Human value

“ If humanity has made some headway in realizing that the ultimate value of every institution is its distinctively human effect—its effect upon conscious experience—we may well believe that this lesson has been learned largely through dealings with the young. ”

“ There must be an elevation of standards, the institution of new valuations, clearer, nobler conceptions of what living means. Boys and girls must be taught from the beginning that life is more than self-serving, more than fame or glory; it is the service of humanity. A passion for humanity will cure the passion for gold, will teach the true value of life as something that only the infinite can estimate and will give to the heart those true riches that do not tarnish and that cannot be stolen. ”

“ It has seemed best not to break the main course of the argument of this chapter for the elaboration of one point on which there has appeared to some critics to be vagueness in the exposition of the social value theory in my earlier volume, namely, the relation of social values to the individual values of those who are moved by the social values. Social values have as their function the guidance and control of the activities of men. But men are also moved by their own individual feelings, interests, and desires. ”

“ I have often been as much surprized as you are, when I
consider the value which mankind in general set on riches, since every
day's experience shows us how little is in their power; for what,
indeed, truly desirable, can they bestow on us? Can they give beauty to
the deformed, strength to the weak, or health to the infirm? ”

“ The value of riches is regulated by our wants and the wants of the society in which we live. The value of honour changes according to the opinions, the usages, the political institutions of mankind. The value of sensual pleasure depends much on our constitution, age, and health. Even the value of mental endowments is subjection to vicissitudes. The value of true wisdom alone is invariably the same. 3. It is much more independent of station than any other good. Riches would cease to be riches if all men lived in abundance. ”

“ But if you can fix some conception of a true human state of life to be striven for—life for all men as for yourselves—if you can determine some honest and simple order of existence; following those trodden ways of wisdom, which are pleasantness, and seeking her quiet and withdrawn paths, which are peace;—then, and so sanctifying wealth into 'commonwealth,' all your art, your literature, your daily labours, your domestic affection, and citizen's duty, will join and increase into one magnificent harmony. ”

“ He estimates more or less consciously the value of that which he sees, not so much in terms of economic as of social worth, and congratulates or pities himself or his schoolmates, according to the judgments that he has made. ”

“ VII In reviewing the several levels of life which morality defines, we may observe two types of universal value. The lower values in relation to the higher are indispensable. There is no health without satisfaction, no achievement without health, no rational intercourse without achievement, and no true religion except as the perfecting and completing of a rational society. The higher values, on the other hand, are more universal than the lower in that they surpass these in validity, and are entitled to preference. ”

“ Great is the power of bonds and gold! Mighty the influence of customs and institutions! But the greatest force that can exist in society is the presence and power of good men. As rain and soil and sunbeams are only raw materials, to be brought together and condensed into the ripe fruit, so tools, knowledge, goods, are but raw materials, to be wrought up into the fine substance of character. Happy all who have subordinated the animal impulses and the industrial faculties to the moral sentiments. ”

“ Such are, then, the consequences of firmness and stability of character; and such the rewards which he may look for, who, solemnly devoting himself to the discharge of the duties of that station or condition which Providence has assigned him, pursues them with steady and undeviating labor. It is the character which unites all that is valuable or noble in human [160] life, the tranquillity of conscience, the honors of wisdom, and the dignity of virtue. ”

“ Your life is worth, not what you have, but what you are, and what you are is determined by that to which you dedicate yourself. Is it creature comforts, pleasure, selfish privilege, or the largest life and the fullest service of humanity? What you have is merely the condition, the important question is, what do you do with it? Is it wealth, prosperity: do you sit down comfortably on the fact of it, to secure all the selfish pleasures possible; or do you regard your fortunate circumstances as so much more opportunity and obligation of leadership and service? ”

“ In general, in the case of moral values, the individual emotion and the social value are qualitatively comparable, since moral values rarely take on a highly institutional character. They are more free from class or institutional control than other social values. ”

“ Sure, of qualities demanding praise, More go to ruin fortunes, than to raise. And on the other hand, the material value is apt to undermine the manly character; so that it must be our work, in the issue, to examine what evidence there is of the effect of wealth on the minds of its possessors; also, what kind of person it is who usually sets himself to obtain wealth, and succeeds in doing so; and whether the world owes more gratitude to rich or to poor men, either for their moral influence upon it, or for chief goods, discoveries, and practical advancements. ”

“ The tree shakes down its fruits, and the mind sheds forth its thoughts. The boughs of the one will cover the land with forests; the faculties of the other will sow the world with harvests that blight or harvests that bless. The measure of personal worth, therefore, is the number and quality of thoughts issuing from man's mind. ”

“ But value is always a matter of psychological significance, and never a matter of mere material fact. And these psychological significances are not explained by such simple individual phenomena as labor-pain, or marginal utility, but always by reference to the total social-mental system, including its laws, its mores, its institutions, its centres of power and prestige, its modes and fashions, etc. ”

“ In the possessor of wealth and power, they are necessary to give effect to his good disposition; in all men they are an instrument of power; and they are intimately associated, in well-educated minds, with the idea of the great benefits to mankind, which have been, and will be, derived from them. ”

“ Our theory puts law, moral values, and economic values in the same general class, species of the genus, social value, alike in their psychological "stuff" and character, to be explained by the same general principles, even though differentiated in their functions, and in the extent to which they depend on various factors in the social situation. They are parts of a social system of motivation and control. They are the social forces, which govern, in a social scheme, the actions of men. ”

