Chapter I.—THE FORMATION AND GROWTH OF IDEALS.
LVIII.
Analysis of Conscience.
The practical consciousness, or the recognition of ends and relations of action, is what is usually termed conscience. The analysis of conscience shows that it involves three elements, which may be distinguished in theory, although they have no separate existence in the actual fact of conscience itself. These three elements are (1) the knowledge of certain specific forms of conduct, (2) the recognition of the authority or obligatoriness of the forms, and (3) the emotional factors which cluster about this recognition. That is to say, we often speak (1) of conscience telling or informing us of duties; we speak of an enlightened or unenlightened conscience; of savage, or mediæval, or modern conscience. Here we are evidently thinking of the kind and range of particular acts considered right or wrong. But we also speak (2) of the authority and majesty of conscience; of the commands of conscience, etc. Here we are thinking of the consciousness of obligation in general. The savage and the civilized man may vary greatly in their estimate of what particular acts are right or wrong, and yet agree in the recognition that such acts as are right are absolutely obligatory. Finally we speak of an approving or disapproving, or remorseful conscience, of a tender or a hardened conscience, of the pangs, the pricks of conscience, etc. Here (3) we are evidently dealing with the responsiveness of the disposition to moral distinctions, either in particular acts, or in the recognition of moral law in general.
LIX.
Conscience as the Recognition of Special Acts as Right or Wrong.
Conscience in this sense is no peculiar, separate faculty of mind. It is simply intelligence dealing with a certain subject-matter. That is, conscience is distinguished not by the kind of mental activity at work, but by the kind of material the mind works upon. Intelligence deals with the nature and relations of things, and we call it understanding; intelligence deals with the relations of persons and deeds, and it is termed conscience.
We may, with advantage, recognize these stages in the development of intelligence as dealing with moral relationships:
1. The Customary or Conventional Conscience. The existing moral world, with the types and varieties of institutions peculiar to it, is constantly impressing itself upon the immature mind; it makes certain demands of moral agents and enforces them with all the means in its power—punishment, reward, blame, public-opinion, and the bestowal of social leadership. These demands and expectations naturally give rise to certain convictions in the individual as to what he should or should not do. Such convictions are not the outcome of independent reflection, but of the moulding influence of social institutions. Moreover the morality of a time becomes consolidated into proverbs, maxims and law-codes. It takes shape in certain habitual ways of looking at and judging matters. All these are instilled into the growing mind through language, literature, association and legal custom, until they leave in the mind a corresponding habit and attitude toward things to be done. This process may be compared to the process by which knowledge of the world of things is first attained. Certain of the more permanent features of this world, especially those whose observance is important in relation to continued physical existence and well-being, impress themselves upon the mind. Consciousness, with no reflective activity of its own, comes to mirror some of the main outlines of the world. The more important distinctions are fixed in language, and they find their way into the individual mind, giving it unconsciously a certain bent and coloring.
2. The Loyal Conscience. But just as the mind, which seems at first to have the facts and features of the world poured into itself as a passive vessel, comes in time through its own experience to appreciate something of their meaning, and, to some extent, to verify them for itself; so the mind in its moral relations. Without forming any critical theory of the institutions and codes which are forming character, without even considering whether they are what they should be, the individual yet comes at least to a practical recognition that it is in these institutions that he gets his satisfactions, and through these codes that he is protected. He identifies himself, his own life, with the social forms and ideals in which he lives, and repels any attack upon them as he would an attack upon himself. The demands which the existing institutions make upon him are not felt as the coercions of a despot, but as expressions of his own will, and requiring loyalty as such. The conventional conscience, if it does not grow into this, tends to become slavish, while an intelligence which practically realizes, although without continual reflection, the significance of conventional morality is free in its convictions and service.
3. The Independent or Reflective Conscience. The intelligence may not simply appropriate, as its own, conventions embodied in current institutions and codes, but may reflect upon them. It may ask: What is this institution of family, property for? Does the institution in its present form work as it should work, or is some modification required? Does this rule which is now current embody the true needs of the situation, or is it an antiquated expression of by-gone relations? What is the true spirit of existing institutions, and what sort of conduct does this spirit demand?
