Felix Adler

“ The good eye is a creative eye. Or take the proverb, "A falsehood is like pebbles in the mouth." Why not say a falsehood is like a pebble? No, one falsehood is like many pebbles. For every falsehood tends to multiply itself, and each separate falsehood is like a pebble—not like bread, which we can assimilate, but like a stone, a foreign body, alien to our nature. Moreover, the proverb says, A falsehood is like pebbles in the mouth; which means that these stony falsehoods will choke us, choke the better life in us, unless we cast them out. ”

“ The positive aspect is called dignity, the negative humility. True dignity and true humility always go together. The sense of dignity arises within us when we remember the aims to which as human beings we are pledged; the sense of humility can not fail to arise when we consider how infinitely in practice we all fall below those aims. Thus while pride depends on a comparison of ourselves with others, the genuinely moral feeling is excited when we consider our relation to the common ends of mankind. ”

“ He asked nothing for himself, only that the people whom he loved might be benefited ever so little, be raised ever so slowly above their low condition. And again the questioning spirit came upon him, and he said, as many another has said: The paths of progress are dark and twisted; the course of history seems so often to be in the wrong direction. How can I be sure that there is such a thing as eternal truth—that the right will prevail in the end? ”

“ But the fact that after having been repeated for two thousand years a story still possesses a perfectly fresh attraction for the child of to-day, does indeed prove that there is in it something of imperishable worth. How is this unique charm of the classical literature to be explained? What quality exists in Homer, in the Bible, enabling them, despite the changes of taste and fashion, to hold their own? The novels of the last century are already antiquated; few care to read them. The poetry of the middle ages is enjoyed only by those who cultivate a special taste for it. ”

“ The burning bush is the outward symbol of an inward fact. The fire which can not be quenched is in his own breast, and out of that inward burning he hears more and more distinctly the voice which bids him go back and free his people. But when he considers the means at his disposal, when in fancy he sees his people, a miserable horde of slaves, pitted against the armed hosts of Pharaoh, he is ready to despair; until he hears the comforting voice, which says, "The Eternal is with thee; the unchangeable power of right is on thy side: it will prevail!" ”

“ And even the lover who has lost his bride will find, if he opens his eyes, that there is still work for him to do in life. The world is full of evils which require to be removed, full of burdens which require to be borne. If our own burden seems too heavy for us, there is a way of lightening it. We may add to it the burden of some one else, and ours will become lighter. Physically, this would be impossible, but morally it is true. The rule of conduct, therefore, thus far reads, Preserve thy life in order to perform thy share of the work of the world. ”

“ To take a very simple case—a child handles a knife which it has been told not to touch, and cuts his fingers. Morally speaking, his fault is disobedience. He would have been equally guilty if he had escaped injury. But he would hardly be so ready to obey another time, if he had been less sharply reminded of the usefulness of obedience. It is wrong to lie—wrong on purely moral grounds, with which self-interest has nothing to do. But for all that we can not dispense with the lesson contained in the well-known fable of the boy who cried, "Wolf!" It is wrong to steal on purely moral grounds. ”

“ Is it right to kill another in self-defense? The difficulty involved might be put in this way: A burglar breaks into your house by night and threatens to kill you. You have a weapon at hand and can save yourself by killing him. Now it is evident that one of two lives must be taken. But would it not be more moral on your part to say: I, at least, will not break the commandment. I would rather be killed than kill? This question serves to show to what absurdities a purely formal principle in ethics can lead, as we have already seen in the discussion of truthfulness. ”

“ What, again, can be more beautiful than the way in which the tree and the two white doves co-operate to secure the happiness of the injured Cinderella! The tree rains down the golden dresses with which she appears at the ball, and the doves continue to warn the prince as he rides by that he has chosen the wrong bride until Cinderella herself passes, when they light on her shoulders, one on her right and the other on her left, making, perhaps, the loveliest picture to be found in all fairy lore. The child still lives in unbroken communion with the whole of nature ”

