"High License" and "Regulation" have been thoroughly tried and have not checked the evil; moreover, it has been a serious blunder to make the State or municipality dependent upon the liquor trade for revenue, and therefore eager to retain it. The "State Monopoly" system has not proved a success in this country in lessening the evil; it made the liquor power a more sinister influence than ever in politics. If liquor must be sold, the "Company," or Scandinavian system, which eliminates the factor of private profits, without fostering political corruption, is probably the least harmful method of selling. But no method of selling liquor can be more than a temporary expedient. We must work inch by inch to extend the boundaries of absolutely "dry" territory. "Local Option" has been of very great value in this movement, and may still in some States be the best attainable status. Option by counties, with a prohibition of the shipment of liquor from "wet" to "dry" counties, is the preferable form. Statewide prohibition, for a while in disrepute because of open violation of the law, is again gaining ground, ten of the forty-eight States being entirely "dry" at time of writing. The ultimate solution can only be the adoption of an amendment to the National Constitution enforcing nation-wide prohibition; the agitation for such an amendment is already acute, and the promise of its passage within a generation bright. The arguments against prohibition are not strong. That the law is poorly enforced in localities where public sentiment is against it is natural; but no law is universally obeyed, and that a law is broken is a poor reason for removing it from the statute books. No one would suggest repealing the laws against burglary or seduction because they are daily disobeyed. This pseudo-concern for the dignity of the law is simply a specious argument advanced by those who have an interest in the trade, and accepted by those who suppose liquor drinking to be wrong only in excess and harmless in moderation. The reply is to show that alcohol, practice that is always harmful must be fought by the law as well as by moral suasion. Public sentiment must be educated up to the law; and the existence of the law is itself of educative value. Moreover, the old observations of non-enforcement must now be modified; recent experience shows that the prohibition States are on the whole increasingly successful in enforcing their laws. The new national law prohibiting importations from "wet" to "dry" States helps immensely; and with the forbidding of importations from abroad and of the manufacture of liquor anywhere in the country, the problem of enforcement will settle itself. Except for the precarious existence of "moon-shiners," and for what individuals may make for themselves, the stuff will not be obtainable. [Footnote: For the arguments for prohibition, see H. S. Warner, op. cit, chaps. IX, XII. Artman, The Legalized Outlaw. Fehlandt, A Century of Drink Reform. Wheeler, Prohibition.] That prohibition involves the ruin of a great industry is true; these millions of workers will be free to give their strength to productive labor, these millions of dollars can be invested in some industry useful to mankind. Confiscation will work hardship to the brewers and distillers; so it does to the opium-growers, the makers of indecent pictures, and counterfeit money. A trade so inimical to the general interest deserves no mercy. The States that have unwisely used the "tainted money" drawn from the industry by license will have a far richer community to tax in other ways; for every dollar got in liquor-license fees, many dollars have been lost to the State. As Gladstone said, "Give me a sober population, not wasting their earnings in strong drink, and I shall know where to obtain the revenue." Pending the enactment of legal prohibition, what is called industrial prohibition is proving widely efficacious. Growing numbers of manufacturers, railway managers, and storekeepers are refusing to employ men who drink at all. The United States Commissioner of Labor reports that ninety per cent of the railways, eighty-eight per cent of the trades, and seventy-nine per cent of the manufacturers of the country discriminate already against drinkers. The only other point to be noted is that the saloon-the "public house," the "poor man's salon"-must be replaced by other social centers, that give opportunities for recreation, cheer, and social intercourse. The question of substitutes for the saloon will be alluded to again, in chapter xxx. [Footnote: See Raymond Calkins, Substitutes for the Saloon. H. S. Warner, op. cit, chap. VIII. Forum, vol. 21, p. 595.] The nation-wide campaign against alcohol is on, the area of its legalized sale is steadily diminishing. We who now discuss it may live to see it swept off the face of the earth; if not we, our children or children's children. And we must see to it that no other drug opium, morphine, or the like gets a similar grip on humanity. Our descendants will look with as great horror upon the alcohol indulgence of our times as most of us now do upon opium smoking. "O God, that men should put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!"

The best book for practical use is H. S. Warner's Social Welfare and the Liquor Problem (revised edition, 1913), where extensive references to the authorities will be found. Two other excellent popular books are H. S. Williams, Alcohol (1909), and Horsley and Sturge, Alcohol and the Human Body (1911). See also Rosanoff, in McClure's Magazine, vol. 32, p. 557; Rountree and Sherwell, The Temperance Problem and Social Reform; T. N. Kelynack, The Drink Problem: Scientific Conclusions concerning the Alcohol Problem (Senate Document 48, 61st Congress, 1909); and the five volumes of conclusions of the Committee of Fifty, published by Houghton, Mifflin Co, under the general title, Aspects of the Liquor Problem; a summary of these conclusions is published with the title The Liquor Problem, ed. F. J. Peabody. Barker, The Saloon Problem and Social Reform. Fanshawe, Liquor Legislation in the United States and Canada. C. B. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, chap. XVI. The best available data, to date, on the physiological questions underlying the moral questions may be found in G. Rosenfeld, Der Einfluss des Alkohols auf den Organismus (1901) A.B.Cushney, The Action of Alcohol (1907)-paper read before the British Association; Meyer and Gottlieb, Pharmacology (1914).



CHAPTER XVII

CHASTITY AND MARRIAGE TEMPERANCE

In the indulgence of the appetites is a manifest necessity for health and efficiency-temperance in work and play, in eating and drinking, in novel reading and theater going, in whatever activity desire may suggest. But two appetites stand on a different footing from the others, and demand more than temperance. The love of alcohol and the other narcotics, being, as we have seen, a pathological and highly dangerous appetite, productive of scarcely any real good, must be completely rooted out of human nature, as it readily can be, to the great advantage of mankind. The other great appetite, that of sex, cannot be treated so cavalierly; to eradicate it or deny its fulfillment would be to put a speedy end to the human race. The solution of the problems of sex is therefore not so simple, the remedying of the evils of which sexual passion is the source not so feasible. On the one hand, we have to recognize the sex instinct as normal and necessary, the source of the keenest, and, indirectly, of some of the most lasting, pleasures of life; the denial of its enticements to the extent which our Christian ideal demands provokes perennial resentment and rebellion. On the other hand, we are confronted by the incalculable evils which unrestrained lust produces, and forced to admit the imperious necessity of some strictly repressive code. To many, the gravest dangers in life lie here; the sex instinct is the great rebel, promising a glorious liberty, a melting of the barriers between human bodies and souls, an ecstasy of mutual happiness that nothing else can offer. Yet beyond these transient excitements lie the saddest tragedies-disease and suffering, unwished childbirth, heartbreak and death. Desire sings a siren music in our ears; but the bones of those who have surrendered to the song lie bleaching on the rocks. These sweet anticipations presage sorrow and ruin; there is no heavier sight than to see happy, heedless youth caught by the lure of this strange, mysterious thrill and drifting to their destruction-"As a bird hasteth to the snare, And know not that it is for his life." So much is at stake here that we must be more than ordinarily sure that we are not biased, that we are not binding ourselves by needless restrictions. But after whatever doubts and wanderings, the man of mature experience comes back to the monogamous ideal with the conviction that in it lies not only our salvation but our truest happiness. A thousand pities that so many learn the lesson too late! Nothing in the whole field of ethics is more important than for each generation, as it stands on the threshold of temptation and opportunity, to see clearly the basic reasons for our hard-won and barely maintained code of chastity. A reverence for authority, a deep- implanted sentiment, a recurrent emotional appeal, and a barrier of scruples and pledges may keep many within the lines of safety. But the morality of sentiment and authority must always be based on a morality of reason and experience. We must therefore begin by recapitulating the fundamental reasons for our monogamous ideal.

What are the reasons for chastity before and fidelity after marriage?

(1) The most glaring danger for a man in unchastity is disease. The venereal diseases are among the most terrible known to man; they are highly contagious-one contact, and that not necessarily actual intercourse, sufficing for infection-and at present only very partially curable. Practically all prostitutes become infected before long; the youngest and prettiest are usually diseased; the chance of indulging in promiscuous intimacies without catching some form of infection is slight. The only sure way of escape from this imminent danger is by the exclusive love of one man and one woman. Moreover, these diseases are, in their effects, transmissible from husband to wife and from wife to children. Many women's diseases, a large part of their sterility, of miscarriages and infant deaths, a large proportion of the paralysis, insanity, and blindness in the world, are due to the sins of a husband or parent. Thus the penalty for a single misstep may be very grim; and the worst of it is that it must often be shared by the innocent. [Footnote: See Prince Morrow, Social Diseases and Marriage. W. L. Howard, Plain Facts on Sex Hygiene.]

(2) For a girl the danger of disease is not all. There is the additional danger of pregnancy, which means, and must mean, for her not only pain and risk of life, but lasting shame and disgrace. Even paid prostitutes, who are willing to employ dangerous methods to prevent conception, and soon become nearly sterile through disease or overindulgence, often have to resort to illegal operations, at the risk of their lives, and not infrequently come to childbirth. The virgin who gives herself to her lover under the spell of his ardent wooing is very much more likely to conceive. It cannot be too bluntly stated that the barest contact may suffice for conception; for a momentary intimacy two lives, or three, have often been ruined.

