UC-NRLF 
 
 *B 2bT mi 
 
 ^^ l 
 
 
s s ■ *> 
 
 LI BRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIFT OK 
 
 Received JAN 17 1 893 , rfg f/ 
 
 i A ccessions No . SOrcnct Tl . . Shelf No . 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 Microsoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/ethicalprincipleOOkiesrich 
 
THE 
 
 ETHICAL PRINCIPLE 
 
 AND ITS APPLICATION IN STATE 
 RELATIONS. 
 
 BY 
 
 MARIETTA KIES, Ph. M, 
 
 PRESENTED AS A THESIS FOR THE DEGREE DOCTOR OF PHILOS- 
 OPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 
 
 ANN ARBOR: 
 
 THE REGISTER PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 
 Ube "flnlan& f5reas. 
 1892. 
 
 'TJHIVBBSIT7] 
 
 /* A _ oar -, w*« 
 
*-** 
 
 50o 
 
 V 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In the following thesis the attempt has been to 
 ■show that justice and grace are complementary 
 principles: and also, to prove that, although these 
 principles can not be separated, yet the principle 
 of grace or self-sacrifice is in an especial manner 
 the principle of growth or progress. 
 
 The effort has been to establish these thoughts 
 by showing that justice and grace are clearly re- 
 vealed in the life of man; and that the progress of 
 man as a self- determining individual, developing in 
 and through the institutions of society, has come 
 about by a process in which self-sacrifice is always 
 involved. 
 
 The institution considered at length is the State. 
 We have sought to show that the potent principle 
 -of progress in our own nation has been that of 
 self-sacrifice expressed in different forms, and that, 
 even in the sphere of industrial relations,* where 
 self-interest is usually supposed to be the anima- 
 ting motive, altruism has been and is the underly- 
 ing principle of real progress, and that future 
 progress will be in accordance with the same 
 principle. 
 
II PREFACE. 
 
 No attempt has been made to refute other prin- 
 ciples of explanation of progress. But such j>rin- 
 ciples as "biological evolution," "natural law," 
 " harmonious adjustment of relations," are inciden- 
 tally recognized as expressions of various elements 
 of progress rather than that any one is as adequate 
 a principle as those which we have called the com- 
 plementary principles, " justice and gra*ce." 
 
 For, as evolution, as a principle explaining the fact 
 of progress, is a "dynamic conception," more ade- 
 quate than the formerly received "static conception," 
 so a "rational dynamic conception" is a more com- 
 prehensive and adequate conception of the progress 
 of man in the institutions of society than the dynamic 
 conception. This " rational dynamic conception " 
 sees man as a self-determining being, the elements 
 of whose growth are a sequence which corresponds 
 to the development from the simple and homogen- 
 eous to the complex and heterogeneous, in the lower 
 forms of life, animal and vegetable; but these ele- 
 ments or external appearances in the development 
 of man are such because of the self- determining 
 energy of man that makes them, and the energy does 
 not exists because of the changes in the various 
 elements of external appearances; in the institu- 
 tions of society the comprehensive way in which 
 this self- determining energy manifests itself is in 
 accordance with the principles, justice and grace. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Pro- 
 fessor H. C. Adams and to Professor John Dewey 
 for valuable instruction; and for helpful sugges- 
 tions in the preparation of this thesis. 
 
 Marietta Kies. 
 Mills College, California, Oct. 8, 1801. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Justice and Grace Closely Eelated Prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. Man reveals both justice and grace in his free 
 
 will 1 
 
 2. The mind creates a variety of motives 4 
 
 3. The complementary principles, justice and 
 
 grace must both be exemplified in state and 
 church relations 5 
 
 II. The Ethical Principle. 
 
 vv 
 
 1. Social whole basis of an ethical principle 6 
 
 2. The ethical rule 7 
 
 3. Following conscience frees one from immediate 
 
 responsibility 8 
 
 4. Ethrcal rules vary with the grade of thought.. 9* 
 
 5. The ethical rule originates in the highest grade 
 
 of thought 11 
 
 6. Different grades of ethical shown by an illus- 
 
 tration fAV^fo 12 
 
 7. Each step of development" a realization of the 
 
 ideal of the individual 15 
 
 8. Illustrations of changes in ideals 16 
 
 9. -¥4tis progress is unceasing iuidJlis£Qjy-.records 
 
 the beginning of an eternal process 20 
 
II CONTENTS. 
 
 III. The Institutions of Society: The Family, 
 the School, the State and the Church; in all 
 his Relations in these Institutions, the Indi- 
 vidual May Exemplify the Ethical Principle. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 1. The general sphere of assistance of each insti- 
 tution in the development of the individual. 22 
 
 IY. The State as a Moral Personality Pro- 
 tects the Individual, and also Secures to the 
 Individual the Opportunity for Full Self- 
 Development. 
 
 A. Nature of the State; and general lines of 
 State Action. 
 
 1. The nation the all-inclusive organic unity 27 
 
 2. The nation not determined by geographical 
 
 limits only 28 
 
 3. The unity of purpose determines the size and 
 
 extent of the nation 29 
 
 4. The development of the individual and of the 
 
 nation is in freedom 30 
 
 5. The different phases of the development oLthe 
 
 members of society are expressed in the 
 nation as rights 31 
 
 6. Narrow spheres of individuality expressed* in 
 
 the savage and half-civilized states of s - 
 ciety, wider and more complex expression as 
 society develops 32 
 
 7. Positive rights are natural rights recognized 
 
 by law 35 
 
 8. The nation in its sovereignty specifies these 
 
 positive rights 36 
 
 9. The State or Nation the Institution for the 
 
 expression of Justice 38 
 
CONTENTS. Ill 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 j^lO. The problem for the Government is the adjust- 
 ment of rights 39 
 
 11. Society presents three attitudes to the indi- 
 
 vidual, whether expressed in law or not 40 
 
 12. Attitude of true socialism 42 
 
 13. The attitude of true socialism involves both 
 
 justice and grace or charity 44 
 
 14. Laws of a nation represent the intersection 
 
 of all the institutions of society 44 
 
 / 15. Two standpoints in studying the ethical ele- 
 ments in the laws of a country 45 
 
 "16. Two general classes of laws— protective and 
 
 ' constructive 45 
 
 ' 17. Protective laws show the principle of justice; 
 constructive laws show both principles, jus- 
 tice and grace 46 
 
 ] 18. Constructive laws express rights inherent in 
 personality, and also specify possible rights, 
 that is, rights that it is expedient for the 
 nation to grant 46 
 
 J 19. Illustrations of protective laws — clauses from 
 
 the Constitution of the United States 47 
 
 -A20. Laws in reference to taxation show both 
 
 elements, the protective and the constructive 49 
 
 ^21. "Two houses of Congress "and the compro- 
 mise in the basis of representation illustrate 
 
 constructive measures 53 
 
 22. The first amendments a "bill of rights," a con- 
 structive measure; illustrated by the two 
 thoughts "freedom of the press" and 
 " religious freedom " 55 
 
 -23. Difficult to determine to which— federal or 
 state government — some constructive 
 measures belong 62 
 
TV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 24. Education might come within the province of 
 
 either 63 
 
 25. "Poor Laws" constructive measures in the 
 
 province of the commonwealth 65 
 
 26. Prison " Reformatory-laws " constructive 68 
 
 27. Laws establishing Boards of State-charities, 
 
 Bureaus and Commissions are constructive. 72. 
 
 28. Laws in reference to Industries show dif- 
 
 ferent aspects of Government assistance: 
 (a) laws regulating "natural monopolies" 
 tend to establish equality both as regards 
 price and opportunity for individual initia- 
 tive; (b) laws relating to "capital monopo- 
 lies," like manufactures, assist in establish- 
 ing desirable conditions for labor; (c) laws 
 in reference to agriculture beside the ethical 
 results from the regulation of conditions of 
 labor are designed to give encouragement to 
 farmers 73 
 
 ° B. There are limits to wise State action. 
 
 1 (a) There may be too much legislation even in 
 the beneficial lines. # 
 
 J 1. Legislation must not take away fundamental 
 
 rights of any member of society 91 
 
 ' 2. Illustrations 92 
 
 j 3. Laws made in the interest of a particular sec- 
 tion of country or of a particular class or 
 
 industrial group are non-ethical 94 
 
 (b) Also in many relations of society, assistance 
 from other than protective laws is unneces- 
 sary. 
 1. The range of motives possible in business 
 
 relations 97 
 
CONTENTS. V 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 2. The precepts and maxims of Political 
 
 Economy the results of pnst thought 98 
 
 3. General relations of Logic, Political Economy, 
 
 Ethics, Applied Economics and Applied 
 Ethics 99 
 
 4. Three general standpoints may be taken in 
 
 studying the phenomena of industrial rela- 
 tions 103 
 
 5. Illustration from a few of the" fundamental 
 
 concepts" of Politieal Economy 104 
 
 6. Illustration from " Consumption " 108 
 
 7. Illustration from " Production " 10g 
 
 8. Illustration from Exchange and Distribution. . 116 
 
 9. The direction of progress indicated , 131 
 
THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE 
 
 AND ITS 
 
 Application in State Relations. 
 
 I. 
 
 JUSTICE AN T D GRACE CLOSELY RELATED 
 PRINCIPLES. 
 
 'It is in man that we find the full exemplification 
 and revelation of the justice and grace of the Crea- 
 tive Mind. Through the determination of free will 
 man makes himself. As a child the acts of a child 
 are returned upon him by the will of judicious 
 parents. But as a being who has reached the stage 
 of s elf conscio us' intelligence, there is a continual 
 process of return unto the self. Every thought, 
 feeling and act shall come back in its own power 
 to contribute to the process of change and degen- 
 eration or to the process of change and growth and 
 development of the individual soul. This process 
 of self- determination, of return unto the self, is the 
 process of justice, the fundamental principle of 
 individuality j Man thinks, feels and acts, and 
 receives the like in kind, nothing better, nothing 
 
A THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 worse. This process is the basis of existence, of 
 true individuality.'^ 
 
 Without this fundamental process in justice, man 
 would cease to be man. As important as this foun- 
 dation is, it is only the fact of mere existence. Each 
 individual mind, 4ho«gh infinite m its possibilities, 
 is finite, is limited, and in this fact is the necessity 
 of change or growth. The process by which man 
 grows is that of self-sacrifice. Man originates his 
 own thoughts, but not simplv as self-thoughts, but 
 thoughts that may include,- other- than th o-sel& | 
 The return of the thoughts, feelings and acts upon 
 self is no less sure, but how different the content! 
 Whereas the process in justice excludes the yield- 
 ing of one's own for the sake of another, the 
 process of self-sacrifice, of grace, is in its very 
 nature the yielding of one's own immediate thoughts 
 of self for those of, and in reference to, another. 
 
 i But this process of giving implies also the 
 receiving; the small thought which originated in 
 the self- comes back enlarged by the thought of the 
 other, i This process of yielding is the process of 
 making, and man in giving up his selfish interests 
 and desires for the interests of others only gives up 
 a phase of finitude, and, at each succeeding step, 
 enters more and more into the nature of infinite 
 thought and infinite love. 
 
 ."Justice means the return of his deeds to each 
 
JUSTICE AND GKACE. 3 
 
 man. ( It therefore means freedom. Whatever a 
 man does, he shall do to himself. This is the 
 essence of freedom — I should say it is the form of 
 freedom rather than its substance. When the man 
 learns how to do to h^s fellow- man and to himself 
 that which tends to his perfection, to the develop- 
 ment of his soul in wisdom, virtue, and holiness — 
 then he acquires the substance of freedom as well 
 as its form." * 
 
 And this process which is true for the realization 
 of one human soul, is the process by which the 
 development of the whole human race is secured. 
 This likeness of thought to thought and feeling to 
 feeling, or the universality of thought and feeling, 
 constitutes the bond in the human family, the unity 
 of the organism, the organic sympathy which is the 
 basis of the brother- hood of man. 
 
 Man, in seeing the effects of his own deeds upon 
 himself, learns to measure justice to another; and 
 in his struggle with evil in his own soul in his 
 moments of repentance and humiliation, and in 
 his attempts at helpfulness to others, he learns 
 true charity. 
 
 However important may be the effects of an 
 external act, the act as an element of the soul, as 
 assisting to form the character, lies in the motive. 
 
 * The Christian Union, Dec. 1, '87, article by Dr. W. 
 T. Harris.' 
 
4 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 And this motive does not exist ready-made in the 
 mind, but the mind in the thought-processes creates 
 the motive as well as the act, and is therefore 
 responsible in its very freedom to make motises 
 that shall accord with the tri^e freedom of the race, 
 motives that shall contribute to the better- being 
 of all. 
 
 Justice when consciously adopted as a moving 
 principle, a guide for the expression of thoughts, or 
 for the measurement of the deeds of others, is a 
 principle of equilibrium — an Aristotelian " moder- 
 ation in all things," a live and let-live principle. 
 The person may adopt some other principle for 
 action than justice; in the thoughts and the corres- 
 ponding emotions, as motives for action, there are 
 two extremes of which the human soul is capable. 
 One extreme is the haughty spiritual pride which 
 would exclude the self from humanity ; the other, 
 the overflowing love which would give up life 
 itself for another or for the good of humanity: 
 between these two extremes may be found, on one 
 side, innumerable degrees of pride, envy, jealousy, 
 anger, covetousness, lust, hypocrisy, etc., and, on 
 the other hand, of sincerity, purity, honesty, gener 
 osity, forbearance, fair-mindedness, good will, and 
 charity or love for mankind. 
 
 For a child the motives exist to a large degree 
 external to the child — obedience to authority : but 
 
JUSTICE AND GRACE. O 
 
 as a youth and man developing through the insti- 
 tutions of society, in the expansion of thought 
 these motives have a wider and wider range, 
 including at first the family and playmates, then 
 friends and companions, and later comes the 
 recognition of the kinship of the whole human race, 
 the brotherhood of mankind. These thoughts as 
 moving principles or motives find opportunity for 
 widest expression in the eternal institutions, the 
 state and the church. 
 
 The sphere of the state is for the expression of 
 Justice, while Grace is the ruling motive of the 
 church, the universal church, the organic unity 
 which reveals the nature of the Holy Spirit. Jus- 
 tice and Grace are complementary principles; and, 
 if there be continuance and growth, each institu- 
 tion, church and state, must exemplify both 
 principles. 
 
THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 I Man is born into society; and it is through and by 
 the means of society that the animal impulses and 
 desires are made over into rational thoughts and 
 emotions. The thoughts and emotions which in an 
 especial way are individual, when made evident to 
 society, or externalized through the formal will, 
 become, or may become the thoughts and emotions 
 of another, or of others, and finally of the social 
 whole. This union of thought with thought and 
 will with will constitutes the organic unity. As, in 
 the material universe the movement of particles or 
 change in form of forces, awakens and occasions 
 responsive movements and changes in all parts of 
 the universe; so, in the universe of thought, the 
 world of spirit, the thought and acts of one indi- 
 vidual ^aaul may awaken responsive thoughts and 
 acts in every human J5©ak| There may be thus a 
 constant communion of each soul with all, and of all 
 souls with each. u\he extent to which the individ- 
 ual is able to grapple with, and to grasp the infinite 
 thought of society, make it his own, and pass it on, 
 changed by his own particular characteristics, de- 
 
THE ETHICAL PKINCIPLE. 7 
 
 termines his place and helpfulness in the organic 
 whole. 
 
 But in whatever place in society, he cannot 
 escape some kind of social relations and the ques- 
 tion will be presented many times and in many 
 forms: In view of these social relations, how shall 
 VxaJE. act? Shall my motive, my underlying thought, 
 be that of justice, that is, an attempt to measure to - 
 each one his deeds and to return to society just the 
 kind of acts that society gives to me, or shall I * A 
 adopt some other principle of action ? 
 
 An ethical rule or principle concerns the thought, 
 
 tfi«A ft. uv^U - jy*% t 
 emotions, and will of the individual: not one- phase 
 
 or department of his nature, but the whole man; 
 therefore, since man and his circumstances are con- 
 tinually changing, an ethical rule must have a pro- 
 gressive application. An ethical rule must be in. 
 substance true for all time, but its application prac- 
 tically must be to-day for one set of facts and to- 
 morrow for another. But whatever the combina- 
 tion ol circumstances, two factors are always pres- 
 ent — the self and the other members of society, and 
 an ethical rule must be such a guide, that,, in its 
 application, it will admit of tljie true development 
 of both the others and the selijj as Dr. W. T. Har- 
 ris states it, " It is the preference of reflected good 
 for immediate good — my good reflected from all 
 humanity, my good after their good and through 
 
8 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 their good, and not my good before their good and 
 instead of their good." * 
 
 | Man's relations in society are principally those 
 in reference to other persons. His thought includes 
 others. As a being conscious of his relations, in 
 adopting this ethical principle as a guide for action, 
 he makes others the end or purpose of his action ; 
 his activity shall go out to help others to a better 
 and higher way of living. 
 
 What the good of others is and what one's own 
 good is, can only be learned a step at a time. 
 Acting according to the dictates of one's conscience, 
 as it is called, frees one from immediate responsi- 
 bility, but it does not necessarily imply that one 
 has acted in accordance with what is good for 
 humanity or ultimate right. As, for example, when 
 a Mormon woman conscientiously receives another 
 woman into her home as the second wife of her 
 husband, she, in many cases thinks she is doing the 
 will of God and is following the dictates of her own 
 conscience. But a wider education as to the origin 
 of the family, its historical development, and the 
 strong center of holiness and right- living that a 
 well regulated monogamous family forms in society, 
 would change her conscience in reference to poly- 
 gamy. The conscience involves the act of knowing 
 
 ♦Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 19, p. 214, or 
 " Introduction to the study of Philosophy," p. 244. 
 
 
THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 9 
 
 the succession of events that has led to the present 
 combination of circumstances, and also an insight 
 into what the true relation of the events under con- 
 sideration ought to ^be from the nature of the 
 things or persons itf which the events inhere; and 
 then an act based upon these two different kinds of 
 knowledge will be followed by the corresponding 
 emotion, "a clear conscience:" acts based upon 
 clear and correct conceptions of social relations will 
 be in accordance with the good of others and also 
 with one's own good. 
 
 What is the external of an ethical principle but 
 the doing of that which is customary? And 
 these (customs maybe formed from any or all grades 
 of thought of which the mind is capable. The 
 higher the grade of thought, the more comprehen- 
 sive w ill b e the ethical principle and the more varied 
 and complex wftfro its applications. 
 
 A child, or a people representing the child- stage 
 of development in thought, will have an ethical 
 principle placed in external commands of rulers 
 and ancestors, an ethical principle which demands 
 a blind obedience to authority. 
 
 And even a lower grade of ethical principle may 
 be found than that which is seen in the normal 
 child-mind. Acts resulting from a state of mind of 
 covetousness, jealousy, anger, revenge, etc., show 
 a kind of ethical principle; for so long as human 
 
10 
 
 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 beings can associate together there is a phase of the 
 ethical. The only position in which the human 
 soul can be in which there is no exemplification of 
 the ethical, is when that soul is sealed with unfeel- 
 ing pride, — the frozen condition of such a mind 
 prevents thoughts or acts going out to another or 
 being received from others, and thus there is com- 
 plete isolation from others. 
 
 In the normal development of the mind of an 
 individual or a nation or people, in a higher than 
 the child- grade of thought, there are customs indi- 
 cating a more complex ethical principle. The ethi- 
 cal principle of this kind of an individual or a people 
 would be such as would result from a second or 
 higher plane of thought. An ethical principle 
 from this higher plane of thought would place the 
 individual as the center and either a fortuitious 
 combination of circumstances would produce " the 
 greatest happiness" to the individual, or if the 
 conception reached that of " altruism," it would be 
 an altruism that comes from a mechanical concep- 
 tion of society — a society whose development, be- 
 cause involving the will of man is regarded as 
 "artificial." But "self-interest" in some form 
 would be the moving principle; self-interest, 
 whether pure individualism, simply happiness of 
 the individual, or the higher form which would 
 place the end in the development of the self, that, 
 
THE ETHICAL PBINCIPLE. 11 
 
 thereby, the good end in the self may eventually 
 become the good of society. 
 