Here, in a word, we have the same relation to the ethical world, that we have in physical science to the external world. Intelligence is not content, on its theoretical side, with having facts impressed upon it by direct contact or through language; it is not content with coming to feel for itself the value of the truths so impressed. It assumes an independent attitude, putting itself over against nature and cross-questioning her. It proposes its own ideas, its own theories and hypotheses, and manipulates facts to see if this rational meaning can be verified. It criticises what passes as truth, and pushes on to more adequate statement.
The correlative attempt, on the part of intelligence on its practical side, may have a larger or a smaller scope. In its wider course it aims to criticise and to re-form prevailing social ideals and institutions—even those apparently most fixed. This is the work of the great moral teachers of the world. But in order that conscience be critical, it is not necessary that its range be so wide. The average member of a civilized community is nowadays called upon to reflect upon his immediate relationships in life, to see if they are what they should be; to regulate his own conduct by rules which he follows not simply because they are customary, but the result of his own examination of the situation. There is no difference in kind between the grander and the minuter work. And it is only the constant exercise of reflective examination on the smaller scale which makes possible, and which gives efficiency to, the deeper criticism and transformation.
LX.
Reflective Conscience and the Ethical World.
This conception of conscience as critical and reflective is one of the chief fruits of the Socratic ethics, fructified by the new meaning given life through the Christian spirit. It involves the 'right of free conscience'—the right of the individual to know the good, to know the end of action, for himself, rather than to have some good, however imposing and however beneficent, enjoined from without. It is this principle of subjective freedom, says Hegel, which marks the turning-point in the distinction of modern from ancient times (Sec. 124, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, Vol. VIII of Hegel's Works).[2]
[2] I hardly need say how largely I am indebted in the treatment of this topic, and indeed, in the whole matter of the 'ethical world', to Hegel.
But this notion of conscience is misinterpreted when the content as well as the form of conscience is thought to be individual. There is no right of private judgment, in the sense that there is not a public source and standard of judgment. What is meant by this right is that the standard, the source, is not the opinion of some other person, or group of persons. It is a common, objective standard. It is that embodied in social relationships themselves.
The conception of conscience as a private possession, to be exercised by each one in independence of historical forms and contemporary ideals, is thoroughly misleading. The saying "I had to follow my own notion of what is right" has been made the excuse for all sorts of capricious, obstinate and sentimental performance. It is of such notions that Hegel further says: "The striving for a morality of one's own is futile, and by its very nature impossible of attainment; in respect of morality the saying of the wisest men of antiquity is the only true one: To be moral is to live in accordance with the moral tradition of one's country" (Hegel, Works, Vol. I, p. 389). And in discussing the same question, Bradley has said that the wish to have a morality of one's own better than that of the world is to be on the threshold of morality (p. 180).
Yet, on the other hand, conscience should not simply repeat the burden of existing usages and opinions. No one can claim that the existing morality embodies the highest possible conception of personal relations. A morality which does not recognize both the possibility and the necessity of advance is immorality. Where then is the way out from a capricious self-conceit, on one hand, and a dead conformity on the other? Reflective conscience must be based on the moral consciousness expressed in existing institutions, manners and beliefs. Otherwise it is empty and arbitrary. But the existing moral status is never wholly self-consistent. It realizes ideals in one relation which it does not in another; it gives rights to 'aristocrats' which it denies to low-born; to men, which it refuses to women; it exempts the rich from obligations which it imposes upon the poor. Its institutions embody a common good which turns out to be good only to a privileged few, and thus existing in self-contradiction. They suggest ends which they execute only feebly or intermittently. Reflective intelligence cross-questions the existing morality; and extracts from it the ideal which it pretends to embody, and thus is able to criticise the existing morality in the light of its own ideal. It points out the inconsistencies, the incoherencies, the compromises, the failures, between the actual practice and the theory at the basis of this practice. And thus the new ideal proposed by the individual is not a product of his private opinions, but is the outcome of the ideal embodied in existing customs, ideas and institutions.
LXI.
The Sense of Obligation.
There has been much discussion regarding the nature of the act of mind by which obligation is recognized. A not uncommon view has been that the sense of duty as such must be the work of a peculiar faculty of the mind. Admitting that the recognition of this or that particular thing as right or wrong, is the work of ordinary intelligence, it is held that the additional recognition of the absolute obligatoriness of the right cannot be the work of this intelligence. For our intellect is confined to judging what is or has been; the conception of obligation, of something which should be, wholly transcends its scope. There is, therefore, some special moral in faculty called which affixes to the ordinary judgments the stamp of the categorical imperative "You ought".