(3) The reason why society cannot afford to be lenient with illegitimacy is that there is no proper provision for rearing children born out of wedlock. The woman and the child usually need the financial support of the man; they always need his love and care. If the man marries the girl he has wronged, there is not only the disgrace still attaching to her (and rightly to him, still more), but the fact of a hasty and unintended and probably more or less unhappy marriage. Certainly in every such case the girl has a right to demand that the man shall marry her; whether or no she will wish him to, or will prefer to bear her burden and disgrace alone, is for her to determine. But this is sure that any man who takes the chance of ruining a foolish and ignorant or oversusceptible girl "and all for a bit of pleasure, as, if he had a man's heart in him, he 'd ha' cut his hand off sooner than he'd ha' taken it" [Footnote: George Eliot's Adam Bede, from which these words are taken, ought to be read by every boy and girl.]- ought to be despised and socially ostracized by his fellows. Except for the penalty of disease, women have always borne the brunt of sexual follies, though men have been the more to blame. It is high time that this injustice were remedied to such extent as law and public opinion can do it.

(4) The employment of paid prostitutes for man's gratification keeps in existence the unhappiest and most degraded class in the world. Brutalized and worn by their abnormal life, treated with coarse indignities which they cannot resent, deprived of their birthright of genuine love, of wifehood and motherhood, stricken with disease and doomed to an early death, thousands of the prettiest, reddest-blooded, most promising young girls of our land, the girls who ought to be bearing healthy children and rearing the future citizens of the State, now walk the streets painted and gaudily bedecked, seeking their miserable livelihood, and snaring the heedless and restless youth of the cities, the "young men void of understanding," to their common degradation. This human wastage is worse upon the race than war; and all the more pathetic because it consists of girls scarcely past the threshold of their maidenhood. When we consider further the indescribably horrible cruelty of the "white-slave trade," which the insatiable lust of men has brought into being, we may begin to realize to what the absence of restraint upon this appetite has led.

It is quite conceivable that within the near future the venereal diseases will be rendered entirely curable by the progress of medicine. It is possible that some certain and harmless method of preventing conception will be found and become so universally known that the danger of unintentional childbirth will become practically nonexistent. Such a situation would remove the most obvious reasons for chastity, and would insure a rapid growth of free-love sentiment. It would be pointed out that free love would do away with the shameful existence of the paid prostitutes, and that thus all four of the basic reasons above given for chastity would no longer exist. To discuss such possibilities may seem premature. But as a matter of fact, even now every one who indulges in "free" love hopes to escape disease and conception. And there is an increasing propaganda insisting on the removal of the old conventions and the permission of promiscuous love. The spirit of adventure is in the air; and with even a good chance of escaping the penalties, there are many who will seize their opportunities for enjoyment, preferring a present pleasure with its spice of risk to a dull negation of desire. We must then go on with the argument and point out that even where these terrible results are escaped, the way of free love is not the happiest way.

(5) Freedom from restraint in inter-sex relations inevitably leads, in the majority of men and women, to an overindulgence which seriously impairs health and efficiency. The one salient motive for the opposition of ancient codes to sex license was the necessity of preserving the virility of the young men for war. Today athletes are enjoined to chastity. But, indeed, if a man would succeed in anything, he must check this so easily overdeveloped impulse. Promiscuity means a continually renewed stimulus; the passion, which quickly becomes normal and intermittent when it spends itself upon one object, is apt to become an abnormal and almost continuous craving when it is solicited by a succession of novel and piquant attractions. The advocates of free love assert that it is unnatural repression that creates an undue and morbid longing; that freedom to satisfy the instinct would tend to keep it in its properly subordinate place. But the contrary is, in reality, true. More usually, as Rabelais has it, "the appetite comes during the eating." The absence of temptation will leave an instinct dormant which free opportunity to indulge will develop into a dominant appetite. And nothing more quickly drafts strength or ambition than absorption in sex pleasures; we need to put our energies into something that instead of being inimical is forwarding to the rest of our interests.

(6) Sexual intemperance coarsens, blunts delight in the less violent and more delicate emotions. The pleasures of sex, though of the keenest, are not lasting, like those of the intellect, of religion, art, and manly achievement. But if recklessly indulged in, they inevitably sap our interest in these other ideals. Except where they spring from and reinforce true affection, they are an opiate, taking us into a dream world that makes actual life stale and tasteless. "Hold off from sensuality," says Cicero; "for if you give yourself up to it, you will be unable to think of anything else." There is so much else that is worthwhile, life has so many possible values, that for our own final happiness, we cannot afford to let this instinct usurp too great a place. The vision of God is worth many hours of transient and shallow excitement; and that vision comes only to the pure in heart.

(7) But even for the greatest pleasure in sex itself, incontinence is a blunder. The one telling argument for free love is the sweetness of the delights that the chaste must miss; the bodily intimacy that soothes the lonely heart, the adventurous excitement of breaking down barriers, of dominance and surrender, with its quickened breathing and heightened sense of living. But the plea comes usually from the inexperienced; it is the yearning of youth toward the lure of the untried ways, of the untasted joys. Actually, where passion is unbridled, the halo and the vision quickly vanish; the sated impulse becomes a restless craving for more violent stimulation, a thirst that no mere physical intimacy can ever assuage; or it leaves the heart cloyed and despondent and resourceless. This is the natural history of undisciplined passion; it cheapens love, it robs it quickly of its exquisiteness and charm. The faithful lover, on the other hand, by checking premature intimacies, and keeping true to the one woman who calls or will some day call out all his love, knows a steady joy that bulks in the end far greater than the flaring and fitful and quickly disillusioned passions of unearned love. Where the veil of mystery is not too rudely drawn aside, the ability to respond to the charm of girlhood and of ripe womanhood may be long retained; the pleasures of sex that count for most in the end are not the moments of passion, but the daily enjoyment of companionship with the opposite sex, the assurance and comfort of mutual fidelity, the love that feeds on daily caresses, endearing words, and acts of tender service. And these lasting joys do not accrue to the man or woman who is not willing to wait, or who squanders his potentialities of love in reckless and fundamentally unsatisfying debauchery. This is the paradox of love; whoso would find its best gifts must be willing to deny himself its gaudiest. The old love of twos, the loyalty of man and wife that bring to each other pure hearts and bodies, is best.

(8) There are, besides, certain practical consequences of which experience warns. Free love would mean that the pretty and well- developed girls, the handsomer and physically stronger men, would be besieged with solicitations and almost inevitably debauched by excess of temptation, while the less attractive would starve for love. It would mean jealousies, deserted lovers, and broken hearts. Free love is especially hard on a woman; she readily becomes attached, and craves loyalty. Inconstancy, though it is so natural to man as often to need the pressure of law and convention for its repression, is not only the worst enemy of his own happiness, but the inevitable source of friction and clash between men and between women. If freedom to break the troth that love instinctively plights is allowed, the chances are numerous that one or the other will some day discover another "affinity" that, at least for the time, seems closer and better suited to him; unless a stern loyalty prevents, one or two or three hearts may be broken. Our monogamous code-whose iological value is clearly indicated by its adoption by most of the higher animals (not counting the domesticated animals, whose morals have been hopelessly ruined)-stands among the wisest of our ideals.

What safeguards against unchastity are necessary?

Overwhelming as is the argument for monogamy, it runs counter to such violent impulses that it needs every prop and sanction that can be given it. It must shelter itself under the law, keep on its side the conscience of men, and be hallowed by alliance with religion. All this is partially attained by the social-religious institution of marriage. The wedding ceremony itself, adding as it does dignity and symbolism, the memory of a beautiful occasion, and the witness of friends to the plighting of mutual vows, is of appreciable value. We must now consider the practical question how, in the face of almost inevitable temptation, the young man and woman may keep chaste during the years prior to marriage. If pre-marital chastity is maintained, there is comparatively little danger of infidelity when chosen love and loyalty to vows come to reinforce the earlier motives.

(1) Certain abstinences, that might not seem in themselves important, are necessary. Little familiarities, kisses and caresses, must be avoided; they are a playing with fire; and the youth never knows when the electric thrill will vibrate through his being, awakened by a touch, that will summon him to a new world wherein he must not yet enter. The finest men do not take these liberties, nor do well-bred girls permit them or respect those who seek them. Vulgar jokes and stories must be despised, as well as all allusions to vice as a natural or amusing thing. Alcohol, gambling, and all unhealthy excitements must be shunned. Above all, the imagination must be controlled; nothing is more dangerous than the indulgence in voluptuous dreams. Longings so fostered, so pent up without outlet, are too apt to break out, in despite of scruples and resolves, if a favorable and alluring opportunity occurs. The battle against sin is won more in private than in the actual moments of temptation.

(2) But in this matter, as always, we must not merely avoid evil, we must overcome evil with good; we can best hope to escape the sirens not as Ulysses did, by having himself bound to the mast, but as Orpheus did, by playing a sweeter music still than they. The best antidote to impurity is a pure love, the next best the dedication to a love yet to be found. The passionate youth must speak in the vein of the Knight in Santayana's poem:

"As the gaudy shadows Stalked by me which men take for beauteous things, I laughed to scorn each feeble counterfeit, And cried to the sweet image in my soul, How much more bright thou wast and beautiful."

Normal friendships with pure girls are vitally necessary for a man, and comradeship with men important for women. Normal interests of all sorts are necessary; the man or woman who has a full, all-round life, who cultivates wholesome intellectual, aesthetic, religious activities, is in far less danger of an unregulated passion. Human energy must find some happy outlets, or it will tend to run amuck; what we become depends largely on what we get interested in. In particular, the abundant physical activity of robust health makes it much easier to banish immoderate desires.

