The Moral Economy Part 14

In the conception which may be termed _panlogism_, {245} heaven is boldly removed to earth. It is identified with laws or other universals, that lie within the scope of human intelligence and control the course of nature. G.o.d is now immanent rather than transcendent; he has obtained a certain definable content. But the difficulty which has already appeared in mysticism now grows more formidable. How can it be said that a being that coincides with the known laws of nature works only good? Among the Stoics the attempt was made to conceive all necessities as somehow "beneficial," as somehow good in the commonly accepted sense of the term.[14] But even the Stoics found themselves compelled to abandon the common conception of goodness. And in Spinoza the motive of panlogism is clear and uncompromising.[15] G.o.d as the immanent order of the world is good only in that he is necessary--good only in so far as he satisfies the logical interest and enables the mind to understand. In panlogism, then, we find metaphysical idealism already compelled in behalf of its cardinal principle to deny the moral consciousness. But this is not all.

For even were it to be admitted that mere system and order const.i.tute the good, wholly without reference to their bearing on the concerns of life, the fact remains that even such a good does not fairly represent the character of this world. For experience conveys not only law, {246} but also irrelevance and chaos; not only harmony but also discord.

To meet this last difficulty, and at the same time better to provide for the complexity of human interests, metaphysical idealism finally a.s.sumes the _aesthetic_ form. The absolute world, the all-real-and-all-good, is boldly construed in terms of the historical process itself, with all its concreteness and immediacy. Endless detail, contrast, and even contradiction may be brought under the form of aesthetic value. The very flux of experience, the very struggles and defeats of life, are not without their picturesqueness and dramatic quality. Upon this romantic love of tumult and privation is founded the last of all metaphysical idealisms.[16] A strange sequel to the doctrine of despair with which our brief survey began!

I can only recapitulate most briefly the characteristic limitations of an aesthetic idealism. First, in spite of the fact that aesthetic value may be extraordinarily comprehensive in its content, as a value it is none the less narrow and exclusive. For in order that experience may have aesthetic value, an aesthetic interest must be taken in it. And even were all experience to satisfy some such interest, this would in no wise provide for the endless variety of non-aesthetic interests that are also taken in it. Thus, were it to be proved that life on the whole is picturesque, this {247} would in no way affect the fact that it is also painful, stultifying, and otherwise abounding in evil.

But, even if it were to be granted that aesthetic value embraces and subordinates all other values, this higher value would still exist only where such an aesthetic interest was actually fulfilled. If it were a.s.sumed that the totality of the world is pleasing in the sight of G.o.d, this would in no way affect the fact that it is otherwise in the eyes of men. Those who furnish a spectacle which has dramatic value for an observer do not necessarily themselves share in that value. It is an incontrovertible fact that the aesthetic interests of men are actually defeated; and this whether or no some other aesthetic interest--that, for example, of a divine onlooker--is fulfilled.

But the radical defect of this aesthetic philosophy of religion lies in its absolute discrediting of moral distinctions. Optimism has so far overreached itself as to sacrifice the very meaning of goodness. In order that the ideal may possess the world, it has been reduced to the world. G.o.d is no more than a name for the unmitigated reality. Like Hardy's Spirit of the Years, he is the mere affirmation of things as they are:

"I view, not urge; nor more than mark What designate your t.i.tles Good and Ill.

'Tis not in me to feel with, or against, These flesh-hinged mannikins Its hand upwinds {248} To click-clack off Its preadjusted laws; But only through my centuries to behold Their aspects, and their movements, and their mould." [17]

Morally, there could be no more sinister interpretation of life. It offers itself as a philosophy of hope, promising the lover of good that his purpose shall be fulfilled, nay, that it is fulfilled from all eternity. But when the pledge is redeemed, it is found to stipulate that the good shall mean only life as it is already possessed. In other words, man is promised what he wants if he will agree to want what he has. This is worse than a sorry jest. It is a philosophy of moral dissolution, discrediting every downright judgment of good and evil, removing the grounds upon which is based every single-minded endeavor to purify and consummate life. John Davidson says: "Irony integrates good and evil, the const.i.tuents of the universe. It is that Beyond-Good-and-Evil which somebody clamoured for." [18] Irony is indeed the last refuge of that uncompromising optimism that equates goodness and being.

VI

But the bankruptcy of metaphysical idealism does not end the matter.

There is another idealism in which religious faith both confirms moral endeavor and gives it the incentive of hope. This {249} idealism establishes itself upon an unequivocal acceptance of moral truth. It calls good good and evil evil, with all the finality which attaches to the human experience of these things, leaving no room for compromise.