See for example Maurice on "Conscience". The view is traceable historically to Kant's conception of Practical Reason, but as the view is ordinarily advanced the function of Practical Reason in Kant's philosophy is overlooked. The Practical Reason is no special faculty of man's being; it is his consciousness of himself as an acting being; that is, as a being capable of acting from ideas. Kant never separates the consciousness of duty from the very nature of will as the realization of conceptions. In the average modern presentation, this intrinsic connection of duty with activity is absent. Conscience becomes a faculty whose function it is to clap the idea of duty upon the existent conception of an act; and this existent conception is regarded as morally indifferent.
It is true that Kant's Practical Reason has a certain separateness or isolation. But this is because of his general separation of the rational from the sensuous factor, and not because of any separation of the consciousness of action from the consciousness of duty. If Kant erred in his divorce of desire and duty, then even the relative apartness of the Practical Reason must be given up. The consciousness of obligation is involved in the recognition of any end of conduct, and not simply in the end of abstract law.
Such a conception of conscience, however, is open to serious objections. Aside from the fact that large numbers of men declare that no amount of introspection reveals any such machinery within themselves, this separate faculty seems quite superfluous. The real distinction is not between the consciousness of an action with, and without, the recognition of duty, but between a consciousness which is and one which is not capable of conduct. Any being who is capable of putting before himself ideas as motives of conduct, who is capable of forming a conception of something which he would realize, is, by that very fact, capable of a sense of obligation. The consciousness of an end to be realized, the idea of something to be done, is, in and of itself, the consciousness of duty.
Let us consider again the horse-car conductor (see Sec. [LVI]). After he has analyzed the situation which faces him and decided that a given course of conduct is the one which fits the situation, does he require some additional faculty to inform him that this course is the one which should be followed? The analysis of practical ideas, that is, of proposed ends of conduct, is from the first an analysis of what should be done. Such being the case, it is no marvel that the conclusion of the reflection is: "This should (ought to) be done."
Indeed, just as every judgment about existent fact naturally takes the form 'S is P', so every judgment regarding an activity which executes an idea takes the form, 'S ought (or ought not) to be P'. It requires no additional faculty of mind, after intelligence has been studying the motions of the moon, to insert itself, and affirm some objective relation or truth—as that the moon's motions are explainable by the law of gravitation. It is the very essence of theoretical judgment, judgment regarding fact, to state truth—what is. And it is the very essence of practical judgment, judgment regarding deeds, to state that active relation which we call obligation, what ought to be.
The judgment as to what a practical situation is, is an untrue or abstract judgment.
The practical situation is itself an activity; the needs, powers, and circumstances which make it are moving on. At no instant in time is the scene quiescent. But the agent, in order to determine his course of action in view of this situation, has to fix it; he has to arrest its onward movement in order to tell what it is. So his abstracting intellect cuts a cross-section through its on-going, and says 'This is the situation'. Now the judgment 'This ought to be the situation', or 'in view of the situation, my conduct ought to be thus and so', is simply restoring the movement which the mind has temporarily put out of sight. By means of its cross-section, intelligence has detected the principle, or law of movement, of the situation, and it is on the basis of this movement that conscience declares what ought to be.
Just as the fact of moral law, or of authority, of the incumbency of duty, needs for its explanation no separation of the 'is' from the 'ought' (see [LVI]), but only recognition of the law of the 'is' which is, perforce, a law of movement, and of change;—so the consciousness of law, 'the sense of obligation' requires no special mental faculty which may declare what ought to be. The intelligence that is capable of declaring truth, or what is, is capable also of making known obligation. For obligation is only practical truth, the 'is' of doing.
See upon this point, as well as upon the relation of laws and rules to action, my article in Vol. I, No. 2, of the International Journal of Ethics, entitled 'Moral Theory and Practice'.
LXII.
Conscience as Emotional Disposition.
