especially upon the negative duty of committing no injustice or evil,
even against one’s foes, nowhere systematically treats of Duty. Indeed,
the Greek equivalent for the word did not exist in his time, and the
notion was conveyed by a periphrase.
That morals have a bearing upon the welfare and character not only of
the individual and of the family, but of the whole body politic, was
however early recognized. Theognis, for instance, who lived in the
sixth century B. C., stigmatized in the most energetic terms the evil
influence exercised upon the destiny of nations by the immorality of
the upper classes.
In the earlier schemes of civilization, where worship played a dominant
political rôle, morals were regarded as under the protection of the
sacred law. Worship and law were closely united in the government, and
morals were included in these and governed by motives of expediency.
Man’s obligation to the Deity was then mainly confined to material
offerings and propitiatory rites, whilst the law dealt with conduct
in so far as order must be enforced, authority respected, and certain
mutual rights recognized, if the welfare of the nation was to be
maintained.
That the moral standards of these early societies were high cannot
be doubted. Those which prevailed in ancient Egypt, as preserved to
us in the maxims of sages, as well as in certain chapters of the
sacred books, prove that the rule of conduct which was to insure to
the subjects of the Pharaohs respect and popularity in this world and
happiness in the world to come was in no way inferior to our own.
The men who taught their contemporaries “Do not save thy life at the
cost of another” had little to learn from the high-bred Parisians who
recently escaped unhurt from the burning walls of the French Charity
Bazaar.
For the Greek thinkers, however, who first systematically dealt with
the subject, Ethics was a branch of Politics, i. e., the Science of
Government. Aristotle, like Socrates and Plato, took for the starting
point of his argument the sovereign good, or the idea of absolute
well-being. All that man undertakes has an aim which, under analysis,
is found to be the greatest advantage to him who is acting. Accordingly
all knowledge tends to this end; and as all its elements are more or
less connected, there must be one, the final end of which is essential;
this is the political science which aims at the highest well-being not
only of each man, but of man collectively, i. e., of society.
The nature of this highest “well-being,” which is generally termed
“happiness,” gave rise among Greek philosophers to discussions which
have been revived by modern thinkers.
It may therefore be stated that in ancient thought, at least until
the time of the Stoics, morals and virtue were studied, whether
in connection with religion or with politics, under the light of
expediency rather than under that of abstract right, and that “they
were discussed as functions more than as moral obligations.”
The fullness of significance which at present is conveyed in the
word “Duty” is mainly due to the gradual and complex development of
religious, legal, and philosophical modes of thought, in which certain
human acts are regarded as enjoined and others as forbidden by a
higher power, and in which conscience enters as an important and ever
increasing factor. A sense of duty is the legitimate product of human
nature under cultivation. But although we should look in vain among the
ancients for the abstract notions which the words “Conscience, Duty,
and Right” evoke in the modern mind, we find in groping our way up the
stream of time that germs of these concepts had long lain concealed
in the precepts of ancient moralists. The fact of virtue existed long
before it was made the subject of theoretical systems, and if with the
development of the reasoning faculty our moral code has been elaborated
and our ethical terminology enriched, broadly speaking, the rules of
conduct laid down by civilized men in the remote past and those which
govern us to-day are, in kind, virtually the same. Thou shalt not
kill; Thou shalt not steal; Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife;
Thou shalt not bear false witness, are coeval with the beginnings of
communities. It is in the scope and degree of their application—not in
their nature—that mainly lies the difference existing in this respect
between the past and the present.
In the highest stage of our moral development the unselfishness
which seeks gratification in the welfare of others and in duty
accomplished, at the cost of self, may in final analysis be reduced to
a refined egoism. The motive held up to man by most moralists is still
expediency. The reward, whether it is promised on this earth or in the
world to come, is still a reward, and to the “greatest advantage of him
who is acting.”
Moreover, moral standards to-day, as in the past, have a strong bearing
upon political government, and it is in studying the development of
democratic ideas that we may best follow the evolution of modern ethics
as characteristic of our epoch; for to this development is due a higher
sense of justice, the recognition of the rights of men and of the
unimportance of the ego as compared with the race, all of which form
distinctive features of the modern creed for which the words “altruism”
and “humanitarianism” have been coined. It may also be said, to the
honor of the present century, that there exists a growing tendency to
accept abstract truth and right outside of expediency as standards
of conduct, and to apply these regardless of sex, class, or persons
according to the inflexible logic of a trained reason.
Two thousand years ago Christianity established itself upon the wreck
of ancient civilizations, preserving that which in them was immortal.
