Worldly affairs

“ We challenge scrutiny for our industry, for our commerce, for our social customs, for our municipal affairs, for our State questions, for all that we believe, and all that we do, and everything that we build. We are not in haste to be born in respect to any feature of life. ”

“ What sort of better social order are you making for? What sort of world order are you creating? Let them open their minds to us, let them put upon permanent record the significance of all their intrigues and manœuvres. ”

“ To see how things stand, apart from personal and national interests, is essential before there can be reached those balanced judgments respecting the course of human affairs in general, which constitute Sociology. ”

“ Thought and knowledge, war and government, production and distribution, labour and service were carefully differentiated functions of society, each assigned to those who were naturally called to it and providing the right means by which they could individually proceed towards their spiritual development and self-perfection. ”

“ The prosperity and adversity, growth and decay, as well as freedom and subjection of each individual community at any one time, in one word, the destiny of each nation acts and is acted upon by the conjuncture of all the forces of the Universe. ”

“ Given a world law and world security, a release from the net of bickering frontiers, world-wide freedom of movement, and world-wide fellowship, a thousand good things that are now beyond hope or dreaming would come into the ordinary life. ”

“ But believe me, dear reader, the times and the country, the climate and the water, do make very great difference in the notions which obtain regarding customs, and even morals,—ay, morals. Half the morals in the world are made by society,—and all the customs. ”

“ She would rise to the loftier table-land of that really great world which governs and admonishes the ruck of mankind by examples of noble deeds and noble thoughts; the world of statesmen, and soldiers, and thinkers, and reformers; the salt wherewithal society is salted. ”

“ The conditions of the life of the present-day, the current habits of thought, the social relationships of men, the economic situation of the country, the welfare of family and Church, and the relations of those institutions and groups that make their conflicting claims upon the loyalty and cover so much of the activity of individuals, are rich with problems and anomalies, and situations and combinations of circumstance which are peculiar to the age, and are the source of most of the issues of the novel of the present-day. ”

“ Episodes, at once moving and marvellous, at various stages of His ministry, are recounted, and the transitoriness of worldly pomp, fame, riches, and sovereignty, repeatedly and categorically asserted. Appeals for the application of the highest principles in human and international relations are forcibly and insistently made, and the abandonment of discreditable practices and conventions, detrimental to the happiness, the growth, the prosperity and the unity of the human race, enjoined. ”

“ We hear, indeed, some wild talk about the establishment of a social order, or disorder, without government and without laws and courts of justice, in which everybody can do what he or she pleases, and that when everybody can do what he or she pleases, everybody will do right, and have enough of the good things of the world, and be happy. ”

“ Let us explain. The moral world, as we said, is a whole, and has two sides. There is an outer side, systems and institutions, from the family to the nation; this we may call the body of the moral world. ”

“ Look at the state of the human society at this moment, particularly that portion of it which is governed by the ideas of what is boastfully called "civilization"! Look at the external results of the internal influence of this civilization! ”

“ From the dawn of the age of polished stone to the achievement of the Peace of the World, man's dealings were chiefly with himself and his fellow man, trading, bargaining, law-making, propitiating, enslaving, conquering, exterminating, and every little increment in Power, he turned at once and always turns to the purposes of this confused elaborate struggle to socialise. ”

“ Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short, in all management of human affairs. ”

“ Problems characterize every age, sum up the complex life of nations and give them their distinctive features. They form that moral atmosphere which makes one period of history responsible and tributary to another. And indeed, in every human problem there is an ethical element. ”

“ We must see that all the questions which have disturbed the world, all the questions which have eaten into the confidence of men toward their governments, all the questions which have disturbed the processes of industry, shall be brought out where men of all points of view, men of all attitudes of mind, men of all kinds of experience, may contribute their part of the settlement of the great questions which we must settle and cannot ignore. ”

“ This was, as education and governesses were appreciated a century ago; the world, with all its faults and sophisms, having unquestionably made a vast stride towards real civilization, and moral truths, in a thousand important interests, since that time. ”

“ It is a matter of common observation that during the opening years of the twentieth century there has been, in many portions of the civilized world, a substantial quickening of interest in the principles and problems of human government. ”

“ The powers of state, therefore, should embrace individual life in its entirety; from infancy to mature age, “in all conditions and relations, whether domestic, religious, social, industrial or political.” ”

“ Hence, for a proper understanding of any of the conditions of a single people, it is absolutely necessary to realise the whole situation of the human world at the time, and minutely study the array of world-forces that has been the result of mutual intercourse between the several peoples in social, economic, intellectual, and political matters. ”

“ When any one acknowledges a moral governor of the world; perceives that domestic and social relations are perpetually operating and seem intended to operate, to retain and direct men in the path of duty ”

“ There are ambitions, interests, customs, prejudices, conventionalities, and a thousand intangible forms of social force, that all react upon the individual man like so many conflicting winds and currents. ”

“ The political and moral Reflections, to which the important Question I examine gives room, are therefore useful in all Shapes; and the hypothetical History of Governments is, in regard to Man, an instructive Lesson in every respect. ”