 /"An ethical principle arising from the highest 
 grade of thought would place " others " as the 
 center of interest and the self as recipient of 
 reflected good.; Such a principle is that of true 
 altruism; and since its source is in the plane of 
 thought that recognizes man's relations to the 
 divine, whether in God or man, such a principle is 
 comprehensive enough for a guide in all the possi- 
 ble relations of members of the organic unity. 
 Ethical principles arising from lower grades of 
 thought, when taken as guides in every- day affairs, 
 may secure prosperous circumstances for one indi- 
 vidual or for a few; but the preference by the 
 individual of reflected to immediate good makes it 
 possible for each and all to receive the best influ- 
 ences from the social whole : and since this ethical 
 principle of the highest plane of thought will, in 
 practical application, secure the highest develop- 
 ment of all the members of society, it should be 
 called the ethical principle. 
 
 The ethical principle is the same as the content 
 of the religious consciousness. For the motives, 
 love, reverence, and praise to God, must find their 
 highest expression on the will- side in the relation- 
 ships of humanity — in loving helpfulness to one's 
 fellow-men. Through the faith -element, the unlet- 
 
12 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 tered wild- man, the humble toiler, the business or 
 class or party leader, those of high estate, may, 
 each and all, by this insight of faith, adopt the 
 divine will, the good of others, as the moving prin- 
 ciple of their lives, and may thus produce results 
 through the formal will that are essentially the 
 same as the results from acts moved by the 
 reasoned-out principle of the ethical philosopher. 
 
 "By content of religious consciousness" is not 
 meant that "disinterestedness" which places the 
 end or purpose in self-sacrifice for its own sake. 
 Such an attitude is rather the opposite of the true 
 motive, which is helpfulness to others and the 
 reception of one's own good through others, though 
 in this process of expression of thought for others, 
 healthy self-sacrifice is always involved. 
 
 The above thought, that the ethical principle 
 varies as the grade of thought and emotions varies, 
 may be seen more clearly from the following illus- 
 tration: When a company of men unite them- 
 selves for the purpose of plunder, the " honor 
 among thieves" is the ethical principle binding 
 them to work together and to share the booty 
 obtained. But one of these robbers might become 
 suspicious of the faithfulness of the others, and 
 jealousy and anger fill his thoughts; still, as long 
 as he remained in the robber-band and assisted in 
 the tasks or in councils, he would show a phase of 
 
THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 13 
 
 the ethical. However, if the one should withdraw 
 himself from the band in stolid indifference to his 
 own fate and to that of the others, the one would 
 then cease to exemplify the ethical. Such a condi- 
 tion long continued would either result in suicide — 
 destruction of the physical — or in insanity, a com- 
 plete severance, for the time, from the organic 
 unity. 
 
 And the robber may, by a lesson in legal penalty, 
 be led to exhibit a kind of ethical which comes 
 with obedience to authority, and so be led to 
 , respect the rights of others to a possession of their 
 own property. And farther, the robber, through 
 reformatory measures, may find aroused the instinct- 
 ive feelings of right and wrong and may thus be 
 led to a plane of thought which sees the relations 
 of his own to the rights of others in reference to 
 the ownership of property; and, with this knowl- 
 edge, his acts may now show another grade of the 
 ethical. His motive is no longer to secure all he 
 can get, but he recognizes that that only is truly his 
 which can come to him as the result of a rightly 
 directed effort in society, or that which comes into 
 his possession by way of inheritance or gift. He 
 takes his own and leaves others in the undisturbed 
 possession of their own. The robber, now a citi- 
 zen, a moral, respected man of society, in the 
 countless ways in which he may come in contact 
 
14 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 with his fellow men, in his family and home life, in 
 his business life, in his interest in the municipal, 
 state and county politics, in his general, civil, and 
 social relations, exhibits an ethical principle, that, 
 from the stage of thought which we are consider- 
 ing, would have as its mainspring some phase of 
 self-interest. This individualism may vary from 
 the self- centered condition which makes him a 
 " terror " to his family and gains for him the title 
 of "hard man" among his acquaintances, to the 
 enlightened self-interest that would lead him to 
 help society, if, eventually, he would be better off 
 himself, and that would even lead him to spend 
 money for the public, if thereby his own estate 
 might be improved, or would lead him to make a 
 gift or bequest, if his name could be associated 
 with it or some honor bestowed upon his family. 
 
 And once more, the robber, led through reason 
 or through faith to recognize .unchanging and 
 eternal principles, in the same relations in which 
 above was placed the man actuated by self-interest, 
 becomes now a man with different motives. That 
 he may get another man's money even by skill and 
 shrewdness and "fair play" is of secondary 
 importance. Wealth to him is no longer an end in 
 itself, but a means for securing the betterment 
 physically, mentally, morally and religiously of 
 his own family, and of the greatest number of 
 
THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 15 
 
 less fortunate families, and for securing the great- 
 est possible good to his town, state, country, or to 
 society as a whole. His own good, while recog- 
 nized as necessary for complete self- development, 
 is received after and through the good of others. 
 The reflected good from the use of wealth is his 
 motive rather than the enjoyment of its immediate 
 use. His ethical principle is seen by him as equiv- 
 alent to the golden rule, "whatsoever ye would 
 (would = ought to wish ) that men should do to 
 you, do ye even so to them; " and the true spirit of 
 self sacrifice or charity is recognized as the princi- 
 ple supplementary to justice and as the moving 
 principle in the upliftment of society. 
 
 | Whatever may be the grade of thought of the 
 individual, whether he consciously formulates an 
 ethical principle or not, his acts conform to some 
 kind of an ethical principle. And at each step 
 there is before him another possible way of acting; 
 there is before him an ideal. This ideal may be 
 rendered more clear and definite because of the ' 
 example of some one or more of soeiety; it may 
 come from a clearer conception of the manner that 
 the welfare of self may be promoted by closer con- 
 nection with the external means of development, as 
 the authority of the state, the revealed will of God 
 or of the manner that this welfare may be promoted 
 by securing greater happiness, or activity to the 
 
 -y* OP TfiB • 
 
 UMVBRSITT] 
 
16 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 self through a use of nature and society; also this 
 ideal may come from a keener insight into what is 
 meant by the personality of man, what is the object* 
 or end for which man was created, how men can 
 secure that development which is possible, because 
 of the infinite possiblities of thought, and what are 
 the definite means in the case of each individual 
 for receiving the spiritual influence of a whole race. 
 There is thus possible to the individual an ideal — : 
 an absolute ideal. This ideal is no less than per- 
 fection — perfect as a finite developing individual ; a 
 being whose thoughts originate no motives not in 
 sympathy with the better-being of all, and whose 
 will never fails to act in accordance with the good 
 of all. 
 
 With each step of the realization of an ideal 
 there is a change in that ideal; but since there are 
 infinite possibilities before the individual, progress 
 never ceases. 
 
 The progress in the application of the ethical 
 rule may be seen by comparing different and also 
 widely separated epochs of history. 
 
 Whatever may have been the ethical principle, 
 "custom," "virtue," "moderation," "happiness," 
 "will of God," " authority of the state," "conscience," 
 "something inherent in the nature of things," 
 "benevolence," "intuition," "reason," — every eth- 
 ical principle formulated in the past and present 
 
THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 17 
 
 has attempted to do the same thing, to serve as a 
 guide in the will of man. We can see in different 
 nations and peoples stages of development in the 
 application of what we have called the ethical prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 A few decades even show changes in the appli- 
 cation of the ethical rule. The " higher education " 
 of woman shows this process. Largely due to the 
 struggles and self-sacrifice of a few heroic women 
 in the early part of the present century, the gen- 
 eral sentiment of the country and the world is 
 undergoing a change in reference to the intellectual 
 ability of woman. All changes may not indicate 
 ethical progress; but any education for woman, 
 however advanced, that does not change the direc- 
 tion of development of those inherently woman - 
 characteristics which have blessed, and do bless, 
 the world must be ethical in its tendency. 
 
 The question of temperance may also be taken 
 as an illustration. While there is much oppor- 
 tunity for a difference of opinion as to the means 
 that have been used to bring about a higher ideal 
 of what constitutes a subjection of the physical 
 wants to the will, yet no one can doubt that on 
 this question a higher sentiment exists to-day than 
 existed fifty years ago. 
 
 Many illustrations might be given of like changes 
 of sentiment in reference to other questions of the 
 
18 THE ETHICAL PEINCIPLE. 
 
 day: and wherever changes have been brought 
 about in the direction of true ethical progress, it 
 would be found, could the process be traced, that 
 the beginning of such changes involved on the part 
 of one or more, labor and the yielding of one's own 
 immediate interests for the good of others to a 
 greater or less degree. 
 
 And if we notice longer periods of history, the 
 same story will be told. Take the matter of phys- 
 ical exercise, the training and development of the 
 body. The fakir of the Orient, bound by super- 
 stitions and false ideas of self-sacrifice, makes the 
 body an instrument of torture. 
 
 In the repose of the fully developed physical, 
 the Greek saw the subjection of the body to the 
 the spirit, and the beauty of this harmonious 
 development became to him the highest object of 
 attainment. 
 
 As if typifying the unseen and unknown chan- 
 nels of action, which the various institutions of 
 feudal society should follow, the cumbrous armor 
 of the knightly warriors concealed and made 
 burdensome the body whose end should be for 
 the use and not for the hindrance of the free 
 spirit. 
 
 The present day sees still another ideal for the 
 physical. The culture of the body goes alongside 
 the culture of the mind. The ideal does not 
 
THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 19 
 
 demand the exercise of the gymnasium as an end 
 in itself, that the body may receive the complete 
 development demanded by Greek art, nor the 
 athletic strength that the championship of base 
 ball, foot ball or boat race demands, but such phys- 
 ical culture as produces a sound body, that thereby 
 greater physical and mental strength may be 
 expended for the good of society. 
 
 And, again, the different customs of nations in 
 reference to slavery, serve as an illustration of 
 the progress in the application of the ethical 
 principle. . ►, .,,- 
 
 Even the conception of Absolute Good held by 
 Plato, did not prevent him from arranging his ideal 
 state with classes of menials and slaves. The Roman 
 triumph was not complete without the captives of 
 war becoming slaves. And in the customs of the 
 feudal system, it is difficult to tell which was man 
 and which was land. 
 
 The conception of each man's complete owner- 
 ship and control of his own body has been of slow 
 growth. Our own nation has witnessed a most 
 Violent struggle necessary to carry the idea of per- 
 sonal freedom, ownership of self, into effect. The 
 ethics of nearly all nations now insist that the 
 good of the state is better secured by the free- 
 dom of all than by the slavery of some of the 
 members. 
 
20 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 And a similar change in the direction of greater 
 realization of freedom may be seen in the method 
 of the government of the State. Patriarchal gov- 
 ernment, petty rulers, suzerains, absolute monarchs 
 and pure democracies are for the most part among 
 the things of the past. Even in the most perfectly 
 organized representative form of government of the 
 present day evils are abundant. But the form of 
 such a government, at least, grants opportunity to 
 the members of the state for a self- development in 
 freedom. 
 
 The life of an individual may show change, 
 progress; that progress is slow when compared 
 with the possibilities of development. And how 
 much less rapid ateo are the changes in institutions 
 of society ! Even a life of most mature culture and 
 most noble acts shows a great incompleteness, when 
 compared with the possible development of that 
 individual. And since m the very individuality of— 
 the person, there is the power to resist the environ- 
 ment, or to make it subservient to-ih^-self, a capa- 
 bility of persistence under change and at the same 
 time capability to so react upon the-self that the 
 self is thereby self-produced, what is there to indi- 
 cate that this process of self- making ever ceases f 
 Failure to adapt one's self to his environment pro- 
 duces death, it is said; but if & e~ Be lf is his own 
 environment, the adaptation is always possible to a 
 
THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 21 
 
 greater or less degree depending upon the strength 
 of the individuali|£. J&d if the individual makes 
 himself, and if there are before him infinite possi- 
 bilities of development, why do not these very facts 
 presuppose the immortality of the individual ?j That 
 the history of institutions of society is a record 
 of the beginning of an eternal process of develop- 
 ment? 
 
22 THE ETHICAL PKINCIPLE. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE INSTITUTIONS OF SOCIETY: THE FAM- 
 ILY, THE SCHOOL, THE STATE AND THE 
 CHURCH; IN ALL HIS RELATIONS IN 
 THESE INSTITUTIONS, THE INDIVIDUAL 
 MAY EXEMPLIFY THE ETHICAL PRIN- 
 CIPLE. 
 
 From earliest years the thoughts and deeds of 
 the individual are instigated aDd re -enforced by 
 those around him. The child is born into the 
 family: the kind of family is altogether beyond the 
 choice of the individual. The child of the savage 
 and of the most cultured and refined parents has 
 in each case the potentialities of a human soul. 
 The self activity of each has certain tendencies 
 through heredity; but the family life does much to 
 shape the direction of development. The child 
 learns in the family the use of language, habits of 
 order and obedience, the manner of conducting him- 
 self toward other members of the family and society. 
 Unless the child learns to subordinate his will to the 
 will of those older and wiser, he either must learn this 
 lessen through a humilating process later in life, or 
 he will fail to render that amount of assistance to 
 society that would have been otherwise possible. 
 
THE INSTITUTIONS OF SOCIETY. 28 
 
 The training of the family should enable the 
 child to make a successful transition from a state 
 of mere obedience and customary goodness, to a 
 conscious application of the ethical rule in this lim- 
 ited sphere of his activity. 
 
 The school, as an institution of society, has not 
 the same fundamental character as the family, or 
 state, or church. It is a voluntary institution, and 
 its work can be done, though less adequately, in 
 one of the other institutions. The instruction of 
 the school is designed to supplement and extend 
 the training begun in the family. Whatever the 
 kind of school, its especial assistance to the indi- 
 vidual lies in the degree to which the activity of 
 the child and youth is called forth and turned into 
 such channels that his deeds harmonize with the 
 true development of others. _ 
 
 Every child is born into a State just as truly as 
 into a family. This State may be merely patriar- 
 chal, or it may be communal, or it may be a well- 
 organized monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, or re- 
 public. Whatever the form of the State, the child- 
 life begins in a more or less inclusive organic unity 
 — and this unity, in however feeble a degree, shows 
 the functions and relations of the most highly de- 
 veloped and organized State. The State presents 
 the. widest possible sphere for the activities of the 
 individual^ The innumerable relations of social, 
 
24 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 civil, industrial, and political life inhere in this 
 organic unity. The extent to which the individual 
 enters into any or all of these relations depends 
 upon the strength of his individuality. He may 
 enter into the thought and purposes of the whole 
 only sufficiently to call upon the sympathies of the 
 other members of the State, and the State, recog- 
 nizing his possibilities as a human being, expresses 
 its thought of justice in support at the almshouse 
 or some other fitting public institution. 
 
 The individual may enter 6imply into industrial 
 and very limited social relations with others. The 
 State attempts to establish such conditions that an 
 equilibrium of rights may be preserved; in the 
 social relations, that there may be freedom of com- 
 munion and friendly intercourse; and in the indus- 
 trial relations, freedom to each one in his own kind 
 of activity, both in placing in the world's market 
 that energy of brain or muscle, and the products of 
 these powers, and in receiving from that market an 
 exact equivalent for the expended energy. 
 
 The individual may enter not only the social and 
 industrial but also into all forms of civil and poli- 
 tical relations; in these relations one may so tho- 
 roughly enter into the thoughts and purposes of 
 the whole that he may, through the strength of his 
 individuality, reflect the will of many; but the State, 
 recognizing the limitations of the human mind, 
 
THE INSTITUTIONS OE SOCIETY. 25 
 
 marks out the channels beyond which one may not 
 go in g the exercise of municipal, state or national 
 rights and duties. 
 
 While all these avenues of assistance are open to 
 the individual, he may disregard all the conditions 
 for entering into even the least of them, and 
 through his wicked deeds, destroy his connections 
 with the true unity of the State; the State then 
 must still allow him to receive his own deeds, and 
 so makes known the fact that the individual has 
 separated himself from society, by shutting him up 
 in prison, or, if he has completely severed the union 
 with other" *>y faking the life of another without 
 justifying circumstances, the State m uot sti l l p lac e 
 upon him his deeds and take his life. 
 
 The State or Nation, into however many parts it 
 may be divided for convenience at any time of its 
 development, is an institution of all people. The 
 ideal church is also an institution that includes all 
 souls; the real church, or the church at any given 
 point of history, includes only those who voluntar- 
 ily enter into union and receive into their wills the 
 principles of the Divine Second Person. The indi- 
 vidual may enter into the visible or historic church 
 by expressing his willingness to coniform to the 
 established beliefs, forms and creeds; a person 
 enters the invisible church whenever, in the true 
 Christ spirit, he sacrifices his selfish desires and 
 
26 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 interests to help some other soul into a larger and 
 better life. 
 
 The fundamental principle of the visible and the 
 invisible church is the same — the nurture of souls 
 into a life of divine love and holiness; and the 
 individual who enters the church places himself in 
 a position to receive na an if old, spiritual influences, 
 and to contribute his share to the upbuilding of a 
 spiritual kingdom. The work of the church is 
 fcktts not contrary or antagonistic to the work of 
 the State, but each in its own way helps the indi- 
 vidual in his work of self- development.! 
 
THE STATE. ; 27 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE STATE* AS A MORAL PERSONALITY 
 PROTECTS THE INDIVIDUAL AND ALSO 
 SECURES TO THE INDIVIDUAL THE OP- 
 PORTUNITY FOR FULL SELF-DEVELOP- 
 MENT 
 
 A. NATURE OF THE STATE; AND GENERAL LINES OF 
 STATE ACTION. 
 
 A, nation is not a mere aggregation of individuals, 
 but a consicious moral personality. The conscious 
 life of a nation is continuous ; the unity of its organic 
 structure becomes more evident from generation to 
 generation. A nation is all-inclusive; all members 
 of society are in the organic unity. While a 
 nation as in the child- stage of development, a rude 
 savage, wandering people, the unity of thought is 
 manifested on very low planes, a union sufficient to 
 provide in a meager way for the physical needs. 
 But as a nation reaches a more complete stage 
 of development, the diversified wants and interests 
 show a varied and yet comprehensive unity of pur- 
 pose and life. 
 
 * The thoughts as to the character of the State are 
 largely obtained from Mulford's " The Nation," 
 
28 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 External surroundings, climate, geographical 
 position, character of soil, etc., do much to regu- 
 late the size of a nation, but the external circum- 
 stances determine neither the size nor character of 
 a people. The direction and extent of the develop- 
 ment of a nation are determined by the people 
 themselves. The inherent differences of thought 
 and character of a French people and a German 
 people, preserve a French nation and a German 
 nation in spite of the geographical proximity. 
 Even after centuries of enforced union does not the 
 same fact present itself in reference to Ireland and 
 England? 
 
 While a nation is in the patriarchal stage it is 
 difficult to distinguish the family from the state; 
 the difference is in the functions, and not necessar- 
 ily in the number or variety of members. The 
 work of an individual as member of the state is 
 different from that as member of a family. In 
 comparison with the state, the family presents a 
 narrow field for action, even in the early develop- 
 ment of the state. \ The stronger individuality 
 becomes a leader or ruler, and minor officers or 
 helpers soon arise and some form of government is 
 established. This primitive people may pass 
 through many stages, as the communal, aristocrati- 
 cal, feudal, monarchial, democratic, and yet pre- 
 serve its original characteristics, its unity of 
 
THE STATE. 29 
 
 purpose which made it a nation from the begin- 
 ning. Our own nation may serve as an illustration. 
 When did the United States begin as a nation? 
 The adoption of the Federal constitution was a 
 step in the process. Is it not also generally 
 recognized now, that the civil war with its results 
 was also another evidence of the underlying unity of, 
 thought in our nation ? And can it be said even 
 now that the unity of thought that must have 
 existed from the beginning of the nation, is fully 
 made real on the will-side, or in the phases of prac- 
 tical intercourse in the political and industrial 
 relations ? But who can tell when the unity of 
 thought which binds our nation began? That 
 underlying thought is freedom — religious, political, 
 freedom of body, and industrial freedom. Did it 
 begin with the company at Plymouth, at Delft 
 Haven, or in resistance to the tyranny of the Eng- 
 lish monarch ? Or did our nation become a nation 
 at some point in the colonial history — the confed- 
 eracy of New England, the resistance to the stamp 
 act, the declaration of independence, the signing of 
 the articles of confederation? The beginnings are 
 beyond analysis, but the nation's existence is no 
 less evident, and its reality and strength is in the 
 thought and purpose that is manifested in different 
 degrees of intensity in its different stages of 
 development. And each nation that has existed 
 
30 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 shows in the history of its life some conscious or 
 ruling thought which directs the energies of the 
 nation as a whole. 
 
