THE MODERN PERIOD
The moral life of the modern western world differs from both Hebrew and
Greek morality in one respect. The Hebrews and Greeks were pioneers.
Their leaders had to meet new situations and shape new conceptions of
righteousness and wisdom. Modern civilization and morality, on the other
hand, received certain ideals and standards already worked out and
established. These came to it partly through the literature of Hebrews,
Greeks, and Latins, partly through Greek art and Roman civilization, but
chiefly, perhaps, through two institutions: (1) Roman government and law
embodied Stoic conceptions of a natural law of reason and of a world
state, a universal rational society. This not only gave the groundwork
of government and rights to the modern world; it was a constant
influence for guiding and shaping ideas of authority and justice. (2)
The Christian Church in its cathedrals, its cloisters, its ceremonials,
its orders, and its doctrines had a most impressive system of standards,
valuations, motives, sanctions, and prescriptions for action. These were
not of Hebrew origin solely. Greek and Roman philosophy and political
conceptions were fused with more primitive teaching and conduct. When
the Germans conquered the Empire they accepted in large measure its
institutions and its religion. Modern morality, like modern
civilization, shows the mingled streams of Hebrew, Greek, Roman, and
German or Celtic life. It contains also conceptions due to the peculiar
industrial, scientific, and political development of modern times. Thus
we have to-day such inherited standards as that of "the honor of a
gentleman" side by side with the modern class standard of business
honesty, and the labor union ideal of class solidarity. We have the
aristocratic ideals of chivalry and charity side by side with more
democratic standards of domestic and social justice. We find the
Christian equal standard for the two sexes side by side with another
which sets a high value on woman's chastity, but a trivial value on
man's. We find a certain ideal of self-sacrifice side by side with an
ideal of "success" as the only good. We cannot hope to disentangle all
the threads that enter this variegated pattern, or rather collection of
patterns, but we can point out certain features that at the same time
illustrate certain general lines of development. We state first the
general attitude and ideals of the Middle Ages, and then the three lines
along which individualism has proceeded to the moral consciousness of
to-day.
Sec. 1. THE MEDIAEVAL IDEALS
The mediaeval attitude toward life was determined in part by the
character of the Germanic tribes with their bold, barbaric strength and
indomitable spirit, their clan and other group organizations, their
customs or mores belonging to such a stock; and in part by the religious
ideals presented in the church. The presence of these two factors was
manifest in the strong contrasts everywhere present.
"Associated with mail-clad knights whose trade is war and whose
delight is to combat are the men whose sacred vocation forbids the
use of force altogether. Through lands overspread with deeds of
violence, the lonely wayfarer with the staff and badge of a
pilgrim passes unarmed and in safety. In sight of castles, about
whose walls fierce battles rage, are the church and the monastery,
within the precincts of which quiet reigns and all violence is
branded as sacrilege."[84]
The harsh clashes of the Venus music over against the solemn strains
from the Pilgrim's Chorus in Tannhaeuser might well symbolize not only
the specific collision of the opera but the broader range of passions
opposed to the religious controls and values in this mediaeval society.
=The Group and Class Ideal.=--The early Germans and Celts in general had
the clan system, the group ideals, and group virtues which belonged to
other Aryan peoples, but the very fact of the Germanic victories shows a
military spirit which included both personal heroism and good capacity
for organization. Group loyalty was strong, and the group valuation of
strength and courage was unbounded. A high value was also set on woman's
chastity. These qualities, particularly the loyalty to the clan and its
head, survived longest in Celtic peoples like the Scots and Irish who
were not subjected to the forces of political organization. Every reader
of Scott is familiar with the values and defects of the type; and the
problems which it causes in modern democracy have been acutely described
by Jane Addams.[85] Among the Germanic peoples, when the clan and tribal
systems were followed by the more thoroughgoing demarcation of classes,
free and serfs, lords and villains, chevalier or knight, and churl, the
old Latin terms "gentle" and "vulgar" found a fitting application. The
term "gentle" was indeed given in one of its usages the force of the
kindred term "kind" to characterize the conduct appropriate within the
kin, but in the compound "gentleman" it formed one of the most
interesting conceptions of class morality. The "honor" of a gentleman
was determined by what the class demanded. Above all else the gentleman
must not show fear. He must be ready to fight at any instant to prove
his courage. His word must not be doubted. This seems to have been on
the ground that such doubt would be a refusal to take the man at his
own estimate, rather than because of any superlative love of truth, for
the approved way to prove the point at issue was by fighting, not by any
investigation. But the class character appears in the provision that no
insult from one of a lower class need be noticed. Homicide was not
contrary to the character and honor of a gentleman. Nor did this require
any such standard in sex relations as a "woman's honor" requires of a
woman. In conduct toward others, the "courtesy" which expresses in
ceremony and manner respect for personal dignity was a fine trait. It
did not always prevent insolence toward inferiors, although there was in
many cases the feeling, _noblesse oblige_. What was needed to make this
ideal of gentleman a moral and not merely a class ideal, was that it
should base treatment of others on personal worth rather than on birth,
or wealth, or race, and that it should not rate reputation for courage
above the value of human life. This has been in part effected, but many
traits of the old conception live on to-day.
