George Stuart Fullerton

“ We are born into a moral environment as into an all-embracing atmosphere. From the cradle to the grave, we walk with our heads in a cloud of exhortations and prohibitions. From our earliest years we have been urged to make decisions and to act, and we have been furnished with general maxims to guide our action. When, therefore, we approach the solution of a moral problem, we do not, as a rule, acutely feel our fitness to solve it, even though we may be judged quite unfit by others. ”

“ WHAT IS IT?—"We come into the world," said Epictetus, "with no natural notion of a right-angled triangle, or of a quarter-tone, or of a half-tone; but we learn each of these things by a certain transmission according to art; and for this reason those who do not know them do not think that they know them. But as to good and evil, and beautiful and ugly, and becoming and unbecoming, and happiness and misfortune, and proper and improper, and what we ought to do and what we ought not to do, who ever came into the world without having an innate idea of them?" ”

“ If my aim is unselfish devotion to humanity, how can I lose if my neighbor attains in the same running? Do virtuous men, in so far as they are virtuous, stand in each other's light? Are there not as many prizes as there are competitors? As long as I remain in this field I may seek self-satisfaction without scruple. I satisfy another's desire in satisfying my own. By benevolence I lose nothing.
The list of things which one may forego without self-sacrifice has been made a long one. ”

“ Absorbing as it may be to him, how can the philologist prove that his science is useful to humanity either present or prospective? How shall the astronomer, who may frankly admit that he cannot conceive that nine tenths of the work with which he occupies himself can ever be of any actual use to anyone, justify himself in devoting his life to it? Shall a curiosity, which seems to lead nowhere, be satisfied? And if so, on what ground?
Moreover, every civilization recognizes that some wills are to be given a more unequivocal recognition than others. Inequality is the rule. ”

“ May one not say much the same of a community? Why should it strive to attain to new conquests, to awaken in its members new wants and strain to satisfy them? Does it seem self-evident that it is reasonable, in general, to multiply desires with no guarantee of their satisfaction?
I know no way of approaching the solution of this problem save from the standpoint of the Rational Social Will. We are confronted with the general problem of the desirability of civilization, with all that that implies. The life of man in some rather primitive societies has seemed in certain respects rather idyllic. ”

“ Can we put into one class those who preach a short-sighted selfishness or a calculating egoism and those who urge upon us the law of love? Those who recommend a contempt of mankind, and those who inculcate a reverence for humanity? Those who incline to leave us to our own devices, telling us to listen to conscience, and those who draw up for us elaborate sets of rules to guide conduct? The histories of ethics are rather tolerant in herding together sheep and goats. ”

“ Nor should it be forgotten that, neither to the plain man, nor to the moralist, do desires all stand upon the same level. He who bends his intellectual energies to the satisfaction of his greed, his avarice, his longing for revenge, may fairly be said to be prostituting his mind to the service of passion. But is it a proper use of language to describe as the slave of his passions the man whose thought is set upon the enlightenment of mankind, the alleviation of suffering, the service of a state, the attainment of a noble character? ”

“ No actual state of anarchy has ever been complete, nor could it be, and endure. A "reign of terror" is a reign of law in comparison with such a dissolution of all the bonds which knit man to man. When we pass from one community to another, we find one set of public habits exchanged for another. Some sets impress us as better, some as worse. But there is no set which is not better than none. It makes it possible for men to live, if not to live well.
Customs are, then, a necessity. It is equally necessary that they should, in general, have binding force for the individual. ”

“ But was the idyllic life not an accidental thing, due to a fortuitous combination of circumstances, rather than to man's intelligent control of a larger environment? Civilization of some sort seems inevitable. Have we any other guarantee that we can make it, in the long run, rational, than a many-sided development of man's capacities? And must we not exercise a broad faith in the value of enlightenment, increase of knowledge, farsightedness, the cultivation of complex emotions, even at the risk of some waste of effort and some suffering to certain individuals? ”

“ It is not wise to regard impulse as lying wholly beyond the sphere of will.
32. DESIRE.—At its lower limit, desire is not distinguished by any sharp line from mere impulse. Is the infant that stretches out its hands toward a bright object conscious of a desire to possess it? Or does the motion made follow the visual sensation as the wail follows the wound made by the pin? At a certain stage of development the phenomena of desire become unmistakable. The idea of something to be attained, the notion of means to the attainment of an end, the consciousness of tension, may stand out clearly. ”

