(3) We must be blind not to see the use of morality, even if we feel that usefulness degrades it. All moralists agree that virtue does actually lead to happiness. But is that connection a mere accident? Is it not likely that the usefulness of virtue has something to do with its origin and existence?

(4) A real practical value of the motto "Virtue for virtue's sake" lies in the implied rejection of virtue for INDIVIDUAL profit merely. The moralist rightly feels that such proverbs as "Honesty is the best policy," "Ill-gotten gains do not prosper," do not strike deep enough. Even if ill-gotten gain should prosper, it would be wrong. But it would be wrong simply because of the damage to others' welfare, not for any transcendental reason. The opponent of the eudaemonistic account of morality nearly always identifies it with a selfish pursuit, by each individual, of his own personal happiness. But that is, of course, a very narrow and unjustifiable interpretation of it.

(5) Another practical value of the motto lies in the implied contrast of virtue with expediency. Questions of expediency are questions of the best means to a given end; questions of virtue ask which ends are to be sought. Expediency asks, "How shall I do this?" Virtue asks, "Shall I do this or that?" The counsels of expediency are thus always relative to the value of the end, in itself unquestioned; "this is the thing to do IF such and such an end is right to seek." The counsels of virtue are absolute-"This is the best thing to do." It is rightly felt that in matters of right and wrong there is no "if" about it; you act not with relation to an end which may be chosen or rejected, on ulterior grounds. The only end to which virtue is the means is-the living of the best life. Virtue is the ultimate expediency. But it is well contrasted with all those secondary matters of debate for which we reserve the name "expediency."

(6) Finally, the motto is practically useful in advising us not to rely upon calculation in the concrete emergency, but to fall back upon an already adopted code, to love virtue as one does the flag, and follow it unquestioningly, as the soldier does his general. We must be willing to accept guidance and leadership. But every one knows that the flag is but a symbol; that the general's word is authoritative because it serves the best interests of the country. And our impulsive allegiance to virtue, and love of it, would be a mere silly daydream and empty sacrifice were it not for its loyal safeguarding of human interests.

Should we live "according to nature," and adjust ourselves to the evolutionary process?

According to the Stoic philosophy, the criterion for conduct was to live "according to nature." "What is meant by 'rationally'?" asks Epictetus, and answers, "Conformably to nature." "Convince me that you acted naturally, and I will convince you that everything which takes place according to nature takes place rightly." [Footnote: Book III, chap, I; book I, chap. XI.] And Marcus Aurelius writes, "Do not think any word or action beneath you which is in accordance with nature; and never be misled by the apprehension of censure or reproach. I will march on in the path of nature till my legs sink under me. Philosophy will put you upon nothing but what your nature wishes and calls for." [Footnote: Book V.] Of this preaching Bishop Butler says that it is "a manner of speaking, not loose and indeterminate, but clear and distinct, strictly just and true." [Footnote: Preface to Sermons.] In modern times this doctrine has taken the form of exhortation to take our place in the evolutionary process. It is thought by some that to grasp the trend of existing natural forces is to know the direction of duty. We have only to keep in the current, to espouse heartily the "struggle for existence" and rejoice in the "survival of the fittest," because it is nature's way. In a recent book by a Harvard professor we read, "Whatever the order of the universe is, that is the moral order...The laws of natural selection are merely God's regular methods of expressing his choice and approval. The naturally selected are the chosen of God...The whole life of [moral] people will consist in an intelligent effort to adjust themselves to the will thus expressed." [Footnote: T. N. Carver, The Religion Worth Having, pp. 84-89.] It is easy enough to point out, however, that nature man to follow. "In sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another, are nature's everyday performances. Nature impales men, breaks them as if on the wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild beasts, crushes them with stones like the first Christian martyr, starves them with hunger, freezes them with cold, poisons them by the quick or slow venom of her exhalations." [Footnote: J. S. Mill, Three Essays on Religion: "Nature," p. 28.] The evolutionary process is cruel and merciless; multitudes perish for every one that survives, and the survivor is not the most deserving, but the strongest or swiftest or cleverest. Why should we imitate such ruthless ways? Nature is to be not followed but improved upon. Not only morality, but most of man's activity, consists in making nature over to suit his needs. "If nature and man are both the works of a Being of perfect goodness, that Being intended nature as a scheme to be amended, not imitated, by man." [Footnote: Ibid, p. 41.]

(2) Not only is there no reason WHY we should "follow nature," but the result of so doing would be any thing but what we agree is moral. Hardly a sin is committed but was "natural" to the sinner. It is "natural" to lose our tempers; to be vain, selfish, greedy, lustful. Nothing could be practically more pernicious than the idea that an impulse is right because it is natural; that is, because it is common to most men. "Following nature" naturally means following our inclinations; nothing is more disastrous. Virtue necessitates self denial, effort, living by ideals, which are late and artificial products. It is actually true, in its metaphorical way, that we need to be born again, to be turned about, converted, saved from ourselves. The "natural" man is the "carnal" man; the "spiritual" man, while potential in us all, needs to be fostered and stimulated by every possible means if life is to be serene and full and beautiful. The difference between the "natural" man and the moral man is the difference between the untrained child, capricious, the victim of a thousand whims and longings, and the man of formed character whom we respect and trust. Morality is, of course, in a sense, natural too-everything that exists is natural; but in the sense in which the word has a specific meaning, it is flatly opposed to that making-over, that readjustment of our impulses, which is the very differentia of morality. There is, indeed, a eulogistic sense of the word "natural"; to Rousseau the "return to nature" meant the abandonment of needless artificiality and silly convention. But except in this sense, what is "natural" has no particular merit. The great achievements of man have consisted not in following natural, primitive instincts, but in controlling and disciplining those instincts.

If we were to imitate nature in making the survival of the fittest our aim, we should return to the barbaric ruthlessness of ancient Sparta or Rome, exposing infants, killing the feeble and insane, and becoming just such cold-blooded pursuers of efficiency as Nietzsche admires. That such pitiless competition is moral, or desirable, no one but a few cranks would on examination maintain. "Let us understand once for all," says Huxley," that the ethical progress of society depends not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it." [Footnote: Evolution and Ethics, title essay.]

(3) This cosmic defiance of Huxley's commands our approval; if morality interferes with the evolutionary process, let it interfere; the sooner an immoral process is stopped the better. But, after all, Huxley unnecessarily limits the meaning of the phrase "the cosmic process," applying it only to that stage which antedates the development of morality. That development, however, is itself natural selection, which in its earlier stages selects merely the strong and swift and clever, in its later stages selects also the moral races and individuals. So that to follow out the evolutionary process is, for man, after all, to follow morality as well as to cultivate speed and strength and wit.

There is, indeed, a danger to the race from the development of the tenderer side of morality, in the care for the feeble and degenerate which permits them to live and produce offspring, instead of being ruthlessly exterminated, as in ruder days. But this danger can, and will, be met by measures which, while permitting life and, so far as possible, happiness, to these unfortunates, will prevent them from having children. Except for this removable danger, the development of sympathy and tenderness by no means involves a lessening of virility, but is rather its necessary complement and check.

Is self-development or self-realization the ultimate end?

It is no justification of morality to say that it is "in harmony with nature." Is it an adequate justification to say that morality is what makes for self-development or self-realization? A number of classic and contemporary moralists, fighting shy of the acknowledgment of happiness as the ultimate end, have rested content with such expressions. Darwin wrote, "The term 'general good' may be defined as the rearing of the greatest number of individuals in full vigor and health, with all their faculties perfect, under the conditions to which they are subjected." [Footnote: Descent of Man, chap, iv.] Paulsen writes, "The value of virtue consists in its favorable effects upon the development of life...The value of life consists in the normal performance of all functions, or in the exercise of capacities and virtues...A perfect human life is an end in itself. The standard is what has been called the normal type, or the idea, of human life." [Footnote: System of Ethics, book II, chap. II.]

(1) Such a point of view gives opportunity for stimulating words. But it gives no guidance. Observation can teach us, slowly, what conduct makes for happiness; but what conduct makes for "self-development"? The fact is, the cultivation of any impulse will develop us in its direction and preclude our development in other directions; along which path shall we let ourselves develop? Every choice involves rejection; infinite possibilities diverge before us; which among the myriad impulses that call upon us shall we follow? While still young and plastic, we may develop ourselves into poets or philosophers or lawyers or businessmen. In which of these ways shall we "realize" ourselves? [Footnote: Cf. William James, Psychology, vol. I, p. 309: "I am often confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves and relinquishing the rest. Not that I would not, if I could, be both handsome and fat and well dressed, and a great athlete, and make a million a year, be a wit, a bon-vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer, as well as a 'tone-poet' and saint. But the thing is simply impossible. The millionaire's work would run counter to the saint's; the bon vivant and the philanthropist would trip each other up; the philosopher and the lady-killer could not well keep house in the same tenement of clay. Such different characters may conceivably at the outset of life be alike possible to a man. But to make any one of them actual, the rest must more or less be suppressed."] It is evident that we need some deeper ground of choice. May it not even be better drastically to choke our natures, better to get a new nature than to realize the old? Surely there are perverted natures, which ought not to be developed. In the name of happiness we can decide on development or non-development, as the need may be. But the ideal of "self development" gives us no criterion. It is too sweeping, too indiscriminate.