 As the essence of the individual will is freedom, 
 so the foundation of the nation is in freedom. The 
 true freedom of the individual is made real only as 
 the individual thinks, loves, and acts in accordance 
 with truth and goodness; so a nation is only filling 
 its true place in history as it attempts to establish 
 conditions in which each individual may realize the 
 highest possibilities of his being. A system of 
 caste, as in India, only allows a few to find out the 
 power of their own thought. A monarch like Louis 
 XIV., crushes the expression of individuality in 
 nearly all the members of the state. The strength 
 and ruggedness of a Germanic barbarian horde 
 shows the human will undisciplined by righteous 
 customs and laws. Holland, under William of 
 Orange, shows a nation realizing religious freedom. 
 Since the emancipation proclamation of '63 and 
 the fifteenth amendment of our Constitution, our 
 nation shows a race rejoicing in freedom of owner- 
 ship of their own bodies, and in nominal political 
 freedom. 
 
 v — 
 
 Each step of the realization of the potentialities 
 of a human being or of a nation, is the expression 
 of the rights of that being or nation. The indi- 
 vidual or nation has these rights because of per- 
 
 
THE STATE. 31 
 
 sonality; all rights that inhere in the will of man 
 are natural rights. Some of these rights are ren- 
 dered positive by expression in the laws of a nation; 
 others are expressed only in manners and customs. 
 A man has certain rights by virtue of his existence, 
 and these cannot be taken from him without a 
 destruction of life, i Other rights become mani- 
 fested because of strength of individuality-; these 
 rights may be expressed without a violation of jus- 
 tice, unless the assertion of these rights takes away 
 the essential rights of another; or, these rights 
 which might be expressed because of great indi- . 
 viduality may remain as thoughts in the mind, and 
 the formal expression be voluntarily checked. 
 
 In union with others in the nation, the individual 
 has the widest opportunity of expressing his rights. 
 The nation as a whole guards and protects the 
 rights of the different members and classes, and 
 secures ever-widening channels for the expression of 
 these- rights. In the power of the thought of the 
 whole, in its self- direction, rests the sovereignty of 
 the nation. This sovereignty, or the conscious 
 self-determination of the nation, organizes, directs, 
 sustains, and regulates the various relations of men 
 with men. It considers the relation of the " gifts 
 of nature " — land, water, etc. — to the wants of men, 
 and attempts to secure to all an impartial use of 
 its domain. 
 
32 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 The true sovereignty rests in the thought and 
 will of the people as a whole. In governments 
 that are not truly democratic or truly representa- 
 tive the external manifestations of sovereignty, or 
 power, often rest with one or with a few. The 
 more nearly absolute the power of the ruler, the 
 more the probability that the rights of the indi- 
 vidual or of classes will be disregarded and ignored. 
 
 The exercise and enjoyment of the individual 
 rights of the nineteenth century represent a long 
 struggel of the past centuries, in which the many 
 have contended for their rights against the selfish 
 absorption of those rights by the one or by the few. 
 In the Orient, correspondent to the lack of a dis- 
 tinct idea of personality, the struggle is for the 
 rights of one caste as against another caste, as in 
 India; or even one nation is apparently merged 
 into another nation, as when the Jews were made 
 captive by the Assyrians. 
 
 In Greece, while a learned few had a true con- 
 ception of the personality of man, for the most 
 part the people did not look upon themselves each 
 as a unit necessary to the nation as a whole; there- 
 fore the struggle for rights was that of one city 
 against another city, as the contest for supremacy 
 between Athens and Sparta. 
 
 The Roman world represents another phase in 
 the conscious apprehension of what constitutes the 
 
THE STATE. 33 
 
 rights of the individual. An equality in the light 
 of the established law is the watchword of Roman 
 civilization, hence the great desire and honor of 
 becoming a Roman citizen. But the process of the 
 assertion of fundamental rights, whether recog- 
 nized by the established code or not, changed and 
 rechanged the form of the government of Rome; 
 this process began with the withdrawal of the 
 plebeans to the Aventine and culminated in the 
 social war, B. C. 90.* 
 
 The teachings of Christ enforced the thought of 
 individual responsibility with greater emphasis than 
 it had been taught before in the history of the world. 
 The positive command, "follow thou me," and the 
 impressive, " Thou art the man,'' have been a con- 
 tinual lesson, at least for the will- side of the human 
 mind, as to the significance of true personality. 
 This thought over- reached itself in two extremes in 
 the ten or twelve hundred years following the advent 
 of Christ; the early monks and ascetics, failing to 
 recognize the means necessary for the development 
 of individuality, shut themselves away from the es- 
 tablished channels of spiritual communication, and 
 so became mere dwarfs compared with the personal- 
 ities they might have been; on the other hand, the 
 later popes, filled with the idea of the importance 
 
 * Fiske's " American Political Ideas," p. 79. 
 
34 
 
 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 of the one individual, desired to absorb not only all 
 spiritual power but also all temporal power into 
 the one person. 
 
 But the thought of individual responsibility, 
 when united with the wild freedom inherent in the 
 Germanic mind, produced characters such as, in 
 the many struggles of the last six centuries for 
 individual rights, the arbitrary power of the one 
 ruler, or of a few lords, has not been able to with- 
 stand. Each of these centuries tells its own story; 
 the scene at Runnymede, with different settings, has 
 been enacted over and over again. Significant among 
 the early struggles was that made evident by the 
 Wat Tyler insurrection; "two of the instruments 
 by which man attains his freedom" — the right of 
 freedom of contract and the right of private owner- 
 ship in property — were slowly receiving recognition 
 and outward expression. The grand fiery outbursts 
 of Luther proclaimed to the world the beginning 
 of the era of religious freedom. 
 
 In the later centuries it is difficult to find a 
 decade that does not tell of at least a minor triumph 
 of individual rights over extreme concentration of 
 power. The desire for expression of individuality 
 may become mere individualism as in the French 
 revolution; or this desire may become a quiet and 
 persistent demand for just and legitimate rights, as 
 when William and Mary were forced to grant the 
 
THE STATE. 35 
 
 1 'bill of rights" in 1688; or again, a revolutionary 
 war may be necessary to establish conditions under 
 which an attempt at securing religious, political, 
 and industrial liberty, may be made. 
 
 The struggle for the rights of the many as 
 against the few is not yet over. With a higher 
 and higher grade of education for society as a 
 whole, there will be a deeper recognition of the 
 power inherent in the individual, and this progress 
 will be indicated by a demand for a larger and larger 
 scope for the exercise of this activity. No limita- 
 tion except that which comes from finiteness can 
 thus be placed upon the rights that are natural to 
 the human mind. When the nature aDd scope of 
 the rights expressing series of complex relations of 
 the members of society, become positive through a 
 definite expression in law, then there exists a 
 standard by which an infringement of the rights of 
 another may be measured and punished. The 
 struggles of different epochs, noticed above as illus- 
 trations, show the point of time at which these 
 rights received that definite expression in law. 
 The ideal standard for this expression in law is 
 that perfect justice shall be secured to all. Since 
 man is a being eternally progressive, the steps in 
 historical progress can only show an approximation 
 to this ideal. The thought of any one generation 
 cannot grasp all the elements that go to make 
 
36 
 
 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 perfect justice for a human being, and, what is 
 even more difficult, any one generation cannot so 
 arrange the conditions that beings endowed with 
 free wills shall develop, in freedom, and not at the 
 same time destroy the results of the freedom of 
 others. With such an ideal justice as the most 
 comprehensive insight of the wisest can grasp, one 
 generation builds upon the experience of the preced 
 ing generations, and expresses these, broader con- 
 ceptions of justice in the ever-changing laws of the 
 nation. 
 
 These broader conceptions, when expressed in 
 law, become plainly evident to all, and about the 
 final triumphant struggle in each instance there is 
 no doubt ; but is the process by which these victor- 
 ies iu favor of individual rights are gained, always 
 so clearly seen? However this process may be 
 designated, in this process is the initial strength 
 and the potentialities of all the results. It may be 
 said that an abuse of power by the one, or by the 
 few, leads to a revolt against tyranny. That is 
 without doubt a step in the process. But how is the 
 uprising brought about? There is in the human 
 mind a natural inertia and a reverence for estab- 
 lished customs that tend to keep man in his present 
 condition. Is not the process of changing these 
 customs always the same, traced with greater or 
 less clearness by the historian ? The one or the 
 
THE STATE. 37 
 
 few in a given epoch see what ' ; ought to be " for 
 the different members of society, and voluntarily 
 set about establishing such conditions that the 
 " ought to be " becomes the " is." And this always 
 involves labor, self sacrifice, and perhaps the vol- 
 untary yielding of life itself, before the ideas take 
 deep root in the heads and hearts of a sufficient 
 number to constitute public opinion. The man 
 with a strong insight into what ought to be for 
 society, may see a condition that can only come 
 with years or perhaps centuries of labor. The true 
 reformer joins a practical judgment with insight, 
 and attempts to fit upon present conditions changes 
 for the immediate future. His aspirations are for 
 the betterment of society; he includes others than 
 self. He sees the real condition of others, he sees 
 the attainable ideal; he strives to make the ideal the 
 real. He must ' arouse in those about him a con- 
 ception of what they ought to be. He must meet the 
 conservatism of established opinions ; he suffers for 
 "conscience's sake." He perhaps yields his place 
 to another without seeing one of the principles for 
 which he has labored and sacrificed, firmly estab- 
 lished as "rights of the people." But since the 
 human mind is as it is, could the result have been 
 achieved without such work and sacrifice by some 
 one ? However mingled may be the motives, what 
 but " the good of others," the preference of reflected 
 
38 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 good for immediate good, can produce such results ? 
 Is it not an exemplification of grace, true charity, 
 the complement of the expressions of justice in 
 law? 
 
 Any of the epochs of history characterized as 
 periods of change, revolutions, "cession of rights," 
 might be taken as illustrations. The difficulty 
 of determining and analyzing motives, the 
 "mighty silent forces," presents an obstacle to 
 such study. Most historians are concerned with 
 the external battles, the battles of arms, and pass 
 over in silence the battles in the souls of the real 
 leaders in the conflict. However hidden, these 
 motives are the moving principles of progress in 
 the development of the state; when these thoughts 
 are established in customs and formulated in the 
 laws, it is comparatively easy to understand and 
 interpret the position and progress of a nation. 
 
 Justice is then the fundamental principle of the 
 state or nation. The state, in its organized forms 
 of expression, has nothing to do with the motives 
 of the individuals comprising the organic whole. 
 The state measures the external act, and its 
 province is to see that the acts of each are in 
 accordance with the true freedom of all. While 
 the state in its sphere of justice does not concern 
 itself with the motives, yet it recognizes that the 
 ideal for the State is such an agreement between 
 
THE STATE. 39 
 
 motive and act that the highest good of all shall be 
 realized. But, as we have seen, there is no other 
 way by which this conformity of motive and act 
 can be brought about, except by a process of edu- 
 cation and development of each individual. This 
 is the fact that has been so often ignored in the at- 
 tempts to place in an external form of government 
 such schemes as extreme state socialism, commuism, 
 etc, — schemes whose fundamental principles from 
 their nature cannot be fully externalized in organ- 
 ized form, but must remain as motives and indi- 
 vidual acts. In so far as true socialistic thoughts 
 and 'feelings exist, they become in time expressed 
 in acts which modify the form of government by 
 obtaining an expression more nearly in justice to 
 all members of the state. 
 
 But when the attempt is for socialistic form of 
 government when the spirit of the people is not ■ 
 truly socialistic, directly opposite results are 
 obtained. For when the State attempts to arrange 
 the machinery of government as if all the members 
 were actuated by a single purpose, and that pur- 
 pose the highest good of humanity, when in reality 
 the wills of the people are not so disposed, instead 
 of an exemplification of this principle in the lives 
 of the members of the State, these individuals 
 would.be in the condition of the opposite extreme; 
 that is, they would really be cut off from the 
 
40 THE ETHICAL PBINICPLE. 
 
 organic unity, would be in the same condition as if 
 they had shut themselves up in pride and self- 
 exclusion, because the form of government had 
 taken away the opportunity for each one to realize 
 his own individuality by the exercise of will in 
 freedom. The problem then is, how to arrange 
 the machinery of government so that the State 
 assists, by its expressions of justice, the develop- 
 ment of true individuality in all its members. 
 
 While in the social organism, "each part is 
 reciprocally means and end to every other part," 
 the extent to which the other members of society 
 are a means and end to the individual, and 'the 
 individual to the others, depends upon the attitude 
 of the individual to the other members, and of the 
 whole to the individual. In general there are 
 three attitudes which society presents to the indi- 
 vidual, whether expressed in the form of written 
 law or not. 
 
 ( 1 ) The other members may say to the one 
 member: " What you do you shall have, and what 
 we do we shall have, each for himself, and in so 
 doing we shall all obtain what is our due, and the 
 interests of the whole will be best' advanced." 
 This is the principle of individualism, which, when 
 exactly followed, is the principle of justice. And 
 if each one receives justly what is his due, then 
 the organic unity through its institutions has 
 
THE STATE. 41 
 
 nothing to do in establishing justice, and the mem- 
 bers of the organism which have sufficient individ- 
 uality to receive their own deeds, .survive, and 
 those who through their position, either because of 
 circumstances or inheritance, are not strong enough 
 to produce such thoughts or acts as shall return to 
 them for good, must perish, while the " fittest " 
 because of great individuality, have the best places 
 in the organism, because, having greater inherent 
 power, they can receive more. 
 
 ( 2 ) Owing to the desires of the flesh and 
 weakness of the thought and will, society does not 
 keep the attitude of " individualism " toward the 
 one member. The rights. of others mingle and 
 intersect the rights of one at so many points that 
 there is a struggle and the one is forcibly deprived 
 of his rights by the many. Society is thus antago- 
 nistic to the individual, and the individual no longer 
 thinks and feels in union with the whole. This 
 is the condition of revolution or anarchy, or, in its 
 effects upon the individual, of extreme State social- 
 ism. "With this difference, the condition of anarchy 
 results from too little assistance to the individual from 
 society, and state socialism does too much ; but in 
 either case, although for different reasons, the individ- 
 ual does not enter into the thoughts and purposes of 
 the whole, the anarchist eventually, because he will 
 not, the extreme nationalist because he cannot. 
 
42 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 ( 3 ) The third attitude which society may have 
 toward the individual is that of helpfulness, or 
 the condition of true socialism — a socialism in sub- 
 stance, a socialism in the soul, in the motives of 
 the individual, and not merely in state -form. 
 Society in this attitude recognizes that the whole 
 is stronger than the individual member or any 
 part or class in society, and it recognizes that 
 assistance given to a member, or to a class, in 
 order that the weaker portions may have an 
 opportunity to develop their activities, not only 
 increases the thought and will power of that por- 
 tion of society, but also the power of the whole. 
 The granting of the assistance to the weaker mem- 
 bers may be simply justice to them, but in the 
 others who give their assistance it is something 
 more thaD justice, it is a voluntary giving up of 
 something which they might have themselves, and 
 it is therefore grace or true charity. And here is 
 one of the seeming contradictions in the process of 
 human thought; this attitude of society to the 
 individual members demands that the sacrifice 
 made by the stronger for the weaker, must be for 
 the sake of the weaker, and not for the ultimate 
 return of the deed upon the self, or else the end 
 sought, the true growth of all, will not be secured. 
 
 As, in a condition of society where the principle 
 of individualism is exactly carried out there will 
 
THE STATE. 
 
 43 
 
 be perfect justice, so in a condition of society 
 where each member knows how to yield his own 
 interests sufficiently to secure the highest good of 
 all, and he voluntarily surrenders those interests 
 for the weaker portions of society, there will be 
 nothing for the State to do in expressing and 
 enforcing repressive laws; but since it is difficult 
 for any one individual or any one generation to 
 find out what will assist the varying conditions of 
 society, and since the members are not all moved 
 by the spirit- of brotherly love, the State expresses 
 not only the necessary constructive laws but also 
 repressive or protective ones, both for the sake of 
 teaching the different classes what the true inter- 
 ests of all classes are, and also to assist them to 
 curb their selfish desires. 
 
 The State can do this, because in its forms of 
 action it eliminates the possibility of expression of 
 merely personal thoughts and feelings. Its legis- 
 lators, executives, and judges, shall reflect the will 
 of the people; even its police officers and execu- 
 tioners shall not arrest and put to death that their 
 personal feelings may be gratified, but that they 
 may express the will of a higher personality than 
 themselves. Even if it must be granted that the 
 law-makers and judiciaries have not always been 
 true to the will of the people, yet a study of the 
 history of legislation in any of its phases discloses 
 
44 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPL1. 
 
 the fact that where any wise and lasting law has 
 been enacted, there has been involved to a greater 
 or less extent self- sacrifice by one or more members 
 of society. 
 
 But this principle of grace, charity, brotherly -love, 
 self-sacrifice, by whatever name it may be called, 
 does not contradict the principle of justice but is 
 its complement. The voluntary giving up for the 
 weaker by the stronger does not prevent the return 
 of the deeds of the stronger to themselves, and so 
 justice is not violated; and the sacrifice of the 
 stronger for the weaker does enable the weaker to 
 act in sympathy with the whole, and so enables 
 them to receive their own deeds and in turn to give 
 to the still weaker, and so again justice is not 
 violated. 
 
 The laws of a nation are the standards of justice 
 as expressed by the sovereign voice of the people. 
 The laws of the nation represent the intersection of 
 all the institutions of society, the family, school, 
 the church, and the organization of civil, industrial 
 and political relations as departments of the State. 
 The conscious progress of these institutions will 
 therefore be reflected in the laws. By studying 
 the changes in the laws in reference to any or all 
 of the relations of society, essentially the same 
 elements may be found in the process of change in 
 the laws that are in the line of true progress. In 
 
THE STATE. 45 
 
 the study of the ethical phases of legislation, the 
 laws may be considered from one or the other, or 
 both of two standpoints. We may consider the 
 thought, the motives of the chief originators or 
 instigators, so far as any record can be obtained, 
 and so find whether the law had an inception in 
 accordance with a reasonable ethical principle, or 
 we may consider the effects of the law upon the 
 community, or we may attempt both methods. 
 Any law which originates from a correct insight 
 into the needs of human beings, and into the 
 legitimate and necessary means of supplying those 
 needs, or, in other words, any law which is truly 
 ethical in its origin must be ethical in its results. 
 On the other hand, laws originated from merely 
 selfish desires, often are truly ethical in their 
 results when a series of years are considered. In 
 a consideration, then, of the inception of a law, 
 that is, the process of forming public opinion, the 
 kinds of rights expressed and defined in a law, and 
 the effects of a law upon the community or state, 
 there are found the spheres of justice and grace 
 in their relations one to the other, when externalized 
 in society. 
 
 A few examples taken from the laws of our own 
 country will serve as illustrations. There are two 
 general classes of laws of a country, whether the 
 laws of the nation or commonwealth are considered: 
 
46 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 protective laws and constructive laws. A construc- 
 tive law is protective, but also positively helpful to 
 one or more classes of society; a protective law is 
 negatively helpful, that is, it preserves to people 
 the " right of life, liberty [formal freedom] and the 
 pursuit of happiness." In a protective law we find 
 an illustration of justice simply; in a constructive 
 law we may study the relations of justice to grace. 
 (1) A protective law makes explicit rights that be- 
 long to man because of existence. A construc- 
 tive law defines and makes evident rights which 
 enable a man to determine himself as a free person- 
 ality: (2) some of these rights are fundamental and 
 necessary for man to develop in independence in 
 union with other men; (3) other rights are desir- 
 able, and their expression assists to a higher devel- 
 opment of individuality in each and all members of 
 society. While the facts and structure of the 
 human mind determine largely what are the spe- 
 cific rights, and therefore the character of the laws 
 which define the first two classes ( 1 ) ( 2 ) of rights, 
 the rights of the third (3) kind can only be deter- 
 mined by a wise insight into the nature and limit 
 of the first two. and a patient study of the past to 
 discover the effects of limiting the possible power 
 of one class in society for the sake of the develop- 
 ment of another class. 
 