Probably no judgment is entire-free from emotional coloring and accompaniments. It is doubtful whether the most indifferent judgment is not based upon, and does not appeal to, some interest. Certainly all the more important judgments awaken some response from the self, and excite its interests to their depths. Some of them may be excited by the intrinsic nature of the subject-matter under judgment, while others are the results of associations more or less accidental. The former will necessarily be aroused in every being, who has any emotional nature at all, whenever the judgment is made, while the latter will vary from time to time, and may entirely pass away. That moral judgments, judgments of what should be (or should have been) done, arouse emotional response, is therefore no cause for surprise. It may help clear up difficulties if we distinguish three kinds of such emotional accompaniment.
1. There are, first, the interests belonging to the sense of obligation as such. We have just seen that this sense of obligation is nothing separate from the consciousness of the particular act which is to be performed. Nevertheless the consciousness of obligation, of an authority and law, recurs with every act, while the special content of the act constantly varies. Thus an idea of law, or of duty in general, is formed, distinct from any special duty. Being formed, it arouses the special emotional excitation appropriate to it. The formation of this general idea of duty, and the growth of feeling of duty as such, is helped on through the fact that children (and adults so far as their moral life is immature) need to have their moral judgments constantly reinforced by recurrence to the thought of law. That is to say, a child, who is not capable of seeing the true moral bearings and claims of an act, is yet continually required to perform such an act on the ground that it is obligatory. The feeling, therefore, is natural and legitimate. It must, however, go hand in hand with the feelings aroused by the special moral relations under consideration. Disconnected from such union, it necessarily leads to slavish and arbitrary forms of conduct. A child, for example, who is constantly taught to perform acts simply because he ought to do so, without having at the same time his intelligence directed to the nature of the act which is obligatory (without, that is, being led to see how or why it is obligatory), may have a strongly developed sense of obligation. As he grows up, however, this sense of duty will be largely one of dread and apprehension; a feeling of constraint, rather than of free service. Besides this, it will be largely a matter of accident to what act this feeling attaches itself. Anything that comes to the mind with the force of associations of past education, any ideal that forces itself persistently into consciousness from any source may awaken this sense of obligation, wholly irrespective of the true nature of the act. This is the explanation of strongly 'conscientious' persons, whose morality is yet unintelligent and blundering. It is of such persons that it has been said that a thoroughly good man can do more harm than a number of bad men.
When, however, the feeling of obligation in general is developed along with particular moral judgments (that is, along with the habit of considering the special nature of acts performed), it is one of the strongest supports to morality. Acts constantly need to be performed which are recognized as right and as obligatory, and yet with reference to which there is no fixed habit of conduct. In these cases, the more direct, or spontaneous, stimulus to action is wanting.
If, however, there is a strong sense of obligation in general, this may attach itself to the particular act and thus afford the needed impetus. In unusual experiences, and in cases where the ordinary motive-forces are lacking, such a feeling of regard for law may be the only sure stay of right conduct.
2. There is the emotional accompaniment appropriate to the special content of the act. If, for example, the required act has to do with some person, there arise in consciousness the feelings of interest, of love and friendship, or of dislike, which belong to that person. If it relate to some piece of work to be done, the sweeping of a room, the taking of a journey, the painting of a picture, there are the interests natural to such subjects. These feelings when aroused necessarily form part of the emotional attitude as respects the act. It is the strength and normal welling-up of such specific interests which afford the best assurance of healthy and progressive moral conduct, as distinct from mere sentimental dwelling upon ideals. Only interests prevent the divorce of feelings and ideas from habits of action. Such interests are the union of the subjective element, the self, and the objective, the special relations to be realized (Sec. [XXXIV]), and thus necessarily produce a right and healthy attitude towards moral ends. It is obvious that in a normal moral life, the law of obligation in general, and the specific interests in particular cases, should more and more fuse. The interests, at their strongest, take the form of love. And thus there is realized the ideal of an effective character; the union of law and inclination in its pure form—love for the action in and of itself.
3. Emotions due to accidental associations. It is matter of common notice that the moral feelings are rarely wholly pure; that all sorts of sentiments, due to associations of time and place and person not strictly belonging to the acts themselves, cluster about them. While this is true, we should not forget the great difficulty there is in marking off any associations as wholly external to the nature of the act. We may say that mere fear of punishment is such a wholly external feeling, having no place in moral emotion. Yet it may be doubted whether there is any feeling that may be called mere fear of punishment. It is, perhaps, fear of punishment by a parent, for whom one has love and respect, and thus the fear has partially a genuinely moral aspect. Some writers would call the æsthetic feelings, the feelings of beauty, of harmony, which gather about moral ends adventitious. Yet the fact that other moralists have made all moral feelings essentially æsthetic, as due to the perception of the fitness and proportion of the acts, should warn us from regarding æsthetic feelings as wholly external. About all that can be said is that feelings which do not spring from some aspect of the content of the act itself should be extruded, with growing maturity of character, from influence upon conduct.