(3) There are certain safeguards that the community should erect. (a) Among these are the conventions that control intimacy between the sexes. On the one hand, the wholesome comradeship of boys and girls, above desiderated, must be encouraged, not only for the removal of that loneliness and morbid curiosity which are among the greatest of sex irritants, but in order that husband and wife may be wisely chosen. On the other hand, the attractiveness of the other sex may easily draw too much attention from the studies and sports that ought to make up the bulk of the activity of youth; and too great freedom of companionship leads to an unnecessary amount of temptation. The fearless, heart- free friendship of chaste youths and maidens is a priceless boon. But close lines must be drawn, and a certain amount of wise chaperonage is necessary. Too free a physical intimacy between the sexes leads almost irresistibly on, with many, to actual intercourse; the instinct is too imperious to be withstood when opportunity is too easy, if there are not many barriers to be broken first.

(b) Another duty of the community lies in the fight against the public sources of sensual appeal not merely the houses of prostitution and street solicitation, but the vile shows, indecent pictures and books, and other means by which the greed of money panders to the sex instinct. The questions concerning the drama, the ballet, and the nude in art will recur when we come to discuss the general relations of art and morality. Closely parallel are the problems concerning the costume of women; these are phases of the eternal conflict between beauty and morality. What is pretty is tempting. How can we have enjoyment without being wrecked by it; how can we make life rich and yet keep it pure? Some line must be drawn; just where, we have not space to discuss.

(c) Education on matters of sex must probably be attended to in the public schools. It were better done by parents, perhaps; but parents cannot be depended upon to do it. The dangers that await indulgence, the cruelty and brutality of prostitution, should be universally but cautiously taught; too many boys and girls wreck their lives for l ack of such knowledge. It is indeed a delicate task to instruct adolescents in these matters; there is, as Professor Munsterberg has well pointed out, a grave danger of stimulating, by calling attention to it, the very impulse which it is desired to curb, of dissipating the fear of the unknown which may be greater than that of clearly understood, and thereby, perhaps, avoidable dangers, and of breaking down barriers of shyness and reticence, which form one of the most effective of safeguards. Personal attention to the individual needs of boys and girls of widely differing temperaments and mental condition is imperative. But in general, it is to be remembered that almost every boy and girl learns, somehow, long before marriage, the main facts concerning sex-relations. And it is far better that that knowledge should be imparted reverently, accurately, unemotionally, and with due emphasis upon perils and penalties, than that it should be gained in coarse and exciting ways, or remain half understood and with a glamour of mystery about it.

What are the factors in an ideal marriage?

Celibacy is neither natural nor desirable; a happy marriage should be the goal of every healthy man's and woman's thought. The economic situation that prevents so many from marrying till nearly or quite thirty is thoroughly unwholesome and must in some way be remedied. Marriage in the early twenties is not only an important safeguard against unchastity; it is physiologically better for the woman and her offspring. The danger and pain in childbirth to a woman of twenty or twenty-five are less than in later life, and the children have a better chance of health. Moreover, young people are mentally and morally more plastic; they have not yet become so "set" in their ways as they will later become, and are more likely to grow together and make easily those little compromises and adjustments which the fusing of two lives necessitates. And it is always a pity that the two who are to be life comrades should fail to have these years, in some ways the best of their lives, together.

Yet this sacred and exacting relationship must not be hastily entered, for nothing more surely than marriage makes or mars character and happiness. Too early marriage is apt to be impulsive and thoughtless. It is true that many confirmed bachelors and maiden ladies lose through an excess of timidity the great experiences and joys which a little boldness, a little willingness to take a risk and put up with the imperfect would have brought them. No man or woman is perfect; no one can expect to find a wholly ideal mate; it is foolish to be too exacting, and it is conceited, implying that one is flawless one's self. Nevertheless, the counsel of caution is more commonly needed. Happily we have pretty generally got away from mariages de convenance, marriages for money, or title, or other extraneous advantages. And we have recognized the right of the two who are primarily concerned to make their own choice without interference, other than friendly counsel and warning, from others. But we still have many marriages from which the basic desiderata are in too great degree absent.

(1) There should be genuine sex attraction; not necessarily a violent passion, or love at first sight, but some measure of that instinctive organic attraction, that unpredictable and irrational emotional satisfaction in physical proximity, which differentiates sex love from the love of men or women for one another. Not that "platonic" relations between husband and wife are not possible or permissible; but if a young couple are not linked by this sweetest of bonds, they not only miss much of the charm and mutual drawing- together of marriage, but they stand in gravest danger of an eventual arousing of the instinct by another-and that means either a bitter fight for loyalty or actual tragedy. It is never to be forgotten that husband and wife have to spend a great part of their life in the same house, in the same room. No degree of similarity of interests can take the place of that mere instinctive liking, that pervasive content at each other's presence, that enjoyment in seeing each other about, and in the daily caresses and endearing words that rightly mated couples know.

(2) But this underlying physical attraction, however keen at first is not of guaranteed permanence; it must be buttressed by common tastes and sympathies. To like the same people, to enjoy doing the same things, to judge problems from the same angle, to cleave to similar moral, aesthetic, religious canons is of great importance. A certain amount of contrast in ideas and ideals is, indeed, piquant and stimulating; and where marriage is early there is likelihood of an adequate convergence in Weltanschauung. But too radically different an outlook upon life may lead to continual friction, to loneliness, and mutual antagonism. The two who are to be comrades in the great experiment of life must be able to help each other, strengthen each other's weaknesses, and admire each other's aims and achievements. In particular, religious fanaticism is an intractable enemy of marital happiness. As Stevenson puts it, "There are differences which no habit nor affection can reconcile, and the Bohemian must not ntermarry with the Pharisee. The best of men and the best of women may sometimes live together all their lives, and, for want of some consent on fundamental questions, hold each other lost spirits to the end."

(3) It scarcely needs to be added that there must be on both sides a high standard of morality. Truthfulness, sincerity, self-control, the willingness to work, to sacrifice personal desires and pull together for the common welfare of the house, are essential, as well as fidelity to marriage vows and abstinence from all intemperance and lawbreaking. Common tastes can be formed after marriage; even the organic attraction is pretty sure to be awakened in some degree if the pair are not actually repulsive to each other; but low moral ideals at the age of marriage are seldom radically transformed afterward and render any happiness in home-making insecure.

(4) Perhaps some day it may become incumbent upon the suitor to weigh the matter of the heredity back of the lady of his choice, and consider whether she is best adapted, by mating with him, to give birth to normal and healthy children; or for the maiden sought to regard with equal care the antecedents of the suitor. But-fortunately for lovers' consciences-we know too little at present about heredity and the breeding of human beings to give much useful advice or make any demands of the prospective couple, except to insist that those who are tainted with hereditary disease or feeble-mindedness shall refrain from marriage. To this subject we shall recur in chapter XXX.

Is divorce morally justifiable?

If marriage were always undertaken with adequate caution, there would seldom be need of annulling it. But since mistakes are bound to be made and unhappy unions result; since, further, matters arising after marriage often tend to push couples apart and engender a state of friction or absolute antagonism, a necessary postscript to the questions concerning marriage must be that concerning divorce. It is matter of common knowledge that there is a marked tendency in recent years toward a loosening of the marriage bond; the ease with which divorces are granted in some States has become a national scandal. Among the causes for this are the lessening of allegiance to religious authority, the loss of the older fears and restraints, the growing spirit of adventure and iconoclasm. With the breaking-up of traditions, the lure of freedom has been strong, especially upon the so-long- dominated and docile sex. Women are becoming better educated and asserting their rights everywhere; they are now able to earn their living in many independent ways, and are in a position to break loose; the era of the subjection of women is over, and it is natural that many, particularly of the idle and frivolous, should turn this new-won liberty into license.

But, indeed, human nature being as it is, there would inevitably arise, and have always arisen, many cases of strain and friction in marriage relations. As Chesterton says, a man and a woman are, in the nature of the case, incompatible; and that underlying incommensurability of viewpoint easily results in clash where a deep-rooted affection and a habit of self-control are absent. Innumerable couples have suffered and hated each other and made the best of it; nowadays they are deeming it better frankly to admit and end the discord. And the problem, Which solutionis better? is by no means an easy one. We can but make here a few general suggestions.

(1) Divorce must certainly not be so easy as to encourage hasty and unconsidered marriage, or to turn this most sacred of relationships into a mere experimental and provisional alliance. "Trial marriage" is a palpably reprehensible scheme, involving an unwarrantable stimulus to the sex appetite; many men would enjoy taking one woman after another, until their passion in each case had exhausted its force with the lapse of novelty; women, who are not so naturally promiscuous, would suffer most. What would become of the children is a question whose very posing condemns the proposal. But a lax divorce law provides practically for trial marriage; one or the other party may enter into the contract and pronounce the solemn vows without any intention of keeping them when it shall cease to be for his or her pleasure. Not in this way is to be got the real worth of marriage; the conscious and earnest effort, at least, must be to keep to it for life. An easy short cut to freedom would tempt too many from the harder but nobler way of compromise, conciliation, and self-subordination. If one is weak and erring, or petulant and unkind, the other must patiently and lovingly seek to help, to educate, to uplift; seventy times seven times is not too often for forgiveness; and many a marriage that seemed hopelessly wrecked has been saved by magnanimity and tactful affection. There is a fine disciplinary value in these forbearances, and much opportunity for spiritual growth in the persevering endeavor toward harmony and mutual understanding. Many a man and woman who might have been lost if divorced, has been saved for a better life by the unwillingness of wife or husband to desert under grievous provocation. There comes an ebb to most conjugal disputes; men and women grow wiser, and often gentler, with age; while there is any hope for readjustment and revival of love it is wrong to break marital vows. Many a divorce has been as hasty and ill considered as the marriage it ended, and has left the couple in the end less happy and useful members of the community. Particularly when there are children should the parents sacrifice much for the sake of giving them a real home, with both mother- and father-love.