 When that remarkable committee went into the 
 
THE STATE. 47 
 
 three months' session in Philadelphia it was for a 
 consideration of this very question; how to adjust 
 the rights of the commonwealths to a federal gov- 
 ernment. The rights of the first two classes were 
 more completely defined in existing laws of other 
 countries and of the colonies than those of the third 
 class; but the former, together with the elements of 
 the third class of rights already defined, needed to 
 be gathered into one compact document — a written 
 constitution. 
 
 And the fact of a written constitution was not 
 entirely new. The very external form shows that 
 same process of struggle in the past, the effort and 
 self-sacrifice of some one. The over-cautious Crom- 
 well, though seeking and striving for freedom, could 
 only recognize it as coming in one channel, and so 
 he refused to listen to the entreaties of young Sir 
 Harry Vane to adopt a written constitution, and 
 the world waited more than a century and a 
 quarter for a successful attempt to regulate 
 the rights of the people by a written federal con- 
 stitution. 
 
 In the following brief illustrations let us notipe, 
 first, one or two protective measures, and second, 
 examples of measures necessarily constructive be- 
 cause of the nature of free-will and man's material 
 environment, and third, measures that the processes 
 of time and experience have proved constructive of 
 
48 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 true individuality, and therefore constructive of 
 national growth and development. 
 
 Congress shall have power to declare war — the 
 war may be aggressive, retaliatory, or a war of con- 
 quest — of whatever kind,' this expressed right says 
 that a nation may, according to its conception of 
 justice, protect itself, may react upon a neighbor- 
 ing people and return their own deeds to them, 
 may even extend its sway over surrounding terri- 
 tory on the ground, that, since a superior civiliza- 
 tion will be offered to the conquered people, no 
 principle of justice will be violated. 
 
 The privilege of the writ of hapeas corpus ex- 
 presses the right that each man has to acknowledge 
 his own acts in the presence of his fellow- men, and 
 to receive the verdict of his judges as if it were the 
 voices of the injured parties. That the writ of 
 hapeas corpus may be suspended in the time of 
 danger, is an attempt to approximate justice. That 
 the power of suspension of the " writ of hapeas 
 corpus " should rest in the English Parliament is a 
 constructive measure in that it indicates that the 
 experience of the past had shown the danger of 
 giving that power into the hands of a monarch. 
 
 Protective measures are oftener expressed in sta- 
 tute law than in constitutional law; all legislation 
 simply penal for infringements upon life or pro- 
 perty, police regulations, provisions for standing 
 
THE STATE. 49 
 
 armies, and perhaps one aspect of laws respecting 
 taxation, are of this nature. 
 
 But, besides the just return to the gpvernment 
 for its protective offices, laws in reference to taxa- 
 tion show also the constructive power resting fa. the 
 government of a nation. No better illustration 
 could be found than the experience of the colonies 
 as contrasted with early days after the adoption of 
 the federal constitution. By reason of the lack of 
 a unified system of appropriations, the colonies 
 often failed to contribute just shares towards the 
 expenses incident to the Revolutionary war and to 
 maintaining the government. When it was recog- 
 nized that the power of demanding this pecuniary 
 support is inherent in the central government, new 
 life and strength was infused into the weakened 
 organism.* 
 
 Or, must we consider that the fact that the gov- 
 ernment must have money for organization and 
 equipment, that the people may thereby secure 
 better conditions for self development, the only 
 ground for the justification of taxation? Is not 
 the payment of taxes the form of recognition by all 
 others of the right that each has to private owner- 
 ship in property ? And what is meant by private 
 ownership? Its legal side is the recognition of 
 government indicated above, but does not the fact 
 *Fiske's "Civil Government in the Uuited States," 
 
50 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 of this recognition show that the right is inherent 
 in man, and the expression in laws is only the mak- 
 ing evident what already exists ? For land, water, 
 etc., "natural agents" are as much "gifts" as the 
 will of man is, and no more. 
 
 Man's thought is his own; he energizes, deter- 
 mines his development, that is, his thought must 
 become real on the will-side of his being. The 
 " natural agents " are man's material environment, 
 by which he expresses his free determinations. 
 The fact of his will, his energy, gives him the right 
 of indicating how, that is, the direction in which 
 that energy shall employ itself — the right of free- 
 dom of contract. The fact of the existence of a 
 material environment shows on what this free will 
 shall be exercised. And as it is each one's will — 
 my will that determines, so it is my material en- 
 vironment on which only my will can express itself 
 with a sure return of the deeds to the self. Own- 
 ership by all without regard to each individual, is 
 not true self-ownership, that ownership without 
 which man cannot express his will in freedom. 
 The two — the right of contract and of private own- 
 ership in property — are the fundamental rights 
 that must be regulated by government, rights fun- 
 damentally constructive, rights without which man 
 would cease to be man. 
 
 Laws establishing the conditions of ownership 
 
THE STATE. 51 
 
 and the transfer of property, laws in reference to 
 inheritance, and closely connected, laws respecting 
 taxation, render definite this right of private owner- 
 ship in property, or in person (poll tax). For if 
 the only ground for the justification of taxes is the 
 former indicated above, namely, the need of the 
 government for money that conditions of growth 
 can be secured, those conditions could be secured 
 by full ownership of all things by the government, 
 — but, by the time that the conditions were secured, 
 the people would be minus, that is, people in the 
 true sense of the word, individuals making them- 
 selves in freedom through a transformation of their 
 environment into forms suited to the w r ants of 
 humanity. Without a free, self-determining spirit, 
 government itself would soon cease to be govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The special channels of contract and the forms 
 of ownership must be changed with the progress of 
 nations. Building upon the experiences of the 
 past — imperial ownership, the use of grants ob- 
 tained for meritorious services, feudal ownership, 
 peasant proprietor, cottier system, landlord and 
 tenant, free possession of as much as one can get 
 hold of whether through inheritance, skill, or man- 
 ipulation — whatever form, each generation must 
 determine that for itself. The ideal may be " four 
 acres and a cow." But it must be one's own four 
 
52 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 acres and one's own cow, to use or transfer as he 
 may determine. But as in the past, so in the 
 future, the changes in the details of tenure must 
 be brought about by a process in freedom. The 
 excessive greed and monopolies in ownership of the 
 present time can be successfully replaced by a sys- 
 tem more nearly in justice to all, only by changing 
 the thought of the nation on this question. This 
 change will involve self-sacrifice in many, great 
 labor and a voluntary yielding of possible rights in 
 a few who take the iniative and start the current of 
 thought which must become established public 
 opinion, before the higher plane of thought can be 
 expressed in just and lasting laws. 
 
 Laws that specify punishment for infringement 
 of rights of possession and transfer are protective 
 laws, and illustrate justice only, but laws specify- 
 ing and regulating the kinds of tenure and the 
 changes therein are constructive and indicate the 
 advance of the social unity in this line of thought. 
 A law that enables the officer to take the property 
 when the payment of tax is refused, would be a 
 protective measure; but a law establishing a "pro- 
 gressive income tax " would be constructive, indi- 
 cating a higher conception of the relation of pro- 
 perty to the needs of human beings than some of 
 the present methods of levying taxes seem to in- 
 dicate. 
 
THE STATE. 53 
 
 The greater part of the laws, both constitutional 
 and statute, of a growing nation are constructive or 
 are of the above specified third class. As an un- 
 selfish devotion to one's country, or to the good of 
 society, becomes reflected in the changing laws, so 
 also may be read therein selfishness, party spirit, 
 and disregard of weak and oppressed classes. In 
 the developing nation, laws expressing the interests 
 of the few will be repealed, or will become of no 
 effect. The permanent elements are therefore best 
 seen in laws that have stood the test of time. As 
 illustrative of the advance in the standards of justice 
 from generation to generation, and of the process 
 by which this advance has been brought about, let 
 us notice in succession: Two clauses of the Consti- 
 tution; the first Amendments; the trend of thought 
 in laws in reference to education; in " poor laws"; 
 in laws regulating the conditions of prisons; in the 
 establishment of state- charities, bureaus, commis- 
 sions, etc. ; and in laws in reference to industries. 
 
 The constructive measure, "All legislative powers 
 herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the 
 United States, which shall consist of a Senate and 
 House of Eepresentatives," expresses centuries of 
 effort to establish a safe and wise form of demo- 
 cratic legislation. The date 1265, and the name of 
 the noble Earl Simoa de Montfort are sufficient to 
 indicate the nature of the process by which the one 
 
\ L 
 
 54 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 House was forced to yield some of its assumed 
 rights, that the " Commons " might have an oppor- 
 tunity to develop greater individuality. 
 
 The two- house system in the United States was 
 ushered in by an event of less historical signifi- 
 cance than the battle of Evesham, yet the story of 
 Mrs. Sherman and the stray pig in the Massachu- 
 setts colony * illustrates the external of the same 
 process — the necessity of compromise. As has been 
 said, our constitution represents a series of com- 
 promises. And what is a compromise but a volun- 
 tary yielding of possible rights for the good of 
 others ? 
 
 To attempt to give the ethical results of the 
 establishment of the representative principle, would 
 be an attempt to give the history of political free- 
 dom in England and in the United States. 
 
 And the principle of the famous Connecticut 
 compromise, whether the basis of representation 
 should be the same for both houses of the United 
 States Congress was a difficult point to determine. 
 'Neither party was willing to give way.f 'No 
 compromise for us,' said Luther Martin. ' You must 
 give each state an equal suffrage, or our business is 
 
 * Fiske's " The Beginnings of New England," pp. 
 106-108. 
 
 t Fiske's "The Critical Period of American His- 
 tory," pp. 250, 251. 
 
THE STATE. 55 
 
 at an end.' * Then we are come to a full stop,' said 
 Roger Sherman. 'I suppose it was never meant 
 that we should break up without doing something.' 
 When the question as to allowing equality of suff- 
 rage to the states in the Federal Senate was put to 
 vote the result was a tie. Connecticut, New York, 
 New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland— five states — 
 voted in the affirmative; Massachusetts, Pennsylva- 
 nia, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina — 
 five states — voted in the negative; the vote of Geor- 
 gia was divided and lost. It was Abraham Baldwin, 
 a native of Connecticut and lately a tutor in Yale 
 College, a recent emigrant to Georgia, who thus 
 divided the vote of that state, and prevented a 
 decision which would in all probability have broken 
 up the convention. His state was the last to vote, 
 and the house was hushed in anxious expectation, 
 when this brave and wise young man yielded his 
 private conviction to what he saw to be the para- 
 mount necessity of keeping the convention together. 
 All honor to his memory! " 
 
 The first eight amendments of the Constitution 
 illustrate the same thought. These eight, selected 
 out of the one hundred and eighty- nine presented 
 at the first meeting of Congress, are a "bill of rights '' 
 to the American people in a more specific way than 
 the Constitution is. Some of the provisions appear 
 under slightly different forms as early as Magna 
 
56 
 
 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 Charta, and even the provisions of the great charter 
 were formed upon the basis of the charter presented 
 by Henry the Second. Its two "essential clauses," 
 as Hallam calls them, which " 'protect the personal 
 liberty and property of all freemen, by giving secu- 
 rity from arbitrary imprisonment and arbitrary 
 spoilation, (Hallam, Middle Ages, II., p. 324) had 
 become he foundation stone upon which the fabric 
 of free government rested in England and America." 
 
 The conference on the island in the Thames 
 between Staines and Windsor is the impressive 
 scene which secured elements of justice to a wait- 
 ing nation; yet, on July 15, 1215, hours and years 
 of work and sorrow were forgotten in the glad joy 
 of the new consciousness of freedom. The energy 
 and persistence of Stephen Langton made known 
 the underlying currents which are often forgotten 
 when the victory for justice is extolled. And 
 again, in " The Petition for Right '' wrested from 
 the lawless Charles, the courage and valiant self- 
 sacrifice of a John Eliot are needed. The " Bill of 
 Rights'' of 1688 repeats the story with variations. 
 The experience of the past, and a better under- 
 standing of the principles of organization enabled 
 the patriots of England to obtain from William and 
 Mary their desires, without the violent struggles 
 that had attended similar efforts for liberty. 
 
 Two of the thoughts of the first amendment 
 
THE STATE. 57 
 
 usher us into the very process of history — " relig- 
 ious freedom" and "freedom of the press." When 
 we contemplate the negative side of religious free- 
 dom, the centuries of war, bloodshed, suffering and 
 martyrdom, the impression is that evil and not 
 grace is the potent factor in historical transforma- 
 tions! But grace still triumphs! And the nine- 
 teenth century rejoices in the relief from those 
 purgatorial woes. Nothing less than a history of 
 the Church and its relations to the State can ren- 
 der explicit the thought contained in the expression 
 "religious freedom.'' Each epoch from the time 
 of the establishment of the Church by Christ until 
 the present, has presented memorable names. 
 Even the collective names of these steadfast people 
 are sufficient to indicate the contents of volumes : 
 the apostles and early martyrs, the Albigenses, the 
 Franciscans, the Hugenots, the Manichaeans with 
 their spiritual descendants the Puritans * the Cal- 
 vinists, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the 
 Unitarians, with however mingled and perverted 
 notions, have labored diligently for the same end — 
 freedom to worship God according to the dictates 
 of the conscience. 
 
 The fundamental difference between a sin and a 
 crime obtained its first unequivocal assertion in 
 this country in separation of Church from State in 
 
 *Fiske's "Beginnings of New England," page 39. 
 
58 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 Virginia. " Unlike the Puritans of New England, 
 the Presbyterians were in favor of the total separa- 
 tion of Church from State. It was one of their 
 cardinal principles that the magistrate had no right 
 to interfere in any way with matters of religion. 
 By taking this broad ground, they secured the 
 powerful aid of Thomas Jefferson and afterward of 
 Madison and Mason. The controversy went on 
 through all the years of the Revolutionary War, 
 while all Virginia rang with fulminations and 
 arguments. In 1776, Jefferson and Mason suc- 
 ceeded in carrying a bill which released all dissent- 
 ers from parish rates and legalized all forms of 
 worship. At last, in 1785, Madison won the 
 crowning victory in the Religious Freedom Act, by 
 which the Church of England was disestablished 
 and all parish rates abolished, and still more, all 
 religious tests were done away with. In this last 
 respect Virginia came to the front among all the 
 American States, as Massachusetts had come to the 
 front in the abolition of slavery." * 
 
 During the reign of Henry VIII. , printed matter 
 was subjected to various irregular restrictions. 
 Long before this time the Romans had ordered 
 burnt libels and anything impiously written against 
 the gods. After 800 A. D., "the popes of Rome, 
 
 * Fiske: " The Critical Period of American History," 
 page 81. 
 
THE STATE. 59 
 
 engrossing what they pleased of political rule into 
 their own hands, extended their dominion over 
 men's eyes, as they had bjfore over their judg- 
 ments, burning and prohibiting to be read what 
 they fancied not." * In the reign of Elizabeth, 
 "the regulations of the Sfcar-Chamber for this pur- 
 pose are memorable, as the first step in the long 
 struggle of government after government to check 
 the liberty of printing. The irregular censorship 
 which had long existed wa^ now finally organized. 
 Printing was restricted to L )ndon and the two Uni- 
 versities, the number of printers reduced, and all 
 candidates for license to print placed under the 
 supervision of the Company of Stationers. Every 
 publication, too, great or small, had to receive the 
 approbation of the Primate or the Bishop of Lon- 
 don." t 
 
 The struggles against these restrictions upon the 
 freedom of speech have been many and severe. In 
 England, this contest assumed definite form through 
 John Wilkes, who " ventured for the first time to 
 attack a minister by name." George the Third 
 and the narrow and selfish Grenville opposed in 
 vain the spirit of devotion to liberty. The colo- 
 
 * Milton's " Areopagitica," a speech for the Liberty 
 of Unlicensed Printing. 
 
 t A Short History of the English People: J. R. 
 Green, page 467. 
 
60 
 
 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 nists, in their resistance to the stamp act, joined in 
 the general agitation. The stirring words of 
 William Pitt, the election by the people of Wilkes 
 as alderman of London, the " letters of Junius " 
 enforced upon the aristocracy the necessity of 
 yielding assumed rights. With the memory still 
 keenly alive to the encroachments of King and 
 Parliament, it is not strange that the new States 
 insisted upon the clause by which Congress is for- 
 bidden to restrict freedom of speech. 
 
 " The early Federalists endeavored to introduce 
 unusual punishments for the offence of criticising 
 either the policy of the government or the conduct 
 of officials, and the 'sedition law,' as it was termed, 
 passed during the administration of John Adams, 
 •met with the approval of the court. But the 
 reception of this law by the people emphatically 
 declared that they believed in no sort of censor- 
 ship, for the indignation which it aroused could not 
 be allayed except by the humiliating defeat of the 
 party that passed it. So far as I am aware, there 
 has been no subsequent attempt on the part of 
 civil authority to control the expression of opinion, 
 or to limit the sphere of criticism upon government 
 or upon the existing order of society."* 
 
 These few clauses of the Constitution are simply 
 
 *The Forum, July, 1886: Article by H. C. Adams, 
 1 Shall we Muzzle the Anarchists?" 
 
THE STATE. 61 
 
 illustrations of the process of construction of the 
 whole Constitution — the process by which the cor- 
 relative powers, the legislative, the executive and 
 the judicial, have been slowly formed, and so were 
 ready to be rendered definite in organic law. 
 
 Since the continuance and growth of any nation 
 depends upon the development of its members, 
 there is no inherent reason why any or all forms of 
 government should not have a part in the process 
 of education of the people; and even more than 
 that, there ;s no reason why any institution, as the 
 family, or the church, should not aid in this work 
 of education. But the question would still remain, 
 cannot some institutions and some phases of gov- 
 ernment do the work better than others ? Because 
 the state and the church have different spheres of 
 work in other respects, is the reason that they can- 
 not work harmoniously in the lines of educational 
 effort; and while the forms of the two institutions 
 will always be different, the fundamental object of 
 both in this line of work is the same, to secure con- 
 ditions of growth for human souls. And when the 
 spirit of freedom has broken down denominational 
 barriers, there is no reason why the work of educa- 
 tion may not be carried on by both church and 
 state. 
 
 But as it is not in the province of the church to 
 set up a law, a standard of compulsion, the work of 
 
62 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 education can be done better by the state. If it 
 were not for the natural desire of the human being 
 to remain in his present condition, the work of 
 education might perhaps be left in the care of the 
 family. But the work of education is the planting 
 of new thoughts, new ideals, and if the father and 
 mother have not the thoughts to pass on to the 
 children, other families must supply that lack or 
 else there. is deterioration in the organism. And it 
 might be left to the voluntary assistance of one 
 family to another, and so remain in the sphere of 
 the private relations of society. But here again 
 the question presents itself: Is that the best way? 
 And even if it is granted that the order and system 
 of government are needed to render the work of 
 education effective, there is still the alternative — 
 the federal or the state government? 
 
 Without doubt the process of the realization of 
 the National Unity has been in history first local, 
 then the commonwealth, then the nation; but if 
 the Unity is the underlying thought, the purpose, 
 the logical order is the opposite — that is, the nation 
 is the essential determining power. But as it is 
 difficult to determine in the case of the individual 
 what possible rights may be yielded for the sake of 
 others in society, so it is difficult to tell which 
 government, federal, state, county, town or munic- 
 ipal can best frame or execute measures that 
 
THE STATE. 63 
 
 shall secure justice to all. Education is one of the 
 questions that concerns this border line of author- 
 ity. Besides the question of education Mulford 
 {The Nation, p. 297) also places the following on 
 this border line: " The powers " in reference "to 
 divorce," "to the resident qualifications of an elec- 
 tor, and to the militia as a local or constabulary 
 force." 
 
 What has been done and with what results, 
 always assists in determining future actions. In our 
 own country we find that the Federal government, 
 and the state governments, with all the minor 
 phases, have united in this most important of all 
 governmental work. The colonies assisted private 
 schools by money from taxation and by grants of 
 land, even before a system of public schools could 
 be sustained. The Federal government gave its 
 first assistance in a land grant; this bill "known as 
 the • ordinance of 1 787 for the government of the 
 Northwest Territory,' insured to the State of Ohio 
 two townships of land for the support of a univer- 
 sity." * Other land grants, provisions for experi- 
 ment stations, military and naval academies, library, 
 Smithsonian Institution and National Museum, and 
 the establishment of the United States Bureau of 
 
 * " The History of Federal and State Aid to Higher 
 Education in the United States," by F. W. Blackmar, 
 page 43. 
 
