the homes of the poor. At the beginning of the century, the social ideal meant largely to be kind to those already poor and already suffering; at its close, the demand is that the moral agent do everything in his power to raise wages, guaran- tee health conditions and provide proper education so that misery shall be attacked before it is begun. 6. The epoch-making conception of evolution was not without its effect in stimulating interest in the social ideal. Evolution held out the idea of progress. It reenforced the hope which is the greatest incentive to disinterested service — that the race is actually progressing and that no individual who has contributed his mite to the forward movement or in combat with retrogressive tendencies shall have lived in vain. It pointed out the possibility of human consciousness directing the course of evolu- tion in purposive fashion. Did science then urge the development of supermen at the expense of the weakhngs? To a Nietzsche, yes, but to a Harris, No! In the minds of many scientists, evolution pointed out that any competitive system which destroyed the weak in some respects at least impaired the best development of the srtong. Bad drinking water may kill the feeble, but it also impairs the vitality of the stalwart. Insufficient government regulation of business might allow an unscrupulous financier to pile up hoards of wealth, crushing out hundreds of less able competitors. But whether that enslavement to the office, that passion for mere accumulation, that deadening to keen moral sense and the higher interests of life made for the best interests of the hoarder can very much be doubted. On the other hand, it may well be that in the seroice of the weak, the strong does truly enlarge his own nature, quicken his intelligence, and develop his physical powers. At any rate, the concept of evolution has proved a reenforcement to the social ideal, in so far as it has turned men's attention toward the progress of the race. It has shown that individuals profit not at the expense :Mt- UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY .^ ^ r ■• \r \