(2) Again, we may ask WHY we should develop ourselves. This ideal is in need of justification to the has a eulogistic connotation in our ears; but to rely upon that is to beg the question. Strictly, it means only the actualizing of potentiality, which may be potentiality for evil as well as for good. Concretely, if developing our natures led to pain and sorrow we should do well to resist such development. The plausibility of the formula lies in the fact that the development of one's self along any line is normally pleasant and normally conduces to ultimate happiness. The idea of it attracts us, and it is well that it should; it is intrinsically and extrinsically good. But it is the fact of possessing that intrinsic and extrinsic goodness that makes it a legitimate ideal. In sum, it is good to develop one's powers only because and in so far as such development makes for happiness or is itself an aspect of happiness. For happiness is the only sort of thing that is in itself intrinsically and obviously desirable, without need of proof.

(3) Practically, this ideal-tends to selfishness; it does not point to the fact that the best development of self lies in service. The ideal is capable of this interpretation, but its emphasis is in the wrong direction. It is essentially a pagan conception, and practically inferior to the Christian ideal of service. Service cannot be the ultimate ideal, any more than the Chinese in the story could support themselves by taking in one another's washing; and it needs to be justified, like self-development, by the happiness it brings. But for a working conception it is far better. Self-realization has never been the aim of the saints and heroes. Imagine a patriot dying for his country's freedom, or a mother giving years of sacrificing toil for her child, on the ground of self-development! The patriot may feel that through his sacrifice and that of his comrades his countrymen will be freer or more united or rid of some curse i.e., ultimately, happier. The mother thinks consciously of the happiness of the child she serves. But except for the young man or properly be for the time self-centered, self-development makes but a sorry ideal. We may admire a Goethe who cares primarily for the development and perfection of his own powers-if he is handsome and clever and of a winning personality. But the men we really love and reverence are those who forget themselves and prefer to go, if necessary, with their artistic sense undeveloped or their scientific sense untrained, so they may bring help and peace to their fellows. [Footnote: Cf. a recent story writer, Nalbro Hartley, in Ainslee's (a mountain-white is speaking): "I reckon the best way to get on in this world is to learn just enough to make you all always want to know more but to be so busy usin' what you-all has learned that there ain't no time to learn the rest!"] Goethe, with all his genius, encyclopedic knowledge, and universality of experience, his wit and energy and power of expression, stands on a lower moral level than Buddha, St. Francis, Christ.

(4) Finally, the theory, if taken strictly, is immoral. To set up self- realization as the criterion is to say that the self-realizing act is to be chosen EVEN IF IT SHOULD PRODUCE LESS THAN THE GREATEST ATTAINABLE TOTAL GOOD. That such cases do not occur, no one can prove; in fact, observation tends to the belief that they do. This criterion is, then, not only practically but theoretically selfish. Perfection of character should be our aim, yes. But perfection of character is not to be found in a mere indiscriminate cultivation of whatever faculties we may have. It means the superposition of a severe discipline upon our faculties, a purification of the will, directed by more ultimate considerations. Is the source of duty the will of God? "Obedience to the will of God" describes the highest morality, as does the phrase "perfection of character." But is it, any more than that, the ULTIMATE JUSTIFICATION of morality? Is the will of God the SOURCE of morality? An adequate discussion of this question would involve a philosophy of religion, but a few considerations may be useful, and it is hoped, not misleading.

(1) How can we know what is the will of God except by considering what makes for human welfare? Our Bible is but one of a number of holy books which are held to be a revelation of God's will. Even if we grant the superior authority of the Hebrew- Christian Bible, can we rely on its teachings implicitly? How do we know that it is a revelation of God except by our experience of the beneficence of its teachings? As a matter of fact, there is wide disagreement, among those who accept the Bible as authoritative, over its real teachings. A text is available for every variety of belief. Christians usually emphasize those texts that make for what they hold true, and slur over others. "Look not on the wine when it is red" is preached in every Sunday School, while "Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake" is seldom quoted save by brewers. The Bible, the work of a hundred hands during a span of a thousand years, represents a great variety of views. It is certainly an inspired book if there ever was one; so much inspiration could not have come from it if none had gone into it. But to extract a satisfactory ethical code from it is possible only by a process of judicious selection and ingenious inference. The Mosaic code is held by Christians to be now abrogated; the recorded teachings of Christ are fragmentary and touch only a few fundamental matters. How, for example, shall we ascertain from the Bible the will of God with respect to the trust problem, or currency reform, or penal legislation? Times have changed, our problems are no longer those of the ancient Jews; a hundred delicate questions arise to which no answers can be will of God to be clearly and unquestionably known, why should we obey it? Because he is stronger, and can reward or punish? If that is the reason, the freehearted man would defy Him. Might does not make right. If God were to command us to sin, it would not be right to obey Him. On the contrary, we should sympathize with Mill in his outburst: "Whatever power such a being may have over me, there is one thing which he shall not do: he shall not compel me to worship him. I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go." [Footnote: An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, chap. VI.] It is clear that God is to be obeyed only because He is good and his will right. Not the existence of a will, but its goodness makes it authoritative. But how do we know that it is good unless we have some deeper criterion to judge it by? How do we know that God is not an arbitrary tyrant? The answer must be that we judge the Christian teachings to be a revelation of God because we know on other grounds what we mean by "right" and "good," and see that these teachings fit that conception. If the teachings were coarse and low, no prodigies or miracles would suffice to attest them as God-given; it would be superstition to obey them. Experience alone can be judge; the experience of the beneficence of the Christian ideal. The Way of Life that Christ taught verifies itself when tried; that it is the supreme ideal for man is proved by the transfiguration of life it effects. Christ and the Bible deserve our allegiance because they are worthy of it; from them we can learn the secrets of man's true welfare. Morality is, indeed, older than religion. It develops to a certain point, and in some cases very highly, without the concept of God. It has an and needs no supernatural prop. Religion is not the root of morality, but its flower and consummation. The finest ideals, the loftiest heights of morality, merge into religion; but even these spiritual ideals have their ultimate root in the common soil of human welfare, and are rational ideals because they minister to human need.

For the "categorical" theory of morality, see Kant's Theory of Ethics, trans. Abbott; F. H. Bradley, Ethical Studies; F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book II, chap, V, secs. 3 and 4; Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap, XVI, sec. 2; H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chap, III, sees. 12, 13. W. Fite, Introductory Study of Ethics, chap. X. H. Rashdall, Theory of Good and Evil, book I, chap. V. For the "according to nature" theory, see Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, passim; Rousseau, Discourse on Science and Art, etc.; J. S. Mill, "Nature" in Three Essays on Religion; T.H. Huxley, Evolution and Ethics. T. N. Carver, The Religion Worth Having. For the "self-realization" theory, see T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics; F. Paulsen, op. cit, esp. book II, chap, II, secs. 5-8; H. W. Wright, Self-Realization; J. S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, 2d ed, chaps, VI and VII. W. Fite, op. cit, chap. XI. For theological ethics, see any of the older theological books. A brief comment may be found in H. Spencer's Data of Ethics, chap, IV, sec. 18.



CHAPTER XIV

THE WORTH OF MORALITY

BEFORE proceeding to a more concrete unfolding of the difficulties and problems of morality, it will be well to formulate our theory in terms of modern biology, and then, finally, to answer those modern critics who reject not merely the rational explanation of morality but morality itself.

Morality as the organization of human interests.

The worth of morality is most commonly defended today, in biological terms, by describing it as a synthesis of human interests; it is valuable because it is what we really want and need. It does, indeed, forbid the carrying-out of any impulse which renders impossible greater goods; it flatly opposes that unrestrained satisfying of a part of our natures which we call self-indulgence, or of one nature at the expense of others which we call selfishness. But it stifles desire only for a greater ultimate good; it rejects that needless repression of a part of the self which we call asceticism, and an undue subordination of self to others. It is, then the organizing or harmonizing principle, subordinating the interests of each aspect of the self, and of the many conflicting selves, to the total welfare of the individual and of the community. As Plato pointed out, [Footnote: Republic, books. I-IV; e.g. (444): "Is not the creation of righteousness the creation of a natural order and government of one another in the parts of the soul, and the creation of unrighteousness the opposite?" and (352): "Is not unrighteousness equally suicidal when existing in an individual [as it is when it exists in the State], rendering him incapable of action because he is not at unity with himself, making him an enemy to himself?" and (443): "The righteous man does not permit the several elements within him to meddle with one another, or any of them to do the work of others; but he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master, and at peace with himself; and when ... he is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he will think and call right and good action that which preserves and cooperates with this condition." (In quoting Plato I have used Jowett's translation, with an occasional substitution; as, above, in the use of "righteousness" and "right" instead of "justice" and "just.")] representative of all other interests, the consensus of interest. Such a definition, we must admit, happily describes morality, showing us that if we would find its leading we must know ourselves; we must examine our actual existing needs and consider how best to attain them. The direction of morality is that of a carefully pruned and weeded human nature. But there are certain dangers inherent in this form of definition which we must note:

(1) We must not be satisfied with the synthesis of consciously felt desires. Many of our deepest needs fail to come to the surface and embody themselves in impulses; we do not know or seek what is really best for ourselves. There are possibilities of harmony and peace upon low levels. We must be pricked into desire for new forms of life and not allowed to stagnate in a condition which, however well organized and contented, is lacking in the richness and joy we might attain. We must include in the "interests" to be organized all our dumb and unrealized needs, all potential and latent impulses, as well as our articulate desires.