64 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 Education have all been in the line of Federal Aid 
 to Education. 
 
 The defeat of the Blair Education Bill seemed to 
 confirm the opinion hitherto held that the States 
 can support and manage the details of the public 
 school system better than the Federal government. 
 
 To find out the ethical results of our public 
 school system is a hopeless task. Some idea of the 
 superiority of such a system which provides oppor- 
 tunity for so nearly free and universal education, 
 might be seen by comparing countries having 
 different systems; for instance, the results of the 
 system of the United States with that of England, 
 where public education as a system was not estab- 
 lished by law until 1870, and then only for the 
 lower grades; or, the system of the United States 
 with that of Spain, where the church for the most 
 part still controls education. 
 
 To show the great opportunities for education 
 for all classes and conditions of people in the 
 United States, it is sufficient to indicate a few of 
 the most recent lines of assistance given by the 
 states. Not only may the children of rich and 
 poor receive instruction in the various grades, 
 including high schools, but in more than twenty 
 states children from four or five to thirteen or 
 fourteen (varying in different states) must attend 
 school a certain number of weeks in the year, in 
 
THE STATE. 65 
 
 Massachusetts and Connecticut twenty being 
 required. Also in some cities free kindergartens 
 and industrial education for some of the public 
 school grades have been established. In offering to 
 the youth of the land this industrial training, the 
 state recognizes the necessity of a symmetrical 
 development of all the powers of mind and body; 
 also the necessity of correct ideas of the dignity of 
 labor; and while the state in this kind of training 
 does not attempt to teach "trades," it hopes to 
 train the eye and hand, to make familiar the use 
 of tools and instruments and ingredients, and so 
 to prepare the youth for a successful transition 
 from school life to the more active industrial life. 
 That the state should provide to a reasonable 
 extent for the needs of its poor and unfortunate 
 classes, is grounded in the fact of the organic unity 
 of society. The thoughts and sympathies of these 
 classes mingle only to a very slight extent in the 
 thought and purposes of the nation. But when 
 properly fed, clothed and sheltered, there is a pos- 
 sibility for the development of a greater degree of 
 individuality, at least such a development on the will 
 side as will restrain from mendicancy and vice. 
 When this assistance to the weaker members of 
 society, which might be rendered in the way of 
 spontaneous private charity, becomes definite and 
 systematized in a measure of justice, the oppor- 
 
66 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 tunity for self- development of these classes is 
 thereby assured. 
 
 There was no poor-law in England that can be 
 called a constructive measure until the reforms of 
 1834. ( The " poor-laws " before this time illustrate 
 another phase of the relations of the government 
 to the people, and will be considered later). Ill- 
 advised legislation, dating back to the time of 
 Elizabeth, had rendered the condition of the poorer 
 classes deplorable in the extreme. "Drink and 
 dissipation, indolence and insolence, deception 
 and dependence, had become the familiar charac- 
 teristics of the men from whose rank had come 
 the soldiery who had astonished all Europe."* 
 The new law, through the "workhouse test" 
 sought to inspire independence and hope in these 
 discouraged and destitute classes. Especially 
 through the establishment of " unions" and placing 
 the responsibility of the care of the poor upon the 
 local government, and providing for a better 
 administration of justice through the central board, 
 a degree of order has been brought out of the 
 former chaos. Among the most recent attempts at 
 assistance to these unfortunate classes by the gov- 
 ernment, is the purchase of " Bethnal Green " and 
 the removal of unsanitary dwellings and the 
 
 * Fowle, The I'oor Law, p. 89; English Citizen .se- 
 ries. 
 
THE STATE. 67 
 
 erection of new ones under the 'supervision of 
 the city government. The same object might per- 
 haps be better accomplished by the appointment of 
 a Sanitary Commission, such as those of Chicago 
 and other cities of America. Also the government 
 by furnishing money and appointing a committee, 
 and affixing a penalty in case of misappropriated 
 funds, has endorsed " General Booth's " plan of 
 "city," "farm," and "over -the -sea" colonies; the 
 plan no doubt originates in ethical motives, the 
 results are not yet evident. 
 
 Some of the New England States perhaps lead 
 the world in the intelligent care and assistance 
 given to the poor and unfortunate through state 
 action. Through state boards of charities a care- 
 ful survey of the whole field is made, and a 
 judicious separation of the different grades of 
 indigent and weak-minded is brought about, and 
 suitable help rendered to each. Connecticut has 
 even established "children's homes," one in each 
 county, to which the children may be taken from 
 the regular "town farm"; the children are in this 
 way removed from the contaminating influences of 
 bad habits and vices of the older inmates of the 
 alms house and given the comforts and watchful- 
 ness of a good home until a better is found with 
 some good family. 
 
 " The plan of carrying on a municipal lodging- 
 
THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 house (under the control of the overseers of the 
 poor) has been successfully worked in Boston for 
 nearly twelve years. Those who desire to avail 
 themselves of its comforts make their application 
 at the police station, where they may obtain a 
 ticket of admission; in this way hardened vagrants 
 and thoroughly vicious criminals are screened out, 
 so to speak. Decent food, hot baths, clean towels, 
 clean bed linen, and even clean night-gowns are 
 provided for the lodgers. The most deserving and 
 respectable are given beds apart from the crowd. 
 When the clothing of applicants is in a particu- 
 larly bad state it is cleansed during the night with 
 superheated steam, and in the morning, before the 
 lodger is allowed to leave, he saws enough wood or 
 performs enough other labor to pay for his 
 expenses. In fact, we believe that the Wayfarers' 
 Lodge has been not only self-supporting but has 
 paid a small profit into the city treasury."* 
 
 When a person allows his bad thought or motive 
 to become an overt act for which there has been a 
 penalty arranged by the state, he becomes a crim- 
 inal. That he should receive his own deed, ex- 
 pressed as correctly as possible through the estab- 
 lished machinery of the judiciary, is simply justice. 
 But because a man has committed one crime is not 
 a warrant for treating him as if it was his persist- 
 
 * The Christian Union, April 2, 1891. 
 
THE STATE. 69 
 
 ent intention to continue a criminal. Until the 
 time of John Howard the central thought of the 
 treatment of prisoners, was retribution; punish- 
 ment was inflicted for the crime and not for the 
 preservation of the other members of society and 
 for the reformation of the criminal. The prisoner 
 was treated as if he had forfeited his individuality 
 by the committal of perhaps one crime, which, if 
 undiscovered, would have placed the man in the 
 " best society." Howard, aroused by the inhuman 
 treatment of prisoners of war, spent his time in 
 visiting prisons, his fortune in propagating his 
 ideas to arouse public interest and sympathy for 
 the prisoners, and in 1789, in Russia, yielded his 
 life, while on a continental tour, the results of 
 which, like his preceding journeys, meant relief 
 and hope to thousands of prisoners. Largely 
 through the efforts of Howard, Parliament in 1774 
 passed bills " for the relie£ of acquitted prisoners 
 in the matter of fees," and "for preserving the 
 health of prisoners." 
 
 But it is only very recently that the ideas of 
 Howard can be said to have become established as 
 public opinion. The New York legislature in 1889 
 " revised and codified the prison laws in a compre- 
 hensive act commonly known as the Fassett law." 
 The conditions which have prevailed in our state 
 prisons until within a few years past, are described 
 
70 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 by the Secretary of the Prison Association of New 
 York, as follows: " The convict, on his entrance 
 into the prison, was alsolutely relieved of all self- 
 responsibility and of nearly all rights. His main- 
 tenance was secure; it was the duty of the state to 
 provide that. His labor was hired out to a contrac- 
 tor at so much a head, and all the earnings of his 
 labor belonged solely to the state. We treated our 
 convicts precisely as we treated our cattle; we 
 housed them, fed them, whipped them, worked 
 them, and, to complete the degradation, hired them 
 out by the day; but in the product of labor the 
 convicts themselves had no more interest or right 
 than has the ox that drags the plough. The con- 
 vict's environment was closely analogous to that of 
 a negro slave under the regime of slavery; but it 
 had no counterpart in any free community outside 
 the prison. When the convict was released, he 
 met changed conditions which his imprisonment 
 had positively unfitted him to cope with; and the 
 only wonder is that this vicious system did not con- 
 vert every discharged convict, without a single ex- 
 ception, into a confirmed and irreclaimable crim- 
 inal." * 
 
 The Fa^sett law has for its fundamental idea, 
 that a criminal is still a human being, and that 
 
 * Prison Science with Special Reference to New 
 York Legislation, p 12. Economic Tracts. 
 
THE STATE. 
 
 71 
 
 under pure and wholesome industrial, educational 
 and religious influences, he may again become a 
 peace-loving, law abiding citizen. To that end the 
 warden gives especial attention to the character 
 and needs of each individual prisoner. He is 
 placed in one of the three grades of prisoners: "In 
 the first are those convicts who are least vicious and 
 give hopeful promise of reform ; in the second, those 
 of a lower moral order; while the third includes the 
 hopelessly incorrigible." Prisoners may be de- 
 graded or promoted from one grade to another. 
 Their work is arranged according to their classifi- 
 cation. The labor of the first grade shall be 
 directed ' " with reference to fitting the prisoner to 
 maintain himself by honest industry after his dis- 
 charge, as the primary or sole object of such labor.' 
 The first grade prisoners may be employed at 'labor 
 for industrial training and instruction solely, even 
 though no useful or salable products result from 
 their labor.' " 
 
 The labor of the second grade " shall be directed 
 primarily to the production of salable goods, and 
 secondarily to fitting them for a life of self-support 
 after their discharge." 
 
 The labor of those who appear to be incorrigible 
 " shall be directed solely to such exercise as shall 
 tend to the preservation of health, or to manufac- 
 turing without machinery such articles as are 
 
72 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 needed in the public institutions of the State, or to 
 other manual labor which shall not compete with 
 free labor." 
 
 " The indeterminate sentence '' is another special 
 feature of the Fassett Bill. Instead of the present 
 arrangement of an estimate by the Court within 
 the specified limits of the law of the time that the 
 criminal shall remain in prison, the new law makes 
 his release dependent upon himself. When he 
 gives sufficient evidence to the warden and those 
 having the oversight, that he is ready to re enter 
 the social unity from which his act had severed 
 him, and become a member whose thoughts and 
 acts shall be in sympathy with those of the whole, 
 then he may return and exercise all the rights of a 
 law-abiding citizen. At present the law " provides 
 that the courts may pronounce such sentence: the 
 exercise of the authority is discretionary, not com- 
 pulsory.' ' 
 
 The latter part of the nineteenth century is pre- 
 eminently the time for the appointment of commis- 
 sioners in various departments of government. 
 Some of the prominent ones are: Railroad commis- 
 sions, Labor commissions, Education, Prison, an$ 
 Sanitary commissions, commissions for Charities 
 and Boards of Arbitration; the powers of these are 
 various, including those of investigation, advisory 
 power, police and judicial. The fact that the state 
 
THE STATE. 73 
 
 is ready to make these appointments indicates that 
 the intimate connection and relation of all members 
 of society is more clearly understood than in pre- 
 ceding centuries; it indicates that the public has 
 an interest in classes in society that are suffering 
 injustice from others, and in those who are weak, 
 poor and unfortunate; it indicates that the ethical 
 education of society has reached such a stage of de- 
 velopment that in many cases rights may be ad- 
 justed and people may be persuaded to do better 
 without the trouble and expense of coercion by the 
 regular courts. 
 
 It might be urged that there is no need of search- 
 ing for an ethical principle in the history of indus- 
 trial legislation — that industry is governed by econ- 
 omic laws and not ethical principles, and that the 
 basal economic law is to let business alone. 
 
 No doubt it is true that if one man makes a yard 
 of cloth for the market, and another man raises a 
 bushel of wheat also for society, in that transaction 
 there is a phase of the ethical, but it is also true 
 that the inhabitants of Dante's Inferno exem- 
 plify an ethical principle; for so long as human 
 beings can associate together, even though it be in 
 a state of anger and revenge, there is an exempli- 
 fication of the ethical. The let alone policy in busi- 
 ness is a sufficient basis for the formation of cus- 
 toms in a rude or undifferentiated 
 
* 
 
 74 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE 
 
 but when the wants of a growing society demand a 
 diversity of industries and division of labor, in this 
 process the rights of one become so mingled with 
 the rights of another that the customs can be no 
 longer simple, and a reasoned- out ethical principle 
 is necessary for the correct formation of those cus- 
 toms. 
 
 Fortunately, we can study the history of factory 
 legislation from both standpoints; from the motive- 
 side or the process of their inception, and also some 
 of the results of u Factory Laws." 
 
 Because of the invention of machinery and appli- 
 cation of scientific principles in the processes, dur- 
 ing the last part of the last century and the first 
 half of the present, there was a complete revolution 
 in the methods of production. The abolition of the 
 Guild and Apprentice system, and the extreme lais- 
 sez faire doctrine promulgated and taught, led to a 
 complete change in the attitude to each other of 
 the employer and the employed. Freed from legal 
 restraint, supported by a system of social philos- 
 ophy that encouraged selfishness, the employers 
 soon found the means and opportunities of increas- 
 ing their income and power at the expense of the 
 mental and moral qualities of the employees. 
 
 Prof. E. J. James says, "The condition of fac- 
 tory operatives in the factory districts and mining 
 regions of England in the latter part the last of 
 
THE STATE. 75 
 
 century and away on into the second quarter of the 
 present, was horrible beyond belief. The mere de- 
 scription of the lives they led, is enough to make 
 one's blood boil with indignation that such things 
 should be allowed to exist in a so-called Christian 
 land. It seemed, indeed, as if the great mass of 
 the laborers were destined to sink into a condition 
 far worse than that in which even the most miser- 
 able of their ancestors had lived, and one little short 
 of slavery in its worst form, viz., that in which the 
 master has no duties, only rights and privileges. " 
 " As England was the first great industrial state of 
 modern times, so in England the results* of [this] 
 policy first showed themselves in all their naked- 
 ness. The most merciless exploitation of the weaker 
 elements of society by the stronger became the rule. 
 The manufacturers, in their thirst for wealth, paid 
 as little attention to the health of their operatives 
 as they chose. The laborers in their necessity were 
 compelled to accept what terms were offered. The 
 labor of the father soon became insufficient to sup- 
 port the family. The mother had to go into the 
 coal mine or factory. It was not enough; the chil- 
 dren were sent into the mines and factories. They 
 were compelled to work ten or fifteen hours a day 
 for seven days in the week, in narrow illy venti- 
 lated and dirty factory rooms, or in still more un- 
 healthful mines. The result of such work was, of 
 
76 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 course, the moral and physical deterioration of the 
 laborers from decade to decade." 
 
 What could be done! The operatives were too 
 weak and ignorant to obtain their rights and just 
 dues singly, or to combine successfully, and so the 
 conditions were such that they could not help 
 themselves. But help at length came — the volun- 
 tary giving-up of rights and privileges that could 
 have been selfishly enjoyed. For forty-five years 
 the seventh Earl of Shaftsbury made the cause of 
 the poor and oppressed laborers of England his own 
 With untiring zeal and with almost incredible per- 
 sistence and self-sacrifice he sought to better the 
 condition of the laborers in mines and factories. He 
 visited them at their homes, attended their meetings, 
 was instrumental in establishing schools, and for 
 more than twenty years in the House of Commons 
 he introduced measure after measure in their behalf, 
 and for twenty-five years in the House of Lords he 
 defended their cause with equal valor. 
 
 Before 1833, when Lord Ashley began his life- 
 work, there had been several attempts to improve 
 the condition of the laborers through legislation. 
 The first Sir Robert Peelp, frightened by the 
 ravages of an epidemic disease in the factory dis- 
 tricts of Manchester, in 1802 introduced an act 
 " for the preservation of the health and morals of 
 the apprentices and others employed in cotton and 
 
THE STATE. 77 
 
 other mills, and cotton and other factories;" in 1819, 
 an attempt wa3 made to fix the age at which 
 children should enter mills; in 1829, Sir John 
 Broughton passed a bill providing for a partial 
 holiday on Saturday; in 1831 night work was pro- 
 hibited. 
 
 After the defeat in 1831, and rejection of Mr. 
 Sadler in 1832, the laboring people had no one to 
 urge their cause in Parliament. At this time 
 influenced by friends already moved by the suffer- 
 ings and the injustice received by the laboring 
 people, Lord Ashley began his earnest and vigor- 
 ous efforts to secure just labor legislation. 
 
 Point after point of benefit to the working-man 
 was taken up, struggled for, and the consolidating 
 act of 1878 shows the degree of success attained. 
 The notable victories of this long period were in 
 in 1844, the number of hours constituting a day's 
 labor for children was reduced; in 1847. through 
 especial assistance of Mr. Fielden, the ten-hour 
 law; in 1864, the extension act; in 1874 the min- 
 imum age of children in factories was fixed at ten 
 years, and the provisions of the act extended to 
 nearly every branch of manufacturing industry. 
 At this time Lord Shaftsbury could say that " the 
 Protective Acts in the statute book now cover a 
 population of nearly 2,500,000 persons." 
 
 The nature of the evils remedied may be found 
 

 78 THE ETHICAL PKINCIPLE. 
 
 by considering the act of 1878. Prof. James sums 
 up the phases of benefit as follows: " 1, sanitary- 
 provisions; 2, safety; 3, employment and meal 
 hours; 4, holidays; 5, education; 6, certificates of 
 fitness for employment; 7, accidents." 
 
 Places of occupation must be kept clean and 
 healthful, dangerous machinery must be guarded, a 
 reasonable amount of time at proper intervals must 
 be secured for meals, provision must be made for 
 stopping work upon specified holidays, a weekly 
 certificate of the school attendance of every child 
 employed must be obtained, also medical certificates 
 certifying a required degree of physical soundness, 
 and " notice of accidents causing loss of life or bodily 
 injury, must be 'sent to the inspector and certifying 
 surgeoi^of the district." In 1880, The Employer's 
 Liability Act was passed. "This gives to the em- 
 ployees a right to a suit against their employers in 
 case they are injured while performing their duties, 
 unless it can be shown that the accident was caused 
 by the fault of the employee himself." 
 
 Without doubt it could be shown that the 
 enforcement of the above provisions of the law did 
 not lessen the amount of production in an appreci- 
 able degree, when series of years are considered; 
 but the purpose here is to notice the principle 
 whose application secures ethical results to thou- 
 sands of men, women and childreu. We find this 
 
THE STATE. 79 
 
 thought expressed in each item that has stood the 
 test of time; the voice of the organic whole, speak- 
 ing through representatives who see the needs and 
 correct relations of the different industrial groups, 
 demands that one class in society who will not 
 voluntarily give up privileges which their position 
 in society enables them to get, must be compelled 
 to act as if they saw the good of others and the true 
 interests of all classes. 
 
 Factory legislation in several of the United 
 States is essentially a repetition of that of Eng 
 land. Massachusetts perhaps leads in the number 
 of points of protection granted to the employees. 
 
 The manner of securing the passage of the 
 various acts in the United States shows another 
 application of the ethical principle. Owing prob- 
 ably to a sense of independence incident to the 
 activities which a new country arouses, to a higher 
 degree of intelligence in corresponding grades of 
 society in the United States than in Eag ] and, 
 brought about by more extended system of com- 
 mon school education, and more especially to a 
 larger representation in the legislative body, the 
 laws have been enacted through the efforts and 
 combinations of the persons more directly benefitted. 
 To be sure, the combination of one class against 
 another class often resembles a fight in which the 
 stronger prevails and the weaker must yield and 
 
80 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 console themselves in any way possible; yet there 
 is another and more hopeful point of view. The 
 fact that those of trades or grades of industry will 
 UDite to secure a real or even supposed better con- 
 dition, shows an interest and sympathy with others 
 that is much better for society than the isolation of 
 separate interests that comes from ill-will, ignor- 
 ance, or sloth. And could the motives of many of 
 the leaders and supporters of labor organizations be 
 analyzed, who doubts but that acts of self-sacrifice 
 as noble as those of the Earl of Shaftsbury would 
 be found? The giving up of the scanty leisure 
 time, the possible increase of knowledge from inter- 
 change of ideas in their meetings, the direct asist- 
 ance given from their small earnings to the more 
 unfortunate, to the sick and afflicted, the sympathy 
 and union of interests necessary to effect a legis- 
 lative measure — these are all means which assist in 
 making minds more receptive of new ideas and 
 truth when it shall be presented to them. As the 
 factor}' legislation in Massachusetts is so nearly like 
 that of England, it is not necessary to consider it 
 in detail. But in the United States more attempts 
 are made in the assistance and indirect protection 
 given, through the appointment by the state of 
 greater numbers of inspectors, commissioners, 
 boards of arbitration, bureaus of labor statistics, etc. 
 Public opinion, or even a sentiment or fashion, 
 
THE STATE. 81 
 
 moves in waves through a state or country, and 
 fifty years, or even a shorter time, may see an 
 entire change in public thought upon a question. A 
 movement which was orignated with much self- 
 sacrifice may become so changed by lower motives 
 of leaders that the lofty character of acts resulting 
 may disappear for a time; on the other hand, 
 worthy leaders may succeed and what was the 
 thought and purpose of a few, may become the 
 common possession of society, moulding thoughts 
 and customs. Compared with fifty years ago, it is 
 the fashion now to legislate in behalf of the unfor- 
 tunate, disqualified classes in society. 
 