LXIII.
Conscientiousness.
Conscientiousness is primarily the virtue of intelligence in regard to conduct. That is to say, it is the formed habit of bringing intelligence to bear upon the analysis of moral relations—the habit of considering what ought to be done. It is based upon the recognition of the idea first distinctly formulated by Socrates—that "an unexamined life is not one that should be led by man". It is the outgrowth of the customary morality embodied in usages, codes and social institutions, but it is an advance upon custom, because it requires a meaning and a reason. It is the mark of a "character which will not be satisfied without understanding the law that it obeys; without knowing what the good is, for which the demand has hitherto been blindly at work" (Green, Op. cit., p. 270). Conscientiousness, then, is reflective intelligence grown into character. It involves a greater and wider recognition of obligation in general, and a larger and more stable emotional response to everything that presents itself as duty; as well as the habit of deliberate consideration of the moral situation and of the acts demanded by it.
Conscientiousness is an analysis of the conditions under which conduct takes place, and of the action that will meet these conditions; it is a thoroughly objective analysis. What is sometimes termed conscientiousness is merely the habit of analyzing internal moods and sentiments; of prying into 'motives' in that sense of motive which identifies it not with the end of action, but with some subjective state of emotion. Thus considered, conscientiousness is morbid. We are sometimes warned against over-conscientiousness. But such conscientiousness means simply over-regard of one's private self; keeping an eye upon the effect of conduct on one's internal state, rather than upon conduct itself. Over-conscientiousness is as impossible as over-intelligence, since it is simply the application of intelligence to conduct. It is as little morbid and introspective as is the analysis of any fact in nature. Another notion which is sometimes thought to be bound up with that of conscience, also has nothing to do with it; namely, the notion of a precision and coldness opposed to all large spontaneity and broad sympathy in conduct. The reflective man of narrow insight and cramped conduct is often called the conscientious man and opposed to the man of generous impulses. This comes from identifying conscience with a ready-made code of rules, and its action with the application of some such fixed code to all acts as they come up. It is evident, on the contrary, that such a habit is opposed to conscience. Conscience means the consideration of each case in itself; measuring it not by any outside code, but in the existing moral situation.
On conscientiousness, see Green, Op. cit., pp. 269-271 and 323-327; and Alexander, Op. cit., pp. 156-160. These writers, however, seem to identify it too much with internal scrutiny. Green, for example, expressly identifies conscientiousness with a man's "questioning about himself, whether he has been as good as he should have been, whether a better man would not have acted otherwise than he has done" (p. 323). He again speaks of it as "comparison of our own practice, as we know it on the inner side in relation to the motives and character which it expresses, with an ideal of virtue". The first definition seems to be misleading. Questioning as to whether the end adopted was what it should have been, i. e., whether the analysis of the situation was correctly performed, may be of great service in aiding future decisions, but questioning regarding the purity of one's own 'motive' does not seem of much avail. In a man upon the whole good, such questioning is apt to be paralyzing. The energy that should go to conduct goes to anxiety about one's conduct. It is the view of goodness as directed mainly towards one's own private motives, which has led such writers as Henry James, Sr., and Mr. Hinton, to conceive of 'morality', the struggle for goodness, to be in essence bad. They conceived of the struggle for 'private goodness' as no different from the struggle for private pleasure, although likely, of course, to lead to better things. Nor in a bad man is such scrutiny of 'motive', as apart from objective end, of much value. The bad man is generally aware of the badness of his motive without much close examination. The truth aimed at by Green is, I think, amply covered by recognizing that conscientiousness as a constant will to know what should be, and to readjust conduct to meet the new insight, is the spring of the moral life.
LXIV.
Moral Commands, Rules and Systems.
