A Vision of the Future, Based on the Application of Ethical Principles

by Jane Hume Clapperton

The age in which we live is one of great activity and general movement. We are passing out of the mindless, genetic, into the rational, conscious epochs of evolution; and while, at every stage of human history, right conduct depends objectively on relatively true thinking, and subjectively, on good impulses, a transitional period such as the present demands special efforts to attain to an adequate and clear conception of the problems of life.

If no correct philosophy of life comes to birth in the thinking centres of our social organism, general conduct will continue harmful to many and inimical to progress.

How may the truth of a philosophy be tested? No better answer, I think, can be given than that of Buddha, of whom it is chronicled that he said in reference to a projected philosophy—“After observation and analysis if it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” Our theory of life must appeal to the developed reason of civilized man and carry a conviction of its truth. Moreover, it must be all-embracing. Sectional aims and aspirations will never suffice. The aim must be universal, i.e., directed to the well-being of all mankind.

In view of the question: “What is the primary object of human life?” two significant facts are apparent. First, the perpetual aim, conscious or instinctive, of man, as of all physical beings, is to compass the satisfaction of his desires, viz., contentment. Second, however diverse and conflicting may seem the opinions held by popular teachers on the subject, there is nevertheless an essential unity. For all point to some kind of happiness, in the present or future, for oneself, or others, for individuals, or for the race, as the ultimate end of existence.

A close observation of actual life—apart from theories of duty—reveals incontestably that the instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain is universal and paramount. It is the general force ruling individual conduct. A child shrinks from lessons and seeks play because the one causes painful effort, the other gives pleasurable sensations, unless there are the beginnings of an intellectual sense and the child is what we call studious; in that case the sense of effort is overcome by the pleasure of learning, and there is no unwillingness. Or when the representative faculty is strong, the thought of a parent’s or teacher’s approval may be so clear in the young mind as to make the future happiness counterbalance the present effort. But it is always pleasure at the moment, or pleasure in anticipation, or fear of punishment, viz., avoidance of pain, that gives the stimulus to work. The human nature of a tender mother is much the same. She hates to hear her offspring cry, she loves to see them smile. She seems to sacrifice herself to them, but in reality it is not so; for her greatest pains and pleasures reach her through them. Her personal desires, her dearest hopes, are centred in her children. She is proud of their acquirements, ambitious for their future, happy in their success. When she strives to check and discipline them, it is because she dreads, for them and for herself, some baneful consequences should she refrain. She does not act for a selfish end. Her nature is more complex, far wider and deeper than the child’s; but her action is essentially the same. She is avoiding painful and seeking pleasurable sensations, present and future, for herself and her children.

Nor with the poor man is the position different. The pain of hunger or the dread of hunger, for himself or those beings whom he loves, stimulates to a life of continuous and wearing toil. If he submit to present pain, it is that he may avoid remote pain, and secure the satisfaction of his most pressing wants.

The leisured classes are differently situated. With conditions of life that place them above the struggle for subsistence, they seek enjoyment according to individual character and tastes. Whatever interests the mind and stirs the emotions pleasurably will be pursued. We speak of this and that career as guided by genius, ambition, benevolence, and so forth, but in every case these qualities of mind have pushed choice in the direction which will gratify the individual.

If we say goodness, not happiness, is the proper aim of life, we must allow that goodness means the aiding to bring happiness to mankind. Religions signifying less than this are unworthy the name of religion. Now it is emphatically the good who keenly suffer in the midst of an evil social state where poverty, misery and crime abound. It has been truly said—“The contrast between the ideal and the actual of humanity lies as a heavy weight upon all tender and reflective minds.” These perceive that goodness, in their own case, has depended largely on the conditions of their lives, while thousands of their fellow-creatures have had little scope for goodness, because born and brought up in degraded, vile conditions they had no power to escape from. It is no consolation to the good to point to a future happy state and to immortality for themselves. The actual is what concerns them. Their feelings get no rest, their intellects surge with perpetual efforts to conceive some means of radical reform, some method to secure more goodness and more happiness for all, i.e. for every woman, man and child, alive in the present day.

Turning now to published opinions concerning the object of life, Carlyle taught that conscientious work was the main business of civilized man. “Be indifferent,” he cried, “alike to pleasure and pain; care only to do work, honest, successful work (no futilities) in this hurly-burly world.” He directed attention from abstract ideals of the future to the actual life of the present, pointing out the miseries and shams of the evil social state and powerfully inveighing against its corruptions. To maintain an outward existence of active usefulness and an inward state of quietism and stoicism was Carlyle’s conception of an individual’s duty, but while there was to be no seeking for personal reward he believed this course would result in blessedness, and blessedness meant something purer, nobler, more desirable than happiness. If we take his own history set forth in the Reminiscences as carrying out this theory, we find that in his case it broke down. He toiled and plodded, doing successful work to the end of what appeared a noble, victorious career, but the blessedness never came, or if it did, it was not nobler and purer than happiness. It was a gloomy state, bankrupt of hope and full of querulous, dissatisfied egotism.

George Eliot gave us no theory of life in any of her works of genius. The action of her influence is, however, unmistakeable. It was to develop social and sympathetic feeling, to make individuals tolerant and tender towards their fellows, judging none without due regard to his or her surroundings. She has accustomed her thoughtful readers to the scientific aspect of human nature and social life, to watch the manifold relations between the two, the action and interaction of forces without and within, and to see the continuity of causation along with the reforming effect of ceaseless changes. The evolutional conception of life underlies all her work. The pictures are realistic, there is no false colouring and vain delusions, no perfection of character—but aspiration, effort, broad humanity—and no perfect happiness attained. She indicated, however, that the social state wants altering, and readjustments there would conduce to nobler life and greater happiness. She hoped for progress by gradual changes in the outward social system and in inward human nature. “What I look to,” she once said, in conversation with a friend, “is a time when the impulse to help our fellows shall be as immediate and irresistible as that which I feel to grasp” (and as she spoke she grasped the mantelpiece) “something firm if I am falling.” Although George Eliot formulated no theory I conceive she held the belief that happiness for all at all times is the object of life, and to be arrived at, chiefly, through the development of the altruistic or sympathetic side of human nature.