 When we come to study railroad legislation on 
 the side of its inception or motive -side, two difficul- 
 ties are met; the custom for the State to assist in 
 any wise legislation was to a degree established, 
 and effective railroad legislation is so recent (if it 
 can even be said to exist) that the thoughts and 
 motives of those who have labored to secure greater 
 equality in opportunities in railroad business are 
 not yet open to the student in the pages of history. 
 Therefore, the ethical element in railroad legisla- 
 tion can only be studied in the nature of the results 
 sought in such legislation. 
 
 The means of transportation, the canal, the sail- 
 ing vessel, the stage-coach, the private carrier, before 
 1828, are familiar to all. From an historical point 
 
82 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 of view we would expect as the methods of produc- 
 tion by machinery were introduced, the means of 
 transportation and communication would also 
 change. 
 
 We find that in the very beginning of railroads 
 there was a class who considered that their rights 
 were infringed upon — the owners of the land which 
 should be used for the road-beds. Although com- 
 pensated for the land, they did not like to have 
 their acres cut in pieces, neither did the dwellers 
 near by wish to be disturbed by the noise of the 
 locomotive. So from the beginning the State 
 assisted these people to give up private selfish 
 interests for the good of the whole. 
 
 The sense of convenience and cheapness soon led 
 to a general desire for railroads. Not even a char- 
 ter was always considered necessary for construc- 
 tion. Railroads seemed only a benefit to society. 
 They were indispensible in the long distances of 
 the West. The new Western farmers were wholly 
 at the mercy of the transporters of their produce. 
 As always happens when there is too great depend- 
 ence of one person upon another, or of one class 
 upon another, power was abused. The rates 
 charged were exorbitant. The agitation, begun by 
 the abused class themselves, was endorsed by others 
 who were willing to consider and work for the good 
 of the oppressed, until, by the Granger legislation. 
 
THE STATE. 83 
 
 1870-77, the railroads were forced to yield some of 
 their assumed rights and have rates regulated by 
 the State. 
 
 But, by the commissioners appointed to fix 
 reasonable rates, the interests of the few were so 
 often set over against those of the many, that the 
 result was contrary to what was expected and the 
 laws were repealed or cautiously enforced. To 
 avoid the difficulty attending the adjustment of a 
 "reasonable rate," a commission of another kind, 
 was tried in the East. In 1869 the Massachusetts 
 commission was established. By taking away the 
 privilege of secrecy from railroads, it sought to 
 regulate the interests of all classes by inspection 
 and reports. As Prof . Hadley says: "Gradually 
 but surely, they introduced improvements in 
 accounting, which since 1878 have been further 
 extended by the commissions of other States. In 
 the same way they virtually compelled the roads to 
 adopt safety appliances, by educating public opin- 
 ion to a point where it demanded such action. And 
 in the same way they exercised a decisive influence 
 on the policy of the railroads with regard to rates, 
 leading them to develop their local business, 
 instead of confining attention to the through busi- 
 ness." 
 
 But those things, which the Massachusetts com- 
 mission sought to do for a State, are some of the 
 
84 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 problems before the Inter-State Commerce Com- 
 mission. Since 1865, when the central government 
 authorized through connections, the importance 
 and the necessity of Federal regulation of inter- 
 state commerce has become more evident. The 
 efforts culminated in the passage of the act of 
 February, 1887. 
 
 In contrast with the anticipations of what rail- 
 roads would do for the country, the evils that have 
 come alongside the advantages are surprising. At 
 times the thought of the good of all classes, and 
 even of their just rights, seems to be wanting. 
 The rights and privileges of the various classes, 
 directors, managers, stock -holders, employees, 
 shippers, consumers, and the general public, appear 
 to be mingled in hopeless confusion. 
 
 The "Act to regulate commerce " recognizes the 
 evils, and, by a commission, having investigating, 
 coercive and judicial powers, it attempts to regulate 
 or eradicate them. The law attempts to establish 
 reasonable and just rates and equal facilities for 
 interchange of traffic between different lines; it 
 notes the fact that the classes most needing rail- 
 road " passes " seldom receive them, and therefore 
 tries to limit the number; it seeks to limit the 
 power of the one or the few who recklessly manipu- 
 late stock, and overpower weaker roads to increase 
 their own millions; .it seeks to prevent personal 
 
THE STATE. 85 
 
 discriminations in rates, that the large business 
 corporations may not so easily crush the smaller 
 ones and so control prices; it seeks to prevent local 
 discrimination, that the shippers of small towns 
 may have equal advantages of transportation with 
 those of larger cities; it forbids the formation of 
 pools, for fear that there may be a combination, 
 and perhaps a consolidation of the great trunk-lines, 
 and thus a railroad king who would have almost 
 absolute power over the industrial interests of the 
 country; it demands that accounts and established 
 rates shall be open to the public, and encourages 
 uniformity in book-keeping, since by these means 
 it hopes to lessen the temptation to misapply the 
 earnings of the road, to secure to the stock-holders 
 regular dividends, and to remove the occasion for 
 suspicion of the doings of railroads often shown by 
 the general public; it provides means for statistical 
 reports, that the railroad companies, stock-holders, 
 shippers, and all interested, may see reflected 
 therein the exact condition of all the forces con- 
 cerned. 
 
 Whether the power of the Inter- State Commerce 
 Commission is sufficient to enforce the provisions 
 of the law cannot yet be determined. Whether 
 further legislation in the same lines, either in refer- 
 ence to railroads or manufactories, is needed, must 
 be decided from the standpoint of economy as well 
 
86 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 as ethics. But since the true aim of a nation is not 
 simply to become rich, but to secure a harmonious 
 development of all its members, any legislation 
 which wilfully violates or ignores the rights of any 
 class or group of producers, or forgets to secure 
 the good of an oppressed class, cannot in the long 
 run prove to be correct legislation, even from the 
 standpoint of economy. 
 
 If we notice, from our illustrations, the kinds of 
 evils that experience has shown it is necessary to 
 meet by legislation, given the usual weaknesses of 
 the human mind, we find that different kinds of 
 abuses are rendered possible because of the nature 
 of the industry. Industries, like our second 
 example, railroads, come in Professor Adams' 
 classification * under industries of " increasing 
 returns." From the side of economy, Professor 
 Adams concludes that the State should regu- 
 late those industries in which the returns are 
 increasing, that is, in those industries in which for 
 every added increment of capital there is a greater 
 proportional return, there is a probability that 
 prices will be controlled by a few strong leaders in 
 the industrial world. From the standpoint of 
 ethics, in industries of this class, if one productive 
 process, or one line of transportation, can supply 
 
 ♦Relation of the State to Industrial Action," by H. 
 C. Adams. 
 
THE STATE. 87 
 
 the needs of the community or State, there is a 
 possibility of a complete monopoly. The first in 
 time, or the more skillful in manipulation, shuts 
 out all others. An equality of opportunity is 
 denied and some who have special ability in that 
 line of work are kept out, and so fail to develop an 
 individuality that might have returned to society in 
 a large measure. With the inequality of oppor- 
 tunity and the consequent inequality in results of 
 industry, there is a probability that there will be a 
 lower standard of living, — and the less the degree 
 of comfort in the home, the less the physical energy 
 and courage, the less the hope and anticipation of 
 the future, and the fewer the incentives for better- 
 ing the present condition. And if the State assists 
 and makes the conditions of the industry such that 
 there can be greater equality of opportunity, there 
 is more probability that the ideals, the " ought to 
 be '' of the individuals concerned, will be realized 
 to a greater degree than would otherwise happen. 
 
 Included in this class are railroads, telegraphs, 
 telephones, express business, also municipal sup- 
 plies, as water, light, street railways, etc. , 
 
 It might also seem that manufactures could be 
 included in this class, but when monopoly in this 
 line of industry exists, it is of a different character, 
 or, as Mr. Bonham tells us, the strength of busi- 
 ness organizations like the Standard Oil Trust, 
 
88 
 
 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 depend largely upon the secret alliances and bar- 
 gains with the railroads and the rebates received 
 from them. There is nothing in the nature of the 
 productive process in manufacturing that forbids 
 multiplication. And also Professor Clark states 
 that a report of textile industries for a series of 
 years gives an average in return of about a normal 
 interest. Manufactures, then, under ordinary con- 
 ditions, would have constant returns, and in such 
 industries the opportunity for the capitalist to get 
 more than his proportional share of the product is 
 not great, and Professor Adams concludes that, as 
 far as prices are concerned, industries of constant 
 returns "are adequately controlled by competitive 
 action. r 
 
 But when the ethical principle is applied, there 
 is opportunity for the class taking the risk and 
 responsibility to forget, or to be neglectful, of the 
 good of those associated with them in business rela- 
 tions. This is especially true since in many indus- 
 tries of this class, a large investment of capital is 
 necessary before the industry can be undertaken, 
 and the fear that the investment may be a losing 
 one, leads to a reluctance to spend additional 
 amounts in safe machinery, leads to an exaction of 
 the greatest number of hours of work possible, to 
 the employment of women and children, and to a 
 slackness and irregularity in payment of wages. 
 
THE STATE. S9" 
 
 Since industries of this class present tbese oppor- 
 tunities for selfishness and forgetfulness, the State 
 comes forward and assists by regulating the condi- 
 tions of production, and so prevents the physical, 
 mental and moral deterioration of society. 
 
 Some of the industries of this class are : different 
 kinds of manufacturing, cotton, woolen, iron,, 
 leather, wood, etc. ; business organizations for facil- 
 itating exchange of supplies, such as stores, ship- 
 ping-companies, etc. 
 
 What shall be said of the kinds of industries 
 known under the general head of ''agriculture?" 
 Shall we consider its " possibilities " or its " proba- 
 bilities?'' Is agriculture an industry of invariably 
 diminishing returns ? How has it been in our own 
 country in the period of "land exploitation?" In 
 older sections near large centers of population, 
 where " intensive farming " continues and increases 
 the natural fertility of the soil, are the returns neces- 
 sarily diminishing? Professor Adams states that 
 industries of diminishing returns are " adequately 
 controlled by competitive action," and that there is 
 " no call for government farming." 
 
 But it is true of this class of industries, as of the 
 preceding, that the State can and does assist in 
 securing ethical results, by regulating the condi- 
 tions of labor. Also there may be need of help 
 and encouragement to those who take the initiative 
 
90 
 
 THE ETIIhAI. PRINCIPLE. 
 
 responsibility. If there was any thought beyond 
 that of the increase of the material resources of our 
 country, this desire of having a strong hopeful 
 olaea in new portions of the country, must have 
 prompted the Government to make rapid and 
 almost free distribution of the land in the earlier 
 days of our country. It may lie that the apparent 
 Q*ed of continuing that assistance, as. for instance, 
 in the establishment of an agricultural department 
 in the Cabinet, is paused by excessive legislation 
 favoring some other industries — legislation based 
 not upon any consistent ethical principle, but upon 
 favoritism to special industrial groups— and that 
 such legislation has produced an abnormal condi- 
 tion, so that one channel of assistance and influence 
 must be off-set by another, in order to produce an 
 equilibrium. 
 
 Whatever may have been the causes rendering 
 the assistance of the State necessary, farther than 
 a regulation of the conditions of labor, the State in 
 attempts at assistance recognizes the funda- 
 mental character of agriculture, the dependence of 
 other industries upon it, and therefore the depend- 
 ence upon it of the very stability of society itself. 
 
 The foregoing illustrations serve as types of the 
 different channels of assistance from the State 
 through legislation. If the history of the specific 
 laws has been correctly interpreted, there is a defi- 
 
 I 
 
THE STATE. 91 
 
 nite relation of a completed written law, as express- 
 ing a standard whereby to justly measure the deeds 
 of individuals, to the motives in which the law 
 originated and to the results of that law in society. 
 Laws that time has proved to be most beneficial to 
 society have had an inception in motives that place 
 the good of society before private immediate good 
 to the individual; therefore, as the application of 
 the ethical principle in State relations becomes 
 general and more nearly complete, the resulting 
 laws as standards of justice will be more nearly 
 perfect, and greater will be the progress of the 
 nation. 
 
 B. THERE ARE LIMITS TO WISE STATE-ACTION. 
 
 (a) There may be too much legislation even in the 
 
 beneficial lines. 
 
 If the State is so strong a helper and defender 
 of the rights of its members, why can not all phases 
 of state-relations come under its jurisdiction, have 
 a general settlement and then go on smoothly ever 
 afterwards? 
 
 The will of man is essentially freedom; and when- 
 ever the State would take away from any individual 
 or class rights that are inherent in the personality 
 of man, just then the State begins a process of de- 
 struction of its members, and so begins a process 
 of dissolution and death. Man's thoughts are his 
 own; the expression of thought, when that ex- 
 
92 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 pression does not injure another member of society 
 is his own right; man's control over his physical 
 energy, and over as much of his environment as he 
 can assimilate or acquire by the free consent of 
 others, is his. own: these are the fundamental rights 
 of man: and whenever in the past the State has 
 made laws taking away any of these rights from 
 any class in society, results detrimental to the well- 
 being of the State have followed. 
 
 The Massachusetts colony found that the invasion 
 of the right of belief in the requirement of church- 
 membership for the exercise of the right of suffrage 
 was incompatible with the development of free insti- 
 tutions. "In 1631, it was decided that ; no man 
 shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, 
 but such as are members of some of the churches 
 within the limits of the same/ " In this regulation 
 which attempts in reality to set up an external 
 measure for one's belief, the State infringed upon 
 fundamental rights of man's personality, and the 
 troublous experience of Massachusetts, while such 
 a measure remained in force, shows the results. 
 
 We have already noticed a few of the non-ethical 
 results which followed from the abridgment of the 
 right of freedom of speech in the establishment of 
 the "censorship of the press." 
 
 No more significant illustrations of an invasion 
 of fundamental rights can be found than the " Sta- 
 
THE STATE. 93 
 
 tute of Laborers,'' about the middle of the four- 
 teenth ceniury and the really supplementary act, 
 the " Poor Law" of the time of Elizabeth. 
 
 According to the former, " every man or woman 
 of whatsoever condition, free or bond, able in body, 
 and within the age of three-score years — and not 
 having of his own whereof he may live, nor land of 
 his own about the tillage of which he may occupy 
 himself, and not serving any other, shall be bound 
 to serve the employer who shall require him to do 
 so, and shall take only the wages which were accus- 
 tomed to be taken in the neighborhood where he is 
 bound to serve two years before the plague began. 
 A refusal to obey was punished by imprisonment." * 
 
 The Poor Law with its provisions for over- assist- 
 ance to the idle and vagabond invaded the right of 
 a man to self- determination; a premium was put 
 on inactivity and on dependence upon others. 
 The system of rates levied upon the parishes for 
 the assistance of the poor, dispensed as "out-door" 
 relief took away from many able-bodied men the 
 sense of responsibility for the support of recklessly 
 large families. The ''Act of Settlement" by en- 
 forcing a continued residence in the same locality 
 took away from the laborer the possibility of soiling 
 his work in a more favorable market. As Profes- 
 
 *A short history of the English people, pp. 263-264: 
 J. R. Green. 
 
94 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 sor James states:* " In 1601, the famous Poor 
 Law was enacted which, with the supplementary 
 acts, completed a system of legislation which did as 
 much to degrade the laboring man and prevent 
 him from rising out of hopeless dependence and 
 poverty as the most bitter enemies of labor or the 
 most warm-hearted partizans of privilege could 
 desire." 
 
 Closely allied with the above kind of legislation 
 are the laws made in the interest of some section 
 or class or industrial group. Such legislation is not 
 properly legislation. The underlying thought of 
 law of whatever kind is its universality, since it is the 
 form for the expression of a universal activity in any 
 given realm. Unless a law of the State expresses the 
 thought of the whole, it expresses the desires and 
 supplies the needs of a favored few at the expense 
 of the rights of the many. Such legislation may 
 not take away the inherent rights of any class in 
 society, but, in according extraordinary privileges 
 to some, others will be deprived of needful oppor- 
 tunities for self- development. It is sad to relate 
 that during nearly every session of State legisla- 
 tures, and of the National Assembly, there are 
 attempts to pass laws of this kind which too often are 
 successful : among the recent ones that have attracted 
 a good deal of attention are u River and Harbor 
 
 *The Labor Movement the Problem of To-day, p. 14. 
 
THE STATE. 
 
 95 
 
 Bills," favoring unjustly appropriations of money to 
 one locality over another; the McKinley Tariff Bill, 
 favoring classes of industry ; the repeal of the Ben- 
 net Law of Wisconsin, which, by removing the com- 
 pulsory education requirements in the English lan- 
 guage, favors the establishment of local Germanies, 
 Hungaries, etc., and encourages the establishment 
 of sectarian schools. 
 
 There is, therefore, a large sphere in industrial, 
 political, social and church relations, where the 
 direct assistance of the State is injurious: all legis- 
 lation that takes away man's freedom of thought or 
 belief; that deprives man of his fundamental rights, 
 freedom of ownership of his body and of his own 
 energy, physical and mental, freedom of ownership 
 of a sufficient amount of his environment upon which 
 to expend his energies, and, implied in these forms 
 of ownership, the right of freedom of contract; and 
 that legislation which does not take away funda- 
 mental rights, but grants rights to a few or to a 
 class in society, so that another class has not the 
 opportunity of needful self- development, is included 
 in this sphere of injurious state actionS 
 
 (b) Also in many relations of society, assistance 
 from the State other than protective laws is 
 unnecessary. 
 All growth of the human mind is the result of 
 
 activity and effort; and, as voluntary assistance 
 
( .JH THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 from one member of society to another, when the 
 work can be done equally well without assistance, 
 injures the individuality of the assisted member, 
 so, assistance from the State when an equilibrium 
 can be preserved without it, only corrupts and 
 destroys the individuality of the assisted class. 
 Although in many relations of society special con- 
 structive measures of the State are not needed for 
 the development of society, yet the protective 
 measures and the fundamental' constructive meas- 
 ures, or what is known as "legal organization," is 
 presupposed. 
 
 The special constructive measures of the State 
 are not needed in the field of competitive action in 
 the industrial world, and in the general social 
 relations of society. 
 
 In these many relations the applications of the 
 ethical principle are not of less importance than 
 those that have been considered: but since the acts 
 of an individual concern one or a few members of 
 society, the surrender of selfish interests for the 
 good of others becomes private in its character. 
 
 But many of the forms of voluntary organiza- 
 tion of industry at the present day give to almost 
 «very kind of industry a quasi-public character; 
 and also, the very unity of the organic structure of 
 society presupposes the dependence of one kind of 
 industry upon another, so that the business cus- 
 
THE STATE. 97 
 
 toms and methods of one industrial group affect all 
 others. As we have seen, the customs of society 
 are made over or changed by the motives of the 
 members of society. The present inquiry is 
 limited to a consideration of the ethical principle 
 in the so-called field of competitive industrial activ 
 ity; or it is an inquiry into the range of motives 
 possible to an individual in his business relations. 
 