=The Ideal of the Church.=--The ideal of life which the church presented
contained two strongly contrasting elements, which have been frequently
found in religion and are perhaps inevitably present. On the one hand, a
spiritual religion implies that man in comparison with God is finite,
weak, and sinful; he should therefore be of "a humble and contrite
heart." On the other hand, as a child of God he partakes of the divine
and is raised to infinite worth. On the one hand, the spiritual life is
not of this world and must be sought in renouncing its pleasures and
lusts; on the other hand, if God is really the supreme governor of the
universe, then this world also ought to be subject to his rule. In the
mediaeval view of life, the humility and withdrawal from the world were
assigned to the individual; the sublimity and the ruling authority to
the church. Ethically this distribution had somewhat the effect of
group morality in that it minimized the individual and magnified the
corporate body of which he was a part. Asceticism and humility go hand
in hand with the power of the hierarchy. Individual poverty--wealth of
the church; individual meekness and submission--unlimited power and
authority in the church; these antitheses reflect the fact that the
church was the heir both of a kingdom of God and of a Roman Empire. The
humility showed itself in extreme form in the ascetic type of
monasticism with its vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. It was
reflected in the art which took for its subjects the saints, conceived
not individually, but typically and according to tradition and
authority. Their thin attenuated figures showed the ideal prescribed.
The same humility showed itself in the intellectual sphere in the
preeminence given to faith as compared with reason, while the mystic
losing himself in God showed yet another phase of individual
renunciation. Even charity, with which the church sought to temper the
hardship of the time, took a form which tended to maintain or even
applaud the dependent attitude of the recipient. So far as life for the
individual had a positive value, this lay not in living oneself out, but
rather in the calm and the support afforded by the church:
"A life in the church, for the church, through the church; a life
which she blessed in mass at morning and sent to peaceful rest by
the vesper hymn; a life which she supported by the constantly
recurring stimulus of the sacraments, relieving it by confession,
purifying it by penance, admonishing it by the presentation of
visible objects for contemplation and worship--this was the life
which they of the Middle Ages conceived of as the rightful life of
man; it was the actual life of many, the ideal of all."[86]
On the other side, the church boldly asserted the right and duty of the
divine to control the world,--the religious symbol of the modern
proposition that conscience should dominate political and business
affairs. "No institution is apart from the authority of the church,"
wrote Aegidius Colonna. "No one can legitimately possess field or vine
except under its authority or by it. Heretics are not owners, but
unjustly occupy." Canossa symbolized the supremacy of the spiritual over
the temporal power, and there is a sublime audacity, moral as well as
political, in the famous Bull of Boniface VIII., "We declare that every
human creature is subject to the Roman pontiff."
The church as a corporate society expressed also the _community_ of its
members. It was indeed no mere collection of individual believers. As a
divine institution, the "body of Christ on earth," it gave to its
members rather than received from them. It invested them with new worth,
instead of getting its own worth from them. Nevertheless, it was not an
absolute authority; it represented the union of all in a common
fellowship, a common destiny, and a common cause against the powers of
evil.
The massive cathedrals which remain as the monuments of the ages of
faith, are fitting symbols of these aspects of mediaeval life. They
dominate their cities architecturally, as the church dominated the life
of the ages which built them. They inspired within the worshipper, on
the one hand, a sense of finiteness in the presence of the sublime; on
the other, an elevation of soul as he became conscious of union with a
power and presence not his own. They awed the worshiping assembly and
united it in a common service.
Sec. 2. MAIN LINES OF MODERN DEVELOPMENT
We have seen that the mediaeval life had two sets of standards and
values: one set by the tribal codes and the instinct of a warlike
people; the other set by a church which required renunciation while it
asserted control. Changes may be traced in both ideals. The group
morality becomes refined and broadened. The church standards are
affected in four ways: (a) The goods of the secular life, art, family,
power, wealth, claim a place in the system of values. (b) Human
authority asserts itself, at first in sovereign states with monarchs,
then in the growth of civil liberty and political democracy. (c) Instead
of faith, reason asserts itself as the agency for discovering the laws
of nature and of life. (d) As the result of the greater dignity and
worth of the individual which is worked out in all these lines, social
virtue tends to lay less value on charity and more on social justice.
It must not be supposed that the movements to be outlined have resulted
in the displacement or loss of the positive values in the religious
ideal. The morality of to-day does not ignore spiritual values; it aims
rather to use them to give fuller meaning to all experience. It does not
abandon law in seeking freedom, or ignore duty because it is discovered
by reason. Above all, it is seeking to bring about in more intimate
fashion that supremacy of the moral order in all human relations for
which the church was theoretically contending. And in recent times we
are appreciating more thoroughly that the individual cannot attain a
full moral life by himself. Only as he is a member of a moral society
can he find scope and support for full development of will. In concrete
phrase, it is just as necessary to improve the general social
environment in which men, women, and children are to live, in order to
make better individuals, as it is to improve the individuals in order to
get a better society. This was a truth which the religious conception of
salvation through the church taught in other terms.
To follow the development of the modern moral consciousness, we shall
rely not so much on the formal writings of moral philosophers as on
other sources. What men value most, and what they recognize as right, is
shown in what they work for and fight for and in how they spend their
leisure. This is reflected more immediately in their laws, their art and
literature, their religion, and their educational institutions, although
it finds ultimate expression in moral theories. The more concrete
aspects are suggested in this chapter, the theories in Chapter XII.
Sec. 3. THE OLD AND NEW IN THE BEGINNINGS OF INDIVIDUALISM
An interesting blending of the class ideal of the warrior and
"gentleman" with the religious ideals of devotion to some spiritual
service, and of protection to the weak, is afforded by _chivalry_. The
knights show their faith by their deeds of heroism, not by renunciation.
But they fight for the Holy Sepulcher, or for the weak and oppressed.
Their investiture is almost as solemn as that of a priest. Honor and
love appear as motives side by side with the quest of the Holy Grail.
Chevalier Bayard is the gallant fighter for country, but he is also the
passionate admirer of justice, the knight _sans peur et sans reproche_.