“ I suggest we start from scratch in discussing international relations, and do so on the 'societal' pattern of mankind without using the traditional split into 'international law', 'international politics', 'world trade', 'history', etc. Let us regard - thus continuing the Utilitarian approach-the whole fabric of international human relation as producing human happiness and unhappiness. ”

“ He devotes nearly 10,000 words to the task of persuading us that it is only a war of duty and humanity, and that all that has been done was done “not for aggrandizement, nor for pride of might, nor for trade or commerce, nor for exploitation, but for humanity and civilization.” ”

“ There is a larger interest in what other lands have to show and teach; a larger confidence in our own; a higher resolve that it shall do its whole duty to mankind, moral as well as material, international as well as national, in such fashion as becomes time's latest offspring and its greatest. ”

“ It is for you to deal with the profounder problems of human life in the same way. It is for you to prove your [Pg 180] right to take the lead in the political and social and spiritual development of the country, as well as in its mechanical and material development. ”

“ Whether we deplore the social transformations that have arisen or glorify them, we must take the nation as it is, facts as they are, enter into the spirit of our time, in order to exercise an action over that spirit. ”

“ The two great principles which move the [186] world are, the love of wealth and the love of knowledge. These two principles respectively represent and govern the two most important classes into which every civilized country is divided. ”

“ The causes of every social phenomenon which we are particularly interested about, security, wealth, freedom, good government, public virtue, general intelligence, or their opposites, are infinitely numerous, especially the external or remote causes, which alone are, for the most part, accessible to direct observation. ”

“ Let us put on one side political life, local and national interests, all that sphere of mixed social relations, which is so imperfect, so full of fierce passions, of strife, envy, and ambition, so productive of distractions and entanglements. ”

“ For in the intellectual and moral education of man, considered merely as a citizen of the present world, we see the constant and inseparable union of the two principles, and provision made for their perpetual exercise. ”

“ But though here the government may be helpful, and here dark and hostile, the essential task of men of goodwill in all states and countries remains the same; it is an educational task, and its very essence is to bring to the minds of all men everywhere, as a necessary basis for world coöperation, a new telling and interpretation, a common interpretation, of history. ”

“ Let us not fail to note, in passing, how economic, ethical, and social forces act and react upon each other. It is only for academical purposes that we try to separate them; in reality they are inextricably interwoven. ”

“ And the advance of civilizations, with their science and philosophy, brings truer and completer views of man's place and relations. The moral ideas of the human reason are, indeed, essentially identical in all men and all ages, and when human relations are apprehended in the same light, with equal clearness and fulness, the moral judgments substantially agree.174 But the progress of knowledge, throwing increasing light on these relations, leads the onward civilizations up into truer and better application of the principles of right in life. ”

“ To observe the origin of civilization—the gradual progress of society, and the refinements of manners, policy, morality and religion—to observe the progress of mankind from simplicity to luxury, from luxury to effeminacy, and the gradual steps of the decline of empire, and the dissolution of states and kingdoms, must blend that happy union of instruction and entertainment, which never fails to win our attention to the pursuit of all subjects. ”

“ Of all the attributes which we of the twentieth century should most strenuously encourage, that of common sense ranks first, in the face of the hysteria which threatens to weaken, if it does not swamp, all the wonderful new spirit of progress which is abroad. ”

“ From history and philosophy and custom, we pass, therefore, to the force which in our day and generation is becoming the greatest of them all, the power of social justice which finds its outlet and expression in the method of sociology.... ”

“ Therefore, in comparison with what we call country—that is, our particular form of government, or our particular set of rulers, or our particular stake in it—what you call the sacredness of human life occupies a very subordinate position. ”

“ They should be recalled to simple duty, and this duty in the case of which we speak is that each one, according to his resources, leisure and capacity, should create relations for himself among the world's disinherited. ”

“ And then, too, upon further examination, they would discover that the manners and customs of the people, the sentiments and disputes, are not such as belong to the period of the world in which the people are represented to have lived ”

“ Let them and us be the testing grounds and mediums in a new and better plan and ways of human conduct, relationship, intercourse, culture, and an economic system for the unlimited benefit of all mankind. ”

“ Societies, if they reflect on the end of their association, will perceive that to secure it they must observe good faith and punctuality in their engagements. The citizen, when he consults his reason, will perceive how much it is necessary, for the good of the nation to which he belongs, that he should exert himself to advance its prosperity, or, in its misfortunes, to retrieve its glory. ”

“ Its admirable analysis of the complex political and social organizations of which the modern civilized world is made up, must have led thousands to trace with keener interest the great crises of times past, by which the characteristics of the present were determined. ”

“ It was therefore necessary to give them a few positive precepts, moulding and regulating their moral and social conduct, to make them 'new creatures' with new notions and new purposes, and to remodel the national life. ”

“ They will study not only our natural resources, our material development and the productions of our industries, but the working of our political institutions, our morals, our customs, our manners, our ways of thinking, all the fruits of our civilization. ”