(2) Yet there are cases where love is hopelessly killed and harmony is impossible; cases where much suffering, and even moral degeneration, would result from continuance of the married life. Where a man transfers his love to another or indulges in infidelity to his vows; where he crazes himself with liquor or some other narcotic, and will not give it up; where he treats his wife with cruelty or contempt, or through selfishness or laziness deserts or refuses to support her; where she refuses to perform her wifely duties, gives herself to other men, makes home intolerable for him—in short, in any case where mutual loyalty and cooperation are hopeless of attainment, it is surely best that there should be separation. It does not make for the welfare of the children, or for the sanctity of marriage, that such wretched travesties of it should continue. Moreover, for eugenic reasons, we must urge the freeing of wives from husbands who have transmissible diseases, inheritable defects, or chronic alcoholism. Nor should the fact of one mistake preclude the injured party from another opportunity for happiness and usefulness. Whether the guilty man or woman, the one wholly or chiefly to blame for the failure, should be permitted to remarry is another matter; but probably, on the whole, it is better than the alternative encouragement of immorality and illegitimacy.

(3) The community should exert its influence toward the remedying of the present anomalies and uncertainties by making both marriage laws and divorce laws more stringent, and uniform throughout the country. Statutes that will render impulsive marriage impossible, by requiring an interval to elapse after statement of intention to marry, and making a clean bill of health necessary; divorce laws that shall refuse to pander to caprice and willfulness, but shall make it easy, without scandal or needless publicity, to deliver a woman or a man from an intolerable and irremediable situation, and that shall not be appreciably more lenient in one State than in another, will go far toward curing contemporary evils. It may yet be that the Constitution will be so amended as to permit the National Government to control these matters and thus replace our present chaos with order.

Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. XXVI. Scharlieb and Silby, Youth and Sex. C. Read, Natural and Social Morals, chap. VII. Anon, Life, Love, and Light (Macmillan), pp. 84-96. R. C. Cabot, What Men Live By, chaps. XXIV-XXIX. W. L. Sheldon, An Ethical Movement, chaps. XI, XII. C. F. Dole, Ethics of Progress, part VII, chap. III. Felix Adler, Marriage and Divorce, The Spiritual Meaning of Marriage. N. Smyth, Christian Ethics, pp. 405-15. B. P. Bowne, Principles of Ethics, part III, chaps. VIII, IX. W. E. H. Lecky, The Map of Life, chap. XIV. Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque. G. E. C. Gray, Husband and Wife. J. Rus, The Peril and Preservation of the Home. Thompson and Geddes, Problems of Sex. H. Munsterberg, "Sex-Education" (in Psychology and Social Sanity). H. G. Wells, "Divorce" (in Social Forces in England and America). C. J. Hawkins, Will the Home Survive? Biblical World, vol. 43, p. 33. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 17, p. 181. For the data: United States Department of Commerce and Labor, Reports on Marriage and Divorce. Publications of the National League for the Protection of the Family (Secretary S. W. Dike, Auburndale, Massachusetts) and of the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis (105 West 40th Street, New York). Howard, MATRIMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. Sutherland, ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE MORAL INSTINCT of the Moral Instinct, chaps. vii, ix. Lestourneaux, EVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.



CHAPTER XVIII

FELLOWSHIP, LOYALTY, AND LUXURY

EVERY man has to solve the problem of how far he will live for his smaller, personal self, and how far for that larger self that includes the interests of others. The general principles involved we have discussed in chapter XI; we may now proceed to consider their application to the concrete situations in which we find ourselves. What social relationships impose claims upon us?

(1) The relations of husband and wife and of parenthood are most sacred and exacting, because they are voluntarily assumed, and because the need and possibilities of help are here greatest. A man or woman may without odium remain free from these obligations; but once they have made the vows that initiate the dual life, once they have brought a helpless child into the world, neither may evade the consequent responsibilities. If undertaken at all, these duties must be conscientiously fulfilled; and whatever sacrifices are necessary must, as a matter of course, and ungrudgingly, be made.

(2) Next in inviolability to these claims are those of father and mother, brother and sister, and other near relatives. Involuntary as these relations are, the natural piety that accepts the burdens they entail must not be allowed to grow dim. Those nearest of kin are the natural supports and helpers of the weak and dependent; and though patience and resources be severely taxed, it is better to let blood ties continue to involve obligation than to permit the selfish irresponsibility of a freer and more individualistic society. Much provocation can be borne by remembering "She is my mother"; "He is my brother"; after all, their interests are ours, and our lives are impoverished, as well as theirs, if we ignore them.

(3) The voluntary bonds of friendship entail somewhat vaguer obligations, since the closeness of the tie is not clearly fixed, as it is in the case of blood relationship. But "once a friend always a friend" is the truehearted man's motto. "Assure thee," says one of Shakespeare's heroines, "if I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it to the last article." No one who has won another's friendship, and, however tacitly, pledged his own, is thenceforth free to ignore the bond. Here are for most men the happiest opportunities for fellowship, for inward growth, and for service; for if the love of wife surpasses that of friends, it is not only on account of the fascination of sex, but because marriage may be the supreme friendship. Emerson declared that "every man passes his life in the search after friendship"; and the greatest of Stevenson's three desiderata for happiness was - "Ach, Du lieber Gott, friends!" Human beings, even when brought up in a similar environment, are so infinitely divergent in temperament and ideal, that the near of kin seldom meet a man's deepest needs, and he must wait and watch to find one here and there with whom he can clasp hands in real mutual comprehension and accord. Want of this spontaneous comradeship sadly limits a life; nothing pays more in joy than the circle of friends that a man can draw about him. Nothing, likewise, is more morally stimulating. "What a friend thinks me to be, that must I be." This linking of our lives to others draws us out of ourselves, corrects our cramped and distorted vision, and reinforces our wavering aspirations. Hence those who are so critical and fastidious as to make few friends ill serve their own interests. A certain heartiness and fearlessness of trust is necessary; reproaches and suspicions, accusations and demands for explanations, must not be indulged in, even if wrong is actually done. A presumption of good intentions must always be maintained, even if appearances are black. It is more shameful, as La Rochefoucauld said, to distrust a friend than to be deceived by him. Indeed, these deceptions and disillusions are oftenest the result of our own mistaken idealization; we must expect neither perfection nor those particular virtues in which we ourselves are especially punctilious, and undertake to love and cleave to a mortal, not an angel. Friendship requires not only that we lend a hand when help is needed; it implies patience and tact and the endeavor to understand. Through common experiences, repeated interchange of thought and observation, mutual enjoyment of beauty and fun, particularly in expressing common ideals and working together for common causes, there grows to maturity this wonderful relationship "the slowest fruit in the whole garden of God, which many summers and many winters must ripen."

(4) Beyond the boundaries of blood and friendship lie a whole hierarchy of lesser relationships-to neighbors, to employees, to fellow townsmen, to human beings the world over. Mere proximity constitutes a claim that is not commonly acknowledged when distance interposes; most men would be mortally ashamed to let a next-door neighbor starve, although they may feel no call to lessen their luxuries when thousands, whom they could as easily succor, are perishing in the antipodes. And there is a measure of necessity in this; to burden our minds with the thought of the suffering in India, in Russia, in Japan, leads to a paralyzing sense of impotence. If we confine our thought to the dwellers on our street or in our town, it may not seem utterly hopeless to try to remedy their distress; to improve the situation of the laborers in one's own shop or factory lies within the limits of practicability. But the Christian doctrine of the universal brotherhood of man is becoming a working principle at last; and millions of dollars and thousands of our ablest young men and women are crossing the oceans to uplift and civilize the more backward nations, in deference to the admonition that we are our brothers' keepers. At home this recognition of the basic human relationship of living together on this little sphere, that is plunging with us all through the great deeps of space, should help to obliterate class lines and snobbishness and bring about a real democracy of fellowship.

(5) Finally, we have a duty to those dumb brothers of ours, the animal species that share with us the earth. For they, too, feel pain and pleasure, and are much at our mercy. We must learn "Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."

All needless hurting of sentient creatures is cruelty, whether of the boy who tortures frogs and flies, or of the grown man who takes his pleasure in hunting to death a frightened deer. Beasts of prey must, indeed, be ruthlessly put to death, just as we execute murderers; among them are to be counted flies, mosquitoes, rats, and the other pests so deadly to the human race and to other animals. But death should be inflicted as painlessly as possible; no humane man will prolong the suffering of the humblest creature for the sake of "sport" or take pleasure in the killing. We must say with Cowper "I would not enter on my list of friends, (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm."

This does not necessarily imply that we may not rear and kill animals for food. When properly slaughtered, they suffer inappreciably-no more, and probably less, than they would otherwise suffer before death; the fear of the hunted animal is not present, and there is no danger of leaving mate and offspring to suffer. Indeed, the animals that are bred for food would not have their chance to live at all but for serving that end; and their existence is ordinarily, without doubt, of some positive balance of worth to them. Certainly the rearing of cattle and sheep and chickens adds appreciably to the picturesqueness and richness of human life; and if dieticians are to be believed, their food value could hardly be replaced by substitutes.

The question of vivisection is not a difficult one. Certainly experimentation on living animals should be sharply controlled, anesthetics should be used whenever possible, and the needless repetition of operations for illustrative purposes should be forbidden. But it is far better for the general good that necessary experimentation should be performed upon animals than upon human beings; not at all as a partisan judgment, to shift suffering from ourselves to others, which would be unjustifiable, but because animals are less sensitive to pain, and unable to foresee and fear it as human beings would. The human lives saved have been of far greater worth not only to themselves but objectively than the animal lives sacrificed. Moreover, except for a few glaring instances, vivisection has involved little cruelty; and the crusade against it, though actuated by a noble impulse, has rested upon misrepresentation of facts and exaggeration of evils.