“ Sin is like a wild beast crouching outside the door of the heart. Open the door ever so little, and it will force its way in, and will have you in its power. Keep the door shut, therefore; do not let the first evil thought enter into your heart. Thus only can you remain master of yourself. But Cain was already too far gone to heed the warning voice. One day he and Abel were walking together in the fields. ”

“ First, Nausicaa, moved by the desire to prepare her wedding garments against her unknown lover's coming, not ashamed to acknowledge the motive to her own pure heart, but veiling it discreetly before her mother; then the band of maidens setting out upon their picnic party, Nausicaa holding the reins; next the washing of the garments, the bath, the game of ball, the sudden appearance of Ulysses, the flight of her companions, the brave girl being left to keep her place alone, with a courage born of pity for the stranger, and of virtuous womanhood. ”

“ The stories embody the tradition of the childhood of mankind. They have on this account an authority all their own, not indeed that of literal truth, but one derived from their being types of certain feelings and longings which belong to childhood as such. The child as it listens to the Märchen, looks up with wide-opened eyes to the face of the person who tells the story, and thrills responsive as the touch of the earlier life of the race thus falls upon its own. ”

“ There are persons in whom moral principle seems to have completely triumphed; whose conduct, so far as one can judge, is determined solely by moral rules; but whom, nevertheless, we do not wholly admire. We feel instinctively that there is in their virtue a certain flaw—the absence of a saving grace. They are too rigorous, too much the slaves of duty. They lack geniality.
Like religion, morality has its fanatics. Thus, there is in the temperance movement a class of fanatics who look at every public question from the point of view of temperance reform, and from that only. ”

“ It is indeed the fashion with some modern writers to speak of the child as if it were at first a mere animal, and as if reflection and morality were mechanically superadded later on. But the whole future man is already hidden, not yet declared, but latent all the same in the child's heart. The germs of humanity in its totality exist in the young being. Else how could it ever unfold into full-grown morality? It will perhaps serve to make my meaning clearer if I call attention to analogous facts relating to the intellectual faculty. ”

“ Thus, when speaking of cleanliness, he will appeal to the æsthetic instinct of the children, awakening in them a feeling of disgust at untidiness. He will appeal to the prudential motive, by showing that want of cleanliness breeds disease. "You do not wish to be sick? You do not wish to suffer? Therefore, it is to your interest to be clean." But, finally, he will touch a higher motive than any of these. "If you are unclean, you cease to respect yourself." ”

“ The value of the proverbs is that they serve as pegs in the memory, to which long chains of moral reflection can be attached. They are guide-posts pointing with their short arms to the road of duty; they are voices of mankind uttering impressive warnings, and giving clear direction in moments when the promptings of self-interest or the mists of passion would be likely to lead us astray. ”

“ Sympathy quite as often leads us astray as aright; sympathy, indeed, unless tutored and regulated by moral principles, is a danger against which we ought to be on our guard almost as much as against selfishness. Yet, no one will deny that the feelings, when rightly trained, are of inestimable service as auxiliaries in the task of moral education.
To sum up, let me say that the wise teacher will appeal to the taste, the intelligence, and the feelings of his pupils; that he will touch these various springs of conduct all the time, and get from them all the help he can. ”

“ But is it not a duty to denounce evil and evil-doers and to put the innocent on their guard against wolves in sheep's clothing? Yes, if we are sure that our own motives are perfectly disinterested, that we are not in the least prompted by personal spite or prejudice. For if we dislike a person, as every one knows, we can not judge him fairly, we are prone to attribute to him all manner of evil qualities and evil intents which exist only in our own jaundiced imagination. ”

“ The moral value of the study of literature is as great as it is obvious. Literature is the medium through which all that part of our inner life finds expression which defies scientific formulation. In the text-books of science we possess the net result of the purely intellectual labors of the past; in universal literature we have composite photographs, as it were, of the typical hopes, sentiments, and aspirations of the race. Literature gives a voice to that within us which would otherwise remain dumb, and fixity to that which would otherwise be evanescent. ”