Grafted upon the Roman world, the gospel of democracy which it preached
could be accepted as the official religion of the Empire only at the
cost of its own purity. How could God and Mammon rule together? How
could a Constantine rise to an understanding of the Teacher who said:
“Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles
exercise lordship over them, and their great ones exercise authority
over them.... But so shall it not be among you; but whosoever will be
great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever of you will be
the chiefest shall be servant of all.” (St. Mark x. 42–44.) Christ had
established religion among his followers as distinct from worship. The
people soon relapsed into worship, whilst for the clergy theology took
the place of religion.
With the alliance formed between Church and State in the Christian
community, much of the Sermon on the Mount was necessarily forgotten;
many of the parables in which the Teacher embodied his doctrine of
justice, of tolerance, of love and humility, were to lose their living
force. Under the banner of faith, conduct sank to the second rank. The
dry subtleties of scholasticism helped to crush morality beneath the
words and formulæ of a learned dialectic. Although for centuries the
spirit of Christ continued to protect the weak and the lowly, although
from the very body of the Church, then ever ready in its arrogance to
cast its anathemas upon every effort of man to assert his freedom,
sprang reformers who endeavored to restore to the gospel some of its
early significance, the Church strayed ever farther from its founder.
Was this because, as Michelet said, the reformers themselves needed
reforming? Once more man found himself crushed under the law which
Christ had declared was made for him, until, at last, in the forcible
words of Mr. Darmesteter, of all the Teacher’s lessons Christian
Rome seemed to remember only one, “Return unto Cæsar that which is
Cæsar’s.” However fiercely monarchy might struggle against the temporal
encroachments of the Church, it joined with it to repress the people.
“Authority rested upon a mystery. Its right came from above. Power
was divine. Obedience to it was a sacred duty and inquiry became a
blasphemy.”
Then from the great schools and universities the developing intellect
of Europe awakened to a sense of its rights. Suddenly there came
inquiries into the reality of this spiritual power over human souls
and over the human understanding which Rome claimed to be derived from
Heaven. In its revolt against dogma, from Abélard and Arnold di Brescia
to Huss and Wickliff, from Luther and Pascal to Voltaire and Rousseau,
the human thought struggled for freedom under the banner of learning
and of reason, and fought for the rights of the people against the
privileged few. “I will not speak of tolerance,” cried Mirabeau, in
his plea for the emancipation of the Jews in the National Convention
(1791); “the freedom of conscience is a right so sacred that even the
name of tolerance involves a species of tyranny.”
At the close of the last century, freedom at last planted its standard
in Europe above the ruins of despotism. In the fiery torrent which
swept away the ancient traditions of the Church, as well as those of
the State, it seemed for a time as though religion as well as the
church, right as well as might, must disappear from the surface of the
earth, and that, in the smoke of battles and the revelry of reason,
truth and morals must perish and anarchy prevail. But a moral rule is
indispensable to society, and “Religion is after all but the highest
expression of human science and of human conscience.” Its germ,
innate in man, grows with his understanding in its constant strain to
establish a relation between himself and the universe.
To the moral chaos that for a brief space followed the overthrow of
the old order of things succeeded, in the beginning of this century,
a period of readjustment, and now, in the words of a poet whose own
mental processes are a type of those of his time, “Of a hopeless epoch
is born a fearless age.”
After the absolute negations of the early years of the nineteenth
century, after the violent controversies not only of arrogant science
and of prejudiced faith, but of scientific and theological schools
_inter se_ which fill the serious literature of the last generations,
a reconciliation between faith and science is taking place, a
certain unity of thought is being reached with regard to conduct and
to the rights of men. And the century, at its close, shows us the
Protestant churchman less tenacious of his dogma, the Romanist less
certain of the infallibility of Rome, the scholar less convinced of
the infallibility of his science, the agnostic less boastful of his
skepticism, the monarchist awakened from his dreams of a divine right
of kings and of a preordained subjection of men, the socialist sobered
of his revolutionary frenzy and repudiating the extremes of anarchy
and nihilism born of his earlier teachings, all marching shoulder to
shoulder under the banner of a broad tolerance toward a common goal,
in a united effort to lift the masses from the depths of poverty,
ignorance, vice, and often crime, to which centuries of repression
seemed to consign them, and seeking in friendly coöperation to bring
about a better social order.
For in our time has taken place a great broadening of the moral
standpoint from which the old rules of conduct are in future to be
applied. Toward the end of the last century the equality and fraternity
of men was proclaimed to the European world and received a baptism of
blood. This official declaration of the rights of men professed to
be universal; but, like other dispensations that had preceded it, in
its application it fell short of the democratic ideal. All men were
declared equal, yet with striking inconsistency those who proclaimed
the new creed held others in bondage, and race disqualification
survived.
