sphere, and so enable us to know what can and what cannot be accomplished by our efforts.

The fact that State or government cannot come into being at the arbitrary will of a few individuals, may possibly at first thought shake our pride.

It was an illusion prevailing for nearly three-quarters of a century that the American government had its origin through the efforts of a small number of men about a hundred years ago. We speak of our constitution as if it had been the creation of a few people at a given time.

We see

And now that notion can no longer be held. The steps of development have been traced. that there is almost nothing new in the American constitution. Its features, for the most part, had been taking shape in the colonial governments. These colonial governments had their start in the original charters. And the features of these charters can be traced back over hundreds if not thousands of years.

This country of ours is a growth, almost as much as any of the great nations of Europe. It did not come into being through any convention or the adoption of any constitution. That was only one step in the slow process of development.

All this "depression" or "loss of pride" will pass away when we come to think more about the positive side of our conceptions of the State, and to see it as something more than an abstract entity that we are to risk our lives for when its existence is menaced. Not until the days of brute warfare are over, not until armies shall be a thing of the past and battle-fields shall have become only a memory, not until the

swords shall be beaten into ploughshares and the spears into pruning hooks, - not until then will fully dawn upon us all that is involved in the possibilities of State life.

Then we shall see that it is an institution which we have to live for rather than to die for. We shall awaken to the fact that it has a great and positive work to accomplish, which cannot be performed by ourselves in our individual capacity. It will not overthrow individuality, but will give us even greater opportunities for self-development or self-realization. It will open out new paths for the Ethical Ideal.

It,

But beside the realization of this self of ours in our individual capacity, we shall see that there must also be a self-realization for the State or the Nation. too, will have a life of its own. What we cannot do in our private capacity, we shall undertake to accomplish through this relationship implied in law and government, or State and its authority.

Just what work the institution may have to perform, what its true functions are - that is another problem. I am only asserting its right to existence and explaining my reverence for it.

No mere Administrative Bureau can be a substitute for it; no transient partnership of independent wills can take the place of it; no association formed at a given time for certain purposes can answer the needs I am describing. The State is a living self and has that self to realize.

When once we can appreciate the significance of this institution from the positive standpoint, then we shall witness a new citizenship arising, with new ideals of Allegiance and Loyalty. Patriotic senti

ment will not concern itself solely with "dying for one's country." Sometimes it is easier to die for a cause than to live for it. The strength of the new enthusiasm will turn in a practical direction as men begin to dream of all that the State can possibly accomplish.

It is true, we are told that the State is not only a hindrance to the development of individuality, but that it acts as a check to our sense of fellowship with mankind. It is said to be an obstacle to the development of a Universal Brotherhood. More than one idealist at the present time is denouncing the "love of country." We are assured that this is, after all, a narrow passion; that it limits the range of our interests, interferes with love for our fellow-men; that it hems in our affections or interests by an arbitrary line. Should not ethics make a supreme effort to do away with such arbitrary distinctions?

There may be a point to this. And yet we shall be overlooking one important fact. Man cannot spring on the instant from being naturally devoted to himself and his own interests, to the standpoint of caring for a Universal Brotherhood. The original selfishness of human nature is not conquered in a day or a century or a thousand years. This world is not only a nursery for the development of a high, complete individuality in persons, but also a nursery for developing a high social consciousness or a highly organized society. There is something grand in complete common life, just as there may be something grand in complete individual life.

As strong individuality in citizens is essential to a strong nation, so a highly developed individuality

among nations is essential to a complete humanity. The family is a sacred institution by itself; but in the process of evolution it is the stepping-stone to the development of the State. So, too, the State is a sacred institution by itself, but also in the process of evolution it is an essential stepping-stone to an organized universal Human Brotherhood. Each institution has a significance in itself and is of service also for the higher or larger institutions including it.

My plea may seem like an enthusiastic appeal for the importance of the State over against the individual. And yet that surely is not my meaning. What enthusiasm I have, centres rather on the ideal of a complete, individualized personality. That to me comes first in importance. A perfectly developed man would be something grander and more inspiring to me, than the most completely developed State or organized Human Society. And yet I recognize that these outer institutions, as we think of them, each in its way has its grandeur; that they exist each by its own right and that each at the same time helps to the upbuilding of the other. Family, State, Humanity, and the Individual,—these are all, to my mind, sacred institutions. Though I care supremely about high, noble individuality, I know that it cannot come of itself unless we revere these other institutions as well.

My appeal is rather for a recognition of the value of law. And with this must go a plea for recognition of the sovereign self, the State or government, whence that law proceeds. The Higher Ethical Self in each one of us furnishes the sanction we have been seeking for, and gives the State its right to exist.

XIV

SOCIAL IDEALS AND WHAT THEY SIGNIFY TO THE ETHICAL IDEALIST

SHALL we work for them and help to realize them? Shall we ignore them? Or shall we antagonize

them?

It makes one's heart ache to see the amount of restless agitation in the cause of "justice" now going on, and yet to realize how little is actually accomplished. There are thoughtful people who are fairly seething with the desire to improve the conditions of their fellow-men, or to realize some Social Ideal. They work oftentimes with the ardour of the religious enthusiast, as if burning with a consuming fire in devotion to such a cause. They remind us sometimes of the spirit displayed in early ages when men were trying to spread a new religion.

What does it all amount to? Is it at bottom a struggle for bread, for wages, for a greater share of the wealth which is being produced? Is it mainly an ambition "to get something more from other men"? When people study one or another of these social ideals, why do they often become so enthusiastic over them? I have seen individuals who were making a positive "Bible" of such literature. They