Moreover, the literature which embodies the ideal exhibits not only
feats of arms and religious symbolism. Parsifal is not a mere
abstraction; he has life and character. "And who will deny," writes
Francke,[87] "that in this character Wolfram has put before us, within
the forms of chivalrous life, an immortal symbol of struggling, sinning,
despairing, but finally redeemed, humanity?"
If chivalry represented in some degree a moralizing of the warrior
class, the mendicant orders represented an effort to bring religion into
secular life. The followers of St. Dominic and St. Francis were indeed
ascetic, but instead of maintaining the separate life of the cloister
they aimed to awaken a personal experience among the whole people.
Further, the Dominicans adopted the methods and conceptions of Greek
philosophy to support the doctrines of the church, instead of relying
solely on faith. The Franciscans on their part devoted an ecstatic type
of piety to deeds of charity and beneficence. They aimed to overcome the
world rather than to withdraw from it. A bolder appeal to the
individual, still within the sphere of religion, was made when Wyclif
asserted the right of every instructed man to search the Bible for
himself, and a strong demand for social justice found expression in
Wyclif's teaching as well as in the vision of Piers Plowman.
In the political world the growing strength of the empire sought
likewise a religious sanction in its claim of a divine right,
independent of the church. The claims of the civic life find also
increasing recognition with the spiritual teachers.
The State had been regarded by Augustine as a consequence of the fall of
man, but it now comes to claim and receive a moral value: first, with
Thomas Aquinas, as the institution in which man perfects his earthly
nature and prepares for his higher destiny in the realm of grace; then,
with Dante, as no longer subordinate to the church, but coordinate with
it.
Finally, the rise of the universities shows a most significant
appearance of the modern spirit under the old sanctions. The range of
secular studies was limited and the subject-matter to be studied was
chiefly the doctrine of the Fathers. The teachers who drew thousands of
eager young men about them were clerics. But the very fact that
dialectics--the art of reasoning--was the focus of interest, shows the
dawn of a spirit of inquiry. Such a book as Abelard's _Sic et Non_,
which marshaled the opposing views of the Fathers in "deadly parallel,"
was a challenge to tradition and an assertion of reason. And it is not
without significance that the same bold thinker was the first of the
mediaeval scholars to treat ethics again as a field by itself. The title
"_Know Thyself_" suggests its method. The essence of the moral act is
placed in the intent or resolve of the will; the criterion for judgment
is agreement or disagreement with conscience.
Sec. 4. INDIVIDUALISM IN THE PROGRESS OF LIBERTY AND DEMOCRACY
=Rights.=--It is not possible or necessary here to sketch the advance of
political and civil liberty. Finding its agents sometimes in kings,
sometimes in cities, sometimes in an aristocracy or a House of Commons,
and sometimes in a popular uprising, it has also had as its defenders
with the pen, Churchmen, Protestants, and freethinkers, lawyers,
publicists, and philosophers. All that can be done here is to indicate
briefly the moral significance of the movement. Some of its protagonists
have been actuated by conscious moral purpose. They have fought with
sword or pen not only in the conviction that their cause was just, but
because they believed it just. At other times, a king has favored a city
to weaken the power of the nobility, or the Commons have opposed the
king because they objected to taxation. What makes the process
significant morally is that, whatever the motives actuating those who
have fought its battles with sword or pen, they have nearly always
claimed to be fighting for "rights." They have professed the conviction
that they are engaged in a just cause. They have thus made appeal to a
moral standard, and in so far as they have sincerely sought to assert
rights, they have been recognizing in some sense a social and rational
standard; they have been building up a moral personality. Sometimes
indeed the rights have been claimed as a matter of "possession" or of
tradition. This is to place them on the basis of customary morality. But
in such great crises as the English Revolutions of the seventeenth
century, or the French and American Revolutions of the eighteenth, some
deeper basis has been sought. A Milton, a Locke, a Rousseau, a
Jefferson, has but voiced the sentiments of a people in formulating an
explicitly moral principle. Sometimes this has taken the form of an
appeal to God-given rights. All men are equal before God; why should one
man assume to command another because of birth? In this sense the
Puritans stood for liberty and democracy as part of their creed of life.
But often the appeal to a moral principle borrowed the conceptions of
Greek philosophy and Roman law, and spoke of "natural rights" or a "law
of nature."[88]
=Natural Rights.=--This conception, as we have noted, had its origin in
Greece in the appeal from custom or convention to Nature. At first an
appeal to the natural impulses and wants, it became with the Stoics an
appeal to the rational order of the universe. Roman jurists found in the
idea of such a law of nature the rational basis for the law of society.
Cicero had maintained that every man had its principles innate within
him. It is obvious that here was a principle with great possibilities.
The Roman law itself was most often used in the interest of absolutism,
but the idea of a natural law, and so of a natural right more
fundamental than any human dictate, proved a powerful instrument in the
struggle for personal rights and equality. "All men naturally were born
free," wrote Milton. "To understand political power right," wrote Locke,
"and derive it from its original, we must consider what state all men
are naturally in, and that is a state of perfect freedom to order their
actions and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit,
within the bounds of the law of nature; without asking leave or
depending on the will of any other man. A state also of equality,
wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal." These doctrines
found eloquent portrayal in Rousseau, and appear in the Declaration of
Independence of 1776. Finally, the effort to find in nature some basis
for independence and freedom is given a new turn by Herbert Spencer when
he points to the instinct for liberty in animals as well as in human
beings as the origin of the law of freedom.
