504. Morals and deportment. Different groups and different ages have differed much in the place in the social codes in which certain subjects have been placed; that is, for instance, as to whether the treatment of women by men should be put under morals, or under manners, or under good taste; whether public exhibitions deserved more attention than deportment, etc. For instance: "There is hardly a word, in the instructions of Plutarch, upon schools and schooling, but he alludes casually to the strange scenes which boys were allowed to witness,—criminals dressed up with robes and crowns, and presently stripped and publicly tortured; paintings of subjects so objectionable that we should carefully explain to the child the distinction between art as such and art as a vehicle of morals. On the other hand, deportment was strictly watched: for example, it was the rule not to use the left hand unless it were to hold bread at dinner, while other food was taken with the right; to walk in the street without looking up; to touch salt fish with one finger; fresh fish, bread, and meat, with two; to scratch yourself thus; to fold your cloak thus."[1654]
505. The relation of the social codes to philosophy and religion. Amongst the widest differences of opinion would be that on the question whether the social codes issue out of and are enthused by philosophy or religion. We are told that "for most men, actions stand in no necessary connection with any theoretical convictions of theirs, but are, on the contrary, independent of the same, and are dominated by inherited and acquired motives."[1655] Why is this not true? Also, "the antagonism between the principles of our religion and our actual behavior, even of the faithful, as well as the great difference in the ethical views of different peoples who profess the same religion, sufficiently proves that the motives of our acts, and our judgments on the acts of others, proceed primarily from practical life [i.e. from the current mores], and that what we believe has comparatively little influence on our acts and judgments."[1656] Religion and philosophy are components of the mores, but not by any means sources or regulators of them.
506. Rudeck's conclusions. A recent German writer on the history of public morality[1657] says of the moral development of the German people that one cannot bear to contemplate it, because the people face the facts with absolute indifference. There is not a trace of moral initiative or of moral consciousness. Existing morality presents itself to us as a purely accidental product of forces which act without sense or intelligence. We can find all kinds of forces in history except ethical forces. Those are entirely wanting. There is no development, for development means the unfolding and growth of a germ according to the elements which it contains. The people allow all kinds of mores to be forced on them by the work of their own hands, that is, by the economic and political arrangements which they have adopted. The German people has no subjective notion of public morality and no ethical ideal for public morality. They distinguish only between good and bad mores (Sitten und Unsitten), without regard to their origin.
507. Rudeck's book is really a chapter in the history of the mores. The above are the conclusions which seem to be forced upon him, but he recoils from them in dismay. The conclusions are unquestionably correct. They are exactly what the history teaches. They ought to be accepted and used for profit. The fact that people are indifferent to the history of their own mores is a primary fact. We can only accept it and learn from it. It shows us the immense error of that current social discussion which consists in bringing "ethical" notions to the criticism of facts. The ethical notions are figments of speculation. Criticism of the mores is like criticising one's ancestors for the physique one has inherited, or one's children for being, in body and mind, one's children. If it is true of the German people that there is no moral initiative or consciousness in their tone and attitude towards their mores, they are to be congratulated, for they have kept out one great influx of subjective and dogmatic mischief. Other nations have a "nonconformist conscience" or a party of "great moral ideas," which can be caught by a phrase, or stampeded by a catching watchword with a "moral" suggestion. "Existing morality does present itself as a purely accidental [i.e. not to be investigated] product of forces which act without sense or intelligence," but the product is in no true sense accidental. It is true that there are no ethical forces in history. Let us recognize the fact and its consequences. Some philosophers make great efforts to interpret ethical forces into history, but they play with words. There is no development of the mores along any lines of logical or other sequence. The mores shift in endless readjustment of the modes of behavior, effort, and thinking, so as to reach the greatest advantage under the conditions. "The people allow all kinds of mores to be forced on them by the work of their own hands," that is, by the economic and political arrangements which have been unconsciously forced on them by their instinctive efforts to live well. That is just what they do, and that is the way in which mores come to be. "The German people has no subjective notion of public morality and no ethical ideal for public morality." Nor has any other people. A people sometimes adopts an ideal of national vanity, which includes ambition, but an ethical ideal no group ever has. If it pretended to have one it would be a humbug. That is why the introduction of "moral ideas" into politics serves the most immoral purposes and plays into the hands of the most immoral men. All ethics grow out of the mores and are a part of them. That is why the ethics never can be antecedent to the mores, and cannot be in a causal or productive relation to them. "The German people distinguishes only between customs and abuses [Sitten und Unsitten] without regard to their origin." They are quite right to do so, because the origin is only a matter for historians. For the masses the mores are facts. They use them and they testify that they are conducive to well living (Sitten), or the contrary (Unsitten). The men, women, and children who compose a society at any time are the unconscious depositaries and transmitters of the mores. They inherited them without knowing it; they are molding them unconsciously; they will transmit them involuntarily. The people cannot make the mores. They are made by them. Yet the group is at once makers and made. Each one may put into the group life as much as he can, but the group will give back to him order and determination from which he cannot escape. The mores grow as they must grow under the conditions. They are products of the effort of each to live as well as he can, and they are coercions which hold and control each in his efforts to live well. It is idle to try to get outside of this operation in order to tell which part of it comes first and makes the other. "Our age presents us the incredible spectacle that the dependence of the higher social culture on the economic development is not only clearly recognized by social science, but is proclaimed as the ideal." Social science does not proclaim this as an ideal. It does not deal in ideals. It accepts the dependence of culture on economic development as a fact. In fact, Rudeck is not justified in saying (p. 426) that "culture is the unity of the moral will in all the life phenomena of a people," and that "that people alone is a culture people which sets before itself, as the purpose of its entire existence, the production of the greatest possible amount of specified moral qualities." These are notions of culture and of a culture people which an ethical philosopher might think it fine should be. Rudeck has just found that no such things ever have existed in Germany; yet Germany possesses culture and the Germans are a culture people. He is really complaining that these fine ethical notions have never had any place in history. Such being the case, the true inference would be that they are unrealities and ought to be discarded altogether. Rudeck can find, in the eighteenth century, only one act of the state which had an improving effect on "external morals." That was the abolition of obscene playing cards, and this improving effect was not won intentionally, but as an incidental consequence of a tax which was imposed for revenue. The case is interesting and instructive. It is thus alone that the state acts. It needs revenue and lays a tax. Other consequences follow. Sometimes "moral" consequences follow. The Methuen treaty caused Englishmen to drink port instead of claret for a hundred and fifty years, to the great increase of gout and drunkenness. The statesman might well be appalled if he should realize that he probably never can lay a tax without effects on industry, health, education, morals, and religion which he cannot foresee and cannot control. In the case of the cards, the consequence was favorable to good morals. That consequence was the purest accident. The state went on its way and got its revenue. The people met the effect through the mores and made the best of it, just as they did with the effects of the Methuen treaty. The cases are useful for a statesman to consider, when he needs to get revenue and the question by what taxes to get it is yet in his mind and before him. When he has decided and acted it remains only to take the consequences, for, through the mores, they will enter into the web of life which the people are weaving and must endure. That web contains all the follies and errors, just as well as all the wisdom and all the achievements, of the past. The whole inheritance passes on together, including all the luck.
[1380] Ammianus Marcellinus, XXVIII, 4.
[1381] Darmstetter, Zend-Avesta, I, 100.
[1382] Marsden, Sumatra, 52.
[1383] Curr, Austr. Race, I, 109.
[1384] Borneo's Wester-Afdeeling, 251.
[1385] JAI, XII, 94, 135.