“ But shall we, in making up our minds about the "satisfaction on the whole" which busies the rational individual or the rational community, take no account at all of the intensity of pleasures and of pains, the eagerness with which some things are desired and the feebleness of the impulsion toward others? May not the intense thrill of a moment more than counterbalance "four lukewarm hours?" Are we not, if we take such things into consideration, back again face to face with something very like the calculus of pleasures—that bugbear of the egoist and of the utilitarian? ”

“ No one knows better than he that, in the most democratic of communities, it is the wills of the few that count. The organization of a party, clever leadership, the command of the press, the catching phrases of the popular orator, the street procession, the brass band, the possession of the ability to cajole and to threaten—these play no mean role in the outcome, which may be the adoption of a state policy of which a large proportion of the majority voting may be quite unable to comprehend the significance. Shall we say, in such a case, that the will of the majority was for the ultimate end? ”

“ Does it not appear self-evident that a man should be law-abiding, honest, industrious, truthful, and capable of unselfishness? Should he not have a regard for his health and efficiency? Should he not aim to develop his capacities, and in so far to diminish the dead mass of ignorance and bad taste which weighs down society?
Of marital fidelity, with all that that implies—personal purity, the good of one's children, a fine sense of loyalty—it is scarcely necessary to speak. ”

“ In a decadent society, to come nearer to the problems which concern us in ethics, must a man strive to realize the social will expressed in progressive decadence? Should he hasten the decline of the community?
That those who study man as a moral being, like those who study man in any of his other aspects, will be more or less influenced in their outlook by the broadening of the horizon which results from a study of what the students of the evolutionary process have to tell us, may be conceded. But when we admit this, we do not necessarily have to look for a new norm by which to judge conduct. ”

“ He who dwells, not so much upon pleasure, as upon the satisfaction of desire and will, must state it differently, but the problem is much the same. What degree of recognition should be given to the will of each individual, or to the separate volitions and desires in the life of the individual? Should everybody count for one? Should every desire or group of desires receive recognition? Is no distinction to be made in the intensity of desires? ”

“ I have no desire to dissuade anyone from the arduous pursuit of sainthood; but I submit that the word "duty," as sanctioned by usage, implies but a limited demand, and takes cognizance of character and environment. He who comes up to this moderate standard is not condemned; but he is free to go farther and to become as great a saint as he pleases. In which case, we admire him. Those who, in the past, have spoken of "counsels of perfection," have drawn upon a profound knowledge of human nature and of human societies. ”

“ THE NECESSITY FOR CAUTION.—Shall a man, then, eschew patriotism, and become a citizen of the world, as though he were a Stoic philosopher? By no means. As well eschew the family or the neighborhood. But let him not, in his patriotism, forget that he is a man. Here, as everywhere, he is called upon to exercise judgment. This is a burden which he can never throw off. He must pay the penalty of being a rational human being. As an instrument of the Rational Social Will the state must be kept up. It is his duty to see that it is done. ”

“ One is tempted, further, to maintain that an advance in civilization must imply an advance in moralization. Man has a moral nature which exhibits itself to some degree at every stage of his development. What more natural to conclude than that, with the progressive unfolding of his intelligence, with increase in knowledge, with some relaxation of the struggle for existence which pits man against his fellow-man, and subordinates all other considerations to the inexorable law of self- preservation, his moral nature would have the opportunity to show itself in a fuller measure? ”

“ What fills the savage with longings may inspire in the product of a high civilization no other feeling than repulsion.
And what is true of the individual is true of men in the mass. The objects of desire and of endeavor are not the same in communities of all orders. Each kind of man has its own nature, which differs in some respects from that of each other kind, and dictates what shall be, for this or that man, an object of desire and will. No two men desire precisely the same thing in all particulars. Yet each is a man, and is endowed with the usual complement of human instincts. ”

“ How far the inherited organization or the existing environment of a given community may make it necessary, in the interests of all, to grant a large measure of power or prerogative to a single individual, or to the few, is fair matter for investigation. But the most cursory glance at the pages of history, the most superficial survey of the present condition of mankind, must make it evident that a far-seeing and enlightened social will has not been the determining factor in bringing into existence many of the institutions which are accepted by the actual social will of a given epoch. ”