By one of the paradoxes of history, the principle is now most often
invoked in favor of "vested interests." "Natural" easily loses the force
of an appeal to reason and to social good, and becomes merely an
assertion of ancient usage, or precedent, or even a shelter for mere
selfish interests. Natural rights in property may be invoked to thwart
efforts to protect life and health. Individualism has been so successful
in asserting rights that it is now apt to forget that there are no
rights morally except such as express the will of a good _member of
society_. But in recognizing possible excesses we need not forget the
value of the idea of rights as a weapon in the struggle in which the
moral personality has gradually won its way. The other side of the story
has been the growth of responsibility. The gain in freedom has not meant
an increase in disorder; it has been marked rather by gain in peace and
security, by an increasing respect for law, and an increasing stability
of government. The external control of force has been replaced by the
moral control of duty.
Sec. 5. INDIVIDUALISM AS AFFECTED BY THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRY,
COMMERCE, AND ART
The development of industry, commerce, and art affects the moral life in
a variety of ways, of which three are of especial importance for our
purpose.
(1) It gives new interests, and new opportunities for individual
activity.
(2) This raises the question of _values_. Are all the activities good,
and shall one satisfy whatever interest appeals to him, or are some
better than others?--the old question of "kinds of happiness."
(3) It raises further the question of sharing and distribution. How far
may one enjoy the goods of life in an exclusive way and how far is it
his duty to share with others? Do society's present methods of industry,
commerce, art, and education distribute these goods in a just manner?
The examination of these questions will be made in Part III. It is our
purpose at this point merely to indicate the trend of the moral
consciousness with regard to them.
=1. The Increasing Power and Interests of the Individual.=--Power for
the mediaeval man could be sought in war or in the church; interests were
correspondingly limited. The Crusades, contact, through them and later
through commerce, with Arabian civilization, growing acquaintance with
the literature and art of Greece and Rome, were effective agencies in
stimulating the modern development. But when once started it needed but
the opportunities of sufficient wealth and freedom to go on. Art and
letters have depicted a variety and richness of experience which the
ancient world did not feel. Shakspere, Rembrandt, Bunyan, Beethoven,
Goethe, Balzac, Shelley, Byron, Hugo, Wagner, Ibsen, Thackeray, Eliot,
Tolstoy, to name almost at random, reflect a wealth of interests and
motives which show the range of the modern man. Commerce and the various
lines of industry have opened new avenues for power. No one can see the
palaces or dwellings of Venice or the old Flemish ports, or consider the
enormous factories, shops, and office buildings of to-day, without a
sense of the accession to human power over nature and over the
activities of fellow men which trade and industry have brought with
them. The use of money instead of a system of personal service--slavery
or serfdom--has not only made it possible to have men's labor without
owning the men, it has aided in a vastly more effective system than the
older method allowed. The industrial revolution of the past century has
had two causes: one the use of machinery; the other the combination of
human labor which this makes possible. So far this has greatly increased
the power of the few leaders, but not of the many. It is the present
problem to make possible a larger opportunity for individual freedom and
power.
=2. The Values of Art and Industry.=--Are all these wider interests and
fuller powers good? The church ideal and the class ideal already
described gave different answers. The class ideal of gentleman really
expressed a form of self-assertion, of living out one's powers fully,
and this readily welcomed the possibilities which art and its enjoyment
afforded.[89] The gentleman of the Renaissance, the cavalier of England,
the noblesse of France, were patrons of art and letters. The Romanticist
urged that such free and full expression as art afforded was higher than
morality with its control and limitation. The church admitted art in the
service of religion, but was chary of it as an individual activity. The
Puritans were more rigorous. Partly because they associated its churchly
use with what they regarded as "idolatry," partly as a protest against
the license in manners which the freedom of art seemed to encourage,
they frowned upon all forms of art except sacred literature or music.
Their condemnation of the stage is still an element, though probably a
lessening element, and it is not long since fiction was by many regarded
with suspicion. On the whole, the modern moral consciousness accepts art
as having a place in the moral life, although it by no means follows
that art can be exempt from moral criticism as to its sincerity,
healthfulness, and perspective.
In the case of industry the church ideal has prevailed. The class ideal
of gentleman was distinctly opposed to industry, particularly manual
labor. "Arms" or the Court was the proper profession. This was more or
less bound up with the fact that in primitive conditions labor was
mainly performed by women or by slaves. It was the business, the
"virtue" of men to fight. So far as this class ideal was affected by the
models of ancient culture, the prejudice was strengthened. The classic
civilization rested on slave labor. The ideal of the gentleman of Athens
was the free employment of leisure, not active enterprise. The church,
on the other hand, maintained both the dignity and the moral value of
labor. Not only the example of the Founder of Christianity and his early
disciples, who were for the most part manual laborers, but the intrinsic
moral value of work, already referred to, entered into the
appraisal.[90] The Puritans, who have had a wide-reaching influence upon
the standards of the middle and lower classes of England, and upon the
northern and western portions of America, were insistent upon industry,
not merely for the sake of its products,--they were frugal in their
consumption,--but as expressing a type of character. Idleness and
"shiftlessness" were not merely ineffective, they were sinful. "If any
will not work, neither let him eat," commended itself thoroughly to this
moral ideal. That the laborer brought something to the common weal,
while the idler had to be supported, was a reenforcement to the motives
drawn from the relation of work to character. As the middle and lower
classes became increasingly influential, the very fact that they were
laborers and traders strengthened the religious ideal by a class motive.
It was natural that a laboring class should regard labor as "honest,"
though from the history of the word such a collocation of terms as
"honest labor" would once have been as absurd as "honest villain."[91] A
further influence effective in America has been the fluidity of class
distinctions in a new country. The "influence of the frontier" has been
all on the side of the value of work and the reprobation of idleness. At
least this is true for men. A certain tendency has been manifest to
exempt women of the well-to-do classes from the necessity of labor, and
even by training and social pressure to exclude them from the
opportunity of work, and make of them a "leisure class," but this is not
likely to establish itself as a permanent moral attitude. The woman will
not be content to live in "The Doll's House" while the man is in the
real work of the world.