What is the part played by specific commands and by general rules in the examination of conduct by conscience? We should note, in the first place, that commands are not rules, and rules are not commands. A command, to be a command, must be specific and individual. It must refer to time, place and circumstance. 'Thou shalt do no murder' is not strictly speaking a command, for it allows questioning as to what is murder. Is killing in war murder? Is the hanging of criminals murder? Is taking life in self-defense murder? Regarded simply as a command, this command would be 'void for uncertainty'. A true command is a specific injunction of one person to another to do or not to do a stated thing or things. Under what conditions do commands play a part in moral conduct? In cases where the intelligence of the agent is so undeveloped that he cannot realize for himself the situation and see the act required, and when a part of the agent's environment is constituted by others who have such required knowledge, there is a moral element in command and in obedience.
This explains the moral responsibility of parents to children and of children to parents. The soldier, too, in recognizing a general's command, is recognizing the situation as it exists for him. Were there simply superior force on one side, and fear on the other, the relation would be an immoral one. It is implied, of course, in such an instance as the parents' command, that it be so directed as to enable the child more and more to dispense with it—that is, that it be of such a character as to give the child insight into the situation for himself. Here is the transition from a command to a rule.
A rule does not tell what to do or what to leave undone. The Golden Rule, for example, does not tell me how to act in any specific case. A rule is a tool of analysis. The moral situation, or capacity in its relation to environment, is often an extremely complicated affair. How shall the individual resolve it? How shall he pick it to pieces, so as to see its real nature and the act demanded by it? It is evident that the analysis will be the more truly and speedily performed if the agent has a method by which to attack it, certain principles in the light of which he may view it, instruments for cross-questioning it and making it render up its meaning. Moral rules perform this service. While the Golden Rule does not of itself give one jot of information as to what I should do in a given case, it does, if accepted, immensely simplify the situation. Without it I should perhaps have to act blindly; with it the question comes to this: What should I, under the given circumstances, like to have done to me? This settled, the whole question of what should be done is settled.
It is obvious, then, that the value of a moral rule depends upon its potency in revealing the inner spirit and reality of individual deeds. Rules in the negative form, rules whose application is limited in scope because of an attempt to be specific, are midway between commands proper and rules. The Golden Rule, on the other hand, is positive, and not attempting to define any specific act, covers in its range all relations of man to man. It is indeed only a concrete and forcible statement of the ethical principle itself, the idea of a common good, or of a community of persons. This is also a convenient place for considering the practical value of ethical systems. We have already seen that no system can attempt to tell what in particular should be done. The principle of a system, however, may be of some aid in analyzing a specific case. In this way, a system may be regarded as a highly generalized rule. It attempts to state some fundamental principle which lies at the basis of moral conduct. So far as it succeeds in doing this, there is the possibility of its practical application in particular cases, although, of course, the mediate rules must continue to be the working tools of mankind—on account of their decided concrete character, and because they have themselves taken shape under the pressure of practice rather than of more theoretical needs.
LXV.
Development of Moral Ideals.
Thus far we have been speaking of conscience mainly as to its method of working. We have now to speak more definitely of its content, or of the development of ideals of action.
It is of the very nature of moral conduct to be progressive. Permanence of specific ideals means moral death. We say that truth-telling, charity, loyalty, temperance, have always been moral ends and while this is true, the statement as ordinarily made is apt to hide from us the fact that the content of the various ideals (what is meant by temperance, etc.) has been constantly changing, and this of necessity. The realization of moral ends must bring about a changed situation, so that the repetition of the same ends would no longer satisfy. This progress has two sides: the satisfaction of wants leads to a larger view of what satisfaction really is, i. e., to the creation of new capacities and wants; while adjustment to the environment creates wider and more complex social relationships.
Let the act be one of intelligence. Some new fact or law is discovered. On one hand, this discovery may arouse a hitherto comparatively dormant mind; it may suggest the possession of capacities previously latent; it may stimulate mental activity and create a thirst for expanding knowledge. This readjustment of intellectual needs and powers may be comparatively slight, or it may amount, as it has with many a young person, to a revolution. On the other hand, the new fact changes the intellectual outlook, the mental horizon, and, by transforming somewhat the relations of things, demands new conduct. All this, even when the growth of knowledge concerns only the physical world. But development of insight into social needs and affairs has a larger and more direct progressive influence. The social world exists spiritually, as conceived, and a new conception of it, new perception of its scope and bearings, is, perforce, a change of that world. And thus it is with the satisfaction of the human want of knowledge, that patience, courage, self-respect, humility, benevolence, all change character. When, for example, psychology has given an increase of knowledge regarding men's motives, political economy an increase of knowledge regarding men's wants, when historical knowledge has added its testimony regarding the effects of indiscriminate giving, charity must change its content. While once, the mere supplying of food or money by one to another may have been right as meeting the recognized relations, charity now comes to mean large responsibility in knowledge of antecedents and circumstances, need of organization, careful tracing of consequences, and, above all, effort to remove the conditions which made the want possible. The activity involved has infinitely widened.