What general duties do we owe our fellows?

(1) The abstract duty to refrain from hurting our fellows, and to give positive help, to whomever we can, will find constant application in connection with each specific problem we are to study. But a few general remarks may be pertinently made here. In the first place, we need to be reminded that to help requires insight and tact and ingenuity; it is not enough to respond to obvious needs or actual requests; we must learn to understand our fellows' wants, remember their tastes, seek out ways to add to their happiness or lighten their burdens. For another must realize the importance of manners, cultivate kindliness of voice and phrase, courtesy, cheerfulness, and good humor. Surliness and ill temper, glumness, touchiness, are inexcusable; nor may we needlessly burden others with our troubles and disappointments - the motto, "Burn your own smoke," voices an important duty. Again, we must remember that people generally are lonely and in need of love; we must be generous in our affection. It is sometimes said that love given as a duty is a mockery; and doubtless spontaneous and irresistible love is best. But it is possible to cultivate love. If we think of others not as rivals or enemies, but as fellows whose interests we ourselves have at heart, if we try to put ourselves in their place, see through their eyes, and enjoy their pleasures and successes, we shall find ourselves coming to want happiness for them and then feeling some measure of affection. Men and women do not have to be perfect to be loved; all or nearly all are love worthy, if we have it in us to love. (2) The question how far we should tolerate what we believe to be wrong in others, and how far we should work to reform them, is of the most difficult. Certainly moral evil must be fought; the counsel to "resist not evil" cannot be taken too sweepingly. No one can sit still while a big boy is bullying a smaller, while vice caterers are plying their trades, while cruelty and injustice of any sort are being perpetrated. In lesser matters, too, we must not be inactive, but use our influence and persuasion to call our fellows to better things. They may well at some later day reproach us if we shirk our duty to help them see and correct their faults; still more may we be reproached by others who have been harmed by faults that we might have done something toward curing. Often a single gentle and tactful admonition has turned the whole current of a man's life. The truest friendship is not too easy- going; it stimulates and checks as well as comforts. Emerson happily phrases this aspect of the matter: "I hate, when I looked for a manly furtherance, or at least a manly resistance, to find a mush of concession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo."

This is, however, only half the truth. What Stevenson calls the "passion of interference with others" is one of the wretchedest poisoners of human happiness. People are, after all, hopelessly at variance in ideals, and we must be content to let others live in their own way and according to their own inner light, as we live by ours. Probably neither is the light of perfect day. Parents are particularly at fault in this respect; rare is the father or mother who is willing that son and daughter should leave the parental paths and follow their own ideals. Incalculable is the amount of needless suffering caused by the conscientious attempt to make others over into our own image. As Carlyle wrote, "The friendliest voice must speak from without; and a man's ultimate monition comes only from within." We need not only a shrugging "tolerance," but a willingness to admit that those who differ from us may after all be in the right of it. It often happens that as we live our standards change, and we come to see that those whom we were anxious to reform were less in need of reformation than we; and very likely while we were blaming others, they in their hearts were blaming us. The older we grow the less we feel ourselves qualified for the office of censor.

Certain practical counsels may perhaps be not too impertinent: Be sure you can take advice yourself without offense or irritation before you proffer it to others; there may be beams in your own eyes as well as motes in your neighbors'. Be sure you see through the other's eyes, and get his point of view; only so can you feel reasonably confident that you are right in your advice or reproof.[Footnote: Cf. W. E. H. Lecky, The Map of Life, p. 68: "Few men have enough imagination to realize types of excellence altogether differing from their own. It is this, much more than vanity, that leads them to esteem the types of excellence to which they themselves approximate as the best, and tastes and habits that are altogether incongruous with their own as futile and contemptible."] Be sure that you are saying what you are saying for the other's good, and not to give vent to your own irritability or selfishness or sense of superiority; say what must be said sweetly or gravely, never patronizingly or sharply, with resentfulness or petulance. Be sure you choose your occasion tactfully, and above all things do not nag; it is better to have it out once and for all than to be forever hinting and complaining and reproving. Praise when you can, temper advice with compliments, make it apparent that your spirit is friendly and your mood good-tempered. Talk and think as little as possible of others' faults; he who is above doing a low act is above talking about another's failings. The only right gossip is that which dwells upon the pleasant side of our neighbors' doings. Avoid all impatience, contempt, and anger; they poison no one so much as him who feels them. Cultivate kindliness and sympathy; love opens blind eyes, helps us to understand our neighbor, and to help him in the best way. Are the rich justified in living in luxury? Of all the problems that loyalty to our fellows involves, none is acuter, to the conscientious man, than that concerning the degree of luxury he may allow himself. It is strictly things in the world is limited; the more I have, the less others have. How can a good man be content to spend unnecessary sums upon himself and his own family, when within arm's reach men and women and children are being stunted mentally and morally, are living in dirt and squalor, are succumbing to disease, are actually dying, for lack of the comfort and opportunity that his superfluous wealth could give? "Wherever we may live, if we draw a circle around us of a hundred thousand [sic], or a thousand, or even of ten miles' circumference, and look at the lives of those men and women who are inside our circle, we shall find half- starved children, old people, pregnant women, sick and weak persons, all working beyond their strength, with neither food nor rest enough to support them, and so dying before their time."[Footnote: Tolstoy, What Shall We Do Then? chap. xxvi.] It is only a lack of imagination and sympathy, or an actual ignorance of conditions, that can permit so many really kind-hearted people to spend so much money upon clothes, amusements, elaborate dinners, and a lot of other superfluities, in a world so full of desperate need. It would be well if every citizen could be compelled to do a little charity-visiting, or something of the sort, that he might see with his own eyes the cramping and demoralizing conditions under which, for sheer lack of money, so many worthy poor, under the present crude social organization, must live. It is the segregation of the well to do in their separate quarters that fosters their shameless callousness, and leads, in the rich, "to that flagrant exhibition of great wealth which almost frightens those who know the destitution of the poor."

There is, however, a growing uneasiness among those who have, an increasing sense of responsibility toward those who have not; there are hopeful signs of a return to the sane ideal of the Greeks, who deemed it vulgar and barbaric to spend money lavishly on self. The compunctions of the rich are indicated, on the one hand, by generous donations made to all sorts of causes, and on the other hand, by the arguments which are now thought necessary to justify the selfish use of money. These arguments we may cursorily discuss.

(1) A clever writer in a recent magazine [Footnote: Katherine Fullerton Gerould, in the Atlantic Monthly, vol. 109, p. 135.] speaks of "factitious altruism"; with this "altruism of the Procrusteans" who would reduce every one to the simple life-she has "little patience." "Thousands of people seem to be infected with the idea that by doing more themselves they bestow leisure on others; that by wearing shabby clothes they somehow make it possible for others to dress better- though they thus admit tacitly that leisure and elegance are not evil things. Or perhaps-though Heaven forbid they should be right!-they merely think that by refusing nightingales' tongues they make every one more content with porridge. Let us be gallant about the porridge that we must eat; but let us never forget that there are better things to eat than porridge."

This philosophy, less gracefully expressed, is not uncommon. Luxury is, other things equal, better than simplicity. But other things are not equal when our neighbors are cold and sick and hungry. What self- respecting man can eat "caviar on principle" when another has not even bread? By wearing plainer clothes we can make it possible for others to dress better, by denying ourselves nightingales' tongues we can buy porridge for the poor. It surely betokens a low moral stage of civilization that so many, nevertheless, choose the Paquin gowns and the six-course dinners. Luxury is better than simplicity if it can be the luxury of all. If not, it means selfishness, callousness, and broken bonds of brotherhood. Moreover, it has personal dangers; it tends to breed softness and laziness, an inability to endure hardship, what Agnes Repplier calls "loss of nerve." It tends to choke the soul, to crush it by the weight of worldly things, as Tarpeia was crushed by the Sabine shields. "Hardly can a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven." Simple living, with occasional luxuries, far more appreciated for their rarity, is healthier and safer, and in the end perhaps as happy. Certainly the luxury of the upper classes has usually portended the downfall of nations. "It is luxury which upholds states?" asks Laveleye; "yes, just as the executioner upholds the hanged man." "Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay."

(2) There is a patrician illusion prevalent among the rich, to the effect that they are more sensitive than the poor, have higher natures which demand more to satisfy them; that the lower classes do not need and would not appreciate the luxuries which are necessary to their existence. To this the reply is, "Go and get acquainted with them; you will find that they are just the same sort of people that you and your friends are"-not so educated, very likely, nor so refined of speech and manner, but with the same longings and capacities for enjoyment. Of course, they become used to discomfort and deprivation, seared by suffering; so would you in their place. Human nature has a fortunate ability to adjust itself to its environment. But even if the poor do not realize what they are missing, that is scant excuse for not bringing to them, as we can, new comforts and opportunities.

(3) The commonest fallacy lies in the argument that by lavish consumption the rich provide employment for the poor. They provide employment, yes, in serving them. They create needless work, where there is so much work crying to be done. If that money is put into the bank, instead, or into stocks and bonds, it will employ men and women in really useful tasks. If it is given to some of the worthy "causes" which are always handicapped for lack of funds, it will employ men in caring for the sick, in educating the ignorant, in feeding the hungry, or in bringing recreation and relief to the worn. Every man or woman whose time and strength we buy for our personal service-valet, maid, gardener, dressmaker, chef, or what not-is taken away from the other work of the world.

