I.
IT is the duty of every man to regulate his personal and family
interests so as to admit of some exertions for the improvement of
society. It is only by serving those beyond ourselves that we can secure
for ourselves protection, sympathy, or honour. The neglect of home for
public affairs endangers philanthropy, by making it the enemy of the
household. To suffer, on the other hand, the interests of the family to
degenerate into mere selfism, is a dangerous example to rulers.
II.
"No man or woman is accountable to others for any conduct by which
others are not injured or damaged."*
* D. in the LEADER, 1850, who, as a correspondent, first
expressed this aphorism thus.
III.
Social freedom consists in being subject to just rule and to none other.
IV.
Service and endurance are the chief personal duties of man.
V.
Secularism holds it to be the duty of every man to reserve a portion of
his means and energies for the public service, and so to cultivate and
cherish his powers, mental and physical, as to have them ever ready
to perform service, as efficient as possible, to the well-being of
humanity. No weakness, no passion, no wavering, should be found among
those who are battling for the cause of human welfare, which such errors
may fatally injure. Self-control, self-culture, self-sacrifice, are
all essential to those who would serve that cause, and would not bring
discredit upon their comrades in that service.*
* Mr. L. H. Holdreth, Religion of Duty.
VI.
To promote in good faith and good temper the immediate and material
welfare of humanity, in accordance with the laws of Nature, is the
study and duty of a Secularist, and this is the unity of principle which
prevails amid whatever diversity of opinion may subsist in a Secular
Society, the bond of union being the common convictions of the duty of
advancing the Secular good of this life, of the authority of natural
morality, and of the utility of material effort in the work of human
improvement. In other words, Secularist union implies the concerted
action of all who believe it right to promote the Secular good of this
life, to teach morality, founded upon the laws of Nature, and to
seek human improvement by material methods, irrespective of any other
opinions held, and irrespective of any diversity of reasons for holding
these.