(2) On the other hand, there are perverse and pathological impulses which are deserving of no regard and must be simply cast aside in the organizing process, because they lead only to unhappiness. There is a difference between the desirable and the desired; morality is not merely an organizing but a corrective force, bringing sometimes not peace but a sword. A truer figure would be to represent it as a flowers and ruthlessly pruning or weeding out others, that the garden may be the most beautiful place.

(3) Moreover, this definition, while an excellent DESCRIPTIONTION of what morality in general is, is not a JUSTIFICATION of morality, does not point to its ultimate raison d'etre. To all this organizing activity we might say, Cui bono, for what good? WHY should we organize our interests; why not deny them like the ascetics? The mere existence of pushes, in this direction and that, affords no material for moral judgment; a harmonizing of them would make a mathematical resultant, but it would be of no superior WORTH. If there were no pleasure and pain in life, it would not MATTER in the least whether the various life forces were organized or not. In such a colorless world a unison of human impulses would be as morally indifferent as the convergence of tributary rivers or the formation of an organized solar system. It is only, as we long ago pointed out, [Footnote: Cf. ante, p. 74 ] when consciousness differentiates into its plus and minus values, pleasure and pain, that a reason arises why any forces in the cosmos should be thwarted or allowed free play. With the emergence of those values, however, everything that affects them becomes significant. If the complete transformation of our interests would make human life brighter, fuller of plus values, such a radical alteration, rather than a harmonization, would be our ideal. As it is, desire points normally toward the really desirable; the direction of human welfare lies, in general, along the line of our organic needs, of the avoidance of clashes, of the mutual subordination and cooperation of natural impulses. The principle of reason, of intelligence, is necessary in morality to find this way of cooperation, this ultimate drift of need; but without the potentiality of happiness chaos would be as good as order, both within the individual soul and within the social group. [Footnote: Plato realized this, and in the Philebus points out that we cannot completely describe morality either in terms of pleasure-pain or in terms of reason (or wisdom), the organizing principle. Both aspects of morality are important. Cf, along this line, H. G. Lord, The Abuse of Abstraction in Ethics, in the James memorial volume.] Do moral acts always bring happiness somewhere? The ultimate justification of morality the value of synthesizing our interests, lies in the happiness men thereby attain. But there is one fundamental doubt that ever and anon recurs the doubt whether, after all, actions that we agree in calling virtuous always BRING happiness. If not, either our definition of morality, or our universal judgment as to what is moral, would seem to be in error. Perhaps morality is, after all, off the track, and to be discarded.

(1) We must first lay aside cases of perverted conscience, acts which are "subjectively moral," or conscientious, but not objectively best. These cases we have already glanced at; they need be no stumbling block.

(2) We must remember that the types of conduct which we have glorified by the concepts "virtue," "duty," etc, are those which TEND to produce happiness. We have to frame our judgments and pigeonhole acts according to their normal results. But it happens not infrequently that accidents upset these natural tendencies. For these unforeseeable eventualities the actor is not responsible; if his act was the best that could have been planned, in consideration of all known factors, it remains the ideal for future cases, it still retains the halo of "virtue" which must attract others to it. Good acts may lead, by unexpected chance, to evil consequences; bad acts may result, by some accident, in good. But to the interfering factor belongs the credit or blame; the act that would normally have led to good or to evil remains right or wrong. To rescue a drowning man is right, for such action normally tends to human welfare; if the rescued man turns out a great criminal, or escapes this death to suffer a worse, the act of rescuing the drowning remains a desirable and therefore moral act. On the other hand, if one man slanders another, with the result that the latter, refuting the slander, thereby attains prominence and position, the act of slander, normally harmful, remains an immoral act.

It is a failure to recognize this necessarily general character of our moral judgments that raises the problem of Job. The ancient Israelites saw clearly that righteousness was the road to happiness; [Footnote: Cf. for example, "Righteousness tendeth to life; he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death." "Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord, that walketh in his ways. Happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee."] and when a righteous man like Job fell into misfortune, they accused him of secret sin. Job is conscious of his innocence, of having done his part aright, and cannot understand how he has come to such an evil pass. It would have brought him no material alleviation, but it might have saved him some mental chafing, to recognize that morality is simply doing our part. When we have done our best we are still at the mercy of fortune. Happiness, as Aristotle pointed out, is the result of two cooperating factors, morality and good fortune. [Footnote: Nichomachean Ethics, book I, several places: e.g, in chap. VII, "To constitute happiness there must be, as we have said, complete virtue and fit external conditions."] If either is lacking, evil will ensue. If all men were perfectly virtuous, we should still be at the mercy of flood and lightning, poisonous snakes, icebergs and fog at sea, a thousand forms of accident and disease, old age and death. The millennium will not bring pure happiness to man; he is too feeble a creature in the presence of forces with which he cannot cope. Morality is just-the best man can do; and it is not to be blamed for the twists of fate that make futile its efforts. (3) Are there not, however, cases where conduct which we agree is right is not even likely to bring the greatest happiness attainable; where not only immediate but lasting happiness is to be deliberately sacrificed in the name of morality? Suppose, for example, a politician who becomes convinced of the evils of the liquor trade ruins his career in a hopeless fight against the saloons. He loses his office, his income, his honor in the sight of his associates; he brings suffering upon his innocent wife and children; and all for no good, since his fight is futile and ineffective. Surely any one could foresee that such action would make only for unhappiness, or for no happiness commensurable with the sacrifice. Yet if we agree with his premise, that the liquor trade is a curse to humanity, we deem his conduct not only conscientious but objectively noble and right. How can we justify that judgment?

In the first place, we cannot be sure, beforehand, that such a fight will not be successful. Forlorn hopes sometimes win. We must encourage men to venture, to take chances; only so can the great evils that ride mankind be banished. If there is a fighting chance of accomplishing a great good it is contemptible not to try; society must maintain a code that leads at times to quixotic acts.

In the second place, the fight, even if in itself hopeless, is sure to have valuable indirect results. It arouses others to the need; it stimulates in others the willingness to sacrifice self-interest and work for the general good. Every such honorable defeat has its share in the final victory. The subtle benefits that result from such moral gallantry are not evident on the surface, but they are there. No push for the right is wholly wasted. It pays mankind to let its heroes lavish their lives in apparently ineffective struggles; through their example the apathetic masses are stirred and moved a little farther toward their goal.

In general, we may say that the belief that virtue is not the right road to happiness betrays inexperience and immaturity of judgment. A moderate degree of morality saves man from many pitfalls into which his unrestrained impulses would lead him. The highest levels of morality bring a degree of happiness unknown to the "natural man." Who are the happiest people in the world? The saints; those who are inwardly at peace, who play their part with absolute loyalty. Even the irremediable misfortunes of life do not affect them as they do the worldly man; they have "learned the luxury of doing good." Of morality a recent writer says, "Its distribution of felicity is ideally just. To him who is most unselfish, who sinks most thoroughly his own interests in those of the race of which he is a unit, it awards the most complete beatitude." [Footnote: J. H. Levy, of London, in a funeral oration.] To him who complains that he is moral but not happy, the answer is, Be more moral! A high enough morality, a complete enough consecration, will lead, in all but very abnormal cases, to happiness in the individual life, as well as make its due contribution to the happiness of others.

Is there anything better than morality?

It is this lack of vision, this immature skepticism as to the service of morality to human welfare, that has fired a flame of revolt in certain minds, a revolt not merely against incidental defects and outworn conceptions of morality, but against morality uberhaupt. The declamations of these Promethean rebels make it clear, however, that their protest is but the old fault of condemning a necessary institution altogether for its imperfections or its abuses. Morality has been blended with superstition and tyranny, has been often blind, perverted, narrow, checking noble impulses and choking the rich and happy development of life. But it is one thing to arraign these accidents and corruptions of morality; it is quite another to discard the whole system of guidance of which they are but the excrescences and mistakes. This usurping is, of course, also in large part a thirst for novelty, a love of paradox, of practicing ingenuity in making the better appear the worse; it is in part a volcanic eruption of suppressed longings and a protest against the inadequacy of our present code to provide opportunity and happiness for the masses. The motives vary with the individual rebels.

It must suffice, however, from among the many leaders of this revolt, to quote that clever but unbalanced German iconoclast, Nietzsche. Typical of his doctrine is the following: [Footnote: Genealogy of Morals (ed. Alex. Tille), Foreword, p. 9.] "Never until now was there the least doubt or hesitation to set down the 'good' man as of higher value than the 'evil' man-of higher value in the sense of furtherance, utility, prosperity, as regards MAN in general (the future of man included). What if the reverse were true? What if in, the 'good' one also a symptom of decline were contained, and a danger, a seduction, a poison, a narcotic by which the present might live AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FUTURE? Perhaps more comfortably, less dangerously, but also in humbler style- more meanly? So that just morality were to blame, if a HIGHEST MIGHTINESS AND SPLENDOR of type of man-possible in itself were never attained? And that, therefore, morality itself would be the danger of dangers?"