(4) A certain hopelessness of effecting any good often paralyzes good will. The help a little money can give seems like a drop in the bucket; its assistance is but for a day, and the need remains as great as ever. It may even be worse than wasted; it may encourage shiftlessness, it may pauperize. There is no doubt that indiscriminate and thoughtless charity is dangerous; the crude largesse of a few rich Romans of the Empire bred vast corruption and pauperism. But there is much that can safely be done; there are many wise and cautious agencies at work for aid and uplift; and every little, if given to one of them, is of real help.

(5) It is sometimes said that if society discountenances luxury, the motive for hard and efficient work will be too much reduced; we need this extra spur to exertion. But the earning of what may permissibly be spent on self is spur enough; there is no need of inordinate luxury to foster faithfulness and exertion. The praise of superiors and equals, a moderate rise in scale of living, the shame of shirking, the instinctive glory in achievement, and the joy of helping others, are stimuli enough.

(6) Finally, the last argument of the selfish man is that "he has earned his money; it is his; he has a right to do with it as he pleases" This we cannot admit. Legally he is as yet free so backward is our social order-to accumulate and spend upon himself vast sums. But it is not best for society that he should, and so he is not morally justified therein. We must agree with Carnegie that "whatever surplus wealth comes to him (beyond his needs and those of his family) is to be regarded as a social trust, which he is bound to administer for the good of his fellows"; and with Professor Sager, that "the general interest requires acceptance of the maxim: the consumption of luxuries should be deferred until all are provided with necessaries." This does not mean that we need live like peasants, as Tolstoy advised, make our own shoes, and till our own plot of ground; nor that we must come down to the level of the lowest. By doing that we should lose the great advantages of our material progress, which rests upon the high specialization of labor and reciprocal service. We should lose the charm and picturesqueness of highly differentiated lives, and sink into the dull, monotonous democracy which Matthew Arnold so dreaded. We must work where we can best serve; we must try to make our lives and their surroundings beautiful, so far as beauty does not require too great cost. We must save up for a rainy day, for insurance against illness and old age, for wife and children. We may properly invest money, where it will be used to good ends - so that we beware of spendthrift or lazy heirs. We must keep up a reasonably comfortable and beautiful standard of living, such a standard as the majority could hope to attain to by hard work and abstinence and thrift. But all the money one can earn beyond this ought to be used for service. The extravagance and ostentation and waste of many even moderately well to do are a blot upon our civilization. The insane ideal of lavish adornment, of fashionable clothes and costly furnishings, of mere vain display and wanton luxury, infects rich and poor alike, isolating the former from the great universal current of life, and provoking in the latter bitterness and anarchism. Let us ask in every case, Does this expenditure bring use, health, joy commensurate with the labor it represents? A great deal of current expense in dressing, in entertaining, in eating, could be saved by a sensible economy, with no appreciable loss in enjoyment. We must not forget that everything we consume has been produced by the labor and time of others. What fortune, or our own cleverness, has put into our hands that we do not need for making fair and free our own lives, and the lives of those dependent upon us, we should pass on to those whose need is greater than ours. Is it wrong to gamble, bet, or speculate? A corollary to our discussion of the duties appertaining to the use of money must be a condemnation of gambling. Its most obvious evil is the danger of loss of needed money; most gamblers cannot rightly afford to throw away what ought to be used for their real needs and those of their families. Notably is this the case with college students, supported by their parents, who heedlessly waste the money that others have worked hard to save. But even if a man be rich, he should steward his wealth for purposes useful to society. And he must remember that if he can afford to lose, perhaps his opponent cannot. Moreover, if many cannot afford to lose, no one can afford to win. Insidiously this getting of unearned money promotes laziness, and the desire to acquire more money without work. It makes against loving relations with others, since one always gains at another's expense. It quickly becomes a morbid passion, an unhealthy excitement, which absorbs too much energy and kills more natural enjoyments. The gambling mania, like any other reckless dissipation, easily leads to other dissipations, such as drinking and sex indulgence. These disastrous consequences are, of course, by no means always incurred. But in order that the weaker may be saved from them, it behooves the stronger to abstain. All betting, all playing games for money, all gambling in stocks is wrong in principle, liable to bring needless unhappiness. The honorable man will hate to take money which has not been fairly earned; he will wish to help protect those who are prone to run useless risks against themselves. The safest place to draw the line is on the near side of all gambling, however trivial.[Footnote: See H. Jeffs, Concerning Conscience, Appendix. R. E. Speer, A Young Man's Questions, chap. xi B. S. Rowntree, Betting and Gambling. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 18, p. 76.] General relations to others: F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book III, chap. IX, sec. 6; chap. X, secs. 3, 4, 5. G. Santayana, Reason in Society. J. S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, 2d ed, chap. IX. Emerson, Society and Solitude title essay. P. G. Hamerton, The Intellectual Life, part IX. Friendship: Aristotle, Ethics, books. VIII, IX. Emerson, "Friendship" (in Essays, vol. I). H. C. Trumbull, Friendship the Master Passion. Randolph Bourne, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 110, p. 795. Luxury: E. de Laveleye, Luxury. E. J. Urwick, Luxury and Waste of Life. Tolstoy, What Shall We Do Then? (or, What To Do?) Maeterlinck, "Our Social Duty" (in Measure of the Hours). F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book III, chap. IV, secs. 3, 4. T. W. Higginson, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 107, p. 301. H. Sidgwick, Practical Ethics, chap. VII. Hibbert Journal, vol. II, p. 39. H. R. Seager, Introduction to Economics, chap. IV, secs. 43-45.



CHAPTER XIX

TRUTHFULNESS AND ITS PROBLEMS

Sins of untruthfulness are not so seductive or, usually, so serious as those we have been considering; but for that reason they are perhaps more pervasive - we are less on our guard against them. What are the reasons for the obligation of truthfulness? Truthfulness means trustworthiness. The organization of society could not be maintained without mutual confidence. This general need and the specific harm done to the individual lied to, if he is thereby misled, are sufficiently plain. [Footnote: I will content myself with quoting one sentence from Mill (Utilitarianism, chap. II), warning the reader to take a deep breath before he plunges in: "Inasmuch as the cultivation in ourselves of a sensitive feeling on the subject of veracity is one of the most useful, and the enfeeblement of that feeling one of the most hurtful, things to which our conduct can be instrumental; and inasmuch as any, even unintentional, deviation from truth does that much towards weakening the trustworthiness of human assertion, which is not only the principal support of all present social well-being, but the insufficiency of which does more than any one [other] thing that can be named to keep back civilization, virtue, everything on which human happiness on the largest scale depends, - we feel that the violation, for a present advantage, of a rule of such transcendent expediency, is not expedient, and that he who, for the sake of a convenience to himself or to some other individual, does what depends on him to deprive mankind of the good, and inflict upon them the evil, involved in the greater or less reliance which they can place in each others' words, acts the part of one of their worst enemies."] The evil resulting to the man who lies is less generally recognized. We may summarize it under three heads:

(1) It is much simpler and less worrisome, usually, to tell the truth. A lie is apt to be scantly on our guard; and one lie is very likely to need propping by others. We are led easily into deep waters, and discover "what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive." But when we tell the truth, we have no need to remember what we said; there is a carefree heartiness about the life that is open and aboveboard that the liar, unless he has given up trying to maintain a reputation, never knows.

(2) Lying is usually a SYMPTOM - of selfishness, vanity, greed, slovenliness, or some other vicious tendency which a man cannot afford to tolerate. Refusing to give vent in speech to these undesirable states of mind helps to atrophy them, while every expression of them insures them a deeper hold. Untruthfulness is the great ally of all forms of dishonesty; and strict scruples against lying make it much easier to clear them from the soul. This is the best vantage point from which to attack the half-conscious egotism which seeks to create a false impression of one's virtues or powers, the insidiously growing avarice that instinctively overvalues goods for sale and disparages what is offered. It is a good vantage point from which to attack carelessness, inaccuracy, and negligence; the man who has trained himself to precision of speech, who is painstakingly honest in his statements, who qualifies and discriminates, and hits the bull's eye in his descriptions of fact, can be pretty safely depended upon to do things rightly as well. The selfish lie is never justifiable, because selfishness is never justifiable; the cowardly lie - "lying out of" unpleasant consequences - is wrong, because cowardice is wrong. To banish the symptoms may not wholly banish the underlying causes, but it is one good way to go about it. At least, the lies are danger signals.

(3) The habit of lying is very easily acquired; and the habitual liar is sure, sooner or later, to be caught and to be despised. He has forfeited the confidence of men and will find it almost impossible to regain it or to win a position of trust. If one must lie, then, it pays to lie boldly, as a definite and authorized exception to one's general rule; in this way one may keep from sliding unawares into the habit. All equivocations and dissimulations, all literal truths that are really deceptions, all attempts to salve one's own conscience by making one's statements true "in a sense," and yet gain the advantage of an out-and- out lie, are miserable make-shifts and utterly demoralizing. There is "not much in a truthfulness which is only phrase-deep." Whether we deceive others or no, we cannot afford to deceive ourselves; we should never deviate a hair's breadth from the truth without acknowledging the deviation to ourselves as a necessary but unfortunate evil. A man may say nothing but what is true, and yet intentionally give a wrong impression; "truth in spirit, not truth to the letter, is the true veracity." "A lie may be told by a truth, or a truth conveyed by a lie." "A man may have sat in a room for hours and not opened his teeth, and yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile calumniator."[Footnote: Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque, chap. IV.] If a man lies deliberately and regretfully, for an end that seems to him to require it, he may be making a mistake; but he is escaping the worst danger of lying. He is not corrupting his soul, blurring his vision of the line between sincerity and insincerity, and numbing his conscience so that presently he will lie as a matter of course - and be universally distrusted. All of this is very clear, and sufficiently explains our ideal of veracity. But it is not enough for moralists to dwell upon the general necessity of truthfulness; the problems connected therewith arise when one asks, Are there not legitimate or even obligatory exceptions to the rule? Except for a few theorists who are more attracted by unity and simplicity than by the concrete complexities of life, practically all agree that there are occasions when lying is necessary, occasions when the confidence of men would not be destroyed by a lie because of the clearly exceptional nature of the case. Can we lay down any useful rules in the matter, indicating what types of cases require untruthfulness? What exceptions are allowable to the duty of truthfulness? Love undoubtedly sometimes requires, and oftener still excuses, a lie.