 We have already seen that a motive is a thought 
 and that a man is responsible for his thoughts or 
 motives. All relations of society are those of the 
 self to the other members of society. The acts of 
 man in his business dealings will be based upon 
 one or the other of two positions — either self will 
 be placed first, or others will be considered first; 
 and therefore the ruling, motive in business rela- 
 tions may be that of self-interest or that of altruism. 
 (All motives lower than that of self-interest, that 
 is, motives to destroy the good deeds of society, do 
 not have even a recognized place in business rela- 
 tions.) Although a man may act in his business 
 relations without any conscious formulation of a 
 motive, yet he acts according to custom, and the 
 customs that he follows have been formed in 
 accordance with one or the other motive of differ 
 ent minds. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that the largo body of 
 precepts, maxims and principles that, form the 
 
98 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 basis of Political Economy have come into being 
 without a conscious thought-process in which they 
 originated. Even the simplest act of exchange, or 
 of the satisfaction of one's wants involves a motive. 
 A large number of these general principles based 
 upon the most customary acts in business relations, 
 and these acts in turn based upon the nature of 
 man and his relation to his material surroundings, 
 are now accepted as principles sufficiently universal 
 and well established to form the positive part of 
 Political Economy, the part sometimes called the 
 positive science of Political Economy.* 
 
 While these general principles of Political Econ- 
 omy are sufficiently established in practice and in 
 formulation to be rightfully considered as the basis 
 of the " science," yet it must not therefore be 
 supposed that these principles have sprung up 
 spontaneously and ready-made. The history of in- 
 dustrial society shows that the customs of the indus- 
 trial world have been of slow growth, and also his- 
 tory shows that the systematizing of the princi- 
 ples has had a like slow evolution. Even the most 
 fundamental ideas like wealth and utility and 
 value, etc., depend for their significance upon the 
 view that one takes of the nature of man and his 
 relation to the external world. Such an investiga- 
 
 *See "Scope and Method in Political Economy," p. 
 4(5, ft seq : John N. Keynes. 
 
THE STATE. 99 
 
 tion of the nature of the wants of man and the 
 dependence of these wants upon the thought of 
 man, and of the process in thought itself, and of 
 thought as manifested in the universe, and of the 
 possibility of thought to assume different forms 
 and yet jpe essentially one thought- process, does 
 not come properly in Political Economy, but in 
 Logic, not formal logic, but the real, the Hegelian 
 kind of Logic. 
 
 Thus it may be seen that principles that are 
 ultimate for Political Economy may not be ultimate 
 when considered from another standpoint. 'And 
 while even the positive part of Political Economy 
 need not concern itself too particularly with the 
 philosophical principles upon which the basal 
 principles of Economy rest, yet these basal prin- 
 ciples must be formulated in such a manner that 
 their interpretation from a philosophical standpoint 
 will admit of the most comprehensive thought yet 
 given to the philosophical world; or, if these prin- 
 ciples are not so stated there results a " science n 
 which is merely " opinions " of different writers. 
 
 In very much the same way that Economics is 
 based upon principles which in turn are discovered 
 by a philosophic insight into the nature of man 
 and things, is Ethics based upon Psychology and 
 Philosophy. Ethics has for its province the inves- 
 tigation of the will-side of man — the "substantial 
 
100 THE ETHICAL PBINCIPLE. 
 
 will " or thought, as motives, and the "formal will" 
 or action. But these fundamental principles of 
 Ethics must be based upon a correct insight into 
 the "freedom of the will," into the development of 
 the substantial will or thought, into the inherent 
 self- activity, and, therefore, the continuance of 
 thought, or the immortality of the individual, and 
 into the relation of finite self determined individuals 
 to an infinite, absolutely self-determined Being, or 
 Absolute Personality. As in Political Economy it 
 is only necessary to be sure that the basal princi- 
 ples ^are correct from the logical and philosophical 
 standpoint, so in Ethics it is only necessary that 
 the nature of the will and thought of finite indi- 
 viduals, developing in and through the institutions 
 of society, be clearly understood in order to con- 
 tinue the investigation into the process of the 
 development of the individual will in union with 
 other wills, and into the results of different phases 
 of development in the organic unity of society. 
 
 Given the "positive part" of Economics and 
 of Ethics, each has a field of inquiry into the 
 practical application of these principles in the 
 industrial relations of members of society: (there 
 are practical applications of ethical principles in 
 other realms than the industrial, bat these are not 
 considered at this time). A consideration of the 
 practical application of economic principles is 
 
THE STATE. 101 
 
 known as "applied economics," or as the "Art of 
 Political Economy;" a consideration of ethical 
 principles in their practical workiDgs in institu- 
 tions of society is known as " applied ethics." In 
 relation to some of the phenomena of industrial 
 society, applied economics and applied ethics map 
 mean the same thing; but there may also be dis- 
 tinguished a difference. Applied ethics has for 
 its province, more particularly, a consideration of 
 the kinds of motives that it is possible for the 
 human mind to originate, the acts which result 
 from these motives, and the results of these 
 motives and acts in specific industrial relations; 
 while applied economics, instead of emphasizing 
 the motive side, considers more carefully the 
 environment side of the individual. In other 
 words, applied economics begins with the combina- 
 tions of circumstances which tend to change the 
 lines of activity of individuals in business, and in 
 thus putting the stress upon one's surroundings, 
 there is the likelihood that the individual will be 
 considered as acting from a given very limited set 
 of motives with no power in himself to change 
 those motives; and also, applied ethics, in putting 
 the stress upon the motive side, the freedom side 
 of the individual, is likely to ignore the fact that 
 circumstances often compel a man to act for a time 
 fromless noble motives than he desires to put in action. 
 
102 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 In the development of either, applied economics 
 or applied ethics, the fundamental logical princi- 
 ples are the same; also, the fundamental princi- 
 ples or the accepted positive part of Political 
 Economy should remain unchanged; and also the 
 basal principles of pure Ethics. 
 
 As we have seen, the two general motives in busi- 
 ness relations are those of self-interest and altru- 
 ism, that is, all the possible grades of thought may 
 be resolved into one or the other. If it be said that 
 a person need not take a decided motive either one 
 kind or the other, y.et either he does or he follows 
 custom ; and these customs have had a formation in 
 a conscious thought -process at the initial stage of 
 their development, and these customs are in a large 
 measure the environment side of the individual. 
 
 In the past, it has been much the fashion to 
 consider man in his industrial relations as acting 
 wholly from the motive of self-interest; this has 
 been done by different writers for two different 
 reasons, to simplify the industrial elements that the 
 course of reasoning may proceed from simple to 
 complex phenomena, and also because men have 
 been really regarded as having use in business re- 
 lations, for the motive of self-interest only, and that 
 any higher motives could have a place only in 
 social, family and church relations. 
 
 If we consider some illustrations from business 
 
THE STATE. 103 
 
 relations, we may be able to see how the same 
 question will appear from different standpoints, 
 that is, we will try to look at the same set of phe- 
 nomena from the standpoint of the motive of self- 
 interest, and from that of altruism; and also from 
 the standpoint of the environment, that is, of 
 applied economics. To simplify matters, the£e 
 illustrations will correspond to the classical divisions 
 of Political Economy, "fundamental principles," 
 •'consumption," "production." and "exchange and 
 distribution." » 
 
 These three standpoints may be broadly taken 
 to represent three positions of writers, upon sub- 
 jects of Economy: that of self-interest, nominally 
 the standpoint of Mill and those in agreement with 
 him; that of emphasis upon environment, the 
 standpoint of Marshall and other leading writers 
 on Political Economy of the present day; that of 
 altruism, the standpoint of men of strong faith or 
 remarkable insight into the possible adjustments in 
 industrial relations. 
 
 The fundamental elements or principles of 
 Political Economy are the same when consid 
 ered from any or all of the three standpoints; 
 that is, there is the space-element, the time 
 element, forces of the material universe or wealth, 
 and man's energy both mental and physical. And 
 the same problem presents itself, the best adap- 
 
 9 
 
104 
 
 THK KTHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 tation of wealth to the needs and wants of 
 man. The "things" of the world are brought 
 into just the same direct relation to his spontaneous 
 and self-made wants, and man therefore measures 
 the utility of the objects and gives them a 
 value. Although the kinds of utilties vary in 
 number from each of these different standpoints, 
 yet as man's wants would remain there would still 
 be demand. There would also be like attempts to 
 adjust the supply to the demand. 
 
 While ^hese "concepts" as fundamental princi- 
 ples remain the same from any one of the 
 three standpoints, the practical application will 
 vary; as, for instance, the * ; economic man " (calling, 
 for convenience, the man who emphasizes self 
 interest the "economic man," and the man who 
 emphasizes altruism the " ethical man," and the 
 man who recognizes the influences of environment 
 upon altruistic motives and acts accordingly, the 
 " practical man " ) — the economic man, in considering 
 the course of action when he has a desirable " corner 
 lot" for sale, decides to keep the lot as long as its 
 value increases and will sell for the highest possible 
 price, irrespective of the purposes for which the 
 lot may be used, or what public interests suffer by 
 the retention of the lot in his private possession for 
 so long a time. 
 
 The ethical man refuses to sell the lot if it 
 
THE STATE. 
 
 105 
 
 is to be used for purposes that will harm his neigh- 
 bor, or for the sale of intoxicating liquors, gamb- 
 ling or any other form of vice, irrespective of the 
 fact that a very high price is offered for it; but if 
 the lot be needed by some one just starting a 
 business which will furnish employment for those 
 needing work, and for whose product there is ft 
 legitimate demand, the ethical man sells for such a 
 price as would enable the less fortunate man to get 
 a good start in business. 
 
 The practical man, before selling his lot,, 
 considers the history of business in the town, the 
 probable demand for building lots during the next 
 few years, the rate of increase of population, the 
 needs of the would-be purchaser and his own 
 resources^ and with the aid of competent judges, 
 he tries to strike a medium between his own 
 interests and those of the purchaser, and sells at the 
 time when the equilibrium of interests will be least 
 disturbed. 
 
 The fundamental considerations of the " market" 
 are the same from all the given standpoints;, 
 business transactions must be based upon a consid- 
 eration of "time" and "place," "initial cost," 
 "demand and supply," etc; but there are other 
 elements in the customs of the market which can 
 be varied, largely depending upon the individual 
 standpoint. 
 
1(K) THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 The economic man, having ever in mind the 
 desire of advancing his own interests, does not 
 hesitate to put the best articles "on top," or 
 to advertise " the best things in the world " ; does 
 not hesitate to keep "leaders," or to advertise to 
 sell for a certain number of days l * below cost," 
 if thereby he may undersell a neighboring 
 merchant, and bring more money to himself, 
 irrespective of the effect upon the market as a 
 whole ; does not hesitate to monopolize a given line 
 of business, whoever may be " driven to the wall " 
 in consequence: does not hesitate to "make rates" 
 or to take " rebates," or to evade the spirit of a 
 law, if he can shield himself by a mere technicality. 
 
 The ethical man condemns all the above- 
 mentioned practices of the economic man. A 
 plain statement of goods and their prices is 
 the kind of advertising done by the ethical man. 
 And besides the evident dishonesty of not selling 
 just the amount and kinds of goods advertized, the 
 •ethical man has a due regard for the public 
 standard of ethics in business transactions, and he 
 permits no desire of advancing his own inter- 
 ests to induce him to forget the interests of 
 those associated with him in business as custom- 
 ers, fellow-workers or dependents. He is also 
 willing that even a new-comer shall have an 
 opportunity of starting in the same line of business 
 
THE STATE. 107 
 
 in which he himself is engaged, and if, on account of 
 greater ability, by using current business methods, 
 he can outdo him, the ethical man will yield the 
 field to him and either become an employe" or start 
 business in a new line. The ethical man also 
 assists in the enforcement of a law made in the 
 interest of the public, even where his private 
 pecuniary interests suffer. 
 
 "Honest goods and fair profits on all," is 
 the motto of the practical man. He studies the 
 market as a set of forces which must be kept in 
 a stable condition, if his own interests, along with 
 others, are not to suffer. This interest in the 
 "market" is not thus strong, because the fluctua- 
 tions may mean loss and suffering to many human 
 beings, but because there is a great satisfaction in 
 being able to interpret and perhaps control vast 
 enterprises and to feel himself in touch in a busi 
 ness way with the remotest parts of the commer- 
 cial world. The quality of his goods varies just 
 enough from the trademark to escape detection, 
 that he may preserve the confidence of his cus- 
 tomers. He scorns all manner of dishonest deal- 
 ing, yet he is on the lookout that no one gets the 
 better of him. He will not violate a law of the 
 land, neither will he take an aggressive position in 
 introducing new measures, even for the public 
 good; his business interests may suffer by such a 
 
108 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 course of action, and while recognizing that some 
 one ought to take the initiative, he is reluctant to 
 take any steps that may affect his business pros- 
 pects. To the practical man, the most economical 
 adjustment of different forms of wealth to the 
 needs and wants of man is the ultimate object or 
 end of industrial effort. 
 
 The self centeredness of the economic man often 
 takes the form of lavish expenditure iQ consumer's 
 wealth. This economic man persuades himself 
 that, since he keeps a large number of servants to 
 minister to his personal pleasure and since the 
 destruction of utilities gives opportunity for new 
 supplies, therefore, in furnishing or giving occasion 
 for employment to a large number of poorer mem- 
 bers of the community, he should be viewed in the 
 light of a benefactor to society. 
 
 The ethical man considers that such a course of 
 enlightened self interest is really a form of selfish- 
 ness. The ethical man consumes that he may live 
 and work, the above-type M economic man lives 
 that he may consume as much wealth as possible. 
 The ethical man sees the fallacy of the reasoning of 
 the economic man and puts his wealth, beyond 
 what is needed for the healthful needs and elevat- 
 ing wants of his family, into different forms of 
 productive enterprises. He also invests in public 
 museums, art galleries, libraries, and different 
 
THE STATE. 109 
 
 forms of educational efforts, free to all members of 
 the community; lie realizes that such kinds of 
 wealth by being shared are increased in value. 
 
 The practical man regards the relation of wealth 
 to man's needs in much the same way as the ethi- 
 cal man; except, that the practical man sees in the 
 consumption of so many pounds of bread, meat, 
 etc., so many units of working force that can be 
 utilized to farther increase the wealth of the world. 
 The primary consideration for increasing the com- 
 fort of the worker is that his efficiency may be 
 increased; though, through the improvement of 
 his environment, it is granted that be will become 
 a better individual and a more worthy member of 
 society. 
 
 Production is the. process of transforming pri 
 mary utilities into those more directly suited to the 
 wants of man. This process is a union of the forces, 
 " gifts of nature," and the energy of man; but as 
 the wants of man become complex, the production 
 of utilities for his satisfaction becomes difficult and 
 often requires much time. From whatever stand- 
 point '• production " is considered, there will be 
 three general factors in the productive process: 
 
 (1) The land, at a degree of fertility found natur- 
 ally, together with wind, water, air, sunshine, etc.; 
 
 (2) Capital, -or that force whose initial energy is 
 represented by the unconsumed food-supply, and 
 
110 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 whose accumulation is due to the element of time 
 and to the increasing wants of man, which, 
 encroaching upon the existing "sustenance fund/' 
 indicate new and wider channels for the directive 
 effort of man to produce new grades of utilities; 
 ( 3) The expended energy of man, both mental and 
 physical. There are thus for each, the economic 
 man, the ethical man, and the practical man, these 
 same fundamental conditions of activity. 
 
 As an agriculturist, there are also facts to be 
 regarded by each, among which are the follow- 
 ing: that land at the degree of fertility fur- 
 nished by nature is limited in quantity; that, in 
 general, land is subject to the "law of diminishing 
 returns." But the significance of these facts 
 varies from the different standpoints. 
 
 The "economic man'' takes advantage of a "legal 
 structure" that enables him to control immense 
 estates, "bonauza farms," "ranches," "sections," 
 etc., regardless of the fact that others want an 
 opportunity to own a portion of the limited area 
 of the earth's surface. The law permits him to do 
 this, and since he can manage so many tenants, or 
 workmen successfully, his interests will be best 
 advanced by farming on the large scale, and as he 
 furnishes employment and perhaps produces grain 
 at less cost than could be done with "small farm- 
 inc," of course the interests of all will be best 
 
THE STATE. Ill 
 
 advanced. The fact that a large working force is- 
 required in the summer for the sowing, planting 
 and gathering of the crops, that in " large farm- 
 ing" there is nothing for employes to do in win- 
 ter, and that they are therefore discharged to wan- 
 der over the country, does not enter into the calcu- 
 lations of the economic man. The workmen 
 agreed to work for a certain price and when that 
 is paid, the responsibility of the employer ends. 
 The fact of the comparatively small amount of 
 the earth's surface that each one can have for 
 his own use, enters strongly into the thought of 
 the ethical man. If he inherit a large estate, 
 or come into possession of large tracts of land, 
 he will not retain it that he may have the returns 
 from it for his own exclusive use. Although he- 
 knows that he can manage it well and perhaps 
 be able to cultivate it and obtain a larger 'product, 
 and he may by reducing the cost of production 
 or by increasng the supply be even able to make 
 grain cheaper, yet he will not keep large estates 
 under his control. He realizes that it is necessary, 
 in order that individuality be developed, that an 
 opportunity be given for each one to exercise his 
 own energy upon his own material environment, 
 and, as he himself wanted this opportunity, he 
 knows that others desire equal opportunities to* 
 develop their potential energies. He also knows. 
 
112 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 that unless a person's energy can be turned into 
 channels productive to society, it will destroy the 
 results of good deeds of other members of society. 
 Considering such facts, he offers to sell portions 
 of his land at such price as he would himself be 
 willing to pay; or he leases for a sufficiently 
 long time so that the tenant may have a per- 
 sonal interest in the use and improvement of the 
 land; or he tries some kind of association farm- 
 ing. In some way, he tries to give others the 
 opportunity for exercising the control over external 
 forces and for independence which he himself so 
 much enjoys. 
 
 The practical man computes carefully the advan- 
 tages of large farming to society as a whole; the 
 possibility of using the best machinery, of saving 
 much time by doing in a single process what might 
 require* much repetition with small farmers, of 
 utilizing through overseers a much lower grade of 
 labor than could otherwise be used; and by reducing 
 the cost of production he can sell more cheaply, and 
 as a result many people could have better food and 
 homes than would be possible with other methods 
 of agriculture. And since the practical man is not 
 likely to emphasize the need of nurture and care of 
 individual souls, there seems to him more symme- 
 try and organization in the one-man management 
 of a large estate than in the varied and sometimes 
 
THE STATE. 113 
 
 weak attempts of other farmers in management. 
 Production to the practical man is a net-work of 
 forces that must be skillfully manipulated; but he 
 sometimes ignores the fact that the condition of 
 dependence of the employees of the large system 
 of agriculture prevents self-directed effort and 
 therefore growth, and that this loss of individuality 
 eventually weakens the productive forces of society. 
 For the manufacturer (understanding by manu- 
 facturers all who take the "raw materials" and 
 shape them into goods of " second or higher orders") 
 as a producer, the conditions must be other than 
 they are for the agriculturist. From the nature 
 of tho industry, concentration of means i3 neaessary. 
 The processes are so interdependent and so much 
 machinery is necessary that great waste of capital 
 would follow a separation into small industries. 
 The kind of industry influences the course of 
 action of each, the econmic, the practical, and the 
 ethical man. The position of the economic man as 
 a manufacturer is well illustrated by reference to 
 the general attitude of the manufacturer previous 
 to the passage of the Factory Acts already referred 
 to (pp. 74-75 ) and his opposition to the same. The 
 attitude of the practical man is suggested in the 
 monograph of Prof H. C. Adams, "The State in 
 Relation to Industries," especially the portions 
 treating of industries of " constant returns." The 
 
114 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 position of the ethical man in industries of this 
 class has already been indicated (p. 86). 
 
 But the ethical man, besides advocating the 
 regulation by law of conditions of labor, is 
 impressed with the evils that are necessary 
 to the " factory system," — evils that uniform 
 action of the kind enforced by law cannot reach,, 
 but evils that must be in a large degree 
 remedied by voluntary effort. He gives care- 
 ful attention, beyond the enforced sanitary reg- 
 ulations, to the evils attending the grouping of 
 large numbers of families in tenement houses for 
 the sake of carrying on production on a large 
 scale. He even considers that in some re- 
 spects the man who works for wages only, was 
 better off under the old system of manufacture, 
 that is, he considers that the gain to the wage 
 earner in personal freedom is not sufficient to 
 balance the disadvantages that have come with the 
 loss of the fixed industrial position of medieval 
 times; but the ethical manufacturer also recog- 
 nizes that the wheels of progress do not turn 
 backward, and that industrial freedom must be 
 achieved through the same general process that has 
 secured personal independence, that is, there must 
 be a more thorough adoption of the democratic 
 principle, and to that end, he advocates productive- 
 co-operation whenever feasible. 
 
