I am the more anxious to indicate in outline, if I cannot complete,
this final work, because the establishment of rules of right conduct
on a scientific basis is a pressing need. Now, that moral injunctions
are losing the authority given by their supposed sacred origin, the
secularization of morals is becoming imperative. Few things can happen
more disastrous than the decay and death of a regulative system no
longer fit, before another and fitter regulative system has grown
up to replace it. Most of those who reject the current creed appear
to assume that the controlling agency furnished by it may safely be
thrown aside, and the vacancy left unfilled by any other controlling
agency. Meanwhile, those who defend the current creed allege that in
the absence of the guidance it yields, no guidance can exist: divine
commandments they think the only possible guides. Thus, between these
extreme opponents, there is a certain community. The one holds that
the gap left by disappearance of the code of supernatural ethics need
not be filled by a code of natural ethics, and the other holds that it
cannot be so filled. Both contemplate a vacuum, which the one wishes
and the other fears. As the change which promises or threatens to
bring about this state, desired or dreaded, is rapidly progressing,
those who believe that the vacuum can be filled, and that it must be
filled, are called on to do something in pursuance of their belief.
To this more special reason I may add a more general reason. Great
mischief has been done by the repellent aspect habitually given
to moral rule by its expositors, and immense benefits are to be
anticipated from presenting moral rule under that attractive aspect
which it has when undistorted by superstition and asceticism. If a
father, sternly enforcing numerous commands, some needful and some
needless, adds to his severe control a behavior wholly unsympathetic;
if his children have to take their pleasures by stealth, or, when
timidly looking up from their play, ever meet a cold glance or more
frequently a frown, his government will inevitably be disliked, if
not hated, and the aim will be to evade it as much as possible.
Contrariwise, a father who, equally firm in maintaining restraints
needful for the well-being of his children or the well-being of other
persons, not only avoids needless restraints, but, giving his sanction
to all legitimate gratifications and providing the means for them,
looks on at their gambols with an approving smile, can scarcely fail
to gain an influence which, no less efficient for the time being,
will also be permanently efficient. The controls of such two fathers
symbolize the controls of Morality as it is and Morality as it should
be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account