In choosing "The Morals of Trade" as the general title of the Weinstock
Lectureship, I am informed that its founder meant the word "Trade" to
be understood in its comprehensive sense, as commensurate with our
whole system of socialized wealth--at least, upon the present occasion
I shall interpret it in this broad way.
I shall furthermore ask you to consider our system of socialized
wealth--its practice and principles--in relation to the whole of that
vast artificial structure of human life which is labelled
"Civilization," and which began to prevail some ten thousand years ago.
Such a comprehensive sweep of vision is, in my judgment, necessary if
we are to view trade in true human perspective; nor can we estimate the
degree of praise or blame we ought to confer upon it until we have
determined the worth of civilization itself. For trade is not only
bound up inextricably with the whole of our social order, but, as it
seems to me, manifests in a most acute form the universal character of
civilization in general. We must therefore discover the structural
principle which began to co-ordinate the lives of any group of human
beings when their tribe finally passed out of barbarism. Having
discovered this, we shall be able to judge whether by its
ever-advancing application to the life of men, and its ever-increasing
domination over their wills, it has furthered the cause of ideal
humanity or not. If we find that it has been essentially humane, we
shall have arrived at the conclusion that its offspring, trade, is
moral. If, however, we unearth in the very principle of historic
civilization something radically wrong, anti-human and inhuman, and if
we can discover another co-ordinating principle which is humane and
feasible, civilization will then be seen to be a thing to be
"superseded"--as Nietzsche thought man himself was--and trade, its
latest and lustiest issue, will be felt to be a usurper deserving to be
disinherited in favor of some true economic child of the "Holy Spirit
of Man."