The point of this tirade is that morality puts a wet blanket over human powers; it is a bourgeois ideal, saving men, indeed, from pain, but also robbing life of its picturesqueness and glory. Many people frankly prefer "interesting" to "good" people; Nietzsche generalizes this feeling. Morality is to him uninteresting, dull, a code for slaves, for the clash of combat, the tang of cruelty and lust, the tingle of unrestrained power. Every man for himself then, and the Devil take the hindmost. Shocked as we are by this brutal platform, there is something in it that appeals to the red blood and adventurous spirit in us; after all, we are not far removed from the savage, and the thought of a psalm-singing, tea-drinking, tamely good world is abhorrent to the marrow of us. Stevenson, with his delightfully irresponsible audacity, sighs for an occasional "furlough from the moral law"; and there are times for most of us when it seems as if we should choke and smother under the everlasting "Thou shalt not!" But the daring rebel, the defiant Titan, comes creeping back to the shelter of morality with a headache or something worse, and discovers that his Promethean boldness was but childish petulance; that it is futile and foolish to try to escape the inexorable laws of human life. There are, in fact, two adequate answers that can be made to the despiser of morality:

(1) Dull or not, repressive or not, morality is absolutely necessary. It is better than the pain, the insecurity, the relapse into barbarism, that immorality implies. Our whole civilization, everything that makes human life better than that of the beasts of prey, would collapse without its foundation of moral obedience. The regime of slashing individualism would kill off many of the weaker who are precious to humanity-a Homer (if he was blind), a Keats, a Stevenson; nay, if carried to extreme, it would put an end to the race. For who are the weakest, the "hindmost," but the babies! Sympathy and love and self sacrifice, at least in parents, are necessary if the race is to endure a generation. But even for the individual, the penalties of immorality are too obvious to need recapitulation. If morality is repression, it is the minimal repression consistent with the maintenance of successful and happy life. Its real aim is to bring life, and life more abundantly.

(2) But if we are looking for something great, for adventure and excitement and battle against odds, we can find it much better than in brutally slashing at our fellows, or running amuck at the beck of our impulses, by putting our valor at the service of some really great human endeavor. If we want to get into the big game, the great adventure, we must pit ourselves, with the leaders of mankind, against the hostile universe. The men and women who set our blood tingling and our hearts beating fastest are-Darwin, discoverer by patient labor of a great cosmic law; Pasteur, conqueror at last over a terrible human disease; Peary, first to plant foot upon the axis of the world; Goethals, builder of a canal that links the oceans. The steady march of a moralized civilization, presenting united front to the cosmos, is infinitely more glorious than the futile, aimless, and petty struggles of an anarchic immorality. Our half-disciplined life is already far richer and more romantic than the life of Nietzsche's "supermen" could be; and we are only a little way along the road of moral progress. The real superman will be a BETTER man, a man of tenderness and chivalry, of loyalty and self-control, a man of disciplined heart and purified will; to attain to such a supermanliness is, indeed, a heroic and splendid achievement, worthy of our utmost endeavor, and calling into play all our noblest powers.

Some there are, accustomed to the vision of tables of stone engraved by the hand of God and set up for man's obedience amid Sinaitic thunders, for whom the discovery of the humble human and prehuman origin, and the stumbling hit-or-miss evolution, of morality dulls its sanctity. But any one who is tempted for this reason to deride morality may console himself with the reflection that everything else of supreme importance in human life is of plebeian ancestry. Reason, art, government, religion, had their crude and superstition-ridden beginnings. Man himself was once hardly different from a monkey. Yet there is a spark of the divine in him and in all these arts and institutions which he with the aid of the cosmic forces has evolved. Surely a juster judgment may find a sublimity in this age-long march from the clod toward the millennium that could never belong to the spectacular but very provincial myths of the Semites. The emotions ever lag behind the intellect; and our hearts may still yearn for the neighborly and passionate battle-god of the Pentateuch. Moreover, we shall continue to recognize a vast fund of truth and insight in those early folk tales and primitive codes. But there comes a deeper breath to the man who realizes that morality and religion long antedate the Jewish revelation, and comes to see God in the tens and hundreds of thousands of years of slow but splendid human progress. Historical codes of morals are, indeed, seamed with superstition and are progressively displaced; but morality persists. At no time has man wholly solved the problem of life, but he must ever live by the best solution he has found. The innumerable codes are so many experiments, their very differences bearing witness to the need of some set of guiding principles for conduct.

It is sometimes said that morality, being a merely human invention, may be discarded when we choose. To this we may reply that morality bears, indeed, the indisputable marks of human instinct, will, and reason; but it is not an invention; it is a lesson, slowly learned. In its humanness lies its value. It is not an alien code, irrelevant to human nature; it is a natural function; it is the greatest of human institutions unless that be religion, which is its flower and consummation. Morality is made for man, for his use and guidance; what could possibly have greater sanctity or authority for him? Rebel as he may, and chafe under its restraints, he always comes back to morality; perhaps to a revised code, but to essentially the same control; for he cannot do without it. Our morality has its defects, but it is on the right track. A clearer insight into its teleological necessity, the purpose it exists to serve, will direct us in our efforts to revise it, so to fashion it as to make it productive of still greater good in the time to come. But if we discard it altogether, we are "like the base Indian" who "threw a pearl away, Richer than all his tribe."

What we need is not to abandon but to steadily improve our code; and whereas any one can pick flaws, only the man of trained mind and controlled desire can discover feasible lines of advance. "When all is said, there is nothing as yet to be changed in our old Aryan ideal of justice, conscientiousness, courage, kindness, and honor. We have only to draw nearer to it, to clasp it more closely, to realize it more effectively; and, before going beyond it, we have still a long and noble road to travel beneath the stars." [Footnote: Maeterlinck, "Our Anxious Morality," in The Measure of the Hours.] The conception of morality as the organization of interests will be found in Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Ethics, and in many recent ethical books and papers. Among them are R. B. Perry's Moral Economy, G. Santayana's Reason in Science (chap. IX); William James, "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" (in the Will to Believe and Other Essays).

A discussion of whether morality really makes for happiness will be found in Leslie Stephen, System of Ethics, chap. X; W. L. Sheldon, An Ethical Movement, chap. VIII. For Nietzsche's theory, see his Beyond Good and Evil. There are many excellent replies; a brief but adequate one will be found in Perry, op. cit, chap. I.



PART III

PERSONAL MORALITY



CHAPTER XV

HEALTH AND EFFICIENCY

With the general nature and justification of morality in our minds, we may now seek to apply our criteria of conduct to the concrete problems that confront us, first taking up those problems which, however important their social bearings, are primarily problems of private life, problems for the individual to settle, and then turning to those wider problems which the community as a whole must grapple with and solve by public action.

Bodily health is the foundation of personal morality; to act at all there must be physical energy available; and, other things equal, the man with the greatest store of vitality will live the happiest and most useful life. Christianity has too often forgotten this fundamental truth, which needs emphasis at the very outset of our concrete studies in morality.

What is the moral importance of health?

(1) Health is in itself a great contribution to the intrinsic worth of life. To awake in the morning with red blood stirring in the veins, to come to the table with hearty appetite, to go about the day's work with the springing step of abounding energy, and to reach the close of day with that healthy fatigue that quiets restless desire and betokens the blessed boon of sound and dreamless sleep-this is to be a long way on the road to contentment. Health cannot in itself guarantee happiness if other evils obtrude; but it removes many of the commonest impediments thereto, and normally produces an increase in all other values. Heightened vitality means an increased sense of power, a keener zest in everything; troubles slide off the healthy man that would stick to the less vigorous. Bodily depression almost always involves mental depression; our "blues" usually have an organic basis. It was not a superstition that evolved our word "melancholy" from the Greek "black (i.e., disordered) liver" nor is it a mere pun or paradox to say that whether life is worth living depends upon the liver.

More than this, health is opportunity. The man of abundant energy can taste more of the joys of life, can enlarge the bounds of his experience, can use precious hours of our brief span which the weakling must devote to rest, can learn more, can range farther, can venture all sorts of undertakings from which the other is precluded by his lack of strength. All these experiences, if they are guided by prudence and self-control, bring their meed of insight and skill and character. It is only through living that we grow, and health means the potentiality of life.

(2) Health means efficiency, more work done, greater usefulness to society. Sooner or later every man who is worth his salt finds some task the doing of which arouses his ambition and becomes his particular contribution to the world. How bitterly will he then regret the heritage denied him or foolishly squandered, the handicap of quivering nerves, muscular flabbiness, wandering mind, that impedes its accomplishment! Determination and persistence may, indeed, use a frail physique for splendid service; such names as Darwin, Spencer, Prescott, remind us of the strength of human will that can override physical obstacles and by long effort produce a great achievement. But for one victor in this struggle of will against body there are a hundred vanquished; and even these men of genius and grit could have accomplished far more if they had had normally serviceable bodies.