Its faith lies in the expectation that the world shall become good through the elimination of evil; it manifests itself in the resolution to hasten that time. G.o.d is loved for the enemies he has made. Evil is hated without reservation as none of his doing, and man is free to reverence the Lord his G.o.d with all his heart.

From the stand-point of _moral idealism_ the universe resumes something of its pristine ruggedness and grandeur. If, as James says, "the world appears as something more epic than dramatic," the dignity of life is enhanced and not diminished on that account.[19] Life is not a spiritual exercise the results of which are discounted in advance; but is actually creative, fas.h.i.+oning and perfecting a good that has never been. And the moment evil is conceived as the necessary but diminis.h.i.+ng complement to partial success, the sting of it is gone. Evil as a temporary and accidental necessity is tolerable; but not so an evil which is absolutely necessary, and which must be construed with some hypothetical divine satisfaction.

This in no way contradicts the fact that the {250} fullest life under present conditions involves contact with evil. Innocence must be tragic if it is not to be weak. Jesus without the cross would possess something of that quality of unreality which attaches to Aristotle's high-minded man. But this does not prove that life involves evil; it proves only that life will be narrow and complacent when it is out of touch with things as they are. Since evil is now real, he who altogether escapes it is ignorant and idle, taking no hand in the real work to be done. Not to feel pain when pain abounds, not to bear some share of the burden, is indeed cause for shame. In that remarkable allegory, "The Man Who Was Thursday," Chesterton has most vividly presented this truth. In the last confrontation, the real anarchist, the spokesman of Satan, accuses the friends of order of being happy, of having been protected from suffering.

But the philosopher, who has. .h.i.therto been unable to understand the despair to which he and his companions have been driven, repels this slander.

'I see everything,' he cried, 'everything that there is. Why does each thing on the earth war against each other thing? Why does each small thing in the world have to fight against the world itself? . . . So that each thing that obeys law may have the glory and isolation of the anarchist. So that each man fighting for order may be as brave and good a man as the dynamiter. So that the real lie of Satan may be {251} flung back in the face of this blasphemer, so that by tears and torture we may earn the right to say to this man, "You lie!" No agonies can be too great to buy the right to say to this accuser, "We also have suffered."

'It is not true that we have never been broken. We have been broken upon the wheel. . . . We have descended into h.e.l.l. 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 G.o.d 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 cla.s.sified 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, a.s.similated 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 pa.s.sions, 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 partic.i.p.ation 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 G.o.d, 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 inst.i.tution, 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. Embarra.s.sed 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.

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NOTES

CHAPTER I

[1] Joseph Butler: _Sermon VII_, edited by Gladstone, p. 114. _Cf._ also _Sermon X_, on Self-Deceit.

[2] Nietsche: _Beyond Good and Evil_, translated by Helen Zimmern, p.

174.

[3] Edmund Burke: _A Vindication of Natural Society_, Preface, pp. 4, 5. (Boston, 1806.)

[4] The cla.s.sic discussion of the whole matter is to be found in Aristotle's _Nicomachean Ethics_, Book I, Chapters I-VI, translated by J. E. C. Welldon. _Cf._ also Fr. Paulsen: _System of Ethics_, Book II, Chapters I, II, translated by Frank Thilly; G. H. Palmer: _The Nature of Goodness_, Chapters I, II; and W. James: _The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life_, in his _Will to Believe_.

[5] The issue is presented clearly and briefly in Paulsen: _Op. cit._, Book II, Chapter II, and in James's _Principles of Psychology_, Vol.

II, pp. 549-559.

[6] Nietsche: _Op. cit._, p. 107.

[7] Huxley: _Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays_, pp. 81-82. The first two essays contained in this volume, the _Prolegomena_, and the _Romanes Lecture_, contain a very interesting study of the relation of morality to nature.

[8] Huxley: _Op. cit._, p. 13.

[9] G. K. Chesterton: _Napoleon of Notting Hill_, p. 291. The whole book is a brilliant satire, intended to show that all of the heroic sentiments and virtues depend on war and local pride.

[10] Nietsche: _Op. cit._, pp. 59, 163, 176, 223, 235, 237, 122.

[11] Chesterton: _Heretics_, and _Orthodoxy_.

[12] Plato: _Protagoras_, p. 322 (marginal pagination), and _pa.s.sim_; translated by Jowett.

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CHAPTER II

[1] Locke: _The Conduct of the Understanding_, Bohn's Library Edition, Vol. I, p. 72; also, _pa.s.sim_.

[2] Locke: _Op. cit._, p. 56.