AN ETHICAL MOVEMENT I THE MEANING OF AN ETHICAL MOVE MENT THERE is a profound significance in the new Emphasis on Ethics manifest at the present time both in Europe and America. It is doubtful whether there has been any other epoch in human history — with the possible exception of the age of Athenian philosophy when thinking people have been so much inclined to recognize the importance of treating the problems of the day from an ethical standpoint. I am disposed to attribute this new impulse in part to the combined influence of Kant in Germany, of Darwin in England, and, in this country, of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The teaching of Immanuel Kant reconsecrated the idea of Duty, and the halo survives in spite of any changes of attitude which may have taken place toward other features of his great System. Charles Darwin, with his discovery of the method by which organic life has gone through its processes of transition on this planet, threw a great new light upon the groping philosophy of evolution; opening out the whole province of the social sciences as well, so that now when we desire to help our fellows we know how to go about it without necessarily injuring the very purpose we are striving for. Emerson added the prophetic fire, speaking as with a "Thus saith the Lord," without system or method, straight from his moral consciousness. His "Sovereignty of Ethics" ranks with Kant's "Apostrophe to Duty," and belongs to the "inspired literature" of modern times. But it would be quite impossible to locate this new emphasis on ethics among any particular body of living men. It is becoming apparent everywhere. The universities of learning and the schools of theology give signs of it. We may discern it in the tone of the encyclical letters of the present Roman Pontiff. It is noticeable among the laity and the clergy; it is felt deeply both by those who have definite religious convictions and by those who have none at all. No institution and no class of men are privileged to claim an exclusive monopoly of this new tendency, although we are glad to observe that it is taking shape in organized form among independent groups of people in various countries. A decided "change of front" is apparent, and we are called upon to explain it and account for it. We refer to the tendency as new. By that we do not wish to imply that it is wholly of recent appearance. On the contrary, we should rather say that it had its birth among the great ethical leaders of bygone ages. It is therefore in part only a revival. We are sounding a neglected chord in history, taking up once more an aspect of religion already emphasized by those inspired seers of earlier times. They were the leaders. We have to carry on their work, although we may be the modest and reverent disciples of their spirit rather than of their exact teachings. I can but feel that this is what they themselves would have preferred that we should do. Every century calls for a new application of the old principles, a "choosing out" of those teachings from the storehouses of past wisdom and experience, which may be most adapted to the needs of the age to which they are to be applied. No system of teaching in its concrete shape could be complete for all time. People always make such a choice or selection, whether they are conscious of it or not. ignore one aspect and emphasize another. They In seeking to explain this Ethical Movement I shall endeavour to do it in simple, everyday language. We may accomplish it most successfully by contrasting two great tendencies as they are presented to us when we survey the past. It Religious teaching has always had two phases, which are often quite distinct, although it is conceivable that they might blend together. In the one its effort is to bring us on to our knees in the attitude of worship. It cultivates the "devotional side" of our natures, awakening the mood of spiritual exaltation or the rapture of self-surrender. is essentially emotional in character, although appealing more to those emotions which less actively affect one's conduct. It warns us of the vanity of human life, of the worthlessness of mere pleasure, of the futility of our hopes for satisfaction here on earth. Its conception of evil is concentrated in the phrase “love of the world." Its attention is mainly on the life after death. Its method for attaining spiritual culture is to "think on God"; and this, indeed, may be regarded as its most characteristic feature. He is everything, we are nothing. Το worship Him is the only true life. This type of religion makes us reflect on our weakness, our nothingness. The human virtue it cultivates is chiefly the sense of pity. Sometimes it lays a great deal of stress on beliefs, and judges men by the ardour of their loyalty to "creeds"; though this is not one of its essential or universal features. I call this the theological side of religion. Its keynotes are worship and "God." Then by contrast we have the other phase. Its emphasis is on what we are doing, and how much we can do if we try. Its effort is to keep us constantly thinking on what life is for, and whether we are true to the purposes of life. It makes a great deal of the present moment, bidding us not to despise the "treasures of earth," but to use them for moral or spiritual ends. It reminds us that life and all that we hold is a trust, and that every opportunity is to be utilized, no matter how meagre. It insists that if there is any future life at all, we shall not get it unless we earn it by determined effort, through what we accomplish with this life here and now. Its appeal is to the active side of our natures, to the motives which affect the will. It, too, has a great deal to say about the sorrows of human existence, but mainly for the purpose of goading us to a realizing sense of what we might do to remove the causes of those sorrows. It would lead us to grapple with the problems of life in a practical way, to get at the |