(3) Health makes morality easier and likelier. The pernicious influence of bodily frailty and abnormality upon mind and morals has always been recognized (cf. the mens sana in corpore sano of the ancients), but was never so clearly seen as today. The lack of proper nutrition or circulation, the state of depressed vitality resulting from want of fresh air, exercise, or sleep, are important factors in the production of insanity and crime. Over fatigue means a weakening of the power of attention, and hence of will, a paralyzing of the highest brain centers, a lowered resistance to the more primitive instincts and passions. Chronic irritability, moroseness, pathological impulses of all sorts, generally betokens eyestrain, dyspepsia, constipation, or some other bodily derangement. With the regaining of normal health the unruly impulses usually become quieter, sympathy flows more freely, the man becomes kinder, more tolerant, and morally sane. Professor Chittenden of Yale is quoted as saying that "lack of proper physical condition is responsible for more moral ... ills than any other factor." Certain temptations, at least, bear more hardly upon the man of weak and unstrung nerves; in Rousseau's well known words, "The weaker the body, the more it commands." And in general, abnormal organic conditions involve a warping of the judgment, a twisted or unbalanced view of life (e.g. Wordsworth's "Spontaneous reason breathed by health"), which leads away from the path of virtue. All honor, then, to the men who have kept clean and true and cheerful through years of bodily depression; such conquest over evil conditions is one of the finest things in life. But nobility of character is hard enough to attain without adding the obstacle of a reluctant body; and although some virtues are easier to the invalid, and some temptations removed from his circumscribed field of activity, it remains true in general that health is the great first aid to morality.

Can we attain to greater health and efficiency? If health is, then, so important to the individual and society, its pursuit is not a selfish or a trivial matter; it is rather a serious and unavoidable duty. The gospel of health is sorely needed in our modern world. Young men and women use up their apparently limitless capital with heedless waste; those who start with a lesser inheritance neglect the means at their command for increasing their stock of strength and winning the power and exuberance of life that might be theirs. There are, of course, many cases of undeserved ill health; we ill understand as yet the causes and enemies of bodily vigor, and many a gallant fight for health has gone unrewarded. But in the great majority of cases a wise conduct of life would retain robust strength for the threescore or more years of our allotted course, increase it for those who start poorly equipped, and regain it for those who by mischance, blunder, or imprudence have lost their heritage. Yet half the world hardly knows what real health is. Our hospitals and sanitariums are crowded, our streets are full of half-sick people-hollow chests, sallow faces, dark-rimmed eyes, nervous, run-down, worn-out, brain-fagged, dragging on their existence, or dying before their time, robbed by stupidity and ignorance of their birthright of full-breathed rosy-cheeked health, and robbing the society that has reared them of the full quota of their service. Health is not merely freedom from disease; we have a right to what Emerson called "plus health." And among the men who rightly awaken our enthusiasm are those who out of a frail childhood have built up for themselves by perseverance and will a manhood of physical power, endurance, and efficiency.

The principles of health for the normal man are few and simple, the reward great; what stands in the way is partly our apathy and indifference, partly our incontinent appetites, partly the unwholesome and deadening social influences in which we find ourselves enmeshed. For those who care enough, almost unlimited vistas open up; as Spinoza has it, "No one has yet found the limits of what the body can do." William James was convinced [Footnote: See his essay, "The Energies of Man," in Memories and Studies.] that the potentialities of human energy and efficiency are but half realized by the best of us. We must learn better to run the human machine. Our prevalent disregard of the conditions of bodily vigor, our persistent carelessness in the elementary matters of hygiene and health, is nothing short of criminal.

"We would have health, and yet still use our bodies ill; Bafflers of our own prayers from youth to life's last scenes."

Happiness that impairs health seldom pays. Where it is a question of useful work done at the expense of our fatigue, there may be more question; normally such sacrifices are undesirable; but what seems over fatigue may not really be so, and the earnest man will err on this side rather than run risk of pusillanimous shirking. Moreover, some work practically requires an over effort for its accomplishment; and no man of mettle will begrudge his very life-blood when necessary. Overwork is "the last infirmity of noble minds." Yet when not really necessary, it must be ranked as a sin, and not too generously condoned. The intense competition of modern industry, the complexity of our economic machinery, the colossal accumulation of facts which must be mastered for success, bring heavy pressure to bear upon those who have their way to make in the world. The pace is fast, and many there are that die or break from overstrain when at the height of their usefulness. Such, overpressure does not pay; it means that less work will in the end get done. When we consider also the moral dangers it involves, the glumness or irritability of taut nerves, the unhealthy tension that demands strong excitements and does not know how to rest or enjoy quiet and restorative pleasures; when we consider the broken men and women that have to be taken care of, the widows and children of the workers who have died before their time, the children perhaps weakened for life because of the tired condition of their parents at birth; when we consider the number of defective children born to such overworked parents, we realize that it is not primarily a question of enjoying life more or less, it is a matter of grave economic and moral import. [Footnote: Cf. M. G. Schlapp, in the Outlook, vol. 100, p. 782.] Whether we actually work harder, on the whole, than our forebears, and whether there is actually a decrease in the health and endurance of the younger generation today owing to the overstrain of their parents, is open to dispute. Certainly when one compares a portrait of Reynolds, Gainsborough, or Stuart with one by Sargent, Thayer, or Alexander, there is a noticeable difference of type, indicative of a different ideal of life in the upper stratum of society, an ideal of effort and efficiency, which is far better than a patrician dilettantism, but has in turn its dangers.We need to recall the line of AEschylus, "All the gods' work is effortless and calm." Or Matthew Arnold's sonnet on Quiet Work:

"One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, A lesson that on every wind is borne, A lesson of two duties kept at one Though the loud world proclaim their enmity: Of toil unsevered from tranquility, Of labor that in lasting fruit outgrows Far noisier schemes, accomplished in repose, Too great for haste, too high for rivalry..."

Most of us would find our powers adequate to our duties if we learned to rest when we are not working, and spend no energy in worry and fretfulness. [Footnote: Cf. W. James's essay on "The Gospel of Relaxation," in Talks to Teachers and Students, or Annie Payson Call's books, of which the best known is Power Through Repose.] This nervous leakage is a notoriously American ailment; we knit our brows, we work our fingers, we fidget, we rock in our chairs, we talk explosively, we live in a quiver of excitement and hurry, in a chronic state of tension. We need to follow St. Paul's exhortation to "Study to be quiet"; to learn what Carlyle called "the great art of sitting still." We must not lower our American ideal of efficiency, of the "strenuous life"; but it is precisely through that self-control that is willing to live within necessary limitations, and able to cut off the waste of fruitless activity of mind and body, that our national efficiency can be maintained at its highest.

Is continued idleness ever justifiable?

We do not need Stevenson's charming Apology for Idlers, to know that rest and recreation are as wholesome and necessary as work. But idleness is only profitable and really enjoyable when it comes as an interlude in the midst of activity. There is much to be done, and no one is free to shirk his share of the world's work; we may enjoy our vacations only as we have earned the right to them. Except for invalids and idiots, continued idleness never justifiable. Clothes we must have, and food, and shelter, and much else; if a man does not produce these things for himself, or some equivalent which he can fairly exchange for them, he is a parasite upon other men's labor. "Six days shalt thou labor" is the universal commandment, and "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread." An old Chinese proverb runs, "If there is one idle man, there is another who is starving." Certainly a state in which the masses will have their drudgery lightened for them and opportunity for a well rounded human life given, will be attained only in a society where there are no drones; and no man or woman worthy of the name will be content to live idly on the labor of others. "Others have labored, and we have entered into their labors"; it is not fair to accept so much without giving what we can in return.

For most men and women there is, of course; no alterative; they must work or live a wretched, comfortless life, with the actual risk of starvation. A few may prefer the precarious existence of the tramp, or pauper; but they must pay the price in homelessness and hazard. Except for abnormal social conditions, the vile housing of the poor, the hopeless monotony and overlong hours of most forms of unskilled labor, the lure of drink, and the deprivation of the natural joys of life, there would be few of these voluntary idlers among the poor. The aversion to work, when it is decently agreeable, in decent surroundings, and not carried to the point of fatigue, is abnormal; and it is by the improvement of the conditions and remuneration of labor that we must seek to cure that unwillingness to work, in the poor, which Tolstoy came to believe was their greatest curse. [Footnote: See his What Shall We Do Then? (or What to Do?)]