“ Again, when the Catholic affirms that the moral teaching of the young must be based on religion, is it to be supposed for an instant that he would accept as satisfying his conception of religion a skeleton creed like that above mentioned, denuded of all those peculiar dogmas which make religion in his eyes beautiful and dear? This first device, therefore, is to be rejected. It is unjust to the agnostics, and it will never content the really religious persons of any denomination. ”

“ Now, to the extent that we sincerely hate wrong we shall be stirred up to diminish its power over others as well as over ourselves; we shall, for instance, be moved to save the evil doer who has just injured us from the tyranny of his evil nature; we shall aspire to become the moral physicians of those who have hurt us. And precisely because they have hurt us, they have a unique claim on us. We who know better than others the extent of their disease are called upon more than others to labor with a view to their cure. In this connection the rule of returning good for evil should be explained. ”

“ I do not include the commandment "Love thy parents" among the rules of filial duty, for I do not think that love can be commanded. Love follows of itself if the right attitude of reverence, obedience, gratitude be observed. Love is the sense of union with another. And the peculiarity of filial love, whereby it is distinguished from other kinds of love, is that it springs from union with persons on whom we utterly depend, with moral superiors, to whom we owe the fostering of our spiritual as well as of our physical existence.
But how shall the sentiment of filial gratitude express itself? ”

“ After a while its cries will cease, it will learn to submit to the rule imposed, and the taking of pleasure in regularity and the sense of discomfort when the usual order is interrupted become thenceforth a part of its mental life. I do not maintain that regularity itself is moral, but that it is favorable to morality because it curbs inclination. I do not say that rules are always good, but that the life of impulse is always bad. Even when we do the good in an impulsive way we are encouraging in ourselves a vicious habit. ”

“ That lying is wrong on principle; that greediness is shameful, whether you lose your cheese or not; that kindness is blessed, even when it does not bring a material reward; that it is lovely for neighbors to dwell together in peace, is nowhere indicated. The beauty and the holiness of right conduct lie utterly beyond the horizon of the fable. Nevertheless, as we have seen when speaking of the efficient motives of conduct, self-interest as a motive should not be underrated, but should be allowed the influence which belongs to it as an auxiliary to the moral motive. ”

“ But, along with and over and above all these influences, I need hardly say to you that, in the remarks which I have offered this evening, I have all along taken for granted the continued application of those tried and excellent methods which prevail in our best reformatories. I have taken for granted that isolation from society, which shuts out temptation; that routine of institutional life, which induces regularity of habit; that strict surveillance of the whole body of inmates and of every individual, which prevents excesses of the passions, and therefore starves them into disuse. ”

“ We may suppose that in the course of years he will learn to submit to his destiny. We may even hope that peace will come back to his poor heart, but we can not imagine that he will ever again be happy. Another case is that of a person who has committed a great wrong, the consequences of which are irreparable, and of which he must carry the agonizing recollection with him to the grave. Time may assuage the pangs of remorse, and religion may comfort him, but happiness can never be the portion of such as he. ”

“ Duties with regard to Animals.—I can not admit that we have duties toward animals. We can not very well speak of duties toward creatures on which we in part subsist; but there are duties with respect to animals. Man is a rational being, and as such takes a natural delight in that orderly arrangement and interdependence of parts which are the visible counterpart of the rational principle in his own nature. We ought not to step on or heedlessly crush under our feet even a single flower. Much less should we ruthlessly destroy the more perfect organism which we see in animals. ”

“ Do not indulge in vanity, because you will make yourself ridiculous. Do not try to appear like a lion when you can not support the character, because people will find out that you are only an ass. Do not act ungratefully, because you will be thrust out of doors. Even when good conduct is inculcated, it is on the ground that it pays. Be self-reliant, because if you help yourself others will help you. Be kind, because by gentle means you can gain your purpose better than by harshness. Agree with your neighbors, because you can then, like the bundle of sticks, resist aggression from without. ”