Let the act be in the region of industrial life—a new invention. The invention of the telephone does not simply satisfy an old want—it creates new. It brings about the possibility of closer social relations, extends the distribution of intelligence, facilitates commerce. It is a common saying that the luxury of one generation is the necessity of the next; that is to say, what once satisfied a somewhat remote need becomes in time the basis upon which new needs grow up. Energy previously pent up is set free, new power and ideals are evoked. Consider again a person assuming a family relation. This seems, at first, to consist mainly in the satisfaction of certain common and obvious human wants. But this satisfaction, if moral, turns out rather to be the creation of new insight into life, of new relationships, and thus of new energies and ideals. We may generalize these instances. The secret of the moral life is not getting or having, it is doing and thus being. The getting and the possessing side of life has a moral value only when it is made the stimulus and nutriment of new and wider acting. To solve the equation between getting and doing is the moral problem of life. Let the possession be acquiesced in for its own sake, and not as the way to freer (and thus more moral) action, and the selfish life has set in (see Sec. [LXVII]). It is essential to moral activity that it feed itself into larger appetites and thus into larger life.
This must not be taken to deny that there is a mechanical side even to the moral life. A merchant, for example, may do the same thing over and over again, like going to his business every morning at the same hour. This is a moral act and yet it does not seem to lead to a change in moral wants or surroundings. Yet even in such cases it should be noted that it is only outwardly that the act is the same. In itself, that is, in its relation to the will of the agent, it is simply one element in the whole of character; and as character opens up, the act must change somewhat also. It is performed somehow in a new spirit. If this is not to some extent true, if such acts become wholly mechanical, the moral life is hardening into the rigidity of death.
This progressive development consists on one side in a richer and subtler individual activity, in increased individualization, in wider and freer functions of life; on the other it consists in increase in number of those persons whose ideal is a 'common good', or who have membership in the same moral community; and, further, it consists in more complex relations between them. It is both intensive and extensive.
History is one record of growth in the sense of specific powers. Its track is marked by the appearance of more and more internal and distinguishing traits; of new divisions of labor and corresponding freedom in functioning. It begins with groups in which everything is massed, and the good is common only in the sense of being undifferentiated for all. It progresses with the evolution of individuality, of the peculiar gifts entrusted to each, and hence of the specific service demanded of each.
The other side, the enlargement of the community of ends, has been termed growth in "comprehensiveness". History is again a record of the widening of the social consciousness—of the range of persons whose interests have to be taken into account in action. There has been a period in which the community was nothing more than a man's own immediate family group, this enlarging to the clan, the city, the social class, the nation; until now, in theory, the community of interests and ends is humanity itself.
This growth in comprehensiveness is not simply a growth in the number of persons having a common end. The quantitative growth reacts upon the nature of the ends themselves. For example, when the conceived community is small, bravery may consist mainly in willingness to fight for the recognized community against other hostile groups. As these groups become themselves included in the moral community, courage must change its form, and become resoluteness and integrity of purpose in defending manhood and humanity as such. That is to say, as long as the community is based largely upon physical facts, like oneness of blood, of territory, etc., the ideal of courage will have a somewhat external and physical manifestation. Let the community be truly spiritual, consisting in recognition of unity of destiny and function in coöperation toward an all-inclusive life, and the ideal of courage becomes more internal and spiritual, consisting in loyalty to the possibilities of humanity, whenever and wherever found.
On this development of moral ideals, and especially of the growth in "comprehensiveness" as reacting upon the intrinsic form which the ideal itself takes, see Green, Op. cit., pp. 264-308, followed by Alexander, Op. cit., pp. 384-398. For the process of change of ideals in general, see Alexander, pp. 271-292, and 369-371.