“ If we can influence men's emotions, we can influence their beliefs. Both State and Church have this power. It is a power that can be abused. But it is, on the whole, a good thing that men's beliefs can thus be influenced. There would be no stability in human society could they not. Every ignorant man—and many men are ignorant—would be at the mercy of every clever talker; and he would change his beliefs every day. As men act on beliefs, this means that he would zig-zag through life to the detriment of all orderly development. ”

“ In a given instance, he may be, from the standpoint of existing law, a criminal. Yet he may reverence the law above his fellows. His aberrations need not be arbitrary wanderings, prompted by selfish impulses. He may leave the beaten track because he does not approve of it, which is a very different thing from disliking it. Some will judge him to be a pestilent fellow; some will rate him as a reformer, a prophet, perhaps a martyr. Neither judgment is of the least value so long as it reflects merely the tastes or prejudices of the individual. ”

“ No man, betrothed or married, can be sure that he will not meet tomorrow some woman whom the unprejudiced would judge to be more attractive than the one to whom he has bound himself. Shall he remain unprejudiced—a floating mine, ready to explode at any accidental contact? Away with him! He has, in the eyes of the scientific moralist, "too much ego in his cosmos." Those babble of "affinities" who know little, and care less, about the long and arduous ascent up which mankind has toiled, in the effort to attain to civilization. ”

“ Only a blind will, no seeing will, could place itself in the position in which we behold ourselves. A seeing will would rather have soon made the calculation that the business did not cover the cost; for such a mighty effort and struggle, with the straining of all the powers, under constant care, anxiety and want, and with the inevitable destruction of every individual life, finds no compensation in the ephemeral existence itself, which is so obtained, and which passes into nothing in our hands. ”

“ Such an impressionistic indifference to detail may leave us with something on our hands as little serviceable as a composite photograph made from individual objects which have little in common, a blur lacking all definite outline and not recognizable as any object at all. No man can guide his conduct by the common core of many or of all moral codes. Taken in its bald abstraction, it is not a code or anything like a code. Who can walk, without walking in some particular way, in some direction, at some time? ”

“ No doctrine of the mutual inclusion of selves can obliterate the distinction between self and neighbor, and make my neighbor merely a part of myself. The common opinion of mankind is not at fault in basing upon the distinction between selves the further distinction between egoism and altruism. Whatever interests the egoist may have, his ultimate motive to action cannot be the recognition of the desire or will of another. ”

“ What men deeply care about, they cling to, and the question which confronts us is a very broad one. Does humanity, on the whole, gain or lose by a given degree of conservatism? An increase of knowledge is by no means the only thing that makes for civilization. Men may be highly enlightened, and yet rotten to the very core. How much of the ballast of conservatism and of loyalty to tradition is it well to throw overboard in the interest of accelerated motion? Those who, in our judgment, throw overboard much too much we have taken to deporting. ”

“ THE IRRATIONAL WILL.—As dreams do not consist of an insignificant medley of elements drawn from the experiences of waking life, but, in spite of their fantastic character, bear some semblance of ordered reality, so the impulses of even the most unintelligent and inconsequent of human beings are not wholly chaotic, but differ only in the degree of their organization from those of the most rational and far-seeing.
Where there is even a glimmer of intelligence, ends are recognized and means to their attainment are chosen. Ends are compared, and the preference is given to some over others. ”

“ In the past there have been historical causes for the rise of dictatorships, of oligarchies, of dominant social classes. The men of a later time inherit such social institutions, may accept them as desirable, or may feel them as instruments of tyranny. Shall we say that they represent the actual social will of the community until such time as they are done away with by a successful revolution? Or shall we say that they are in harmony with the apparent social will only, and really stand condemned? ”

“ Not all men, even when endowed with no little learning, are gifted with the clearness of vision which can detect the significance of given facts; nor are all equally capable of weaving relevant facts into a consistent and reasonable theory. The keenness and the constructive genius of the individual count for much. And breadth of view counts for much also. We have seen that ethics touches many fields of investigation, and the philosopher is supposed, at least, to let his vision range over a broad realm, and to grasp the relations of the different sciences to each other. ”

“ Are the eldest sons of a few families peculiarly fitted by nature to be governors of the State? Look at history, and wake up to common sense. Of the divine right of kings I shall not speak, for the adherents of the doctrine are in our day relegated to museums of antiquities. And have the members of aristocracies been carefully bred with a view to their intellectual and moral superiority, as we breed fine varieties of horses and dogs? Have those who have had their share in oligarchies been peculiarly wise and peculiarly devoted to the common good? The communist makes two fatal mistakes. ”