THE STATE. 115 
 
 But there would still remain the evils attendant 
 upon the great division of labor necessitated by the 
 use of machinery. The monotony of doing the 
 same small, seemingly insignificant portion of work, 
 day after day, week after week, and year after year, 
 dulls even the original activity of mind, and makea 
 the worker almost as much of an automaton as the 
 machine which he tends. But such work must be 
 done, and the only thing left for the ethical manu- 
 facturer is to assist in making possible opportuni- 
 ties for the incitement in other needed lines of 
 activity. Such monotonous work demands fewer 
 hours than interesting, pleasing work, and with the 
 shorter working day, there would be time for recre- 
 ation and restful kinds of activity. All the availa- 
 ble means in the way of clubs and reading circles, 
 Chautauquas and university extension and evening 
 schools, concerts and social gatherings to which 
 should be invited others that did not belong to " our 
 set," sewing classes, cooking classes, and opportuni- 
 ties for learning simple uses of tools would be 
 utilized as far as possible. 
 
 The practical man might advocate the same above- 
 mentioned measures, but he would first find out 
 whether a working day of eight hours in all kinds 
 of industry could produce sufficient to feed and 
 clothe the people of the country, and whether the 
 democratic control in business brings sufficient 
 
116 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 amount of good to balance the loss that comes from 
 a lack of individual control, and whether all the 
 means for education and recreation educated the 
 workers out of their station, that is, whether the 
 good obtained was more than offset by the discon- 
 tent engendered. 
 
 In industries that are monopolies by nature, or 
 semi- public in character, the position of the prac- 
 tical man and of the ethical man has already been 
 indicated ( p. 85). The economic man insists 
 that this kind of industries is also subject to the 
 laws of competition and that the state has nothing 
 to do with the regulation of industries, and there- 
 fore his position is essentially the same as that of 
 the economic manufacturer. 
 
 One more illustration: 
 
 While the producer and consumer are both con- 
 cerned with the articles, their utilities and the 
 mechanism of exchange, the distributer and the 
 recipient of economic wealth are each interested in 
 the comparative values represented by the different 
 articles of production ; and the problem is to find 
 an equitable basis for a division of the value of the 
 results of the productive process. 
 
 Entering into every productive process with 
 greater or less prominence are the four classes: 
 (1) The owners of natural resources — landlords; 
 owners of an applied portion of the sustenance 
 
THE STATE. 117 
 
 fund — capitalists; owners of a comparatively large 
 degree of mental energy — undertakers; owners of 
 physical energy — wage earners. There is a char- 
 acteristic about each of these factors that must not 
 be overlooked — the nature of the limitation of the 
 kind of ownership of each. The landlord owns 
 land; land is limited in quantity, its space relations 
 is the prominent element for consideration. The 
 capitalist owns capital, whose quantity may theo- 
 retically become unlimited, its rate of accumulation, 
 its time relations are the most prominent. The 
 business- managers own nkill, insight and ability, 
 the use of this intellectual energy, the direction in 
 which it is employed is the chief element for con- 
 sideration. The wage-earner owns physical energy 
 in a larger degree than mental power, the amount 
 of energy is the emphatic element. As all of these 
 elements enter a productive process, so in every 
 process of distribution each one comes in for a 
 share of the value, and it is only when one element 
 is more efficiently an agent in the creation of value 
 than the others, that that one should have more of 
 the value than the others. 
 
 Also it should be noticed that ail these factors 
 are, in a sense, not co ordinate; that is, the two 
 former have similar characteristics that co-ordinate 
 them and the two latter. The value of the product 
 is dependent upon and therefore belongs in a more 
 
118 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 direct way to human energy, mental and physical, 
 than to the inanimate forces. The value of the 
 product is logically tirst distributed to the workers, 
 business managers and wage- earners, and they in 
 turn distribute to the landlords and capitalists. 
 
 The nature and functions of capital and the rela- 
 tion of the capitalist to the wage earner appear dif- 
 ferent from the different standpoints we have been 
 considering. 
 
 The general position of the economic man on 
 these points is well known. It is only necessary to 
 mention certain familiar and much quoted phrases 
 to define his extreme position: by "abstinence'' 
 the capitalist amasses a sum of money which he 
 may determine to put into a productive enterprise 
 and this sum becomes his capital; and as a portion 
 of this sum must be set apart for the support of 
 labor, this portion becomes a '* wage-fund " which 
 divided among a larger number, gives a less 
 portion to each wage-earner. The most effi- 
 cient remedy for low wages is therefore to decrease 
 the divisor. The perfect competition supposed 
 gives each man an equal opportunity with every 
 other man to become of more importance and to 
 get higher wages. As the wages and profits must 
 both come out of the same fixed sum, as wages 
 increase profits must decrease; and consequently 
 there can be no real spirit of co-operation between 
 
THE STATE. 119 
 
 capitalist and laborer, but only one of antagonism 
 occasioned by the effort to each get the larger share 
 of a certain sum. 
 
 To the economic man, the capitalist is the one 
 who puts things in motion and upon whom the 
 laborer is wholly dependent, and the laborer seem- 
 ingly has a fixed industrial position which can only 
 vary between the points of "starvation wages'' and 
 the greatest amount that can be obtained from the 
 wage- fund by decreasing the number of workers. 
 And any amount of combination among wage 
 earners by the way of organizations like trade- 
 unions, cannot pdQHgty increase the amount of the 
 wa^e furi&i£nd consequently cannot raise wages. 
 
 The practical man and the ethical man need not 
 necessarily differ from each other in their funda- 
 mental conception of the nature and functions of 
 capital. They may take any one of the various 
 views held at the present day. The following ex- 
 ample, which attempts a partial interpretation of 
 the ideas of Bohm-Bawerk, Jevons, and H. C. 
 Adams, may serve the purpose of this illustration: 
 
 While the landlord gets his amount of the 
 results of the productive process as pay for the 
 quantity of space which he controls, the interest 
 which the capitalist receives comes to him because 
 Q^t Ji6Li* a >porbanc9 of the time-element in produc- 
 tion* and the demands of society. Suppose the value 
 
120 THE ETHICAL PBIXCIPLE. 
 
 of all the agricultural products in a given country 
 at the end of a year is lOOx. By a restriction of 
 the amount that might have been consumed, 
 this country has lOx that is not consumed; but as 
 no one knew that that amount would be left over, 
 the value of each unit of that amount is the same 
 as each unit of the lOOx; then some enterprising 
 people, seeing the increase of population and the 
 consequent demand for utilities, put this lOx into 
 tools, machines, etc., the labor and land forces 
 remaining the same during the year, by the means 
 of which the increased amount of surplus at the 
 end of the next year becomes 12x in value. Now 
 the additional 2x came from the putting of the lOx 
 sustenance fund into forms of "capital;" the 
 2x was really gained upon lOx, or the rate of 
 gain upon this form of applied force is — , and 
 this gain has come because at the end of the year 
 the wants of society are such that the amount of 
 force represented by the 2x will be needed to sup- 
 ply the demands of the country. Therefore, in 
 very much the same way that the rental value of 
 land depends upon society as a whole, the accumu- 
 lation of this amount of value comes because the 
 various changes in the demands of society have 
 given this time element a value that is called inter- 
 est. Several other elements are of importance and 
 capable of analysis, but the thought is, that the- 
 
THE STATE. 121 
 
 emphatic steadfast element in interest is the time- 
 element which renders the social and productive 
 changes possible. 
 
 As Professor Bohm-Bawerk says (Capital and 
 Interest, Vol. I, p. 259): "The loan is a real 
 exchange of present goods against future goods. 
 * * * Present goods possess an agio in future 
 goods. This agio is interest." 
 
 The language of the quotation appears to be from 
 the standpoint of "individual capital" rather than 
 from that of "social capital.'' But the thought can 
 be applied to the above example. The different arti- 
 cles, or their utilities, which represent the lOx 
 value at the beginning of the year, though they 
 may have changed form and number many times 
 during the year, at the end of the year have a value 
 of 12x, because the number and range of wants of 
 the people have changed. It does not follow that 
 changes always mean an increase of social capital; 
 as, in a time of famine, one individual capitalist 
 may obtain a large rate of interest, which really 
 comes from another capitalist or from wealth that 
 should have been converted into forms for imme- 
 diate consumption by starving people, and not from 
 a real increase of social capital. Thus, in our 
 example, at the end of the year, while society as a 
 whole would have 2x value, if there were no hope 
 of increase of wants or no ability with each one 
 
122 
 
 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 to satisfy them, the marginal utility of the capital 
 of the individual capitalist would have decreased 
 approximately one fifth. 
 
 Although, according to the above example, the 
 normal rate of interest is .20, some business mana- 
 ger with strong insightjnto the probable demands 
 of the next year, will be*willing, in starting a new 
 business, to pay more £han the normal rate, and 
 yet, owing to his getrfig ahead by the way of an 
 invention, or by "taking up" very fertile soil, he 
 will have a large surplus from his business venture. 
 On the other hand, the business man may not esti- 
 mate correctly the direction in which this force 
 should be employed, or some sudden change in the 
 fashion may reduce the special form of his capital 
 to uselessness; but as its value may have passed 
 into other forms, this deterioration of value may be 
 a loss to the individual capitalist, but not to society 
 as a whole. That is, an individual may estimate 
 his capital and express it in terms of money at any 
 time, but the social capital is a force whose inten- 
 sity can be estimated with surety only when in a 
 certain form. 
 
 It may be suggested that there is a possibility of 
 estimating the value of capital from the social 
 standpoint just as well after it has assumed the 
 form of machines, tools, etc., as when in the form 
 of a sustenance fund. That would be true, if it 
 
THE STATE. 
 
 123 
 
 were not for the element of " thought" that enters 
 all estimates of value. For instance, suppose the 
 value of all the capital of a country or of the com- 
 mercial world were estimated at the beginning of 
 the year; a machine is directly afterward given a 
 place-value by being transported from the east to 
 California, and that machine makes a kind of cloth 
 which immediately " sets a fashion," and there is 
 an immense demand. How much of the value of 
 the cloth should be attributed to the engine that 
 gave the machine a place-value ? Or should none 
 of this value be considered as entering the value of 
 the engine? Should an arbitrary dividing line be 
 made and the value of the engine be estimated from 
 the "cost of production," and should this cost of 
 production be reduced to terms of labor, or to the 
 "supply -prices" of the materials composing the 
 engine t Or shall the value of the engine depend 
 upon the " reciprocal demand " for engines when 
 compared with other articles; and if so, what ele- 
 ments enter that demand? May there not be a 
 complete readjustment of values all over the com- 
 mercial world, by the simple change of the wants 
 of consumers? If true, is there any certain way of 
 estimating social capital after it leaves the form of 
 " sustenance fund ? " For since the thought-element 
 of a want will always enter for consideration, can 
 the variations of thought, which enter as an ele- 
 
124 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 ment to cause the fluctuations in values which in 
 turn cause some capital to assume new forms and 
 other forms to become useless, be ever estimated f 
 
 Both the practical man and the ethical man 
 acknowledge, that, while the existence of capi- 
 tal is due to individual foresight and prudence 
 and self-restraint in refusing to consume all the 
 utilities represented by the sustenance fund, yet the 
 rate of its accumulation and the variations depend 
 closely upon the needs and wants and resources of 
 society; and they consider that the individual con- 
 trol over capital that society has logically and right- 
 fully granted to them, places upon them certain 
 obligations which in other capacities they might not 
 have. 
 
 Both the practical man and the ethical man, 
 taking the above view of "natural interest," 
 grant that by foresight in anticipating elevating 
 wants of society, and by skill in investing, the indi- 
 vidual capitalist may justly get more than natural 
 interest. Also both grant, that wages as well 
 as " profit " come from the product and that 
 there is no fixed ratio in which the distribution 
 must be made. Both also agree that the " standard 
 of comfort " and not the amount of money measures 
 the wages received. And both see that the kind of 
 industry and the consequent constructive legal 
 measures are elements that assist indirectly to de- 
 
THE STATE. 125 
 
 termine the relations of capitalist and laborer even 
 in the competitive phases of industries. 
 
 But there are other points upon which there 
 would be different conclusions, depending upon the 
 standpoint. 
 
 Some practical men say that the whole problem 
 of distribution may be solved by an application of 
 the "law of rent" to determine the "profit" of 
 the business manager, and when one portion is 
 fixed as a starting point, the problem becomes easy; 
 other practical men, as well as the ethical man, say 
 that the law of rent can be applied in a similar 
 manner to determine the portion of any one of the 
 four classes of claimants, and that such a theory of 
 distribution is simply a conception of a series of 
 forces in equilibrium without any really self con- 
 sistent, self -deter mining element, and that with 
 such a conception, the starting point in the distri- 
 butive process can be none other than an arbitrary 
 one. 
 
 The practical man says that wages depend upon 
 the "efficiency of labor and upon the amount of 
 land," or expressed differently upon the " law of 
 substitution," or that " the wages of every class of 
 labor tend to be equal to the produce due to the 
 additional labor of the marginal laborer of that 
 class." 
 
 The ethical man says that the conditions are so 
 
126 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 various that different trades and branches of indus- 
 try must be considered by themselves in order to 
 find the "marginal worker," and that it is not 
 much more difficult to discover the " normal man,'* 
 than it is to discover this point of equilibrium at 
 which a worker would as soon do one kind of work 
 as another; that the practical man's competition, or 
 "economic freedom and enterprise" seems to be 
 largely confined to freedom in a particular kind of 
 business and that the employer really estimates 
 how much the man is worth to him and pays for 
 his ability and skill accordingly with not much 
 reference to other kinds of industries; and that in 
 such a process of estimating the worth of a man to 
 the particular industry, competition takes the de- 
 sired vertical direction or that which depends upon 
 the skill and ability of the worker rather than the 
 horizontal competition or that where "numbers" 
 is the chief factor. 
 
 Marshall says : * " The corrected law then stands 
 that the tendency of economic freedom and enter- 
 prise is generally to equalize efficiency -earnings in 
 the same district; but where much expensive capital 
 is used, it would be to the advantage of the employer 
 to raise the time-earnings of the more efficient work- 
 ers more than in proportion to their efficiency." 
 The ethical man would see that the "corrected 
 
 * Principles of Economics, p. 581. 
 
THE STATE. 127" 
 
 law" might have applications for other reasons 
 than the "advantage of the employer." 
 
 The practical man also says that wages depend 
 upon the amount of capital, not that the capital 
 forms a wage fund, but that the product is 
 increased by an increase of capital and therefore 
 wages indirectly depend upon the capital invested;, 
 the ethical man grants that such a position is a 
 true one but that it does not necessarily follow that 
 the laborers will get their share of the product 
 because of any inherent "natural law": that 
 " natural law " in the distributive process is largely 
 the will of the business manager. 
 
 The practical man sees that the present state of 
 antagonism between capital and labor is in a meas- 
 ure due to either the tacit or open combination of 
 capitalists in accordance with the ideas of the 
 economic man in the decades that have passed, and 
 that trade- unions, etc., among wage enrners are for 
 the most part counter-combinations to obtain rights 
 that in justice are theirs, and to secure a more cor- 
 rect proportional share of the "producer's surplus " 
 than they seem to be able to get in any other way: 
 the ethical man sees that the same result can be 
 accomplished in a better way; that the wage earn- 
 er's position is not fixed in that stratum and that 
 anyone may develop the ability which fits him for 
 a business if given the opportunity. And to that 
 
128 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 end he will try to increase the sense of personal 
 responsibility of the wage- earner in all practical 
 forms of co-operation, — productive, and associa- 
 tion farming, distributive — and in different forms 
 of profit sharing; for the ethical man sees that 
 such measures are not revolutionary but are only 
 making more explicit what already exists to some 
 degree in industries where no one of the above- 
 mentioned forms is avowedly used: as Professor 
 Marshall states, "Even where the same price is 
 paid all over the market for the same work with 
 the same machinery, the prosperity of a firm 
 increases, for almost every one of its employes, the 
 chance of advancement, and also of continuous 
 employment when trade is slack, and much -cov- 
 eted overtime when trade is good. There is de 
 facto some sort of profit and loss sharing between 
 almost every business and its employes." 
 
 The practical man grants that through combina- 
 tion of wage- earners, wages may even encroach 
 upon loan-interest and that in the course of time 
 interest may become zero; both the practical man 
 and the ethical man grant that that such a condition 
 may be reached is in accordance with the above ideas 
 of natural interest, that is, when the capital of a 
 country has a tendency to increase more rapidly 
 than the possibilities of industry to satisfy the 
 wants of the people or their ability to satisfy them. 
 
THE STATE. . 129 
 
 natural interest may become zero; if such is the 
 possibility, the ethical man has a double assurance 
 that it is not sentiment to remit, when the circum- 
 stances and character of the borrower justify it, 
 the interest upon a loan or mortgage, or to allow 
 the payment to be deferred until a year of better 
 erops or of more successful business; if his princi- 
 pal remains intact the ethical man considers that the 
 has still the reward of his own individual industry. 
 
 Some practical men say that " Protection '' raises 
 wages in the kinds of business protected to the 
 rate paid in unprotected industries, and that pro- ' 
 tection is only necessary in a new country and 
 then for the sake of the industrial education 
 thereby attained through diversified industries ; the 
 ethical man joins in the conclusion, that to con- 
 tinue " protection " after the industrial education 
 is well advanced is a method of self exclusion from 
 the reciprocal business and trade interests of other 
 countries. 
 
 The practical man as a laborer considers that, 
 as the employer has the advantage of opportunity 
 and perhaps of superior mental power, he is justi- 
 fied in getting all of the product that he can; the 
 ethical wage- earner looks very carefully after his 
 own faithfulness, and considers that there may 
 be an identity of interests between his employer 
 and himself, and if he sees that his efficiency is not 
 
130 THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 equal to that of others of the same grade of work- 
 men he offers to work for smaller wages. 
 
 The practical man sees that many of the evils 
 of the " sweating system " can be done away with 
 by the means of " consumers' leagues," by which 
 only those firms which pay respectable wages shall 
 be patronized, also that the influence of public 
 opinion is a powerful agent in assisting business 
 managers to a method of distribution more nearly 
 just to all claimants for shares of the product; the 
 ethical man considers that his responsibility for 
 tne work from his establishment ends only when 
 the articles are ready for consumption, and in 
 limiting his energies to a business of the size that 
 he can manage personally he is able to see that the 
 workers receive what in justice is theirs. His 
 interest • in wage-earners extends beyond their 
 efficiency as workers; for he looks upon them as 
 human beings with like wants, desires and aspira- 
 tions as himself. And the ethical man has learned 
 well one of the seeming contradictions of the 
 human mind: whenever a person seeks his own 
 good first regardless of the good of others, that 
 which he seeks eludes his grasp; but as soon as he 
 consciously and determinedly prefers another's 
 good to his own, or seeks his own good through 
 another's, at that moment the person enters into a 
 larger and more complete life. 
 
THE STATE. 131 
 
 The inadequacy of illustrations to convey com- 
 pletely the thought contained in a principle is 
 readiiy granted. It is doiajjjnifi to a large degree^ *r" 
 true that the " economic man" of Mill's conception 
 has become the " practical man" of present writers 
 through the recognition of the fact, that men in 
 business relations are moved by motives other than 
 that of self-interest; and, if all the possible grades 
 of business motives may be resolved into some form 
 either of self interest or of altruism (laying aside the 
 perfectly valid thought of the reason, that the uni- 
 verse is created in accordance with altruistic prin- 
 ciples, and that man can only truly develop as he- 
 adopts and exemplifies these altruistic principles in 
 all his relations with his fellow-men), is there not. 
 reason to think that progress in the future will be- 
 by a more extended adoption and exemplification of 
 altruistic principles, and that the "practical man" 
 of future generations will in many more points; 
 resemble the ethical man of the present? 
 
 UNIVERSITY] 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
 DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 MOV 16 i^jt 
 
 
 .IAN 2H 1944 
 
 
 
 
 \rtft L ° 
 
 
 ***** 
 
 
 2BMW'60MW 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 RECD LD 
 
 
 
 
 nfrtlflfll'fiO? ■ 
 
 
 28N0V " g 
 
 
 
 
 *UM 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 LD 21-100m-8,'34 
 
I LJ UUU\J'