The honor of leading in the greatest moral reform which the world has
seen is due to the French Revolutionary leaders. On February 2, 1794,
the Convention decreed the abolition of slavery throughout the French
colonies, and all slaves were admitted to the rights of citizenship.
It was only in 1833 that slavery was abolished in the British colonies
by Act of Parliament, and that coolie labor was substituted. In 1861
Emperor Alexander II., following the policy inaugurated by his father,
Nicholas I., freed the serfs in Russia. It is a curious fact that the
United States, which for many reasons might have been expected to lead
in the movement, only followed in 1863. The terrible struggle of the
public conscience against expediency and class interest, which then
took place upon this continent, must form one of the most important
lessons which this century will offer to posterity.
Right prevailed, and with this triumph of justice the human conscience,
throwing aside casuistry and evasion for a time, faced its problems
honestly and asserted its own sovereignty.
The consequences of the mighty struggle did not stop here. Once the
principles of abstract justice established, not only against might
but against tradition and expediency; once the rights not only of men
(as in 1776 and in 1789), but of all men, recognized in a broader
application of the principles of a true democracy, there came a
tendency to extend its application to mankind at large; and women,
who according to their station in life had hitherto been dealt with
theoretically as either useful or ornamental possessions, began to find
their place as members of the community. The rights of slaves as men
had been officially proclaimed. The rights of women as citizens began
to be discussed.
[Illustration: CZAR ALEXANDER II. OF RUSSIA.]
In the widespread shifting of levels which has taken place in the last
hundred years, affecting directly and indirectly the moral progress
of all classes of society, certain important elements have entered
which cannot be overlooked in the present discussion, and which in
future ages must stand as preëminently characteristic of the nineteenth
century and the Anglo-Saxon ascendency.
The reign of machinery in the industrial world, the advent of steam,
of electricity, of compressed air, as motors, have done away with
the human machine. Whether in peace or in war the skilled workman
has crowded him out. Labor-saving inventions have done away with the
necessity for a multiplicity of hands. The need to-day is for trained
heads. From evaporated fruit and canned meats to heat, light, and
inter-communication, science is brought to bear upon every detail
of existence. As an immediate consequence of the part necessarily
played by learning in our industrial and commercial life under modern
conditions, public education has become the mainspring of national
prosperity. Freedom and public education have made our laboring classes
the self-respecting, thinking people they are. The human automaton upon
which formerly played the greed, the vice, the craft of others now
holds a comparatively small place in the modern community, outside of
Latin Europe. The “vile multitude,” as M. Thiers still stigmatized it
(before he turned republican), no longer exists. The world has moved,
and so have men.
“If the shuttle would weave of itself,” said Aristotle in his apology
for slavery, “there would be no need of slaves.” The miracle, which
seemed impossible to the founder of science, has been accomplished with
the predicted result. The shuttle weaves of itself and slavery has
disappeared.
Even in Oriental lands, under Anglo-Saxon supremacy the carrying out
of great public works is stimulating a demand for education among
the people, and the sum total of ignorance and poverty is gradually
decreasing and making way for better conditions; for only a trained
hand guided by a trained intellect can use the modern tools. This
applies to agriculture as well as to industries.
In the rising tide of intellectual and material progress, woman has
been carried along to a great extent unconsciously. It is a matter
of grave doubt whether the early “suffragists” did more than be the
first to recognize and herald the logical drift of contemporary events.
It is through higher education that woman has quietly forged her way
to the place she occupies in the modern community, and that she is
claiming her share of the common heritage of freedom and independence.
The prophecy embodied in Bulwer’s “Coming Race” is being realized.
From year to year her sphere is broadening. She is fast becoming
self-supporting. In education she already holds a leading place. Her
influence as a moving force is becoming patent. It is officially
recognized to a varying degree in certain parts of the civilized
world,—England, New Zealand, Russia, and twenty-two of the United
States, where she stands before the law not only in her relation to man
as his mother, wife, or sister, but in a direct relation to society, as
a reasoning being and as a citizen.
[Illustration: SIR EDWARD BULWER.]
The increased self-respect born in woman’s mind of a consciousness of
equal training and culture, the growing number of women whose ambitions
have been stimulated to higher achievement, and the consequent
increasing influence wielded by them in the community, suggest the
thought that in time their legal status will be generally established,
as it already is now in several localities.
