Only, legitimate as the love of thy neighbour. however, when it is of the same kind. The second commandment is "like unto" the first and great commandment in that it enjoins only pure, true love. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind." To Him who is Absolute Truth, Perfect Goodness, Infinite Holy Love, thou shalt give an unrestrained, unlimited, unswerving, true, pure, and holy love. And thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But how, then, mayest thou love either thy neighbour or thyself? Only with a love which is true love; which seeks thy own true good and his; which aims always at what will ennoble, never at what will debase thee or him; which prefers both for thyself and for thy neighbour the pain and the poverty which discipline and purify the spirit to the pleasure and prosperity that seduce and corrupt it; which does not forget at any time to ask both as regards thyself and thy neighbour, What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? and which, in a word, in no way withdraws thee from, or diminishes in thee, the love thou owest to God, but is itself a form and mani Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace, These well-known lines of Pope are only true of true self-love-i.e., the self-love which, like the various forms of benevolence itself, implies and is akin to "the virtuous mind." festation of that love. From God all true love comes, and in Him all true love lives. True love of self is as essentially in harmony with love to God as with love to man.' * Socialists, we have now seen, have failed to prove that Economics is antagonistic to morality. How, we proceed to inquire, is their own doctrine related to morality? Morality is essentially one, inasmuch as it springs from an internal principle of reverence for rectitude, of love of ethical excellence, which should pervade all the activities and manifestations of the moral life. Where any branch of duty or virtue is habitually disregarded, there the root of morality must be essentially unsound. No moral excellence can be complete where the entire moral character is not simultaneously and harmoniously cultivated. Yet there are many virtues and many duties; and these may be arranged and classified in various ways, of which the simplest certainly, and the best not improbably, is into Personal, Social, and Religious.t Man occupies in the world three distinct yet connected moral positions. Hence arise three distinct *For confirmation of the positions laid down in the preceding three pages the reader is referred to Bishop Butler's two sermons Upon the Love of our Neighbour " (xi.-xii.). A vast amount of worthless writing on egoism and altruism has appeared in recent years implying on the part of its authors lamentable ignorance of the teachings of these invaluable discourses. + No opinion is here expressed as to how either the ethical or the science which treats of it may be most appropriately distributed. yet connected species of moral relationship. Man is a rational and responsible agent, cognisant of duty towards himself, of obligations to restrain and control, improve and cultivate, realise and perfect himself. As such the moral law has a wide sphere for authority in his conduct as an individual; as such he is the subject of personal virtues and vices. He is also a social being, bound to his fellow creatures by many ties, and capable of influencing them for good or ill in many ways. As such he has social duties, and can display social virtues. He is, further, a creature of God, manifoldly related to the Author of Life, the Father of Spirits, the Supreme Lawgiver. And as such he has religious duties and ought to cultivate the graces of a pious and devout mind. But already at this point true ethics and the ordinary ethics of Socialism come into direct and most serious conflict. The vast majority of contemporary Socialists recognise only the obligatoriness of social morality. They refuse to acknowledge the ethical claims of either the personal or religious virtues. The former, in so far as they take notice of them at all, they judge of only from the point of view of social convenience; the latter they treat as phases of either superstition or hypocrisy. They thus set themselves in opposition to two-thirds of the moral law. The triumph of their doctrine would thus involve a tremendous moral as well as social revolution. It would be most unfair to charge all Socialists with discarding religious morality. There are Socialists, real Socialists, men prepared to accept the whole economic and social programme of Social Democracy, who retain their belief in God and acknowledge the obligations of religion. There are among thorough-going Socialists some Anglican High-Churchmen, and a still greater number of zealous members of the Roman Catholic Church. Of course, all these have a religious morality— theistic, Christian, or churchly and confessional, as the case may be. But such Socialists are comparatively few, compose no homogeneous body, and possess little influence. It is enough to note that they exist. Contemporary Socialism viewed as a whole unquestionably rests on a non-religious conception of the universe, and is plainly inconsistent with any recognition of religious duty in the ordinary acceptation of the term. As a rule, when the Socialist speaks of his religion, he means exactly the same thing as his polity; and should he by chance talk of religious duty, he understands thereby simply social duty. The truth on this point is thus expressed by a good socialistic authority: "The modern socialistic theory of morality is based upon the agnostic treatment of the supersensuous. Man, in judging of conduct, is concerned only with the present life; he has to make it as full and as joyous as he is able, and to do this consciously and scientifically with all the knowledge of the present, and all the experience of the past, pressed into his service. Not from fear of hell, not from hope of heaven, from no love of a tortured man-god, but solely for the sake of the society of which Ia m a member and the welfare of which is my welfare-for the sake of my fellow-men-I act morally, that is, socially. Socialism arises from the recognition (1) that the sole aim of mankind is happiness in this life, and (2) that the course of evolution, and the struggle of group against group, has produced a strong social instinct in mankind, so that, directly and indirectly, the pleasure of the individual lies in forwarding the prosperity of the society of which he is a member. Corporate Society-the State, not the personified Humanity of Positivism—becomes the centre of the Socialist's faith. The polity of the Socialist is thus his morality, and his reasoned morality may, in the old sense of the word, be termed his religion. It is this identity which places Socialism on a different footing to the other political and social movements of to-day." This elimination of religious duty from the ethical world seems to me a fatal defect in the socialistic theory. I am content, however, to leave it uncriticised. It could not be left altogether unindicated. Socialism also sacrifices personal to social morality. It ascribes to the conduct and habits of individuals no moral character in themselves, but only so far as they affect the happiness of society. It sees in the personal virtues no intrinsic value, but only such value as they may have when they happen to be advantageous to the community. Utilitarianism *Karl Pearson, "The Ethic of Free Thought," pp. 318-9. |