(1) There are the trite cases where by misinformation a prospective murderer is misled and his potential victim saved;[Footnote: Cf. the somewhat similar situation in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables (Fantine, last chapter) where Soeur Simplice lies to Javert about Jean Valjean. Hugo applauds the lie perhaps too extravagantly ("O sainte fille! que ce mensonge vous soit compte dans le paradis!"); but few probably would condemn it. Another interesting case is that of a French girl in the days of the Commune. On her way to execution her fiance tried to interfere; but she, realizing that if he were known to be her lover he would likewise be executed, looked coldly upon him and said, "Sir, I never knew you!"] where a sick man, who would have less chance of recovery if he realized his dangerous condition, is cheered and carried over the critical point by loving deception; where a theater catches fire and a disastrous panic is averted by a statement to the audience that one of the actors has fallen ill, and the performance must be ended. In such cases it is foolish to talk of the possibility of evasion; it is direct misstatement that is necessary to prevent the great evil that knowledge, or even suspicion of the truth, might entail. Truthfulness under such circumstances, or even the taking of a chance by attempting to effect deception without literal untruth, would be brutal and inexcusable. As Saleeby puts it, "When the choice is between being a liar or a brute, only brutal people can tell the truth or hesitate to lie - and that right roundly.[Footnote: Ethics, p. 103.] In such cases the public, including the very people deceived (except the murderer, who deserves no consideration), applaud the lie; no lack of confidence is engendered. Other cases, less commonly discussed, are equally clear. A mother has just lost a son whom she has idealized and believed to be pure; his classmates know him to have been a rake. If she asks them about his character, will not all feel called upon to deceive her, and leave her in her bereavement at least free from that worst sting? When a timid woman or a sensitive child is alarmed, say, for example, at sea in a fog, will not a considerate companion reiterate assurance that there is little or no danger, even when he himself believes the risk may be great? When a man is asked about some matter which he has promised to keep secret, if the attempt to evade the question in the nature of the case is practically a letting-out of the secret, there seems sometimes to be hardly an alternative to lying. Mrs. Gerould puts it thus: "A question put by some one who has no right to the information demanded, deserves no truth. If a casual gossip should ask me whether my unmarried great-aunt lived beyond her means, I should feel justified in saying that she did not although it might be the private family scandal that she did. There are inquiries which are a sort of moral burglary" [Footnote: In the Atlantic essay referred to at the end of this chapter. The unassigned quotations following are from that paper, which I am particularly glad to commend after rather curtly criticizing that other essay of hers in the preceding chapter.]

(2) In regard to the little lies which form a part of the conventions of polite society, there may be difference of opinion. Their aim is to obviate hurting people's feelings, to oil the wheels of social misled by them. When asked by one's hostess if one likes what is apparently the only dish provided, or if one has had enough when one is really still hungry, the average courteous man will murmur a gallant falsehood. What harm can be done thereby, and why cause her useless embarrassment? "We simply have to be polite as our race and clime understand politeness, and no one except a naive is really going to take this sort of thing seriously." To thank a stupid hostess for the pleasure she has not given, is loving one's neighbor as one's self. "I know only one person whom I could count on not to indulge herself in these conventional falsehoods, and she has never been able, so far as I know, to keep a friend. The habit of literal truth-telling, frankly, is self-indulgence of the worst." In some circles, at least, the phrase "not at home" is generally understood as a politer form of "not seeing visitors." It must be admitted, however, that there is danger in these courteous untruths. If the visitor does not understand the "not at home" in the conventional sense, she may be deeply hurt and lose her trust in her friend, if she by chance discovers her to have been in the house at the time. Nor is it always wise to truckle to sensibilities that may be foolish; blunt truthfulness, even if unpalatable, is often in the end the best service. There are cases where untruthfulness is shirking one's duty, just as there are cases where truthfulness is mean or brutal.

To tell what we honestly think of a person, or his work, may mean to discourage him and invite demoralization or failure; to attribute virtues or powers to him which he actually does not possess may be to foster those virtues or powers in him. Or the reverse may be the case; his individual need may be of frank criticism or rebuke. The concrete decision can only be reached by following the guidance of the law of kindness, the Apostle's counsel of "speaking truth in love."

(3) In this connection it may be well to go further and emphasize the fact that there are many cases, not necessitating a lie, where the truth is not to be thrust at people. "Friend, though thy soul should burn thee, yet be still. Thoughts were not meant for strife, nor tongues for swords, He that sees clear is gentlest of his words, And that's not truth that hath the heart to kill." There are usually pleasant enough things that one CAN say - though one may be hard put to it; and if the truth must be told, it may often be sugarcoated. President Hadley, when a young man, was receiving instructions for a delicate negotiation. "If the issue is forced upon us," he interrupted, "there is, I think, nothing to do but to tell the truth." "Even then," replied his chief, "not butt end foremost." Cases of religious disbelief will occur to every one. While all hypocrisy and truckling to the majority opinion is ignoble, the blunt announcement of disbelief may do much more harm than good. Truth is not the only ideal; men live by their beliefs, and one who cannot accept a doctrine which is precious and inspiring to others should think twice before helping to destroy it. Not only may he, after all, be in the wrong, or but half right; even if he is wholly right, it may not be wise to thrust his truth upon those whom it may discourage or morally paralyze. [Footnote: On the ethics of outspokenness in religious matters, see H. Sidgwick, Practical Ethics, chap. VI; J. S. Mill, Inaugural Address at St. Andrews; Matthew Arnold, Prefaces to Literature and Dogma and God and the Bible F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book III, Chap. XI, sec. 10.] In what directions are our standards of truthfulness low? Truthfulness in private affairs averages fairly high in our times. Many people will, indeed, lie about the age of a child for the sake of paying the half- fare rate, use the return half of a round-trip ticket sold only for the original purchaser's use, or look unconcernedly out of the window if they think the conductor will pass them by without collecting fare. Certain forms of such oral or tacit lying are so common that people of looser standards adopt them with the excuse that "every one does it," or that "the company can afford to lose it." But in more public matters the prevalence of untruthfulness is much more shocking. Standards are low or unformulated, and it is often extremely difficult for the honorable man to know what to do; strict truthfulness would deprive him of his position. We may barely hint at some of these situations.

(1) In business, misstatement is generally expected of a salesman. Advertisements of bargains, for example, have to be discounted by the wary shopper. "$10 value, reduced to $3.98," may mean something worth really $3. "Finest quality" may mean average quality; goods passed off as first-class may be shoddy or adulterated. Labels on foodstuffs and drugs are, happily, controlled to some degree by the national government; there ought to be a similar control over all advertising. Much is being done by the better magazines in investigating goods and refusing untruthful advertising; and many houses have built up a deserved reputation for reliability. But still the economical householder has to spend much time in comparing prices and studying values, that he may be sure he is not being cheated.

(2) In politics, frank truth telling is almost rare. It is deemed necessary to suppress what sounds unfavorable to a candidate's chances, to make unfair insinuations against opponents, to juggle statistics, emphasize half-truths, and work generally for the party by fair means or foul. Too great candor in admitting the truth in opponents' arguments or the worth of their candidates would be sharply reprimanded by party leaders. Especially in international diplomacy is truthfulness far to seek. Secretary Hay, indeed, stated in the following words: "The principles which have guided us have been of limpid simplicity. We have set no traps; we have wasted no time in evading the imaginary traps of others. There might be worse reputations for a country to acquire than that of always speaking the truth, and always expecting it from others. In bargaining we have tried not to get the worst of the deal, alway remembering, however, that the best bargains are those that satisfy both sides. Let us hope we may never be big enough to outgrow our conscience." Other American diplomats have followed the same ideal. But American diplomacy has been labeled abroad as "crude," and is perpetually in danger of lapsing from this moral level.

(3) The profession of the lawyer presents peculiarly difficult problems. May he so manipulate the facts in his plea as to convince a jury of what he is himself not convinced? May he by use of the argumentum ad populum, by his eloquence and skill, win a case which he does not believe in at heart? In some ancient codes lawyers had to swear not to defend causes which they believed unjust. But this is hardly fair to a client, since, even though appearances are against him, he may be innocent; whatever can be said for him should be discovered and presented to the tribunal. Dr. Johnson said: "You are not to deceive your client with false representations of your opinion, you are not to tell lies to the judge, but you need have no scruple about taking up a case which you believe to be bad, or affecting a warmth which you do not feel. You do not know your cause to be bad till the judge determines it. An argument which does not convince you may convince the judge, and, if it does convince him, you are wrong and he is right." [Footnote: Quoted by W. E. H. Lecky, The Map of Life, p. 110. The chapter which contains this quotation gives an interesting discussion of the ethics of the lawyer and some further references on the subject.] This dilemma of the lawyer could be matched by equally doubtful situations that confront the physician, [Footnote: See, for a discussion of the ethics of the medical profession, G. Bernard Shaw, Preface to The Doctor's Dilemma, and B. J. Hendrick, "The New Medical Ethics," in McClure's Magazine, vol. 42, p. 117.] and members of the other professions. There is need of acknowledged professional codes, drawn up by representative members, and enforced by public opinion within the profession and perhaps by the danger of expulsion from membership in the professional associations. It is largely the variation in practice between equally conscientious members that causes the distrust and disorder of our present situation. Truthfulness must be standardized for the professions. [Footnote: On professional codes, see H. Jeffs, Concerning Conscience, chap. VIII.]