Much leveling has taken place since the abolition of the “ancient
régime,” not only in the relations of the various classes composing
society, but in the relation of men and women. The process is still
steadily going on. And it is not unreasonable to believe that, with the
gradual elevation of the ideals of one half of the population,—that
half which is in control of the early training of children of both
sexes,—a common standard of character and morality may in time be
acknowledged which will admit of but one rule by which the actions
of mankind, without distinction of persons, class, or sex, may be
measured. The fact that all distinction in favor of the privileged
class has already been removed in the eyes of modern public opinion
holds out such a hope. The casuistry which still discriminates between
evil-doers can but retard moral progress, and the more earnestly modern
parents urge upon their sons the same observance of the laws of hygiene
and propriety, of truth and self respect, as they exact from their
daughters, the nearer to true civilization will society reach.
The world is yet far from this goal. No legislative act has as yet
saved society from the ravages of vice, sensuality, and greed, and
to-day every degree of savagery and immorality still exists in
so-called civilized countries. Education, taking the word in its
broadest sense, can alone, by its refining influence, force the
savage to give way before reasoning man. And it is by the constantly
increasing proportion of educated, self-respecting men and women
that the coarser instincts of the human race are being controlled and
brought to yield to reason. By holding up the same standards of conduct
to humanity, the important place occupied by casuistry and expediency,
in the discussion of the ethical problems set before the moralist, may
be reduced, and a logical facing of the serious issues to be met may
follow. Such a result must tend to strengthen the marriage tie and the
family relation, upon which rests the whole moral structure of society.
At present, modern casuistry, if it no longer seeks to justify
falsehood and crime committed on behalf of Church or State, still
exonerates, in the world of affairs, the high railroad official or
the industrial magnate of an infraction of the higher code by which
his own personal integrity is judged, provided that infraction is
committed in the interest of his constituents. Many a man of high
standing, whose personal honor is beyond suspicion and whose conscience
would not allow him to take an unfair advantage of another, does not
hesitate to transgress when dealing with rival corporate bodies or
with public interests. Hence the corruption which prevails in public
life to a degree dangerous to the commonwealth, and which is in direct
contradiction with the professed standards of the age. Must we then
think that living up to the highest moral standard is incompatible with
business success, and agree with M. Jules Lemaître that “the attaining
to moral perfection is really possible only in the solitude of literary
or artistic pursuits, in the humility of manual labor, or in the
dignity of such disinterested functions as those of priest or soldier”?
However this may be, new conditions have created new problems which the
public conscience alone can solve—as it has already solved that of
slavery and of race—with unflinching logic.
The human mind, if less concerned than it was in the days of Molina
with polemics on the nature of the human will,—a question, by the
way, which Rome after eleven years and thirty-three Councils dared not
then settle,—or with theological controversies regarding the value of
indulgences, is not yet at peace with itself. Indeed, for being less
immaterial, the issues now before it for adjustment are, owing to their
bearing upon practical life, all the more vital to the moral health of
the body politic.
To the respective rights and duties of labor and capital our best
thinkers must turn their attention before an equitable solution can be
reached. That such a solution must be reached cannot be doubted, for
the interests at stake are fundamental.
Whilst individualism in thought and in conduct asserts itself at every
turn, never were the principles of organization so actively carried
out among all classes of society. To the strain caused by the forming
of trades unions and of united labor leagues for the protection of the
wage-earner is now succeeding the danger produced by the concentration
of capital in the hands of powerful corporations and the creation of
mighty trusts, the undue extension of which in this country seems to
threaten the prosperity of the nation and to add to its political
corruption. As against these monopolies, public ownership and operation
of common utilities is being successfully tried, notably in England and
the British Colonies, and the honest municipalization of all community
service, carried on as the post-office is carried on among us, results
in positive benefit to the people, that is, in good wages and reduced
taxes. To discuss these important problems would encroach upon the
domain of political economy and social science; but there is no doubt
that the public morality is closely dependent upon their solution.
Whether so-called civilized nations, whilst regarding murder as a
capital offense and punishing dueling when indulged in by individuals,
will long continue to train their best men at enormous expense, in
order that in cold blood they may scientifically destroy the greatest
possible number of other trained and equally good men; whether peaceful
communities of practical tradesmen will some day cease to emulate
barbarians in their rejoicings over the slaughter of so-called enemies
whom they are individually prepared to befriend and whose prowess they
are ready to extol, are glaring contradictions offered by the problem
of war which must be left to future generations to reconcile. The
leading part which the Anglo-Saxon race has taken in urging arbitration
as a proper means of settling international differences places it in
the foremost rank of civilization; whilst the Peace Conference proposed
by one of Europe’s most powerful potentates, the Czar of Russia, must
bring a ray of hope to the hearts of those who labor for the advent of
universal peace.