=3. The Distribution of the Goods of Life.=--Mediaeval society made
provision for both benevolence and justice. Charity, the highest of the
virtues, had come to mean specifically the giving of goods. The
monasteries relieved the poor and the infirm. Hospitals were
established. The gentleman felt it to be not only a religious duty, but
a tradition of his class to be liberal. To secure justice in the
distribution of wealth, various restrictions were imposed. Goods were
not to be sold for whatever they could bring, nor was money to be loaned
at whatever rate of interest the borrower was willing to pay. Society
aimed to find out by some means what was a "reasonable price" for
products. In the case of manufactured goods this could be fixed by the
opinion of fellow craftsmen. A "common estimation," where buyers and
sellers met and bargained in an open market, could be trusted to give a
fair value. A maximum limit was set for victuals in towns. Or, again,
custom prescribed what should be the money equivalent for payments
formerly made in kind, or in personal service.[92] Money-lending was
under especial guard. To ask interest for the use of money, provided the
principal was returned intact, seemed to be taking advantage of
another's necessity. It was usury. Class morality added a different
kind of restrictions. As embodied in the laws, it bound the tenants to
the soil and forbade the migration of laborers. The significant thing in
the whole mediaeval attitude was that _society attempted to control
business and industry by a moral standard_. It did not trust the
individual to make his own bargains or to conduct his business as he
pleased.
=Modern Theory: Free Contract.=--The distinctive feature of the modern
development has been the tendency to abandon moral restrictions and to
substitute a wage system, freedom of exchange, and free contract. It was
maintained by the advocates of the new method that it was both more
efficient and at least as just as the old. It was more efficient because
it stimulated every one to make the best possible bargain. Surely every
man is the most interested, and therefore the best promoter of his own
welfare. And if each is getting the best results for himself, the good
of the whole community will be secured. For--so ran the theory, when
individualism had so far advanced--society is simply the aggregate of
its members; the good of all is the sum of the goods of the members. The
system also claimed to provide for justice between buyer and seller,
capitalist and laborer, by the agencies noticed in the next paragraph.
=Competition.=--To prevent extortionate prices on the one hand, or
unduly low prices or wages on the other, the reliance was on
_competition_ and the general principle of supply and demand. If a baker
charges too high for his bread, others will set up shops and sell
cheaper. If a money-lender asks too high interest, men will not borrow
or will find a loan elsewhere. If a wage is too low, labor will go
elsewhere; if too high, capital will not be able to find a profit and so
will not employ labor--so runs the theory. Without analyzing the moral
value of the theory at this point, we notice only that, so far as it
assumes to secure fair bargains and a just distribution, it assumes the
parties to the free contract to be really free. This implies that they
are upon nearly equal footing. In the days of hand work and small
industries this was at least a plausible assumption. But a new face was
placed upon the situation by the _industrial revolution_.
=Problem Raised by the Industrial Revolution.=--The introduction of
machinery on a large scale near the end of the eighteenth century
brought about a change which has had extraordinary economic, social, and
moral effects. The revolution had two factors: (1) it used steam power
instead of human muscle; (2) it made possible the greater subdivision of
labor, and hence it made it profitable to organize large bodies of men
under a single direction. Both these factors contributed to an enormous
increase in productive power. But this increase made an overwhelming
difference in the status of capitalist and laborer. Without discussing
the question as to whether capital received more than a "fair" share of
the increased profit, it was obvious that if one "Captain of Industry"
were receiving even a small part of the profits earned by each of his
thousand workmen, he would be immeasurably better off than any one of
them. Like the mounted and armored knight of the Middle Ages, or the
baron in his castle, he was more than a match for a multitude of poorly
equipped footmen. There seemed to be in the nineteenth century an
enormous disproportion between the shares of wealth which fell to
capitalist and to laborer. If this was the result of "free contract,"
what further proof was necessary that "freedom" was a mere empty term--a
name with no reality? For could it be supposed that a man would _freely_
make an agreement to work harder and longer than any slave, receiving
scarcely the bare necessities of existence, while the other party was to
gain enormous wealth from the bargain?
The old class morality was not disturbed by such contrasts. Even the
religious morality was apt to consider the distinction between rich and
poor as divinely ordered, or else as insignificant compared with eternal
destiny of weal or woe. But the individualistic movements have made it
less easy to accept either the class morality or the religious
interpretation. The latter lends itself equally well to a justification
of disease because it is providentially permitted. Moreover, the old
group morality and religious ideal had this in their favor: they
recognized an obligation of the strong to the weak, of the group for
every member, of master for servant. The cash basis seemed to banish all
responsibility, and to assert the law of "each for himself" as the
supreme law of life--except so far as individuals might mitigate
suffering by voluntary kindness. Economic theory seemed to show that
wages must always tend toward a starvation level.
=Sympathy.=--Such tendencies inevitably called out response from the
sentiments of benevolence and sympathy. For the spread of civilization
has certainly made man more sensitive to pain, more capable of sympathy
and of entering by imagination into the situations of others. It is
noteworthy that the same Adam Smith who argued so forcibly the cause of
individualism in trade, made sympathy the basis of his moral system.
Advance in sympathy has shown itself in the abolition of judicial
torture, in prison reform, in the improved care of the insane and
defective; in the increased provision for hospitals, and asylums, and in
an innumerable multitude of organizations for relief of all sorts and
conditions of men. Missions, aside from their distinctly ecclesiastical
aims, represent devotion of human life and of wealth to the relief of
sickness and wretchedness, and to the education of children in all
lands. Sympathy has even extended to the animal world. And the notable
fact in modern sympathy and kindness, as contrasted with the mediaeval
type, is that the growth in individuality has demanded and evoked a
higher kind of benevolence. Instead of fostering dependence and
relieving wants, the best modern agencies aim to promote independence,
to set the man upon his own feet and enable him to achieve self-respect.