Much more difficult to cure is the curse of idleness among the rich. The absence of the need of working, and the possibilities of pleasure seeking which money affords, are a constant temptation to them to live a life of ease. The spectacle is not unfamiliar of rich young men traveling about the world, living at their clubs, spending their energies in gayeties and sports, with hardly a sense of the responsibilities which their privileges entail. Fortunately, however, there is, in America at least, a pretty widespread sense of shame among men about such shirking, and the idler has to face a certain amount of mild contempt. Upon women the pressure of public opinion has not yet become nothing upper-class ladies who spend their time at cards, at teas, at the theater, who think of little but dress and gossip, or of the latest novels and music, who evade their natural duties of motherhood or give over care of home and children to hired servants, that they may be freer to live the butterfly life, are still too little rebuked by their hard-working sisters and by men. We must impress it upon all that the inheritance of money does not excuse laziness; if the pressure to earn a living is removed, there are numberless ways in which the rich can serve, privileged ways, happy ways, which there is far less pretext for avoiding than the poor have for hating their grim toil. In Carlyle's words, "If the poor and humble toil that we have food, must not the high and glorious toil for him in return, that he may have light, have guidance, freedom, immortality?" The rich commonly point the finger of scorn at the poor who turn away from honest work; we may well wonder if they would work themselves at such dirty and dangerous occupations. Many a charity visitor who preaches the gospel of toil is herself, except for some fitful and ineffective "social work," a useless ornament to society who hardly knows the meaning of "toil." If idleness is a mote in the eyes of the poor, it is a beam in the eyes of the rich. Neither blood nor rank nor sex excuses from the universal duty. "We must all toil or steal (howsoever we name our stealing), which is worse." [Footnote: Carlyle's writings are full of such wholesome declarations. And cf. W. Dew. Hyde: "An able-bodied man who does not contribute to the world at least as much as he takes out of it is a beggar and a thief; whether he shirks the duty of work under the pretext of poverty or riches." Cf. also Tolstoy, in What to Do? For example (from chap. XXVI), "How can a man who considers himself to be, we will not say a Christian, or an educated and humane man, but simply a man not entirely devoid of reason and of conscience, how can he, I say, live in such a way that, not taking part in the struggle of all mankind for life, he only swallows up the labor of others, struggling for existence, and by his own claims increases the labor of those who struggle, and the number of those who perish in struggle?"] relieved from the necessity of earning a living" (unless one intends to use that freedom for unpaid service), an ideal dangerous to social welfare, and shortsighted for the individual. Work makes up a large part of the worth of life. Drudgery it may be at the time, a weary round, with no compensation apparent; but it is of just such stuff that real life is made. What ennobles it, what gives it meaning, is the courageous attack, the putting of heart into work, the facing of monotony, the finding of the zest of accomplishment. There is no such thing as "menial" work; the washing of dishes and the carting away of garbage are just as necessary and important as the running of a railway or the making of laws. The real horror is the dead weight of ennui, the aimlessness and fruitlessness of a life that has done nothing and has nothing to do. If the thought of the day's work depresses, it is probably because of ill health, over fatigue, unpleasant surroundings or companions, because of worry, or because the particular work is not congenial. The finding of the right work for the right man and woman is one of the great problems which we have hardly begun to solve. But all of these sources of the distaste for work can normally, or eventually, be reached and the evil remedied. In spite of the burden and the strain, if we could have our way with the order of things, one of the most foolish things we could do would be to take away the necessity of work. Here, as usual, personal and social needs coincide; in the working life alone can be found a lasting satisfaction for the soul and the hope of salvation for society. Are competitive athletics desirable? As samples of the concrete problems involved in the ideal of health and efficiency, we may briefly discuss two questions that confront particularly the young man. And first, that concerning athletic sports are of marked value:

(1) They are to any normal man or woman, and especially to the young who have not yet become immersed in the more serious game of life, one of the greatest and most tonic joys. The stretching and tension of healthy muscles, the deep draughts of out-of-door air, the excitement of rivalry, the comradeship of cooperative endeavor, the ABANDON of effort, the glow of achievement, contribute much in immediate and retrospective pleasure to the worth of living.

(2) When not carried too far, the physical gain is clear. Regular exercise is necessary for abundant health; and of all forms of exercise the happiest is, other things equal, the best.

(3) In many ways there are potentialities of moral gain in athletics which do not result from ordinary exercise. There is the stimulus to intense effort, the awakening of strenuousness which may carry over into other fields of activity. Here, at least, indolence is impossible, alertness is demanded, and the willingness to strive against obstacles. To put one's whole soul into anything is wholesome, even if it be but a game; and the man who bucks the line hard on the gridiron has begun a habit which may serve him well when he meets more dangerous obstacles and more doughty opponents on a larger field.

(4) The lesson of cooperation taught by teamwork of any sort is a valuable schooling. One of the prime needs of our day is the development of the spirit of loyalty, the willingness to subordinate individual welfare to that of a group, and to look upon one's own work as part of a larger endeavor. The man who has learned to take pride in making sacrifice hits is ripe to respond to the growing sense of the dishonorableness of making personal profit the aim of business or of politics.

(5) Athletic games, where properly supervised, inculcate the spirit of sportsmanship. To keep to the rules of longing, to restrain temper and accept the decisions of the umpire without complaint, to take no unfair advantage and indulge in no foul play, to give a square deal to opponents and ask no more for one's own side, to endure defeat with a smile and without discouragement- surely this is just the spirit we need in everything. It is vitally important that unsportsmanlike conduct should be ruthlessly stamped out in all competitive sports, and that every team should prefer to lose honorably than to win unfairly. [Footnote: There has been a good deal of criticism of American intercollegiate athletics on the ground of their fostering unsportsmanlike conduct. A recent paper in the Atlantic Monthly (by C. A. Stewart, vol. 113, p. 153) concludes with this recommendation: "A forceful presentation of the facts of the situation, with an appeal to the innate sense of honor of the undergraduates; such a revision of the rules as will retain only those based upon essential fairness; and a strict supervision by the faculty;-upon the success of these three measures rests the hope that college athletics may be purged of trickery and the spirit of 'get away with it.' ... A few men expelled for lying about eligibility, and a few teams disbanded because of unfair play, would arouse undergraduates with a wholesome jolt."]

(6) Wherever they are taken seriously athletic contests require a preliminary period of "training," which includes abstinence from sex incontinence, from alcohol, smoking, overeating, and late hours. The discipline which this involves is an object lesson in the requirements for efficiency in any undertaking, and excellent practice in their fulfillment. How far athletes learn this lesson and apply it to wider spheres of activity, it would be interesting to discover. In any case, they have proved in themselves the ability to repress inclination and find satisfaction in what makes for health and efficiency; and all who know the implications of "training" have received a subconscious "suggestion" in the right direction. The other side of the problem is this:

(1) Competitive athletics, if taken seriously contests,inevitably take more time and energy than their importance .warrants. A member of a college football or baseball team can do little else during the season. Studies are neglected, intellectual interests are subordinated, college figures essentially as a group of men endeavoring to beat another college on the field. If a man is bright he may "keep up with" his studies, but his intellectual profit is meager; his energies are being absorbed elsewhere. This phenomenon has given rise to much satire and to much perplexity on the part of college administrations. A few have gone so far as to banish intercollegiate contests, asserting thatthe purpose of coming to college is primarily to learn to use the brain, not the muscles.

(2) The strain of intense rivalry is too severe on the body. It is now known that the intercollegiate athlete is very probably sacrificing some of his life when he throws his utmost effort into the game or the race. The length of life of the big athletes averages considerably shorter than that of the more moderate exercisers. From the physical point of view, interclass or interfraternity contests, not taken too earnestly, are. far better than the intercollegiate struggles. They also have the advantage that far more can participate. The problem before our college authorities and leaders of student sentiment is how to check the fierceness of the big contests-shortening them, perhaps, possibly forbidding entirely the more strenuous and how to provide sports for all members of the college; so that, instead of a few overstrained athletes and a lot of fellows who under exercise, we shall see every man out on the field daily, and no one overdoing. This ideal necessitates far larger athletic grounds than most of our colleges have reserved. It may necessitate the abolition of some of the big contests that have been the excitement of many thousands. But it must not be forgotten prelude and preparation for life; they must not be allowed to usurp the chief place in a man's thoughts or to unfit him for his greatest after-usefulness. [Footnote: Cf. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 90, p. 534; Outlook, vol. 98, p. 597.] Is it wrong to smoke? Statistics taken with care at many American colleges show with apparent conclusiveness that the use of tobacco is physically and mentally deleterious to young men. [Footnote: See, e.g., in the Popular Science Monthly for October, 1912, a summary by Dr. F. J. Pack of an investigation covering fourteen colleges. Similar investigations have been made by several others, with generally similar results.] It seems that smokers lose in lung capacity, are stunted slightly in their growth, are lessened in their endurance, develop far more than their proportion of eye and nerve troubles, furnish far less than their proportion of the athletes who win positions on college teams, furnish far less than their proportion of scholarship men, and far more than their proportion of conditions and failures. It is perhaps too early to be quite sure of these results; but in all probability further experiment will confirm them, and make it certain that tobacco is physically harmful as has long been recognized by trainers for athletic contests. The harm to adults seems to be less marked; perhaps to some it is inappreciable. And if there is appreciable harm, whether it is great enough to counterbalance the satisfaction which a confirmed smoker takes in his cigar or pipe, or any worse than the restlessness which the sacrifice of it might engender, is one of those delicate personal problems that one can hardly solve for another. But certainly where the habit is not formed, the loss of tobacco involves no important deprivation; its use is chiefly a social custom which can be discontinued without ill effects. Effort should be made to keep the young from forming the habit; college "smokers," where free cigarettes and cigars are furnished, should be superseded by "rallies," where the same amount of money could provide some light and harmless refreshment. This is not one of the important problems. But, after all, everything is important; and men must, and ultimately will, learn to find their happiness in things that forward, instead of thwarting, their great interests; what makes at all against health and efficiency-when it is so needless and artificial a habit as smoking, so mildly pleasant and so purely selfish-must be rooted out of desire. The great amount of money wasted on tobacco could be far more wisely and fruitfully expended. We shall not brand smoking as a sin, hardly as a vice; but the man who wishes to make the most of his life will avoid it himself, and the man who wishes to work for the general welfare will put his influence and example against it.