“ What is the relation between these two sets of factors? In what has gone before, it has been made clear that social values present themselves to the individual as opaque, objective facts, largely beyond his control, to which he must adjust himself. They represent the minds of other men, acting in corporate and organic ways, putting pressure on him, or offering him lures. Now the individual reckons with these social values in the same way that he reckons with any other of the facts affecting the economy of his life. ”

“ It is the almost unlimited extent of the wants of man in the social state, and the consequent multiplicity and complexity of his means—both his wants and means proceeding from the range of his mental faculties—which have rendered it so difficult to observe and explain the laws which govern the production, distribution, and consumption of those articles of utility, essential to the subsistence and [Pg 2] comfort of the human race, which we call Wealth. ”

“ A knowledge of the real things in the objective world about us and the laws that govern them in their inter-relations is of practical [Pg vii] value to every man, whatever his calling may be. Not only will it be of value practically, but it will also be a constant source of interest and pleasure. ”

“ What other social value can we attribute to them than that which we see them actually possessing in history—the value, that is, of special instruments put forth by the race, to do or suffer something which the average self cannot do, but which humanity as a whole, in its Godward ascent, must, can, and shall do ”

“ And by the term proper value, they mean that quality of things, which causes them to concur in producing a well-regulated life; and in this sense, every good has a proper value. Again, they say that a thing has value, when in some point of view, it has a sort of intermediate power of aiding us to live conformably to nature; and under this class, we may range riches or good health, if they give any assistance to natural life. ”

“ The merit would belong to the man who had accumulated the greater amount by a greater sum of labour, for it would then be commensurate with work, which is the developing process itself and the life of the human personality to which we must always have recourse when we endeavour to establish values. ”

“ Those precious benefits form a chief part of what I may call the common estate of society: a wealth over and above buildings, machinery, produce, shipping, and so on, though closely connected with these; a wealth of a more delicate kind, that we may more unconsciously bring into danger, doing harm and not knowing that we do it. I mean that treasure of knowledge, science, poetry, refinement of thought, feeling, and manners, great memories and the interpretation of great records, which is carried on from the minds of one generation to the minds of another. ”

“ Such as have value, they say, are "preferred," while such as have negative, instead of positive, value are "rejected." Value they define as, first, any contribution to harmonious living, such as attaches to every good; secondly, some faculty or use which indirectly [52] contributes to the life according to nature: which is as much as to say "any assistance brought by wealth or health towards living a natural life" ”

“ Money and pleasure more valuable than manhood.—We have seen what man has accomplished among the vegetables, fruits and domestic animals, now let us study his wisdom in the application of these agencies in the human family. When we study man in relation to the world about him, his physical, mental and moral possibilities, and from Revelation, we get a glimpse of what the human race ought to be. In both sacred and profane history we find some specimens of noble, ideal manhood. ”

“ What the exigencies of the modern age demand, more than aught else, is a new movement for the moral elevation of the race. Now the basic facts of man's moral nature, though insufficiently illustrated in practice, are universally admitted among civilized human beings. ”

“ A large comprehensive soul, purged from vulgar fears and prejudices, able to interpret the works of man and God. A perpetual spring of fresh ideas, and the conscious dignity of superior intelligence. Good Heaven! what other reward can you ask! "But is it not a reproach upon the economy of Providence that such a one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, should have amassed wealth enough to buy half a nation?" ”

“ What inherent worth and solid dignity are ascribed to the social of their nature! In every man with whom I may have to do, I am to recognize the presence of another self, whose case I am to make my own. ”

“ The ultimate standard of worth is personal worth, and the only progress that is worth striving after, the only acquisition that is truly good and enduring, is the growth of the soul—BIXBY, Crisis of Morals, 210. ”

“ The logic of morality rests on this objective relation between interest and value. The maximum good has the greatest weight, its claims are entitled to priority, because it surpasses any limited good in incentive and promise of fulfilment. ”

“ That many of the natural virtues have this tendency to the good of society, no one can doubt of. Meekness, beneficence, charity, generosity, clemency, moderation, equity, bear the greatest figure among the moral qualities, and are commonly denominated the social virtues, to mark their tendency to the good of society. ”

“ This system is the world, to which it is plain belong our various modes of supporting ourselves and families by exertion of mind and body, our intercourse with others, our duty towards others, the social virtues,—industry, honesty, prudence, justice, benevolence, and the like. These spring all from our present lot in life, and tend to our present happiness. This life holds out prizes to merit and exertion. Men rise above their fellows, they gain fame and honours, wealth and power, which we therefore call worldly goods. ”

“ This personal responsibility makes the question of consumption of wealth a question of morals as well as of wisdom. The whole discussion here turns upon the wisdom or unwisdom of certain personal uses or social uses of what the world has accumulated. We can ask what use of wealth is prudent, what imprudent; then what social organization best develops the wisdom which secures a prudent use of wealth; and finally, how far and in what ways society can act as a unit in the place of individuals. ”

“ Analogous phenomena are common enough in the general field of values, and are less common in the field of economic values proper than one might suppose. Thus, most moral values tend to become independent of their presuppositions. ”

“ You will remember, in our talk concerning your value, we spoke of your value to the race, and learned that in cultivating yourself in any direction you were adding to the welfare of future generations. ”

“ LVIII. No other forces are to be recognized than those which reside in matter, and all moral teaching and moral excellence ought to be made to consist in the accumulation and increase of riches by every possible means, and in the enjoyment of pleasure. ”