many with jubilant hope. To one class of observ. ers, we appear to be threatened by social disaster, industrial chaos, a new slavery; to the opposite class, we appear to be at the dawn of a happy era of brotherhood and justice, and Mr. William Morris sings:

"Come hither, lads, and hearken, for there is a tale to tell, Of the wonderful days a-coming when all shall be better than well."1

From either point of view, however, the social question is seen to have a quality of comprehensiveness and radicalism which makes it practically a new issue, and it is important at the outset of the present inquiry to recognize how large a question it is with which we have to do. A generation ago Mr. Lowell touched the note of the social question of his time in his "Vision of Sir Launfal." Social duty seemed then fulfilled in deeds of benevolence and self-sacrificing love; and a whole generation learned to repeat his lines as the summary of social service:

"Not what we give, but what we share,
For the gift without the giver is bare.

Who giveth himself with his alms feeds three,
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me."

The temper of the present age is no longer comprehended by such a statement of the social question. Instead of generosity, men ask for justice; instead of alms, they demand work. Thus the le

1" Chants for Socialists," London, 1885.

gend of the search for holiness, if written for present-day readers, must be translated from the language of charity into the language of industrial life, and the new Sir Launfal finds his Holy Grail through productive labor rather than through pitying love.

"They who tread the path of labor, follow where Christ's feet have trod,

They who work without complaining, do the holy will of God. Where the weary toil together, there am I among my own, Where the tired workman sleepeth, there am I with him alone.

This is the Gospel of labor-ring it, ye bells of the kirk, The Lord of Love came down from above to live with the men who work."1

A second characteristic of the modern social question is quite as unmistakable and significant. Whatever aspect of it we approach, we find the discussion and agitation of the present time turning in a quite unprecedented degree to moral issues, and using the language and weapons of a moral reform. The social question of the present time is an ethical question. Selfishness enough exists, it is true, among advocates of social change; class hatred is also there, and the lust for power, and the primitive instincts which, as Hobbes said, make each man a wolf to his neighbor; but the power and the pathos of the modern social movement reside in the passionate demand, now heard

1 1 Henry Van Dyke, "The Toiling of Felix," 1898.

on every hand, for justice, brotherhood, liberty, the chance for a human way of life. In his "Progress and Poverty" Mr. Henry George remarks, "If our inquiry into the cause which makes low wages and pauperism the accompaniments of material progress has any value, it will bear translation from the language of economics into that of ethics, and, as the source of social evils, show a wrong. "1 That is the note of the present situation. The social question, which on its surface is an economic question, issues in reality from a sense of wrong. This ethical note is struck by the new philanthropy, in its unprecedented sense of social obligation, its call for personal devotion, its demand for self-discipline and wisdom; and the same note is heard in the harsher tone of the labor agitation, declaring against the iniquity of the employer and the inconsistency of private ownership with the brotherhood of man. Behind many an economic fallacy which would seem to have no right to permanent influence lies this force of moral feeling, which supports the irrational creed, as a building supports the scaffolding which leans against it.

Here is a quality of the modern social question which one immediately perceives to be a sign of promise. Misdirected, passionate, inarticulate, the cry for social righteousness may be; but after all

1"Progress and Poverty," Book VII, Ch. I. See also, Preface to fourth edition: "The inquiry passes into the field of ethics. It also identifies the law of social life with the great moral law of justice."

...

it is an unmistakable sign of social progress, when
millions of people, in all lands and of all conditions,
are trying, however blindly, to discover what is
right and what is wrong in social conduct, and to
reach some consistency between their social condi-
tion and their social ideals. "The real solution of
this problem," said Professor Ingram to a Trades-
Union Congress in Dublin, "can be effected only
by such reorganization of ideas and renovation of
sentiment as will rise to the dimensions of an
intellectual and moral reform."1 It is not by
accident, then, that the social question is most
conspicuous in the most prosperous and best
educated countries.
perity and education.
in Turkey or Egypt.
tice does not grow out of the worst social condi-
tions, but out of the best. It is not a mark of
social decadence, but of social vitality. It is one
expression of popular education, intellectual lib-
erty, and quickened sentiments of sympathy and
love, and there can be nothing but good in the end
to come of an agitation which fundamentally repre-
sents a renaissance of moral responsibility.

It is one expression of pros-
There is no social question
The problem of social jus-

It is its ethical quality, moreover, which gives to the social question of the present day its commanding interest for generous minds. Great numbers of men and women are lavishing their time and thought on social service, without precisely defining to themselves why such occupations

1 Kaufmann, "Christian Socialism," 1888, p. 12.

open, as they are pursued, into a peculiar peace and joy. There is nothing intrinsically picturesque or noble about the poor or degraded; there is little romance in the administration of details in industrial or social life. Why is it, then, that time, ability, money, and sympathy are in such abundance offered for such service? It is because, through these channels of activity, the moral life of the time finds its natural outlet. It is a great source of happiness to be associated with people who are trying, however imperfectly, to make a better world. Many a life emerges through such association from an experience of narrowness and emptiness into one of breadth, fulness, and satisfaction. It is like a journey from one's own village to a foreign land, from which one returns with a new sense of human kinship, a more comprehensive sympathy, and a profounder gratitude for his own blessings. The advent of the social question in its present form has brought with it a great and happy revival of ethical confidence. The older ethics was individual, introspective, self-examining, and its stream grew narrow and uninviting and dry; but into its bed there has broken this new flood of social interests, like a spring freshet filling the channel to its banks; and now a score of outlets can hardly contain the stream of philanthropic service which sweeps on to the refreshing of the world.1

1 The ethical character of the social question is observed not by the social reformers only, but by the philosophers of history: Th.