H. S. King, Rational Living, chap. VI, secs. I, II. J. Payot, The Education of the Will, book III, sec. IV. J. MacCunn, The Making of Character, part II, chap. II. W. Hutchinson, Handbook of Health. L. H. Gulick, The Efficient Life. F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book III, chap. III. T. Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life. P. G. Hamerton, The Intellectual Life, part I.



CHAPTER XVI

THE ALCOHOL PROBLEM

OF all the problems relating to health and efficiency there is none graver than that of the narcotic-stimulants. With the exception of tobacco, which is probably, for adults, but mildly deleterious, their use is fraught with danger, both physical and moral; beyond the narrowest limits it is certainly baneful, while it is as yet an open question whether even a very slight use is not distinctly harmful. The exact physiological effects of the several narcotic-stimulants are different, but they are alike in stimulating certain activities and depressing others; and their attraction for men is similar. Opium, morphine, and cocaine are more powerful drugs, and more inherently dangerous; but alcohol is much the most widely used and so most productive of evil. The hypodermically used narcotics need not be here discussed; for although they can give a far keener pleasure than alcohol, the penalty they inflict is more evident. Moreover, since their sale is not pushed by such powerful interests as continually stimulate the use of alcohol, they can, by the vigilant enforcement of existing laws, be readily removed from any general use. We turn, then, to the consideration of the one which has got a universal hold on the imagination and social habits of men, the only one that constitutes at present a serious and complicated problem.

What are the causes of the use of alcoholic drinks?

(1) We may dismiss at once the suggestion that alcoholic liquors are drunk for the pleasantness of their taste or for their food value. To some slight extent these factors enter in; but neither is important. The taste for them is for most men an acquired taste; and with so many other delicious drinks to be had, especially in recent years, drinks that are far less expensive and without their poisonous effects, it is safe to say that the mere taste of them would not go far toward explaining the lure they have for men. As to their food value, there are those who justify themselves on the score of the nutrition they are getting from their wine or beer. But careful experiments have shown that the food value of alcohol is slight; and certainly, for nutrition received, these are among the most expensive foods, to be ranked with caviar and pate de foie gras. Beer is the most nutritious of the alcoholic drinks; but the same amount of money spent on bread would give about thirty times the nutrition, and a more all-round nutrition at that. Alcoholic liquors as food are, as has been said, like gunpowder as fuel very costly and very dangerous. [Footnote: See H. S. Williams, Alcohol, p. 133; H. S. Warner, Social Welfare and the Liquor Problem, p. 80, and bibliography, p. 95.]

(2) A much commoner plea for drinking rests upon its sociability. But this is a matter of convention which can readily enough be altered. There is nothing inherently more sociable in the drinking of wine than in the drinking of grape-juice, or coffee, or chocolate, or tea. Indeed, one may well ask why the chief social bond between men should consist in drinking liquids side by side! Games and sports, in which wit is pitted against wit, or which bring men together in happy cooperation, together with the great resource of conversation, are more socially binding than any drinks. There will, indeed, be a temporary social hardship for many abstainers until the custom is generally broken up; one runs the risk of being thought by the heedless a prig and a Puritan. But that is a small price to pay for one's health and one's influence on others.

(3) More important than any of these causes is the craving for a stimulant. The monotony of work, the fatigue toward the end of the day, the severity of our Northern climate, the longing for intenser living, lead men to seek to apply the whip to their flagging energies. This stimulus to the body is, however, largely if not wholly, illusory. The mental-emotional effects, noted in the following paragraph, give the drinker the impression that he is physically fortified; but objective tests show that, after a very brief period, the dominant effect upon the organism is depressant. The apparent increase in bodily warmth, so often experienced, is a subjective illusion; in reality alcohol lowers the temperature and diminishes resistance to cold. Arctic explorers have to discard it entirely. The old idea of helping to cure snake bite, hydrophobia, etc, by whiskey was sheer mistake; the patient has actually much less of a chance if so drugged. Only for an immediate and transitory need, such as faintness or shock, is the quickly passing stimulating power of alcohol useful; and even for such purposes other stimulants are more valuable. Reputable physicians have almost wholly ceased to use it. [Footnote: See H. S. Williams, op. cit, p. 4, 124-127; H. S. Warner, op. cit, pp. 87]

(4) The one real value of alcohol to man has been the boon of stimulating his emotional and impulsive life, bringing him an elevation of spirits, drowning his sorrows, helping him to forget, helping to free his mind from the burden of care, anxiety, and regret. As William James, with his unerring discernment, wrote twenty-five years ago: "The reason for craving alcohol is that it is an unaesthetic, even in moderate quantities. It obliterates a part of the field of consciousness and abolishes collateral trains of thought." [Footnote: Tolstoy also hit the nail on the head in his little essay, Why do Men Stupefy Themselves?] This use, in relieving brain-tension, in bringing a transient cheer and comfort to poor, overworked, worried, remorseful men, is not to be despised. Dull lives are vivified by it, a fleeting anesthesia of unhappy memories and longings is effected, and for the moment life seems worth living.

Without considering yet the physical penalty that must be paid for this evanescent freedom, we may make the obvious remark that it is a morally dangerous freedom. As the Odyssey has it, "Wine leads to folly, making even the wise to love immoderately, to dance, and to utter what had better have been kept silent." Alcohol slackens the higher, more complicated, mental functions-our conscience, our scruples, our reason- and leaves freer from inhibition our lower passions and instincts. We cannot afford thus to submerge our better natures, and leave the field to our lower selves; it is a dangerous short cut to happiness. A far safer and more permanently useful procedure for the individual would be so to live by his reason and his conscience that he would not need to stupefy them, to forget his life as he is shaping it from day today. And the lesson to the community is so to brighten the lives of the poor with normal, wholesome pleasures and recreations, so to lift from them the burdens of poverty and social injustice, that they will not so much need to plunge into the grateful oblivion of the wine-cup.

(5) The most tenacious hold of the alcohol trade lies, however, in two things not yet enumerated. The one is, that much use of alcohol creates a pathological craving for it; the man who is accustomed to his beer or whiskey is restless and depressed if he cannot get it, and will sacrifice much to still for the nonce that insatiable longing. The other and even more important fact is, that the sale of liquor is immensely profitable to the manufacturers and sellers. The fighters for prohibition have to encounter the desperate opposition of those who have become slaves to the drug-many of whom may never get intoxicated, and would resent the term "slaves," but who have formed the abnormal habit and cannot without discomfort get rid of it. They have to meet the still fiercer hostility of those who are making money from the sale of liquor and do not intend to let go their opportunity. What are the evils that result from alcoholic liquors?

The one real value of alcohol, we have said, lies in its temporary mental effects. It raises the hedonic tone of consciousness; it brings about, when taken in proper amounts, the well-known happy-go-lucky, scruple-free, expansive state of mind. What now is the price that must be paid for its use?

(1) The physical harmfulness of even light drinking is considerable.

(a) Alcohol, even in slight doses, as in a glass of wine or beer, has poisonous effects upon some of the bodily functions, which are clearly revealed by scientific experiment. [Footnote: See, for one testimony out of very many in medical literature, an article by Dr. Herbert McIntosh in the Journal of Advanced Therapeutics for April, 1912, p. 167: "Alcohol and ether are the two great enemies of the electrochemical properties of the salts necessary to organic life." He speaks of "paralysis of the vaso-constrictor nerves," "inhibition of the cortical centers," etc.] Hence the temporary cheer must be paid for with usury by a much longer depression, resulting from the poisonous effects of alcohol upon the body. A jolly evening is followed by the familiar symptoms of the morning after. The extent of the physical and mental depression caused is not always realized, because it is spread out over a considerable period of time and may not be acute; a healthy person can stand a good deal without being conscious of the ill effects. But they are there. In bodily vigor, and so in mental buoyancy, the abstainer is IN THE END better off than if he drank even a little, or seldom.

(b) Careful and repeated experiments seem to show that even a very little drinking-a glass of beer or wine a day- decreases the capacity for both muscular and mental work. This loss of ability is not usually perceptible to the drinker; he often feels an illusory glow of power; but he cannot do as much. A bottle of beer a day means an appreciable loss in working efficiency. [Footnote: Accounts of the experiments will be found in H. S. Williams, op. cit, pp. 5-23, 128, 137; H. S. Warner, op. cit, p. 116. They had some realization of this truth even in the days of the Iliad. Hector says, "Bring me luscious wines, lest they unnerve my limbs and make me lose my wonted powers and strength."]

(c) Even a moderate use of alcohol increases liability to disease and shortens the chances of life. In any case of exposure to or contraction of disease, the total abstainer has a proved advantage over even the light drinker. The British life insurance companies reckon that at the age of twenty a total abstainer has an average prospect of life of forty-four years, a temperate regular drinker a prospect of thirty-one years, and a heavy drinker of fifteen years. Many other factors enter into the individual situation, of course; we know many cases where inveterate drinkers have lived to a ripe old age; it takes a great deal to break the iron constitutions of some men. But averages tell the story. An authority on tuberculosis states that "if for no other reason than the prevention of tuberculosis, state prohibition would be justified" The use of alcohol predisposes the body to many kinds of disease; and according to conservative figures, approximately seventy thousand deaths yearly in the United States are caused by alcoholism and diseases that owe their grip to the use of alcohol. Besides this, a great deal of insanity and chronic invalidism, and a large proportion of deaths after operations, are due to this cause. [Footnote: See H. S. Williams, op. cit, pp. 25- 43, 149, 150; H. S. Warner, op. cit, chap. IV, and bibliography at end.]