"Social settlements" have been strong factors in bringing about this
change of attitude.
=Justice.=--Various movements looking toward greater justice in
distribution have likewise been called out by the conditions since the
industrial revolution. Naturally one reaction was to denounce the whole
individualistic tendency as represented in the "cash-payment" basis.
This found its most eloquent expositor in Carlyle. His _Past and
Present_ is a bitter indictment of a system "in which all working horses
could be well fed, and innumerable workingmen should die starved"; of a
_laissez-faire_ theory which merely says "impossible" when asked to
remedy evils supposedly due to "economic laws"; of a "Mammon Gospel"
which transforms life into a mutual hostility, with its laws-of-war
named "fair competition." The indictment is convincing, but the remedy
proposed--a return to strong leaders with a reestablishment of personal
relations--has rallied few to its support. Another reaction against
individualistic selfishness has taken the form of communism. Numerous
experiments have been made by voluntary associations to establish
society on a moral basis by abolishing private property. "These new
associations," said Owen, one of the most ardent and generous of social
reformers, "can scarcely be formed before it will be discovered that by
the most simple and easy regulations all the natural wants of human
nature may be abundantly supplied; and the principle of selfishness will
cease to exist for want of an adequate motive to produce it."
In contrast with these plans for a return to earlier conditions, the two
most conspicuous tendencies in the thought of the past century have
claimed to be advancing toward freedom and justice along the lines which
we have just traced. The one, which we may call "individualistic"
reform, has sought justice by giving free play to individual action.
The other, socialism, has aimed to use the power of the State to secure
more adequate justice and, as it believes, a more genuine freedom. The
great reform movement in Great Britain during the nineteenth century
emphasized free trade and free contracts. It sought the causes of
injustice in the survival of some privilege or vested interest which
prevents the full working of the principles of free contract and
competition. Let every man "count as one"; make laws for "the greatest
good of the greatest number." The trouble is not that there is too much
individualism, but that there is too little. Tax reformers like Henry
George have urged the same principle. If land is monopolized by a few
who can levy a toll upon all the rest of society, how can justice
obtain? The remedy for injustice is to be found in promoting greater
freedom of industry and trade. Socialism on the other hand claims that
individualism defeats itself; it results in tyranny, not freedom. The
only way to secure freedom is through united action. The merits of some
of these programs for social justice will be examined in Part III. They
signify that the age is finding its moral problem set anew by the
collision between material interests and social good. Greek civilization
used the industry of the many to set free the higher life--art,
government, science--of a few. The mediaeval ideal recognized the moral
value of industry in relation to character. The modern conscience,
resting back upon a higher appreciation of human dignity and worth, is
seeking to work out a social and economic order that shall combine both
the Greek and the mediaeval ideas. It will require work and secure
freedom. These are necessary for the individual person. But it is
beginning to be seen that these values cannot be divided so that one
social class shall perform the labor and the other enjoy the freedom.
The growth of democracy means that all members of society should share
in the value and the service of work. It means that all should share
according to capacity in the values of free life, of intelligence and
culture. Can material goods be so produced and distributed as to promote
this democratic ideal?
Sec. 6. THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLIGENCE
The development of intelligence in the modern world, as in Greece, has
two sides: on the one hand, a working-free from the restrictions which
theology or the State or other social authorities imposed; on the other
hand, positive progress in knowledge of nature and of human life. Under
its first aspect it is known as the growth of rationalism; under its
second aspect, as the growth of science and education. We cannot
separate the development into two periods, the one negative, the other
positive, as was convenient in the case of Greece. The negative and the
positive in the modern world have gone on contemporaneously, although
the emphasis has sometimes been on one side and sometimes upon the
other. We may, however, indicate three periods as standing out with
clearly defined characteristics.
(1) The Renaissance, in which the Greek spirit of scientific inquiry
found a new birth; in which the discovery of new continents stimulated
the imagination; and in which new and more fruitful methods of
investigation were devised in mathematics and the natural sciences.
(2) The period of the Enlightenment, in which the negative aspect of the
process reached its sharpest definition. The doctrines of revealed
religion and natural religion were criticised from the standpoint of
reason. Mysteries and superstition were alike rejected. General
intelligence made rapid progress. It was the "Age of Reason."
(3) The Nineteenth Century, in which both the natural and social
sciences underwent an extraordinary development. The doctrine of
evolution has brought a new point of view for considering the organic
world and human institutions. Education has come to be regarded as both
the necessary condition for the safety of society and as the right of
every human being; Science, in large measure set free from the need of
fighting for its right to exist, is becoming constructive; it is
assuming increasingly the duty of preserving human life and health, of
utilizing and preserving natural resources, of directing political and
economic affairs.
=1. The Renaissance.=--It would be giving a wrong impression to imply
that there was no inquiry, no use of reason in the mediaeval world. The
problems set by the inheritance of old-world religion and politics,
forced themselves upon the builders of castles and cathedrals,[93] of
law and of dogma. As indicated above, the universities were centers of
discussion in which brilliant minds often challenged received opinions.