(4) The author, whether of books or essays or reviews, has to face particularly powerful temptations. It is so easy to overstate his case, to omit facts that make against his conclusions, to use colored words, to beg the question adroitly, to create prejudice by unfair epithets, to evade difficult questions, to take the popular side of a debated matter at the cost of loyalty to truth. Controversy almost inevitably breeds inaccuracy; there are few writers who fight fair. Quotations, torn from their context, mislead; carefully chosen figures give a wrong impression; the reviewer is tempted to pick out passages that support only his contention, whether eulogistic or depreciatory. Leslie Stephen speaks of "the ease with which a man endowed with a gift of popular rhetoric, and a facility for catching at the current phrases, can set up as teacher, however palpable to the initiated may be his ignorance." A larger proportion of the great mass of books yearly published are mere trash, appealing to untrained readers, and only confirming them in unwarranted beliefs and opinions. Few there are who are really fit to teach the public; and of those there are fewer still who love truth more than the triumph of their opinion, who are candid, scrupulous, and exact in their statements. There is doubtless little conscious deception; but there is a great deal of misstatement which is inexcusable, and due either to slovenliness, lack of proper training, or partisanship.

This brings us to the similar and even graver evils in our modern newspapers, which we must pause to study in somewhat greater detail. For nowhere is untruthfulness so rampant and so shameless as in contemporary journalism. The ethics of journalism.

(1) The gravest evil, perhaps, in journalistic practice is the suppression or distortion of news in the interest of political parties and "big business." It is impossible to rely on the political information given in most of our newspapers; they are dominated by a party, subservient to "the interests," afraid to publish anything that will offend them. They misrepresent facts, give prejudiced accounts of events, gloss over occurrences unfavorable to their ends, circulate unfounded rumors to create opinion, pounce upon every flaw in the records of opponents,- going often to the point of shameless libel,- while eulogizing indiscriminately the politicians of their own party. Many of them cannot be counted on to attack corruption or politically protected vice. They are organs neither of an impartial truth seeking nor of public service. However conscientious the reporters and editors might wish to be, they are bound, by the fear of dismissal, to follow the policy of the owners.

(2) No less reprehensible, though somewhat less important, is the toadying of the newspapers to their advertisers. The average paper could not exist were it not for this source of income, and it cannot afford to refuse the big advertisements even when they are pernicious to the morals or health of the community. So we are confronted daily by the premedicine fakirs, who injure the health and drain the pocketbooks of the guileless. So we are exposed to the plausible suggestions of the swindlers, feasted with glowing prospectuses of mines that will never yield a dividend, or eulogistic descriptions of house lots to be sacrificed at a price that is really double their worth. In a recent postal raid the financial frauds exposed had fleeced the public of nearly eighty million dollars, about a third of which had been spent in advertising.

Not only do the newspapers accept such advertisements, and those of the brewers, the cigarette-makers, and the proprietors of vile theaters, but they do not dare in their columns to denounce these frauds or undesirable trades. They are muzzled because they cannot afford to tell the truth when it will offend those who supply their revenue.

(3) Less harmful, but more superficially conspicuous, is the tendency toward the fabrication of imaginary news, to attract attention and sell the paper. Huge headlines announce some exciting event, which below is inconspicuously acknowledged to be but a rumor. It will be denied the next day in an obscure corner, while the front page is devoted to some new sensation. This "yellow journalism" is very irritating to one who cares more for facts than for thrills; and the more reputable newspapers have stood out against this disgraceful habit of their less scrupulous rivals. Mr. Pulitzer, the son of the famous editor of the New York "World," in an address at the opening of the Columbia University School of Journalism, spoke vehemently against this evil: "The newspaper which sells the public deliberate fakes instead of facts is selling adulterated goods just as surely as does the rascal who puts salicylic acid in canned meats or arsenical coloring in preserves; and it ought to be subject to the same penalties for adulteration as are these other adulterators. The fakir is a liar if he is guilty of a fake that injures people, he is not only a vicious liar but often a moral assassin as well; but in either event he is a liar, and it is only by treating him uncompromisingly as such that he may be corrected if he is not yet a confirmed fakir, or rooted out if he is an inveterate fakir." There is surely enough, for those who have eyes to see, that is dramatic and exciting in actual life without depending upon fictitious news. Chesterton berates the contemporary press for failing to give us the thrill of reality. It "offends as being not sensational or violent enough; . . . does not merely fail to exaggerate life-it positively underrates it. With the whole world full of big and dubious institutions, with the whole wickedness of civilization staring them in the face, their idea of being bold and bright is to attack the War Office. . . . Something which is an old joke in fourth-rate comic papers." [Footnote: "The Mildness of the Yellow Press," chap. VIII of Heretics.]

(4) Another danger of our irresponsible journalism lies in pandering to prejudices and antipathies, in stirring up class hatred or national jingoism. Evil motives are attributed to foreign powers; the German Emperor has designs upon South America; the Japanese are preparing to invade our Pacific Coast. Insignificant words of individuals are headlined and treated as portentous; foreign peoples are caricatured; our national "honor" is held to be in danger daily. Or the capitalists are pictured as universally fat and greedy and unscrupulous; anarchism is encouraged-as in the case of the murderer of McKinley, who was directly incited to his deed by the violent diatribes of a contemporary newspaper. Such demagoguery might flourish even with strict regard for truthfulness; but it becomes far worse when, as usual, in its appeal to popular prejudices, it exaggerates and invents and suppresses facts.

(5) The notorious emphasis upon crime and summary of journalistic evils. Every unpleasant fact that ought, from kindness to those concerned and from regard to the morals of the readers, to be ignored or passed lightly over, is instead dragged out into the light. The delight in besmirching supposedly respectable citizens, the brutal intrusion into private unhappiness, the detailed description of domestic tragedy, is nothing short of outrageous. Pictures of adulterers and murderers, of the instruments and scenes of crimes, precise instructions to the uninitiated for their commission, explanations of the success of burglary or train-wreckers, help marvelously to sell a paper, but do not help the morals of the younger generation. No one can estimate the amount of sexual stimulation, of suggestion to sin and vice, for which our newspapers are responsible.

(6) In conclusion, we may mention a trivial matter which, however, brings our newspapers into deserved disrepute-their self-laudation ad boasting. How many "greatest American newspapers" are there? There are even, in this country alone, more than one "World's greatest newspaper!" From this principle of conceit there are all gradations down to the humblest village paper that lies about its circulation and extols itself as the necessary adjunct of every home. These overstatements are pernicious in their influence upon public standards of accuracy and honesty.

The newspaper is potentially an instrument of incalculable good. No other influence upon the minds and morals of the people is so continuous and universal. Through the newspapers knowledge is disseminated, judgment and outlook upon life are crystallized, political and social beliefs are shaped. They might be the means of great social and moral reforms. But so long as they are subject to the struggle for existence which, necessitates their truckling to parties, to advertisers, and to public prejudices and passions, so long their influence will be largely unwholesome. If public opinion cannot force them to a higher moral level in their present status as sources of private profit, they must be published by the State or by trustees of an endowment fund. Municipally owned papers are liable to partisanship and corruption, in their way, and endowed papers to an undue regard for the interests of the class to which the majority of the trustees may belong. But the dangers would probably be far less than are inherent in our present system, where morals have to defer to pocketbooks; and when municipal government in this country is finally ordered in a sensible way, so that corruption is much more difficult and easily detected, the municipal newspaper, run after the "city manager" plan, will probably become universal.

F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book III, chap. XI. L. Stephen, Science of Ethics, chap, V, sec. IV. C. F. Dole, Ethics of Progress, part VII, chaps, I, II. E. L. Cabot, Everyday Ethics, chaps. XIX, XX. T. K. Abbott, Kant's Theory of Ethics, Appendix I. Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque, chap. IV. E. Westermarck, Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, chap. XXXI. K. F. Gerould, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 112, p. 454. Ethics of Journalism: H. Holt, Commercialism and Journalism. H. George, Jr, The Menace of Privilege, book VII, chap. I. W. E. Weyl, The New Democracy, chap. IX. Educational Review, vol. 36, p. 121. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 102, p. 441; vol. 105, p. 303; vol. 106, p. 40; vol. 113, p. 289. Forum, vol. 51, p. 565. E. A. Ross, Changing America, chap. VII. North American Review, vol. 190, p. 587.



CHAPTER XX

CULTURE AND ART

THE function of the newspaper, which we have been discussing, is, to a considerable extent, to widen our horizon, to give us new ideas and sympathies, to enrich and brighten our lives; in greater degree, that is the role of the fine arts, and of that wide conversance with beauty and truth that we call culture. Man is not a mere worker, and efficiency is not the only test of value; the pursuit of truth and beauty for its own sake is a legitimate human ideal. But beauty, as we have seen, brings temptations; and even the search for truth may lure a man away from his duty. We must consider, then, how far culture, and its outward expression in art, may rightly claim the time and energies of man.