The Moral Economy

by Ralph Barton Perry

'It is not true that we have never been broken. We have been broken upon the wheel. . . . We have descended into hell. We were complaining of unforgettable miseries even at the very moment when this man entered insolently to accuse us of happiness. I repel the slander; we have not been happy.'[20]

But the charge of happiness is to be repelled as a slander only because there are real sufferers in the world to make the charge. It is, after all, not happiness but insensibility which is the real disgrace. If the suffering is real, not to see it, not to feel it, not to heal it, is intolerable. To say, however, that suffering is wilfully caused in order that it may eventually contribute to an ultimate reconciliation, is to charge God with something worse than complacency. If life is a real tragedy it can be endured, and to enter into it will bring the deep satisfaction which every form of heroism affords. But if the tragedy of life be preconceived and wilfully perpetrated, it must be resented for the sake of self-respect. Even man possesses a dignity which is not consistent with puppetry and mock heroics.

Moral idealism means to interpret life consistently with ethical, scientific, and metaphysical truth. It endeavors to justify the maximum of {252} hope, without compromising or confusing any enlightened judgment of truth. In this it is, I think, not only consistent with the spirit of a liberal and rational age, but also with the primary motive of religion. There can be no religion with reservations, fearful of increasing light. No man can do the work of religion without an open and candid mind as well as an indomitable purpose.

I can not here elaborate the evidence upon which moral idealism is grounded; but it might be broadly classified as ethical, cosmological, and historical. The ethical ground of moral idealism is the virtual unity of life, the working therein of one eventual purpose sustained by the good-will of all moral beings. The cosmological proof lies in the moral fruitfulness and plasticity of nature. The historical proof lies in the fact of moral progress, in the advent and steady betterment of life.

VII

In conclusion I wish to revert to the topic of the generic proof of religion. We have defined the tests which any special religion must meet, and unless conformably to such tests it is possible to justify some form of idealism, it is clear that the full possibilities of religion as a source of strength and consolation must fail to be realized. But it may now be affirmed that there is a moral {253} value in religion which is independent of the cosmological considerations which prove or disprove a special religion. No scientific or metaphysical evidence can controvert the fact that man is engaged in an enterprise which comprehends all the actualities and possibilities of life, and that the success of this enterprise is conditioned, in the end, on the compliance of the universe. A summing up of the situation as involving these two factors is morally inevitable. Some solution of the problem, assimilated and enacted, in other words, some form of piety, is no more than the last stage of moral growth.

The value of religious belief, in this generic moral sense, consists in the enlargement of the circle of life. Man knows the best and the worst; he walks in the open, apprehending the world in its full sweep and just proportions. An inclusive view of the universe, whatever it may reveal, throws into relief the lot of man. Religion promulgates the idea of life as a whole, and composes and proportions its activities with reference to their ultimate end. Religion advocates not the virtues in their severalty, but the whole moral enterprise. With this it affiliates all the sundry activities of life, thus bringing both action and thought under the form of service of the ideal. At the same time it offers a supreme object for the passions, which are otherwise divided against {254} themselves, or vented upon unworthy and fantastical objects. Through being thus economized and guided, these moving energies may be brought to support moral endeavor and bear it with them in their current.

Piety carries with it also that sense of high resolve without which life must be haunted with a sense of ignominy. This is the immediate value of the good-will: the full deliverance of one's self to the cause of goodness. This value is independent of attainment. It is that doing of one's best, which is the least that one can do. Having sped one's action with good-will, one can only leave the outcome to the confluence and summing of like forces. But such service is blessed both in the eventualities and in a present harmony as well. The good of participation in the greatest and most worthy enterprise is proved in its lending fruitfulness, dignity, and momentousness to action; but also in its infusing the individual life with that ardor and tenderness which is called the love of humanity and of God, and which is the only form of happiness that fully measures up to the awakened moral consciousness.

Since religion emphasizes the unity of life and supplies it with meaning and dignity, it is the function of religion to kindle moral enthusiasm in society at large. Religion is responsible for the {255} prestige of morality. As an institution, it is the appointed guardian and medium of that supreme value which is hidden from the world; of that finality which, in the course of human affairs, is so easily lost to view and so infrequently proved. It is therefore the function of the religious leader to make men lovers, not of the parts, but of the whole of goodness. Embarrassed by their very plenitude of life, men require to have the good-will that is in them aroused and put in control. This, then, is the work of religion: to strike home to the moral nature itself, and to induce in men a keener and more vivid realization of their latent preference for the higher over the lower values. This office requires for its fulfilment a constructive moral imagination, a power to arouse and direct the contagious emotions, and the use of the means of personality and ritual for the creation of a sweetening and uplifting environment.

In culture and religion human life is brought to the elevation which is proper to it. They are both forms of discipline through which is inculcated that quality of magnanimity and service which is the mark of spiritual maturity. But while culture is essentially contemplative, far-seeing, sensitive, and tolerant, religion is more stirring and vital. Both are love of perfection, but culture is admiration; religion, concern. {256} "Not he that saith Lord, Lord, but he that doeth the will of his Father, shall be saved." In religion the old note of fear is always present. It is a perpetual watchfulness lest the work of life be undone, or lest a chance for the best be forfeited.