The Monist, Vol. 1, 1890-1891

by Various

IX. PROFESSOR ADLER'S POSITION.

Professor Adler is the founder of the Ethical Societies, he is their leader, and however much Mr. Salter, Dr. Coit, Mr. Sheldon, and Mr. Weston may disagree from him in minor matters, his views are decisive in the management, and the policy of the whole movement depends on him. Through his indefatigable zeal in the holy cause of ethics, his unflinching courage in the defense of what he regards as right, his energetic devotion to his ideals, and through the influence of his powerful oratory he has made the ethical societies what they now are. He determines their character and he is the soul of the whole movement. Now it is true that Professor Adler has never presented us with a systematic philosophy, but all his activity, his speeches, his poems, and the plans of his enterprises represent a very definite philosophical conception, which, to give it a name, may briefly be called Kantian Agnosticism.

Professor Adler is an agnostic, although not after the pattern of
Spencer or Huxley. His agnosticism has been impressed upon his mind by
Kant.

I expect that Mr. Adler will repudiate the name of agnostic, and it is quite indifferent with what name he may characterise his views. His position remains the same, whatever name he may choose to call it, if he chooses any; and he will choose none for he is too consistent an agnostic to define his position by a name.

It devolves upon me to prove my assertion and I hope to be able to do so.

Professor Adler looks upon ethics as something which lies outside the pale of human knowledge. He says in one of his lectures:

"And now one point more of utmost importance. If there be an existence corresponding to our highest idea, as we have said there is, yet we know not what kind of existence that may be … why then should we speak of it at all, why should we try to mention in words an existence which we cannot know? I will answer why. Because it is necessary to remind mankind constantly that there is an existence which they do not know…. Because otherwise the sense of mystery will fade out of human lives…."

Is "the sense of mystery" really a necessary element in human lives to make men aware of the grandeur of the universe. Is there no holiness in clearness of thought, and is ethics only sacred if it is surrounded with the hazy halo of an unknowable transcendentalism?

If our moral ideal does not come by the special revelation of God, as the dogmatic religions maintain, and if we cannot find it in nature, if it is beyond the ken of human cognition, if it is unascertainable by science, whence does it come? Professor Adler says:

"We must, indeed, be always on our guard, lest we confuse the idea of the Perfect with notions of the good derived from human experience. This has been the mistake of theology in the past, the point wherein every theodicy has invariably broken down. When we think of the Perfect we think of a transcendental state of existence, when we think of the moral law in its completeness we think of a transcendental law, a law which can only be wholly fulfilled in the regions of the Infinite, but which can never be fully realised within the conditions of space and time. The formula of that law when applied to human relations, yields the specific moral commandments, but these commandments can never express the full content, can never convey the far off spiritual meanings of the supreme law itself. The specific commandments do, indeed, partake of the nature of the transcendental law, they are its effects. The light that shines through them comes from beyond, but its beams are broken as they pass our terrestrial medium, and the full light in all its glory we can never see."

In this passage I believe to recognise the influence of Kant's transcendentalism. I differ from Professor Adler's conception of Kantian transcendentalism, but that is of no account here. One point only is of consequence. Professor Adler uses the word transcendental in the sense of transcendent and thus he changes the ethics of pure reason into mysticism. Professor Adler says:

"Though I can never be scientifically certain, I can be morally sure that the mystery of the universe is to be read in terms of moral perfection."

I do not deny that moral instinct ripens quicker than scientific comprehension. Why? Because in a time when science is not as yet so far advanced as to understand the operations of the moral law, those people who instinctively obey the rules that can be derived from the moral law, will survive and all the rest will go to the wall. But the fact that we can have a reliable moral guide in an instinctive certainty which is generally called conscience, even before we attain to scientific clearness, does not prove that science will be forever excluded from the world of moral ideals.

Professor Adler's agnosticism found a very strong expression in a poem which resembles in its tone and ideas the church hymns of the New Jerusalem. The poem is very unequivocal on the point that moral action is comparable to building an ideal city, the plan of which is unknown to the builders. Professor Adler says:

"Have you heard the Golden City
Mentioned in the legends old?
Everlasting light shines o'er it,
Wondrous tales of it are told.

Only righteous men and women
Dwell within its gleaming wall;
Wrong is banished from its borders,
Justice reigns supreme o'er all.

Do you ask, Where is that City,
Where the perfect Right doth reign?
I must answer, I must tell you,
That you seek its site in vain.

You may roam o'er hill and valley,
You may pass o'er land and sea,
You may search the wide earth over,—
'T is a City yet to be!

We are builders of that City,—
All our joys and all our groans
Help to rear its shining ramparts;
All our lives are building-stones.

* * * * *

What that plan may be we know not.[136]
How the seat of Justice high,
How the City of our vision
Will appear to mortal eye,—

That no mortal eye can picture,
That no mortal tongue can tell.
We can barely dream the glories
Of the Future's citadel."

[136] The italics are ours.

How great an importance is attributed to this song by the leaders of the ethical movement may be learned from Mr. Salter's opinion of it. Mr. Salter says in criticising Unitarianism:

"Not from Unitarianism, not from Christianity, has come the song that best utters and almost chants this thought [of an ideal fellowship]. It is from Felix Adler, upon whom, I sometimes think, more than upon any other man of our day, the mantle and prophetic spirit of Channing have fallen, and whose words, I almost believe, are those which Jesus himself would utter, should he come and put his solemn thought and passion into the language of to-day."

Agnosticism is in our opinion no sound basis upon which to erect ethics. The unknowable is like quicksand, it gives way under our feet. The ethics of agnosticism must necessarily become mysticism. The ethereal dreams of mysticists need no solid basis, they hover in the air. Mr. Spencer who for some reason or other tried to escape the consequences of his agnosticism in the ethical field, adopted Utilitarianism, basing his moral maxims not upon the unknowable, as consistency would require, but upon the principle of the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Professor Adler is not a Spencerian agnostic and here lies the strength of his ethics. Although he does not attain to a clear and scientific conception of the origin and natural growth of morality, he sounds no uncertain voice with regard to the Happiness Principle. He has on several occasions, like his great master Kant, uncompromisingly rejected any Hedonism or Eudæmonism. Among all societies aspiring to foster moral ideals, the societies for ethical culture are distinguished for their seriousness and ardor; and there can be no doubt about the cause: it is the spirit of Professor Adler's zeal not to give way to a hedonistic conception of ethics.