PRO BONO PUBLICO
IT is because we are now reclaimed from a savage state and bound to each other by ties of nature, heredity, and mutual interest, that there is so much benevolence, friendship, and esprit de corps. Improved types of citizens should now appear in increasing numbers, with large affections and large ideas of duty. From time to time it will be necessary for even such as these to restrict pleasures and to inflict pain, but always with the object in view of preventing misery and furthering happiness.
Legitimate pleasure is as much a man's rightful possession as his property. Those who increase this are moral; those who decrease it are immoral; and those who take no part in either way are negative factors to be classed with the immoral. Sympathy for others must rule us, and we must not be unjust to our neighbors even by unkind thoughts which are unfounded. The standards, it is to be observed, are high.
Morality, indeed, calls for much austerity. But so do war, and athletic contests, and all worthy occupations. We are not afraid of sternness, harshness, and self-sacrifice, and if we were we should soon be dominated by others who had the rigor and vigor. We do not admire the man who flinches at pains and bruises, but, on the contrary, we regard with esteem the man who is distinguished for his fine sense of honor, and who is considerate, not of his own pleasure, but of the rights and feelings of others. If this is too rigid, then the word "gentleman" is a misnomer and no longer characterizes good behavior.
The civilized man is angered when the methodical principles upon which social order is founded are broken. He is profoundly indignant and his sense of justice is shocked. Sympathy for others, more than self interest, is the cause of his wrath, and this prompts men everywhere to give aid to the weaker. If a man has not this sympathy he is a monstrosity, or an idiot, or a reverted savage, of whom there are not a few.
The proposition that we must care for the welfare of others conveys only part of the truth, for if we disregard ourselves in any particular, we disregard offspring if we ever become parents, and may readily cause more long-drawn-out misery in that way than if we committed a murder and concentrated our crime in the one offense.
But ethics is not always stern and disagreeable. It never, in fact, interdicts pleasures which are worthy, but, on the contrary, shows how to gain them.
The physician can tell only in general terms when a person is in perfect health of body and mind. The standard is so high that he can only say that this particular child, or woman, or man seems to have all the physical and mental powers harmoniously developed and functioning at the time of his examination. Pathology always moves along the borders of physiology. Fundamentally, then, our ideas of health and virtue are similar.
Modes of living save or destroy the physical health, and modes of conduct save or destroy the moral health. Inheritance affects both. In whomever the intellect has primacy, the one statement is regarded as true as the other.
Every man has ideals which govern his life and to him they seem good. Mark how we respect a man who is thoroughly in earnest in his convictions and who is willing to offer his life for them. If he is sincere, we forgive him though he be wrong. We chiefly ask that he have his heart in the thing, and be devoid of deceit and pretense. It is only when he is a deserter from the dignity of his firm judgment that we scorn him.
All are somewhat good, somewhat bad; we differ quanti tively, not qualitatively. So if conduct is to be reformed, character must be reformed, meaning by character the combination of qualities which decide the moral worth of an individual. Keen intelligence will not suffice to keep us on the path of rectitude, witness Napoleon, erring doctors, clergymen and business men. It is not altogether defect of knowledge, but largely also defect of will power, which ordinarily is to blame for misconduct.
Philosophers speak of the total aims, ends, and formulated plans which decide a man's actions as the "universe" within which he habitually lives. Not all of this "universe" is good, but somewhere in it he finds his rational self. But there are subordinate "universes" into which he makes frequent excursions, leaving his rational self behind. He then decides to abandon for a time the course which his true self tells him is the one which is consistent with reason and conducive to welfare. We cannot predict what a man who flits from one "universe" to another will do, but we can say that he has no character of any notable moment. If he had, he would remain in what he considered to be his rational "universe".
Particularly notice that we do not require any man to adopt "my views", or "another's views", but his own views. Therein is the basis of character. We can, perhaps, be of assistance only in aiding him to form those views. We ask nothing more than that a man shall keep his instructed conscience unclouded, even though his decisions are diametrically opposed to our own, and that if he has any doubt as to his course, such uncertainty must be, as Green says, "a bona fide perplexity of conscience". Unless we have faith that such a man will keep practically free from wrongdoing, we might as well give up the teaching of morals.