Social Rights And Duties: Addresses to Ethical Societies. Vol 2 [of 2]Stephen, Leslie
Philosophy
Social Rights And Duties: Addresses to Ethical Societies. Vol 2 [of 2]
Stephen, Leslie
Ethics, Evolutionary; Social ethics
But into this I need not go; and I have only one thing to say in
conclusion. I have spoken of the enormous results of what we call
progress and civilisation. That they are in one sense enormous is, I
suppose, undeniable. That the power which we generally describe as the
command of man over nature has been immensely increased is too palpable
a fact to be denied; that there has been a corresponding change in many
political and social respects is a fact which I only mention without
seeking to say how far it has been in all respects a change for the
better. Further, I urge that this change, whatever it is, has not been
due to a change in the individual constitution, but to a change in the
social factor. And, this being so, I simply suggest that, considering
how vast is the total change thus effected, we may reasonably hope, or,
at the very least, we may reasonably endeavour to justify the hope, that
a change of great magnitude may be brought about in those directions
where we all have to regret the survival or even the development of so
much that is melancholy: of regeneration going on alongside of
amelioration. I think that the doctrine of heredity is sometimes
interpreted in such a way as to suggest the hopelessness or at least the
extreme difficulty of introducing any sensible improvement within any
limited time; and what I have tried to urge is that, if properly
understood, it does not in the least degree tend to justify such
forebodings, or to imply that we are to abandon ourselves to a
demoralising fatalism.
PUNISHMENT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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