(d) The chances of losing children at chances of begetting feeble-minded or degenerate children, are markedly greater for even moderate drinkers than for abstainers. Children of total abstainers have a great advantage, on the average, in size, stature, bodily vigor, intellectual power; they stand, on the average, between a year and two years ahead in class of the children of moderate drinkers, they have less than half as many eye, ear, and other physical defects. This proved influence of even light drinking upon the vitality and normality transmitted to children should be the most serious of indictments against self-indulgence. Truly the sins of the fathers are visited upon the second and third generation. [Footnote: See Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, vol. IX, p. 234; H. S. Williams, op. cit, pp. 44-47.]

(2) The economic waste is enormous:

(a) Nearly, if not quite, two billion dollars a year are spent by the people of the United States for intoxicating beverages. Between fifty and seventy-five million bushels of grain are consumed annually in their production, besides the grapes used for wines. Nor does the money spent for liquors go in any appreciable degree into the pockets of the farmers who raise the grains; less than a thirtieth part finds its way to them, the brewers, distillers, and retailers getting about two thirds. The money invested in the beer industry alone was in 1909 over $550,000,000. [Footnote: See Independent, vol. 67, p. 1326; Year-Books of the Anti-Saloon League. For this whole subject of the cost of the liquor trade, see chap. V, in H. S. Warner, op. cit, and the bibliography appended.] The importance of the national liquor bill can be realized by a simple computation; it would suffice to pay two million men three dollars a day, six days in the week, year in and year out; it would suffice to build four or five Panama Canals (at $400,000,000) a year. When we reckon up the total liquor bill of the world, a sum many times this, we can see what a frightful waste of man's resources is going on; for not only is there no a tremendous additional drain of wealth caused indirectly thereby.

(b) Among the factors in this additional drain of wealth, which must be added to the figures given above in estimating the total financial loss to the community, are: the loss in efficiency of workers through the- usually unrealized- toxic effects of alcohol; the loss of the lives of adult workers due to alcoholic poisoning-an annual loss greater than that of the whole Civil War; the support by the State of paupers, two fifths of whom, it is estimated, owe their status to alcoholism; [Footnote: See H. S. Williams, op. cit, p. 85] the support by the State of the insane, from a quarter to a half of whom owe their insanity directly or indirectly to alcohol; [Footnote: Ibid, p. 63] the support of destitute and deserted children; [Footnote: Ibid, p. 89 ] the maintenance of prisons, of courts, and police - the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics has shown that eighty-four per cent of all criminals under conviction in the correctional institutions of that State committed their crimes under the influence of alcohol. [Footnote: Ibid, p. 72] When we add to this the still greater numbers of incapables supported by their families and friends, we realize that the national drink bill is really very much greater than the mere sums spent for liquor. Comparative statistics show graphically how strikingly pauperism, crime, and destitution are diminished by prohibition. It is variously estimated that a fourth or a third or more of all acute poverty is due directly or indirectly to alcohol. Our municipalities are always poor; all sorts of needed improvements are blocked for lack of funds. If this leakage of the national wealth can be stopped we shall be able with the money saved to create a radically different and higher civilization.

(3) The moral harm of alcohol is comparable to its physical and economic harm.

(a) As we noted when considering the value of alcohol, the higher nature is stupefied, leaving the emotions less controlled. The silliness, the irritability, the glumness, the violence, the lust of men are given freer rein. The effect of alcohol is coarsening, brutalizing; we are not our best selves under its influence. The judgment is dulled, the spirit of recklessness is stimulated-an impatience of restraint and a craving for further excitement. Even after the palpable effects of a potation have disappeared, a permanent alteration in the brain remains, which makes it likely that the drinker will "go farther" next time or the time after. The accumulation of such effects leads finally to the complete demoralization of character, to the point where a man's higher nature can no longer keep control over his conduct. This is what is meant by saying that alcohol undermines the will power. [Footnote: See H. S. Williams, op. cit, p. 56] In particular, most sexual sins are committed after drinking; and the gravity of the sex problem is so great that this fact alone would justify the banishment of alcohol, the greatest of sexual stimulants. [Footnote: Cf. Jane Addams, A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil, p. 189: "Even a slight exhilaration from alcohol relaxes the moral sense and throws a sentimental or adventurous glamour over an aspect of life from which a decent young man would ordinarily recoil; and its continued use stimulates the senses at the very moment when the intellectual and moral inhibitions are lessened."]

(b) A very large proportion of the crimes committed are committed under the influence of alcohol. In Massachusetts, for example (in 1895), only five per cent of convictions for crime were of abstainers. In general, statistics show that from a half to three quarters of the total amount of crime has drinking for a direct contributing cause. When we add to this the crime-inducing influence of the poverty, ill health, and immoral social conditions caused by drink; we can form some idea of the moral indictment against alcohol. [Footnote: H. S. Warner, op. cit, p. 261.]

(c) The liquor trade is the most powerful of all "interests" in the corruption of politics, one of the most demoralizing phases of our American life. [Footnote: H. S. Warner, op. cit, chap. XI.] The saloon power is in politics with a grim determination to keep its business from extermination. It is able to throw the votes of a large body of men as it wills. It maintains a powerful lobby at Washington and at the state capitals. In many places it has had a strangle hold on legislation. The trade naturally tends to ally itself with the other vicious interests that live by exploiting human weakness-the gamblers, the fosterers of prostitution, the keepers of vile "shows"; it has a vast revenue for the purchasing of votes, and, in the saloon, the easiest of channels for reaching the bribable voter. Corrupt political machines have been glad to use its support, and have derived a large measure of their strength there from. Were the liquor trade destroyed, the greatest obstacle in the way of political reform would be removed. In sum, we can say that the evils caused by alcohol, instead of having been exaggerated, have never until very recently been sufficiently realized. The half hath not been told.

What should be the attitude of the individual toward alcoholic liquors?

In the light of our present knowledge, the attitude toward liquor demanded by morality of the individual admits of no debate. He may love dearly his wines or his beer, but his enjoyment is won at too dear a cost to himself and others; his support of the liquor trade is very selfish. He has no right to poison himself, to impair his health and efficiency, as even a little drinking will do. He has no right to run the risk of becoming the slave of alcohol, as so many of the most promising men have become; the effect of the drug is insidious, and no man can be sure that he will be able to resist it. He has no right to spend in harmful self-indulgence money that might be spent for useful ends. He has no right to incur the, however immeasurable, moral and intellectual impairment which is effected by even rather moderate drinking. He has no right to bequeath to his children a weakened heritage of vitality. He has no right, by his example, to encourage others, who may be far more deeply harmed than he, in the use of the drug; "let no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way." The influence of every man who is amenable to altruistic motives is needed against liquor, to counteract its lure; we must create a strong public sentiment and make it unfashionable and disreputable to drink. Happily the tide of liquor-drinking, which has been rising rapidly in the last half- century, owing to the increase in prosperity, the great influx of immigrants from liquor-drinking countries, and the stimulation of the trade by the highly organized liquor industry, has at last, by the earnest efforts of enlightened workers, been turned. Men of influence are standing out publicly against it. Grape-juice has been substituted for wine in the White House; Kaiser Wilhelm has become an abstainer, with a declaration that in the present era of fierce competition the nations that triumph will be those that have least to do with liquor. So conservative and cautious a thinker as ex-President Eliot of Harvard has recently become an abstainer, saying, "The recent progress of science has satisfied me that the moderate use of alcohol is objectionable." The yearly per capita consumption of alcoholic liquors, which rose from 8.79 gallons in 1880 to 17.76 in 1900 and 22.79 in 1911, fell in 1912 to 21.98. It is to be devoutly hoped that the tide will ebb as rapidly as it rose. What should be our attitude toward the use of alcoholic liquors by others? The consideration of this question falls properly under the head of "Public Morality." But it will be more convenient to treat it here, following the presentation of the facts concerning alcohol. The right of the community to interfere with the conduct of its members will be discussed in chapter xxviii, and we must assume here the result therein reached, that whatever is deemed necessary for the greatest welfare of the community as a whole may legitimately be required of its individual members, however it may cross their desires or however they may consider the matter their private concern. The argument against prohibition on the ground that it interferes with individual rights would apply also to child-labor legislation, to legislation against street soliciting by prostitutes or the sale of indecent pictures, and, more obviously still, against anti-opium and anti-cocaine legislation. As a matter of fact, the older individualistic point of view has been generally abandoned now, and we are free to discuss what is desirable for the general welfare. We may at once say that whatever method will most quickly and thoroughly root out the evil should be adopted. Different methods may be more or less efficacious in different places; it is a matter for legitimate opportunism. But the goal to be kept in sight can only be absolute prohibition of the manufacture, sale, and importation of all alcoholic liquors for beverages. Education on the matter, and exhortation to personal abstinence, must be continued. But education and exhortation are not alone sufficient; self-restraint cannot be counted on, constraint must be employed.