Men like Roger Bacon sought to discover nature's secrets, and the great
scholastics mastered Greek philosophy in the interest of defending the
faith. But theological interest limited freedom and choice of theme. It
was not until the expansion of the individual along the lines already
traced--in political freedom, in the use of the arts, in the development
of commerce--that the purely intellectual interest such as had once
characterized Greece awoke. A new world of possibilities seemed dawning
upon the Italian Galileo, the Frenchman Descartes, the Englishman
Francis Bacon. The instruments of thought had been sharpened by the
dialectics of the schools; now let them be used to analyze the world in
which we live. Instead of merely observing nature Galileo applied the
experimental method, putting definite questions to nature and thus
preparing the way for a progress step by step toward a positive
knowledge of nature's laws. Descartes found in mathematics a method of
analysis which had never been appreciated before. What seemed the
mysterious path of bodies in curved lines could be given a simple
statement in his analytic geometry. Leibniz and Newton carried this
method to triumphant results in the analysis of forces. Reason appeared
able to discover and frame the laws of the universe--the "principles" of
nature. Bacon, with less of positive contribution in method, sounded
another note which was equally significant. The human mind is liable to
be clouded and hindered in its activities by certain inveterate sources
of error. Like deceitful images or obsessions the "idols" of the tribe,
of the cave, of the market, and of the theater--due to instinct or
habit, to language or tradition--prevent the reason from doing its best
work. It needs vigorous effort to free the mind from these idols. But
this can be done. Let man turn from metaphysics and theology to nature
and life; let him follow reason instead of instinct or prejudice.
"Knowledge is power." Through it may rise above the kingdom of nature
the "kingdom of man." In his _New Atlantis_, Bacon foresees a human
society in which skill and invention and government shall all contribute
to human welfare. These three notes, the experimental method, the power
of rational analysis through mathematics, and the possibility of
controlling nature in the interests of man, were characteristic of the
period.
=2. The Enlightenment.=--A conflict of reason with authority went on
side by side with the progress of science. Humanists and scientists had
often set themselves against dogma and tradition. The Reformation was
not in form an appeal to reason, but the clash of authorities stimulated
men to reasoning upon the respective claims of Catholic and Protestant.
And in the eighteenth century, under the favoring influence of a broad
toleration and a general growth of intelligence, the conflict of reason
with dogma reached its culmination. The French call the period
"_l'Illumination_"--the illumination of life and experience by the light
of reason. The Germans call it the _Aufklaerung_, "the clearing-up." What
was to be cleared up? First, ignorance, which limits the range of man's
power and infects him with fear of the unknown; then superstition, which
is ignorance consecrated by wont and emotion; finally, dogma, which
usually embodies irrational elements and seeks to force them upon the
mind by the power of authority, not of truth. Nor was it merely a
question of intellectual criticism. Voltaire saw that dogma was often
responsible for cruelty. Ignorance meant belief in witchcraft and magic.
From the dawn of civilization this had beset man's progress and quenched
many of the brightest geniuses of the past. It was time to put an end
once for all to the remnants of primitive credulity; it was time to be
guided by the light of reason. The movement was not all negative. Using
the same appeal to "nature," which had served so well as a rallying cry
in the development of political rights, the protagonists of the movement
spoke of a "natural light" which God had placed in man for his
guidance--"the candle of the Lord set up by himself in men's minds,
which it is impossible for the breath or power of man wholly to
extinguish." A natural and rational religion should take the place of
supposed revelation.
But the great achievement of the eighteenth century in the intellectual
development of the individual was that the human mind came to realize
the part it was itself playing in the whole realm of science and
conduct. Man began to look within. Whether he called his work an _Essay
concerning Human Understanding_, or a _Treatise of Human Nature_, or a
_Theory of Moral Sentiments_, or a _Critique of Pure Reason_, the aim
was to study human experience. For of a sudden it was dawning upon man
that, if he was then living upon a higher level of knowledge and conduct
than the animal or the savage, this must be due to the activity of the
mind. It appeared that man, not satisfied with "nature," had gone on to
build a new world with institutions and morality, with art and science.
This was no creation of instinct or habit; nor could it be explained in
terms of sense, or feeling, or impulse alone; it was the work of that
more active, universal, and creative type of intelligence which we call
reason. Man, as capable of such achievements in science and conduct,
must be regarded with new respect. As having political rights, freedom,
and responsibility, man has the dignity of a citizen, sovereign as well
as subject. As guiding and controlling his own life and that of others
by the power of ideas, not of force, he has the dignity of a moral
person, a moral sovereignty. He does not merely take what nature brings;
he sets up ends of his own and gives them worth. In this, Kant saw the
supreme dignity of the human spirit.
=3. The Present Significance and Task of Scientific Method.=--In the
thought that man is able to form ends which have value for all, to set
up standards which all respect, and thus to achieve worth and dignity in
the estimation of his fellows, the Individualism of the eighteenth
century was already pointing beyond itself. For this meant that the
individual attains his highest reach only as a member of a moral
society. But it is one thing to point out the need and meaning of a
moral society, it is another thing to bring such a society into being.
It has become evident during the past century that this is the central
problem for human reason to solve. The various social sciences,
economics, sociology, political science, jurisprudence, social
psychology, have either come into being for the first time, or have been
prosecuted with new energy. Psychology has assumed new significance as
their instrument. Not that the scientific progress of the century has
seen its greatest triumphs in these fields. The conspicuous successes
have been rather in such sciences as biology, or in the applications of
science to engineering and medicine. The social sciences have been
occupied largely in getting their problems stated and their methods
defined. But the discoveries and constructions of the nineteenth century
are none the less indispensable prerequisites for a moral society. For
the new conditions of city life, the new sources of disease, the new
dangers which attend every successive step away from the life of the
savage, demand all the resources of the sciences.[94] And as the natural
sciences overcome the technical difficulties which obstruct their work
of aiding human welfare, the demand will be more insistent that the
social sciences contribute their share toward enabling man to fulfil his
moral life. Some of the specific demands will become more evident, as we
study in subsequent chapters the present problems of political,
economic, and family life.
=Education.=--The importance for the moral life of the modern
development of science is paralleled by the significance of modern
education. The universities date from the Middle Ages. The classical
interest of humanism found its medium in the college or "grammar
school." The invention of printing and the growth of commerce promoted
elementary schools. Supposed necessities of popular government
stimulated a general educational movement in the United States. Modern
trade and industry have called out the technical school. Germany has
educated for national defense and economic advance; England has
concerned itself preeminently for the education of statesmen and
administrators; and the United States for the education of voters. But,
whatever the motive, education has been made so general as to constitute
a new element in the modern consciousness and a new factor to be
reckoned with. The moral right of every child to have an education,
measured not by his parents' abilities, but by his own capacity, is
gaining recognition. The moral value of a possession, which is not, like
material goods, exclusive, but common, will be more appreciated when we
have worked out a more social and democratic type of training.[95]
=Theoretical Interpretation of this Period in Ethical Systems.=--While
the theoretical interpretation of this period is to be treated in Part
II., we may point out here that the main lines of development which we
have traced find expression in the two systems which have been most
influential during the past century. These are the systems of Kant and
of the Utilitarians. The political and certain aspects of the
intellectual development are reflected in the system of Kant. He
emphasized freedom, the power and authority of reason, human dignity,
the supreme value of character, and the significance of a society in
which every member is at once sovereign and subject. The Utilitarians
represent the values brought out in the development of industry,
education, and the arts. They claimed that the good is happiness, and
happiness of the greatest number. The demands for individual
satisfaction and for social distribution of goods are voiced in this
system.
LITERATURE
The histories of philosophy and of ethics give the theoretical side. In
addition to those previously mentioned the works of Hoeffding,
Falckenberg, and Fischer may be named. Stephen, _English Thought in the
Eighteenth Century_, and _The Utilitarians_; Fichte, _Characteristics of
the Present Age_ (in _Popular Works_, tr. by Smith); Stein, _Die sociale
Frage im Lichte der Philosophie_, 1897; Comte, _Positive Philosophy_,
tr. by Martineau, 1875, Book VI. Tufts and Thompson, _The Individual and
His Relation to Society as Reflected in British Ethics_, 1896, 1904;
Merz, _History of European Thought in the 19th Century_, 1904;
Robertson, _A Short History of Free Thought_, 1899; Bonar, _Philosophy
and Political Economy in Some of Their Historical Relations_, 1893.
ON THE MEDIAEVAL AND RENAISSANCE ATTITUDE: Lecky, _History of European
Morals_, 3rd ed., 1877; Adams, _Civilization during the Middle Ages_,
1895; Rashdall, _The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages_, 1895;
Eicken, _Geschichte und System der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung_,
1877; Burckhardt, _The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy_, 1892;
Draper, _History of the Intellectual Development of Europe_, 1876.
ON THE INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL SIDE: Ashley, _English Economic History_;
Cunningham, _Western Civilization in Its Economic Aspects_, 1900; and
_Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, 3rd ed., 1896-1903; Hobson,
_The Evolution of Modern Capitalism_, 1894; Traill, _Social England_,
1894; Rambaud, _Histoire de Civilization Francaise_, 1897; Held, _Zwei
Buecher zur socialen Geschichte Englands_, 1881; Carlyle, _Past and
Present_; Ziegler, _Die Geistigen und socialen Stroemungen des
neunzehnten Jahrhunderts_, 1901.
ON THE POLITICAL AND JURAL DEVELOPMENT: Hadley, _Freedom and
Responsibility in the Evolution of Democratic Government_, 1903;
Pollock, _The Expansion of the Common Law_, 1904; Ritchie, _Natural
Rights_, 1895; _Darwin and Hegel_, 1893, ch. vii.; Dicey, _Lectures on
the Relation of Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth
Century_, 1905.
ON THE LITERARY SIDE: Brandes, _The Main Currents in the Literature of
the Nineteenth Century_, 1905; Francke, _Social Forces in German
Literature_, 1895; Carriere, _Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der
Culturentwicklung und die Ideale der Menschheit_, 3rd ed., 1877-86.
FOOTNOTES:
[84] Fisher, _History of the Christian Church_, p. 227.
[85] _Democracy and Social Ethics_, pp. 222-77; _Newer Ideals of Peace_,
ch. v.
[86] Bryce, _Holy Roman Empire_, p. 367.
[87] _Social Forces in German Literature_, p. 93.
[88] Pp. 130 f., 136.
[89] Tolstoy, _What is Art?_
[90] P. 40.
[91] See p. 176.
[92] Cunningham, _An Essay on Western Civilization_, pp. 77 ff.
[93] The writer is indebted to his colleague Professor Mead for the
significance of this for the beginnings of modern science.
[94] "Civilized man has proceeded so far in his interference with
extra-human nature, has produced for himself and the living organisms
associated with him such a special state of things by his rebellion
against natural selection and his defiance of Nature's prehuman
dispositions, that he must either go on and acquire firmer control of
the conditions or perish miserably by the vengeance certain to fall on
the half-hearted meddler in great affairs.... We may think of him as the
heir to a vast and magnificent kingdom who has been finally educated so
as to fit him to take possession of his property, and is at length left
alone to do his best; he has wilfully abrogated, in many important
respects, the laws of his Mother Nature by which the kingdom was
hitherto governed; he has gained some power and advantage by so doing,
but is threatened on every hand by dangers and disasters hitherto
restrained: no retreat is possible--his only hope is to control, as he
knows that he can, the sources of these dangers and disasters. They
already make him wince: how long will he sit listening to the
fairy-tales of his boyhood and shrink from manhood's task?"--RAY
LANKESTER, _The Kingdom of Man_, 1907, pp. 31 f.
[95] John Dewey, _The School and Society_.